Comedies by Holberg : Jeppe of the Hill, The Political Tinker, Erasmus Montanus Part 4

(Enter the Valet, Eric, and others who have been watching his behavior from the doorway.)

VALET. I wish his lords.h.i.+p a very good morning. Here is the dressing-gown, if his lords.h.i.+p wishes to rise. Eric! run for the towel and basin.

JEPPE. Oh, worthy chamberlain! I will gladly get up, but I beg of you, don't hurt me.

VALET. G.o.d forbid that we should harm his lords.h.i.+p!

JEPPE. Oh, before you kill me, would you do me the kindness of telling me who I am?

VALET. Does not your lords.h.i.+p know who he is?

JEPPE. Yesterday I was Jeppe of the Hill, but to-day--Oh, I don't know what to say.

VALET. We are glad that his lords.h.i.+p is in such good humor to-day as to deign to jest. But, G.o.d help us, why does my lord weep?

JEPPE. I'm not your lords.h.i.+p. I can take my oath on it, for, as far as I can remember, I am Jeppe Nielsen of the Hill, and one of the baron's peasants. If you will send for my wife, she'll bear witness to it, but don't let her bring Master Eric along.

ERIC. This is strange. What is the matter? Perhaps my lord is not awake, for he is not accustomed to joke like this.

JEPPE. Whether I am awake or not, I can't say, but I do know and can say that I am one of my lord's peasants, who is called Jeppe of the Hill, and I never have been a baron nor a count in all my life.

VALET. Eric! what can this mean? I am afraid my lord has been taken ill.

ERIC. I imagine he is walking in his sleep, for it often happens that people get out of bed, dress, talk, eat, and drink--all while they are still asleep.

VALET. No, Eric! I think that his lords.h.i.+p is having hallucinations brought on by an illness, run quickly and fetch some doctors. (Exit Eric.) Oh, my lord, pray drive such thoughts from your head. His lords.h.i.+p will otherwise strike fear into the whole household. Does not my lord know me?

JEPPE. I don't even know myself, so how should I know you?

VALET. Is it possible that I should hear such words from my gracious lord's mouth and see him in such a plight! Alas, our unlucky house, to be plagued with an evil spell! Does not my lord remember what he did yesterday, when he went out hunting?

JEPPE. I have never done any hunting or poaching, for I know that's a thing that will get a man hard labor; no living soul can prove that I ever hunted as much as a hare in my lord's woods.

VALET. Why, my gracious lord, I was out hunting with you myself yesterday.

JEPPE. Yesterday I was at Jacob Shoemaker's, and I drank twelve pennyworth of brandy, so how could I have been hunting?

VALET. Oh, I beg his gracious lords.h.i.+p on my bare knees to stop talking such nonsense. Eric! have the doctors been sent for?

ERIC. Yes, they are coming immediately.

VALET. Then let us put on his lords.h.i.+p's dressing-gown, for perhaps he might feel better if we took him out into the open air. Will my lord be so good as to put on his dressing-gown?

JEPPE. With all my heart. You may do what you like with me, so long as you don't kill me, for I am as innocent as a babe unborn.

SCENE 3

(Enter Eric with two Doctors.)

FIRST DOCTOR. We hear with the greatest sorrow that his lords.h.i.+p is indisposed.

VALET. Yes, Doctor. He is in a serious condition.

SECOND DOCTOR. How are you feeling, gracious lord?

JEPPE. Splendidly, except that I'm a little thirsty from the brandy I drank at Jacob Shoemaker's yesterday. If some one would only give me a mug of ale and let me go, why then they might hang you and all the rest of the doctors, for I need no medicine.

FIRST DOCTOR. I call that pure hallucination, my good colleague!

SECOND DOCTOR. The more violent it is, the quicker it will spend its rage. Let us feel your lords.h.i.+p's pulse. Quid tibi videtur, Domine Frater?

FIRST DOCTOR. I think he should be bled immediately.

SECOND DOCTOR. I do not agree with you; such remarkable weakness must be treated otherwise. My lord has had a strange and forbidding dream, which has caused a commotion in his blood and has set his brain in such a whirl that he imagines himself to be a peasant. We must endeavor to divert his lords.h.i.+p with those things in which he usually takes the greatest pleasure. Give him the wines and the dishes that he likes best, and play the music that it pleases him most to hear. (Cheerful music strikes up.)

VALET. Is not this my lord's favorite piece?

JEPPE. Like enough. Is there always such merrymaking here in the manor?

VALET. Whenever his lords.h.i.+p pleases, for he gives us all our board and wages.

JEPPE. But it is strange I can't remember the things I have done before.

SECOND DOCTOR. It is the result of this illness, your lords.h.i.+p, that one forgets all he has done previous to it. I remember, a few years ago, one of my neighbors became so confused after drinking heavily that for two days he thought he had no head.

JEPPE. I wish Squire Christoffer would do that; he must have an illness that works just the other way, for he thinks he has a great big head, while he really hasn't got one at all, as any one can tell from his decisions. (All laugh.)

SECOND DOCTOR. It is a great pleasure to us to hear his lords.h.i.+p jest. But to return to my story, this fellow went all over the town asking people if they had found the head he had lost; he recovered, however, and is now a s.e.xton in Jutland.

JEPPE. He could be that even if he hadn't found his head. (All laugh again.)

FIRST DOCTOR. Does my honored colleague remember the case that occurred ten years ago, of the man who thought his head was full of flies? He could not get over the notion, no matter how much they argued with him, until a clever doctor cured him in this way: he put on his head a plaster which was covered with dead flies, and after a while took it off and showed the flies on it to the patient, who thought they had been drawn out of his head, and was immediately well again.

I also have heard of another man who, after a long fever, got the idea that if he made water the country would suffer from a flood. No one could make him think otherwise; he said he was willing to die for the common good. This is how he was cured: a message was sent to him, supposedly from the commandant, saying that the town was threatened with a siege and there was no water in the moat, and asking him to fill it to keep the enemy out. The patient was delighted to be able to save both his fatherland and himself; so he got rid of his water and of his sickness both at once.

SECOND DOCTOR. I recall another case that occurred in Germany. A n.o.bleman came to an inn, and when he had dined and wanted to go to bed, he hung the gold chain which he wore round his neck on a nail in the wall of the bedroom. The innkeeper took careful note of this as he followed him to bed and wished him good-night. When he thought that the n.o.bleman was asleep, he stole into the room, cut sixty links out of the chain, and hung it up again. The guest got up in the morning, had his horse saddled, and put on his clothes. But when he came to put on the chain, he noticed that it had lost half its length, and began to call out that he had been robbed. The host, who was watching outside the door, ran in, putting on an expression of the greatest consternation, and exclaimed, "Oh, what a terrible transformation!" When the guest asked him what he meant by that, he said, "Alas, my lord! your head is as big again as it was yesterday." Then the host brought him a distorting mirror, which made everything appear twice as big as it really was. When the n.o.bleman saw how big his head looked in the mirror, he burst into tears and said, "Oh, now I see why my chain will not go on!"

Whereupon he mounted his horse, wrapping his head in his cloak, that none might see it on the road. They say that he kept the house for several days, unable to get over the idea that it was not the chain that had grown too short, but his head that had grown too big.

FIRST DOCTOR. There are countless examples of such illusions. I also remember hearing of a man who imagined his nose was ten feet long, and warned every one he met not to come too near.

SECOND FATHER. Domine Frater has undoubtedly heard the story of the man who thought he was dead? A young person got it into his head that he was dead, and consequently laid himself out on a bier, and would neither eat nor drink. His friends endeavored to show him the absurdity of his conduct and tried every means of making him eat, but in vain, for he merely dismissed them with scorn, a.s.serting that it was contrary to all rule for the dead to eat and drink. At last an experienced physician undertook to cure him by this unusual method: He got a servant to pretend that he too was dead, and had him laid out in the same place with the patient. For a long time the two lay and looked at each other. After a while the patient began to ask the other man what he was doing there, and he answered that he was dead. Then they began to question each other as to how they had died, and both explained in full. Later, some people who had been instructed what to do came and brought the second man his supper, whereupon he sat up in his coffin and ate a hearty meal, saying to the other, "Aren't you going to eat pretty soon?" The sick man pondered over this, and asked if it was proper for a dead man to eat, and was answered that if he did not eat soon, he could not stay dead very long. He therefore allowed himself to be persuaded first to eat with the other man, subsequently to sleep, get up, dress,--in fact, in all matters copy the other, until finally he came to life and regained his senses.

I could give innumerable other examples of such odd illusions. That is just what has happened in this case to make his gracious lords.h.i.+p think that he is a poor peasant. But if my lord will get the notion out of his head, he will speedily be himself again.

JEPPE. But can it be only illusion?