The Luck of the Weissensteiners (The Three Nations Trilogy) Read Online Free PDF Page B

was able to see her sister and family at most once a week. When everyone else went to church on Sunday mornings, she was allowed to walk into town with the little one. Elizabeth and Oskar were not very religious but succumbed to the continuous social pressure from Benedikt and Johanna, who said that village life revolved entirely around church attendance. If you wanted to be part of the community, or at least find buyers for your goods, you had to stay friendly and always show your face at church. The rural population was incredibly devoted to Catholicism and it was best to go at least to be seen regardless of your actual beliefs, which in the case of the Winkelmeiers were Lutheran.
    Hardly any of the locals knew them more than by name and no one ever came to visit apart from those farmers that borrowed or rented Benedikt’s equipment, but keeping up appearances could never harm. Elizabeth and Oskar gave in to this logic and made their children go regularly to mass as well, but they didn't quite dare to ask Greta to come to church too.
    Only Johanna tried to persuade Greta to convert. She found an unlikely ally in this campaign in Jonah Weissensteiner, the father of the bride. He felt that a family should be all of one faith and go to church or the temple in unison. When Wilhelm pointed out that the Winkelmeiers were actually not even Catholic but Lutherans, he shrugged and said why could they not convert, after all they were already going to the services, it should not make any difference to them.
    Lutherans at that time were particularly unpopular in Slovakia because the politicians in Prague appeared to favour them. There was already a lot of ill feeling towards the government because it consisted mainly of members of the domin ant Czech half of the country and the resentment was transferred to the innocent Protestants.
    Johanna caught on to Jonah' s idea and suggested immediately that her family should all convert together. It would ingratiate them deeply in to the local community and one could always do with some allies among the neighbours.
    Greta refused to convert, saying that she felt it wrong to commit herself to a church she did not believe in, but since she was not a very committed Jewess either she declared herself happy to attend some of the church services. Since those occurred at the one time a week that Greta had been allowed to visit her family in Bratislava , she asked to be excused from at least a few services so she would be able to carry on with the visits to the workshop.
    Johanna noticed how weak Greta sounded when she voiced this request and it seemed a good opportunity to try and bargain further with the young mother. Would Greta be prepared to have Karl baptised - after all it would do wonders for his future if he was raised in the predominant faith of the region? Greta said she would leave that up to Wilhelm. If he felt strongly enough to support Johanna's suggestions then she would happily go along with it. Secretly she was sure Wilhelm would never agree to such a silly idea and such an obvious sucking up to the local church members. However, to her surprise Wilhelm was very enthusiastic with the plan. His superior at the book shop, Herbert Kling, came from the Catholic Bavaria and had often commented on him not having had a church wedding. Wilhelm had laughed it off with much appreciated rude comments about the bride not being able to wear white at the wedding and refusing to walk down the aisle in a different coloured dress, but it was made clear to him that if he converted to Catholicism and baptised his son Karl, it would be appreciated and his career prospects would be much stronger.
    To everyone ’s surprise the local priest seemed the first real hurdle. He was not particularly happy for any of them to convert and was certainly not prepared to baptise them without a series of harsh conditions. Father Bernhard Haslinger was of the old guard and demanded that they should all attend regular