Throughout the struggle, Albert felt himself getting closer to being accepted by the other boys at school. That is, until Heinrich Brasch invited him to make slingshots together and go bird hunting. It was spring, and Albert was glad to be included in Heinrich’s plans. They made their way through the terraced vineyards surrounding Gunsbach and onto the gentle slope above the village. There they hunted for forked sticks suitable for slingshots.
When Albert found the perfect stick, he pulled out an India-rubber band his mother had given him. As he wound it around the ends of the fork, he thought about the slingshot he was making. It had started as a stick—part of a tree a bird might perch on—but now he was fashioning it into a weapon to kill birds with. Albert hated the thought. What had any bird ever done to him that it deserved being killed for? Why should he or anyone else take away a bird’s life—its right to sing and eat and fly free? He imagined telling Heinrich that he didn’t want to make the weapon and didn’t want to kill anything, but he was too afraid to say so. What would happen at school if he did? Would the older boys tease him for being a coward who wouldn’t even kill a bird?
As he finished winding the rubber band around the forked stick, Albert prayed that God would warn any birds in the area to flee for their lives. It didn’t work. “Look,” Heinrich whispered, nudging Albert’s elbow. “There’s a flock of stonechats on the beech tree over there. Let’s creep a bit closer and get them.” Albert looked up with dread and saw about thirty stonechats resting on the limbs of the newly budding tree.
Albert watched Heinrich pull two small pebbles from his pocket. “Come on,” he whispered. “Let’s shoot them at the same time.” Albert reached for the pebbles he’d collected and set one in the cradle of his slingshot. Just then, the bells of his father’s church rang out, reminding the congregation that it was Lent. To Albert it felt like a jolt went through his body. He heard the bells chime but also heard the words of the sixth commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” run through his mind. Albert dropped his slingshot as though it were a hot coal and ran toward the stonechats in the beech tree, waving both his hands. “Go! Go! Go!” he yelled. The birds rose together into the air and flew off.
His face red with anger, Heinrich turned to Albert. “What did you do that for, you idiot? I had a good shot lined up.”
Albert didn’t answer. Instead he left his slingshot on the ground and ran home. That night in bed, as he said his prayer for the protection of all animals, Albert knew he’d made an important decision that afternoon. He had chosen to stand up for what he believed was right, even if it meant losing the friendships he had so painfully cultivated with his classmates.
After the bird-hunting incident, Albert spent even more time alone. When he had finished his after-school chores, his mother would let him play outside. Albert’s favorite pastime soon became wandering the hills above the village, studying rocks and birds’ nests, and, of course, daydreaming.
Occasionally something would happen in Guns-bach that drew the entire town together. One of those things happened on a school day. Albert was on the playground when he heard an uproar. He and the other children ran to the wall and peered over. Leaning against the wall of the inn next door was a strange contraption with one large wheel at the front and one much smaller wheel at the rear. “It’s a high-wheel bicycle,” one of the boys said. “My father saw someone riding one in Strasbourg last month.”
While Albert had heard of a high-wheel bicycle, he’d never seen one before. Now, staring over the wall at one, he wondered if such an ungainly contraption would really take the place of horses, as his mother predicted.
A crowd gathered around the inn entrance, waiting for the rider to finish his wine. The schoolchildren joined them. When the owner of the high-wheel bicycle emerged from the inn, the whole crowd, including seven-year-old Albert, laughed out loud. The man was wearing short pants and was undeterred by the laughter. He wheeled the bicycle into the street, held the handlebars atop the large front wheel, put one foot on the metal spike at the back, and scooted forward with the other foot. When he’d gathered enough speed, he quickly slid up into the seat, put his feet onto the pedals that connected directly to the large front wheel, and pedaled down the street. Albert was impressed by the man’s agility, but he wasn’t sure that high-wheel bicycles were the future of transportation.
That Christmas, 1882, Albert learned that a price had to be paid for receiving presents. Several of his aunts and uncles, along with his godparents, had sent him Christmas gifts. Until now he’d loved opening them, especially the books with pictures of nature or faraway places in them. But now his father declared that Albert was old enough to write his own thank-you notes. His father required the notes to include three parts. First, Albert had to directly thank the person who gave the gift, assuring him or her that it was just what he’d wanted and that it brought him much pleasure. Then he was to outline for the person all the other gifts he had received. Finally, he was to wish the person a happy New Year. He also had to write a draft of each thank-you note on a sheet of paper for his father to look over and correct. Then he was to rewrite the note on a clean sheet of paper with no spelling or grammar errors and no accidental ink blots on the page. The whole ordeal was a challenge for Albert, who began to wonder if he might end up locked in his father’s study until the following Christmas to finish the task.
It was hard work, but Albert managed to get the thank-you notes written before his eighth birthday rolled around on January 14. For his birthday Albert had requested a New Testament of his own from his father. Although writing neatly was a terrible burden, as demonstrated by the thank-you notes, by now Albert could read well and wanted to read the Bible for himself.
Albert set himself the task of reading the entire New Testament. As he read, he had many questions for his father—questions he was surprised no one else was asking. How was it, for instance, that Jesus’s family was poor when the wise men had brought Him gold, frankincense, and myrrh? Wasn’t that enough to make them rich? What did they do with those things? And what did the shepherds in the fields do after seeing the angels the night Jesus was born? Did they try to track Jesus down to see why God had sent an angel to tell of His birth? Albert had a thousand such questions and was thankful that his father, who had a theology degree from Strasbourg University, was happy to try to answer them for him.
Another wonderful event occurred when Albert was eight years old—something that gave him a greater opportunity to concentrate on music. By now he could play complicated tunes on the piano, and his father promised he would ask Father Iltis to teach Albert to play the church pipe organ one day. During summer of 1883, that day came. Albert climbed the stairs at the back of the church to the loft that housed the controls and the keyboards, or manuals as they were known, for the organ. He slid onto the bench next to Father Iltis in front of the manuals. His feet barely touched the organ’s pedals as he studied the two rows of white and black keys and the rows of stops on either side of the manuals. Father Iltis explained how the stops were used to make particular sounds and how the two manuals and the pedals worked together. Then he played a tune. Albert listened as the sound reverberated from the organ pipes above him. He was so close to the instrument that he could feel the sound vibrate through him, as though the music had taken control of his body. Soon Father Iltis had Albert playing simple tunes on the organ. As he played, Albert felt a strange oneness with the organ, as if the instrument had been made just for him.
Chapter 4
Trapped
During autumn 1884, life changed for nine-year-old Albert. He knew it would. It was time to leave the village school and continue his education at the realschule (secondary school) in Munster, two and a half miles to the west. For Albert, the best thing about attending this new school was the fact that there were two walking paths from Gunsbach to Munster: the high path and the low path. The other village boys took the low path, since it was easier. Albert took the high path, leaving him with lots of time to daydream as he walked alone to school in the morning and back home in the late afternoon.
The walk became the highlight of Albert’s day. Sometimes as he proceeded along the path he pretended to be a natural scientist, stopping to examine the blossoms on the cherry trees as they turned day by day into tiny fruits and then into delicious ripe cherries. He also tried composing poems and drawing sketches of the surrounding countryside. Both endeavors fell flat, and Albert decided he was neither a poet nor an artist. Sometimes he wondered what he would be when he grew up. Perhaps, he told himself, he would be a goatherd. What could be better than spending his days wandering among the hills and valleys throughout the seasons?
Realschule itself was a trial for Albert. He had to study Latin, which he hated, and complicated mathematics, which he disliked just as much. He also developed a new habit in class. Whenever the teacher called on him and he didn’t know the answer to a question, he would laugh nervously, which annoyed the teacher yet amused the other boys. This left Albert with a reputation for not taking his schoolwork seriously.
After one year at the realschule, Albert knew he was in trouble with his parents. His report card noted that he laughed a lot in class and spent too much time looking out the window daydreaming. His teacher declared something had to change.
“I expected a lot better from you,” Albert’s father told him as they sat in his study. “Look at this report card. You’re hardly passing your classes. At your age I was at a gymnasium, which was far more rigorous than realschule. You have the brains to do that too, just not the willpower. Why don’t you understand how important it is to do well at school? If you don’t learn to concentrate, you’ll never make anything of your life.”
Albert had nothing to say. He knew his father was right. Alsace had two types of secondary school: the realschule and the gymnasium. Realschule, such as the one in Munster, was for average students who might take up a trade when their studies ended. The gymnasium was a more rigorous school designed to prepare top students to sit the Abitur exam, which allowed them to go on to university. Yet Albert couldn’t imagine going to university after nine long years of secondary school. He didn’t really care what kind of education he got, though he could see that his attitude upset his parents, who certainly wanted him to do better.
“I have given this some thought,” Albert’s father continued. “It’s time you grew up and learned to discipline yourself. Your Uncle Louis has stepped in and offered a way for you to redeem yourself. Next semester you are going to live with him and Aunt Sophie in Mulhouse, where you’ll be attending a gymnasium.” Albert’s father paused and took a deep breath. “I expect you to rise to the occasion. Not every boy in Alsace gets such an opportunity, and certainly not one who doesn’t concentrate on his schoolwork. But I think you can do it, as long as you apply yourself.”
“Yes, sir,” Albert replied mechanically, aware that in the past ten minutes his future had changed drastically.
That night in bed, Albert cried himself to sleep. How was he ever going to leave his sisters and brother and the mountains and valleys of Gunsbach to go and live thirty-five miles away in Mulhouse? Uncle Louis, the half brother of Grandfather Schweitzer, and Aunt Sophie had no children. Albert thought they were strict, humorless people and wondered how he would survive with them.
The next day, Albert begged his father to reconsider sending him to live with his uncle and aunt, but there was no way out. The gymnasium in Mulhouse offered several scholarships to the sons of pastors, and Uncle Louis, who was a school inspector, had secured one for Albert. That in itself was a gift, Albert’s father pointed out, since his son’s grades did not indicate he had the potential to go on to university. Albert stood glumly. It was over. For better or worse he was destined to spend the next nine years in Mulhouse.
