Short Fiction

bellowing, a man whose scolding renders him hopping mad, who cuts capers, throwing his arms and legs about, and seems unable to control himself. The wheel was really no longer in sight, yet Piepsam still raved and danced in the same spot.

“Hold him! hold him! He is riding on the path to the cemetery! You villain! You impudent clown! You damned ass! If I could only get hold of you, wouldn’t I skin you alive, you silly ass, you stupid windbag, you tomfool, you ignorant bounder!⁠—You get off! You get off this very instant! Will nobody kick him into the dirt, the scoundrel?⁠—Riding for pleasure, eh? On the way to the cemetery! Knock him off his wheel, the damned oaf! Oh! Oh! If I only had you, what wouldn’t I do? And what else? Eyes blue as lightning, eh? May the devil scratch them out of your face, you ignorant, ignorant, ignorant bounder!⁠ ⁠…”

Piepsam now took to language which is not to be repeated; he foamed, and poured forth in his cracked voice the most shameful terms of reprobation, while the contortions of his body continually increased. A couple of children with a basket and a terrier came over from the high road; they climbed across the ditch, stood about the screaming man, and looked curiously into his distorted visage. A few labourers, who worked on the new buildings in the vicinity, or had just begun their midday rest, also became attentive, and a number of men as well as some of the women who were mixing mortar came walking towards the group. But Piepsam continued to rave on; he was growing worse and worse. In his blind and insane rage he shook his fists towards heaven and in all directions, shook his legs convulsively, turned himself round and round, bent the knee and leaped into the air again, succumbing to his excessive efforts to shout as loud as possible. He did not pause a single moment in his tirade, he hardly took time to breathe, and it was really astonishing where all his language came from. His face was terribly swollen, his high hat sat far back on his neck, and his false shirtfront, which was not fastened, hung out of his waistcoat. He had long ago arrived at generalities and poured out things which had not the remotest connection with the subject in hand. They dealt with his dissipated life and with religious matters, uttered in a most unsuitable tone and viciously intermingled with curse-words.

“Come on, come on, all of you!” he bellowed. “Not you, not only you, but the rest of you, you with the bicycle caps and eyes blue as lightning! I’ll shout truths into your ear so that your blood will run cold forever, you windy rogues!⁠ ⁠… You grin, do you? Shrug your shoulders?⁠ ⁠… I drink⁠ ⁠… certainly I drink! I even guzzle, if you care to hear it! What does that mean? It’s a long road that knows no turning! The day will come, you good-for-nothing rubbish, when God shall weigh all of us.⁠ ⁠… Oh! oh! The Son of Man will come in the clouds, you innocent canaille, and His justice is not of this world! He will cast you into the outermost darkness, you merry wretches, where there is howling and⁠ ⁠…”

He was now surrounded by quite an imposing group of people. A few laughed and a few looked at him with wrinkled brows. More workmen and several more mortar-women had come over from the buildings. A driver had got off his wagon, halting it upon the high road, and, whip in hand, had also climbed across the ditch. A man took Piepsam by the arm and shook him, but that had no effect. A squad of soldiers marched by and, laughing, craned their necks to look at him. The terrier could no longer hold back, but braced his forelegs against the ground and, with his tail thrust between his legs, howled directly into his face.

Suddenly Lobgott Piepsam cried once more at the top of his voice: “You get off, you get off at once, you ignorant bounder!” described a half-circle with one arm, and then collapsed. He lay there, suddenly struck dumb, a black heap amidst the curious. His cylindrical silk hat flew off, rebounded once from the ground, and also lay there.

Two masons bent over the immovable Piepsam and discussed the case in that wholehearted and sensible tone common to workingmen. Then one of them went off at a quick stride. Those who remained behind undertook a few more experiments with the unconscious one. One man dashed water in his face out of a bucket, another poured some brandy out of a bottle into the palm of his hand and rubbed Piepsam’s temples with it. But these efforts were crowned with no success.

A short interval thus elapsed. Then wheels were heard, and a wagon came along the high road. It was an ambulance, drawn by two pretty little horses and with a gigantic red cross painted on each side. It came to a halt, and two men in neat uniforms climbed down from the driver’s seat, and while one went to the back part of the wagon to open it and to draw out the stretcher, the other rushed upon the path to the cemetery, pushed the staring crowd aside, and, with the help of one of the men, carried Herr Piepsam to the wagon. He was laid upon the stretcher and shoved into the wagon like a loaf of bread into an oven, whereupon the door snapped shut and the two uniformed men climbed to the driver’s seat again. All this was done with great precision, with a few practised turns of the hand, quick and adroit, as by trained apes.

And then Lobgott Piepsam was driven away.

The Infant Prodigy

The infant prodigy enters⁠—the entire hall grows silent.

It grows silent, and then the people begin to clap, because somewhere a born ruler of men and leader of the