Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque — 1840, volume I — reading text

the eyes of all the old gentlemen are turned who sit in the leather-bottomed arm-chairs. The great clock has seven faces, one in each of the seven sides of the steeple, so that it can be readily seen from all quarters. Its faces are large and white, and its hands heavy and black. There is a belfry-man whose sole duty is to attend it; but this duty is the most perfect of sinecures, for the clock of Vondervotteimittiss was never yet known to have anything the matter with it. Until lately the bare supposition of such a thing was considered heretical. From the remotest period of antiquity to which the archives have reference, the hours have been regularly struck by the big bell. And indeed the case is just the same with all the other clocks and watches in the borough. Never was such a place for keeping the true time. When the large clapper thought proper to say “twelve o'clock!” all its obedient followers opened their throats simultaneously, and responded like a very echo. In short, the good burghers were fond of their sauer-kraut, but then they were proud of their clocks. All people who hold sinecure offices are held in more or less respect, and as the belfry-man of Vondervotteimittiss has the most perfect of sinecures, he is the most perfectly respected of any man in the world. He is the chief dignitary of the borough, and the very pigs look up to him with a sentiment of reverence. His coat-tail is very far longer — his pipe, his shoe-buckles, his eyes, and his belly, very far bigger than those of any old gentleman in the village — and as to his chin, it is not only double but triple. I have thus painted the happy estate of Vondervotteimittiss — alas! that so fair a picture should ever experience a reverse! There has been long a saying among the wisest inhabitants that “no good can come from over the hills,” and it really seemed that the words had in them something of the spirit of prophecy. It wanted five minutes of noon, on the day before yesterday, when there appeared a very odd-looking object on the summit of the ridge to the eastward. Such an occurrence, of course, attracted universal attention, and every little old gentleman who sat in a leather-bottomed arm-chair turned one of his eyes with a stare of dismay upon the phenomenon, still keeping the other upon the clock in the steeple. By the time that it wanted only three minutes of noon the droll object in question was clearly perceived to be a very diminutive foreign-looking young man. He descended the hills at a great rate, so that every body had soon a good look at him. He was really the most finnicky little personage that had ever been seen in Vondervotteimittiss. His countenance was of a dark snuff colour, and he had a long hooked nose, pea eyes, a wide mouth, and an excellent set of teeth, which latter he seemed anxious of displaying, as he was grinning from ear to ear. What with mustaches and whiskers there was none of the rest of his face to be seen. His head was uncovered, and his hair neatly done up in papillotes. His dress was a tight-fitting swallow-tailed black coat (from one of whose pockets dangled a vast length of white handkerchief), black kerseymere knee-breeches, black silk stockings, and stumpy-looking pumps, with huge bunches of black satin ribbon for bows. Under one arm he carried a huge chapeau-de-bras, and under the other a fiddle nearly five times as big as himself. In his left hand was a gold snuff-box, from which as he capered down the hill, cutting all manner of fantastical steps, he took snuff incessantly with an air of the greatest possible self-satisfaction. God bless me! here was a sight for the eyes of the sober burghers of Vondervotteimittiss! To speak plainly, the fellow had, in spite of his grinning, an audacious and sinister kind of face; and as he curvetted right into the village, the odd stumpy appearance of his pumps excited no little suspicion, and many a burgher who beheld him that day would have given a trifle for a peep beneath the white cambric handkerchief which hung so obtrusively from the pocket of his swallow-tailed coat. But what mainly occasioned a righteous indignation was that the scoundrelly popinjay, while he cut a fandango here, and a whirligig there, did not seem to have the remotest idea in the world of such a thing as keeping time in his steps. The good people of the borough had scarcely a chance, however, to get their eyes thoroughly open, when, just as it wanted half a minute of noon, the rascal bounced, as I say, right into the midst of them, gave a chazze z here and a balancez there, and then, after a pirouette and a pas-de-zephyr, pigeon-winged himself right up into the belfry of the house of the Town-Council, where the wonder-stricken belfry-man sat smoking in a state of stupified dignity and dismay. But the little chap seized him at once by the nose, gave it a swing and a pull, clapped the big chapeau-de-bras upon his head, knocked it down over his eyes and mouth, and then, lifting up the big fiddle, beat him with it so long and so soundly, that what with the belfry-man being so fat, and the fiddle being so hollow, you would have sworn there was a regiment of double-bass drummers all beating the devil's tattoo up in the belfry of the steeple of Vondervotteimittiss. There is no knowing to what desperate act of vengeance this unprincipled attack might have aroused the inhabitants, but for the important fact that it now wanted only half a second of noon. The bell was about to strike, and it was a matter of absolute and pre-eminent necessity that every body should look well at his watch. It was evident, however, that just at this moment, the fellow in the steeple was doing something that he had no business to do with the clock. But as it now began to strike, nobody had any time to attend to his manœuvres, for they had all to count the strokes of the bell as it sounded. “One!” said the clock. “Von!” echoed every little old gentleman in every leather-bottomed arm-chair in Vondervotteimittiss. “Von!” said his watch also; “von!” said the watch of his vrow, and “von!” said the watches of the boys, and the little gilt repeaters on the tails of the cat and the pig. “Two!” continued the big bell; and “Doo!” repeated all the repeaters. “Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Nine! Ten!” said the bell. “Dree! Vour! Fibe! Sax! Seben! Aight! Noin! Den!” answered the others. “Eleven!” said the big one. “Eleben!” assented the little fellows. “Twelve!” said the bell. “Dvelf!” they replied, perfectly satisfied, and dropping their voices. “Und dvelf it iss!” said all the little old gentlemen, putting up their watches. But the big bell had not done with them yet. “Thirteen!” said he. “Der Teufel!” gasped the little old gentlemen, turning pale, dropping their pipes, and putting down all their right legs from over their left knees — “Der Teufel!” groaned they — “Dirteen! Dirteen!! — Mein Gott, it is — it is Dirteen o'clock!!” What is the use of attempting to describe the terrible scene which ensued? All Vondervotteimittis flew at once into a lamentable state of uproar. “Vot is cum'd to mein pelly?” roared all the boys — “I've been an ongry for dis hour!” “Vot is cum'd to mein kraut?” screamed all the vrows — “It has been done to rags for dis hour!” “Vot is cum'd to mein pipe?” swore all the little old gentlemen — “Donder und Blitzen! it has been smoked out for dis hour!” — and they filled them up again in a great rage, and sinking back in their arm-chairs, puffed away so fast and so fiercely that the whole valley was immediately filled with an impenetrable smoke. Meantime the cabbages all turned very red in the face, and it seemed as if the old Nick himself had taken possession of everything in the shape of a time-piece. The clocks carved upon the furniture got to dancing as if bewitched, while those upon the mantel-pieces could scarcely contain themselves for fury, and kept such a continual striking of thirteen, and such a frisking and wriggling of their pendulums as it was really horrible to see. But, worse than all, neither the cats nor the pigs could put up any longer with the outrageous behavior of the little repeaters tied to their tails, and resented it by scampering all over the place, scratching and poking, and squeaking and screeching, and caterwauling and squalling, and flying into the faces, and running under the petticoats, of the people, and creating altogether the most abominable din and confusion which it is possible for a reasonable person to conceive. And to make it if he could more abominable, the rascally little scape-grace in the steeple was evidently exerting himself to the utmost. Every now and then one might catch a glimpse of the scoundrel through the smoke. There he sat in the belfry upon the belly of the belfry-man, who was lying flat upon his back. In his teeth he held the bell-rope which he kept jerking about with his head, raising such a clatter that my ears ring again even to think of it. On his lap lay the big fiddle at which he was scraping out of all time and tune with both his hands, making a great show, the nincompoop! of playing Judy O’Flannagan and Paddy O’Rafferty. Affairs being thus miserably situated, I left the place in disgust, and now appeal for aid to all lovers of good time and fine kraut. Let us proceed in a body to the borough, and restore the ancient order of things in Vondervotteimittiss by ejecting that little chap from the steeple. LIGEIA LIGEIA. And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great will pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will. JOSEPH GLANVILL. I CANNOT, for my soul, remember how, when, or even precisely where, I first became acquainted with the Lady Ligeia. Long years have since elapsed, and my memory is feeble through much suffering. Or, perhaps, I cannot now bring these points to mind, because, in truth, the character of my beloved, her rare learning, her singular yet placid cast of beauty, and the thrilling and enthralling eloquence of her low, musical language, made their way into my heart by paces so steadily and stealthily progressive, that they have been unnoticed and unknown. Yet I believe that I met her most frequently in some large, old, decaying city near the Rhine. Of her family — I have surely heard her speak — that they are of a remotely ancient date cannot be doubted. Ligeia! Buried in studies of a nature more than all else adapted to deaden impressions of the outward world, it is by that sweet word alone — by Ligeia — that I bring before mine eyes in fancy the image of her who is no more. And now, while I write, a recollection flashes upon me that I have never known the paternal name of her who was my friend and my betrothed, and who became the partner of my studies, and eventually the wife of my bosom. Was it a playful charge on the part of my Ligeia? or was it a test of my strength of affection that I should institute no inquiries upon this point? or was it rather a caprice of my own — a wildly romantic offering on the shrine of the most passionate devotion? I but indistinctly recall the fact itself — what wonder that I have utterly forgotten the circumstances which originated or attended it? And, indeed, if ever that spirit which is entitled Romance — if ever she, the wan, and the misty-winged Ashtophet of idolatrous Egypt, presided, as they tell, over marriages ill-omened, then most surely she presided over mine. There is one dear topic, however, on which my memory faileth me not. It is the person of Ligeia. In stature she was tall, somewhat slender, and in her latter days even emaciated. I would in vain attempt to portray the majesty, the quiet ease, of her demeanor, or the incomprehensible lightness and elasticity of her footfall. She came and departed like a