German fiction -- Translations into English; Netherlands -- History -- Eighty Years' War, 1568-1648 -- Fiction
Henrica lay ill in his father's house. He had been taken into her room
twice, and the beautiful pale face, with its large dark eyes, had filled
his heart with pity. The clear, deep voice in which she addressed a few
words to him, also seemed wonderful and penetrated the inmost depths of
his soul: He was told one morning that she was there, and since that
time his mother rarely appeared and the house was far more quiet than
usual; for everybody walked lightly, spoke in subdued tones, rapped
cautiously at a window instead of using the knocker, and whenever Bessie
or he laughed aloud or ran up or down-stairs, Barbara, his mother, or
Trautchen appeared and whispered: "Gently, children, the young lady has a
headache."
There were many bottles in the cart which were warranted to cure the
ailment, and the famous Morpurgo seemed to be a very sensible man, no
buffoon like the other mountebanks. The wife of the baker, Wilhelm
Peterssohn, who stood beside him, a woman he knew well, said to her
companion that the doctor's remedies were good, they had quickly cured
her godmother of a bad attack of erysipelas.
The words matured the boy's resolution. Fleeting visions of the sword,
the cross-bow, the gingerbread and the nice little brothers once more
rose before his mind, but with a powerful effort of the will he thrust
them aside, held his breath that he might not smell the alluring odor of
the cakes, and hastily approached the cart. Here he unfastened his purse
from his belt, poured its contents into his hand, showed the coins to the
doctor, who had fixed his black eyes kindly on the odd customer, and
asked: "Will this be enough?"
"For what?"
"For the medicine to cure headache."
The quack separated the little coins in Adrian's hand with his
forefinger, and answered gravely: "No, my son, but I am always glad to
advance the cause of knowledge. There is still a great deal for you to
learn at school, and the headache will prevent it. Here are the drops
and, as it's you, I'll give this prescription for another arcanum into
the bargain."
Adrian hastily wrapped the little vial the quack handed him in the piece
of printed paper, received his dearly-bought treasure, and ran home. On
the way he was stopped by Captain Allertssohn, who came towards him with
the musician Wilhelm.
"Have you seen my Andreas, Master Good-for-nothing?" he asked.
"He was standing listening to the musicians," replied Adrian, released
himself from the captain's grasp, and vanished among the crowd.
"A nimble lad," said the fencing-master. "My boy is standing with the
musicians again. He has nothing but your art in his mind. He would
rather blow on a comb than comb his hair with it, he's always tooting on
every leaf and pipe, makes triangles of broken sword-blades, and not even
a kitchen pot is sate from his drumming; in short there's nothing but
singsong in the good-for-nothing fellow's head; he wants to be a musician
or something of the sort."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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