The house of Schleunes was an open bookstore, whose works (the
daughters) one could read there, but not carry home. Although the five
other daughters stood in five private libraries as wives, and one,
under the earth at Maienthal, was sleeping away the child's plays of
life, there were, nevertheless, in this warehouse of daughters, three
free copies left for sale to good friends. The Minister, at the
drawings of the lottery of offices, loved to give his daughters as
premiums for great winnings and prizes. To whom God gives an office, to
him he gives, if not understanding, yet a wife. In a house rich in
daughters, as in St. Peter's Church, there must be confession-pews for
all nations, for all characters, for all faults, that the daughters may
sit therein as mother-confessors, and absolve from everything, celibacy
alone excepted. I have, as naturalist, often admired the wise
arrangement of Nature for the propagation as well of daughters as of
vegetables. Is it not a wise provision, I said to the natural historian
Goetze, that Nature gives precisely to those maidens who need for their
life a rich mineral fountain something _attaching_, by which they may
fasten on to miserable nuptial finches, who shall carry them to fat
places? Thus Linnæus[236] observes, as you know, that those kinds of
seeds which only thrive in rich earth have little hooks on them, in
order to hang the more easily on the cattle which carry them to the
stable and manure-heap. Wonderfully does Nature scatter about by the
wind--father and mother must make it--daughters and pine-seeds into the
arable places of the forests. Who does not observe the final cause why
many daughters receive from Nature certain charms in designated
numbers, that some canon or other, a German Herr, a cardinal-deacon, an
appanaged prince, or a mere country squire, may come along and take the
aforesaid charmer, and, as groomsman or English bride's-father, hand
her over, ready finished, to some blockhead or other, in a distant
place, as a ready-made wife on sale? And do we find in the case of
bilberries any less precaution on the part of Nature? Does not the same
Linnæus observe, in the same treatise, that they are enveloped in a
nutritious juice, that they may attract the fox to eat them, whereupon
the knave--he cannot digest the berries--becomes, for all he knows, the
sower of them?--
Oh, my innermost spirit is more serious than you think. I am vexed with
those parents who are traders in souls; I pity the daughters who are
negro slaves. Ah! is it any wonder, then, if the daughters who were
obliged to dance, laugh, talk, and sing at the West Indian market, in
order to be carried home by the master of a plantation, if they, I say,
are treated just as much like slaves as if they were sold and bought?
Ye poor lambs!--and yet ye are quite as hard as your sheep mothers and
fathers. What shall one do with his enthusiasm for your sex, when one
travels through German cities, where every richest or most
distinguished man, and though he were a distant relation of the Devil
himself, can point with his finger to thirty houses, and say: "I don't
know,--shall I pick out and marry one from the pearl-colored, or from
the nut-colored, or perhaps from the steel-green house? The shops are
all open for purchasers."--What, ye maidens! is, then your heart so
little worth that you can cut it down, like old clothes, to suit any
fashion, any breast? and is it, then, like a Chinese ball, now great,
now tiny, in order to fit into the ball-form and wedding-ring case of a
man's heart?--"It must indeed be so, unless one will continue to sit
alone, like the Holy Virgin over yonder," is the reply of those to whom
I make no reply, because I turn away from them with contempt, in order
to say to the so-called Holy Virgin: "Forlorn, but patient one!
Unappreciated and withered one! remember not the times when thou still
didst hope for better ones than the present, and never repent the noble
pride of thy heart! It is not always a duty to marry, but it is always
a duty not to forgive one's self anything, never to be happy at the
expense of honor, and not to avoid celibacy by infamy. Unadmired,
solitary heroine! In thy last hour, when the whole of life and the
former goods and scaffoldings of life, crushed into ruins, sink
beforehand,--at that hour thou wilt look out over thy emptied life;
thou wilt see there, it is true, no children, no husband, no wet eyes;
but in the vast, void twilight a great, saintly form; angelically
smiling, radiant, godlike, and soaring to the divine ones, will hover,
and beckon to thee to ascend with her. Oh, ascend with her; that form
is thy _virtue_."
_End of the Extra-Leaf_.
Some days after the Princess gave the Prince an _eye en médaillon_ with
the fine conceit: she gave this _votive-tablet_ to the saint (this was
so much the more _apropos_ as the Prince was named _Januarius_) who had
sent her his wonder-worker, and who now received that which he had
caused to be healed. January said to Victor, to whom he showed the eye,
"She confounds St. Januarius with you, with St. Ottilia,"--who, as is
well known, is the patroness of eyes.
Victor was glad that Matthieu came to him to go with him to St. Luna;
for the latter begged him, because this was done without him, to go
with him to his mother's, "because to-day at the Princess's there was a
great _souper_, but at his mother's not a soul,"--that is, hardly more
than nine persons. Victor therefore--it mattered not to-day that the
distinguished and interesting eye-sufferer was absent--gladly followed
into Schleunes's Nuremberg _Exchange Library_ of daughters behind the
tender Jonathan-Orestes-Mat, whom he, in fact, out of forbearance
towards their mutual friend Flamin, treated now with more toleration.
_Men_, like _ideas_, are associated together quite as often on the
principle of _simultaneousness_ as on that of _similarity_; and as
little can be inferred from the choice of _acquaintances_ as to the
character of a youth, as in regard to that of a woman from her choice
of a husband. Matthieu introduced him to his mother in the reading
cabinet, just as she was hearing an English author read, with the
words, "I bring you here a real live Englishman." Joachime was
reading in a catalogue,--it was not a catalogue of books, but of
stock-gillyflowers,--in order to select some gillyflowers for herself,
not for the purpose of planting, but of imitating them--in silk. She
hated flowers that grew. Her brother said, ironically, "She hated
changeableness, even in a flower." For the truth was, she loved it even
in lovers, and was quite different from April, which, like women, is in
our climate far more steady than is pretended. In the cabinet there
were also two fools, whom my correspondent does not so much as name to
me, because he thinks they would be adequately designated and
distinguished, if I should call the one the fragrant fool, and the
other the fine one.
Both fools were buzzing round the beauty. In fact, whenever I have
wanted to study fools at great parties, I have always looked round
regularly for a great beauty; they gather round such a one like
wasps around a fruit-woman. And if I had no other reason--I have,
however--for marrying the handsomest woman, I would do it for this
reason, if for no other, that I might always have the queen-bee sitting
in the hollow of my hand, after whom the whole foolish bee-swarm would
come buzzing. I and my wife would then be like the fellows in Lisbon,
who, having in their hands a pole of parrots strung together, and at
their feet a leash of _monkeys_ skipping after them, trudge through the
streets, and offer their crazy _personæ_ for sale.
The fragrant fool, who was to-day on the _sunny side_ of Joachime, was
reading to the mother; the fine one, who was on the _weather-side_,
stood near Joachime, and seemed not to trouble himself about her
_cooling of the temperature_. Victor stood there as transition from the
torrid zone to the frigid, and represented the temperate; Joachime
played three parts with one face. The fragrant fool shot, with his left
hand, the swivel-gun of a silver _joujou_. This hanging seal of a fool
he kept in motion, either, as the Greenlander does a block with his
feet, for the sake of keeping himself warm,--or he did it, as the grand
sultan for similar reasons must always be whittling with a jackknife,
in order not to be always having somebody killed out of love,--or in
order, as the stork always holds a stone in his claws, to have all the
time an Ixion's-wheel in his hands, as a rowel on his heels,--or for
the sake of health, in order to counteract the _globulus
hystericus_[237] by the motion of an external one,--or as rosary
bead,--or because he didn't know why.
Each was satisfied with himself. When the mother begged our Englishman
to read to her with his native accent, the _fine_ fool said, "The
English, like certain sentiments, is easier to understand than to
pronounce." That is to say, this fine sheep had universally the habit
of being metaphorical. If a maiden said to him, "I cannot keep myself
from feeling cold to-day," he made out of it coldness of the heart. One
could not say, "It is cloudy, warm, the needle has pricked me," &c.,
without his taking this as a ball-drawer, to extract his heart from the
fire-arm of his breast, and exhibit it. It was impossible in his
hearing not to be fine, and from your good-morning he twisted a
_bon-mot_. Had he read the Old Testament, he would not have been able
to admire sufficiently the fine turns that occur there. On the other
hand, the _fragrant_ fool limited his whole wit to a lively face. He
unfolded before you this bill of invoice and insurance-policy of a
thousand bright conceits, and held it up to you, but nothing came. You
could have sworn by the advertising-poster of wit in his fiery eye,
"Now he is going to blaze out,"--but not in the least! He used the
weapon of satire, as the grenadiers do hand-grenades, which they no
longer throw, but only wear imitated on their caps.
When the fine one had said his erotic _bon-mot_, Joachime looked at our
hero, and said, with an ironical glance at the fine one, "_J'aime les
sages à la folie_."
The pride of the fragrant one in his to-day's superiority, and the
apparent indifference of the fine fool to his own neglect, proved that
neither was often in to-day's ease, and that Joachime coquetted in a
peculiar style. She always made fun of us stately male persons, when
two were with her at once,--of one alone less so; her eyes left it to
our self-love to ascribe the fire in them more to love than to wit; she
seemed to blab out what came into her head, but many things seemed not
to come into her head; she was full of contradictions and follies, but
her _intentions_ and her inclination nevertheless remained doubtful to
every one; her answers were quick, but her questions still quicker.
To-day, in the presence of the three gentlemen,--at other times she did
it in the presence of the whole _bureau d'esprit_,--she stepped up to
the looking-glass, took out her paint-box, and retouched the gay
box-piece of her cheeks. One could not possibly think how she would
look if she were embarrassed or ashamed.
The virtue of many a lady is a thunder-house, which the electric spark
of love shatters to pieces, and which they put together again for new
experiments; to our hero, spoiled by the highest female perfection, it
appeared as if Joachime must be classed among those thunder-houses.
Coquetry is always answered with coquetry. Either this latter it was,
or too feeble a respect for Joachime, which led Victor to make the two
adorers ridiculous in the eyes of the goddess. His victory was as easy
as it was great; he encamped on the foe's position,--in other words,
Joachime took an increased liking to him. For women cannot bear him
who, before their eyes, succumbs to another sex than their own. They
_love_ everything that they _admire_; and one would not have made such
satirical explanations of their predilection for physical courage, if
one had considered that they feel this predilection for everything that
is distinguished,--for men distinguished by wealth, renown, learning.
The dry and wrinkled Voltaire had so much fame and wit, that few
Parisian hearts would have rejected his satirical one. Add to this,
that my hero expressed his regard for the whole sex with a warmth which
the individual appropriated to herself; then, too, his favorite
universal-love, furthermore his eye swimming in sorrow over a lost
heart, and finally his infectious human tenderness, secured him an
attention from Joachime which excited his to the degree, that he
proposed to himself the next time to investigate what it might
signify.----
The next time soon came. So soon as the advent of the Princess was
predicted by the Apothecary,--for _he_ was for the little future of the
court his witch of Endor and of Cumæ, and his Delphic cave,--he went
thither; for he did not drive. "So long as there is still a shoe-black
and a pavement," said he, "I do not drive. But as to the more
distinguished gentry, I wonder that they even travel on foot from one
wing of the palace to the other. Could not one, just as they have a
penny-post for a city, introduce a conveyance for the interior of the
palace? Might not every chair be a sedan-chair, if a lady were less
afraid of an Alpine tour from one apartment to another? And various
circumnavigatresses of the world would even venture to make a
pleasure-tour through a large garden in a close litter."--Victor's own
journey lay straight through one,--namely, that of Schleunes. It was
too bright and pleasant as yet to let him screw himself like a
sewing-cushion to the card-table. He saw in the garden a gay little
party strolling about, and Joachime among them. He joined them.
Joachime expressed an artist's pleasure at the groupings of the clouds,
and it was becoming to her beautiful eyes when she lifted them in that
direction. As they had nothing clever to say, they sought to do
something clever, so soon as they came to the _carrousel_.[238] They
seated themselves in it, and caused it to be set agoing. Many of the
ladies had absolutely not the courage to climb this potter's-wheel;
some ventured into the seats; only Joachime, who was full as daring as
she was timid, mounted the wooden tourney-steed, and took the lance in
hand, to spear away the ring, with a grace which was worthy of finer
rings. But in order not to expose herself to being thrown by the
whirling Rosinante, Joachime had set my hero beside her as a banister,
that she might hold on to him in time of need. The revolution of the
axle grew more rapid, and her fear greater; she clung to him more and
more firmly, and he clasped her more firmly in order to anticipate her
effort. Victor, who understood very well the legerdemain and hocuspocus
of women, easily saw through Joachime's Wiegleb's-natural-magic and
"Trunkus Plempsum Schallalei";[239] besides, the reciprocal pressure
had passed to and fro so rapidly, that one could not tell whether it
had an originator or an originatress....
As they are now all within doors, and I stand alone in the garden by
the horse-mill, I will reflect ingeniously on the subject, and remark
that great people, like women and the French and the Greeks, are
great--children. All great philosophers are the same, and, when they
have almost destroyed themselves with thinking, revive themselves by
child's fooleries, as, e. g., Malebranche did; even so do great people
refresh themselves for their more serious, noble diversions by true
childish ones; hence the hobby-horse chivalry, the swing, the
card-houses (in Hamilton's _mémoires_), the cutting out of pictures,
the _joujou_. With this passion for amusing themselves, they are in
part infected by the custom of amusing their superiors, because the
latter resemble the ancient gods, who, according to Moritz, were
appeased, not by atonement, but by joyous festivals.
As he was acquainted with the whole theatre-company of the Minister,
and, secondly, as he was no longer a lover,--for such a one has a
thousand eyes for _one_ person, and a thousand eyelids for the
rest,--he was not embarrassed at the Minister's, but actually enjoyed
himself. For he had, to be sure, his plan to carry through there; and a
plot makes a life entertaining, whether one _reads_ or _executes_ it.
He was successful to-day in having a tolerably long talk with the
Princess, and, to be sure, not about the Prince,--she avoided that
subject,--but about her trouble of the eyes. That was all. He felt it
was easier to play off an exaggerated regard than to express a real.
The apprehension of appearing false _makes_ one appear so. Hence a
sincere man has the look, with a suspicious one, of being half false.
Meanwhile, with Agnola, who, in spite of her temperament, was
coy,--hence a peculiar, lowered tone reigned in her presence at
Schleunes's,--every step sufficed which he did not take backward.
But toward the sprightly Joachime he took half a step forward. Not so
much she, as the house, seemed to him to be coquettish; and the
daughters therein--they constitute the house--he found to resemble the
old Litones,[240] or people of the Saxons, who were one third free and
two thirds serf, and who therefore could mortgage a third of their
estate. Each had still a third, a ninth, a segment, of her heart left
to her own free disposal. In fact, whoso has ever seen codfishing can
learn the thing here from metaphor,--the three daughters hold long
fishing-rods over the water (father and mother splash, and drive the
codfish along), and have their hooks baited with state-uniforms
or their own faces,--with hearts,--with whole men (as luring
rivals),--with hearts which have already been once taken out of the
stomach of another captured codfish;--from this, I say, one can see in
some sort how they catch the other cod in the sea, precisely as they do
the stock-fish on land,--namely, besides what has been mentioned (now
let one read back again), with bits of red rag, with glass-pearls, with
birds' hearts, with salted herrings and bleeding fishes, with little
cods themselves, with fishes which one has taken out, half digested,
from stock-fish formerly caught.----Victor thought to himself,
"Joachime may be only lively or coquettish for all me; I can easily
skip over marten-traps which I can see set right before my nose." Well,
run, Victor; the _visible_ steel shall lead thee precisely upon that
which is _concealed_. One may observe in the same person coquetry
towards every other, and yet overlook it toward himself, as the fair
one believes the flatterer whom she sets down as a consummate flatterer
of all others.--He observed that Joachime had somewhat oftenish looked
up at the new ceiling this evening, and he could not rightly tell why
it pleased her. At last he saw that she was only pleased with herself,
and that raising her eyes was more becoming to them than looking down.
He undertook presumptuously to investigate this, and said to her, "It
is a pity the painter of the Vatican had not made it, that you might
look up at it oftener."--"Oh," said she, in a tone of levity, "I never
would look up with others; I do not love admiration." By and by she
said, "Men dissemble, when they wish to, better than we; but I tell you
just as few truths as I hear from you." She confessed outright that
coquetry was the best remedy against love; and with the observation
that his frankness pleased her, but hers must please him too, she ended
the visit and the Post-Day.