It was, then, on a magnificent St. James's day--and likewise on the
birthday of the Provincial Director, Wehrfritz, who, however, had not
received the title yet--that this same director--that was to be--had
his chariot trundled out in the morning to ride to Pestitz, and see the
Minister, and, as Factor of the Province, convert the _flail_ of the
state, by way of experiment, into a _drill-plough_. He was a brisk,
bustling man, to whom a day of furlough was longer than a day of drill
to others, and to whom nothing made time pass heavily but pastime. "In
the evening, however," he said to himself, "I'll make a good day of it,
for it happens to be my birthday." His birthday present was to consist
in making one; he proposed, namely, to bring home little Albano an
Oesterlein's harpsichord out of his own purse,--little as there was in
it,--and a music-master, into the bargain, at the desire of Don Gaspard.
But why not, at the outset, explain all this in the clearest manner to
the reader?
Don Gaspard, then, in revising a scheme of education for Albano, had
chosen that more attention should be paid to his bodily health than to
mental superfetation; he thought the tree of knowledge should be grafted
with the tree of life. Ah! whoever sacrifices health to wisdom has
generally sacrificed wisdom too, and only _inborn_ not _acquired_
sickliness is profitable to head and heart. Accordingly, Albano had not
to lug along, bending under the weight, the many-volumed encyclopædia of
all sciences in his book-straps, but merely grammars. That is to say,
the rector of the place,--named Wehmeier, better known by the title of
Band-box-master,--after schooling the village youth for the usual number
of hours, was accustomed to seek his fairest _Struve's spare hours_, his
_Otia_ and _Noctes Hagianæ_, in teaching Albano, and driving into the
mill-wheel axle of the everlastingly active boy--impelled by internal
streams--alphabetic pins,--so as to make it the barrel of a
speech-organ. Of course, however, Zesara soon wished to move something
heavier than the key-board of languages; thus, for example, the
language-organ barrel became, in a proper sense, the barrel of a
hand-organ. For whole hours, without any special knowledge of
counterpoint, would he practise on the parish organ (he knew neither
note nor key, and stood hard, all through the piece, on the thundering
pedal), trying his hand at the most horrible discords, before which the
Enharmonics of all Piccinists must be struck dumb, only to bury himself
so much the longer and deeper in the accidental prize of a chord. So,
also, did his soul, full of sap, work off its energy in leaf-buds, as it
were, and shoots and runners, by making pictures, clay statuary,
sun-dials, and designs of all sorts, and even in the juristical rockery
of his foster-father, for example, in Fabri's State Chancery, it sent
its thirsty roots around and out over the dry leaves, as plants do often
in herbariums. O, how he pined for lessons and teachers vaguely dreamed
of (just as in childhood he had aspired from octavos to quartos, from
quarto to folio, from folio even to a book as large as the world, which
would be the world itself)! But so much the better! only hunger digests,
only love impregnates; the sigh of longing alone is the animating _aura
seminalis_ to the Orpheus egg of knowledge. This you do not consider,
you flying teachers, who give children the draught earlier than the
thirst; you who, like some florists, insert into the split stock of the
flowers ready-made lack-dyes, and put foreign musk into their cups,
instead of simply giving them morning sun and flower-soil,--and who
grant young souls no quiet hours, but bustle round them during the
dusting period of their blooming vine, against all the rules of the
vine-dressers, with your hoeing and your dunging and your clipping. O,
can you ever, when you thus prematurely force them, with their unripe
organs, into the great realm of truths and beauties, just as we all,
alas! with our dark senses, creep into lovely Nature, and blunt
ourselves to the perception of her beauty,--can you ever, in any way,
make good to them the great year which they would have lived to see, had
they, growing up like the new-created Adam, been able to turn round with
their open, thirsty senses, in the glorious universe of spirits? Hence
it is that your _élèves_ so nearly resemble the foot-paths, which in
spring grow green first of all, but at a later period wind along yellow
and hard-trodden through the blooming meadows.
Wehrfritz, as he stood on the carriage-steps and turned his face towards
him, repeated his charge to have an oversight of the young Count, and
made the mark ["with care"] with which merchants commend valuable boxes
of goods to the post, strong and thick upon him: he loved the fiery
child as his own (he had only one, and that not a son); the Knight had
confidence in him, and, to justify it, since the point of honor was the
centre of gravity and pole of all his motions, he would, without
hesitation, if the boy, for instance, should break his head, cut his own
off; and finally Albano must stand a remarkably good examination at
evening before the new teacher from the city.
Albina von Wehrfritz, the spouse, promised everything in the name of all
that was sacred; she might have compared herself to the Evangelists Mark
and John, because her impetuous husband quite often represented the
creatures who are pictured as the companions of the two saints, those
king-beasts, the lion and the eagle, just as many another wife, in
reference to her companion, may be compared with Luke, and mine with
Matthew.[28] Besides, she had bespoken for the evening a little family
feast, full of sportive, party-colored ephemerons of joy, and by great
good luck already, some days before, the diploma had come in which
installed our Wehrfritz as Provincial Director, and which had been laid
up against this day as a birthday christening present.
But hardly had Wehrfritz got beyond the castle garden when Albano
stepped forth with his project, and announced his intention of sitting
out the whole holiday up there in the solitary little shooting-house;
for he loved to play alone, and an elderly guest was pleasanter to him
than a boy to play with. Women are like Father Lodoli, who (according to
Lambert's day-book) shunned nothing so much as the little word, Yes; at
least, they do not say it till after, No. The foster-mother (I will,
however, in future, cut off from her and from the foster-sister,
Rabette, that annoying _foster_) said, without thinking, No, although
she knew that she had never yet carried one through against the stubborn
little fellow. Then she borrowed very good dehortations from the will
and pleasure of the Provincial Director, and bade him consider,--then
the red-cheeked, good-natured Rabette took her brother's part, and
pleaded for him, without knowing why,--then Albina protested at least he
should not expect his dinner to be sent to him on the mountain,--then he
marched out of the yard.... So have I often stood by and watched how the
female elbows and knuckles, during the stemming of a strong opposition,
gradually, before my eyes, became gristle, and bent up. Only in the
presence of Wehrfritz had Albina strength enough for a long No.