Hesperus; or, Forty-Five Dog-Post-Days: A Biography. Vol. II.Jean Paul
General
Hesperus; or, Forty-Five Dog-Post-Days: A Biography. Vol. II.
Jean Paul
Fiction
That sympathetic look of Clotilda which yesterday, after his previous
heat, had been a cooling balm, was to him to-day a very burning one;
the thought of her eye full of tears for him conjured up all the days
of his love for her and her whole image in his heart. I am convinced
that not even the Regency-Counsellor, who, for the rest, might by
yesterday's funeral-sermon have lost something of his jealousy,
as well as, by the republican diversion, somewhat of his love for
Clotilda, failed to note the drunken and dreamy look of his eye. The
parsonage itself was fortunately to-day an exchange, or a spiritual
intelligence-office and recruiting-house; the Chaplain registered--not
any of your French _car tel est notre plaisir_, but--the catechumens
who were to confess at Whitsuntide.
He would not go over to the castle--his misunderstood friend Mat
had already by ten o'clock called to him out of the window a
morning-greeting and congratulation upon the snow-storm--until his
sleigh had come from the city, so that he might start off at once,
because he would not show over yonder any ridiculous emotion. Since the
great world had become for him a work-day world, to disguise his
feelings from it became harder; one conceals one's self most easily
from those whom one respects.
But the three twins and Franz Koch carried him over earlier than he
would have gone, as early as half past five o'clock in the afternoon.
The name of Franz Koch in the Dog's papers made me jump off of my feet.
If any one of my readers is a guest of the Carlsbad waters, or should
happen to be his Majesty, the King of Prussia, William the Second, or
one of his court, or the Elector of Saxony, or the Duke of Brunswick,
or any other princely person, he has heard the good Koch, who is a
modest pensioned soldier, and travels round everywhere with his
instrument and plays on it. This instrument, which he calls the double
Jews-harp, or mouth-harmonica, consists of an improved pair of
jaw-drums, or humming jaws-harps, played at once, which he shifts
according to the piece he is playing. His handling of the buzzing-irons
bears the same relation to the old Jews-harp playing as harmonica-bells
do to servants' bells. I am under obligation to induce such of my
readers as have wren's wings to their fancy, or at least, from the
heart upwards are _lithopædia_ (petrified fœtuses), or have the
ear-drum membrane for nothing but to be drummed on,--to induce, I say,
with the little oratory I have, such readers to tumble the aforesaid
Franz out of the house, if he undertakes to come and buzz before them.
For it amounts to just nothing, and the wretchedest bass-viol or rebeck
screams louder in my opinion; nay, its hum is so low, that he played at
Carlsbad before not more than twelve customers at once, because one
cannot sit near enough to him, particularly as in his leading pieces he
has the light carried away, that neither eye nor ear may disturb the
fantasies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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