Unable to discover its legitimate object, the popular
fury at length subsided; leaving behind it, by way
of sediment, quite a medley of opinion about this
unhappy affair.
One gentleman thought the whole an X-ellent joke.
Another said that, indeed, Bullet-head had shown much
X-uberance of fancy.
A third admitted him X-entric, but no more.
A fourth could only suppose it the Yankee’s
design to X-press, in a general way, his X-asperation.
‘Say, rather, to set an X-ample to posterity,’
suggested a fifth.
That Bullet-head had been driven to an extremity,
was clear to all; and in fact, since that editor could
not be found, there was some talk about lynching the
other one.
The more common conclusion, however, was that the
affair was, simply, X-traordinary and in-X-plicable.
Even the town mathematician confessed that he could
make nothing of so dark a problem. X, every.
body knew, was an unknown quantity; but in this case
(as he properly observed), there was an unknown quantity
of X.
The opinion of Bob, the devil (who kept dark about
his having ’X-ed the paragrab’), did not
meet with so much attention as I think it deserved,
although it was very openly and very fearlessly expressed.
He said that, for his part, he had no doubt about the
matter at all, that it was a clear case, that Mr.
Bullet-head ’never could be persuaded fur to
drink like other folks, but vas continually a-svigging
o’ that ere blessed xxx ale, and as a naiteral
consekvence, it just puffed him up savage, and made
him X (cross) in the X-treme.’
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
Pestis eram vivus — moriens tua mors ero.
— Martin
Luther
Horror and fatality have been stalking abroad
in all ages. Why then give a date to this story
I have to tell? Let it suffice to say, that at
the period of which I speak, there existed, in the
interior of Hungary, a settled although hidden belief
in the doctrines of the Metempsychosis. Of the
doctrines themselves — that is, of their falsity,
or of their probability — I say nothing.
I assert, however, that much of our incredulity —
as La Bruyere says of all our unhappiness —
“vient de ne pouvoir être seuls.”
{*1}
But there are some points in the Hungarian superstition
which were fast verging to absurdity. They —
the Hungarians — differed very essentially from
their Eastern authorities. For example, “The
soul,” said the former — I give the
words of an acute and intelligent Parisian —
“ne demeure qu’un seul fois dans un
corps sensible: au reste — un cheval, un
chien, un homme meme, n’est que la ressemblance
peu tangible de ces animaux.”
The families of Berlifitzing and Metzengerstein
had been at variance for centuries. Never before
were two houses so illustrious, mutually embittered
by hostility so deadly. The origin of this enmity
seems to be found in the words of an ancient prophecy
— “A lofty name shall have a fearful fall
when, as the rider over his horse, the mortality of
Metzengerstein shall triumph over the immortality of
Berlifitzing.”
