as well as insulting. She thereupon gave him a lecture lasting three
hours, and having for its perpetual refrain, “I will not hear another
word about the Baron. In future I shall act alone, in strict accordance
with my principles.”
_Heinrich Zschokke_ (1771-1848).
_THE MAN WHO SOLD HIS SHADOW._
WHAT was my horror to see the man in grey come behind with the evident
purpose of accosting me. He raised his hat and bowed with a more
profound obeisance than I had ever been honoured with. I returned the
courtesy, and stood bare-headed in the sun as if rooted to the ground.
I stared at him in an agony of terror, like a bird under the spell of a
serpent. He seemed greatly embarrassed, did not raise his eyes, bowed
repeatedly, approached me, and began to speak in a gentle, wavering
voice, with the tone of a mendicant.
“I trust your Honour will have the kindness to pardon my presumption in
venturing to address you, being a stranger. I have a very particular
request to make. Graciously permit me, sir----”
“For heaven’s sake,” I cried in terror, “what can I do for a man
who----” We both stopped, and, as it seemed to me, we blushed.
After a moment of silence he began again. “During the short time that
it was my good fortune to enjoy the presence of your company, I have
had occasion more than once to gaze--if you will permit me to say
so--with inexpressible admiration upon the well-formed, handsome shadow
which, with an air of noble disdain, as if scorning to set any value
upon it, you cast behind you. It is a superb shadow you have there
lying at your feet. Pardon the temerity of the suggestion; would it be
possible to induce you to sell this same shadow to me?”
He ceased speaking, and it seemed as if a wheel were going around in
my head. What was I to make of this remarkable proposition? He must be
crazy, I thought, and in an altered voice, more suited to the humility
of his tone, I replied--
“Go to, good friend; have you not enough with your own shadow? What
you propose is a very strange bargain.” He interrupted me with, “I
have many a useful thing in my pocket that your Honour might find
convenient; for this inestimable shadow there is no price I should deem
too high. To show my gratitude to you, sir, I would give you your own
choice of all the treasures I carry about with me. I have miraculous
wands of the witch-hazel, I have Mercury’s cap and potent draughts,
the dish-cloth of Roland’s page, and a Homunculus, but best of all is
the magic purse of Fortunatus.” “A magic purse,” I interrupted him,
and great as was my horror, he had captured my sensibilities with that
word. A deathly giddiness came over me, and rows of ducats seemed to
twinkle before my eyes.
“Would your Honour have the goodness to examine the purse?” He put
his hand in his pocket and drew out a medium-sized, strongly-made bag
of leather, with heavy leather cords for draw-strings, and handed me
the same. I put my hand in and pulled out ten golden coins, and ten
more, and ten more, and ten more. I held out my hand to him: “It is
a bargain; for the bag I’ll give you my shadow.” He clasped my hand
to seal the bargain, and then quickly knelt down before me, and with
marvellous dexterity loosening my shadow from the grass, he lifted it,
rolled it up, folded it, and at last put it in his pocket. He arose,
bowed once more, and then vanished among the rose bushes. Methought I
heard him laugh softly to himself. I held the bag tightly in my hands.
Round about me the earth was bright with sunshine, and within me there
was as yet no wisdom.
* * * * *
Meanwhile it had grown late, and, unnoticed, the dawn preceding sunrise
was brightening the sky. It was a very unpleasant surprise when I
looked up and saw the glory of colour unfold in the east. There was no
refuge on this open plain that I was traversing from the approaching
sun, and that too at an hour when shadows sport their utmost extension!
And I was not alone! I glanced at my companion, and once more I
trembled. He was no other than the man in grey.
He smiled at my consternation, and continued, without giving me time
to speak: “Let us, true to the custom of the world, be united for a
while by the reciprocal advantages to be derived from such a union; we
have time enough to separate later on. This road which you are taking
happens to be my road also. I see you turn pale before the rising sun.
I will lend you your shadow for the time of our companionship, and in
return I will ask you to tolerate me at your side. You have lost your
servant Bendel; I will yield you as good service. You do not look upon
me with favour; this I greatly regret. I can be of service to you,
nevertheless. The devil is not as black as he is painted. It is true
you offended me yesterday; to-day I bear you no ill-will, and I have
shortened the way for you so far, as you yourself must confess. Will
you not give your shadow a trial?”
The sun had risen, early wayfarers came along the road; however
distasteful it might be, I accepted his proposal. Smiling, he allowed
my shadow to glide upon the ground. It fell into place on the shadow
of my horse, and cheerily trotted along beside me. Strange feelings
took possession of me. I rode past a group of country people, who, with
uncovered head, respectfully made room for a person of quality. I rode
on, and looked with greedy eyes and a beating heart down from my horse
upon the shadow that once was mine, and which I had now borrowed from a
stranger, ay, from an enemy.
The latter walked unconcernedly beside me, whistling a tune--he on
foot, I on horseback! A tremor seized me; the temptation was too great;
I suddenly turned my horse’s head, gave him the spurs, and off I went
in a full canter down a byway; but I did not succeed in bringing the
shadow with me; as the horse turned it slipped down, and awaited its
lawful master in the road. There was nothing for it but a shamefaced
admission of defeat. I rode back, and the man in grey, first finishing
the tune he was whistling, laughed at me, pulled my shadow straight
again, and informed me that it would not stick to me, and be content to
stay with me, until it was once more my lawful property. “I hold you by
your shadow,” he added; “and you will not escape me. A rich man like
you cannot get on without a shadow. You are to be blamed in so far as
you did not find that out before.”
[Illustration: “OFF I WENT IN A FULL CANTER.”]
_A. von Chamisso_ (1781-1838).
[Illustration]
_THE GHOST OF DR. ASCHER._
THE night I spent at Goslar something very remarkable occurred.
Terror seizes me even now as I think back. I am not timid by nature,
but I have a mortal terror of ghosts. What is fear? Is it a product
of the understanding or of the soul? About this question I had many
a discussion with Dr. Saul Ascher in Berlin when we met in the Café
Royal, where I used to dine. He would have it that we fear a thing
because our reason recognises therein due cause for terror. While I
was eating and drinking to my satisfaction he was fond of constantly
demonstrating the fine qualities of Reason. Toward the end of his
demonstration he would look at his watch, and he always ended with:
“Reason is the highest principle!” Reason! When I so much as hear the
word I see before me Dr. Ascher with his abstract legs, his tight
waistcoat of transcendental grey, and his harsh bitter-cold face, which
might have served as a title-vignette to a book on geometry. The man
was a straight line personified. In his search after the Positive the
poor man had philosophised all grandeur out of life, all sunbeams,
all faith, and all flowers, and all that remained to him was a cold,
positive grave. He cherished a pet aversion for the Apollo of Belvedere
and for Christianity. He even went so far as to write a pamphlet
about the latter, proving it to be unreasonable and untenable. Indeed
he wrote a host of books, in each of which Reason brags of its own
excellence. The poor Doctor was serious enough about it, and in this
respect they deserve esteem. But it was just this which was the best
joke of all--that he would put on so fatuously serious a mien when he
could not understand what every child understands by very reason of its
childhood. I called upon this reasonable Doctor in his own house once
or twice, and I found beautiful women there, for Reason does not forbid
sensuality. Once when I intended to call upon him his servant said:
“The Doctor has just died.” It did not impress me any more strongly
than if he had said: “The Doctor is gone out.”
But to return to Goslar. “The highest principle is Reason!” I said
consolingly to myself as I got into bed. It did not answer the purpose,
however. I had just been reading that horrible story in Varnhagen
von Ense’s _Deutsche Erzählungen_, which I had brought with me from
Clansthal, how a son, whose father intended to murder him, was warned
at night by his mother’s ghost. The marvellous effectiveness of the
story caused me to shiver with horror while reading. Then, too, ghost
stories excite the most uncanny sensations when read on a journey,
and especially at night in a town, in a house, in a room where one
has never been. How many horrible things may have happened upon this
very spot where I am now lying? One cannot refrain from conjecturing.
Moreover, the moon shone so doubtfully into the room; all sorts of
uncalled-for shadows were moving along the wall, and when I raised
myself in bed to look closer, I saw----
There is nothing more weird than to come unintentionally upon one’s
own face in a mirror by the light of the moon. At the same moment a
lumbering sleepy clock began to strike, and, moreover, it struck so
long and so slowly that after the twelfth stroke I verily believed
twelve hours had gone by, and it would have to begin over again and
strike twelve once more. Between the last beat and the last but one,
another clock struck very rapidly with a rasping shrillness, put out
of temper perhaps by the dulness of its kinswoman. When at last both
iron tongues subsided and the silence of death reigned in the house,
it seemed to me suddenly as if I heard something slur and drag along
the passage just outside of my door like the unsteady gait of a man.
At last my door was opened, and slowly the late Dr. Saul Ascher walked
into my room. A cold chill passed through my bones. I trembled like a
leaf, and hardly did I dare to look at the ghost. He looked just the
same as ever--the same transcendental grey waistcoat, the same abstract
legs, and the same mathematical face; only that the latter was a
little yellower than I remembered it, and the mouth, which had always
formed two angles of 22½ degrees, was tightly shut, and the circles of
his eyes had a longer radius. Wavering and leaning, as had been his
custom, upon a slender stick, he approached me, and in his usual lazy
dialect said pleasantly, “Do not be afraid, and don’t believe me to
be a ghost. It is an illusion of the senses if you imagine you see a
ghost. What is a ghost? Give me a definition. Deduce the conditions for
the possibility of a ghost. In what reasonable relation to your reason
would such a phenomenon be! Reason, I say Reason----”
And now the ghost proceeded to analyse Reason, quoting Kant, Part 2,
Division 1, Book 2, Proposition 3, “The distinction between phenomena
and noumena,” constructing the problematic belief in ghosts, piling
syllogism upon syllogism with the logical conclusion that there is
positively no such thing as a ghost. All the while the perspiration
was cold upon my back, my teeth were chattering; in my terror I nodded
unqualified assent to every sentence in which the spook-doctor had
proved the absurdity of my fears, and the latter was demonstrating so
eagerly that in a moment of abstraction, instead of his gold watch he
pulled a handful of worms out of his vest pocket, and discovering his
error he replaced them with ridiculous nervous haste. “Reason is the
highest----” The clock struck one, and the ghost vanished.
_Heinrich Heine_ (1799-1856).
_TOURISTS AT THE BROCKEN._
UPON entering the Brocken-house a somewhat unusual romantic mood came
over me. After long and lonely wanderings among rocks and hemlocks,
one seems suddenly transported to a house in the clouds. I found the
house full of guests; and as it becomes a man of wise foresight, I
thought of the night and of the discomfort pertaining to a couch of
straw. With a dying voice I ordered tea, whereupon the Herr host
was so reasonable as to be convinced that an invalid like me must
needs have a decent bed.... Having refreshed myself, I climbed up to
the look-out, and found a diminutive gentleman with two ladies, one
young, the other elderly. When I was a boy I thought of nothing but
of wondrous fairy-tales, and every pretty woman with ostrich feathers
on her head I took to be a fairy-queen. If by good chance the hem of
her dress was bedraggled, I took her for a water-nymph. Had I looked
upon the fair one with those boyish eyes, had I seen her then upon the
Brocken, I should certainly have said to myself, this is the sylph of
the mountain, and she has just uttered the charm which makes all below
appear so wondrously beautiful. What relation the very lithe gentleman
bore to the ladies whom he accompanied I could not ascertain. His was a
thin peculiar figure. His little head, sparsely covered with grey hair,
which fell over his low forehead nearly to his pale greenish eyes; his
clumsy nose far protruding; his mouth and chin timidly drawing back in
the direction of his ears. This little face seemed to be modelled out
of a certain kind of delicate, yellowish clay, such as sculptors use
for their first design; and when his narrow lips were shut tight, a
thousand little folds, light and semi-circular, covered his cheeks. The
little man did not say a word, only now and then, when the elder lady
whispered something kind to him, he would smile like a pug with a cold
in his head.... While we were speaking it began to grow dusk; the air
grew chillier, the sun sank lower, and students, travelling journeymen,
and a couple of honest bourgeois with their wives and daughters,
crowded upon the platform to see the sunset. It is a marvellous sight,
tuning the soul to prayer. During a quarter of an hour we all stood
in solemn silence, and saw the gorgeous globe of fire slowly sink in
the west; our faces reflected the evening glory, our hands were folded
involuntarily; it seemed as if we stood a silent congregation in the
aisle of a cathedral, and the priest was holding up the body of the
Lord, and from the organ sounded Palestrina’s immortal anthem.
As I stood thus enwrapped in the fervour of devotion, I heard some one
calling out beside me, “How beautiful is nature on the whole!” These
words proceeded out of the overflowing breast of my room-mate, the
young merchant. I was at once landed thereby in my work-day mood, and
was now able to make a great many brilliant remarks to the ladies about
the sunset. I escorted them to their room as if nothing had happened.
I believe we talked about Angora cats, Etruscan vases, Turkish shawls,
macaroni, and Lord Byron, from whose poems the elder lady recalled
some sunset passages, which she recited with a pretty lisp and sigh.
To the younger lady, who did not know English, and expressed a wish
to read these poems, I recommended some excellent translations. Upon
this occasion I did not fail to declaim, as it is my custom to do when
conversing with young ladies, against Byron’s impiety, heartlessness,
hopelessness, and heaven knows what all.
It was the coffee’s fault that I had forgotten my pretty lady. She was
standing outside of the door with her mother and companion, preparing
to get into the carriage. There was but just time for me to step up to
her briskly and assure her that it was cold. She seemed displeased
that I had not come sooner; but I smoothed the pettish frown from
her fair brow by bestowing a wonderful flower upon her, which I had
picked the day before from a steep precipice at the danger of breaking
my neck. Her mother demanded the name of the flower, considering it
improper as it were for her daughter to wear a strange, unknown flower
upon her bosom. Her taciturn companion unexpectedly opened his mouth,
counted the stamens of the flower, and dryly remarked that it belonged
to the eighth class. It aggravates me when I see how God’s dear flowers
are parcelled off into classes as well as we, and indeed, according to
a method no less superficial--viz., the difference in the number of
stamens. If there must be subdivision, it would be well to follow the
suggestion of Theophrast, who would have flowers classified according
to their spirit--that is, their fragrance. So far as I am concerned, I
have my own system in natural science, and according to it I classify
all things--into those that are good to eat, and those that are not.
_Heinrich Heine._
_MY APPRECIATIVE FRIEND._
HE called my attention to the utility and perfect adaptation of nature.
The trees are green, it seems, because green is good for one’s eyes.
I assented, and added that God has created cattle, because broth is
strengthening to men, and that he has created asses that we might have
a means of comparison, and that he has created man himself to eat broth
and be no ass. My companion was enchanted to have found a congenial
spirit; his countenance beamed happiness, and at parting he seemed
deeply touched.
_Heinrich Heine._
“_MADAM, DO YOU KNOW THE OLD PLAY?_”
“She was lovable, and he loved her. But he was not lovable, and she
did not love him.”--_Old Play._
MADAM, do you know the old play? It is quite an extraordinary play,
only a little too melancholy. I once played the leading part in it
myself, so that all the ladies wept; only one did not weep, not even a
single tear, and that was the point of the play, the whole catastrophe.
Oh, that single tear! it still torments my thoughts. When Satan wishes
to ruin my soul, he hums in my ear a ballad of that unwept tear, a
deadly song with a more deadly tune. Ah, such a tune is only heard in
hell!
You can readily form an idea, Madam, of what life is like in heaven,
the _more_ readily as you are married. There people amuse themselves
altogether superbly, every sort of entertainment is provided, and one
lives in mere desire and delight. One eats from morning to night,
and the cookery is as good as Fagor’s; roast geese fly round with
gravy-boats in their bills, and feel flattered if any one eats them;
tarts gleaming with butter grow wild like sunflowers; everywhere there
are brooks of bouillon and champagne, everywhere trees on which napkins
flutter, and you eat and wipe your lips and eat again without injury to
your stomach; you sing psalms or flirt and joke with the dear, delicate
little angels, or take a walk on the green Hallelujah-meadow; and your
white flowing garments fit very comfortably; and nothing disturbs
the feeling of blessedness; no pain, no vexation--even when one
accidentally treads on another’s corns and exclaims, “_Excusez_,” he
smiles as if enraptured, and assures, “Thy foot, brother, did not hurt
in the least; quite _au contraire_--a deeper thrill of heavenly rapture
shoots through my heart!”
But of hell, Madam, you have no idea. Of all the devils you know
perhaps only the little Amor, the pretty croupier of hell, Beelzebub,
and you know him only from Don Juan, and doubtless think that for such
a betrayer of innocence hell can never be made hot enough, though
our praiseworthy theatre directors spend upon him as much flame,
fiery rain, powder, and colophoniam as any Christian could desire in
hell. But things in hell look much worse than our theatre directors
know, or they would not bring out so many bad plays. For in hell it
is infernally hot, and when I was there in the dog-days it was past
endurance. Madam, you can have no idea of hell! We have very few
official returns from the place. Still, it is rank calumny to say that
down there all the poor souls are compelled to read the whole day long
all the dull sermons that are printed on earth. Bad as hell is, it has
not come to that; Satan will never invent such refinements of torture.
On the other hand, Dante’s description is too mild on the whole, too
poetic. Hell appeared to me like a great kitchen, with an endless long
stove, on which stood three rows of iron pots, and in these sat the
damned and were cooked. In one row were placed Christian sinners, and,
incredible as it may seem, their number was anything but small, and
the devils poked the fire up under them with especial good-will. In
the next row were Jews, who continually screamed and cried, and were
occasionally mocked by the fiends, which sometimes seemed very amusing,
as, for instance, when a fat, wheezy, old pawnbroker complained of the
heat, and a little devil poured several buckets of cold water on his
head, that he might realise what a refreshing benefit baptism was. In
the third row sat the heathen, who, like the Jews, could take no part
in salvation, and must burn for ever. I heard one of these, as a burly
devil put fresh coals under his kettle, cry out from his spot, “Spare
me! I was Socrates, the wisest of mortals. I taught Truth and Justice,
and sacrificed my life for Virtue.” But the stupid, burly devil went
on with his work and grumbled, “Oh, shut up there! All heathens must
burn, and we cannot make an exception for the sake of a single man.”
I assure you, Madam, the heat was terrible, with such a screaming,
sighing, groaning, quacking, grunting, squealing--and through all these
terrible sounds rang distinctly the deadly tune of the song of the
unwept tear.
“She was lovable, and he loved her. But he was not lovable, and she
did not love him.”--_Old Play._
Madam, that old play is a tragedy, though the hero in it is neither
killed nor commits suicide. The eyes of the heroine are beautiful, very
beautiful. Madam, do you smell the perfume of violets?--very beautiful,
and yet so piercing that they struck like poignards of glass through my
heart, and probably came out through my back, and yet I was not killed
by those treacherous, murderous eyes. The voice of the heroine was also
sweet. Madam, did you hear a nightingale just then?--a soft silken
voice, a sweet web of the sunniest tones, and my soul was entangled
in it and choked, and tormented itself. I myself--it is the Count of
Ganges who now speaks, and the story goes on in Venice--I myself soon
had enough of these tortures, and had thoughts of putting an end to the
play in the first act, and of shooting myself through the head, fool’s
cap and all. I went to a fancy shop in the Via Burstah, where I saw a
pair of beautiful pistols in a case--I remember them perfectly well.
Near them stood many pleasant playthings of mother-of-pearl and gold,
steel hearts on gilt chains, porcelain cups with delicate devices,
and snuff-boxes with pretty pictures, such as the divine history of
Susanna, the Swan Song of Leda, the Rape of the Sabines, Lucretia,
a fat, virtuous creature, with naked bosom, in which she was lazily
sticking a dagger; the late Bethmann, _la belle Ferronière_--all
enrapturing faces--but I bought the pistols without much ado, and then
I bought balls, then powder, and then I went to the restaurant of
Signor Somebody and ordered oysters and a glass of Hock.
I could eat nothing, and still less could I drink. The warm tears fell
in the glass, and in that glass I saw my dear home, the holy, blue
Ganges, the ever-gleaming Himalaya, the giant banyan woods, amid whose
broad arcades calmly wandered wise elephants and white-robed pilgrims;
strange, dream-like flowers gazed on me with meaning glance, wondrous
golden birds sang wildly, flashing sun-rays, and the sweet, silly
chatter of monkeys pleasantly mocked me; from far pagodas sounded the
pious prayers of priests, and amid all rang the melting, wailing voice
of the Sultana of Delhi. She ran impetuously around in her carpeted
chamber, she tore her silver veil, with her peacock fan she struck the
black slave to the ground, she wept, she raged, she cried. I could
not, however, hear what she said; the restaurant of Signor Somebody
is three thousand miles distant from the harem of Delhi, besides the
fair sultana had been dead three thousand years, and I quickly drank up
the wine, the clear, joy-giving wine, and yet my soul grew darker and
sadder--I was condemned to death.
As I left the restaurant I heard the “bell of poor sinners” ring, a
crowd of people swept by me; but I placed myself at the corner of the
Strada San Giovanni, and recited the following monologue:--