Produced by Charles Bowen from page scans provided by Google Books
Transcriber's Note:
Source: Google Books
http://books.google.com/books?id=k6YoAAAAYAAJ
THE WINE-GHOSTS OF BREMEN
_This edition of "The Wine-Ghosts of Bremen" was printed entirely from
type, distributed immediately after printing, and is limited to Five
Hundred Copies, of which this is No._ 485.
Theo. L. DeVinne & Co.
[Illustration: 'IT WAS THE DEVIL']
THE
WINE-GHOSTS OF BREMEN
BY
WILHELM HAUFF
ILLUSTRATED BY FRANK M. GREGORY
NEW-YORK AND LONDON
WHITE AND ALLEN
MDCCCLXXXIX
Copyright 1889, by
WHITE AND ALLEN.
THE
WINE-GHOSTS OF BREMEN
TRANSLATED PROM THE GERMAN OF
W. HAUFF
BY
E. SADLER
AND
C. R. L. FLETCHER
LATE FELLOW OF ALL SOULS COLLEGE
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE.
1. 'IT WAS THE DEVIL' _Frontispiece._
2. THE CELLAR OF BACCHUS 8
3. THE GENTLEMEN OF THE RHINE 24
4. 'TO THE DANCE! TO THE DANCE!' 60
PREFACE.
When Mr. Carlyle endeavoured to introduce Jean Paul Richter to the
English public, it seems to us that he was more than usually
unsuccessful. The literary publics of the England and the Germany of
those days were very different, and perhaps the errors of taste, which
each professed to find in the other, were not in truth wholly upon the
side of John Bull. We feel, (with much deprecation of our own impudence
in challenging such a comparison,) in a somewhat similar position, and
dread in our more diffident moments a far colder reception and far
greater depth of oblivion for our present attempt to render into
English a good German story about STRONG DRINK. German humour is often
more rollicking than that of our own countrymen; it is also
occasionally more subtle. But it has always been a matter of some
wonder to us that Hauff's acknowledged masterpiece should be unknown to
English readers, and we have therefore made the following attempt;
praying the courteous reader only that he will not throw the story down
in disgust till he gets to the best part: of the location of which we
allow him to be the best judge.
Wilhelm Hauff was born on the 29th November, 1802, at Stuttgart, where
his father held various high posts, with various high-sounding double
and treble official names, under the paternal government of the Elector
Frederick, the first of his name and house who attained 'serenity.' It
was this same ruler who three years later, after refusing a passage to
Napoleon's troops for some time with great show of patriotism, allowed
himself to be 'convinced,' as soon as the Emperor himself appeared and
offered him a considerable extension of territory and a Royal Crown;
and who confessed with some _naivete_ 'that since Frederick the Great
he had never met any one so good at talking a man over as Napoleon;
that the latter had in fact the same "tournure de l'esprit" as
Frederick.' But His Serene Highness was, in common with many of his
contemporaries, in the habit of allowing himself to be talked over by
any one with a good strong army at his back. 'C'etait leur nature de
complaire aux plus forts.' Therefore he now openly joined, in 1805, as
he had practically done in '95 and '99, the row of princely traitors to
the cause of Germany, and began to dance with his fellows on the
fast-closing grave of the Holy Roman Empire. It must however be
remembered that his country was one of the few German principalities
that still possessed an active 'Landstaende' or system of Estates: this
was indeed of the most rudimentary order, and consisted chiefly of
representatives of the nobles, craft gilds, and ecclesiastical
corporations; but it is worthy of note that, as in the Tyrol, there was
a Peasants' Estate in Wuerttemberg, and that these Estates did possess,
though they rarely made good, the right of voting or withholding
supplies from His Serenity. On the occasion referred to, when he
expressed some doubts as to whether his Estates would agree to the
proposed treaty, Napoleon, who had methods of his own for dealing with
refractory representatives, answered that 'he would settle all that.'
The Elector then got his crown from Napoleon; but in November, 1813, a
very similar scene was enacted at Stuttgart, (with Alexander in place
of Napoleon,) when the confederation of the Rhine was dissolved, and
Bavaria had already made her peace with the allies by the treaty of
Ried. Then the magnanimous King Frederick threw in his lot with the
winning side again, in return for that fatal guarantee of absolute
sovereignty and territorial indemnification for his losses, (for he was
obliged to disgorge some of the spoils of his neighbours,) which proved
such an obstacle in the way of the long-deferred restoration of
Germany.
Growing up under influences like these, it is wonderful that young
Hauff and his brother Hermann (his senior by two years) should ever
have discovered that they were Germans at all; but they lost their
father in 1809 and do not afterwards appear to have had any political
connection with the government: and by 1815, when Wilhelm was only
thirteen, the worst was over and the people of Stuttgart were left face
to face with their amiable monarch; who surprised them and all the
world by granting them of his own grace and favour an absolutely free
constitution. This, however, on the principle of 'Timeo Danaos et dona
ferentes,' was too much for the Wuerttembergers, who profoundly
mistrusted him: but before the matter could be settled King Frederick
died, and King Wilhelm I, the husband of a Russian princess, and a
brave soldier and able diplomatist, who had stood up for the rights of
Germany in the deferred Elsass question, gave to his people, after much
preparation, a very respectably constitutional form of government
with two chambers, which included a representation both of clergy and
old-imperial nobility, backed up by a strong Executive. This was in
1822, and the remaining five years of W. Hauff's life were passed in a
happy country that had no history. It is usual of course to account for
the excessively fertile development of literary culture in Germany at
this time by the fact that the system of repression was so strong and
effective as to drive all the moderate minds away from politics; but
this will hardly hold good in Wuerttemberg. Yet the educated classes
there seem to have been completely indifferent to such politics as
there were. But there were very few.
Those who want to discover the conditions under which Hauff's earlier
life passed should read (1) Goethe's Autobiography in Wahrheit and
Dichtung, and (2) Histoire d'un Conscrit; and, by mixing the two well
together, may arrive at some sort of idea what life was like in a small
German state, on which were grafted the new horrors of a military
despotism. It is not a pleasant picture, but if it bred a good many
souls as dead to patriotism as Goethe's and Heine's, it also bred not a
few Muellers and Uhlands and Arndts; and it bred Wilhelm Hauff. That
Hauff, in his later years at least (if a man can be said to have
later years who died at twenty-five), had caught much of the spirit
of the heroes of the War of Liberation, is best seen from the few
soul-stirring lyrics which he has left, especially the two odes which
he wrote in 1823-4 on the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo; even
more perhaps it is seen in his admiration for W. Mueller, and in the
affecting story that when on his deathbed he heard the news of the
battle of Navarino, he cried, 'What news! I must go hence and tell it
to Mueller,' who preceded him to the grave by a few weeks.
Hauff and his brother were voracious readers. Their maternal
grandfather, 'a learned jurist,' (one trembles to think what a learned
German jurist must have been like in the first decade of this century,)
had a good library, consisting chiefly of old Law and History books,
but including also a considerable number of romances; 'Smollett,
Fielding, and Goldsmith were there,' says his biographer, Gustav
Schwab, in the life which he prefixed to the 1837 (first collected)
edition of Hauff's works. Schwab relates, not without humour, how the
boys would play at fortress building and sieges with some of the more
ponderous of the volumes, and the delight which they took in battering
down a breastwork composed of the 'Acta Pacis Westphalicae,' perhaps at
the very time at which the Congress of Vienna was engaged upon the same
job. But in the way of reading, they battened chiefly upon the old
German historical romances, Hardleder's 'Ursache des Deutschen Krieges'
especially, and it was from works like these that Wilhelm caught that
old-imperial swing and flow of ideas which carries us so powerfully
through Lichtenstein and the 'Phantasien.' The plan of turning a boy
loose in a library is sometimes justified by results, although not
always in the way expected. But although Wilhelm got a certain amount
of classics drilled into him at the cloister school of Blaubeuern,
and afterwards studied 'Philology, Philosophy, and Theology,' from
1820-1824, at the University of Tuebingen, 'more,' says Schwab, 'to
please his mother than from any leaning of his own to those subjects,'
he never could write Greek or Latin verses like his brother, or pass
for anything but an essentially poor scholar. But several other people
who have afforded some pleasure to the world at large have been
essentially poor scholars.
This deficiency did not affect him much; his mother, though apparently
not wealthy, had good interest, and procured for him, when he left the
University, the position of private tutor in the family of 'the at that
time War's-council's-President, later War's-minister von Huegel' at
Stuttgart, where he remained two years, with apparently abundant
leisure for exercising his talent for writing poetical romances and
fairy tales, of which during the last two years of his life he poured
forth an incessant stream. It is worth while noting that in one of
these--the first part of the 'Memoirs of Satan' (not the completed
edition of these memoirs as they now stand)--is a passage in which the
author falls foul of the great Autocrat of German Literature apropos of
some lines in Faust; which was a more daring thing for a young fellow
of four-and-twenty to do than it is possible for a man living in a free
country to imagine. The rash youth afterwards repented, and expunged
the obnoxious passage when he finished the memoirs of his black
Majesty.
Perhaps it would have been as well if there had been no expunging, at
least we may dare to say so on this side of the water, where less and
less divinity hedges the person of the great man-god of letters every
day. Hauff, however, had a tender heart, and did not like to see what a
big hole he had made by casting a stone at the man-god; and with the
modesty of twenty-four he begged pardon. History does not say whether
the man-god took any notice of him.
It is not, however, with the Memoirs of Satan, or with any but one of
Hauff's works that we are now concerned. The 'Man in the Moon' was a
scathing satire upon a school of story-book makers, popular at the
time, and headed by one H. von Clauren, whose works we have not
perused. 'Lichtenstein,' which has been dramatised, is not inferior to
an inferior Waverley novel. These and many more are well known to
English readers, but the 'Phantasien im Bremer Rathskeller' has never
been translated, no doubt because of its dreadfully Rabelaisian
morality in the matter of strong drink. What can you think of a man
who dedicates his book to the 'lovers of wine,' and takes for his motto
the passage from Othello which appears at the head of the story? We do
not intend to defend him; we ourselves are by no means the pair of
ultra-Pickwickian topers, that a cursory perusal of the motto and
dedication would lead the reader to believe: and we are quite aware
that there _are_ to be no more cakes and ale in this world; we are a
little sorry for it, that is all. As for Hauff we will let him speak
for himself; we have no reason whatever to believe that he had more
than a poetical and literary affection for the juice of the grape.
Hauff had grown tired of being a private tutor in 1826, and spent the
profits of Lichtenstein in a journey to the North of Germany and to
Paris in the latter half of that year. It was upon that occasion that
he visited Bremen, although not upon the errand imagined in the text.
On his return to the South in 1827 he became Editor of the 'Morning
News for the Educated Classes,' to which his brother, who succeeded him
in the editorship, was already a contributor. This paper survived till
1865, when it expired a few months after the death of Hermann Hauff,
whom from all we know of him we imagine to have been a much more
business-like editor than Wilhelm. Contemporarily with this responsible
post Wilhelm took to himself a wife, one of his own cousins, who bore
him a daughter but a few days before his death. He died of fever on the
18th November, 1827. Prefixed to the edition of 1853 is a very pretty
little poem of L. Uhland's on the occasion, and also a funeral oration
by Mr. Court Chaplain Grueneisen, who was his cousin, both of which were
recited over his grave in true German fashion. If we could believe all
that this worthy priest said--and we have not a scrap of evidence to
the contrary--Wilhelm Hauff's life must indeed have been a bright and
happy one; 'Wonnezeit voll holder Traeume,' as he himself called the
season of youth. Apparently he made no enemies, and he made every one
whom he chose his friend; his tender affection for his mother seems to
have been the mainspring of his existence; to his bride he had been
long attached in a half playful spirit, that wanted only the shadow of
a difficulty to withdraw their love into those regions of romance in
which his mind delighted to dwell. It was about a month before his
death that he produced, as a reminiscence of his northern journey, the
following story, entitled--
'THE WINE-GHOSTS OF BREMEN.'
NOTE (_written before the late incorporation of the Hanse towns with
the Empire_).
It may seem a little superfluous here to attempt to describe the
Rathskeller at Bremen, for it is well known to many travellers. But
from the method by which travellers are usually conducted through the
vaults, in which Hauff spent his grandfather's _Schalttag_ in that
bygone October, little acquaintance with the object of his story is to
be derived. The Rathhaus at Bremen, then, is by far the most
conspicuous object in the town. It contains some of the most beautiful
of the German efforts, both in stone and wood carving, of the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries. Whether there is any connection between the
fact that the fifteenth century preferred stone, the sixteenth wood,
and the other fact that the former of these centuries was to the Hanse
towns the epoch of glory, the latter the epoch of decay, we must leave
for Mr. Ruskin to decide. Anyhow, the men who embellished that Rathhaus
inside were as little conscious of the decay of their city as those who
built it and decorated it outside. So far as Germany is concerned, even
in the best examples of Luebeck, Augsburg, or Nuremberg, the force of
Art could no further go. But descend the steps on the left of the
building, and you will find a very different state of things. The
cellar is built as a cellar should be, strictly with a view to the
practical--that is, to the comfort of its inhabitants, the mighty
spirits imprisoned in the mighty casks. For the comfort of those who
came to commune with those mighty spirits, a broad oak settle with
strong arms would and did suffice; and the steps were made strictly
with a view to be _easy of ascent_. Since Hauff's time, and partly in
consequence of his story, the internal arrangements appear to have been
much altered. Some of the cellar chambers have been painted in the true
modern German style, about which we should prefer not to say too much.
Some of the mural paintings profess to be representations of scenes in
the story. There is no longer a passage straight through from the
Apostle cellar to the boudoir of Frau Rosa herself, and of the other
vaults the cellar of Bacchus is alone unaltered. Bacchus, indeed, is
the hero of the place. No better description could possibly be given of
him than that which Hauff gives, and therefore we will not attempt to
amplify it. But the same Bacchus does not actually 'in the wood,' so to
speak, sit there. He was taken down ten years ago, and a new one put up
in his place--why, I failed to discover. His cask is, however, like all
the other casks except Frau Rosa (who has disappeared altogether), the
old one, a veritable Thirty Years War cask, beautifully carved with
fantastic figures in relief. In the Apostle cellar all the wine is
Hochheimer or Ruedesheimer, and the names are still graven on each cask,
and 'Herr Judas, 1729,' is said to contain the best wine. But from a
somewhat limited experience it is difficult cordially to endorse the
reported opinion of the late King Ludwig of Bavaria, that the finest
Rhine wines would keep for ever. Let the man who wishes to know what
wine _can be_, by all means go daily for a few weeks to the Rathskeller
in Bremen. Let him pay due homage to the worthies of old time there by
tasting them, one glass of each per diem; but let him not fail to wash
them down speedily with a bottle of twenty-year old Niersteiner or
Ruedesheimer. If you ask, thirsty reader, why these things are to be
found at their best in Bremen, we can only say that North Germany is a
right conservative country; and because the Burgomasters of Bremen
thought it their duty in the seventeenth century to lay down cask upon
cask of the best vintages, their successors think it is their duty
likewise; which is a very practical and righteous feeling. Bacchus,
however, and the two mighty casks which guard his right hand and his
left (like those trusty comrades who stand up in the halls of the
Colleges of our Universities on each side of the drinker, when the
loving cup is passed round, to prevent his being stabbed in the back),
are now empty. The right hand cask was broken open and drained by the
French soldiers in 1806, after the defeat of Prussia at Auerstaedt; a
loss which one can well imagine that the Town Council of Bremen bore
less philosophically than many another act of power of those merciless
freebooters. Bacchus himself, who dates from 1624, has been empty for
100 years. But what has become of the Rose herself? There are many old
casks in the cellar called after her, but none that I could identify
with the heroine of the story. She is still painted on the ceiling--a
sufficiently ugly specimen (of the variety known as 'La France,' she
appears to be)--very fat and round, with very dirty green foliage, and
round her the following inscription:--
'Cur Rosa Flos Veneris Bacchi depingitur antro,
Causa quod absque mero frigiat ipsa Venus.'
Other bad hexameters follow in other parts of the vault known as the
Rose cellar; as for instance:
'Haec Rosa Luminibus Veneres Nectarque Palato
Objicit, exhalans pocula grata cadis:
Vina vetusta tenet, grandaevi munera Bacchi;
Sint procul hinc juvenes; vos decet iste senes.'
They are in fact the sort of verses that the traditional Eton boy, who
wrote verses for the whole of his Dame's house, could turn out at the
rate of a couplet a minute, adding a few false quantities and concords
by desire of the accomplice for whom they were written, 'because if you
don't, you know, my tutor will never believe they're my own
composition.' Finally, over the entrance door, on the other side of
which is a medallion of Hauff, erected in 1876, comes the following:--
'Was Magen, Leib und Herz, Saft, Kraft, und Geist kann geben,
Betruebte troesten mag, halbtodte kann beleben,
Theilt diese Rose mit, sie hat von hundert Jahren
Den Preis ein edles Oel mit Sorgfalt zu bewahren.'
More could be quoted, but this breathes the spirit of the eighteenth
century quite sufficiently for our purpose.
As for Roland, he is still in the marketplace, a wonderful
fourteenth-century stone figure, nearly twenty feet high, not standing
on a pillar, but simply on a pedestal about two feet from the ground.
He would certainly find it remarkably difficult to sit down, even on a
cask, for he has iron spikes to his knees, which would make him
extremely uncomfortable if he bent them. He did not bow his head to me
as I went away as he did to Hauff, which I felt deeply. It is generally
believed that he only bows his head to those departing visitors who
have had enough Nierstein to appreciate the compliment.
C. R. L. F.
THE WINE-GHOSTS
OF BREMEN.
'Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature if it be well
used.'--_Othello_, ii. 3.
'There's nothing to be done with the fellow,' I heard them say, as they
stumped down the stairs; 'nine o'clock and he is going to doze away his
evening like a dormouse. He wouldn't have been like that four years
ago.' They were not far wrong from their point of view, good fellows;
for this evening there was to be a most brilliant musical tea and
muffin fight with dancing and recitation, and these gentlemen had come
to invite me (who was a stranger to the High Life of Bremen) to go with
them. But I did not feel up to it. Some one, whom I had come to Bremen
on purpose to visit, was not to be there, and what's the use of going
anywhere where Some one isn't? Besides, I knew I should have to sing if
I went, and I didn't choose to sing if she wasn't to be there to hear
me. I should only spoil all their fun by looking sulky. I preferred to
let them curse me for a dull dog for a few minutes on the steps, rather
than let them bore themselves from nine to one in talking to my body
only, while my soul would be whole streets off wandering about in the
neighbourhood of the Frauenkirche.
It wasn't sleepiness though. I am not a habitual dormouse, and don't
like being called one. No, I meant to be thoroughly awake that night,
and one of my friends--it was you, Hermann--said as much when he got
outside. 'He didn't look sleepy,' I heard him say, 'with those bright
eyes of his. But he looked like a man who had been drinking either too
much or too little, which probably means that he is going to make a
night of it with the bottle, and alone.'
Prophetic soul! Did you know that my eyes were sparkling yet
proleptically with the thought of old Rhenish? You didn't know that I
had a permit from their High Mightinesses to greet my Lady Rose and the
Twelve Apostles. And you certainly didn't know that it was my
'Retreat.'[1]
In my opinion the habit which I inherit from my grandfather of blazing,
so to speak, the tree of life here and there with a notch, and spending
a quiet day of meditation over each notch, is not a bad one. To keep
the ordinary festivals of the Church only is hardly sufficient; one
becomes commonplace, and one's thoughts are too apt to become
commonplace on such days. But let the soul that keeps an anniversary of
its own making keep it alone; look inwards for a few hours in the year
instead of always outwards; sit down at the long table d'hote of
memory, people it with the shadows of the past, and then set to and
make out the bill conscientiously. Such days as these my grandfather
always kept, and called his 'retreats.' He didn't prepare a banquet for
his friends, or pass the time in festivity at all; he simply sat down
and feasted his own soul and talked to her in that inner chamber which
she had occupied for five-and-seventy years. Even now I can trace, long
as it is since the dear old man was laid in the churchyard, the marked
passages in his Elzevir Horace which he always read on such days; and
as I read, I can see his large blue eyes wandering thoughtfully over
the yellow leaves of memory's book. He takes up his pen. Slowly and
hesitatingly he draws the black cross beneath the name of some dear
departed friend. 'The master is keeping his Retreat,' whispered the
servants to us, as we grandchildren were running gaily and noisily up
the stairs; and we repeated the words to each other, and imagined that
he was making himself Christmas presents, and wondered how he managed
to light up his own Christmas tree. And we were not far wrong. They
were the tapers of affection that he was kindling upon the tree of
Unforgetfulness, each taper the symbol of happy hours of a long life.
And when his hours of solitude were passed, and we were admitted in the
evening, he sat still and quiet in his chair as if he rejoiced like a
child in the Heaven-sent Christmas gifts of the past.
[Footnote 1: Schalttag, lit. 'intercalary day'--used of the 29th of
February in leap years--impossible to translate except by a
circumbendibus. Hence we have borrowed from ecclesiastical phraseology
a word which, to a certain extent, possesses the same meaning in
English. So far as we are aware Hauff is peculiar in using Schalttag in
this sense.]
And it was on his Retreat day that he was borne by loving hands to his
last resting-place. For the first time for many years, (for he had been
confined to his room,) it was 'out into the air,' but it was also 'into
his grave.' And again, 'I could not choose but weep they should lay him
in the mould.' I had often walked with him along the same road; but
when they turned off across the black bridge and laid him deep in
the earth, I knew that he was keeping his real Retreat. I was a little
boy, and I wondered as they threw a lot of stones and turf on him
whether he would ever come up again. He did not. But his image remained
in my memory, and when I grew up my favourite pieces in the long
picture-gallery of Reflection were his Retreats.
And isn't to-day mine? The First of September? And am I to go and drink
weak tea and listen to bad music to-day? No! I have a better
prescription in my pocket, directed to the best apothecary in the
world--somewhat under the world in fact he dwells. Down therefore to
him, and _Fiat, sum., haust. ad lib._
It was striking ten o'clock when I descended the broad steps that lead
to the noble vault, which with all its contents is the ancient and
perpetual inheritance of their High Mightinesses the Corporation of
Bremen. There was every probability of my having my drink to myself, as
there was a fearful storm raging outside and no one about in the
streets. The cellarman stared at me as I presented a slip of paper,
signed and sealed by a town-councillor:--
'Admit the Bearer to Drink. Sep. 1st.'
'So late and _To-night_?' says he. 'It is never late before twelve and
never too early after that for good wine,' says I. He looked at the
signature and seal, and not without hesitation led the way through the
vaults. What a noble sight was there! His lantern shone over long rows
of casks, and threw strange forms and shadows on the arches of the
cellar; and the pillars seemed to float in the background like busy
coopers plying their staves. My companion wanted to open for me one of
those smaller rooms where six or eight friends at the most can pack in
with comfortable space to let the bottle circulate: and a very proper
thing it is, when your companions are the right sort, to sit close
together; but when I am to be alone I love free space, where my
thoughts and my body can find room to expand. So I chose an old vaulted
hall, the largest we passed into, for my solitary banquet-room. 'You
expect company?' said the attendant. 'No.' Some have who do not
expect,' said he, with an uneasy glance at the shadow on the wall.
'What do you mean?'
'Nothing. It's the first of September.... By-the-bye, there was Mr.
Councillor Pumpernickel here a while agone, and he bade me get out some
samples for you--samples of my Lady Rose and of the Twelve Apostle
casks'; and he began to take down some pretty little bottles with
long strips of paper on their necks. 'You don't mean to tell me I am
not to be allowed to drink out of the casks themselves.' 'Your honour
couldn't possibly be allowed that privilege except in the presence of a
town-councillor. Let me fill your honour's glass from this bottle.'
'Not a drop here then,' said I; 'if I mayn't drink from the cask head I
will drink at the cask side at least. Come, old fellow, pick up your
samples, and give me the light.' He still kept fidgeting about, and
shoving the bottles into and out of his pockets, which irritated me
much, as I was longing to be off to the Apostle cellar; and at length I
spoke quite sharply, 'Come now, march.' This gave him courage
apparently, and he answered with some firmness, 'It won't do, sir,
really it won't--not to-night.' Thinking he was merely angling to raise
his price, I pressed a substantial douceur into his hand, and took him
by the arm to lead him along. 'No, no, it wasn't that I meant,' said
he, trying to reject the proffered coin; 'but no one shall take me into
the Apostle cellar on the night of the first of September, not for love
or money!'
[Illustration: THE CELLAR OF BACCHUS]
'Stuff and nonsense! What do you mean?' 'I mean that it's an uncanny
thing to go in there on Frau Rosa's own birthday.' I laughed till the
vault rang. 'I've heard of a good many ghosts before now, but never
heard of a wine-ghost: fancy an old man like you believing such tales:
but I tell you, friend, I am serious. I have permission from their High
Mightinesses to drink in the cellar tonight, time and place at my own
discretion; and in their name I order you to lead me to the cellar of
Bacchus.' This finished him. Unwillingly, but without answering, he
took the taper and beckoned me to follow. We went first back through the
great vault, then through a number of smaller ones, till our path came
to an end in a narrow passage. Our steps echoed weirdly in the hollow way,
and our very breath as it struck on the walls sounded like distant
whisperings. At last we stood before a door, the keys rattled, with a
groan the hinge opened, and the light of the candles streamed into the
vault. Opposite me sat friend Bacchus on a mighty cask of wine: not
slender and delicate like a Grecian youth had the cunning old wood carvers
of Bremen made him; no, nor a drunken old sot with goggle eyes and hanging
tongue, as vulgar mythology now and then blasphemously represents him
(scandalous anthropomorphism I call it!). Because some of his priests,
grown grey in his service, have gone about like that; because their bodies
may have swelled full of good humour, and their noses been coloured by the
burning reflection of the dark red flood; because their eyes may have
become fixed through being constantly turned upwards in silent
rapture,--are we to ascribe to the god the qualities of his servants?
The men of Bremen thought differently. How cheerily and gaily the old
boy rides on his cask: the round blooming face, the little bright eyes
that looked down so wisely and yet so mockingly, the wide laughing
mouth that has been the grave of so many a cask, the whole body
overflowing with comfortable good living. It was his arms and legs,
however, that specially delighted me. I almost expected to see him snap
his chubby fingers, and hear his voice sing out a gay hurrah! Why, he
looked as if at any moment he might jump off his seat and trundle his
cask round the cellar, till the Rose and the Apostles joined in the
merry dance, and chased each other round whooping. 'Merciful powers,'
cried the cellarmaster, clinging tightly to me, 'I saw his eye roll and
his feet move!' 'Peace, you old fool!' said I, feeling however rather
queer, and looking anxiously at the wine god; 'it's only the dancing
reflection of your taper. Well, we'll go on to the Apostle cellar, the
samples will taste better there.' But as I followed the old man out of
Bacchus' private room, I looked round, and the figure certainly seemed
to nod his little head, and stretch out his legs, and give a shake as
if from an inward giggle. One ascends from Bacchus to a smaller vault,
the subterranean celestial firmament I called it, the seat of
blessedness, where dwell the twelve mighty casks, each called after an
apostle. What funeral vault of a royal race can compare with such a
catacomb as this? Pile coffin on coffin, trim the everlasting lamps
that burn before the ashes of the mighty dead, let black-on-white
marble speak in epigrammatic phrase the virtues of the departed: take
your garrulous cicerone with his crape-trimmed hat and cloak, listen to
his praises of Prince This, who fell at the battle of That, and of
Princess Tother on whose tomb the virgin myrtle is intertwined with the
half-opened rosebud; see and drink in all the associations of such a
place; but will it move you like this? Here sleeps, and has slept for a
century, the noblest race of all. Dark-brown their coffins, and all
unadorned--no tinsel, no lying epitaphs, simply their names inscribed
on each in large plain letters, as I could see when the old fellow
placed the taper on them. ANDREW, JOHN, JUDAS, PETER, and here on the
right PAUL, on the left JAMES, good James. Paul is Nierstein of 1718,
and James Ruedesheim, ye gods! Ruedesheim of 1726!
Ask not of their virtues; no one has any right to ask: like dark-red
gold their blood sparkles in my glass; when it was first ripened on the
hills of St. John it was pale and blonde, but a century has coloured
it. What a bouquet! quite beyond the power of words to express. Take
all the scents from all the flowers and trees, and all the spices of
Araby and Ind, fill the cool cellar with ambergris, and let the amber
itself be dissolved into fumes--and the result will be but poor and
scentless compared to the liquid sunshine of Bingen and Laubenheim, of
Nierenstein and Johannisberg. 'Why do you shake your head?' said I to
my companion at last; 'you've no reason to be ashamed of these old
fellows here. Come, fill your glass and here's good luck to the whole
Twelve of them!'
'Heaven forbid that I should do anything of the kind,' he replied; 'it's
an uncanny toast and an uncanny night for it. Taste them, sir, and
let's pass on, I shiver in their presence.' 'Good-night, then,
gentlemen--remember that I am everywhere and for ever at your service,
most noble Lords of the Rhine.' 'Surely,' said the old fellow, 'those
few drops haven't made you so drunk that you would raise the whole crew
of sprites already? If you talk like that again I shall be off, though
I should get the sack for it: I tell you that on this night the spirits
imprisoned in these casks rise and hold infernal carnival here in this
very spot, aye, and other spirits besides! I wouldn't be here after
twelve o'clock for worlds.' 'Well, I'll be quiet, you old driveller, if
you'll only take me on to my Lady Rose's apartment itself.' At last we
reached it, the little garden of the queen of flowers. There she lay in
all her majestic girth, the biggest cask I ever saw in my life, and
every glass worth a golden guinea. Frau Rosa was born in 1615. Ah,
where are the hands that planted her parent vine? where are the eyes
that watched the ripening clusters? where the sun-browned feet that
hurried to the festival when she was pressed in the sunny Rheingau, and
streamed a pale gold rivulet into the vat? Like the waves of the stream
that lapped the base of her cradle, they are gone no one knows whither.
And where are their High-Mightinesses of the Hansa, who ruled when the
Hansa was a League indeed, those worthy senators of Bremen who brought
the blushing maiden to this cool grot for the edification of their
grandchildren? Gone too--with two centuries over their heads, and we
can only pour wine on their tombs.
Good luck to you, departed High-Mightinesses, and good luck to your
living representatives, who have so courteously extended such
hospitality to a Southerner! 'And goodnight to you, my Lady Rose,'
added the old servant more kindly. 'Come along, sir, we can get out
this way without going back, mind you don't stumble over the casks.'
'My good man, you don't imagine I'm going away, do you?' I replied. 'I
have only just begun my night. Bring me some of that special '22, two
or three bottles, into that big room behind there. I saw that wine
growing green and saw it pressed, and now I'm going to prove to my
palate that we can still grow something worth drinking.' The old boy
expostulated, entreated, threatened, swore nothing should induce him to
stay;--who wanted him to stay? Swore he daredn't leave me here;--did he
think I was going to carry off Frau Rosa in my arms? Finally he agreed
to let me remain if he might padlock me into the big room, and come at
six o'clock tomorrow to wake me and receive his reward. Then, with a
heavy heart, he put three bottles of the '22 on the table, wiped the
glass, poured me out a little, and wished me good-night, double-locking
and padlocking the door behind me, more apparently out of tender
anxiety for me than out of fear for his cellar. The clock struck
half-past eleven as I heard him say a prayer and hurry away. When he
shut the outer door of the vaults at the top of the stairs, there was
an echo like the thunder of cannons through the halls and passages.
So now I was alone keeping Retreat with my soul down in the bosom of
the earth. Slumber above me and slumber around me, for the spirits of
the dead are asleep by my side. I wonder if they dream of their brief
childhood on the distant mountains, and the nightly lullabys sung to
them by old Father Rhine; or the kisses of their tender mother the sun
when they first opened their eyes in the bright spring air, of their
first leafy garments which reflected themselves in their old Father's
eyes.
Ah! my soul, I too have rosy days of youth to look back upon, spent
upon the soft vine-clad hills and by the blue rivers of my native
Swabia; ah the days and the day dreams of glory! What games, what
picture-books, what mother-love, what gigantic Easter eggs, what armies
of tin and paper! And then, my soul, think of the first little trousers
and collars in which your mortal covering, so proud of its size, was
dressed; think how your father gave you rides on his knee, and your
grandfather lent you his long bamboo cane with a golden head to use as
a hobby horse.
Another glass! And then look on a few years. Do you remember the sad
morning when you were taken to see all the mournful solemnities of
grandfather's funeral? Ah! what would you not have given to get him
back. Peace, 'tis but for awhile that he slumbers. And then the
delightful hours in the old library filled with folios that were
evidently bound in leather for no other purpose than that of forming
huts to protect you and your imaginary sheep and cattle from the
imaginary rain. How roughly you treated the Higher Literature of your
native land. Why, I remember throwing a quarto Lessing at my brother's
head, for which he beat me unmercifully with 'Sophy's Journey from
Memel to Saxony.' Rise too, ye walls of the old castle, with your
half-ruined passage, your cellar, your gate, your courtyard, all of
which served only as a playground for a squad of boys; soldiers and
robbers, nomads and caravans we were. I didn't much care whether I
represented Platoff or a Cossack trooper, Napoleon or Napoleon's
charger. Scattered all over the world, in every rank of life, and the
sport of every kind of fortune is now the little knot of boys who were
the companions of my childhood; and you and I, my dear soul, being
alone too erratic to turn soldier, chamberlain, artisan, or parson,
have become that remarkable thing called Doctor of Philosophy, having
had just sufficient brains between us to write a dissertation. Brains
enough to find our way into the Bremen cellars, however.
Another glass! Sure there's an affinity between wine and the tongue. It
goes quite straight till it comes to the throat; here, however, is set
up a finger-post, directing 'To the Stomach' and 'To the Head.' The
latter is the path of the nobler particles of the grape-juice; the pure
spirits that inhabit it will ever soar, and sensible, peaceful people
they are for the most part, if there are not too many of them there
together; but you know the best philosophers will quarrel when half a
dozen of them of different intellectual complexions are closely packed
in a small room.
How fair is that fourth period of life, (which we begin with the fourth
glass.) Fourteen years old, my soul; but the boyish games are left
behind, and you are steeped to the lips in reading--especially Goethe
and Schiller, over whom you pore without understanding much. You think,
however, you understand it all, and you have already kissed Elvira
behind the cupboard door, and broken Emma's heart. Perjured villain!
she may be another Charlotte, and she may possibly even have read some
of Clauren, and be deeply in love with thee (and him). Let the scene
change. I blow a greeting to that dear Alpine valley [Blaubeuern] where
I spent so many years at school; the cloister roof, the walks over the
brasses of dead abbots, the church with the wonderful high altar, the
images dipped in the bright gold of sunrise. Thanks be to the strong
Alpine air that I was ever full fledged and can fly as well as most
people.
Another glass! Another period. That is a better glass than the last, I
think--there's an aroma about it that the other lacked. And what a
period that was! My college days! High, noble, savage, inharmonious,
rough, fair; all opposites and contrasts that ever existed, blended
then. No outsider can ever know the delights, and an outsider can
hardly choose but laugh at the follies. Mixed with all the dross we
bring up from thence there are generally some particles of fine gold.
The music of our life would be strange indeed to one who had not sung
and laughed with us. I know well what my granddad felt when he crossed
the name of some fellow-collegian in his Book of Memory. God bless them
all!
Another glass, by the immortal gods, and another bottle this time! From
Friendship to Love. The most wonderful thing of this period (period
six, please observe, my soul) was that its grades fitted themselves
into and took their colour from my reading. Especially my affections
got coloured from Wilhelm Meister; that is to say, I hardly knew
whether it was Emmeline or the gentle Camilla, or even Ottilie. Didn't
all three peep out from behind jalousies in bewitching nightcaps to
hear the mournful squeaks which my numbed fingers elicited from the
guitar? And when all three proved but heartless coquettes, I swore I
would never marry till I was forty. Yet the little god slides from the
eyes of the loved one into the heart of the victim. For am I not a
victim? Is not she the coldest listener of all when I sing? did she
ever vouchsafe me a single glance of encouragement? As I am not a
general officer, I can't get mentioned in a despatch as having eight
bullets in my breast and 'lying in a precarious condition,' even if we
were not at peace. If I was only a drummer I could go and make a
disgusting noise under her window till she was obliged to look out to
tell me to go away, and I would then descend from fortissimo to piano
and adagio, for I suppose one could do adagio even upon a drum. But the
only fame she is likely to hear of me is that some one will tell her
to-morrow that I boozed in the Town Cellar from midnight to six a. m.
Now is no one awake but the highest and the lowest in the town,--the
watchman on the top of the cathedral tower, and I deep down in the
bowels of the earth. If I were the watchman I would be singing to a
certainty, so I don't see why I should not wake the echoes down here.
_She_ won't hear either of us, so here goes.
When at the lonely midnight hour
I pace my rounds upon the tower,
I muse upon my love afar,
Whose troth is fixed as morning star.
When to the flag at honour's call
I flew, her kiss was worth it all;
She decked my hat with ribbands blue,
Then pressed me to her heart anew.
And still her love's as warm as then,
It gives my hand the strength of ten;
It lends my heart a firmer beat,
To think in absence on my Sweet.
E'en now within her room she kneels
And wings to Heaven her dear appeals,
All lonely by the pale lamp's ray,
For one she loves that's far away.
But if my danger haunt thy breast,
Yet dry thy tears, and be at rest;
I stand in God's own armour clad,
He loves an honest soldier lad.
The clocks ring out, the round is near.
My hour of rest will soon be here;
Sleep rock thy brain, and set it free
To dream, and only dream of me.
Midnight! and is she dreaming of me? It always seems to me as if at
this mysterious hour the earth gave a little tremble, and the dead who
sleep in her bosom turned in their heavy slumber as if to mutter a
prayer of _Domine quousque_? That distant bell is borne to me very
differently from the 'twelve great shocks of shameless noon.' Hark! did
not a door shut in one of the further vaults? Strange, if I didn't
_know_ that I was perfectly alone here I should believe that I heard
footsteps. Yes, there are footsteps, and now they are at my door too.
Never mind, the door's well locked; no mortal can disturb me. _No
mortal_; yet the door flies open!...
Two men stood there, making fantastic compliment of yielding the _pas_
to each other. One was tall and haggard, with a long black wig, a dark
red coat made by some old French tailor, and covered with gold tassels
and gilt buttons. His immensely long thin legs were clad in tight
trousers of black velvet, with gold knee-buckles; he had stuck his
sword with its porcelain handle through his breeches pocket; when he
bowed he flourished a three-cornered hat, and the curls of his peruke
rustled down his shoulders like a waterfall. He had a pale face, sunken
eyes, and a fiery red nose. The little fellow to whom he wished to
yield precedence was quite different. His hair was plastered down with
white of egg and then twisted into two long rolls like pistol holsters
at the sides--and a plait about a yard long hung down his back. He wore
a little steel-grey coat faced with red, and, beneath that, great
riding boots, and a richly embroidered waistcoat which covered his
plump figure to the knee, and a huge sword was fastened to his side.
There was something good-tempered in his face, especially the eyes. He
too performed wondrous evolutions with a huge beaver hat. I recovered a
little from my terror while their courtesy proceeded to the verge of
absurdity: at last they settled it by opening the other half of the
door and marching in arm-in-arm. They hung their hats on the wall,
unfastened their swords, and sat down silently without noticing me: I
think I disliked their silence even more than anything else. Before
however I had mustered courage to break it, more steps were heard, and
four other gentlemen entered, dressed in somewhat similar fashion: one
of them for the chase apparently. 'Greeting, gentlemen of the Rhine!
it's long since we met,' said the pale-faced man with the red nose.
'Greeting, greeting, Mr. James, Mr. Matthew, greeting Mr. Judas. But
what's this? where are the glasses and the pipes, where's the tobacco?
Has that old fool not waked out of his sinful snoring yet? I suppose he
is still in Our Lady's churchyard; but stay, I'll ring him up'--and he
seized a great bell that stood on the table and rang it till the halls
re-echoed. The three new comers took their seats at the table, and sat
silent after the first greeting, especially one whom they called
Andrew, who sat between the huntsman and the red-nosed man; he was
evidently a person nice of his manners and appearance, his features
were still youthful, and a gentle smile played upon his lips. There
were varieties in the dress and expression of all, but not such as to
have particularly fastened themselves upon my remembrance. As it
usually is with old drinkers, conversation flagged for want of liquor;
until, in answer to the summons of the bell, a new figure appeared at
the door--a piteous-looking old man with trembling legs and grey hair,
with a sort of death's-head face. With much exertion he dragged forward
a great basket, and greeted the guests humbly.
'Hurrah,' they cried, 'here's Balthasar, slip along old fellow, on with
your glasses and pipes; what a time you have been!'
[Illustration: THE GENTLEMEN OF THE RHINE]