Various
International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1
This conversation between the uncle and nephew was interrupted by the sound of a horse's hoofs, dragging a sleigh rapidly toward the door of the house.
"That is beyond doubt my future son-in-law," said M. de Vermondans, "another philosopher, who, like yourself, does not in every respect agree with you. He is, however, a good fellow, who under a by no means aristocratic exterior conceals the noblest qualities."
When she heard the sleigh, Alete ran to the door sill; and Ebba followed him. At the appearance of the two sisters, like a rose and a lily, the young man hastened to divest himself of the thick fur which enwrapped him, sprang from the sleigh, and hastened to his betrothed. He had not, however, remembered the caprice of Alete, who, instead of giving him her hand as usual, looked sternly at him, and said:
"Sir, you are incorrigible. How comes that waistcoat to be buttoned wrong? And why has that cravat wings, like those of a crow? Why does your shirt-collar come up to your ears? Is this the fruit of the lessons on the toilette, which I have so often given you? Did I not also order you to attend to your hair, and not let it fall on your shoulder, like two bundles of flax, in disorder? You do not know that we have here a cousin from Paris, who will take you for a Goth, or the Lord knows what."
The poor young man, stupefied at this reception, looked down mechanically, with his hand on his waistcoat and his cravat, and did not dare to approach his rigorous mistress.
"Alete, Alete," said Ebba, with a voice of supplication, "how can you be so cruel!"
Alete, satisfied beyond doubt by the respectful submission with which her Reproaches had been received, sprang to the neck of her betrothed, and said,
"But I love my dear Eric truly. If I sometimes play the magnificent with him, it is to make him think that he has himself, in a noble epistle, called me his sovereign. Is not this so, Eric?" added she, leaning toward him like a petted child. "Do you not weary of my little wickednesses? At present, you see, I use the remnant of my liberty: when we are married, however, I shall be a model of obedience."
The face of Eric had already become lighted up, and he kissed with pleasure the little hand placed in his.
Alete seemed to fear nothing so much as these sentimental manifestations, and took him into the room where the uncle and nephew had their political contest, and pausing before Ireneus, said,
"Cousin, permit me to introduce to you M. Eric Goldberg, Doctor of the University of Upsal, and a learned Grecian, who never in his life read a single line of the Journal des Modes, and cannot conceive of the difference between a good and bad tailor; who would not know how to hold a fan; or to perform a contradance, but who, in spite of all that, is one of the best fellows in the world, and is devoted to your cousin."
After this singular introduction, a faint blush spread over the face of the young doctor. A clasp of the hand, and an affectionate word, however, from Ireneus, put an end to all embarrassment.
"A strange girl," said M. de Vermondans, following Alete with his eye as she hurried to the kitchen to take charge of the preparations for dinner. "Is not that an odd introduction of her husband and lover? She never does things, however, like other people. Be seated, dear Eric, though, and tell me why we have not seen you for three days. We had began to be uneasy about you, and Alete often looked toward the window. Had you not come to-day, I should have sent to ask the reason."
"My father has been a little unwell," replied Eric; as he placed his hands, made red by the cold, near the stove. "I had to remain to assist him in some of his duties, and to amuse him by reading to him. This morning, as I learned that Monsieur—Monsieur—"
"Say at once your cousin," said Ireneus, frankly.
"That my cousin" resumed the timid Eric, with more confidence, "had arrived, I was unwilling to remain longer away, and my father was kind enough not to wish to retain me."
As the Upsal student pronounced these few simple words, Ireneus observed him, and discovered in his face such an expression of kindness, and in his clear blue eyes such intelligence that he felt a real sympathy for him.
"I thank you," said he, "for thinking of me before you knew me. I hope that when we shall be acquainted you will grant me a portion of the love you have conferred on my family. I am already disposed to love you as a cousin."
"Ah!" cried Eric, springing up, and glancing at Ireneus with an expression of radiant joy, "how happy I am at what you say! I was afraid. I will confess, that I might find in you one of those careless men of the world, as we hear most of the Parisians are. I see, however, you are a worthy nephew of him I shall soon call uncle."
"Gentlemen," said Alete, who from the door had, with a pleasant smile on her face, heard this amicable exchange of sentiments, "will you be pleased to come to dinner?"
"Have they any caviar?" asked M. de Vermondans.
"Certainly, and as good as possible."
"Then we can give this Parisian a complete specimen of the gastronomical refinements of our out-kitchen."
"You must know, Ireneus," said he, as he led his nephew to a little table placed in the corner of the dining-room, "that we do not commerce our meal as the rest of the world does. Our good ancestors certainly discovered, that the walls of the stomach being contracted by cold, needed to be refreshed by something spirituous, and from time to time this estimable precaution has been perpetuated in the country. We will therefore first take a glass of this brandy, and then a cake of this caviar, a few anchovies, and a slice or two of ham, after which we will really sit at the festal board, where the soup, to which you assign the first rank, appears only as a secondary entree, after many culinary preparations."
This was done to the great amusement of Ireneus, who really would have taken for the dinner itself the prelude to it.
When they had sat down, Alete undertook to put him through a course of national gastronomy.
"What do you think," asked she, "of the fish to which my father has just helped you?"
"They are very good," replied Ireneus, "and resemble smelts."
"What do you mean by smelts? They are doubtless some tasteless product of your warm rivers. Know, Monsieur, that these are stroemlings, the finest and most delicate fish in the icy waters of the north. This other fish, which glows like a piece of gold in its porcelain plate, you would find it difficult to call by the correct name. It is a salmon, caught by a skillful hand, and smoked with particular care. Near you is the tongue of a reindeer, prepared by a Laplander, unrivaled in this useful art. This bird, which yet looks fixedly at you with open eyes, though it died two days ago, you might fancy a barn-door fowl, fattened up by the cook. Not so: it is the briar-cock, the honor of our forests. The two fowls in that dish are not a pair of vulgar pullets, but succulent grouse. I will not mention that haunch of sanglier, which, however, is worthy of a royal table; nor of those vegetables, which strangers say are nowhere as finely flavored as they are in our loved Sweden; nor of those berries, gathered last fall on the sides of our hills. Pay some attention, however, to that bread which you break so carelesely with your fingers. It is not coarse and heavy, like that of other countries. It is our kneach-brad, delicate and light as a sheet of paper, and white as the purest flour."
"Have you done?" said M. de Vermondans; "and can you not, as an accompaniment to so many exquisite things, bring us a bottle of claret?"
"Wrong again." said Alete; "as if this beer, prepared from the best barley, the most perfumed hops, yellow as the Baltic, amber and pure as spring-water, was not more valuable than the coarse red fluid you send to such a distance for."
"I agree with you," said Ireneus, who in his turn wished to laugh at the young girl. "It seems to me, that when seated in front of the riches of the north, it would be a profanation to pour out a libation in a foreign beverage. This beer has besides so excellent a flavor, that were there anything like it in France, it is probable that the owners of the Clos de Vaugeot and Medoc would root out their vines to make room for hops and barley."
"You are laughing at me, dear cousin," said Alete; "take care, however."
"Peste!" said M. de Vermondans, "any one who knows you would be rash indeed to excite your ceaseless babble. I do not think that Ireneus, who has more than once proved his courage, is bold enough for that."
"Two royal officers contending against a poor country-girl," said Alete.
"We are not fairly matched, and I will go for the claret."
It was wrong for Alete to leave just then, for the conversation, which hitherto had been gaily sustained, immediately began to languish, and assumed a direction which compelled her to silence.
Ireneus complained of the inroad of democratic ideas, of the trembling and fall of aristocratic institutions, of the authority of right divine, which in his chivalric enthusiasm he looked on as the basis of society.
"Ah," replied Eric, with a tone of voice which seemed aroused by a feeling of affection, "this holy authority will lift itself up from the level of the popular waves which threaten to overwhelm it. It will appear clear and brilliant as our polar star, above the clouds which now surround it. It would subsist in all its power, if it were exercised by men who comprehended the holy duties it imposed on them. Everything connected with this primitive law, with this noble image of patriarchal government, would yet exist, if each member of the great social family would contemplate from a just point of view his own condition, and carry out the consequences in a Christian-like manner.
"Charity, that is to say love and compassion, the two expressions in which are summed up all the joys and miseries of human life, are two virtues, ennobling and consoling man. Let the rich man be charitable to the servant he has subjected to his will, toward the poor man who begs of him. Let him say every day, as he awakes, every night as he prepares himself for repose, that the more powerful he has been made by Providence, the greater is the obligation he is under to aid and protect those around him. In his turn, let the poor man be charitable to the rich; let him know that no rock of marble, no gilded platform can rescue the prince from mortal anxiety, and that human grief is found beneath the imperial purple as well as wrapped in rags, and that often the noble, surrounded by riches and at the festal board, is forced to envy the humble hut and obscure repose of the coal-burner.
"If ever," pursued Eric, with an accent of enthusiasm, "I shall be called to expound the word of God, this especially shall be the text of my sermons: Charity! Charity! By charity I do not mean the habit of extending the hand, which by a kind of instinctive motion, lets alms fall in the blind man's basket, nor the graceful action of a lady who at certain hours leaves the saloon to visit the garret. True charity consists not so much in material aid as in the gifts of the heart; and every individual, humble as he may be, may perform a precious act of charity. To pay correct esteem to a poor man who has been calumniated; to revive hope in a mind overpowered by misfortune and tortured by doubt; to console by kind words a soul mistaken and suffering from errors; each of these is a charity. To be mild and kind to all who approach you, to be indulgent to those blinded by the glitter of prosperity, to be kind and affectionate even when an effort is required to be so, to open a sympathizing heart to all complainings, to all diseases, to all human errors, is the way to gain daily the choicest opportunities of charity. To be charitable is to be good. One of your illustrious writers, Bernardin de Saint Pierre, said, 'Were every one to regulate his own house, order would be the law of nature.' We may also say, were each one to do good, universal happiness would be certain."
"Dear, dear Eric," said Alete, clasping his hand. Then as if she reproached herself for this emotion, she suddenly withdrew it and said, "You need not get into the pulpit to preach a very edifying sermon. You treat us already as your future parishioners, and honor my cousin in the same manner. Since you have begun, will you not complete his education? That beautiful France, the wit and learning of which is so much extolled, exhibits a haughty disdain of the science of other lands. I am sure my cousin knows very little of the history of Sweden,—that magnificent chronicle which in its royal genealogies dates from the deluge. You can teach him. My learned sister Ebba will also teach him Swedish, the most beautiful and harmonious tongue in the world, and certainly the oldest, since savans have proven that Adam and Eve spoke it in Paradise. I also wish to do my duty, and will guide my cousin in the study of natural history of grouse and briar-cock, and the aromatic plants which grow on our hillsides."
"You jest," said Ireneus, "but I seriously adopt your proposition."
"Bah! bah!" cried M. de Vermondans. "He would be a pretty Captain of Lancers if he were to subject himself to pedagogues, like a school-boy, and study themes and versions like a college lad."
"Excuse me, my dear uncle, the most unpleasant thing in the world to me is to be idle. Since circumstances condemn me to inactivity, I would, if possible, employ my time usefully. I shall be very grateful to Eric and my cousins, if they will give me the instruction I need so much. I shall be delighted to study the history of Sweden, a language spoken by persons I love better than any in the world, and the products of the soil of Which Alete is the amiable Buffon."
"So be it," said M. de Vermondans, who, in spite of his eclecticism in politics, had, with a strange mental contradiction, preserved in relation to certain things very deeply rooted ideas, "So be it. In my time people took up no such fancies—more than one emigre passed ten years of his life in a foreign country, and never learned to speak its language. The young men of our times are not like those of to-day. The world, which when I knew it was so gay and careless, which from its very recklessness and its choleric daring was so interesting, now looks to me like a vast school. Its atmosphere, formerly impregnated with perfumes, is now saturated with the atmosphere of dusty tomes and damp newspapers. We meet with no one but persons anxious either to teach or learn. What will become of us if we give way to this pedantic pride? If we surrender to this anxiety to analyze everything? If we go on so, to suit us, God will be compelled to make a new world, to give occupation to the lofty fancies of naturalists and physical philosophers, who seem to me to have weighed and examined this thoroughly.
"Bah! bah! Mademoiselle the philosopher," said M. de Vermondans, as he saw Ebba smile, "I am not ignorant that just now I talk very much like a heretic. You have delighted in reading a multitude of books. I excuse you, however, because you never boast of your acquisitions.
"You do not belong to those blue-stockings, and I have met many such, who, as soon as you approach them, throw at your head the name of a poet like a bomb-shell, and exhibit the wealth of their arsenal by firing a philosophical cannon, or algebraic chain shot.
"May God almighty keep me from those women who forget in this manner the natural graces of their sex. Let him protect me from those Laureates who can see no natural phenomenon without crying out with stupid satisfaction, 'I know the reason.'
"Imagine how delighted I should be, if when enjoying the delicious luxury of sunset, some bachelor of arts should say—
"'Monsieur, will you suffer me to explain how various clouds assume the colors which so vividly impress you, and with what rapidity light comes to the eye?'
"For heaven's sake let me enjoy in peace all the gifts of Providence, admire its works in the innocence of my heart, and discover by what geometrical process God has regulated the form of the globe, and to what pallet, to use the painter's phrase, he has ground his colors."
"There you express a pious and respectable sentiment, which, however, permit me to say, cannot be admitted without some qualification. We must not forget that the greatest gift with which God has endowed man is intelligence, and that one of our first duties is to attempt to develop that intelligence by means of every faculty and all the means of application with which he has endowed us."
"Good. If you were sure that you would not lose yourself amid temptation, or, if like Tobias, you had an angel to guide you in the stormy voyage you undertake. Into what derangement of pride has not man fallen, from the fabulous Prometheus, who sought to snatch fire from heaven, to the Philosophers of the eighteenth century, who extinguished fire in the lights of their reason. Prove to me that what you call human reason has in any manner purified or ennobled the moral sentiment, and I will bow myself before your logicians and rhetoricians. To what direction soever I turn I see only vain puerilities, useless labor, doubtful hypotheses, presumption and falsehood. I admit that you may count amid the multitude of books lumbering the shelves of your libraries many innocent and instructive works. Those books, however, prove your impotence.
"Act as you please, and you will never be able to develop equally the various mental powers. To expand one it is necessary to repress the others. By giving your reason the rude aliment of scholastic argument, you neglect your imagination. By illuminating your mind you overshadow your heart. You congratulate yourself at the discovery of a problem, the solution of which you have long sought for. Scientific journals become filled with numerous dissertations about it, academies decree crowns and medals to the author of the precious discovery. No one remembers, that each of these solutions breaks one of the wonderful chains of charming symbols, of naive ideas which once animated and vivified the people. That it strips it of poetry, of the emotions of the heart, and the delightful and fairy-like creations of the imagination.
"The ancients were not so learned as we, yet they were wiser. They did not explain the phenomena of nature, but described with a graceful and imposing imagery. The rainbow, reduced in our colleges to a mere conformation of matter, was the scarf of Iris; the light-footed hours preceded the car of night, and the rosy-fingered Aurora opened the horizon to permit the car of Jove to pass. When the thunder rolled, Jupiter spoke to attentive mortals. When volcanic mountains trembled, the old Titans sought to throw off the mass of rocks which weighed on them as an eternal punishment of crime. The middle age, yet more naïve and poetical, peopled the air, fields, woods, and waters with a crowd of mysterious beings who spoke to the senses and thought, and awakened in the human mind a mild sentiment of faith or healthful fear.
"Now, thanks to your haughty reason, we have banished, like idle fancies, all these creations of our forefathers. Now we know that the air has no other voice than that of the wind and tempest; that the wood has no animals other than those the structure of whom has been minutely described; that there are no fairies in the green fields, and no invisible spirits watching over the hearth and fireside. Man, relying on his reason, would be ashamed to suffer himself to be excited by tales of ghosts. He has cast aside all supernatural apprehensions; and I see the coming of the time when even Saint Nicholas will not impose on children. What have we gained by thus shaking off the network of smiling and serious fancies, which both enlivened and restrained our fancy? Are we happier, stronger, or better? Alas! for my own part, even were I to pass for a mind behind the times, I would confess that I regret those days of candid credulity in which each dark forest had its legend, every chapel its history. One of the reasons why I love the Swedes, amid whom I found a peaceful home, is, that they have not yet sacrificed to the teachings of modern times their old poetry; and that in the majority of their woodland homes are a multitude of popular songs, of traditional faiths, of domestic customs, which recall the poetic days of the middle age. Is not this true, Ebba? You know something of this matter, for you participate in my predilections in relation to them; and more than once I have seen you listen anxiously to the stories of the old women of Aland."
"Yes, father," said Ebba; who had listened with eager sympathy to the long dissertation of the old man, while Eric and Ireneus listened modestly to all he had said.
"When you give me a lesson in Swedish," said Ireneus, "will you be kind enough to add to it some of those histories, which, I assure you, interest me in no small degree?"
"If you wish it," said Ebba, "I will." Whenever she spoke she seemed with difficulty to surmount her timidity.
"Well, my dear nephew," said M. de Vermondans, with Eric on one side, Ebba on the other, and the practical knowledge of Alete, "it seems to me you can employ your time very profitably; for my own part I can only induct you into the mysteries of bear-hunting, and the chase of the stag and reindeer. It is so rude that I shall not be able to keep up with you. Among my people, however, I shall be able to find a guide, who finds game like a blood-hound, and follows it like a lion."
"That will do wonderfully well, uncle; with so attractive an offer, I fear only that amid my amusements I shall forget my country and my regiment, and become faithless to my king."