now he was quite sure there was a storm coming up; his pupils had taken
a look at his face, and they also knew for sure that there was a storm
brewing; they were only doubtful where the lightning would strike. This
question was about to be solved in a drastic manner when his Serenity
sent the lackey once more:
“Herr Konrektor, his Highness wants you to come to him at once. The
storm is coming mighty fast.”
“Tell his Highness,” cried the Konrektor in a rage, and was about to
add, “to remember me to his grandmother,” but he recalled himself and
said: “First I must be through school, then I’ll come.”
At the palace things had gone on queerly enough for a while; his most
Serene Highness walked up and down in his apartments with pale cheeks,
as if he were the walking ghost of the deceased Henry of the Three
Oaks; the footmen stood in the corners and along the walls silent and
fearful like the stage mimes when Dame Macbeth walks about washing her
hands; the gentleman of the bed-chamber, Von Knüppelsdörp, carefully
bolted all the windows and doors, and looked as if he were gagged.
“Rand,” called his Highness in an undertone, “smoke is a good
conductor. Are all the fires put out?”
“Yes, your Highness, all except the kitchen--you know the dinner has to
be cooked.”
“We shall not dine to-day. Tell them to throw water on the fire.”
“Dear me, your Highness,” Rand began, for fast-days were not much to
his taste, not even when there was a thunder-storm.
“Do you hear what I say?” cried his Highness with such alacrity that he
frightened himself.
“And there shall be no bells pulled; the sound is a good conductor,” he
added in a lower tone.
“The sound, your Highness?”
“Confound you, fool! I--I say! It _might_ draw, you know!” whispered
his Highness snappishly.
“Humph,” said Rand to himself, looking out of the window with one eye,
“we can afford to be cross; the storm isn’t high yet; later on we’ll be
more polite.”
“Goodness me,” said his Highness nervously, “why doesn’t the Konrektor
come?”
“Good gracious! what good is the Konrektor? He’s no more able to----”
“He _must_ be able to, he _must_! Here, get these buckles off from my
shoes; metal is a good conductor. Is all in order in my cabinet?”
“Yes,” growled Rand, looking at the floor while trying to take the
buckles off, “we’ve put up all the mummery, and the carpenter says it
looks for all the world like a birdcage.”
“Gracious goodness! Did you hear that? Did you hear it, I say? It’s
here already! Where can the Konrektor be? I am going into my cabinet.
Send for the Konrektor. Don’t go so fast! Don’t go so fast! The
lightning will catch. Oh, goodness me!” he said quite tremulously; “and
here I am calling so loud!”
The lackey met the Konrektor on the market-place, the door was opened,
just a trifle, according to the Duke’s orders, so that there should be
no draught, and the Konrektor crowded in with his fox-tail and the rest
of it. He now entered his Highness’s cabinet, and the sight he saw put
him at first quite out of countenance. For a moment he stood bewildered
in the door, and stared into the cabinet open-mouthed, then all at once
he broke into a perfect roar of laughter.
“What the devil have we here? Begging your Grace’s pardon! But what in
the name of goodness can this mean?”
[Illustration: “HE BROKE INTO A PERFECT ROAR OF LAUGHTER.”]
And Rand laughed too, and said, “Ay, you may well say so!”
I don’t know but what I should have forgotten the dutiful respect I
owed his most Serene Highness if I had been called upon to behold
what the Konrektor beheld. Right in the middle of the room there was
a small platform resting on the necks of bottles, on top of that a
sort of pavilion made of glass that came down to the floor, and roofed
over with a light-blue silk tent, that looked like a parasol for
fifteen persons, and in this remarkable affair sat his Highness in
his innocent terror, clothed in a yellow silk dressing-gown, with a
green silk nightcap on his head, and with a pair of shoes on his feet
varnished with red sealing-wax. He looked for all the world like a
handsome canary with a green top-knot, that had been put in a cage to
sing a sweet song; and he might have begun singing at any moment if
only he had felt less down at the mouth.
In his quality as sovereign lord he would doubtless have sung a right
testy little song at the Konrektor for laughing, the more so as he had
a crow to pick with him anyway for his matrimonial intentions,[6] had
not a sudden stroke of lightning interrupted his Highness’s sing-song.
“What nonsense are you----?” and now came the lightning, and he clapped
his silk handkerchief over his eyes--“Mercy on us!” and he peeped out
from behind the handkerchief, listening for the thunder, and when it
came he stopped up his ears and exclaimed again, “Mercy on us!”
The Konrektor had stopped laughing by this time, and examined the cage
from before and behind, and his Highness looked at him in an uncertain
way, and asked at last--
“Well, what do you say? Will it do? Glass, silk, and”--here he raised
one of his legs--“here is sealing-wax; and I have had everything taken
out that’s made of metal.”
“Ay,” said the Konrektor, “I dare say it’s all right, your Highness;
what man can do has been done; but, begging your pardon, the gold
ducal crown that’s up on top of the throne you are sitting on you’ve
forgotten.”
“Didn’t I tell you so? Didn’t I tell you so? That ass, Rand. Oh, mercy
on us!” for it lightened again.
“Sheep-headed fool, you! bring another chair! I don’t want any ducal
honours. When there’s such a storm as this I’m no more than another
man--mercy on us!” and he held his hands over his ears. “Eh, Konrektor?”
The Konrektor said he believed it; but the throne with the crown on it
might stay there; they could wrap up the crown in a silk handkerchief.
After that his Highness ordered Rand to go out and take a look at the
weather. Rand did it, and came back: “The storm is over, but there’s
another one all ready to burst, and it looks mighty grim.”
“Rand, bring another chair in my weather-temple for the Konrektor.”
“Oh, your Highness,” said the Konrektor, “I don’t need to come in.”
“Ay, but _I_ need you in here; but you can’t come in like that; you’ll
drag in the lightning. Rand, another silk dressing-gown and nightcap,
and the red-waxed shoes!”
Resistance was useless, he had to give in; and in a short time he stood
there in a black nightcap and a bright orange bed-gown and red shoes;
and he stood like a sorcerer in olden times, who might be supposed to
have changed an unfortunate prince into a canary-bird, and put him
into a glass-box, where it was likely he would have to stay for ever,
for naught but the sweet kiss of a beauteous fairy upon his beak could
ransom him, and his Highness was possessed of a holy horror of kissing,
and there was no beauteous fairy near, for Rand, who was the only other
person about, could not possibly figure as such.
When the old sorcerer sat beside his enchanted victim, his Highness
ordered Rand out, because the exhalations of so many persons might draw
the lightning, but told him to put his head in at the door from time
to time and give the news concerning the weather; and Rand was quite
willing, for now he could run over to the baker’s wife and have some
talk.
“What say you, Konrektor? Is it safe now?” asked his Highness.
“Ay, so far as I can see.”
“But is it _quite_ safe?”
“Well, your Highness, what man can do has been done; but what are
mortal measures against the will of our Lord God?”
“That’s what I say,” exclaimed his Highness; “that fool the carpenter
was to have made it round, and he made it square. Corners always draw
lightning.”
“What good would that do? If our Lord God sees best He can blow away
the whole of Neu-Brandenburg in a moment. Think of Sodom and Gomorrah.”
“Goodness gracious! Yes, I know it, I----” Just here Rand put his head
in at the door: “There’s another one coming, and the baker’s wife
says----”
“Fool, I don’t want to know what that impertinent woman says.”
Rand retired. “That woman has a lot to say; she says too--goodness
gracious! she says you are going to get married, Konrektor. But I
forbid you. I’ll never set eyes on you again. I’d banish you from
court.”
“I esteem your Highness as my liege lord,” said the Konrektor, quietly
getting up, “but whether I marry or don’t marry ought to be all the
same to you, and I wont brook interference from any man. If you want
to banish me from court you can do it, that’s in your power; but I can
also go of my own free will, that’s in my power. I have the honour of
bidding you farewell.”
“Mercy on us! Do stay here; you’re the only comfort I have. Oh,
goodness gracious!”
Here Rand put his head in at the door.
“Your Highness, this one is going to be pretty bad; the storm can’t
come across the lake, and the baker’s wife says----”
“You hare-brained dolt, I don’t want to know what she says. Shut the
door and bolt it on the outside, so that he can’t get out.”
“Well, your Highness,” said the Konrektor, taking off his sorcerer’s
habit and donning his own honest coat, “you can hold me by force--that
was a terrific clap!”
“Mercy on us!--yes, that it was. Do come in here again.”
“Nay, your Highness, I’m not afraid of lightning,” said the staunch old
fellow, and gave his liege lord a quiet look. “I fear God, my judge,
when I stand before Him as a miserable sinner, but I do not fear God,
my father, for He knows what is good for me, and if He calls me to
Himself by a stroke of lightning and without any suffering, then I know
that it was an act of mercy, and I thank Him for it.”
There was another awful clap, lightning and thunder falling almost
simultaneously, and his Serene Highness screamed aloud.
“Konrektor, I’ll grant ye a favour. What shall it be?”
“I need only God’s favour; I don’t need any man’s favour, for all he
may be a prince. Princely favour is the crutch that lame justice leans
on, and when princes are gracious they are either trying to make up for
past injustice and reap thanks for it, or they are about to commit some
new injustice.”
“You’re growing mighty bold. I’ll show you what princely disfavour is!”
shouted his Highness in sore ire, for there had been no thunder for
some time. “I’ll show you----”
Then Rand put in his head. “Your Highness, the lightning struck a
poplar on the embankment, the baker’s wife says, and there’s another
storm coming up.”
“Konrektor, do think up something that will help us!”
“How can _I_ think up anything, your Highness. At such times when our
Lord God is nearer than at others it is best to examine ourselves
closely, and think of all the wrong one has done, and firmly resolve
to undo it--that will give us courage and comfort.”
“There is no man I have ever wronged,” exclaimed his Highness hastily;
but the storm was drawing nigh, and he covered his face with his
handkerchief once more, and cried, “Goodness gracious!”
“Well, your Highness, I imagine it’s much the same with you as it is
with the rest of us; or is that no wrong when you imprison your courier
Halsband for no fault of his?”
“My courier? He is my servant; how can a prince--mercy on us!--how can
a prince be in the wrong against his own servant?” And again there
was a flash of lightning, and his Highness disappeared behind his
handkerchief. “Mercy on us! Let him go! Let the fellow go!”
“Ay, your Highness, that’s all very good; but you must take the
disgrace off from his shoulders as well.”
“Mercy on us!” cried his Highness, stopping his ears because of the
thunder. “I’m to ask his pardon, am I? No, no! The fellow----”
Rand appeared. “This will be a good one.”
“Run and let Halsband out of prison,” said his Highness.
“And,” said the Konrektor, “give me pen and ink, and some paper.”
“Here is paper and pen; but our ink is dried up. We’re not much given
to writing, except when the cashier is here.”
“That’s a fact,” said his Highness. “Mercy on us! Go and buy some ink
immediately.” The ink came, and the Konrektor wrote.
“Good gracious,” said his Highness to himself, “how can the fellow
write in this storm!”
The Konrektor got him to sign it.
“Don’t you feel a vast deal better,” he said, “after this good deed?”
“Not a bit of it,” said his Highness; “first the storm must be over.”
The sky was clearing. Rand’s head appeared again. “Now it’s all over;
the baker’s wife says we had seven storms.”
His Highness took breath once more, and said to himself, “Seven storms!
And he knew it before, the insolent old fellow, with his confounded
speeches! What becomes of the deference due to the prince from his
subject, I’d like to know? But I can’t do without him; he’s too well
posted about the weather.”
_Fritz Reuter._
_THE LIEUTENANT’S DINNER._
COMING home to his bachelor quarters one day, Lieutenant Karfunkelstein
found a note of invitation upon his library table. As he took it up
and examined it, his chagrin was almost too great for his dignified
self-possession. Frau von Diamant was known all over the town for her
good dinners, and he, poor fellow, had orders to march in an hour.
Moreover, to aggravate matters, the widow was the lady of his heart.
He would have liked nothing better than to spend an hour or two in her
company, and have the added gratification of dining most sumptuously.
But there was no help for it. Love and hunger must both be set aside
as a malignant fate had decreed. He must march, and no amount of
railing at destiny would improve matters, however it might ease his
much-enduring temper. So he called his man Joching, and entrusted to
him his painful message of regrets to the widow. “And Joching, are you
sure you understand?” “To be sure I do, sir!” replied good Joching
dutifully, departing therewith on his errand. It occurred to the
lieutenant then that before his march he might partake of a meal to be
sent from his hotel. Opening the window hastily, he called after the
departing Joching, “When you come back bring my dinner with you.”
And Joching reached the lady’s house. “Well, Joching, what have you to
tell me?” “Best compliments from my master to your gracious ladyship.
And as for the Herr Lieutenant, he cannot come to dine to-day, for in
little more than an hour the troop must march to Woldegk.”
“Ah, what a shame. I’m sorely grieved!”
And Joching still did not move from the spot; he stood twisting his
cap and wringing it between his knuckles. The lady asks him why he
does not go. “The dinner,” says he; “I was to take it with me.” Well,
she was a right jolly woman who did not take a joke amiss, and quickly
said, “Stay, in a minute you shall have it.” And in less time than
it takes to tell it, she had a portly basket filled and placed on
Joching Pacsel’s arm. He trotted off therewith, nothing loath. The Herr
Lieutenant was waiting for him, and sat down with a surly look. “Well,”
he said, “now for it. The everlasting pork and mutton, I suppose. Ah,
to be invited to dine most exquisitely with a superb woman, and then
to be condemned to eat hotel stuff!” But soon his humour took another
turn. The dinner truly was not bad, what with meats and pastry, ices
and dainties, not to mention a bottle of champagne. It was a dinner
fit for any man, and most especially for a man about to march and meet
pale Death. With vain surmises did he try to solve the riddle of this
unlooked-for excellence, and turning to his servant, asked if there
were a wedding or a christening at his wonted eating-house. “Nay,” says
good Joching, “that’s from her.” “Where did you say you got it?” asked
the Herr Lieutenant. “I got it from Frau von Diamant, sir, as you bade
me do.” It was worth something to hear the Herr Lieutenant then; to
hear him rave and tear, and swear that honest Joching was the greatest
ass that ever walked upon two legs. As time goes on, however, even a
lieutenant’s rage blows over, and he, being quite cooled down by this
time, drew his purse, and taking three thalers therefrom, spoke thus
to Joching, “Here are three thalers; do you see them, lout? Take the
money and go at once to the nearest pastry-cook’s. Do you understand
me, fool?” “Yes, Herr Lieutenant,” said honest Joching. “And there you
buy a tart, the finest that the shop holds, and then you go and take
it to the house where I was asked to dine. Tell Madam Diamant that you
are noted for a fool, and would she kindly overlook your error; and
if the tart but taste one-half as good to her as did her roast and
confects to me, ’twill give me pleasure more than I can tell. Now, do
you understand it, stupid fellow?”
[Illustration: “SHE HAD A PORTLY BASKET FILLED.”]
“Ay, sir,” said Joching Pacsel.
And Joching went and brought the tart to the lady. “Best compliments
from the Herr Lieutenant to the gracious Frau von Diamant----”
“What is it you bring me now?”
“And says he’s long been noted for a fool----”
“Tut, tut,” the lady said, “we know all that.”
“So please forgive him then, and here’s a tart, and eating it will give
you pleasure more than you can tell.”
Madam, after recovering from a hearty laugh, then said: “Well, tell
your master we will talk about that at some future time, and here is
for your trouble.”
She laid a thaler in his hand, and hoped that now he would leave her in
peace. But no, Joching stood quite still, and held his hand up to his
face, and gave a furtive peep at it again and again, as if this were
the first and only thaler he had ever seen.
“Why do you stand there? What is it you are waiting for?” the lady
asked, at last struck by his manner. “Your difficulties are all
straightened now.”
“Nay,” said good Joching doubtfully, “this is but one; the tart alone
cost three.”
_Fritz Reuter._
_THE HIGHER ALTRUISM._
“GOOD morning to you, apothecary. Tell me now, do you know of aught
that’s good for headache day?”
[Illustration: “SMELL OF THIS BOTTLE AS HARD AS E’ER YOU CAN.”]
“My lad, it is a sore complaint that; one of the worst of ills that
flesh is heir to. Well, sit you down a bit. Are you from the manor?”
“Yes, sir; I’m one of the farm-servants there.”
“And do the headache days come often?”
“Well, no, but when they do they come bad.”
“We’ll soon manage them, my lad. Come here now, and first shut both
your eyes. There, that is right. Now, quick; smell of this bottle as
hard as e’er you can.”
The fellow did precisely as he said. First shut his eyes and smelled
right heartily of what was in the bottle; and with a heavy thud he
fell from off his chair. And as he was beginning to come to, says the
apothecary, “Now, my lad, tell me is your headache day now gone?”
“Oh, sir, it’s not of me that I was talking. It’s our young lady has
her headache day.”
_Fritz Reuter._
_MY PICTURES._[7]
SO I took to painting, and particularly to making portraits. My old
friend G---- was the first to have his turn. I sketched him from
the right and from the left, from the front and from the back, in
lead-pencil and in black crayon, and then in colours, once with a
sky-blue background, once with clouds wrapped about him, and once in a
lovely pink light, as if the sun were setting. That piece made me a lot
of trouble, and when it was done it didn’t look like it.
When G. was used up it was the Herr Inspector’s turn. The likeness
was to be for his betrothed, so I had to idealise him a bit, and put
a pleasant and winning expression on him. It was hard enough, but I
fetched it at last. As good luck would have it, he had a long nose,
which is always a piece of luck for a beginner. I seized him by that,
and when I had it, all the rest had to come after whether it would
or no. But how about the pleasantness and the winning expression? I
managed that beautifully; I screwed up his eyes a bit, puffed out his
cheeks in one place, pulled up the corners of his mouth a quarter of
an inch, and made a couple of regular little folds there, so that it
looked like a button-hole that a careful tailor has fastened well at
the right and left.
[Illustration: “AS GOOD LUCK WOULD HAVE IT, HE HAD A LONG NOSE.”]
The portrait brought me much honour. In the delight of his heart the
Inspector showed it to my comrades, and now they all wanted to be
painted. With all sorts of devices we wheedled the Inspector into
letting one or two of my friends come in to me. My painter’s work-shop
was as good as any other; the light came from above, and it was the
coolest north-light a painter could wish to have. Besides, I had an
advantage over and above my colleagues in the art: the people that sat
to me were used to sitting still, and could stand it for any length of
time, and when I shoved my table up close upon them, and G. moved his
chair to within half a foot of theirs, they sat as in a vice, and there
was no escaping; they had to bear it.
Here I’ll have to confess that during this time I sinned more than once
against the image of God; I painted faces that never were, and never
could be, and I painted them with colours that don’t occur anywhere
else in life. The black-headed ones I managed to do to my satisfaction,
but when a flaxen-head happened along then it was pretty bad. I had
got the habit--more’s the pity--of shading flaxen hair with green, and
as I was given to working over the face pretty freely with sienna, my
flaxen-haired portraits seen at a little distance looked for all the
world like a pine-apple, especially when it so happened that there was
a green coat below.
My pictures were mostly sent to old fathers and mothers, or sisters and
brothers, for their birthday or for Christmas; and if any of these good
folks should be alive now, I will take this opportunity of asking their
forgiveness if I gave them a fright for the holidays about the looks of
their relatives. I know that my old father wrote me, when I sent him my
own portrait, which was very like, that it gave him a heart-sinking to
see how horribly I had changed.
Be that as it may, it gave us the opportunity of visiting each other,
and though D. did not take kindly to this innovation, and threw a wet
blanket over our enterprise whenever he could, he always relented a
little after a fresh pound of tobacco; and when I caught him helping
himself from the box of cigars that a good friend in Lübeck had sent
to my friend G., and when the Major in person wanted to be painted by
me, then his severity disappeared, and he walked up and down the long
corridor like a cherubim that has put his flaming sword into the sheath
for fear he might scorch his wing-feathers.
Painting the portrait of the Major was the crown of my artistic
activity at M. I was invited to leave my cell and betake myself to the
Inspector’s room, for here the great feat was to be accomplished. I
came with all of my artistic belongings. I had mounted a sheet that had
a remarkably fine greenish tint, and all my pastels were sharp; but
as I stepped into the room I stood aghast, for my fine skylight that
I had grown accustomed to was missing--the room had a large natural
window. I began by taking the Major around into all the corners to find
the right light, but it was all wrong until we tied the blanket from
off the Inspector’s bed to the lower part of the window.
Unfortunately the Major had flaxen hair and no eyebrows, and I, poor
fellow, had a way of always beginning with the eyebrows. What now? At
other times I would daub in a pair of eyebrows first and then hitch
on the nose, long or short, as it might happen to be. But what now?
He had no eyebrows, and I had nothing to begin on, and his nose was,
from an artist’s point of view, but so-so at best. I had measured all
the proportions, but there seemed to be no way of getting out of my
difficulty. I must needs begin, and I must needs have something _hairy_
to begin on. I was too completely wedded to the habit, so I began with
the moustache.
I never regretted it; and if one of my colleagues in the trade should
ever find himself in a similar fix he may confidently follow my
example, for it was not long before the Inspector, who was looking over
my shoulder all the time, said that it was going to be very like, and
the man was something of a connoisseur, and had trustworthy opinions on
the subject, for he had often watched me, and had been educated up to
the point by my pictures.