Sieglinde Huntscha spoke as if she had been there. In her version, swordmaker Slichting, shaken by the Flounder, had declared: "Of course I can't speak for the anchor makers, bucket makers, pitcher makers, and blacksmiths, but I find myself in duty bound to tell you that at their guild meetings, and those of the Scania mariners as well, I discerned no great eagerness to oblige the rich brewers, who are selling plenty of their black beer despite the competition from Wismar, by marching on the Rathaus with crowbars and sledge hammers. And as for the political demand for an equal voice in the decisions of the seated council, the general council, and the nine-man court of aldermen, you make me laugh. Trust a man who has traveled widely — such an arrangement exists
nowhere. Would a tailor, for instance, claim to be a master of the diplomacy needed to defend the city's interests at the Hanseatic Council in Liibeck? And who will stand up more boldly to the Teutonic Knights, to that old fox Kniprode, for instance? Will it be the patrician Gottschalk Nase, who has been traveling from Bruges to Novgorod for years on the city's business, or Tile Schulte the butcher, who is incapable of even writing his name, let alone of defending the Danzig trading post in Falsterbo and the rights of the Scania mariners with sign and seal? Why, all this agitation is only a trick of the rich coopers, who are trying to worm their way into the city council. With the help of the guilds, of course. But once they're elected, you'll see them striding through Koggen Gate more arrogantly than the patricians. My advice, in short, is to keep out of it. The charter granted in accordance with Culm law has proved satisfactory. Rebellion won't get us anything but harsher tyranny."
The prosecutor called it a "triumph of the medieval proletariat" that the uprising had nevertheless taken place, even though it was led by a profligate patrician, the wood carver Ludwig Skriever.
"Poor, deluded proletariat," the Flounder scoffed. "No, dear ladies, my protege, the not only honest but also experienced swordmaker Slichting, was right in eschewing acts of violence. I was not the only one to confirm him in his misgivings; his wife, Dorothea, who knew nothing of politics but made up for it in instinctive wisdom, gave him the same advice. 'Don't follow like a dumb sheep.' That's what she said. And consider what happened: Barrels of Wismar beer were emptied into the street. Ludwig Skriever, motivated by thoughts of private vengeance — the patrician Gottschalk Nase had termed Skriever's daughter a 'poor match' for his son because her dowry seemed insufficient — tried to incite the rebellious guildsmen to murder the town councilors and aldermen. And the patricians, who had the bargemen and carters with them, counterattacked. Even before Tile Schulte and six other ringleaders, including a miller's helper from the Old City, were executed, wood carver Skriever decamped. Long prison sentences were meted out. But the council wisely voted against importing Wismar beer. Whereupon the journeymen brewers presented Saint Mary's with a side altar and
some silver liturgical vessels. And everything was hunky-dory. I'm sorry. Especially for our prosecutor's sake. Because to tell you the truth, the patrician order was vitiated by nepotism. A little new blood would have helped, a few representatives of the guilds — in the court of aldermen, for instance."
Sieglinde Huntscha sat as though sealed up. Sickened by so much half-truth. Only intense concentration could offer resistance to so-called reality and its stinking facts. That is how it was when a gray veil cloaked Dorothea's eyes; and that's how it is when Ilsebill, whose gaze is normally greenish, suddenly, as soon as reality makes its petty demands, exchanges her optical organs for glass eyes. At such times she says, "I'm afraid I don't see it that way. Just count me out." And as for Dorothea, whenever I mentioned the enshamble-ment of our household, her eyes looked far into the distance and her speech reduced itself to verses rhyming "Jesu dere" with "joy ant fere." And Sieglinde Huntscha spoke in rebuttal as softly and tonelessly as if she had wanted to prove that the art of speaking with sealed lips was still an art.
"Yes, defendant Flounder, you win. All the facts are on your side. In addition to Slichting, the appeaser trained by you, there was the provocateur Skriever, who, come to think of it, seems to have been friends with Slichting. The proletariat of the Middle Ages fell for your smooth talk. The time wasn't ripe yet. And your argument, which I can already hear coming—'the time is never ripe, not even today'—is irrefutable. If we look from the medieval uprising of the artisans against the patrician order to the uprising of the Polish shipyard workers against bureaucratic Communism, we cannot help seeing that then as now the time is always unripe. And yet, defendant Flounder, you're wrong. I won't say that the ludicrous gains achieved then and now — the council's decision not to import beer from Wismar, the rescinding of the rise in the prices of staple foods — refute your reactionary pessimism; no, what sweeps away your stupid facts is the proletarian principle of hope. Hope clears away the rubble from history. Hope frees the road we call progress from time-conditioned encumbrances. Hope springs eternal. For it alone is real."
These evergreen words were not red enough for the audience. Giggles were barely repressed. Someone called out,
"Amen!" And if the Flounder had had shoulders, he would have shrugged them. As it was, he only said, "A respectable, ethically tenable view. You'll find similar ideas in Augustine and Bloch, both of whom I highly respect. You remind me, dear prosecutor, most charmingly of the High Gothic Dorothea of Montau. She, too, never ceased to hope for freedom, until at last, immured in her cell, removed from the world and its contradictions, she found freedom as she saw it."
Tumult in the movie house. Catcalls addressed more to Sieglinde Huntscha than to the cynical flatfish. Ms. Schonherr cast glances of ur-motherly appeasement. She said: "An interesting argument. It's true. What would become of us women if hope did not sustain us. But perhaps we should ask the Flounder to tell us why Dorothea Slichting, nee Swarze, found freedom only in a cell removed from the world. Can it be that the patriarchal invention of marriage offered women no freedom? And when the Flounder recommended marriage, was he not aiming precisely at such deprivation of freedom? Was it not the Flounder who drove poor Dorothea into the one area of freedom that was open to her, namely, religious madness? Later on, men tried to make a saint of her, but for this there were purely practical reasons; it so happened — to mention the other form of freedom then available to women — that it would have been impolitic to burn her at the stake. The Flounder's main guilt had nothing to do with his part in that preposterous uprising of brewers and coopers; your principal crime, defendant Flounder, consists in what you did to our sister Dorothea. Since Dorothea men have tried either to canonize women's desire for freedom or to laugh it off as typically womanish foolishness. Before sentence is pronounced, does the defendant wish to reply?"
The Flounder abstained. The atmosphere in the movie house recovered its bounce. Only Sieglinde Huntscha seemed downcast. How listlessly she rebutted the arguments of Ms. von Carnow, the court-appointed defense council.
Before the judges had finished deliberating, the Flounder began to wobble, and it wasn't long before he turned over and was floating moribundly belly up. When the court pronounced him guilty of helping to enslave women by promoting the institution of marriage, of ruining the life of Dorothea of Montau, and of urging her immurement and