Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Another circumstance combined with this to increase the impatience and a sort of bad-humor on the part of the major. At other times everything had been correct with himself and with his servant; but now when he stepped before the looking-glass, he did not find himself as he wished to be. He could not deny a few gray hairs, and a few wrinkles also seemed to have put in an appearance. He rubbed and powdered more than usual, and yet had at last to leave things as they were. Neither was he satisfied with his dress, or with its plainness. There were always a few threads still on his coat, and a little dust on his boots. The old servant did not know what to say, and was astonished at seeing so transformed a master before him.

  In spite of all these obstacles the major was early enough in the garden. Hilaria, whom he hoped to find there, he actually did find. She brought a nosegay for him, and he had not the courage, as at other times, to kiss her, and to press her to his heart. He found himself in the pleasantest embarrassment in the world, and abandoned himself to his feelings, without thinking whither they might lead him.

  The baroness also was not slow in putting in an appearance, and, as she showed her brother a note that a messenger had just brought her, she exclaimed: “You cannot guess whom this letter is to announce!”

  “Then only tell me quickly!” replied the major; and he was informed that an old theatrical friend happened to be travelling at no great distance from the manor, and thought of looking in for a moment.

  “I am curious to see him again,” said the major; “he is no longer a boy, and yet I hear that he still continues to play youthful parts.”

  “He must be ten years older than you,” replied the baroness.

  “At the very least,” replied the major, “so far as I can recollect.”

  It was not long before a cheerful, well-built, pleasant man made his appearance. Both were astonished for a moment as they looked at each other again. But very soon the friends became familiar, and reminiscences of all sorts animated the conversation. From this they passed to stories, to questions, and to giving accounts of themselves; they made themselves mutually acquainted with their present positions, and they soon felt as if they had never been separated.

  Secret accounts tell us that this man in early life, as a very handsome and agreeable youth, had had the fortune or misfortune to please a lady of rank; that he had thereby fallen into great difficulties and danger, out of which the major had fortunately rescued him, at the very moment when a most sad fate was threatening him. He remained eternally grateful to both brother and sister; for the latter, by a timely warning, had given an opportunity of exercising prudence. A short time before dinner the men were left alone. Not without admiration, nay, with a certain amount of astonishment, the major had observed the outward deportment of his old friend, in general and in detail. He did not seem to be changed in the least, and it was no wonder that he could still continue to appear as a youthful lover on the stage.

  Lucinda

  “You are looking at me more closely than is fair,” he at last said to the major; “I very much fear that you find the difference compared with past times only too great.”

  “By no means,” replied the major; “on the contrary, I am full of wonder at finding your looks fresher and more youthful than my own; although I know that you were already a grown-up man when I assisted you in certain difficulties with the audacity of a foolhardy fledgling.”

  “It is your own fault,” replied the other, “it is the fault of all like you; and although you ought not to be reproached for it, still you are to blame. You only think about what is necessary; you want to be, and not to seem. That is right enough, so long as one is something. But when at last the Being begins to take leave of the Seeming, and the Seeming is still more transient than the Being, then everyone finds out that he would not have done badly if he had not entirely neglected the external in favor of the internal.”

  “You are right,” replied the major, and could hardly refrain from a sigh.

  “Perhaps not quite right,” answered the old youth; “for indeed in my trade it would be absolutely inexcusable if one did not bolster up the exterior as long as is simply possible. But you people have occasion to look at other things that are more important and lasting.”

  “And yet there are occasions,” said the major, “when one feels inwardly fresh, and would be only too glad to freshen up one’s exterior too.”

  As the guest could not divine the major’s real frame of mind, he took this utterance in a military sense, and expatiated long upon the point, how important the exterior was to military men, and how an officer, who had to expend so much care upon his dress, might pay some attention to his skin and hair as well.

  “For example, it is undeniable,” he continued, “that your temples are already gray, that wrinkles contract themselves here and there, and that your crown is threatening to become bald. Only look at an old fellow like me! See how I have preserved myself, and all without any conjuring, and with far less trouble or care than one expends daily in injuring, or at least in wearying one’s self.”

  The major found too much for his own purposes in this accidental conversation to break it off so soon; still he went gently, and even, in dealing with an old acquaintance, cautiously to work.

  “Unfortunately I have now got behind-hand,” he exclaimed, “and it cannot be retrieved; I must now put up with it, and you will not think worse of me on account of it.”

  “It is never too late,” replied the other; “if you serious gentlemen were not so obstinate and stiff-necked, immediately declaring anyone who attends to his own exterior vain, and thereby marring for yourselves the enjoyment of being in pleasant company and pleasing others yourselves.”

  “If it is not magic,” laughingly said the major, “by means of which you keep yourselves young, it is nevertheless a secret; or there are at least ‘arcana,’ such as are often extolled in the papers, but from which you know how to choose the best.”

  “Whether you speak in jest or in earnest,” replied his friend, “you have hit it. Among the many things that have continually been tried to give a kind of nourishment to the exterior, which often falls off much sooner than the interior, there are to be found really invaluable specifics, simple as well as compound, which have been imparted to me by fellow-artists, or handed over for cash or in some casual way, and tested by myself. I hold and abide by these, without on that account giving up my further researches. Thus much I may tell you, and I do not exaggerate: I carry about with me a dressing-case beyond all price, a casket, the effects of which I should like to try upon yourself, if we remain only a fortnight together.”

  The thought that something of this kind was possible, and that this possibility had accidentally been brought within his reach just at the right moment, cheered up the major to such a degree, that he already looked really fresher and happier, and enlivened by the hope of bringing his head and face into harmony with his heart, excited by the restless desire of soon learning to know these specifics more intimately, he seemed at dinner quite a different man, met with confidence Hilaria’s graceful attentions, and looked on her with a certain trust, which in the morning had been still very foreign to him.

  Now, inasmuch as the theatrical friend had managed, by all sorts of reminiscences, stories, and happy ideas, to keep alive and increase the good-humor once called forth, so much the more was the major troubled, when immediately after dinner he threatened to go away and pursue his journey. He sought by every means to facilitate the detention of his friend, at least for the night, expressly promising additional horses and relays early on the morrow. Enough, the healing toilet-case was not to depart from the house before he had been more particularly informed as to its contents and use.

  The major saw well enough that there was now no time to be lost, and therefore immediately after dinner he sought to speak to his old familiar friend alone. As he had not the courage to go straight to the point, he alluded to it distantly, again taking up their former conversation, and af
firming that, as for his own person, he would willingly bestow more care upon the exterior, if only people would not immediately stigmatize as vain any one in whom they discovered an endeavor of this kind, and thereby withdraw from him, in respect to moral esteem, as much as they felt bound to allow him in respect to what was physical.

  “Do not make me angry with speeches of this kind,” replied his friend; “for these are expressions to which society has accustomed itself without thinking, or, to put it more severely, by which it expresses the unkindness and ill-will of its nature. When you come to consider it closely, what is that which is so often stigmatized as vanity? Every man ought to feel pleasure in himself, and happy is he who does so. Yet, if he does, how can he refrain from betraying this pleasant feeling? How, in the midst of existence, can he conceal that he feels a pleasure in existence? If good society — for only of such is the question now — should find these utterances blamable, only when they become too lively, when the joy of a man’s pleasure in himself and in his being prevents others from feeling pleasure in themselves, and from displaying it, — even then there would be nothing in it to remember; and the reproach has probably arisen in the first place from this excess. Yet, what is the good of a strange prohibitive severity against what is unavoidable? Why shall we not find an expression admissible and endurable which we, more or less, allow ourselves from time to time, nay, without which no good society could exist; for the pleasure in ourselves, the desire of communicating this individual feeling to others, makes us pleasant, the sense of our own charm makes us charming. Would to God that all men were vain! yet at the same time with consciousness, with moderation, and in the right sense; then we in the world of culture would be the happiest of people. Women, it is said, are vain from the beginning; yet it becomes them, and they please us all the more. How can a young man form himself who is not vain? An empty, hollow nature will at least know how to give itself an outward show, and the able man will soon form himself from the outward to the inward. As for myself, I have reason on this score to consider myself the happiest of men, because my trade justifies me in being vain, and because the more I am so, the greater pleasure I give people. I am praised where another is blamed, and it is just in this path that I have the right and the good fortune to delight and charm the public at an age at which others are compelled to withdraw from the stage, or only linger upon it with disgrace.”

  The major was not pleased to hear the tendency of these observations. The little word vanity, when he used it, had only been meant to serve as a medium by which to bring his wish before his friend in a discreet manner; now he feared that in a lengthened conversation he would see his end still further set aside, and he therefore hastened directly to the point.

  “For myself,” he said, “I should not be at all disinclined to swear fealty to your standard, since you do not think it too late, and believe that I could in some measure make up for lost time. Reveal to me something about your tinctures, pomades, and balsams, and I will make an attempt.”

  “Revelations,” said the other, “are more difficult than one thinks. In this case, for instance, it is not only the question whether I pour out for you something from my bottles, or leave you a half of the best ingredients of my dressing-case; the greatest difficulty is the application. One cannot straightway make what is handed to us one’s own; how this or that may serve, under what circumstances, in what order the things are to be used, demands practice and reflection; nay, even these will hardly bear fruit, if one has not an inborn talent for the subject in question.”

  “Now,” replied the major, “it seems to me you want to back out of it again. You are making difficulties in order to save the credit of your rather fabulous statements. You have no inclination to give me a pretext, an opportunity of putting your words to the test of fact.”

  “By these sarcasms, my friend,” replied the other, “you would never induce me to acquiesce in your request if I did not myself harbor such kind intentions towards you, insomuch that as I in fact made you the offer in the first place. At the same time bear in mind, my friend, that man possesses a quite peculiar desire of making proselytes, of bringing what he values in himself into demonstration beyond himself, in others; in letting them enjoy what he himself enjoys, in finding and reflecting himself again in them. In truth, if this too is egoism, it is at all events of the most amiable and praiseworthy sort, such as makes us human, and keeps us human. From this too, irrespective of the friendship I entertain for you, I derive the pleasure of making a pupil of you in the art of rejuvenation. But, as one must expect from the master, that he should make no bunglers, I am at a loss as to how to set to work. I have already said that neither cosmetics nor any prescription is sufficient; the application cannot be taught in a general way. For love of you, and the desire of propagating my doctrine, I am prepared for any sacrifice. The greatest I can make for the moment I will at once offer you. I will leave you here my servant, a kind of valet and jack-of-all-trades, who, although he may not know how to prepare everything, or be initiated into all the secrets, yet understands very well the whole treatment, and at the beginning will be of great use to you, until you so work your way into the matter, that I may at length be able also to reveal to you the higher secrets.”

  “How!” exclaimed the major, “you have also stages and degrees in your art of rejuvenation? You have secrets too for the initiated.”

  “To be sure,” replied the former. “That would indeed be a wretched art which allowed itself to be grasped at once, the last results of which would be viewed at once by him who enters for the first time.”

  There was no great hesitation; the valet was intrusted to the major, who promised to treat him well. The baroness had to furnish small boxes, pots and glasses, she did not know for what purpose; the partition took place; they remained together in good spirits and witty mood till far into the night. When the moon rose late the guest departed, promising to return in a short time.

  The major went somewhat tired to his room. He had arisen early, had not spared himself during the day, and hoped at last to get speedily to bed. But instead of one servant he now found two. The old groom, according to old style and custom, undressed him quickly; but now the new one came forward, and bid him observe, that night was just the proper time for applying beautifying and rejuvenating remedies, in order that during a peaceful slumber they might take effect so much the more surely. So the major had to submit to having his head anointed, his face rubbed, his eyebrows marked, and his lips touched, besides which, several other ceremonies were required: thus the nightcap was not to be put on immediately, but before that a net, or at all events a fine leather cap, was drawn over his head.

  The major lay down in bed, with a kind of unpleasant sensation, which, however, he had no time to make clear to himself, inasmuch as he soon fell asleep. Yet, if we were to speak his mind, he felt himself somewhat akin to a mummy, something between a sick man and an embalmed corpse. Only the sweet image of Hilaria, surrounded by the brightest hopes, lulled him soon into a refreshing sleep.

  In the morning, at the appointed time, the groom was at hand. Everything appertaining to the dress of the master lay in its accustomed order on the chairs, and the major was just on the point of leaving the bed, when the new valet entered, and protested energetically against such premature haste. One must be quiet, one must wait, if the undertaking was to succeed, if from so much care and painstaking enjoyment was to be reaped. The gentleman accordingly was informed that he would have to rise in a short time, partake of a light breakfast, and then enter a bath, which was already prepared. There was no escape from this procedure; it must be carried out, and a few hours passed in these operations.

  The major cut short the time of rest after the bath, thinking to throw on his clothes quickly, for by nature he was quick, and besides this he wished to meet Hilaria soon; but here also the new valet intervened, and made him understand that one must completely disaccustom one’s self from wishing to be done. All that one did must
be completed slowly and leisurely, but the time of dressing especially must be regarded as a pleasant hour of communion with one’s own self.

  The valet’s mode of treatment was perfectly in harmony with his words. But in return for all this, even the major thought that he really was better dressed than he had ever been before, when he stepped before the looking-glass, and saw himself dressed up to the highest point. Without much question, the valet had even given to the uniform a modern cut, having employed the night in this transformation. A rejuvenation, so quickly visible, imparted to the major a particularly cheerful disposition, so that both inwardly and outwardly he felt refreshed, and hurried to meet his friends with impatient longing.

  He found his sister standing before their genealogical tree, which she had hung up, because on the preceding evening there had been some talk amongst them about certain collateral relations, who, being some unmarried, some living in distant lands, some quite lost sight of, gave the brother and sister or their children more or less hope of rich legacies. They conversed for some time about it, without mentioning the circumstance that hitherto all their family anxieties and endeavors had centred only on their children. Through Hilaria’s inclination, this whole prospect had in fact been completely changed, and yet neither the major nor his sister liked to think more about the matter at this moment.

  The baroness went away, the major remained alone before the laconic family-picture: Hilaria came in to him, leaned childishly on his arm, looked at the pedigree, and asked whom among all these he had known, and who were still living?