The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859
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Various >> The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859
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The peculiarity, however, about the manikins of Herr Hippe was not alone
the artistic truth with which the limbs and the features were gifted;
but on the countenance of each little puppet the carver's art had
wrought an expression of wickedness that was appalling. Every tiny face
had its special stamp of ferocity. The lips were thin and brimful of
malice; the small black bead-like eyes glittered with the fire of a
universal hate. There was not one of the manikins, male or female, that
did not hold in his or her hand some miniature weapon. The little men,
scowling like demons, clasped in their wooden fingers swords delicate as
a housewife's needle. The women, whose countenances expressed treachery
and cruelty, clutched infinitesimal daggers, with which they seemed
about to take some terrible vengeance.
"Good!" said Madame Filomel, taking one of the manikins out of the box
and examining it attentively; "you work well, Duke Balthazar! These
little ones are of the right stamp; they look as if they had mischief in
them. Ah! here come our brothers."
At this moment the same scratching that preceded the entrance of Madame
Filomel was heard at the door, and Herr Hippe replied with a hoarse,
guttural cry. The next moment two men entered. The first was a small man
with very brilliant eyes. He was wrapt in a long shabby cloak, and wore
a strange nondescript species of cap on his head, such a cap as one
sees only in the low billiard-rooms in Paris. His companion was tall,
long-limbed, and slender; and his dress, although of the ordinary cut,
either from the disposition of colors, or from the careless, graceful
attitudes of the wearer, assumed a certain air of picturesqueness. Both
the men possessed the same marked Oriental type of countenance which
distinguished the Wondersmith and Madame Filomel. True gypsies they
seemed, who would not have been out of place telling fortunes, or
stealing chickens in the green lanes of England, or wandering with their
wild music and their sleight-of-hand tricks through Bohemian villages.
"Welcome, brothers!" said the Wondersmith; "you are in time. Sister
Filomel has brought the souls, and we are about to test them. Monsieur
Kerplonne, take off your cloak. Brother Oaksmith, take a chair. I
promise you some amusement this evening; so make yourselves comfortable.
Here is something to aid you."
And while the Frenchman Kerplonne, and his tall companion, Oaksmith,
were obeying Hippe's invitation, he reached over to a little closet let
into the wall, and took thence a squat bottle and some glasses, which he
placed on the table.
"Drink, brothers!" he said; "it is not Christian blood, but good stout
wine of Oporto. It goes right to the heart, and warms one like the
sunshine of the South."
"It is good," said Kerplonne, smacking his lips with enthusiasm.
"Why don't you keep brandy? Hang wine!" cried Oaksmith, after having
swallowed two bumpers in rapid succession.
"Bah! Brandy has been the ruin of our race. It has made us sots and
thieves. It shall never cross my threshold," cried the Wondersmith, with
a sombre indignation.
"A little of it is not bad, though, Duke," said the fortune-teller. "It
consoles us for our misfortunes; it gives us the crowns we once wore; it
restores to us the power we once wielded; it carries us back, as if by
magic, to that land of the sun from which fate has driven us; it darkens
the memory of all the evils that we have for centuries suffered."
"It is a devil; may it be cursed!" cried Herr Hippe, passionately. "It
is a demon that stole from me my son, the finest youth in all Courland.
Yes! my son, the son of the Waywode Balthazar, Grand Duke of Lower
Egypt, died raving in a gutter, with an empty brandy-bottle in his
hands. Were it not that the plant is a sacred one to our race, I would
curse the grape and the vine that bore it."
This outburst was delivered with such energy that the three gypsies
kept silence. Oaksmith helped himself to another glass of Port, and the
fortune-teller rocked to and fro in her chair, too much overawed by
the Wondersmith's vehemence of manner to reply. The little Frenchman,
Kerplonne, took no part in the discussion, but seemed lost in admiration
of the manikins, which he took from the box in which they lay, handling
them with the greatest care. After the silence had lasted for about a
minute, Herr Hippe broke it with the sudden question,--
"How does your eye get on, Kerplonne?"
"Excellently, Duke. It is finished. I have it here." And the little
Frenchman put his hand into his breeches-pocket and pulled out a large
artificial human eye. Its great size was the only thing in this eye that
would lead any one to suspect its artificiality. It was at least twice
the size of life; but there was a fearful speculative light in its iris,
which seemed to expand and contract like the eye of a living being, that
rendered it a horrible staring paradox. It looked like the naked eye of
the Cyclops, torn from his forehead, and still burning with wrath and
the desire for vengeance.
The little Frenchman laughed pleasantly as he held the eye in his hand,
and gazed down on that huge dark pupil, that stared back at him, it
seemed, with an air of defiance and mistrust.
"It is a devil of an eye," said the little man, wiping the enamelled
surface with an old silk pocket-handkerchief; "it reads like a demon. My
niece--the unhappy one--has a wretch of a lover, and I have a long
time feared that she would run away with him. I could not read her
correspondence, for she kept her writing-desk closely locked. But I
asked her yesterday to keep this eye in some very safe place for me. She
put it, as I knew she would, into her desk, and by its aid I read every
one of her letters. She was to run away next Monday, the ungrateful! but
she will find herself disappointed."
And the little man laughed heartily at the success of his stratagem, and
polished and fondled the great eye until that optic seemed to grow sore
with rubbing.
"And you have been at work, too, I see, Herr Hippe. Your manikins are
excellent. But where are the souls?"
"In that bottle," answered the Wondersmith, pointing to the pot-bellied
black bottle that Madame Filomel had brought with her. "Yes, Monsieur
Kerplonne," he continued, "my manikins are well made. I invoked the aid
of Abigor, the demon of soldiery, and he inspired me. The little fellows
will be famous assassins when they are animated. We will try them
to-night."
"Good!" cried Kerplonne, rubbing his hands joyously. "It is close upon
New Year's Day. We will fabricate millions of the little murderers
by New Year's Eve, and sell them in large quantities; and when the
households are all asleep, and the Christian children are waiting for
Santa Claus to come, the small ones will troop from their boxes and the
Christian children will die. It is famous! Health to Abigor!"
"Let us try them at once," said Oaksmith. "Is your daughter, Zonela, in
bed, Herr Hippe? Are we secure from intrusion?"
"No one is stirring about the house," replied the Wondersmith, gloomily.
Filomel leaned over to Oaksmith, and said, in an undertone,--
"Why do you mention his daughter? You know he does not like to have her
spoken about."
"I will take care that we are not disturbed," said Kerplonne, rising. "I
will put my eye outside the door, to watch."
He went to the door and placed his great eye upon the floor with tender
care. As he did so, a dark form, unseen by him or his second vision,
glided along the passage noiselessly and was lost in the darkness.
"Now for it!'" exclaimed Madame Filomel, taking up her fat black bottle.
"Herr Hippe, prepare your manikins!"
The Wondersmith took the little dolls out, one by one, and set them upon
the table. Such an array of villanous countenances was never seen. An
army of Italian bravos, seen through the wrong end of a telescope, or a
hand of prisoners at the galleys in Liliput, will give some faint idea
of the appearance they presented. While Madame Filomel uncorked the
black bottle, Herr Hippe covered the dolls over with a species of linen
tent, which he took also from the box. This done, the fortune-teller
held the mouth of the bottle to the door of the tent, gathering the
loose cloth closely round the glass neck. Immediately, tiny noises
were heard inside the tent. Madame Filomel removed the bottle, and the
Wondersmith lifted the covering in which he had enveloped his little
people.
A wonderful transformation had taken place. Wooden and inflexible no
longer, the crowd of manikins were now in full motion. The beadlike eyes
turned, glittering, on all sides; the thin, wicked lips quivered with
bad passions; the tiny hands sheathed and unsheathed the little swords
and daggers. Episodes, common to life, were taking place in every
direction. Here two martial manikins paid court to a pretty sly-faced
female, who smiled on each alternately, but gave her hand to be kissed
to a third manikin, an ugly little scoundrel, who crouched behind her
back. There a pair of friendly dolls walked arm in arm, apparently on
the best terms, while, all the time, one was watching his opportunity to
stab the other in the back.
"I think they'll do," said the Wondersmith, chuckling, as he watched
these various incidents. "Treacherous, cruel, bloodthirsty. All goes
marvellously well. But stay! I will put the grand test to them."
So saying, he drew a gold dollar from his pocket, and let it fall on the
table in the very midst of the throng of manikins. It had hardly touched
the table, when there was a pause on all sides. Every head was turned
towards the dollar. Then about twenty of the little creatures rushed
towards the glittering coin. One, fleeter than the rest, leaped upon it,
and drew his sword. The entire crowd of little people had now gathered
round this new centre of attraction. Men and women struggled and shoved
to get nearer to the piece of gold. Hardly had the first Liliputian
mounted upon the treasure, when a hundred blades flashed back a defiant
answer to his, and a dozen men, sword in hand, leaped upon the yellow
platform and drove him off at the sword's point. Then commenced a
general battle. The miniature faces were convulsed with rage and
avarice. Each furious doll tried to plunge dagger or sword into his or
her neighbor, and the women seemed possessed by a thousand devils.
"They will break themselves into atoms," cried Filomel, as she
watched with eagerness this savage _melee_. "You had better gather them
up, Herr Hippe. I will exhaust my bottle and suck all the souls back
from them."
"Oh, they are perfect devils! they are magnificent little demons!" cried
the Frenchman, with enthusiasm. "Hippe, you are a wonderful man. Brother
Oaksmith, you have no such man as Hippe among your English gypsies."
"Not exactly," answered Oaksmith, rather sullenly, "not exactly. But
we have men there who can make a twelve-year-old horse look like a
four-year-old,--and who can take you and Herr Hippe up with one hand,
and throw you over their shoulders."
"The good God forbid!" said the little Frenchman. "I do not love such
play. It is incommodious."
While Oaksmith and Kerplonne were talking, the Wondersmith had placed
the linen tent over the struggling dolls, and Madame Filomel, who had
been performing some mysterious manipulations with her black bottle, put
the mouth once more to the door of the tent. In an instant the confused
murmur within ceased. Madame Filomel corked the bottle quickly. The
Wondersmith withdrew the tent, and, lo! the furious dolls were once
more wooden-jointed and inflexible; and the old sinister look was again
frozen on their faces.
"They must have blood, though," said Herr Hippe, as he gathered them up
and put them into their box. "Mr. Pippel, the bird-fancier, is asleep. I
have a key that opens his door. We will let them loose among the birds;
it will be rare fun."
"Magnificent!" cried Kerplonne. "Let us go on the instant. But first let
me gather up my eye."
The Frenchman pocketed his eye, after having given it a polish with the
silk handkerchief; Herr Hippe extinguished the lamp; Oaksmith took a
last bumper of Port; and the four gypsies departed for Mr. Pippel's,
carrying the box of manikins with them.
III.
SOLON.
The shadow that glided along the dark corridor, at the moment that
Monsieur Kerplonne deposited his sentinel eye outside the door of the
Wondersmith's apartment, sped swiftly through the passage and ascended
the stairs to the attic. Here the shadow stopped at the entrance to one
of the chambers and knocked at the door. There was no reply.
"Zonela, are you asleep?" said the shadow, softly.
"Oh, Solon, is it you?" replied a sweet low voice from within. "I
thought it was Herr Hippe. Come in."
The shadow opened the door and entered. There were neither candles nor
lamp in the room; but through the projecting window, which was open,
there came the faint gleams of the starlight, by which one could
distinguish a female figure seated on a low stool in the middle of the
floor.
"Has he left you without light again, Zonela?" asked the shadow, closing
the door of the apartment. "I have brought my little lantern with me,
though."
"Thank you, Solon," answered she called Zonela; "you are a good fellow.
He never gives me any light of an evening, but bids me go to bed. I like
to sit sometimes and look at the moon and the stars,--the stars more
than all; for they seem all the time to look right back into my face,
very sadly, as if they would say, 'We see you, and pity you, and would
help you, if we could.' But it is so mournful to be always looking at
such myriads of melancholy eyes! and I long so to read those nice books
that you lend me, Solon!"
By this time the shadow had lit the lantern and was a shadow no longer.
A large head, covered with a profusion of long blonde hair, which was
cut after that fashion known as a _l'enfants d'Edouard;_ a beautiful
pale face, lit with wide, blue, dreamy eyes; long arms and slender
hands, attenuated legs, and--an enormous hump;--such was Solon, the
shadow. As soon as the humpback had lit the lamp, Zonela arose from
the low stool on which she had been seated, and took Solon's hand
affectionately in hers.
Zonela was surely not of gypsy blood. That rich auburn hair, that looked
almost black in the lamp-light, that pale, transparent skin, tinged with
an under-glow of warm rich blood, the hazel eyes, large and soft as
those of a fawn, were never begotten of a Zingaro. Zonela was seemingly
about sixteen; her figure, although somewhat thin and angular, was full
of the unconscious grace of youth. She was dressed in an old cotton
print, which had been once of an exceedingly boisterous pattern, but
was now a mere suggestion of former splendor; while round her head was
twisted, in fantastic fashion, a silk handkerchief of green ground
spotted with bright crimson. This strange headdress gave her an elfish
appearance.
"I have been out all day with the organ, and I am so tired, Solon!--not
sleepy, but weary, I mean. Poor Furbelow was sleepy, though, and he's
gone to bed."
"I'm weary, too, Zonela;--not weary as you are, though, for I sit in my
little book-stall all day long, and do not drag round an organ and a
monkey and play old tunes for pennies,--but weary of myself, of life, of
the load that I carry on my shoulders"; and, as he said this, the poor
humpback glanced sideways, as if to call attention to his deformed
person.
"Well, but you ought not to be melancholy amidst your books, Solon.
Gracious! If I could only sit in the sun and read as you do, how happy
I should be! But it's very tiresome to trudge round all day with that
nasty organ, and look up at the houses, and know that you are annoying
the people inside; and then the boys play such bad tricks on poor
Furbelow, throwing him hot pennies to pick up, and burning his poor
little hands; and oh! sometimes, Solon, the men in the street make me
so afraid,--they speak to me and look at me so oddly!--I'd a great deal
rather sit in your book-stall and read."
"I have nothing but odd volumes in my stall," answered the humpback.
"Perhaps that's right, though; for, after all, I'm nothing but an odd
volume myself."
"Come, don't be melancholy, Solon. Sit down and tell me a story. I'll
bring Furbelow to listen."
So saying, she went to a dusk corner of the cheerless attic-room, and
returned with a little Brazilian monkey in her arms,--a poor, mild,
drowsy thing, that looked as if it had cried itself to sleep. She sat
down on her little stool, with Furbelow in her lap, and nodded her head
to Solon, as much as to say, "Go on; we are attentive."
"You want a story, do you?" said the humpback, with a mournful smile.
"Well, I'll tell you one. Only what will your father say, if he catches
me here?"
"Herr Hippe is not my father," cried Zonela, indignantly. "He's a gypsy,
and I know I'm stolen; and I'd run away from him, if I only knew where
to run to. If I were his child, do you think that he would treat me
as he does? make me trudge round the city, all day long, with
a barrel-organ and a monkey,--though I love poor dear little
Furbelow,--and keep me up in a garret, and give me ever so little to
eat? I know I'm not his child, for he hates me."
"Listen to my story, Zonela, and well talk of that afterwards. Let me
sit at your feet";--and, having coiled himself up at the little maiden's
feet, he commenced:--
"There once lived in a great city, just like this city of New York, a
poor little hunchback. He kept a second-hand book-stall, where he made
barely enough money to keep body and soul together. He was very sad at
times, because he knew scarce any one, and those that he did know did
not love him. He had passed a sickly, secluded youth. The children of
his neighborhood would not play with him, for he was not made like them;
and the people in the streets stared at him with pity, or scoffed at
him when he went by. Ah! Zonela, how his poor heart was wrung with
bitterness when he beheld the procession of shapely men and fine women
that every day passed him by in the thoroughfares of the great city! How
he repined and cursed his fate as the torrent of fleet-footed firemen
dashed past him to the toll of the bells, magnificent in their
overflowing vitality and strength! But there was one consolation left
him,--one drop of honey in the jar of gall, so sweet that it ameliorated
all the bitterness of life. God had given him a deformed body, but his
mind was straight and healthy. So the poor hunchback shut himself into
the world of books, and was, if not happy, at least contented. He kept
company with courteous paladins, and romantic heroes, and beautiful
women; and this society was of such excellent breeding that it never so
much as once noticed his poor crooked back or his lame walk. The love
of books grew upon him with his years. He was remarked for his studious
habits; and when, one day, the obscure people that he called father and
mother--parents only in name--died, a compassionate book-vendor gave
him enough stock in trade to set up a little stall of his own. Here, in
his book-stall, he sat in the sun all day, waiting for the customers
that seldom came, and reading the fine deeds of the people of the
ancient time, or the beautiful thoughts of the poets that had warmed
millions of hearts before that hour, and still glowed for him with
undiminished fire. One day, when he was reading some book, that, small
as it was, was big enough to shut the whole world out from him, he heard
some music in the street. Looking up from his book, he saw a little
girl, with large eyes, playing an organ, while a monkey begged for alms
from a crowd of idlers who had nothing in their pockets but their hands.
The girl was playing, but she was also weeping. The merry notes of the
polka were ground out to a silent accompaniment of tears. She looked
very sad, this organ-girl, and her monkey seemed to have caught the
infection, for his large brown eyes were moist, as if he also wept. The
poor hunchback was struck with pity, and called the little girl over to
give her a penny,--not, dear Zonela, because he wished to bestow alms,
but because he wanted to speak with her. She came, and they talked
together. She came the next day,--for it turned out that they were
neighbors,--and the next, and, in short, every day. They became friends.
They were both lonely and afflicted, with this difference, that she was
beautiful, and he--was a hunchback."
"Why, Solon," cried Zonela, "that's the very way you and I met!"
"It was then," continued Solon, with a faint smile, "that life seemed to
have its music. A great harmony seemed to the poor cripple to fill the
world. The carts that took the flour-barrels from the wharves to the
store-houses seemed to emit joyous melodies from their wheels. The hum
of the great business-streets sounded like grand symphonies of triumph.
As one who has been travelling through a barren country without much
heed feels with singular force the sterility of the lands he has passed
through when he reaches the fertile plains that lie at the end of his
journey, so the humpback, after his vision had been freshened with this
blooming flower, remembered for the first time the misery of the life
that he had led. But he did not allow himself to dwell upon the past.
The present was so delightful that it occupied all his thoughts. Zonela,
he was in love with the organ-girl."
"Oh, that's so nice!" said Zonela, innocently,--pinching poor Furbelow,
as she spoke, in order to dispel a very evident snooze that was creeping
over him. "It's going to be a love-story."
"Ah! but, Zonela, he did not know whether she loved him in return. You
forget that he was deformed."
"But," answered the girl, gravely, "he was good."
A light like the flash of an aurora illuminated Solon's face for an
instant. He put out his hand suddenly, as if to take Zonela's and press
it to his heart; but an unaccountable timidity seemed to arrest the
impulse, and he only stroked Furbelow's head,--upon which that
individual opened one large brown eye to the extent of the eighth of an
inch, and, seeing that it was only Solon, instantly closed it again, and
resumed his dream of a city where there were no organs and all the
copper coin of the realm was iced.
"He hoped and feared," continued Solon, in a low, mournful voice; "but
at times he was very miserable, because he did not think it possible
that so much happiness was reserved for him as the love of this
beautiful, innocent girl. At night, when he was in bed, and all the
world was dreaming, he lay awake looking up at the old books that hung
against the walls, thinking how he could bring about the charming of her
heart. One night, when he was thinking of this, with his eyes fixed
upon the mouldy backs of the odd volumes that lay on their shelves, and
looked back at him wistfully, as if they would say,--'We also are like
you, and wait to be completed,'--it seemed as if he heard a rustle of
leaves. Then, one by one, the books came down from their places to the
floor, as if shifted by invisible hands, opened their worm-eaten covers,
and from between the pages of each the hunchback saw issue forth a
curious throng of little people that danced here and there through the
apartment. Each one of these little creatures was shaped so as to bear
resemblance to some one of the letters of the alphabet. One tall,
long-legged fellow seemed like the letter A; a burly fellow, with a big
head and a paunch, was the model of B; another leering little chap might
have passed for a Q; and so on through the whole. These fairies--for
fairies they were--climbed upon the hunchback's bed, and clustered thick
as bees upon his pillow. 'Come!' they cried to him, 'we will lead you
into fairy-land.' So saying, they seized his hand, and he suddenly found
himself in a beautiful country, where the light did not come from sun
or moon or stars, but floated round and over and in everything like the
atmosphere. On all sides he heard mysterious melodies sung by strangely
musical voices. None of the features of the landscape were definite;
yet when he looked on the vague harmonies of color that melted one into
another before his sight, he was filled with a sense of inexplicable
beauty. On every side of him fluttered radiant bodies which darted to
and fro through the illumined space. They were not birds, yet they flew
like birds; and as each one crossed the path of his vision, he felt a
strange delight flash through his brain, and straightway an interior
voice seemed to sing beneath the vaulted dome of his temples a verse
containing some beautiful thought. The little fairies were all this
time dancing and fluttering around him, perching on his head, on his
shoulders, or balancing themselves on his finger-tips. 'Where am I?' he
asked, at last, of his friends, the fairies. 'Ah! Solon,' he heard them
whisper, in tones that sounded like the distant tinkling of silver
bells, 'this land is nameless; but those whom we lead hither, who tread
its soil, and breathe its air, and gaze on its floating sparks of light,
are poets forevermore!' Having said this, they vanished, and with
them the beautiful indefinite land, and the flashing lights, and the
illumined air; and the hunchback found himself again in bed, with the
moonlight quivering on the floor, and the dusty books on their shelves,
grim and mouldy as ever."
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