It is a real jubilee to
practise
one's
handicraft there on a grand scale.
handicraft there on a grand scale.
Friedrich Schiller
I will be measured for a conscience after the newest fashion,
one that will stretch handsomely as occasion may require. Am I to
blame? It is the tailor's affair? I have heard a great deal of twaddle
about the so-called ties of blood--enough to make a sober man beside
himself. He is your brother, they say; which interpreted, means that he
was manufactured in the same mould, and for that reason he must needs be
sacred in your eyes! To what absurd conclusions must this notion of a
sympathy of souls, derived from the propinquity of bodies, inevitably
tend? A common source of being is to produce community of sentiment;
identity of matter, identity of impulse! Then again,--he is thy father!
He gave thee life, thou art his flesh and blood--and therefore he must
be sacred to thee! Again a most inconsequential deduction! I should
like to know why he begot me;** certainly not out of love for me--for I
must first have existed!
**[The reader of Sterne will remember a very similar passage in the
first chapter of Tristram Shandy. ]
Could he know me before I had being, or did he think of me during my
begetting? or did he wish for me at the moment? Did he know what I
should be? If so I would not advise him to acknowledge it or I should
pay him off for his feat. Am I to be thankful to him that I am a man?
As little as I should have had a right to blame him if he had made me a
woman. Can I acknowledge an affection which is not based on any
personal regard? Could personal regard be present before the existence
of its object? In what, then, consists the sacredness of paternity?
Is it in the act itself out of which existence arose? as though this
were aught else than an animal process to appease animal desires. Or
does it lie, perhaps, in the result of this act, which is nothing more
after all than one of iron necessity, and which men would gladly
dispense with, were it not at the cost of flesh and blood? Do I then
owe him thanks for his affection? Why, what is it but a piece of
vanity, the besetting sin of the artist who admires his own works,
however hideous they may be? Look you, this is the whole juggle,
wrapped up in a mystic veil to work on our fears. And shall I, too, be
fooled like an infant? Up then! and to thy work manfully. I will root
up from my path whatever obstructs my progress towards becoming the
master. Master I must be, that I may extort by force what I cannot win
by affection. *
*[This soliloquy in some parts resembles that of Richard, Duke of
Gloster, in Shakespeare's Henry VI. , Act V. Sc. 6. ]
[Exit. ]
SCENE II. --A Tavern on the Frontier of Saxony.
CHARLES VON MOOR intent on a book; SPIEGELBERG drinking at the table.
CHARLES VON M. (lays the book aside). I am disgusted with this age of
puny scribblers when I read of great men in my Plutarch.
SPIEGEL. (places a glass before him, and drinks). Josephus is the book
you should read.
CHARLES VON M. The glowing spark of Prometheus is burnt out, and now
they substitute for it the flash of lycopodium,* a stage-fire which will
not so much as light a pipe. The present generation may be compared to
rats crawling about the club of Hercules. **
*[Lycopodium (in German Barlappen-mehl), vulgarly known as the
Devil's Puff-ball or Witchmeal, is used on the stage, as well in
England as on the continent, to produce flashes of fire. It is
made of the pollen of common club moss, or wolf's claw (Lycopodium
clavatum), the capsules of which contain a highly inflammable
powder. Translators have uniformly failed in rendering this
passage. ]
**[This simile brings to mind Shakespeare's:
"We petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about. "
JULIUS CAESAR, Act I. , Sc. 2. ]
A French abbe lays it down that Alexander was a poltroon; a phthisicky
professor, holding at every word a bottle of sal volatile to his nose,
lectures on strength. Fellows who faint at the veriest trifle criticise
the tactics of Hannibal; whimpering boys store themselves with phrases
out of the slaughter at Canna; and blubber over the victories of Scipio,
because they are obliged to construe them.
SPIEGEL. Spouted in true Alexandrian style.
CHARLES VON M. A brilliant reward for your sweat in the battle-field
truly to have your existence perpetuated in gymnasiums, and your
immortality laboriously dragged about in a schoolboy's satchel. A
precious recompense for your lavished blood to be wrapped round
gingerbread by some Nuremberg chandler, or, if you have great luck, to
be screwed upon stilts by a French playwright, and be made to move on
wires! Ha, ha, ha!
SPIEGEL. (drinks). Read Josephus, I tell you.
CHARLES VON M. Fie! fie upon this weak, effeminate age, fit for nothing
but to ponder over the deeds of former times, and torture the heroes of
antiquity with commentaries, or mangle them in tragedies. The vigor of
its loins is dried up, and the propagation of the human species has
become dependent on potations of malt liquor.
SPIEGEL. Tea, brother! tea!
CHARLES VON M. They curb honest nature with absurd conventionalities;
have scarcely the heart to charge a glass, because they are tasked to
drink a health in it; fawn upon the lackey that he may put in a word for
them with His Grace, and bully the unfortunate wight from whom they have
nothing to fear. They worship any one for a dinner, and are just as
ready to poison him should he chance to outbid them for a feather-bed
at an auction. They damn the Sadducee who fails to come regularly to
church, although their own devotion consists in reckoning up their
usurious gains at the very altar. They cast themselves on their knees
that they may have an opportunity of displaying their mantles, and
hardly take their eyes off the parson from their anxiety to see how his
wig is frizzled. They swoon at the sight of a bleeding goose, yet clap
their hands with joy when they see their rival driven bankrupt from the
Exchange. Warmly as I pressed their hands,--"Only one more day. " In
vain! To prison with the dog! Entreaties! Vows! Tears! (stamping
the ground). Hell and the devil!
SPIEGEL. And all for a few thousand paltry ducats!
CHARLES VON M. No, I hate to think of it. Am I to squeeze my body into
stays, and straight-lace my will in the trammels of law. What might
have risen to an eagle's flight has been reduced to a snail's pace by
law. Never yet has law formed a great man; 'tis liberty that breeds
giants and heroes. Oh! that the spirit of Herman* still glowed in his
ashes!
*[Herman is the German for Armin or Arminius, the celebrated
deliverer of Germany from the Roman yoke. See Menzel's History,
vol. i. , p. 85, etc. ]
Set me at the head of an army of fellows like myself, and out of Germany
shall spring a republic compared to which Rome and Sparta will be but as
nunneries. (Rises and flings his sword upon the table. )
SPIEGEL. (jumping up). Bravo! Bravissimo! you are coming to the right
key now. I have something for your ear, Moor, which has long been on my
mind, and you are the very man for it--drink, brother, drink! What if
we turned Jews and brought the kingdom of Jerusalem again on the tapis?
But tell me is it not a clever scheme? We send forth a manifesto to the
four quarters of the world, and summon to Palestine all that do not eat
Swineflesh. Then I prove by incontestable documents that Herod the
Tetrarch was my direct ancestor, and so forth. There will be a victory,
my fine fellow, when they return and are restored to their lands, and
are able to rebuild Jerusalem. Then make a clean sweep of the Turks out
of Asia while the iron is hot, hew cedars in Lebanon, build ships, and
then the whole nation shall chaffer with old clothes and old lace
throughout the world. Meanwhile--
CHARLES VON M. (smiles and takes him by the hand). Comrade! There must
be an end now of our fooleries.
SPIEGEL. (with surprise). Fie! you are not going to play the prodigal
son! --a fellow like you who with his sword has scratched more
hieroglyhics on other men's faces than three quill-drivers could
inscribe in their daybooks in a leap-year! Shall I tell you the story
of the great dog funeral? Ha! I must just bring back your own picture
to your mind; that will kindle fire in your veins, if nothing else has
power to inspire you. Do you remember how the heads of the college
caused your dog's leg to be shot off, and you, by way of revenge,
proclaimed a fast through the whole town? They fumed and fretted at
your edict. But you, without losing time, ordered all the meat to be
bought up in Leipsic, so that in the course of eight hours there was not
a bone left to pick all over the place, and even fish began to rise in
price. The magistrates and the town council vowed vengeance. But we
students turned out lustily, seventeen hundred of us, with you at our
head, and butchers and tailors and haberdashers at our backs, besides
publicans, barbers, and rabble of all sorts, swearing that the town
should be sacked if a single hair of a student's head was injured. And
so the affair went off like the shooting at Hornberg,* and they were
obliged to be off with their tails between their legs.
*[The "shooting at Hornberg" is a proverbial expression in Germany
for any expedition from which, through lack of courage, the parties
retire without firing a shot. ]
You sent for doctors--a whole posse of them--and offered three ducats to
any one who would write a prescription for your dog. We were afraid the
gentlemen would stand too much upon honor and refuse, and had already
made up our minds to use force. But this was quite unnecessary; the
doctors got to fisticuffs for the three ducats, and their competition
brought down the price to three groats; in the course of an hour a dozen
prescriptions were written, of which, of course, the poor beast very
soon died.
CHARLES VON M. The vile rascals.
SPIEGEL. The funeral procession was arranged with all due pomp; odes
for the dog were indited by the gross; and at night we all turned out,
near a thousand of us, a lantern in one hand and our rapier in the
other, and so proceeded through the town, the bells chiming and ringing,
till the dog was entombed. Then came a, feed which lasted till broad
daylight, when you sent your acknowledgments to the college dons for
their kind sympathy, and ordered the meat to be sold at half-price.
_Mort de ma vie_, if we had not as great a respect for you as a garrison
for the conqueror of a fortress.
CHARLES VON M. And are you not ashamed to boast of these things? Have
you not shame enough in you to blush even at the recollection of such
pranks?
SPIEGEL. Come, come! You are no longer the same Moor. Do you remember
how, a thousand times, bottle in hand, you made game of the miserly old
governor, bidding him by all means rake and scrape together as much as
he could, for that you would swill it all down your throat? Don't you
remember, eh? --don't you remember? ' O you good-for-nothing, miserable
braggart! that was speaking like a man, and a gentleman, but--
CHARLES VON M. A curse on you for reminding me of it! A curse on myself
for what I said! But it was done in the fumes of wine, and my heart
knew not what my tongue uttered.
SPIEGEL. (shakes his head). No, no! that cannot be! Impossible,
brother! You are not in earnest! Tell me! most sweet brother, is it
not poverty which has brought you to this mood? Come! let me tell you a
little story of my youthful days. There was a ditch close to my house,
eight feet wide at the least, which we boys were trying to leap over for
a wager. But it was no go. Splash! there you lay sprawling, amidst
hisses and roars of laughter, and a relentless shower of snowballs. By
the side of my house a hunter's dog was lying chained, a savage beast,
which would catch the girls by their petticoats with the quickness of
lightning if they incautiously passed too near him. Now it was my
greatest delight to tease this brute in every possible way; and it was
enough to make one burst with laughing to see the beast fix his eyes on
me with such fierceness that he seemed ready to tear me to pieces if he
could but get at me. Well, what happened? Once, when I was amusing
myself in this manner, I hit him such a bang in the ribs with a stone
that in his fury he broke loose and ran right upon me. I tore away like
lightning, but--devil take it! --that confounded ditch lay right in my
way. What was to be done? The dog was close at my heels and quite
furious; there was no time to deliberate. I took a spring and cleared
the ditch. To that leap I was indebted for life and limb; the beast
would have torn me to atoms.
CHARLES VON M. And to what does all this tend?
SPIEGEL. To this--that you may be taught that strength grows with the
occasion. For which reason I never despair even when things are the
worst. Courage grows with danger. Powers of resistance increase by
pressure. It is evident by the obstacles she strews in my path that
fate must have designed me for a great man.
CHARLES VON M. (angrily). I am not aware of anything for which we still
require courage, and have not already shown it.
SPIEGEL. Indeed! And so you mean to let your gifts go to waste? To
bury your talent? Do you think your paltry achievements at Leipsic
amount to the _ne plus ultra_ of genius? Let us but once get to the
great world--Paris and London! where you get your ears boxed if you
salute a man as honest.
It is a real jubilee to practise one's
handicraft there on a grand scale. How you will stare! How you will
open your eyes! to see signatures forged; dice loaded; locks picked,
and strong boxes gutted; all that you shall learn of Spiegelberg! The
rascal deserves to be hanged on the first gallows that would rather
starve than manipulate with his fingers.
CHARLES VON M. (in a fit of absence). How now? I should not wonder if
your proficiency went further still.
SPIEGEL. I begin to think you mistrust me. Only wait till I have grown
warm at it; you shall see wonders; your little brain shall whirl clean
round in your pericranium when my teeming wit is delivered. (He rises
excited. ) How it clears up within me! Great thoughts are dawning in on
my soul! Gigantic plans are fermenting in my creative brain. Cursed
lethargy (striking his forehead), which has hitherto enchained my
faculties, cramped and fettered my prospects! I awake; I feel what I
am--and what I am to be!
CHARLES VON M. You are a fool! The wine is swaggering in your brain.
SPIEGEL. (more excited). Spiegelberg, they will say, art thou a
magician, Spiegelberg? 'Tis a pity, the king will say, that thou wert
not made a general, Spiegelberg, thou wouldst have thrust the Austrians
through a buttonhole. Yes, I hear the doctors lamenting, 'tis a crying
shame that he was not bred to medicine, he would have discovered the
_elixir vitae_. Ay, and that he did not take to financiering, the
Sullys will deplore in their cabinets,--he would have turned flints into
louis-d'ors by his magic. And Spiegelberg will be the word from east to
west; then down into the dirt with you, ye cowards, ye reptiles, while
Spiegelberg soars with outspread wings to the temple of everlasting
fame.
CHARLES VON M. A pleasant journey to you! I leave you to climb to the
summit of glory on the pillars of infamy. In the shade of my ancestral
groves, in the arms of my Amelia, a nobler joy awaits me. I have
already, last week, written to my father to implore his forgiveness, and
have not concealed the least circumstance from him; and where there is
sincerity there is compassion and help. Let us take leave of each
other, Moritz. After this day we shall meet no more. The post has
arrived. My father's forgiveness must already be within the walls of
this town.
Enter SCHWEITZER, GRIMM, ROLLER, SCHUFTERLE, and RAZMAN.
ROLLER. Are you aware that they are on our track!
GRIMM. That we are not for a moment safe from being taken?
CHARLES VON M. I don't wonder at it. It must be as it will! Have none
of you seen Schwarz? Did he say anything about having a letter for me?
ROLLER. He has been long in search of you on some such errand, I
suspect.
CHARLES VON M. Where is he? where, where? (is about to rush of in
haste).
ROLLER. Stay! we have appointed him to come here. You tremble?
CHARLES VON M. I do not tremble. Why should I tremble? Comrades, this
letter--rejoice with me! I am the happiest man under the sun; why
should I tremble?
Enter SCHWARZ.
CHARLES VON M. (rushes towards him). Brother, brother! the letter, the
letter!
SCHW. (gives him a letter, which he opens hastily). What's the matter?
You have grown as pale as a whitewashed wall!
CHARLES VON M. My brother's hand!
SCHW. What the deuce is Spiegelberg about there?
GRIMM. The fellow's mad. He jumps about as if he had St. Vitus' dance.
SCHUF. His wits are gone a wool gathering! He's making verses, I'll be
sworn!
RAZ. Spiegelberg! Ho! Spiegelberg! The brute does not hear.
GRIMM. (shakes him). Hallo! fellow! are you dreaming? or--
SPIEGEL. (who has all this time been making gestures in a corner of the
room, as if working out some great project, jumps up wildly). Your
money or your life! (He catches SCHWEITZER by the throat, who very
coolly flings him against the wall; Moor drops the letter and rushes
out. A general sensation. )
ROLLER. (calling after him). Moor! where are you going? What's the
matter?
GRIMM. What ails him? What has he been doing? He is as pale as death.
SCHW. He must have got strange news. Just let us see!
ROLLER. (picks up the letter from the ground, and reads). "Unfortunate
brother! "--a pleasant beginning--"I have only briefly to inform you that
you have nothing more to hope for. You may go, your father directs me
to tell you, wherever your own vicious propensities lead. Nor are you
to entertain, he says, any hope of ever gaining pardon by weeping at his
feet, unless you are prepared to fare upon bread and water in the lowest
dungeon of his castle until your hair shall outgrow eagles' feathers,
and your nails the talons of a vulture. These are his very words. He
commands me to close the letter. Farewell forever! I pity you.
"FRANCIS VON MOOR"
SCHW. A most amiable and loving brother, in good truth! And the
scoundrel's name is Francis.
SPIEGEL. (slinking forward). Bread and water! Is that it? A
temperate diet! But I have made a better provision for you. Did I not
say that I should have to think for you all at last?
SCHWEIT. What does the blockhead say! The jackass is going to think
for us all!
SPIEGEL. Cowards, cripples, lame dogs are ye all if you have not
courage enough to venture upon something great.
ROLLER. Well, of course, so we should be, you are right; but will your
proposed scheme get us out of this devil of a scrape? eh?
SPIEGEL. (with a proud laugh). Poor thing! Get us out of this scrape?
Ha, ha, ha! Get us out of the scrape! --and is that all your thimbleful
of brain can reach? And with that you trot your mare back to the
stable? Spiegelberg would have been a miserable bungler indeed if that
were the extent of his aim. Heroes, I tell you, barons, princes, gods,
it will make of you.
RAZ. That's pretty well for one bout, truly! But no doubt it is some
neck-breaking piece of business; it will cost a head or so at the least.
SPIEGEL. It wants nothing but courage; as to the headwork, I take that
entirely upon myself. Courage, I say, Schweitzer! Courage, Roller!
Grimm! Razman! Schufterle! Courage!
SCHW. Courage! If that is all, I have courage enough to walk through
hell barefoot.
SCHUFT. And I courage enough to fight the very devil himself under the
open gallows for the rescue of any poor sinner.
SPIEGEL. That's just what it should be! If ye have courage, let any
one of you step forward and say he has still something to lose, and not
everything to gain?
SCHW. Verily, I should have a good deal to lose, if I were to lose all
that I have yet to win!
PAZ. Yes, by Jove! and I much to win, if I could win all that I have
not got to lose.
SCHUFT. Were I to lose what I carry on my back on trust I should at any
rate have nothing to lose on the morrow.
SPIEGEL. Very well then! (He takes his place in the middle of them,
and says in solemn adjuration)--if but a drop of the heroic blood of the
ancient Germans still flow in your veins--come! We will fix our abode
in the Bohemian forests, draw together a band of robbers, and--What are
you gaping at? Has your slender stock of courage oozed out already?
ROLLER. You are not the first rogue by many that has defied the
gallows;--and yet what other choice have we?
SPIEGEL. Choice? You have no choice. Do you want to lie rotting in
the debtor's jail and beat hemp till you are bailed by the last trumpet?
Would you toil with pick-axe and spade for a morsel of dry bread? or
earn a pitiful alms by singing doleful ditties under people's windows?
Or will you be sworn at the drumhead--and then comes the question,
whether anybody would trust your hang-dog visages--and so under the
splenetic humor of some despotic sergeant serve your time of purgatory
in advance? Would you like to run the gauntlet to the beat of the drum?
or be doomed to drag after you, like a galley-slave, the whole iron
store of Vulcan? Behold your choice. You have before you the complete
catalogue of all that you may choose from!
ROLLER. Spiegelberg is not altogether wrong! I, too, have been
concocting plans, but they come much to the same thing. How would it
be, thought I, were we to club our wits together, and dish up a
pocketbook, or an almanac, or something of that sort, and write reviews
at a penny a line, as is now the fashion?
SCHUFT. The devil's in you! you are pretty nearly hitting on my own
schemes. I have been thinking to myself how would it answer were I to
turn Methodist, and hold weekly prayer-meetings?
GRIMM. Capital!
one that will stretch handsomely as occasion may require. Am I to
blame? It is the tailor's affair? I have heard a great deal of twaddle
about the so-called ties of blood--enough to make a sober man beside
himself. He is your brother, they say; which interpreted, means that he
was manufactured in the same mould, and for that reason he must needs be
sacred in your eyes! To what absurd conclusions must this notion of a
sympathy of souls, derived from the propinquity of bodies, inevitably
tend? A common source of being is to produce community of sentiment;
identity of matter, identity of impulse! Then again,--he is thy father!
He gave thee life, thou art his flesh and blood--and therefore he must
be sacred to thee! Again a most inconsequential deduction! I should
like to know why he begot me;** certainly not out of love for me--for I
must first have existed!
**[The reader of Sterne will remember a very similar passage in the
first chapter of Tristram Shandy. ]
Could he know me before I had being, or did he think of me during my
begetting? or did he wish for me at the moment? Did he know what I
should be? If so I would not advise him to acknowledge it or I should
pay him off for his feat. Am I to be thankful to him that I am a man?
As little as I should have had a right to blame him if he had made me a
woman. Can I acknowledge an affection which is not based on any
personal regard? Could personal regard be present before the existence
of its object? In what, then, consists the sacredness of paternity?
Is it in the act itself out of which existence arose? as though this
were aught else than an animal process to appease animal desires. Or
does it lie, perhaps, in the result of this act, which is nothing more
after all than one of iron necessity, and which men would gladly
dispense with, were it not at the cost of flesh and blood? Do I then
owe him thanks for his affection? Why, what is it but a piece of
vanity, the besetting sin of the artist who admires his own works,
however hideous they may be? Look you, this is the whole juggle,
wrapped up in a mystic veil to work on our fears. And shall I, too, be
fooled like an infant? Up then! and to thy work manfully. I will root
up from my path whatever obstructs my progress towards becoming the
master. Master I must be, that I may extort by force what I cannot win
by affection. *
*[This soliloquy in some parts resembles that of Richard, Duke of
Gloster, in Shakespeare's Henry VI. , Act V. Sc. 6. ]
[Exit. ]
SCENE II. --A Tavern on the Frontier of Saxony.
CHARLES VON MOOR intent on a book; SPIEGELBERG drinking at the table.
CHARLES VON M. (lays the book aside). I am disgusted with this age of
puny scribblers when I read of great men in my Plutarch.
SPIEGEL. (places a glass before him, and drinks). Josephus is the book
you should read.
CHARLES VON M. The glowing spark of Prometheus is burnt out, and now
they substitute for it the flash of lycopodium,* a stage-fire which will
not so much as light a pipe. The present generation may be compared to
rats crawling about the club of Hercules. **
*[Lycopodium (in German Barlappen-mehl), vulgarly known as the
Devil's Puff-ball or Witchmeal, is used on the stage, as well in
England as on the continent, to produce flashes of fire. It is
made of the pollen of common club moss, or wolf's claw (Lycopodium
clavatum), the capsules of which contain a highly inflammable
powder. Translators have uniformly failed in rendering this
passage. ]
**[This simile brings to mind Shakespeare's:
"We petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about. "
JULIUS CAESAR, Act I. , Sc. 2. ]
A French abbe lays it down that Alexander was a poltroon; a phthisicky
professor, holding at every word a bottle of sal volatile to his nose,
lectures on strength. Fellows who faint at the veriest trifle criticise
the tactics of Hannibal; whimpering boys store themselves with phrases
out of the slaughter at Canna; and blubber over the victories of Scipio,
because they are obliged to construe them.
SPIEGEL. Spouted in true Alexandrian style.
CHARLES VON M. A brilliant reward for your sweat in the battle-field
truly to have your existence perpetuated in gymnasiums, and your
immortality laboriously dragged about in a schoolboy's satchel. A
precious recompense for your lavished blood to be wrapped round
gingerbread by some Nuremberg chandler, or, if you have great luck, to
be screwed upon stilts by a French playwright, and be made to move on
wires! Ha, ha, ha!
SPIEGEL. (drinks). Read Josephus, I tell you.
CHARLES VON M. Fie! fie upon this weak, effeminate age, fit for nothing
but to ponder over the deeds of former times, and torture the heroes of
antiquity with commentaries, or mangle them in tragedies. The vigor of
its loins is dried up, and the propagation of the human species has
become dependent on potations of malt liquor.
SPIEGEL. Tea, brother! tea!
CHARLES VON M. They curb honest nature with absurd conventionalities;
have scarcely the heart to charge a glass, because they are tasked to
drink a health in it; fawn upon the lackey that he may put in a word for
them with His Grace, and bully the unfortunate wight from whom they have
nothing to fear. They worship any one for a dinner, and are just as
ready to poison him should he chance to outbid them for a feather-bed
at an auction. They damn the Sadducee who fails to come regularly to
church, although their own devotion consists in reckoning up their
usurious gains at the very altar. They cast themselves on their knees
that they may have an opportunity of displaying their mantles, and
hardly take their eyes off the parson from their anxiety to see how his
wig is frizzled. They swoon at the sight of a bleeding goose, yet clap
their hands with joy when they see their rival driven bankrupt from the
Exchange. Warmly as I pressed their hands,--"Only one more day. " In
vain! To prison with the dog! Entreaties! Vows! Tears! (stamping
the ground). Hell and the devil!
SPIEGEL. And all for a few thousand paltry ducats!
CHARLES VON M. No, I hate to think of it. Am I to squeeze my body into
stays, and straight-lace my will in the trammels of law. What might
have risen to an eagle's flight has been reduced to a snail's pace by
law. Never yet has law formed a great man; 'tis liberty that breeds
giants and heroes. Oh! that the spirit of Herman* still glowed in his
ashes!
*[Herman is the German for Armin or Arminius, the celebrated
deliverer of Germany from the Roman yoke. See Menzel's History,
vol. i. , p. 85, etc. ]
Set me at the head of an army of fellows like myself, and out of Germany
shall spring a republic compared to which Rome and Sparta will be but as
nunneries. (Rises and flings his sword upon the table. )
SPIEGEL. (jumping up). Bravo! Bravissimo! you are coming to the right
key now. I have something for your ear, Moor, which has long been on my
mind, and you are the very man for it--drink, brother, drink! What if
we turned Jews and brought the kingdom of Jerusalem again on the tapis?
But tell me is it not a clever scheme? We send forth a manifesto to the
four quarters of the world, and summon to Palestine all that do not eat
Swineflesh. Then I prove by incontestable documents that Herod the
Tetrarch was my direct ancestor, and so forth. There will be a victory,
my fine fellow, when they return and are restored to their lands, and
are able to rebuild Jerusalem. Then make a clean sweep of the Turks out
of Asia while the iron is hot, hew cedars in Lebanon, build ships, and
then the whole nation shall chaffer with old clothes and old lace
throughout the world. Meanwhile--
CHARLES VON M. (smiles and takes him by the hand). Comrade! There must
be an end now of our fooleries.
SPIEGEL. (with surprise). Fie! you are not going to play the prodigal
son! --a fellow like you who with his sword has scratched more
hieroglyhics on other men's faces than three quill-drivers could
inscribe in their daybooks in a leap-year! Shall I tell you the story
of the great dog funeral? Ha! I must just bring back your own picture
to your mind; that will kindle fire in your veins, if nothing else has
power to inspire you. Do you remember how the heads of the college
caused your dog's leg to be shot off, and you, by way of revenge,
proclaimed a fast through the whole town? They fumed and fretted at
your edict. But you, without losing time, ordered all the meat to be
bought up in Leipsic, so that in the course of eight hours there was not
a bone left to pick all over the place, and even fish began to rise in
price. The magistrates and the town council vowed vengeance. But we
students turned out lustily, seventeen hundred of us, with you at our
head, and butchers and tailors and haberdashers at our backs, besides
publicans, barbers, and rabble of all sorts, swearing that the town
should be sacked if a single hair of a student's head was injured. And
so the affair went off like the shooting at Hornberg,* and they were
obliged to be off with their tails between their legs.
*[The "shooting at Hornberg" is a proverbial expression in Germany
for any expedition from which, through lack of courage, the parties
retire without firing a shot. ]
You sent for doctors--a whole posse of them--and offered three ducats to
any one who would write a prescription for your dog. We were afraid the
gentlemen would stand too much upon honor and refuse, and had already
made up our minds to use force. But this was quite unnecessary; the
doctors got to fisticuffs for the three ducats, and their competition
brought down the price to three groats; in the course of an hour a dozen
prescriptions were written, of which, of course, the poor beast very
soon died.
CHARLES VON M. The vile rascals.
SPIEGEL. The funeral procession was arranged with all due pomp; odes
for the dog were indited by the gross; and at night we all turned out,
near a thousand of us, a lantern in one hand and our rapier in the
other, and so proceeded through the town, the bells chiming and ringing,
till the dog was entombed. Then came a, feed which lasted till broad
daylight, when you sent your acknowledgments to the college dons for
their kind sympathy, and ordered the meat to be sold at half-price.
_Mort de ma vie_, if we had not as great a respect for you as a garrison
for the conqueror of a fortress.
CHARLES VON M. And are you not ashamed to boast of these things? Have
you not shame enough in you to blush even at the recollection of such
pranks?
SPIEGEL. Come, come! You are no longer the same Moor. Do you remember
how, a thousand times, bottle in hand, you made game of the miserly old
governor, bidding him by all means rake and scrape together as much as
he could, for that you would swill it all down your throat? Don't you
remember, eh? --don't you remember? ' O you good-for-nothing, miserable
braggart! that was speaking like a man, and a gentleman, but--
CHARLES VON M. A curse on you for reminding me of it! A curse on myself
for what I said! But it was done in the fumes of wine, and my heart
knew not what my tongue uttered.
SPIEGEL. (shakes his head). No, no! that cannot be! Impossible,
brother! You are not in earnest! Tell me! most sweet brother, is it
not poverty which has brought you to this mood? Come! let me tell you a
little story of my youthful days. There was a ditch close to my house,
eight feet wide at the least, which we boys were trying to leap over for
a wager. But it was no go. Splash! there you lay sprawling, amidst
hisses and roars of laughter, and a relentless shower of snowballs. By
the side of my house a hunter's dog was lying chained, a savage beast,
which would catch the girls by their petticoats with the quickness of
lightning if they incautiously passed too near him. Now it was my
greatest delight to tease this brute in every possible way; and it was
enough to make one burst with laughing to see the beast fix his eyes on
me with such fierceness that he seemed ready to tear me to pieces if he
could but get at me. Well, what happened? Once, when I was amusing
myself in this manner, I hit him such a bang in the ribs with a stone
that in his fury he broke loose and ran right upon me. I tore away like
lightning, but--devil take it! --that confounded ditch lay right in my
way. What was to be done? The dog was close at my heels and quite
furious; there was no time to deliberate. I took a spring and cleared
the ditch. To that leap I was indebted for life and limb; the beast
would have torn me to atoms.
CHARLES VON M. And to what does all this tend?
SPIEGEL. To this--that you may be taught that strength grows with the
occasion. For which reason I never despair even when things are the
worst. Courage grows with danger. Powers of resistance increase by
pressure. It is evident by the obstacles she strews in my path that
fate must have designed me for a great man.
CHARLES VON M. (angrily). I am not aware of anything for which we still
require courage, and have not already shown it.
SPIEGEL. Indeed! And so you mean to let your gifts go to waste? To
bury your talent? Do you think your paltry achievements at Leipsic
amount to the _ne plus ultra_ of genius? Let us but once get to the
great world--Paris and London! where you get your ears boxed if you
salute a man as honest.
It is a real jubilee to practise one's
handicraft there on a grand scale. How you will stare! How you will
open your eyes! to see signatures forged; dice loaded; locks picked,
and strong boxes gutted; all that you shall learn of Spiegelberg! The
rascal deserves to be hanged on the first gallows that would rather
starve than manipulate with his fingers.
CHARLES VON M. (in a fit of absence). How now? I should not wonder if
your proficiency went further still.
SPIEGEL. I begin to think you mistrust me. Only wait till I have grown
warm at it; you shall see wonders; your little brain shall whirl clean
round in your pericranium when my teeming wit is delivered. (He rises
excited. ) How it clears up within me! Great thoughts are dawning in on
my soul! Gigantic plans are fermenting in my creative brain. Cursed
lethargy (striking his forehead), which has hitherto enchained my
faculties, cramped and fettered my prospects! I awake; I feel what I
am--and what I am to be!
CHARLES VON M. You are a fool! The wine is swaggering in your brain.
SPIEGEL. (more excited). Spiegelberg, they will say, art thou a
magician, Spiegelberg? 'Tis a pity, the king will say, that thou wert
not made a general, Spiegelberg, thou wouldst have thrust the Austrians
through a buttonhole. Yes, I hear the doctors lamenting, 'tis a crying
shame that he was not bred to medicine, he would have discovered the
_elixir vitae_. Ay, and that he did not take to financiering, the
Sullys will deplore in their cabinets,--he would have turned flints into
louis-d'ors by his magic. And Spiegelberg will be the word from east to
west; then down into the dirt with you, ye cowards, ye reptiles, while
Spiegelberg soars with outspread wings to the temple of everlasting
fame.
CHARLES VON M. A pleasant journey to you! I leave you to climb to the
summit of glory on the pillars of infamy. In the shade of my ancestral
groves, in the arms of my Amelia, a nobler joy awaits me. I have
already, last week, written to my father to implore his forgiveness, and
have not concealed the least circumstance from him; and where there is
sincerity there is compassion and help. Let us take leave of each
other, Moritz. After this day we shall meet no more. The post has
arrived. My father's forgiveness must already be within the walls of
this town.
Enter SCHWEITZER, GRIMM, ROLLER, SCHUFTERLE, and RAZMAN.
ROLLER. Are you aware that they are on our track!
GRIMM. That we are not for a moment safe from being taken?
CHARLES VON M. I don't wonder at it. It must be as it will! Have none
of you seen Schwarz? Did he say anything about having a letter for me?
ROLLER. He has been long in search of you on some such errand, I
suspect.
CHARLES VON M. Where is he? where, where? (is about to rush of in
haste).
ROLLER. Stay! we have appointed him to come here. You tremble?
CHARLES VON M. I do not tremble. Why should I tremble? Comrades, this
letter--rejoice with me! I am the happiest man under the sun; why
should I tremble?
Enter SCHWARZ.
CHARLES VON M. (rushes towards him). Brother, brother! the letter, the
letter!
SCHW. (gives him a letter, which he opens hastily). What's the matter?
You have grown as pale as a whitewashed wall!
CHARLES VON M. My brother's hand!
SCHW. What the deuce is Spiegelberg about there?
GRIMM. The fellow's mad. He jumps about as if he had St. Vitus' dance.
SCHUF. His wits are gone a wool gathering! He's making verses, I'll be
sworn!
RAZ. Spiegelberg! Ho! Spiegelberg! The brute does not hear.
GRIMM. (shakes him). Hallo! fellow! are you dreaming? or--
SPIEGEL. (who has all this time been making gestures in a corner of the
room, as if working out some great project, jumps up wildly). Your
money or your life! (He catches SCHWEITZER by the throat, who very
coolly flings him against the wall; Moor drops the letter and rushes
out. A general sensation. )
ROLLER. (calling after him). Moor! where are you going? What's the
matter?
GRIMM. What ails him? What has he been doing? He is as pale as death.
SCHW. He must have got strange news. Just let us see!
ROLLER. (picks up the letter from the ground, and reads). "Unfortunate
brother! "--a pleasant beginning--"I have only briefly to inform you that
you have nothing more to hope for. You may go, your father directs me
to tell you, wherever your own vicious propensities lead. Nor are you
to entertain, he says, any hope of ever gaining pardon by weeping at his
feet, unless you are prepared to fare upon bread and water in the lowest
dungeon of his castle until your hair shall outgrow eagles' feathers,
and your nails the talons of a vulture. These are his very words. He
commands me to close the letter. Farewell forever! I pity you.
"FRANCIS VON MOOR"
SCHW. A most amiable and loving brother, in good truth! And the
scoundrel's name is Francis.
SPIEGEL. (slinking forward). Bread and water! Is that it? A
temperate diet! But I have made a better provision for you. Did I not
say that I should have to think for you all at last?
SCHWEIT. What does the blockhead say! The jackass is going to think
for us all!
SPIEGEL. Cowards, cripples, lame dogs are ye all if you have not
courage enough to venture upon something great.
ROLLER. Well, of course, so we should be, you are right; but will your
proposed scheme get us out of this devil of a scrape? eh?
SPIEGEL. (with a proud laugh). Poor thing! Get us out of this scrape?
Ha, ha, ha! Get us out of the scrape! --and is that all your thimbleful
of brain can reach? And with that you trot your mare back to the
stable? Spiegelberg would have been a miserable bungler indeed if that
were the extent of his aim. Heroes, I tell you, barons, princes, gods,
it will make of you.
RAZ. That's pretty well for one bout, truly! But no doubt it is some
neck-breaking piece of business; it will cost a head or so at the least.
SPIEGEL. It wants nothing but courage; as to the headwork, I take that
entirely upon myself. Courage, I say, Schweitzer! Courage, Roller!
Grimm! Razman! Schufterle! Courage!
SCHW. Courage! If that is all, I have courage enough to walk through
hell barefoot.
SCHUFT. And I courage enough to fight the very devil himself under the
open gallows for the rescue of any poor sinner.
SPIEGEL. That's just what it should be! If ye have courage, let any
one of you step forward and say he has still something to lose, and not
everything to gain?
SCHW. Verily, I should have a good deal to lose, if I were to lose all
that I have yet to win!
PAZ. Yes, by Jove! and I much to win, if I could win all that I have
not got to lose.
SCHUFT. Were I to lose what I carry on my back on trust I should at any
rate have nothing to lose on the morrow.
SPIEGEL. Very well then! (He takes his place in the middle of them,
and says in solemn adjuration)--if but a drop of the heroic blood of the
ancient Germans still flow in your veins--come! We will fix our abode
in the Bohemian forests, draw together a band of robbers, and--What are
you gaping at? Has your slender stock of courage oozed out already?
ROLLER. You are not the first rogue by many that has defied the
gallows;--and yet what other choice have we?
SPIEGEL. Choice? You have no choice. Do you want to lie rotting in
the debtor's jail and beat hemp till you are bailed by the last trumpet?
Would you toil with pick-axe and spade for a morsel of dry bread? or
earn a pitiful alms by singing doleful ditties under people's windows?
Or will you be sworn at the drumhead--and then comes the question,
whether anybody would trust your hang-dog visages--and so under the
splenetic humor of some despotic sergeant serve your time of purgatory
in advance? Would you like to run the gauntlet to the beat of the drum?
or be doomed to drag after you, like a galley-slave, the whole iron
store of Vulcan? Behold your choice. You have before you the complete
catalogue of all that you may choose from!
ROLLER. Spiegelberg is not altogether wrong! I, too, have been
concocting plans, but they come much to the same thing. How would it
be, thought I, were we to club our wits together, and dish up a
pocketbook, or an almanac, or something of that sort, and write reviews
at a penny a line, as is now the fashion?
SCHUFT. The devil's in you! you are pretty nearly hitting on my own
schemes. I have been thinking to myself how would it answer were I to
turn Methodist, and hold weekly prayer-meetings?
GRIMM. Capital!
