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I was astounded at so much pride in so diminutive a being, yet my curiosity prevented me from showing too much of my feelings, for he alone could supply me with information upon the portraits that accompanied that of Hugh Lupus. "Monsieur Knapwurst," I began very respectfully, "would you oblige me by enlightening me upon certain historic doubts?"
Here is this little Knapwurst, who in the midst of excitement, grand hunts, gallant trains of horsemen coming and going, the barking of the hounds, the trampling of the horses, and the shouts of the hunters, is living quietly all alone, buried in his books, and thinking of nothing but the times long gone by, whilst joy or sorrow, songs or tears, fill the world around him, while spring and summer, autumn and winter, come and look in through his dim windows, by turns brightening, warming, and benumbing the face of nature outside.
The hob and nobbing of the glasses gave out an incessant tinkling and clattering. There was sitting Sperver with his bossy forehead, his moustaches bedewed with Rhenish wine, his eyes sparkling, and his grey hair rather disordered; at his right was Marie Lagoutte, on his left Knapwurst.
"Well, so it is with the Nidecks. They may some of them be like Hedwige, but for all that Huldine is the head of their ancestry. See the genealogical tree. Now, sir, are you satisfied?" Then we separated Knapwurst and I excellent friends. "Nevertheless," thought I, "there is the likeness. It is not chance. What is chance? There is no such thing; it is nonsense to talk of chance.
He came towards us at a very leisurely pace, and laid his great flat features close against the massive grating, straining his eyes, and trying to make us out in the darkness in which we were standing. "Is that you, Sperver?" he asked in a hoarse voice. "Open at once, Knapwurst," was the quick reply. "Don't you know how cold it is?" "Oh!
Gazing down I felt giddy, and recoiling in alarm to the middle of the platform, I hastily descended down the path which led to the main building. We had already traversed several great corridors when a great open door stood before us. I looked in, and descried, at the top of a double ladder, the little gnome Knapwurst, whose strange appearance had struck me the night before.
It is a long time since I felt so comfortable as I do to-night. You are welcome, old boy!" As I gazed upon him with surprise for since the death of Lieverlé I had never seen him smile he added more seriously "We are celebrating the return of monseigneur to his health, and Knapwurst is telling us stories." All the guests turned my way, and I was saluted with kindly welcomes on all sides.
"Still, Monsieur Knapwurst, the lord of Nideck has had great sorrows, had he not?" "Such as what?" "The loss of his wife." "Yes, you are right there; his wife was an angel; he married her for love. She was a Zaân, one of the oldest and best nobility of Alsace, but a family ruined by the Revolution. The Countess Odile was the delight of her husband.
"Fritz, there are messengers of evil and there are messengers of good. Now that rascal Knapwurst, he is a sure messenger of ill. If ever I meet him as I am going out hunting I am sure of some misadventure; my gun misses fire, or I sprain my ankle, or a dog gets ripped up! all sorts of mischief come.
The colour of Marie Lagoutte's cheeks, rather redder even than usual, told of an evening of jollity, and her broad cap-frills seemed as if they were wanting to fly all abroad; she sat laughing, now with one, then with another. Knapwurst, squatting in his arm-chair, with his head on a level with Sperver's elbow, looked like a big pumpkin.
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