SECTION IV.

MASTER MARTIN, THE COOPER, AND HIS MEN 447

THE STRANGER CHILD 509

THE SERAPION BRETHREN.

SECTION I.

"Look at the question how one will, the bitter conviction is not to be

got rid of by persuasion, or by force, that what has been never, never

can be again. It is useless to contend with the irresistible power of

Time, which goes on continually creating by a process of constant

destruction. Nothing survives save the shadowy reflected images left by

that part of our lives which has set, and gone far below our horizon;

and they often haunt and mock us like evil, ghostly dreams. But _we_

are fools, and expect that matters which, in reality, were nothing but

our _ideas_, parts and portions of our own individualities, are to be

found actually existent in the world outside us, and blooming in

perpetual youth! The woman we have loved and parted from, the friend to

whom we have said good-bye, are both lost to us for ever. The people

whom, perhaps years afterwards, we meet as _being_ them, are not the

same whom we left, neither are we ever the same to them."

So saying, Lothair got up from his seat, and folding his arms on the

mantel-piece, gazed, with gloomy sadness, into the fire which was

blazing and crackling merrily.

"One thing is certain enough," said Theodore, "that, at all events,

you, dear Lothair, are so far actually the same Lothair whom I bade

good-bye to twelve years ago, that whenever any little thing vexes or

disappoints you at all, you immediately sink down to the lowest depths

of gloom and despair. It is quite true--and Cyprian, Ottmar and I feel

it as much as you that this first meeting of ours after our twelve

years' separation comes short of being quite all that we had pictured

it to be. Put the blame on me, who raced through one of those endless

streets of ours after another, leaving no stone unturned to get you all

assembled here to-night by my fireside. Perhaps I had better have left

it to chance. But I could not bear the idea that we--who had spent so

many years together in such close friendship, joined by the bonds of

our common pursuits in art and knowledge, and only driven asunder by

the hurricane which raged during that fateful time--that _we_, I say,

should come to cast anchor in the same harbour, for so much as a single

day, and yet not look upon each other with the eyes of the body, as we

had with the eyes of the spirit in the interval. And now, we have been

sitting here together for some hours, wearying ourselves to death over

the enthusiastic quality of our revived friendship, yet not one of us

has said anything worth listening to: we have talked tedious, tiresome

stuff, to a perfectly astonishing extent. And why is this, but because

we are a set of very childish children, thinking we were going to take

up the old tune which we sang twelve years ago, at the point where we

broke off with it, and go on singing it as we were doing then. Lothair,

we will say, should have read Tieck's 'Zerbino' aloud to us for the

first time, to our astonished delight; or Cyprian should have brought

some fanciful poem, or perhaps the text of a whole operatic

extravaganza, to which I should then have composed the music on the

spot, and thundered it out on the old weak-loined piano of twelve years

back; or Ottmar should have told us about some wonderful curiosity he

had come across--some remarkable wine, some extraordinary nincompoop,

etc., and set us all on fire with projects and ideas how to make the

most of our enjoyment of either, or both; and because none of all this

has happened, we sit secretly sulking at each other, each thinking (of

the other) 'Ay! what a change in the dear old fellow. Well! I never

should have believed he could have altered so!' Of course we none of us

_are_ the same. I say nothing of the circumstance that we are twelve

years older; that, no doubt, every year lays more earth upon us, which

weighs us down from aerial regions, till we go _under_ the earth at

last. But whom of us, all this time, has not the wild whirlpool carried

surging on from event to event, and from action to action? The terror,

the trouble, the anxiety of that stormy time,[1] could not pass over us

without leaving bleeding scars graven on our hearts. The pictures of

our early days are pale compared with _that_, and we cannot revive

their colours. No doubt, too, there is much in life and in ourselves

which looked very bright and glorious, and has lost its dazzling

glitter for our eyes, grown accustomed to a brighter light; but the

modes of thinking and feeling which gave rise to our friendship remain

pretty much the same. I mean that we all consider each other something

rather above the common, in suitability to each other at all events, so

as to be worthy of a thorough friendship. So let us leave the old days

out of sight, with all the promise and anticipations belonging to them,

and, starting from the conviction which I have expressed, see how we

can best establish a new bond of union."

"Heaven be thanked," said Ottmar, "that Lothair could no longer endure

the forced, unnatural condition in which we were, and that you,

Theodore, have at once exorcised the malignant little fiend which was

vexing and teasing us. This constrained feeling of 'You are bound to be

enjoying yourself, whether you really are or not,' was beginning to

stifle me, and I was just getting fearfully out of temper, when Lothair

broke out as he did. But now that Theodore has pointed out so clearly

what it was that was amiss, I seem to be brought much nearer to you

all, and things appear as if the old kindly unconstrained comfort, with

which we used to meet, were getting the upper hand. Theodore is right;

though Time has altered a good many things, our belief in each other

remains untouched. And with this, I solemnly declare the preliminaries

of our new League established; and it is laid down as a rule that we

come together once every week on a certain day--otherwise we shall lose

sight of each other in this big town, and be further asunder than

ever."

"A great idea," cried Lothair, "only you should add a few regular

rules as to our weekly meetings; for instance, that we are, or are not,

to talk upon certain subjects; or that each of us is bound to be three

times as witty as usual; or that we must always eat sardine-salad. In

this fashion, the fullest blown form of Philistinism that flourishes in

any club will burst in upon us. Don't you think, Ottmar, that anything

in the shape of a formal stipulation connected with our meetings would

at once introduce an element of constraint, destructive, at all events,

of _my_ enjoyment in them? Let me remind you of the extreme repugnance

which we used to feel towards everything in the shape of a 'club,' or

whatever name might be given to absurd institutions of the kind, where

all sorts of tedium and wearisomeness are carried forward on system.

And now you propose to force and constrain, artificially, this

four-bladed clover-plant of ours--which can only flourish and thrive

naturally without any gardener's training--into an evil form of this

sort."

"Our friend Lothair," said Theodore, "does not get out of his moods so

very quickly, that we all know; as also that when he is in them he sees

spectres, and fights with them sturdily until he is dead-beat, and

obliged to acknowledge that they _were_ nothing but spectres, the

creations of his own brain. How is it possible, Lothair, that Ottmar's

harmless and very innocent suggestion should at once set you thinking

of clubs, and the Philistinism inherent in them? All the same, you have

brought to my memory a very amusing remembrance of our former days. I

dare say you remember the time when we first left the Residency and

went to the little town of P----? The customs of society made it

incumbent on us to join the club which the so-called 'Upper ten' of the

place belonged to. We received due notification, in a solemn document,

worded in the most formal juridical style, that, after the due

formalities, we had been admitted as members; and this notification was

accompanied by a great book, of some fifteen to twenty sheets of paper,

handsomely bound, containing the Club Rules. They had been drawn up by

an old legal luminary, exactly in the style of the Prussian Municipal

Code, all divided into titles and paragraphs, and were the most

entertaining reading it is possible to conceive. For instance, one

title was superscribed, 'Concerning Women and Children, and their

Rights, and Privileges,' in which nothing more or less was sanctioned

than that the wives and daughters of the members had the privilege of

coming to tea within the precincts of the club every Thursday and

Sunday evening, and might even dance there some five or six times

during the winter. Concerning children the law was still more

accurately and critically enunciated, the jurist having handled this

subject with even more than his usual care, jealously distinguishing

between children under age, children of age, and children under

parental tutelage. Those under age were further sub-divided, according

to their moral qualities, into well-behaved, and ill-behaved, and the

latter were unconditionally debarred from admission, 'good behaviour'

being a fundamental principle of the club constitution. The next title

was the noteworthy one, 'Concerning Dogs, Cats, and other irrational

creatures,' and laid down that nobody might bring into the club any

dangerous wild beast. So that, had any member taken to himself (for

example) a lion, a tiger, or a panther by way of lapdog, it would have

been impossible for him to take it into the club. Even had its mane and

claws been cut, a schismatic of this description would have been

excluded unconditionally by the committee. Even the cleverest poodles,

and the most highly-trained pugs were declared ineligible, and might

only, (on exceptional occasions in summer, when dinner was in the open

air,) be introduced, on presentation of a card of permission by the

committee. We--Lothair and I--invented a number of addenda and

declarations supplementary to this deeply-considered codex, which we

proposed, with the most solemn gravity, at the next meeting, and, to

our great entertainment, carried the thing so far that the most

preposterous nonsense was discussed and debated on with the gravest

deliberation. But at last one or two saw through our joke, so that all

confidence in us was at an end--although our expectations were not

realised, for we had thought it a certainty that we should be solemnly

expelled from the club."

"I remember it quite well," said Lothair, "and I'm not a little annoyed

to feel that nowadays I could not carry out a similar mystification. I

have grown much too dull and sluggish, and inclined to be annoyed with

matters which used to make me laugh."

"Nothing shall induce me to believe that," said Ottmar; "rather I feel

convinced, Lothair, that the echoes of something painful are louder in

you to-day than common. But a new life will shortly breathe through you

like a breeze of spring; those jarring discords will die away, and you

will be the same Lothair that you were twelve years since. Your club at

P---- reminds me of another, whose founders must have been witty

fellows. It was on the plan of a regular kingdom, with a King,

Ministers, a Parliament, &c. Its sole _raison d'etre_ was good eating,

and better drinking, and its meetings were held in the principal hotel,

where the wines and _cuisine_ were of the best. At those meetings, the

Minister for Foreign Affairs would give notice of the arrival of some

remarkably superior Rhine wine at some merchant's in the town. An

embassy would then be despatched, furnished with minute instructions,

and provided with necessary credits to be drawn against a special

reserve-fund in the hands of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. On

occasions when a _ragout_ turned out badly, everything was at sixes and

sevens. Pourparlers and diplomatic notes were exchanged relating to the

threatening aspect of the affairs of the realm. Then Parliament would

meet to decide as to the particular wine to be used on a given day in

compounding the cold punch. The decision had to be solemnly laid before

His Majesty in Council, and, after due deliberation, the King would

bow, in assent; the ordinance concerning the cold punch, duly passed,

would be remitted for execution to the Minister of the Interior. Art

and Science, also, were represented in these ceremonies; the poet who

wrote a new drinking song, and the musician who composed and performed

it, receiving a decoration from His Majesty's hands in the shape of a

red hen's feather, coupled with the permission to drink an extra bottle

of wine--at their own expense. On State occasions the King had a crown,

orb, and sceptre of gilt pasteboard, and the dignitaries of the realm

wore quaint head-dresses. The symbol of the fraternity was a silver box

with a hen sitting on eggs on the lid. At the time when I forgathered

with this pleasant company, there was a large proportion of talented

people in its ranks, so that it was entertaining enough, as far a it

went."

"I have no doubt it was," said Lothair, "but I can't comprehend how a

thing of the kind could be kept up for any length of time. The best of

jokes loses its point if it is kept going so long as it seems to have

been in this 'Lodge of the Clucking Hen,' if I may so style it. You

have both, Theodore and Ottmar, told us of clubs on a grand scale, with

their rules, regulations, and mystifications. Let me direct your

attention to what was probably the very _minutest_ club that ever, I

should think, existed on this earth. In a certain little town on the

Polish frontier, occupied, at the time, by Prussia, the only German

officials were an old captain--retired on account of bad health--who

was postmaster, and the exciseman. Every evening as the clock struck

five, these two repaired to the only inn which there was in the place,

to a little room where nobody else was admitted. Generally, the

exciseman arrived there before the captain, who would find him smoking

his pipe over his jug of beer. The captain, on coming in, would greet

him with, 'Fine evening! Any news?' sit down opposite to him at the

table; light his pipe--filled beforehand; take the paper out of his

pocket, and hand each sheet, as he finished it, across to the

exciseman, who would read it with equal care and avidity. They would go

on puffing their clouds of smoke into each other's eyes in profound

silence, till the clock struck eight, when the exciseman would get up,

knock the ashes out of his pipe, and with a 'Not much news, to speak

of,' be off to his bed. This they styled, in all seriousness, 'Our

Club.'

"Very good indeed," said Theodore, "and our Cyprian here would have

been a splendid candidate for membership in that club. He never would

have broken the sacred silence by any ill-timed remark. He seems to

have taken a vow of silence, like the monks of La Trappe, for up to

this moment not a syllable has passed his lips."

Cyprian, who had indeed been completely silent up to this point, heaved

a deep sigh, as if awaking from a dream; raised his eyes to the

ceiling, and said, with a quiet smile:

"I don't mind confessing that all this day I have been unable to banish

from my recollection a certain strange adventure which I met with

several years ago; and perhaps when the voices within one are loud, the

lips are not very apt to open for speech. But I have been attending to

all that has been said, and can give a proper account of it all. In the

first place, Theodore was quite right in saying that we had been

childish in fancying that we could begin again just where we left off

twelve years ago, and were sulking with each other because this was

not, and could not be, the case. I maintain that nothing could have so

established us as Philistines incarnate as to have gone ambling along

in our old track. And this reminds me of two savants--but I must tell

this story at full length. Imagine two men--whom I shall call Sebastian

and Ptolemy--imagine to yourselves these two studying Kant's philosophy

as hard as they could at College at K----, and daily carrying on long

discussions as to various points of it. Just at the moment when

Sebastian was going to deliver his most clenching blow, and Ptolemy

pulling himself together to answer it, they were interrupted; and Fate

so arranged matters that they never met again in K----, one going off

in one direction, the other, in another. Nearly twenty years afterwards

Ptolemy saw in the streets of B----, a figure walking, whom he at once

recognised as his friend Sebastian. He rushed after him, slapped him on

the shoulder, and when he looked round, Ptolemy said: 'Then you

maintain that----'

"In short, struck the (argumentative) blow which he had lifted his arm

to deliver twenty years before! Sebastian sprung the mines which he had

laid in K----. They argued for two hours, three hours, walking up and

down the streets, and in the heat of their discussion, agreed to submit

the question to the Professor for his decision, never recollecting that

poor old Emanuel had been many a year in his grave. They parted, and

never met again. Now to _me_ there is something almost terrific about

this story (which has this peculiarity, that it is strictly true). My

imagination _boggles_ at a Philistinism of a depth so ghastly! So we

are not going to be Philistines. We are not going to insist on spinning

on at the thread which we were spinning twelve years ago, nor be

annoyed with each other for having on different hats and coats. We will

be different to what we were then, and yet the same; so that is

settled. What Lothair, without much relevancy, said of clubs is, I dare

say true enough, and proves how prone poor Humanity is to dam up the

minutest remnants of its freedom, and build an artificial roof to

prevent it looking up to the clear blue sky. But what have we to do

with this? For my part, I adhere to Ottmar's proposal, that we meet

every week on a certain day."

"I shall oppose it persistently," said Lothair. "But to put an end to

this horrible argument and discussion, let Cyprian tell us the strange

adventure which is so much in his thoughts to-day."

"My idea," said Cyprian, "is rather that we should try to get into a

merrier mood; and it would greatly conduce to this if Theodore would be

so kind as to open yon old mysterious vase, which, judging by the

delicate aroma it gives out, might have pertained to the Brotherhood of

the Clucking Hen. Nothing on earth could have a more opposite effect

than my adventure, which you would consider inappropriate, altogether

uninteresting--nay, silly and absurd. It is gloomy in its character at

the same time, and the part which I play in it is the reverse of

distinguished: abundant reasons for saying nothing about it."

"Did I not tell you," cried Theodore, "that our Cyprian, our dear

Sunday-child, had been seeing all kinds of questionable spirits again,

which he won't allow our utterly carnal eyes to look upon? Out with

your adventure, Cyprian, and if you _do_ play rather an ungrateful part

in it, I promise that I will soon recollect, and dish you up adventures

of my own in which I play a more ungrateful part than you can possibly

do. I assure you I have a large stock of them."

"So be it then," said Cyprian; and after gazing reflectively before him

for a few seconds, he commenced as follows:--

"You know that, some years ago I spent a considerable time in B----, a

place in one of the pleasantest districts of the South of Germany. As

my habit is, I used to take long walks in the surrounding country by

myself, without any guide, though I should often have been the better

for one. On one of these occasions I got into a piece of thickly wooded

country and lost my way; the farther I went, the less could I discover

the smallest vestige of a human footstep. At last the wood grew less

thick, and I saw, not far from me, a man in a brown hermit's robe, with

a broad straw hat on his head, and a long, wild black beard, sitting on

a rock, by the side of a deep ravine gazing, with folded hands,

thoughtfully into the distance. This sight had something so strange,

unexpected, and out of the common about it that I felt a shiver of

eeriness and awe. One can scarcely help such a feeling when what one

has only heretofore seen in pictures, or read of in books, suddenly

appears before one's eyes in actual, every-day life. Here was an

anchorite of the early ages of Christianity, in the body, seated in one

of Salvator Rosa's wild mountain scenes. But it soon occurred to me

that probably a monk on his peregrinations was nothing uncommon in that

part of the country. So I walked up to him, and asked if he could tell

me the shortest way out of the wood to the high road leading to B----.

He looked at me from head to foot with a gloomy glance, and said, in a

hollow and solemn voice:

"'I know well that it is merely an idle curiosity to see me, and to

hear me speak which has led you to this desert. But you must perceive

that I have no time to talk with you now. My friend Ambrosius of

Camaldoli is returning to Alexandria. Travel with him.'

"With which he arose and walked down into the ravine.

"I felt as if I must be in a dream. Presently I heard the sound of

wheels close by, I made my way through the thickets, and found myself

in a forest track, where I saw a countryman going along in a cart. I

overtook him, and he shortly brought me to the high road leading to

B----. As we went along I told him my adventure, and asked if he knew

who the extraordinary man in the forest was?

"'Oh, sir,' he said, 'that was the worthy man who calls himself Priest

Serapion, and has been living in these woods for some years, in a

little hut which he built himself. People say he's not quite right in

his head, but he is a nice, good gentleman, never does any harm, and

edifies us of the village with pious discourses, giving us all the good

advice that he can.'

"I had come across the anchorite some six or eight miles from B----,

so I concluded that something must be known of him there, and this

proved to be the case. Dr. S---- told me all the story. This hermit

had once been one of the most brilliant intellects, one of the most

universally-accomplished men in M----; and belonging, as he did, to

a very distinguished family, he was naturally appointed to an important

diplomatic post as soon as he had completed his studies: the duties of

this office he discharged with great ability and energy. Moreover, he

had remarkable poetical gifts, and everything he wrote was inspired by

a most brilliant fancy, a mind and imagination which sounded the

profoundest depths of all subjects. His incomparable humour, and the

unusual charm of his character made him the most delightful of

companions imaginable. He had risen from step to step of his career,

and was on the point of being despatched on an important diplomatic

mission, when he disappeared, in the most incomprehensible fashion,

from M----. All search for him was fruitless, and conjecture and

enquiry were baffled by a combination of circumstances.

"After a time there appeared amongst the villages, in the depths of the

Tyrolese mountains, a man in a brown robe, who preached in these

hamlets, and then went away into the wildest parts of the forests,

where he lived the life of a hermit. It chanced one day that Count

P---- saw this man (who called himself Priest Serapion), and at once

recognised him as his unfortunate nephew, who had disappeared from

M----. He was taken into custody, became violent, and all the skill of

the best doctors in M---- could do nothing to alleviate his terrible

condition. He was taken to the lunatic asylum at B----, and there the

methodical system, based upon profound psychological knowledge, pursued

by the medical man then in charge of that institution, succeeded in

bringing about a condition of much less excitement, and greater

quietness in the form of his malady. Whether this doctor, true to his

theory, gave the patient an opportunity of escaping, or whether he

himself found the means of doing so, escape he did, and was lost sight

of for a considerable time.

"Serapion appeared, ultimately, in the country some eight miles from

B----, where I had seen him; and the doctor declared that if any true

compassion was to be shown him, he should not be again driven into a

condition of wild excitement; but that, if he was to be at peace, and,

after his fashion, happy, he should be left in these woods in perfect

freedom, to do just as he liked; in which case he, the said doctor,

would be responsible for the consequences. Accordingly, the police

authorities were content to leave him to a distant and imperceptible

supervision by the officials of the nearest village, and the result

bore out what the doctor had said. Serapion built himself a little hut,

pretty, and, under the circumstances, comfortable. He made chairs and

tables, wove mats of rushes to lie upon, and laid out a garden where he

grew flowers and vegetables. In all that did not touch the idea that he

was the hermit Serapion who fled into the Theban desert in the days of

the Emperor Decius, and suffered martyrdom in Alexandria, his mind was

completely unaffected. He could carry on the most intellectual

conversation, and often showed traces of the brilliant humour and

charming individuality of character for which he had been remarkable in

his former life. The aforesaid doctor declared him to be completely

incurable, and strongly deprecated all attempts to restore him to the

world and to his former pursuits and duties.

"You will readily understand that I could not drive this anchorite of

mine out of my thoughts, and that I experienced an irresistible longing

to see him again. But just picture to yourselves the excess of my

folly! I had no less an undertaking in my mind than that of attacking

Serapion's fixed idea at its very roots. I read Pinel, Reil, every

conceivable book on insanity which I could lay my hands on. I fondly

believed that it might be reserved for _me_, an amateur psychologist

and doctor, to cast some rays of light into Serapion's darkened

intelligence. And I did not omit, either, to make myself acquainted

with the stories of all the Serapions (there were no fewer than eight

of them) treated of in the histories of saints and martyrs.

"Thus equipped, I set out one fine morning in search of my anchorite.

"I found him working in his garden with hoe and spade, singing a

devotional song. Wild pigeons, for which he had strewed an abundant

supply of food, were fluttering and cooing round him, and a young deer

was peeping through the leaves on the trellis. He was evidently living

in the closest intimacy with the woodland creatures. Not the faintest

trace of insanity was visible in his face; it bore a quiet expression

of remarkable serenity and happiness; and all this confirmed what Dr.

S---- in B---- had told me. When he heard of my projected visit to the

anchorite, he advised me to go some fine, bright pleasant morning,

because, he said, his mind would be less troubled then and he would be

more inclined to talk to a stranger, whereas at evening he would shun

all intercourse with mankind.

"As soon as he saw me he laid down his spade, and came towards me in a

kind and friendly manner. I said that, being weary with a longish

journey, I should be glad if he would allow me to rest with him for a

little while.

"'You are heartily welcome,' he said. 'The little which I can offer you

in the shape of refreshment is at your service.'

"And he took me to a seat of moss in front of his hut, brought out a

little table, set on bread, magnificent grapes, and a can of wine, and

hospitably begged me to eat and drink. He sat down opposite to me, and

ate bread with much appetite, washing it down with draughts of water.

"In good sooth I did not see how I was to lead the conversation to my

subject--how I was to bring my psychological science to bear upon this

peaceful, happy man. At last I pulled myself together and began:

"'You style yourself Serapion, reverend sir?'

"'Yes, certainly,' he answered. 'The Church has given me that name.'

"'Ancient ecclesiastical history,' I continued, 'mentions several

celebrated holy men of that name. An abbot Serapion, known for his good

works the--learned Bishop Serapion alluded to by Hieronimus in his book

"_De Viris Illustribus_." There was also a monk Serapion, who (as

Heraclides relates in his "Paradise") on one occasion, coming from the

Theban desert to Rome, ordered a virgin, who had joined him--saying she

had renounced the world and its pleasures--to prove this by walking

with him naked in the streets of Rome, and repulsed her when she

hesitated, saying, "You still live the life of Nature, and are careful

for the opinions of mankind. Think not that you are anything great or

have overcome the world." If I am not mistaken, reverend sir, this was

the "filthy monk" (Heraclid himself so styles him) who suffered a

terrible martyrdom under the Emperor Decius--his limbs being torn

asunder at the joints, and his body thrown down from a lofty rock.'

"'That was so,' said Serapion, turning pale, and his eyes glowing with

a sombre fire. 'But Serapion the martyr, had no connection with that

monk, who, in the fury of his asceticism, did battle against human

nature. I am Serapion the martyr, to whom you allude.'

"'What?' I cried, with feigned surprise. 'You believe that you are that

Serapion who suffered such a hideous martyrdom so many hundred years

ago?'

"That,' said Serapion with much calmness, 'may appear incredible to

you; and I admit that it must sound very wonderful to many who cannot

see further than the points of their own noses. However, it is as I

tell you. God's omnipotence permitted me to survive my martyrdom, and

to recover from its effects, because it was ordained, in His mysterious

providence, that I had still to pass a certain period of my existence,

to His praise and glory, here in the Theban desert. There is nothing

now to remind me of the tortures which I suffered except sometimes a

severe headache, and occasional violent cramps and twitchings in my

limbs.'

"Now,' thought I, 'is the time to commence my cure.'

"I made a wide circumbendibus, and talked in an erudite style

concerning the malady of 'Fixed Idea,' which attacks people, marring,

like one single discord, the otherwise harmonious organisms. I spoke of

the scientific man who could not be induced to rise from his chair for

fear he would break the windows across the street with his nose. I

mentioned the Abbot Molanus, who conversed most rationally upon every

subject, but would not leave his room because he thought he was a

barleycorn, and the hens would swallow him. I came to the fact that to

confound oneself with some historical character was a frequent form of

Fixed Idea. 'Nothing more absurd and preposterous,' I said, 'could

possibly be imagined than that a little bit of woodland country eight

miles from B----, daily frequented by country folk, sportsmen, and

people walking for exercise was the Theban desert, and he himself that

ascetic who suffered martyrdom many centuries ago.'

"Serapion listened in silence. He seemed to feel what I said, and to be

struggling with himself in deep reflection. So that I thought it was

time to strike my decisive blow. I stood up, took him by both hands,

and cried, loudly and emphatically:

"'Count P----, awake from the pernicious dream which is enthralling

you; throw off that abominable dress, and come back to your family,

which mourns your loss, and to the world where you have such important

duties to discharge.'

"Serapion gazed at me with a sombre, penetrating gaze. Then a sarcastic

smile played about his lips and cheeks, and he said, slowly and

solemnly:

"'You have spoken, sir, long, and, as _you_ consider, wisely and well.

Allow _me_, in turn, to say a few words in reply. Saint Anthony, and

all the men of the Church who have withdrawn from the world into

solitude, were often visited by vexing spirits, who, envying the inward

peace and contentment of their souls, carried on with them lengthy

contests, until they had to lie down conquered in the dust. And such is

_my_ fortune also. Every now and then there appear to me emissaries,

sent by Satan, who try to persuade me that I am Count P---- of M----,

and that I ought to betake myself to the life of Courts, and all sorts

of unholiness. Were it not for the efficacy of prayer, I should take

these people by the shoulders, turn them out of my little garden, and

carefully barricade it against them. But I need not do so in your case;

for you are, most unmistakably, the very feeblest of all the

adversaries who have ever come to me, and I can vanquish _you_ with

your own weapons--those of ratiocination. It is insanity that is in

question between us. But if one of us two is suffering from that sad

malady, it is evident that _you_ are so in a much greater degree than

I. You maintain that it is a case of Fixed Idea that I believe myself

to be Serapion the martyr--and I am quite aware that many persons hold

the same opinion, or pretend that they do. Now, if I am really insane,

none but a lunatic can think that he could _argue_ me out of the Fixed

Idea which insanity has engendered in me. Were such a proceeding

possible, there would soon be no madmen on the face of the earth, for

men would be able to rule, and command, their mental power, which is

not their own, but merely lent to them for a time by that Higher Power

which disposes of them. But if I am _not_ mad, and if I am really

Serapion the martyr, it is insane to set about arguing me out of that,

and leading me to adopt the Fixed Idea that I am Count P---- of M----.

You say that Serapion the martyr, lived several centuries ago, and

that, consequently, I cannot be that martyr, presumably for the reason

that human beings cannot remain so long on this earth. Well, as regards

this, the notion of time is just as _relative_ a notion as that of

number; and I may say to you that, according to the notion of time

which I have in _me_, it is scarcely three _hours_ (or whatever

appellation you may choose to give to the divisions of time), since I

was put to martyrdom by the Emperor Decius. But, leaving this on one

side, can you assert, in opposition to me, that a life of such length

as I say I have lived, is unexampled and contrary to human nature? Have

you cognizance of the precise length of the life of every human being

who has existed in all this wide world, that you can employ the

expression 'unexampled' in this pert and decisive manner? Do you

compare God's omnipotence to the wretched art of the clockmaker, who

can't save his lifeless machinery from destruction? You say this place

where we are is not the Theban desert, but a little woodland district

eight miles from B----, daily frequented by country folk, sportsmen and

others. _Prove_ that to me.'

"Here, I thought I had my man.

"'Come with me,' said I, 'and in a couple of hours we shall be in

B----, and what I assert will be proved.'

"'Poor, blinded fool,' said Serapion. 'What a wide distance lies

between us and B----! But put the case that I went with you to some

town which you call B----; would you be able to convince me that we had

been travelling for two hours only, and the place we had arrived at was

really B----? If I were to assert that you were insane, and suppose the

Theban desert is a little bit of wooded country, and far-away

Alexandria the town of B---- in the south of Germany, what would you

say in reply? Our old discussion would go on for ever. Then there is

another point which you ought seriously to consider. You must, I should

suppose, perceive that I, who am talking with you, am leading the

peaceful and happy life of a man reconciled with God. It is only after

having passed through martyrdom that such a life dawns upon the soul.

And if it has pleased the Almighty to cast a veil over what happened

before my martyrdom, is it not a terrible, and diabolical action to try

to tear that veil away?'

"With all my wisdom, I stood, confounded and silenced in the presence

of this insane man! With the very rationality of his irrationality he

had beaten me completely out of the field, and I saw the folly of my

undertaking in all its fulness. Still more than that, I felt the

reproach contained in what he had last said as deeply as I was

astounded at the dim remembrance of his previous life which shone

through it like some lofty, invulnerable, higher spirit.

"Serapion seemed to be reading my thoughts, and, looking me full in the

face with an expression of the greatest kindliness, he said:

"'I never took you for an evil-disposed adversary, and I see I was not

mistaken. You may have been instigated by somebody--perhaps by the Evil

One himself--to come here to vex and try me, but I am sure it was not a

spontaneous act of yours. And perhaps the fact that you found me other

than you expected, may have strengthened you in your expression of the

doubts which you have suggested. Although I in no sense deviate from

the devoutness beseeming him who has given up his life to God and the

Church, that cynicism of asceticism into which many of my brethren have

fallen--thereby giving proof of the weakness, nay, utter destruction of

their mental vigour, instead of its boasted strength--is utterly

foreign to me! You expected to find the Monk Serapion pale and haggard,

wasted with fast and vigil, all the horror of visions, terrible as

those which drove even St. Anthony to despair, in his sombre face, with

quivering knees scarce able to support him, in a filthy robe, stained

with his blood. You find a placid, cheerful man. But I, too, have

passed through those tortures, and have overcome them and survived. And

when I awoke with shattered limbs and fractured skull, the spirit

dawned, and shone bright within me, restoring my mind and my body to

health. May it please Heaven speedily to grant to you also, my brother,

even here on earth, a peace and happiness such as those which daily

refresh and strengthen _me_. Have no dread of the terror of the deepest

solitude. It is only there that a life like this can dawn upon the

pious soul.'

"Serapion, who had spoken with genuine priestly unction, raised, in

silence, his eyes to Heaven with an expression of blissful gratitude.

How could I feel otherwise than awe-struck! A madman, congratulating

himself on his condition, looking upon it as a priceless gift from

Heaven, and, from the depths of his heart, wishing me a similar fate!

"I was on the point of leaving him, but he began in an altered tone,

saying:

"'You would, probably, scarcely suppose that this wild inhospitable

desert is often almost too full of the noise and bustle of life to be

suitable for my silent meditations. Every day I receive visits from the

most remarkable people of the most diverse kinds. Ariosto was here

yesterday, and Dante and Petrarch afterwards. And this evening I expect

Evagrus, the celebrated father, with whom I shall discuss the most

recent ecclesiastical affairs, as I did poetry yesterday. I often go up

to the top of that hill there, whence the towers of Alexandria are to

be seen distinctly in clear weather, and the most wonderful and

interesting events happen before my eyes. Many people have thought

_that_ incredible, too, and considered that I only _fancy_ I see before

me, in actual life, what is merely born in my mind and imagination. Now

_I_ say _that_ is the most incomprehensible piece of folly that can

exist. What is it, except the mind, which takes cognizance of what

happens around us in time and space? What is it that hears, and feels,

and sees? Is it the lifeless mechanism which we call eyes, ears, hands,

etc., and not the mind? Does the mind give form and shape to that

peculiar world of its own which has space and time for its conditions

of existence, and _then_ hand over the functions of seeing, hearing,

etc., to some _other_ principle inherent in us? How illogical!

Therefore, if it is the mind only which takes cognizance of events

around us, it follows that that which it has taken cognizance of _has_

actually occurred. Last evening only, Ariosto was speaking of the

images of his fancy, and saying he had created in his brain forms and

events which had never existed in time and space. I at once denied the

possibility of this, and he was obliged to allow that it was only from

lack of a higher knowledge that a poet would box up within the narrow

limits of his brain that which, by virtue of his peculiar seer gift, he

was enabled to see in full life before him. But the complete

acquirement of this higher knowledge only comes after martyrdom, and is

strengthened by the life in profound solitude. You don't appear to

agree with me; probably you don't understand me here. Indeed how should

a child of this world, however well disposed, understand an anchorite

consecrated in all his works and ways to God? Let me tell you what

happened before my eyes, as I was standing this morning at sunrise at

the top of that hill.'

"He then related a regular romance, with a plot and incidents such as

only the most imaginative poet could have constructed. The characters

and events stood out with such a vivid, plastic relief, that it was

impossible--carried away as one was by the magic spell of them--to help

believing, as if in a species of dream, that Serapion had actually

witnessed them from the hilltop. This romance was succeeded by another,

and that by another, by which time the sun stood high above us in the

noon-tide sky. Serapion then rose from his seat, and looking into the

distance, said: 'Yonder comes my brother Hilarion, who, in his over

strictness, always blames me for being too much given to the society of

strangers.'

"I understood the hint, and took my leave, asking if I should be

allowed to pay him another visit. Serapion answered with a gentle

smile, 'My friend, I thought you would be eager to get away from this

wilderness, so little adapted to your mode of life. But if it is your

pleasure to take up your abode for a time in my neighbourhood, you will

always be welcome to my cottage and my little garden. Perhaps it may be

granted to me to convert him who came to me as an adversary. Farewell,

my friend.'

"I am wholly unable to characterize the impression which my visit to

him had made upon me. Whilst his condition, his methodical madness in

which he found the joy of his life, produced the weirdest effect upon

me, his extraordinary poetical genius filled me with amazement, and his

kindly, peaceful happiness, instinct with the quietest resignation of

the purest mind, touched me unspeakably. I thought of Ophelia's

sorrowful words:

"O what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!

The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword:

The expectancy and rose of this fair state,

The glass of fashion, and the mould of form,

The observ'd of all observers! quite, quite down!

Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,

Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;

That unmatched form and feature of blown youth,

Blasted with ecstasy."

Yet I could not make plaint against the Omnipotence, which probably

had, in this mysterious fashion, steered his bark away from reefs,

which might have wrecked it, into this secure haven.

"The oftener I went to see him, the more attached to him I became. I

always found him happy, and disposed to converse, and I took great care

never again to essay my role of the psychological doctor. It was

wonderful with what acuteness and penetration he spoke of life in all

its aspects, and most remarkable of all, how he deduced historical

events from causes wholly remote from all ordinary theories on the

subject. When sometimes--notwithstanding the striking acuteness of

those divinations of his--I took it upon me to object that no work on

history made any mention of the circumstances which he alluded to, he

would answer, with his quiet smile, that probably no historian in the

world knew as much about them as he did, seeing that he had them from

the very lips of the people concerned, when they came to see him.

"I was obliged to leave B---- and it was three years before I could go

back there. It was late in Autumn, about the middle of November--the

14th, if I do not mistake--when I set out to pay my anchorite a visit.

Whilst I was still at a distance, I heard the sound of the little bell

which hung above his hut, and was filled with gloomy forebodings,

without apparent cause. At last I reached the cottage and went in.

"Serapion was lying on his mat, with his hands folded on his breast. I

thought he was sleeping, and went softly up to him. Then I saw that he

was dead."

"And two lions came and helped you to bury him," interrupted Ottmar.

"What do you say?" cried Cyprian astonished.

"Yes," Ottmar went on. "While you were in the forest, before you

reached Serapion's hut, you met strange monsters of all kinds, and

talked with them; a deer brought you St. Athanasius's mantle, and told

you to wrap it about Serapion's body. At any rate, your last visit to

your mad anchorite reminds me a good deal of that wonderful one which

St. Anthony paid to Paul the Hermit, of which the holy man relates so

much fantastic stuff that it's not difficult to see what a big bee was

buzzing in his bonnet. I know something of the Legends of the Saints,

you see, as well as you. Now I understand why it was that your head was

so full of monks and monasteries, saints and hermits a few years ago. I

saw that it was so by the letters you sent me, which were so strange

and mystic in their tone that they set me supposing all sorts of odd

things. And if I am not mistaken, it was about that time that you wrote

a curious book, treating of the profounder mysteries of the Catholic

Church, but containing madness and diablerie sufficient to give you a

very bad name amongst quiet, respectable folks. At that time you were

possessed with Serapionism to a very dangerous degree."

"Quite true," said Cyprian, "and although that fanciful book does bear

the devil on its forehead, by way of danger-signal--so that those who

prefer to give it a wide berth may do so if they choose--I almost wish

now I had never brought it into the world. It is quite true that it was

suggested to me by my intercourse with the anchorite. I ought to have

kept out of his way, perhaps; but you all of you know what a

fascination insane people have always had for me. I have always thought

that in connection with those abnormal conditions nature vouchsafes us

glimpses into her most mysterious depths. In fact, by the very

gruesomeness which I have felt in the society of mad people, I have

found myself led upon the track of suggestions and ideas which have

inspired my mind and fancy to flights of unusual loftiness. Perhaps

people who are utterly sane may look upon flights such as these as mere

paroxysms of dangerous ill-health. But that is nothing when one _knows_

that one is sound and well."

"There is no doubt, dear Cyprian, that you are as sound and as well as

possible," said Theodore, "and in fact all this is a proof of the

strength and vigour of your constitution--which I almost could envy you

for. You speak of glimpses into Nature's mysterious depths; but people

who are not quite sure that they are exempt from anything like

giddiness ought to keep away from glimpses of the kind. Of course this

could never have applied to your Serapion, as you have described him to

us, inasmuch as to associate with him must have been better than

companionship with the most brilliant and splendid poet. But you will

admit that, chiefly because so many years have passed since you saw

him, you have pictured him to tie in all the brilliant colours in which

he glows in your memory. Now _I_ consider that, in the society of a

man, insane in the particular way in which your Serapion was, I should

never have been able to divest myself of an immense uneasiness, nay, I

may say terror! Even when you were telling us how he considered his

condition to be the happiest conceivable, and wished that it could be

yours, I felt my hair beginning to stand on end! What if the notion

that this condition _was_ a happy one should take root in one's mind,

and eventuate in real madness! Terrible thought! I could never have

been much with Serapion, just for that reason. Then, besides the risk

to the mind, there was the danger to the body, too. Pinel mentions

plenty of cases of people suffering from Fixed Idea who have suddenly

become fearfully violent, and murdered everybody whom they came near,

like furious wild beasts."

"Theodore is right," said Ottmar. "Cyprian, I blame you for your

foolish _penchant_ for folly, your insane interest in insanity. There

is a morbidness about it which may give you some trouble one of these

days. For my part I shun mad people like the plague; and even people of

over-excitable temperaments, which lead them into marked eccentricities

of any kind, are repulsive and repugnant to me."

"You go too far," said Theodore, "in your distaste for every expression

of feeling which takes any rather peculiar or unusual form. The

incongruity which _excitable_ people, as they are called, perceive

between their inner selves and the world without them makes them

grimace, in a manner which quiet folks, over whom pain has as little

power as pleasure, can't understand, and are only annoyed with. Yet you

yourself, Ottmar, with all your sensitiveness to this kind of behaviour

in others, often lay yourself open to be accused of very distinct

eccentricity.

"I happen to remember a man whose eccentricities were so extreme that

half his fellow-citizens considered him a lunatic, although no one

really less deserved to be so characterized. The way in which I made

his acquaintance was as quaintly comic as the circumstances in, which I

met with him at a later period were tragic and terrible. I should like

to tell you all this story, as a sort of transition from pure insanity,

_via_ eccentricity, to the realms of every-day rationality. Only I am

afraid that, as I should have to say a good deal about music, I should

be open to the objection which I made to Cyprian's story--that of

giving my own particular hobby undue prominence, and introducing too

much of my own personality into my tale. In the meantime, I see that

Lothair is casting longing looks at that vase which Cyprian calls

'mysterious,' so we may as well break the spell which binds it."

"Now," said Lothair, when glasses of a fluid which would have merited

the encomiums of the fraternity of the "Clucking Hen" had been passed

round, "tell us about your eccentric friend--be entertaining, be

affecting, be merry, or sad; but get us away from the atmosphere of

that abominable mad anchorite, and out of the bedlam where Cyprian has

been keeping us immured."

[THE STORY OF KRESPEL.]

"The man," said Theodore, "whom I am going to tell you about was

Krespel, a Member of Council in the town of H----. This Krespel was the

most extraordinary character that I have ever, in my lifetime, come

across. When I first arrived in H---- the whole town was talking of

him, because one of his _most_ extraordinary pranks chanced to be in

its fullest swing. He was a very clever lawyer and _diplomate_, and a

certain German prince---not a person of _great_ importance--had

employed him to draw up a memorial, concerning claims of his on the

Imperial Chancery, which had been eminently successful. As Krespel had

often said he never could meet with a house quite to his mind, this

prince, as recompense for his services, undertook to pay for the

building of a house, to be planned by Krespel according to the dictates

of his fancy. He also offered to buy a site for it; but Krespel

determined to build it in a delightful piece of garden ground of his

own, just outside the town-gate. So he got together all the necessary

building materials, and had them laid down in this piece of ground.

After which, he was to be seen all day long, in his usual extraordinary

costume--which he always made with his own hands, on peculiar

principles of his own--slaking the lime, sifting the gravel, arranging

the stones in heaps, etc., etc. He had not gone to any architect for a

plan. But one fine day he walked in upon the principal builder, and

told him to come next morning, to his garden, with the necessary

workmen--stonemasons, hodmen, and so forth--and build him a house. The

builder, of course, asked to see the plan, and was not a little

astonished when Krespel said there was no plan and no occasion for one;

every thing would go on all right without one.

"The builder arrived next morning with his men, and found a great

rectangular trench, carefully dug in the ground; and Krespel said 'this

is the foundation; so set to work, and go on building the walls till I

tell you to stop.'

"'But what about the doors and windows,' said the builder; 'are there

to be no partition walls?'

"'Just you do as I tell you, my good man,' said Krespel, as calmly as

possible; 'everything will come quite right in its own good time.'

"Nothing but the prospect of liberal payment induced the man to have

anything to do with a job so preposterous--but never was there a piece

of work carried through so merrily; for it was amid the never-ceasing

jokes and laughter of the workmen--who never left the ground, where

abundance of victuals and drink were always at hand--that the four

walls rose with incredible celerity, till one day Krespel cried,

'Stop!'

"Mallets and chisels paused. The men came down from their scaffolds,

and formed a circle about Krespel, each grinning countenance seeming to

say--'What's going to happen now?'

"'Out of the way! 'cried Krespel, who hastened to one end of the

garden, and then paced slowly towards his rectangle of stone walls. On

reaching the side of it which was nearest--the one, that is, towards

which he had been marching--he shook his head dissatisfied, went to the

other end of the garden, then paced up to the wall as before, shaking

his head, dissatisfied, once more. This process he repeated two or

three times; but at last, going straight up to the wall till he touched

it with the point of his nose, he cried out, loud--

"Come here, you fellows, come here! Knock me in the door! Knock me in a

door _here_!' He gave the size it was to be, accurately in feet and

inches; and what he told them to do they did. When the door was knocked

out, he walked into the house, and smiled pleasantly at the builder's

remark that the walls were just the proper height for a nice

two-storied house. He walked meditatively up and down inside, the masons

following him with their tools, and whenever he cried 'here a window

six feet by four; a little one yonder three feet by two,' out flew the

stones as directed.

"It was during these operations that I arrived in H----, and it was

entertaining in the extreme to see some hundreds of people collected

outside the garden, all hurrahing whenever the stones flew out, and a

window appeared where none had been expected. The house was all

finished in the same fashion, everything being done according to

Krespel's directions as given on the spot. The quaintness of the

proceeding, the feeling--not to be resisted--that it was all going to

turn out so marvellously better than was to have been expected; but,

particularly, Krespel's liberality, which, by the way, cost him

nothing, kept everybody in the best of humour. So the difficulties

attending this remarkable style of house-building were got over, and in

a very brief time there stood a fully-finished house, which had the

maddest appearance, certainly, from the outside, no two windows being

alike, and so forth, but was a marvel of comfort and convenience

within. Everybody said so who entered it, and I was of the same

opinion, when Krespel admitted me to it after I made his acquaintance.

"It was some time, however, ere I did so. He had been so engrossed by

his building operations that he had never gone, as he did at other

times, to lunch at Professor M----'s on Thursdays, saying he should not

cross his threshold till after his house-warming. His friends were

expecting a grand entertainment on that occasion. However, he invited

nobody but the workmen who built the house. Them he entertained with

the most _recherche_ dishes. Journeymen masons feasted on venison

pasties, carpenters' apprentices and hungry hodmen, for once in their

lives stayed their appetites with roast pheasant and _pate de foie

gras_. In the evening their wives and daughters came, and there was a

fine ball. Krespel just waltzed a little with the foremen's wives,

and then sat down with the town-band, took a fiddle, and led the

dance-music till daylight.

"On the Thursday after this house-warming, which had established

Krespel in the position of a popular character--'a friend to the

working classes'--I at last met him at Professor M----'s, to my no

small gratification. The most extravagant imagination could not invent

anything more extraordinary than Krespel's style of behaviour. His

movements were awkward, abrupt, constrained, so that you expected him

to bump against the furniture and knock things down, or do some

mischief or other every moment. But he never did; and you soon noticed

that the lady of the house never changed colour ever so little,

although he went floundering heavily and uncertainly about, close to

tables covered with valuable china, or man[oe]uvring in dangerous

proximity to a great mirror reaching from floor to ceiling; even when

he took up a valuable china jar, painted with flowers, and whirled it

about near the window to admire the play of the light on its colours.

In fact, whilst we were waiting for luncheon, he inspected and

scrutinised everything in the room with the utmost minuteness, even

getting up upon a cushioned arm-chair to take a picture down from the

wall and hang it up again. All this time he talked a great deal; often

(and this was more observable while we were at luncheon) darting

rapidly from one subject to another, and at other times--unable to get

away from some particular idea--he would keep beginning at it again and

again, and get into labyrinths of confusion over it, till something

else came into his head. Sometimes the tone of his voice was harsh and

screaming, at other times it would be soft, sustained, and singing; but

it was always completely inappropriate to what he happened to be

talking about. For instance, we were discussing music, and some one was

praising a new composer: Krespel smiled, and said in his gentle

_cantabile_ tone, 'I wish to heaven the devil would hurl the wretched

music-perverter ten thousand millions of fathoms deep into the abysses

of hell!' and then he screamed out violently and wildly, 'She's an

angel of heaven, all compounded of the purest, divinest music:' and the

tears came to his eyes. It was some time ere we remembered that, about

an hour before, we had been talking of a particular _prima donna_.

There was a hare at table, and I noticed that he carefully polished the

bones on his plate, and made particular enquiries for the feet, which

were brought to him, with many smiles, by the professor's little

daughter of fifteen. All the time of luncheon the children had been

fixing their eyes upon him as on a favourite, and now they came up to

him, though they kept a respectful distance of two or three paces.'

'What's going to happen,' thought I. The dessert came, and Krespel took

a small box from his pocket, out of which he brought a miniature

turning-lathe, made of steel, which he screwed on to the table, and

proceeded to turn, from the bones, with wonderful skill and rapidity,

all sorts of charming little boxes, balls, etc., which the children

took possession of with cries of delight.

"As we rose from table, the professor's niece said--

"'And how is our dear Antonia, Mr. Krespel?'

"'_Our_--OUR dear Antonia!' he answered, in his sustained singing tone

most unpleasant to hear. At first he made the sort of face which a

person makes who bites into a bitter orange, and wants to look as if

it were a sweet one; but soon this face changed to a perfectly

terrible-looking mask, out of which grinned a bitter, fierce--nay, as

it seemed to me, altogether _diabolical_, sneer of angry scorn.

"The professor hastened up to him. In the look of angry reproach which

he cast at his niece I read that she had touched some string which

jarred most discordantly within Krespel.

"'How get on the violins?' said the professor, taking Krespel by both

hands.

"The cloud cleared away from his face, and he answered in his harsh

rugged tone, 'Splendidly, Professor. You remember my telling you about

a magnificent _Amati_, which I got hold of by a lucky accident a short

time ago? I cut it open this very morning, and expect that Antonia has

finished taking it to pieces by this time.'

"'Antonia is a dear, good child,' said the Professor.

"'Ay! that she is--that she is!' screamed Krespel, and seizing his hat

and stick, was off out of the house like a flash of lightning.

"As soon as he was gone, I eagerly begged the Professor to tell me all

about those violins, and more especially about Antonia.

"'Ah,' said the Professor, 'Krespel is an extraordinary man; he studies

fiddle-making in a peculiar fashion of his own.'

"'Fiddle-making?' cried I in amazement.

"'Yes,' said the Professor; 'connoisseurs consider that Krespel's

violin-making is unapproachable at the present day. Formerly, when he

turned out any special _chef d'[oe]uvre_, he would allow other people

to play upon it; but now he lets no one touch them but himself. When he

has finished a fiddle, he plays upon it for an hour or two (he plays

magnificently, with a power and an amount of feeling and expression

which the greatest professional violinists rarely equal, let alone

surpass), then he hangs it up on the wall beside the others, and never

touches it again, nor lets anyone else lay hands upon it.'

"'And Antonia?' I eagerly asked.

"'Well, _that_,' said the Professor, 'is an affair which would make me

have a very shady opinion of Krespel, if I didn't know what a

thoroughly good fellow he is; so that I feel convinced there is some

mystery about it which we don't at present fathom. When he first came

here some years ago, he lived like a hermit, with an old housekeeper,

in a gloomy house in ----Street. His eccentricities soon attracted

people's attention, and, when he saw this, he soon sought and made

acquaintances. Just as was the case in _my_ house, people got so

accustomed to him that they couldn't get on without him. In spite of

his rough exterior even the children got fond of him, though they were

never troublesome to him, but always looked upon him with a certain

amount of awe which prevented over-familiarity. You have seen how he

attracts children by all sorts of ingenious tricks. Everybody looked

upon him as a regular old bachelor and woman-hater, and he gave no sign

to the contrary; but after he had been here some time, he went off on

some excursion or other, no one knew where, and it was some months

before he came back. The second evening after his return, his windows

were lighted up in an unusual way--and that was enough to attract the

neighbours' attention. Presently, a most extraordinarily beautiful

female voice was heard singing to a pianoforte accompaniment. Soon the

tones of a violin were heard joining in, responding to the voice in

brilliant, fiery emulation. It was easy to distinguish that it was

Krespel who was playing. I joined the little crowd assembled outside

the house myself, to listen to the wonderful concert, and I can assure

you that the greatest prima-donnas I have ever heard were poor

every-day performers compared to the lady we heard that night. I _never_

heard any one sing with such marvellously touching expression, and

such absolute finish of execution; never had had any idea of such

long-sustained notes, such nightingale roulades, such crescendoes and

diminuendoes, such swellings to an organ-like _forte_, such dyings down

to the most imperceptible whisper. There was not a soul in all the

crowd able to resist the magic spell of this wonderful singing; and

when she stopped, you heard nothing but sighs breaking the silence. It

was probably about midnight, when, all at once we heard Krespel talking

loudly and excitedly; another male voice, to judge by the tone of it,

bitterly reproaching him about something, and a woman intervening as

best she could tearfully, in broken phrases. Krespel screamed louder

and louder, till at last he broke into that horrible _singing_ tone

which you know. A loud shriek from the lady interrupted him: then all

was as still as death; and suddenly steps came rapidly down the stairs,

and a young man came out, sobbing, and, jumping into a carriage which

was standing near, drove rapidly away.

"'The next day Krespel appeared quite in his ordinary condition, as if

nothing had happened, and no one had the courage to allude to the

events of the previous night; but the housekeeper said Krespel had

brought home a most beautiful lady, quite young; that he called her

Antonia, and that it was she who sung so splendidly; and that a young

gentleman had also come, who seemed to be deeply attached to Antonia,

and, as she supposed, was engaged to her; but that he had had to go

away, because Krespel had insisted on it. What Antonia's precise

position with respect to Krespel is, remains a mystery; at all events

he treats her in the most tyrannical style. He watches her as a cat

does a mouse, or as Dr. Bartolo, in _Il Barbiere_, does his niece. She

scarcely dares to look out of the window. On the rare occasions when he

can be prevailed upon to take her into society, he watches her with

Argus-eyes, and won't suffer a note of music to be heard, far less that

_she_ shall sing; neither will he now allow her to sing in his own

house; so that, since that celebrated night, Antonia's singing has

become, for the people of the town, a sort of romantic legend, as of

some splendid miracle, and even those who never heard her often say,

when some celebrated prima-donna comes to sing at a concert, 'Good

gracious! what a wretched caterwauling all this is, nobody can _sing_

but Antonia!'

"You know how anything of this sort always fascinates _me_, and you can

imagine how essential it became to me that I should make Antonia's

acquaintance. I had heard those sayings of the public about Antonia's

singing often, but I had had no idea that this glorious creature was

there, on the spot, held in thraldom by this crack-brained Krespel, as

by some tyrant enchanter. Naturally, that night, in my dreams I heard

Antonia singing in the most magnificent style; and as she was imploring

me, in the most moving manner, to set her free, in a gloriously lovely

_adagio_--absurdly enough, it seemed as if I had composed it myself--I

at once made up my mind that, by some means or other, I would make my

way into Krespel's house, and, like another Astolfo, set this Queen of

Song free from her shameful bonds.

"Things came about, however, quite differently to what I had

anticipated; for after I had once or twice met Krespel and had a talk

with him about fiddle-making, he asked me to go and see him. I went,

and he showed me his violin treasures: there ere some thirty of them

hanging in a cabinet; and there was one, remarkable above the rest,

with all the marks of the highest antiquity (a carved lion's head at

the end of the tail-piece, etc.), which was hung higher than the

others, with a wreath of flowers on it, and seemed to reign over the

rest as queen.

"'This violin,' said Krespel, when I questioned him about it, 'is a

very remarkable and unparalleled work, by some ancient master, most

probably about the time of Tartini. I am quite convinced there is

something most peculiar about its interior construction, and that, if I

were to take it to pieces, I should discover a certain secret which 1

have long been in search of. But--you may laugh at me if you like--this

lifeless thing, which I myself inspire with life and language, often

speaks out of itself, to me in an extraordinary manner; and when I

first played upon it, I felt as if I were merely the magnetiser--the

mesmerist--who acts upon his _subject_ in such sort that she relates in

words what she is seeing with her inward vision. No doubt you think me

an ass to have any faith in nonsense of this sort; still, it is the

fact that I have never been able to prevail upon myself to take that

lifeless thing there to pieces. I am glad I never did, for since

Antonia has been here, I now and then play to her on that fiddle; she

is fond of hearing it--very fond.'

"He exhibited so much emotion as he said this, that I was emboldened to

say 'Ah! dear Mr. Krespel, won't you be so kind as to let me hear you

play on it?' But he made one of his bitter-sweet faces, and answered in

his _cantabile sostenuto_:

"'_Nay_, my dear master student, that would ruin everything;' and I had

to go and admire a number of curiosities, principally childish trash,

till at length he dived into a chest and brought out a folded paper,

which he put into my hand with much solemnity, saying: '_There!_ you

are very fond of music: accept _this_ as a present from me, and always

prize it beyond everything. It is a souvenir of _great_ value.' With

which he took me by the shoulders and gently shoved me out of the door,

with an embrace on the threshold--in short, he symbolically kicked me

out of his house.

"When I opened the paper which he had given me, I found a small piece

of the first string of a violin, about the eighth of an inch in length,

and on the paper was written--

"'Portion of the first string which was on Stamitz's violin when he

played his last Concerto.'

"The calmly insulting style in which I had been shown to the door the

moment I had said a word about Antonia, seemed to indicate that I

should probably never be allowed to see her; however, the second time I

went to Krespel's I found Antonia in his room, helping him to put a

fiddle together. Her exterior did not strike me much at first, but

after a short time one could not resist the charm of her lovely blue

eyes, rosy lips, and exquisitely expressive, tender face. She was very

pale; but when anyone said anything interesting, a bright colour and a

very sweet smile appeared in her face, but the colour quickly died down

to a pale-rose tint. She and I talked quite unconstrainedly and

pleasantly together, and I saw none of those Argus-glances which the

Professor had spoken about. Krespel went on quite in his ordinary,

beaten track, and seemed rather to approve of my being friendly with

Antonia than otherwise. Thus it came about that I went pretty often

there, and our little circle of three got so accustomed to each other's

society that we much enjoyed ourselves in our quiet way. Krespel was

always entertaining with his strange eccentricities; but it was really

Antonia who drew me to the house, and made me put up with a great deal

which, impatient as I was in those days, I should never have endured

but for her. In Krespel's quirks and cranks there was often a good deal

which was tedious, and not in the best of taste. What most annoyed me

was that, whenever I led the conversation to music--particularly to

vocal music--he would burst in, in that horrible singing voice of his,

and smiling like a demon, with something wholly irrelevant and

generally disgustingly unimportant at the same time. From Antonia's

looks of annoyance on those occasions, it was clear that he did this to

prevent me from asking her to sing. However, I wasn't going to give in:

the more he objected, the more determined was I to carry my point. I

felt that I must hear her, or die of my dreams of it.

"There came an evening when Krespel was in particularly good humour.

He had taken an old Cremona violin to pieces, and found that the

sound-post of it was about half a line more perpendicular than usual.

Important circumstance!--of priceless practical value! I was fortunate

enough to start him off on the true style of violin playing. The style

of the great old masters--copied by them from that of the really grand

singers--of which he spoke, led to the observation that now the direct

converse held good, and that singers copied the scale, and skipping

'passages' of the instrumentalists. 'What,' said I, hastening to the

piano and sitting down at it, 'can be more preposterous than those

disgusting mannerisms, more like the noise of peas rattling on the

floor of a barn than music?' I went on to sing a number of those modern

cadenza-passages, which go yooping up and down the scale, more like a

child's humming-top than anything else, and I struck a feeble chord or

two by way of accompaniment. Krespel laughed immoderately, and cried

'Ha! ha! ha! I could fancy I was listening to some of our German

Italians, or our Italian Germans, pumping out some aria of Pucitt or

Portugallo, or some other such _maestro di capella_, or rather _schiavo

d' un prime uomo_.'

"'Now,' thought I, 'is my chance at last.--I am sure Antonia,' I said,

turning to her, 'knows nothing of all that quavering stuff,' and I

commenced to roll out a glorious soulful aria of old Leonardo Leo's.

Antonia's cheeks glowed; a heavenly radiance beamed from her beautiful

eyes; she sprang to the piano; she opened her lips--but Krespel

instantly made a rush at her; shoved her out of the room, and, seizing

me by the shoulders, shrieked--'Little son, little son, little son.' He

continued, in a soft and gentle singing voice, while he took me by the

hand, bending his head with much courtesy, 'No doubt, my dear young

Master Student, it would be a breach of all courtesy and politeness if

I were to proceed to express, in plain and unmistakable words, and with

all the energy at my command, my desire that the damnable, hellish

devil might clutch hold of that throat of yours, here on the spot, with

his red-hot talons; leaving that on one side for the moment, however,

you will admit, my very dear young friend, that it's getting pretty

late in the evening, and will soon be dark; and as there are no lamps

lighted, even if I were not to pitch you down stairs, you might run a

certain risk of damaging your precious members. Go away home, like a

nice young gentleman, and don't forget your good friend Krespel, if you

should never--_never_, you understand--find him at home again when you

happen to call.' With which he took me in his arms, and slowly worked

his way with me to the door in such fashion that I could not manage to

set eyes on Antonia again for a moment.

"You will admit that, situated as I was, it was impossible for me to

give him a good hiding, as, probably, I ought to have done by rights.

The Professor laughed tremendously, and declared that I had seen the

last of Krespel for good and all; and Antonia was too precious, I might

say too sacred, in my sight, that I should go playing the languishing

_amoroso_ under her window. I left her, broken-hearted; but, as is the

case with matters of the kind, the bright tints of the picture in my

fancy gradually faded, and toned down with the lapse of time; and

Antonia, ay, even Antonia's singing, which I had never heard, came to

shine upon my memory only like some beautiful, far-away vision, bathed

in rosy radiance.

"Two years afterwards, when I was settled in B----, I had occasion to

make a journey into the South of Germany. One evening I saw the

familiar towers of H---- rising into sight against the dewy, roseate

evening sky; and as I came nearer, a strange, indescribable feeling of

painful, anxious uneasiness and alarm took possession of me, and lay on

my heart like a weight of lead. I could scarcely breathe. I got out of

the carriage into the open air. The oppression amounted to actual

physical pain. Presently I thought I could hear the notes of a solemn

hymn floating on the air; it grew more distinct, and I made out male

voices singing a choral. 'What's this, what's this,' I cried, as it

pierced through my heart like a dagger stab. 'Don't you see, sir?' said

the postillion, walking beside me, 'it's a funeral going on in the

churchyard.' We were, in fact, close to the cemetery, and I saw a

circle of people in black assembled by a grave, which was bring filled

in. The tears came to my eyes. I frit as if somehow all the happiness

and joy of my life bring buried in that grave. I had been descending

the hill pretty quickly, so that I could not now see into the cemetery.

The choral ceased, and I saw, near the gate, black-dressed men coming

away from the funeral. The Professor with his niece on his arm, both in

deep mourning, passed close to me without noticing me. The niece had

her handkerchief at her eyes' and was sobbing bitterly. I felt I could

not go into the town; I sent my servant with the carriage to the usual

hotel, and walked into the well-known country to try if I could shake

off the strange condition I was in, which I ascribed to physical

causes, being overheated and tired with my journey, etc. When I reached

the alley which leads to the public gardens, I saw a most extraordinary

sight--Krespel, led along by two men in deep mourning, whom he seemed

to be trying to escape from by all sorts of extraordinary leaps and

bounds. He was dressed, as usual, in his wonderful grey coat of his own

making; but from his little three-cornered hat, which he had cocked

over one ear in a martial manner, hung a very long, narrow streamer of

black crape, which fluttered playfully in the breeze. Round his waist

he had buckled a black sword-belt, but instead of a sword he had stuck

into it a long fiddle bow.

"The blood ran cold in my veins. 'He has gone quite mad,' I said as I

followed them slowly.

"They took him to his own door, where he embraced them, laughing loud.

They left him, and then he noticed me. He stared at me in silence for a

considerable time; then he said, in a mournful, hollow voice:

"'Glad to see you, Master Student, _you_ know all about it.' He seized

me by the arm, dragged me into the house, and upstairs to the room

where the violins hung. They were all covered with crape, but the

masterpiece by the unknown maker was not in its place, a wreath of

cypress bung in its stead.

"I knew then what had happened. 'Antonia, alas! Antonia,' I cried in

uncontrollable anguish.

"Krespel was standing in front of me with his arms folded, like a man

turned to stone.

"'When she died,' he said, very solemnly, 'the sound-post of that fiddle

shivered to pieces with a grinding crash. The faithful thing could only

live with her and in her; it is lying with her in her grave.' I sank

into a chair overpowered; but Krespel began singing a merry ditty, in a

hoarse voice; and it was a truly awful sight to see him dancing, as he

sang it, upon one foot, while the crape on his hat kept flapping about

the fiddles on the wall; and I could not help giving a scream of horror

as this crape streamer, during one of his rapid gyrations, came wafting

over my face, for I felt as if the touch of it must infallibly infect

me, and drag me, too, down into the black, terrible abyss of madness.

But when I gave the scream, Krespel stopped dancing, and said, in his

singing voice:

"'What are you shrieking out like that for, little son? Did you see the

death angel, think you? people always do before the funeral.' Then,

walking into the middle of the floor, he drew the bow out of his belt,

and, raising it with both hands above his head, he broke it into

splinters. Then he laughed long and loud, and cried, 'The staff's

broken over me now, you think, little son, don't you?[2]

nothing of the kind, nothing of the kind!'

"'I'm free now--I'm free! I'm free!

And fiddles I'll make no more, boys!

And fiddles I'll make no more!

Hurray! hurray! hip-hip hurray!

Oh! fiddles I'll make no more.'"

"This he sang to a terribly merry tune, dancing about on one foot again

as he did so. Full of horror I was making for the door; but he held me

back, saying, quite quietly and soberly this time:

"'Don't go away, Master Student. Don't think that those outbreaks of my

pain, which is so terrible that I can scarcely bear it longer, mean

that I am mad. No, no, I am as sane as you are, and as calmly in my

senses. The only thing is, a little while ago I made myself a

nightshirt, and thought when I had it on I should be like Destiny, or

God.' He went on talking the wildest incoherence for a time, till he

sank down, completely exhausted. The old housekeeper came at my

summons, and I was thankful when I found myself outside in the open

air.

"I never doubted for an instant that Krespel had gone completely mad;

but the Professor maintained the contrary. 'There are people,' he said,

'in whose cases Nature, or some destiny or other, has deprived them of

the cover--the exterior envelope--under which we others carry on our

madnesses unseen. They are like certain insects who have transparent

integuments, which (as we see the play of their muscular movements)

give the effect of a malformation, although everything is perfectly

normal. What never passes beyond the sphere of thought in us becomes

action in Krespel. The bitter scorn and rage which the soul, imprisoned

as it is in earthly conditions of being and action, often vividly

feels, Krespel carries out, or expresses, into external life, by

extraordinarily frantic gesticulations and hare jumps. But those are

his lightning conductors. What comes out of the earth he delivers back

to the earth again; the heavenly he retains, and consequently

apprehends it quite clearly and distinctly with his inner

consciousness, notwithstanding all the crackiness which we sparking out

of him. No doubt Antonia's unexpected loss touches him very keenly, but

I should bet that he'll be going on in his usual jog trot to-morrow as

if nothing had happened.'

"And it turned out very much as the Professor had expected: Krespel

appeared next morning very much as if nothing had happened. Only he

announced that he had given up fiddle-making, and would never play on

one again. And it afterwards appeared that he kept his word.

"All that I had heard from the Professor strengthened my conviction

that the relation in which Antonia had stood to Krespel--so very

intimate, and so carefully kept unexplained--as also the fact that she

was dead--very probably involved him in a very serious responsibility,

which he might find it by no means easy to clear himself from. I made

up my mind that I would not leave H---- until I had given him the full

benefit of my ideas on this subject. My notion was to thoroughly alarm

him, to appeal to his conscience, and, if I could, constrain him to a

full confession of his crime. The more I considered the matter the

clearer it seemed that he must be a terrible villain; and all the more

eloquent and impressive grew the allocution which I mentally got ready

to deliver to him, and which gradually took the form of a regular

masterpiece of rhetoric.

"Thus prepared for my attack, T betook myself to him in a condition of

much virtuous indignation one morning.

"I found him making children's toys at his turning lathe, with a

tranquil smile on his face.

"'How,' said I, 'is it possible that your conscience can allow you to

be at peace for an instant, when the thought of the horrible crime you

have been guilty of must perpetually sting you like a serpent's tooth?'

"He laid down his tools, and stared at me in astonishment.

"'What do you mean, my good sir?' he said. 'Sit down on that chair

there.'

"But I went on, with much warmth, and distinctly accused him of having

caused Antonia's death, threatening him with the vengeance of Heaven.

Nay more, being full of juridical zeal--as I had just been inducted

into a judicial appointment--I went on to assure him that I should

consider it my duty to leave no stone unturned to bring the affair

thoroughly to light, so as to deliver him into the hands of earthly

justice. I was a little put out, I admit, when, on the conclusion of my

rather pompous harangue, Krespel, without a word in reply, merely

looked at me as if waiting for what I had to say next: and I tried to

find something further to add: but everything that occurred to me

seemed so silly and feeble that I held my peace. He seemed rather to

enjoy this breakdown in my eloquence, and a bitter smile passed over

his face, but then he became very grave, and said in a solemn tone:

"'My good young sir! Very likely you think me a fool--or a madman. I

forgive you. We are both in the same madhouse, and you object to my

thinking myself God the Father, because you think you are God the Son.

How do you suppose you can enter into another person's life, utterly

unknown to you in all its complicated turnings and windings, and pick

up and follow all its deeply hidden threads? She is gone, and the

riddle is solved!'

"He stopped, rose, and walked two or three times up and down the room.

I ventured to ask for some explanation. He looked at me fixedly, took

me by the hand, and led me to the window, opening both the outside

jalousies. He leaned upon the sill with both his arms, and, so looking

out into the garden, he told me the story of his life.

"When he had ended, I left him deeply affected, and bitterly ashamed.

"To make a long tale short, matters as concerned Antonia stood as

follows:

"Some twenty years previously, his fancy of making a collection of the

finest violins of the great old makers had taken him to Italy. At that

time he had not begun to make violins himself, neither, consequently,

to take them to pieces. At Venice he heard the renowned prima donna,

Angela, at that time shining in the leading _roles_ at the Teatro di

San Benedetto. She was as supereminent in beauty as she was in art: and

well became, and deserved, her name of Angela. He sought her

acquaintance, and, in spite of all his rugged uncouthness, his most

remarkable violin playing, with its combination of great originality,

force and tenderness, speedily won her artist's heart. A close intimacy

led, in a few weeks, to a marriage--which not made public--because

Angela would neither leave the stage, give up her well-known name, nor

tack on to it strangely-sounding 'Krespel.' He described, with the

bitterest irony, the quite peculiar ingenuity with which Signora Angela

commenced, as soon as she was his wife, to torment and torture him. All

the selfishness, caprice, and obstinacy of all the prima donnas on

earth rolled into one, were, as Krespel considered, incorporated in

Angela's little body. Whenever he tried to assert his true position in

the smallest degree, she would launch a swarm of _abbates_, _maestros_,

and _academicos_ about his ears, who, not knowing his real relations

with her, would snub him, and set him down as a wretched unendurable

ass of an amateur _inamorato_, incapable of adapting himself to the

Signora's charming and interesting humours. After one of those stormy

scenes, Krespel had flown off to Angela's country house, and

phantasizing on his Cremona, was forgetting the sorrows of the day.

This had not lasted long, however, when the Signora, who had followed

him, came into the room. She happened to be in a tender mood: she

embraced Krespel with sweet, languishing glances, she laid her little

head upon his shoulder. But Krespel, lost in the world of his

harmonies, went on fiddling, so that the walls reechoed; and it so

chanced that he touched the Signora, a trifle ungently, with his

bow-arm. She blazed up like a fury, screamed out, '_Bestia tedesca_,'

snatched the violin out of his hand, and dashed it to pieces on a

marble table. Krespel stood before her for a moment, a statue of

amazement, and then, as if awaking from a dream, he grasped the Signora

as with the fists of a giant, shied her out of the window of her own

_palazzo_, and set off--without concerning himself further about the

matter--to Venice, and thence to Germany. It was some little time

before he quite realized what he had done. Though he knew the window

was only some five feet from the ground, and the necessity of throwing

the Signora out of it under the circumstances was quite indisputable,

still he felt very anxious as to the results, inasmuch as she had given

him to understand that he was 'about to be a father.' He was almost

afraid to make any inquiries, and was not a little surprised, some

eight months afterwards, to receive an affectionate letter from his

beloved wife, in which she did not say a syllable about the little

circumstance which had occurred at the country _palazzo_, but announced

that she was the happy mother of a charming little daughter, and prayed

the '_marito amato e padre felicissimo_' to come as quickly as he could

to Venice. However, Krespel didn't go, but made inquiries through a

trusted friend as to what had happened. He was told that the Signora

had dropped down on to the grass as lightly as a bird, and the only

results of her fall were mental ones. The Signora had been like a new

creature after Krespel's heroic achievement. All her wilfulness and

charming caprices had disappeared completely; and the _maestro_ who

wrote the music for the next Carnival considered himself the luckiest

man under the sun; inasmuch as the Signora sang all his arias without

one of the thousand alterations which, in ordinary circumstances, she

would have insisted on his making in them. Krespel's friend added that

it was most desirable to give no publicity to what had occurred,

because, otherwise, _prima donnas_ would be getting pitched out of

window every day.

"Krespel was in great excitement. He ordered horses. He got in to the

post-chaise.

"'Stop a moment, though,' he said. 'Isn't it a positive certainty that,

as soon as I make my appearance, the evil spirit will take possession

of Angela again? I've thrown her out of window once already. What

should I do a second time? I don't see what I could do.'

"He got out of the carriage, wrote an affectionate letter to his wife,

and--remained in Germany. They carried on a warm correspondence.

Assurances of affection, fond imaginings, regrets for the absence of

the beloved, etc., etc., flew backwards and forwards between H---- and

Venice. Angela came to Germany, as we know, and shone as prima donna on

the boards at F----. Though she was no longer young, she carried

everything before her by the irresistible charm of her singing. Her

voice had lost nothing at that time. Meanwhile Antonia had grown up;

and her mother could scarce find words in which to describe, to

Krespel, how, in Antonia, a Cantatrice of the first rank was blossoming

out. Krespel's friends in F----, too, kept on telling him of this;

begging him to go there and hear these two remarkable singers. Of

course they had no idea of the relationship in which Krespel stood to

them. He would fain have gone and seen his daughter, who lived in the

depths of his heart, and whom he often saw in dreams. But the thought

of what his wife was restrained him: and he stayed at home, amongst his

dismembered fiddles.

"I daresay you remember a very promising young composer in F---- of the

name of B----, who suddenly ceased to be heard of--no one knew why:

perhaps you may have known him. Well, he fell deeply in love with

Antonia; she returned his affection, and he urged her mother to consent

to a union consecrated by art. Angela was quite willing, and Krespel

gave his consent all the more readily that this young _maestro's_

writings had found favour before his critical tribunal. Krespel was

expecting to hear of the marriage every day, when there came a letter

with a black seal, addressed in a stranger's hand. A certain Dr.

M---- wrote to say that Angela had been taken seriously ill, in

consequence of a chill caught at the theatre, and had passed away on the

very night before the day fixed for Antonia's marriage. He added that

Angela had told him she was Krespel's wife, and Antonia his daughter;

so that he ought to come and take charge of her. Deeply as he was shocked

by Angela's death, he could not but feel that a certain disturbing element

was removed from his life, and that he could breathe freely, for the

first time for many a long day. You cannot imagine how affectingly he

described the moment when he saw Antonia for the first time. In the

very oddness of his description of it lay a wonderful power of

expression which I am unable to give any idea of. Antonia had all the

charm and attractiveness of Angela, with none of her nasty reverse

side. There was no cloven foot peeping out anywhere. B----, her husband

that was to have been, came. Antonia comprehending her quaint father,

with delicate tact, and seeing into his inner depths, sang one of those

motetts of old Padre Martini which she knew Angela used to sing to him

during the fullest blossom-time of their days of love. He shed rivers

of tears. Never had he heard even Angela sing so splendidly. The tone

of Antonia's voice was quite _sui generis_--at times it was like the

AEolian harp, at others like the trilling roulades of the nightingale.

It seemed as though there could not be space for those tones in a human

breast. Antonia, glowing with love and happiness, sang all her best

solos, and B---- played between whiles as only ecstatic inspiration can

play. At first, Krespel floated in ecstasy. Then he grew thoughtful and

silent, at last he sprung up, pressed Antonia to his heart, and said,

gently and imploringly, 'Don't sing any more, if you love me. It breaks

my heart. The fear of it--the fear of it! Don't sing any more.'

"'No,' said Krespel next morning to Dr. M----, 'when, during her

singing, her colour contracted to two dark red spots on her white

cheeks, it was no longer a mere everyday family likeness--it was what I

had been dreading.' The doctor, whose face at the beginning of the

conversation had expressed deep anxiety, said, 'Perhaps it may be that

she has exerted herself too much in singing when over-young, or her

inherited temperament may be the cause. But Antonia has organic disease

of the chest. It is that which gives her voice its extraordinary power,

and its most remarkable timbre, which is almost beyond the scope of the

ordinary human voice. At the same time it implies her early death. If

she goes on singing, six months is the utmost I can promise her.' This

pierced Krespel's heart like a thousand daggers. It was as if some

beautiful tree had suddenly come into his life, all covered with

beautiful blossoms, and it was sawn across at the root. His decision

was made at once. He told Antonia all. He left it to her to decide

whether she would follow her lover, and yield to his and the world's

claims on her, and die young, or bestow upon her father, in his

declining years, a peace and happiness such as he had never known, and

live many a year in so doing.

"She fell sobbing into her father's arms. It was beyond his power to

think at such a moment. He felt too keenly all the anguish involved in

either alternative. He discussed the matter with B----; but although he

asseverated that Antonia should never sing a single note, Krespel knew

too well that he never would be able to resist the temptation to hear

her sing compositions of his own at all events. Then the world--the

musical public--though it knew the true state of the case, would never

give up its claims upon her. The musical public is a cruel race; where

its own enjoyment is in question, and terrible.

"Krespel disappeared with Antonia from F----, and came to H----.

B---- heard with despair of their departure, followed on their track,

and arrived at H---- at the same time that they did.

"'Only let me see him once, and then die!' Antonia implored.

"'Die--die!' cried Krespel in the wildest fury. His daughter, the only

creature in the wide world who could fire him with a bliss he had never

otherwise felt, the only being who had ever made life endurable to him,

was tearing herself violently away from him. So the worst might happen,

and he would give no sign.

"B---- sat down to the piano, Antonia sang, and Krespel played the

violin, till suddenly the dark red spots came to Antonia's cheeks. Then

Krespel ordered a halt, but when B---- took his farewell she fell down

insensible in a swoon.

"'I thought she was dead,' Krespel said, 'for I quite expected it would

kill her; and as I had wound myself up to expect the worst, I kept

quite calm and self-possessed. I took hold of B---- by the shoulders

(in his frightful consternation he was staring before him like a

sheep), and said (here he fell into his singing voice), "My dear Mr.

Pianoforte-teacher, now that you have killed the woman you were going

to marry by your own deliberate act, perhaps you will be so kind as to

take yourself off out of this with as little trouble as you can, unless

you choose to stay till I run this little hunting-knife through you, so

that my daughter, who, as you see, is looking rather white, may derive

a shade or two of colour from that precious blood of yours. Even though

you run pretty quick, I could throw a fair sized knife after you."

I suppose I must have looked rather terrible as I said this, for

B---- dashed away with a scream of terror downstairs, and out of the

door.'

"When, after B----'s departure, Krespel went to raise Antonia, who was

lying senseless on the floor, she opened her eyes with a profound sigh,

but seemed to close them again, as if in death. Krespel then broke out

into loud, inconsolable lamentations. The doctor, fetched by the old

housekeeper, said that Antonia was suffering from a violent shock, but

that there was no danger, and this proved to be the case, and she

recovered even more speedily than was to be expected. She now clung to

her father with the most devoted filial affection, and entered warmly

into all his favourite hobbies, however absurd. She helped him to take

old fiddles to pieces, and to put new ones together. 'I won't sing any

more. I want to live for you,' she would often say to her father with a

gentle smile, when people asked her to sing, and she was obliged to

refuse. Krespel endeavoured to spare her those trials, and this was why

he avoided taking her into society, and tried to taboo all music. He

knew, of course, what a pain it was to her to renounce the art which

she had cultivated to such perfection. When he bought the remarkable

violin already spoken of--the one which was buried with her--and was

going to take it to pieces, Antonia looked at him very sorrowfully, and

said, gently imploring him, 'This one, too?' Some indescribable impulse

constrained him to leave it untouched, and to play on it. Scarcely had

he brought out a few notes from it when Antonia cried, loudly and

joyfully, 'Ah! that is I--that is I singing again.' And of a verity its

silver bell-like tones had something quite extraordinarily wonderful

about them. They sounded as if they came out of a human heart. Krespel

was deeply affected. He played more gloriously than ever he had done

before. And when, with his fullest power, he would go storming over the

strings, in brilliant, sparkling scales and _arpeggios_, Antonia would

clap her hands and cry, delighted, 'Ah! I did that well. I did that

splendidly!' Often she would say to him, 'I should like to sing

something, father'; and then he would take the fiddle from the wall,

and play all her favourite solos, those which she used to sing of

old,--and then she was quite happy.

"A short time before I came back, Krespel one night thought he heard

some one playing on the piano in the next room, and presently he

recognized that it was B----, preluding in his accustomed rather

peculiar fashion. He tried to rise from his bed, but some strange heavy

weight seemed to lie upon him, fettering him there, so that he could

not move. Presently he heard Antonia singing to the piano, in soft

whispering tones, which gradually swelled, and swelled to the most

pealing _fortissimo_. Then those marvellous tones took the form of a

beautiful, glorious _aria_ which B---- had once written for Antonia, in

the religious style of the old masters. Krespel said the state in which

he found himself was indescribable, for terrible alarm was in it, and

also a bliss such as he had never before known. Suddenly he found

himself in the middle of a flood of the most brilliant and dazzling

light, and in this light he saw B---- and Antonia holding each other

closely embraced, and looking at each other in a rapture of bliss. The

tones of the singing and of the accompanying piano went on, although

Antonia was not seen to be singing, and B---- was not touching the

piano. Here Krespel fell into a species of profound unconsciousness, in

which the vision and the music faded and were lost. When he recovered,

all that remained was a sense of anxiety and alarm. He hastened into

Antonia's room.

"She was lying on the couch, with her eyes, closed, and a heavenly

smile on her face, as if she were dreaming of the most exquisite

happiness and bliss. But she was dead!"

Whilst Theodore had been telling this tale, Ottmar had been manifesting

his impatience nay, his lively repugnance in various ways. Sometimes he

would get up and walk about the room, then he would sit down again, and

drink glass after glass of the contents of the vase; then he sat down

at Theodore's table, and pulled the papers about, till he found an

almanac, of which he eagerly turned over the leaves for a time, till at

length he laid it down before him, open on the table, with the air of

having discovered something in it of the deepest interest and

importance.

"Well!" cried Lothair, when Theodore had ended his story; "this is

almost too much. You can't bear the idea of the kindly visionary whom

Cyprian told us about; you tell us it is dangerous to peep down into

those mysterious abysses of nature; you will neither talk about things

of the sort, nor hear them talked about, yet you come in upon us with

a story which, frightful as it is in its crackiness, is infinitely

beyond, at all events, _my_ powers of endurance. What was the

gentle, happy, contented Serapion in comparison with this splenetic

Krespel--absolutely terrific in his spleneticism? You said we were to

be led, gently, from insanity, _via_ eccentricity, to ordinary,

everyday rationality; and you go on to show us pictures which, if we

look at them with any closeness, are enough to drive us clean out of

our senses. Cyprian's story was largely tinctured by his own

individuality, but yours was so by yours in a far higher degree, for I

know that the moment music is in question, you get into a sort of

magnetized condition, and see the strangest visions. As is usual with

you, you have given your story a strong dash of mystery which, of course,

excites and enthrals a listener, as anything out of the common groove

will do, be it never so morbid. But there are limits to all things; and

it is not right to drive people to the verge of insanity in this

gratuitous sort of way. Antonia's story and circumstances, and the

mysterious sympathy between her and that ancient violin are very

touching, but in a way which makes one's blood curdle, and the _finale_

of the tale produces an inconsolable misery which I cannot but call

excessively painful--in fact, I consider it 'abominable.' It is a

strong expression; but I really don't see that I can well retract it."

"Are you accusing me," asked Theodore with a smile, "of having harrowed

your feelings with a more or less elaborately constructed fiction? I

was merely telling you about a strange character, of whom I was

reminded by the story of Serapion. I merely related circumstances which

actually occurred; and if you think any of them improbable, remember,

my dear sir, that it is nearly always the most improbable things that

really come to pass."

"Very likely," said Lothair. "Still, that is small excuse for you. You

should cither have told us nothing about this horrible Krespel, or

(admirable colourist as you are) you should have shown him in more

agreeable tints. However, we have had more than enough of that

distressful architect, _diplomate_, and fiddle maker. May he sink Into

oblivion? But now, Cyprian, I bend my knee to you. I shall never call

you a fanciful spirit-seer again. You have given us a strange proof

that reminiscences are very remarkable and mysterious things. All this

day you have not been able to get poor Serapion out of your mind, and I

see quite clearly that you have been much relieved, and happier, since

you told us his story. Now just come and look at this book here, this

excellent specimen of the ordinary household almanac, for it contains a

key to the whole mystery. This, you see, is the 14th of November. It

was on the 14th of November that you found your hermit lying dead in

his hut, and though you were not vouchsafed the assistance of a couple

of lions to bury him--as Ottmar suggested--and met with no particularly

wonderful adventures in the forest, of course you were deeply affected

at the sight of your friend, who had passed to his rest so gently. The

impression was ineradicable; and it may well be supposed that the

spirit within you brought the image of your friend more vividly before

you than usual on the anniversary of his death, by some process of

which you were unconscious. Do me the kindness, Cyprian, to add a

miraculous circumstance or two to your account of Serapion's death,

just to enrich the conclusion of it a little."

"When I was leaving the hut," said Cyprian, "the tame deer, which I

told you about, came up to me with great tears in its eyes, and the

wild doves hovered about me with anxious cries; and as I was

approaching the village, to give information of his death, I met some

peasants coming with a bier, all ready, who said that when they had

heard the hermit's bell tolling at an unusual time they had known that

the holy man had laid himself down to die, or was dead already. That is

all, dear Lothair, that I have to serve up by way of a subject for your

banter."

"Banter, do you say?" cried Lothair, rising. "What do you take me for,

O my Cyprianus? Am I not, like Brutus, an honourable man; just and

upright; a lover of the truth? Don't I enthusi-ize with the

enthusiasts, and phantazize with the phantazizers? Do I not rejoice

with them that do rejoice, and weep with those that weep? Just look

here, my Cyprianus! Look once again at this book, this literary

production here, crammed with incontrovertible facts, this most

excellent specimen of the common, every-day household almanac. At the

date '14th November' you find, it is true, the commonplace, every-day

name 'Levin.' But cast your eyes upon this 'catholic' column here.

There stands, in red letters,

"'SERAPION, MARTYR.'

"Consequently, your Serapion died on the very name-day of the Saint whom

he took himself to be! Come; I drink this cup to the memory of

Serapion, saint and martyr, and do you all do likewise!"

"'With all my heart!' said Cyprian, and the glasses clinked.

"Looking at the subject all round," said Lothair, "and especially now

that Theodore has so thoroughly stirred my bile with that horrible

Krespel of his, I am quite reconciled to Cyprian's Serapion. More than

that, I honour and reverence his insanity; for none but a grand and

genuine poet could have been attacked by a madness of that particular

form. I needn't advert to the circumstance--it's an old, well-worn

story--that, originally, the same word was used to denote the poet and

the seer; but it is certain that we might often doubt just as much of

the existence of real poets as of that of genuine seers, recounting in

their _extasis_ the wonders of a higher realm; or else why is it that

so much poetry, by no means to be termed 'bad' (so far as its form and

workmanship are concerned), affects us no more than some pale, faded

picture, so that we are not carried away by it at all, and the

gorgeousness of its diction only serves to increase the frost which it

permeates us with? Why is this, but because the poet has never really

_seen_ what he is telling us about: the events and incidents have never

appeared to his mental vision, in all their joy, terror, splendour,

majesty, gloom, and sadness, inspiring him, and setting him aglow, so

that his inward fire blazes forth in words of lightning? It is useless

for a poet to set to work to make us believe in a thing which he does

not believe in himself, cannot believe in, because he has never really

seen it. What can the characters of a poet of this sort--who

(according to the old expression) is not at the same time a genuine

seer--be but deceptive puppets, glued together out of heterogeneous

stuff? Your hermit, dear Cyprian, was a true poet. He had actually seen

what he described; and that was why he affected people's hearts and

souls. Poor Serapion! Wherein did your madness consist? except that

some hostile star had taken away your faculty of discerning that

duplexity which is, really, the essential condition of our earthly

existence. There is an inner world; and a spiritual faculty of

discerning it with absolute clearness, nay, with the most minute and

brilliant distinctness. But it is part of our earthly lot that it is

the _outer_ world, in which we are encased, which is the lever that

brings that spiritual faculty into play. The things of the inner world

appear to us only inside the circle which is formed round us by the

objects of the outer world, beyond which circle our spirits cannot

soar, except in dim mysterious bodings--never; becoming distinct

images--that such things exist. But you, happy hermit, lost sight of

the outer world, and did not perceive the lever which set your inward

faculty in motion; and when, with that gruesome acumen of yours, you

declared that it is only the mind which sees, hears, and takes

cognizance of events and incidents, and that, as a consequence,

whatever the mind takes cognizance of has actually happened, you forgot

that it is the outer world which causes the spirit to exercise those

functions which, take cognizance. Your life was a constant dream, from

which your awaking in another world was assuredly not a painful one. I

consecrate this glass to your memory."

"Don't you notice," said Ottmar, "that Lothair is looking quite a

different person--thanks to Theodore's admirably compounded beverage,

which has driven the evil spirit out of him?"

"Don't ascribe my better mood to the influence of the bowl," said

Lothair. "You all know that, till the evil mood has left me, I never

can touch wine. The truth is that I have only just begun to feel at

ease, and at home, amongst you. The restless, excited state in which I

was at first has gone; and as I not only forgive Cyprian for telling us

about Serapion, but feel a real affection for him, why, Theodore's

horrible 'Krespel' may pass muster as well. But there are a good many

things I should like to say to you. We seem to be all agreed that we

are a set of rather uncommonly superior people, and we have made up our

minds to reconstitute our old alliance; whilst the bustle of this great

town, our distance from each other, and the diversity of our

occupations tend to keep us apart. Let us determine, then, this

evening, the times and places of our weekly meetings. More than that,

it cannot but be that, as of old, we shall wish to read to each other

such little stories, and so forth, as we may have been writing from

time to time. Let us remember Serapion the Hermit in connection with

this. Let each of us try, and examine himself well, as to whether he

has really _seen_ what he is going to describe before he sets to work

to put it in words. At all events, let each of us strive, very

strenuously, to get a clear grasp, in his mind, of the picture he is

going to produce,--in every one of its forms, colours, lights and

shadows, and then, when he feels himself thoroughly permeated and

kindled by it, bring it out into outer life. Thus shall our society be

established on solid foundations, and be a source of comfort and

gratification to us all. Let Serapion the Hermit be our patron saint:

may his seer-gift inspire us. His rule we will follow, as true Serapion

Brethren."

"Now," said Cyprian, "is not our Lothair the most extraordinary of all

extraordinary fellows? At first he was the one who flamed furiously up

in opposition to Ottmar's very sensible suggestion that we should meet

every week on a certain evening, and dragged in the subject of clubs,

without rhyme or reason. And now he is the very one to prove to us that

our meetings are a necessity, as well as a pleasure, and to set to work

to determine their character, and lay down the rules which are to

govern them."

"I certainly did, at first, feel opposed to the idea of there being

anything in the shape of formal conditions attached to our meetings,"

said Lothair, "but I was in a peculiar mood then, which has passed away

now. There is no danger of our drifting into Philistinism. Everybody

has more on less of a tendency towards it, however sublimely he may

strive against it; and perhaps a certain spice of it may not always be

an unmitigated evil. However, we needn't bother ourselves about

whatever little clouds, of any sort, may rise on our horizon from time

to time. The devil is sure to bring some over us, as opportunities

offer. Let us discuss the Serapiontic principle. What are your views

about it?"

Theodore, Ottmar and Cyprian all thought that their union would have

been sure to assume a literary character, of itself, though nothing had

been expressly stipulated to that affect,--and at once took the vow of

obedience to the rule of Serapion the Hermit, so clearly formulated by

Lothair; which, as Theodore pointed out, amounted to this--that they

should never vex each other's souls by the production of scamped work.

So they clinked their glasses joyously, and gave each other the

fraternal embrace of the true Serapion Brother.

"Midnight," said Ottmar, "is still a long way off, and I think it would

be very nice if one of us were to relate something more pleasant and

amusing, by way of throwing the melancholy, nay terrible, events we

have been dealing with into the background a little. I think it rests

properly with Theodore to operate his promised 'Transition to Ordinary

Rationality.'"

"If you like," said Theodore, "I will read you a little story which I

wrote some time ago, which was suggested to me by a picture. When I saw

this picture, I discovered a meaning in it which the painter of it had

certainly never dreamt of--could not have dreamt of in fact--because it

referred to circumstances in my own early life, which the picture

brought strangely back to my memory."

"I sincerely trust there are no mad people in it," said Lothair; "for I

have had more than my fill of them already: and I hope it conforms to

the rule of our patron saint."

"There are no mad people in it," said Theodore, "but, as to its

conformity with Serapiontic rule, I must leave that to the verdict of

my worthy brethren, begging them at the same time not to judge me too

severely, seeing that my little story was suggested by a light, airy

picture, and makes no pretence but to cause a passing moment's

entertainment."

With which Theodore produced his manuscript, and began as follows:

"AN INTERRUPTED CADENCE.

"In the Berlin autumn Exhibition of 1814, there was a charming picture

of Hummel's, called 'A Scene in an Italian Locanda,' which attracted

much attention. It was both light and vigorous, and had all the effect

of representing a real occurrence. The scene was a garden-arbour, thick

with the luxuriant leafage of the South. Two Italian ladies, seated

opposite to one another, at a table, with wine and fruit--one of

them singing, the other accompanying her on a guitar. Between them,

and behind the table, an _abbate_, standing beating the time, as

music-director; his hand was raised, as a conductor's is when a singer

is executing a _cadenza_, watching carefully and anxiously for the

precise instant when the singer--evidently warbling out her cadence,

with eyes upraised to the sky--should come in with her _trillo_--her long

shake; at the precise termination of which it would be his duty to make

his down-beat, on which signal the guitarist should strike in with her

chord of the dominant. The _abbate_, all admiration and intense

enjoyment, was watching for the proper instant to made his down-beat as

a cat watches a mouse. Not if his life depended on it would he depass

that precise instant by a hair's-breadth. Fain would he muzzle every

fly, every mosquito, humming about under the leaves. Most distressful

to him the approach of the landlord, who had selected that particular

moment to come in with more wine. Beyond the arbour, in the middle

distance, a shaded alley, with streams of bright sunlight breaking

athwart it through the branches; and a man on horseback, drinking a

cool draught, served to him by a girl from the _locanda_.

"Edward and Theodore were standing studying this picture; and Edward

said:

"'The more I look at this picture; at that lady singing--not quite so

young as she has been, but inspired by genuine artistic enthusiasm--at

the pure, intellectual Roman profile, and the magnificent figure of the

lady accompanying on the guitar, and at the delicious little _abbate_

beating the time, the more convinced I am that they are portraits of

real, living persons. I feel as if I should like to step into that

arbour and open one of those delightful wicker-covered flasks that are

smiling at me on that table there. I can almost fancy I scent the aroma

of the noble wine. And that latter idea must be realised, and not

allowed to evaporate in this chill atmosphere. I propose that we go and

drink a bottle of real Italian wine, in honour of this charming

picture, and of the happy land of Italy, the only country where life is

worth living.'

"As Edward so spoke, Theodore was standing silent, sunk in deep

reflection.

"'Very well--yes--we may as well,' he answered, like a man waking from

a dream. Yet he seemed loth to tear himself away from the picture, and

still kept casting longing glances at it when he had mechanically

followed his friend to the door.

"It was an easy matter to put Edward's idea into practice. They had

only to cross the street to find themselves in the little blue room in

the Sala Tarone, with a wicker-covered flask, like those in the

picture, on the table before them.

"'You seem, somehow,' said Edward, when they had swallowed two or three

glasses of the Italian wine, and Theodore was still sitting silent and

thoughtful,--'you seem, somehow, as if that picture had produced a

different impression, and a far less pleasant one, on you than on me.'

"'I delight in that picture as much as anybody,' answered Theodore.

'But the extraordinary thing about it is, that it chances to represent

a scene in my early life, with the utmost exactness, so that the very

characters in it are absolute portraits of the real actors in that

scene. You will admit that even pleasant reminiscences affect us

strangely when they come bursting in upon us in this utterly unexpected

sort of manner, as if evoked by the wand of an enchanter.'

"'What a very extraordinary affair,' said Edward. 'You say this picture

represents an incident, in your own life? It seems probable enough that

the two ladies and the _abbate_ are likenesses of real people: but that

they should ever have had anything to do with _you_ is certainly

amazing enough. Do tell me all about it. We are not pressed for time,

and nobody is likely to come in and disturb us at this hour of the

day.'

"'I should rather like to tell you about it,' said Theodore, 'only I

shall have to go a longish way back, to the time when I was a mere

boy.'

"Please go on, then, and tell me about it,' said Edward. 'I don't know

much about your early life; and if it does take some time in telling we

shall only have to send for another bottle of this Italian wine; nobody

will be the worse for that, neither we nor Signor Tarone.'

"'Nobody who knows me,' said Theodore, 'need feel any surprise at my

having thrown everything else overboard, and devoted myself, body and

soul, to the glorious art, music. Even when I was a mere child, music

was the only thing I really cared about. I would hammer all day, and

all night, too, if people would have allowed me, upon my uncle's old

rattle-trap of a piano. Music was at an extremely low ebb in the little

place where we lived; there was nobody to give me any instruction but

an old, conceited, self-opinionated organist. His music was of the

lifeless, mathematical order. He wearied my soul with a lot of ugly

gloomy _toccatas_ and _fugues_. However, I did not let this discourage

me, but laboured faithfully on. The old fellow would often gird at me

in bitter and unsparing terms; but he had only to sit down and play me

something in his severely accurate manner, to reconcile me to life and

art in a moment. Often the most wonderful ideas would come into my head

on such occasions; many of Sebastian Bach's works, for instance, and

they above all others, would fill me with a weird awe, as if they were

legends about spirits and enchanters. But a perfect paradise opened

upon me when, as happened in winter, the town band gave a concert,

assisted by a few local amateurs, and I was allowed to play the

kettledrums in the symphony, a favour granted to me on account of the

accuracy of my time. It was many a day before I knew what wretched and

ludicrous affairs those concerts were. My master, the organist,

generally played a couple of pianoforte concertos of Wolff or Emanuel

Bach; one of the bandsmen tortured himself--and his hearers--with some

violin solo of Stamitz, and the excise officer blew terrifically on a

flute, and wasted so much breath in the process, that he kept blowing

out the candles on his desk, so that they had to be constantly lighted

up again. Nothing in the shape of singing could be accomplished, and

this was a source of deep regret to my uncle, a "great" amateur

musician. He remembered the days when the choir-masters of the four

churches used to sing "Lottchen am Hofe" at the concerts, and he used

to refer, with high approbation, to the fine spirit of religious

tolerance which actuated those musicians, who laid aside their

religious differences, and united in these performances, coming

together, irrespective of creed, on a common basis of art. For, besides

the Catholic and the Evangelical communities, the Protestants

themselves were divided into French and German churches. The French

choir-master used to take the part of "Charlotte," and my uncle used to

say he sang it--spectacles on nose--in the loveliest falsetto that ever

issued from a human throat.