The Fitz-Boodle Papers Part 6

"Whether her Pa and Ma Fully believed her, That we shall never know, Stern they received her; And for the work of that Cruel, though short, night, Sent her to bed without Tea for a fortnight.

IX.

"MORAL

"Hey diddle diddlety, Cat and the Fiddlety, Maidens of England take caution by she!

Let love and suicide Never tempt you aside, And always remember to take the door-key!"

Some people laughed at this parody, and even preferred it to the original; but for myself I have no patience with the individual who can turn the finest sentiments of our nature into ridicule, and make everything sacred a subject of scorn. The next ballad is less gloomy than that of the willow-tree, and in it the lovely writer expresses her longing for what has charmed us all, and, as it were, squeezes the whole spirit of the fairy tale into a few stanzas:--

"FAIRY DAYS.

"Beside the old hall-fire--upon my nurse's knee, Of happy fairy days--what tales were told to me!

I thought the world was once--all peopled with princesses, And my heart would beat to hear--their loves and their distresses; And many a quiet night,--in slumber sweet and deep, The pretty fairy people--would visit me in sleep.

"I saw them in my dreams--come flying east and west, With wondrous fairy gifts--the new-born babe they bless'd; One has brought a jewel--and one a crown of gold, And one has brought a curse--but she is wrinkled and old.

The gentle queen turns pale--to hear those words of sin, But the king he only laughs--and bids the dance begin.

"The babe has grown to be--the fairest of the land And rides the forest green--a hawk upon her hand.

An ambling palfrey white--a golden robe and crown; I've seen her in my dreams--riding up and down; And heard the ogre laugh--as she fell into his snare, At the little tender creature--who wept and tore her hair!

"But ever when it seemed--her need was at the sorest A prince in s.h.i.+ning mail--comes prancing through the forest.

A waving ostrich-plume--a buckler burnished bright; I've seen him in my dreams--good sooth! a gallant knight.

His lips are coral red--beneath a dark moustache; See how he waves his hand--and how his blue eyes flas.h.!.+

"'Come forth, thou Paynim knight!'--he shouts in accents clear.

The giant and the maid--both tremble his voice to hear.

Saint Mary guard him well!--he draws his falchion keen, The giant and the knight--are fighting on the green.

I see them in my dreams--his blade gives stroke on stroke, The giant pants and reels--and tumbles like an oak!

"With what a blus.h.i.+ng grace--he falls upon his knee And takes the lady's hand--and whispers, 'You are free!'

Ah! happy childish tales--of knight and faerie!

I waken from my dreams--but there's ne'er a knight for me; I waken from my dreams--and wish that I could be A child by the old hall-fire--upon my nurse's knee."

Indeed, Ottilia looked like a fairy herself: pale, small, slim, and airy. You could not see her face, as it were, for her eyes, which were so wild, and so tender, and shone so that they would have dazzled an eagle, much more a poor goose of a Fitz-Boodle. In the theatre, when she sat on the opposite side of the house, those big eyes used to pursue me as I sat pretending to listen to the "Zauberflote," or to "Don Carlos,"

or "Egmont," and at the tender pa.s.sages, especially, they would have such a winning, weeping, imploring look with them as flesh and blood could not bear.

Shall I tell how I became a poet for the dear girl's sake? 'Tis surely unnecessary after the reader has perused the above versions of her poems. Shall I tell what wild follies I committed in prose as well as in verse? how I used to watch under her window of icy evenings, and with chilblainy fingers sing serenades to her on the guitar? Shall I tell how, in a sledging-party, I had the happiness to drive her, and of the delightful privilege which is, on these occasions, accorded to the driver?

Any reader who has spent a winter in Germany perhaps knows it. A large party of a score or more of sledges is formed. Away they go to some pleasure-house that has been previously fixed upon, where a ball and collation are prepared, and where each man, as his partner descends, has the delicious privilege of saluting her. O heavens and earth! I may grow to be a thousand years old, but I can never forget the rapture of that salute.

"The keen air has given me an appet.i.te," said the dear angel, as we entered the supper-room; and to say the truth, fairy as she was, she made a remarkably good meal--consuming a couple of basins of white soup, several kinds of German sausages, some Westphalia ham, some white puddings, an anchovy-salad made with cornichons and onions, sweets innumerable, and a considerable quant.i.ty of old Steinwein and rum-punch afterwards. Then she got up and danced as brisk as a fairy; in which operation I of course did not follow her, but had the honor, at the close of the evening's amus.e.m.e.nt, once more to have her by my side in the sledge, as we swept in the moonlight over the snow.

Kalbsbraten is a very hospitable place as far as tea-parties are concerned, but I never was in one where dinners were so scarce. At the palace they occurred twice or thrice in a month; but on these occasions spinsters were not invited, and I seldom had the opportunity of seeing my Ottilia except at evening-parties.

Nor are these, if the truth must be told, very much to my taste. Dancing I have forsworn, whist is too severe a study for me, and I do not like to play ecarte with old ladies, who are sure to cheat you in the course of an evening's play.

But to have an occasional glance at Ottilia was enough; and many and many a napoleon did I lose to her mamma, Madame de Schlippenschlopp, for the blest privilege of looking at her daughter. Many is the tea-party I went to, s.h.i.+vering into cold clothes after dinner (which is my abomination) in order to have one little look at the lady of my soul.

At these parties there were generally refreshments of a nature more substantial than mere tea punch, both milk and rum, hot wine, consomme, and a peculiar and exceedingly disagreeable sandwich made of a mixture of cold white puddings and garlic, of which I have forgotten the name, and always detested the savor.

Gradually a conviction came upon me that Ottilia ATE A GREAT DEAL.

I do not dislike to see a woman eat comfortably. I even think that an agreeable woman ought to be friande, and should love certain little dishes and knick-knacks. I know that though at dinner they commonly take nothing, they have had roast-mutton with the children at two, and laugh at their pretensions to starvation.

No! a woman who eats a grain of rice, like Amina in the "Arabian Nights," is absurd and unnatural; but there is a modus in rebus: there is no reason why she should be a ghoul, a monster, an ogress, a horrid gormandizeress--faugh!

It was, then, with a rage amounting almost to agony, that I found Ottilia ate too much at every meal. She was always eating, and always eating too much. If I went there in the morning, there was the horrid familiar odor of those oniony sandwiches; if in the afternoon, dinner had been just removed, and I was choked by reeking reminiscences of roast-meat. Tea we have spoken of. She gobbled up more cakes than any six people present; then came the supper and the sandwiches again, and the egg-flip and the horrible rum-punch.

She was as thin as ever--paler if possible than ever:--but, by heavens!

HER NOSE BEGAN TO GROW RED!

Mon Dieu! how I used to watch and watch it! Some days it was purple, some days had more of the vermilion--I could take an affidavit that after a heavy night's supper it was more swollen, more red than before.

I recollect one night when we were playing a round game (I had been looking at her nose very eagerly and sadly for some time), she of herself brought up the conversation about eating, and confessed that she had five meals a day.

"THAT ACCOUNTS FOR IT!" says I, flinging down the cards, and springing up and rus.h.i.+ng like a madman out of the room. I rushed away into the night, and wrestled with my pa.s.sion. "What! Marry," said I, "a woman who eats meat twenty-one times in a week, besides breakfast and tea? Marry a sarcophagus, a cannibal, a butcher's shop?--Away!" I strove and strove.

I drank, I groaned, I wrestled and fought with my love--but it overcame me: one look of those eyes brought me to her feet again. I yielded myself up like a slave; I fawned and whined for her; I thought her nose was not so VERY red.

Things came to this pitch that I sounded his Highness's Minister to know whether he would give me service in the Duchy; I thought of purchasing an estate there. I was given to understand that I should get a chamberlain's key and some post of honor did I choose to remain, and I even wrote home to my brother Tom in England, hinting a change in my condition.

At this juncture the town of Hamburg sent his Highness the Grand Duke (apropos of a commercial union which was pending between the two States) a singular present: no less than a certain number of barrels of oysters, which are considered extreme luxuries in Germany, especially in the inland parts of the country, where they are almost unknown.

In honor of the oysters and the new commercial treaty (which arrived in fourgons despatched for the purpose), his Highness announced a grand supper and ball, and invited all the quality of all the princ.i.p.alities round about. It was a splendid affair: the grand saloon brilliant with hundreds of uniforms and brilliant toilettes--not the least beautiful among them, I need not say, was Ottilia.

At midnight the supper-rooms were thrown open and we formed into little parties of six, each having a table, n.o.bly served with plate, a lackey in attendance, and a gratifying ice-pail or two of champagne to egayer the supper. It was no small cost to serve five hundred people on silver, and the repast was certainly a princely and magnificent one.

I had, of course, arranged with Mademoiselle de Schlippenschlopp.

Captains Frumpel and Fridelberger of the Duke's Guard, Mesdames de b.u.t.terbrod and Bopp, formed our little party.

The first course, of course, consisted of THE OYSTERS. Ottilia's eyes gleamed with double brilliancy as the lackey opened them. There were nine apiece for us--how well I recollect the number!

I never was much of an oyster-eater, nor can I relish them in naturalibus as some do, but require a quant.i.ty of sauces, lemons, cayenne peppers, bread and b.u.t.ter, and so forth, to render them palatable.

By the time I had made my preparations, Ottilia, the Captains, and the two ladies, had wellnigh finished theirs. Indeed Ottilia had gobbled up all hers, and there were only my nine in the dish.

I took one--IT WAS BAD. The scent of it was enough,--they were all bad.

Ottilia had eaten nine bad oysters.

I put down the horrid sh.e.l.l. Her eyes glistened more and more; she could not take them off the tray.

"Dear Herr George," she said, "WILL YOU GIVE ME YOUR OYSTERS?"

She had them all down--before--I could say--Jack--Robinson!

I left Kalbsbraten that night, and have never been there since.