PAGE 9
The Young Englishman
by
Instead of singing in C, however, the nephew took off his shoe, and struck the organist such a blow on the head that the powder flew in all directions. As the mayor saw this, he thought: “Ha! he has another attack!” and sprang forward, seized him by the throat, and loosened his neck-tie; but this only increased the young man’s violence; he no longer spoke German, but a strange language instead, that no one understood, and began to leap about in an extraordinary manner. The mayor was very much annoyed by this unpleasant disturbance; he therefore resolved, inasmuch as the young man must have been attacked by some very unusual symptoms, to remove the cravat entirely. But he had no sooner done this, than he stood motionless with horror, for instead of a human skin and complexion, the neck of the young man was covered with a dark-brown fur. The young man took some higher leaps, grasped his hair with his gloved hands, pulled it, and, oh, wonder! this beautiful hair was simply a wig, which he flung into the mayor’s face; and his head now appeared, covered with the same brown fur.
He jumped over tables and benches, threw down the music-stands, stamped on the fiddles and clarionet, and appeared to have gone mad. “Catch him! catch him!” shouted the mayor, quite beside himself. “He is out of his senses, catch him!” That was, however, a difficult thing to do, as the Englishman had pulled off his gloves, disclosing nails on his fingers, with which he scratched the faces of those who attempted to hold him. Finally an experienced hunter succeeded in holding him. He bound his long arms down by his side so that he could only move his feet. The people gathered round and stared at the singular young gentleman, who no longer resembled a human being.
Just then a scientific gentleman of the neighborhood who had a large cabinet full of specimens of natural history, and possessed all kinds of stuffed animals, approached nearer, examined him closely, and then exclaimed, in tones of surprise: “Good gracious! ladies and gentlemen, how is it you bring this animal into genteel company? That is an ape, of the Homo Troglodytes species. I will give six thalers for him on the spot, if you will let me have him, for my cabinet.”
Who could describe the astonishment of the Gruenwiesel people as they heard this! “What! an ape, an orang-outang in our society? The young stranger a common ape?” cried they, and looked at one another in a stupefied way. They could not believe it; they could not trust their ears. The men examined the animal more closely, but it was beyond all doubt a quite natural ape.
“But how is this possible,” cried the mayor’s wife. “Has he not often read his poems to me? Has he not eaten at my table, just like any other man?”
“What?” exclaimed the doctor’s wife. “Has he not often drank coffee with me, and a great deal of it? And has he not talked learnedly with my husband, and smoked with him?”
“What! is it possible!” cried the men; “has he not bowled nine-pins with us at the cave? and discussed politics like one of us?”
“And how can it be?” lamented they all; “has he not danced at our balls? An ape! an ape? It is a miracle! It is witchcraft!”
“Yes, it is witchcraft, and a satanic spook!” echoed the mayor, exhibiting the cravat of the nephew, or ape. “See, this cloth contains the magic that made him so acceptable to our eyes. There is a broad strip of elastic parchment covered with all manner of singular characters. I think it must be Latin. Can any one read it?”
The minister, a scholarly gentleman who had lost many a game of chess to the young Englishman, walked up, examined the parchment, and said: “By no means! They are only Latin letters,” and read: