Here happened a singular adventure. The peasants at this place were dancing to a vile scraper on the violin: I took the instrument myself, and played while they continued their hilarity. They were much pleased with my playing: but when I was tired, and desired to have done, they obliged me, first by importunities, and afterwards by threats, to play on all night. I was so fatigued, I thought I should have fainted; at length they quarrelled among themselves. Schell was sleeping on a bench, and some of them fell upon his wounded hand: he rose furious: I seized our arms, began to lay about me, and while all was in confusion, we escaped, without further ill-treatment.
What ample subject of meditation on the various turns of fate did this night afford! But two years before I danced at Berlin with the daughters and sisters of kings: and here was I, in a Polish hut, a ragged, almost naked musician, playing for the sport of ignorant rustics, whom I was at last obliged to fight.
I was myself the cause of the trifling misfortune that befell me on this occasion. Had not my vanity led me to show these poor peasants I was a musician, I might have slept in peace and safety. The same vain desire of proving I knew more than other men, made me through life the continued victim of envy and slander. Had nature, too, bestowed on me a weaker or a deformed body, I had been less observed, less courted, less sought, and my adventures and mishaps had been fewer. Thus the merits of the man often become his miseries; and thus the bear, having learned to dance, must live and die in chains.
This ardour, this vanity, or, if you please, this emulation, has, however, taught me to vanquish a thousand difficulties, under which others of cooler passions and more temperate desires would have sunk. May my example remain a warning; and thus may my sufferings become somewhat profitable to the world, cruel as they have been to myself! Cruel they were, and cruel they must continue; for the wounds I have received are not, will not, cannot be healed.
Feb. 23.—From Schmiegel to Rakonitz, and from thence to Karger Holland, four miles and a half. Here we sold, to prevent dying of hunger, a shirt and Schell’s waistcoat for eighteen grosch, or nine schostacks. I had shot a pullet the day before, which necessity obliged us to eat raw. I also killed a crow, which I devoured alone, Schell refusing to taste. Youth and hard travelling created a voracious appetite, and our eighteen grosch were soon expended.
Feb. 24.—We came through Benzen to Lettel, four miles. Here we halted a day, to learn the road to Hammer, in Brandenburg, where my sister lived. I happened luckily to meet with the wife of a Prussian soldier who lived at Lettel, and belonged to Kolschen, where she was born a vassal of my sister’s husband. I told her who I was, and she became our guide.
Feb. 26.—To Kurschen and Falkenwalde.
Feb. 27.—Through Neuendorf and Oost, and afterwards through a pathless wood, five miles and a half to Hammer, and here I knocked at my sister’s door at nine o’clock in the evening.
CHAPTER VIII.
A maidservant came to the door, whom I knew; her name was Mary, and she had been born and brought up in my father’s house. She was terrified at seeing a sturdy fellow in a beggar’s dress; which perceiving, I asked, “Molly, do not you know me?” She answered, “No;” and I then discovered myself to her. I asked whether my brother-in-law was at home. Mary replied, “Yes; but he is sick in bed.” “Tell my sister, then,” said I, “that I am here.” She showed me into a room, and my sister presently came.