Part 50 (1/2)
”And your excellency did not lose any thing by not knowing the latter, for it is a person that is not worth the trouble to become acquainted with. We men of learning are less able to speak with our tongues than with our pens, and our desk alone is our rostrum.”
”And there you are a powerful and most impressive orator, Mr. Aulic Councillor!” exclaimed Thugut, in a tone of unaffected and cordial praise.
An air of joyful surprise overspread the gentle face of Johannes Muller, and he cast a glance of heart-felt grat.i.tude on the minister.
Thugut noticed this glance. ”You are surprised that I am able to appreciate your merits so correctly and yet suffered years to elapse without inviting you to call on me? I am a poor man, overburdened with business and hara.s.sed with the dry details of my administration, and the direction of political affairs leaves me no leisure to be devoted to literature.”
”At least not to German literature,” said Muller, quickly; ”but every one knows your excellency to be a profound connoisseur of oriental languages; and it is well known, too, that you devote a great deal of attention to them, notwithstanding the immense burden of business constantly weighing you down.”
Thugut smiled, and his harsh features a.s.sumed a milder expression.
Johannes Muller, without intending it perhaps, had touched the chord that sounded most sweetly to Thugut's ears; he had flattered him by referring to his profound oriental studies.
”Well,” he said, ”you see I am taking likewise a lively interest in German literature, for I invited you to come and see me; and you are a German author, and one of the most ill.u.s.trious at that. Now, sir, let us speak frankly and without circ.u.mlocution, as two men of science ought to do. Let us mutually forget our t.i.tles and official positions, and chat confidentially with each other. Come, my dear sir, let us sit down in these two arm-chairs and talk like two German gentlemen; that is, frankly and sincerely. n.o.body is here to hear us, and I give you my word of honor n.o.body shall learn a word of what we are going to say to each other. Perfect irresponsibility and impunity for every thing that will be spoken during this interview. Are you content with this, and will you promise me to open your mind freely to me?”
”I promise it, your excellency, and shall reply truthfully and fearlessly to whatever questions you may address to me, provided I am able to tell you the truth.”
”Yes, sir,” replied Thugut, shrugging his shoulders. ”Every thing has two sides, and both are true according to the stand-point from which one is looking at them. You have two sides yourself, sir, and they are contrasting very strangely with each other. You are a native of Switzerland, and yet you depict the Hapsburg princes in your works with more genuine enthusiasm than any of our Austrian historians. You are a republican, and yet you are serving a monarchy, the forms of which seem to agree with you exceedingly well. You belong to the orthodox reformed church, and yet you have written 'The Voyages of the Popes,' and 'The Letters of Two Catholic Prelates.' You are a friend of justice, and yet you have even discovered good and praiseworthy qualities in that tyrannous King of France, Louis XI. Now tell me, sir, which is your true side, and what you really are?”
”I am a man,” said Johannes Muller, gently; ”I commit errors and have my failings like all men, my heart is vacillating, but not my head. With my head I am standing above all parties, and above all individual feelings; hence I am able to write 'The Voyages of the Popes,' and 'The Letters of Two Catholic Prelates,' although, as your excellency stated, I am a member of the orthodox reformed church; and hence I am able to praise the Hapsburgs and serve a monarchy, although I am a republican. But my heart does not stand above the contending parties; my heart loves mankind, and takes pity on their failings; hence it is able to discover praiseworthy qualities even in Louis XI. of France, for in the BAD king, it constantly follows the vestiges of the man whom nature created good and humane.”
”Those are the views of Jean Jacques Rousseau!” exclaimed Thugut, contemptuously; ”but these views are inapplicable to the world and to practical life; he who desires to derive advantages from men, first, of all things, must avail himself of their bad qualities and flatter them. To hold intercourse with perfectly virtuous men is tedious and unprofitable; fortunately, however, there are very few of them. I should have no use whatever for such patterns of virtue, and, instead of admiring them, I should try to annihilate them. He who is to be a welcome tool for me, must either have a stain by which I may catch him at the slightest symptom of disobedience, like an insect tied to a string, and draw him back to me, or he must be so narrow-minded and ignorant as not to understand me fully, and to be unable to divine and penetrate my hidden thoughts and intentions.” [Footnote: Thugut's own words.--Vide Hormayer, ”Lebensbilder aus dein Befreiungskrieg,” voi. i., p. 322.]
”In that case I must hope never to be a welcome tool of your excellency,” said Muller, gravely.
”Are you so sure of your virtue? Are you unconscious of any stain on your character?”
”If principles be virtue, yes; in that case I am sure of my virtue,”
said Muller, calmly. ”I shall never be unfaithful to my principles, and I hope never to have a stain on my conscience.”
”Who is able to say that?” exclaimed Thugut, laughing; ”many a one has become a murderer, who was unwilling to tread on a worm, and many a one has become a perjurer, who protested solemnly that he would never utter a lie. But a truce to philosophical discussions. I like to go directly at my aim, and to utter my thoughts clearly and precisely. Listen, then, to me, and learn what I want you to do. You are a great mind, an ill.u.s.trious historian, a very learned man, and you are pining away among the shelves of your imperial library. The greatest historian of the century is nothing but the custodian of a library, and is subordinate to a chief whom he must obey, although the latter is mentally a pigmy compared with him. Such a position is unworthy of your eminent abilities, or tell me, do you feel contented with it?”
Johannes Muller smiled sadly. ”Who is able to say that he feels contented?” he asked. ”I am, perhaps, a bad custodian, and that may be the reason why the prefect of the Imperial Library, Baron Fenish, is not on good terms with me, and profits by every opportunity to mortify me.
A German savant never was an independent man, for he generally lacks the most indispensable requisite for an independent position: he generally lacks wealth.”
”Then you are poor?” asked Thugut, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes.
”I have no other means than my salary. The Muses will adorn a man, but they will not feed him.”
”I will deliver you from your subordinate position,” said Thugut, hastily; ”you shall be independent, free, and rich. You are a fool to bury yourself, with your glory and with your pen, in the dust of old books. Life and history are calling, and offering you their metal tablets to write thereon. Write, then; write the history of our times; render yourself an organ of the age; a.s.sist us, by your writings, in preserving the government and law and order. Defend, with your ringing voice, the actions of the government against the aspersions of this would-be wise, noisy, and miserable people, and you shall have a brilliant position and an annual salary of four thousand florins. You are silent? You are right; consider well what I am proposing to you. I offer you a brilliant position. I will make you the great historian of our times. It affords you always so much pleasure to praise and commend; well, sir, praise and commend what we are doing. a.s.sist me, at least, in mystifying our contemporaries and posterity a little, and I will reward you in the most liberal manner. A good t.i.tle, a large salary, and we will, moreover, pay your debts.”
”Ah! your excellency knows that I have debts, and you believe that to be the string by which you may draw me to you like an insect?” asked Muller, smiling. ”To become the historian of our times is an honorable and welcome offer, and I confess to your excellency that I have already finished many a chapter of it in my head, and that I have devoted a great deal of attention to the special history of Austria. It would be agreeable to me if your excellency would permit me to recite to you a few pa.s.sages from the history of Austria, as I have elaborated it in my head. This will be the best way for your excellency to obtain the conviction whether I am really able to fill so brilliant a position as your excellency has offered me, and whether my services deserve so liberal a salary.”
”Well, sir, let me hear a few pa.s.sages from your 'History of Austria.' I am very anxious to listen to them.”
”And your excellency remembers the promise that there is to be irresponsibility and impunity for whatever will be said during this interview?”
”I do, sir, and I swear that your words shall never be repeated to any one, and that I shall only remember them when I have to reward you for them. I swear, besides, that I will quietly and patiently listen to you until you have concluded.”
”I thank your excellency,” said Johannes Muller, bowing gracefully. ”I should like to recite to your excellency now a chapter that I desire to write on the literature of Austria. I turn my eyes back to the days of Maria Theresa and Joseph the Second. Both of them were lovers of literature, art, and science, which both of them promoted and fostered.