I wish the villain would never step into my biographical writing-chamber and casa santa again; he is conscious of so many immoral resources, that, in the feeling of strength they impart to him, he actually plays with sins, and always ventures upon several more than he needs; just as, e. g., in the Maienthal alley, out of mere wantonness, he enticed Victor and Clotilda into his neighborhood with the voice of the nightingale, although Flamin might have overheard both without that Philomelic machinery. In this view, I could absolutely almost wish that the Post-Dog would not come again; I have too much reason to fear that Matthieu may bring new frog-spawn and new mother-of-vinegar to January's warmth, that it may hatch out new, sharp, poisonous misery; for he will certainly report in the highest quarters, that the three Englishmen are hiding themselves in the island as in a catacomb,—that Flamin is associated with them,—that Victor has hitherto deceived a Prince, whose subject he is,—to say nothing of still other things, which the ministerial spy and Chamberlainess von Le Baut communicates, and his father, who is so much of an anti-clubbist, paints black,—which the former draws and the latter colors. And when I consider that in this biography a little misfortune has always been the egg-shell and the white-of-the-egg of a great one,—I am very much inclined to believe that the expression of the Parson on the 21st of October contained more wit than truth: "That they were all at present, instead of the bread of tears, cutting into the bride's cake of joy." ... Ye good people! in which may now, at this moment, your bosoms be rising and falling,—in the soft, thin ether of gladness, or in the stormy vapor of agony?
SUPPLEMENT TO THE SUPPLEMENT.
While the first edition has been getting out of print, I have learned some very interesting additional circumstances for the second. Julius hugged his Victor in the garden right heartily, and said: "I am very glad to be here again,—I have been so alone all day, and not heard a human being,—thy Italian domestic has absolutely run away." In Victor's bosom, this unaccountable absconding of a faithful and contented servant raised, if not a storm-cloud, yet a dark mist. The quiet Marie had diligently discharged toward the blind one the duties of the fugitive. "I would gladly have given the Italian his letter first," Julius continued, "but here I have it still." Victor looked at it, and found, to his amazement, the address in the handwriting of—his Lordship. The letter was handed to the blind one a few minutes after the man's flight, with the request that he would give it to no one but the Italian. Although Flamin and her Ladyship promised to be answerable for the breaking of the seal, still Victor addressed himself reluctantly to this solution of a new charade of his life; for Clotilda was silent in the matter. Here is an authentic copy:—
"You are right. Do not, however, start till to-morrow, but go immediately to Mr. * * *. The place remains 5. But VI are necessary."
Mr. might mean Monsieur (the fifth son). Further than that there was nothing to be guessed from this flight of clouds of the coming weather by the best weather-prophets. The reader, however, may imagine, merely from his own eager desire to know the significance of these celestial signs, how great must have been that of our hero.
[45. OR LAST CHAPTER.]
Knef.—The Town of Hof.—Sorrel Horse.—Robbers. —Sleep.—Oath.—Night Journey.—Bushes.—End.
I say only this much beforehand: in all the time that ink—like currant-wine—has been drawn from quill-tubes,—in all the time that quills have been cut to make instruments of peace, or carbonized to make instruments of war (for the coal used in manufacturing gunpowder is prepared from feathers[[196]]),—and still further back, in all that time the singular occurrence has never till now happened which I am now to report to the world. As I said, this is all I say beforehand; the incident is a tolerable one.
Inasmuch as the Post-Dog has, since the forty-fourth chapter, withdrawn his hand, or paw, from this learned work, my plan was to make it out alone, and only append one more and last chapter,—but not this one,—as capstone and swan-song, so that the opus might be given at once to the post, the press, and the world. Good reviewers (thought I) I can let wrangle with the Post-Dog and biographical bell-wether as long as they please over the want of a final cadence.... It was already getting toward the end of October, and of my Robinsonade on the island of St. John's, when the good old Friday of this Robinson, my Dr. Fenk, returned from his long botanical Alpine tour home to Scheerau, but immediately put out to sea again, and landed on my St. John's domain.