"You waited to finish your chapter," I said smiling.
"Yes, monsieur," he admitted; and we laughed together.
"However, if I had known it was you, I should have put it off till another time," he added.
A silence of some minutes followed, during which I studied the truly remarkable physiognomy of the dwarf: those deep wrinkles at the corners of his mouth, those little squinting eyes, the broad, unshapely nose rounded at the end, and especially his swelling, double-storied forehead. I noticed in his face something of the expression of Socrates, and as I warmed myself before the crackling blaze, I reflected upon the strange fortunes of certain of us.
"Here is this dwarf," I said to myself, "this unsightly, stunted creature, exiled into a corner of Nideck like the cricket that sings beneath the hearthstone; this Knapwurst, who, in the midst of all these excitements, hunting-parties and gay cavalcades going and coming, the baying of hounds, stamping of horses, and winding of the hunters' horn, lives quietly alone, buried in his books, and thinking only of times long past, indifferent whether all is in songs or tears around him, whether it is spring, summer, or autumn that comes to peep in at him through his little dusty window panes, reanimating, warming or chilling the breast of Nature outside. While others are living, blessed with the hope and magic of love, striving to gratify ambition or avarice, plotting, coveting, and longing, he hopes for nothing, covets nothing, wishes nothing. He sits and smokes his pipe, and with his eyes fixed on the old parchment before him, he dreams and revels in things that no longer exist, perhaps never had any existence—what matters it to him—'Hertzog says this,' 'such a one has it differently,'—and he is happy. His parchment skin gets more and more wrinkled, his sharp elbows dig holes in the table, while his long fingers bury themselves in his cheeks, and his little gray eyes roam over Latin, Greek, and Etruscan characters. He goes into ecstasies, he licks his lips like a cat who has just lapped up a saucer of cream, and then he lies down on his cot, with his knees drawn up under the coverlid, and thinks he has passed the best possible kind of a day. O God of Heaven! Is it at the top or at the bottom of the ladder that we find the true application of your laws, and the accomplishment of the duties you have imposed?"
Meanwhile the snow was melting from my legs, and the grateful warmth of the stove restored my spirits. I felt reanimated in this atmosphere of tobacco smoke and resinous pine. Knapwurst laid his pipe on the table, and passing his hand once more across the folio:
"Monsieur de la Roche," he said in a grave tone that seemed to come from the bottom of his conscience, or if you prefer, from the depths of a twenty-five gallon cask, "here is the law and the prophets."
"How do you mean, Knapwurst?"
"Parchment, old parchment, is what I love. These old yellow leaves, eaten by worms, are all that is left us of times long gone by, from Charlemagne to our own day. The ancient families have disappeared, but the old parchments remain. Where would be the glory of the Hohenstauferns, the Liningens, the Nidecks, and so many other noble families, were it not for these? Where would be the fame of their title-rights, their deeds of arms, their heroic actions, their distant expeditions to the Holy Land, their ancient alliances and claims, and their conquests, did they not stand in these chronicles? These lofty barons, dukes, and princes would be as if they never existed—they and everything relating to them far and near.
"Their great castles, fortunes, and palaces crumble and fall, and their ruins serve as vague reminders. Of all this a single memorial remains,—the chronicles, the history, the songs of bards and minnesingers,—parchment alone is left to us!"