Napoleon And Blucher Part 15

"Well, but now you must allow me to say a word," said Scharnhorst.

"And let me look at yourself. Remember, it is nearly a year since I saw anything of you but your hand-writing."

"And that is very illegible," said Blucher, laughing.

"It is at least not as legible and intelligible as your dear face,"

said Scharnhorst. "Here, on this forehead and in these eyes, I can read quickly and easily all that your excellent head thinks, and your n.o.ble heart feels. And now I read there that I am really welcome, and need not by any means apologize for not having announced my visit to you."

"Apologize!" exclaimed Blucher. "You know full well that you afford me the most heart-felt joy, and that I feel as though spring were coming with all its blessed promises."

"Well, let us not wish spring to come too early this year. We need a good deal of ice and cold weather, to build a crystal palace for Bonaparte in Russia."

Blucher cast a flas.h.i.+ng glance upon his guest. "Scharnhorst," he asked, breathlessly, "you have come to bring me important news, have you not? Oh, pray, speak! I am sure you have come to tell me that the time has come for rising against the French!"

"No; I have simply come to see you," said Scharnhorst, smiling. "And you are in truth a cold-hearted friend to think any other motive was required than that of friends.h.i.+p."

"I thought it was time for Providence to bring about a change. But it was kind of you to come to me merely for my sake, and, moreover, in weather so cold as this, and at your age."

"At my age!" exclaimed Scharnhorst, smiling.

"Why, yes, my friend, at your age. If I am not mistaken, you must be well-nigh sixty, and at that time of life travelling in a season like this is a.s.suredly somewhat unpleasant, and--but why do you laugh?"

"As you refer to my age, my dearest friend, I suppose you will permit me to speak of yours?"

"Why not? We are no marriageable girls on the lookout for husbands."

"Well, then, my dear General Blucher, how old are yon?"

"I? I am a little over seventy."

"And I am fifty-six, and yet you think old age is weighing me down, while a wreath of snow-drops is overhanging your brow."

"Yes, that is true," said Blucher, in confusion. "I had really forgotten my age."

"The reason is, that your heart is still young and fresh," exclaimed Scharnhorst, looking at him tenderly, and laying his hand on Blucher's broad shoulder. "Thank G.o.d! you are still young Blucher, with his fiery head and heroic arm--young Blucher whose eagle eye gazes into the future, and who does not despair, however disheartening the present may be."

"I am sure you have brought news," said Blucher. "I can see it in your eyes--Heaven knows whether good or bad. But you have news, I know it."

"No, my young firebrand," exclaimed Scharnhorst, "I bring only myself, and this self I should like now above all to lay at the feet of your respected wife."

"Yes, that is true," said Blucher; "in my joy I almost forgot that my Amelia ought to share it. Come, general, let me conduct you to my wife." He took Scharnhorst's arm and conducted him rapidly across the sitting-room toward the apartments of Madame von Blucher. "Tread softly; you know what an admirer of yours my wife is, and how glad she will be to see you. We will, therefore, surprise her. She doubtless did not notice your arrival, for her windows open upon the garden. She does not yet know that you are here, and how glad she will be! Hus.h.!.+"

He glided to the door and rapped. "Amelia," he said, "are you there, and may I come in?"

"Of course I am here," exclaimed Madame von Blucher, "and you know well that I have already been looking for you for two hours past.

Come in!"

"I have a visitor with me; do you allow me to enter with him, Amelia?"

"A visitor?" asked Madame von Blucher, opening the door. "General von Scharnhorst!" she exclaimed, hastening to him and offering him both her hands. "Welcome, general, and may Heaven reward you for the idea of visiting an old woman and her young husband in their wintry solitude. Come, general, do my room the honor of entering it." She took the general's arm and drew him in.

"Scharnhorst," said Blucher, "let me give you some good advice. Do not make love in too undisguised a manner to my wife, for she is right in saying that I am still a young man, and I may become jealous; that would be a pity! I should then have to fight a duel with my friend, and one of us would have to die; and yet we are destined to deliver Prussia, and to drive that hateful man Bonaparte out of Germany."

"See, madame, what a shrewd and self-willed intriguer he is!"

exclaimed Scharnhorst. "He avails himself of the boundless adoration I feel for you to a.s.sist him in wandering into his favorite sphere of politics. Madame, the barbarian believes it to be altogether impossible that I come merely from motives of friends.h.i.+p, and insists that it was politics that brought me!"

"Yes," said Madame von Blucher, smiling, "Blucher loves politics, he has no other mistress."

"No," said Blucher, laughing, "I know nothing at all about politics, and believe the world would be better off if there were no politicians. They originate all our troubles. Those diplomatists are always sure to spoil what the sword has achieved. Politics have brought all these calamities upon Germany; otherwise, we should long since have risen against the French, instead of allowing our soldiers to fight for Bonaparte in Russia. I say it is absurd, and I am so angry at it that it will make me consumptive. I say all those diplomatists ought to be sent into the field against Russia in order to study new-fangled politics in Siberia. I say--"

"You will say nothing further about the matter, my friend, for there is John, who wishes to tell us that dinner is ready," Madame von Blucher interrupted her husband, who, glowing with anger, and trembling with excitement, was fighting with his arms in the air and with a terrible expression of countenance. "Come, general, let us go to the dining-room," said Madame von Blucher, giving her hand to Scharnhorst. "And you, my valorous young husband, give me your hand, too!"

"Wait a moment," Blucher replied. "I must first give vent to my anger, or it will choke me." At a bound, he rushed as a pa.s.sionate boy toward the sofa, and, striking it with both fists, so that the dust rose from it in clouds, shouted: "Have I got you at length, you horrible butcher--are you at length under my scourge? Now you shall find out how Pomeranians whip their enemies, and what it is to treat people as shamefully as you have done. I will whip you--yes, until you cry, 'Pater, peccavi!' There, take that for Jena, and this blow for compelling me to capitulate at Lubeck; and this and this for the infamies you have perpetrated upon our beautiful queen at Tilsit!

This last blow take for the Russian treaty to which you compelled our king to accede, and now a few more yet! If Heaven does not strike you, Blucher must; you ought not to be left unpunished!"

"Ah, well, that is enough, my friend," exclaimed Amelia, hastening to him and seizing his arm, which he had already raised again. "You are very capable of destroying my sofa, and you believe that you have gained a campaign by tearing my beautiful velvet in shreds."

"Well, yes, it is enough now, and I feel better. Well, my friend,"

he said, turning to Scharnhorst, who had witnessed his foolish antics with a grave and mournful air, "you need not look at me in so melancholy a manner. I suppose they have told you, too, that old Blucher at times gets crazy, and strikes at the flies on the wall, and beats chairs and sofas, because, in his insanity, he believes them to be Napoleon. [Footnote: Owing to this peculiarity and the strange ebullitions of rage in which he indulged from time to time, Blucher was really believed to be deranged for several years previous to the outbreak of the war of liberation.] But it is a.s.suredly no madness that makes me act in this manner, as stupid fools a.s.sert, but it is simply a way in which I relieve my anger, that it may not break my heart. It is the same as if a man who has to fight a duel should take fencing-lessons, and practise with the sword, in order to hit his adversary. But I have satisfied my anger, and will again be as gentle as a lamb."

"Yes, as a lamb which reverses the order of things, and, instead of allowing the wolf to devour it, is quite ready to devour the wolf,"

said Scharnhorst, laughing.

"Let us go to dinner, generals," cried Amelia; "but on one condition! During the repast not a word must be said about my hateful rival, politics, nor will you be permitted to sprinkle Napoleon as cayenne pepper over our dishes. Blucher is too hot- blooded, and pepper does not agree with him."

"But a gla.s.s of champagne agrees with him when a dear friend is present," exclaimed Blucher. "Oh, John, come here! Accompany my wife, Scharnhorst; I have only to tell John what he is to fetch from the wine-cellar."

While Blucher gave his orders to John in a hurried and low voice, instructing him to place a substantial battery of bottles of champagne in front of the two generals, Scharnhorst preceded him with Madame von Blucher to the dining-room.

"Madame von Blucher," whispered Scharnhorst, after satisfying himself by a quick side glance that Blucher was too far from them to overhear his words, "permit me to ask a question. Is your husband strong and healthy enough, both physically and mentally, for me to talk to him about politics? May I communicate to him some important news which I have received today, or would I thereby excite him too much?"

"Do you bring glad tidings?" asked Amelia.

"I believe we may consider them so; at all events, they are encouraging."

"In that case, general, you may unhesitatingly communicate them; but, pray, do so only after dinner, and when he has somewhat recovered from the excitement with which your welcome but unexpected visit has filled him. Blucher's mind is perfectly strong and healthy, but his body is feeble, and he is still affected with a disease of the stomach, which, precisely at dinner, very often gives him severe pain: Pray, therefore, no excitement and no politics at the dinner-table."

"So, here I am," said Blucher, who had followed them, and now took the general's arm; "now, children, quick, for I long to take wine again with my dear Scharnhorst."

Scharnhorst faithfully complied with the wishes of Madame von Blucher. No allusion to politics was made during the dinner, and their conversation was harmless, merry, and desultory. They left the dining-room, and took coffee in the cozy sitting-room of Madame von Blucher.

"And now," said Blucher, who was sitting on the sofa by the side of Scharnhorst, while his wife sat in the easy-chair opposite them, "let us fill our pipes, or rather smoke them, for they have already been filled."

"But shall we he permitted to do so in your wife's room?" asked Scharnhorst.

"Oh, I have been accustomed to it for twenty years past," exclaimed Amelia, laughing. "When I wished to have Blucher in my room, and by my side, I could not show the door to his pipe; and therefore, as a good soldier's wife, I have accustomed myself to the odor of tobacco-smoke."

"Well," said Blucher, pointing to the two clay pipes which lay on the silver tray beside the burning wax-candle and the cup filled with paper-kindlers, "take a match and fire the cannon; luckily it makes no noise, but only smoke."