"It is, indeed, quite true," said the monk, "this man brought you hither
about three months and a half ago. He had, according to his own account,
found you in the Lovanian forest, (which separates the dominions of the
Prince of Laguria, from our district,) and had recognized you for the
Capuchin Medardus from Koenigswald, who had before, on a journey to Rome,
passed through a town where he then lived.
"When first brought among us, you were in a state of utter apathy. You
walked when you were led, remained standing if one let you alone, and
seated or laid yourself down according as you were put into the required
position. Food and drink we were obliged to pour down your throat; as to
words, you were able only to utter hollow unintelligible sounds, and
your eyes appeared to stare, without the power of distinguishing any
object. Belcampo then never left you, but was your faithful attendant.
After an interval of about a month, you fell into a state of outrageous
madness, and we were obliged to place you in one of the cells
appropriated for persons in that frightful malady. You were then like a
ferocious wild beast; but I dare not describe your sufferings more
minutely, as the picture might be too painful. After some weeks, your
state of apathy again returned, and seemed more obstinate than ever, but
at last, God be praised, you awoke from your stupefaction, into your
present convalescence."
Schoenfeld had, during this narrative of the monk, seated himself, as if
in deep reflection, leaning his head on his hand. "Ay, truly," he
resumed, "I know that I am sometimes little better than a self-conceited
fool; but the air of the mad-house, destructive to reasonable people,
has on me had a very beneficial influence. I begin to speculate on my
own errors, which is no bad sign. If, generally speaking, I exist only
through my own self-consciousness, it is only requisite that this
consciousness should pull off the fool's motley coat, and I shall shew
myself to the world, a very wise, rational gentleman. But, oh, heavens!
is not a genial friseur, according to the principles of his character
and profession, a privileged fool and coxcomb? Such folly is, in truth,
a protection from all madness; and I can assure you, reverend sir, that
in a north-west wind, I can distinguish very well between a church-tower
and a lamp-post!"
"If this be really the case," said I, "give us a proof of it now by a
quiet rational narrative, how you discovered me in the wood, and brought
me to this house."
"That shall immediately be done," said Belcampo, "though the reverend
father on my right hand looks at me with a very suspicious aspect. You
must know, then, that on the morning after your escape from Frankenburg,
the foreign painter, with his collection of pictures, had also, in an
inconceivable manner, vanished; and although the disturbance that you
had raised at first excited a good deal of notice, yet, in the stream of
other events, and the bustle of the fair, it was ere long forgotten. It
was not till after the murder at the castle of the Baron von F----
became generally talked of, and the magistracy of that district
published handbills, offering a reward for the arrest of Medardus, a
Capuchin monk in Koenigswald, that people were reminded of the painter
having indeed told the whole story, and recognized in you the said
brother Medardus.
"The landlord of the hotel wherein you had lodged, confirmed a
supposition that had already got afloat, of my having been accessory to
your flight. The people, therefore, fixed their attention on me, and
would have thrown me into prison. Having long wished to quit for ever
the miserable course of life that I had been dragging on, my resolution
was, in consequence, very speedily adopted. I determined to go into
Italy, where there are _Abbates_ with powdered wigs, and encouragement
is yet afforded to an accomplished _friseur_. On my way thither I saw
you in the _residenz_ of the Prince von Rosenthurm. The people there
talked of your marriage with the Baroness Aurelia, and of the
condemnation and execution of the monk Medardus.
"I had also an opportunity of seeing this criminal monk, and whatever
his history might have been, I was convinced at once that you were the
true Medardus. I placed myself in your way, but you did not observe me,
and I left the Prince's _residenz_, in order to follow out my own plans.
"After a long and fatiguing journey, I had taken up my night's rest at a
small obscure hamlet. In the morning I rose very early, as was the
custom of the inhabitants there, and prepared to continue my laborious
progress through a forest, which lay in gloomy darkness before me. Just
as the first gleams of the morning had begun to break through the clouds
of the east, there was a rustling in the thickets, and a man, with his
hair matted, and staring out in various directions, his beard, too, in
the same disorder, but wearing an elegant modern suit of clothes, leaped
past me!
"His looks were wild and outrageous, and I gazed after him with the
greatest astonishment, but in a moment he had disappeared again in the
thick of the tangled coppice, and I could see no more of him. I walked
onwards, therefore; but what words can express the horror that I felt,
when right before me I saw a naked human figure stretched out flat upon
the ground! There seemed to me no doubt that a murder had been
committed, and that the fugitive whom I had before seen was the
murderer.
"I knelt down beside the naked man, recognized at once your features,
and perceived that you still breathed. Close beside you lay the Capuchin
habit, which at this moment you are wearing. With much labour and
stratagem I contrived to dress you in it, and to drag you along with me.
At last you awoke out of your deep swoon, but you remained in that
frightful state of apathy in which this reverend gentleman has described
you.
"It cost me no little exertion to get you dragged along, and
consequently it was not till late in the evening that I was able to
reach an ale-house, which was situated in the middle of the forest. Here
I placed you upon a bench of turf at the door, where you lay as if
utterly overcome and drunk with sleep. I then went into the house to
procure you food and drink, and, found (as I suspected might be the
case) a party of hussars, who, as the hostess informed me, were in
pursuit of a monk, who, in an inconceivable manner, had escaped at the
moment when, on account of his enormous crimes, preparations were making
for his death on the scaffold.
"It was to me an inexplicable mystery how you could have escaped out of
the _residenz_ into the forest; but the entire conviction that you were
the Medardus whom they now sought after, made me exert myself to the
utmost to rescue you from the danger which now hovered over you. Of
course, I brought you away directly from the ale-house, in which
undertaking I was favoured by the increasing darkness; and thereafter
choosing always the by-roads and most unfrequented tracks, I succeeded
at last in conducting you over the frontiers.
"Finally, after long and incredible wanderings, I came with you to this
house, where the inhabitants received us both, as I declared that I was
not willing to separate from you. Here I was convinced that you were
perfectly secure, for by no means would the venerable fathers give up a
sick person whom they had once received, to any criminal court.
"In this very chamber, then, I faithfully attended and nursed you; for
as to your own five senses, you were indeed but very indifferently
provided. Nor were the movements of your limbs to be commended. Neither
Vestris nor Noverre would have given you much encouragement, for your
head hung down on your breast, and when any one wished you to stand
upright, then you tumbled about like a capotted nine-pin or skittle. As
to your celebrated eloquence, too, you fared still worse, for you were
d----d _monosyllabic_, and in your lucid intervals, only said, 'Hu--hu!'
and 'Me--me!' out of which expressions your thoughts and wishes were not
to be very clearly divined: Indeed, it was to be supposed, that your
rational faculties had become unfaithful to you, and were gone
a-vagabondizing on their own private account.
"At last you became all of a sudden extravagantly merry, cut inordinate
capers in the air, and roared aloud with sheer exuberance of delight,
tearing your habit at the same time, in order, we supposed, to escape
even from the smallest restraint. Your appetite was then----"
"Stop, stop, Schoenfeld," cried I, "give over this horrible and cruel
raillery--you have already sufficiently informed me of the frightful
situation into which I had fallen. Thanks and praise to the
long-suffering and mercy of Heaven, and the intercession of the saints,
that I am now rescued!"
"Alas! reverend sir," resumed Schoenfeld, "in what respect are you the
better of all that you have gained, I mean of this peculiar attribute of
the soul, which is called self-consciousness? Methinks it might well be
compared to the cursed activity of a pettifogging toll-keeper, or
excise-officer, at best, or a controller of customs, who has established
his damnable _comptoir_ in the brain, and upon the last indication of
goods coming forth from hence, cries out 'Hey day! The export is
forbidden. These wares must remain in the country.' The richest jewels,
like contemptible grains of seed, remain stuck in the earth, and at
last, all that rises above the surface are _runkelrueben_,[4] from an
hundred thousand weight of which, perhaps a quarter of an ounce of bad
sugar is afterwards extracted; and yet this pitiful export is, forsooth,
to lay the foundation of trade with the glorious city of the New
Jerusalem in the realms above, where all is magnificence and splendour.
Oh, heavens! I would have given all my dearly bought powder _a la
Marchalle_, or _a la Pompadour_, or _a la Reine de Golconde_,--would
have cast it into the river, where it is deepest, if by transi-to-trade,
I could have obtained from thence but a _quentlein_ of the golden dust of
the sun's rays, to dress the wigs of reverend professors, and men of
learning, but in the first place, mine own! What do I say? If my
excellent friend Damon, reverend sir, had, instead of the flea-coloured
frock, contrived to hang about your shoulders one of those robes made of
the morning light, in which the burgesses of the holy city walk to
church, then, as to dignity and gentility, we should have come off very
differently; but as the matter stood, the world held you for a common
_glebae adscriptus_, and the devil for your cousin-german!"
[Footnote 4: Beet-roots.]
Schoenfeld had risen up, and walked, or rather hopped, about the room,
with vehement gesticulations, and twisting his features into incredible
contortions. He was in the plenitude of his vein, kindling up one folly
by another. I therefore seized him again by both arms. "Art thou
resolved," said I, "to secure thyself a place in this hospital instead
of me? Is it impossible for thee to talk more than five minutes
together without falling into these absurdities?"
"Is then all that I utter," said he, "so very foolish, when thus the
spirit comes upon me?"
"That is precisely what renders your talk so intolerable," said I.
"There is often good sense at the bottom of all this gibberish, but so
abominably metamorphosed, that a thought, good in itself, is like a fine
dress hung over with party-coloured rags. Like a drunk man, thou canst
not proceed in a straight direction, but art everlastingly floundering
away hither and thither. Thy conduct is never consistent or
consecutive."
"What is conduct?" said Schoenfeld, with a contemptuous smile--"What is
conduct, most venerable Capuchin? Doth not that term imply the
preconception in the mind of some fixed and certain object, for the
attainment of which we shape and adapt our procedure? Are you, reverend
sir, sure of your own object? Are you not rather afraid that you may
have occasionally admitted too little alloy in your spirituous
potations, and now, like a giddy tower-watcher, see two goals, without
knowing the right one? Besides, sir, let it be forgiven to one of my
profession, if he is apt, perhaps too often, to have recourse to the
humorous and the _outre_, in order to season the insipidity of this
life, as we add Spanish pepper to cauliflower; without this, an artist
of my vocation would be but a pitiful _dummkopf_,[5] who carries his
privilege in his pocket, without ever daring to make use of it."
[Footnote 5: Blockhead.]
The monk had remained in the room, and had looked attentively at
Belcampo and at me; but as we spoke German, he did not understand a
single word. At last, he resolutely interrupted our dialogue. "Excuse
me, gentlemen," said he, "if I put an end to a discourse from which it
is impossible for either of you to derive any advantage. Your health,
brother, is yet much too weak to bear with a conversation which probably
awakens painful recollections as to your past life. Besides, you will
have time enough to learn all that your friend has to inform you of, as
when you leave our establishment, he will no doubt accompany you.
Belcampo has a strange manner of speaking; and by his eloquence and
gesticulations together, never fails, when he tells a story, to bring
every adventure vividly before the eyes of his listener. In Germany he
must, I suppose, be looked on as mad. Here in Italy, he would be valued
as a capital buffoon, and on the stage might make a fortune."
Schoenfeld stared with all his might at the clergyman, then lifted
himself on tiptoe, clasped his hands over his head, and called out in
Italian, "Thou warning voice from the world of spirits--thou voice of
omnipotent destiny! To me thou hast spoken at last through the organs of
this reverend father. Belcampo--Belcampo! How could'st thou mistake so
long thy true vocation? It is now resolved!" He then ran out of the
room, and for that day I saw no more of him.
* * * * *
Next morning he made his appearance, equipt for a journey. "Dear Brother
Medardus," said he, "you are now quite recovered; you do not any longer
require my assistance. I therefore take my departure, in order to go, as
the spirit moves me, into the world. Farewell, then! Yet permit me that
I exercise on you, for the last time, my art, although in my own
estimation it has now become utterly contemptible."
Hereupon he drew out his razors, comb, and scissars, and with a thousand
grimaces, _more suo_, brought my hair and visage into proper order. At
last he took his leave, with many tears; and as the man, notwithstanding
his fidelity, had become very strange and mysterious, and knew more of
my history than I could have wished, I was not sorry to find myself free
from his tiresome conversation.
* * * * *
The physician's remedies had been of great service to me; and as, by
taking every day longer and longer walks, I had quite recovered my
strength, I became convinced that I was able for the fatigues of a
pedestrian journey, and resolved to leave a house, which, however
suitable to the sick, was by no means a congenial abode for those who
were in health.
The plan of going to Rome had been, without any volition of my own,
brought so far into execution. I had always been advancing farther
towards the place of my destination, and resolved, therefore, that I
would now persevere in the same course.