Ex Libris C. K. OGDEN THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES IDEAS. IDEAS. 1826 A TRANSLATION BY I. B. ilontfon MACMILLAN AND CO. 1884 CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS. TO EVELINA INSCRIBES THESE PAGES A TRIBUTE OF FRIENDSHIP, AND OF LOVE. NOTE. " EVERY great man," says Novalis, " must be haunted by a spirit which at the same time parodies and idealises actually existing things. With some men it would appear as though the spirit by which they are possessed drove them into making faces at things of sense and reality." * And in this light the student will often have to regard Heine. By those who have the sympathy to perceive the undercurrent of his thought, the superficial expressions of levity, scoffing, and buffoonery, which are a stumbling-block to some, will appear no more than the "grimace" hiding "genuine laughter." It is only to such that this imperfect trans- lation of a small portion of Heine's " Reisebilder " is offered. There has been no endeavour to adapt it specially to English or to personal likings, but rather to give Heine (as far as lay within the translator's power) as he gives himself. * "Einen jeden vorziiglichen Menschen musz gleichsam ein Geist zu durchschweben scheinen der die sichtbare Erscheinung idealisch parodirt. " Bei manchen Menschen ist es, als ob dieser Geist der sichtbaren Erscheinung ein Gesicht schnitte." NOVALIS. The race of (Erindur, Our throne's mighty stay, Shall abide, e'en if Nature Hurl it away. Milliner. REMARKS. Page 9, line 6 : Omit the word " sad." Page 10, line 13 : Read "one plays" instead of the word " games." Page 21, line 14 : Read "maidens with their flatteries ;" instead of " fond maidens." Page 22, line 15 : Read "sing to us again about the dreams" instead of " sing us again the songs." Page 29, line 14: Read "bore an expression of natural piety " instead of " compressed like a nun's." Page 38, line 13: Read "rejoicing in" instead of "drunk with." Page 54, lines 2 and 3 : Read " this aforesaid ' sheep ' " instead of " our ' muttons '." Page 63, line 6 : Read " bravado" instead of "anger." Page 69, line 16 : Read "drum" instead of "drums." Page 75, lines 9 and 10: Read 11 leaving spirits out of the question I have not even once seriously summoned authors to my aid," instead of " I have not even once conjured with either ghosts or authors." Page 78, line i : Omit the word "and " and join "soup- flesh-pots " by hyphens. Page 8 1, line 5 : Read "thoroughness" instead of "in- vention." Page 1 20, line 2 : Read "good and prompt" instead of "the best." IDEAS. BUCK LE GRAND. CHAPTER I. She was amiable and he loved her ; he however - was not amiable, and she did not love him. Old Play. FAIR lady, do you know the old play ? It is a very remarkable one, only rather too melancholy. Once upon a time I acted the chief part, making all the ladies weep; only one remained obdurate, not dropping a single tear ; and this was just the point of the play, the real catastrophe. O, this single sad tear ! To think of it gives me pain; when Satan desires my soul's overthrow he whispers into my ear a song of this unwept tear, a song of ill omen, set to music of worse omen still. Ah ! only in Hell is such music heard You may imagine, fair lady, what life in Heaven is like; particularly as you are married. No want io IDEAS : BUCK LE GRAND. of fun there, the amusements are manifold and people are quite engrossed with enjoyment and pleasure. It is a very land of Cocaign. Eating and drinking go on from morn till night, the cuisine is as good as that at Jagor's Restau- rant, roasted geese fly about, carrying in their beaks tureens of gravy, and feel themselves flattered if they are eaten; cheese-cakes grow wild, like sun- flowers ; soup and champagne flow around, there are trees with waving napkins, and people eat, wipe their mouths, and go on eating without bringing on a fit of indigestion ; there is psalm-singing, and games and jokes with the dear, tender little angels, or walks across the green hallelujah meadow, and white flowing garments are draped lightly about one's limbs, and nothing disturbs the feeling of bliss, no sorrow, no pain ; even if, by mistake, one person treads on the corns of another, and calls out " Excusez" the latter smiles blissfully and assures him : " Brother, I do not feel the tread of thy foot, but au contraire, my heart only tastes through it a still diviner and more enchanting bliss." But of Hell, fair lady ! you have no conception. Possibly of all the devils you know only the one of the least consequence, that tiny Beelzebub named HEINE'S REISEBILDER. II Cupid, Hell's polite croupier. You derive your no- tions of Hell only from Don Juan, and because this deceiver of women sets a bad example you cannot conceive a place hot enough, although our most esteemed stage-managers let off as many fireworks, sparks, squibs, and as much powder as any good Christian can desire to see in Hell. But matters are far worse in Hell, than any of our stage-managers know of, otherwise they would not put so many bad pieces on the boards. In Hell it is hellishly hot, and once upon a time, when I was there in the dog-days, I found it unendurable. You have no conception of Hell, fair lady. We get few official bulletins thence. That the poor souls down there have to read all day long the bad sermons printed up above is a calumny. It is not quite so bad as that, and Satan would never invent such re- fined tortures. Dante's account, on the other hand, is rather too moderate, altogether too poetical. To me Hell appeared like a great middle-class kitchen, containing a stove of endless length, on which stood three rows of iron pots, in which the condemned were being roasted. In one row sat the Christian sinners ; and, would you believe it ! their number was not small, and the devils were particularly active in making up 12 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. the fire beneath them. In another row sat the Jews, constantly screaming, and sometimes getting teased by the devils, and it was droll to see how some fat puffing money-lender complained of too great heat, and a small devil poured a jug of cold water over his head, so that he might acknowledge Baptism to be a true and refreshing benefit. In the third row sat the Heathens who, like the Jews, cannot partake of eternal bliss, and must go into everlasting fire. I heard one of these call out fret- fully from his pot to one of the clumsy devils making up the fire underneath : " Have a care, I was Socrates, the wisest of mortals; I taught truth and justice, and devoted my life to virtue." But the clumsy stupid devil did not allow him- self to be disturbed, and muttered : " What of that ! all heathens must burn, and we can make no exceptions for individuals." .... I assure you, fair lady ! the heat was terrible, and such a screaming, sighing, groaning, sobbing, cursing, and gnashing of teeth and through all these terrible sounds, could be clearly heard that terrible melody of the song of the unwept tear. CHAPTER II. She was amiable and he loved her ; he however was not amiable and she did not love him . Old Play. FAIR lady ! the old play is a tragedy, though the hero does not fall by the hand of another or of himself. The eyes of the heroine are beautiful, most beautiful fair lady, do you not smell violets ? most beautiful, and yet so piercing, that they pierced my heart like crystal daggers, and might be seen coming out at my back and yet, these murderous eyes could not kill me. The voice of the heroine is beautiful too fair lady ! did you not hear the nightingale sing? a beautiful silken voice, a web of happy tones, and my soul was taken in its meshes and was tortured and strangled thereby. I myself the speaker now is the Count of Ganges, and the scene of the story is laid in Venice I myself had had enough of these 14 IDEAS : BUCK LE GRAND. tortures, and I thought of making an end of the play in the very first act, and of shooting off my head with its cap and bells. So I went to a shop containing fancy wares in "Via Burstah," where I saw exhibited a box with two beautiful pistols, I can remember it well ; next to it stood many pretty toys wrought in gold and mother-of-pearl, iron hearts attached to gilded chains, china cups bear- ing tender mottoes, snuff-boxes with pretty pictures, as for example the divine story of Susannah, the death-song of Leda, the rape of the Sabines, the stout and virtuous Lucretia with bared bosom into which she thrusts a dagger after due reflection, the deceased Bethmann, la belle ferroniere, all bewitching faces and yet I bought the pistols without much bartering, and then, powder and shot, and thereupon went to the underground eating-house of "Signor Greed," where I ordered oysters and a glass of Rhine-wine. I could not eat, much less drink. Hot tears dropped into my glass, in which I saw reflected my beloved mother-country, the blue and holy Ganges, the ever-glistening Himalaya mountains, gigantic banana woods with wise elephants and white pilgrims silently wandering along their broad paths ; strange dreamy flowers gazed at me, admonishing HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 15 me in secret, golden birds of paradise sang wildly, gleaming sunbeams and joking voices of laughing apes were my pleasing pastime. From distant pa- godas came the sound of pious prayers, and between whiles the heart-stirring complaint of the Sultana of Delhi could be heard. Wildly she tore up and down her carpeted boudoir, tearing her silver veil, and knocking down her black maid with her fan of pea- cock feathers, weeping, raging and screaming. But to me she remained incomprehensible ; the eating- house of Signor Greed is three thousand miles away from the harem at Delhi, and besides, the beautiful Sultana died three thousand years ago : and I drank up the wine quickly, the clear sparkling wine, but notwithstanding my spirit drooped and grew sadder. .... They had condemned me to death When I again ascended the stairs of the eating- house I heard the passing-bell. Crowds of people went by; I stood at the corner of the Strada San Giovanni and delivered the following monologue : In tales of yore, we hear of golden castles Where harps resound and joyous maidens dance, Gay servants rush about, and jessamine And myrtles with sweet roses scent the air And yet one single word can break the spell, Turning to nothingness the present splendour ; 16 IDEAS: BUCH LE GRAND. And all that's left is but a heap of ruin, With ugly swamps and screeching birds of prey. And so with me by one poor paltry word I've cast away my heav'n of happy hope ; Cold, without life, and dim it lies before me, As one might see a monarch's corpse laid out, With his dead cheeks painted a rosy red, Bearing the regal sceptre in his hand, But on his lips a yellow faded hue Is all we see for paint has been forgotten, And mice tear up and down the royal nose, Laughing to scorn his mighty, golden sceptre. It is the correct thing, fair lady, to deliver a monologue before committing suicide. On such an occasion most people make use of Hamlet's " To be, or not to be." It is a good speech, and I would fain have given it here, but one naturally thinks first of oneself, and when people have written tragedies like mine, which contain such death-bed speeches as, for instance, that of the immortal "Almansor," then it is very natural that one's own words should take precedence even of those of Shakespeare. In any case these speeches are a good custom ; time is gained. And so it came to pass that I remained rather too long at the corner of the Strada San Giovanni, and as I stood there, a doomed man, I suddenly beheld her ! She wore her blue silk dress and rose-coloured HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 17 hat, and she looked kindly at me, and appeared to promise me life instead of death. Fair lady ! you know from your Roman history that, when the vestal virgins in old Rome met a culprit led to execution, they had the right to pardon him, and the poor rogue's life was saved. With one look she saved my life, and I stood before her a new creature, dazzled by the brightness of her beauty. And she passed on and let me live. CHAPTER III. AND she let me live, and I live ; and that is my chief concern. Let others take pleasure in beholding their loved ones deck their graves with flowers and water them with faithful tears. O women ! hate me, laugh at me, jilt me ! but let me live ! Life is so divinely sweet and the world is so delightfully confused ; it is the dream of a drunken god, who, having stolen away d la frartfaise from the feasting divinities, has fallen asleep on a solitary star, and is unconscious of the fact that he is himself the creator of his dream's substance ; and the dreams are often madly lurid, often full of wise design. There are a few good ideas in this creative and divine dream, such as the Iliad, Plato, the battle of Marathon, Moses, the Venus de Medicis, the Strasbourg Cathedral, the French Revolution, Hegel, steamers, etc.; but it IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. 19 won't be long before the god awakes, rubbing his sleepy eyes and smiling and our world will have melted away; indeed there will never have been such a place. But what is this to me ? I live. And if I am only the shadow of a dream, this is better than the cold, black, empty nothingness of death. Life is the highest good, and death the worst evil. Let Berlin lieutenants laugh and call it cowardice for the Prince of Homburg to shudder, as he looks into his open grave yet Heinrich Kleist* had as much courage as his high-shouldered, tight-laced com- panions, and alas ! he showed it. But all vigorous people love life. Goethe's Egmont feels pain at parting "from the pleasant habit of existence and action." Immermann's Edwin is- as dependent on life for his happiness as " the child on its mother's breast ; " and though he finds it a struggle to be dependent for his life on the mercy of another, he still prays for mercy : For life and breath belong unto the Highest. When in Hades, Odysseus beholds Achilles as the leader of dead heroes and praises him for the * H. K. committed suicide, B 2 20 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. honour accorded to him by the living, and for the reverence in which he is held even by the dead, the latter answers : Speak not to me of comfort in death, oh noble Odysseus ! Rather indeed would I work in the fields as the commonest herdsman Serving a man of small means, without heirs or worldly possessions, Than to be monarch in hell, and rule o'er all the departed. Yes, when Major Duvent challenged the great Israel Loewe, and said to him : " If you do not accept my challenge, Herr Loewe, you are a dog," the latter replied: "I would rather be a live dog, than a dead Lion" And he was right. I have fought duels enough to be able to say this, fair lady. Thank God, I live! The red blood flows in my veins, the earth trembles beneath my feet, I embrace trees and statues in my enthusiasm and they spring into life in my embrace. All women form my world ; I delight in the charms of their countenances, and I can enjoy with a single glance of my eyes more than others in a lifetime with all their limbs. For me, every moment is of infinite duration ; I do not measure time with a yard-measure, and no priest need promise me another life, as I can get enough out of this present life "by making the experience HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 21 of my ancestors mine, and thus living backwards gain Eternity in the Past. And I live ! Nature's heart-beats pulsate through my heart also, and when I rejoice I am answered by a thousand echoes. I hear a thousand nightingales. Spring has sent them to awake the earth out of her slumbers, and the earth trembles with delight; her flowers are hymns which she sings to the sun in her worship. The sun moves far too slowly, I would like to whip up his steeds in order to drive them on faster but when he sets in the foaming billows, and great Night draws on with her large dreamy eyes, oh ! then only do I experience true joy ; evening zephyrs woo my beating heart, like fond maidens the stars beckon, and I arise and hover above this paltry earth and the paltry thoughts of men. CHAPTER IV. BUT the day will come when the fire in my veins will be quenched. There is winter in my heart, its white flakes sparingly cover my head, and its fogs obscure my sight. My friends repose in weather-beaten tombs, I alone remain behind like a lonely blade of grass forgotten by the mower ; a new generation has arisen with new desires and new ideas ; with astonishment I hear new names and new songs. The old names are forgotten, and I myself am forgotten, perhaps honoured by a few, laughed at by many, and loved by none ! And rosy youths rush up to me, placing the old harp in my trembling hand, and say laughingly : " Thou hast been silent long, thou lazy graybeard, sing us again the songs of thy youth." Then I seize hold of my harp; the old joys and troubles awake, the fogs disappear and tears flow again from my frozen eyes ; once more there is Spring in my heart, sweet notes of sorrow tremble IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. 23 from the harp-strings, again I see the blue river, the marble palaces, and the faces of beautiful girls and women and I sing a song of the flowers of the Brenta. It will be my last song, the stars will gaze on me, as in the nights of my youth. The impassioned moon kisses my cheeks, spirits of dead nightingales sing to me in choruses in the distance, my eyes are heavy with sleep, my spirit passes away like the tones of my harp, the flowers of the Brenta are full of scent. A tree will overshadow my grave. I would have chosen a palm-tree, but they do not thrive in northern climes. Probably it will be a linden-tree, and on summer evenings loving couples will sit and talk beneath it; the greenfinch swinging on the branches listens in silence ; my linden waves its boughs in sympathy over their happy heads, so happy that they cannot find time to read what is written on the white tombstone. But if in time to come the lover should lose his beloved, then he will return to the well-known linden-tree ; he will sigh and weep, and look long and often at the tombstone on which he will read the words : He loved the flowers of the Brenta. CHAPTER V. FAIR lady ! I did not tell you the truth. I am not the Count of Ganges. I have never seen the sacred river or the lotos-flowers reflected in its clear and holy waters. Never have I dreamed beneath Indian palms, or knelt before the diamond God of Jugger- naut who could so easily have helped me. I have never been to Calcutta, any more than has the roast turkey I ate yesterday. But my ancestors came from Hindostan, and that is why I rejoice in the great musical forests of Valmikij the heroic sufferings of the divine Ramo touch my heart like an old sorrow ; from the sweet songs of Kalidasa I reap delightful recollections, and when some years ago, a kind lady :n Berlin showed me the pretty pictures which her father had brought from India where he had long been governor, the delicately-painted, saintly faces seemed IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. 25 so familiar to me, that I imagined I was looking at my own family portraits. Franz Bopp surely, fair lady, you have read his " Nalus," and his Sanscrit Grammar gave me a good deal of information concerning my ancestors, and I now know for certain that I am descended from the brain, and not from the corns of Brahma. I suspect that the entire Mahabarata, with its two hundred thousand verses, is only an allegorical love-letter, which my great-grandfather wrote to my great-grand- mother. Oh ! how they loved each other ! their souls met, their eyes met, they met in one long embrace. An enchanted nightingale is sitting on a red coral branch in the placid ocean singing a song of my ancestors' love, pearls peep wonderingly out of the cavities of their shells, wondrous water-lilies tremble with sadness, wise sea-creatures creep along bearing bright little china towers on their backs, sea-anemones blush with confusion, yellow pointed starfish and many-coloured transparent jelly-fish move about and stretch themselves, and everything is teeming with life and on the watch. But, fair lady ! the song of this nightingale is far too wonderful to transcribe here ; it is infinite as the world itself ; even its dedication to Anangas, the god 26 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. of love, is as long as all Sir Walter Scott's novels put together, and in reference to this I will quote a passage from Aristophanes, which in German runs thus : Tiotio, tiotio, tiotinx ; Totototo, totototo, tototinx. (Translated by Voss.) No, I was not born in India ; I first saw the light on the banks of that beautiful river where Stupidity grows on the green mountains, to be plucked, pressed and poured into flasks in the autumn and sent away to other countries. In very truth, I heard some one utter a stupid phrase yesterday, which was lodged in a grape which I myself saw growing on the Johannis- berg in the year 1811. But in the country itself much stupidity is swallowed, and men there are as everywhere else : they are born, they eat, drink, sleep, laugh, weep, bear false witness, are anxious to continue the race, they try to appear what they are not, to do what they cannot achieve, they do not shave until they grow a beard, and often have a beard before they come to years of discretion, and even after that, they again get drunk on white and red stupidity. Mon Dieu ! Had I but faith sufficient to remove mountains the Johannisberg would be the one, HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 27 that I should always like to have at my heels. But as my Faith is not so strong, I must call Fancy to my aid, and she will soon bear me to the beautiful Rhine. Oh ! Give me the Rhine for beauty ! The land- scape is all loveliness and sunlight ! In its blue torrent are reflected the banks with their ruins, wooded heights, and old-fashioned towns. The townspeople sit before their doors on summer evenings, drinking out of large mugs, talking in a homely manner of the prospects of the vintage. They opine that all food should be public property, remark that Marie Antoinette was guillotined without any ceremony, that the tobacco-monopoly raises its price, that all men are equal, and wind up by saying, "What a famous fellow Gorres is ! " I never paid much attention to these conversa- tions, and preferred sitting with the girls in the bow-window, laughing at their jokes, allowing them to pelt me with flowers, and pretending to be angry until they confided their secrets to me or told me some other important story. Beautiful Gertrude was mad with joy when I sat beside her; she was like a flaming rose, and once when she fell into my arms, I thought she would have burnt to ashes and have faded away. Lovely Catherine melted away with 28 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. tenderness when she spoke to me, and her eyes were of a purer and more penetrating blue than I have ever seen in any human being or animal, and seldom in flowers. It was pleasant to look into them ; one could imagine so many sweet things. But beautiful Hedwig loved me ; for when I approached her she bent down her head, so that her black ringlets fell over her blushing face, and her bright eyes shone like stars in a dark sky. Her timid lips could not utter a word, and I too could say nothing. I coughed, and she trembled. Sometimes she sent me word by her sister not to climb the rocks so fast, and not to bathe in the Rhine when I had heated myself with walking or drinking. Once I overheard her pious prayer before the image of the Virgin, which stood in a niche in the hall, trimmed with golden ribbons beneath a lighted lamp ; I distinctly heard her entreat the Virgin to forbid me to climb, drink, or bathe. Had the beautiful girl not cared for me, I should certainly have fallen in love with her ; but I was cool to her because I knew that she loved me. Fair lady ! those who wish to be loved by me must treat me en canaille. Beautiful Johanna was the cousin of the three sisters, and I loved to sit beside her. She knew the HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 29 most delightful legends, and when she pointed with her white hand from the window to the mountains, the scene of all her tales, I felt as though I were bewitched. Old knights were seen to emerge from the ruined castles, hacking at one another's armour, the Lorelei again stood on the mountain-peak singing her siren song to those below, and the Rhine flowed on with calm wisdom, yet with bewitching glamour, and the beautiful Johanna looked at me, with a strange air, half mystic half confiding, as if she had played a part in the legends of which she had just been speaking. She was a pale, slender girl, sick unto death and dreamy. Her eyes were clear as truth, and her lips compressed like a nun's. In her face one might read some great story, but it was a holy story possibly a love-story ? I do not know, and I never had the courage to ask her. If I looked at her long, I felt calm and happy, as though I were silently keeping Sabbath within me, with angels conducting the service. In happy hours like these, I told her stories of my childhood, to which she always listened attentively ; and strange to say, when I could not remember names she would remind me of them. And when I wondering asked her how she knew them, she would 30 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. answer with a smile that she had learnt them from the birds, who built their nests in the eaves. She even tried to make me believe that they were the same birds which I, when a little fellow, had bought with my pocket-money from the hard-hearted peasant- boys, in order to let them fly away again. But I believe she knew everything, because she was so pale, and died so young. She also knew when she would die, and wished me to leave Andernach the day before. At our parting she gave me both her hands they were white, lovely, and as pure as the Host and she said : " You are very good, and when you grow wicked, think again of dead little Veronica." Have the chattering birds betrayed this name to her also ? Often when I dwelt upon the Past, have I puzzled my brains without being able to remember that dear name. Now that it has come back to me, my earliest childhood rises up before me, and I am a child again, playing with other children on the Schloss- platz at Dusseldorf on the Rhine. CHAPTER VI. YES, fair lady ! there I was born, and I lay special stress on this, lest after my death the seven towns Schilda, Krahwinkel, Polkwitz, Bockum, Diilcken, Gottingen, and Schoppenstedt should vie with one another for the honour of having been my birthplace. Diisseldorf is a town on the Rhine containing sixteen thousand souls, besides the many hundred thousands that are buried there. Among the latter are many of whom my mother says, " It would be better if they were still alive ; " as for example my grandfather and uncle, the elder and the younger Herr von Geldern, both celebrated physicians, who cured many at the point of death, and yet were forced to die themselves. The good Ursula also who carried me in her arms as a child, lies buried there, and a rosebush grows upon her grave ; for she loved the scent of roses while she lived, and her heart was full of goodness, 32 IDEAS : BUCK LE GRAND. and sweet as roses. The wise old Canon also lies buried there. Good heavens ! how miserable he looked when I last saw him ! He was nothing but spirit and plaisters, studying day and night as though he feared that the worms would find too few ideas in his head. Little Wilhelm also lies there, and that is my fault. We were schoolfellows in the Franciscan Convent-school, and were playing together on that side of it where the Diissel flows between stone walls, and I said : " Wilhelm, get out the kitten, which has just fallen in" and merrily he stepped on to the plank which crosses the brook, and snatched the kitten out of the water. But he fell in himself, and when he was taken out, he was wet and dead. The kitten lived to a good old age. The town of Diisseldorf is very beautiful, and those who think of it when far away, and chance to have been born there, are rilled with wondrous thoughts. I was born there, and I feel as though I must go home at once. And when I say " Home," I mean the Bolkerstrasse and the house where I was born. This house will some day be famous, and I have told the old woman who owns it, for goodness' sake not to sell it. She would at present hardly get as much for the whole" house as the fees alone will HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 33 amount to which some day green-veiled stately Englishwomen will give the waiting-maid, when she shows them the room where I first saw the light ; the garret in which my father generally locked me when I had been stealing the grapes, and the brown door, too, on which my mother taught me to write my letters with chalk. Ah me ! my mother will have had a deal of trouble to make a celebrated author of me, fair lady ! But at present my fame is still buried in the marble quarries of Carrara; the waste-paper crown of laurel, with which they will have crowned me, does not yet spread its scent over the whole world; and when the green-veiled proud Englishwomen come to Diisseldorf, they do not come to visit that celebrated house, but go straight to the market-place to look at the enormous black equestrian statue in the centre. This represents the Archduke Jan Wilhelm. He is clothed in black armour, and wears a bag-wig. As a boy I have heard it said, that the artist who cast this statue, had suddenly noticed to his alarm, during the process, that he had not sufficient metal, and so the townsmen had come to his aid with their silver spoons, in order that he might finish the casting; and I used to stand before it for hours, wondering c 34 IDEAS: BUCH LE GRAND. how many silver spoons it contained, and how many apple-tarts might have been bought with all this silver ? I had then a perfect passion for apple-tarts, now my passion is for love, truth, freedom, and crab-soup and usually, not far from the Archduke's statue, might be seen a droll bow-legged fellow with a white apron and a basket filled with the most deliciously hot apple-tarts, which he praised in an irresistible treble-voice, calling out : " Fresh apple-tarts, just out of the oven ! How nice they smell ! " In truth, when in later years the tempter tried to assail me, he spoke to me in the same insinuating treble-voice; and I should not have re- mained twelve hours in Signora Giulietta's company, had her voice not been pitched in the same sweet- scented apple-tart key. And indeed apple-tartlets would never have had such charms for me, had not crooked Herman covered them so mysteriously with his white apron and it is these aprons which .... but this is a digression, for was I not talking about the statue, containing so many silver spoons and no soup, which represents the Archduke Jan Wilhelm ? He seems to have been an estimable gentleman, a patron of the arts, and himself very talented. He founded the picture-gallery at Diisseldorf, and in the HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 35 Observatory there they show a very artistic wooden goblet, which he had carved in his leisure hours, of which he had twenty-four every day of the year. At that period rulers were not so beset with cares as now, their crowns being grown more firmly to their heads, and at night they even covered these with a nightcap, and slept peacefully. The nations slept quietly at their feet, and greeted them in the morning with a "Good morning, father!" to which they gave answer, " Good morning, my dear children ! " But suddenly all this was changed. One morning when we awoke at Diisseldorf, and were about to say " Good morning, father," lo ! he had taken his departure. Everywhere there was heaviness of heart, a funereal air pervaded everything, the people crept silently to the market to read the long paper placard on the door of the town-hall. The weather was dull; nevertheless, spare tailor Kilian stood looking at the placard mumbling to himself with thin trembling lips, in his nankeen jacket which was only meant for home wear, and with his blue woollen stockings so carelessly put on that they showed his puny bare legs. An old pensioner from the Palatinate read it c 2 36 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. in a higher key, and at many of the words a bright tear trickled down his honest white beard. I stood by him and wept, and asked him why we wept. He answered "the Archduke desires to express his thanks " and after a pause he continued, weeping still more bitterly " for the long-tried fidelity of his subjects, and releases them of their allegiance." To see an old soldier in an old uniform and with a scarred face suddenly burst into tears, is indeed a strange sight. Whilst we were reading, the arch- ducal arms were taken down from the town-hall. A dulness hung over everything, and people seemed as if they, were expecting an eclipse. The Town- council went about at a slow pace, as though their day were over. Even the all-powerful watchman looked as though he had no further orders to give, and stood there with quiet nonchalance, although crazy Aloysius hopped about, crying out the French generals' names with absurd grimaces, whilst the crooked drunken Gumpertz was rolling in the gutter singing out " a ira, ga ira." I, however, went home weeping and mourning over the Archduke's proclamation. My mother was in despair ; I knew what I knew, and would not be convinced to the contrary. I went to bed in tears HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 37 and dreamt that the world was coming to an end ; beautiful gardens and green fields were taken up and rolled together like carpets ; the watchman climbed up a high ladder and took the sun down from the sky ; tailor Kilian kept on saying to himself " I must go home and dress in my best clothes, for I am dead and am to be buried, to-day." And it became darker and darker, a few stars shone dimly in the heavens, and even these fell down like yellow leaves in autumn ; the people gradually disappeared, and I, poor child, wandered about in my fear and suddenly found myself before some willow-tufts, close to an untidy farm, where I saw a man digging up the ground, and beside him an ugly malicious- looking woman, who held something like a de- capitated head in her -apron, and that was the moon which she placed carefully in the open grave. And behind me stood the old pensioner from the Palatinate sobbing and spelling out the words : " The Archduke desires to express his thanks." When I awoke the sun was shining through my windows as usual. I heard the sound of drums in the street, and when I entered our sitting-room and said Good morning to my father who was in his 38 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. white dressing-gown, I heard that the nimble hair- dresser, whilst doing his hair, had told him to a hair every particular of the coronation of Archduke Joachim which was to take place that day in the town-hall; how the new Archduke came of one of the best families, was married to the Emperor Napoleon's sister, was a perfect gentleman, wore his black hair in long locks, and how he would soon enter the town in state, and was certain to gain every woman's heart. Meanwhile I heard the beating of drums in the street. I went to the front-door and saw the French entering the town, this nation drunk with glory, marching through the world to the sound of the tabor and the lute, the serio-comic faces of the grenadiers, the bearskin caps, the tri- coloured cockades, the glittering bayonets, the merry knights full of "point d'honneur" and the great powerful drum-major dressed in silver lace, who could throw his gold-knobbed stick up to the first story of a house, and his eyes as high as the second story, where pretty girls were sitting at the windows. I was glad at the thought of having soldiers quartered upon us much more so than my mother and I rushed to the market-place. There all was changed; the world looked as if freshly HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 39 painted; a new coat of arms hung over the town- hall, the iron balcony was covered with embroidered velvet, French grenadiers were on guard, the old town-councillors had put on fresh faces as well as their Sunday suits, and looked at each other as though they were Frenchmen and said " bon jour." Ladies peered out of all the windows, inquisitive townsmen and gay soldiers filled the square, and I with other boys climbed up on to the great archducal horse, and looked at the motley crowd assembled in the market-place beneath us. Neighbour Fitter's son, and long-limbed Kunz nearly broke their necks on this occasion, though that would have been no misfortune; for the one afterwards ran away from his parents, enlisted, de- serted, and was shot at Mayence, whilst the other went on voyages of discovery into other people's pockets, became by this means an active member of a public oakum-picking company, broke the iron fetters which bound him to this occupation and to his fatherland, safely crossed the Channel, and died in London of a too narrow cravat, which tied of itself, just as a state-servant pulled aboard from underneath his feet. Long-limbed Kunz told us we might have a 40 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. holiday as it was coronation-day. We had a long time to wait for the ceremony to begin. At last the balcony of the town-hall filled with gay gentlemen, flags and trumpets, and the mayor of the town in his famous red coat made a long speech which seemed to get drawn out like India-rubber or like a knitted night- cap which has had a stone thrown into it only not the philosopher's stone. I could plainly hear many parts of the speech, as for instance, that we were to be made happy; and at the end of his speech the trumpets were blown, the flags waved, the drums beaten, and there were cries of " Vivat " ; and whilst I joined in myself, I held on to the old Archduke. This was quite necessary, for I had become perfectly giddy, and I thought the people were standing on their heads, because the world had turned round; the head of the Archduke with its long wig nodded and whispered: "Hold on to me" and it was not until I heard the sound of cannons from the ramparts that I gave in and slowly descended from the arch- ducal horse. On my way home, I again saw crazy Aloysius hopping about on one leg, and screaming out the names of the French generals, and the deformed HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 41 drunken Gumpertz rolling in the gutter, roaring out " a ira, ga ira," and I said to my mother : " They intend to make us happy, and that is why we have holiday." CHAPTER VII. THE world appeared all right again next day, school went on as before, and we again prepared our lessons. Roman history, dates, nouns ending in " im," irregular verbs, Greek, Hebrew, geography, German, arithmetic heavens ! the thought of it all makes me giddy everything had to be learnt by heart. Much of this was of use to me afterwards. For supposing I had not known the names of the Roman kings off by heart, it would have been all the same to me later on, whether Niebuhr had proved or not that they never really existed. And had I not learnt dates, how could I have hoped to find my way about that great Berlin where one house is as like another as two drops of water, or as two grenadier guards, and where it is impossible to find one's friends, unless one knows the numbers of their houses. At that period I thought of each of my friends in connection IDEAS : BUCK LE GRAND. 43 with some historical event, the date of which put me in mind of the number of his house, so that I could easily rQmember the latter when thinking of the former, and by this same means I was always reminded of some historical event whenever I caught sight of a friend. In this way, for example, when I saw my tailor I immediately thought of the battle of Marathon; when I met the well-dressed banker Christian Gumpel I at once thought of the destruc- tion of Jerusalem ; if I saw a Portuguese friend up to the ears in debt, I thought of the flight of Mahomed; if I saw the Proctor of the University, a man whose strict sense of justice is well known, I thought of the death of Haman; no sooner did I see Wadzeck than I thought of Cleopatra ah, good heavens ! the poor beast is now dead, her tears are dried, and one may exclaim with Hamlet : " She was a hag take her for all in all, we shall oft look upon her like again ! " As I said, dates are quite necessary. I know people who had nothing in their heads but a few dates, and who knew how to find the right houses in Berlin by the help of them, and who have now reached the position of respectable professors. While at school these numbers caused me endless anguish ! But Arithmetic proper was worse still. I 44 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. understood subtraction best, and there we have a very useful rule : " We can't take four from three, therefore we have to borrow one"> but I advise everybody in such cases to borrow a few pence more, for one can never know. But as to Latin, fair lady, you have no idea how complicated that is ! The Romans would cer- tainly not have had time to conquer the world, if they had first had to learn Latin. These happy people knew while yet in their cradles which nouns take " im " in the accusative. But I had to learn this by heart in the sweat of my brow; still it is well that I know it. For, if on the occasion of my public Latin speech on the rostrum at Gottingen on the 2oth of July 1825, fair lady, I was worth listening to I had said sinapem instead of sinapim, possibly the freshmen present might have noticed it, and this would have been an everlasting disgrace to me. Vis, burls, sitis, tussis, cucumis, amussis, can- nabis, sinapis these words have made much noise in the world, simply because they form a definite class and yet remain exceptions. For this reason I hold them in great honour. Besides, they are always at hand if I should ever suddenly want to make use of them, and this gives me much inward peace and comfort in HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 45 many a dark hour of my life. But, fair lady, the irregular verbs the difference between them and the regular verbs is that the former are the cause of more floggings the irregular verbs are most terribly difficult. In the dark cloisters of the Fran- ciscan Convent, not far from the schoolroom, there used to hang a great grey crucifix, a terrible picture which even now sometimes haunts my dreams and looks at me mournfully with fixed and bleeding eyes ; I often stood before this picture and prayed : " O thou poor Divinity, equally tortured with myself, if it be possible, let me keep the irregular verbs in my head." Of Greek I will not even speak, or I shall grow too angry. The monks of the Middle Ages were not altogether mistaken when they declared Greek to be an invention of the devil. God knows the sufferings to which it subjected me. With Hebrew I fared better, for I always had a great predilection for the Jews, although they crucify my good name down to this hour. But I could not get on in Hebrew as well as my watch did, which was on intimate terms with money-lenders, and thus learnt many a Jewish habit for example, not to go on a Saturday, and to speak the sacred language which 46 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. it afterwards studied grammatically, as I often heard to my astonishment in sleepless nights when it ticked to itself in these words : " Katal, katalta, katalti kittel, kittalta, kittalti, pokat, pokadeti, pikat, pik pik . . . ." However, I understood German better, and that is not so very easy. For we poor Germans, who are already sufficiently burdened with having soldiers quartered upon us, with military duties, taxes, and a thousand other expenses, have saddled ourselves into the bargain with a nobility,* and torment one another with dative and accusative cases. A great part of the German language I learnt from old Rector Schall- meyer, a good clergyman who had been interested in me from my childhood. But I also learnt some of it from Professor Schramm, who had written a book on everlasting peace, and in whose class my schoolfellows used to quarrel more than in any other class. Whilst writing on in this strain and thinking of many things, I have imperceptibly got on the subject of old school stories, and I will avail myself of this opportunity, fair lady, to show you that it was not my * Nobility = Adelung : also the name of a German gram- marian. HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 47 fault that I learnt so little geography as not to be after- wards able to find my way about the world. At that time the French had altered all the frontiers. Every day some country or other was newly illuminated;* those formerly blue suddenly became green, many even became as red as blood, the populations given in our school-books got so mixed up, that no one could make head or tail of them. The products of the countries too were changed; onions and beet- roots now grew where formerly there had been only hares and sportive young noblemen. Even the cha- racters of the peoples changed ; the Germans became agile, the French ceased paying compliments, the English left off throwing their money away right and left, and the Venetians were no longer sly enough. Among princes there was much promotion : old kings received new uniforms, new kingdoms were baked and sold off like hot rolls, whilst many potentates were sent about their business and had to earn their bread in another manner ; some therefore learnt a trade when young, made sealing-wax or .... Fair lady, at last my sentence must come to an end, as I am out of breath : the long and the short of it is, that at such times one cannot learn much geography. * In a heraldic sense and by the Revolution. 48 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. In this respect natural history is better, for here there cannot be so many changes, and we get distinct engravings of monkeys, kangaroos, zebras, rhino- ceros, etc. As these pictures were firmly impressed upon my memory, it afterwards often happened that many people at first sight seemed to me like old friends. In mythology also things went well. My chief de- light was in that crew of gods, who ruled the world in their frank nudity. I do not think that any school- boy in old Rome ever got his chief articles of faith, viz. the love episodes of Venus, better by heart than I did. Honestly speaking, as we had to learn all the gods off by heart we ought to have remembered them, and perhaps we are not much better off with our modern doctrine of the Romish Trinity or even of the Jewish Unity. Perhaps this mythology was really not so immoral as it has been called, and Homer showed a strong sense of propriety in giving that much-wooed Venus a husband. But I fared best of all in the French class of the Abbe" d'Aulnoi, a French emigre, who had written many grammars, wore a red wig, and jumped about merrily when he recited his " Art Poe"tique " and his " Histoire Allemande." He was the only person in HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 49 the whole school who taught German history. How- ever French, too, has its difficulties, and in order to learn it we require to have soldiers quartered upon us and much drumming through the streets ; there must be much " apprendre par cceur " and above all one must not be a "bete allemande." I had to learn many a hard word. I remember well, as though it had only happened yesterday, that I experienced much discomfort owing to the word religion. Full six times I was asked : " Henry, what is faith in French?" And six times, each time in a more melancholy voice than before, I replied : " Le credit" And the seventh time the enraged examiner cried out with a very red face : " It is la religion; " and I got a sound whipping to the amusement of all my com- rades. Fair lady, since then I never hear the word religion, without feeling my back pale with fright and my cheeks redden with shame. And honestly speak- ing, I have found le credit more useful to me in life than la religion : I have just remembered that I still owe the landlord of the Lion at Bologna five dollars. And I would promise to owe him another five dol- lars, if I only need never hear again in this life that miserable word la religion. Parbleu, Madame ! I have learnt a great deal of D So IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. French ! Not only do I understand Patois, but even the polite French of nursemaids. Not long ago, at a fashionable party, I could understand nearly half the conversation of two German countesses, each of whom was over sixty-four years of age, and counted as many ancestors. What is more, at the " Cafe Royal" in Berlin I heard Monsieur Hans Michel Martens talk French, and could understand every word, though there was an utter want of sense in all he said. One must know the genius of a lan- guage, and that can best be learnt by means of drums. Parbleu ! How much I owe that French drummer, who was quartered upon us for such a long time, and who looked like a devil, while at heart he was of an angelic disposition and drummed most excellently. His figure was small and lithe, and he had a heavy black moustache, and very protruding lips ; and his fiery eyes rolled about restlessly. As a small boy I stuck to him like a burr, and helped him to polish up his buttons and to pipe-clay his waistcoat for Monsieur Le Grand was somewhat vain and I followed him on guard, to the roll-call and on parade, where there was nothing but merri- ment and glittering arms " les jours de fete sont HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 51 passes!" Monsieur Le Grand only knew a little broken German, only the most essential words like bread, kiss, honour and yet on the drum he could easily make himself understood. For example, when I did not know the meaning of the word liberte he beat the "Marseillaise," and I understood him. If I did not know the meaning of egalite he beat the march " Ca ira, fa ira les aristocrates a la lanterne " and I understood him. When I did not under- stand Mtise, he beat the " Dessauer March," to which we Germans, according to Goethe, had marched in Champagne and I understood him. Once he wanted to explain to me the word VAllemagne, and he played that ancient and ridiculously simple melody which is often played on market days for dancing dogs, namely Dum Dum Dum ; * I was vexed, but I understood him. In a similar manner he taught me modern history. To be sure I did not understand his spoken words, but as he always beat his drum during our conversa- tion, I knew what he wanted to say. This is really the best method of teaching. One fully compre- hends the story of the storming of the Bastille, of the Tuileries, etc. only when one knows what they beat * To be pronounced like the German dumm stupid. D 2 52 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. on their drums on those occasions. In our school compendiums we read merely " Their Excellencies the Barons and Lords and their worthy wives were beheaded ; their highnesses the dukes and princes and their very worthy spouses were beheaded ; his majesty the king and his most worthy consort were beheaded," but when one hears the bloody guillotine march, then one understands thoroughly all this and gets to know the Why and the Wherefore of it. Fair lady, it is a wonderful march ! The first time I heard it, it seemed to pierce the marrow of my bones, and I was glad to forget it. One forgets such things when one is older : a young man has to keep so much other knowledge in his head nowadays Whist, Boston, Genealogical tables, Parliamentary decrees, Drama- turgy, the Liturgy, Carving and really, in spite of cudgelling my brain for a long while, I could not remember that stirring melody. But only think, fair lady, not long ago I was dining with a whole menagerie of dukes, princes, princesses, chamber- lains, ladies in waiting, cupbearers, ladies of the bed- chamber, ladies of the plate, ladies of the chase, and by whatever other titles these distinguished servants may be called, and their subordinates ran behind their chairs, putting filled plates in front of them ; but HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 53 I, who had been passed by and forgotten, sat idle without even stroking my beard ; I rolled bread- crumbs together, and drummed with my fingers to while away the time, and to my despair, suddenly found myself drumming the bloody, long-forgotten guillotine march. " And what happened ? " Fair lady, these people never allow themselves to be disturbed at meals, and do not know that other people, when they have nothing to eat, suddenly begin to beat their drums, and to play very curious marches, supposed to have been long forgotten. Whether the art of drumming is inborn with me, or whether I cultivated it at an early age, it matters not ; but it seems to have taken possession of all my limbs, of hands and feet, and shows itself sometimes quite spontaneously. At Berlin I once attended the lectures of Geheimrath Schmalz, a man who saved the State, by his book on the dangers of the Reds and the Black Coats. You will remember, fair lady, that according to Pausanias, a conspiracy equally dan- gerous was discovered through the braying of an ass ; and you also know from Livy, or from Becker's "Universal History," that the Capitol was saved by geese, and from Sallust that owing to a gossiping 54 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. hussey, Lady Fulvia, the dreadful conspiracy of Catiline was discovered. But to return to our "muttons." I was following Geheimrath Schmalz's lectures on the rights of nations one weary summer afternoon, and sat on my form, hearing less and less, and nodding my head, when suddenly I was awakened by the sound of my own feet which had remained awake, and which had probably heard that the exact opposite of the rights of nations was being propounded, and that constitutionalism was being condemned ; and my feet with their poor little corns, which can see through* human life better than the Geheimrath with his great Juno eyes, these poor dumb feet, unable to give voice to their opinion, tried to make themselves understood by drumming on the floor. But they drummed so loudly, that I almost came to grief. D d thoughtless feet ! They once played me a similar trick at Gottingen, when I was Professor Saal- feld's guest, who jumped up from his lecturer's chair, violently though clumsily gesticulating, and worked himself into a passion the better to abuse the Emperor. No, poor feet, it is not to be wondered at that you drummed on the floor, and I should not have thought it strange, if you had expressed yourselves still more * Play of words on the German Hiihneraugen corns. HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 55 forcibly in your dumb simplicity. How can I, a pupil of Le Grand, hear the Emperor abused ? The Emperor, the Emperor, the great Emperor ! When I think of the great Emperor, it brings back a vision of golden summer. A long avenue of flower- ing lindens rises up before me; nightingales sit singing on the richly laden branches ; the waterfall roars ; the flowers on the round flower-beds dreamily wave their graceful heads. We held wondrous communion together; painted tulips greeted me condescend- ingly with proud humility ; delicate lilies nodded with sad tenderness ; blood-red roses smiled at me from afar ; night-stocks sighed. I had not as yet any acquaintance with myrtles and laurels, for they had no bright blossoms to attract me, but I was on specially intimate terms with mignonette, with which at present I have fallen out. I am talking of the palace-garden at Diisseldorf, where I often used to lie on the grass, listening attentively while Monsieur Le Grand was telling us of the Emperor's campaigns, at the same time beating the marches which were used at that period, so that I saw and heard every- thing as though it were real. I saw the army march- ing across the Simplon the Emperor leading the way and the brave grenadiers climbing up behind, 56 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. whilst the startled birds of prey screamed harshly, and the glaciers thundered in the distance. I saw the Emperor clasping the standard on the bridge of Lodi I saw the Emperor in his gray cloak at Marengo I saw the Emperor on horseback at the battle of the Pyramids nothing but smoke and mamelukes I saw the Emperor at the battle of Austerlitz brr ! how the balls whizzed over the slippery ice I saw, I heard the battle of Jena dum, dum, dum I saw, I heard the battle of Eilau, of Wagram . . . ah, I could hardly bear it ! Monsieur Le Grand beat his drum, till the drum of my ear was nearly cracked. CHAPTER VIII. BUT what were my feelings when my eyes were first blessed by the sight of him, of the Emperor himself. Hosannah ! It was in the avenue of the Palace gardens at Dusseldorf. As I pressed through the staring crowd, I thought of the deeds and battles which Monsieur Le Grand had described to me on his drum ; my heart beat the great march and yet, I thought at the same time of the police regulation which pro- hibited any one riding down the avenue unde.r a penalty of five dollars. But the Emperor with his retinue rode down the avenue, and as he passed the shuddering trees bent before him ; sunbeams quivered inquisitively and timidly through the green foliage, and up in the blue heavens could be seen a golden star. The Emperor wore his plain green uniform and his small historic hat. He rode a little 58 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. white horse, which stepped with proud dignity, safely and daintily. Had I been the Crown Prince of Prussia at that time, I should have been jealous of the tiny steed. The Emperor sat his horse care- lessly, almost bent double, holding the reins with one hand, and with the other patting his horse's neck good-naturedly. It was a gleaming, marble hand, a mighty hand, one of those hands which had tamed the hydra-headed monster anarchy, and which had settled the quarrels between nation and nation and it patted the horse's neck good-humouredly. Even his face was of the same colour as the ancient Greek and Roman busts ; its features were nobly formed and on it was written : " Thou shalt have none other Gods but me." A smile, cheering and comforting to every heart, played about his lips and yet one knew, these lips need only whistle et la Prusse riexistait plus; only whistle and down went the clergy ; only whistle and the Holy Roman Empire was in com- motion. There was a smile on his lips and in his eyes. His glance was clear as the sky ; he could read men's hearts ; with one glance he embraced all earthly things, whilst other mortals could only see them one by one and even then not- clearly. His brow was less clear ; on it sat the ghosts of future battles, and some- HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 59 times it throbbed with the creative thoughts, those great seven-league-boot thoughts, with which his spirit stalked invisibly through the world. And I think each one of these thoughts would have fur- nished a German writer of that period sufficient material to write upon for the whole of his life. The Emperor rode quietly down the avenue ; no policeman stood there to prevent him from going that way; behind him rode his train of servants, proudly seated on snorting steeds covered with golden trappings. The drums beat, the trumpets sounded ; next to me mad Aloysius turned summer- saults, calling out the names of his generals; not far off the drunken Gumpertz bellowed, and crowds of people called out vociferously "Long live the Emperor." THE Emperor is dead. His lonely grave may be seen on a barren island in the Atlantic Ocean, and he, for whom this earth was too small, rests peace- fully beneath a hillock where five weeping willows let their green hair stream down sadly, and a pious little brook ripples past with melancholy plaint. We find no inscription on his tombstone; but Clio with her pen of justice wrote invisible words upon it, which will sound like spirit-voices through distant ages. Britannia ! to thee belongs the ocean. But the ocean does not contain water sufficient to wash off the legacy of shame which this great mortal has left thee. Not thy bombastic Sir Hudson,* but thou thy- self wast the Sicilian jailor in the pay of the leagued sovereigns to revenge in .secret on the man of the * Sir Hudson Lowe. IDEAS : BUCK LE GRAND. 61 people what the people once had publicly done to one of thy royal blood. And he was thy guest, and had seated himself at thy hearth. French boys will sing and talk to the end of time, of this cruel hospitality of the Bellerophon, and all honourable Britons will blush when these songs of ridicule and of sadness reach their ears across the Channel. But a day will come when this song will still resound, and when Britain will exist no longer. The proud nation will be overthrown ; the tombs of Westminster will be in ruins ; the royal dust therein will be forgotten and St. Helena will be the holy shrine, to which the peoples of the East and of the West will make pilgrimages in gaily-decked ships, taking courage as they think on the deeds of this mortal saviour, who suffered under Hudson Lowe, as it is written in the gospels of Las Casas, O'Meara, and Automarchi. Strange indeed ! A dreadful fate has already overtaken the three greatest opponents of the Em- peror : Londonderry cut his throat, Louis XVIII. rotted on his throne, and Professor Saalfeld is still a professor at Gottingen. CHAPTER X. ONE clear frosty Autumn day a young man, appa- rently a student, wandered slowly through the avenue of the Palace gardens at Diisseldorf, now merrily kicking the rustling leaves which covered the ground, now looking sadly up into the bare trees with their spare covering of yellow leaves. As he looked up he thought of the words of Glaukos : E'en as the leaves of the forest, so pass the races of mortals, Leaves by the autumn blast are scattered abroad and perish, Leaves bud again when spring recovers the forest with verdure ; So are the races of men ; some coming and others departing. In days gone by the young man had looked up at these self-same trees with quite different thoughts : then he was a boy looking for birds'-nests or for cockchafers which delighted him as they buzzed past, contented with this lovely world, with the juicy green leaves full of dew-drops, with warm sunbeams IDEAS : BUCK LE GRAND. 63 and with sweet-smelling herbs. At that time the boy's heart was as merry as the fluttering creatures about him. But now his heart had grown older, the few sunbeams in it had disappeared, the flowers in it were dead, even its beautiful love-dream had faded away, nothing but anger and wretchedness filled that poor heart, and to tell the worst of it it was my own heart. That same day I had returned to my old native town, but I did not mean to spend the night there and longed to get back to Godesberg in order to sit at my friend's feet, and to tell her of little Veronica. I had visited the tombs of my loved ones. Of all my living friends and relations I had only found one uncle and one cousin. Although I recognised some well-known faces in the streets, nobody knew me, and even the town looked at me with surprise ; many of the houses had been freshly painted, strange faces peered from the windows, weary sparrows fluttered about old chimneys, everything looked as dead and yet as fresh as salad growing in a churchyard. Where they formerly spoke French they now spoke Prussian ; even a small Prussian Court had collected there, and the people bore Court-titles ; my mother's former hairdresser had become Court hairdresser, 64 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. and there were now Court tailors, Court shoe- makers, Court bug-destroyers, Court whiskey-shops, the whole town appeared to be one Court Asylum for Court-lunatics. Only the old Archduke recog- nised me; he still stood in the old market-place, but appeared to have grown thinner. Just because he had always stood in the centre of the market- place, he had experienced all the misery of the times, and people do not grow fat on that. I seemed to be as in a dream, and thought of the legend of the bewitched town, and I hurried out of its gates, in order not to awake from it too early. I missed many a tree in the Palace gardens, and many were bent with age; the four tall poplars which formerly appeared to me like green giants, had become pigmies. Some pretty, gaily-dressed girls walked by like wandering tulips. And these tulips I had known when they were only small bulbs. For, ah me! they were some of my playmates with whom once upon a time I had played at prisoner's base. But the lovely damsels whom I had once known as blooming roses now looked like faded ones, and across many a high proud forehead which had once charmed me Saturn had cut deep furrows with his scythe. Only then, but alas ! too late, I HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 65 discovered the meaning of that look she had once cast on me, as a youth, for since then I had met in foreign lands many like glances in fair eyes. I was much moved by the humble salutation of one I had once known as a wealthy and respected man, but who had since then be- come a beggar ; for we see everywhere, according to Newton's law, that people who are going down-hill in life rush into misery with ever-increasing velocity. But the only man who appeared to me quite un- changed was the little baron, who tripped as merrily as heretofore through the Palace gardens, lifting up his left coat-tail with one hand and swinging his small cane with the other. He had kept his benign old face, of which the rosy redness was collected round his nose. He still wore the old cocked hat and the same old pigtail, only instead of his few black hairs white ones now were to be seen. But I knew in spite of his happy looks that the poor baron had gone through severe trials. He tried to make light of them, but the white hairs of his pigtail betrayed them behind his back. And the little pigtail would gladly have contradicted them, and was wagging with grave merriment. I was not tired, but I wished to rest once more E 66 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. on the wooden bench, on which I had formerly carved the name of my beloved. I could hardly find it again : so many new names had been scratched across it. Ah ! once I had fallen asleep on this bench, dreaming of love and happiness. "Dreams are bubbles." I recalled to mind the games of my childhood and the pretty old legends, but a false new game and an ugly new legend haunted me in spite of them. This was the story of two poor souls who had become unfaithful to each other, and after that made such progress in infidelity that they even broke faith with Almighty God. It is a sorry story, and if one has nothing better to do, a story to weep over. O God ! the world was once a lovely place, and the birds sang Thy everlasting praise, and little Veronica looked at me with her quiet eyes, and we sat in front of the marble statue on the Schlossplatz, on one side of which lies the old ruined castle which is haunted, and where at night the long rustling black silk train of a headless lady may be heard, as she wanders about. On the other side is a high white building in the upper chambers of which gay pictures beam forth from their golden frames ; .on the ground floor stand thousands of huge tomes which little Veronica and I HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 67 often looked at with curiosity, when the good Ursula lifted us up to look in at the great windows. When I had grown up into a big boy, I climbed every day to the very top of the steps to fetch down the highest books, and I read them so long that I was no longer afraid of anything, least of all of headless ladies, and I became so clever that I forgot all the old games and stories and pictures, as well as little Veronica even to her very name. But whilst I was sitting on the old seat in the Palace gardens, dreaming of days gone by, I heard a confused sound of voices behind me people pity- ing the fate of the unfortunate French, who had been dragged as prisoners to Siberia during the Russian War, and had been kept there many years in spite of the peace, and were only now on their way home. Looking up I actually beheld these prisoners orphaned of their glory ; dire misery lurked in the tatters of their uniforms; hollow mournful eyes looked forth from their weather-beaten faces, and although crippled, weary, and mostly lame, they still seemed to keep a kind of military step, and strangely enough ! a drummer with his drum staggered on in front And I recollected with an inward shudder the story of the soldiers who fell in battle in the day, and who, rising E 2 68 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. up from the battle-field at night, marched back to their native town with the drummer in front, as in the words of the old song : Oft loud, oft low, he beat his drum ; To night-quarters again they're come. Now to the street away, Tralleree, tralleree, trallera, At sweetheart's door they stay. Next morn there stood, like dumb tomb-stones, In rows their stiff and frozen bones ; And on in front the drum, Tralleree, tralleree, trallera, That she may see him come. Indeed the poor French drummer appeared to have risen half decomposed from the grave. He was a mere shadow in a dirty ragged gray coat, with a dead yellow face, and a great moustache hanging down sadly over his pale lips; his eyes looked like burnt- out tinder, in which only a few sparks were left, and yet by the glimmer of a single one of these sparks I recognised " Monsieur le Grand." He recognised me too, and he pulled me down on to the grass beside him, and there we sat again as we used to do when he- taught me French and Modern History upon his drum. It was the same well-known HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 69 old drum, and I could not get over my astonishment at his having been able to save it from Russian greed. He drummed again as of old but without speaking. But though his lips were ominously compressed, his eyes spoke all the more, and beamed triumphantly as he drummed the old marches. The poplars hard by trembled when he again sounded the bloody guillo- tine march. In the same way, he drummed the old wars of independence, the ancient battles and the Emperor's deeds. It seemed as though the drum were alive and glad to give expression to its inward delight. Again I heard the thunder of cannon, the whizzing of bullets, the noise of battle ; again I saw the steadfast guards, the waving banners, and the Emperor on horseback. But gradually tones of sad- ness crept through this delirious joy ; the drums gave forth sounds of wild joy and unutterable sorrow ; it seemed at once a triumphal march and a dead march ; Le Grand's eyes opened wide like those of a ghost, and I saw in them nothing but a large white field of ice covered with corpses ; the battle of Moscow. I should never have thought that the hard old drum could have emitted such mournful sounds as Monsieur Le Grand now drew from it. Each beat 70 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. was a tear, and sounded fainter and fainter, and deep sighs broke from Le Grand like dismal echoes. He became more and more weary and ghost-like, his thin hands trembled with cold, he sat as one in a dream, beating only the air with his drumsticks, and ap- parently listening to distant voices. At last he looked at me with deep abysmal beseeching eyes. I under- stood him. And then he bent his head down over his drum. Monsieur Le Grand never drummed again in this life. Neither did his drum ever emit another sound ; it was never to beat a servile retreat before any enemy of Freedom. I quite understood Le Grand's last beseeching look : I drew my sword from its scabbard, and pierced the drum. CHAPTER XL Du sublime au ridicule il rfy a qu'un pas, Madame ! But life is so desperately serious at bottom, that it would be unendurable without this combination of the Pathetic and the Comic. Our poets know this. Aristophanes draws the ghastliest pictures of human frenzy, only reflected in a mirror of merry wit ; Goethe ventures to express the mental anguish of the philosopher realising his own nothingness, only in the doggerel rhymes of a puppet-play, and Shake- speare puts the deepest wail over this world's misery into the mouth of a fool, at the same time taking care to let us hear the shaking of his cap and bells. They have all taken their cue from that first great Poet who, as we see every day, knows how to attain the highest point of humour in his thousand- act tragedy of life : exeunt the heroes, enter the Clowns and Harlequins with their baubles and 72 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. wooden swords. After the bloody scenes of revolu- tion and imperial edicts come waddling on the fat Bourbons with their stale old gags and mild Legiti- mist bon-mots and the ancienne noblesse trip on with graceful step and hungry smiles, while in the rear follow pious monks bearing torches and crosses and banners. Even at the climax of this world tragedy some comic touch often slips in ; the desperate Repub- lican who like Brutus plunged a knife into his heart, possibly first sniffed at the blade, to discover whether it had not been used in cutting red herrings, and on this great world-stage things after all go exactly as they do on our sorry boards. Here too we find drunken heroes, kings who have forgotten their parts, scenery which refuses to shift, prompters who speak too loud, dancers who aim at effect by the poetry of their limbs, costumes which appear to be the most important feature of the play and up in Heaven in the first row, sit the dear little angels, peering through eyeglasses down on us Comedians here below, and the great God sits solemnly in His grand box, possibly a little bored, or coming to the conclusion that the company will shortly have to- break up, because one actor is paid too much, and the other too little, and all play their parts far too ill. HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 73 Du sublime au ridicule il n'y a qitun pas, Madame! As I was finishing my last chapter, and giving you a description of Monsieur Le Grand's death, and of my conscientious execution of the testamentum milt- tare as expressed in his dying looks, there was a knock at my door and in walked a poor old woman who mildly asked if I were a doctor. On my answering in the affirmative, she kindly requested me to accompany her home, for the purpose of cutting her husband's corns. CHAPTER XII. GERMAN critics idiots CHAPTER XIII. FAIR lady, the entire Trojan war reposed beneath Leda's brooding hemispheres, and you will never comprehend Priam's celebrated tears, if I do not first tell you about the ancient swan's eggs. There- fore you must not find fault with my digressions. In all the previous chapters not a line is irrele- vant. I write in a condensed style, I avoid the superfluous, even the necessary I often omit. For example, I have not even once conjured with either ghosts or authors and yet, quoting from authors ancient and modern is the chief delight of a young author, and a few learned quotations are an orna- ment to the whole man. Do not imagine, fair lady, that I am unacquainted with the titles of books. Besides, I understand the clever tricks of great minds, who know how to pick the currants out of the cake, and the quotations out of ponderous 76 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. tomes; I know the tricks of the trade. In case of need, I could borrow a set of quotations from my learned friends. My friend G in Berlin is a kind of small Rothschild as regards quotations ; he would be glad to lend me several millions, and if he has not got them in hand, he can easily collect them from some other cosmo- politan bankers of ideas. A propos, fair lady, the Bockh three per cents are dull, the Hegel five per cents are up. At present, however, there is no need for me to borrow. I am well-to-do, and can exist on my annual ten thousand quotations. In fact, I have even invented a mode of passing off false quotations for real ones. If any rich great savant would like to buy this secret of me, for example Michael Beer, I will reveal it to him for nineteen thousand dollars ; I might even conde- scend to bargain. Another invention I will not keep back, but will give it gratis for the good of literature : It seems to me desirable, in quoting obscure authors, to give their address in full. These "good people, and bad musicians" thus the orchestra is addressed in Ponce de Leon these obscure authors always keep a copy of their long- forgotten book, and in order to get at it, we must HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 77 know their address. For instance, if I wanted to quote from " Spitta's Songs for Young Journeymen " fair lady, where would you find this? But if I were to refer to "Songs for Young Journeymen, by P. Spitta : Liineburg, Liiner-Strasse, No. 2, round the corner to the right" then, fair lady, if you thought it worth while you might hunt up the book. But it is not worth while. Besides, fair lady, you have no conception of the facility with which I make quotations. I am always finding an opportunity of turning my erudi- tion to account. If my subject is cookery, I observe parenthetically that the Romans, Greeks, and Hebrews were also acquainted with this art, and I enumerate all the dainty dishes prepared by Lucullus's cook woe is me ! that I was born fifteen hundred years too late. I also observe that the meals of the Greeks had such and such names, and that the Spartans fed on bad black soups. It is well for me that I did not live at that time, for I cannot imagine anything worse for me, poor fellow, than to have become a Spartan, as soup is my favourite dish. I think of going to London shortly, fair lady; but if it is really true that soup is not to be had there, this weakness of mine will soon drive me back to 78 IDEAS: BUCH LE GRAND. the soup and flesh-pots of my fatherland. I could expatiate upon the food of the ancient Hebrews, even down to the Jewish cuisine of latest date, and might take this opportunity of discussing the whole Stein- weg* I might also mention the humane way in which many Berlin savants have expressed themselves con- cerning the Jewish cuisine. I would then pass on to the other excellent and admirable qualities of the Jews, to the inventions we owe them, for instance bills of exchange and Christianity. But stay ! we will not praise them too highly for the latter, as we have hitherto made but little use of it. I think the Jews have benefited less by it than by the discovery of bills of exchange. In connection with the Jews I might mention Tacitus. He says they worshipped asses in their temples and when I get on the subject of asses, what a field of quotations opens before me ! How many remarkable things might be adduced con- cerning ancient in contradistinction to modern asses ! How wise were the former, and oh ! how imbecile are the latter. Balaam's ass, for instance, spoke words of wisdom (vid. Pentat. lib. . . . ) fair lady, I have not the book by me at this moment, and I leave the blank space to.be filled up afterwards. On * [The Jewish quarter in Hamburg. ] HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 79 the other hand, concerning the absurdities of more modern asses I would say : Vid. But no, this too shall remain a blank space ; other- wise they will begin to cite me likewise, I mean injuriarum. Modern asses are great asses. The ancient asses, who were so highly cultured vid. Gesneri: De Antiqua Honestate Asinorum (In Comment., Gb't- tingen, Vol. //.,/. 32) would turn in their graves if they heard how their descendants were being discussed. Once upon a time " Ass " was an honourable title. It was equivalent to the titles Counsellor, Baron, Doctor Philosophise. Jacob compares his son Issachar, Homer his hero Ajax, and nowadays we compare Lord ... to an ass. Fair lady, at the mention of such asses I feel inclined to devote the rest of my days to the history of literature. I might name all the great men who have been in love, for example : Abelard, Pica Mirandola, Borbonius, Descartes, Angelo Politian, Raymund Lully, and Heinrich Heine. Again, at the mention of love, I might name all the great men, who did not smoke tobacco, for example, Cicero, Justinian, Goethe, Hugo, myself by chance all five of us have studied Law more or less. Mabillon could not even bear the smoke of 3o IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. anybody else's pipe ; in his "Iter Germanicum " he complains in the following words of German inns : "Quod molestus ipsi fuerit tabaci grave olentis foetor." On the other hand, other great men have been said to have loved tobacco. Raphael Thorus composed an ode on tobacco. Fair lady, perhaps you are not aware that Isaac Elsevirius published this in a quarto edition at Leyden, A.D. 1628, and that Ludovicus Kinschot wrote an introduction to it in verse. Grsevius wrote a sonnet on the charms of tobacco. The great Boxhornius loved it. Bayle in his "Diet. Hist, et Critiq" relates how he had heard that the great Boxhornius used to wear whilst smoking, a large hat with a hole through the brim in front, in which he often placed his pipe, so as not to be inconvenienced by it when at work. A propos, while speaking of the great Boxhornius I might name all the great savants who had not the courage of their opinions and did not stand their ground. But I will only refer you to Joh. Georg. Martins: De Fuga Liter atorum, etc. etc. etc. In looking through history, fair lady, we find that all great men have to run away once in their lives : Lot, Tarquin, Moses/ Jupiter, Madame de Stael, Nebuchadnezzar, Benjowski, Mahomed, the whole HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 81 Prussian army, Gregory VII., the Rabbi Jizchak Abarbanel, Rousseau and I might add many other names, for instance all those who have been posted on the Stock Exchange. You see, fair lady, I am not wanting in invention or in depth; only I cannot quite succeed in being systematic. Like a true German I ought to have begun this book with an explanation of its title, as they are wont to do in the Holy Roman Empire. To be sure Phidias wrote no preface to his Jupiter, nor can we find any apt quotations on the Venus de Medicis, which I have looked at from every side. But the old Greeks were Greeks, whereas I am an honest German and cannot entirely disown my German nature. Therefore I will add an explana- tion concerning the title of my book. I treat then, fair lady : I. Of Ideas. A. Of ideas in general. a. Of sensible ideas. b. Of senseless ideas. a. Of ordinary ideas. 0. Of ideas bound up in green leather. These again are divided into but that we shall arrive at in due course. F CHAPTER XIV. FAIR lady, have you any idea at all of an idea? What is an idea ? " There are some good ideas in this coat," said my tailor as he examined my over- coat with sincere admiration, a coat which dates from my sallet days in Berlin, and which I wished him to alter into a respectable dressing-gown. My laundress complains of the Rev. S., who has put ideas into her daughter's head, which have quite turned it, so that she will no longer listen to reason. Pattensen the driver is always calling out : " That is a good idea, that is a good idea ! " But yester- day he lost all patience when I asked him what his idea of an idea was. Half vexed he exclaimed : "Well, an idea is an idea! An idea is all the stupid stuff which gets into people's heads." Hofrath IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. 83 Heeren of Gottingen uses the word in this same sense as the title of a book. Pattensen is a man who can find his way through fogs and darkness across the great Luneburger Heide. Hofrath Heeren is a man who traces with unerring instinct the old caravan-roads of the East, and who has been trudging along them as safely and patiently as ever any camel of old. Such people can be depended upon ; they may safely be followed, and therefore I have entitled this book, " The book of Ideas." Thus the title of the book means just as little as the title of the author. The author did not select it out of learned pride, least of all out of vanity. It is a melancholy truth, fair lady, that I am not vain. You will occasionally perceive that this observation is not unnecessary. I am not vain and were a forest of laurel to grow on my head and a sea of incense to be poured into my young heart I should not even then become vain. My friends and contemporaries have taken care of that. You know, fair lady, how old ladies often run down their adopted children when others praise their beauty, lest the dear little things should be spoiled. You know that at Rome, when a victor 84 IDEAS : BUCK LE GRAND. covered with glory and clothed in purple drove up to the Campus Martius in his gilded triumphal car, drawn by white steeds, in which he sat towering like a god above the stately procession of lictors, musicians, dancers, priests, slaves, elephants, bearers of trophies, consuls, senators, soldiers the populace followed jeering and mocking. And you know, fair lady, that in our dear old Germany old women and the vulgar abound. As I have said, fair lady, the Ideas of which I here speak are as far from being platonic as Athens is from Gottingen, and you must expect as little from the book as you would from the author himself. In truth, how the latter could ever raise any great expectations is as incomprehensible to him as it is to his friends. The Countess Julie seeks to ex- plain this, and assures us that when the author does occasionally say something witty and clever, it is all pretence and that he is really just as stupid as the rest. This is wrong : I pretend to nothing, I speak as I was made to speak, I write what comes into my head, in all innocence and simplicity, and it is not my fault when there is anything clever about it. But in writing I seem to have better luck than in the Altona lottery, I wish it were HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 85 the reverse, and many a home-thrust, many a ream of thoughts flows from my pen, and That is God's doing. For He has denied all fine thoughts and literary fame to the most pious hymn-writers and religious poets, so that they should not be over-praised by their mortal fellow-creatures, and thus forget Heaven, where angels are already preparing a mansion for them. But upon us profane, sinful, heretical authors, to whom Heaven is as good as closed, He has bestowed the blessing of exquisite ideas, and rewarded us with the praise of men, and this out of divine mercy and pity, so that the poor soul which has once been called into being, need not go empty away, but may at least taste here on earth a portion of that bliss denied it above : vid. Goethe and writers of tracts. You see then, fair lady, that you may read my writings, for they bear witness to God's mercy and pity. I write with implicit faith in His Omnipotence, and so far I am a truly Christian author ; and as Gubitz would say, I have begun this sentence without knowing how to end it, or what I really want to say; but for this I trust in God. How could I write without this pious faith ? even 86 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. now the printer's devil from Langhoff is waiting for copy in my room, the new-born words go warm and wet to press, and what I think and feel at this moment may be waste-paper to-morrow at mid-day. It is all very well for you, fair lady, to remind me of the Horatian maxim, Nonum prematur in annum. This, like so many others, may be very good in theory, but in practice it is worthless. When Horace gave some author the famous advice to lay by his work in his desk for nine years, he should at the same time have given him a recipe for living nine years without food. When this thought first struck him, he was possibly dining with Maecenas on turkey and truffles, minced pheasant and game sauce, lark-cutlets with carrots, peacock's tongue, Indian birds' nests, and Heaven knows what else, and nothing to pay. But we wretched moderns live in other times. Our Maece- nases go upon other principles ; they think that authors like medlars do best on straw for awhile, they think that overfed dogs are of no use in the chase after Ideas and Thoughts ; and if they do for once feed a poor dog, it is sure to be the wrong one, the one least deserving of crumbs, for instance HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 87 the Dachshund which is fond of licking one's hand, or the tiny Italian greyhound, which likes to cuddle in its mistress's lap, or the patient poodle which can earn its living by fetching and carrying, dancing and drumming. Whilst writing this, my little pug is standing behind me barking. Quiet Ami ! I did not mean you, for you love me and follow your master in danger and distress, and would die on his grave, as faithfully as many another German dog, who has been cast out and lies starv- ing and whining at the gates of Germany. Pardon me, fair lady, for making a digression in order to sing the praises of my dog. I will go back to the Horatian rule, and its inapplicability to the nine- teenth century in which poets are obliged to make cupboard-love to the Muse. Ma fot, fair lady, I could not bear starvation for twenty-four hours, much less for nine years; my stomach has no mind for immortality ; I have decided to forego the half of my immortality, but none of my food, and if Voltaire was willing to give three centuries of his immortal fame for a good digestion, I will bid twice as much for the food itself. And what delicious things are to be had in this world ! Doctor Pangloss is right : this is the best of all possible worlds ! But we must have 88 IDEAS :-BUCH LE GRAND. money, money in our pockets, and not manuscripts in our desks. The landlord of the " King of England," Herr Marr, is himself an author, and knows the Horatian rule, but I do not think he would feed me for nine years, while I was putting it into practice. And why should I practise it ? I have so many good things to say, that I can rush straightways into print. As long as I have a heart full of love, and as long as the heads of my fellow-creatures are full of nonsense, I shall never lack material for writing. And my heart will beat as long as there are women to love ; if it grows cold to one it warms towards another. As in France the king never dies, so the queen dies not in my heart, and on it is written: "La reine est morte, vive la reine." In like manner the folly of my fellow-creatures will never die out. For there is only one wisdom and this is circum- scribed; but there are thousands of immeasurable follies. Even the learned casuist and pastor Schupp says : " In this world there are more fools than men" (yid. Schupp, "Words of Wisdom," p. 1121). When we remember that the learned Schupp lived in Hamburg, these statistics are not exaggerated. I live in the same place and I may say that I re- HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 89 joice exceedingly at the thought that I can use all the fools I see there in my writings ; they are my income, my cash. I am in luck's way, the Lord has blessed me, the fools have turned out particu- larly well this year, and like a good administrator I husband them, I pick out the most productive and keep the rest for future occasions. I am often seen on the Promenade in a merry and happy frame of mind. Then I go about among my people, like a rich merchant, who contentedly rubs his hands, as he moves about among the chests, casks and bales of merchandise in his warehouse. I am Lord over you all. I love you all without distinc- tion, and I love you as you love your money, and that is saying a good deal. I was much amused on being told a little while ago, that one of my people expressed himself with concern as to my future means of existence and yet he himself is such a capital fool, that he alone might suffice for my entire capital. But many a fool represents to me not only the cash I get by writing about him, but also the thing which that cash is destined to buy. For instance, in exchange for a certain com- fortable fat fool of a millionaire, I shall buy a certain comfortable chair, called by Frenchwomen chaise 90 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. perfa. With the millionaire's fat fool of a wife, I shall buy a horse. When I see this fat man it is easier for a camel to enter into the kingdom of God, than for this man to go through the eye of a needle when I see this man waddling about on the Promenade, a strange sensation creeps over me; although quite a stranger to him, I cannot help bowing to him, and he returns my bow so cordially and encouragingly that I should like at once to make use of his good-nature, but am placed in an awkward position owing to the fashionably- dressed crowd. His wife is not a bad woman to be sure she has only one eye, but it is all the greener for that ; her nose is as the tower of Lebanon, which looketh towards Damascus; her ample bosom heaves like the ocean, with ribbons fluttering about it, like the flags of the ships that have sought refuge in that harbour; the sight of it makes one sea-sick. You see, fair lady, what a horse I have got myself ! When I meet this woman on the Promenade, my heart expands. I feel as though I were ready to mount ; I give a switch with my whip, click my tongue, and rise in my stirrup hop ! hop ! burr ! burr ! and in the dear woman's looks there is so much soul and sweet good sense ; HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 91 she hinnies, she inflates her nostrils, prances, rears and curvets, and suddenly ambles off. And I stand with my arms crossed, eyeing her complacently, and considering whether I shall ride her with a curb or on the snaffle, whether I shall give her an English or a Polish saddle, etc. People who see me stand thus cannot imagine what I find to admire in this woman. Tell-tales soon tried to frighten the husband, by hinting that I was looking at his better half with the eyes of a roue. But my honest leather chaise perfee is said to have answered that he took me for an innocent and rather shy young man who had been looking at him like a person wavering between his desire to draw near and his natural disposi- tion to keep aloof. My noble horse, on the other hand, was of opinion that I had a free, open and chivalrous bearing, and that my very polite salutation meant nothing more than a desire to be invited to dinner. You see, fair lady, everybody serves my purpose, and the directory is as good as an inventory to me. Therefore I cannot become bankrupt, for I could always turn my very creditors into a source of income. Besides I really live very economically, d d economically. For instance, while writing 92 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. this I sit in a dark melancholy room in the Dlister- Strasse but I bear it without a murmur. I could, if I liked, sit in the most beautiful garden, just as my friends and those dear to me, by simply con- verting my boon companions into money. These latter, fair lady, are composed of incompetent hair- dressers, broken-down pimps, innkeepers who can- not even keep themselves, all rascals who know my address, and who for a tip will tell me the chronique scandakuse of their neighbourhood. You will wonder that I do not once for all show such people the door? What are you thinking of, fair lady ! These people are my flowers. Some day I will put them into a beautiful book, with the profits of which I will buy a garden ; and with their red, yellow, blue, and gaily-coloured faces, they even now appear to me like flowers from that garden. What matters it to me that strange noses declare that these flowers only smell of cumin, tobacco, cheese and iniquity ! My own nose, the chimney of my head, in which my fancy goes up and down like a sweep, declares the contrary; it can smell nothing about these people but the scent of roses, jessamine, violets and carnations. Oh ! how comfortably I shall some day sit in my garden, listening to the morning song HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 93-. of the birds, basking in the sunshine, inhaling the fragrance of the fresh young leaves, and re- calling to myself, at the sight of the flowers, my old rags. Meanwhile I am still sitting in my dark room im the Diister-Strasse, and amusing myself with hanging in the centre of it the biggest obscurantist in the- land " Mais y verrez-vous plus clair alors ? " You might think so, fair lady but do not misunderstand' me. I do not hang up the man himself, but only the- chandelier, which I buy with the money I shall make by writing about him. However, I think it would be better, and there would be a sudden influx of light- over the whole land, if Obscurantists could be hung up in natura. But if we can't hang people we must: brand them. Again I speak figuratively. I brand in effigie. To be sure Herr von Weisz, who is as white and pure as a lily, has allowed himself to be gulled in Berlin, where people told him that I had said that he really was branded. Thereupon the fool had him- self examined by the authorities and obtained a certificate that he was not branded with any coat of arms on his back. Those negative armorial bearings he looked upon as a diploma, by which he could gain admission into the best society, and he was much 94 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. astonished when society turned its back upon him. He now visits all his wrath upon my devoted head, and intends to shoot me if ever we chance to meet. And what do you think I shall do to avoid this, fair lady ? With this fool, or at least with the money I shall get out of him, I will buy a barrel of good Riidesheimer. I mention this, so that you should not imagine it to be malice, which calls forth my merriment whenever I meet Herr von Weisz in the street. In truth, fair lady, I see in him only my beloved Riidesheimer. No sooner do I see him, than I feel jolly and in excellent spirits, and I cannot help humming, " By the Rhine, by the Rhine, there grow our purple grapes" or "This picture's ravishingly sweet" or "O lady white and fair." . . . Then my Riidesheimer looks very sour, and one would think was all poison and gall but I assure you, fair lady, it comes of a good vintage; even if it bears no brand to prove its genuineness, the connoisseur knows its worth ; gladly will I draw from this small barrel, and if it ferments and threatens to burst, I will have it officially secured by several iron hoops. You see therefore, fair lady, you need feel no concern for me. I can afford to look upon all HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 95 things calmly. The Lord has blessed me with earthly goods, and although he has not provided me with a cellar of wine, he allows me to work in his vineyards. I only need to gather, tread, press and bottle the grapes, to obtain this divine gift; and even if fools do not fly into my mouth ready cooked, but generally come upon me raw and tasteless, I know how to roast, stew and pepper them until they grow tender and palatable. Fair lady, you shall see what you shall see, when I give a great fete. You shall praise my cuisine, fair lady, and confess that I feed my satraps quite as pompously as did King Ahasuerus in olden times, when his kingdom reached from India to the land of the Moors, containing more than one hundred and twenty-seven provinces. Whole hecatombs of fools will I slaughter. That great Philoschnapps, who, like Jupiter of old, goes about courting the favour of Europe in the shape of an ox, will stand for the roast beef ; a melancholy writer of tragedies who once brought upon a stage, representing a melan- choly Persian kingdom, a melancholy Alexander, in whose education Aristotle had had no part, enriches my table in the shape of a most excellent boar's head, smiling its customary bitter sweet smile, 96 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. with a slice of lemon peel in its mouth and decked with laurel by the artistic cook. Clauren, the poet of coral lips, swans' necks, dancing snow-mountains, airy trifles, maidens, mimies, kisses, and small assessors, or as the pious nuns of the Friedrich- Strasse call him " Father Clauren, our own Clauren ! " this original man supplies me with all the dishes which he describes so well in his comic almanack inspired by an imaginative greedy kitchenmaid. He even gives us the receipt of a most excellent dish flavoured with celery "which makes one's heart leap for joy." A wise dried-up lady of the Court whose head only is of any value, is served up in a similar fashion as asparagus; and there will be no lack of Gottingen sausages, Hamburg smoked meat, Pomeranian goose-breasts, ox-tongues, smoked calfs-brains, bullock's brains, stockfish, and all kinds of jelly, Berlin pancakes, Vienna tartlets, and pre- serves. . . . Fair lady, I have brought on an imaginary fit of indigestion ! Confound this guzzling ! I cannot stand much, for my digestion is bad. Boar's head has the same effect on me as it has on the rest of the German public. I am obliged to eat after it a Willibald-Alexis salad to purify my blood. O ! that HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 97 wretched boar's head, with the still more wretched sauce which is neither Greek nor Persian, but tastes of tea and soft soap. O ! for my fat fool of a millionaire. CHAPTER XV. FAIR lady, I perceive a faint cloud of displeasure on your lovely brow, and you seem to doubt whether it is right to serve fools in this way, putting them on the spit, cutting them up, larding them, even slaughtering some to be left uneaten, and to become a prey to the jesters, whilst widows and orphans weep and wail. "Madame, c'est la guerre" I will now solve the whole riddle. I certainly am not one of the wise, but I side with that party, and we have waged war against fools for the last five thousand five hundred and eighty-eight years. The fools fancy themselves wronged by us, because they declare that there exists in this world only a definite quantity of wisdom, and that the wise, heaven knows how have appropriated the whole of it ; and IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. 99 it is scandalous to perceive how frequently a single person has got hold of so much wisdom, that he puts his fellow-citizens and all the country round completely into the shade. This is the secret cause of the war, and it is a veritable war of extermination. The wise are usually the calmest, the most moderate and the most sensible ; they barricade themselves behind their ancient Aristote- lian maxims ; they have much artillery and sufficient ammunition ; for have they not invented gunpowder ? and now and then they throw into the enemy's camp some syllogistic bomb-shells. But unfor- tunately the enemy is too numerous, and they scream lustily and commit abominations daily ; for really every stupid action is an abomination in the sight of the wise. Their stratagems are often exceedingly cunning. Several captains of the great army take good care not to reveal the secret cause of the war. They have heard that a certain well-known hypocrite, of the name of Fouchee, who became such a master of his art as to write even mendacious memoirs, had once said : " les paroles sont faites pour cacher nos pensees; " and now they too use many words, to hide their utter want of ideas ; they make long speeches and write bulky books, and we hear them praise G 2 ioo IDEAS : BUCK LE GRAND. wisdom, as the only means of salvation for thought. We find them busy over mathematics, logic, statistics, mechanical improvements, good citizenship, fattening of cattle, etc. ; and just as apes wax more ridiculous the more they resemble man, so these fools wax more ridiculous the more they pretend to be wise. Other captains of the great army are more candid ; they confess that their share of wisdom is but small j that possibly indeed they have inherited none at all, yet at the same time they cannot help assuring us that wisdom is a weariness to the flesh, and is really of small value. This may be true, but unfortunately they do not possess sufficient wisdom to prove it. Therefore they seek all kinds of makeshifts; they discover in themselves new innate capacities, such as sentiment, faith, inspiration, etc., and declare that these are quite as effective as wisdom, in some cases even more so, and they comfort themselves with this substitute, this beetroot wisdom. But poor me they specially hate, for they declare that I come originally of their stock, that I am unfaithful and a pervert who have broken the holiest bonds, have even become a spy, trying to find out what the fools are doing, in order to make fun of them afterwards with my new companions, and that I am so stupid as not to see that HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 101 these latter are laughing at me all the while, and would never dream of putting me on an equality with themselves; and here the fools are perfectly right. It is quite true, they do not consider me their equal, and their titterings behind my back are often meant for me. I know it well, but I give no sign. My heart bleeds in silence, and when I am alone my tears flow. I know it full well, my position is abnormal. Whatever I do is foolishness to the wise and an abomination to the fools. They hate me and I feel the truth of the proverb : " A stone is heavy, and the sand weighty, but a fool's wrath is heavier than them both." And they are right in hating me. It is quite true I have broken the holiest bonds. In the name of God and justice I ought to have lived and died amongst the fools. Ah me ! how well they would have looked after me ! Even now, were I to turn back, they would receive me with open arms. They would watch my very looks to find out how they might please me. They would invite me to dinner every day, and in the evenings take me with them to their teas and their clubs ; I could play whist with them, smoke tobacco, talk politics, and were I to yawn they would only whisper behind my back, 102 IDEAS : BUCK LE GRAND. " What a beautiful soul ! How filled with devout faith ! " permit me to shed a tender tear, fair lady yea, and I could, drink punch with them until I became properly inspired, and then they would take me home in their sedan-chairs, lest I should take cold; one would quickly hand me my slippers, another my silk dressing-gown, a third my white nightcap; They would elect me "professor extraordinarius," or pre- sident of a missionary society, or financial manager, or director of Roman excavations. I should be the very man to fill almost any post, seeing that I can distinguish in Latin the declensions from the conjuga- tions, and do not like some people take a Prussian postillion's boot for an Etruscan vase. My Senti- ment, my Faith, and my Inspiration, might be of use during religious exercises, that is, to myself; and my remarkable poetical talent would stand me in good stead at birthdays and weddings. Nor would it be amiss, were I to sing in some great national epos of all those heroes of whom we know for certain, that the worms from their putrified bodies have given them- selves out as their descendants. Many people not born fools, and who were once wise, have gone over to the fools on account HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 103 of benefits such as I have described. They live there in a perfect fool's paradise ; the foolish pranks which at first went against the grain, have now be- come their second nature; in fact they can no longer be regarded as hypocrites, but as true believers. One of these, whose mind is not yet in total darkness, loves me dearly, and, when I was alone with him the other day, he locked his door and said to me solemnly : "O thou fool, who preteridest to wisdom, and yet hast less sense than a child unborn, knowest thou not that the great of the land show honour to him alone who humbles himself, and who acknowledges that the great exist by a diviner right than his ? And even now thou art spoiling thy case with the pious of the land ! Is it so hard then to turn thine eyes piously to heaven, to hide thy hands clasped in prayer in the sleeves of thy cloak, to hang thy head in meekness like a Lamb of God, and to mumble texts learnt off by heart? Believe me, the great will not reward thee for thy heresy, the godly will hate thee, curse thee, and persecute thee, and there will be no career for thee either in heaven or on earth." Ah, all that is true enough ! But it happens to be 104 IDEAS : BUCH LE GRAND. my misfortune to be enamoured of Wisdom ! I love her, though my love is not returned. I sacrifice all to her, though I receive nothing. I cannot part with her. And as once the Jewish King Solomon sang of the Christian Church in his Song of Songs, comparing it to a black-eyed maiden throbbing with passionate love, so as to throw dust in the eyes of his Jews so have I sung in countless songs of the very opposite, namely of Wisdom, comparing her to a pure cold maiden, who by turns attracts and repels me, now smiles and now frowns, and ends by turning her back upon me. This secret of my misplaced affection, which I tell to nobody, will enable you, fair lady, to judge of my folly. You will perceive that it is of an exceptional character, and towers far above the ordinary follies of men. Read my " Ratcliff," my " Almansor," my " Lyric Intermezzo " : Wisdom ! Wisdom ! nothing but Wisdom ! and you will take fright at the height of my Folly. I can say in the words of Agur, son of Jakeh, tf l am the most foolish among men, and wisdom is not within me." High in the air rises the oak-forest, high above it soars the eagle, the clouds move high above the eagle, stars twinkle above the clouds is it not getting HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 105 too high for you, fair lady? eh bien, angels hover far above the stars, and above the angels nay, fair lady, thus far and no higher goes my folly. It is high enough ! It trembles at its own altitude. It changes me into a giant with seven-league boots. At mid-day I feel as though I could eat up all the elephants of Hindostan, and pick my teeth with the Strasbourg Cathedral ; in the evening I grow so sentimental that I should like to drink up the Milky Way, forgetting that the smalt fixed stars are very indigestible. But at night things reach their climax. A congress of all the peoples of past and present ages is held in my brain : Assyrians, Egyptians, Medes, Persians, Hebrews, Philistines, Frankforters, Babylonians, Carthaginians, Berliners, Romans, Spartans, Turks, and Tartars. It would take me too long, fair lady, to describe all these peoples to you. You need only read Herodotus, Livy, the " Haude and Spener " news, Curtius, Cor- nelius Nepos and the "Gesellschafter." Meanwhile I will breakfast ; I am not in the mood for writing this morning, and Providence does not seem to favour me. I even fear that you may have perceived this before me, fair lady. I must confess that the 106 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. true divine inspiration has not yet descended upon me to-day. I will therefore begin a new chapter and tell you how I arrived at Godesberg after the death of Le Grand. CHAPTER XVI. WHEN I arrived at Godesberg, I again sat down at the feet of my beautiful friend; next to me sat her brown Dachshund, and we both looked up into her eyes. O heavens ! In her eyes were reflected all the splendour of earth, and a whole heaven besides. I could have died of joy with looking at her, and had I died at that moment, my soul would have taken up its abode in her eyes. O, how can I describe those eyes ! I will call a crazy love-sick poet from a lunatic asylum to draw from the abyss of madness an image, wherewith to compare her eyes. Between ourselves, I am probably sufficiently mad myself not to need any assistance. " D n it ! " once said an Englishman, " when a woman looks at one in that cool fashion, the brass io8 IDEAS : BUCK LE GRAND. buttons of one's coat melt away as well as one's heart inside it." " F e ! " said a Frenchman, " her eyes are of the largest calibre, and when they shoot out one of their thirty-pound glances, bang ! one is in love ! " A red-haired lawyer from Mayence said : " Her eyes look like two cups of black coffee." He wanted to say something very sweet, for he always flavoured his coffee with an immense amount of sugar. But these are bad comparisons. The brown Dachshund and I reposed at my lady's feet, and looked and listened. She sat by an old white-haired soldier, of a knightly mien, with scars on his wrinkled forehead. They both spoke of the Seven mountains glowing in the sunset, and of the blue Rhine, which flowed below with calm grandeur. What did we care about the Seven moun- tains, and the sunset, and the blue Rhine, and the white-sailed boats on it, and the music from one of them, and the idiot of a student singing in it so touch- ingly and charmingly ! The brown Dachshund and I looked into the eyes of our friend, watching her tenderly-flushed face, which shone out from her black plaits and ringlets, like the moon through dark clouds. She had classical Greek features, finely formed lips, expressive of sad tenderness, happiness and HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 109* childish petulance. She spoke in a deep-toned voice,, now almost sighing out her words, now jerking them' out impatiently. They fell from her lovely mouth like a summer rain of flowers. And then an afterglow settled upon my soul, the memories of my childhood stole over me in wondrous harmonies, but above them all the voice of little Veronica sounded in my heart like a peal of bells. And I seized my friend's beautiful hand, and pressed it to my eyes, till the sounds had passed away from my soul ; and then I jumped up and laughed, the Dachshund barked, the old general looked rather solemn, and I sat down and seized hold of the beautiful hand again, kissed it, and began to talk about little Veronica. CHAPTER XVII. FAIR lady, you would like to know what little Veronica was like. But I cannot comply with your desire. You, fair lady, cannot be compelled to read more than you wish, and I, on the other hand, am perfectly justified in writing down only as much as I wish to say. But I will describe the beautiful hand which I kissed in the last chapter. First I must confess that I was not worthy to kiss this hand. It was a lovely hand, tender, transparent, luminous, sweet, odorous, soft, loveable really I must send to the Dispensary for a shilling's-worth of adjectives. On her second finger she wore a pearl ring. I never saw a pearl which played so insignificant a part. On her third finger she wore a ring set with a blue antique gem. I have studied archaeology IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. in from it for hours ! On her first finger she wore a diamond. It was a talisman. As long as I looked at it I was happy, for wherever it was, there was its finger with its four companions and many a time she hit my lips with all the five fingers. Since then I have been a firm believer in magnetism. But her blows were soft, and I had always deserved them by some wicked speech ; and she repented imme- diately, and taking a piece of cake, broke it in two and gave me one half, and the Dachshund the other, and said with a smile : " As you two have no religion, and will not be saved, in this world you must be fed on cake, for in heaven you will get nothing to eat." She was partly right ; I was very irreligious at that time, and read Tom Paine, the " Systime de la Nature? the Westphalian News, and Schleiermacher ; I allowed my beard and my knowledge to grow, and wished to join the Rationalists. But when that beautiful hand passed over my forehead, my reason left me; I was overcome by sweet dreams, I fancied myself listening once more to the pious hymns to the Virgin, and I thought of little Veronica. Fair lady, you cannot imagine how lovely little Veronica looked, as she lay in her little coffin. The burning tapers around it cast their light on the pale ii2 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. smiling face and on the red silk roses and rustling tinsel which adorned her head and her white shroud. The good Ursula had led me into the chamber of death at night, and when I beheld her little dead body laid out on the table with its lights and flowers, I thought at first that it was a pretty waxen image of a saint. But I soon recognised her dear face, and asked laughingly why little Veronica lay so quiet, and Ursula said : " It is Death." And when she said "It is Death" .... But I will not finish this story to-day; it would be too long, and I should first have to tell all about the lame magpie which hopped about the Schlossplatz and was three hundred years old, and I should get quite melancholy. I am suddenly seized with a desire to tell another story ; it is a merry one and very appro- priate here, for it is really the story which I intended to tell in this book. CHAPTER XVIII IN the heart of the knight all was darkness and pain. The dagger-thrusts of calumny had gone home, and as he walked across the Piazza San Marco, he felt as though his heart must break and he must bleed to death. His gait was unsteady from fatigue, for the noble quarry had been hunted the whole day, and it was a hot summer's day. The sweat lay upon his brow, and as he stepped into his gondola he fetched a deep sigh. He sat vacantly in the dark cabin of the gondola, idly the gentle waves bore him along the familiar canal to the Brenta; and on descending at the well-known palace, he heard that Signora Laura was in the garden. She stood, leaning against the Laocoon statue, by the red rose-tree at the end of the terrace, near the weeping willows which bend in sad tenderness 114 IDEAS: BUCK LE GRAND. over the on-flowing stream. There she stood smiling, a sweet picture of love, surrounded by sweet-scented roses. And he awakening as out of a dark dream, became suddenly all tenderness and yearning. "Signora Laura," said he, "I am miserable, and oppressed by Hate, and Misery, and Hypocrisy" and then he hesitated and stammered " but I love you." And then a tear of joy started into his eyes, and with moist eyes and burning lips, he cried : " Be mine, O maiden ! and love me ! " A veil of mystery hangs over that hour ; no mortal knows what Signora Laura answered, and if we ask her good angel in heaven, he covers his face, and sighs, and is silent. The knight stood long alone beside the statue. Like it, his face was white and distorted by pain; unconsciously he picked to pieces all the roses of the rose-tree ; even the young buds he crushed. The tree never blossomed again. In the distance a mad nightingale poured forth her complaint, the weeping willows sighed out timorous whispers, the cool waves of the Brenta gave a hollow sound, night came on with her moon and her stars ; a beautiful star, the most beautiful of all, fell down from heaven. CHAPTER XIX. Vous pleurez, Madame? Oh may those eyes now wet with beauteous tears long shine upon this world with their bright beams, and may a warm loving hand close them in the hour of death ! May a soft pillow, too, not fail you then ; and when your beautiful head sinks wearily down upon it, and your black tresses fall over your pale face ; O then may God reward you for the tears you have shed for me. For I am the knight for whom you have wept. I am the knight-errant of love, the knight of the fallen star. Vous pleurez, Madame? Ah I know these tears ! Why dissemble any longer ? You yourself are the fair lady who wept so tenderly at Godesberg, when I related the sad story of my life. Beautiful tears rolled down over beautiful ii6 IDEAS: BUCH LE GRAND. cheeks like pearls over roses; the Dachshund was silent, the evening chimes of Konigswinter died away in the distance, the Rhine murmured more softly than its wont, night clothed the earth with its dark mantle, and I sat at your feet, fair lady, and looked up into the starry sky. At first I thought your eyes also were two stars ; but how can one take such beautiful eyes for stars ? These cold beacons of heaven cannot weep over the misery of a man, who is so miserable that he has forgotten how to weep. And I had special reasons for not mistaking those eyes : there dwelt in them the soul of little Veronica. I have calculated, fair lady, that you were born on the very day that little Veronica lay dying. Johanna at Andernach had predicted that I should find little Veronica again at Godesberg, and I recognised her at once. It was not a good idea of yours, fair lady, to die just as the pretty games were commencing in good earnest. Ever since the good Ursula said to me, "It is Death," I wandered alone and solemnly in the great picture-gallery. The pictures did not please me as much as formerly ; their colour seemed suddenly to have faded ; one only had kept its colour and its freshness you know, fair lady, what picture I mean : HEINE'S REISEBILDER. 117 It is that of the Sultan and the Sultana of Delhi. Do you remember, fair lady, what hours we spent in looking at it, and how the good Ursula used to smile oddly when people were struck by the great likeness between our faces and those in the picture ? Fair lady, it was a good likeness of you, and it is curious how the painter had even hit upon the very dress which you then wore. They say he was mad, and that your portrait had come to him in a dream. Or did his soul perhaps dwell in the body of that monstrous sacred ape, who waited on you at that time like a groom? In that case he would probably remember the silver-gray veil which he spoilt by spilling red wine over it. I was glad when you dispensed with it ; it did not suit you, and after all the European dress is more becoming to women than the Indian costume. To be sure, beautiful women look beautiful in any dress. Do you remember, fair lady, that a gallant Brahmin he looked like Ganesa, the god with the elephant's trunk, who rides on a mouse paid you the compliment of saying that the divine Maneka, when she came down from Indra's golden castle to the royal penitent Wiswamitra, could not have surpassed you in beauty? You do not remember it ? Hardly three thousand n8 IDEAS : BUCK LE GRAND. years have gone by since this was said to you, and beautiful women are not in the habit of forgetting a delicate compliment so quickly. But men look far better in Indian dress than in European costume. O my pink pantaloons from Delhi, with your embroidered lotos-flowers ! had I worn you when I stood before Signora Laura, wooing her beseechingly, the preceding chapter would have been written in another key ! But alas ! at that time I wore straw-coloured trousers woven by an honest Chinaman at Nankeen; my ruin was inwoven with them and I became miserable. It frequently happens that a young man sits in his humble German home, quietly sipping his cup of coffee, whilst in distant China his misery grows and blooms, is spun and woven, and in spite of high Chinese walls finds its way to the young man, who takes it to be a pair of trousers, which he unsuspiciously puts on, and becomes miserable. And, fair lady, much misery may dwell in a man's breast and be so successfully hidden that the poor man himself does not feel it for days, but is in the best of spirits, dancing merrily, whistling and singing lalarallala lalarallala lalaral la la la. CHAPTER XX. She was amiable and he loved her ; he, however, was not amiable, and she did not love him. Old Play. AND you meant to shoot yourself on account of this stupid story? Fair lady, when a man means to shoot himself, you may be sure he has always adequate reasons for it. But whether he himself knows the reasons is another question. We play a part even to ourselves until we breathe our last. We mask our misery, and while we are dying of a mortal wound, we complain of toothache. Surely you know a remedy for toothache, fair lady? But it was my heart that was afflicted with tooth- ache. This is a terrible malady, and the leaden 120 IDEAS : BUCK LE GRAND. stopping and the tooth-powder invented by Barthold Schwarz are the best remedies for it. Misery gnawed at my heart like a worm, and gnawed on. For this the poor Chinaman is not to blame : I was born with it. It lay with me in my cradle, and when my mother rocked me, she rocked my misery too ; and when she sang me to sleep, it, too, went to sleep with me; and no sooner did I open my eyes than it also awoke. As I grew, my misery grew with me, and at last it reached man's estate and burst my But let us talk of other things, of bridal wreaths, masked-balls, merriment and hymeneal joys lala- rallala, lalarallala, lalaral la la la. CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. Form L9-Series 4939