The reader is now curious about the afternoon, when the _élève_ is sent
into the polishing-mill of the Viennite, in order to know what sort of a
polishing he gets there. It cannot but make him still more curious, when
I repeat that Wehmeier, who, like other literati, resembled the elephant
in clumsiness and sagacity, found nothing more agreeable to think
of--and, therefore, to describe--in ancient history, than a great man,
who had on little, as, for instance, Diogenes, or went barefoot, like
Cato, or unshaven, like the philosophers; nay, he hit the very
Mittel-Mark, and drew out for himself Frederick the Second's clothes,
whereby he gained as much as Mr. Pagé in Paris, and carried _his_
shirts, like the noble Saladin's, and with similar proclamations, on
poles for show, and sketched, as a second _Scheiner_, the best map we
have of the sun-spots of snuff on Frederick. Then he took these naked,
rough colossi, and piled them together into one scale, and threw into
the other the light, wainscoted figures, like Falterle and the nice
Nuremberg Kinder-gärten of modern courts, and besought the scholar to
take notice which way the swaying tongue of the balance would
incline....
I am not wholly on thy side here, Magister, since vigorous youths too
easily, without any prompting, tear in pieces the thin plate of the
ceremonial law, and often the platers, the head masters of ceremonies,
into the bargain. For weaklings, the method is good.
Now, when Albano came to the accomplishing master, he could but faintly,
on account of the loud resonance of the previous lesson,--for children
of a certain depth, like buildings of a certain size, give an
_echo_,--apprehend what Falterle commanded; and only when he remained
some days without the historical sensation was he more widely open to
the lesser instructions, as gilded things cannot be silvered over till
the gold is worn off. The misfortune was, too, that he had to go through
his task-dances in the very next room to the study of the Director, who
was there occupied with his own. It often happened that Wehrfritz, when
Alban was as _distrait_ and inattentive in the Anglaise as a partner in
love, would cry out, while he was dictating in there, "In the name of
the three devils, chassez!" Quite as many cases might one reckon in
which, when the music-master, like a bass-drum, with everlasting
exhortations glided away through adagio into piano, the man had to call
out in there, with the strongest imaginable fortissimo, "Pianissimo,
Satan! pianissimo!" Sometimes he was obliged to rise from his labors,
when, in the fencing-lesson, all admonitions to "quart!" availed
nothing, and open the door, and, grim with fury, say to him of Vienna,
"For God's sake, sir, don't be a hare! Prick his leather soundly, if he
doesn't mind!" Whereupon the courtly fencing-master would only gently
encourage him to "quart thrust."
Nevertheless, he learned much. In such early years one cannot rise above
the finery nor the fine arts of a Falterle, who, besides, was reinforced
with the magical advantage of having shone and taught in the forbidden
metropolis. Only the loud stride and the boots were not to be taken from
the pupil; but the shoulders soon grew horizontal, and the head
perpendicular; and the oscillating fingers, together with the restless
body, were steadied with Stahl's eye-holder. In general, men with a
_liberal_ soul in a finely-built body have already, without Falterle's
espalier-wall and scissors, an agreeable shape and stature. Moreover,
he felt toward the neat, friendly Falterle that holy _first love for
men_ wherewith a child's heart twines round all inmates of his home and
village; and simply for this reason, that a lady could wind the Viennite
about her ring-finger,--yes, inside of the gold ring itself,--and
because he spoke and lied about the Knight of the Golden Fleece as about
a king, and because he was the most agreeable creature that ever trod
the earth.
As I mean in my biographies to teach tolerance and even-handed justice
toward all characters, I must here lead the way with a pattern of
toleration, by remarking of Falterle, that his poor, thin soul had not
the power to develop itself under the stone table of the laws of
etiquette, and under the wooden yoke of an imposing station. To whom did
the poor devil ever do any harm? Not even to ladies, for whom indeed he
was always laboring before the looking-glass, like a copperplate
engraver, upon his dear self, but only, like other sculptors, by this
artistic work, to display pure beauties, not to mislead them. The
sea-water of his life--for he is neither a millionnaire, nor even the
greatest _savant_ of the age, although he has read about among many
circulating libraries--is sweetened by the water of beauty, wherein he
hourly bathes. He swills and gormandizes scarcely at all. If he curses
and swears, he does it in foreign languages, as the Papist makes his
prayers, and flatters very few except himself.
The vain man, and still more the vain woman, hate vain persons much too
violently; for such persons, after all, are more diseased in the head
than in the will. I can here cheerfully appeal to every thinking reader,
whether he ever, even when he was going about with an uncommonly vain
feeling, remembers to have detected any deep qualms of conscience or
discords in himself, which, however, were never wanting, when he lied
very much or was too hard. Much rather has he, on such occasions,
experienced an uncommonly agreeable rocking of his inner man in the
cradle of state. Hence a vain man is as hard to cure as a gambler; but
for this further reason,--most sins are occasional sermons and
occasional poems, and must frequently be set aside, from the third to
the tenth commandment inclusive. Marriage, the Sabbath, a man's word,
cannot be broken at any given hour. One cannot bear false witness
against himself, any more than he can play ninepins or fight a duel with
himself. Many considerable sins can only be committed on Easter-Fair or
New-Year's Day, or in the Palais Royal, or in the Vatican. Many royal,
margravely, princely crimes are possible only once in a whole life; many
never at all,--for instance, the sin against the Holy Ghost. On the
contrary, one can praise and crown himself inwardly day and night,
summer and winter, in every place,--in the pulpit, in the Prater, in the
general's tent, on the back seat of a sleigh, in the princely chair, in
any part of Germany,--for instance, in Weimar. What! and must one let
this perennial balsam-plant, which continually perfumes the inner man,
be plucked up or lopped off?