Читать книгу On the Heights - Auerbach Berthold - Страница 13

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Seated in an open carriage, Doctor Sixtus journeyed toward the Highlands.

The doctor was a man of easy and winning address. While the present king was yet the crown prince, he had accompanied him on his travels and, in the society of nobles, had improved on the light and graceful manner which he had acquired during a three years' stay in Paris. Just as princes treat their inferiors and regard their service as a right, so, in turn, do courtiers abuse those who are under them. The court doctor had chosen for his lackey, one of the readiest, and most skillful at command.

"Give me a light, Baum!" said he; and the lackey, who was sitting beside the driver on the box, handed him a lighted match. With gentle condescension, Sixtus offered his cigar-case to the lackey, who gratefully helped himself to a cigar. He well knew that it would prove too strong for him, and that, if he attempted to smoke it, it would in all likelihood throw him into a cold sweat; but he knew also that it is a safe rule never to refuse a proffered favor.

The road was good and the ride a pleasant one. At the next station, the royal horses were sent back to the king's stables and a relay of fleet post-horses was taken. Doctor Sixtus had no need to trouble himself about such matters--Baum knew what was needed and attended to it.

"Baum, where were you born?" asked the court doctor.

Although Baum was startled by the question, he acted as if he had not heard it. He found it necessary to collect himself before he could reply. His features were agitated for a moment, but he quickly assumed a modest and innocent expression.

The doctor repeated his question: "Baum, where were you born?"

With a face expressive of willingness to serve him in any way, Baum turned toward the doctor and said:

"I come from the Highlands; far over there near the border; but I've never felt at home there."

Sixtus, whose question had been a casual one, had no desire to inquire further into Baum's history.

He was quite affable toward Baum, who was the favorite lackey at court, since he possessed the art of showing by his demeanor how highly he esteemed the exalted personages whom he served.

"Keep as near the telegraph as possible," had been the instructions given to Doctor Sixtus. "Report every morning and evening where a dispatch will reach you, so that you may be recalled at any moment."

Doctor Sixtus looked out at the telegraph wires, running through the valleys and climbing over the hills, and smiled to himself. "I, too, am nothing more than an electric spark, with this difference however: the master who has sent me does not know where I am going to. No, I am like the spirit in the fairy-tale; I bring money and luxury to an invisible cottage, for I cannot find a rich peasant woman. Where art thou, O noble foster-mother?"

He looked out at the landscape with a self-complacent smile, while, in his day-dreams, various images appeared and vanished like the smoke clouds of his cigar.

It was after dark when they drew near to a little watering-place in the Highlands.

While they ascended the mountain, the lackey walked on beside the postilion. Sixtus had entrusted him with the secret reason for their journey. They had already, in distant lands, shared in adventures of quite a different nature. Baum engaged the postilion in conversation about the life and ways of the neighborhood and adroitly managed to inquire about young lying-in women. He had found the right party. The postilion was the son of a midwife, whose only fault was that she had died some time ago.

Sixtus was much gratified by the hint which he had just received of how his mission might be fulfilled. He would seek information from the midwives of every village, and, in order to avoid being overrun, would take good care not to let them know for whom the foster-mother was wanted.

When Baum was about to return to his seat, Sixtus quietly called him and said: "During the whole of this journey, you're to address me simply as 'Herr Doctor.'"

The lackey did not ask why, for that was no part of his business; nor did he conjecture as to the reason; he was a lackey and obeyed orders. "He who does more than he's ordered to do is good for nothing," were the words that Baroness Steigeneck's chamberlain had often impressed upon him, and whatever the chamberlain said was as a sacred law to Baum.

The little watering-place was full of life. The company had just left the table. Some were talking of the day's excursion; others, about that projected for the morrow. A young officer in civil dress, and a stout gentleman, appeared to be the wags of the assembly. There were jokes and laughter, and, in the background, a party were singing to the accompaniment of a piano that was out of tune. All seemed more or less excited. They had repaired to the Highlands to escape from ennui, and, having arrived there, found themselves bored in earnest; for there are but few to whom the beauties of nature afford constant and all-sufficient entertainment.

Luckily for Sixtus, no one recognized him, and Baum, who was without his livery, allowed no information to escape him. The doctor looked upon the doings of the gentry about him with a certain aristocratic sense of superiority. As the neighborhood abounded with goitres, he concluded to leave without making further inquiries. On the following morning, they reached a small mountain village. Doctor Sixtus addressed himself to the village doctor, rode about the country with him for several days and, at last, left without having accomplished his mission. He, however, made a note of the names of several of the parties they had seen.

His knightly pride had well-nigh left him. He had looked into the dwellings of want and had beheld so much that told of toil and misery, that the careless indifference with which beings of the same flesh and blood could live in palaces, seemed like a dream. In this outer world, existence is mere toil and care, nothing more than a painful effort to sustain life, with no other outlook than that of renewed toil and care on the morrow.

"A truce to sentiment," said the doctor to himself. "Things happen thus in this fine world. Men and beasts are alike. The stag in the forest doesn't ask what becomes of the bird, and the bird, unless it be a stork, doesn't care what becomes of the frogs! Away with sentimentality and dreams of universal happiness!"

The doctor traveled to and fro among the Highlands, always careful to keep near the telegraph stations, and, as instructed, reporting twice a day. He despaired of accomplishing his mission, and wrote to his chief that, although he could not find married women, there were lots of excellent unmarried ones. He therefore suggested that, as it would not do to deceive a queen, it would be well to have the most acceptable one married to her lover at once.

While awaiting a reply, he remained at a village near the lake, the resident physician of which had been a fellow-student of his.

The scarred face of the portly village doctor was refulgent with traces of the student cheer which in former days they had enjoyed in common. He was still provided with a never-failing thirst and ready for all sorts of fun. His manners had become rustic, and it was with a self-complacent feeling Sixtus thought of the difference in their positions.

Doctor Kumpan--this was a nickname he had received while at the university--looked upon his friend's excursion in search of a nurse as if it were one of their old student escapades. He rode with him over hill and dale, never loth to make a slight detour, if, by that means, they might gain an inn, where he could gratify his hunger with a good meal, and his thirst with a drop of good wine--the more drops the better.

"So many of our customs," said Sixtus, one day, "are, at bottom, immoral. For instance, nurse-hunting."

Doctor Kumpan roared with laughter and said:

"And you too, Schniepel,"--the college nickname of Sixtus--"so you, also, are one of the new-fashioned friends of the people. You gentlemen, whose gloves are ever buttoned, treat the people far too gingerly. We, who live among them, know them far better. They're a pack of rogues and blockheads, just like their superiors; the only difference's that they're more honest about it. The only effect your care for them can have will be to make matters worse. How lucky it is that the trees in the forest grow without artificial irrigation!"

During these excursions, Doctor Kumpan gave free vent to his rough humor, and was so delighted with his wit that he could live three days on the recollection of one of his own wretched jokes.

Sixtus found himself ill at ease in the company of the village doctor, with whom it was necessary to keep on the same friendly footing as of yore; and, therefore, made an effort to hasten his departure.

He was about to take his leave--it was on the morning of the second Sunday following--when Doctor Kumpan said:

"I'm disgusted with myself for having been so stupid. I've got it! Mother nature herself, unconditioned and absolute--just as old Professor Genitivius, the son of his celebrated father, used to say, while he brought his fist down on his desk--Come along with me!"

They drove off in the direction of the lake.