Read Ebook: Mein Weg als Deutscher und Jude by Wassermann Jakob

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Ebook has 1478 lines and 58010 words, and 30 pages

"They are martyrs!" cried the girl; "and you are a coward!"

"No, no!" he wailed, and wrung his hands; and "My God! she will murder me!" he shrieked.

Suddenly he saw, darted through the ring of ruffians, and caught the breast of my coat with both his hands.

His dry lips vibrated; he danced up and down like a gnat on a window-pane. All the time the women were volubly chattering and the men cursing and pulling. They desired, it seemed, a prologue to the second act of the tragedy; and that was bad art. But then they were as drunk as one could wish.

The beastly proposal was not too gross for the occasion. A man lurched forward with a jeering oath, and I--I sprang to the front too, and took the hound by his gulping throat. There came a great noise about me; I did not relax my hold, and some one rushed into our midst.

"What do you here!" he cried, harshly . "Death of God! have you orders to insult and threaten peaceable citizens who walk abroad to see the illuminations?"

With a fierce sweep of his arms he cleared all away in front of him. The act--the gesture, brought him to my side.

"Go--escape!" he whispered, frantically. "This, here, I will attend to."

"You knew, then?" I gasped out; and he fell back from me.

Then, with a howl of fury, it turned upon me--

"Accursed! thou dost well to dispute the people's will!"

"See his fine monseigneur hands, washed white in a bath of milk, while the peasants drank rotten water!"

"He will think to cow us with a look. He cannot disabuse himself of the tradition. Down with the dog of an aristocrat!"

"But if he is Brunswick's courier--Brunswick that would dine in Paris on the boiling hearts of patriots!"

I was backing slowly towards the gate as they followed reviling me. What would you? I could not help others; I would take my own destinies in hand. Here, in deadly personal peril, I felt my feet on the good earth once more, and found restoration of my reason in a violence of action. There was no assistance possible. Paris this night was a menagerie, in which all beasts of prey and of burden were released from restraint to resolve for themselves the question of survival.

I leaned my shoulder--to the wall, as I thought; but the wall gave to my pressure, and I stumbled and went through it with a sliding run, while something flapped to, grievously scoring my shins in its passing. I was on my feet in an instant, however, and then I saw that I had broken, by way of a swing-door, into a little dusty lobby, to one side of which was a wicket and pay-place, and thence a flight of wooden stairs ran aloft to some chamber from which flowed down a feeble radiance of light.

I pushed through the wicket and went softly and rapidly up the stairs. At the top I came upon a sight that at first astounded, then inspired me.

I went down the row gingerly, on tiptoe. A horn lantern, slung over the stair-head, was the only light vouchsafed this thronged assembly of dummies. Its rays danced weakly in corners, and lent some of the waxen faces a spurious life. A ticket was before each effigy--generally, as I hurriedly gathered, a quite indispensable adjunct. I had my desperate plan; but perhaps I was too particular to select my complete double. Here, a button or the cut of a collar were the pregnant conditions of history. The clothes made the man, and Mirabeau had written 'Le Tartufe' on the strength of a flowing wig. I saw Necker personating our unhappy monarch in that fatal Phrygian cap that was like the glowing peak of a volcano; stuttering Desmoulins waving a painted twig, his lips inappropriately inseparable; the English Pitt, with a nose blown to a point; Voltaire; Rousseau; Beaumarchais--many of the notabilities and notorieties of our own times--and before the last I stopped suddenly.

I would not for the world insult the author of 'Figaro'; but it was my distinction to be without any; and in a waxwork the ticket makes the man.

Now I saw my hope in this figure and whipped it up in my arms and ran with it to the end of the platform. A flounce of baize hung therefrom to the floor, and into the hollow revealed by the lifting of this I shot the invertebrate dummy, and then scuttled back to the ropes to take its place.

There were sounds as I did so--a noise below that petrified me in the position I assumed. My heart seemed to burr like the winding-wheel of a mechanical doll. I pray M. Beaumarchais to forgive me that travesty of a dignified reproof.

A step--that of a single individual--came bounding up the stair. My face was turned in its direction. I tried to look and yet keep my eyes fixed. The dull flapping light seconded my dissemblance; but the occasion braced me like a tonic, and I was determined to strike, if need were, with all the force of the pugnacious wit I represented.

Suddenly I saw a white, fearful countenance come over the stair-head--shoulders, legs, a complete form. It was that of an ugly stunted man of fifty, whose knees shook, whose cheeks quivered like a blanc-mange. He ran hither and thither, sobbing and muttering to himself.

"Quick, quick! who?--Mirabeau? A brave thought, a magnificent thought! My God!--will they fathom it? I have his brow--his scornful air of insistence. My God, my God!--that I should sink to be one of my own puppets!"

Astounded, I realised the truth. This poltroon--the very proprietor of the show--was in my own actual case, and had hit upon a like way out of his predicament. I saw him seize and trundle the ridiculous presentment of M. Mirabeau to the room end, and then fling it hurriedly down and kick it--the insolent jackass!--under the curtain. I saw him run back and pose himself--with a fatuous vanity even in his terror--as that massive autocrat of the Assembly; and then, with a clap and a roar, I heard at last the hounds of pursuit break covert below and come yelling up the stairs.

I do not think I shook; yet it seemed impossible that they could pass me by. There were one or two amongst them I thought I recognised as Carinne's captors; but they were all hideous, frantic shapes, elf-locked, malodorous, bestial and drunk with blood. They uttered discordant cries as they came scrambling into the room; and by a flickering at the nape of his neck I could see that my fellow-sufferer was unable to control the throaty rising of his agitation. Suddenly a horrible silence befell. One of the intruders, a powerful young ruffian of a malignant jesting humour, put his comrades back and silenced them with an arm. His bloodshot eyes were fascinating poor Mirabeau; slowly he raised a finger and pointed it at the creature. The bubbles seemed to fly up the latter's neck as if his heart were turned into water. It was a terrible moment--then, all at once, the whole room echoed with demon laughter.

"Mother of Christ! what cunning!"

"But, my God! he is a fine libel on the king of patriots!"

"See! the works have not run down. He twitches yet from his last performance!"

"He makes himself a show to the people. He shall be given a lamp in the yard of the Abbaye."

The figure fell upon its knees with a choking shriek.

"But that is true!" cried a voice from the stairs. "This is little Tic-tac, that helped to decorate the Capet's chariot on the day of the H?tel de Ville."

The mob grunted over this advocate.

"But he helped a prisoner to escape."

"Messieurs! he asked the way of me, as any stranger might!"

"Messieurs, he lent his countenance to me, as ever to the unfortunate."

The answer raised a roar of approbation.

"Let us destroy this show that he has profaned!"

My heart seemed to shrink into itself. I suffered--I suffered; but fortunately for a few moments only.

With the words on his lips, the fellow that had spoken slashed with his sabre, over the kneeling showman's head, amongst the staring effigies. The whistle of his weapon made me blink. What did it matter?--the end must come now.

It was not as I foresaw. The waxen head spun into the air--the figure toppled against that standing next to it--that against its neighbour--its neighbour against me. I saw what was my cue, and went down in my turn, stiffly, with a dusty flop, twisting to my side as I fell, and hoping that he whom I was bowling over in due order was rich in padding. Nevertheless I was horribly bruised.

There was a howl of laughter.

"Necker! it is right that he should be pictured fallen. Pitt--Beaumarchais! ha, ha, little toad! where are those patriot muskets? in your breeches-pocket? but I will cut them out!"

Now I gave up all for lost. He stepped back to get his distance--there came a crash by the stairway, and the room was plunged in darkness. One of the mob had swung up his weapon over a figure, and had knocked out the lantern with a back-handed blow.

It is the little incidents of life that are prolific as insects. The situation resolved itself into clamour and laughter and a boisterous groping of the company down the black stairway. In a minute the place was silent and deserted.

I lay still, as yet awaiting developments. I could not forget that M. Tic-tac, as a pronounced patriot, might not honour my confidence. For my escape, it must have been as I supposed. Another victim, eluding the murderers, had drawn them off my scent, and the showman had effected yet a second cross-current. He was indeed fortunate to have kept a whole skin.

Presently I heard him softly stirring and moaning to himself.

Their mockery was the wormwood in his cup. He dragged himself to his feet by-and-by, and felt his way across the room to recover his abused idol. Then I would delay no longer. I rose, stepped rapidly to the stair-head, and descended to the street. He heard me--as I knew by the terrified cessation of his breathing,--and thought me, perhaps, a laggard member of his late company. Anyhow he neither moved nor spoke.

The killers were at their work again. The agonised yells of the victims followed and maddened me. But I was secure from further pursuit, save by the dogs of conscious helplessness.

And one of these kept barking at my heel: "Carinne, that you were impotent to defend! What has become of the child?"

It was my unhappiness in the black spring-time of the "Terror" to see my old light acquaintance, the Abb? Michau, jogging on his way to the Place de la Bastille. I pitied him greatly. He had pursued Pleasure so fruitlessly all his days; and into this fatal quagmire had the elusive flame at length conducted him. He sat on the rail of the tumbril--a depressed, puzzled look on his face--between innocence and depravity. Both were going the same road as himself--the harmless white girl and the besotted priest, who shrunk in terror from giving her the absolution she asked;--and poor Charles divided them.

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