Translations from the German (Vol 3 of 3): Tales by Musæus, Tieck, RichterCarlyle, Thomas
General
Translations from the German (Vol 3 of 3): Tales by Musæus, Tieck, Richter
Carlyle, Thomas
German fiction -- Translations into English
[Note 67: Individual Minds, nay Political Bodies, are like organic
bodies: extract the _interior_ air from them, the atmosphere crushes
them together; pump off under the bell the _exterior_ resisting air, the
interior inflates and bursts them. Therefore, let every State keep up
its internal and its external resistance both at once.]
I shall not conceal my perilous resource: I seized the fox by the tail,
as we say; in other words, I made as if I had been muddled, and knew not
rightly, in my liquor, what I was about: I therefore mimicked everything
I was master of in this department; staggered hither and thither;
splayed out my feet like a dancing-master; got into zigzag in spite of
all efforts at the straight line; nay, I knocked my good head (perhaps
one of the clearest and emptiest of the night), like a full one, against
real posts.
However, the Booth-bailiff, who probably had been oftener drunk than I,
and knew the symptoms better, or even felt them in himself at this
moment, looked upon the whole exhibition as mere craft, and shouted
dreadfully: "Stop, rascal; thou art no more drunk than I! I know thee of
old. Stand, I say, till I speak to thee! Wouldst have thy long finger in
the market, too? Stand, dog, or I'll make thee!"
You see the whole _nodus_ of the matter: I whisked away zigzag among the
booths as fast as possible, from the claws of this rude Tosspot; yet he
still hobbled after me. But my Teutoberga, who had heard somewhat of it,
came running back; clutched the tipsy market-warder by the collar, and
said (shrieking, it is true, in village-wise): "Stupid sot, go sleep the
drink out of thy head, or I'll teach thee! Dost know, then, whom thou
art speaking to? My husband, Army-chaplain Schmelzle under General and
Minister von Schabacker at Pimpelstadt, thou blockhead!--Fye! Take
shame, fellow!" The watchman mumbled: "Meant no harm," and reeled about
his business. "O thou Lioness!" said I, in the transport of love, "why
hast thou never been in any deadly peril, that I might show thee the
Lion in thy husband?"
[Note 8: In great Saloons, the real stove is masked into a pretty
ornamented sham stove; so likewise, it is fit and pretty that a virgin
_Love_ should always hide itself in an interesting virgin _Friendship_.]
[Note 12: Nations--unlike rivers, which precipitate their
impurities in level places and when at rest--drop their baseness just
whilst in the most violent motion; and become the dirtier the farther
they flow along through lazy flats.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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