Chapter XVII: Act V: Scene I

(Same as in Act IV. A Lieutenant, Jesper the Bailiff.)

LIEUTENANT. How can I manage to see the fellow, Mr. Bailiff? I should like to have a talk with him. Is he a likely looking fellow?

JESPER. Oh, he looks pretty well, and he has a mouth like a razor.

LIEUTENANT. That makes no difference, so long as he's strong and active.

JESPER. He can say anything he wants, and maintain it. He proved beyond a doubt that Peer the deacon was a cock.

LIEUTENANT. Is he good and broad across the shoulders?

JESPER. A big, strong lad. Every one in the house here is afraid of him, even his parents, for he can turn them into cows, oxen, and horses, then back again into people,--that is, he can prove that they are, from books.

LIEUTENANT. Does he look as if he could stand knocking about?

JESPER. And he proved that the earth was round, too.

LIEUTENANT. That doesn't matter to me. Does he look as if he were brave, and had a stout heart?

JESPER. He would stake his life for a letter of the alphabet, not to mention anything else. He has set every one here by the ears, but that makes no difference to him--he won't budge from his opinions and his learning.

LIEUTENANT. Mr. Bailiff, from all I hear, he will make a perfect soldier.

JESPER. How can you make a soldier of him, Lieutenant? He is a student.

LIEUTENANT. That has nothing to do with it. If he can turn people into sheep, oxen, and cocks, I'll have a try at turning a student into a soldier, for once.

JESPER. I should be happy if you could. I should laugh my belly in two.

LIEUTENANT. Just keep quiet about it, Jesper! When a bailiff and a lieutenant put their heads together, such things are not impossible. But I see some one coming this war. Is that he, by any chance?

JESPER. Yes, it is. I shall run off, so that he won't suspect me. [Exit.]

SCENE 2

(Enter Montanus.)

LIEUTENANT. Welcome to the village.

MONTANUS. I humbly thank you.

LIEUTENANT. I have taken the liberty of addressing you, because there aren't many educated people hereabouts for a man to talk to.

MONTANUS. I am delighted that you have been a scholar. When did you graduate, if I may inquire?

LIEUTENANT. Oh, ten years ago.

MONTANUS. Then you are an old academicus. What was your specialty when you were a student?

LIEUTENANT. I read mostly the old Latin authors, and studied natural law and moral problems, as in fact I do still.

MONTANUS. That is mere trumpery, not academicum. Did you lay no stress on Philosophiam instrumentalem?

LIEUTENANT. Not especially.

MONTANUS. Then you have never done any disputation?

LIEUTENANT. No.

MONTANUS. Well, is that studying? Philosophia instrumentalis is the only solid studium; the rest are all very fine, but they are not learned. One who is well drilled in Logica and Metaphysica can get himself out of any difficulty and dispute on all subjects, even if he is unfamiliar with them. I know of nothing which I should take upon myself to defend and not get out of it very well. There was never any disputation at the university in which I did not take part. A philosophus instrumentalis can pass for a polyhistor.

LIEUTENANT. Who is the best disputer nowadays?

MONTANUS. A student called Peer Iverson. When he has refuted his opponent so that he hasn't a word to say for himself, he says, "Now, if you will take my proposition, I will defend yours." In all that sort of thing his Philosophia instrumentalis is the greatest help. It is a shame that the lad did not become a lawyer; he could have made a mighty good living. Next to him, I am the strongest, for the last time I disputed, he whispered in my ear, "Jam sumus ergo pares." Yet I will always yield him the palm.

LIEUTENANT. But I have heard it said that Monsieur can prove that it is the duty of a child to beat his parents. That seems to be absurd.

MONTANUS. If I said it, I am the man to defend it.

LIEUTENANT. I dare wager a ducat that you are not clever enough for that.

MONTANUS. I will risk a ducat on it.

LIEUTENANT. Good. It is agreed. Now, let's hear you.

MONTANUS. He whom one loves most, he beats most. One ought to love nobody more than his parents, ergo there is nobody whom one ought to beat more. Now, in another syllogism: what one has received he ought, according to his ability, to return. In my youth I received blows from my parents. Ergo I ought to give them blows in return.

LIEUTENANT. Enough, enough, I have lost. Faith, you shall have your ducat.

MONTANUS. Oh, you were not in earnest; I will profecto take no money.

LIEUTENANT. Upon my word, you shall take it. I swear you shall.

MONTANUS. Then I will take it to keep you from breaking an oath.

LIEUTENANT. But may I not also try to turn you into something? Par exemple, I will turn you into a soldier.

MONTANUS. Oh, that is very easy, for all students are soldiers of the intellect.

LIEUTENANT. No, I shall prove that you are a soldier in body. Whoever has taken press-money is an enlisted soldier. You have done so, ergo--

MONTANUS. Nego minorem.

LIEUTENANT. Et ego probo minorem by the two rix-dollars you took into your hand.

MONTANUS. Distinguendum est inter nummos.

LIEUTENANT. No distinction! You are a soldier.

MONTANUS. Distinguendum est inter the two: simpliciter and relative accipere.

LIEUTENANT. No nonsense! The contract is closed, and you have taken the money.

MONTANUS. Distinguendum est inter contractum verum et apparentem.

LIEUTENANT. Can you deny that you have received a ducat from me?

MONTANUS. Distinguendum est inter rem et modum rei.

LIEUTENANT. Come, follow me straight, comrade! You must get your uniform.

MONTANUS. There are your two rix-dollars back. You have no witnesses to my taking the money.

SCENE 3

(Enter Jesper and Niels the Corporal.)

JESPER. I can bear witness that I saw the lieutenant put money into his hand.

NIELS. I too.

MONTANUS. But why did I take the money? Distinguendum est inter--

LIEUTENANT. Oh, we won't listen to any talk. Niels, you stay here, while I fetch the uniform. [Exit the Lieutenant.]

MONTANUS. Oh, help!

NIELS. If you don't shut up, you dog, I'll stick a bayonet through your body. Hasn't he enlisted, Mr. Bailiff?

JESPER. Yes, of course he has.

(Enter the Lieutenant.)

LIEUTENANT. Come, now, pull off that black coat and put on this red one. (Montanus cries while they put on his uniform.) Oh, come, it looks bad for a soldier to cry. You are far better off than you were before.--Drill him well, now, Niels. He is a learned fellow, but he is raw yet in his exercises. (Niels the Corporal leads Montanus about, drilling him and beating him.) [Exeunt the Lieutenant and Jesper.]

SCENE 4

(Enter the Lieutenant.)

LIEUTENANT. Well, Niels, can he go through the drill?

NIELS. He'll learn in time, but he is a lazy dog. He has to be beaten every minute.

MONTANUS (crying). Oh, gracious sir, have mercy on me. My health is weak and I cannot endure such treatment.

LIEUTENANT. It seems a little hard at first, but when your back has once been well beaten and toughened, it won't hurt so much.

MONTANUS (crying). Oh, would that I had never studied! Then I never should have got into this trouble.

LIEUTENANT. Oh, this is only a beginning. When you have sat a half score of times on the wooden horse, or stood on the stake, then you will think this sort of thing is a mere bagatelle. (Montanus weeps again.)

SCENE 5

(Enter Jeronimus, Magdelone, Jeppe, and Nille.)

JERONIMUS. Are you sure of it?

JEPPE. Indeed I am; the bailiff told me a moment ago. Ah, now my anger is turned to pity.

JERONIMUS. If we could only get him back to the true faith, I should be glad to buy him off.

LISBED (rushing in). Oh, poor wretch that I am!

JERONIMUS. Don't raise a hubbub, daughter, you won't gain anything by that.

LISBED. Oh, father dear, if you were as much in love as I am, you wouldn't ask me to keep quiet.

JERONIMUS. Fie, fie, it is not proper for a girl to show her feelings like that. But there he is, I do believe. Look here, Rasmus Berg! What is going on?

MONTANUS. Oh, my dear Monsieur Jeronimus, I've become a soldier.

JERONIMUS. Yes, now you have something else to do, besides turning men into beasts and deacons into cocks.

MONTANUS. Oh, alas! I lament my former folly, but all too late.

JERONIMUS. Listen, my friend. If you will give up your former foolishness, and not fill the land with disagreements and disputations, I shall not fail to do everything in my power to get you off.

MONTANUS. Oh, I don't deserve anything better, after threatening my old parents with blows. But if you will have pity on me and work for my release, I swear to you, that hereafter I shall live a different life, devote myself to some business, and never bother any one with disputations any more.

JERONIMUS. Stay here for a moment; I will go and talk to the Lieutenant. (Enter the Lieutenant.) Oh, my dear Lieutenant, you have always been a friend of our house. The person who has enlisted as a soldier is engaged to my only daughter, who is much in love with him. Set him free again. I shall be glad to present you with a hundred rix-dollars, if you do. I admit that at first I was delighted myself that he had been punished in such a way, for his singular behavior had exasperated me, and all the good folk here in the village, against him. But when I saw him in this plight, and at the same time heard him lament his former folly and promise amendment, my heart was ready to burst with sympathy.

LIEUTENANT. Listen, my dear Monsieur Jeronimus. What I have done has been only for his own good. I know that he is engaged to your daughter, and therefore merely for the good of your house I have reduced him to this condition and treated him with such great harshness, so that he might he brought to confess his sins. But for your sake I will give the money to the poor, inasmuch as I hear that he has experienced a change of heart. Let him come here.--Listen, my friend, your parents have spent much on you in the hope that you would become an honor and a comfort to them in their old age. But you go off a sensible fellow and come back entirely deranged, arouse the whole village, advance strange opinions, and defend them with stubbornness. If that is to be the fruit of studies, then one ought to wish that there never had been any books. It seems to me that the principal thing a man ought to learn in school is just the opposite of what you are infected with, and that a learned man ought particularly to be distinguished from others in that he is more temperate, modest, and considerate in his speech than the uneducated. For true philosophy teaches us that we ought to restrain and quiet disagreements, and to give up our opinions as soon as we are persuaded, even by the humblest person, that they are mistaken. The first rule of philosophy is, Know thyself; and the further one advances, the lower opinion one should have of himself, the more one should realize what there remains to be learned. But you make philosophy into a kind of fencing, and consider a man a philosopher if he can warp the truth by subtle distinctions and talk himself out of any opinion; in so doing you incur hatred and bring contempt upon learning, for people imagine that your extraordinary manners are the natural fruits of education. The best advice I can give you is to strive to forget, and to rid your head of what you have burned so much midnight oil in learning; and that you take up some calling in which you can make your way to success; or, if you are bound to pursue your studies, that you go about them in some other fashion.

MONTANUS. Oh, my good sir, I will follow your advice, and do my best to be a different man from now on.

LIEUTENANT. Good; then I will let you go as soon as you have given your word both to your own parents and to your future parents-in-law, and have begged their pardon.

MONTANUS. I humbly beg all of you, as I weep salt tears, to forgive me; and I promise to lead an entirely different life henceforward. I condemn my former ways, and I have been cured of them not so much by the fix I had got into as by this good man's wise and profound words. Next to my parents I shall always hold him in the highest esteem.

JERONIMUS. Then you don't believe any longer, my dear son-in-law, that the world is round? For that is the point that I take most to heart.

MONTANUS. My dear father-in-law, I won't argue about it any further. But I will only say this, that nowadays all learned folk are of the opinion that the earth is round.

JERONIMUS. Oh, Mr. Lieutenant, let him be made a soldier again until the earth becomes flat.

MONTANUS. My dear father-in-law, the earth is as flat as a pancake. Now are you satisfied?

JERONIMUS. Yes, now we are good friends again,--now you shall have my daughter. Come to my house, now, all together, and drink to the reconciliation. Mr. Lieutenant, won't you do us the honor of joining us?

[Exeunt.]