["I am a Jew, I am a Christian. I am tragedy, I am
comedy--Heraclitus and Democritus in one: a Greek, a Hebrew: an
adorer of despotism as incarnate in Napoleon, an admirer of
communism as embodied in Proudhon; a Latin, a Teuton; a beast, a
devil, a god."
"God's satire weighs heavily upon me. The Great Author of the
Universe, the Aristophanes of Heaven, was bent on demonstrating
with crushing force to me, the little earthly so-called German
Aristophanes, how my weightiest sarcasms are only pitiful
attempts at jesting in comparison with His, and how miserably I
am beneath Him in humor, in colossal mockery."]
The carriage stopped, and the speckless footman, jumping down,
inquired: "Monsieur Heine?"
The _concierge_, knitting beside the _porte cochère_, looked at him,
looked at the glittering victoria he represented, and at the _grande
dame_ who sat in it, shielding herself with a parasol from the glory
of the Parisian sunlight. Then she shook her head.
"But this is number three, Avenue Matignon?"
"Yes, but Monsieur receives only his old friends. He is dying."
"Madame knows. Take up her name.'"
The _concierge_ glanced at the elegant card. She saw "Lady"--which she
imagined meant an English _Duchesse_--and words scribbled on it in
pencil.
"It is _au cinquième_," she said, with a sigh.
"I will take it up."
Ere he returned, Madame descended and passed from the sparkling
sunshine into the gloom of the portico, with a melancholy
consciousness of the symbolic. For her spirit, too, had its poetic
intuitions and insights, and had been trained by friendship with one
of the wittiest and tenderest women of her time to some more than
common apprehension of the greater spirit at whose living tomb she was
come to worship. Hers was a fine face, wearing the triple aristocracy
of beauty, birth, and letters. The complexion was of lustreless ivory,
the black hair wound round and round. The stateliness of her figure
completed the impression of a Roman matron.
"Monsieur Heine begs that your ladyship will do him the honor of
mounting, and will forgive him the five stories for the sake of the
view."
Her ladyship's sadness was tinctured by a faint smile at the message,
which the footman delivered without any suspicion that the view in
question meant the view of Heine himself. But then that admirable
menial had not the advantage of her comprehensive familiarity with
Heine's writings. She crossed the blank stony courtyard and curled up
the curving five flights, her mind astir with pictures and emotions.
She had scribbled on her card a reminder of her identity; but could he
remember, after all those years, and in his grievous sickness, the
little girl of eleven who had sat next to him at the Boulogne _table
d'hôte_? And she herself could now scarcely realize at times that the
stout, good-natured, short-sighted little man with the big white brow,
who had lounged with her daily at the end of the pier, telling her
stories, was the most mordant wit in Europe, "the German
Aristophanes"; and that those nursery tales, grotesquely compact of
mermaids, water-sprites, and a funny old French fiddler with a poodle
that diligently took three baths a day, were the frolicsome
improvisations of perhaps the greatest lyric poet of his age. She
recalled their parting: "When you go back to England, you can tell
your friends that you have seen Heinrich Heine!"