Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol III, No 13, 1851. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.
hours, when, rocked by the surging motion of the large ship, hearing in half distinctness the words of the "Pfarrer's" reading, I followed out little fancies – now self-originating, now rising from the theme of the poet's musings.
How softly the cloud shadows moved over the white sails and swept along the bright deck! How pleasantly the water rippled against the vessel's side! With what a glad sound the great ensign flapped and fluttered in the breeze! There was light, and life, and motion on every side, and I felt all the intoxication of enjoyment.
And like a dream was the portion of my life which followed. I accompanied the Pfarrer to a small settlement near "Crown Point," where he was to take up his residence as minister. Here we lived amid a population of about four or five hundred Germans, principally from Pomerania, on the shores of the Baltic, a peaceful, thrifty, quiet set of beings, who, content with the little interests revolving around themselves, never troubled their heads about the great events of war or politics; and here in all likelihood should I have been content to pass my days, when an accidental journey I made to Albany, to receive some letters for the Pfarrer, once more turned the fortune of my life.
It was a great incident in the quiet monotony of my life, when I set out one morning, arrayed in a full suit of coarse glossy black, with buttons like small saucers, and a hat whose brim almost protected my shoulders. I was, indeed, an object of very considerable envy to some, and I hope, also, not denied the admiring approval of some others. Had the respectable city I was about to visit been the chief metropolis of a certain destination which I must not name, the warnings I received about its dangers, dissipations, and seductions, could scarcely have been more earnest or impressive. I was neither to speak with, nor even to look at, those I met in the streets. I was carefully to avoid taking my meals at any of the public eating-houses, rigidly guarding myself from the contamination of even a chance acquaintance. It was deemed as needless to caution me against theatres or places of amusement, as to hint to me that I should not commit a highway robbery or a murder, and so, in sooth, I should myself have felt it. The patriarchal simplicity in which I had lived for above a year, had not been without its effect in subduing exaggerated feeling, or controlling that passion for excitement so common to youth. I felt a kind of drowsy, dreamy languor over me, which I sincerely believed represented a pious and well-regulated temperament. Perhaps in time it might have become such. Perhaps with others, more happily constituted, the impression would have been confirmed and fixed; but in my case it was a mere lacker that the first rubbing in the world was sure to brush off.
I arrived safely at Albany, and having presented myself at the bank of Gabriel Shultze, was desired to call the following morning, when all the letters and papers of Gottfried Kröller should be delivered to me. A very cold invitation to supper was the only hospitality extended to me. This I declined on pretext of weariness, and set out to explore the town, to which my long residence in rural life imparted a high degree of interest.
I don't know what it may now be: doubtless a great capital, like one of the European cities; but at the time I speak of, Albany was a strange, incongruous assemblage of stores and wooden houses, great buildings like granaries, with whole streets of low sheds around them, where open to the passer-by, men worked at various trades, and people followed out the various duties of domestic life in sight of the public; the daughters knitted and sewed; mothers cooked and nursed their children; men ate, and worked, and smoked, and sang, as if in all the privacy of closed dwellings, while a thick current of population poured by, apparently too much immersed in their own cares, or too much accustomed to the scene, to give it more than passing notice.
It was curious how one bred and born in the great city of Paris, with all its sights and sounds, and scenes of excitement and display, could have been so rusticated by time, as to feel a lively interest in surveying the motley aspect of this quaint town. There were, it is true, features in the picture very unlike the figures in "Old World" landscape. A group of red men, seated around a fire in the open street, or a squaw carrying on her back a baby, firmly tied to a piece of curved bark; a Southern-stater, with a spanking wagon-team, and two grinning negroes behind, were new and strange elements in the life of a city. Still, the mere movement, the actual busy stir and occupation of the inhabitants, attracted me as much as any thing else; and the shops and stalls where trades were carried on were a seduction I could not resist.
The strict puritanism in which I had lately lived taught me to regard all these things with a certain degree of distrust. They were the impulses of that gold-seeking passion of which Gottfried had spoken so frequently; they were the great vice of that civilization, whose luxurious tendency he often deplored; and here, now, more than one-half around me were arts that only ministered to voluptuous tastes. Brilliant articles of jewelry; gay cloaks, worked with wampum, in Indian taste; ornamental turning, and costly weapons, inlaid with gold and silver, succeeded each other, street after street; and the very sight of them, however pleasurable to the eye, set me a-moralizing, in a strain that would have done credit to a son of Geneva. It might have been, that in my enthusiasm I uttered half aloud what I intended for soliloquy: or perhaps some gesture, or peculiarity of manner, had the effect; but so it was: I found myself an object of notice; and my queer-cut coat and wide hat, contrasting so strangely with my youthful appearance and slender make, drew many a criticism on me.
"He ain't a Quaker, that's a fact," cried one, "for they don't wear black."
"He's a down-Easter – a horse jockey chap, I'll be bound," cried another. "They put on all manner of disguises and 'masqueroonings.' I know 'em!"
"He's a calf preacher – a young bottle-nosed Gospeller," broke in a thick, short fellow, like the skipper of a merchant ship. "Let's have him out for a preachment."
"Ay, you're right," chimed in another. "I'll get you a sugar hogshead in no time;" and away he ran on the mission.
Between twenty and thirty persons had now collected; and I saw myself, to my unspeakable shame and mortification, the centre of all their looks and speculations. A little more aplomb or knowledge of life would have taught me coolness enough in a few words to undeceive them: but such a task was far above me now; and I saw nothing for it but flight. Could I only have known which way to take, I need not have feared any pursuer, for I was a capital runner, and in high condition; but of the locality I was utterly ignorant, and should only surrender myself to mere chance. With a bold rush, then, I dashed right through the crowd, and set off down the street, the whole crew after me. The dusk of the closing evening was in my favor; and although volunteers were enlisted in the chase at every corner and turning, I distanced them, and held on my way in advance. My great object being not to turn on my course, lest I should come back to my starting point, I directed my steps nearly straight onward, clearing apple-stalls and fruit tables at a bound; and more than once taking a flying leap over an Indian's fire, when the mad shout of the red man would swell the chorus that followed me. At last I reached a network of narrow lanes and alleys, by turning and winding through which, I speedily found myself in a quiet secluded spot, with here and there a flickering candle-light from the windows, but no other sign of habitation. I looked anxiously about for an open door; but they were all safe barred and fastened; and it was only on turning a corner I spied what seemed to me a little shop, with a solitary lamp over the entrance. A narrow canal, crossed by a rickety old bridge, led to this; and the moment I had crossed over, I seized the single plank which formed the footway, and shoved it into the stream. My retreat being thus secured, I opened the door, and entered. It was a barber's shop; at least, so a great chair before a cracked old looking glass, with some well-worn combs and brushes, bespoke it; but the place seemed untenanted, and although I called aloud several times, none came or responded to my summons.
I now took a survey of the spot which seemed of the poorest imaginable. A few empty pomatum pots, a case of razors that might have defied the most determined suicide, and a half-finished wig, on a block painted like a red man, were the entire stock in trade. On the walls, however, were some colored prints of the battles of the French army in Germany and Italy. Execrably done things they were, but full of meaning and interest to my eyes in spite of that. With all the faults of drawing and all the travesties of costume, I could recognize different corps of the service, and my heart bounded as I gazed on the tall shakos swarming to a breach, or the loose jacket as it floated from the hussar in a charge. All the wild pleasures of soldiering rose once more to my mind, and I thought over old comrades who doubtless were now earning the high