Ah! selfish pigmy! at such a moment you might have spared this poor, anxious, trembling soul, sinking, well nigh, in an ocean of tears for all the long, long past.
But he knew no sorrow save of the theatrical, the transient, the petty, and the sham sort; and so he spared her not.
Yet that which he had expected would prove the bridge from his heart to hers, namely, sorrow, became, on the contrary, the portcullis barrier between them. A dance, or some _joyful_ tumult of the senses would have brought him further with this _commonplace_, every-day, honest, and upright woman than three pailfuls of selfish tears. His hopes rose high, as he laid his flowery, sorrow-laden head upon his hands, down into her lap.
But Lenette jumped up with such a suddenness that it nearly knocked him over altogether. She gazed inquiringly into his eyes. Upright women must, I think, have some instinct of their own concerning the lightnings of the eye, by means of which they can distinguish between the lurid flashes of h.e.l.l and the pure coruscations of heaven. This profligate was as little aware of the flashes of his eyes as was Moses of the brightness of his countenance. Her glance shrunk before his scorching gaze; at the same time I feel it inc.u.mbent on me as an historian--seeing that readers by the thousand (and I myself into the bargain) are all up in arms to such an extent against this defenceless Everard--not to conceal the fact that Lenette had had her mind"s eye firmly fixed upon certain rather rude and free-handed sketches which Schulrath Stiefel had drawn for her of the man[oe]uvring grounds of rakes in general (and this one in particular), and, in consequence, had p.r.i.c.ked up her ears in alarm at each move he made, whether in advance or in retreat.
And yet every word I write in defence of the poor rascal will only tell against him now; indeed, there are many ladies whose acquaintance with the Salic Law (or Mr. Meiner"s work) teaches them that in former times the penalty for touching a woman"s hand was the same as for hewing off a man"s middle finger, namely, fifteen shillings, and who, being indignant with Rosa for his hand pressures, would fain have him to be duly punished therefor. I am convinced that these ladies would by no means be pacified were I to go on speaking in his extenuation, for they have doubtless learnt, out of Mallet"s "Introduction to the History of Denmark," that formerly persons who kissed without leave, and against the will, were, by the law of the land, liable to be banished. And there are very many women of the present day who are strictly governed by the ancient pandects of Germany, and, in the case of lip-thieves (since, in the eye of the law, banishment and confinement to one place are held to be tantamount and equivalent one to another), they adjudge them--not, it is true, to be _banished from_ their chambers, but to _remain in_ them; similarly, they lodge debtors (to whom they have given their hearts, and who insist on retaining possession of the same) in the Marshalsea of the Matrimonial Torus.
When Rosa jumped up (as before set forth), he had nothing to urge in extenuation of his false step but an aggravation or augmentation of it, and accordingly he fairly took the marble G.o.ddess in his arms---- But at this point my progress is barred for a moment by an observation which has to be made ere I proceed; it is this: There are many kindly beauties who cover their retreats or make amends for their denials by concessions. By way of making themselves some amends for their hard services in the campaign of virtue, they offer no resistance at all in matters of the smaller sort, skilfully abandoning a good many intrenchments and outworks (in the shape of words, articles of dress, and so on), to enable them to deftly steal a march upon the enemy and outman[oe]uvre him--just as clever generals burn the suburbs that they may fight the better up in the citadel.
My sole object in making this observation is to point out that it did not apply to Lenette in any respect whatever. Pure as she was in soul and in body, she might have gone straight away into heaven just as she stood, without changing so much as a st.i.tch of her attire--have taken her eyes, heart, clothes, everything except that tongue of hers, which was uncultivated, rude, indiscreet; so that her resistance to Everard"s attempted burglary on her lips was unnecessarily grave and discourteous (considering what a trifling case of orchard-robbery it really was), much more so than it would have been had Lenette been able to drive the Schulrath"s highly-coloured prognostics concerning Rosa out of her head.
Rosa had antic.i.p.ated a denial of a less unpleasant kind. His obstinacy availed him nothing as against hers, which was the greater of the two.
A gnat-swarm of firm and pa.s.sionate resolves buzzed about his ears; but when at length (probably inspired thereto by the Schulrath) she said, "Your lordship remembers that the Tenth Commandment says, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour"s wife""--from the crossroad between love and hatred, on which he was standing, he suddenly made a great jump--into his pocket and brought out a wreath of artificial flowers, "There!" he cried, "take them, you nasty, inexorable creature! just this one forget-me-not as a souvenir; devil fly away with me if I want anything further!" If she _had_ taken it, he _would_ immediately have wanted something further; but she turned her face aside and repulsed the silken garland with both hands. At this the honeycomb of love in his heart soured into very vinegar; he grew wild with fury, and throwing the flowers right over the table, he cried, "Why, they are your own p.a.w.ned flowers--I redeemed them myself--so take them you _must_." On which he took his departure, not, however, without making his bow, which Lenette, all hurt and offended as she was, ceremoniously returned.
She took the envenomed wreath to the window, to have a better light to examine it by. Alas! these were indeed, and beyond all doubt, the very roses and rosebuds whose steely thorns were wet with the blood-drops from a pair of pierced hearts. Whilst she, thus weeping and bowed beneath the weight of her woe, stunned and stupid rather than observant, stood at her window, it suddenly struck her as a strange circ.u.mstance that the torturer of her soul, though he had gone rattling down the stairs in a hurry with noise enough, had never gone out at the street-door. After a long and attentive watch, during which anxiety, closely bordering upon terror, a.s.sumed the _role_ of comforter and spake louder than her sorrow (the future, at the same time, driving the past out of view), the becrowned hairdresser came galloping home (the crown of his hat pointing heavenwards), and shouted to her in a mere parenthetical manner as he dashed by, "Madame the queen!" for his great idea was, that before anything else he should rush home, and there on the spot, and without a moment"s delay, make proclamation of the kingship and queenship of four persons.
There now devolves upon me the duty of conducting my readers to the corner where the Venner is cowering. From Lenette he had _descended_ (in two senses of that word) to the hairdresser"s wife, one of that common cla.s.s of women who never so much as dream of an infidelity all the year round--for no horse in all the kingdom is harder worked--and commit one only when there appears on the scene some tempter, whom they neither invite nor resist, probably forgetting all about the incident by the time next baking day comes round. On the whole, the superiority which the female middle-cla.s.s is disposed to arrogate to itself over that of a higher rank, is just about equally great as it is questionable. There are not a great many tempters in the middle-cla.s.s, and those there are are not of a very tempting sort.
Like the earthworm, which has ten hearts that extend all the way from one end of it to the other, Rosa was fitted out with as many hearts as there are species of women; for the delicate, the coa.r.s.e, the religious, the immoral--every sort, in fact; he was always ready with the appropriate heart. For as Lessing and others so frequently blame the critics for narrowness and onesidedness in matters of taste, inculcating upon them a greater universality of it--a greater power of appreciation of the beautiful, to whatsoever times and nations belonging--so do men of the world also advocate a universality of taste for the _live_ beautiful, on two legs, not excluding any variety of it, but deriving gratification from all. This taste the Venner possessed.
There was such a marked distinction between his feelings for the wigmaker"s wife and for Lenette, that, in revenge upon the latter, he came to the determination, on the stair, to take a jump right over this distinction and slip in to pay a visit to the landlady, while her narrow-chested husband was away scheming and plotting in confederacy for a crown in another quarter. Sophia (this was her name) had been always combing at wigs in the bookbinder"s on the occasions when the Venner had been sitting there on the business of getting his novels and life romances done up and bound, and there they had communicated to one other, by looks and glances, all that which people are not in the habit of confiding to third parties. Meyern made his _entree_ into the childless abode with all the confident a.s.surance of an epic poet, who soars superior to all prefaces. There was a certain corner part.i.tioned off from the room by boards: it contained little or nothing--no window, no chair, a little warmth from the sitting-room, a clothes-cupboard, and the couple"s bed.
When the first compliments had been exchanged, Rosa took up a position behind the door of this part.i.tioned s.p.a.ce, for the street pa.s.sed close by the window, and at this late hour he was anxious not to give occasion to unpleasant surmises on the part of pa.s.sers by. Of a sudden, however, Sophia saw her husband run by the window. The intent to commit a sin may betray itself by a superabundance of carefulness and caution; Rosa and Sophia were so startled at the sight of the runner, that she begged the young gentleman to get behind the part.i.tion until her husband should go back to the shooting-range. The Venner went stumbling into the _sanctum sanctorum_, while Sophia placed herself at the door of it, and, as her husband entered, made as though she were just coming out of it, closing the door after her. The moment he had stuttered out the news of his elevation in rank, he darted out of the room, crying, "She upstairs there knows nothing about it yet." Gladness and hurried draughts of liquor had just blurred the sharp outlines of his lighter ideas with a thin haze or fog. He ran out and called "Madame Siebenkaes"
up the stairs (he was anxious to be off again so as to join the procession). She hastened half way down, heard the glad news with trembling, and, either by way of masking her joy, or as a fruit of a warmer liking for her husband now that fortune seemed kinder to him (or it may have been, perhaps, _another_ fruit which joy commonly bears, namely, anxiety, or shall I name it fear?), she threw down to him the question, "Is Mr. von Meyern out yet?"
"What! was _he_ in my room just now?" cried he, while his wife echoed, unbidden, from the door, "Has _he_ been in the house?" "He was here, upstairs," Lenette replied, with a touch of suspicion, "and he hasn"t gone out yet."
The hairdresser"s suspicions were now awakened, for the consumptive trust no woman, and, like children, take every chimney-sweep they see for the devil himself, hoof, horns, tail and all. "Things are not all exactly as they should be here, Sophy," said he to his wife. The pa.s.sing brain-dropsy, induced by what he had drunk during the day and by his half-share in a throne and fifty florins, had the effect of s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his courage up to such a pitch that he secretly formed the idea of treating the Venner to a good sound cudgelling in the event of his coming upon him in any illegal corner. Accordingly he started upon voyages of discovery, first exploring the entrance pa.s.sage, where Rosa"s sweet-scented head served him as a trail, or lure; he followed this incense-pillar of cloud into his own room, observing that this Ariadne"s thread of his, this sweet odour, grew stronger as he went.
Here among the flowers lay the serpent--as, according to Pliny, sweet-smelling forests harbour venomous snakes. Sophia wished herself in the nethermost of Dante"s h.e.l.ls, though in fact and reality she _was_ there already. It dawned upon the hairdresser that if the Venner would only stay where he was, in the closed t.i.tmouse-trap of the part.i.tioned corner, he should have bruin safe in his toils; consequently he reserved till the last a peep into the said corner.
What is historically certain is, that he seized upon a pair of curling-tongs wherewith to probe the dark corner and gauge the cubic contents thereof. Into its dark depths he made a horizontal lunge with his tongs, but encountered nothing. He next inserted this probe, this searcher of his, into more places than one--firstly, into the bed, next, under the bed (taking this time the precaution to keep opening and shutting the tongs, which were not hot, on the chance of some stray lock of hair getting caught in them in the darkness.) However, all this trap captured was air. At this juncture he came upon a clothes-cupboard, the door of which had always stood gaping ajar for the last six years or so; the key had been lost just that time, and in this slipshod household it was a matter of necessity to keep this door open, otherwise the lock would have snapped to, and there would have been no getting in. To-day, however, this door was close shut. The Venner (in a profuse perspiration) was inside; the _friseur_ pressed the lock home, and then the net was fairly over the quail.
The hairdresser, now master of the situation, quietly took the command of his establishment at his ease; the Venner could not get out!
He despatched Sophia (as red as a furnace and loudly dissentient, though forced to obey) for the locksmith and his breaching implements; however, she quite made up her mind to come back with a lie, not with a locksmith. When she had marched off he fetched Fecht, the cobbler, up, to be at once his witness of and his a.s.sistant in that which he proposed to accomplish. The shoe-st.i.tcher crept into the room softly at his heels; the phthisic haircurler went up to the canary-cage and addressed the bird imprisoned therein (tapping the while with his tongs on the gate of this fortress of Engelsburg) as follows: "I _know_ you are in there, honourable Sir, make a move; there"s n.o.body here but me, as yet (there"ll soon be more). I can break the cupboard open with my tongs and let you out." Laying his ear close to the door of this Spandau, he heard the captive sigh.
"Ah! you are puffing and panting a little, honourable gentleman," said the wigmaker; "I am here at the door by myself now. When the locksmith comes and breaks it open, we shall all see you, and I"ll call the whole house; but all I shall ask to let you jump out now, quietly, and be off unseen, will be a mere trifle. Give me that hat of yours, and a shilling or two, and give me your custom."
At length the miserable prisoner knocked upon the door and said, "I _am_ in here; just let me out, will you, my man, and I"ll do all you say. I can help, from the inside, to break open the door." The wigmaker and the cobbler applied their battering apparatus to the "parloir" of this donjon-keep, and the captive bounded forth. During the breaking open of the gates of jubilee the friseur parleyed or negotiated a little more, and amerced the anchorite in the locksmith"s fee; at last, bringing Rosa forth, like Pallas in her mail, when she issued from Jove"s cranium into the light of day, "The landlord," said Fecht, "couldn"t have managed the job without me."
Rosa opened his eyes wide at the sight of this auxiliary deliverer from the house of bondage, took off the sweet-smelling hat (which the cobbler immediately clapped on to his own head), shed some drops of golden rain from his waistcoat-pocket upon the pair, and, in dread of them and of the locksmith"s arrival, fled home bareheaded in the dark.
The friseur, whose bald pate was so near to the triple crown of the emperors of old, and the popes of the present (for the eagle gave him a crown, the Venner a hat, and his wife had nearly placed something else----),--however, the friseur, in high satisfaction of this new martyr-crown of felt, which he had been envying the Venner the possession of all the afternoon, went back with it to the shooting-ground, that he might have the gratification of marching home in company with his co-emperor, attended by their subjects and their va.s.sals.
The wigmaker took his hat off to his royal brother Siebenkaes (that hat so much more worthy of a co-king than his former one), and told him something of what had been happening.
The Heimlicher von Blaise smiled his Domitian smile to-day more affectionately than ever, which made the bird emperor far from comfortable; for friendliness and smiling make the heart colder when it is cold to begin with, and warmer when it is warm--just as _spiritus nitri_ does water. From a friendliness of this particular kind nothing was to be expected but its opposite, as in ancient jurisprudence excessive piety in a woman was merely a proof that she had sold herself to the devil. Christ"s implements of torture became holy relics; and, conversely, relics of saints often become implements of torture.
Under the twinkling gleams of the wide, starry firmament (where new constellations kept bursting into view, in the shape of banging rockets) the grand procession marched along. The compet.i.tors who had come after the king"s shot had fired their rifles in the air, by way of salute to the royal pair. The two kings walked side by side, but the one who belonged to the guild of wigmakers found some difficulty in standing (what between joy and beer), and would gladly have sat down upon a throne. However, over these seventy Brethren of the Eagle, and the two vicars of the empire, we are losing sight, and delaying to treat of something else.
To wit, the town militia, who are also present, or more properly speaking, the Royal Kuhschnappel Militia. Concerning this regiment I think a good deal, and say only about half what I think. A city or county militia regiment--and particularly the Royal Kuhschnappel Militia--is a distinguished and important body of men, whose _raison d"etre_ is to scorn and show contempt for the enemy, by always turning their backs upon him--showing him, in fact, nothing _but_ backs, like a well-ordered library. If the enemy has anything in the nature of courage, then our said force sacrifices to Fear like the ancient Spartans; and as poets and actors ought in the first place to experience and picture to themselves in a vivid manner the emotions they are about to portray, the militia endeavours to give an ill.u.s.tration, in itself, of that panic terror into which it would fain throw the enemy. Now with the view of affording these men of war (or "of peace" if you prefer it) the necessary amount of practice in the mimic representation of terror, they are daily put through a process of being terrified at the city gates. It is _called_ "being relieved."
When one of these men of peace is on sentry, another of them, a comrade of his, marches up to his sentry box, shouts out words of command at him in a warlike tone of voice, and makes hostile and threatening gestures in close proximity to his nose; the one who is on sentry also cries out in a similar voice, goes through certain motions with his weapon, and then lays it down and gets away as fast as he can; the conqueror in this brief winter campaign retains possession of the field, and puts on the watchcoat which he has taken from the other man by way of booty; but that they may each have an opportunity of being terrified by the others, they take the part of conqueror turn about. A warrior of this peaceful order may very often be most dangerous in actual war, when, in the act of bolting, he happens, in throwing his rifle away with the bayonet fixed, to throw it too far, and harpoon his too proximate pursuer with it. Militiamen of this sort ("precious" they are in every sense) are usually posted, for greater security"s sake, in public places where they are safe from injury, such as the gates of towns, where these harpooners are protected by the town and gate; at the same time I have often wished, in pa.s.sing, that these students of the art military were provided with a good thick stick, so that they might have something to defend themselves with if anybody should try to take away their muskets.
It will appear to many that I am but artfully cloaking the shortcomings of the militia in these respects; I am prepared for this--but it is not difficult to perceive that this species of praise also applies to all small standing armies of lesser princ.i.p.alities--forces which are recruited only that they may recruit. I shall here utter myself on this subject a little. Vuillaume recommends educators to teach children to play at soldiers, to make them drill and mount guard, in order to accustom them, by this play, to firm and active habits both of body and of mind; in short, to render them firm and upright. This soldier-game has been carried on for a considerable time already in Campe"s Inst.i.tute. But is Mr. Vuillaume really ignorant that scholar-drill, such as he recommends, has been long since introduced by every good prince of the empire into his dominions? Does he suppose it is anything new when I tell him that these princes seize upon all strong young fellows (as soon as they attain the canonical height) and have them drilled, in order that they, the State"s children, may thus be taught _mores_, carriage, and all that has to be acquired in the State"s school? The truth is that, even in the very smallest princ.i.p.alities, the soldiers often possess all the acquirements and accomplishments of real soldiers; they can present arms, stand bolt upright at portals, and _smoke_ at all events, if not _fire_--matters which a poodle learns with ease, but a country b.u.mpkin with more difficulty.
To these rehearsals of warlike business I attribute it that many otherwise clever and sensible men have allowed themselves to believe that this sham soldiery of the little States, is in fact a real soldiery; they must otherwise have seen in a moment that with so small a force neither could a small territory be defended, nor a large one attacked; neither is there indeed any need for even this small force, since in Germany the question of relative strength is merged in that of equality of religion. Hunger, cold, nakedness, and privation are the benefits which Vuillaume considers the soldier-game to hold out to his scholars, as lessons in patient endurance and fort.i.tude; now these are the very advantages which the State schools above referred to confer upon the young men of the country--and that much more thoroughly and efficaciously than Vuillaume does--which, of course, is the entire object of the inst.i.tution. I am quite aware that there are not infrequent cases in which perhaps a third part of the population escapes being made into soldiery, and consequently gets none of the valuable practice in question; at the same time there can be no doubt that if we even get the length of having two-thirds of the population with rifles on their shoulders in the place of scythes, the remaining third (inasmuch as it has considerably less to mow, to thresh, and to subsist upon) obtains the before-mentioned benefits (of cold, hunger, nakedness, &c.), almost gratis, and without having to fire so much as a single shot. Let but barracks be multiplied in a sufficient ratio in a country, in a province, parish, town, village (as the case may be), and the remainder of the houses will of themselves settle down, into suburbs, and accessory and out-buildings to the barracks, nay, become absolute conventual establishments, in which the three monastic vows (the Prince alone being _pere provincial_) are, whether _taken_ or _not_, at all events most religiously _kept_.
We now hear the two vicars of the empire go into their homes. The friseur"s sole punishment to his wife is a narrative of the whole affair, and a sight of the hat; while the advocate rewards Lenette with the kiss which she had refused to other lips. If her story did not please him, the teller of it did, and on the whole the only thing she omitted was the flower-wreath, and the allusions made to it. She would not cloud the happiness of his evening, nor bring back upon him the pain and the reproaches of that other evening when she had p.a.w.ned it.
I, like many of my readers, had expected that Lenette would have received the news of the enthronisation far too coldly; she has deceived us all; she received it even too joyfully. But there were two good reasons for this; she had heard of it an hour before, and consequently the first feminine mourning over a joy had had time to give place to the joy itself. For women are like thermometers, which on a sudden application of heat sink at first a few degrees, as a preliminary to rising a good many. The second reason for her being thus indulgent and sympathetic was the humiliating consciousness she possessed of the Venner"s visit, and of the wreath in its hiding-place; for we are often severe when we are strong, and practise forbearance when we stand in need of it.
I now wish the entire royal family and household a good night, and a pleasant awaking in the eighth chapter.
CHAPTER VIII.
SCRUPLES AS TO PAYMENT OF DEBTS--THE RICH PAUPER"S SUNDAY THRONE-CEREMONIAL--ARTIFICIAL FLOWERS ON THE GRAVE--NEW THISTLE SEEDLINGS OF CONTENTION.
Siebenkaes, a king, and yet a poor"s-advocate and member of a wood-economising a.s.sociation, arose next morning a man who could lay forty good florins down upon his table at any hour of the day. The whole of that forenoon he enjoyed a pleasure which possesses, for the virtuous and right-thinking, an especial charm--that of paying debts: firstly, to the Saxon his house-rent, and then to the butchers, bakers, and other nurses of this needy machine, our body, their little duodecimo accounts. For he was like the aristocracy who borrow from the lower cla.s.ses, not money, but only victuals, just as there are many judges who are bribeable with the latter, but not with the former.
That he does pay his debts is not a circ.u.mstance which should lower him in the opinion of anybody who remembers that he is a man of very poor "extraction"--scarcely of any "extraction" at all, in fact. A man of rank is expected (as a thing becoming his position) _not_ to pay his debts, for thanks to the papal indulgences granted to his n.o.ble ancestors at the time of the Crusades, he need give his mind no trouble on the subject of liability, and least of all should liabilities of a _pecuniary_ nature cause him a thought. To place a man of a high and delicate sense of honour, a courtier say, under an obligation (_e.g_.
to lend him money) is to wound his feelings to a greater or less extent; and a wound of this sort to the feelings is a matter which his refined sensitive nature naturally leads him to endeavour to forgive; he will, therefore, do his utmost to drive the injury thus done him, with all its attendant circ.u.mstances, completely out of his mind.
Should the person who inflicted this hurt upon his sense of honour remind him of it, he will then, with genuine delicacy of feeling, make as if he were scarcely aware that he had _been_ wounded. Rough young squires, again, and officers on the march _do_ really pay, and moreover, they coin (if the expression may be used) for themselves the money they require, as is the case in Algiers, where every one possesses the privilege of minting. In Malta there is current a leathern coin of the value of eightpence, on which is the legend "Non As, sed Fides." With leather money of a somewhat different description, not circular in shape, but drawn out to some length, more like that of the ancient Spartans (and, indeed, this sort of money usually gets the appellation of dog-whips or riding-whips), the landed gentry and people of village n.o.bility pay their coachmen, Jews, carpenters, and others to whom they owe money--_going on_ paying them, in fact, until they are quite satisfied. Indeed I once stood at table and saw officers, men most tenacious of their honour, take their swords from the wall or from their sides, and therewith, when the boots asked for his money, pay him in the true currency of antiquity (among the brave Spartans, also, weapons were money), so that, in fact, the fellow"s jacket got a better brushing than most of the boots for cleaning which he wanted to be paid. And looking at the matter all round, ought it _really_ to be accounted a grave offence in military personages, even of the highest rank, to pay their small debts? So that often, when some wretched tailor asks for metal, they take the iron ell-measure from him, and (while, moreover, applying to _him_ in person the very measure which he applied to their furs) press--not perhaps _into_ his hands, but _on_ to a part of his body on which "contour" lines might be drawn--not mere coins, or bills on approved security, but a metal which Peru with all its wealth does not boast the possession of, the aforesaid iron to wit? In Sumatra the skulls of the enemy are their Louis d"ors and head-pieces, and even _this_ species of currency--the hostile head of the tradesman who has furnished goods--is often taken by the n.o.bler creditor, just by way of satisfying him "in full of all demands."
Neither in the Clausular Jurisprudence nor in the most recent Prussian code is it enacted that a creditor is to stipulate in his bill which species of currency he elects to be paid in by his n.o.ble debtor, the metallic currency or the castigatory.
On this Thursday morning Siebenkaes had a tough and ticklish argument, or piece of special pleading, to go through on the subject of the half-heart or (half-pig) of the cardinal protector, which his co-king, the hairdresser, pressed the acceptance of upon him, by way of making more sure of duly sharing all the prizes which appertained to the king"s shot himself. But his having gained the twenty-five florin prize did not add to the warmth of his arguments, and at last he agreed to the arrangement that the animal should be eaten, pure and clean, like a pa.s.sover lamb, next Sunday in Siebenkaes"s room by the lodgers generally, and by the two rifle kings with their queens in company with Schulrath Stiefel. The flower G.o.ddess of the days of man took at this juncture a fingertipful or two of seeds of quickly blooming and quickly fading flowers (such as like the h.e.l.lebore come into blossom in our December) and sowed them beside the path which Firmian"s steps most often trod. Ah, happy man, how soon will these forced blossoms fall from your days. Will not your philosophic Diana-and-bread-fruit tree (which takes the place, in your case, of an oak of lamentation) fare like the cut plants which people put in lime-water in their chambers on St. Andrew"s Day, and which, after a hurried outburst of yellowish leaves and feeble dingy flowers, fade and perish for good and all?
Sleep, riches, and health, to be truly enjoyed, must be interrupted; it is only during the first few days after the burden of poverty or sickness has been lifted from a man"s shoulders, that the upright posture, and the free breath, cause their fullest measure of delight.
These days lasted for our Firmian until the Sunday. He built a whole cubic-foot of his Devil rampart (in his "Selection from the Devil"s Papers"), he wrote reviews, he wrote law papers, he kept a careful eye on the maintenance of the household truce (liable to be disturbed by the question of the redemption of the p.a.w.ned furniture). I shall treat of this matter firstly, before proceeding to give an account of the Platonic banquet of the Sunday. On Firmian"s coronation-day he invested twenty-one florins in a watch, with the view of avoiding frittering away his money by driblets; he thought it well to cast an anchor of hope into his watch-pocket. Then, when his wife talked of redeeming the salad-bowl, the herring-dish, and other pledges a matter involving not kisses only but half of his capital--he would say, "I"m not in favour of it, old Sabel would very soon have to carry them off again; however, if you"re determined, pray have them out, I shall not interfere." If he had offered any opposition, back they would have had to come; but, inasmuch as he poured the greater portion of his cash into her money bag, and as she marked its daily ebb--and as she could go and redeem the furniture any day--why for that very reason she let it alone. Women are fond of putting off, men of pushing on; with the former, patience most speedily gains us our point; with the latter (ministers of the crown for instance) _im_patience. I here once more remind all German husbands, who have any pledge they do not wish to redeem, how to deal with their fair registers.
Every morning she said, "Ah! we really must send and get back our plates," to which he as regularly antiphonated, "_I_ don"t think so; I praise you rather for not doing it." And in this manner he caused his own desire to a.s.sume the form of another person"s desert. Firmian understood some individual specimens of humanity, but not humanity as a cla.s.s, in its broad sense; he was embarra.s.sed with every woman at first, while her acquaintance was new, though not so afterwards when he came to know her better; he knew exactly how one _ought_ to talk, walk, and stand, in "society," but he never put this knowledge in practice; he took accurate note of all outward and inward awkwardness of other people, but yet retained all his own; and after treating his acquaintances for years with the airs of a superior, experienced man of the world accustomed to "society," he would suddenly find, on some occasion of his being from home, that, unlike a true man of the world, he had no effect or influence whatever on people to whom he was a stranger; to make a long tale short, he was a man of letters.
Meanwhile, however, before the Sunday came, notwithstanding all the peace-sermons and peace-treaties in his heart, he found that he had plumped, before he knew where he was, right into the thick of a household battle of the frogs and mice once more, which occurred as follows:--It is matter of history, derived from his own statement, that, as Lenette kept on ceaselessly washing her hands and arms, as well as other things by the hundred (although, for the most part, with cold water, it being impossible to have warm water continually ready)--that, I say, he simply asked, in the gentlest tone in the world, the kindly and half-playful question, "Doesn"t that cold water give you cold?" She answered "No," in a _sostenuto_ voice. "Perhaps _warm_ water would be more likely to do so, would it?" he continued.
Her answer was, "Yes, it would," delivered in a snapping _staccato_.
Moralists and psychologists, who may be a good deal surprised at this half-angry answer to a question so innocent, are, contrary to my expectations, far behindhand in their knowledge of psychology in general, and the psychology of this tale in particular. Lenette knew by experience that the advocate, like Socrates, generally opened his battles in the most dulcet tones, as the Spartans commenced theirs to the sound of flutes, and, in fact, continued them in the same strain, that, like the said Spartans, he might retain complete command of himself. She therefore dreaded that, on this occasion also, his flute-text might usher in a declaration of war against the feminine form of government, of which the various provinces of work are divided one from another by washing-waters, as the judicial districts of modern Bavaria are by rivers.
"What key is a husband to play his tune in, I ask you all!" the advocate would often cry with curses, "since, whether he takes it in the major or in the minor, or plays piano or forte, it seems all the same in the end?"
On the present occasion, however, all he was aiming at, his gentleness of demeanour notwithstanding, was a preface to a proper system of educating or training the bodies of children. For after her answer he went on to say, "I am delighted to hear you say so. If we had children, I see you would be continually washing them, and with cold water, too, over their whole bodies, and this would invigorate them and make them strong and hardy, since, as you say, it produces warmth." Her only answer to this was to hold her hands aloft, folded for victory, like the biblical prophet--for, in her eyes, a cold bathing of children was a Herodian blood-bath. Firmian then developed with much greater clearness his invigorating system of upbringing, while more and more strenuously strove his wife against it, with all her feathers ruffled, till by dint of able exposition on both sides of the respective masculine and feminine systems of rearing, they had nearly reached a point where they would have clashed together, like a couple of summer thunderclouds, had not he dispelled these by firing the following shot: "Good heavens! have _we_ any children? Why should we make fools of ourselves in this way about the matter?"
"I was speaking of other people"s children," was Lenette"s reply.
Consequently, as I said above, war did _not_ break out, but, on the other hand, the morning of the Sabbath of peace brake in, and with it came the guests who were bent upon possessing themselves of (and eating) the warm and divided heart, or pig, of the Babylonish harlot, or Cardinal Protector. It seemed, in fact, as if some happy star of the wise men of the East must be standing in the heavens above this houseful of recipients of out-door relief, for there had, by good luck, been a gale of wind on the previous Friday which had blown down some half of the Government forest and strewn the path to Advent, for the poor, so grandly with branches (and the trees attached) that the entire staff of forest officials could not hinder the ingathering of such a vintage. For many a long year the Morbitzer"s house hadn"t boasted anything approaching to such a stock of timber, part of it purchased, part adroitly collected.
And if every Sunday is--in a poor man"s quarters--in itself and in the nature of things, not only a sun-day, but a moon-and-stars-day into the bargain a day when a poor fellow has his mouthful or two of food, his trifle or two of good clothes, his twelve hours for eating and twelve for lying down, besides the necessary neighbours to talk with--it may be conjectured in what a superlative sort this particular Sunday dawned upon the Morbitzer household, where everybody was as sure of eating his share of the pig in the afternoon as of hearing the sermon in the morning, and with as little to pay for the one as for the other, seeing that it was a settled matter that the lodger of greatest dignity in the establishment had determined that his coronation feast should be celebrated nowhere but there, at the table with mere working men.
Old Sabel was on the spot before the earliest church-bell had begun to toll. The rifle-king"s crown-treasury could afford to appoint her hereditary mistress of the kitchen, under Lenette, for a kreuzer or two and a plate or so of victuals; but the queen looked upon her as a superfluity and coadjutor, or auxiliary queen. A king on the chessboard gets two queens whenever a mere ordinary p.a.w.n gets moved on to the place of royalty, one of the royal squares (though he has not lost his first consort); and indeed it is just the same when it happens under the canopy of a throne. Lenette, however, would have preferred to have washed, cooked, and served the meats with her own una.s.sisted hands, like a true Homeric or Carlovingian princess. The marksman-monarch himself fled the noisy, dusty throne-scaffold of the day, and in a loose old coat, happy and free, he rambled about the broad green levels of the quiet, blue, latter autumn, checked by no interfering dry stems or straw sheaves standing sentry on the plain, and bursting no thicker barrier-chains than the webs of the spiders. Never do husbands more happily and tranquilly take their walks abroad--out in the open country, or, indeed, up and down in other people"s rooms--than when, in their own, the stamping-mills, the sugar and fanning-mills are at work, whirling and roaring, and they promise themselves, at their home-coming, the clean, finished product and outcome of all these mill-wheels. Siebenkaes glanced with a poet"s idyllic eye from his quiet meadow into the distant noise-chamber, full of pans, choppers, and besoms, and found true and deep delight in a peaceful contemplation of the whirl of backwards and forwards a.s.siduity going on there, and in picturing to himself and joining in, the pleasant tongue-visions of the hungry guests, till suddenly he grew red and hot. "You"re doing a fine thing!" he said, addressing himself; "_I_ could do that, myself, too!
But there"s the poor wife scrubbing and cooking herself to death at home, and n.o.body giving her even a thought of thanks." And the least he could do was to vow, on the spot, that however he might find things moved about and "put in order" in the house on his return, he would accept and belaud it all without a word of demur.