Schnorps’ Swallow-Tail
He played the bass viol in the orchestra of the theatre.
The bass viol had come to be the hereditary instrument for all the male members of the Schnorps family, who were invariably musical, and I remember an anecdote from the life of Aegidius Schnorps, the grandfather of my hero, which well deserves to be handed down to posterity.
Of course Aegidius played the hereditary instrument. But he did not play it at the Royal Theatre; he had not yet arrived at such distinction. Instead of that he was a member of a rather obscure band which used to gather its laurels at country dances on Sundays and special holidays. The leader was supposed to furnish the bass viol, but the Schnorpses had always had their own instrument, and prided themselves not a little upon this family possession. Although the peasants were not at all particular about any involuntary variations that might perchance find their way into the tune, for ’tis easy to pipe to those that want to dance, it so happened that one day Father Aegidius produced tones of such singular impurity that the leader, whose week-day occupation was that of an honest shoemaker, called out, greatly enraged, “Confound you, Aegedi, why don’t you play right?” “Hold your tongue, shoemaker!” replied the indignant Schnorps. “I can play as I please; this bass belongs to me.”
Ah yes, they were always very self-sufficient, were the Schnorpses, and had little respect for the rest of the world. They were always trying to force their square heads through thick and thin.
After Aegidius came Sebastian Schnorps, who of course also devoted himself to the grumbling bass, and who was gathered unto his fathers in the very midst of his professional activity, inasmuch as he and his instrument fell down together from a high ladder, by means of which he had intended to reach a place in a barn which should furnish him the necessary acoustic conditions for evolving seraphic tones, and properly affecting the crowd of dancing peasants beneath him.
Peace be unto his ashes!
After him came Gottlieb Schnorps, the man who is to occupy our attention to-day. It were really needless to say that the hereditary proclivity had come down to him, if it were not incumbent upon me to do justice to him by mentioning the fact that he was a musician of a better sort than his ancestors. He had worked his way up from a country fiddler, had studied a little, and though in his general manner and bearing he had remained true to the family traditions of the Schnorpses, he had struck out a new path in going to see something of the world, and one day he came back with the contract of a court engagement in his pocket, and with a wife whom the dear God must have created for his special convenience, so well were her characteristics adapted to his.
They arranged their life as they thought best. Either he quarrelled with his wife or she with him, or both of them with the children, or the latter among each other—between times the bass viol grumbled, for Schnorps was always hard at work developing his musical faculties—in short, their home life was a lively one.
If Schnorps had only been a little neater in his personal appearance!—but in this respect he did little honour to the Royal Orchestra. His shabbiness had grown proverbial. He had a special predilection for an enormous cravat to conceal the doubtful purity of his linen from the eyes of the curious. His coat was seldom brushed, and the lower part of his coat-sleeves shone like a mirror.
The pride of his heart was a dress-coat, which he donned only on extraordinary occasions. He had brought himself to purchase this piece of wearing apparel only by dint of the rigorous etiquette of the Royal Theatre, which authoritatively demanded the use of a dress-coat on certain days. It never occurred to him to have a new one, and he wandered from junk-shop to junk-shop until he found a specimen at Solomon Hoffa’s, which he purchased for one thaler and some odd groschens, and which he thereafter wore to the horror of all respectable people, and to the annoyance of the entire orchestra.
It was really too shabbily old-fashioned. In fact, it was a disgrace to the corporation. The collar was of such goodly size as to almost completely hide the square head of Schnorps; the sleeves were so tight that Gottlieb could only with difficulty properly belabour his bass viol, and the broad tails stood out like the arms of a windmill from the lank legs of the wearer.
One morning he received a formidable-looking square letter, with the well-known official green seal, in which he was notified in the politest of language, but with all possible decision, that when taking part in the orchestra in future he was to appear in a coat which was more in harmony with the dignity of a Royal Theatre, and less likely to excite the risibility of the audience.
This left no room for doubt, it was certainly plain enough. Schnorps raged—talked about tyranny, interference with personal freedom, scolded his wife, and flogged all the young Schnorpses; but there was no help for it—the acquisition of a new coat loomed upon the horizon as an inexorable necessity.
And now occurred what had never occurred before. For several days in succession the townspeople saw the bass violinist Schnorps and his spouse walk about from one clothing shop to another. In each one they entered into lengthy negotiations, only to pass on after a time grumbling and scolding about the outrageous prices, until at last the firm of J. M. Lindenfeld had the good fortune to come to terms with Herr and Frau Schnorps about a new and handsome swallow-tail coat.
“I’ll tell you what, Sally,” said the bass violinist one day to his better-half; “though I’ve been forced by pure tyranny to spend a sinful lot of money on that new dress-coat, there’s no earthly reason why I shouldn’t get all the good I can out of the old one. I wish you’d just send for old Peter and tell him to make Michel a jacket out of it; it will last the boy many a year.”
Old Peter was a tailor whose chief art lay in mending and patching up old garments, and Michel was the eldest sprout and heir pretendent to the bass viol of the Schnorpses.
The tailor came, made a very close and conscientious examination of the old swallow-tail by the aid of a pair of enormous horn spectacles, and finally declared, with great decision, that the article in question had had its day, and that there was not the slightest possibility of renovating it.
This was a terrible shock for Schnorps, for Peter’s judgment was considered quite incontrovertible, and when there was anything to be made out of an old garment he did it. This he had proved time and time again in the wardrobe of the Schnorpses. So there was nothing for it but to stow away the old dress-coat among other venerable relics, and it might have stayed there to this day if Frau Sally Schnorps had not hit upon a brilliant plan.
Hoods were quite the fashion just then, and why not make a hood out of a dress-coat? It might be trimmed with a quantity of ribbons and laces to conceal the shabbiness of the cloth, which latter could still further be improved upon by being turned. She was very proud of this idea, and forthwith called upon a deaf old seamstress, who often worked for her, and who was quite noted for her stupidity, but aside from that was a poor, unassuming woman who patiently worked for her living without expecting any generous remuneration. This last quality had served to gain her the good will of Frau Schnorps, into the mysteries of whose housekeeping she was thoroughly initiated.
She came and found the wife of the bass violinist at the door, about to go out, while Schnorps was rehearsing for the opera. In brief words Frau Sally explained to her that in the big wardrobe upstairs there was a dress-coat of her husband’s which was quite worth the trouble of making over, and which she wished to be metamorphosed into a hood for herself.
“Very well, very well, I’ll see to it all right, Frau Schnorps,” replied the old woman; and while Frau Sally Schnorps went to market, her mind quite at rest, she entered the house where the youngest of the Schnorpses, who had been left to guard the domestic hearth, handed over the dress-coat, which she thereupon took home to “make over.” And she did it. When she came back, after a day or two, the old dress-coat had become a new head-covering, which, to be sure, was rather heavily decorated with lace and various trimmings, but for this very reason exactly suited the taste of Madam Schnorps. It is true, her husband said, that now you could see that the dress-coat had really not been so bad, and that the money which went for the new one might have been put to some better use, but there was no use crying over spilt milk, the tyrannical intendant had decreed that it should be so, and he philosophically added —
“For every evil under the sun
There is a remedy or there’s none.
If there is one, try and find it,
If there isn’t, never mind it.”
When autumn came the wife of the musician walked forth proudly in her new hood, and about the same time her husband received an invitation to spend the evening at the house of an old general, who was a great lover of music, and famous for his bachelor’s suppers, which added a great attraction to his musical evenings. The old gentleman had a high opinion of Gottlieb Schnorps as a musician, and would have liked to ask him long ago, but he had never been able to bring himself to do so on account of Schnorps’s shabbiness, and the bass violinist was indebted for this invitation chiefly to his new coat.
Schnorps was highly elated to receive it, and his mouth watered at the thought of all the culinary delights which would await him after the music.
When the auspicious day came he devoted an unusual amount of care and attention to his toilet. Although it was only Thursday, he permitted himself the luxury of a clean shirt, bought himself—and this was the rarest of extravagances—a pair of white cotton gloves, even went so far as to brush his black trousers with a certain amount of energy, a thing he never did on ordinary occasions, so as not to wear out the cloth.
“Get my dress-coat out, Sally,” he said in the evening, and she went upstairs in obedience to his behest.
Now it was that something horrible occurred!
As Schnorps’s spouse opened the door of the wardrobe and put her hand in behind all the ancestral garments, she screamed aloud, for there, like a ghost of bygone days, the old swallow-tail grinned at her in the full glory of its invulnerable perfection. She turned it about again and again, and thought she was losing her reason—there was not a particle of doubt of it, it was undeniably the same coat which she had fondly believed she had been wearing on her head in the elaborated and decorative shape of a new hood. In wild excitement she turned the contents of the wardrobe topsy-turvy; trousers and coats were flung about to the right and to the left, but there was no vestige to be seen of the new dress-coat, and with convincing force the certainty came to her that the stupid old seamstress had cut up the new garment instead of the old to manufacture her head-gear therefrom.
So that was the reason it looked so well! Ah, now everything was clear.
“If Schnorps gets wind of this he’ll murder me,” sighed Frau Sally, and so much was certain, this affair must be hushed up for the time being.
But how was she to accomplish this?
She glanced out of the window at the neighbouring house, and a saving idea flitted through her mind. Stealthily she crept downstairs and out at the back door, and hastily entering the house across the way she poured out the sad tale of her misfortunes into the sympathetic ear of her neighbour, imploring her to help her out of her difficulties by lending her the dress-coat of her husband just for this one night.
The good-natured woman was easily won, and an hour later Schnorps, happily unconscious of the state of affairs, and attired in his neighbour’s dress-coat, was on his way to the general, the servant of the latter walking behind him and dragging along his heavy bass viol.
The coat was somewhat tight, which fact caused its wearer to remark, as he was putting it on, that he was really growing stout in spite of his moderate way of living.
Poor innocent Schnorps!
The musical performance had passed off greatly to the satisfaction of the old general, and the ensuing excellent supper was no less to the satisfaction of his guests. The bass violinist indulged himself most freely in the good things set before him, and manifested a degree of steady perseverance as if he had fasted for a fortnight to fitly prepare himself for this special feast. He left nothing undone, plateful after plateful vanished, one glass of delicious wine after another disappeared in the bottomless pit of his eating apparatus, and whenever he thought himself unobserved he helped himself freely to generous handfuls of sweets, depositing them in the voluminous pockets of his dress-coat.
Ah, he was a kind father, when he had nothing to lose thereby, and he was quite willing to be a bringer of dainties to his dear ones at home.
The guests remained until very late, and of course Schnorps was the last to go. It was somewhere near two in the morning when he reeled home in a condition which really put every well-intentioned cab-driver under the moral obligation of turning out for him.
Arrived at the door of his house, he indulged in some profoundly philosophical reflections about the preposterous size of keys, and the smallness of the corresponding keyholes—so profound, in fact, that he sat for a long, long time upon the stone-steps, his head buried in his hands, and his eyes closed, until at dawn a cool breath of air roused him from his meditations, so that he rose shivering and passed into the house.
After several hours of refreshing sleep he awoke in no very enviable condition. He looked about him with wondering eyes, and suddenly he opened them to abnormal width as if to pierce the object upon which they fell.
It was the new swallow-tail. Merciful heavens, how it looked! During his siesta on the door-steps he had sat upon the cream-filled candies he had in his pocket, and the mixture of chocolate, sugar, and fruit had formed into a sticky crust on the tails of his coat which was truly horrible to behold.
The bass violinist jumped out of bed at a single bound, and examined the luckless coat, which in the very flower of its youth had been called upon to endure such hardships.
“When my old woman sees that, there’ll be a row,” he muttered, passing his hand desperately through his bristling locks. He seized a brush and began to belabour the swallow-tail with an amount of energy such as he had never before displayed; but although his perseverance was rewarded by the disappearance of some of the smaller stains, the large blurs which had been caused by the crushed chocolate-drops would yield to no amount of brushing, the less so as they were still moist, and by rubbing acquired a more formidable appearance.
Meanwhile he heard his wife beginning to stir in her room, and poor terrified Schnorps, who at times quaked in his shoes before his fair spouse, puzzled his head to find some remedy for his trouble. Suddenly it occurred to him that years ago he had bought a bottle of benzine which he knew must be somewhere in his room.
He found a dozen bottles on top of the wardrobe, but how was he to know which was the one he wanted? He rummaged until he discovered one at the sight of which the certainty dawned within his dizzy brain that this was it. He spread out the unfortunate coat upon the table, poured a generous supply of the liquid supposed to be benzine upon it, and was about to rub it in with his handkerchief when a horrible sight appeared before him.
Wherever a drop of the fluid had fallen, the cloth turned red; and before the perplexed violinist could find an explanation for this remarkable metamorphosis, there appeared upon the coat an infinite number of large and small holes which sealed its doom for now and eternity.
It so happened that instead of benzine, Schnorps had laid hold of a bottle of sulphuric acid, which he had once used to clean the screws of his instrument.
When he realised what had happened, he certainly expected to go mad, and he weakly fell back in his chair, gazing fixedly upon his murdered swallow-tail. His head whirled—the new coat—his wife—the 15 thalers—the intendant—sulphuric acid—all was swallowed up in one wild eddy, and it was some time before he regained any self-possession.
Ye saints! it would never do to have his wife get hold of this! The first thing to do was to remove the article in question. Hastily he dressed himself, slipped on his felt slippers, hid the dress-coat beneath his dressing-gown, and stealthily crept upstairs, where he hid it, with many misgivings, in the utmost depths of the old wardrobe.
It was high time, for when he came back his better-half appeared upon the scene. Never had she inspired him with such terror as at this moment, and yet never since the days of their honeymoon had he bidden her good-morning as tenderly as he did to-day. She too was unusually amiable, a fact which only weighed the more upon his guilty conscience.
“Well, did you have a pleasant evening?” she asked.
“Oh yes, very nice—yes—quite nice!” he replied, in an embarrassed tone of voice.
“Oh, indeed!” she said, glancing about her as if she were looking for something, which caused poor Schnorps to tremble again.
“What are you looking for, dear?”
She gazed at him in surprise. Dear? He had only called her so once before, and that was when he asked her if she would have him.
“Nothing—that is—where’s your new coat?”
“The coat,” he answered, shaking in his shoes; “what do you want it for?”
“I should like to put it away,” she said very gently.
“You needn’t do that. I put it where it belongs.”
“Where it belongs?” she asked in great excitement.
“Why yes,” replied Schnorps; “upstairs in the wardrobe.”
“Ah, so,” she remarked, greatly relieved—“in the wardrobe! Yes, yes! Well, come and have your breakfast, Gottlieb; I am coming down in a minute.”
With these words she walked out, and now it was Schnorps’ turn to take a deep breath of relief.
He finished dressing and gradually became more tranquil—but it was the tranquillity that precedes a mighty storm.
The reader can readily imagine what followed.
After a pause of ten minutes, the shrill voice of Frau Sally rang through the house in a manner which made all the inmates start and tremble. Intending to return the borrowed coat to its rightful possessor, she had discovered the catastrophe, and raged like a lunatic.
At first Schnorps tried to defend himself and to comfort her, but when he began to understand all the details and complications of the hapless tale,—when he heard that he had ruined his neighbour’s coat, and that his own had long ago gone to perdition by means of his wife’s thoughtlessness and the old seamstress’s stupidity, then his wrath knew no bounds.
It was really too much. To have to pay for two new dress-coats, and to have none! it was death to him, it would bring him to an untimely grave.
I will cast the mantle of Christian charity over the ensuing scene; but to this day the neighbours talk about the row that took place at the house of the Schnorpses after the general’s party.
Fritz Brentano.