Kropotkin the painter had once upon a time received an order to make a
copy of a Holbein for Baron Siegmund von Auffenberg. He never finished
the picture, owing to lack of ability; but he had become acquainted with
Baron Eberhard, and years later, having met him quite accidentally, took
him to the Paradise, where the infamous brethren were then in the habit
of gathering.
Eberhard's appearance at the Paradise was short-lived; he disappeared in
fact as quickly as he had appeared. But this brief space was sufficient
for Herr Carovius to become intimately acquainted with him.
The first time he sat at the same table with him he was noticeably
excited. His face shone with a mild spiritual glow. His voice was sweet
and gentle, his remarks of an unusually agreeable moderation.
He turned the conversation to a discussion of the superiorities of
birth, and lauded the distinction of the hereditary classes. He said it
was from them only that the people could acquire civic virtue. The
brethren scorned his point of view. Herr Carovius came back at them with
an annihilating jest.
During the rendition of this hallelujah-solo in praise of the nobility,
Eberhard von Auffenberg intrenched himself behind a sullen silence. And
though Carovius used every available opportunity from then on to flatter
the young nobleman in his cunning, crafty way, he failed. The most he
could do was to inspire Eberhard to lift his thrush-bearded chin in the
air and make some sarcastic remark. Fawn as he might, Carovius was
stumped at every turn.
One night, however, the two enjoyed each other's company on the way
home. That is, Carovius never left Eberhard's side. Annoyed at the
failure of his former tactics, he thought he would try his luck in
another way: he ridiculed the arrogance of a certain caste which
affected to attach less importance to a man like himself than to some
jackanapes whose handkerchief was adorned with an embroidered crown.
"What are you, any way, what is your vocation?" asked Eberhard von
Auffenberg.
"I don't do anything," replied Carovius.
"Nothing at all? That is quite agreeable."
"Oh, I do work a little at music," added Herr Carovius, entirely pleased
at the curiosity of the Baron.
"Now, you see, that is after all something," said the Baron. "I for my
part am as unmusical as a shot-gun. And if you do not do anything but
interest yourself in music, you must have a great deal of money."
Herr Carovius turned away. The positive dread of being taken for a rich
man wrestled with the vain desire to make the young Baron feel that he
really was somebody. "I have a little," he remarked with a titter, "a
little."
"Very well; if you will loan me ten thousand marks, it will give me
great pleasure to make you a present of the crown on my handkerchief,"
said Eberhard von Auffenberg.
Herr Carovius stopped stock still, and opened his mouth and his eyes:
"Baron, you are taking the liberty of jesting with me." But when
Eberhard indicated that he was quite serious, Carovius continued, blank
amazement forcing his voice to its highest pitch: "But my dear Sir, your
father has an income of half a million. A mere income! The tax receipts
show it."
"Well, I am not talking about my father," said Eberhard coldly, and once
more threw his chin in the air. "It is evidently a part of your heraldic
prejudices to feel that you can coax the income of my father into my own
pockets."
They were standing under a gas lamp at the Haller Gate. It was dripping
rain, and they had raised their umbrellas. It was perfectly still; it
was also late. Not a human being was to be seen anywhere. Carovius
looked at the seriously offended young man, the young man looked at
Carovius, then grinning a grin of embarrassment, and neither knew how to
take the other.
"You are surprised," said Eberhard, resuming the conversation. "You are
surprised, and I don't blame you. I am a discontented guest in my own
skin; that much I can assure you. I am as abortive a creature as ever
was born. I inherited far too much that is superfluous, and not nearly
enough of the necessities. There are all manner of mysteries about me;
but they are on the outside. Within there is nothing but stale, dead
air."
He stared at the ground as though he were talking to himself, and as
though he had forgotten that any one was listening, and continued: "Have
you ever seen old knights carved in stone in old churches? If you have,
you have seen me. I feel as if I were the father of my father, and as if
he had had me buried alive, and an evil spirit had turned me to stone,
and my hands were lying crossed over my breast and could not move. I
grew up with a sister, and I see her as though it were yesterday"--at
this point his face took on an expression of fantastic senility--"walking
through the hall, proud, dainty, innocent, with roses in her hand. She
is married to a captain of cavalry, a fellow who treats his men like
Negro slaves, and who never returns the greeting of a civilian unless he
is drunk. She had to marry him. I could not prevent it. Somebody forced
her into it. And if she is carrying roses now, it is as if a corpse were
singing songs."
Herr Carovius felt most uneasy. He was not accustomed to hearing things
like this. Where he lived people called a spade a spade. He pricked up
his ears and made a wry face. "It is the way he has been trained that
makes him talk like that," he thought; "it is the result of constantly
sitting on gold-embroidered chairs and seeing nothing about him but
paintings."
"I am going to sit on such chairs too," he was happy to think, "and I
shall see the paintings, too." He pictured himself between the Baron and
the Baroness, marching up to the portals of the castle, flanked on
either side by a row of liveried servants, the nervous masses catching
sight of the splendour as well as they might. The rear of this
procession was being brought up by the young Baron, who had returned
home as the penitent Prodigal Son.
"One must have a feeling of personal security," remarked Carovius. He
wondered whether the Baron had reached his majority. Eberhard replied
that he had just completed his twenty-first year, and that certain
things had made him feel that it would be wise to live independent of
his family and to renounce his claims to all family rights for the time
being. What he really had in mind was the desire to avoid, so far as
humanly possible, association with all professional money-lenders.
Herr Carovius felt that this was an extremely serious case. He claimed
moreover to understand it perfectly and to be ready for anything, but
insisted that nothing must be withheld, that he must be given undiluted
wine. He made this remark just as if he were holding a glass of old
Johannisberger out in the rain, sniffing as he did with appreciative
nostrils.
"I am very discreet," he said, "very taciturn." He looked at the Baron
tenderly.
The young Baron nodded.
"The wearer of purple is recognised wherever he goes," continued Herr
Carovius, "and if he lays the purple aside he stands at once in need of
reticent friends. I am reserved."
The Baron nodded again. "If you will permit me, I shall visit you in a
few days." With that he ended the conversation.
He started off toward the Avenue, walking stiffly. It was not hard to
see that he was ill at ease. Herr Carovius walked away with mincing,
merry steps down toward the small end of the alley, singing an aria from
the "Barber of Seville" as he went.
At the end of the first week he was taken down with a disconcerting
suspicion that the Baron had made a fool of him. He was filled with a
wrath that had to be cooled. One morning, just as he was leaving his
apartment, he saw two milk cans filled with milk standing in the outer
hall. One was for the first floor, the other for the second. The
milkmaid had placed them there for the time being, and had gone over to
have a little morning chat with her neighbour. Herr Carovius went to his
lumber-room, which also served as the kitchen, took down a jug of
vinegar, came back, looked around with all the caution he could summon,
and then poured half of the contents of the jug into one can and the
other half into the other.
Two days later he decided not to give Caesar anything to eat, so that he
would terrify the neighbours by his howling. This worked. The dog howled
and whined and barked night after night. It was enough to melt the heart
of a stone. Nobody could sleep. Andreas Doederlein went to the police,
but they told him that the case was beyond their jurisdiction.
Herr Carovius lay in bed rejoicing with exceeding great joy over the
fact that the people could not sleep. He became enamoured of the idea
that it might be possible, through some ingenious invention, to rob a
whole city or a whole nation of its sleep. The inventor could then move
about conscious of the fact that he was at once the distributor and the
destroyer of the world's supply of sleep. If he so elected to exploit
his invention, he could revel in the sight of an entire people pining,
drying up, and eventually dying from the want of sleep.
After Caesar had become quite savage, Herr Carovius decided to unleash
him. It was just after sunset. He slipped up to the beast from the rear,
and opened the chain lock. The dog ran like mad through the court and
the hall, and out on to the street.
Just at this moment young Baron von Auffenberg was entering to pay Herr
Carovius that promised visit. He jumped back from the beast, but it
sprang at his body, and in a jiffy the Baron was lying full length on
the pavement. Caesar left him, made a straight line for the open door of
a butcher shop across the street, sprang in, and snatched a fancy cut
from one of the hooks.
In order to see just how much damage the dog would really do, Herr
Carovius ran after him, hypocritically feigning as he ran an expression
of horror, and acting as though the beast had somehow broken his chain
and got loose. The first sight that caught his eyes was that of the young
Baron as he rose to his feet and limped over toward his host to-be.
The horror of Herr Carovius at once became real. With the diligence of a
seasoned flunkey, he stooped over, picked up the Baron's hat, dusted it,
stammered all sorts of apologies, gazed at high heaven like a martyred
saint, and brushed the dirt from Eberhard's trousers. Then the dog came
back, a huge piece of meat in his mouth. The butcher came to the door
and shook his fists. The butcher's boy stuck two fingers in his mouth,
and whistled for the police. They came, too, and Herr Carovius had to
pay for the meat.
He then took the Baron into his living-room, plying him in the meantime
with innumerable questions as to how he felt. Having been stunned by the
fall, the Baron asked to lie down for a few minutes on the couch. Herr
Carovius granted his wish, smothering him with sighs of affection and
exclamations of regret.
As the Baron lay on the couch, trying to regain his vital spirits, Herr
Carovius went to the piano and played the rondo from Weber's sonata in A
flat major. His technique was superb; his emotion was touching.
After the concert the transactions began.