The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 06. Коллектив авторов

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      In like manner he taught me modern history. I did not understand, it is true, the words which he spoke, but as he constantly drummed while speaking, I knew what he meant. This is, fundamentally, the best method. The history of the storming of the Bastile, of the Tuileries, and the like, cannot be correctly understood until we know how the drumming was done on such occasions. In our school compendiums of history we merely read: "Their Excellencies the Barons and Counts and their noble spouses, their Highnesses the Dukes and Princes and their most noble spouses were beheaded. His Majesty the King, and his most illustrious spouse, the Queen, were beheaded."—But when you hear the red march of the guillotine drummed, you understand it correctly for the first time, and with it the how and the why. Madame, that is really a wonderful march! It thrilled through marrow and bone when I first heard it, and I was glad that I forgot it. People are apt to forget things of this kind as they grow older, and a young man has nowadays so much and such a variety of knowledge to keep in his head—whist, Boston, genealogical registers, decrees of the Federal Council, dramaturgy, the liturgy, carving—and yet, I assure you that really, despite all the jogging up of my brain, I could not for a long time recall that tremendous time! And only to think, Madame! Not long ago I sat one day at table with a whole menagerie of counts, princes, princesses, chamberlains, court-marshalesses, seneschals, upper court mistresses, court keepers of the royal plate, court hunters' wives, and whatever else these aristocratic domestics are termed, and their under-domestics ran about behind their chairs and shoved full plates before their mouths; but I, who was passed by and neglected, sat idle without the least occupation for my jaws, and kneaded little bread-balls, and drummed with my fingers, from boredom, and, to my astonishment, I found myself suddenly drumming the red, long-forgotten guillotine march.

      "And what happened?" Madame, the good people were not in the least disturbed, nor did they know that other people, when they can get nothing to eat, suddenly begin to drum, and that, too, very queer marches, which people have long forgotten.

      Is drumming now an inborn talent, or was it early developed in me? Enough, it lies in my limbs, in my hands, in my feet, and often involuntarily manifests itself. At Berlin, I once sat in the lecture-room of the Privy Councilor Schmaltz, a man who had saved the state by his book on the Red and Black Coat Danger. You remember, perhaps, Madame, that in Pausanias we are told that by the braying of an ass an equally dangerous plot was once discovered, and you also know from Livy, or from Becker's History of the World, that geese once saved the Capitol, and you must certainly know from Sallust that by the chattering of a loquacious putaine, the Lady Fulvia, the terrible conspiracy of Catiline came to light. But to return to the mutton aforesaid. I was listening to the law and rights of nations, in the lecture-room of the Herr Privy Councilor Schmaltz, and it was a lazy sleepy summer afternoon, and I sat on the bench, and little by little I listened less and less—my head had gone to sleep—when all at once I was awakened by the noise of my own feet, which had not gone to sleep and had probably heard that just the contrary of the law and rights of nations was being taught and constitutional principles were being reviled, and which with the little eyes of their corns had seen better how things go in the world than the Privy Councilor with his great Juno eyes—these poor dumb feet, incapable of expressing their immeasurable meaning by words, strove to make themselves intelligible by drumming, and they drummed so loudly that I thereby came near getting into a terrible scrape.

      Cursèd, unreflecting feet! They once played me a little trick, when I, on a time in Göttingen, was temporarily attending the lectures of Professor Saalfeld, and as this learned gentleman, with his angular agility, jumped about here and there in his desk, and wound himself up to curse the Emperor Napoleon in regular set style—no, my poor feet, I cannot blame you for drumming then—indeed, I would not have blamed you if in your dumb naïveté you had expressed yourselves by still more energetic movements. How dare I, the scholar of Le Grand, hear the Emperor cursed? The Emperor! the Emperor! the great Emperor!

      When I think of the great Emperor, all in my memory again becomes summer-green and golden. A long avenue of lindens in bloom arises before me, and on the leafy twigs sit nightingales, singing; the waterfall murmurs, in full round beds flowers are growing, and dreamily nodding their fair heads. I was on a footing of wondrous intimacy with them; the rouged tulips, proud as beggars, condescendingly greeted me; the nervous sick lilies nodded to me with tender melancholy, the wine-red roses laughed at me from afar; the night-violets sighed; with the myrtle and laurel I was not then acquainted, for they did not entice with a shining bloom, but the mignonette, with whom I am now on such bad terms, was my very particular friend.—I am speaking of the Court garden of Düsseldorf, where I often lay upon the grass and piously listened there when Monsieur Le Grand told of the martial feats of the great Emperor, beating meanwhile the marches which were drummed while the deeds were performed, so that I saw and heard it all vividly. I saw the passage over the Simplon—the Emperor in advance and his brave grenadiers climbing on behind him, while the scream of frightened birds of prey sounded around, and the glaciers thundered in the distance; I saw the Emperor with glove in hand on the bridge of Lodi; I saw the Emperor in his grey cloak at Marengo; I saw the Emperor on horseback in the battle of the Pyramids, naught around save powder, smoke, and Mamelukes; I saw the Emperor in the battle of Austerlitz—ha! how the bullets whistled over the smooth, icy road! I saw, I heard the battle of Jena-dum, dum, dune; I saw, I heard the battle of Eylau, of Wagram—no, I could hardly stand it! Monsieur Le Grand drummed so that my own eardrum nearly burst.

      But what were my feelings when my very own eyes were first blessed with the sight of him, him—Hosannah! the Emperor.

      It was precisely in the avenue of the Court garden at Düsseldorf. As I pressed through the gaping crowd, thinking of the doughty deeds and battles which Monsieur Le Grand had drummed to me, my heart beat the "general march"—yet at the same time I thought of the police regulation that no one should dare ride through the middle of the avenue under penalty of five dollars fine. And the Emperor with his cortège rode directly through the middle of the avenue. The trembling trees bowed toward him as he advanced, the sun-rays quivered, frightened, yet curious, through the green leaves, and in the blue heaven above there swam visibly a golden star. The Emperor wore his unpretentious-green uniform and the little world-renowned hat. He rode a white palfrey, which stepped with such calm pride, so confidently, so nobly—had I then been Crown Prince of Prussia I would have envied that horse. The Emperor sat carelessly, almost laxly, holding his rein with one hand, and with the other good-naturedly patting the neck of the horse. It was a sunny marble hand, a mighty hand—one of the pair which subdued the many headed monster of anarchy, and regulated the conflict of nations—and it good-naturedly patted the neck of the horse. Even the face had that hue which we find in the marble Greek and Roman busts, the traits were as nobly proportioned as those of the ancients, and on that countenance was plainly written "Thou shalt have no gods before me!" A smile, which warmed and tranquilized every heart, flitted over the lips—and yet all knew that those lips needed but to whistle et la Prusse n'existait plus—those lips needed but to whistle and the entire clergy would have stopped their ringing and singing—those lips needed but to whistle, and the entire Holy Roman Empire would have danced. And these lips smiled, and the eye too smiled. It was an eye clear as heaven; it could read the hearts of men; it saw at a glance all things in the world at once, while we ordinary mortals see them only one by one, and then only their colored shadows. The brow was not so clear, the phantoms of future battles were nestling there, and from time to time there was a quiver which swept over this brow, and those were the creative thoughts, the great seven-league-boots thoughts, wherewith the spirit of the Emperor strode invisibly over the world; and I believe that every one of those thoughts would have furnished a German author plentiful material to write about all the days of his life.