Part 13

“Nay, your Highness, I’m not afraid of lightning,” said the staunch old fellow, and gave his liege lord a quiet look. “I fear God, my judge, when I stand before Him as a miserable sinner, but I do not fear God, my father, for He knows what is good for me, and if He calls me to Himself by a stroke of lightning and without any suffering, then I know that it was an act of mercy, and I thank Him for it.”

There was another awful clap, lightning and thunder falling almost simultaneously, and his Serene Highness screamed aloud.

“Konrektor, I’ll grant ye a favour. What shall it be?”

“I need only God’s favour; I don’t need any man’s favour, for all he may be a prince. Princely favour is the crutch that lame justice leans on, and when princes are gracious they are either trying to make up for past injustice and reap thanks for it, or they are about to commit some new injustice.”

“You’re growing mighty bold. I’ll show you what princely disfavour is!” shouted his Highness in sore ire, for there had been no thunder for some time. “I’ll show you----”

Then Rand put in his head. “Your Highness, the lightning struck a poplar on the embankment, the baker’s wife says, and there’s another storm coming up.”

“Konrektor, do think up something that will help us!”

“How can _I_ think up anything, your Highness. At such times when our Lord God is nearer than at others it is best to examine ourselves closely, and think of all the wrong one has done, and firmly resolve to undo it--that will give us courage and comfort.”

“There is no man I have ever wronged,” exclaimed his Highness hastily; but the storm was drawing nigh, and he covered his face with his handkerchief once more, and cried, “Goodness gracious!”

“Well, your Highness, I imagine it’s much the same with you as it is with the rest of us; or is that no wrong when you imprison your courier Halsband for no fault of his?”

“My courier? He is my servant; how can a prince--mercy on us!--how can a prince be in the wrong against his own servant?” And again there was a flash of lightning, and his Highness disappeared behind his handkerchief. “Mercy on us! Let him go! Let the fellow go!”

“Ay, your Highness, that’s all very good; but you must take the disgrace off from his shoulders as well.”

“Mercy on us!” cried his Highness, stopping his ears because of the thunder. “I’m to ask his pardon, am I? No, no! The fellow----”

Rand appeared. “This will be a good one.”

“Run and let Halsband out of prison,” said his Highness.

“And,” said the Konrektor, “give me pen and ink, and some paper.”

“Here is paper and pen; but our ink is dried up. We’re not much given to writing, except when the cashier is here.”

“That’s a fact,” said his Highness. “Mercy on us! Go and buy some ink immediately.” The ink came, and the Konrektor wrote.

“Good gracious,” said his Highness to himself, “how can the fellow write in this storm!”

The Konrektor got him to sign it.

“Don’t you feel a vast deal better,” he said, “after this good deed?”

“Not a bit of it,” said his Highness; “first the storm must be over.”

The sky was clearing. Rand’s head appeared again. “Now it’s all over; the baker’s wife says we had seven storms.”

His Highness took breath once more, and said to himself, “Seven storms! And he knew it before, the insolent old fellow, with his confounded speeches! What becomes of the deference due to the prince from his subject, I’d like to know? But I can’t do without him; he’s too well posted about the weather.”

_Fritz Reuter._

_THE LIEUTENANT’S DINNER._

COMING home to his bachelor quarters one day, Lieutenant Karfunkelstein found a note of invitation upon his library table. As he took it up and examined it, his chagrin was almost too great for his dignified self-possession. Frau von Diamant was known all over the town for her good dinners, and he, poor fellow, had orders to march in an hour. Moreover, to aggravate matters, the widow was the lady of his heart. He would have liked nothing better than to spend an hour or two in her company, and have the added gratification of dining most sumptuously. But there was no help for it. Love and hunger must both be set aside as a malignant fate had decreed. He must march, and no amount of railing at destiny would improve matters, however it might ease his much-enduring temper. So he called his man Joching, and entrusted to him his painful message of regrets to the widow. “And Joching, are you sure you understand?” “To be sure I do, sir!” replied good Joching dutifully, departing therewith on his errand. It occurred to the lieutenant then that before his march he might partake of a meal to be sent from his hotel. Opening the window hastily, he called after the departing Joching, “When you come back bring my dinner with you.”

And Joching reached the lady’s house. “Well, Joching, what have you to tell me?” “Best compliments from my master to your gracious ladyship. And as for the Herr Lieutenant, he cannot come to dine to-day, for in little more than an hour the troop must march to Woldegk.”

“Ah, what a shame. I’m sorely grieved!”

And Joching still did not move from the spot; he stood twisting his cap and wringing it between his knuckles. The lady asks him why he does not go. “The dinner,” says he; “I was to take it with me.” Well, she was a right jolly woman who did not take a joke amiss, and quickly said, “Stay, in a minute you shall have it.” And in less time than it takes to tell it, she had a portly basket filled and placed on Joching Pacsel’s arm. He trotted off therewith, nothing loath. The Herr Lieutenant was waiting for him, and sat down with a surly look. “Well,” he said, “now for it. The everlasting pork and mutton, I suppose. Ah, to be invited to dine most exquisitely with a superb woman, and then to be condemned to eat hotel stuff!” But soon his humour took another turn. The dinner truly was not bad, what with meats and pastry, ices and dainties, not to mention a bottle of champagne. It was a dinner fit for any man, and most especially for a man about to march and meet pale Death. With vain surmises did he try to solve the riddle of this unlooked-for excellence, and turning to his servant, asked if there were a wedding or a christening at his wonted eating-house. “Nay,” says good Joching, “that’s from her.” “Where did you say you got it?” asked the Herr Lieutenant. “I got it from Frau von Diamant, sir, as you bade me do.” It was worth something to hear the Herr Lieutenant then; to hear him rave and tear, and swear that honest Joching was the greatest ass that ever walked upon two legs. As time goes on, however, even a lieutenant’s rage blows over, and he, being quite cooled down by this time, drew his purse, and taking three thalers therefrom, spoke thus to Joching, “Here are three thalers; do you see them, lout? Take the money and go at once to the nearest pastry-cook’s. Do you understand me, fool?” “Yes, Herr Lieutenant,” said honest Joching. “And there you buy a tart, the finest that the shop holds, and then you go and take it to the house where I was asked to dine. Tell Madam Diamant that you are noted for a fool, and would she kindly overlook your error; and if the tart but taste one-half as good to her as did her roast and confects to me, ’twill give me pleasure more than I can tell. Now, do you understand it, stupid fellow?”

“Ay, sir,” said Joching Pacsel.

And Joching went and brought the tart to the lady. “Best compliments from the Herr Lieutenant to the gracious Frau von Diamant----”

“What is it you bring me now?”

“And says he’s long been noted for a fool----”

“Tut, tut,” the lady said, “we know all that.”

“So please forgive him then, and here’s a tart, and eating it will give you pleasure more than you can tell.”

Madam, after recovering from a hearty laugh, then said: “Well, tell your master we will talk about that at some future time, and here is for your trouble.”

She laid a thaler in his hand, and hoped that now he would leave her in peace. But no, Joching stood quite still, and held his hand up to his face, and gave a furtive peep at it again and again, as if this were the first and only thaler he had ever seen.

“Why do you stand there? What is it you are waiting for?” the lady asked, at last struck by his manner. “Your difficulties are all straightened now.”

“Nay,” said good Joching doubtfully, “this is but one; the tart alone cost three.”

_Fritz Reuter._

_THE HIGHER ALTRUISM._

“GOOD morning to you, apothecary. Tell me now, do you know of aught that’s good for headache day?”

“My lad, it is a sore complaint that; one of the worst of ills that flesh is heir to. Well, sit you down a bit. Are you from the manor?”

“Yes, sir; I’m one of the farm-servants there.”

“And do the headache days come often?”

“Well, no, but when they do they come bad.”

“We’ll soon manage them, my lad. Come here now, and first shut both your eyes. There, that is right. Now, quick; smell of this bottle as hard as e’er you can.”

The fellow did precisely as he said. First shut his eyes and smelled right heartily of what was in the bottle; and with a heavy thud he fell from off his chair. And as he was beginning to come to, says the apothecary, “Now, my lad, tell me is your headache day now gone?”

“Oh, sir, it’s not of me that I was talking. It’s our young lady has her headache day.”

_Fritz Reuter._

_MY PICTURES._[7]

SO I took to painting, and particularly to making portraits. My old friend G---- was the first to have his turn. I sketched him from the right and from the left, from the front and from the back, in lead-pencil and in black crayon, and then in colours, once with a sky-blue background, once with clouds wrapped about him, and once in a lovely pink light, as if the sun were setting. That piece made me a lot of trouble, and when it was done it didn’t look like it.

When G. was used up it was the Herr Inspector’s turn. The likeness was to be for his betrothed, so I had to idealise him a bit, and put a pleasant and winning expression on him. It was hard enough, but I fetched it at last. As good luck would have it, he had a long nose, which is always a piece of luck for a beginner. I seized him by that, and when I had it, all the rest had to come after whether it would or no. But how about the pleasantness and the winning expression? I managed that beautifully; I screwed up his eyes a bit, puffed out his cheeks in one place, pulled up the corners of his mouth a quarter of an inch, and made a couple of regular little folds there, so that it looked like a button-hole that a careful tailor has fastened well at the right and left.

The portrait brought me much honour. In the delight of his heart the Inspector showed it to my comrades, and now they all wanted to be painted. With all sorts of devices we wheedled the Inspector into letting one or two of my friends come in to me. My painter’s work-shop was as good as any other; the light came from above, and it was the coolest north-light a painter could wish to have. Besides, I had an advantage over and above my colleagues in the art: the people that sat to me were used to sitting still, and could stand it for any length of time, and when I shoved my table up close upon them, and G. moved his chair to within half a foot of theirs, they sat as in a vice, and there was no escaping; they had to bear it.

Here I’ll have to confess that during this time I sinned more than once against the image of God; I painted faces that never were, and never could be, and I painted them with colours that don’t occur anywhere else in life. The black-headed ones I managed to do to my satisfaction, but when a flaxen-head happened along then it was pretty bad. I had got the habit--more’s the pity--of shading flaxen hair with green, and as I was given to working over the face pretty freely with sienna, my flaxen-haired portraits seen at a little distance looked for all the world like a pine-apple, especially when it so happened that there was a green coat below.

My pictures were mostly sent to old fathers and mothers, or sisters and brothers, for their birthday or for Christmas; and if any of these good folks should be alive now, I will take this opportunity of asking their forgiveness if I gave them a fright for the holidays about the looks of their relatives. I know that my old father wrote me, when I sent him my own portrait, which was very like, that it gave him a heart-sinking to see how horribly I had changed.

Be that as it may, it gave us the opportunity of visiting each other, and though D. did not take kindly to this innovation, and threw a wet blanket over our enterprise whenever he could, he always relented a little after a fresh pound of tobacco; and when I caught him helping himself from the box of cigars that a good friend in Lübeck had sent to my friend G., and when the Major in person wanted to be painted by me, then his severity disappeared, and he walked up and down the long corridor like a cherubim that has put his flaming sword into the sheath for fear he might scorch his wing-feathers.

Painting the portrait of the Major was the crown of my artistic activity at M. I was invited to leave my cell and betake myself to the Inspector’s room, for here the great feat was to be accomplished. I came with all of my artistic belongings. I had mounted a sheet that had a remarkably fine greenish tint, and all my pastels were sharp; but as I stepped into the room I stood aghast, for my fine skylight that I had grown accustomed to was missing--the room had a large natural window. I began by taking the Major around into all the corners to find the right light, but it was all wrong until we tied the blanket from off the Inspector’s bed to the lower part of the window.

Unfortunately the Major had flaxen hair and no eyebrows, and I, poor fellow, had a way of always beginning with the eyebrows. What now? At other times I would daub in a pair of eyebrows first and then hitch on the nose, long or short, as it might happen to be. But what now? He had no eyebrows, and I had nothing to begin on, and his nose was, from an artist’s point of view, but so-so at best. I had measured all the proportions, but there seemed to be no way of getting out of my difficulty. I must needs begin, and I must needs have something _hairy_ to begin on. I was too completely wedded to the habit, so I began with the moustache.

I never regretted it; and if one of my colleagues in the trade should ever find himself in a similar fix he may confidently follow my example, for it was not long before the Inspector, who was looking over my shoulder all the time, said that it was going to be very like, and the man was something of a connoisseur, and had trustworthy opinions on the subject, for he had often watched me, and had been educated up to the point by my pictures.

In a short time the face was all done, very handsome too, only with a peculiar green light, but it may be that was in the paper. Now came the uniform, blue with a red collar, and then the gilt epaulets and the bright buttons. Any one who has never tried his hand at that will find it no easy job, I can tell him. That was the way I felt. I had French blue and chrome yellow in my box, and I was in for it. Having read somewhere or other, “The accessories of a portrait should be treated with a certain sketchy cleverness,” I acted accordingly. Sketchy enough it was, but as far as the cleverness was concerned I got stuck; for when I was through with it they both said, the Inspector and the Major, that it was no good. The French blue for the coat might possibly do, but the epaulets and the buttons looked as if they hadn’t been polished up for seven years; and as for the collar, they said it was no major’s collar, but an ordinary Prussian postmaster’s collar. I was dreadfully put out, of course, but it was true; it did look sort of yellowish. I must have been cheated with the vermilion; it was unadulterated red lead, and I had been at the shadows again with that confounded sienna.

But I had learned enough of the art not to let them snub me, and so I said I would take the picture with me, and in a day or two we would talk about it again. And then I tried one kind of light after another, and polished up the Herr Major’s epaulets and buttons until G. was moved to pity and told me they were bright enough. But that collar! To this hour, when I see one of those collars of the Prussian infantry, I remember my sins. It wasn’t right, and it wouldn’t come right! At last an accident put me on the right track; G.’s canary spattered a drop of his water down upon the collar, and on the spot where it fell it immediately turned a bright scarlet. If I could get a kind of varnish over it to make it look like that, I said to myself. But no, varnish is too oily; it might make it look like a grease spot. How would gum arabic do? But I didn’t happen to have any handy. I mused and mused, and at last I hit upon sugar. That might do. I melted a couple of lumps of sugar in a little water, and began cautiously testing it along the edges. Beautiful! I struck out boldly, and it wasn’t long before the collar would have passed muster for a first-rate Prussian soldier’s collar.

G. said, to be sure, that the collar was too bright for the rest of the picture, but what did G. know about painting? I stood my major on the table, went to bed, and lay looking and looking at him until it struck nine and the sentinel shouted, “Lights out!” I shouldn’t wonder if Raphael looked at his Madonna for a long time when she was done, but I don’t believe that he was as much in love with her as I was with the Herr Major. I lay awake for ever so long. I couldn’t sleep for delight. A Prussian officer in full uniform; that is something to be proud of, gentlemen! At last I fell asleep, and slept far into the next day.

And when I woke up--ye gods, what did I see! G. had not acted as a friend by me. He might have hindered it. Thousands of flies were eating up the Herr Major’s collar, and there were little black specks in my highest lights.

That’s what I call a misfortune. And what now? There was nothing for it but to varnish it up again and keep off the flies so long as I had it on my hands. I got rid of it as soon as I could. But what the Herr Major’s gracious lady said about the likeness, and whether the Herr Major hung it up in his room to remember me by, I have not heard to this day. So much I know, I was in his and the Inspector’s good graces after this, and that was a good thing not only for me but for all of us.

_Fritz Reuter._

_LISZT EXPECTED AT AN EVENING PARTY._

IT is enough to say that Liszt had come. The whole town spoke of him and of nothing else.... Not only was it considered an inevitable requisite for a person of culture to have heard at least one of his concerts, but for those of musical proclivity it was a question of life and death to have seen the _virtuoso_ at their own house. A _salon_ was greatly in danger of losing its painfully acquired reputation if Liszt had not honoured it with a visit. Much higher than the musical treat, which was easily attainable for two thalers, stood the consciousness of being able to say at the proper moment, with apparent nonchalance, but with the blessed assurance of crushing a less fortunate rival: “Do you know, my dear, Liszt was with us on Thursday? We had only a few friends to meet him. He played the Erlkönig!” Thereupon your rival would go home, lie down on the sofa, and have ice and cologne applied to her throbbing forehead.

When the excitement in town had reached its height I found, one evening after coming home exhausted by a round of lessons to untalented beginners, an invitation from Frau Medicinalräthin Pfeffermünze. She asked me to put in an appearance at her _salon_ that very evening at eight o’clock; something very unusual must have occurred. Her instrumental and vocal clients were in the habit of assembling on a Saturday, once a fortnight; this was evidently an extra under difficulties. We had never before been asked so late.

The note bore signs of haste; Frederick the Great and Napoleon had granted themselves more time to sign the orders of cabinet than had the Frau Medicinalräthin. I pitched into my dress-coat head over heels, for there was not a moment to spare, and hastened to the Charlotten Strasse.

The first storey was illuminated with an unreasonable profusion of oil and wax. A gentle shiver passed over my back; in the little reception-room, the inviolable sanctuary of the Medicinalrath in the eyes of young and giddy musicians, glittered the lights of a chandelier. The hall door stood wide open with that philosophically resigned hospitality which in general confines itself to funerals with four horses. At such supreme moments the lesser laws of life become void, and each sympathetic soul, who would never be asked to a place at the family table, is made welcome.

“Heavens!” I exclaimed in a whispered monologue, “it cannot be that the Medicinalrath has died an unexpected death!” The absurdity of the supposition immediately became apparent, for, passing through the reception-room, the head of the house appeared before me in person, at the right of the gilded mirror, surrounded by satellites, and saluted me graciously with a mild wave of his hand. As long as we could remember he had not condescended to receive any ordinary musicians, such as we were personally, for we were never invited to the higher esoteric _fêtes_. To make his presence more emphatically imposing, he had adorned himself with three or four little badges of honour instead of wearing merely the ribbons belonging thereto.

What had occurred? What was about to occur?

The Medicinalrath was to me an unapproachable entity. I dared not ask him. Etiquette demanded that I should confine myself to replying if he should address me. His lady might be looked upon as more condescending, but to-day I should have to forego any polite advances. Like the vestal High Priestess in Spontini’s opera, she stood in the centre of a group of maidens festively arrayed. Man, at any other time a much-sought-for article, had evidently fallen in price. The young gentlemen, even the boldest lions of society, stood close together, and did not venture above a whisper.

What had occurred? What was about to occur?

My vague forebodings became certainty as I heard a pale and criminally lean gentleman, one notorious for his festive odes, say to his neighbour: “He is coming! You will see the godlike youth face to face.” The person addressed like the contrite Brahmin stared at the tip of his nose, and preserved a worshipful silence. “I breakfasted with him yesterday. A most delightful companion! The very picture of unpretentious simplicity,” continued the other. Ah, could he but breakfast with him every day, life had looked brighter to him!

Among the bards near by a wild state of excitement made itself felt. Their leader distributed printed leaflets among them, and the poet stepped nearer to designate a certain passage in the third stanza which required a decided crescendo. Just then the Frau Medicinalräthin came rustling into the circle.

“Would it not be better,” she said, smiling benignly, but struggling with a nervous tremor, “if the chorus were to retire into the adjoining room, so as to have the music come from a greater distance?”

“Frau Medicinalräthin is right,” exclaimed the poet encouragingly, urging the youths of Berlin into the next room. “The chant should impress him as coming from another, purer world. Then in the third and last stanzas the angels descend and greet the genius here below as a brother. Carry out my suggestions, gentlemen, and go into the other room.”