[JOURNEY TO MAINZ.]
Having occasion to go to Mainz, I sent overnight to apprise the ass, Katherinchen, and the groom of her bedchamber, Luy, that I should require the one to carry, the other to follow me to that place. Accordingly, when seven o'clock, the hour for my departure, arrived, on descending the staircase of the great Bad-Haus, I found Luy in light marching order, leaning against one of the plane trees in the shrubbery, but no quadruped! In the man’s dejected countenance, it was at once legible that his Katherinchen neither was nor would be forthcoming; and he had began to ejaculate a very long-winded lamentation, in which I heard various times repeated something about sacks of flour and Langen-Schwalbach: however, Luy’s sighs smelt so strongly of rum, that not feeling as sentimental on the subject as himself, I at once prevailed upon him to hire for me from a peasant a little long-tailed pony, which he accordingly very soon brought to the door. The wretched creature (which for many years had evidently been the property of a poor man) had been employed for several months in the dryest of all worldly occupations, namely, in carrying hard stone bottles to the great brunnen of Nieder-Selters, and had only the evening before returned home from that uninteresting job. It was evident she had had alloted to her much more work than food, and as she stood before me with a drooping head, she shut her eyes as if she were going to sleep. I at first determined on sending the poor animal back, but being assured by Luy that, in that case, she would have much harder work to perform, I reluctantly mounted her, and at a little jog-trot, which seemed to be her best—her worst—in fact, her only pace, we both, in very humble spirits, placidly proceeded towards Mainz.
Luy, who besides what he had swallowed, had naturally a great deal of spirit of his own, by no means, however, liked being left behind; and though I had formally bidden him adieu, and was greatly rejoicing that I had done so, yet, while I was ascending the mountain, happening to look behind me, I saw the fellow following me at a distance like a wolf. I, therefore, immediately, pulled at my rein, a hint which the pony most readily understood, and as soon as Luy came up, I told him very positively he must return. Seeing that he was detected, he at once gave up the point; yet the faithful vassal, still having a hankering to perform for me some little parting service, humbly craved permission to see if the pony’s shoes were, to use the English expression, “all right.” The two fore ones were declared by him (with a hiccup) to be exactly as they should be; but no sooner did he proceed to make his tipsy reflections on the hind ones, than in one second the pony seemed by magic to be converted into a mad creature! Luy fell, as if struck by lightning, to the ground, while the tiny thing, with its head between its legs (for the rein had been lying loose on its neck), commenced a series of most violent kicks, which I seriously thought never would come to an end.
As good luck would have it, I happened, during the operation, to cleave pretty closely to my saddle, but what thunder-clap had so suddenly soured the mild disposition of my palfray, I was totally unable to conceive! It turned out, however, that the poor thing’s paroxysm had been caused by an unholy alliance that had taken place between the root of her tail and the bowl of Luy’s pipe, which, on his reeling against her, had become firmly entangled in the hair, and it was because it remained there for about half a minute, burning her very violently, that she had kicked, or, as a lawyer would term it, had protested in the violent manner and form I have described.
After I had left Luy, it took some time before the poor frightened creature could forget the strange mysterious sensation she had experienced; however, her mind, like her tail, gradually becoming easy, her head drooped, the rein again hung on her neck, and in a mile or two we continued to jog on together in as good and sober fellowship as if no such eccentric calamity had befallen us.
As we were thus ascending the mountain by a narrow path, we came suddenly to a tree loaded with most beautiful black cherries evidently dead ripe. The poor idiot of Schlangenbad had escaped from the hovel in which he had passed so many years of his vacant existence, and I here found him literally gorging himself with the fruit. For a moment he stopped short in his meal, wildly rolling eyes, and looking at me, as if his treacherous, faithless brain could not clearly tell him whether I was a friend or an enemy: however, his craving stomach being much more violent than any reflections the poor creature had power to entertain, he suddenly seemed to abandon all thought, and again greedily returned to his work. He was a man about thirty, with features, separately taken, remarkably handsome: he had fine hazel eyes, and aquiline nose, and a good mouth; yet there was a horrid twist in the arrangement, in which not only his features but his whole frame was put together, which, at a single glance, pointed him out to me as one of those poor beings who, here and there, are mysteriously sent to make their appearance on this earth, as if practically to explain to mankind, and negatively to prove to them, the inestimable blessing of reason, which is but too often thanklessly enjoyed.
The cherries, which were hanging in immense clusters around us, were plucked five or six at a time by the poor lame creature before me, but his thumb and two fore-fingers being apparently paralyzed, he was obliged to grasp the fruit with his two smallest, and thus, by a very awkward turn of his elbow, he seemed apparently to be eating the cherries out of the palm of his hand, which was raised completely above his head.
Not a cherry did he bite, but, with canine voracity, he continued to swallow them, stones and all; however, there was evidently a sharp angle or tender corner in his throat, for I particularly remarked, that whenever the round fruit passed a certain point, it caused the idiot’s eyes to roll, and a slight convulsion in his frame continued until the cherry had reached the place of its destination.
The enormous quantity of ripe fruit which I saw this poor creature swallow in the way I have described quite astonished me; however, it was useless to attempt to offer him advice, so instead I gave him what all people like so much better—a little money—partly to enable him to buy himself richer food, and partly because I wished to see whether he had sense enough to attach any value to it.
The silver was no sooner in his hand than, putting it most rationally into the loose pocket of his ragged, coarse cloth trowsers, he instantly returned to his work with as much avidity as ever. Seeing that there was to be no end to his meal, I left him hard at it, and continued to ascend the hill, until the path, suddenly turning to the right, took me by a level track into the great forest.