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Page 70
For fifty years not a hammer has been lifted against this venerable ruin.
You would think it was left for the special accommodation of rats! And
when the glowing autumn sun, red as fire, showers golden rain upon the
decaying walls and timbers; when, as daylight fades into evening, the
angular projections stand out more boldly, and the shadows deepen; when
all the tavern rings with songs, and shouts, and roars of laughter; when
fat S�baldus, in leathern apron, runs to and from the cellar with the big
jug in his hand; when his wife Gredel throws up the kitchen window, and
with her long knife, well hacked along the edge, cleans the fish, or cuts
the necks of hens, ducks, or geese which struggle and gurgle in their own
blood; when pretty Fridoline, with her rosy little mouth and her long
fair hair, leans out of her window to tend the honeysuckle, and over her
head the neighbour's tabby cat is gently swaying her tail and watching,
with her cunning green eyes, the swallow circling in the deepening
purple--I do assure you that a man must be utterly devoid of taste for
the picturesque not to stop and contemplate in ecstasy and listen to the
murmuring sounds, or the louder din, or the falling whispers, and observe
with an artist's eye the trembling lights, the flying shadows, and
whisper to himself, "Is not this beautiful?"
But you should see Ma�tre S�baldus's tavern on a great occasion, when all
the jovial folks of Bergzabern crowd into the immense public room--some
day when a cock-fight is going on, or a dog-fight, or a magic-lantern.
Last autumn, on a Saturday--and it was Michaelmas Day--we were all
sitting round the oaken table, between one and two o'clock in the
afternoon; old Doctor Melchior, Eisenloffel the blacksmith, and his old
wife, old Berbel Rasimus, Johannes the capuchin monk, Borves Fritz the
clarionet-player at the Pied de Boeuf, and half a hundred more, laughing,
singing, drinking, playing at _youker_, draining jugs and glasses, eating
puddings and _andouilles_.
Mother Gredel was coming and going; the pretty maid-servants, Heinrichen
and Lott�, were flying up and down the kitchen stairs like squirrels, and
outside, under the broad archway, was the booming, and banging, and
jingling of the big drum and the cymbals, while the exciting proclamation
was being made: "Ho! ho! hi! Great battle to come off! The Asturian bear,
Beppo, and Baptist, the Savoyard bear, against all dogs that may come.
Boom! boom! Walk in, ladies! Walk in, gentlemen! Here's the buffalo from
Calabria, and the onagra of the desert! Walk in, walk in! Don't be
frightened! All walk in!"
And they did come in, in crowds.
S�baldus, barring the passage with his burly form, as Horatius guarded
the bridge in the brave days of old, shouted to all--
"Your five kreutzers, friends and neighbours! Five kreutzers for
admittance! Pay, or I'll throttle you!"
It was an awful confusion; people climbed over each other's backs to get
in faster, until Bridget K�ra lost a stocking and Anna Seiler half her
petticoat.
About two, the bear-leader, a tall, rough-looking fellow, with red ragged
hair and beard, and mounting a high sugar-loafed hat, pushed the door
ajar, and cried, looking in--
"Just going to begin the fight!"
In an instant all the tables were emptied, many an untasted glass being
left upon it. I ran to the hay-loft, climbed up the ladder four steps at a
time, and drew it up after me. There, seated all alone upon a bundle of
hay, just inside the little skylight, I had a capital view.
What a throng! The old galleries were bending under their weight, the
roofs were visibly swaying. I shuddered to think of what might happen.
It seemed inevitable that they would all come down together like grapes
in the wine-press, heaped up in a sea of heads.
They were hanging in clusters on the wooden pillars; yet higher in the
gutters along the roof; yet higher about the pigeon-cote; higher still
over the skylights in the roof of the _mairie_; yet higher in the spire
of St. Christopher's; and all this multitude were howling and shouting--
"The bears! the bears!"
When I had sufficiently admired and wondered at the immense crowd,
looking down I saw in the middle of the court a poor, wretched,
depressed-looking donkey, lean and ragged, his sleepy eyes half-closed,
his ears hanging down. This dreadful object was to open the sports.
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