APOPLEXY--THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF HEALTH--THE NOTARY-PUBLIC--
THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT--THE KNIGHT'S MOVE--REVEL, THE MORNING
PREACHER--THE SECOND APOPLECTIC ATTACK.
In the evening Henry drew up the curtain upon this tragedy (full of
comic gravedigger business), and discovered Firmian lying on his bed
speechless, with apoplectic head, and all his right side paralysed. The
only mode in which the patient could bring himself to endure the
torture of the deception, and of the pain he was causing Lenette, was
by making a mental vow to send her the half of his yearly income as
inspector at Vaduz, anonymously, and by remembering that by his death
she would obtain happiness, freedom, and her lover. The occupants of
the house formed a circle about the apoplectic patient, but Leibgeber
drove them out of the room, saying, "the sufferer must have quietness
and rest." It delighted him beyond expression to be able to go on
uttering humourous lies without cessation. He assumed the office of
Imperial Hereditary Doorkeeper, and shut the door in the doctor's
face (whom people insisted upon prescribing). "I am going to prescribe
a little prescription for the patient myself," he said, "but, little
as it is, it will restore his speech for a time. These cursed
death-rivers, doctors' potions, Mr. Schulrath," (for that gentleman had
been fetched immediately) "are like those rivers which demand a dead
body every year." So he wrote a recipe for a simple sedative powder, as
follows, reading aloud as he wrote;--
Rx Conch: Citratæ Sirup: j.
Nitri Crystallisatæ gr. x.
D.S. "The Sedative Powder."
"But above all things," he added, in the most imperative tones, "we
must place the patient's feet in warm water."
However, everybody in the house knew well enough that nothing would be
of the slightest avail, as his death had been but too unmistakably
foretold by the floury face; and Fecht felt a kind of sympathising
satisfaction that he had hit the mark.
Scarcely had the sick man swallowed the powder, than, to the
astonishment of the Death-Assurance Association in his bedroom, he
found himself able to speak, intelligibly, if not very loud. The
domestic Vehmgericht was _not_, perhaps, altogether pleased with this.
But our good Henry had a pretext now for resuming his cheerful mien. He
comforted Lenette by reminding her that "here below pain was but an
initiation ceremony to something higher--the box-on-the-ear, or
sword-accolade whereby a man is dubbed a knight."
The patient had a very fair night after his sedative powder, and began
to have some slight hopes of himself. Henry would not allow Lenette
(whose eyes were heavy with tears and sleep) to sit up by his bed
during the night. He said he would prefer to be at hand himself, in
case there should be any danger; of which, however, there was no great
risk, as they made their agreement together (doing so in Latin, like
princes) that Death, the fifth act of this tragic interlude, (only one
of the _scenes_ of the tragedy of Life,) should take place on the
evening of the following day. "Even till to-morrow," said Firmian, "is
too long to wait. I am so unspeakably grieved for my poor Lenette's
sorrow. Like David, alas! I have to make a melancholy choice between
famine, war, and pestilence, and have no way out of it but his. You,
dear brother, are my Cain, and send me on my journey, and believe in
the world to which you despatch me not a bit more than he did.[86]
Before you prescribed the sedative power which obliged me to talk, I
was really wishing, in my silent gloom, that the jest might become
earnest. For I _must_ one day pass through that underground portal
which opens into the fortress of futurity, in which we shall be safe.
Ah! it is not the _dying_ that is painful, it is the _parting_--I mean
from those we love." Henry said, in reply, "Nature holds a broad
Achilles-shield before us to protect us from that final bayonet-thrust
of life. On our death-beds we grow cold morally before we do so
physically, a strange courtier-like indifference towards all we are
leaving creeps frostily through the dying nerves. Sapient spectators
say, 'See, nobody but a Christian can die with such resignation and
trust.' Never mind, dear Firmian; the two or three painful burning
minutes which you have to bear till to-morrow arrives are a capital
warm bath of Aix water for the sick spirit. It has an infernal smell of
rotten eggs _now_, no doubt, but that will go away completely as the
bath grows cool."
Next day Henry eulogised him as follows. "As Cato the younger slept
quietly the night before his death, (history heard him snore,) so you
appear to have afforded these debilitated, unnerved, and degenerate
days a fresh example of a similar magnanimity. If I were your Plutarch
I should record the circumstance."
"In sober seriousness, though," answered Firmian, "I should be rather
pleased if, several years hence, when Death has presented his _second_
of exchange, some literary West, the historical painter, should honour
this odd _first_ death of mine by describing it for the press." This,
we see a biographical West has now actually done, but I beg to be
permitted to confess, without hesitation, that it has afforded me
sincere gratification to find among the documents this death-bed speech
and wish, which I am so completely carrying out. Leibgeber answered,
"The Jesuits in Löwen once published a little book in which the
terrible end of Luther was minutely described in Latin. Old Luther got
hold of the book and translated it, as he did the Bible, merely adding
at the end, 'I, Dr. M. Luther, have read and translated this narrative
myself.' If I were you, when I translated my death into English, I
should write that at the end of it too." Do please write it, dear
Siebenkæs, as you are still in life--but translate me, at all events.
Morning brings refreshing to the laid corn of humanity, whether it be
laid upon the hard bed of sickness, or on the softer mattress of
ordinary health; its breezes lift the bowed heads of both flowers and
men: but _our_ sick man remained prostrate. Things seemed distinctly
worse with him--he could not disguise from himself that he was losing
ground; at all events he resolved to "set his house in order." This
first quarter of the hour of death which the death bell tolled, smote
like a sharp and heavy bell-hammer upon Lenette's heart, whence the
warm stream of the old love burst forth in bitter tears. Firmian could
not bear the sight of this disconsolate weeping; he stretched his arms
beseechingly, and the suffering creature laid herself between them in
gentle obedience, on to his breast, their tears, their sighs, and their
hearts mingled in the warmest affection, and thus they rested in
happiness (though only upon wounds) at this brief distance from the
boundary-hill of parting.
For this poor soul's sake, then, he grew visibly better. Another
improvement in his condition was necessary, moreover, to account for
the happy frame of mind in which he executed his last will and
testament. Leibgeber expressed satisfaction that the patient was able
to take some dinner on the table-cloth of the bed-quilt, and swallow
the contents of a sick man's soup-dish about the size of a pond. "The
good spirits," said Leibgeber to Peltzstiefel, "which our invalid is
beginning to exhibit again, give me very considerable hopes indeed;
though it was evidently only to please his wife that he took the soup."
Nobody was fonder of lying, or lied oftener, _out of satire_ or humour,
than Leibgeber and no one more utterly detested serious untruthfulness
than he. He could tell a thousand lies in fun, but not two in a case of
serious necessity. For the former he had at his finger's end every
possible deceptive trick of face and language; for the latter not one.
In the forenoon the Schulrath and Merbitzer, the landlord, were
summoned to the bedside. "Gentlemen," began the sick man, "I am
thinking of having my last will this afternoon--of declaring, at
Nature's place of execution, the three things which I desire--as the
condemned in Athens were allowed to do; but what I wish to do at the
present moment is to open one of my testaments before I make my second,
or (to speak more accurately) the codicil of my first. I wish my friend
Leibgeber to pack up, and keep possession of, all my scribblings as
soon as I myself am stuck into my last addressed envelope. Further (and
in this I follow the precedent of the Danish Kings, the old Dukes of
Austria, and the noble Spaniards--of whom the first were interred in
their armour, the second in lion's skins, the third in miserable
Capuchins' gowns)--I will and ordain that there shall be no hesitation
about planting me in the bed of the next world in the very self-same
old pod and shell in which I have vegetated in _this_; in brief,
exactly as I am while now testating. This injunction necessitates my
making my third that the woman who comes to lay me out shall be paid,
and at once sent about her business, because all my life through I have
had a most special antipathy to two women--the woman who washes us
_into_ life, and the woman who washes us _out_ of it (though in a
bigger bath-tub)--the midwife and the woman who lays out the corpse.
She is not to lay a finger upon me, nor is anybody except my Henry
there." His hatred of these servants of life and death may probably
have proceeded from the same causes as my own, namely the imperious and
rapacious nature of the controlling power which these she-planters and
caterers for the cradle and the bier exercise in squeezing us just in
the two unarmed and weaponless hours of our deepest gladness and our
deepest sorrow.
"I further will that as soon as my face has made the signal of adieu,
Henry shall roof it over and shield it for ever with our long-necked
mask, which I brought down from the box upstairs. I also desire that,
when I take my departure from all the fields and plains of my youthful
days, and hear nothing behind me but the rustle of the haycocks of the
aftermath, I may, at all events, have my wife's silken garland laid
upon my breast, by way of game-counter to mark the joys I have lost. A
man can't go more suitably than with mock insignia, such as that, out
of a life which has dished him up such a number of pasteboard pasties
full of nothing but wind. Lastly, I will that, when I am gone on my
journey, nobody shall clang after me from the church-steeple (like the
people of Carlsbad), for we sick and transient watering-place visitors
of life (like those of Carlsbad) are received and sent on our way with
music from the steeples, especially as the Church's servants are more
expensive than the Carlsbad steeple-man, who only asks three pieces for
blowing people in and out."
At this point he asked that Lenette's profile-portrait might be given
him in bed, and he said, in a faltering voice, "I should like my dear
Henry and the landlord to leave the room for a minute, and let me be
alone with the Schulrath and my wife."
When this was done he gazed fondly, a long while, in silence, upon
the little likeness. His eyes ran over with sorrow like a broken
river-bank. He gave the picture to the Schulrath, paused, overcome by
emotion, and said at length: "To you, my faithful friend, and to you
alone, can I give this beloved portrait: you are _her_ friend, as well
as mine. Oh God! there is not a soul in the great, wide world that will
take care of my dear Lenette if _you_ forsake her. Don't cry so
bitterly, my darling; he will be everything to you. Ah! dearest of
friends, this helpless, innocent heart will break in desolate
loneliness of sorrow unless _you_ protect it and console it. Oh! never
abandon it, as I am doing!"
The Schulrath swore by the Almighty that he would never leave her, and
he took her hand and pressed it (without looking at her) as she wept,
and hung, with eyes raining down with tears, upon the face of his
friend, whose voice was so soon to be mute for ever. But Lenette forced
him away from her husband's breast, and liberated her hand, and sunk
down upon the lips which had so deeply touched her heart. Firmian
clasped her with his left arm, and stretched his right hand to his
friend--thus holding to his oppressed bosom the two things on earth
that are nearest heaven, friendship and love.
And it is even this very matter which is an endless source of comfort
and delight to me in you deluded and disagreeing mortals--that you all
love one another heartily and utterly when you only get a chance of
_seeing_ one another divested of coverings and fogs--that when we fear
we are growing _blind_ we are only growing _cold_--and that, as soon as
ever Death has raised our brothers and sisters up clear of the clouds
of our own errors, our hearts melt into bliss and love when we see them
soaring as beautiful human creatures, no longer distorted by the mists
and concave mirrors of this world, up in the translucent æther; and
cannot but sigh forth, "Ah! I should _never_ have misunderstood you if
I had always seen you _thus_." This is why every loving soul stretches
its arms out to those whom poets exhibit to our low-placed eyes, as
geniuses, in their cloud-built heaven, though, could he let them sink
down upon our breasts, they would lose their beauteous transfiguration
in a few short days upon the dirty earth of our necessities and
mistakes: as the crystal glacier-water which refreshes, without
chilling, must be caught in the air as it drips from its ice-diamond,
because it is made impure by the air the moment it touches the
earth.[87]
The Schulrath went out, but only to the doctor. This distinguished
Generalissimo of Friend Death (who did not bear the title of
"Councillor of the Supreme Board of Health" for nothing, but for money)
was very willing to come and see the patient: firstly, because the
Schulrath was a man of means and consideration; and, secondly, because
Siebenkæs in his capacity of a member of the Corpse Lottery (of which
the doctor also was a corresponding member and _frère servant_), ought
not to be allowed to die. For this burial-fund was, in one of its more
important aspects, a species of Government Savings' Bank, or Imperial
Treasury for members of the better classes. The sight of this Supreme
Councillor of Health, advancing in battle-array, terrified Leibgeber to
death. He could not but fear that the advent of the doctor might make
matters take a more serious turn, so that Siebenkæs might transmit to
posterity a celebrity like that of Molière, who died on the stage while
performing the part of the 'Malade Imaginaire.' The relation between
doctor and patient seemed to him as indeterminate as that between
woodpeckers, or bark-beetles, and trees; inasmuch as it is still a moot
question whether the trees wither in consequence of these creatures
boring into them, and laying their eggs in them, or if (on the
contrary) it is because the bark is worm-eaten and the trunk dead, that
the beetles come flying to the trees. My opinion as regards beetles and
woodpeckers (and doctors as well) is that each is alternately cause and
effect; and that there is no such thing as a living creature whose
existence can possibly be taken as pre-supposing decay, because, if so,
at the creation of the world there would have had to be a dead horse
created for the bluebottles, and a rotten cheese for the mites.
Well, Dr. [Oe]lhafen (of the Supreme Board of Health) marched straight
up to the sick man (shooting past the one who was not sick, with angry
rudeness), and instantly swooped upon life's seconds'-hand, the medical
divining-rod, the pulse. Leibgeber set the plough of satirical anger
into the soil of his face, ploughed crooked furrows, and determined
upon a course of deep subsoil-ploughing.
"This," said the professor of the healing art, "is a case of genuine
nervous apoplexy, supervening on an undue determination of blood to the
head, and a plethora of the vessels. There ought to have been medical
attendance at a much earlier stage of the case; the full, hard pulse
threatens a repetition of the attack. An emetic powder, which I shall
prescribe, will, in the circumstances, produce the best possible
effect." And with this he pulled out some emetic _billets-doux_,
wrapped up like _bonbons_. This preparation was one which he kept for
sale himself, hawking it about from house to house like a Jew pedlar.
There were few diseases to which he did not apply these emetics
of his by way of "means of grace," screwjacks, pump handles, and
purgatorial fire; but he worked them most assiduously of all in
apoplexy chest-inflammation, headache, and bilious fever. What he said
was that he "began by clearing the principal passages," and in so doing
he occasionally cleared the proprietor of said principal passages out
of this world, so that he found himself passing through the final
"passage" of all flesh.
Leibgeber kneaded his odd visage into a new form, and said, "There
seems nothing, Doctor [Oe]lhafen (my colleague and _protomedicus_), to
prevent our holding our _concilium_, or _consilium_, or _collegium
medicum_, here where we stand. I cannot but think that my sedative
powder had a good effect, seeing that it restored _apoplectico_ there
the power of speech, yesterday." The _protomedicus_ took Leibgeber for
some quack, and without so much as letting his eyes touch his
colleague, said to Peltzstiefel, "Will you get them to bring some warm
water, and I will give him the powder myself." "He and I will take it
both together," burst in Leibgeber, in anger; "_both_ our gall-bladders
are acting at present; the _patient_ shan't, won't, and mustn't."
"Are you a regular practitioner, Sir?" asked the Councillor of the
Supreme Board of Health, with contempt.
"I am a Jubilee Doctor, or Doctor Jubilant, and have been so ever since
I ceased being a fool. You no doubt remember in Haller the case of the
fool who thought his head was off, until they cured him by putting a
lead hat on to him. A head roofed and insulated with lead has about as
distinct a sense of individuality as one cast in that metal. I was very
nearly in the same boat with that fool myself, brother colleague. I had
inflammation of the brain, and did not find out so soon as I should
have done that it had been put out, and cured. To make a long tale
short, I fancied that my head had peeled away (or shall I call it
'exfoliated,' or 'desquamated'), just as one's feet moulder and drop
off, like crab's claws, when one takes too much ergot. When the barber
came in, and threw down his purple tool-bag, or quiver, I said, 'My
dear Surgeon-General Spœrl, it may be perfectly true that flies,
tortoises, and adders have been known to go on living after their heads
were off, as I do, but there wasn't much on them to shave. A man of
your sense must see that it is as impossible to shave _me_ as to shave
the Torso at Rome--where were you thinking of _soaping_ me, Mr.
Spœrl? Scarce was he out of the door when in came the wig-maker.
'Another time, Mr. Peisser,' said I, 'unless you propose to curl the
circumambient air around me, or the hair on my chest, you can put your
combs back into your waistcoat pocket. Since twelve o'clock last night
I have been carrying on existence without either frieze or cornice,
and, like the tower of Babel, I have no cupola. But if you will go and
see whether you can find my head in the next room there, and put a
_queue_ and a _toupée_ on to that _caput mortuum_ of mine, I should
have no objection to that, and I don't mind wearing the head by a way
of a _queue_-wig.' By good luck in came the Rector Magnificus. He was a
doctor, and saw what distress I was in, when I smote my hands together
and cried, 'Where are my four brain chambers and my _corpus callosum_,
my _anus cerebri_, and my uniform _centrum_ (which, according to
Gläser, is the seat of the imagination)? How can a Rump Parliament wear
spectacles, or use ear trumpets? The reasons are obvious. Is it come to
this with the monæcius head of the world, that it has _no_ head left
for a seed-vessel?' But the Rector Magnificus sent to the University
wardrobe for an old, tight-fitting, doctor's hat; he put it on me with
a gentle push, and said, 'The faculty never places a doctor's hat on
anything but a head; it could not possibly put it on to a nothing.' And
this hat made a new head grow on to my imagination, like a decapitated
snail's. And ever since I was cured myself. I have taken to curing
other people."
The Board of Health councillor turned a basilisk's eyeball away from
Leibgeber, and lowered himself downstairs by the ribbon of his cane
like a bale of merchandize, omitting to pocket his emetic permit for
the world to come, which the patient had, consequently, to pay for.
But our good Henry had another war to wage with Stiefel and Lenette,
until Firmian threw himself between them as mediator, with the
assurance that he would have sent the powder packing in any case,
because it would have been anything but good for an old pain in his
heart (alas! he spoke figuratively), and two or three Gordian knots in
his lungs (the "knots of the plot of his earthly drama").
But all this time, however good a face he might put on matters, there
was no concealing the fact that he was steadily growing worse. The
_ricochet_ of the apoplectic shot was clearly imminent, and to be
looked for at any moment. "It is time I made my will," he said. "I long
ardently for the Notary Public." This functionary, as is well known,
has the drawing up of all last wills and testaments, according to the
laws of Kuhschnappel. At length he arrived, Bærstel by name, a
shrivelled and dried-up snail of a man, with a round, shy, listening
button-face, all hunger, anxiety, and attention. Many people thought
his flesh was merely smeared over his bones, like the new Swedish
_carton pierre_. "What is it your pleasure to have written to-day,
Sir?" began Bærstel. "One of my pretty little codicils," said
Siebenkæs. "But before we begin hadn't you better try me with a
catch-question or two, as is usually done with testators, to find out
(without letting me know what you are at, you understand) whether I am
all right in my head?" "Do you know who _I_ am, Sir?" said Bærstel.
"You are Mr. Bærstel, Notary Public," answered the patient. "Not only
is that quite correct," answered Bærstel, "but it renders it quite
clear that you are wandering very little, if at all, and we may proceed
at once to draw up your testament."
LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF SIEBENKÆS,
POOR'S ADVOCATE.
"The undersigned, now yellowing and falling from the tree with the rest
of the August apples, desires, being thus nigh to death, which looses
the spirit from the thraldom of the body, to execute a few more merry
back-steps, sidesteps, and Sir-Roger-de Coverleys, three minutes before
the Basle dance of Death begins."
The notary paused, and asked in amazement, "Am I to put this stuff, and
more like it, down upon paper?"
"_Imprimis_, I, Firmian Siebenkæs, alias Heinrich Leibgeber, do hereby
will and ordain that my guardian the Heimlicher von Blaise shall (and
must) pay over, within a year and day after my decease, to my friend,
Mr. Leibgeber, inspector in Vaduz,[88] the 12,000 florins of trust
money whereof he has godlessly defrauded me, his ward: the said Mr.
Leibgeber making over the same hereafter faithfully to my beloved wife.
In the event of the said Herr von Blaise declining so to do, I here
lift up my hand and swear, upon my dying bed, that after I have
departed this life I will pursue him, not legally, but spiritually, and
will terrify him by appearing to him, either as the devil or as a tall
white man, or by my voice merely, according as my circumstances, after
my decease, may permit."
The notary's feathered arm hovered in air, and he ceased not to shrink
and shudder with terror. "All I am afraid of," he said, "is that if I
write down things of this kind, the Heimlicher will get hold of me."
But Leibgeber, with face and body, barred his retreat through that
hell-gate, the door of the room.
"Further, as reigning sovereign of the shooter's company, I will and
ordain that no war of succession shall convert my testament into a
powder of succession for innocent people. Further, that the republic of
Kuhschnappel (into the office of Gonfaloniere and Doge whereof I was
balloted with rifle bullets) shall wage no defensive war, seeing that
it cannot defend itself if it does--but offensive wars only, with the
object of enlarging the boundaries of its territories, they not being
easy to protect. And that its members may, in their generation, be as
wood-economising as their country and royal burgh's father has been in
his. Now-a-days, when forests are burned to charcoal faster than they
grow again, the only thing to be done is to warm _the climate_ a good
deal, and turn it into a great brooding-oven, kiln, and field-oven, so
as to save the trouble, and obviate the necessity, of having stoves in
the houses. And this has been in some measure attended to by careful
Commissioners of Woods and Forests, who have cleared away the forests
as much as they could, they being full of late winter. When one thinks
how very beautifully modern Germany contrasts with that which Tacitus
mapped, warmed as it is by the mere cutting down of the forests, we
have little difficulty in feeling convinced that a time will come when,
there being no more timber at all, we shall arrive at such a
temperature that the atmosphere itself shall be our fur pelisse. The
reason the present superfluity is burnt to ashes as rapidly as possible
is, that the price of raft-wood may be raised, just as a million
_livres_' worth of nutmegs were publicly burnt at Amsterdam in 1760, to
prevent the price from falling.
"Moreover, as King of the Kuhschnappelian Jerusalem, it is my desire
that the senate and people thereof (senatus, populusque
Kuhschnappeliensis) be not damned, but contrariwise blessed,
particularly in this present world. Further, that the town magnates may
not devour the Kuhschnappelian nests (houses) as they do the Indian
ones, and that the taxes, though they have to pass through the four
stomachs of the tax-gatherers,[89] may nevertheless issue thence
converted from milky chyle into red blood (from silver into gold), and
after circulating through the lacteals and the thoracic duct, be
impelled in due course into the veins of the body politic. Further, I
will and appoint that the greater and the lesser council----"
The notary would fain have stopped here, and shook his head most
energetically, but Leibgeber was playing with the rifle with which the
testator had elevated himself to the throne of the marksman (whereas it
is upon leaping-poles consisting of _other men's_ ramrods that thrones
are usually attained to), and Bærstel wrote on in the sweat of his
brow.
"That the mayor, the treasurer, the Heimlicher, the eight members of
council, and the serjeant of court, may listen to reason, and reward no
merit but that of other people. And that the rascal Blaise, and the
scoundrel Meyern may daily lay castigatory hands upon each other, as
relations, so that there may at all events always be one to punish the
other."
Here the notary jumped up, declared it took his breath away, and went
to the window to get a little air. And as he saw that there was a pile
of tanner's bark within easy shot of the window-sill, his terror,
shoving at him from behind, impelled him up on to the sill in question.
Having taken this _first_ step, before a testament witness could seize
him by the coat-tails, he made a _second_ (and long) one out into the
open air, so as to be in a position to reach that modelling-table the
heap of bark. Being thus a falling artist (not a rising one), he could
do no better on his arrival there than make use of his face as a
graving-tool, plastic "form," and copying machine, and execute
therewith a faint bas-relief impression of himself upon the heap of
tan. His fingers worked busily as graving-tools, making copies of
themselves, whilst, as a matter of pure accident, he countersigned
this, his report of the incident, with his notarial seal, which he had
taken with him in his descent. So easy is it for one notary to create
another, like a Count Palatine. But Bærstel left his co-notary and the
entire _lusus naturæ_ behind him, thinking on his homeward way of
matters of a wholly different kind. Stiefel and Leibgeber, again,
looked out of window, and (the notary having vanished, bag and
baggage,) gazed upon his _second_ outward man as it lay outstretched
before them upon its anatomical theatre, smelling of Russia leather.
Concerning which the author will not add another word of his own, but
only these of Henry's.
"The notary wished to seal the testament with a larger seal than
usual--one which nobody might forge--so he sealed it with his own body,
and there we see the sphragistic impression all complete."
The will, such as it was, was duly subscribed by the witnesses and by
the testator, and anything but a demi-military testament of this kind
was scarcely to be expected in the circumstances. Evening was now
drawing on,--the time when sick and sorry man turns him from the sun
(as does the earth he dwells on), and _towards_ the twilight evening
star of the other world,--when the _sick_ pass away to the latter, and
the well gaze at the former--and when Firmian thought to give his wife
the long kiss of parting, and then begin slowly sinking. But
unfortunately Deacon Revel (the assistant preacher) came rustling in in
an electrically stormy fashion. He came arrayed in his ecclesiastical
armour, gorget, sash, and all, to administer a befitting rebuke to the
invalid (round whose neck he had tied the band of matrimony in a double
knot) for trying to evade payment of the confession fee--that toll for
the communion of the sick and sound on the highway between heaven and
hell. As (on the authority of Linnæus) the ancient botanists--a Croll,
Porta, Helvetius, Fabricius--thought that certain plants which had more
or less resemblance to particular illnesses were remedies for these
complaints, prescribing yellow plants, such as saffron and turmeric,
for jaundice, dragon's-blood and catechu for dysentery, cabbage-heads
for headache (as well as prickly things, such as fish-bones, for
stitches in the side), so, in the hands of able Gospel ministers, the
spiritual _materia medica_, such as sermons and admonitions, assume the
appearance of the spiritual maladies for whose cure they are
administered--anger, pride, avarice, and so on. Thus there is often no
difference, but one of condition, between the bed-ridden patient and
his physician. This was the case with Revel. One of his great objects
in life was, in an age when people are so prone to defame the Lutheran
clergy by calling them mere Jesuits in disguise, or monks, to give the
most unmistakable proof, more by deeds than by words, that he was, at
all events, none of _the latter_ (who call nothing their own, and are
not allowed to possess property), and for that reason to be at all
times on the hunt, and on the snatch, after worldly possessions. Hoseas
Leibgeber did his best to make himself a barrier-rope and turnstile for
the parson, and stopped him on the threshold, saying, "I fear it won't
be of much use; I tried my own hand yesterday at converting and
recoining him flying, (if I may use the expression,) post-haste, _volti
subito citissime_, but all that came of it was that he threw it in my
teeth that I wasn't converted _myself_--and no more I am. There are
whole flocks of heretical singing-birds pecking away at the summer
rape-seed of _my_ opinions." Revel answered (vacillating between a
major mode and a minor), "A servant of the Lord bides his time, keeps
diligent watch, and does the duty of his sacred calling, striving to
save souls--from atheism, as well as from other sin. The _event_
concerns the sinner, and the sinner only."
So this black storm cloud, charged to the brim with Sinai-lightnings,
rolled on into the dim-lit chamber; the parson waved his great,
flapping gown-sleeve, like a standard of spiritual healing and
rehabilitation, over the atheist (as _he_ thought him) stretched on his
bed, and told him in a "sick-bed exhortation" (which is generally the
very antipodes of a funeral sermon)--in a "sick-bed exhortation" (I
say) such as may one day overtake me and my reader under our last
bed-cover, and which I shall therefore avoid sending all the way from
Bayreuth to Heidelberg to be put in type, since it may be heard _en
route_ going on in any sick-chamber. At the same time he _told_ him, in
the said sick-bed exhortation to his face, like a plain-speaking,
straight-forward man, that he was a roast for the devil's table, just
done to a turn, and ready to be dished and served. The roast (thus
pronounced to be done to a turn), closed his eyes, and endured it.
But Henry, whom it pained to see the parson pinching the ears and the
heart whom he loved with red-hot pincers, and who was furious at the
thought that it was done solely to frighten the sick man into the
Confessional--Henry seized his waving arm, and gently reminded him--
"I did not think it would have been very polite, Mr. Kevel, to mention
it before--but the patient's hearing is a good deal impaired. You will
find you will be obliged to scream. He has not heard a syllable you
have said up to this point. Mr. Siebenkæs, do you know who this is? You
see how little he hears. Set to work now at converting _me_, over a
glass of beer--I should prefer that very much, and _I_ hear a great
deal better. I'm very much afraid he has a touch of delirium, and, if
he sees you at all, thinks you are the devil--for it is with _him_ that
the dying have to fence their last bout. It's a pity he didn't know
what you were saying. He would have been very angry and annoyed--(for
confess he will _not_)--and on the authority of Haller, in the 8th
volume of his 'Physiology, a proper amount of annoyance and vexation
has often been known to add weeks to a dying person's life. But, after
all, he _is_ a _kind_ of a true Christian, after a fashion, when all's
said, although he no more dreams of _confessing_ than any of the
Apostles did, or the fathers either. When he is gone, you shall hear
from my own lips how peacefully a true Christian passes away--no
convulsions--no contortions--no agonies of death. He is as completely
at home in the world of spirits as the screech-owl is in the village
steeple--and just as the owl sits in the belfry while the bells are
ringing, I will be bound that our Advocate will never stir when the
death-bell tolls for him--for he has acquired, from your sermons, the
conviction that he will go on living after he dies."
In the above speech there was some pretty hard hitting, in the shape of
jest, at Firmian's mock death, as well as at his faith in immortality;
such jests, in fact, as none but a Firmian could both understand and
pardon. But Leibgeber was, at the same time, making an attack, in all
seriousness, on those good people who believe accidental, physical
tranquillity in dying to be tranquillity of soul, and bodily struggles
to be storms of conscience.
Revel contented himself with replying, "You are of those who sit in the
seat of the scorner--whom the Lord will find. I have washed my hands."
But as he would have infinitely preferred _filling_ them, and,
moreover, could not succeed in transforming this child of the devil
into a confessing penitent, he took his departure, red and silent,
escorted downstairs by Lenette and Stiefel with many deferential
curtseys and bows.
Let us not make out Henry's gall-bladder (which is likewise his
swimming-bladder, and, alas! often his ascending _globus hystericus_)
to be any bigger than it really is. Let us form a judgment, all the
more favourable, of this natural foible of his from considering than
Henry had, in the course of his previous career, seen spiritual _frères
terribles_, and gallows preachers of this sort, strewing salt upon the
faint, withered hearts on so many deathbeds; and because it was his
belief (as it is mine) that of all the hours of a man's life his last
must be the most indifferent as regards religion, inasmuch as it the
most unfruitful, and no seed can sprout in it which will bear any fruit
of action.
During the brief absence of the courteous couple, Firmian said, "Oh! I
am sick, sick, and weary of it all. I _cannot_ carry on the joke any
longer. In ten minutes more I intend to lie my last lie, and die--and
would to GOD it were not a lie. Don't let them bring in any lights, but
cover me up at once with the mask, for I see very plainly that I shall
not be able to control these eyes of mine, and when the mask is on, I
shall, at all events, be able to let them weep as much as they like.
Ah! Henry, my good, kind friend!"
The infusory chaos of Revel's exhortation had made this weary
_figurant_ and mimicker of Death tender and grave. Henry--out of his
delicate and loving solicitude--had undertaken all the lying parts of
the _rôle_, and enacted those himself. He therefore (as the couple were
coming back into the room), cried out, in a loud, anxious voice,
"Firmian, how do you feel now?" "Better," said Firmian, in a voice of
emotion. "There are stars shining in this world's night, though I,
alas! am clamped to the dust, and cannot soar up to them. The bank of
the lovely spring-time of eternity is steep, and, close as we day-flies
are swimming to the shore of Life's Dead Sea, we have not got our wings
yet." Yes! Death--sublime and glorious after sunset-sky of our St.
Thomas's Day--grand amen of our hope, spoken to our ears from the other
world--would come to our beds in the likeness of a beautiful giant,
with a garland on his brow, and lift us gently up into the æther, and
rock us there to rest, were it not that we go to him only as maimed,
stunned creatures, who are _thrown_ into his giant arms. What robs
Death of his glory is sickness; the pinions of the soul when it rises
on its heavenward flight are heavy, and stained with blood, and tears,
and mire. The only time when death is a flight--not a fall--is when
some hero is smitten by one, single, mortal wound, when, as he stands
like a spring-world, all new blossom, and old fruit, the next world
suddenly flashes by him, like some comet, bearing him (miniature world
as he is) all unwithered, along with it in its flight, to soar with it
beyond the sun.
But this mental exaltation of Firmian's would have been an indication
of reviving strength and returning health to sharper eyes than
Stiefel's. It is upon the _looker-on_ only--not upon the victim who is
smitten down--that the battle-axe of Death casts a flash of light. It
is with the death-bell as with other bells; it is those who are _at a
distance_ who hear the solemn, inspiring boom and music--not those who
are _within_ the sounding hemisphere. And as every bosom grows more
sincere and more transparent in the hour of death--like the Siberian
glass-apple, the kernel of which, when ripe, is covered only by a
crystal case formed of sweet, transparent flesh--so Firmian, in
this dithyrambic hour--near as he was to the bare edge of Death's
sickle--could have gladly sacrificed (that is, discovered) all the
mystery and blossom of his future, but that by so doing he would have
broken his word and grieved his friend. But nothing was left him now,
save a patient heart, dumb lips, and weeping eyes.
Alas! and were not all his ostensible farewells _real_ ones after all?
As he drew his Henry and the Schulrath to his heart with trembling
hands, was that heart not oppressed by the mournful certainty of losing
the Schulrath on the morrow, and Henry in a week's time, for ever? So
that the following address which he made to them was nothing but the
plain truth, mournful though it was. "Alas! we shall be scattered
asunder by the four winds of heaven in a very, very little time. Ah!
human arms are rotten bands. How short a time they hold! May all be
well with you--and better than I ever deserved it might be with me. May
the chaotic stone-heaps of your lives never come rolling down about
your feet, or about your ears--may spring overspread the crags and
cliffs around you with berries, and the freshest green! Good night for
ever, dearly loved Schulrath, and you, my Henry!" He pressed the latter
to his heart in silence, thinking how near the veritable parting was.
But he should have avoided stimulating his heart into feverish
excitement by these pricks and stings of farewell, for he heard Lenette
mourning out of sight behind the bed, and (with a deep death-wound in
his overflowing heart) said, "Come, my beloved Lenette, and bid me
good-bye;" and stretched out his arms in a wild manner to receive her.
She came tottering, and sank into them, and on to his heart, while he
was speechless under the crushing weight of his emotions; till at
length, as she lay there trembling, he said, in a low voice, "Ah! poor,
patient, faithful, tortured soul! how constantly and unceasingly have I
caused you sorrow! Will you forgive me? Will you forget me?" (A spasm
of sorrow clasped her closer to him.) "Ah! do _but_ forget me, and
forget me _quite_; for heaven knows you have never been happy with me!"
Their voices were lost in sobs, only their tears could flow. A drawing,
thirsting grief was grinding at his weary heart, and he went on: "No,
no; with _me_ you have truly had nothing, nothing but tears; but there
are happy days coming for you, when I shall be gone from you." He gave
her his parting kiss, saying, "Live happy now, and let me be gone!"
"But you are _not_ going to die," she cried again and again, with a
thousand tears. He put his arms about her, he gently raised her
fainting form from his breast, and said, very solemnly, "It is over
now. Fate has sundered us; it is over and past."
Henry gently led her weeping away; and he cried himself, too; and
cursed his plot; and signed to the Schulrath, saying, "Firmian needs
rest now." The latter turned his face, swollen and drawn with pain, to
the wall. Lenette and Stiefel were mourning together in the other room.
Henry waited till the greater billows had subsided somewhat, and then
quietly put the question: "Now?" Firmian gave the signal, and Henry
yelled out, "Oh! he is gone!" like a man beside himself; and threw
himself down upon the motionless body (to prevent anybody from touching
it), with genuine, bitter tears at the thought of the nearness of
parting. An inconsolable couple came bursting from the next room.
Lenette would have thrown herself upon her husband (whose face was
turned away), and she cried, in agony, "I must see him; I must bid my
husband good-bye once more." But Henry told the Schulrath
(confidentially) to take hold of her, and support her, and get her away
out of the room. The two former things he was able to accomplish
(although his _own_ self-control was only an artificial one, assumed
with the view of demonstrating the victory of religion over
philosophy), but get her out of the room he could not. When she saw
Henry take up the mask of death, "No, no," she cried; "I insist upon
being allowed to see my husband once more." But Henry took the mask,
gently turned Firmian's face (on which the tears of parting were scarce
yet dry), and covered it up, thus hiding it for ever from his wife's
weeping eyes. This grand scene lifted up his heart; he gazed upon the
mask and said, "Death lays a mask like this over all our faces; and a
time will come when _I_ shall stretch me out in death's midnight sleep
as _he_ has done, and grow longer and heavier. Ah! poor Firmian! has
that war game of yours been worth the candles and the trouble? We are
not the _players_, it is true; we are the things _played with_: and old
Death sends our heads and hearts rolling like balls over the green
billiard-table, and pockets them in his corpse-sack; and every time one
of us is pocketed there, the death-bell gives a toll. It is true you go
on living in a sense[90] (if the frescoes of ideas can be detached from
the walls of the body), and oh! may you be happier in that postscript
life than in this. But what is it, this postscript life, after all?
_It_ will go out too; every life, on every world-ball, will burn out
one day. The planets are licensed only to retail liquor to be drunk on
the premises. They can't board and lodge us; they merely pour us out a
glass of quince-wine, currant-juice, spirits; but for the most part
_gargles_ of _good_ wine (which we must not swallow), or else
sympathetic ink (i. e. _liquor probatorius_), sleeping-draughts, and
acids; and then, on we go, from one planet-inn to another; and so from
millennium to millennium. Oh! thou kind heaven; and whither, whither,
whither?
"However, this earth is the wretchedest village tap-room of the lot; a
place where mostly beggars, rogues, and deserters turn in, and which we
have always to go five steps _away_ from to _enjoy_ our best pleasures;
that is to say, either into memory or into imagination.
"Ah! peaceful being there at rest, may it fare better with you in other
taverns than here; and may some restaurateur of life open the door of a
wine-cellar for you in _lieu_ of this vinegar-cellar!"