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Page 66
I enter the hall--"Mine!" I open the wardrobes--"Mine!" Mine--all that
linen piled up to the top! I pace majestically up the broad staircase,
repeating like a fool, "This is mine, and that is mine! Here I am, owner
of all this! No more uneasiness about the future! Not an anxious thought
for the morrow! Now I am going to make a figure in the world!--not on the
weak ground of merit--not for anything that fashion can alter. I am a
great man because I hold really and effectually that which the world
covets.
"Ye poets and artists! what are you in comparison with the rich
proprietor who has everything he wants, and who feeds your inspiration
with the crumbs that fall from his table? What are you but ornamental
portions of his feasts and banquets, just to fill up a weary interval?
You are no more than the sparrow that warbles in his hedges, or the
statue that figures in his garden-walk. It is by him and for him that you
exist. What need has he to envy you the incense of pride and vanity--he
who possesses the only solid good this world has to offer?"
At that moment of inflated conceit if the poor Kapellmeister H�as had
appeared before me I might very likely have turned and looked at him over
my shoulder and asked, "What fool is that? What business has he with me?"
I threw a window open; evening was closing in. The setting sun gilded my
orchards and my vines as far as I could see. On the declivity of the hill
a few white patches indicated the cemetery.
I turned round. A great Gothic hall, with rich mouldings decorating the
ceiling, pleased my taste exceedingly. This was the Seigneur Burckhardt's
hunting-saloon.
An old spinet stood between two windows; I ran my fingers absently over
the keys, and the loose strings jingled with the disagreeable squeaking
of a toothless old woman trying to sing like a young damsel.
At the end of this long apartment was an arched alcove closed in by deep
red curtains, and containing a lofty four-post bedstead with a kind of
grand baldacchino covering it in. The sight of this reminded me that I
had been six hours on horseback, and undressing with a self-satisfied
smirk on my face all the time--
"It is the first time," I said, "that I shall sleep in a bed of my own."
And laying myself comfortably down, with my eyes dreamily wandering over
the distant plains on which the shadows of evening were settling down, I
felt my eyelids gently yielding to the sweet influence of sleep. Not a
leaf was stirring; the village noises ceased one by one, the last golden
rays of the sun had disappeared, and I dropped into the unconsciousness
of welcome sleep.
Dark night fell on the face of the earth, and then the moon was rising in
all her splendour, when I awoke, I cannot tell why. The wandering scents
of summer air reached me through the open window, fragrant with the sweet
perfume of the new-mown hay. I gazed with surprise, then I made an effort
to rise and open the window, but some obstacle prevented me. To my
astonishment, though my head was perfectly free to move in any direction,
my body was buried in a deep sleep like a lump of lead. Not a single
muscle obeyed my repeated efforts to raise my body; I was conscious of my
arms lying extended near me, and my legs being stretched out straight and
immovable; but my head was swaying helplessly to and fro. My breathing,
deep and regular--the breathing of my body went on all the same, and
frightened me dreadfully. My head, exhausted with its vain efforts to
obtain obedience from the limbs, fell back in despair, and I said, "What!
Is it paralysis?"
My eyes closed. I was reflecting with a feeling of horror upon this
strange phenomenon, and my ears were listening intently to the agitated
beating of my heart, over whose hurried flow of blood the mind had no
power.
"What, what is this?" I thought presently. "Do my own body and limbs
refuse to obey my will? Cannot Caspar H�as, the undisputed lord of so
many rich vineyards and fat pastures, move this wretched clod of earth
which most certainly belongs to him? Oh, what does it all mean?"
As I was thus wondering and meditating I heard a slight noise. The door
of my alcove opened, and a man clothed in some stiff material resembling
felt, such as is worn by the monks in the chapel of St. Werburgh at
Mayence, with a broad-brimmed hat and feather pushed off from the left
ear, his hands buried up to the elbows in gauntlets of strong untanned
leather, entered the room. This gentleman's huge jack-boots came over the
knees, and were folded down again. A heavy chain of gold, with
decorations suspended to it, hung from his shoulders. His tanned and
angular countenance, his sallow complexion, his hollow eyes, bore an
expression of bitterness and melancholy.
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