Haste we now towards the catastrophe of my tale--I say Catastrophe (cries Slawkenbergius) inasmuch as a tale, with parts rightly disposed, not only rejoiceth (gaudet) in the Catastrophe and Peripeitia of a Drama, but rejoiceth moreover in all the essential and integrant parts of it--it has its Protasis, Epitasis, Catastasis, its Catastrophe or Peripeitia growing one out of the other in it, in the order Aristotle first planted them--without which a tale had better never be told at all, says Slawkenbergius, but be kept to a man's self.
In all my ten tales, in all my ten decades, have I Slawkenbergius tied down every tale of them as tightly to this rule, as I have done this of the stranger and his nose.
--From his first parley with the centinel, to his leaving the city of Strasburg, after pulling off his crimson-sattin pair of breeches, is the Protasis or first entrance--where the characters of the Personae Dramatis are just touched in, and the subject slightly begun.
The Epitasis, wherein the action is more fully entered upon and heightened, till it arrives at its state or height called the Catastasis, and which usually takes up the 2d and 3d act, is included within that busy period of my tale, betwixt the first night's uproar about the nose, to the conclusion of the trumpeter's wife's lectures upon it in the middle of the grand parade: and from the first embarking of the learned in the dispute--to the doctors finally sailing away, and leaving the Strasburgers upon the beach in distress, is the Catastasis or the ripening of the incidents and passions for their bursting forth in the fifth act.
This commences with the setting out of the Strasburgers in the Frankfort road, and terminates in unwinding the labyrinth and bringing the hero out of a state of agitation (as Aristotle calls it) to a state of rest and quietness.
This, says Hafen Slawkenbergius, constitutes the Catastrophe or Peripeitia of my tale--and that is the part of it I am going to relate.
We left the stranger behind the curtain asleep--he enters now upon the stage.
--What dost thou prick up thy ears at?--'tis nothing but a man upon a horse--was the last word the stranger uttered to his mule. It was not proper then to tell the reader, that the mule took his master's word for it; and without any more ifs or ands, let the traveller and his horse pass by.
The traveller was hastening with all diligence to get to Strasburg that night. What a fool am I, said the traveller to himself, when he had rode about a league farther, to think of getting into Strasburg this night.--Strasburg!--the great Strasburg!--Strasburg, the capital of all Alsatia!
Strasburg, an imperial city! Strasburg, a sovereign state! Strasburg, garrisoned with five thousand of the best troops in all the world!--Alas! if I was at the gates of Strasburg this moment, I could not gain admittance into it for a ducat--nay a ducat and half--'tis too much--better go back to the last inn I have passed--than lie I know not where--or give I know not what. The traveller, as he made these reflections in his mind, turned his horse's head about, and three minutes after the stranger had been conducted into his chamber, he arrived at the same inn.
--We have bacon in the house, said the host, and bread--and till eleven o'clock this night had three eggs in it--but a stranger, who arrived an hour ago, has had them dressed into an omelet, and we have nothing.--Alas! said the traveller, harassed as I am, I want nothing but a bed.--Ihave one as soft as is in Alsatia, said the host.
--The stranger, continued he, should have slept in it, for 'tis my best bed, but upon the score of his nose.--He has got a defluxion, said the traveller.--Not that I know, cried the host.--But 'tis a camp-bed, and Jacinta, said he, looking towards the maid, imagined there was not room in it to turn his nose in.--Why so? cried the traveller, starting back.--It is so long a nose, replied the host.--The traveller fixed his eyes upon Jacinta, then upon the ground--kneeled upon his right knee--had just got his hand laid upon his breast--Trifle not with my anxiety, said he rising up again.--'Tis no trifle, said Jacinta, 'tis the most glorious nose!--The traveller fell upon his knee again--laid his hand upon his breast--then, said he, looking up to heaven, thou hast conducted me to the end of my pilgrimage--'Tis Diego.
The traveller was the brother of the Julia, so often invoked that night by the stranger as he rode from Strasburg upon his mule; and was come, on her part, in quest of him. He had accompanied his sister from Valadolid across the Pyrenean mountains through France, and had many an entangled skein to wind off in pursuit of him through the many meanders and abrupt turnings of a lover's thorny tracks.
--Julia had sunk under it--and had not been able to go a step farther than to Lyons, where, with the many disquietudes of a tender heart, which all talk of--but few feel--she sicken'd, but had just strength to write a letter to Diego; and having conjured her brother never to see her face till he had found him out, and put the letter into his hands, Julia took to her bed.
Fernandez (for that was her brother's name)--tho' the camp-bed was as soft as any one in Alsace, yet he could not shut his eyes in it.--As soon as it was day he rose, and hearing Diego was risen too, he entered his chamber, and discharged his sister's commission.
The letter was as follows:
'Seig. Diego, 'Whether my suspicions of your nose were justly excited or not--'tis not now to inquire--it is enough I have not had firmness to put them to farther tryal.