The Prose Writings of Heinrich Heine. Heinrich Heine
Читать онлайн книгу.
and his eyes to the second, where pretty girls gazed from the windows. I was so glad that soldiers were to be quartered in our house—my mother was not glad—and I hastened to the market-place. There everything looked changed; it was as though the world had been new whitewashed. A new coat of arms was placed on the Town Hall, its iron balconies were hung with embroidered velvet drapery, French grenadiers stood as sentinels, the old town councillors had put on new faces and Sunday coats, and looked at each other French fashion, and said, "Bon jour!" ladies peeped from every window, inquisitive citizens and soldiers filled the square, and I, with other boys, climbed on the shining Prince Elector's great bronze horse, and looked down on the motley crowd.
Neighbour Peter and Long Conrad nearly broke their necks on this occasion, and that would have been well, for the one afterwards ran away from his parents, enlisted as a soldier, deserted, and was finally shot in Mayence, while the other, having made geographical researches in strange pockets, became a working member of a public tread-mill institute. But having broken the iron bands which bound him to his fatherland, he passed safely beyond sea, and eventually died in London, in consequence of wearing a much too long cravat, one end of which happened to be firmly attached to something, just as a royal official removed a plank from beneath his feet.
Long Conrad told us there was no school to-day on account of the homage. We had to wait a long time till this was over. At last the balcony of the Council House was filled with gay gentlemen, flags and trumpets, and our burgomaster, in his celebrated red coat, delivered an oration, which stretched out like India rubber, or like a night-cap into which one has thrown a stone—only that it was not the stone of wisdom—and I could distinctly understand many of his phrases, for instance, that "we are now to be made happy"—and at the last words the trumpets and drums sounded, and the flags waved, and the people cried Hurrah!—and as I myself cried Hurrah! I held fast to the old Prince Elector. And that was necessary, for I began to grow giddy; it seemed to me that the people were standing on their heads while the world whizzed around, and the Prince Elector, with his long wig, nodded and whispered, "Hold fast to me!"—and not till the cannon re-echoed along the wall did I become sobered, and climbed slowly down from the great bronze horse.
As I went home I saw crazy Aloysius again dancing on one leg, while he chattered the names of French generals, and crooked Gumpertz was rolling in the gutter drunk, and growling ça ira, ça ira—and I said to my mother that we were all to be made happy, and so there was no school to-day.
CHAPTER VII.
The next day the world was again all in order, and we had school as before, and things were got by heart as before—the Roman kings, chronology—the nomina in im, the verba irregularia—Greek, Hebrew, geography, German, mental arithmetic—Lord! my head is still giddy with it!—all must be learnt by heart. And much of it was eventually to my advantage. For had I not learnt the Roman kings by heart, it would subsequently have been a matter of perfect indifference to me whether Niebuhr had or had not proved that they never really existed. And had I not learnt chronology, how could I ever, in later years, have found out anyone in Berlin, where one house is as like another as drops of water, or as grenadiers, and where it is impossible to find a friend unless you have the number of his house in your head. Therefore I associated with every friend some historical event which had happened in a year corresponding to the number of his house, so that the one recalled the other, and some curious point in history always occurred to me whenever I met an acquaintance. For instance, when I met my tailor I at once thought of the Battle of Marathon; if I saw the well-dressed banker, Christian Gumpel, I remembered the destruction of Jerusalem; if a Portuguese friend, deeply in debt, of the flight of Mahomet; if the University Judge, a man whose probity is well known, of the death of Haman; and if Wadzeck, I was at once reminded of Cleopatra.—Ach, lieber Himmel! the poor creature is dead now, our tears are dry, and we may say of her, with Hamlet, "Take her for all in all, she was a hag—we oft shall look upon her like again!" As I said, chronology is necessary. I know men who have nothing in their heads but a few years, yet who know exactly where to look for the right houses, and are, moreover, regular professors. But oh, the trouble I had at school with dates!—and it went even worse with arithmetic. I understood subtraction best, and for this I had a very practical rule—"Four from three won't go, I must borrow one"—but I advise everyone, in such a case, to borrow a few extra shillings, for one never knows.
But as for the Latin, Madame, you can really have no idea how muddled it is. The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin. Those happy people knew in their cradles the nouns with an accusative in im. I, on the contrary, had to learn them by heart, in the sweat of my brow, but still it is well that I knew them. For if, for example, when I publicly disputed in Latin, in the College Hall of Göttingen, on the 20th of July 1825—Madame, it was well worth while to hear it—if, I say, I had said sinapem instead of sinapim, the blunder would have been evident to the Freshmen, and an endless shame for me. Vis, buris, sitis, tussis, cucumis, amussis, cannabis, sinapis—these words, which have attracted so much attention in the world, effected this, because they belonged to a determined class, and yet were exceptions; on that account I value them highly, and the fact that I have them ready at my finger's ends when I perhaps need them in a hurry affords me in many dark hours of life much internal tranquillity and consolation. But, Madame, the verba irregularia—they are distinguished from the verbis regularibus by the fact that in learning them one gets more whippings—are terribly difficult. In the damp arches of the Franciscan cloister near our school-room there hung a large crucified Christ of grey wood, a dismal image, that even yet at times marches through my dreams and gazes sorrowfully on me with fixed bleeding eyes—before this image I often stood and prayed, "Oh thou poor and equally tormented God, if it be possible for thee, see that I get by heart the irregular verbs!"
I will say nothing of Greek; I should irritate myself too much. The monks of the Middle Ages were not so very much in the wrong when they asserted that Greek was an invention of the Devil. Lord knows what I suffered through it. It went better with Hebrew, for I always had a great predilection for the Jews, although they to this very hour have crucified my good name; but I never could get so far in Hebrew as my watch, which had an intimate intercourse with pawnbrokers, and in consequence acquired many Jewish habits—for instance, it would not go on Saturday—and learned the holy language, and was subsequently occupied with its grammar, for often when sleepless in the night I have to my amazement heard it industriously repeating: katal, katalta, katalki—kittel, kittalta, kittalti—pokat, pokadeti—pikat—pik—pik.
Meanwhile I learned much more German, and that is not such child's play. For we poor Germans, who have already been sufficiently plagued with soldiers quartered on us, military duties, poll-taxes, and a thousand other exactions, must needs, over and above all this, torment each other with accusatives and datives. I learned much German from the old Rector Schallmeyer, a brave, clerical gentleman, whose protégé I was from childhood. Something of the matter I also learned from Professor Schramm, a man who had written a book on Eternal Peace, and in whose class my school-fellows fought with especial vigour.
And while thus dashing on in a breath, and thinking of everything, I have unexpectedly found myself back among old school stories, and I avail myself of this opportunity to show you, Madame, that it was not my fault if I learned so little geography, that later in life I could not make my way in the world. For in those days the French had deranged all boundaries, every day countries were recoloured; those which were once blue suddenly became green, many even blood-red; the old established rules were so confused and confounded that no Devil would recognise them. The products of the country also changed, chickory and beets now grew where only hares and hunters running after them were once to be seen; even the characters of different races changed—the Germans became pliant, the French paid compliments no longer, the English ceased making ducks and drakes of their money, and the Venetians were not subtle enough; there was promotion among princes, old kings obtained new uniforms, new kingdoms were cooked up and sold like hot cakes, many potentates, on the other hand, were chased from house and home, and had to find some new way of earning their bread, while others went