The Pictures; The Betrothing: Novels

by Ludwig Tieck

"It was not caprice," said Edward; "it was done, this being his favourite room, on account of his health; the east wind hurt him, and caused him twinges of the gout. The verdant prospect he could enjoy in the other rooms."

"If old Walther was not a fool," proceeded Eulenböck, "you were easily relieved. He might give you the girl, who must at all events be settled, and all would be right again."

"Silence!" cried Edward, with the greatest vehemence: "only to-day let me forget what I hoped and dreamt. I would cease to think of her, since to my horror I have begun to feel that I love her. I will not remind myself how stupidly and foolishly I behaved to her father; not a thought shall cross me to-day, not even her incomprehensible behaviour. No, a glorious lot was prepared for me, I have become aware of it too late; the punishment of my heedlessness is that I must renounce it for ever! But how I can live without her, the future must teach me."

Here the young man, who till now had played the part of Edward's librarian, came in. "Here is the catalogue you ordered," said he, presenting a few leaves to the youth, who received them with shame. "How!" he exclaimed, "not more than about six hundred volumes remaining of that fine collection, and among these only the most ordinary works?" The librarian shrugged his shoulders. "As from the beginning," he replied, "you paid me my salary in books, I was forced to take those which found the readiest purchasers; nor am I a sufficient judge of curiosities, and probably did not set a sufficient value on these; besides books, particularly rarities, vary in their value at different times; and if the seller is hard prest to raise a sum, he must take almost whatever is offered to him."

"At this rate then," said Edward, half in sadness, half with laughter, "I should certainly have done better to engage no librarian at all, or have sold the collection at first; I should then have had money in lieu of it, or have kept the books. And what a collection! With what affection my father cherished It! What a joy it was to him, when he obtained the rare Petrarch, the first edition of Dante and Boccacio. How could I forget that in most of these books there are notes from his hand! How would I prize these works, if I still possessed them! However, as I have no longer a library, you will suppose, as indeed I lately gave you notice, that I have no farther occasion for a librarian. In the mean while, we will spend one more merry day together."

Now came in the man who had often taken part in these wild bouts, and whom, on account of his turn of character, they never called by any other name but that of the Puritan. This name they had given him, because he never chimed in with the cheerful mirth or frolicsome extravagance of the rest, but amidst mutterings and moral reflections consumed his share of the feast. "Now we only want the Crocodile," cried Eulenböck, "and we are all met." This was a little hypochondriac bookseller, pale and shrivelled, but one of the hardest drinkers. They had given him this singular name, because as soon as the slightest fumes of the liquor mounted into his brain he burst into tears, and continued to shed them in the greater abundance, the longer the carouse lasted, and the more extravagant the gaiety of the rest. The door opened, and the rueful figure completed the odd circle of the guests.

The table was covered with Perigord pies, oysters, and other savory viands; the company took their seats, and Eulenböck, whose purple face between the tapers cast a reverend sheen, thus solemnly began: "My assembled friends, a stranger who should suddenly step into this room might be induced, by these arrangements, which have the appearance of a feast, if he was not intimately acquainted with the members of the company, to conceive the opinion, that preparations had here been made for guzzling, drinking, riot and extravagant jollity, such as befits only the rude multitude. Even a young artist named Dietrich, who is now for the first time sitting among us at this table, darts wondering glances at the multitude of these bottles and dishes, at these goose-liver pies, at these oysters and muscles and at the whole apparatus of a solemnity, which to him seems to promise an excess of sensual enjoyment, and he too will be surprized when he learns in how entirely different and directly opposite a sense all this is meant. Gentlemen, I beg you to give me your attention and not to let my words drop too lightly on your ears. If countries solemnize the birth of a prince, if in Arabia a whole tribe hails with festive rejoicings the epoch, when a poet makes his appearance and distinguishes himself; if the installation of a Lord Mayor is celebrated with a banquet; if even the birth of horses of generous breed is with good cause signalized in an impressive manner: it surely concerns us still more closely (not to end with an anti-climax) to look up, to feel an emotion and to touch glasses a little, when the immortal spirit discovers itself to us, when virtue deigns to appear before us in corporeal shape. Yes, my friends, with affected heart I announce it to you, a young candidate for virtue is among us, who this very evening, like an emergent butterfly, will burst his case, and unfold his wings in a new state of being. It is no other person than our generous host, who has given us so many a feast, and so often filled our glasses. But an ardent purpose, not to mention that he is himself on the shallows, that impetus of inspiration, of which the ancients sang, now tears him from us aloft into fields of light, and we, from this table and these bottles and dishes, his earthly burial-place, gaze after him in dizzy amazement, to see to what unknown regions he will now steer his flight. I tell you, my dearest friends, he is revolving innumerable and excellent resolutions in his bosom: and what cannot man, even the weakest and most inconsiderable, resolve? Did you ever consider, (but in your levity you think not of such things), that in a miserable map, if it contain only about a hundred places marked on it, a tract of a thousand miles may be concealed, and that yet it occupies itself no more room than a moderate folio? For there perspective lies by the side of perspective, and hill and dale and stream and wide, immeasurable prospects. So with purposes. Weakly as our Puritan or our friend Dietrich look, they still can carry, in good resolutions, more than ten elephants or twenty camels. How weak I am myself in this virtue, I know better than any one, and hence my reverence for those in whom I perceive such powers.

"Now, as we are not all susceptible of this inspiration, we sit here at this table as at a crossway, whence several roads branch off in various and opposite directions. At leading points of this sort, it is usual for the distances of towns towards all the four quarters of the world to be inscribed on a pyramidal post. The same may be said, under a not unjoyous image, to be the case here. These oysters, taken in excess, lead to sickness; this Burgundy, after a few stages, to red noses; these truffles, with the appurtenances, to dropsy, cardialgy and similar complaints. Our Edward however disdaining all this moves on towards virtue. Fare thee well then on thy lonesome path, and we that are not so much afraid of carbuncled faces, pot-bellies and short breath, proceed along our road. But I too shall shortly leave you, my dearest companions. A generous stranger, whose name I may not yet mention, will animate my genius to the highest performances. He will in distant regions dispose me to receive the unction of idealism, and, if I may so speak, etherialize me. Our pious, warm-hearted Dietrich, with whom we have scarcely become acquainted, pursues his course along painted aisles and decorates his country's altars. What shall I say of thee, librarian, thou who standest before the empty bookcases, and hast not merely read, but literally swallowed, the works? O thou cormorant of erudition, thou of the sect of the Mussulman Omar, canker-worm of libraries, ravager of literature, thou that couldst destroy a new Alexandrian collection, simply by the excellent new device of drawing thy salary, not intellectually, but really, from its books. All the booksellers of the Roman empire ought to send thee round to reduce collections to atoms by thy destructive power, and create a demand for new works. Thou, more than reviewer and worse than Saturn, who only devoured what he had himself begotten: where are they, thy wards, thy pupils, that with their gilt backs and edges so sweetly smiled on thee? To silver hast thou turned them all, and allowed a short interval between their golden and silver age. Farewell thou too, Puritan, most ingenuous of mortals, thou hater of all poetry and lies. Reach me thy hand at parting, poor Crocodile, that already art swimming in tears. In the morass of a tavern must thou howl in future. In a better life we shall all see one another again."

As Edward was pensive, and Dietrich still a stranger in the company, and the librarian and Puritan made no grimaces, there prevailed, during and after this harangue, a profound silence, rendered the more solemn by the sobs and moanings of the bookseller, who had by this time emptied several glasses. "This is Twelfth night," said Edward, "and as it is the custom in many parts to make presents on this day, so I wish my old companions and friends to pass another convivial night with me."

"On this evening," proceeded Eulenböck, "there is no impropriety in deviating for once in a way from the usual routine of life. Hence games of chance were formerly customary at this season, though at other times they were forbidden. And how happy would it be for thee, friend Edward, if to-day thy lucky star were to rise again, and the impoverished spendthrift were favoured with a new fortune. One hears strange tales how young men, reduced by poverty to despair, have determined to hang themselves in their family mansion, and behold, down falls the nail with the beam of the ceiling, and with them at the same time many thousand gold pieces, which the prudent father had secreted there. Closely examined, a silly story. Was it possible then for the father to know that his son would have a particular partiality for hanging? Could he calculate, that the body of the desperate youth would retain substance enough to discover and pull down by its weight the hidden treasure? Might not the prodigal son before have wanted to fix a chandelier there, and so found the money? In short, a thousand solid objections may be made by rational criticism to this ill-contrived tale."