Master Flea, E. T. A. Hoffmann [ebook voice reader .TXT] 📗

various glasses⁠—for the most part prepared by myself⁠—we succeeded not only in drawing the princess uninjured from the flower, but in forwarding her growth, so that she soon attained her natural dimensions. Now, indeed, life was wanting, and this depended on the last and most difficult operations. We reflected her image by means of one of the best solar microscopes, and loosened it dexterously from the white wall, without the least injury. As soon as the shadow floated freely, it shot like lightning into the glass, which broke into a thousand shivers. The princess stood before us full of life and freshness. We shouted for joy, but so much the greater was our horror on perceiving that the circulation of the blood stopped precisely there where the Leech-Prince had fastened himself. She was just on the point of swooning, when we perceived on the very spot behind the left ear a little black dot, that quickly appeared and as quickly disappeared. Immediately the stagnation of the blood ceased, the princess revived, and our work had succeeded.

“Each of us⁠—that is, I and my colleague⁠—knew full well how invaluable was the possession of the princess, and each struggled for it, imagining that he had more right to it than the other. My colleague affirmed that the tulip, in which he had found the princess, was his property, and that he had made the first discovery, which he had imparted to me, and that I could only be deemed an assistant, who had no right to demand, as a reward of his labour, the work itself at which he had assisted. I, on the other hand, brought forward my invention of the last and most difficult process, which had restored the princess to life, and in the execution of which my colleague had only helped; so that, if he had any claims of propriety upon the embryo in the flower petal, yet the living person belonged to me. On this ground we quarrelled for many hours, till, having screamed ourselves hoarse, we at last came to a compromise. My colleague consigned the princess to me, in return for which I gave him an important glass, and this very glass is the cause of our present determined hostility. He affirms that I have treacherously purloined it⁠—an impudent falsehood⁠—and although I really know that the glass was lost in the transferring, yet I can declare, upon my honour and conscience, that I am not the cause of it, nor have I any idea how it could have happened. In fact, the glass is so small, that a grain of sand is about ten times larger. See, friend Pepusch: now I have told you all in confidence, and now you know that Dörtje Elverdink is none other than the revivified Princess Gamaheh, and must perceive that to such a high mysterious alliance a plain young man like you can have no⁠—”

“Stop!” interrupted George Pepusch, with a smile that was something satanic, “Stop! one confidence is worth another, and, therefore, I, on my side, will confide to you that I knew all that you have been telling me much earlier and much better than you did. I cannot laugh enough at your bigotry and your foolish pretensions. Know⁠—what you might have known long ago if your knowledge had not been confined to glass-grinding⁠—that I myself am the thistle, Zeherit, who stood where the princess had laid her head, and of whom you have thought fit to be silent through your whole history.”

“Pepusch!” cried the flea-tamer, “are you in your senses? The thistle, Zeherit, blooms in the distant Indies, in the beautiful valley, closed in by lofty rocks, where at times the wisest magi of the earth are wont to assemble: Lindhorst, the keeper of the records, can best inform you about it. And you, whom I have seen running about half starved with study and hunger, you pretend to be the thistle, Zeherit?”

“What a wise man you are, Leeuwenhoek!” said Pepusch, laughing: “Well, think of my person what you will, but do not be absurd enough to deny that, in the moment of the thistle Zeherit’s feeling the sweet breath of Gamaheh, he bloomed in glowing love and passion, and that, when he touched the temples of the sleeping princess, she too dreamt sweetly of love. Too late the Thistle perceived the Leech-Prince, whom he else had killed with his thorns in a moment, but yet, with the help of the root, Mandragora, he would have succeeded in recalling the princess to life, if the stupid genius, Thetel, had not interfered with his awkward remedies. It is true that in his passion the genius put his hand into the saltbox, which he is used to carry at his girdle when he travels, like Pantagruel, and flung a good handful at the Leech-Prince. But it is quite false that he killed him in so doing. All the salt fell into the marsh; not a single grain hit the prince, whom the thistle, Zeherit, slew with his thorns, and having thus avenged the murder of Gamaheh, devoted himself to death. It is the genius only⁠—who interfered in matters not concerning him⁠—that is the cause of the princess lying so long in the sleep of flowers; the Thistle awoke much earlier, for the death of both was but the same sleep, from which they revived, although in other forms. You will have completed the measure of your gross blunders, if you suppose that the Princess Gamaheh was formed exactly as Dörtje Elverdink now is, and that it is you who restored her to life. It happened to you, my good Leeuwenhoek, as it did to the awkward servant in the remarkable story of the Three Pomegranates; he freed two maidens from the fruit, without having first assured himself of the means of keeping them in life, and in consequence saw them perish miserably before his eyes. Not you, but he, who has escaped from you, whose loss you so deeply