Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces Part 4

Kuhschnappel (to return to our subject) has the pull over hundreds of other towns. I admit, as Nicolai's a.s.sertion, that of the 60,000 which Nurnberg contained there are but 30,000 left, and that is something; at the same time it takes fifty burghers, and more, to be equivalent to one aristocrat, which is much. Now I am in a position to show at any moment by reference to registers of deaths and baptisms, that the borough of Kuhschnappel contains almost as many aristocrats as burghers, which is all the more wonderful when we reflect that the former, on account of their appet.i.tes, find it a harder matter to live than the latter. What modern town, I ask, can point to so many free inhabitants? Were there not even in free Athens and Rome--in the West Indies there were of course--more slaves than free men, for which reason the latter did not dare to make the former wear any distinctive dress? And are there not in all towns more tenants than n.o.ble landlords, although the latter _ought_, one would think, to be in the majority, since peasants and burghers grow only by nature, while aristocrats are raised, both by nature, and by art (in the shape of princely and imperial chanceries). If this appendix were not a digression (and digressions are generally expected to be brief) I should proceed to show, at some length, that in several respects Kuhschnappel, if she does not surpa.s.s, is at least quite on a par with, many of the towns of Switzerland; for instance, in a good method of sharpening and lengthening the sword of justice, and, on the whole, in her manner of wielding a good, spiked, knotty mace--in the tax she levies on (ecclesiastical) corn, not that imported from abroad, but that of home growth, to exclude _thought_ and other (in an ecclesiastical sense) rubbish of that sort--and even in her "green market," or trade in young men. As regards the latter, the reason why the trade with France for young Kuhschnappelers to serve as porters and defenders of the Crown has. .h.i.therto been so flat is, that the Swiss have so terribly overdone the market with fine young fellows who go and stand in front of all the doors and (in war time) in front of all the cannons. Of course, were it not for this, there would be more doors than one with a Kuhschnappeler standing and saying, "n.o.body at home."

(Indeed, here in my second edition, I can a.s.sert that Kuhschnappel continues to maintain its t.i.tle of _imperial market_ town, like a secondary electoral dignity, and keeps up its old protective laws against the import of ideas and the export of information, and its blood t.i.the; or young men t.i.the to France, just as Switzerland does, which is like the keeper of the castle of the Wartburg, who keeps constantly re-blackening the indelible mark of the ink which Luther threw at the devil.)

CHAPTER III.

LENETTE'S HONEYMOON--BOOK BREWING--SCHULRATH STIEFEL--MR. EVERARD-- A DAY BEFORE THE FAIR--THE RED COW--ST. MICHAEL'S FAIR--THE BEGGARS' OPERA--DIABOLICAL TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS, OR THE MANNIKIN OF FAs.h.i.+ON--AUTUMN JOYS--A NEW LABYRINTH.

The world could not make a greater mistake than to suppose that our common hero would be to be seen on the Monday sitting in a mourning coach, in a mourning cloak, c.r.a.pe hat-band and scarf, and black shoe-buckles, figuring as chief mourner at the sham funeral of his happiness and his capital.

Heavens! how _can_ the world make such an exceedingly bad shot as that?

The advocate was not even in _quarter_ mourning, let alone half; he was in as good spirits as if he had this third chapter before him, and were just beginning it, as I am.

The reason was, that he had drawn up an able plaint against his guardian, Blaise (enlivening it with sundry satirical touches, which n.o.body but himself understood), and laid it before the Inheritance Office. When we are in a difficulty, it is always so much gained if we can but _do something or other_. Let fortune bl.u.s.ter in our faces with ever so harsh and frosty an autumn wind--as long as it does not break the fore joint of our wing (as in the case of the swans), our very fluttering, though it may not transport us into a warmer climate, will at all events have the effect of warming us a little. From motives of kindness, Siebenkaes kept his wife in ignorance of the delay in the settling of his heritage accounts, as well as of the old story of the change of names; he thought there was very little likelihood of a struggling advocate's wife ever having an opportunity of looking over a patrician's shoulder into his family hand at cards.

And, indeed, what could a man who had made a sudden plunge from out his hermit's holy-week of single blessedness, into the full honeymoon of double blessedness wish for besides? Not until now had he been able to hold his Lenette in both his arms rightly--hitherto his friend, always fluttering backwards and forwards in life, had been held fast with his _left_ arm; but now, she was able to stretch herself out far more comfortably in the chambers of his heart. And the bashful wife did this as much as she dared. She confessed to him, albeit timidly, that she was almost glad not to have that boisterous Saufinder lying under the table and glaring out in that terrible way of his. Whether she experienced a similar relief at the absence of his wild master, she could not be brought to say. To the advocate she felt a good deal like a daughter, and her great tall father could never have enough of her quaint little ways. That, when he went out, she used to look after him as long as he was in sight, was nothing in comparison to the way in which she used to run out after him with a brush, when she noticed from the window that there was such a quant.i.ty of street paving sticking to his coat-tails that nothing would do but she must have him back again into the house, and brush his back as clean as if the Kuhschnappel munic.i.p.ality would charge him paving-tax if any of the mud were found on him. He would take hold of the brush and stop it, and kiss her, and say, "There's a good deal _inside_ as well; but n.o.body sees it there; when I come back we'll set to work and scrub some of _that_ away."

Her maidenly obedience to his every wish and hint, her daughterly observance and fulfilment of them, were more than he looked for or required, indeed; but not too great for the love he bestowed in return.

"Senate clerk's daughter," he said, "you mustn't be _too_ obedient to me; remember I'm not your father, a senate clerk, but a poor's advocate who has married you and signs himself Siebenkaes, to the best of his belief."

"My poor dear father," she answered, "used often to compose and write down things too at home, himself, with his own hand, and then fair-copy them beautifully afterwards." But he enjoyed these crooked answers which she used to make. And though, from sheer veneration of him, she never understood a single one of the jokes which he was always making about himself (for she gainsaid him when he satirically depreciated himself, and agreed with him completely if he ironically lauded himself), yet these mental provincialisms of hers pleased him not a little. She would use such words as "fleuch" for "fliehe," "reuch" and "kreuch" for "riehe" and "kriehe;" religious antiquities out of Luther's Bible, which were valuable and enjoyable contributions to her stock of idiosyncracies, and to the happiness of his honeymoon. One day when he took a particularly pretty cap which she had tried on with, much satisfaction to each of her three cap-blocks, one after another (she would often gently kiss these cap-blocks), and putting it on her own little head before the looking-gla.s.s, said, "See how it looks on your _own_ head; perhaps that's as good a block as the others," she laughed with immense delight, and said, "Now, you are always flattering one!"

Believe me, this naive failure of hers to see his joke so touched him that he made a secret vow never to make another of the kind, except in private to himself. But there was a greater honeymoon pleasure still.

This was that, when there came a fast day, Lenette would on no account allow him to kiss her, when she came into the room (ready for church), her white and red bloom of youth s.h.i.+ning out with threefold beauty from under her black lace head-dress, and the dark leaf.a.ge of her dress.

"Worldly thoughts of that kind," she said, "weren't at all proper before service, when people had on their fast-day things; people must wait!"

"By heaven!" said Siebenkaes to himself, "may I stick a soup spoon five inches long and three broad through my lower lip, like a North American squaw, and go about with it there, if ever I begin spooning and kissing the pious soul again, when she has a black dress on, and the bells are ringing." And though he wasn't much, of a churchgoer himself, he kept his word. See how we men behave in matrimonial life, young ladies!

From all which it will readily appear how perfectly happy the advocate was during his honeymoon, when Lenette, in the most delightful manner, did all those things for him which he used previously to have to do for himself in a most miserable fas.h.i.+on and against the grain, making by unwearied sweepings and brus.h.i.+ngs his dithyrambic chartreuse as clean and level and smooth as a billiard-table. Whole honey-trees full of cakes did she plant during the honeymoon; humming round him of a morning like a busy bee, carrying wax into her little hive (while he was going quietly on with his law-papers, building away at his juridical wasp's nest), forming her cells, cleaning them out, ejecting foreign bodies, and mending c.h.i.n.ks; he now and then looking out of his wasp's nest at the pretty little figure in the tidiest of household dresses, at sight of which he would take his pen in his mouth, hold his hand out to her across the ink-bottle, and say, "Only wait till the afternoon comes and you're sitting sewing--then, as I walk up and down, I shall pay you with kisses to your heart's content." But that none of my fair readers may be unhappy about the souring of the honey of this moon which the conduct of that disinheriting blackguard Blaise might bring about, let me just ask one question? Hadn't Siebenkaes a whole silver mine and a coining mill, in the shape of seven law suits all going on, full of veins of rich ore? And hadn't Leibgeber sent him a military treasury chest on four wheels of fortune, containing two spectacle dollars of Julius Duke of Brunswig, a Russian triple-dollar of 1679, a tail or queue ducat--a gnat or wasp dollar--five vicariat ducats, and a heap of Ephraimites? For he might melt down and volatilise this collection of coins without a moment's hesitation, inasmuch as his friend had only pocketed them by way of a jest on the people who pay a hundred dollars for one. They two had all things corporeal and mental in common to an extent comprehensible by few. They had arrived at that point where there is no distinction visible between the giver and the receiver of a benefit, and they stepped across the chasms of life bound together, as the crystal-seekers in the Alps tie themselves to each other to prevent their falling into the ice clefts.

One Lady Day, towards evening, however, he hit upon an idea which will quite rea.s.sure all fair readers of his history who may be in a state of anxiety about him, and which made _him_ happier than the receipt of the biggest basket of bread with little baskets of fruit in it would have done--or a hamper of wine. He had felt sure all along that he _would_ hit upon an idea. Whenever he was in a difficulty of any kind, he always used to say, "Now, I wonder what I shall hit upon _this_ time; for I _shall_ hit upon something or other as sure as there are four chambers in my brain." The delightful idea in question was, that he should do what I am doing at this moment--write a book; only his was to be a satirical one.[22] A torrent of blood rushed through the opened sluices of his heart, right in amongst the wheels and mill-machinery of his ideas, and the whole of the mental mechanism rattled, whirred, and jingled in a moment--a peck or two of material for the book was ground on the spot.

I know of no greater mental tumult--hardly of any sweeter--which can arise in a young man's being, than that which he experiences when he is walking up and down his room, and forming the daring resolution that he will take a book of blank paper and make it into a ma.n.u.script; indeed it is a point which might be argued whether Winckelmann, or Hannibal the great general, strode up and down _their_ rooms at a greater pace when they respectively formed the (equally daring) resolution that they would go to Rome. Siebenkaes, having made up his mind to write a 'Selection from the Devil's Papers,' was forced to run out of the house, and three times round the market-place, just to fix his fluttering, rus.h.i.+ng ideas into their proper grooves again by the process of tiring his legs. He came back wearied by the glow within him--looked to see if there was enough white paper in the house for his ma.n.u.script--and running up to his Lenette, who was tranquilly working away at a cap, gave her a kiss before she could well take the needle out of her mouth--last thorn upon the rose-tree! During the kiss she quietly gave a finis.h.i.+ng st.i.tch to the border of the cap (squinting down at it the best way she could without moving her head).

"Rejoice with me!" he cried, "come and dance about with me! to-morrow I'm going to begin a work, a book! Roast the calf's head to-night, though it be a breach of our ten commandments." For he and she, on the Wednesday before, had formed themselves into a committee on food regulations, and, of the Thirty-nine articles of domestic economy, which had then been pa.s.sed and subscribed to, one was that, Brahminlike, they were to do without meat at supper.

But he had the greatest difficulty in getting her to understand how it was that he made out that he would be able to procure her another calf's head with a single sheet of the 'Selections from the Devil's Papers,' and that he was perfectly justified in issuing a dispensation from that evening's fast; for like the common herd of mankind, or like the printers, Lenette thought that a written book was paid for at the same rate as a printed one, and that the compositor got rather more than the author. She had never in her life had the slightest idea of the enormous sums which authors are paid nowadays; she was like Racine's wife, who did not know what a line of poetry or a tragedy was, although she kept house upon them. For my part, however, I should never lead to the altar, or into my home as my wife, any woman who wasn't capable of at least completing any sentence which death should knock me over with his hour-gla.s.s in the middle of,--or who wouldn't be unspeakably delighted when I read to her learned Gottingen gazettes, or universal German magazines, in which I was bepraised, more than I deserved perhaps.

The rapture of authors.h.i.+p had set all Siebenkaes's blood-globules into such a flow, and all his ideas into such a whirlwind this whole evening that, in the condition of vividness of fueling and fancy in which he was (a condition which in him often a.s.sumed the appearance of temper), he would instantly have flown out and exploded like so much fulminating gold at everything of a slow moving kind which he came across--such as the servant girl's heavy dawdling step, or the species of dropsy with which her utterance was afflicted;--but that he at once laid hold on a precious sedative powder for the over-excitement caused by happiness, and took a dose of it. It is easier to communicate an impetus and a rapid flow to the slow-gliding blood of a heavy, sorrowful heart, than to moderate and restrain the billowy, surging, foaming current which rushes through the veins in happiness; but he could always calm himself, even in the wildest joy, by the thought of the inexhaustible Hand which bestowed it, and that gentle tenderness of heart wherewith our eyes are drooped to earth as we remember the invisible, eternal Benefactor of all hearts. At such a time the heart, softened by thankfulness and by joyful tears, will speak its grat.i.tude by at least being kindlier towards all mankind, if in no other way. That fierce, untamed delight, which is what Nemesis avenges, can best be kept within due bounds by this sense of grat.i.tude; and those who have died of joy would either _not_ have died at all, or would have died of a _better_ and lovelier joy, if their hearts had first been softened by a grateful heavenward gaze.

His first and best thanksgiving for the new, smooth, beautiful banks, between which his life-stream had now been led, took the form of a zealous and careful drawing up of a defence which he had to prepare in the case of a girl charged with child-murder, to save her from torture on the rack. The state-physician of the borough had condemned her to the "trial by the lungs," a neither more nor less suitable punishment than the "trial by water" (which used to be inflicted on witches).

Calm spring-days of matrimony, peaceful and undisturbed, laid down their carpet of flowers for the feet of these two to tread upon.

Only there sometimes appeared under the window, when Lenette was stretching herself and her white arm out of a morning, and slowly accomplis.h.i.+ng the fastening back of the outside shutters, a gentleman in flesh-coloured silk.

"I really feel quite ashamed to stretch," she said; "there's a gentleman always standing in the street, and he takes off his hat, and notes one down just as if he were the meat appraiser."

The Schulrath Stiefel kept, on the school Sat.u.r.day holidays, the solemn promise he had made on the wedding-day to come and see them often, and at all events to be sure and come on the Sat.u.r.days. I think I shall call him Peltzstiefel (Furboots) as a pleasing variety for the ear--seeing that the whole town gave him that name on account of the gray miniver, faced with hareskin, which he wore on his legs by way of a portable wood-economising stove. Well, Peltzstiefel, the moment he came in at the door, fastened joy-flowers together into a nosegay, and stuck them into the advocate's b.u.t.ton-bole, by appointing him on the spot his collaborateur on the 'Kuhschnappel Indicator, Heavenly Messenger, and School Programme Review'--a work which ought to be better known, so that the works recommended by it might be so too. This newspaper engagement of Siebenkaes is a great pleasure to me; it will at any rate bring my hero in sixpence or so towards a supper now and then.

The Schulrath, who was editor of this paper, had a high sense of the power and responsibility of his post; but Siebenkaes had now risen to the dignity of an author--the only being who in his eyes was superior even to a reviewer--for Lenette had told him on the way to church that her husband was going to have a great thick book printed. The Schulrath considered the 'Salzburg Literary Gazette' of the period the apocryphal, and the 'Jena Literary Gazette' the canonical scriptures: the single voice of one reviewer was, for _his_ ears, multiplied by the echo in the critical judgment hall into a thousand voices. His deluded imagination multiplied the head of one single reviewer into several Lernaean heads, as it was believed of old that the devil used to surround the heads of sinners with delusive _false_ heads, that the executioner might miss his stroke at them.

The fact that a reviewer writes anonymously gives to a single individual's opinions the weight and authority they would possess, if arrived at by a whole council; but then if his name were put at the end, for instance, "X.Y.Z., Student of Divinity," instead of "New Universal German Library," it would weaken the effect of the divinity student's learned laying down of the law to too great an extent. The Schulrath paid court to my hero on account of his satirical turn; for he himself, a very lamb in common life, transformed himself into a wehrwolf in a review article; which is frequently the case with good-tempered men when they write, particularly on _humaniora_ and such like subjects. As indeed, peaceful shepherd races (according to Gibbon) are fond of making war, and of beginning it, or just as the Idyllic painter, Gessner, was himself a biting caricaturist.

And our hero for his part afforded Stiefel a great pleasure this evening, as well as holding out to him the prospect of many more such, when he took from Leibgeber's collection of coins a gnat or wasp dollar, and gave it to him, not as a douceur for his appointment to the critical wasp's nest, but that he might turn it into small change. The Schulrath who, being himself the zealous "Silberdiener"

(master of the plate and jewels) of a dollar-cabinet of his own, would have been delighted if money had existed solely for the sake of cabinets--(meaning, however, numismatic, not political, cabinets)--sparkled and blushed delighted over the dollar, and declared to the advocate (who only wanted the absolute value of it, not the coin-fancier's price) that he considered this a piece of true friends.h.i.+p. "No," answered Siebenkaes, "the only piece of true friends.h.i.+p about the matter is Leibgeber giving _me_ the dollar." "But I'll give you certainly three dollars for it, if you like to ask it,"

said Stiefel. Lenette, delighted at Stiefel's delight, and at his kindly feeling, and secretly giving her husband a push as an admonition not to give way, here struck in with an amount of determination which astonishes me, "But my husband's not going to do anything of the kind, I a.s.sure you; a dollar's a dollar." "But," said Siebenkaes, "I ought rather to ask you only a _third_ of the price, if I'm going to hand over my coins to you one at a time in this way." Ye dear souls! If people's "yeses" in this world were only always such as your "buts."

Stiefel, confirmed bachelor though he was, wasn't going to let himself be found wanting, on such a delightful occasion as this, at all events, in proper politeness towards the fair s.e.x, least of all towards a woman whom he had begun to be so fond of, even when he was bringing her home to be married, and whom he liked twice as much now that she was the wife of such a dear friend, and was such a dear friend herself too. He therefore adroitly led her to join in the conversation (which had previously been too deep and scholarly for her) by using the three cap-blocks as stepping-stones over to the journal of fas.h.i.+ons; only he slid back again sooner than he might have done to a more ancient journal of fas.h.i.+ons, that of Rubenius on the 'Costume of the ancient Greeks and Romans.' He said he should be happy to lend her his sermons every Sunday, as advocates don't deal in theology much. And when she was looking on the floor at her feet for the snuffers which had fallen, he held the candle down that she might see.

The next Sunday was an important day for the house (or rather rooms) of Siebenkaes, for it introduced thereto a grander character than any who have appeared hitherto, namely the Venner (Finance Councillor)--Mr.

Everard Rosa von Meyern, a young member of the aristocracy, who went daily in and out at Heimlicher von Blaise's to "learn the routine of official business;" he was also engaged to be married to a poor niece of the Heimlicher's, who was being brought up and educated for his heart in another part of Germany.

Thus the Venner was a character of consequence in the borough of Kuhschnappel as well as in our 'Thorn-piece,' and this in every political point of view. In a corporeal point of view he was much less so. His body was stuck through his flowered garments much like a piece of stick through a village nosegay; under the s.h.i.+ning wing-covers of his waistcoat (in itself a perfect animal-picture)[23] there pulsated a thorax, perpendicular, if not absolutely concave, and his legs had, all told, about the same amount of calf as those wooden ones which stocking-makers put into their windows as an advertis.e.m.e.nt.

The Venner gave the advocate to understand, in a cold and politely rude manner, that he had merely come to relieve him from the task of defending the case of child-murder, as he had so much to attend to besides. But Siebenkaes saw through this pretence with great ease. It was a well-known circ.u.mstance that the girl accused of this crime had adopted as the father of her child (now flown, away above this earth) a certain commercial traveller, whose name neither she nor the doc.u.ments connected with her case could mention; but that the real father--who, like a young author, was bashful about putting his name to his _piece fugitive_--was no other than the emaciated Venner, Everard Rosa von Meyern himself. There are certain things which a whole town will determine and make up its mind to ignore; and one of these was Rosa's authors.h.i.+p. Heimlicher von Blaise knew that Siebenkaes was aware of it, however, and feared that he might, out of revenge for the affair of the inheritance, purposely make a poor defence of the girl, that the shame and disgrace of her end might fall upon his relative, Meyern's shoulders. What a terrible, mean suspicion!

And yet the purest minds are sometimes driven to entertain such suspicions. Fortunately Siebenkaes had already got the poor mother's lightning-conductor all ready forged and set up. When he showed it to this false bridegroom of the supposed child-murderess, the latter immediately declared that she could not have found an abler guardian saint among all the advocates in the town; to which author and reader can both add "nor one who should be actuated by worthier motives," as we know he did it as a thank-offering to Heaven for the first idea of the 'Devil's Papers.'

At this juncture, the advocate's wife came suddenly back from the adjoining bookbinder's room, where she had been paying a flying visit.

The Venner sprang to meet her at the threshold with a degree of politeness which couldn't have been carried further, inasmuch as she had to open the door before he could reach her. He took her hand, which, in her respect and awe of him, she half permitted, and kissed it stooping, but twisted his eyes up to her face, and said:

"Meddem! I have had this beautiful hand in mine for several days."

It now appeared, from what he said, that he was the identical flesh-coloured gentleman who had stolen her hand with his drawing-pen when she had had it out of the window; because he had been anxious to get a pretty Dolce's hand for a three-quarter portrait of the young lady he was engaged to, and hadn't known what to do; her _head_ he was doing from memory. He then took off his gloves, in which alone he had dared as yet to touch her (as many of the early Christians used only to touch the Eucharist in gloves from reverence therefor), displaying the fires of his rings and the snow of his skin. To preserve the whiteness of the latter from the sun, he hardly ever took his gloves off, except in winter when the sun has scarcely power to burn.

The Kuhschnappel aristocracy, particularly its younger members, give a willing obedience to the commandment which Christ gave to His apostles, to "greet no man by the way," and the Venner observed the required degree of incivility towards the husband, though not by any means to the wife, towards whom his condescension was infinite. An inborn characteristic of Siebenkaes's satirical disposition was a fault which he had of being too polite and kindly with the lower cla.s.ses, and too forward and aggressive with the upper. He had not as yet sufficient knowledge of the world to enable him to determine the precise angle at which his back should bend before the various great ones of the place, wherefore he preferred to go about bolt upright, though he did so against the promptings of his kind heart. An additional cause was, that the profession to which he belonged being of a belligerent nature, has a tendency to embolden those who belong to it; an advocate has the advantage of never requiring to employ one himself, and consequently he is often inclined to treat even the grandest folks with some amount of coolness, unless they happen to be judges or clients, at the disposal of both of which cla.s.ses of society his best services are at all times ready to be placed. Notwithstanding which, it generally happened that, in Siebenkaes's kindly feeling to all mankind, his moveable bridge got shoved down so low under his tightened strings that the notes given out by them became quite low and soft. On the present occasion, however, it was much more difficult to be polite to the Venner (whose designs as regarded Lenette he was compelled to see) than to be rude to him.

Moreover, he had an inborn detestation for dressy men although--just, the contrary feeling for dressy women--so that he would often sit and stare for a long time at the little Fugel-mannikins of dress in the fas.h.i.+on journals, just to get properly angry at them; and he would a.s.sure the Kuhschnappelers that there was n.o.body whom he should so delight in playing practical jokes upon as on such a mannikin--yea, in insulting him, or even doing him an injury (to the extent of a good cudgelling). Also it had always been a source of delight to him that Socrates and Cato walked barefoot about in the market-place; going _bareheaded_, on the other hand (_chapeau bas_), he did not like half so much.

But, ere he could utter himself otherwise than by making faces, the wooden-head of a Venner stroked his sprouting beard, and in a distant manner graciously offered himself to the advocate in the capacity of cardinal protector or mediator in the Blaise inheritance business; this he did, of course, partly to blind the advocate's eyes, and partly to impress upon him how immeasurably inferior was his station. The latter, however, shuddering at the idea of taking a gnome of this kind for paraclete and household angel, said to him (but in Latin)--

"In the first place I must _insist_ that my wife shall not hear a syllable about that insignificant potato quarrel. And moreover, in any legal question I scorn and despise anybody's a.s.sistance but a legal friend's, and in this instance _I_ am my own legal friend. I fill an official position here in Kuhschnappel; it is true, the official position by no means fills _me_." The latter play upon words he expressed by means of a Latin one, which displayed such an unusual amount of linguistic ability, that I should almost like to quote it here. The Venner, however, who could neither construe the pun nor the rest of the speech with the ease with which we have read it here, answered at once (so as to escape without exposing his ignorance) in the same language, "Imo, immo," which he meant for yes. Firmian then went on, in German, saying, "Guardian and ward, intimate as their connection should be, in this case came into contact to an extent almost too great to be pleasant; although, no doubt, there _have_ been cases before where one cousin has cozened another:[24] however, the very members of ecclesiastical councils have come to fisticuffs before now, _e. g_. at Ephesus in the fifteenth century. Indeed, the Abbot Barsumas and Dioscurus, Bishop of Alexandria, men of position, pummelled the good Flavian on that very occasion till he was as dead as a herring.[25] And this was on a Sunday too, a day on which, in these absurd old times, a sacred truce was put to quarrels and differences of every description; though now, Sundays and feast-days are the very days when the peace is broken; the public-house bells and the tinkling of the gla.s.ses ring the truce _out_, and people pummel each other, so that the law gets _her_ finger into the pie. In old days, people multiplied the number of saints' days for the sake of stopping fights, but the fact is that everybody connected with the legal profession, Herr von Meyern (who _must_ have _something_ to live upon), ought to pet.i.tion that a peaceable working-day or two might be abolished now and then, so that the number of rows might be increased, and with them the fines and the fees in like ratio. Yet who thinks of such a thing, Venner?"

He was quite safe in spouting the greater part of this before Lenette; she had long been accustomed to understanding only a half, a fourth, or an eighth part of what he said; as for the _whole_ Venner, she gave herself no concern about him. When Meyern had taken his departure with frigid politeness, Siebenkaes, with the view of helping to advance him in his wife's good opinion, extolled his whole and undivided love for the entire female s.e.x (though engaged to be married), and more particularly his attachment to that preliminary bride of his, who was now in the condemned cell of the prison; this, however, rather seemed to have the effect of _lowering_ him in her good opinion.

"Thou good, kind soul, may you always be as faithful to yourself and to me!" said he, taking her to his heart. But she didn't _know_ that she had been faithful, and said, "to whom should I be _un_faithful?"

From this day onwards to Michaelmas Day, which was the day of the borough fair, fortune seems to have led our _pathway_, I mean the reader's and mine, through no very special flower-beds to speak of, but merely along the smooth green turf of an English lawn, one would suppose on purpose that the fair on Michaelmas Day may suddenly arise upon our view as some s.h.i.+ning, dazzling town starts up out of a valley.

Very little did occur until then; at least, my pen, which only considers itself bound to record incidents of some importance, is not very willing to be troubled to mention that the Venner Meyern dropped in pretty often at the bookbinder's (who lived under the same roof with the Siebenkaeses)--he merely came to see whether the 'Liaisons Dangereuses' were bound yet.

But that Michaelmas! Truly the world shall remember it. And in fact the very eve of it was a time of such a splendid and exquisite quality that we may venture to give the world some account of it.

Let the world _read_ the account of this eve of preparation at all events, and then give its vote.

On this eve of the fair all Kuhschnappel (as all other places are at such a time) was turned into a workhouse and house of industry for women; you couldn't have found a woman in the whole town either sitting down, or at peace, or properly dressed. Girls the most given to reading opened no books but needle-books to take needles out, and the only leaves they turned over were paste ones to be put on pies. Scarcely a woman took any dinner; the Michaelmas cakes and the coming enjoyment of them were the sole mainspring of the feminine machinery.