His Serenity and the Thunder-Storm
On his way to school the Konrektor felt so cheery and good-natured that his pupils might have expected to have a good day. As he stepped into the schoolroom he had the pleasant surprise of seeing a complete Roman battle before him, which his precious boys were carrying out in honour of Livy, and probably to give him an unexpected pleasure, and the noise they made was as natural as if the room were full of genuine Roman soldiers and genuine horses.
It was all very well for the boys, but it was not quite befitting the quiet which is supposed to reign in a schoolroom; nor was it the best means of allaying the flushed spirits of a schoolmaster who had his own private troubles to contend with. The Herr Konrektor sat down on his platform, opened his Homer, and when the noise had somewhat subsided, he gave vent to his ire: “Now listen, you dunces; first learn something, then you’ll be better able to play heroes! Last time we stopped just before the splendid passage where Hector said good-bye to his dear wife Andromache, and she exhorts him—
“Δαιμόνιε, says she; φθισει σε τὸ σὸν μένος, οὐδ’ἐλεαιρεις, says she; but it’s hardly worth while to read anything so fine to you scatterbrained dolts. παῑδά τε νηπίαχον, says she; και ἒμ ἂμμορον, ἣ τάχα χὴρη, says she. Karl Wendt, confound you, if you don’t stop talking I’ll stand you up by my platform, and then it’ll be my turn to have a talk with you. σεῦ ἔσομαι, says she, τὰχα γάρ σε κατακτανέουσιν Ἀχαιοὶ πάντες ἐρορμηφθέντες, says she; ὲμοὶ δέ κε κέρδιον εἴη σεῦ ἀραμαρτοῦση, and so on, says she.—Langnickel, you begin.”
And Langnickel cleared his throat once or twice and nudged his neighbours right and left with his elbows, as much as to say: “Fellows, help me; I’m in an awful fix.”
“Well,” said the Konrektor, “how long before you’re ready? Δαιμόνιε—what does that mean?”
“Oh, thou monster!” said Langnickel, looking at the Herr Konrektor very doubtfully to see what he would say.
“It’s more likely you are a monster. The next, go on,” said the Konrektor, pointing to Karl Siemsen. “Well, Karl! Eh? the word’s not easy; how do we call a fellow that can do more than ordinary folks?”
“A Tausendsasa,” said Karl.
“Well, I never! We may say that for a joke, but do you suppose Hector’s wife felt much like joking just then? Nay, she is scolding him. You madcap you, says she, bridle your pluck! says she. Have you no pity for your little boy—she means her little Astyanax that she has on her arm,—and for poor luckless me, says she, who will soon enough be a widow? For how long will it be? says she, before the Archæans pitch in on you and kill you, and what is left to me but sorrow when I sit here without you? says she. Well, here I am translating the whole of Homer for you. Go ahead, Karl Siemsen!” he exclaimed, then the door was opened, and one of his Serene Highness’s lackeys came in.
“Herr Konrektor, his Highness wants to know if you think we’ll get a thunder-storm to-day?”
Now this was the last straw for the Konrektor’s patience. He turned upon the fellow in a mad choler and shouted, “Yes! Go and tell his Highness we’ll get seven.”
“Seven?” asked the lackey, looking blank and walking toward the door, and the Konrektor called after him: “Yes, seven! Tell him we’ll get seven!”
The first lesson was over and the second had begun; it was Latin, and there was Virgil’s Bucolica to translate.
The Herr Konrektor had in the meantime taken a look at the weather, and now he was quite sure there was a storm coming up; his pupils had taken a look at his face, and they also knew for sure that there was a storm brewing; they were only doubtful where the lightning would strike. This question was about to be solved in a drastic manner when his Serenity sent the lackey once more:
“Herr Konrektor, his Highness wants you to come to him at once. The storm is coming mighty fast.”
“Tell his Highness,” cried the Konrektor in a rage, and was about to add, “to remember me to his grandmother,” but he recalled himself and said: “First I must be through school, then I’ll come.”
At the palace things had gone on queerly enough for a while; his most Serene Highness walked up and down in his apartments with pale cheeks, as if he were the walking ghost of the deceased Henry of the Three Oaks; the footmen stood in the corners and along the walls silent and fearful like the stage mimes when Dame Macbeth walks about washing her hands; the gentleman of the bed-chamber, Von Knüppelsdörp, carefully bolted all the windows and doors, and looked as if he were gagged.
“Rand,” called his Highness in an undertone, “smoke is a good conductor. Are all the fires put out?”
“Yes, your Highness, all except the kitchen—you know the dinner has to be cooked.”
“We shall not dine to-day. Tell them to throw water on the fire.”
“Dear me, your Highness,” Rand began, for fast-days were not much to his taste, not even when there was a thunder-storm.
“Do you hear what I say?” cried his Highness with such alacrity that he frightened himself.
“And there shall be no bells pulled; the sound is a good conductor,” he added in a lower tone.
“The sound, your Highness?”
“Confound you, fool! I—I say! It might draw, you know!” whispered his Highness snappishly.
“Humph,” said Rand to himself, looking out of the window with one eye, “we can afford to be cross; the storm isn’t high yet; later on we’ll be more polite.”
“Goodness me,” said his Highness nervously, “why doesn’t the Konrektor come?”
“Good gracious! what good is the Konrektor? He’s no more able to——”
“He must be able to, he must! Here, get these buckles off from my shoes; metal is a good conductor. Is all in order in my cabinet?”
“Yes,” growled Rand, looking at the floor while trying to take the buckles off, “we’ve put up all the mummery, and the carpenter says it looks for all the world like a birdcage.”
“Gracious goodness! Did you hear that? Did you hear it, I say? It’s here already! Where can the Konrektor be? I am going into my cabinet. Send for the Konrektor. Don’t go so fast! Don’t go so fast! The lightning will catch. Oh, goodness me!” he said quite tremulously; “and here I am calling so loud!”
The lackey met the Konrektor on the market-place, the door was opened, just a trifle, according to the Duke’s orders, so that there should be no draught, and the Konrektor crowded in with his fox-tail and the rest of it. He now entered his Highness’s cabinet, and the sight he saw put him at first quite out of countenance. For a moment he stood bewildered in the door, and stared into the cabinet open-mouthed, then all at once he broke into a perfect roar of laughter.
“What the devil have we here? Begging your Grace’s pardon! But what in the name of goodness can this mean?”
And Rand laughed too, and said, “Ay, you may well say so!”
I don’t know but what I should have forgotten the dutiful respect I owed his most Serene Highness if I had been called upon to behold what the Konrektor beheld. Right in the middle of the room there was a small platform resting on the necks of bottles, on top of that a sort of pavilion made of glass that came down to the floor, and roofed over with a light-blue silk tent, that looked like a parasol for fifteen persons, and in this remarkable affair sat his Highness in his innocent terror, clothed in a yellow silk dressing-gown, with a green silk nightcap on his head, and with a pair of shoes on his feet varnished with red sealing-wax. He looked for all the world like a handsome canary with a green top-knot, that had been put in a cage to sing a sweet song; and he might have begun singing at any moment if only he had felt less down at the mouth.
In his quality as sovereign lord he would doubtless have sung a right testy little song at the Konrektor for laughing, the more so as he had a crow to pick with him anyway for his matrimonial intentions,6 had not a sudden stroke of lightning interrupted his Highness’s sing-song. “What nonsense are you——?” and now came the lightning, and he clapped his silk handkerchief over his eyes—“Mercy on us!” and he peeped out from behind the handkerchief, listening for the thunder, and when it came he stopped up his ears and exclaimed again, “Mercy on us!”
The Konrektor had stopped laughing by this time, and examined the cage from before and behind, and his Highness looked at him in an uncertain way, and asked at last—
“Well, what do you say? Will it do? Glass, silk, and”—here he raised one of his legs—“here is sealing-wax; and I have had everything taken out that’s made of metal.”
“Ay,” said the Konrektor, “I dare say it’s all right, your Highness; what man can do has been done; but, begging your pardon, the gold ducal crown that’s up on top of the throne you are sitting on you’ve forgotten.”
“Didn’t I tell you so? Didn’t I tell you so? That ass, Rand. Oh, mercy on us!” for it lightened again.
“Sheep-headed fool, you! bring another chair! I don’t want any ducal honours. When there’s such a storm as this I’m no more than another man—mercy on us!” and he held his hands over his ears. “Eh, Konrektor?”
The Konrektor said he believed it; but the throne with the crown on it might stay there; they could wrap up the crown in a silk handkerchief.
After that his Highness ordered Rand to go out and take a look at the weather. Rand did it, and came back: “The storm is over, but there’s another one all ready to burst, and it looks mighty grim.”
“Rand, bring another chair in my weather-temple for the Konrektor.”
“Oh, your Highness,” said the Konrektor, “I don’t need to come in.”
“Ay, but I need you in here; but you can’t come in like that; you’ll drag in the lightning. Rand, another silk dressing-gown and nightcap, and the red-waxed shoes!”
Resistance was useless, he had to give in; and in a short time he stood there in a black nightcap and a bright orange bed-gown and red shoes; and he stood like a sorcerer in olden times, who might be supposed to have changed an unfortunate prince into a canary-bird, and put him into a glass-box, where it was likely he would have to stay for ever, for naught but the sweet kiss of a beauteous fairy upon his beak could ransom him, and his Highness was possessed of a holy horror of kissing, and there was no beauteous fairy near, for Rand, who was the only other person about, could not possibly figure as such.
When the old sorcerer sat beside his enchanted victim, his Highness ordered Rand out, because the exhalations of so many persons might draw the lightning, but told him to put his head in at the door from time to time and give the news concerning the weather; and Rand was quite willing, for now he could run over to the baker’s wife and have some talk.
“What say you, Konrektor? Is it safe now?” asked his Highness.
“Ay, so far as I can see.”
“But is it quite safe?”
“Well, your Highness, what man can do has been done; but what are mortal measures against the will of our Lord God?”
“That’s what I say,” exclaimed his Highness; “that fool the carpenter was to have made it round, and he made it square. Corners always draw lightning.”
“What good would that do? If our Lord God sees best He can blow away the whole of Neu-Brandenburg in a moment. Think of Sodom and Gomorrah.”
“Goodness gracious! Yes, I know it, I——” Just here Rand put his head in at the door: “There’s another one coming, and the baker’s wife says——”
“Fool, I don’t want to know what that impertinent woman says.”
Rand retired. “That woman has a lot to say; she says too—goodness gracious! she says you are going to get married, Konrektor. But I forbid you. I’ll never set eyes on you again. I’d banish you from court.”
“I esteem your Highness as my liege lord,” said the Konrektor, quietly getting up, “but whether I marry or don’t marry ought to be all the same to you, and I wont brook interference from any man. If you want to banish me from court you can do it, that’s in your power; but I can also go of my own free will, that’s in my power. I have the honour of bidding you farewell.”
“Mercy on us! Do stay here; you’re the only comfort I have. Oh, goodness gracious!”
Here Rand put his head in at the door.
“Your Highness, this one is going to be pretty bad; the storm can’t come across the lake, and the baker’s wife says——”
“You hare-brained dolt, I don’t want to know what she says. Shut the door and bolt it on the outside, so that he can’t get out.”
“Well, your Highness,” said the Konrektor, taking off his sorcerer’s habit and donning his own honest coat, “you can hold me by force—that was a terrific clap!”
“Mercy on us!—yes, that it was. Do come in here again.”
“Nay, your Highness, I’m not afraid of lightning,” said the staunch old fellow, and gave his liege lord a quiet look. “I fear God, my judge, when I stand before Him as a miserable sinner, but I do not fear God, my father, for He knows what is good for me, and if He calls me to Himself by a stroke of lightning and without any suffering, then I know that it was an act of mercy, and I thank Him for it.”
There was another awful clap, lightning and thunder falling almost simultaneously, and his Serene Highness screamed aloud.
“Konrektor, I’ll grant ye a favour. What shall it be?”
“I need only God’s favour; I don’t need any man’s favour, for all he may be a prince. Princely favour is the crutch that lame justice leans on, and when princes are gracious they are either trying to make up for past injustice and reap thanks for it, or they are about to commit some new injustice.”
“You’re growing mighty bold. I’ll show you what princely disfavour is!” shouted his Highness in sore ire, for there had been no thunder for some time. “I’ll show you——”
Then Rand put in his head. “Your Highness, the lightning struck a poplar on the embankment, the baker’s wife says, and there’s another storm coming up.”
“Konrektor, do think up something that will help us!”
“How can I think up anything, your Highness. At such times when our Lord God is nearer than at others it is best to examine ourselves closely, and think of all the wrong one has done, and firmly resolve to undo it—that will give us courage and comfort.”
“There is no man I have ever wronged,” exclaimed his Highness hastily; but the storm was drawing nigh, and he covered his face with his handkerchief once more, and cried, “Goodness gracious!”
“Well, your Highness, I imagine it’s much the same with you as it is with the rest of us; or is that no wrong when you imprison your courier Halsband for no fault of his?”
“My courier? He is my servant; how can a prince—mercy on us!—how can a prince be in the wrong against his own servant?” And again there was a flash of lightning, and his Highness disappeared behind his handkerchief. “Mercy on us! Let him go! Let the fellow go!”
“Ay, your Highness, that’s all very good; but you must take the disgrace off from his shoulders as well.”
“Mercy on us!” cried his Highness, stopping his ears because of the thunder. “I’m to ask his pardon, am I? No, no! The fellow——”
Rand appeared. “This will be a good one.”
“Run and let Halsband out of prison,” said his Highness.
“And,” said the Konrektor, “give me pen and ink, and some paper.”
“Here is paper and pen; but our ink is dried up. We’re not much given to writing, except when the cashier is here.”
“That’s a fact,” said his Highness. “Mercy on us! Go and buy some ink immediately.” The ink came, and the Konrektor wrote.
“Good gracious,” said his Highness to himself, “how can the fellow write in this storm!”
The Konrektor got him to sign it.
“Don’t you feel a vast deal better,” he said, “after this good deed?”
“Not a bit of it,” said his Highness; “first the storm must be over.”
The sky was clearing. Rand’s head appeared again. “Now it’s all over; the baker’s wife says we had seven storms.”
His Highness took breath once more, and said to himself, “Seven storms! And he knew it before, the insolent old fellow, with his confounded speeches! What becomes of the deference due to the prince from his subject, I’d like to know? But I can’t do without him; he’s too well posted about the weather.”
Fritz Reuter.