Chapter VI: Part 6

A. E. gave the man a long, contemplative look and was silent. Who could tell how this was coming out? Suddenly a crimson flush came into his face, his eyes sparkled, he jumped up, and I, not knowing my man very well as yet, was beginning to fear for the peace, when he with enormous strides, ay, with leaps like a panther, rushed straight across the room towards the corner which held the article before delicately referred to, and now followed a fit of coughing and sneezing intermingled with strange, wild, gurgling sounds, a perfect storm of rasping, rumbling, rattling, snarling, groaning, and barking tones; it was like a chorus of infernal spirits. It took considerable time for this terrific natural phenomenon to pass over; then the sufferer feebly raised his head, seized his hat, bag, and cane, and said to me in a pitiful, broken treble, “Will you have the goodness to appease the gentleman? Good morning to you both.”

_Friedrich Theodor Vischer_ (1807-1889).

_HIS SERENITY WILL BUILD A PALACE._

IT was in the year 1700 and something or other, on a pleasant May day about bed-time, that his Serene Highness the Duke of Mecklenberg-Strelitz, Adolf Friedrich, fourth of the name, and his dear sister, the Princess Christel, were sitting side by side in their palace telling each other true ghost stories, thrilling yarns that nobody under the sun would have believed if they hadn’t really happened; and they both sat shivering, more especially his Serenity Adolf Friedrich.

Suddenly through the still summer evening there came a sound across the lake, a most uncanny sound, a sound that none but the most masculine ghost would be guilty of to frighten a poor mortal out of his seven wits. With a hollow cadence long drawn out did it pass over the whole of Neu-Strelitz, and the princely pair could not for the life of them say whether it came from up in the air or from underneath the earth. It was all the same anyhow, it was gruesome enough either way. His Highness Adolf Friedrich IV. trembled from top to toe, and Princess Christel, who was confoundedly resolute for a woman, had just enough presence of mind left to catch hold of a silver bell and ring and storm with might and main. Why she did it she couldn’t have told you, but at any rate it brought human aid to the spot. Rand, the _valet de chambre_, and Von Knüppelsdörp, the gentleman of the bed-chamber, came rushing in to ask the why and wherefor. Princess Christel was just able to motion the two to a chair, and so the four of them sat staring at each other in dead silence, and none of them knew what was the matter except that they saw his Serenity had the shivers. All at once the sound came again, and as it was dying away over Neu-Strelitz in its hollow weirdness Adolf Friedrich IV. clapped his hands over his most serene ears and cried, “There it is again!” Von Knüppelsdörp, gentleman of the bed-chamber, took the words out of the mouth of Rand, the _valet_, on the strength of the Mecklenborgian regulations concerning rank, and remarked, “Your Highness, it’s the bittern.” And the Princess Christel had just enough presence of mind to ask what new kind of spook that might be. And the gentleman of the bed-chamber said it was no spook at all, it was only a bird that took a devilish sort of delight in frightening honest folk by putting his beak in the swampy ground and then bellowing like a good one. I’m sure I don’t know whether he was right, but he ought to have known, for he was also page of the hunt. But his Serenity did not take much stock in what he said, and after having meditated a bit he remarked, “All good spirits praise the Lord; and as for you, Rand, I want you to sleep with me this coming night.” With that he left the room.

Princess Christel sat a bit longer with the gentleman of the bed-chamber, discussing the question what potent charms she should employ to banish the ghost for the coming night, and who should sleep with her, for her lady-in-waiting, Caroline Soltmanns, was an old superstitious chatterer, and at last she came to the conclusion that it would be by far the best thing she could do to invite the scrubbing-maid Wendula Steinhagens for the night. Wendula was a d--d plucky person, who was not afraid of the devil nor of his Serenity the Duke, for she had been known to say, “Hallo there, your Highness; get out of the way, will you!” And had flourished her broom in his face.

So the princely pair had passed the night safely under the tender care of Rand and Wendula, and were sitting at the breakfast table next morning drinking chocolate. Then did his Serenity come forth with his deep thoughts and remark, “Sister Christel, you are a woman, and you know I don’t think much of ’em; but you are a member of our most serene house, and for this reason, and on this account, I will make known to you the measures of my government. Would you know the news? I’ll build me a new palace on some pleasant spot in my domains.”

“That’s right, your Grace,” said she. “You are lord of the whole; but how will the money hold out?”

“Oh, I’ve thought of all that,” said his Serenity; “but what have I got my bailiffs for? They must help me out of the lurch, and the workmen can wait awhile for their pay; for it is scandalous that Serenissimus Streliziensis should have to endure a spook under his very nose. To be sure, that fool Knüppelsdörp says it’s a bittern,--but what is a bittern? I’ll believe anything, but to believe an explanation like that is more than can be expected of me in my quality as sovereign lord.”

“Rand,” he said to his _valet de chambre_, “tell Jochen Boenhas to hitch up the gilt coach, three footmen on behind, and the two runners to run ahead; the coachman and the footmen to put on their best livery with the gilt tassels, and the two runners shall wear their new flowered hats from Paris--_à la Pompadour_,” he added aside to his sister--“for I am going on a journey through my estates.”

“Dear me, your Honour,” said Rand, “I’m afraid that won’t do, for our old mare that goes as the off-horse has the spavin, and can’t set one foot before the other.”

“Confound the mare!” exclaimed his Serene Highness in a burst of displeasure. “If the mare can’t go, all you have to do is to go to our Burgher Sachtleben and borrow one of his horses.”

“Dear me, your Honour, he won’t let us have it. This is just the busiest time for carting manure, and it’s no wonder he can’t spare his team.”

“Do as I bid you, Rand; we are sovereign lord.”

And Rand went, and Sachtleben gave him his old stiff bay horse to harness on the resplendent state chariot.

Jochen Boenhas pulled up before the door with his gilt coach, three lackeys jumped up behind one after the other, the two runners floated along the street; Rand sat on the box, and his Serene Highness and sister Christel sat inside the coach.

“Where to?” asked Jochen Boenhas.

“Straight ahead,” said Rand; “over beyond Stargard, up to our boundary-line; but don’t for the life of you drive over the line, for we are only going to travel through our own domain.”

And Jochen Boenhas drove through Stargard and through Frieland up to the Prussian line, and pulled up his horses: “Whoa, whoa I say! Here we are at the end!”

And his Serene Highness gave orders to drive to the east over Woldegk; and when they had passed Woldegk and reached Wolfshagen, Jochen Coachman turned around once more on his old horse and said, “Rand, here’s the end again, we can’t go any further.”

And Princess Christel, who had overheard it, said: “Your Grace, this is the first time I have travelled through our estates; I’d never have thought it was such a short way.”

“Christel,” said his Serene Highness, “you’re a woman, and you don’t know much. What do you suppose? There’s a good lot more toward noon. Feldberg and Mirow and Fürstenberg, all that is in my domain, and then beyond Mirow there’s quite a lengthy bit stretching into our neighbour Schwerin’s possessions that makes a good show.”

“Nay, your Highness,” said Rand, who had overheard, “it doesn’t make much of a show, for the sand just pours into a person’s eyes, as _I_ ought to know, for I was born and bred there.”

His Serene Highness very nearly lost his temper at Rand’s foolish twaddle. He leaned far out of the gilt coach, and called out: “Jochen Boenhas, we’ll go home now! And to-morrow we’ll take the Fürstenberg hemlock grove and Mirow.”

And it was done exactly as his Serene Highness had said, for he was a high-spirited prince, and when he had once said, “I say!” then sure enough he _had_ said it.

So the next day they went beyond Fürstenberg to the hemlock grove, and when Rand turned to look into the carriage and say, “Your Grace, here we are at the end again,” then his Serenity looked sinister, and shouted “Wesenbarg!” to console himself; but in spite of Wesenbarg, he came back to Neu-Strelitz in an utterly discontented spirit, and Rand and sister Christel stood in the hall together, shaking their heads and saying, “Where will this end?”

And the evening and the morning were the third day, and his Highness did not reign during that night, for he slept. The bitterns kept silent, and all the ghosts that had of late taken to haunting the palace at Neu-Strelitz had their off-night.

The next morning the _valet de chambre_ came down to the princess and said: “Thank goodness! we have slept in peace for one night, and reigned right along without let or hindrance, and to-day we are going to travel westward, toward Neu-Brandenburg, and that finishes up the whole business.”

And Princess Christel said, “The Lord be praised! Then he will have peace; he is too ambitious a prince.” And three hours later they passed the inn near Neu-Brandenburg, and Sachtleben’s old bay horse, having got to the end of his rope, one of the innkeeper’s horses was hitched up, and his Serene Highness walked up and down before the door, and looked across the sunny lake over to the woods of Broda, and said to his sister Christel in High German--for the innkeeper’s wife stood near, and he must needs show her his Serenity at its finest--

“What say you, Princess? Shall we build our Belvedere on the other side of this pleasant lake?”

Princess Christel was about to reply, but Rand intercepted her and said--

“Your Highness is always right; of course we’ll have a Bellmandur! All people of degree have a Bellmandur except us!”

And his Serene Highness said: “Rand is right.” And so they drove into Neu-Brandenburg.

Having reached this pearl of his possessions, and coming up in fine style on the market-place, he called out of the gilt carriage: “Rand, tell Jochen Boenhas to stop!” And with that he and his sister Christel descended from the coach, and Rand from the box, and the three lackeys from their seat, and the two runners stood panting.

And then said his Serene Highness Adolf Friedrich IV.: “This suits us right well, and here we will build our palace!”

Her Highness Sister Christel opened her mouth to say something, but his Highness the liege lord took the words out of her mouth and said: “Princess Christel, what more would your Grace have? Are you still critical? Look yonder.” For the time being he was surrounded by a circle of his most devoted subjects, and though these were mostly small street urchins, he felt constrained thereby to speak High German to his sister. “Look, yonder, by the side of the mansion-house, we’ll put it up.”

And Princess Christel said: “_Cela me convient!_ And I hope your Highness will have a couple of wings put on, and I will go and live in one of them.”

“That’s just what you won’t do, Sister Christel,” said his most Serene Highness, turning on his heel. “Don’t make plans, and then they won’t miscarry! I don’t want any womankind with their chit-chat and nonsense in this new palace. I’ve had a deal too much of that at Neu-Strelitz. Rand!” he called; “go and find the two Burgomasters; and you,” he said to two of the footmen, “go and cite the aldermen; tell them _I_ wish to consult them, _I_, their liege lord. You are to stay here,” he said to the third lackey; “it will not do to strip ourselves entirely of attendance.”

And thereupon he walked up and down with his sister, and did not so much as notice that she made a wry face and protruded her nether-lip; and the lackey trotted behind them.

_Fritz Reuter_ (1810-1874).

_HIS SERENITY AND THE THUNDER-STORM._

ON his way to school the Konrektor felt so cheery and good-natured that his pupils might have expected to have a good day. As he stepped into the schoolroom he had the pleasant surprise of seeing a complete Roman battle before him, which his precious boys were carrying out in honour of Livy, and probably to give him an unexpected pleasure, and the noise they made was as natural as if the room were full of genuine Roman soldiers and genuine horses.

It was all very well for the boys, but it was not quite befitting the quiet which is supposed to reign in a schoolroom; nor was it the best means of allaying the flushed spirits of a schoolmaster who had his own private troubles to contend with. The Herr Konrektor sat down on his platform, opened his Homer, and when the noise had somewhat subsided, he gave vent to his ire: “Now listen, you dunces; first learn something, then you’ll be better able to play heroes! Last time we stopped just before the splendid passage where Hector said good-bye to his dear wife Andromache, and she exhorts him--

“Δαιμόνιε, says she; φθισει σε τὸ σὸν μένος, οὐδ’ἐλεαιρεις, says she; but it’s hardly worth while to read anything so fine to you scatterbrained dolts. παῑδά τε νηπίαχον, says she; και ἒμ ἂμμορον, ἣ τάχα χὴρη, says she. Karl Wendt, confound you, if you don’t stop talking I’ll stand you up by my platform, and then it’ll be _my_ turn to have a talk with you. σεῦ ἔσομαι, says she, τὰχα γάρ σε κατακτανέουσιν Ἀχαιοὶ πάντες ἐρορμηφθέντες, says she; ὲμοὶ δέ κε κέρδιον εἴη σεῦ ἀραμαρτοῦση, and so on, says she.--Langnickel, you begin.”

And Langnickel cleared his throat once or twice and nudged his neighbours right and left with his elbows, as much as to say: “Fellows, help me; I’m in an awful fix.”

“Well,” said the Konrektor, “how long before you’re ready? Δαιμόνιε--what does that mean?”

“_Oh, thou monster!_” said Langnickel, looking at the Herr Konrektor very doubtfully to see what he would say.

“It’s more likely you are a monster. The next, go on,” said the Konrektor, pointing to Karl Siemsen. “Well, Karl! Eh? the word’s not easy; how do we call a fellow that can do more than ordinary folks?”

“A Tausendsasa,” said Karl.

“Well, I never! We may say that for a joke, but do you suppose Hector’s wife felt much like joking just then? Nay, she is scolding him. You madcap you, says she, bridle your pluck! says she. Have you no pity for your little boy--she means her little Astyanax that she has on her arm,--and for poor luckless me, says she, who will soon enough be a widow? For how long will it be? says she, before the Archæans pitch in on you and kill you, and what is left to me but sorrow when I sit here without you? says she. Well, here I am translating the whole of Homer for you. Go ahead, Karl Siemsen!” he exclaimed, then the door was opened, and one of his Serene Highness’s lackeys came in.

“Herr Konrektor, his Highness wants to know if you think we’ll get a thunder-storm to-day?”

Now this was the last straw for the Konrektor’s patience. He turned upon the fellow in a mad choler and shouted, “Yes! Go and tell his Highness we’ll get seven.”

“Seven?” asked the lackey, looking blank and walking toward the door, and the Konrektor called after him: “Yes, seven! Tell him we’ll get seven!”

The first lesson was over and the second had begun; it was Latin, and there was Virgil’s _Bucolica_ to translate.

The Herr Konrektor had in the meantime taken a look at the weather, and now he was quite sure there was a storm coming up; his pupils had taken a look at his face, and they also knew for sure that there was a storm brewing; they were only doubtful where the lightning would strike. This question was about to be solved in a drastic manner when his Serenity sent the lackey once more:

“Herr Konrektor, his Highness wants you to come to him at once. The storm is coming mighty fast.”

“Tell his Highness,” cried the Konrektor in a rage, and was about to add, “to remember me to his grandmother,” but he recalled himself and said: “First I must be through school, then I’ll come.”

At the palace things had gone on queerly enough for a while; his most Serene Highness walked up and down in his apartments with pale cheeks, as if he were the walking ghost of the deceased Henry of the Three Oaks; the footmen stood in the corners and along the walls silent and fearful like the stage mimes when Dame Macbeth walks about washing her hands; the gentleman of the bed-chamber, Von Knüppelsdörp, carefully bolted all the windows and doors, and looked as if he were gagged.

“Rand,” called his Highness in an undertone, “smoke is a good conductor. Are all the fires put out?”

“Yes, your Highness, all except the kitchen--you know the dinner has to be cooked.”

“We shall not dine to-day. Tell them to throw water on the fire.”

“Dear me, your Highness,” Rand began, for fast-days were not much to his taste, not even when there was a thunder-storm.

“Do you hear what I say?” cried his Highness with such alacrity that he frightened himself.

“And there shall be no bells pulled; the sound is a good conductor,” he added in a lower tone.

“The sound, your Highness?”

“Confound you, fool! I--I say! It _might_ draw, you know!” whispered his Highness snappishly.

“Humph,” said Rand to himself, looking out of the window with one eye, “we can afford to be cross; the storm isn’t high yet; later on we’ll be more polite.”

“Goodness me,” said his Highness nervously, “why doesn’t the Konrektor come?”

“Good gracious! what good is the Konrektor? He’s no more able to----”

“He _must_ be able to, he _must_! Here, get these buckles off from my shoes; metal is a good conductor. Is all in order in my cabinet?”

“Yes,” growled Rand, looking at the floor while trying to take the buckles off, “we’ve put up all the mummery, and the carpenter says it looks for all the world like a birdcage.”

“Gracious goodness! Did you hear that? Did you hear it, I say? It’s here already! Where can the Konrektor be? I am going into my cabinet. Send for the Konrektor. Don’t go so fast! Don’t go so fast! The lightning will catch. Oh, goodness me!” he said quite tremulously; “and here I am calling so loud!”

The lackey met the Konrektor on the market-place, the door was opened, just a trifle, according to the Duke’s orders, so that there should be no draught, and the Konrektor crowded in with his fox-tail and the rest of it. He now entered his Highness’s cabinet, and the sight he saw put him at first quite out of countenance. For a moment he stood bewildered in the door, and stared into the cabinet open-mouthed, then all at once he broke into a perfect roar of laughter.

“What the devil have we here? Begging your Grace’s pardon! But what in the name of goodness can this mean?”

And Rand laughed too, and said, “Ay, you may well say so!”

I don’t know but what I should have forgotten the dutiful respect I owed his most Serene Highness if I had been called upon to behold what the Konrektor beheld. Right in the middle of the room there was a small platform resting on the necks of bottles, on top of that a sort of pavilion made of glass that came down to the floor, and roofed over with a light-blue silk tent, that looked like a parasol for fifteen persons, and in this remarkable affair sat his Highness in his innocent terror, clothed in a yellow silk dressing-gown, with a green silk nightcap on his head, and with a pair of shoes on his feet varnished with red sealing-wax. He looked for all the world like a handsome canary with a green top-knot, that had been put in a cage to sing a sweet song; and he might have begun singing at any moment if only he had felt less down at the mouth.

In his quality as sovereign lord he would doubtless have sung a right testy little song at the Konrektor for laughing, the more so as he had a crow to pick with him anyway for his matrimonial intentions,[6] had not a sudden stroke of lightning interrupted his Highness’s sing-song. “What nonsense are you----?” and now came the lightning, and he clapped his silk handkerchief over his eyes--“Mercy on us!” and he peeped out from behind the handkerchief, listening for the thunder, and when it came he stopped up his ears and exclaimed again, “Mercy on us!”

The Konrektor had stopped laughing by this time, and examined the cage from before and behind, and his Highness looked at him in an uncertain way, and asked at last--

“Well, what do you say? Will it do? Glass, silk, and”--here he raised one of his legs--“here is sealing-wax; and I have had everything taken out that’s made of metal.”

“Ay,” said the Konrektor, “I dare say it’s all right, your Highness; what man can do has been done; but, begging your pardon, the gold ducal crown that’s up on top of the throne you are sitting on you’ve forgotten.”

“Didn’t I tell you so? Didn’t I tell you so? That ass, Rand. Oh, mercy on us!” for it lightened again.

“Sheep-headed fool, you! bring another chair! I don’t want any ducal honours. When there’s such a storm as this I’m no more than another man--mercy on us!” and he held his hands over his ears. “Eh, Konrektor?”

The Konrektor said he believed it; but the throne with the crown on it might stay there; they could wrap up the crown in a silk handkerchief.

After that his Highness ordered Rand to go out and take a look at the weather. Rand did it, and came back: “The storm is over, but there’s another one all ready to burst, and it looks mighty grim.”

“Rand, bring another chair in my weather-temple for the Konrektor.”

“Oh, your Highness,” said the Konrektor, “I don’t need to come in.”

“Ay, but _I_ need you in here; but you can’t come in like that; you’ll drag in the lightning. Rand, another silk dressing-gown and nightcap, and the red-waxed shoes!”

Resistance was useless, he had to give in; and in a short time he stood there in a black nightcap and a bright orange bed-gown and red shoes; and he stood like a sorcerer in olden times, who might be supposed to have changed an unfortunate prince into a canary-bird, and put him into a glass-box, where it was likely he would have to stay for ever, for naught but the sweet kiss of a beauteous fairy upon his beak could ransom him, and his Highness was possessed of a holy horror of kissing, and there was no beauteous fairy near, for Rand, who was the only other person about, could not possibly figure as such.

When the old sorcerer sat beside his enchanted victim, his Highness ordered Rand out, because the exhalations of so many persons might draw the lightning, but told him to put his head in at the door from time to time and give the news concerning the weather; and Rand was quite willing, for now he could run over to the baker’s wife and have some talk.

“What say you, Konrektor? Is it safe now?” asked his Highness.

“Ay, so far as I can see.”

“But is it _quite_ safe?”

“Well, your Highness, what man can do has been done; but what are mortal measures against the will of our Lord God?”

“That’s what I say,” exclaimed his Highness; “that fool the carpenter was to have made it round, and he made it square. Corners always draw lightning.”

“What good would that do? If our Lord God sees best He can blow away the whole of Neu-Brandenburg in a moment. Think of Sodom and Gomorrah.”

“Goodness gracious! Yes, I know it, I----” Just here Rand put his head in at the door: “There’s another one coming, and the baker’s wife says----”

“Fool, I don’t want to know what that impertinent woman says.”

Rand retired. “That woman has a lot to say; she says too--goodness gracious! she says you are going to get married, Konrektor. But I forbid you. I’ll never set eyes on you again. I’d banish you from court.”

“I esteem your Highness as my liege lord,” said the Konrektor, quietly getting up, “but whether I marry or don’t marry ought to be all the same to you, and I wont brook interference from any man. If you want to banish me from court you can do it, that’s in your power; but I can also go of my own free will, that’s in my power. I have the honour of bidding you farewell.”

“Mercy on us! Do stay here; you’re the only comfort I have. Oh, goodness gracious!”

Here Rand put his head in at the door.

“Your Highness, this one is going to be pretty bad; the storm can’t come across the lake, and the baker’s wife says----”

“You hare-brained dolt, I don’t want to know what she says. Shut the door and bolt it on the outside, so that he can’t get out.”

“Well, your Highness,” said the Konrektor, taking off his sorcerer’s habit and donning his own honest coat, “you can hold me by force--that was a terrific clap!”

“Mercy on us!--yes, that it was. Do come in here again.”

“Nay, your Highness, I’m not afraid of lightning,” said the staunch old fellow, and gave his liege lord a quiet look. “I fear God, my judge, when I stand before Him as a miserable sinner, but I do not fear God, my father, for He knows what is good for me, and if He calls me to Himself by a stroke of lightning and without any suffering, then I know that it was an act of mercy, and I thank Him for it.”

There was another awful clap, lightning and thunder falling almost simultaneously, and his Serene Highness screamed aloud.

“Konrektor, I’ll grant ye a favour. What shall it be?”

“I need only God’s favour; I don’t need any man’s favour, for all he may be a prince. Princely favour is the crutch that lame justice leans on, and when princes are gracious they are either trying to make up for past injustice and reap thanks for it, or they are about to commit some new injustice.”

“You’re growing mighty bold. I’ll show you what princely disfavour is!” shouted his Highness in sore ire, for there had been no thunder for some time. “I’ll show you----”

Then Rand put in his head. “Your Highness, the lightning struck a poplar on the embankment, the baker’s wife says, and there’s another storm coming up.”

“Konrektor, do think up something that will help us!”

“How can _I_ think up anything, your Highness. At such times when our Lord God is nearer than at others it is best to examine ourselves closely, and think of all the wrong one has done, and firmly resolve to undo it--that will give us courage and comfort.”

“There is no man I have ever wronged,” exclaimed his Highness hastily; but the storm was drawing nigh, and he covered his face with his handkerchief once more, and cried, “Goodness gracious!”

“Well, your Highness, I imagine it’s much the same with you as it is with the rest of us; or is that no wrong when you imprison your courier Halsband for no fault of his?”

“My courier? He is my servant; how can a prince--mercy on us!--how can a prince be in the wrong against his own servant?” And again there was a flash of lightning, and his Highness disappeared behind his handkerchief. “Mercy on us! Let him go! Let the fellow go!”

“Ay, your Highness, that’s all very good; but you must take the disgrace off from his shoulders as well.”

“Mercy on us!” cried his Highness, stopping his ears because of the thunder. “I’m to ask his pardon, am I? No, no! The fellow----”

Rand appeared. “This will be a good one.”

“Run and let Halsband out of prison,” said his Highness.

“And,” said the Konrektor, “give me pen and ink, and some paper.”

“Here is paper and pen; but our ink is dried up. We’re not much given to writing, except when the cashier is here.”

“That’s a fact,” said his Highness. “Mercy on us! Go and buy some ink immediately.” The ink came, and the Konrektor wrote.

“Good gracious,” said his Highness to himself, “how can the fellow write in this storm!”

The Konrektor got him to sign it.

“Don’t you feel a vast deal better,” he said, “after this good deed?”

“Not a bit of it,” said his Highness; “first the storm must be over.”

The sky was clearing. Rand’s head appeared again. “Now it’s all over; the baker’s wife says we had seven storms.”

His Highness took breath once more, and said to himself, “Seven storms! And he knew it before, the insolent old fellow, with his confounded speeches! What becomes of the deference due to the prince from his subject, I’d like to know? But I can’t do without him; he’s too well posted about the weather.”

_Fritz Reuter._

_THE LIEUTENANT’S DINNER._

COMING home to his bachelor quarters one day, Lieutenant Karfunkelstein found a note of invitation upon his library table. As he took it up and examined it, his chagrin was almost too great for his dignified self-possession. Frau von Diamant was known all over the town for her good dinners, and he, poor fellow, had orders to march in an hour. Moreover, to aggravate matters, the widow was the lady of his heart. He would have liked nothing better than to spend an hour or two in her company, and have the added gratification of dining most sumptuously. But there was no help for it. Love and hunger must both be set aside as a malignant fate had decreed. He must march, and no amount of railing at destiny would improve matters, however it might ease his much-enduring temper. So he called his man Joching, and entrusted to him his painful message of regrets to the widow. “And Joching, are you sure you understand?” “To be sure I do, sir!” replied good Joching dutifully, departing therewith on his errand. It occurred to the lieutenant then that before his march he might partake of a meal to be sent from his hotel. Opening the window hastily, he called after the departing Joching, “When you come back bring my dinner with you.”

And Joching reached the lady’s house. “Well, Joching, what have you to tell me?” “Best compliments from my master to your gracious ladyship. And as for the Herr Lieutenant, he cannot come to dine to-day, for in little more than an hour the troop must march to Woldegk.”

“Ah, what a shame. I’m sorely grieved!”

And Joching still did not move from the spot; he stood twisting his cap and wringing it between his knuckles. The lady asks him why he does not go. “The dinner,” says he; “I was to take it with me.” Well, she was a right jolly woman who did not take a joke amiss, and quickly said, “Stay, in a minute you shall have it.” And in less time than it takes to tell it, she had a portly basket filled and placed on Joching Pacsel’s arm. He trotted off therewith, nothing loath. The Herr Lieutenant was waiting for him, and sat down with a surly look. “Well,” he said, “now for it. The everlasting pork and mutton, I suppose. Ah, to be invited to dine most exquisitely with a superb woman, and then to be condemned to eat hotel stuff!” But soon his humour took another turn. The dinner truly was not bad, what with meats and pastry, ices and dainties, not to mention a bottle of champagne. It was a dinner fit for any man, and most especially for a man about to march and meet pale Death. With vain surmises did he try to solve the riddle of this unlooked-for excellence, and turning to his servant, asked if there were a wedding or a christening at his wonted eating-house. “Nay,” says good Joching, “that’s from her.” “Where did you say you got it?” asked the Herr Lieutenant. “I got it from Frau von Diamant, sir, as you bade me do.” It was worth something to hear the Herr Lieutenant then; to hear him rave and tear, and swear that honest Joching was the greatest ass that ever walked upon two legs. As time goes on, however, even a lieutenant’s rage blows over, and he, being quite cooled down by this time, drew his purse, and taking three thalers therefrom, spoke thus to Joching, “Here are three thalers; do you see them, lout? Take the money and go at once to the nearest pastry-cook’s. Do you understand me, fool?” “Yes, Herr Lieutenant,” said honest Joching. “And there you buy a tart, the finest that the shop holds, and then you go and take it to the house where I was asked to dine. Tell Madam Diamant that you are noted for a fool, and would she kindly overlook your error; and if the tart but taste one-half as good to her as did her roast and confects to me, ’twill give me pleasure more than I can tell. Now, do you understand it, stupid fellow?”

“Ay, sir,” said Joching Pacsel.

And Joching went and brought the tart to the lady. “Best compliments from the Herr Lieutenant to the gracious Frau von Diamant----”

“What is it you bring me now?”

“And says he’s long been noted for a fool----”

“Tut, tut,” the lady said, “we know all that.”

“So please forgive him then, and here’s a tart, and eating it will give you pleasure more than you can tell.”

Madam, after recovering from a hearty laugh, then said: “Well, tell your master we will talk about that at some future time, and here is for your trouble.”

She laid a thaler in his hand, and hoped that now he would leave her in peace. But no, Joching stood quite still, and held his hand up to his face, and gave a furtive peep at it again and again, as if this were the first and only thaler he had ever seen.

“Why do you stand there? What is it you are waiting for?” the lady asked, at last struck by his manner. “Your difficulties are all straightened now.”

“Nay,” said good Joching doubtfully, “this is but one; the tart alone cost three.”

_Fritz Reuter._

_THE HIGHER ALTRUISM._

“GOOD morning to you, apothecary. Tell me now, do you know of aught that’s good for headache day?”

“My lad, it is a sore complaint that; one of the worst of ills that flesh is heir to. Well, sit you down a bit. Are you from the manor?”

“Yes, sir; I’m one of the farm-servants there.”

“And do the headache days come often?”

“Well, no, but when they do they come bad.”

“We’ll soon manage them, my lad. Come here now, and first shut both your eyes. There, that is right. Now, quick; smell of this bottle as hard as e’er you can.”

The fellow did precisely as he said. First shut his eyes and smelled right heartily of what was in the bottle; and with a heavy thud he fell from off his chair. And as he was beginning to come to, says the apothecary, “Now, my lad, tell me is your headache day now gone?”

“Oh, sir, it’s not of me that I was talking. It’s our young lady has her headache day.”

_Fritz Reuter._

_MY PICTURES._[7]

SO I took to painting, and particularly to making portraits. My old friend G---- was the first to have his turn. I sketched him from the right and from the left, from the front and from the back, in lead-pencil and in black crayon, and then in colours, once with a sky-blue background, once with clouds wrapped about him, and once in a lovely pink light, as if the sun were setting. That piece made me a lot of trouble, and when it was done it didn’t look like it.

When G. was used up it was the Herr Inspector’s turn. The likeness was to be for his betrothed, so I had to idealise him a bit, and put a pleasant and winning expression on him. It was hard enough, but I fetched it at last. As good luck would have it, he had a long nose, which is always a piece of luck for a beginner. I seized him by that, and when I had it, all the rest had to come after whether it would or no. But how about the pleasantness and the winning expression? I managed that beautifully; I screwed up his eyes a bit, puffed out his cheeks in one place, pulled up the corners of his mouth a quarter of an inch, and made a couple of regular little folds there, so that it looked like a button-hole that a careful tailor has fastened well at the right and left.

The portrait brought me much honour. In the delight of his heart the Inspector showed it to my comrades, and now they all wanted to be painted. With all sorts of devices we wheedled the Inspector into letting one or two of my friends come in to me. My painter’s work-shop was as good as any other; the light came from above, and it was the coolest north-light a painter could wish to have. Besides, I had an advantage over and above my colleagues in the art: the people that sat to me were used to sitting still, and could stand it for any length of time, and when I shoved my table up close upon them, and G. moved his chair to within half a foot of theirs, they sat as in a vice, and there was no escaping; they had to bear it.

Here I’ll have to confess that during this time I sinned more than once against the image of God; I painted faces that never were, and never could be, and I painted them with colours that don’t occur anywhere else in life. The black-headed ones I managed to do to my satisfaction, but when a flaxen-head happened along then it was pretty bad. I had got the habit--more’s the pity--of shading flaxen hair with green, and as I was given to working over the face pretty freely with sienna, my flaxen-haired portraits seen at a little distance looked for all the world like a pine-apple, especially when it so happened that there was a green coat below.

My pictures were mostly sent to old fathers and mothers, or sisters and brothers, for their birthday or for Christmas; and if any of these good folks should be alive now, I will take this opportunity of asking their forgiveness if I gave them a fright for the holidays about the looks of their relatives. I know that my old father wrote me, when I sent him my own portrait, which was very like, that it gave him a heart-sinking to see how horribly I had changed.

Be that as it may, it gave us the opportunity of visiting each other, and though D. did not take kindly to this innovation, and threw a wet blanket over our enterprise whenever he could, he always relented a little after a fresh pound of tobacco; and when I caught him helping himself from the box of cigars that a good friend in Lübeck had sent to my friend G., and when the Major in person wanted to be painted by me, then his severity disappeared, and he walked up and down the long corridor like a cherubim that has put his flaming sword into the sheath for fear he might scorch his wing-feathers.

Painting the portrait of the Major was the crown of my artistic activity at M. I was invited to leave my cell and betake myself to the Inspector’s room, for here the great feat was to be accomplished. I came with all of my artistic belongings. I had mounted a sheet that had a remarkably fine greenish tint, and all my pastels were sharp; but as I stepped into the room I stood aghast, for my fine skylight that I had grown accustomed to was missing--the room had a large natural window. I began by taking the Major around into all the corners to find the right light, but it was all wrong until we tied the blanket from off the Inspector’s bed to the lower part of the window.

Unfortunately the Major had flaxen hair and no eyebrows, and I, poor fellow, had a way of always beginning with the eyebrows. What now? At other times I would daub in a pair of eyebrows first and then hitch on the nose, long or short, as it might happen to be. But what now? He had no eyebrows, and I had nothing to begin on, and his nose was, from an artist’s point of view, but so-so at best. I had measured all the proportions, but there seemed to be no way of getting out of my difficulty. I must needs begin, and I must needs have something _hairy_ to begin on. I was too completely wedded to the habit, so I began with the moustache.

I never regretted it; and if one of my colleagues in the trade should ever find himself in a similar fix he may confidently follow my example, for it was not long before the Inspector, who was looking over my shoulder all the time, said that it was going to be very like, and the man was something of a connoisseur, and had trustworthy opinions on the subject, for he had often watched me, and had been educated up to the point by my pictures.

In a short time the face was all done, very handsome too, only with a peculiar green light, but it may be that was in the paper. Now came the uniform, blue with a red collar, and then the gilt epaulets and the bright buttons. Any one who has never tried his hand at that will find it no easy job, I can tell him. That was the way I felt. I had French blue and chrome yellow in my box, and I was in for it. Having read somewhere or other, “The accessories of a portrait should be treated with a certain sketchy cleverness,” I acted accordingly. Sketchy enough it was, but as far as the cleverness was concerned I got stuck; for when I was through with it they both said, the Inspector and the Major, that it was no good. The French blue for the coat might possibly do, but the epaulets and the buttons looked as if they hadn’t been polished up for seven years; and as for the collar, they said it was no major’s collar, but an ordinary Prussian postmaster’s collar. I was dreadfully put out, of course, but it was true; it did look sort of yellowish. I must have been cheated with the vermilion; it was unadulterated red lead, and I had been at the shadows again with that confounded sienna.

But I had learned enough of the art not to let them snub me, and so I said I would take the picture with me, and in a day or two we would talk about it again. And then I tried one kind of light after another, and polished up the Herr Major’s epaulets and buttons until G. was moved to pity and told me they were bright enough. But that collar! To this hour, when I see one of those collars of the Prussian infantry, I remember my sins. It wasn’t right, and it wouldn’t come right! At last an accident put me on the right track; G.’s canary spattered a drop of his water down upon the collar, and on the spot where it fell it immediately turned a bright scarlet. If I could get a kind of varnish over it to make it look like that, I said to myself. But no, varnish is too oily; it might make it look like a grease spot. How would gum arabic do? But I didn’t happen to have any handy. I mused and mused, and at last I hit upon sugar. That might do. I melted a couple of lumps of sugar in a little water, and began cautiously testing it along the edges. Beautiful! I struck out boldly, and it wasn’t long before the collar would have passed muster for a first-rate Prussian soldier’s collar.

G. said, to be sure, that the collar was too bright for the rest of the picture, but what did G. know about painting? I stood my major on the table, went to bed, and lay looking and looking at him until it struck nine and the sentinel shouted, “Lights out!” I shouldn’t wonder if Raphael looked at his Madonna for a long time when she was done, but I don’t believe that he was as much in love with her as I was with the Herr Major. I lay awake for ever so long. I couldn’t sleep for delight. A Prussian officer in full uniform; that is something to be proud of, gentlemen! At last I fell asleep, and slept far into the next day.

And when I woke up--ye gods, what did I see! G. had not acted as a friend by me. He might have hindered it. Thousands of flies were eating up the Herr Major’s collar, and there were little black specks in my highest lights.

That’s what I call a misfortune. And what now? There was nothing for it but to varnish it up again and keep off the flies so long as I had it on my hands. I got rid of it as soon as I could. But what the Herr Major’s gracious lady said about the likeness, and whether the Herr Major hung it up in his room to remember me by, I have not heard to this day. So much I know, I was in his and the Inspector’s good graces after this, and that was a good thing not only for me but for all of us.

_Fritz Reuter._

_LISZT EXPECTED AT AN EVENING PARTY._

IT is enough to say that Liszt had come. The whole town spoke of him and of nothing else.... Not only was it considered an inevitable requisite for a person of culture to have heard at least one of his concerts, but for those of musical proclivity it was a question of life and death to have seen the _virtuoso_ at their own house. A _salon_ was greatly in danger of losing its painfully acquired reputation if Liszt had not honoured it with a visit. Much higher than the musical treat, which was easily attainable for two thalers, stood the consciousness of being able to say at the proper moment, with apparent nonchalance, but with the blessed assurance of crushing a less fortunate rival: “Do you know, my dear, Liszt was with us on Thursday? We had only a few friends to meet him. He played the Erlkönig!” Thereupon your rival would go home, lie down on the sofa, and have ice and cologne applied to her throbbing forehead.

When the excitement in town had reached its height I found, one evening after coming home exhausted by a round of lessons to untalented beginners, an invitation from Frau Medicinalräthin Pfeffermünze. She asked me to put in an appearance at her _salon_ that very evening at eight o’clock; something very unusual must have occurred. Her instrumental and vocal clients were in the habit of assembling on a Saturday, once a fortnight; this was evidently an extra under difficulties. We had never before been asked so late.

The note bore signs of haste; Frederick the Great and Napoleon had granted themselves more time to sign the orders of cabinet than had the Frau Medicinalräthin. I pitched into my dress-coat head over heels, for there was not a moment to spare, and hastened to the Charlotten Strasse.

The first storey was illuminated with an unreasonable profusion of oil and wax. A gentle shiver passed over my back; in the little reception-room, the inviolable sanctuary of the Medicinalrath in the eyes of young and giddy musicians, glittered the lights of a chandelier. The hall door stood wide open with that philosophically resigned hospitality which in general confines itself to funerals with four horses. At such supreme moments the lesser laws of life become void, and each sympathetic soul, who would never be asked to a place at the family table, is made welcome.

“Heavens!” I exclaimed in a whispered monologue, “it cannot be that the Medicinalrath has died an unexpected death!” The absurdity of the supposition immediately became apparent, for, passing through the reception-room, the head of the house appeared before me in person, at the right of the gilded mirror, surrounded by satellites, and saluted me graciously with a mild wave of his hand. As long as we could remember he had not condescended to receive any ordinary musicians, such as we were personally, for we were never invited to the higher esoteric _fêtes_. To make his presence more emphatically imposing, he had adorned himself with three or four little badges of honour instead of wearing merely the ribbons belonging thereto.

What had occurred? What was about to occur?

The Medicinalrath was to me an unapproachable entity. I dared not ask him. Etiquette demanded that I should confine myself to replying if he should address me. His lady might be looked upon as more condescending, but to-day I should have to forego any polite advances. Like the vestal High Priestess in Spontini’s opera, she stood in the centre of a group of maidens festively arrayed. Man, at any other time a much-sought-for article, had evidently fallen in price. The young gentlemen, even the boldest lions of society, stood close together, and did not venture above a whisper.

What had occurred? What was about to occur?

My vague forebodings became certainty as I heard a pale and criminally lean gentleman, one notorious for his festive odes, say to his neighbour: “He is coming! You will see the godlike youth face to face.” The person addressed like the contrite Brahmin stared at the tip of his nose, and preserved a worshipful silence. “I breakfasted with him yesterday. A most delightful companion! The very picture of unpretentious simplicity,” continued the other. Ah, could he but breakfast with him every day, life had looked brighter to him!

Among the bards near by a wild state of excitement made itself felt. Their leader distributed printed leaflets among them, and the poet stepped nearer to designate a certain passage in the third stanza which required a decided crescendo. Just then the Frau Medicinalräthin came rustling into the circle.

“Would it not be better,” she said, smiling benignly, but struggling with a nervous tremor, “if the chorus were to retire into the adjoining room, so as to have the music come from a greater distance?”

“Frau Medicinalräthin is right,” exclaimed the poet encouragingly, urging the youths of Berlin into the next room. “The chant should impress him as coming from another, purer world. Then in the third and last stanzas the angels descend and greet the genius here below as a brother. Carry out my suggestions, gentlemen, and go into the other room.”

The chorus would greatly have preferred to be present from beginning to end, after the fashion of its antique prototypes in Sophocles and Euripides, but there was nothing for it but to yield. It took a covered position, attentively re-read the melodious lyric made to fit a well-known tune, and cleared its throat.