Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 7.djvu/199

 Rh diced nobility, lives with his prudish, sentimental daughter, Emerentia, in the dilapidated castle, Schnick-Schnack-Schnurr. Their sole companion is the daft school-teacher, Agesel, who, having lost, from too much study of phonetics, the major part of his never gigantic mind, imagines that he is a direct descendant of the Spartan King Agesilaus. With these occupants and no more, the castle resembles a harmless home for the insane. But one day Münchhausen, the prince of liars and chief of swindlers, accompanied by his servant, Karl Buttervogel, the Sancho Panza of the story, comes to the castle. His presence enlivens; his interminable stories, through which Immermann satirizes the tendencies of the time, delight at first, then tire, then become intolerable. To maintain his influence, he suggests to the old Baron the establishment of a stock company for the selling of compressed air, assuring this gullible old soul that hereby his fortunes can be retrieved and his appointment as Privy Councilor can be realized. The Baron, though pleased, enters into the proposition with caution. But Münchhausen, unable to execute his scheme, finds himself in an embarrassing dilemma from which he disentangles himself by mysteriously disappearing and never again coming to light. Emerentia has in the meantime fallen in love with Karl Buttervogel, whom she erroneously looks upon as a Prince in disguise. At the prospect of so humble a son-in-law, the Baron becomes frantic, violently removes Buttervogel from the castle, which, as a result of the Baron's ravings, falls to the ground with a crash and a roar—a catastrophe which reminds one of Poe's Fall of the House of Usher—and the Baron and Agesel are restored to their senses.

The chief trouble with this fantastic story is that it lacks artistic measure and objective plausibility. Immermann, omnivorous reader that he was, wrote this part of his book, not from life, but from other books. And even granting that he carried out his plan with a reasonable degree of cleverness, the average reader is not sufficiently acquainted