The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 06. Коллектив авторов

The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 06 - Коллектив авторов


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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, "Ça ira, ça 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 Göttingen, 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 protégé 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;


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