Franciscus Columna / The Last Novella of Charles Nodier

Produced by Michael Wooff
Franciscus Columna
Charles Nodier (1780-1844)
Perhaps you remember our friend Abbot Lowrich whom we met in Ragusa, in Spalato, in Vienna, in Munich, in Pisa, in Bologna, and in Lausanne. He is an excellent fellow, who is most knowledgeable, but who knows a multitude of things that we would be happy to forget if we knew them like he does: the name of the printer of a bad book, the year of birth of a fool and a thousand other details of trivial importance. Abbot Lowrich has the glory of having discovered the real name of Kuicknackius, who was called Starkius, and not, please note, Polycarpus Starkius, who wrote eight fine hendecasyllables on the thesis of Kornmannus de ritibus (on rites) and on the thesis of Kornmannus de ritibus et doctrina scarabeorum (on rites and the doctrine of scarab beetles), but Martinus Starkius, the man who wrote thirty-two hendecasyllables on fleas. Apart from that, Abbot Lowrich deserves to be well known and liked; he is witty, has his heart in the right place, is actively and sincerely obliging, and he adds to these precious qualities a lively and singular imagination, which greatly embellishes his conversation, as long as it does not fall into enumerating minor biographical and bibliographical details. I am reconciled to this slight peccadillo of his, and whenever I meet Abbot Lowrich in my constant comings and goings across Europe, I run to him from afar. And I last met him no more than three months ago.
I had arrived at night at the Two Towers Hotel in Treviso, but I had only settled in very late, and I had not set foot in the town itself. In the morning, as I was going down the stairs, I saw in front of me one of those strange figures whose faces are visible from every angle. It was wearing a hat that defied all description, adjusted to its head in a way that was maladjusted, a red and green tie knotted like a scarf, a good four inches above the collar of the jacket on the left-hand side and a good four inches below it on the right, a pair of trousers brushed in a slipshod manner on one leg while the other leg billowed over the back of a boot with a sort of coquetry. It had with it a huge irremovable wallet in which lay so many titles of books, so many notices, so many plans, so many sketches, so many priceless treasures for a man of learning that, if he had dropped it, even a rag-and-bone man would not have picked it up. There were no two ways about it, it was Lowrich. Lowrich! I exclaimed, and we fell into each other's arms.