“Why, Schatten, thou art dreaming. Blessed St Mary! thou surely didst not see the sight, else thou hadst told me a truer story of its progress.”
“Not so: trust me, I saw the revel—but I beheld it from the pinnacle of time; and I tell you again, all the men who passed me I watched into the churchyard. Their haughty eyes—their trophies, flags, and clamorous pipes—I say to you, they are dust! The shout of triumph hath died in the distance, and hic jacet is now the only tongue.”
“So, so—a riddle,” crowed the scrivener; and he hobbled on to seek a less perplexing respondent.
Such were, at times, the answers of old Schatten, who, when he pleased, could be as grave and oracular as a father confessor. Such were his reflections on pageants which, to many thoughtless and happy minds, were the symbols of all earthly greatness. It was his pastime to analyse appearance—to unravel the glossy web of policy—to unfold the swathings of vain pomp and ceremony, and point to the foul mummy they encased. Yet would he vary this custom with smiles and laughter, and witty sayings, which gave a savour to the wine they honoured. He would, with his thin voice troll a song in praise of beauty, and, with quick conceits, prick on lusty youth to deeds of jollity and wild adventure; nay, he would often mingle in the revelry. Many a time have the townsfolk of Beauvais laughed at the gambols of old Schatten, who, pranked in his best, would trip it with some blue-eyed fair one, who, seemingly unconscious of the deformity of her partner, would glide through the dance all smiles and sweetness, as though mortal youth were wedded to immortality, and wrinkles and grey hairs were not the inheritance of the children of earth. Alas! but a few months, or weeks, and the poor maiden—she who seemed the embodied principle of beauty and motion—was as the “clods of the valley,” a mass of blank insensibility.
Various were the ways by which old Schatten had insinuated himself into the good graces of the people of Beauvais. To please them he would, when in the humour, act twenty different parts—now he would be a learned doctor, and now a mountebank; at times he would utter the wisdom of sages—at times play a hundred antic tricks, making his audience shout with merriment. For one long winter did Schatten profoundly lecture upon laurels, crowns, swords, and money-bags; and, like a skilful chemist, would he analyse their component parts.
“This,” cried Schatten, producing a semblance of the wreath, “this is the laurel crown of one of the Cæsars. How fresh and green the leaves remain! Ha! there is no such preservative as innocent blood—it embalms the names of mighty potentates, who else had never been heard of: steeped in it, deformity becomes loveliness—fame colours her most lasting pictures with its paint! The fields that grew this branch were richly manured: tens of thousands of hearts lay rotting there; the light of thousands of eyes was quenched; palaces and hovels, in undistinguished heaps, were strewn about the soil; there lay the hoary and the unborn; the murdered wife and the outraged virgin—and showers of tears falling on this garden of agony and horror, it was miraculously fertile—for lo! it gave forth this one branch, to deck the forehead of one man! In the veins that seam its leaves are the heart strings of murdered nations; it is the plant of fire and blood, reaped by the sword!—Such is the conqueror’s laurel.
“And here is the despot’s diadem!—Many a time, like glowing iron, hath it seared the brows it circled. Of what is it composed? What wonderful ingredients meet in this quintessence of worldly wealth? See, the passions and the feelings that helped to make it still haunt their handiwork. Their shadows live in its glittering metal and its flashing gems. Full-blooded power, with a demon’s eye, glares from this ruby—leprous fear trembles in these pearls—in every diamond, care or compunction weeps a tear! Throughout the gold I see a thousand forms, dawning and fading like hues in heated steel:—there, fancy detects the assassin with his knife;—there, the bondsman snaps his chain;—there, is the headsman;—there, the civil war! These are the shades that haunt the despot’s crown; that wear him waking, and screech to him in his sleep. A nation’s groan is pent up in its round. It is a living thing that eats into the brain of the possessor, making him mad and drunk for blood and power!
“The miser’s money-bag!—Another monster—all throat. Could its owner have put the sun itself within this bag, the world for him had been in darkness—perpetual night had cast a pall upon creation—the fruits of earth had withered in the bud, and want and misery been universal; whilst he, the thrifty villain! smugly lived in bloom, and in his very baseness found felicity! And yet, what was the worth of all this bag contained? Though it was stuffed with wealth, it was hung about with fears. As its owner slid his palm into the heap, he would start as though he felt the hand of death were hidden there to grasp him. He was almost blind within a world of beauty. His eye saw no images save those painted by gold; his ears heard not, save when the metal tinkled; his tongue was dumb, if it spoke not of wealth; the glittering pieces were to him the children of his heart and soul—dull offspring of the foulest appetites; yet he hugged them to his bosom—he hugged them, and in his dying hour they turned to snakes, and stung him in the embrace! This is the miser’s money-bag—the abode of reptiles, the sepulchre of the soul!
“The sword!—Ceremony sanctifies it. Some kingly words are spoken—a trumpet is blown; straightway the sword is ennobled!
“The lawyer’s gown!—the masquerading dress of common-sense. There is a living instinct in its web: let golden villainy come under it, and with a thought it flows and spreads, and gives an ample shelter to the thing it covers; let poor knavery seek it, and it shrinks and curtains up, and leaves the trembling victim naked to the court!”