Everybody knows, in a general way, that the finest
place in the world is -- or, alas, was -- the Dutch borough of
Vondervotteimittiss. Yet as it lies some distance from any of the main
roads, being in a somewhat out-of-the-way situation, there are perhaps
very few of my readers who have ever paid it a visit. For the benefit of
those who have not, therefore, it will be only proper that I should
enter into some account of it. And this is indeed the more necessary, as
with the hope of enlisting public sympathy in behalf of the inhabitants,
I design here to give a history of the calamitous events which have so
lately occurred within its limits. No one who knows me will doubt that
the duty thus self-imposed will be executed to the best of my ability,
with all that rigid impartiality, all that cautious examination into
facts, and diligent collation of authorities, which should ever
distinguish him who aspires to the title of historian.
By the united aid of medals, manuscripts, and inscriptions, I am enabled
to say, positively, that the borough of Vondervotteimittiss has existed,
from its origin, in precisely the same condition which it at present
preserves. Of the date of this origin, however, I grieve that I can only
speak with that species of indefinite definiteness which mathematicians
are, at times, forced to put up with in certain algebraic formulae. The
date, I may thus say, in regard to the remoteness of its antiquity,
cannot be less than any assignable quantity whatsoever.
Touching the derivation of the name Vondervotteimittiss, I confess
myself, with sorrow, equally at fault. Among a multitude of opinions
upon this delicate point- some acute, some learned, some sufficiently
the reverse -- I am able to select nothing which ought to be considered
satisfactory. Perhaps the idea of Grogswigg- nearly coincident with that
of Kroutaplenttey -- is to be cautiously preferred. -- It runs: --
Vondervotteimittis -- Vonder, lege Donder -- Votteimittis, quasi und
Bleitziz- Bleitziz obsol: -- pro Blitzen." This derivative, to say the
truth, is still countenanced by some traces of the electric fluid
evident on the summit of the steeple of the House of the Town-Council. I
do not choose, however, to commit myself on a theme of such importance,
and must refer the reader desirous of information to the "Oratiunculae
de Rebus Praeter-Veteris," of Dundergutz. See, also, Blunderbuzzard "De
Derivationibus," pp. 27 to 5010, Folio, Gothic edit., Red and Black
character, Catch-word and No Cypher; wherein consult, also, marginal
notes in the autograph of Stuffundpuff, with the Sub-Commentaries of
Gruntundguzzell.
Notwithstanding the obscurity which thus envelops the date of the
foundation of Vondervotteimittis, and the derivation of its name, there
can be no doubt, as I said before, that it has always existed as we find
it at this epoch. The oldest man in the borough can remember not the
slightest difference in the appearance of any portion of it; and,
indeed, the very suggestion of such a possibility is considered an
insult. The site of the village is in a perfectly circular valley, about
a quarter of a mile in circumference, and entirely surrounded by gentle
hills, over whose summit the people have never yet ventured to pass. For
this they assign the very good reason that they do not believe there is
anything at all on the other side.
Round the skirts of the valley (which is quite level, and paved
throughout with flat tiles), extends a continuous row of sixty little
houses. These, having their backs on the hills, must look, of course, to
the centre of the plain, which is just sixty yards from the front door
of each dwelling. Every house has a small garden before it, with a
circular path, a sun-dial, and twenty-four cabbages. The buildings
themselves are so precisely alike, that one can in no manner be
distinguished from the other. Owing to the vast antiquity, the style of
architecture is somewhat odd, but it is not for that reason the less
strikingly picturesque. They are fashioned of hard-burned little bricks,
red, with black ends, so that the walls look like a chess-board upon a
great scale. The gables are turned to the front, and there are cornices,
as big as all the rest of the house, over the eaves and over the main
doors. The windows are narrow and deep, with very tiny panes and a great
deal of sash. On the roof is a vast quantity of tiles with long curly
ears. The woodwork, throughout, is of a dark hue and there is much
carving about it, with but a trifling variety of pattern for, time out
of mind, the carvers of Vondervotteimittiss have never been able to
carve more than two objects -- a time-piece and a cabbage. But these
they do exceedingly well, and intersperse them, with singular ingenuity,
wherever they find room for the chisel.
The dwellings are as much alike inside as out, and the furniture is all
upon one plan. The floors are of square tiles, the chairs and tables of
black-looking wood with thin crooked legs and puppy feet. The
mantelpieces are wide and high, and have not only time-pieces and
cabbages sculptured over the front, but a real time-piece, which makes a
prodigious ticking, on the top in the middle, with a flower-pot
containing a cabbage standing on each extremity by way of outrider.
Between each cabbage and the time-piece, again, is a little China man
having a large stomach with a great round hole in it, through which is
seen the dial-plate of a watch.
The fireplaces are large and deep, with fierce crooked-looking
fire-dogs. There is constantly a rousing fire, and a huge pot over it,
full of sauer-kraut and pork, to which the good woman of the house is
always busy in attending. She is a little fat old lady, with blue eyes
and a red face, and wears a huge cap like a sugar-loaf, ornamented with
purple and yellow ribbons. Her dress is of orange-colored
linsey-woolsey, made very full behind and very short in the waist -- and
indeed very short in other respects, not reaching below the middle of
her leg. This is somewhat thick, and so are her ankles, but she has a
fine pair of green stockings to cover them. Her shoes -- of pink leather
-- are fastened each with a bunch of yellow ribbons puckered up in the
shape of a cabbage. In her left hand she has a little heavy Dutch watch;
in her right she wields a ladle for the sauerkraut and pork. By her side
there stands a fat tabby cat, with a gilt toy-repeater tied to its tail,
which "the boys" have there fastened by way of a quiz.
The boys themselves are, all three of them, in the garden attending the
pig. They are each two feet in height. They have three-cornered cocked
hats, purple waistcoats reaching down to their thighs, buckskin
knee-breeches, red stockings, heavy shoes with big silver buckles, long
surtout coats with large buttons of mother-of-pearl. Each, too, has a
pipe in his mouth, and a little dumpy watch in his right hand. He takes
a puff and a look, and then a look and a puff. The pig- which is
corpulent and lazy -- is occupied now in picking up the stray leaves
that fall from the cabbages, and now in giving a kick behind at the gilt
repeater, which the urchins have also tied to his tail in order to make
him look as handsome as the cat.
Right at the front door, in a high-backed leather-bottomed armed chair,
with crooked legs and puppy feet like the tables, is seated the old man
of the house himself. He is an exceedingly puffy little old gentleman,
with big circular eyes and a huge double chin. His dress resembles that
of the boys -- and I need say nothing farther about it. All the
difference is, that his pipe is somewhat bigger than theirs and he can
make a greater smoke. Like them, he has a watch, but he carries his
watch in his pocket. To say the truth, he has something of more
importance than a watch to attend to -- and what that is, I shall
presently explain. He sits with his right leg upon his left knee, wears
a grave countenance, and always keeps one of his eyes, at least,
resolutely bent upon a certain remarkable object in the centre of the
plain.
This object is situated in the steeple of the House of the Town Council.
The Town Council are all very little, round, oily, intelligent men, with
big saucer eyes and fat double chins, and have their coats much longer
and their shoe-buckles much bigger than the ordinary inhabitants of
Vondervotteimittiss. Since my sojourn in the borough, they have had
several special meetings, and have adopted these three important
resolutions:
"That it is wrong to alter the good old course of things:"
"That there is nothing tolerable out of Vondervotteimittiss:" and-
"That we will stick by our clocks and our cabbages."
Above the session-room of the Council is the steeple, and in the steeple
is the belfry, where exists, and has existed time out of mind, the pride
and wonder of the village -- the great clock of the borough of
Vondervotteimittiss. And this is the object to which the eyes of the old
gentlemen are turned who sit in the leather-bottomed arm-chairs.
The great clock has seven faces -- one in each of the seven sides of the
steeple -- so that it can be readily seen from all quarters. Its faces
are large and white, and its hands heavy and black. There is a
belfry-man whose sole duty is to attend to it; but this duty is the most
perfect of sinecures -- for the clock of Vondervotteimittis was never
yet known to have anything the matter with it. Until lately, the bare
supposition of such a thing was considered heretical. From the remotest
period of antiquity to which the archives have reference, the hours have
been regularly struck by the big bell. And, indeed the case was just the
same with all the other clocks and watches in the borough. Never was
such a place for keeping the true time. When the large clapper thought
proper to say "Twelve o'clock!" all its obedient followers opened their
throats simultaneously, and responded like a very echo. In short, the
good burghers were fond of their sauer-kraut, but then they were proud
of their clocks.
All people who hold sinecure offices are held in more or less respect,
and as the belfry -- man of Vondervotteimittiss has the most perfect of
sinecures, he is the most perfectly respected of any man in the world.
He is the chief dignitary of the borough, and the very pigs look up to
him with a sentiment of reverence. His coat-tail is very far longer --
his pipe, his shoe -- buckles, his eyes, and his stomach, very far
bigger -- than those of any other old gentleman in the village; and as
to his chin, it is not only double, but triple.
I have thus painted the happy estate of Vondervotteimittiss: alas, that
so fair a picture should ever experience a reverse!
There has been long a saying among the wisest inhabitants, that "no good
can come from over the hills"; and it really seemed that the words had
in them something of the spirit of prophecy. It wanted five minutes of
noon, on the day before yesterday, when there appeared a very
odd-looking object on the summit of the ridge of the eastward. Such an
occurrence, of course, attracted universal attention, and every little
old gentleman who sat in a leather-bottomed arm-chair turned one of his
eyes with a stare of dismay upon the phenomenon, still keeping the other
upon the clock in the steeple.
By the time that it wanted only three minutes to noon, the droll object
in question was perceived to be a very diminutive foreign-looking young
man. He descended the hills at a great rate, so that every body had soon
a good look at him. He was really the most finicky little personage that
had ever been seen in Vondervotteimittiss. His countenance was of a dark
snuff-color, and he had a long hooked nose, pea eyes, a wide mouth, and
an excellent set of teeth, which latter he seemed anxious of displaying,
as he was grinning from ear to ear. What with mustachios and whiskers,
there was none of the rest of his face to be seen. His head was
uncovered, and his hair neatly done up in papillotes. His dress was a
tight-fitting swallow-tailed black coat (from one of whose pockets
dangled a vast length of white handkerchief), black kerseymere
knee-breeches, black stockings, and stumpy-looking pumps, with huge
bunches of black satin ribbon for bows. Under one arm he carried a huge
chapeau-de-bras, and under the other a fiddle nearly five times as big
as himself. In his left hand was a gold snuff-box, from which, as he
capered down the hill, cutting all manner of fantastic steps, he took
snuff incessantly with an air of the greatest possible
self-satisfaction. God bless me! -- here was a sight for the honest
burghers of Vondervotteimittiss!
To speak plainly, the fellow had, in spite of his grinning, an audacious
and sinister kind of face; and as he curvetted right into the village,
the old stumpy appearance of his pumps excited no little suspicion; and
many a burgher who beheld him that day would have given a trifle for a
peep beneath the white cambric handkerchief which hung so obtrusively
from the pocket of his swallow-tailed coat. But what mainly occasioned a
righteous indignation was, that the scoundrelly popinjay, while he cut a
fandango here, and a whirligig there, did not seem to have the remotest
idea in the world of such a thing as keeping time in his steps.
The good people of the borough had scarcely a chance, however, to get
their eyes thoroughly open, when, just as it wanted half a minute of
noon, the rascal bounced, as I say, right into the midst of them; gave a
chassez here, and a balancez there; and then, after a pirouette and a
pas-de-zephyr, pigeon-winged himself right up into the belfry of the
House of the Town Council, where the wonder-stricken belfry-man sat
smoking in a state of dignity and dismay. But the little chap seized him
at once by the nose; gave it a swing and a pull; clapped the big chapeau
de-bras upon his head; knocked it down over his eyes and mouth; and
then, lifting up the big fiddle, beat him with it so long and so
soundly, that what with the belfry-man being so fat, and the fiddle
being so hollow, you would have sworn that there was a regiment of
double-bass drummers all beating the devil's tattoo up in the belfry of
the steeple of Vondervotteimittiss.
There is no knowing to what desperate act of vengeance this unprincipled
attack might have aroused the inhabitants, but for the important fact
that it now wanted only half a second of noon. The bell was about to
strike, and it was a matter of absolute and pre-eminent necessity that
every body should look well at his watch. It was evident, however, that
just at this moment the fellow in the steeple was doing something that
he had no business to do with the clock. But as it now began to strike,
nobody had any time to attend to his manoeuvres, for they had all to
count the strokes of the bell as it sounded.
"One!" said the clock.
"Von!" echoed every little old gentleman in every leather-bottomed
arm-chair in Vondervotteimittiss. "Von!" said his watch also; "von!"
said the watch of his vrow; and "von!" said the watches of the boys, and
the little gilt repeaters on the tails of the cat and pig.
"Two!" continued the big bell; and
"Doo!" repeated all the repeaters.
"Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Nine! Ten!" said the bell.
"Dree! Vour! Fibe! Sax! Seben! Aight! Noin! Den!" answered the others.
"Eleven!" said the big one.
"Eleben!" assented the little ones.
"Twelve!" said the bell.
"Dvelf!" they replied perfectly satisfied, and dropping their voices.
"Und dvelf it is!" said all the little old gentlemen, putting up their
watches. But the big bell had not done with them yet.
"Thirteen!" said he.
"Der Teufel!" gasped the little old gentlemen, turning pale, dropping
their pipes, and putting down all their right legs from over their left
knees.
"Der Teufel!" groaned they, "Dirteen! Dirteen!! -- Mein Gott, it is
Dirteen o'clock!!"
Why attempt to describe the terrible scene which ensued? All
Vondervotteimittiss flew at once into a lamentable state of uproar.
"Vot is cum'd to mein pelly?" roared all the boys -- "I've been ongry
for dis hour!"
"Vot is com'd to mein kraut?" screamed all the vrows, "It has been done
to rags for this hour!"
"Vot is cum'd to mein pipe?" swore all the little old gentlemen, "Donder
and Blitzen; it has been smoked out for dis hour!" -- and they filled
them up again in a great rage, and sinking back in their arm-chairs,
puffed away so fast and so fiercely that the whole valley was
immediately filled with impenetrable smoke.
Meantime the cabbages all turned very red in the face, and it seemed as
if old Nick himself had taken possession of every thing in the shape of
a timepiece. The clocks carved upon the furniture took to dancing as if
bewitched, while those upon the mantel-pieces could scarcely contain
themselves for fury, and kept such a continual striking of thirteen, and
such a frisking and wriggling of their pendulums as was really horrible
to see. But, worse than all, neither the cats nor the pigs could put up
any longer with the behavior of the little repeaters tied to their
tails, and resented it by scampering all over the place, scratching and
poking, and squeaking and screeching, and caterwauling and squalling,
and flying into the faces, and running under the petticoats of the
people, and creating altogether the most abominable din and confusion
which it is possible for a reasonable person to conceive. And to make
matters still more distressing, the rascally little scape-grace in the
steeple was evidently exerting himself to the utmost. Every now and then
one might catch a glimpse of the scoundrel through the smoke. There he
sat in the belfry upon the belfry-man, who was lying flat upon his back.
In his teeth the villain held the bell-rope, which he kept jerking about
with his head, raising such a clatter that my ears ring again even to
think of it. On his lap lay the big fiddle, at which he was scraping,
out of all time and tune, with both hands, making a great show, the
nincompoop! of playing "Judy O'Flannagan and Paddy O'Rafferty."
Affairs being thus miserably situated, I left the place in disgust, and
now appeal for aid to all lovers of correct time and fine kraut. Let us
proceed in a body to the borough, and restore the ancient order of
things in Vondervotteimittiss by ejecting that little fellow from the
steeple.
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