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

to me as if all the lines of your horoscope were running quicker and quicker together, and you yourself were upon the point of entering the red centre. Well, let the dark destiny have decreed what it will; I plainly perceive even a Master Flea cannot escape such a conclusion, and it is as simple as useless to expect my safety from you. Go then: take her hand, deliver me to slavery, and that all may happen as the stars will it, without any interference, make no use of the microscopic glass.”

“Formerly,” said Peregrine, “formerly, Master Flea, your heart seemed stout, your mind firm, and now you have grown so fainthearted! You may be as wise as you will, but you have no good idea of human resolution, and at all events, rate it too meanly. Once more⁠—I will not break my word to you, and that you may perceive how fixed my determination is, of not seeing the little one again, I will now rise and betake myself, as I did yesterday, to the bookbinder’s.”

“Oh Peregrine!” cried Master Flea, “the will of man is a frail thing; a passing air will break it. How immense is the abyss lying between what man wills and what really happens! Many a life is only a constant willing, and many a one, from pure volition, at last does not know what he will. You will not see Dörtje Elverdink, and yet who will answer for it that you do not see her in the very moment of your declaring such a resolution?”

Strange enough, the very thing really happened which Master Flea had prophesied.

Peregrine arose, dressed himself, and faithful to his intention, would have gone to the bookbinder. In passing Swammerdam’s chamber, the door was wide open, and⁠—he knew not how it happened⁠—he stood, leaning on Swammerdam’s arm, close before Dörtje Elverdink, who sent him a hundred kisses, and with her silver voice cried out, joyfully, “Good morning, my dear Peregrine!” George Pepusch, too, was there, looking out of the window and whistling. He now flung the window to with violence, and turned round.

“Ha!” he exclaimed as if he had just then seen Peregrine, “Ha! look! You come to see your bride. That’s all in order, and any third person would only be in the way. I too will take myself off, but let me first tell you, my good friend Peregrine, that George Pepusch scorns every gift which a compassionate friend would fling to him as if he were a beggar. Cursed be every sacrifice! I will have nothing to thank you for. Take the beautiful Gamaheh, who so warmly loves you, but take care the Thistle, Zeherit, do not take root, and burst the walls of your house.”

George’s voice and manner bordered upon brutality, and Peregrine was filled with vexation, when he saw how much his whole conduct was mistaken. Without concealing his disgust, he said,

“It never has entered into my head to cross you in your path, but the madness of jealousy speaks out of you, or you would see how innocent I am of all you have been brooding in your own soul. Do not ask of me to kill the snake which you have been nourishing in your breast for your own torment; learn too, I gave you no alms, I made you no sacrifice, in giving up the fair one, and with her, perhaps, the greatest blessing of my life. Other and higher duties, an irrevocable promise, compelled me to it.”

Pepusch, in the wildest wrath, raised his clenched hand against his friend, when Gamaheh sprang between them, and catching Peregrine’s arm, exclaimed,

“Let the foolish Thistle go; he has nothing but nonsense in his brain, and as is the way with thistles, is surly and obstinate without well knowing what he means. You are mine, and remain mine⁠—mine own dearest Peregrine.”

Thus saying, the little one drew Peregrine upon the sofa, and without further ceremony, seated herself upon his knees. Pepusch, after having sufficiently gnawed his nails, ran wildly out of the door.

Dressed again in the fairy dress of tissue, she appeared as lovely as ever. Peregrine felt himself streamed through by the electric warmth of her body, and yet, amidst it all, a cold mysterious shudder thrilled through him like the breathing of death. For the first time he thought that he saw something singular and lifeless deeply seated in her eyes, while the tone of her voice⁠—nay, even the rustling of her dress⁠—betrayed a strange being, who was never to be trusted. It fell heavily upon his heart that when she had spoken her real thoughts, she had been in this same silver tissue; he knew not why he should fancy anything menacing in it, and yet the idea of this dress was intimately blended with that of the supernatural, as a dream unites the most heterogeneous things, and all passes for absurd, the deeper connection of which we are unable to comprehend.

Far from wounding the fair one with a suspicion which was perhaps false, Peregrine violently suppressed his feelings, and only waited for a favourable opportunity of freeing himself and escaping from the snake of Paradise. At last Dörtje said,

“How is it, my sweet friend, you seem so cold and insensible today? What have you got in your head, my life?”

“I have a headache,” replied Peregrine, as indifferently as he was able.“Headache! Whims! Megrims! Nothing else, my sweet child. I must go into the open air, and all will be over in a few minutes. Besides, I am called away by a particular business.”

“It is all invention!” exclaimed Gamaheh, starting up hastily. “But you are a malicious monkey that must be tamed.”

Peregrine was glad when he found himself in the open street, but as to Master Flea, he was quite extravagant in his joy, tittering and laughing incessantly in Peregrine’s neckcloth, and clapping together his forepaws till they rang again. This merriment of his little protégé was somewhat troublesome to Mr. Tyss, as it disturbed him in