Thomas Makytta pulled his coat tightly around him and started to cross Nadrazni Street. He had been waiting, and sheltering, in the Brno hlavni nadrazi train station for over an hour, but it was now time to move. A retired schoolteacher from Heinzendorf, a tiny, one-square village of 72 households in Moravian Silesia, he did not have enough money for a carriage, even if one of the miserable nags outside the station had been willing to move. So he started to walk.
This journey had started the day before, when the whole village had turned out to say good-bye. As is the case in small communities, everyone knew he was going on a train journey to Brno, the regional capitol south and west of their village. To the farmers of the Beskydy region even the nearest town of Olomouc, less than 30 kilometers away was a distant, frightening place and Brno was way beyond their most vivid imaginings. None of them had ever traveled, or would ever travel, more than a league from home in their entire lives. But for Makytta, this was a journey he had to make, whatever the cost. He was going to see and hear his star pupil give his first major scientific presentation.
He had not gone more than a few steps when he heard a voice call out behind him. "Herr Makytta, Herr Makytta."
He turned to see a well protected, round figure hurrying towards him across Hadrazni Street from the direction of the Petrov hill.
"Herr Makytta? Welcome, I'm Brother Matthew from the Monastery, Brother Gregory asked me to come and meet you." The speaker was a man of medium height, round of body and face with dark brown eyes and long furrows across his forehead. Wild grey hair was escaping from under his hood. He was wearing heavy boots and a woolen cape pulled up tight around his neck. "Did you have a good journey?"
Makytta nodded. "The train from Heinzendorf was slow, but warm and I was able to get food at Prerov."
Brother Matthew looked at his guest. He saw a small man in his late 70's with a wide face and an open countenance. Age sat well on him. Although long retired from his duties as schoolmaster in the local village school of Heinzendorf, Thomas Makytta had not slowed down and continued to take a strong interest in all his pupils, past and present.
Since his appointment in 1796, Thomas Makytta had always taught large classes in a strong, capable manner. Children had to be given different lessons according to their age and sometimes, when students could not pay the small fee for a class, they helped out in the school garden, or Makytta's own fields. Helped when ever possible by the local priest, Father Schreiber, Makytta had included basic natural history among the subjects he taught. Father Schreiber had once worked at the Kunin Philanthropinum where he had been instrumental in founding a fruit-tree nursery. Jointly the two men they liked to think that they had been somewhat influential in directing their star pupil, Johann Mendel, into a life long interest in the sciences.
"Come," said the monk striding off across the main street, "we must get to the Realschule. The meeting starts in less than an hour. I was late. I apologize."
"Not at all," mumbled Makytta hurring after his guide, risking his neck as the two of them braved the hazardous cobbles that lined Masaryhova Street. Normally this main throughfare was crowded with people making their way up to Namesti Svobody, the central square of Brno, but today it was almost deserted. Even the hardy Czechs stayed in doors on days like this, so the two men had an unobstructed view of the Capuchin Crypt as they crossed Josefska and continued north.
"That's the St. Peter and St. Paul Cathedral," said Brother Matthew pointing to the imposing church on the Petrov hill to their left. Makytta obligingly looked at the needle-sharp Gothic spires that could hardly be missed, for they dominated the skyline for miles around. "During the thirty years war," Brother Matthew continued, "the Swedish general Tortennson besieged our town, but after fruitless months of getting no where, he declared that he would give up at mid-day if the town had not surrended. Our bell-ringer, bless his name, seeing that the town was about to collapse, rang the mid-day bell an hour early. The Swedes gave up their siege and the city was saved. A grateful Habsburg emperor rewarded Brno by making it the capital of Moravia, or so the story goes." He said it with a shrug.
At the junction with Namesti Svobody square, the two men took a sharp right turn onto Janska Street and walked in the direction of the Loreto Chapel. Continuing his history lesson, Brother Matthew said, "The Realschule, where we are going, was opened in 1851, largely as a result of the efforts of Dr Auspitz, who you will be meeting. He, and Zawadski have had a lot to do with making the Natural History Society a big success, we have over 170 members now, and the number is still growing."
As they turned the corner, out of the wind, they almost bumped into a small group of men huddled outside the school building where the meeting was to take place. Brother Matthew greeted them warmly, but to a man the group collectively scowled back; the monk was not someone of whom the good German burgers of Brno approved. Brother Matthew Klacel was a known agitator, a Czech nationalist and had stirred up trouble and controversy more than once. But after giving the pair some black looks, they went on with their own conversation. Makytta heard them speak.
"Bismarck will move against us soon," said one, and the others nodded in agreement.
These were troubled times in eastern Europe. Just the year before, 1864, the Iron Chancellor of the German Confederation had marched his new Prussian Army into war with Denmark. That tiny country had collapsed almost without a fight, and the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein had been added to the growing territories controlled by Prussia. Even in the hamlets of Moravia, Makytta knew that the Austrian Empire would be next. He hurried after the monk and inside the school.
Despite the climate, the spartan building was not heated. The new Realschule on Janska Street had been built by local industrialists in 1859, and they had not wished to spoil their students with too much distracting luxury. In the corridors the temperature was the same as it was outside, but at least the cutting wind stayed hammering on the outside of the thin window glass. Makytta followed the sound of voices to the lighted room where the meeting was to be held. Entering the auditorium he saw a janitor carrying a scuttle of coals to a small potbellied stove. It would not help. Nobody would be taking off their coats that evening.
By the door he caught up with the monk. Brother Matthew was sniffing the air and examining the group of men that had already arrived. "That's Schwippel," he said, pointing to an undistinguished, slightly nervous looking man who was hurrying around the room making agitated gestures. "He's the secretary of our Society, and a natural history teacher at the Brno Gymnasium." (a type of school). He looked around some more.
"Over there," he pointed to a group of three men, "the tall one with the dark coat, that's Zawadski, he's secretary to the committee and the real brains behind our little group. Without him I doubt we would have ever broken away from the Agricultural Society in '61."
Makytta looked puzzled, so Brother Matthew explained, "Until quite recently, the Brno Natural History Society was only a subsection of the Agricultural Society, but in '59 we came up with our own constitution, and in '61 or was it '62, we broke away and became independent." Klacel made it sound like the whole thing had been his idea, but then Brother Matthew liked revolutionary movements, and even the breakaway of the Society from its founding group was the sort of action of which he strongly approved.
With a grin, Brother Matthew threw in a tidbit of gossip, "Zawadski is a physicist and he used to teach at Lemberg University, but, for reasons I cannot tell you, he was deprived of his professorial chair in 1852 or 53, and if it wasn't for Auspitz, he would be out of a job now. But Auspitz hired him to teach in the Realschule in '54, and everyone agrees it was an inspired hiring."
"I don't see Count von Mittrowski however," he went on, "probably has more sense than to come out on a day like this. He's the President, but we won't see him tonight. Over there, though," he pointed again, "that's Theimer. He's our current vice president and a pharmacist here in Brno. He comes to all our meetings." Then he turned back to his guest.
"But, I'm forgetting, you came to see Brother Gregory, didn't you?"
"Yes, yes indeed," Makytta replied, nodding and wondering where his famous pupil was.
Brother Matthew smiled at the teacher. "I was so glad you could come. It is not often that someone from Hranice is honored in this way." Being an advocate for all things Czech, Klacel had used the Czech name for Mendel's village. "I think you will enjoy seeing Johann Mendel again. But I must warn you, he is not he boy you and Father Schreiber had in your classes. But in other ways he is still the same. He still gets ill every time he takes examinations." At this the pair laughed, Mendel was notorious for failing examinations and becoming ill as a result.
"Has he changed that much?" wondered Makytta, thinking back to the thin son of a peasant farmer who had presented himself at the schoolhouse door in 1832. Anton Mendel, the father, had been born in Heinzendorf (as Makytta still liked to think of it because most of the villagers considered themselves ethnic Germans) in 1789 and was a veteran of the Napoleonic wars. Mendel's son, named Johann, had been born on July 22, 1822, and the family had made many sacrifices to get him an education, starting with the village school built and begun by Mendel's great uncle, A. Schwirtlich.