The Prose Writings of Heinrich Heine

by Heinrich Heine

On a clear, frosty autumn morning, a young man of student-like appearance slowly loitered through the avenue of the Düsseldorf Court Garden, often, with childlike pleasure, kicking aside the leaves which covered the ground, and often sorrowfully gazing towards the bare trees, on which a few golden-hued leaves still hung. As he thus gazed up, he thought on the words of Glaucus—

"Like the leaves in the forests, so are the races of mortals;
Leaves are blown down to the earth by the wind, while others are shooting
Again in the green budding wood, when fresh up-liveth the spring-tide;
So are the races of man—this grows and the other departeth."

In earlier days the youth had gazed with far different eyes on the same trees. He was then a boy, and sought birds' nests or summer insects, which delighted him as they merrily hummed around, and were glad in the beautiful world, and contented with a sap-green leaf and a drop of water, with a warm sunbeam and the sweet perfumes of the grass. In those times the boy's heart was as gay as the fluttering insects. But now his heart had grown older, its little sunbeams were quenched, all its flowers had faded, even its beautiful dream of love had grown dim; in that poor heart was nothing but pride and care, and, saddest of all, it was my heart.

I had returned that day to my old father-town, but I would not remain there over night, and I longed for Godesberg, that I might sit at the feet of my girl-friend and tell of the little Veronica. I had visited the dear graves. Of all my living friends I had found but an uncle and an aunt. Even when I met once known forms in the street they knew me no more, and the town itself gazed on me with strange glances. Many houses were coloured anew, strange faces gazed on me through the window-panes, worn-out old sparrows hopped on the old chimneys, everything looked dead and yet fresh, like a salad growing in a graveyard; where French was once spoken I now heard Prussian; even a little Prussian court had taken up its retired dwelling there, and the people bore court titles. My mother's old hair dresser had now become the Court Hair dresser, and there were Court-Tailors, Court-Shoemakers, Court-Bed-Bug-Destroyers, Court-Grog-Shops—the whole town seemed to be a Court-Asylum for Court-lunatics. Only the old Prince Elector knew me, he still stood in the same old place; but he seemed to have grown thinner. For just because he stood in the Market Place, he had had a full view of all the miseries of the time, and people seldom grow fat on such sights. I was in a dream, and thought of the legend of the enchanted city, and hastened out of the gate, lest I should awake too soon. I missed many a tree in the Court Garden, and many had grown crooked with age, and the four great poplars, which once seemed to me like green giants, had become smaller. Pretty girls were walking here and there, dressed as gaily as wandering tulips. And I had known these tulips when they were but little buds; for ah! they were the neighbours' children with whom I had once played "Princes in the Tower." But the fair maidens, whom I had once known as blooming roses, were now faded roses, and in many a high brow whose pride had once thrilled my heart, Saturn had cut deep wrinkles with his scythe. And now for the first time, and alas! too late, I understood what those glances meant, which they had once cast on the adolescent boy; for I had meanwhile in other lands fathomed the meaning of similar glances in other lovely eyes. I was deeply moved by the humble bow of a man whom I had once known as wealthy and respectable, and who had since become a beggar. Everywhere in the world we see that men when they once begin to fall, do so according to Newton's law, ever faster and faster as they descend to misery. One, however, who did not seem to be in the least changed was the little baron, who tripped merrily as of old through the Court Garden, holding with one hand his left coat-skirt on high, and with the other swinging hither and thither his light cane;—he still had the same genial face as of old, its rosy bloom now somewhat concentrated towards the nose, but he had the same comical hat and the same old queue behind, only that the hairs which peeped from it were now white instead of black. But merry as the old baron seemed, it was still evident that he had suffered much sorrow—his face would fain conceal it, but the white hairs of his queue betrayed him behind his back. Yet the queue itself seemed striving to lie, so merrily did it shake.

I was not weary, but a fancy seized me to sit once more on the wooden bench, on which I had once carved the name of my love. I could hardly discover it there, so many new names were cut around. Ah! once I slept upon this bench, and dreamed of happiness and love. "Dreams are foam." And the old games of childhood came again to my memory, and with them old and beautiful stories; but a new treacherous game, and a new terrible tale ever resounded through them, and it was the story of two poor souls who were untrue to each other, and went so far in their untruth, that they were at last untrue to the dear God himself. It is a sad story, and when one has nothing better to do, one can weep over it. Oh, Lord! once the world was so beautiful, and the birds sang thy eternal praise, and little Veronica looked at me with silent eyes, and we sat by the marble statue before the castle court; on one side lies an old ruined castle, wherein ghosts wander, and at night a headless lady in long, trailing black-silken garments sweeps around, and on the other side is a high, white dwelling, in whose upper rooms gay pictures gleamed beautifully in their golden frames, while below stood thousands of mighty books, which Veronica and I beheld with longing when the good Ursula lifted us up to the window. In later years, when I had become a great boy, I climbed every day to the very top of the library ladder, and brought down the topmost books, and read in them so long, that finally I feared nothing—least of all ladies without heads—and became so wise that I forgot all the old games and stories and pictures and little Veronica, even her name.

But while I sat upon the old bench in the Court Garden, and dreamed my way back into the past, there was a sound behind me of the confused voices of men lamenting the ill-fortune of the poor French soldiers, who, having been taken prisoners in the Russian war and sent to Siberia, had there been kept prisoners for many a long year, though peace had been re-established, and who now were returning home. As I looked up, I beheld in reality these orphan children of Fame. Through their tattered uniforms peeped naked misery, deep sorrowing eyes were couched in their desolate faces, and though mangled, weary, and mostly lame, something of the military manner was still visible in their mien. Singularly enough, they were preceded by a drummer who tottered along with a drum, and I shuddered as I recalled the old legend of soldiers, who had fallen in battle, and who by night rising again from their graves on the battle-field, and with the drummer at their head, marched back to their native city. And of them the old ballad sings thus—

"He beat on the drum with might and main,
To their old night-quarters they go again;
Through the lighted street they come;
Trallerie—trallerei—trallera,
They march before Sweetheart's home.
And their bones lie there at break of day,
As white as tombstones in cold array,
And the drummer he goes before;
Trallerie—trallerei—trallera,
And we see them come no more."

Truly the poor French drummer seemed to have risen but half repaired from the grave. He was but a little shadow in a dirty patched grey capote, a dead yellow countenance, with a great moustache which hung down sorrowfully over his faded lips, his eyes were like burnt-out tinder, in which but a few sparks still gleamed, and yet by one of those sparks I recognised Monsieur Le Grand.

He too recognised me and drew me to the turf, and we sat down together as of old, when he taught me French and Modern History on the drum. He had still the well-known old drum, and I could not sufficiently wonder how he had preserved it from Russian plunderers. And he drummed again as of old, but without speaking a word. But though his lips were firmly pressed together, his eyes spoke all the more, flashing fiercely and victoriously as he drummed the old marches. The poplars near us trembled, as he again thundered forth the red guillotine march. And he drummed as before the old war of freedom, the old battles, the deeds of the Emperor, and it seemed as though the drum itself were a living creature which rejoiced to speak out its inner soul. I heard once more the thunder of cannon, the whistling of balls, the riot of battle; I saw once more the death rage of the Guards,—the waving flags, again, the Emperor on his steed—but little by little there fell a sad tone in amid the most stirring confusion, sounds rang from the drum, in which the wildest hurrahs and the most fearful grief were mysteriously mingled; it seemed a march of victory and a march of death. Le Grand's eyes opened spirit-like and wide, and I saw in them nothing but a broad white field of ice covered with corpses—it was the battle of Moscow.

I had never thought that the hard old drum could give forth such wailing sounds as Monsieur Le Grand had drawn from it. They were tears which he drummed, and they sounded ever softer and softer, and, like a troubled echo, deep sighs broke from Le Grand's breast. And he became ever more languid and ghost-like, his dry hands trembled, as if from frost, he sat as in a dream, and stirred with his drum-stick nothing but the air, and seemed listening to voices far away, and at last he gazed on me with a deep, entreating glance—I understood him—and then his head sank down on the drum.