LITTLE ZACHES, GREAT ZINNOBER
A
FAIRY TALE
A
Translation of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s
KLEIN
ZACHES, GENANNT ZINNOBER
Ein
Märchen
By
Michael
Haldane
The little changeling – A Priest’s
nose in pressing danger – How Fürst[1]
Paphnutius established Enlightenment in his realm and the Fairy Rosabelverde
entered a convent.
Close to the road, not far from a pleasant village, a poor, ragged peasant woman lay stretched out on the hot earth beneath a blazing sun. Tormented by hunger, panting with thirst, and languishing to the point of death, the unfortunate woman had sunk down beneath the weight of a basket piled high with twigs laboriously picked up from beneath the trees and shrubs of the forest; and because she was scarcely capable of breath, she believed that she was certainly about to die, but her hopeless misery would thus end all at once. Yet she soon summoned sufficient strength to unfasten, with fumbling fingers, the cords fastening the basket of wood to her back and to slowly push herself up onto a grassy spot lying close by. Then she broke out into a loud lament:
“And must,” she wailed, “and must all the poverty and misery come to me and my poor husband? And aren’t we the only ones in the whole village who, despite all our work, despite all our hard-spilt sweat, stay constantly poor and barely earn enough to satisfy our hunger?
“Three years ago, when my husband found those pieces of gold, while digging our garden over – yes, then we believed that happiness had finally called on us and good days were coming. But what happened?
“Thieves stole the money, our house and barn burnt away over our heads, the grain in our fields was crushed by hail, and then, to fill our cup of misery to the point of overflowing, Heaven punished us further with this little changeling, who I bore to the shame and the mockery of the whole village.
“On St Laurence’s Day[2] the boy was three-and-a-half and he can’t walk, he can’t run on his spidery little legs, and instead of talking, he growls and miaows, like a cat. Yet for all that the deformed wretch eats like the strongest eight-year-old lad, without putting on any weight at all. May God have mercy on him and on us, if we have to raise the boy at our expense and to our greater suffering – for little hop-o’-my-thumb will certainly eat and drink more and more, but never work as long as he lives! No, no, that’s more than a woman can bear on this earth! Oh, why can’t I just die – just die!”
And the poor woman began to weep and to sob, and at last, overwhelmed by pain, and totally exhausted, she fell asleep.
The woman had every right to complain about the repulsive changeling whom she had given birth to three-and-a-half years previously. What one at first sight could well have regarded as a small, strangely cartilaginous wooden stick was actually a malformed boy, barely two spans high, who had crawled down from the basket, in which he had been lying crosswise, and was now growling and rolling in the grass. The thing’s head was set deep between its shoulders, it had a pumpkin-like outgrowth in place of a back, and its hazel switch-thin little legs hung down directly beneath its breast, so that the boy resembled a split radish. A dull eye would discover little about the face, but looking more closely, you would become aware of a long, sharp nose jutting out beneath shaggy black hair and a pair of small, darkly flashing eyes that seemed – especially when one considered the otherwise quite old, furrowed facial features – to reveal a small alraun.[3]
Now when, as has been said, the woman’s grief had sunk her into a deep sleep and her little son had rolled up close to her, it happened that the Fräulein von Rosenschön, Lady of the nearby convent, wandered along this way while returning home from a walk. She stopped and, being by nature pious and sympathetic, was greatly moved by the miserable scene that met her eyes.
“Oh, merciful Heaven,” she began, “but there is so much wretchedness and distress on Earth! The poor, unhappy woman! I know that she is clinging onto dear life, she has been working her body to a stop and has collapsed from hunger and sorrow! Now, for the first time, I really feel how poor and powerless I am! Oh, if I could only help as I want to! Yet that which I have left – the few gifts a hostile fate was not able to rob me of, or destroy, that are still at my command – I shall employ powerfully and faithfully to put a stop to this chagrin. Money – assuming I could offer it – would not help you at all, poor woman, but perhaps even make your condition worse. You and your husband, the two of you are simply not blessed with money, and whoever is not blessed with money finds that pieces of gold disappear from his pocket, without knowing exactly how; he gains nothing but deep frustration and, the more money that pours his way, the poorer and poorer he becomes. But I know that what gnaws at your heart more than all the poverty, more than all the distress, is your having given birth to that little monster who hangs on you like an evil, sinister burden you must carry throughout life. Tall – handsome – strong – intelligent – all these things, the boy simply cannot become; but he can perhaps be helped in another way.”
And the Fräulein sat down on the grass, taking the little one on her lap. The wicked alraun struggled and kicked out and, growling, tried to bite the Fräulein’s finger; but she merely said, “Easy now, easy, little cockchafer!” and stroked his head with the palm of her hand, lightly and gently, up from the brow and over and down to his neck. Gradually, the little one’s shaggy hair smoothed out beneath these strokes, until it flowed down in soft and handsome curls, brushing the face, onto his high shoulders and his pumpkin-back. The little one had become calmer and calmer, then finally fallen into a deep sleep. So Fräulein Rosenschön laid him carefully down in the grass beside his mother, sprinkled her with some holy water from a smelling bottle she had taken out of her pocket, and walked away with rapid steps.
And the woman, soon waking, felt miraculously strengthened and refreshed. It seemed to her that she had eaten a hearty meal and drunk a good drop of wine.
“Hey!” she cried, “how much comfort, how much cheer has come to me in that short sleep! – But the sun will soon be sinking behind the mountains, so away! Homewards!”
With these words she shaped to hoist up the basket when, looking inside, she missed the little one, who at that very moment sat up in the grass and gave a whining squawk. Now when the mother looked round at him, she clapped her hands in amazement and cried: “Zaches – Little Zaches, and who has been combing your hair so beautifully? Zaches – Little Zaches, how prettily those curls would suit you, if you weren’t such a horribly nasty boy! Now, come on – come! – Into the basket!”
She reached for him, intending to lay him crosswise over the wood, but Little Zaches thrashed about with his legs, grinned at his mother, and miaowed quite audibly: “I don’t want to!”
“Zaches – Little Zaches!” the woman shrieked, quite beside herself: “and who has been teaching you to talk? Now then! If you have such beautifully combed hair, if you can talk so civilly, why then you’ll be able to run as well.” The woman loaded the basket on her back, Little Zaches hung from her apron, and in this manner they reached the village.
Their way took them past the priest’s house, where it so happened that the priest was standing at the front door with his youngest son, a beautiful three-year-old boy with golden curls. Now when the priest saw the woman approaching with her heavy basket of wood and with little Zaches dangling from her apron, he cried to her: “Good evening, Frau Liese, how are you? You have burdened yourself with far too heavy a load; you can hardly take another step, come here, rest a little on this bench before my door, my maid will bring you something fresh to drink!”
Frau Liese did not need to be told twice, but set down her basket; and she was just opening her mouth to complain about all her misery and distress to the venerable gentleman when little Zaches, losing his balance at his mother’s sudden turn, flew off and landed at the priest’s feet. He quickly bent down and lifted the little one up, saying:
“Why, Frau Liese, Frau Liese, what a beautiful, delightful boy you have here! The possession of such a wonderfully beautiful child is a true blessing from Heaven.”
With these words, he took the little one in his arms and caressed him and did not at all seem to notice that the naughty hop-o’-my-thumb was growling and mewling quite nastily and even trying to bite the venerable gentleman’s nose. But Frau Liese stood, totally perplexed, before the priest, and looked at him with wide-open, glassy eyes, not at all knowing what she should think.
“Oh, dear Father,” she finally began in a whining voice, “a man of God, like you, surely doesn’t make fun of a poor, unhappy woman, who Heaven – it alone may know why – has punished with this repulsive changeling!”
“What mad nonsense,” the priest replied in a serious tone, “what mad nonsense you’re talking, dear lady! About making fun – changeling – divine punishment – I don’t understand you at all, and all I know is that you must be quite blind if you don’t love your handsome son with all your heart. Kiss me, my clever little man!”
The priest hugged the little one, but Zaches growled: “I don’t want to!” and snapped anew at the priestly nose. “Just look at the wicked beast!” cried the startled Liese; but at that moment the priest’s son spoke: “Oh, dear father, you’re so good, you’re so nice with children, I think they all must love you with all their hearts!”
“Oh, just listen,” cried the priest, his eyes beaming with joy, “oh, just listen, Frau Liese, to the handsome, intelligent boy, your dear Zaches, whom you’re so ill-disposed towards. I can see right now that you’ll never be very keen on the boy, no matter how handsome or intelligent he may be. Listen, Frau Liese: leave your promising child to be cared for and brought up by me. With your pressing poverty, the boy is only a burden to you, and it will be a joy to me to bring him up like my own son!”
Liese was far too amazed to collect her thoughts; again and again she cried, “But dear Father, dear Father, are you really serious about wanting to take the misshapen little creature into your care and bring him up and free me from the troubles the changeling gives me?”
Yet the more the woman represented her little alraun’s loathsome ugliness to the priest, the more eagerly he claimed that she, in her blind madness, did in no way deserve to be blessed by Heaven with the splendid present of such a wonderboy; and in the end he furiously ran into his house, with Little Zaches on his arm, and closed and bolted the door.
Now Frau Liese stood as still as a statue before the priest’s front door and had absolutely no idea what she should make of all this.
“What in the whole, wide world has happened to our worthy Father, that he should be so completely crazy about my Little Zaches and takes the simple squirt for a handsome, intelligent boy? Well! May God help the dear man, he has taken the weight off my shoulders and loaded it onto his own – may he now have a care how he carries it! Hey! How light the basket of wood has become, now Little Zaches is no longer sitting on it, and weighing it down with worry!”
And with that Frau Liese, the basket of wood on her back, stepped joyfully and in good spirits on her way! - - -
Even if I wished to remain completely silent at this time, you would nevertheless presumably suspect, gentle reader, that there must be quite an exceptional explanation behind Sister von Rosenschön – or Rosengrünschön, as she sometimes called herself. For the good-natured priest regarding Little Zaches as a beautiful and clever child and immediately receiving him as his own was certainly nothing other than the mysterious effect of her head-stroking and hair-smoothing. However, despite your excellent perspicacity, you could, dear reader, fall into false presumptions, or even turn over many pages – at a great disadvantage to the story – for the sole reason of immediately discovering more about the mystical nun; therefore it is probably better that I tell you everything I myself know about the worthy lady right now.
Fräulein von Rosenschön had a large build, a noble, majestic stature, and a rather proud, imperious bearing. Her face, which one had at first sight to consider exquisitely beautiful, nonetheless made a strange, almost uncanny impression – especially when, as was her wont, she stared before her with a fixed seriousness – which could primarily be ascribed to a distinctive, strange feature between her eyebrows that left one rather uncertain whether a nun could really have such a feature on her brow. For all that, there was often so much grace and beauty in her expression, especially in clear, lovely weather when roses were blooming, that everyone felt entranced by a sweet and irresistible magic. When I had the pleasure of seeing the gracious lady for the first and last time, she was by all appearances a lady in the fullest flower, on the highest peak of the incline; and I considered myself the recipient of great good fortune to be able to see the lady on this very peak, and to be slightly frightened by her wonderful beauty, which would very soon no longer be possible.
I was mistaken. The oldest villagers assured me that they had already known the young lady as long as they had thought, and that she had never looked any different; no older, no younger, no uglier, no prettier than at this precise moment. Time therefore seemed to have no power over her, and this alone could strike many as strange. But much else ensued, at which anyone who seriously considered the matter would be just as surprised; indeed, he would entangle himself further and further in amazement until he was no longer able to free himself. The first thing to quite clearly reveal itself about the lady was her relationship with the flowers whose name she bore. For not only was no one on Earth able to grow such splendid, thousand-leaved roses as she, but even the driest, most miserable thorn that she planted in the earth would shoot up into one of these flowers at the height of its fullness and splendour. And then it was known that, walking alone in the forest, she conducted audible conversations with miraculous voices, which seemed to sound forth from the trees, from the bushes, from the springs and streams. Yes, a young huntsman had once eavesdropped on her when she was standing in the middle of the densest undergrowth, and strange birds with colourful, shining plumage, certainly not native to the land, were flapping around and caressing her, seeming to tell her all kinds of merry news with their cheerful singing and twittering, at which she laughed with delight.
This was the reason why Fräulein von Rosenschön, at the time she entered the convent, soon attracted the attention of everyone in the district. Her admission to the convent had been ordered by the Fürst, and the Baron Prätextatus von Mondschein, owner of the estate in which this convent was situated – and so its administrator – could therefore raise no objections, despite being tormented by the most appalling doubts. For all his efforts to discover the Rosengrünschön family in ‘Rixners Turnierbuch’[4] and other chronicles had been in vain. This caused him to doubt, with some justification, the conventability of the young lady, who was unable to show a pedigree of thirty-two forefathers; and in the end, totally overcome with remorse, the tears glistening in his eyes, he asked her for Heaven’s sake to at least call herself Rosenschön, not Rosengrünschön, because the former name had some sense to it and possibly an ancestor.
Which she did to please him.
Perhaps the offended Prätextatus’ grudge against the peerless lady showed itself in this or that way and gave the initial impetus to the aspersions that soon began to ripple round the village. On top of those magical conversations in the forest – which, however, had no further significance – there appeared all sorts of dubious details, travelling from mouth to mouth and portraying the Fräulein’s character in an extremely ambiguous light. Mother Anne, the mayor’s wife, boldly claimed that when the lady sneezed loudly out of the window, all the milk in the village immediately turned sour. But this had barely been confirmed when disaster struck. The Schoolmaster’s young Mike had been nibbling at some roast potatoes in the convent kitchen and was caught in the act by the lady, who smiled and wagged a threatening finger at him. Then the boy’s mouth would not shut, exactly as if a burning roast potato were lodged inside forever, and from that time on he had to wear a hat with a broad, protruding brim, because otherwise it would have rained into the poor boy’s mouth.
It soon seemed to be certain that the lady knew how to conjure up fire and water, drive together storm-clouds and hail-clouds, weave Wichtelzöpfe[5] etc., and no one doubted the shepherd’s testimony when he claimed to have seen, at the midnight hour, to his shuddering dread, the lady racing through the air on a broomstick behind a monstrous stag-beetle with blue flames flaring up and leaping between its horns!
Now all was in uproar; everyone wanted to lay hands on the witch, and the village court resolved on nothing less than fetching the Fräulein from the convent and throwing her in the water, so she could take the customary witches’ ordeal. Baron Prätextatus allowed all this to happen, saying to himself with a smile: “That’s the way of simple-minded people who have no ancestors and cannot claim such a good old descent as that of Mondschein.”
The lady, informed of the threatening disaster, flew to the Fürst’s Palace; and soon afterwards Baron Prätextatus received a cabinet-order from the Fürst of the Land, through means of which it was made known to him that there were no witches, and he was ordered to reward the village court for their presumptuous eagerness to see the natatory talents of a nun by throwing them into the dungeon, and to let it be intimated to the other peasants and their wives that thinking ill of the Fräulein von Rosenschön was a mistake they would be made to feel. They thought things over, trembled at the threatened punishment and, from that point on, thought well of the Fräulein – which had, for both the village and the Lady Rosenschön, the most beneficial consequences.
It was well known in the Fürst’s Cabinet that Fräulein von Rosenschön was none other than the elsewhere world-famous Fairy Rosabelverde. The facts of the matter were as follows:
Over the whole, wide Earth, there could hardly be found a more pleasant spot than the small principality in which Baron Prätextatus von Mondschein’s estate lay, in which Fräulein von Rosenschön lived – in short, in which everything took place that I, my dear reader, am just about to narrate to you in greater detail.
Enclosed by lofty mountains, the little land resembled, with its green, fragrant forests, with its flowery meadows, with its murmuring streams and merrily splashing fountains – and especially with its having not one single town, but only smiling villages and isolated palaces dotted here and there – a wonderfully gorgeous garden, in which the inhabitants wandered at their leisure, free from all of life’s pressing burdens. Everyone knew that Fürst Demetrius governed the land; however, no one noticed the slightest sign of government, and everyone was very well satisfied with this. Persons who loved to have freedom in all their actions, a beautiful region and a mild climate, could not choose a better place of residence than this principality; and it therefore happened that among others who settled here were various splendid fairies of the good persuasion, who are known to value warmth and freedom above everything else. They may have been responsible for the most delightful marvels that very often took place in almost every village, but mainly in the forests, and for everyone being so immersed in the delight, the bliss of these marvels, that they fully believed in the miraculous and, without being conscious of the fact, remained for that very reason happy and therefore good citizens. The good fairies, who passed their time with a free, jinn-like capriciousness, would gladly have granted the excellent Demetrius eternal life. This did not however lie in their power. Demetrius died, to be succeeded by young Paphnutius.
Even in his father’s lifetime, Paphnutius had nursed the silent, hidden grief that, in his opinion, the people and the State were being ignored and neglected in the most deplorable manner. He decided to govern and immediately appointed his valet Andres, who had once, in an inn on the far side of the mountains, lent him six Ducats when he had left his purse behind, and so rescued him from grave danger, as First Minister of the Realm.
“I want to rule, my friend!” Paphnutius cried to him. Andres could read in his lord’s looks what was going through his mind, and threw himself down at his feet, saying with some solemnity:
“Sire! The historic hour has struck! – Through you, a realm rises gleaming from nocturnal Chaos! – Sire! Right here the most loyal vassal is pleading, a thousand voices of the poor, unhappy people in his breast and throat! – Sire! – Let there be Enlightenment!”
Paphnutius felt shaken to the core by the sublime thoughts of his minister. Raising him to his feet, he pressed him violently against his breast and said sobbing: “Minister – Andres – I owe you six Ducats – even more – my fortune – my realm! – Oh my loyal, clever servant!”
Paphnutius wanted an edict printed in large letters at once and posted on all corners, to the effect that henceforth Enlightenment had been established and everyone should heed this fact. However:
“Dear Sire!” cried Andres, “my dear Sire! That’s not how you do it!”
“So how do you do it, my dear fellow?” asked Paphnutius, taking his minister by the buttonhole, drawing him into his cabinet, and locking the doors.
“You see,” began Andres, once he had sat down on a small taboret opposite his Fürst, “you see, my noble lord! – The effect of your princely edict concerning Enlightenment would perhaps be affected in an unpleasant way, if we do not combine it with a measure that certainly appears severe, but which common-sense actually demands.
“Before we progress with Enlightenment i.e. before we hack down the forests, make the rivers navigable, grow potatoes, improve the village schools, plant acacias and poplars, teach the youth to sing the morning and evening hymns in duet, lay high roads and inoculate against cowpox, it is necessary that all those of dangerous dispositions, who lend no ear to reason and lead the people astray by sheer inanities, be expelled from the state.
“You have read ‘A Thousand and One Nights’, dear Fürst, for I know that your serenely blessed Herr Papa – may Heaven grant him a restful slumber in the grave – loved unfortunate books of that kind, and handed them to you, when you were yet riding your hobby-horse and consuming gilded gingerbread. And so!
“From these completely muddled books, you will, my noble Lord, probably know the so-called fairies, but certainly not suspect that several of these dangerous persons have settled in your own beloved land, right in the vicinity of your palace, and are getting up to all sorts of mischief.”
“What? – What is he saying – Andres! Minister! Fairies – here in my land?”
Thus cried the Fürst, going deathly pale and sinking into the back of his chair.
“Calm, my noble lord,” continued Andres, “we can remain calm, as long as we use our brains in our crusade against those enemies of Enlightenment. Yes! – I name them enemies of Enlightenment, because by abusing the goodness of your blessed Herr Papa, they and they alone are responsible for our dear State still being laid low in total darkness. They are carrying on a dangerous trade with the miraculous and they do not shy away from spreading, under the name of poetry, a secret poison that makes people quite incapable of serving the Enlightenment. And then they have such unbearable, police-unfriendly habits, that for these alone they may not be tolerated in any civilised state. For example: the impudent creatures have the effrontery to go, as soon as the fancy takes them, for a drive in the air with harnessed doves, swans – indeed, even winged horses. Now I ask you, my noble lord: is it worth the effort of drawing up and introducing a sensible customs tariff, when there are people in the State capable of throwing untaxed goods down every thoughtless citizen’s chimney, as and when they desire?
“For that, my noble lord – as soon as Enlightenment is proclaimed,
out with the fairies! Their palaces
will be surrounded by the Police, their dangerous possessions will be
confiscated, and they will be sent packing as vagabonds to their fatherland
which, as you will know from the ‘Thousand and One Nights’, my noble lord, is
the little
“Do post-wagons go to this land, Andres?” was the Fürst’s question.
“Not at this present time,” replied Andres, “but a relay there could perhaps, once Enlightenment has been established, be profitably started.”
“But Andres,” continued the Fürst, “will our treatment of the fairies not be considered harsh? – Will the spoilt populace not grumble?”
“For that as well,” said Andres, “for that as well, I know a way. We will not, my noble lord, send all the fairies away to Jinnistan; we will keep some in the land, but not only rob them of all means of being injurious to Enlightenment, but also employ the appropriate measures to transform them into useful members of the Enlightened State. If they are unwilling to agree to such respectable marriages, then they may, under close supervision, ply some useful trade, knitting socks for the army in time of war, or whatever. Mark my words, my noble lord, the people will very soon cease to believe in fairies once they begin to walk among them, and that is for the best. So all conceivable grumbling will cease of its own accord.
“Incidentally, as concerns the fairies’ utensils, then they will find a home in the Princely Treasury, the doves and swans will be delivered to the Princely Kitchen to make delicious roasts; but one could attempt to cultivate the winged horses and make useful beasts out of them, by cutting off their wings and giving them these as stable-fodder, which we will hopefully establish at the same time as Enlightenment.”
Paphnutius was greatly satisfied with all of his minister’s suggestions, and on the following day all that had been resolved was carried out. On all corners the edict emblazoned the newly established Enlightenment, and at the same time the Police burst into the fairies’ palaces, confiscated their entire property, took them prisoner and led them away.
Heaven alone may know how it happened that the Fairy Rosabelverde was the only one to get wind, a few hours beforehand, of the approaching surge of Enlightenment; and she used the time to set her swans free and get rid of her magic rose-bushes and other precious objects. Moreover, she knew that she had been chosen to remain in the land; a resolve with which she complied, albeit with great reluctance.
Actually, neither Paphnutius nor Andres could understand why the fairies transported to Jinnistan expressed such excessive joy and stated again and again that all the possessions they had to leave behind didn’t matter in the least.
“Perhaps,” Paphnutius cried indignantly, “perhaps Jinnistan is a much nicer state than mine, and they are laughing their heads off at me and my edict and my Enlightenment, which makes me determined that it will progress!”
The Geographer and the State Historian were to report on the land in minute detail.
Both agreed that Jinnistan was a miserable land, with no culture, Enlightenment, erudition, acacias or cowpox, and actually didn’t exist at all. And there was surely nothing worse that could befall a human being or a country than not existing at all.
Paphnutius felt reassured.
When the beautiful flowery grove, in which Fairy Rosabelverde’s deserted palace was situated, was chopped down and Paphnutius himself had, by way of example, inoculated all the country oafs in the next village against cowpox, the fairy waited for the Prince in the forest through which he was to return to his castle with Minister Andres. Then she drove him with all kinds of persuasive words, but primarily with some sinister tricks she had hidden from the police, into such a tight corner that he asked her, for Heaven’s sake, to please make do with a place in the only (and so best) convent in the whole land, where she could reign and ordain as she liked, without having to care about the edict of Enlightenment.
The Fairy Rosabelverde accepted the suggestion and in this way entered the convent where she, as has already been related, named herself Fräulein von Rosengrünschön but then, at the pressing request of Baron Prätextatus von Mondschein, Fräulein von Rosenschön.
Of the unknown race discovered by the
scholar Ptolomäus Philadelphus on his travels. – The
Among the intimate letters written by the world-renowned scholar Ptolomaüs Philadelphus to his friend Rufin, when engaged on distant journeys, may be found the following curious passage:
“You know, my dear Rufin, that there is nothing in the world I fear and avoid so much as the burning sunbeams of the day, which consume the powers of my body and relax and exhaust my mind to such a degree that all my thoughts flow together into a confused image and I vainly struggle to catch any kind of clear image in my soul. Therefore I am accustomed at this hot season to rest during the day and continue my journey by night; and so I found myself on the road last night. My driver had turned off the correct, comfortable way in the thick darkness and had unexpectedly arrived on the high road. Notwithstanding the fact that I was flung here and there around the carriage by the violent jolts, so that my head, riddled with bumps, was not unlike a sack full of walnuts, I did not awake from the deep sleep I had sunk into until a dreadful jerk sent me plunging out of the carriage onto the hard ground. The sun shone brightly in my face, and through the barrier standing directly before me I perceived the high towers of a considerable city. The driver was vigorously complaining, for not only the shaft, but also a back-wheel of the carriage had broken against the large stone lying in the middle of the high road, and he did not seem to care about me much, if at all. I restrained my anger, as befits the wise man, and merely cried to the fellow, in a gentle voice, that he was a damned rascal, that he may reflect that Ptolomäus Philadelphus, the most renowned scholar of his age, was sitting on du-, and let a shaft be a shaft and a wheel a wheel. You know, my dear Rufin, the power I exert over the human heart, and it therefore happened that the driver immediately ceased complaining and helped me, with the assistance of the toll collector, before whose small house the accident had occurred, on to my feet. Fortunately I had not suffered any serious damage and was able to slowly walk down the road, the driver laboriously dragging his broken carriage along behind me. Not far from that city gate I had seen in the blue distance, I was met by many people of such wondrous appearance and such strange costume that I had to rub my eyes to find out if I was really awake or if a mad, teasing dream had perhaps transported me to a fabulous, foreign land.
“These people, whom I should rightly have held to be inhabitants of the city out of whose gate I saw them issue, wore long, very wide trousers, cut in the Japanese fashion, of delicious material, velvet, Manchester[6], fine cloth, or also colourfully interwoven with canvas, plentifully trimmed with tresses or pretty ribbons and laces, in addition small children’s coats, barely covering the abdomen, mostly of a sun-bright colour, only a few being black. Their hair hung down with a natural, uncombed wildness over their shoulders and back, and a strange little cap sat on their heads. Many had fully exposed their neck after the fashion of the Turks and Modern Greeks, whereas others wore a small strip of white canvas on their neck and breast, almost resembling a shirt-collar, as you, dear Rufin, will have seen them on the paintings of our ancestors. Despite the fact that all these people seemed to be very young, their speech was deep and coarse, their every movement stiff, and many a one had a small shadow beneath his nose, as if a little moustache were squatting there. Many had a long pipe, with large, dangling silken tassels, jutting out of the back of their small coats. Others had pulled out these pipes and attached small – larger – and sometimes very large, strangely-formed heads to the bottom, out of which they could skilfully make artificial clouds of smoke rise by blowing into a small, tapering tube at the top. Others carried broad, flashing swords in their hands, as if they were about to march out to meet the enemy; yet others had small leather or tin containers slung over their shoulders or buckled on their backs. You can imagine, dear Rufin, that I, I who seek to enrich my knowledge through the careful observation of every phenomenon that is new to me, stood still and locked my gaze on the strange people. Then they assembled around me, screamed ‘Philistine – Philistine!’ with no little violence, and broke out into a dreadful laugh. – That annoyed me. For, my dear Rufin, can anything be more wounding to a great scholar than being taken by the people to be one of those who, many thousands of years ago, was slain by means of the jawbone of an ass?[7]
“I pulled myself together with my innate dignity and loudly told the strange crowd around me that I hoped to find myself in a civilised state and that I would turn to the police and the law courts to avenge the injustice I had suffered. Then they all began to growl; even those who had not previously been smoking pulled the apparatus designed for that purpose out of their pockets, and they all blew thick clouds of smoke into my face, which, as I only now noticed, stank unbearably and stunned my senses. Then they pronounced a type of curse on me, the words of which I absolutely cannot repeat to you, dear Rufin, on account of their hideousness. I myself cannot recall it without a deep horror. They finally left me, with loud, mocking laughter, and it seemed to me that the word ‘hunting-whip’[8] was dying away in the breeze.
“My driver, who had seen and heard everything, wrung his hands and said: ‘Oh, my dear Sir! Now that what’s happened has happened, don’t under any circumstances enter that city! No dog would take bread from your hands, as the saying goes, and constant danger would threaten you, beat-’
I did not let the sturdy fellow finish, but turned my steps as quickly as I possibly could to the next village. I am sitting in a lonely chamber in the only inn in this village and writing all of this to you, my dear Rufin! As far as possible, I shall collect news about the barbaric foreign race that resides in that city. I have already been told much that is highly strange about their customs – their habits – their language etc. and shall faithfully inform you of everything etc. etc.”
You perceive, my dear Reader, that one may be a great scholar – and yet be unacquainted with some of life’s ordinary phenomena; and yet get into the oddest dreams over things known throughout the world. Ptolomäus Philadelphus had studied and yet did not know a student when he saw one; and he did not even know that he was sitting in Hoch-Jakobsheim village which, as is well known, lies close to the famous University of Kerepes, when he wrote to his friend about an occurrence that had reshaped itself in his mind into the strangest adventure. The good Ptolomäus was startled when he met students wandering at their leisure, blithely and in high spirits, out into the country. What terror would have gripped him, had he arrived in Kerepes an hour earlier and had chance led him before the house of the Professor of Natural History Mosch Terpin! Hundreds of students, streaming out of the house, would have surrounded him, disputing noisily, and this babble, this bustle would have led to even stranger dreams crossing his mind.
Of all the lectures in Kerepes, those by Mosch Terpin were the most frequently attended. He was, as stated, Professor of Natural History; he explained how it rains, thunders and lightnings, why the sun shines by day and the moon at night, how and why the grass grows etc., in such a way that any child could understand. He had compressed all of Nature into a dainty little compendium, so that he could quite comfortably handle her as he pleased, and pull out the answer to any question as from a drawer. His reputation was first founded on his having made the happy discovery, after many physics experiments, that darkness principally stems from a lack of light. This, as well as his ability to convert, with a great deal of skill, these same physics experiments into charming tricks, thus making a thoroughly delightful hocus-pocus, procured him an unbelievable popularity.
Allow me, my benevolent Reader, as you are much better acquainted with students than is the renowned scholar Ptolomäus Philadelphus, as you know nothing of his dreamy timorousness, to lead you to Kerepes, before Professor Mosch Terpin’s house, when he has just this moment finished a lecture. Among the students pouring out there is one who immediately holds your attention. You perceive a well-made youth of twenty-three, twenty-four, from whose darkly shining eyes a marvellous, lively inner spirit speaks with eloquent words. His gaze could almost be called saucy, if the infatuated grief spread over his pale countenance had not covered the burning rays like a veil. His coat of fine black cloth, trimmed with velvet, is almost cut in the Old German fashion, and is admirably complemented by the dainty, dazzling-white lace-collar, and the velvet cap that sits on the beautiful chestnut-brown curls. This costume suits him very nicely because he, in his whole being, in his propriety of gait and bearing, in the meaningful formation of his face, really seemed to belong to an earlier, beautiful, pious age; and one would therefore not think of the mere ornamentation, which is often the order of the day with the petty imitation of misunderstood models according to the equally misunderstood requirements of the present.
This young man, whom you, dear reader, find so pleasing at first sight, is none other than the student Balthasar, child of respectable, wealthy people, gentle – sensible – hard-working – about whom I have a great deal to tell you, oh my reader, in the curious story I have undertaken to set down. –
Serious, engrossed in thought, as he was wont to be, Balthasar walked out of Mosch Terpin’s lecture towards the gate, heading not for the fencing-ground, but for a pleasant little forest lying hardly a few hundred paces from Kerepes. His friend Fabian, a handsome lad of a cheerful appearance and just such a character, ran after and caught up with him just before the gate.
“Balthasar!” shouted Fabian, “now, Balthasar, are you going out into the forest again, to wander around on your own like a melancholic Philistine, while stalwart lads bravely practise the noble art of fencing? – I’m begging you, Balthasar, will you please drop this foolish, sinister behaviour and be really cheerful and happy again, as you always used to be? Come on! – We’ll try a few bouts, and if you still want to go out after that, I’ll run along with you.”
“You mean well,” replied Balthasar, “you mean well, Fabian, and for that reason I don’t feel any resentment towards you for occasionally running after me up hill and down dale like a madman, thus depriving me of much pleasure of a kind that you cannot conceive. You’re simply one of those strange people who take everyone, whom they see walking alone, for a melancholic fool, and who want to handle and cure him their way, like that fawning courtier with the worthy Prince Hamlet, who then, when the little man assured him that he knew nothing of the flute, gave him a proper lesson. Now I shall certainly spare you that, dear Fabian, but I will ask you with all my heart to look for another mate for your noble fencing with rapier and broadsword and let me continue on my way in peace.”
“No, no,” cried Fabian, laughing, “you won’t escape me like that, my dear friend! – If you won’t come with me to the fencing-ground, then I’ll go with you out to the forest. It’s the duty of a true friend to brighten your melancholy. So come, dear Balthasar, come, if you won’t have it any other way.”
With that he grabbed his friend under the arm and strode, leading him, sprightily away. Balthasar clenched his teeth in silent fury and persisted in a dark silence, while Fabian breathlessly related merry anecdotes and more merry anecdotes. These included much that was of a foolish nature, which always tends to happen with merry, breathless relations.
Now when they finally stepped into the cool shadows of the fragrant forest, when the bushes seemed to whisper yearning sighs, when the magical melodies of the murmuring streams and the songs of the wood-fowl resounded far into the distance, waking an answering echo from the mountains, – then Balthasar suddenly stood still and cried, spreading his arms out wide as if about to clasp them lovingly around the trees and bushes:
“Oh, now I feel well again! – Indescribably well!”
Fabian looked at his friend, somewhat perplexed, like one who cannot make head or tail of another’s speech, who doesn’t have a clue what he should make of it. Then Balthasar grabbed his hand and cried with sheer delight:
“Admit it, brother, now you too feel your heart uplifted, now you too comprehend the blessed secret of sylvan solitude?”
“I don’t entirely understand you, dear brother,” replied Fabian, “but if you mean that a walk here in the forest does you good, then I wholeheartedly share your opinion. Don’t I too like going for a walk, especially in good company, with whom one can hold a rational, instructive conversation? – It is, for example, undoubtedly a real pleasure to go for a walk in the country with our Professor Mosch Terpin. He knows every little plant, every blade of grass, its name and which class it belongs to, and he’s an expert on the wind and the weather.”
“Stop right there,” cried Balthasar, “I beg you, stop right there! – You’re touching on something that would drive me mad, if there weren’t a consolation for it! The way in which the Professor talks about Nature rends my very heart. Or rather, I am seized by a sinister horror, as if I saw the madman who, King and Ruler in his foppish folly, caresses the straw-puppet he is controlling, imagining he has his arms around the royal bride’s neck! His so-called experiments seem to me to be an abominable mockery of the Divine Being, whose breath blows on us in Nature and excites the deepest, holiest presentiments in the innermost depths of our soul. I was often tempted to smash his glasses, his phials, all his junk to pieces, if I hadn’t thought that the ape doesn’t desist from playing with fire until he has burnt his paws.
“You see, Fabian, these feelings frighten me, constrict my heart in Mosch Terpin’s lectures, and then I probably appear to you to be more profound and introspective than ever. Then I feel as if the houses were about to come crashing down over my head, an indescribable dread drives me out of the town. But here, here a sweet peace soon fills my soul. Lying on the flowery turf, I look up into the blue breadth of Heaven, and over me, away over the rejoicing forest, the golden clouds pass like glorious dreams from a distant world full of blissful joys!
“Oh my Fabian, then a miraculous spirit rises from my, my breast, and I hear it talking in mysterious words with the bushes, with the trees, with the surging of the forest brook, and I just cannot give a name to the delight that then flows through my whole being as a sweet, melancholy yearning!”
“Well!” cried Fabian, “well, once again it’s the old never-ending song of melancholy and bliss and talking trees and forest brooks. All your verses are bursting with these good things, which fall very pleasingly on the ear and can be profitably used, so long as you don’t look for anything more behind them.
“But tell me, my most excellent melancholicus, if Mosch Terpin’s lectures really do offend and annoy you so terribly, just tell me why on earth you run into every one, why you don’t miss a single one, only to sit there, on every occasion, dumb and rigid with your eyes closed, like a dreamer?”
“Don’t ask,” replied Balthasar, lowering his eyes, “don’t ask me about that, my dear friend! – Every morning an unknown force draws me into Mosch Terpin’s house. I feel my torment approaching, and yet I cannot resist, a dark fate drives me onwards!”
“Ha, ha,” Fabian burst out laughing, “ha, ha, ha – how excellent – how poetic, how mystical! The unknown force that draws you into Mosch Terpin’s house lies in the dark-blue eyes of the lovely Candida! – We have all known for a long time that you’re head over heels in love with the Professor’s pretty little daughter, and so we make allowances for your fantasising, your foolish behaviour. After all, that’s how it is with those in love. You find yourself in the first stage of lovesickness and must, in your late youth, force yourself to do all those strange pranks that we, I and many others – may Heaven be thanked! – went through at school without a large, attentive audience. But believe me, my dear heart – ”
Fabian had in the meantime again seized his friend Balthasar by the arm and had walked rapidly onwards with him. They were just stepping out of the thicket on to the broad road that led through the middle of the forest, when Fabian noticed a riderless horse in the distance, enveloped in a cloud of dust, and trotting towards them.
“Hey, hey!” he cried, interrupting himself, “hey, hey, there’s a damned nag that has bolted and thrown its rider – we must catch it and then search the forest for the rider.” And he placed himself in the middle of the road.
The horse came nearer and nearer; then it seemed as if a pair of riding boots was swinging up and down in the air on both sides and something black was stirring and whirling on the saddle. Straight in front of Fabian there rang out a long, shrill Prrr-Prrr – and at the same moment a pair of riding boots really did fly around his head, and a strange little black thing shot off and landed between his legs. The large horse stood stock still, its long neck stretched forward, and sniffed its tiny master, who rolled about in the dust and finally, laboriously, raised himself to his feet. The little squirt’s head was set deep between his high shoulders; with the outgrowths on his chest and back, with his short body and his high, spidery little legs, he resembled an apple skewered on a fork, on which someone had carved a grotesque face. Now when Fabian saw this strange little monster standing before him, he burst out into loud laughter. But the little one defiantly squashed the small cap, that he had snatched up from the ground, down over his eyes and asked in a husky, deeply hoarse tone, looking fiery daggers at Fabian:
“Is this the right way to Kerepes?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Balthasar in a soft, serious voice; and, having collected the boots, he handed them to the little one. All the little one’s efforts to put the boots on were in vain; he toppled over again and again and rolled, groaning, in the dust. Balthasar stood both boots up together, gently lifted the little one up and then gently lowered him, until both his little feet were in the too heavy, too wide cases. With a proud bearing, one hand pressed into his side, the other touching his cap, the little one cried, “Gratias, sir!”, strode over to the horse, and grasped its reins. However, all attempts to reach the stirrups or scramble up onto the large animal were in vain. Balthasar, serious and gentle all the while, stepped over and lifted the little one up into the saddle. He may well have given himself too strong a push, because one moment he was sitting on top, the next he was lying on the ground again on the far side.
“Hold your horses, my dear M’sieu!” cried Fabian, once more bursting out into peals of laughter.
“To Hell with your dear M’sieur,” screamed the little one, quite enraged, beating the dust from his clothes, “I am a studiosus, and if you’re one too then it’s Tusch[9] to laugh in my face like a lunatic, and you must fight me in Kerepes tomorrow!”
“Heavens!” cried Fabian, laughing incessantly, “Heavens, now that’s a solid lad, a Jack of all trades, when it comes to pluck and the proper code of conduct.”
And he lifted the little one up, despite all his struggling and wriggling, and placed him on the horse which, merrily neighing, immediately trotted away with its little master.
Fabian was holding both his sides, about to choke with laughter.
“It is cruel,” said Balthasar, “to laugh at a human being whom Nature has abandoned in such an appalling way as the little rider over there. If he really is a student, then you’ll have to fight him, and indeed with pistols, even if it runs contrary to all academic custom, as he’s unable to wield rapier or broadsword.”
“How seriously,” said Fabian, “how seriously, how gloomily you’re taking all this once again, my dear friend Balthasar. It has never occurred to me to laugh at a deformed person. But tell me: may such a gristly hop-o’-my-thumb mount a horse whose neck he can’t see over? May he stick his little feet into such despicably wide boots? May he wear a tight-fitting kurtha with a thousand laces and tassels, may he wear such a strange velvet cap? May he adopt such an arrogant, defiant bearing? May he force such hoarse, barbaric sounds from his throat? –
“May he do all this, I ask you, without being rightfully laughed at as a confirmed idiot? – But I must go in, I must be there to see the racket there’ll be when the knightly studiosus rides in on his proud steed! – You’re no fun at all today! Look after yourself!” Fabian ran back post-haste through the forest to the town.
Balthasar left the open road and lost himself in the deepest thickets, then sank down on a mossy spot, seized – indeed, overwhelmed – by the bitterest feelings. It may well have been that he truly loved the fair Candida, but he had locked this love, like a deep, tender secret, in his innermost soul, hidden from human eyes, and indeed from his own. Now when Fabian spoke of it so openly, so thoughtlessly, he felt as if rough hands were boldly and arrogantly tearing down the veil from the Holy Image that he had not dared to touch; as if the Holy One must now be eternally angry with him. Yes, Fabian’s words seemed to him an abominable mockery of his whole being, of his sweetest dreams.
“So,” he cried out in an excess of irritation, “so you hold me for an enamoured fop, Fabian! – for a fool who runs into Mosch Terpin’s lectures to at least spend a whole hour under the same roof as the lovely Candida, who wanders around the forest on his own to think up pitiful verses to his loved one and write them down even more pitifully, who spoils the trees by carving silly names in their flat bark, who cannot bring one intelligent word to market in the presence of girls, but only sighs and groans and makes lamentable faces, as if he were afflicted with cramp, who wears on his bare breast the faded flowers she wore on her bosom, or even the glove she lost – in short, who commits a thousand childish follies!
“And you tease me, Fabian, for this, and all the lads are no doubt laughing at me, for this, and I, together with the inner world that has opened up to me, am perhaps an object of mockery, for this. – And the fair – adorable – gorgeous Candida – ”
When he spoke this name, he felt a pain in his heart like the stab of a red-hot dagger! – Ah! – An inner voice very audibly whispered to him at that moment that he did enter Mosch Terpin’s house just for Candida’s sake, that he composed verses to his loved one, that he carved her name in deciduous trees, that he fell silent, sighed, groaned in her presence, that he wore the faded flowers she had lost on his breast, that he therefore really had fallen into all the follies that Fabian could possibly reproach him with. Now, for the first time, he really felt how inexpressibly he loved the fair Candida; but at the same time he felt that, strangely enough, the purest, deepest love took on a somewhat foppish form in external reality – which could probably be ascribed to the deep irony nature had planted in all human activity. He may have been right; however, getting greatly annoyed at this was totally wrong. The dreams that would otherwise have enveloped him were lost, the voices of the forest sounded to him like mocking scorn; he ran back to Kerepes.
“Herr Balthasar – mon cher Balthasar,” a voice cried. Lifting his gaze, he stood rooted to the spot, for he saw Professor Mosch Terpin approaching, leading his daughter Candida by the arm. Candida greeted the petrified, statue-like youth with her characteristic cheerful, friendly naturalness.
“Balthasar, mon cher Balthasar,” cried the Professor, “you are, indeed, the most industrious, the most dear to me of my audience! – Oh my dear fellow, I see it in you, you love Nature and all her miracles as I do, I who have really doted on her! – Been botanizing again in our little forest, no doubt! – Found anything pleasant? – Now! – Let us become better acquainted. – Visit me – welcome at any time. – Can experiment together – Have you seen my air pump yet? – Now! – mon cher – tomorrow evening an intimate circle will assemble in my house, which will consume tea with bread and butter and amuse itself in pleasant conversation, increase it by your worthy person. – You will get to know a very attractive young man, been especially recommended to me – bonsoir, mon cher – good evening, excellent fellow – au revoir – Goodbye! You are coming to tomorrow’s lecture? – Now – mon cher, adieu!” – Without awaiting Balthasar’s reply, Professor Mosch Terpin strode away with his daughter.
Balthasar had been too alarmed to dare to lift his eyes, but Candida’s looks burnt into his breast; he felt the scent of her breath, and sweet shudders trembled through his innermost being.
His ill-humour was completely dispelled; transported with delight, he followed the fair Candida with his eyes until she disappeared into the arbour. Then he slowly returned to the forest, to dream more marvellous dreams than ever.
How Fabian
did not know what to say. – Candida and young ladies, who should not eat fish.
– Mosch Terpin’s literary tea-party. – The young Prince.
Running down the straight track
that cut across the forest, Fabian thought he would surely come out in front of
the strange little squirt who had gone trotting on ahead. He was mistaken; stepping out of the
bushes, he noticed in the far distance another, stately rider joining the
little one: now both rode through the Kerepes Gate.
“Hm!” Fabian said to himself, “even
if the Nutcracker has arrived before me on his large horse, I’ll still be early
enough to see the rumpus his arrival will cause. If the strange thing really is a
student, he’ll be directed to the ‘Winged Steed,’ and if he pipes up with his
shrill Prr-Prr! in there, and throws his riding boots forward and himself after
them, and acts wild and defiant when the lads laugh – well! – Then that’ll put
the icing on the cake!” –
Now when Fabian reached the town,
he thought he would meet nothing but laughing faces in the streets leading to
the ‘Winged Steed.’ But this was
not the case. Everyone was quiet
and serious as they walked past.
Several academics, who had assembled in the square before the ‘Winged
Steed,’ were walking up and down just as seriously and conversing among
themselves. Fabian was convinced
that the little one could not have arrived here at least, when, glancing
through the inn-gate, he saw his easily recognizable horse being led to the
stables. So he pounced on the first
friend of his who came along and asked if an extremely strange, curious squirt
had trotted in? The person
questioned knew just as little of the matter as those others to whom Fabian now
related all that had occurred with him and the hop-o’-my-thumb. They all laughed a lot, but assured him
that such a thing as he was describing had in no wise arrived. Yet they could state that two very
stately riders on beautiful horses had dismounted at the ‘Winged Steed’, barely
ten minutes ago.
“Was one of them sitting on the
horse that has just been led to the stables?” Thus asked Fabian.
“Certainly,” came the reply,
“certainly. The one sitting on that
horse was of a somewhat small stature, but he had a dainty physique, pleasant
facial features and the most beautiful curly hair you could wish to see. Moreover, he showed himself to be the
most superb rider, for he leapt down from his horse with as much agility, as
much grace as our Fürst’s First Stablemaster.”
“And,” cried Fabian, “and didn’t
lose his riding boots and roll up to your feet?”
“God forbid,” they replied with one
voice, “God forbid! – What are you thinking of, brother! Such a skilled rider as the little one!”
Fabian just did not know what to
say. Then Balthasar came down the
street. Fabian rushed at him,
pulled him over and recounted how the little squirt they had met before the
gate when he fell from his horse had just arrived here and everyone took him to
be a handsome man with dainty limbs and the most splendid rider.
“You see,” replied Balthasar in a
calm, serious voice, “you see, my dear brother Fabian, that everyone does not
attack those unfortunate people abandoned by Nature with unkind mockery as you
do.”
“But for Heaven’s sake,”
interrupted Fabian, “this most certainly isn’t a question of mockery and
unkindness, but rather, if a three-foot high fellow not at all dissimilar to a
radish can be called a handsome, dainty man?”
As concerned the stature and
appearance of the little student, Balthasar had to confirm Fabian’s
statement. The others maintained
that the small rider was a handsome, dainty man, whereas Fabian and Balthasar
persisted in claiming that they had never seen a more hideous
hop-o’-my-thumb. It remained at
that, and they all parted in total amazement.
Late evening fell; the two friends
made their way home together. Then
it escaped from Balthasar – he himself did not know how – that he had met
Professor Mosch Terpin, who had invited him to his house on the following
evening. “Oh, you happy,” cried
Fabian, “oh, you happy, happy man – there you’ll see, hear, talk to your
darling, the pretty Mademoiselle Candida!”
Balthasar, deeply wounded once
more, tore himself free from Fabian and was about to disappear. Yet he reflected a moment, remained
where he was and said, forcefully restraining his annoyance:
“You may be right, dear brother,
when you hold me for a silly, enamoured fop; perhaps I really am. But this silliness is a deep, painful
wound that has smitten my heart and which, touched in a careless way causing
more intense pain, could incite me to all kinds of madness. And so, brother, if you really hold me
dear, don’t mention the name Candida to me any more!”
“You’re taking,” replied Fabian,
“you’re taking, my dear friend Balthasar, the matter in an awfully tragic light
once again, and I well suppose that nothing else is to be expected in your
condition. But to avoid getting
into all sorts of unpleasant discord with you, I promise that the name Candida
will not pass my lips until you yourself give me occasion for it. Allow me just to add today that I
foresee all sorts of troubles that your being in love will plunge you
into. Candida is an extremely
pretty, lovely young maid, but she isn’t at all suited to your melancholic,
passionate temperament. If you get
to know her better, her open cheerful character will appear to you as a lack of
poetry, which you find to be lacking everywhere. You will start all sorts of mysterious
daydreams and everything will end tumultuously in dreadfully imagined grief and
satisfactory despair. By the way, I
too am invited for tomorrow to our Professor’s, where he’ll entertain us with
some very pleasing experiments! – Now good night, fabulous dreamer! Sleep, if you can sleep before such an
important day as the one approaching!”
With that Fabian left his friend,
who had sunk into deep contemplation.
It might be that Fabian had not foreseen all kinds of unhappy emotional
moments between Candida and Balthasar without reason; for both character and
temperament did indeed seem to provide sufficient cause.
Candida was, as everyone had to
admit, as pretty as a picture, with eyes that shone straight into the heart and
somewhat pursed rosy lips. Whether
her beautiful hair, which she knew how to do up in quite fantastic, wondrous
plaits, was more blond or more brunette, I have forgotten, I only remember very
clearly its strange quality of becoming darker and darker the longer one looked
at it. With her tall, slim stature
and easy movement, the girl was grace, loveliness itself, especially when in
the company of those with a zest for life; and with so much physical charm, one
was only too willing to overlook the fact that her hands and feet could perhaps
have been made slightly smaller and more dainty. Moreover, Candida had read Goethe’s
‘Wilhelm Meister,’ Schiller’s poems and Fouqué’s ‘Der Zauberring’ and then
forgotten almost everything they contained; she played the pianoforte very
tolerably, and from time to time even sang along as well; she danced the newest
Françaises and Gavottes and wrote the laundry-list in an excellent, legible
hand. If one absolutely had to find fault with the dear girl, it
could perhaps lie in her talking in too deep a voice, lacing herself up too
tightly, being pleased with a new hat for too long and consuming one cake too
many with her tea.
There was perhaps much else about
the pretty Candida that was not to the taste of effusive poets, but they will demand so much, won’t they? For a start, they want the young lady to
react to everything that passes their lips by falling into a somnambulary
delight, sighing deeply, rolling her eyes, and occasionally giving a little bit
of a faint or even going momentarily blind as the highest stage of the most
feminine femininity. Then the said
young lady must sing the poet’s songs to the melody that pours from the (that
is, her) heart but immediately fall ill from this and even write verses
herself, yet be very ashamed when word of this gets out, notwithstanding that
the lady has herself pushed her verses, written in tender characters on very
delicate fragrant paper, into the hands of the poet, who then in his turn is taken ill with delight – for
which he cannot in the least be blamed.
There are poetic ascetics who go even further and find it contrary to
all female delicacy that a girl should laugh, eat and drink and dress herself
neatly and fashionably. They are
almost like the holy Hieronymus[10],
who forbids virgins to wear earrings and eat fish. They should – so the saint commands –
only enjoy some prepared grass, constantly be hungry without feeling so, wrap
themselves up in coarse, badly sewn clothes that hide their figure, and above
all choose a female companion who is serious, pale, sad and somewhat dirty! –
Candida
was through and through a cheerful, open character, and so she believed there
was nothing better than a conversation that flitted on the light, airy wings of
the most harmless humour. She
laughed really heartily at anything comical; she never sighed, unless rainy
weather spoiled her anticipated walk or, despite all cautionary measures, a
mark appeared on her new shawl. And
yet, if there were real cause, a deep, inner feeling would glance through, that
could never degenerate into shallow sentimentalism; and so to you and I, dear
reader, we who do not belong to the effusive ones, the girl may be just
right. It could very easily stand
otherwise with Balthasar! – Yet we shall no doubt soon see to what extent the
prosaic Fabian had prophesied correctly! –
That
Balthasar could not get a wink of sleep that night for sheer restlessness, for
an indescribable, sweet yearning: what could be more natural? Totally absorbed in the image of his loved
one, he sat down at the table and wrote quite a number of fine, melodious
verses, which depicted his condition in a mystical account of the nightingale’s
love for the crimson rose. He
intended to take them with him to Mosch Terpin’s Literary Tea-Party and let
them loose at Candida’s unprotected heart, whenever and however possible.
Fabian
gave a slight smile when, according to arrangement, he came at the determined
hour to pick up his friend Balthasar, and found him more dandily accoutered
that he had ever seen him. He had
put on a jagged collar of the finest
Balthasar’s
heart trembled with delight when, in Mosch Terpin’s house, Candida walked up to
him, in the costume of the old German maiden, friendly and graceful in her
looks and words, in her whole being, as one was accustomed to always seeing
her.
“My fair
young lady!” sighed Balthasar from the bottom of his heart when Candida, sweet Candida,
personally offered him a cup of steaming tea. But Candida looked at him with shining
eyes and said:
“Here is
rum and maraschino, rusk and pumpernickel, dear Herr Balthasar, feel free to
help yourself!”
But
instead of looking at, or even helping himself to, rum and maraschino, rusk and
pumpernickel, the enraptured Balthasar could not take his eyes – filled with
the painful melancholy of the deepest love – off the fair maiden and he
struggled for words to express from the depths of his soul just what he was
feeling. But then the Professor of
Aesthetics, a big, beefy man, grabbed him from behind with a forceful grip,
spun him around, so that he spilt more tea on the floor than was quite proper,
and shouted in a thundering voice:
“My good
Lucas Cranach[11],
don’t guzzle that filthy water, you’ll completely spoil your German stomach –
in the room over there our brave Mosch has planted a row of the loveliest
bottles of noble Rhenish wine, let’s go and make them sing!”
And he
dragged the unhappy youth away.
But
Professor Mosch Terpin stepped out of an adjoining room into their path,
leading a very strange little man by the hand and crying out:
“Here,
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you a youth endowed with the highest, rarest
talents, who will encounter no difficulty in acquiring your goodwill and your
respect. It is young Herr Zinnober[12],
who only arrived at our University yesterday and is proposing to study Law!”
Fabian and
Balthasar recognized with the first glance the odd little squirt who had
thundered towards them before the gate and fallen off his horse.
“So should
I,” said Fabian quietly to Balthasar, “should I challenge the little alraun to
blowpipes or to shoemaker’s awls? I
mean, there are no other weapons I could use against this terrifying adversary.”
“Shame on
you,” replied Balthasar, “shame on you for mocking the abandoned man who, as
you have heard, possesses the rarest talents and so replaces by mental ability
what Nature has denied him in the way of physical advantages.”
Then he
turned to the little one and said, “I hope, my dear Herr Zinnober, that your
fall from your horse yesterday did not perhaps have any unpleasant
consequences?”
But
Zinnober placed a small cane he carried on the ground behind him and pushed up,
raising himself onto his tiptoes so that he almost came up to Balthasar’s belt;
then he threw his head back into his neck, looked up with wildly sparkling eyes
and said in a strangely grating bass:
“I don’t
know what you want, what you’re talking about, sir! – Fallen off a horse? – I
fallen off a horse? – You probably don’t know that I’m the best rider there can
be, that I never fall off my horse, that I took part in the campaign as a
volunteer in the Cuirassiers and gave instruction on riding manège to officers
and the rank and file! – hm, hm – fall off a horse – I fall off a horse!”
With that
he tried to turn quickly around, but the cane he was propped against slipped,
and the little one reeled over at Balthasar’s feet. Balthasar reached down to help him up,
and in so doing accidentally touched his head. Then the little one uttered a shrill
scream that rang out throughout the room, making the guests shoot up with shock
from their seats. Everyone
surrounded Balthasar and began to ask one another why, in the name of Heaven,
he had screamed so dreadfully?
“Don’t
take it amiss, my dear Herr Balthasar,” said Professor Mosch Terpin, “but that
was a somewhat strange joke. For
you probably wanted to make us believe that someone in this room had stepped on
a cat’s tail!”
“Cat – cat
– out with the cat!” cried a neurasthenic lady and then fainted at once; and
with the cry: “Cat – cat” – a couple of old gentlemen who suffered from the
same idiosyncrasy ran out the door.
Candida,
who had poured out all of her smelling-bottle over the unconscious lady, said
softly to Balthasar: “Just look at the mischief you’ve made with your nasty,
shrill miaow, dear Herr Balthasar!”
The latter
had no idea what was happening to him.
His whole face fiery red with indignation and shame, he was unable to
squeeze out one word to say that it was the little Herr Zinnober, not he, who had miaowed so horribly.
Professor
Mosch Terpin saw how terribly embarrassed the youth was. He approached him with a smile and said:
“Well, well, dear Herr Balthasar, please be calm. I saw everything that happened. Stooping to the ground and arching your
back, then hopping on all fours, you gave a marvellous imitation of a fierce,
maltreated tomcat. Normally I love
such natural history pranks very much, but here in a literary tea-party –”
“But,”
burst out Balthasar, “but, my excellent Herr Professor, it wasn’t me.”
“All right
– all right,” interrupted the Professor.
Candida stepped up to them.
“Comfort for me,” the Professor said to her, “do comfort the good
Balthasar for me, he is thoroughly embarrassed about all the mischief that has
occurred.”
The
good-natured Candida felt sincerely sorry for poor Balthasar, who stood before
her totally bewildered, with lowered eyes.
She held out a hand to him and whispered, smiling gracefully: “What
really funny people there are, being so awfully afraid of cats!”
Balthasar
fervently pressed Candida’s hand to his lips. Candida rested the soulful gaze of her
heavenly eyes on him. He was
enraptured, in the highest Heaven, and thought no more about Zinnober and
screaming cats.
The tumult
was over; peace was restored. The
neurasthenic lady sat at the tea-table, tucking into several rusks dunked in
rum, and maintaining that such things refreshed the mind threatened by hostile
forces, and that sudden shock gave way to eager hope! –
And the
two old gentlemen, who really had had
a fleeing tomcat run through their legs outside, returned pacified and, with
several others, sought the gaming table.
Balthasar, Fabian, the Professor of Aesthetics and several young people sat down with the ladies. Herr Zinnober had in the