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Updated: June 19, 2025
The vintner chuckled softly as he scribbled this note: "If Herr Carmichael would learn the secret of number forty Krumerweg, let him attire himself as a vintner and be in the Krumerweg at eight o'clock to-night." "So there is a trap, and I am to beware of a mountaineer, a carter, a butcher, and a baker? Thanks, Scharfenstein, my friend, thanks! You are watching over me."
"Will you send some one to his excellency the chancellor and tell him I have come from number forty Krumerweg?" "Krumerweg? The very name ought to close any gate. But, girl, are you speaking truthfully?" Gretchen exhibited the note. He scratched his chin, perplexed. "Run along. If they ask me, I'll say that I didn't see you." The sentry resumed his beat.
As they turned into the Krumerweg they almost ran into Carmichael. What was the American consul doing in this part of the town, so near midnight? Carmichael recognized them both. He lifted his hat, but the vintner cavalierly refused to respond. "Herr Carmichael!" said Gretchen. "And what are you doing here this time of the night?" "I have been on a fool's errand," urbanely. "And who sent you?"
"Whom were you seeking?" her highness asked, rather startled by the undeniable beauty of this peasant. "I was seeking your serene highness. I live at number forty the Krumerweg, and the sick woman gave me this note for you." "Krumerweg?" Her highness reached for the note and read it, and as she read tears gathered in her eyes. "Follow me," she said. She led Gretchen to a marble bench and sat down.
"Gott in Himmel! It is he!" he breathed, then stepped back into the shadow, while the moisture from his breath slowly faded and disappeared from the window-pane. Krumerweg was indeed a crooked way. It formed a dozen elbows and ragged half-circles as it slunk off from the Adlergasse. Streets have character even as humans, and the Krumerweg reminded one of a person who was afraid of being followed.
"Highness, it was natural that I should," was Gretchen's frank admission. "She took me in when nobody knew who I was, clothed and fed me, and taught me music so that some day I should not be helpless when the battle of life began. Ah," impulsively, "had I my way she would be housed in the palace, not in the lonely Krumerweg.
The shadow of the towering bergs lay upon it, and the few stars that peered down through the narrow crevice of rambling gables were small, as if the brilliant planets had neither time nor inclination to watch over such a place. And yet there lived in the Krumerweg many a kind and loyal heart, stricken with poverty. In old times the street had had an evil name, now it possessed only a pitiful one.
Gretchen kissed the hands of her benefactress. "Whenever you wish to see the gardens," added the princess, "the gates will be open for you." As Gretchen went back to the Krumerweg her wooden shoes were golden slippers and her rough homespun, silk. Rich! Famous! She saw the opera ablaze with lights, she heard the roll of applause. She saw the horn of plenty pouring its largess from the fair sky.
"The god of fools himself, I guess. I am looking for a kind of ghost, a specter in black that leaves the palace early in the evening and returns late, whose destination has invariably been forty Krumerweg." The vintner started. "My house?" cried Gretchen. "Yours? Perhaps you can dispel this phantom?" said Carmichael. Gretchen was silent. "Oh! You know something. Who is she?"
Instinctively she knew that he was not a peasant. But what could he be? Comparison would have made him a king. She was too tired and hungry to make further deductions. She was regarded with kindly eyes till the dark jaws of the Krumerweg swallowed up both her and her geese. "Poor little goose-girl!" he thought. "If she but knew, she could make a bonfire of a thousand hearts. A fine day!"
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