The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume V Part 37

The excessive cold seized on me; I with difficulty rescued my life from this danger; and the moment I reached land, I ran with the utmost speed to the Lybyan desert in order to dry myself in the sun, but, as I was here exposed, it burned me so furiously on the head that I staggered back again very ill toward the north. I sought to relieve myself by rapid motion, and ran with swift, uncertain steps, from west to east, from east to west. I found myself now in the day, now in the night; now in summer, now in the winter's cold.

I know not how long I thus reeled about on the earth. A burning fever glowed in my veins; with deepest distress I felt my senses forsaking me. As mischief would have it, in my incautious career, I now trod on some one's foot; I must have hurt him; I received a heavy blow, and fell to the ground.

When I again returned to consciousness, I lay comfortably in a good bed, which stood amongst many other beds in a handsome hall. Some one sat at my head; people went through the hall from one bed to another.

They came to mine, and spoke together about me. They styled me _Number Twelve_; and on the wall at my feet stood--yes, certainly it was no delusion, I could distinctly read on a black tablet of marble in great golden letters, quite correctly written, my name--

PETER SCHLEMIHL.

On the tablet beneath my name were two other rows of letters, but I was too weak to put them together. I again closed my eyes.

I heard something of which the subject was Peter Schlemihl read aloud, and articulately, but I could not collect the sense. I saw a friendly man, and a very lovely woman in black dress appear at my bedside. The forms were not strange to me, and yet I could not recognize them.

Some time went on, and I recovered my strength. I was called _Number Twelve_; and _Number Twelve_, on account of his long beard, pa.s.sed for a Jew, on which account, however, he was not at all the less carefully treated. That he had no shadow appeared to have been un.o.bserved. My boots, as I was a.s.sured, were, with all that I had brought hither, in good keeping, in order to be restored to me on my recovery. The place in which I lay was called the SCHLEMIHLIUM. What was daily read aloud concerning Peter Schlemihl was an exhortation to pray for him as the Founder and Benefactor of this inst.i.tution. The friendly man whom I had seen by my bed was Bendel; the lovely woman was Mina.

I recovered unrecognized in the Schlemihlium; and learned yet further that I was in Bendel's native city, where, with the remains of my otherwise unblessed gold, he had in my name founded this Hospital, where the unhappy blessed me, and himself maintained its superintendence. Mina was a widow. An unhappy criminal process had cost Mr. Rascal his life, and her the greater part of her property.

Her parents were no more. She lived here as a pious widow, and practised works of mercy.

Once she conversed with Mr. Bendel at the bedside of _Number Twelve_.

"Why, n.o.ble lady, will you so often expose yourself to the bad atmosphere which prevails here? Does fate then deal so hardly with you that you wish to die?"

"No, Mr. Bendel, since I have dreamed out my long dream, and have awoke in myself, all is well with me; since then I crave not, and fear not, death. Since then, I reflect calmly on the past and the future.

Is it not also with a still inward happiness that you now, in so devout a manner, serve your master and friend?"

"Thank G.o.d, yes, n.o.ble lady. But we have seen wonderful things; we have unwarily drunk much good, and bitter woes, out of the full cup.

Now it is empty, and we may believe that the whole has been only a trial, and, armed with wise discernment, awaits the real beginning.

The real beginning is of another fas.h.i.+on; and we wish not back the first jugglery, and are on the whole glad, such as it was, to have lived through it. I feel also within me a confidence that it must now be better than formerly with our old friend."

"Within me too," replied the lovely widow, and then pa.s.sed on.

The conversation left a deep impression upon me, but I was undecided in myself whether I should make myself known or depart hence unrecognized. I took my resolve. I requested paper and pencil, and wrote these words--"It is indeed better with your old friend now than formerly, and if he does penance it is the penance of reconciliation."

Hereupon I desired to dress myself, as I found myself stronger. The key of the small wardrobe which stood near my bed was brought, and I found therein all that belonged to me. I put on my clothes, suspended my botanical case, in which I rejoiced still to find my northern lichens, round my black polonaise, drew on my boots, laid the written paper on my bed, and, as the door opened, I was already far on the way to the Thebais.

As I took the way along the Syrian coast, on which I for the last time had wandered from home, I perceived my poor Figaro coming toward me.

This excellent poodle, which had long expected his master at home, seemed to desire to trace him out. I stood still and called to him.

He sprang barking toward me, with a thousand moving a.s.surances of his inmost and most extravagant joy. I took him up under my arm, for in truth he could not follow me, and brought him with me home again.

I found all in its old order, and returned gradually, as my strength was recruited, to my former employment and mode of life, except that I kept myself for a whole year out of the, to me, wholly insupportable polar cold. And thus, my dear Chamisso, I live to this day. My boots are no worse for the wear, as that very learned work of the celebrated Tieckius, _De Rebus Gestis Pollicilli_, at first led me to fear. Their force remains unimpaired, my strength only decays; yet I have the comfort to have exerted it in a continuous and not fruitless pursuit of one object. I have, so far as my boots could carry me, become more fundamentally acquainted than any man before me with the earth, its shape, its elevations, its temperatures, the changes of its atmosphere, the exhibitions of its magnetic power, and the life upon it, especially in the vegetable world. The facts I have recorded with the greatest possible exactness and in perspicuous order in several works, and stated my deductions and views briefly in several treatises. I have settled the geography of the interior of Africa, and of the northern polar regions; of the interior of Asia, and its eastern sh.o.r.es. My _Historia Stirpium Plantarum Utriusque Orbis_ stands as a grand fragment of the _Flora Universalis Terrae_, and as a branch of my _Systema Naturae_. I believe that I have therein not merely augmented, at a moderate calculation, the amount of known species, more than one-third, but have done something for the _Natural System_, and for the _Geography of Plants_. I shall labor diligently at my _Fauna_. I shall take care that, before my death, my works shall be deposited in the Berlin University.

And thee, my dear Chamisso, have I selected as the preserver of my singular history, which, perhaps, when I have vanished from the earth, may afford valuable instruction to many of its inhabitants. But thou, my friend, if thou wilt live among men, learn before all things to reverence the shadow, and then the gold. Wishest thou to live only for thyself and for thy better self--oh, then!--thou needest no counsel.

ERNST THEODOR AMADEUS HOFFMANN

THE GOLDEN POT[44] (1814)

TRANSLATED BY FREDERIC H. HEDGE

FIRST VIGIL

The mishaps of the student Anselmus. Conrector Paulmann's sanitary canaster and the gold-green snakes.

On Ascension-day, at three o'clock in the afternoon, a young man in Dresden came running through the Black Gate, falling right into a basket of apples and cakes, which an old and very ugly woman was there exposing to sale. All that escaped being smashed to pieces was scattered away, and the street-urchins joyfully divided the booty which this quick gentleman had thrown in the way. At the murder-shriek which the crone set up, her gossips, leaving their cake and brandy-tables, encircled the young man, and with plebeian violence stormfully scolded him, so that, for shame and vexation, he uttered no word, but merely held out his small and by no means particularly well-filled purse, which the crone eagerly clutched and stuck into her pocket. The firm ring now opened; but as the young man started off, the crone called after him: "Ay, run, run thy ways, thou Devil's bird!

To the crystal run--to the crystal!" The squealing, creaking voice of the woman had something unearthly in it, so that the promenaders paused in amazement, and the laugh, which at first had been universal, instantly died away. The student Anselmus, for the young man was no other, felt himself, though he did not in the least understand these singular phrases, nevertheless seized with a certain involuntary horror; and he quickened his steps still more, to escape the curious looks of the mult.i.tude, which were all turned toward him. As he worked his way through the crowd of well-dressed people, he heard them murmuring on all sides: "Poor young fellow! Ha! what a cursed bedlam it is!" The mysterious words of the crone had, oddly enough, given this ludicrous adventure a sort of tragic turn; and the youth, before un.o.bserved, was now looked after with a certain sympathy. The ladies, for his fine shape and handsome face, which the glow of inward anger was rendering still more expressive, forgave him this awkward step, as well as the dress he wore, though it was utterly at variance with all mode. His pike-gray frock was shaped as if the tailor had known the modern form only by hearsay; and his well-kept black satin lower habiliments gave the whole a certain pedagogic air, to which the gait and gesture of the wearer did not at all correspond.

The student had almost reached the end of the alley which leads out to the Linke Bath; but his breath could stand such a rate no longer. From running, he took to walking; but scarcely did he yet dare to lift an eye from the ground; for he still saw apples and cakes dancing round him, and every kind look from this or that fair damsel was to him but the reflex of the mocking laughter at the Black Gate. In this mood, he had got to the entrance of the bath; one group of holiday people after the other were moving in. Music of wind-instruments resounded from the place, and the din of merry guests was growing louder and louder. The poor student Anselmus was almost on the point of weeping; for he too had expected, Ascension-day having always been a family-festival with him, to partic.i.p.ate in the felicities of the Linkean paradise; nay, he had purposed even to go the length of a half "portion" of coffee with rum, and a whole bottle of double beer, and, that he might carouse at his ease, had put more money in his purse than was properly permissible and feasible. And now, by this fatal step into the apple-basket, all that he had about him had been swept away. Of coffee, of double beer, of music, of looking at the bright damsels--in a word, of all his fancied enjoyments, there was now nothing more to be said. He glided slowly past, and at last turned down the Elbe road, which at that time happened to be quite solitary.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Permission Berlin Photo Co., New York. HENSEL ERNST THEODOR AMADEUS HOFFMANN]

Beneath an elder-tree, which had grown out through the wall, he found a kind green resting-place; here he sat down, and filled a pipe from the _Sanitatsknaster_ or Health-tobacco, of which his friend the Conrector Paulmann had lately made him a present. Close before him rolled and chafed the gold-dyed waves of the fair Elbe-stream; behind him rose lordly Dresden, stretching, bold and proud, its light towers into the airy sky; which again, farther off, bent itself down toward flowery meads and fresh springing woods; and in the dim distance, a range of azure peaks gave notice of remote Bohemia. But, heedless of this, the student Anselmus, looking gloomily before him, blew forth his smoky clouds into the air. His chagrin at length became audible, and he said: "Of a truth, I am born to losses and crosses for my life long! That in boyhood I never could become the King on Twelfthnight, that at Odds or Evens I could never once guess the right way, that my bread and b.u.t.ter always fell on the b.u.t.tered side--of all these sorrows I will not speak; but is it not a frightful destiny, that now, when, in spite of Satan, I have become a student, I must still be a jolthead as before? Do I ever put a new coat on, without the first day smearing it with tallow, or on some ill-fastened nail or other tearing a cursed hole in it? Do I ever bow to any Councilor or any lady, without pitching the hat out of my hands, or even slipping on the pavement, and shamefully going heels-over-head? Had I not, every market-day, while in Halle, a regular sum of from three to four groschen to pay for broken pottery, the Devil putting it into my head to walk straight forward, like a leming-rat? Have I ever once got to my college, or any place I was appointed to, at the right time? What availed it that I set out half an hour before, and planted myself at the door, with the knocker in my hand? Just as the clock is going to strike, souse! some Devil pours a wash-basin down on me, or I bolt against some fellow coming out, and get myself engaged in endless quarrels till the time is clean gone.

"Ah! well-a-day! whither are ye fled, ye blissful dreams of coming fortune, when I proudly thought that here I might even reach the height of Privy Secretary? And has not my evil star estranged from me my best patrons? I learn, for instance, that the Councilor, to whom I have a letter, cannot suffer cropped hair; with immensity of trouble, the barber fastens me a little cue to my hindhead; but at the first bow his unblessed knot gives way, and a little shock-dog, running snuffling about me, frisks off to the Privy Councilor with the cue in his mouth. I spring after it in terror, and stumble against the table, where he has been working while at breakfast; and cups, plates, ink-gla.s.s, sand-box, rush jingling to the floor, and a flood of chocolate and ink overflows the "Relation" he has just been writing.

'Is the Devil in the man?' bellows the furious Privy Councilor, and shoves me out of the room.

"What avails it that Corrector Paulmann gave me hopes of a writers.h.i.+p: will my malignant fate allow it, which everywhere pursues me?

Today even! Do but think of it! I was purposing to hold my good old Ascension-day with right cheerfulness of soul; I would stretch a point for once; I might have gone, as well as any other guest, into Linke's Bath, and called out proudly: 'Marqueur! a bottle of double beer; best sort, if you please!' I might have sat till far in the evening, and, moreover, close by this or that fine party of well-dressed ladies. I know it, I feel it! heart would have come into me and I should have been quite another man; nay, I might have carried it so far that when one or other of them asked, 'What o'clock may it be?' or 'What is it they are playing?' I should have started up with light grace, and without overturning my gla.s.s or stumbling over the bench, but in a curved posture, moving one step and a half forward, I should have answered: 'Give me leave, Mademoiselle! it is the overture of the _Donauweibchen_;' or, 'It is just going to strike six.' Could any mortal in the world have taken it ill of me? No! I say; the girls would have looked over, smiling so roguishly, as they always do when I pluck up heart to show them that I too understand the light tone of society, and know how ladies should be spoken to. But here--the Devil leads me into that cursed apple-basket, and now must I sit moping in solitude, with nothing but a poor pipe of----" Here the student Anselmus was interrupted in his soliloquy by a strange rustling and whisking, which rose close by him in the gra.s.s, but soon glided up into the twigs and leaves of the elder-tree that stretched out over his head. It was as if the evening wind were shaking the leaves; as if little birds were twittering among the branches, moving their little wings in capricious flutter to and fro. Then he heard a whispering and lisping; and it seemed as if the blossoms were sounding like little crystal bells. Anselmus listened and listened. Ere long, the whispering, and lisping, and tinkling, he himself knew not how, grew to faint and half-scattered words:

"'Twixt this way, 'twixt that; 'twixt branches, 'twixt blossoms, come shoot, come twist and twirl we! Sisterkin, sisterkin! up to the s.h.i.+ne; up, down, through and through, quick! Sun-rays yellow; evening-wind whispering; dew-drops pattering; blossoms all singing: sing we with branches and blossoms! Stars soon glitter; must down: 'twixt this way, 'twixt that, come shoot, come twist, come twirl we, sisterkin!"

And so it went along, in confused and confusing speech. The student Anselmus thought: "Well, it is but the evening-wind, which tonight truly is whispering distinctly enough." But at that moment there sounded over his head, as it were, a triple harmony of clear crystal bells: he looked up, and perceived three little snakes, glittering with green and gold, twisted round the branches, and stretching out their heads to the evening sun. Then, again, began a whispering and twittering in the same words as before, and the little snakes went gliding and caressing up and down through the twigs; and while they moved so rapidly, it was as if the elder-bush were scattering a thousand glittering emeralds through the dark leaves.

"It is the evening sun which sports so in the elder-bush," thought the student Anselmus; but the bells sounded again, and Anselmus observed that one Snake held out its little head to him. Through all his limbs there went a shock like electricity; he quivered in his inmost heart; he kept gazing up, and a pair of glorious dark-blue eyes were looking at him with unspeakable longing; and an unknown feeling of highest blessedness and deepest sorrow was like to rend his heart asunder.

And as he looked, and still looked, full of warm desire, into these charming eyes, the crystal bells sounded louder in harmonious accord, and the glittering emeralds fell down and encircled him, flickering round him in thousand sparkles, and sporting in resplendent threads of gold. The Elder-bush moved and spoke: "Thou layest in my shadow; my perfume flowed round thee, but thou understoodst me not. The perfume is my speech, when Love kindles it." The Evening-Wind came gliding past, and said: "I played round thy temples, but thou understoodst me not. Breath is my speech, when Love kindles it." The sunbeams broke through the clouds, and the sheen of it burnt, as in words: "I overflowed thee with glowing gold, but thou understoodst me not. Glow is my speech, when Love kindles it."

And, still deeper and deeper sunk in the view of these glorious eyes, his longing grew keener, his desire more warm. And all rose and moved around him, as if awakening to joyous life. Flowers and blossoms shed their odors round him; and their odor was like the lordly singing of a thousand softest voices; and what they sung was borne, like an echo, on the golden evening clouds, as they flitted away, into far-off lands. But as the last sunbeam abruptly sank behind the hills, and the twilight threw its veil over the scene, there came a hoa.r.s.e deep voice, as from a great distance:

"Hey! hey! what chattering and jingling is that up there? Hey! hey!

who catches me the ray behind the hills? Sunned enough, sung enough.

Hey! hey! through bush and gra.s.s, through gra.s.s and stream! Hey! hey!

Come dow-w-n, dow-w-w-n!"

So faded the voice away, as in murmurs of a distant thunder; but the crystal bells broke off in sharp discords. All became mute; and the student Anselmus observed how the three snakes, glittering and sparkling, glided through the gra.s.s toward the river; rustling and hustling, they rushed into the Elbe; and over the waves where they vanished, there crackled up a green flame, which, gleaming forward obliquely, vanished in the direction of the city.

SECOND VIGIL

How the student Anselmus was looked upon as drunk and mad. The crossing of the Elbe. Bandmaster Graun's Bravura. Conradi's Stomachic Liqueur, and the bronzed Apple-Woman.

"The gentleman seems not to be in his right wits!" said a respectable burgher's wife, who, returning from a walk with her family, had paused here, and, with crossed arms, was looking at the mad pranks of the student Anselmus. Anselmus had clasped the trunk of the elder-tree, and was calling incessantly up to the branches and leaves: "O glitter and s.h.i.+ne once more, ye dear gold snakes; let me hear your little bell-voices once more! Look on me once more, ye kind eyes; O once, or I must die in pain and ardent longing!" And with this, he was sighing and sobbing from the bottom of his heart most pitifully, and, in his eagerness and impatience, shaking the elder-tree to and fro; which, however, instead of any reply, rustled quite gloomily and inaudibly with its leaves, and so rather seemed, as it were, to make sport of the student Anselmus and his sorrows.

"The gentleman seemingly is not in his right wits!" said the burgher's wife; and Anselmus felt as if you had shaken him out of a deep dream, or poured ice-cold water on him, that he might awaken without loss of time. He now first saw clearly where he was and recollected what a strange apparition had teased him, nay, so beguiled his senses as to make him break forth into loud talk with himself. In astonishment, he gazed at the woman; and at last, s.n.a.t.c.hing up his hat, which had fallen to the ground in his transport, was for making off in all speed. The burgher himself had come forward in the meanwhile; and, setting down the child from his arm on the gra.s.s, had been leaning on his staff, and with amazement listening and looking at the student.