Chapter III: Part 3

The latter walked unconcernedly beside me, whistling a tune--he on foot, I on horseback! A tremor seized me; the temptation was too great; I suddenly turned my horse’s head, gave him the spurs, and off I went in a full canter down a byway; but I did not succeed in bringing the shadow with me; as the horse turned it slipped down, and awaited its lawful master in the road. There was nothing for it but a shamefaced admission of defeat. I rode back, and the man in grey, first finishing the tune he was whistling, laughed at me, pulled my shadow straight again, and informed me that it would not stick to me, and be content to stay with me, until it was once more my lawful property. “I hold you by your shadow,” he added; “and you will not escape me. A rich man like you cannot get on without a shadow. You are to be blamed in so far as you did not find that out before.”

_A. von Chamisso_ (1781-1838).

_THE GHOST OF DR. ASCHER._

THE night I spent at Goslar something very remarkable occurred. Terror seizes me even now as I think back. I am not timid by nature, but I have a mortal terror of ghosts. What is fear? Is it a product of the understanding or of the soul? About this question I had many a discussion with Dr. Saul Ascher in Berlin when we met in the Café Royal, where I used to dine. He would have it that we fear a thing because our reason recognises therein due cause for terror. While I was eating and drinking to my satisfaction he was fond of constantly demonstrating the fine qualities of Reason. Toward the end of his demonstration he would look at his watch, and he always ended with: “Reason is the highest principle!” Reason! When I so much as hear the word I see before me Dr. Ascher with his abstract legs, his tight waistcoat of transcendental grey, and his harsh bitter-cold face, which might have served as a title-vignette to a book on geometry. The man was a straight line personified. In his search after the Positive the poor man had philosophised all grandeur out of life, all sunbeams, all faith, and all flowers, and all that remained to him was a cold, positive grave. He cherished a pet aversion for the Apollo of Belvedere and for Christianity. He even went so far as to write a pamphlet about the latter, proving it to be unreasonable and untenable. Indeed he wrote a host of books, in each of which Reason brags of its own excellence. The poor Doctor was serious enough about it, and in this respect they deserve esteem. But it was just this which was the best joke of all--that he would put on so fatuously serious a mien when he could not understand what every child understands by very reason of its childhood. I called upon this reasonable Doctor in his own house once or twice, and I found beautiful women there, for Reason does not forbid sensuality. Once when I intended to call upon him his servant said: “The Doctor has just died.” It did not impress me any more strongly than if he had said: “The Doctor is gone out.”

But to return to Goslar. “The highest principle is Reason!” I said consolingly to myself as I got into bed. It did not answer the purpose, however. I had just been reading that horrible story in Varnhagen von Ense’s _Deutsche Erzählungen_, which I had brought with me from Clansthal, how a son, whose father intended to murder him, was warned at night by his mother’s ghost. The marvellous effectiveness of the story caused me to shiver with horror while reading. Then, too, ghost stories excite the most uncanny sensations when read on a journey, and especially at night in a town, in a house, in a room where one has never been. How many horrible things may have happened upon this very spot where I am now lying? One cannot refrain from conjecturing. Moreover, the moon shone so doubtfully into the room; all sorts of uncalled-for shadows were moving along the wall, and when I raised myself in bed to look closer, I saw----

There is nothing more weird than to come unintentionally upon one’s own face in a mirror by the light of the moon. At the same moment a lumbering sleepy clock began to strike, and, moreover, it struck so long and so slowly that after the twelfth stroke I verily believed twelve hours had gone by, and it would have to begin over again and strike twelve once more. Between the last beat and the last but one, another clock struck very rapidly with a rasping shrillness, put out of temper perhaps by the dulness of its kinswoman. When at last both iron tongues subsided and the silence of death reigned in the house, it seemed to me suddenly as if I heard something slur and drag along the passage just outside of my door like the unsteady gait of a man. At last my door was opened, and slowly the late Dr. Saul Ascher walked into my room. A cold chill passed through my bones. I trembled like a leaf, and hardly did I dare to look at the ghost. He looked just the same as ever--the same transcendental grey waistcoat, the same abstract legs, and the same mathematical face; only that the latter was a little yellower than I remembered it, and the mouth, which had always formed two angles of 22½ degrees, was tightly shut, and the circles of his eyes had a longer radius. Wavering and leaning, as had been his custom, upon a slender stick, he approached me, and in his usual lazy dialect said pleasantly, “Do not be afraid, and don’t believe me to be a ghost. It is an illusion of the senses if you imagine you see a ghost. What is a ghost? Give me a definition. Deduce the conditions for the possibility of a ghost. In what reasonable relation to your reason would such a phenomenon be! Reason, I say Reason----”

And now the ghost proceeded to analyse Reason, quoting Kant, Part 2, Division 1, Book 2, Proposition 3, “The distinction between phenomena and noumena,” constructing the problematic belief in ghosts, piling syllogism upon syllogism with the logical conclusion that there is positively no such thing as a ghost. All the while the perspiration was cold upon my back, my teeth were chattering; in my terror I nodded unqualified assent to every sentence in which the spook-doctor had proved the absurdity of my fears, and the latter was demonstrating so eagerly that in a moment of abstraction, instead of his gold watch he pulled a handful of worms out of his vest pocket, and discovering his error he replaced them with ridiculous nervous haste. “Reason is the highest----” The clock struck one, and the ghost vanished.

_Heinrich Heine_ (1799-1856).

_TOURISTS AT THE BROCKEN._

UPON entering the Brocken-house a somewhat unusual romantic mood came over me. After long and lonely wanderings among rocks and hemlocks, one seems suddenly transported to a house in the clouds. I found the house full of guests; and as it becomes a man of wise foresight, I thought of the night and of the discomfort pertaining to a couch of straw. With a dying voice I ordered tea, whereupon the Herr host was so reasonable as to be convinced that an invalid like me must needs have a decent bed.... Having refreshed myself, I climbed up to the look-out, and found a diminutive gentleman with two ladies, one young, the other elderly. When I was a boy I thought of nothing but of wondrous fairy-tales, and every pretty woman with ostrich feathers on her head I took to be a fairy-queen. If by good chance the hem of her dress was bedraggled, I took her for a water-nymph. Had I looked upon the fair one with those boyish eyes, had I seen her then upon the Brocken, I should certainly have said to myself, this is the sylph of the mountain, and she has just uttered the charm which makes all below appear so wondrously beautiful. What relation the very lithe gentleman bore to the ladies whom he accompanied I could not ascertain. His was a thin peculiar figure. His little head, sparsely covered with grey hair, which fell over his low forehead nearly to his pale greenish eyes; his clumsy nose far protruding; his mouth and chin timidly drawing back in the direction of his ears. This little face seemed to be modelled out of a certain kind of delicate, yellowish clay, such as sculptors use for their first design; and when his narrow lips were shut tight, a thousand little folds, light and semi-circular, covered his cheeks. The little man did not say a word, only now and then, when the elder lady whispered something kind to him, he would smile like a pug with a cold in his head.... While we were speaking it began to grow dusk; the air grew chillier, the sun sank lower, and students, travelling journeymen, and a couple of honest bourgeois with their wives and daughters, crowded upon the platform to see the sunset. It is a marvellous sight, tuning the soul to prayer. During a quarter of an hour we all stood in solemn silence, and saw the gorgeous globe of fire slowly sink in the west; our faces reflected the evening glory, our hands were folded involuntarily; it seemed as if we stood a silent congregation in the aisle of a cathedral, and the priest was holding up the body of the Lord, and from the organ sounded Palestrina’s immortal anthem.

As I stood thus enwrapped in the fervour of devotion, I heard some one calling out beside me, “How beautiful is nature on the whole!” These words proceeded out of the overflowing breast of my room-mate, the young merchant. I was at once landed thereby in my work-day mood, and was now able to make a great many brilliant remarks to the ladies about the sunset. I escorted them to their room as if nothing had happened. I believe we talked about Angora cats, Etruscan vases, Turkish shawls, macaroni, and Lord Byron, from whose poems the elder lady recalled some sunset passages, which she recited with a pretty lisp and sigh. To the younger lady, who did not know English, and expressed a wish to read these poems, I recommended some excellent translations. Upon this occasion I did not fail to declaim, as it is my custom to do when conversing with young ladies, against Byron’s impiety, heartlessness, hopelessness, and heaven knows what all.

It was the coffee’s fault that I had forgotten my pretty lady. She was standing outside of the door with her mother and companion, preparing to get into the carriage. There was but just time for me to step up to her briskly and assure her that it was cold. She seemed displeased that I had not come sooner; but I smoothed the pettish frown from her fair brow by bestowing a wonderful flower upon her, which I had picked the day before from a steep precipice at the danger of breaking my neck. Her mother demanded the name of the flower, considering it improper as it were for her daughter to wear a strange, unknown flower upon her bosom. Her taciturn companion unexpectedly opened his mouth, counted the stamens of the flower, and dryly remarked that it belonged to the eighth class. It aggravates me when I see how God’s dear flowers are parcelled off into classes as well as we, and indeed, according to a method no less superficial--viz., the difference in the number of stamens. If there must be subdivision, it would be well to follow the suggestion of Theophrast, who would have flowers classified according to their spirit--that is, their fragrance. So far as I am concerned, I have my own system in natural science, and according to it I classify all things--into those that are good to eat, and those that are not.

_Heinrich Heine._

_MY APPRECIATIVE FRIEND._

HE called my attention to the utility and perfect adaptation of nature. The trees are green, it seems, because green is good for one’s eyes. I assented, and added that God has created cattle, because broth is strengthening to men, and that he has created asses that we might have a means of comparison, and that he has created man himself to eat broth and be no ass. My companion was enchanted to have found a congenial spirit; his countenance beamed happiness, and at parting he seemed deeply touched.

_Heinrich Heine._

“_MADAM, DO YOU KNOW THE OLD PLAY?_”

“She was lovable, and he loved her. But he was not lovable, and she did not love him.”--_Old Play._

MADAM, do you know the old play? It is quite an extraordinary play, only a little too melancholy. I once played the leading part in it myself, so that all the ladies wept; only one did not weep, not even a single tear, and that was the point of the play, the whole catastrophe.

Oh, that single tear! it still torments my thoughts. When Satan wishes to ruin my soul, he hums in my ear a ballad of that unwept tear, a deadly song with a more deadly tune. Ah, such a tune is only heard in hell!

You can readily form an idea, Madam, of what life is like in heaven, the _more_ readily as you are married. There people amuse themselves altogether superbly, every sort of entertainment is provided, and one lives in mere desire and delight. One eats from morning to night, and the cookery is as good as Fagor’s; roast geese fly round with gravy-boats in their bills, and feel flattered if any one eats them; tarts gleaming with butter grow wild like sunflowers; everywhere there are brooks of bouillon and champagne, everywhere trees on which napkins flutter, and you eat and wipe your lips and eat again without injury to your stomach; you sing psalms or flirt and joke with the dear, delicate little angels, or take a walk on the green Hallelujah-meadow; and your white flowing garments fit very comfortably; and nothing disturbs the feeling of blessedness; no pain, no vexation--even when one accidentally treads on another’s corns and exclaims, “_Excusez_,” he smiles as if enraptured, and assures, “Thy foot, brother, did not hurt in the least; quite _au contraire_--a deeper thrill of heavenly rapture shoots through my heart!”

But of hell, Madam, you have no idea. Of all the devils you know perhaps only the little Amor, the pretty croupier of hell, Beelzebub, and you know him only from Don Juan, and doubtless think that for such a betrayer of innocence hell can never be made hot enough, though our praiseworthy theatre directors spend upon him as much flame, fiery rain, powder, and colophoniam as any Christian could desire in hell. But things in hell look much worse than our theatre directors know, or they would not bring out so many bad plays. For in hell it is infernally hot, and when I was there in the dog-days it was past endurance. Madam, you can have no idea of hell! We have very few official returns from the place. Still, it is rank calumny to say that down there all the poor souls are compelled to read the whole day long all the dull sermons that are printed on earth. Bad as hell is, it has not come to that; Satan will never invent such refinements of torture. On the other hand, Dante’s description is too mild on the whole, too poetic. Hell appeared to me like a great kitchen, with an endless long stove, on which stood three rows of iron pots, and in these sat the damned and were cooked. In one row were placed Christian sinners, and, incredible as it may seem, their number was anything but small, and the devils poked the fire up under them with especial good-will. In the next row were Jews, who continually screamed and cried, and were occasionally mocked by the fiends, which sometimes seemed very amusing, as, for instance, when a fat, wheezy, old pawnbroker complained of the heat, and a little devil poured several buckets of cold water on his head, that he might realise what a refreshing benefit baptism was. In the third row sat the heathen, who, like the Jews, could take no part in salvation, and must burn for ever. I heard one of these, as a burly devil put fresh coals under his kettle, cry out from his spot, “Spare me! I was Socrates, the wisest of mortals. I taught Truth and Justice, and sacrificed my life for Virtue.” But the stupid, burly devil went on with his work and grumbled, “Oh, shut up there! All heathens must burn, and we cannot make an exception for the sake of a single man.” I assure you, Madam, the heat was terrible, with such a screaming, sighing, groaning, quacking, grunting, squealing--and through all these terrible sounds rang distinctly the deadly tune of the song of the unwept tear.

“She was lovable, and he loved her. But he was not lovable, and she did not love him.”--_Old Play._

Madam, that old play is a tragedy, though the hero in it is neither killed nor commits suicide. The eyes of the heroine are beautiful, very beautiful. Madam, do you smell the perfume of violets?--very beautiful, and yet so piercing that they struck like poignards of glass through my heart, and probably came out through my back, and yet I was not killed by those treacherous, murderous eyes. The voice of the heroine was also sweet. Madam, did you hear a nightingale just then?--a soft silken voice, a sweet web of the sunniest tones, and my soul was entangled in it and choked, and tormented itself. I myself--it is the Count of Ganges who now speaks, and the story goes on in Venice--I myself soon had enough of these tortures, and had thoughts of putting an end to the play in the first act, and of shooting myself through the head, fool’s cap and all. I went to a fancy shop in the Via Burstah, where I saw a pair of beautiful pistols in a case--I remember them perfectly well. Near them stood many pleasant playthings of mother-of-pearl and gold, steel hearts on gilt chains, porcelain cups with delicate devices, and snuff-boxes with pretty pictures, such as the divine history of Susanna, the Swan Song of Leda, the Rape of the Sabines, Lucretia, a fat, virtuous creature, with naked bosom, in which she was lazily sticking a dagger; the late Bethmann, _la belle Ferronière_--all enrapturing faces--but I bought the pistols without much ado, and then I bought balls, then powder, and then I went to the restaurant of Signor Somebody and ordered oysters and a glass of Hock.

I could eat nothing, and still less could I drink. The warm tears fell in the glass, and in that glass I saw my dear home, the holy, blue Ganges, the ever-gleaming Himalaya, the giant banyan woods, amid whose broad arcades calmly wandered wise elephants and white-robed pilgrims; strange, dream-like flowers gazed on me with meaning glance, wondrous golden birds sang wildly, flashing sun-rays, and the sweet, silly chatter of monkeys pleasantly mocked me; from far pagodas sounded the pious prayers of priests, and amid all rang the melting, wailing voice of the Sultana of Delhi. She ran impetuously around in her carpeted chamber, she tore her silver veil, with her peacock fan she struck the black slave to the ground, she wept, she raged, she cried. I could not, however, hear what she said; the restaurant of Signor Somebody is three thousand miles distant from the harem of Delhi, besides the fair sultana had been dead three thousand years, and I quickly drank up the wine, the clear, joy-giving wine, and yet my soul grew darker and sadder--I was condemned to death.

As I left the restaurant I heard the “bell of poor sinners” ring, a crowd of people swept by me; but I placed myself at the corner of the Strada San Giovanni, and recited the following monologue:--

In ancient tales they tell of golden castles,
Where harps are sounding, lovely ladies dance,
And gay attendants gleam, and jessamine,
Myrtle, and roses spread their soft perfume--
And yet a single word of sad enchantment
Sweeps all the glory of the scene to naught,
And there remain but ruins old and grey,
And screaming birds of night and foul morass.
Even so have I, with but a single word,
Enchanted Nature’s blooming loveliness.
There lies she now, lifeless, cold, and pale,
Just like a monarch’s corse laid out in state,
The royal deathly cheeks fresh stained with rouge,
And in his hand the kingly sceptre laid,
Yet still his lips are yellow, and most changed,
For they forgot to dye them, as they should,
And mice are jumping o’er the monarch’s nose,
And mock the golden sceptre in his grasp.

It is everywhere agreed, Madam, that one should deliver a soliloquy before shooting himself. Most men on such occasions use Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be.” It is an excellent passage, and I would gladly have quoted it--but charity begins at home, and when a man has written tragedies himself, in which such farewell-to-life speeches occur as, for instance, in my immortal _Almansor_, it is very natural that one should prefer his own words even to Shakespeare’s. At any rate, the delivery of such speeches is a very useful custom; one gains at least a little time. And so it came to pass that I remained a rather long time standing at the corner Strada San Giovanni--and as I stood there like a condemned criminal awaiting death, I raised my eyes and suddenly beheld her. She wore her blue silk dress and rose-red hat, and her eyes looked at me so mildly, so death-conqueringly, so life-givingly--Madam, you well know, out of Roman history, that when the vestals in ancient Rome met on their way a malefactor led to death they had the right to pardon him, and the poor rogue lived. With a single glance she saved me from death, and I stood before her revived, and dazzled by the sunbeams of her beauty, and she passed on--and left me alive.

And she left me alive, and I live, which is the main point.

Others may, if they choose, enjoy the good fortune of having their lady-love adorn their grave with garlands, and water them with the tears of fidelity. Oh, women! hate me, laugh at me, jilt me, but let me live! Life is all too laughably sweet, and the world too delightfully bewildered; it is the dream of an intoxicated god, who has taken French leave of the carousing multitude of immortals, and has laid himself down to sleep in a solitary star, and knows not himself that he created all that he dreams--and the dream-images form themselves in such a mad, variegated fashion, and often so harmoniously reasonable--the Iliad, Plato, the battle of Marathon, Moses, Medician Venus, Strasburg Cathedral, the French Revolution, Hegel, the steamboat, etc., etc., are single good thoughts in this divine dream--but it will not last long, and the god awakes, and rubs his sleepy eyes, and smiles--and our world has run to nothing--yes, has never been.

No matter! I live. If I am but a shadowy image in a dream, still this is better than the cold, black, void, annihilation of Death. Life is the greatest good, and death the worst evil. Berlin lieutenants of the guard may sneer and call it cowardice because the Prince of Homburg shudders when he beholds his open grave. Henry Kleist had, however, as much courage as his high-breasted, tightly-laced colleagues, and has, alas! proved it. But all strong men love life. Goethe’s Egmont does not part willingly from the “cheerful wont of being and working.” Immermann’s Edwin clings to life “like a little child to his mother’s breast,” and though he finds it hard to live by stranger mercy, he still begs for mercy: “For life and breath is still the highest.”

When Odysseus in the under-world sees Achilles as the leader of dead heroes, and extols his renown among the living, and his glory even among the dead, Achilles answers--

“No more discourse of death consolingly, noble Odysseus!
Rather would I in the field as daily labourer be toiling,
Slave to the meanest of men, a pauper and lacking possessions,
Than ’mid the infinite host of long-vanished mortals be ruler.”

Yes, when Major Duvent challenged the great Israel Lyon to fight with pistols, and said to him, “If you do not meet me, Mr. Lyon, you are a dog;” the latter replied, “I would rather be a live dog than a dead lion!” and he was right. I have fought often enough, Madam, to dare to say this, God be praised! I live! Red life pulses in my veins; earth yields beneath my feet; in the glow of love I embrace trees and statues, and they live in my embrace. Every woman is to me the gift of a world. I revel in the melody of her countenance, and with a single glance of my eye I can enjoy more than others with their every limb through all their lives. Every instant is to me an eternity. I do not measure time with the ell of Brabant or of Hamburg, and I need no priest to promise me a second life, for I can live enough in this life, when I live backwards in the life of those who have gone before me, and win myself an eternity in the realm of the past.

And I live! The great pulsation of nature beats too in my breast; and when I carol aloud I am answered by a thousandfold echo. I hear a thousand nightingales. Spring has sent them to awaken earth from her morning slumber, and earth trembles with ecstasy. Her flowers are hymns, which she sings in inspiration to the sun. The sun moves far too slowly. I would fain lash on his steeds that they might advance more rapidly. But when he sinks hissing in the sea, and the night rises with her passionate eyes, oh! then true pleasure first thrills through me, the evening breezes lie like flattering maidens on my wild heart, and the stars wink to me, and I rise and sweep over the little earth and the little thoughts of men.

Madam, I have deceived you. I am not the Count of the Ganges. Never in my life have I seen the holy stream, nor the lotus-flowers which are mirrored in its sacred waves. Never did I lie dreaming under Indian palms, nor in prayer before the Diamond Deity Juggernaut, who with his diamonds might have easily aided me out of my difficulties. I have no more been in Calcutta than the turkey, of which I ate yesterday at dinner, had ever been in the realms of the Grand Turk. Yet my ancestors came from Hindustan, and therefore I feel so much at my ease in the great forest of song of Valmiki. The heroic sorrows of the divine Ramo move my heart like familiar griefs; from the flower lays of Kalidasa the sweetest memories bloom; and when a few years ago a gentle lady in Berlin showed me the beautiful pictures which her father, who had been Governor in India, had brought from thence, the delicately-painted, holy, calm faces seemed as familiar to me as though I were gazing at my own family gallery.

Franz Bopp, Madam--you have of course read his _Nalus_ and his system of Sanscrit Conjugations--gave me much information relative to my ancestry, and I now know with certainty that I am descended from Brahma’s head, and not from his corns. I have also good reason to believe that the entire Mahabarata, with its two hundred thousand verses, is merely an allegorical love-letter which my first fore-father wrote to my first fore-mother. Oh, they loved dearly; their souls kissed, they kissed with their eyes; they were both but one single kiss.

An enchanted nightingale sits on a red coral bough in the silent sea, and sings a song of the love of my ancestors; the pearls gaze eagerly from their shells, the wonderful water-flowers tremble with sorrow, the cunning sea-snails, bearing on their backs many-coloured porcelain towers, come creeping onwards, the ocean roses blush with shame, the yellow, sharp-pointed starfish and the thousand-hued glassy jelly-fish quiver and stretch, and all swarm and listen.

Unfortunately, Madam, this nightingale song is far too long to be set down here; it is as long as the world itself. Even its dedication to Anangas, the God of Love, is as long as all Scott’s novels; and there is a passage referring to it in Aristophanes, which in German reads thus--

“Tiotio, tiotio, tiotinx,
Totototo, totototo, tototinx.”

No, I was not born in India. I first beheld the light of the world on the shore of that beautiful stream on whose green hills folly grows and is plucked in autumn, laid away in cellars, poured into barrels, and exported to foreign lands. In fact, only yesterday I heard some one speaking a piece of folly, which in the year 1811 was imprisoned in a bunch of grapes which I myself then saw growing on the Johannisberg. But much folly is also consumed at home, and men are the same there as everywhere; they are born, eat, drink, sleep, laugh, cry, slander each other, are greatly troubled about the propagation of their race, try to seem what they are not, and to do what they cannot; never shave until they have a beard, and often have beards before they get discretion; and when they have at last discretion, they drink it away in white and red folly.

_Mon dieu!_ If I had faith, so that I could remove mountains--the Johannisberg would be just the mountain which I would carry with me everywhere. But as my faith is not strong enough, imagination must aid me, and she quickly sets me by the beautiful Rhine.

Oh, that is a fair land, full of loveliness and sunshine. In the blue stream are mirrored the mountain shores, with their ruined towers and woods and ancient towns. There, before the house-door, sit the good townspeople of a summer evening, and drink out of great cans, and gossip confidentially about how the wine--the Lord be praised!--thrives, and how justice should be free from all secrecy, and how Marie Antoinette’s being guillotined is none of our business, and how dear the tobacco tax makes tobacco, and how all mankind are equal, and what a glorious fellow Goerres is.

I have never troubled myself about such conversation, and sat rather with the maidens in the arched window, and laughed at their laughter, and let them throw flowers in my face, and pretended to be ill-natured until they told me their secrets, or some other important stories. Fair Gertrude was half wild with delight when I sat by her. She was a girl like a flaming rose; and once, as she fell on my neck, I thought that she would burn away into perfume in my arms. Fair Katharine flamed into sweet music when she talked with me; and her eyes were of a pure, internal blue, which I have never seen in men or animals, and very seldom in flowers; one gazed so gladly into them, and could then think such sweet things. But the beautiful Hedwig loved me, for when I came to her she bowed her head till her black curls fell down over her blushing face, and her bright eyes shone like stars from the dark heaven. Her bashful lips spoke not a word, and I too could say nothing to her. I coughed, and she trembled. She often begged me through her sisters not to climb the rocks so rashly, and not to bathe in the Rhine when I was hot with running or drinking wine. Once I overheard her pious prayer before the Virgin Mary, which she had adorned with gold leaf and illuminated with a lamp, and which stood in a corner at the entrance. I plainly heard her pray to the Mother of God to keep him from climbing, drinking, and bathing. I should certainly have been desperately in love with her if she had been indifferent to me; and I was indifferent to her, because I knew that she loved me. Madam, to win my love, I must be treated _en canaille_.

Johanna was the cousin of the three sisters, and I was glad to be with her. She knew the most beautiful old legends, and when she pointed with her white hand through the window out to the mountains where all had happened which she narrated, I became enchanted; the old knights rose visibly from the ruined castles, and hewed away at each other’s iron clothes, the Loreley sat again on the mountain summit, singing adown her sweet, seductive song, and the Rhine rippled so reasonably soothing--and yet so mockingly horrible--and the fair Johanna looked at me so strangely, with such enigmatic tenderness, that she seemed herself one with the legend that she told. She was a slender, pale girl, sickly and musing; her eyes were clear as truth itself; her lips piously arched; in her face lay a great story. Was it a love legend? I know not, and I never had the courage to ask. When I looked at her long I grew calm and cheerful; it seemed to me as though it was Sunday in my heart, and the angels held service there.

In such happy hours I told her tales of my childhood, and she listened earnestly, and strangely, when I could not think of the names, she remembered them. When I then asked her with wonder how she knew the names, she would answer with a smile that she had learned it of the birds that had built a nest on the sill of her window; and she tried to make me believe that these were the same birds which I once bought with my pocket-money from a hard-hearted peasant-boy, and then let fly away. But I believed that she knew everything, because she was so pale, and really soon died. She knew, too, when she would die, and wished that I would leave Adernach the day before. When I bade her farewell she gave me both her hands; they were white, sweet hands, and pure as the frost; and she said, “You are very good, and when you are not, think of the little dead Veronica.”

Did the chattering birds also tell her this name? Often in hours of remembrance I had wearied my brain in trying to think of that dear name, but could not.

And now that I have it again, my earliest infancy shall bloom into memory again, and I am again a child, and play with other children in the Castle Court at Düsseldorf, on the Rhine.

Yes, Madam, there was I born, and I am particular in calling attention to the fact, lest after my death seven cities--those of Schilda, Krähwinkel, Polkwitz, Bockum, Dülken, Göttingen, and Schöppenstadt[2]--should contend for the honour of being my birthplace. Düsseldorf is a town on the Rhine, sixteen thousand people live there, and many hundred thousands besides are buried there; and among them are many of whom my mother says it were better if they were still alive--for example, my grandfather and my uncle, the old Herr von Geldern and the young Herr von Geldern, who were both such celebrated doctors, and saved the life of so many men, and yet must both die themselves. And pious Ursula, who carried me as a child in her arms, also lies buried there, and a rosebush grows over her grave; she loved rose-perfume so much in her life, and her earth was all rose-perfume and goodness. And the shrewd old Canonicus also lies there buried. Lord, how miserable he looked when I last saw him! He consisted of nothing but soul and plasters, and yet he studied night and day as though he feared lest the warmth might find a few ideas missing in his head. Little William also lies there--and that is my fault. We were schoolmates in the Franciscan cloister, and were one day playing on that side of the building where the Düssel flows between stone walls, and I said, “William, do get the kitten out, which has just fallen in!” and he cheerfully climbed out on the board which stretched over the brook, and pulled the cat out of the water, but fell in himself, and when they took him out he was cold and dead. The kitten lived to a good old age.

The town of Düsseldorf is very beautiful, and if you think of it when in foreign lands, and happen at the same time to have been born there, strange feelings come over the soul. I was born there, and feel as if I must go directly home. And when I say home, I mean the Volkerstrasse, and the house where I was born. This house will be some day very remarkable, and I have sent word to the old lady who owns it that she must not for her life sell it. For the whole house she would now hardly get as much as the present which the green-veiled, distinguished English ladies will give the servant when she shows them the room where I was born, and the hen-house wherein my father generally imprisoned me for stealing grapes, and also the brown door on which my mother taught me to write with chalk. Ah me! should I ever become a famous author, it has cost my poor mother trouble enough.

But my fame still slumbers in the marble quarries of Carrara; the waste-paper laurel with which they have bedecked my brow has not yet spread its perfume through the wide world, and when the green-veiled, distinguished English ladies visit Düsseldorf, they leave the celebrated house unvisited, and go direct to the Market Place, and there gaze on the colossal black equestrian statue which stands in its midst. This represents the Prince-Elector, Jan Wilhelm. He wears black armour and a long hanging wig. When a boy I was told that the artist who made this statue observed with terror while it was being cast that he had not metal enough, and then all the citizens of the town came running with all their silver spoons, and threw them in to fill the mould; and I often stood for hours before the statue puzzling my head as to how many spoons were sticking in it, and how many apple-tarts all that silver would buy. Apple-tarts were then my passion--now it is love, truth, freedom, and crab-soup--and not far from the statue of the Prince-Elector, at the theatre corner, generally stood a curiously constructed sabre-legged rascal, with a white apron and a basket girt around him full of smoking apple-tarts, which he knew how to praise with an irresistible treble voice. “Apple-tarts! quite fresh, so delicious!” Truly, whenever in my later years the Evil One sought to win me, he always cried in such an enticing treble, and I should certainly have never remained twelve hours by the Signora Guilietta if she had not thrilled me with her sweet, fragrant, apple-tart tones. And, in fact, the apple-tarts would never have so enticed me if the crooked Hermann had not covered them up so mysteriously with his white apron; and it is aprons, you know, which--but I wander from the subject. I was speaking of the equestrian statue which has so many silver spoons in its body and no soup, and which represents the Prince-Elector, Jan Wilhelm.

He must have been a brave gentleman, very fond of art, and skilful himself. He founded the picture-gallery in Düsseldorf, and in the observatory there they show a very artistic piece of woodwork which he himself had carved in his leisure hours, of which latter he had every day four-and-twenty.

In those days princes were not the persecuted wretches which they now are; the crown grew firmly on their heads, and at night they drew their night-caps over it and slept peacefully, and their people slumbered peacefully at their feet; and when they awoke in the morning they said, “Good morning, father!” and he replied, “Good morning, dear children!”

But there came a sudden change over all this. One morning when we awoke in Düsseldorf and would say, “Good morning, father,” the father had travelled away, and in the whole town there was nothing but dumb sorrow. Everywhere there was a funeral-like expression, and people slipped silently to the market and read the long paper on the door of the Town Hall. It was bad weather, yet the lean tailor Kilian stood in his nankeen jacket, which he generally wore only at home, and his blue woollen stockings hung down so that his little bare legs peeped out in a troubled way, and his thin lips quivered as he murmured the placard. An old invalid soldier from the Palatine read it rather louder, and at some words a clear tear ran down his white, honourable old moustache. I stood near him, crying too, and asked why we were crying. And he replied, “The Prince-Elector has abdicated.” And then he read further, and at the words, “for the long manifested fidelity of my subjects,” “and hereby release you from allegiance,” he wept still more. It is a strange sight to see, when an old man, in faded uniform and scarred veteran’s face, suddenly bursts into tears. While we read the Prince-Electoral coat-of-arms was being taken down from the Town Hall, and everything began to appear as anxiously dreary as though we were waiting for an eclipse of the sun. The town councillors went about at an abdicating, wearisome gait; even the omnipotent beadle looked as though he had no more commands to give, and stood calmly indifferent, although the crazy Aloysius stood upon one leg and chattered the names of French generals with foolish grimaces, while the tipsy, crooked Gumpertz rolled around in the gutter singing _ça ira! ça ira!_

But I went home crying and lamenting, “The Prince-Elector has abdicated.” My mother might do what she would, I knew what I knew, and went crying to bed, and in the night dreamed that the world had come to an end--the fair flower-gardens and green meadows of the world were taken up and rolled away like carpets from the floor; the beadle climbed up on a high ladder and took down the sun, and the tailor Kilian stood by and said to himself, “I must go home and dress myself neatly, for I am dead, and am to be buried this afternoon.” And it grew darker and darker--a few stars glimmered on high, and even these fell down like yellow leaves in autumn; men gradually vanished, and I, poor child, wandered in anguish around, until before the willow fence of a deserted farmhouse I saw a man digging up the earth with a spade, and near him an ugly, spiteful-looking woman, who held something in her apron like a human head, but it was the moon, and she laid it carefully in the open grave; and behind me stood the Palatine soldier sobbing and spelling, “The Prince-Elector has abdicated.”

When I awoke, the sun shone as usual through the window; there was a sound of drums in the street; and as I entered our sitting-room and wished my father, who sat in his white dressing-gown, good morning, I heard the little light-footed barber, as he made up his hair, narrate very minutely that homage would that morning be offered at the Town Hall to the Archduke Joachim. I heard too that the new ruler was of excellent family, that he had married the sister of the Emperor Napoleon, and was really a very respectable man; that he wore his beautiful black hair in curls; that he would shortly enter the town, and would certainly please all the ladies. Meanwhile the drumming in the streets continued, and I stood before the house-door and looked at the French troops marching--those joyous and famous people who swept over the world--singing and playing, the merry, serious faces of the Grenadiers, the bear-skin shakoes, the tri-coloured cockades, the glittering bayonets, the _voltigeurs_ full of vivacity and _point d’honneur_, and the giant-like, silver-laced tambour major, who cast his _baton_ with the gilded head as high as the first storey, and his eyes to the second, where pretty girls gazed from the windows. I was so glad that soldiers were to be quartered in our house--my mother was not glad--and I hastened to the Market Place. There everything looked changed; it was as though the world had been new whitewashed. A new coat-of-arms was placed on the Town Hall; its iron balconies were hung with embroidered velvet drapery, French Grenadiers stood as sentinels, the old town councillors had put on new faces and Sunday coats, and looked at each other French fashion, and said, “_Bon jour!_” Ladies peeped from every window, inquisitive citizens and soldiers filled the square, and I, with other boys, climbed on the shining Prince-Elector’s great bronze horse, and looked down on the motley crowd.

Neighbour Peter and Long Conrad nearly broke their necks on this occasion, and that would have been well, for the one afterwards ran away from his parents, enlisted as a soldier, deserted, and was finally shot in Mayence; while the other, having made geographical researches in strange pockets, became a working member of a public tread-mill institute. But having broken the iron bands which bound him to his fatherland, he passed safely beyond sea, and eventually died in London, in consequence of wearing a much too long cravat, one end of which happened to be firmly attached to something just as a royal official removed a plank from beneath his feet.

Long Conrad told us that there was no school to-day on account of the homage. We had to wait a long time till this was over. At last the balcony of the Council House was filled with gay gentlemen, flags and trumpets; and our burgomaster, in his celebrated red coat, delivered an oration, which stretched out like india-rubber, or like a night-cap into which one has thrown a stone--only that it was not the stone of wisdom--and I could distinctly understand many of his phrases; for instance, that “We are now to be made happy”--and at the last words the trumpets and drums sounded, and the flags waved, and the people cried hurrah!--and as I, myself, cried hurrah! I held fast to the old Prince-Elector. And that was necessary, for I began to grow giddy; it seemed to me that the people were standing on their heads while the world whizzed round, and the Prince-Elector, with his long wig, nodded and whispered, “Hold fast to me!” and not till the cannon re-echoed along the wall did I become sobered, and climbed slowly down from the great bronze horse.

As I went home I saw crazy Aloysius again dancing on one leg while he chattered the names of French generals, and crooked Gumpertz was rolling in the gutter drunk and growling _ça ira, ça ira_--and I said to my mother that we were all to be made happy, and so there was no school to-day.

The next day the world was again all in order, and we had school as before, and things were got by heart as before--the Roman kings, chronology--the _nomina_ in _im_, the _verba irregularia_--Greek, Hebrew, geography, German, mental arithmetic--Lord! my head is still giddy with it!--all must be learnt by heart. And much of it was eventually to my advantage. For had I not learnt the Roman kings by heart it would subsequently have been a matter of perfect indifference to me whether Niebuhr had or had not proved that they never really existed. And had I not learnt chronology how could I ever in later years have found out any one in Berlin, where one house is as like another as drops of water, or as grenadiers, and where it is impossible to find a friend unless you have the number of his house in your head. Therefore I associated with every friend some historical event which had happened in a year corresponding to the number of his house, so that the one recalled the other, and some curious point in history always occurred to me whenever I met an acquaintance. For instance, when I met my tailor I at once thought of the battle of Marathon; if I saw the well-dressed banker, Christian Gumpel, I remembered the destruction of Jerusalem; if a Portuguese friend, deeply in debt, of the flight of Mahomet; if the University Judge, a man whose probity is well known, of the death of Haman; and if Wadzeek, I was at once reminded of Cleopatra. _Ach, lieber Himmel!_ the poor creature is dead now; our tears are dry, and we may say of her with Hamlet, “Take her for all in all; she was a hag--we oft shall look upon her like again!” As I said, chronology is necessary. I know men who have nothing in their heads but a few years, yet who knew exactly where to look for the right houses, and are, moreover, regular professors. But oh! the trouble I had at school with dates!--and it went even worse with arithmetic. I understood _subtraction_ best, and for this I had a very practical rule--“Four from three won’t go, I must borrow one;” but I advise every one, in such a case, to borrow a few extra shillings, for one never knows.

But as for the Latin, Madam, you can really have no idea how muddled it is. The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin. Those happy people knew in their cradles the nouns with an accusative in _im_. I, on the contrary, had to learn them by heart in the sweat of my brow; but still it is well that I knew them. For if, for example, when I publicly disputed in Latin, in the College Hall of Göttingen, on the 20th of July 1825--Madam, it was well worth while to hear it--if, I say, I had said _sinapen_ instead of _sinapim_, the blunder would have been evident to the Freshmen, and an endless shame for me. _Vis buris_, _sitis_, _tussis_, _cuiumis_, _amussis_, _cannabis_, _sinapis_--these words, which have attracted so much attention in the world, effected this, because they belonged to a determined class, and yet were exceptions; on that account I value them highly, and the fact that I have them ready at my finger’s ends when I perhaps need them in a hurry affords me in many dark hours of life much internal tranquillity and consolation. But, Madam, the _verba irregularia_--they are distinguished from the _verbis regularibus_ by the fact that in learning them one gets more whippings--are terribly difficult. In the damp arches of the Franciscan cloister, near our schoolroom, there hung a large crucified Christ of grey wood, a dismal image, that even yet at times marches through my dreams, and gazes sorrowfully on me with fixed, bleeding eyes--before this image I often stood and prayed, “Oh, thou poor and equally tormented God, if it be possible for Thee, see that I get by heart the irregular verbs!”

I will say nothing of Greek; I should irritate myself too much. The monks of the Middle Ages were not so very much in the wrong when they asserted that Greek was an invention of the devil. Lord knows what I suffered through it. It went better with Hebrew, for I always had a great predilection for the Jews, although they to this very hour have crucified my good name; but I never could get so far in Hebrew as my watch, which had an intimate intercourse with pawnbrokers, and in consequence acquired many Jewish habits--for instance, it would not go on Saturday--and learned the holy language, and was subsequently occupied with its grammar, for often when sleepless in the night I have to my amazement heard it industriously repeating--_Katal, katalta, katalki; kittel, kittalta, kittalki; pokat, pokadeti; pikat, pik, pik_.

Meanwhile I learned much more German, and that is not such child’s-play. For we poor Germans, who have already been sufficiently plagued with soldiers quartered on us, military duties, poll-taxes, and a thousand other exactions, must needs over and above all this torment each other with accusatives and datives. I learned much German from the old Rector Schallmeyer, a brave clerical gentleman, whose _protégé_ I was from childhood. Something of the matter I also learned from Professor Schram, a man who had written a book on Eternal Peace, and in whose class my schoolfellows fought with especial vigour.