X. PREACHING AND PRACTICE 261 BOOK III. _FLOOD AND FIRE._ I. “O’ER CRAG AND TORRENT, TILL THE NIGHT IS GONE,” 277 II. “POLLY, PUT THE KETTLE ON” 288 III. PANSIES 297 IV. VÆ VICTIS. 314 V. AN EXPERIMENT 328 VI. THE FRAGRANCE OF TEA-ROSES 334 VII. “THESE, THROUGH THEIR FAITH, RECEIVED NOT THE PROMISE” 346 VIII. “THAT, APART FROM US, THEY SHOULD NOT BE MADE PERFECT” 368 BOOK I. LOVE. METZEROTT, SHOEMAKER. CHAPTER I. KARL METZEROTT ATTENDS A KAFFEE KLATSCH. Karl Metzerott, shoemaker, counted himself reasonably well-to-do in the world. It was a favorite saying of his (though he was not greatly given to sayings at any time, his days being so full of doings), that his Socialist opinions were not based upon his own peculiar needs; and that, when the Commune should supervene, as he fervently believed it must some day, he, Karl Metzerott, would be numbered rather among its givers than its receivers. In truth, he had some reason for self-gratulation. He was young, strong, and able to earn a fair living at his trade; and his wife,—but stop! We have not come to her quite yet. The shop where he bent over his lapstone for ten hours a day, excluding meal times, was an odd-looking structure, in a poor quarter of a city which we shall call Micklegard; and which, if any one should strive to locate, we warn him that the effort will bring him only confusion of face and dire bewilderment. For its features may be recognized, now here, now there, like those mocking faces that peered at Ritter Huldbrand through the mists of the Enchanted Forest. The shoemaker’s dwelling contained but three rooms. The front, a shingled frame building of one story, presented its pointed gable at the street like a huge caret, denoting that all the sky and stars, perhaps something further, were wanted by those beneath. This was the shop; behind it were the kitchen, looking out upon a small square yard, opening on a not over-clean alley; and a bedroom above, whose front window peered over the gable roof, between the high blank walls of the adjoining houses, while the opposite one kept watch from the rear: and each, in its curtainless bareness, looked equally desolate and unsatisfied.