Part 18

‘Hallo, old Flax, is that you?’ cried the only one of this precious company with whom the Sage had ever before made acquaintance. This was Slang--not by any means the worst of them, since his mission merely was to corrupt language, and invent all kinds of new, grotesque forms of speech. ‘_Mozeltoff!_ luck to you, old cove, _sās tute a kairin tiro kokero_?’ he continued in the tongue generally spoken among devils and goblins, ‘how have you been doing since they let you out?’

‘_Kūshti adosta_, well enough,’ replied Flaxius in the same tone and tongue, for there never was man on earth who could so adapt himself gracefully to the most varied society or ‘all shorts and editions’ of life. ‘May I venture to ask for what purpose you gentlemen are here assembled?’

‘_Lel a swägler an’ a cutter a mūl-tatto-pani_, take a pipe and a drop of brandy before we get to _biz_,’ exclaimed Slang, dusting a seat obsequiously as he spoke; and indeed it was quite evident, despite their swaggering impudence and their feet on the tables, that the whole party of demons were deeply sensible of the honour of entertaining such a distinguished guest. Flaxius accepted the refreshment, and sat down.

‘What you behold,’ said Moloch, the _diavolo_ of Pessimism, ‘is a sad spectacle and a melancholy instance of diabolical deterioration, showing how even natures which have received every blessing of hell and all infernal advantages from the devil himself can become depraved to mere _inertia_. We are now a jury here assembled to try one of our number for his reputation. You, sir, though happily exempted from all such mutations, are aware that the limit of moral existence is one thousand years for a member of our order, unless he by progressive energy or genius advances himself, in which case he receives a renewal of his social lease. Now there is one of our number known as _Sneak_, who during all his snivelling millennium has never got beyond where he begun--or vulgarity and idle folly--including carrying and retailing petty gossip, teaching foolish old club-men and ladies how to twaddle about divorces and marriages, elopements, and relationships, gleaning trash and mean slander from low servants, and sticking _just there_. Such an existence, we hold, is too contemptible for even the meanest devil in Inferno; hence this jury, to decide whether the creature shall exist among us any longer; and as our judge has failed to put in an appearance we respectfully request your Wisdom to take his place as referee.’

‘I consent with pleasure,’ said Flaxius. ‘Produce the culprit!’

A truculent-looking demon named Dobble, whose department was quarrelling, the prize-ring, rencounters, and rows, here arose, went to a corner, put a box under his arm, brought it to the table, opened it, and took from it a form pressed flat like a pair of trousers in a trunk. This he unfolded--blew it up like a bladder by means of the stem of his clay-pipe--and gave it a drink of whisky, when lo! the form assumed some semblance of, if not humanity, at least demonity. It was a wretched-looking phantom, something in it recalling a battered Punch or tattered Ally Sloper, a Paul Pry, a thing without a conscience or moral sense, yet not without prying inquisitiveness or petty cunning--a poor _simulacrum_ of a popular, paltry jest. It sat up and grinned, and leered, without a trace of fear, as if--all its function finished--it had nothing else to do but to die game, as vulgar, second-hand tradition enjoined its kind to do.

‘I appear here,’ said Moloch, not without dignity, ‘as _advocatus diaboli_, or public prosecutor. The entire life and actions of this sneak, whom I will not honour with the name of devil, or even imp, are so well known to all here present as to render a formal indictment a work of supererogation. Yet that all due formalities may be properly fulfilled, I ask the accused if he demands that any accusation be made?’

To which the culprit replied by casting up his head, and saying, in a tone which would have elicited roars of applause in a music hall:

‘_Ya-ap!_ Who’re _you_? Shut up!’

‘An indictment is therefore needless. Let me here remark, gentlemen,’ said Moloch, with great impressiveness, ‘that though we may all be demons, and even the humblest of our order, our mission is _not_, as is vulgarly supposed, to do evil. It is simply agitation and action.’

‘To keep things a-bilin’,’ interposed Slang.

‘Quite true. The honourable gentleman who has just interrupted me is, for example, often accused of mere vulgarity, but unjustly. He may be a rude poet, but he invents new similes and vigorous racy words which are often wanting. I myself--in many ways--by introducing Pessimism to society, and by raising the question as to whether life is worth living, caused a discussion which rendered me worthy of receiving a renewal of my lease of life. The pugnacity of my colleague Dobble has its silver lining--it provokes resistance, argument, and conclusion. We may all be a rough lot with a hard bark, but there is _wood_ in us. But the accused is all rotten bark and no bite, and _hollow_. Vulgarity, twaddle, gossip, and small-talk are all one and the same thing; and the mind devoted to them alone stagnates and putrefies. The spirit of it dies very slowly, gentlemen; but if nothing better can be said of this _fin de siècle_, it must be at least admitted that this century has witnessed no advance in vulgarity and the pettiness which kills for everything. Gentlemen, I await your verdict?’

‘GUILTY, in large capitals,’ cried Slang, who seemed to be foreman. ‘We’re all agreed like a rope of inyons.’

‘Prisoner,’ exclaimed Flaxius, ‘have you anything to say why sentence of non-renewal of existence should not be passed on you.’

‘Oh, a’nt I just?’ screamed Sneak in a Punch tone. ‘Call _me_ vulgar do yer, yer vaggabones--me that moves in the highest circles among the biggest suckers! Listen to _this_!’ And with that, he drew from his pocket a fashionable weekly newspaper, well known on every stand, and proceeded to read from it such a mass of drivelling silliness relating to the pettiest acts or tastes of the upper classes, including that of royalty itself, and all that constituted what _it_ regarded as ‘Society,’ that even Flaxius was fain to drink another glass of brandy, and light a cigar to enable him to sustain the infliction. At last it came to an end.

‘There!’ exclaimed Sneak triumphantly. ‘That’s what Erbamala, the great _noveliste_, and I call human nature. The best art is the depicting that--it pays best--and I’m the spirit who inspires it all. There I rest my defence.’

‘The defence,’ said Flaxius, ‘has aggravated the offence.’

‘Well, my time is not out, and you’ll find that I shall drag on awhile longer.’

‘True,’ observed Flaxius, ‘but observe that there _was_ a time when you had a place, such as it was, among those who are here present. Now it is lost; even the demons of the present day disown you. Therefore I pronounce you dead _de facto_, for those for whom you now live among mortals have no intellects. Begone!’

The foreman opened a window, and the living dead whisked out of it, like a great carrion blue-bottle with a buzz.

‘Did the deceased leave any property on which to administer?’ asked Boodle, the modern incarnation of Mammon.

‘Yes, he left ME,’ piped a small voice. And a sharp little imp, two inches in height, sprang on the table. ‘I’m _Puttuli_.’

‘Immortalised by Musæus,’ said Moloch. ‘You were used to go about to people’s pockets and report what you found therein to your master.’

‘Yes, but I can do more than that,’ replied Puttuli. ‘I can observe and report anything.’

‘Well, none of us want you,’ cried Slang, ‘you little, sneaking, spying villain. So be off with you by the first boat--quicker than immediately, if not sooner.’

‘Nay,’ said Flaxius, ‘he may be useful if properly employed. With your permission, gentlemen, I will take him.’

And as there was no dissenting voice, the wise Flaxius departed with Puttuli in his pocket. And he soon found that he had indeed a pocket-companion, and voluble--if not valuable--_vade-mecum_, for the diminutive imp was what a distinguished American writer calls an ‘amoosin’ little cuss,’ and ‘especially good at beguiling off the odd corners of the weary hours.’

* * * * *

‘_Haec fabula docet_,’ wrote Flaxius, ‘or its moral is--not what too many satirists so sadly wail--that Sneak actually represents the spirit of this bottom of the century, but its very dregs, which are, however, stirred up too much by the spoons of small writers into what would be, but for them, a clear, exhilarating beverage. The very devils, whose agitation in a certain way leads ever to something that is good, find their work hindered by this imp of pettiness. Prosperity and peace, or its stagnation, engender the birth of such mosquitoes. A roaring torrent of even dirty water is better, for it will wash itself clean ere long, but a standing pool only creates vile insects and malaria.

FLAXIUS AND THE BOOKSELLER

‘“L’amour des livres est plus utile que vous ne croyez,” dit le capitaine, “car je trouve dans mes études un calme qui vous manque. Vous ne soupçonnez pas tout ce qu’une manie a de précieux, docteur! Elle occupe comme une passion, et n’a aucun de ses tourments. Croyez-moi, puisque la vie n’est après tout qu’une voiture mal suspendue qui nous conduit à la mort, les sages sont ceux qui baissent les stores, sans songer au but ni aux cahots.”’

_Souvenirs d’un Bas Breton, par Émile Souvestre._

‘Few are the men who know what lives do hide, Or dream what demons lurk, or fairies flit, In places which to them seem dull and tame, Even as a drop of water to the eye Appears to it like naught; but take to it a glass, And lo it is a sea with monsters filled, Devouring, making love, or raging wild-- Full many a heart is like that water drop.’

THE day had been grim and ill-tempered--flitting fitfully through all the phases of bad weather--promising at times, like a deceitful child, to be good, when it would clear a little into curling mists, through which there came a doubtful ray of light--when straight anon there fell a dismal fog, then wild rain, maddened by the roaring of the wind--for ’tis terrible mourning when any one cries aloud and weeps at the same time--_laut aufweinend_--as the Germans say.

Oh, I warrant you that the rusty weather-cocks, as they whirled round and round, and screamed as if crowing to the _Wilde Jäger_, in the old town of Nuremberg, and the wind low-waving like the deep baying of his hounds made a fine witches’-chorus that night--yea, the very gutters in their unwonted joy at becoming bounding brooks sang gurgling songs as they hurried along to leap into the Pegnitz....

‘’Tis a _Sauwetter_--yea, a _Hundeswetter_--a swine and dog weather,’ exclaimed the little old man to Flaxius, as the latter refuged himself just long enough to turn his umbrella, which had been reversed into a great goblet by a sudden squall, under an arch. This arch was over the projecting doorway of a shop; ’twas immensely massive from the old, bold time, and I warrant you that Albert Dürer and Willibald Pirckheimer and Hans Sachs and all of ’em had passed under it often.

‘I could make better weather,’ added the old man, ‘with only a rusty tea-kettle and a pint of----’

Flaxius looked up. There was a little, half-obliterated sign over the ancient door, which had once proclaimed to the world that here was a _Buchhandlung_ or book-shop, but like an ancient warrior, with stress of time and battling with the elements, it had forgotten most of its letters.

‘You sell books?’ replied Flaxius.

‘How do you know _that_?’ asked the little man, with a quick, suspicious glance, as if a secret which he wished to keep hidden had been revealed.

‘And you have for sale a fine copy of the _Emblemata_ of Iselburg in old German rhyme, published in Nuremberg in Fifteen Hundred and Seventeen ... and a superbly bound exemplar of the _Altdeutsche Wälder_ of Grimm.’

‘Not for sale--not for sale--oh, no!’ exclaimed the little old man eagerly. ‘They belong to my private library.’

‘Also the _Mascarades Monastiques_ of Rabelli,’ pursued Flaxius pitilessly.

‘’Tis sold,’ cried the Bookseller, as if alarmed.

‘It isn’t; but never mind, I don’t want to buy them, yet I would like to see your collection.’

‘_A--ch, so!_’ responded the ancient, visibly relieved. ‘_Komm herein, du lieber Gast, wenn du nichts im Beutel hast._

‘“Enter as a welcome guest, If thou really nothing hast, If thou’rt poor then sit thee down If thou’st money, get thee gone!”’

And with this invitation, he led the way into a marvellous old German interior, which looked as if it had been painted by some artist who was, as I once heard a French artist say, ‘mad on the Middle Age and earlier time.’ For it was heavily arched, and looked like the crypt of a cathedral, or the _Stube_ of the Giant Tavern in the Hof-Gasse of Innsbruck, which is, indeed, lovely to behold, and far away finer than the Auerbach Keller of Leipzig. All around were books: books of tarnished gold in old ivory-parchment bindings; books in tremendous plank covers of old oak, knobbed with bronze or iron, like castle doors; books in marvellous cut-vellum, with rich Gothic grotesques, and silver clasps of extravagant richness; books on shelves and heaped up in piles like rubbish; everywhere books--and _such_ books! ’Twas a vision, a dream, an endless promise of a bibliomaniac’s paradise!

And there the two sat for hours turning over the black letter of the olden time, like two wizards evoking the spirits of the dead, which, indeed, the scholar always does when he reads reverently in such books, which were made, and once studied, by the departed. For it is in his thoughts that the writer lives in after ages, and he is ever with us as we read.

The dealer was enchanted also with his guest, hearing the wondrous words and ponderous stories, strange, which were uttered in calm, solemn tone; and a rapt shuddering stole over him as they turned some old and legend-leaved book, mysterious to behold, while he learned priceless secrets enhancing the value even of what he most esteemed.

Flaxius took up an old work--_Das Schachzabel-spiel_ of Jacob Manuel of 1536.

‘There seems to be something in the binding,’ he said. ‘Perhaps some old paper. May I examine it?’

He bent back with care the thin parchment, and drew out a manuscript of perhaps twenty leaves, which had been put in to stiffen the binding, as waste-paper.

‘This is indeed a find,’ he solemnly remarked. ‘A great discovery.’

‘What is it?’

‘A manuscript play as yet unknown, by Hans Sachs, entitled _Die Weisse Rabe_, or, _The White Raven_, with the motto from the _Renner_ of Trimberg:

‘“Selten wir gesehen haben Swarze Swanen und weisse Raben.

Seldom have we ever seen Black swans or ravens white I ween.”

It bears the signature of the author: _Hans Sachs_.’

‘Blessed be the storm which drove thee to my gate; blessed be this day and hour, and the mother who bore thee, and all and everything dear unto thee!’ cried the Bookseller. ‘Lo, it has been the dream of my life to find that play--I have seen it in visions, I have prayed for it; I would have given a finger, an eye, yea, my choicest book to even behold it.’

‘And now it is thine,’ replied Flaxius gently. ‘And indeed it was--_de facto_--thine own discovery, since thou didst lead me here, and it was in thy possession.’

The old man clasped the manuscript to his heart, and kissed it reverently; there was silence, save for the pattering of the rain, and anon a thunder peal, which seemed like a joyous _salvo_ fired off in honour of the event. The Bookseller rose with tottering steps.

‘I will return anon,’ he said.

He came back, bearing two ancient bottles covered with dust and cobwebs, and two tall, magnificent old glass goblets.

‘There is no better wine, and none so old in Nuremberg,’ he exclaimed. ‘I would not have offered it to the emperor; but, verily, we will carouse therewith--_vinum bonum et suave lætificat_.’

‘_Gurgle, gluck, gluck!_’ sang the Wine as it came forth again into the world after a century of slumber.

‘Hearest thou?’ cried the old man. ‘_Gluck, gluck!_ They are words of good omen. This day I have had good luck.’

And he drank solemnly--_feierlich_--to his guest.

‘The wine,’ said Flaxius, as he touched his glass to his host’s--it was like the ringing of cow-bells heard afar on a mountain side in the Tyrol--‘is like a butterfly long imprisoned as a chrysalis under earth, which now comes forth to shine in light for a brief space--the butterfly gladdens the child, and wine gladdens man.’

‘And poetry like that gladdens everybody,’ cried the host; ‘albeit I confess that I love it best when it is printed in a rare old book.’

‘What is this?’ said Flaxius, taking up a little manuscript.

‘Truly a quaint thing, a fourteenth-century transcript, or translation of a far older work of earliest German times, the _Vision of Baldemar_, now lost. It is unique. I pray you accept it as a gift.’

Flaxius would have declined the offer, but the old man, who had inquired the name of his visitor, took a pen and wrote therein in a very ancient, but distinct, hand, which seemed to be uniform and contemporary with the writing of the manuscript itself:

_To the Moſt Learned and Very Honourable DOMINO FLAXIO_

_This Work is preſented with humbleſt Regards as a trifling Teſtimonial of inexpreſſible Gratitude from his Moſt Devoted Servant_

_BUCHERWURM SCHMOKER._

~‘Hast mir geschassen großes Glück;~ ~Doch wenig geb’ ich Dir zurück:~ ~Giebst Du mir Was,~ ~Schenk’ ich Dir Das.’~

‘_Great pleasure hast thou made for me But little I return thee. Thou giv’st a lot, I but a jot._’

‘What a thing,’ thought Flaxius, ‘it is for man in this life to set his mind on something, and when so setting to make a dead set, cooking all his victuals, as the gypsies say, “_adré yeck Kekavi_,” in one pot. For they hold by tradition--the Romany cook-book being as yet unpublished--that when all conceivable food is thus boiled it acquires, like Mississippi punch, an additional agreeable flavour with every new ingredient, eggs, carrots, ham, butter, chickens, bread, turnips, honey, hedgehogs, snails, oatcake, rice, herrings, a sucking-pig, mutton-chops, raisins, bacon, cold plum-pudding, cabbage and anything else edible being welcomed to the _mixtum-compositum_; which is declared to be so palatable that the author of _Rookwood_ assures us that when Dick Turpin the highwayman first tasted it he actually shed tears of delight.

‘So hath it been with the venerable Bucherwurm Schmoker who hath cast into the one passion of antique literature all the emotions and feelings, hopes and affections of life. I have heard that among the Five Thousand Commandments which were appended by the devil and Society to those of Moses--the which I do propose some day to publish--there is one which says, “Put not all thy eggs into one basket.” But there is great pleasure in breaking commandments, especially when one desires, like the French lady, to make with them an _omelette aux confitures_; and there is also great delight in concentrating our feelings, as the devil observed when he saw that the mystics united the excess of piety with that of earthly pleasure. “_Cela suffit_”--quotha.

‘This venerable Schmoker seems to me like the thorn-bush of the poet, of which it would be hard to say how it could ever have been young, it looks so old and grey, like rock or stone all overgrown with lichens to the very top, or thoughts of some primeval time which fain would give it all the grime which they have gathered up. Yet underneath this aged thorn there is a lovely hill of moss, wherein are exquisite curling lines and scarlet-orange-tawny-sable-ivory flowers, which, seen with a glass, do to perfection resemble the enlacements and tracery and fancied flowers of an illuminated manuscript; and therein and therefore do the fairies love to dwell and sit love-making of a moon-lit night.

‘And if I think thereon I needs must laugh, remembering that all the world thinks that such an erudite old Dryasdust leads the most arid, infestive, humdrum, prosy life, given to old and long-forgotten things, buried in the rust of antiquity, palætiology, archæology, which all, like the Dismal Grove in Tieck’s wondrous tale, do but conceal a sunny elfin-land of quaint caprice and merry, wanton joy. As every antiquary and folk-lorist who is anything better than a mechanical maker of tables, and a clipper and collector of variants, well knows.

_Serious_, indeed! Now, an’ I had time, good people, I would tackle Calvin, Knox, and Chalmers, and Young of the _Night Thoughts_, and show you what Mephistopheli, what humbugs, what subtle deceivers of self or others, and what mad humorists they all were, and in what Hampton Court mazes they led their followers. For, meaning it or not, it came to that; and ye who cannot perceive it, think that the partition six feet high, over which ye cannot peep, is the top of heaven’s wall. Yea, I repeat: For, meaning it or not, it comes to that!

* * * * *

‘_Vale, Corcule!_ Good-night, old Parable, for there is in thee a deeper meaning than men divine. Sleep well, O mirror of ten thousand books, whom I have made happy by adding unto them “one volume more!” as Dibdin sweetly sang.’

When Flaxius opened the door, it was a bright, full-moon-lit night; clear and fresh, and gently breezy, gauzy cloudlets flitting now and then before the stars, like transparent veils blowing away or waving before the eyes of Eastern girls. So he went to his dwelling, and the night being young, sat down to read the little book, which ran as follows:

BALDEMAR’S TROUME

THE VISION OF BALDEMAR

As in slumber once I lay In a wood one summer day, All beneath an oaken tree, With green leaf-curtain, fair to see; Flowers peeped upward from below To the sun as he did go, And the drops fresh from the showers Looked lovingly upon the flowers, Like bright eyes as clear as glass, Or diamonds glittering in the grass; And all around from many a bloom There came a pleasant, fresh perfume, While in the forest all day long, Dame Nightingale did tell her song.[12]

By me ran a spring full clear, And it sounded to my ear, With its steady murmuring, Like children who a lesson sing, Or as one who reads alone To himself in single tone; While the wind in harmony Rustled sweet in every tree. Flies and bees the measure kept All in chorus--so I slept.

Now whether I from sleep awoke To life again beneath the oak, Or whether I did deeper sink, In dreams, I know not what to think, Yet this I know that I was there, Where I had been, but in the air; And all around there was a change, Unto another life and strange, As if one should sleep in spring When all is green and burgeoning; Then wake in autumn to behold The trees all clad in red and gold; For other sounds I seemed to hear, Other scents were in the air, Elfin light shone all around, And new herbage on the ground, There full silently had come, As strangers move into a home.