"Well gentlemen, if it's the programme for each of us to bring his own pig to market, then I know of something better than anything yet proposed. I have in my cellar a well-sealed cask of '34 claret, so-called Swiss blood, which I bought myself in Basle more than twelve years ago. You are all so temperate and modest in your demands, that I have never ventured to tap the wine, and yet I have two hundred francs tied up in it, for there are just a hundred measures. I will give you the wine for what it cost, and reckon the cask as cheaply as possible, glad if I can only make room for something that will sell better, and may I never leave this place if such a gift wouldn't do us honor."
This speech, during which the three who had made their suggestions had already began to murmur, was scarcely ended, when Erismann, the other inn-keeper, took the floor and said:
"If this is the way it's going, I won't be left behind either, but am ready to declare that I think I have the best thing for our purpose, and that is my young milch cow, a thoroughbred Oberland, that I am just ready to sell if I can find a good purchaser. If we tie a bell round the neck of this handsome animal, a milking stool between her horns, adorn her with flowers--"
"And put her under a glass globe in the trophy hall!" interrupted Pfister, irritated; and with that, one of those thunderstorms broke that sometimes made the meetings of the Seven tempestuous, but only to be succeeded by sunshine that was all the brighter for what had passed. They all talked at once, defended their own proposals, attacked those of the others and accused one another of selfish motives. For they always came right out with what they thought, and settled matters by means of the plain truth, not by dissimulation and covering up, as a kind of false culture often leads men to do.
When the noise had become almost deafening Hediger tapped his glass loudly, and, raising his voice, said:
"Men! Don't get excited but let us proceed calmly to our goal. As trophies there have been suggested a cup, a plough, a complete canopy bed, a cask of wine and a cow. Permit me to examine your proposals more closely. Your cup, my dear Ruedi, I know well; it is a fixture in your shop, has been there in your show window for years and years; in fact, I believe it was once your masterpiece. Nevertheless, its antiquated form would forbid our choosing it and presenting it as new. Your plough, Chueri Syfrig, seems to be not absolutely practical after all, otherwise you would certainly have sold it three years ago. But we must bear in mind that our prize ought to give real pleasure to whoever wins it. Your canopy bed, on the contrary, Henry, is a novel and certainly a delightful idea, and it would undoubtedly occasion remarks of a very popular character. But to carry it out properly, would require plenty of fine bedding and that would exceed the sum we have fixed by too much for only seven people. Your 'Swiss blood' Lienert Pfister is good, and it will be still better if you will give us a cheaper price, and finally tap the cask for us so that we can have it to drink on our anniversaries. Finally, against your cow, Felix Erismann, there is nothing to be said except that she kicks over the pail regularly whenever she is milked. That is why you want to sell her; for, to be sure, that is not a pleasing habit. But what do you think? Would it be right if some honest young peasant won the animal, took it joyfully home to his wife, who would joyfully start to milk it, and then would see the sweet, frothy milk upset on the ground? Think of the poor woman's disgust, vexation, and disappointment, and of the embarrassment of the good marksman after this scene had been repeated two or three times. Yes, my dear friends, don't take it amiss, but it must be said: all our proposals have the common fault of thoughtlessly and hastily seeking to make the honor of the fatherland a source of profit and calculation. What if the same thing has been done thousands of times by high and low, we, in our circle, have not done it, and we wish so to continue. So let every man bear the cost of the gift without ulterior motive, so that it may really be a trophy of honor!"
The five profit-seekers who had hung their heads in shame, now cried in one voice, "Well said! Kaspar has spoken well," and they demanded that he himself should propose something. But Frymann took the floor and said:
"It seems to me that a silver cup is more suitable than anything else to be given as a trophy. It retains its value, cannot be used up, and is a handsome reminder of happy days and of the valiant men of the house. The house in which a silver cup is preserved can never quite decay, and who can say whether much else is not also preserved for the sake of such a memorial. And is not art given the opportunity by fashioning ever new and pleasing forms, to increase the variety of these vessels, and thus to exercise its creative power and to bear a ray of beauty into the most distant valley, so that gradually a vast treasure of precious prize-cups will accumulate in our fatherland, precious alike in form and metal? And how fitting it is that these treasures, scattered over the whole country, cannot be made to serve the common uses of every-day life, but in their pure brilliance, in their chaste forms, continue to keep the higher things before our eyes, and thus seem to hold fast the idea of unity and the sunlight of days ideally spent. Away then with the trash that is beginning to pile up in our trophy-halls, a prey to moths and to the most ordinary uses, and let us hold fast to the venerable old drinking-cup! Truly, if I were living in the days when all that is Swiss was drawing to its end, I could not imagine a more uplifting crowning festivity than to gather together the thousands and tens of thousands of cups of all sorts and shapes belonging to all the clubs, societies and individuals, in all their radiance of by-gone days, with all their memories, and to drink a last toast to the declining fatherland--"
"Hush, churlish guest! What unworthy thoughts!" cried the Upright and Staunch, and shuddered. But Frymann continued:
"As it becomes a man in the vigor of his prime sometimes to think of death, so, too, in a meditative hour he may turn his gaze on the certain end of his fatherland, that he may love its present all the more fervently, for everything is transitory and subject to change on this earth. Have not much greater nations than we perished? Or would you linger on like the Wandering Jew who cannot die, serving in turn all the new nations as they arise, he who buried the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans? No, a nation that knows that a time will come when it will no longer be makes all the more intense use of its days, lives so much the longer, and leaves a glorious memory; for it will not rest until it has brought to light and exercised the capabilities that lie within it, like a man who knows no rest until he has set his house in order before he leaves this life. That, in my opinion, is the chief thing. Once a nation has performed its task, what do a few longer or shorter days of existence matter? New figures are already waiting at the portals of their time. And so I must confess that once a year, during some sleepless night, or on quiet paths, I fall a prey to such thoughts, and try to imagine what the nation will be like that will some day hold sway in these mountains after we are gone. And each time I return to my work with greater energy, as if I could thus hasten the work of my nation so that that people of the future will walk over our graves with respect.