Master Flea by E. T. A. Hoffmann (drm ebook reader .txt) 📕

“Is it you?” said the naturalist, in a faint voice, “Is it you, good Pepusch? Ah! it is all over with me⁠—clean over with me⁠—I am a lost man! Pepusch, I begin to believe that you really meant it well with me, and that I have not done wisely in making light of your warnings.”

Upon Pepusch’s quietly asking what had happened, the flea-tamer turned himself round with his armchair to the wall, held both his hands before his face, and cried out piteously to Pepusch to take up a glass and examine the marble slab. Already, with the naked eye, Pepusch observed that the little soldiers, etc. lay there as if dead, that nothing stirred any longer. The dexterous fleas appeared also to have taken another shape. But now, by means of the glass, Pepusch soon discovered that not a single flea was there, but what he had taken for them were nothing more than black peppercorns and fruit-seeds that stood in their uniforms.

“I know not,” began the flea-tamer, quite melancholy and overwhelmed, “I know not what evil spirit struck me with blindness, that I did not perceive the desertion of my army till the people were at the table and prepared for the spectacle. You may imagine, Pepusch, how, on seeing themselves deceived, the visitors first murmured, and then blazed out into fury. They accused me of the vilest deceit, and as they grew hotter and hotter, and would no longer listen to any excuses, they were falling upon me to take their own revenge. What could I do better, to shun a load of blows, than immediately set the great microscope into motion, and envelope the people in a cloud of insects, at which they were terrified, as is natural to them?”

“But,” said Pepusch, “tell me how it could possibly happen that your well-disciplined troop, which had shown so much fidelity to you, could so suddenly take themselves off, without your perceiving it at once?”

“Oh!” cried the flea-tamer, “O, Pepusch! He has deserted me! He by whom alone I was master⁠—He it is to whose treachery I ascribe all my blindness, all my misery!”

“Have I not,” said Pepusch, “have I not long ago warned you not to place your reliance upon tricks which you cannot execute without the possession of the master? and on how ticklish a point rests that possession, notwithstanding all your care, you have just now experienced.”

Pepusch further gave the flea-tamer to understand, that he could not at all comprehend how his being forced to give up these tricks could so much disturb his life, as the invention of the microscope, and his general dexterity in the preparation of microscopic glasses, had long ago established him. But the flea-tamer, on the other hand, maintained that very different things lay hid in these subtleties, and that he could not give them up without giving up his whole existence. Pepusch interrupted him by asking, “Where is Dörtje Elverdink?”

“Where is she?” screamed Leeuwenhoek, wringing his hands, “Where is Dörtje Elverdink? Gone! gone into the wide world! Vanished! But strike me dead at once, Pepusch, for I see your wrath growing: make short work of it with me!”

“There you see now,” said Pepusch, with a gloomy look, “You see now what comes of your folly, of your absurd proceedings. Who gave you a right to confine the poor Dörtje like a slave, and then again, merely for the sake of alluring people, to make a show of her like some wonder of natural history? Why did you put a force upon her inclinations, and not allow her to give me her hand, when you must have seen how dearly we loved each other? Fled, is she? Well then, she is no longer in your power, and although I do not at this moment know where to seek for her, yet am I convinced that I shall find her. There, Leeuwenhoek, put on your wig again, and submit to your destiny; that is the best thing you can do.”

The flea-tamer arranged his wig on his bald head with his left hand, while with his right he caught Pepusch by the arm, exclaiming,

“Pepusch, you are my real friend, for you are the only man in the whole city of Frankfurt, who know that I lie buried in the old church at Delft, since the year seventeen hundred and twenty-five, and yet have not betrayed it to anyone, even when you were angry with me on account of Dörtje Elverdink. If at times I cannot exactly get it into my head that I am actually that Antonie van Leeuwenhoek who lies buried at Delft, yet again I must believe it, when I consider my works and reflect upon my life, and on that account it is very agreeable to me that it is not at all spoken of. I now see, my dear Pepusch, that, in regard to Dörtje Elverdink, I have not acted rightly, although in a very different way from what you may well imagine: that is, I was right in pronouncing your suit to be an idle struggle; wrong, in not being open with you, in not telling you the real circumstances of Dörtje Elverdink. You would then have seen how praiseworthy it was to talk you out of wishes, the accomplishment of which could not be other than destructive. Pepusch, sit down by me, and hear a wonderful history.”

“That I am likely to do,” replied Pepusch with a malicious glance, sitting down in an armchair, opposite the flea-tamer, who thus began:

“As you are well versed, my dear friend, in history, you know, beyond doubt, that King Sekakis lived for many years in intimate intercourse with the Flower-Queen, and that the beautiful Princess Gamaheh was the fruit of this passion. But it is not so well known, nor can I tell you, in what way the Princess Gamaheh came to Famagusta. Many maintain, and not without reason, that the princess wished to conceal herself