Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843

"I should give my last shilling to be carrying its colours at this moment," said I, "but unfortunately money is useless there. The Guards are the favourite of royalty, and their commissions naturally go to men of rank and fortune."

"We must go to town and see what is to be done. When will you be ready?" asked my host.

"To-night—this moment—if possible, I should set out."

"No, no, Mr Marston, my movements cannot be quite so expeditious. I must wait for my London letters in the morning. On their arrival we may start, and, by taking four horses, reach town before the Horse Guards closes for the day."

At breakfast next morning Mariamne was not to be seen: she excused herself by a violent headach; and by the countenance of her Abigail, generally a tolerable reflexion of the temper of the female authority of a house, it was evident that I had fallen into disfavour. But how was this to be accounted for? Mordecai, from the lateness of the hour at which we parted, could not have seen her; even if she should condescend to take my matrimonial chillness as an offence. But the mystery was soon, cleared by her answer to the note which contained my farewell. It was simply the enclosure of a few hapless lines of verse, in which the name of Clotilde occurred, and which had been found in the clearance of my chamber preparatory to my journey. This was decisive. Mariamne was a sovereign, who, choose as she might her prime minister, would not suffer her royal attendance to be diminished by the loss of a single slave. I petitioned for a parting word, it was declined; and I had only to regret my poetic error, or my still greater error in not keeping my raptures under lock and key.

As the carriage drew up to the door, Mordecai casually asked me "have you left your card at the Steyne?"

"No," was the reply. "Was it necessary?"

"Absolutely so; the prince has sent frequently to enquire for you during your illness, and of course your leaving the neighbourhood without acknowledging the honour would be impossible."

"Then let us drive there at once," said I.

On reaching the prince's cottage—for cottage it was, and nothing more—the gentleman in waiting who received my card, told me that his Royal highness had desired that whenever I called he should be apprized of my coming, "as he wished to hear the history of the accident from myself." The prince's fondness for hearing every thing out of the common course, was well known; and I had only to obey. I had the honour of an introduction accordingly; was received with all the customary graces of his manner, and even with what attracts still more—with kindness. He enquired into the circumstances, and was evidently taking an interest in such parts of the narrative as I chose to give, when he was interrupted by the arrival of a courier from London. The letters happened to be of importance, and must be answered immediately. "But," said he, with his irresistible smile, "I must not lose your story; we dine at seven. You will probably meet some whom you would be gratified by seeing. Adieu—remember, seven."

This was equivalent to a command, and there was no resource, but to defer my journey for twelve hours more. Mordecai was not unwilling to exchange a dreary drive in which he had no immediate concern, for the comforts of his own home; or perhaps the honour among his neighbours of having for an inmate a guest of the heir-apparent, qualified the delay. Mariamne at our approach fled from the drawing-room like a frightened doe. And at the appointed hour I was at the pretty trellised porch of the prince's residence.

THE DEVIL'S FRILLS

A DUTCH ILLUSTRATION OF THE WATER CURE

CHAPTER I

A stranger who visits Haarlem is not a little astonished to see, hung out from various houses, little frames coquettishly ornamented with squares of the finest lace. His curiosity will lead him to ask the reason of so strange a proceeding. But, however he may push his questions—however persevering he may be in getting at the bottom of the mystery—if he examine and cross-examine fifty different persons, he will get no other answer than—

"These are the devil's frills."

The frills of the devil! Horrible! What possible connexion can there be between those beautiful Valenciennes, those splendid Mechlins, those exquisite Brussels points, and his cloven-footed majesty? Is Haarlem a city of idolaters? Are all these gossamer oblations an offering to Beelzebub?

And are we to believe, in spite of well-authenticated tale and history, that instead of horns and claws, the gentleman in black sports frills and ruffles, as if he were a young dandy in Bond Street?

"These are the devil's frills."

It is my own private opinion that these mystic words contain some prodigiously recondite meaning; or, perhaps, arise from one of those awful incidents, of which Hoffman encountered so many among the ghost-seeing, all-believing Germans. But don't take it on my simple assertion, but judge for yourself. I shall tell you, word for word, the story as it was told to me, and as it is believed by multitudes of people, who believe nothing else, in the good town of Haarlem.

CHAPTER II

Yes,—one other thing everybody in Haarlem believes—and that is, that Guttenberg, and Werner, and Faust, in pretending that they were the discoverers of the art of printing, were egregious specimens of the art of lying; for that that noble discovery was made by no human being save and except an illustrious citizen of Haarlem, and an undeniable proof of it exists in the fact, that his statue is still to be seen in front of the great church. He rejoiced, while living, in the name of Laurentius Castero; and, however much you may be surprised at the claims advanced in his favour, you are hereby strictly cautioned to offer no contradiction to the boastings of his overjoyed compatriots—they are prouder of his glory than of their beer. But his merits did not stop short at casting types. In addition to his enormous learning and profound information, he possessed an almost miraculous mastery of the fiddle. He was a Dutch Paganini, and drew such notes from his instrument, that the burgomaster, in smoking his pipe and listening to the sounds, thought it had a close resemblance to the music of the spheres.

There was only one man in all Haarlem, in all Holland, who did not yield the palm at fiddle-playing to Castero. That one man was no other than Frederick Katwingen, the son of a rich brewer, whom his admirers—more numerous than those of his rival—had called the Dutch Orpheus.

If the laurels of Miltiades disturbed the sleep of Themistocles; if the exploits of Macedonia's madman interfered with the comfort of Julius Cæsar, the glory of Katwingen would not let Castero get a wink of sleep.

What! a man of genius—a philosopher like the doctus Laurentius, not be contented with his fame as discoverer of the art of printing; but to leave his manuscripts, and pica, and pie, to strive for a contemptible triumph, to look with an eye of envy on a competitor for the applauses of a music room! Alas! too true. Who is the man, let me ask you, who can put bounds to his pretensions? Who is the man that does not feel as if the praises of his neighbour were an injury to himself? And if I must speak the whole truth, I am bound to confess that these jealous sentiments were equally entertained by both the musicians. Yes,—if Castero would acknowledge no master, Frederick could not bear that any one should consider himself his rival, and insisted at any rate in treating with him on equal terms. Laurentius, therefore, and the son of the brewer were declared enemies; and the inhabitants of Haarlem were divided into two parties, each ruled over with unlimited power by the fiddlestick of its chief.

It was announced one morning that the Stadtholder would pass through the town in the course of the day. The burgomaster determine to receive the illustrious personage in proper style, and ordered the two rivals to hold themselves in readiness. Here, then, was a contest worthy of them an opportunity of bringing the great question to issue of which of them played the first fiddle in Holland—perhaps in Europe. It fell to Frederick's chance to perform first—in itself a sort of triumph over Laurentius. The Stadtholder entered by the Amsterdam road, attended by his suite—they passed along the street, and stopped under a triumphal arch which had been hastily prepared. The burgomaster made a speech very much like the speeches of burgomasters before and since on similar tremendous occasions; and Frederick finally advanced and made his salaam to the chief magistrate of the United Provinces. The performer knew that the Stadtholder was a judge of music, and this gave him courage to do his best. He began without more ado, and every thing went on at first as he could wish; fountains of harmony gushed out from under his bow. There seemed a soul at the end of each of his fingers, and the countenance of the chief magistrate showed how enchanted he was with his powers. His triumph was on the point of being complete; a few more bars of a movement composed for the occasion—a few magnificent flourishes to show his mastery of the instrument, and Castero will be driven to despair by the superiority of his rival;—but crash! crash!—at the very moment when his melody is steeping the senses of the Stadtholder in Elysium, a string breaks with hideous sound, and the whole effect of his composition is destroyed. A smile jumped instantaneously to the protruding lip of the learned Laurentius, and mocked his mishap: the son of the brewer observed the impertinent smile, and anger gave him courage—the broken string is instantly replaced. The artist rushes full speed into the allegretto—and under the pressure of his hands, burning with rage and genius, the chord breaks again! The fiddle must be bewitched—Frederick became deadly pale—he trembled from head to foot—he was nearly wild.

But the piece he had composed was admirable; he knew it—for in a moment of inspiration he had breathed it into existence from the recesses of his soul. And was he doomed never to play this cherished work to the governor of his country?—An approving motion from that august individual encouraged him to proceed, and he fitted a string for the third time.

Alas, alas! the result is the same—the chord is too much tightened, and breaks in the middle of a note! Humbled and ashamed, Frederick gives up his allegretto. He retires, abashed and heartbroken, and Castero takes his place. Mixed up in the crowd, his eyes swam in tears of rage and disappointment when the frantic applauses of the assemblage—to whom the Stadtholder had set the example—announced to him the triumph of his rival. He is vanquished—vanquished without having had the power to fight—oh, grief! oh, shame! oh, despair!

His friends tried in vain to console him in promising him a brilliant revenge. The son of the brever believed himself eternally disgraced. He rushed into his room, double locked the door and would see nobody. He required solitude—but the wo of the artiste had not yet reached its height. He must drink the cup of humiliation to the dregs. Suddenly innumerable voices penetrated the thick walls of the brewery, and reached the chamber of the defeated candidate. Those voices—Frederick recognized them too well—were those of the faction which acknowledged Castero for their chief. A triumphal march, performed by twenty instruments, in honour of his rival, succeeded in overturning the reason of the unhappy youth. His fiddle was before him on the table—that fiddle which had disappointed his hopes. Exasperated, out of his senses, the brewer's son seized the instrument—a moment he held it aloft at the corner of the chimney, and yielding to the rage that gnawed his soul, he dashed it into a thousand pieces. Faults, like misfortunes, never come single. "Blood calls for blood," says Machiavel—"ruin for ruin."—By that fatal tendency of the human mind never to stop when once we have gone wrong, but to go on from bad to worse, instead of blushing at our folly—Frederick, after that act of vandalism, dashed like a madman out of the brewery. The sight of his instrument in a thousand fragments had completed the business—life was a torment to him. He hurried towards the lake of Haarlem, determined to seek in its gloomy depths a refuge from disgrace.—Poor Frederick!

CHAPTER III

After a quarter of an hour's run across the fields, he arrived at last at the side of the lake, with the sounds of his rival's triumphal march for ever sounding in his ears. The evening breeze, the air from the sea, "the wandering harmonies of earth and sky," were all unable to bring rest to the perturbed spirit of the musician. He was no longer conscious of the sinful act he was about to commit. He shut his eyes—he was just going to throw himself into the water when he felt a hand laid upon his left shoulder. Frederick turned quickly round. He saw at his side a tall man wrapped up in large cloak—in spite of the hot weather—which hid every part of him but his face. His expression was hard, almost repulsive. His eyes shot sinister glances on the youth from beneath the thick eyebrows that overshadowed them. The brewer's son, who had been on the point of facing death without a tremour, grew pale and trembled. He wished to fly, but an irresistible power nailed him to the spot. He was fascinated by the look of the Unknown.

"Madman!" said the stranger in a hollow voice—"madman who cannot resist the first impulse of anger and false shame!"

"Leave me," answered Frederick in his turn; "I am disgraced, and have no resource but to die."

"The triumph of Castero, then—the triumph he owes to luck—has cowed you so that you are afraid to challenge him to another trial?"—rejoined the stranger in an angry tone.

"Every thing is lost," said Frederick, "don't you hear those sounds?" he added, holding his hands out towards the city—"my courage cannot bear up against such mockery—væ victis!—my doom is sealed."

"But you do not yet know the full extent of your rival's victory. There is a young girl who was to have been your wife—a girl who loves you—"

"Maïna!"—cried Frederick, to whom these words restored his recollection.

"Yes, Maïna, the daughter of Jansen Pyl, the burgomaster of Haarlem. Well, encouraged by his success, Castero went to the house, and demanded the hand of her you love."

"What?—what do I hear?"—said Frederick, and looked once more towards the lake.

"The burgomaster never liked you very well, as you are aware. In consenting to receive you as his son-in-law, he yielded more to the wishes of his daughter, to her prayers and tears, than to his preference of you over the other adorers of the Beauty of Haarlem. Castero's fame had long predisposed him in his favour; and the triumph he obtained to-day has entirely won the old man's heart."

"He has promised her?" enquired Frederick in a voice almost inaudible from anxiety.

"To-morrow he will decide between you. You are ignorant of the arrangement entered into; and, yielding to a cowardly impulse, you give up the happiness of your life at the moment it is in your grasp. Listen. The Stadtholder, who did not intend to remain at Haarlem, has accepted the invitation of the burgomaster, and will not leave the city till to-morrow afternoon. That illustrious personage has expressed a wish to hear again the two performers who pleased him so much, and his patronage is promised to the successful candidate in the next trial. He is a judge of music—he perceived the fineness of your touch, and saw that it was a mere accident which was the cause of your failure. Do you understand me now? Maïna will be the wife of the protégé of the Stadtholder—and you give up your affianced bride if you refuse to measure your strength once more against Castero."

The explanation brought tears into Frederick's eyes. In his agony as a musician he had forgotten the object of his love—the fair young girl whose heart was all his own. Absorbed in the one bitter thought of his defeat—of the disgrace he had endured—he had never cast a recollection on the being who, next to his art, was dearer to him than all the world. The fair maid of Haarlem occupied but the second place in the musician's heart; but not less true is it, that to kiss off a tear from the white eyelid of the beautiful Maïna, he would have sacrificed his life. And now to hear that she was about to be carried off by his rival—by Castero—that Castero whom he hated so much—that Maïna was to be the prize of the conqueror! His courage revived. Hope played once more round his heart—he felt conscious of his superiority; but—oh misery!—his fiddle—his Straduarius, which could alone insure his victory—it was lying in a million pieces on his floor!

The Unknown divined what was passing in his mind; a smile of strange meaning stole to his lip. He went close up to Frederick, whose agitated features betrayed the struggle that was going on within. "Maïna will be the reward of the protégé of the Stadtholder, and Castero will be the happy man if you do not contest the prize," he whispered in poor Frederick's ear.

"Alas! my fate is settled—I have no arms to fight with," he answered in a broken voice.

"Does your soul pant for glory?" enquired the stranger.

"More than for life—more than for love—more than for—"

"Go on."

"More than for my eternal salvation!" exclaimed the youth in his despair.

A slight tremour went through the stranger as he heard these words.

"Glory!" he cried, fixing his sparkling eyes on the young man's face "glory, the passion of noble souls—of exalted natures—of superior beings!—Go home to your room, you will find your fiddle restored," he added in a softer tone.

"My fiddle?" repeated Frederick.

"The fiddle of which the wreck bestrewed your chamber when you left it," replied the stranger.

"But who are you?" said Frederick amazed. "You who know what passes in my heart—you whose glances chill me with horror—you, who promise me a miracle which only omnipotence can accomplish. Who are you?"

"Your master," answered the man in the mantle, in an altered voice. "Recollect the words you used a minute or two ago, 'Glory is dearer to me than life—than love—than eternal salvation!' That is quite enough for me; and we must understand each other. Adieu. Your favourite instrument is again whole and entire, and sweeter toned than ever. You will find it on the table in your room. Castero, your rival, will be vanquished in this second trial, and Maïna will be yours—for you are the protégé of a greater than the Stadtholder. Adieu—we shall meet again." On finishing this speech the Unknown advanced to the lake. Immediately the waves bubbled up, and rose in vast billows; and opening with dreadful noise, exposed an unfathomable abyss. At the same moment thunder growled in the sky, the moon hid herself behind a veil of clouds, and the brewer's son, half choked with the smell of brimstone, fell insensible on the ground.

CHAPTER IV

When Frederick came to his senses he found himself in his chamber, seated on the same sofa of Utrecht brocade which he had watered with his tears two hours before. On the table before him lay the fiddle which he had dashed to atoms against the corner of the chimney. On seeing the object of his affection, the enraptured musician, the rival of Castero, rushed towards it with a cry of joyful surprise. He took the instrument in his hands—he devoured it with his eyes, and then, at the summit of his felicity, he clasped it to his bosom. The instrument was perfectly uninjured, without even a mark of the absurd injustice of its owner. Not a crack, not a fissure, only the two gracefully shaped § § to give vent to the double stream of sound. But is he not the victim of some trick—has no other fiddle been substituted for the broken Straduarius? No!—'tis his own well-known fiddle, outside and in—the same delicate proportions, the same elegant neck, and the same swelling rotundity of contour that might have made it a model for the Praxiteles of violins. He placed the instrument against his shoulder and seized the bow. But all of a sudden he paused—a cold perspiration bedewed his face—his limbs could scarcely support him. What if the proof deceives him. What if—; but incertitude was intolerable, and he passed the bow over the strings. Oh blessedness! Frederick recognized the unequalled tones of his instrument—he recognized its voice, so clear, so melting, and yet so thrilling and profound,

"The charm is done,Life to the dead returns at last,And to the corpse a soul has past."

Now, then, with his fiddle once more restored to him, with love in his heart, and hatred also lending its invigorating energies, he felt that the future was still before him, and that Castero should pay dearly for his triumph of the former day.

When these transports had a little subsided, Frederick could reflect on the causes which gave this new turn to his thoughts. The defeat he had sustained—his insane anger against his Straduarius—his attempt at suicide—his meeting with the stranger, and his extraordinary disappearance amidst the waves of the lake.

But, with the exception of the first of these incidents, had any of them really happened? He could not believe it. Was it not rather the sport of a deceitful dream? His fiddle—he held it in his hands—he never could have broken it. In fact, the beginning of it all was his despair at being beaten, and he was indebted to his excited imagination for the rest—the suicide, the lake, and the mysterious Unknown.

"That must be it," he cried at last, delighted at finding a solution to the mystery, and walking joyously up and down his chamber. "I have had a horrible dream—a dream with my eyes open; that is all."

Two gentle taps at the door made him start; but the visitor was only one of the brewery boys, who gave him a letter from the burgomaster.

"Yoran, did you see me go out about two hours ago?" asked Frederick anxiously.

"No, meinheer," said the boy.

"And you did not see me come in?"

"No, meinheer."

"That's all right," said the youth, signing for Yoran to retire. "Now, then," he said, "there can be no doubt whatever that it was all a dream." Opening the burgomaster's letter, he ran through it in haste. The first magistrate of Haarlem informed Frederick Katwingen that he had an important communication to make to him, and requested him to come to his house.

The musician again placed his lips on his instrument, and again pressed it gratefully to his heart; and then placed it with the utmost care within its beautiful case, which he covered with a rich cloth. Locking the case, and looking at it as a mother might look at the cradle of her new-born baby, he betook himself to the mansion of Jansen Pyl.

That stately gentleman was luxuriously reposing in an immense armchair, covered with Hungary leather. His two elbows rested on the arms and enabled him to support in his hands the largest, the reddest, the fattest face that had ever ornamented the configuration of a Dutch functionary before. Mr Jansen Pyl wore at that moment the radiant look of satisfaction which only a magistrate can assume who feels conscious that he is in the full sunshine of the approbation of his sovereign. His whole manner betrayed it—the smile upon his lip, the fidgety motion of his feet, and the look which he darted from time to time around the room, as if to satisfy himself that his happiness was "not a sham but a reality." But his happiness seemed far from contagious. On his right hand there was a lovely creature, seated on a footstool, who did not partake his enjoyment. There was something so sweet and so harmonious in her expression, that you felt sure at once she was as good as she was beautiful. There was poetry also in her dejected attitude, and in the long lashes that shadowed her blue eyes; nor was the charm diminished by the marble neck bent lowly down, and covered with long flowing locks of the richest brown. And the poetry was, perhaps, increased by the contrast offered by the sorrowing countenance of the girl to the radiant visage of the plethoric individual in the chair. Whilst the ambitious thoughts of the burgomaster rose to the regions inhabited by the Stadtholder, the poor girl's miserable reflections returned upon herself. Her eyes were dimmed with tears. It was easy to see that that had long been their occupation, and that some secret sorrow preyed upon the repose of the fair maid of Haarlem.