[Footnote 1: Known in English as "The Bottle Imp."]
"There can't be much doubt," said Theodore, "that Fouqué got the materials for that story out of some old chronicle."
"Even if he did," Lothair said, "I should hope you wouldn't detract from the author's merit on that score, like the more common class of critics, whose peculiar system obliges them always to try and find out the fundamental materials from which a writer has 'taken' his work. They make immense capital out of pointing out said source, and look down with great contempt on the wretched author who merely kneads his characters together out of a pre-existent dough. As if it mattered that the author absorbed into himself germs from without him! The shaping of the material is the important part of the business. We ought to think of our Patron Saint Serapion. His stories were told out of his soul as he had seen them with his eyes, not as he had read about them."
"You do me much injustice, Lothair," said Theodore, "if you suppose I am of any other opinion. And there is nobody who has shown more admirably how a subject may be vividly represented than Heinrich Kleist in his tale of Kohlhaas, the horse dealer."
"However," said Lothair, "as we have been talking of Hafftitz's book, I should like to read to you a story of which I took most of the leading ideas from the Michrochronicon. I wrote it during an attack of a very queer mood of mind, which beset me for a very considerable time. And I hope, Ottmar, my dear friend, it will lead you to admit that the 'spleen,' which Theodore says I am suffering from, is not so very serious as he would make it out to be."
He took out a manuscript, and read:
(A story in which many utterly improbable adventures happen.)
Which treats of Sweethearts, Weddings, Clerks of the Privy Chancery, Perturbations, Witchcraft Trials, and other delectable matters.
On the night of the autumnal equinox, Mr. Tussmann, a clerk in the Privy Chancery, was making his way from the café, where he was in the habit of passing an hour or two regularly every evening, towards his lodgings in Spandau Street. The Clerk of the Privy Chancery was excessively regular and punctilious in every action of his life. He always had just done taking off his coat and his boots at the exact moment when the clocks of St. Mary's and St. Nicholas's churches struck eleven; so that, as the reverberating echo of the last stroke died away, he always drew his nightcap over his ears, and placed his feet in his roomy slippers.
On the night we are speaking of he, in order not to be late in going through those ceremonies (for the clocks were just going to strike eleven), was just going to turn out of King Street, round the corner of Spandau Street, with a rapid sweep--almost to be denominated a jump--when the sound of a strange sort of knocking somewhere in his immediate proximity rivetted him to the spot.
And he became aware that, down at the bottom of the Town-house Tower--rendered visible by the light of the neighbouring lamp--there was a tall, meagre figure standing, wrapped in a dark cloak, knocking louder and louder on the closed shutters of Mr. Warnatz, the ironmonger's shop (which, as everybody knows, is therein situated); knocking louder and louder, and then going back a few paces and sighing profoundly, gazing up as he did so at the windows of the Tower, which were shut.
"My dear sir," said the Clerk of the Privy Chancery, addressing this personage in a civil and courteous manner, "you are evidently under some misapprehension. There is not a single human creature up in that Tower; and indeed--if we except a certain number of rats and mice, and a few little owls--not a living thing. If you wish to provide yourself with something superior in the hardware line from Warnatz's celebrated emporium here, you will have to take the trouble to come back in the forenoon."
"Respected Herr Tussmann----" the stranger began.
And Tussmann chimed in with "Clerk of the Privy Chancery, of many years seniority." He was a little annoyed, too--astonished, at all events--that the stranger seemed to know him. But the latter did not seem to mind that in the least, but recommenced:
"Respected Herr Tussmann, you are kind enough to be making a complete mistake as to the nature of my proceedings here. I do not want ironmongery or hardware of any description; neither have I anything to do with Mr. Warnatz. This is the night of the autumnal equinox, and I want to see my future wife! She has heard my ardent and longing summons, and my sighs of affection, and she will come and show herself up at that window directly."
The hollow tones in which the man spoke these words had about them something so solemn--nay, so spectral and supernatural--that the Clerk of the Privy Chancery felt an icy shudder run through his veins. The first stroke of eleven rung down from the tower of St. Mary's, and as it did so, there came a clattering and a clinking up at the broken old window of the Tower, and a female form became visible at it. As the bright light of the street lamps fell upon the face of this figure, Tussmann whimpered out in lamentable tones, "Oh, ye just powers!--Oh, ye heavenly hosts!--what--whatis this?"
At the last stroke of eleven--that is, at the moment when Tussmann generally put on his nightcap--the female figure vanished.
This extraordinary apparition seemed to drive the Clerk of the Privy Chancery completely out of his senses. He sighed, groaned, gazed up at the window, and whispered "Tussmann! Tussmann! Clerk of the Privy Chancery--bethink yourself, sir! Consider what you're about. Don't let your heart be troubled. Be not deceived by Satan, good soul."
"You seem to be put out by what you have seen, Mr. Tussmann," the stranger said. "I only wanted to see my sweetheart--my wife, that is to be. You must have seen something else, apparently."
"Please, please," Tussmann said in a whimper, "I should be so much obliged to you if you would be good enough to address me by my little title. I am Clerk of the Privy Chancery, and truly, at this moment, a greatly perturbed Clerk of the Privy Chancery--in fact, one almost out of his senses. I beg you, with all due respect, my very dear sir (though I regret that I am unable to style you by your proper title, as I have not the honour to be in the least acquainted with you, having never met you before--however, I shall address you as 'Herr Geheimer Rath'--'Mr. Privy Councillor'--there are such an extraordinary number of gentlemen here in Berlin bearing that title that one can scarcely be in error in applying it)--I beg you, therefore, Herr Geheimer Rath, to be so very kind as not to keep me longer in ignorance as to whom the lady, your future wife, may be, whom you expected to see here at this hour of the night."
"You're a curious fellow, you and your 'titles,'" the stranger said, raising his voice. "If a man who knows a number of secrets and mysteries, and can give good counsel too, is one of your 'privy' or 'secret' councillors, I thinkImay so style myself. I am surprised that a gentleman who is so well versed in ancient writings and curious manuscripts as you are, dear Mr. Tussmann, Clerk of the Privy Chancery, should not know that when an expert--anexpert, observe!--knocks at the door of this Tower here--or even on the wall of it, on the night of the autumnal equinox, there will appear to him, up at yonder window, the girl who is to be the happiest and luckiest sweetheart in Berlin till the spring equinox comes round."
"Mr. Privy Councillor," Tussmann cried, as if in a sudden inspiration, and with joyful rapture--"Most respected Mr. Privy Councillor! is that really the case?"
"It is," said the stranger. "But what's the good of our standing in the street here any longer? It is past your bed time. Let us go to the new wine-shop in Alexander Street; just that you may hear a little more about this young lady, and recover your peace of mind, which something--I have no idea what--has disturbed so tremendously."
Tussmann was a most abstemious person. His sole recreation (for "dissipation" we cannot term it) consisted in his spending an hour or two every evening in a café; where, whilst he read assiduously political and other articles in newspapers, as well as books which he brought with him, he sipped a glass of good beer. Wine he seldom touched, except that after service on Sundays he allowed himself a small glass of Malaga with a biscuit, in a certain restaurant. To go about dissipating at nights was an abomination in his eyes. So that it seemed incomprehensible how, on this particular occasion, he allowed the stranger, who hurried away towards Alexander Street with long strides, resounding in the darkness, to carry him away with him without a word of objection.
When they came into the wine-shop there was nobody there but one single customer, sitting by himself at a table, with a big glass of Rhine wine before him. The depth of the wrinkled lines on his face indicated extreme age. His eyes were sharp and piercing, and his grand beard marked him as a Hebrew, faithful to the ancient laws and customs of his people. Also his costume was very much in the old Frankish style, as people dressed about the year 1720; and perhaps that was why he had the effect of having come back to life out of a period of remote antiquity.
But the stranger whom Tussmann had come across was still more remarkable of aspect.
A tall, meagre man, powerfully formed as to his limbs and muscles, seemingly about fifty years of age. His face might once have passed for handsome, and the great eyes still flashed out from under the black bushy eyebrows with youthful fire and vigour. The brow was broad and open; the nose strongly aquiline. All this would not have distinguished him from a thousand others. But, whilst his coat and trousers were of the fashion of the present day, his collar, his cloak, and his barret cap belonged to the latter part of the sixteenth century. But it was more especially the wonderful eyes of the man, and the blaze of them (which seemed to come streaming out of deep mysterious night), and the hollow tones of his voice, and his whole bearing--all in the most absolute contrast with things of the present day--it was, we say, all these things taken together which made everybody experience a strong sense of eeriness in his proximity.
He nodded to the man who was sitting at the table as if to an old acquaintance.
"Ha!" he cried, "hereyouare again, after all this time. How do you feel? Are you all alive and kicking?"
"Just as you see," the old man growled. "Sound as a roach. All ready on my legs at the proper time. Allthere--when there's anything up."
"I'm not quite so sure about that," the stranger said, laughing loudly; "we shall see!" And he ordered the waiter to bring a bottle of the oldest claret in the cellar.
"My good Mr. Privy Councillor," Tussmann began, deprecatingly. But the stranger interrupted him hastily, saying:
"Let us drop the 'titles,' Tussmann, for once and all! I am neither a Privy Councillor nor a Clerk of the Privy Council. What I am is an artist, a worker in the noble metals and the precious jewels; and my name is Leonhard."
"Oh, indeed!" Tussmann murmured to himself--"a goldsmith! a jeweller!" And he bethought himself that he might have seen at the first glance that the stranger could not possibly be an ordinary Privy Councillor, seeing that he had on an antique mantle, collar, and barret cap, such as Privy Councillors never went about in nowadays. Leonhard and Tussmann sat down at the same table with the old Jew, who received them with a grinning kind of smile.
When Tussmann, at Leonhard's instigation, had taken two or three glasses of the full-bodied wine, his pale cheeks began to glow, and as he swallowed the liquor, he glanced about him with smirks and smiles, as if the most delightful ideas were rising in his brain.
"And now," Leonhard said, "tell me openly and candidly, Mr. Tussmann, why you went on in such an extraordinary manner when the lady showed herself at the Tower-window; and what it is that your head is so very full of at the present moment. You and I are very old acquaintances, whether you believe it or not; and as to this old gentleman here, you need be on no ceremony with him."
"Oh, heavens!" answered the Privy Chancery Clerk--"Oh, good heavens! most respected Herr Professor--(I do beg you to allow me to address you by that title; I am sure you are a most celebrated artist, and quite in a position to be a professor in the Academy of Arts)--and so, most respected Herr Professor, how can I hide from you that I am, as the proverb puts it, 'walking on wooer's feet.' I am expecting to bring the happiest of brides home about the vernal equinox. Could it be otherwise than a rather startling thing, when you, most respected Herr Professor, were so very kind as to let me see a fortunate bride that is to be?"
"What!" the old Jew broke in, in a screaming voice--"What! are you thinking of marrying? Why, you're as old as the hills, and as ugly as a baboon into the bargain."
"Never mind him," Leonbard said; for Tussmann was so startled by what the old man said that he could not utter a syllable. "He means no harm, dear Mr. Tussmann, though you may think he seems to do so. I must say, candidly, that it seems to me, too, that it is a little too late in life for you to be thinking about such a thing. You must be well on to your fiftieth birthday; aren't you?"
"I shall be forty-eight," said Tussman, with a certain amount of irritability, "on the 9th of next October--St. Dionysius's day."
"Very well," said Leonhard. "But it isn't only your age that's against you--you have always been leading a simple, solitary, virginal existence. You have no knowledge or experience of women. I can't see what is to become of you in their hands!"
"Knowledge of them--experience of them! Dear Herr Professor, you must really take me for a most foolish and inconsiderate person if you think I am going to plunge into matrimony without any counsel or reflection or advice. I weigh, consider, and reflect upon every step most maturely; and, having perceived myself to be pierced to the heart by the dart of the wanton deity yclept 'Cupid' by the ancients, could I do otherwise than bend all my thoughts upon the preparation of myself for the matrimonial life? Would any one who was preparing for a difficult examination not be careful to study all the subjects on which he is to be interrogated? Very well, most respected Herr Professor, my marriage is an examination, for which I have prepared myself, and I feel pretty certain that I shall pass it admirably--with honours! Look here, at this little book, which I have always carried about in my pocket, studying it constantly, since the time when I made up my mind to fall in love and get married. Look at it, my dear sir; and you will be convinced that I am setting about this business in the most thorough and fundamental manner possible, and that I shall certainly not be found an ignoramus in it; although, as you say (and as I must admit), the feminine sex is--so far, and up to the present date--to me a completeterra incognita."
With these words Tussmann produced from his pocket a little book in parchment binding, and turned up its title-page, which ran as follows:--
"Brief Tractate on Diplomatic Acumen. Embracing methods of Self-Counsel for guidance in all Societies of our fellow-creatures, conducing to the attainment of a proper system of Conduct. Of the utmost importance to all Persons who deem themselves Wise, or wish to become Wiser. Translated from the Latin of Herr Thomasius. With a complete Index. Frankfurt and Leipzig. Johann Grossen's Successors. 1710."
"Now just let me show you," said Tussmann, with a sweet smile, "what this worthy author (in his seventh chapter, which deals with the subjects 'Wedlock, and the Duties of the Father of a Family and Master of a Household') says, in the seventh section of that chapter. You see, what he says is this:
"'Above all things, let there be no hurry about it. He who does not marry till of mature age is so much the wiser, and the better able to cope with the exigencies of the situation. Over-early marriages produce shameless, subtle, and disingenuous people, and sacrifice the vigour of both body and mind. Although the age of manhood is not the commencement of youth, the one should not terminate before the other.'"
"And then, with regard to the choice of the object of the affections--her whom one is to love and to marry--this grand Thomasius says, in his nineteenth section:
"'The middle course is the safest. We should not select one too beautiful or too ill-favoured, too rich nor too poor, too high-born or too low-born, but of like social standing with one's self. And, similarly, as regards the other qualities, the middle course will be found always the safest to follow.'"
"Very well, you see, this is what I have always guided myself by. And (as directed by Thomasius--section seventeen), not only have I had occasional conversations with the lady of my choice, but (inasmuch as, in occasional interviews, misapprehensions may arise with respect to peculiarities of character and modes of looking at matters, &c.) I have taken opportunities to have veryfrequentinterviews and conversations with her; because those frequent interviews necessarily make it very difficult for people to conceal themselves from one another, don't you see?"
"My dear Mr. Tussmann," the goldsmith said, "it appears to me that all this sort of intercourse, 'conversation,' or whatever you please to call it, with women requires one to have a good deal of experience, extending over a very considerable period of time, if one is to avoid being befooled and made an ass of by it."
"Even in this," said Tussmann, "our grand Thomasius comes to our aid, giving us completely adequate instruction as to how we are to 'converse' with ladies, in the most rational and delightful style; even telling us exactly how and when to introduce the due amount of playfulness and wit, suitable to the occasion. My author says, in his fifth chapter, that one ought to be careful to introduce such jocular sayings sparingly--as a cook uses salt; and that pointed speeches should never be employed as weapons against others, but altogether in our own defence--just as a hedgehog uses his spines. And also, that it is wise to rely more upon the actions than upon the words; because it is often the case that what is hidden by words is made evident by actions, and that words very often do not do so much to awaken liking or disliking as actions do."
"I see," the goldsmith said, "there is no getting anything like a rise out of you. You are closed up in armour of proof. So I am prepared to bet, heavily, that you have gained the affections of the lady of your choice by means of those wonderfully deep diplomatic dodges of yours."
Tussmann answered, "I study to direct all my endeavours (following Thomasius's advice) to attain a deferential, though kindly, agreeableness of demeanour, that being the most natural and usual indication of affection, and what is most adapted to awaken liking in reciprocation: just as if you yawn, you will set an entire company gaping too, from sympathy. But, reverentially as I follow his instructions, I don't go too far; I always recollect that (as Thomasius says) women are neither good angels nor bad angels, but mere human beings; and, in fact, as regards strength of mind and body, weaker than we are, which, of course, is fully accounted for by the diversity which exists between the sexes."
"A black year come over you!" the old Jew cried wrathfully, "sitting there chattering your cursed stuff and nonsense without a stop; spoiling for me the good hour in which I hoped to enjoy myself a little after all the hard work I've been going through."
"Hold your tongue, old man," the goldsmith said. "You ought to be very thankful that we put up with you here. I can tell you your company is anything but pleasant; your manners are so abominable. You ought to be kicked out of decent society, if you had your deserts. Don't let the old man disturb you, dear Mr. Tussmann. You believe in the old times; you're fond of old Thomasius. I go a good deal further back. What I care about is the time to which, as you see, my dress partly belongs. Aye! my good friend, those were the days! It is to them that that little spell belongs which you saw me putting into practice to-night at the Town-house Tower."
"I don't quite understand you, Herr Professor,'' Tussmann said.
"Well," said the goldsmith, "there used to be splendid weddings in those old days in the Town-hall--very different affairs from the weddings nowadays. Plenty of happy brides used to look out of those Tower-windows in those days, so that it's a piece of pleasant glamour when an aerial form comes and tells us what is going to happen now, from knowledge of olden times. Let me tell you, this Berlin was a very different place in those old days; nowadays everything is marked with the same stamp of tediousness andennui, and peopleennuyerone another just because they are soennuyéesand weary in themselves. In those days there were entertainments, feastings, rejoicings worthy the name, very different from the affairs that are so called now. I shall only speak of what was done at Oculi, in the year 1581, when the Elector Augustus of Saxony, with his Consort, and Don Christian, his son, were escorted to Cologne by all the nobles and gentry. There were over a hundred horse, and the citizens of both the cities--Berlin and Cologne--and those of Spandau lined both sides of the road from the gate to the palace in complete armour. Next day there was a splendid running at the ring, at which the Elector of Saxony and Count Jost of Barby appeared, with many nobles--in fine suits of gold embroidery, and tall golden helms, golden lions' heads on their shoulders, knees, and elbows, with flesh-coloured silk on the other parts of their arms and legs, just as if they had been naked---exactly as you see the heathen warriors painted in pictures. There were singers and musicians hidden inside a gilt Noah's Ark, and on the top of it sat a little boy in flesh-coloured silk tights, with his eyes bandaged, as Cupid is represented. Two other boys, dressed as doves, with white ostrich feathers, golden eyes and beaks, drew ±he ark along; and when the prince had run at the ring and been successful, the music in the ark played, and a number of pigeons were let fly from it. One of them flapped its wings and sang a most delightful Italianaria, and did it much better than our Court singer Bernard Pasquino Grosso from Mantua did seventy years afterwards (but not so charmingly as ourprime donnesing nowadays). Then there was a foot tournay, to which the Elector and the Count went in a ship, which was all dressed over with black and yellow cloth, and had a sail of gold taffeta; and behind His Highness sate the little boy who had been Cupid the day before, in a long coat of many colours, a peaked black and yellow hat, and a long grey beard. The singers and musicians were dressed in the same way; and nil round about the ship a number of gentlemen danced and jumped--gentlemen of good family, mind you!--with heads and tails of salmon, herrings, and fishes of other sorts: most delightful to behold. In the evening, about ten, there was a grand display of fireworks, with thousands of detonations; and the master-gunners played all sorts of pranks--had combats; and there were explosions of fiery stars; and fiery men and horses, strange birds and other creatures, went up into the air with a terrible rushing and banging. They went on for more than two hours, those fireworks."
Whilst the goldsmith was narrating all this, the Clerk of the Privy Chancery gave every sign of the liveliest interest and the utmost enjoyment, crying, in a sympathizing and interested manner, "Ey!--oh!--ah!"--smiling, rubbing his hands, moving backwards and forwards on his chair, and gulping down glass after glass of the wine the while.
"Dearest Professor," he cried at last, in falsetto (always a mark in him of intense enjoyment)--"My dearest, most respected Herr Professor! what delightful things you have been having the kindness to tell me about!--reallyquiteas though you had been there and seen them yourself."
"Well!" the goldsmith said, "and wasn't I there?"
Tussmann, who didn't in the least understand this extraordinary query, was going to try to get some further light thrown upon it, when the old Jew came in with a growl, to the following effect: "Don't forget those delightful entertainments when the pyres burned in the market-place--the Berlin folks were much delighted with them, you know; and the streets ran red with the blood of the wretched victims, slain in the most terrific manner, after confessing whatever was imputed to them by the wildest infatuation and the most idiotic superstition. Don't, I merely say, forget to tell your friend about them!"
"Yes, yes," Tussmann said; "of course you mean those terrible witchcraft trials which took place in those old days. Ah! they were atrocious businesses; fortunately the enlightenment of the present age has altered all those things."
The goldsmith cast strange looks at the old Jew and at Tussmann; and presently asked the latter, with a mysterious smile, if he had ever heard about the Jew-coiner, Lippold, and what had happened to him in the year 1512.
Ere Tussmann could answer, the goldsmith went on to say: "This Jew-coiner, Lippold, was accused of an important imposture, and a serious roguery. He had at one time been much in the confidence of the Elector, and was at the head of all the affairs of the mints and the coinage in the country; always ready to produce large sums of money, no matter how large, when required. Whether because he was clever at shifts, or that he had powers at his command which enabled him to clear himself from all blame in the Elector's eyes, or that he was able to 'shoot with a silver bullet' (to use an expression of those times) those who had influence over the Elector's proceedings, he was on the very point of getting off scot free from the accusations brought against him. But he was still kept under guard, by the town-watch, in his little house in Stralau Street. And it so chanced that he had a quarrel with his wife, in the course of which she said to him, in the hearing of the guard, 'If our gracious lord the Elector only knew what a villain you are, and what atrocities you manage to commit by the help of that magic book of yours, you'd be in your coffin long ago.' This was reported to the Elector, who had careful search made in Lippold's house. The magic book was found, and, when it was examined by those who understood it, Lippold's guilt was clearly established. He had practised magical arts to give him power over the Elector, and to enable him to rule the whole country; and it was only the piety and Godfearingness of the Elector which had enabled him to withstand those spells. Lippold was burned in the market-place. But when the fire was taking effect on his body and upon the magic book, a great mouse came out from under the scaffold, and leaped into the fire. Many supposed that this was Lippold's familiar demon."
Whilst the goldsmith had been relating this, the old Jew had sate leaning his arms on the table, with his hands before his eyes, groaning and sighing like one suffering unendurable tortures. On the other hand, the Clerk of the Privy Chancery did not seem to be paying much attention to what the goldsmith was saying. He was in high good-humour, and his mind was full of quite other ideas and images; and, when the goldsmith had ended, he asked, with many smiles, and in a lisping manner: "Tell me, dear Herr Professor, if you will be so kind, was it really Miss Albertine Bosswinkel who came and looked out of the window of the Tower?"
"What?" cried the goldsmith, furiously--"what business haveyouwith Miss Albertine Bosswinkel?"
"My dear sir!" said Tussmann, timidly--"good gracious! My dear friend, she is the very lady whom I have made up my mind to marry!"
"Good God, sir!" the goldsmith cried, with a face as red as a furnace, and eyes glaring with anger; "you must be out of your reason altogether.You, an old, worn-out pedant, to think of marrying that beautiful young creature!You, who, with all your erudition, and your 'diplomatic acumen,' taken from the idiotic treatise of that old goose Thomasius, can't see a quarter of an inch before that nose of yours! I advise you to drive every idea of the kind out of your head as quickly as you can, or you will probably find that you stand a good chance of having that weazened neck of yours drawn, on this autumn equinoctial night!"
The Clerk of the Privy Chancery was a quiet, peaceable, nay, timorous man, incapable of saying a hard word to anybody, even when attacked; but what the goldsmith had said was just a trifle too infernally insulting; and then, Tussmann had taken more strong wine than he was accustomed to. Accordingly, there was no wonder that he did what he had never done before in his life---that is, he burst into a fury, and yelled out, right into the goldsmith's teeth: "Eh! What the devil business have you with me, Mr. Goldsmith (whose acquaintance I haven't the honour of); and how dare you talk to me in this sort of way? You seem to me to be trying to make an ass of me, by all sorts of childish delusions. I presume you have the effrontery to be paying your addresses to Miss Bosswinkel yourself; you've got hold of a portrait of her on glass, and shown it at the Town-hall in a magic-lantern held under your cloak. My good sir,Iknow something about these matters, as well asyoudo; you're going the wrong way to work if you think you're going to frighten and bullymein this sort of way."
"Be careful what you're about," the goldsmith said, very quietly, and with a strange smile. "Be very careful what you're about; you've got strange sort of people to do with here."
And as he so spake, lo! instead of the goldsmith's face, there was a horrid-looking fox's face snarling and showing its teeth at Tussmann from under the goldsmith's bonnet.
The Clerk of the Privy Chancery fell back in his chair in the profoundest terror.
The old Jew did not seem to be in the least degree surprised by this transformation; rather, he had suddenly lost his mood of ill-temper altogether. He laughed, and cried, "Aha! capital sport! But there's nothing to bemadeby those arts. I know better ones. I can do things which were always beyondyou, Leonhard."
"Let us see," said the goldsmith, who had assumed his human countenance again--"let us see what you can do."
The old man took from his pocket a large black radish, trimmed it and scraped it with a little knife, which also came from his pocket, shredded it into thin strips, and laid them in order on the table. Then he struck each of them a blow with his clenched fist; when they sprung up, one by one, ringing, in the shape of gold coins, which he took up and threw across to the goldsmith. But as soon as the goldsmith took hold of one of those coins, it fell to dust, in a little shower of crackling sparks of fire. This infuriated the old man. He went on striking the radish-shavings into gold pieces faster and faster, hitting them harder and harder, and they crackled away in the goldsmith's hand with fierier and fierier sparks.
Tussmann was nearly out of his senses with fear and agitation. At last he pulled himself together out of the swoon into which he was nearly falling, and said, in trembling accents: "Really, I must beg, with all due courtesy and respect, to say that I feel that I should much prefer to bid 'Good-evening' on this occasion." And grasping his hat and stick, he bolted out of the room as quickly as he could. When he reached the street, he heard those two uncanny people setting up a shout of screaming laughter after him, which made the blood run cold in his veins.
In which it is related how, by the intervention of a cigar which would not draw, a love-affair was set agoing between a lady and gentleman who had previously knocked their heads together.
The manner in which young Edmund Lehsen, the painter, made acquaintance with the mysterious goldsmith, Leonhard, was somewhat different to that in which Tussmann had done so.
Edmund was one day sketching a beautiful group of trees in a lonely part of the Thiergarten, when Leonhard came up, and, without any ceremony, looked over his shoulder at what he was doing. Edmund did not disturb himself, but went on with his sketch, till the goldsmith cried--
"That is a most extraordinary picture, young gentleman. Those will come to be something else than trees before you have done with them."
"Do you see anything out of the way, sir?" Edmund said, with flashing eyes.
"I mean," said the goldsmith, "that there are all sorts of forms and shapes peeping out from amongst those high leaves there, in ever-changing variety: geniuses, strange animals, maidens, and flowers. Yet the whole thing ought only to amount to that group of trees before us there, through which the rays of the evening sun are streaming so charmingly."
"Sir!" Edmund answered, "either you have a very profound understanding, and a most penetrating eye for matters of this kind, or I have been unusually successful in portraying my inmost feelings. Don't you perceive when, in looking at Nature, you abandon yourself to all your feelings of longing, all kinds of wonderful shapes and forms come looking at you through the trees with beautiful eyes? That was what I was trying to represent to the senses in this sketch, and I see I have succeeded."
"I understand," Leonhard said, rather coldly and dryly. "You wanted to drop study, and give yourself a rest, to refresh and strengthen your fancy."
"Not at all," Edmund answered. "I consider this way of working from Nature is my best and most useful 'study.' Study of this sort enables me to put the really poetic and imaginative element into my landscape. Unless the landscape painter is every bit as much a poet as the portrait painter, he will never be anything but a dauber."
"Heaven help us!" cried the goldsmith. "So you, dear Edmund Lehsen, are going to----"
"You know me, then, sir, do you?" the painter cried.
"Why shouldn't I?" said Leonhard. "I first made your acquaintance on an occasion which you, probably, don't remember much about; that is to say, when you were born. Considering the small experience which you had at that time, you had behaved very well--had given your mamma little trouble--and as soon as you came into the world, gave a very pretty cry of pleasure and delight. Also, you showed a great love for the daylight, which, by my advice, you were not kept away from. Because, according to the most recent medical opinions, daylight is far from having a bad effect on babies, but rather is beneficial to their bodies and their minds. Your papa was so pleased that he hopped about the room on one leg, singing
'The manly heart with love o'erflowing,'
from Mozart's 'Flauto Magico.'
"Presently he handed your little person over to me, and asked me to draw your horoscope, which I did. Afterwards I often came to your father's house, and you didn't disdain to suck at the little bags of almonds and raisins which I used to bring you. Then, when you were about six or eight, I went away on my peregrinations. When I got back to Berlin I saw with satisfaction that your father had sent you here from Münchberg to study the noble art of painting; because there is not a very large collection in Münchberg of works adapted for fundamental study, either in the shape of pictures, statues, bronzes, gems, or other art-treasures of value. That good native town of yours can scarcely vie with Rome, Florence, or Dresden in that respect; or perhaps even with what Berlin will one day become, when bran-new antiques, fished out of the Tiber, have been brought to it in some considerable quantity."
"Heavens!" Edmund cried, "the most vivid remembrances out of my childhood are awaking themselves in my mind. You are Herr Leonhard, are you not?"
"Certainly!" Leonhard answered. "Leonhard is my name. Yet I am a little astonished that you should remember me all this long time."
"I do, though," Edmund answered. "I know that I was always glad when you came to my father's, because you always brought me such delicious things to eat, and petted me. But I always felt a sort of reverential awe for you; in fact, more than that--a kind of oppressive anxiousness, which often lasted after you were gone. But what makes the remembrance of you remain so vividly in my mind is what my father used to say about you. He set great store by your friendship, because you had got him out of a number of troubles in the most wonderful way--out of some of those difficulties which come upon people in this world so often. And he used to speak in the most enthusiastic way about the extent to which you had penetrated into deep and mysterious branches of science; how you controlled many of the secret powers of Nature at your will. Not only that, but (begging your pardon for saying so) he often went so far as to give us to understand that you were really nobody other than Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew."
"Why not the Pied Piper of Hamelin? or the King of the Kobolds?" cried the goldsmith. "All the same, there is some foundation for the idea that there is something a little out of the everyday line about me--something which I don't care to talk about, for fear of giving rise to 'unpleasantness.' I certainly did some good turns to your papa, by means of my secret knowledge, or 'art.' He was particularly pleased with the horoscope which I cast for you at your birth."
"It wasn't so very clear, though," Edmund said. "My father often told me you said I should be a great something--either a great Artist, or a great Ass. At all events, I have to thank this utterance for my father's having given consent to my wish to be a painter; and don't you think your horoscope is going to turn out true?"
"Oh, most certainly," the goldsmith answered, very dryly; "there can be no doubt about that. At this moment you are in the fairest possible way to turn out a very remarkable Ass."
"What!" cried Edmund--"you tell me so to my face!--you----"
"It rests altogether with yourself," the goldsmith said, "to avoid the bad alternative of my horoscope, and turn out a very remarkable Painter. Your drawings and sketches show that you have a rich and lively imagination, much power of expression, and a great deal of cleverness in execution. You may raise a grand edifice on those foundations. Carefully keep away from all 'modish' exaggerations and eccentricities, and apply yourself to serious study. I congratulate you upon your efforts to imitate the grave, earnest simpleness of the old German masters. But, even in that direction, you must carefully shun the precipice which so many fall over. It needs a profound intelligence, and a mind strong enough to resist the enervating influence of the Modern School, to grasp, wholly, the true spirit of the old German masters, and to penetrate completely into the significance of their pictures. Without those qualifications, the true spark will never kindle in an artist's heart, nor the genuine inspiration produce works which, without being imitations, shall be worthy of a better age. Nowadays young fellows think that when they patch together something on a Biblical subject, with figures all skin and bone, faces a yard long, stiff angular draperies, a perspective all askew, they have painted a work in the style of the great old German masters. Dead-minded imitators of that description are like the country lad who holds his bonnet before his face while the Paternoster is being sung in church, and says if he doesn't remember the words, he knows the tune."
The goldsmith said much more that was true and beautiful on the subject of the noble art of painting, and gave Edmund a great many valuable hints and lessons; so that the latter, much impressed, asked how it had been possible for him to acquire so much knowledge on the subject without being a painter himself; and why he went on living in such seclusion, and never brought his influence to bear on artistic effort of all descriptions.
"I have told you already," the goldsmith said, in a gentle and serious tone, "that my ways of looking at life, and at things in general, have been rendered exceptionally acute by a long--aye, a marvellously long--course of experience. As regards my living in seclusion, I know that wherever I should appear, I should produce a rather extraordinary effect, as a result, not only of my nature in general, but more especially of a certain power which I possess; so that my living quietly in Berlin here might not be a very easy matter. I keep thinking of a certain person who, in many respects, might have been an ancestor of mine: so marvellously like me in every respect, in body and mind too, that there are times not a few when I almost believe (perhaps it may be fancy) that I am that person. I mean a Swiss of the name of Leonhard Turnhäuser zum Thurm, who lived at the court of the Elector Johann Georg, about the year 1582. In those days, as you know, every chemist was supposed to be an alchemist, and every astronomer was called an astrologer; so Turnhäuser was very probably both. It is certain, at all events, that he did most wonderful things, and,inter alia, was a very marvellous doctor. Unfortunately, he had a trick of putting his finger in every pie, and getting conspicuously mixed up in all that was going on. This made him envied and hated; just as people who have money and make a display with it, though it may be never so well earned, bring enemies about their throats. Thus it came about that people made the Elector believe that Turnhäuser could make gold, and that, if he did not do so, he had his reasons for so abstaining. Then his enemies came to the Elector and said--'See what a cunning, shameless rascal this is. He boasts of powers which he does not possess, and carries on sorceries and Jewish deceptions, for which he ought to be burned at the stake like Lippolt the Jew.' Turnhäuser had been a goldsmith by trade, and this came out. Then everybody said he had none of the knowledge imputed to him, though he had given the most incontrovertible proofs of it in open day. They even said that he had never, himself, written any of the sage and clever books and important prognostications which he published, but had paid others to do them. In short, envy, hatred, and calumny brought matters so far that he was obliged to leave Berlin in the most secret manner, to escape the fate of the Jew Lippolt; then his enemies said he had gone to the Catholics for protection. But »that is not true. He went to Saxony, and worked at his trade there, though he did not give up the study and practice of his science."
Edmund was wonderfully attracted to this old goldsmith, who inspired in him a reverential trustfulness and confidence. Not only was he a critic of the most instructive quality, though severe; but he told Edmund secrets concerning the preparation of colours and the combining of them known to the old masters, and of the most precious importance when he put them to the test of practice. Thus there was formed, between these two, one of those alliances which come about when there is on the one hand hopeful confidence, in a young disciple, and, on the other, affectionate paternal friendship on the part of a teacher.
About this time it happened, one fine summer evening, that Herr Melchior Bosswinkel, Commissionsrath, who was taking his pleasure in the Thiergarten, could not manage to get a single one of his cigars to draw. He tried one after another, but every one of them was stopped up. He threw them away, one after another, getting more and more vexed and annoyed as he did so; at last he cried out: "Oh, God! and those are supposed to be the very finest brands to be got in Hamburg. Damme! I've spared neither trouble nor money, and here they play the very deuce with every idea of enjoyment--not one of the infernal things will draw. Can a man enjoy the beauties of nature, or take part in any sort of rational conversation, when these damnable things won't burn? Oh, God! it's terrible!"
He had involuntarily addressed these remarks to Edmund Lehsen, who happened to be close beside him with a cigar which was drawing splendidly.
Edmund, who had not the slightest idea who the Commissionsrath was, took out his cigar-case and offered it politely to this desperate person, saying that he could vouch for both the quality and the drawing powers of his cigars, although he had not got them from Hamburg, but out of a shop in Frederick Street.
The Commissionsrath accepted, full of gratitude and pleasure, with a "Much obliged, I'm sure." And as, the moment he touched the end of the cigar which Edmund was smoking with the one just obtained from him, this latter drew delightfully, and sent out the loveliest and most delicious clouds of blue odoriferous smoke, he cried, enraptured:
"Oh, my dear sir! you have really rescued me from the profoundest depths of misery. Do please to accept a thousand thanks. In fact, I would almost venture to ask you to let me have one more of those magnificent cigars of yours, to be going on with when this one is finished."
Edmund said the contents of his cigar-case were quite at the gentleman's disposal; and then they went on their several ways.
Presently, when the twilight had fallen a little, and Edmund, with the idea for a picture in his head, was making his way, rather absently, not paying much attention to those about him, pushing through amongst the chairs and tables so as to get out of the crowd, the Commissionsrath suddenly appeared in front of him, asking him if he would not come and sit down at his table. Just as he was going to decline--because he was longing to get away into the open country--he suddenly caught sight of a young lady, the very incarnation of youth, beauty, and delightsomeness, who was seated at the Commissionsrath's table.
"My daughter, Albertine," the Commissionsrath said to Edmund, who was gazing motionless at the lady, almost forgetting that it was incumbent on him to bow to her. He recognised, at the first glance, in Albertine, the beautiful creature whom he had come across at the last exhibition as she was admiring one of his own pictures. She was describing and pointing out the meaning of this fanciful picture to an old lady and two girls who were with her; explaining the peculiarities of the drawing and the grouping; applauding the painter, and saying that he was quite a young artist, though so full of promise, and that she wished she knew him. Edmund was standing close behind her, drinking in the praise which flowed from her beautiful lips. His heart was so full that he could not bring himself to go forward and say he was the painter. And at this juncture Albertine happened to drop one of her gloves, which she had taken off. Edmund stooped to pick it up, and as Albertine did the same thing at the same instant, their heads banged together with such a crash that it rang through the place.
"Oh, good gracious!" Albertine cried, holding her hands to her head.
Edmund started back in consternation and alarm. At his first step he stamped on the old lady's pug, which yelled aloud; at his second he trampled the gouty toe of a professor, who gave a tremendous shout, and devoted poor Edmund to all the infernal deities. Then the people came hurrying from the neighbouring rooms, and all the lorgnettes were fixed upon Edmund, who made the best of his way out of the place, amid the whimperings of the dog, the curses of the professor, the objurgations of the old lady, and the tittering and laughter of the girls. He made, we say, his escape in those circumstances, blushing over and over with shame and discomfiture, in complete despair, whilst a number of young ladies got out their essence-bottles and rubbed Albertine's forehead, on which a great lump was rapidly rising.
Even then, in the crisis of this ridiculous occurrence, Edmund had fallen deeply in love, though he was scarcely aware of it himself. And it was only a painful sense of his own stupidity that prevented him from going to search for her all over the town. He could not think of her otherwise than with a great red lump on her forehead, and the bitterest reproach, the most distinct expression of anger, in her face and in her whole being.
There was not the faintest trace of this, however, about her as he saw her now. She blushed indeed over and over again when she saw him, and seemed unable to control herself. But when her father asked him his name, &c., she said with a delightful smile, and in gentle accents, "that she must be much mistaken if he were not Mr. Lehsen, the celebrated painter, whose works she so immensely admired."
Those words, we need not say, ran through Edmund's nerves like an electric shock. In his emotion he was about to burst into flowers of rhetoric, but the Commissionsrath would not let him get to that, clasping him to his breast with fervour, and saying, "My dear sir, what about the cigar you promised me?" And whilst he was lighting said cigar at the ashes of the former one, he said, "So you are a painter? and a great one, from what my daughter Albertine tells me--and she knows what she is talking about in such matters, I can assure you. I'm very glad you are. I love pictures, and, as my daughter Albertine says, 'Art' altogether, most tremendously. I simply dote upon it. And I know something about it, too. I'm a first-rate judge of a picture. My daughter Albertine and I know what we're about there. We've got eyes in our heads. Tell me, my dear painter, tell me without hesitation, wasn't it you who painted those pictures which I stop and look at every day as I pass them, because I cannot help standing to admire the colouring of them? Oh, it is beautiful!"
Edmund did not quite understand how the Commissionsrath managed to see any pictures of his daily in passing them, seeing that he had never painted any signboards, that he could remember. But after a good deal of questioning, it turned out that Melchior Bosswinkel meant certain lacquered tea-trays, stove-shades, and things of that sort, which he saw and much admired in a shop-window as he went to business of a morning, after two or three sardines and a glass of Dantziger at the Sala Tarone. These productions constituted his highest ideal of the pictorial art. This disgusted the painter not a little; and he cursed, internally, Bosswinkel and his wretched chatter, which was preventing him from making any approach to the young lady. At last there came up an acquaintance, who engaged him in conversation, and Edmund took advantage of this to go and sit down beside Albertine, who seemed to be very much pleased at his doing so.
Every one who knows Miss Albertine Bosswinkel is aware that, as has been said, she is the very personification of youth, beauty, and delightsomeness; that, like all other Berlin young ladies, she dresses in the best possible taste in the latest fashions, sings in Zelter's choir, has lessons on the piano from Herr Lauska, dances most beautifully, sent a tulip charmingly embroidered and surrounded by violets to the last exhibition, and though by nature of a bright, lively temperament, is quite capable of displaying the proper amount of sentimentality required at tea-parties, at all events. Also, that she copies poetical extracts and sentences which have pleased her in the writings of Goethe, Jean Paul, and other talented men and women, in the loveliest little tiny handwriting into a nice little book with a gilt morocco cover.
Of course it was natural that, sitting beside the young painter, whose heart was beaming with the bliss of a timid affection, she should be several degrees more sentimental than was usual on the tea and reading-aloud occasions; and she lisped in the prettiest manner about such subjects as poetic feeling, depth of idea, childlike simplicity, and so forth.
The evening breeze had begun to sigh, breathing perfume from the flowers and wafting their scents on its wings; and two nightingales were singing a lovely duetto in among the thick darkling leafage, in the tenderest accents of love-complaining.
Albertine began, quoting from Fouqué--