The Lost Manuscript Part 41

The words of the friend whose house he had just left, still rung in his ear. Werner's whole bearing had been very characteristic, and his nature was a strong one. Strange, that in a moment of anger his face had suddenly a.s.sumed a likeness to that of a Danish dog. Here the philosopher's chain of ideas was broken by the sudden recollection of the talk about animal souls.

"It is indeed to be deplored that it is still so difficult to determine the significance of expression as revealing the animal soul. If success attended our efforts here, science too would gain by it. If the expressions and gestures exhibited in moments of pa.s.sion by man and the higher animals could be compared and collated in every detail, important and interesting inferences might be drawn, both from that which they manifested in common and from that wherein they differed.

For, in this way, the true nature and purport of their dramatic actions, and probably new laws governing the same, might be ascertained."

Whilst the philosopher was thus meditating, he felt a repeated tugging at the end of his overcoat. As his wife was accustomed, when he was wrapt in thought, to nudge him gently if he met a friend, he paid no attention, but took off his hat politely to the post on the bridge, and said, "Good evening."

"The common character and origin of mimical expression in man and the higher animals might, perhaps, if fully known, give us glimpses into the great secret of life." Again something pulled him. Raschke mechanically lifted his hat. Another tug. "No more, dear Aurelia, I have taken my hat off." It then occurred to him that it could not be his wife who was pulling so low down at his coat. It must be his little daughter Bertha, who occasionally walked with him, and, just like her mother, would also nudge him gently when he had to bow to any one.

"Very well, dear child," said he, as Bertha kept continually pulling at his hind coat pocket, and he put his hand behind him to catch the little teazer. He caught hold of something round and s.h.a.ggy, and at once felt the sharp edges of teeth in his fingers, which made him turn round with a start. He then saw, by the lamplight, a red, brindled monster, with a great head and bristly hair, and a tuft instead of a tail. It was an awful transformation of wife and daughter, and he stared with amazement at this mysterious being, that stood opposite to him, likewise regarding him in silence.

"A remarkable meeting," cried Raschke. "What art thou, unknown beast--presumably a dog? Get away with thee!" The animal slunk back a few paces, and Raschke pursued his inquiry further. "If the facial expression and the gesticulation attendant upon emotion could be thus referred and traced back to original and common forms, the instinctive tendency to appropriate and to adapt what is foreign would undoubtedly result as one of the most universal and effective of laws. It would be instructive from the involuntary actions of men and animals to ascertain that which naturally belonged to each species and that which each had acquired. Get away, dog;--home with you, I say! What is he after, anyway? He is apparently one of Werner's people. The poor brute is possessed of some overpowering idea and will lose his way running about the city!"

In the meantime, Spitehahn's attacks had become more violent, and he at last dropped into a ludicrous march upon his hind legs, while, placing his forefeet on the Professor's back, he buried his nose in the latter's coat-pocket.

Raschke's interest in the thoughts of the dog increased. He stopped by a lamp-post and carefully examined his overcoat. He found that it possessed a cape and long sleeves, which the philosopher had never observed before on his own coat. The matter was now clear: he had thoughtlessly taken the wrong coat, and the honest dog meant to preserve his master's wardrobe, and to make the thief restore it.

Raschke was so pleased with the dog's cleverness, that he turned round and spoke coaxingly to Spitehahn, trying to stroke his bristly coat.

The dog snapped at his hand. "You are quite right," said Raschke, "in being angry with me. I will show you that I confess I am in the wrong."

So he took the coat off, and hung it over his arm. "It is, indeed, much heavier than my own." He marched briskly on in his light coat, and saw with satisfaction that the dog made no more attacks on his skirts. On the other hand, Spitehahn seized the greatcoat, and began biting at it, snapping at the Professor's hand and growling furiously.

The Professor got angry with the dog, and as he came to a bench in the Promenade, he laid the coat down on it, in order to deal with the animal in earnest, and drive him home. By this means he got rid of the dog and, what was more, of the coat too; for Spitehahn, jumping up eagerly on the bench with a mighty leap, seized the coat, and kept the Professor at bay. "It is Werner's coat," said the Professor, "and it is Werner's dog, and it would be unjustifiable to beat the poor animal because in his fidelity he has become excited, and it would be also wrong to leave both dog and coat." So he remained with the dog, trying to coax him; the animal, however, took no further notice of the Professor; on the contrary, he devoted himself to the coat, which he turned over and over again, sc.r.a.ping and gnawing at it. Raschke perceived that the coat would not long stand such treatment. "The dog must be mad," he said to himself, suspiciously, "and I shall have to resort to violence after all towards the poor creature;" and he considered whether it were better to jump up on the bench and drive the mad dog off with a good kick, or to make the unavoidable attack from below. He decided on the latter, and searched about for a stone or stick to arm himself for the encounter. He then looked up at the trees and the dark sky, and could not in the least tell where he was. "Is this witchcraft?" he said to himself, amused. "Pray tell me,"

addressing a solitary pa.s.ser-by, "in what part of the town we are; and will you have the goodness to lend me your stick for a moment?"

"These are strange questions," replied the stranger, in a surly tone.

"I want my stick myself at this time of night. And who are you, sir, I should like to know?" And he approached the Professor menacingly.

"I am a peaceable man," replied the Professor, "and little inclined to violent courses. But a struggle has commenced between that dog on the bench and me about an overcoat, and I should be extremely obliged to you if you would rescue the coat from the dog. But pray do no more harm to him than is absolutely necessary."

"Is it your coat?" asked the man.

"Unfortunately, I cannot say it is," replied Raschke, conscientiously.

"There is something wrong here," cried the stranger, again looking with suspicion at the Professor.

"Something, indeed," replied Raschke; "the dog is mad, the coat has been changed, and I don't know where we are."

"Close to the Valley Gate, Professor Raschke," answered the voice of Gabriel, who rapidly joined the group. "But, pardon me, how came you here?"

"How opportune," cried Raschke, delighted; "just take charge of the coat and the dog."

With astonishment Gabriel saw his friend Spitehahn, who was now sitting on the coat, quite abashed and chapfallen at the sight of his master.

Gabriel drove the dog off, and seized the coat. "It is my own overcoat!" he said.

"Yes, Gabriel," rejoined the Professor, "that was my mistake, and the dog has displayed a wonderful fidelity in guarding it."

"Fidelity!" said Gabriel, indignantly, as he pulled a parcel out of the pocket; "it was greedy selfishness. There must be something to eat in here."

"Ah! I recollect now," cried Raschke; "it is the fowl that's to blame.

Give me the parcel, Gabriel; I must eat it myself. And we may now wish one another good-night in peace, unless you will go with me a little way to show me the road amongst these trees."

"But you can't go in this night air without an overcoat," said the tender-hearted Gabriel. "We are not far from our house, and it would be better for you to return with me to the Professor's."

Raschke paused a while, and laughed. "You are quite right, my good Gabriel: my sudden departure was all wrong, and the soul of an animal has this day given a lesson to a human soul."

"If you mean this dog," replied Gabriel, "it is the first time in his life he has given anybody a lesson. I suppose that he followed you from our door, for I put bones there for him every evening."

"At one time I thought he was quite mad," said the Professor.

"He is a sly one when he chooses," replied Gabriel, with an air of mystery; "but if I were to tell all my experiences with him to this day----"

"Do tell me, Gabriel," cried the Professor, quite excited. "Nothing is so valuable with respect to animals as authentic anecdotes, collected by those who have observed them closely."

"I can vouch for my experience," said Gabriel, with an air of confidence; "and if you really wish to know what he is, I can tell you he is possessed--he is a devil--he's a depraved brute--and bears a grudge against the whole human race!"

"Hum!--is that so?" murmured the philosopher. "I believe it is much easier to look into the heart of a Professor than that of a dog."

Spitehahn crept along quietly but depressed, with his tail between his legs, listening to the praise bestowed on him, whilst Raschke, accompanied by Gabriel, returned through the park to the house. Gabriel flung open the parlor door, and announced "Professor Raschke."

Ilse stretched out both hands, "Welcome--welcome, dear Professor!" and led him in to her husband's study.

"Here I am again," said Raschke, in a cheerful tone, "after an adventure like a fairy tale. I have been brought back by two animals who have shown me the right path--a roast fowl and a perverted dog."

Felix sprang to his feet, the two friends shook hands cordially, and, after all misunderstanding, the evening pa.s.sed off most pleasantly.

When Raschke at length withdrew, Gabriel said sorrowfully to his mistress: "It was the new coat; the chicken and the dog have ruined it beyond all recognition."

_CHAPTER XIX_.

THE ILLNESS.

It was the first burst of spring in the wood and gardens adjoining the city. The buds and the caterpillars had slumbered together in quiet winter dreams; now the leaves expanded, and the grubs crawled over the young green shoots. Under the bright rays of the sun in its higher course, the struggle of life began,--the blooming and withering, the rich colors, and the frost under which they were to fade, the bright green leaves and the caterpillars that gnawed them; the eternal strife began anew in buds and blossoms just as in the heart of man.

Ilse, in her hours of instruction, was now reading Herodotus; he, too, was a harbinger of spring for the human race; hovering above the borderland between dreamy poetry and unclouded reality, the glad proclaimer of a time in which the people of the earth rejoiced in their own beauty and perfection, and first began to seek seriously truth and knowledge. Again Ilse read with pa.s.sionate excitement the pages which brought a shattered world before her eyes with such vivid reality. But there was not the same serene and exalted pleasure in the narrative as in the works of the great poet who so directed the fate and deeds of his heroes as to produce a pleasing impression upon the mind, even when they excited sorrow and fear. For it is the privilege of human invention to form the world as the tender heart of man desires it; with alternations and fitting proportions of happiness and sorrow, the recognition of each individual according to his powers and actions, and due compensation. But the mind which here delineated the life of the past, did so in a superhuman manner, life crowded life, so that one devastated the other, destruction mercilessly overtook them, good and bad alike; here too, there was retribution; here, too, there was a curse, but their effect was incomprehensible and cruel. What was good ceased to be good, and evil gained the victory. What was first a blessing afterwards became ruin; what was now beneficent greatness and dominion, afterwards became a disease, which destroyed the state. The individual heroes were of little importance; if a great human power rose and dominated for a moment. Ilse soon saw it disappear in the whirling stream of events. Cr[oe]sus, the over-confident, good-hearted king, fell; the powerful Cyrus pa.s.sed away, and Xerxes was beaten. But nations also sank, the blooming flower of Egypt withered, the golden realm of Lydia was shattered, and mighty Persia first corrupted others and then itself. In the young h.e.l.lenic people, that rose with such heroic strength, she already saw busily at work violence, evil deeds, and enmities, through which the most beautiful picture of antiquity, after short prosperity, was to pa.s.s away.

Ilse and Laura were sitting opposite each other, with an open book lying between them. Laura, indeed, was not admitted to the private lessons of the Professor, but her soul faithfully accompanied Ilse on the path of learning. Ilse imparted the acquisitions of her hours of instructions to her, and enjoyed the sweet pleasure of infusing new ideas into the mind of her friend.

"I felt great indignation at this Xerxes," cried Laura, "even from what I read in the primer:

'Xantippe was a cross, mean thing No peace her husband had.

But Xerxes was a Persian King And he was just as bad.'

I long thought that Xantippe was his wife, and I wish he had had her.

On the other hand, look at the three hundred Spartans who sent the others home and encircled themselves with wreaths, anointed themselves, and put on the festive garb to march to death. That elevates the heart; they were men. If I could show my veneration for their memory by means of my stupid head and weak hands, I would work for it till my fingers ached. But what can a poor creature like me do? At the utmost, embroider traveling-bags for their journey to the lower world, and these would come two thousand years too late. We women are pitiable creatures," she exclaimed, with vexation.

"There were others in the battle," said Ilse, "who affected me more than the three hundred Spartans. These were the Thespians, who fought and died with them. The Spartans were impelled by their proud hearts and the strict discipline and commands of their rulers. But the Thespians died willingly. They were a small people, and they well knew that the greatest honor would attach to their distinguished neighbors.

But they were faithful in their humble position, and that was far more self-sacrificing and n.o.ble. Ah! it was easy for all of them," she continued, sorrowfully; "but for those who remained behind, their poor parents, wives and children at home, what destruction of happiness and unspeakable misery!"