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Page 40
"I beg your pardon, Doctor Fritz; I thought you would be asleep up there
in Hugh Lupus's tower. Were _you_ ringing? Now that explains why Sperver
came to me about midnight to ask if anybody had gone out. I said no,
which was quite true, for I never saw you going out."
"But pray, Monsieur Knapwurst, do for pity's sake let me in, and I will
tell you all about that by-and-by."
"Come, come, sir, a little patience."
And the hunchback, with the slowest deliberation, undid the padlock and
slipped the bars, whilst my teeth were chattering, and I stood shivering
from head to foot.
"You are very cold, doctor," said the diminutive man, "and you cannot get
into the castle. Sperver has fastened the inside door, I don't know why;
he does not usually do so; the outer gate is enough. Come in here and get
warm. You won't find my little hole very inviting, though. It is nothing
but a sty, but when a man is as cold as you are he is not apt to be
particular."
Without replying to his chatter I followed him in as quickly as I could.
We went into the hut, and in spite of my complete state of numbness, I
could not help admiring the state of picturesque disorder in which I
found the place. The slate roof leaning against the rock, and resting by
its other side on a wall not more than six feet high, showed the smoky,
blackened rafters from end to end.
The whole edifice consisted of but one apartment, furnished with a very
uninviting bed, which the dwarf did not often take the trouble to make,
and two small windows with hexagonal panes, weather-stained with the
rainbow tints of mother-of-pearl. A large square table filled up the
middle, and it would be difficult to account for that massive oak slab
being got in unless by supposing it to have been there before the hut was
built.
On shelves against the wall were rolls of parchment, and old books great
and small. Wide open on the table lay a fine black-letter volume, with
illuminations, bound in vellum, clasped and cornered with silver,
apparently a collection of old chronicles. Besides there was nothing but
two leathern arm-chairs, bearing on them the unmistakable impression of
the misshapen figure of this learned gentleman.
I need not stay to do more than mention the pens, the jar of tobacco,
five or six pipes lying here and there, and in a corner a small cast-iron
stove, with its low, open door wide open, and throwing out now and then a
volley of bright sparks; and to complete the picture, the cat arching her
back, and spitting threateningly at me with her armed paw uplifted.
All this scene was tinted with that deep rich amber light in which the
old Flemish painters delighted, and of which they alone possessed the
secret, and never left it to the generations after them.
"So you went out last night, doctor?" inquired my host, after we had both
installed ourselves, and while I had my hands in a warm place upon the
stove.
"Yes, pretty early," I answered. "I had to look after a patient."
This brief explanation seemed to satisfy the little hunchback, and he
lighted his blackened boxwood pipe, which was hanging over his chin.
"You don't smoke, doctor?"
"I beg your pardon, I do."
"Well, fill any one of these pipes. I was here," he said, spreading his
yellow hand over the open volume. "I was reading the chronicles of
Hertzog when you came."
"Ah, that accounts for the time I had to wait! Of course you stayed to
finish the chapter?" I said, smiling.
He owned it, grinning, and we both laughed together.
"But if I had known it was you," he said, "I should have finished the
chapter another time."
There was a short silence, during which I was observing the very peculiar
physiognomy of this misshapen being--those long deep wrinkles that moated
in his wide mouth, his small eyes with the crow's feet at the outer
corners, that contorted nose, bulbous at its end, and especially that
huge double-storied forehead of his. The whole figure reminded me not a
little of the received pictures of Socrates, and while warming myself and
listening to the crackling of the fire, I went off into contemplations on
the very diversified fortunes of mankind.
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