There is nothing more weird than to come unintentionally upon one’s own face in a mirror by the light of the moon. At the same moment a lumbering sleepy clock began to strike, and, moreover, it struck so long and so slowly that after the twelfth stroke I verily believed twelve hours had gone by, and it would have to begin over again and strike twelve once more. Between the last beat and the last but one, another clock struck very rapidly with a rasping shrillness, put out of temper perhaps by the dulness of its kinswoman. When at last both iron tongues subsided and the silence of death reigned in the house, it seemed to me suddenly as if I heard something slur and drag along the passage just outside of my door like the unsteady gait of a man. At last my door was opened, and slowly the late Dr. Saul Ascher walked into my room. A cold chill passed through my bones. I trembled like a leaf, and hardly did I dare to look at the ghost. He looked just the same as ever—the same transcendental grey waistcoat, the same abstract legs, and the same mathematical face; only that the latter was a little yellower than I remembered it, and the mouth, which had always formed two angles of 22½ degrees, was tightly shut, and the circles of his eyes had a longer radius. Wavering and leaning, as had been his custom, upon a slender stick, he approached me, and in his usual lazy dialect said pleasantly, “Do not be afraid, and don’t believe me to be a ghost. It is an illusion of the senses if you imagine you see a ghost. What is a ghost? Give me a definition. Deduce the conditions for the possibility of a ghost. In what reasonable relation to your reason would such a phenomenon be! Reason, I say Reason——”
And now the ghost proceeded to analyse Reason, quoting Kant, Part 2, Division 1, Book 2, Proposition 3, “The distinction between phenomena and noumena,” constructing the problematic belief in ghosts, piling syllogism upon syllogism with the logical conclusion that there is positively no such thing as a ghost. All the while the perspiration was cold upon my back, my teeth were chattering; in my terror I nodded unqualified assent to every sentence in which the spook-doctor had proved the absurdity of my fears, and the latter was demonstrating so eagerly that in a moment of abstraction, instead of his gold watch he pulled a handful of worms out of his vest pocket, and discovering his error he replaced them with ridiculous nervous haste. “Reason is the highest——” The clock struck one, and the ghost vanished.
Heinrich Heine (1799-1856).
TOURISTS AT THE BROCKEN.
UPON entering the Brocken-house a somewhat unusual romantic mood came over me. After long and lonely wanderings among rocks and hemlocks, one seems suddenly transported to a house in the clouds. I found the house full of guests; and as it becomes a man of wise foresight, I thought of the night and of the discomfort pertaining to a couch of straw. With a dying voice I ordered tea, whereupon the Herr host was so reasonable as to be convinced that an invalid like me must needs have a decent bed.... Having refreshed myself, I climbed up to the look-out, and found a diminutive gentleman with two ladies, one young, the other elderly. When I was a boy I thought of nothing but of wondrous fairy-tales, and every pretty woman with ostrich feathers on her head I took to be a fairy-queen. If by good chance the hem of her dress was bedraggled, I took her for a water-nymph. Had I looked upon the fair one with those boyish eyes, had I seen her then upon the Brocken, I should certainly have said to myself, this is the sylph of the mountain, and she has just uttered the charm which makes all below appear so wondrously beautiful. What relation the very lithe gentleman bore to the ladies whom he accompanied I could not ascertain. His was a thin peculiar figure. His little head, sparsely covered with grey hair, which fell over his low forehead nearly to his pale greenish eyes; his clumsy nose far protruding; his mouth and chin timidly drawing back in the direction of his ears. This little face seemed to be modelled out of a certain kind of delicate, yellowish clay, such as sculptors use for their first design; and when his narrow lips were shut tight, a thousand little folds, light and semi-circular, covered his cheeks. The little man did not say a word, only now and then, when the elder lady whispered something kind to him, he would smile like a pug with a cold in his head.... While we were speaking it began to grow dusk; the air grew chillier, the sun sank lower, and students, travelling journeymen, and a couple of honest bourgeois with their wives and daughters, crowded upon the platform to see the sunset. It is a marvellous sight, tuning the soul to prayer. During a quarter of an hour we all stood in solemn silence, and saw the gorgeous globe of fire slowly sink in the west; our faces reflected the evening glory, our hands were folded involuntarily; it seemed as if we stood a silent congregation in the aisle of a cathedral, and the priest was holding up the body of the Lord, and from the organ sounded Palestrina’s immortal anthem.
As I stood thus enwrapped in the fervour of devotion, I heard some one calling out beside me, “How beautiful is nature on the whole!” These words proceeded out of the overflowing breast of my room-mate, the young merchant. I was at once landed thereby in my work-day mood, and was now able to make a great many brilliant remarks to the ladies about the sunset. I escorted them to their room as if nothing had happened. I believe we talked about Angora cats, Etruscan vases, Turkish shawls, macaroni, and Lord Byron, from whose poems the elder lady recalled some sunset passages, which she recited with a pretty lisp and sigh. To the younger lady, who did not know English, and expressed a wish to read these poems, I recommended some excellent translations. Upon this occasion I did not fail to declaim, as it is my custom to do when conversing with young ladies, against Byron’s impiety, heartlessness, hopelessness, and heaven knows what all.
It was the coffee’s fault that I had forgotten my pretty lady. She was standing outside of the door with her mother and companion, preparing to get into the carriage. There was but just time for me to step up to her briskly and assure her that it was cold. She seemed displeased that I had not come sooner; but I smoothed the pettish frown from her fair brow by bestowing a wonderful flower upon her, which I had picked the day before from a steep precipice at the danger of breaking my neck. Her mother demanded the name of the flower, considering it improper as it were for her daughter to wear a strange, unknown flower upon her bosom. Her taciturn companion unexpectedly opened his mouth, counted the stamens of the flower, and dryly remarked that it belonged to the eighth class. It aggravates me when I see how God’s dear flowers are parcelled off into classes as well as we, and indeed, according to a method no less superficial—viz., the difference in the number of stamens. If there must be subdivision, it would be well to follow the suggestion of Theophrast, who would have flowers classified according to their spirit—that is, their fragrance. So far as I am concerned, I have my own system in natural science, and according to it I classify all things—into those that are good to eat, and those that are not.
Heinrich Heine.
MY APPRECIATIVE FRIEND.
HE called my attention to the utility and perfect adaptation of nature. The trees are green, it seems, because green is good for one’s eyes. I assented, and added that God has created cattle, because broth is strengthening to men, and that he has created asses that we might have a means of comparison, and that he has created man himself to eat broth and be no ass. My companion was enchanted to have found a congenial spirit; his countenance beamed happiness, and at parting he seemed deeply touched.