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

“Ha!” cried the flea-tamer, quite beside himself, “Ha! ’twas so I suspected! But you, Pepusch, you, to whom I have shown so much kindness, you are my worst enemy: I see it well now. Instead of advising me, instead of assisting me in my misfortunes, you amuse me with all manner of nonsensical stories.”

“Nonsense yourself!” cried Pepusch, quite indignant. “You’ll rue your folly too late, you dreaming charlatan! I go to seek Dörtje Elverdink⁠—but that you may no longer mislead honest people⁠—”

He grasped at the screw which set all the microscopic machinery in motion⁠—

“Take my life at the same time!” roared the flea-tamer, but at the instant all crashed together, and he fell senseless to the ground.

“How is it,” said George Pepusch to himself, when he had got into the street, “How is it that one, who has the command of a nice warm chamber and a well-stuffed bed, wanders through the streets at night in the rain and storm? Because he has forgotten the house key, and he is driven moreover by love.”

He could answer himself not otherwise, and indeed his whole conduct seemed silly in his own estimation. He remembered the moment when he saw Dörtje Elverdink for the first time. Some years before the Flea-tamer had exhibited his arts in Berlin, and had found no slight audiences as long as the thing was new. Soon, however, people had seen enough of the educated and well-disciplined fleas, and even the paraphernalia of the diminutive race began not to be thought so very wonderful, although at first attributed almost to magic, and Leeuwenhoek seemed to have fallen into total oblivion. On a sudden, a report was spread that a niece of the artist, who had not appeared before, now attended the exhibitions⁠—a beautiful, lovely little maiden, and withal so strangely attired as to baffle description. The world of fashionables⁠—who, like leaders in a concert, are accustomed to give the time and tune to society⁠—now poured in, and as in this world everything is in extremes, the niece excited unparalleled astonishment. It soon became the mode to frequent the flea-tamer; he who had not seen his niece could not join in the common talk, and thus the artist was saved in his distress. As to the rest, no one could comprehend the name “Dörtje;” and as at this time a celebrated actress was displaying, in the part of the Queen of Golconda, all those high yet soft attractions which are peculiar to the sex, they called the fair Hollander by the royal name, Alina.

When George Pepusch came to Berlin, Leeuwenhoek’s fair niece was the talk of the day, and hence at the table of the hotel, where he lodged, scarcely anything else was spoken of but the little wonder that delighted all the men, young and old, and even the women themselves. Everyone pressed the newcomer to place himself on the pinnacle of the existing mode at Berlin, and see the Hollandress. Pepusch had an irritable, melancholy temperament; in every enjoyment he found too much of the bitter aftertaste, which indeed comes from the Stygian brook that runs through our whole life, and this made him gloomy and often unjust to all about him. It may be easily supposed that in this mood he was little inclined to run about after pretty girls, but he went nevertheless to the flea-tamer’s, less on account of the dangerous wonder than to confirm his preconceived opinion that here too, as so often in life, a strange madness was predominating. He found the Hollandress fair, indeed, and agreeable, but in considering her, he could not help smiling with self-satisfaction at his own sagacity, by the help of which he had already guessed that the heads, which the little one had so perfectly turned, must have been tolerably crazy before they left home.

The maiden had that light easy manner which evinces the best education; a mistress of that delightful coquetry, which, when it offers the fingertips to anyone, at the same time takes from him the power of receiving them, the lovely little creature knew how to attract her numerous visitors, as well as to restrain them within the bounds of the strictest decorum.

None troubled themselves about the stranger, who had leisure enough to observe all the actions of the fair one. But while he continued staring more and more at the beautiful face, there awoke in the deepest recesses of his mind a dark recollection, as if he had somewhere before seen the Hollandress, although in other relations and in other attire, and that he himself had at one time worn a very different form. In vain he tormented himself to bring this recollection to any clearness, yet still the idea of his having really seen the little creature before became more and more determinate. The blood mounted into his face, when at last someone gently jogged him, and whispered in his ear, “The lightning has struck you too, Mr. Philosopher, has it not?” It was his neighbour of the ordinary, to whom he had asserted that the ecstasy into which all had fallen was no better than madness, which would pass away as quickly as it had arisen.

Pepusch observed that while he had been gazing so fixedly on the little one, the hall had grown deserted. Now for the first time she seemed to be aware of his presence, and greeted him with graceful familiarity. From this time he could not get rid of her idea; he tormented himself through a sleepless night, only to come upon the trace of a recollection⁠—but in vain. The sight of the fair one, he rightly thought, could alone bring him to it, and the next day, and all the following days, he never omitted visiting the flea-tamer, and staring two or three hours together at the beautiful Dörtje Elverdink.

When a man cannot get rid of the idea of a beautiful woman who has