Tales of the Caravan, Inn, and Palace

by Wilhelm Hauff

The gate-keeper had no further objections to make, so the strange gentleman and his nephew drove into the town. The mayor and citizens, however, were not very well pleased with the action of the gate-keeper. He might at least have taken notice of a few words of the nephew's dialect, so that thereby it might have been easily ascertained from what country he and his uncle originally came. On this the gate-keeper asserted that his dialect was neither French nor Italian, but it sounded broad enough to be English.

Thus did the gate-keeper help himself out of disgrace, and at the same time supply the young man with a name. For every body now was talking about the young Englishman.

But, like his uncle, the young Englishman did not show himself either at the bowling alley or the beer table; but yet he gave the people much to busy themselves about in another way. For instance, it often happened that, in the formerly quiet house of the strange gentleman, such fearful cries and noises were heard, that the people would crowd together before the house and look up at the windows. They would then see the young Englishman, clad in a red coat and green knee-breeches, with bristly hair, and a frightened expression, run by the windows, and through all the rooms, with inconceivable rapidity, chased by his uncle, wearing a red dressing-gown, with a hunting whip in his hand; he often missed hitting him, but after a time the crowd felt sure that the young man had been caught, as the most pitiable cries and whip-lashings were heard. The ladies of the town now felt such a lively sympathy for the young man who was treated so cruelly that they finally prevailed on the mayor to take some steps in the matter. He wrote the strange gentleman a note, in which he expressed his opinion very emphatically about the way the young Englishman had been treated, and threatened that if any more such scenes occurred he would take the young man under his own protection.

But who could have been more astonished than was the mayor, when, for the first time in ten years, he saw the strange gentleman enter his house! The old gentleman excused his conduct, on the ground that it was in accordance with the expressed charge of the young man's parents, who had sent their son to him to be educated. This youth was in other respects wise and forward for his years, but he did not learn languages easily; and he was very anxious to teach his nephew to speak German fluently, that he might take the liberty of introducing him to the society of Gruenwiesel. And yet this language seemed so hard for him to acquire, that often there was nothing left to do but to whip it into him. The mayor expressed himself well satisfied with these explanations, only advising moderation on the old man's part; and he said that evening, over his beer, that he had seldom seen so intelligent and clever a man as the strange gentleman. "It is a pity," added he, in conclusion, "that he comes so little into society; still, I think that when the nephew is a little further advanced in German, he will visit my circle oftener."

Through this single circumstance, the public opinion of the town was completely changed. The stranger was looked upon as a clever man, wishes for his better acquaintance were freely expressed, and when, now and then, a terrible shriek was heard to come from the house, the Gruenwiesel people simply said: "He is giving his nephew lessons in the German language," and ceased to block up the street before his house, as they had been wont to do on hearing those cries. In the course of three months the German exercises seemed to be finished, as the old gentleman took another step in the education of his nephew. There lived a feeble old Frenchman in the town, who gave the young people lessons in dancing. The old gentleman sent for him one day, and told him that he wished his nephew to be instructed in dancing. He gave him to understand that while the young man was quite docile, yet where dancing was concerned he was rather peculiar; he had, for instance, once learned how to dance from another master, but so singular were the figures taught him, that he could not be taken out into society. But then his nephew believed himself to be a great dancer, notwithstanding the fact that his dancing did not bear the slightest resemblance to a waltz or a gallopade. As for the rest, he promised the dancing-master a thaler a lesson; and the Frenchman announced himself as ready to begin the instruction of this peculiar pupil. Never in the world, as the Frenchman privately asserted, was there anything so extraordinary as these dancing-lessons. The nephew, quite a tall, slim young man, whose legs were still much too short, would make his appearance, finely dressed in a red coat, loose green trousers, and kid gloves. He spoke but little, and with a foreign accent, was at the beginning fairly clever and well-behaved, but would suddenly break into the wildest leaps, danced the boldest figures that took away the master's sight and speech; and if he attempted to set him right again, the young man would draw off his dancing-shoes, and throw them at the master's head, and then get down on the floor and run about on all fours. Summoned by the noise, the old gentleman would then rush out of his room, attired in a loose red dressing-gown, with a gold-paper capon his head, and lay the hunting whip on the back of the young man without mercy. The nephew would thereupon scream frightfully, spring upon tables and bureaus, and cry out in an odd foreign tongue. The old man in the red dressing-gown would at length catch him by the leg, drag him down from a table, beat him black and blue, and choked him by twisting his cravat, whereupon he would become clever and decent again, and the dancing-exercise would continue without further interruption.

But when the Frenchman had advanced his pupil so far that music could be used during the lesson, there was a magical change in the nephew's behavior. A town musician was called in, and given a seat on the table in the salon of the desolate house. The dancing-master would then represent a lady, the old gentleman furnishing him with a silk dress and an Indian shawl; and the nephew would request the lady to dance with him. The young Englishman was a tireless dancer, and would not let the Frenchman escape out of his long arms, but forced him to dance, in spite of his groans and cries, till he fell down from fatigue, or until the fiddler's arm became too lame to keep up the music.

The dancing-master was nearly brought to his grave by these lessons, but the thaler that he received regularly every day, and the good wine that the old man set out for him, caused him to keep on, even though he firmly resolved each day not to enter the desolate house again.

But the inhabitants of Gruenwiesel took an altogether different view of the matter. They found that the young man must have sociable qualities; while the young ladies rejoiced that, in the great scarcity of young men, they should have so nimble a dancer for the forthcoming winter.

One morning the maids, on returning from market, reported to their mistresses a wonderful occurrence. Before the desolate house, a splendid coach, with beautiful horses, was drawn up, with a footman in rich livery holding open the door. Thereupon the door of the desolate house was opened, and two richly dressed gentlemen stepped out, one of whom was the old gentleman and the other probably the young Englishman, who had had such a hard time in learning German, and who danced so actively. Both men took seats in the coach, the footman sprang up on the rack at the back, and the coach--just think of it!--had been driven up to the mayor's door.