# The Kaleidoscope; or, Literary and Scientific Mirror/Series 2/Volume 4/Number 199/The Garret-Window

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Translation of "Das Dachfenster" from Erzählungen und Schwänke volume 1 (1818).
THE GARRET-WINDOW.
[ORIGINAL TRANSLATION, BY SPERANS, FROM THE GERMAN OF FREDERIC LAUN.]
(Continued from our last.)
Chapter 12th. Fancies.—I found the street quite altered when I returned to it; instead of the former bustle and pressure, there was now hardly a person to be met with; because the crowd had followed the monarch to the interior of the town. At my arrival at the inn, the waiter asked whether he should now bring up the breakfast? “What!” cried I, “you have not served it up yet?” “It was merely on account of your absence,” replied the man. “Well, let us have it then as quickly as you can; but where are my guests?” The garret was as empty as the street, and I had to breakfast alone. For this, however, I felt no inclination, and I asked for wine instead of it: with every fresh glass the image of the fair Emma presented itself in a more lively manner before me; and I began to be convinced, for the first time, that my friends had been perfectly correct in blaming my single state, and that I now wanted a wife, as much as I had before wanted a living; “but my dear Comptroller,” said I to myself, “would it not be rather a youthful trick to marry all at once, post haste; and whom? an embroiderer, forsooth! consider well about it, and remember all the unfortunate marriages which have been contracted in a hurry, and repented of at leisure.
Chapter 13th. The Note.—Whilst I was thus musing, a pretty white pigeon came flying through the open window: a happy sign, I thought; perhaps sent on purpose by the goddess of love! The pigeon was, moreover, so tame, that it walked about on the table, to pick up some bread-crumbs: I saw, also, that it had a piece of fine paper fastened to its neck with a red tape; and, as it made no resistance, I laid hold of it, and found the following billet: “Dear Emma, I am almost out of my senses: I have neither seen you nor heard of you all yesterday; and if it is to be so again this day, I shall surely die. Hasten, oh! hasten into the arms of him who cannot live without you.” I squeezed the note, convulsively, in my hand, and put it into my pocket; the pigeon stood, for some time, quietly before me, as if waiting for the accustomed answer, but I pushed the winged messenger so rudely from me, that I was soon left alone. The lines were writ​ten in a very fine, running, and bold hand, to which I wished, for the time being, every imaginable evil.
Chapter 14th. Incidents.—“Allow me the honour,” said some one, tapping me on the shoulder. I stared, as if awaking out of a dream, and lo! the fat landlord stood before me, with his large box, offering a pinch of snuff. I shook my head in silence. “You seem to be rather displeased, Mr. Haller—but who would not? The Corporation got pretty well out of the business; but the Institution, oh dear! oh dear!” I scarcely knew in what language the man was speaking, and looked at him with astonishment. “Well,” he continued, “do not you think yourself, that the University ought to have sent a better deputy?—the story will do us a vast deal of credit abroad.”—“What story?” I asked in my turn. “Bless me! have you not seen the sight? The gentleman’s sword got entangled between his legs, and he had not quite finished saying ‘Most magnanimous’ when he fell at the feet of his Majesty, with his nose in the mire.”—“Much good may it do to him,” said I, peevishly: “what do I care?”—“Oh! just as you please: but I see the young lady has already removed her best things.” I looked about, and missed a most elegant piece of embroidery, which had been in the frame; and the room appeared also otherwise in a state of disorder, which had not struck me before.
Chapter 15th. A Reprimand.—The Collector entered at that moment in breathless haste; and, after having looked about, with a show of surprise, he inquired for his daughter. I was surprised, in my turn, and said that I did not know what had become of her. He appeared almost choked with passion, and cried, “But when you knocked me down on the landing.”—“Good heavens! and was that you?”—“Who else should it have been? But I then left Ida in the room, and you found her, I suppose.”—“Oh! yes, then I found her, but I had afterwards an indispensible message to attend to.”—“Mighty well! Mr. Comptroller; and you left my poor girl to herself, in such a place, and on a day like this? You, who had invited us, and to whom I had stated that I should have to join a friend for about half an hour! Truly, Sir, there is something so remarkably singular in your conduct, that I should not be master of my feelings if I were to stay a moment longer.” He actually left us very abruptly.
Chapter 16th. Explanations.—“Excuse my liberty,” said mine host; “but is Miss Ida your intended bride?” Under existing circumstances, I thought myself fully authorized to answer with a very loud and intelligible “No.” “In that case, I may as well tell you that you had no sooner crossed the street than I heard a good deal of coughing in the higher regions, and when I looked up, I found that it proceeded from the fair damsel in the garret window, who nodded to somebody in the crowd. I was not long in finding out the happy individual to be a fresh-looking young gentleman, who made also corresponding signs upwards. They seemed to produce the desired effect, for soon after the female slipped through the door, and both she and her beau disappeared in an instant.”
Chapter 17th. Embarrassments.—“So, so,” I thought, after I had arrived at home, “I have made a fine morning’s work of it; and the afternoon is not likely to be much in my favour. How am I to face the company at dinner, and what can I say for myself? It would, perhaps, be best to be suddenly taken ill, and thus excuse myself from going: but no; I should by that means allow very unfavourable constructions to be put upon my conduct; and since heavy charges are likely to be made, I had better stand on my defence, and face them out at once.” In the mean time, I felt more uneasiness about the unfortunate paper of the pigeon than about all the rest. I had only been half persuaded into the fitness of my marrying Miss Ida, by the importunity of my friends; whereas my feelings for Miss Emma were genuine, and nothing short of the billet could have disturbed them.
Chapters 18th and 19th. Worse and worse.—“Oh! here he comes at last,” exclaimed the lady of the house; and the whole company turned round, with forced smiles, to welcome my entrance. There was, however, great astonishmentt when it appeared that I came without either the Collector or his daughter, and that I could not even tell what had become of them: but dinner had been so long delayed on our account, that it could not be put off any longer, and it was served up. I occupied a very conspicuous place, because it was between two empty chairs, and I had before me a large tart, which was the chief ornament of the table, and upon which I perceived two entwined letters of rose-coloured sugar, which were evidently the initials of Ida and Charles. The other guests were aware of the circumstance as well as myself; but I pretended not to understand their significant nods. The ceremony of the day furnished, of course, matter of conversation during dinner, and I was often appealed to when contested points were discussed, because none of the persons present had been so favourably placed as I was supposed to have been. I endeavoured to get through the business by shrugging my shoulders, smiling at what had been said by the gentlemen, and affirming what had been advanced by the ladies; but all would not do, and I had sometimes to speak decisively. For instance, when the fall of the learned Protector was mentioned, a young merchant, who was a lieutenant in the militia, gave it as his opinion that the man ought to be punished for bringing disgrace upon the town, and he expected me to confirm his verdict; but I could not find it in my heart, and I declared that the honour of the country would perhaps be best preserved if such mummeries were omitted altogether. This bold assertion did not seem to give much pleasure, and the ominous manner in which one of the fathers of the town shook his head predicted me no good; but I was not in a frame of mind to stop at local considerations. Another accident was said to have taken place, of which I then heard for the first time. A flock of sheep had been driven by some street lads in the rear of the young ladies who were to present poems and flowers to the monarch, and the animals had been goaded to such a degree, that, in their despair, they overturned every thing on their passage; and the leader of the virgins was asserted to have come into such close contact with a strong wether, that she had taken an involuntary ride on his back, and had actually been carried to a considerable distance. Several guests denied the latter circumstance, and I joined them, by proving a priori the impossibility of the situation, unless freely and willingly adopted by the fair rider; but it appeared soon, by my manner of describing the thing that I had not been an eye-witness, and my testimony was rejected altogether. A great dispute arose afterwards about the question, whether the King had been sitting bareheaded in his carriage on account of the heat, or whether he had uncovered himself out of respect to the deputies? I was once more appealed to; but, when my information proved to be quite as unsatisfactory on this point as it had been on all the rest, one of the ladies exclaimed, with impatience, “Well! I should like to know what the gentleman has seen for his two Louis d’or?”—“The two eyes of his beloved, to be sure!” said another.—“The entwined names for ever!” said a third; and all the glasses were emptied with shouts of applause. I really think that the three holy men in the burning furnace cannot have been much hotter than I felt at the time.
[To be concluded in our next.]
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