That was in November. Three months later, on February 24, 1807, when the Prussians had been defeated at Dir-schau and the flames of the pillaged city could be seen as far as Kashubia, French grenadiers belonging to the army
of Marshal Lefebvre occupied the Zuckau state farm and gobbled up our seed potatoes.
Why potato soup tastes heavenly
When Amanda Woyke died, she took nothing with her but her spectacles. She looked all over heaven for the sweet Lord. He had hidden, for he was afraid of Amanda, who wanted to give him a piece of her mind about the lack of justice, and what kind of a sweet Lord was he anyway, and maybe he didn't even exist. In the halls of heaven she met lots of old friends from Zuckau, Viereck, Kokoschken, and Ramkau. None of them had the slightest idea where the sweet Lord was keeping himself, and they were all standing around looking pretty anemic, because all they had to live on was memory. It wasn't till she got to the heavenly flour bin, which, however, hadn't a bit of flour in it, that Amanda found her three girls Stine Trude Lovise, who had died of starvation on earth because King Ole Fritz had kept up his war for seven years, and Pandours, Cossacks, and Prussian grenadiers in turn had eaten the bit of buckwheat and oats grown in Kashubia straight off the stalk.
Stine Trude Lovise, who had turned to meal worms in the heavenly flour bin, cried out, "The bin is empty. Nothing here. Oh, bring us oatmeal, Mother dear!" So Amanda clapped the lid of the flour bin shut and, pushing it ahead of her with a terrible din, went looking for the sweet Lord in all the halls of heaven.
On her way she met King Ole Fritz. He was playing with brightly painted tin soldiers. He still had plenty of ammunition, for he had brought a little sack of black peppercorns with him from down below. With the fingers of his left hand he flipped the peppercorns off the palm of his right hand, hitting Pandours, Cossacks, and white-enameled Austrian foot soldiers until he had finally won the Battle of Kolin. Amanda was furious. "It's high time you made peacel" she cried and threw all the tin soldiers and the black peppercorns into the empty flour bin, where the three little meal
worms Stine Trude Lovise now had company. Then she harnessed the king to the bin like a draft horse. And so with a terrible din, he pulling, she pushing, they continued on through the overpopulated but seemingly empty halls of heaven, looking for the sweet Lord.
On the way they met Count Rumford, who in the meantime had died of a sudden fever in far-off Paris. He was glad to see Amanda and showed her his latest invention: a tiny, shiny, softly purring machine. Pointing to the fiery-red gate of hell, he said: "Just imagine, dear friend, I've finally succeeded, with this little machine, in storing up hell-fire, the primal heat, that shameful waste of fuel, compressing it into tablets, and making it available for beneficial use. Down with superstitions! Now at last we can carry out your pet project and set up a giant Kashubian farm kitchen here in the halls of heaven. Now, with the help of hell-fire, dreams will become reality. You and I know what the world needs: the maximum within the minimum. Let us, you and I together, get to work on world nutrition. Unfortunately we still lack the ingredients for your excellent soup, first and foremost our belly-filler: the potato."
Amanda thought they ought first to ask the sweet Lord's permission; maybe in return for a moderate amount of corvee labor he'd lease them a few heavenly acres. She'd be glad to dig potatoes. She put the hell-fire utilization machine and the first dozen heat tablets into the flour bin along with the three little meal worms Stine Trude Lovise, the brightly painted tin soldiers, and the black peppercorns, harnessed Count Rumford to the bin alongside of Ole Fritz, and, they pulling, she pushing, they moved on through the halls of heaven with a terrible din, looking for the sweet Lord.
On the way they met me, war veteran and Inspector of Crown Lands August Romeike, who in between the battles of the Seven Years' War had made Amanda seven children, three of whom had died of starvation and now as meal worms had company in the flour bin. When Napoleon's Grand Army, returning sorely battered from Russia, reached Kashu-bia, a gang of looting grenadiers from whom I was trying to save our seed potatoes shot me dead. All I could bring with me to this other world was one sack of spuds, on which I
was sitting when Amanda, with Ole Fritz and Rumford harnessed to her flour bin, caught sight of me and started right in chewing me out: "You stupid, scurvy no-good!" But she was pleased with the rescued seed potatoes and a few little bags of seeds, among them chervil, mustard, caraway, parsley, and marjoram, that I'd happened to have in my pocket. And Ole Fritz and Rumford also exclaimed, "Superb 1" and "Splendid!" I had to heave the sack into the flour bin, taking care not to hurt the meal worms Stine Trude Lovise or the tin soldiers, and most especially not to damage the diminutive hell-fire utilization machine. Then, between king and count, I was harnessed to the vehicle, and off we went with a terrible din. Now there was no need for Amanda to push.
And so we looked for the sweet Lord throughout the halls of heaven, until we came to a body of water that made little waves like the Baltic and smelled the same, too.
"Sweet Lord! Sweet Lord!" cried Amanda over the Baltic-green sea. "Where ya hiding. Come on out! Come on out!"
But the sweet Lord didn't show himself, for he didn't exist. Only a flatfish jumped out of the sea and gave them a slanting look. It was the Flounder out of the fairy tale, and he said with his crooked mouth, "Since the sweet Lord doesn't exist, I can't very well be your sweet Lord. But I'll be glad to help if something's wrong. What's wrong?"
And then, before the three men harnessed to the flour bin could speak, Amanda told the Flounder first her earthly, then her heavenly woes: how she had put up with everything and in spite of plague, famine, hunger, war, and long-lasting injustice always stood by the sweet Lord, how she'd been looking for him in heaven, but all she'd found was King Ole Fritz, his dopey inspector, and her old pen pal, the well-known inventor of the slow-combustion stove, and she'd harnessed them to an empty flour bin in which were assembled her meal worms Stine Trude Lovise, the king's tin soldiers and peppercorns, the dopey inspector's sack of potatoes, a few little bags of seeds such as marjoram, chervil, mustard, caraway, and parsley, and the pen pal's hell-fire utilization machine along with some heat tablets: "So what's
to happen now? If you can't be our sweet Lord, then be our sweet Flounder, and help us."
Thus flattered, the Flounder said, "What you could not do on earth, you shall do here in heaven. Your sweet Flounder will provide as if he were the sweet Lord."
Thereupon he vanished into the Baltic-green sea. Instantly the halls of heaven were transformed into proper Kashubian sandy acres — gently rolling, already fertilized and plowed, hedged around with gorse and blackberry bushes. Out of the flour bin jumped King Ole Fritz's tin soldiers, and they began to till the soil like peasants, planted the seed potatoes out of the dopey inspector's sack, and put in an herb garden off to one side. And Count Rumford set to work building for Amanda an enormous heavenly kitchen to feed the world's hungry. As fuel he used the compressed heat tablets, three of which were spat out each second by the hell-fire utilization machine.
In the meantime the meal worms Stine Trude Lovise were growing up to be dear little girls, as pretty as pictures and so clever besides that Ole Fritz didn't have to govern any more, or Count Rumford to invent, and the dopey inspector didn't have to bully anybody, for there in the heavenly Kashubia Amanda and her three laughing daughters took care of everything. Each day there was plenty of potato soup, for herbs and turnips were soon growing, pigs were grunting miraculously, and even onions were taking heavenly root. While peeling potatoes, Amanda told her old sweet-Lord stories, but now they'd become sweet-Flounder stories. And the children weren't the only ones who knew Amanda's sayings by heart. For instance: "Marjoram and parsily, good for the whole family"; or "Equal as the spuds we be — only the kingdom of heaven is free."