CHAPTER III.
Contains a detailed description of Mr. Tussmann, Clerk of the Privy Chancery; with the reason why he had to dismount the Elector's Horse; and other matters worthy to be read.
Dear reader! From what you have already learnt concerning Mr. Tussmann, you can see the man before you, in all his works and ways. But, as regards his outward man, I ought to add that he was short of stature, very bald, a little bow-legged, and very grotesque in his dress. He wore a coat of the most old-world cut, with endlessly long tails; a waistcoat, also of enormous length; and long white trousers, with shoes which, as he walked, made as loud a clatter as the boots of a courier. Here it should be observed that he never walked in the streets with regular steps, like most people, but jumped, so to speak, with great irregular strides, and incredible rapidity, so that the aforesaid long tails of his coat spread themselves out like wings, in the breeze which he thus created around him. Although there was something excessively comic about his face, yet there was a most kindly smile playing about his mouth which impressed you in his favour; and everybody liked him, though they laughed at the pedantry and awkwardness of his behaviour, which estranged him from the world. His passion was reading. He never went out but he had both his coat-pockets crammed full of books. He read wherever he was, and in all circumstances; walking or standing, as he took his exercise, in church and in the café. He read indiscriminately everything that came to his hand: but only out of old times, the present being hateful to him. Thus, to-day he would be studying, in the café, a work on algebra; to-morrow, 'Frederick the Great's Cavalry Regulations,' and next the remarkable book, 'Cicero proved to be a Pettifogger and a Windbag: in Ten Discourses. Anno 1720.' Moreover, he had a most extraordinary memory; he marked all the passages which particularly struck him in a book, then read all those marked passages over again, after which he never forgot them any more. Hence he was a polyhistor, and a walking encyclopædia, and people turned over the leaves of him when they wanted information on any point. It was only on the rarest occasions that he was unable to supply the information required on the spot, but, if he couldn't, he would go rummaging in various libraries till he could get at it, and then emerge with it, greatly delighted. It was remarkable that when (as usual) he was reading in society, to all appearance completely absorbed in his book, he heard, and took in, everything that was being said around him, and would often strike in with some most apposite observation, or laugh at anything witty in a high tenor laugh, without looking up from his book.
Commissionsrath Bosswinkel had been at school with Tussmann at the Grey Friars, and from that period dated the intimate friendship which there had always been between them. Tussmann saw Albertine grow up from childhood; and, on her twelfth birthday, after presenting her with a bouquet, the finest that money could procure from the first florist in Berlin, kissed her hand for the first time with an amount of courtesy and ceremonious deference which no one would have supposed him to be capable of. Dating from that day there dawned in the breast of the Commissionsrath an idea that it would be a very good thing if his old schoolfellow were to marry Albertine. He wanted to get Albertine married, and he thought this would be about the least troublesome way of getting it done. Tussmann would be content with very little in the shape of portion, and Bosswinkel hated bother of every kind, disliked making new acquaintances, and, in his capacity of a Commissionsrath, thought a great deal more of money than he ought to have done. On Albertine's eighteenth birthday he propounded this scheme (which he had previously kept to himself) to Tussmann.
The Clerk of the Privy Chancery was at first alarmed at the suggestion. The idea of entering the matrimonial estate, particularly with so youthful a lady, was more than he could quite see his way to. But he got accustomed to it by degrees, and one day, when Albertine, at her father's instigation, gave him a little purse, worked by her own hands in the prettiest of colours (addressing him by his much-prized "title" as she did so), his heart blazed up in a sudden flame of affection. He told the Commissionsrath at once that he had made up his mind to marry Albertine, and as Bosswinkel immediately embraced him in the character of his son-in-law, he, very naturally, considered himself engaged to her. There was still one little point in the matter of some importance, namely, that the young lady herself had not heard a syllable about the affair, and could not possibly have the very faintest inkling what was going forward.
At an excessively early hour of the morning, after the strange adventures which we have, in our first chapter, described as having been met with by Tussmann at the foot of the Townhouse Tower, and in the wineshop in Alexander Street, the said Clerk of the Privy Chancery came bursting, pale and wild, with distorted features, into his friend Bosswinkel's bedroom. The Commissionsrath was much alarmed and exercised in his mind, for Tussmann had never come in upon him at such an hour, and his manner and appearance clearly indicated that something most remarkable had been happening.
"What, in the name of Heaven, is the matter with you?" Bosswinkel cried. "Where have you been? What have you been up to? You look like I don't know what!"
Tussmann threw himself feebly into an arm-chair, and it was not till he had gasped for breath during several minutes that he was able to begin to speak--which he did in a whimpering voice.
"Bosswinkel! here, as you see me, in these self-same clothes, with 'Thomasius on Diplomatic Acumen' in my pocket, I come straight here from Spandau Street, where I have been running up and down, and backwards and forwards, ever since the clock struck twelve last night. I have not set a foot across my own doorstep, or seen the sight of a bed, nor have I closed an eye the whole livelong night!"
And he told the Commissionsrath all that had happened to him from the time when he first came across the mysterious and fabulous sort of Goldsmith, till he had made his escape from the winehouse as fast as he could, in his terror at the sorcery which was going on there.
"Tussmann, old fellow," said Bosswinkel, "I see what it is, you're not accustomed to liquoring up. You go to your bed every night at eleven o'clock, after a couple of glasses of beer, and last night you went and took more liquor than was good for you, long after you ought to have been asleep; no wonder you had a lot of funny dreams."
"What!" Tussmann cried; "you think I was asleep, do you, and dreaming? Don't you know I'm pretty well up in the subject of sleep and dreams. I'll prove to you out of Rudow's 'Theory of Sleep,' and explain to you, what sleep really is, and that people can sleep without dreaming at all; and as for what dreaming is, you will know as well as I do, if you will read the 'Somnium Scipionis,' and Artimidorus's great work on Dreams, and the Frankfort Dreambook; but, you see, you never read anything and that's why you are always making such a hash of everything you have to do with."
"Now, my dear old man," the Commissionsrath replied, "don't you go and get yourself into a state of excitement. I can see, easily enough, how you may have allowed yourself to break out of bounds a bit last night, and then have got somehow into company with a set of mountebanks, who got the better of you when you had more liquor than you could carry; but what I cannot make out is, why, in all the earth, when you had once got out of the place, you didn't go straight home to your bed, like a reasonable man? Whatever for did you go wandering about the streets?"
"Oh, Bosswinkel!" lamented Tussman, "my old friend! my chum at the Grey Friars!--don't you go and insult me by base insinuations of that sort. Let me tell you that the infernal, diabolical enchantment which was practised upon me did not fairly commence till I got into the street. For, when I came to the Town-hall, every one of its windows was blazing with light, and there was music playing inside--a brass band, playing waltzes and so forth. How it came about I can't tell you; but, though I'm not a particularly tall man, I found that I was able to reach up on my tiptoes so that I could see in at the windows. And what did I see?--Oh, gracious powers of Heaven! whom did I see? Your daughter, Miss Albertine Bosswinkel, dressed as a bride, and waltzing like the very deuce (if I may permit myself such an expression) with a young gentleman! I thumped on the window; I cried out, 'Dearest Miss Bosswinkel, what are you doing? What sort of goings-on are those, here, at this time of the night?' But just as I was saying so, there came some horrible beast of a fellow down King Street, pulled my legs away from under me as he passed, and ran away from me, with them, in peals of laughter. As for me, wretched Clerk of the Privy Chancery that I am, I plumped down flat into the filthy mud of the gutter. 'Watchman!' I shouted, 'Police! patrol; guard, turn out! Come here!--look sharp!--Stop the thief!--stop him!--he's got both my legs!' But upstairs in the Town-hall everything had suddenly grown pitch-dark, and my voice died away in the air. I was getting desperate, when the man came back, and, as he flew by me like a mad creature, chucked my legs back to me, throwing them right into my face. I then picked myself up, as speedily as, in my state of discomfiture, I could, and ran to Spandau Street. But when I got to my own door (with my latchkey in my hand), there was I--I, myself, standing there already, staring at me, with the same big black eyes which you see in my head at this moment. Starting back in terror, I fell against a man, who seized me with a strong grip of his arms. By the halbert he was carrying, I thought he was the watchman; so I said, 'Dearest watchman!--worthy man!--please to drive away that wraith of Clerk of the Privy Chancery Tussmann from that door there, so that I, the real Tussmann, may get into my lodgings.' But the man growled out, 'Why, Tussmann! you're surely out of your senses!' in a hollow voice; and I saw it wasn't the watchman at all, but that terrible Goldsmith who had got me in his arms. Drops of cold perspiration stood on my forehead. I said: 'Most respected Herr Professor, pray do not take it ill that I should have thought you were the watchman, in the dark. Oh, Heavens! call me whatever you choose; call me in the most uncourteous manner 'Tussmann,' without the faintest adumbration of a title at all; or even 'My dear fellow!' I will overlook anything. Only rid me of this terrible enchantment--as you can, if you choose. 'Tussmann!' he said, in that awful hollow voice of his, 'nothing shall annoy you more, if you will take your solemn oath, here where we stand, to give up all idea of marrying Miss Albertine Bosswinkel.' Commissionsrath! you may fancy what I felt when this atrocious proposition was made to me. I said: 'Dearest Herr Professor! you make my very heart bleed. Waltzing is a horrible and improper thing; and Miss Albertine Bosswinkel was waltzing upstairs there--in her wedding-dress as my bride into the bargain--with some young gentleman or other (I don't know who he was), in a manner that made my sight and my hearing abandon me, out and out. But still, for all that, I cannot let that exquisite creature go. I must cleave to her, whatever happens, come what will.' The words were scarcely out of my mouth, when that awful, abominable Goldsmith gave me a sort of shove which made me begin immediately to spin round and round, and, as if impelled by some irresistible power, I went waltzing up and down Spandau Street, with my arms clasped about a broom-handle--not a lady, but a besom, which scratched my face. And all the time there were invisible hands beating my back black and blue. More than that; all round me, wherever I turned, the place was swarming with Tussmanns waltzing with their arms round besoms. At last I fell down exhausted, and lost my consciousness. When the light shone into my eyes in the morning--oh, Bosswinkel, share my terror!--I found myself sitting up on the horse of the Elector's statue, in front of him, with my head on his cold, iron breast. Luckily the sentry must have been asleep, for I managed to get down without being seen, at the risk of my life, and got away. I ran to Spandau Street; but I got so terribly frightened again that I was obliged to come on here to you."
"Now, now, old fellow!" Bosswinkel said, "do you think I'm going to believe all this rubbish? Did ever anybody hear of magical phenomena of this sort happening in our enlightened city of Berlin?"
"Now," said Tussmann, "don't you see what a quagmire of ignorance and error the fact that you never read anything plunges you into? If you had read Hafftitz's Chronicon, you would have seen that much more extraordinary things of the kind have happened here. Commissionsrath, I go so far as to assert, and to feel quite convinced, that this Goldsmith is the very Devil, in propria persona."
"Pooh, pooh!" said Bosswinkel, "I wish you wouldn't talk such nonsense. Think a little. Of course, what happened was that you got screwed, and then went and climbed up on to the Elector's statue."
The tears came to Tussmann's eyes as he strove to disabuse Bosswinkel's mind of this idea; but Bosswinkel grew graver and graver, and at last said:
"The more I think of it, the more I feel convinced that those people you met with were old Manasseh, the Jew, and Leonhard, the goldsmith, a very clever hand at juggling tricks, who comes every now and then to Berlin. I haven't read as many books as you have, I know; but, for all that, I know well enough that they are good honest fellows, and have no more to do with black art than you or I have. I'm astonished that you, with your knowledge of law, shouldn't be aware that superstition is illegal, and forbidden under severe penalties; no practitioner of the black art could get a licence from the Government to carry it on, under any circumstances. Look here, Tussmann. I hope there is no foundation for the idea which has come into my head. No! I can't believe that you've changed your mind about marrying my daughter; that you are screening yourself behind all sorts of incredible nonsense and stuff which nobody can believe a word of; that you are going to say to me, 'Commissionsrath: You and I are men of the world, and I can't marry your daughter, because, if I do, the Devil will bolt away with my legs and beat me black and blue!' It would be too bad, Tussmann, if you were to try on a trick of that sort upon me."
Tussmann could not find words to express his indignation at this notion on the part of his old friend. He vowed, over and over again, that he was most devotedly in love with Miss Albertine; that he would die for her without the least hesitation, like a Leander or a Troilus, and that the Devil might beat him black and blue, in his innocence, as a martyr, rather than he should give Albertine up.
As he was making these asseverations, there was heard a loud knocking at the door, and in came that old Manasseh of whom Bosswinkel had been speaking.
As soon as Tussmann saw him he cried out: "Oh, gracious powers of Heaven! That's the old Jew who made the gold pieces out of the radish, and threw them in the Goldsmith's face! The dreadful Goldsmith will be coming next, I suppose."
And he was making for the door. But Bosswinkel held him fast, saying: "Wait till we see what happens." And, turning to the old Jew, he told him what Tussmann had said about him and the events of the previous night in the wineshop and in Alexander Place.
Manasseh looked at Tussmann with a malignant grin, and said: "I don't know what the gentleman means. He came into the wineshop last night with Leonhard, the goldsmith (where I happened to be taking a glass of wine to refresh me after a quantity of hard work which had occupied me till nearly midnight). The gentleman drank rather more than was good for him: he couldn't keep on his legs, and went out to the street staggering."
"Don't you see," Bosswinkel said, "this is what comes of that terrible habit of liquoring up? You'll have to leave it off, I can assure you, if you're going to be my son-in-law."
Tussmann, overwhelmed by this unmerited reproof, sank down into a chair breathless, closed his eyes, and murmured something completely unintelligible in whimpering accents.
"Of course," said Bosswinkel, "dissipating all night, and now done up and wretched."
And, in spite of all his protestations, Tussmann had to submit to Bosswinkel's wrapping a white handkerchief about his head, and sending him home in a cab to Spandau Street.
"And what's your news, Manasseh?" the Commissionsrath inquired. Manasseh simpered most deferentially, and with much amiability, and said Mr. Bosswinkel would scarcely be prepared for the news he had to tell him, which was that that splendid young fellow, his nephew Benjamin Dümmerl, worth close upon a million of money, had just been created a baron on account of his remarkable merits, was recently come back from Italy, and had fallen desperately in love with Miss Albertine, to whom he intended to offer his hand.
We see this young. Baron Dümmerl continually in the theatres, where he swaggers in a box of the first tier, and oftener still at concerts of every description. So that we well know him to be tall, and as thin as a broom-handle; that in his dusky yellow face, overshadowed by jetty locks and whiskers, in his whole being, he is stamped with the most distinctive and unmistakeable characteristics of the Oriental race to which he belongs; that he dresses in the most extravagant style of the very latest English fashion, speaks several languages, all in the self-same twang (that of "our people"); scrapes on a violin, hammers on the piano; is an art connoisseur without acknowledge of art, and would fain play the part of a literary Mecænas; tries to be witty without wit, and spirituel without esprit; is stupidly forward, noisy, and pushing. In short, to use the concise and descriptive expression of that numerous class of individuals amongst whom his desire is to shove himself, an insufferable snob and boor. When we add to all this that he is avaricious and dirtily mean in everything that he does, it cannot be otherwise than that even those less elevated souls that fall down and worship wealth very soon leave him to himself.
When Manasseh mentioned this nephew, the thought of that approximation to a million which "Benjie" possessed passed through the Commissionsrath's mind; but along with that thought came the objection which, in his opinion, made the idea of him as a son-in-law impossible.
"My good Manasseh, you are forgetting that your nephew belongs to the old religion, and that----"
"Ho!" cried Manasseh, "what does that matter? My nephew is in love with your daughter, and wants to make her happy. A drop or two of water more or less won't make much difference to him. He'll be the same man still. You just think the matter over, Herr Commissionsrath; I shall come back in a day or two with my little baron, and get your answer." With which Manasseh took his departure.
Bosswinkel began to think over the affair at once, but, spite of his boundless avarice and his utter absence of conscience or character, he could not endure the idea of Albertine's marrying that disgusting Benjamin, and in a sudden attack of rectitude he determined that he would keep his word to Tussmann.