_desernages_, nor _forzettes_ either. Just bring us something, my lad,—I
don’t much care what, so long as we can get something inside us.”
Flop went the door again; and five minutes later there arrived at No. 71
some strange substances of whose nature Gerrit and Gijs had not the
remotest idea. They began, however, to try and to taste, and though they
could scarcely get the things down their throats, they were messed up so
queerly with sweet stuff and spice, they managed to satisfy their
appetites somehow.
“I’ve had enough,” said Gerrit at last.
“So have I,” sighed Gijs, and they rose from table,—to go to the kermis.
We will not relate in detail how Gerrit and Gijs climbed downstairs
again, went out at the front door, and announced that they would come
back again in the evening; how they were besieged by beggars,
shoeblacks, and Jews selling lottery tickets,—nearly all of whom the
good-natured farmer succeeded in satisfying; how they were directed from
one part of the town to another, and back again, in order to reach the
fair; how and when they got there they found booths, just like those in
their own village, but much bigger and finer ones. We will not record
how much Gerrit paid for the monster cake which he wished to take home
to Griet, and which bore the inscription, in sugar letters, “A Fairing
for You;” how Gijs was cheated in the purchase of a cup and saucer for
Mijntje; how they, furthermore, bought ginger-bread, almonds, and who
knows what besides, so that their pockets stood out like hard lumps, and
they were nearly fainting under the weight of them. They visited the
circus, but were not edified; and when, finally, the great trick rider
“_Meseu_ Blanus,” after two sudden changes of costume, appeared in
flesh-coloured tights, and walked about blowing a trumpet, Gerrit could
stand it no longer, and seizing his son by the arm, he shouted, “That
beats all! so it does! come, boy, come! come!” and hurried him out. When
they had struggled out into the crowd again, Gerrit said that they had
had their fill of that sort of thing, and more; and Gijs remarked that
it was low. They did not attempt to see any of the other shows, and
Gerrit unmercifully dragged Gijs past “The Mirror of Mystery,” where, as
the man at the door said, “The girl can see her lover, and the young man
his girl,—all for a _dubbeltje_! Great American Magic Mirror of
Mystery!” Gijs would have liked a peep at his Mijntje, but Gerrit was
firm.
Having partaken, by way of refreshment, of hot wafers and punch,—a
repast which Gijs liked well enough, but his father considered “sweet,
but nothing to stay your stomach on,”—they at last, after many
wanderings, found their way back to the hotel. The nimble rabbit, Mr
Karel, was again to the fore. In the twinkling of an eye he had lit a
candle, and flew up the stairs, requesting the wearied rustics,
unaccustomed to the hard walking of the streets, to follow him, _s’il
vous plaît_.
Gerrit and Gijs followed—yes! and in time they reached the top, but felt
just as if a thousand smiths were hammering away in their bones.
“Do the gentlemen wish _souper_?” asked Karel, who by this time had lit
candles in each of the two rooms.
“Eat soup now!” said Gerrit, “get away with you! I’m fair filled up with
those wafer-cakes!”
“Put boots outside door—when d’you-want-to-be-called?” asked Karel.
“I’m going away to-morrow morning by the first train,” said Gerrit.
“Then you’ll want a _vigilante_?”
“Go to the ... woodpile!” cried Gerrit, “with all your foreign talk.”
“Good-night, gentlemen!” said Karel.
The doors were shut, and the gentlemen were left alone. Now began a
conversation between the two—carried on in genuine rustic growls, and
yet as softly as if they were afraid of waking “Mother my wife.” A few
minutes later Gijs retired, with a new blue wadded night-cap, and a
“good-night, dad,” to No. 72.
Gerrit had at once blown out the wax candles in No. 71. “That’s just
sinful waste,” he said; and Gijs, on entering No. 72, followed his
father’s example.
They were not long in undressing by moonlight. Gijs put on the
night-cap, and stepped into the soft bed. What a thing that was!—soft as
pap!... Never knew such a thing before.... He lay listening.... Every
moment he heard something ... some one walking about ... groping among
the furniture ... at last speaking. At last, he could stand it no
longer—he sat up and stared uneasily about. He thought he could
plainly ... hear ... something ... at ... the ... door. Seemed as if ...
you ... could ... see ... the ... handle ... turning.... The
perspiration broke out all over him ... still he saw it ... plainly ...
and, when the door was really opened, he uttered a yell, but slowly
recovered himself on seeing that it was his father.
“Can’t rest on _that_ thing,” said Gerrit, as he came in, meaning the
bed, which he found much too soft. “No, Gijs, I’ll just come and lie
here on the boards.”
“I’ll do that too,” said Gijs, stepping out of bed, and then he lay down
on the floor beside his father—each with a pea-jacket rolled up for a
pillow—“good-night! pleasant dreams.”
Whether the dreams were, in point of fact, pleasant may be doubted, for
they formed a first-class raree-show, composed of bare legs and
wafer-cakes, guns and horses, omnibuses, and the climbing of towers, in
wild confusion. Certain it is, however, that the Meeuwsens, father and
son, when they awoke, stared at one another as if they had been
bewitched, and had to think a long time before they could remember where
on earth they were.
* * * * *
Well, how did they get home again from the fair?—Gerrit to his Griet,
and Gijs to his Mijn.
Very well indeed. Physically they were in sad case, but spiritually all
right—which does not always happen on like occasions. The bill which
Karel handed to Gerrit before his departure was alike illegible to him
and to Gijs. Perhaps no one but the hotel-proprietor and the head-waiter
could ever have deciphered it—only the total was clear: 16f.
80—accurately reckoned. Gerrit thought, but said nothing; paid; started,
when he was told that a tip was expected of him, over and above the
bill, but paid it; and left the Verdoel by the first omnibus, and
Amsterdam by the first train.
“That’s over!” said Gerrit, sitting safe and sound once more beside his
Griet in the kitchen. “Once is well enough—but never again! And I had
everything first-class!”
This was true enough: for on the return journey he had managed to get
into the right compartment of the train—though, to say the truth, he
found it much less comfortable than the other.
And Gijs? Gijs was as blythe as a foal in the meadow, when he found
himself at home again. When he told Mijn about the circus, and the young
ladies in gilt caps who had sold him wafers, and tried to flirt with
him, she turned as red as fire, and said it was scandalous; but the cup
and saucer, which, contrary to all expectation, had reached home
uninjured, were duly admired by her. And when Gerrit, one fine evening,
had some of the neighbours in to help in the pig-killing, and
entertained them in the kitchen when work was over, the monster cake was
tasted, and Gerrit profited by the opportunity to relate all his
adventures. Then said Brother-in-Law Kresel, that such a thing hadn’t
happened within the memory of man!—and Baas Janssen, that morality was
getting into a frightful state!—and the old Teunis farmer concluded,
“What does a man want on the ice in his clogs?”
J. J. CREMER.
_NO SWORD!_
Old Colonel H—— was standing, during one of the summer months, before
the open window, puffing the smoke of his Havannah into the air, with
the feeling of satisfaction produced by a fine day, while his eyes
followed the movements of a young officer, whose elastic figure had
already, at some distance, attracted his superior’s attention.
Suddenly his face darkened. No one so soon feels his toes trodden on as
an old military man.
What was that? Were his eyes dazzled by the sunlight? Or could anything
of the sort possibly happen under the eye of the strict commanding
officer of the regiment? Had discipline really died out among the
younger generation of the army?
No, it was no optical deception. He could see it now, plainly—the
lieutenant, passing there, on the other side of the street, with a
letter in his hand, had _no_ sword on! And it was not nearly four P.M.!
“Lieutenant!” cried the fire-eater, in a momentary ebullition of
indignation, from the open window; “if I may ask you—one moment!”
The man addressed immediately turned with a military salute, and
hastened to the Colonel’s rooms, without the slightest presentiment of
the storm about to burst over his head.
He rang the bell, and the Colonel’s servant opened the door.
Passing through the hall, he gave a hasty glance at his uniform to see
whether it was all right—and then he discovered his misfortune.
Horrible! He had, in his haste to post a letter, forgotten to buckle on
his sword!
For one moment he hesitated; he was really frightened, and saw, looming
up in space, all the evil consequences of his mistake, in the form of
all possible reports, with “arrest” at the end of them.
The Colonel would send a note to the commander of division, who would
endorse and put it into the hands of the captain—and then the fat would
be in the fire with a vengeance! All this passed like a flash of
lightning through the unhappy man’s head, and he looked helplessly
round, as though hoping that some good genius would inspire him with a
way of escape in this sore need. What was he to do? He could not keep
the cantankerous Colonel waiting,—there was nothing for it except to
march valiantly forward into the lion’s den. But luck never forsakes a
lieutenant!
What is that glittering over there in the umbrella-stand?
The Colonel’s sword!... He pulls out his purse,—thrusts, with an
eloquent gesture, a guilder into the hand of the Colonel’s man, and
buckles on the sword—all in less time than it takes to tell it.
A moment later he stands—in correct military attitude, his left hand
held so as to hide the dragon on his sword-hilt from the eagle eye of
his chief—before the old gentleman, who, meanwhile, has been stalking up
and down the room, fretting and fuming.
“Sir! I must call your attention to——”
A long pause.
The Colonel’s glance travels from the sword to the young officer’s
blushing face, and back again to the glittering weapon.
Then he shakes his head in utter amazement, but recovers himself
speedily, and continues in a low tone:
“What battalion do you belong to?”
“The second, Colonel.”
“Just so. I only wanted to ask you if—if—Major Ij ... has returned from
his leave?”
“He is not coming back till to-morrow, sir, if I have understood
rightly.”
[Illustration:
“IN CORRECT MILITARY ATTITUDE.”
]
“Ah!—thank you—it had escaped me—thanks.”
The lieutenant saluted respectfully, left the room with the greatest air
of self-confidence, hastened down the stairs, unbuckled the Colonel’s
sword—put it away noiselessly among the sticks and umbrellas, after
which he hurried away, keeping as close as he could to the wall till he
was out of sight.
As for the Colonel, he simply could not believe his eyes! Then something
occurred to him. He called his man.
“Did you let the lieutenant in?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Was he wearing a sword when he came in?”
“Yes, sir,” answered he, with imperturbable calm.
The Colonel smote his forehead with his open hand.
The lieutenant’s guilder was well invested.
“_Humoristisch Album._”
A STUDENT’S LODGINGS SIXTY YEARS SINCE.
The burghers of the university town—at least those whose houses, at the
beginning of the summer vacation, are adorned with cards bearing the
inscription “_Cubicula locanda_”—can, during nine months of the year, be
looked on only to a limited extent as masters in their own dwellings. It
is the student, or the officer, as the case may be, who is established
in the best room, who attracts all the attention of passers by, and the
neighbours over the way,—who sits at the window, is seen to go in and
out at the front door, carries the key, rules, gives orders, receives
his friends and acquaintances, and, in a word, conducts himself as the
principal person, while the owner or lessee of the house is banished to
a back room or some little subterraneous den in the basement. It is to
the best room, then, that we must make our way, though the approach to
it is not an attractive one. Our way lies, first, through a narrow
passage, where we run the risk of stumbling over a doorstep, evidently
placed there with the sole object of teaching children and visitors to
be careful of their steps. Then we have to seek a dark and narrow
stairway, and, having found it, to ascend it. It receives, by day, only
a dim and doubtful light from the basement; by night, it is perfectly
dark, and its worn and slippery steps follow one another at such
strangely unequal intervals, that one is tempted to think the architect
must have been interested in the problem how to pile on one another, in
a given space, a given number of irregular parallelograms in the most
heterogeneous manner possible. When we have succeeded, after having
knocked our heads not more than three or four times against all sorts of
fantastically projecting rafters and angles, in reaching what is
ironically called the _bel étage_, we find ourselves in front of a door
which opens very easily and noiselessly, but can never be closed without
five or six violent thrusts or tugs, according as you are inside or out.
We once more hit our toes against an unexpected doorstep, and at last
enter the first of the two rooms inhabited by _Gerlof Bol, S.S. Theol.
cand_.
It is evening; the two sash windows, divided by a narrow space of wall,
are hidden behind unpainted shutters, on which, here and there, a
square, worm-eaten, or dirt-stained spot shows where a hasp or bolt has
been, but is no more. These shutters curve outwards, and threaten every
moment to escape from the control of the bars (bent crooked as though
with their weight), and fling themselves in the face of the incautious
person who should venture too near. The walls are covered with a dirty
yellow paper, on which green and blue flowers alternate in diagonal
lines. Now and then, where the paper has been torn, another piece of the
same pattern has been pasted on upside down, probably for the sake of
securing a pleasing variety; while in other cases the damage has not
been repaired, and an earlier wall decoration, in orange and black, is
apparent in patches. On the wall hang the portraits of Van Der Palm and
Borgen[20] in one frame, the lecture list, fastened up with three pins,
and a variety of college notices secured in the same way. Near the door
is a tolerably roomy alcove, containing the occupant’s chief
treasures,—in the first place, his books, which, in so far as they
consist of quartos, octavos, and duodecimos, are ranged on three shelves
against the wall, while the folios stand on the ground in the company of
sundry maps in cases; in the second place, two baskets, one of which is
full of burnt-out clay pipes, the other of foul ditto awaiting their
burning. Item, a closed card-table, bought cheap at a second-hand
dealer’s, which can never stand on more than two legs at the same time;
while the superficies of the once green baize with which it is covered
offers a remarkable assemblage of mathematical figures, such as circles
formed by the setting down of wet punch or wine glasses, ellipses or
squares arising from the dropping of wax, grease, or ink, or the contact
with various objects not previously dusted. Item, an umbrella without a
knob, whose whalebone ribs, for the most part, have either repudiated
all connection with the covering, or shamelessly protrude through it.
Furthermore, a trio of eccentric-looking canes, a couple of broken
German pipes, a little tin box, a small writing-desk heaped with
_dictata_, MS. notes, and dilapidated books; a large reading desk,
holding the _editio princeps_ of the States Bible;[21] and, _last not
least_, as the English say, a small basket containing full, and a large
one with empty, wine bottles.
The said alcove is provided with a double door, and when the latter is
closed, peculiar skill, or else a lucky conjuncture of circumstances, is
necessary to open it, seeing that the handle usually displays a
remarkable degree of obstinacy, and calmly turns round in one’s hand
unnumbered times without lifting the latch.
As to the other furniture of the room, the following is an accurate
inventory:—
1. A small mirror in a polished wooden frame,—the glass consisting of
two sections, each of a different colour. If you see yourself in the
lower half you have a purple countenance, in the upper a green one, and
in either case your features are cruelly distorted; in fact, no one ever
looked into this mirror, either above or below, who did not instantly
look out of it again,—so frightfully ugly does every one find him or
herself, as the case may be.
2. A mahogany sécretaire, which, though it has lost some of the
convolutions of the carved fretwork finishing it off at the top, is
still, on the whole, tolerably fit for use, and has no other defects
than these, that the lower drawer will not shut, that one of the hinges
of the flap is loose,—necessitating great care in opening and
closing,—and that one of the feet has long ago declined further service
and preferred a horizontal to an upright position,—in spite of which,
however, the article of furniture can be made to stand tolerably steady
if propped up against the wall. On the top stands a bunch of paper
flowers (the landlady’s property), protected by a glass shade, flanked
to right and left by plaster busts of Homer and Cicero, and surrounded
with several teacups, bearing in gilt letters such touching mottoes as
“Many happy returns of the day,” “A trifle—but a token of good-will,”
“Walk on roses,” “A token of respect,” &c. &c.
3. A white-wood corner cupboard, with a fluted sliding-door, which, if
you go about to open it quietly, refuses to move, whereas if you use
force you push the whole cupboard from its place. Only long experience,
added to unwearying patience, will enable any one to bring to light the
glasses, plates, and knives, or whatever the contents of the receptacle
may be.
4. A tiled stove, whose top is pointed out as a frequent resting-place
for glasses by a variety of circular stains. Next the stove stands a
wooden tub containing coals, and behind it lie a heap of peats and a few
blocks of wood, also a poker and tongs. The latter cannot be handled
without pinching the skin of one’s forefinger, and the legs slip across
each other as soon as one tries to pick up anything with them.
5. An arm-chair, and six chairs with plush seats, showing their stuffing
through numerous wounds,—all of them venerable invalids, full of
infirmities, and especially weak in the back.
6. A square table, with flaps which can be turned up; its upper surface
painted green with white spots, and the edges reddish-brown. In the
middle of this table we see a lamp and two black-japanned candlesticks
with tallow candles in them; further, a broken pair of snuffers, a
wooden tobacco-box, a brazier, and an inkstand with other writing
materials; and round it are seated several students, all members of the
“rhetorical chamber”[22] entitled, “The Thirsty Pleiades.”
J. VAN LENNEP.
_The Vicissitudes of Klaasje Zevenster_ (1866).
_A COLONIAL PRIZE-GIVING._
“Another day on the rack!” Heer Doornik had said that morning to his
wife,—not however in so tragic a manner as the tenor of the ejaculation
would seem to indicate, as he was just then busy pulling on a
particularly intractable boot.
“Is your speech ready?” asked Mevrouw Doornik, in the act of fastening
his necktie for him.
“Yes, my address is prepared,” he replied, solemnly.
You must know, reader, that Doornik had been, in his young days, a
member of a “rhetorical chamber” at Dinxperlo or Buren, I do not exactly
remember which, and had reaped harvests of laurels at various
lectures—laurels offered to him along with cups of muddy chocolate and
_cadetjes_ with cream cheese.
This circumstance had stood in his way all his life. The man, whose
manifest destiny was to become a schoolmaster, believed himself a second
Mirabeau. He would have liked to become a popular orator, or a member of
the Second Chamber, or failing that at least a minister. But his ideals
had gone the way of the _cadetjes_ and the chocolate, they had vanished
into nothingness; the future Mirabeau became, first, a pupil in a
training-college, then third, and then second master; and, at last, with
much labour, he gained his head-mastership.
“I have at last this consolation, that I am to-day once more placed in a
position to show the public what the art of oratory is.”
This last sentence was uttered with such an elevation of his voice, that
his wife thought it necessary to damp his enthusiasm a little.
“I’m afraid the pine-apple tartlets are burnt,” she said, “and the
cabinet-pudding, too, is not as it should be.”
But her husband did not hear her. In one hand he had a hair-brush and in
the other a comb, and with these objects he went through all sorts of
evolutions, his eyes fixed on the mirror, and his long figure most
eccentrically contorted. His wife left him alone; she was well
acquainted with this manœuvre, and twenty years’ experience of married
life had taught her not to disturb her husband when seized by
inspirations.
The Indies are not the place for unappreciated genius; all that they
could give the great man (except a good salary and an easy life, which,
of course, did not count) was the chairmanship of a few committees, and
a place in the church council and other assemblies, which got through
more talking than business. Besides this, he was a Freemason, and thus
at last he had the satisfaction of being able to speak “in public,”
taking one week with another, at least once a week.
The day of the school examination was therefore, in his opinion,
especially suited to this purpose, and he had not practised so long for
nothing. His speech was going to be brilliant, his eloquence
indescribable, his gestures and facial expression would do the rest. It
was only a pity that Hendriks (the second master) had come to worry him,
for, above all things, he needed quiet in those days when he was going
to show the public what good speaking is.
At last the proceedings were to begin.
The children sang one or two songs very prettily, and the effect would
have been exceedingly good, had not the head-master been of opinion that
his voice—not a bad one, but just now fairly hoarse with
nervousness—ought to be heard above all the rest.
Then the examination proper began, and the usual incidents took place.
Great exhibitions of dumbness on the part of the girls, fearful
embarrassment on that of the boys, extreme exasperation among the
masters, suppressed giggling among the ladies of the audience, and
unnaturally solemn faces among the members of the school committee, who
had evidently made up their minds to remain serious whatever might
happen.
[Illustration:
“IN ONE HAND A HAIR-BRUSH, IN THE OTHER A COMB.”
]
In the first-class sat eight boys, between the ages of twelve and
fifteen. But it soon became apparent that six of the eight were mere lay
figures; the questions were addressed to all, but the answers,
evidently, expected from Anton van Duijn and William Ochtenraat only.
They represented two distinct types, as they sat there side by side.
William had a fresh, rosy face, large blue eyes, and a white forehead,
crowned with blonde curls,—he was a prize specimen of a Dutch boy.
Anton, with his dark hair and jet-black eyes, clear-cut brown face, and
tall slight figure, was a handsome _sinjo_; for he had inherited his
looks more from his Creole mother than his Dutch father.
Mevrouw Ochtenraat had spoken truth when she assured Mevrouw van Duijn
just now that it gave her much pleasure to see how clever and
hard-working Anton was.