Withered Leaves: A Novel. Vol. 2 (of 3)

by Rudolf von Gottschall

Blanden, at the first rush, could not attain the chief table; a subsiding wave, which came from the opposite direction, drove him back.

Upon looking around he perceived near to him several faces that he knew, also that of the ombre player, Milbe, who again was not in Kulwangen, but was here prosecuting his political efforts.

Milbe possessed an evil conscience, because he had not given his vote to Blanden, and tried not to perceive the latter. Sengen von Larchen, however, who stood close by, delighted him with shaking hands cordially.

Gradually Blanden succeeded in reaching the vicinity of the platform, where he espied several leaders of the political movement. There stood a little man, with lofty, thoughtful brow and the soft gaze of a large eye, the only person in the assembly who had appeared in a black frock-coat, with white cuffs. His opponents might, perhaps, compare him, the most feared of all the politicians in the town on the East Sea, with Robespierre, on account of that cleanliness; his beardless face made a thoroughly frank impression. His firm figure was not possessed of any quicksilver flexibility; everything about him was precision--certainly clearness. Although he had made himself renowned by his questions, he appeared much more like a man who is ready to, and capable of answering; all sparkling wit was foreign to him; he loved plain inferences from given premises; his logic was pure as his cuffs. As the doctor does his patient's, so did he feel the pulse of the State, and prescribed his remedies to the invalid. He possessed the indomitable equanimity of a stoic, and looked upon the necessary combination of affairs of this world with the eyes of a Spinoza. He was one of the most insignificant in the Assembly, but, like the homunculus in the bottle, he drew the fiery trail of a great reputation after him, and wherever he appeared he was greeted with special respect.

Beside him stood another agitator, whose entire appearance denoted him to be devoted to colour; he was artistically draped in a cloak with a velvet collar, while every possible gaudiness of waistcoat and necktie peeped forth between the folds; his head, as the Brussels citizen says in "Egmont," would be a real delight to an executioner, so splendidly it contrasted with the average heads of the throng, so brilliant is its colouring, so luxuriant the well-cared-for beard. He was the humourist of the party, a flourishing author; by some compared with Jean Paul, by others with Börne, and his satirical bees fluttered around a flowery abundance of pictures. No greater contrast could exist than that between this overflowing humourist and the staid political medical man by his side--the former revelling in the luxuriant complacency of an enthusiasm for freedom, which poured flowers, fruit and briars out of its horn of plenty; the latter, the man of dry formulas, of determined demands.

Near them stood other men of the party, teachers at girls' schools, pedagogues of great oratorical fluency, and some worthy citizens of intellectual pursuits. The master chimney-sweep, who passes his snuff-box round yonder, speaks of Kant and Feuerbach, as if they were customers for whom he sweeps soot out of their chimnies; he knows the construction of the philosophical systems as accurately as the construction of coke stoves, and at home possesses a library which many a professor might envy.

Now the President's hammer is heard; an amateur orchestra, consisting of members of the union, sends forth its mighty sounds from the platform, then patriotic songs are sung. All betokens warm participation; it is a society that betrays internal life. Thus also thinks that renowned author, a tall figure, with a wreath of hair round the crown of his head, an idealist of the purest water, who is making studies here of superior sociability, and, amidst the din of the present, seeks to solve a problem of the future. The young doctor, who now ascends the platform, is well-known to Blanden--it is the poet Schöner; he pushes his long black hair from his brow, and, with flashing eyes, and fiery pathos, recites a poem which lauds the Baltic country as the new home of political freedom. During the recital he was quivering from head to foot like a Shaker who is moved by his religious enthusiasm, but it was this peculiarity that acted with such electricity upon the crowd. Tempestuous applause rewards these poetical efforts. The Robespierre in the frock-coat addresses a warm laconic eulogium to the poet after he had descended from the platform; the humourist, with good-natured blue eyes, looks pleasantly at him through spectacles, and lauds his grand talent. The master chimney-sweep closes his snuff-box vigorously, a species of applause that he loves, and does the poet the honour of inviting him to a game of chess, a peculiar distinction which is only vouchsafed to favourites. Blanden, however, could not but say to himself that political lyrics had already reached that ominous turning point where phrases compensate for thoughts, and every variety of detonating rockets and fireworks have superseded the steady flame of pure enthusiasm.

Now his turn came; he knew that his appearance in the Citizen Assembly would be looked upon with suspicion by many of his equals, but he kept his object firmly before his eyes. His equals had dropped him, he turned to the great Liberal party, that was not bound to one district or circle of Government.

He possessed no stentorian voice, but his organ did not lack power and warmth, and a certain elegance of delivery kept people's interest awake. Many considered it greatly in favour of so respected a representative of the nobility of the country that he not merely mixed in the circle of the Königsberg citizens, but also participated in their intellectual guidance. His lecture presented a picture of the charters of 1830, and the development of the French constitution under the July Dynasty; he then pointed out the advantages which advanced States like France possessed over Prussia by means of their constitutions, and alluded to the development of public life which with us still is numbered amongst our sacred wishes. But then he showed how the provisions of the French charters were circumvented by the Government, and cast no favourable horoscope for the latter in the existing state of dull, mental fermentation; he criticised the limited right of election and the system of two chambers with acumen, daring which public opinion at that time did not venture to follow. All the same, his speech reaped stormy approval. Blanden could not but admit that this applause rewarded every speaker, who spoke in the spirit of the Assembly, and that when the good master sweep opened his lips and snuff-box simultaneously, so as to launch from the platform a few telling sentences in which his pinches of snuff formed the punctuation, he was greeted with similar applause. Still Blanden believed he had by means of this speech opened for himself a road to political consideration; at last he felt himself to be exalted and calmed; his glance into the future appeared freer, he saw an attainable goal before him. Torn from his solitary brooding in the echo of similar sentiments which met him, he at the same time greeted the certainty that his political convictions would also find a farther soil ready to receive them, that the path to statesman-like importance lay open before him.

Blanden's lecture was followed by a debate which commenced with the tickets of the box of questions; the first one concerned political discourses, should they be entirely excluded from these sittings? The committee pointed out that the object of these meetings was not political but social; that these discourses, however, might touch upon politics.