CHAPTER III.
SOME ACCOUNT IS GIVEN OF THE ARRIVAL OF A REMARKABLE PERSONAGE IN DAPSULHEIM, AND OF WHAT FOLLOWED FURTHER.
Herr Dapsul Von Zabelthau had just embraced his daughter with many tears, and was moving off to ascend his tower, where he dreaded every moment the alarming visit of the incensed gnome, when the sound of a horn, loud and clear, made itself heard, and into the courtyard came bounding and curvetting a little cavalier of sufficiently strange and amusing appearance. His yellow horse was not at all large, and was of delicate build, so that the little rider, in spite of his large shapeless head, did not look so dwarfish as might otherwise have been the case, as he sate a considerable height above the horse's head. But this was attributable to the length of his body, for what of him hung over the saddle in the nature of legs and feet was hardly worth mentioning. For the rest, the little fellow had on a very rich habit of gold-yellow atlas, a fine high cap with a splendid grass-green plume, and riding-boots of beautifully polished mahogany. With a resounding "P-r-r-r-r-r-r!" he reined up before Herr von Zabelthau, and seemed to be going to dismount. But he suddenly slipped under the horse's belly as quick as lightning, and having got to the other side of him, threw himself three times in succession some twelve ells up in the air, turning six somersaults in every ell, and then alighted on his head in the saddle. Standing on his head there, he galloped backwards, forwards, and sideways in all sorts of extraordinary curves and ups and downs, his feet meanwhile playing trochees, dactyls, pyrrhics, &c., in the air. When this accomplished gymnast and trick-act rider at length stood still, and politely saluted, there were to be seen on the ground of the courtyard the words, "My most courteous greeting to you and your lady daughter, most highly respected Herr Dapsul von Zabelthau." These words he had ridden into the ground in handsome Roman uncial letters. Thereupon, he sprang from his horse, turned three Catherine wheels, and said that he was charged by his gracious master, the Herr Baron Porphyrio von Ockerodastes, called "Cordovanspitz," to present his compliments to Herr Dapsul von Zabelthau, and to say, that if the latter had no objection, the Herr Baron proposed to pay him a friendly visit of a day or two, as he was expecting presently to be his nearest neighbour.
Herr Dapsul looked more dead than alive, so pale and motionless did he stand, leaning un his daughter. Scarcely had a half involuntary, "It--will--give--me--much--pleasure," escaped his trembling lips, when the little horseman departed with lightning speed, and similar ceremonies to those with which he had arrived.
"Ah, my daughter!" cried Herr Dapsul, weeping and lamenting, "alas! it is but too certain that this is the gnome come to carry you off, and twist my unfortunate neck. But we will pluck up the very last scrap of courage which we can scrape together. Perhaps it may be still possible to pacify this irritated elementary spirit. We must be as careful in our conduct towards him as ever we can. I will at once read to you, my dear child, a chapter or two of Lactantius or Thomas Aquinas concerning the mode of dealing with elementary spirits, so that you mayn't make some tremendous mistake or other."
But before he could go and get hold of Lactantius or Thomas Aquinas, a band was heard in the immediate proximity, sounding very much like the kind of performance which children who are musical enough get up about Christmas-time. And a fine long procession was coming up the street. At the head of it rode some sixty or seventy little cavaliers on little yellow horses, all dressed like the one who had arrived as avant-courier at first, in yellow habits, pointed caps, and boots of polished mahogany. They were followed by a couch of purest crystal, drawn by eight yellow horses, and behind this came well on to forty other less magnificent coaches, some with six horses, some with only four. And there were swarms of pages, running footmen, and other attendants, moving up and down amongst and around those coaches in brilliant costumes, so that the whole thing formed a sight as charming as uncommon. Herr Dapsul stood sunk in gloomy amazement. Aennchen, who had never dreamt that the world could contain such lovely delightful creatures as these little horses and people, was quite out of her senses with delight, and forgot everything, even to shut her mouth, which she had opened to emit a cry of joy.
The coach and eight drew up before Herr Dapsul. Riders jumped from their horses, pages and attendants came hurrying forward, and the personage who was now lifted down the steps of the coach on their arms was none other than the Herr Baron Porphyrio von Ockerodastes, otherwise known as Cordovanspitz. Inasmuch as regarded his figure, the Herr Baron was far from comparable to the Apollo of Belvedere, or even the Dying Gladiator. For, besides the circumstances that he was scarcely three feet high, one-third of his small body consisted of his evidently too large and broad head, which was, moreover, adorned by a tremendously long Roman nose and a pair of great round projecting eyes. And as his body was disproportionately long for his height, there was nothing left for his legs and feet to occupy but some four inches or so. This small space was made the most of, however, for the little Baron's feet were the neatest and prettiest little things ever beheld. No doubt they seemed to be scarcely strong enough to support the large, important head. For the Baron's gait was somewhat tottery and uncertain, and he even toppled over altogether pretty frequently, but got up upon his feet immediately, after the manner of a jack-in-the-box. So that this toppling over had a considerable resemblance to some rather eccentric dancing step more than to anything else one could compare it to. He had on a close-fitting suit of some shining gold fabric, and a headdress, which was almost like a crown, with an enormous plume of green feathers in it.
As soon as the Baron had alighted on the ground, he hastened up to Herr Dapsul von Zabelthau, took hold of both his hands, swung himself up to his neck, and cried out, in a voice wonderfully more powerful than his shortness of stature would have led one to expect, "Oh, my Dapsul von Zabelthau, my most beloved father!" He then lowered himself down from Herr Dapsul's neck with the same deftness of skill with which he had climbed up to it, sprang, or rather slung himself, to Fräulein Aennchen, took that hand of hers which had the ring on it, covered it with loud resounding kisses, and cried out in the same almost thundering voice as before, "Oh, my loveliest Fräulein Anna von Zabelthau, my most beloved bride-elect!"
He then clapped his hands, and immediately that noisy clattering child-like band struck up, and over a hundred little fellows, who had got off their horses and out of the carriages, danced as the avant-courier had done, sometimes on their heads, sometimes on their feet, in the prettiest possible trochees, spondees, iambics, pyrrhics, anapaests, tribrachs, bacchi, antibacchi, choriambs, and dactyls, so that it was a joy to behold them. But as this was going on, Fräulein Aennchen recovered from the terrible fright which the little Baron's speech to her had put her in, and entered into several important and necessary economic questions and considerations. "How is it possible," she asked herself, "that these little beings can find room in this place of ours? Would it hold even their servants if they were to be put to sleep in the big barn? Then what could I do with the swell folk who came in the coaches, and of course expect to be put into fine bedrooms, with soft beds, as they're accustomed to be? And even if the two plough horses were to go out of the stable, and I were to be so hard hearted as to turn the old lame chestnut out into the grass field, would there be anything like room enough for all those little beasts of horses that this nasty ugly Baron has brought? And just the same with the one and forty coaches. But the worst of all comes after that. Oh, my gracious! is the whole year's provender anything like enough to keep all these little creatures going for even so much as a couple of days?" This last was the climax of all. She saw in her mind's eye everything eaten up--all the new vegetables, the sheep, the poultry, the salt meat--nay, the very beetroot brandy gone. And this brought the salt tears to her eyes. She thought she caught the Baron making a sort of wicked impudent face at her, and that gave her courage to say to him (while his people were keeping up their dancing with might and main), in the plainest language possible, that however flattering his visit might be to her father, it was impossible to think of such a thing as its lasting more than a couple of hours or so, as there was neither room nor anything else for the proper reception and entertainment of such a grand gentleman and such a numerous retinue. But little Cordovanspitz immediately looked as marvellously sweet and tender as any marsipan tart, pressing with closed eyes Fräulein Aennchen's hand (which was rather rough, and not particularly white) to his lips, as he assured her that the last thing he should think of was causing the dear papa and his lovely daughter the slightest inconvenience. He said he had brought everything in the kitchen and cellar department with him, and as for the lodging, he needed nothing but a little bit of ground with the open air above it, where his people could put up his ordinary travelling palace, which would accommodate him, his whole retinue, and the animals pertaining to them.
Fräulein Aennchen was so delighted with these words of the Baron Porphyrio von Ockerodastes that, to show that she wasn't grudging a little bit of hospitality, she was going to offer him the little fritter cakes she had made for the last consecration day, and a small glass of the beetroot brandy, unless he would have preferred double bitters, which the maid had brought from the town and recommended as strengthening to the stomach. But at this moment Cordovanspitz announced that he had chosen the kitchen garden as the site of his palace, and Aennchen's happiness was gone. But whilst the Baron's retainers, in celebration of their lord's arrival at Dapsulheim, continued their Olympian games, sometimes butting with their big heads at each other's stomachs, knocking each other over backwards, sometimes springing up in the air again, playing at skittles, being themselves in turn skittles, balls, and players, and so forth, Baron Porphyrio von Ockerodastes got into a very deep and interesting conversation with Herr Dapsul von Zabelthau, which seemed to go on increasing in importance till they went away together hand in hand, and up into the astronomical tower.
Full of alarm and anxiety, Fräulein Aennchen now made haste to her kitchen garden, with the view of trying to save whatever it might still be possible to save. The maid-servant was there already, standing staring before her with open mouth, motionless as a person turned like Lot's wife into a pillar of salt. Aennchen at once fell into the same condition beside her. At last they both cried out, making the welkin ring, "Oh, Herr Gemini! What a terrible sort of thing!" For the whole beautiful vegetable garden was turned into a wilderness. Not the trace of a plant in it, it looked like a devastated country.
"No," cried the maid, "there's no other way of accounting for it, these cursed little creatures have done it. Coming here in their coaches, forsooth! coaches, quotha! as if they were people of quality! Ha! ha! A lot of kobolds, that's what they are, trust me for that, Miss. And if I had a drop of holy water here I'd soon show you what all those fine things of theirs would turn to. But if they come here, the little brutes, I'll bash the heads of them with this spade here." And she flourished this threatening spade over her head, whilst Anna wept aloud.
But at this point, four members of Cordovanspitz's suite came up with such very pleasant ingratiating speeches and such courteous reverences, being such wonderful creatures to behold, at the same time that the maid, instead of attacking them with the spade, let it slowly sink, and Fräulein Aennchen ceased weeping.
They announced themselves as being the four friends who were the most immediately attached to their lord's person, saying that they belonged to four different nationalities (as their dress indicated, symbolically, at all events), and that their names were, respectively, Pan Kapustowicz, from Poland; Herr von Schwartzrettig, from Pomerania; Signor di Broccoli, from Italy; and Monsieur de Rocambolle, from France. They said, moreover, that the builders would come directly, and afford the beautiful lady the gratification of seeing them erect a lovely palace, all of silk, in the shortest possible space of time.
"What good will the silken palace be to me?" cried Fräulein Aennchen, weeping aloud in her bitter sorrow. "And what do I care about your Baron Cordovanspitz, now that you have gone and destroyed my beautiful vegetables, wretched creatures that you are. All my happy days are over."
But the polite interlocutors comforted her, and assured her that they had not by any means had the blame of desolating the kitchen-garden, and that, moreover, it would very soon be growing green and flourishing in such luxuriance as she had never seen, or anybody else in the world for that matter.
The little building-people arrived, and then there began such a confused-looking, higgledy-piggledy, and helter-skeltering on the plot of ground that Fräulein Anna and the maid ran away quite frightened, and took shelter behind some thickets, whence they could see what would be the end of it all.
But though they couldn't explain to themselves how things perfectly canny could come about as they did, there certainly arose and formed itself before their eyes, and in a few minutes' time, a lofty and magnificent marquee, made of a golden-yellow material and ornamented with many-coloured garlands and plumes, occupying the whole extent of the vegetable garden, so that the cords of it went right away over the village and into the wood beyond, where they were made fast to sturdy trees.
As soon as this marquee was ready, Baron Porphyrio came down with Herr Dapsul from the astronomical tower, after profuse embraces resumed his seat in the coach and eight, and in the same order in which they had made their entry into Dapsulheim, he and his following went into the silken palace, which, when the last of the procession was within it, instantly closed itself up.
Fräulein Aennchen had never seen her papa as he was then. The very faintest trace of the melancholy which had hitherto always so distressed him had completely disappeared from his countenance. One would really almost have said he smiled. There was a sublimity about his facial expression such as sometimes indicates that some great and unexpected happiness has come upon a person. He led his daughter by the hand in silence into the house, embraced her three times consecutively, and then broke out--
"Fortunate Anna! Thrice happy girl! Fortunate father! Oh, daughter, all sorrow and melancholy, all solicitude and misgiving are over for ever! Yours is a fate such as falls to the lot of few mortals. This Baron Porphyrio von Ockerodastes, otherwise known as Cordovanspitz, is by no means a hostile gnome, although he is descended from one of those elementary spirits who, however, was so fortunate as to purify his nature by the teaching of Oromasis the Salamander. The love of this being was bestowed upon a daughter of the human race, with whom he formed a union, and became founder of the most illustrious family whose name ever adorned a parchment. I have an impression that I told you before, beloved daughter Anna, that the pupil of the great Salamander Oromasis, the noble gnome Tsilmenech (a Chaldean name, which interpreted into our language has a somewhat similar significance to our word 'Thickhead'), bestowed his affection on the celebrated Magdalena de la Croix, abbess of a convent at Cordova in Spain, and lived in happy wedlock with her for nearly thirty years. And a descendant of the sublime family of higher intelligences which sprung from this union is our dear Baron Porphyrio von Ockerodastes, who has adopted the sobriquet of Cordovanspitz to indicate his ancestral connection with Cordova in Spain, and to distinguish himself by it from a more haughty but less worthy collateral line of the family, which bears the title of 'Saffian.' That a 'spitz' has been added to the 'Cordovan' doubtless possesses its own elementary astrological causes; I have not as yet gone into that subject. Following the example of his illustrious ancestor the gnome Tsilmenech, this splendid Ockerodastes of ours fell in love with you when you were only twelve years of age (Tsilmenech had done precisely the same thing in the case of Magdalena de la Croix). He was fortunate enough at that time to get a small gold ring from you, and now you wear his, so that your betrothal is indissoluble."
"What?" cried Fräulein Aennchen, in fear and amazement. "What? I betrothed to him--I to marry that horrible little kobold? Haven't I been engaged for ever so long to Herr Amandus von Nebelstern? No, never will I have that hideous monster of a wizard for a husband. I don't care whether he comes from Cordova or from Saffian."
"There," said Herr Dapsul von Zabelthau more gravely, "there I perceive, to my sorrow and distress, how impossible it is for celestial wisdom to penetrate into your hardened, obdurate, earthly sense. You stigmatize this noble, elementary, Porphyrio von Ockerodastes as 'horrible' and 'ugly,' probably, I presume, because he is only three feet high, and, with the exception of his head, has very little worth speaking of on his body in the shape of arms, legs, and other appurtenances; and a foolish, earthly goose, such as you probably think of as to be admired, can't have legs long enough, on account of coat tails. Oh, my daughter, in what a terrible misapprehension you are involved! All beauty lies in wisdom, in the thought; and the physical symbol of thought is the head. The more head, the more beauty and wisdom. And if mankind could but cast away all the other members of the body as pernicious articles of luxury tending to evil, they would reach the condition of a perfect ideal of the highest type. Whence come all trouble and difficulty, vexation and annoyance, strife and contention--in short, all the depravities and miseries of humanity, but from the accursed luxury and voluptuousness of the members? Oh, what joy, what peace, what blessedness there would be on earth if the human race could exist without arms or legs, or the nether parts of the body--in short, if we were nothing but busts! Therefore it is a happy idea of the sculptors when they represent great statesmen, or celebrated men of science and learning as busts, symbolically indicating the higher nature within them. Wherefore, my daughter Anna, no more of such words as 'ugly and abominable' applied to the noblest of spirits, the grand Porphyrio von Ockerodastes, whose bride elect you most indubitably are. I must just tell you, at the same time, that by his important aid your father will soon attain that highest step of bliss towards which he has so long been striving. Porphyrio von Ockerodastes is in possession of authentic information that I am beloved by the sylphide Nehabilah (which in Syriac has very much the signification of our expression 'Peaky nose'), and he has promised to assist me to the utmost of his power to render myself worthy of a union with this higher spiritual nature. I have no doubt whatever, my dear child, that you will be well satisfied with your future stepmother. All I hope is, that a favourable destiny may so order matters that our marriages may both take place at one and the same fortunate hour."
Having thus spoken, Herr Dapsul von Zabelthau, casting a significant glance at his daughter, very pathetically left the room.
It was a great weight on Aennchen's heart that she remembered having, a great while ago, really in some unaccountable way lost a little gold ring, such as a child might wear, from her finger. So that it really seemed too certain that this abominable little wizard of a creature had indeed got her immeshed in his net, so that she couldn't see how she was ever to get out of it. And over this she fell into the utmost grief and bewilderment. She felt that her oppressed heart must obtain relief; and this took place through the medium of a goose-quill, which she seized, and at once wrote off to Herr Amandus von Nebelstern as follows:
"My dearest Amandus--
"All is over with me completely. I am the most unfortunate creature in the whole world, and I'm sobbing and crying for sheer misery so terribly that the dear dumb animals themselves are sorry for me. And you'll be still sorrier than they are, because it's just as great a misfortune for you as it is for me, and you can't help being quite as much distressed about it as I am myself. You know that we love one another as fondly as any two lovers possibly can, and that I am betrothed to you, and that papa was going with us to the church. Very well. All of a sudden a nasty little creature comes here in a coach and eight, with a lot of people and servants, and says I have changed rings with him, and that he and I are engaged. And--just fancy how awful! papa says as well, that I must marry this little wretch, because he belongs to a very grand family. I suppose be very likely does, judging by his following and the splendid dresses they have on. But the creature has such a horrible name that, for that alone if it were for nothing else, I never would marry him. I can't even pronounce the heathenish words of the name; but one of them is Cordovanspitz, and it seems that is the family name. Write and tell me if these Cordovanspitzes really are so very great and aristocratic a family--people in the town will be sure to know if they are. And the things papa takes in his head at his time of life I really can't understand; but he wants to marry again, and this nasty Cordovanspitz is going to get him a wife that flies in the air. God protect us! Our servant girl is looking over my shoulder, and says she hasn't much of an opinion of ladies who can fly in the air and swim in the water, and that she'll have to be looking out for another situation, and hopes, for my sake, that my stepmother may break her neck the first time she goes riding through the air to St. Walpurgis. Nice state of things, isn't it? But all my hope is in you. For I know you are the person who ought to be, and has got to be, just where and what you are, and has to deliver me from a great danger. The danger has come, so be quick, and rescue
"Your grieved to death, but most true and loving fiancée,
"Anna von Zabelthau.
"P.S.--Couldn't you call this yellow little Cordovanspitz out? I'm sure you could settle his hash. He's feeble on his legs.
"What I implore you to do is to put on your things as fast as you can and hasten to
"Your most unfortunate and miserable,
"But always most faithful fiancée.
"Anna von Zabelthau."