are to be prevailed upon mainly by flattery; and that a good head is
not a necessary equipment for flattery and courtship is a well-known
fact. But the handsome gardener’s apprentice had nothing that was at
all available in his curly pate, and it must be admitted that nothing
at all is too little. He was sweet as a fig-pudding. When he went out
most of his button-holes were decked out with roses and rosebuds. If it
looks pretty to wear one rose, as others do, he would argue, it must
improve the effect to wear a number. His hair was made smooth and shiny
with lard, and above each ear he would plaster it on each temple in
a delicate crescent, like a Vienna dandy. He always chose bright and
striking colours for his neckties, and tied them into knots, with long
ends gracefully flowing. This as an indication of originality, and to
attract the girls. But instead of the girls, the turkeys ran at him,
and chased him with cackling vindictiveness through the village.
In associating with men, he was rather helpless, and he avoided them
as much as might be, because they either chaffed him or ignored him,
according as their mood was frolicsome or serious. Toward women he
put on his most gracious mien, and oftentimes he would secretly sigh,
“Ah, if I had a wife! if I only could get a wife!” For a long time he
could not make out the reason for his desire, but at last his feeling
consolidated into a point, and then it grew into a thought, and he
gradually became conscious why it was that he wanted a wife. He could
then say to his tormentors, “You may laugh as much as you please. Here
is one who will have me!” And there was one in particular before whose
countenance he would melt like butter in the sun.
That was Liese, the farm-maid. She was the most blooming lass in the
valley, and he set a wistful eye upon her.
And Blindschleicher confided his troubles to his friend the watchman,
as they walked through the silent village one night. “Man,” he
lamented, “never was there such ill luck as mine. You wouldn’t believe
it. I’m head over ears in love with the lass, and there’s no help for
it.”
“Why don’t you take her, then?” said the watchman.
“Take her, fool! when she won’t so much as look at you!”
“She needn’t look at _me_. My old woman is firmly yoked to me.”
“But it is at _me_ that she might look,” said Blindschleicher. “When I
think of all the trouble I go to to make myself agreeable! And as for
her--when I say to her, ‘Liese, good morning, Liese!’ she turns on her
heel; and when I say, ‘How bonny you are, Liese!’ she says, ‘How clever
you are, lad!’”
“Well, don’t that please you?” said the watchman.
“How can it please me, when she goes on to say ‘she will only take a
fool.’ She’s a vixen, is Liese! And when I give her a rose, and say,
‘You look just like it, you are as pink, and you are as sweet, and you
are as thorny!’ she takes the pretty blossom out of my hand, and gives
it to the goat to eat.”
“Blindschleicher,” said the watchman in a low tone, “you’re on the
wrong track to get a wife.”
“I am sick at heart,” said the gardener’s apprentice, and he looked it
and hung his head. “Time and time again have I said to her, ‘Precious
Liese, darling Liese, you are like butter and honey; I could eat you up
for love. I will kiss your feet, and you may tread upon me. There is
nothing you could do that would hurt me,’ I said. ‘You may put your
arms tight around my neck, and smother me with your cheek; it would
not hurt me. You are like a heavenly paradise to me. I can do a great
deal of fine talking when I once get started. Think of the ardour of my
youthful blood,’ I said.”
“And what did she reply?”
“‘Go to the barber and get bled,’ she answered. ”Oh, she is a stone,
man; she is a stone.”
“Be comforted, lad,” said the watchman, who was a kind and experienced
man. “If she is a stone, we will manage her. Stones cannot be raised by
whining and pining, good friend. When there is a stone on the ground
you must loosen it first by a sharp knock, then you can lift it. Do you
understand?”
“What do you mean? Shall I run into her to shake her loose?”
“Not so fast, my lad. There is such a thing as a simile you must know.
Supposing, for instance, I say you are an ass, you must not take it in
dead earnest, but merely as a means of comparison.”
“Yes, yes,” said Blindschleicher. “When I hear you talk like that I
understand you well. You are not rude like the others, and you are my
best friend. But if I could but have Liese!”
“Women,” said the watchman with an air of superior knowledge, standing
still and leaning upon his long staff, “women are the most peculiar
among God’s creatures. The first human being did sorry credit to his
creator, as is apt to be the case when you’re a new hand at making
things. It turned out a plain wooden man. But the second human
being--the second, you see, was much more of a success. It turned
out to be something very different from the man, much finer, so much
finer. The truth is, man is the job of an apprentice; woman shows the
touch of a master. I understand women; ah, I understand them! An old
watchman like me, who has his eyes open every hour of the night, knows
a thing or two, good friend. If you cannot win them with dainties and
fine manners, remember that it isn’t every bird that can be caught
with sugar. Try some other way; do something to offend her. Not in any
faint-hearted, playful way, but seriously and thoroughly; do something
to her that will make her think of you, and that will give her pain
when she thinks of you. Soon she will stop teasing you and looking upon
you with disdainful indifference. Perhaps she will hate you; but, my
friend, you must know that hatred is a good deal nearer to love than
indifference is. There is many a tale I could tell you of how love
began with anger and pain. That’s what I meant about loosening the
stone. There is nothing like the harsh, reckless deed of a man to make
an impression. Try it; you can’t lose anything.”
Blindschleicher went his way and made extensive preparations to think
out this new idea. For hours he walked by the side of the brook, but
how can we catch hold of an idea when the water is making so much
noise! He stole across the fields, but there the crickets disturbed
him, or a dark, mysterious figure would rise up in front of him which,
for all he knew, might be a ghost. To be sure the schoolmaster had
said to him, “Blindschleicher, I pledge you my word, you are safe from
ghosts!” But then, who knows! It seems wicked enough to be thinking
out something in the silent night wherewith to offend one’s beloved.
“Wicked or not wicked, if I could but make her have me!”
It was not until he was pulling off his boots in his own room that
various more or less attractive devices occurred to him by means of
which he might offend her. When he was in bed he discarded them one by
one. He thought he could hurt her most deeply by going up to her and
saying, “Liese, you do not love me; farewell for ever, I go to die!”
He was quite stupefied by the power of this thought. It gave the poor
fellow a headache, and the next morning when he got up, and the sun
shone brightly upon the flowers of the garden, he felt that this would
not do, and he said to himself, “Best say nothing about dying.”
This selfsame day was a Sunday, so he donned his tight grey pantaloons,
a yellow flowered vest, with the ends of a cherry-coloured necktie
fluttering over it, put rosebuds in all of the button-holes of his
blue jacket, arranged the two little greased crescents of hair neatly
upon his cheeks, bestowed due care upon his sprouting moustache, and a
look in the mirror convincing him that he was irresistible, his heart
swelled with happy forebodings.
It was with solemn feelings that he walked through the shady alley
to church; this very afternoon he would try to meet Liese, and would
carry out his purpose of mortally offending her. She would weep, she
would pout; he would ask her forgiveness, and then their relation would
appear altogether in a new light. Should these extremest measures prove
unsuccessful, then he would put her out of his mind and offend some
other girl. If that was all that was required, why love was easy play.
“There goes the girl-hunter!” called out a giggling urchin as
Blindschleicher was passing a group of lads with a mien half haughty
and half self-conscious.
As he reached the church the bells were just ringing for High Mass,
and the people were crowding through the door, and he joined them like
a good Christian as he was. Turning once to see who it was that was
in such a mighty hurry behind him, whom should he discover quite near
his side but Liese. She was giggling with some lads, who pressed close
about her. Blindschleicher saw the vessel for holy water wherein each
dipped his fingers in passing. At that moment the gardener’s apprentice
was seized with a sudden impulse. Dipping his hollow hand in the water,
and crying, “Here is one whose devil I would expel!” he threw the
entire handful into fair Liese’s face.
Liese caught her breath, said loud and distinctly, “He is out already!”
and gave the fellow a resounding box on his ear.
And that is how Blindschleicher went courting, and what it brought him.
_P. K. Rosegger._
“_WHOM FIRST WE LOVE._”
_May 1._--I love him! Only thou, my journal, shalt know it, thou silent
confidant of all my sorrows and my hopes. Without it is spring-time,
and the nightingales warble and the lilacs are in bloom. What a lovely
time for one’s first love!
_May 2._--All night I lay awake and thought of him, and made poetry. It
seems like the bitterest irony of fate that I must go to school to-day,
as if I were a child!
_May 3._--He is perfectly heavenly, handsome, raven-locked, with
dark, glowing eyes, and a pale Roman face; his moustache is simply
enchanting. There is certainly something demoniacal about him. I
adore demoniacal men. They are so exciting and interesting. He looks
marvellously like Lord Byron. Perhaps he is a poet, or a Polish prince
in exile. He looks so melancholy and aristocratic. I imagine Max
Piccolomini looked like that as Mortimer in _Mary Stuart_.
_May 4._--How he looked at me as he passed me on the way to school
to-day! I put that provoking school-bag behind my back. I trust he did
not see it.
_May 6._--I have confided my secret to Lina. She is my most intimate
friend; our hearts are joined for now and eternity. We wept together
for hours. Lina understands me perfectly. She too has loved and has
suffered unspeakably, poor girl! He was an officer of the Dragoons, I
believe, and came to their house a great deal; at last he came nearly
every day. Lina expected his declaration from hour to hour, but he went
and proposed to her elder sister. Lina thought her heart was broken. I
should never have survived such perfidy. Men are very wicked and false.
Lina has read _Faust_. He reminds her of Faust a little, she says. I
must try to get the book. Lina raves over it, although she says it is
very immoral.
_May 7._--I have seen him again, and am in a state of unbounded
felicity. Lina and I were sitting in the park, eating candy and talking
of him, of course, when he came walking up the path. I pinched Lina’s
arm; I could not speak, but she understood me. Oh, heavens! he sat down
on the seat beside us! I felt my blood rush to my heart. Lina blushed
too, which was very silly of her. I studied his noble profile; he was
rapt in thought, and did not move. Lina talked and laughed quite loud;
she is really very much of a flirt. Of course he paid no attention to
her.
_May 8, Sunday._--The whole afternoon I read in the “Book of Songs.”
Heinrich Heine is simply sweet. What a pity it is he wrote so many
things they won’t let me read! Mamma does not like him at all, but then
mamma is so very matter-of-fact. I wonder if I could ever grow to be so
prosaic? At _his_ side surely not.
_May 9._--No one knows him here. I have made some cautious inquiries.
He is probably spending some time here _incognito_. I feel pretty sure
he is a political exile from Russia perhaps, or Siberia. Perhaps he is
a revolutionary hero like Lafayette, or Brutus, or Kosciusko. Maybe
he has killed somebody in a duel--he always looks so sad and unhappy;
or he is the captain of a band of robbers, like Carl Moor, awfully
noble and gallant of course. Heavens! what if his pursuers should come
upon him! But I love him all the same; it is not a matter of choice or
volition. “Man cannot loose what heaven binds,” says Schiller. I think
that is quite well put. We went through the “Bride of Messina” to-day.
I find a great deal in it that applies to me nowadays. I think Dr.
Strempel saw me blush once or twice.
_May 10._--I have taken him for my hero. All the girls in the class
have a hero. Alexander the Great, or Nikolaus Lenau. Before this I had
Count Adolar, in “The Pearl of Venice.” I call him Lohengrin, that
sounds so poetic and unusual; and I too do not know where he comes
from, like Elsa von Brabant.
_May 11._--Mamma looks at me so queerly sometimes. She does not want
me to sit in my room alone so much instead of taking a share in her
household cares. It is very sad to think that parents so often have
little sympathy with the deepest emotions of their children’s hearts.
_May 13._--All is over. My ideals are broken, my faith in humanity is
gone for ever. Would I could die or enter a convent! I can write no
more to-day--I have naught but tears and sighs to record. I only ate
two apple-dumplings for dinner; they all noticed it.
_May 14._--No one knows what I suffer. This terrible secret of my
poisoned youth shall follow me to my grave. Lohengrin! How absurd the
name sounds now, like a cruel irony of Fate.
What would the girls at school say if they knew that Lohengrin, my
interesting exiled Count, my Knight of the Swan--oh, horrors!--is
nothing but a waiter?
_May 16._--Did ever maiden’s heart suffer like mine? Ophelia
or Margaret? Hamlet was at least a prince, and Faust had his
college-degree, entitling him to social distinction. Ah, if he were but
a shepherd or a hunter! There are such pretty poems about such with
princesses and noble ladies--but a waiter? It is too horrible!
It was on the 12th of May, the most tragic day of my life. Can I ever
be happy again, can I ever forget it? Aunt Hedwig was visiting us, and
in the evening papa and I went with her to the winter garden of the
Victoria Hotel. Papa and auntie were talking together, and I sat quite
still,--I have grown very quiet of late,--and as I was sipping my iced
lemonade my thoughts hovered tenderly about my beloved. A mysterious
power suddenly constrained me to look up. Near me, leaning against the
trunk of a palm-tree, stood Lohengrin. How distinguished and elegant he
looked! His dress-coat fitted him like a glove, the one softly-curled
lock of hair falling over his brow gave him an air of classic grace. A
heavy ring of gold gleamed on his slender hand. Thank God, it was no
wedding ring!
“Waiter!” called papa--I heard it as in a dream. His eyes grew
larger and more lustrous, a beam of light seemed to flit across his
countenance. My heart almost stood still. He approached our table. Does
he not see papa and Aunt Hedwig? Does he not see all the people about
us? He bows, he says: “Do you require anything, sir?”
“A bottle of Médoc,” says papa. I hear his voice as if it came from a
great distance. I felt as if something within me had snapped asunder at
that moment.
“What a nice-looking fellow!” remarked Aunt Hedwig.
“A Pole,” said my father. “He looks like the veriest fashion plate.
Dear me, little girl, how pale you are! The wine will do you good, and
you must order your iron pills again to-morrow. Here waiter, the rest
is for you!”
Lohengrin, my Lohengrin, and twopence for his tip! Even now it is a
mystery to me that I did not faint away.
_Three days later._--I have scratched out the last nine pages of my
journal word for word. The occupation did me good. This episode is
wiped out from the pages of my life. Lohengrin is dead to me. There
is one thing that comforts me--I now have an unhappy love. I always
envied Lina a little for hers, she put on such airs about it. Unhappy
loves are so very interesting and poetic.
[Illustration: “HOW DISTINGUISHED AND ELEGANT HE LOOKED.”]
P.S.--In future I shall fall in love only with gentlemen in uniforms.
You have something you can depend on then, and the world is so false
and deceitful nowadays.
_H. von Kahlenberg._
[Illustration: “PLANTED HIMSELF SQUARELY BEFORE THE SCRIBENT, AND
STARED AT HIM IN SILENCE.”]
_WOOING THE GALLOWS._
IN the year 1594 the town-scribent of Nördlingen had an extraordinary
visitor. A herculean lad of about twenty, unkempt and ragged, came
to the court-room one morning, planted himself squarely before the
scribent, and stared at him in silence.
Unto the gruffly put question, “What do you want?” he answered no less
gruffly, “A rope!”
The town-scribent told him he had come to the wrong door, the
rope-maker lived around the corner. But the fellow replied to the
effect that he did not need the rope-maker, but the hangman; he wanted
to be hanged. The town-scribent shivered, for he thought the stranger
was crazy. He therefore called a vigorous servant before entering
further into this extraordinary conversation.
The stranger now confessed himself to be a homeless tramp, called by
his companions Jörg Muckenhuber, and his language being pieced together
out of as many rags of dialect as his coat was of rags of cloth, there
was no further certificate required to make it evident that he was at
home everywhere and nowhere.
He then proceeded to relate briefly and coldly how several weeks ago he
had murdered a travelling pedlar upon the precincts of Nördlingen, and
also between Augsburg and Kaufbeuern a foreign Jew. Both the Jew and
the pedlar gave him no peace at night, so he wanted to be hanged, and
as the last murder had been perpetrated on the ground of Nördlingen, so
the senate of that town could not refuse to hang him on the Nördlingen
gallows.
The town-scribent swore furiously, and said it wasn’t every fool could
have that for the asking, the town of Nördlingen had built its gallows
for its own citizens and not for villainous vagrants; at the same time
Muckenhuber was taken into custody, and the scribent presented the
affair to the senate.
The senators put their heads together without coming to any definite
conclusion as to whether the lad was a fool or a desperate villain. As
it was customary, however, in those days to cast the insane into the
same dungeon as thieves and murderers, Jörg Muckenhuber was put in safe
keeping in the tower, and the business was getting under way in a most
correct manner, whatever further details might be brought to light.
The executioner, the parson, and the barber, who went in turn to visit
the prisoner and sound him each in his own way, declared with one voice
that the fellow was rough and uncared for, but that his mind was very
clear, and that there was no gainsaying him in his confession.
Meanwhile the news was scattered through town, and the good citizens
had lively quarrels as to whether a person could be hanged upon the
strength of his mere confession and urgent demand, even though there
was no further proof of the deed of which he accused himself; for
nowhere was there to be found a trace of the travelling pedlar and the
murder perpetrated on him.
And when Muckenhuber was taken out, well guarded and followed by a
curious crowd, to show them the exact spot where he had murdered the
pedlar and buried his corpse, he managed to confuse and puzzle his
judges by fine-spun evasions and equivocations, but there was no actual
evidence of the crime to be found. The prisoner, however, clung with
tenacity to his previous declaration, that he had murdered the pedlar
upon the precincts of Nördlingen, and must therefore be hanged on the
Nördlingen gallows.
Although German burghers of provincial towns were as well accustomed
to highly-spiced criminal dramas in those days as they were to their
daily bread, the sensation about this unusual case grew from day to
day; especially was the reply of the Augsburg and Kaufbeuern magistrate
anxiously looked forward to, to whom the acts had been submitted with a
neighbourly request to have inquiries made concerning the murder said
to have been perpetrated between those two towns upon a foreign Jew.
But here too there was not a vestige of a Jew or a murder to be found.
But in the scrupulous proceedings of the sixteenth century, confession
of crime was considered a proof by far superior to any other, and
so the judges refused to be satisfied, the more so as the prisoner
continued to bring forth reasons to explain the absence of all
testimony.
It was deemed best to fall back upon that most unrelenting test of
truth, the rack. How often had people who objected to being criminals
been tortured into a confession; why should it not be possible to
reverse the method and torture a man, who had set his mind on being a
criminal, into a confession of his innocence?
But in the torturing-chamber the senate of Nördlingen got out of the
frying-pan into the fire. For when the thumb-screws were applied Jörg
Muckenhuber persisted in piping his old song, and when the effect was
heightened by forcing him into the Spanish boots, he proceeded at once
to add to his original offence by confessing a list of robberies, each
of which alone would have brought him to the gallows. The inquisitor
had also a ride upon the sharp-edged ass upon his programme, but
fearing lest the invincible Jörg should add two or three cases of arson
into the bargain he did not press the point, and the triumphant rogue
was conducted back into his dungeon, while the senate was writhing in
an agony of impotent rage.
To the more sagacious it became more and more evident that Jörg
Muckenhuber was making game of the town authorities, but at the same
time a joke of such ghastly grimness was unprecedented. Then too, no
one could hit upon a possible motive why the churlish fellow should
subject his neck to the rope and his limbs to the rack with an amount
of courage and power of will that was worthy of a better cause. This
seemed too much for the most vicious facetiousness. Moreover, not only
the acknowledged crime but the whole person of this Muckenhuber seemed
to have sprung up out of the ground over-night as it were. For his
sudden appearance in Nördlingen was surrounded with as much mystery as
his crime. There were some who confidentially affirmed that he was the
devil, who was out for a lark and had chosen this method of twitting
the whole of Nördlingen by the nose.
However, this did not help solve the difficult question of what was to
be done with the vagabond.
Public opinion in those days generally inclined to the assumption that
where the case was doubtful it was better to hang three innocent men
than let one guilty one get away. And, moreover, Jörg Muckenhuber was
guilty any way you might look at it. For if he had committed the murder
in question then he deserved the gallows, and if he had not committed
it, then he deserved the gallows more than ever, because by reason
of his iniquity the senate of the town had made a confounded fool of
itself. But as there was no unanimity in court in which of these two
ways he had deserved the gallows, he was left for the present quietly
in the dungeon.
It was not exactly attractive there. The cell was half above ground and
half below, in a small tower, which upon three sides faced a swampy
bog; there was no surplus of light, but a narrow little window let in
a bit of chiaroscuro, which would have enabled one to distinguish a
chair from a table on a sunny noon-day--that is, if there had been any
such objects of luxury at hand. There was more pleasure to be derived
from outside. Under the window the frogs sang in a varied and full
chorus. At one side there was another dungeon, occupied by an old hag,
who obstinately refused to confess to being a witch. Her so-called
window also faced the bog, and when the two neighbours looked out of
the window they could converse with facility, although it was without
seeing each other, and no one excepting the frogs overheard their
conferences.
Jörg had received the first intimation of his neighbour’s presence
by hearing her pray aloud one day. It was no soft, humble prayer; it
was passionate, almost as if the old woman were storming the Almighty
with commands rather than petitions. Jörg had never learned to pray,
and at first the devotions of the old woman struck him as very odd;
gradually it came to look very grand to him that an old hag should
venture to address herself to God with such vehemence, and he came to
the conclusion she must be a giant in strength and able to hold her own
against ten men.