THE TALKATIVE HOUSE-KEY

      THIS is what happens when one spends his whole summer spinning yarns and meddles with kobolds, pixies, and beasts that talk.
      A sedate man who restrains his fancy judiciously could never have met with the adventure which I experienced the other day, and will relate as follows:—
      I had returned to the city from my summer vacation, and had already spent two or three days wandering about the streets in search of a dwelling-place suited to my needs. For urgent reasons I did not make the most splendid quarter the province of my research, but that part of the city in whose narrow alleys the so-called poor people fight the battle of existence. Why the street in which I at last found what I was looking for was called Heaven's Gate I have not been able to discover. Towards the east it ran into Butcher Street, where bloody calves and pale pigs hung from iron hooks, and towards the west the Gate led into the so-called Jews' Square, which was no paradise either.
      My attention was drawn to a little pasteboard card fastened to an arched door which was painted green. “Furnished room in the fourth story, to let to a single gentleman,” it said. I looked at the house. It had been freshly painted; and behind the windows could be seen white curtains and red pinks. The door was decorated with two brass lions' heads, which looked as amiable as two serene poodles; and above the door the metal number of the house — 9 — the number of the muses, — greeted my eyes. I rang the bell.
      An elderly woman, neatly attired, opened the door, asked courteously what I wished, and when I had told her my errand, took me up four dark and rather steep flights of stairs to inspect the room which was to let. Having reached the top, she opened the door and let me step into the room. It was what I needed,— a small room, clean and airy, and high above the dampness and noise of the street, with an outlook on a maze of roofs, over which wandered a variety of cats with their elegant gait; above, the gleaming chimney swallows sailed through the blue air, and in the distance was the reticulated spire of the cathedral.
      The rent was soon agreed upon, and through our mutual representations I learned that my present landlady herself was no less than the owner of the house, and the wife of a shoemaker, who worked on the first floor. I took my luggage from the hotel, and an hour later I was on the point of settling myself comfortably in my new quarters. My effects were soon unpacked and disposed of. The one table which the room contained was appropriated as a writing-desk and placed near the window. The inkstand was freshly filled, and everything was in order.
      “Now, Lady Muse, you may pay me a visit as soon as you wish!” I cried out. Then the door opened; but it was not the muse who entered, but the lady of the house.
      “I had almost forgotten it,” she said, laughing, and held the latch-key towards me. She wiped it carefully on her apron, although it was of polished steel, looked at it almost tenderly, and handed it to me. “If it could talk!” she added, and then I was alone with the latch-key.
      It was a strong old fellow. But no! that is not the proper expression; it had rather the appearance of a worthy patriarch; its ward was carefully hollowed out, and the handle was so large that one could put his whole hand through it. I allotted the key its place on a nail, and sat down to write, to inform those persons who took an interest in me of my present place of abode.
      A week later I was, so to speak, in the traces; my day's work was laid out. The morning I spent at the city library, the larger part of the rest of the day in my watch-tower at No. 9 Heaven's Gate. I should have liked to pass my evenings at the Green Hedgehog, where, according to the report of several reliable gentlemen, whose acquaintance I had made, an excellent native wine was on draught; but the cruelly low state of my finances confined me to my tea-urn, which my landlady filled with water every evening, and kept very bright and clean.
      The first of the next month brought me a modest income; and, as soon as it grew dark, I took the house-key with me, and with a look of disdain at the tea-urn left the house to seek the Green Hedgehog. The wine was really not bad, and the conversation as good as it can be only in a circle of young men who are trying to forget in a strong drink the burden and care of the day, and the rebuke of the night before.
      I came home in high spirits, and rather late, and considering my cheerful frame of mind, nobody would think it strange that while I was undressing I sang the old student's song:
      “At my lodgings I've studied the whole forenoon.”
      Then all of a sudden it seemed to me as if a deep bass voice joined in my song, and when I looked around in alarm, I saw to my greatest amazement that my house-key was swinging on its nail like a pendulum, and I distinctly heard it humming, “I'll not stir an inch from this place till the watchman cries twelve in my face.— Juvivallerala!”
      I stood still in astonishment. Nothing like it had ever happened to me before.
      “House-key, old fellow,” I cried, “what is the matter with you?”
      “I have no objection,” answered the housekey, “to your familiarity, although you are only a lodger, and not the owner of the house; but if you address me so, then you must allow me the same privilege.”
      “Willingly; but tell me first of all—”
      “How I came to have the power of speech? That I will tell you by and by, for I hope we shall be together a long time yet. So in the mean time accept the feet as it is and do not rack your brains unnecessarily about it. In the next place, accept my thanks for having taken me with you to the tavern. You cannot believe how much good it does an old house-key, who has not crossed his own threshold for a whole year, to breathe once more the air of an inn.”
      Here the key began to swing like a pendulum again, and hummed at the same time, “Straight from the tavern I am coming.”
      I could not yet become accustomed to the miracle, and for the sake of saying something, I said, “You seem to be well versed in drinking songs.”
      “So I think,” answered the key. “Shall I perhaps sing you a 'Gaudeamus igitur,' or, 'The professor gives no lecture to-day'?”
      “Let it be till another time. Singing might wake up the neighbors.”
      “Very well,” continued the talkative housekey, “then we will chat together. You are not sleepy yet? Shall I tell you to whom I am indebted for all my merry drinking-songs? Oh, those were fine times!”
      The house-key paused as if he were rummaging in the bottom of his memory.
      “I propose,” he then continued, “that you lie down and put out the light. I can tell the story better in the dark.”
      And I did as he wished.
      “I have never seen a handsomer youth,” began the narrator, “than the one I am now going to tell you about. Everybody liked him, and so did I, although through him I have often been placed in a very awkward position. At that time he was a boy of about ten years, and looked roguishly out of a pair of large brown eyes. I was in the service of his parents, but had not yet come in contact with the merry Willie. So I was all the more delighted when the little fellow took me down one day from the nail, put me in his pocket and carried me out-doors. When we reached the city park he took me out and showed me to some boys who were his playfellows. The oldest one turned me over and over, looked into my mouth, and pronounced me fit to be used. For what purpose I learned soon enough. The boy took a file out of his pocket and began to rasp me, so that sight and hearing left me. When he had made a deep wound in me, he poured a black powder inside me and placed a wad of paper on top.”
      “Aha!” said I, interrupting the narrator, “so you became a key-pistol.”
      “Yes, a key-pistol. I, the house-key of house No. 9 Heaven's Gate. But,—
      His days indeed are wisely spent, Who with his station is content;
      and I determined to do honor to mine. Without trembling I awaited the burning slow-match, and —crack!— flew the charge out of my mouth, so that the sparrows in the park flew off, seized with sudden fright.
      “The crowd of boys too fled in alarm, but the cause of their sudden fright was not myself, but a man, who wore a blue coat with brass buttons, and on his white belt a sword. Unnoticed he had emerged from behind the elder-bushes, and with the cry, 'I've got you, you rascals!' he made a dash at the boys. To be sure, he didn't get near them, for they had already reached a place of safety, but I, the innocent one, was seized and taken away.
      “ 'Farewell, No. 9 Heaven's Gate,' I sighed; and in my mind I already saw myself amongst old iron, in the company of bent nails and rusty stove doors. But it was to be otherwise. As soon as Willie's father missed me, he began to search for me everywhere, and the one who alone could give information of my whereabouts judiciously held his peace; so the anxious man, fearing that I might have been taken for criminal purposes, immediately went to the police, to report the case.
      “The joy which I felt when the police officer, with a mild smile, asked my master if I were the missing key, and the face Willie's father made when he learned how I had come into the hands of the police, I am unable to describe in words. I was returned to my rightful owner, and carried home in his coat pocket, after he had paid a dollar as a fine for forbidden shooting within the city limits. The unpleasant scene between father and son, which concluded the adventure, I will pass over in silence. The wound which the boys gave me, when they made a key-pistol out of me, was healed by a locksmith. If you examine me carefully to-morrow, you will detect, an inch above my handle, a reddish scar. I am not ashamed of it.”
      The house-key paused a moment, as if to get his breath, and then continued:—
      “My friend Willie now seemed to avoid me studiously. At first, after the occurrence I have just told you of, he looked at me slyly, and then he ceased to look at me at all. Thus passed several years. Willie had become a handsome, slender youth, and his mother told him so every day. He already had a tobacco-pipe with bright-colored tassels, and he filled it from his father's tobacco pouch when his father's back was turned. Sometimes he came home late in the evening with a heated brain, and then his father would scold, and his mother had great difficulty in defending her son.
      “One evening Willie stayed out excessively late, and his father stormed worse than ever. 'I'll let the young scapegrace see how he gets into the house,' said he, finally, in great anger, and he locked the front door himself, laid me under his pillow, and went to sleep. But his mother was awake. She cautiously drew me out from beneath the bolster, and tied me up carefully in a handkerchief. Then she placed herself by the window to wait, and when about midnight Willie came creeping along, she dropped me down on the street. Her son seized me, and after fumbling about some time for the key-hole, opened the door, and when he had given me back to his anxious mother, groped his way along to his chamber. How his father was pacified the next morning I do not remember.
      “Again some time passed by, and then came a festal day. The father himself gave me over to his son,— who was now called a student and wore a red cap,— and made a long speech, which he ended by saying that Willie must always show himself worthy of me. The son thanked him with emotion and received me with beaming eyes. I once heard that the king bestows golden keys upon people of high rank, and that this is a great honor; but I can hardly believe that one of them ever experienced so great joy at this distinction as my Willie felt when he put me in his pocket.
      “The day when the key was given over was followed by the merriest night which I ever spent, and it will live in my memory till I have crumbled away to rust. He who was now my owner carried me to the rooms of the club of which he was to become a member. Ah, then there was a high old time! Gay carousers with bright-colored caps and belts, waiting-maids with white aprons and black eyes, full mugs and drinking-horns, shining rapiers, merry songs, jollity and noise till morning light.”
      “I know all about that, house-key. I know all about that.”
      “The merriest of them all was my Willie. He was so delighted at having possession of me that he gave his companions a keg of the best beer; and the knowledge that, as owner of a housekey, he was admitted to the circle of free and independent men, made him very bold towards the brown-haired Toni. When Willie reached Heaven's Gate the sun was already up, and the door of house No. 9 had just been unfastened. The first time that I was at Willie's disposal he had no need of me.
      “Now began the merriest time of my life. Many similar evenings followed this first one like the beads of a rosary. In the mean time there were drives, torchlight processions, drinking-parties, and many merry college tricks; and I was always present, for the advice of the philosopher,
      The crafty tippler his house-key takes At early morn when he awakes,
      was wisely followed by my master. Moreover, that as academical house-key I did not let the time pass unemployed I have already given you proof.
      “ Under the circumstances, any share in the events of my master's life was a passive one. Oh, if I had never left the roll of a spectator! That unfortunate moment when I became active in the course of events was the cause of everlasting separation from my Willie. I will be brief, for the pain of recollection forbids me any flowers of speech. Besides, it is late in the night, and you will want to go to sleep.
      “My friend Willie had gone with his companions to a village, and there the young men were having a good time over their glasses, laughing, shouting, and singing. But not far from the table where the students were drinking, a crowd of journeymen mechanics, rough, but strong men, had sat down.
      “I do not know whether it is how as it was then. At that time, whenever students and mechanics, whom we collegians called 'snags,' met, they began to banter each other. But this time it soon grew into a quarrel, and it was my master who, by singing the song, 'God bless you, brother bristler,' commenced hostilities. At first, insulting words passed back and forth; later on, beer mugs, and other things that happened to be at hand; and when these missiles gave out, they seized sticks and the legs of chairs. How the unlucky thought of using me as a weapon came into my owner's head, I do not know; I only know that I did great mischief in the young fellow's hand. But let us draw the curtain over this unprofitable scene.
      “After that day I found myself once more in the hands of justice, and had a fine Latin name given to me, which has escaped my memory.”
      “Probably it was corpus delicti, was it not?”
      “Quite right!” cried the house-key with delight. “As corpus delicti I was put with the reports, but my poor young friend sat in a narrow room, whose doors were bolted outside and the windows furnished with iron gratings. People call it a prison.”
      “I know all about that, too, house-key.”
      “So much the better, as it will save me from going into details. But give me your attention a few minutes longer. I am almost at the end. The affair in which we were concerned turned out very badly. Willie was expelled; and when he had paid his fine, left the city. To be sure, I went back to my home; but my merry life was all over. Sad at heart, I spent my days on a nail in a dark corner; and what I learned from time to time about my darling from his parents' conversation did not help to lessen my sadness. Trouble gnawed at the hearts of the two old people and rust gnawed at mine. It was a lucky day for me that a change soon took place in my circumstances. Willie's parents sold the house — it was said, to pay their son's debts — and I passed into other hands, — hands which cleaned away the rust from me, and by repeated oilings restored my lost virtues.
      “I have never heard a word about Willie's parents; but himself I have seen once since then, and this meeting I will tell you about to-morrow. For the present, good night.”
      “Good night, house-key! “
      On the following morning, when I awoke somewhat later than usual, my house-key was hanging silently on its nail, and to my fainthearted“good morning” gave no reply. “Probably,” I thought, “he speaks only at midnight; or, still more probably, it was all a dream.” The last supposition seemed to me more and more likely, in proportion as sleep left my limbs. “How can one dream such foolish stuff!” I said to myself; “the home-made wine and the gay conversation of last evening were to blame for it.” I dressed myself and went to my daily work, which, like yesterday, I crowned with a visit to the Green Hedgehog.
      “Now we shall soon see whether I was dreaming or not,” I said, as I returned to my room towards midnight. “How are you, old housekey?”
      “Thank you for the kind inquiry; very well,” sounded the answer. “I am always feeling well when I have breathed the fragrance of wine.”
      So it was a fact, and no dream. I opened the window and put my head out. A falling star made a bright arch in the sky, and across from the cathedral sounded the striking of bells. I pulled my ear. No, I was not dreaming. I really possessed a talking house-key.
      “May I talk with you again a little while?” he asked courteously.
      “Nothing would please me better,” I replied, politely put out the light, and stretched myself at full length on my bed.
      “About two years after the event I last described,” began the key, “I was in the service of a man who had this very room which you now occupy, and who, like you, lived by writing. He was not very old then, but his thin hair was already turning gray, and gray was also the color of his wrinkled face. It seemed to be his favorite color, for he usually wore gray clothes too, and even gray spectacles; gray dust lay on his books, and gray ink flowed from his pen on grayish paper.
      “This man possessed the faculty of seeing the imperfections of anything at the first glance. When he took me for the first time in his hand he immediately spied the scar which I carry as a remembrance of the time when I served as a key-pistol. 'Patched!' he said, with a spiteful laugh, and pushed me away from him. When the morning sun looked in at the window to greet him, he spoke of sun-spots; when the moon rose in the evening above the gabled roof, he would say, 'She has neither air nor water'; and if he went out into the park in May-time, he did not see the young leaves and the white blossoms, but only the caterpillars on them.
      “There was a good reason for the gray man's bitter manners. He had made a compact with Gallus, the ink-devil, who all day long sat in a great dust-covered inkstand and came out at night to squat on the paper-weight and help his master write. But the suggestions of a wicked ink-devil are not as sweet as honey. The gray man was a so-called critic. Do you know what that is?”
      “I know what it is; go on, house-key, go on!”
      “My owner seldom made use of me. The crabbed man never went into gay company, therefore he often visited the theatre, and then he took me with him, so I am under some obligation to him for enlarging my knowledge. To be sure, he seldom remained long, but usually left the house soon after the first act, which in no way prevented him from criticising the rest.
      “One evening he took me - as it seemed to me, with an uncanny laugh — from the nail, examined my mouth, put me in his pocket, and went out of the house. By the direction which we took, and the length of the way, I concluded that the gray man was going to a theatre in the suburbs; and so he was. He went in and took a seat. They were tuning the instruments in the orchestra; the doors of the boxes slammed; a humming sound gave reason to conclude that the house was filling up; the music began; the curtain rose, and the play commenced. I could only follow it intelligently with my ears, for my seat was in my master's dark coat pocket, and the opera glass, which repelled all my attempts to get nearer with haughty silence, was often the object of my envy. To-day the play was to be a play for me in the true sense of the word, for my master took me out of my dark dungeon and allowed me a look at the audience and the stage.
      “Saint Florian! what did I see! On the front of the stage, near the lights, stood a slender young man, in picturesque costume, and with very red cheeks and coal-black, artificial curls. It was Willie, my own never to-be-forgotten Willie. Now he ran both hands through his hair, rolled his eyes like two fire-wheels, and cried: 'Wretches! wretches! false, hypocritical crocodiles! Your eyes are water - your hearts brass! Kisses on your lips — swords in your bosoms!'
      “Then the gray man put me to his lower lip, and drew from me the shrillest sound, which went to the bottom of my soul. And as if the whistle which shrieked through the house had been a preconcerted sign, there arose all at once such a fiendish uproar as I never heard before. There was whistling, hissing, stamping of feet, thumping of canes, laughing, and screaming, till the walls and ceiling shook. I saw my old friend stagger and beat his forehead with his doubled fist. Then the curtain fell. It was the last time that I ever saw my poor Willie. And I have never been able to learn what became of him. Good night.”
      “Good night, old fellow.”
      Man can accustom himself to anything, even to a talking key. On the following evening it seemed quite natural to expect a little gossip from the house-key before going to sleep, and my friend did not keep me waiting long.
      “Do you know,” he began, “that this afternoon, instead of remaining at your work, you spent two hours looking out the window?”
      “Was it really two hours, house-key? Well, you see, I was tired of working; besides, the closeness of the room and the fresh air outside—”
      “And the little seamstress in the attic room across the way,” interrupted the house-key; “well, well, don't be angry. I am not going to preach you a sermon. You are old enough to know what to do and what not to do. But the sight of the neat, flaxen-haired person, plying her needle so industriously, brought to my mind an old story, which I would like to tell you.”
      “Let me hear it,” I implored, and the housekey began:—
      “Years ago there lived in this house a seamstress, who was not unlike your opposite neighbor. She was a very young thing, and as pretty as a picture; besides, she was as busy as a bee, and merry as a crested lark in May. And she sang like a lark while at her work, and lovely songs, such as, for example, 'Enjoy life while the light is still burning,' 'Three knights came riding through the gate,' and 'Early in the morn a little maid arose.' Altogether, it was rather noisy in the house at that time, for, besides little Lizzie, there were half a dozen other seamstresses, fair-haired and dark, good and bad. They were employed by a large woman with false curls and a well-oiled tongue that went all day like a millclapper.
      “The poor things had to work busily, for their employer kept a sharp watch over their fingers. But she did not treat the young people altogether badly, and what at first struck me as strange was the strictness with which she watched over the young girls' conduct. Indeed, evil tongues were of the opinion that this happened more from jealousy than from motherly anxiety, and at last I almost came to think so too.
      “At that time, just as now, there was a shoemaker's shop on the ground floor; and I soon found out that the brown-haired foreman had his eye on little Lizzie. In spite of all madam's watchfulness, it occasionally happened that the two young people met on the steps. At such times the shoemaker usually said: 'Fine Weather to-day, little miss'; and Lizzie would reply, 'Yes, very fine weather'; and then she would slip quickly past him like a shrew-mouse. My place was then on a nail out in the hall, and thus it happened that I could overlook the doorsteps. One morning — it was Lizzie's birthday — I saw the shoemaker creep up the stairs in the early dawn, before anybody was awake, and lay something gently on the floor before the young girl's door. People in love are wont to leave flowers at such a time. But the foreman's gift was not of that kind, but a pair of dainty, high-heeled shoes of polished leather, of which a princess might have been proud. Fortunately, the little maiden discovered them in safety before anybody else had seen them. How delighted she was! The shoes fitted perfectly, and the shoemaker had never taken her measure.''
      Here the house-key paused, and I concluded that he had reached a change in affairs.
      “A short time after,” the key went on to say, “the stout woman who employed the seamstresses received a visit from a young man of distinguished bearing, who ordered a large quantity of fine linen. The visit was repeated a day or two later, and then oftener, and I soon knew that the young count, for such he was, came to the house on account of little Lizzie. Probably he had made her acquaintance sometime when she was out for a walk, for I noticed particularly that she already knew him, I discovered too, to my disappointment, that she was not indifferent to him; and what disturbed me most was the fact that the madam this time seemed to be blind.
      “But the shoemaker on the ground floor was not blind. Whenever the count entered the house, the poor fellow would hammer away as fiercely at his boot-sole as if he had his favored rival under his hand.
      “The last day of the year had come. On New Year's eve the seamstresses were regularly invited to take punch with their employer; and so they were this time. In the course of the afternoon the count had been there, and had spoken in a low voice with little Lizzie in the hall, and I had heard their conversation.
      “The evening came, and soon the company were sitting around the big bowl of fragrant drink, and consuming great mountains of cake. I, too, was there, and was a person of no small importance. The maidens were going to pour lead, and one of them thought that the melted metal ought to be dropped through a church key, to make the charm effective. For want of a church key they had selected me, and I think, myself, without boasting, that I am about as good as a church key. What do you think?”
      “You are the most dignified key I have ever met,” I replied.
      “Thank you,” said the key, somewhat affected. “But let me go on.
      “The lead was brought; it was lead from a church window. They melted it in an iron spoon, and then one after another poured the hot metal through my ring into a bowl filled with water. This caused much fun and laughter. Little Lizzie, too, who had sat the whole evening silent and absorbed, took the spoon and poured the lead. 'A shoemaker's chair!' cried one of the maidens, laughing. 'No, a count's crown!' said a second, making up a scornful face.
      “Whereupon another play was begun, in which I was also used. They fastened me to a thread and suspended me in an empty glass. Then some one would ask a question, and if I struck against the glass once, they understood the answer to be yes, and if more than once, no.
      “Thus the time passed till midnight. The bells were striking twelve from the tower; the company wished one another a Happy New Year, and then each of the young girls went to her room. In the midst of breaking up no attention was paid to me, and nobody saw that little Lizzie seized me, and hid me in her pocket.
      “When she reached her room she took a ball of yarn from her work-basket and tied the end of it, with trembling fingers, to my handle. Her heart was beating loudly.
      “'Wait,' she said softly to herself; 'I will first ask Fate whether I ought to do it or not.' She placed a glass on the table and suspended me in it by the thread. 'Yes or no ?' she asked with quivering voice.
      “If I had possessed the gift of human speech then, I should surely have made use of it to give her some good advice; but I had to see in silence what danger the poor child was in. 'No,' thought I, 'she must be warned.' I made myself as heavy as I possibly could, and - crack - crack! - the thread had given way, and the glass was broken to pieces.
      “The maiden grew deathly pale, and shook from head to foot. Trembling, she gathered up the fragments; then she knelt down and prayed a long, long time.
      “After that she was calm. She put out the light and went to bed. After a while footsteps were heard in front of the house, and a low whistle. Lizzie did not move, but buried her little head in her pillow. But I saw, sitting at the sleeping maiden's head the whole night long, a little angel, who had two wings and carried a lily in his hand.”
      “That sounds improbable, house-key.”
      “Improbable?” returned the house-key, grieved.
      “Is it not far more improbable that a house-key should tell you a story?”
      Nothing could be said against that, and I thought it advisable to keep silent.
      “It only remains now for me to tell you,” my friend continued, “that the old woman who lets this room to you is none other than the little Lizzie of that time, and that her husband, the old, white-haired shoemaker, is the same one who placed a pair of high-heeled shoes in front of the little seamstress' door.
      “And to-morrow,” the key went on to say, “when we return from the Green Hedgehog I will tell you how I came by the ability to express myself in human speech. That is the most wonderful story of all.”
      “To-morrow, dear house-key,” I said, with a sigh, “we shall hardly visit the Green Hedgehog; but I will listen with pleasure to your gossip, over a cup of tea.”
      “Over a cup of tea?” asked the house-key, drawling his words. “No, my friend, that would not do. Know that I only talk when I have spent the evening at the tavern.”
      “Then I must wait patiently till the first of next month,” I replied, disheartened.
      The house-key muttered something I could not understand, in his beard. A happy thought came to me.
      “Do you know what, old friend!” I said; “I will, of course with your permission, put the stories you have told me on paper, and send the manuscript to a man who prints such things. Perhaps, next month, we can have one or two evenings more at the Green Hedgehog.”
      “Do it,” said the house-key.