Part 20

In short, there was no resource for the Postmaster and the Giant, but that the latter should plant himself behind, in the character of luggage, and there lie bending down like a weeping willow over the whole vehicle. To me such a back-wall and rear-guard could not be particularly gratifying; and I may refer it (I hope) to any one of you, ye Friends, if with such ware at your back you would not, as clearly and earnestly as I, have considered what manifold murderous projects a knave of a Giant behind you, a _pursuer_ in all senses, might not maliciously attempt; say, that he broke in and assailed you by the back-window, or with Titanian strength laid hold of the coach-roof and demolished the whole party in a lump. However, this Elephant (who indeed seemed to owe the similarity more to his overpowering mass than to his quick light of inward faculty), crossing his arms over the top of the vehicle, soon began to sleep and snore above us; an Elephant, of whom, as I more and more joyfully observed, my Brother-in-law, the Dragoon, could easily be the tamer and bridle-holder, nay, had already been so.

9. In any national calamity the ancient Egyptians took revenge on the god Typhon, whom they blamed for it, by hurling his favorites, the Asses, down over rocks. In similar wise have countries of a different religion now and then taken their revenge.

As more than one person now felt inclined to sleep, but I, on the contrary, as was proper, to wake, I freely offered my seat of honor, the front place in the coach (meaning thereby to abolish many little flaws of envy in my fellow-passengers), to such persons as wished to take a nap thereon. The Legation's man accepted the offer with eagerness, and soon fell asleep there sitting, under the Titan.[74] To me this sort of coach-sleeping of a diplomatic _charge d'affaires_ remained a thing incomprehensible. A man, that in the middle of a stranger and often barbarously-minded company permits himself to slumber, may easily, supposing him to talk in his sleep and coach, (think of the Saxon minister[75] before the Seven Years' War!) blab out a thousand secrets, and crimes, some of which, perhaps, he has not committed. Should not every minister, ambassador, or other man of honor and rank, really shudder at the thought of insanity or violent fevers; seeing no mortal can be his surety that he shall not in such cases publish the greatest scandals, of which, it may be, the half are lies?

70. Let Poetry veil itself in Philosophy, but only as the latter does in the former. Philosophy in poetized Prose resembles those tavern drinking-glasses, encircled with party-colored wreaths of figures, which disturb your enjoyment both of the drink, and (often awkwardly eclipsing and covering each other) of the carving also.

At last, after the long July night, we passengers, together with Aurora, arrived in the precincts of Flaetz. I looked with a sharp yet moistened eye at the steeples. I believe, every man who has anything decisive to seek in a town, and to whom it is either to be a judgment-seat of his hopes, or their anchoring-station, either a battle-field or a sugar-field, first and longest directs his eye on the steeples of the town, as upon the indexes and balance-tongues of his future destiny; these artificial peaks, which, like natural ones, are the thrones of our Future. As I happened to express myself on this point perhaps too poetically to _Jean Pierre_, he answered with sufficient want of taste: "The steeples of such towns are indeed the Swiss Alpine peaks, on which we milk and manufacture the Swiss cheese of our Future." Did the Legations-Peter mean with this style to make me ridiculous, or only himself? Determine!

"Here is the place, the town," said I in secret, "where to-day much and for many years is to be determined, where thou this evening, about five o'clock, art to present thy petition and thyself. May it prosper! May it be successful! Let Flaetz, this arena of thy little efforts among the rest, become a building-space for fair castles and air-castles to two hearts, thy own and thy Berga's!"

At the Tiger Inn I alighted.

_First Day in Flaetz_.

No mortal in my situation at this Tiger-hotel would have triumphed much in his more immediate prospects. I, as the only man known to me, especially in the way of love (of the runaway Dragoon anon!), looked out from the windows of the overflowing Inn, and down on the rushing sea of marketers, and very soon began to reflect, that, except Heaven and the rascals and murderers, none knew how many of the latter two classes were floating among the tide; purposing, perhaps, to lay hold of the most innocent strangers, and in part cut their purses, in part their throats. My situation had a special circumstance against it. My brother-in-law, who still comes plump out with everything, had mentioned that I was to put up at the Tiger. O Heaven! when will such people learn to be secret, and to cover even the meanest pettinesses of life under mantles and veils, were it only that a silly mouse may as often give birth to a mountain as a mountain to a mouse! The whole rabble of the stagecoach stopped at the Tiger; the Harlot, the Rat-catcher, _Jean Pierre_, the Giant, who had dismounted at the Gate of the town, and carrying the huge block-head of the Dwarf on his shoulders as his own (cloaking over the deception by his cloak), had thus, like a ninny, exhibited himself gratis by half a dwarf more gigantic than he could be seen for money.

158. Governments should not too often change the penny-trumps and child's drums of the Poets for the regimental trumpet and fire-drum; on the other hand, good subjects should regard many a princely drum-tendency simply as a disease, in which the patient, by air insinuating under the skin, has got dreadfully swoln.

And now for each of the Passengers, the question was how he could make the Tiger, the heraldic emblem of the Inn, his prototype; and so what lamb he might suck the blood of, and tear in pieces, and devour. My brother-in-law too left me, having gone in quest of some horse-dealer; but he retained the chamber next mine for his sister; this, it appeared, was to denote attention on his part. I remained solitary, left to my own intrepidity and force of purpose.

89. In great towns, a stranger, for the first day or two after his arrival, lives purely at his own expense, in an inn; afterwards, in the houses of his friends, without expense; on the other hand, if you arrive at the Earth, as for instance I have done, you are courteously maintained, precisely for the first few years, free of charges; but in the next and longer series--for you often stay sixty--you are actually obliged (I have the documents in my hands) to pay for every drop and morsel, as if you were in the great Earth Inn, which indeed you are.

Yet among so many villains, encompassing if not even beleaguring me, I thought warmly of one far distant, faithful soul, of my Berga in Neusattel; a true heart of pith, which perhaps with many a weak marriage-partner might have given protection rather than sought it.

"Appear, then, quickly to-morrow at noon, Berga," said my heart; "and if possible before noon, that I may lengthen thy market paradise so many hours as thou arrivest earlier!"

107. Germany is a long lofty mountain--under the sea.

144. The Reviewer does not in reality employ his pen for writing; but he burns it, to awaken weak people from their swoons with the smell; he tickles with it the throat of the plagiary, to make him render back; and he picks with it his own teeth. He is the only individual in the whole learned lexicon that can never exhaust himself, never write himself out, let him sit before the ink-glass for centuries, or tens of centuries. For while the Scholar, the Philosopher, and the Poet produce their new book solely from new materials and growth, the Reviewer merely lays his old gauge of taste and knowledge on a thousand new works; and his light, in the ever-passing, ever-differently-cut glass-world, which he _elucidates_, is still refracted into new colors.

A clergyman, amid the tempests of the world, readily makes for a free harbor, for the church; the church-wall is his casement-wall and fortification; and behind are to be found more peaceful and more accordant souls than on the market-place; in short, I went into the High Church. However, in the course of the psalm, I was somewhat disturbed by a Heiduc, who came up to a well-dressed young gentleman sitting opposite me, and tore the double opera-glass from his nose, it being against rule in Flaetz, as it is in Dresden, to look at the Court with glasses which diminish and approximate. I myself had on a pair of spectacles, but they were magnifiers. It was impossible for me to resolve on taking them off; and here again, I am afraid, I shall pass for a foolhardy person and a desperado; so much only I reckoned fit, to look invariably into my psalm-book; not once lifting my eyes while the Court was rustling and entering, thereby to denote that my glasses were ground convex. For the rest, the sermon was good, if not always finely conceived for a Court-church; it admonished the hearers against innumerable vices, to whose counterparts, the virtues, another preacher might so readily have exhorted us. During the whole service, I made it my business to exhibit true, deep reverence, not only towards God, but also towards my illustrious Prince. For the latter reverence I had my private reason. I wished to stamp this sentiment strongly and openly as with raised letters on my countenance, and so give the lie to any malicious imp about Court, by whom my contravention of the _Panegyric on Nero_, and my free German satire on this real tyrant himself, which I had inserted in the _Plaetz Weekly Journal_, might have been perverted into a secret characteristic portrait of my own Sovereign. We live in such times at present, that scarcely can we compose a pasquinade on the Devil in Hell, but some human Devil on Earth will apply it to an angel.

71. The Youth is singular from caprice, and takes pleasure in it; the Man is so from constraint, unintentionally, and feels pain in it.

When the Court at last issued from church, and were getting into their carriages, I kept at such a distance that my face could not possibly be noticed, in case I had happened to assume no reverent look, but an indifferent or even proud one. God knows, who has kneaded into me those mad, desperate fancies and crotchets, which perhaps would sit better on a Hero Schabacker, than on an Army-chaplain under him. I cannot here forbear recording to you, my Friends, one of the maddest among them, though at first it may throw too glaring a light on me. It was at my ordination to be Army-chaplain, while about to participate in the Sacrament, on the first day of Easter. Now, here while I was standing, moved into softness, before the balustrade of the altar, in the middle of the whole male congregation,--nay, I perhaps more deeply moved than any among them, since, as a person going to war, I might consider myself a half-dead man, that was now partaking in the last Feast of Souls, as it were like a person to be hanged on the morrow,--here, then, amid the pathetic effects of the organ and singing, there rose something--were it the first Easter-day which awoke in me what primitive Christians call their Easter-laughter, or merely the contrast between the most devilish predicaments and the most holy,--in short, there rose something in me (for which reason I have ever since taken the part of every simple person who might ascribe such things to the Devil), and this something started the question: "Now, could there be aught more diabolical than if thou, just in receiving the Holy Supper, wert madly and blasphemously to begin laughing?" Instantly I took to wrestling with this hell-dog of a thought; neglected the most precious feelings, merely to keep the dog in my eye, and scare him away; yet was forced to draw back from him, exhausted and unsuccessful, and arrived at the step of the altar with the mournful certainty that in a little while I should, without more ado, begin laughing, let me weep and moan inwardly as I liked. Accordingly, while I and a very worthy old Burgermeister were bowing down together before the long parson, and the latter (perhaps kneeling on the low cushion, I fancied him too long) put the wafer in my clenched mouth, I felt all the muscles of laughter already beginning sardonically to contract; and these had not long acted on the guiltless integument, till an actual smile appeared there; and as we bowed the second time, I was grinning like an ape. My companion the Burgermeister justly expostulated with me, in a low voice, as we walked round behind the altar: "In Heaven's name, are you an ordained Preacher of the Gospel, or a Merry-Andrew? Is it Satan that is laughing out of you?"

198. The Populace and Cattle grow giddy on the edge of no abyss; with the Man it is otherwise.

11. The Golden Calf of Self-love soon waxes to be a burning Phalaris's Bull, which reduces its father and adorer to ashes.

103. The male Beau-crop, which surrounds the female Roses and Lilies, must (if I rightly comprehend its flatteries) most probably presuppose in the fair the manners of the Spaniards and Italians, who offer any valuable, by way of present, to the man who praises it excessively.

"Ah, Heaven! who else?" said I; and this being over, I finished my devotions in a more becoming fashion.

From the church (I now return to the Flaetz one) I proceeded to the Tiger Inn, and dined at the _table-d'hote_, being at no time shy of encountering men. Previous to the second course, a waiter handed me an empty plate, on which, to my astonishment, I noticed a French verse scratched in with a fork, containing nothing less than a lampoon on the Commandant of Flaetz. Without ceremony, I held out the plate to the company; saying, I had just, as they saw, got this lampooning cover presented to me, and must request them to bear witness that I had nothing to do with the matter. An officer directly changed plates with me. During the fifth course, I could not but admire the chemico-medical ignorance of the company; for a hare, out of which a gentleman extracted and exhibited several grains of shot, that is to say, therefore, of lead alloyed with arsenic, and then cleaned by hot vinegar, did, nevertheless, by the spectators (I expected) continue to be pleasantly eaten.

199. But not many existing Governments, I believe, do behead under pretext of trepanning; or sew (in a more choice allegory) the people's lips together, under pretence of sewing the harelips in them.

In the course of our table-talk, one topic seized me keenly by my weak side, I mean by my honor. The law custom of the city happened to be mentioned, as it affects natural children; and I learned that here a loose girl may convert any man she pleases to select into the father of her brat, simply by her oath. "Horrible!" said I, and my hair stood on end. "In this way may the worthiest head of a family, with a wife and children, or a clergyman lodging in the Tiger, be stript of honor and innocence, by any wicked chambermaid whom he may have seen, or who may have seen him, in the course of her employment!"

An elderly officer observed: "But will the girl swear herself to the Devil so readily?"

What logic! "Or suppose," continued I, without answer, "a man happened to be travelling with that Vienna Locksmith, who afterwards became a mother, and was brought to bed of a baby son; or with any disguised Chevalier d'Eon, who often passes the night in his company, whereby the Locksmith or the Chevalier can swear to their private interviews; no delicate man of honor will in the end risk travelling with another; seeing he knows not how soon the latter may pull off his boots, and pull on his women's-pumps, and swear his companion into Fatherhood, and himself to the Devil!"

67. Hospitable Entertainer, wouldst thou search into thy Guest? Accompany him to another Entertainer, and listen to him. Just so, wouldst thou become better acquainted with Mistress in an hour, than by living with her for a month? Accompany her among her female friends and female enemies (if that is no pleonasm), and look at her!

Some of the company, however, misunderstood my oratorical fire so much, that they, sheep-wise, gave some insinuations as if I myself were not strict in this point, but lax. By Heaven! I no longer knew what I was eating or speaking. Happily, on the opposite side of the table, some lying story of a French defeat was started. Now, as I had read on the street corners that French and German Proclamation, calling before the Court Martial any one who had heard war rumors (disadvantageous, namely), without giving notice of them,--I, as a man not willing ever to forget himself, had nothing more prudent to do in this case, than to withdraw with empty ears, telling none but the landlord why.

It was no improper time; for I had previously determined to have my beard shaven about half past four, that so, towards five, I might present myself with a chin just polished by the razor smoothing-iron, and sleek as wove-paper, without the smallest root-stump of a hair left on it. By way of preparation, like Pitt before Parliamentary debates, I poured a devilish deal of Pontac into my stomach, with true disgust, and contrary to all sanitary rules; not so much for fronting the light stranger Barber, as the Minister and General von Schabacker, with whom I had it in view to exchange perhaps more than one fiery statement.

80. In the Summer of life, men keep digging and filling ice-pits, as well as circumstances will admit; that so, in their Winter, they may have something in store to give them coolness.

28. It is impossible for me, amid the tendril-forest of allusions (even this again is a tendril-twig), to state and declare on the spot whether all the Courts or Heights, the (Bougouer) _Snowline_ of Europe, have ever been mentioned in my writings or not; but I could wish for information on the subject, that, if not, I may try to do it still.

The common Hotel Barber was ushered in to me; but at first view you noticed in his polygonal, zigzag visage, more of a man that would finally go mad, than of one growing wiser. Now, madmen are a class of persons whom I hate incredibly; and nothing can take me to see any madhouse, simply because the first maniac among them may clutch me in his giant fists if he like; and bet cause, owing to infection, I cannot be sure that I shall ever get out again with the sense which I brought in. In a general way, I sit (when once I am lathered) in such a posture on my chair as to keep both my hands (the eyes I fix intently on the bartering countenance) lying clenched along my sides, and pointed directly at the midriff of the barber; that so, on the smallest ambiguity of movement, I may dash in upon him, and overset him in a twinkling.

I scarce know rightly how it happened; but here, while I am anxiously studying the foolish, twisted visage of the shaver, and he just then chanced to lay his long whetted weapon a little too abruptly against my bare throat, I gave him such a sudden bounce on the abdominal viscera, that the silly varlet had wellnigh suicidally slit his own windpipe. For me, truly, nothing remained but to indemnify the man; and then, contrary to my usual principles, to tie round a broad stuffed cravat, by way of cloak to what remained unshorn.

And now at last I sallied forth to the General, drinking out the remnant of the Pontac, as I crossed the threshold.

36. And so I should like, in all cases, to be the First, especially in Begging. The first prisoner-of-war, the first cripple, the first man ruined by burning (like him who brings the first fire-engine), gains the head-subscription and the heart; the next comer finds nothing but Duty to address; and at last, in this melodious _mancando_ of sympathy, matters sink so far, that the last (if the last but one may at least have retired laden with a rich "God help you!") obtains from the benignant hand nothing more than its fist. And as in Begging the first, so in Giving I should like to be the last; one obliterates the other, especially the last the first. So, however, is the world ordered.

I hope there were plans lying ready within me for answering rightly, nay for asking. The Petition I carried in my pocket, and in my right hand. In the left, I had a duplicate of it. My fire of spirit easily helped over the living fence of ministerial obstructions; and soon I unexpectedly found myself in the ante-chamber, among his most distinguished lackeys; persons, so far as I could see, not inclined to change flour for bran with any one. Selecting the most respectable individual of the number, I delivered him my paper request, accompanied with the verbal one that he would hand it in. He took it, but ungraciously. I waited in vain till far in the sixth hour, at which season alone the gay General can safely be applied to. At last I pitch upon another lackey, and repeat my request; he runs about seeking his runaway brother, or my Petition, to no purpose; neither of them could be found. How happy was it that in the midst of my Pontac, before shaving, I had written out the duplicate of this paper; and therefore--simply on the principle that you should always keep a second wooden leg packed into your knapsack when you have the first on your body--and out of fear, that, if the original petition chanced to drop from me in the way between the Tiger and Schabacker's, my whole journey and hope would melt into water,--and therefore, I say, having stuck the repeating work of that original paper into my pocket, I had, in any case, something to hand in, and that something truly a Ditto. I handed it in.

136. If you mount too high above your time, your ears (on the side of Fame) are little better off than if you sink too deep below it; in truth, Charles up in his Balloon, and Halley down in his Diving-bell, felt equally the same strange pain in their ears.