The Man-Wolf and Other Tales Part 28

There were not many spectres, left, and I was beginning to feel a little more composed, when the very last, my uncle Christian himself, turned round to me under the mossy gate and beckoned me to follow! A distant faint ironical voice said--

"Caspar! Caspar! come! Six feet of this ground belong to you!"

Then he too disappeared.

A streak of crimson and purple stretched across the eastern sky announced the coming day.

I need not tell you that I did not accept my uncle Christian's invitation, though I am quite aware that a similar call will one day arrive from One who must be obeyed. The remembrance of my brief abode at Burckhardt's fort has wonderfully brought down the great opinion I had once formed of my own importance, for the vision of that night taught me that though orchards and meadows may not pa.s.s away their owners do, and this fact compels to serious reflection upon the nature of our duties and responsibilities.

I therefore wisely resolved not to risk the loss of manly energy and of the best prizes of life by tarrying at that Capua, but to betake myself, without further loss of time, to the pursuit of music as a science, and I hope to produce next year, at the Royal Theatre of Berlin, an opera which, I hope, will disarm all criticism at once.

I have come to the final conclusion that glory and renown, which speculative people speak of as if they were mere smoke, is, after all, the most enduring good. Life and a n.o.ble reputation do not depart together; on the contrary, death confirms well-deserved glory and adds to it a brighter l.u.s.tre.

Suppose, for instance, that Homer returned to life, no one would dispute with him his claim to be the author of the _Iliad_, and each would vie with the rest to do honour to the father of epic poetry. But if peradventure some rich landowner of that day came back to a.s.sert a claim to the fields, the woods, the pastures of which he used to be so proud, ten to one he would be received like a thief and perhaps die a miserable death.

THE BEAR-BAITING.

"If any one thing distresses my dear aunt," said Caspar, "more than my fondness for Sebaldus d.i.c.k's tavern, it is that there is an artist in the family!

"Dame Catherine would have been glad to see me an advocate, a priest, or a councillor. If I had become a councillor, like Monsieur Andreas Van Berghem; if I had snuffled out long and weary sentences, caressing my lace bands with dainty finger-tips, with what esteem and veneration would not that worthy woman have regarded monsieur her nephew! She would have greeted Monsieur le Conseiller Caspar with profound respect; she would have set before me her best preserves, she would have poured out for me, in the midst of her circle of gossips, just a drop of Muscadel of the year XI. with--

"Pray take this, monsieur le conseiller; I have but two bottles left!"

Anything that monsieur my nephew Caspar, conseiller at the court of justice, could do would certainly have been perfectly right and suitable, and quite perfect in its way.

Alas for the vanity of human wishes! the poor woman's ambition was never to be gratified. Her nephew is plain Caspar--Caspar Diderich; he has no t.i.tle, no wand of office, no big wig--he is just an artist! and Dame Catherine has running in her head the old proverb, "Beggarly as an artist," which distresses her more than she can tell.

At first I used to try to make her understand that a true artist is worthy of great respect, that his works sometimes endure for ages, and are admired by many successive generations, and that, in point of fact, a good artist is quite as good as a councillor. Unhappily, I failed to convince her; she merely shrugged her shoulders, clasped her hands in despair, and vouchsafed no answer.

I would have done anything to convert my aunt Catherine to my views--anything; but I would rather die than sacrifice art and an artist's life, music, painting, and Sebaldus's tavern!

Sebaldus's tavern is delightful. It is the corner house between the narrow Rue des Hallebardes and the little square De la Cigogne. As soon as you are through the archway you find within a s.p.a.cious square court, with old carved wooden galleries all round it, and a wooden staircase to reach it; everywhere are scattered in disorder small windows of last century with leaden sashes, skylights, and air-holes; old wooden posts are nearly yielding under the weight of a roof that threatens to sink in.

The barn, the rows of casks piled up in a corner, the cellar door at the left, a pigeon-cote forming the point of the gable end; then, again, beneath the galleries, other darkened windows in the same style, where you can see swillers and topers in three-cornered hats, distinguished by noses red, purple, or crimson; little women of Hundsruck, in velvet caps with long fluttering ribbons, some grave, some laughing, others queer and grotesque-looking; the hay-loft high up under the roof; stables, pigsties, cowsheds, all in picturesque confusion attract and confound your attention. It is a strange sight!

For fifty years not a hammer has been lifted against this venerable ruin.

You would think it was left for the special accommodation of rats! And when the glowing autumn sun, red as fire, showers golden rain upon the decaying walls and timbers; when, as daylight fades into evening, the angular projections stand out more boldly, and the shadows deepen; when all the tavern rings with songs, and shouts, and roars of laughter; when fat Sebaldus, in leathern ap.r.o.n, runs to and from the cellar with the big jug in his hand; when his wife Gredel throws up the kitchen window, and with her long knife, well hacked along the edge, cleans the fish, or cuts the necks of hens, ducks, or geese which struggle and gurgle in their own blood; when pretty Fridoline, with her rosy little mouth and her long fair hair, leans out of her window to tend the honeysuckle, and over her head the neighbour's tabby cat is gently swaying her tail and watching, with her cunning green eyes, the swallow circling in the deepening purple--I do a.s.sure you that a man must be utterly devoid of taste for the picturesque not to stop and contemplate in ecstasy and listen to the murmuring sounds, or the louder din, or the falling whispers, and observe with an artist's eye the trembling lights, the flying shadows, and whisper to himself, "Is not this beautiful?"

But you should see Maitre Sebaldus's tavern on a great occasion, when all the jovial folks of Bergzabern crowd into the immense public room--some day when a c.o.c.k-fight is going on, or a dog-fight, or a magic-lantern.

Last autumn, on a Sat.u.r.day--and it was Michaelmas Day--we were all sitting round the oaken table, between one and two o'clock in the afternoon; old Doctor Melchior, Eisenloffel the blacksmith, and his old wife, old Berbel Rasimus, Johannes the capuchin monk, Borves Fritz the clarionet-player at the Pied de Boeuf, and half a hundred more, laughing, singing, drinking, playing at _youker_, draining jugs and gla.s.ses, eating puddings and _andouilles_.

Mother Gredel was coming and going; the pretty maid-servants, Heinrichen and Lotte, were flying up and down the kitchen stairs like squirrels, and outside, under the broad archway, was the booming, and banging, and jingling of the big drum and the cymbals, while the exciting proclamation was being made: "Ho! ho! hi! Great battle to come off! The Asturian bear, Beppo, and Baptist, the Savoyard bear, against all dogs that may come.

Boom! boom! Walk in, ladies! Walk in, gentlemen! Here's the buffalo from Calabria, and the onagra of the desert! Walk in, walk in! Don't be frightened! All walk in!"

And they did come in, in crowds.

Sebaldus, barring the pa.s.sage with his burly form, as Horatius guarded the bridge in the brave days of old, shouted to all--

"Your five kreutzers, friends and neighbours! Five kreutzers for admittance! Pay, or I'll throttle you!"

It was an awful confusion; people climbed over each other's backs to get in faster, until Bridget Kera lost a stocking and Anna Seiler half her petticoat.

About two, the bear-leader, a tall, rough-looking fellow, with red ragged hair and beard, and mounting a high sugar-loafed hat, pushed the door ajar, and cried, looking in--

"Just going to begin the fight!"

In an instant all the tables were emptied, many an untasted gla.s.s being left upon it. I ran to the hay-loft, climbed up the ladder four steps at a time, and drew it up after me. There, seated all alone upon a bundle of hay, just inside the little skylight, I had a capital view.

What a throng! The old galleries were bending under their weight, the roofs were visibly swaying. I shuddered to think of what might happen.

It seemed inevitable that they would all come down together like grapes in the wine-press, heaped up in a sea of heads.

They were hanging in cl.u.s.ters on the wooden pillars; yet higher in the gutters along the roof; yet higher about the pigeon-cote; higher still over the skylights in the roof of the _mairie_; yet higher in the spire of St. Christopher's; and all this mult.i.tude were howling and shouting--

"The bears! the bears!"

When I had sufficiently admired and wondered at the immense crowd, looking down I saw in the middle of the court a poor, wretched, depressed-looking donkey, lean and ragged, his sleepy eyes half-closed, his ears hanging down. This dreadful object was to open the sports.

"What fools some people are!" I thought.

Minutes were pa.s.sing away, the tumult increased, impatience was waxing into anger, when the great red scoundrel, with his immense sugar-loaf hat, advanced carelessly into the middle of the open s.p.a.ce, and cried solemnly, with his fist upon his hips--

"The onagra of the desert against any dog in the town!"

There was a silence of astonishment. Daniel, the butcher, with staring eyes and gaping mouth, asks--

"Where is the onagra?"

"There she stands!"

"That! why, it's an a.s.s!"

"It's an onagra."

"Well, let us see what it is," cried the butcher, laughing.

He whistled his dog to come, and, pointing to the a.s.s, cried--

"Foux, catch him!"

But, strange to say, as soon as the a.s.s saw the dog running to the attack, he turned nimbly round, and launched out with the whole length of his leg--so well aimed a kick that the dog fell back as if struck by lightning, with his jaw fractured!

Loud laughter rang all round, while the poor dog fled with a piteous yell of pain.