“Buy a donkey by all means,” said mein herr, “for a donkey, that is an ass, is classical. They are famous in sacred as well as in profane literature. No animal has always been so much the companion of man as the donkey, no one more valuable. An ox and an ass are what we are warned in the commandments not to covet, showing their universality in the days of Moses, besides being what any man in his senses would be most likely to covet. Asses are repeatedly mentioned in the Old Testament. Every one has heard of Balaam’s ass, who was so much wiser than his master. I have often noted the great injustice done to that ass. Balaam bestowed on him three very decided beatings; and although he was fully convinced afterwards that they were entirely undeserved, we have no record that he made the least apology or expressed the least regret. Now, even a donkey deserves justice. Asses have pervaded all ranks in life. There was Debbora the prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth; in the Canticle, where she addresses the brave princes of Israel, she adjures them as ‘you that ride upon fair asses, and sit in judgment, and walk in the way’; on the other hand, Job predicts woe to him ‘who hath driven away the ass of the fatherless.’ Certainly, asses were everywhere. When the wealth of Abraham was counted, he-asses and she-asses made a part of it; and when he was about to ascend the mountain to sacrifice his son Isaac, we are told that ‘he arose and saddled his ass.’ Then there was Abdon, eight years a judge of Israel, who had forty sons and thirty grandsons, ‘all mounted on seventy asses,’ are the words of history. Then there was the Levite of Mount Ephraim—ah! I forget his name—his wife left him and went to stay four months with her father in Bethlehem Juda, and when he went to bring her back, he took with him ‘a servant and two asses,’ one doubtless for her use. Then the jaw-bone of the ass made famous by Samson is well known, I mean the jaw-bone he wielded at Ramathlechi, when he put his thousand enemies to flight. Some of these animals possess virtues worthy of our own imitation; they have displayed oftentimes very great intelligence, and affection for those they serve; as in the case of a certain old prophet who went forth from Juda to Bethel to denounce Jeroboam, and, being misled and turned from his duty by a pretended friend, was killed by the way on his return home; his ass was found standing patient and watchful by the side of his dead master.”
Thus discoursed mein herr; his colloquial efforts were apt to be rather prolix and oratorical, but this was to be ascribed to his profession as lecturer; he was so much accustomed, when he had unearthed an idea, to follow it up and make the most of it—a sort of intellectual fox-chase.
Failing to keep pace with him over such extended and erudite ground, Jans had, nevertheless, a dim notion that it was something to own even one donkey, so he said:
“To-morrow I will buy a donkey.”
“Ah! yes,” said the Frau von Steufle, “and next market-day we will go with a donkey.”
“You will be wise to buy a donkey,” repeated mein herr, “for now I call to mind that Sancho Panza had one whose labors, as he tells us, half-supported his family. I am reminded, also, that the great Cervantes himself rode an ass, as he relates, on a pleasant journey from Equivias with two of his friends. They heard some one clattering up from behind and calling to them to stop, and when he at length overtook them it proved to be a student, who was mounted on an animal of the same sort; he no sooner learned their names than he flung himself off of his ass, says Cervantes, whilst his cloak-bag tumbled on one side, and his portmanteau on the other, and he hastened to express his admiration of the great author of Don Quixote.”[22]
Just at this point both meerschaum and pipe had given forth their last whiff, and the knitting-work had arrived at the middle of a needle; and as the great matter under discussion, the purchase, was considered as wisely decided in the affirmative, they mutually exchanged a kind “Gute Nacht” with the inevitable “Schlafen Sie wohl!”[23]
II.
The day after the above conversation, Jans left his home for a little business in a distant city, and several more elapsed before he returned with his purchase.
Oh! vain boast when Jans von Steufle declared, “To-morrow I will buy a donkey.”