Over the Plum Pudding

"And yet he was rarely cross, and never disobedient. It was the strangest thing in the world. Here was a being who always frowned and never laughed, and yet who was as obliging in his actions as could be. As he grew older his active amiability increased, but his frown grew more terrible than ever. He became a great wit. As he walked through the streets of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz he was always merry, though none would have guessed it to look at him. He had a pleasant voice, and his neighbors all said it was a most startling thing to hear in the distance a jolly, roistering song, and then to walk along a little way and see that it was this forbidding-looking person who was doing the singing.

"How Rupert got Wilhelmina de Grootzenburg to become his wife, considering his seeming solemnity, which made him appear to be positively ugly, nobody ever knew. It is probable, however, that it was sympathy which moved her to like him, unless it was that his ugliness fascinated her. Rupert himself said that it was not sympathy for his inability to laugh or smile, because he did not want sympathy for that. He didn't feel badly about it himself. He never had smiled, and so did not know the pleasure of it. Consequently he didn't miss it. Smiling was an idiotic way of expressing pleasure anyhow, he said. Why just because a man thought of a funny idea he should stretch his mouth he couldn't see. No more could he understand why it was necessary to show one's appreciation of a funny story by shaking one's stomach and saying Ha-ha! On the whole, he said that he was satisfied. He could talk and could tell people he enjoyed their stories without having to shake himself or disturb the corners of his mouth. When little Fritz was born, and did nothing but laugh even when he had the colic, the solemn-looking Rupert observed that the baby simply proved the truth of what he said.

"'What a donkey the child is,' he cried, 'to spoil his pretty face by stretching his mouth so that you almost fear his ears will drop into it! And those wild whoops, which you call laughter, what earthly use are they? I can't see why, if he is glad about something, he can't just say, "I'm glad about so and so," mildly, instead of making me deaf with his roars. Truly, laughter is not what it is cracked up to be.'

"'Ah, my dear Rupert,' Wilhelmina, his wife, had said, 'you do not really know what you are talking about! If you could enjoy the sensation of laughing once you would never wish to be without it.'

"'Nonsense!' replied the Baron. 'My father never laughed, so why should I wish to?'

"Now, then," continued Hans, "according to Fritz von Pepperpotz's statement, there was where Rupert was wrong. Siegfried von Pepperpotz had known what it was to laugh, but he had not known when to laugh, which was why the family of Von Pepperpotz was afflicted with a curse, which only the final dying out of the family could remove, and there lay the solution of the mystery. It seems that Siegfried von Pepperpotz, grandfather of Fritz and father of Rupert, had been a wild sort of a youth, who smiled when he wished and frowned when he wished, no matter what the occasion may have been, and he smiled once too often. A miserable-looking figure of a man once passed through the village of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, selling sugar dolls and other sweets. To Siegfried and his comrades it seemed good to play a prank on the old fellow. They sent him two miles off into the country, where, they said, was a rich countess, who would buy his whole stock, when in reality there was no rich countess there at all, so that the old man had his trouble for his pains.

"That he was a magician they did not know, but so he was, and in those days magicians could do everything. Of course he was angry at the deception, and on his return to Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz he sent for the young men, and got all of them to apologize and buy his wares except Siegfried. Siegfried not only refused to apologize and buy the old man's candies, but had the audacity to laugh in his face, and tell him about a wealthy old duke who lived two miles out on the other side of the village, which the magician immediately recognized as another attempt to play a practical joke upon him.

"'Enough, Siegfried von Pepperpotz!' he cried, in his rage. 'Laugh away while you can. After to-day may you never smile, and may your son never smile, and may your son's son, willing or unwilling, smile smiles that you two would have smiled, and so may it ever go! May every third generation get the laughter that the preceding two shall lose, according to my curse!'

"This made Siegfried laugh all the harder, for, not knowing, as I have said, that the old man was a magician, he had no fear of him. Next day, however, he changed his mind. He found that he could not laugh. He could not even smile. Try as he would, his lips refused to do his bidding.

"It ruined his disposition. Siegfried von Pepperpotz grew ill over it. The greatest doctors in the world were summoned to his aid, but to no avail. If the curse had ended with him he might not have minded it so much, but after the discovery that from the day of his birth his son Rupert was no more able to laugh than himself he began to brood over the affliction, and shortly died of it; and when Fritz found out from a paper he discovered in a secret drawer in the old chest in the château what the curse was – for Siegfried never told his son, and alone knew from what it was he suffered, and that it was perpetual – he resolved that there should be no further posterity to whom it should be handed down.

"That," said Hans, "is the story of Baron Humpfelhimmel's affliction."

"And a strange story it is," said I. "Though I don't know that it has any particular moral."

"Oh yes, it has!" said Hans. "It has a good moral."

"And what is that?" I asked.

"Don't laugh at your own jokes," he replied. "If Siegfried von Pepperpotz had not laughed when the magician came back, he never would have been cursed, and this story never would have been told."

A Great Composer

Among the best-known residents of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz when Hans Pumpernickel first appeared in that beautiful city were three musicians – Herr von Kärlingtongs, who was the only, and consequently the best, violinist in town, Dr. Otto Teutonstring, and Heinrich Flatz, who had played the 'cello once before the King of Prussia with such effect that the king said he'd never heard anything like it before. The town was naturally very proud of the trio, and particularly of Dr. Teutonstring, who, though far from being a muscular man, had once played the bass-viol for sixteen consecutive hours in the musical contest at the Schnitzelhammerstein carnival, beating by one hour and twenty-two minutes the strongest and most enduring bass-viol player in Germany. They were the most amiable old gentlemen in the world. It very seldom happened that they failed to agree, which was rather wonderful, because it often happens, unhappily, that musicians grow jealous of one another, and say and do things that make it impossible for them to live together peaceably. You may not all of you remember that famous and very sad instance of the lengths to which this jealousy is sometimes allowed to run wherein Luigi Sparragini, the well-known Italian violinist, in his rage at the applause received at a concert by his rival, Siegfried von Heimstetter, broke a Stradivarius violin valued at a thousand pounds over Von Heimstetter's head, to be rebuked in return by Von Heimstetter, who induced Sparragini to look at the mechanism of a grand piano he had, letting the cover fall on the other's head as soon as he had poked it in, thereby utterly ruining the piano and severely injuring Sparragini's nose.

Nothing of this kind, as I have intimated, ever marred the serenity of the three amiable musicians of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz.

"We have no cause each other to be jealous of," Herr von Kärlingtongs had said. "I the fiddle play; they the fiddle do not play."

"True," observed Heinrich Flatz. "The potato just as well the watermelon might be jealous of. If I the fiddle played, then might I Von Kärlingtongs be jealous of. Therefore also already can the same be said regarding Teutonstring. In no manner are we each other the rivals of."

In all of which, as Hans Pumpernickel said to me, there was much common-sense. "Discord is not music," said he, "and if these men were discordant they would not be musicians. If they were not musicians they would have to make a living in some other kind of business. They are not fit for any other kind of business, wherefore they are wise as well as amiable."

The consequence of all this harmony between the three dear old gentlemen was that they were always together. They practised together, and on public occasions they played together, and their fellow-townsmen were delighted with them. At weddings they played the wedding-marches, each as earnestly as though he were playing a solo. At the Mayor's banquets they were always present, adding much to the pleasure of these sumptuous repasts by the soft and beautiful strains which they discoursed. "I am not a king," said Mayor Ehrenbreitstein upon one of these occasions; "but if I were, I could not hear better music. We have an orchestra without a court. What more can we desire?"

"Nothing," said Hans Pumpernickel, "unless it be another tune."

"A good idea," cried one of the aldermen. "Let us have another tune."

And so the cry would go about the board, and the three happy old gentlemen would good-naturedly go to work again and play another tune. It came about very naturally, then, that whenever a rival band of musicians, desirous of wresting the laurels from the respective brows of Herren Von Kärlingtongs, Teutonstring, and Flatz, came to Schnitzelhammerstein, they found them so strongly intrenched in the affections of the people that, while they lived and played in harmony together, no others could hope to make a living from music in that community. They rapidly grew rich; for it came to pass that, with the exception of house rent, and new strings for their instruments, and other mere incidentals of a musician's work, they had no expenses to pay. Their food cost them nothing, they attended so many banquets; and when, occasionally, a day would come upon which no breakfast, luncheon, or dinner required their services, it was always found that they had carried away enough fruit and cake and other dainties from the affairs that had been given to last them through such rare intervals as found them without an engagement.

In other respects, too, did these worthies show themselves entitled to be called wise. Some five years after they began to grow famous in Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz some of their admirers suggested that they ought not to confine themselves to the small town in which they had waxed so great, but should go out into the world and dazzle all mankind by the brilliance of their playing.

"The great orchestras of Austria," said one of these, "do not content themselves with laurels won at home. They travel into far countries, and win fame and fortune all the world over. Why do not you go?"

"We will talk it over," Herr Teutonstring replied. "I for one am opposed to making such a trip, because I am an old man, and my bass-viol is heavy."

"Can you not send it about by freight?" said the man who proposed the scheme.

"Would you send your child by freight?" asked Herr Teutonstring.

"I would not," returned the other.

"No more can I send my bass-viol by freight," said Herr Teutonstring, fondly twanging the strings of his huge instrument. "This is my whole family. I love it as I would a child for whom I must care; as a father who has helped me to become what I am. Nevertheless, we will talk it over."

And they did talk it over, and as a result decided that the world, if it desired to hear them play, must come to Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz.

"If we go," said Herr Von Kärlingtongs, "who will provide music for Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz?"

"Who, indeed?" said Heinrich Flatz, gazing at the floor after the manner of the truly wise man.

"Since you have both asked that question," said Herr Teutonstring, "out of mere politeness I must answer it. My answer is, briefly, I haven't the slightest idea."

"But some one must," persisted Von Kärlingtongs.

"Yes," said the others.

"Then one of two things must happen," said Von Kärlingtongs. "Either by our absence the people of this town must be deprived of good music, which would be very ungrateful of us, who have gained so much profit from them, or they must discover that there are others who can play as well as we do, whereby we would cease to be the greatest in the world – which strikes me as bad policy."

"Von Kärlingtongs," said Heinrich Flatz, with tears of joy in his eyes, "you are not only a musician, you are a thinker."

"Do not flatter me, my dear Flatz," said Von Kärlingtongs, modestly. "You do not know what a struggle it is to me to keep from giving way to pride."

"Well, I agree to all that you have said," said Herr Teutonstring; "and I have to add that, as we are only young in spirit, and as my bass-viol is very heavy, I think we should be content to remain at home."

"Particularly," added Heinrich Flatz, "in view of the fact that there can be but one result. We should succeed. Now where is the gratification in success? Simply in the knowledge that you have succeeded. We know that now. Wherefore why should we put ourselves to inconveniences simply to find out what we already know? Does a man with a pantryful of tarts go seeking tarts? He does not – "

"If he is wise," said Herr Teutonstring.

"And we are wise," added Herr von Kärlingtongs.

"Which settles the point. We'll stay at home," said Herr Flatz.

And they did, and subsequent events showed the wisdom of their course, for in less than a year's time the King came to Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz.

Some said that he stopped there merely because there was a better luncheon-counter at the railway station than anywhere else along the road. Others persisted that his Majesty had heard of the marvellous powers of the three musicians, and, being fond of music, had travelled all the way from the capital, a distance of more than a hundred miles, to hear them. However this was, the fact remained that the King announced that for two hours he would be the guest of the little city concerning which we have spoken so much. The town naturally was all of a flutter, and great preparations were made to receive his Majesty.

"I will make a speech," said the Mayor, "and our orchestra can serenade his Majesty."

"The serenade is a good idea," said Hans Pumpernickel, innocently. "Shall I inform Herr Teutonstring and his fellow-players that that is your opinion?"

"As a rule, I avoid having opinions," said the Mayor, "but in this instance I think it is safe to hazard one. You may inform the gentlemen."

"And the speech?" suggested Hans.

"We'll see about that," said the Mayor. "If I can get a good one, I shall deliver it."

"Very well," said Hans. "I'll try to think of something for you to say. Meanwhile I'll see Von Kärlingtongs."

Hans did as he said, and, despite their wisdom, the three musicians were as much in a flutter as the rest of the city. To play before the King was an unexpected honor, although Heinrich Flatz affected to treat it as quite an ordinary thing.

"He is a very fair judge of music," said Flatz, patronizingly, "for a King. I think that, after all, we'd better do our best."

"Yes," said Von Kärlingtongs, "you are right, as usual, though I will say right here that, in doing my best, I am actuated as much by my loyalty to my art as by any other motive. I always do my best."

"And I also," put in Teutonstring. "Now the question that arises is what is our best?"

"That is indeed the question," said Herr Flatz. "I, having already had the honor to play before his Majesty, am perhaps better fitted than either of you to say what he likes. When I was so distinguished I played Djorski's Symphony in B Minor. Therefore I contend that that is what we should play. His Majesty remarked that he had never heard anything like it before. He would doubtless like to hear it again. Therefore I say that is the thing for us to play."

"Ordinarily," said Teutonstring, "I can agree with Herr Flatz, but this time I cannot. I am at my best in Darmstadter's Oratorio. There can be no question about it that the bass-viol is at its highest, most ennobling point in that composition, which is why I say let us have the Oratorio. The King, having heard the Symphony in B Minor, would naturally rather hear something else. The Symphony, no doubt, would awaken pleasant memories, but the Oratorio would give him something new to remember in the future."

"There is much in what you say, Herr Teutonstring," put in Von Kärlingtongs. "There is also much in what my dear friend Flatz says; but it seems to me that there is more in what I have to say than in the combined suggestions of both of you. The Symphony in B Minor is excellent, the Oratorio is quite as excellent, but neither of them comes up to Dboriak's Moonlight Sonata, which, when I play it, makes me feel as though the whole world lay at my feet – as if I were the King of all creation. Now I am a man; the King is a man; we are both men. It is but natural to suppose that if this Sonata makes me, a man, feel like the King of all creation, it will also make that other man, the King, feel the same way. What is our object in playing before the King? To please him. How can we best please him? Simply by making him feel that he is the King of all creation. Perfectly simple, my dear Flatz. Plain as a pikestaff, Teutonstring. Therefore let us play Dboriak's Moonlight Sonata."

It was thus that the three musicians, who had always hitherto agreed, came to have the first difference of their lives, and what made it seem worse than all was that this difference occurred at a time which seemed to them in their secret hearts to be the greatest event of their lives. Perhaps it was the very importance of this event that made each of them firm in his belief that he was right and the others wrong. Neither would yield to the others, and an hour before the arrival of the royal train found Flatz determined to play the Symphony, Teutonstring determined to play the Oratorio, and Von Kärlingtongs equally immovable in his determination to play the Moonlight Sonata, and nothing else. They labored with one another in vain. Doctor Teutonstring tried to win over Herr Flatz, saying that if together they should play the Oratorio they could let Von Kärlingtongs render the Sonata without much harm, since the bass-viol and 'cello together could drown the sounds of the violin. Herr Flatz would agree to a combination of two against one only in case the Symphony were selected, and when the King arrived no change whatsoever had been made in the determination of the musicians. Ruin stared them in the face, but each preferred ruin to a base surrender of what he thought to be for the best.

Of course, as the King alighted from the train the people cheered, and, when the Mayor rose to greet him with the speech he had to make, they cheered again, but these cheers were as nothing to those which greeted the appearance of the musicians. Many nations had kings; all cities had mayors; what city had such an orchestra? No wonder they cheered.

And then the serenade began.

Herr Flatz resined his bow and began the Symphony in B Minor, while Von Kärlingtongs and Teutonstring, equally determined, started in on the opening measures of the Sonata and Oratorio respectively.

"It's something new they've got up for the occasion," whispered the people, as the three men fiddled away with all their strength.

"A most original composition!" said the King to the Chancellor.

"I never heard such discord in my life," said a small boy on the outskirts of the crowd.

Still they kept on. The Symphony and the Oratorio were longer than the Sonata, so that Von Kärlingtongs soon found himself outdone by his fellow-players, but, nothing daunted, he played the Sonata over again. And so it went, until, with a final grand burst of notes (I was almost about to say harmony), they stopped.

"Magnificent!" said the King.

"A really classic composition," murmured the Chancellor.

And the people shrieked with delight.

The musicians, perspiring with excitement, stood overcome with surprise. They had succeeded beyond their wildest hopes, but the King brought them to their senses in a minute by asking:

"What is the composer's name?"

"What'll we tell him?" moaned Teutonstring. "It will never do to confess what we have done now."

"I'm sure I don't know," returned Flatz, with a shiver.

"The composer's name, sir," replied Von Kärlingtongs, more ready of wit than the others – "the composer's name is – ah – is – "

"Well?" said the King, impatiently.

"It is Kärlingteutonflatz," said Von Kärlingtongs.

"Give him a thousand marks," said the King, "and distribute a thousand more to these gentlemen," he added.

And then the royal party proceeded on its way.

As for the composer, Kärlingteutonflatz, he was never heard of again; but several other eminent musicians modelled their music after his, and obtained a renown that was not only world-wide, but has lasted until this day.

The three musicians of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, when they had recovered from their surprise and excitement, began to smile, and never stopped until they died – and I am not certain that they stopped then – nor did they ever confide their secret to any one but Hans Pumpernickel, who in turn confided it to me, so that this is really the first time the public has been let into the secret origin of what was then the music of the future and what is to-day the music of the present.

How Fritz Became a Wizard

It was a lovely summer afternoon at Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, and Hans Pumpernickel and I, having little else to do, idled along the sylvan path that for five or six miles follows the winding course of the famous little river. Hans was in a very talkative mood that day. He had quite recently been re-elected Mayor of the town in which he lived, after a hard campaign of six weeks, during which time he had not been allowed to say anything, for fear of spoiling his chances of reelection.

"And now that it is over, and I am safely in office once more, I am going to make up for lost time," he said. "Having kept silent for six weeks, I shall now talk three times as much as usual for three. I am fat with suppressed conversation, and I must get rid of it, or I shall burst."

So, as I have told you, he was very talkative, and on that afternoon he told me enough stories to fill an encyclopædia, most of which, I regret to say, I have forgotten, but some of which, also, I remember perfectly. The one telling how Fritz von Hatzfeldt became a wizard was one of these latter, and it seemed to me quite good enough to tell to you. It came about in this way. When nearing the point where the celebrated Baron Laubenheimer, at the risk of his life, once plunged into the Zugvitz to rescue Johanna Johannisberg from drowning – a heroic act, the story of which I hope some day to tell you – we perceived walking ahead of us a strange-looking old gentleman, clad in a long, flowing robe with a border embroidered with mystic figures. He wore spectacles – or, rather, the rims of spectacles, without glass; for, as I learned afterwards, though his eyes were in good condition, his ideas as to the dignity of his profession compelled him to appear as wise as possible, and he had discovered that nothing imparts to the face of man so much of the appearance of wisdom as spectacles.

"That," said Hans Pumpernickel, in response to my question, "is our town wizard, Fritz von Hatzfeldt, and I may add that the town has never had a better one. When I was running for Mayor this last time against Pflueger, who, as you may remember, was the opposing candidate, Von Hatzfeldt was consulted by my friends as to my chances; for, as town wizard, it is his duty to prophesy. His answer was wonderfully quick, and absolutely accurate. 'Who will be elected,' said he, 'Pumpernickel or Pflueger?' 'Yes,' said they, 'that is the question.' 'I will consult the stars,' said Von Hatzfeldt, withdrawing to his observatory. Now, his predecessor, Rosenstein, would have taken a week to return his verdict, but Von Hatzfeldt's strong point is quickness. He remained with the stars no longer than two hours, and then, emerging from his observatory, he said, 'I have consulted, and the heavens tell me that the name of our next Mayor will begin with the letter P.' And it was so. Pumpernickel was elected, and Pflueger was defeated. Was not that an extraordinary, even a wonderful prophecy?"