MISTER MYSTERY RESPONDS

New weekly meeting in the “salon" of Johanna Schopenhauer, the hostess or “salonnière”. Goethe, Tieck, Wieland, Adele Schopenhauer, Caroline Walsolz, Dorothea and Friedrich Schlegel and Novalis are the guests on this occasion. Arthur Schopenhauer is also present this once, exhibiting a face like a rainy day, seated in an armchair with the crutches next to him. As is customary at this time of year, all are gathered around the fireplace. Wieland is the first to take the floor: “ There is one thing really troubling to me. And not only to me but to Tieck also, and maybe to all of you”. “What is it?” the hostess asks. But they are interrupted by the peevish Arthur Schopenhauer: "It doesn't trouble to me in the least. What's more, I give a hoot". Automatically his mother rebukes him: “ Arthur, watch your language! Besides, you don’t even know what the thing that worries Wieland is." “ Whatever it is, I care a damn. Everything is pure illusion. Nothing ...

Sunset, the expected time for the duel, is approaching. Tieck is alone in the snowy meadow where the duel must take place. But he doesn’t stop for an instant: he is practicing the hot-water bottle fighting. Then he sees Wieland climbing the meadow. -Hey, I thought you would not come. The sun is about to set! You do not want to fight a duel in the dark, I imagine. So hurry up and take out your hot-water bottle before the water cools. -There is no hot-water bottle. -What? -My wife caught me taking it surreptitiously and kicked up a stink in the street. She wanted to know what I was going to do with the hot-water bottle.  And since I could not tell her, she imagined who knows what. He accused me of pervert and threatened to ask for a divorce. -The divorce? For a simple hot-water bottle? I hope you never dare to be unfaithful to her! -I tried to borrow one, but everyone seems to have affection for their hot-water bottle. In addition, in this cold, people need them to heat their b...

The twilight spreads its cloak over the city of Weimar while Lord Byron follows a woman down its streets. He has been following her for a long time from the outskirts, where she has caught his attention because of her halo of mystery. She is a tall, thin woman in a cloak with a hood that does not allow him to see her face. It’s precisely this circumstance (the fact that the woman hides her face) what excites his curiosity. However, the slender lady possesses such graceful legs that it's hard for Byron to follow in her footsteps. After a prolonged zigzag through the alleys of the medieval core, the mysterious lady crosses the threshold of a door. Without hesitation, Byron goes after her. Thus, he arrives at a room whose only furniture consisted of a wardrobe with strange carved symbols that reminded Byron of the Egyptian hieroglyphs and also the writing of his grandmother, a writing he has never been able to decipher (circumstance that, at the time of reading her will, cost him the...

Johanna Schopenhauer, in her chiromancer role, is bent over Lord Byron's hand watching carefully his palm. They are sitting facing each other around a small circular table. - Who do you see, Mrs. Schopenhauer? The redhead woman, the marchioness or Ludovica? -I see a man with a mustache. Lord Byron gets up suddenly knocking over the table: -Do you make fun of me?! -If you withdraw your hand, I can not see well ... Byron sits down again with his hand outstretched. The chiromancer looks attentively at the palm. -Oh geez! The mustached man has boobs! Byron gets up again. -What does this mean? -I can not guess if you don’t show me the palm. He sits down again. The chiromancer stares again at the palm. -Oh geez! -What's the matter now? -It's a woman disguised as a man! Bewildered, Byron gets up suddenly, but then he reflects and sits down again breathing a sigh of relief. -But is the mustache hers or part of the disguise? The chiromancer’s face is increasingly cl...

“Where does this air current come from?” Byron asked Schlegel who was sitting next to him. "Oh, it's Novalis’ ears. They’ve not stopped flapping since the lightning struck him.” Apart from the hostess or the "salonnière", a select group of intellectuals and writers were gathered in Johanna Schopenhauer's salon. There were Lord Byron and Ludwig Tieck, but also Johanna’s daughter Adela, Bettina Brentano, Achim von Arnim, Novalis, Friedrich Schlegel and Goethe. Goethe (whose fondness for eating onions is well known) was eating a raw onion. He had showed up at the party accompanied by his mistress, Christiane Vulpius, to the scandal of Bettina who, to demonstrate her vexation, began to pirouette. Byron watched her stunned. He ignored that, among the major figures of German Romanticism, pirouette was the usual way to show anger. His amazement increased when he saw Christiane suddenly stand up and spin around like a spinning top. This attitude was the conventional r...

Wieland and Byron (both exalted poets, the first old, the second in full youth) stroll through the Park on the Ilm river, in Weimar. Suddenly, Wieland lowers his head and discovers a penny coin on the ground. -Look, Byron! A pfennig! With an expression of great joy, he picks it up and pocketed it. -As always, Mrs. Schopenhauer was right. Last week she read my palm and predicted that very soon I would pocket unexpected money. -This afternoon I will attend her salon. They say it's very busy lately. -Yes, it's because of the reading of palms. She never fails. Wieland looks curiously at the palm of his hands. -I wonder how she does it. As much as I look at my palms, I don't perceive anything else that they need a good wash. -In Manchester I met a gypsy who read the foot soles -Bah, Mrs. Schopenhauer beats the hell out of your gypsy. -Well, I've been told that last week she failed in a prediction with a member of her family. -Bah, you mean that airhead Arthur. He...