Master Flea - E. T. A. Hoffmann (love letters to the dead .TXT) 📗

"Angelic creature!" interrupted Peregrine, "if you don't wish that I should take it all for a delirious dream, or perhaps become delirious on the spot myself, tell me at once of whom you are speaking,--who is this prisoner?"

"How!" replied the maiden--"I do not understand you; would you deny that he is in your custody? Was I not present when you bought the hunting-set?"

"Who," cried Peregrine, quite beside himself, "who is this HE? For the first time in my life I see you, lady, and who are YOU? who is this HE?"

Dissolving in grief, the stranger threw herself at Peregrine's feet, while the tears poured down in abundant streams from her eyes: "Be humane, be merciful--give him back to me!"--and at the same time her exclamations were mingled with those of Peregrine, "I shall lose my senses! I shall go mad! I shall be frantic!"

On a sudden the maiden started up. She seemed much larger than before; her eyes flashed fire, her lips quivered, and she exclaimed, with furious gestures, "Ha, barbarian! no human heart dwells in you! You are inexorable! You wish my death, my destruction! You won't give him up! No--never, never! Wretched me!--Lost! lost!"

And with this she rushed out of the room. Peregrine heard her clattering down the stairs, while her lamentations filled the whole house, till at last a door below was flung to with violence.

The Flea-tamer.--Melancholy fate of the Princess Gamaheh, in Famagusta.--Awkwardness of the Genius, Thetel, and remarkable microscopic experiments and recreations.--The beautiful Hollandress, and singular adventure of the young Mr. George Pepusch, a student of Jena.

At this time there was a man in Frankfort, who practised the strangest art possible. He was called the flea-tamer, from having succeeded--and certainly not without much trouble and exertion--in educating these little creatures, and teaching them to execute all sorts of pretty tricks. You saw with the greatest astonishment a troop of fleas upon a slab of highly-polished marble, who drew along little cannons, ammunition-waggons, and baggage-carts, while others leaped along by them with muskets in their arms, cartouch-boxes on their backs, and sabres at their sides. At the word of command from the artist, they performed the most difficult evolutions, and all seemed fuller of life and mirth than if they had been real soldiers; for the marching consisted in the neatest entrechats and capers, and the faces about, right and left, in the most graceful pirouettes. The whole troop had a wonderful a-plomb, and the general seemed to be at the same time a most admirable ballet-master. But even more handsome and more wonderful were the little gold coaches, which were drawn by four, six, or eight fleas. Coachmen and servants were little gold flies, of the smallest kind and almost invisible; while that, which sate within, could not be well distinguished. One was involuntarily reminded of the equipage of Queen Mab, so admirably described by Shakspeare's Mercutio, that it is easy to perceive she must often have travelled athwart his own nose.

But it was not till you overlooked the table with a good magnifying glass that the art of the flea-tamer developed itself in its full extent; for then first appeared the splendour and grace of the vessels, the fine workmanship of the arms, the glitter and neatness of the uniforms, all of which excited the profoundest admiration. It was quite impossible to imagine what instruments the flea-tamer could have used in making neatly and proportionately certain little collaterals, such as spurs and buttons, compared to which that matter seemed to be a very trifling task, which else had passed for a master-piece of the tailor, namely, the fitting a flea with a pair of breeches; though, indeed, in this the most difficult part must have been the measuring.

The flea-tamer had abundance of visitors. Throughout the whole day the hall was never free from the curious, who were not deterred by the high price of admission. In the evening, too, the company was numerous, nay almost more numerous, as then even those people, who cared little about such trickeries, came to admire a work which gave the flea-tamer quite another character, and acquired for him the real esteem of the philosopher. This work was a night-microscope, that, as the sun-microscope by day, like a magic lantern, flung the object, brightly lit up, upon a white ground, with a sharpness and distinctness which left nothing more to be wished. Moreover, the flea-tamer carried on a traffic with the finest microscopes that could be, and which were readily bought at a great price.

It chanced that a young man, called George Pepusch,--the kind reader will soon be better acquainted with him,--took a fancy to visit the flea-tamer late in the evening. Already, upon the stairs, he heard the clamour of a dispute, that grew louder and louder with every moment, and at last became a perfect tempest. Just as he was about to enter, the door of the hall was violently flung open, and the multitude rushed out in a heap upon him, their faces pale with terror.

"The cursed wizard!--the Satan's-brood! I'll denounce him to the supreme court!--He shall out of the city, the false juggler!"

Such were the confused cries of the multitude, as, urged by fear and terror, they sought to get out of the house as quickly as possible.

A glance into the hall at once betrayed to the young Pepusch the cause of this horror, which had driven away the people. All within was alive, and a loathsome medley of the most hideous creatures filled the whole room. The race of beetles, spiders, leeches, gnats, magnified to excess, stretched out their probosces, crawled upon their long hairy legs, or fluttered their long wings. A more hideous spectacle Pepusch had never seen. He was even beginning to be sensible himself of horror, when something rough suddenly flew in his face, and he saw himself enveloped in a thick cloud of meal dust. His terror immediately left him, for he at once perceived that the rough thing could be nothing else than the round powdered wig of the flea-tamer--which, in fact, it was.

By the time Pepusch had rubbed the powder from his eyes, the disgusting population of insects had vanished. The flea-tamer sate in his arm-chair quite exhausted.

"Leuwenhock!"--exclaimed Pepusch to him--"Leuwenhock, do you see now what comes of your trickeries? You have again been forced to have recourse to your vassals to keep the people's hands off you--Is it not so?"

"Is it you?" said the naturalist, in a faint voice--"Is it you, good Pepusch?--Ah! it is all over with me--clean over with me--I am a lost man! Pepusch, I begin to believe that you really meant it well with me, and that I have not done wisely in making light of your warnings."

Upon Pepusch's quietly asking what had happened, the flea-tamer turned himself round with his arm-chair to the wall, held both his hands before his face, and cried out piteously to Pepusch to take up a glass and examine the marble slab. Already, with the naked eye, Pepusch observed that the little soldiers, &c. lay there as if dead,--that nothing stirred any longer. The dexterous fleas appeared also to have taken another shape. But now, by means of the glass, Pepusch soon discovered that not a single flea was there, but what he had taken for them were nothing more than black pepper-corns and fruit-seeds that stood in their uniforms.

"I know not," began the flea-tamer, quite melancholy and overwhelmed,-- "I know not what evil spirit struck me with blindness, that I did not perceive the desertion of my army till the people were at the table and prepared for the spectacle. You may imagine, Pepusch, how, on seeing themselves deceived, the visitors first murmured, and then blazed out into fury. They accused me of the vilest deceit, and, as they grew hotter and hotter, and would no longer listen to any excuses, they were falling upon me to take their own revenge. What could I do better, to shun a load of blows, than immediately set the great microscope into motion, and envelope the people in a cloud of insects, at which they were terrified, as is natural to them?"

"But," said Pepusch, "tell me how it could possibly happen that your well-disciplined troop, which had shown so much fidelity to you, could so suddenly take themselves off, without your perceiving it at once?"

"Oh!" cried the flea-tamer, "O, Pepusch! HE has deserted me!--He by whom alone I was master--He it is to whose treachery I ascribe all my blindness, all my misery!"

"Have I not," said Pepusch, "have I not long ago warned you not to place your reliance upon tricks which you cannot execute without the possession of the MASTER? and on how ticklish a point rests that possession, notwithstanding all your care, you have just now experienced."

Pepusch farther gave the flea-tamer to understand, that he could not at all comprehend how his being forced to give up these tricks could so much disturb his life, as the invention of the microscope, and his general dexterity in the preparation of microscopic glasses, had long ago established him. But the flea-tamer, on the other hand, maintained, that very different things lay hid in these subtleties, and that he could not give them up without giving up his whole existence. Pepusch interrupted him by asking, "Where is Dörtje Elverdink?"

"Where is she?" screamed Leuwenhock, wringing his hands--"where is Dörtje Elverdink?--Gone!--gone into the wide world!--vanished!--But strike me dead at once, Pepusch, for I see your wrath growing: make short work of it with me!"

"There you see now," said Pepusch, with a gloomy look--"you see now what comes of your folly, of your absurd proceedings. Who gave you a right to confine the poor Dörtje like a slave, and then again, merely for the sake of alluring people, to make a show of her like some wonder of natural history? Why did you put a force upon her inclinations, and not allow her to give me her hand, when you must have seen how dearly we loved each other?--Fled, is she? Well then, she is no longer in your power; and although I do not at this moment know where to seek for her, yet am I convinced that I shall find her. There, Leuwenhock, put on your wig again, and submit to your destiny; that is the best thing you can do."

The flea-tamer arranged his wig on his bald head with his left hand, while with his right he caught Pepusch by the arm, exclaiming--

"Pepusch, you are my real friend, for you are the only man in the whole city of Frankfort, who know that I lie buried in the old church at Delft, since the year seventeen hundred and twenty-five, and yet have not betrayed it to any one,--even when you were angry with me on account of Dörtje Elverdink. If at times I cannot exactly get it into my head that I am actually that Anton van Leuwenhock, who lies buried at Delft, yet again I must believe it, when I consider my works, and reflect upon my life; and on that account it is very agreeable to me that it is not at all spoken of. I now see, my dear Pepusch, that, in regard to Dörtje Elverdink, I have not acted rightly, although in a very different way from what you may well imagine--that is, I was right in pronouncing your suit to be an idle struggle,--wrong, in not being open with you, in not telling you the real circumstances of Dörtje Elverdink; you would then have seen how praiseworthy it was to talk you out of wishes, the accomplishment of which could not be other than destructive. Pepusch, sit down by me, and hear a wonderful history."

"That I am likely to do,"