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Page 37
It will be perceived, no doubt, from what I have already said, that
the Baron was one of those human anomalies now and then to be found,
who make the science of mystification the study and the business of
their lives. For this science a peculiar turn of mind gave him
instinctively the cue, while his physical appearance afforded him
unusual facilities for carrying his prospects into effect. I quaintly
termed the domination of the Baron Ritzner von Jung, ever rightly
entered into the mystery which overshadowed his character. I truly
think that no person at the university, with the exception of myself,
ever suspected him to be capable of a joke, verbal or practical: --
the old bull-dog at the garden-gate would sooner have been accused,
-- the ghost of Heraclitus, -- or the wig of the Emeritus Professor
of Theology. This, too, when it was evident that the most egregious
and unpardonable of all conceivable tricks, whimsicalities and
buffooneries were brought about, if not directly by him, at least
plainly through his intermediate agency or connivance. The beauty, if
I may so call it, of his art mystifique, lay in that consummate
ability (resulting from an almost intuitive knowledge of human
nature, and a most wonderful self-possession,) by means of which he
never failed to make it appear that the drolleries he was occupied in
bringing to a point, arose partly in spite, and partly in consequence
of the laudable efforts he was making for their prevention, and for
the preservation of the good order and dignity of Alma Mater. The
deep, the poignant, the overwhelming mortification, which upon each
such failure of his praise worthy endeavors, would suffuse every
lineament of his countenance, left not the slightest room for doubt
of his sincerity in the bosoms of even his most skeptical companions.
The adroitness, too, was no less worthy of observation by which he
contrived to shift the sense of the grotesque from the creator to the
created -- from his own person to the absurdities to which he had
given rise. In no instance before that of which I speak, have I known
the habitual mystific escape the natural consequence of his manoevres
-- an attachment of the ludicrous to his own character and person.
Continually enveloped in an atmosphere of whim, my friend appeared to
live only for the severities of society; and not even his own
household have for a moment associated other ideas than those of the
rigid and august with the memory of the Baron Ritzner von Jung. the
demon of the dolce far niente lay like an incubus upon the
university. Nothing, at least, was done beyond eating and drinking
and making merry. The apartments of the students were converted into
so many pot-houses, and there was no pot-house of them all more
famous or more frequented than that of the Baron. Our carousals here
were many, and boisterous, and long, and never unfruitful of events.
Upon one occasion we had protracted our sitting until nearly
daybreak, and an unusual quantity of wine had been drunk. The company
consisted of seven or eight individuals besides the Baron and myself.
Most of these were young men of wealth, of high connection, of great
family pride, and all alive with an exaggerated sense of honor. They
abounded in the most ultra German opinions respecting the duello. To
these Quixotic notions some recent Parisian publications, backed by
three or four desperate and fatal conversation, during the greater
part of the night, had run wild upon the all -- engrossing topic of
the times. The Baron, who had been unusually silent and abstracted in
the earlier portion of the evening, at length seemed to be aroused
from his apathy, took a leading part in the discourse, and dwelt upon
the benefits, and more especially upon the beauties, of the received
code of etiquette in passages of arms with an ardor, an eloquence, an
impressiveness, and an affectionateness of manner, which elicited the
warmest enthusiasm from his hearers in general, and absolutely
staggered even myself, who well knew him to be at heart a ridiculer
of those very points for which he contended, and especially to hold
the entire fanfaronade of duelling etiquette in the sovereign
contempt which it deserves.
Looking around me during a pause in the Baron's discourse (of which
my readers may gather some faint idea when I say that it bore
resemblance to the fervid, chanting, monotonous, yet musical sermonic
manner of Coleridge), I perceived symptoms of even more than the
general interest in the countenance of one of the party. This
gentleman, whom I shall call Hermann, was an original in every
respect -- except, perhaps, in the single particular that he was a
very great fool. He contrived to bear, however, among a particular
set at the university, a reputation for deep metaphysical thinking,
and, I believe, for some logical talent. As a duellist he had
acquired who had fallen at his hands; but they were many. He was a
man of courage undoubtedly. But it was upon his minute acquaintance
with the etiquette of the duello, and the nicety of his sense of
honor, that he most especially prided himself. These things were a
hobby which he rode to the death. To Ritzner, ever upon the lookout
for the grotesque, his peculiarities had for a long time past
afforded food for mystification. Of this, however, I was not aware;
although, in the present instance, I saw clearly that something of a
whimsical nature was upon the tapis with my friend, and that Hermann
was its especial object.
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