course of half a dozen lessons I had arrived at very considerable
agility in the waltzing line, and could twirl round the room with him
at such a pace as made the old gentleman pant again, and hardly left him
breath enough to puff out a compliment to his pupil. I may say, that in
a single week I became an expert waltzer; but as I wished, when I came
out publicly in that character, to be quite sure of myself, and as I had
hitherto practised not with a lady, but with a very fat old man, it was
agreed that he should bring a lady of his acquaintance to perfect me,
and accordingly, at my eighth lesson, Madame Springbock herself came to
the dancing-room, and the old zephyr performed on the violin.
If any man ventures the least sneer with regard to this lady, or dares
to insinuate anything disrespectful to her or myself, I say at once that
he is an impudent calumniator. Madame Springbock is old enough to be my
grandmother, and as ugly a woman as I ever saw; but, though old, she was
passionnee pour la danse, and not having (on account, doubtless, of her
age and unprepossessing appearance) many opportunities of indulging in
her favorite pastime, made up for lost time by immense activity
whenever she could get a partner. In vain, at the end of the hour, would
Springbock exclaim, “Amalia, my soul's blessing, the time is up!” “Play
on, dear Alphonso!” would the old lady exclaim, whisking me round: and
though I had not the least pleasure in such a homely partner, yet for
the sake of perfecting myself I waltzed and waltzed with her, until we
were both half dead with fatigue.
At the end of three weeks I could waltz as well as any man in Germany.
At the end of four weeks there was a grand ball at court in honor of H.
H. the Prince of Dummerland and his Princess, and THEN I determined
I would come out in public. I dressed myself with unusual care and
splendor. My hair was curled and my moustache dyed to a nicety; and
of the four hundred gentlemen present, if the girls of Kalbsbraten DID
select one who wore an English hussar uniform, why should I disguise the
fact? In spite of my silence, the news had somehow got abroad, as news
will in such small towns,--Herr von Fitz-Boodle was coming out in a
waltz that evening. His Highness the Duke even made an allusion to the
circumstance. When on this eventful night, I went, as usual, and made
him my bow in the presentation, “Vous, monsieur,” said he--“vous qui
etes si jeune, devez aimer la danse.” I blushed as red as my trousers,
and bowing, went away.
I stepped up to Dorothea. Heavens! how beautiful she looked! and how
archly she smiled as, with a thumping heart, I asked her hand for a
WALTZ! She took out her little mother-of-pearl dancing-book, she wrote
down my name with her pencil: we were engaged for the fourth waltz, and
till then I left her to other partners.
Who says that his first waltz is not a nervous moment? I vow I was
more excited than by any duel I ever fought. I would not dance any
contre-danse or galop. I repeatedly went to the buffet and got glasses
of punch (dear simple Germany! 'tis with rum-punch and egg-flip thy
children strengthen themselves for the dance!) I went into the ball-room
and looked--the couples bounded before me, the music clashed and rung
in my ears--all was fiery, feverish, indistinct. The gleaming white
columns, the polished oaken floors in which the innumerable tapers were
reflected--all together swam before my eyes, and I was in a pitch of
madness almost when the fourth waltz at length came. “WILL YOU DANCE
WITH YOUR SWORD ON?” said the sweetest voice in the world. I blushed,
and stammered, and trembled, as I laid down that weapon and my cap, and
hark! the music began!
Oh, how my hand trembled as I placed it round the waist of Dorothea!
With my left hand I took her right--did she squeeze it? I think she
did--to this day I think she did. Away we went! we tripped over the
polished oak floor like two young fairies. “Courage, monsieur,” said
she, with her sweet smile. Then it was “Tres bien, monsieur.” Then I
heard the voices humming and buzzing about. “Il danse bien, l'Anglais.”
“Ma foi, oui,” says another. On we went, twirling and twisting, and
turning and whirling; couple after couple dropped panting off. Little
Klingenspohr himself was obliged to give in. All eyes were upon us--we
were going round ALONE. Dorothea was almost exhausted, when
* * * * *
I have been sitting for two hours since I marked the asterisks,
thinking--thinking. I have committed crimes in my life--who hasn't? But
talk of remorse, what remorse is there like THAT which rushes up in a
flood to my brain sometimes when I am alone, and causes me to blush when
I'm a-bed in the dark?
I fell, sir, on that infernal slippery floor. Down we came like shot; we
rolled over and over in the midst of the ballroom, the music going
ten miles an hour, 800 pairs of eyes fixed upon us, a cursed shriek of
laughter bursting out from all sides. Heavens! how clear I heard it, as
we went on rolling and rolling! “My child! my Dorothea!” shrieked out
Madame Speck, rushing forward, and as soon as she had breath to do
so, Dorothea of course screamed too; then she fainted, then she was
disentangled from out my spurs, and borne off by a bevy of tittering
women. “Clumsy brute!” said Madame Speck, turning her fat back upon me.
I remained upon my seant, wild, ghastly, looking about. It was all up
with me--I knew it was. I wished I could have died there, and I wish so
still.
Klingenspohr married her, that is the long and short; but before that
event I placed a sabre-cut across the young scoundrel's nose, which
destroyed HIS beauty for ever.
O Dorothea! you can't forgive me--you oughtn't to forgive me; but I love
you madly still.
My next flame was Ottilia: but let us keep her for another number; my
feelings overpower me at present.
OTTILIA.
CHAPTER I.
THE ALBUM--THE MEDITERRANEAN HEATH.
Travelling some little time back in a wild part of Connemara, where
I had been for fishing and seal-shooting, I had the good luck to get
admission to the chateau of a hospitable Irish gentleman, and to procure
some news of my once dear Ottilia.
Yes, of no other than Ottilia v. Schlippenschlopp, the Muse of
Kalbsbraten-Pumpernickel, the friendly little town far away in
Sachsenland,--where old Speck built the town pump, where Klingenspohr
was slashed across the nose,--where Dorothea rolled over and over in
that horrible waltz with Fitz-Boo--Psha!--away with the recollection;
but wasn't it strange to get news of Ottilia in the wildest corner of
Ireland, where I never should have thought to hear her gentle name?
Walking on that very Urrisbeg Mountain under whose shadow I heard
Ottilia's name, Mackay, the learned author of the “Flora Patlandica,”
discovered the Mediterranean heath,--such a flower as I have often
plucked on the sides of Vesuvius, and as Proserpine, no doubt, amused
herself in gathering as she strayed in the fields of Enna. Here it
is--the self-same flower, peering out at the Atlantic from Roundstone
Bay; here, too, in this wild lonely place, nestles the fragrant memory
of my Ottilia!
In a word, after a day on Ballylynch Lake (where, with a brown fly and
a single hair, I killed fourteen salmon, the smallest twenty-nine pounds
weight, the largest somewhere about five stone ten), my young friend
Blake Bodkin Lynch Browne (a fine lad who has made his continental tour)
and I adjourned, after dinner, to the young gentleman's private room,
for the purpose of smoking a certain cigar; which is never more pleasant
than after a hard day's sport, or a day spent in-doors, or after a good
dinner, or a bad one, or at night when you are tired, or in the morning
when you are fresh, or of a cold winter's day, or of a scorching
summer's afternoon, or at any other moment you choose to fix upon.
What should I see in Blake's room but a rack of pipes, such as are to
be found in almost all the bachelors' rooms in Germany, and amongst them
was a porcelain pipe-head bearing the image of the Kalbsbraten pump!
There it was: the old spout, the old familiar allegory of Mars, Bacchus,
Apollo virorum, and the rest, that I had so often looked at from
Hofarchitect Speck's window, as I sat there, by the side of Dorothea.
The old gentleman had given me one of these very pipes; for he had
hundreds of them painted, wherewith he used to gratify almost every
stranger who came into his native town.
Any old place with which I have once been familiar (as, perhaps, I have
before stated in these “Confessions”--but never mind that) is in some
sort dear to me: and were I Lord Shootingcastle or Colonel Popland,
I think after a residence of six months there I should love the Fleet
Prison. As I saw the old familiar pipe, I took it down, and crammed it
with Cavendish tobacco, and lay down on a sofa, and puffed away for an
hour wellnigh, thinking of old, old times.
“You're very entertaining to-night, Fitz,” says young Blake, who had
made several tumblers of punch for me, which I had gulped down without
saying a word. “Don't ye think ye'd be more easy in bed than snorting
and sighing there on my sofa, and groaning fit to make me go hang
myself?”
“I am thinking, Blake,” says I, “about Pumpernickel, where old Speck
gave you this pipe.”
“'Deed he did,” replies the young man; “and did ye know the old Bar'n?”
“I did,” said I. “My friend, I have been by the banks of the Bendemeer.
Tell me, are the nightingales still singing there, and do the roses
still bloom?”
“The HWHAT?” cries Blake. “What the divvle, Fitz, are you growling
about? Bendemeer Lake's in Westmoreland, as I preshume; and as for roses
and nightingales, I give ye my word it's Greek ye're talking to me.” And
Greek it very possibly was, for my young friend, though as good across
country as any man in his county, has not the fine feeling and tender
perception of beauty which may be found elsewhere, dear madam.
“Tell me about Speck, Blake, and Kalbsbraten, and Dorothea, and
Klingenspohr her husband.”
“He with the cut across the nose, is it?” cries Blake. “I know him well,
and his old wife.”
“His old what, sir!” cries Fitz-Boodle, jumping up from his seat.
“Klingenspohr's wife old!--is he married again?--Is Dorothea, then,
d-d-dead?”
“Dead!--no more dead than you are, only I take her to be
five-and-thirty. And when a woman has had nine children, you know,
she looks none the younger; and I can tell ye that when she trod on my
corruns at a ball at the Grand Juke's, I felt something heavier than a
feather on my foot.”
“Madame de Klingenspohr, then,” replied I, hesitating somewhat, “has
grown rather--rather st-st-out?” I could hardly get out the OUT, and
trembled I don't know why as I asked the question.
“Stout, begad!--she weighs fourteen stone, saddle and bridle. That's
right, down goes my pipe; flop! crash falls the tumbler into the fender!
Break away, my boy, and remember, whoever breaks a glass here pays a
dozen.”
The fact was, that the announcement of Dorothea's changed condition
caused no small disturbance within me, and I expressed it in the abrupt
manner mentioned by young Blake.
Roused thus from my reverie, I questioned the young fellow about his
residence at Kalbsbraten, which has been always since the war a favorite
place for our young gentry, and heard with some satisfaction that
Potzdorff was married to the Behrenstein, Haabart had left the dragoons,
the Crown Prince had broken with the ---- but mum! of what interest are
all these details to the reader, who has never been at friendly little
Kalbsbraten?
Presently Lynch reaches me down one of the three books that formed his
library (the “Racing Calendar” and a book of fishing-flies making up
the remainder of the set). “And there's my album,” says he. “You'll
find plenty of hands in it that you'll recognize, as you are an old
Pumpernickelaner.” And so I did, in truth: it was a little book after
the fashion of German albums, in which good simple little ledger every
friend or acquaintance of the owner inscribes a poem or stanza from some
favorite poet or philosopher with the transcriber's own name, as thus:--
“To the true house-friend, and beloved Irelandish youth.
“'Sera nunquam est ad bonos mores via.'
“WACKERBART, Professor at the Grand-Ducal Kalbsbraten-Pumpernickelisch
Gymnasium.”
Another writes,--
“'Wander on roses and forget me not.'
“AMALIA v. NACHTMUTZE,
“GEB. v. SHALAFROCK,”
with a flourish, and the picture mayhap of a rose. Let the reader
imagine some hundreds of these interesting inscriptions, and he will
have an idea of the book.
Turning over the leaves I came presently on DOROTHEA'S hand. There
it was, the little neat, pretty handwriting, the dear old up-and-down
strokes that I had not looked at for many a long year,--the
Mediterranean heath, which grew on the sunniest banks of Fitz-Boodle's
existence, and here found, dear, dear little sprig! in rude Galwagian
bog-lands.
“Look at the other side of the page,” says Lynch, rather sarcastically
(for I don't care to confess that I kissed the name of “Dorothea v.
Klingenspohr, born v. Speck” written under an extremely feeble passage
of verse). “Look at the other side of the paper!”
I did, and what do you think I saw?
I saw the writing of five of the little Klingenspohrs, who have all
sprung up since my time.
*****
“Ha! ha! haw!” screamed the impertinent young Irishman, and the story
was all over Connemara and Joyce's Country in a day after.
CHAPTER II.
OTTILIA IN PARTICULAR.
Some kind critic who peruses these writings will, doubtless, have the
goodness to point out that the simile of the Mediterranean heath is
applied to two personages in this chapter--to Ottilia and Dorothea, and
say, Psha! the fellow is but a poor unimaginative creature not to be
able to find a simile apiece at least for the girls; how much better
would WE have done the business!
Well, it is a very pretty simile. The girls were rivals, were beautiful,
I loved them both,--which should have the sprig of heath? Mr. Cruikshank
(who has taken to serious painting) is getting ready for the exhibition
a fine piece, representing Fitz-Boodle on the Urrisbeg Mountain, county
Galway, Ireland, with a sprig of heath in his hand, hesitating, like
Paris, on which of the beauties he should bestow it. In the background
is a certain animal between two bundles of hay; but that I take to
represent the critic, puzzled to which of my young beauties to assign
the choice.
If Dorothea had been as rich as Miss Coutts, and had come to me the next
day after the accident at the ball and said, “George, will you marry
me?” it must not be supposed I would have done any such thing. THAT
dream had vanished for ever: rage and pride took the place of love; and
the only chance I had of recovering from my dreadful discomfiture was
by bearing it bravely, and trying, if possible, to awaken a little
compassion in my favor. I limped home (arranging my scheme with great
presence of mind, as I actually sat spinning there on the ground)--I
limped home, sent for Pflastersticken, the court-surgeon, and addressed
him to the following effect: “Pflastersticken,” says I, “there has been
an accident at court of which you will hear. You will send in leeches,
pills, and the deuce knows what, and you will say that I have dislocated
my leg: for some days you will state that I am in considerable danger.
You are a good fellow and a man of courage I know, for which very reason
you can appreciate those qualities in another; so mind, if you breathe a
word of my secret, either you or I must lose a life.”
Away went the surgeon, and the next day all Kalbsbraten knew that I was
on the point of death: I had been delirious all night, had had eighty
leeches, besides I don't know how much medicine; but the Kalbsbrateners
knew to a scruple. Whenever anybody was ill, this little kind society
knew what medicines were prescribed. Everybody in the town knew what
everybody had for dinner. If Madame Rumpel had her satin dyed ever so
quietly, the whole society was on the qui vive; if Countess Pultuski
sent to Berlin for a new set of teeth, not a person in Kalbsbraten but
what was ready to compliment her as she put them on; if Potzdorff paid
his tailor's bill, or Muffinstein bought a piece of black wax for his
moustaches, it was the talk of the little city. And so, of course, was
my accident. In their sorrow for my misfortune, Dorothea's was quite
forgotten, and those eighty leeches saved me. I became interesting; I
had cards left at my door; and I kept my room for a fortnight, during
which time I read every one of M. Kotzebue's plays.
At the end of that period I was convalescent, though still a little
lame. I called at old Speck's house and apologized for my clumsiness,
with the most admirable coolness; I appeared at court, and stated calmly
that I did not intend to dance any more; and when Klingenspohr grinned,
I told that young gentleman such a piece of my mind as led to his
wearing a large sticking-plaster patch on his nose: which was split as
neatly down the middle as you would split an orange at dessert. In a
word what man could do to repair my defeat, I did.
There is but one thing now of which I am ashamed--of those killing
epigrams which I wrote (mon Dieu! must I own it?--but even the fury of
my anger proves the extent of my love!) against the Speck family.
They were handed about in confidence at court, and made a frightful
sensation:
“IS IT POSSIBLE?”
“There happened at Schloss P-mp-rn-ckel,
A strange mishap our sides to tickle,
And set the people in a roar;--
A strange caprice of Fortune fickle:
I never thought at Pumpernickel
To see a SPECK UPON THE FLOOR!”
LA PERFIDE ALBION; OR, A CAUTION TO WALTZERS.
“'Come to the dance,' the Briton said,
And forward D-r-th-a led,
Fair, fresh, and three-and-twenty!
Ah, girls; beware of Britons red!
What wonder that it TURNED HER HEAD?
SAT VERBUM SAPIENTI.”
“REASONS FOR NOT MARRYING.
“'The lovely Miss S.
Will surely say “yes,”
You've only to ask and try;'
'That subject we'll quit;'
Says Georgy the wit,
'I'VE A MUCH BETTER SPEC IN MY EYE!'”
This last epigram especially was voted so killing that it flew
like wildfire; and I know for a fact that our Charge-d'Affaires at
Kalbsbraten sent a courier express with it to the Foreign Office in
England, whence, through our amiable Foreign Secretary, Lord P-lm-rston,
it made its way into every fashionable circle: nay, I have reason to
believe caused a smile on the cheek of R-y-lty itself. Now that Time has
taken away the sting of these epigrams, there can be no harm in giving
them; and 'twas well enough then to endeavor to hide under the lash of
wit the bitter pangs of humiliation: but my heart bleeds now to think
that I should have ever brought a tear on the gentle cheek of Dorothea.
Not content with this--with humiliating her by satire, and with wounding
her accepted lover across the nose--I determined to carry my revenge
still farther, and to fall in love with somebody else. This person was
Ottilia v. Schlippenschlopp.
Otho Sigismund Freyherr von Schlippenschlopp, Knight Grand Cross of
the Ducal Order of the Two-Necked Swan of Pumpernickel, of the
Porc-et-Siflet of Kalbsbraten, Commander of the George and Blue-Boar of
Dummerland, Excellency, and High Chancellor of the United Duchies, lived
in the second floor of a house in the Schwapsgasse; where, with his
private income and his revenues as Chancellor, amounting together to
some 300L. per annum, he maintained such a state as very few other
officers of the Grand-Ducal Crown could exhibit. The Baron is married to
Marie Antoinette, a Countess of the house of Kartoffelstadt, branches
of which have taken root all over Germany. He has no sons, and but one
daughter, the Fraulein OTTILIA.
The Chancellor is a worthy old gentleman, too fat and wheezy to preside
at the Privy Council, fond of his pipe, his ease, and his rubber. His
lady is a very tall and pale Roman-nosed Countess, who looks as gentle
as Mrs. Robert Roy, where, in the novel, she is for putting Baillie
Nicol Jarvie into the lake, and who keeps the honest Chancellor in the
greatest order. The Fraulein Ottilia had not arrived at Kalbsbraten when
the little affair between me and Dorothea was going on; or rather had
only just come in for the conclusion of it, being presented for the
first time that year at the ball where I--where I met with my accident.
At the time when the Countess was young, it was not the fashion in her
country to educate the young ladies so highly as since they have been
educated; and provided they could waltz, sew, and make puddings, they
were thought to be decently bred; being seldom called upon for algebra
or Sanscrit in the discharge of the honest duties of their lives. But
Fraulein Ottilia was of the modern school in this respect, and came back
from the pension at Strasburg speaking all the languages, dabbling in
all the sciences: an historian, a poet,--a blue of the ultramarinest
sort, in a word. What a difference there was, for instance, between
poor, simple Dorothea's love of novel reading and the profound
encyclopaedic learning of Ottilia!
Before the latter arrived from Strasburg (where she had been under the
care of her aunt the canoness, Countess Ottilia of Kartoffeldstadt, to
whom I here beg to offer my humblest respects), Dorothea had passed for
a bel esprit in the little court circle, and her little simple stock
of accomplishments had amused us all very well. She used to sing “Herz,
mein Herz” and “T'en souviens-tu,” in a decent manner (ONCE, before
heaven, I thought her singing better than Grisi's), and then she had a
little album in which she drew flowers, and used to embroider slippers
wonderfully, and was very merry at a game of loto or forfeits, and had
a hundred small agremens de societe! which rendered her an acceptable
member of it.
But when Ottilia arrived, poor Dolly's reputation was crushed in a
month. The former wrote poems both in French and German; she painted
landscapes and portraits in real oil; and she twanged off a rattling
piece of Listz or Kalkbrenner in such a brilliant way, that Dora
scarcely dared to touch the instrument after her, or ventured, after
Ottilia had trilled and gurgled through “Una voce,” or “Di piacer”
(Rossini was in fashion then), to lift up her little modest pipe in a
ballad. What was the use of the poor thing going to sit in the park,
where so many of the young officers used ever to gather round her? Whir!
Ottilia went by galloping on a chestnut mare with a groom after her, and
presently all the young fellows who could buy or hire horseflesh were
prancing in her train.
When they met, Ottilia would bounce towards her soul's darling, and
put her hands round her waist, and call her by a thousand affectionate
names, and then talk of her as only ladies or authors can talk of one
another. How tenderly she would hint at Dora's little imperfections of
education!--how cleverly she would insinuate that the poor girl had no
wit! and, thank God, no more she had. The fact is, that do what I will I
see I'm in love with her still, and would be if she had fifty children;
but my passion blinded me THEN, and every arrow that fiery Ottilia
discharged I marked with savage joy. Dolly, thank heaven, didn't mind
the wit much; she was too simple for that. But still the recurrence of
it would leave in her heart a vague, indefinite feeling of pain, and
somehow she began to understand that her empire was passing away,
and that her dear friend hated her like poison; and so she married
Klingenspohr. I have written myself almost into a reconciliation with
the silly fellow; for the truth is, he has been a good, honest husband
to her, and she has children, and makes puddings, and is happy.