And when the brothers returned, they found that the
false Greek wife had gone away with another knight. So they lived
together in peace, and were never married. And when they died--"
"Lisbeth! Lisbeth!" cried a sharp voice from the shore, "Lisbeth! Where
are you taking the gentleman?"
This recalled the poor girl to her senses; and she saw how fast they
were floating down stream. For in telling the story she had forgotten
every thing else, and the swift current had swept them down to the tall
walnut trees of Kamp. They landed in front of the Capucin Monastery.
Lisbeth led the way through the little village, and turning to the
right pointed up the romantic, lonely valley which leads to the
Liebenstein, and even offered to go up. But Flemming patted her cheek
and shook his head. He went up the valley alone.
CHAPTER V. JEAN PAUL, THE ONLY-ONE.
The man in the play, who wished for `some forty pounds of lovely beef,
placed in a Mediterranean sea of brewis,' might have seen his ample
desires almost realized at the table d'hôte of the Rheinischen Hof, in
Mayence, where Flemming dined that day. At the head of the table sat a
gentleman, with a smooth, broad forehead, and large, intelligent eyes.
He was from Baireuth in Franconia; and talked about poetry and Jean
Paul, to a pale, romantic-looking lady on his right. There was music
all dinner-time, at the other end of the hall; a harp and a horn and a
voice; so that a great part of the fat gentleman's conversation with
the pale lady was lost to Flemming, who sat opposite to her, and could
look right into her large, melancholy eyes. But what heheard, so much
interested him,--indeed, the very name of the beloved Jean Paul would
have been enough for this,--that he ventured to join in the
conversation, and asked the German if he had known the poet personally.
"Yes; I knew him well," replied the stranger. "I am a native of
Baireuth, where he passed the best years of his life. In my mind the
man and the author are closely united. I never read a page of his
writings without hearing his voice, and seeing his form before me.
There he sits, with his majestic, mountainous forehead, his mild blue
eyes, and finely cut nose and mouth; his massive frame clad loosely and
carelessly in an old green frock, from the pockets of which the corners
of books project, and perhaps the end of a loaf of bread, and the nose
of a bottle;--a straw hat, lined with green, lying near him; a huge
walking-stick in his hand, and at his feet a white poodle, with pink
eyes and a string round his neck. You would sooner have taken him for a
master-carpenter than for a poet. Is he a favorite author of yours?"
Flemming answered in the affirmative.
"But a foreigner must find it exceedingly difficult to understand him,"
said the gentleman. "It is by no means an easy task for us Germans."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account