A Legend of Sammtstadt

"A Legend of Sammtstadt" is a short story by Bret Harte that captures the essence of life in a small, fictional mining town in California during the Gold Rush era. The narrative weaves a tale of local legends, colorful characters, and the complexities of human relationships and morality. Through rich storytelling and vivid descriptions, Harte explores themes of ambition, fidelity, and the impact of isolation on community life, ultimately revealing the fabric of American frontier culture. The story reflects Harte's signature style, combining humor and poignancy to portray the struggles and triumphs of its inhabitants.

								
It was the sacred hour of noon at Sammtstadt. Everybody was at dinner;
and the serious Kellner of "Der Wildemann" glanced in mild reproach at
Mr. James Clinch, who, disregarding that fact and the invitatory
table d'hote, stepped into the street. For Mr. Clinch had eaten a
late breakfast at Gladbach, was dyspeptic and American, and, moveover,
preoccupied with business. He was consequently indignant, on entering
the garden-like court and cloister-like counting-house of "Von Becheret,
Sons, Uncles, and Cousins," to find the comptoir deserted even by the
porter, and was furious at the maidservant, who offered the sacred
shibboleth "Mittagsessen" as a reasonable explanation of the solitude.
"A country," said Mr. Clinch to himself, "that stops business at mid-day
to go to dinner, and employs women-servants to talk to business-men, is
played out."

He stepped from the silent building into the equally silent Kronprinzen
Strasse. Not a soul to be seen anywhere. Rows on rows of two-storied,
gray-stuccoed buildings that might be dwellings, or might be offices,
all showing some traces of feminine taste and supervision in a flower
or a curtain that belied the legended "Comptoir," or "Direction," over
their portals. Mr. Clinch thought of Boston and State Street, of New
York and Wall Street, and became coldly contemptuous.

Yet there was clearly nothing to do but to walk down the formal rows of
chestnuts that lined the broad Strasse, and then walk back again. At the
corner of the first cross-street he was struck with the fact that two
men who were standing in front of a dwelling-house appeared to be as
inconsistent, and out of proportion to the silent houses, as were the
actors on a stage to the painted canvas thoroughfares before which they
strutted. Mr. Clinch usually had no fancies, had no eye for quaintness;
besides, this was not a quaint nor romantic district, only an entrepot
for silks and velvets, and Mr. Clinch was here, not as a tourist, but as
a purchaser. The guidebooks had ignored Sammtstadt, and he was too
good an American to waste time in looking up uncatalogued curiosities.
Besides, he had been here once before,--an entire day!

One o'clock. Still a full hour and a half before his friend would
return to business. What should he do? The Verein where he had once
been entertained was deserted even by its waiters; the garden, with its
ostentatious out-of-door tables, looked bleak and bare. Mr. Clinch was
not artistic in his tastes; but even he was quick to detect the affront
put upon Nature by this continental, theatrical gardening, and turned
disgustedly away. Born near a "lake" larger than the German Ocean,
he resented a pool of water twenty-five feet in diameter under that
alluring title; and, a frequenter of the Adirondacks, he could scarce
contain himself over a bit of rock-work twelve feet high. "A country,"
said Mr. Clinch, "that--" but here he remembered that he had once seen
in a park in his native city an imitation of the Drachenfels in plaster,
on a scale of two inches to the foot, and checked his speech.

He turned into the principal allee of the town. There was a long white
building at one end,--the Bahnhof: at the other end he remembered a
dye-house. He had, a year ago, met its hospitable proprietor: he would
call upon him now.

But the same solitude confronted him as he passed the porter's lodge
beside the gateway. The counting-house, half villa, half factory, must
have convoked its humanity in some out-of-the-way refectory, for the
halls and passages were tenantless. For the first time he began to be
impressed with a certain foreign quaintness in the surroundings; he
found himself also recalling something he had read when a boy, about
an enchanted palace whose inhabitants awoke on the arrival of
a long-predestined Prince. To assure himself of the absolute
ridiculousness of this fancy, he took from his pocket the business-card
of its proprietor, a sample of dye, and recalled his own personality in
a letter of credit. Having dismissed this idea from his mind, he lounged
on again through a rustic lane that might have led to a farmhouse, yet
was still, absurdly enough, a part of the factory gardens. Crossing
a ditch by a causeway, he presently came to another ditch and another
causeway, and then found himself idly contemplating a massive, ivy-clad,
venerable brick wall. As a mere wall it might not have attracted his
attention; but it seemed to enter and bury itself at right angles in the
side-wall of a quite modern-looking dwelling. After satisfying himself
of this fact, he passed on before the dwelling, but was amazed to see
the wall reappear on the other side exactly the same--old, ivy-grown,
sturdy, uncompromising, and ridiculous.

Could it actually be a part of the house? He turned back, and repassed
the front of the building. The entrance door was hospitably open. There
was a hall and a staircase, but--by all that was preposterous!--they
were built OVER and AROUND the central brick intrusion. The wall
actually ran through the house! "A country," said Mr. Clinch to himself,
"where they build their houses over ruins to accommodate them, or save
the trouble of removal, is,--" but a very pleasant voice addressing him
here stopped his usual hasty conclusion.

"Guten Morgen!"

Mr. Clinch looked hastily up. Leaning on the parapet of what appeared
to be a garden on the roof of the house was a young girl, red-cheeked,
bright-eyed, blond-haired. The voice was soft, subdued, and mellow; it
was part of the new impression he was receiving, that it seemed to be
in some sort connected with the ivy-clad wall before him. His hat was in
his hand as he answered,--

"Guten Morgen!"

"Was the Herr seeking anything?"

"The Herr was only waiting a longtime-coming friend, and had strayed
here to speak with the before-known proprietor."

"So? But, the before-known proprietor sleeping well at present after
dinner, would the Herr on the terrace still a while linger?"

The Herr would, but looked around in vain for the means to do it. He
was thinking of a scaling-ladder, when the young woman reappeared at the
open door, and bade him enter.

Following the youthful hostess, Mr. Clinch mounted the staircase, but,
passing the mysterious wall, could not forbear an allusion to it. "It is
old, very old," said the girl: "it was here when I came."

"That was not very long ago," said Mr. Clinch gallantly.

"No; but my grandfather found it here too."

"And built over it?"

"Why not? It is very, very hard, and SO thick."

Mr. Clinch here explained, with masculine superiority, the existence of
such modern agents as nitro-glycerine and dynamite, persuasive in their
effects upon time-honored obstructions and encumbrances.

"But there was not then what you call--this--ni--nitro-glycerine."

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