presence of mind, as I actually sat spinning there on the ground)--I
limped home, sent for Pflastersticken, the court-surgeon, and addressed
him to the following effect: "Pflastersticken," says I, "there has been
an accident at court of which you will hear. You will send in leeches,
pills, and the deuce knows what, and you will say that I have dislocated
my leg: for some days you will state that I am in considerable danger.
You are a good fellow and a man of courage I know, for which very reason
you can appreciate those qualities in another; so mind, if you breathe a
word of my secret, either you or I must lose a life."

Away went the surgeon, and the next day all Kalbsbraten knew that I was
on the point of death: I had been delirious all night, had had eighty
leeches, besides I don't know how much medicine; but the Kalbsbrateners
knew to a scruple. Whenever anybody was ill, this little kind society
knew what medicines were prescribed. Everybody in the town knew what
everybody had for dinner. If Madame Rumpel had her satin dyed ever so
quietly, the whole society was on the qui vive; if Countess Pultuski
sent to Berlin for a new set of teeth, not a person in Kalbsbraten but
what was ready to compliment her as she put them on; if Potzdorff paid
his tailor's bill, or Muffinstein bought a piece of black wax for his
moustaches, it was the talk of the little city. And so, of course, was
my accident. In their sorrow for my misfortune, Dorothea's was quite
forgotten, and those eighty leeches saved me. I became interesting; I
had cards left at my door; and I kept my room for a fortnight, during
which time I read every one of M. Kotzebue's plays.

At the end of that period I was convalescent, though still a little
lame. I called at old Speck's house and apologized for my clumsiness,
with the most admirable coolness; I appeared at court, and stated calmly
that I did not intend to dance any more; and when Klingenspohr grinned,