雙語·邦斯舅舅 十六、德國人中的一個典型

XVI

By the beginning of the fourth month (towards the end of January, 1845), Pons' condition attracted attention at the theatre. The flute, a young man named Wilhelm, like almost all Germans; and Schwab, to distinguish him from all other Wilhelms, if not from all other Schwabs, judged it expedient to open Schmucke's eyes to his friend's state of health. It was a first performance of a piece in which Schmucke's instruments were all required.

The old gentleman is failing, said the flute; "there is something wrong somewhere; his eyes are heavy, and he doesn't beat time as he used to do," added Wilhelm Schwab, indicating Pons as he gloomily took his place.

Dat is alvays de vay, gif a man is sixty years old, answered Schmucke.

The Highland widow, in The Chronicles of the Canongate, sent her son to his death to have him beside her for twenty-four hours; and Schmucke could have sacrificed Pons for the sake of seeing his face every day across the dinner-table.

Everybody in the theatre is anxious about him, continued the flute; "and, as the premiere danseuse, Mlle. Brisetout, says, 'he makes hardly any noise now when he blows his nose.'"

And, indeed, a peal like a blast of a horn used to resound through the old musician's bandana handkerchief whenever he raised it to that lengthy and cavernous feature. The President's wife had more frequently found fault with him on that score than on any other.

I vould gif a goot teal to amuse him, said Schmucke, "he gets so dull."

M. Pons always seems so much above the like of us poor devils, that, upon my word, I didn't dare to ask him to my wedding, said Wilhelm Schwab. "I am going to be married—"

How? demanded Schmucke.

Oh! quite properly, returned Wilhelm Schwab, taking Schmucke's quaint inquiry for a gibe, of which that perfect Christian was quite incapable.

Come, gentlemen, take your places! called Pons, looking round at his little army, as the stage manager's bell rang for the overture.

The piece was a dramatized fairy tale, a pantomime called The Devil's Betrothed, which ran for two hundred nights. In the interval, after the first act, Wilhelm Schwab and Schmucke were left alone in the orchestra, with a house at a temperature of thirty-six degrees Reaumur.

Tell me your hishdory, said Schmucke.

Look there! Do you see that young man in the box yonder?... Do you recognize him?

Nefer a pit—

Ah! That is because he is wearing yellow gloves and shines with all the radiance of riches, but that is my friend Fritz Brunner out of Frankfort-on-the-Main.

Dat used to komm to see du blav und sit peside you in der orghestra?

The same. You would not believe he could look so different, would you?

The hero of the promised story was a German of that particular type in which the sombre irony of Goethe's Mephistopheles is blended with a homely cheerfulness found in the romances of August Lafontaine of pacific memory; but the predominating element in the compound of artlessness and guile, of shopkeeper's shrewdness, and the studied carelessness of a member of the Jockey Club, was that form of disgust which set a pistol in the hands of a young Werther, bored to death less by Charlotte than by German princes. It was a thoroughly German face, full of cunning, full of simplicity, stupidity, and courage; the knowledge which brings weariness, the worldly wisdom which the veriest child's trick leaves at fault, the abuse of beer and tobacco,—all these were there to be seen in it, and to heighten the contrast of opposed qualities, there was a wild diabolical gleam in the fine blue eyes with the jaded expression.Dressed with all the elegance of a city man, Fritz Brunner sat in full view of the house displaying a bald crown of the tint beloved by Titian, and a few stray fiery red hairs on either side of it; a remnant spared by debauchery and want, that the prodigal might have a right to spend money with the hairdresser when he should come into his fortune. A face, once fair and fresh as the traditional portrait of Jesus Christ, had grown harder since the advent of a red moustache; a tawny beard lent it an almost sinister look. The bright blue eyes had lost something of their clearness in the struggle with distress. The countless courses by which a man sells himself and his honor in Paris had left their traces upon his eyelids and carved lines about the eyes, into which a mother once looked with a mother's rapture to find a copy of her own fashioned by God's hand. This precocious philosopher, this wizened youth was the work of a stepmother.

Herewith begins the curious history of a prodigal son of Frankfort-on-the-Main—the most extraordinary and astounding portent ever beheld by that well-conducted, if central, city.