Foggerty's Fairy and Other Tales/The Triumph of Vice
THE TRIUMPH OF VICE.
A FAIRY TALE.
The wealthiest in the matter of charms, and the poorest in the matter of money of all the well-born maidens of Tackleschlosstein, was the Lady Bertha von Klauffenbach. Her papa, the Baron, was indeed the fortunate possessor of a big castle on the top of a perpendicular rock, but his estate was deeply mortgaged, and there was not the smallest probability of its ever being free from the influence of the local money-lender. Indeed, if it comes to that, I may be permitted to say that even in the event of that wildly improbable state of things having come to pass, the amount realised by the sale of the castle and perpendicular rock would not have exceeded one hundred and eighty pounds sterling, all told. So the Baron von Klauffenbach did not even wear the outward show of being a wealthy man.
The perpendicular rock being singularly arid and unproductive even for a rock, and the Baron being remarkably penniless even for a Baron, it became necessary that he should adopt some decided course by which a sufficiency of bread, milk, and sauerkrout might be provided to satisfy the natural cravings of the Baron von Klauffenbach, and that fine growing girl Bertha, his daughter. So the poor old gentleman was only too glad to let down his drawbridge every morning, and sally forth from his stronghold, to occupy a scrivener's stool in the office of the local money-lender to whom I have already alluded. In short, the Baron von Klauffenbach was a usurer's clerk.
But it is not so much with the Baron von Klauffenbach as with his beautiful daughter Bertha that I have to do. I must describe her. She was a magnificent animal. She was six feet in height, and splendidly proportioned. She had a queenly face, set in masses of wonderful yellow hair; big blue eyes, and curly little mouth (but with thick firm lips), and a nose which, in the mercantile phraseology of the period, defied competition. Her figure was grandly, heroically outlined, firm as marble to the look, but elastically yielding to the touch. Bertha had but one fault—she was astonishingly vain of her magnificent proportions, and held in the utmost contempt anybody, man or woman, who fell short of her in that respect. She was the toast of all the young clerks of Tackleschlosstein; but the young clerks of Tackleschlosstein were to the Lady Bertha as so many midges to a giantess. They annoyed her, but they were not worth the trouble of deliberate annihilation. So they went on toasting her, and she went on scorning them.
Indeed, the Lady Bertha had but one lover whose chance of success was worth the ghost of a halfpenny—and he was the Count von Krappentrapp. The Count von Krappentrapp had these pulls over the gay young clerks of Tackleschlosstein—that he was constantly in her society, and was of noble birth. That he was constantly in her society came to pass in this wise. The Baron von Klauffenbach, casting about him for a means of increasing—or rather of laying the first stone towards the erection of—his income, published this manifesto on the walls of Tackleschlosstein:
“A nobleman and his daughter, having larger premises than they require, will be happy to receive into their circle a young gentleman engaged in the village during the day. Society musical. Terms insignificant. Apply to the Baron von K., Post Office, Tackleschlosstein.”
The only reply to this intimation came from the Count von Krappentrapp; and the only objection to the Count von Krappentrapp was, that he was not engaged in the village during the day. But this objection was eventually overruled by the Count's giving the Baron in the handsomest manner in the world, his note of hand for ten pounds at six months date, which was immediately discounted by the Baron's employer. I am afraid that the Baron and the Count got dreadfully tipsy that evening. I know that they amused themselves all night by shying ink-bottles from the battlements at the heads of the people in the village below.
It will easily be foreseen that the Count von Krappentrapp soon fell hopelessly in love with Bertha; and those of my readers who are accustomed to the unravelling of German legendary lore will long ere this have made up their minds that Bertha fell equally hopelessly in love with the Count von Krappentrapp. But in this last particular they will be entirely in error. Far from encouraging the gay young Count, she regarded him with feelings of the most profound contempt. Indeed, truth compels me to admit that the Count was repulsive. His head was enormous, and his legs insignificant. He was short in stature, squat in figure, and utterly detestable in every respect, except in this, that he was always ready to put his hand to a bill for the advantage of the worthy old Baron. And whenever he obliged the Baron in this respect, he and the old gentleman used to get dreadfully tipsy, and always spent the night on the battlements throwing ink-bottles on the people in the village below. And whenever the Baron's tradespeople in the village found themselves visited by a shower of ink-bottles, they knew that there was temporary corn in Egypt, and they lost no time in climbing up the perpendicular rock with their little red books with the gilt letters in their hands, ready for immediate settlement.
It was not long after the Count von Krappentrapp came to lodge with the Baron von Klauffenbach, that the Count proposed to the Baron's daughter, and in about a quarter of a minute after he had proposed to her, he was by her most unequivocally rejected. Then he slunk off to his chamber, muttering and mouthing in a manner which occasioned the utmost consternation in the mind of Gretchen, the castle maid-of-all-work, who met him on his way. So she offered him a bottle of cheap scent, and some peppermint-drops, but he danced at her in such a reckless manner when she suggested these humble refreshments, that she went to the Baron, and gave him a month's warning on the spot.
Everything went wrong with the Count that day. The window-blinds wouldn't pull up, the door wouldn't close, the chairs broke when he sat on them, and before half his annoyances had ceased, he had expended all the bad language he knew.
The Count was conscientious in one matter only, and that was in the matter of bad language. He made it a point of honour not to use the same expletive twice in the same day. So when he found that he had exhausted his stock of swearing, and that, at the moment of exhaustion, the chimney began to smoke, he simply sat down and cried feebly.
But he soon sprang to his feet, for in the midst of an unusually large puff of smoke, he saw the most extraordinary individual he had ever beheld. He was about two feet high, and his head was as long as his body and legs put together. He had an antiquated appearance about him; but excepting that he wore a long stiff tail, with a spear-point at the end of it, there was nothing absolutely unearthly about him. His hair, which resembled the crest or comb of a cock in its arrangement, terminated in a curious little queue, which turned up at the end and was fastened with a bow of blue ribbon. He wore mutton-chop whiskers and a big flat collar, and his body and misshapen legs were covered with a horny incrustation, which suggested black beetles. On his crest he wore a three-cornered hat—anticipating the invention of that article of costume by about three hundred years.
"I beg your pardon," said this phenomenon, "but can I speak to you?"
"Evidently you can," replied the Count, whose confidence had returned to him.
"I know: but what I mean is, will you listen to me for ten minutes?"
"That depends very much upon what you talk about. Who are you?" asked the Count.
"I'm a sort of gnome."
"A gnome?"
"A sort of gnome; I won't enter into particulars, because they won't interest you."
The apparition hesitated, evidently hoping the Count would assure him that any particulars of the gnome's private life would interest him deeply; but he only said—
"Not the least bit in the world."
"You are poor," said the gnome.
"Very," replied the Count.
"Ha!" said he, "some people are. Now I am rich."
"Are you?" asked the Count, beginning to take an interest in the matter.
"I am, and would make you rich too; only you must help me to a wife."
"What! Repay good for evil? Never!"
He didn't mean this, only he thought it was a smart thing to say.
"Not exactly," said the gnome; "I shan't give you the gold until you have found me the wife; so that I shall be repaying evil with good."
"Yes," said the count musingly: "I didn't look at it in that light at all. I see it quite from your point of view. But why don't you find a wife for yourself?"
"Well," said the gnome diffidently, "I'm not exactly—you know—I'm—that is—I want a word!"
"Extremely ugly?" suggested the Count.
"Ye-e-es," said the gnome (rather taken aback); "something of that sort. You know."
"Yes, I know," said the Count; "but how am I to help you? I can't make you pretty."
"No; but I have the power of transforming myself three times during my gnome existence into a magnificent young man."
"O-h-h-h!" said the count slyly.
"Exactly. Well, I've done that twice, but without success as far as regards getting a wife. This is my last chance."
"But how can I help you? You say you can change yourself into a magnificent young man; then why not plead your own cause? I, for my part, am rather—a—"
"Repulsive?" suggested the gnome thinking he had him there.
"Plain," said the count.
"Well," replied the gnome, "there's an unfortunate fact connected with my human existence."
"Out with it. Don't stand on ceremony."
"Well, then, it's this. I begin as a magnificent young man, six feet high, but I diminish imperceptibly day by day, whenever I wash myself, until I shrink into the—a—the—"
"Contemptible abortion?"
"A—yes—thank you—you behold. Well, I've tried it twice, and found on each occasion a lovely girl who was willing and ready to marry me; but during the month or so that elapsed between each engagement and the day appointed for the wedding, I shrunk so perceptibly (one is obliged, you know, to wash one's face during courtship), that my bride-elect became frightened and cried off. Now, I have seen the Lady Bertha, and I am determined to marry her."
"You? Ha, ha! Excuse me, but—Ha, ha!"
"Yes, I. But you will see that it is essential that as little time as possible should elapse between my introduction to her and our marriage."
"Of course; and you want me to prepare her to receive you, and marry you there and then without delay."
"Exactly; and if you consent, I will give you several gold mines, and as many diamonds as you can carry."
"You will? My dear sir, say no more! 'Revenge! Revenge! Revenge! Timotheus cried,' quoting a popular comic song of the day. But how do you effect the necessary transformation?"
"Here is a ring which gives me the power of assuming human form once more during my existence. I have only to put it on my middle finger, and the transformation is complete."
"I see—but—couldn't you oblige me with a few thalers on account?"
"Um," said the gnome;" it's irregular: but here are two."
"Eight," said the Count, biting them; "I'll do it. Come the day after to-morrow."
"At this time?" said the gnome.
"At this time."
"Good-night."
"Good night."
And the gnome disappeared up the chimney.
The Count von Krappentrapp hurried off without loss of time to communicate to the lovely Bertha the splendid fate in store for her.
"Lady Bertha," said he, "I come to you with a magnificent proposal."
"Now, Krappentrapp," said Bertha, "don't be a donkey. Once for all, I will not have you."
"I am not alluding to myself; I am speaking on behalf of a friend."
"O, any friend of yours, I'm sure," began Bertha politely.
"Thanks, very much."
"Would be open to the same objection as yourself. He would be repulsive."
"But he is magnificent!"
"He would be vicious."
"But he is virtuous!"
"He would be insignificant in rank and stature."
"He is a prince of unexampled proportions!"
"He would be absurdedly poor."
"He is fabulously wealthy!"
"Indeed?" said Bertha; "your story interests me." (She was intimately acquainted with German melodrama.) "Proceed."
"This prince," said Krappentrapp, "has heard of you, has seen you, and consequently has fallen in love with you."
"O, g'long," said Bertha giggling, and nudging him with her extraordinarily moulded elbow.
"Fact. He proposes to settle on you Africa, the Crystal Palace, several solar systems, the Rhine, and Rosherville. The place," added he, musingly, "to spend a happy, happy day."
"Are you in earnest, or" (baring her right arm to the shoulder) "is this some of your nonsense?"
"Upon my honour, I am in earnest. He will be here the day after to-morrow at this time to claim you, if you consent to have him. He will carry you away with him alone to his own province, and there will marry you."
"Go away alone with him? I wouldn't think of such a thing!" said Bertha, who was a model of propriety.
"H'm!" said the Count, "that is awkward certainly. Ha! a thought! You shall marry him first, and start afterwards, only as he has to leave this in two days, the wedding must take place without a moment's delay."
You see, if he had suggested this in the first instance, she would have indignantly rejected the notion, on principle. As it was she jumped at it, and, as a token of peace, let down her sleeve.
"I can provide my trousseau in two days. I will marry him the day he arrives, if he turns out to be all you have represented him. But if he does not—" And she again bared her arm, significantly, to the shoulder.
That night, the Baron von Klauffenbach and the Count von Krappentrapp kept it up right merrily on the two thalers which the Count had procured from the gnome. The Baron was overjoyed at the prospect of a princely son-in-law; and the shower of ink-bottles from the battlements was heavier than ever.
The second day after this the gnome appeared to Count Krappentrapp.
"How do you do?" said the Count.
"Thank you," said the gnome; "I'm pretty well. It's an awful thing being married."
"Oh, no. Don't be dispirited."
"Ah, it's all very well for you to say that, but—Is the lady ready?" said he, changing the subject abruptly.
"Ready, I should think so. She's sitting in the banqueting hall in full bridal array, panting for your arrival."
"O! do I look nervous?"
"Well, candidly, you do," said the Count.
"I'm afraid I do. Is everything prepared?"
"The preparations," said the Count, "are on the most magnificent scale. Half buns and cut oranges are scattered over the place in luxurious profusion, and there is enough gingerbierheimer and currantweinmilch on tap to float the Rob Roy canoe. Gretchen is engaged, as I speak, in cutting ham-sandwiches recklessly in the kitchen; and the Baron has taken down the 'Apartments furnished,' which has hung for ages in the stained glass windows of the banqueting hall."
"I see," said the gnome, "to give a tone to the thing."
"Just so. Altogether it will be the completest thing you ever saw."
"Well," said the gnome, "then I think I'll dress."
For he had not yet taken his human form.
So he slipped a big carbuncle ring on to the middle finger of his right hand. Immediately the room was filled with a puff of smoke from the chimney, and when it had cleared away, the Count saw, to his astonishment, a magnificent young man in the place where the gnome had stood.
"There is no deception," said the gnome.
"Bravo! very good indeed! very neat!" said the Count, applauding.
"Clever thing, isn't it?" said the gnome.
"Capital; most ingenious. But now—what's your name?"
"It's an odd name. Prince Pooh."
"Prince Pooh? Pooh! pooh! you're joking."
"Now, take my advice, and never try to pun upon a fellow's name; you may be sure that, however ingenious the joke may be, it's certain to have been done before over and over again to his face. Your own particular joke is precisely the joke every fool makes when he first hears my name."
"I beg your pardon—it was weak. Now, if you'll come with me to the Baron, you and he can settle preliminaries."
So they went to the Baron, who was charmed with his son-in-law elect. Prince Pooh settled on Bertha the whole of Africa, the Crystal Palace, several solar systems, the Rhine, and Rosherville, and made the Baron a present of Siberia and Vesuvius; after that they all went down to the banqueting hall, where Bertha and the priest were awaiting their arrival.
"Allow me," said the Baron. "Bertha, my dear, Prince Pooh—who has behaved most handsomely" (this in a whisper). "Prince Pooh—my daughter Bertha. Pardon a father if he is for a moment unmanned."
And the Baron wept over Bertha, while Prince Pooh mingled his tears with those of Count Krappentrapp, and the priest with those of Gretchen, who had finished cutting the sandwiches. The ceremony was then gone into with much zeal on all sides, and on its conclusion the party sat down to the elegant collation already referred to. The Prince declared that the Baron was the best fellow he had ever met, and the Baron assured the Prince that words failed him when he endeavoured to express the joy he felt at an alliance with so unexceptionable a Serene Highness.
The Prince and his bride started in a carriage and twenty-seven for his country seat, which was only fifty miles from Tackleschlosstein, and that night the Baron and the Count kept it up harder than ever. They went down to the local silversmith to buy up all the presentation inkstands in his stock; and the shower of inkstands from the castle battlements on the heads of the villagers below that night is probably without precedent or imitation in the chronicles of revelry.
******
Bertha and Prince Pooh spent a happy honeymoon: Bertha had one, and only one cause of complaint against Prince Pooh, and that was an insignificant one—do all she could, she couldn't persuade him to wash his face more than once a week. Bertha was a clean girl for a German, and had acquired a habit of performing ablutions three or even four times a week; consequently her husband's annoying peculiarity irritated her more than it would have irritated most of the young damsels of Tackleschlosstein. So she would contrive, when he was asleep, to go over his features with a damp towel; and whenever he went out for a walk she hid his umbrella, in order that, if it chanced to rain, he might get a providential and sanitary wetting.
This sort of thing went on for about two months, and at the end of that period Bertha began to observe an extraordinary change not only in her husband's appearance, but also in her own. To her horror she found that both she and her husband were shrinking rapidly! On the day of their marriage each of them was six feet high, and now her husband was only five feet nine, while she had diminished to five feet six—owing to her more frequent use of water. Her dresses were too long and too wide for her. Tucks had to be run in everything to which tucks were applicable, and breadths and gores taken out of all garments which were susceptible of these modifications. She spent a small fortune in heels, and even then had to walk about on tiptoe in order to escape remark. Nor was Prince Pooh a whit more easy in his mind than was his wife. He wore the tallest hats with the biggest feathers, and the most preposterous heels to his boots that ever were seen. Each seemed afraid to allude to these extraordinary modifications to each other, and a gentle melancholy took the place of the hilarious jollity which had characterised their proceedings hitherto.
At length matters came to a crisis. The Prince went out hunting one day, and fell into the Rhine from the top of a high rock. He was an excellent swimmer, and he had to remain about two hours, swimming against a powerful tide, before assistance arrived. The consequence was that when he was taken out he had shrunk so considerably that his attendants hardly knew him. He was reduced, in fact, to four feet nine.
On his return to his castle he dressed himself in his tallest hat and highest heels, and, warming his chilly body at the fire, he nervously awaited the arrival of his wife from a shopping expedition in the neighbourhood.
"Charles," said she, "further disguise were worse than useless. It is impossible for me to conceal from myself the extremely unpleasant fact that we are both of us rapidly shrinking. Two months since you were a fine man, and I was one of the most magnificent women of this or any other time. Now I am only middle-sized, and you have suddenly become contemptibly small. What does this mean?"
"A husband is often made to look small in the eyes of his wife," said Prince Charles Pooh, attempting to turn it off with a feeble joke.
"Yes, but a wife don't mean to stand being made to look small in the eyes of her husband."
"It's only fancy, my dear. You are as fine a woman as ever."
"Nonsense, Charles. Gores, Gussets, and Tucks are Solemn Things," said Bertha, speaking in capitals; "they are Stubborn Facts which there is No Denying, and I Insist on an Explanation,"
"I'm very sorry," said Prince Pooh, "but I can't account for it;" and suddenly remembering that his horse was still in the Rhine, he ran off as hard as he could to get it out.
Bertha was evidently vexed. She began to suspect that she had married the Fiend, and the consideration annoyed her much. So she determined to write to her father, and ask him what she had better do.
Now, Prince Pooh had behaved most shabbily to his friend Count Krappentrapp. Instead of giving him the gold-mines and diamonds which he had promised him he sent him nothing at all but a bill for twenty pounds at six months, a few old masters, a dozen or so of cheap hock, and a few hundred paving stones, which were wholly inadequate to the satisfaction of the Count and the Baron's new-born craving for silver inkstands. So Count von Krappentrapp determined to avenge himself on the Prince at the very earliest opportunity; and in Bertha's letter the opportunity presented itself.
He saddled the castle donkey, and started for Poohberg, the Prince's seat. In two days he arrived there, and sent up his card to Bertha. Bertha admitted him; and he then told her the Prince's real character, and the horrible fate that was in store for her if she continued to be his wife.
"But what am I to do?" said she.
"If you were single again, whom would you marry?" said he with much sly emphasis.
"O," said the Princess, "you, of course."
"You would."
"Undoubtedly. Here it is in writing."
And she gave him a written promise to marry him if anything ever happened to the Prince her husband.
"But," said the Count, "can you reconcile yourself to the fact that my proportions are insignificant?"
"Compared with me, as I now am, you are gigantic," said Bertha. "I am cured of my pride in my own splendid stature."
"Good," said the Count. "You have noticed the carbuncle that your husband (husband! ha! ha! but no matter) wears on his middle finger?"
"I have."
"In that rests his charm. Remove it while he sleeps; he will vanish, and you will be a free woman."
******
That night as the clock struck twelve, the Princess removed the ring from the right-hand middle finger of Prince Pooh. He gave a fearful shriek; the room was filled with smoke; and on its clearing off, the body of the gnome in its original form lay dead upon the bed, charred to ashes!
******
The castle of Poohberg, however, remained, and all that was in it. The ashes of the monster were buried in the back garden, and a horrible leafless shrub, encrusted with a black, shiny, horny bark, that suggested black beetles, grew out the grave with astounding rapidity. It grew, and grew, and grew, but never put forth a leaf; and as often as it was cut down it grew again. So when Bertha (who never recovered her original proportions) married Count Krappentrapp, it became necessary to shut up the back garden altogether, and to put ground-glass panes into the windows which commanded it. And they took the dear old Baron to live with them, and the Count and he spent a jolly time of it. The Count laid in a stock of inkstands which would last out the old man's life, and many a merry hour they spent on the hoary battlements of Poohberg. Bertha and her husband lived to a good old age, and died full of years and of honours.