The Third of May.--The Nightingale.--The Abbate Sitting on Music.
I must here--premise, once for all, that I should be very stupid if I
did not notice the multitude of improbabilities in this history: I am
well aware of them all; nay, I have observed some of them--e. g. in
Clotilda's behavior, or those in my hero's medical doctorship--even
sooner than the reader, because I have--read everything before he has.
I therefore delayed no longer, but entreated my correspondent by
to-day's Hofmann-mail to write me by the dog the next time, in his
portrait-box, what we were all about. I told him flatly, that the devil
a bit did he know, though I did, however, of the readers and their
tyranny. I must tell him (I said) that they were people of sense, whom
a Biographer, nay, even a Romance-architect, dared not approach with
poetic deception, but they would say, like the Areopagus, "Give us the
naked historical fact here, without any superfluous poetic dressing
up." And in fact it was a marvel to me, I went on to say, that he
should not yet know that they had so much, partly understanding and
partly four-leaved clover[54] in them, that, if the greatest authors
and tragic poets should undertake to be fine, and by æsthetic
juggleries to excite in them fear, like cuppers, or pity, like beggars,
they would cold-bloodedly let these men work till they were tired, and
say, "We are not to be caught." That the Reviewers, however, were still
more crazy and clever, and were perhaps the best _Skotometers_
(measurers of darkness), at the same time that they were the
wretchedest _Photometers_ (light measurers) going. And finally, I said
right out to my historical adjutant, that it was no injury to him, but
very much to me, that I should be translated into several languages,
and therein, for every improbability in the text, be dragged down into
the scourging-cellar of a note, and there sorely lashed, without daring
to open my mouth, if the interpreting scoundrel who translated (or
transported) my gourd-bottle-case like a cask of wine, from one country
to another, should, on the way, as all carriers do, outwardly
besprinkle and inwardly fill up the wine with water.--He must, at
least, (I entreated him) give me an answer, that I might show it to the
readers, as an evidence that I had written to him.
By the next Dog-post-day, therefore, at all events, great things may be
expected.--
Besides, the 4th of May comes into that also, with what should
seem its two important Thanksgiving festivals for the arrival of the
two Sebastians,--the little one into the world, the elder at the
bathing-town.--Even Clotilda is to be there to-morrow, and Victor is
very eager (and so am I) to see her in the sunshine of love beside
Flamin; for over yonder all her charms seemed to bloom round a heart
not yet smitten and ripened by love's ray, as flower-leaves hide the
_white heart-leaves_ from the sun.... Matthieu came to-day to take
leave, because he was going back to-morrow to the city. Our hero was
less and less pleased with him, and a Page's history, which he related
of himself, renewed Victor's resolve to fulfil soon the entreaty of the
Parson's wife by ridding himself of such a fellow.
Matthieu, as Page, rendered service to the chief Tutor's lady, I
believe both the greater and the lesser service. Nevertheless, he had
once to smuggle an Abbate and conscience-keeper into one of her
cabinets, which was destined to be the confessional and holy place to a
degree of which, to be sure, her stupid, jealous husband had no notion.
Now there was in the next room a musical armchair, upon which, in fact,
one played with no other instrument than the rump; so soon as one sat
down in it, it began its overtures, and I myself once sat in such
a one at Prince Esterhazy's. Our Mat,[55] as all the citizens of
Flachsenfingen called him,--some government people called him even the
Evangelist,--appointed the Abbate two hours too soon; but, lest the man
with the shorn peruke should be tired of waiting, he first carried in
the music-making chair as resting-bench and anchoring-ground for weary
expectants. Toward three of the night, when the company was gone,
except the chief Tutor, the counsellor of conscience, weary of
standing, let his rump sink at last into the easy-chair stuffed out
with favorite arias, and woke up with his breeches the whole wailing
music therein with its thrilling passages, without the least
possibility of stilling the cabinet-serenade of this alarmer. At last
the husband darted like a herring at the final cadences (or falls), and
dragged from his organ-stool the sedentary conscience-man in the midst
of counterpoint and shakes, and spoiled his quail-call for him, I
believe, by an administered cudgelling. The chief Tutor's lady easily
guessed the master of the chair, Mat; but so very much a matter of
course is pardon at court,--not merely _past_ offences, but _future_
ones being forgiven there by good, easy female souls,--that the chief
Tutor's lady did not avenge herself upon Mat, although he _served_ her
two weeks and a half longer, till after just two weeks and a half....
Victor was indignant at Flamin's laughter; he loved drollery, but not
bantering. His sweetened blood began gradually with this _mother of
vinegar_ to grow sour towards this Mat, whose cold, ironical gallantry
toward the honest Agatha of itself exasperated him, though her
phlegmatic, and, as it were, married pulse, beat in his absence and in
his presence at the same rate. Still more heart-burning matter and acid
collected in Victor's bosom, from the fact that he, who tolerated
everything,--vain men, proud ones, atheists, enthusiasts,--could
nevertheless not endure men who regard virtue as a kind of refined
provision-bakery, wantonness as allowed, the spirit as an almsgatherer
for the flesh, the heart as a blood-syringe, and our soul as a new
shoot of the body. But this was what Matthieu did, who besides had a
passion for philosophizing, and threatened to infect Victor's friend,
who, in fact, was as cold toward the whole world of poets and spirits
as a statesman, with his philosophical cancer-poison.
In the evening he endeavored to sound, a little nearer to Flamin's
ear, a blast upon a second Trumpet of Fame against the departed
pseudo-Evangelist. It was in the garden that he blew it. He took the
hand of which Matthieu's was not worthy into his better one, and began,
with the finest and heartiest forbearance,--which one must grant even
to true friendship for a hollow friend,--his iconoclastic attack. For
while he charged it upon the lady of the Chamberlain, that she threw
down at Agatha from her high post looks nowise cleaner than what
monkeys used to throw down from their high roosts at passers-by; and
while he blamed the young Page, that, like many of the nobility, only
among the nobility could he scent best (perhaps by the help of
contrast) the heretical odor of one belonging to the burgher-class, and
that his words and looks at the palace flew like icicles at the good,
warm heart of Agatha; at the same time the reproach of this May-frost
toward the sister was only a pretext behind which he veiled the
observation, that the Page would not be Flamin's friend, if he were not
Agatha's lover.
Flamin's silence (the sign of his indignation) gave the stream of his
eloquence a new and swifter descent; in addition to this a nightingale,
poetizing in Le Baut's garden, woke up all the echoes of love in his
soul.--He therefore grasped, of course, both of Flamin's hands in that
effervescence which always transformed his steps toward an object into
springs, and thereby overshot the mark. Many plans miscarry, because
the heart toils after the head, and because at the end of the execution
one applies less caution than at its beginning. He looked upon his
beloved, the fluting throat of the nightingale set the text of his love
to music, and with indescribable emotion he said: "Best one, thy heart
is too good not to be outwitted by those who cannot reach thee. O if,
some day, the sharp edge of court _ton_ should pass bloodily across the
veins of thy breast (Flamin's looks seemed to ask, Art thou not then
even satirical?)--O if he, who has no faith in virtue and
disinterestedness, should one day himself cease to show any; if he
should sorely betray thee; should the hand, which court-life had
hardened, like a lemon-squeezer, wring blood and tears from thy heart,
then, I beseech thee, despair not, only not of friendship,--for thy
mother and I love thee far otherwise. O verily, at the time when thou
art forced to say, Why did I not hearken to my friend who so warned me,
and to my mother who so loved me?--then mayest thou come to me, to one
who never changes, and who prizes thy error higher than self-interested
vigilance; then would I lead thee weeping to thy mother, and say to
her, take him wholly, thou only art worthy to love him." To all this
Flamin said not a word. "Art thou sad, my Flamin?" "Tired!" "I am sad;
the plaints of the nightingale strike upon my soul like echoes of
_future_ ones," said Victor. "Are you pleased with this nightingale,
Victor?" "Indescribably, as if she were a friend of my innermost soul."
"Thus are people imposed on; it is _Matthieu singing_," Flamin quickly
answered. For the Evangelist differed from a nightingale in nothing
except size. And then Flamin, somewhat irritated, and yet with a
pressure of his friend's hand, took his departure.