Part 13

The music pealed so merrily, there all was _Saus und Braus_, Till the chairman gave the word “Schenk’ein!” and then the sign “Trink aus!” And this was at the Ending, when every gentleman Must drink the _Supernaculum_--drain to the last his can.

To a drop upon the thumb-nail, nor leave behind a “rest.” And the wine for this last drinking was of the very best; Every cupful cost a florin--of that there was no doubt, It glowed like golden sunlight when Hans’l poured it out.

Ha! What can be the matter with the noble President, That he looks as pale as ashes and extremely discontent? And now he’s falling backwards in deadly agony: And now--O Lord! the others are all as ill as he!

Ha! What can be the matter with Narr Hans’l through it all? He is laughing, he is screaming, he is dancing in the hall. He is changed into a devil--he gave a comic sigh, And played upon his _Cithern_ as he saw the _Herren_ die!

There are four-and-twenty dead men a-lying in the room, The tapers burning lowly, all fading into gloom; The waiters with the music have all in terror fled: There sits alone Narr Hans’l, a-singing to the Dead!

A-singing wailing ditties, all in the saddest strain: How they poisoned him with pepper, and he poisoned them again. Till he screams: “It all is over--and the wine is of the best!” He drank a flowing goblet, and is lying with the rest.’

‘It is a sad song!’ murmured Breitmann, as he struck the last chorus.

‘Very sad,’ replied the nightingales.

‘It makes me cry,’ chirped the sparrow.

‘Mournful, indeed,’ sang the evening breeze.

‘Well, away! There’s a lesson in it for all,’ concluded Flaxius.

* * * * *

_Comment by the Editor._--If there are any readers who would prefer these ballads of Hans Breitmann in the original German English, he or she may find them, and many more quite as good or better--or even worse--in a little book entitled _Hans Breitmann in Germany_, published by T. Fisher Unwin. Of which book, several critics remarked that there was so much German in it as to render it unintelligible, which, as elsewhere remarked, was much like declaring that there is too much Latin in the poems of Virgil or Horace, or, in truth, of Merlinus Coccaius, or the bard who sang the Polemo-Middiana. So reflecting on him who proposed to make a translation of Carlyle’s _Sartor Resartus_ into English, the editor has ventured to clothe these two Breitmann ballads in so much of our current tongue as his humble means permitted.

Which reminds him of a little story.

There was once a French artist who found a picturesque old beggar on the Pont Neuf.

The beggar was striking.

_Il sautait aux yeux_, he leapt to your eyes.

He was seventy years of age.

He had a long white beard.

He was clad in a long, picturesque, ragged gabardine.

A gabardine is a dressing-gown.

For ladies it is a _peignoir_.

Short sentences make long copy.

Copy is paid for by the page.

To return to our sheep.

The beggar held a long, rude staff.

Like Esculapius.

Or a Chinese barber.

The artist was charmed with his appearance.

He asked the beggar to come next day to his studio.

The beggar assented.

Now as he had never had his portrait taken before,

The beggar supposed that he must come in his best.

That is to say _endimanché_, that is to say in Sunday togs.

So he removed his beard,

And appeared in a shabby steel-pen or tail-coat.

With a cane with a glass head,

And his shoes blacked,

And a red waistcoat.

When the artist beheld him,

He exclaimed with horror,

‘_Oh, mon Dieu!_

You are spoiled, you are spoiled!’

Now if this artist had been a Leonardo da Vinci, who could make a beautiful Madonna out of an old man as a model, he would have copied the beggar all the same, seeing the Reality which was in him.

But he did not see it.

[7] ‘Over the pumpkin’ (also the sun-flower) _i.e._ openly, these being very visible objects.

[8] Jack-fool.

FLAXIUS IN INDIA

THE STORY OF SAKHARA AND ARJUN, WITH THE WONDERFUL TRANSMIGRATIONS OF DSCHIM CROW.

‘Gli Indiani e i Persiani e in generale tutti gli Orientali ammettevano la Metempsicosi come un dogma particolare al quale erano molto affezionati.’

_Gran Dizionario Infernale da Francesco Pique._

NOW it befel once in the golden time, meaning the good-olden or aureate age, which Hesiod and other poets write of, that Flaxius having seen the dragon world, with all its thousand brazen eyes of glittering cities, and looked bravely at them, and read their meaning, found himself in north-western India, in a then famous city called Chotahazripoora. As for the date, it was somewhere the other side of the year One, which is tolerably accurate chronology for Indian records, which were not very well kept by the Sanskrit Civil Service about that time, or any other, with all their wisdom.

And in this particular _poora_, which is in Greek and Gypsy _foros_, whence _forum_, so called from its great wealth, Flaxius became a great man at court, because he despised riches and was a sage, being, of course, greatly honoured and admired and coloured up as an incongruity, and inexpensive at that. And at last the king consulted with him on all matters, social, familiar, or financial, from taxing a province down to buying a new bayadere. In all of which the Immortal displayed singular sagacity and exquisite good taste.

This monarch had, of course, three sons, by which ye may know that I have started on a fairy tale, the head of which is, as usual, the part which comes last, or the youngest. This third became very dear to Flaxius, because he was a brave, frank, innocent, clever youth, worth looking after and loving. And his name was Arjūn.

Now in the gust and whirlwind, and flit and flow of hailstones and rain-drops which make the pelting incidents of court-life, there being little rest or peace in it, Flaxius began to note that a cloud was coming over the soul of Arjūn, and from this ante-chamber of the dream, he soon passed to the bright hall of perception, that his pupil or friend was in love. And ere long the expected confidence came in these words:

‘Thou knowest, O wise among men, that I have never set my heart on love of woman. For the article in its best quality has ever been so exceeding cheap and abundant about our court, and I have had so freely my pick and choice of _primeurs_, that it was unto me only as my meals. Moreover, all the books which I have studied have taught me that the preferring one girl to another is mere idle fancy, even as tastes in food are simply the result of caprice and custom, and that female nature is all, in fact, folly. This I did steadfastly believe, till it chanced that one day in the woods far beyond the city I met with a maid of exceeding beauty, who, as I found by conversation, was so witty and wise, original and good, that it soon appeared to me that I had all along been in ignorance and error as to what Woman might be. And, in short, all my philosophy went to the Seven Hells, where it may remain for ever for all I care, being in love through and through--dyed in the grain.

‘And this girl, Sakhára, is the daughter of a Brahmin of kingly race, but exceeding poor. So when I told my father of my love----’

‘Why then,’ interposed Flaxius,

‘“Fire flashed from the monarch’s eyes, And high his wrath began to rise.”’

‘Yea,’ replied Arjūn, ‘and, in short, he swore by the Cow that I should never marry her unless it were shown to be the special will of the gods.’

‘H’m!’ observed Flaxius, ‘I have noticed that the special will of the gods is generally manifest in anything to which we agree, and could the king be brought to assent to this, in any way, the divine sanction would soon be perceptible. Therefore, my son, fret not thy soul, but go and amuse thyself, for in love-troubles, as in all others, he who is least uneasy comes the soonest to ease. I will see what can be done.’

It came to pass that the next day, Flaxius, while walking in the forest and listening to the chattering of the holy monkeys in the trees o’erhead--whose conversation was, however, of a most frivolous and unholy character--met with a man who was evidently a poor devil on general principles, but who appeared to be a decidedly superior person, when one investigated the particulars, for he had a very intelligent face of dark hue, a keen, shrewd eye, and a goodly mien. He was clad in black.

‘I beg you, great sir,’ he said to Flaxius, ‘to take heed how you speak to me or even look at me or let my shadow fall on you, else you will find yourself in for hell or a long penance, for I am a pariah, and my name is Dschim Crow.’

‘And I,’ replied Flaxius, ‘not being a fool, and having travelled in many lands, and seen the vanity of all things human, would probably be ranked with you, could the Brahmins read my soul.’

‘Ay,’ answered the outcast, ‘’tis one of the precepts of our philosophy, that mankind are all divisible into the found-out and the not-found-out.’

‘A good saying,’ replied Flaxius. ‘Have ye then a philosophy?’

‘We are the only true philosophers,’ answered the Pariah, ‘for ours is the sole system that teaches the error of excess of wisdom, law, and goodness. As is shown by our literature, which comprises every work of true humour ever written in India.’

‘Better and better,’ said Flaxius; ‘and I believe you the more, because such a literature is the natural result of such a principle. And what are some of the works to which you refer?’

‘There is, firstly,’ answered the outlaw, ‘the story of “Vikram and the Vampire,” in which the _Baital_ teaches the sage in a series of twenty-five lessons how to show himself a fool just two dozen times, by being over wise.

‘Secondly, the “Life of the Gūrū Simple,” by which we may learn that a good man may be a great goose.

‘Thirdly, the “Marvellous Tale,” showing how Boorum-bunder Pop, the Buddhist, broke open a poultry-house and stole all the fowls, by virtue of the holy fourteen formulas of Sakhya Mūni.

‘Fourthly, how Ah-Sin the Chinese sage, who had been converted to the true religion, and came to the Gate of Nirvana, descended to earth, and meeting Brahma on a pilgrimage in human form, cheated him out of all his money at cards.

‘Fifthly, how the holy Brahmin, Baro Chor, pilfered from the divine cow of Waschischta a pint of the milk of experience, from which he churned the butter of wisdom, which is in twenty thousand _slokas_ or verses.

‘_Parraco tute_,’ replied Flaxius in Prakrit, ‘I had rather thou wouldst read it than I. Any more?’

‘There is the divine legend how Krishna, the chastest of the gods, made love, in extreme, to twenty thousand milk-maids all at once, with the moral of “Be virtuous and you will be happy.” After which he was always blue in the face.’

‘Truly, I do not wonder at it,’ remarked Flaxius. ‘I have seen a man look blue for less than that. Any more?’

‘Well there is the Thieves’ Bible teaching the divine worship of Kàli, which they study devoutly in spirit and in truth, all the more because it teaches them how to commit burglary, personal theft, and murder.

‘And with this the _Bāro Lil_, or Scripture of the Trablūs Dom, who call themselves the Rom or Romany, teaching the sanctity of stealing shirts from clothes-lines, the piety of pilfering hens, the holy art of passing off bad horses for good, and the divineness of telling fortunes.’

‘A goodly library!’ remarked Flaxius. ‘Dost thou know aught of magic?’

‘I have picked up a few tricks,’ replied the Pariah, ‘which I learned from a Mahatma, such as the three card game, thimble-rig, floating in the air, putting cigarettes under cushions, and sending letters from a distance. My one great game is, however, to turn a girl into a tree, or the reverse. But with all my fine accomplishments I could never conjure up my wife or a dinner, and I need a meal now, most deucedly.’

‘Friend,’ said Flaxius, ‘I will conjure thee up a good dinner and teach thee the art of doing it, if thou wilt impart to me those tricks of thine.’

‘By Yamen!’ cried the jovial Bohemian, ‘thou art generous, for I deem thy secret worth forty of mine any day. He who hath a woman may have nothing to eat, but devil the place was I ever in where, if I had a bountiful dinner, I could not get a girl to share it with me. By the way,’ he inquired, ‘does this dinner of yours embrace drink--not water, you know, but _tátto pani_ or spirits?’

‘Also that,’ said Flaxius with a smile. ‘Behold!’

There was not far from them a large earthenware pot, left by some traveller. Flaxius bade the Outcast dig a hole in the ground. In this the pot, upside down, was half-buried. Then he chanted in a mystic ancient Indian tongue:

‘Baro duvel dikkamì, Kūshto hāben, well avri! O choro Rom se bokalo, Kekno māss, kek kokalo; Kekno kil, ne kel pā mui: Bitcha leste sari dui, Te tatto pani kater Rom, Om mani padmi hom!’[9] ‘Mighty spirit, look on me! Let a dinner come from thee! Outcast hungers here alone, Hath no meat and ne’er a bone. Cheese nor butter for his mouth, Send to him, I pray thee, both! Also spirits in this hour, O Jewel in the lotus flower!’

And this done, the feast began, for on removing the pot there appeared beneath it a rice curry, surmounted with a fine piece of roast beef, garnished with chillies, two chupattis or wheat-cakes, jaggree sugar and a great flask.

‘Now by the thousand years in hell, which I am to catch for eating that beef,’ exclaimed the Outcast, ‘I call that a good meal. Thank the devil and your lordship--if ye be not one and the same--and for what I am about to devour, make us truly thankful,’ as the tiger said when he ate up the Buddha. _Yeck lav se tacho sā desh_:

‘One word’s as good as ten, Leather away--Amen!’

‘And _toddy_--by all the goblins!’ he exclaimed as he sampled the bottle, ‘strong and abundant enough to demoralise an elephant. Verily I can now be clear through to the further end of my ideal of bliss, for, as your lordship knows, _that_ man is a _bachtalo beng_ or lucky devil who knows when he is well off, or as the great Sanskrit poet, Jan Kitz, sings:

‘“It is a flaw, In happiness to see beyond our bourne, It forces us in summer skies to mourn, And spoils the singing of the nightingale.”

‘Therefore let us _not_ see beyond our bourne--at least not till we get there; which, as our great ancestor Cain says in his precepts, is more than most men manage to do.’

‘Was Cain thy ancestor?’ inquired Flaxius. ‘I would fain hear the legend if one there be?’

‘Thou shalt hear it in spirit and in truth,’ replied the Outcast. ‘In the spirit of toddy, and on the truth of a gypsy, know then, what is known to everybody of every language, and in every land, that in the beginning were Cainos and Abelos. And unto them was a sister. And Cainos slew his brother and took his sister to wife. But she, being told that it was wrong, fled from him, and took refuge in the sun, where she dwells to this day. Then Cainos for all his sins was sent to live in the moon, and because it is cold, there he is always bearing thorns to feed the fire. And longing for his sister, he, in the moon, ever pursues her. But others say that when the sun has set and ere the moon has risen, then they meet, which accounts for their love lasting so long, since they do not see too much of one another. But however it be, they are gods of all us wanderers, because they are always wandering over the heavens. And we are their descendants, and therefore under a curse, for which indeed we do not care a curse--when we can get toddy!

‘“When the evening fire is burning, And the women return from town; And the crows to their nests returning, We will drink till the moon goes down:

And merrily sing and prattle, While music rings over the plain; And if there’s enough in the bottle, We’ll drink till she rises again.”

‘Now the sun is called in our tongue Kam or Kàn, and the moon Tchen or Zen, even as tongues turn it, hence we their children are the Zen-kan or Zingan. And this is the true story of our race, whence ye may see what a fine lot we are.

‘And now, your Illustriousness, since it takes two to make a bargain, or as a bargain requires a pair, which must consist of a couple, and as duality demands separate units, or a double of singles, and a duplicate repeated units, and twins bi-fold births, and as according to the Vedas there are needed twice-five fingers to make a hand-shake, and the Shastras assert that if one parent be wanting there can be no child born--

‘Heaven-a-mercy, man!’ cried Flaxius, ‘what the devil art thou driving at?’

‘Only this, O heaven born! that as thou hast kept thy word and given me the dinner without an end, and the flask inexhaustible, I will forthwith repay, reciprocate, discharge, settle, acquit bequests with, strike a balance, clear off old scores, liquidate, poney up my dues to the tune of “On the nail,” and show myself a man of honour and a gentleman by telling thee how to turn a tree into a girl or a girl into a tree, albeit I do not guarantee the quality of the timber. But by their fruit shall ye know them.’

‘’Tis well,’ answered Flaxius. ‘Proceed with thy process.’

And the Outcast proceeded. But here I must draw the veil of secrecy over the mirror of curiosity. I did not mind, O reader, letting thee know how to raise a dinner by means of sorcery, but I draw the line at girls. For there are, as it is, rather too many girls in the world if we may believe the Census, and too few trees, if we are to put faith in agricultural newspapers, and therefore I think it just as well that this metamorphosis be not added to those of Daphne and the Dryads.

* * * * *

When Flaxius returned to the _Ruppeny-gav_ or Silver City of Chotahazripoora, he went straight to the golden palace or _Sonafilisin_ and entered the _Tatcho-bar Kamora_ or Diamond Chamber, where he found the king shadowing the day time of his lordly soul in the dark void of night with sleepless woe, which is to say that he was in a gloomy fit of the blues and bored to death.

‘_Sarshān_, your majesty. How art thou?’ inquired Flaxius in the court tongue.

‘_Sarshān yer kokero, puro!_ How are you yourself, O ancient?’ replied the mighty monarch. ‘As for me, I am in trouble. I have, as thou knowest, more than a thousand mothers-in-law in my family?’

‘Yea,’ replied Flaxius, ‘and I have known a man ere now to be always in hot water with only one.’

‘And they are all nagging me to get first of all my three sons married, and then the daughters. Canst thou see a way out of it?’ he added anxiously.

Flaxius reflected a long time, in order not to make his wisdom too cheap, nor yet ‘to set himself by flippancy too light, too high above the level of his king,’ and then replied:

‘Thou knowest, O sublime Superiority, that I have deeply studied the science of dreams, and can command them. Therefore will I somnambulate in sleep, and draw conclusion from its imagery.

‘“The figments and conceits, the myths and fads, The grey chimeras and the visions blue; The phantasms and shadows of the soul, The whims and vagaries and rhapsodies, Extravaganzas of the booming soul, The hum-bugs which go sailing in the dark, The air-drawn dodgers and the bug-bears wild, The Flying Dutchmen in the sea of sleep, The castles in the air and homes i’ the moon, Utopias and fair Atlantises, The happy valleys of the bards of yore, The fairy lands and the Millenia Of Prester John and of Micomicon, Wherein Alnaschar found _le pot au lait_, And where the fay Morgana rules supreme, Shall be explored down to their deepest dream, And the last shadow of their last ideal, And the last fairy coin struck in their mint Be studied deeply in the minutest case, To answer well thy question, O my King!”’

‘_S’e pmi duvel!_ As my Spirit may help me!’ cried the monarch in admiration. ‘I will say this for thee, Flaxius, that beside thee as a bard Kalidasa is nowhere, and that what thou canst not do in poetry is not worth a-doing. Therefore, let us drink!’

And they drank.

When Flaxius appeared the next morning before his majesty, it was with the grand and important air of a man who has been dreaming on a royal order, and filled up every detail in first class style. The courtiers looked at him with awe, and even his Highness regarded him with a kind of fearful respect, as if apprehending that he might go off, or explode, or burst in some mysterious way. He was manifestly relieved when an attendant maiden brought to the sage a golden goblet of Soma, or India pale ale; and when the wise man had drained off about a pint thereof, he sighed as if all danger of a conflagration was for the time extinguished. So great a thing is it to be known to be possessed of a secret.

‘By your majesty’s royal command!’ said Flaxius--and all around became as still as the mice-stars in heaven before the cat-moon--‘By your majesty’s royal command I dreamed and I found myself in a far isle of light holding a trumpet shell of pearly hue, which Glendoveers do blow whene’er they meet. Then from a bowery strand just opposite--an island of the sea--there came enchantment with the shifting wind that did both drown and keep alive my ears. And as I listened all my sense was filled with that new blissful golden melody; a living death was in each gust of sounds; each family of rapturous, hurried notes, aunts, cousins, nieces, daughters, all most beautiful, fell one after one, yet all at once, like pearl beads dropping sudden from their strings.’

‘Ahem!’ muttered the Outcast, who had in the daring disguise of a respectable person found his way into the assembly. ‘It seems to me that I have heard something like that before!’

‘Then,’ continued Flaxius, ‘there rose amid wild clouds incarnadine, the form of Siva with his glory on. He bore in one hand the _Triçula_ or trident; and without speaking, he pointed impressively at its three points.’

All present were in breathless awe.

‘Then he disappeared, and I beheld the terrible Vishnu. He held up his three fingers and vanished in turn.