Part 83 (1/2)
”So,” she said, nestling in his arms, ”now we are here as if in a little cell, where only G.o.d's eye can find us. So long as we are in this cell I shall not be afraid.”
”I believe it is unnecessary for you to be afraid at all,” said Palm, smiling. ”We carry our apprehensions to too great a length, you may depend upon it, and because we see M. Bonaparte putting whole states into his pocket, we believe it would be easy for him likewise to put a respectable citizen and bookseller of Nuremberg into it. But, be it spoken between us, that is rather a haughty idea, and M. Bonaparte has to attend to other things than to take notice of a bookseller and his publications. Remember, my child, that he has just got up the Confederation of the Rhine, and, moreover, is said to be preparing for a war with Prussia. How should he, therefore, have time to think of a poor bookseller?”
”Do you think, when the lion is going to meet his adversary and to struggle with him, he will leave the wasp which he has met on his way, and which has stung him in the ear, unpunished, because he has more important things to attend to?”
”But I did not sting him at all,” said Palm, smiling. ”Let us calmly consider the whole affair, dearest Anna, and you will see that I have in reality noting to fear, and that only the accursed terror which this M.
Bonaparte has struck into the souls of all Germans has caused us this whole alarm. A few months ago I received by mail, from a person unknown to me, a large package of books, enclosing a letter, in which the stranger requested me to send the copies of the pamphlet contained in the package immediately to all German booksellers, and to give it as wide a circulation as possible. The letter contained also a draft for one thousand florins, drawn by a banker of Vienna, Baron Franke, on a wealthy banking-house of our city. This sum of one thousand florins, said the letter, was to be a compensation for my trouble and for the zeal with which, the writer stated, he felt convinced I would attend to the circulation of the pamphlet.”
”But the very mystery connected with the whole transaction ought to have aroused your suspicion, my beloved.”
”Why! Are not we Germans now under the unfortunate necessity of keeping secret our most sublime thoughts and our most sacred sentiments? And ought not, therefore, every one of us to take pains to honor and protect this secrecy, instead of suspecting it?”
”But the very t.i.tle of this pamphlet was dangerous, 'Germany in her Deepest Degradation.' You might have guessed whom this accusation was aimed at.”
”At Germany, I thought, at our infamy and cowardice, at the perfidy of our princes, at the torpid, pa.s.sive indifference of our people. It is high time that Germany, which is now tottering about like a somnambulist, should be aroused by a manful word from her slumber, so as to take heart again and draw the sword. The t.i.tle told me that the pamphlet contained such words; hence, I was not at liberty to keep it out of circulation. It would have been a robbery perpetrated upon Germany, a theft perpetrated upon him who sent me the money, and to whom I could not return it, because I was not aware of his name.”
”You ought to have thought of your wife and your children,” murmured Anna, sighing.
”I thought of you,” he said, tenderly; ”hence, I did not read the pamphlet, in order not to be shaken in what I thought my duty. First, I had to fulfil my duty as a citizen and man of honor; then only I was at liberty to think of you and my personal safety. I sent, therefore, in the first place, a certain number of copies of the pamphlet to M. Stage, the bookseller, and requested him to circulate them an speedily as possible among his customers.”
”And, G.o.d knows, he has done so,” sighed Anna, ”and, like you, he was not deterred by the t.i.tle.”
”He did his duty, like myself, and sent the pamphlets to lovers of books. In this manner it reached a preacher in the country, and unfortunately there were two French officers at his house; they understood German, read the pamphlet, and informed their colonel of its character. The latter paid a visit to the preacher, and learned from him that M. Stage, the bookseller of Augsburg, had sent him the pamphlet.
The colonel thereupon repaired to Augsburg and saw M. Stage.”
”And Stage was cowardly and perfidious enough to betray your name and to denounce you as being the bookseller who had sent him the pamphlet,”
exclaimed Anna, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng with indignation. ”Your friend, your colleague betrayed you!”
”I had not requested him not to mention my name,” said Palm, gravely; ”he had a right to name it, and I do not reproach him with doing so. I was informed that the French minister in Munich had bitterly complained of me and demanded that I should be punished; and as we are Bavarians now, I hastened to Munich in order to defend myself.”
”And while you were there, four strangers came hither,” Anna interrupted him. ”They asked for the pamphlet, penetrated in the most outrageous manner, in spite of my remonstrances, into your store, searched it, and left only when they had satisfied themselves that not a copy of the unfortunate pamphlet was there.”
”You wrote this to me while I was in Munich, and at the same time I heard that Stage had been arrested in Augsburg. Impelled by my first terror, I fled from the capital and hastened to Erlangen, which is situated on Prussian soil, and where neither the Bavarian police nor the French gens d'armes could lay hands on me. But in Erlangen I reflected on the matter, and I confess to you I was ashamed of having fled, instead of confronting an examination openly and freely. My love, my yearning attracted me toward you; I, therefore, took carriage last night and rode home to my beloved wife and to my children. This is a plain statement of the whole affair, and now tell me what should I be afraid of?”
”You may fear the worst,” exclaimed Anna, sadly; ”for our French tyrants will not shrink from any thing.”
”But fortunately we do not live yet under the French sceptre,” replied Palm, vividly; ”we are Germans, and only German laws are valid for us.”
”No,” said Anna, mournfully, ”we are not Germans, but Bavarians, that is to say, the allies, the humble va.s.sals of France. Not the King of Bavaria, but the Emperor of France, is ruling over us.”
”Well, even were it so, I could not see what crime I should be charged with. I neither wrote nor published this pamphlet; I merely circulated it, and cannot, therefore, be held responsible for its contents.
Possibly, they may arrest me as they have arrested Stage, and may intend thereby to compel me to mention the name of him who sent me the pamphlet, as Stage mentioned my own name. Fortunately, however, I am able to prove that I know neither the author nor the publisher; for I have got the best proof, of it, viz., the letter which I received with the package. I shall lay this letter before the court, and the judges will then perceive that I am entirely innocent. What will remain for them but to caution me not to circulate henceforth books sent to me anonymously, and then to release me?”
”But if they should not release you, my beloved husband?” asked his wife, anxiously clasping him in her arms; ”if in their rage at being unable to lay their hands on the real criminal, they should wreak their vengeance on you for having circulated the pamphlet first of all, and punish you as though you were its author?”
”Oh, you go too far,” exclaimed Palm, laughing; ”your imagination calls up before you horrors which belong to the realm of fable. We still live in a well-regulated state, and however great the influence of France may be, German laws are still valid here; and as we live in a state of peace, I can be judged only in accordance with them. Fear not, therefore, dearest wife. The worst that can befall me will be a separation for a few days, at the most for a few weeks, if our authorities should really carry their fawning submission to Bonaparte to such a length as to call a German citizen to account for having, in his business as a bookseller, circulated a pamphlet--understand me well, a German pamphlet, destined only for Germany, and which does not flatter, perhaps, the Emperor of the French quite as much as is being done by our German princes and our German governments.”
”Oh my G.o.d, my G.o.d,” wailed Anna, in a low voice, ”the pamphlet is directly aimed at Napoleon, then?”