Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/25

 credit. My wish is that the husband of my daughter should practise my profession, and honor it, as I have done; for I hold that it is the first trade in the world. Hooping a cask is not all; the spirit of the calling consists in knowing how to manage and improve generous wines. To make a regular cask, it is necessary to calculate and guagegauge [sic]; then a very skilful hand is necessary to bring together the staves and tie them solidly. I am the happiest man in the world when I hear from morning to night the klipp, klapp, klipp, klapp, of the mallets of my joyful workmen; and when the work is finished, is polished, is made elegant, and when I have nothing more to do than to apply the master's sign, truly I am proud of my labor, as God must have been of the creation. You speak of the trade of architect; but when the house is built, the first rustic who sleeps upon money can buy it, establish himself in it, and from his balconies laugh at the artist who is passing by in the street on foot. And what answer shall he make to the rustic? Instead of which, in our handiwork we lodge the most generous, the noblest of creatures. Long live wine and casks; I see nothing beyond them!"

"Approved!" said Spangenberg, finishing his glass;—"but all the good and fine things that you have just said do not demonstrate that I am so much in the wrong, nor that you are wholly in the right. I suppose now that a man of illustrious race and princely nobility comes to ask your daughter. There are times in this life, master Martin, when the most stubborn minds reflect many times before letting certain opportunities escape which are not lavished."

"Very well," cried master Martin, half rising, his eyes on fire, his neck stretched out, his voice short and quick—"well, I should say to that gallant, of illustrious race and princely nobility—My good sir, if you were a cooper, we might talk with you; but—"

"But," interrupted the old nobleman, who persisted in not losing the thread of his ides—"but if some day a young and brilliant lord came to you, surrounded by all the pomp that