CHAPTER I.
Which treats of Sweethearts, Weddings, Clerks of the Privy Chancery, Perturbations, Witchcraft Trials, and other delectable matters.
On the night of the autumnal equinox, Mr. Tussmann, a clerk in the Privy Chancery, was making his way from the café, where he was in the habit of passing an hour or two regularly every evening, towards his lodgings in Spandau Street. The Clerk of the Privy Chancery was excessively regular and punctilious in every action of his life. He always had just done taking off his coat and his boots at the exact moment when the clocks of St. Mary's and St. Nicholas's churches struck eleven; so that, as the reverberating echo of the last stroke died away, he always drew his nightcap over his ears, and placed his feet in his roomy slippers.
On the night we are speaking of he, in order not to be late in going through those ceremonies (for the clocks were just going to strike eleven), was just going to turn out of King Street, round the corner of Spandau Street, with a rapid sweep--almost to be denominated a jump--when the sound of a strange sort of knocking somewhere in his immediate proximity rivetted him to the spot.
And he became aware that, down at the bottom of the Town-house Tower--rendered visible by the light of the neighbouring lamp--there was a tall, meagre figure standing, wrapped in a dark cloak, knocking louder and louder on the closed shutters of Mr. Warnatz, the ironmonger's shop (which, as everybody knows, is therein situated); knocking louder and louder, and then going back a few paces and sighing profoundly, gazing up as he did so at the windows of the Tower, which were shut.
"My dear sir," said the Clerk of the Privy Chancery, addressing this personage in a civil and courteous manner, "you are evidently under some misapprehension. There is not a single human creature up in that Tower; and indeed--if we except a certain number of rats and mice, and a few little owls--not a living thing. If you wish to provide yourself with something superior in the hardware line from Warnatz's celebrated emporium here, you will have to take the trouble to come back in the forenoon."
"Respected Herr Tussmann----" the stranger began.
And Tussmann chimed in with "Clerk of the Privy Chancery, of many years seniority." He was a little annoyed, too--astonished, at all events--that the stranger seemed to know him. But the latter did not seem to mind that in the least, but recommenced:
"Respected Herr Tussmann, you are kind enough to be making a complete mistake as to the nature of my proceedings here. I do not want ironmongery or hardware of any description; neither have I anything to do with Mr. Warnatz. This is the night of the autumnal equinox, and I want to see my future wife! She has heard my ardent and longing summons, and my sighs of affection, and she will come and show herself up at that window directly."
The hollow tones in which the man spoke these words had about them something so solemn--nay, so spectral and supernatural--that the Clerk of the Privy Chancery felt an icy shudder run through his veins. The first stroke of eleven rung down from the tower of St. Mary's, and as it did so, there came a clattering and a clinking up at the broken old window of the Tower, and a female form became visible at it. As the bright light of the street lamps fell upon the face of this figure, Tussmann whimpered out in lamentable tones, "Oh, ye just powers!--Oh, ye heavenly hosts!--what--what is this?"
At the last stroke of eleven--that is, at the moment when Tussmann generally put on his nightcap--the female figure vanished.
This extraordinary apparition seemed to drive the Clerk of the Privy Chancery completely out of his senses. He sighed, groaned, gazed up at the window, and whispered "Tussmann! Tussmann! Clerk of the Privy Chancery--bethink yourself, sir! Consider what you're about. Don't let your heart be troubled. Be not deceived by Satan, good soul."
"You seem to be put out by what you have seen, Mr. Tussmann," the stranger said. "I only wanted to see my sweetheart--my wife, that is to be. You must have seen something else, apparently."
"Please, please," Tussmann said in a whimper, "I should be so much obliged to you if you would be good enough to address me by my little title. I am Clerk of the Privy Chancery, and truly, at this moment, a greatly perturbed Clerk of the Privy Chancery--in fact, one almost out of his senses. I beg you, with all due respect, my very dear sir (though I regret that I am unable to style you by your proper title, as I have not the honour to be in the least acquainted with you, having never met you before--however, I shall address you as 'Herr Geheimer Rath'--'Mr. Privy Councillor'--there are such an extraordinary number of gentlemen here in Berlin bearing that title that one can scarcely be in error in applying it)--I beg you, therefore, Herr Geheimer Rath, to be so very kind as not to keep me longer in ignorance as to whom the lady, your future wife, may be, whom you expected to see here at this hour of the night."
"You're a curious fellow, you and your 'titles,'" the stranger said, raising his voice. "If a man who knows a number of secrets and mysteries, and can give good counsel too, is one of your 'privy' or 'secret' councillors, I think I may so style myself. I am surprised that a gentleman who is so well versed in ancient writings and curious manuscripts as you are, dear Mr. Tussmann, Clerk of the Privy Chancery, should not know that when an expert--an expert, observe!--knocks at the door of this Tower here--or even on the wall of it, on the night of the autumnal equinox, there will appear to him, up at yonder window, the girl who is to be the happiest and luckiest sweetheart in Berlin till the spring equinox comes round."
"Mr. Privy Councillor," Tussmann cried, as if in a sudden inspiration, and with joyful rapture--"Most respected Mr. Privy Councillor! is that really the case?"
"It is," said the stranger. "But what's the good of our standing in the street here any longer? It is past your bed time. Let us go to the new wine-shop in Alexander Street; just that you may hear a little more about this young lady, and recover your peace of mind, which something--I have no idea what--has disturbed so tremendously."
Tussmann was a most abstemious person. His sole recreation (for "dissipation" we cannot term it) consisted in his spending an hour or two every evening in a café; where, whilst he read assiduously political and other articles in newspapers, as well as books which he brought with him, he sipped a glass of good beer. Wine he seldom touched, except that after service on Sundays he allowed himself a small glass of Malaga with a biscuit, in a certain restaurant. To go about dissipating at nights was an abomination in his eyes. So that it seemed incomprehensible how, on this particular occasion, he allowed the stranger, who hurried away towards Alexander Street with long strides, resounding in the darkness, to carry him away with him without a word of objection.
When they came into the wine-shop there was nobody there but one single customer, sitting by himself at a table, with a big glass of Rhine wine before him. The depth of the wrinkled lines on his face indicated extreme age. His eyes were sharp and piercing, and his grand beard marked him as a Hebrew, faithful to the ancient laws and customs of his people. Also his costume was very much in the old Frankish style, as people dressed about the year 1720; and perhaps that was why he had the effect of having come back to life out of a period of remote antiquity.
But the stranger whom Tussmann had come across was still more remarkable of aspect.
A tall, meagre man, powerfully formed as to his limbs and muscles, seemingly about fifty years of age. His face might once have passed for handsome, and the great eyes still flashed out from under the black bushy eyebrows with youthful fire and vigour. The brow was broad and open; the nose strongly aquiline. All this would not have distinguished him from a thousand others. But, whilst his coat and trousers were of the fashion of the present day, his collar, his cloak, and his barret cap belonged to the latter part of the sixteenth century. But it was more especially the wonderful eyes of the man, and the blaze of them (which seemed to come streaming out of deep mysterious night), and the hollow tones of his voice, and his whole bearing--all in the most absolute contrast with things of the present day--it was, we say, all these things taken together which made everybody experience a strong sense of eeriness in his proximity.
He nodded to the man who was sitting at the table as if to an old acquaintance.
"Ha!" he cried, "here you are again, after all this time. How do you feel? Are you all alive and kicking?"
"Just as you see," the old man growled. "Sound as a roach. All ready on my legs at the proper time. All there--when there's anything up."
"I'm not quite so sure about that," the stranger said, laughing loudly; "we shall see!" And he ordered the waiter to bring a bottle of the oldest claret in the cellar.
"My good Mr. Privy Councillor," Tussmann began, deprecatingly. But the stranger interrupted him hastily, saying:
"Let us drop the 'titles,' Tussmann, for once and all! I am neither a Privy Councillor nor a Clerk of the Privy Council. What I am is an artist, a worker in the noble metals and the precious jewels; and my name is Leonhard."
"Oh, indeed!" Tussmann murmured to himself--"a goldsmith! a jeweller!" And he bethought himself that he might have seen at the first glance that the stranger could not possibly be an ordinary Privy Councillor, seeing that he had on an antique mantle, collar, and barret cap, such as Privy Councillors never went about in nowadays. Leonhard and Tussmann sat down at the same table with the old Jew, who received them with a grinning kind of smile.
When Tussmann, at Leonhard's instigation, had taken two or three glasses of the full-bodied wine, his pale cheeks began to glow, and as he swallowed the liquor, he glanced about him with smirks and smiles, as if the most delightful ideas were rising in his brain.
"And now," Leonhard said, "tell me openly and candidly, Mr. Tussmann, why you went on in such an extraordinary manner when the lady showed herself at the Tower-window; and what it is that your head is so very full of at the present moment. You and I are very old acquaintances, whether you believe it or not; and as to this old gentleman here, you need be on no ceremony with him."
"Oh, heavens!" answered the Privy Chancery Clerk--"Oh, good heavens! most respected Herr Professor--(I do beg you to allow me to address you by that title; I am sure you are a most celebrated artist, and quite in a position to be a professor in the Academy of Arts)--and so, most respected Herr Professor, how can I hide from you that I am, as the proverb puts it, 'walking on wooer's feet.' I am expecting to bring the happiest of brides home about the vernal equinox. Could it be otherwise than a rather startling thing, when you, most respected Herr Professor, were so very kind as to let me see a fortunate bride that is to be?"
"What!" the old Jew broke in, in a screaming voice--"What! are you thinking of marrying? Why, you're as old as the hills, and as ugly as a baboon into the bargain."
"Never mind him," Leonbard said; for Tussmann was so startled by what the old man said that he could not utter a syllable. "He means no harm, dear Mr. Tussmann, though you may think he seems to do so. I must say, candidly, that it seems to me, too, that it is a little too late in life for you to be thinking about such a thing. You must be well on to your fiftieth birthday; aren't you?"
"I shall be forty-eight," said Tussman, with a certain amount of irritability, "on the 9th of next October--St. Dionysius's day."
"Very well," said Leonhard. "But it isn't only your age that's against you--you have always been leading a simple, solitary, virginal existence. You have no knowledge or experience of women. I can't see what is to become of you in their hands!"
"Knowledge of them--experience of them! Dear Herr Professor, you must really take me for a most foolish and inconsiderate person if you think I am going to plunge into matrimony without any counsel or reflection or advice. I weigh, consider, and reflect upon every step most maturely; and, having perceived myself to be pierced to the heart by the dart of the wanton deity yclept 'Cupid' by the ancients, could I do otherwise than bend all my thoughts upon the preparation of myself for the matrimonial life? Would any one who was preparing for a difficult examination not be careful to study all the subjects on which he is to be interrogated? Very well, most respected Herr Professor, my marriage is an examination, for which I have prepared myself, and I feel pretty certain that I shall pass it admirably--with honours! Look here, at this little book, which I have always carried about in my pocket, studying it constantly, since the time when I made up my mind to fall in love and get married. Look at it, my dear sir; and you will be convinced that I am setting about this business in the most thorough and fundamental manner possible, and that I shall certainly not be found an ignoramus in it; although, as you say (and as I must admit), the feminine sex is--so far, and up to the present date--to me a complete terra incognita."
With these words Tussmann produced from his pocket a little book in parchment binding, and turned up its title-page, which ran as follows:--
"Brief Tractate on Diplomatic Acumen. Embracing methods of Self-Counsel for guidance in all Societies of our fellow-creatures, conducing to the attainment of a proper system of Conduct. Of the utmost importance to all Persons who deem themselves Wise, or wish to become Wiser. Translated from the Latin of Herr Thomasius. With a complete Index. Frankfurt and Leipzig. Johann Grossen's Successors. 1710."
"Now just let me show you," said Tussmann, with a sweet smile, "what this worthy author (in his seventh chapter, which deals with the subjects 'Wedlock, and the Duties of the Father of a Family and Master of a Household') says, in the seventh section of that chapter. You see, what he says is this:
"'Above all things, let there be no hurry about it. He who does not marry till of mature age is so much the wiser, and the better able to cope with the exigencies of the situation. Over-early marriages produce shameless, subtle, and disingenuous people, and sacrifice the vigour of both body and mind. Although the age of manhood is not the commencement of youth, the one should not terminate before the other.'"
"And then, with regard to the choice of the object of the affections--her whom one is to love and to marry--this grand Thomasius says, in his nineteenth section:
"'The middle course is the safest. We should not select one too beautiful or too ill-favoured, too rich nor too poor, too high-born or too low-born, but of like social standing with one's self. And, similarly, as regards the other qualities, the middle course will be found always the safest to follow.'"
"Very well, you see, this is what I have always guided myself by. And (as directed by Thomasius--section seventeen), not only have I had occasional conversations with the lady of my choice, but (inasmuch as, in occasional interviews, misapprehensions may arise with respect to peculiarities of character and modes of looking at matters, &c.) I have taken opportunities to have very frequent interviews and conversations with her; because those frequent interviews necessarily make it very difficult for people to conceal themselves from one another, don't you see?"
"My dear Mr. Tussmann," the goldsmith said, "it appears to me that all this sort of intercourse, 'conversation,' or whatever you please to call it, with women requires one to have a good deal of experience, extending over a very considerable period of time, if one is to avoid being befooled and made an ass of by it."
"Even in this," said Tussmann, "our grand Thomasius comes to our aid, giving us completely adequate instruction as to how we are to 'converse' with ladies, in the most rational and delightful style; even telling us exactly how and when to introduce the due amount of playfulness and wit, suitable to the occasion. My author says, in his fifth chapter, that one ought to be careful to introduce such jocular sayings sparingly--as a cook uses salt; and that pointed speeches should never be employed as weapons against others, but altogether in our own defence--just as a hedgehog uses his spines. And also, that it is wise to rely more upon the actions than upon the words; because it is often the case that what is hidden by words is made evident by actions, and that words very often do not do so much to awaken liking or disliking as actions do."
"I see," the goldsmith said, "there is no getting anything like a rise out of you. You are closed up in armour of proof. So I am prepared to bet, heavily, that you have gained the affections of the lady of your choice by means of those wonderfully deep diplomatic dodges of yours."
Tussmann answered, "I study to direct all my endeavours (following Thomasius's advice) to attain a deferential, though kindly, agreeableness of demeanour, that being the most natural and usual indication of affection, and what is most adapted to awaken liking in reciprocation: just as if you yawn, you will set an entire company gaping too, from sympathy. But, reverentially as I follow his instructions, I don't go too far; I always recollect that (as Thomasius says) women are neither good angels nor bad angels, but mere human beings; and, in fact, as regards strength of mind and body, weaker than we are, which, of course, is fully accounted for by the diversity which exists between the sexes."
"A black year come over you!" the old Jew cried wrathfully, "sitting there chattering your cursed stuff and nonsense without a stop; spoiling for me the good hour in which I hoped to enjoy myself a little after all the hard work I've been going through."
"Hold your tongue, old man," the goldsmith said. "You ought to be very thankful that we put up with you here. I can tell you your company is anything but pleasant; your manners are so abominable. You ought to be kicked out of decent society, if you had your deserts. Don't let the old man disturb you, dear Mr. Tussmann. You believe in the old times; you're fond of old Thomasius. I go a good deal further back. What I care about is the time to which, as you see, my dress partly belongs. Aye! my good friend, those were the days! It is to them that that little spell belongs which you saw me putting into practice to-night at the Town-house Tower."
"I don't quite understand you, Herr Professor,'' Tussmann said.
"Well," said the goldsmith, "there used to be splendid weddings in those old days in the Town-hall--very different affairs from the weddings nowadays. Plenty of happy brides used to look out of those Tower-windows in those days, so that it's a piece of pleasant glamour when an aerial form comes and tells us what is going to happen now, from knowledge of olden times. Let me tell you, this Berlin was a very different place in those old days; nowadays everything is marked with the same stamp of tediousness and ennui, and people ennuyer one another just because they are so ennuyées and weary in themselves. In those days there were entertainments, feastings, rejoicings worthy the name, very different from the affairs that are so called now. I shall only speak of what was done at Oculi, in the year 1581, when the Elector Augustus of Saxony, with his Consort, and Don Christian, his son, were escorted to Cologne by all the nobles and gentry. There were over a hundred horse, and the citizens of both the cities--Berlin and Cologne--and those of Spandau lined both sides of the road from the gate to the palace in complete armour. Next day there was a splendid running at the ring, at which the Elector of Saxony and Count Jost of Barby appeared, with many nobles--in fine suits of gold embroidery, and tall golden helms, golden lions' heads on their shoulders, knees, and elbows, with flesh-coloured silk on the other parts of their arms and legs, just as if they had been naked---exactly as you see the heathen warriors painted in pictures. There were singers and musicians hidden inside a gilt Noah's Ark, and on the top of it sat a little boy in flesh-coloured silk tights, with his eyes bandaged, as Cupid is represented. Two other boys, dressed as doves, with white ostrich feathers, golden eyes and beaks, drew ±he ark along; and when the prince had run at the ring and been successful, the music in the ark played, and a number of pigeons were let fly from it. One of them flapped its wings and sang a most delightful Italian aria, and did it much better than our Court singer Bernard Pasquino Grosso from Mantua did seventy years afterwards (but not so charmingly as our prime donne sing nowadays). Then there was a foot tournay, to which the Elector and the Count went in a ship, which was all dressed over with black and yellow cloth, and had a sail of gold taffeta; and behind His Highness sate the little boy who had been Cupid the day before, in a long coat of many colours, a peaked black and yellow hat, and a long grey beard. The singers and musicians were dressed in the same way; and nil round about the ship a number of gentlemen danced and jumped--gentlemen of good family, mind you!--with heads and tails of salmon, herrings, and fishes of other sorts: most delightful to behold. In the evening, about ten, there was a grand display of fireworks, with thousands of detonations; and the master-gunners played all sorts of pranks--had combats; and there were explosions of fiery stars; and fiery men and horses, strange birds and other creatures, went up into the air with a terrible rushing and banging. They went on for more than two hours, those fireworks."
Whilst the goldsmith was narrating all this, the Clerk of the Privy Chancery gave every sign of the liveliest interest and the utmost enjoyment, crying, in a sympathizing and interested manner, "Ey!--oh!--ah!"--smiling, rubbing his hands, moving backwards and forwards on his chair, and gulping down glass after glass of the wine the while.
"Dearest Professor," he cried at last, in falsetto (always a mark in him of intense enjoyment)--"My dearest, most respected Herr Professor! what delightful things you have been having the kindness to tell me about!--really quite as though you had been there and seen them yourself."
"Well!" the goldsmith said, "and wasn't I there?"
Tussmann, who didn't in the least understand this extraordinary query, was going to try to get some further light thrown upon it, when the old Jew came in with a growl, to the following effect: "Don't forget those delightful entertainments when the pyres burned in the market-place--the Berlin folks were much delighted with them, you know; and the streets ran red with the blood of the wretched victims, slain in the most terrific manner, after confessing whatever was imputed to them by the wildest infatuation and the most idiotic superstition. Don't, I merely say, forget to tell your friend about them!"
"Yes, yes," Tussmann said; "of course you mean those terrible witchcraft trials which took place in those old days. Ah! they were atrocious businesses; fortunately the enlightenment of the present age has altered all those things."
The goldsmith cast strange looks at the old Jew and at Tussmann; and presently asked the latter, with a mysterious smile, if he had ever heard about the Jew-coiner, Lippold, and what had happened to him in the year 1512.
Ere Tussmann could answer, the goldsmith went on to say: "This Jew-coiner, Lippold, was accused of an important imposture, and a serious roguery. He had at one time been much in the confidence of the Elector, and was at the head of all the affairs of the mints and the coinage in the country; always ready to produce large sums of money, no matter how large, when required. Whether because he was clever at shifts, or that he had powers at his command which enabled him to clear himself from all blame in the Elector's eyes, or that he was able to 'shoot with a silver bullet' (to use an expression of those times) those who had influence over the Elector's proceedings, he was on the very point of getting off scot free from the accusations brought against him. But he was still kept under guard, by the town-watch, in his little house in Stralau Street. And it so chanced that he had a quarrel with his wife, in the course of which she said to him, in the hearing of the guard, 'If our gracious lord the Elector only knew what a villain you are, and what atrocities you manage to commit by the help of that magic book of yours, you'd be in your coffin long ago.' This was reported to the Elector, who had careful search made in Lippold's house. The magic book was found, and, when it was examined by those who understood it, Lippold's guilt was clearly established. He had practised magical arts to give him power over the Elector, and to enable him to rule the whole country; and it was only the piety and Godfearingness of the Elector which had enabled him to withstand those spells. Lippold was burned in the market-place. But when the fire was taking effect on his body and upon the magic book, a great mouse came out from under the scaffold, and leaped into the fire. Many supposed that this was Lippold's familiar demon."
Whilst the goldsmith had been relating this, the old Jew had sate leaning his arms on the table, with his hands before his eyes, groaning and sighing like one suffering unendurable tortures. On the other hand, the Clerk of the Privy Chancery did not seem to be paying much attention to what the goldsmith was saying. He was in high good-humour, and his mind was full of quite other ideas and images; and, when the goldsmith had ended, he asked, with many smiles, and in a lisping manner: "Tell me, dear Herr Professor, if you will be so kind, was it really Miss Albertine Bosswinkel who came and looked out of the window of the Tower?"
"What?" cried the goldsmith, furiously--"what business have you with Miss Albertine Bosswinkel?"
"My dear sir!" said Tussmann, timidly--"good gracious! My dear friend, she is the very lady whom I have made up my mind to marry!"
"Good God, sir!" the goldsmith cried, with a face as red as a furnace, and eyes glaring with anger; "you must be out of your reason altogether. You, an old, worn-out pedant, to think of marrying that beautiful young creature! You, who, with all your erudition, and your 'diplomatic acumen,' taken from the idiotic treatise of that old goose Thomasius, can't see a quarter of an inch before that nose of yours! I advise you to drive every idea of the kind out of your head as quickly as you can, or you will probably find that you stand a good chance of having that weazened neck of yours drawn, on this autumn equinoctial night!"
The Clerk of the Privy Chancery was a quiet, peaceable, nay, timorous man, incapable of saying a hard word to anybody, even when attacked; but what the goldsmith had said was just a trifle too infernally insulting; and then, Tussmann had taken more strong wine than he was accustomed to. Accordingly, there was no wonder that he did what he had never done before in his life---that is, he burst into a fury, and yelled out, right into the goldsmith's teeth: "Eh! What the devil business have you with me, Mr. Goldsmith (whose acquaintance I haven't the honour of); and how dare you talk to me in this sort of way? You seem to me to be trying to make an ass of me, by all sorts of childish delusions. I presume you have the effrontery to be paying your addresses to Miss Bosswinkel yourself; you've got hold of a portrait of her on glass, and shown it at the Town-hall in a magic-lantern held under your cloak. My good sir, I know something about these matters, as well as you do; you're going the wrong way to work if you think you're going to frighten and bully me in this sort of way."
"Be careful what you're about," the goldsmith said, very quietly, and with a strange smile. "Be very careful what you're about; you've got strange sort of people to do with here."
And as he so spake, lo! instead of the goldsmith's face, there was a horrid-looking fox's face snarling and showing its teeth at Tussmann from under the goldsmith's bonnet.
The Clerk of the Privy Chancery fell back in his chair in the profoundest terror.
The old Jew did not seem to be in the least degree surprised by this transformation; rather, he had suddenly lost his mood of ill-temper altogether. He laughed, and cried, "Aha! capital sport! But there's nothing to be made by those arts. I know better ones. I can do things which were always beyond you, Leonhard."
"Let us see," said the goldsmith, who had assumed his human countenance again--"let us see what you can do."
The old man took from his pocket a large black radish, trimmed it and scraped it with a little knife, which also came from his pocket, shredded it into thin strips, and laid them in order on the table. Then he struck each of them a blow with his clenched fist; when they sprung up, one by one, ringing, in the shape of gold coins, which he took up and threw across to the goldsmith. But as soon as the goldsmith took hold of one of those coins, it fell to dust, in a little shower of crackling sparks of fire. This infuriated the old man. He went on striking the radish-shavings into gold pieces faster and faster, hitting them harder and harder, and they crackled away in the goldsmith's hand with fierier and fierier sparks.
Tussmann was nearly out of his senses with fear and agitation. At last he pulled himself together out of the swoon into which he was nearly falling, and said, in trembling accents: "Really, I must beg, with all due courtesy and respect, to say that I feel that I should much prefer to bid 'Good-evening' on this occasion." And grasping his hat and stick, he bolted out of the room as quickly as he could. When he reached the street, he heard those two uncanny people setting up a shout of screaming laughter after him, which made the blood run cold in his veins.