The Unaccountable Stranger
(From Scene IV. of “A Topsy-Turvy World.”)
(The room of an Inn.)
INNKEEPER.
Few enough guests put up at my house nowadays. If this goes on I might as well take down my sign. Dear me, those were other times when there was scarce a piece performed but had a tavern and a host in it. I well remember in how many hundreds of pieces the foundations for the finest plots were laid in this very room. Now it was a prince in disguise, who spent his money here; now it was a prime minister, or a wealthy count at the very least, who lay in ambush here for some conspiracy. Yes, even in things that were translated from the English, I always earned an honest penny. Some drawbacks to be sure there were, when I was required to be a disguised member of a band of sharpers, and then be smartly rated by the moral characters; but there was always healthy activity in it. But now!—Now when a wealthy stranger returns from a journey, he goes to stay with his relatives by way of doing something novel and original, and does not drop his disguise until the fifth act; others appear only upon the street, as if there were no respectable house for them to stay at. All this keeps the audience in a marvellous state of curiosity, but it takes the bread out of our mouth.
(Enter Anne.)
ANNE.
You seem to be in low spirits, father.
INNKEEPER.
Yes, child, I’m out of sorts about my calling.
ANNE.
Would you like to be something finer?
INNKEEPER.
No, not exactly; but it vexes me more than I can tell you that there is no more demand for my calling.
ANNE.
Surely in time all that will change for the better.
INNKEEPER.
No, dear daughter. The times do not tend that way. Oh, why was I not a Hofrath! You may look at any play-bill this day, it always says at the bottom: “The scene is at the house of the Hofrath.” If things go on like this I’ll study for a gaoler, for prisons, you know, still occur in patriotic and mediæval pieces. But my son must see to it that he gets to be a Hofrath.
ANNE.
Be comforted, dear father, and do not yield to your melancholy.
INNKEEPER.
I’ve half a mind to turn poet myself, and invent a new art of poetry which shall supersede the Hofrath pieces, and in which the scene shall invariably play in a tavern.
ANNE.
Do so, dear father, and I will attend to the love-scenes.
INNKEEPER.
Hist! There is a diligence pulling up at the door. Indeed it seems to be an express. Kind heavens, where can the unsophisticated person come from who would put up at this house?
(Enter a Stranger.)
STRANGER.
Good morrow, mine host.
INNKEEPER.
Your servant, your servant, noble lord. Who in the world are you to travel incognito, and put up at my house? Surely you are of the old school, eh? A man of the good old times! Perhaps translated from the English!
STRANGER.
I am neither a noble lord nor do I travel incognito. Can I lodge here this day and night?
INNKEEPER.
My whole house is at your disposal. But really, is there no family in the vicinity you wish to make happy? Or do you wish to marry suddenly, or find a sister?
STRANGER.
No, good friend.
INNKEEPER.
So you are only journeying as a simple, ordinary traveller?
STRANGER.
Yes.
INNKEEPER.
Then you will have but little applause.
STRANGER.
The fellow must be crazy.
(Enter a Postillion.)
POSTILLION.
Here is your trunk, sir.
STRANGER.
And here is your fee.
POSTILLION.
Oh, that is very little. I drove down the hill so smartly!
STRANGER.
There.
POSTILLION.
Many thanks. (Exit.)
STRANGER.
Shall I succeed in finding her? Oh, how all my thoughts turn to my beloved native shore! How can I endure the sight, when once more I view it?—when the past, with all its joys and pains, passes before my inner vision? Ah, thou poor mortal! what callest thou the past? For thee there is no present. Between the times that are flown and the future thou clingest to a little moment, and joys flit past thee, and do not so much as touch thy heart.
INNKEEPER.
If I may be permitted to ask, I take it your grace is from some old worm-eaten drama that some unknown author has modernised a bit?
STRANGER.
What say you?
INNKEEPER.
I greatly doubt that you will have applause! I hope, at any rate, that you have money? Or is it a part of the plot that you should pretend to be poor?
STRANGER.
You are very inquisitive, good friend.
INNKEEPER.
That’s part of my trade, sir, as any schoolboy will tell you. Old people must be old; Telephus must be a beggar; the slave must chatter in keeping with his rôle. You can look it up in the Ars poetica, to which I too am subject in my office as host.
STRANGER.
Thank you for this graceful frenzy; I have not found so rare a curiosity for a long time. Show me to my room.
(Exeunt.)
Ludwig Tieck.