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Updated: May 10, 2025
"And I mean to go this very day, and tell some of them what naughty people they are!" "I fear," remarked Quicksilver; slyly smiling, "that you will find none of them at home." The elder traveler's brow, just then, assumed such a grave, stern, and awful grandeur, yet serene withal, that neither Baucis nor Philemon dared to speak a word.
"No, I never did," answered Philemon, with a smile. "And I rather think, my dear old wife, you have been walking about in a sort of a dream. If I had poured out the milk, I should have seen through the business, at once. There happened to be a little more in the pitcher than you thought, that is all." "Ah, husband," said Baucis, "say what you will, these are very uncommon people."
Now Baucis had seen, as plainly as she could see anything, that Quicksilver had turned the pitcher upside down, and consequently had poured out every drop of milk, in filling the last bowl. Of course, there could not possibly be any left.
Near the rising ground where the palace of Frederick VI. stands the home of Ochlenschläger's childhood shines, under the lee of Sondermarken's woody ground, one of these pearls. It is called the "Cottage of Philemon and Baucis;" that is to say, the home of two loving old people.
It was plain enough to perceive that the good old couple had renewed their age, and were now to spend a quiet and delightful hundred years or so, Philemon as an oak, and Baucis as a linden tree. And oh, what a hospitable shade did they fling around them.
The walls were riveted together with iron-bands in crossbars and zig-zags; the brickwork was decayed and crumbling away in blotches; the roof was low and thatched. Yet, in spite of these evidences of poverty, the scholar regarded the structure with a reverential aspect, with such an aspect as he might have presented had he contemplated the hut of Baucis and Philemon.
Suffice it that after sad spirits, prolonged through many of its months, as it called them, we have cast our skins, have taken a farewell of the pompous, troublesome trifle called housekeeping, and are settled down into poor boarders and lodgers at next door with an old couple, the Baucis and Baucida of dull Enfield.
One evening two strangers walked into the village, and stopping at the first house to ask for food, were sent away in a hurry. "We work for a living and have nothing for those who don't. Go away." They were told the same at the next house, and at the next, all down the street. Tired and hungry, they neared the cottage where Philemon and Baucis lived.
His letters always began, "Dearest Héloïse," or "Mélisande," or "Baucis," or "Isolde"; and, rather than acknowledge her ignorance of these classic allusions, she looked them up and sent her answers to "Dear Abélard," or "Pelléas," or "Philemon," or "Tristan," as the case demanded.
"Incomparable," answered Titianus, "only the vivid scarlet on the dame's cheeks seems to me suspicious, considering the ample proportions of the wine-jar at her elbow." "But did you ever see a calmer, kindlier, or more contented countenance?" "Baucis must have slept like that when Philemon allowed himself leave of absence for once! or did that devoted spouse always remain at home?"
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