the belts of Saturn, he had even measured his waist. Venus he had
neglected, and now Cupid was about to avenge the slight passed on his
mother. There was but one avenue by which access might be had to the
professor's heart. The God of Love knew it, and resolved to storm the
citadel through this avenue. Dr. Maedler packed his trunk himself in the
way in which unmarried men and abstract thinkers do pack their
portmanteaus. He bundled all his clothes in together, higglety-pigglety.
The only bit of prudence he showed was to put the pomatum pot into a
stocking. His collars he curled up in the legs of his boots. Copies of
his astronomical pamphlets for presentation, lay in layers between his
shirts. Then as the trunk would not close, the Professor of Astronomy
sat down heavily on it, stood up, then sharply sat down on it again, and
repeated this operation, till coats, trousers, linen, pamphlets, brushes
and combs had been crushed together into one cohesive mass, and so the
lock would fasten.
No sooner was Dr. Maedler arrived at his inn in Hanover, and had dusted
the collar of his coat, and revolved before the _garçon_ who went over
him with a clothes brush, revolved like the moon he loved, than he
sallied forth in quest of the house of the Wittes. There was no
mistaking it--with the domed observatory on the roof.
Dr. Maedler stood in the square, looking up at it. The sight of an
observatory touched him; and now, hard and dry as he was, moisture came
into his eyes, as he thought that there, on that elevated station, an
admirable woman spent her nights in the contemplation of the moon. What
was Moses on Pisgah, viewing the Promised Land, what was Simeon Stylites
braving storm and cold, to this spectacle?
Never before had the astronomer met with one of the weaker sex who cared
a button for the moon, _qua_ moon, and not as a convenience for
illumining lovers' meetings, or for an allusion in a valentine. Here was
an heroic soul which surged, positively surged above the frivolities of
her sex, one who aspired to be the rival of man in intelligence and love
of scientific research.
Professor Maedler sent in his card, and a letter of introduction from
his friend at Gröningen, and was at once admitted. He had formed an
ideal picture of the Selenographic lady, tall, worn with night watching,
with an arched brow, large, clear eyes. He found her a fat little woman,
with a face as round and as flat as that of the moon, not by any means
pale, but red as the moon in a fog.
The lady was delighted to make the acquaintance of so renowned an
astronomer. She made him pretty speeches about his map, at the same time
letting him understand that a map was all very well, but she knew of
something better. Then she launched out into a criticism of his
pamphlets on Mars and Saturn, on which, as it happened, he was then
sitting. He had put a crumpled copy in each of his tail-coat pockets for
an offering, and was now doubly crumpling them. Then she asked his
opinion about the revolution and orbit of Biela's comet, which had been
seen the preceding year. Next she carried him to Hencke's recently
discovered planet, Astræa; after that she dashed away, away with him to
the nebulæ, and sought to resolve them with his aid. Then down they
whirled together through space to the sun, and the luminous red
protuberances observable at an eclipse. Another step, and they were
plunging down to earth, had reached it in safety, and were discussing
Lord Rosse's recently erected telescope. It was like Dante and Beatrix,
with this difference, that Maedler was not a poet, and Frau Witte was a
married woman.
The Professor was uneasy. Charming as is a telescope, delightful as is
the sun, fascinating as Astræa may be, still, the moon, the moon was
what he had come to discuss, and wax moon what he had come to see.
So he exercised all his skill, and with great dialectic ability
conducted his Beatrix away on another round. They gave the fixed stars a
wide berth, dived in and out among the circling planets and planetoids
without encountering one, avoided the comets, kept their feet off
nebulous matter, and at last he planted his companion firmly on the
moon, and when there, there he held her.
To her words of commendation of his lunar map, he replied by expressing
his astonishment at her knowledge of the several craters and so-called
seas. Presently Frau Witte rose with a smile, and said, "Herr Professor,
I may, perhaps, be allowed to exhibit a trifle on which I have been
engaged for many years:--an independent work that I have compared with,
but not copied from, your excellent selenic map."
The doctor's heart fluttered; his eyes brightened; a hectic flush came
into his cheeks.
Frau Witte took a key and led the way to her study, where she threw open
a mahogany cupboard, and exposed to view something very much like a meat
cover. This also she removed, it was composed of the finest silk
stretched on a frame, and exposed to view--the wax moon.
The globe was composed of the purest white beeswax, it stood upon a
steel needle that passed through it, and rested on pivots, so that the
globe was held up and held firm, and could be easily made to revolve.
Frau Witte closed the shutters, leaving open only one orifice through
which the light could penetrate and fall on the wax ball.
The doctor raised his hands in admiration. Never had he seen anything
that so delighted him. The globe's surface had been most delicately
manipulated. The mountains were pinched into peaks, the hollows indented
to the requisite depth, the craters were rendered with extraordinary
precision, the striæ being indicated by insertions of other tinted wax.
A shadow hung sombre over the mysterious Sea of Storms.
Professor Maedler returned to his hotel a prey to emotion. He inquired
the address of a certain Rollmann, whom he had known in former years at
Berlin, and who was now professor in the Polytechnic school at Hanover.
Then he rushed off in quest of Rollmann. The Polytechnic Professor was
delighted to see his friend, but disturbed at the condition of mind in
which he found him.
"What has brought you to Hanover, dear Professor?" he asked.
"The moon! the moon! I have come after the moon."
"The moon! How can that be? She shines over Dorpat as surely as over our
roofs in Hanover."
"I've just seen her."
"Impossible. The moon is new. Besides, it is broad daylight."
"New! of course she is new. Only made lately."
Professor Rollman was puzzled.
"The moon is certainly as old as the world, and even if we give the
world so limited an age as four thousand years--"
"I was not allowed to touch her, scarcely to breathe near her,"
interrupted Maedler.
"My dear colleague, what is the matter with you? You are--what do you
say, seen, touched, breathed on the moon? The distance of the moon from
the earth is two hundred and forty thousand miles."
"Not the old moon--I mean the other."
"There is no other, that is, not another satellite to this world. I am
well aware that Jupiter has four moons, two of which are smaller than
the planet Mars. I know also that Mars--"
"My dear Rollman, there is another--here in Hanover."
"I give it up, I cannot understand."
"Happy Hanover to possess such an unique treasure," continued the
excited Maedler, "and such a woman as Frau Witte."
"Oh! her wax moon!" said Rollmann, with a sigh of relief.
"Of what else could I speak?"
"So you have seen that. The old lady is very proud of her performance."
"She has cause to be proud of it. It is simply superb."
"And the sight of it has nearly sent you off your head!"
"Rollmann! what will become of that model? Frau Councilloress Witte will
not live for ever. She is old, puffy, and red, and might have apoplexy
any day. Is her husband an astronomer?"
"O dear no! he regards astronomy as as unprofitable a study as
astrology. It is quite as expensive a pursuit, he says."
"Merciful heavens! Suppose she were to predecease--he would have the
moon, and be unable to appreciate it. He might let it get dusty, have
the craters and seas choked; perhaps the mountain-tops knocked off. He
must not have it."
"It cannot be helped. The moon must take its chance."
"It must not be. She _must_ outlive the Councillor."
"If you can manage that--well."
"But--supposing she does outlive him, she is not immortal. Some day she
must die. Who will have the moon then?"
"I suppose, her daughter."
"What will the daughter do with it?"
"Melt it up for waxing the floors."
Professor Maedler uttered a cry of dismay.
"The object is one of incalculable scientific value. Has the daughter no
husband, a man of intelligence, to stay her hand?"
"The daughter is unmarried. There was some talk of a theological
candidate--"
"A theological candidate! An embryo pastor! Just powers! These men are
all obscurantists. He will melt up the moon thinking thereby to
establish the authority of Moses."
"That came to nothing. She is disengaged."
Professor Maedler paced the room. Perspiration bedewed his brow. He
wiped his forehead, more drops formed. Suddenly he stood still.
"Rollmann," he said, in a hollow voice, "I must--I will have that moon,
even if I have to marry the daughter to secure it."
"By all means. Minna is a pleasant young lady."
"Minna! Minna! is that her name?" asked the distracted professor; then,
more coolly, "I do not care a rush what her name is. I want, not her,
but the moon."
"She is no longer in the bloom of early youth."
"She is an exhausted world; a globe of volcanic cinder."
"She is of real solid worth."
"Solid--she is of solid wax--white beeswax."
"If she becomes yours--"
"I will exhibit her at my lectures to the students."
"As you are so much older, some provision will have to be made in the
event of your death."
"I will leave her to the Dorpat museum, with directions to the curator
to keep the dust off her."
"My dear Professor Maedler, I am speaking of the young lady, _you_ of
the moon."
"Ah so! I had forgotten the incumbrance. Yes, I will marry the moon. I
will carry her about with me, hug her in my arms, protect her most
carefully from the fingers of the Custom House officers. I will procure
an ukase from the Emperor to admit her unfingered over the frontier."
"And Minna!"
"What Minna?"
"The young lady."
"Ah so! She had slipped out of my reckoning. She shall watch the box
whilst I sleep, and whilst she sleeps I will keep guard."
"Be reasonable, Maedler. Do you mean, in sober earnest, to invite Minna
Witte to be your wife?"
"If I cannot get the moon any other way."
"But you have not even seen her yet."
"What does that matter? I have seen the moon."
"And you are in earnest!"
"I _will_ have the moon."
"Then, of course, you will have to propose."
"I propose!"
"And, of course, to make love."
"I make love!"
Professor Maedler's colour died away. He stood still before his friend,
his pocket-handkerchief in hand, and stared.
"I have not the remotest idea how to do it."
"You must try."
"I've had no experience. I am going on to fifty-three. As well ask me
to dance on the trapeze. It is not proper. It is downright indecent."
"Then you must do without the wax moon."
"I cannot do without the wax moon."
"Then, there is no help for it, you must make love to and propose to the
fair Minna."
"Friend," said the
Russian-imperial-professor-of-astronomy-of-the-University-of-Dorpat, as
he clasped Rollmann's hand. "You are experienced in the ways of the
world. I have lived in an observatory, and associated only with fixed
stars, revolving moons, and comets. Tell me how to do it, and I will
obey as a lamb."
"You will have to sigh."
"O! I can do that."
"And ogle the lady."
"Ogle!--when going fifty-three!"
"Learn a few lines of poetry."
"Yes, Milton's Paradise Lost. Go on."
"Tell the young lady that your heart is consumed with love."
"Consumed with love, yes, go on."
"Squeeze her hand."
"I cannot! That I cannot!" gasped Professor Maedler. "Look at my
whiskers. They are grey. There is a point beyond which I cannot go.
Rollmann, why may I not settle it all with the mother, and let you court
the young lady for me by proxy."
"No, no, you must do it yourself."
"I would not be jealous. Consider, I care nothing for the young girl. It
is the moon I want. That you shall not touch or breathe on."
"My dear Maedler, you and I are sure to be invited to dine with the
family on Sunday. After dinner we will take a stroll in the garden.
During dinner mind and be attentive to Miss Minna, and feed her with
honeyed words. When we visit the garden I will tackle the mother, as
Mephistopheles engages Martha, and you, you gay Faust, will have to be
the gallant to Minna."
"My good Rollmann! I dislike the simile. It offends me. Consider my age,
my whiskers, my position at the Dorpat University, my map of the moon in
four sheets, my paper on the occultation of Mars."
"Pay attention to me, if you want your wax globe. Frau Witte, the
Councillor and I will sit drinking coffee in the arbour. You ask Minna
to show you the garden. When you are gone I will begin at once with the
mother, praise you, and say how comfortably you are provided for at
Dorpat, laud your good qualities, and bring her to understand that you
are a suitor for the hand of her daughter. Meanwhile press your cause
with ardour."
"With ardour! I shall not be able to get up any warmth."
"Think of the wax moon! direct your raptures to that."
"This is all very well," said Maedler fretfully, "but you have forgotten
the main thing. I know you will make a mistake. You have asked for the
hand of the daughter, and said nothing about the moon."
"Do not be concerned."
"But I am concerned. It would be a pretty mischief if I got the
daughter's hand instead of the face of the moon."
"I will manage that you have what you want. But the moon must not rise
over the matrimonial scene till the preliminaries are settled. I will
represent to the old lady what credit will accrue to her if her moon be
exhibited and lectured on at the Dorpat University by so distinguished
an astronomer as yourself. Then, be well assured, she will give you the
wax moon along with her daughter."
"Very well, I will do what I can. Only, further, explain to me the whole
process, that I may learn it by heart. It seems to me as knotty to a
beginner as Euler's proof of the Binomial Theorem."
"It is very easy. Pay attention. You must begin to talk about the
fascination which a domestic life exerts on you; you then say that the
sight of such an united household as that in which you find yourself
influences you profoundly."
"I see. Causes a deflection in my perihelion. That deflection is
calculable, the force excited calculable, the position of the attractive
body estimable. I direct my telescope in the direction, and
discover--Minna. Put astronomically, I can understand it."
"But you must _not_ put it astronomically to her. Paint in glowing tints
the charms of the domestic hearth--that is to say, of the stove. Touch
sadly on your forlorn condition, your unloved heart--are you paying
attention, or thinking of the moon?"
"On the contrary, I was thinking of myself, from a planetary point of
view. I see, a wife is a satellite revolving round her man. I see it
all now. Jupiter has four."
"Sigh; let the corners of your mouth droop. Throw, if you can, an
emotional vibration into your tones, and say that hitherto life has been
to you a school, where you have been set hard tasks; not a home. Here
shake your head slowly, drop a tear if you can, and say again, in a low
and thrilling voice, 'Not a home!' Now for the poetry. Till now, you
add, you have looked into the starry vault--"
"It is not a vault at all."
"Never mind; say this. Till now you have looked into the starry vault
for your heaven, and not dreamed that a heaven full of peaceful lights
was twinkling invitingly about your feet. That is poetical, is it not?
It must succeed."
"Quite so, I should never have thought of it."
"Then turn, and look into Miss Minna's eyes."
"But suppose she is looking in another direction?"
"She will not be. A lady is always ready to help a stumbling lover over
the impediments in the way of a declaration. She will have her eyes at
command, ready to meet yours."
"Go on."
"You will presently come to a rose tree. You must stop there and be
silent. Then you must admire the roses, and beg Miss Minna to present
you with one."
"But I do not want any roses. What can I do with them? I am lodging at
an hotel."
"Never mind, you _must_ want one. When she has picked and offered it--"
"But perhaps she will not."
"Fiddlesticks! Of course she will. Then take the rose, press your lips
to it, and burst forth into raptures."
"Excuse me, how am I to do the raptures?"
"Think of the wax moon, man. Exclaim, 'Oh that I might take the fair
Minna, fairer than this rose, to my heart, as I apply this flower to my
buttonhole!'"
"Shall I say nothing about the wax moon?"
"Not a word. Leave me to manage that."
"Go on."
"Then she will look down, confused, at the gravel, and stammer. Press
her for a Yes or No. Promise to destroy yourself if she says No. Take
her hand and squeeze it."
"Must I squeeze it? About how much pressure to the square-foot should I
apply?"
"Then say, 'Come, let us go to your parents, and obtain their blessing.'
The thing is done."
"But suppose she were to say No?"
Rollmann stamped with impatience. "I tell you she will not say No, now
that the theological candidate has dropped through."
"Well," said Professor Maedler, "I must go along with it, now I have
made up my mind to it. But, on my word, as an exact reasoner, I had no
idea of the difficulties men have to go through to get married. Why, the
calculation of the deflections of the planets is nothing to it. And the
Grand Turk, like Jupiter, has more satellites than one!"
A few months after the incident above recorded Professor Maedler
returned to Dorpat, not alone; with him was the Frau
Professorinn--Minna. Everything had gone off in the garden as Rollmann
had planned.
The moon and Minna, or Minna and the moon, put it which way you will,
were secured.
When the Professor arrived at Dorpat with his wife, the students gave
him an ovation after the German style, that is to say, they organized a
Fackel-zug, or torch-light procession.
Three hundred young men, some wearing white caps, some green caps, some
red, and some purple, marched along the street headed by a band, bearing
torches of twisted tow steeped in tar, blazing and smoking, or, to be
more exact, smoking and blazing. Each corps was followed by a hired
droschky, in which sat the captain and stewards of the white, red,
green, or purple corps, with sashes of their respective colours. Behind
the last corps followed the elephants, two and two. By elephants is not
meant the greatest of quadrupeds, but the smallest esteemed of the
students, those who belong to no corps.
The whole procession gathered before the house of the Professor, and
brandished their torches and cheered. Then the glass door opening on the
balcony was thrown back, and the Professor John Henry Maedler appeared
on the balcony leading forth his wife. The astronomer looked younger
than he had been known to look for the last twenty years. His whiskers
in the torchlight looked not grey, but red. The eyes, no longer blear
with star-gazing, watered with sentiment. His expression was no longer
that of a man troubled with integral calculus, but of a man in an
ecstasy. He waved his hand. Instantly the cheers subsided. "My
highly-worthy-and-ever-to-be-honoured sirs," began the Professor, "this
is a moment never to be forgotten. It sends a _fackel-zug_ of fiery
emotion through every artery and vein.
Highly-worthy-and-ever-to-be-honoured sirs, I am not so proud as to
suppose that this reception is accorded to me alone. It is an ovation
offered to my highly-beloved-and-evermore-to-be-beloved-and-respected
consort, Frau Minna Maedler, born Witte, the daughter of a distinguished
lady, who, like myself, has laboured on Selenography, and loved
Selenology. Highly-worthy-and-ever-to-be-respected sirs, when I announce
to you that I have returned to Dorpat to endow that
most-eminent-and-ever-to-become-more-eminent-University with one of the
most priceless treasures of art the world has ever seen, a monument of
infinite patience and exact observation; I mean a wax moon; I am sure I
need only allude to the fact to elicit your unbounded enthusiasm. But,
highly-worthy-and-ever-to-be-honoured sirs, allow me to assure you that
my expedition to Hanover has not resulted in a gain to the highly
eminent University of Dorpat only, but to me, individually as well.
"That highly-eminent-and-evermore-to-become-more-eminent University is
now enriched through my agency with a moon of wax, but I--I,
sirs--excuse my emotion, I have also been enriched with a moon, not of
wax, but of honey. The wax moon, gentlemen, may it last undissolved as
long as the very-eminent-and-evermore-to-become-more-eminent University
of Dorpat lasts. The honey moon, gentlemen, with which I have been
blessed, I feel assured will expand into a lifetime, at least will last
also undissolved as long as Minna and I exist."
The Electress's Plot.
The Elector Frederick Christian of Saxony reigned only a few weeks, from
October 5th to December 13, 1763; in his forty-first year he died of
small-pox. He never had enjoyed rude health. The mother of the
unfortunate prince, Marie Josepha of Austria, was an exceedingly ugly,
but prolific lady, vastly proud of her Hapsburg descent. The three first
children followed each other with considerable punctuality, but the two
first, both sons, died early. Frederick Christian was the third. The
Electress, a few months before his birth, was hunting, when a deer that
had been struck, turned to her, dragging its broken legs behind it. This
produced a powerful impression on her mind; and when her son was born,
he was found to be a cripple in his legs. His head and arms were well
formed, but his spine was twisted, and his knees, according to the
English ambassador, Sir Charles Williams--were drawn up over his
stomach. He could not stand, and had to be lifted about from place to
place. At the age of five-and-twenty he had been married to Maria
Antonia, daughter of the Elector of Bavaria, afterwards the Emperor
Charles VII.
His brother, Francis Xavier, was a sturdy fellow, like his father, and
the Electress mother tried very hard to get Frederick Christian to
resign his pretentions in favour of his brother, and take holy orders.
This he refused to do, and was then married to Maria Antonia, aged
twenty-three. Her mother had also been an Austrian princess, Amalia, and
also remarkable for her ugliness. The choice was not happy, it brought
about a marriage between cousins, and an union of blood that was
afflicted with ugliness and infirmity of body.
Maria Antonia had not only inherited her mother's ugliness, but was
further disfigured with small-pox. She was small of stature, but of a
resolute will, and of unbounded ambition. English tourists liked her,
they said that she laid herself out to make the Court of Dresden
agreeable to them. Wraxall tells a good story of her, which shows a
certain frankness, not to say coarseness in her conversation--a story we
will not reproduce.
She had already made her personality felt at the Bavarian Court. Shortly
after the death of her father, in imitation of Louisa Dorothea, Duchess
of Gotha, she had founded an "Order of Friendship, or the Society of the
Incas." The founding of the Order took place one fine spring day on a
gondola in the canal at Nymphenburg. Her brother, the Elector of
Bavaria, was instituted a member, the Prince of Fürstenberg was made
chancellor, and was given the custody of the seal of the confraternity
which had as its legend "La fidelité mêne." The badge of the Order was a
gold ring on the little finger of the left hand, with the inscription,
"L'ordre de l'amitié--Maria Antonia." Each member went by a name
descriptive of his character, or of that virtue he or she was supposed
to represent. Thus the chancellor was called "Le Solide."
Sir Charles Williams says that on the very first night of her appearance
in Dresden she made an attempt to force herself into a position for
which she had no right; to the great annoyance of the King of Poland
(Augustus, Elector of Saxony).