Upper-Lower-Scheerau.--Hoppedizel.--Herbarium.--Visitors'
Croup.--Prince's Feathers.
No Geographer and Upper Consistorial Counsellor has ever yet had the
misfortune which has befallen Herr Brueshcing--namely, of omitting in
his topographical atlas a whole good principality, which shares a seat
on the courtly bench of Wetteran and is called _Scheerau_--which,
according to the imperial matriculation schedule, furnishes 8/9 of
horse and 9-2/8 of foot, and pays the Master of the Exchequer 21 Fl.
1/91 Xr. (kreutzer)--which was promoted to princely rank under Charles
IV.--which has its five fair representative Chambers, which have
everywhere a say, but nothing to do; namely, the Commandery of the
German Order, the University, the Knighthood, the cities and the towns,
and which, among other inhabitants, contains also me. I would not stand
in the shoes of such a writer--one who creeps with his geographic
mirror into every _cul-de-sac_ in order to take its likeness, and yet
in this instance has skipped over a whole principality with its five
paralytic estates; I know how it annoys him, but now that I have talked
with the whole world about it there is no longer any help for him.
The capital city, Scheerau, consists properly of two cities--New, or
Upper Scheerau, where the Prince resides, and Old, or Lower Scheerau,
where the Captain lodges. I, for my part, have long been convinced that
the Saxon houses are not half so far removed from the Frankforters as
the Old and New Scheerauers are from each other in style, face, fare
and everything. The New Scheerauer has court-style enough to have
dignity, debts and passion for extra-domestic pleasures; and yet,
again, too much chancery style--because all the highest colleges of the
land are there--not to recognize or demand everywhere stiff
subordination, or to sink from the Chamberlain to the Chancery Clerk
and Auditor of the Treasury. Now, the old Scheerauer perceives this. On
the other hand, the New Scheerauer perceives that the other has the
following traits: If in China the jaws of a dinner-party must all move
simultaneously like a double piano; if in Monomotapa the whole country
sneezes every time the Emperor does; let one go to Old Scheerau, and
there he will find things still better; at the same moment all streets
must weep, cough, pray, ease themselves, hate and spit; their Blue
Book looks like a musical score, from which all play the same piece,
only with different instruments and voices, (only in music are they
swayed by some true spirit of freedom, and none slavishly binds his
elbow or fiddle-bow or quill [Tangenten] to his neighbor's)--they hate
belles-lettres as much as they do one another--incapable of doing
without social pleasures, of arranging or enjoying them, incapable of
enterprise, of openly either hating or loving or enduring each other,
they worm themselves into their money-piles and publicly respect the
richest and privately only the relative, or, in fact, nobody at
all--without taste and without patriotism and without reading....
But I am putting it quite too strongly; no reader will be willing to
stir a step after the Captain towards Lower-Scheerau. Their greatest
fault is, that they are good for nothing; but, aside from that, they
are thrifty, full of none but trades-people, temperate, and sweep the
streets and their faces nice and clean. Capitals, like courts, have a
family-likeness; but country-towns inasmuch as more commercial,
military, legal, mining or marine sap flows through them--a different
full-face and half-face.
The Falkenberg ship's company alighted from its traveling ark before
the plated front door of the Professor of Ethics, Hoppedizel; in the
Professor's second story they usually had their winter quarters. Just
behind the said door the Captain encountered an absurd melodrama,
namely: the Raft Inspector, _Peuschel_, was leaning against the wall,
vomiting and cursing; and regularly alternating from one to the other,
as between Pentameter and Hexameter. The Professor of Morals quickly,
with an uninked finger, wrote on the wall the outlines of the following
words which he read off as fast as he traced them: "It was indeed
disgusting, devilishly disgusting." Any other man the entrance of an
old friend like Falkenberg would at once have disconcerted in the whole
scene; the Professor, however, was not to be cheated out of his joke,
but began his embrace in an unaltered tone with a report of the present
case: "The gentleman before you. Raft Inspector Peuschel," (began
Hoppedizel) "is fond of tippling, with wine particularly--it was in
vain that the inspectoress, his lady"--(for discreet forbearance was
never on Hoppedizel's lips)--"had sought to reform him by letting a
live frog die in his wine. He himself" (he added) "had therefore to-day
tried his hand at making this guzzling sicken him. For he had luckily
cut a gall-stone--as thick as a Muscatelle-pear--out of a University
subject; _this_ he had hollowed out into a drinking urn and made Herr
Peuschel believe it was of lava and to-day had let his vomiting friend
drink out of it genuine Hungarian wine of the best crop; and that it
might not fail to nauseate him and set his _crop_ into a reaction, he
had only a few minutes before made it clear to his patient that the
volcanic beaker was veritable gravel-stone. And he hoped it would be
some time before his friend would get this piece of earthenware out of
his head."
The Professor begged the Inspector to do him the favor, in case the
nausea left him, of staying there this evening and joining the Captain
in a spoonful of soup.
There are certain houses where, let one visit them as often as he will,
one shall find everything revised and turned up and turned over; this
was emphatically the case in Hoppedizel's establishment; and the
Captain's winter quarters looked always like a summer house in winter.
People of refinement charm us by a certain delicate attention to
another's little necessities, by an anticipation of his slightest
wishes, by a constant sacrifice of their own, by courtesies that wind
their silken web more softly and securely round our hearts than the
cutting love-cord of a great benefaction. Hoppedizel used neither the
silk nor the cord, and cared for nobody. It was not from absence of
fine feeling, but from rebellion against it, that, when the Captain,
the very first week, cursed both his quarters and his landlord, he
simply laughed at him.
The delicate Amandus kept his sickbed all the evening and Gustavus
crept to his side, in order to play with him. How, in the Arabia Petrea
of the hateful world, are we refreshed by the sight of children who
love one another, and whose good little eyes and little lips and little
hands are no masks!
The next day an accident again took the two children away from each
other. The Captain led them through all the streets of the city as
through a picture gallery, and silently stopped at last with the two
foster-brothers of the heart before the house of his friend Dr. Fenk,
and looked wistfully at his picture (on the sign.) It represented a
Doctor's coach with a Physician inside, Death in front, harnessed into
the shafts, and the Devil sitting up on the box. "The dear, good
droll," thought he, "might surely just trudge home from his Italy and
give his friends a pleasure!" For he had not heard a word of his actual
return. "Mandus! Mandus! run up!" cried suddenly a little maid
overhead, who seemed on wires, and came herself skipping down and
plucked and pecked at the little fellow. The good-natured Captain
gladly followed the children out of the great parterre into the
familiar house, and his astonishment at all signs of Fenk's return
ceased only with the rushing in of the Doctor himself. The latter, when
half way towards embracing him, bounded back to the little blind boy
and amidst tears and kisses snatched off the bandage--examined the eyes
for a long time at the window--and said, after drawing a long breath:
"God be praised and thanked! he is not blind!" Now, for the first
time, the Doctor flung his arms, with redoubled warmth, around his
friend. "Pardon me, it is my child!" Nevertheless he drew Amandus again
to the light, and examined him still longer, and said, with raised
eyebrows; "It seems to be merely a lesion of the _sclerotica_; the
oculist-woman let out the aqueous humor. In Pavia I saw it done every
week with dogs, whose eyes the dentists (our medical feudal-cousins)
slit up and spread over them a stupid salve. When afterwards the humor
and the sight came back of themselves, the salve had the credit of it."
I skip over the stream of the outpouring, conversational and joyous, of
the two friends, which left them hardly eye or ear for anything, least
of all the clock. "Ah, here they come," said Fenk, namely, the guests.
As my readers have understanding enough, they can permit me, I hope, to
finish my narrative before they take down their rod of wrath, against
the imaginary posterior of the Doctor, from behind the looking-glass.
No one had such a burning hatred as he for the narrowness, intolerance,
and provincial pedantry of the inhabitants of Lower Scheerau, wherewith
they made a short life so much the shorter to themselves, and a sour
one so much the more sour. "It disgusts me to be praised by them"--he
not merely said that, but he even loved to exasperate by putting the
worst face upon his purest motives, the whole town, from one end to the
other; meanwhile, in the tenderness of his heart, he could not do more
than vex the whole city _in grosso_, never one single person. For this
reason on the second morning after his arrival he glided about like an
influenza from one house to another, and invited all aunts, cousins,
blood-relations and blood-enemies, people in whom he had no interest
save as they belonged to the dear Christendom, _e. g_., the Raft
Inspector, Peuschel, the Late-Director Eckert, with his four late-pears
of daughters, and all that had breath in Unter-Scheerau--he invited all
in a body to spend an afternoon, and inspect a rarity he had brought
home with him, namely, a _herbarium vivum_, which he would exhibit. "It
was no live book of plants, but something quite special, and he had
brought home from the glaciers the very best."
And these all were now coming, not because they cared the least for a
book of plants, but because they wanted to see it, and _incidentally_
the bachelor Doctor's housekeeping. I must confess thus much to the
European courts, that the whole assembled township and cousinship swept
in and coughed and hemmed their way through with grace; and the four
late-pears were not wanting in good-breeding, but made instead of bows
profound genuflexions and kept very well their perpendicular position.
The host then brought in two long folios of plants, and said in a
friendly manner he should take pleasure in showing them all--and now he
kindled the hell into which he cast the company--he crawled with
caterpillar's feet and snail-slime from leaf to leaf of book and plant;
he showed nothing superficially; he went through the pistils, stamens,
anthers of every single plant; he said he should weary them if he were
more copious, and would describe, therefore, name, country, and natural
history of every group very briefly. All faces burned, all backs were
roasted, all toes were in a fidget. Vainly did one cousin attempt to
turn away her eyes toward the blind Amandus, only for the sake of
looking at something animal; the botanical connoisseur fastened their
attention upon a new dust-bag which he at that moment eulogized. He had
already dragged his club to the _Pentandria_,[21] when he said: "This
evening must find us in the neighborhood of the _Dodecandria_ [of
twelve stamens]; but it will cost toil and sweat." He grew more and
more delighted with the universal lamentation over such a purgatorial
afternoon, the like of which no Scheerauer had ever before experienced,
and said their attention fired his enthusiasm in the highest degree.
Still the botanic candidates let themselves be martyred from one leaf
to another, and would have obligingly stayed it out, till the Captain,
although he divined the prank, grew infernally impatient and was on the
point of going. The Doctor said he should have to reserve the second
folio for another lesson; but he wished they would come again soon,
that would be the only evidence that they had been pleased to-day. The
mere thought of the second folio-torture, to which the Theresian[22]
Codex with its racking pictures is but a pocket-almanac with monthly
engravings, brought with it something of a feverish shudder. Thus had
they disgracefully lost a whole half day without a bit of scandal,
gossip, or calumny, which might have been carried home with them and
retailed through the neighborhood. The elder dames usually visited
balls and concerts, not at all, however, to be seen, but to see, and to
elaborate there physiognomical fragments for the furtherance of the
_knowledge of humanity_, though not for the promotion of
_philanthropy_. Nay, they loved to visit even their avowed enemies,
when there was a shot to be fired at an absent enemy; as wolves, who
flee one another, nevertheless ally themselves together for the death
of another wolf. I have always taken pleasure in observing how heartily
and with what friendship a pair of Scheerau ladies sympathize with each
other when they have the least scandal to bring out of their budget
against a third. Only when two no longer sit beside each other on the
sofa, but turn their faces instead of their hips towards each other,
then I would rather not be the one they handle.
* * *
Extra Lines on the Quinsy which Attacks all the Ladies in Scheerau
at the Sight Of a Stranger of their own Sex.
To the men of that place the sight of a strange lady does little harm;
it merely causes all frizzlers and barbers to come a little later than
usual; at the billiard tables the cues or tobacco pipes point up into
the air, and the teachers of the worthy gymnasium do not stop at all on
that account. On the contrary the women!--
On the island of St. Hilda, when a stranger disembarks there occurs a
misfortune which no philosopher has yet been able to explain--the whole
country _coughs_ on his account.[23] All villages, all corporate
bodies, all ages cough--if the passenger makes a purchase, the
provision dealers cough, at the gate the military do it, and the body
of teachers cough over their lessons. It is of no use at all to call in
the physician--he barks more than his patients and is his own
patient....
In Lower Scheerau the same misfortune occurs, only in a greater degree.
Let a strange lady set foot in the post-house, in the concert hall or
ball-room, immediately all the women of Scheerau are compelled to
_cough_, and--which always proceeds from a sore throat--to speak
_lower_--all are attacked by quinsy, _i. e._, the _angina vera_. The
poor ladies show all signs of the most virulent inflammation of the
throat; heat (hence the fanning) _chills_, distress for breath,
_fancies_, swollen nostrils, heartburn. Cooling remedies, water,
clearing of the air tubes, prove the most effectual thus far for the
fair patients. But if (which Heaven avert!) the strange lady who enters
is the handsomest--the cleverest--the richest--the famousest--the most
celebrated--the most tasteful--then not a single sufferer in the whole
hospital is cured; such an angel becomes a true death angel, and one
should absolutely prevent any stranger of merit from passing the gate.
The attack, like every other malady, is most aggravating in autumn and
winter during the winter gaieties and among the winter guests. This
quinsy is ascribed by wit or understanding to two causes: first, to
external or shell-merits (never to inner ones); thus, too, Unzer thinks
that crustaceous animals act most upon the throat, hence, _e. g_.,
oysters produce difficulty of swallowing, calcined crabs counteract
hydrophobia, steam of crabs produces dumbness, scorpions lameness of
the tongue. The second reason is, that ladies in a city live as on an
insulating stool, and if a stranger of their sex, who has not been put
_en rapport_ with them, touches the manipulated clairvoyants, or even
stands at a distance from them, these latter feel ugly sensations in
all their limbs.
_End of the Extra Lines_.
* * *
After the botanical divine-service Fenk gave the departing ladies of
Scheerau the additional piece of information to take home with them, as
an altar-benediction, leaving it to them, meanwhile, to make the sign
of the crossover it: That the two children, whom they had seen, the
little boy and the little girl, had had no other cradle than the
traveling carriage; but that he, at present, had become at once
Pestilentiary and Medical Counsellor; he preferred however to cure
women only, and in time hoped to wed one, and hereby made a standing
offer....
When the people of Lower Scheerau have anything put upon them which
seems at once sweet, sour and senseless, at first they listen to
it--then they smile at it--then reflect upon it--then cannot see into
it--then for three days surmise nothing good of it--and finally become
fairly enraged about it. Fenk did not trouble himself about that, but
said from time to time something or other and what neither they nor he
himself understood.
Thereupon he explained all to the Captain, as I do to the reader. The
pressed plants, he said, would keep, henceforth, all aunts and ninnies
and visiting ants away from his lodgings, as an enclosing hemp-thread
does caterpillars from a vegetable garden. That he communicated only
half the history of his travels and a riddle or two growing out of it,
because one becomes most interested in persons about whom one has
something left him to guess, and the curious patient females would
become his female patients. Whether he was married or not, he did not
himself know; nor should others know, because all whose houses were
sale-rooms of daughters would invite him in as physician that he might
come out again as bridegroom. Finally, that the reasons of his taking
only female patients were these: that they were the most numerous; that
this exclusive practice would beget a peculiar confidence in him; that
this confidence was a woman-doctor's whole dispensary; that most of the
ailments of women consisted merely of weaknesses, and their whole cure
in abstinence from--medicine; that apothecaries' shops were only for
men, not for women; and because he liked full as well to adore as to
cure them.
Another point was this, how he had so quickly come to Scheerau and come
so quickly to be Medical Counsellor. This was the way: the hereditary
Prince, who at this moment on the high throne-coach-box will drive with
the state-carriage to the devil, loves nobody; on his journey he made
jests upon his mistresses; his friendship is only a lesser degree of
hatred, his indifference is a greater; but the greatest, which stings
him like a heartburn, he cherishes for his unmarried brother, Captain
von Ottomar, Fenk's friend, who had stayed in Rome in the midst of the
most beautiful _natural nature_, as well as _artistic_, in order to
revel in the enjoyments of Roman landscapes and antiques. Ottomar
seemed a _genius_ in the good sense as well as in the bad. He and the
hereditary Prince could hardly endure each other in ante-chambers, and
were often on the point of a duel. Now the Grand Duke of Scheerau hates
poor Fenk also, first, because the latter is a friend of his foe;
secondly, because he once restored to life and to his allowance-money
the hereditary Prince's third brother; thirdly, because the Prince
needed far less reasons (or in fact none) for hating any one than for
loving him.
Now the Doctor would have been glad to be made Medical Counsellor under
the former administration, whose stomach we met on the road; under the
coming administration, whose stomach was still filling itself in Italy,
there was little chance for him. The Doctor sought therefore to get his
fortune firmly rooted a week or two before the new coronation. He found
the old minister still at his post, who was patron and whose patron the
hereditary Prince was far from being, for the reason that leads
hereditary princes generally to think that they must get the creatures
of their dead father under the ground just as certainly, only more
slowly and delicately, as savage tribes do, who lay on the funeral-pile
of the king his favorites and servants also.
When Fenk came, the _deceased_ Regent made him all he wanted to be: for
it was in this way: When the departed father of his people had become
in the physiological sense a child of the people, _i. e_., had returned
to the age of which he was when they had hung upon him the first
order-ribbon instead of leading-strings, namely, six and a half years,
the eternal signing of his cabinet decrees became much too disagreeable
to the Prince, and at last impossible. As, however, he must after all
still govern, when he could no longer write, the court-engraver cut his
decreeing name so well in stone that he had only to dip the stamp in
ink and press it while moist under the edict: then he had his edict
before him. In this way he governed fifteen per cent. easier; but the
minister one hundred per cent., who, at last, out of gratitude, in
order to relieve the enfeebled Prince even of the heavy handling of the
stamp, dipped, himself, the beautiful seal (which he preferred to
Michael Angelo's) into his own ink-stand; so that the old lord,
several days after his death, had subscribed sundry vocations and
rescripts--but this modeling-stamp of men in general became the
insect's-laying-sting[24] and father of the best government officials,
and at last spawned the Pestilentiary.
Extra-Thoughts Upon Regents' Thumbs.
Not the crown but the inkstand oppresses Princes, Grand Masters and
Commanders; not the Sceptre, but the Pen do they find so much
difficulty in wielding, because with the former they merely command,
but with the latter they have to sign what is commanded. A cabinet
councillor would not wonder if a tormented crowned scribe should, like
Roman recruits, amputate his thumb, in order to be freed from the
eternal making of his mark, as _they_ do to escape fighting. But the
reigning and writing heads keep the thumb; they see that the welfare of
the land requires their dipping the pen,--the little illegibleness on
cabinet orders which one calls their name, opens and shuts, like a
magic formula, money-chests, hearts, gates, warehouses, ports; the
black drop of their pen manures and forces or macerates whole fields.
Professor Hoppedizel had, when he was first teacher of morals to the
Scheerau Infante, a good idea, although only in his last month:
might not the princely tutor command the sub-tutor to let the
crown-abecedarian, who of course must one day learn to write, instead
of useless bills of feoffment merely scrawl his name in the middle of
every blank leaf? The child would write his signature without disgust
on as many pages as would be needed in his whole administration--the
sheets might be laid away against the child's coronation--and then (he
continued) when he had bespattered pages enough, as a college would
often require his signature yearly, if, accordingly on New Year's day
the necessary number of signed reams had been distributed among the
colleges to last the whole year--what more would the child need to do
in his whole administration?
_End of the Extras-thoughts_.
* * *
One word more: after nine weeks the Doctor's revenge by means of the
plant-book produced in him, as the least revenge does in every good
man, a painful reaction. "The Herbarium," said he, "annoys me, as often
as I stick anything into it; but it is certainly true, a man shall have
passed through all capital cities and retain his modesty: at the very
gate of his native town the devil of pride enters into him and
accompanies him on his first visits--his good fellow citizens, he will
have it, must during his absence have become rational."