Page:Works of Heinrich Heine 01.djvu/47

Rh cross rod between his legs? He has got the convict step and can never lose it. See how contemptuously and ironically he often looks down at his companion when he bores him with his commonplace questions;—and yet he cannot get rid of him—a bloody contract binds him to that servant, who is Satan himself. Ignorant people think, of course, that this companion is the writer of comedies and anecdotes, Harrys of Hanover, whom Paganini takes with him as business-manager for his concerts; but the multitude does not know that the devil took the form of Mr. George Harrys, the soul he keeps locked up with other rubbish in a chest in Hanover, where it will remain till the devil restores its proper fleshly envelope, when he will probably accompany his master, Paganini, through the world in the more befitting form of a black poodle.'

"But if Paganini seemed to me sufficiently incredible and wonderful as I saw him walking under the green leaves of the Hamburg JungfernsteigJungfernstieg [sic], what were my impressions of his fearfully eccentric apparition that evening in the concert! This was given in the Comedy Theatre of Hamburg, and the art-loving public had assembled so early and in such numbers that it was with difficulty that I conquered a place by the orchestra. Though it was post-day I saw in the balcony-boxes the whole refined and cultured