Hesperus or Forty-Five Dog-Post-Days Volume I Part 25

Both fools were buzzing round the beauty. In fact, whenever I have wanted to study fools at great parties, I have always looked round regularly for a great beauty; they gather round such a one like wasps around a fruit-woman. And if I had no other reason--I have, however--for marrying the handsomest woman, I would do it for this reason, if for no other, that I might always have the queen-bee sitting in the hollow of my hand, after whom the whole foolish bee-swarm would come buzzing. I and my wife would then be like the fellows in Lisbon, who, having in their hands a pole of parrots strung together, and at their feet a leash of _monkeys_ skipping after them, trudge through the streets, and offer their crazy _personae_ for sale.

The fragrant fool, who was to-day on the _sunny side_ of Joachime, was reading to the mother; the fine one, who was on the _weather-side_, stood near Joachime, and seemed not to trouble himself about her _cooling of the temperature_. Victor stood there as transition from the torrid zone to the frigid, and represented the temperate; Joachime played three parts with one face. The fragrant fool shot, with his left hand, the swivel-gun of a silver _joujou_. This hanging seal of a fool he kept in motion, either, as the Greenlander does a block with his feet, for the sake of keeping himself warm,--or he did it, as the grand sultan for similar reasons must always be whittling with a jackknife, in order not to be always having somebody killed out of love,--or in order, as the stork always holds a stone in his claws, to have all the time an Ixion's-wheel in his hands, as a rowel on his heels,--or for the sake of health, in order to counteract the _globulus hystericus_[237] by the motion of an external one,--or as rosary bead,--or because he didn't know why.

Each was satisfied with himself. When the mother begged our Englishman to read to her with his native accent, the _fine_ fool said, "The English, like certain sentiments, is easier to understand than to p.r.o.nounce." That is to say, this fine sheep had universally the habit of being metaphorical. If a maiden said to him, "I cannot keep myself from feeling cold to-day," he made out of it coldness of the heart. One could not say, "It is cloudy, warm, the needle has p.r.i.c.ked me," &c., without his taking this as a ball-drawer, to extract his heart from the fire-arm of his breast, and exhibit it. It was impossible in his hearing not to be fine, and from your good-morning he twisted a _bon-mot_. Had he read the Old Testament, he would not have been able to admire sufficiently the fine turns that occur there. On the other hand, the _fragrant_ fool limited his whole wit to a lively face. He unfolded before you this bill of invoice and insurance-policy of a thousand bright conceits, and held it up to you, but nothing came. You could have sworn by the advertising-poster of wit in his fiery eye, "Now he is going to blaze out,"--but not in the least! He used the weapon of satire, as the grenadiers do hand-grenades, which they no longer throw, but only wear imitated on their caps.

When the fine one had said his erotic _bon-mot_, Joachime looked at our hero, and said, with an ironical glance at the fine one, "_J'aime les sages a la folie_."

The pride of the fragrant one in his to-day's superiority, and the apparent indifference of the fine fool to his own neglect, proved that neither was often in to-day's ease, and that Joachime coquetted in a peculiar style. She always made fun of us stately male persons, when two were with her at once,--of one alone less so; her eyes left it to our self-love to ascribe the fire in them more to love than to wit; she seemed to blab out what came into her head, but many things seemed not to come into her head; she was full of contradictions and follies, but her _intentions_ and her inclination nevertheless remained doubtful to every one; her answers were quick, but her questions still quicker.

To-day, in the presence of the three gentlemen,--at other times she did it in the presence of the whole _bureau d'esprit_,--she stepped up to the looking-gla.s.s, took out her paint-box, and retouched the gay box-piece of her cheeks. One could not possibly think how she would look if she were embarra.s.sed or ashamed.

The virtue of many a lady is a thunder-house, which the electric spark of love shatters to pieces, and which they put together again for new experiments; to our hero, spoiled by the highest female perfection, it appeared as if Joachime must be cla.s.sed among those thunder-houses.

Coquetry is always answered with coquetry. Either this latter it was, or too feeble a respect for Joachime, which led Victor to make the two adorers ridiculous in the eyes of the G.o.ddess. His victory was as easy as it was great; he encamped on the foe's position,--in other words, Joachime took an increased liking to him. For women cannot bear him who, before their eyes, succ.u.mbs to another s.e.x than their own. They _love_ everything that they _admire_; and one would not have made such satirical explanations of their predilection for physical courage, if one had considered that they feel this predilection for everything that is distinguished,--for men distinguished by wealth, renown, learning.

The dry and wrinkled Voltaire had so much fame and wit, that few Parisian hearts would have rejected his satirical one. Add to this, that my hero expressed his regard for the whole s.e.x with a warmth which the individual appropriated to herself; then, too, his favorite universal-love, furthermore his eye swimming in sorrow over a lost heart, and finally his infectious human tenderness, secured him an attention from Joachime which excited his to the degree, that he proposed to himself the next time to investigate what it might signify.----

The next time soon came. So soon as the advent of the Princess was predicted by the Apothecary,--for _he_ was for the little future of the court his witch of Endor and of c.u.mae, and his Delphic cave,--he went thither; for he did not drive. "So long as there is still a shoe-black and a pavement," said he, "I do not drive. But as to the more distinguished gentry, I wonder that they even travel on foot from one wing of the palace to the other. Could not one, just as they have a penny-post for a city, introduce a conveyance for the interior of the palace? Might not every chair be a sedan-chair, if a lady were less afraid of an Alpine tour from one apartment to another? And various circ.u.mnavigatresses of the world would even venture to make a pleasure-tour through a large garden in a close litter."--Victor's own journey lay straight through one,--namely, that of Schleunes. It was too bright and pleasant as yet to let him screw himself like a sewing-cushion to the card-table. He saw in the garden a gay little party strolling about, and Joachime among them. He joined them.

Joachime expressed an artist's pleasure at the groupings of the clouds, and it was becoming to her beautiful eyes when she lifted them in that direction. As they had nothing clever to say, they sought to do something clever, so soon as they came to the _carrousel_.[238] They seated themselves in it, and caused it to be set agoing. Many of the ladies had absolutely not the courage to climb this potter's-wheel; some ventured into the seats; only Joachime, who was full as daring as she was timid, mounted the wooden tourney-steed, and took the lance in hand, to spear away the ring, with a grace which was worthy of finer rings. But in order not to expose herself to being thrown by the whirling Rosinante, Joachime had set my hero beside her as a banister, that she might hold on to him in time of need. The revolution of the axle grew more rapid, and her fear greater; she clung to him more and more firmly, and he clasped her more firmly in order to antic.i.p.ate her effort. Victor, who understood very well the legerdemain and hocuspocus of women, easily saw through Joachime's Wiegleb's-natural-magic and "Trunkus Plempsum Schallalei";[239] besides, the reciprocal pressure had pa.s.sed to and fro so rapidly, that one could not tell whether it had an originator or an originatress....

As they are now all within doors, and I stand alone in the garden by the horse-mill, I will reflect ingeniously on the subject, and remark that great people, like women and the French and the Greeks, are great--children. All great philosophers are the same, and, when they have almost destroyed themselves with thinking, revive themselves by child's fooleries, as, e. g., Malebranche did; even so do great people refresh themselves for their more serious, n.o.ble diversions by true childish ones; hence the hobby-horse chivalry, the swing, the card-houses (in Hamilton's _memoires_), the cutting out of pictures, the _joujou_. With this pa.s.sion for amusing themselves, they are in part infected by the custom of amusing their superiors, because the latter resemble the ancient G.o.ds, who, according to Moritz, were appeased, not by atonement, but by joyous festivals.

As he was acquainted with the whole theatre-company of the Minister, and, secondly, as he was no longer a lover,--for such a one has a thousand eyes for _one_ person, and a thousand eyelids for the rest,--he was not embarra.s.sed at the Minister's, but actually enjoyed himself. For he had, to be sure, his plan to carry through there; and a plot makes a life entertaining, whether one _reads_ or _executes_ it.

He was successful to-day in having a tolerably long talk with the Princess, and, to be sure, not about the Prince,--she avoided that subject,--but about her trouble of the eyes. That was all. He felt it was easier to play off an exaggerated regard than to express a real.

The apprehension of appearing false _makes_ one appear so. Hence a sincere man has the look, with a suspicious one, of being half false.

Meanwhile, with Agnola, who, in spite of her temperament, was coy,--hence a peculiar, lowered tone reigned in her presence at Schleunes's,--every step sufficed which he did not take backward.

But toward the sprightly Joachime he took half a step forward. Not so much she, as the house, seemed to him to be coquettish; and the daughters therein--they const.i.tute the house--he found to resemble the old Litones,[240] or people of the Saxons, who were one third free and two thirds serf, and who therefore could mortgage a third of their estate. Each had still a third, a ninth, a segment, of her heart left to her own free disposal. In fact, whoso has ever seen codfishing can learn the thing here from metaphor,--the three daughters hold long fishing-rods over the water (father and mother splash, and drive the codfish along), and have their hooks baited with state-uniforms or their own faces,--with hearts,--with whole men (as luring rivals),--with hearts which have already been once taken out of the stomach of another captured codfish;--from this, I say, one can see in some sort how they catch the other cod in the sea, precisely as they do the stock-fish on land,--namely, besides what has been mentioned (now let one read back again), with bits of red rag, with gla.s.s-pearls, with birds' hearts, with salted herrings and bleeding fishes, with little cods themselves, with fishes which one has taken out, half digested, from stock-fish formerly caught.----Victor thought to himself, "Joachime may be only lively or coquettish for all me; I can easily skip over marten-traps which I can see set right before my nose." Well, run, Victor; the _visible_ steel shall lead thee precisely upon that which is _concealed_. One may observe in the same person coquetry towards every other, and yet overlook it toward himself, as the fair one believes the flatterer whom she sets down as a consummate flatterer of all others.--He observed that Joachime had somewhat oftenish looked up at the new ceiling this evening, and he could not rightly tell why it pleased her. At last he saw that she was only pleased with herself, and that raising her eyes was more becoming to them than looking down.

He undertook presumptuously to investigate this, and said to her, "It is a pity the painter of the Vatican had not made it, that you might look up at it oftener."--"Oh," said she, in a tone of levity, "I never would look up with others; I do not love admiration." By and by she said, "Men dissemble, when they wish to, better than we; but I tell you just as few truths as I hear from you." She confessed outright that coquetry was the best remedy against love; and with the observation that his frankness pleased her, but hers must please him too, she ended the visit and the Post-Day.

22. DOG-POST-DAY.

Gun-Foundery of Love; e. g. Printed Gloves, Quarrels, Dwarf-Flasks, and Stabs.--A t.i.tle from the Digests of Love.--Marie.--Court-Day.-- Giulia's dying Epistle.

The reader will be vexed with this Dog-Post-Day; I, for my part, have already been vexed about it. My hero is evidently becoming entangled in the meshes of two female trains, and even in the bonds of the princely friendship... Nothing more is wanting than that Clotilda should actually be joined to the hurly-burly.----And something of this kind it becomes necessary for a mining-superintendent, an islander, to communicate confidentially to the people on the mainland.

Besides, it must be done chronologically. I will dissect this Dog-Post-Day, which reaches from November to December, into weeks.

Thereby more order will be observed. For I understand the Germans. They want, like the metaphysician, to know everything from the beginning onward, very exactly, in royal octavo, without excessive brevity, and with some _citata_. They furnish an epigram with a preface, and a love-madrigal with a table of contents; they determine the zephyr by compa.s.s and the heart of a maiden by conic sections; they mark everything, like merchants, in black-letter, and prove everything, like jurists; their cerebral membranes are living parchments, their legs private surveyors'-poles and pedometers; they cut up the veil of the Nine Muses, and apply to the hearts of these damsels turners'-compa.s.ses, and insert gauging-rods in their heads; poor Clio (the muse of history) looks, for all the world, like the Consistorial Counsellor Busching, who trudges along slowly, bent up under a land freight of surveyors'-chains, clocks to calculate _thirds_, and Harrison's longitude-watches, and interleaved writing-almanacs, so that I specially weep for the poor Busching as often as I see him striding along, since all Germany, (from which I should have expected something different,)--every magistrate, every stupid justice of the peace, (only we of Scheerau have never saddled him,)--has loaded down the good topographical carrier and Christopher (cross-bearer), like a statue hung with pledges, from knee to nostril, (so that the good man is hardly to be seen, and I wonder how he stays on his feet,)--has palisaded, I say, and built him in with all sorts of cursed devil's whisks, with village inventories, with advertising sheets, with heraldic works, with books of ground-plats and perspective plans of pigsties.

They have even--that I may only _relate_ an example out of my own history of the German statistic stupidity, although in the very doing of it I _give one_--infected Jean Paul. Is it not an old story that he has approximately a.s.signed in degrees, by means of a Saussure's cyanometer,[241] the blueness of the fairest eyes into which an _amoroso_ ever looked, and inspected the fairest drops that fell from them during the measurement, correctly enough, with a dew-measurer?--And has not his attempt to catch and prove female sighs by a Stegmann's measurer of the purity of the atmosphere found more than too many imitators among us?----

WEEK OF THE 22D POST-TRINITATIS, OR FROM NOV. 3d to 11th (EXCLUSIVE).

Almost the whole of this week he sat out at the Minister's. Many people, when they have been only four times in a house, come again daily, like the quotidian fever,--in the beginning, like the spring sun, every day earlier; afterward, like the autumn sun, every day later. He saw, indeed, that he could not contribute anything at this court-and-ministerial party, either a mystery, or property, or a heart, because it would resemble honest courts of justice, which--just as the monks call their property a deposit, and say nothing belongs to them--inversely promote every deposit into a piece of property, and say all belongs to them. But he made no account of that. "I come indeed only for fun," thought he, "and no harm can be done to me."----

The Minister, whom he met only over the table, had all the civility towards him which can be united with a face full of persiflage, and with a cla.s.s of society in whose eyes all the world is divided into spies and thieves; but Sebastian perceived, nevertheless, that he looked upon him as a smatterer in medicine and the serious sciences,--as if they were not all serious,--and as an adept merely in wit and in the liberal arts. He was, however, too proud to turn to him any other than the empty new-moon-side, and concealed from him all that might convert him. Consequently, Victor must needs, in the eyes of the stupidest government-officer who had seen it, have deprived himself of all respect by the fact that, when the Minister started an interesting conversation with his brother, the Regency-President, about imposts, alliances, or the exchequer, he either did not attend, or ran off, or looked up the women.----Then, too, he loved in the Prince only the man; the Minister loved only the Prince. Victor could himself, when with January, deliver discourses on the advantages of republics, and the latter would often, in his enthusiasm, (if the supreme courts and his stomach had allowed it,) gladly have raised Flachsenfingen to a free state, and himself to the President of Congress therein. But the Minister hated all this with a mortal hatred, and fastened on all political free-thinkers--on a Rousseau, on all Girondists, all Feuillants, all Republicans, and all philosophers--the name of _Jacobin_, as the Turks call all foreigners, Britons, Germans, Frenchmen, etc., _Franks_. Meanwhile this was a reason why Victor now took a greater liking to Mat, who thought better on this subject, and why he fled from the father to the daughter.

This week he got into Joachime's good graces. She gave to the fine and fragrant duo of fools, as we do to _virtue_, only the second prize, and to my hero, as we do to _inclination_, the prize-medal. But as he respected, at most, merely a certain sentimentalism in friendship and in love, he could, he thought, have ridden through the moon with this waggish girl, without sighing _for_ her (though he might, indeed, _over_ her). But these jolly ones, my Bastian, have seen the old Harry; for whenever they change to anything else, one changes with them to the same thing. She told him she wanted to give _pleasure_, like a Lutheran holy picture, but she would not be _adored_, like a Catholic one. She prepossessed him most by the gift peculiar to her s.e.x, of understanding tender allusions,--women are so easy at guessing the meaning of others, because they always oblige others to guess their meaning, and _complete_ and _conceal_ each _half_ with equal success. But among her attractions I reckon also her constraint before the Princess, and before those who listened with their--eyes. For the rest, his heart, which Clotilda had rejected, was now in the situation of children who have made a bet that they will receive blows upon their hands without crying, and who still continue to smile when the tears already flow.

WEEK OF THE 23d POST-TRINITATIS, OR 46th OF THE YEAR 179-.

Now he is there even in the forenoon. It is worthy of notice, that on St. Martin's day he sc.r.a.ped her powdered forehead with the powder-knife, and that he applied to her for some court offices in connection with the toilet. "I can be your rouge-box bearer, as the Great Mogul has tobacco-pipe and betel-bearers, or else your _cravatier ordinaire_, or your _sommier_ (i. e. prayer-cushion-bearer).--I would, if you did not kneel yourself on the cushion, myself do it before you.----I knew in Hanover a handsome Englishman who had his left knee stuffed and padded, because he did not know whom he should to-day have to adore, and how long."

It is something quite as important, that on St. Jonas's day he forced her to accept a pair of fine gloves, on which a very simple face was painted. "It was his own," he said; "she should have the face only by night, in bed, in, or on, her hand, that it might look as if he kissed her hand through the whole November night."

I go on with my pragmatic extracts from this siege-journal, and find recorded on Leopold's day that, as early as in the forenoon, Joachime said she would have her parrot, if she kept a master of languages for him, repeat nothing out of the whole dictionary except the word _perfide_! "Every lover," said she, "should keep a poll for himself, which should incessantly cry out to him, _perfide_!"--"The ladies,"

said my hero, "are alone to blame: they want to be loved too long; often whole weeks, whole months. The like of that is beyond our powers.

Have not the Jesuits made even love to G.o.d periodical? Scotus limits it to Sunday, others to the festival days.--Coninch says, it is enough if one loves Him once every four years.--Henriquez adds a year more to it.--Suarez says, it is enough if it is only done before one's death.----To many ladies the intermediate times have hitherto fallen; but the hours of the day, the seasons of the year, the days of betrothal, of burial, form just as many different sects among the Jesuits of Love."--Joachime made a beginning of putting on an angry look. The court-physician loved nothing better with a fair one than a quarrel, and added: "_C'est a force de se faire har qu'elles se font aimer--c'est aimer que de bouder--ah, que je vous prie de vous facher!_"--His humor had carried him beyond the mark.--Joachime had reason enough to fulfil his prayer for her wrath.--He wanted to continue the quarrel in order to settle it, but as there are cases where the _aggravation_ of an offence brings about forgiveness quite as little as the _taking of it back_ step by step, he did wisely in coming away.

He wondered that he should think of her all day long. The feeling of having done her wrong brought her face with a suffering expression before his softened soul, and all her features were at once enn.o.bled.

Tacitus says, we hate another when we have offended him; but good men often love another merely on that account.

The day following, Ottomar's day,--_Ottomar_! great name, which makes the long funeral procession of a great past sweep by all at once before me in the dark,--he found her serious, neither seeking nor shunning him. The two fools remained in her eyes the two fools, and gained nothing in any way. As, therefore, he clearly perceived that out of a transient resentment there had grown true repentance for her previous openness,--of which he seemed to have made too free a use and too selfish an interpretation,--it was now his duty to do in earnest that which he had hitherto done in joke, namely, to seek her and get her to be reconciled.

But she stood all the time by the Princess, and nothing was done.

I have not said it myself, because I knew the reader would see it without me,--that my hero thinks Joachime regards him as the image-worshipper of her charms, and as the moon-man, or satellite attracted by her. My hero has, therefore, long since made up his mind to leave her in this error. As to removing such an error,--for _that_ a man or a woman seldom has strength enough; but Victor had, besides, several reasons for indulging her with faith in his love (that is, himself, also, with faith in hers). In the first place, he wanted to conceal the reason of his coming; secondly, he knew that in the great world, and among the Joachimes, a lover is sought for only as third man in the game,--with them there is no dying of love, one does not even live on it; thirdly, he reserved for himself in all cases the sheet-anchor of making earnest out of jest; "when the knife is at my throat," thought he, "then I will set myself down and fall truly in love with her, and then all will be well"; fourthly, a coquette makes a _coquet_.[242] ... Here I began already, as is well known, to be vexed about the 22d Post-Day, although I know as well as anybody why all mankind, even the most sincere, even the male kind, incline to little intrigues towards their beloved; that is to say, not merely because they are little and _reciprocated_, but because one thinks by his intrigues to give more than he steals. Only the highest and n.o.blest love is without real trickery.

WEEKS OF THE 24th AND 25th POST-TRINITATIS.

On Sunday there was a ball. "Very naturally," said he, "she will not look on me. In ball-dress the fair s.e.x are more implacable than in morning dress." Hardly had she seen him when she came to meet him, like an agitated heaven, with her fixed stars of brilliants and her pearl-planets, and in this splendor begged of him the forgiveness of her freak. She had at first made believe angry, she said, then had actually become so; and not until the next day had seen that she did wrong to appear so and had a right to be so. This prayer for forgiveness made our Medicus more humble than was necessary. She begged him sportively to beg her pardon, and made him acquainted with her percussion-gold of sudden resentment.

For a s.p.a.ce of two days this Westphalian peace was kept.

But one quarrel with a maiden, like one fool, makes ten; and unfortunately one only likes the angry one so much the better (at least, better than the indifferent), just as people run most after _those_ Methodist preachers who d.a.m.n them the most roundly. Joachime grew daily more susceptible of anger,--which he ascribed to an increasing love,--but so did he, too. Let them have spent the whole visit in the finest imperial and domestic peace, at the leave-taking all was put upon a war-footing again, amba.s.sadors and furloughed ones (if I may be allowed these poetical expressions) recalled. Then with the angry sediments in his heart he withdrew, and could hardly wait for the moment of the next interview,--i. e. of his or her justification.

Thus did they spend their hours in the writing of peace-instruments and manifestoes. The matter of dispute was as singular as the quarrel itself: it concerned their demands of friendship; each party proved that the other was the faulty one, and demanded too much. What most enraged our Medicus was, that she allowed the fine and the fragrant fools to kiss her hand, which she forbade him to do, and in truth without any reasons for the decision. "If she would only lie to me, and say, such or such is the reason,--that at least would be something,"

said he; but she did him not the pleasure. To my s.e.x, refusal without reasons, even conjecturable ones, is a pit of brimstone, a threefold death; upon Joachime, reasons and cabinet-sermons had equal influence.

EXTRA-LEAF ON THE ABOVE.

I have a hundred times, with my legal burden of proof on my back, thought of women who are able, with a certain effort, to act as well as to believe without any reasons. For surely, in the end, everybody must (according to all philosophers) reconcile himself to actions and opinions for which reasons are entirely wanting; for, since every reason appeals to a new one, and this again rests upon one which refers us to one, which again must have its own reason, it follows that (unless we mean to be forever going and seeking) we must finally arrive at one which we accept without any reason whatever. Only the scholar fails in this, that precisely the most important truths--the highest principles of morals, of metaphysics, &c.--are the ones which he believes without reasons, and which, in his agony,--thinking to help himself out thereby,--he names necessary truths. Woman, on the contrary, makes lesser truths--e. g. there must be drives, invitations, washing to-morrow, &c.--the necessary truths, which must be accepted without the insurance and reinsurance of reasons;--and just this it is which gives her such an appearance of soundness. For them it is easy to distinguish themselves from the philosopher, who thinks, and into whose eyes the sun of truth flames so horizontally that he cannot see, for it, either road or landscape. The philosopher is obliged, in the weightiest actions,--the moral,--to be his own lawgiver and law-keeper, without having the reasons therefor given him by his conscience. With a woman, every inclination is a little conscience, and hates _Heteronomies_,[243] and beyond that p.r.o.nounces no reasons, just as the great conscience does. And it is precisely this gift, of acting more from private sovereignty than from reasons, which makes women so very suitable for men; for the latter would rather give them ten commands than three reasons.

_End of the Extra-Leaf on the above_.

What was full as bad was, that Joachime at last, only for the sake of removing his doc.u.mentary piles of complaints and imperial grievances, allowed him her fingers, without giving him the least reason for it. He could, therefore, show no t.i.tle of possession, and, in case of need, would have had no one who could protect him therein.

There is, however, a well-grounded rule of right or Brocardicon[244]

for men: that everything grows firmer with women, when one builds upon it, and that a little stolen favor legitimately belongs to us, so soon as we sue for a greater. This rule of right bases itself upon the fact that maidens always abate with us, as one does to Jews in trade, the half, and give only a couple of fingers when we want the hand. But if one has the fingers, then arises, out of the Inst.i.tutions, a new t.i.tle, which adjudicates to us the hand: the hand gives a right to the arm, and the arm to everything that is appended to it, as _accessorium_.

Thus must these things be managed, if right is to remain right. There will, in fact, have to be a little manual written by me, or some other honest man, wherein one shall expound and elucidate to the female s.e.x with the torch of legal learning the _modos_ (or ways) _acquirendi_ (of winning) them. Otherwise many modi may go out of use. Thus, e. g., according to civil law, I am rightful proprietor of a movable thing, if it was stolen thirty years ago (in fact, it should be further back, and I should not be made to suffer for it, that one began the stealing later); so, too, by prescription of thirty minutes (the time is relative) everything belonging to a fair one lawfully falls to me, which (of a movable nature--and everything about her is movable) I may have purloined from her, and therefore one cannot begin soon enough to steal, because before the theft the prescription cannot begin to take effect.

Specification is a good modus. Only one must be, like me, a Proculian,[245] and believe that a strange article belongs to him who has imparted to it a different form; e. g. to me, the hand which I have put into another shape by pressure.