Vizegrad. The Lady Libussa was in her garden, where she had filled a
little basket with ripe plums, when the arrival of her future husband
was announced. She approached modestly with all the maidens of her
court, received him as a bridegroom bestowed upon her by the gods, and
concealed the choice of her heart by an apparent resignation to the
will of the invisible powers. The eyes of all the court were directed
with great curiosity towards the newcomer, but they saw nothing in him
more than a handsome slender young man. As for his external appearance
there were several courtiers who could vie with him in their thoughts,
and who could not understand why the gods had despised the anti-chamber
and had not rather selected from themselves a rosy-cheeked champion
instead of the sun-burnt ploughman, as a husband and partner in
dominion for the young princess. With Prince Wladomir and the knight
Mizisla it was especially obvious that they gave up their claims
unwillingly. Hence it was now the care of the princess to justify the
work of the gods, and to declare that Squire Premislas made amends for
his deficiency on the score of brilliant extraction by his intellect
and acuteness. She had caused a noble meal to be prepared, not in the
least inferior to that with which the hospitable Queen Dido formerly
entertained the pious Eneas. After the cup of welcome had passed
readily from mouth to mouth, the gifts of the joy-bestirring Bacchus
had inspired cheerfulness and good humour, and part of the night had
already past in jest and pastime, she suggested a game at riddles, and
because the divination of things concealed was her peculiar forte, she
resolved the riddles that were proposed to the satisfaction of all
present.
When it was her turn to propose, she called Prince Wladomir, the Knight
Mizisla, and Squire Premislas to her, and said: “Now, my friends, set
about solving a riddle, which I will propose, that it may be apparent
which is the wisest and cleverest among you. I have destined for each
of you, out of this basket, a gift of the plums, which I have picked in
my garden. One of you shall have half of them and one more, the second
shall again have half and one more, and the third shall again have half
and three more. Supposing now that the basket is thus emptied, tell me
how many plums are in it now.”
The hasty knight, Mizisla, measured the fruit-basket with his eyes--not
the sense of the problem with his understanding--and said: “That which
can be solved by the sword I will solve readily, but thy riddles,
gracious princess, are rather too subtle for me. Nevertheless, in
accordance with thy wishes, I will make a venture at random. I guess
that if the plums be well counted, they will be found to amount to
three score.”
“Thou hast made a mistake, dear knight,” answered the Lady Libussa.
“If there were as many more, half as many more, and a third as many
more, as the basket contains now and five more added to that, the
number would by so much exceed three score as it is now short of it.”
Prince Wladomir calculated slowly and laboriously, as if the post of
general controller of the finances were the reward for solving the
riddle, and at last gave out five-and-forty as the value of the
renowned number. The lady then said:
“If there were a third as many more, half as many more, and a sixth as
many more as there are now, there would then be in my basket as much
more than forty-five as there now are under that number.”
Although the very commonest hand at figures, would have deciphered the
problem without trouble; nevertheless, for a bad calculation the gift
of divination is absolutely indispensable, if he would come off with
honour, and not appear ridiculous. Now as this gift had been
fortunately communicated to the wise Premislas, it cost him neither
ingenuity nor exertion to discover the solution of the riddle.
“Intimate associate of the heavenly powers,” he said, “whoever
undertakes to discover thy high-soaring and divine meaning, ventures to
fly after the eagle, when he hides himself in the clouds.
Nevertheless, I will follow thy secret flight as far as the eye, which
is illumined by thee, can reach. I decide that the plums thou hast
concealed in the basket are thirty in number,--neither more nor less.”
The lady looked at him kindly and said; “Thou hast traced the
glimmering spark that lies deep in the ashes, and light gleams upon
thee out of mist and darkness; thou hast guessed my riddle.”
She then opened the basket, counted out fifteen plums into Prince
Wladomir’s hat with one more, and there remained fourteen. Of these
she gave seven to the Knight Mizisla with one more, and six remained in
the basket. The half of these she awarded to the wise Premislas, then
gave him the three others, and the basket was empty. The whole court
was amazed at the arithmetical wisdom of the fair Libussa, and the
acuteness of her clever bridegroom. No one could comprehend how human
intellect was able on the one hand to bind a common number so
enigmatically in words, and on the other to pick out such an ingenious
mystery with such perfect confidence. The lady awarded the empty
basket to the two knights, who could not obtain her love, as a memorial
of a terminated amour. Hence arises the custom, which exists to the
present time, of saying that a rejected lover has received a _basket_
from his mistress.[3]
When all was in readiness for the homage, and the nuptials, both these
ceremonies were celebrated with great pomp. The Bohemian people had
now a duke, and the fair Libussa a husband, both to their heart’s
content, and what was most surprising this result was brought about by
trickery, which does not generally bear the reputation of being the
most skilful negotiator. If one of the two parties had been deceived,
certainly it was not the sage Libussa, but the people, as indeed is
frequently the case. The land of Bohemia had nominally a duke, but in
point of fact the government remained in a female hand as before.
Premislas was a perfect pattern of a docile obedient husband, who did
not dispute the rule of his wife, either in the household or the state.
His thoughts and wishes sympathised as perfectly with her own, as two
similarly tuned strings, of which the untouched one spontaneously
repeats the sound, which the louder one has uttered. Libussa had not,
however, the proud, vain disposition of those ladies who wish to pass
for great matches, and are always superciliously reminding the poor
wight, whose fortune they think they have made, of his wooden shoes;
but she imitated the celebrated Queen of Palmyra, and governed by the
superiority of her talents, as Zenobia managed her good-natured
Odenatus.
The happy pair lived in the enjoyment of unchanging love, according to
the fashion of that time, when the instinct which unites hearts was as
firm and durable as the cement and mortar which renders the walls of
the old world so firm and indestructible. Duke Premislas now became
one of the most doughty knights of his age, and the Bohemian court one
of the most brilliant in Germany. A large number of knights and
nobles, as well as a great concourse of common people gradually
assembled from all parts of the territory. The consequence was, that
the court-city became too narrow for the inhabitants, and therefore
Libussa called her people in office to her, and ordered them to build a
city on the spot where they should find a man who knew how to make the
wisest use of teeth at noon. They went out and found at the appointed
time a man who was busied in sawing a block asunder. They decided that
this industrious person made an incomparably better use of the teeth of
his saw at noon than the parasite made of the teeth in his jaws at the
table of the great, and they did not doubt that they had found the
place which the princess had appointed for the foundation of the new
city. They therefore drew the ploughshare round the field to mark the
compass of the city wall. On asking the working man what he intended
to make out of the piece of wood he was cutting, he answered: “Prah,”
which in the Bohemian tongue signifies the threshold of a door.
Libussa therefore called the new city Praha, that is Prague, the
well-known royal city on the Moldau in Bohemia. The prediction of
Premislas concerning his posterity was punctually fulfilled. His wife
became mother of three princes, two of whom died in their youth, while
the third grew to man’s estate, and from him sprung a brilliant race of
kings, who flourished on the Bohemian throne for ages.
[1] A proverbial expression in Germany for a scene of riot, on account
of the disturbances that usually took place at Polish elections.
[2] An allusion to the Emperor Joseph II.
[3] The expression “Einen Korb bekommen,” to meet with a refusal, is
familiar to every reader of German.
THE CRIMINAL FROM LOST HONOUR.
BY FRIEDRICH SCHILLER.
In the whole history of man there is no chapter more instructive for
the heart and mind than the annals of his errors. On the occasion of
every great crime a proportionally great force was in motion. If by
the pale light of ordinary emotions the play of the desiring faculty is
concealed, in the situation of strong passion it becomes the more
striking, the more colossal, the more audible, and the acute
investigator of humanity, who knows how much may be properly set down
to the account of the mechanism of the ordinary freedom of the will,
and how far it is allowable to reason by analogy, will be able from
this source to gather much fresh experience for his psychology, and to
render it applicable to moral life.
The human heart is something so uniform and at the same time so
compound! One and the same faculty or desire may play in a thousand
forms and directions, may produce a thousand contradictory phenomena,
may appear differently mingled in a thousand characters, and a thousand
dissimilar characters and actions might be spun out of one kind of
inclination, though the particular man, about whom the question was
raised, might have no suspicion of such affinity. If, as for the other
kingdoms of nature, a Linnæus for the human race were to arise, who
could classify according to inclinations and impulses, how great would
be the empire, when many a person whose vices are now stifled in a
narrow social sphere, and in the close confines of the law, was found
in the same order with the monster Borgia.
Considered from this point of view, the usual mode of treating history
is open to much objection, and herein, I think, lies the difficulty,
owing to which the study of history has always been so unfruitful for
civil life. Between the vehement emotions of the man in action, and
the quiet mind of the reader, to whom the action is presented, there is
such a repelling contrast, such a wide interval, that it is difficult,
nay, impossible for the latter, even to suspect a connexion. A gap
remains between the subject of the history and the reader which cuts
off all possibility of comparison or application, and which, instead of
awakening that wholesome alarm, that warns too secure health, merely
calls forth the shake of the head denoting suspicion. We regard the
unhappy person, who was still a man as much as ourselves, both when he
committed the act and when he atoned for it, as a creature of another
species, whose blood flows differently from our own, and whose will
does not obey the same regulations as our own. His fate teaches us but
little, as sympathy is only founded on an obscure consciousness of
similar peril, and we are far removed even from the bare suspicion of
such similarity. The relation being lost, instruction is lost with it,
and history, instead of being a school of cultivation, must rest
content with the humble merit of having satisfied our curiosity. If it
is to become any thing more and attain its great purpose, it must
choose one of these two plans: either the reader must become as warm as
the hero, or the hero must become as cold as the reader.
I am aware that many of the best historians, both of ancient and modern
times, have adhered to the first method, and have gained the heart of
their reader, by a style which carries him along with the subject. But
this is an usurpation on the part of the author, and an infringement on
the republican freedom of the reading public, which is itself entitled
to sit in judgment: it is at the same time a violation of the law of
boundaries, since this method belongs exclusively and properly to the
orator and the poet. The last method is alone open to the historian.
The hero then must be as cold as the reader or--what comes to the same
thing--we must become acquainted with him before he begins to act; we
must see him not only perform, but will his action. His thoughts
concern us infinitely more than his deeds, and the sources of his
thoughts still more than the consequences of his deeds. The soil of
Vesuvius has been explored to discover the origin of its eruption; and
why is less attention paid to a moral than to a physical phenomenon?
Why do we not equally regard the nature and situation of the things
which surround a certain man, until the tinder collected within him
takes fire? The dreamer, who loves the wonderful is charmed by the
singularity and wonder of such a phenomenon; but the friend of truth
seeks a mother for these lost children. He seeks her in the
unalterable structure of the human soul, and in the variable conditions
by which it is influenced from without, and by searching both these he
is sure to find her. He is now no more astonished to see the poisonous
hemlock thriving in that bed, in every other part of which wholesome
herbs are growing, to find wisdom and folly, virtue and vice, together
in the same cradle.
Not to mention any of the advantages which psychology derives from such
a method of treating history, this method has alone the preference,
because it uproots the cruel scorn and proud security with which erect
and untempted virtue commonly looks down upon the fallen, because it
diffuses the mild spirit of toleration, without which no fugitive can
return, no reconciliation between the law and its offender is possible,
no infected member of society can escape utter mortification.
Had the criminal of whom I am now about to speak a right to appeal to
that spirit of toleration? Was he really lost for the body of the
state, without a possibility of redemption? I will not anticipate the
reader’s verdict. Our leniency will no more avail him, since he
perished by the hand of the executioner, but the dissection of his
crime will perhaps instruct humanity, and possibly instruct justice
also.
Christian Wolf was the son of an innkeeper in a provincial town (the
name of which must be concealed for reasons which will be obvious in
the sequel), and, his father being dead, he assisted his mother in the
business till his twentieth year. The business was bad, and Wolf had
many an idle hour. Even from his school days he was notorious as a
loose kind of fellow. Grown up girls complained of his audacity, and
the lads of the town reverenced his inventive powers. Nature had
neglected his person. A little insignificant figure, curly hair of an
unpleasant blackness, a flat nose, and a swollen upper lip, which had
been moreover put out of its place by the kick of a horse, gave a
repulsiveness to his appearance, which scared all the women away from
him, and afforded abundant material for the wit of his comrades.
Obstinately did he endeavour to gain what had been denied him; because
he was unpleasant he determined to please. He was sensual, and
persuaded himself that he was in love. The girl whom he chose
ill-treated him; he had reason to fear his rivals were more fortunate;
nevertheless the girl was poor. A heart that was closed to his
endearments might possibly open to his presents, but he himself was
oppressed by want, and his vain endeavour to produce an effective
exterior absorbed the small gains of his miserable business. Too
indolent and too ignorant to restore his dilapidated affairs by
speculation, too proud, and also too delicate to exchange the condition
of master which he had hitherto held, for that of peasant, he saw but
one path before him--a path which thousands before and after him have
taken with better success--that of stealing honestly. His native town
bordered on a wood, which belonged to the sovereign; he turned poacher,
and the profits of his depredations were faithfully placed in the hands
of his mistress.
Among the lovers of Johanna was Robert, a huntsman in the service of
the forester. This man soon perceived the advantage which had been
gained over him by the liberality of his rival, and filled with envy,
he investigated the source of this change. He appeared more frequently
at the Sun--this was the sign of the inn--and his watchful eye,
sharpened by envy and jealousy, soon showed him whence the money had
been procured. A short time before, a severe edict had been revived
against poachers, condemning transgressors to the house of correction.
Robert was unwearied in observing the secret paths of his rival, and
finally succeeded in catching the unwary man in the very fact. Wolf
was apprehended, and it was only by the sacrifice of all his property,
that he was able--and then with difficulty--to escape the awarded
punishment by a fine.
Robert triumphed. His rival was beaten out of the field, and Johanna’s
favour was at an end, now he was a beggar. Wolf knew his enemy, and
this enemy was the happy possessor of Johanna. An oppressive feeling
of want was combined with offended pride, necessity and jealousy raged
together against his sensitiveness, hunger drove him out upon the wide
world, revenge and passion held him fast. For a second time he turned
poacher, but Robert’s redoubled vigilance was again too much for him.
Now he experienced all the severity of the law, for he had nothing more
to give, and in a few weeks he was consigned to the house of correction
attached to the capital.
This year of punishment had passed, absence had increased his passion,
and his stubbornness had become greater under the weight of his
misfortune. Scarcely had he regained his freedom than he hastened to
the place of his birth to show himself to his Johanna. He appeared,
and all shunned him. Pressing necessity at last subdued his pride, and
overcame his sense of personal weakness,--he offered himself to the
opulent of the place, as willing to serve for daily hire. The farmer
shrugged his shoulders as he saw the weakly looking creature, and the
stout bony frame of a rival applicant was decisive against him in the
mind of the unfeeling patron. He made one effort more. One office was
still left--the very last post of an honest name. He applied for the
vacant place of herdsman of the town, but the peasant would not trust
his pigs to a scape-grace. Frustrated in every effort, rejected at
every place, he became a poacher for the third time, and for a third
time had the misfortune of falling into the hands of his watchful enemy.
The double relapse had increased the magnitude of the offence. The
judges looked into the book of laws, but not into the criminal’s state
of mind. The decree against poachers required a solemn and exemplary
satisfaction; and Wolf was condemned to work for three years in the
fortification, with the mark of the gallows branded on his back.
This period also had elapsed, and he quitted the fortification, a very
different man from the man he was when he entered it. Here began a new
epoch in his life. Let us hear him speak himself, as he afterwards
confessed to his spiritual adviser, and before the court. “I entered
the fortification,” he said, “as an erring man, and I left it--a
villain. I had still possessed something in the world which was dear
to me, and my pride had bowed down under shame. When I was brought to
the fortification, I was confined with three and twenty prisoners, two
of whom were murderers, while all the rest were notorious thieves and
vagabonds. They scoffed at me, when I spoke of God, and encouraged me
to utter all sorts of blasphemies against the Redeemer. Obscene songs
were sung in my presence, which, graceless fellow as I was, I could not
hear without disgust and horror; and what I saw done, was still more
revolting to my sense of decency. There was not a day in which some
career of shame was not repeated, in which some evil project was not
hatched. At first I shunned these people, and avoided their discourse
as much as possible; but I wanted the sympathy of some fellow creature,
and the barbarity of my keepers had even denied me my dog. The labour
was hard and oppressive, my body weak; I wanted assistance, and, if I
must speak out, I wanted compassion also, and this I was forced to
purchase with the last remains of my conscience. Thus did I ultimately
become inured to what was most detestable, and in the quarter of the
year I had surpassed my instructors.
“I now thirsted after the day of liberty, as I thirsted after revenge.
All men had offended me, for all were better and happier than me. I
considered myself the martyr of natural rights, the victim of the law.
Grinding my teeth, I rubbed my chains, when the sun rose behind the
mountain on which the fortification stood;--a wide prospect is a
two-fold hell for a prisoner. The free breeze that whistled through
the loop-holes of my tower, the swallow that perched on the iron bar of
my grating, seemed to insult me with their liberty, and made my
confinement the more hideous. Then I swore a fierce, unconquerable
hate against all that resembles man, and faithfully have I kept my oath.
“My first thought, as soon as I was free, was my native town. Little
as I had to hope there for my future support, much was promised to my
hunger for revenge. My heart beat more wildly as I saw the
church-steeple rise in the distance from the wood. It was no more that
heartfelt comfort, which I felt, when first I returned thither. The
remembrance of all the afflictions, all the persecutions which I had
suffered then roused me at once from a frightful torpor; every wound
bled afresh, every scar was opened. I quickened my steps, for I walked
in the thought of terrifying my enemy by my sudden appearance, and I
now thirsted as much after new humiliation as I had before trembled at
it.
“The bells were ringing for vespers, while I stood in the middle of the
market. The congregation was thronging to church. I was now
recognised, and every one who came near me shyly shrank back. I was
always very fond of little children, and even now, by an involuntary
impulse, I gave a groschen to a boy who was skipping by me. The boy
stared at me for a moment, and then flung the groschen into my face.
Had my blood been cooler I should have remembered that the beard, which
I had brought with me from the fortification, disfigured my face in the
most frightful manner, but my bad heart had infected my reason. Tears,
such as I had never shed, ran down my cheeks.
“‘The boy does not know who I am, nor whence I come,’ I now said to
myself, half aloud, ‘and yet he shuns me like some noxious beast. Have
I any mark on my forehead, or have I ceased to look like a man because
I can no longer love one?’ The contempt of this boy wounded me more
bitterly than three years’ service in the galleys, for I had done him a
kindness, and could not charge him with personal hatred.
“I sat down in a timber-yard opposite the church. What I actually
desired I do not know, but this I know, that I rose with indignation;
when, of all my acquaintance that passed, not one would give me a
greeting. Deeply offended, I left the spot to seek a lodging, when
just as I was turning the corner of a street I ran against my Johanna.
‘The host of the Sun!’ she cried aloud, and made a movement to embrace
me. ‘Thou returned, dear host of the Sun--God be praised!’ Her attire
bespoke misery and hunger, her aspect denoted the abandoned condition
to which she had sunk. I quickly surmised what had happened; some of
the prince’s dragoons who had met me, made me guess that there was a
garrison in the town. ‘Soldier’s wench!’ cried I, and laughing, I
turned my back upon her. I felt comforted that in the rank of living
beings there was still one creature below me. I had never loved her.
“My mother was dead, my creditors had paid themselves with my small
house. I had lost every body and every thing. All the world shunned
me as though I were venomous, but I had at last forgotten shame.
Before, I had retired from the sight of men because contempt was
unendurable. Now I obtruded myself upon them, and felt delight in
scaring them. I was easy because I had nothing more to lose, and
nothing more to guard. I no more needed any good quality, because none
believed I could have any.
“The whole world lay open before me, and in some strange province I
might have passed for an honest man, but I had lost the spirit even to
appear one. Despair and shame had at last forced this mood upon me.
It was the last refuge that was left me, to learn to do without honour,
because I had no longer a claim to it. Had my pride and vanity
survived my degradation, I must have destroyed myself.