Professor Hauptmann dropped wearily into his chair at the noisy Milanese
_table d'hôte_ and snarled out a surly "_Mahlzeit_" to the assembled
feasters. It was echoed sweetly from his left with a languishing
"_Mahlzeit, Herr Professor_." The advance disconcerted him. Resolving
upon a policy of complete indifference to the fluffy and amiable vision
beside him, he devoted himself singly to the food. The _risotto_
diminished as his knife travelled rhythmically between the plate and his
bearded lips. Conceding only the inevitable, nay the exacted courtesies
to his neighbour, he performed still greater prodigies with the green
peas, and it was not until he leaned back for a deft operation with a
pocket comb, that the vivacious, blue-eyed one got her chance to ask if
it were not the Herr Professor Hauptmann, the great authority on the
Lombard tongue. The query floored him; he could not deny that it was, and
as curlylocks began to evince an intelligent interest in Lombard matters,
his stiffness melted like wax under a burning glass. He was soon if not
the protagonist at least the object of an animated, yes fairly intimate
conversation.
To non-German eyes the pair were worth looking at. He was clad in
tightfitting sage-green felt, so it appeared, with a superfluity of
straps, buttons, lacings, and harness of all sorts. A conical Tyrol hat
garnished with a cock's plume and faded violets was crushed between his
back and that of the chair. As his large nervous feet reached for the
chairlegs below, one could see an expanse of moss-green stockings, only
half concealed at the extremities by resplendent yellow sandals. Bearded
and moustached after the military fashion, nothing betrayed the professor
except the myopic droop of the head. As for Fraülein Linda Göritz, no
mere man may adequately describe her. A German new woman of the artistic
stamp, she was pastelling through Lombardy where the Professor was
archeologising. Short, crisp curls gathered about her boyish head. Her
general effect was of a plump bonniness that might yield agreeably to an
audacious arm. She cultivated an aggressive pertness that would have
seemed vulgar, had it not been redeemed by something merely frank and
German. Shortskirted, she wore a high-strapped variant of the prevalent
sandals. The sides of her blue bolero were adorned with stilted yellow
lilies in the top of the Viennese new-art mode. In front her shirtwaist
appeared cool and white, at the sleeves it flowered alarmingly into
something like an India shawl. A string of massive amethysts completed a
discord as elaborate as a harmony of Richard Strauss. Her whole
impression was almost as inviting as it was grotesque. One could not chat
with her without liking her, and it is to be suspected that only a very
guileless or austere male could like her without proceeding to manifest
attentions.
By the cheese, she had captured her amazed professor, and then she
carried him off bodily for coffee in the Arcade. He talked little, but it
didn't matter, for she talked much and well. Nor could a provincial Saxon
scholar be quite indifferent at finding himself known to an intelligent
and much travelled Viennese. A cousin, it appeared, had followed his
lectures and had highly extolled the ingenuity of his phonology of the
Lombard tongue, a language which was, she must remember--a hesitating
pause--yes, surely East--"East Germanic, Ja wohl!" responded the
Professor thunderously, though idiots had written to the contrary. And
then he told her at length the reasons why, until she pleaded her early
morning sketching and firmly bound him to accompany her the next
afternoon to the Certosa of Pavia. The Herr Professor rarely paid much
attention to hands, but as he held Fraülein Göritz's for Good Night he
could not but note that it was soft and filled his big grip so well that
he was sorry when it was gone. He dismissed the observation, however, as
unworthy a philologer and went to sleep pondering a new destruction for
the knaves who held the Lombard tongue to be not East but West Germanic.
And here, to appreciate the weight and importance of Linda's fish, a
little explanation is necessary. Hauptmann was not merely a philologer,
which is a formidable thing in itself, but he belonged to the esoteric
group that deals with languages which have no literature. As he had often
remarked, any fool could compile a grammar of a language that has left
extensive documents; the process was almost mechanical, but to
reconstruct a grammar of a language that has left practically no remains,
that required acumen. Hauptmann did not belong, however, to the
transcendental school that creates purely inferential languages--East
Germanic and West, General Teutonic, Original Slavic, Indo-European and
the like. These are the _Dii majores_ and their inventions are as
complete as if one should detect, say, the relation of the little to the
big fleas not by the cunning use of the microscope but by sheer
inference. This larger game Hauptmann sagaciously left to others, ranging
himself with those who piece together the scanty and uncertain fragments
of languages that have existed but have failed to perpetuate themselves
in documents and inscriptions. Vandalic had powerfully allured him, and
so had Old Burgundian: he had had designs also upon Visigothic, and had
finally chosen Lombard rather than the others because the material was
not merely defective but also delightfully vague, affording a wide
opportunity for genuine philological insight. And indeed to classify a
language on the basis of a phrase scratched on a brooch, the
misquotations of alien chroniclers, the shifting forms of misspelled
proper names, is a task compared with which the fabled reconstruction of
leviathan from a single bone is mere child's play.
From the mere scraps and hints of Lombard words in Paul the Deacon and
other historians anybody but a German would have declined to draw any
conclusion whatever. But just as every German citizen however humble,
becomes eventually a privy counsellor, a knight of various eagles of
diverse classes, an overstationmaster, or a royal postman, so German
science for the past hundred years has permitted no fact to languish in
its native insignificance. All have been promoted to be the sponsors of
imposing theories. And Hauptmann's theory, which got him the degree of
Ph.D., _maxima cum laude_, was that Lombard is an East Germanic tongue.
This he simple intuited, needing the degree, for the fifty mangled
Lombard words displayed none of those consonants which tending to double
or of those vowels which still vexing us as umlauts, mark a language as
belonging to the great Eastern or Western group. But Hauptmann was first
in the field, and if it was impossible for him to demonstrate that he was
right, it was equally impossible for anybody else to prove that he was
wrong. So he stood his ground and by dint of continually hitting the same
nail on the same head he had so greatly flourished that he was mentioned
respectfully as far as the Lombard tongue was known, and at thirty-four
had passed from the honourable but unpaid condition of Privat-dozent to
that of Professor Extraordinarius.
Now if the Lombards, having ignominiously taken to Latin after their
descent upon Italy, had had to wait for Hauptmann to provide them with a
language, they had left certain more substantial traces of themselves in
the valley of the Po. They died and were buried in state with their arms
and utensils for the other world. So that, while one might well be in
doubt whether an inscription was Lombard or not, an antiquary will tell
you without fail whether a clasp, a spearhead or a sword is or is not the
work of this conquering but too adaptable race. In these archaeological
matters Hauptmann took a forced and languid interest. During nightmarish
hours, when the beer and cheese had not mingled aright, he was haunted by
lines of Lombard runes. Sometimes they were East Germanic, and that was a
grief, taking, as it were, the bloom from the guess that had made him
great; and again they were West Germanic, and that was awful, the
hallucination ending in a mortal struggle with the feather bed under
which German science is incubated, and passing off with an anguished
"Donnerwetter! It cannot be Lombard. It is not possible." His not
infrequent Italian trips had, then, an archaeological pretext, and this
had been more or less the purpose of the pilgrimage in which Fraülein
Linda had become by main force an alluring if disquieting incident.
If there is anywhere in the world a more satisfactory sight than the
Pavian Certosa, certainly neither Hauptmann nor his chance acquaintance
had ever seen it. And indeed is there anywhere else such spaciousness of
cloisters, such profusion of minutely cut marble, such incrustation, for
better or worse, of semiprecious stones. Surely nothing in a sightseeing
way approaches it as a money's worth. Fraülein Linda, a superior person
who had begun to entertain doubts as to the externals of modern Austrian
palaces and the internals of new German liners, reserved her enthusiasms
for the pale Borgonones so strangely misplaced amid all that splendour.
Hauptmann, on the contrary, admired it all impartially. The sense of bulk
and inordinate expensiveness made him for a moment almost regret that
these later Lombards who reared this pile were not of the same race-stock
with himself. There was a moment in which he could have claimed them, had
principle permitted, as West Germans. Rather he soon forgot the Lombards
in the alternate rapture and dismay aroused by the petulant yet strangely
winning personality beside him. Professor Hauptmann was used neither to
being contradicted nor managed by mere women folk, and this afternoon he
was undergoing both experiences simultaneously. It was with a feeling of
relief that he left the Certosa, which seemed in a way her territory, and
started out with her upon the neutral highroad that led to the station.
They lingered, for the hour was propitious, and their plan was to kill an
hour or so before the evening train. As the glow came over the lowlying
fields, the weary forms of the labourers began to fill the road. At a
distance Hauptmann perceived one who importunately offered a small object
to the sightseers and was as regularly repulsed. Without waiting for the
professor, who stood at attention while Fraülein Linda sketched, this
beggar or pedlar approached and prayed to be allowed to show a rare and
veritable object of antiquity. A gruff refusal had already been given
when she pleaded that they hear the peasant talk, and inspect his
treasure. "Who knows, Herr Professor, but it might be Lombard?" "Wohlan,"
he replied, and sullenly took the proffered spearhead. It was of iron,
patined rather than rusted, Lombard in form, and of evident antiquity.
Hauptmann gave it a nearsighted look and was about to return it
contemptuously when the peasant urged, "But look again, sir, there are
letters, a rarity." "I dare you to read them," cried Fraülein Linda, and
the Professor read painfully and copied roughly in his notebook a short
inscription in some Runic alphabet. A scowl followed the reading and the
abrupt challenge "Where did you find this piece?" "In the fields,
digging, Padrone," was the answer, "where I dug up also this," displaying
a bronze clasp of unquestionable Lombard workmanship. "Bravo," exclaimed
Linda, "now perhaps we shall know more about your dear Lombards. I
congratulate you, Herr Professor, from the heart." "Aber nein," he
growled back, "there were monuments enough already, and this is only a
bore, for I must buy and publish it. Others too may be found in the same
field, and Lombard will become a popular pastime. It is disgusting;
compassionate me. It was the single language that permitted truly
a-priori approach. It would be almost a duty to suppress these accursed
runes for the sake of scientific method. But no; the harm is done. We
must be patient."
What the Herr Professor said and continued to say as he drove a hard
bargain with the peasant was but half the story. A glance at the runes
had shown an awful double consonant, and, as if that were not enough, an
appalling modified vowel. By a single word scratched by the untutored
hand of a rude warrior the most ingenious linguistic hypothesis of our
times was shattered beyond hope of repair. The spearhead was Lombard,
and Lombard, dire reflection to one who had gained fame by maintaining
the contrary, belonged to the West Germanic group of the Teutonic
tongues. Wild thoughts went through his head. He recalled that Paris had
seemed worth a mass, and considered a plenary retraction with a
facsimile publication of the runes. But as he pondered this course the
inexpediency of sacrificing so fair a theory to this mere brute fact
seemed indisputable. He thought also of ascribing the doubled consonant
and the modified vowel to the illiterate blundering of the spearman who
chiselled the letters. But as his fingers traced the sharp and
purposeful strokes he realised that such a contention would be laughed
out of the philological court. For a mad moment he thought of destroying
the miserable bit of iron, but in the first place that was in itself
difficult, and then the chattering lady at his side knew that he was in
possession of a Runic inscription, probably Lombard. She was widely
connected and would certainly babble in the very city where his bitter
rival Professor Anlaut had maintained that Lombard was West Germanic. As
Hauptmann noticed that the road had become deserted, that the dusk had
increased, and that Fraülein Linda's observations on the luckiness of
the "find" were interminable, a homicidal fancy just grazed the border
of his agitated consciousness. But no, that would not do either; the
scientific conscience forbade the destruction of any datum however
embarrassing. Destroy the spearhead he could not, and with a flash of
intuition it came over him that it must simply be lost as promptly and
hopelessly as possible.
But this too was by no means easy. As they strolled down the road, ditch
after ditch in the lower fields presented itself as apt for the purpose,
but never the favourable moment. In fact Fraülein Linda's talk came back
to the accursed runes with exasperating persistency. They would confirm
his theory. She was happy in being present at this auspicious discovery.
It would be a cause wherefore she should not wholly be forgotten. It was
this sentimental hint that gave a reasonable hope of taking her mind off
the runes, and the harassed philologer set himself resolutely to the
task. For her slight advances he found bolder responses, and still
scanning the irrigating ditches closely for an especially oozy bottom, he
expatiated on the loveliness of the afterglow and confirmed the
recollection of last evening that Fraülein Linda's dimpled hand might be
an eminently pleasant thing to hold. Thus gradually she was won from the
Lombard runes to more personal interests, and as in the slow progress
towards the station they neared a bridge, Hauptmann divined the spot
where the East Germanic hypothesis lately in peril of death might receive
an indefinite reprieve.
He found Linda, as he now called her, neither disinclined to sit on the
parapet nor to receive the support of his arm. Her chatter had dwindled
to sighs and exclamations. He felt the need of a competing sound as the
chug of the spearhead in the ditch should announce the discomfiture of
the West Germans. But before committing the telltale runes to this
ditch, Hauptmann scanned it carefully over Linda's curly head, and
considered thoughtfully its worthiness to receive so important a
deposit. The survey could not have been more reassuring. Like so many of
the main irrigating ditches that carry the water of Father Po and his
tributaries to the lower fields, the sluggish stream consisted equally
of water, weeds, and ooze. No Lombard or other object held in that
mixture was likely soon to be found. There was a moment of tense silence
and then a single plucking sound which various eavesdroppers might have
located at the surface of the ditch or near Linda's plump left cheek.
Neither guess would have been wrong, for if she sighed once more it was
not for the vanishing Lombard runes.
Fraülein Linda Göritz is, if something of a sentimentalist, also a bit of
an analyst, and when, in the train, she learned that the spearhead was
lost she accepted Hauptmann's cheerful comment with a certain scepticism.
He insisted with a suspicious vivacity that it didn't matter, that indeed
he preferred to have the merely professional reminiscence eliminated from
an experience that had personally moved him so deeply. To this reading of
the affair she naturally could not object, but as she gave him her hand
quite formally for farewell, she said: "To-night you have forgotten the
runes, tomorrow you forget me, nicht wahr? You are wrong. Them you will
not find again: there are many of me. You should have forgotten me
first." She escaped while a protest was on his lips.
Since that evening Fraülein Göritz has followed Professor Hauptmann's
brilliant career with a certain interest and perplexity. He has ceased to
be an Extraordinarius, but his promotion was based on his ingenious
researches in Vandalic. After that trip to the Certosa he discontinued
all Lombard studies, and, it is said, actually withdrew from publication
a scathing article in which the West Germanic contingent were handled
according to their deserts. She has a vague and not wholly comfortable
feeling of having counted for something as a deterrent, and she has been
heard to hint that his strange distaste for his favourite Lombard
investigations, is due to a deep and intimates cause--an unfortunate
affair of the heart associated with that historic region.