Melchior's Dream and Other Tales Part 10

"Was it when you were staying with Dr. Kranz at G----, and the students made that great supper for you, and escorted your carriage both ways with a procession of torches?"

"Poor boys!" said the poet, laughing; "it was very kind, and they could ill afford it. But they would have drunk quite as much wine for any one who would have taken the inside out of the University clock, or burnt the Princ.i.p.al's wig, as they did for me. It was a very unsteady procession that brought me home, I a.s.sure you. The way they poked the torches in each other's faces left one student, as I heard, with no less than eight duels on his hands. And, oh! the manner in which they howled my most pathetic love songs! No! no!"

The Duke laughed heartily.

"Is it any of the various occasions on which the fair ladies of Germany have testified their admiration by offerings of sympathy and handiwork?"

"No!" roared the poet.

"Are you quite sure?" said the Duke, slyly. "I have heard of comforters, and slippers, and bouquets, and locks of hair, besides a dozen of warm stockings knit by the fair hands of ----"

"Spare me!" groaned Friedrich, in mock indignation. "Am I a pet preacher, that I should be smothered in female absurdities? I have hair that would stuff a sofa, comforters that would protect a regiment in Siberia, slippers, stockings ----. I shall sell them, I shall burn them. I would send them back, but the ladies send nothing but their Christian names, and to identify Luise, and Gretchen, and Catherine, and Bettina, is beyond my powers. No!"

When they had ceased laughing the Duke continued his catechism.

"Was it when the great poet G---- (your only rival) paid that handsome compliment to your verses on ----"

"No!" interrupted the poet. "A thousand times no! The great poet praised the verses you allude to simply to cover his depreciation of my 'Captive Queen,' which is among my best efforts, but too much in his own style. How Germany can worship his bombastic ---- but that's nothing! No."

"Was it when you pa.s.sed accidentally through the streets of Dresden, and the crowd discovered you, and carried you to the hotel on its shoulders?"

The momentary frown pa.s.sed from Friedrich's face, and he laughed again.

"And when the men who carried me twisted my leg so that I couldn't walk for a fortnight, to say nothing of the headache I endured from bowing to the populace like a Chinese mandarin? No!"

"Is it any triumph you have enjoyed in any other country in Europe?"

"No!"

"My dear genius, I can guess no more; what, in the name of Fortune, was this happy occasion--this life triumph?"

"It is a long story, your highness, and entertaining to no one but myself."

"You do me injustice," said the Duke. "A long story from you is too good to be lost. Sit down, and favour me."

A patron's wishes are not to be neglected; and somewhat unwillingly the poet at last sat down, and told the story of his Ballad and of St.

Nicholas's Day, as it has been told here. The fountain of tears is drier in middle age than in childhood, but he was not unmoved as he concluded.

"Every circ.u.mstance of that evening," he said, "is as fresh in my remembrance now as it was then, and will be till I die. It is a joy, a triumph, and a satisfaction that will never fade. The words that roused me from despair, that promised knowledge to my ignorance and fame to my humble condition, have power now to make my heart beat, and to bring hopeful tears into eyes that should have dried with age--

"G.o.d _willing, he will be a credit to the town._"

"G.o.d _willing, he will be a credit to his country._"

"_He shall have a liberal education, and will be a great man._"

"It is as good as a poem," said the delighted Duke. "I shall tell the company to-night that I am the most fortunate man in Germany. I have heard your unpublished poem. By the bye, Poet, is that ballad published?"

"No, and never will be. It shall never know less kindly criticism than it received then."

"And are you really in earnest? Was this indeed the happiest triumph your talents have ever earned?"

"It was," said Friedrich. "The first blast on the trumpet of Fame is the sweetest. Afterwards, we find it out of tune."

"Your parents are dead, I think?"

"They are, and so is my youngest sister."

"And what of Marie?"

"She married--a man who, I think, is in no way worthy of her. Not a bad, but a stupid man, with strong Bible convictions on the subject of marital authority. She is such an angel in his house as he can never understand in this world."

"Do you ever see her?"

"Sometimes, when I want a rest. I went to see her not long ago, and found her just the same as ever. I sat at her feet, and laid my head in her lap, and tried to be a child again. I bade her tell me the history of Bluebeard, and strove to forget that I had ever lost the childish simplicity which she has kept so well;--and I almost succeeded. I had forgotten that the great poet was jealous of my 'Captive Queen,' and told myself it would be a grand thing to be like him. I thought I should like to see a live Emperor. But just when the delusion was perfect, there was a row in the street. The people had found me out, and I must show myself at the window. The spell was broken. I have not tried it again."

They were on the steps of the palace.

"Your story has entertained and touched me beyond measure," said the Duke. "But something is wanting. It does not (as they say) 'end well.' I fear you are not happy."

"I am content," said Friedrich. "Yes, I am happy. I never could be a child again, even if it pleased G.o.d to restore to me the circ.u.mstances of my childhood. It is best as it is, but I have learnt the truth of what Marie told me. It is the good, and not the great things of my life that bring me peace; or rather, neither one nor the other, but the undeserved mercies of my G.o.d!"

For those who desire to know more of the poet's life than has been told, this is added. He did not live to be very old. A painful disease (the result of mental toil), borne through many years, ended his life almost in its prime. He retained his faculties till the last, and bore protracted suffering with a heroism and endurance which he had not always displayed in smaller trials. The medical men p.r.o.nounced, on the authority of a _post-mortem_ examination, that he must for years have suffered a silent martyrdom. Truly, his bodily sufferings (when known at last) might well excuse many weaknesses and much moody, irritable impatience; especially when it is remembered that the mental sufferings of intellectual men are generally great in proportion to their gifts, and (when clogged with nerves and body that are ever urged beyond their strength) that they often mock the pride of humanity by leaving but little s.p.a.ce between the genius and the madman.

Another fact was not known till he had died--his charity. Then it was discovered how much kindness he had exercised in secret, and that three poor widows had been fed daily from his table during all the best years of his prosperity. Before his death he arranged all his affairs, even to the disposal of his worn-out body.

"My country has been gracious to me," he said, "and, if it cares, may dispose of my carcase as it will. But I desire that after my death my heart may be taken from my body and buried at the feet of my father and my mother in the churchyard of my native town. At their feet," he added, with some of the old imperiousness--"strong in death." "At their feet, remember!"

In one of the largest cities of Germany, a huge marble monument is erected to the memory of the Great Man. On three sides of the pedestal are bas-relief designs ill.u.s.trating some of his works, whereby three fellow-countrymen added to their fame; and on the fourth is a fine inscription in Latin, setting forth his talents, and his virtues, and the honours conferred on him, and stating in conclusion (on the authority of his eulogizer) that his works have gained for him immortality.

In a quiet green churchyard, near a quiet little town, under the shadow of the quaint old church, a little cross marks the graves of a tradesman and of his wife who lived and laboured in their generation, and are at rest. Near them, daisies grow above the dust of the "Fraulein," which awaits the resurrection from the dead. And at the feet of that simple couple lies the heart of their great son--a heart which the sickness of earthly hope and the fever of earthly ambition shall disturb no more.

By the Poet's own desire, "the rude memorial" that marks the spot contains no more than his initials, and a few words in his native tongue to mark the foundation of the only ambition that he could feel in death--

"Ich verla.s.se mich auf Gottes Gute immer und ewiglich."

--_My trust is in the tender mercy of_ G.o.d _for ever and ever._

A BIT OF GREEN.

"Thou oughtest, therefore, to call to mind the more heavy sufferings of others, that so thou mayest the easier bear thy own very small troubles."--THE IMITATION OF CHRIST.

Children who live always with gra.s.s and flowers at their feet, and a clear sky overhead, can have no real idea of the charm that country sights and sounds have for those whose home is in a dirty, busy, manufacturing town--just such a town, in fact, as I lived in when I was a boy, which is more than twenty years ago.