Part 7

The town of Düsseldorf is very beautiful, and if you think of it when in foreign lands, and happen at the same time to have been born there, strange feelings come over the soul. I was born there, and feel as if I must go directly home. And when I say home, I mean the Volkerstrasse, and the house where I was born. This house will be some day very remarkable, and I have sent word to the old lady who owns it that she must not for her life sell it. For the whole house she would now hardly get as much as the present which the green-veiled, distinguished English ladies will give the servant when she shows them the room where I was born, and the hen-house wherein my father generally imprisoned me for stealing grapes, and also the brown door on which my mother taught me to write with chalk. Ah me! should I ever become a famous author, it has cost my poor mother trouble enough.

But my fame still slumbers in the marble quarries of Carrara; the waste-paper laurel with which they have bedecked my brow has not yet spread its perfume through the wide world, and when the green-veiled, distinguished English ladies visit Düsseldorf, they leave the celebrated house unvisited, and go direct to the Market Place, and there gaze on the colossal black equestrian statue which stands in its midst. This represents the Prince-Elector, Jan Wilhelm. He wears black armour and a long hanging wig. When a boy I was told that the artist who made this statue observed with terror while it was being cast that he had not metal enough, and then all the citizens of the town came running with all their silver spoons, and threw them in to fill the mould; and I often stood for hours before the statue puzzling my head as to how many spoons were sticking in it, and how many apple-tarts all that silver would buy. Apple-tarts were then my passion--now it is love, truth, freedom, and crab-soup--and not far from the statue of the Prince-Elector, at the theatre corner, generally stood a curiously constructed sabre-legged rascal, with a white apron and a basket girt around him full of smoking apple-tarts, which he knew how to praise with an irresistible treble voice. “Apple-tarts! quite fresh, so delicious!” Truly, whenever in my later years the Evil One sought to win me, he always cried in such an enticing treble, and I should certainly have never remained twelve hours by the Signora Guilietta if she had not thrilled me with her sweet, fragrant, apple-tart tones. And, in fact, the apple-tarts would never have so enticed me if the crooked Hermann had not covered them up so mysteriously with his white apron; and it is aprons, you know, which--but I wander from the subject. I was speaking of the equestrian statue which has so many silver spoons in its body and no soup, and which represents the Prince-Elector, Jan Wilhelm.

He must have been a brave gentleman, very fond of art, and skilful himself. He founded the picture-gallery in Düsseldorf, and in the observatory there they show a very artistic piece of woodwork which he himself had carved in his leisure hours, of which latter he had every day four-and-twenty.

In those days princes were not the persecuted wretches which they now are; the crown grew firmly on their heads, and at night they drew their night-caps over it and slept peacefully, and their people slumbered peacefully at their feet; and when they awoke in the morning they said, “Good morning, father!” and he replied, “Good morning, dear children!”

But there came a sudden change over all this. One morning when we awoke in Düsseldorf and would say, “Good morning, father,” the father had travelled away, and in the whole town there was nothing but dumb sorrow. Everywhere there was a funeral-like expression, and people slipped silently to the market and read the long paper on the door of the Town Hall. It was bad weather, yet the lean tailor Kilian stood in his nankeen jacket, which he generally wore only at home, and his blue woollen stockings hung down so that his little bare legs peeped out in a troubled way, and his thin lips quivered as he murmured the placard. An old invalid soldier from the Palatine read it rather louder, and at some words a clear tear ran down his white, honourable old moustache. I stood near him, crying too, and asked why we were crying. And he replied, “The Prince-Elector has abdicated.” And then he read further, and at the words, “for the long manifested fidelity of my subjects,” “and hereby release you from allegiance,” he wept still more. It is a strange sight to see, when an old man, in faded uniform and scarred veteran’s face, suddenly bursts into tears. While we read the Prince-Electoral coat-of-arms was being taken down from the Town Hall, and everything began to appear as anxiously dreary as though we were waiting for an eclipse of the sun. The town councillors went about at an abdicating, wearisome gait; even the omnipotent beadle looked as though he had no more commands to give, and stood calmly indifferent, although the crazy Aloysius stood upon one leg and chattered the names of French generals with foolish grimaces, while the tipsy, crooked Gumpertz rolled around in the gutter singing _ça ira! ça ira!_

But I went home crying and lamenting, “The Prince-Elector has abdicated.” My mother might do what she would, I knew what I knew, and went crying to bed, and in the night dreamed that the world had come to an end--the fair flower-gardens and green meadows of the world were taken up and rolled away like carpets from the floor; the beadle climbed up on a high ladder and took down the sun, and the tailor Kilian stood by and said to himself, “I must go home and dress myself neatly, for I am dead, and am to be buried this afternoon.” And it grew darker and darker--a few stars glimmered on high, and even these fell down like yellow leaves in autumn; men gradually vanished, and I, poor child, wandered in anguish around, until before the willow fence of a deserted farmhouse I saw a man digging up the earth with a spade, and near him an ugly, spiteful-looking woman, who held something in her apron like a human head, but it was the moon, and she laid it carefully in the open grave; and behind me stood the Palatine soldier sobbing and spelling, “The Prince-Elector has abdicated.”

When I awoke, the sun shone as usual through the window; there was a sound of drums in the street; and as I entered our sitting-room and wished my father, who sat in his white dressing-gown, good morning, I heard the little light-footed barber, as he made up his hair, narrate very minutely that homage would that morning be offered at the Town Hall to the Archduke Joachim. I heard too that the new ruler was of excellent family, that he had married the sister of the Emperor Napoleon, and was really a very respectable man; that he wore his beautiful black hair in curls; that he would shortly enter the town, and would certainly please all the ladies. Meanwhile the drumming in the streets continued, and I stood before the house-door and looked at the French troops marching--those joyous and famous people who swept over the world--singing and playing, the merry, serious faces of the Grenadiers, the bear-skin shakoes, the tri-coloured cockades, the glittering bayonets, the _voltigeurs_ full of vivacity and _point d’honneur_, and the giant-like, silver-laced tambour major, who cast his _baton_ with the gilded head as high as the first storey, and his eyes to the second, where pretty girls gazed from the windows. I was so glad that soldiers were to be quartered in our house--my mother was not glad--and I hastened to the Market Place. There everything looked changed; it was as though the world had been new whitewashed. A new coat-of-arms was placed on the Town Hall; its iron balconies were hung with embroidered velvet drapery, French Grenadiers stood as sentinels, the old town councillors had put on new faces and Sunday coats, and looked at each other French fashion, and said, “_Bon jour!_” Ladies peeped from every window, inquisitive citizens and soldiers filled the square, and I, with other boys, climbed on the shining Prince-Elector’s great bronze horse, and looked down on the motley crowd.

Neighbour Peter and Long Conrad nearly broke their necks on this occasion, and that would have been well, for the one afterwards ran away from his parents, enlisted as a soldier, deserted, and was finally shot in Mayence; while the other, having made geographical researches in strange pockets, became a working member of a public tread-mill institute. But having broken the iron bands which bound him to his fatherland, he passed safely beyond sea, and eventually died in London, in consequence of wearing a much too long cravat, one end of which happened to be firmly attached to something just as a royal official removed a plank from beneath his feet.

Long Conrad told us that there was no school to-day on account of the homage. We had to wait a long time till this was over. At last the balcony of the Council House was filled with gay gentlemen, flags and trumpets; and our burgomaster, in his celebrated red coat, delivered an oration, which stretched out like india-rubber, or like a night-cap into which one has thrown a stone--only that it was not the stone of wisdom--and I could distinctly understand many of his phrases; for instance, that “We are now to be made happy”--and at the last words the trumpets and drums sounded, and the flags waved, and the people cried hurrah!--and as I, myself, cried hurrah! I held fast to the old Prince-Elector. And that was necessary, for I began to grow giddy; it seemed to me that the people were standing on their heads while the world whizzed round, and the Prince-Elector, with his long wig, nodded and whispered, “Hold fast to me!” and not till the cannon re-echoed along the wall did I become sobered, and climbed slowly down from the great bronze horse.

As I went home I saw crazy Aloysius again dancing on one leg while he chattered the names of French generals, and crooked Gumpertz was rolling in the gutter drunk and growling _ça ira, ça ira_--and I said to my mother that we were all to be made happy, and so there was no school to-day.

The next day the world was again all in order, and we had school as before, and things were got by heart as before--the Roman kings, chronology--the _nomina_ in _im_, the _verba irregularia_--Greek, Hebrew, geography, German, mental arithmetic--Lord! my head is still giddy with it!--all must be learnt by heart. And much of it was eventually to my advantage. For had I not learnt the Roman kings by heart it would subsequently have been a matter of perfect indifference to me whether Niebuhr had or had not proved that they never really existed. And had I not learnt chronology how could I ever in later years have found out any one in Berlin, where one house is as like another as drops of water, or as grenadiers, and where it is impossible to find a friend unless you have the number of his house in your head. Therefore I associated with every friend some historical event which had happened in a year corresponding to the number of his house, so that the one recalled the other, and some curious point in history always occurred to me whenever I met an acquaintance. For instance, when I met my tailor I at once thought of the battle of Marathon; if I saw the well-dressed banker, Christian Gumpel, I remembered the destruction of Jerusalem; if a Portuguese friend, deeply in debt, of the flight of Mahomet; if the University Judge, a man whose probity is well known, of the death of Haman; and if Wadzeek, I was at once reminded of Cleopatra. _Ach, lieber Himmel!_ the poor creature is dead now; our tears are dry, and we may say of her with Hamlet, “Take her for all in all; she was a hag--we oft shall look upon her like again!” As I said, chronology is necessary. I know men who have nothing in their heads but a few years, yet who knew exactly where to look for the right houses, and are, moreover, regular professors. But oh! the trouble I had at school with dates!--and it went even worse with arithmetic. I understood _subtraction_ best, and for this I had a very practical rule--“Four from three won’t go, I must borrow one;” but I advise every one, in such a case, to borrow a few extra shillings, for one never knows.

But as for the Latin, Madam, you can really have no idea how muddled it is. The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin. Those happy people knew in their cradles the nouns with an accusative in _im_. I, on the contrary, had to learn them by heart in the sweat of my brow; but still it is well that I knew them. For if, for example, when I publicly disputed in Latin, in the College Hall of Göttingen, on the 20th of July 1825--Madam, it was well worth while to hear it--if, I say, I had said _sinapen_ instead of _sinapim_, the blunder would have been evident to the Freshmen, and an endless shame for me. _Vis buris_, _sitis_, _tussis_, _cuiumis_, _amussis_, _cannabis_, _sinapis_--these words, which have attracted so much attention in the world, effected this, because they belonged to a determined class, and yet were exceptions; on that account I value them highly, and the fact that I have them ready at my finger’s ends when I perhaps need them in a hurry affords me in many dark hours of life much internal tranquillity and consolation. But, Madam, the _verba irregularia_--they are distinguished from the _verbis regularibus_ by the fact that in learning them one gets more whippings--are terribly difficult. In the damp arches of the Franciscan cloister, near our schoolroom, there hung a large crucified Christ of grey wood, a dismal image, that even yet at times marches through my dreams, and gazes sorrowfully on me with fixed, bleeding eyes--before this image I often stood and prayed, “Oh, thou poor and equally tormented God, if it be possible for Thee, see that I get by heart the irregular verbs!”

I will say nothing of Greek; I should irritate myself too much. The monks of the Middle Ages were not so very much in the wrong when they asserted that Greek was an invention of the devil. Lord knows what I suffered through it. It went better with Hebrew, for I always had a great predilection for the Jews, although they to this very hour have crucified my good name; but I never could get so far in Hebrew as my watch, which had an intimate intercourse with pawnbrokers, and in consequence acquired many Jewish habits--for instance, it would not go on Saturday--and learned the holy language, and was subsequently occupied with its grammar, for often when sleepless in the night I have to my amazement heard it industriously repeating--_Katal, katalta, katalki; kittel, kittalta, kittalki; pokat, pokadeti; pikat, pik, pik_.

Meanwhile I learned much more German, and that is not such child’s-play. For we poor Germans, who have already been sufficiently plagued with soldiers quartered on us, military duties, poll-taxes, and a thousand other exactions, must needs over and above all this torment each other with accusatives and datives. I learned much German from the old Rector Schallmeyer, a brave clerical gentleman, whose _protégé_ I was from childhood. Something of the matter I also learned from Professor Schram, a man who had written a book on Eternal Peace, and in whose class my schoolfellows fought with especial vigour.

And while thus dashing on in a breath, and thinking of everything, I have unexpectedly found myself back among old school stories, and I avail myself of this opportunity to show you, Madam, that it was not my fault if I learned so little geography that later in life I could not make my way in the world. For in those days the French had deranged all boundaries; every day countries were re-coloured--those which were once blue suddenly became green, many even blood-red; the old established rules were so confused and confounded that no devil would recognise them. The products of the country also changed--chickory and beets now grew where only hares and hunters running after them were once to be seen; even the characters of different races changed--the Germans became pliant, the French paid compliments no longer, the English ceased making ducks and drakes of their money, and the Venetians were not subtle enough; there was promotion among princes, old kings obtained new uniforms, new kingdoms were cooked up and sold like hot cakes; many potentates, on the other hand, were chased from house and home, and had to find some new way of earning their bread, while others went at once at a trade, and manufactured, for instance, sealing-wax, or--Madam, this sentence must be brought to an end, or I shall be out of breath--in short, it is impossible in such times to advance far in geography.

I succeeded better in natural history, for there we find fewer changes, and we always have standard engravings of apes, kangaroos, zebras, rhinoceroses, etc. And having many such pictures in my memory, it often happens that at first sight many mortals appear to me like old acquaintances.

I did well in mythology; I took real delight in the mob of gods and goddesses who ruled the world in joyous nakedness. I do not believe that there was a schoolboy in ancient Rome who knew the chief articles of his catechism--that is, the loves of Venus--better than I. To tell the truth, it seems to me that if we must learn all the heathen gods by heart, we might as well have kept them from the first, and we have not perhaps made so much out of our new Roman Trinity, or even our Jewish monotheism. Perhaps that mythology was not in reality so immoral as we imagine, and it was, for example, a very decent thought of Homer’s to give the much-loved Venus a husband.

But I succeeded best of all in the French class of the Abbé d’Aulnoi, a French _émigré_, who had written a number of grammars, and wore a red wig, and jumped about very nervously when he recited his _Art poetique_ and his _Histoire Allemande_. He was the only man in the whole gymnasium who taught German history. Still French has its difficulties, and to learn it there must be much quartering of troops, much drumming in, much _apprendre par cœur_, and above all, no one should be a _bête allemande_. Thus many bitter words came in. I remember still, as though it happened yesterday, the scrapes I got into through _la religion_. Six times came the question: “Henri, what is the French for ‘the faith’?” And six times, ever more tearfully, I replied: “It is called _le crédit_.” And at the seventh question, with a deep cherry-red face, my furious examiner cried, “It is called _la religion_,” and there was a rain of blows, and all my schoolfellows laughed. Madam, since that day I can never hear the word _religion_ but my back turns pale with terror, and my cheeks red with shame. And to speak truly, _le crédit_ has during my life stood me in better stead than _la religion_. It occurs to me at this moment that I still owe the landlord of the “Lion,” in Bologna, five thalers; and I pledge you my word of honour that I would give him five thalers more if I could only be certain that I should never again hear that unlucky word _la religion_.

_Parbleu_, Madam, I have succeeded well in French. I understand not only _patois_, but even aristocratic nurse-maid French. Not long ago, when in noble society, I understood full one-half of the conversation of two German Countesses, each of whom could count at least sixty-four years, and as many ancestors. Yes, in the Café Royal, at Berlin, I once heard Monsieur Hans Michel Martens talking French, and understood every word, though there was no understanding in it. We must know the spirit of a language, and this is best learned by drumming. _Parbleu!_ how much do I not owe to the French drummer who was so long quartered in our house, who looked like a devil, and yet had the heart of an angel, and who drummed so excellently?

He was a little nervous figure, with a terrible black moustache, beneath which the red lips turned suddenly outwards, while his fiery eyes glanced around.

I, a youngster, stuck to him like a cur, and helped him to rub his military buttons like mirrors, and to pipe-clay his vest, for Monsieur Le Grand liked to look well; and I followed him to the watch, to the roll-call, to the parade. In those times there was nothing but the gleam of weapons and merriment--_les jours de fête sont passés!_ Monsieur Le Grand knew only a little broken German, only the chief expressions--“Bread,” “kiss,” “honour,” but he could make himself very intelligible with his drum. For instance, if I did not know what the word _liberté_ meant, he drummed the _Marseillaise_, and I understood him. If I did not understand the word _egalité_, he drummed the march, “_Ça ira ... les aristocrats a la lanterne!_” and I understood him. If I did not know what _bêtise_ meant, he drummed the Dessauer March, which we Germans, as Goethe also declares, have drummed in champagne--and I understood him. He once wanted to explain to me the word _l’Allemagne_, and he drummed the all too simple primeval melody, which on market days is played to dancing dogs--namely, _Dum-dum-dum_. I was vexed, but I understood him.

In the same way he taught me modern history. I did not understand the words, it is true; but as he constantly drummed while speaking, I knew what he meant. At bottom this is the best method. The history of the storming of the Bastille, of the Tuilleries, and the like, we understand first when we know how the drumming was done. In our school compendiums of history we merely read: “Their excellencies the Baron and Count, with the most noble spouses of the aforesaid, were beheaded. Their highnesses the Dukes and Princes, with the most noble spouses of the aforesaid, were beheaded. His Majesty the King, with his most sublime spouse, the Queen, was beheaded.” But when you hear the red guillotine march drummed, you understand it correctly for the first time, and you know the how and the why. Madam, that is indeed a wonderful march! It thrilled through marrow and bone when I first heard it, and I was glad that I forgot it. One forgets so much as one grows older, and a young man has nowadays so much other knowledge to keep in his head--whist, Boston, genealogical tables, parliamentary data, dramaturgy, the liturgy, carving--and yet notwithstanding all jogging up of my brain, I could not for a long time recall that tremendous tune! But only think, Madam, not long ago I sat at table with a whole menagerie of counts, princes, princesses, chamberlains, court marshalesses, seneschals, upper court mistresses, court keepers of the royal plate, court hunters’ wives, and whatever else these aristocratic domestics are termed, and their under domestics ran about behind their chairs and shoved full plates before their mouths; but I, who was passed by and neglected, sat without the least occupation for my jaws, and I kneaded little bread-balls, and drummed for _ennui_ with my fingers, and to my astonishment I suddenly drummed the red, long-forgotten guillotine march!

“And what happened?” Madam, the good people were not disturbed in their eating, nor did they know that other people, when they have nothing to eat, suddenly begin to drum, and that, too, very queer marches, which people thought long forgotten.