Читать книгу The Little Glass Man, and Other Stories - Вильгельм Гауф - Страница 5

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Those who travel through Swabia should always remember to cast a passing glance into the Schwarzwald,[1] not so much for the sake of the trees (though pines are not found everywhere in such prodigious numbers, nor of such a surpassing height), as for the sake of the people, who show a marked difference from all others in the neighbourhood. They are taller than ordinary men, broad-shouldered, strong-limbed, and it seems as if the bracing air which blows through the pines in the morning, had allowed them, from their youth upwards, to breathe more freely, and had given them a clearer eye and a firmer, though ruder, mind than the inhabitants of the valleys and plains. The strong contrast they form to the people living without the limits of the “Wald,” consists, not merely in their bearing and stature, but also in their manners and costume. Those of the Schwarzwald of the Baden territory dress most handsomely; the men allow their beards to grow about the chin just as nature gives it; and their black jackets, wide trousers, which are plaited in small folds, red stockings, and painted hats surrounded by a broad brim, give them a strange, but somewhat grave and noble appearance. Their usual occupations are the manufacturing of glass, and the so-called Dutch clocks, which they carry about for sale over half the globe.

Another part of the same race lives on the other side of the Schwarzwald; but their occupations have made them contract manners and customs quite different from those of the glass manufacturers. Their Wald supplies their trade; felling and fashioning their pines, they float them through the Nagold into the Neckar, from thence down the Rhine as far as Holland; and near the sea the Schwarzwälder and their long rafts are well known. Stopping at every town which is situated along the river, they wait proudly for purchasers of their beams and planks; but the strongest and longest beams they sell at a high price to Mynheers, who build ships of them. Their trade has accustomed them to a rude and roving life, their pleasure consisting in drifting down the stream on their timber, their sorrow in wandering back again along the shore. Hence the difference in their costume from that of the glass manufacturers. They wear jackets of a dark linen cloth, braces a hand-breadth wide, displayed over the chest, and trousers of black leather, from the pocket of which a brass rule sticks out as a badge of honour; but their pride and joy are their boots, which are probably the largest that are worn in any part of the world, for they may be drawn two spans above the knee, and the raftsmen may walk about in water at three feet depth without getting their feet wet.

It is but a short time ago that the belief in hobgoblins of the wood prevailed among the inhabitants, this foolish superstition having been eradicated only in modern times. But the singularity about these hobgoblins who are said to haunt the Schwarzwald, is, that they also wear the different costumes of the people. Thus it is affirmed of the Little Glass Man, a kind little sprite three feet and a half high, that he never shows himself except in a painted little hat with a broad brim, a doublet, white trousers, and red stockings; while Dutch Michel, who haunts the other side of the forest, is said to be a gigantic, broad-shouldered fellow wearing the dress of a raftsman; and many who have seen him say they would not like to pay for the calves whose hides it would require to make one pair of his boots, affirming that, without exaggeration, a man of the middle height may stand in one of them with his head only just peeping out.

The following strange adventure with these spirits is said to have once befallen a young Schwarzwälder:—There lived a widow in the Schwarzwald whose name was Frau Barbara Munk; her husband had been a charcoal-burner, and after his death she had by degrees prevailed upon her boy, who was now sixteen years old, to follow his father’s trade. Young Peter Munk, a sly fellow, submitted to sit the whole week near the smoking stack of wood, because he had seen his father do the same; or, black and sooty and an abomination to the people as he was, to drive to the nearest town and sell his charcoal. Now a charcoal-burner has much leisure for reflection, about himself and others; and when Peter Munk was sitting by his stack, the dark trees around him, as well as the deep stillness of the forest, disposed his heart to tears, and to an unknown secret longing. Something made him sad, and vexed him, without his knowing exactly what it was. At length, however, he found out the cause of his vexation—it was his condition. ‘A black, solitary charcoal-burner,’ he said to himself; ‘it is a wretched life. How much more are the glass manufacturers, and the clock-makers regarded; and even the musicians, on a Sunday evening! And when Peter Munk appears washed, clean, and dressed out in his father’s best jacket with the silver buttons and bran-new red stockings—if then, any one walking behind him, thinks to himself, “I wonder who that smart fellow is?” admiring, all the time, my stockings and stately gait;—if then, I say, he passes me and looks round, will he not say, “Why, it is only Peter Munk, the charcoal-burner”?’

The raftsmen also on the other side of the wood were an object of envy to him. When these giants of the forest came over in their splendid clothes, wearing about their bodies half a hundredweight of silver, either in buckles, buttons, or chains, standing with sprawling legs and consequential look to see the dancing, swearing in Dutch, and smoking Cologne clay pipes a yard long, like the most noble Mynheers, then he pictured to himself such a raftsman as the most perfect model of human happiness. But when these fortunate men put their hands into their pocket, pulled out handfuls of thalers and staked a Sechsbätzner piece upon the cast of a die, throwing their five or ten florins to and fro, he was almost mad and sneaked sorrowfully home to his hut. Indeed he had seen some of these gentlemen of the timber trade, on many a holy-day evening, lose more than his poor old father had gained in the whole year. There were three of these men in particular of whom he knew not which to admire most. The one was a tall stout man with ruddy face, who passed for the richest man in the neighbourhood; he was usually called ‘fat Hezekiel.’ Twice every year he went with timber to Amsterdam, and had the good luck to sell it so much dearer than the others that he could return home in a splendid carriage, while they had to walk. The second was the tallest and leanest man in the whole Wald, and was usually called ‘the tall Schlurker’; it was his extraordinary boldness that excited Munk’s envy, for he contradicted people of the first importance, took up more room than four stout men, no matter how crowded the inn might be, setting either both his elbows upon the table, or drawing one of his long legs on the bench; yet, notwithstanding all this, none dared to oppose him, since he had a prodigious quantity of money. The third was a handsome young fellow, who being the best dancer far around, was called ‘the king of the dancing-room.’ Originally poor, he had been servant to one of the timber merchants, when all at once he became immensely rich; for which some accounted by saying he had found a potful of money under an old pine tree, while others asserted that he had fished up in the Rhine, near Bingen, a packet of gold coins with the spear which these raftsmen sometimes throw at the fish as they go along in the river, that packet being part of the great ‘Niebelungenhort,’ which is sunk there. However this might be, the fact of his suddenly becoming rich caused him to be looked upon as a prince by young and old.

Often did poor Peter Munk the coal-burner think of these three men when sitting alone in the pine forest. All three indeed had one great fault, which made them hated by everybody; this was their insatiable avarice, their heartlessness towards their debtors and towards the poor, for the Schwarzwälder are naturally a kind-hearted people. However, we all know how it is in these matters; though they were hated for their avarice, yet they commanded respect on account of their money, for who but they could throw away thalers, as if they could shake them from the pines?

‘This will do no longer,’ said Peter one day to himself, when he felt very melancholy, it being the morrow after a holiday, when everybody had been at the inn; ‘if I don’t soon thrive I shall make away with myself; oh that I were as much looked up to and as rich as the stout Hezekiel, or as bold and powerful as the tall Schlurker, or as renowned as the king of the dancing-room, and could, like him, throw thalers instead of kreutzers to the musicians! I wonder where the fellow gets his money!’ Reflecting upon all the different means by which money may be got, he could please himself with none, till at length he thought of the tales of those people who, in times of old, had become rich through the Dutchman Michel, or the Little Glass Man. During his father’s lifetime other poor people often came to call, and then their conversation was generally about rich persons, and the means by which they had come by their riches; in these discourses the Little Glass Man frequently played a conspicuous part. Now, if Peter strained his memory a little, he could almost recall the short verse which one must repeat near the Tannenbühl in the heart of the forest, to make the sprite appear. It began as follows—

‘Keeper of wealth in the forest of pine,

Hundreds of years are surely thine:

Thine is the tall pine’s dwelling place—’

But he might tax his memory as much as he pleased, he could remember no more of it. He often thought of asking some aged person what the whole verse was. However, a certain fear of betraying his thoughts kept him back, and moreover he concluded that the legend of the Little Glass Man could not be very generally known, and that but few were acquainted with the incantation, since there were not many rich persons in the Wald;—if it were generally known, why had not his father, and other poor people, tried their luck? At length, however, he one day got his mother to talk about the little man, and she told him what he knew already, as she herself remembered only the first line of the verse; but she added that the sprite would show himself only to those who had been born on a Sunday, between eleven and two o’clock. He was, she said, quite fit for evoking him, as he was born at twelve o’clock at noon; if he but knew the verse.

When Peter Munk heard this he was almost beside himself with joy and desire to try the adventure. It appeared to him enough to know part of the verse, and to be born on a Sunday, for the Little Glass Man to show himself. Consequently when he one day had sold his charcoal, he did not light a new stack, but put on his father’s holiday jacket, his new red stockings, and best hat, took his blackthorn stick, five feet long, into his hand, and bade farewell to his mother, saying, ‘I must go to the magistrate in the town, for we shall soon have to draw lots who is to be soldier, and therefore I wish to impress once more upon him that you are a widow, and I am your only son.’ His mother praised his resolution; but he started for the Tannenbühl. This lies on the highest point of the Schwarzwald, and not a village or even a hut was found, at that time, for two leagues around, for the superstitious people believed it was haunted; they were even very unwilling to fell timber in that part, though the pines were tall and excellent, for often the axes of the wood-cutters had flown off the handle into their feet, or the trees falling suddenly, had knocked the men down, and either injured or even killed them; moreover, they could have used the finest trees from there only for fuel, since the raftsmen never would take a trunk from the Tannenbühl as part of a raft, there being a tradition that both men and timber would come to harm if they had a tree from that spot on the water. Hence the trees there grew so dense and high that it was almost night at noon. When Peter Munk approached the place, he felt quite awe-stricken, hearing neither voice nor footstep except his own; no axe resounded, and even the birds seemed to shun the darkness amidst the pines.

Peter Munk had now reached the highest point of the Tannenbühl, and stood before a pine of enormous girth, for which a Dutch shipbuilder would have given many hundred florins on the spot. ‘Here,’ said he, ‘the treasure-keeper (Schatzhauser) no doubt lives;’ and pulling off his large hat, he made a low bow before the tree, cleared his throat, and said with a trembling voice, ‘I wish you a good evening, Mr. Glass Man.’ But receiving no answer, and all around remaining silent as before, he thought it would probably be better to say the verse, and therefore murmured it forth. On repeating the words he saw, to his great astonishment, a singular and very small figure peep forth from behind the tree. It seemed to him as if he had beheld the Little Glass Man, just as he was described; the little black jacket, red stockings, hat, all even to the pale, but fine shrewd countenance of which the people talked so much, he thought he had seen. But alas, as quickly as it had peeped forth, as quickly it had disappeared again. ‘Mr. Glass Man,’ cried Peter Munk, after a short hesitation, ‘pray don’t make a fool of me; if you fancy that I have not seen you, you are vastly mistaken; I saw you very well peeping forth from behind the tree.’ Still no answer; only at times he fancied he heard a low, hoarse tittering behind the tree. At length his impatience conquered this fear, which had still restrained him, and he cried, ‘Wait, you little rascal, I will have you yet.’ At the same time he jumped behind the tree, but there was no Schatzhauser, and only a pretty little squirrel was running up the tree.

Peter Munk shook his head; he saw he had succeeded to a certain degree in the incantation, and that he perhaps only wanted one more rhyme to the verse to evoke the Little Glass Man; he tried over and over again, but could not think of anything. The squirrel showed itself on the lowest branches of the tree, and seemed to encourage or perhaps to mock him. It trimmed itself, it rolled its pretty tail, and looked at him with its cunning eyes. At length he was almost afraid of being alone with this animal; for sometimes it seemed to have a man’s head and to wear a three-cornered hat, sometimes to be quite like another squirrel, with the exception only of having red stockings and black shoes on its hind feet. In short, it was a merry little creature, but still Peter felt an awe, fancying that all was not right.

Peter now went away with more rapid strides than he had come. The darkness of the forest seemed to become blacker and blacker; the trees stood closer to each other, and he began to be so terrified that he ran off in a trot, and only became more tranquil when he heard dogs bark at a distance, and soon after descried the smoke of a hut through the trees. But on coming nearer and seeing the dress of the people, he found that having taken the contrary direction, he had got to the raftsmen instead of the glass-makers. The people living in the hut were wood-cutters, consisting of an aged man with his son, who was the owner, and some grown-up grandchildren. They received Peter Munk, who begged a night’s quarter, hospitably enough without asking his name or residence; they gave him cider to drink, and in the evening a large black cock, the best meal in the Schwarzwald, was served up for supper.

After this meal the housewife and her daughters took their distaffs and sat round a large pine torch, which the boys fed with the finest rosin; the host with his guest sat smoking and looking at the women; while the boys were busy carving wooden spoons and forks. The storm was howling and raging through the pines in the forest without, and now and then very heavy blasts were heard, and it was as if whole trees were breaking off and crashing down. The fearless youths were about to run out to witness this terrific and beautiful spectacle, but their grandfather kept them back with a stern look and these words: ‘I would not advise any of you,’ cried he, ‘to go now outside the door; by heavens he never would return, for Michel the Dutchman is building this night a new raft in the forest.’

The younger of them looked at him with astonishment, having probably heard before of Michel, but they begged their grandpapa to tell them some interesting story of him. Peter Munk, who had heard but confused stories of Michel the Dutchman on the other side of the forest, joined in this request, asking the old man who and where he was. ‘He is the lord of the forest,’ was the answer; ‘and from your not having heard this at your age, it follows that you must be a native of those parts just beyond the Tannenbühl, or perhaps still more distant. But I will tell you all I know, and how the story goes about him. A hundred years ago or thereabouts, there were far and wide no people more upright in their dealings than the Schwarzwälder, at least so my grandfather used to tell me. Now, since there is so much money in the country, the people are dishonest and bad. The young fellows dance and riot on Sundays, and swear to such a degree that it is horrible to hear them; whereas formerly it was quite different, and I have often said and now say, though he should look in through the window, that the Dutchman Michel is the cause of all this depravity. A hundred years ago there lived a very rich timber merchant who had many servants; he carried his trade far down the Rhine and was very prosperous, being a pious man. One evening a person such as he had never seen came to his door; his dress was like that of the young fellows of the Schwarzwald, but he was full a head taller than any of them, and no one had ever thought there could be such a giant. He asked for work, and the timber merchant, seeing he was strong, and able to carry great weights, agreed with him about the wages and took him into his service. He found Michel to be a labourer such as he had never yet had; for in felling trees he was equal to three ordinary men, and when six men were pulling at one end of a trunk he would carry the other end alone. After having been employed in felling timber for six months, he came one day before his master, saying, “I have now been cutting wood long enough here, and should like to see what becomes of my trunks; what say you to letting me go with the rafts for once?” To which his master replied, “I have no objection, Michel, to your seeing a little of the world; to be sure I want strong men like yourself to fell the timber, and on the river all depends upon skill; but, nevertheless, be it for this time as you wish.”

‘Now the float with which Michel was to go consisted of eight rafts, and in the last there were some of the largest beams. But what then? The evening before starting the tall Michel brought eight beams to the water, thicker and longer than had ever been seen, and he carried every one of them as easily upon his shoulder as if it had been a rowing-pole, so that all were amazed. Where he had felled them, no one knows to this day. The heart of the timber merchant was leaping with joy when he saw this, calculating what these beams would fetch; but Michel said, “Well, these are for me to travel on; with those chips I should not be able to get on at all.” His master was going to make him a present of a pair of boots, but throwing them aside, Michel brought out a pair the largest that had ever been seen, and my grandfather assured me they weighed a hundred pounds and were five feet long.

‘The float started; and if Michel had before astonished the wood-cutters, he perfectly astonished the raftsmen; for his raft, instead of drifting slowly down the river as they thought it would, by reason of the immense beams, darted on like an arrow, as soon as they came into the Neckar. If the river took a turn, or if they came to any part where they had a difficulty in keeping the middle stream, or were in danger of running aground, Michel always jumped into the water, pushing his float either to the right or to the left, so that he glided past without danger. If they came to a part where the river ran straight, Michel often sprang to the foremost raft, and making all put up their poles, fixed his own enormous pole in the sand, and by one push made the float dart along, so that it seemed as if the land, trees, and villages were flying by them. Thus they came in half the time they generally took to Cologne on the Rhine, where they formerly used to sell their timber. Here Michel said, “You are but sorry merchants and know nothing of your advantage. Think you these Colognese want all the timber from the Schwarzwald for themselves? I tell you no, they buy it of you for half its value, and sell it dear to Holland. Let us sell our small beams here, and go to Holland with the large ones; what we get above the ordinary price is our own profit.”

‘Thus spoke the subtle Michel, and the others consented; some because they liked to go and see Holland, some for the sake of the money. Only one man was honest, and endeavoured to dissuade them from putting the property of their master in jeopardy or cheating him out of the higher price. However, they did not listen to him and forgot his words, while Michel forgot them not. So they went down the Rhine with the timber, and Michel, guiding the float, soon brought them to Rotterdam. Here they were offered four times as much as at Cologne, and particularly the large beams of Michel fetched a very high sum. When the Schwarzwälders beheld the money, they were almost beside themselves with joy. Michel divided the money, putting aside one-fourth for their master, and distributing the other three among the men. And now they went into the public-houses with sailors and other rabble, squandering their money in drinking and gambling; while the honest fellow who had dissuaded them was sold by Michel to a slave-trader, and has never been heard of since. From that time forward Holland was a paradise to the fellows from the Schwarzwald, and the Dutchman Michel their king. For a long time the timber merchants were ignorant of this proceeding, and before people were aware, money, swearing, corrupt manners, drunkenness and gambling were imported from Holland.

‘When the thing became known, Michel was nowhere to be found, but he was not dead; for a hundred years he has been haunting the forest, and is said to have helped many in becoming rich at the cost of their souls of course: more I will not say. This much, however, is certain, that to the present day, in boisterous nights, he finds out the finest pines in the Tannenbühl where people are not to fell wood; and my father has seen him break off one of four feet diameter, as he would break a reed. Such trees he gives to those who turn from the right path and go to him; at midnight they bring their rafts to the water and he goes to Holland with them. If I were lord and king in Holland, I would have him shot, for all the ships that have but a single beam of Michel’s, must go to the bottom. Hence it is that we hear of so many shipwrecks; if it were not so, how could a beautiful, strong ship as large as a church go down. But as often as Michel fells a pine in the forest during a boisterous night, one of his old ones starts from its joints, the water enters, and the ship is lost, men and all. So far goes the legend of the Dutchman Michel; and true it is that all the evil in the Schwarzwald dates from him. Oh! he can make one rich,’ added the old man mysteriously; ‘but I would have nothing from him; I would at no price be in the shoes of fat Hezekiel and the long Schlurker. The king of the dancing-room, too, is said to have made himself over to him.’

The storm had abated during the narrative of the old man; the girls timidly lighted their lamps and retired, while the men put a sackful of leaves upon the bench by the stove as a pillow for Peter Munk, and wished him good-night.

Never in his life had Peter such heavy dreams as during this night; sometimes he fancied the dark gigantic Michel was tearing the window open and reaching in with his monstrous long arm a purse full of gold pieces, which jingled clearly and loudly as he shook them; at another time he saw the little friendly Glass Man riding upon a huge green bottle about the room, and thought he heard again the same hoarse laughter as in the Tannenbühl; again something hummed into his left ear the following verse—