The Adjoining Room, Intermingled with Sounds from Which I

Friedrich Theodor Vischer (1807-1889).

A RABID PHILOSOPHER.

AT last I fell asleep, but it was only to be awakened at dawn by resounding footsteps passing to and fro in

the adjoining room, intermingled with sounds from which I

judged that there was an impatient searching of drawers or

tables, and in every corner of the apartment. The hurrying

and rummaging grew more violent, a soliloquy which at

first softly accompanied the movements grew louder and

louder, and gradually passed into exclamations of rage, and

at last into a volley of oaths, which was not exactly in

a Christian spirit, and which was accompanied by a savage

stamping and bellowing. It seemed to me the man had

gone mad. I dressed myself hastily, knocked at the door,

and in my excitement, forgetting all form, I entered the

room without awaiting his call. With flashing eyes the

occupant darted at me as if about to seize me by my throat; suddenly he controlled himself, stood stock-still before me, gave me a penetrating glance, and said with quiet severity, "Sir, an unconscious thirst for knowledge has brought you to this room." My conscience reproaching me for my breach of good manners, I was disarmed, and merely said

"Yes," in a dejected tone. I then asked him what for

heaven's sake was the matter with him. A. E. for brevity's

sake I will henceforth call my fellow-traveller so falling

back into his fit of violence, cried in a voice of thunder,

" My spectacles, my spectacles ! They've seen fit to go and

hide themselves to say nothing at present of the key, the

little devil ! "

"So you are merely looking for your spectacles? Is this

an object worthy of such rage? Don't you know what it is

to be patient?"

He was about to fly at me again, but, controlling himself

A RABID PHILOSOPHER. 147

once more, he merely looked at me and said : " Screw-

drivers ? cork-screws ? "

"What do you mean by that?"

"I dreamed I had a wife horrible to relate. I laughed

at her for reading papers without cutting the leaves, and

for putting up for years with a drawer that would not go.

Thereupon she gave me a sermon on patience, and required

me to exercise myself in that virtue by wearing screws and

screw-drivers on my coat instead of buttons and button-

holes, suggesting that they might be quite ornamental if

made out of oxidised metal ; or she said I might have corks, which I would be obliged to remove by means of a cork- screw every time I wished to unbutton my coat. Ah,

pshaw ! a woman is quite capable of putting a cover upon

a dressing-case in such a manner that it will catch every

time the upper drawer is opened and shut. Sir, a woman

has time for the struggle with the villain called matter ; she lives in this struggle, it is her element ; a man has no business to have time for this, he needs his patience for things that are worthy of patience. It is an imposition to expect him to waste either for what is worthless, an imposition against which he may, can, and must rage ! You

must know that. You must know that these unworthy

objects, these hooks and crooks of matter, never get

entangled with your destiny except when you are in

most desperate haste to complete something which is

necessary and reasonable ! Miserable gimcrack, worthless

button or ball of twine, or string to my eye-glasses that gets twisted about one of the buttons of my vest just at the very moment when it is necessary to look over a time-table in small type at the railway station, I have no time, no time for ye ! And if I were to set a thousand leeches on eternity, they would not draw out a single moment of time for ye!"

"But what is the use of all this bluster?"

Page 148

"Oil, insipid! Was it of no use to Luther if you are

going to talk about use to rail at the devil? Don't you

know what it is to disburden your poor soul ? Have you

never heard of the precious balm that lies in a good round

oath?''

"I TOOK THE EXASPERATED MAN AND POINTED SILENTLY TO THE SPOT."

The evil spirit took possession of him anew; he rushed

about the room in another paroxysm of rage pouring out a

volley of abuse upon his poor innocent spectacles. Mean-

A RABID PHILOSOPHER. 149

while I looked about the floor; I picked up a couple of

shirts that were clean, but terribly messed, and my eyes

fell upon a mouse-hole in the boards. It seemed to me

I saw something glitter there ; I looked closer, and the

discovery was made. I took the exasperated man by his

arm and pointed silently to the spot. He gazed at it,

recognised his missing glasses, and remarked : " Look at

them well ! Do you notice the sneer, the demoniac triumph

in that evil glassy leer ? Out with the entrapped monster ! "

It was not easy to pull the spectacles out of the hole ;

the trouble was really out of proportion to the value of the

object. At last we succeeded ; he held them out at arm's-

length, dropped them from there, cried in a solemn voice,

" Sentence of death ! Supplicium ! " raised his foot, and

crushed them with his heel, shivering them to bits.

"That's all very well," I said, after a pause of astonish-

ment;" but now you have no spectacles."

"No matter. At any rate this imp has met with a just

retribution after years of indescribable malignity. Look

you!" He pulled out his watch; it was a very common

one in fact, one of the lowest products of the horological

industry." In place of this honest, faithful creature," he

continued," I once had a gold repeater, which, I may truly

say, cost a deal of money. It requited this sacrifice for years and years with untold malice; it never would go right; it made a point of falling down and hiding ; the crystals broke constantly, thereby nearly reducing me to pauperism; at last the monster conspired with the hook of my gold watch-chain, and the two together entered into an intrigue against me. As for the hook, sir, there is much that might be said on that subject. The insidiousness of objects in general I should like to talk to you about that, sir, but I fear I should discourse at some length the insidiousness, I say, is expressed so visibly in the villainous physiognomy of hooks that one cannot be too much on one's guard in having any-

PAGE 150

thing to do with these fiendish features. One is apt to think:

'I know you, the wicked crookedness of your outer form

betrays you, you shall not get the better of me;' and then

this very sense of security misleads one into being unwary.

It is quite the reverse with other objects. Who, for instance, would suspect a simple button of any evil design?"

I begged him to finish the tragic story about his watch

and hook.

"Ah, yes! Well, one night the hook crept softly across

the small table, upon which I had carefully laid my watch,

and artfully entwined itself into the seam of my pillow-case.

I did not want the pillow. I lifted it suddenly and flung it to the foot-end of the bed, the watch of course going with it.

In a noble arch it went flying through the air, struck the

wall, and fell to the ground with a broken crystal. This was the last straw. I crushed it in cold blood like these criminal spectacles; the imp gave forth a sound, a hiss like a per-secuted mouse; I swear to you that it was a sound quite outside the realm of physical nature. I then went and bought this modest timepiece for an absurdly low sum. Look at this faithful creature; note the expression of honesty in these homely features; for twenty years it has served me with steadfast fidelity; yes, I may say it has never given me any cause for complaint. The gold watch-chain I gave to my footman, the hook was condemned to die a shameful death in the sewer, and I wear my faithful turnip on this gentle silken cord."

During this detailed account he had grown quite tranquil,

and now placidly continued

"Now for the story of this black hour! Look at this key"

he pulled out a small key, probably belonging to his

valise" and then at this candlestick!" he held up the

metal candlestick upside down close before my eyes, so that

I could see a hollow place in the foot "what do you

think, what do you suppose, what do you say?"

A RABID PHILOSOPHER. 151

"How am I to know?'

"For the spare of a good half hour I have looked for

that key this morning. I nearly lost my senses; at last

I found it, like this, do you see?"

He laid the key upon the little stand by his bed, and

set the candlestick down upon it; the key just fitted the

place under the foot.

"Now tell me who would suspect this, who would be

capable of such superhuman circumspection as to foresee

and avoid such infernal tricks on the part of the object !

And is this what I live for? Am I to waste the precious

bit of time I have in such a slavish search for a bagatelle?

To search and search, and to search again! One should

never say A. or B. has lived for such and such a time,

not lived, but searched ! And I am very, very punctual,

believe me!"

"Ah, yes, life is a perpetual search," I said, with a sigh

which might be taken to refer to the trials of life, while

in truth it was called forth by the ennui which this detailed occupation with the bagatelle had caused. This accounted for my flat remark, the sole object of which was to change the subject at all hazards.

I little knew to whom I was talking. "What, sir,

symbolic?" he said. "And I suppose you think that is

deeper! Ah, oh!"

"Well, what now?"

"You see, my dear sir, to search in a symbolical sense,

to think that all of life is but a searching, that is not what I complain of, that is not what you should sigh about. The ethical goes without saying. An honest fellow will search and yearn and never complain, but be happy in the midst of this misery of an ever-rising and never-terminating line.

That is our upper storey. But what we have to take along

with it, the vexation and bother we must put up with in

the lower storey of life, that is what I am talking of. There,

PAGE 152

for instance, is the necessity of searching, which makes you mad, nervous, insane. And, what is more, it strands you

in Atheism. The dear God sitting on high and counting

the hairs on our head, who sees me searching for my

spectacles for hours at a time, he sees the spectacles too,

knows just where they are, can you bear it, the thought

of how he must laugh ? A kind, omnipotent Being! Do

you think such a one would permit the curse of colds in

your head? Alas, we are born to search, to undo knots,

to sneeze and cough and spit ! Man, with a proud world

within his arched brows, with his beaming eyes, his spirit

dipping into the depth and breadth of infinitude, with his

soul rising on silver wings into the heavens, with his

imagination pouring streams of golden fire over hill and

vale and transforming the image of mortality to God, with

his will, the flashing sword within his hand to adjust, to

judge, to conquer, with pious patience to plant, to cherish, and watch over the tree of life that it may grow and flourish and bear heavenly fruit of noble culture, Man with the angelic image of the divine and beautiful within his longing, yearning bosom, yes, this same Man, changed to a mollusc, his throat a grating-iron, a nest of devils, tickling the larynx with finest needles for nights and nights, his eyes dim, his brain heavy, dull, perturbed, his nerves poisoned, and, with all that, not considered ill; and you say that God!"

Here our denier of the existence of God was seized

with so deplorable a fit of sneezing and coughing that I

repressed a remark I had upon my tongue.

Upon entering I noticed that he cast an uneasy glance all

about the floor of the dining-hall; he seemed much relieved

when in one corner he noticed a small object which may be

of service to coughing persons. In a tone of supreme content he remarked, "This room is really very well furnished;"

A RABID PHILOSOPER. 153

and from that time he seemed to be in tolerably good

humour. As is common at the Swiss hotels, breakfast had

been placed upon the table awaiting whoever should come

to partake of it, and A. E., having pushed the butter and

honey aside with some violence, helped himself freely. We

were alone in the room, but soon another tourist entered.

He was a middle-aged man, attired in a duster of unbleached

linen, with a short cape hanging over his shoulders, and

carrying a knapsack of some weight on his back. There

were drops of perspiration visible upon his brow; it appeared evident that he had walked for some hours that morning.

He laid down his burden, put his bulky umbrella in a

corner, sat down at the other end of the table, pulled his

chair up, took out his glasses, carefully looked at everything that had been set upon the table, seemed to quite approve of the completeness of things that go to make up an English breakfast, and then, with all the appearance of a soul conscious that the body belonging thereto had severely earned its breakfast, began the enjoyable task of cutting and spreading some slices of bread. It was easy to see that the man belonged to the class of scholars, and his pale complexion led me to judge that he was one of those tourists who strive to make up by pedestrian exertions for the harm they have done their bodies throughout the year by sedentary habits.