the presence of her lover. “Dearest!” she cried, throwing her arms round
him, “I know this is all done for my sake. It is a _ruse_ in order to
see me.”
Von Hartmann’s indignation at this fresh attack upon him was so great
that he became speechless for a minute from rage, and could only glare
and shake his fists, while he struggled in her embrace. When he at last
regained his utterance, he indulged in such a bellow of passion that the
young lady dropped back, petrified with fear, into an arm-chair.
“Never have I passed such a day in my life,” Von Hartmann cried,
stamping upon the floor. “My experiment has failed. Von Althaus has
insulted me. Two students have dragged me along the public road. My wife
nearly faints when I ask her for dinner, and my daughter flies at me and
hugs me like a grizzly bear.”
“You are ill, dear,” the young lady cried. “Your mind is wandering. You
have not even kissed me once.”
“No, and I don’t intend to either,” Von Hartmann said with decision.
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Why don’t you go and fetch my
slippers, and help your mother to dish the dinner?”
“And is it for this,” Elise cried, burying her face in her
handkerchief--“is it for this that I have loved you passionately for
upwards of ten months? Is it for this that I have braved my mother’s
wrath? Oh, you have broken my heart; I am sure you have!” and she sobbed
hysterically.
“I can’t stand much more of this,” roared Von Hartmann furiously. “What
the deuce does the girl mean? What did I do ten months ago which
inspired you with such a particular affection for me? If you are really
so very fond, you would do better to run away down and find the Schinken
and some bread, instead of talking all this nonsense.”
“Oh, my darling!” cried the unhappy maiden, throwing herself into the
arms of what she imagined to be her lover, “you do but joke in order to
frighten your little Elise.”
Now it chanced that at the moment of this unexpected embrace Von
Hartmann was still leaning back against the end of the sofa, which, like
much German furniture, was in a somewhat rickety condition. It also
chanced that beneath this end of the sofa there stood a tank full of
water in which the physiologist was conducting certain experiments upon
the ova of fish, and which he kept in his drawing-room in order to
ensure an equable temperature. The additional weight of the maiden,
combined with the impetus with which she hurled herself upon him, caused
the precarious piece of furniture to give way, and the body of the
unfortunate student was hurled backwards into the tank, in which his
head and shoulders were firmly wedged, while his lower extremities
flapped helplessly about in the air. This was the last straw.
Extricating himself with some difficulty from his unpleasant position,
Von Hartmann gave an inarticulate yell of fury, and dashing out of the
room, in spite of the entreaties of Elise, he seized his hat and rushed
off into the town, all dripping and dishevelled, with the intention of
seeking in some inn the food and comfort which he could not find at
home.
As the spirit of Von Baumgarten encased in the body of Von Hartmann
strode down the winding pathway which led down to the little town,
brooding angrily over his many wrongs, he became aware that an elderly
man was approaching him who appeared to be in an advanced state of
intoxication. Von Hartmann waited by the side of the road and watched
this individual, who came stumbling along, reeling from one side of the
road to the other, and singing a student song in a very husky and
drunken voice. At first his interest was merely excited by the fact of
seeing a man of so venerable an appearance in such a disgraceful
condition, but as he approached nearer, he became convinced that he knew
the other well, though he could not recall when or where he had met him.
This impression became so strong with him, that when the stranger came
abreast of him he stepped in front of him and took a good look at his
features.
“Well, sonny,” said the drunken man, surveying Von Hartmann and swaying
about in front of him, “where the Henker have I seen you before? I know
you as well as I know myself. Who the deuce are you?”
“I am Professor von Baumgarten,” said the student. “May I ask who you
are? I am strangely familiar with your features.”
“You should never tell lies, young man,” said the other. “You’re
certainly not the Professor, for he is an ugly snuffy old chap, and you
are a big broad-shouldered young fellow. As to myself, I am Fritz von
Hartmann at your service.”
“That you certainly are not,” exclaimed the body of Von Hartmann. “You
might very well be his father. But hullo, sir, are you aware that you
are wearing my studs and my watch-chain?”
“Donnerwetter!” hiccoughed the other. “If those are not the trousers for
which my tailor is about to sue me, may I never taste beer again.”
Now as Von Hartmann, overwhelmed by the many strange things which had
occurred to him that day, passed his hand over his forehead and cast his
eyes downwards, he chanced to catch the reflection of his own face in a
pool which the rain had left upon the road. To his utter astonishment he
perceived that his face was that of a youth, that his dress was that of
a fashionable young student, and that in every way he was the antithesis
of the grave and scholarly figure in which his mind was wont to dwell.
In an instant his active brain ran over the series of events which had
occurred and sprang to the conclusion. He fairly reeled under the blow.
“Himmel!” he cried, “I see it all. Our souls are in the wrong bodies. I
am you and you are I. My theory is proved--but at what an expense! Is
the most scholarly mind in Europe to go about with this frivolous
exterior? Oh the labours of a lifetime are ruined!” and he smote his
breast in his despair.
“I say,” remarked the real Von Hartmann from the body of the Professor,
“I quite see the force of your remarks, but don’t go knocking my body
about like that. You received it in an excellent condition, but I
perceive that you have wet it and bruised it, and spilled snuff over my
ruffled shirt-front.”
“It matters little,” the other said moodily. “Such as we are so must we
stay. My theory is triumphantly proved, but the cost is terrible.”
“If I thought so,” said the spirit of the student, “it would be hard
indeed. What could I do with these stiff old limbs, and how could I woo
Elise and persuade her that I was not her father? No, thank Heaven, in
spite of the beer which has upset me more than ever it could upset my
real self, I can see a way out of it.”
“How?” gasped the Professor.
“Why, by repeating the experiment. Liberate our souls once more, and the
chances are that they will find their way back into their respective
bodies.”
No drowning man could clutch more eagerly at a straw than did Von
Baumgarten’s spirit at this suggestion. In feverish haste he dragged his
own frame to the side of the road and threw it into a mesmeric trance;
he then extracted the crystal ball from the pocket, and managed to bring
himself into the same condition.
Some students and peasants who chanced to pass during the next hour were
much astonished to see the worthy Professor of Physiology and his
favourite student both sitting upon a very muddy bank and both
completely insensible. Before the hour was up quite a crowd had
assembled, and they were discussing the advisability of sending for an
ambulance to convey the pair to hospital, when the learned savant
opened his eyes and gazed vacantly around him. For an instant he seemed
to forget how he had come there, but next moment he astonished his
audience by waving his skinny arms above his head and crying out in a
voice of rapture, “Gott sei gedanket! I am myself again. I feel I am!”
Nor was the amazement lessened when the student, springing to his feet,
burst into the same cry, and the two performed a sort of _pas de joie_
in the middle of the road.
For some time after that people had some suspicion of the sanity of both
the actors in this strange episode. When the Professor published his
experiences in the _Medicalschrift_ as he had promised, he was met by an
intimation, even from his colleagues, that he would do well to have his
mind cared for, and that another such publication would certainly
consign him to a madhouse. The student also found by experience that it
was wisest to be silent about the matter.
When the worthy lecturer returned home that night he did not receive the
cordial welcome which he might have looked for after his strange
adventures. On the contrary, he was roundly upbraided by both his female
relatives for smelling of drink and tobacco, and also for being absent
while a young scapegrace invaded the house and insulted its occupants.
It was long before the domestic atmosphere of the lecturer’s house
resumed its normal quiet, and longer still before the genial face of Von
Hartmann was seen beneath its roof. Perseverance, however, conquers
every obstacle, and the student eventually succeeded in pacifying the
enraged ladies and in establishing himself upon the old footing. He has
now no longer any cause to fear the enmity of Madame, for he is
Hauptmann von Hartmann of the Emperor’s own Uhlans, and his loving wife
Elise has already presented him with two little Uhlans as a visible sign
and token of her affection.
V
CYPRIAN OVERBECK WELLS
A LITERARY MOSAIC
From my boyhood I have had an intense and overwhelming conviction that
my real vocation lay in the direction of literature. I have, however,
had a most unaccountable difficulty in getting any responsible person to
share my views. It is true that private friends have sometimes, after
listening to my effusions, gone the length of remarking, “Really, Smith,
that’s not half bad!” or, “You take my advice, old boy, and send that to
some magazine!” but I have never on these occasions had the moral
courage to inform my adviser that the article in question had been sent
to well-nigh every publisher in London, and had come back again with a
rapidity and precision which spoke well for the efficiency of our postal
arrangements.
Had my manuscripts been paper boomerangs they could not have returned
with greater accuracy to their unhappy despatcher. Oh, the vileness and
utter degradation of the moment when the stale little cylinder of
closely written pages, which seemed so fresh and full of promise a few
days ago, is handed in by a remorseless postman! And what moral
depravity shines through the editor’s ridiculous plea of “want of
space!” But the subject is a painful one, and a digression from the
plain statement of facts which I originally contemplated.
From the age of seventeen to that of three-and-twenty I was a literary
volcano in a constant state of eruption. Poems and tales, articles and
reviews, nothing came amiss to my pen. From the great sea-serpent to
the nebular hypothesis, I was ready to write on anything or everything,
and I can safely say that I seldom handled a subject without throwing
new lights upon it. Poetry and romance, however, had always the greatest
attractions for me. How I have wept over the pathos of my heroines, and
laughed at the comicalities of my buffoons! Alas! I could find no one to
join me in my appreciation, and solitary admiration for one’s self,
however genuine, becomes satiating after a time. My father remonstrated
with me too on the score of expense and loss of time, so that I was
finally compelled to relinquish my dreams of literary independence and
to become a clerk in a wholesale mercantile firm connected with the West
African trade.
Even when condemned to the prosaic duties which fell to my lot in the
office, I continued faithful to my first love. I have introduced pieces
of word-painting into the most commonplace business letters which have,
I am told, considerably astonished the recipients. My refined sarcasm
has made defaulting creditors writhe and wince. Occasionally, like the
great Silas Wegg, I would drop into poetry, and so raise the whole tone
of the correspondence. Thus what could be more elegant than my rendering
of the firm’s instructions to the captain of one of their vessels. It
ran in this way:--
“From England, Captain, you must steer a
Course directly to Madeira,
Land the casks of salted beef,
Then away to Teneriffe.
Pray be careful, cool, and wary
With the merchants of Canary.
When you leave them make the most
Of the trade winds to the coast.
Down it you shall sail as far
As the land of Calabar,
And from there you’ll onward go
To Bonny and Fernando Po”----
and so on for four pages. The captain, instead of treasuring up this
little gem, called at the office next day, and demanded with quite
unnecessary warmth what the thing meant, and I was compelled to
translate it all back into prose. On this, as on other similar
occasions, my employer took me severely to task--for he was, you see, a
man entirely devoid of all pretensions to literary taste!
All this, however, is a mere preamble, and leads up to the fact that
after ten years or so of drudgery I inherited a legacy which, though
small, was sufficient to satisfy my simple wants. Finding myself
independent, I rented a quiet house removed from the uproar and bustle
of London, and there I settled down with the intention of producing some
great work which should single me out from the family of the Smiths, and
render my name immortal. To this end I laid in several quires of
foolscap, a box of quill pens, and a sixpenny bottle of ink, and having
given my housekeeper injunctions to deny me to all visitors, I proceeded
to look round for a suitable subject.
I was looking round for some weeks. At the end of that time I found that
I had by constant nibbling devoured a large number of the quills, and
had spread the ink out to such advantage, what with blots, spills, and
abortive commencements, that there appeared to be some everywhere
except in the bottle. As to the story itself, however, the facility of
my youth had deserted me completely, and my mind remained a complete
blank; nor could I, do what I would, excite my sterile imagination to
conjure up a single incident or character.
In this strait I determined to devote my leisure to running rapidly
through the works of the leading English novelists, from Daniel Defoe to
the present day, in the hope of stimulating my latent ideas and of
getting a good grasp of the general tendency of literature. For some
time past I had avoided opening any work of fiction because one of the
greatest faults of my youth had been that I invariably and unconsciously
mimicked the style of the last author whom I had happened to read. Now,
however, I made up my mind to seek safety in a multitude, and by
consulting _all_ the English classics to avoid the danger of imitating
any one too closely. I had just accomplished the task of reading through
the majority of the standard novels at the time when my narrative
commences.
It was, then, about twenty minutes to ten on the night of the fourth of
June, eighteen hundred and eighty-six, that, after disposing of a pint
of beer and a Welsh rarebit for my supper, I seated myself in my
arm-chair, cocked my feet upon a stool, and lit my pipe, as was my
custom. Both my pulse and my temperature were, as far as I know, normal
at the time. I would give the state of the barometer, but that unlucky
instrument had experienced an unprecedented fall of forty-two
inches--from a nail to the ground--and was not in a reliable condition.
We live in a scientific age, and I flatter myself that I move with the
times.
Whilst in that comfortable lethargic condition which accompanies both
digestion and poisoning by nicotine, I suddenly became aware of the
extraordinary fact that my little drawing-room had elongated into a
great _salon_, and that my humble table had increased in proportion.
Round this colossal mahogany were seated a great number of people who
were talking earnestly together, and the surface in front of them was
strewn with books and pamphlets. I could not help observing that these
persons were dressed in a most extraordinary mixture of costumes, for
those at the end nearest to me wore peruke wigs, swords, and all the
fashions of two centuries back; those about the centre had tight
knee-breeches, high cravats, and heavy bunches of seals; while among
those at the far side the majority were dressed in the most modern
style, and among them I saw, to my surprise, several eminent men of
letters whom I had the honour of knowing. There were two or three women
in the company. I should have risen to my feet to greet these unexpected
guests, but all power of motion appeared to have deserted me, and I
could only lie still and listen to their conversation, which I soon
perceived to be all about myself.
“Egad!” exclaimed a rough, weather-beaten man, who was smoking a long
church-warden pipe at my end of the table, “my heart softens for him.
Why, gossips, we’ve been in the same straits ourselves. Gadzooks, never
did mother feel more concern for her eldest born than I when Rory Random
went out to make his own way in the world.”
“Right, Tobias, right!” cried another man, seated at my very elbow. “By
my troth, I lost more flesh over poor Robin on his island, than had I
the sweating sickness twice told. The tale was well-nigh done when in
swaggers my Lord of Rochester--a merry gallant, and one whose word in
matters literary might make or mar. ‘How now, Defoe,’ quoth he, ‘hast a
tale on hand?’ ‘Even so, your lordship,’ I returned. ‘A right merry one,
I trust,’ quoth he. ‘Discourse unto me concerning thy heroine, a comely
lass, Dan, or I mistake.’ ‘Nay,’ I replied, ‘there is no heroine in the
matter.’ ‘Split not your phrases,’ quoth he; ‘thou weighest every word
like a scald attorney. Speak to me of thy principal female character, be
she heroine or no.’ ‘My lord,’ I answered, ‘there is no female
character.’ ‘Then out upon thyself and thy book too!’ he cried. ‘Thou
hadst best burn it!’--and so out in great dudgeon, whilst I fell to
mourning over my poor romance, which was thus, as it were, sentenced to
death before its birth. Yet there are a thousand now who have heard of
Robin and his man Friday, to one who has heard of my Lord of Rochester.”
“Very true, Defoe,” said a genial-looking man in a red waistcoat, who
was sitting at the modern end of the table. “But all this won’t help our
good friend Smith in making a start at his story, which, I believe, was
the reason why we assembled.”
“The Dickens it is!” stammered a little man beside him, and everybody
laughed, especially the genial man, who cried out, “Charley Lamb,
Charley Lamb, you’ll never alter. You would make a pun if you were
hanged for it.”
“That would be a case of haltering,” returned the other, on which
everybody laughed again.
By this time I had begun to dimly realise in my confused brain the
enormous honour which had been done me. The greatest masters of fiction
in every age of English letters had apparently made a rendezvous beneath
my roof, in order to assist me in my difficulties. There were many faces
at the table whom I was unable to identify; but when I looked hard at
others I often found them to be very familiar to me, whether from
paintings or from mere description. Thus between the first two speakers,
who had betrayed themselves as Defoe and Smollett, there sat a dark,
saturnine, corpulent old man, with harsh prominent features, who I was
sure could be none other than the famous author of Gulliver. There were
several others of whom I was not so sure, sitting at the other side of
the table, but I conjecture that both Fielding and Richardson were among
them, and I could swear to the lantern-jaws and cadaverous visage of
Lawrence Sterne. Higher up I could see among the crowd the high forehead
of Sir Walter Scott, the masculine features of George Eliot, and the
flattened nose of Thackeray; while amongst the living I recognised James
Payn, Walter Besant, the lady known as “Ouida,” Robert Louis Stevenson,
and several of lesser note. Never before, probably, had such an
assemblage of choice spirits gathered under one roof.
“Well,” said Sir Walter Scott, speaking with a very pronounced accent,
“ye ken the auld proverb, sirs, ‘Ower mony cooks,’ or as the Border
minstrel sang--
‘Black Johnstone wi’ his troopers ten
Might mak’ the heart turn cauld,
But Johnstone when he’s a’ alane
Is waur ten thoosand fauld.’
The Johnstones were one of the Redesdale families, second cousins of the
Armstrongs, and connected by marriage to----”
“Perhaps, Sir Walter,” interrupted Thackeray, “you would take the
responsibility off our hands by yourself dictating the commencement of a
story to this young literary aspirant.”
“Na, na!” cried Sir Walter; “I’ll do my share, but there’s Chairlie over
there as full o’ wut as a Radical’s full o’ treason. He’s the laddie to
give a cheery opening to it.”
Dickens was shaking his head, and apparently about to refuse the honour,
when a voice from among the moderns--I could not see who it was for the
crowd--said:
“Suppose we begin at the end of the table and work round, any one
contributing a little as the fancy seizes him?”
“Agreed! agreed!” cried the whole company; and every eye was turned on
Defoe, who seemed very uneasy, and filled his pipe from a great
tobacco-box in front of him.
“Nay, gossips,” he said, “there are others more worthy----” But he was
interrupted by loud cries of “No! no!” from the whole table; and
Smollett shouted out, “Stand to it, Dan--stand to it! You and I and the
Dean here will make three short tacks just to fetch her out of harbour,
and then she may drift where she pleases.” Thus encouraged, Defoe
cleared his throat, and began in this way, talking between the puffs of
his pipe:--
“My father was a well-to-do yeoman of Cheshire, named Cyprian Overbeck,
but, marrying about the year 1617, he assumed the name of his wife’s
family, which was Wells; and thus I, their eldest son, was named Cyprian
Overbeck Wells. The farm was a very fertile one, and contained some of
the best grazing land in those parts, so that my father was enabled to
lay by money to the extent of a thousand crowns, which he laid out in an
adventure to the Indies with such surprising success that in less than
three years it had increased fourfold. Thus encouraged, he bought a part
share of the trader, and, fitting her out once more with such
commodities as were most in demand (viz. old muskets, hangers and axes,
besides glasses, needles, and the like), he placed me on board as
supercargo to look after his interests, and despatched us upon our
voyage.
“We had a fair wind as far as Cape de Verde, and there, getting into the
north-west trade-winds, made good progress down the African coast.
Beyond sighting a Barbary rover once, whereat our mariners were in sad
distress, counting themselves already as little better than slaves, we
had good luck until we had come within a hundred leagues of the Cape of
Good Hope, when the wind veered round to the southward and blew
exceeding hard, while the sea rose to such a height that the end of the
mainyard dipped into the water, and I heard the master say that though
he had been at sea for five-and-thirty years he had never seen the like
of it, and that he had little expectation of riding through it. On this
I fell to wringing my hands and bewailing myself, until the mast going
by the board with a crash, I thought that the ship had struck, and
swooned with terror, falling into the scuppers and lying like one dead,
which was the saving of me, as will appear in the sequel. For the
mariners, giving up all hope of saving the ship, and being in momentary
expectation that she would founder, pushed off in the long-boat, whereby
I fear that they met the fate which they hoped to avoid, since I have
never from that day heard anything of them. For my own part, on
recovering from the swoon into which I had fallen, I found that, by the
mercy of Providence, the sea had gone down, and that I was alone in the
vessel. At which last discovery I was so terror-struck that I could but
stand wringing my hands and bewailing my sad fate, until at last taking
heart, I fell to comparing my lot with that of my unhappy camerados, on
which I became more cheerful, and descending to the cabin, made a meal
off such dainties as were in the captain’s locker.”