Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces;: or, the Wedded Life, Death, and Marriage of Firmian Stanislaus Siebenkaes, Parish Advocate in the Burgh of Kuhschnappel.Jean Paul
General
Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces;: or, the Wedded Life, Death, and Marriage of Firmian Stanislaus Siebenkaes, Parish Advocate in the Burgh of Kuhschnappel.
Jean Paul
German fiction -- Translations into English
Unfortunately I have got to sing to another tune. In the town of
Kuhschnappel, as in all other towns, provincial, or metropolitan, what
Leibgeber was least of all conspicuous for was a proper gravity of
deportment and behaviour. Here, as elsewhere, his first proceeding was
to get an introduction to the club, as a stranger artist, in order that
he might ensconce himself on a sofa, and, without uttering a word or a
syllable to a human being, go to sleep under the noses of the company
of the "Relaxation" as the club was called. "This," he said, "was what
he liked to have the opportunity of doing in all towns where there were
clubs, casinos, museums, musical societies, &c.; because to sleep in
any rational manner at night in one's ordinary quiet bed was a thing
which _he_, at least, found he was seldom able to manage, on account of
the loud battle of ideas which went on in his head, and the firework
trains of processions of pictures all interweaving and whirling in
and out with such a crash and a din that one could hardly see or hear
one's self. Whereas when one lies down upon a club sofa, everything of
this sort quiets itself down, and a universal truce of ideas
establishes itself; the delicious effect of the company all talking at
once--the happily chosen and appropriate words contributed to the
political-and-other-conversation-picnic, of which one distinguishes
nothing but an _ultima_, perhaps, or sometimes only an _antepenultima_;
this alone sings you into a light slumber. But when a more serious
discussion arises, and some point is argued, disputed and discussed in
all its bearings in a universal clamorous shout--your barometer becomes
completely stationary, and you sleep the deep sleep of a flower which
is rocked, but not awakened, by the storm."
One or two towns with which I am acquainted must, I am sure, remember a
stranger who always used to go to sleep in their clubs, and must also
recollect the beaming expression of countenance with which he would
look about him when he got up and took his hat, as much as to say,
"Many thanks for this refreshing rest."
However, I have little to do with Leibgeber's waking or with his
sleeping here in Kuhschnappel; him I may treat with some indulgence,
seeing that he is soon to be off again into the wide world. But it is
anything but a matter of indifference that my young hero, just
established here with his wife, and whose pranks I have undertaken to
give some account of, as well as of the hits he gets in return, should
go and conduct himself just as if his name was Leibgeber; which had
long ceased to be the case, seeing that he had given formal notice to
his guardian that he had changed it to Siebenkæs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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