The Serapion Brethren Volume Ii Part 9

So that she really was not in the least frightened when she saw that what she had been thinking was the stove was really Leonhard the Goldsmith, who came up to her and said, in a gentle, harmonious voice:--

"My dear child, lay aside all grief and anxiety. Edmund Lehsen, whom, at present at all events, you believe you love, is a special _protege_ of mine; and I am helping him with all the power at my command. Let me further tell you that it was I who put the lottery idea into your father's head; that I am going to provide and prepare the caskets, and, of course, you see that no one but Edmund will find your portrait."

Albertine felt inclined to shout for joy. The Goldsmith continued:--

"I could have brought about the giving of your hand to Edmund in other ways; but I particularly wish to make the two rivals, Tussmann and the Baron, completely contented at the same time. So that that is going to be done, and you and your father will be quite sure to have no more trouble on their part."

Albertine poured forth the warmest expressions of grat.i.tude. She almost fell at his feet, she pressed his hand to her heart, she declared that, notwithstanding all the magic tricks he had performed, nay, even after the way he had come into her room, she wasn't in the least afraid of him; and she concluded with the somewhat naive request that he would tell her all about himself, and who he really was.

"My dear child," he answered, "it would not be by any means an easy matter for me to tell you exactly who I am. Like many others, I know much better whom I take other people for than what I really and truly am myself. But I may tell you, my dear, that many think I am none other than that Leonhard Turnhauser the Goldsmith, who was such a famous character at the court of the Elector Johann Georg, in the year 1580, and who disappeared, none knew how or where, when envy and calumny tried to ruin him; and if the members of the imaginative or romantic school say that I am this Turnhauser, a spectral being, you may imagine what I have to suffer at the hands of the solid and enlightened portion of the community, the respectable citizens, and the men of business, who think they have something better to do than to bother their heads about poetry and romance. Then, even the aesthetic people want to watch me and dog my steps, just as the doctors and the divines did in Johann Georg's time, and try to embitter and spoil whatever little modic.u.m of an existence I am able to lay claim to, as much as ever they can. My dear girl, I see well enough already, that though I take all this tremendous interest in young Edmund Lehsen and you, and turn up at every corner like a regular _deux ex machina_, there will be plenty of people of the same way of thinking with those of the aesthetic school, who will never be able to swallow me, historically speaking, who will never be able to bring themselves to believe that I ever really existed at all. So that, just that I might manage to get something like a more or less firm footing, I have never ventured to say, in so many words, that I am Leonard Turnhauser, the Goldsmith of the sixteenth century.

The folks in question are quite welcome to say, if they please, that I am a clever conjurer, and find the explanations of every one of my tricks (as they may style the phenomena and the results which I produce) in Wieglieb's 'Natural Magic,' or some book of the kind. I have still one more 'feat,' as they would call it, to perform, which neither Philidor, nor Philadelphia, nor Cagliostro, nor any other conjurer would be able to do, and which, being completely inexplicable, must always remain a stumbling-block to the kind of people in question.

But I cannot help performing it, because it is indispensable to the _denouement_ of this Berlinese tale of the Choice of a Bride by three personages, suitors for the hand of Miss Albertine Bosswinkel. So keep up your heart, my dear child, rise to-morrow morning in good time, put on the dress which you like the best, because it is the most becoming you happen to have; do your hair in the way you think suits you best, and then await, as quietly and patiently as you can, what will happen."

He disappeared exactly as he had come.

On the next day--the Sunday--at eleven o'clock--the appointed time--there arrived at the place of rendezvous old Mana.s.seh with his hopeful nephew--Tussmann--and Edmund Lehsen with the Goldsmith. The wooers, not excepting the Baron, were almost frightened when they saw Albertine, who had never seemed so lovely and taking. I am in a position to a.s.sure every lady, married or otherwise, who attaches the proper amount of importance to dress, that the way in which Albertine's was trimmed, and the material of the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, were most elegant; that the frock itself was just the right length to show her pretty little feet in their white satin shoes; that the arms of it (short, of course), and the corsage were bordered with the richest Point; that her white French gloves came up to just the least little bit above her elbows, showing her beautiful arm; that the only thing she had on her head was a lovely gold comb set with jewels; in short, that her dress was quite that of a bride, except that she had no myrtle wreath in her bonny brown hair. But the reason why she was so much more beautiful than she ever had been before was that love and hope beamed in her eyes and bloomed on her cheeks.

Bosswinkel, in a burst of hospitality, had provided a splendid lunch.

Old Mana.s.seh glowered at the table laid out for this repast with malignant glances askance, and when the Commissionsrath begged him to fall to, on his countenance could be read the answer of Shylock:--

"Yes, to smell pork, to eat of the habitation which your prophet, the Nazarite, conjured the devil into. I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you."

The Baron was less conscientious, for he ate more beefsteak than was seemly, and talked a great deal of stupid nonsense, as was his wont.

The Commissionsrath behaved wholly contrarily to his nature on this important occasion. Not only did he pour out b.u.mpers of Port and Madeira, regardless of expense, and even told the company that he had some Madeira in his cellar a hundred years old; but when the luncheon was over he explained to the suitors the method in which his daughter's hand was to be disposed of in a speech much better put together than anybody would ever have expected of him. They were given to understand most clearly that the successful one must find her portrait in the casket which he chose.

When twelve o'clock struck the door of the hall opened, and there was seen in the middle of it a table with a rich cover on it, bearing the three caskets.

One was of s.h.i.+ning gold, with a circle of glittering ducats on its lid, and the inscription inside them--

"Who chooseth me doth gain that which he much desires."

The second was of silver, richly chased. On its lid were many words and letters of foreign languages, encircling this inscription--

"Who chooseth me doth find more than he hopes."

The third, plainly carved of ivory, was inscribed--

"Who chooseth me doth gain his dreamed-of bliss."

Albertine took her place on a chair behind the table, her father by her side. Mana.s.seh and the Goldsmith drew away into the background.

The lots were drawn, and, Tussmann having the first choice, the Baron and Edmund had to go into the other room.

The Clerk of the Privy Chancery went carefully and considerately up to the table, looked at the caskets with much minuteness of observation, read the inscriptions on them one after another. Soon he found himself irresistibly attracted by the beautiful characters of foreign languages so charmingly intertwined on the cover of the silver casket.

"Good heavens!" he cried, "what beautiful lettering, with what skill those Arabic characters are brought in amongst the Roman letters, and 'Who chooseth me doth gain more than he hopes.' Now have I gone on cheris.h.i.+ng the slightest hope that Miss Albertine would be so gracious as to honour me with her hand? wasn't I going to throw myself into the basin? Evidently here is comfort, here is good fortune.

Commissionsrath! Miss Albertine! I choose the silver one."

Albertine rose and handed him a little key, with which he opened the casket. Great was his consternation to find, not Albertine's portrait, but a little book bound in parchment, which, when he opened it, appeared to consist of blank white pages. Beside it lay a little sc.r.a.p of paper, with the words--

"Thy choice was, in a way, amiss, But those few words do tell thee this-- What thou hast won will never alter, To use it thou needs't never falter.

What 'tis as yet thou dost not see, An endless source of joy 'twill be.

_Ignorantiam_ 'twill enlighten, _Sapientiam_ further brighten."

"Good heavens!" cried Tussmann, "it's a book. Yet, no, it's not a book, and there's nothing in the shape of a portrait. It's merely a lot of paper bound up together; my hopes are dashed to earth, all is over with me now. All I have got to do is to be off to the frog-pond as quickly as I can."

But as he was hurrying away the Goldsmith stopped him, and said--

"Tussmann, you're very foolish; you've got hold of the most priceless treasure you could possibly have come across. Those lines of verse ought to have told you so at once. Do me the favour to put that book which you found in the casket into your pocket."

Tussmann did so.

"Now," said the Goldsmith, "think of some book or other which you would wish that you had in your pocket at this moment."

"Oh, my goodness," said Tussmann, "I went and s.h.i.+ed Thomasius's little treatise on 'Diplomatic Ac.u.men' into the frog-pond, like an utter fool as I was."

"Put your hand in your pocket," said the Goldsmith, "and take out the book."

Tussmann did so, and lo, the book which he brought out was none other than Thomasius's treatise!

"Ha!" cried Tussmann, "what is this? Why it is Thomasius's treatise, my beloved Thomasius, rescued from the congregation of frogs in the pond, who would never have learned diplomatic ac.u.men from him."

"Keep yourself calm," the Goldsmith said; "put the book into your pocket again."

Tussmann did so.

"Think of some other rare work," the Goldsmith said: "one which you have never been able to come across in any library."

"Oh, good gracious!" cried Tussmann in melancholy accents. "I have been, you see, in the habit of sometimes going to the opera, so that I have wanted, very much, to ground myself a little in the theory of music, and I have been trying in vain hitherto to get hold of a copy of a certain little treatise which explains the arts of the composer and the performer, in an allegorical form. I mean Johann Beer's 'Musical War,' an account of the contest between composition and harmony, which are represented under the guise of two heroines, who do battle with each other, and end by being completely reconciled."

"Feel in your pocket," said the Goldsmith; and the Clerk of the Privy Chancery shouted with joy when he found that his paper book now consisted of Johann Beer's 'Musical War.'

"You see now, do you not," said the Goldsmith, "that in the book which you found in the casket you possess the finest and most complete library that anybody ever had? and more than that, you take it about with you in your pocket. For, while you have this remarkable book in your pocket, it will always be whatever book you happen to want to read, as soon as you take it out."

Without wasting a thought on Albertine or the Commissionsrath, Tussmann went and sat down in an armchair in a corner, stuck the book into his pocket, pulled it out again, and it was easy to see, by the delight in his countenance, how completely the Goldsmith's promise had been fulfilled.

It was the Baron's turn next. He came strolling up to the table in his foolish, loutish manner, looked at the caskets through his eyegla.s.s, and murmured out the inscriptions one after the other. But soon a natural, inborn, irresistible instinct drew him to the gold casket, with the s.h.i.+ning ducats on its lid. "Who chooseth me doth gain that which he much desires." "Certainly ducats are what I much desire, and Albertine is what I much desire. I don't see much good in bothering over this."

So he grasped the golden casket; took its key from Albertine, opened it, and found a nice little English file! Beside it lay a piece of paper with the words:--

"Now thou hast the thing thy heart Longed for, with the keenest smart.

All besides is mere parade.

Onward--never retrograde-- Moves a truly thriving Trade."

"And what the Devil's the use of this thing?" Benjie cried, surveying the file. "It isn't Albertine's picture, you know; however, I shall hold on to the casket; it'll be a wedding-present to Albertine. Come to me, dearest child!" With which he was making straight for Albertine; but the Goldsmith held him back by the shoulders, saying--

"Stop, my good sir; that's not in the bargain: you must content yourself with the file. And you will be content with it, when you find out what a treasure it is. In fact, the paper tells you, if you can understand it. Have you got a worn ducat in your pocket?"