Chapter V: Part 5

My companions took my hilarity as an expression of courage and valour. Thinking, therefore, the right moment had now come, they conducted me into a large hall where the position of the enemy had been marked on the floor with chalk. A freshman considered it a high honour to be permitted to carry my rapier, as sword and sceptre were carried before the ancient emperors. It was a well-made weapon of finest steel, with a large hilt offering at the same time a protection for the hand.

At last we stood facing each other. The student of theology put on a fierce expression and looked upon me with an air of disdain, which strengthened me in my purpose of setting a right handsome mark upon him.

We put ourselves into the traditional posture, the blades were crossed, the seconds yelled “Ready!” and our rapiers whizzed through the air, and fell clinking upon the hilts. I confined myself to parrying the really masterly and artistic cuts of my opponent. I knew that my glory would be the greater if I merely defended myself at first and then gave him his deserts in the fourth or fifth round.

Applause followed each pass. Never had there been such bold and decisive attacks, never such dignified and cold-blooded self-defence. My skill in fencing was lifted up into the seventh heaven by old hands, and there was much curiosity and conjecture as to my tactics of retaliation. No one dared urge me to the onset.

Four rounds had passed without one thrust that had drawn blood. Before stepping forth for the fifth, I pointed out to my comrades the spot on my theologian’s right cheek where I intended to hit him. He seemed to get wind of my purpose, put himself under cover as much as possible, and carefully abstained from venturing an attack on his part. I began with a superb feint, which was received with an admiring “Ah!”, made a couple of regular thrusts, and with a clap my rapier was in his cheek.

The honest theologian was very much taken aback. My second and witness rushed up to him with a tape-measure, examined the wound, and said in a solemn voice, “It is more than an inch, and it gaps horribly, so ‘Abfuhr!’” Which is as much as to say, the poor boy having a hole in his face an inch long, his honour has been vindicated.

Now my friends crowded about me; the elder grasped my hands, the younger gazed with veneration upon the weapon with which the deed, surpassing anything in history, had been done. For who could boast of first having designated the spot he intended to hit, and then hitting it with such marvellous precision?

With a serious mien my opponent’s second stepped up to me, and in the name of the former offered me amity. I approached the invalid, whose wound was just being attended to with needle and thread, and made friends.

“I am greatly indebted to you,” he said, “for having marked me thus. I have been forced to study theology against my will. My father is a country parson, my mother is a pious lady, who would like above all things to see her son in a surplice. But your decisive stroke has altered matters; with a scar reaching from my ear to my mouth there is no church that would have me.”[5]

The companions of the brave theologian looked upon him sympathisingly. Who could measure his sad regrets at the thought of the old parson’s grief, the pious mamma’s despair, when the news of this disaster should reach them? But to me it seemed like a great piece of good luck for the youth to be given back to the world by so short an operation. I asked him to what studies he would now devote himself, and he frankly confessed that the calling of a cuirassier or of an actor had always seemed chiefly attractive to him.

I felt like embracing him for this happy thought, for it is in these very professions that I have most of my friends and adherents. I advised him urgently to follow the bend of nature, and promised to supply him with the best recommendations to distinguished generals and to the most notable stages.

As for all the persons in any way connected with this remarkable duel, I gave them an excellent dinner, in which of course I included my opponent and his followers. I then privately paid the debts of the quondam theologian, and when he had recovered I supplied him with money and letters, which opened a right jolly and brilliant career to him.

Neither the elegant conclusion of the duel nor my unobtrusive charity remained a secret. I was now looked upon as a being of a higher order, and I know many a young lady who shed tears over my generous sentiments.

The students of medicine sent a deputation presenting me with a superb rapier, because, as they thought, I had fought on behalf of the faultless odour of their anatomy-room.

_Wilhelm Hauff._

_EDITORIAL CO-OPERATION._

“AS our paper must needs be very universal,” I said, “and as there should be something in the title to express this tendency, how would it do to call it ‘Literary Provender’?”

“That would not be bad; there might be a vignette representing the public as a bevy of fowls clustering about the Muse, who is cutting up food for them; but it will not do. Some might take offence at Provender; it might seem as if only the leavings from the great dinner-table of literature were to be served to the public. It won’t do!”

“Well, then,--‘Evening-Bells.’”

“‘Evening-Bells?’ Ah, indeed. That is an idea! There is something so soft and soothing about the word. I’ll make a note of the suggestion. But we should have to have a critical supplement. I have been thinking we might call it ‘The Distiller.’”

“It is very expressive,” I replied; “it is quite customary in these times to subject books to a chemical process of review or criticism; the distillation is carried on until the spirit sought for has evaporated, or until the learned chemist can announce to the world what all the different elements were that combined in the decoction he analysed. But with such a name the paper might appear to smell of the gin-shop. How would it strike you to call it ‘The Critical Chimney-Sweep’?”

The publisher gazed at me in silence for a moment, and then embraced me with emotion. “An idea,” he cried; “a remarkable idea! What a volume of meaning there is in the word! German literature is the chimney, our reviewers are the sweepers: they scrape down the literary soot, to preserve the house from fire. It must be an extremely radical paper; it must be striking, that is the first thing. ‘The Critical Chimney-Sweep!’ And we will bring the art critiques under the promising title, ‘The Artistic Night-Watch.’” Hastily putting down the names, he continued: “Sir, my guardian-angel has brought you to my door; when I sit by my table writing my mind seems blocked up, but I have often noticed that when I once begin to speak, my thoughts flow like a stream. So when you were speaking of Walter Scott and his influence a glorious idea arose within me. I will make a German Walter Scott.”

“How so? Are you too going to write a novel?”

“I? Dear me, no; I have something better to do; and _one_? no, twenty! If I only had my thoughts all ordered. I am going to procure a great Unknown, and this mysterious personage is to consist of a party of novel-writers; do you understand?”

“It is not quite clear to me, I confess. How will you----?”

“There is nothing that cannot be accomplished with money; I shall address myself to, say, six or eight clever men who have already made their mark in writing novels, invite them here, and offer the proposal that they should join to produce this Walter Scott. They choose the historical subjects and characters, discuss the secondary figures to be introduced, and then----”

“Ah, now I understand your glorious plan; then you will erect a factory like the one at Scheeran. You will send for cuts of all the most romantic scenery in Germany; the costumes of old times can be procured at Berlin; legends and songs can be found in the _Boys’ Wonderhorn_, and other collections. You engage two or three dozen of aspiring young men; your sexavirat, the great Unknown, gives the general plot of the novels, here and there he models and corrects an important character; the twenty-four or thirty-six others write the dialogue, picture towns, scenes, buildings, after nature----”

“And,” he interrupted me gleefully, “as the one has more talent for the delineation of scenery, the other for costumes, the third for conversation, the fourth or fifth for comedy, others for the tragic----”

“Ah, I see; so the young poets will be divided into painters of scenery, tailors of costume, leaders of conversation, comedians, and tragedians, and the novel passes through the hands of each, like the pictures at Campe’s in Nuremberg, where one draws the sky, the other the earth, this one roofs, and that one soldiers, where one paints green, the other blue, the third red, the fourth yellow.”

“And in this way harmony and uniformity would be reached, just as they are in Walter Scott, where all characters have a striking family resemblance. And we’ll have a pocket-edition as cheap as possible; we can count on forty thousand.”

“And the title shall be: ‘The History of Germany, from Hermann the Cheruskian to 1830, in one hundred historical novels!’”

Herr Salzer shed tears of emotion. Having recovered, he seized my hand. “Well, am I not as enterprising as anybody?” he said. “Think of the talk it will make. But to you, most excellent friend, I am indebted for aid in bringing forth this giant thought. Pick out the handsomest book in my shop, and in token of my gratitude I name you to be--one of the twenty-four!”

_Wilhelm Hauff._

_MOZART’S JOURNEY TO PRAGUE._

IT was in the autumn of the year 1787 that Mozart, accompanied by his wife, undertook the journey to Prague to supervise the performance of _Don Juan_.

“The waggon drawn by three horses,” writes the Baroness von T. to her friend, “a stately chaise of reddish yellow, was the property of a certain old Frau Generalin Volkstett, who was fond of setting her relations to the Mozart family, and the kindnesses she bestowed upon the same in the right light.” This hasty description of the vehicle in question can easily be enlarged upon by any connoisseur of the taste of those days. The reddish-yellow chaise was decorated on each side with bouquets of flowers in their natural colours; the edges of the doors bore narrow gilt mouldings; the whole could not by any means boast the glassy varnish of to-day’s Vienna mode; the body was not fully rounded, though drawn in below with a bold, coquettish curve; then there was a high top with stiff leather curtains, which, for the time being, were pushed back.

Regarding the attire of the two passengers there is this to be said. With wise economy Frau Constanze had packed her spouse’s new and splendid garments of state and chosen modest ones for the occasion; with an embroidered vest of somewhat faded blue there was his common brown coat with a row of large buttons, so fashioned that there was a layer of reddish gold-leaf glimmering through a starry surface, black silk trousers and stockings, and gilt buckles on his shoes. For the last half-hour he has abandoned his coat on account of the unusual heat, and sits gaily talking bare-headed, and in shirt-sleeves. Madam Mozart wears a comfortable travelling-dress, light green and white striped; a wealth of light-brown curls, but loosely fastened, fall over her neck and shoulders; as long as she lived they were never disfigured by powder; her husband’s thick cue was also more scantily supplied than usual owing to the ceremonial freedom of travel.

The horses had just walked slowly up a gently sloping hill between ripe fields that interrupted the long stretches of woodland here and there, and now they had reached the edge of the woods.

“Through how many miles of woods have we passed to-day and yesterday and the day before,” said Mozart, “and thought nothing of it, it never so much as occurring to me to set my foot within them. Let us get down now, darling mine, and get some of those dainty blue-bells over there in the shade. Your poor beasts, postillion, will be glad of a rest.”

As they both arose a little mishap came to light, which brought upon the Meister something of a scolding. Through his carelessness a flask of fragrant essence had come open, and had poured its contents unobserved over their garments and over the cushioned interior of the chaise. “I might have known it,” lamented Frau Constanze; “there was such a sweet odour all the time! Alack-a-day, a whole flask of pure _Rosée d’aurore_ quite empty! I was so chary of it.” “Ah, little miser,” he comforted her, “take thought, and consider that thus, and thus only, could your divine smelling-whisky do us any good. At first we sat as in an oven, for all your fanning, and then suddenly there was a cool and refreshing atmosphere. You attributed it to the drop or two I poured on my jabot; we were revived, and conversation was once more animated and gay, whereas before our heads had hung low like those of sheep on the butcher’s cart; and this benefit will stay with us for all the rest of the way. But now let us put our Vienna noses into the green wilderness here.”

Arm-in-arm they scrambled through the trench by the side of the road and entered the dusky shade of the fir-trees. The spicy freshness, the sudden change from the sunny glow without, might have proved disastrous to the reckless man but for the prudence of his companion. She had some trouble in urging his discarded garment upon him. “Ah, the glory of it,” he cried, gazing up the tall trunks; “it is like being in church! Seems to me I never was in the woods before, and it is only now that I can see what this means, this assembly of trees! No man’s hands planted them, they all came of themselves, and stand so only just because it is jolly to live and labour together. Fancy, when I was young I passed this way and that through Europe; I saw the Alps and the ocean, the most beautiful and most sublime things that were ever created; and now here stands the fool in an ordinary forest of firs on the boundary-line of Bohemia, astonished and enraptured that such things should be, that it’s not just _una finzione di poeti_, like the nymphs and fauns and all that, and no stage-forest; no, it’s a genuine one, grown out of the earth, nourished by its moisture and by the warm light of the sun.”

“To hear you talk,” said his wife, “one would think you had never gone twenty steps into our Vienna _Prater_, which surely can boast of similar wonders and rarities.”

“The _Prater_? Thunder and lightning! How dare you name the word here! What with their carriages, and state uniforms, and toilets and fans, and music, and all horrors under the sun, there’s nothing to be seen beyond. And even the trees, though they are big enough to be sure, I don’t know how it is--beech-nuts and acorns lying on the ground can’t for the life of them help looking like brothers and sisters to the hosts of worn-out corks among them. For miles it smells of waiters and sauces.”

“Was there ever such ingratitude!” cried she; “and all this from a man who is deaf to all other delights when he can dine on baked chickens at the _Prater_!”

When they were both seated in the chaise once more, and the road, after running through a flat stretch, began to fall again to where a laughing landscape unfolded, losing itself in the distant hill-lands, the Meister began again after a span of silence: “This world is truly beautiful, and no one is to be blamed for wishing to stay here as long as possible. Thank God, I feel as strong and hale as ever, and there are a thousand things I should like to be up to as soon as ever my new _opus_ is done and on the stage. How much there is out in the world and how much there is at home,--things remarkable and things beautiful, that I do not even know of, wonder-works of nature, science, art, and useful trades! The black collier-boy yonder knows just about as much as I do about some things, by my soul. I should like for the life of me to take a look into this, that, and the other thing, that doesn’t come within the narrow limits of my trade.”

“The other day,” she answered, “I came across an old pocket calendar of yours; it was of ’85; there are three or four memoranda in it. One of them, under-scored, is: _Professor Gattner, to visit him_. Who is he?”

“Yes, yes, I know--the kind old gentleman at the observatory, who has invited me there from time to time. I have always wished you and I could take a look at the moon and the man in it. They have a tremendous telescope up there now; they say it seems as if you could touch the mountains and valleys and rifts, and on the side where the sun doesn’t shine the shadows that the mountains cast. It’s two years now that I’ve wanted to see it, and I don’t manage to get around to it, ridiculous and shameful though it seems!”

“Ah, well,” said she, “the moon won’t run away. There are many things we’ll make up for later. I have a presentiment.”

“Out with it!”

“I heard a little bird twitter that ere long the King of Prussia would need a _Capellmeister_.”

“Oho!”

“General Musical Director, I would say. Let me spin a dream! It is a weakness I have from my mother.”

“Go ahead! the wilder the better!”

“No, quite natural. First then take the time, a year from date----”

“When the Pope marries Kate----”

“Hush, you clown! I say a year from to-day there must be no such person as an Imperial composer named Wolf Mozart to be found within the walls of Vienna.”

“Thank you kindly for that!”

“I hear our old friends talking about us and our fortunes.”

“Give us an example.”

“Well, say one morning, shortly after nine, our exubriant old neighbour, Frau Volkstett, strutting straight across the cabbage market. She had been absent for three months; her great journey to visit her brother-in-law--her constant theme since we knew her--had at last become a reality; and now she has come back, and her full heart--bubbling over with the joy of travel and the impatience of friendship, and all sorts of delightful news--draws her irresistibly to the Frau Oberst. Upstairs she goes, taps at the door, and, without waiting to be bidden, walks in; you can imagine the delight and the embracements from both sides! ‘Now, dearest, best Frau Oberst,’ she begins, after some preliminaries, taking a fresh breath, ‘I bring you a bagful of messages! Can you guess from whom?’ ‘What? is it possible--did you pass through Berlin? Did you see the Mozarts? Ah, dear, sweet friend, relieve my impatience! How are our good friends? Do they like it as well as they did at first?’ ‘Yes, indeed! This summer the king sent him to Karlsbad. When would his beloved majesty, Emperor Joseph, have thought of doing such a thing? They had both but just come back when I was there. He is beaming with health and life, is growing stout and roundish, and is as lively as Mercury.’”

And now the little woman proceeded to elaborate everything in her assumed _rôle_ in the most glowing colours. Of their home _Unter den Linden_, of their garden and country-house, of the brilliant effectiveness of his appearance in public, and of the exclusive little gatherings at court, where he accompanied the queen’s song on the piano, her description taking life as she went on. Entire conversations, the most charming anecdotes, she seemed to shake out of her sleeve. At the same time she was roguish enough to supply the person of our hero with a number of brand-new homely virtues, which had sprouted out of the solid ground of Prussian existence, and among which the said Frau Volkstett had noted as the highest phenomenon and proof of the marvellous potence of new surroundings the wee beginnings of a most praiseworthy little trait of parsimony, which proved a most graceful acquisition. “Yes, and only think, he has three thousand thalers secure, and all that for what? For leading a concert once a week and the opera twice. Ah, I saw him, our dear, little precious Mozart, in the midst of his _kapelle_. I sat with his wife in her box right across from their majesties. And what did the handbill say? Here it is; I brought it for you,--I wrapped it about a little present I brought you from myself and the Mozarts; here it is in plain letters!

“Heaven help us! _Tarar!_ Ah, dear friend! To think that I should live to see it! Two years ago, when Mozart was writing his _Don Juan_, and that confounded villainous Salieri was also making preparations to repeat the triumph his piece brought him in Paris upon his own territory, and when he and his boon-companions thought they had plucked the _Don Juan_ as they had _Figaro_, leaving it neither dead nor alive to put it upon the stage,--don’t you remember, I then and there took a vow not to go and see the infamous piece, and I kept my word. When everybody rushed to the show--you too, dear Frau Oberst--I sat down quietly by my stove and took my cat upon my lap to spend the evening. But now, think of it! _Tarar_ on the Berlin stage, the work of his bitterest enemy, directed by Mozart! ‘You must come,’ he said to me, ‘though it were only to tell them in Vienna that I do not hurt a hair of his head. I wish he were here himself, the envious knave, to see that there is no need for _me_ to murder another fellow’s thing to remain what I am!’”

“Brava! bravissima!” exclaimed Mozart with roaring delight. He took his little wife by the ears, kissing and tickling her, until this bright soap-bubble game of a dreamy future--which, alas! never approximated this happy culmination--ended in mirth and boisterous laughter.

Meanwhile they had reached the valley, and were approaching a village which they had noticed from the hill-top, and behind which a pleasant country-house in modern style, the residence of the Count von Schinzberg, became visible. It was their intention to rest and dine in the place. The inn where they stopped was quite at the end of the village, and close beside it a by-road planted with a row of poplars led to the garden of the Count.

Mozart left the ordering of dinner to his wife, merely signifying his intention of having a glass of wine in the common room below, while she asked for a drink of water and for a quiet spot in which to enjoy a peaceful hour’s sleep. She was shown up a flight of stairs, her husband following, humming and whistling a tune as he went. In a newly whitewashed room, just aired, there was, among other old-fashioned furniture of noble origin,--which had, no doubt, wandered hither out of the possessions of the Count,--a neat, airy bed, with a painted canopy resting on slender green posts, the silk curtains of which had long ago been replaced by some more common fabric. Constanze exacted a promise from her husband to be waked in time, and bolted the door behind him, he seeking amusement in the common tap-room. There was not a soul there, however, except the host; and, finding the conversation of the latter as little to his taste as the wine, he thought to fill out the time before dinner with a walk to the Count’s park. He was told that respectable strangers were allowed to enter, and, moreover, the family had gone out for a drive.

He went, and ere long he had reached the open gate, and was walking slowly along under the stately limes until he had the schloss in view. It was built in the Italian style, light in colour, with a generous flight of steps lying broadly to the front; the slate roof was decorated with statues in the usual manner, gods and goddesses, and a balustrade.

Turning away from the _parterres_ of blooming flowers, the Meister bent his steps toward the shrubbery, passing groups of beautiful pines, and gradually approaching sunnier spots once more, attracted by the merry sound of a splashing fountain which he soon reached.

The large oval basin was set round with orange trees in tubs, intermingled with laurels and oleanders; there was a small arbour at one side, and a soft path of sand led around to it. The arbour seemed a most attractive spot for a rest; there was a seat and small table in it, and Mozart sat down near the entrance.

Inclining his ear indolently to the gentle plash of the water, his eyes resting upon an orange tree of medium size standing apart from the others close by his side and covered with exquisite fruit, our friend, under the influence of these reminiscences of the South, fell to musing on a graceful episode of his boyish travels. Smiling thoughtfully, he put out his hand to touch the fruit and feel its delicious juicy coolness in his hollow hand. In connection with the youthful scene arising before him there was a half-forgotten musical memory the uncertain trail of which he was dreamily following. Now his eyes begin to shine, they wander restlessly here and there; a thought had seized him, and he is eagerly following it. Absentmindedly he takes hold of the orange once more; it breaks from the branch, and he holds it in his hand. He does not see it; so far is he absorbed in his artistic preoccupation that he turns and twirls the fragrant fruit under his nose, moving his lips inaudibly to some newly-caught melody. At last, without knowing what he does, he takes a small enamelled case out of a pocket of his coat, pulls out a silver-handled knife, and slowly cuts the golden ball in two. Perhaps he was led by a vague feeling of thirst, but the delicious fragrance seemed to satisfy his stimulated senses. For moments he gazed fixedly at the two inner surfaces, then gently put them together, very gently separated, and joined them once more.

Suddenly he heard steps approaching; he started, and the consciousness of where he was and of what he had done dawned upon him. He was about to hide the orange, but desisted immediately, impelled by pride or by the knowledge that it was too late. A tall, broad-shouldered man in a livery, the Count’s gardener, stood before him. He had evidently seen the last suspicious motion, and looked at him dubiously. Mozart was silent also, and felt as if he were nailed to his seat; he glanced up with a half-laugh and a visible blush, but at the same time there was a look of undaunted frankness in his large blue eyes; then with a petulant air of courageous audacity, which would have been absurdly funny to an unconcerned looker-on, he put the orange, apparently uninjured, in the middle of the table before him.

“Begging your pardon,” said the gardener, now repressing his indignation, after having inspected the unpromising garb of the stranger, “I do not know with whom I have the honour----”

“Kapellmeister Mozart from Vienna.”

“Doubtless you are an acquaintance of the Count?”

“I am a stranger here, passing through the village merely. Is the Count at home?”

“No.”

“The Countess?”

“Is occupied, and it is unlikely she will see any one.”

Mozart arose and seemed about to go.

“I beg your pardon, sir,--by what right did you help yourself in this garden?”

“What?” cried Mozart; “help myself? The devil! do you believe I wanted to steal and eat that thing here?”

“Sir, I believe what I see. These fruits are counted, and I am responsible. This tree is designed by the Count to figure at an entertainment; just now it was to be carried away. I cannot let you go before having made mention of this affair, and before you explain how this happened.”

“Well, then, I will wait here. You may depend upon it.”

The gardener looked around doubtfully, and Mozart, thinking he might be manœuvring for a fee, put his hand in his pocket, but there was not a coin in it.

Two lads came up now, lifted the tree upon a barrow, and carried it away. Meanwhile our Meister had pulled out his note-book, and while the gardener did not leave his side, he wrote--

“GNÄDIGSTE FRAU,--Here I sit, a poor unfortunate, in your paradise, like Adam after having tasted the apple. The evil is done, and I cannot even seek refuge by throwing the guilt upon the shoulders of gentle Eve, for the latter is sleeping the sleep of innocence at the inn guarded by the Graces and Cupids of a four-post bed. You have but to command, and I will personally give your Grace an account of my incomprehensible offence. In sincere contrition, your most obedient servant,

W. A. MOZART (on the way to Prague).”

* * * * *

While this was passing in the schloss, our prisoner, not greatly concerned about the final result, had occupied himself with waiting. But as no one appeared, he began to walk up and down uneasily; then there came an urgent message from the inn to tell him dinner was ready, and would he please come at once, the postillion was anxious to get started. He picked up his things, and was about to leave without further ceremony, when the two gentlemen appeared before the arbour.

The Count greeted him as he would an old acquaintance, with a ringing, sonorous voice, did not listen to his apologies, but at once expressed his desire to have the couple for his guests. “You are, my dear _maistro_, no stranger to us; indeed I may say that the name of Mozart is heard nowhere more frequently and with greater fervour. My niece plays and sings, spends nearly the whole day at her piano, knows your works by heart, and has the greatest desire to approach you personally, as she could not do in your concerts last winter. As we are going to Vienna for a few weeks, her relatives had promised her an invitation from Prince Gallizin, where you are often to be found. But it seems you are going to Prague, and there is no knowing when you will come back. Rest with us for a day or two! We will send your carriage back, and you will have the kindness to permit me to see to the continuation of your journey.”

The composer, who was always willing to bring friendship or pleasure any sacrifice ten times as great as was here demanded, gladly complied for this half-day, at the same time setting his departure most definitely for the next morning. Count Max asked to be permitted to escort Frau Mozart from the inn, and to give the necessary orders there....

_Edward Mörike_ (1804-1875).

_A RABID PHILOSOPHER._

AT last I fell asleep, but it was only to be awakened at dawn by resounding footsteps passing to and fro in the adjoining room, intermingled with sounds from which I judged that there was an impatient searching of drawers or tables, and in every corner of the apartment. The hurrying and rummaging grew more violent, a soliloquy which at first softly accompanied the movements grew louder and louder, and gradually passed into exclamations of rage, and at last into a volley of oaths, which was not exactly in a Christian spirit, and which was accompanied by a savage stamping and bellowing. It seemed to me the man had gone mad. I dressed myself hastily, knocked at the door, and in my excitement, forgetting all form, I entered the room without awaiting his call. With flashing eyes the occupant darted at me as if about to seize me by my throat; suddenly he controlled himself, stood stock-still before me, gave me a penetrating glance, and said with quiet severity, “Sir, an unconscious thirst for knowledge has brought you to this room.” My conscience reproaching me for my breach of good manners, I was disarmed, and merely said “Yes,” in a dejected tone. I then asked him what for heaven’s sake was the matter with him. A. E.--for brevity’s sake I will henceforth call my fellow-traveller so--falling back into his fit of violence, cried in a voice of thunder, “My spectacles, my spectacles! They’ve seen fit to go and hide themselves--to say nothing at present of the key, the little devil!”

“So you are merely looking for your spectacles? Is this an object worthy of such rage? Don’t you know what it is to be patient?”

He was about to fly at me again, but, controlling himself once more, he merely looked at me and said: “Screw-drivers? cork-screws?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I dreamed I had a wife--horrible to relate. I laughed at her for reading papers without cutting the leaves, and for putting up for years with a drawer that would not go. Thereupon she gave me a sermon on patience, and required me to exercise myself in that virtue by wearing screws and screw-drivers on my coat instead of buttons and button-holes, suggesting that they might be quite ornamental if made out of oxidised metal; or she said I might have corks, which I would be obliged to remove by means of a cork-screw every time I wished to unbutton my coat. Ah, pshaw! a woman is quite capable of putting a cover upon a dressing-case in such a manner that it will catch every time the upper drawer is opened and shut. Sir, a woman has _time_ for the struggle with the villain called matter; she lives in this struggle, it is her element; a man has no business to have time for this, he needs his patience for things that are _worthy_ of patience. It is an imposition to expect him to waste either for what is worthless, an imposition against which he may, can, and must rage! You must know that. You must know that these unworthy objects, these hooks and crooks of matter, never get entangled with your destiny except when you are in most desperate haste to complete something which is necessary and reasonable! Miserable gimcrack, worthless button or ball of twine, or string to my eye-glasses that gets twisted about one of the buttons of my vest just at the very moment when it is necessary to look over a time-table in small type at the railway station, I have no time, no time for ye! And if I were to set a thousand leeches on eternity, they would not draw out a single moment of time for ye!”

“But what is the use of all this bluster?”

“Oh, insipid! Was it of no use to Luther--if you are going to talk about use--to rail at the devil? Don’t you know what it is to disburden your poor soul? Have you never heard of the precious balm that lies in a good round oath?”

The evil spirit took possession of him anew; he rushed about the room in another paroxysm of rage pouring out a volley of abuse upon his poor innocent spectacles. Meanwhile I looked about the floor; I picked up a couple of shirts that were clean, but terribly messed, and my eyes fell upon a mouse-hole in the boards. It seemed to me I saw something glitter there; I looked closer, and the discovery was made. I took the exasperated man by his arm and pointed silently to the spot. He gazed at it, recognised his missing glasses, and remarked: “Look at them well! Do you notice the sneer, the demoniac triumph in that evil glassy leer? Out with the entrapped monster!”

It was not easy to pull the spectacles out of the hole; the trouble was really out of proportion to the value of the object. At last we succeeded; he held them out at arm’s-length, dropped them from there, cried in a solemn voice, “Sentence of death! _Supplicium!_” raised his foot, and crushed them with his heel, shivering them to bits.

“That’s all very well,” I said, after a pause of astonishment; “but now you have no spectacles.”

“No matter. At any rate this imp has met with a just retribution after years of indescribable malignity. Look you!” He pulled out his watch; it was a very common one--in fact, one of the lowest products of the horological industry. “In place of this honest, faithful creature,” he continued, “I once had a gold repeater, which, I may truly say, cost a deal of money. It requited this sacrifice for years and years with untold malice; it never would go right; it made a point of falling down and hiding; the crystals broke constantly, thereby nearly reducing me to pauperism; at last the monster conspired with the hook of my gold watch-chain, and the two together entered into an intrigue against me. As for the hook, sir, there is much that might be said on that subject. The insidiousness of objects in general--I should like to talk to you about that, sir, but I fear I should discourse at some length--the insidiousness, I say, is expressed so visibly in the villainous physiognomy of hooks that one cannot be too much on one’s guard in having anything to do with these fiendish features. One is apt to think: ‘I know you, the wicked crookedness of your outer form betrays you, you shall not get the better of me;’ and then this very sense of security misleads one into being unwary. It is quite the reverse with other objects. Who, for instance, would suspect a simple button of any evil design?”

I begged him to finish the tragic story about his watch and hook.

“Ah, yes! Well, one night the hook crept softly across the small table, upon which I had carefully laid my watch, and artfully entwined itself into the seam of my pillow-case. I did not want the pillow. I lifted it suddenly and flung it to the foot-end of the bed, the watch of course going with it. In a noble arch it went flying through the air, struck the wall, and fell to the ground with a broken crystal. This was the last straw. I crushed it in cold blood like these criminal spectacles; the imp gave forth a sound, a hiss like a persecuted mouse; I swear to you that it was a sound quite outside the realm of physical nature. I then went and bought this modest timepiece for an absurdly low sum. Look at this faithful creature; note the expression of honesty in these homely features; for twenty years it has served me with steadfast fidelity; yes, I may say it has never given me any cause for complaint. The gold watch-chain I gave to my footman, the hook was condemned to die a shameful death in the sewer, and I wear my faithful turnip on this gentle silken cord.”

During this detailed account he had grown quite tranquil, and now placidly continued----

“Now for the story of this black hour! Look at this key”--he pulled out a small key, probably belonging to his valise--“and then at this candlestick!”--he held up the metal candlestick upside down close before my eyes, so that I could see a hollow place in the foot--“what do you think, what do you suppose, what do you say?”

“How am I to know?”

“For the space of a good half-hour I have looked for that key this morning. I nearly lost my senses; at last I found it, like this, do you see?”

He laid the key upon the little stand by his bed, and set the candlestick down upon it; the key just fitted the place under the foot.

“Now tell me who would suspect this, who would be capable of such superhuman circumspection as to foresee and avoid such infernal tricks on the part of the object! And is this what I live for? Am I to waste the precious bit of time I have in such a slavish search for a bagatelle? To search and search, and to search again! One should never say A. or B. has lived for such and such a time,--not lived, but searched! And I am very, very punctual, believe me!”

“Ah, yes, life is a perpetual search,” I said, with a sigh which might be taken to refer to the trials of life, while in truth it was called forth by the _ennui_ which this detailed occupation with the bagatelle had caused. This accounted for my flat remark, the sole object of which was to change the subject at all hazards.

I little knew to whom I was talking. “What, sir, symbolic?” he said. “And I suppose you think that is deeper! Ah, oh!”

“Well, what now?”

“You see, my dear sir, to search in a symbolical sense, to think that all of life is but a searching, that is not what I complain of, that is not what you should sigh about. The ethical goes without saying. An honest fellow will search and yearn and never complain, but be happy in the midst of this misery of an ever-rising and never-terminating line. That is our upper storey. But what we have to take along with it, the vexation and bother we must put up with in the lower storey of life, that is what I am talking of. There, for instance, is the necessity of searching, which makes you mad, nervous, insane. And, what is more, it strands you in Atheism. The dear God sitting on high and counting the hairs on our head, who sees me searching for my spectacles for hours at a time, he sees the spectacles too, knows just where they are,--can you bear it, the thought of how he must laugh? A kind, omnipotent Being! Do you think such a one would permit the curse of colds in your head? Alas, we are born to search, to undo knots, to sneeze and cough and spit! Man, with a proud world within his arched brows, with his beaming eyes, his spirit dipping into the depth and breadth of infinitude, with his soul rising on silver wings into the heavens, with his imagination pouring streams of golden fire over hill and vale and transforming the image of mortality to God, with his will, the flashing sword within his hand to adjust, to judge, to conquer, with pious patience to plant, to cherish, and watch over the tree of life that it may grow and flourish and bear heavenly fruit of noble culture, Man with the angelic image of the divine and beautiful within his longing, yearning bosom,--yes, this same Man, changed to a mollusc, his throat a grating-iron, a nest of devils, tickling the larynx with finest needles for nights and nights, his eyes dim, his brain heavy, dull, perturbed, his nerves poisoned, and, with all that, not considered ill; and you say that God----!”

Here our denier of the existence of God was seized with so deplorable a fit of sneezing and coughing that I repressed a remark I had upon my tongue.

* * * * *

Upon entering I noticed that he cast an uneasy glance all about the floor of the dining-hall; he seemed much relieved when in one corner he noticed a small object which may be of service to coughing persons. In a tone of supreme content he remarked, “This room is really very well furnished;” and from that time he seemed to be in tolerably good humour. As is common at the Swiss hotels, breakfast had been placed upon the table awaiting whoever should come to partake of it, and A. E., having pushed the butter and honey aside with some violence, helped himself freely. We were alone in the room, but soon another tourist entered. He was a middle-aged man, attired in a duster of unbleached linen, with a short cape hanging over his shoulders, and carrying a knapsack of some weight on his back. There were drops of perspiration visible upon his brow; it appeared evident that he had walked for some hours that morning. He laid down his burden, put his bulky umbrella in a corner, sat down at the other end of the table, pulled his chair up, took out his glasses, carefully looked at everything that had been set upon the table, seemed to quite approve of the completeness of things that go to make up an English breakfast, and then, with all the appearance of a soul conscious that the body belonging thereto had severely earned its breakfast, began the enjoyable task of cutting and spreading some slices of bread. It was easy to see that the man belonged to the class of scholars, and his pale complexion led me to judge that he was one of those tourists who strive to make up by pedestrian exertions for the harm they have done their bodies throughout the year by sedentary habits.

A. E., who had meanwhile appeased his appetite, seemed to be in no special haste to depart. He lit a cigar, and said to me, “You admit, then, that physics is at bottom synonymous with metaphysics, the science of the spiritual. That is, I take for granted that you admit it, although I have not yet proved it to you philosophically, for you have surely recognised the universal insidiousness, ay, animosity of matter, what physical science has heretofore insipidly named the law of gravity, statics, etc., while it is in truth to be explained merely as demoniacal possession.”

Meanwhile the stranger had split a long roll lengthwise with dexterity and precision, and was occupied in spreading on the butter with great regard to perfect smoothness and evenness; he made a moment’s pause at the last words, casting a peculiar glance from under his bushy eye-brows over to our end of the table, and then thoughtfully continued his plastic occupation, wagging his head now and then with an expression of ironical surprise. The thought came to me that A. E. had designs upon the stranger. But I concluded that it was not the case. He had given him but a cursory glance as he entered, though it was a glance which might be supposed to grasp the personality before him, for his eye was wont to seize what it looked upon as if there were a strong hand within it; at the same time there was no sign of his paying any attention to the unknown.

“Friend,” he continued, “have you noticed how a piece of falling paper will mock us? Are they not graceful, the sneering motions with which it flutters back and forth? Does not every turn tell you with elegant, voluptuous nonchalance that you are beaten? Oh, matter lies ever in waiting. I sit down cheerfully after breakfast to begin my work, never suspecting the enemy. I dip in my pen, there’s a hair in it; that is the way it begins. The fiend will not come out; I get ink on my fingers, the paper gets stained. I look for another sheet, then for a book, and so on; in short, my blessed morning is gone. From early dawn until late at night, so long as there is a human being about, matter is on the alert to play him a trick. The only way to do is to treat it as the lion-tamer does the beast whose cage he has ventured to enter--he meets its gaze and the beast meets his. To talk about the moral power of a human being is all nonsense, a mere fairy-tale; no, the steady gaze only tells the brute that the man is on his guard, and gaze against gaze the monster lurks to see if for one single moment he will forget himself. So lurks all matter, lead-pencils, pens, inkstand, paper, cigar, glass, lamp--all, all for the moment when you are not watching. But, ye saints! who can ever do it? Who has time? And like the tiger that leaps upon its unfortunate victim the moment he knows himself to be unnoticed, so does matter, drat it! sometimes clumsily, sometimes subtly, as the case may be. Diabolically subtle, for instance, was the bit of iron filing that landed in my eye the morning I was about to start out on my tour. Oh, believe me, when a respectable person is going a-travelling all the devils hold an œcumenical council to defeat him. But one of the favourite tricks dear to the heart of all objects is to creep stealthily to the edge, and drop down from a height to slip out of your hand--you forget yourself but a single moment and there goes----”

At this moment we heard a slight sound at the end where the other man was sitting; we saw him dodge hastily under the table, and then emerge with an object in his hand, which he looked upon in evident distress, and then with deep dejection. It was his roll, spread first with butter and then with honey in the most accurate and approved manner, and, “of course,” as A. E. would say, it had fallen upon the buttered side.

It was with a great effort that I overcame a strong desire to laugh, for it seemed exactly as if there had been a mystic primordial relation between his words and the disaster. A. E. glanced across the table with perfect gravity, and gently nodded his head without a vestige of irony; nay, rather, with an expression of sympathy, as much as to say: we poor mortals know all about it. The stranger shot not only one but a whole battery of venomous glances over to our side, and sullenly set to work to produce a fit successor to the incurable roll.

A. E. continued quietly: “Then too I don’t like that business about that _thing_, or rather the two things, that Kant called the pure form of _à priori_ perception.”

“Space and time?”

“That’s it. What is space but an impertinent arrangement by means of which I am forced to remove A before putting B here” (he illustrated it with cups, dishes, and bottles, which were rather closely set upon the table), “and to make room for A put C somewhere else, and so on _ad infinitum_----? And time? That is what you never have for anything. For, ye gods and little fishes! is that what we live for to have need of ten motions for things that are not worthy of one!”

The stranger now shook his head with more violence, laughing petulantly, and a vague unrest seemed to take possession of his legs.

A. E. rambled on. “At other times,” he continued, “the reverse action takes place. Things go together that don’t belong together. Do you know one of the most pestiferous forms of going along? When a precious sheet belonging to manuscript A manages to become attached to manuscript B, and slips into the wrong drawer, and declines to be found for days and weeks and years, while you are searching for it in rage and despair and impotent frenzy. Compared to that such a thing as the well-known slipping under your chair of a lady’s dress is but a little playful pleasantry on the part of the devil-ridden object, albeit it is interesting as a fact sufficient to defeat our nonsensical science of physics, for who could ever explain such a thing mechanically?”

Here the stranger jumped up with the exclamation, “This is too much!” came upon us with heavy strides, planted himself firmly before A. E., and cried in a voice of thunder, “Sir, I would have you to know that I am a Professor of Physics! And, moreover, you have, so to speak, knocked my roll out of my hand!”