Withered Leaves Volume Ii Part 23

Giulia rose, and, with a quiet smile, but a tear in her eye, held out her hand to bid farewell.

CHAPTER XII.

IN THE CITIZEN a.s.sEMBLY.

A dense throng was crowding through the unpretending entrances of the old-fas.h.i.+oned city garden; the citizens of Knigsberg had there found a central point for their political and intellectual interests. Although excluded from the programme of these meetings, politics really formed the most vital artery of their life; for it was a period in which every matter in hand became converted into politics; the strongest material began suddenly to a.s.sume a political tinge of colour when it was held towards the light. The kernel of the Knigsberg citizens.h.i.+p was present at these a.s.semblies, and Blanden was perfectly right when he desired, by means of his lecture, to introduce himself in more extensive circles as the political agitator for the elections of the future.

At the entrance to the gallery which led into the room, there was much animation; there the claims were examined, for the a.s.sembly was a closed society. Any one who did not possess a card was rejected.

"_Corpo di bacco_," echoed a violent voice, "of what use are _biglietti_ when the people a.s.sembles?"

"No one is admitted without a card."

"_Corpo del diavolo_," cried the impatient man, "then I must first return to my friend, _Che Seccatura!_"

Blanden, who had just arrived, recognised the amber-merchant, who, in a violent manner, forced a pa.s.sage through the thronging people, so as to obtain egress again.

In the room itself a large concourse of people was already gathered, forming an impenetrable wall. The large mirror, which was placed against the one side, reflected, head after head, mostly well-to-do respectable faces, a few ruddy with the northern climate, tingling in the hot room after the cold out of doors, all gazing out beneath the brims of their hats, because here John Bull's custom had, from necessity, become a silent law; nowhere, excepting upon the heads, could s.p.a.ce be found for the hats.

That no Jacobin-club, however, was a.s.sembled here was betokened by the steady composure that was unmistakable in all present, and the dense clouds of tobacco which floated above their heads.

Any one wis.h.i.+ng to force his way through, must let himself be carried on farther by a suddenly formed wave, or with nervous haste follow the ticket-taker who enjoyed an undisputed right of pa.s.sage.

Blanden, at the first rush, could not attain the chief table; a subsiding wave, which came from the opposite direction, drove him back.

Upon looking around he perceived near to him several faces that he knew, also that of the _ombre_ player, Milbe, who again was not in Kulw.a.n.gen, but was here prosecuting his political efforts.

Milbe possessed an evil conscience, because he had not given his vote to Blanden, and tried not to perceive the latter. Sengen von Larchen, however, who stood close by, delighted him with shaking hands cordially.

Gradually Blanden succeeded in reaching the vicinity of the platform, where he espied several leaders of the political movement. There stood a little man, with lofty, thoughtful brow and the soft gaze of a large eye, the only person in the a.s.sembly who had appeared in a black frock-coat, with white cuffs. His opponents might, perhaps, compare him, the most feared of all the politicians in the town on the East Sea, with Robespierre, on account of that cleanliness; his beardless face made a thoroughly frank impression. His firm figure was not possessed of any quicksilver flexibility; everything about him was precision--certainly clearness. Although he had made himself renowned by his questions, he appeared much more like a man who is ready to, and capable of answering; all sparkling wit was foreign to him; he loved plain inferences from given premises; his logic was pure as his cuffs.

As the doctor does his patient's, so did he feel the pulse of the State, and prescribed his remedies to the invalid. He possessed the indomitable equanimity of a stoic, and looked upon the necessary combination of affairs of this world with the eyes of a Spinoza. He was one of the most insignificant in the a.s.sembly, but, like the homunculus in the bottle, he drew the fiery trail of a great reputation after him, and wherever he appeared he was greeted with special respect.

Beside him stood another agitator, whose entire appearance denoted him to be devoted to colour; he was artistically draped in a cloak with a velvet collar, while every possible gaudiness of waistcoat and necktie peeped forth between the folds; his head, as the Brussels citizen says in "Egmont," would be a real delight to an executioner, so splendidly it contrasted with the average heads of the throng, so brilliant is its colouring, so luxuriant the well-cared-for beard. He was the humourist of the party, a flouris.h.i.+ng author; by some compared with Jean Paul, by others with Brne, and his satirical bees fluttered around a flowery abundance of pictures. No greater contrast could exist than that between this overflowing humourist and the staid political medical man by his side--the former revelling in the luxuriant complacency of an enthusiasm for freedom, which poured flowers, fruit and briars out of its horn of plenty; the latter, the man of dry formulas, of determined demands.

Near them stood other men of the party, teachers at girls' schools, pedagogues of great oratorical fluency, and some worthy citizens of intellectual pursuits. The master chimney-sweep, who pa.s.ses his snuff-box round yonder, speaks of Kant and Feuerbach, as if they were customers for whom he sweeps soot out of their chimnies; he knows the construction of the philosophical systems as accurately as the construction of c.o.ke stoves, and at home possesses a library which many a professor might envy.

Now the President's hammer is heard; an amateur orchestra, consisting of members of the union, sends forth its mighty sounds from the platform, then patriotic songs are sung. All betokens warm partic.i.p.ation; it is a society that betrays internal life. Thus also thinks that renowned author, a tall figure, with a wreath of hair round the crown of his head, an idealist of the purest water, who is making studies here of superior sociability, and, amidst the din of the present, seeks to solve a problem of the future. The young doctor, who now ascends the platform, is well-known to Blanden--it is the poet Schner; he pushes his long black hair from his brow, and, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes, and fiery pathos, recites a poem which lauds the Baltic country as the new home of political freedom. During the recital he was quivering from head to foot like a Shaker who is moved by his religious enthusiasm, but it was this peculiarity that acted with such electricity upon the crowd. Tempestuous applause rewards these poetical efforts. The Robespierre in the frock-coat addresses a warm laconic eulogium to the poet after he had descended from the platform; the humourist, with good-natured blue eyes, looks pleasantly at him through spectacles, and lauds his grand talent. The master chimney-sweep closes his snuff-box vigorously, a species of applause that he loves, and does the poet the honour of inviting him to a game of chess, a peculiar distinction which is only vouchsafed to favourites. Blanden, however, could not but say to himself that political lyrics had already reached that ominous turning point where phrases compensate for thoughts, and every variety of detonating rockets and fireworks have superseded the steady flame of pure enthusiasm.

Now his turn came; he knew that his appearance in the Citizen a.s.sembly would be looked upon with suspicion by many of his equals, but he kept his object firmly before his eyes. His equals had dropped him, he turned to the great Liberal party, that was not bound to one district or circle of Government.

He possessed no stentorian voice, but his organ did not lack power and warmth, and a certain elegance of delivery kept people's interest awake. Many considered it greatly in favour of so respected a representative of the n.o.bility of the country that he not merely mixed in the circle of the Knigsberg citizens, but also partic.i.p.ated in their intellectual guidance. His lecture presented a picture of the charters of 1830, and the development of the French const.i.tution under the July Dynasty; he then pointed out the advantages which advanced States like France possessed over Prussia by means of their const.i.tutions, and alluded to the development of public life which with us still is numbered amongst our sacred wishes. But then he showed how the provisions of the French charters were circ.u.mvented by the Government, and cast no favourable horoscope for the latter in the existing state of dull, mental fermentation; he criticised the limited right of election and the system of two chambers with ac.u.men, daring which public opinion at that time did not venture to follow. All the same, his speech reaped stormy approval. Blanden could not but admit that this applause rewarded every speaker, who spoke in the spirit of the a.s.sembly, and that when the good master sweep opened his lips and snuff-box simultaneously, so as to launch from the platform a few telling sentences in which his pinches of snuff formed the punctuation, he was greeted with similar applause. Still Blanden believed he had by means of this speech opened for himself a road to political consideration; at last he felt himself to be exalted and calmed; his glance into the future appeared freer, he saw an attainable goal before him. Torn from his solitary brooding in the echo of similar sentiments which met him, he at the same time greeted the certainty that his political convictions would also find a farther soil ready to receive them, that the path to statesman-like importance lay open before him.

Blanden's lecture was followed by a debate which commenced with the tickets of the box of questions; the first one concerned political discourses, should they be entirely excluded from these sittings? The committee pointed out that the object of these meetings was not political but social; that these discourses, however, might touch upon politics.

"Who could exclude politics?" cried an energetic timber merchant, "the State is the princ.i.p.al interest for a citizen; I am such a thorough citizen, that I am overgrown with politics; I exhale politics and I inhale them, I wake and dream politics; I think politics aloud when I speak, and think politics mutely when I am silent; I feel politics, I teach and learn them; in short I may do what I will or others may do with me what they will, politics cannot be expelled from me. Whereof the heart is full, the mouth speaketh. Of that which one loves, one likes to speak; we all love our fatherland and like to talk of it. Thus we all think and feel, and therefore here in the _gemeinde garten_ a short hour of politics, cannot be omitted."

That short hour of politics roused great exultation. Blanden, too, rejoiced at the citizens' warm interest in the Government's life, which had already become a matter that lay near their hearts.

The box of questions kept the debate on foot for a long time, then followed the _conversazione_. Choruses groaned through the old town hall; thereupon groups were formed, in the centre of which individual leaders were found who now exercised greater, now lesser powers of attraction; the political doctor had his little circle, the humourist his; poet Schner recited a political dithyramb in a subdued voice; the master sweep related anecdotes, songs in sociable chorus resounded from several tables.

One little bit of by-play did not escape Blanden, who went from one group to another and with satisfaction--now here, now there--joined the open fight that had succeeded the closed conflict.

The Italian was leaning in a corner near the stove, and overwhelmed the ticket-taker, who neglected him, with terms of abuse whose melodious sound, as their sense was perfectly unintelligible to the other, did not in the least exercise the desired effect, until several honest German oaths hastened the man's tardy attention.

Blanden noticed how Bller the merchant, whom he had seen with Giulia, circled round the Italian as a hawk does round its prey. Now here, now there, the long, cadaverous figure rose amidst the crowd, and his eyes were fixed watchfully upon the amber merchant. The latter became uneasy; it had not escaped him that he had seriously aroused the merchant's attention, who was well-known to him, and he knew the cause too. Suddenly Bller disappeared towards one side of the city gardens, which possessed two entrances. Baluzzi followed the tall form with his eyes, and, without waiting for the refreshment ordered from the ticket-taker, hastened to leave the garden by the opposite door.

After some time Bller reappeared, and briskly traversed the groups, but far forward as he might extend his nose, he could not succeed in espying his victim. Disappointment was depicted on his pale small-pox-marked face as at the door he gave an order to an officer of justice who had come with him.

When the chairman's hammer, with three resounding blows, announced the conclusion of the sitting, Blanden resolved to seek half-witted Ktchen, at mother Hecht's, and to convince himself if she were really in possession of a few lines from Eva.

CHAPTER XIII.

AT MOTHER HECHT'S

Recollection of the witches of Macbeth and the witches' kettle, in which they mixed wolves' teeth and hemlock-roots and tigers'

intestines, was awoke in all who entered Mother Hecht's house and saw herself and her companions creep mysteriously round the large kettles that boiled upon the hearth. But no tigers' intestines were boiled there; they were those of peaceable domestic animals which were being prepared in a herb soup for the enjoyment of night wanderers.

An oil lamp shed a gloomy light throughout the kitchen, which at the same time served as the inn parlour. The flickering gleam of the flames a.s.sisted it in its melancholy efforts.

The Hecate, who urged the subordinate witches and night-fiends to feed the fire and to stir the kettles with all their might, was the _fleck_ preparer herself, as _fleck_ is the name given to the intestines which were being prepared as a dainty morsel.

The little witches were somewhat more attractive than those of the Walpurgis night, although even they, to some extent, like Ktchen of Warnicken, peered into the world with stupid, gruesome frogs' eyes.

It was a singular company in that witches' kitchen. Any one who was not acquainted with its secrets must have imagined that some magic was at work, which should transform people now into a state of wild frenzy as if they had partaken of henbane, now vampire-like suck the blood out of their veins, for some of the guests were incessantly shaking, while others possessed corpse-like countenances of a ghostly pallor.

A few members of the Albertina had almost succ.u.mbed to this magic, and with hollow eyes stared into the flames which were hissing around the kettle.

The witches' kettle, it is true, was quite innocent; the magic did not proceed from it, but rather the counter-charm against oblivion of the world, against the internal conflict, against the weariness of life, which was written in all those features.

Blanden, in these surroundings, felt like Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner"

upon the s.h.i.+p of death, where nothing but masks and visors grin at him.

Ktchen had perceived him enter, and hastened towards him.

"As soon as I can get away for a moment I will beckon to you."

Blanden was obliged to be patient. Meanwhile the room became still more full of the most divers nocturnal wanderers, who before c.o.c.k-crow would be tired of drinking, or have fallen victims to intoxication.

A merry swarm of students of undaunted courage, coming from a drinking party, crowded in with merry songs, pus.h.i.+ng before them a lame gentleman with a beard, whom they had met upon the threshold.