“My adored Anna,” he replied, “the stars compelled me to appear before your father under an assumed name. You must be told, dearest girl, that I am one of the mightiest of kings, and rule over a realm whose boundaries are not discoverable, as it has been omitted to lay them down in the maps. Oh, sweetest Anna, he who offers you his hand and crown is Daucus Carota the First, King of the Vegetables. All the vegetable princes are my vassals, save that the King of Beans reigns for one single day in every year, in conformity to an ancient usage.”
“Then I am to be a queen, am I?” cried Fräulein Aennchen, overjoyed. “And all this great splendid vegetable garden is to be mine?”
King Daucus assured her that of course it was to be so, and added that he and she would jointly rule over all the vegetables in the world. She had never dreamed of any thing of the kind, and thought little Cordovanspitz wasn’t at all as nasty-looking as he used to be now that he was transformed into King Daucus Carota the First; the crown and sceptre were very becoming to him, and the kingly mantle as well. When she reckoned his delightful manners into the bargain, and the property this marriage would bring her, she felt certain that there wasn’t a country lady in all the world who could have made a better match than she, who found herself betrothed to a king before she knew where she was. So she was delighted beyond measure, and asked her royal fiancé whether she could not take up her abode in the palace then and there, and be married next day. But King Daucus answered that eagerly as he longed for the time when he might call her his own, certain constellations compelled him to postpone that happiness a little longer. And that Herr Dapsul von Zabelthau, moreover, must be kept in ignorance of his son-in-law’s royal station, because otherwise the operations necessary for bringing about the desired union with the sylph Nehabilah might be unsuccessful. Besides, he said, he had promised that both the weddings should take place on the same day. So Fräulein Aennchen had to take a solemn vow not to mention one syllable to Herr Dapsul of what had been happening to her. She therefore left the silken palace amid long and loud rejoicings of the people, who were in raptures with her beauty as well as with her affability and gracious condescension of manners and behaviour.
In her dreams she once more beheld the realms of the charming King Daucus, and was lapped in Elysium.
The letter which she had sent to Herr Amandus von Nebelstern had made a frightful impression on him. It was not long before Fräulein Aennchen received the following answer:
Idol of my Heart, Heavenly Anna—
Daggers—sharp, glowing, poisoned, death-dealing daggers were to me the words of your letter, which pierced my breast through and through. Oh, Anna! you to be torn from me. What a thought! I cannot, even now, understand how it was that I did not go mad on the spot and commit some terrible deed. But I fled the face of man, overpowered with rage at my deadly destiny, after dinner—without the game of billiards which I generally play—out into the woods, where I wrung my hands, and called on your name a thousand times. There came on a tremendously heavy rain, and I had on a new cap, red velvet, with a splendid gold tassel (everybody says I never had anything so becoming). The rain was spoiling it, and it was brand-new. But what are caps, what are velvet and gold, to a despairing lover? I strode up and down till I was wet to the skin and chilled to the bone, and had a terrible pain in my stomach. This drove me into a restaurant near, where I got them to make me some excellent mulled wine, and had a pipe of your heavenly Virginia tobacco. I soon felt myself elevated on the wings of a celestial inspiration, took out my pocket-book, and, oh!—wondrous gift of poetry—the love-despair and the stomach-ache both disappeared at once. I shall content myself with writing out for you only the last of these poems; it will inspire you with heavenly hope, as it did myself.
Wrapped in darkest sorrow—
In my heart, extinguished,
No love-tapers burning—
Joy hath no to-morrow.
Ha! the Muse approaches,
Words and rhymes inspiring,
Little verse inscribing,
Joy return apace.
New love-tapers blazing,
All the heart inspiring,
Fare thee well, my sorrow,
Joy thy place doth borrow.
Ay, my sweet Anna, soon shall I, thy champion, hasten to rescue you from the miscreant who would carry you off from me. So, once more take comfort, sweetest maid. Bear me ever in thy heart. He comes; he rescues you; he clasps you to his bosom, which heaves in tumultuous emotion.
Your ever faithful
Amandus von Nebelstern.
P.S.—It would be quite impossible for me to call Herr von Cordovanspitz out. For, oh Anna! every drop of blood drawn from your Amandus by the weapon of a presumptuous adversary were glorious poet’s blood—ichor of the gods—which never ought to be shed. The world very properly claims that such a spirit as mine has it imposed upon it as public duty to take care of itself for the world’s benefit, and preserve itself by every possible means. The sword of the poet is the word—the song. I will attack my rival with Tyrtæan battle-songs; strike him to earth with sharp-pointed epigrams; hew him down with dithyrambics full of lover’s fury. Such are the weapons of a true, genuine poet, powerful to shield him from every danger. And it is so accoutred that I shall appear, and do battle—victorious battle—for your hand, oh Anna!
Farewell. I press you once more to my heart. Hope all things from my love, and, especially, from my heroic courage, which will shun no danger to set you free from the shameful nets of captivity in which, to all appearance, you are entangled by a demoniacal monster.
Fraulein Aennchen received this letter at a time when she was playing a game at “Catch-me-if-you-can” with her royal bridegroom-elect, King Daucus Carota the First, in the meadow at the back of the garden, and immensely enjoying it when, as was often the case, she suddenly ducked down in full career, and the little king would go shooting right away over her head. Instead of reading the letter immediately (which she had always done before), she put it in her pocket unopened, and we shall presently see that it came too late.
Herr Dapsul could not understand why Fräulein Aennchen had changed her mind so suddenly, and grown quite fond of Herr Porphyrio von Ockerodastes, whom she had so cordially detested before. He consulted the stars on the subject, but as they gave him no satisfactory information, he was obliged to come to the conclusion that human hearts are more mysterious and inscrutable than all the secrets of the universe, and cannot be explained by the constellations. That it was simply the higher nature of the groom that had awakened Aennchen’s love, he could not accept, since he was well aware that the little man was completely lacking in physical beauty. If (as the reader knows) the canon of beauty as laid down by Herr Dapsul is very unlike the ideas which young ladies form upon that subject, he did after all possess sufficient knowledge of the world to know that, although the said young women hold that good sense, wit, cleverness and pleasant manners are very agreeable fellow lodgers in a comfortable house, still, a man who can’t call himself the possessor of a properly-made, fashionable coat—were he a Shakespeare, a Goethe, a Tieck, or a Jean Paul Richter—would run a decided risk of being beaten out of the field by any sufficiently well-put-together lieutenant of hussars in uniform, if he took it in his head to pay his addresses to one of them. Now in Fräulein Aennchen’s case it was a different matter altogether. It was neither good looks nor cleverness that were in question; but it is not exactly every day that a poor country lady becomes a queen in a moment, and accordingly it was not very likely that Herr Dapsul should hit upon the cause which had been operating, particularly as the very stars had left him in the lurch.
As may be supposed, those three, Herr Porphyrio, Herr Dapsul and Fräulein Aennchen, were one heart and one soul. This went so far that Herr Dapsul left his tower oftener than he had ever been known to do before, to chat with his much prized son-in-law on all sorts of agreeable subjects; and not only this, but he now regularly took his breakfast in the house. About this
hour, too, Herr Porphyrio was wont to come forth from his silken palace, and eat a good share of Fräulein Aennchen’s bread and butter.
“Ah, ah!” she would often whisper softly in his ear, “if papa only knew that you are a real king, dearest Cordovanspitz! ”
“Be still, oh heart! Do not melt away in rapture,” Daucus Carota the First would say. “Near, near is the joyful day!”
It chanced that the schoolmaster had sent Fräulein Aennchen a present of some of the finest radishes from his garden. She was particularly pleased at this, as Herr Dapsul was very fond of radishes and she could not get anything from the vegetable garden because it was covered by the silk tent. Besides this, it now occurred to her for the first time, that, among all the roots and vegetables she had seen in the palace, radishes were conspicuous by their absence.
So she speedily cleaned them and served them up for her father’s breakfast. He had ruthlessly shorn several of them of their leafy crowns, dipped them in salt, and eaten them with much relish, when Cordovanspitz came in.
“Oh, my Ockerodastes,” Herr Dapsul called to him, “are you fond of radishes?”
There was still a particularly fine and beautiful radish on the dish. But the moment Cordovanspitz saw it his eyes gleamed with fury, and he cried in a resonant voice:
“What, unworthy duke, do you dare to appear in my presence again, and to force your way, with the coolest of audacity, into a house which is under my protection? Have I not pronounced sentence of perpetual banishment upon you as a pretender to the imperial throne? Away, treasonous vassal; begone from my sight for ever!”
Two little legs had suddenly shot out beneath the radish’s large head, and with them he made a spring out of the plate, placed himself close in front of Cordovanspitz, and addressed him as follows:
“Fierce and tyrannical Daucus Carota the First, you have striven in vain to exterminate my race. Has any of your family as large a head as I or my family have? We are all gifted with talent, common sense, wisdom, sharpness, cultivated manners: and while you loaf about in kitchens and stables, and are of no use as soon as your early youth is gone (so that in very truth it is nothing but the diable de la jeunesse that bestows upon you your brief, transitory, little bit of good fortune), we enjoy the friendship of, and the intercourse with, people of position, and are greeted with acclamation as soon as ever we lift up our green heads. But I despise you, Daucus Carota. You’re nothing but a low, uncultivated, ignorant boor, like all the lot of you. Let’s see which of us two is the better man.”
With this the Duke of Radish, flourishing a long whip about his head, proceeded, without more ado, to attack the person of King Daucus Carota the First. The latter quickly drew his little sword, and defended himself in the bravest manner. The two little creatures darted about in the room, fighting fiercely, and executing the most wonderful leaps and bounds, till Daucus Carota pressed the Duke of Radish so hard that the latter found himself obliged to make a tremendous jump out of the window and take to the open. But Daucus Carota—with whose remarkable agility and dexterity the reader is already acquainted—bounded out after him, and followed the Duke of Radish across the field.
Herr Dapsul von Zabelthau had looked on at this terrible encounter rigid and speechless, but he now broke forth into loud and bitter lamentation, crying, “Oh, daughter Anna! oh, my poor unfortunate daughter Anna! Lost—I—you—both of us. All is over with us.” With which he left the room, and ascended the astronomical tower as fast as his legs would carry him.
Fräulein Aennchen couldn’t understand a bit, or form the very slightest idea what in all the world had set her father into all this boundless misery all of a sudden. The whole thing had caused her the greatest pleasure; moreover, her heart was rejoiced that she had had an opportunity of seeing that her future husband was brave, as well as rich and great; for it would be difficult to find any woman in all the world capable of loving a poltroon. And now that she had proof of the bravery of King Daucus Carota the First, it struck her painfully, for the first time, that Herr Amandus von Nebelstern had cried off from fighting him. If she had for a moment hesitated about sacrificing Herr Amandus to King Daucus, she was quite decided on the point now that she had an opportunity of assuring herself of all the excellencies of her future lord. She sat down and wrote the following letter:
My Dear Amandus,
Everything in this world is liable to change. Everything passes away, as the schoolmaster says, and he’s quite right. I’m sure you, my dear Amandus, are such a learned and wise student that you will agree with the schoolmaster, and not be in the very least surprised that my heart and mind have undergone the least little bit of a change. You may quite believe me when I say that I still like you very well, and I can quite imagine how nice you look in your red velvet cap with the gold tassel. But, with regard to marriage, you know very well, Amandus dear, that, clever as you are, and beautiful as are your verses, you will never, in all your days, be a king, and (don’t be frightened, dear) little Herr von Cordovanspitz isn’t Herr von Cordovanspitz at all, but a great king, Daucus Carota the First, who reigns over the great vegetable kingdom, and has chosen me to be his queen. Since my dear king has thrown aside his incognito he has grown much nicer-looking, and I see now that papa was quite right when he said that the head was the beauty of the man, and therefore couldn’t possibly be big enough. And then, Daucus Carota the First (you see how well I remember the beautiful name and how nicely I write it now that it has got so familiar to me), I was going to say that my little royal husband, that is to be, has such charming and delightful manners that there’s no describing them. And what courage, what bravery there is in him! Before my eyes he put to flight the Duke of Radish (and a very disagreeable, unfriendly creature he appears to be) and hey, how he did jump after him out of the window! You should just have seen him: I only wish you had! And I don’t really think that my Daucus Carota would care about those weapons of yours that you speak about one bit. He seems pretty tough, and I don’t believe verses would do him any harm at all, however fine and pointed they might be. So now, dear Amandus, you must just make up your mind to be contented with your lot, like a good fellow, and not be vexed with me that I am going to be a Queen instead of marrying you. Never mind, I shall always be your affectionate friend, and if ever you would like an appointment in the Carrot bodyguard, or (as you don’t care so much about fighting as about learning) in the Parsley Academy or the Pumpkin Office, you have but to say the word and your fortune is made. Farewell, and don’t be vexed with
Your former fiancée, but now friend and well-wisher, as well as future Queen,
Anna von Zabelthau,
(but soon to be no more von Zabelthau, but simply
ANNA.)
P.S.—You shall always be kept well supplied with the very finest Virginia tobacco, of that you need have no fear. As far as I can see there won’t be any smoking at my court, but I shall take care to have a bed or two of Virginia tobacco planted not far from the throne, under my own special care. This will further culture and morality, and my little Daucus will no doubt have a statute specially enacted on the subject.
V
Fräulein Aennchen had just finished her letter to Herr Amandus von Nebelstern, when in came Herr Dapsul von Zabelthau and began, in the bitterest grief and sorrow to say, “O, my daughter Anna, how shamefully we are both deceived and betrayed! This miscreant who made me believe he was Baron Porphyrio von Ockerodastes, known as Cordovanspitz, member of a most illustrious family descended from the mighty gnome Tsilmenech and the noble Abbess of Cordova—this miscreant, I say—learn it and fall down insensible—is indeed a gnome, but of the lowest race of gnomes—those who control the vegetable world. The gnome Tsilmenech was of the highest race of all, that, namely, to which the care of the diamonds is committed. Next comes the race which has care of the metals in the realms of the metal-king, and then follow the flower-gnomes, who are lower in position, as depending on the sylphs. But the lowest and most ignoble are the vegeta
ble gnomes, and not only is this deceiver Cordovanspitz a gnome of this caste, but he is actual king of it, and his name is Daucus Carota.”
Fräulein Aennchen was far from fainting away, neither was she in the smallest degree frightened; she smiled in the kindliest way at her lamenting papa, and the courteous reader is aware of the reason. But as Herr Dapsul was very much surprised at this, and kept imploring her for Heaven’s sake to realize the terrible position in which she was, and to feel the full horror of it, she thought herself at liberty to divulge the secret entrusted to her. She told Herr Dapsul how the so-called Baron von Cordovanspitz had told her his real position long ago, and that since then she had found him altogether so pleasant and delightful that she couldn’t wish for a better husband. Moreover, she described all the marvellous beauties of the vegetable kingdom into which King Daucus Carota the First had taken her, not forgetting to extol duly the remarkably delightful manners of the inhabitants of that realm.
Herr Dapsul struck his hands together several times, and wept bitterly over the deceiving wickedness of the Gnome-king, who had been, and still was, employing the most artful means—most dangerous for himself as well—to lure the unfortunate Anna down into his dark, demoniac kingdom. “Glorious,” he explained, “glorious and advantageous as may be the union of an elemental spirit with a human being, grand as is the example of this given by the wedlock of the gnome Tsilmenech with Magdalena de la Croix (which is of course the reason why this deceiver Daucus Carota has given himself out as being a descendant of that union), yet the kings and princes of those races are very different. If the salamander kings are only irascible, the sylph kings proud and haughty, the undine queens affectionate and jealous, the gnome kings are fierce, cruel, and deceitful. Merely to revenge themselves on the children of earth, who deprive them of their vassals, they are constantly trying their utmost to lure one of them away, who then wholly lays aside her human nature, and, becoming as shapeless as the gnomes themselves, has to go down into the earth, and is nevermore seen.”
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