For there appears there, looking down at us—and we all looking up at it—Siebenkæs’s spirit, as the popular expression has it, i.e. his body, as it ought to be called. If the bridegroom should look up he might turn pale, and think he saw himself. We are all wrong; he only turns red. It was his friend Leibgeber who was standing there, having many years ago vowed to travel any distance to his marriage, solely that he might laugh at him for twelve hours’ time.
There has seldom been a case of a royal alliance between two peculiar natures like that between these two. The same contempt for the childish nonsense held in this life to be noble matter, the same enmity to all pettiness and perfect indulgence to the little, the same indignation with dishonourable selfishness, the same delight in laughing in this lovely madhouse of an earth, the same deafness to the voice of the multitude, but not to that of honour; these are but some of the first at hand of the similarities which made of these two but one soul doing duty in two bodies. And the fact that they were also foster-brothers in their studies, having for nurses the same branches of knowledge, including the Law herself, I do not reckon among their chief resemblances; for it is often the case that the very identity of study becomes a dissolving decomponent of friendship. Indeed, it was not even the dissimilarity of their opposite poles which determined their mutual attraction for each other (Siebenkæs leant towards forgiving, Leibgeber towards punishing; the former was more a satire of Horace, the latter a street ballad of Aristophanes with unpoetic as well as poetic harshnesses). But, as two female friends are fond of being dressed alike, these two men’s souls had put on just the same frock-coat and morning costume of life; I mean, two bodies of identical fashion, colour, button-holes, finishings, and cut. Both had the same flash of the eyes, the same earthy coloured face, the same tallness, leanness, and everything. And indeed, the Nature freak of counterpart faces is commoner than we suppose, because we only notice it when some prince or great person casts a corporeal reflection.
For which reason I very much wish that Leibgeber had not had a slight limp, so that he might not have been thereby distinguishable from Siebenkæs, seeing, at least, that the latter had cleverly etched and dissolved away his own peculiar mark by causing a live toad to breathe its last above it. For there had been a pyramidal mole near his left ear, in the shape of a triangle, or of the zodiacal light, or a turned-up comet’s tail, of an ass’s ear in short. Partly from friendship, partly from the enjoyment they had in the scenes of absurdity which their being confounded with each other gave rise to in every-day life, they wished to carry the algebraic equation which existed between them yet a step further, by adopting the same Christian and surname. But on this point they had a friendly contest, as each wanted to be the other’s namesake, till at length they settled the difference by exchanging names, thus following the example of the natives of Otaheite, among whom the lovers exchange names as well as hearts.
As it is now several years since my hero was thus lightened of his worthy name by this friendly name-stealer receiving the other worthy name in exchange, I can’t do anything to alter this in my chapters. I must go on calling him Firmian Stanislaus Siebenkæs as I did at the beginning, and the other Leibgeber; although it is quite unnecessary for any reviewer to point out to me that the more comic name of Siebenkæs would have been better suited to this more humoristic newcomer, with whom, however, the world shall yet be better acquainted than I am myself.
When these two counterparts caught sight of one another in the church, their blushing faces crinkled and curled oddly, at which the looker-on laughed, until he compared the faces with the eyes, which glowed warm with the deepest affection. While the wedding-rings were being exchanged, Leibgeber in the choir took from his pocket a pair of scissors and a quarto sheet of black paper, and cut out a distant view of the bride’s profile. This cutting out of likenesses he generally gave out as being his cookshop and bakery upon his perpetual journeyings; and as it appears that this strange man does not choose to disclose upon what eminences the waters gather which well up for him down in the valleys, I am glad to quote (and express my own belief in) a frequent saying of his regarding his profile cutting—“In the process of clipping, slices of bread, we know, fall with the cuttings for the bookbinder, the letter-writer, and the lawyer, when the paper is white; but in clipping black paper, whether profiles or white mourning letters with black borders, there fall many more: and if a man is versed in the liberal art of painting his fellow Christian blacker than he is—with more members than one—the tongue for instance can do it to some extent—then Fortune, the Babylonish harlot, will ring that man’s bells (his dinner bell, and his little altar bell), till her arm is half crippled.”
While the deacon was laying his hands on the pair, Leibgeber came down and stood at the red velvet steps of the altar. And when the ceremony was over he made, on the occasion of a meeting such as this, after a separation of some half-a-year or so, the following somewhat lengthy speech:—
“Good morning, Siebenkæs.”
They never said more to each other, though years might have elapsed; and at the resurrection of the dead, Siebenkæs will answer him, just as he did to-day,—
“Good morning, Leibgeber.”
The twelve hours of banter, however, which friends often find it an easy matter to threaten each other with in absence, are an impossibility to the tender heart, keenly enough alive though it may be to the humorous sides of matters, when it is moved (as in this case) at the sight of the friend passing into the vestibule of some new labyrinth of our subterranean existence.