SHORT and broad-shouldered, with the flaxen hair and porcelain-coloured
eyes of the true man of Kiel or Koenigsberg, Dr. Karl Rothenberger prided
himself on being a townsman of the Great Kant, “who make the critique of
pure sense.” For him in vain the modern mystic spread his nets; his
mass, his psychological research, his ethics based on the saving of his
own gelatinous soul, said nothing to the man of Koenigsberg. His work to
minister by electricity to the rheumatic, the gouty; to those who had
loved perhaps well, but certainly in a vicarious and post-prandial
fashion; his passion fishing with a float; a “goode felawe,” not too
refined, but yet well educated; his literary taste bounded by idealistic
novels about materialistic folk, and the drum-taps of the bards of
Anglo-Saxon militarism; the doctor looked on the world as a vast
operating theatre, sparing not even his own foibles in his diagnosis of
mankind. All sentiment he held if not accursed, yet as superfluous, and
though he did not pride himself exactly on his opinions, knowing them
well to be but the result of education, and of a few molecules of iron,
more or less, in the composition of his blood, yet would deliver them to
all and sundry, as he were lecturing to students in a university. Women
he held inferior to men, as really do almost all men, although they fear
to say so; but again, he said, “de womens they have occupy my mind since
I was eighteen years.”
So after many wanderings in divers lands, he came, as wise men will, to
London, and set up his household gods in a vast plane-tree-planted square
(with cat ground in the middle called a garden), and of which the
residents each had a key, but never walked in, sat in, or used in any
way, though all of them would have gone to the stake rather than see a
member of the public enter into its sacred precincts, or a stray child
play in it, unless attended by a nurse.
Honours and fees fell thick on Rothenberger, and he became greatly
belettered, member of many a learned, dull society. He duly purchased a
degree; and squares and crescents quite a mile away sent out their
patients, and were filled with the sonorous glory of his name. One thing
was wanting, and that one thing troubled him not a little; but he yet saw
it was inevitable if he would rise to Harley Street or Saville Row, and
the sleek pair of horses which (without bearing-reins) testify to a
doctor’s status in the scientific world. A wife, or as he said, a “real
legitimate,” to prove to all his patients that he was a moral man.
Strange that the domestic arrangements of a public man should militate
for or against him; but so it is, at least in England, where even if a
man cheat and spread ruin to thousands, yet he may find apologists,
chiefly, of course, amongst that portion of the public who have not
suffered by his delinquencies, so that his life be what is known as pure.
Morals and purity in our group of islands seem to condone drunkenness,
lies, and even theft (so that the sum stolen be large enough), and to
have crystallized themselves into a censorship of precisely the very
thing as to which no man or woman has the right to call another to
account.
So Rothenberger, looking about for a vessel by means of which to purify
himself (and push his business), lit on a girl with money, living, as he
said, “oot by Hampstead way;” went through the process known as courting,
in a mixture of German and of English, eked out with Plaat-Deutsch, and
finally induced the lady to fix the day on which to make him pure.
Science and business jointly having so taken up his time that he had
learnt but little English, he was at some loss, and left arrangements to
the family of his intended wife.
Not knowing English customs, he had written asking in what costume he
should appear on the great day, and received a letter telling him to make
his appearance at the church duly dressed in a tall hat, light trousers,
and a new frock coat. Frock coat he read as “frac,” and ordered wedding
garments such as he thought suitable, with the addition of a brand-new
evening coat. The wedding breakfast having been ordered at the Hotel
Metropole, he there transferred himself, proposing to pass the night
before his final entry into moral life quietly and decently, as befits
one about to change his state. But as he said, “God or some other thing
was of another mind,” for when I was arriving at the place, mein head
feel heavy, and I was out of sorts, and when I ring the bell, a housemaid
answer it wit a hot-water jug, and came into the room. Himmel, what for
a girl, black hair like horse’s tail, great glear plue eyes, and tall and
fat, it was a miracle. I fall in love wit her almost at once, but I say
nothings, only wink little at her with my eye. All the night long I
could not schleep, thinking part of the housemaid, part of mein wife, and
part if perhaps I was not going to do a very silly ding. When it was
morning I have quite forgot the church, but still remember what the
clergyman was like. So I go to the porter (he was a landsman of my own),
and ask him to get me a cab, and then explain, I was to be married oot by
Hampstead way, that morning at eleven and half o’clock. The porter say
what church shall I tell the schelm to drive to, but mein Got I have
forgot. So I say, go to Hampstead, and I will go to all the churches and
ask if a German is to be married, till I find the right one out. The
cabman think that I was mad, and I get into the cab dressed in clear
trousers, white waistcoat, and plue necktie, mit little spot; shiny new
boots that hurt me very much; with yellow gloves three-quarter-eight in
size, and with my new “frac” coat, so that I think myself, eh,
Rothenberger, was that really you? The cabman wink mit de porter, and we
start away. We drive and drive, first to one church and then another,
and I always ask, is it in this church that a German is to be marry at
half twelve o’clock? Dey grin at me, and every one say no. De dime
approach, and I was sweating in the cab, not knowing what they say if at
half twelve o’clock I not turn up to time. At last looking out from the
window I see the clergyman walking along the street mit a big hymnbook in
his hand. I cry to him, Ach Himmel, it is I, Karl Rothenberger, that you
must marry at half twelve o’clock. He stop, and shomp into the cab, and
then we drive to church.
All was so glad to see me, for I hear one say, I thought the German must
have change his mind. I ran into the church, and my wife say, What for a
costume is it that you have? Frock coat and clear grey pants, dat is not
wedding dress; so I say I know dat, but why you write to me, mind and buy
a new “frac coat”?
They mumble out their stuff, and when the clergyman ask me if I want this
woman for mein wife, I say, all right, and all the people laugh like
everythings. Then when he say, I, Karl, do promise and etcetera, I say,
dat is so, and de people laugh again. At last it all was done, and we
drive off to the hotel to have the breakfast, and mein wife look
beautiful in her new travelling dress. At the hotel the company was met,
and I go up to mein apartment to change the dam frac coat, to wash mein
hands, and put a little brillantine on my moustache, whilst mein wife mit
the bridesmaids go to another room, and all the company was waiting down
below.
I want hot water, so I rang the bell, and the stout pretta chambermaid
she bring it in a jug. How the thing pass I never knew till now, but I
wink at her, and she laugh, and then—she put down the jug, just for a
moment,—for the company, mein wife, her father, and the bridesmaids, all
was waiting down below. So I come down and make mein speech, talk to the
bridesmaids, and we eat like anythings, and then we drive away to pass
our honeymoon, and somehow I feel mein head much lighter than before.
Marriage is good for man, it sober him, it bring him business, and it
bring him children, and . . . I am happy mit my wife . . . The
housemaid, oh yes, ach Got, I hear that some one take from the place to
live mit him, and it is not a wonder, for she was so tall, so stout, have
such black hair, and such great eyes, it was a pity that she spend her
life answering the bell, and bringing up hot water in a jug.