Nor was I far wrong, I believe; for soon after this, he began quite coolly to inform the company, in which were a dwarf and a female, that, in his time, he had, not without enjoyment, run ten men through the body; had with great convenience hewed off a dozen men's arms; slowly split four heads, torn out two hearts, and more of the like sort; while none of them, otherwise persons of spirit, had in the least resisted: "but why?" added he, with a poisonous smile, and taking the hat from his odious bald pate: "I am invulnerable. Let any one of the company that chooses lay as much fire on my bare crown as he likes, I shall not mind it."
My brother-in-law, the Dragoon, directly kindled his tinder-box, and put a heap of the burning matter on the Ratcatcher's pole; but the fellow stood it, as if it had been a mere picture of fire, and the two looked expectingly at one another; and the former smiled very foolishly, saying: "It was simply pleasant to him, like a good warming-plaster; for this was always the wintry region of his body."
Here the Dragoon groped a little on the naked scull, and cried with amazement, that "it was as cold as a knee-pan."
But now the fellow, to our horror, after some preparations, actually lifted off the quarter-scull and held it out to us, saying: "He had sawed it off a murderer, his own having accidentally been broken;" and withal explained, that the stabbing and arm-cutting he had talked of was to be understood as a jest, seeing he had merely done it in the character of Famulus at an Anatomical Theatre. However, the jester seemed to rise little in favour with any of us; and for my part, as he put his brain-lid and sham-scull on again, I thought to myself; "This dungbed-bell has changed its place indeed, but not the hemlock it was made to cover."
Farther, I could not but reckon it a suspicious circumstance, that he as well as all the company (the Blind Passenger too) were making for this very Flätz, to which I myself was bound: much good I could not expect of this; and, in truth, turning home again would have been as pleasant to me as going on, had I not rather felt a pleasure in defying the future.
I come now to the red-mantled Blind Passenger; most probably an Emigré or Réfugié; for he speaks German not worse than he does French; and his name, I think, was Jean Pierre or Jean Paul, or some such thing, if indeed he had any name. His red cloak, notwithstanding this his identity of colour with the Hangman, would in itself have remained heartily indifferent to me, had it not been for this singular circumstance, that he had already five times, contrary to all expectation, come upon me in five different towns (in great Berlin, in little Hof, in Coburg, Meiningen and Bayreuth), and each of these times had looked at me significantly enough, and then gone his ways. Whether this Jean Pierre is dogging me with hostile intent or not, I cannot say; but to our fancy, at any rate, no object can be gratifying that thus, with corps of observation, or out of loopholes, holds and aims at us with muskets, which for year after year it shall move to this side and that, without our knowing on whom it is to fire. Still more offensive did Redcloak become to me, when he began to talk about his soft mildness of soul; a thing which seemed either to betoken pumping you or undermining you.
I replied: "Sir, I am just come, with my brother-in-law here, from the field of battle (the last affair was at Pimpelstadt), and so perhaps am too much of a humour for fire, pluck and war-fury; and to many a one, who happens to have a roaring waterspout of a heart, it may be well if his clerical character (which is mine) rather enjoins on him mildness than wildness. However, all mildness has its iron limit. If any thoughtless dog chance to anger me, in the first heat of rage I kick my foot through him; and after me, my good brother here will perhaps drive matters twice as far, for he is the man to do it. Perhaps it may be singular; but I confess I regret to this day, that once when a boy I received three blows from another, without tightly returning them; and I often feel as if I must still pay them to his descendants. In sooth, if I but chance to see a child running off like a dastard from the weak attack of a child like himself, I cannot for my life understand his running, and can scarcely keep from interfering to save him by a decisive knock."
2: In his Prince, a soldier reverences and obeys at once his Prince and his Generalissimo; a Citizen only his Prince.
The Passenger meanwhile was smiling, not in the best fashion. He gave himself out for a Legations-Rath, and seemed fox enough for such a post; but a mad fox will, in the long-run, bite me as rabidly as a mad wolf will. For the rest, I calmly went on with my eulogy on courage; only that, instead of ludicrous gasconading, which directly betrays the coward, I purposely expressed myself in words at once cool, clear and firm.