Volume Ii Part 10 (1/2)
”Well,” said Benjie, angrily, ”and what then?”
”Out with it,” the Goldsmith said, ”and try the file on the edge of it.”
The Baron did so, with an amount of skill which told of much previous practice; and the more ducats he filed at--for he tried a good many, one after another--the fresher the edges of them came out.
Up to this point Mana.s.seh had been looking on in silence at what was transpiring; but here he jumped up, with eyes sparkling wildly, and dashed at his nephew, crying, in a hollow, terrible voice--
”G.o.d of my Fathers! what do I see? Give me that file!--here with it instantly! It is the piece of magic-work for which I sold my soul more than three hundred years ago. G.o.d of my Fathers!--hand it over to me!”
And he made at his nephew to take it from him; but Benjie pushed him back, crying, ”Go to the Deuce, you old idiot! It was I who found the file, not you!”
To which Mana.s.seh responded, in fury: ”Viper! Worm-eaten fruit of my race!--Here with that file! All the Demons of h.e.l.l be upon you, accursed thief!”
Mana.s.seh clutched hold of the Baron, with a torrent of Hebrew curses, and foaming and gnas.h.i.+ng his teeth, he exerted all the strength at his command to wrest the file from him. But Benjie fought for it as a lioness does for her cubs, till at length Mana.s.seh was worn out; on which his nephew seized him by the shoulders and threw him out of the door, with such force that all his limbs cracked again. Then, coming back like a flash of lightning, he shoved a small table into a corner, and sitting down there, opposite to the Clerk of the Privy Chancery, took a handful of ducats from his pocket, and set to work to file away at them as hard as he could.
”Now,” said the Goldsmith, ”we have seen the last of that terrible Mana.s.seh. He is off our hands, for good and all. People say he is a second Ahasuerus, and has been going spooking about since the year 1572. That was the year in which he was put to death for diabolical practices and sorcery, under the name of Lippolt, the Jew-coiner. But the Devil saved his body from death at the price of his immortal soul.
Many folk who understand those things say they have seen him in Berlin in a good many forms; so that, if all tales are true, there are a good number of Lippolts at the present time about. However, I, who have a certain amount of experience in those mysterious matters, can a.s.sure you that I have given him his quietus.”
It would weary you very needlessly, dear reader, were I to waste words in telling you what you know quite well; namely, that Edmund Lehsen chose the ivory casket, inscribed--
”Who chooseth me doth gain his dreamed-of bliss,”
and found in it a beautiful portrait of Albertine, with the lines--
”Yes--thou hast it--read thy chance In thy darling's loving glance.
What has past returns no more-- Earthly fate so willeth this.
All the joy which lies _before_ Gather from thy sweetheart's kiss.”
And Edmund, like Ba.s.sanio, followed the counsel of the last line, and pressed his blus.h.i.+ng sweetheart to his breast, and kissed her glowing lips; whilst the Commissionsrath greatly rejoiced, and was full of happiness over this happy _denouement_ of this most involved love-affair.
Meanwhile the Baron had been filing at ducats quite as eagerly and absorbedly as the Clerk of the Privy Chancery had been reading, neither of them taking the slightest notice of what had been going on, till the Commissionsrath announced, in a loud voice, that Edmund Lehsen had chosen the casket containing Albertine's portrait, and was, consequently, to be her husband. Tussmann seemed to be quite delighted to hear it, and expressed his satisfaction in his usual manner, by rubbing his hands, jumping a little way up and down for a moment or two, and giving a delicate little laugh. The Baron seemed to feel no further interest about the matter; but he embraced the Commissionsrath; said he was a real ”gentleman” and had made him most utterly happy by his present of the file, and told him that he could always count upon him, in all circ.u.mstances. With which he took his departure.
Tussmann, too, thanked him, with tears of the most heartfelt emotion, for making him the happiest of men by this most rare and wonderful of all rare and wonderful books; and, after the most profuse expenditure of politeness to Albertine, Edmund, and the old Goldsmith, he followed the Baron as quickly as ever he could.
Benjie ceased to torture the world of letters with literary abortions, as he had formerly done, preferring to employ his time in filing ducats; and Tussmann no longer made the booksellers' lives a burden to them by pestering them to hunt out old forgotten books for him.
But when a few weeks of rapture and happiness had pa.s.sed, a great and bitter sorrow took possession of the Commissionsrath's house. For the Goldsmith urged, in the strongest terms, upon Edmund that for his own sake, and for the sake of his art, he was bound to keep his solemn promise and go to Italy.
Edmund, notwithstanding the dreadful parting from Albertine, felt the strongest possible impulse urging him towards the country of the arts; and, although Albertine shed the bitterest tears, she could not help thinking how very nice it would be to be able to take out letters from her lover at Rome, and read them out--or extracts from them--at aesthetic teas of an afternoon.
Edmund has been in Rome now more than a year, and people do say that his correspondence with Albertine languishes, and that the letters are becoming rarer and colder. Who knows whether or not anything will ever come, ultimately, of the engagement between those two people? Certainly Albertine won't be long ”in the market” in any case; she is so pretty, and so well off. Just at present, there is young Mr. Gloria (just going to be called to the bar), a very nice young gentleman indeed, with a slim and tightly-girded waist, a couple of waistcoats on at once, and a cravat tied in the English style; and he danced all last season with Albertine, and is to be seen now going continually with her to the Thiergarten, whilst the Commissionsrath trots very complacently after them, looking like a satisfied father. Moreover, Mr. Gloria has pa.s.sed his second examination at the Supreme Court with flying colours.
”So perhaps he and Albertine may make a match of it, should he get a fairly good appointment. There's no telling. Let us see what happens.”
”You have certainly written a wonderfully crack-brained thing in that,”
Ottmar said, when Lothair had finished. ”This 'Tale containing improbable incidents,' as you have called it, appears to me to be a kind of mosaic, composed of all kinds of stones put together at random, which dazzles and confuses one's eyes so that they can't take firm hold of any definite figure.”