Eichendorff himself was a faithful public servant, and in the 'Life of a Good-for-Nothing' we have the confession only of what the author perhaps thought he would have liked to be, rather than of what he was. He was reverent and pious, and one of the most evenly balanced minds in all that circle of madcap poets. He has told us of those early days of the Romantic School and of the deep thrills which agitated the entire German people when Schelling, Novalis, the Schlegels, and Tieck began their life work in literature. And this work was done in the days when the sword of Napoleon hung suspended over Germany: in days when even the poet who was to sing the praises of the dolce far nicnte of Good-for-Nothingness was ready to give three years of his life for the defense of his native land. So far had literature and life lost sight of each other, and the men of vigorous action and solid achievement still sang sweetly of the blue flower and of the pleasures of idleness, leaving behind them a body of literature which, however unreal, will not lose its power to soothe and charm.
FROM 'OUT OF THE LIFE OF A GOOD-FOR-NOTHING'
The wheel of my father's mill rushed and roared again right merrily, the melting snow trickled steadily down from the roof, the sparrows twittered and bustled about. I sat on the door-sill and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes; I felt so comfortable in the warm sunshine. Just then my father came out of the house. He had worked since daybreak in the mill, and had his tasseled cap awry upon his head. To me he said:—"You Good-for-Nothing! There you are sunning yourself again and stretching and straining your bones tired, and leave me to do all the work alone. I cannot feed you here any longer. Spring is at the door; go out into the world and earn your own bread." "Now," said I, "if I am a Good-for-Nothing, well and good; I will go out into the world and seek my fortune." And really I was very well pleased, for it had shortly before occurred to me too to travel, when I heard the yellow-hammer, who always sung his note in autumn and winter so plaintively at our window, now calling again in the beautiful spring so proudly and merrily from the trees. I went accordingly into the house and got my violin, which I played quite cleverly, down from the wall; my father gave me besides a few groschens to take along, and so I sauntered out through the long village. It gave me in truth a secret pleasure when I saw all my old acquaintances and comrades, right and left, just as yesterday, and day before yesterday, and always, going out to work, to dig and to plow; while I thus wandered out into the free world. I called out to the poor people on all sides proudly and contentedly, Adieu! but nobody paid very much attention to it. In my soul it seemed to me like an eternal Sunday. And when I at last came out into the open fields, I took up my dear violin and played and sang as I walked along the highway....
When I presently looked about, a fine traveling carriage came up quite near to me, that may have been for some time driving along behind me without my having noticed it, since my heart was so full of music; for it went along quite slowly, and two ladies put their heads out of the carriage and listened to me. The one was particularly beautiful and younger than the other, but really both of them pleased me. When I now ceased singing, the elder one had the driver stop and spoke to me kindly: "Ah, you happy fellow, you know how to sing very pretty songs." To which I, not at all backward, answered, "If it please your Excellency, I may have some that are prettier still." Thereupon she asked me again, "Where then are you wandering so early in the morning?" Then I was ashamed that I did not know, myself, and said boldly, "To Vienna." Thereupon both spoke together in a foreign language that I did not understand. The younger one shook her head several times, but the other laughed continuously and finally called out to me, "Spring up behind us: we are also going to Vienna." Who was happier than I! I made a bow, and at a jump was on behind the carriage, the coachman cracked his whip, and we flew along over the glistening road, so that the wind whistled about my hat.
Behind me disappeared village, gardens, and church towers; before appeared new villages, castles, and mountains. Below me grain fields, copse, and meadows flew in many colors past; above me were countless larks in the blue air. I was ashamed to cry aloud, but inwardly I exulted, and stamped and danced about on the footboard of the carriage, so that I had nearly lost my violin which I held under my arm. As the sun, however, rose continually higher, and heavy white noonday clouds came up round about the horizon, and everything in the air and on the broad plains became so empty and close and still over the gently waving grain fields,—then for the first time came into my mind my village, and my father, and our mill, and how it was so comfortable and cool there by the shady pond, and that now everything lay so far, far behind me. I felt so strangely, and as if I must turn back again. I put my violin in between my coat and waistcoat, sat down full of thought upon the footboard, and fell asleep.
When I opened my eyes the carriage stood still under tall linden-trees, behind which a broad stairway led up between columns into a splendid castle. On one side, through the trees, I saw the towers of Vienna. The ladies, it appeared, had long since got out, and the horses were unharnessed. I was much frightened when I found myself all at once alone. As I sprang quickly up into the castle, I heard somebody above laughing out of the window.
In this castle it fared strangely with me. In the first place, as I was looking about in the wide cool hall, some one tapped me with a stick upon the shoulder. I turned quickly, and there stood a great gentleman in court dress, a broad scarf of gold and silk hanging down to his hips, with a silver-topped staff in his hand, and an extraordinarily long, hooked, princely nose, big and splendid as a puffed-up turkey, who asked me what I wanted there. I was quite taken aback, and for fear and astonishment could not bring forth a sound. Thereupon more servants came running up and down the stairs, who said nothing at all, but looked at me from head to foot. Straightway came a lady's-maid (as I afterward learned she was) right up to me and said that I was a charming fellow, and her ladyship desired to ask me whether I would take service here as a gardener. I put my hand to my waistcoat. My couple of groschens, God knows, must have sprung out of my pocket in my dancing about in the carriage, and were gone. I had nothing but my violin-playing, for which, moreover, the gentleman with the staff, as he said to me curtly, would not give a farthing. In my anguish of heart I accordingly said yes to the lady's-maid, my eyes still directed from one side to the uncomfortable figure which continually, like the pendulum of a steeple clock, moved up and down the hall, and just then again came majestically and awfully up out of the background. Last of all the head gardener finally came, growled something to himself about rabble and country bumpkins, and led me to the garden, preaching to me on the way a long sermon—how I should be sober and industrious, should not rove about in the world, should not devote myself to unprofitable arts and useless stuff: in that case I might in time be of some account. There were still more very pretty, well-put, useful maxims, only since then I have forgotten almost all of them again. On the whole, I did not really at all rightly know how everything had come about. I only said yes continually to everything, for I was like a bird whose wings had been wet. Thus I was, God be praised, in possession of my daily bread.
In the garden, life went on finely. I had every day my warm food in plenty, and more money than I needed for wine,—only, alas! I had quite a good deal to do. The temples, too, the arbors, and the beautiful green walks,—all that would have pleased me very well, if I had only been able to walk placidly about and converse rationally, like the ladies and gentlemen who came there every day. As often as the head gardener was away and I was alone, I immediately pulled out my short tobacco pipe, sat down and thought out pretty polite speeches, such as I would use to entertain the young and beautiful lady who brought me along with her into the castle, if I were a cavalier and walked about with her. Or I lay down on my back on sultry afternoons, when everything was so still that one could hear the bees buzzing, and watched the clouds as they floated along to my own village, and the grasses and flowers as they moved hither and thither, and thought of the lady; and then it often happened too that the beautiful lady, with her guitar or a book, really went through the garden at a distance, as gently, as lofty and gracious, as an angel, so that I did not rightly know whether I dreamed or was awake....
Close by the castle garden ran the highway, only separated from it by a high wall. A very neat little toll-keeper's house with a red tile roof was built there, and behind it was a little flower garden, inclosed with a gay-colored picket fence, which, through a break in the wall of the castle garden, bordered on its shadiest and most concealed part. The toll-keeper had just died, who had occupied it all. Early one morning while I still lay in the soundest sleep, the secretary from the castle came to me and called me in all haste to the head steward. I dressed myself quickly and sauntered along behind the airy secretary, who on the way, now here, now there, broke off a flower and stuck it on the lapel of his coat, now brandished his cane skillfully in the air, and talked to the wind all sorts of matters of which I understood nothing, since my eyes and ears were still full of sleep. When I entered the office, where it was not yet wholly light, the steward looked at me from behind a tremendous inkstand and piles of paper and books and a portly wig, like an owl from her nest, and began, "What's your name? Where do you come from? Can you write, read, and cipher?" When I had answered this affirmatively, he added, "Well, her ladyship designs to offer you, in consideration of your good behavior and your particular merits, the vacant toll-keeper's position." I went over quickly in my mind my previous behavior and manners, and I was obliged to confess that I found at the end, myself, that the steward was right. And so I was, then, really toll-keeper, before I was aware of it.