Such a head-over-heels, break-neck piece of business! Halle students travel quicker than the Austrian militia. Ere I knew where I was, the bald summit of the mountain, with groups of stones strewed over it, was behind us, and we went through the fir-wood which I had seen the day before. The sun poured down a cheerful light on the merry Burschen, in gaily colored garb, as they merrily pressed onward through the wood, disappearing here, coming to light again there, running across marshy places on trunks of trees, climbing over shelving steeps by grasping the projecting tree-roots; while they thrilled all the time in the merriest manner and received as joyous an answer from the twittering wood-birds, the invisibly plashing rivulets, and the resounding echo. When cheerful youth and beautiful nature meet, they mutually rejoice.



The lower we descend the more delightfully did subterranean waters ripple around us; only here and there they peeped out amid rocks and bushes, appearing to be reconnoitring if they might yet come to light, until at last one little spring jumped forth boldly. Then followed the usual show—the bravest one makes a beginning, and then to their own astonishment the great multitude of hesitators, suddenly inspired with courage, rush forth to join the first. Myriads of springs now leaped in haste from their ambush, united with the leader, and finally formed quite an important brook, which, with its innumerable waterfalls and beautiful windings, ripples down the valley. This is now the Ilse—the sweet, pleasant Ilse. She flows through the blest Ilse vale, on whose sides the mountains gradually rise higher and higher, being clad even to their base with beech-trees, oaks, and the usual shrubs, the firs and other needle-covered evergreens having disappeared; for that variety of trees grows preferably upon the "Lower Harz," as the east side of the Brocken is called in contradistinction to the west side or Upper Harz. Being in reality much higher, it is therefore better adapted to the growth of evergreens.

It is impossible to describe the merriment, simplicity, and charm with which the Ilse leaps down over the fantastically shaped rocks which rise in her path, so that the water strangely whizzes or foams in one place. amid rifted rocks, and in another pours forth in perfect arches through a thousand crannies, as if from a giant watering-pot, and then, lower down, trips away again over the pebbles like a merry maiden. Yes, the old legend is true; the Ilse is a princess, who, in the full bloom of youth, runs laughing down the mountain side. How her white foam garment gleams in the sunshine! How her silvered scarf flutters in the breeze! How her diamonds flash! The high beech-trees gaze down on her like grave fathers secretly smiling at the capricious self-will of a darling child; the white birch-trees nod their heads like delighted aunts, who are, however, anxious at such bold leaps; the proud oak looks on like a not over-pleased uncle, who must pay for all the fine weather; the birds joyfully sing their applause; the flowers on the bank whisper, "Oh, take us with thee, take us with thee, dear sister!" But the merry maiden may not be withheld, and she leaps onward and suddenly seizes the dreaming poet, and there streams over me a flower-rain of ringing gleams and flashing tones, and my senses are lost in all the beauty and splendor, and I hear only the voice, sweet pealing as a flute—

I am the Princess Ilse, And dwell in Ilsenstein; Come with me to my castle, Thou shalt be blest—and mine!

With ever-flowing fountains I'll cool thy weary brow; Thou'lt lose amid their rippling The cares which grieve thee now.

In my white arms reposing, And on my snow-white breast, Thou'lt dream of old, old legends, And sing in joy to rest.

I'll kiss thee and caress thee, As in the ancient day I kissed the Emperor Henry, Who long has passed away.

The dead are dead and silent, Only the living love; And I am fair and blooming— Dost feel my wild heart move!

And as my heart is beating, My crystal castle rings, Where many a knight and lady In merry measure springs.

Silk trains are softly rustling, Spurs ring from night to morn, And dwarfs are gaily drumming, And blow the golden horn.

As round the Emperor Henry, My arms round thee shall fall; I held his ears—he heard not The trumpet's warning call.

We feel infinite happiness when the outer world blends with the world of our own soul, and green trees, thoughts, the songs of birds, gentle melancholy, the blue of heaven, memory, and the perfume of herbs, run together in sweet arabesques. Women best understand this feeling, and this may be the cause that such a sweet incredulous smile plays around their lips when we, with scholastic pride, boast of our logical deeds—how we have classified everything so nicely into subjective and objective; how our heads are provided, apothecary-like, with a thousand drawers, one of which contains reason, another understanding, the third wit, the fourth bad wit, and the fifth nothing at all—that is to say, the Idea.

As if wandering in dreams, I scarcely observed that we had left the depths of the Ilsethal and were now again climbing uphill. This was steep and difficult work, and many of us lost our breath; but, like our late lamented cousin, who now lies buried at Moelln, we thought in advance of the descent, and were all the merrier in consequence. Finally we reached the Ilsenstein.

This is an enormous granite rock, which rises boldly on high from out a glen. On three sides it is surrounded by high woody hills, but on the fourth, the north side, there is an open view, and we gazed past the Ilsenburg and the Ilse lying below us, far away into the low lands. On the towerlike summit of the rock stands a great iron cross, and in case of need there is also room here for four human feet. And as Nature, through picturesque position and form, has adorned the Ilsenstein with fantastic charms, so legend likewise has shed upon it a rosy shimmer. According to Gottschalk, "People say that there once stood here an enchanted castle, in which dwelt the rich and fair Princess Ilse, who still bathes every morning in the Ilse. He who is fortunate enough to hit upon the exact time and place will be led by her into the rock where her castle lies and receive a royal reward." Others narrate a pleasant legend of the lovers of the Lady Ilse and of the Knight of Westenberg, which has been romantically sung by one of our most noted poets in the Evening Journal. Others again say that it was the Old Saxon Emperor Henry who had a royal good time with the water-nymph Ilse in her enchanted castle.

A later author, one Niemann, Esq., who has written a Guide to the Harz in which the height of the hills, variations of the compass, town finances, and similar matters are described with praiseworthy accuracy, asserts, however, that "what is narrated of the Princess Ilse belongs entirely to the realm of fable." Thus do all men speak to whom a beautiful princess has never appeared; but we who have been especially favored by fair ladies know better. And the Emperor Henry knew it too! It was not without cause that the Old Saxon emperors were so attached to their native Harz. Let any one only turn over the leaves of the fair Lueneburg Chronicle, where the good old gentlemen are represented in wondrously true-hearted woodcuts sitting in full armor on their mailed war-steeds, the holy imperial crown on their beloved heads, sceptre and sword in firm hands; and then in their dear mustachiod faces he can plainly read how they often longed for the sweet hearts of their Harz princesses, and for the familiar rustling of the Harz forests, when they sojourned in distant lands—yes, even when in Italy, so rich in oranges and poisons, whither they, with their followers, were often enticed by the desire of being called Roman emperors, a genuine German lust for title, which finally destroyed emperor and empire.

I, however, advise every one who may hereafter stand on the summit of the Ilsenstein to think neither of emperor nor empire nor of the fair Ilse, but simply of his own feet. For as I stood there, lost in thought, I suddenly heard the subterranean music of the enchanted castle, and saw the mountains around begin to stand on their heads, while the red-tiled roofs of Ilsenburg were dancing, and green trees flew through the air, until all was green and blue before my eyes, and I, overcome by giddiness, would assuredly have fallen into the abyss, had I not, in the dire need of my soul, clung fast to the iron cross. No one who reflects on the critically ticklish situation in which I was then placed can possibly find fault with me for having done this.



* * * * *



BOYHOOD DAYS[55]

By Heinrich Heine

Translated by Charles Godfrey Leland

The town of Duesseldorf is very beautiful, and if you think of it when far away, and happen at the same time to have been born there, strange feelings come over your soul. I was born there, and feel as if I must go straight home. And when I say home I mean the Bolkerstrasse and the house in which I was born. This house will some day be a great curiosity, and I have sent word to the old lady who owns it that she must not for her life sell it. For the whole house she would now hardly get as much as the tips which the distinguished green-veiled English ladies will one day give the servant girl when she shows them the room where I was born, and the hen-house wherein my father generally imprisoned me for stealing grapes, and also the brown door on which my mother taught me to write with chalk—O Lord! Madame, should I ever become a famous author, it has cost my poor mother trouble enough.

(1823-1826)

But my fame as yet slumbers in the marble quarries of Carrara; the waste-paper laurel with which they have bedecked my brow has not yet spread its perfume through the wide world, and the green-veiled English ladies, when they come to Duesseldorf as yet leave the celebrated house unvisited, and go directly to the market-place and there gaze on the colossal black equestrian statue which stands in its midst. This is supposed to represent the Prince Elector, Jan Wilhelm. He wears black armor and a long wig hanging down his back. When a boy, I heard the legend that the artist who made this statue became aware, to his horror, while it was being cast, that he had not metal enough to fill the mold, and then all the citizens of the town came running with all their silver spoons, and threw them in to make up the deficiency; and I often stood for hours before the statue wondering how many spoons were concealed in it, and how many apple-tarts the silver would buy. Apple-tarts were then my passion—now it is love, truth, liberty, and crab-soup—and not far from the statue of the Prince Elector, at the theatre corner, generally stood a curiously constructed bow-legged fellow with a white apron, and a basket girt around him full of delightfully steaming apple-tarts, whose praises he well knew how to call out in an irresistible high treble voice, "Here you are! hot apple-tarts! just from the oven—smelling deliciously!" Truly, whenever in my later years the Evil One sought to get the better of me, he always spoke in just such an enticing high treble voice, and I should certainly have never remained twelve full hours with the Signora Giulietta, if she had not thrilled me with her sweet perfumed apple-tart tones. And, in fact, the apple-tarts would never have so sorely tempted me if the crooked Hermann had not covered them up so mysteriously with his white apron; and it is aprons, you know, which—but I wander from the subject. I was speaking of the equestrian statue which has so many silver spoons in it, and no soup, and which represents the Prince Elector, Jan Wilhelm.

He was a brave gentleman, 'tis reported, a lover of art and handy therein himself. He founded the picture-gallery in Duesseldorf; and in the observatory there, they still show us an extremely artistic piece of work, consisting of one wooden cup within another which he himself had carved in his leisure hours, of which latter he had every day four-and-twenty.



In those days princes were not the harassed creatures they now are. Their crowns grew firmly on their heads, and at night they drew nightcaps over them besides and slept in peace, and their people slumbered calmly at their feet; and when they awoke in the morning they said, "Good morning, father!" and the princes replied, "Good morning, dear children!"

But there came a sudden change over all this, for one morning when we awoke in Duesseldorf and wanted to say, "Good morning, father!" the father had traveled away, and in the whole town there was nothing but dumb sorrow. Everywhere there was a sort of funereal atmosphere, and people crept silently through the market and read the long placard placed on the door of the City Hall. The weather was dark and lowering, yet the lean tailor Kilian stood in the nankeen jacket, which he generally wore only at home, and in his blue woolen stockings, so that his little bare legs peeped out dismally, and his thin lips quivered as he murmured the words of the placard to himself. An old invalid soldier from the Palatine read it in a somewhat louder tone, and at certain phrases a transparent tear ran down his white, honorable old mustache. I stood near him, and wept with him, and then asked why we wept; and he replied, "The Prince Elector has abdicated." Then he read further, and at the words "for the long-manifested fidelity of my subjects," "and hereby release you from your allegiance," he wept still more. It is a strange sight to see, when so old a man, in faded uniform, with a scarred veteran's face, suddenly bursts into tears. While we read, the Princely Electoral coat-of-arms was being taken down from the City Hall, and everything began to appear as oppressively desolate as though we were waiting for an eclipse of the sun. The city councilors went about at an abdicating, slow gait; even the omnipotent beadle looked as though he had had no more commands to give, and stood calmly indifferent, although the crazy Aloysius again stood upon one leg and chattered the names of French generals, with foolish grimaces, while the tipsy, crooked Gumpertz rolled around the gutter, singing, "Ca ira! Ca ira!" But I went home, weeping and lamenting because "the Prince Elector had abdicated!" My mother tried hard to comfort me, but I would hear nothing. I knew what I knew, and went weeping to bed, and in the night dreamed that the world had come to an end—that all the fair flower gardens and green meadows were taken up from the ground and rolled away, like carpets; that a beadle climbed up on a high ladder and took down the sun, and that the tailor Kilian stood by and said to himself, "I must go home and dress myself neatly, for I am dead and am to be buried this afternoon." And it grew darker and darker—a few stars glimmered meagrely on high, and these too, at length, fell down like yellow leaves in autumn; one by one all men vanished, and I, poor child, wandered around in anguish, and finally found myself before the willow fence of a deserted farmhouse, where I saw a man digging up the earth with a spade, and near him an ugly, spiteful-looking woman, who held something in her apron like a human head—but it was the moon, and she laid it carefully in the open grave—and behind me stood the Palatine invalid, sighing, and spelling out "The Prince Elector has abdicated."

When I awoke the sun shone as usual through the window, there was a sound of drums in the street, and as I entered the sitting-room and said "good morning" to my father, who was sitting in his white dressing-gown, I heard the little light-footed barber, as he dressed his hair, narrate very minutely that allegiance would be sworn to the Grande Duke Joachim that morning at the City Hall. I heard, too, that the new ruler was of excellent family, that he had married the sister of the Emperor Napoleon, and was really a very respectable man; that he wore his beautiful black hair in flowing locks, that he would shortly make his entrance into the town, and, in fine, that he was sure to please all the ladies. Meanwhile the drumming in the streets continued, and I went out before the house-door and looked at the French troops marching in that joyous people of glory, who, singing and playing, swept over the world, the serious and yet merry-faced grenadiers, the bear-skin shakoes, the tri-colored cockades, the glittering bayonets, the voltigeurs, full of vivacity and point d'honneur, and the omnipotent giant-like silver-laced tambour major, who could cast his baton with a gilded head as high as the first story, and his eyes even to the second, where also there were pretty girls sitting at the windows. I was so glad that soldiers were to be quartered in our house—in which my mother differed from me—and I hastened to the market-place. There everything looked changed, somewhat as though the world had been newly whitewashed. A new coat-of-arms was placed on the City Hall, its iron balconies were hung with embroidered velvet drapery. French grenadiers stood as sentinels; the old city councilors had put on new faces, and donned their Sunday coats, and looked at each other Frenchily, and said, "Bonjour!" Ladies gazed from every window, curious citizens and glittering soldiers filled the square, and I, with other boys, climbed on the great bronze horse of the Prince Elector, and thence stared down on the motley crowd.

Our neighbors, Pitter and the tall Kunz, nearly broke their necks in accomplishing this feat, and it would have been better if they had been killed outright, for the one afterwards ran away from his parents, enlisted as a soldier, deserted, and was finally shot at Mayence; while the other, having made geographical researches in strange pockets, was on this account elected active member of a public treadmill institute. But having broken the iron bands which bound him to the latter and to his fatherland, he safely crossed the channel, and eventually died in London through wearing an all too tight neck-tie which automatically drew together, when a royal official removed a plank from beneath his feet.

Tall Kunz told us that there was no school today on account of the ceremonies connected with taking the oath of allegiance. We had to wait a long time ere these commenced. Finally, the balcony of the City Hall was filled with gaily dressed gentlemen, with flags and trumpets, and our burgomaster, in his celebrated red coat, delivered an oration, which stretched out like Indian rubber, or like a knitted nightcap into which one has thrown a stone—only that it was not the philosopher's stone—and I could distinctly understand many of his phrases—for instance, that "we are now to be made happy;" and at the last words the trumpets sounded out, the flags were waved, the drums were beaten, the people cried, Hurrah! and while I myself cried hurrah, I held fast to the old Prince Elector. And it was really necessary that I should, for I began to grow giddy. It seemed to me as if the people were standing on their heads, because the world whizzed around, while the old Prince Elector, with his long wig, nodded and whispered, "Hold fast to me!" and not till the cannon reechoed along the wall did I become sobered, and climbed slowly down from the great bronze horse.

As I went home, I saw the crazy Aloysius again dancing on one leg, while he chattered the names of French generals, and I also beheld crooked Gumpertz rolling in the gutter and growling, "Ca ira, ca ira," and I said to my mother, "We are all to be made happy; on that account there is no school today."

II

The next day the world was again all in order, and we had school as before, and things were learned by heart as before—the Roman kings, dates, the nomina in im, the verba irregularia, Greek, Hebrew, geography, German, mental arithmetic—Lord! my head is still giddy with it!—all had to be learned by heart. And much of it was eventually to my advantage; for had I not learned the Roman kings by heart, it would subsequently have been a matter of perfect indifference to me whether Niebuhr had or had not proved that they never really existed. And had I not learned those dates, how could I ever, in later years, have found out any one in big Berlin, where one house is as like another as drops of water or as grenadiers, and where it is impossible to find a friend unless you have the number of his house in your head! At that time I associated with every acquaintance some historical event, which had happened in a year corresponding to the number of his house, so that the one recalled the other, and some curious point in history always occurred to me whenever I met any one whom I visited. For instance, when I met my tailor, I at once thought of the battle of Marathon; when I saw the well-groomed banker, Christian Gumpel, I immediately remembered the destruction of Jerusalem; when I caught sight of a Portuguese friend, deeply in debt, I thought at once of the flight of Mahomet; when I met the university judge, a man whose probity is well known, I thought of the death of Haman; and as soon as I laid eyes on Wadzeck, I was at once reminded of Cleopatra. Ah, heaven! the poor creature is dead now; our tears are dry, and we may say of her with Hamlet, "Taken all in all, she was an old woman; we oft shall look upon her like again!" But, as I said, dates are necessary. I know men who had nothing in their heads but a few dates, and with their aid knew where to find the right houses in Berlin, and are now already regular professors. But oh, the trouble I had at school with the multitude of numbers; and as to actual arithmetic, that was even worse! I understood best of all subtraction, and for this there is a very practical rule: "Four can't be taken from three, therefore I must borrow one"; but I advise all in such a case to borrow a few extra groschen, for no one can tell what may happen.

But oh, the Latin! Madame, you can really have no idea of how complicated it is. The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin. Lucky dogs! they already knew in their cradles which nouns have their accusative in im. I, on the contrary, had to learn them by heart, in the sweat of my brow, but still it is well that I know them. For if I, for example, when I publicly disputed in Latin in the College Hall of Goettingen, on the 20th of July, 1825—Madame, it was well worth while to hear it—if I on that occasion had said sinapem instead of sinapim, the blunder would have been evident to the Freshmen, and an endless shame for me. Vis, buris, sitis, tussis, cucumis, amussis, cannabis, sinapis—these words, which have attracted so much attention in the world, effected this, inasmuch as they belonged to a distinct class, and yet withal remained an exception; therefore I highly respect them, and the fact that I have them ready at my fingers' ends when I perhaps need them in a hurry, often affords me in life's darkened hours much internal tranquillity and consolation. But, Madame, the verba irregularia—they are distinguished from the verbis regularibus by the fact that the boys in learning them got more whippings—are terribly difficult. In the musty archways of the Franciscan cloister near our schoolroom there hung a large Christ—crucified of grey wood, a dismal image, that even yet at times rises in my dreams and gazes sorrowfully on me with fixed bleeding eyes. Before this image I often stood and prayed, "Oh, Thou poor and also tormented God, I pray Thee, if it be possible, that I may get by heart the irregular verbs!"

I will say nothing of Greek, otherwise I should vex myself too much. The monks of the Middle Ages were not so very much in the wrong when they asserted that Greek was an invention of the devil. Lord knows what I suffered through it! It went better with Hebrew, for I always had a great predilection for the Jews, although they crucify my good name up to the present hour, and yet I never could get as far in Hebrew as my watch did, which had much intimate intercourse with pawnbrokers and in consequence acquired many Jewish habits—for instance, it would not go on Saturday, and it also learned the sacred language, subsequently even studying it grammatically; for often when sleepless in the night I have, to my amazement, heard it industriously ticking away to itself: katal, katalta, katalti, kittel, kittalta, katalti-pokat, pokadeti-pikat, pik, pik.

Meanwhile I learned more of German than of any other tongue, though German itself is not such child's play, after all. For we poor Germans, who have already been sufficiently vexed with having soldiers quartered on us, military duties, poll-taxes, and a thousand other exactions, must needs, over and above all this, bag Mr. Adelung and torment one another with accusatives and datives. I learned much German from the old Rector Schallmeyer, a brave, clerical gentleman, whose protege I was from childhood. But I also learned something of the kind from Professor Schramm, a man who had written a book on eternal peace, and in whose class my school-fellows quarreled and fought more than in any other.

And while I have thus been writing away without a pause and thinking about all sorts of things, I have unexpectedly chattered myself back among old school stories, and I avail myself of this opportunity to mention, Madame, that it was not my fault if I learned so little of geography that later in life I could not make my way in the world. For in those days the French displaced all boundaries; every day the countries were recolored on the world's map; those which were once blue suddenly became green, many indeed were even dyed blood-red; the old stereotyped souls of the school-books became so confused and confounded that the devil himself would never have recognized them. The products of the country were also changed; chickory and beets now grew where only hares and country gentlemen pursuing them were once to be seen; even the character of the nations changed; the Germans became pliant, the French paid compliments no longer; the English ceased making ducks and drakes of their money, and the Venetians were not subtle enough; there was promotion among princes, old kings received new uniforms, new kingdoms were cooked up and sold like hot cakes; many potentates were chased, on the other hand, from house and home, and had to find some new way of earning their bread, and some therefore went at once into trade, and manufactured, for instance, sealing wax, or—Madame, this paragraph must be brought to an end, or I shall be out of breath—in fine, in such times it is impossible to advance far in geography.

I succeeded better in natural history, for there we find fewer changes, and we always have standard engravings of apes, kangaroos, zebras, rhinoceroses, etc., etc. And having many such pictures in my memory, it often happens that at first sight many mortals appeared to me like old acquaintances.

I also did well in mythology, and took a real delight in the mob of gods and goddesses who, so jolly and naked, governed the world. I do not believe that there was a schoolboy in ancient Rome who knew the principal points of his catechism—that is, the loves of Venus—better than I. To tell the plain truth, it seems to me that if we must learn all the heathen gods by heart, we might as well have kept them from the first; and we have not, perhaps, gained so much with our New-Roman Trinity or still less with our Jewish unity. Perhaps the old mythology was not in reality so immoral as we imagine, and it was, for example, a very decent idea of Homer to give to much-loved Venus a husband.

But I succeeded best in the French class of the Abbe d'Aulnoi, a French emigre, who had written a number of grammars, and wore a red wig, and jumped about very nervously when he lectured on his Art poetique and his Histoire Allemande. He was the only one in the whole gymnasium who taught German history. Still, French has its difficulties, and to learn it there must be much quartering of troops, much drumming, much apprendre par coeur, and, above all, no one must be a bete allemande. There was here, too, many a hard nut to crack; and I can remember as plainly as though it happened but yesterday that I once got into a bad scrape through la religion. I was asked at least six times in succession, "Henry, what is French for 'the faith?'" And six times, with an ever increasing inclination to weep, I replied, "It is called le credit." And after the seventh question the furious examinator, purple in the face, cried, "It is called la religion"—and there was a rain of blows and a thunder of laughter from all my schoolmates. Madame, since that day I never hear the word religion without having my back turn pale with terror, and my cheeks turn red with shame. And to tell the honest truth, le credit has during my life stood me in the better stead than la religion. It occurs to me just at this instant that I still owe the landlord of The Lion in Bologna five dollars. And I pledge you my sacred word of honor that I would willingly owe him five dollars more if I could only be certain that I should never again hear that unlucky word, la religion, as long as I live.

Parbleu, Madame! I have succeeded tolerably well in French; for I understand not only patois, but even patrician, governess French. Not long ago, when in an aristocratic circle, I understood nearly one-half of the conversation of two German countesses, each of whom could count at least sixty-four years, and as many ancestors. Yes, in the Cafe Royal in Berlin, I once heard Monsieur Hans Michel Martens talking French, and could understand every word he spoke, though there was no understanding in anything he said. We must know the spirit of a language, and this is best learned by drumming. Parbleu! how much do I not owe to the French drummer who was so long quartered in our house, who looked like a devil, and yet had the good heart of an angel, and withal drummed so divinely!

He was a little, nervous figure, with a terrible black mustache, beneath which red lips sprang forth defiantly, while his wild eyes shot fiery glances all round.

I, a young shaver, stuck to him like a burr, and helped him to clean his military buttons till they shone like mirrors, and to pipe-clay his vest—for Monsieur Le Grand liked to look well—and I followed him to the guard house, to the roll-call, to the parade-ground—in those times there was nothing but the gleam of weapons and merriment—les jours de fete sont passes! Monsieur Le Grand knew but a little broken German, only the three principal words, "Bread," "Kiss," "Honor"—but he could make himself very intelligible with his drum. For instance, if I knew not what the word liberte meant, he drummed the Marseillaise—and I understood him. If I did not understand the word egalite, he drummed the march—

"Ca ira, ca ira, ca ira, Les aristocrats a la lanterne!"

and I understood him. If I did not know what Betise meant, he drummed the Dessauer March, which we Germans, as Goethe also declares, drummed in Champagne—and I understood him. He once wanted to explain to me the word l'Allemagne (or Germany), and he drummed the all too simple melody which on market-days is played to dancing-dogs, namely, dum-dum-dum! I was vexed, but I understood him for all that!

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.

Cursed, unreflecting feet! They once played me a little trick, when I, on a time in Goettingen, 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 naivete 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 Duesseldorf, 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.

III

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 Duesseldorf. 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 cortege 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.

The Emperor rode calmly, straight through the middle of the avenue; no policeman stopped him; behind him proudly rode his cortege on snorting steeds and loaded with gold and ornaments. The drums rolled, the trumpets pealed; near me crazy Aloysius spun round, and snarled the names of his generals; not far off bellowed the tipsy Gumpert, and the multitude cried with a thousand voices, "Es lebe der Kaiser!"—Long live the Emperor!

IV

The Emperor is dead. On a waste island in the Indian Sea lies his lonely grave, and he for whom the world was too narrow lies silently under a little hillock, where five weeping willows shake out their green hair, and a gentle little brook, murmuring sorrowfully, ripples by. There is no inscription on his tomb; but Clio, with unerring style, has written thereon invisible words, which will resound, like ghostly tones, through the centuries.

Britannia, the sea is thine! But the sea hath not water enough to wash away the shame which that mighty one hath bequeathed to thee in dying. Not thy wind bag, Sir Hudson—no; thou thyself wert the Sicilian bravo whom perjured kings lured that they might secretly revenge on the man of the people that which the people had once openly inflicted on one of themselves. And he was thy guest, and had seated himself by thy hearth.

Until the latest times the boys of France will sing and tell of the terrible hospitality of the Bellerophon, and when those songs of mockery and tears resound across the strait, there will be a blush on the cheek of every honorable Briton. But a day will come when this song will ring thither, and there will be no Britannia in existence—when the people of pride will be humbled to the earth, when Westminster's monuments will be broken, and when the royal dust which they inclosed will be forgotten. And St. Helena is the holy grave whither the races of the east and of the west will make their pilgrimage in ships, with pennons of many a hue, and their hearts will grow strong with great memories of the deeds of the worldly savior, who suffered and died under Sir Hudson Lowe, as it is written in the evangelists, Las Cases, O'Meara, and Autommarchi.

Strange! A terrible destiny has already overtaken the three greatest enemies of the Emperor: Londonderry has cut his throat, Louis XVIII has rotted away on his throne, and Professor Saalfeld is still, as before, professor in Goettingen.

* * * * *



ENGLISH FRAGMENTS[56]

BY HEINRICH HEINE

TRANSLATED BY CHARLES GODFREY LELAND

DIALOGUE ON THE THAMES

The sallow man stood near me on the deck, as I gazed on the green shores of the Thames, while in every corner of my soul the nightingales awoke to life. "Land of Freedom!" I cried, "I greet thee! Hail to thee, Freedom, young sun of the renewed world! Those older suns, Love and Faith, are withered and cold, and can no longer light or warm us. The ancient myrtle woods, which were once all too full, are now deserted, and only timid turtle-doves nestle amid the soft thickets. The old cathedrals, once piled in towering height by an arrogantly pious race, which fain would force its faith into heaven, are crumbling, and their gods have ceased to believe in themselves. Those divinities are worn out, and our age lacks the imagination to shape others. Every power of the human breast now tends to a love of Liberty, and Liberty is, perhaps, the religion of the modern age. It is a religion not preached to the rich, but to the poor, and has in like manner its evangelists, its martyrs, and its Iscariots!"

"Young enthusiast," said the sallow man, "you will not find what you seek. You may be in the right in believing that Liberty is a new religion which will spread over all the world. But as every race of old, when it received Christianity, did so according to its requirements and its peculiar character, so, at present, every country adopts from the new religion of liberty only that which is in accordance with its local needs and national character.

The English are a domestic race, living a sequestered, peaceable, family life, and the Englishman seeks in the circle of those connected with and pertaining to him that easy state of mind which is denied to him through his innate social incapacity. The Englishman is, therefore, contented with that liberty which secures his most personal rights and guards his body, his property, and his conjugal relations, his religion, and even his whims, in the most unconditional manner. No one is freer in his home than an Englishman, and, to use a celebrated expression, he is king and bishop between his four walls; and there is much truth in the common saying, 'My house is my castle.'

"If the Englishman has the greatest need of personal freedom, the Frenchman, in case of necessity, can dispense with it, if we only grant him that portion of universal liberty known as equality. The French are not a domestic, but a social, race; they are no friends to a silent tete-a-tete, which they call une conversation anglaise; they run gossiping about from the cafe to the casino, and from the casino to the salons; their light champagne-blood and inborn talent for company drive them to social life, whose first and last principle, yes, whose very soul, is equality. The development of the social principle in France necessarily involved that of equality, and if the ground of the Revolution should be sought in the Budget, it is none the less true that its language and tone were drawn from those wits of low degree who lived in the salons of Paris, apparently on a footing of equality with the high noblesse, and who were now and then reminded, it may have been by a hardly perceptible, yet not on that account less exasperating, feudal smile, of the great and ignominious inequality which lay between them. And when the canaille roturiere took the liberty of beheading that high noblesse, it was done less to inherit their property than their ancestry, and to introduce a noble equality in place of a vulgar inequality. And we are the better authorized to believe that this striving for equality was the main principle of the Revolution, since the French speedily found themselves so happy and contented under the dominion of their great Emperor, who, fully appreciating that they were not yet of age, kept all their freedom within the limits of his powerful guardianship, permitting them only the pleasure of a perfect and admirable equality.

"Far more patient than the Frenchman, the Englishman easily bears the glances of a privileged aristocracy, consoling himself with the reflection that he has a right which renders it impossible for others to disturb his personal comfort or his daily requirements. Nor does the aristocracy here make a show of its privileges, as on the Continent. In the streets and in places of public resort in London, colored ribbons are seen only on women's bonnets, and gold and silver signs of distinction on the dresses of lackeys. Even that beautiful, colored livery which indicates with us military rank is, in England, anything but a sign of honor, and, as an actor after a play hastens to wash off the rouge, so an English officer hastens, when the hours of active duty are over, to strip off his red coat and again appear like a gentleman, in the plain garb of a gentleman. Only at the theatre of St. James are those decorations and costumes, which were raked from the off-scourings of the Middle Ages, of any avail. There we may see the ribbons of orders of nobility; there the stars glitter, silk knee-breeches and satin trains rustle, golden spurs and old-fashioned French styles of expression clatter; there the knight struts and the lady spreads herself. But what does a free Englishman care for the Court comedy of St. James, so long as it does not trouble him, and so long as no one interferes when he plays comedy in like manner in his own house, making his lackeys kneel before him, or plays with the garter of a pretty cook-maid? 'Honi soit qui mal y pense!'

"As for the Germans, they need neither freedom nor equality. They are a speculative race, ideologists, prophets, and sages, dreamers who live only in the past and in the future, and who have no present. Englishmen and Frenchmen have a present; with them every day has its field of action, its struggle against enemies, its history. The German has nothing for which to battle, and when he began to realize that there might be things worth striving for, his philosophizing wiseacres taught him to doubt the existence of such things. It cannot be denied that the Germans love liberty, but it is in a different manner from other people. The Englishman loves liberty as his lawful wife, and, even if he does not treat her with remarkable tenderness, he is still ready in case of need to defend her like a man, and woe to the red-coated rascal who forces his way to her bedroom—let him do so as a gallant or as a catchpoll. The Frenchman loves liberty as his bride. He burns for her; he is a flame; he casts himself at her feet with the most extravagant protestations; he will fight for her to the death; he commits for her sake a thousand follies. The German loves liberty as though she were his old grandmother."

Men are strange beings! We grumble in our Fatherland; every stupid thing, every contrary trifle, vexes us there; like boys, we are always longing to rush forth into the wide world, and, when we finally find ourselves there, we find it too wide, and often yearn in secret for the narrow stupidities and contrarieties of home. Yes, we would fain be again in the old chamber, sitting behind the familiar stove, making for ourselves, as it were, a "cubby-house" near it, and, nestling there, read the German General Advertiser. So it was with me in my journey to England. Scarcely had I lost sight of the German shore ere there awoke in me a curious after-love for the German nightcaps and forest-like wigs which I had just left in discontent; and when the Fatherland faded from my eyes I found it again in my heart. And, therefore, it may be that my voice quivered in a somewhat lower key as I replied to the sallow man—"Dear sir, do not scold the Germans! If they are dreamers, still many of them have conceived such beautiful dreams that I would hardly incline to change them for the waking realities of our neighbors. Since we all sleep and dream, we can perhaps dispense with freedom; for our tyrants also sleep, and only dream their tyranny. We awoke only once—when the Catholic Romans robbed us of our dream-freedom; then we acted and conquered, and laid us down again and dreamed. O sir! do not mock our dreamers, for now and then they speak, like somnambulists, wondrous things in sleep, and their words become the seeds of freedom. No one can foresee the turn which things may take. The splenetic Briton, weary of his wife, may put a halter round her neck and sell her in Smithfield. The flattering Frenchman may perhaps be untrue to his beloved bride and abandon her, and, singing, dance after the Court dames (courtisanes) of his royal palace (palais royal). But the German will never turn his old grandmother quite out of doors; he will always find a place for her by his fireside, where she can tell his listening children her legends. Should Freedom ever vanish from the entire world—which God forbid!—a German dreamer would discover her again in his dreams."

While the steamboat, and with it our conversation, swam thus along the stream, the sun had set, and his last rays lit up the hospital at Greenwich, an imposing palace-like building which in reality consists of two wings, the space between which is empty, and a green hill crowned with a pretty little tower from which one can behold the passers-by. On the water the throng of vessels became denser and denser, and I wondered at the adroitness with which they avoided collision. While passing, many a sober and friendly face nodded greetings—faces whom we had never seen before, and were never to see again. We sometimes came so near that it was possible to shake hands in joint welcome and adieu. One's heart swells at the sight of so many bellying sails, and we feel strangely moved when the confused hum and far-off dance-music, and the deep voices of sailors, resound from the shore. But the outlines of all things vanished little by little behind the white veil of the evening mist, and there remained visible only a forest of masts, rising long and bare above it.

The sallow man still stood near me and gazed reflectively on high, as though he sought for the pale stars in the cloudy heaven. And, still gazing aloft, he laid his hand on my shoulder, and said in a tone as though secret thoughts involuntarily became words—"Freedom and equality! they are not to be found on earth below nor in heaven above. The stars on high are not alike, for one is greater and brighter than another; none of them wanders free, all obey a prescribed and iron-like law—there is slavery in heaven as on earth!"

"There is the Tower!" suddenly cried one of our traveling companions, as he pointed to a high building which rose like a spectral, gloomy dream above the cloud-covered London.

* * * * *

LONDON

I have seen the greatest wonder which the world can show to the astonished spirit; I have seen it, and am still astonished; and still there remains fixed in my memory the stone forest of houses, and amid them the rushing stream of faces of living men with all their motley passions, all their terrible impulses of love, of hunger, and of hatred—I mean London.

Send a philosopher to London, but, for your life, no poet! Send a philosopher there, and station him at a corner of Cheapside, where he will learn more than from all the books of the last Leipzig fair; and as the billows of human life roar around him, so will a sea of new thoughts rise before him, and the Eternal Spirit which moves upon the face of the waters will breathe upon him; the most hidden secrets of social harmony will be suddenly revealed to him; he will hear the pulse of the world beat audibly, and see it visibly; for if London is the right hand of the world—its active, mighty right hand—then we may regard that route which leads from the Exchange to Downing Street as the world's pyloric artery.

But never send a poet to London! This downright earnestness of all things, this colossal uniformity, this machine-like movement, this troubled spirit in pleasure itself, this exaggerated London, smothers the imagination and rends the heart. And should you ever send a German poet thither—a dreamer, who stares at everything, even a ragged beggar-woman, or the shining wares of a goldsmith's shop—why, then, at least he will find things going right badly with him, and he will be hustled about on every side, or perhaps be knocked over with a mild "God damn!" God damn!—damn the knocking about and pushing! I see at a glance that these people have enough to do. They live on a grand scale, and though food and clothes are dearer with them than with us, they must still be better fed and clothed than we are—as gentility requires. Moreover, they have enormous debts, yet occasionally, in a vainglorious mood, they make ducks and drakes of their guineas, pay other nations to box about for their pleasure, give their kings a handsome douceur into the bargain; and, therefore, John Bull must work to get the money for such expenditure. By day and by night he must tax his brain to discover new machines, and he sits and reckons in the sweat of his brow, and runs and rushes, without much looking around, from the Docks to the Exchange, and from the Exchange to the Strand; and therefore it is quite pardonable if he, when a poor German poet, gazing into a print-shop window, stands bolt in his way on the corner of Cheapside, should knock the latter sideways with a rather rough "God damn!"

But the picture at which I was gazing as I stood at Cheapside corner was that of the French crossing the Beresina.

And when I, jolted out of my gazing, looked again on the raging street, where a parti-colored coil of men, women, and children, horses, stagecoaches, and with them a funeral, whirled groaning and creaking along, it seemed to me as though all London were such a Beresina Bridge, where every one presses on in mad haste to save his scrap of life; where the daring rider stamps down the poor pedestrian; where every one who falls is lost forever; where the best friends rush, without feeling, over one another's corpses; and where thousands in the weakness of death, and bleeding, grasp in vain at the planks of the bridge, and are shot down into the icy grave of death.

How much more pleasant and homelike it is in our dear Germany! With what dreaming comfort, in what Sabbath-like repose, all glides along here! Calmly the sentinels are changed, uniforms and houses shine in the quiet sunshine, swallows flit over the flagstones, fat Court-counciloresses smile from the windows; while along the echoing streets there is room enough for the dogs to sniff at each other, and for men to stand at ease and chat about the theatre, and bow deeply—oh, how deeply!—when some small aristocratic scamp or vice-scamp, with colored ribbons on his shabby coat, or some Court-marshal-low-brow struts along as if in judgment, graciously returning salutations.

I had made up my mind in advance not to be astonished at that immensity of London of which I had heard so much. But I had as little success as the poor schoolboy who determined beforehand not to feel the whipping which he was to receive. The facts of the case were that he expected to get the usual blows with the usual stick in the usual way on the back, whereas he received a most unusually severe licking on an unusual place with a cutting switch. I anticipated great palaces, and saw nothing but mere small houses. But their very uniformity and their limitless extent impress the soul wonderfully.

These houses of brick, owing to the damp atmosphere and coal smoke, are all of an uniform color, that is to say, of a brown olive-green, and are all of the same style of building, generally two or three windows wide, three stories high, and finished above with small red tiles, which remind one of newly extracted bleeding teeth; while the broad and accurately squared streets which these houses form seem to be bordered by endlessly long barracks. This has its reason in the fact that every English family, though it consist of only two persons, must still have a house to itself for its own castle, and rich speculators, to meet the demand, build, wholesale, entire streets of these dwellings, which they retail singly. In the principal streets of the city, where the business of London is most at home, where old-fashioned buildings are mingled with the new, and where the fronts of the houses are covered with signs, yards in length, generally gilt, and in relief, this characteristic uniformity is less striking—the less so, indeed, because the eye of the stranger is incessantly caught by the new and brilliant wares exposed for sale in the windows. And these articles do not merely produce an effect, because the Englishman completes so perfectly everything which he manufactures, and because every article of luxury, every astral lamp and every boot, every teakettle and every woman's dress, shines out so invitingly and so finished. There is also a peculiar charm in the art of arrangement, in the contrast of colors, and in the variety of the English shops; even the most commonplace necessities of life appear in a startling magic light through this artistic power of setting forth everything to advantage. Ordinary articles of food attract us by the new light in which they are placed; even uncooked fish lie so delightfully dressed that the rainbow gleam of their scales attracts us; raw meat lies, as if painted, on neat and many-colored porcelain plates, garlanded about with parsley—yes, everything seems painted, reminding us of the highly polished yet modest pictures of Franz Mieris. But the human beings whom we see are not so cheerful as in the Dutch paintings, for they sell the jolliest wares with the most serious faces, and the cut and color of their clothes is as uniform as that of their houses.

On the opposite side of the town, which they call the West End—"the west end of the town"—and where the more aristocratic and less occupied world lives, the uniformity spoken of is still more dominant; yet here there are very long and very broad streets, where all the houses are large as palaces, though anything but remarkable as regards their exterior, unless we except the fact that in these, as in all the better class of houses in London, the windows of the first etage (or second story) are adorned with iron-barred balconies, and also on the rez de chaussee there is a black railing protecting the entrance to certain subterranean apartments. In this part of the city there are also great "squares," where rows of houses like those already described form a quadrangle, in whose centre there is a garden, inclosed by an iron railing and containing some statue or other. In all of these places and streets the eye is never shocked by the dilapidated huts of misery. Everywhere we are stared down on by wealth and respectability, while, crammed away in retired lanes and dark, damp alleys, Poverty dwells with her rags and her tears.

The stranger who wanders through the great streets of London, and does not chance right into the regular quarters of the multitude, sees little or nothing of the fearful misery existing there. Only here and there at the mouth of some dark alley stands a ragged woman with a suckling babe at her weak breast, and begs with her eyes. Perhaps, if those eyes are still beautiful, we glance into them, and are shocked at the world of wretchedness visible within. The common beggars are old people, generally blacks, who stand at the corners of the streets cleaning pathways—a very necessary thing in muddy London—and ask for "coppers" in reward. It is in the dusky twilight that Poverty and her mates, Vice and Crime, glide forth from their lairs. They shun daylight the more anxiously since their wretchedness there contrasts more cruelly with the pride of wealth which glitters everywhere; only Hunger sometimes drives them at noonday from their dens, and then they stand with silent, speaking eyes, staring beseechingly at the rich merchant who hurries along, busy, and jingling gold, or at the lazy lord who, like a surfeited god, rides by on his high horse, casting now and then an aristocratically indifferent glance at the mob below, as though they were swarming ants, or rather a mass of baser beings, whose joys and sorrows have nothing in common with his feelings. Yes—for over the vulgar multitude which sticks fast to the soil there soars, like beings of a higher nature, England's nobility, to whom their little island is only a temporary resting-place, Italy their summer garden, Paris their social salon, and the whole world their inheritance. They sweep along, knowing nothing of sorrow or suffering, and their gold is a talisman which conjures into fulfilment their wildest wish.

Poor Poverty! how agonizing must thy hunger be, where others swell in scornful superfluity! And when some one casts with indifferent hand a crust into thy lap, how bitter must the tears be wherewith thou moistenest it! Thou poisonest thyself with thine own tears. Well art thou in the right when thou alliest thyself to Vice and Crime! Outlawed criminals often bear more humanity in their hearts than those cool, reproachless town burghers of virtue, in whose white hearts the power of evil, it is true, is quenched—but with it, too, the power of good. And even vice is not always vice. I have seen women on whose cheeks red vice was painted, and in whose hearts dwelt heavenly purity. I have seen women—I would that I saw them again!—

WELLINGTON

The man has the bad fortune to meet with good fortune everywhere, and wherever the greatest men in the world were unfortunate; and that excites us, and makes him hateful. We see in him only the victory of stupidity over genius—Arthur Wellington triumphant where Napoleon Bonaparte is overwhelmed! Never was a man more ironically gifted by Fortune, and it seems as though she would exhibit his empty littleness by raising him high on the shield of victory. Fortune is a woman, and perhaps in womanly wise she cherishes a secret grudge against the man who overthrew her former darling, though the very overthrow came from her own will. Now she lets him conquer again on the Catholic Emancipation question—yes, in the very fight in which George Canning was destroyed. It is possible that he might have been loved had the wretched Londonderry been his predecessor in the Ministry; but it happens that he is the successor of the noble Canning—of the much-wept, adored, great Canning—and he conquers where Canning was overwhelmed. Without such an adversity of prosperity, Wellington would perhaps pass for a great man; people would not hate him, would not measure him too accurately, at least not with the heroic measure with which a Napoleon and a Canning are measured, and consequently it would never have been discovered how small he is as man.

He is a small man, and smaller than small at that. The French could say nothing more sarcastic of Polignac than that he was a Wellington without celebrity. In fact, what remains when we strip from a Wellington the field-marshal's uniform of celebrity?

I have here given the best apology for Lord Wellington—in the English sense of the word. My readers will be astonished when I honorably confess that I once praised this hero—and clapped on all sail in so doing. It is a good story, and I will tell it here:

My barber in London was a Radical, named Mr. White—poor little man in a shabby black dress, worn until it almost shone white again; he was so lean that even his full face looked like a profile, and the sighs in his bosom were visible ere they rose. These sighs were caused by the misfortunes of Old England—by the impossibility of paying the National Debt.

"Ah!" I generally heard him sigh, "why need the English people trouble themselves as to who reigns in France, and what the French are a-doing at home? But the high nobility, sir, and the High Church were afraid of the principles of liberty of the French Revolution; and to keep down these principles John Bull must give his gold and his blood, and make debts into the bargain. We've got all we wanted out of the war—the Revolution has been put down, the French eagles of liberty have had their wings cut, and the High Church may be cock-sure that none of these eagles will come a-flying over the Channel; and now the high nobility and the High Church between 'em ought to pay, anyway, for the debts which were made for their own good, and not for any good of the poor people. Ah! the poor people!"

Whenever Mr. White came to the "poor people" he always sighed more deeply than ever, and the refrain then was that bread and porter were so dear that the poor people must starve to feed fat lords, stag-hounds, and priests, and that there was only one remedy. At these words he was wont to whet his razor, and as he drew it murderously up and down the strop, he murmured grimly to himself, "Lords, priests, hounds!"



But his Radical rage boiled most fiercely against the Duke of Wellington; he spat gall and poison whenever he alluded to him, and as he lathered me he himself foamed with rage. Once I was fairly frightened when he, while barbering away at my neck, burst out in wonted wise against Wellington, murmuring all the while, "If I only had him this way under my razor, I'd save him the trouble of cutting his own throat, as his brother in office and fellow-countryman, Londonderry, did, who killed himself that-a-way at North Cray in Kent—God damn him!"

I felt that the man's hand trembled and, fearing lest he might imagine, in his excitement, that I really was the Duke of Wellington, I endeavored to allay his violence, and, in an underhand manner to soothe him, I called up his national pride; I represented to him that the Duke of Wellington had advanced the glory of the English, that he had always been an innocent tool in the hands of others, that he was fond of beefsteak, and that he finally—but the Lord only knows what fine things I said of Wellington as I felt that razor tickling around my throat!

What vexes me most is the reflection that Wellington will be as immortal as Napoleon Bonaparte. It is true that, in like manner, the name of Pontius Pilate will be as little likely to be forgotten as that of Christ. Wellington and Napoleon! It is a wonderful phenomenon that the human mind can at the same time think of both these names. There can be no greater contrast than the two, even in their external appearance. Wellington, the dumb ghost, with an ashy-gray soul in a buckram body, a wooden smile on his freezing face—and, by the side of that, think of the figure of Napoleon, every inch a god!

That figure never disappears from my memory. I still see him, high on his steed, with eternal eyes in his marble-like, imperial face, glancing calm as destiny on the Guards defiling past—he was then sending them to Russia, and the old Grenadiers glanced up at him so terribly devoted, so all-consciously serious, so proud in death—

"Te, Caesar, morituri, salutant."

There often steals over me a secret doubt whether I ever really saw him, if we were ever contemporaries, and then it seems to me as if his portrait, torn from the little frame of the present, vanished away more proudly and imperiously in the twilight of the past. His name even now sounds to us like a word of the early world, and as antique and as heroic as those of Alexander and Caesar. It has already become a rallying word among races, and when the East and the West meet they fraternize on that single name.

I once felt, in the deepest manner, how significantly and magically that name can sound. It was in the harbor of London, at the India Docks, and on board an East India-man just arrived from Bengal. It was a giant-like ship, fully manned with Hindoos. The grotesque forms and groups, the singularly variegated dresses, the enigmatical expressions of countenance, the strange gestures, the wild and foreign ring of their language, their shouts of joy and their laughter, with the seriousness ever rising and falling on certain soft yellow faces, their eyes like black flowers which looked at me as with wondrous woe—all of this awoke in me a feeling like that of enchantment; I was suddenly as if transported into Scherezade's story, and I thought that broad-leaved palms, and long-necked camels, and gold-covered elephants, and other fabulous trees and animals must forthwith appear. The supercargo who was on the vessel, and who understood as little of the language as I myself, could not, in his truly English narrow-mindedness, narrate to me enough of what a ridiculous race they were, nearly all pure Mohammedans collected from every land of Asia, from the limits of China to the Arabian Sea, there being even some jet-black, woolly-haired Africans among them.

To one whose whole soul was weary of the spiritless West, and who was as sick of Europe as I then was, this fragment of the East which moved cheerfully and changingly before my eyes was a refreshing solace; my heart enjoyed at least a few drops of that draught which I had so often tasted in gloomy Hanoverian or Royal Prussian winter nights, and it is very possible that the foreigners saw in me how agreeable the sight of them was to me, and how gladly I would have spoken a kind word to them. It was also plain from the very depths of their eyes how much I pleased them, and they would also have willingly said something pleasant to me, and it was a vexation that neither understood the other's language. At length a means occurred to me of expressing to them with a single word my friendly feelings, and, stretching forth my hands reverentially as if in loving greeting, I cried the name, "Mohammed!"

Joy suddenly flashed over the dark faces of the foreigners, and, folding their arms as reverentially in turn, as a cheerful greeting they exclaimed, "Bonaparte!"

* * * * *



LAFAYETTE[57] (1833)

By HEINRICH HEINE

TRANSLATED BY CHARLES GODFREY LELAND

PARIS, January 19, 1832.

The Temps remarks today that the Allgemeine Zeitung now publishes articles which are hostile to the royal family, and that the German censorship, which does not permit the least remark to be leveled at absolute kings, does not show the least mercy toward a citizen-king. The Temps is really the shrewdest and cleverest journal in the world! It attains its object with a few mild words much more readily than others with the most blustering polemics. Its crafty hint is well understood, and I know of at least one liberal writer who no longer considers it honorable to use, under the permission of the censorship, such inimical language of a citizen-king as would not be allowed when applied to an absolute monarch. But in return for that, let Louis Philippe do us one single favor—which is to remain a citizen-king; for it is because he is becoming every day more and more like an absolute king that we must complain of him. He is certainly perfectly honorable as a man, an estimable father of a family, a tender spouse and a good economist, but it is vexatious to see how he allows all the trees of liberty to be felled and stripped of their beautiful foliage that they may be sawed into beams to support the tottering house of Orleans. For that, and that only, the Liberal press blames him, and the spirits of truth, in order to make war on him, even condescend to lie. It is melancholy and lamentable that through such tactics even the family of the King must suffer, although its members are as innocent as they are amiable. As regards this, the German Liberal press, less witty but much kinder than its French elder sister, is guilty of no cruelties. "You should at least have pity on the King," lately cried the good-tempered Journal des Debats. "Pity on Louis Philippe!" replied the Tribune. "This man asks for fifteen millions and our pity! Did he have pity on Italy, on Poland?"—et cetera.

I saw a few days ago the young orphan of Menotti, who was hanged in Modena. Nor is it long since I saw Senora Luisa de Torrijos, a poor deathly-pale lady, who quickly returned to Paris when she learned on the Spanish frontier the news of the execution of her husband and of his fifty-two companions in misfortune. Ah! I really pity Louis Philippe.

La Tribune, the organ of the openly declared Republican party, is pitiless as regards its royal enemy, and every day preaches the Republic. The National, the most reckless and independent journal in France, has recently chimed in to the same air in a most surprising manner. And terrible as an echo from the bloodiest days of the Convention sounded the speeches of those chiefs of the Societe des Amis du Peuple who were placed last week before the court of assizes, "accused of having conspired against the existing Government in order to overthrow it and establish a republic." They were acquitted by the jury, because they proved that they had in no way conspired, but had simply uttered their convictions publicly. "Yes, we desire the overthrow of this feeble Government, we wish for a republic." Such was the refrain of all their speeches before the tribunal.

While on one side the serious Republicans draw the sword and growl with words of thunder, the Figaro flashes lightning, and laughs and swings its light lash most effectually. It is inexhaustible in clever sayings as to "the best republic," a phrase with which poor Lafayette is mocked, because he, as is well known, once embraced Louis Philippe before the Hotel de Ville and cried, "Vous etes la meilleure republique!" The Figaro recently remarked that we of course now require no republic, since we have seen the best. And it also said as cruelly, in reference to the debates on the civil list, that "la meilleure republique coute quinze millions." The Republican party will never forgive Lafayette his blunder in advocating a king. They reproach him with this, that he had known Louis Philippe long enough to be aware beforehand what was to be expected of him. Lafayette is now ill—malade de chagrin—heart-sick. All! the greatest heart of two worlds must feel bitterly the royal deception. It was all in vain that he in the very beginning continually insisted on the Programme de l'Hotel de Ville, on the republican institutions with which the monarchy should be surrounded, and on similar promises. But he was out-cried by the doctrinaire gossips and chatterers, who proved from the English history of 1688 that people in Paris in July, 1830, had fought simply to maintain the Charter, and that all their sacrifices and struggles had no other object than to replace the elder line of the Bourbons by the younger, just as all was finished in England by putting the House of Orange in place of the Stuarts. Thiers, who does not think with this party, though he now acts as their spokesman, has of late given them a good push forward. This indifferentist of the deepest dye, who knows so admirably how to preserve moderation in the clearness, intelligence, and illustration of his style, this Goethe of politics, is certainly at present the most powerful defender of the system of Perier, and, in fact, with his pamphlet against Chateaubriand he well-nigh annihilated that Don Quixote of Legitimacy, who sat so pathetically on his winged Rosinante, whose sword was more shining than sharp, and who shot only with costly pearls instead of good, piercing, leaden bullets.

In their irritation at the lamentable turn which events have taken, many of the enthusiasts for freedom go so far as to slander Lafayette. How far a man can go astray in this direction is shown by the book of Belmontet, which is also an attack on the well-known pamphlet by Chateaubriand, and in which the Republic is advocated with commendable freedom. I would here cite the bitter passages against Lafayette contained in this work, were they not on one side too spiteful, and on the other connected with a defense of the Republic which is not suitable to this journal. I therefore refer the reader to the work itself, and especially to a chapter in it entitled "The Republic." One may there see how evil fortune may make even the noblest men unjust.

I will not here find fault with the brilliant delusion of the possibility of a republic in France. A royalist by inborn inclination, I have now, in France, become one from conviction. For I am convinced that the French could never tolerate any republic, neither according to the constitution of Athens or of Sparta, nor, least of all, to that of the United States. The Athenians were the student-youths of mankind; their constitution was a species of academic freedom, and it would be mere folly to seek to introduce it in this our matured age, to revive it in our senile Europe. And how could we put up with that of Sparta, that great and tiresome manufactory of patriotism, that soldiers' barrack of republican virtue, that sublimely bad kitchen of equality, in which black broth was so vilely cooked that Attic wits declared it made men despise life and defy death in battle? How could such a constitution flourish in the very foyer of gourmands, in the fatherland of Very, of Vefour, and of Careme? This latter would certainly have thrown himself, like Vatel, on his sword, as a Brutus of cookery and as the last gastronome. Indeed, had Robespierre only introduced Spartan cookery, the guillotine would have been quite superfluous, for then the last aristocrats would have died of terror, or emigrated as soon as possible. Poor Robespierre! you would introduce stern republicanism to Paris—to a city in which one hundred and fifty thousand milliners and dressmakers, and as many barbers and perfumers, exercise their smiling, curling, and sweet-smelling industries!

The monotony, the want of color, and the petty domestic citizens' life of America would be even more intolerable in the home of the "love of the spectacular," of vanity, fashion, and novelties. Indeed, the passion for decorations flourishes nowhere so much as in France. Perhaps, with the exception of August Wilhelm Schlegel, there is not a woman in Germany so fond of gay ribbons as the French; even the heroes of July, who fought for freedom and equality, afterward wore blue ribbons to distinguish themselves from the rest of the people. Yet, if I on this account doubt the success of a republic in Europe, it still cannot be denied that everything is leading to one; that the republican respect for law in place of veneration of royal personages is showing itself among the better classes, and that the Opposition, just as it played at comedy for fifteen years with a king, is now continuing the same game with royalty itself, and that consequently a republic may be for a short time, at least, the end of the song. The Carlists are aiding this movement, since they regard it as a necessary phase which will enable them to reestablish the absolute monarchy of the elder branch; therefore they now bear themselves like the most zealous republicans. Even Chateaubriand praises the Republic, calls himself a Republican from inclination, fraternizes with Marrast, and receives the accolade from Beranger. The Gazette—the hypocritical Gazette de France—now yearns for republican state forms, universal franchise, primary meetings, et cetera. It is amusing to see how these disguised priestlings now play the bully-braggart in the language of Sans-culottism, how fiercely they coquet with the red Jacobin cap, yet are ever and anon afflicted with the thought that they might forgetfully have put on in its place the red cap of a prelate; they take for an instant from their heads their borrowed covering and show the tonsure unto all the world. Such men as these now believe that they may insult Lafayette, and it serves as an agreeable relaxation from the sour republicanism, the compulsory liberty, which they must assume.

But let deluded friends and hypocritical enemies say what they will, Lafayette is, after Robespierre, the purest character of the French Revolution, and, next to Napoleon, its most popular hero. Napoleon and Lafayette are the two names which now bloom most beautifully in France. Truly their fame is each of a different kind. The latter fought for peace, not victory; the former rather for the laurel wreath than for that of oak leaves. It would indeed be ridiculous to measure the greatness of the two heroes with the same metre, and put one on the pedestal of the other, even as it would be absurd to set the statue of Lafayette on the Vendome column—that monument made of the cannon conquered on so many fields of battle, the sight of which, as Barbier sings, no French mother can endure. On this bronze column place Napoleon, the man of iron, here, as in life, standing on his fame, earned by cannon, rising in terrible isolation to the clouds, so that every ambitious soldier, when he beholds him, the unattainable one, there on high, may have his heart humbled and healed of the vain love of celebrity, and thus this colossal column of metal, as a lightning conductor of conquering heroism, will do much for the cause of peace in Europe.

Lafayette has raised for himself a better column than that of the Place Vendome, and a better monumental image than one of metal or marble. Where is there marble as pure as the heart of old Lafayette, or metal as firm as his fidelity? It is true that he was always one-sided, but one-sided like the magnetic needle, which always points to the north, and never once veers to south or west. So he has for forty years said the same thing, and pointed constantly to North America. He is the one who opened the Revolution with the declaration of the rights of man; to this hour he perseveres in this belief, without which there is no salvation and no health to be hoped for—the one-sided man with his one-sided heavenly region of freedom. He is indeed no genius, as was Napoleon, in whose head the eagles of inspiration built their nests, while the serpents of calculation entwined in his heart; but then he was never intimidated by eagles nor seduced by serpents. As a young man he was wise as a graybeard, as a graybeard fiery as a youth, a protector of the people against the wiles of the great, a protector of the great against the rage of the people, compassionating yet combating, never arrogant and never discouraged, equally firm and mild—the unchangeable Lafayette! and so, in his one-sidedness and equanimity, he has remained on the same spot from the days of Marie Antoinette to the present hour. And, as a trusty Eckart of liberty, he still stands leaning on his sword before the entrance to the Tuileries, warning the world against that seductive Venusberg, whose magic tones sing so enticingly, and from whose sweet snares the poor wretches who are once entangled in them can never escape.

It is certainly true that the dead Napoleon is more beloved by the French than is the living Lafayette. This is perhaps because he is dead, which is to me the most delightful thing connected with him; for, were he alive, I should be obliged to fight against him. The world outside of France has no idea of the boundless devotion of the French people to Napoleon. Therefore the discontented, when they determine on a decided and daring course, will begin by proclaiming the young Napoleon, in order to secure the sympathy of the masses. Napoleon is, for the French, a magic word which electrifies and benumbs them. There sleep a thousand cannon in this name, even as in the column of the Place Vendome, and the Tuileries will tremble should these cannon once awake. As the Jews never idly uttered the name of their God, so Napoleon is here very seldom called by his, and people speak of him as l'homme, "the man." But his picture is seen everywhere, in engravings and plaster casts, in metal and wood. On all boulevards and carrefours are orators who praise and popular minstrels who sing him—the Man—and his deeds. Yesterday evening, while returning home, I came into a dark and lonely lane, in which there stood a child some three years old, who, by a candle stuck into the earth, lisped a song praising the Emperor. As I threw him a sou on the handkerchief spread out, something slid up to me, begging for another. It was an old soldier, who could also sing a song of the glory of the great Emperor, for this glory had cost him both legs. The poor man did not beg in the name of God, but implored with most believing fervor, "Au nom de Napoleon, donnez-moi un sou." So this name is the best word to conjure with among the people. Napoleon is its god, its cult, its religion, and this religion will, by and by, become tiresome, like every other.

Lafayette, on the contrary, is venerated more as a man or as a guardian angel. He, too, lives in picture and in song, but less heroically; and—honorably confessed!—it had a comic effect on me when, last year, on the 28th July, I heard in the song of La Parisienne the words—

"Lafayette aux cheveux blancs,"

while I saw him in person standing near me in his brown wig. It was the Place de la Bastille; the man was in his right place, but still I needs must laugh to myself. It may be that such a comic combination brings him humanly somewhat nearer to our hearts. His good-nature, his bonhomie, acts even on children, and they perhaps understand his greatness better than do the grown people. And here I will tell a little story about a beggar which will show the characteristic contrast between the glory of Lafayette and that of Napoleon. I was lately standing at a street corner before the Pantheon, and as usual lost in thought in contemplating that beautiful building, when a little Auvergnat came begging for a sou, and I gave him half-a-franc to be rid of him. But he approached me all the more familiarly with the words, "Est-ce que vous connaissez le general Lafayette?" and as I assented to this strange question, the proudest satisfaction appeared on the naive and dirty face of the pretty boy, and with serio-comic expression he said, "Il est de mon pays," for he naturally believed that any man who was generous enough to give him ten sous must be, of course, an admirer of Lafayette, and judged me worthy that he should present himself as a compatriot of that great man. The country folk also have for Lafayette the most affectionate respect, and all the more because he chiefly busies himself with agriculture. From this, result the freshness and simplicity which might be lost in constant city life. In this he is like one of those great Republicans of earlier days who planted their own cabbages, but who in time of need hastened from the plough to the battle or the tribune, and after combat and victory returned to their rural work. On the estate where Lafayette passes the pleasant portion of the year, he is generally surrounded by aspiring young men and pretty girls. There hospitality, be it of heart or of table, rules supreme; there are much laughing and dancing; there is the court of the sovereign people; there any one may be presented who is the son of his own works and has never made mesalliance with falsehood—and Lafayette is the master of ceremonies. The name of this country place is Lagrange, and it is very charming when the hero of two worlds relates to the young people his adventures; then he appears like an epos surrounded by the garlands of an idyll.

But it is in the real middle-class more than any other, that is, among tradespeople and small shop-keepers, that there is the most veneration for Lafayette. They simply worship him. Lafayette, the establisher of order, is their idol. They adore him as a kind of Providence on horseback, an armed tutelary patron of public peace and security, as a genius of freedom, who also takes care in the battle for freedom that nothing is stolen and that everybody keeps his little property. The great army of public order, as Casimir Perier called the National Guard, the well-fed heroes in great bearskin caps into which small shopmen's heads are stuck, are drunk with delight when they speak of Lafayette, their old general, their Napoleon of peace. Truly he is the Napoleon of the small citizen, of those brave folks who always pay their bills—those uncle tailors and cousin glove-makers who are indeed too busy by day to think of Lafayette, but who praise him afterward in the evening with double enthusiasm, so that one may say that it is about eleven o'clock at night, when the shops are shut, that his fame is in full bloom.

I have just before used the expression "master of ceremonies." I now recall that Wolfgang Menzel has in his witty trifling called Lafayette a master of ceremonies of Liberty. This was when the former spoke in the Literaturblatt of the triumphal march of Lafayette across the United States, and of the deputations, addresses, and solemn discourses which attended such occasions. Other much less witty folk wrongly imagine that Lafayette is only an old man who is kept for show or used as a machine. But they need hear him speak only once in public to learn that he is not a mere flag which is followed or sworn by, but that he is in person the gonfaloniere in whose hands is the good banner, the oriflamme of the nations. Lafayette is perhaps the most prominent and influential speaker in the Chamber of Deputies. When he speaks, he always hits the nail, and his nailed-up enemies, on the head.