Part 12
Suddenly through the still summer evening there came a sound across the lake, a most uncanny sound, a sound that none but the most masculine ghost would be guilty of to frighten a poor mortal out of his seven wits. With a hollow cadence long drawn out did it pass over the whole of Neu-Strelitz, and the princely pair could not for the life of them say whether it came from up in the air or from underneath the earth. It was all the same anyhow, it was gruesome enough either way. His Highness Adolf Friedrich IV. trembled from top to toe, and Princess Christel, who was confoundedly resolute for a woman, had just enough presence of mind left to catch hold of a silver bell and ring and storm with might and main. Why she did it she couldn’t have told you, but at any rate it brought human aid to the spot. Rand, the _valet de chambre_, and Von Knüppelsdörp, the gentleman of the bed-chamber, came rushing in to ask the why and wherefor. Princess Christel was just able to motion the two to a chair, and so the four of them sat staring at each other in dead silence, and none of them knew what was the matter except that they saw his Serenity had the shivers. All at once the sound came again, and as it was dying away over Neu-Strelitz in its hollow weirdness Adolf Friedrich IV. clapped his hands over his most serene ears and cried, “There it is again!” Von Knüppelsdörp, gentleman of the bed-chamber, took the words out of the mouth of Rand, the _valet_, on the strength of the Mecklenborgian regulations concerning rank, and remarked, “Your Highness, it’s the bittern.” And the Princess Christel had just enough presence of mind to ask what new kind of spook that might be. And the gentleman of the bed-chamber said it was no spook at all, it was only a bird that took a devilish sort of delight in frightening honest folk by putting his beak in the swampy ground and then bellowing like a good one. I’m sure I don’t know whether he was right, but he ought to have known, for he was also page of the hunt. But his Serenity did not take much stock in what he said, and after having meditated a bit he remarked, “All good spirits praise the Lord; and as for you, Rand, I want you to sleep with me this coming night.” With that he left the room.
Princess Christel sat a bit longer with the gentleman of the bed-chamber, discussing the question what potent charms she should employ to banish the ghost for the coming night, and who should sleep with her, for her lady-in-waiting, Caroline Soltmanns, was an old superstitious chatterer, and at last she came to the conclusion that it would be by far the best thing she could do to invite the scrubbing-maid Wendula Steinhagens for the night. Wendula was a d--d plucky person, who was not afraid of the devil nor of his Serenity the Duke, for she had been known to say, “Hallo there, your Highness; get out of the way, will you!” And had flourished her broom in his face.
So the princely pair had passed the night safely under the tender care of Rand and Wendula, and were sitting at the breakfast table next morning drinking chocolate. Then did his Serenity come forth with his deep thoughts and remark, “Sister Christel, you are a woman, and you know I don’t think much of ’em; but you are a member of our most serene house, and for this reason, and on this account, I will make known to you the measures of my government. Would you know the news? I’ll build me a new palace on some pleasant spot in my domains.”
“That’s right, your Grace,” said she. “You are lord of the whole; but how will the money hold out?”
“Oh, I’ve thought of all that,” said his Serenity; “but what have I got my bailiffs for? They must help me out of the lurch, and the workmen can wait awhile for their pay; for it is scandalous that Serenissimus Streliziensis should have to endure a spook under his very nose. To be sure, that fool Knüppelsdörp says it’s a bittern,--but what is a bittern? I’ll believe anything, but to believe an explanation like that is more than can be expected of me in my quality as sovereign lord.”
“Rand,” he said to his _valet de chambre_, “tell Jochen Boenhas to hitch up the gilt coach, three footmen on behind, and the two runners to run ahead; the coachman and the footmen to put on their best livery with the gilt tassels, and the two runners shall wear their new flowered hats from Paris--_à la Pompadour_,” he added aside to his sister--“for I am going on a journey through my estates.”
“Dear me, your Honour,” said Rand, “I’m afraid that won’t do, for our old mare that goes as the off-horse has the spavin, and can’t set one foot before the other.”
“Confound the mare!” exclaimed his Serene Highness in a burst of displeasure. “If the mare can’t go, all you have to do is to go to our Burgher Sachtleben and borrow one of his horses.”
“Dear me, your Honour, he won’t let us have it. This is just the busiest time for carting manure, and it’s no wonder he can’t spare his team.”
“Do as I bid you, Rand; we are sovereign lord.”
And Rand went, and Sachtleben gave him his old stiff bay horse to harness on the resplendent state chariot.
Jochen Boenhas pulled up before the door with his gilt coach, three lackeys jumped up behind one after the other, the two runners floated along the street; Rand sat on the box, and his Serene Highness and sister Christel sat inside the coach.
“Where to?” asked Jochen Boenhas.
“Straight ahead,” said Rand; “over beyond Stargard, up to our boundary-line; but don’t for the life of you drive over the line, for we are only going to travel through our own domain.”
And Jochen Boenhas drove through Stargard and through Frieland up to the Prussian line, and pulled up his horses: “Whoa, whoa I say! Here we are at the end!”
And his Serene Highness gave orders to drive to the east over Woldegk; and when they had passed Woldegk and reached Wolfshagen, Jochen Coachman turned around once more on his old horse and said, “Rand, here’s the end again, we can’t go any further.”
And Princess Christel, who had overheard it, said: “Your Grace, this is the first time I have travelled through our estates; I’d never have thought it was such a short way.”
“Christel,” said his Serene Highness, “you’re a woman, and you don’t know much. What do you suppose? There’s a good lot more toward noon. Feldberg and Mirow and Fürstenberg, all that is in my domain, and then beyond Mirow there’s quite a lengthy bit stretching into our neighbour Schwerin’s possessions that makes a good show.”
“Nay, your Highness,” said Rand, who had overheard, “it doesn’t make much of a show, for the sand just pours into a person’s eyes, as _I_ ought to know, for I was born and bred there.”
His Serene Highness very nearly lost his temper at Rand’s foolish twaddle. He leaned far out of the gilt coach, and called out: “Jochen Boenhas, we’ll go home now! And to-morrow we’ll take the Fürstenberg hemlock grove and Mirow.”
And it was done exactly as his Serene Highness had said, for he was a high-spirited prince, and when he had once said, “I say!” then sure enough he _had_ said it.
So the next day they went beyond Fürstenberg to the hemlock grove, and when Rand turned to look into the carriage and say, “Your Grace, here we are at the end again,” then his Serenity looked sinister, and shouted “Wesenbarg!” to console himself; but in spite of Wesenbarg, he came back to Neu-Strelitz in an utterly discontented spirit, and Rand and sister Christel stood in the hall together, shaking their heads and saying, “Where will this end?”
And the evening and the morning were the third day, and his Highness did not reign during that night, for he slept. The bitterns kept silent, and all the ghosts that had of late taken to haunting the palace at Neu-Strelitz had their off-night.
The next morning the _valet de chambre_ came down to the princess and said: “Thank goodness! we have slept in peace for one night, and reigned right along without let or hindrance, and to-day we are going to travel westward, toward Neu-Brandenburg, and that finishes up the whole business.”
And Princess Christel said, “The Lord be praised! Then he will have peace; he is too ambitious a prince.” And three hours later they passed the inn near Neu-Brandenburg, and Sachtleben’s old bay horse, having got to the end of his rope, one of the innkeeper’s horses was hitched up, and his Serene Highness walked up and down before the door, and looked across the sunny lake over to the woods of Broda, and said to his sister Christel in High German--for the innkeeper’s wife stood near, and he must needs show her his Serenity at its finest--
“What say you, Princess? Shall we build our Belvedere on the other side of this pleasant lake?”
Princess Christel was about to reply, but Rand intercepted her and said--
“Your Highness is always right; of course we’ll have a Bellmandur! All people of degree have a Bellmandur except us!”
And his Serene Highness said: “Rand is right.” And so they drove into Neu-Brandenburg.
Having reached this pearl of his possessions, and coming up in fine style on the market-place, he called out of the gilt carriage: “Rand, tell Jochen Boenhas to stop!” And with that he and his sister Christel descended from the coach, and Rand from the box, and the three lackeys from their seat, and the two runners stood panting.
And then said his Serene Highness Adolf Friedrich IV.: “This suits us right well, and here we will build our palace!”
Her Highness Sister Christel opened her mouth to say something, but his Highness the liege lord took the words out of her mouth and said: “Princess Christel, what more would your Grace have? Are you still critical? Look yonder.” For the time being he was surrounded by a circle of his most devoted subjects, and though these were mostly small street urchins, he felt constrained thereby to speak High German to his sister. “Look, yonder, by the side of the mansion-house, we’ll put it up.”
And Princess Christel said: “_Cela me convient!_ And I hope your Highness will have a couple of wings put on, and I will go and live in one of them.”
“That’s just what you won’t do, Sister Christel,” said his most Serene Highness, turning on his heel. “Don’t make plans, and then they won’t miscarry! I don’t want any womankind with their chit-chat and nonsense in this new palace. I’ve had a deal too much of that at Neu-Strelitz. Rand!” he called; “go and find the two Burgomasters; and you,” he said to two of the footmen, “go and cite the aldermen; tell them _I_ wish to consult them, _I_, their liege lord. You are to stay here,” he said to the third lackey; “it will not do to strip ourselves entirely of attendance.”
And thereupon he walked up and down with his sister, and did not so much as notice that she made a wry face and protruded her nether-lip; and the lackey trotted behind them.
_Fritz Reuter_ (1810-1874).
_HIS SERENITY AND THE THUNDER-STORM._
ON his way to school the Konrektor felt so cheery and good-natured that his pupils might have expected to have a good day. As he stepped into the schoolroom he had the pleasant surprise of seeing a complete Roman battle before him, which his precious boys were carrying out in honour of Livy, and probably to give him an unexpected pleasure, and the noise they made was as natural as if the room were full of genuine Roman soldiers and genuine horses.
It was all very well for the boys, but it was not quite befitting the quiet which is supposed to reign in a schoolroom; nor was it the best means of allaying the flushed spirits of a schoolmaster who had his own private troubles to contend with. The Herr Konrektor sat down on his platform, opened his Homer, and when the noise had somewhat subsided, he gave vent to his ire: “Now listen, you dunces; first learn something, then you’ll be better able to play heroes! Last time we stopped just before the splendid passage where Hector said good-bye to his dear wife Andromache, and she exhorts him--
“Δαιμόνιε, says she; φθισει σε τὸ σὸν μένος, οὐδ’ἐλεαιρεις, says she; but it’s hardly worth while to read anything so fine to you scatterbrained dolts. παῑδά τε νηπίαχον, says she; και ἒμ ἂμμορον, ἣ τάχα χὴρη, says she. Karl Wendt, confound you, if you don’t stop talking I’ll stand you up by my platform, and then it’ll be _my_ turn to have a talk with you. σεῦ ἔσομαι, says she, τὰχα γάρ σε κατακτανέουσιν Ἀχαιοὶ πάντες ἐρορμηφθέντες, says she; ὲμοὶ δέ κε κέρδιον εἴη σεῦ ἀραμαρτοῦση, and so on, says she.--Langnickel, you begin.”
And Langnickel cleared his throat once or twice and nudged his neighbours right and left with his elbows, as much as to say: “Fellows, help me; I’m in an awful fix.”
“Well,” said the Konrektor, “how long before you’re ready? Δαιμόνιε--what does that mean?”
“_Oh, thou monster!_” said Langnickel, looking at the Herr Konrektor very doubtfully to see what he would say.
“It’s more likely you are a monster. The next, go on,” said the Konrektor, pointing to Karl Siemsen. “Well, Karl! Eh? the word’s not easy; how do we call a fellow that can do more than ordinary folks?”
“A Tausendsasa,” said Karl.
“Well, I never! We may say that for a joke, but do you suppose Hector’s wife felt much like joking just then? Nay, she is scolding him. You madcap you, says she, bridle your pluck! says she. Have you no pity for your little boy--she means her little Astyanax that she has on her arm,--and for poor luckless me, says she, who will soon enough be a widow? For how long will it be? says she, before the Archæans pitch in on you and kill you, and what is left to me but sorrow when I sit here without you? says she. Well, here I am translating the whole of Homer for you. Go ahead, Karl Siemsen!” he exclaimed, then the door was opened, and one of his Serene Highness’s lackeys came in.
“Herr Konrektor, his Highness wants to know if you think we’ll get a thunder-storm to-day?”
Now this was the last straw for the Konrektor’s patience. He turned upon the fellow in a mad choler and shouted, “Yes! Go and tell his Highness we’ll get seven.”
“Seven?” asked the lackey, looking blank and walking toward the door, and the Konrektor called after him: “Yes, seven! Tell him we’ll get seven!”
The first lesson was over and the second had begun; it was Latin, and there was Virgil’s _Bucolica_ to translate.
The Herr Konrektor had in the meantime taken a look at the weather, and now he was quite sure there was a storm coming up; his pupils had taken a look at his face, and they also knew for sure that there was a storm brewing; they were only doubtful where the lightning would strike. This question was about to be solved in a drastic manner when his Serenity sent the lackey once more:
“Herr Konrektor, his Highness wants you to come to him at once. The storm is coming mighty fast.”
“Tell his Highness,” cried the Konrektor in a rage, and was about to add, “to remember me to his grandmother,” but he recalled himself and said: “First I must be through school, then I’ll come.”
At the palace things had gone on queerly enough for a while; his most Serene Highness walked up and down in his apartments with pale cheeks, as if he were the walking ghost of the deceased Henry of the Three Oaks; the footmen stood in the corners and along the walls silent and fearful like the stage mimes when Dame Macbeth walks about washing her hands; the gentleman of the bed-chamber, Von Knüppelsdörp, carefully bolted all the windows and doors, and looked as if he were gagged.
“Rand,” called his Highness in an undertone, “smoke is a good conductor. Are all the fires put out?”
“Yes, your Highness, all except the kitchen--you know the dinner has to be cooked.”
“We shall not dine to-day. Tell them to throw water on the fire.”
“Dear me, your Highness,” Rand began, for fast-days were not much to his taste, not even when there was a thunder-storm.
“Do you hear what I say?” cried his Highness with such alacrity that he frightened himself.
“And there shall be no bells pulled; the sound is a good conductor,” he added in a lower tone.
“The sound, your Highness?”
“Confound you, fool! I--I say! It _might_ draw, you know!” whispered his Highness snappishly.
“Humph,” said Rand to himself, looking out of the window with one eye, “we can afford to be cross; the storm isn’t high yet; later on we’ll be more polite.”
“Goodness me,” said his Highness nervously, “why doesn’t the Konrektor come?”
“Good gracious! what good is the Konrektor? He’s no more able to----”
“He _must_ be able to, he _must_! Here, get these buckles off from my shoes; metal is a good conductor. Is all in order in my cabinet?”
“Yes,” growled Rand, looking at the floor while trying to take the buckles off, “we’ve put up all the mummery, and the carpenter says it looks for all the world like a birdcage.”
“Gracious goodness! Did you hear that? Did you hear it, I say? It’s here already! Where can the Konrektor be? I am going into my cabinet. Send for the Konrektor. Don’t go so fast! Don’t go so fast! The lightning will catch. Oh, goodness me!” he said quite tremulously; “and here I am calling so loud!”
The lackey met the Konrektor on the market-place, the door was opened, just a trifle, according to the Duke’s orders, so that there should be no draught, and the Konrektor crowded in with his fox-tail and the rest of it. He now entered his Highness’s cabinet, and the sight he saw put him at first quite out of countenance. For a moment he stood bewildered in the door, and stared into the cabinet open-mouthed, then all at once he broke into a perfect roar of laughter.
“What the devil have we here? Begging your Grace’s pardon! But what in the name of goodness can this mean?”
And Rand laughed too, and said, “Ay, you may well say so!”
I don’t know but what I should have forgotten the dutiful respect I owed his most Serene Highness if I had been called upon to behold what the Konrektor beheld. Right in the middle of the room there was a small platform resting on the necks of bottles, on top of that a sort of pavilion made of glass that came down to the floor, and roofed over with a light-blue silk tent, that looked like a parasol for fifteen persons, and in this remarkable affair sat his Highness in his innocent terror, clothed in a yellow silk dressing-gown, with a green silk nightcap on his head, and with a pair of shoes on his feet varnished with red sealing-wax. He looked for all the world like a handsome canary with a green top-knot, that had been put in a cage to sing a sweet song; and he might have begun singing at any moment if only he had felt less down at the mouth.
In his quality as sovereign lord he would doubtless have sung a right testy little song at the Konrektor for laughing, the more so as he had a crow to pick with him anyway for his matrimonial intentions,[6] had not a sudden stroke of lightning interrupted his Highness’s sing-song. “What nonsense are you----?” and now came the lightning, and he clapped his silk handkerchief over his eyes--“Mercy on us!” and he peeped out from behind the handkerchief, listening for the thunder, and when it came he stopped up his ears and exclaimed again, “Mercy on us!”
The Konrektor had stopped laughing by this time, and examined the cage from before and behind, and his Highness looked at him in an uncertain way, and asked at last--
“Well, what do you say? Will it do? Glass, silk, and”--here he raised one of his legs--“here is sealing-wax; and I have had everything taken out that’s made of metal.”
“Ay,” said the Konrektor, “I dare say it’s all right, your Highness; what man can do has been done; but, begging your pardon, the gold ducal crown that’s up on top of the throne you are sitting on you’ve forgotten.”
“Didn’t I tell you so? Didn’t I tell you so? That ass, Rand. Oh, mercy on us!” for it lightened again.
“Sheep-headed fool, you! bring another chair! I don’t want any ducal honours. When there’s such a storm as this I’m no more than another man--mercy on us!” and he held his hands over his ears. “Eh, Konrektor?”
The Konrektor said he believed it; but the throne with the crown on it might stay there; they could wrap up the crown in a silk handkerchief.
After that his Highness ordered Rand to go out and take a look at the weather. Rand did it, and came back: “The storm is over, but there’s another one all ready to burst, and it looks mighty grim.”
“Rand, bring another chair in my weather-temple for the Konrektor.”
“Oh, your Highness,” said the Konrektor, “I don’t need to come in.”
“Ay, but _I_ need you in here; but you can’t come in like that; you’ll drag in the lightning. Rand, another silk dressing-gown and nightcap, and the red-waxed shoes!”
Resistance was useless, he had to give in; and in a short time he stood there in a black nightcap and a bright orange bed-gown and red shoes; and he stood like a sorcerer in olden times, who might be supposed to have changed an unfortunate prince into a canary-bird, and put him into a glass-box, where it was likely he would have to stay for ever, for naught but the sweet kiss of a beauteous fairy upon his beak could ransom him, and his Highness was possessed of a holy horror of kissing, and there was no beauteous fairy near, for Rand, who was the only other person about, could not possibly figure as such.
When the old sorcerer sat beside his enchanted victim, his Highness ordered Rand out, because the exhalations of so many persons might draw the lightning, but told him to put his head in at the door from time to time and give the news concerning the weather; and Rand was quite willing, for now he could run over to the baker’s wife and have some talk.
“What say you, Konrektor? Is it safe now?” asked his Highness.
“Ay, so far as I can see.”
“But is it _quite_ safe?”
“Well, your Highness, what man can do has been done; but what are mortal measures against the will of our Lord God?”
“That’s what I say,” exclaimed his Highness; “that fool the carpenter was to have made it round, and he made it square. Corners always draw lightning.”
“What good would that do? If our Lord God sees best He can blow away the whole of Neu-Brandenburg in a moment. Think of Sodom and Gomorrah.”
“Goodness gracious! Yes, I know it, I----” Just here Rand put his head in at the door: “There’s another one coming, and the baker’s wife says----”
“Fool, I don’t want to know what that impertinent woman says.”
Rand retired. “That woman has a lot to say; she says too--goodness gracious! she says you are going to get married, Konrektor. But I forbid you. I’ll never set eyes on you again. I’d banish you from court.”
“I esteem your Highness as my liege lord,” said the Konrektor, quietly getting up, “but whether I marry or don’t marry ought to be all the same to you, and I wont brook interference from any man. If you want to banish me from court you can do it, that’s in your power; but I can also go of my own free will, that’s in my power. I have the honour of bidding you farewell.”
“Mercy on us! Do stay here; you’re the only comfort I have. Oh, goodness gracious!”
Here Rand put his head in at the door.
“Your Highness, this one is going to be pretty bad; the storm can’t come across the lake, and the baker’s wife says----”
“You hare-brained dolt, I don’t want to know what she says. Shut the door and bolt it on the outside, so that he can’t get out.”
“Well, your Highness,” said the Konrektor, taking off his sorcerer’s habit and donning his own honest coat, “you can hold me by force--that was a terrific clap!”
“Mercy on us!--yes, that it was. Do come in here again.”