Peter entering the parlour, immediately put his hand into his pocket, and perceived, by its being quite full, that Hezekiel must be plentifully supplied. He sat down at the table among the others and played, losing and winning alternately; thus they kept playing till night, when all sober people went home. After having continued for some time by candle-light, two of the gamblers said: “Now it is enough, and we must go home to our wives and children.”
But Peter challenged Hezekiel to remain. The latter was unwilling, but said, after a while, “Be it as you wish; I will count my money, and then we’ll play dice at five florins the stake, for any thing lower is, after all, but child’s play.” He drew his purse, and, after counting, found he had a hundred florins left; now Peter knew how much he himself had left, without counting first. But if Hezekiel had before won, he now lost stake after stake, and swore most awfully. If he cast apasch, Peter immediately cast one likewise, and always two points higher. At length he put down the last five florins on the table, saying, “Once more; and if I lose this stake also, yet I will not leave off; you will then lend me some of the money you have won now, Peter; one honest fellow helps the other.”
“As much as you like, even if it were a hundred florins,” replied Peter, joyful at his gain, and fat Hezekiel rattled the dice and threw up fifteen; “Pasch!” he exclaimed, “now we’ll see!” But Peter threw up eighteen, and, at this moment, a hoarse, well-known voice said behind him, “So! that was the last.”
He looked round, and behind him stood the gigantic figure of Michel the Dutchman. Terrified, he dropped the money he had already taken up. But fat Hezekiel, not seeing Michel, demanded that Peter should advance him ten florins for playing. As if in a dream Peter hastily put his hand into his pocket, but there was no money; he searched in the other pocket, but in vain; he turned his coat inside out, not a farthing, however, fell out; and at this instant he first recollected his first wish; viz., to have always as much money in his pocket as fat Hezekiel. All had now vanished like smoke.
The host and Hezekiel looked at him with astonishment as he still searched for and could not find his money; they would not believe that he had no more left; but when they at length searched his pockets, without finding any thing, they were enraged, swearing that gambling Peter was an evil wizard, and had wished away all the money he had won home to his own house. Peter defended himself stoutly, but appearances were against him. Hezekiel protested he would tell this shocking story to all the people in the Schwarzwald, and the host vowed he would, the following morning early go into the town and inform against Peter as a sorcerer, adding that he had no doubt of his being burnt alive. Upon this they fell furiously upon him, tore off his coat, and kicked him out of doors.
Not one star was twinkling in the sky to lighten Peter’s way as he sneaked sadly towards his home, but still he could distinctly recognise a dark form striding by his side, which at length said, “It is all over with you, Peter Munk; all your splendour is at an end, and this I could have foretold you even at the time when you would not listen to me, but rather ran to the silly glass dwarf. You now see to what you have come by disregarding my advice. But try your fortune with me this time, I have compassion on your fate. No one ever yet repented of applying to me, and if you don’t mind the walk to the Tannenbühl, I shall be there all day to-morrow and you may speak to me, if you will call.” Peter now very clearly perceived who was speaking to him, but feeling a sensation of awe, he made no answer and ran towards home.
When, on the Monday morning, he came to his factory, he not only found his workmen, but also other people whom no one likes to see; viz., the bailiff and three beadles. The bailiff wished Peter good morning, asked him how he had slept, and then took from his pocket a long list of Peter’s creditors, saying, with a stern look, “Can you pay or not? Be short, for I have no time to lose, and you know it is full three leagues to the prison.” Peter in despair confessed he had nothing left, telling the bailiff he might value all the premises, horses, and carts. But while they went about examining and valuing the things, Peter said to himself, “Well, it is but a short way to the Tannenbühl, and as thelittleman has not helped me, I will now try for once thebigman.” He ran towards the Tannenbühl as fast as if the beadles were at his heels. On passing the spot where the glass-mannikin had first spoken to him, he felt as if an invisible hand were stopping him, but he tore himself away and ran onwards till he came to the boundary which he had well marked. Scarcely had he, almost out of breath, called, “Dutch Michel, Mr. Dutch Michel!” than suddenly the gigantic raftsman with his pole stood before him.
“Have you come then?” said the latter, laughing. “Were they going to fleece you and sell you to your creditors? Well, be easy, all your sorrow comes, as I have always said, from the little glass-mannikin, the Separatist and Pietist. When one gives, one ought to give right plentifully and not like that skinflint. But come,” he continued, turning towards the forest, “follow me to my house, there we’ll see whether we can strike a bargain.”
“Strike a bargain?” thought Peter. “What can he want of me, what can I sell to him? Am I perhaps to serve him, or what is it that he can want?” They went at first up-hill over a steep forest path, when all at once they stopped at a dark, deep, and almost perpendicular ravine. Michel leaped down as easily as he would go down marble steps; but Peter almost fell into a fit when he saw him below, rising up like a church steeple reaching him an arm as long as a scaffolding pole with a hand at the end as broad as the table in the ale house, and calling in a voice which sounded like the deep tones of a death bell, “Set yourself boldly on my hand, hold fast by the fingers and you will not fall off.” Peter, trembling, did as he was ordered, sat down upon his hand and held himself fast by the thumb of the giant.
They now went down a long way and very deep, yet, to Peter’s astonishment, it did not grow darker; on the contrary, the daylight seemed rather to increase in the chasm, and it was sometime before Peter’s eyes could bear it. Michel’s stature became smaller as Peter came lower down, and he stood now in his former size before a house just like those of the wealthy peasants of the Schwarzwald. The room into which Peter was led differed in nothing but its appearance of solitariness from those of other people. The wooden clock, the stove of Dutch tiles, the broad benches and utensils on the shelves were the same as anywhere else. Michel told him to sit down at the large table, then went out of the room and returned with a pitcher of wine and glasses. Having filled these, they now began a conversation, and Dutch Michel expatiated on the pleasures of the world, talked of foreign countries, fine cities and rivers, so that Peter, at length, feeling a yearning after such sights, candidly told Michel his wish.
“If you had courage and strength in your body to undertake any thing, could a few palpitations of your stupid heart make you tremble; and the offences against honor, or misfortunes, why should a rational fellow care, for either? Did you feel it in your head when they but lately called you a cheat and a scoundrel? Or did it give you a pain in your stomach, when the bailiff came to eject you from your house? Tell me, where was it you felt pain?”
“In my heart,” replied Peter, putting his hand on his beating breast, for he felt as if his heart was anxiously turning within him.
“Excuse me for saying so, but you have thrown away many hundred florins on vile beggars and other rabble; what has it profited you? They have wished you blessings and health for it; well, have you grown the healthier for that? For half that money you might have kept a physician. A blessing, a fine blessing forsooth, when one is distrained upon and ejected! And what was it that urged you to put your hand into your pocket, as often as a beggar held out his broken hat?—Why your heart again, and ever your heart, neither your eyes, nor your tongue, nor your arms, nor your legs, but your heart; you have, as the proverb truly says, taken too much to heart.”
“But how can we accustom ourselves to act otherwise? I take, at this moment, every possible pains to suppress it, and yet my heart palpitates and pains me.”
“You, indeed, poor fellow!” cried Michel, laughing; “you can do nothing against it; but give me this scarcely palpitating thing, and you will see how comfortable you will then feel.”
“My heart to you?” cried Peter, horrified. “Why, then, I must die on the spot! Never!”
“Yes, if one of your surgeons would operate upon you and take out your heart, you must indeed die; but with me it is a different thing; just come in here and convince yourself.”
Rising at these words, he opened the door of a chamber and took Peter in. On stepping over the threshold, his heart contracted convulsively, but he minded it not, for the sight that presented itself was singular and surprising. On several shelves glasses were standing, filled with a transparent liquid, and each contained a heart. All were labelled with names which Peter read with curiosity; there was the heart of the bailiff in F., that of fat Hezekiel, that of the “king of the ball-room,” that of the ranger; there were the hearts of six usurious corn-merchants, of eight recruiting officers, of three money-brokers; in short, it was a collection of the most respectable hearts twenty leagues around.
“Look!” said Dutch Michel, “all these have shaken off the anxieties and cares of life; none of these hearts any longer beat anxiously and uneasily, and their former owners feel happy now they have got rid of the troublesome guest.”
“But what do they now carry in their breasts instead?” asked Peter, whose head was nearly swimming at what he beheld.
“This,” replied he, taking out of a small drawer, and presenting to him—a heart of stone.
“Indeed!” said Peter, who could not prevent a cold shuddering coming over him. “A heart of marble? But, tell me, Mr. Michel, such a heart must be very cold in one’s breast.”
“True, but very agreeably cool. Why should a heart be warm? For in winter its warmth is of little use, and good strong Kirschwasser does more than a warm heart, and in summer when all is hot and sultry, you can’t think how cooling such a heart is. And, as before said, such a heart feels neither anxiety nor terror, neither foolish compassion nor other grief.”
“And that is all you can offer me,” asked Peter, indignantly, “I looked for money and you are going to give me a stone.”
“Well! an hundred thousand florins, methinks, would suffice you for the present. If you employ it properly, you may soon make it a million.”
“An hundred thousand!” exclaimed the poor coal-burner, joyfully. “Well, don’t beat so vehemently in my bosom, we shall soon have done with one another. Agreed, Michel, give me the stone, and the money, and the alarum you may take out of its case.”
“I always thought you were a reasonable fellow,” replied Michel, with a friendly smile; “come, let us drink another glass, and then I will pay you the money.”
They went back to the room and sat down again to the wine, drinking one glass after another till Peter fell into a profound sleep.
He was awakened by the cheerful blast of a post-boy’s bugle, and found himself sitting in a handsome carriage, driving along on a wide road. On putting his head out he saw in the airy distance the Schwarzwald lying behind him. At first he could scarcely believe that it was his own self sitting in the carriage, for even his clothes were different from those he had worn the day before; but still he had such a distinct recollection that, giving up at length all these reflections, he exclaimed, “I am Peter and no other, that is certain.”
He was astonished that he could no longer, in the slightest degree, feel melancholy now he for the first time departed from his quiet home and the forests where he had lived so long. He could not even press a tear out of his eyes or utter a sigh, when he thought of his mother, who must now feel helpless and wretched; for he was indifferent to every thing: “Well,” he said, “tears and sighs, yearning for home and sadness proceed indeed from the heart, but thanks to Dutch Michel, mine is of stone and cold.” Putting his hand upon his breast, he felt all quiet and no emotion. “If Michel,” said he, beginning to search the carriage, “keeps his word as well with respect to the hundred thousand florins as he does with the heart, I shall be very glad.” In his search he found articles of dress of every description he could wish, but no money. At length, however, he discovered a pocket containing many thousand thalers in gold, and bills on large houses in all the great cities. “Now I have what I want,” thought he, squeezed himself into the corner of the carriage and went into the wide world.
For two years he travelled about in the world, looked from his carriage to the right and left up the houses, but whenever he alighted he looked at nothing except the sign of the hotel, and then ran about the town to see the finest curiosities. But nothing gladdened him, no pictures, no building, no music, no dancing, nor any thing else had any interest for, or excited his stone heart; his eyes and ears were blunted for every thing beautiful. No enjoyment was left him but that which he felt in eating and drinking and sleep; and thus he lived running through the world without any object, eating for amusement and sleeping fromennui. From time to time he indeed remembered that he had been more cheerful and happier, when he was poor and obliged to work for a livelihood. Then he was delighted by every beautiful prospect in the valley, by music and song, then he had for hours looked in joyful expectation towards the frugal meal which his mother was to bring him to the kiln.
When thus reflecting on the past, it seemed very strange to him, that now he could not even laugh, while formerly he had laughed at the slightest joke. When others laughed, he only distorted his mouth out of politeness, but his heart did not sympathise with the smile. He felt he was indeed exceedingly tranquil, but yet not contented. It was not a yearning after home, nor was it sadness, but a void, desolate feeling, satiety and a joyless life that at last urged him to his home.
When, after leaving Strasburg, he beheld the dark forest of his native country; when for the first time he again saw the robust figures, the friendly and open countenances of the Schwarzwälder; when the homely, strong, and deep, but harmonious sounds struck upon his ear, he quickly put his hand upon his heart, for his blood flowed faster, thinking he must rejoice and weep at the same time; but how could he be so foolish? he had a heart of stone, and stones are dead and can neither smile nor weep.
His first walk was to Michel who received him with his former kindness. “Michel,” said he, “I have now travelled and seen every thing, but all is dull stuff and I have only foundennui. The stone I carry about with me in my breast, protects me against many things; I never get angry, am never sad, but neither do I ever feel joyful, and it seems as if I was only half alive. Can you not infuse a little more life into my stone heart, or rather, give me back my former heart? During five-and-twenty years I had become quite accustomed to it, and though it sometimes did a foolish thing, yet it was, after all, a merry and cheerful heart.”
The sylvan spirit laughed grimly and sarcastically at this, answering, “When once you are dead, Peter Munk, it shall not be withheld; then you shall have back your soft, susceptible heart, and may then feel whatever comes, whether joy or sorrow. But here, on this side of the grave, it can never be yours again. Travelled you have indeed, Peter, but in the way you lived, your travelling could afford you no satisfaction. Settle now somewhere in the world, build a house, marry, and employ your capital; you wanted nothing but occupation; being idle, you feltennui, and now you lay all the blame to this innocent heart.” Peter saw that Michel was right with respect to idleness, and therefore proposed to himself to become richer and richer. Michel gave him another hundred thousand florins, and they parted as good friends.
The report soon spread in Schwarzwald that “Coal Peter,” or “gambling Peter” had returned, and was much richer than before. It was here as it always is. When he was a beggar he was kicked out of the inn, but now he had come back wealthy, all shook him by the hand when he entered on the Sunday afternoon, praised his horse, asked about his journey, and when he began playing for hard dollars with fat Hezekiel, he stood as high in their estimation as ever before. He no longer followed the trade of glass manufacturer, but the timber trade, though that only in appearance, his chief business being in corn and money transactions. Half the people of the Schwarzwald became by degrees his debtors, and he lent money only at ten per cent., or sold corn to the poor who, not being able to pay ready money, had to purchase it at three times its value. With the bailiff he now stood on a footing of the closest friendship, and if any one failed paying Mr. Peter Munk on the very day the money was due, the bailiff with his beadles came, valued house and property, sold all instantly, and drove father, mother, and child, out into the forest. This became at first rather troublesome to Peter, for the poor outcasts besieged his doors in troops, the men imploring indulgence, the women trying to move his stony heart, and the children moaning for a piece of bread. But getting a couple of large mastiffs, he soon put an end to this cat’s music, as he used to call it, for he whistled and set them on the beggars, who dispersed screaming. But the most troublesome person to him was “the old woman,” who, however, was no other than Frau Munk, Peter’s mother. She had been reduced to great poverty and distress, when her house and all was sold, and her son, on returning wealthy, had troubled himself no more about her. So she came sometimes before his house, supporting herself on a stick, as she was aged, weak, and infirm; but she no more ventured to go in, as he had on one occasion driven her out; and she was much grieved at being obliged to prolong her existence by the bounties of other people, while her own son might have prepared for her a comfortable old age. But his cold heart never was moved by the sight of the pale face and well known features, by the imploring looks, outstretched withered hands and decaying frame. If on a Saturday she knocked at the door, he put his hand grumbling into his pocket for a six-batzen-piece, wrapped it in a bit of paper and sent it out by a servant. He heard her tremulous voice when she thanked him, and wished him a blessing in this world, he heard her crawl away coughing from the door, but he thought of nothing, except that he had again spent six-batzen for nothing.
At length Peter took it into his head to marry. He knew that every father in the Schwarzwald would gladly give him his daughter, but he was fastidious in his choice, for he wished that every body should praise his good fortune and understanding in matrimony as well as in other matters. He therefore rode about the whole forest, looking out in every direction, but none of the pretty Schwarzwülder girls seemed beautiful enough for him. Having finally looked out in vain for the most beautiful at all the dancing-rooms, he was one day told the most beautiful and most virtuous girl in the whole forest was the daughter of a poor wood-cutter. He heard she lived quiet and retired, was industrious and managed her father’s household well, and that she was never seen at a dancing-room, not even at Whitsuntide or the Kirchweihfest.[2] When Peter heard of this wonder of the Schwarzwald, he determined to court her, and, having inquired where the hut was, rode there. The father of the beautiful Elizabeth received the great gentleman with astonishment, but was still more amazed when he heard it was the rich Herr Peter who wished to become his son-in-law. Thinking all his cares and poverty would now be at an end, he did not hesitate long in giving his consent, without even asking the beautiful Elizabeth, and the good child was so dutiful that she became Frau Peter Munk without opposition.
But the poor girl did not find the happiness she had dreamt of. She believed she understood the management of a house well, but she could never give satisfaction to Herr Peter; she had compassion on poor people, and, as her husband was wealthy, thought it no sin to give a poor woman a penny, or a dram to a poor aged man. This being one day found out by Peter, he said to her, with angry look and gruff voice, “Why do you waste my property upon ragamuffins and vagabonds? Have you brought any thing of your own to the house that you can give away? With your father’s beggar’s staff you could not warm a soup, and you lavish my money like a princess. Once more let me find you out, and you shall feel my hand.” The beautiful Elizabeth wept in her chamber over the hard heart of her husband, and often wished herself at home in her father’s poor hut rather than with the rich, but avaricious and sinful Peter. Alas! had she known that he had a heart of marble and could neither love her nor any body else, she would not, perhaps, have wondered. But as often as a beggar now passed while she was sitting before the door, and drawing his hat off, asked for alms, she shut her eyes that she might not behold the distress, and closed her hand tight that she might not put it involuntarily in her pocket and take out a kreutzer. This caused a report and obtained an ill name for Elizabeth in the whole forest, and she was said to be even more miserly than Peter Munk. But one day Frau Elizabeth was again sitting before the door spinning and humming an air, for she was cheerful because it was fine weather, and Peter was taking a ride in the country, when a little old man came along the road, carrying a large heavy bag, and she heard him panting at a great distance. Sympathising, she looked at him and thought how cruel it was to place such a heavy burden upon an aged man.
In the meanwhile the little man came near, tottering and panting, and sank under the weight of his bag almost down on the ground just as he came opposite Frau Elizabeth.
“Oh, have compassion on me, good woman, and give me a drink of water,” said the little man, “I can go no farther, and must perish from exhaustion.”
“But you ought not to carry such heavy loads at your age?” said she.
“No more I should if I were not obliged to work as carrier from poverty and to prolong my life,” replied he. “Ah, such rich ladies as you know not how painful poverty is, and how strengthening a fresh draught in this hot weather.”
On hearing this she immediately ran into the house, took a pitcher from the shelf and filled it with water; but she had only gone a few paces back to take it to him, when, seeing the little man sit on his bag miserable and wretched, she felt pity for him, and recollecting that her husband was from home, she put down the pitcher, took a cup, filled it with wine, put a loaf of rye bread on it and gave it to the poor old man. “There,” she said, “a draught of wine will do you more good than water, as you are very old; but do not drink so hastily, and eat some bread with it.”
The little man looked at her in astonishment till the big tears came into his eyes; he drank and said, “I have grown old, but have seen few people who were so compassionate and knew how to spend their gifts so handsomely and cordially as you do, Frau Elizabeth. But you will be blessed for it on earth; such a heart will not remain unrequited.”
“No, and she shall have her reward on the spot,” cried a terrible voice, and looking round they found it was Herr Peter with a face as red as scarlet. “Even my choicest wine you waste upon beggars, and give my own cup to the lips of vagabonds? There, take your reward.” His wife fell prostrate before him and begged his forgiveness, but the heart of stone knew no pity, and flourishing the whip he held in his hand he struck her with the ebony handle on her beautiful forehead with such vehemence, that she sunk lifeless into the arms of the old man. When he saw what he had done it was almost as if he repented of the deed immediately; he stooped to see whether there was yet life in her, but the little man said in a well-known voice, “Spare your trouble, Peter; she was the most beautiful and lovely flower in the Schwarzwald, but you have crushed it and never again will see it bloom.”
Now the blood fled from Peter’s cheek and he said, “It is you then, Mr. Schatzhauser? well, what is done is done then, and I suppose this was to happen. But I trust you will not inform against me.”
“Wretch,” replied the glass-mannikin, “what would it profit me if I brought your mortal part to the gallows? It is not earthly tribunals you have to fear, but another and more severe one; for you have sold your soul to the evil one.”
“And if I have sold my heart,” cried Peter, “it is no one’s fault but yours and your deceitful treasures; your malicious spirit brought me to ruin; you forced me to seek help from another, and upon you lies the whole responsibility.” He had scarcely uttered these words than the little man grew enormously tall and broad, his eyes it is said became as large as soup plates, and his mouth like a heated furnace vomiting flames. Peter fell upon his knees, and his stone heart did not protect his limbs from trembling like an aspen leaf. The sylvan spirit seized him, as if with vultures’ claws, by the nape of the neck, whirled him round as the storm whirls the dry leaves, and dashed him to the ground so that his ribs cracked within him. “You worm of dust,” he cried, in a voice roaring like thunder, “I could crush you if I wished, for you have trespassed against the lord of the forest; but for the sake of this dead woman that fed and refreshed me, I give you a week’s respite. If you do not repent I shall return and crush your bones, and you will go hence in your sins.”
It was already evening when some men passing by saw the wealthy Peter Munk lying on the ground. They turned him over and over to see whether there was still life in him, but for a long time looked in vain. At length one of them went into the house, fetched some water and sprinkled some on his face. Peter fetched a deep sigh and opened his eyes, looked for a long time around, and asked for his wife Elizabeth, but no one had seen her. He thanked the men for their assistance, crawled into his house, searched everywhere, but in vain, and found what he imagined to be a dream a sad reality. As he was now quite alone strange thoughts came into his mind; he did not indeed fear any thing, for his heart was quite cold; but when he thought of the death of his wife his own forcibly came to his mind, and he reflected how laden he should go hence—heavily laden with the tears of the poor; with thousands of the curses of those who could not soften his heart; with the lamentations of the wretched on whom he had set his dogs; with the silent despair of his mother; with the blood of the beautiful and good Elizabeth; and yet he could not even so much as give an account of her to her poor old father, should he come and ask “Where is my daughter, your wife?” How then could he give an account to Him—to Him to whom belong all woods, all lakes, all mountains, and the life of men?
This tormented him in his dreams at night, and he was awoke every moment by a sweet voice crying to him “Peter, get a warmer heart!” And when he was awoke he quickly closed his eyes again, for the voice uttering this warning to him could be none other but that of his Elizabeth. The following day he went into the inn to divert his thoughts, and there met his friend, fat Hezekiel. He sat down by him and they commenced talking on various topics, of the fine weather, of war, of taxes, and lastly, also of death, and how such and such a person had died suddenly. Now Peter asked him what he thought about death, and how it would be after death. Hezekiel replied, “That the body was buried, but that the soul went either up to heaven or down to hell.”
“Then the heart also is buried?” asked Peter, anxiously.
“To be sure that also is buried.”
“But supposing one has no longer a heart?” continued Peter.
Hezekiel gave him a terrible look at these words. “What do you mean by that? Do you wish to rally me? Think you I have no heart?”
“Oh, heart enough, as firm as stone,” replied Peter.
Hezekiel looked in astonishment at him, glancing round at the same time to see whether they were overheard, and then said, “Whence do you know that? Or does your own perhaps no longer beat within your breast?”
“It beats no longer, at least, not in my breast;” replied Peter Munk. “But tell me, as you know what I mean, how will it be with our hearts?”
“Why does that concern you, my good fellow?” answered Hezekiel, laughing. “Why you have plenty here upon earth, and that is sufficient. Indeed, the comfort of our cold hearts is that no fear at such thoughts befals us.”
“Very true, but still one cannot help thinking of it, and though I know no fear now, still I well remember how I was terrified at hell when yet an innocent little boy.”
“Well, it will not exactly go well with us,” said Hezekiel; “I once asked a schoolmaster about it, who told me that the hearts are weighed after death to ascertain the weight of their sins. The light ones rise, the heavy sink, and methinks our stone hearts will weigh heavy enough.”
“Alas, true,” replied Peter; “I often feel uncomfortable that my heart is so devoid of sympathy, and so indifferent when I think of such things.” So ended their conversation.
But the following night Peter again heard the well-known voice whispering into his ear five or six times, “Peter, get a warmer heart!” He felt no repentance at having killed his wife, but when he told the servants that she had gone on a journey, he always thought within himself, where is she gone to? Six days had thus passed away, and he still heard the voice at night, and still thought of the sylvan spirit and his terrible menace; but on the seventh morning, he jumped up from his couch and cried, “Well, then, I will see whether I can get a warmer heart, for the cold stone in my breast makes my life only tedious and desolate.” He quickly put on his best dress, mounted his horse, and rode towards the Tannenbühl.
Having arrived at that part where the trees stand thickest, he dismounted, and went with a quick pace towards the summit of the hill, and as he stood before the thick pine he repeated the following verse:
“Keeper of wealth in the forest of pine,Hundreds of years are surely thine:Thine is the tall pine’s dwelling place—Those born on Sunday see thy face.”
The glass-mannikin appeared, not looking friendly and kindly as formerly, but gloomy and sad; he wore a little coat of black glass, and a long glass crape hung floating from his hat, and Peter well knew for whom he mourned.
“What do you want with me, Peter Munk?” asked he with a stern voice.
“I have one more wish, Mr. Schatzhauser,” replied Peter, with his look cast down.
“Can hearts of stone still wish?” said the former. “You have all your corrupt mind can need, and I could scarcely fulfil your wish.”
“But you have promised to grant me three wishes, and one I have still left.”
“I can refuse it if it is foolish,” continued the spirit; “but come, let me hear what you wish.”
“Well, take the dead stone out of me, and give me a living heart,” said Peter.
“Have I made the bargain about the heart with you?” asked the glass-mannikin. “Am I the Dutch Michel, who gives wealth and cold hearts? It is of him you must seek to regain your heart.”
“Alas! he will never give it back,” said Peter.
“Bad as you are, yet I feel pity for you,” continued the little man, after some consideration; “and as your wish is not foolish, I cannot at least refuse my help. Hear then. You can never recover your heart by force, only by stratagem, but probably you will find it without difficulty; for Michel will ever be stupid Michel, although he fancies himself very shrewd. Go straightway to him, and do as I tell you.” He now instructed Peter fully, and gave him a small cross of pure glass, saying, “He cannot touch your life and will let you go when you hold this before him and repeat a prayer. When you have obtained your wish return to me.”
Peter took the cross, impressed all his words on his memory, and started on his way to the Dutchman Michel’s residence; there he called his name three times and immediately the giant stood before him.
“You have slain your wife?” he asked, with a grim laugh. “I should have done the same, she wasted your property on beggars; but you will be obliged to leave the country for some time; and I suppose you want money and have come to get it?”
“You have hit it,” replied Peter; “and pray let it be a large sum, for it is a long way to America.”
Michel leading the way they went into his cottage; there he opened a chest containing much money and took out whole rolls of gold. While he was counting it on the table Peter said, “You’re a wag, Michel. You have told me a fib, saying that I had a stone in my breast, and that you had my heart.”
“And is it not so then?” asked Michel, astonished. “Do you feel your heart? Is it not cold as ice? Have you any fear or sorrow? Do you repent of any thing?”
“You have only made my heart to cease beating, but I still have it in my breast, and so has Hezekiel, who told me you had deceived us both. You are not the man who, unperceived and without danger, could tear the heart from the breast; it would require witchcraft on your part.”
“But I assure you,” cried Michel, angrily, “you and Hezekiel and all the rich people, who have sold themselves to me, have hearts as cold as yours, and their real hearts I have here in my chamber.”
“Ah! how glibly you can tell lies,” said Peter, laughing, “you must tell that to another to be believed; think you I have not seen such tricks by dozens in my journeys? Your hearts in the chamber are made of wax; you’re a rich fellow I grant, but you are no magician.”
Now the giant was enraged and burst open the chamber door, saying, “Come in and read all the labels and look yonder is Peter Munk’s heart; do you see how it writhes? Can that too be of wax?”
“For all that, it is of wax,” replied Peter. “A genuine heart does not writhe like that. I have mine still in my breast. No! you are no magician.”
“But I will prove it to you,” cried the former angrily. “You shall feel that it is your heart.” He took it, opened Peter’s waistcoat, took the stone from his breast, and held it up. Then taking the heart, he breathed on it, and set it carefully in its proper place, and immediately Peter felt how it beat, and could rejoice again. “How do you feel now?” asked Michel, smiling.
“True enough, you were right,” replied Peter, taking carefully the little cross from his pocket. “I should never have believed such things could be done.”
“You see I know something of witchcraft, do I not? But, come, I will now replace the stone again.”
“Gently, Herr Michel,” cried Peter, stepping backwards, and holding up the cross, “mice are caught with bacon, and this time you have been deceived;” and immediately he began to repeat the prayers that came into his mind.
Now Michel became less and less, fell to the ground, and writhed like a worm, groaning and moaning, and all the hearts round began to beat, and became convulsed, so that it sounded like a clockmaker’s workshop.
Peter was terrified, his mind was quite disturbed; he ran from the house, and, urged by the anguish of the moment, climbed up a steep rock, for he heard Michel get up, stamping and raving, and denouncing curses on him. When he reached the top, he ran towards the Tannenbühl; a dreadful thunder-storm came on; lightning flashed around him, splitting the trees, but he reached the precincts of the glass-mannikin in safety.
His heart beat joyfully—only because it did beat; but now he looked back with horror on his past life, as he did on the thunderstorm that was destroying the beautiful forest on his right and left. He thought of his wife, a beautiful, good woman, whom he had murdered from avarice; he appeared to himself an outcast from mankind, and wept bitterly as he reached the hill of the glass-mannikin.
The Schatzhauser was sitting under a pine-tree, and was smoking a small pipe; but he looked more serene than before.
“Why do you weep, Peter?” asked he, “have you not recovered your heart? Is the cold one still in your breast?”
“Alas! sir,” sighed Peter, “when I still carried about with me the cold stony heart, I never wept, my eyes were as dry as the ground in July; but now my old heart will almost break with what have done. I have driven my debtors to misery, set the dogs on the sick and poor, and you yourself know how my whip fell upon her beautiful forehead.”
“Peter, you were a great sinner,” said the little man. “Money and idleness corrupted you, until your heart turned to stone, and no longer knew joy, sorrow, repentance, or compassion. But repentance reconciles; and if I only knew that you were truly sorry for your past life, it might yet be in my power to do something for you.”
“I wish nothing more,” replied Peter, dropping his head sorrowfully. “It is all over with me, I can no more rejoice in my lifetime; what shall I do thus alone in the world? My mother will never pardon me for what I have done to her, and I have perhaps brought her to the grave, monster that I am! Elizabeth, my wife, too,—rather strike me dead, Herr Schatzhauser, then my wretched life will end at once.”
“Well,” replied the little man, “if you wish nothing else, you can have it, so my axe is at hand.” He quietly took his pipe from his mouth, knocked the ashes out, and put it into his pocket. Then rising slowly, he went behind the pines. But Peter sat down weeping in the grass, his life had no longer any value for him, and he patiently awaited the deadly blow. After a short time, he heard gentle steps behind him, and thought, “Now he is coming.”
“Look up once more, Peter Munk,” cried the little man. He wiped the tears from his eyes and looked up, and beheld his mother, and Elizabeth his wife, who kindly gazed on him. Then he jumped up joyfully, saying, “You are not dead, then, Elizabeth, nor you, mother; and have you forgiven me?”
“They will forgive you,” said the glass-mannikin, “because you feel true repentance, and all shall be forgotten. Go home now, to your father’s hut, and be a charcoal-burner as before; if you are active and honest, you will do credit to your trade, and your neighbours will love and esteem you more than if you possessed ten tons of gold.” Thus saying, the glass-mannikin left them. The three praised and blessed him, and went home.
The splendid house of wealthy Peter stood no longer; it was struck by lightning, and burnt to the ground, with all its treasures. But they were not far from his father’s hut, and thither they went, without caring much for their great loss. But what was their surprise when they reached the hut; it was changed into a handsome farm-house, and all in it was simple, but good and cleanly.
“This is the glass-mannikin’s doing,” cried Peter.
“How beautiful!” said Frau Elizabeth; “and here I feel more at home than in the larger house, with many servants.”
Henceforth Peter Munk became an industrious and honest man. He was content with what he had, carried on his trade cheerfully, and thus it was that he became wealthy by his own energy, and respected and beloved in the whole forest. He no longer quarrelled with his wife, but honoured his mother, and relieved the poor who came to his door. When, after twelvemonths, Fran Elizabeth presented him with a beautiful little boy, Peter went to the Tannenbühl, and repeated the verse as before. But the glass-mannikin did not show himself.
“Mr. Schatzhauser,” he cried loudly, “only listen to me. I wish nothing but to ask you to stand godfather to my little son.” But he received no answer, and only a short gust of wind rushed through the pines, and cast a few cones on the grass.
“Then I will take these as a remembrance, as you will not show yourself,” cried Peter, and he put them in his pocket, and returned home. But when he took off his jacket, and his mother turned out the pockets before putting it away, four large rolls of money fell out; and when they opened them, they found them all good and new Baden dollars, and not one counterfeit, and these were the intended godfather’s gift for little Peter, from the little man in the Tannenbühl. Thus they lived on, quietly and cheerfully; and many a time Peter Munk, when gray-headed, would say, “It is indeed better to be content with little, than to have wealth and a cold heart.”
C. A. F.
[1] The Black Forest.
[2] A great festival in German villages, general during the months of October and November.
[This tale occurs in the novel of “Münchhausen,” the narrator telling it to the object of his affections. It is necessary to state this to render the opening intelligible. The story is probably intended to satirize the speculative tendency of the Germans, and old Albertus Magnus seems a sort of representative of Hegel, whom Immermann openly attacks in the course of the “Münchhausen.” To me the expression “dialectic thought,” which occurs in the Hegelian sense at p. 85, is conclusive in this respect.—J. O.]
“Did you ever, Lisbeth, on a clear sunny day, go through a beautiful wood, in which the blue sky peered through the green diadems above you, where the exhalation of the trees was like a breath of God, and when thy foot scattered a thousand glittering pearls from the pointed grass?”
“Yes, lately, Oswald dear, I went through the mountains to collect the rents. It is delightful to walk in a green fresh wood; I could ramble about one for whole days without meeting a soul, and without being in the least terrified. The turf is God’s mantle, and we are guarded by a thousand angels, whether we sit or stand upon it. Now a hill—now a rock! I ran and ran, because I always thought, ‘Behind, then, must be flying the wonderful bird with its blue and red wings, its golden crown upon its head.’ I grew hot and red with running, but not weary. One does not get weary in a wood.”
“And when you did not see the wonderful bird behind the hill in the hedge, you stood still hard-breathing, and you heard afar in the valley of oaks the sound of the axe, which is the forest clock, and tells that man’s hour is running even in such a lovely solitude.”
“Or farther, Oswald, the free prospect up the hill between the dark round beeches, and still closer, the brow of the hill crowned with lofty trunks! There red cows were feeding, and shook their bells, there the dew on the grass gave a silvery hue to the sunlit valley, and the shadows of the cows and the trees played at hide-and-seek with each other.”
“Well, then, on such a sunny morning many hundred years ago, two young men met one another in the wood. It was in the great woody ridge of mountains, called Spessart, which forms the boundary between the joyous districts of the Rhine and the fertile Fraconia. That is a wood, dear Lisbeth, which is ten leagues broad and twenty long, covering plains and mountains, clifts and valleys.
“On the great highway, which runs straight from the Rhine-land to Würzburg and Bamberg, these young men met each other. One came from the west, the other from the east. Their animals were as opposite as their directions. The one from the east sat upon a bay horse, which pranced merrily, and he looked right stately in his gay armour, and his cap of red velvet, from which the heron’s plume descended; the one from the west wore a black cap without any mark of distinction, a long student’s cloak of the same colour, and rode on a humble mule.
“When the young knight had approached the travelling student, he stopped his bay, saluted the other in a friendly way, and said: ‘Good friend, I was just going to alight, and to take my morning snack, but since two are required for love, gaming, and eating, if these three pleasant affairs are to go off properly, I beg leave to ask you, whether you will dismount and be my partner? A mouthfull of grass would no less suit your gray, than my bay. The day will be hot, and the beasts require some repose.’
“The travelling student was pleased with this offer. Both alighted and seated themselves by the roadside on the wild thyme and lavender, from which, as they sat down, a white cloud of perfumes ascended, and a hundred bees that were disturbed in their labours arose humming. A squire, who had followed the young knight with a heavy laden horse, took charge of the two animals, gave his master a goblet and bottle, together with bread and meat from the knapsack, unbridled the beasts, and let them graze by the roadside.
“The travelling student felt the side-pocket of his cloak, drew back his hand with an air of vexation, and cried: ‘Out upon my eternal abstraction! This very morning, I had packed up my breakfast so neatly in the inn, and then something else must needs come into my head, and make me forget my provisions.’
“‘If that is all,’ cried the young knight, ‘here is enough for you and me!’ He divided the bread and meat, filled the goblet, and gave the other both liquid and solid. At the same time he examined him more closely, while the other on his side examined him also, and then a cry of astonishment was uttered by them both:
“‘Are you not?’—‘Nay, artthounot?’ they cried.
“‘I am indeed Conrad of Aufsess!’ cried the young knight.
“‘And I Peter of Stellen,’ cried the other. They embraced each other, and could hardly contain themselves for joy at this unexpected meeting.
“They were indeed playfellows, who had met by accident in the verdant Spessart. Their fathers had been friends, and the sons had often played at bat and ball together; had quarrelled a hundred times, and as often made it up again. However, young Peter was always more quiet and reflective than his playfellow, who thought about nothing but the names of weapons and riding-equipage. At last Peter declared to his father that he wished to become learned, and he went to Cologne to sit at the feet of the celebrated Albertus Magnus, who was master of all the human sciences then known, and of whom, report said, that he was also deeply initiated in the occult arts.
“A considerable time had elapsed, since either of the playfellows had heard any thing of the other. After the first storm of joy had subsided, and breakfast was removed, the knight asked the student what had occurred to him.
“‘To that, my friend, I can give a very short answer, and ought to give thee a very long one. A short one, if I merely portray the outward form and shell of my life hitherto; a long one—ah, an infinitely long one, if thou desirest to taste the inner kernel of this shell.’
“‘Eh, silly fellow,’ cried the knight, ‘what hard discourse is this? Give the shell and a bit of the kernel, if the whole nut is too large for a single meal.’
“‘Then know,’ replied the other, ‘that my visible course of life was between narrow banks. I dwelt in a little dark street, at the back of a house inhabited by quiet people. My window looked upon a garden to the trees and shrubs of which a solemn background was formed by the wall of the Templars’ house. I kept myself very solitary, associating neither with the citizens, nor with the students. The result is that I know nothing about the large city, except the street leading from my house to the Dominican convent, where my great master taught. When I returned to my cell, and had kept awake till midnight by my studying lamp, I sometimes looked out of window to cool my heated eyes by exposure to the deep starry heaven. I then often saw a light in the Templars’ house opposite; the knights in the white mantles of their order passed along the galleries, like spirits in the glare of red torches, vanished behind the pillars, and re-appeared. In the extreme corner of the wing, curtains were let down before the windows, but through the thinner parts of these a singular light shone, while behind them melodies could be heard, sounding through the night sweetly and solemnly, like forbidden desires.
“‘Thus did my days pass insignificant to outward appearance, but internally a brilliant festival of all sorts of wonders. Albertus now distinguished me above his other pupils; and in a short time I observed that he repeated to me with a particular emphasis, certain words, which passed unheeded by the rest. These were words which pointed to the mysterious connection of all human knowledge, and a common root, shooting into the darkest secrecy of that great tree, which in the light above unfolded its mighty branches;—as grammar, dialectics, eloquence, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. At such words his eyes would rest upon me, with the most penetrating glance, and my looks told him, that he had kindled in me a deep desire for the last and greatest treasures of his mind.
“‘By degrees, I became the confidant of his secret laboratory, and the pupil to which he intended to bequeath, as a precious legacy, a portion of his talent. There is only one marrow of things, which here in the metal is heavy and presses down, there in the waving plant, or the volatile bird, struggles to free itself from the original kernel. All things undergo a perpetual change. The Creator indeed works in nature, but nature also works for herself. And he who has the right power at his command can call forth her own peculiar independent life, so that the limbs which would otherwise remain bound in the Creator, will unfold themselves to new movements. My great master conducted me with a secure hand to that spring, where the marrow of things is flowing. I dipped my finger therein, and all my senses were at once filled with a superhuman power of perception. We often sat together in the sooty melting-room, and looked into the glow of the furnace; he before, on a low stool, I cowering behind him, giving the coals or the pieces of ore, which he flung into the crucible with his left hand, while with the right he affectionately held me. Then the metals defended themselves; the salts and acids crackled; the great Regulus, who rules all the world wished, as in a stormy fortress, to guard himself in the midst of sharp-angled crystals; the red, blue, and green vassals were kindled in wrath, and as if to keep us off, stretched their glaring spears towards us, but we broke through the works and destroyed the garrison, and the shining king humbly surrendered himself over the ruins of dross. Gold in itself is nothing to him whose heart is not set on earthly things, but to perceive this dearest and most precious boon of nature in all and every thing, even in what is most trifling and insignificant, that is a great matter to the philosopher. At other times the stars showed us their curious circles which separated themselves as history, and sunk to the earth, or the intimate connection of tones and numbers was awakened to us and showed us links which no word can describe, but which are again much more revealed by tones and numbers. But in all this mysterious essence and interweaving, that it might not again become a cold sticky mass, floated, ever combining and ever freeing, that which separates itself, both in itself and in things, amid the contest of ever fading youth—the great, the unfathomable, the dialectic thought.
“‘Oh blessed satisfying time of the opened intelligence, of the wandering through the inner halls of the palace, at the metal doors of which others knock in vain! At last——”
“The wandering student, whose lips during the narrative had been glowing more and more, took a deep red colour, while a strange fire flashed from his eyes, stopped short here, as though suddenly sobered from his inspiration. The knight wished in vain for the completion of the discourse, and then said to his friend: ‘Well—at last?’
“‘At last,’ replied the student, in a tone of feigned indifference, ‘we were obliged to separate, if only for a short time. My great master now sends me to Ratisbon to ask for certain papers from the sacristy of the cathedral, which he left there as bishop. I shall bring them to him, and shall then, indeed, if I can, pass my life with him.’
“The young knight poured the rest of his wine into the goblet, looked into it, and drank the wine more slowly than before. ‘Thou hast told me strange things,’ he began after a silence, ‘but they do not stagger me. God’s world appears to me so beautifully adorned, that I should take no delight in tearing away the charming veil, and looking in to the innermost core of things, as thou callest it. The sky is blue, the stars shine, the wood rustles, the plants give fragrance, and this blue, this shining, this rustling, this fragrance—are they not the most beautiful things that can be, behind which there is nothing more beautiful? Pardon me, I do not envy thee thy secret knowledge. Poor fellow! this knowledge does not give thee a colour. Thy cheeks are quite pale and sunken.’
“‘Every one has his appointed path, one this, the other that,’ replied the scholar. ‘It is not the bounding of blood that constitutes life. Marble is white, and walls of marble generally enclose the spot in which stand the statues of the gods, yet enough of this, and now for thyself. What hast thou done since I last saw thee?’
“‘Oh! of that,’ cried the young knight Conrad, with his usual light-heartedness, ‘there is little to be told! I got upon horseback and got off again, I went about to many a good prince’s court, thrust many a spear, gained many thanks, missed many thanks, and peeped into many a lovely woman’s eye. I can write my name, and press the knob of my sword in wax by the side of it, and I can rhyme a song, though not so well as Master Godfried of Strasburg.[1] I have gone through the initiatory ceremonies, and was dubbed a knight at Firchheim. Now I am riding to Mayence, where the emperor is going to hold a tournament, to tumble about a little and enjoy life.’
“The student looked at the sun’s place, and said: ‘It is a pity that after such a friendly meeting we must so soon part. Nevertheless it is necessary, if we each design to fulfil our purpose to-day.’
“‘Come with me to Mayence,’ cried the other, as he jumped up, and eyed the student with a singularly compassionate look, which, however, allowed a smile to appear. ‘Leave that gloomy Ratisbon, and the cathedral and the sacristy; cheer up thy face among jolly fellows, by the round table, in the wine-cellar, and before the flowery windows of fair damsels. Let the sound of flute and shaum purify thine ears of the awful vigils of the Templars, who are considered mischievous heretics and Baffomets’ priests over all Christendom. Come to Mayence, Peter!’
“He was already in his saddle, when he uttered these last words, and stretched out his hand as if in supplication, towards his friend, who turned aside and drew back his arm in token of refusal. ‘What has come into your head?’ he said, smiling reluctantly. ‘Ah, friend Conrad, if I had already said every one has his appointed way, I would cry out to thee turn back, thou volatile heedless one! Youth fades away, the jest becomes hushed, the laugh will one day be found suddenly to fail, because the face has become too stiff, or grins repulsively from withered wrinkles! Woe then to him whose garners are not full, whose chambers are not stored! Ah, there must be something dismal in such a base, impoverished old age, and the proverb is right which says: ‘Those who at morn too merry are, shall reap at night sorrow and care.’ Looking upon thee thus, oh brother of my youth, I may well feel troubled about thee, for who knows in what altered condition I may find thee again.’
“The knight gave the student’s hand a hearty shake and cried: ‘Perhaps thou wilt be transformed when we meet again—wilt be decked out in velvet and satin, and surpass us all!’ He darted off, and in the distance the student heard him sing a song which was then in every mouth, and sounded something like this:
‘No fairer flow’r, I vow, is knownThan that bright rose, sweet woman’s lips,With such luxuriance swelling.Close-lock’d at first, this flow’ret keeps,When as an infant bud ’tis shownAll bold assaults repelling.But every flow’r is wash’d by May,On rosy lips he plants a kiss,And straight we see them fully blowing.Then rosy lips should find a kiss,And every kiss should in its dayFind lips with fondness glowing.’
“A butterfly flew up before the student. ‘Is not the life of most men,’ he said, ‘to be compared to the fluttering of this moth? Light and motley he goes flaunting about, and yet how barren and short are his joys.’ He rolled about his great eyes, but only an empty alternation of light and shade reached these dim mirrors, not the full form, the fine colour. The wood looked on him from its green depths with an irresistible glance. ‘Suppose,’ he said, ‘I leave my patient beast awhile on this grass-plot; it will not run away from me, and I feel the warmest desire to wander there for an hour. How refreshing it must be in the depths of the wood!’
“He turned aside from the high road by a narrow path, which, after winding for a short distance through the tall trees, sloped down into the wood. Soon he found himself in a perfect solitude, with a rustling, whispering, and whining round him, while only a few single gleams of sun-light reflected with a green hue, played about him like ignis fatui. Sometimes he thought he heard his name called behind him in the distance, and—he did not know why—the call appeared to him hateful and repulsive. Then again he would take the sound to be a mere delusion, but whatever he thought he always got deeper and deeper into the dark forest. Large gnarled roots lay like snakes across the way, stretched out, so that the student was in danger of tumbling every moment. Stag-beetles stood like noble game in the moor, while the purest hues of golden vegetation shone from little nooks in the rocks. The perspiration stood on his forehead, and with increasing rapidity he penetrated the thicket, and fled from the bright sunny world without. It was not only the exercise of walking that made him hot, his mind was also labouring under a burden of heavy recollections. At last, after the pathway had long vanished from beneath his feet, he came to a beautiful, smooth, dark spot, among some mighty oak-trees. Still he heard his name called in the distance. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘the rude sound yonder will no more reach me; here I shall be quietly concealed.’ He sunk down upon a great mossy stone, his heart heaved, he was struggling with a powerful desire. ‘Forgive my presumption, great master,’ he cried, ‘but there is a knowledge which must be followed by action, otherwise it crushes a mortal. Here, nearer to the heart of the great mother, where amid sprouting and growing, her pulse beats more audibly,—here must I utter the magic word, which I heard from thy sleeping lips, when thou spakest it in a dream; the word, at the sound of which the creature casts aside its veil, the powers which labour beneath bark and hide, and in the kernel of the rock, become visible, and the language of birds becomes intelligible to the ear.’
“His lips already quivered to utter the word, but he restrained himself, for there appeared before his eyes the sorrowful glance with which his great master, Albertus, had entreated him to make no use of the art he had accidentally acquired, since heavy things impended over him who uttered the magic word designedly.
“Nevertheless, he did call it out loudly into the wood, as if the prohibition and his own fear had given it additional force, and while he did so, he stretched out his right hand.
“At once he felt a blow and a jerk, that made him think he had been struck by lightning. His eyes were blinded, and it seemed as though a violent whirlwind was hurling him through the immeasurable space. As terrified and giddy he felt about him with his hands, he touched indeed the mossy stone on which he had been standing, and therefore in his mind regained the earth, but now he had a new and unpleasant sign. For as previously he had been flung about the universe like an atom, it now seemed to him as if his body were infinitely extended. Amid the most frightful agonies, this newly-wakened power forced his limbs to such a monstrous size, that he thought he must be touching the sky. The bones of his head and chest were become as capacious as temples; into his ears fell strange, heavenly sounds of distracting effect, and he said to himself: ‘That is the song of the stars in their golden orbits.’ The pains at last were exchanged for a titillating pleasurable sensation, during which he felt his body again shrink up to its ordinary size, while the gigantic form remained standing around him like an outer shell, or a kind of atmosphere in aërial outline. The darkness left his eyes, while great, yellow-shining surfaces of light, as with the sensation of dazzling, freed themselves from the pupils and glided into the corners, where they gradually disappeared.
“While he thus regained his sight, a clear-toned, sweet chorus—he did not know whether it was the birds alone, or whether the boughs, bushes, and grasses joined in—sang quite plainly round him:
‘Yes, he shall hear it,Yes, he must bear it;To us he belongs alone.Soon will heBy the green-wood tree,Be dumb and cold as a stone.’
“In the block of mossy rock a light murmuring was audible. It seemed as though the stone wished to move itself and could not, like one in a trance. The student looked upon its surface, and lo! the green and red veins were running together into a very ancient countenance, which from its weary eyes looked upon him with such a mournful and supplicating aspect, that he turned aside with horror, and sought consolation among the trees, plants, and birds.
“Among these all was changed likewise. When he trod on the short brown moss, it shrieked and groaned at the ungentle pressure, and he saw how it wrung its little hairy hands and shake its green or yellow heads. The stems of the plants and the trunks of the trees were in a constant spiral motion, and at the same time the bark, or the outer skin, allowed him to look into the inside, where little sprites were pouring fine glistening drops into the tubes. The clear fluid ran from tube to tube, while valves unceasingly opened and shut, until in the capillary tubes of the leaves at the very top, it was transformed to a green bloom. Soft explosions and fire now arose in the veins of the leaves; their finely cut lips ceaselessly breathed forth a kind of ethereal flame, while ceaselessly also the heavier part of those igneous phenomena glided about the leaves in soft waves of vapour. In the blue-bell flowers that were on the damp soil there was a ringing and singing; they consoled the poor old face of stone with a lively song, and told him that if they could only free themselves from the ground they would with right good will release him. Out of the air strange green, red, and yellow signs, which seemed about to join themselves to some form, and then again were dissipated, peered at the student; worms and chafers crawled or stepped to him on every side, uttering all sorts of confused petitions. One wished to be this, another that; one wished for a new cover to his wings, another had broken his proboscis; those that were accustomed to float in the air begged for sunshine, those that crawled, for damp. All this rabble of insects called him their deity, so that his brain was nearly turned.
“Among the birds there was no end to the chirping, twittering, and tale-telling. A spotted woodpecker clambered up and down the bark of an oak, hacked and picked after the worms, and was never tired of crying: ‘I am the forester, I must take care of the wood.’ The wren said to the finch: ‘There is no more friendship among us. The peacock will not allow me to strike a circle, thinking that no one has a right to do so but himself, and therefore he has accused me to the supreme tribunal. Nevertheless I can strike as good a circle as he with my little brown tail.’ ‘Leave me alone,’ replied the finch, ‘I eat my grain and care for nothing else. I have cares of quite another sort. The proper artistical melody I can only add to my native woodland song when they have blinded me, but it is a terrible thing that no good can be done with one unless one is so horribly maimed.’ Others chattered about thefts and murders, which no one but the birds had seen.
‘Over the road they fly,Traced by no mortal eye.’
“Then they perched themselves stiffly on the branches and peeped down mockingly at the scholar, while two impudent titmice cried out: ‘There stands the conjurer listening to us and cannot make out what has happened to him.’ ‘Well, how he will stare!’ screamed the whole troop, and off they flew with a chirping which sounded half like laughter.
“The scholar now felt something thrown in his face, and looking up, saw an ill-bred squirrel that had flung a hollow nut at his forehead, and now lay flat with his belly upon the bough, staring him full in the face, and crying: ‘The full one for me, the hollow for thee!’ ‘Ye misbehaved rabble, let the strange gentleman alone,’ cried a black and white magpie that came wagging her tail up to him, through the grass. She then seated herself on the student’s shoulder, and said into his ear: ‘You must not judge of us all according to these uncourteous beasts, learned sir, there are well bred folks among us. Only see, through that aperture, yonder wise gentleman, the wild boar, how quietly he stands and eats his acorns, and fosters his thoughts in silence. Willingly I will give you my company and tell you all that I know, for talking is my delight, especially with old people.’
“‘There you are out in your reckoning,’ said the student, ‘I am still young.’
“‘Heavens, how men can deceive themselves,’ cried the magpie, and she looked very thoughtful.
“The student now thought he heard, from the depth of the wood, a sigh, the sound of which penetrated his heart. He asked the cause of his white and black companion, and she told him she would ask two lizards, who were eating their breakfast. He accordingly went, with the magpie on his shoulder, to the place where these creatures were to be found, and beheld a very pretty sight. The two lizards, sure enough, were genteel young ladies, for they sat under a great mushroom, which stretched its golden yellow roof over them like a splendid marquee. There they sat imbibing, with their little brown tongues, the dew from the grass, and then wiping their mouths with one of the blades, they went to take a walk together in a neighbouring grove of fern, which seemingly belonged to the one who had invited her friend to the visit. ‘Shack! shack!’ cried the magpie, ‘the gentleman wants to know who it was that sighed.’ The lizards raised their heads, waggled their tails and cried,
‘In the bower by the spring the Princess sleeps;Safely the spider the lady keeps.’
“‘Hem,’ said the magpie, shaking her head, ‘to think that one can be so forgetful. To be sure in the adjoining beechen-bower slumbers the fair Princess Doralice, about whom wicked King Spider has spun his web. Oh, if you could save her, learned sir!’ The student’s heart was stirred, and he asked the magpie where the bower was. The bird flew before him, from bough to bough, to show him the way, till at last they came to a quiet meadow, enclosed all round, through which a streamlet, taking its source from a cleft in the rocks, was flowing among some pretty bowers formed by beech-trees. These trees had struck their branches into the earth, and thus arched over the ground like a roof, through which the fine leaves of the fern were peering forth, forming as it were the gables and loopholes of the little leafy dwelling. Upon these the magpie sprang, peeped through a loophole, and whispered mysteriously, ‘Here sleeps the princess!” The student approached with beating heart, knelt before the opening of the bower and looked within. Ah, there was a sight that set his whole soul and senses into a commotion more violent than when he uttered the magical word! On the moss, which rose like a pillow round its fair burden, the loveliest maiden was lying asleep. Her head was somewhat raised, one arm was placed under it, and her white fingers glistened through the gold-brown hair, which in long soft streams delicately wound about her neck and bosom. With unspeakable delight and, at the same time, with a feeling of melancholy the student gazed upon the noble face, the purple lips, the full white limbs, which cast a bright reflection on the dark moss. The circumstance that the sleeper, as if oppressed by some mysterious weight, appeared to breathe in a soft agony, only rendered her more charming in his eyes; he felt that his heart was captivated for ever, and that those lips alone could still his passion. ‘Is it not a shame,’ said the magpie, as she hopped through the hole into the bower and perched on the sleeper’s arm, ‘that so lovely a princess should thus be bound by a web?’ ‘A web?’ asked the student; ‘she is indeed lying there wrapped in her white veil.’ ‘Oh, folly!’ cried the magpie, ‘I tell you that is all cobweb, and King Spider made it.’ ‘But who is King Spider?’
“‘In his human state he was a wealthy maker of yarn,’ replied the magpie, pleasantly wagging her tail. ‘His factory was not distant from here, being by the river-side without the wood, and about a hundred workmen spun under him. The yarn they used to wash in the stream. This was the dwelling-place of the Nixy, who was very much enraged, that they troubled his clear waters with their filthy washing, especially as all his children, the trout and the smelts, died from the carious matter: he tangled the yarn, the waves were forced to cast it over the shore, he drove it downwards into the whirlpool to warn the master-spinner, but all was in vain. At last, on Midsummer-day, when the river-spirits have power to frighten and to injure, he sprinkled some magic water in the faces of the whole troop of spinners and their chief, as they were carrying on their washing as boldly and unscrupulously as ever, and just as bloodthirsty men may be changed into wear-wolves, and wear-cats, so did they become wear-spiders. They all ran from the river to the wood, and were hanging everywhere from the trees and bushes by their web. The workmen have become diminutive spiders, and catch flies and gnats, but their master has retained nearly his former size, and is called the spider-king. He lies in watch for pretty girls, spins his web round them, lulls their senses with his poisonous exhalations, and then sucks the blood from their hearts. At last he overcame this princess, who had strayed from her retinue in the wood. See, there, there, he is stirring among the bushes.”
“And indeed it seemed to the student as if he saw glimmering through the branches, right opposite to him, the body of a gigantic spider; two hairy feet, as thick as human arms, were working their way through the foliage. He felt dreadfully alarmed for the lovely sleeper, and wished to oppose the monster. ‘Vain is your attempt!’ cried the magpie, flapping her wings; ‘all enchanted men have fearful power, and this monster could strangle you with his web; however, strew some fern-seed on the breast of the fair one; that will make her invisible to the spider-king, and so long as any particle of it remains, its virtue will last.’ In the greatest haste the student rubbed the brown dust from the under surface of a fern-leaf, and did as the bird had desired. While during this act, he bent over the sleeper, his cheek felt her breath. Enraptured, he cried, ‘Are there no means of freeing this beloved form?’ ‘Oh,’ screamed the bird, as she madly flew round the student with a sort of zig-zag motion, ‘if you ask me about means, there are many indeed. Our wise old man in the cleft has the yew-tree in keeping, and if you can get a branch of that, and with it touch the fair one thrice upon the forehead, all her bonds will be dissolved: