On the May-Saturday-evening, at 7 o'clock, every vapor disappeared from
the sky, and the brightly departing sun went to meet a glorious Sunday.
Albano, who then, at length, meant to visit the unseen Lilar, was, on
the evening before, as sacredly happy as if he were celebrating
confession eve before the first holy supper;--his sleep was one constant
ecstasy and awaking, and in every dream a mimic Sunday morning rose, and
the future became the dark prelude of the present.
Early on Sunday he was about to sally forth, when he had to pass by the
half-glass door of the Doctor. "Sir Count, one moment!" cried he. When
he entered, the Doctor said, "Directly, dear Sir Count!" and went on
with what he was about. To the painters, who, in future centuries, will
draw from me as they have hitherto from Homer, I present the following
group of the Doctor as a treasure; he lay on his left side; Galen was
smoothing down his father's back with a little scratch-brush, while
Boerhave stood near him with a broad comb, and kept dragging that
instrument perpendicularly (not obliquely) through the hair. He always
said he knew nothing that cheered him up so, and was such a good
aperient, as brush and comb. Before the bed stood Van Swieten in a thick
fur, which the correctioner had to wear when the weather was warm and
his behavior bad, in order that he might, thus arrayed, be laughed at,
as well as half roasted.
Two girls stood waiting there in full Sunday gala, and were thinking of
going out into the country to see a parson's daughter, and to the
village church; these he first mauled, limb by limb, with the hammer of
the law. He loved to make his children antipodes of Romish defendants,
who appear in rags and tatters, and so he set them in the pillory, all
ruffled and tasselled, especially before strangers. The Count had
already this long time, on the red children's account, been standing
with his face turned toward the open window; he could not, however,
refrain from saying, in Latin, "Were he his child, he would long ago
have made way with himself; he knew nothing more degrading than to be
scolded in finery." "It takes so much the deeper hold," said Sphex, in
German, and fired only these few farewell shots after the girls: "You
are a pair of geese, and will do nothing in church but just cackle about
your rags and tags; why don't you mind the parson? He is an ass, but he
preaches well enough for you she-asses; in the evening do you tell me
every word of the sermon."
"Here is a laxative drink, Sir Count, which, as you are going to Lilar,
I beg you to give the Architect's lady for her little toads; but don't
take it ill!" By the deuse! that is what precisely those people most
frequently say, who, themselves, never take anything ill. The
Count,--who at another time would have contemptuously turned his back
upon him,--now blushing and silent before the preserver of his Liana,
put it into his pocket, because, too, it was for the children of his
beloved Dian, to whose spouse he wished to bear greetings and news.