The Devil's Elixir Part 9

I did so, and became almost petrified with terror and astonishment, for I found the name "Medardus" embroidered thereupon; and, on more accurate inspection, I could discover also that this was the identical tunic which, on my flight from the castle of the Baron von F----, I had thrown into a hollow tree in the forest.

Schonfeld did not fail to remark my agitation, over which he seemed wickedly to triumph. With his fore-finger on his nose, and lifting himself on tiptoe, he looked stedfastly in my face. I remained speechless; then, in a low and pensive tone, he resumed--

"Your excellency, no doubt, wonders at the handsome dress which has been chosen for you. To say the truth, it seemed in every respect to fit and become you better than the nut-brown suit, with plated b.u.t.tons, which my wise friend Damon supplied for you. It was I, the banished, the despised and misunderstood Belcampo, who provided for you this dress, in order to cover your nakedness. Brother Medardus, you were then, indeed, but in a sorry plight, for, instead of great-coat, vest, pantaloons, English frock, &c. &c. you wore, in the simplest, and most unpretending manner, your own skin. As to a proper friseur, you thought as little of him as you did of a tailor, performing his functions with your own ten fingers, in a style which was by no means to be commended."

"Give over these disgusting follies," said I, much incensed; "Schonfeld--I insist on your being rational, otherwise I will hear no more!"

"Pietro Belcampo is my name," interrupted he, with great vehemence; "Ay, Pietro Belcampo; for we are now in Italy, and you must know, reverend sir, that I, simple as I here stand, impersonize that folly, which luckily has been present on every disastrous occasion, to a.s.sist your wisdom; and without which, you would have found yourself miserably deficient. It is from Folly alone that you have derived protection. By this alone your boasted reason, which is unable to hold itself upright, but totters about like a drunk man or a child, has been supported, and instructed to find the right road home, that is to say, to the mad-house, where we are both happily arrived."

By these last words I was much agitated. I thought on the strange figures that I had seen, especially on the tall haggard man in the dingy yellow mantle, who had made such absurd gesticulations; and could entertain no doubt that Schonfeld had told me the truth. "Ay, dear brother Medardus," resumed Schonfeld, with solemn voice and gestures; "Folly is, indeed, on this earth, the true intellectual queen. Reason, on the other hand, is only a pitiful viceroy, who never troubles himself with what happens beyond his own narrow boundaries, who, from sheer _ennui_, indeed, makes his soldiers be exercised on the _parade-platz_, though the said soldiers afterwards, in time of danger, cannot fire a single volley in proper time. But Folly, the true queen of the people, marches in with kettle-drums and trumpets--Huzza! Huzza!--before and behind her, triumph and rejoicing! The lieges straightway emanc.i.p.ate themselves from the constraint in which Reason would have held them, and will no longer stand or walk as their pedantic tutor would have them to do. At last he calls the roll, and complains,--'Lo! Folly hath robbed me of my best recruits--hath driven them away--driven their wits a wool-gathering--ay, driven them mad.' That is a play of words, dear brother Medardus, and such play is like a glowing pair of curling-irons in the hand of Folly, with which she can twist such a thought!"

"Desist, I once more entreat of you," said I, "desist from this childish clatter of unmeaning words, and tell me concisely how you came hither, and what you know regarding the dress which I now wear!" Hereupon I seized him by both arms, and forced him into a chair, where he seemed to recollect himself, fixed his eyes stedfastly on the ground, and with a deep sigh resumed,--

"I have saved your life," said he, "for the second time. It was I who enabled you to escape from the town of Frankenburg. It was I, too, who brought you hither."

"But, in the name of Heaven," said I, "where did you last find me?"

I had let him go, and he instantly bolted up--"Ha, brother Medardus,"

said he, "if I, weak and diminutive as I seem, had not contrived to bear you on my shoulders, your limbs would by this time, have lain the food of ravens on the wheel!"

I shuddered as if ready to faint, and sunk into a chair. At that moment my attendant monk entered the room. "How hast thou come hither? Who gave thee liberty now to enter this room?" said he, very angrily, to Belcampo.

"Alas! venerable father," said the latter, in a supplicating tone, and pretending to burst into tears, "I could no longer resist the vehement impulse to visit my dearest friend, whom I had rescued from danger of death!"

I now recovered myself. "Tell me, brother," said I to the monk, "did this man really bring me hither?"

The monk hesitated.

"I scarcely know," said I, "in what sort of hospital I am now protected, but I can easily suppose that I have been in the most frightful of all conditions. You perceive, however, that I am now quite well, and therefore, I may hear all which was before intentionally concealed from me, when you supposed that my nerves were yet too irritable."

CHAPTER XI.

"It is, indeed, quite true," said the monk, "this man brought you hither about three months and a half ago. He had, according to his own account, found you in the Lovanian forest, (which separates the dominions of the Prince of Laguria, from our district,) and had recognized you for the Capuchin Medardus from Konigswald, who had before, on a journey to Rome, pa.s.sed through a town where he then lived.

"When first brought among us, you were in a state of utter apathy. You walked when you were led, remained standing if one let you alone, and seated or laid yourself down according as you were put into the required position. Food and drink we were obliged to pour down your throat; as to words, you were able only to utter hollow unintelligible sounds, and your eyes appeared to stare, without the power of distinguishing any object. Belcampo then never left you, but was your faithful attendant.

After an interval of about a month, you fell into a state of outrageous madness, and we were obliged to place you in one of the cells appropriated for persons in that frightful malady. You were then like a ferocious wild beast; but I dare not describe your sufferings more minutely, as the picture might be too painful. After some weeks, your state of apathy again returned, and seemed more obstinate than ever, but at last, G.o.d be praised, you awoke from your stupefaction, into your present convalescence."

Schonfeld had, during this narrative of the monk, seated himself, as if in deep reflection, leaning his head on his hand. "Ay, truly," he resumed, "I know that I am sometimes little better than a self-conceited fool; but the air of the mad-house, destructive to reasonable people, has on me had a very beneficial influence. I begin to speculate on my own errors, which is no bad sign. If, generally speaking, I exist only through my own self-consciousness, it is only requisite that this consciousness should pull off the fool's motley coat, and I shall shew myself to the world, a very wise, rational gentleman. But, oh, heavens!

is not a genial friseur, according to the principles of his character and profession, a privileged fool and c.o.xcomb? Such folly is, in truth, a protection from all madness; and I can a.s.sure you, reverend sir, that in a north-west wind, I can distinguish very well between a church-tower and a lamp-post!"

"If this be really the case," said I, "give us a proof of it now by a quiet rational narrative, how you discovered me in the wood, and brought me to this house."

"That shall immediately be done," said Belcampo, "though the reverend father on my right hand looks at me with a very suspicious aspect. You must know, then, that on the morning after your escape from Frankenburg, the foreign painter, with his collection of pictures, had also, in an inconceivable manner, vanished; and although the disturbance that you had raised at first excited a good deal of notice, yet, in the stream of other events, and the bustle of the fair, it was ere long forgotten. It was not till after the murder at the castle of the Baron von F---- became generally talked of, and the magistracy of that district published handbills, offering a reward for the arrest of Medardus, a Capuchin monk in Konigswald, that people were reminded of the painter having indeed told the whole story, and recognized in you the said brother Medardus.

"The landlord of the hotel wherein you had lodged, confirmed a supposition that had already got afloat, of my having been accessory to your flight. The people, therefore, fixed their attention on me, and would have thrown me into prison. Having long wished to quit for ever the miserable course of life that I had been dragging on, my resolution was, in consequence, very speedily adopted. I determined to go into Italy, where there are _Abbates_ with powdered wigs, and encouragement is yet afforded to an accomplished _friseur_. On my way thither I saw you in the _residenz_ of the Prince von Rosenthurm. The people there talked of your marriage with the Baroness Aurelia, and of the condemnation and execution of the monk Medardus.

"I had also an opportunity of seeing this criminal monk, and whatever his history might have been, I was convinced at once that you were the true Medardus. I placed myself in your way, but you did not observe me, and I left the Prince's _residenz_, in order to follow out my own plans.

"After a long and fatiguing journey, I had taken up my night's rest at a small obscure hamlet. In the morning I rose very early, as was the custom of the inhabitants there, and prepared to continue my laborious progress through a forest, which lay in gloomy darkness before me. Just as the first gleams of the morning had begun to break through the clouds of the east, there was a rustling in the thickets, and a man, with his hair matted, and staring out in various directions, his beard, too, in the same disorder, but wearing an elegant modern suit of clothes, leaped past me!

"His looks were wild and outrageous, and I gazed after him with the greatest astonishment, but in a moment he had disappeared again in the thick of the tangled coppice, and I could see no more of him. I walked onwards, therefore; but what words can express the horror that I felt, when right before me I saw a naked human figure stretched out flat upon the ground! There seemed to me no doubt that a murder had been committed, and that the fugitive whom I had before seen was the murderer.

"I knelt down beside the naked man, recognized at once your features, and perceived that you still breathed. Close beside you lay the Capuchin habit, which at this moment you are wearing. With much labour and stratagem I contrived to dress you in it, and to drag you along with me.

At last you awoke out of your deep swoon, but you remained in that frightful state of apathy in which this reverend gentleman has described you.

"It cost me no little exertion to get you dragged along, and consequently it was not till late in the evening that I was able to reach an ale-house, which was situated in the middle of the forest. Here I placed you upon a bench of turf at the door, where you lay as if utterly overcome and drunk with sleep. I then went into the house to procure you food and drink, and, found (as I suspected might be the case) a party of hussars, who, as the hostess informed me, were in pursuit of a monk, who, in an inconceivable manner, had escaped at the moment when, on account of his enormous crimes, preparations were making for his death on the scaffold.

"It was to me an inexplicable mystery how you could have escaped out of the _residenz_ into the forest; but the entire conviction that you were the Medardus whom they now sought after, made me exert myself to the utmost to rescue you from the danger which now hovered over you. Of course, I brought you away directly from the ale-house, in which undertaking I was favoured by the increasing darkness; and thereafter choosing always the by-roads and most unfrequented tracks, I succeeded at last in conducting you over the frontiers.

"Finally, after long and incredible wanderings, I came with you to this house, where the inhabitants received us both, as I declared that I was not willing to separate from you. Here I was convinced that you were perfectly secure, for by no means would the venerable fathers give up a sick person whom they had once received, to any criminal court.

"In this very chamber, then, I faithfully attended and nursed you; for as to your own five senses, you were indeed but very indifferently provided. Nor were the movements of your limbs to be commended. Neither Vestris nor Noverre would have given you much encouragement, for your head hung down on your breast, and when any one wished you to stand upright, then you tumbled about like a capotted nine-pin or skittle. As to your celebrated eloquence, too, you fared still worse, for you were d----d _monosyllabic_, and in your lucid intervals, only said, 'Hu--hu!'

and 'Me--me!' out of which expressions your thoughts and wishes were not to be very clearly divined: Indeed, it was to be supposed, that your rational faculties had become unfaithful to you, and were gone a-vagabondizing on their own private account.

"At last you became all of a sudden extravagantly merry, cut inordinate capers in the air, and roared aloud with sheer exuberance of delight, tearing your habit at the same time, in order, we supposed, to escape even from the smallest restraint. Your appet.i.te was then----"

"Stop, stop, Schonfeld," cried I, "give over this horrible and cruel raillery--you have already sufficiently informed me of the frightful situation into which I had fallen. Thanks and praise to the long-suffering and mercy of Heaven, and the intercession of the saints, that I am now rescued!"

"Alas! reverend sir," resumed Schonfeld, "in what respect are you the better of all that you have gained, I mean of this peculiar attribute of the soul, which is called self-consciousness? Methinks it might well be compared to the cursed activity of a pettifogging toll-keeper, or excise-officer, at best, or a controller of customs, who has established his d.a.m.nable _comptoir_ in the brain, and upon the last indication of goods coming forth from hence, cries out 'Hey day! The export is forbidden. These wares must remain in the country.' The richest jewels, like contemptible grains of seed, remain stuck in the earth, and at last, all that rises above the surface are _runkelruben_,[4] from an hundred thousand weight of which, perhaps a quarter of an ounce of bad sugar is afterwards extracted; and yet this pitiful export is, forsooth, to lay the foundation of trade with the glorious city of the New Jerusalem in the realms above, where all is magnificence and splendour.

Oh, heavens! I would have given all my dearly bought powder _a la Marchalle_, or _a la Pompadour_, or _a la Reine de Golconde_,--would have cast it into the river, where it is deepest, if by transi-to-trade, I could have obtained from thence but a _quentlein_ of the golden dust of the sun's rays, to dress the wigs of reverend professors, and men of learning, but in the first place, mine own! What do I say? If my excellent friend Damon, reverend sir, had, instead of the flea-coloured frock, contrived to hang about your shoulders one of those robes made of the morning light, in which the burgesses of the holy city walk to church, then, as to dignity and gentility, we should have come off very differently; but as the matter stood, the world held you for a common _glebae adscriptus_, and the devil for your cousin-german!"

[Footnote 4: Beet-roots.]

Schonfeld had risen up, and walked, or rather hopped, about the room, with vehement gesticulations, and twisting his features into incredible contortions. He was in the plenitude of his vein, kindling up one folly by another. I therefore seized him again by both arms. "Art thou resolved," said I, "to secure thyself a place in this hospital instead of me? Is it impossible for thee to talk more than five minutes together without falling into these absurdities?"

"Is then all that I utter," said he, "so very foolish, when thus the spirit comes upon me?"

"That is precisely what renders your talk so intolerable," said I.

"There is often good sense at the bottom of all this gibberish, but so abominably metamorphosed, that a thought, good in itself, is like a fine dress hung over with party-coloured rags. Like a drunk man, thou canst not proceed in a straight direction, but art everlastingly floundering away hither and thither. Thy conduct is never consistent or consecutive."

"What is conduct?" said Schonfeld, with a contemptuous smile--"What is conduct, most venerable Capuchin? Doth not that term imply the preconception in the mind of some fixed and certain object, for the attainment of which we shape and adapt our procedure? Are you, reverend sir, sure of your own object? Are you not rather afraid that you may have occasionally admitted too little alloy in your spirituous potations, and now, like a giddy tower-watcher, see two goals, without knowing the right one? Besides, sir, let it be forgiven to one of my profession, if he is apt, perhaps too often, to have recourse to the humorous and the _outre_, in order to season the insipidity of this life, as we add Spanish pepper to cauliflower; without this, an artist of my vocation would be but a pitiful _dummkopf_,[5] who carries his privilege in his pocket, without ever daring to make use of it."

[Footnote 5: Blockhead.]

The monk had remained in the room, and had looked attentively at Belcampo and at me; but as we spoke German, he did not understand a single word. At last, he resolutely interrupted our dialogue. "Excuse me, gentlemen," said he, "if I put an end to a discourse from which it is impossible for either of you to derive any advantage. Your health, brother, is yet much too weak to bear with a conversation which probably awakens painful recollections as to your past life. Besides, you will have time enough to learn all that your friend has to inform you of, as when you leave our establishment, he will no doubt accompany you.

Belcampo has a strange manner of speaking; and by his eloquence and gesticulations together, never fails, when he tells a story, to bring every adventure vividly before the eyes of his listener. In Germany he must, I suppose, be looked on as mad. Here in Italy, he would be valued as a capital buffoon, and on the stage might make a fortune."

Schonfeld stared with all his might at the clergyman, then lifted himself on tiptoe, clasped his hands over his head, and called out in Italian, "Thou warning voice from the world of spirits--thou voice of omnipotent destiny! To me thou hast spoken at last through the organs of this reverend father. Belcampo--Belcampo! How could'st thou mistake so long thy true vocation? It is now resolved!" He then ran out of the room, and for that day I saw no more of him.

Next morning he made his appearance, equipt for a journey. "Dear Brother Medardus," said he, "you are now quite recovered; you do not any longer require my a.s.sistance. I therefore take my departure, in order to go, as the spirit moves me, into the world. Farewell, then! Yet permit me that I exercise on you, for the last time, my art, although in my own estimation it has now become utterly contemptible."

Hereupon he drew out his razors, comb, and scissars, and with a thousand grimaces, _more suo_, brought my hair and visage into proper order. At last he took his leave, with many tears; and as the man, notwithstanding his fidelity, had become very strange and mysterious, and knew more of my history than I could have wished, I was not sorry to find myself free from his tiresome conversation.