all of life is but a searching, that is not what I complain of, that
is not what you should sigh about. The ethical goes without saying. An
honest fellow will search and yearn and never complain, but be happy in
the midst of this misery of an ever-rising and never-terminating line.
That is our upper storey. But what we have to take along with it, the
vexation and bother we must put up with in the lower storey of life,
that is what I am talking of. There, for instance, is the necessity of
searching, which makes you mad, nervous, insane. And, what is more, it
strands you in Atheism. The dear God sitting on high and counting the
hairs on our head, who sees me searching for my spectacles for hours at
a time, he sees the spectacles too, knows just where they are,--can you
bear it, the thought of how he must laugh? A kind, omnipotent Being!
Do you think such a one would permit the curse of colds in your head?
Alas, we are born to search, to undo knots, to sneeze and cough and
spit! Man, with a proud world within his arched brows, with his beaming
eyes, his spirit dipping into the depth and breadth of infinitude, with
his soul rising on silver wings into the heavens, with his imagination
pouring streams of golden fire over hill and vale and transforming the
image of mortality to God, with his will, the flashing sword within his
hand to adjust, to judge, to conquer, with pious patience to plant, to
cherish, and watch over the tree of life that it may grow and flourish
and bear heavenly fruit of noble culture, Man with the angelic image of
the divine and beautiful within his longing, yearning bosom,--yes, this
same Man, changed to a mollusc, his throat a grating-iron, a nest of
devils, tickling the larynx with finest needles for nights and nights,
his eyes dim, his brain heavy, dull, perturbed, his nerves poisoned,
and, with all that, not considered ill; and you say that God----!”
Here our denier of the existence of God was seized with so deplorable
a fit of sneezing and coughing that I repressed a remark I had upon my
tongue.
* * * * *
Upon entering I noticed that he cast an uneasy glance all about the
floor of the dining-hall; he seemed much relieved when in one corner
he noticed a small object which may be of service to coughing persons.
In a tone of supreme content he remarked, “This room is really very
well furnished;” and from that time he seemed to be in tolerably good
humour. As is common at the Swiss hotels, breakfast had been placed
upon the table awaiting whoever should come to partake of it, and A.
E., having pushed the butter and honey aside with some violence, helped
himself freely. We were alone in the room, but soon another tourist
entered. He was a middle-aged man, attired in a duster of unbleached
linen, with a short cape hanging over his shoulders, and carrying a
knapsack of some weight on his back. There were drops of perspiration
visible upon his brow; it appeared evident that he had walked for some
hours that morning. He laid down his burden, put his bulky umbrella
in a corner, sat down at the other end of the table, pulled his chair
up, took out his glasses, carefully looked at everything that had
been set upon the table, seemed to quite approve of the completeness
of things that go to make up an English breakfast, and then, with all
the appearance of a soul conscious that the body belonging thereto
had severely earned its breakfast, began the enjoyable task of
cutting and spreading some slices of bread. It was easy to see that
the man belonged to the class of scholars, and his pale complexion
led me to judge that he was one of those tourists who strive to make
up by pedestrian exertions for the harm they have done their bodies
throughout the year by sedentary habits.
A. E., who had meanwhile appeased his appetite, seemed to be in no
special haste to depart. He lit a cigar, and said to me, “You admit,
then, that physics is at bottom synonymous with metaphysics, the
science of the spiritual. That is, I take for granted that you admit
it, although I have not yet proved it to you philosophically, for you
have surely recognised the universal insidiousness, ay, animosity of
matter, what physical science has heretofore insipidly named the law of
gravity, statics, etc., while it is in truth to be explained merely as
demoniacal possession.”
Meanwhile the stranger had split a long roll lengthwise with dexterity
and precision, and was occupied in spreading on the butter with
great regard to perfect smoothness and evenness; he made a moment’s
pause at the last words, casting a peculiar glance from under his
bushy eye-brows over to our end of the table, and then thoughtfully
continued his plastic occupation, wagging his head now and then with an
expression of ironical surprise. The thought came to me that A. E. had
designs upon the stranger. But I concluded that it was not the case.
He had given him but a cursory glance as he entered, though it was a
glance which might be supposed to grasp the personality before him, for
his eye was wont to seize what it looked upon as if there were a strong
hand within it; at the same time there was no sign of his paying any
attention to the unknown.
“Friend,” he continued, “have you noticed how a piece of falling paper
will mock us? Are they not graceful, the sneering motions with which
it flutters back and forth? Does not every turn tell you with elegant,
voluptuous nonchalance that you are beaten? Oh, matter lies ever in
waiting. I sit down cheerfully after breakfast to begin my work, never
suspecting the enemy. I dip in my pen, there’s a hair in it; that
is the way it begins. The fiend will not come out; I get ink on my
fingers, the paper gets stained. I look for another sheet, then for a
book, and so on; in short, my blessed morning is gone. From early dawn
until late at night, so long as there is a human being about, matter is
on the alert to play him a trick. The only way to do is to treat it as
the lion-tamer does the beast whose cage he has ventured to enter--he
meets its gaze and the beast meets his. To talk about the moral power
of a human being is all nonsense, a mere fairy-tale; no, the steady
gaze only tells the brute that the man is on his guard, and gaze
against gaze the monster lurks to see if for one single moment he will
forget himself. So lurks all matter, lead-pencils, pens, inkstand,
paper, cigar, glass, lamp--all, all for the moment when you are not
watching. But, ye saints! who can ever do it? Who has time? And like
the tiger that leaps upon its unfortunate victim the moment he knows
himself to be unnoticed, so does matter, drat it! sometimes clumsily,
sometimes subtly, as the case may be. Diabolically subtle, for
instance, was the bit of iron filing that landed in my eye the morning
I was about to start out on my tour. Oh, believe me, when a respectable
person is going a-travelling all the devils hold an œcumenical council
to defeat him. But one of the favourite tricks dear to the heart of all
objects is to creep stealthily to the edge, and drop down from a height
to slip out of your hand--you forget yourself but a single moment and
there goes----”
At this moment we heard a slight sound at the end where the other man
was sitting; we saw him dodge hastily under the table, and then emerge
with an object in his hand, which he looked upon in evident distress,
and then with deep dejection. It was his roll, spread first with butter
and then with honey in the most accurate and approved manner, and, “of
course,” as A. E. would say, it had fallen upon the buttered side.
It was with a great effort that I overcame a strong desire to laugh,
for it seemed exactly as if there had been a mystic primordial relation
between his words and the disaster. A. E. glanced across the table with
perfect gravity, and gently nodded his head without a vestige of irony;
nay, rather, with an expression of sympathy, as much as to say: we poor
mortals know all about it. The stranger shot not only one but a whole
battery of venomous glances over to our side, and sullenly set to work
to produce a fit successor to the incurable roll.
A. E. continued quietly: “Then too I don’t like that business about
that _thing_, or rather the two things, that Kant called the pure form
of _à priori_ perception.”
“Space and time?”
“That’s it. What is space but an impertinent arrangement by means of
which I am forced to remove A before putting B here” (he illustrated
it with cups, dishes, and bottles, which were rather closely set upon
the table), “and to make room for A put C somewhere else, and so on _ad
infinitum_----? And time? That is what you never have for anything.
For, ye gods and little fishes! is that what we live for to have need
of ten motions for things that are not worthy of one!”
[Illustration: “WE SAW HIM EMERGE WITH AN OBJECT IN HIS HAND.”]
The stranger now shook his head with more violence, laughing
petulantly, and a vague unrest seemed to take possession of his legs.
A. E. rambled on. “At other times,” he continued, “the reverse action
takes place. Things go together that don’t belong together. Do you know
one of the most pestiferous forms of going along? When a precious sheet
belonging to manuscript A manages to become attached to manuscript B,
and slips into the wrong drawer, and declines to be found for days and
weeks and years, while you are searching for it in rage and despair
and impotent frenzy. Compared to that such a thing as the well-known
slipping under your chair of a lady’s dress is but a little playful
pleasantry on the part of the devil-ridden object, albeit it is
interesting as a fact sufficient to defeat our nonsensical science of
physics, for who could ever explain such a thing mechanically?”
Here the stranger jumped up with the exclamation, “This is too much!”
came upon us with heavy strides, planted himself firmly before A. E.,
and cried in a voice of thunder, “Sir, I would have you to know that
I am a Professor of Physics! And, moreover, you have, so to speak,
knocked my roll out of my hand!”
A. E. gave the man a long, contemplative look and was silent. Who could
tell how this was coming out? Suddenly a crimson flush came into his
face, his eyes sparkled, he jumped up, and I, not knowing my man very
well as yet, was beginning to fear for the peace, when he with enormous
strides, ay, with leaps like a panther, rushed straight across the room
towards the corner which held the article before delicately referred
to, and now followed a fit of coughing and sneezing intermingled with
strange, wild, gurgling sounds, a perfect storm of rasping, rumbling,
rattling, snarling, groaning, and barking tones; it was like a chorus
of infernal spirits. It took considerable time for this terrific
natural phenomenon to pass over; then the sufferer feebly raised his
head, seized his hat, bag, and cane, and said to me in a pitiful,
broken treble, “Will you have the goodness to appease the gentleman?
Good morning to you both.”
_Friedrich Theodor Vischer_ (1807-1889).
_HIS SERENITY WILL BUILD A PALACE._
[Illustration: “HIS HIGHNESS ADOLF FRIEDRICH IV. TREMBLED FROM TOP TO
TOE.”]
IT was in the year 1700 and something or other, on a pleasant
May day about bed-time, that his Serene Highness the Duke of
Mecklenberg-Strelitz, Adolf Friedrich, fourth of the name, and his
dear sister, the Princess Christel, were sitting side by side in
their palace telling each other true ghost stories, thrilling yarns
that nobody under the sun would have believed if they hadn’t really
happened; and they both sat shivering, more especially his Serenity
Adolf Friedrich.
Suddenly through the still summer evening there came a sound across the
lake, a most uncanny sound, a sound that none but the most masculine
ghost would be guilty of to frighten a poor mortal out of his seven
wits. With a hollow cadence long drawn out did it pass over the whole
of Neu-Strelitz, and the princely pair could not for the life of them
say whether it came from up in the air or from underneath the earth.
It was all the same anyhow, it was gruesome enough either way. His
Highness Adolf Friedrich IV. trembled from top to toe, and Princess
Christel, who was confoundedly resolute for a woman, had just enough
presence of mind left to catch hold of a silver bell and ring and
storm with might and main. Why she did it she couldn’t have told you,
but at any rate it brought human aid to the spot. Rand, the _valet
de chambre_, and Von Knüppelsdörp, the gentleman of the bed-chamber,
came rushing in to ask the why and wherefor. Princess Christel was
just able to motion the two to a chair, and so the four of them sat
staring at each other in dead silence, and none of them knew what was
the matter except that they saw his Serenity had the shivers. All at
once the sound came again, and as it was dying away over Neu-Strelitz
in its hollow weirdness Adolf Friedrich IV. clapped his hands over his
most serene ears and cried, “There it is again!” Von Knüppelsdörp,
gentleman of the bed-chamber, took the words out of the mouth of
Rand, the _valet_, on the strength of the Mecklenborgian regulations
concerning rank, and remarked, “Your Highness, it’s the bittern.” And
the Princess Christel had just enough presence of mind to ask what new
kind of spook that might be. And the gentleman of the bed-chamber
said it was no spook at all, it was only a bird that took a devilish
sort of delight in frightening honest folk by putting his beak in the
swampy ground and then bellowing like a good one. I’m sure I don’t know
whether he was right, but he ought to have known, for he was also page
of the hunt. But his Serenity did not take much stock in what he said,
and after having meditated a bit he remarked, “All good spirits praise
the Lord; and as for you, Rand, I want you to sleep with me this coming
night.” With that he left the room.
Princess Christel sat a bit longer with the gentleman of the
bed-chamber, discussing the question what potent charms she should
employ to banish the ghost for the coming night, and who should
sleep with her, for her lady-in-waiting, Caroline Soltmanns, was an
old superstitious chatterer, and at last she came to the conclusion
that it would be by far the best thing she could do to invite the
scrubbing-maid Wendula Steinhagens for the night. Wendula was a d--d
plucky person, who was not afraid of the devil nor of his Serenity the
Duke, for she had been known to say, “Hallo there, your Highness; get
out of the way, will you!” And had flourished her broom in his face.
So the princely pair had passed the night safely under the tender care
of Rand and Wendula, and were sitting at the breakfast table next
morning drinking chocolate. Then did his Serenity come forth with his
deep thoughts and remark, “Sister Christel, you are a woman, and you
know I don’t think much of ’em; but you are a member of our most serene
house, and for this reason, and on this account, I will make known to
you the measures of my government. Would you know the news? I’ll build
me a new palace on some pleasant spot in my domains.”
“That’s right, your Grace,” said she. “You are lord of the whole; but
how will the money hold out?”
“Oh, I’ve thought of all that,” said his Serenity; “but what have
I got my bailiffs for? They must help me out of the lurch, and the
workmen can wait awhile for their pay; for it is scandalous that
Serenissimus Streliziensis should have to endure a spook under his very
nose. To be sure, that fool Knüppelsdörp says it’s a bittern,--but what
is a bittern? I’ll believe anything, but to believe an explanation like
that is more than can be expected of me in my quality as sovereign
lord.”
“Rand,” he said to his _valet de chambre_, “tell Jochen Boenhas to
hitch up the gilt coach, three footmen on behind, and the two runners
to run ahead; the coachman and the footmen to put on their best livery
with the gilt tassels, and the two runners shall wear their new
flowered hats from Paris--_à la Pompadour_,” he added aside to his
sister--“for I am going on a journey through my estates.”
“Dear me, your Honour,” said Rand, “I’m afraid that won’t do, for our
old mare that goes as the off-horse has the spavin, and can’t set one
foot before the other.”
“Confound the mare!” exclaimed his Serene Highness in a burst of
displeasure. “If the mare can’t go, all you have to do is to go to our
Burgher Sachtleben and borrow one of his horses.”
“Dear me, your Honour, he won’t let us have it. This is just the
busiest time for carting manure, and it’s no wonder he can’t spare his
team.”
“Do as I bid you, Rand; we are sovereign lord.”
And Rand went, and Sachtleben gave him his old stiff bay horse to
harness on the resplendent state chariot.
Jochen Boenhas pulled up before the door with his gilt coach, three
lackeys jumped up behind one after the other, the two runners floated
along the street; Rand sat on the box, and his Serene Highness and
sister Christel sat inside the coach.
“Where to?” asked Jochen Boenhas.
“Straight ahead,” said Rand; “over beyond Stargard, up to our
boundary-line; but don’t for the life of you drive over the line, for
we are only going to travel through our own domain.”
And Jochen Boenhas drove through Stargard and through Frieland up to
the Prussian line, and pulled up his horses: “Whoa, whoa I say! Here we
are at the end!”
[Illustration: “SACHTLEBEN GAVE HIM HIS OLD STIFF BAY HORSE.”]
And his Serene Highness gave orders to drive to the east over Woldegk;
and when they had passed Woldegk and reached Wolfshagen, Jochen
Coachman turned around once more on his old horse and said, “Rand,
here’s the end again, we can’t go any further.”
And Princess Christel, who had overheard it, said: “Your Grace, this
is the first time I have travelled through our estates; I’d never have
thought it was such a short way.”
“Christel,” said his Serene Highness, “you’re a woman, and you don’t
know much. What do you suppose? There’s a good lot more toward noon.
Feldberg and Mirow and Fürstenberg, all that is in my domain, and then
beyond Mirow there’s quite a lengthy bit stretching into our neighbour
Schwerin’s possessions that makes a good show.”
“Nay, your Highness,” said Rand, who had overheard, “it doesn’t make
much of a show, for the sand just pours into a person’s eyes, as _I_
ought to know, for I was born and bred there.”
His Serene Highness very nearly lost his temper at Rand’s foolish
twaddle. He leaned far out of the gilt coach, and called out: “Jochen
Boenhas, we’ll go home now! And to-morrow we’ll take the Fürstenberg
hemlock grove and Mirow.”
And it was done exactly as his Serene Highness had said, for he was a
high-spirited prince, and when he had once said, “I say!” then sure
enough he _had_ said it.
So the next day they went beyond Fürstenberg to the hemlock grove,
and when Rand turned to look into the carriage and say, “Your Grace,
here we are at the end again,” then his Serenity looked sinister, and
shouted “Wesenbarg!” to console himself; but in spite of Wesenbarg, he
came back to Neu-Strelitz in an utterly discontented spirit, and Rand
and sister Christel stood in the hall together, shaking their heads and
saying, “Where will this end?”
And the evening and the morning were the third day, and his Highness
did not reign during that night, for he slept. The bitterns kept
silent, and all the ghosts that had of late taken to haunting the
palace at Neu-Strelitz had their off-night.
The next morning the _valet de chambre_ came down to the princess
and said: “Thank goodness! we have slept in peace for one night, and
reigned right along without let or hindrance, and to-day we are going
to travel westward, toward Neu-Brandenburg, and that finishes up the
whole business.”
And Princess Christel said, “The Lord be praised! Then he will have
peace; he is too ambitious a prince.” And three hours later they passed
the inn near Neu-Brandenburg, and Sachtleben’s old bay horse, having
got to the end of his rope, one of the innkeeper’s horses was hitched
up, and his Serene Highness walked up and down before the door, and
looked across the sunny lake over to the woods of Broda, and said to
his sister Christel in High German--for the innkeeper’s wife stood
near, and he must needs show her his Serenity at its finest--
“What say you, Princess? Shall we build our Belvedere on the other side
of this pleasant lake?”
Princess Christel was about to reply, but Rand intercepted her and
said--
“Your Highness is always right; of course we’ll have a Bellmandur! All
people of degree have a Bellmandur except us!”
And his Serene Highness said: “Rand is right.” And so they drove into
Neu-Brandenburg.
Having reached this pearl of his possessions, and coming up in fine
style on the market-place, he called out of the gilt carriage: “Rand,
tell Jochen Boenhas to stop!” And with that he and his sister Christel
descended from the coach, and Rand from the box, and the three lackeys
from their seat, and the two runners stood panting.
And then said his Serene Highness Adolf Friedrich IV.: “This suits us
right well, and here we will build our palace!”
Her Highness Sister Christel opened her mouth to say something, but
his Highness the liege lord took the words out of her mouth and said:
“Princess Christel, what more would your Grace have? Are you still
critical? Look yonder.” For the time being he was surrounded by a
circle of his most devoted subjects, and though these were mostly small
street urchins, he felt constrained thereby to speak High German to his
sister. “Look, yonder, by the side of the mansion-house, we’ll put it
up.”
And Princess Christel said: “_Cela me convient!_ And I hope your
Highness will have a couple of wings put on, and I will go and live in
one of them.”
“That’s just what you won’t do, Sister Christel,” said his most Serene
Highness, turning on his heel. “Don’t make plans, and then they won’t
miscarry! I don’t want any womankind with their chit-chat and nonsense
in this new palace. I’ve had a deal too much of that at Neu-Strelitz.
Rand!” he called; “go and find the two Burgomasters; and you,” he said
to two of the footmen, “go and cite the aldermen; tell them _I_ wish
to consult them, _I_, their liege lord. You are to stay here,” he said
to the third lackey; “it will not do to strip ourselves entirely of
attendance.”
And thereupon he walked up and down with his sister, and did not so
much as notice that she made a wry face and protruded her nether-lip;
and the lackey trotted behind them.
_Fritz Reuter_ (1810-1874).
_HIS SERENITY AND THE THUNDER-STORM._
ON his way to school the Konrektor felt so cheery and good-natured that
his pupils might have expected to have a good day. As he stepped into
the schoolroom he had the pleasant surprise of seeing a complete Roman
battle before him, which his precious boys were carrying out in honour
of Livy, and probably to give him an unexpected pleasure, and the noise
they made was as natural as if the room were full of genuine Roman
soldiers and genuine horses.
It was all very well for the boys, but it was not quite befitting
the quiet which is supposed to reign in a schoolroom; nor was it the
best means of allaying the flushed spirits of a schoolmaster who had
his own private troubles to contend with. The Herr Konrektor sat down
on his platform, opened his Homer, and when the noise had somewhat
subsided, he gave vent to his ire: “Now listen, you dunces; first learn
something, then you’ll be better able to play heroes! Last time we
stopped just before the splendid passage where Hector said good-bye to
his dear wife Andromache, and she exhorts him--
“Δαιμόνιε, says she; φθισει σε τὸ σὸν μένος, οὐδ’ἐλεαιρεις, says she;
but it’s hardly worth while to read anything so fine to you
scatterbrained dolts. παῑδά τε νηπίαχον, says she; και ἒμ ἂμμορον,
ἣ τάχα χὴρη, says she. Karl Wendt, confound you, if you don’t stop
talking I’ll stand you up by my platform, and then it’ll be _my_
turn to have a talk with you. σεῦ ἔσομαι, says she, τὰχα γάρ σε
κατακτανέουσιν Ἀχαιοὶ πάντες ἐρορμηφθέντες, says she; ὲμοὶ δέ κε
κέρδιον εἴη σεῦ ἀραμαρτοῦση, and so on, says she.--Langnickel, you
begin.”
And Langnickel cleared his throat once or twice and nudged his
neighbours right and left with his elbows, as much as to say: “Fellows,
help me; I’m in an awful fix.”
“Well,” said the Konrektor, “how long before you’re ready?
Δαιμόνιε--what does that mean?”
“_Oh, thou monster!_” said Langnickel, looking at the Herr Konrektor
very doubtfully to see what he would say.
“It’s more likely you are a monster. The next, go on,” said the
Konrektor, pointing to Karl Siemsen. “Well, Karl! Eh? the word’s not
easy; how do we call a fellow that can do more than ordinary folks?”
“A Tausendsasa,” said Karl.
“Well, I never! We may say that for a joke, but do you suppose Hector’s
wife felt much like joking just then? Nay, she is scolding him. You
madcap you, says she, bridle your pluck! says she. Have you no pity
for your little boy--she means her little Astyanax that she has on her
arm,--and for poor luckless me, says she, who will soon enough be a
widow? For how long will it be? says she, before the Archæans pitch
in on you and kill you, and what is left to me but sorrow when I sit
here without you? says she. Well, here I am translating the whole of
Homer for you. Go ahead, Karl Siemsen!” he exclaimed, then the door was
opened, and one of his Serene Highness’s lackeys came in.
“Herr Konrektor, his Highness wants to know if you think we’ll get a
thunder-storm to-day?”
Now this was the last straw for the Konrektor’s patience. He turned
upon the fellow in a mad choler and shouted, “Yes! Go and tell his
Highness we’ll get seven.”
“Seven?” asked the lackey, looking blank and walking toward the door,
and the Konrektor called after him: “Yes, seven! Tell him we’ll get
seven!”
The first lesson was over and the second had begun; it was Latin, and
there was Virgil’s _Bucolica_ to translate.