ened
that on that particular evening Carlsruhe was in a ferment: there was
something brewing. I heard talk of a procession and of certain names,
particularly the names Kugelblitz and Thalermacher. Never having heard
those names before, and caring therefore nothing in the world about them,
I tumbled into bed. To my delight, when I got up in the morning, I found
the little town turned upside down. Landlord, boots, and chambermaid,
overwhelmed me with exclamations, surmises, and incoherent summaries of
the night's news. There had been an outbreak. _Lieber Herr_, a
revolution! One entire house razed to the ground. "Hep! hep!" that is
the old cry, "Down with the Jews!" All their bones would be made powder
of. Tremendous funeral of Kugelblitz. Students on their way in a body
from Heidelberg. Thalermacher the rich Jew, soldiers, the entire court,
Meinheer, all in despair; a regular sack. Not only Kugelblitz, but
Demboffsky, the Russian officer, killed. O hep! hep! a lamentable
tragedy. "For they were two such fine-looking young men," mourned the
chambermaid, "especially Demboffsky." "You had better," said the
landlord, "stay in Carlsruhe till to-morrow."

Roused by the incoherent tidings, I hurried to the centre of the tumult.
The house of the firm of Thalermacher and Company was situated in the
High Street; and though, certainly, it had a doleful look, it was there
situated still: it held its ground. Not a brick was displaced;
but--gaunt and windowless, disfigured with great blotches of ink and
dirt, its little shop rent from the wall and split up into faggots--it
looked like a house out of which all life had been knocked; but there was
the carcase. In the street before the house, there were by that time a
few splinters of furniture remaining; the rest had been broken up or
hidden by kind and cunning neighbours. The shop had been cobbled
together with the broken shutters; and half-a-dozen soldiers, quite at
their ease, were lounging pleasantly about the broken door.

The outbreak, I was told by the bystanders, was quite unpremeditated. A
few stragglers had halted before the house at about eight o'clock on the
preceding evening, and had been discussing there the dreadful tale
connected with its owner. One gossip, in a sudden burst of anger, hurled
a bottle of ink--then by chance in his hand--at the Jew's house. The
idea was taken up with such good will that a hard rain of stones,
bottles, and other missi