“I am obliged to say I did not like the looks of you at first. You must
have been out of your head.”
The Professor waited until the last echo of the retreating footsteps
died away down at the bottom of the stairs, then shut his door.
“A strange thing,” he muttered; “what have I to do with Christmas? I,
who have studied, studied! I had forgotten there was any time called
Christmas. What is it to a scholar? Philosophy says nothing about it;
and reason would teach that—ah, yes, it too is a dream, a dream within
the dream called life. Then what have I to do with it? Why did I
promise? I will not go. Yet my vow—twenty-four hours. I dare not trust
myself alone. A funeral, did he say? I will see how it feels; yes, for I
will probably need one in another day. They wanted me ‘for a corpse,’
and I said they would likely get me, and I would be glad to ‘place
myself at their service.’ Ha, ha! They can bury me twice. But my vow, my
vow! I will not trust myself alone. It is nothing to me; I will go.”
He had been tramping again rapidly up and down the room, when he
suddenly turned, took up his hat, looked around for a moment at the
shadows that were still making unintelligible signs to each other, then
extinguished them in darkness and slowly went down stairs.
The lodgings were directly over the undertaker’s establishment. Living
so secluded, speaking to none, it had never occurred to the Professor
before what a grim place he had chosen for his home. But now the
silver-barred coffins in the show-case were ghastly as he passed.
Night had not yet yielded up her supremacy. A heavy covering of snow,
that clung to every roof, tower, and spire, made the place look unreal
through the gloom, like some colorless apparition of a great specter
city. Close-blinded, silent and cold, without one glimmer of life, the
houses faced each other down the long street. Far off, the ghostly dome
and pinnacles of the cathedral reached into the sky—the empty, soundless
sky—for the wind had fallen away, leaving a gray expanse that seemed to
stretch through infinitude. But, though the Professor did not notice,
there was a rift that divided the dreary cloud down near the horizon,
and disclosed, brighter than the pale light of the coming day, a star
shining in the East.
And it was Christmas morning.
The Professor walked block after block, feeling unconsciously refreshed
by the crisp air upon his heated brow. Then he turned back, and when he
had reached the building went down an alley-way and entered by a door in
the rear.
A great confusion and general dimness, not lessened any by two or three
candles that were burning, pervaded the room, which was long and ran
almost across the house. Half a dozen men were standing or moving about,
and some were sitting or leaning upon coffins and biers, that covered
all the floor, except where they occasionally left narrow passages
between, like irregular aisles.
At the Professor’s entrance, the young man who had paid him so friendly
a visit came up instantly, took hold of him by the arm, and turned him
round, with the exclamation,—
“Here he is father! He is thin enough to be easily carried.”
The man denominated “father” by the young off-shoot of the establishment
surveyed the Professor with a critical eye from head to foot, and, as
there could be no better sample of physical spareness than he presented,
said, laconically,—
“He’ll do.”
Then there was new confusion and bustling about, and two or three
persons immediately seized the Professor, one by his hair, one by his
feet, one by his arms. With a grim smile, he submitted, in perfect
silence, to the operations of this dressing committee.
He saw himself—him, Gustav Kellermann, the philosopher!—blossom into
brilliant colors, scarlet and blue and orange. He saw them clasp a
girdle round his waist, to which they hung gilded toys and bells in all
directions, until he was fairly covered over with trinkets of every
device. He felt them encase his head—his learned, metaphysical head—in a
cap that was adorned at the point and round the sides with innumerable
swinging-dolls.
It had been daylight three or four hours when all the mysterious
preparations, which had been done almost without speaking a single word,
were finally completed, and every thing waited in readiness.
There, strangely conspicuous in that dismal room, with its dismal
paraphernalia of death, was a brilliant, half-human, half-monkey-like
creature, standing up on its hind legs, and flaming all over in gaudy
colors. To this grotesque figure, the important actor, evidently the
chief agent in the contract, a man of brief speech, came up and said,
brusquely,—
“Now, you are dead, you know, and have nothing to do but be dead. You
are not to be fidgeting, or stirring round, or peeping. When you are
dead, you are dead, you know, and that is all.”
O, Immanuel Kant! O, transcendental school! Good reasoning! When you are
dead, you are _dead_.
Then they picked up this half-human, half-monkey-like object, which had
uttered not one word, placed it in a coffin, and put upon it a
mask-face. Carrying it out by the rear door, they raised it and set it
down on a catafalque, draped in a black velvet pall, and ornamented with
tall black funeral plumes.
O vain pomp and grandeur of death! When you are dead, you are _dead_.
A confused hurry and tramp of many feet was succeeded by a pause, and
some one said,—“Ready.”
The procession reached the open avenue and moved slowly down the street
to the sound of a funeral march. Solemnly, with measured tread, they
advanced, and the people flocked to the doors on every side. There was a
cry of surprise and alarm. “What is it?” “Who is it?” ran from lip to
lip. The crowd gathered. The procession, with its sable plumes and
ribbons of _crepe_, still continued on its way. There was the sound of
lamentation, and at every moment the throng and confusion increased, the
multitude thickened, and men, women and children were held off by the
guard. Do they go to the great cemetery? No, they turned eastward, and
at the Rosenthal halted. There the wondering spectators saw, in its
center, a pure white tomb. Before it the catafalque was brought to a
stand, and the coffin solemnly lowered.
Immediately a broken shout ran through the crowd, that was taken up and
repeated until it grew into a laugh, and men and women, catching up the
children, cried,—
“It is Kriss Kringle! Ha! ha! See, child, it is Kriss Kringle! He is
dead. Kriss Kringle is dead!”
It was a great relief to the people, so suddenly alarmed, and they good
humoredly held up the little ones, saying,—
“See! Kriss Kringle is dead. He will never come any more. He is dead!”
There was a silence; and many little faces, awe-stricken, looked
sorrowfully down, and many little arms were stretched out, and many
little voices, quivering, sobbed,—
“No, no, no! He will come back. He brought us pretty things. He will
come back to us.”
O, Immanuel Kant! O, transcendental school! Is your strength still
greater than this?