Коллектив авторов - The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 04

The City Councillors could hear several softly ejaculated obituaries referring to the late Kabel under the name of scamp, fool, infidel, etc. But the officiating Burgomaster waved his hand, the Attorney of the Royal Treasury and the Bookseller again bent all the elastic steel springs of their faces as if setting a trap, and the Burgomaster continued to read, although with enforced seriousness.

I make an exception of the present house in Dog Street which, after this my third clause, shall, just as it stands, devolve upon and belong to that one of my seven above-named relatives, who first, before the other six rivals, can in one half hour's time (to be reckoned from the reading of the Clause) shed one or two tears over me, his departed uncle, in the presence of an estimable magistrate who shall record the same. If, however, all eyes remain dry, then the house likewise shall fall to the exclusive heir whom I am about to name."

Here the Burgomaster closed the will, remarked that the condition was certainly unusual but not illegal, and the court must adjudge the house to the first one who wept. With which he placed his watch, which pointed to half-past eleven, on the office-table, and sat himself quietly down in order in his capacity of executor to observe, together with the whole court, who should first shed the desired tear over the testator. It cannot fairly be assumed that, as long as the earth has stood, a more woe-begone and muddled congress ever met upon it than this one composed of seven dry provinces assembled together, as it were, in order to weep. At first some precious minutes were spent merely in confused wondering and in smiling; the congress had been placed too suddenly in the situation of the dog who, when about to rush angrily at his enemy, heard the latter call out: Beg!—and who suddenly got upon his hind legs and begged, showing his teeth. From cursing they had been pulled up too quickly into weeping.

Every one realized that genuine emotion was not to be thought of; downpours do not come quite so much on the gallop; such sudden baptism of the eyes was out of the question; but in twenty-six minutes something might happen.

The merchant Neupeter asked if it were not an accursed business and a foolish joke on the part of a sensible man, and he refused to lend himself to it; but the thought that a house might swim into his purse on a tear caused him a peculiar irritation of the glands, which made him look like a sick lark to whom a clyster is being applied with an oiled pinhead—the house being the head.

The Attorney of the Royal Treasury Knol screwed up his face like a poor workman, whom an apprentice is shaving and scraping on a Saturday evening by the light of a shoemaker's candle; he was furiously angry at the misuse made of the title "Will" and quite near to shedding tears of rage.

The crafty Bookseller Passvogel at once quietly set about the matter in hand; he hastily went over in his mind all the touching things which he was publishing at his own expense or on commission, and from which he hoped to brew something; he looked the while like a dog that is slowly licking off the emetic which the Parisian veterinary, Demet, had smeared on his nose; it would evidently be some time before the desired effect would take place.

Flitte from Alsace danced around in the Burgomaster's office, looked laughingly at all the serious faces and swore he was not the richest among them, but not for all Strasburg and Alsace besides was he capable of weeping over such a joke.

At last the Police-Inspector looked very significantly at him and declared: In case Monsieur hoped by means of laughter to squeeze the desired drops out of the well-known glands and out of the Meibomian, the caruncle, and others, and thus thievishly to cover himself with this window-pane moisture, he wished to remind him that he could gain just as little by it as if he should blow his nose and try to profit by that, as in the latter case it was well known that more tears flowed from the eyes through the ductus nasalis than were shed in any church-pew during a funeral sermon. But the Alsatian assured him he was only laughing in fun and not with serious intentions.

The Inspector for his part tried to drive something appropriate into his eyes by holding them wide open and staring fixedly.

The Preacher-at-Early-Service Flachs looked like a Jew beggar riding a runaway horse. Meanwhile his heart, which was already overcast with the most promising sultry clouds caused by domestic and church-troubles, could have immediately drawn up the necessary water, as easily as the sun before bad weather, if only the floating-house navigating toward him had not always come between as a much too cheerful spectacle, and acted as a dam.

The Consistorial Councillor had learned to know his own nature from New Year's and funeral sermons, and was positive that he himself would be the first to be moved if only he started to make a moving address to others. When therefore he saw himself and the others hanging so long on the drying-line, he stood up and said with dignity: Every one who had read his printed works knew for a certainty that he carried a heart in his breast, which needed to repress such holy tokens as tears are—so as not thereby to deprive any fellowman of something—rather than laboriously to draw them to the surface with an ulterior motive. "This heart has already shed them, but in secret, for Kabel was my friend," he said, and looked around.

He noticed with pleasure that all were sitting there as dry as wooden corks; at this special moment crocodiles, stags, elephants, witches, ravens 10 10 The German texts read: Reben , vines. But the conjecture Raben as the correct reading may be permitted.—ED. could have wept more easily than the heirs, so disturbed and enraged were they by Glanz. Flachs was the only one who had a secret inspiration. He hastily summoned to his mind Kabel's charities and the mean clothes and gray hair of the women who formed his congregation at the early-service, Lazarus with his dogs, and his own long coffin, and also the beheading of various people, Werther's Sorrows, a small battlefield, and himself—how pitifully here in the days of his youth he was struggling and tormenting himself over the clause of the will—just three more jerks of the pump-handle and he would have his water and the house.

"O Kabel, my Kabel!" continued Glanz, almost weeping for joy at the prospect of the approaching tears of sorrow. "When once beside your loving heart covered with earth my heart too shall mol—"

"I believe, honored gentlemen," said Flachs mournfully, arising and looking around, his eyes brimming over, "I am weeping." After which he sat down again and let them flow more cheerfully; he had feathered his nest. Under the eyes of the other heirs he had snatched away the prize-house from Glanz, who now extremely regretted his exertions, since he had quite uselessly talked away half of his appetite. The emotion of Flachs was placed on record and the house in Dog Street was adjudged to him for good and all. The Burgomaster was heartily glad to see the poor devil get it. It was the first time in the principality of Haslau that the tears of a school-master and teacher-of-the-church had been metamorphosed, not like those of the Heliades into light amber, which incased an insect, but like those of the goddess Freya, into gold. Glanz congratulated Flachs, and gayly drew his attention to the fact that perhaps he, Glanz, had helped to move him. The rest drew aside, by their separation accentuating their position on the dry road from that of Flachs on the wet; all, however, remained intent upon the rest of the will.

Then the reading of it was continued.