srijeda, 22. listopada 2025.
For many years there lived near the town of Gallipolis, Ohio, an old man named Herman Deluse. Very little was known of his history, for he would neither speak of it himself nor suffer others. It was a common belief among his neighbors that he had been a pirate—if upon any better evidence than his collection of boarding pikes, cutlasses, and ancient flintlock pistols, no one knew. He lived entirely alone in a small house of four rooms, falling rapidly into decay and never repaired further than was required by the weather. It stood on a slight elevation in the midst of a large, stony field overgrown with brambles, and cultivated in patches and only in the most primitive way. It was his only visible property, but could hardly have yielded him a living, simple and few as were his wants. He seemed always to have ready money, and paid cash for all his purchases at the village stores roundabout, seldom buying more than two or three times at the same place until after the lapse of a considerable time. He got no commendation, however, for this equitable distribution of his patronage; people were disposed to regard it as an ineffectual attempt to conceal his possession of so much money. That he had great hoards of ill-gotten gold buried somewhere about his tumble-down dwelling was not reasonably to be doubted by any honest soul conversant with the facts of local tradition and gifted with a sense of the fitness of things. On the 9th of November, 1867, the old man died; at least his dead body was discovered on the 10th, and physicians testified that death had occurred about twenty-four hours previously—precisely how, they were unable to say; for the post-mortem examination showed every organ to be absolutely healthy, with no indication of disorder or violence. According to them, death must have taken place about noonday, yet the body was found in bed. The verdict of the coroner’s jury was that he “came to his death by a visitation of God.” The body was buried and the public administrator took charge of the estate. A rigorous search disclosed nothing more than was already known about the dead man, and much patient excavation here and there about the premises by thoughtful and thrifty neighbors went unrewarded. The administrator locked up the house against the time when the property, real and personal, should be sold by law with a view to defraying, partly, the expenses of the sale. The night of November 20 was boisterous. A furious gale stormed across the country, scourging it with desolating drifts of sleet. Great trees were torn from the earth and hurled across the roads. So wild a night had never been known in all that region, but toward morning the storm had blown itself out of breath and day dawned bright and clear. At about eight o’clock that morning the Rev. Henry Galbraith, a well-known and highly esteemed Lutheran minister, arrived on foot at his house, a mile and a half from the Deluse place. Mr. Galbraith had been for a month in Cincinnati. He had come up the river in a steamboat, and landing at Gallipolis the previous evening had immediately obtained a horse and buggy and set out for home. The violence of the storm had delayed him over night, and in the morning the fallen trees had compelled him to abandon his conveyance and continue his journey afoot. “But where did you pass the night?” inquired his wife, after he had briefly related his adventure. “With old Deluse at the ‘Isle of Pines,’” [372] was the laughing reply; “and a glum enough time I had of it. He made no objection to my remaining, but not a word could I get out of him.” Fortunately for the interests of truth there was present at this conversation Mr. Robert Mosely Maren, a lawyer and littérateur of Columbus, the same who wrote the delightful “Mellowcraft Papers.” Noting, but apparently not sharing, the astonishment caused by Mr. Galbraith’s answer this ready-witted person checked by a gesture the exclamations that would naturally have followed, and tranquilly inquired: “How came you to go in there?” This is Mr. Maren’s version of Mr. Galbraith’s reply: “I saw a light moving about the house, and being nearly blinded by the sleet, and half frozen besides, drove in at the gate and put up my horse in the old rail stable, where it is now. I then rapped at the door, and getting no invitation went in without one. The room was dark, but having matches I found a candle and lit it. I tried to enter the adjoining room, but the door was fast, and although I heard the old man’s heavy footsteps in there he made no response to my calls. There was no fire on the hearth, so I made one and laying [sic] down before it with my overcoat under my head, prepared myself for sleep. Pretty soon the door that I had tried silently opened and the old man came in, carrying a candle. I spoke to him pleasantly, apologizing for my intrusion, but he took no notice of me. He seemed to be searching for something, though his eyes were unmoved in their sockets. I wonder if he ever walks in his sleep. He took a circuit a part of the way round the room, and went out the same way he had come in. Twice more before I slept he came back into the room, acting precisely the same way, and departing as at first. In the intervals I heard him tramping all over the house, his footsteps distinctly audible in the pauses of the storm. When I woke in the morning he had already gone out.” Mr. Maren attempted some further questioning, but was unable longer to restrain the family’s tongues; the story of Deluse’s death and burial came out, greatly to the good minister’s astonishment. “The explanation of your adventure is very simple,” said Mr. Maren. “I don’t believe old Deluse walks in his sleep—not in his present one; but you evidently dream in yours.” And to this view of the matter Mr. Galbraith was compelled reluctantly to assent. Nevertheless, a late hour of the next night found these two gentlemen, accompanied by a son of the minister, in the road in front of the old Deluse house. There was a light inside; it appeared now at one window and now at another. The three men advanced to the door. Just as they reached it there came from the interior a confusion of the most appalling sounds—the clash of weapons, steel against steel, sharp explosions as of firearms, shrieks of women, groans and the curses of men in combat! The investigators stood a moment, irresolute, frightened. Then Mr. Galbraith tried the door. It was fast. But the minister was a man of courage, a man, moreover, of Herculean strength. He retired a pace or two and rushed against the door, striking it with his right shoulder and bursting it from the frame with a loud crash. In a moment the three were inside. Darkness and silence! The only sound was the beating of their hearts. Mr. Maren had provided himself with matches and a candle. With some difficulty, begotten of his excitement, he made a light, and they proceeded to explore the place, passing from room to room. Everything was in orderly arrangement, as it had been left by the sheriff; nothing had been disturbed. A light coating of dust was everywhere. A back door was partly open, as if by neglect, and their first thought was that the authors of the awful revelry might have escaped. The door was opened, and the light of the candle shone through upon the ground. The expiring effort of the previous night’s storm had been a light fall of snow; there were no footprints; the white surface was unbroken. They closed the door and entered the last room of the four that the house contained—that farthest from the road, in an angle of the building. Here the candle in Mr. Maren’s hand was suddenly extinguished as by a draught of air. Almost immediately followed the sound of a heavy fall. When the candle had been hastily relighted young Mr. Galbraith was seen prostrate on the floor at a little distance from the others. He was dead. In one hand the body grasped a heavy sack of coins, which later examination showed to be all of old Spanish mintage. Directly over the body as it lay, a board had been torn from its fastenings in the wall, and from the cavity so disclosed it was evident that the bag had been taken. Another inquest was held: another post-mortem examination failed to reveal a probable cause of death. Another verdict of “the visitation of God” left all at liberty to form their own conclusions. Mr. Maren contended that the young man died of excitement.
utorak, 21. listopada 2025.
In the spring of the year 1862 General Buell’s big army lay in camp, licking itself into shape for the campaign which resulted in the victory at Shiloh. It was a raw, untrained army, although some of its fractions had seen hard enough service, with a good deal of fighting, in the mountains of Western Virginia, and in Kentucky. The war was young and soldiering a new industry, imperfectly understood by the young American of the period, who found some features of it not altogether to his liking. Chief among these was that essential part of discipline, subordination. To one imbued from infancy with the fascinating fallacy that all men are born equal, unquestioning submission to authority is not easily mastered, and the American volunteer soldier in his “green and salad days” is among the worst known. That is how it happened that one of Buell’s men, Private Bennett Story Greene, committed the indiscretion of striking his officer. Later in the war he would not have done that; like Sir Andrew Aguecheek, he would have “seen him damned” first. But time for reformation of his military manners was denied him: he was promptly arrested on complaint of the officer, tried by court-martial and sentenced to be shot. “You might have thrashed me and let it go at that,” said the condemned man to the complaining witness; “that is what you used to do at school, when you were plain Will Dudley and I was as good as you. Nobody saw me strike you; discipline would not have suffered much.” “Ben Greene, I guess you are right about that,” said the lieutenant. “Will you forgive me? That is what I came to see you about.” There was no reply, and an officer putting his head in at the door of the guard-tent where the conversation had occurred, explained that the time allowed for the interview had expired. The next morning, when in the presence of the whole brigade Private Greene was shot to death by a squad of his comrades, Lieutenant Dudley turned his back upon the sorry performance and muttered a prayer for mercy, in which himself was included. A few weeks afterward, as Buell’s leading division was being ferried over the Tennessee River to assist in succoring Grant’s beaten army, night was coming on, black and stormy. Through the wreck of battle the division moved, inch by inch, in the direction of the enemy, who had withdrawn a little to reform his lines. But for the lightning the darkness was absolute. Never for a moment did it cease, and ever when the thunder did not crack and roar were heard the moans of the wounded among whom the men felt their way with their feet, and upon whom they stumbled in the gloom. The dead were there, too—there were dead a-plenty. In the first faint gray of the morning, when the swarming advance had paused to resume something of definition as a line of battle, and skirmishers had been thrown forward, word was passed along to call the roll. The first sergeant of Lieutenant Dudley’s company stepped to the front and began to name the men in alphabetical order. He had no written roll, but a good memory. The men answered to their names as he ran down the alphabet to G. “Gorham.” “Here!” “Grayrock.” “Here!” The sergeant’s good memory was affected by habit: “Greene.” “Here!” The response was clear, distinct, unmistakable! A sudden movement, an agitation of the entire company front, as from an electric shock, attested the startling character of the incident. The sergeant paled and paused. The captain strode quickly to his side and said sharply: “Call that name again.” Apparently the Society for Psychical Research is not first in the field of curiosity concerning the Unknown. “Bennett Greene.” “Here!” All faces turned in the direction of the familiar voice; the two men between whom in the order of stature Greene had commonly stood in line turned and squarely confronted each other. “Once more,” commanded the inexorable investigator, and once more came—a trifle tremulously—the name of the dead man: “Bennett Story Greene.” “Here!” At that instant a single rifle-shot was heard, away to the front, beyond the skirmish-line, followed, almost attended, by the savage hiss of an approaching bullet which passing through the line, struck audibly, punctuating as with a full stop the captain’s exclamation, “What the devil does it mean?” Lieutenant Dudley pushed through the ranks from his place in the rear. “It means this,” he said, throwing open his coat and displaying a visibly broadening stain of crimson on his breast. His knees gave way; he fell awkwardly and lay dead. A little later the regiment was ordered out of line to relieve the congested front, and through some misplay in the game of battle was not again under fire. Nor did Bennett Greene, expert in military executions, ever again signify his presence at one.
ponedjeljak, 20. listopada 2025.
Connecting Readyville and Woodbury was a good, hard turnpike nine or ten miles long. Readyville was an outpost of the Federal army at Murfreesboro; Woodbury had the same relation to the Confederate army at Tullahoma. For months after the big battle at Stone River these outposts were in constant quarrel, most of the trouble occurring, naturally, on the turnpike mentioned, between detachments of cavalry. Sometimes the infantry and artillery took a hand in the game by way of showing their good-will. One night a squadron of Federal horse commanded by Major Seidel, a gallant and skillful officer, moved out from Readyville on an uncommonly hazardous enterprise requiring secrecy, caution and silence. Passing the infantry pickets, the detachment soon afterward approached two cavalry videttes staring hard into the darkness ahead. There should have been three. “Where is your other man?” said the major. “I ordered Dunning to be here to-night.” “He rode forward, sir,” the man replied. “There was a little firing afterward, but it was a long way to the front.” “It was against orders and against sense for Dunning to do that,” said the officer, obviously vexed. “Why did he ride forward?” “Don’t know, sir; he seemed mighty restless. Guess he was skeered.” When this remarkable reasoner and his companion had been absorbed into the expeditionary force, it resumed its advance. Conversation was forbidden; arms and accouterments were denied the right to rattle. The horses’ tramping was all that could be heard and the movement was slow in order to have as little as possible of that. It was after midnight and pretty dark, although there was a bit of moon somewhere behind the masses of cloud. Two or three miles along, the head of the column approached a dense forest of cedars bordering the road on both sides. The major commanded a halt by merely halting, and, evidently himself a bit “skeered,” rode on alone to reconnoiter. He was followed, however, by his adjutant and three troopers, who remained a little distance behind and, unseen by him, saw all that occurred. After riding about a hundred yards toward the forest, the major suddenly and sharply reined in his horse and sat motionless in the saddle. Near the side of the road, in a little open space and hardly ten paces away, stood the figure of a man, dimly visible and as motionless as he. The major’s first feeling was that of satisfaction in having left his cavalcade behind; if this were an enemy and should escape he would have little to report. The expedition was as yet undetected. Some dark object was dimly discernible at the man’s feet; the officer could not make it out. With the instinct of the true cavalryman and a particular indisposition to the discharge of firearms, he drew his saber. The man on foot made no movement in answer to the challenge. The situation was tense and a bit dramatic. Suddenly the moon burst through a rift in the clouds and, himself in the shadow of a group of great oaks, the horseman saw the footman clearly, in a patch of white light. It was Trooper Dunning, unarmed and bareheaded. The object at his feet resolved itself into a dead horse, and at a right angle across the animal’s neck lay a dead man, face upward in the moonlight. “Dunning has had the fight of his life,” thought the major, and was about to ride forward. Dunning raised his hand, motioning him back with a gesture of warning; then, lowering the arm, he pointed to the place where the road lost itself in the blackness of the cedar forest. The major understood, and turning his horse rode back to the little group that had followed him and was already moving to the rear in fear of his displeasure, and so returned to the head of his command. “Dunning is just ahead there,” he said to the captain of his leading company. “He has killed his man and will have something to report.” Right patiently they waited, sabers drawn, but Dunning did not come. In an hour the day broke and the whole force moved cautiously forward, its commander not altogether satisfied with his faith in Private Dunning. The expedition had failed, but something remained to be done. In the little open space off the road they found the fallen horse. At a right angle across the animal’s neck face upward, a bullet in the brain, lay the body of Trooper Dunning, stiff as a statue, hours dead. Examination disclosed abundant evidence that within a half-hour the cedar forest had been occupied by a strong force of Confederate infantry—an ambuscade.
nedjelja, 19. listopada 2025.
subota, 18. listopada 2025.
In the year 1861 Barr Lassiter, a young man of twenty-two, lived with his parents and an elder sister near Carthage, Tennessee. The family were in somewhat humble circumstances, subsisting by cultivation of a small and not very fertile plantation. Owning no slaves, they were not rated among “the best people” of their neighborhood; but they were honest persons of good education, fairly well mannered and as respectable as any family could be if uncredentialed by personal dominion over the sons and daughters of Ham. The elder Lassiter had that severity of manner that so frequently affirms an uncompromising devotion to duty, and conceals a warm and affectionate disposition. He was of the iron of which martyrs are made, but in the heart of the matrix had lurked a nobler metal, fusible at a milder heat, yet never coloring nor softening the hard exterior. By both heredity and environment something of the man’s inflexible character had touched the other members of the family; the Lassiter home, though not devoid of domestic affection, was a veritable citadel of duty, and duty—ah, duty is as cruel as death! When the war came on it found in the family, as in so many others in that State, a divided sentiment; the young man was loyal to the Union, the others savagely hostile. This unhappy division begot an insupportable domestic bitterness, and when the offending son and brother left home with the avowed purpose of joining the Federal army not a hand was laid in his, not a word of farewell was spoken, not a good wish followed him out into the world whither he went to meet with such spirit as he might whatever fate awaited him. Making his way to Nashville, already occupied by the Army of General Buell, he enlisted in the first organization that he found, a Kentucky regiment of cavalry, and in due time passed through all the stages of military evolution from raw recruit to experienced trooper. A right good trooper he was, too, although in his oral narrative from which this tale is made there was no mention of that; the fact was learned from his surviving comrades. For Barr Lassiter has answered “Here” to the sergeant whose name is Death. Two years after he had joined it his regiment passed through the region whence he had come. The country thereabout had suffered severely from the ravages of war, having been occupied alternately (and simultaneously) by the belligerent forces, and a sanguinary struggle had occurred in the immediate vicinity of the Lassiter homestead. But of this the young trooper was not aware. Finding himself in camp near his home, he felt a natural longing to see his parents and sister, hoping that in them, as in him, the unnatural animosities of the period had been softened by time and separation. Obtaining a leave of absence, he set foot in the late summer afternoon, and soon after the rising of the full moon was walking up the gravel path leading to the dwelling in which he had been born. Soldiers in war age rapidly, and in youth two years are a long time. Barr Lassiter felt himself an old man, and had almost expected to find the place a ruin and a desolation. Nothing, apparently, was changed. At the sight of each dear and familiar object he was profoundly affected. His heart beat audibly, his emotion nearly suffocated him; an ache was in his throat. Unconsciously he quickened his pace until he almost ran, his long shadow making grotesque efforts to keep its place beside him. The house was unlighted, the door open. As he approached and paused to recover control of himself his father came out and stood bare-headed in the moonlight. “Father!” cried the young man, springing forward with outstretched hand—“Father!” The elder man looked him sternly in the face, stood a moment motionless and without a word withdrew into the house. Bitterly disappointed, humiliated, inexpressibly hurt and altogether unnerved, the soldier dropped upon a rustic seat in deep dejection, supporting his head upon his trembling hand. But he would not have it so: he was too good a soldier to accept repulse as defeat. He rose and entered the house, passing directly to the “sitting-room.” It was dimly lighted by an uncurtained east window. On a low stool by the hearthside, the only article of furniture in the place, sat his mother, staring into a fireplace strewn with blackened embers and cold ashes. He spoke to her—tenderly, interrogatively, and with hesitation, but she neither answered, nor moved, nor seemed in any way surprised. True, there had been time for her husband to apprise her of their guilty son’s return. He moved nearer and was about to lay his hand upon her arm, when his sister entered from an adjoining room, looked him full in the face, passed him without a sign of recognition and left the room by a door that was partly behind him. He had turned his head to watch her, but when she was gone his eyes again sought his mother. She too had left the place. Barr Lassiter strode to the door by which he had entered. The moonlight on the lawn was tremulous, as if the sward were a rippling sea. The trees and their black shadows shook as in a breeze. Blended with its borders, the gravel walk seemed unsteady and insecure to step on. This young soldier knew the optical illusions produced by tears. He felt them on his cheek, and saw them sparkle on the breast of his trooper’s jacket. He left the house and made his way back to camp. The next day, with no very definite intention, with no dominant feeling that he could rightly have named, he again sought the spot. Within a half-mile of it he met Bushrod Albro, a former playfellow and schoolmate, who greeted him warmly. “I am going to visit my home,” said the soldier. The other looked at him rather sharply, but said nothing. “I know,” continued Lassiter, “that my folks have not changed, but—” “There have been changes,” Albro interrupted—“everything changes. I’ll go with you if you don’t mind. We can talk as we go.” But Albro did not talk. Instead of a house they found only fire-blackened foundations of stone, enclosing an area of compact ashes pitted by rains. Lassiter’s astonishment was extreme. “I could not find the right way to tell you,” said Albro. “In the fight a year ago your house was burned by a Federal shell.” “And my family—where are they?” “In Heaven, I hope. All were killed by the shell.”
petak, 17. listopada 2025.
Here is the queer story of David William Duck, related by himself. Duck is an old man living in Aurora, Illinois, where he is universally respected. He is commonly known, however, as “Dead Duck.” “In the autumn of 1866 I was a private soldier of the Eighteenth Infantry. My company was one of those stationed at Fort Phil Kearney, commanded by Colonel Carrington. The country is more or less familiar with the history of that garrison, particularly with the slaughter by the Sioux of a detachment of eighty-one men and officers—not one escaping—through disobedience of orders by its commander, the brave but reckless Captain Fetterman. When that occurred, I was trying to make my way with important dispatches to Fort C. F. Smith, on the Big Horn. As the country swarmed with hostile Indians, I traveled by night and concealed myself as best I could before daybreak. The better to do so, I went afoot, armed with a Henry rifle and carrying three days’ rations in my haversack. “For my second place of concealment I chose what seemed in the darkness a narrow cañon leading through a range of rocky hills. It contained many large bowlders, detached from the slopes of the hills. Behind one of these, in a clump of sage-brush, I made my bed for the day, and soon fell asleep. It seemed as if I had hardly closed my eyes, though in fact it was near midday, when I was awakened by the report of a rifle, the bullet striking the bowlder just above my body. A band of Indians had trailed me and had me nearly surrounded; the shot had been fired with an execrable aim by a fellow who had caught sight of me from the hillside above. The smoke of his rifle betrayed him, and I was no sooner on my feet than he was off his and rolling down the declivity. Then I ran in a stooping posture, dodging among the clumps of sage-brush in a storm of bullets from invisible enemies. The rascals did not rise and pursue, which I thought rather queer, for they must have known by my trail that they had to deal with only one man. The reason for their inaction was soon made clear. I had not gone a hundred yards before I reached the limit of my run—the head of the gulch which I had mistaken for a cañon. It terminated in a concave breast of rock, nearly vertical and destitute of vegetation. In that cul-de-sac I was caught like a bear in a pen. Pursuit was needless; they had only to wait. “They waited. For two days and nights, crouching behind a rock topped with a growth of mesquite, and with the cliff at my back, suffering agonies of thirst and absolutely hopeless of deliverance, I fought the fellows at long range, firing occasionally at the smoke of their rifles, as they did at that of mine. Of course, I did not dare to close my eyes at night, and lack of sleep was a keen torture. “I remember the morning of the third day, which I knew was to be my last. I remember, rather indistinctly, that in my desperation and delirium I sprang out into the open and began firing my repeating rifle without seeing anybody to fire at. And I remember no more of that fight. “The next thing that I recollect was my pulling myself out of a river just at nightfall. I had not a rag of clothing and knew nothing of my whereabouts, but all that night I traveled, cold and footsore, toward the north. At daybreak I found myself at Fort C. F. Smith, my destination, but without my dispatches. The first man that I met was a sergeant named William Briscoe, whom I knew very well. You can fancy his astonishment at seeing me in that condition, and my own at his asking who the devil I was. “‘Dave Duck,’ I answered; ‘who should I be?’ “He stared like an owl. “‘You do look it,’ he said, and I observed that he drew a little away from me. ‘What’s up?’ he added. “I told him what had happened to me the day before. He heard me through, still staring; then he said: “‘My dear fellow, if you are Dave Duck I ought to inform you that I buried you two months ago. I was out with a small scouting party and found your body, full of bullet-holes and newly scalped—somewhat mutilated otherwise, too, I am sorry to say—right where you say you made your fight. Come to my tent and I’ll show you your clothing and some letters that I took from your person; the commandant has your dispatches.’ “He performed that promise. He showed me the clothing, which I resolutely put on; the letters, which I put into my pocket. He made no objection, then took me to the commandant, who heard my story and coldly ordered Briscoe to take me to the guardhouse. On the way I said: “‘Bill Briscoe, did you really and truly bury the dead body that you found in these togs?’ “‘Sure,’ he answered—‘just as I told you. It was Dave Duck, all right; most of us knew him. And now, you damned impostor, you’d better tell me who you are.’ “‘I’d give something to know,’ I said. “A week later, I escaped from the guardhouse and got out of the country as fast as I could. Twice I have been back, seeking for that fateful spot in the hills, but unable to find it.”
četvrtak, 16. listopada 2025.
Having murdered his brother-in-law, Orrin Brower of Kentucky was a fugitive from justice. From the county jail where he had been confined to await his trial he had escaped by knocking down his jailer with an iron bar, robbing him of his keys and, opening the outer door, walking out into the night. The jailer being unarmed, Brower got no weapon with which to defend his recovered liberty. As soon as he was out of the town he had the folly to enter a forest; this was many years ago, when that region was wilder than it is now. The night was pretty dark, with neither moon nor stars visible, and as Brower had never dwelt thereabout, and knew nothing of the lay of the land, he was, naturally, not long in losing himself. He could not have said if he were getting farther away from the town or going back to it—a most important matter to Orrin Brower. He knew that in either case a posse of citizens with a pack of bloodhounds would soon be on his track and his chance of escape was very slender; but he did not wish to assist in his own pursuit. Even an added hour of freedom was worth having. Suddenly he emerged from the forest into an old road, and there before him saw, indistinctly, the figure of a man, motionless in the gloom. It was too late to retreat: the fugitive felt that at the first movement back toward the wood he would be, as he afterward explained, “filled with buckshot.” So the two stood there like trees, Brower nearly suffocated by the activity of his own heart; the other—the emotions of the other are not recorded. A moment later—it may have been an hour—the moon sailed into a patch of unclouded sky and the hunted man saw that visible embodiment of Law lift an arm and point significantly toward and beyond him. He understood. Turning his back to his captor, he walked submissively away in the direction indicated, looking to neither the right nor the left; hardly daring to breathe, his head and back actually aching with a prophecy of buckshot. Brower was as courageous a criminal as ever lived to be hanged; that was shown by the conditions of awful personal peril in which he had coolly killed his brother-in-law. It is needless to relate them here; they came out at his trial, and the revelation of his calmness in confronting them came near to saving his neck. But what would you have?—when a brave man is beaten, he submits. So they pursued their journey jailward along the old road through the woods. Only once did Brower venture a turn of the head: just once, when he was in deep shadow and he knew that the other was in moonlight, he looked backward. His captor was Burton Duff, the jailer, as white as death and bearing upon his brow the livid mark of the iron bar. Orrin Brower had no further curiosity. Eventually they entered the town, which was all alight, but deserted; only the women and children remained, and they were off the streets. Straight toward the jail the criminal held his way. Straight up to the main entrance he walked, laid his hand upon the knob of the heavy iron door, pushed it open without command, entered and found himself in the presence of a half-dozen armed men. Then he turned. Nobody else entered. On a table in the corridor lay the dead body of Burton Duff.
srijeda, 15. listopada 2025.
In the summer of 1896 Mr. William Holt, a wealthy manufacturer of Chicago, was living temporarily in a little town of central New York, the name of which the writer’s memory has not retained. Mr. Holt had had “trouble with his wife,” from whom he had parted a year before. Whether the trouble was anything more serious than “incompatibility of temper,” he is probably the only living person that knows: he is not addicted to the vice of confidences. Yet he has related the incident herein set down to at least one person without exacting a pledge of secrecy. He is now living in Europe. One evening he had left the house of a brother whom he was visiting, for a stroll in the country. It may be assumed—whatever the value of the assumption in connection with what is said to have occurred—that his mind was occupied with reflections on his domestic infelicities and the distressing changes that they had wrought in his life. Whatever may have been his thoughts, they so possessed him that he observed neither the lapse of time nor whither his feet were carrying him; he knew only that he had passed far beyond the town limits and was traversing a lonely region by a road that bore no resemblance to the one by which he had left the village. In brief, he was “lost.” Realizing his mischance, he smiled; central New York is not a region of perils, nor does one long remain lost in it. He turned about and went back the way that he had come. Before he had gone far he observed that the landscape was growing more distinct—was brightening. Everything was suffused with a soft, red glow in which he saw his shadow projected in the road before him. “The moon is rising,” he said to himself. Then he remembered that it was about the time of the new moon, and if that tricksy orb was in one of its stages of visibility it had set long before. He stopped and faced about, seeking the source of the rapidly broadening light. As he did so, his shadow turned and lay along the road in front of him as before. The light still came from behind him. That was surprising; he could not understand. Again he turned, and again, facing successively to every point of the horizon. Always the shadow was before—always the light behind, “a still and awful red.” Holt was astonished—“dumfounded” is the word that he used in telling it—yet seems to have retained a certain intelligent curiosity. To test the intensity of the light whose nature and cause he could not determine, he took out his watch to see if he could make out the figures on the dial. They were plainly visible, and the hands indicated the hour of eleven o’clock and twenty-five minutes. At that moment the mysterious illumination suddenly flared to an intense, an almost blinding splendor, flushing the entire sky, extinguishing the stars and throwing the monstrous shadow of himself athwart the landscape. In that unearthly illumination he saw near him, but apparently in the air at a considerable elevation, the figure of his wife, clad in her night-clothing and holding to her breast the figure of his child. Her eyes were fixed upon his with an expression which he afterward professed himself unable to name or describe, further than that it was “not of this life.” The flare was momentary, followed by black darkness, in which, however, the apparition still showed white and motionless; then by insensible degrees it faded and vanished, like a bright image on the retina after the closing of the eyes. A peculiarity of the apparition, hardly noted at the time, but afterward recalled, was that it showed only the upper half of the woman’s figure: nothing was seen below the waist. The sudden darkness was comparative, not absolute, for gradually all objects of his environment became again visible. In the dawn of the morning Holt found himself entering the village at a point opposite to that at which he had left it. He soon arrived at the house of his brother, who hardly knew him. He was wild-eyed, haggard, and gray as a rat. Almost incoherently, he related his night’s experience. “Go to bed, my poor fellow,” said his brother, “and—wait. We shall hear more of this.” An hour later came the predestined telegram. Holt’s dwelling in one of the suburbs of Chicago had been destroyed by fire. Her escape cut off by the flames, his wife had appeared at an upper window, her child in her arms. There she had stood, motionless, apparently dazed. Just as the firemen had arrived with a ladder, the floor had given way, and she was seen no more. The moment of this culminating horror was eleven o’clock and twenty-five minutes, standard time.
utorak, 14. listopada 2025.
it was in November 1907 that I went to Moscow to meet Sherlock Holmes, who was returning via Kiachta by the Trans-Siberian Railway from Afghanistan, where rumour said he was connected with certain not altogether official negotiations between the British Government and the Ameer of Afghanistan. During his return journey, Holmes, indefatigable as usual, had enabled the Russian police to lay hands at Irkutsk on the ringleaders of a daring revolutionary band who were plotting to kidnap the Emperor of Russia. So much I had gathered from a laconic post card dated Ufa, in which he also requested me to meet him at Moscow on the 20th of November. When, however, I arrived at Moscow, I found the following telegram awaiting me:— p. 265 “Take night train town O⸺; government Z⸺; meet you station; prospect excellent sport; bring furs.” To any one acquainted with Sherlock Holmes’ methods and habits this seemed to signify that his ever-restless brain was once more on the scent of some thrilling mystery or some baffling crime. After spending the day at Moscow, I took the night train, as directed, and I arrived the next morning at O⸺. I found my friend awaiting me at the station, muffled in a thick shouba, and smoking a pipe of more than usually strong tobacco. “I hope you have brought a warm coat, Watson,” was his greeting; “we have got a thirty-mile drive before us;” and giving orders to a porter to carry my bag, in Russian, which he spoke fluently, he led the way through the station to where a sledge drawn by three horses, harnessed abreast, awaited us. “Jump in,” he said, “we have no time to lose. We are driving,” he continued, as we made ourselves comfortable in the straw and wrapped ourselves up with a thick fur rug, “to the property of Prince B⸺, whose acquaintance I made in Transbaikalia, and who invited me p. 266to stay with him for a few days’ wolf shooting. The Prince is expecting you.” During the first half-hour of the drive Holmes discoursed learnedly on old violins and Elzevir editions, interrupting his discourse to point out from time to time the effects of light on the snowy plain, or to make some pregnant comment on the manners and customs of the villagers whom we passed. Then, when we had driven for about half an hour, he said, “You will now oblige me, Watson, by not talking to me until we arrive at our destination. I am engaged in following a train of speculation which requires all my attention.” Knowing my friend’s habits I showed neither surprise nor annoyance, and it was not long before I fell into a deep sleep. When I awoke we had reached the property of Prince B⸺. Prince B⸺’s home was situated at a stone’s-throw from a long straggling village composed of log-built huts, and now mantled in a thick covering of snow. The houses, for there were two, were situated in the midst of a garden plentifully wooded with pine trees and Siberian firs. The houses were separate, although close to each other; p. 267both of them were two-storeyed, the first, at which the horses pulled up, being built of wood painted red, the second, and farther one, of white bricks. “You have already been here two or three days?” I ventured to ask, as we drove through the garden gate. “Watson, you are incorrigible,” replied Holmes. “Had you observed the name of the station whence my message was despatched you would have known that I myself arrived this morning from the town of A⸺, which a glance at the map would have shown you is a twelve hours’ journey from O⸺. This is the first time I have the pleasure of enjoying the Prince’s hospitality, and when the Prince invited me he begged me, if possible, to persuade you to accompany me. I am glad you have come, for who knows but that I may need your assistance before long.” I could not help thinking that the reproach was in this case scarcely justified, since, being entirely ignorant of the Russian language, I could not be expected to decipher the name of a telegraph station, but I merely replied: “You p. 268have at present no immediate problem on hand?” “Watson,” said Holmes, as we reached the front door, “every fresh human being we meet is a possible problem.” We were met and warmly welcomed by the Prince, and after we had been shown to our rooms, which were in the further stone house, we were conducted to the drawing-room in the wooden house, where the Prince and his family awaited us. The Prince was a middle-aged man with silver-grey hair and mild grey eyes; he wore a grey undress military tunic, and Holmes remarked, as we washed our hands upstairs, that he supposed I had already noticed the Prince was a general adjutant of the Emperor’s suite; that he had served in Turkestan before he had been in the Far East; that he was at present suffering from a slight toothache; and that he had been on two big game expeditions in Africa. I confessed that all this had escaped me, and Holmes said that he hadn’t time to detail to me the links of the chain, but if I would glance at the Prince’s uniform, the spots on his forehead, the iodoform stain on his upper lip, and the antelope horns p. 269in the front hall, with their respective dates, perhaps all would be clear to me. The Prince’s family consisted of his wife, his eldest son, and his daughter. The Princess was a dark, thin, young-looking woman, with large grey eyes, and the son, Prince Alexander, a tall, dark young man of about twenty-three, dressed in an ordinary tweed shooting suit; the daughter, Princess Barbara, was a girl of nineteen, very fair, with blue eyes. The whole family talked English with the greatest fluency. As soon as the Prince had presented us to his family, he led us into the dining-room, where lunch awaited us. “You have been having a busy morning practising the flute,” said Holmes to Prince Alexander. “I hope we may have the pleasure of playing some duets together. I have brought my violin with me.” “Yes, I have been playing this morning,” answered the young man; then he paused in amazement, and added, “But how on earth did you— You couldn’t have seen my flute, because it’s in my room.” “Your forefinger, my dear sir,” answered Holmes, “has the dent which is peculiar to p. 270flute players; that you have been playing this morning I concluded from the fact that you have not been out of doors, and that the music—music for piano and flute—on the drawing-room piano had been evidently quite recently ransacked by some one in a hurry to find a particular piece of music.” “Your reputation does scant justice to your powers,” answered the young man; “but I doubt if you can guess what my sister has been doing all the morning.” “I never guess,” answered Holmes; “but the problem is an extraordinarily simple one. The Princess has been occupied in making green pottery, and this morning has fired a kiln.” “It’s quite true; how could you know it?” said the young Princess. “In the drawing-room,” answered Sherlock Holmes, “I could not help noticing a certain tray. On this tray were a quantity of small green pots which were evidently just finished, and had, moreover, that particular grace peculiar to an amateur’s work. Your left hand, Princess, you will observe, is faintly tinged with red lead glaze, your cheeks are slightly flushed, and I p. 271noticed as you entered the room the smell of smoke which necessarily clings to a person who has been standing all the morning close to a kiln. You see how childishly simple are my methods.” The Prince and his family expressed surprise and delight. During the rest of luncheon Holmes kept his guests delighted with his varied knowledge. As soon as luncheon was over we repaired to the drawing-room, in a corner of which an open card table had been placed. “We always play cards after luncheon,” said the Prince; “I hope you and Mr. Watson will join us. It is no use telling you, Mr. Holmes,” he added, as he stuffed tobacco into a long cherry-wood pipe, “what game we play, because I am sure you know already, only I shall be curious to see how you arrived at the knowledge.” “Certainly,” said Holmes; “it is true I have drawn certain conclusions, but I dare say I am mistaken. I exclude bridge, vindt, whist, and all kindred games, because your packs are obviously not full packs. I know, on the other hand, that more than two play, for you said we, and asked me and Watson to join you. p. 272I exclude piquet, therefore, and all kindred games. There remain préférence and the national German game, skat. As your nephew, who has been on a recent visit here, is studying at Heidelberg, I concluded that he had introduced the game of skat, of which German students are exceedingly fond, to you.” “Perfectly correct,” said the young Prince; “but how did you know I had a cousin, and that he was at Heidelberg?” “The photograph of a young student in the dress of the Saxo-Borussen Korps, which is in my bedroom, and the group of students, both signed Fritz von Interlacken, dated October 1907, told me that a student had been here recently; the inscription on the bowl of your pipe, Prince, ‘Fritz, S.L., Onkel Peter, July 1907,’ told me the rest.” “Wonderful,” said the Prince; “and how simple it seems when one is told; but will you and Watson join us and cut?” “Watson,” said Holmes, “plays nothing but whist, and I, although I know the principles of many card games, am an indifferent player in practice.” p. 273 “Papa,” broke in the young Princess, “the skat-book has gone.” “Ring,” said the Prince. “We are new to the game,” he added, “and a small book, which contains the rules, and is, moreover, a scoring book, is of great assistance to us.” The butler entered the room, and declared that Prince Alexander took the book every evening to his room in the other house, and left it in the front hall in the morning. “I take it to learn the rules,” said Prince Alexander, “but I always bring it back.” “You can look in my room,” he added, to the butler, “but I know it isn’t there.” The butler went out. “Did you bring it back this morning?” asked his father. “I didn’t take it away last night. It was on the table, and I think I left the money I won in it, nine roubles in paper.” “Then,” said the Prince, laughing, “this is a matter for Mr. Holmes, and, by the way, we forgot to tell him, at least I didn’t forget, but I purposely didn’t mention it at luncheon, that last night we had a robbery here.” p. 274 “Indeed,” said Holmes, folding his hands and looking up to the ceiling, “you interest me extremely.” “I’m afraid it’s not very interesting,” said the Princess, “but, it’s rather comical. Our four best kitchen saucepans have been stolen, two or three of the Prince’s shirts, two or three of Alexander’s, and some inexpensive silver links belonging to him.” “Would you like me to try and find the thief?” asked Holmes. “We would be delighted if you could find the kitchen saucepans,” said the Princess, “as it is inconvenient for the cook. It doesn’t matter about the thief.” “Do you give me leave to cross-examine the members of your household and your servants?” asked Holmes. “Of course,” said the Princess, “we know it is no one in the house, but we have several bad characters in the village.” The butler now entered once more, and said that he had searched everywhere in both houses and the book was nowhere to be found. “Then we must play without it,” said the Princess. “Alexander, get some paper to p. 275score on; the book,” she added, “was most convenient, as it had blank leaves at the end, perforated at the edge, which one could tear off for the score. And one saw the score at a glance. You won’t play, Mr. Holmes?” “I prefer to look on,” said Holmes, and when I had likewise declined to play, the Prince and the Princess and Princess Barbara sat down at the table. Prince Alexander also declined to play, on the ground that he was too busy. “As you are not going to play, Prince Alexander,” said Holmes, “perhaps you will help me presently to conduct my preliminary investigations.” “Certainly,” said the young prince. “Nobody can possibly have stolen the skat-book, in any case,” said the Princess. “I’m not so sure,” said Prince Alexander, “if I left my money in it, as I think I did.” Holmes took no notice of this remark, but after he had watched three games in perfect silence he suddenly addressed the Princess: “You said you had several bad characters in the village; is there any one whom you would p. 276particularly suspect? Who, for instance, is the worst character?” “There are several in the village,” said the Princess; “and one of the clerks in our office—what we call the ‘Kontora’—an educated man, is suspected of carrying on social revolutionary propaganda, but there is no evidence against him. They say, too, that he steals—only not saucepans.” “Yes, but that’s all rubbish,” said the young Prince. “He’s an honest, hard-working man.” “Why don’t you send him away?” asked Holmes. “Oh, he would burn our house!” said the Princess, laughing. “Besides, he’s quite harmless.” “Most interesting,” said Holmes. “And can I see this gentleman?” “Oh, certainly,” said the Princess. “Alexander will take you to the Kontora.” “Let us go to the other house,” said the young Prince to Holmes, “and you can begin your investigations. It will be great fun.” “May Watson come too?” asked Holmes. “Of course,” said the young Prince; “the investigations would have no value without Dr. Watson’s presence.” p. 277 “Before we do anything else,” said Holmes, “will you show me the kitchen, and we will solve the question of the saucepans?” The kitchen was in a building by itself, separate from both houses, and situated on an elevation beyond the further stone house, in which were our rooms and that of the young Prince. We went there, and the white-frocked Parisian cook explained in precise phrases exactly what had disappeared, ending up his narrative with an exclamation of disgust. Sherlock Holmes was soon on all fours beneath the kitchen window. He examined the wall, the window-sill, and the ground, with a strong magnifying glass; then, like a hound following a strong scent, he walked swiftly from the kitchen into the garden, and stopped before a heap of snow beside a clump of trees. “If we could have a spade”—a spade was soon brought, and Holmes, after a few vigorous strokes, revealed to the astonished gaze of the Prince, the cook, and a crowd of moujiks, four large kitchen saucepans. “Now,” said Holmes to the young Prince, “I will continue the investigations, if you permit it, in your room.” And we went into the stone house together. p. 278 As we entered the house, a young man approached the Prince and said a few words to him; he wore top-boots, long hair, a dark blue sarsenet shirt without a collar, buttoned at the side, a pince-nez, a black jacket, and an astrakhan cap. The Prince said something to this man in Russian, and led us into a room on the ground floor adjoining his own sitting-room, saying: “I beg your pardon, Mr. Holmes, but do you mind waiting here one moment? I have to speak to a man on business; it is a matter of a few minutes only.” The Prince then went into his sitting-room, which was connected with the room in which we were by a door; the door was ajar, and appeared, indeed, to be one of those doors which never shut, so that fragments of the conversation which took place between the Prince and the young man were audible. They were, of course, speaking Russian. Holmes lit a pipe and sat down on a divan; presently one of the voices next door sank to a whisper, and the opening and shutting of a drawer were heard. Then the young man took his departure, and the Prince, opening p. 279the door, invited us into his room. “Please sit down,” he said, pointing to a divan, and he himself took a seat at a writing-table which was placed sideways in the middle of the room. “Now that we have found the saucepans, I suppose all further investigations are needless, Mr. Holmes?” he said. “We have not yet found the thief,” replied Holmes. “That, I am afraid, will be more difficult,” said the Prince. “Nor have we found your skat-scoring book,” said Holmes. “Oh, that’s sure to turn up!” said the Prince. “I will send for the maid who cleans our rooms and you can examine her. She is an old peasant woman who has been with us ever since I have been born,” and saying this the Prince went to the door and shouted, “Mavra!” An elderly woman dressed in a peasant’s dress, consisting of a blue cotton petticoat and a large apron, and a black handkerchief over her head, entered the room, and smilingly greeted the company. What followed I was unable to understand, but Holmes later in the afternoon dictated to me at my request p. 280what took place in detail. The Prince asked Holmes to examine her, and Holmes did not allude to the saucepans, but asked her whether she had seen a small green book anywhere. She said she had seen it, she had seen it every day. It was there. “In the other house?” asked Holmes. “Yes, in the other house,” she answered. “Did you see it yesterday?” “Yes, yesterday it was lying there.” “In this house?” asked Holmes. “Yes,” she replied. “There.” “Somebody said,” interrupted the Prince, “that some books were left on the window-sill upstairs in this house, and that they had got wet and had been taken to be dried?” “Yes,” said Mavra, smiling cheerfully, “they say some books got wet and were taken to be dried.” “Where?” asked Holmes. “They were lying there. And then to-day I said to Masha: ‘Where are those books?’ And she said: ‘What have I got to do with books, and what have you got to do with books?’” “In this house?” p. 281 “Yes, there.” “Who dried them?” asked Holmes. “I cannot know,” she answered; “perhaps André knows.” “Who is André?” asked Holmes. “The night watchman,” answered the young Prince. “And after the books were dried did you see them?” asked Holmes. “Yes,” she answered. “Where?” he asked. “They were lying there,” she replied. “In the other house?” “Yes, there.” At that moment the butler entered, and the Prince asked him whether the skat-book or any other books had got wet from being left on the window-sill and had been dried. He replied that there were two books on the window-sill upstairs; they were still there, but nobody had dried them, because they had never been wet, and the skat-book was not among them. The young Prince repeated that they had played skat the preceding evening and had used the scoring book, which had been left on the drawing-room table. p. 282 “Thank you,” said Holmes to the maid. “That is quite sufficient for the present. I should now like, if possible, to go to your office.” “Certainly,” said the Prince, “let us go.” We walked down to the office, which was about five minutes’ walk from the house, during which time Holmes carried on an animated conversation with the Prince on the political situation in Russia. We reached the office, and entered into a bare room, furnished with a stove and a writing-table, where we found two clerks at work. One of the clerks was the young man whom the Prince had just interviewed. “Which is the gentleman you mentioned?” asked Holmes in an aside to the Prince. “The man with a blue shirt,” replied the Prince: “would you like to examine him?” “No thank you,” replied Holmes. “I have seen all I wanted to see. I will now, if you permit me, go for a walk in the village by myself; I wish to think over a few things.” We returned to the house, and Holmes set out by himself for the village. I went up to my room to take a nap, for I was still rather tired after the journey. Holmes returned towards five o’clock in the p. 283afternoon, and, settling himself in an arm-chair, he said: “If you care to hear, Watson, I will tell you the result of my investigations.” “If you found the thief,” I said, “you deserve credit, for the vagueness of this family and the unconcern with which they regard this robbery appals me.” “Very true,” replied Holmes. “The matter was, as I had anticipated, far more complicated than appeared at first sight. It frequently happens that problems which appeared to consist of mere trifles turn out to be matters of deep importance and difficult of solution. In this case, what put me on the scent was the disappearance of the skat-book. It is obvious that a thief, whose object is money, would not steal such a thing. When I found the saucepans in the garden my supposition was confirmed. The theft was a blind.” “But there was money in the book,” I interrupted; “and, besides, some shirts and a pair of links disappeared.” “I am coming to that presently,” answered Holmes. “I concluded from the manner in which the saucepans had been stolen and hidden that the thief was no ordinary thief. p. 284Further data in our possession told me that one of the clerks was under suspicion of carrying on revolutionary propaganda. The young Prince interviews him and receives from him a small cardboard box which he was carrying when we met him, a fact which you no doubt overlooked. He placed the box in a drawer which has no lock. (Note once more the vagueness and the carelessness of these people!) While the young Prince was interviewing the clerk I overheard a portion of their conversation, and I ascertained that the contents of the cardboard box consisted of bombs, and that it was proposed to bring about a coup to-morrow, which was to take place at the railway station.” “With what object?” I asked. “We will come to that later,” said Holmes. “Let us take things in their order. When we visited the office, I noticed that on the clerk’s table lay a sheet of paper perforated at the edge, covered on one side with figures, and evidently torn from a card scoring book, for it had divisions and lines printed on it for scoring. When I returned from the office on my way to the village the young Prince p. 285took me once more into his room, and by skilfully leading the conversation into a channel of argument (the young man is, you have noticed, argumentative) I finally made him a bet on the matter of a date, the settling of which made it necessary for him to fetch a book of reference; he went eagerly in search of a dictionary of biography, which I knew was in the other house, and once left alone I made two important discoveries. In one of his writing-table drawers I found a cardboard box containing four narrow bombs made of a high explosive, and in another drawer I found the silver links and nine roubles in paper which the young Prince said he had lost at cards last night. But more important still was my second discovery. I found several pages torn from a scoring book and covered with figures, which are not those which occur in skat or in any other game; and I also found on the edge of the fireplace a half-burnt piece of paper, torn from the same book, but, mark this, from the text of the book, and not a blank leaf perforated at the edge, likewise covered with figures. I then went to the village and had a notable conversation with the village policeman. p. 286He furnished me with interesting information with regard to the inhabitants of the village and the political situation generally. When asked as to the clerk we saw to-day he said he was very ‘red,’ meaning revolutionary. He said the old Prince refused to send him away at the instigation of his son. The young Prince was also ‘red,’ he said, and this was the most dangerous feature in the situation. The policeman had no doubt that he communicated with the revolutionary party through the channel of the clerk. “I questioned him as to the theft of the saucepans, and to my astonishment he said he knew quite well who had stolen them. I asked who. He said there was a man in the village formerly employed in the Prince’s office who had once been sent to Siberia but who had returned. He was now a professional pick-pocket, and was enjoying a holiday. ‘But if you know he did this why don’t you arrest him?’ I asked. “‘God be with him, no,’ replied this astonished and astonishing policeman. ‘Why arrest him? He has already been in prison once.’ “‘What for?’ I asked. p. 287 “‘He killed the brother of the gamekeeper,’ said the policeman, ‘and he stole hens.’ Of course I knew that he was lying, because a real thief would have taken the saucepans away, and had the policeman known him he would have arrested him. ‘Does the Prince know this?’ I asked. ‘Of course he knows it,’ answered the policeman. ‘Then why does not he insist on his arrest?’ I asked. ‘The Prince has pity on us,’ said the policeman. ‘We are poor people. If he were arrested he would soon come back again and probably kill me; he would certainly burn my house. The Prince knows. What does it matter if he stole a few saucepans? The Prince will buy new ones. The Prince does not mind. He will do no further harm. He has come back to see his home and his native village.’ Questioned as to whether the clerk was connected with the theft, the policeman laughed. He said the clerk was ‘red,’ and busied himself with politics, but was not a hooligan. “I asked him if sufficient proof were found whether he would arrest the thief. ‘May God forfend!’ answered this amazing policeman. I also ascertained from him that a large sum of p. 288money, about half a million roubles, will be transported from the town of O⸺ to the town of X⸺ to-morrow. Then I returned home. “You now doubtless understand the object of the coup. It is to obtain money for the revolutionary funds, and the object of the theft of saucepans was to throw suspicion, when the coup should take place, on an indefinite band of robbers who would be supposed to be lurking in the neighbourhood. “Now we come to further links in the chain. The young Prince, as you remember, was in the habit of taking the skat-scoring book every evening from the drawing-room in the wooden house to his sitting-room in this house, and of bringing it back every morning and leaving it in the front hall. Why did he do this; and why the front hall? I suppose that even you, Watson, have already concluded that the spurious thief of the saucepans and the leading spirit of this dark conspiracy is none other than the young Prince. He could not communicate openly with the clerk, nor see him too often without raising suspicion, so every evening he wrote what he had to say in cipher p. 289on the blank leaves provided at the end of the book for scoring purposes, and left the book in a prominent place. The clerk called at the house on business matters and tore off a leaf from the book and left an answer in it, if he wished to do so.” “Most ingenious,” I interrupted; “but why did the book disappear?” “The Prince destroyed it. The scrap of burnt paper I found in the fireplace told me that; since it was not, as I told you, one of the blank leaves, but a page of the text of the book itself. The Prince being, like all the members of his family, as you yourself have observed, and like most Russian revolutionaries, excessively vague happy-go-lucky, had worked out his cipher all over the book, and as the coup is to come off to-morrow he thought it best to be on the safe side and to destroy a document which might possibly prove compromising. By the ingenious lie of the money left in it he included it in the robbery.” “And what steps have you taken?” I asked. “I sent an express telegram, in cipher, to p. 290my friend L⸺ of the Chief Department of the Police in St. Petersburg acquainting him of the facts.” “And what will be the result?” I asked. “They will prevent the coup coming off—it was to be to-morrow evening,” answered Holmes. The bell now rang for tea, and during the rest of the evening the matter of the theft was only once or twice jokingly referred to. Holmes and the Prince appeared to think that as the saucepans had been found there was no further use bothering about the thief. After dinner, Holmes, the young Prince, and the young Princess delighted us with a trio for flute, violin and piano, and the time passed rapidly and pleasantly. I found it difficult to believe that the young man who was so carelessly and easily “entertaining” us was really a dangerous criminal on the eve of carrying out a gigantic coup; but my experience as Holmes’ biographer has convinced me that such cases are, alas! only too frequent. The next morning I spent in writing letters, and Holmes did nothing but lie on the sofa and smoke a quantity of shag tobacco. We p. 291all met once more at luncheon. After luncheon, as we were drinking our coffee in the drawing-room, the young Prince said he had an interesting communication to make to us, which was as follows: At the railway station there is a large wooden building made for storing corn. The merchants store their corn there, for which they receive a receipt stating the value of what is stored. If it is destroyed the Government is responsible for the amount. Now it appeared that the stationmaster had arranged with one of the merchants to give him a duplicate receipt for an amount of corn worth an immense sum. He made out a false duplicate for this immense sum. It was further arranged that the merchant should deliver an infinitesimal quantity of corn, worth a few shillings, and that the corn storing-house should be set on fire and burnt. The stationmaster was to receive a handsome commission. But, as it was impossible to tamper with the books, owing to the number of officials employed, in which the amounts received were entered and kept at the station, it was likewise settled to burn the station and p. 292thus destroy the compromising documents it contained, and render comparison between the false duplicate received by the merchant and the original receipt entered in the station books impossible. It was further settled to do the burning by means of bombs and to attribute the whole affair to the revolutionaries. The plot, however, had been discovered by the clerk in the Prince’s office who was a friend of a new assistant stationmaster, and he had brought the bombs to the house and had told the whole story to the young Prince, who had immediately communicated with the Police Captain of the district in the town of O⸺. As he finished his story the young Prince added: “It shows what idiots our local police are, because they suspected this very clerk of being a revolutionary.” Holmes’ face remained impassive during the recital of this story, but I could not help feeling that my friend was somewhat anxious. “It was quite a problem in your line Mr. Holmes,” said the Princess, “but I feel you have done enough for us in finding our saucepans, only I do wish we could find the scoring book.” “I can’t remember,” said the young Prince, p. 293“whether it was yesterday or the day before yesterday morning that the book was in my room. I remember tearing a leaf out of it, having no other paper handy, to write a receipt for the clerk who brought me some money from the Kontora. But there was no money in it, because I found the money I won last night, and the silver links also, in a drawer. So the book wasn’t stolen.” “Has any one looked in the card table?” asked the young Princess. And as no one had looked there, a leaf of the card table was raised, and there lay a small green book—the skat scoring book. At that moment the butler entered the room endeavouring to master convulsions of laughter, and said that the village police-inspector, the Stanovoi, was outside saying he had received orders from St. Petersburg to arrest Prince Alexander and to send him immediately to the town of O⸺ for being implicated in an “expropriation” plot to rob the train. The whole family burst into fits of uncontrollable laughter, and the old Prince explained to Holmes that the police-inspector had probably made this idiotic p. 294mistake on purpose, since he had twice been found poaching in their woods and that they had complained and asked for his removal. Then together with his son he went and interviewed the police-inspector. They came back presently saying that the matter was an idiotic and inexplicable mistake connected with the affair of the station, but that the police-inspector, although he was well aware of this, owing to the grudge he bore the family insisted on carrying out his orders. So the young Prince had to leave for O⸺ that afternoon, amidst universal merriment, and he exhorted Holmes as he departed to obtain his release. We also left for Moscow the next day, whither Holmes said he had suddenly been summoned upon urgent business. When we arrived at Moscow we received a telegram saying that Prince Alexander had been immediately released with many apologies for the mistake, that the police-inspector had been dismissed from his post, and that the merchant and the stationmaster had been arrested. Holmes never referred to the matter again, nor does he like p. 295any mention made of the game of skat. But it seems to me that this comparative failure only serves to heighten the brilliance of his many successes, and it is for this reason I have recorded it.
ponedjeljak, 13. listopada 2025.
His name was Chun Wa; possibly there was some more of it, but that is all I can remember. He was about four or five years old, and I made his acquaintance the day we arrived at the temple. It was at the end of September. We had left Mukden in order to take part in what they said was going to be a great battle. I don’t know what the village was called at which we arrived on the second day of our march. I can only remember that it was a beautiful and deliciously quiet spot, and that we established ourselves in a temple; that is to say not actually in the temple itself, but in the house of the priest. He was a Buddhist who looked after the deities of the place, which were made of carved and painted wood, and lived in a small pagoda. The building consisted of three quadrangles surrounded by a high stone wall. The first of these quadrangles, which you entered from the road, reminded me of the yard in front of any farm. There was a good deal of straw lying about, some broken ploughshares, buckets, wooden bowls, spades, and other implements of toil. A few hens hurried about searching for grains here and there; a dog was sleeping in the sun. At the further end of the yard a yellow cat seemed to have set aside a space for its exclusive use. This farmyard was separated from the next quadrangle by the house of the priest, which occupied the whole of the second enclosure; that is to say the living rooms extended right round the quadrangle, leaving a square and open space in the centre. The part of the house which separated the second quadrangle from the next consisted solely of a roof supported by pillars, making an open verandah, through which from the second enclosure you saw into the third. The third enclosure was a garden, consisting of a square grass plot and some cypress trees. At the further end of the garden was the temple itself. We arrived in the afternoon. We were met by an elderly man, the priest, who put the place at our disposal and established us in the rooms situated in the second quadrangle to the east and west. He himself and his family lived in the part of the house which lay between the farmyard and the second enclosure. The Cossacks of the battery with which I was living encamped in a field on the other side of the farmyard, but the treasure chest was placed in the farmyard itself, and a sentry stood near it with a drawn sword. The owner of the house had two sons. One of them, aged about thirteen, had something to do with the temple services, and wore a kind of tunic made of white silk. The second was Chun Wa. It was when the sentry went on guard that we first made the acquaintance of Chun Wa. His cheeks were round and fat, and his face seemed to bulge out towards the base. His little eyes were soft and brown and twinkled like onyxes. His tiny little hands were most beautifully shaped, and this child moved about the farmyard with the dignity of an Emperor and the serenity of a great Pontiff. Gravely and without a smile he watched the Cossacks unharnessing their horses, lighting a fire and arranging the officers’ kit. He walked up to the sentry who was standing near the treasure chest, a big, grey-eyed Cossack with a great tuft of fair hair, and the expression of a faithful retriever, and in a tone of indescribable contempt, Chun Wa said “Ping!” “Ping” in Chinese means soldier-man, and if you wish to express your contempt for a man there is no word in the whole of the Chinese language which expresses it so fully and so emphatically as the word “Ping.” The Cossack smiled on Chun Wa and called him by a long list of endearing diminutives, but Chun Wa took no notice, and retired into the inner part of the house as if he had determined to pay no more attention to the barbarous intruders. The next day, however, curiosity got the better of him, and he could not resist inspecting the yard, and observing the doings of the foreign devils. And one of the Cossacks—his name was Lieskov and he looked after my mule—made friends with Chun Wa. He made friends with him by playing with the dog. The dog, like most Chinese dogs, was dirty, distrustful, and not used to being played with; he slunk away if you called him, and if you took any notice of him he evidently expected to be beaten, kicked, or to have stones thrown at him. He was too thin to be eaten. But Lieskov tamed the dog and taught him how to play, and the big Cossack used to roll on the ground while the dog pretended to bite him, until Chun Wa forgot his dignity, his contempt, and his superior culture, and smiled. I remember coming home that very afternoon from a short stroll with one of the officers, and we found Lieskov lying fast asleep in the farmyard right across the steps of the door through which we wanted to go, and Chun Wa and the dog were sitting beside him. We woke him up and the officer asked him why he had gone to sleep. “I was playing with the dog, your honour,” he said, “and I played so hard that I was exhausted and fell asleep.” After that Chun Wa made friends with everybody, officers and men, and he ruled the battery like an autocrat. He ruled by charm and a thousand winning ways. But his special friend was Lieskov, who carried the child about on his back, performed many droll antics to amuse him, and taught him words of pidgin Russian. Among other things he made him a kite—a large and beautiful kite—out of an old piece of yellow silk, shaped like a butterfly. And Chun Wa’s brother flew this kite with wonderful skill, so that it looked like a glittering golden bird hovering in the air. I forget how long we stayed at this temple, whether it was three days or four days; possibly it was not so long, but it seemed like many months, or rather it seemed at the same time very long and very short, like a pleasant dream. The weather was so soft and so fine, the sunshine so bright, the air so still, that had not the nights been chilly we should never have dreamt that it was autumn. It seemed rather as though the spring had been unburied and had returned to the earth by mistake. And all this time fighting was going on to the east of us. The battle of Sha-Ho had begun, but we were in the reserve, in what they called the deepest reserve, and we heard no sound of firing, neither did we receive any news of it. We seemed to be sheltered from the world in an island of dreamy lotus-eating; and the only noise that reached us was the sound of the tinkling gongs of the temple. We lived a life of absolute indolence, getting up with the sun, eating, playing cards, strolling about on the plains where the millet had now been reaped, eating again and going to bed about nine o’clock in the evening. Our chief amusement was to talk with Chun Wa and to watch the way in which he treated the Cossacks, who had become his humble slaves. I am sure there was not one of the men who would not have died gladly for Chun Wa. One afternoon, just as we were finishing our midday meal, we received orders to start. We were no longer in the reserve; we were needed further on. Everything was packed up in a hurry, and by half-past two the whole battery was on the march, and we left the lovely calm temple, the cypress trees, the chiming gongs, and Chun Wa. The idyll was over, the reality was about to begin. As we left the place Chun Wa stood by the gate, dignified, and grave as usual. In one hand he held his kite, and in the other a paper flower, and he gave this flower to Lieskov. Next day we arrived at another village, and from there we were sent still further on, to a place whence, from the hills, all the fighting that was going on in the centre of that big battle was visible. From half-past six in the morning until sunset the noise of the artillery never ceased, and all night long there was a rattle of rifle firing. The troops which were in front drew each day nearer to us. Another two days passed; the battery took part in the action, some of the men were killed, and some of the men and the officers were wounded, and we retreated to the River Sha-Ho. Then just as we thought a final retreat was about to take place, a retreat right back to Mukden, we recrossed the river, took part in another action, and then a great stillness came. The battle was practically over. The advance of the enemy had ceased, and we were ordered to go to a certain place. We started, and on our way we passed through the village where we had lived before the battle began. The place was scarcely recognisable. It was quite deserted; some of the houses looked like empty shells or husks, as though the place had suffered from earthquake. A dead horse lay across the road just outside the farmyard. One of the officers and myself had the curiosity to go into the temple buildings where we had enjoyed such pleasant days. They were deserted. Part of the inner courtyard was all scorched and crumbled as if there had been a fire. The straw was still lying about in the yard, and the implements of toil. The actual temple itself at the end of the grassy plot remained untouched, and the grinning gods inside it were intact; but the dwelling rooms of our host were destroyed, and the rooms where we had lived ourselves were a mass of broken fragments, rubbish, and dust. The place had evidently been heavily shelled. There was not a trace of any human being, save that in the only room which remained undestroyed, on the matting of the hard Khang—that is the divan which stretches like a platform across three-quarters of every Chinese room—lay the dead body of a Chinese coolie. The dog, the cat, and the hens had all gone. We only remained a moment or two in the place, and as we left it the officer pulled my sleeve and pointed to a heap of rubbish near the gate. There, amidst some broken furniture, a mass of refuse, burned and splintered wood, lay the tattered remains of a golden kite.
nedjelja, 12. listopada 2025.
He had long ago retired from public life, and in his Tuscan villa, where he now lived quite alone, seldom seeing his friends, he never regretted the strenuous days of his activity. He had done his work well; he had been more than a competent public servant; as Pro-Consul he proved a pillar of strength to the State, a man whose name at one time was on men’s lips as having left plenty where he had found dearth, and order and justice where corruption, oppression, and anarchy, had once run riot. His retirement had been somewhat of a surprise to his friends, for although he was ripe in years, his mental powers were undiminished and his body was active and vigorous. But his withdrawal from public life was due not so much to fatigue or to a longing for leisure as to a lack of sympathy, which he felt to be growing stronger and stronger as the years went by, with the manners and customs, the mode of thought, and the manner of living of the new world and the new generation which was growing up around him. Nurtured as he had been in the old school and the strong traditions which taught an austere simplicity of life, a contempt for luxury and show, he was bewildered and saddened by the rapid growth of riches, the shameless worship of wealth, the unrestrained passion for amusement at all costs, the thirst for new sensations, and the ostentatious airs of the youth of the day, who seemed to be born disillusioned and whose palates were jaded before they knew the taste of food. He found much to console him in literature, not only in the literature of the past but in the literature of his day, but here again he was beset with misgivings and haunted by forebodings. He felt that the State had reached its zenith both in material prosperity and intellectual achievement, and that all the future held in reserve was decline and decay. This thought was ever present with him; in the vast extension of empire he foresaw the inevitable disintegration, and he wondered in a melancholy fashion what would be the fate of mankind when the Empire, dismembered and rotten, should become the prey of the Barbarians. It was in the winter of the second year after his retirement that his melancholy increased to a pitch of almost intolerable heaviness. That winter was an extraordinarily mild one, and even during the coldest month he strolled every evening after he had supped on the terrace walk which was before the portico. He was strolling one night on the terrace pondering on the fate of mankind, and more especially on the life—if there was such a thing—beyond the grave. He was not a superstitious man, but, saturated with tradition, he was a scrupulous observer of religious feast, custom, and ritual. He had lately been disturbed by what he considered to be an ill-favoured omen. One night—it was twelve nights ago he reckoned—the statues of Pan and Apollo, standing in his dining-room, which was at the end of the portico, had fallen to the ground without any apparent cause and had been shattered into fragments. And it had seemed to him that the crash of this accident was immediately followed by a low and prolonged wail, which appeared to come from nowhere in particular and yet to fill the world; the noise of the moan had seemed to be quite close to him, and as it died away its echo had seemed to be miles and miles distant. He thought it had been a hallucination, but that same night a still stranger thing happened. After the accident, which had wakened the whole household, he had been unable to go to sleep again and he had gone from his sleeping chamber into an adjoining room, and, lighting a lamp, had taken down and read out of the “Iliad” of Homer. After he had been reading for about half an hour he heard a voice calling him very distinctly by his name, but as soon as the sound had ceased he was not quite certain whether he had heard it or not. At that moment one of his slaves, who had been born in the East, entered the room and asked him what he required, saying that he had heard his master calling loudly. What these signs and portents signified he had no idea; perhaps, he mused, they mean my own death, which is of no consequence; or perhaps—which may the Fates forfend—some disaster to an absent friend or even to the State. But so far—and twelve days had passed since he had seen these strange manifestations—he had received no news which confirmed his fears. As he was thus musing he looked up at the sky, and he noticed the presence of a new and unfamiliar star, which he had never seen before. He was a close observer of the heavens and learned in astronomy, and he felt quite certain that he had never seen this star before. It was a star of peculiar radiance, large and white—almost blue in its whiteness—it shone in the East, and seemed to put all the other stars to shame by its overwhelming radiance and purity. While he was thus gazing at the star it seemed to him as though a great darkness had come upon the world. He heard a low muttering sound as of a distant earthquake, and this was quickly followed by the tramping of innumerable armies. He knew that the end had come. It is the Barbarians, he thought, who have already conquered the world. Rome has fallen never to rise again; Rome has shared the fate of Troy and Carthage, of Babylon, and Memphis; Rome is a name in an old wife’s tale; and little savage children shall be given our holy trophies for playthings, and shall use our ruined temples and our overthrown palaces as their playground. And so sharp was the vividness of his vision that he wondered what would happen to his villa, and whether or no the Barbarians would destroy the image of Ceres on the terrace, which he especially cherished, not for its beauty but because it had belonged to his father and to his grandfather before him. An eternity seemed to pass, and the tramp, tramp, tramp of the armies of those untrained hordes which were coming from the North and overrunning the world seemed to get nearer and nearer. He wondered what they would do with him; he had no place for fear in his heart, but he remembered that on the portico in the morning his freedman’s child had been playing with the pieces of a broken jar, a copper coin, and a dog made of terra-cotta. He remembered the child’s brown eyes and curly hair, its smile, its laughter, and lisping talk—it was a piece of earth and sun—and he thought of the spears of the Barbarians, and then shifted his thoughts because they sickened him. Then, just when he thought the heavy footsteps had reached the approach of his villa, the vision changed. The noise of tramping ceased, and through the thick darkness there pierced the radiance of the star: the strange star he had seen that night. The world seemed to awake from a dark slumber. The ruins rose from the dust and took once more a stately shape, even lordlier than before. Rome had risen from the dead, and once more she dominated the world like a starry diadem. Before him he seemed to see the pillars and the portals of a huge temple, more splendid and gorgeous than the Temples of Caesar. The gates were wide open, and from within came a blare of trumpets. He saw a kneeling multitude; and soldiers with shining breastplates, far taller than the legionaries of Caesar, were keeping a way through the dense crowd, while the figure of an aged man—was it the Pontifex Maximus, he wondered?—was borne aloft in a chair over their heads. Then once more the vision changed. At least the temple seemed to grow wider, higher, and lighter; the crowd vanished; it seemed to him as though a long corridor of light was opening on some ultimate and mysterious doorway. At last this doorway was opened, and he saw distinctly before him a dark and low manger where oxen and asses were stalled. It was littered with straw. He could hear the peaceful beasts munching their food. In the corner lay a woman, and in her arms was a child and his face shone like the sun and lit up the whole place, in which there were neither torches nor lamps. The door of the manger was ajar, and through it he saw the sky and the strange star still shining brightly. He heard a voice, the same voice which he had heard twelve nights before; but the voice was not calling him, it was singing a song, and the song was as it were a part of a larger music, a symphony of clear voices, more joyous and different from anything he had ever heard. The vision vanished altogether; he was standing once more under the portico amongst the surroundings which were familiar to him. The strange star was still shining in the sky. He went back through the folding-doors of the piazza into the dining-room. His gloom and his perplexity had been lifted from him; he felt quite happy; he could not have explained why. He called his slave and told him to get plenty of provisions on the morrow, for he expected friends to dinner. He added that he wanted nothing further and that the slaves could go to bed.
subota, 11. listopada 2025.
Hart Minor and Smith were behind-hand with their sums. It was Hart Minor’s first term: Smith had already been one term at school. They were in the fourth division at St. James’s. A certain number of sums in short division had to be finished. Hart Minor and Smith got up early to finish these sums before breakfast, which was at half-past seven. Hart Minor divided slowly, and Smith reckoned quickly. Smith finished his sums with ease. When half-past seven struck, Hart Minor had finished four of them and there was still a fifth left: 3888 had to be divided by 36; short division had to be employed. Hart Minor was busily trying to divide 3888 by 4 and by 9; he had got as far as saying, “Four’s into 38 will go six times and two over; four’s into twenty-eight go seven times; four’s into eight go twice.” He was beginning to divide 672 by 9, an impossible task, when the breakfast bell rang, and Smith said to him: “Come on!” “I can’t,” said Hart Minor, “I haven’t finished my sum.” Smith glanced at his page and said: “Oh that’s all right, don’t you see? The answer’s 108.” Hart Minor wrote down 108 and put a large R next to the sum, which meant Right. The boys went in to breakfast. After breakfast they returned to the fourth division schoolroom, where they were to be instructed in arithmetic for an hour by Mr. Whitehead. Mr. Whitehead called for the sums. He glanced through Smith’s and found them correct, and then through Hart Minor’s. His attention was arrested by the last division. “What’s this?” he demanded. “Four’s into thirty-eight don’t go six times. You’ve got the right answer and the wrong working. What does this mean?” And Mr. Whitehead bit his knuckles savagely. “Somebody,” he said, “has been helping you.” Hart Minor owned that he had received help from Smith. Mr. Whitehead shook him violently, and said, “Do you know what this means?” Hart Minor had no sort of idea as to the inner significance of his act, except that he had finished his sums. “It means,” said Mr. Whitehead, “that you’re a cheat and a thief: you’ve been stealing marks. For the present you can stand on the stool of penitence and I’ll see what is to be done with you later.” The stool of penitence was a high, three-cornered stool, very narrow at the top. When boys in this division misbehaved themselves they had to stand on it during the rest of the lesson in the middle of the room. Hart Minor fetched the stool of penitence and climbed up on it. It wobbled horribly. After the lesson, which was punctuated throughout by Mr. Whitehead with bitter comments on the enormity of theft, the boys went to chapel. Smith and Hart were in the choir: they wore white surplices which were put on in the vestry. Hart Minor, who knew that he was in for a terrific row of some kind, thought he observed something unusual in the conduct of the masters who were assembled in the vestry. They were all tittering. Mr. Whitehead seemed to be convulsed with uncontrollable laughter. The choir walked up the aisle. Hart Minor noticed that all the boys in the school, and the servants who sat behind them, and the master’s wife who sat in front, and the organist who played the harmonium, were all staring at him with unwonted interest; the boys were nudging each other: he could not understand why. When the service, which lasted twenty minutes, was over, and the boys came out of chapel, Hart Minor was the centre of a jeering crowd of boys. He asked Smith what the cause of this was, and Smith confessed to him that before going into chapel Mr. Whitehead had pinned on his back a large sheet of paper with “Cheat” written on it, and had only removed it just before the procession walked up the aisle, hence the interest aroused. But, contrary to his expectation, nothing further occurred; none of the masters alluded to his misdemeanour, and Hart Minor almost thought that the incident was closed—almost, and yet really not at all; he tried to delude himself into thinking the affair would blow over, but all the while at the bottom of his heart sat a horrible misgiving. Every Monday there was in this school what was called “reading over.” The boys all assembled in the library and the Head Master, standing in front of his tall desk, summoned each division before him in turn. The marks of the week were read out and the boys took places, moving either up or down according to their marks; so that a boy who was at the top of his division one week might find himself at the bottom the next week, and vice versa. On the Sunday after the incident recorded, the boys of the fourth division were sitting in their schoolroom before luncheon, in order to write their weekly letter home. This was the rule of the school. Mr. Whitehead sat at his desk and talked in a friendly manner to the boys. He was writing his weekly report in the large black report book that was used for reading over. Mr. Whitehead was talking in a chaffing way as to who was his favourite boy. “You can tell your people,” he said to Hart Minor, “that my favourite is old Polly.” Polly was Hart Minor’s nickname, which was given to him owing to his resemblance to a parrot. Hart Minor was much pleased at this friendly attitude, and began to think that the unpleasant incident of the week had been really forgotten and that the misgiving which haunted him night and day was a foolish delusion. “We shall soon be writing the half-term reports,” said Mr. Whitehead. “You’ve all been doing well, especially old Polly: you can put that in your letter,” he said to Hart Minor. “I’m very much pleased with you,” and he chuckled. On Monday morning at eleven o’clock was reading over. When the fourth division were called up, the Head Master paused, looked down the page, then at the boys, then at the book once more; then he frowned. There was a second pause, then he read out in icy tones:— “I’m sorry to say that Smith and Hart Minor have been found guilty of gross dishonesty; they combined—in fact they entered into a conspiracy, to cheat, to steal marks and obtain by unfair means, a higher place and an advantage which was not due to them.” The Head Master paused. “Hart Minor and Smith,” he continued, “go to the bottom of the division. Smith,” he added, “I’m astounded at you. Your conduct in this affair is inexplicable. If it were not for your previous record and good conduct, I should have you severely flogged; and if Hart Minor were not a new boy, I should treat him in the same way and have him turned out of the choir. (The choir had special privileges.) As it is, you shall lose, each of you, 200 marks, and I shall report the whole matter in detail to your parents in your half-term report, and if anything of the sort ever occurs again, you shall be severely punished. You have been guilty of an act for which, were you not schoolboys, but grown up, you would be put in prison. It is this kind of thing that leads people to penal servitude.” After the reading over was finished and the lessons that followed immediately on it, and the boys went out to wash their hands for luncheon, the boys of the second division crowded round Hart Minor and asked him how he could have perpetrated such a horrible and daring crime. The matter, however, was soon forgotten by the boys, but Hart Minor had not heard the last of it. On the following Sunday in chapel, at the evening service, the Head Master preached a sermon. He chose as his text “Thou shalt not steal!” The eyes of the whole school were fixed on Smith and Hart Minor. The Head Master pointed out in his discourse that one might think at first sight that boys at a school might not have the opportunity to violate the tremendous Commandments; but, he said, this was not so. The Commandments were as much a living actuality in school life as they were in the larger world. Coming events cast their shadows before them; the child was the father of the man; what a boy was at school, such would he be in after life. Theft, the boys perhaps thought, was not a sin which immediately concerned them. But there were things which were morally the same if not worse than the actual theft of material and tangible objects—dishonesty in the matter of marks, for instance, and cheating in order to gain an undue advantage over one’s fellow-schoolboys. A boy who was guilty of such an act at school would probably end by being a criminal when he went out into the larger world. The seeds of depravity were already sown; the tree whose early shoots were thus blemished would probably be found to be rotten when it grew up; and for such trees and for such noxious growths there could only be one fate—to be cut down and cast into the unquenchable fire! In Hart Minor’s half-term report, which was sent home to his parents, it was stated that he had been found guilty of the meanest and grossest dishonesty, and that should it occur again he would be first punished and finally expelled.
petak, 10. listopada 2025.
Ferroll was an intellectual, and he prided himself on the fact. At Cambridge he had narrowly missed being a Senior Wrangler, and his principal study there had been Lunar Theory. But when he went down from Cambridge for good, being a man of some means, he travelled. For a year he was an honorary Attache at one of the big Embassies. He finally settled in London with a vague idea of some day writing a magnum opus about the stupidity of mankind; for he had come to the conclusion by the age of twenty-five that all men were stupid, irreclaimably, irredeemably stupid; that everything was wrong; that all literature was really bad, all art much overrated, and all music tedious in the long run. The years slipped by and he never began his magnum opus; he joined a literary club instead and discussed the current topic of the day. Sometimes he wrote a short article; never in the daily Press, which he despised, nor in the reviews (for he never wrote anything as long as a magazine article), but in a literary weekly he would express in weary and polished phrases the unemphatic boredom or the mitigated approval with which the works of his fellow-men inspired him. He was the kind of man who had nothing in him you could positively dislike, but to whom you could not talk for five minutes without having a vague sensation of blight. Things seemed to shrivel up in his presence as though they had been touched by an insidious east wind, a subtle frost, a secret chill. He never praised anything, though he sometimes condescended to approve. The faint puffs of blame in which he more generally indulged were never sharp or heavy, but were like the smoke rings of a cigarette which a man indolently smoking blows from time to time up to the ceiling. He lived in rooms in the Temple. They were comfortably, not luxuriously furnished; a great many French books—French was the only modern language worth reading he used to say—a few modern German etchings, a low Turkish divan, and some Egyptian antiquities, made up the furniture of his two sitting-rooms. Above all things he despised Greek art; it was, he said decadent. The Egyptians and the Germans were, in his opinion, the only people who knew anything about the plastic arts, whereas the only music he could endure was that of the modern French School. Over his chimney-piece there was a large German landscape in oils, called “Im Walde”; it represented a wood at twilight in the autumn, and if you looked at it carefully and for a long time you saw that the objects depicted were meant to be trees from which the leaves were falling; but if you looked at the picture carelessly and from a distance, it looked like a man-of-war on a rough sea, for which it was frequently taken, much to Ferrol’s annoyance. One day an artist friend of his presented him with a small Chinese god made of crystal; he put this on his chimney-piece. It was on the evening of the day on which he received this gift that he dined, together with a friend named Sledge who had travelled much in Eastern countries, at his club. After dinner they went to Ferrol’s rooms to smoke and to talk. He wanted to show Sledge his antiquities, which consisted of three large Egyptian statuettes, a small green Egyptian god, and the Chinese idol which he had lately been given. Sledge, who was a middle-aged, bearded man, frank and unconventional, examined the antiquities with care, pronounced them to be genuine, and singled out for special praise the crystal god. “Your things are very good,” he said, “very good. But don’t you really mind having all these things about you?” “Why should I mind?” asked Ferrol. “Well, you have travelled a good deal, haven’t you?” “Yes,” said Ferrol, “I have travelled; I have been as far east as Nijni-Novgorod to see the Fair, and as far west as Lisbon.” “I suppose,” said Sledge, “you were a long time in Greece and Italy?” “No,” said Ferrol, “I have never been to Greece. Greek art distresses me. All classical art is a mistake and a superstition.” “Talking of superstition,” said Sledge, “you have never been to the Far East, have you?” “No,” Ferrol answered, “Egypt is Eastern enough for me, and cannot be bettered.” “Well,” said Sledge, “I have been in the Far East. I have lived there many years. I am not a superstitious man; but there is one thing I would not do in any circumstances whatsoever, and that is to keep in my sitting-room the things you have got there.” “But why?” asked Ferrol. “Well,” said Sledge, “nearly all of them have come from the tombs of the dead, and some of them are gods. Such things may have attached to them heaven knows what spooks and spirits.” Ferrol shut his eyes and smiled, a faint, seraphic smile. “My dear boy,” he said, “you forget. This is the Twentieth Century.” “And you,” answered Sledge, “forget that the things you have here were made before the Twentieth Century. B.C.” “You don’t seriously mean,” said Ferrol, “that you attach any importance to these—” he hesitated. “Children’s stories?” suggested Sledge. Ferrol nodded. “I have lived long enough in the East,” said Sledge, “to know that the sooner you learn to believe children’s stories the better.” “I am afraid, then,” said Ferrol, with civil tolerance, “that our points of view are too different for us to discuss the matter.” And they talked of other things until late into the night. Just as Sledge was leaving Ferrol’s rooms and had said “Good-night,” he paused by the chimney-piece, and, pointing to the tiny Ikon which was lying on it, asked: “What is that?” “Oh, that’s nothing,” said Ferrol, “only a small Ikon I bought for twopence at the Fair of Nijni-Novgorod.” Sledge said “Good-night” again, but when he was on the stairs he called back: “In any case remember one thing, that East is East and West is West. Don’t mix your deities.” Ferrol had not the slightest idea what he was alluding to, nor did he care. He dismissed the matter from his mind. The next day he spent in the country, returning to London late in the evening. As he entered his rooms the first thing which met his eye was that his great picture, “Im Walde,” which he considered to be one of the few products of modern art that a man who respected himself could look at without positive pain in the eyes, had fallen from its place over the chimney-piece to the floor in front of the fender, and the glass was shattered into a thousand fragments. He was much vexed. He sought the cause of the accident. The nail was a strong one, and it was still in its place. The picture had been hung by a wire; the wire seemed strong also and was not broken. He concluded that the picture must have been badly balanced and that a sudden shock such a door banging had thrown it over. He had no servant in his rooms, and when he had gone out that morning he had locked the door, so no one could have entered his rooms during his absence. Next morning he sent for a framemaker and told him to mend the frame as soon as possible, to make the wire strong, and to see that the picture was firmly fixed on the wall. In two or three days’ time the picture returned and was once more hung on the wall over the chimney-piece immediately above the little crystal Chinese god. Ferrol supervised the hanging of the picture in person. He saw that the nail was strong, and firmly fixed in the wall; he took care that the wire left nothing to be desired and was properly attached to the rings of the picture. The picture was hung early one morning. That day he went to play golf. He returned at five o’clock, and again the first thing which met his eye was the picture. It had again fallen down, and this time it had brought with it in its fall the small Chinese god, which was broken in two. The glass had again been shattered to bits, and the picture itself was somewhat damaged. Everything else on the chimney-piece, that is to say, a few matchboxes and two candle-sticks, had also been thrown to the ground—everything with the exception of the little Ikon he had bought at Nijni-Novgorod, a small object about two inches square on which two Saints were pictured. This still rested in its place against the wall. Ferrol investigated the disaster. The nail was in its place in the wall; the wire at the back of the picture was not broken or damaged in any way. The accident seemed to him quite inexplicable. He was greatly annoyed. The Chinese god was a valuable thing. He stood in front of the chimney-piece contemplating the damage with a sense of great irritation. “To think that everything should have been broken except this beastly little Ikon!” he said to himself. “I wonder whether that was what Sledge meant when he said I should not mix my deities.” Next morning he sent again for the framemaker, and abused him roundly. The framemaker said he could not understand how the accident had happened. The nail was an excellent nail, the picture, Mr. Ferrol must admit, had been hung with great care before his very eyes and under his own direct and personal supervision. What more could be done? “It’s something to do with the balance,” said Ferrol. “I told you that before. The picture is half spoiled now.” The framemaker said the damage would not show once the glass was repaired, and took the picture away again to mend it. A few days later it was brought back. Two men came to fix it this time; steps were brought and the hanging lasted about twenty minutes. Nails were put under the picture; it was hung by a double wire. All accidents in the future seemed guarded against. The following morning Ferrol telephoned to Sledge and asked him to dine with him. Sledge was engaged to dine out that evening, but said that he would look in at the Temple late after dinner. Ferrol dined alone at the Club; he reached his rooms about half-past nine; he made up a blazing fire and drew an armchair near it. He lit a cigarette, made some Turkish coffee, and took down a French novel. Every now and then he looked up at his picture. No damage was visible; it looked, he thought, as well as ever. In the place of the Chinese idol he had put his little green Egyptian god on the chimney-piece. The candlesticks and the Ikon were still in their places. “After all,” thought Ferrol, “I did wrong to have any Chinese art in the place at all. Egyptian things are the only things worth having. It is a lesson to me not to dabble with things out of my period.” After he had read for about a quarter of an hour he fell into a doze. Sledge arrived at the rooms about half-past ten, and an ugly sight met his eyes. There had been an accident. The picture over the chimney-piece had fallen down right on Ferrol. His face was badly cut. They put Ferrol to bed, and his wounds were seen to and everything that was necessary was done. A nurse was sent for to look after him, and Sledge decided to stay in the house all night. After all the arrangements had been made, the doctor, before he went away, said to Sledge: “He will recover all right, he is not in the slightest danger; but I don’t know who is to break the news to him.” “What is that?” asked Sledge. “He will be quite blind,” said the doctor. Then the doctor went away, and Sledge sat down in front of the fire. The broken glass had been swept up. The picture had been placed on the Oriental divan, and as Sledge looked at the chimney-piece he noticed that the little Ikon was still in its place. Something caught his eye just under the low fender in front of the fireplace. He bent forward and picked up the object. It was Ferrol’s green Egyptian god, which had been broken into two pieces.
četvrtak, 9. listopada 2025.
When the ancient gods were turned out of Olympus, and the groan of dying Pan shook the world like an earthquake, none of the fallen deities was so disconsolate as Proserpine. She wandered across the world, assuming now this shape and now that, but nowhere could she find a resting-place or a home. In the Southern country which she regarded as her own, whatever shape or disguise she assumed, whether that of a gleaner or of an old woman begging for alms, the country people would scent something uncanny about her and chase her from the place. Thus it was that she left the Southern country, which she loved; she said farewell to the azure skies, the hills covered with corn and fringed everywhere with rose bushes, the white oxen, the cypress, the olive, the vine, the croaking frogs, and the million fireflies; and she sought the green pastures and the woods of a Northern country. One evening, not long after her arrival (it was Midsummer Eve), as she was wandering in a thick wood, she noticed that the trees and the under-growth were twinkling with a myriad soft flames which reminded her of the fireflies of her own country, and presently she perceived that these flames were stars which, soft as dew and bright as moonbeams, formed the diadems crowning the hair of unearthly shapes. These shapes were like those of men and maidens, transfigured and rendered strange and delicate, as light as foam, and radiant as dragonflies hovering over a pool. They were rimmed with rainbow-coloured films, and sometimes they flew and sometimes they danced, but they rarely seemed to touch the ground. And as Proserpine approached them, in the sad majesty of her fallen divinity, they gathered round her in a circle and bowed down before her. And one of them, taller than the rest, advanced towards her and said:— “We are the Fairies, and for a long time we have been mournful, for we have lost our Queen, our beautiful Queen. She loved a mortal, and on this account she was banished from Fairyland, nor may she ever revisit the haunt and the kingdom that were hers. But Merlin, the oldest and the wisest of the wizards, told us we should find another Queen, and that we should know her by the poppies in her hair, the whiteness of her brow, and the stillness of her eyes, and with or without such tokens we should know, as soon as we set eyes on her, that it was she and no other who was to be our Queen. And now we know that it was you and no other. Therefore shall you be our Queen and rule over us until he comes who, Merlin said, shall conquer your kingdom and deliver its secrets to the mortal world. Then shall you abandon the kingdom of the Fairies—the everlasting Limbo shall receive you.” It was one summer’s day a long time ago, many and many years after Proserpine had become Queen of the Fairies, that a butcher’s apprentice called William was enjoying a holiday, and strolling in the woods with no other purpose than to stroll and enjoy the fresh air and the cool leaves and the song of the birds. William loved the sights and sounds of the country; unlike many boys of his age, he was not deeply versed in the habits of birds and beasts, but devoted his spare time to reading such books as he could borrow from the village schoolmaster whose school he had lately left to go into trade, or to taking part in the games of his companions, for he loved human fellowship and the talk and laughter of his fellow-creatures. The day was hot—it was Midsummer Day—and William, having stumbled on a convenient mound, fell asleep. And he dreamt a curious dream. He thought he saw a beautiful maiden walking towards him. She was tall, and clothed in dark draperies, and her hair was bound with a coronal of scarlet flowers, her face was pale and lustrous, and he could not see her eyes because they were veiled. She approached him and said:— “You are he who has been chosen to try to conquer my kingdom, which is faery, and to possess it: if, indeed, you are able to endure the fierce ordeal and to perform the three dreadful tasks which have been appointed. If he who sets out to conquer my kingdom should fail in any one of the three tasks he dies, and the world hears of him no more. Many have tried and failed.” And William said he would try with all his might to conquer the faery kingdom, and he asked what the three tasks might be. The maiden, who was none other than Proserpine, Queen of the Fairies, told him that the first task was to pluck the crystal apple from the laughing tree, and second to pluck the blood-red rose from the fiery rose tree, and the third to cull the white poppy from the quiet fields. William asked her how he was to set about these tasks. Proserpine told him that he had but to accept the quest and all would be made clear. So he accepted the quest without further talk. Immediately Proserpine vanished, and William found himself in a large green garden of fruit trees, and in the distance he heard the noise of rippling laughter. He walked along many paths to the place whence he thought the laughter came, until he found a large fruit tree which grew by itself. It was laden with fruit, and from one of its boughs hung a crystal apple which shone with all the colours of the rainbow. But the tree was guarded by a hideous old hag, covered with sores and leprous scales, loathsome to behold. And a laughing voice came from the tree saying: “He who would pluck the crystal apple must embrace its guardian.” And William looked at her and felt no loathing but rather a deep pity, so that tears welled in his eyes and dropped on her, and he took her face in his hands to embrace her, and as he did so she changed into a beautiful maiden with veiled eyes, who plucked the crystal apple from the tree and gave it to him and vanished. Then the garden changed its semblance, and all around him there seemed to be a hedge of smoking thorns and before him a fiery tree on which blood-red roses shone like rubies. The tree was guarded by a maiden with long grey eyes and flowing hair, and of spun moonshine, beautiful exceedingly, and a moaning voice came from the tree, saying: “He who would pluck the rose must slay its guardian.” On the grass beneath the tree lay an unsheathed sword. William took the sword in his hands, but the maiden looked at him piteously and wept, so that he hesitated; then, hardening himself, he plunged the sword into her heart and a great moan was heard, and the fire disappeared, and only a withered rose-tree stood before him. Then he heard the voice say that he must pierce his own heart with a thorn from the tree and let the blood fall upon its roots. This he did, and as he did so he felt the sharpness of Death, as though the last dreadful moment had come; but as the drops of blood fell on the roots the beautiful maiden with veiled eyes, whom he had seen before stood before him and gave him the blood-red rose, and she touched his wound and straightway it was healed. Then the garden vanished altogether, and he stood before a dark porch and a gate beyond which he caught a pale glimmer. And by the porch stood a terrible shape: a hooded skeleton bearing a scythe, with white sockets of fire which had no eyes in them but which were so terrible that no mortal could look on them and live. And here he heard a voice saying: “He who would cull the white poppy must look into the eyes of its guardian and take the scythe from the bony hands.” And William seized the scythe and an icy darkness descended upon him, and he felt dizzy and faint; yet he persisted and wrestled with the skeleton, although the darkness seemed to be overwhelming him. He tore the hood from the bony head and looked boldly into the fiery sockets. Then with a crash of thunder the skeleton vanished, and the maiden with veiled eyes led him through the gate into the quiet fields, and there he culled the white poppy. Then the maiden turned to him and unveiled herself, and it was Proserpine, the Queen of the Fairies. “You have conquered,” she said, “and the faery kingdom is yours for ever, and you shall visit it and dwell in it whenever you desire, and reveal its sounds and its sights to the mortals of the world: and in my kingdom you shall see, as though in a mirror, the pageant of mankind, the scroll of history, and the story of man which is writ in brave, golden and glowing letters, of blood and tears and fire. And there is nothing in the soul of man that shall be hid from you; and you shall speak the secrets of my kingdom to mortal men with a voice of gold and of honey. And when you grow weary of life you shall withdraw for ever into the island of faery voices which lies in the heart of my kingdom. And as for me I go to the everlasting Limbo.” Then Proserpine vanished, and William awoke from his dream, and went home to his butcher’s shop. Soon after this he left his native village and went to London, where he became well known; although how his surname shall be spelt is a matter of dispute, some spelling it Shakespeare, some Shakespere, and some Shaksper.
srijeda, 8. listopada 2025.
Before the bell had time to sound the alarm a huge pillar of smoke and flame, leaping high in the breathless August night, told the whole village the news of the fire. Men, women, and children hurried to the burning place. The firemen galloped down the rutty road with their barrels of water and hand-pumps, yelling. The bell rang, with hurried, throbbing beats. The fire, which was further off than it seemed to be at first sight, was in the middle of the village. Two houses were burning—a house built of bricks and a wooden cottage. The flame was prodigious: it soared into the sky like the eruption of a volcano, and the wooden cottage, with its flat logs and blazing roof, looked like a sacrificial pyre consuming the body of some warrior or Viking. In the light of the flames the soft sky, which was starless and flooded with stillness by the large full moon, had turned from blue to green. A dense crowd had gathered round the burning houses. The firemen, working like bees, were doing what they could to extinguish the flames and to prevent the fire spreading. Volunteers from the crowd helped them. One man climbed up on the edge of the wooden house, where the flames had been overcome, and shovelled earth from the roof on the little flames, which were leaping like earth spirits from the ground. His wife stood below and called on him in forcible language to descend from such a dangerous place. The crowd jeered at her fears, and she spoke her mind to them in frank and unvarnished terms. It was St. John the Baptist’s Day. Some of the men had been celebrating the feast by drinking. One of them, out of the fulness of his heart, cried out: “Oh, how happy I am! I’m drunk, and there’s a fire, and all at the same time!” But most of the crowd—they looked like black shadows against the glare—looked on quietly, every now and then making comments on the situation. One of the peasants tried to knock down the burning house with an axe. He failed. Someone not far off was playing an accordion and singing a monotonous rhythmical song. Amidst the shifting crowd of shadows I noticed a strange figure, who beckoned to me. “I see you are short-sighted,” he said, “let me lend you a glass.” His voice sounded thin and distant, and he handed me a piece of glass which seemed to be more opaque than transparent. I looked through it and I noticed a difference in things: The cottages had disappeared; in their place were great high buildings with lofty porticos, broad columns and carved friezes, but flames were leaping round them, intenser and greater than before, and the noise of the fire had increased. In front of me was an open court, in the centre of which was an altar, and to the right of this altar stood an old bay-tree. An old man and a grey-haired woman were clinging to this altar; it was drenched with blood, and on the steps of it lay several bodies of young men clothed in armour, but squalid with dust and blood. I had scarcely become aware of the scene before a great cloud of smoke passed through the court, and when it rose I saw there had been another change: in that few moments’ space the fire seemed to have wrought incredible havoc. Nothing was left of all the tall pillared buildings, the friezes and the porticos, the altar, the bay-tree and the bodies—nothing but the pile of logs which vomited a rolling cloud of flame and smoke into the sky. The moon was still shining calmly, and the sky was softer and greener. On the ground there were hundreds of dead and dying men; the dying were groaning in their agony. Far away on the horizon there was a thin line of light, a faint trembling thread as though of foam, and I seemed to hear the moaning of the sea. All at once a woman walked in front of the burning pile. She was tall, and silken folds clothed the perfect lines of her body and fell straight to the ground. She walked royally, and when she moved her gestures were like the rhythm of majestic music. The firelight shone on her hair, which was bound with a narrow golden band. Her hair was like a cloud of spun sunshine, and it seemed brighter than the flames. She was walking with downcast eyes, but presently she looked up. Her face was calm, and faultless as skilfully-hewn marble, and it seemed to be made of some substance different from the clay which goes to the making of men and women. It was not an angel’s face; it was not a divine face; neither was it a wicked face, nor had it anything cruel, nor anything of the siren or the witch. Love and pleasure seemed to have moulded the flower-like lips; but an infinite carelessness shone in the still blue eyes. They seemed like two seas that had never known what winds and tempests mean, but which bask for ever under unruffled skies lulled by a slumber-scented breeze. She looked up at the fire and smiled, and at that smile one thought the heavens must open and the stars break into song, so marvellous was its loveliness, so infinitely radiant the glory of it. She was a woman, and yet more than a woman, a creature of the earth, yet fashioned of pearls and dew and the petals of flowers: delicate as a gossamer, and yet radiant with the flush of life, soft as the twilight, and glowing with the blood of the ruby; and, above all things, serene, calm, aloof, and unruffled like the silver moon. When the dying men saw her smile they raised their eyes towards her, and one could see that there shone in them a strange and wonderful happiness. And when they had looked they fell back and died. Then a cloud of smoke blinded me. When it rose the full moon was still shining in a sky even bluer and softer than it had yet been. The fire was further off, but it had spread. The whole village was on fire; but the village had grown; it seemed endless, and covered several hills. Right in front of me was a grove of cypresses, dark against the intense glow of the flames, which leapt all round in the distance: a huge circle of light, a chain of fiery tongues and dancing lightnings. We were on the top of a hill, and we looked down into a place where tall buildings and temples stood, where the fire had not penetrated. This place was crowded with men, women and children. It was the same shifting crowd of shadows: some shouting, some gesticulating, some looking on indifferent. And straight in front of me was a short, dark, and rather fat man with a low forehead, deep-set eyes, and a heavy jaw. He was crowned with a golden wreath, and he was twanging a kind of harp. In the distance suddenly the cypress trees became alive with huge flaring torches, which lit the garden like Bengal lights. The man threw down his harp and clapped his hands in ecstasy at the bright fireworks. Again a cloud of smoke obscured everything. When it lifted I was in the village once more, and once more it was different. It was on fire, and it seemed infinitely larger and more straggling than when I had arrived. The moon was still in the sky, but the air had a chilly touch. Instead of one church there was an infinite number of churches, for in the glare countless minarets and small cupolas were visible. There was no crowd, no voices, and no shouting; only a long line of low, blazing wooden houses. The place was deserted and silent save for the crackling blaze. Then down the street a short, fat man on horseback rode towards us. He was riding a white horse. He wore a grey overcoat and a cocked hat. I became aware of a rhythmical tramping: a noise of hundreds and hundreds of hoofs, a champing of bits, and the tramp of innumerable feet and the rumble of guns. In the distance there was a hill with crenelated battlements round it; it was crowned with the domes and minarets of several churches, taller and greater than all the other churches in sight. These minarets shone out clean-cut and distinct against the ruddy sky. The short man on horseback looked back for a moment at this hill. He took a pinch of snuff.
utorak, 7. listopada 2025.
John Fletcher was an overworked minor official in a Government office. He lived a lonely life, and had done so ever since he had been a boy. At school he had mixed little with his fellow school-boys, and he took no interest in the things that interested them, that is to say, games. On the other hand, although he was what is called “good at work,” and did his lessons with facility and ease, he was not a literary boy, and did not care for books. He was drawn towards machinery of all kinds, and spent his spare time in dabbling in scientific experiments or in watching trains go by on the Great Western line. Once he blew off his eyebrows while making some experiment with explosive chemicals; his hands were always smudged with dark, mysterious stains, and his room was like that of a mediaeval alchemist, littered with retorts, bottles, and test-glasses. Before leaving school he invented a flying machine (heavier than air), and an unsuccessful attempt to start it on the high road caused him to be the victim of much chaff and ridicule. When he left school he went to Oxford. His life there was as lonely as it had been at school. The dirty, untidy, ink-stained, and chemical-stained little boy grew up into a tall, lank, slovenly-dressed man, who kept entirely to himself, not because he cherished any dislike or disdain for his fellow-creatures, but because he seemed to be entirely absorbed in his own thoughts and isolated from the world by a barrier of dreams. He did well at Oxford, and when he went down he passed high into the Civil Service and became a clerk in a Government office. There he kept as much to himself as ever. He did his work rapidly and well, for this man, who seemed so slovenly in his person, had an accurate mind, and was what was called a good clerk, although his incurable absent-mindedness once or twice caused him to forget certain matters of importance. His fellow clerks treated him as a crank and as a joke, but none of them, try as they would, could get to know him or win his confidence. They used to wonder what Fletcher did with his spare time, what were his pursuits, what were his hobbies, if he had any. They suspected that Fletcher had some hobby of an engrossing kind, since in everyday life he conveyed the impression of a man who is walking in his sleep, who acts mechanically and automatically. Somewhere else, they thought, in some other circumstances, he must surely wake up and take a living interest in somebody or in something. Yet had they followed him home to his small room in Canterbury-mansions they would have been astonished. For when he returned from the office after a hard day’s work he would do nothing more engrossing than slowly to turn over the leaves of a book in which there were elaborate drawings and diagrams of locomotives and other kinds of engines. And on Sunday he would take a train to one of the large junctions and spend the whole day in watching express trains go past, and in the evening would return again to London. One day after he had returned from the office somewhat earlier than usual, he was telephoned for. He had no telephone in his own room, but he could use a public telephone which was attached to the building. He went into the small box, but found on reaching the telephone that he had been cut off by the exchange. He imagined that he had been rung up by the office, so he asked to be given their number. As he did so his eye caught an advertisement which was hung just over the telephone. It was an elaborate design in black and white, pointing out the merits of a particular kind of soap called the Venus: a classical lady, holding a looking-glass in one hand and a cake of this invaluable soap in the other, was standing in a sphere surrounded by pointed rays, which was no doubt intended to represent the most brilliant of the planets. Fletcher sat down on the stool and took the receiver in his hand. As he did so he had for one second the impression that the floor underneath him gave way and that he was falling down a precipice. But before he had time to realise what was happening the sensation of falling left him; he shook himself as though he had been asleep, and for one moment a faint recollection as though of the dreams of the night twinkled in his mind, and vanished beyond all possibility of recall. He said to himself that he had had a long and curious dream, and he knew that it was too late to remember what it had been about. Then he opened his eyes wide and looked round him. He was standing on the slope of a hill. At his feet there was a kind of green moss, very soft to tread on. It was sprinkled here and there with light red, wax-like flowers such as he had never seen before. He was standing in an open space; beneath him there was a plain covered with what seemed to be gigantic mushrooms, much taller than a man. Above him rose a mass of vegetation, and over all this was a dense, heavy, streaming cloud faintly glimmering with a white, silvery light which seemed to be beyond it. He walked towards the vegetation, and soon found himself in the middle of a wood, or rather of a jungle. Tangled plants grew on every side; large hanging creepers with great blue flowers hung downwards. There was a profound stillness in this wood; there were no birds singing and he heard not the slightest rustle in the rich undergrowth. It was oppressively hot and the air was full of a pungent, aromatic sweetness. He felt as though he were in a hot-house full of gardenias and stephanotis. At the same time the atmosphere of the place was pleasant to him. It was neither strange nor disagreeable. He felt at home in this green shimmering jungle and in this hot, aromatic twilight, as though he had lived there all his life. He walked mechanically onwards as if he were going to a definite spot of which he knew. He walked fast, but in spite of the oppressive atmosphere and the thickness of the growth he grew neither hot nor out of breath; on the contrary, he took pleasure in the motion, and the stifling, sweet air seemed to invigorate him. He walked steadily on for over three hours, choosing his way nicely, avoiding certain places and seeking others, following a definite path and making for a definite goal. During all this time the stillness continued unbroken, nor did he meet a single living thing, either bird or beast. After he had been walking for what seemed to him several hours, the vegetation grew thinner, the jungle less dense, and from a more or less open space in it he seemed to discern what might have been a mountain entirely submerged in a multitude of heavy grey clouds. He sat down on the green stuff which was like grass and yet was not grass, at the edge of the open space whence he got this view, and quite naturally he picked from the boughs of an overhanging tree a large red, juicy fruit, and ate it. Then he said to himself, he knew not why, that he must not waste time, but must be moving on. He took a path to the right of him and descended the sloping jungle with big, buoyant strides, almost running; he knew the way as though he had been down that path a thousand times. He knew that in a few moments he would reach a whole hanging garden of red flowers, and he knew that when he had reached this he must again turn to the right. It was as he thought: the red flowers soon came to view. He turned sharply, and then through the thinning greenery he caught sight of an open plain where more mushrooms grew. But the plain was as yet a great way off, and the mushrooms seemed quite small. “I shall get there in time,” he said to himself, and walked steadily on, looking neither to the right nor to the left. It was evening by the time he reached the edge of the plain: everything was growing dark. The endless vapours and the high banks of cloud in which the whole of this world was sunk grew dimmer and dimmer. In front of him was an empty level space, and about two miles further on the huge mushrooms stood out, tall and wide like the monuments of some prehistoric age. And underneath them on the soft carpet there seemed to move a myriad vague and shadowy forms. “I shall get there in time,” he thought. He walked on for another half hour, and by this time the tall mushrooms were quite close to him, and he could see moving underneath them, distinctly now, green, living creatures like huge caterpillars, with glowing eyes. They moved slowly and did not seem to interfere with each other in any way. Further off, and beyond them, there was a broad and endless plain of high green stalks like ears of green wheat or millet, only taller and thinner. He ran on, and now at his very feet, right in front of him, the green caterpillars were moving. They were as big as leopards. As he drew nearer they seemed to make way for him, and to gather themselves into groups under the thick stems of the mushrooms. He walked along the pathway they made for him, under the shadow of the broad, sunshade-like roofs of these gigantic growths. It was almost dark now, yet he had no doubt or difficulty as to finding his way. He was making for the green plain beyond. The ground was dense with caterpillars; they were as plentiful as ants in an ant’s nest, and yet they never seemed to interfere with each other or with him; they instinctively made way for him, nor did they appear to notice him in any way. He felt neither surprise nor wonder at their presence. It grew quite dark; the only lights which were in this world came from the twinkling eyes of the moving figures, which shone like little stars. The night was no whit cooler than the day. The atmosphere was as steamy, as dense and as aromatic as before. He walked on and on, feeling no trace of fatigue or hunger, and every now and then he said to himself: “I shall be there in time.” The plain was flat and level, and covered the whole way with the mushrooms, whose roofs met and shut out from him the sight of the dark sky. At last he came to the end of the plain of mushrooms and reached the high green stalks he had been making for. Beyond the dark clouds a silver glimmer had begun once more to show itself. “I am just in time,” he said to himself, “the night is over, the sun is rising.” At that moment there was a great whirr in the air, and from out of the green stalks rose a flight of millions and millions of enormous broad-winged butterflies of every hue and description—silver, gold, purple, brown and blue. Some with dark and velvety wings like the Purple Emperor, or the Red Admiral, others diaphanous and iridescent as dragon-flies. Others again like vast soft and silvery moths. They rose from every part of that green plain of stalks, they filled the sky, and then soared upwards and disappeared into the silvery cloudland. Fletcher was about to leap forward when he heard a voice in his ear saying— “Are you 6493 Victoria? You are talking to the Home Office.” As soon as Fletcher heard the voice of the office messenger through the telephone he instantly realised his surroundings, and the strange experience he had just gone through, which had seemed so long and which in reality had been so brief, left little more impression on him than that which remains with a man who has been immersed in a brown study or who has been staring at something, say a poster in the street, and has not noticed the passage of time. The next day he returned to his work at the office, and his fellow-clerks, during the whole of the next week, noticed that he was more zealous and more painstaking than ever. On the other hand, his periodical fits of abstraction grew more frequent and more pronounced. On one occasion he took a paper to the head of the department for signature, and after it had been signed, instead of removing it from the table, he remained staring in front of him, and it was not until the head of the department had called him three times loudly by name that he took any notice and regained possession of his faculties. As these fits of absent-mindedness grew to be somewhat severely commented on, he consulted a doctor, who told him that what he needed was change of air, and advised him to spend his Sundays at Brighton or at some other bracing and exhilarating spot. Fletcher did not take the doctor’s advice, but continued spending his spare time as he did before, that is to say, in going to some big junction and watching the express trains go by all day long. One day while he was thus employed—it was Sunday, in August of 19—, when the Egyptian Exhibition was attracting great crowds of visitors—and sitting, as was his habit, on a bench on the centre platform of Slough Station, he noticed an Indian pacing up and down the platform, who every now and then stopped and regarded him with peculiar interest, hesitating as though he wished to speak to him. Presently the Indian came and sat down on the same bench, and after having sat there in silence for some minutes he at last made a remark about the heat. “Yes,” said Fletcher, “it is trying, especially for people like myself, who have to remain in London during these months.” “You are in an office, no doubt,” said the Indian. “Yes,” said Fletcher. “And you are no doubt hard worked.” “Our hours are not long,” Fletcher replied, “and I should not complain of overwork if I did not happen to suffer from—well, I don’t know what it is, but I suppose they would call it nerves.” “Yes,” said the Indian, “I could see that by your eyes.” “I am a prey to sudden fits of abstraction,” said Fletcher, “they are growing upon me. Sometimes in the office I forget where I am altogether for a space of about two or three minutes; people are beginning to notice it and to talk about it. I have been to a doctor, and he said I needed change of air. I shall have my leave in about a month’s time, and then perhaps I shall get some change of air, but I doubt if it will do me any good. But these fits are annoying, and once something quite uncanny seemed to happen to me.” The Indian showed great interest and asked for further details concerning this strange experience, and Fletcher told him all that he could recall—for the memory of it was already dimmed—of what had happened when he had telephoned that night. The Indian was thoughtful for a while after hearing this tale. At last he said: “I am not a doctor, I am not even what you call a quack doctor—I am a mere conjurer, and I gain my living by conjuring tricks and fortune-telling at the Exhibition which is going on in London. But although I am a poor man and an ignorant man, I have an inkling, a few sparks in me of ancient knowledge, and I know what is the matter with you.” “What is it?” asked Fletcher. “You have the power, or something has the power,” said the Indian, “of detaching you from your actual body, and your astral body has been into another planet. By your description I think it must be the planet Venus. It may happen to you again, and for a longer period—for a very much longer period.” “Is there anything I can do to prevent it?” asked Fletcher. “Nothing,” said the Indian. “You can try change of air if you like, but,” he said with a smile, “I do not think it will do you much good.” At that moment a train came in, and the Indian said good-bye and jumped into it. On the next day, which was Monday, when Fletcher got to the office it was necessary for him to use the telephone with regard to some business. No sooner had he taken the receiver off the telephone than he vividly recalled the minute details of the evening he had telephoned, when the strange experience had come to him. The advertisement of Venus Soap that had hung in the telephone box in his house appeared distinctly before him, and as he thought of that he once more experienced a falling sensation which lasted only a fraction of a second, and rubbing his eyes he awoke to find himself in the tepid atmosphere of a green and humid world. This time he was not near the wood, but on the sea-shore. In front of him was a grey sea, smooth as oil and clouded with steaming vapours, and behind him the wide green plain stretched into a cloudy distance. He could discern, faint on the far-off horizon, the shadowy forms of the gigantic mushrooms which he knew, and on the level plain which reached the sea beach, but not so far off as the mushrooms, he could plainly see the huge green caterpillars moving slowly and lazily in an endless herd. The sea was breaking on the sand with a faint moan. But almost at once he became aware of another sound, which came he knew not whence, and which was familiar to him. It was a low whistling noise, and it seemed to come from the sky. At that moment Fletcher was seized by an unaccountable panic. He was afraid of something; he did not know what it was, but he knew, he felt absolutely certain, that some danger, no vague calamity, no distant misfortune, but some definite physical danger was hanging over him and quite close to him—something from which it would be necessary to run away, and to run fast in order to save his life. And yet there was no sign of danger visible, for in front of him was the motionless oily sea, and behind him was the empty and silent plain. It was then he noticed that the caterpillars were fast disappearing, as if into the earth: he was too far off to make out how. He began to run along the coast. He ran as fast as he could, but he dared not look round. He ran back from the coast to the plain, from which a white mist was rising. By this time every single caterpillar had disappeared. The whistling noise continued and grew louder. At last he reached the wood and bounded on, trampling down long trailing grasses and tangled weeds through the thick, muggy gloom of those endless aisles of jungle. He came to a somewhat open space where there was the trunk of a tree larger than the others; it stood by itself and disappeared into the tangle of creepers above. He thought he would climb the tree, but the trunk was too wide, and his efforts failed. He stood by the tree trembling and panting with fear. He could not hear a sound, but he felt that the danger, whatever it was, was at hand. It grew darker and darker. It was night in the forest. He stood paralysed with terror; he felt as though bound hand and foot, but there was nothing to be done except to wait until his invisible enemy should choose to inflict his will on him and achieve his doom. And yet the agony of this suspense was so terrible that he felt that if it lasted much longer something must inevitably break inside him . . . and just as he was thinking that eternity could not be so long as the moments he was passing through, a blessed unconsciousness came over him. He woke from this state to find himself face to face with one of the office messengers, who said to him that he had been given his number two or three times but had taken no notice of it. Fletcher executed his commission and then went upstairs to his office. His fellow-clerks at once asked what had happened to him, for he was looking white. He said that he had a headache and was not feeling quite himself, but made no further explanations. This last experience changed the whole tenor of his life. When fits of abstraction had occurred to him before he had not troubled about them, and after his first strange experience he had felt only vaguely interested; but now it was a different matter. He was consumed with dread lest the thing should occur again. He did not want to get back to that green world and that oily sea; he did not want to hear the whistling noise, and to be pursued by an invisible enemy. So much did the dread of this weigh on him that he refused to go to the telephone lest the act of telephoning should set alight in his mind the train of associations and bring his thoughts back to his dreadful experience. Shortly after this he went for leave, and following the doctor’s advice he spent it by the sea. During all this time he was perfectly well, and was not once troubled by his curious fits. He returned to London in the autumn refreshed and well. On the first day that he went to the office a friend of his telephoned to him. When he was told that the line was being held for him he hesitated, but at last he went down to the telephone office. He remained away twenty minutes. Finally his prolonged absence was noticed, and he was sent for. He was found in the telephone room stiff and unconscious, having fallen forward on the telephone desk. His face was quite white, and his eyes wide open and glazed with an expression of piteous and harrowing terror. When they tried to revive him their efforts were in vain. A doctor was sent for, and he said that Fletcher had died of heart disease.
ponedjeljak, 6. listopada 2025.
“Yes, I am a student,” said the Chinaman, “And I came here to study the English manners and customs.” We were seated on the top of the electric tram which goes to Hampton Court. It was a bitterly cold spring day. The suburbs of London were not looking their best. “I spent three days at Oxford last week,” he said. “It’s a beautiful place, is it not?” I remarked. The Chinaman smiled. “The country which you see from the windows of the railway carriages,” he said, “on the way from Oxford to London strikes me as being beautiful. It reminded me of the Chinese Plain, only it is prettier. But the houses at Oxford are hideous: there is no symmetry about them. The houses in this country are like blots on the landscape. In China the houses are made to harmonise with the landscape just as trees do.” “What did you see at Oxford?” I asked. “I saw boat races,” he said, “and a great many ignorant old men.” “What did you think of that?” “I think,” he said, “the young people seemed to enjoy it, and if they enjoy it they are quite right to do it. But the way the older men talk about these things struck me as being foolish. They talk as if these games and these sports were a solemn affair, a moral or religious question; they said the virtues and the prowess of the English race were founded on these things. They said that competition was the mainspring of life; they seemed to think exercise was the goal of existence. A man whom I saw there and who, I learnt, had been chosen to teach the young on account of his wisdom, told me that competition trained the man to sharpen his faculties; and that the tension which it provoked is in itself a useful training. I do not believe this. A cat or a boa constrictor will lie absolutely idle until it perceives an object worthy of its appetite; it will then catch it and swallow it, and once more relapse into repose without thinking of keeping itself ‘in training.’ But it will lie dormant and rise to the occasion when it occurs. These people who talked of games seem to me to undervalue repose. They forget that repose is the mother of action, and exercise only a frittering away of the same.” “What did you think,” I asked, “of the education that the students at Oxford receive?” “I think,” said the Chinaman, “that inasmuch as the young men waste their time in idleness they do well; for the wise men who are chosen to instruct the young at your places of learning, are not always wise. I visited a professor of Oriental languages. His servant asked me to wait, and after I had waited three quarters of an hour, he sent word to say that he had tried everywhere to find the professor in the University who spoke French, but that he had not been able to find him. And so he asked me to call another day. I had dinner in a college hall. I found that the professors talked of many things in such a way as would be impossible to children of five and six in our country. They are quite ignorant of the manners and customs of the people of other European countries. They pronounce Greek and Latin and even French in the same way as English. I mentioned to one of them that I had been employed for some time in the Chinese Legation; he asked me if I had had much work to do. I said yes, the work had been heavy. ‘But,’ he observed, ‘I suppose a great deal of the work is carried on directly between the Governments and not through the Ambassadors.’ I cannot conceive what he meant or how such a thing could be possible, or what he considered the use and function of Embassies and Legations to be. They most of them seemed to take for granted that I could not speak English: some of them addressed me in a kind of baby language; one of them spoke French. The professor who spoke to me in this language told me that the French possessed no poetical literature, and he said the reason of this was that the French language was a bastard language; that it was, in fact, a kind of pidgin Latin. He said when a Frenchman says a girl is ‘beaucoup belle,’ he is using pidgin Latin. The courtesy due to a host prevented me from suggesting that if a Frenchman said ‘beaucoup belle’ he would be talking pidgin French. “Another professor said to me that China would soon develop if she adopted a large Imperial ideal, and that in time the Chinese might attain to a great position in the world, such as the English now held. He said the best means of bringing this about would be to introduce cricket and football into China. I told him that I thought this was improbable, because if the Chinese play games, they do not care who is the winner; the fun of the game is to us the improvisation of it as opposed to the organisation which appeals to the people here. Upon which he said that cricket was like a symphony of music. In a symphony every instrument plays its part in obedience to one central will, not for its individual advantage, but in order to make a beautiful whole. ‘So it is with our games,’ he said, ‘every man plays his part not for the sake of personal advantage, but so that his side may win; and thus the citizen is taught to sink his own interests in those of the community.’ I told him the Chinese did not like symphonies, and Western music was intolerable to them for this very reason. Western musicians seem to us to take a musical idea which is only worthy of a penny whistle (and would be very good indeed if played on a penny whistle!); and they sit down and make a score of it twenty yards broad, and set a hundred highly-trained and highly-paid musicians to play it. It is the contrast between the tremendous apparatus and waste of energy on one side, and the light and playful character of the business itself on the other which makes me, a Chinaman, as incapable of appreciating your complicated games as I am of appreciating the complicated symphonies of the Germans or the elaborate rules which their students make with regard to the drinking of beer. We like a man for taking his fun and not missing a joke when he finds it by chance on his way, but we cannot understand his going out of his way to prepare a joke and to make arrangements for having some fun at a certain fixed date. This is why we consider a wayside song, a tune that is heard wandering in the summer darkness, to be better than twenty concerts.” “What did that professor say?” I asked. “He said that if I were to stay long enough in England and go to a course of concerts at the Chelsea Town Hall, I would soon learn to think differently. And that if cricket and football were introduced into China, the Chinese would soon emerge out of their backwardness and barbarism and take a high place among the enlightened nations of the world. I thought to myself as he said this that your games are no doubt an excellent substitute for drill, but if we were to submit to so complicated an organisation it would be with a purpose: in order to turn the Europeans out of China, for instance; but that organisation without a purpose would always seem to us to be stupid, and we should no more dream of organising our play than of organising a stroll in the twilight to see the Evening Star, or the chase of a butterfly in the spring. If we were to decide on drill it would be drill with a vengeance and with a definite aim; but we should not therefore and thereby destroy our play. Play cannot exist for us without fun, and for us the open air, the fields, and the meadows are like wine: if we feel inclined, we roam and jump about in them, but we should never submit to standing to attention for hours lest a ball should escape us. Besides which, we invented the foundations of all our games many thousand of years ago. We invented and played at ‘Diabolo’ when the Britons were painted blue and lived in the woods. The English knew how to play once, in the days of Queen Elizabeth; then they had masques and madrigals and Morris dances and music. A gentleman was ashamed if he did not speak six or seven languages, handle the sword with a deadly dexterity, play chess, and write good sonnets. Men were broken on the wheel for an idea: they were brave, cultivated, and gay; they fought, they played, and they wrote excellent verse. Now they organise games and lay claim to a special morality and to a special mission; they send out missionaries to civilise us savages; and if our people resent having an alien creed stuffed down their throats, they take our hand and burn our homes in the name of Charity, Progress, and Civilisation. They seek for one thing—gold; they preach competition, but competition for what? For this: who shall possess the most, who shall most successfully ‘do’ his neighbour. These ideals and aims do not tempt us. The quality of the life is to us more important than the quantity of what is done and achieved. We live, as we play, for the sake of living. I did not say this to the professors because we have a proverb that when you are in a man’s country you should not speak ill of it. I say it to you because I see you have an inquiring mind, and you will feel it more insulting to be served with meaningless phrases and empty civilities than with the truth, however bitter. For those who have once looked the truth in the face cannot afterwards be put off with false semblances.” “You speak true words,” I said, “but what do you like best in England?” “The gardens,” he answered, “and the little yellow flowers that are sprinkled like stars on your green grass.” “And what do you like least in England?” “The horrible smells,” he said. “Have you no smells in China?” I asked. “Yes,” he replied, “we have natural smells, but not the smell of gas and smoke and coal which sickens me here. It is strange to me that people can find the smell of human beings disgusting and be able to stand the foul stenches of a London street. This very road along which we are now travelling (we were passing through one of the less beautiful portions of the tramway line) makes me homesick for my country. I long to see a Chinese village once more built of mud and fenced with mud, muddy-roaded and muddy-baked, with a muddy little stream to be waded across or passed by stepping on stones; with a delicate one-storeyed temple on the water-eaten bank, and green poppy fields round it; and the women in dark blue standing at the doorways, smoking their pipes; and the children, with three small budding pigtails on the head of each, clinging to them; and the river fringed with a thousand masts: the boats, the houseboats, the barges and the ships in the calm, wide estuaries, each with a pair of huge eyes painted on the front bow. And the people: the men working at their looms and whistling a happy tune out of the gladness of their hearts. And everywhere the sense of leisure, the absence of hurry and bustle and confusion; the dignity of manners and the grace of expression and of address. And, above all, the smell of life everywhere.” “I admit,” I said, “that our streets smell horribly of smoke and coal, but surely our people are clean?” “Yes,” he said, “no doubt; but you forget that to us there is nothing so intolerably nasty as the smell of a clean white man!”
nedjelja, 5. listopada 2025.
There is a village in the South of England not far from the sea, which possesses a curious inn called “The Green Tower.” Why it is called thus, nobody knows. This inn must in days gone by have been the dwelling of some well-to-do squire, but nothing now remains of its former prosperity, except the square grey tower, partially covered with ivy, from which it takes its name. The inn stands on the roadside, on the brow of a hill, and at the top of the tower there is a room with four large windows, whence you can see all over the wooded country. The ex-Prime Minister of a foreign state, who had been driven from office and home by a revolution, happening to pass the night in the inn and being of an eccentric disposition, was so much struck with this room that he secured it, together with two bedrooms, permanently for himself. He determined to spend the rest of his life here, and as he was within certain limits not unsociable, he invited his friends to come and stay with him on any Saturday they pleased, without giving him notice. Thus it happened that of a Saturday and Sunday there was nearly always a mixed gathering of men at “The Green Tower”, and after they had dined they would sit in the tower room and drink old Southern wines from the ex-Prime Minister’s country, and talk, or tell each other stories. But the ex-Prime Minister made it a stringent rule that at least one guest should tell one story during his stay, for while he had been Prime Minister a Court official had been in his service whose only duty it was to tell him a story every evening, and this was the only thing he regretted of all his former privileges. On this particular Sunday, besides myself, the clerk, the flute-player, the wine merchant (the friends of the ex-Prime Minister were exceedingly various), and the scholar were present. They were smoking in the tower room. It was summer, and the windows were wide open. Every inch of wall which was not occupied by the windows was crowded with books. The clerk was turning over the leaves of the ex-Prime Minister’s stamp collection (which was magnificent), the flute-player was reading the score of Handel’s flute sonatas (which was rare), the scholar was reading a translation in Latin hexameters of the “Ring and the Book” (which the ex-Prime Minister has written in his spare moments), and the wine merchant was drinking generously of a curious red wine, which was very old. “I think,” said the ex-Prime Minister, “that the flute-player has never yet told us a story.” The guests knew that this hint was imperative, and so putting away the score, the flute-player said: “My story is called, ‘The Fiddler.’” And he began:— “This happened a long time ago in one of the German-speaking countries of the Holy Roman Empire. There was a Count who lived in a large castle. He was rich, powerful, and the owner of large lands. He had a wife, and one daughter, who was dazzlingly beautiful, and she was betrothed to the eldest son of a neighbouring lord. When I say betrothed, I mean that her parents had arranged the marriage. She herself—her name was Elisinde—had had no voice in the matter, and she disliked, or rather loathed, her future husband, who was boorish, sullen, and ill-tempered; he cared for nothing except hunting and deep drinking, and had nothing to recommend him but his ducats and his land. But it was quite useless for Elisinde to cry or protest. Her parents had settled the marriage and it was to be. She understood this herself very well. “All the necessary preparations for the wedding, which was to be held on a splendid scale, were made. There was to be a whole week of feasting; and tumblers and musicians came from distant parts of the country to take part in the festivities and merry-making. In the village, which was close to the castle, a fair was held, and the musicians, tumblers, and mountebanks, who had thronged to it, performed in front of the castle walls for the amusement of the Count’s guests. “Among these strolling vagabonds was a fiddler who far excelled all the others in skill. He drew the most ravishing tones from his instrument, which seemed to speak in trills as liquid as those of the nightingale, and in accents as plaintive as those of a human voice. And one of the inmates of the castle was so much struck by the performance of this fiddler that he told the Count of it, and the fiddler was commanded to come and play at the Castle, after the banquet which was to be held on the eve of the wedding. The banquet took place in great pomp and solemnity, and lasted for many hours. When it was over the fiddler was summoned to the large hall and bidden to play before the Lords and Ladies. “The fiddler was a strange looking, tall fellow with unkempt fair hair, and eyes that glittered like gold; but as he was dressed in tattered uncouth rags (and they were his best too) he cut an extraordinary and almost ridiculous figure amongst that splendid jewelled gathering. The guests tittered when they saw him. But as soon as he began to play, their tittering ceased, for never had they heard such music. “He played—in view of the festive occasion—a joyous melody. And, as he played, the air seemed full of sunlight, and the smell of wine vats and the hum of bees round ripe fruit. The guests could not keep still in their places, and at last the Count gave orders for a general dance. The hall was cleared, and soon all the guests were breathlessly dancing to the divine lilt of the fiddler’s melody. All except Elisinde who, when her betrothed came forward to lead her to the dance, pleaded fatigue, and remained seated in her chair, pale and distraught, and staring at the fiddler. This did not, to tell the truth, displease her betrothed, who was a clumsy dancer and had no ear for music. Breathless at last with exhaustion the guests begged the untiring fiddler to pause while they rested for a moment to get their breath. “And while they were resting the fiddler played another tune. This time it was a sad tune: a low, soft tune, liquid and lovely as a human voice. A great hush came on the company. It seemed as if after the heat and splendour of a summer’s day the calm of evening had fallen; the quiet of the dusk, when the moon rises in the sky, still faintly yellow in the west with the ebb of sunset, and pours on the stiff cornfields its cool, silvery frost; and the trees quiver, as though they felt the freshness and were relieved, and a breeze comes, almost imperceptible and not strong enough to shake the boughs, from the sea; and a bird, hidden somewhere in the leaves, sings a throbbing song. “Everyone was spellbound, but none so much as Elisinde. The music seemed to be speaking straight to her, to pierce the very core of her heart. It was an inarticulate language which she understood better than any words. She heard a lonely spirit crying out to her, that it understood her sorrow and shared her pain. And large tears poured down her cheeks. “The fiddler stopped playing, and for a moment or two no one spoke. At last Elisinde’s betrothed gave a great yawn, and the spell was broken. “‘You play very well—very well, indeed,’ said the Count. “‘But that sad music is, I think, rather out of place to-day,’ said the Countess. “‘Yes, let us have another cheerful tune,’ said the Count. “The fiddler struck up once more and played another dance. This time there was an almost elfish magic in his melody. It took you captive; it was irresistible; it called and commanded and compelled; you longed to follow, follow, anywhere, over the hills, over the sea, to the end of the world. “Elisinde rose from her chair as though the spirit of the music beckoned her, but looking round she saw no partner to her taste. She sat down again and stared at the fiddler. His eyes were fixed on her, and as she looked at him his squalor and rags seemed to fade away and his blue eyes that glittered like gold seemed to grow larger, and his hair to grow brighter till it shone like fire. And he seemed to be caught in a rosy cloud of light: tall, splendid, young, and glowing like a god. “After this dance was over the Count rose, and he and his guests retired to rest. The fiddler was given a purse full of money, and the Count gave orders that he should be served refreshment in the kitchen. “Elisinde went up to her bedroom, which overlooked the garden. She threw the window wide open and looked out into the starry darkness. It was a breathless summer night. The air was full of warm scents. Lights still twinkled in the village; now and again a dog barked, otherwise everything was still. She leant out of the window, and cried bitterly because her lot was loathsome to her, and she had not a friend in the world to whom she could confide her sorrow. “While she was thus sobbing she heard a rustling in the bushes beneath; she looked down and she saw a face looking up towards her, a beautiful face, glistening in the moonlight. It was the fiddler. “‘Elisinde,’ he called to her in a low voice, ‘if you want to escape I have the means. Come with me; I love you, and I will save you from your doom.’ “‘I would come with you to the end of the world,’ she said, ‘but how can I get away from this castle?’ “He threw a rope ladder up to her. ‘Make it fast to the bar,’ he said, ‘and let yourself down.’ “She let herself down into the garden. ‘We can easily climb the wall with this,’ he said; ‘but before you come I must tell you that if you will be my bride your life will be hard and full of misery. Think before you come.’ “‘Rather all the misery in the world,’ she said, ‘than the awful doom that awaits me here. Besides which I love you, and we shall be very happy.’ “They scaled the wall, and on the other side of it the fiddler had two horses, waiting tied to the gate. They galloped through many villages, and by the dawn they had reached a village far beyond the Count’s lands. Here they stopped at an inn, and they were married by the priest that day. But they did not stop in this village; they sought a further country, beyond reach of all pursuit. They settled in a village, and the fiddler earned his bread by his fiddling, and Elisinde kept their cottage neat and clean. For awhile they were as happy as the day was long; the fiddler found favour everywhere by his fiddling, and Elisinde ingratiated herself by her gentle ways. But one day when Elisinde was lying in bed and the fiddler had lulled her to sleep with his music, some neighbours, attracted by the sound, passed the cottage and looked in at the window. And to their astonishment they saw the fiddler sitting by a bed on which lay what seemed to them to be a sleeping princess; and the whole cottage was full of dazzling light, and the fiddler’s face shone, and his hair and his eyes glittered like gold. They went away much frightened, and told the whole village the news. “Now there were already not a few of the villagers who looked askance on the fiddler; and this incident set all the evil and envious tongues wagging. When the fiddler went to play the next day at the inn men turned away from him, and a child in the street threw a stone at him. Presently he was warned that he had better swiftly fly or else he would be drowned as a sorcerer. “So he and Elisinde fled in the night to a neighbouring village. But soon the dark rumours followed them, and they were forced to flee once more. This happened again and again, till at last in the whole country there was not a village which would receive them, and one night they were obliged to take refuge in a barn, for Elisinde was expecting the birth of her child. That night their child was born, a beautiful little boy, and an hour afterwards Elisinde smiled and died. “All that night the villagers heard from afar a piteous wailing music, infinitely sad and beautiful, and those that heard it shuddered and crossed themselves. “The next day the villagers sought the barn, for they had resolved to drown the sorcerer; but he was not there. All they found was the dead body of Elisinde, and a little baby lying on some straw. The body of Elisinde was covered with roses. And this was strange, for it was midwinter. The fiddler had disappeared and was never heard of again, and an old wood-cutter, who was too old to know any better, took charge of the baby. “I will tell you what happened to it another day.” “We wish to hear the end of your story,” said the ex-Prime Minister to the flute-player. “Yes,” said the scholar, “and I want to know who the fiddler was.” This conversation took place at the Green Tower two weeks after the gathering I have already described. The same people were present; but there was another guest, namely, the musician, who, unlike the flute-player, was not an amateur. “The child of Elisinde and the fiddler,” began the flute-player, “was, as I have already told you, a boy. The woodcutter who took pity on him was old and childless. He brought the baby to his hut, and gave it over to the care of his wife. At first she pretended to be angry, and said that nothing would persuade her to have anything to do with the child, and that it was all they could do to feed themselves without picking up waifs in the gutter; but she ended by looking after the baby with the utmost tenderness and care, and by loving it as much as if it had been her own child. The baby was christened Franz. As soon as he was able to walk and talk there were two things about him which were remarkable. The first was his hair, which glittered like sunlight; the second was his fondness for all musical sounds. When he was four years old he had made himself a flute out of a reed, and on this he played all day, imitating the song of the birds. He was in his sixth year when an event happened which changed his life. He was sitting in front of the woodcutter’s cottage one day, when a bright cavalcade passed him. It was a nobleman from a neighbouring castle, who was travelling to the city with his retainers. Among these was a Kapellmeister, who organised the music of this nobleman’s household. The moment he caught sight of Franz and heard his piping, he stopped, and asked who he was. “The woodcutter’s wife told him the story of the finding of the waif, to which both the nobleman and himself listened with great interest. The Kapellmeister said that they should take the child with them; that he should be attached to the nobleman’s house and trained as a member of his choir or his string band, according to his capacities. The nobleman, who was passionately fond of music, and extremely particular with regard to the manner of its performance, was delighted with the idea. The offer was made to the woodcutter and his wife, and although she cried a good deal they were both forced to recognise that they had no right to interfere with the child’s good fortune. Moreover, the gift of a purse full of gold (which the nobleman gave them) did not make the matter more distasteful. “Finally it was settled that the child should go with the nobleman then and there; and Franz took leave of his adopted parents, not without many and bitter tears being shed on both sides. “Franz travelled with the nobleman to a large city, and he became a member—the youngest—of the nobleman’s household. He was taught his letters, which he learnt with ease, and the rudiments of music, which he absorbed with such astounding rapidity, that the Kapellmeister said that it seemed as if he already knew everything that was taught him. When he was seven years old, he could not only play several instruments, but he composed fugues and sonatas. When the nobleman invited the magnates of the place to listen to his musicians, Franz, the prodigy, was the centre of interest, and very soon he became the talk of the town. At the age of ten he was an accomplished organ player, and he played with skill on the flute and the clavichord. “He grew up a tall and handsome lad, with clear, dreamy eyes, and hair that continued to glitter like sunlight. He was happy in the nobleman’s household, for the nobleman and his wife were kind people; like the woodcutter they were childless and came to look upon him as their own child. He was a quiet youth, and so deeply engrossed in his music and his studies that he seemed to be quite unaware of the outside world and its inhabitants and its doings. But although he led a retired, studious life, his fame had got abroad and had even reached the Emperor’s ears. “When Franz was seventeen years old it happened that the Court was in need of an organist. The Emperor’s curiosity had been aroused by what he had heard of Franz, and one fine day the youth was summoned to Court to play before his Majesty. This he did with such success that he was appointed organist of the Court on the spot. “He was sad at leaving the nobleman, but there was nothing to be done. The Emperor’s wish was law. He became Court organist and he played the organ in the Imperial chapel during Mass on Sundays. As before, he spent all his leisure time in composing music. “Now the Emperor had a daughter called Kunigmunde, who was beautiful and wildly romantic. She was immediately spellbound by Franz’s music, and he became the lodestar of her dreams. Often in the afternoon she would steal up to the organ loft, where he was playing alone, and sit for hours listening to his improvisations. They did not speak to each other much, but ever since Franz had set eyes on her something new had entered into his soul and spoke in his music, something tremulous and strange and wonderful. “For a year Franz’s life ran placidly and smoothly. He was made much of, praised and petted; but now, as before, he seemed quite unaware of the outside world and its doings, and he moved in a world of his own, only he was no longer alone in his secret habitation, it was inhabited by another shape, the beautiful dark-haired Princess Kunigmunde, and in her honour he composed songs, minuets, sonatas, hymns, and triumphal marches. As was only natural, there were not wanting at Court persons who were envious of Franz, his talent, and his good fortune. And among them there was a musician, a tenor in the Imperial choir, called Albrecht, who hated Franz with his whole heart. He was a dark-eyed, dark-haired creature, slightly deformed; he limped, and he had a sinister look as though of a satyr. Nevertheless he was highly gifted and composed music of his own which, although it was not radiant like that of Franz, was full of brilliance and not without a certain compelling power. Albrecht revolved in his mind how he might ruin Franz. He tried to excite the envy of the courtiers against him, but Franz was such a modest fellow, so kindly and good-natured, that it was not easy to make people dislike him. Nevertheless there were many who were tired of hearing him praised, and many who were secretly tired of the perpetual beauty and radiance of Franz’s music, and wished for something new even though it should be ugly. “An opportunity soon presented itself for Albrecht to carry out his evil and envious designs. The Court Kapellmeister died, and not long after this event a great feast was to be held at Court to celebrate Princess Kunigmunde’s birthday. The Emperor had offered a prize, a wreath of gilt laurels, as well as the post of Court Kapellmeister to him who should compose the most beautiful piece of music in his daughter’s honour. Franz seemed so certain of success that nobody even dared to compete with him except Albrecht. “When the hour of the contest came—it took place in the great throne-room before the Emperor, the Empress, their sons, their daughters, and the whole court after the banquet—Franz was the first to display his work. He sat down at the clavichord and sang what he had composed in honour of the Princess. He had made three little songs for her. Franz had not much voice, but it had a peculiar wail in it, and he sang, like the born and trained musician that he was, with that absolute mastery over his means, that certain perfection of utterance, that power of conveying, to the shade of a shade, the inmost spirit and meaning of the music which only belong to those great and rare artists whose perfect art is alive with the inspiration that cannot be learnt. “The first song he sang was the call of a home-going shepherd to his flock on the hills at sunset, and when he sang it he brought the largeness of the dying evening and the solemn hills into the elegant throne-room. The second song was the cry of a lonely fisherman on the river at midnight, and as he sang it he brought the mystery of broad starlit waters into the taper-lit, gilded hall. The third song was the song of the happy lover in the orchard at dawn. And when he sang it he brought the smell of dewy leaves and grass, the soaring radiance of spring and early morning, to that powdered and silken assembly. The Court applauded him, but they were astonished and slightly disappointed, for they had expected something grand and complicated, and not three simple tunes. But the nobleman who had educated Franz, and his Kapellmeister, who were among the guests, wept tears in silence. “Albrecht followed him. The swarthy singer sat down to the instrument and struck a ringing chord. He had a pure and infinitely powerful tenor voice, clear as crystal, loud as a clarion, strong, rich, and rippling. He sang a love-song he had composed himself. He called it ‘The Homage of King Pan to the Princess.’ It was voluptuous and vehement and sweet as honey, full of bold conceits and audacious turns and trills, which startled the audience and took their breath away. He sang his song with almost devilish skill and power; and his warm, captivating voice rang through the room and shook the tall window-panes, and finally died away like the vibrations of a great bell. The whole Court shouted, delirious with applause, and unanimously declared him to be the victor. A witty courtier said that Marsyas had avenged himself on Apollo; but the nobleman and his Kapellmeister snorted and sniffed and said nothing. Albrecht was given the prize and appointed Kapellmeister to the Court without further discussion. “When the ceremony was over, Franz, who was indifferent to his defeat, went to the chapel of the palace, and lighting a candle, walked up into the organ loft. There he played to himself another song, a hymn he had composed in honour of Princess Kunigmunde. It was filled with rapture and a breathless wonder, and in it his inmost soul spoke its unuttered love. He had not sung this song in public, it was too sacred. As he played and sang to himself in a low voice he was aware of a soft footstep. He started and looked round, and there was the Princess, bright in silk and jewels, with a pink rose in her powdered hair. She took this rose and laid it lightly on the black keys. “‘That is the prize,’ she said. ‘You won it, and I want to thank you. I never knew music could be so beautiful.’ “Franz looked at her, and said ‘Thank you.’ He had risen from his seat and was about to go, but the light of his candle caught Princess Kunigmunde’s brown eyes (which were wet with tears), and something rose like fire in his breast and made him forget his bashfulness, his respect, and his sense of decorum. “‘Come with me,’ he said, in a broken voice. ‘Let us fly from this Court to the hills and be happy.’ “But the Princess shook her head sadly, and said: ‘Alas! It is impossible. I am betrothed to the King of the Two Sicilies.’ “Then Franz mastered himself once more, and said: ‘Of course, it is impossible. I was mad.’ “The Princess kissed her hand to him and fled. “At that moment Franz heard a noise in the nave of the chapel; he looked over the gallery of the organ loft, and saw sidling away in the darkness the dim figure of a deformed man. “That night Princess Kunigmunde had a strange dream. She thought she was transported into a beautiful southern country where the azure sky seemed to scintillate with the dust of myriads and myriads of diamonds, and to sparkle with sunlight like dancing wine. The low blue hills were bare and sparsely clothed with delicate trees, and the fields, sprinkled with innumerable red, yellow, white and purple flowers, were bright as fabulous Persian carpets. On a grassy knoll before her the rosy columns of a temple shone in the gleaming dust of the atmosphere. Beside her there was a running stream, on the bank of which grew a bay-tree. There was a chirping of grasshoppers in the air, a noise of bees, and a delicious warm smell of burnt grass and thyme and mint. “Near the stream a man was standing; he was an ordinary man, and yet he seemed to tower above the landscape without being unusually tall; his hair was bright as gold, and his eyes, more lustrous still, reflected the silvery blue sky and shone like opals. In his hands he held a golden lyre, and around him a warm golden cloud seemed to rise, on a transparent aura of light, like the glow of the sunset. In front of him there stood a creature of the woods, a satyr, with pointed ears, cloven hoofs, and human eyes, in his hairy hands holding a flute made out of a reed. “Presently the satyr breathed on his flute and a wonderful note trembled in the air, soft, low, and liquid. The note was followed by others, and a stillness fell upon Nature; the birds ceased to sing, the grasshoppers were still, the bees paused. All Nature was listening and the Princess was conscious in her dream that there were others besides herself listening, unseen shapes and sightless phantoms; a crowd, a multitude of attentive ghosts, that were hidden from her sight. The melody rose and swelled in stillness; it was melting and ravishing and bold with a human audacity. As she listened it reminded her of something; she felt she had heard such sounds before, though she could not remember where and when. But suddenly it flashed across her that the music resembled Albrecht’s song; it was Albrecht’s song, only transfigured as it were, and a thousand times more beautiful in her dream than in reality. More beautiful, and at the same time as though it belonged to the days of youth and spring which Albrecht had never known. The satyr ceased playing and the pleasant noises of the world began once more. The shining figure who stood before him looked on the satyr with divine scorn and smiled a radiant, merciless smile. Then he struck his lyre and Nature once more was dumb. “But this time the magic was of another kind and a thousand times more mighty; a song rose into the air which leapt and soared like a flame, imperious as the flashing of a sword, triumphant as the waving of a banner, wonderful as the dawn and fresh as the laughing sea. And once more Princess Kunigmunde was aware that the music was familiar to her. She had heard something like it in the chapel that evening, when in the darkness Franz had played and sung the hymn that he had composed in her honour. Only now it was more than human, unearthly and divine. As soon as he ceased an eclipse seemed to darken the world, a thick cloud of rolling darkness; there was a crash of thunder, a flash of lightning, and out of the blackness came a piteous, human cry, the cry of a creature in anguish, and then a faint moaning. “Presently all was still, but the dark cloud remained, and she heard a mocking laugh and the accents of a clear, scornful voice (she recognised the voice, it was the voice of Albrecht), and the voice said: ‘Thou hast conquered, Apollo, and cruelly hast thou used thy victory; and cruelly has thou punished me for daring to challenge thy divine skill. It was mad indeed to compete with a god; and yet shall I avenge my wrong and thy harshness shall recoil on thee. For not even gods can be unjust with impunity, and the Fates are above us all. And I shall be avenged; for all thy sons shall suffer what I have suffered; and there is not one of them that shall escape the doom and not share the fate of Marsyas the Satyr, whom thou didst cruelly slay. The music and the skill which shall be their inheritance shall be the cause to them of sorrow and grief unending and pitiless pain and misery. Their life shall be as bitter to them as my death has been to me. Their music shall fill the world with sweetness and ravish the ears of listening nations, but to them it shall bring no joy; for life like a cruel blade shall flay and lay bare their hearts, and sorrow like a searching wind shall play upon their souls and make them tremble, even as the scabbard of my body trembled in the breeze; and just as from that trembling husk of what was once myself there came forth sweet sounds, so shall it be with their souls, shivering and trembling in the cold wind of life. Music shall come from them, but this music shall be born of agony; nor shall they utter a single note that is not begotten of sorrow or pain. And so shall the children of Apollo suffer and share the pain of Marsyas. “The voice died away, and a pitiful wail was heard as of a wind blowing through the reeds of a river. And the Princess awoke, trembling with fear of some unknown and impending disaster. “The next morning Franz, as he walked into the chapel to practice on the organ, was met by two soldiers, who bade him follow them, and he was shut up in the prison of the palace. No word of explanation was given him; nor had he any idea what the crime might be of which he was accused, or of his ultimate fate. But in the evening, when the gaoler’s daughter brought him his food, she made him a sign, and he found in his loaf of bread a rose, a file, and a tiny scroll, on which the following words were written; ‘Albrecht denounced you. Fly for your life. K.’ Later, when the gaolers had gone to sleep, the gaoler’s daughter stole to his cell. She brought him a rope, and a purse full of silver. He filed the bars and let himself down into a narrow street of the city. “By the time the sun rose he had left the city far behind him. He journeyed on and on till he passed the frontier of the Emperor’s dominions and reached a neighbouring State. By the time he came to a city he had spent his money, and he was in rags and tatters; nevertheless, he managed to earn his bread by making music in the streets, and after a time a well-to-do citizen who noticed him took him into his house and entrusted him with the task of teaching music to his sons and of playing him to sleep in the evening. Franz spent his leisure hours in composing an opera called ‘The Death of Adonis,’ into which he poured all the music of his soul, all his love, his sorrow, and his infinite desire. He lived for this only, and during all the hours he spent when he was not working at his opera he was like a man in a dream, unconscious of the realities around him. In a year his opera was finished. He took it to the Intendant of the Ducal Theatre in the city and played it to him, and the Intendant, greatly pleased, determined to have it performed without delay. The best singers were allotted parts in it, and it was performed before the Arch-Duke and his Court, and a multitude of people. “The music told the story of Franz’s love; it was bright with all his dreams, and sorrowful with his great despair. Never had such music been heard; so sweet, so sunlit in its joys, so radiant in its sadness. But the Arch-Duke and his Court, startled by the new accent of this music, and influenced by the local and established musicians, who were envious of this newcomer, listened in frigid silence, so that the common people in the gallery dared not show signs of their delight. In fact, the opera was a complete failure. Public opinion followed the Court, and found no words, bad or strong enough to condemn what they called the new-fangled rubbish. Among those who blamed the new work there was none so bitter as the citizen whose children Franz had been teaching. For this man considered himself to be a genius, and was inordinately vain, and his ignorance was equal to his conceit. He dismissed Franz from his service. All doors were now closed to him, and being on the verge of starvation he was reduced to earning his bread in the streets by playing his pipe. This also proved unsuccessful, and it was with difficulty that he earned a few pence every day. “At last he burnt all his manuscripts, and went into the hills; the hill people welcomed him, but their kindness came too late; his heart was broken, and when sickness came to him with the winter snow, he had no longer any strength to resist it. The peasants found him one day lying cold and stiff in his hut. They buried him on the hill-side. The night of his funeral a strange fiddler with a shining face was seen standing beside his grave and playing the most lovely tunes on a violin. “The name of Franz was soon forgotten, but although he died obscure and penniless he left a rich legacy. For he taught the hill-people three songs, the songs he had sung at Court in honour of Princess Kunigmunde, and they never died. They spread from the hills to the plains, from the plains to the river, from the river to the woods, and indeed you can still hear them on the hills of the north, on the great broad rivers of the east, and in the orchards of the south.”
subota, 4. listopada 2025.
SURVIVORS By Arthur Dekker Savage - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/65812/pg65812-images.html
When man embarks upon the final atomic war his
civilization may be destroyed; yet, there will
be survivors. Would you want to be one of them?...
The Doctor got up at dawn, as was his wont, and as soon as he was dressed he sat down at his desk in his library overlooking the sea, and immersed himself in the studies which were the lodestar of his existence. His hours were mapped out with rigid regularity like those of a school-boy, and his methodical life worked as though by clockwork. He rose at dawn and read without interruption until eight o’clock. He then partook of some light food (he was a strict vegetarian), after which he walked in the garden of his house, overlooking the Bay of Naples, until ten. From ten to twelve he received sick people, peasants from the village, or any visitors that needed his advice or his company. At twelve he ate a frugal meal. From one o’clock until three he enjoyed a siesta. At three he resumed his studies, which continued without interruption until six when he partook of a second meal. At seven he took another stroll in the village or by the seashore and remained out of doors until nine. He then withdrew into his study, and at midnight went to bed. It was, perhaps, the extreme regularity of his life, combined with the strict diet which he observed, that accounted for his good health. This day was his seventieth birthday, and his body was as vigorous and his mind as alert as they had been in his fortieth year. His thick hair and beard were scarcely grey, and the wrinkles on his white, thoughtful face were rare. Yet the Doctor, when questioned as to the secret of his youthfulness, being like many learned men fond of a paradox, used to reply that diet and regularity had nothing to do with it, and that the Southern sun and the climate of the Neapolitan coast, which he had chosen among all places to be the abode of his old age, were in reality responsible for his excellent health. “I lead a regular life,” he used to say, “not in order to keep well, but in order to get through my work. Unless my hours were mapped out regularly I should be the prey of every idler in the place and I should never get any work done at all.” On this day, as it was his seventieth birthday, the Doctor had asked a few friends to share his mid-day meal, and when he returned from his morning stroll he sent for his housekeeper to give her a few final instructions. The housekeeper, who was a voluble Italian peasant-woman, after receiving his orders, handed him a piece of paper on which a few words were scrawled in reddish-brown ink, saying it had been left by a Signore. “What Signore?” asked the Doctor, as he perused the document, which consisted of words in the German tongue to the effect that the writer regretted his absence from the Doctor’s feast, but would call at midnight. It was not signed. “He was a Signore, like all Signores,” said the housekeeper; “he just left the letter and went away.” The Doctor was puzzled, and in spite of much cross-examination he was unable to extract anything more beyond the fact that he was a “Signore.” “Shall I lay one place less?” asked the housekeeper. “Certainly not,” said the Doctor. “All my guests will be present.” And he threw the piece of paper on the table. The housekeeper left the room, but she had not been gone many minutes before she returned and said that Maria, the wife of the late Giovanni, the baker, wished to speak to him. The Doctor nodded, and Maria burst into the room, sobbing. When her tears had somewhat subsided she told her story in broken sentences. Her daughter, Margherita, who was seventeen years old, had been allowed to spend the summer at Sorrento with her late father’s sister. There, it appeared, she had met a “Signore,” who had given her jewels, made love to her, promised her marriage, and held clandestine meetings with her. Her aunt professed now to have been unaware of this; but Maria assured the Doctor that her sister-in-law, who had the evil eye and had more than once trafficked with Satan, must have had knowledge of the business, even if she were not directly responsible, which was highly probable. In the meantime Margherita’s brother Anselmo had returned from the wars in the North, and, discovering the truth, had sworn to kill the Signore unless he married Margherita. “And what do you wish me to do?” asked the Doctor, after he had listened to the story. “Anything, anything,” she answered, “only calm my son Anselmo or else there will be a disaster.” “Who is the Signore?” asked the Doctor. “The Conte Guido da Siena,” she answered. The Doctor reflected a moment, and then said: “I will see what can be done. The matter can be arranged. Send your son to me later.” And then, after scolding Maria for not having taken proper care of her daughter, he sent her away. As he did so he caught sight of the dirty piece of paper on his table. For one second he had the impression that the letters on it were written in blood, and he shivered, but the momentary hallucination and sense of discomfort passed immediately. At mid-day the guests arrived. They consisted of Dr. Cornelius, Vienna’s most learned scholar; Taddeo Mainardi, the painter; a Danish student from the University of Wittenberg; a young English nobleman, who was travelling in Italy; and Guido da Siena, philosopher and poet, who was said to be the handsomest man in Italy. The Doctor set before his guests a precious wine from Cyprus, in which he toasted them, although as a rule he drank only water. The meal was served in the cool loggia overlooking the bay, and the talk, which was of the men and books of many climes, flowed like a rippling stream on which the sunshine of laughter lightly played. The student asked the Doctor whether in Italy men of taste took any interest in the recent experiments of a French Huguenot, who professed to be able to send people into a trance. Moreover, the patient when in the trance, so it was alleged, was able to act as a bridge between the material and the spiritual worlds, and the dead could be summoned and made to speak through the unconscious patient. “We take no thought of such things here,” said the Doctor. “In my youth, when I studied in the North, experiments of that nature exercised a powerful sway over my mind. I dabbled in alchemy; I tried and indeed considered that I succeeded in raising spirits and visions; but two things are necessary for such a study: youth, and the mists of the Northern country. Here the generous sun kills such phantasies. There are no phantoms here. Moreover, I am convinced that in all such experiments success depends on the state of mind of the inquirer, which not only persuades, but indeed compels itself by a strange magnetic quality to see the vision it desires. In my youth I considered that I had evoked visions of Satan and Helen of Troy, and what not—such things are fit for the young. We greybeards have more serious things to occupy us, and when a man has one foot in the grave, he has no time to waste.” “To my mind,” said the painter, “this world has sufficient beauty and mystery to satisfy the most ardent inquirer.” “But,” said the Englishman, “is not this world a phantom and a dream as insubstantial as the visions of the ardent mind?” “Men and women are the only study fit for a man,” interrupted Guido, “and as for the philosopher’s stone I have found it. I found it some months ago in a garden at Sorrento. It is a pearl radiant with all the hues of the rainbow.” “With regard to that matter,” said the Doctor, “we will have some talk later. The wench’s brother has returned from the war. We must find her a husband.” “You misunderstand me,” said Guido. “You do not think I am going to throw my precious pearl to the swine? I have sworn to wed Margherita, and wed her I shall, and that swiftly.” “Such an act of folly would only lead,” said the Doctor, “to your unhappiness and to hers. It is the selfish act of a fool. You must not think of it.” “Ah!” said Guido, “you are young at seventy, Doctor, but you were old at twenty-five, and you cannot know what these things mean.” “I was young in my day,” said the Doctor, “and I found many such pearls; believe me, they are all very well in their native shell. To move them is to destroy their beauty.” “You do not understand,” said Guido. “I have loved countless times; but she is different. You never felt the revelation of the real, true thing that is different from all the rest and transforms a man’s life.” “No,” said the Doctor, “I confess that to me it was always the same thing.” And for the second time that day the Doctor shivered, he knew not why. Soon after the meal was over the guests departed, and although the Doctor detained Guido and endeavoured to persuade him to listen to the voice of reason and commonsense, his efforts were in vain. Guido had determined to wed Margherita. “Besides which, if I left her now, I should bring shame and ruin on her,” he said. The Doctor started—a familiar voice seemed to whisper in his ear: “She is not the first one.” A strange shudder passed through him, and he distinctly heard a mocking voice laughing. “Go your way,” he said, “but do not come and complain to me if you bring unhappiness on yourself and her.” Guido departed and the Doctor retired to enjoy his siesta. For the first time during all the years he had lived at Naples the Doctor was not able to sleep. “This and the hallucinations I have suffered from to-day come from drinking that Cyprus wine,” he said to himself. He lay in the darkened room tossing uneasily on his bed and sleep would not come to him. Stranger still, before his eyes fiery letters seemed to dance before him in the air. At seven o’clock he went out into the garden. Never had he beheld a more glorious evening. He strolled down towards the seashore and watched the sunset. Mount Vesuvius seemed to have dissolved into a rosy haze; the waves of the sea were phosphorescent. A fisherman was singing in his boat. The sky was an apocalypse of glory and peace. The Doctor sighed and watched the pageant of light until it faded and the stars lit up the magical blue darkness. Then out of the night came another song—a song which seemed familiar to the Doctor, although for the moment he could not place it, about a King in the Northern Country who was faithful to the grave and to whom his dying mistress a golden beaker gave. “Strange,” thought the Doctor, “it must come from some Northern fishing smack,” and he went home. He sat reading in his study until midnight, and for the first time in thirty years he could not fix his mind on his book. For the vision of the sunset and the song of the Northern fisherman, which in some unaccountable way brought back to him the days of his youth, kept on surging up in his mind. Twelve o’clock struck. He rose to go to bed, and as he did so he heard a loud knock at the door. “Come in,” said the Doctor, but his voice faltered (“the Cyprus wine again!” he thought), and his heart beat loudly. The door opened and an icy draught blew into the room. The visitor beckoned, but spoke no word, and Doctor Faust rose and followed him into the outer darkness.
subota, 20. rujna 2025.
The old woman was spinning at her wheel near a fire of myrtle boughs which burnt fragrantly in the open yard. Through the stone columns the sea was visible, smooth, dark, and blue; the low sun bathed the brown hills of the coast in a golden mist. It was December. The shepherds were driving home their flocks, the work of the day was done, and a noise of light laughter and rippling talk came from the Slaves’ quarter. In the middle of the stone-flagged yard two little boys were playing at quoits. Their eyes and hair were as dark as their brown skin, which had been tanned by the sun. In one of the corners of the yard a fair-haired, blue-eyed girl was nursing a kitten and singing it to sleep. The old woman was singing too, or rather humming a tune to herself as she turned her wheel. She was very old: her hair was white and silvery, and her face was furrowed by a hundred wrinkles. Her eyes were blue as the sky, and perhaps they had once been full of fire and laughter, but all that had been quenched and washed out long ago, and Time, with his noiseless chisel, had sharpened her delicate features and hollowed out her cheeks, which were as white as ivory. But her hands as they twisted the wood were the hands of a young woman, and seemed as though they had been fashioned by a rare craftsman, so perfect were they in shape and proportion, as firm as carved marble, as delicate as flowers. The sun sank behind the hills of the coast, and a flood of scarlet light spread along the West just above them, melting higher up into orange, and still higher into a luminous blue, which turned to green later as the evening deepened. The air was cool and sharp, and the little boys, who had finished their game, drew near to the fire. “Tell us a story,” said the elder of the two boys, as they curled themselves up at the feet of the old woman. “You know all my stories,” she said. “That doesn’t matter,” said the boy. “You can tell us an old one.” “Well,” said the old woman, “I suppose I must. There was once upon a time a King and a Queen who had three sons and one daughter.” At the sound of these words the little girl ran up and nestled in the folds of the old woman’s long cloak. “No, not that one,” one of the little boys interrupted, “tell us about the Queen without a heart.” So the old woman began and said:— “There was once upon a time a King and a Queen who had one daughter, and they invited all the gods and goddesses to the feast which they gave in honour of the birth of their child. The gods and goddesses came and gave the child every gift they could think of; she was to be the most beautiful woman in the whole world, she was to dance like the West wind, to laugh like the stream, and to sing like the lark. Her hair should be made of sunshine, and her eyes should be as the sea in midsummer. She should excel in all things, in knowledge, in wit, and in skill; she should be fleet of foot, a cunning harp-player, adept at all manner of woman-like crafts, and deft with the needle and the spinning-wheel, and at the loom. Zeus himself gave her stateliness and majesty, the Lord of the Sun gave a voice as of a golden flute; Poseidon gave her the laughter of all the waves of the sea, the King of the Underworld gave her a red ruby to wear on her breast more precious than all the gems of the world. Artemis gave her swiftness and radiance, Persephone the fragrance and the freshness of all the flowers of spring; Pallas Athene gave her curious knowledge and pleasant speech; and, lastly, the Seaborn Goddess breathed upon her and gave her the beauty of the rose, the pearl, the dew, and the shells and the foam of the sea. But, alas! the King and Queen had forgotten to ask one guest. The Goddess of Envy and Discord had been left out, and she came unbidden, and when all the gods and goddesses had given their gifts, she said: ‘I too have a gift to give, a gift that will be more precious to her than any. I will give her a heart that shall be proof against all the onsets of the world.’ So saying the Goddess of Envy took away the child’s heart and put in its place a heart of stone, hard as adamant, bright and glittering as a gem. And the Goddess of Envy went her way mocking. The King and Queen were greatly concerned, and they asked the gods and goddesses whether their daughter would ever recover her human heart. They were told that the Goddess of Envy would be obliged to give back the child’s heart to the man who loved her enough to seek and to find it, and this would surely happen; but when and how it was forbidden to them to reveal. “The child grew up and became the wonder of the world. She was married to a powerful King, and they lived in peace and plenty until the Goddess of Envy once more troubled the child’s life. For owing to her subtle planning a Prince was promised for wife the fairest woman in the world, and he took the wife of the powerful King and carried her away to Asia to the six-gated city. The King prepared a host of ships and armed men and sailed to Asia to win back his wife. And he and his army fought for ten years until the six-gated city was taken, and he brought his wife home once more. Now during all the time the war lasted, although the whole world was filled with the fame of the King’s wife and of her beauty, there was not found one man who was willing to seek for her heart and to find it, for some gave no credence to the tale, and others, believing it, reasoned that the quest might last a life-time, and that by the time they accomplished it the King’s wife would be an old woman, and there would be fairer women in the world. Others, again, could not believe that in so perfect a woman there could be any fault; they vowed her heart must be one with her matchless beauty, and they said that even if the tale were true, they preferred to worship her as she was, and they would not have her be otherwise or changed by a hair’s breadth for all the world. Some, indeed, did set out upon the quest, but abandoned it soon from weariness and returned to bask in the beauty of the great Queen. “The years went by. The Queen journeyed to Egypt, to the mountains of the South, and the cities of the desert; to the Pillars of Hercules and to the islands of the West. Wherever she went her fame spread like fire, and men fought and died for a glimpse of her marvellous beauty; and wherever she passed she left behind her strife and sorrow like a burning trail. After many voyages she returned home and lived prosperously. The King her husband died, her children grew up and married and bore children themselves, and she continued to live peacefully in her palace. Her fame and her glory brought her neither joy nor sorrow, nor did she heed the spell that she cast on the hearts of men. “One day a harp-player came to her palace and sang and played before her; he made music so ravishing and so sad that all who heard him wept save the Queen, who listened and smiled, listless and indifferent. But her smile filled him with such a passion of wonder and worship that he resolved to rest no more until he had found her heart, for he knew the tale. So he sought the whole world over in vain; and for years and years he roamed the world fruitlessly. At last one day in a far country he found a little bird in a trap and he set it free, and in return the bird promised him that he should find the Queen’s heart. All he had to do was to go home and to seek the Queen’s palace. So the harper went home to the Queen’s palace, and when he reached it he found the Queen had grown old; her hair was grey and there were lines on her cheek. But she smiled on him, and he knelt down before her, for he loved her more than ever, and to him she was as beautiful as ever she had been. At that moment, for the first time in her life the Queen’s eyes filled with tears, for her heart had been given back to her. And that is all the story.” “And what happened to the harper?” asked one of the little boys. “He lived in the palace and played to the Queen till he died.” “And is the story true?” asked the other little boy. “Yes,” said the old woman, “quite true.” The boys jumped up and kissed the old woman, and the elder of them, growing pensive, said:— “Grandmother, were you ever young yourself?” “Yes, my child,” said the old woman, smiling, “I was once young—a very long time ago.” She got up, for the twilight had come and it was almost dark. She walked into the house, and as she rose she was neither bowed nor bent, but she trod the ground with a straightness which was not stiff but full of grace, and she moved royally like a goddess. As she walked past the smoking flames the children noticed that large tears were welling from her eyes and trickling down her faded cheek.
petak, 19. rujna 2025.
Peter, or Petrushka, which was the name he was known by, was the carpenter’s mate; his hair was like light straw, and his eyes were mild and blue. He was good at his trade; a quiet and sober youth; thoughtful, too, for he knew how to read and had read several books when he was still a boy. A translation of “Monte Cristo” once fell into his hands, and this story had kindled his imagination and stirred in him the desire to travel, to see new countries and strange people. He had made up his mind to leave the village and to try his luck in one of the big towns, when, before he was eighteen, something happened to him which entirely changed the colour of his thoughts and the range of his desires. It was an ordinary experience enough: he fell in love. He fell in love with Tatiana, who worked in the starch factory. Tatiana’s eyes were grey, her complexion was white, her features small and delicate, and her hair a beautiful dark brown with gold lights and black shadows in it; her movements were quick and her glance keen; she was like a swallow. It happened when the snows melted and the meadows were flooded; the first fine day in April. The larks were singing over the plains, which were beginning to show themselves once more under the melting snow; the sun shone on the large patches of water, and turned the flooded meadows in the valley into a fantastic vision. It was on a Sunday after church that this new thing happened. He had often seen Tatiana before: that day she was different and new to him. It was as if a bandage had been taken from his eyes, and at the same moment he realised that Tatiana was a new Tatiana. He also knew that the old world in which he had lived hitherto had crumbled to pieces; and that a new world, far brighter and more wonderful, had been created for him. As for Tatiana, she loved him at once. There was no delay, no hesitation, no misunderstandings, no doubt: and at the first not much speech; but first love came to them straight and swift, with the first sunshine of the spring, as it does to the birds. All the spring and summer they kept company and walked out together in the evenings. When the snows entirely melted and the true spring came, it came with a rush; in a fortnight’s time all the trees except the ash were green, and the bees boomed round the thick clusters of pear-blossom and apple-blossom, which shone like snow against the bright azure. During that time Petrushka and Tatiana walked in the apple orchard in the evening and they talked to each other in the divinest of all languages, the language of first love, which is no language at all but a confused medley and murmur of broken phrases, whisperings, twitterings, pauses, and silences—a language so wonderful that it cannot be put down into speech or words, although Shakespeare and the very great poets translate the spirit of it into music, and the great musicians catch the echo of it in their song. Then a fortnight later, when the woods were carpeted and thick with lilies of the valley, Petrushka and Tatiana walked in the woods and picked the last white violets, and later again they sought the alleys of the landlord’s property, where the lilac bushes were a mass of blossom and fragrance, and there they listened to the nightingale, the bird of spring. Then came the summer, the fragrance of the beanfields, and the ripening of corn and the wonderful long twilights, and July, when the corn, ripe and tall and stiff, changed the plains into a vast rippling ocean of gold. After the harvest, at the very beginning of autumn, they were to be married. There had been a slight difficulty about money. Tatiana’s father had insisted that Petrushka should produce a certain not very large sum; but the difficulty had been overcome and the money had been found. There were no more obstacles, everything was smooth and settled. Petrushka no longer thought of travels in foreign lands; he had forgotten the old dreams which “Monte Cristo” had once kindled in him. It was in the middle of August that the carpenter received instructions from the landowner to make some wooden steps and a small raft and to fix them up on the banks of the river for the convenience of bathers. It did not take the carpenter and Petrushka long to make these things, and one afternoon Petrushka drove down to the river to fix them in their place. The river was broad, the banks were wooded with willow trees, and the undergrowth was thick, for the woods reached to the river bank, which was flat, but which ended sheer above the water over a slope of mud and roots, so that a bather needed steps or a raft or a springboard, so as to dive or to enter and leave the water with comfort. Petrushka put the steps in their place—which was where the wood ended—and made fast the floating raft to them. Not far from the bank the ground was marshy and the spot was suspected by some people of being haunted by malaria. It was a still, sultry day. The river was like oil, the sky clouded but not entirely overclouded, and among the high banks of grey cloud there were patches of blue. When Petrushka had finished the job, he sat on the wooden steps, and rolling some tobacco into a primitive cigarette, contemplated the grey, oily water and the willow trees. It was too late in the year, he thought, to make a bathing place. He dipped his hand in the water: it was cold, but not too cold. Yet in a fortnight’s time it would not be pleasant to bathe. However, people had their whims, and he mused on the scheme of the universe which ordained that certain people should have whims, and that others should humour those whims whether they liked it or not. Many people—many of his fellow-workers—talked of the day when the universal levelling would take place and when all men could be equal. Petrushka did not much believe in the advent of that day; he was not quite sure whether he ardently desired it; in any case, he was very happy as he was. At that moment he heard two sharp short sounds, less musical than a pipe and not so loud or harsh as a scream. He looked up. A kingfisher had flown across the oily water. Petrushka shouted; and the kingfisher skimmed over the water once more and disappeared in the trees on the other side of the river. Petrushka rolled and lit another cigarette. Presently he heard the two sharp sounds once more, and the kingfisher darted again across the water: a bit of fish was in its beak. It disappeared into the bank of the river on the same side on which Petrushka was sitting, only lower down. “Its nest must be there,” thought Petrushka, and he remembered that he had heard it said that no one had ever been able to carry off a kingfisher’s nest intact. Why should he not be the first person to do so? He was skilful with his fingers, his touch was sure and light. It was evidently a carpenter’s job, and few carpenters had the leisure or opportunity to look for kingfishers’ nests. What a rare present it would be for Tatiana—a whole kingfisher’s nest with every bone in it intact. He walked stealthily through the bushes down the bank of the river, making as little noise as possible. He thought he had marked the spot where the kingfisher had dived into the bank. As he walked, the undergrowth grew thicker and the path darker, for he had reached the wood, on the outskirts and end of which was the spot where he had made the steps. He walked on and on without thinking, oblivious of his surroundings, until he suddenly realised that he had gone too far. Moreover, he must have been walking for some time, for it was getting dark, or was it a thunder-shower? The air, too, was unbearably sultry; he stopped and wiped his forehead with a big print handkerchief. It was impossible to reach the bank from the place where he now stood, as he was separated from it by a wide ditch of stagnant water. He therefore retraced his footsteps through the wood. It grew darker and darker; it must be, he thought, the evening deepening and no storm. All at once he started; he had heard a sound, a high pipe. Was it the kingfisher? He paused and listened. Distinctly, and not far off in the undergrowth, he heard a laugh, a woman’s laugh. It flashed across his mind that it might be Tatiana, but it was not her laugh. Something rustled in the bushes to the left of him; he followed the rustling and it led him through the bushes—he had now passed the ditch—to the river bank. The sun had set behind the woods from which he had just emerged; the sky was as grey as the water, and there was no reflection of the sunset in the east. Except the water and the trees he saw nothing; there was not a sound to be heard, not a ripple on the river, not a whisper from the woods. Then all at once the stillness was broken again by quick rippling laughs immediately behind him. He turned sharply round, and saw a woman in the bushes: her eyes were large and green and sad; her hair straggling and dishevelled; she was dressed in reeds and leaves; she was very pale. She stared at him fixedly, and smiled, showing gleaming teeth, and when she smiled there was no light nor laughter in her eyes, which remained sad and green and glazed like those of a drowned person. She laughed again and ran into the bushes. Petrushka ran after her, but although he was quite close to her he lost all trace of her immediately. It was as if she had vanished under the earth or into the air. “It’s a Russalka,” thought Petrushka, and he shivered. Then he added to himself, with the pride of the new scepticism he had learnt from the factory hands: “There is no such thing; only women believe in such things. It was some drunken woman.” Petrushka walked quickly back to the edge of the wood, where he had left his cart, and drove home. The next day was Sunday, and Tatiana noticed that he was different—moody, melancholy, and absent-minded. She asked him what was the matter; he said his head ached. Towards five o’clock he told her—they were standing outside her cottage—that he was obliged to go to the river to work. “To-day is holiday,” she said quietly. “I left something there yesterday: one of my tools. I must fetch it,” he explained. Tatiana looked at him, and her intuition told her, firstly, that this was not true, and, secondly, that it was not well for Petrushka to go to the river. She begged him not to go. Petrushka laughed and said he would be back quickly. Tatiana cried, and implored him on her knees not to go. Then Petrushka grew irritable and almost rough, and told her not to vex him with foolishness. Reluctantly and sadly she gave in at last. Petrushka went to the river, and Tatiana watched him go with a heavy heart. She felt quite certain some disaster was about to happen. At seven o’clock Petrushka had not yet returned, and he did not return that night. The next morning the carpenter and two others went to the river to look for him. They found his body in the shallow water, entangled in the ropes of the raft he had made. He had been drowned, no doubt, in setting the raft straight. During all that Sunday night, Tatiana had said no word, nor had she moved from her doorstep: it was only when they brought back the dripping body to the village that she stirred, and when she saw it she laughed a dreadful laugh, and the spirit went from her eyes, leaving a fixed stare.
četvrtak, 18. rujna 2025.
When he was a child his baby brother came to him one day and said that their elder brother, who was grown up, had got a beautiful small ship in his room. Should he ask him for it? The child who gave good advice said: “No, if you ask him for it he will say you are a spoilt child; but go and play in his room with it before he gets up in the morning, and he will give it to you.” The baby brother followed this advice, and sure enough two days afterwards he appeared triumphant in the nursery with the ship in his hands, saying: “He said I might choose, the ship or the picture-book.” Now the picture-book was a coloured edition of Baron Munchausen’s adventures; the boy who gave good advice had seen it and hankered for it. As the baby brother had refused it there could be no harm in asking for it, so the next time his elder brother sent him on an errand (it was to fetch a pin-cushion from his room) judging the moment to be propitious, he said to him: “May I have the picture-book that baby wouldn’t have?” “I don’t like little boys who ask,” answered the big brother, and there the matter ended. The child who gave good advice went to school. There was a rage for stag beetles at the school; the boys painted them and made them run races on a chessboard. They imagined—rightly or wrongly—that some stag beetles were much faster than others. A little boy called Bell possessed the stag beetle which was the favourite for the coming races. Another boy called Mason was consumed with longing for this stag beetle; and Bell had said he would give it to him in exchange for Mason’s catapult, which was famous in the school for the unique straightness of its two prongs. Mason went to the boy who gave good advice and asked him for his opinion. “Don’t swap it for your catty,” said the boy who gave good advice, “because Bell’s stag beetle may not win after all; and even if it does stag beetles won’t be the rage for very long; but a catty is always a catty, and yours is the best in the school.” Mason took the advice. When the races came off, the stag beetles were so erratic that no prize was awarded, and they immediately ceased to be the rage. The rage for stag beetles was succeeded by a rage for secret alphabets. One boy invented a secret alphabet made of simple hieroglyphics, which was imparted only to a select few, who spent their spare time in corresponding with each other by these cryptic signs. The boy who gave good advice was not of those initiated into the mystery of the cypher, and he longed to be. He made several overtures, but they were all rejected, the reason being that boys of the second division could not let a “third division squit” into their secret. At last the boy who gave good advice offered to one of the initiated the whole of his stamp collection in return for the secret of the alphabet. This offer was accepted. The boy took the stamp collection, but the boy who gave good advice received in return not the true alphabet but a sham one especially manufactured for him. This he found out later; but recriminations were useless; besides which the rage for secret alphabets soon died out and was replaced by a rage for aquariums, newts, and natterjack toads. The boy went to a public school. He was a fag. His fag-master had two fags. One morning the other fag came to the boy who gave good advice and said: “Clarke (he was the fag-master) told me three days ago to clean his football boots. He’s been ‘staying out’ and hasn’t used them, and I forgot. He’ll want them to-day, and now there isn’t time. I shall pretend I did clean them.” “No, don’t do that,” said the boy who gave good advice, “because if you say you have cleaned them he will lick you twice as much for having cleaned them badly—say you forgot.” The advice was taken, and the fag-master merely said: “Don’t forget again.” A little later the fag-master had some friends to tea, and told the boy who gave good advice to boil him six eggs for not more than three minutes and a half. The boy who gave good advice, while they were on the fire, took part in a rag that which was going on in the passage; the result was that the eggs remained seven minutes in boiling water. They were hard. When the fag-master pointed this out and asked his fag what he meant by it, the boy who gave good advice persisted in his statement that they had been exactly three minutes and a half in the saucepan, and that he had timed them by his watch. So the fag-master caned him for telling lies. The boy who gave good advice grew into a man and went to the university. There he made friends with a man called Crawley, who went to a neighbouring race meeting one day and lost two or three hundred pounds. “I must raise the money from a money-lender somehow,” said Crawley to the man who gave good advice, “and on no account must the Master hear of it or he would send me down; or write home, which would be worse.” “On the contrary,” said the man who gave good advice, “you must go straight to the Master and tell him all about it. He will like you twice as much for ever afterwards; he never minds people getting into scrapes when he happens to like them, and he likes you and believes you have a great career before you.” Crawley went to the Master of the college and made a clean breast of it. The Master told him he had been foolish—very foolish; but he arranged the whole matter in such a manner that it never came to the ears of Crawley’s extremely violent-tempered and puritanical father. The man who gave good advice got a “First” in Mods, and everyone felt confident he would get a first in Greats; he did brilliantly in nearly all his papers; but during the Latin unseen a temporary and sudden lapse of memory came over him and he forgot the English for manubioe, which the day before he had known quite well means prize-money. In fact the word was written on the first page of his note-book. The word was in his brain, but a small shutter had closed on it for the moment and he could not recall it. He looked over his neighbour’s shoulder. His neighbour had translated it “booty.” He copied the word mechanically, knowing it was wrong. As he did so he was detected and accused of cribbing. He denied the charge, the matter was investigated, the papers were compared, and the man who gave good advice was disqualified. In all his other papers he had done incomparably better than anyone else. When he left Oxford the man who gave good advice went into a Government office. He had not been in it long before he perceived that by certain simple reforms the work of the office could be done twice as effectually and half as expensively. He embodied these reforms in a memorandum and they were not long afterwards adopted. He became private secretary to Snipe, a rising politician and persuaded him to change his party and his politics. Snipe, owing to this advice, became a Cabinet Minister, and the man who gave good advice, having inherited some money, stood for Parliament himself. He stood as a Conservative at a General Election and spoke eloquently to enthusiastic meetings. The wire-pullers prophecied an overwhelming majority, when shortly before the poll, at one of his meetings, he suddenly declared himself to be an Independent, and made a speech violently in favour of Home Rule and conscription. The result was that the Liberal Imperialist got in by a huge majority, and the man who gave good advice was pelted with rotten eggs. After this the man who gave good advice abandoned politics and took to finance; in this branch of human affairs he made the fortune of several of his friends, preventing some from putting their money in alluring South African schemes, and advising others to risk theirs on events which seemed to him certain, such as the election of a President or the short-lived nature of a revolution; events which he foresaw with intuition amounting to second-sight. At the same time he lost nearly all his own money by investing it in a company which professed to have discovered a manner—cheap and rapid—of transforming copper into platinum. He made the fortune of a publisher by insisting on the publication of a novel which six intelligent men had declared to be unreadable. It was called “The Conscience of John Digby,” and when published it sold by thousands and tens of thousands. But he lost the handsome reward he received for this service by publishing at his own expense, on magnificent paper, an edition of Rabelais’ works in their original tongue. He frequently spotted winners for his friends and for himself, but any money that he won at a race meeting he invariably lost coming home in the train on the Three Card Trick. Nor did he lose touch with politicians, and this brought about the final catastrophe. A great friend of his, the eminent John Brooke, had the chance of becoming Prime Minister. Parties were at that time in a state of confusion. The question was, should his friend ally himself with or sever himself for ever from Mr. Capax Nissy, the leader of the Liberal Aristocracy Party, who seemed to have a large following? His friend, John Brooke, gave a small dinner to his most intimate friends in order to talk over the matter. The man who gave good advice was so eloquent, so cogent in his reasoning, so acute in his perception, that he persuaded Brooke to sever himself for ever from Capax Nissy. He persuaded all who were present, with the exception of Mr. Short-Sight, a pig-headed man who reasoned falsely. So annoyed did the man who gave good advice become with Short-Sight, and so excited in his vexation, that he finally lost his self-control, and hit him as hard as he could on the head—after Short-Sight had repeated a groundless assertion for the seventh time—with the poker. Short-Sight died, and the man who gave good advice was convicted of wilful murder. He gave admirable advice to his counsel, but threw away his own case as soon as he entered the box himself, which he insisted on doing. He was hanged in gaol at Reading. Many people whom he had benefited in various ways visited him in prison, among others John Brooke, the Prime Minister. It is said that he would certainly have been reprieved but for the intemperate and inexcusable letters he wrote to the Home Secretary from prison. “It’s a great tragedy—he was a clever man,” said Brooke after dinner when they were discussing the misfortune at Downing Street; “a very clever man, but he had no judgment.” “No,” said Snipe, the man whose private secretary the man who gave good advice had been, “That’s it. It’s an awful thing—but he had no judgment.”
srijeda, 17. rujna 2025.
Looking abroad from the table-land of Esced, over the Hungarian plain that stretches from the foot of Mount Matra to Szolnok, and finally merges into the horizon where the silver thread of the Theiss winds its way, the eye is attracted by a smiling section of country whose vineyards and cornfields gleam brightly in the sun. This fair spot is neither a park nor grove nor pleasant woodland, but the imposing village of Hort, its pretty white houses half concealed by a wealth of trees and shrubbery. In this village lived a Jewish bookbinder, Simcha Kalimann, a wit and bel esprit, the oracle of the entire province, the living chronicle of his times and people. Reviewing in reverie the procession of events in his own life, Kalimann could see, as in a mirror, the phases through which his co-religionists in Hungary had passed in their efforts toward liberty. He had lived during that dark period when the Jew dared claim no rights among his fellow-countrymen. He had suffered evil, he had endured disgrace, and the storehouse of his memory held many a tragi-comic picture of the days that were no more. But he had also lived in times when the spirit of tolerance took possession of men's minds, and he had been swept along on that tidal movement inaugurated by Count Szechenyi, the greatest of Hungarians, through his celebrated book, "Light." The revolution of 1848 brought about the new Hungarian Constitution, and put an end to feudal government. Light penetrated into the darksome streets of the Ghetto, and through the windows opened to receive the Messiah, a saviour entered proclaiming liberty and equality to the downtrodden and oppressed. Crushed and forsaken, as all Israel was, it gratefully responded to this message of universal brotherhood. The Hungarian Jew had found a country, and from that moment he had thrown aside his native timidity, and found the strength to display his patriotism with an ardor and enthusiasm worthy of the cause. Thousands quitted the Ghettos, and gathered around the tricolored flag. Among the warm-hearted soldiers was Simcha Kalimann. He followed Kossuth as a simple honved (volunteer), and fought at Kapolna, Vaitzen, and Temesvar. High hopes and golden dreams were succeeded by despondency and disillusion; then supervened years of impatient waiting,—a standing with folded arms when so much remained to be done, a time of despair, of restless suffering. But the Jew had acquired his franchise, and gratefully he remembered those to whom he owed this priceless blessing. When the Austro-Hungarian Convention gave Hungary her king and constitution, the hearts of the people of the Ghetto beat high. This time, however, liberty did not make her entry with clang of arms and beat of drum,—peace and reconciliation were her handmaidens, and progress followed in her footsteps. It was at this epoch in Hungary's history that Israelites began to speak the language of the country, and to accept Hungarian names. To her credit be it said that no such shameful sale was made as disgraced the time of Joseph II., when surnames were sold, according to their attractiveness or desirability, to the highest bidder. Consequently, as a high-sounding name cost no more than a simple one, Kalimann chose the most imposing he could find, and, his country's hero in mind, called himself Sandor Hunyadi. This historic title revived, as it were, his latent patriotism, and, digging his gun and cartridge-box from their hiding-place in the garden where he had carefully buried them after the capitulation of Vilagos, he proudly hung these trophies of his prowess over his bed, and rejoiced in the memories of his martial exploits. Liberty and religious peace held equal sway. Reciprocal kindliness and toleration spread light where darkness had been, and scattered the shadows of prejudice. Hunyadi, or Kalimann, was regarded in Hort as a freethinker. This was scarcely just; he was pious, and strictly discharged his religious observances, emancipating himself at the same time from those distinctions in dress and customs which he deemed neither in accordance with Mosaic law nor with his ideas of progress. He followed the observance of wearing his hat while at synagogue, but during no other religious ceremony; troubled himself but little regarding the dietary laws; dressed as his Christian neighbor did; and strictly prohibited any superstitious practices in his house. He even permitted his wife to let her hair grow,—a bold innovation. His appearance was by no means suggestive of the hero. Short, thin, and insignificant-looking, with hair that frizzled beyond all thought of disentanglement, a tanned and freckled skin, flaxen moustache, and gray eyes that blinked continuously, Kalimann had truly no cause for vanity. Besides, he was excessively near-sighted, and as his large spectacles were taken from their red case only when he read or worked, it not unfrequently happened that when he took his walk abroad he would mistake a tall post for the chief magistrate of the county, and salute it with his most respectful bow; or, with a composure born of self-complacency, it would be his misfortune to pass by Madame Barkany, his best customer, with a vacant stare, under the impression that the fair apparition was linen hung to bleach in the sun. Kalimann worked alone with a little apprentice named Hersch, whom he had indentured far more from charity than necessity, since the worthy bookbinder felt within him that love for his art which would have enabled him to bind the entire literature of Europe with no greater aid than his good right arm. He was a conscientious, faithful workman, and, as a rule, his entire days were spent in his shop; when necessity demanded he would toil on late into the night by the light of a tallow candle, or an ill-smelling lamp. His work was his pride; reading his delight. If a single dark spot clouded the surface of this simple honest life, that shadow fell from the portly form of Mrs. Rachel Kalimann, or Rose Hunyadi, as it was that lady's pleasure now to be called. It would be unjust, however, to the handsome woman, whose buxom proportions served, as it were, to give weight to the establishment, to say that her faults were of a serious nature; she was, at the most, insensible to her husband's intellectual aspirations, which she termed, with more vigor than the occasion demanded, "stuff and nonsense." Quotations from the Talmud and the Scriptures were equally impotent to quell the torrent of the worthy woman's eloquence when she felt that the occasion demanded her timely interference; in vain Kalimann supported his side of the question by citing from the book of Job: "The gold and the crystal cannot equal it, and the exchange of it shall not be for jewels of fine gold. No mention shall be made of coral or of pearls; for the price of wisdom is above rubies." [Footnote: See Job xxviii. 17, 18.] Rose would retort curtly: "What can I buy with your wisdom? Will it give me wherewith to eat and to drink, and to clothe myself? No! Very well then, what is the good of it?" The learned bookbinder would, as a rule, sigh and silently abandon the argument when it had reached this stage, but at times his composure would break down under the strain imposed on it. Disputes and quarrels would ensue, but in the end Kalimann would capitulate, his conjugal love overcoming his anger and resentment. Occasionally, however, he would endeavor to escape his wife's vigilance, and take refuge in a remote corner with one of his treasured volumes. On one of these "secret" evenings she surprised him in the poultry house, at his side a small lantern shedding a doubtful light upon a fine edition of "Hamlet" on his lap. Rose read him a long lecture, and commanded him to retire at once. The good man obeyed, but carried "Hamlet" to bed with him, turning once more to his Shakespeare for refreshment and sweet content. He had scarcely read half a page, when his spouse rose in all her majesty and blew out the candle. Kalimann was desperate, and yet resistance would have been unwise. Sadly resigned, he turned his head upon the pillow, and soon snored in unison with Hersch. A half-hour of profound silence, then the culprit rose, and making sure that his wife was sleeping the sleep of the just, he cautiously took his book and spectacles, glided out of doors, and sitting upon the old moss-grown bench in front of the house, continued the tragedy of the Danish prince by the light of the moon. Yes, he loved his books with passion and tenderness; but not having means wherewith to buy them, he read every book that was entrusted to him to bind. Not being the collector of the volumes in his workshop, chance alone being responsible for the heterogeneous display,—to-day a sentimental love-tale, to-morrow a medical treatise, the next day a theological work,—it followed that the poor little bookbinder's head was filled with as confused a mass of lore, religious and profane, as ever cast in its lot in the sum of human knowledge. The more a book pleased him, the longer did the owner have to wait for it; and it was only after repeated insistence that the coveted volume was placed in the rightful possessor's hands. Naturally, Kalimann's prices varied according to the work required, or the cost of material; but when it came to the question of ornamental finishing or decorative impressions, his customer's orders were totally ignored, and he it was who decided upon the finishing according to the subject or the value of the work. When he carried the books back to his customers, he would always tie them up carefully in a large colored handkerchief, and, while unwrapping them, would embrace the opportunity of expressing his views upon their contents; at times, however, he regarded the open assertion of his opinion as dangerous, and could not be induced to pass judgment. On these occasions he never failed to say with a sorrowful shake of the head, "While we are living we may not speak, when we are dead it is too late!" There lived in Hort at this time a wealthy and pretty widow, Mrs. Zoe Barkany by name, originally Sarah Samuel. From her, Kalimann would get his novels and classical literature; these he bound in pale blues and greens and brilliant scarlets, ornamenting them with a golden lyre, surmounted with an arrow-pierced heart. He worked upon these bindings con amore, and, transported by his love of the aesthetic, would occasionally give vent to his enthusiasm, and venture observations bordering upon the chivalrous. In each and every heroine of the plays and romances he devoured, he could see the captivating face and figure of Mrs. Barkany. Entering the fair widow's garden one morning, and discovering her seated on a rustic bench, dressed in white, a guitar in her hand, he exclaimed, with a reverential bow: "Ah, mon Dieu, there sits Princess Eboli!" (the heroine in "Don Carlos"). Another time seeing her in a. morning gown of Turkish stuff, he declared she must be sitting for the picture of Rebecca in "Ivanhoe." In short, Mrs. Barkany very soon learned to anticipate her bookbinder's speeches, and would say, with a pretty smile: "Well, am I Esmeralda to-day?" or, "I wager that I am reminding you of the Duchess; tell me, am I right or not?" Binding works on jurisprudence for the notary, he developed his philosophy of law; returning some volumes to the village doctor, he surprised that worthy by launching forth with enthusiasm into a disquisition on medicine; and dropping in one fine day at Professor Gambert's,—the pensioned schoolmaster,—he proved himself no mean adversary in a discussion upon natural history. He invariably approached a subject with a refreshing originality, and on one occasion maintained with an obstinacy born of conviction that the reason Moses had prohibited the Jews from eating pork was because he had discovered the trichina. Simcha Kalimann had taken upon himself the office of censor in his village, as may be seen by the following incident. The widow had given him a richly illustrated German edition of "Nana" to bind. At dusk one evening he discovered his apprentice crouched in a corner by the window, evidently intensely amused over the illustrations. He quietly seized the culprit by the hair, shook him as he would a puppy, and then, putting on his spectacles, began inspecting the volume himself. At first he shook his head, then took off his glasses and rubbed them as though they were playing him some prank, and finally closed the book with an expression of profound disgust. Mrs. Barkany awaited the return of her "Nana" with unruffled patience; finally she despatched her cook Gutel with an order for the book. Kalimann was ready with his excuses, and after a fortnight's delay the widow found her way into the workshop, and began suing for the book in person. "I want my copy of 'Nana,'" she began. "Nana?" Kalimann went on with his work. "You have not bound it yet?" "No, madame." "But when am I to have it?" "You are not to have that book at all." "What! You talk absurdly." "We merit trust, the Count will own; For nothing's left of flesh or bone," quoted Kalimann from Schiller's ballad "The Forge." "As for 'Nana,' I've simply pushed it in the stove." "Kalimann, this is going too far." "It is not a book for a Jewish woman to own." The widow flushed indignantly, but would not yield the victory to her adversary. "If you have burned my book you must give me an equivalent." "With pleasure," replied the bookbinder, and taking down a picture from the wall, he begged her acceptance of it. It represented a scene from Schiller's "Song of the Bell," a fair young woman, surrounded by her children, seated on the balcony of her house. As title to the picture were printed these lines: "The house spreadeth out, And in it presides The chaste gentle housewife, The mother of children; And ruleth metely The household discreetly." Our bookbinder had a reverential admiration for all scholars, poets, or artists, irrespective of race or creed. Awaiting the widow in her library one day, his attention was attracted by an engraving representing Schiller at Carlsbad seated upon an ass. His eyes filled with tears at the sight. "A man like that," he exclaimed, "riding upon an ass! While ordinary people like Baron Fay or Mr. de Mariassy ride about proudly on horses." Later on it occurred to him that Balaam too was mounted on an ass, and he derived a measure of consolation from the thought that Schiller was a prophet as well. Would it be venturesome to say that in Kalimann there was the stuff for poet or prophet? In addition to his trade, our bookbinder carried on another pursuit which was quite lucrative in its way, and one universally well established among all Jewish communities of Eastern Europe. Kalimann was Cupid's secretary: in other words, he wrote love-letters for those who could neither read nor write. The opportunity thus vouchsafed his native tendency toward sentiment helped not only to swell the hearts of his clients with gratitude, but also to swell his own slender income. Thus it was that the fire of his poetic genius was enkindled, and thus it was he became the Petrarch of Hort. One day Gutel Wolfner, Mrs. Barkany's cook, came to him with the request that he would write a letter for her to a friend at Gyongos. "Well, well, little one," said the scribe, "so Love's arrow has reached you at last!" "Heaven preserve me!" cried the girl, "he is not named Love, but Mendel Sucher, and he has never drawn a bow in his life." Gutel now gave the bookbinder a general idea of the letter she wished written, and inquired the price. "That will not depend upon the length of the epistle," he replied, "but upon its quality." Thereupon he read aloud to her his tariff. 1st. A friendly letter ………………. 10 kreutzers 2d. A kind and well-intentioned letter … 15 " 3d. A tender letter …………………. 20 " 4th. A touching letter ………………. 30 " 5th. A letter that goes straight to the heart ………………………….. 1/2 florin "Very good; a friendly letter will do well enough this time," said the girl, as she deposited her ten kreutzers on the table. "I will write a kind and well-intentioned letter for you for the same price as a friendly one," said Kalimann, gallantly. Mendel Sucher received the missive the following day, and as his scholarship was as limited as Gutel's, he forthwith sought out Saul Wahl, a lawyer's clerk at Gyongos, likewise a member of the same erotic profession as the bookbinder of Hort. Wahl read Kalimann's letter to the smiling recipient with such pathos that Mendel was completely overcome. Placing twenty kreutzers on the table, the happy swain begged the clerk to write as finely turned a letter to Gutel as the one she had sent him. Saul, who had at a glance recognized Kalimann's calligraphy, said to himself: "It will go hard with me but I will show the bookbinder that they know how to write letters at Gyongos, and can also quote from the classic authors." He at once wrote Gutel a missive so thickly interlarded with quotations from the Song of Solomon, from Goethe, Petofi, Heine, and Chateaubriand, that when Kalimann read the billet-doux to the blushing girl her head was quite turned. The bookbinder himself scratched his head and muttered: "This Saul is a man of letters; his style is vigorous! Who would have thought it?" The correspondence between Gutel and Mendel, or rather between Kalimann and Saul, flourished for some time. If Kalimann addressed Mendel as "my cherished friend," "my turtle dove," Saul on his side would intersperse throughout his letters such expressions as "your gazelle-like eyes," "your fairy form," "your crimson lips," "your voice rivalling the music of the celestial spheres." Kalimann's "friendly" letter was followed by those of the tender and touching variety, and finally Gutel decided upon sacrificing her half florin and sending one that "would go straight to the heart." To make assurance doubly sure she supplemented her silver piece by a bottle of wine. Her amanuensis poured out a glass, emptied it at a draught, smacked his lips, and began to write. Suddenly, however, he stopped, and turning to the girl, said: "Do you know, Gutel, that wine of yours was a happy inspiration, but the great poet Hafiz was not alone inspired by the spirit of wine, he placed a great virtue upon the crimson lips of pretty girls." Gutel was not slow to understand. "As I have given you a half florin and a bottle of wine," she said, in a shamefaced way, wiping her mouth with the corner of her apron the while, "I see no reason why I should not add a touch of my lips as well." So saying she gave the happy bookbinder a hearty kiss. The consequence of all this was that the pen flew over the paper, and when Kalimann read the letter for Gutel's approval the tender-hearted girl burst into tears of emotion. As for Mendel, when Saul read him this letter going "straight to the heart," he could contain himself no longer; rushing from the house he flew to the factory where he worked, and asked his employer, Mr. Schonberg, to permit him to quit his service. "What is the matter with you?" cried Schonberg. "Why do you wish to leave? Do you want more wages?" "No, no, Mr. Schonberg, that is not the reason. But—but I can stay no longer here at Gyongos, I must go to Hort." "To Hort? What is the reason of that?" For reply the dazed fellow held out the letter for him to read. Schonberg glanced over it, and smiled. "This Kalimann," he murmured, "is a deuce of a fellow. The world has lost a novelist in him. But let me see how I can arrange matters. Mendel," he continued, turning to the open-mouthed lover, "you shall stay here, and you shall marry your Gutel. I will give you two or three rooms in the factory for your housekeeping, and Mrs. Barkany will give the girl her trousseau. How does that strike you?" Mendel beamed. He would have thrown himself on his employer's neck, but resisted the impulse, and, instead, brushed the back of his hand across his eyes. Schonberg gave him a day's holiday, and the happy fellow lost no time in making his way to Hort, and subsequently into the arms of his inamorata. Mrs. Barkany gave Gutel the trousseau, and the marriage took place at harvest-time. At one end of the table, in the seat of honor next to the rabbi, sat the bookbinder of Hort. All had been his work, and, truth to tell, this was not the first happy couple he had been the means of bringing together. When it was his turn to deliver a toast in honor of the bride and groom, he rose, filled his glass, and holding it in his hand, declaimed from his favorite poet Schiller, and with an enthusiasm worthy the occasion: "Honor to women! round Life they are wreathing Roses, the fragrance of Heaven sweet-breathing!"
utorak, 16. rujna 2025.
During many long years Hermann Fabricius had lost sight of his friend Henry Warren, and had forgotten him. Yet when students together they had loved each other dearly, and more than once they had sworn eternal friendship. This was at a period which, though not very remote, we seem to have left far behind us—a time when young men still believed in eternal friendship, and could feel enthusiasm for great deeds or great ideas. Youth in the present day is, or thinks itself, more rational. Hermann and Warren in those days were simple-minded and ingenuous; and not only in the moment of elation, when they had sworn to be friends for ever, but even the next day, and the day after that, in sober earnestness, they had vowed that nothing should separate them, and that they would remain united through life. The delusion had not lasted long. The pitiless machinery of life had caught up the young men as soon as they left the university, and had thrown one to the right, the other to the left. For a few months they had exchanged long and frequent letters; then they had met once, and finally they had parted, each going his way. Their letters had become more scarce, more brief, and at last had ceased altogether. It would really seem that the fact of having interests in common is the one thing sufficiently powerful to prolong and keep up the life of epistolary relations. A man may feel great affection for an absent friend, and yet not find time to write him ten lines, while he will willingly expend daily many hours on a stranger from whom he expects something. None the less he may be a true and honest friend. Man is naturally selfish; the instinct of self-preservation requires it of him. Provided he be not wicked, and that he show himself ready to serve his neighbor—after himself—no one has a right to complain, or to accuse him of hard-heartedness. At the time this story begins, Hermann had even forgotten whether he had written to Warren last, or whether he had left his friend's last letter unanswered. In a word, the correspondence which began so enthusiastically had entirely ceased. Hermann inhabited a large town, and had acquired some reputation as a writer. From time to time, in the course of his walks, he would meet a young student with brown hair, and mild, honest-looking blue eyes, whose countenance, with its frank and youthful smile, inspired confidence and invited the sympathy of the passer-by. Whenever Hermann met this young man he would say to himself, "How like Henry at twenty!" and for a few minutes memory would travel back to the already distant days of youth, and he would long to see his dear old Warren again. More than once, on the spur of the moment, he had resolved to try and find out what had become of his old university comrade. But these good intentions were never followed up. On reaching home he would find his table covered with books and pamphlets to be reviewed, and letters from publishers or newspaper editors asking for "copy"—to say nothing of invitations to dinner, which must be accepted or refused; in a word, he found so much URGENT business to despatch that the evening would go by, and weariness would overtake him, before he could make time for inquiring about his old friend. In the course of years, the life of most men becomes so regulated that no time is left for anything beyond "necessary work." But, indeed, the man who lives only for his own pleasure—doing, so to speak, nothing—is rarely better in this respect than the writer, the banker, and the savant, who are overburdened with work. One afternoon, as Hermann, according to his custom, was returning home about five o'clock, his porter handed him a letter bearing the American post-mark. He examined it closely before opening it. The large and rather stiff handwriting on the address seemed familiar, and yet he could not say to whom it belonged. Suddenly his countenance brightened, and he exclaimed, "A letter from Henry!" He tore open the envelope, and read as follows: "MY DEAR HERMANN,—It is fortunate that one of us at least should have attained celebrity. I saw your name on the outside of a book of which you are the author. I wrote at once to the publisher; that obliging man answered me by return of post, and, thanks to these circumstances, I am enabled to tell you that I will land at Hamburg towards the end of September. Write to me there, Poste Restante, and let me know if you are willing to receive me for a few days. I can take Leipzig on my way home, and would do so most willingly if you say that you would see me again with pleasure. "Your old friend, "HENRY WARREN." Below the signature there was a postscript of a single line: "This is my present face." And from an inner envelope Hermann drew a small photograph, which he carried to the window to examine leisurely. As he looked, a painful impression of sadness came over him. The portrait was that of an old man. Long gray hair fell in disorder over a careworn brow; the eyes, deep sunk in their sockets, had a strange and disquieting look of fixity; and the mouth, surrounded by deep furrows, seemed to tell its own long tale of sorrow. "Poor Henry!" said Hermann; "this, then, is your present face! And yet he is not old; he is younger than I am; he can scarcely be thirty-eight. Can I, too, be already an old man?" He walked up to the glass, and looked attentively at the reflection of his own face. No! those were not the features of a man whose life was near its close; the eye was bright, and the complexion indicated vigor and health. Still, it was not a young face. Thought and care had traced their furrows round the mouth and about the temples, and the general expression was one of melancholy, not to say despondency. "Well, well, we have grown old," said Hermann, with a sigh. "I had not thought about it this long while; and now this photograph has reminded me of it painfully." Then he took up his pen and wrote to say how happy he would be to see his old friend again as soon as possible. The next day chance brought him face to face in the street with the young student who was so like Warren. "Who knows?" thought Hermann; "fifteen or twenty years hence this young man may look no brighter than Warren does today. Ah, life is not easy! It has a way of saddening joyous looks, and imparting severity to smiling lips. As for me, I have no real right to complain of my life. I have lived pretty much like everybody; a little satisfaction, and then a little disappointment, turn by turn; and often small worries; and so my youth has gone by, I scarcely know how." On the 2d of October Hermann received a telegram from Hamburg announcing the arrival of Warren for the same evening. At the appointed hour he went to the railway station to meet his friend. He saw him get down from the carriage slowly, and rather heavily, and he watched him for a few seconds before accosting him. Warren appeared to him old and broken-down, and even more feeble than he had expected to see him from his portrait. He wore a travelling suit of gray cloth, so loose and wide that it hung in folds on the gaunt and stooping figure; a large wide-awake hat was drawn down to his very eyes. The new-comer looked right and left, seeking no doubt to discover his friend; not seeing him, he turned his weary and languid steps towards the way out. Hermann then came forward. Warren recognized him at once; a sunny, youthful smile lighted up his countenance, and, evidently much moved, he stretched out his hand. An hour later, the two friends were seated opposite to each other before a well-spread table in Hermann's comfortable apartments. Warren ate very little; but, on the other hand, Hermann noticed with surprise and some anxiety that his friend, who had been formerly a model of sobriety, drank a good deal. Wine, however, seemed to have no effect on him. The pale face did not flush; there was the same cold, fixed look in the eye; and his speech, though slow and dull in tone, betrayed no embarrassment. When the servant who had waited at dinner had taken away the dessert and brought in coffee, Hermann wheeled two big arm-chairs close to the fire, and said to his friend: "Now, we will not be interrupted. Light a cigar, make yourself at home, and tell me all you have been doing since we parted." Warren pushed away the cigars. "If you do not mind," said he, "I will smoke my pipe. I am used to it, and I prefer it to the best of cigars." So saying, he drew from its well-worn case an old pipe, whose color showed it had been long used, and filled it methodically with moist, blackish tobacco. Then he lighted it, and after sending forth one or two loud puffs of smoke, he said, with an air of sovereign satisfaction: "A quiet, comfortable room—a friend—a good pipe after dinner—and no care for the morrow. That's what I like." Hermann cast a sidelong glance at his companion, and was painfully struck at his appearance. The tall gaunt frame in its stooping attitude; the grayish hair and sad, fixed look; the thin legs crossed one over the other; the elbow resting on the knee and supporting the chin,—in a word, the whole strange figure, as it sat there, bore no resemblance to Henry Warren, the friend of his youth. This man was a stranger, a mysterious being even. Nevertheless, the affection he felt for his friend was not impaired; on the contrary, pity entered into his heart. "How ill the world must have used him," thought Hermann, "to have thus disfigured him!" Then he said aloud: "Now, then, let me have your story, unless you prefer to hear mine first." He strove to speak lightly, but he felt that the effort was not successful. As to Warren, he went on smoking quietly, without saying a word. The long silence at last became painful. Hermann began to feel an uncomfortable sensation of distress in presence of the strange guest he had brought to his home. After a few minutes he ventured to ask for the third time, "Will you make up your mind to speak, or must I begin?" Warren gave vent to a little noiseless laugh. "I am thinking how I can answer your question. The difficulty is that, to speak truly, I have absolutely nothing to tell. I wonder now—and it was that made me pause—how it has happened that, throughout my life, I have been bored by—nothing. As if it would not have been quite as natural, quite as easy, and far pleasanter, to have been amused by that same nothing—which has been my life. The fact is, my dear fellow, that I have had no deep sorrow to bear, neither have I been happy. I have not been extraordinarily successful, and have drawn none of the prizes of life. But I am well aware that, in this respect, my lot resembles that of thousands of other men. I have always been obliged to work. I have earned my bread by the sweat of my brow. I have had money difficulties; I have even had a hopeless passion—but what then? every one has had that. Besides, that was in bygone days; I have learned to bear it, and to forget. What pains and angers me is, to have to confess that my life has been spent without satisfaction and without happiness." He paused an instant, and then resumed, more calmly: "A few years ago I was foolish enough to believe that things might in the end turn out better. I was a professor with a very moderate salary at the school at Elmira. I taught all I knew, and much that I had to learn in order to be able to teach it—Greek and Latin, German and French, mathematics and physical sciences. During the so-called play-hours, I even gave music lessons. In the course of the whole day there were few moments of liberty for me. I was perpetually surrounded by a crowd of rough, ill-bred boys, whose only object during lessons was to catch me making a fault in English. When evening came, I was quite worn out; still, I could always find time to dream for half an hour or so with my eyes open before going to bed. Then all my desires were accomplished, and I was supremely happy. At last I had drawn a prize! I was successful in everything; I was rich, honored, powerful—what more can I say? I astonished the world—or rather, I astonished Ellen Gilmore, who for me was the whole world. Hermann, have you ever been as mad? Have you, too, in a waking dream, been in turn a statesman, a millionaire, the author of a sublime work, a victorious general, the head of a great political party? Have you dreamt nonsense such as that? I, who am here, have been all I say—in dreamland. Never mind; that was a good time. Ellen Gilmore, whom I have just mentioned, was the eldest sister of one of my pupils, Francis Gilmore, the most undisciplined boy of the school. His parents, nevertheless, insisted on his learning something; and as I had the reputation of possessing unwearying patience, I was selected to give him private lessons. That was how I obtained a footing in the Gilmore family. Later on, when they had found out that I was somewhat of a musician—you may remember, perhaps, that for an amateur I was a tolerable performer on the piano—I went every day to the house to teach Latin and Greek to Francis, and music to Ellen. "Now, picture to yourself the situation, and then laugh at your friend as he has laughed at himself many a time. On the one side—the Gilmore side—a large fortune and no lack of pride; an intelligent, shrewd, and practical father; an ambitious and vain mother; an affectionate but spoilt boy; and a girl of nineteen, surpassingly lovely, with a cultivated mind and great good sense. On the other hand, you have Henry Warren, aged twenty-nine; in his dreams the author of a famous work, or the commander-in-chief of the Northern armies, or, it may be, President of the Republic—in reality, Professor at Elmira College, with a modest stipend of seventy dollars a month. Was it not evident that the absurdity of my position as a suitor for Ellen would strike me at once? Of course it did. In my lucid moments, when I was not dreaming, I was a very rational man, who had read a good deal, and learned not a little; and it would have been sheer madness in me to have indulged for an instant the hope of a marriage between Ellen and myself. I knew it was an utter impossibility—as impossible as to be elected President of the United States; and yet, in spite of myself, I dreamed of it. However, I must do myself the justice to add that my passion inconvenienced nobody. I would no more have spoken of it than of my imaginary command of the army of the Potomac. The pleasures which my love afforded me could give umbrage to no one. Yet I am convinced that Ellen read my secret. Not that she ever said a word to me on the subject; no look or syllable of hers could have made me suspect that she had guessed the state of my mind. "One single incident I remember which was not in accordance with her habitual reserve in this respect. I noticed one day that her eyes were red. Of course I dared not ask her why she had cried. During the lesson she seemed absent; and when leaving she said, without looking at me, 'I may perhaps be obliged to interrupt our lessons for some little time; I am very sorry. I wish you every happiness.' Then, without raising her eyes, she quickly left the room. I was bewildered. What could her words mean? And why had they been said in such an affectionate tone? "The next day Francis Gilmore called to inform me, with his father's compliments, that he was to have four days' holidays, because his sister had just been betrothed to Mr. Howard, a wealthy New York merchant, and that, for the occasion, there would be great festivities at home. "Thenceforward there was an end of the dreams which up to that moment had made life pleasant. In sober reason I had no more cause to deplore Ellen's marriage than to feel aggrieved because Grant had succeeded Johnson as President. Nevertheless, you can scarcely conceive how much this affair—I mean the marriage—grieved me. My absolute nothingness suddenly stared me in the face. I saw myself as I was—a mere schoolmaster, with no motive for pride in the past, or pleasure in the present, or hope in the future." Warren's pipe had gone out while he was telling his story. He cleaned it out methodically, drew from his pocket a cake of Cavendish tobacco, and, after cutting off with a penknife the necessary quantity, refilled his pipe and lit it. The way in which he performed all these little operations betrayed long habit. He had ceased to speak while he was relighting his pipe, and kept on whistling between his teeth. Hermann looked on—silently. After a few minutes, and when the pipe was in good order, Warren resumed his story. "For a few weeks I was terribly miserable; not so much because I had lost Ellen—a man cannot lose what he has never hoped to possess—as from the ruin of all my illusions. During those days I plucked and ate by the dozen of the fruits of the tree of self-knowledge, and I found them very bitter. I ended by leaving Elmira, to seek my fortunes elsewhere. I knew my trade well. Long practice had taught me how to make the best of my learning, and I never had any difficulty in finding employment. I taught successively in upwards of a dozen States of the Union. I can scarcely recollect the names of all the places where I have lived—Sacramento, Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Boston, New York; I have been everywhere—everywhere. And everywhere I have met with the same rude schoolboys, just as I have found the same regular and irregular verbs in Latin and Greek. If you would see a man thoroughly satiated and saturated with schoolboys and classical grammars, look at me. "In the leisure time which, whatever might be my work, I still contrived to make for myself, I indulged in philosophical reflections. Then it was I took to the habit of smoking so much." Warren stopped suddenly, and, looking straight before him, appeared plunged in thought. Then, passing his hand over his forehead, he repeated, in an absent manner, "Yes, of smoking so much. I also took to another habit," he added, somewhat hastily; "but that has nothing to do with my story. The theory which especially occupied my thoughts was that of the oscillations of an ideal instrument of my own imagining, to which, in my own mind, I gave the name of the Philosopher's Pendulum. To this invention I owe the quietude of mind which has supported me for many years, and which, as you see, I now enjoy. I said to myself that my great sorrow—if I may so call it without presumption—had arisen merely from my wish to be extraordinarily happy. When, in his dreams, a man has carried presumption so far as to attain to the heights of celebrity, or to being the husband of Ellen Gilmore, there was nothing wonderful if, on awaking, he sustained a heavy fall before reaching the depths of reality. Had I been less ambitious in my desires, their realization would have been easier, or, at any rate, the disappointment would have been less bitter. Starting from this principle, I arrived at the logical conclusion that the best means to avoid being unhappy is to wish for as little happiness as possible. This truth was discovered by my philosophical forefathers many centuries before the birth of Christ, and I lay no claim to being the finder of it; but the outward symbol which I ended by giving to this idea is—at least I fancy it is—of my invention. "Give me a sheet of paper and a pencil," he added, turning to his friend, "and with a few lines I can demonstrate clearly the whole thing." Hermann handed him what he wanted without a word. Warren then began gravely to draw a large semicircle, open at the top, and above the semicircular line a pendulum, which fell perpendicularly and touched the circumference at the exact point where on the dial of a clock would be inscribed the figure VI. This done, he wrote on the right-hand side of the pendulum, beginning from the bottom and at the places of the hours V, IV, III, the words Moderate Desires—Great Hopes, Ambition—Unbridled Passion, Mania of Greatness. Then, turning the paper upside-down, he wrote on the opposite side, where on a dial would be marked VII, VIII, IX, the words Slight Troubles—Deep Sorrow, Disappointment—Despair. Lastly, in the place of No. VI, just where the pendulum fell, he sketched a large black spot, which he shaded off with great care, and above which he wrote, like a scroll, Dead Stop, Absolute Repose. Having finished this little drawing, Warren laid down his pipe, inclined his head on one side, and raising his eyebrows, examined his work with a critical frown. "This compass is not yet quite complete," he said; "there is something missing. Between Dead Stop and Moderate Desires on the right, and Slight Troubles on the left, there is the beautiful line of Calm and Rational Indifference. However, such as the drawing is, it is sufficient to demonstrate my theory. Do you follow me?" Hermann nodded affirmatively. He was greatly pained. In lieu of the friend of his youth, for whom he had hoped a brilliant future, here was a poor monomaniac! "You see," said Warren, speaking collectedly, like a professor, "if I raise my pendulum till it reaches the point of Moderate Desires and then let it go, it will naturally swing to the point of Slight Troubles, and go no further. Then it will oscillate for some time in a more and more limited space on the line of Indifference, and finally it will stand still without any jerk on Dead Stop, Absolute Repose. That is a great consolation!" He paused, as if waiting for some remark from Hermann; but as the latter remained silent, Warren resumed his demonstration. "You understand now, I suppose, what I am coming to. If I raise the pendulum to the point of Ambition or Mania of Greatness, and then let it go, that same law which I have already applied will drive it to Deep Sorrow or Despair. That is quite clear, is it not?" "Quite clear," repeated Hermann sadly. "Very well," continued Warren, with perfect gravity; "for my misfortune, I discovered this fine theory rather late. I had not set bounds to my dreams and limited them to trifles. I had wished to be President of the Republic, an illustrious savant, the husband of Ellen. No great things, eh? What say you to my modesty? I had raised the pendulum to such a giddy height that when it slipped from my impotent hands it naturally performed a long oscillation, and touched the point Despair. That was a miserable time. I hope you have never suffered what I suffered then. I lived in a perpetual nightmare—like the stupor at intoxication." He paused, as he had done before, and then, with a painfully nervous laugh, he added, "Yes, like intoxication. I drank." Suddenly a spasm seemed to pass over his face, he looked serious and sad as before, and he said, with a shudder, "It's a terrible thing to see one's self inwardly, and to know that one is fallen." After this he remained long silent. At last, raising his head, he turned to his friend and said, "Have you had enough of my story, or would you like to hear it to the end?" "I am grieved at all you have told me," said Hermann; "but pray go on; it is better I should know all." "Yes; and I feel, too, that it relieves me to pour out my heart. Well, I used to drink. One takes to the horrid habit in America far easier than anywhere else. I was obliged to give up more than one good situation because I had ceased to be RESPECTABLE. Anyhow, I always managed to find employment without any great difficulty. I never suffered from want, though I have never known plenty. If I spent too much in drink, I took it out of my dress and my boots. "Eighteen months after I had left Elmira, I met Ellen one day in Central Park, in New York. I was aware that she had been married a twelve-month. She knew me again at once, and spoke to me. I would have wished to sink into the earth. I knew that my clothes were shabby, that I looked poor, and I fancied that she must discern on my face the traces of the bad habits I had contracted. But she did not, or would not, see anything. She held out her hand, and said in her gentle voice: "'I am very glad to see you again, Mr. Warren. I have inquired about you, but neither my father nor Francis could tell me what had become of you. I want to ask you to resume the lessons you used to give me. Perhaps you do not know where I live? This is my address,' and she gave me her card. "I stammered out a few unmeaning words in reply to her invitation. She looked at me, smiling kindly the while; but suddenly the smile vanished, and she added, 'Have you been ill, Mr. Warren? You seem worn.' "'Yes,' I answered, too glad to find an excuse for my appearance—'yes, I have been ill, and I am still suffering.' "'I am very sorry,' she said, in a low voice. "Laugh at me, Hermann—call me an incorrigible madman; but believe me when I say that her looks conveyed to me the impression of more than common interest or civility. A thrilling sense of pain shot through my frame. What had I done that I should be so cruelly tried? A mist passed before my eyes; anxiety, intemperance, sleeplessness, had made me weak. I tottered backwards a few steps. She turned horribly pale. All around us was the crowd—the careless, indifferent crowd. "'Come and see me soon,' she added hastily, and left me. I saw her get into a carriage, which she had doubtless quitted to take a walk; and when she drove past, she put her head out and looked at me with her eyes wide open—there was an almost wildly anxious expression in them. "I went home. My way led me past her house—it was a palace. I shut myself up in my wretched hotel-room, and once more I fell to dreaming. Ellen loved me; she admired me; she was not for ever lost to me! The pendulum was swinging, you see, up as high as Madness. Explain to me, if you can, how it happens that a being perfectly rational in ordinary life should at certain seasons, and, so to speak, voluntarily, be bereft of reason. To excuse and explain my temporary insanity, I am ready to admit that the excitement to which I gave way may have been a symptom of the nervous malady which laid hold of me a few days later, and stretched me for weeks upon a bed of pain. "As I became convalescent, reason and composure returned. But it was too late. In the space of two months, twenty years had passed over my head. When I rose from my sick-bed I was as feeble and as broken-down as you see me now. My past had been cheerless and dim, without one ray of happiness; yet that past was all my life! Henceforward there was nothing left for me to undertake, to regret, or to desire. The pendulum swung idly backwards and forwards on the line of Indifference. I wonder what are the feelings of successful men—of men who HAVE been victorious generals, prime ministers, celebrated authors, and that sort of tiling! Upheld by a legitimate pride, do they retire satisfied from the lists when evening conies, or do they lay down their arms as I did, disappointed and dejected, and worn out with the fierce struggle? Can no man with impunity look into his own heart and ask himself how his life has been spent?" Here Warren made a still longer pause than before, and appeared absorbed in gloomy thought. At last he resumed in a lower tone: "I had not followed up Ellen's invitation. But in some way she had discovered my address, and knew of my illness. Do not be alarmed, my dear Hermann; my story will not become romantic. No heavenly vision appeared to me during my fever; I felt no gentle white hands laid on my burning brow. I was nursed at the hospital, and very well nursed too; I figured there as 'Number 380,' and the whole affair was, as you see, as prosaic as possible. But on quitting the hospital, and as I was taking leave of the manager, he handed me a letter, in which was enclosed a note for five hundred dollars. In the envelope there was also the following anonymous note: "'An old friend begs your acceptance, as a loan, of the inclosed sum. It will be time enough to think of paying off this debt when you are strong enough to resume work, and you can then do it by instalments, of which you can yourself fix the amount, and remit them to the hospital of New York.' "It was well meant, no doubt, but it caused me a painful impression. My determination was taken at once. I refused without hesitation. I asked the manager, who had been watching me with a friendly smile while I read the letter, whether he could give the name of the person who had sent it. In spite of his repeated assurances that he did not know it, I never doubted for a single instant that he was concealing the truth. After a few seconds' reflection I asked if he would undertake to forward an answer to my unknown correspondent; and, on his consenting to do so, I promised that he should have my answer the next day. "I thought long over my letter. One thing was plain to me—it was Ellen who had come to my help. How could I reject her generous aid without wounding her or appearing ungrateful? After great hesitation I wrote a few lines, which, as far as I can recollect, ran thus: "'I thank you for the interest you have shown me, but it is impossible for me to accept the sum you place at my disposal. Do not be angry with me because I return it. Do not withdraw your sympathy; I will strive to remain worthy of it, and will never forget your goodness.' "A few days later, after having confided this letter to the manager, I left New York for San Francisco. For several years I heard nothing of Ellen; her image grew gradually fainter, and at last almost disappeared from my memory. "The dark river that bore the frail bark which carried me and my fortunes was carrying me smoothly and unconsciously along towards the mysterious abyss where all that exists is engulfed. Its course lay through a vast desert; and the banks which passed before my eyes were of fearful sameness. Indescribable lassitude took possession of my whole being. I had never, knowingly, practised evil; I had loved and sought after good. Why, then, was I so wretched? I would have blessed the rock which wrecked my bark so that I might have been swallowed up and have gone down to my eternal rest. Up to the day when I heard of Ellen's betrothal, I had hoped that the morrow would bring happiness. The long-wished-for morrow had come at last, gloomy and colorless, without realizing any of my vague hopes. Henceforth my life was at an end." Warren said these last words so indistinctly that Hermann could scarcely hear them; he seemed to be speaking to himself rather than to his friend. Then he raised the forefinger of his right hand, and after moving it slowly from right to left, in imitation of the swing of a pendulum, he placed it on the large black dot he had drawn on the sheet of paper exactly below his pendulum, and said, "Dead Stop, Absolute Repose. Would that the end were come!" Another and still longer interval of silence succeeded, and at last Hermann felt constrained to speak. "How came you to make up your mind," he said, "to return to Europe?" "Ah, yes, to be sure," answered Warren, hurriedly; "the story—the foolish story—is not ended. In truth it has no end, as it had no beginning; it is a thing without form or purpose, and less the history of a life than of a mere journeying towards death. Still I will finish—following chronological order. It does not weary you?" "No, no; go on, my dear friend." "Very well. I spent several years in the United States. The pendulum worked well. It came and went, to and fro, slowly along the line of Indifference, without ever transgressing as its extreme limits on either hand, Moderate Desires and Slight Troubles. I led obscurely a contemplative life, and I was generally considered a queer character. I fulfilled my duties, and took little heed of any one. Whenever I had an hour at my disposal, I sought solitude in the neighboring woods, far from the town and from mankind. I used to lie down under the big trees. Every season in turn, spring and summer, autumn and winter, had its peculiar charm for me. My heart, so full of bitterness, felt lightened as soon as I listened to the rustling of the foliage overhead. The forest! There is nothing finer in all creation. A deep calm seemed to settle down upon me. I was growing old. I was forgetting. It was about this time that, in consequence of my complete indifference to all surroundings, I acquired the habit of answering 'Very well' to everything that was said. The words came so naturally that I was not aware of my continual use of them, until one day one of my fellow-teachers happened to tell me that masters and pupils alike had given me the nickname of 'Very well.' Is it not odd that one who has never succeeded in anything should be known as 'Very well'? "I have only one other little adventure to relate, and I will have told all. Then I can listen to your story. "Last year, my journeyings brought me to the neighborhood of Elmira. It was holiday-time. I had nothing to do, and I had in my purse a hundred hardly earned dollars, or thereabout. The wish seized me to revisit the scene of my joys and my sorrows. I had not set foot in the place for more than seven years. I was so changed that nobody could know me again; nor would I have cared much if they had. After visiting the town and looking at my old school, and the house where Ellen had lived, I bent my steps towards the park, which is situated in the environs—a place where I used often to walk in company of my youthful dreams. It was September, and evening was closing in. The oblique rays of the setting sun sent a reddish gleam the leafy branches of the old oaks. I seated on a bench beneath a tree on one side of the path. As I drew near I recognized Ellen. I remained rooted to the spot where I stood, not daring to move a step. She was stooping forward with her head bent down, while with the end of her parasol she traced lines upon the gravel. She had not seen me. I turned back instantly, and retired without making any noise. When I had gone a little distance, I left the path and struck into the wood. Once there, I looked back cautiously. Ellen was still at the same place and in the same attitude. Heaven knows what thoughts passed through my brain! I longed to see her closer. What danger was there? I was sure she would not know me again. I walked towards her with the careless step of a casual passer-by, and in a few minutes passed before her. When my shadow fell on the path, she looked up, and our eyes met. My heart was beating fast. Her look was cold and indifferent; but suddenly a strange light shot into her eyes, and she made a quick movement, as if to rise. I saw no more, and went on without turning round. Before I could get out of the park her carriage drove past me, and I saw her once more as I had seen her five years before in Central Park, pale, with distended eyes, and her anxious looks fixed upon me. Why did I not bow to her? I cannot say; my courage failed me. I saw the light die out of her eyes. I almost fancied that I saw her heave a sigh of relief as she threw herself back carelessly in the carriage; and she disappeared. I was then thirty-six, and I am almost ashamed to relate the schoolboy's trick of which I was guilty. I sent her the following lines: 'A devoted friend, whom you obliged in former days, and who met you yesterday in the park without your recognizing him, sends you his remembrances.' I posted this letter a few minutes before getting into the train which was to take me to New York; and, as I did so, my heart beat as violently as though I had performed a heroic deed. Great adventures, forsooth! And to think that my life presents none more striking, and that trifles such as these are the only food for my memory! "A twelvemonth later I met Francis Gilmore in Broadway. The world is small—so small that it is really difficult to keep out of the way of people one has once known. The likeness of my former pupil to his sister struck me, and I spoke to him. He looked at me at first with a puzzled expression, but after a few moments of hesitation he recognized me, a bright smile lighted up his pleasant face, and he shook hands warmly. "'Mr. Warren,' he exclaimed, 'how glad I am to see you! Ellen and I have often talked of you, and wondered what could have become of you. Why did we never hear from you?' "'I did not suppose it would interest you.' I spoke timidly; and yet I owed nothing to the young fellow, and wanted nothing of him. "'You wrong us by saying that,' replied Francis; 'do you think me ungrateful? Do you fancy I have forgotten our pleasant walks in former days, and the long conversations we used to have? You alone ever taught me anything, and it is to you I owe the principles that have guided me through life. Many a day I have thought of you, and regretted you sincerely. As regards Ellen, no one has ever filled your place with her; she plays to this day the same pieces of music you taught her, and follows all your directions with a fidelity that would touch you.' "'How are your father and mother, and how is your sister?' I inquired, feeling more deeply moved than I can express. "'My poor mother died three years ago. It is Ellen who keeps house now.' "'Your brother-in-law lives with you, then?' "'My brother-in-law!' replied Francis, with surprise; 'did you not know that he was on board the Atlantic, which was lost last year in the passage from Liverpool to New York?' "I could find no words to reply. "'As to that,' added Francis, with great composure—'between you and me, he was no great loss. My dear brother-in-law was not by any means what my father fancied he was when he gave him my sister as a wife. The whole family has often regretted the marriage. Ellen lived apart from her husband for many years before his death.' "I nodded so as to express my interest in his communications, but I could not for worlds have uttered a syllable. "'You will come and see us soon, I hope,' added Francis, without noticing my emotion. 'We are still at the same place; but to make sure, here is my card. Come, Mr. Warren—name your own day to come and dine with us. I promise you a hearty welcome.' "I got off by promising to write the next day, and we parted. "Fortunately my mind had lost its former liveliness. The pendulum, far from being urged to unruly motion, continued to swing slowly in the narrow space where it had oscillated for so many years. I said to myself that to renew my intimacy with the Gilmores would be to run the almost certain risk of reviving the sorrows and the disappointments of the past. I was then calm and rational. It would be madness in me, I felt, to aspire to the hand of a young, wealthy, and much admired widow. To venture to see Ellen again was to incur the risk of seeing my reason once more wrecked, and the fatal chimera which had been the source of all my misery start into life again. If we are to believe what poets say, love ennobles man and exalts him into a demigod. It may be so, but it turns him likewise into a fool and a madman. That was my case. At any cost I was to guard against that fatal passion. I argued seriously with myself, and I determined to let the past be, and to reject every opportunity of bringing it to life again. "A few days before my meeting with Francis, I had received tidings of the death of an old relative, whom I scarcely knew. In my childhood I had, on one or two occasions, spent my holidays at his house. He was gloomy and taciturn, but nevertheless he had always welcomed me kindly. I have a vague remembrance of having been told that he had been in love with my mother once upon a time, and that on hearing of her marriage he had retired into the solitude which he never left till the day of his death. Be that as it may, I had not lost my place in his affections, it seems: he had continued to feel an interest in me; and on his deathbed he had remembered me, and left me the greater part of his not very considerable fortune. I inherited little money; but there was a small, comfortably-furnished country-house, and an adjoining farm let on a long lease for two hundred and forty pounds per annum. This was wealth for me, and more than enough to satisfy all my wants. Since I had heard of this legacy I had been doubtful as to my movements. My chance meeting with Francis settled the matter. I resolved at once to leave America, and to return to live in my native country. I knew your address, and wrote to you at once. I trusted that the sight of my old and only friend would console me for the disappointments that life has inflicted on me—and I have not been deceived. At last I have been able to open my heart to a fellow-creature, and relieve myself of the heavy burden which I have borne alone ever since our separation. Now I feel lighter. You are not a severe judge. Doubtless you deplore my weakness, but you do not condemn me. If, as I have already said, I have done no good, neither have I committed any wicked action. I have been a nonentity—an utterly useless being; 'one too many,' like the sad hero of Tourgueneff's sad story. Before leaving, I wrote to Francis informing him that the death of a relative obliged me to return to Europe, and giving him your address, so as not to seem to be running away from him. Then I went on board, and at last reached your home. Dixi!" Warren, who during this long story had taken care to keep his pipe alight, and had, moreover, nearly drained the bottle of port placed before him, now declared himself ready to listen to his friend's confession. But Hermann had been saddened by all he had heard, and was in no humor for talking. He remarked that it was getting late, and proposed to postpone any further conversation till the morrow. Warren merely answered, "Very well," knocked the ashes out of his pipe, shared out the remainder of the wine between his host and himself, and, raising his glass, said, in a somewhat solemn tone, "To our youth, Hermann!" After emptying his glass at one draught, he replaced it on the table, and said complacently, "It is long since I have drunk with so much pleasure; for this time I have not drunk to forgetfulness, but to memory." II. Warren spent another week in Leipzig with his friend. No man was easier to live with: to every suggestion of Hermann's he invariably answered, "Very well;" and if Hermann proposed nothing, he was quite content to remain seated in a comfortable arm-chair by the fireside, holding a book which he scarcely looked at, and watching the long rolls of smoke from his pipe. He disliked new acquaintances; nevertheless, the friends to whom Hermann introduced him found in him a quiet, unobtrusive, and well-informed companion. He pleased everybody. There was something strange and yet attractive in his person; there was a "charm" about him, people said. Hermann felt the attraction without being able to define in what it consisted. Their former friendship had been renewed unreservedly. The kind of fascination that Warren exercised over all those who approached him often led Hermann to think that it was not unlikely that in his youth he had inspired a real love in Ellen Gilmore. One evening Hermann took his friend to the theatre, where a comic piece was being performed. In his young days Warren had been very partial to plays of that kind, and his joyous peals of laughter on such occasions still rang in the ears of his friend. But the attempt was a complete failure. Warren watched the performance without showing the slightest interest, and never even smiled. During the opening scenes he listened with attention, as though he were assisting at some performance of the legitimate drama; then, as if he could not understand what was going on before his eyes, he turned away with a wearied air and began looking at the audience. When, at the close of the second act, Hermann proposed that they should leave the house, he answered readily: "Yes, let us go; all this seems very stupid—we will be much better at home. There is a time for all things, and buffoonery suits me no longer." There was nothing left in Warren of the friend that Hermann had known fifteen years before. He loved him none the less; on the contrary, to his affection for him had been superadded a feeling of deep compassion. He would have made great sacrifices to secure his friend's happiness, and to see a smile light up the immovable features and the sorrowful dulness of the eye. His friendly anxiety had not been lost upon Warren; and when the latter took his leave, he said with emotion: "You wish me well, my old friend, I see it and feel it; and, believe me, I am grateful. We must not lose sight of each other again—I will write regularly." A few days later, Hermann received a letter for his friend. It was an American letter, and the envelope was stamped with the initials "E. H." They were those of Ellen Howard, the heroine of Warren's sad history. He forwarded the letter immediately, and wrote at the same time to his friend: "I hope the inclosed brings you good news from America." But in his reply Warren took no notice of this passage, and made no allusion to Ellen. He only spoke of the new house in which he had just settled himself—"to end," as he said, "his days;" and he pressed Hermann to come and join him. The two friends at last agreed to pass Christmas and New Year's Day together; but when December came, Warren urged his friend to hasten his arrival. "I do not feel well," he wrote, "and am often so weary that I stay at home all day. I have made no new acquaintances, and, most likely, will make none. I am alone. Your society would give me great pleasure. Come; your room is ready, and will be, I trust, to your liking. There is a large writing table and tolerably well-filled book-shelves; you can write there quite at your ease, without fear of disturbance. Come as soon as possible, my dear friend. I am expecting you impatiently." Hermann happened to be at leisure, and was able to comply with his friend's wish, and to go to him in the first week of December. He found Warren looking worn and depressed. It was in vain he sought to induce him to consult a physician. Warren would reply: "Doctors can do nothing for my complaint. I know where the shoe pinches. A physician would order me probably to seek relaxation and amusement, just as he would advise a poor devil whose blood is impoverished by bad food to strengthen himself with a generous diet and good wine. The poor man could not afford to get the good living, and I do not know what could enliven or divert me. Travel? I like nothing so well as sitting quietly in my arm-chair. New faces? They would not interest me—yours is the only company I prefer to solitude. Books? I am too old to take pleasure in learning new things, and what I have learned has ceased to interest me. It is not always easy to get what might do one good, and we must take things as they are." Hermann noticed, as before, that his friend ate little, but that, on the other hand, he drank a great deal. The sincere friendship he felt for him emboldened him to make a remark on the subject. "It is true," said Warren, "I drink too much; but what can I do? Food is distasteful to me, and I must keep up my strength somehow. I am in a wretched state; my health is ruined." One evening, as the two friends were seated together in Warren's room, while the wind and sleet were beating against the window-panes, the invalid began of his own accord to speak about Ellen. "We now correspond regularly," he said. "She tells me in her last letter that she hopes soon to see me. Do you know, Hermann, that she is becoming an enigma for me? It is very evident that she does not treat me like other people, and I often wonder and ask myself what I am in her eyes? What does she feel towards me? Love? That is inadmissible. Pity, perhaps? This then, is the end of my grand dreams—to be an object of pity? I have just answered her letter to say that I am settled here with the fixed intention of ending my useless existence in quiet and idleness. Do you remember a scene in Henry Heine's 'Reisebilder,' when a young student kisses a pretty girl, who lets him have his own way and makes no great resistance, because he has told her, 'I will be gone to-morrow at dawn, and I will never see you again'? The certainty of never seeing a person again gives a man the courage to say things that otherwise he would have kept hidden in the most secret depths of his being. I feel that my life is drawing to a close. Do not say no, my dear friend; my presentiments are certain. I have written it to Ellen. I have told her other things besides. What folly! All I have ever done has been folly or chimera. I end my life logically, in strict accordance with my whole Past, by making my first avowal of love on my deathbed. Is not that as useless a thing as can be?" Hermann would have wished to know some particulars about this letter; but Warren replied, somewhat vaguely, "If I had a copy of my letter, I would show it to you willingly. You know my whole story, and I would not be ashamed to lay before you my last act of folly. I wrote about a fortnight ago, when I felt sure that death was drawing near. I was in a fever, not from fear—Death gains but little by taking my life—but from a singular species of excitement. I do not remember what were the words I used. Who knows? Perhaps this last product of my brain may have been quite a poetical performance. Never mind! I do not repent of what I have done; I am glad that Ellen should know at last that I have loved her silently and hopelessly. If that is not disinterested, what is?" he added with a bitter smile. Christmas went by sadly. Warren was now so weak that he could scarcely leave his bed for two or three hours each day. Hermann had taken upon himself to send for a doctor, but this latter had scarcely known what to prescribe. Warren was suffering from no special malady; he was dying of exhaustion. Now and then, during a few moments, which became daily more rare and more brief, his vivacity would return; but the shadow of Death was already darkening his mind. On New Year's Eve he got up very late. "We will welcome in the New Year," he said to Hermann. "I hope it may bring you happiness; I know it will bring me rest." A few minutes before midnight he opened the piano, and played with solemnity, and as if it had been a chorale, a song of Schumann's, entitled "To the Drinking-cup of a Departed Friend." Then, on the first stroke of midnight, he filled two glasses with some old Rhenish wine, and raised his own glass slowly. He was very pale, and his eyes were shining with feverish light. He was in a state of strange and fearful excitement. He looked at the glass which he held, and repeated deliberately a verse of the song which he had just been playing. "The vulgar cannot understand what I see at the bottom of this cup." Then, at one draught, he drained the full glass. While he was thus speaking and drinking, he had taken no notice of Hermann, who was watching him with consternation. Recovering himself at length, he exclaimed, "Another glass, Hermann! To friendship!" He drained this second glass, like the first, to the very last drop; and then, exhausted by the effort he had made, he sank heavily on a chair. Soon after, Hermann led him, like a sleepy child, to his bed. During the days that followed, he was unable to leave his room; and the doctor thought it right to warn Hermann that all the symptoms seemed to point to a fatal issue. On the 8th of January a servant from the hotel in the little neighboring town brought a letter, which, he said, required an immediate answer. The sick man was then lying almost unconscious. Hermann broke the seal without hesitation, and read as follows: "MY DEAR FRIEND,—A visit to Europe which my father had long planned has at last been undertaken. I did not mention it to you, in order to have the pleasure of surprising you. On reaching this place, I learn that the illness of which you spoke in your last letter has not yet left you. Under these circumstances, I will not venture to present myself without warning you of my arrival, and making sure that you are able to receive me. I am here with my brother, who, like myself, would not come so near to you without seeing you. My father has gone on to Paris, where Francis and I will join him in a few days. ELLEN." Hermann, after one instant's thought, took up his hat and dismissed the messenger, saying he would give the answer himself. At the hotel he sent in his card, with the words, "From Mr. Warren," and was immediately ushered into Ellen's presence. She was alone. Hermann examined her rapidly. He saw an extremely beautiful woman, whose frank and fearless eyes were fixed on him with a questioning look. Hermann had not frequented the society of women much, and was usually rather embarrassed in their presence. But on this occasion he thought only of his friend, and found no difficulty in explaining the motive of his visit. He told her his friend was ill—very ill—dying—and that he had opened the letter addressed to Warren. Ellen did not answer for some time; she seemed not to have understood what she had heard. After a while her eyes filled with tears, and she asked whether she could see Mr. Warren. On Hermann answering in the affirmative, she further inquired whether her brother might accompany her. "Two visitors might fatigue the invalid too much," said Hermann; "your brother may come later." "Are you not afraid that my visit may tire him?" "I do not think so; it will make him very happy." Ellen only took a few minutes to put on her hat and cloak, and they started. The short journey was accomplished in silence. When they reached the house, Hermann went in first to see how the dying man was. He was lying in his bed, in the delirium of fever, muttering incoherent sentences. Nevertheless he recognized Hermann, and asked for something to drink. After having allayed his thirst, he closed his eyes, as if to sleep. "I have brought you a friend," said Hermann; "will you see him?" "Hermann? He is always welcome." "No; it is a friend from America." "From America?…I lived there many years…How desolate and monotonous were the shores I visited!…" "Will you see your friend?" "I am carried away by the current of the river. In the distance I see dark and shadowy forms; there are hills full of shade and coolness…but I will never rest there." Hermann retired noiselessly, and returned almost immediately with Ellen. Warren, who had taken no notice of him, continued to follow the course of his wandering thoughts. "The river is drawing near to the sea. Already I can hear the roar of the waves…The banks are beginning to be clothed with verdure…The hills are drawing nearer….It is dark now. Here are the big trees beneath which I have dreamed so often. A radiant apparition shines through their foliage….It comes towards me… Ellen!" She was standing beside the bed. The dying man saw her, and without showing the least surprise, said with a smile, "Thank God! you have come in time. I knew you were coming." He murmured a few unintelligible words, and then remained silent for a long while. His eyes were wide open. Suddenly he cried, "Hermann!" Hermann came and stood beside Ellen. "The pendulum…You know what I mean?" A frank childish smile—the smile of his student days—lighted up his pallid face. He raised his right hand, and tracing in the air with his forefinger a wide semicircle, to imitate the oscillation of a pendulum, he said, "Then." He then figured in the same manner a more limited and slower movement, and after repeating it several times, said, "Now." Lastly, he pointed straight before him with a motionless and almost menacing finger, and said with a weak voice, "Soon." He spoke no more, and closed his eyes. The breathing was becoming very difficult. Ellen bent, over him, and called him softly, "Henry, Henry!" He opened his eyes. She brought her mouth close to his ear, and said, with a sob, "I have always loved you." "I knew it from the first," he said, quietly and with confidence. A gentle expression stole over his countenance, and life seemed to return. Once more he had the confident look of youth. A sad and beautiful smile played on his lips; he took the hand of Ellen in his, and kissed it gently. "How do you feel now?" inquired Hermann. The old answer, "Very well." His hands were plucking at the bedclothes, as if he strove to cover his face with them. Then his arms stiffened and the fingers remained motionless. "Very well," he repeated. He appeared to fall into deep thought. There was a long pause. At last he turned a dying look, fraught with tender pity and sadness, towards Ellen, and in a low voice, which was scarcely audible, he said these two words, with a slight emphasis on the first—"PERFECTLY well."
ponedjeljak, 15. rujna 2025.
The day had scarcely dawned. Over Vesuvius hung one broad gray stripe of mist, stretching across as far as Naples, and darkening all the small towns along the coast. The sea lay calm. Along the shore of the narrow creek that lies beneath the Sorrento cliffs, fishermen and their wives were at work already, some with giant cables drawing their boats to land, with the nets that had been cast the night before, while others were rigging their craft, trimming the sails, or fetching out oars and masts from the great grated vaults that have been built deep into the rocks for shelter to the tackle overnight. Nowhere an idle hand; even the very aged, who had long given up going to sea, fell into the long chain of those who were hauling in the nets. Here and there, on some flat housetop, an old woman stood and spun, or busied herself about her grandchildren, whom their mother had left to help her husband. "Do you see, Rachela? yonder is our padre curato," said one to a little thing of ten, who brandished a small spindle by her side; "Antonio is to row him over to Capri. Madre Santissima! but the reverend signore's eyes are dull with sleep!" and she waved her hand to a benevolent-looking little priest, who was settling himself in the boat, and spreading out upon the bench his carefully tucked-up skirts. The men upon the quay had dropped their work to see their pastor off, who bowed and nodded kindly, right and left. "What for must he go to Capri, granny?" asked the child. "Have the people there no priest of their own, that they must borrow ours?" "Silly thing!" returned the granny. "Priests they have in plenty—and the most beautiful of churches, and a hermit too, which is more than we have. But there lives a great signora, who once lived here; she was so very ill! Many's the time our padre had to go and take the Most Holy to her, when they thought she could not live the night. But with the Blessed Virgin's help she got strong and well, and was able to bathe every day in the sea. When she went away, she left a fine heap of ducats behind her for our church, and for the poor; and she would not go, they say, until our padre promised to go and see her over there, that she might confess to him as before. It is quite wonderful, the store she lays by him! Indeed, and we have cause to bless ourselves for having a curato who has gifts enough for an archbishop, and is in such request with all the great folks. The Madonna be with him!" she cried, and waved her hand again, as the boat was about to put from shore. "Are we to have fair weather, my son?" inquired the little priest, with an anxious look toward Naples. "The sun is not yet up," the young man answered; "when he comes, he will easily do for that small trifle of mist." "Off with you, then! that we may arrive before the heat." Antonio was just reaching for his long oar to shove away the boat, when suddenly he paused, and fixed his eyes upon the summit of the steep path that leads down from Sorrento to the water. A tall and slender girlish figure had become visible upon the heights, and was now hastily stepping down the stones, waving her handkerchief She had a small bundle under her arm, and her dress was mean and poor. Yet she had a distinguished if somewhat savage way of throwing back her head, and the dark tress wreathed around it was like a diadem. "What have we to wait for?" inquired the curato. "There is some one coming who wants to go to Capri—with your permission, padre. We shall not go a whit the slower. It is a slight young thing, but just eighteen." At that moment the young girl appeared from behind the wall that bounds the winding path. "Laurella!" cried the priest; "and what has she to do in Capri?" Antonio shrugged his shoulders. She came up with hasty steps, her eyes fixed straight before her. "Ha! l'Arrabiata! good-morning!" shouted one or two of the young boatmen. But for the curato's presence, they might have added more; the look of mute defiance with which the young girl received their welcome appeared to tempt the more mischievous among them. "Good-day, Laurella!" now said the priest; "how are you? Are you coming with us to Capri?" "If I may, padre." "Ask Antonio there; the boat is his. Every man is master of his own, I say, as God is master of us all." "There is half a carlino, if I may go for that?" said Laurella, without looking at the young boatman. "You need it more than I," he muttered, and pushed aside some orange-baskets to make room: he was to sell the oranges in Capri, which little isle of rocks has never been able to grow enough for all its visitors. "I do not choose to go for nothing," said the girl, with a slight frown of her dark eyebrows. "Come, child," said the priest; "he is a good lad, and had rather not enrich himself with that little morsel of your poverty. Come now, and step in," and he stretched out his hand to help her, "and sit you down by me. See, now, he has spread his jacket for you, that you may sit the softer. Young folks are all alike; for one little maiden of eighteen they will do more than for ten of us reverend fathers. Nay, no excuse, Tonino. It is the Lord's own doing, that like and like should hold together." Meantime Laurella had stepped in, and seated herself beside the padre, first putting away Antonio's jacket without a word. The young fellow let it lie, and, muttering between his teeth, he gave one vigorous push against the pier, and the little boat flew out into the open bay. "What are you carrying there in that little bundle?" inquired the padre, as they were floating on over a calm sea, now just beginning to be lighted up with the earliest rays of the rising sun. "Silk, thread, and a loaf, padre. The silk is to be sold at Anacapri, to a woman who makes ribbons, and the thread to another." "Spun by yourself?" "Yes, sir." "You once learned to weave ribbons yourself, if I remember right?" "I did, sir; but mother has been much worse, and I cannot stay so long from home; and a loom to ourselves we are not rich enough to buy." "Worse, is she? Ah! dear, dear! when I was with you last, at Easter, she was up." "The spring is always her worst time. Ever since those last great storms, and the earthquakes she has been forced to keep her bed from pain." "Pray, my child. Never slacken your prayers and petitions that the Blessed Virgin may intercede for you; and be industrious and good, that your prayers may find a hearing." After a pause: "When you were coming toward the shore, I heard them calling after you. 'Good-morning, l'Arrabiata!' they said. What made them call you so? It is not a nice name for a young Christian maiden, who should be meek and mild." The young girl's brown face glowed all over, while her eyes flashed fire. "They always mock me so, because I do not dance and sing, and stand about to chatter, as other girls do. I might be left in peace, I think; I do THEM no harm." "Nay, but you might be civil. Let others dance and sing, on whom this life sits lighter; but a kind word now and then is seemly even from the most afflicted." Her dark eyes fell, and she drew her eyebrows closer over them, as if she would have hidden them. They went on a while in silence. The sun now stood resplendent above the mountain chain; only the tip of Mount Vesuvius towered beyond the group of clouds that had gathered about its base; and on the Sorrento plains the houses were gleaming white from the dark green of their orange-gardens. "Have you heard no more of that painter, Laurella?" asked the curato—"that Neapolitan, who wished so much to marry you?" She shook her head. "He came to make a picture of you. Why would you not let him?" "What did he want it for? There are handsomer girls than I. Who knows what he would have done with it? He might have bewitched me with it, or hurt my soul, or even killed me, mother says." "Never believe such sinful things!" said the little curato very earnestly. "Are not you ever in God's keeping, without whose will not one hair of your head can fall? and is one poor mortal with an image in his hand to prevail against the Lord? Besides, you might have seen that he was fond of you; else why should he want to marry you?" She said nothing. "And wherefore did you refuse him? He was an honest man, they say, and comely; and he would have kept you and your mother far better than you ever can yourself, for all your spinning and silk-winding." "We are so poor!" she said passionately; "and mother has been ill so long, we should have become a burden to him. And then I never should have done for a signora. When his friends came to see him, he would only have been ashamed of me." "How can you say so? I tell you the man was good and kind; he would even have been willing to settle in Sorrento. It will not be so easy to find another, sent straight from heaven to be the saving of you, as this man, indeed, appeared to be." "I want no husband—I never shall," she said, very stubbornly, half to herself. "Is this a vow? or do you mean to be a nun?" She shook her head. "The people are not so wrong who call you wilful, although the name they give you is not kind. Have you ever considered that you stand alone in the world, and that your perverseness must make your sick mother's illness worse to bear, her life more bitter? And what sound reason can you have to give for rejecting an honest hand, stretched out to help you and your mother? Answer me, Laurella." "I have a reason," she said reluctantly, and speaking low; "but it is one I cannot give." "Not give! not give to me? not to your confessor, whom you surely know to be your friend—or is he not?" Laurella nodded. "Then, child, unburden your heart. If your reason be a good one, I shall be the very first to uphold you in it. Only you are young, and know so little of the world. A time may come when you will find cause to regret a chance of happiness thrown away for some foolish fancy now." Shyly she threw a furtive glance over to the other end of the boat, where the young boatman sat, rowing fast. His woollen cap was pulled deep down over his eyes; he was gazing far across the water, with averted head, sunk, as it appeared, in his own meditations. The priest observed her look, and bent his ear down closer. "You did not know my father?" she whispered, while a dark look gathered in her eyes. "Your father, child! Why, your father died when you were ten years old. What can your father (Heaven rest his soul in paradise!) have to do with this present perversity of yours?" "You did not know him, padre; you did not know that mother's illness was caused by him alone." "And how?" "By his ill-treatment of her; he beat her and trampled upon her. I well remember the nights when he came home in his fits of frenzy. She never said a word, and did everything he bade her. Yet he would beat her so, my heart felt ready to break. I used to cover up my head and pretend to be asleep, but I cried all night. And then, when he saw her lying on the floor, quite suddenly he would change, and lift her up and kiss her, till she screamed and said he smothered her. Mother forbade me ever to say a word of this; but it wore her out. And in all these long years since father died, she has never been able to get well again. And if she should soon die—which God forbid!—I know who it was that killed her." The little curato's head wagged slowly to and fro; he seemed uncertain how far to acquiesce in the young girl's reasons. At length he said: "Forgive him, as your mother has forgiven! And turn your thoughts from such distressing pictures, Laurella; there may be better days in store for you, which will make you forget the past." "Never shall I forget that!" she said, and shuddered. "And you must know, padre, it is the reason why I have resolved to remain unmarried. I never will be subject to a man, who may beat and then caress me. Were a man now to want to beat or kiss me, I could defend myself; but mother could not—neither from his blows nor kisses—because she loved him. Now, I will never so love a man as to be made ill and wretched by him." "You are but a child, and you talk like one who knows nothing at all of life. Are all men like that poor father of yours? Do all ill-treat their wives, and give vent to every whim and gust of passion? Have you never seen a good man yet? or known good wives, who live in peace and harmony with their husbands?" "But nobody ever knew how father was to mother; she would have died sooner than complain or tell of him, and all because she loved him. If this be love—if love can close our lips when they should cry out for help—if it is to make us suffer without resistance, worse than even our worst enemy could make us suffer—then, I say, I never will be fond of mortal man." "I tell you you are childish; you know not what you are saying. When your time comes, you are not likely to be consulted whether you choose to fall in love or not." After a pause, he added, "And that painter: did you think he could have been cruel?" "He made those eyes I have seen my father make, when he begged my mother's pardon and took her in his arms to make it up. I know those eyes. A man may make such eyes, and yet find it in his heart to beat a wife who never did a thing to vex him! It made my flesh creep to see those eyes again." After this she would not say another word. The curato also remained silent. He bethought himself of more than one wise saying, wherewith the maiden might have been admonished; but he refrained, in consideration of the young boatman, who had been growing rather restless toward the close of this confession. When, after two hours' rowing, they reached the little bay of Capri, Antonio took the padre in his arms, and carried him through the last few ripples of shallow water, to set him reverently down upon his legs on dry land. But Laurella did not wait for him to wade back and fetch her. Gathering up her little petticoat, holding in one hand her wooden shoes and in the other her little bundle, with one splashing step or two she had reached the shore. "I have some time to stay at Capri," said the priest. "You need not wait—I may not perhaps return before to-morrow. When you get home, Laurella, remember me to your mother; I will come and see her within the week. You mean to go back before it gets dark?" "If I find an opportunity," answered the girl, turning all her attention to her skirts. "I must return, you know," said Antonio, in a tone which he believed to be one of great indifference. "I shall wait here till the Ave Maria. If you should not come, it is the same to me." "You must come," interposed the little priest; "you never can leave your mother all alone at night. Is it far you have to go?" "To a vineyard by Anacapri." "And I to Capri. So now God bless you, child—and you, my son." Laurella kissed his hand, and let one farewell drop, for the padre and Antonio to divide between them. Antonio, however, appropriated no part of it to himself; he pulled off his cap exclusively to the padre, without even looking at Laurella. But after they had turned their backs, he let his eyes travel but a short way with the padre, as he went toiling over the deep bed of small, loose stones; he soon sent them after the maiden, who, turning to the right, had begun to climb the heights, holding one hand above her eyes to protect them from the scorching sun. Just before the path disappeared behind high walls, she stopped, as if to gather breath, and looked behind her. At her feet lay the marina; the rugged rocks rose high around her; the sea was shining in the rarest of its deep-blue splendor. The scene was surely worth a moment's pause. But, as chance would have it, her eyes, in glancing past Antonio's boat, met Antonio's own, which had been following her as she climbed. Each made a slight movement, as persons do who would excuse themselves for some mistake; and then, with her darkest look, the maiden went her way. Hardly one hour had passed since noon, and yet for the last two Antonio had been sitting waiting on the bench before the fishers' tavern. He must have been very much preoccupied with something, for he jumped up every moment to step out into the sunshine, and look carefully up and down the roads, which, parting right and left, lead to the only two little towns upon the island. He did not altogether trust the weather, he then said to the hostess of the osteria; to be sure, it was clear enough, but he did not quite like that tint of sea and sky. Just so it had looked, he said, before the last awful storm, when the English family had been so nearly lost; surely she must remember it? No, indeed, she said, she didn't. Well, if the weather should happen to change before night, she was to think of him, he said. "Have you many fine folk over there?" she asked him, after a while. "They are only just beginning; as yet, the season has been bad enough; those who came to bathe, came late." "The spring came late. Have you not been earning more than we at Capri?" "Not enough to give me macaroni twice a week, if I had had nothing but the boat—only a letter now and then to take to Naples, or a gentleman to row out into the open sea, that he might fish. But you know I have an uncle who is rich; he owns more than one fine orange-garden; and, 'Tonino,' says he to me, 'while I live you shall not suffer want; and when I am gone you will find that I have taken care of you.' And so, with God's help, I got through the winter." "Has he children, this uncle who is rich?" "No, he never married; he was long in foreign parts, and many a good piastre he has laid together. He is going to set up a great fishing business, and set me over it, to see the rights of it." "Why, then you are a made man, Tonino!" The young boatman shrugged his shoulders. "Every man has his own burden," said he, starting up again to have another look at the weather, turning his eyes right and left, although he must have known that there can be no weather side but one. "Let me fetch you another bottle," said the hostess; "your uncle can well afford to pay for it." "Not more than one glass; it is a fiery wine you have in Capri, and my head is hot already." "It does not heat the blood; you may drink as much of it as you like. And here is my husband coming; so you must sit a while, and talk to him." And in fact, with his nets over his shoulder, and his red cap upon his curly head, down came the comely padrone of the osteria. He had been taking a dish of fish to that great lady, to set before the little curato. As soon as he caught sight of the young boatman, he began waving him a most cordial welcome; and he came to sit beside him on the bench, chattering and asking questions. Just as his wife was bringing her second bottle of pure unadulterated Capri, they heard the crisp sand crunch, and Laurella was seen approaching from the left-hand road to Anacapri. She nodded slightly in salutation; then stopped, and hesitated. Antonio sprang from his seat. "I must go," he said. "It is a young Sorrento girl, who came over with the signor curato in the morning. She has to get back to her sick mother before night." "Well, well, time enough yet before night," observed the fisherman; "time enough to take a glass of wine. Wife, I say, another glass!" "I thank you; I had rather not;" and Laurella kept her distance. "Fill the glasses, wife; fill them both, I say; she only wants a little pressing." "Don't," interposed the lad. "It is a wilful head of her own she has; a saint could not persuade her to do what she does not choose." And, taking a hasty leave, he ran down to the boat, loosened the rope, and stood waiting for Laurella. Again she bent her head to the hostess, and slowly approached the water, with lingering steps. She looked around on every side, as if in hopes of seeing some other passenger. But the marina was deserted. The fishermen were asleep, or rowing about the coast with rods or nets; a few women and children sat before their doors, spinning or sleeping: such strangers as had come over in the morning were waiting for the cool of the evening to return. She had not time to look about her long; before she could prevent him, Antonio had seized her in his arms and carried her to the boat, as if she had been an infant. He leaped in after her, and with a stroke or two of his oar they were in deep water. She had seated herself at the end of the boat, half turning her back to him, so that he could only see her profile. She wore a sterner look than ever; the low, straight brow was shaded by her hair; the rounded lips were firmly closed; only the delicate nostril occasionally gave a wilful quiver. After they had gone on a while in silence, she began to feel the scorching of the sun; and, unloosening her bundle, she threw the handkerchief over her head, and began to make her dinner of the bread; for in Capri she had eaten nothing. Antonio did not stand this long; he fetched out a couple of the oranges with which the baskets had been filled in the morning. "Here is something to eat to your bread, Laurella," he said. "Don't think I kept them for you; they had rolled out of the basket, and I only found them when I brought the baskets back to the boat." "Eat them yourself; bread is enough for me." "They are refreshing in this heat, and you have had to walk so far." "They gave me a drink of water, and that refreshed me." "As you please," he said, and let them drop into the basket. Silence again. The sea was smooth as glass. Not a ripple was heard against the prow. Even the white sea-birds that roost among the caves of Capri pursued their prey with soundless flight. "You might take the oranges to your mother," again commenced Tonino. "We have oranges at home; and when they are gone, I can go and buy some more." "Nay, take these to her, and give them to her with my compliments." "She does not know you." "You could tell her who I am." "I do not know you either." It was not the first time that she had denied him thus. One Sunday of last year, when that painter had first come to Sorrento, Antonio had chanced to be playing boccia with some other young fellows in the little piazza by the chief street. There, for the first time, had the painter caught sight of Laurella, who, with her pitcher on her head, had passed by without taking any notice of him. The Neapolitan, struck by her appearance, stood still and gazed after her, not heeding that he was standing in the very midst of the game, which, with two steps, he might have cleared. A very ungentle ball came knocking against his shins, as a reminder that this was not the spot to choose for meditation. He looked round, as if in expectation of some excuse. But the young boatman who had thrown the ball stood silent among his friends, in such an attitude of defiance that the stranger had found it more advisable to go his ways and avoid discussion. Still, this little encounter had been spoken of, particularly at the time when the painter had been pressing his suit to Laurella. "I do not even know him," she said indignantly, when the painter asked her whether it was for the sake of that uncourteous lad she now refused him. But she had heard that piece of gossip, and known Antonio well enough when she had met him since. And now they sat together in this boat, like two most deadly enemies, while their hearts were beating fit to kill them. Antonio's usually so good-humored face was heated to scarlet; he struck the oars so sharply that the foam flew over to where Laurella sat, while his lips moved as if muttering angry words. She pretended not to notice, wearing her most unconscious look, bending over the edge of the boat, and letting the cool water pass between her fingers. Then she threw off her handkerchief again, and began to smooth her hair, as though she had been alone. Only her eyebrows twitched, and she held up her wet hands in vain attempts to cool her burning cheeks. Now they were well out in the open sea. The island was far behind, and the coast before them lay yet distant in the hot haze. Not a sail was within sight, far or near—not even a passing gull to break the stillness. Antonio looked all round, evidently ripening some hasty resolution. The color faded suddenly from his cheek, and he dropped his oars. Laurella looked round involuntarily—fearless, yet attentive. "I must make an end of this," the young fellow burst forth. "It has lasted too long already! I only wonder that it has not killed me! You say you do not know me? And all this time you must have seen me pass you like a madman, my whole heart full of what I had to tell you; and then you only made your crossest mouth, and turned your back upon me." "What had I to say to you?" she curtly replied. "I may have seen that you were inclined to meddle with me, but I do not choose to be on people's wicked tongues for nothing. I do not mean to have you for a husband—neither you nor any other." "Nor any other? So you will not always say! You say so now, because you would not have that painter. Bah! you were but a child! You will feel lonely enough yet, some day; and then, wild as you are, you will take the next best who comes to hand." "Who knows? which of us can see the future? It may be that I will change my mind. What is that to you?" "What is it to me?" he flew out, starting to his feet, while the small boat leaped and danced; "what is it to me, you say? You know well enough! I tell you, that man shall perish miserably to whom you shall prove kinder than you have been to me!" "And to you, what did I ever promise? Am I to blame if you be mad? What right have you to me?" "Ah! I know," he cried, "my right is written nowhere. It has not been put in Latin by any lawyer, nor stamped with any seal. But this I feel: I have just the right to you that I have to heaven, if I die an honest Christian. Do you think I could look on and see you go to church with another man, and see the girls go by and shrug their shoulders at me?" "You can do as you please. I am not going to let myself be frightened by all those threats. I also mean to do as I please." "You shall not say so long!" and his whole frame shook with passion. "I am not the man to let my whole life be spoiled by a stubborn wench like you! You are in my power here, remember, and may be made to do my bidding." She could not repress a start, but her eyes flashed bravely on him. "You may kill me if you dare," she said slowly. "I do nothing by halves," he said, and his voice sounded choked and hoarse. "There is room for us both in the sea. I cannot help thee, child"—he spoke the last words dreamily, almost pitifully—"but we must both go down together—both at once—and now!" he shouted, and snatched her in his arms. But at the same moment he drew back his right hand; the blood gushed out; she had bitten him fiercely. "Ha! can I be made to do your bidding?" she cried, and thrust him from her, with one sudden movement; "am I here in your power?" and she leaped into the sea, and sank. She rose again directly; her scanty skirts clung close; her long hair, loosened by the waves, hung heavy about her neck. She struck out valiantly, and, without uttering a sound, she began to swim steadily from the boat toward the shore. With senses benumbed by sudden terror, he stood, with outstretched neck, looking after her, his eyes fixed as though they had just been witness to a miracle. Then, giving himself a shake, he seized his oars, and began rowing after her with all the strength he had, while all the time the bottom of the boat was reddening fast with the blood that kept streaming from his hand. Rapidly as she swam, he was at her side in a moment. "For the love of our most Holy Virgin" he cried, "get into the boat! I have been a madman! God alone can tell what so suddenly darkened my brain. It came upon me like a flash of lightning, and set me all on fire. I knew not what I did or said. I do not even ask you to forgive me, Laurella, only to come into the boat again, and not to risk your life!" She swam on as though she had not heard him. "You can never swim to land. I tell you, it is two miles off. Think of your mother! If you should come to grief, I should die of horror." She measured the distance with her eye, and then, without answering him one word, she swam up to the boat, and laid her hands upon the edge; he rose to help her in. As the boat tilted over to one side with the girl's weight, his jacket that was lying on the bench slipped into the water. Agile as she was, she swung herself on board without assistance, and gained her former seat. As soon as he saw that she was safe, he took to his oars again, while she began quietly wringing out her dripping clothes, and shaking the water from her hair. As her eyes fell upon the bottom of the boat, and saw the blood, she gave a quick look at the hand, which held the oar as if it had been unhurt. "Take this," she said, and held out her handkerchief. He shook his head, and went on rowing. After a time she rose, and, stepping up to him, bound the handkerchief firmly round the wound, which was very deep. Then, heedless of his endeavors to prevent her, she took an oar, and, seating herself opposite him, began to row with steady strokes, keeping her eyes from looking toward him—fixed upon the oar that was scarlet with his blood. Both were pale and silent. As they drew near land, such fishermen as they met began shouting after Antonio and gibing at Laurella; but neither of them moved an eyelid, or spoke one word. The sun stood yet high over Procida when they landed at the marina. Laurella shook out her petticoat, now nearly dry, and jumped on shore. The old spinning woman, who in the morning had seen them start, was still upon her terrace. She called down, "What is that upon your hand, Tonino? Jesus Christ! the boat is full of blood!" "It is nothing, comare," the young fellow replied. "I tore my hand against a nail that was sticking out too far; it will be well to-morrow. It is only this confounded ready blood of mine, that always makes a thing look worse than it is." "Let me come and bind it up, comparello. Stop one moment; I will go and fetch the herbs, and come to you directly." "Never trouble yourself, comare. It has been dressed already; to-morrow morning it will be all over and forgotten. I have a healthy skin, that heals directly." "Addio!" said Laurella, turning to the path that goes winding up the cliffs. "Good-night!" he answered, without looking at her; and then taking his oars and baskets from the boat, and climbing up the small stone stairs, he went into his own hut. He was alone in his two little rooms, and began to pace them up and down. Cooler than upon the dead calm sea, the breeze blew fresh through the small unglazed windows, which could only be closed with wooden shutters. The solitude was soothing to him. He stooped before the little image of the Virgin, devoutly gazing upon the glory round the head (made of stars cut out in silver paper). But he did not want to pray. What reason had he to pray, now that he had lost all he had ever hoped for? And this day appeared to last for ever. He did so long for night! for he was weary, and more exhausted by the loss of blood than he would have cared to own. His hand was very sore. Seating himself upon a little stool, he untied the handkerchief that bound it; the blood, so long repressed, gushed out again; all round the wound the hand was swollen high. He washed it carefully, cooling it in the water; then he clearly saw the marks of Laurella's teeth. "She was right," he said; "I was a brute, and deserved no better. I will send her back the handkerchief by Giuseppe to-morrow. Never shall she set eyes on me again." And he washed the handkerchief with the greatest care, and spread it out in the sun to dry. And having bound up his hand again, as well as he could manage with his teeth and his left hand, he threw himself upon his bed, and closed his eyes. He was soon waked up from a sort of slumber by the rays of the bright moonlight, and also by the pain of his hand; he had just risen for more cold water to soothe its throbbings, when he heard the sound of some one at the door. Laurella stood before him. She came in without a question, took off the handkerchief she had tied over her head, and placed her little basket upon the table; then she drew a deep breath. "You are come to fetch your handkerchief," he said. "You need not have taken that trouble. In the morning I would have asked Giuseppe to take it to you." "It is not the handkerchief," she said quickly. "I have been up among the hills to gather herbs to stop the blood; see here." And she lifted the lid of her little basket. "Too much trouble," he said, not in bitterness—"far too much trouble. I am better, much better; but if I were worse, it would be no more than I deserve. Why did you come at such a time? If any one should see you? You know how they talk, even when they don't know what they are saying." "I care for no one's talk," she said, passionately. "I came to see your hand, and put the herbs upon it; you cannot do it with your left." "It is not worth while, I tell you." "Let me see it then, if I am to believe you." She took his hand, that was not able to prevent her, and unbound the linen. When she saw the swelling, she shuddered, and gave a cry: "Jesus Maria!" "It is a little swollen," he said; "it will be over in four-and-twenty hours." She shook her head. "It will certainly be a week before you can go to sea." "More likely a day or two; and if not, what matters?" She had fetched a basin, and began carefully washing out the wound, which he suffered passively, like a child. She then laid on the healing leaves, which at once relieved the burning pain, and finally bound it up with the linen she had brought with her. When it was done: "I thank you," he said. "And now, if you would do me one more kindness, forgive the madness that came over me; forget all I said and did. I cannot tell how it came to pass; certainly it was not your fault—not yours. And never shall you hear from me again one word to vex you." She interrupted him. "It is I who have to beg your pardon. I should have spoken differently. I might have explained it better, and not enraged you with my sullen ways. And now that bite—" "It was in self-defence; it was high time to bring me to my senses. As I said before, it is nothing at all to signify. Do not talk of being forgiven; you only did me good, and I thank you for it. And now, here is your handkerchief; take it with you." He held it to her, but yet she lingered, hesitated, and appeared to have some inward struggle. At length she said: "You have lost your jacket, and by my fault; and I know that all the money for the oranges was in it. I did not think of this till afterward. I cannot replace it now; we have not so much at home—or if we had, it would be mother's. But this I have—this silver cross. That painter left it on the table the day he came for the last time. I have never looked at it all this while, and do not care to keep it in my box; if you were to sell it? It must be worth a few piastres, mother says. It might make up the money you have lost; and if not quite, I could earn the rest by spinning at night when mother is asleep." "Nothing will make me take it," he said shortly, pushing away the bright new cross, which she had taken from her pocket. "You must," she said; "how can you tell how long your hand may keep you from your work? There it lies; and nothing can make me so much as look at it again." "Drop it in the sea, then." "It is no present I want to make you; it is no more than is your due; it is only fair." "Nothing from you can be due to me; and hereafter when we chance to meet, if you would do me a kindness, I beg you not to look my way. It would make me feel you were thinking of what I have done. And now good-night; and let this be the last word said." She laid the handkerchief in the basket, and also the cross, and closed the lid. But when he looked into her face, he started. Great heavy drops were rolling down her cheeks; she let them flow unheeded. "Maria Santissima!" he cried. "Are you ill? You are trembling from head to foot!" "It is nothing," she said; "I must go home;" and with unsteady steps she was moving to the door, when suddenly she leaned her brow against the wall, and gave way to a fit of bitter sobbing. Before he could go to her she turned upon him suddenly, and fell upon his neck. "I cannot bear it!" she cried, clinging to him as a dying thing to life—"I cannot bear it! I cannot let you speak so kindly, and bid me go, with all this on my conscience. Beat me! trample on me! curse me! Or if it can be that you love me still, after all I have done to you, take me and keep me, and do with me as you please; only do not send me away so!" She could say no more for sobbing. Speechless, he held her a while in his arms. "If I can love you still!" he cried at last. "Holy Mother of God! Do you think that all my best heart's blood has gone from me through that little wound? Don't you hear it hammering now, as though it would burst my breast and go to you? But if you say this to try me, or because you pity me, I can forget it. You are not to think you owe me this, because you know what I have suffered for you." "No!" she said very resolutely, looking up from his shoulder into his face, with her tearful eyes; "it is because I love you; and let me tell you, it was because I always feared to love you that I was so cross. I will be so different now. I never could bear again to pass you in the street without one look! And lest you should ever feel a doubt, I will kiss you, that you may say, 'She kissed me;' and Laurella kisses no man but her husband." She kissed him thrice, and, escaping from his arms: "And now good-night, amor mio, cara vita mia!" she said. "Lie down to sleep, and let your hand get well. Do not come with me; I am afraid of no man, save of you alone." And so she slipped out, and soon disappeared in the shadow of the wall. He remained standing by the window, gazing far out over the calm sea, while all the stars in heaven appeared to flit before his eyes. The next time the little curato sat in his confessional, he sat smiling to himself. Laurella had just risen from her knees after a very long confession. "Who would have thought it?" he said musingly—"that the Lord would so soon have taken pity upon that wayward little heart? And I had been reproaching myself for not having adjured more sternly that ill demon of perversity. Our eyes are but short-sighted to see the ways of Heaven! Well, may God bless her, I say, and let me live to go to sea with Laurella's eldest born, rowing me in his father's place! Ah! well, indeed! l'Arrabiata!"
nedjelja, 14. rujna 2025.
In Germany there are several castles of the name of Neideck, but, doubtless, the most beautiful is that of the principality of Westerau, whose proud ruins looked down from the steep slate rock over the broad plain of the Felber Valley, and far beyond to the heights of the Dill Mountains. On the slope of the mountains nestles the little village of Westerau: the site of the new castle. At the time of the Seven Years’ War a part of this was habitable, but even then most of it was roofless and a ruin. At the back the castle was open, but the front was protected by a moat and a drawbridge. Fixed upon the rock like the nest of some gigantic bird, Neideck was considered a strong, though not impregnable, fortress. It was garrisoned by three men: a sergeant and two common soldiers; all three were disabled. The sole defense of the fortress, one old cannon, thundered above the valley on the prince’s birthday and whenever a princess gave birth to a child. It is hard to tell why there was a garrison at all; probably for no other reason than because it had not been withdrawn; the three men had been left by a previous garrison as the ruins had been left by a previous castle. The veterans served at Neideck because[Pg 692] they could not serve elsewhere. Was not that reason enough? The three men had a roof to cover them, good air, and few expenses. Besides the garrison, one other, the schoolmaster, lived in the castle. He was Philip Balzer, called “Burg” Balzer (Fortress Balzer) to distinguish him from all other Balzers of that locality. Burg Balzer’s quarters were in the keeper’s lodge, near the gate, and in his quarters he kept school. The parish consisted of twelve thatched cottages, standing at the foot of the hill of Neideck. It was too poor to provide a regular schoolhouse, so the prince graciously permitted the schoolmaster to use the lodge for that purpose, which answered very well. In all there were about ten scholars, and these were huddled together like sheep in a thunderstorm. Philip’s father had been herdsman as well as schoolmaster: the office had descended from father to son; but now there were so few cattle that a child could watch them, and Philip detailed his laziest pupil for that duty. From a pedagogic standpoint the practise was of questionable value, for, as in summer, children prefer the open air, why, every child made efforts to be the laziest. The schoolmaster and the garrison would have been happy but for the fact that their chief necessities, food and drink, were insufficient. Their quarters were dry, the air was bracing, and their clothes appeared to be imperishable. This calm was broken by bad news. With November of 1757 the tide of war came in upon them. From[Pg 693] the watch-towers they heard the distant roar of cannon, while the fugitive peasants could see the Prussian soldiers foraging not far away. What could Neideck do? The men of the garrison held a council; the sergeant suggested blowing up the castle; one of the soldiers counseled honorable surrender; the other advised immediate flight. The schoolmaster, who had been invited to the council, urged resistance to the death; resistance to the point of annihilation. During the evening of November 13 a chasseur galloped up the mountainside with orders to “Retire to the other side of the Schwarzach, and there join the imperial army! Take all arms and commissary stores; destroy everything that can not be transported!” The orders pleased the garrison; there was little to take away and nothing to destroy. But the cannon! What could they do with that? It had no wheels; they could not draw it after them; and, as there were no oxen in the village, they could not haul it. “Let us spike it!” said the sergeant; “that is done in wartime.” But how? He did not know. To blow it up might be dangerous. Finally they followed the advice of the schoolmaster. The well was two hundred feet deep, and within the memory of man it had never held water. They dropped the cannon into the well. When they were setting out, the sergeant asked the schoolmaster where they should find the Schwarzach. The schoolmaster gave the desired information; critical pedagogy is supposed to follow the principle that it is better to give any answer than to confess ignorance. [Pg 694] The schoolmaster refused to abandon the fortress: he watched the soldiers sorrowfully as they marched down the hill and disappeared like phantoms in the silence and the darkness. “They will not return,” he mused; “I am now the sole keeper of the fort!” He drew the bridge, barred the gates, and went into his lodge. For a long time he had been laying in provisions: apples, nuts, prunes, bread, bacon, and smoked beef. These, with an old dressing gown and “Gottsched’s Critical Art of Poetry,” he carried to the western slope of the hill. He waited an instant, listening, turning his head in all directions, to make sure that he was alone, for the night was dark and he could see nothing; then he climbed over a broken wall, parted the thick branches of a thorn-bush, and crawled through an opening into an underground passage choked with rubbish. This passage was known only to Burg Balzer. He had found it in his youth. In a place where the passage widened he had made a bed of leaves, and, lying there on rainy days, many an hour, for many years, he had dreamed his dreams. He loved to dream of the days of knighthood; and the dim light of his hiding-place gave atmosphere to his illusions. At times he had worked hard to clear away the rubbish and penetrate deeper under ground. Philip thought he might find wine here. Strange things had been found before this in secret passages! In the abandoned cellar of a castle in Alsatia ancient wine had been found; the casks had rotted and dropped apart, but the old[Pg 695] wine had formed a skin. As he went alone, Philip decided to hide in his grotto and wait for the first shock of war to pass; he should be safer down there than with the fugitive peasants in the woods. It was romance as well as common sense that led him to hide there. Philip Balzer was a German schoolmaster. “I am Burg Balzer,” he said to himself; “this is my castle! I must be faithful; I must stand or fall with this stronghold. I am the real warder, and to guard Neideck is my heritage. Let the Prussians blow it up and me with it! Better, far better, to wing my flight thus than to forsake my trust!” To tell the exact truth, Burg Balzer was not at all afraid that he should be blown up; from an old legend he had learned that destiny had marked him for important work; he was to restore prosperity to Neideck. Neideck, the ancestral home of the princes of Westerau, had been occupied by the family until the Thirty Years’ War broke out. But on the approach of the imperial army the princes had escaped, leaving a strong garrison, and the peasants of the whole country had taken refuge there. From that time onward Neideck had been known as a stronghold. “And, in truth,” said the schoolmaster, “it has always been a fortress; it has never been a robbers’ nest.” There was one stain on the record, however. In the dark year, 1634, when the castle was packed with fugitives, and provisions ran low, the commandant of the fortress ordered his men to drive out the women and the children, in order to “shut out useless mouths.” The victims fell upon their knees and begged for[Pg 696] mercy; they cried out that they had no other refuge. The commandant was deaf to their prayers. When the gates closed behind them, the women cursed Neideck. Three of the curses were remembered. First—Let Neideck be a ruin, and let every stone of that ruin bear witness against Neideck’s lord! Second—One hundred years shall pass before a lord of Neideck wins a woman’s love! Third—To the shame of man, when all men are powerless, let Neideck be saved by a woman! The first two curses were already fulfilled. Soon after the lord of Neideck had abandoned the women and children to their fate, the castle was stormed, the east wing was destroyed, and the once powerful fortress fell into ruins. After that the reigning family lived in the new castle in Westerau; not one of them returned to Neideck. For a time governors and warders kept the castle; not one of them was blessed by a woman’s love. Some of them lived and died unmarried; two had lost their wives; while the only man among them all who had a wife was so tormented by her that he cut his throat. The third curse was yet to come; namely, after all the men had failed to save Neideck, the place was to be redeemed by a woman. Now, the schoolmaster, though not a woman, believed that he was destined in some way to fulfill the curse and be the means of saving the castle, and in such a way as to bring about perfect harmony. Philip’s dreams were so ardent and so bold that he dared not speak of them or even think about them. It was hope that made him cling to the castle; that[Pg 697] dispelled all fear. He lived on dreams as much as on his prunes and bacon. Lying on his bed of leaves the second day after the garrison’s departure, he detected the smell of burning stubble. “It is the village!” he thought calmly, and continued his dream. He heard cannon, now near, now far away, and he heard other sounds, too: the clash of arms, the pounding of horses’ hoofs, then silence fell—. He had been underground two days and two nights; he was tired of prunes and bacon, and of lying down and of sitting still. Early in the morning he crept out. Just as he reached the thorn-bush he heard the rustling of leaves, and, peering out, he saw a goat tossing his head and nibbling the last leaves of the late autumn. The village lay in the distance, calm and peaceful in the morning light; nor far, nor near, was there a sign of war. Tempted by the mellow sunlight, the schoolmaster left his hiding-place, and saw that the peasants were returning with their chattels to the deserted homes. He skirted the hill and entered the village from the opposite side of the castle. In the village he learned that the soldiers had not entered Neideck. The peasants blushed for their fears; they had suffered cold and hunger in the woods; so had their cattle. The camp-followers, finding the place deserted, had fired the fields. Now the damages must be repaired! The peasants praised the schoolmaster for his prudence; they said he had done well to remain in the castle. Philip was modest; he disclaimed their praises; he lauded the castle—“a stronghold even in its ruin!”[Pg 698] There is not a man on earth who has not faith in something! Burg Balzer had faith in his castle. II On February 15, 1763, twelve couriers galloped out of the courtyard of Hubertsburgh, and, blowing their trumpets, rode hard in every direction toward all the respective courts, announcing that the peace treaty had been signed. A squadron of mounted messengers followed them, proclaiming peace throughout the Roman Empire of the German nation. The Seven Years’ War was over, and the fortress of Neideck could now rest for generations to come. No more would the thunder of distant cannon echo through the tower; nor need the schoolmaster fear for his castle. He was thankful for peace; glad that they called it the peace of Hubertsburgh, for that place, he thought, must be a little like my own Neideck. And now Burg Balzer reigned supreme in Neideck; the garrison did not return; the veterans’ quarters went to ruin; the roof fell in. Philip rejoiced; to his mind ruins were unclaimed property. “And,” thought he, “unclaimed property belongs to him who takes it!” It seemed to him that the giant ruin was now his own. It may be that he could not have borne the trials of his dry profession had it not been for the mystic charm of his castle. It was his castle that made life sweet to him. When the day was fine he kept school in the courtyard. The elder-bush was in blossom; the blue sky floated above the crumbling walls; the jackdaws circled above[Pg 699] the towers; the sparrows twittered. He was happy; the dreams of his childhood nested in his heart, and the droning a, b, c of the mischievous boys sounded to him like a spring song. Now and then he permitted the children to sing a hymn, and when the old walls sent back the echoes the hymn was as full of meaning as a fugue, and the days of old with their men of blood and iron rose before him, while the discord in the shrill voices of the children ascended to the skies like songs of praise. Of all hymns Philip loved best Luther’s “A mighty fortress is our God!” When the hymn was ended, when the last thin cry of the children had died away upon the air, Balzer would explain to them that the stronghold, or fortress, was man’s best type of the power and eternal protection of God; and that God’s fidelity to man could not be represented better than by the image of a stronghold. Once when an impertinent pupil reminded him that their own stronghold, the fortress of Neideck, was going to ruin, and that new ravages were visible every spring, Philip answered: “If our stronghold shows weakness here and there, it does so that we may see by the contrasting strength of its main walls and its foundations that it was built for all eternity. That is why a stronghold is a true image of the eternal being of God. It was in strongholds that Luther worked; he wrote his hymn in the fortress of Coburg and translated the Bible in the fortress of Wartburg.” When the day was fine he took his flute, and played it as he went down the east side of the mountain, followed[Pg 700] by the children. Often the teacher and his pupils wandered into the woods opposite the castle. There Philip played his flute and the children sang and the echoes answered, and there the schoolmaster told the stories of all the strongholds in the country; not one of them was as remarkable as that of Neideck! On rainy days he kept school in the small dark lodge; the lessons were then short, and when the children had gone home, Balzer would go down into the dungeon or up into the watch-towers. The towers rose high above the mass of stone and overlooked the country. A rotten bridge stretched from the top of one tower to the top of the other. To reach the first Philip had to go to an upper story of the adjoining building; and to reach the second, where the tormented husband had cut his throat, he was forced to cross this bridge. Balancing his thin body on the decaying timbers, far above the broken roof of the castle, buffeted by the tempest and in peril of his life, Burg Balzer would shout strange and meaningless words, which he supposed were in the language of the ancient Teutons: “Heia, Weia, Weigala, Waia!” In his mind he was a warder of the far-off bygone days; the enemy was on its way to Neideck, winding up through the ravines of the Dill Mountains, and his cry was raised to warn the men within his castle. It was as difficult to get back to reality as it was to climb the bridge! Long before the war the schoolmaster had found some old straw and fragments of a jug. Had the[Pg 701] straw been the bed of the last prisoner of the dungeon? and what of the jug? Balzer was tender-hearted, but it would have pleased him to find proof that the man of his imagination had starved to death on the straw, drinking his last, unwholesome draft from the jug. From brooding over his relics he went aloft, climbing from one roofless room to another. In the “Hall of the Knights” he rested from his efforts. Up there the arches had given way, and bits of stone and clouds of lime-dust were sifted by the decaying joists. In the “Hall of the Knights” he could fancy that he was exchanging opinions and drinking wine with all the nobles of the ancient principality. From his conference with the nobles he returned to his poor quarters, wet to the skin, alternately shivering and burning with fever, and ate his crust and sipped cold water and was content—far happier, perhaps, than the knights had been over their bumpers. Now and then, but not often, the pastor or some students and teachers would visit the castle, and then Balzer was their guide. He knew the story of every wall and of every crevice. If visitors gave him a few kreutzers he was grateful. He would drop them in his little savings bank, knowing that he should need money in accomplishing the work appointed by destiny. One day when Mosenbruch, the learned compiler of dictionaries, visited the castle, he disputed Balzer’s historical data; after some discussion the savant said that no woman could save the castle because there was no castle left to save. Philip was too angry to answer. When Mosenbruch was ready to depart he offered his[Pg 702] gift. Philip rejected it. “I will not accept it,” he thought; “the money of the castle fund must come to me from unstained hands, the hands of people who respect the castle.” III Now the peasants loved the schoolmaster because he made the children love the school. Philip was grateful for their appreciation, but he denied that he deserved it. “I rule the village and the children by the power of the stronghold; personally I deserve nothing!” he said firmly. Sunday, when the day was fine, the youths and maidens flocked to the castle, followed by their elders, and, sitting before the castle, talked and sang. Philip told them stories of the stronghold, and taught them songs: “Lindenschmied,” “Schüttensam,” “Falkenstein,” the “Castle in Austria,” and “Anne of Brittany.” The people of the neighboring villages, too, knowing what was passing on the heights, followed those of Neideck, and then they would all sing together, the strangers declaring that to sit in the courtyard of Neideck was far pleasanter than to sit around the public wells in their own villages. Among the visitors was Lizzie, the daughter of Röderbauer of Steinfurt. Röderbauer was a rich peasant; Lizzie was his only child. She was strong and healthy, twenty years old, and renowned for her beautiful blond hair—hair so long that she could sit upon it! While Philip told his stories, Lizzie gazed upon him with wide-open eyes and half-open mouth, thinking[Pg 703] what a wonderful man Burg Balzer must be to know so much more than all the people round about. And yet he was the “poor devil” of the parish! It pleased Lizzie to think how wise he was, but it grieved her to think how poor he was; she longed to do something to help him. Philip was not slow to note that Lizzie was constant in her visits. Every Sunday he saw her blond hair and her pretty face, and it was not long before he began to think of her night and day. In his mind he addressed himself to her when he told his romantic stories to the people; he gave her solos to sing; he sang duets with her. At first they were friends, then their friendship got to be known as a “love affair,” and finally, without any one knowing it, one day they exchanged promises. It was a secret; but it was a betrothal nevertheless. Though such things happen in other places as well as in old castles, Philip was sure that his happiness had come through the influences of his castle. When he appeared before Röderbauer of Steinfurt to ask for his daughter, Röderbauer replied: “While I live my daughter shall not get one kreutzer from me! When I am dead she may do as she pleases!” As Röderbauer was not far beyond the age of forty, and as he had never been sick, not even for a day, it was plain enough that if Lizzie waited for his death she would not at that time be a very lively bride. However, Burg Balzer, knowing the character of rich peasants, knew that Röderbauer was not to be moved. Strong in his love, he was equally strong in his devotion to his castle; Philip turned from Lizzie to his writings.[Pg 704] “I will finish my history of Neideck,” he thought bravely, and so as time went on he saved his money and wrote his history. Of publishers’ methods or of authors’ chances he knew nothing. Röderbauer respected money and cared nothing for fame—and yet—and yet!—Balzer knew it would be by this book he would gain his wife. Lizzie loved him; since the curse fell he had been the first warder of Neideck to win the love of woman; so Lizzie was the woman predestined to save the castle! How it should come to pass he knew not; he felt that he was but an instrument; it was to be. Meanwhile he could love in secret and write history in secret, and that was enough! His appeal to Röderbauer had separated him from his betrothed, and as he now saw her seldom he had more time to devote to his writing. So resignation and patience and the strength to endure his disappointment all came from the castle. He had written and copied fifty folio sheets when one day the inspector of schools visited Neideck. Philip had no cause to fear the visit. In fine weather he had been sending the laziest pupil to the pasture, but when the weather was bad they all flocked to the school, where they drank in his teachings, and consequently knew more than the children of other places. The inspector was an antiquary. After the examination the two men—the master and his chief—crawled like beetles through the ruins. The inspector listened as in a dream, while Philip, poorest of all his teachers, told the story of the stronghold. The inspector’s interest[Pg 705] filled the mystic with ecstasy, and in his excitement he, Balzer, the most timid of men, found courage to show his manuscript. With hands trembling, with face flushed, he gave it to the inspector. Twenty different conjectures concerning the meaning of the name “Neideck.” All very plausible. And the conclusion was that the name did not signify after all: eck (a corner) where neid (envy) dwelt, but a corner to be envied by all who could not live in it—Neideck. The inspector admired Philip’s handwriting: the conjectural structure was somewhat uncertain; but on that foundation Balzer had raised an edifice bolder than the architecture of the double towers. The literary form of the manuscript was most original, for, although Balzer had never studied literature, his writing came as the spirit inspired it. Philip’s castle had taught him how to write. At that time Rousseau’s “Emile” was the book of the hour. The inspector was an ardent follower of Jean Jacques, and he found that the active principle of the history of Neideck was the principle of the work of Rousseau. Though Balzer had never heard of Rousseau, yet all the former’s methods, so it seemed to the inspector, showed the instinctive practise of the philanthropic system of education. The analogy was so complete that Rousseau’s book, that formed the chief intellectual diet of the advocates of “sentimental, enlightened pedagogy,” might readily pass as a very natural and complete supplement to the work of Balzer. The inspector’s opinion brought tears to Philip’s eyes. “Good night,” he called back graciously; and[Pg 706] Philip watched him as he disappeared farther and farther down the slope of the mountain. “Good night! What a day it has been! I have been happy!” thought Philip—and for that, too, he thanked his castle. IV Four weeks after the inspector’s visit a letter came for Balzer. He was offered the school at Ottenheim. Ottenheim lay in the rich district of teeming pastures—“the butter district.” So the school was twice as important as that of Neideck. That same evening, too, a neighbor stopped at the castle to offer Balzer his congratulations on another “streak of luck,” the death of Röderbauer. Röderbauer had climbed a tree to pick cherries to make his celebrated cordial; he had fallen from the tree and been picked up dead. Delicacy impelled Balzer to deny that he saw luck in Röderbauer’s death, but in his heart he knew that the event would make his own life easier, and he could not find any excuse for attributing this last blessing to his castle. He gave his pupils a three days’ vacation and set off for Ottenheim, wondering if it would be possible to live so far from Neideck. He was not sure of this. As he passed the new castle, the home of the heirs and owners of Neideck, a smile of pity flitted over his lips. What a fall; from Neideck to Westerau! History had made Neideck glorious; Westerau had no history! A prince may build a castle, but even Omnipotence can not give ancestry to an unfledged baron!—Philip[Pg 707] was shocked; pride in his castle had caused him to blaspheme; he had cast a doubt upon Omnipotence! Driving back these confusing thoughts, he went on across the crest of the Dill Mountains, that looked down upon the broad green plains, the well-kept, regularly measured meadows, the corn-fields swaying in the wind, and the highway lined with fruit trees. Set on the verdant, gold-flecked carpet rested the villages with red-tiled roofs. The church spires were glittering in the sunlight. But it was tame! There were no woods, no rocks, no stronghold. Not a ruin! The long stretch of level land oppressed him, but he went on. Arrived at Ottenheim, he saw the schoolroom; large, light, limewashed. The windows looked out on a playground; from the ground sprang four slim young lindens; they looked like brooms standing on their sticks. His heart quailed. Homesick dread filled his soul. How could he live and teach in such a place? He turned and fled. At Steinfurt he stopped to salute the girl with the long, fair hair. In her black dress, her long lashes wet with tears, Lizzie was even prettier than when she had visited Neideck. In his dust-stained traveling coat (he had no other) Philip followed Röderbauer’s coffin to the grave—and the peasants envied him. After the funeral he talked of the future with his betrothed. His appointment to Ottenheim pleased the girl, but she knew that she had money enough now to build in Neideck. Philip declared that he would never live in the butter district, where there were no woods,[Pg 708] no rocks, no strongholds. His future, a great future, lay in Neideck. He knew it. “Such talk is foolish,” answered Lizzie, and they quarreled; the girl told him that she would never live in the lodge. She called the castle “old and ugly.” She refused to marry him. Philip protested that he would die a bachelor rather than go to Ottenheim. He reminded Lizzie of her visits to Neideck and of the beauty of the castle. Lizzie answered: “I did not go there to see the castle; I went there to see you.” That was too much! Philip set off for Neideck cut to the heart. But he was not rash; he gave her time to think it over. After two weeks he returned to Steinfurt—and again they quarreled. “Whoever takes me must take my castle!” said Philip; and Lizzie answered: “If you do not love me more than you love the castle, I do not want you!” Philip’s heart was heavy; Lizzie thought less of the matter. Pride was mingled with Philip’s sorrow. “The castle has done so much for me,” thought he; “it has made me what I am. Even if I have to renounce my love to keep my trust, I must be faithful.” So he declined the offer of Ottenheim and continued to appear before the world as the poorest of the schoolmasters, the head of the smallest school in Germany. V From the eastern wing of the Renaissance Castle in Westerau the view over the Felber Valley was beautiful; far off one could see the rocky height where the towers of Castle Neideck rose against the horizon.[Pg 709] In that wing resided Princess Isabella, the ruling prince’s younger daughter, with her lady-in-waiting, Fräulein von Martigny. The young Princess, only eighteen years old, often gazed longingly toward those ancestral towers, wishing she were there, to look far out over the open country, and then to travel through it, on and on and on. Here, in her father’s castle, with its aristocratic ennui, she felt as if she were in prison. I wonder which is the greater torture: a prison window that looks out upon high walls, or one with a beautiful view into the distance? One reminds us every hour that we are imprisoned; the other that we can not get away. And the Princess would have liked so much to fly away, but at her father’s court the rules of etiquette were observed as strictly as in a Spanish convent, particularly with regard to ladies. Isabella’s sister had entered a convent to escape the monotony of the castle, and in the convent she had been more at ease than in the castle. There was some analogy between the conditions of the warder of the old castle and the Princess of the new castle. As with all his heart Balzer desired marriage with Lizzie, but would not buy his happiness with the sacrifice of his castle, so with all her heart the Princess of the new castle desired liberty—to be free from her father’s house—but she would not buy her liberty by marriage with her cousin, Frederick, Count Vierstein. Everything slept at Westerau. When Isabella sat in her luxurious room it seemed to her that all four[Pg 710] walls were yawning, and when she walked in the castle garden all the trees seemed to sleep, and the gods and goddesses of stone between the trimmed hedges of hornbeam were surely snoring. She arose in the morning at nine o’clock, because it was necessary for her to rest from the preceding day’s ennui, and when they put on her stockings while she was dressing, it often took half an hour to proceed from the right to the left foot. During the day she was never alone, not one minute; for Fräulein von Martigny, who was not only lady-in-waiting, but took the place of a mother, never left her side. A true feminine Minos in matters of etiquette, the old lady was also nervous and irritable. When the Princess had been washing and bathing during her morning toilet, Fräulein always kept a few steps away, asserting that she would just as easily catch cold by going near a newly washed being as by walking over a newly washed floor. After the dressing hour came the reading hour. Fräulein read aloud, in French, only classical authors from the time of Louis the Great, and the very cadence of the verses seemed to produce sleep. Then followed the painting lesson. Court-painter Timothy Niedermeyer taught the Princess to paint in water-colors, and every one in the family received a bouquet in water-colors as a birthday gift. This Niedermeyer had a fine talent, but had become a mannerist. This also was the result of ennui, for by princely decree he had every year to deliver, in return for his salary, twenty-four oil paintings, mostly family portraits.[Pg 711] There were portraits of the Princess at all ages, in every possible position and costume; the most recent pictures showed her as an angel with wings, among clouds; as an eighteen-year-old girl, blowing soap-bubbles into the air, and as a shepherdess with crook, leading a sheep by a red ribbon; these three pictures had been sent to Vierstein, as gifts for the intended bridegroom. The Princess was, in truth, beautiful, but her life of utter seclusion had given to her face the soft, languid beauty of a hot-house flower, and as the artist, with a wish to flatter, had over-refined the delicate features, the result was that the child-angel-shepherdess head looked utterly expressionless. Ennui is the hunger of the aristocrat; hunger is the ennui of the common people; the painted face of the Princess showed that she had never felt hungry, but very often bored. Isabella was to marry the Count of Vierstein, but did not wish to do so; and the Count of Vierstein would have nothing to do with Isabella, who was to be his bride. They were cousins, had met as children, and Isabella had shed many a tear over the wild boy, whose rough manner frightened and troubled her. Later they lost sight of each other; the Count traveled extensively and entered foreign service. The two fathers had by letter, and on their own responsibility, betrothed their children without consulting those who were most concerned, although the two castles were only a day’s journey apart. They considered such action more suitable to their rank than to permit an engagement from love, as among ordinary people. The fine portraits of the[Pg 712] court-painter were intended to arouse in the reluctant Count some interest for his unwilling bride, but they had the opposite effect. Nor did the half-length portrait of the Count, that arrived at the same time in Westerau, have any better success. This portrait represented the young man as a hussar. Vierstein could not boast of a court-painter—his court being interested only in hunting and the army—so the picture had been painted by a traveling artist, whose vigorous brush had given the poor Count’s face a ferocious expression. The Princess was frightened to tears, as she had been when a child. And Fräulein von Martigny made use of this fear to give background to the cousin’s bad reputation. She hinted at a certain Potsdam barrack atmosphere that Vierstein carried into sitting-room and bedrooms; that no one over there cared for anything but soldiers, horses, dogs. For in her heart the Fräulein shared Isabella’s aversion to this marriage, and would have preferred to see her beloved foster child become an old maid. Then might the Fräulein be to the end of her life Mistress of the Robes at this dear court, whose ennui she was not sensible of, although she did her utmost to promote it. To be sure the painting and the painting lessons were as tiresome as everything else in the castle, yet a certain dramatic interest was attached to them—an interest that was woefully lacking in the rest of the day’s proceedings, which went like clockwork—and all the clocks in the castle were correct. Every day the Prince rode out at the same hour, on the same road, and returned at the same minute. Breakfast was[Pg 713] served at eleven o’clock; at twelve o’clock they held an audience, the Princess as well. Her lady-in-waiting was careful to impress upon her beforehand how to open the conversation. There were only three phrases from which to select; Isabella sometimes wished to add a fourth or fifth, but had not the courage to do so. They dined at three o’clock. Conversation at table, though the merest gossip, was very solemn. Isabella discovered, in listening to it, that the people in the town could not be quite such bores as were those in the castle, for, at least, they furnished material for conversation. She sometimes wished to become acquainted with the wife of one of the officials or even of a common tradesman, but Fräulein assured her that that would be improper as well as unpleasant. “These common people have such a peculiar odor,” she said, taking a double dose of snuff. She always maintained that it was one of the finest traits in the Landgrave of Hesse, that he could not bear the odor of common people. After dinner the whole party went out for a walk; they proceeded in pairs, the marshal with his staff going before, two chasseurs with their carbines closing the procession. Isabella would have preferred an excursion to Neideck; they had even promised it to her, but they never found time for it. Simply because there was nothing to do, the hours were fully occupied. This never-fulfilled promise increased the Princess’s longing to see the charmed Castle of Neideck; it became to her the symbol of freedom, ever alluring, forever unattainable. [Pg 714] After the walk the Prince, following the example of Louis XIV, fed and caressed his numerous dogs. If her father was in an unusually good humor, Isabella received permission to pat the dogs, a thing she hated to do. Afterward Fräulein von Martigny never failed to remind her that as Cousin Frederick owned even a larger number of dogs, as Countess Vierstein she would never be able to get away from dog-atmosphere. The best comfort of the unfortunate, provided they can sleep, is night. The Princess had a magnificent canopy-bed, with the softest of pillows and the finest silken covers. When a child lies comfortably in its little bed, it is often said to be lying there “like a princess.” The saying did not originate with Princess Isabella, for she felt no comfort even in bed. She wished to sleep in the dark, but it was considered proper for her to have a Dutch night-lamp burning in her own bedroom, and a German lamp in the one adjoining, where her maid slept. And from the 15th of October to the 15th of April open fires were kept burning throughout the night in both rooms; such were the palace regulations. So the poor Princess often lay awake, counting the strokes of the big castle clock and of all the other numerous clocks in the rooms, following one another “like clockwork.” Her whole young life seemed to her like one long sleepless night. It was in the month of May. The nights were now growing shorter, fortunately; but Isabella was still awake at one o’clock, staring about her with wide-open eyes. She noticed a small red book on the[Pg 715] window-sill, an unusual sight in these rooms, where nothing was ever left lying about. What kind of a book could it be? All the books in the castle were bound in blue. She slipped out of bed to look at it. The red cover was in bad taste and overdecorated; the leaves were gilt-edged, but the paper was bad, like blotting paper, and the print was poor and blurred. The title was: “Notable description and history of the princely Castle of Neideck, brought to light by Philip Balzer, schoolmaster and student of the history of his fatherland.” The Princess went to bed again, and, by the light of her very good Dutch night-lamp, began to read this little book. Scarcely had she finished the few pages which treated of the origin and twenty-five meanings of the name “Neideck,” when she began to feel drowsy, and when she reached page ten she fell asleep, and slept soundly until late in the morning. After this she decided to read a little of the book every evening; she also inquired as to whom it belonged and how it came to be in her room. VI In due time Burg Balzer finished his “history,” and even got it printed, a harder task than the writing. There was only one printing office in the principality, and this belonged to the court bookbinder Zöllner in Westerau. Zöllner, owner also of a toy store and circulating library, printed every year the “Court, State, and House Almanac of Westerau,” and this was the[Pg 716] extent of his printing venture; he could never be induced to risk any other literary undertaking. Philip had foreseen that, and offered to cover all necessary expenses with the contents of his savings-box. The castle fund, which had been collecting for twelve years, amounted now to exactly two florins and eighteen kreutzers.[1] But Herr Zöllner was not satisfied. Philip, though surprised that books could cost so much, did not lose courage. He, knowing that peasants pay their rent partly in money and produce the rest in manual labor and labor of their teams, proposed to the bookbinder to pay him by the same method, to write out bills and dunning letters, line school copybooks, and perform other tasks, until all expenses had been paid. The bookbinder agreed, and Balzer, with a heavy sigh, became his publisher’s drudge, as also more famous authors have been. Piles of the bookbinder’s work were carried to Neideck every Saturday, but the pile of Philip’s own book in Westerau remained untouched. Philip bore his burden heroically; he was slaving for his castle, that was enough for Philip. He had not neglected, however, to present some elegantly bound copies to the ruling princes of his own and adjoining lands. At first he expected a few gold snuff-boxes in return, then, at least, some kind acknowledgment by letter; but nothing came. The Prince of Westerau had given the book to his valet, because it had come uncalled for and not in proper form; all gifts from his subjects, as long as they were of no special value, went the same way. [Pg 717] The valet found the book so uninteresting that he passed it on to Isabella’s maid. The girl, feeling life at court even more tedious than this book, first read a little in it, then forgot it, leaving it in the Princess’s room, where, during a sleepless night, as we have seen, it fell at last into the right hands. The Princess was glad to hear something more definite about the enchanted castle, and was surprised to read of all the strange events that had taken place there—a small history of the world in itself—and of the numerous historical monuments still in existence there. The French books with which Fräulein von Martigny tormented her every day took her to Rome, Athens, Mexico, and other places, for which she cared nothing; it pleased her at last to be able to read about what was nearest her home, about the mystery upon which she looked out from her own windows. The beginning of the book had a soothing effect, even helped her to sleep; later on it became more interesting, and toward the end quite exciting. Sometimes the author was very comical, just when he wished to be very impressive; but he always meant well, and was very enthusiastic. The Princess became interested in an author who could make her laugh without quite laughing at him. In the preface the writer offers himself as guide to every visitor in Neideck, by day or night, in rain or sunshine; and when Isabella closed the book she was more than willing to have such a guide through the ruins—in moonshine if possible. At times the book spoke like a prophet; for example, on page 112, where it said quite mysteriously: “A man[Pg 718] may build a house or a castle, but this house or castle will build up and mold the man who lives in it. Apparently time has come to a standstill in the old stronghold; but only apparently, for time is not only ever moving, but also moves others; it moves the castle toward growth and age. The castle is really a living being, mysteriously connected with the fate of the ruling family, of the country, and perhaps also with the fate of a humble subject, who does not yet reveal his identity. These ruins have their spirit; not a ghost, but the spirit of the castle, put into it by every one who, led by some vague impulse, approaches in all sincerity so mighty a monument, receiving back from it in higher potency what all have put there. In this way the curses of the poor evicted women have become reality; two of these curses are already fulfilled, and the third will surely come to pass when the predestined lady of the castle appears, to bring for the first time after a hundred years love and blessing, to save the castle and put men to shame. Who is this noble lady, and when will she appear?” With this question the book closed. As mentioned before, the Princess was much excited by these words. Until now, to feel bored and to marry her hateful cousin seemed to be her only vocation in life. The first she was not responsible for, the second she intended to be fully responsible for. But now she began to wonder if she were not called upon to save the castle? It was not quite clear to her what there was about it to be saved, but that did not matter. She had found her vocation in life: she was going to save something. To begin with, she must first see the castle. [Pg 719] A new spirit of insubordination awoke in her. Was it not her natural right to see the home of her ancestors? and why should she be defrauded of that right? For the first time she studied her own situation, without prejudice, as a matter of principle, and she discovered that she was kept imprisoned, led by leading-strings, bored, and made stupid. “The house molds the person,” she had read. Yes, indeed, the gilded cage of this tiresome castle had made a puppet of her. But that was over now. A strong spirit of defiance began to stir in that pretty head; Rousseau’s spirit was filling her, too, with fire and flame, and all this through the influence of poor Burg Balzer, who knew nothing at all about Rousseau. It was just at this time, when the first storm of rebellion was shaking the Princess’s world of thought, that the arrangements for her marriage were to be completed. The visit by the young Count had been announced three times, and three times apologies had been sent for his not coming. The young man, just returned from his travels, could not be induced to go to Westerau; he shuddered when he remembered the days he had spent there as a child. In spite of this reluctance, unflattering and unpromising as it was, the two fathers remained firm, and the young people had to submit. The Princess, though hoping the Count would remain at Blocksberg, was yet annoyed that he did not care to see her. She declared to her father that she would say “No!” even on the steps of the altar, and that no power on earth could make her go to Vierstein. Such open rebellion had never been[Pg 720] known before, while the reasons with which Isabella supported her right to a voice in the matter were simply unthinkable. The Prince ceased to recognize his gentle daughter. He sent for her responsible guardian, Fräulein von Martigny, to hear what she had to say about this paroxysm of revolt. The frightened lady told him that she had noticed a certain obstinacy and extravagance in Isabella for several days; it had worried her greatly, but she had not been able to discover the cause. The Prince, accustomed to have everything settled according to his wishes promptly and definitely, now commanded Fräulein von Martigny to take Isabella for a walk in the garden. Within an hour he would look for the report that Isabella had been brought to her senses. But instead of coming to an understanding, the two ladies had a serious quarrel; they did not raise their voices; their gestures were quite within the rules of finest etiquette; but underneath it all poisoned arrows and sharp thrusts were exchanged. They had been walking for more than half an hour up and down, under the orange trees in front of the castle, when suddenly they heard a confused sound of angry voices coming from the gate. The two ladies stopped: a man with long hair sans powder and cue, in shabby clothes, half rustic, half citified-looking, was trying to enter the castle, while footmen were driving him back. He held a petition in his hand, and kept calling out: “I must see the Prince! I must see the Prince!” The footmen told him that it was impossible, and would have quickly overpowered him[Pg 721] when, seeing the Princess, the man broke loose and ran straight toward the ladies. “Gracious Princess!” he cried, quite out of breath. “I am the schoolmaster of Neideck! Help me! I must speak to your father, the Prince! Danger is threatening!” In great indignation Fräulein von Martigny drew the Princess away, and the servants again laid hands on the excited man. But when Isabella heard his name, she actually ordered the footmen to release him. At such independence on Isabella’s part, Fräulein stood like a statue turned to stone. Isabella now asked the schoolmaster for an explanation. His words were not courtier-like, but they sounded all the more natural for that. “Imagine, Princess!” he said, “the castle of Neideck is to be demolished, blown up, leveled to the ground. It was the steward who suggested it, and the Prince has given his assent. They will begin work next week. Think of it! The home of your ancestors, the country’s stronghold, the most beautiful edifice—in one word, Neideck is to fall! And what makes the blow still more unbearable is the fact that it is I who am the cause of it, I, who put the plan into the steward’s head! In my history of the castle—” “I have read it,” interrupted the Princess, smiling graciously, while a smirk of pleased authorship passed over Philip’s rapt features. He continued: “In my history I explained the name of the Hasen Tower; perhaps you know that the present steward Haas is a grandson of the one who cut his throat in one of the rooms there. I had to tell all that, for[Pg 722] truth is the first duty of the historian, nothing but truth; the man who tells only half the truth is a liar through and through. Well, the steward is angry, and says that I have insulted his grandfather in his grave; and that I did it in print, moreover, which is worse. He wished to dismiss me from my position as teacher, but the inspector, my kind protector, interfered. Now, as the steward can not send me away, he has determined that the castle shall be destroyed. He alleges that it interferes with the traffic. The traffic! Why, you can’t find any traffic over there, even if you searched for it with spectacles. He asserts, too, that it gives shelter to tramps—I am the only one who lives there; that it threatens to collapse of itself any day. Well, then, if that is the case, why does he want to demolish it? But those are idle pretexts; the true reason is his grandfather’s suicide. See how one evil deed leads to another! The Prince has agreed only because he has been falsely informed. But I will explain everything to his Highness. If that stronghold were destroyed, it would be a disgrace to the whole land, and it would be not only my fault, but my death, too! Help me to an audience, gracious Princess, an immediate audience with the Prince!” Fräulein von Martigny called the footmen back and told them to take that mad fellow away, but Isabella interposed: “My dear schoolmaster, follow me!” Making a graceful motion with her fan, she advanced to the entrance-hall and up the stairway, Balzer following with head erect. In the mean while Fräulein was calling for eau de lavande, fell in a swoon, so the[Pg 723] footmen had to support her instead of the schoolmaster. The Princess was taking a bold course; but one who breaks the chain is stronger than one who has never worn it. When Isabella entered her father’s room, the Prince thought she had come, dutifully as usual, to submit herself to his will, with the lady who had influenced her following. How astonished he was to see Burg Balzer’s face instead of Fräulein von Martigny’s! He gave the imprudent man one piercing look, whereupon Isabella began at once to explain, describing in a few words the whole scene, and begging mercy for the castle, while Balzer fell on his knees and, holding his petition aloft, cried: “Mercy! Mercy!” With great self-possession the Prince touched the bell. When the valet entered, the Prince ordered him to see that this impertinent intruder of a schoolmaster leave the castle at once. It was done. Alone with his daughter, he gave her a sharp lecture. Isabella acknowledged that his reproaches were just, but was not her intercession for the castle also just? She unfolded her reasons with such enthusiasm that the old Prince listened in astonishment to an eloquence never before suspected in his daughter. Fired by the spirit of Philip’s book, she saw in the castle a living being, and prophesied that in vain would remorse follow its destruction, as if one were to kill a man and then call in the doctor. But the Prince was inexorable. Though Isabella’s eloquence had made a strong impression upon him, it was also quite different from the one intended. He[Pg 724] could not help thinking that if the Count only saw the girl thus passionately excited he would like her better than he had heretofore; he remembered, from times long past, that young people admire strong passion. This led to another thought—only he was not quite sure that it would be proper to express it. He said at last in his coldest voice: “If you care so much for the castle, let us exchange. I give you the castle and you give me your ‘Yes’ for the Count!” But now the Princess burned in righteous indignation. She called it a shameless proposition, and affirmed that she would never marry her cousin. It was her last word. Her father, too, had nothing more to say. The family jar was over. After that events moved quickly. The Prince gave orders that for criminally breaking the peace of the princely household and of the palace the mad schoolmaster of Neideck must leave the castle within twenty-four hours. Furthermore, the demolition of the castle must commence as soon as possible. The Princess, too, was ordered to her own room for an indefinite time, and the strictest watchfulness exacted from her lady-in-waiting, for the unfortunate girl had shown traces of a mental disorder that could be cured only by a life of utter seclusion. As Count Vierstein was expected on the following Sunday, the Prince wished, by any means, to prepare Isabella for his coming, and thus to awaken love for him in her heart. His orders were promptly executed. The dismissed schoolmaster disappeared from his little house. He had not left the castle, however, for he was hiding in the secret vault,[Pg 725] where in the year 1757 he had faced the siege without besiegers. There he spent all his days and nights, except in the evening, when he would steal out into the village, and the peasants would give him something to eat, keeping the matter a profound secret, so that the steward should not continue to persecute him. The mental condition of the poor schoolmaster, formerly so happy and content, was pitiful. He never thought of his own misery, only of the ruin that threatened the castle, all through his fault. He had renounced his love, only to bring ruin to the castle; collected the fund, only to see the castle demolished; written his history—to have those glorious towers of Neideck blown up! Tormented by remorse, he made up his mind, if it should ever really come to that, he would be at the bridge leading to the Hasen Tower at the right moment. VII Princess Isabella, too, was not enjoying a very happy time of it. For six days she did not see a human being save her maid and Fräulein von Martigny. That old lady was preaching repentance in every possible key and tune; Isabella did not listen. In these sermons Count Vierstein was not mentioned as often as he should have been, but the old lady continued to remark at frequent intervals that he would come the following Sunday without fail. Isabella was silent. The readings from the French classics were three times as long as usual; Isabella did not notice it. She only thought and thought of all the suffering she had endured in[Pg 726] this stupid castle from her childhood on. She determined to get away from it at any cost. Yet she did not know where to go. Saturday night had come. Fräulein was just reading in Boileau’s tenth epistle: “In vain do I stop you; my remonstrance is vain—go, depart!” when a distant, dull thunder shook the air, rattling all the windows. The old lady was startled, but kept on reading all the louder; she knew, it seemed, what the noise meant, and was trying to divert her prisoner’s attention. But it was not necessary: Isabella was so deep in thought that she had no more heard the report than she had the verses of Boileau. It soon grew dark, and every one went to bed early, as usual. Isabella slept very little; at four o’clock the bright sunshine awakened her again. It was the Sunday at last on which the Count was to appear. She looked through the open window out over the dewy landscape; her eyes sought the distant castle, the only object which she ever watched with interest, often with tears in her eyes; but, oh, horrible! the castle had only one tower left! At first the Princess thought that the sun, shining into her face, had caused an optical illusion. She ran for her spyglass; then she recognized the sad truth: the castle had now but one tower, the other, the Hasen Tower, had been blown up last night when that dull report made the windows rattle. Isabella was beside herself with grief and anger. She had firmly believed that her father would show mercy to the castle, if only to please her, and she hoped[Pg 727] that such a sign of his love might lead to a reconciliation and help her to begin a new life in her father’s house, one more worthy of living. Such had been her thoughts during rare and more hopeful hours. And every day she had been looking upon the still intact castle as a promise of the future; but now, to-day, the first tower had fallen, her father remained unmoved, and—the Count was coming! She dressed herself, threw a shawl over her head, and stole on tiptoe from the room, down the staircase into the castle-yard. No one noticed her at this early hour. A small gate stood open; she hurried out, not knowing what she was doing or whither she was going; at least, she had once more willed something and done something. The fresh air was inspiring, and her spirits felt uplifted on the wings of the morning wind. Instinctively she walked in the direction of the castle, at first hurrying like a fugitive, but soon moderating her pace, for, though no one recognized her, still she was attracting the attention of the few people she happened to meet. At last she asked herself, where would she go? Her resolution was quickly formed: to Neideck. And what then? She did not know. But once up in the castle, she would be far away from her own home, and for the present that was enough. Not accustomed, however to such long tramps, she soon grew tired, her knees shook, her eyes filled with tears; but even then she did not give up, and two hours later arrived at Neideck, where in the castle-yard she fell to the ground, completely exhausted. It[Pg 728] grew dark before her eyes; she heard the ringing of the church-bells, the humming of bees; she noticed the fragrance of the elder blossoms, but she did not realize where she was, and lay as in a dream. A voice roused her. Some one asked anxiously: “What is the matter, young woman?” She looked up. A young man in traveling clothes, with boots and spurs, stood before her, looking at her kindly. She did not answer, but searched him sharply with her eyes; there was something familiar in his face, but she could not remember where she had seen it. “What are you doing here so early in the morning?” he asked. “I am looking for the schoolmaster,” stammered Isabella. It was all she could think of. “I am looking for him, too,” remarked the young man. “This Burg Balzer is certainly a remarkable man: something of a fool, no doubt, like all original people. But he no longer lives here; he has been dismissed and sent away, as one of the peasants told me; sent away because he conducted himself very improperly toward the Princess Isabella.” “That is not true!” said Isabella. “At least, not as far as the Princess is concerned.” “Oh, yes,” the stranger assured her. “There is no joking with this Isabella; she is such a bore!” “Perhaps she is more bored than boring,” replied Isabella. The stranger looked at her attentively. “Who are you, I wonder, that you know so much about this? Perhaps a lady’s maid from the castle?” [Pg 729] She stammered timidly: “Yes.” She had learned so little, did not know how to tell even a lie. “Well, if that is so, I wish you would tell me a little about your mistress. I heard that she was quite a nice-looking puppet, pulled by a string, either by her father or her lady-in-waiting. Is she not going to marry Count Vierstein in the near future?” “She is not quite such a puppet as you think!” cried Isabella, very indignantly, and in quite another tone. “The string is broken; she is not going to marry this wild Count, not under any circumstances!” “Oh, oh! Is the Count really so wild? And how do you know that?” “He lives only among hunters, horses, dogs, and soldiers, and roams the woods all day long!” “So, so! And why are you roaming through old castles all alone, my highly virtuous young woman?” “I? Oh, I wished to see the schoolmaster and the—the tower that was blown up yesterday,” Isabella answered, very much embarrassed. “Well, I intended to see the tower too; the schoolmaster’s book interested me—” “Have you read his book? That was the reason I came here,” interrupted Isabella. “It is an absurd book,” the stranger went on. “But the man’s feeling for his castle is true and strong. After reading his book you feel drawn toward this place, whether you wish to come or not.” “That is just what happened to me,” whispered the Princess. “There is a sentimental maid for you,” thought the[Pg 730] stranger. “They are becoming very frequent in our philosophical century.” “That young man has a good heart and clear head,” thought Isabella. As far back as she could remember he was the first person who had ever shown her any sympathy. “Oh, see here,” he suddenly broke out aloud and straightened himself. “I can not play a part. I am Count Vierstein, whom you called ‘the wild Count.’ And if I do roam about in God’s nature all day long, I get more joy and pleasure out of it than do your pale people who live indoors. I can see the sun rising here from this enchanted castle, as I did to-day—and—I am furious at the people over there in Westerau who, without further ado, are barbarous enough to blow up the home of their ancestors. You may tell your mistress so; I shall see her myself to-day, but shall not have much to say to her, certainly nothing about this.” For a while Isabella stood speechless with terror. But the Count did not look at all wicked; in fact, he was quite handsome; and not nearly so ill-mannered as Fräulein von Martigny had described him; on the contrary, he seemed to her kind and very tactful. This consideration lessened her terror. Should she tell him? But shame closed her lips. Finally she controlled herself and whispered: “Are you really on the way to Westerau? Several times you have been expected there, but always in vain.” “Well, it is a rough road, this journey after a bride!” the Count sighed. “However, I must go[Pg 731] through with it; my father wishes it, and children must obey their parents, so says the Bible. But there is a limit to our obedience; I will go to Westerau and do all that is necessary and proper, but if I then dislike this Princess as much as I do from a distance—and I have little doubt of that—and if she herself intends to give me, as you say, a very decided refusal—then I can ride back home with a light and happy heart, having done my duty. My attendants are awaiting me down in the village. It is too early to make a call, and I wish once more to breathe freely here in Burg Balzer’s incomparable castle before I start on the rough road I have to travel. There, now, you know my whole history!” Isabella drew the shawl closer over her head and looked out into the valley. She saw there a group of horsemen, followed by a carriage; the horsemen were galloping toward the castle, and in the lead, as they came nearer, she recognized her father. With an imploring cry she turned to the Count: “Save me! That is my father there, the Prince! I am Isabella. Save me, protect me from my father. Do not let them take me back into that hateful castle; it would kill me!” The Count was covered with surprise. “You are really Isabella, my dear cousin? But you don’t look at all like your pictures, and your speech is quite different from your letters. But why are you so afraid of your father. Did you run away from him?” “Yes, because he tried to make me marry—you!” “Well,” thought the Count, “she at least has a will of her own, and wishes to refuse me in her own way.” [Pg 732] “But not only on that account am I afraid,” the Princess continued, “but because I was shut into my room as punishment for wishing to save the castle and for taking the schoolmaster to my father on my own responsibility!” “On your own responsibility?” the Count repeated very cheerfully. “Then you did run away after all?” Isabella did not answer. “Why did you not run away long ago? We would have known each other so much sooner. And, and—are you often so excited as you are to-day?” “Oh, no; that is only here in Neideck; below, in the castle, it is very different.” “You see,” said the Count, “it is the bracing air that does it! You must be out of doors more, ride horseback, go hunting; then you will get rosy cheeks! By the way, the air in Vierstein is much better than it is down there in Westerau!” But the poor girl only kept on imploring, “My father! Save me!” All at once they heard a voice whisper, “Quick, come here, this is the best hiding-place you can find! I wished to keep it a secret from every one, but to save the gracious Princess I gladly sacrifice my secret, my head, everything! Come here, the entrance is not far away.” The Count turned and saw a strange figure, that would have made him laugh if he had not been provoked. “What does the fellow mean?” “Pardon me, sir, I am Burg Balzer, whom you came to see. Sitting under the elder-bush here, I could not help hearing the whole conversation. I[Pg 733] beg you to forgive me! But come, waste no more time!” “My dear friend,” answered the Count coolly, “we will look at your vault some other time; on the contrary, you had better come over here, where I can protect both of you. I am not used to hiding.” The Prince rode into the castle yard; his foaming horse reared in front of the group: Count Vierstein in the middle, at his right the Princess, at his left Burg Balzer. At first the Prince did not recognize the Count; then answering the latter’s bow, he exchanged a few words with him, surprised at meeting him here and under such circumstances. After a while the Prince turned to Isabella: “Come here, you shameless girl!” And then to the Count: “Unheard-of things have happened, cousin! And before I do my duty as host, I must do my duty as father. Down there at the foot of the hill a carriage is awaiting you, Isabella; the curtains are closely drawn. You will step into the carriage; Fräulein von Martigny is expecting you; everything is so arranged that you can drive home and reach your room without being seen. A Princess of Westerau, who ran away! Who ever heard of such a thing in the whole history of our family!” Firmly, though very respectfully, Count Vierstein came forward. “Forgive me, most gracious prince and cousin, if I do not give up the Princess to you; at least, not against her will. She has placed herself under my protection, and as a man of honor I must grant it to her.” [Pg 734] The Prince was astounded completely. What! Isabella had placed herself under the Count’s protection, and at the same time had run away only to escape the Count. Burg Balzer, taking advantage of his bewilderment, pressed forward, forgot his fear of horses, until almost touching that of the Prince, and begged for mercy toward his castle. For answer the Prince called to his outrider: “Drive this fool down the mountain with your whip!” Again the Count interceded: “This man, too, is under my protection, and I beg your Highness to leave him to me for the present!” “My dear cousin,” laughed the Prince angrily, “do you claim sovereign rights over my family and my subjects? Perhaps I am no longer master here on my own soil!” “Indeed,” answered the Count, “I would be very much pleased if you would place that, too, under my protection! The castle would be a perfect gem in my dear cousin’s dowry, and I am beginning to hope that she may not repulse this wild fellow when once she comes to know him better!” “What! Courting and marriage contract here in the open road? Preposterous!” said the Prince. But all at once he seemed to be in the best of humors. Burg Balzer pulled the Count’s sleeve and whispered mysteriously: “I have discovered the most beautiful place for the wedding ceremony; it is right here under our feet.” Even the Prince was listening now. “While I was in hiding, and having nothing else to do, I succeeded[Pg 735] in clearing out the rubbish from the passageway, and oh, joy! I found a beautiful crypt under the old chapel. For centuries it had been buried underneath, and it has three heavy antique columns, the capitals of which are ornamented with eagles and lions—” “A wedding in the cellar? Preposterous!” interrupted the Prince. “You are a fool, schoolmaster! There! I have called you by mistake ‘schoolmaster’; you may be one again! A man’s word is as good as his bond!” As this did not seem the proper place for further discussion, the Prince decided to lead his daughter to the carriage and to accompany her with his attendants to the castle. The Count was to stay here about two hours longer—perhaps visit the crypt—in order to give the people in Westerau time to prepare a reception with all honors. Everything else could then be arranged in proper form. Four weeks later the schoolmaster, who had received by decree the additional dignity of castellan in Neideck, ordered ten men to come to the castle yard and raise from the well the old cannon that had been buried there since 1757. After three days’ labor they succeeded in dragging it out and hoisting it into its old place near the castle gate, ready to salute at the wedding of Princess Isabella and her cousin Frederick, which was to take place the following day in the chapel of Castle Westerau. While Balzer was leaning against the cannon, in a very comfortable and contemplative frame of mind,[Pg 736] the inspector came up the mountain, put his hand on the schoolmaster’s shoulder, and said: “Well, schoolmaster, what about your prophecy of the lady of high rank who was to save the castle? It seems to me the Princess did not do it after all, and the Count did. And who are the men that have been put to shame?” Philip replied: “Count or countess, it does not matter, so long as the castle is saved! But it is a pity they did not let that tower stand one day longer; it could have lasted a thousand years to come. Prophecies never are fulfilled to the letter, or people would all be superstitious. With regard to the humiliated men—well, what about the steward and the Prince himself? Only one must not even think of that, far less say so. After all, we can see in all this again how a just power guides the fate of men as well as of castles. Neideck has always been a good, true stronghold: in its first youth it was the cradle of our ruling family; in the prime of its existence it was a place of refuge for all around; now it has grown old and has retired into private life. But even so it has given to our Princess an excellent husband, and to a poor schoolmaster the prospect of a happy old age. May it prosper for many coyears to
subota, 13. rujna 2025.
END AS A HERO By KEITH LAUMER - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/51267/pg51267-images.html
After all, it's not every day a man gets a chance to swap drygoods for dreams.
He could endure the quiet waiting in the carriage no longer; it was easier to get out and walk up and down. It was now dark; the few scattered lamps in the narrow side street quivered uneasily in the wind. The rain had stopped, the sidewalks were almost dry, but the rough-paved roadway was still moist, and little pools gleamed here and there. “Strange, isn’t it?” thought Franz. “Here we are scarcely a hundred paces from the Prater, and yet it might be a street in some little country town. Well, it’s safe enough, at any rate. She won’t meet any of the friends she dreads so much here.” He looked at his watch. “Only just seven, and so dark already! It is an early autumn this year ... and then this confounded storm!...” He turned his coat-collar up about his neck and quickened his pacing. The glass in the street lamps rattled lightly. “Half an hour more,” he said to himself, “then I can go home. I could almost wish—that that half-hour were over.” He stood for a moment on the corner, where he could command a view of both streets. “She’ll surely come to-day,” his thoughts ran on, while he struggled with his hat, which threatened to blow away. “It’s Friday.... Faculty meeting at the University;[Pg 956] she needn’t hurry home.” He heard the clanging of street-car gongs, and the hour chimed from a nearby church tower. The street became more animated. Hurrying figures passed him, clerks of neighboring shops; they hastened onward, fighting against the storm. No one noticed him; a couple of half-grown girls glanced up in idle curiosity as they went by. Suddenly he saw a familiar figure coming toward him. He hastened to meet her.... Could it be she? On foot? She saw him, and quickened her pace. “You are walking?” he asked. “I dismissed the cab in front of the theatre. I think I’ve had that driver before.” A man passed them, turning to look at the lady. Her companion glared at him, and the other passed on hurriedly. The lady looked after him. “Who was it?” she asked, anxiously. “Don’t know him. We’ll see no one we know here, don’t worry. But come now, let’s get into the cab.” “Is that your carriage?” “Yes.” “An open one?” “It was warm and pleasant when I engaged it an hour ago.” They walked to the carriage; the lady stepped in. “Driver!” called the man; “Why, where is he?” asked the lady. Franz looked around. “Well, did you ever? I don’t see him anywhere.” “Oh—” her tone was low and timid. [Pg 957] “Wait a moment, child, he must be around here somewhere.” The young man opened the door of a little saloon, and discovered his driver at a table with several others. The man rose hastily. “In a minute, sir,” he explained, swallowing his glass of wine. “What do you mean by this?” “All right, sir.... Be there in a minute.” His step was a little unsteady as he hastened to his horses. “Where’ll you go, sir?” “Prater—Summer-house.” Franz entered the carriage. His companion sat back in a corner, crouching fearsomely under the shadow of the cover. He took both her hands in his. She sat silent. “Won’t you say good evening to me?” “Give me a moment to rest, dear. I’m still out of breath.” He leaned back in his corner. Neither spoke for some minutes. The carriage turned into the Prater street, passed the Tegethoff Monument, and a few minutes later was rolling swiftly through the broad, dark Prater Avenue. Emma turned suddenly and flung both arms around her lover’s neck. He lifted the veil that still hung about her face, and kissed her. “I have you again—at last!” she exclaimed. “Do you know how long it is since we have seen each other?” he asked. “Since Sunday.” “Yes, and that wasn’t good for much.” [Pg 958] “Why not? You were in our house.” “Yes—in your house. That’s just it. This can’t go on. I shall not enter your house again.... What’s the matter?” “A carriage passed us.” “Dear girl, the people who are driving in the Prater at such an hour, and in such weather, aren’t noticing much what other people are doing.” “Yes—that’s so. But some one might look in here, by chance.” “We couldn’t be recognized. It’s too dark.” “Yes—but can’t we drive somewhere else?” “Just as you like.” He called to the driver, who did not seem to hear. Franz leaned forward and touched the man. “Turn around again. What are you whipping your horses like that for? We’re in no hurry, I tell you. Drive—let me see—yes—drive down the avenue that leads to the Reichs Bridge.” “The Reichs-strasse?” “Yes. But don’t hurry so, there’s no need of it.” “All right, sir. But it’s the wind that makes the horses so crazy.” Franz sat back again as the carriage turned in the other direction. “Why didn’t I see you yesterday?” “How could I?”... “You were invited to my sister’s.” “Oh—yes.” “Why weren’t you there?” “Because I can’t be with you—like that—with others[Pg 959] around. No, I just can’t.” She shivered. “Where are we now?” she asked, after a moment. They were passing under the railroad bridge at the entrance to the Reichs-strasse. “On the way to the Danube,” replied Franz. “We’re driving toward the Reichs Bridge. We’ll certainly not meet any of our friends here,” he added, with a touch of mockery. “The carriage jolts dreadfully.” “We’re on cobblestones again.” “But he drives so crooked.” “Oh, you only think so.” He had begun to notice himself that the vehicle was swaying to and fro more than was necessary, even on the rough pavement. But he said nothing, not wishing to alarm her. “There’s a great deal I want to say to you to-day, Emma.” “You had better begin then; I must be home at nine o’clock.” “A few words may decide everything.” “Oh, goodness, what was that!” she screamed. The wheels had caught in a car-track, and the carriage turned partly over as the driver attempted to free it. Franz caught at the man’s coat. “Stop that!” he cried. “Why, you’re drunk, man!” The driver halted his horses with some difficulty. “Oh, no—sir—” “Let’s get out here, Emma, and walk.” “Where are we?” “Here’s the bridge already. And the wind is not[Pg 960] nearly as strong as it was. It will be nicer to walk a little. It’s so hard to talk in the carriage.” Emma drew down her veil and followed him. “Don’t you call this windy?” she exclaimed as she struggled against the gust that met her at the corner. He took her arm, and called to the driver to follow them. They walked on slowly. Neither spoke as they mounted the ascent of the bridge; and they halted where they could hear the flow of the water below them. Heavy darkness surrounded them. The broad stream stretched itself out in gray, indefinite outlines; red lights in the distance, floating above the water, awoke answering gleams from its surface. Trembling stripes of light reached down from the shore they had just left; on the other side of the bridge the river lost itself in the blackness of open fields. Thunder rumbled in the distance; they looked over to where the red lights soared. A train with lighted windows rolled between iron arches that seemed to spring up out of the night for an instant, to sink back into darkness again. The thunder grew fainter and more distant; silence fell again; only the wind moved, in sudden gusts. Franz spoke at last, after a long silence. “We must go away.” “Of course,” Emma answered, softly. “We must go away,” he continued, with more animation. “Go away altogether, I mean—” “Oh, we can’t!” “Only because we are cowards, Emma.” [Pg 961] “And my child?” “He will let you have the boy, I know.” “But how shall we go?” Her voice was very low. “You mean—to run away—” “Not at all. You have only to be honest with him; to tell him that you can not live with him any longer; that you belong to me.” “Franz—are you mad?” “I will spare you that trial, if you wish. I will tell him myself.” “No, Franz, you will do nothing of the kind.” He endeavored to read her face. But the darkness showed him only that her head was turned toward him. He was silent a few moments more. Then he spoke quietly: “You need not fear; I shall not do it.” They walked toward the farther shore. “Don’t you hear a noise?” she asked. “What is it?” “Something is coming from the other side,” he said. A slow rumbling came out of the darkness. A little red light gleamed out at them. They could see that it hung from the axle of a clumsy country cart, but they could not see whether the cart was laden or not, and whether there were human beings on it. Two other carts followed the first. They could just see the outlines of a man in peasant garb on the last cart, and could see that he was lighting his pipe. The carts passed them slowly. Soon there was nothing to be heard but the low rolling of the wheels as their own carriage followed them. The bridge dropped gently to the farther shore. They saw the street disappear into blackness between rows of trees. Open fields lay before them to[Pg 962] the right and to the left; they gazed out into gloom indistinguishable. There was another long silence before Franz spoke again. “Then it is the last time—” “What?—” Emma’s tone was anxious. “The last time we are to be together. Stay with him, if you will. I bid you farewell.” “Are you serious?” “Absolutely.” “There, now you see, it is you who always spoil the few hours we have together?—not I.” “Yes, you’re right,” said Franz. “Let’s drive back to town.” She held his arm closer. “No,” she insisted, tenderly, “I don’t want to go back. I won’t be sent away from you.” She drew his head down to hers and kissed him tenderly. “Where would we get to if we drove on down there?” she asked. “That’s the road to Prague, dear.” “We won’t go quite that far,” she smiled, “but I’d like to drive on a little, down there.” She pointed into the darkness. Franz called to the driver. There was no answer; the carriage rumbled on, slowly. Franz ran after it, and saw that the driver was fast asleep. Franz roused him roughly. “We want to drive on down that street. Do you hear me?” “All right, sir.” Emma entered the carriage first, then Franz. The driver whipped his horses, and they galloped madly[Pg 963] over the moist earth of the road-bed. The couple inside the cab held each other closely as they swayed with the motion of the vehicle. “Isn’t this quite nice?” whispered Emma, her lips on his. In the moment of her words she seemed to feel the cab mounting into the air. She felt herself thrown over violently, reached for some hold, but grasped only the empty air. She seemed to be spinning madly like a top, her eyes closed; suddenly she found herself lying on the ground, a great silence about her, as if she were alone, far away from all the world. Then noises began to come into her consciousness again; hoofs beat the ground near her; a low moaning came from somewhere; but she could see nothing. Terror seized her; she screamed aloud. Her terror grew stronger, for she could not hear her own voice. Suddenly she knew what had happened; the carriage had hit some object, possibly a milestone; had upset, and she had been thrown out. Where is Franz? was her next thought. She called his name. And now she could hear her voice, not distinctly yet, but she could hear it. There was no answer to her call. She tried to get up. After some effort she rose to a sitting posture, and, reaching out, she felt something, a human body, on the ground beside her. She could now begin to see a little through the dimness. Franz lay beside her, motionless. She put out her hand and touched his face; something warm and wet covered it. Her heart seemed to stop beating—Blood?—Oh, what had happened? Franz was wounded and unconscious.[Pg 964] Where was the coachman? She called him, but no answer came. She still sat there on the ground. She did not seem to be injured, although she ached all over. “What shall I do?” she thought; “what shall I do? How can it be that I am not injured? Franz!” she called again. A voice answered from somewhere near her. “Where are you, lady? And where is the gentleman? Wait a minute, Miss—I’ll light the lamps, so we can see. I don’t know what’s got into the beasts to-day. It ain’t my fault, Miss, sure—they ran into a pile of stones.” Emma managed to stand up, although she was bruised all over. The fact that the coachman seemed quite uninjured reassured her somewhat. She heard the man opening the lamp and striking a match. She waited anxiously for the light. She did not dare to touch Franz again. “It’s all so much worse when you can’t see plainly,” she thought. “His eyes may be open now—there won’t be anything wrong....” A tiny ray of light came from one side. She saw the carriage, not completely upset, as she had thought, but leaning over toward the ground, as if one wheel were broken. The horses stood quietly. She saw the milestone, then a heap of loose stones, and beyond them a ditch. Then the light touched Franz’s feet, crept up over his body to his face, and rested there. The coachman had set the lamp on the ground beside the head of the unconscious man. Emma dropped to her knees, and her heart seemed to stop beating as she looked into the face before her. It was ghastly white; the[Pg 965] eyes were half open, only the white showing. A thin stream of blood trickled down from one temple and ran into his collar. The teeth were fastened into the under lip. “No—no—it isn’t possible,” Emma spoke, as if to herself. The driver knelt also and examined the face of the man. Then he took the head in both his hands and raised it. “What are you doing?” screamed Emma, hoarsely, shrinking back at the sight of the head that seemed to be rising of its own volition. “Please, Miss—I’m afraid—I’m thinking—there’s a great misfortune happened—” “No—no—it’s not true!” said Emma. “It can’t be true!— You are not hurt? Nor am I—” The man let the head he held fall back again into the lap of the trembling Emma. “If only some one would come—if the peasants had only passed fifteen minutes later.” “What shall we do?” asked Emma, her lips trembling. “Why, you see, Miss, if the carriage was all right—but it’s no good as it is—we’ve got to wait till some one comes—” he talked on, but Emma did not hear him. Her brain seemed to awake suddenly, and she knew what was to be done. “How far is it to the nearest house?” she asked. “Not much further, Miss—there’s Franz-Josefsland right there. We’d see the houses if it was lighter—it won’t take five minutes to get there.” “Go there, then; I’ll stay here— Go and fetch some one.” [Pg 966] “I think I’d better stay here with you, Miss. Somebody must come; it’s the main road.” “It’ll be too late; we need a doctor at once.” The coachman looked down at the quiet face, then he looked at Emma, and shook his head. “You can’t tell,” she cried. “Yes, Miss—but there’ll be no doctor in those houses.” “But there’ll be somebody to send to the city—” “Oh, yes, Miss—they’ll be having a telephone there, anyway! We’ll telephone to the Rescue Society.” “Yes, yes, that’s it. Go at once, run—and bring some men back with you. Why do you wait? Go at once. Hurry!” The man looked down again at the white face in her lap. “There’ll be no use here for doctor or Rescue Society, Miss.” “Oh, go!—for God’s sake go!” “I’m going, Miss—but don’t get afraid in the darkness here.” He hurried down the street. “’Twasn’t my fault,” he murmured as he ran. “Such an idea! to drive down this road this time o’ night.” Emma was left alone with the unconscious man in the gloomy street. “What shall I do now?” she thought. “It can’t be possible—it can’t.” The thought circled dizzily in her brain—“It can’t be possible.” Suddenly she seemed to hear a low breathing. She bent to the pale lips—no—not the faintest breath came from them. The blood had dried on temple and cheek. She gazed at[Pg 967] the eyes, the half-closed eyes, and shuddered. Why couldn’t she believe it?... It must be true—this was Death! A shiver ran through her—she felt but one thing—“This is a corpse. I am here alone with a corpse!—a corpse that rests on my lap!” With trembling hands she pushed the head away, until it rested on the ground. Then a feeling of horrible aloneness came over her. Why had she sent the coachman away? What should she do here all alone with this dead man in the darkness? If only some one would come—but what was she to do then if anybody did come? How long would she have to wait here? She looked down at the corpse again. “But I’m not alone with him,” she thought, “the light is there.” And the light seemed to her to become alive, something sweet and friendly, to which she owed gratitude. There was more life in this little flame than in all the wide night about her. It seemed almost as if this light was a protection for her, a protection against the terrible pale man who lay on the ground beside her. She stared into the light until her eyes wavered and the flame began to dance. Suddenly she felt herself awake—wide awake. She sprang to her feet. Oh, this would not do! It would not do at all—no one must find her here with him. She seemed to be outside of herself, looking at herself standing there on the road, the corpse and the light below her; she saw herself grow into strange, enormous proportions, high up into the darkness. “What am I waiting for?” she asked herself, and her brain reeled. “What am I waiting for? The people who might come? They don’t need me. They will come,[Pg 968] and they will ask questions—and I—why am I here? They will ask who I am—what shall I answer? I will not answer them—I will not say a word—they can not compel me to talk.” The sound of voices came from the distance. “Already?” she thought, listening in terror. The voices came from the bridge. It could not be the men the driver was bringing with him. But whoever it was would see the light—and they must not see it, for then she would be discovered. She overturned the lantern with her foot, and the light went out. She stood in utter darkness. She could see nothing—not even him. The pile of stones shone dimly. The voices came nearer. She trembled from head to foot; they must not find her here. That was the only thing of real importance in all the wide world—that no one should find her here. She would be lost if they knew that this—this corpse—was her lover. She clasps her hands convulsively, praying that the people, whoever they were, might pass by on the farther side of the road, and not see her. She listens breathless. Yes, they are there, on the other side—women, two women, or perhaps three. What are they talking about? They have seen the carriage, they speak of it—she can distinguish words. “A carriage upset—” What else do they say? She can not understand—they walk on—they have passed her—Ah—thanks—thanks to Heaven!—And now? What now? Oh, why isn’t she dead, as he is? He is to be envied; there is no more danger, no more fear for him. But so much—so much for her to tremble for. She shivers at the thought of being[Pg 969] found here, of being asked, “Who are you?” She will have to go to the police station, and all the world will know about it—her husband—her child. She can not understand why she has stood there motionless so long. She need not stay here—she can do no good here—and she is only courting disaster for herself. She makes a step forward—Careful! the ditch is here—she crosses it—how wet it is—two paces more and she is in the middle of the street. She halts a moment, looks straight ahead, and can finally distinguish the gray line of the road leading onward into darkness. There—over there—lies the city. She can not see it, but she knows the way. She turns once more. It does not seem so dark now. She can see the carriage and the horses quite distinctly—and, looking hard, she seems to see the outline of a human body on the ground. Her eyes open wide. Something seems to clutch at her and hold her here—it is he—she feels his power to keep her with him. With an effort she frees herself. Then she perceives that it was the soft mud of the road that held her. And she walks onward—faster—faster—her pace quickens to a run. Only to be away from here, to be back in the light—in the noise—among men. She runs along the street, raising her skirt high, that her steps may not be hindered. The wind is behind her, and seems to push her along. She does not know what it is she flees from. Is it the pale man back there by the ditch? No, now she knows, she flees the living, not the dead, the living who will soon be there, and who will look for her. What will they think? Will they follow her? But they can not[Pg 970] catch up with her now, she is so far away, she is nearing the bridge, there is no danger. No one can know who she was, no one can possibly imagine who the woman was who drove down through the country road with the dead man. The driver does not know her; he would not recognize her if he should ever see her again. They will not take the trouble to find out who she is. Who cares? It was wise of her not to stay—and it was not cowardly either. Franz himself would say it was wise. She must go home; she has a husband, a child; she would be lost if any one should see her there with her dead lover. There is the bridge; the street seems lighter—she hears the water beneath her. She stands there, where they stood together, arm in arm—when was it? How many hours ago? It can not be long since then. And yet—perhaps she lay unconscious long, and it is midnight now, or near morning, and they have missed her at home. Oh, no—it is not possible. She knows that she was not unconscious, she remembers everything clearly. She runs across the bridge, shivering at the sound of her own steps. Now she sees a figure coming toward her; she slows her pace. It is a man in uniform. She walks more slowly, she does not want to attract attention. She feels the man’s eyes resting on her—suppose he stops her! Now he is quite near; it is a policeman. She walks calmly past him, and hears him stop behind her. With an effort she continues in the same slow pace. She hears the jingle of street-car bells—ah, it can not be midnight yet. She walks more quickly—hurrying toward the city, the lights of which begin there by the railroad[Pg 971] viaduct—the growing noise tells her how near she is. One lonely stretch of street, and then she is safe. Now she hears a shrill whistle coming rapidly nearer—a wagon flies swiftly past her. She stops and looks after it; it is the ambulance of the Rescue Society. She knows where it is going. “How quickly they have come,” she thinks; “it is like magic.” For a moment she feels that she must call to them, must go back with them. Shame, terrible, overwhelming shame, such as she has never known before, shakes her from head to foot—she knows how vile, how cowardly she is. Then, as the whistle and the rumble of wheels fade away in the distance, a mad joy takes hold of her. She is saved—saved! She hurries on; she meets more people, but she does not fear them—the worst is over. The noise of the city grows louder, the street is lighter, the skyline of the Prater street rises before her, and she knows that she can sink into a flood tide of humanity there and lose herself in it. When she comes to a street lamp she is quite calm enough now to take out her watch and look at it. It is ten minutes to nine. She holds the watch to her ear—it is ticking merrily. And she thinks: “Here I am, alive, unharmed—and he—he—dead. It is Fate.” She feels as if all had been forgiven—as if she had never sinned. And what if Fate had willed otherwise? If it were she lying there in the ditch, and he who remained alive? He would not have run away—but then he is a man. She is only a woman, she has a husband, a child—it was her right—her duty—to save herself. She knows that it was not a sense of duty that impelled her to do it. But what[Pg 972] she has done was right—she had done right instinctively—as all good people do. If she had stayed she would have been discovered by this time. The doctors would question her. And all the papers would report it next morning; she would have been ruined forever, and yet her ruin could not bring him back to life. Yes, that was the main point, her sacrifice would have been all in vain. She crosses under the railway bridge and hurries on. There is the Tegethoff Column, where so many streets meet. There are but few people in the park on this stormy evening, but to her it seems as if the life of the city was roaring about her. It was so horribly still back there. She had plenty of time now. She knows that her husband will not be home before ten o’clock. She will have time to change her clothes. And then it occurs to her to look at her gown. She is horrified to see how soiled it is. What shall she say to the maid about it? And next morning the papers will all bring the story of the accident, and they will tell of a woman who had been in the carriage, and who had run away. She trembled afresh. One single carelessness and she is lost, even now. But she has her latch-key with her; she can let herself in; no one will hear her come. She jumps into a cab and is about to give her address, then suddenly she remembers that this would not be wise. She gives any number that occurs to her. As she drives through the Prater street she wishes that she might feel something—grief—horror—but she can not. She has but one thought, one desire—to be at home, in safety. All else is indifferent to her. When[Pg 973] she had decided to leave him alone, dead, by the roadside—in that moment everything seemed to have died within her, everything that would mourn and grieve for him. She has no feeling but that of fear for herself. She is not heartless—she knows that the day will come when her sorrow will be despair—it may kill her even. But she knows nothing now, except the desire to sit quietly at home, at the supper table with her husband and child. She looks out through the cab window. She is driving through the streets of the inner city. It is brilliantly light here, and many people hurry past. Suddenly all that she has experienced in the last few hours seems not to be true, it is like an evil dream; not something real, irreparable. She stops her cab in one of the side streets of the Ring, gets out, turns a corner quickly, and takes another carriage, giving her own address this time. She does not seem able to think of anything any more. “Where is he now?” She closes her eyes and sees him on the litter, in the ambulance. Suddenly she feels that he is here beside her. The cab sways, she feels the terror of being thrown out again, and she screams aloud. The cab halts before the door of her home. She dismounts hastily, hurries with light steps through the house door, unseen by the concierge, runs up the stairs, opens her apartment door very gently, and slips unseen into her own room. She undresses hastily, hiding the mud-stained clothes in her cupboard. To-morrow, when they are dry, she can clean them herself. She washes hands and face, and slips into a loose housegown. [Pg 974] The bell rings. She hears the maid open the door, she hears her husband’s voice, and the rattle of his cane on the hat-stand. She feels she must be brave now or it will all have been in vain. She hurries to the dining-room, entering one door as her husband comes in at the other. “Ah, you’re home already?” he asks. “Why, yes,” she replies, “I have been home some time.” “They evidently didn’t hear you come in.” She smiles without effort. But it fatigues her horribly to have to smile. He kisses her forehead. The little boy is already at his place by the table. He has been waiting some time, and has fallen asleep, his head resting on an open book. She sits down beside him; her husband takes his chair opposite, takes up a paper, and glances carelessly at it. Then he says: “The others are still talking away there.” “What about?” she asks. And he begins to tell her about the meeting, at length. Emma pretends to listen, and nods now and then. But she does not hear what he is saying, she feels dazed, like one who has escaped terrible danger as by a miracle; she can feel only this: “I am safe; I am at home.” And while her husband is talking she pulls her chair nearer the boy’s and lifts his head to her shoulder. Fatigue inexpressible comes over her. She can no longer control herself; she feels that her eyes are closing, that she is dropping asleep. Suddenly another possibility presents itself to her mind, a possibility that she had dismissed the moment[Pg 975] she turned to leave the ditch where she had fallen. Suppose he were not dead! Suppose—oh, but it is impossible—his eyes—his lips—not a breath came from them! But there are trances that are like death, which deceive even practised eyes, and she knows nothing about such things. Suppose he is still alive—suppose he has regained consciousness and found himself alone by the roadside—suppose he calls her by her name? He might think she had been injured; he might tell the doctors that there was a woman with him, and that she must have been thrown to some distance. They will look for her. The coachman will come back with the men he has brought, and will tell them that she was there, unhurt—and Franz will know the truth. Franz knows her so well—he will know that she has run away—and a great anger will come over him. He will tell them her name in revenge. For he is mortally injured, and it will hurt him cruelly that she has left him alone in his last hour. He will say: “That is Mrs. Emma ——. I am her lover. She is cowardly and stupid, too, gentlemen, for she might have known you would not ask her name; you would be discreet; you would have let her go away unmolested. Oh, she might at least have waited until you came. But she is vile—utterly vile—ah!—” “What is the matter?” asks the Professor, very gravely, rising from his chair. “What? What?” “Yes, what is the matter with you?” “Nothing.” She presses the boy closer to her breast. [Pg 976] The Professor looks at her for a few minutes steadily. “Didn’t you know that you had fallen asleep, and—” “Well?— And—” “And then you screamed out in your sleep.” “Did I?” “You screamed as if you were having a nightmare. Were you dreaming?” “I don’t know—” And she sees her face in a mirror opposite, a face tortured into a ghastly smile. She knows it is her own face, and it terrifies her. She sees that it is frozen; that this hideous smile is frozen on it, and will always be there, all her life. She tries to cry out. Two hands are laid on her shoulders, and between her own face and the mirrored one her husband’s face pushes its way in; his eyes pierce into hers. She knows that unless she is strong for this last trial all is lost. And she feels that she is strong; she has regained control of her limbs, but the moment of strength is short. She raises her hands to his, which rest on her shoulders; she draws him down to her, and smiles naturally and tenderly into his eyes. She feels his lips on her forehead, and she thinks: “It is all a dream—he will never tell—he will never take revenge like that—he is dead—really dead—and the dead are silent—” “Why did you say that?” she hears her husband’s voice suddenly. She starts. “What did I say?” And it seems to her as if she had told everything, here at the table—aloud[Pg 977] before every one—and again she asks, shuddering before his horrified eyes, “What did I say?” “The dead are silent.” her husband repeats very slowly. “Yes,” she answers. And she reads in his eyes that she can no longer hide anything from him. They look long and silently at each other. “Put the boy to bed,” he says at last. “You have something to tell me, have you not?” “Yes—” She knows now that within a few moments she will tell this man everything—this man, whom she has deceived for many years. And while she goes slowly through the door, holding her boy, she feels her husband’s eyes still resting on her, and a great peace comes over her, the assurance that now many things would be right again.
petak, 12. rujna 2025.
Regeneration by Charles Dye - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/19964/pg19964-images.html
So long as there are men and women alive, in a livable environment, then a new beginning is possible.
Prof. Max Wiegand to Dr. Gustav Strauch. Berlin, November 20. Dear Gustav—I have some news to tell you to-day which will certainly surprise you. I have separated from my wife, or rather we have separated from each other. We have come to an amicable agreement henceforth to live entirely independent of each other. My wife has gone to her family in Freiburg, where she will no doubt remain. I am for the present in our old house; perhaps in the spring I may look for a smaller house—perhaps not, for I can hardly hope to find so quiet a workroom as I now have, and the idea of moving appals me, especially when I think of my large library. You will, of course, want to know what has happened, though, to tell the truth, nothing has happened. The world will seek for all possible and impossible reasons why two people who married for love and who have for eleven years lived what is called happily together should now have decided to part. Yes, this world which thinks itself so wise, but whose judgments are nevertheless [Pg 940]so petty, so superficial, will doubtless be of the opinion that there is something hidden—will include this case too in one of the two great categories prepared for such affairs, because it can not conceive of the fact that life in its inexhaustible variety never repeats itself and that the same circumstances may assume different aspects according to the character and disposition of those interested. I need not tell you this, my dear Gustav. You will understand how two finely organized natures should rebel against a tie which binds them together after they have once become fully convinced that in all matters of real importance a mutual understanding was impossible. My wife and I are too unlike. Between her views of life and mine there yawns an impassable gulf. The first few years I hoped to influence her, to win her to my ways of thinking—she seemed so docile, so yielding, took so warm an interest in my work, so willingly allowed herself to be taught by me. Not till after our children’s death did she begin to change. Her grief at this loss—a grief which neither of us has ever been able to live down—matured her, made her independent of me. A tendency to morbid introspection took possession of her, and gave increased tenacity to those ideas and convictions which my influence had hitherto held in check, though not wholly eradicated. She plunged deeper and deeper into those mists of sentimentally fantastic imaginings, passionately demanding my concurrence in her views. She lost all interest in my professional work, evidently regarding the results of my researches in natural science as troops from[Pg 941] an enemy’s camp. At last there was hardly a subject in the wide realm of nature and human existence on which we agreed. To be sure we never came to an open quarrel, but the breach between us was constantly widening. Every day we saw more and more plainly that though we lived side by side, we no longer belonged to each other. This discovery irritated and distressed us, and at last forced all other feelings into the background. If we had not once loved each other so dearly, or even if we had now ceased to feel a mutual respect, this state of affairs might perhaps have lasted for years, but our ideas of the true meaning of marriage were too lofty, our sense of our own dignity as human beings too profound to permit us to be content with so incomplete a realization of our ideals. I hardly know who spoke first, but our resolution was at once taken, and the decisive words uttered as calmly and naturally as the overripe fruit falls from the tree. For the first time in many years we were able with perfect unanimity of sentiment to discuss a subject of the greatest importance to us both, and this fact alone soothed our overwrought nerves. We parted yesterday with the utmost decorum, without a word of reproach, a note of discord. Memories of our early married life, of the long years we had lived together, made it difficult to refrain from some manifestation of tenderness, and I assure you that I never felt greater respect for my wife than at the moment when, all petty considerations cast aside, the true magnanimity of her nature asserted itself. Her manner, what she said, and also what she did not say, robbed the situation of all [Pg 942] trace of the commonplace, and gave it dignity. Deeply moved, almost in tears, we clasped hands in farewell, so we may look back upon the closing scene of our wedded life with unalloyed satisfaction. I had already, with her consent, referred all business details to our lawyers, for we were not even to communicate with each other by letter. Life must begin again for both of us, and already I breathe more freely. The Rubicon is passed. I believe that you will congratulate me. Prof. Max Wiegand to Dr. Gustav Strauch. Berlin, December 12. Dear Gustav—Pardon me that I have so long delayed thanking you for your answer of friendly sympathy to my last letter. I have been in no condition to write, and even now find it difficult. You congratulate me without reserve on a step which you regard as essential to my welfare and to my intellectual development, but you do not take into consideration what it means to separate from one who has for eleven years been one’s constant companion, day and night. Indeed, it is only during these last dreary weeks that I, myself, have realized what the change signifies to me. Habit is all powerful, especially with men who, like you and me, live in the intellectual world and so require a solid substructure. How are we to take observations from the tower battlements when its foundations are not firmly established? Of course, I am as certain as ever I was that[Pg 943] our decision is for the best interests of us both, but in this queer world of ours we can take no step without unlooked-for results. I am bothered from morn till night with trifles to which I have never given a thought since my bachelor days—things which I will not mention, so absurdly insignificant are they—and yet they rob me of my time and destroy my peace. I am at a loss what steps to take to rid myself of the thousand petty cares and annoyances which my wife has hitherto borne for me. These servants! Now that the cat is away they think that they can do just as they please, and you have no idea of the silly obstacles over which I am continually stumbling, of the wretched pitfalls which beset my path. Here is one instance out of many: For several days it has been very cold, and I can not find my fur coat. With the chambermaid’s assistance I have turned the whole house upside down, until she finally remembered that my wife, last spring, sent it to a furrier’s to be kept from the moth. But to which furrier? I have been to a dozen and can not find it. If I had only not agreed with my wife that we were, under no circumstances, to write to each other, I should simply ask her—but it is best so. No strain of the commonplace must mingle with the sad echoes of our farewell. No—a farce never follows a drama. Perhaps she might even imagine that I seize the first pretext to renew relations with her. Never! To-day it is six below zero. [Pg 944] Prof. Max Wiegand to Frau Emma Wiegand. Berlin, December 14. Dear Emma—You will be greatly surprised at receiving a letter from me in spite of our mutual agreement, but do not fear that I have any intention of opening a correspondence with you. Our relations terminated with all possible dignity, and the sealed door shall never be reopened. I have but to ask a simple question which you alone can answer. What is the name of the man to whom you sent my fur coat last spring? Lina has forgotten the address. Hoping soon to receive an answer, for which I thank you in advance, Max. Frau Emma Wiegand to Prof. Max Wiegand. Freiburg, December 15. Dear Max—His name is Palaschke, and he is on Zimmer Street. I can not understand Lina’s forgetfulness, as she took the coat there herself. Emma. Prof. Max Wiegand to Frau Emma Wiegand. Berlin, December 17. Dear Emma—I must trouble you once more—for the last time. Herr Palaschke refuses to let the coat go without the ticket, as he has had several disagreeable experiences which have made it necessary to be very strict. But where is the ticket? I spent the whole morning looking for it, and, of course, Lina has not the slightest idea where it is. She flew into a rage when I found a little fault with her, and she leaves the[Pg 945] house to-morrow. I prefer paying her till the end of her engagement, and shall also give her a moderate Christmas gift, for I can not stand such an impertinent person about me. Well—be so kind as to write me a line telling me where to find the ticket. I have already taken a severe cold for want of the fur coat. Hoping that you are well and quite comfortable with your family. Max. Frau Emma Wiegand to Prof. Max Wiegand. Freiburg, December 19. Dear Max—The ticket is either in the second or third upper drawer of the little wardrobe in the dressing-room or in my desk, in the right or left pigeonhole. I could find it in a minute if I were there. Lina has great faults, but she is very respectable. I doubt whether you can do better, and now, just before Christmas, you will not be able to replace her. You should have put up with her at least a fortnight longer, but it is none of my business. I hope your cold is better. I am quite well. Emma. Prof. Max Wiegand to Frau Emma Wiegand. Berlin, December 21. Dear Emma—The ticket is not to be found either in the wardrobe or in the desk. Perhaps it slipped out when you were packing, and was thrown away. I can think of no other explanation. To-morrow or next day I will again go to Herr Palaschke, and try to wheedle him out of my property[Pg 946] by all possible blandishments and assurances, but to-day I am confined to my room, for my cold has resulted in a severe attack of neuralgia. I had a dreadful scene with the cook yesterday. On the day of your departure she gave me notice, and when I tried to persuade her to remain she turned on me and told me in a very insolent manner that I knew nothing about housekeeping, and that it was only out of sympathy for you, dear Emma, that she had so long remained with us at such low wages, and that she should leave immediately. I answered calmly, but firmly, that she must stay till the end of her engagement. Then she began to cry and storm, and at last was so outrageously impertinent as to declare that even you could not manage to live with me. I lost my temper and must, I suppose, have called her an “impudent woman,” though I can not remember saying it. Unfortunately for me I have had no experience in dealing with viragos. Two hours later, after supper, I rang and discovered that she was already gone, bag and baggage, leaving in the kitchen a badly spelled billet doux, in which she threatened me with a lawsuit for calling her an “impudent woman,” in case I should refuse to give her a certificate of character. I am now entirely without servants. The porter’s wife blacks my shoes for a handsome consideration, and brings me from the café meals which ought to be condemned by the health inspector. As you have truly remarked, it will be impossible to replace these women before the New Year, but I have already written to a[Pg 947] dozen employment bureaus, and will go myself as soon as I am able to leave the house. This has grown into a long letter, my dear Emma, but when the heart is full the pen runs rapidly. I also suspect that abominable cook of taking my gold sleeve buttons—those left me by Uncle Friedrich—though I have, of course, no proof. Have you any idea where they are? If so please drop me a line. Good-by, my dear Emma, and I trust you are more comfortable than I am. Your Max. Frau Emma Wiegand to Prof. Max Wiegand. Freiburg, December 23. Dear Max—I have read with much sympathy your account of your little mishaps and annoyances. The cook often spoke to me very much as she did to you, but I put up with it because she is a good cook, and only cooks who know nothing are polite. Now you see what I have had to stand for years, and that there are problems in that department also which can not be solved by natural science. I can not, at this distance, advise you what to do, and should not consider myself justified in doing so now that our intimate relations have been terminated in so dignified a manner, as you so truly remark in your first letter. As for the furrier’s ticket and the sleeve buttons, I will wager that I could find them both in five minutes. You must remember how often you have hunted in vain for a thing which I have found at the first attempt. Men occasionally discover a new truth but never an old button. [Pg 948] Since a correspondence has been begun by you, I have a little request to make. I forgot before I left to ask you for the letters which you wrote me during our engagement, and which at my request you put in your safe. They are my property, and I should like to have them as a reminder of happier days. Will you be so kind as to send them to me? Wishing you a Merry Christmas, Emma. Prof. Max Wiegand to Frau Emma Wiegand. Berlin, December 25. My Dear Emma—Your kind wish that I might have a Merry Christmas has not been fulfilled. I never spent so melancholy a Christmas Eve. You will not wonder that I could not bear to accept the invitations of friends—to be a looker-on at family rejoicings—so I stayed at home, entirely alone. I found it utterly impossible to get a servant before New Year’s, and yesterday was even without a helper from outside. The porter’s wife put a cold supper on the table for me early in the afternoon, for she was too busy later with Christmas preparations for her children. A smoky oil lamp took the place of the Christmas tree which you always adorned so charmingly and with such exquisite taste every year, and there were none of those pretty surprises by which you supplied my wants and wishes almost before I was conscious of them. There was nothing on the Christmas table but my old fur coat, which Herr Palaschke—softened by my entreaties and assurances and perhaps also by the spirit of Christmastide—had allowed me to take the [Pg 949] preceding day. It was as cold as charity in the room, for the fire had gone out and it was beyond my skill to rekindle it, so I put on the fur coat, sat down by the smoky lamp, and read over the letters which I wrote you during the time of our engagement and which I had taken from their eleven years’ resting-place to send to you to-day. Dear Emma, I can not tell you how they have moved me. I cried like a child, not over the tragic ending of our marriage alone, but at the change in myself which I recognize. They are very immature and in many ways not in accordance with my present way of thinking, but what a fresh, frank, warm-blooded fellow I was then, and how I loved you! How happy I was! How artlessly and unreservedly did I give myself up to my happiness! Till now I have thought that there has been a gradual, slow change in you alone, but now I see that I also have altered, and God knows, when I compare the Max of those days with the Max of to-day, I do not know to which to give the preference. In the sleepless nights which I have lately spent, I have thought over the possibility of transforming myself into the Max I then was, and grave doubts have suggested themselves whether the differences in our views of matters and things were really as great as they seemed to us, whether there is not outside of them something eternally human, some neutral ground where we might continue to have interests in common. Try and see, dear Emma, whether such a voice does not speak also to your soul. We can not undo the past, but nothing could give me greater consolation[Pg 950] in my present unhappy condition than to know that you could say yes to this question, for your departure has left a void in my house and in my life that I can never, never fill. Thy most unhappy Max. Frau Emma Wiegand to Prof. Max Wiegand. Freiburg, December 27. Dear Max—I very willingly gave you information as long as it related only to tickets and sleeve buttons, but I must decline answering the question contained in your last letter. Did you really believe, you old Pedant, that I left your home—which was also mine—because we disagreed in our views of matters and things in general? Then you are mightily mistaken. I left you because I saw more plainly every day that you no longer loved me. Yes, I had become a burden to you—you wanted to get rid of me. If in that dignified parting scene you had said one single tender word to me, I should probably have stayed, but, as usual, you were on your high horse, from which you have now had so lamentable a tumble just because your servants have left you. I too have served you faithfully, though you do not seem to have recognized that fact. I never let the fire go out on your hearth. It was not my fault when it grew cold. Who knows whether you would have noticed the void left by my going if your fur coat had not also been missing? This gave you an opportunity of opening a correspondence with me, and it seems to be only fitting that it should now close, since you have once[Pg 951] more regained possession of your property. I, at least, have nothing more to say. Good-by forever, Emma. Prof. Max Wiegand to Dr. Gustav Strauch. Berlin, January 8. Dear Gustav—I have a great piece of news to tell you. My wife returned to me yesterday, and at my earnest solicitation. I thought I could no longer live with her, but I find it equally impossible to live without her. I have just discovered that she too was very unhappy during the time of our separation, but she would never have acknowledged it, for her’s is the stronger character of the two. I do not know how to explain the miracle, but we love each other more dearly than ever. We are celebrating a new honeymoon. The great questions of life drove us apart, but is it only the little ones which have reunited us? Would you suppose that one could find a half-desiccated heart in the pocket of an old fur coat? The stately edifice of my worldly knowledge totters on its foundations, dear Gustav. I have a great deal to unlearn. Max.
I HAVE A GREAT DEAL TO UNLEARN
četvrtak, 11. rujna 2025.
aber wir haben ja den Weg verloren!“ „Augenscheinlich.“ „Wohin sind wir geraten? Sehen Sie etwas? Wo ist die Allee?“ „Ich weiß nicht.“ „Wo sind wir? Sahen Sie jemals, daß hier ein Heidefeld wäre?“ „Nein.“ „Aber wie konnten wir nur die Landstraße verlieren? Wir hätten ja über den Graben gemußt — — Hören Sie, sind wir nicht vielleicht über den Graben gegangen?“ „Ich weiß nicht.“ „Das ist absurd. Die Straße kann doch nicht unter den Füßen verloren gehn. Wo sind Sie?“ „Ich hab’ mich gesetzt.“ „Auf dem Weg geht man doch anders als im Gras. Hart und laut. Geradeso wie ich uns auf der Landstraße gehen gehört.“ „Das waren Sie, der so lärmend ging.“ „Um so eher! Es ist doch geradezu undenkbar ... Das ist das Sonderbarste, was ich je — — Mensch, schlafen Sie nicht!“ „Ich schlafe nicht.“ „Wo sind wir eigentlich?“ Es war eine dunkle und fast sternlose Nacht; nur etwas lichtes Gestein auf der Erde und kleine, aufrechte Wacholdersträucher, winzigen reglosen Gestalten gleichend; von fern der Ruf eines Käuzchens nur drehte die unbekannte Weite in die stockende Finsternis her. „Lachen Sie mich nicht aus“, sagte der stehende Mann, „aber mir gefällt das nicht. Wir haben überhaupt die Richtung verloren. Wir müssen auf irgendeinen Weg gelangen, wohin immer er führe; ein Weg zeigt wenigstens „vorwärts“, aber das Unwegsame schweigt. Das Unwegsame schmeckt gleichsam nach Unendlichkeit; sie ist hier um uns herum auf allen Seiten; hören Sie, das ist eine unmögliche Lage.“ „Setzen Sie sich“, sagte der andere. „Ich will nicht. Ich setze mich erst irgendwo am Weg, mitten zwischen die rechte und linke Hand, damit ich weiß, wo ich bin. Wer auf dem Wege geht, dem ist die Welt rechts und links eine Kulisse ohne Bedeutung und die Wände eines langen Ganges; aber das Weglose ist wie der Gipfel eines Berges; zu sehr im All; zu offen nach allen Seiten. Gehn wir von hier!“ „Warten Sie noch, ich kann nicht.“ „Ist Ihnen etwas geschehn?“ „Ich kann nicht. Ja, mir ist etwas geschehn. Ich bin auf etwas gekommen, gerade als wir irrezugehn begannen. Vielleicht genau in jenem Augenblick.“ „Wo war das?“ „Ich weiß nicht. Ganz plötzlich tauchte es vor mir auf. Ich hatte schon seit Jahren nicht mehr daran gedacht, und jetzt kam es von selbst. Vielleicht gerade deshalb, weil wir auf einmal den Weg verloren.“ „Irgendeine Erinnerung?“ „Erinnerung, nein. Eine Lösung. Eine Antwort. Etwas, was ich das ganze Leben lang gesucht habe, selbst wenn ich nicht daran dachte. O Gott, ist das furchtbar kompliziert! Dadurch ändert sich mein ganzes Leben — — Alles hängt zusammen. Begreifen Sie das?“ „Durchaus nicht.“ „Ich auch nicht. Offenbar mußte ich vom Weg abkommen, um darauf zu kommen. Von Allem abkommen, was dir bekannt ist! Darum gingen sie in die Wüste! Aber verlasse dein Haus und deine Familie; deine Logik ist aus Gewohnheiten gewebt und deine Wege aus tausenderlei vergangenen Schritten; darum komme ab von Allem und beginne zu irren, um im Unbekannten zu suchen. Dich selbst findest du dann in dem, was das Seltsamste und Ungewohnteste ist.“ „Das sagen Sie mir?“ „Das sage ich mir selbst, weil ich es gefunden habe. Dich selbst hast du gefunden und kannst dich nicht erkennen; und doch ist es das einzige, was du je gesucht hast. Mein Gott, so viele Jahre! Und plötzlich diese Lösung: dir kommt das freudige und wortlose Gefühl, daß es da ist; das, was noch kein Gedanke ist, sondern nur eine blendende Weile und wunderbare Gewißheit. Hören Sie, mein Leben verändert sich wahrscheinlich, vielleicht gehen unsere Wege auseinander; aber ich bin froh, daß ich diesen Augenblick mit Ihnen erlebt habe.“ „Wenn Sie mir wenigstens sagen würden —“ „Ich kann nicht. Jetzt kann ich noch nichts unterscheiden. Die Wahrheit mußt du genießen wie ein Gefühl, bevor sie dir zum Wort wird. Du mußt in sie hineingeraten wie in einen Raum, der nirgendwohin führt, sondern nach allen Seiten sich öffnet; denn dein Nachsinnen ist nur ein Weg in einer Richtung, wie ein Gang zwischen Mauern. Dein Denken geht nur vorwärts auf irgendeinem der vielen Wege: aber die einzige Wahrheit geht nirgendwohin und zielt nirgendwohin, sondern besteht wie die Ausdehnung.“ Der stehende Mann schwieg und horchte gespannt in die Ferne. In der tausendfachen Stille der Nacht, schien es ihm, entfaltete sich irgendwo ein winziger, klangloser Rhythmus. Er schien von der Tiefe der Stille überschwemmt zu sein, aber er war da und brach sich unaufhaltsam Bahn. Menschenschritte! ferne Schläge auf hartem Weg. Der stehende Mann atmete auf. „Dort also ist die Landstraße,“ sagte er und wunderte sich plötzlich über seine Stimme; um soviel klarer und farbiger klang sie als zuvor. Der sitzende Mann erwachte gleichsam. „Was? Die Straße? Sie gehen schon nach Hause?“ „Sie wollen vielleicht hier bleiben?“ „Ja, ich erkläre es Ihnen dann. Es ist maßlos kompliziert. Warten Sie noch!“ „Erklären Sie es mir lieber unterwegs.“ „Wenn ich mir das notieren könnte! Was mir alles einfällt! O Gott, wie zahllos!“ „Notieren Sie sich’s zu Hause. Ich begleite Sie schon.“ „Ich danke Ihnen. Wo sind wir?“ „Ich weiß nicht, kommen Sie nur. Geben Sie acht, hier ist eine Schlucht!“ „Ich sehe nichts.“ „Reichen Sie mir die Hand. Christus, wie sind wir eigentlich hiehergeraten? Achtung!“ „Warten Sie, hier kann ich nicht ... Gehn wir zurück!“ „Das geht nicht, der Weg ist vor uns. Wo stecken Sie?“ „Hier oben. Und Sie?“ „Im Wasser. Bleiben Sie dort, ach! Ist Ihnen etwas geschehn?“ „Nein, danke. Wenn ich nur unten bin.“ „Jetzt folgen Sie mir. So!“ Und die beiden Männer stolperten den Hang empor und wieder hinunter; es war ein mühseliger, zerfurchter Boden, wo sie mit tausendfacher Vorsicht gehen mußten; es gab Gesträuch da, durch das sie sich hindurcharbeiten mußten; es waren breite, bebaute Ackerfelder da, über welche sie rücksichtslos wie Eber dahinfuhren. Endlich ein Graben und die Landstraße. „Und nun sagen Sie mir,“ rief der, welcher vorausging, „wie konnten wir überhaupt dort hinauf gelangen?“ „Ich weiß nicht,“ sagte der andere etwas bedrückt, „es ist wirklich seltsam. Ich müßte es mir überlegen ... Ich habe jetzt so viel nachzudenken!“ „Sagen Sie mir nun, worauf Sie gekommen sind?“ „Ja. Es ist sonderbar mit diesem Verirren! Gewiß fand ich es gerade in dem Augenblick, als wir den Weg verloren. Wär’ ich schon zu Hause!“ „Wovon handelt es?“ „Von der Seele ...“ Nun schritten beide rasch und schweigend aus; sie kamen durch einen Wald und durchliefen ein Dorf; einige Fenster leuchteten menschlich in der tiefen Finsternis; und wieder tat sich eine weite und ferne Heide auf. „Was wollen Sie also sagen?“ „Wovon?“ „Von dem, worauf Sie dort oben gekommen sind — von der Seele.“ „Ach ja, Sie haben recht. Sagte ich, von der Seele? Eigentlich war es nicht bloß das ...“ „Hören Sie,“ sagte nach einer recht langen Weile sein Gefährte, „wie ist es also mit dieser Seele? Sie sind schrecklich zerstreut.“ „Ich? Im Gegenteil. Ich dachte gerade darüber nach. Ist es nicht merkwürdig, daß sich der Mensch im Wesen nicht kennt?“ „Und Ihre Lösung?“ „Was für eine Lösung? Das ist auf ewig nur ein Problem.“ „Aber Sie hatten irgendeine Lösung.“ „Das war bestimmt nicht von der Seele. Das waren eher andere Fragen, vom Leben überhaupt ... Ich dachte soeben darüber nach, womit zu beginnen.“ „Mit dem, was Ihnen zuerst aufblitzte.“ „Zuerst? Das war nur eine Ahnung ... Es ist höchst schwierig zu formulieren. — Ich weiß wirklich nicht, was mir zuerst aufblitzte. Es kam das alles so auf einmal!“ „Also beginnen Sie womit immer.“ „Das geht nicht. Alles war ein Ganzes ... Ja, das alles hing zusammen. Könnte ich es nur umfassen!“ „Sie werden es mir ein andermal sagen?“ „Nein, lieber gleich jetzt. Nur, bis ich es ein wenig geordnet habe. Aber mich stört es, wie laut wir gehen.“ „Setzen wir uns also.“ „Ja, ich danke Ihnen. Vor allem bedenken Sie ... So klar leuchtete es mir ein ... Zunächst folgt daraus, wie elend und sinnlos alles war, was ich bis jetzt gelebt. Plötzlich durchdrang es mich wie ein Messer; ich entsetzte mich vor mir selbst und begriff, daß ich so viele Jahre, o Gott, nur einen unaussprechlichen und ungeahnten Schmerz gelebt habe. So viele Jahre! Dies also blitzte in mir auf, was ich war und wie ich unbewußt gelitten; und alles war vergeblich und irrig, und eng wie ein Kerker; und mir war furchtbar zumute, wenn mein ganzes Leben sich mir als ein gefundener Fehler erwies. Ach, Vieles erkläre ich Ihnen noch näher. Aber zweitens, warten Sie, zweitens —“ „Was ist zweitens?“ fragte nach einer Weile der Gefährte. „Warten Sie, es war doch etwas von der Seele darin, aber jetzt weiß ich nicht. — Ja, es war etwas Unermeßliches von der Seele. Gott, was war es eigentlich?“ „In welchem Sinne von der Seele?“ „Ich weiß nicht, es waren überhaupt keine Worte, es war nur eine Gewißheit — — es ist so flüchtig!“ „Besinnen Sie sich doch!“ „Ja, gleich. Etwas von der Seele? Was war es?“ „Denken Sie nur nach, ich warte.“ „Ich danke Ihnen. Gleich werde ich es haben.“ Die Nachtzeit lag unbewegt auf den schwarzen und formlosen Dingen. Und siehe, da geht der erste morgendliche Mensch über die leere Landstraße. Ist das nicht der Schrei eines Hahns im Dorfe? Hat sich die Nacht nicht in ihrem stillen Innern gerührt? „Haben Sie es gefunden?“ „Ach gleich, nur noch etwas —“ Am Horizonte dämmerte es schwach. Die Erde und ihre Dinge nahmen eine kühle, schemenhafte Blässe an; ständig ausgebleichter und schärfer hoben sie sich empor, und es ward Licht. „Also was haben Sie gefunden?“ „Ich weiß nicht ... Es ist mir entglitten. Alles habe ich verloren, und ich werde es niemals mehr wissen.“ „Und überhaupt nichts, vollkommen nichts ist Ihnen davon geblieben?“ „Vollkommen nichts; nur das, was mir auf ewig klar geworden über mein Leben.“
KAREL ČAPEK
KREUZWEGE
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/52144/pg52144-images.html
ENCRUZILHADA
It was on the day of the summer solstice, and the glow of midday lay on the corn-fields. At times a fresh wind swept over from the mountain forest near; then the stalks bent low, and the poppies on the edge of the field scattered their delicate petals. Crickets and grasshoppers chirped in the grain, and from the blackthorn on the roadside the goldhammer once in a while let her gentle call be heard. Through the corn-field, which extended from the valley to the mountain, walked, in the narrow path, a young woman of slender yet strong figure. She wore the customary plaited skirt, and, for protection against the sun’s rays, a red kerchief; on her left arm hung a basket, and in her right hand she carried a stone jug. As the goldhammer in the thorn-hedge became aware of her presence he fluttered to the highest twig and called softly: “Maiden, maiden, how do you flourish?” But the bird was mistaken. The blond Greta was no maiden, but a young wife, and now was on her way to her husband, who felled wood in the forest above. When the fair one had reached the border of the forest she stood listening, and soon the strokes of a woodman’s ax told her where to turn her steps. It was not long before she saw her husband, who felled a pine tree [Pg 850]with mighty strokes, and, with joyful voice, she called to him. “Remain standing where thou art,” responded he. “The tree will fall directly.” And the pine tree gave a deep sigh, bowed itself, and sank crashing to the earth. Now Greta came nearer, and the sunburnt woodcutter took his young wife in his arms and kissed her fondly. Then she sat down on the trunk of the tree, and took the food from the basket she had brought. Here Hans laid down the bread from his hand, took his ax, and said: “I have forgotten something,” stepped in the direction of the fallen pine, and cut three crosses in the wood. “Why dost thou that, Hans?” asked the wife. “That was done on account of the wood-sprites,” explained the husband. “The poor creatures have a wicked enemy, who is the wild hunter. Day and night he waylays them and hunts them with his dogs. But if the pursued little women succeed in escaping to such a tree-trunk, then the wild huntsman can not harm them, because of the three crosses.” The young wife’s eyes grew large. “Hast thou ever met a wood-sprite?” asked she, curious. “No. They only rarely let themselves be seen. But to-day is the solstice, when they become visible.” And suddenly he called with a loud voice into the forest: “Wood-sprite, appear!” He had only done this in order to tease his wife; but, on the holy midsummer day, one should not jest about such things. At once a little woman, a yard high, delicate of form[Pg 851] and very beautiful of face, stood before the pair. She wore a long white garment, and in her golden hair a spray of mistletoe. Hans and Greta were very much frightened. They rose up hastily from their seats, and Greta made a bow, the best she could do. “You have called me at a good time,” said the wood-sprite, and pointed with forefinger to the orb of the sun, that stood almost over her head, “and a good deed”—here the little woman pointed to the marked tree-stump—“is the other reason. Gold and silver have I not to give away, but I know of something better. Come with me; it will do you no harm, and take your jug: you will be able to make use of it.” So she spoke and led the way. Hans shouldered his woodman’s ax, Greta took up the stone jug, and both followed the little woman. She had a walk like a duck, and Greta plucked her husband’s sleeve, pointed to the waddling little woman, and would have whispered something into his ear, but Hans laid his forefinger on her mouth. Nothing hurts a sprite more than to have a person ridicule their gait. They have feet like a duck, and therefore they wear long, flowing garments to hide them. After a short time the three arrived at a clearing. Very old trees stood in a circle around the meadow; out of the grass arose lilies and bluebells, and great butterflies rested thereon, waving their wings to and fro. And Hans, who thought he knew the whole forest, could not remember to have ever crossed this place. On the edge of the meadow stood a small house.[Pg 852] The walls were covered with the bark of trees, and the roof was shingled with the scales of pine cones, and each scale was fastened down by a rose-thorn. Here the wood-sprite was at home. She led her guests behind the house, and pointed to a spring whose water gushed silently from the black earth. Succulent coltsfoot and irises grew on its brink, and over its surface danced green and gold dragon-flies. “That is the fountain of youth,” said the wood-sprite. “A bath in its water turns an old man into a boy and an old woman into a girl. But if one drinks the water then does it ward off old age until death. Fill your jug and carry it home. But be economical with this precious water; a drop on each Sunday is enough to keep you young. And yet again: As soon as thou, Hans, dost cast thy eye on a strange woman, or thou, Greta, on a strange man, then the water loses its virtue. That mark you. Now fill your jug and fare you well.” So spoke the wood-sprite, refusing the thanks of the lucky couple, and went into the house. Greta filled the jug with the water of youth, and then they hastened home as quickly as they could to their cottage. Arrived at home, Hans poured the water into a bottle and sealed it with fir resin. “For the present,” he remarked, “we do not find the water of youth necessary, and we can economize. The time will come, indeed, when we will need it.” And then they placed the bottle in the cupboard where they kept their treasures: a couple of old coins, a garnet chain on which hung a[Pg 853] golden penny, and two silver spoons. But Greta took great care that the water lost not its virtue. And how they did take themselves in hand! When the young forester went by the garden before the house and exchanged a greeting with Greta, as indeed had been his custom, then Greta looked not up from her vegetable-bed. And when Hans sat in the evening in “The White Stag,” and the pretty Lisi brought him wine, then he made a face like a cat during a storm; and finally he did not go any more to the inn, but remained at home with his wife. Thus the water must certainly retain its magic power. So there passed for the young couple a year of love and happiness, when to the two came a third. In the cradle a chubby boy kicked and cried, so that the father’s heart leaped for joy. “Now,” thought he, “is the time come for us to open the bottle. What thinkest thou, Greta? A drop of the water of youth would do thee good.” The wife agreed to the proposition, and Hans went into the room where the magic potion was preserved. With hands trembling with joy he loosed the cork and—Oh, wo, wo!—the bottle slipped from his hands, and the water of youth poured over the floor. He came near falling to the floor, he was so frightened over the misfortune. What was he to do now? His wife must on no account learn what had happened; she might die from fright. Perhaps he could tell her later what he had done; perhaps, also, he might find the fountain of youth again (which he had certainly sought in vain), and he might[Pg 854] replace the loss. He hastily filled a new bottle, which was just like the first, with well-water, and well-water it was also that he gave his wife. “Ah, how it refreshes and strengthens one!” said Greta; “take a drop also, dear Hans.” And Hans obeyed and praised the virtue of the magic potion, and from that time each one took a drop every Sunday when the church-bell was ringing. And Greta bloomed like a rose, and Hans’s veins swelled with health and strength. But he postponed the confession of his deed from day to day, for he hoped in his heart to yet find the water of youth; but roam through the forest as he would he could not discover the meadow where the wood-sprite lived. Thus passed some years. A small maiden joined the little boy, and Frau Greta’s once round chin had become double. She herself certainly saw it not, for the mirror was not yet in existence in those days. Hans saw it, indeed, but avoided speaking of it, and redoubled his love for his portly wife. Then there happened a misfortune. At least Greta held it to be such. As she swept the house one day the small Peter, her eldest, came upon the cupboard in which stood the bottle with the supposed water of youth and clumsily overthrew the bottle, so that it broke and the contents were spilled. “Oh, thou gracious Heaven!” lamented the mother. “It is lucky, though, that Hans is not at home.” With trembling hands she gathered up the fragments from the floor and replaced the bottle by another, which she filled with ordinary water. “Certainly the deception[Pg 855] will soon be found out, for now is it all over with the everlasting youth. Alas, alas!” But for the present she did not wish to tell her husband anything about it. Again considerable time passed, and the couple lived together as on the day when the priest had joined their hands in marriage. Each one carefully avoided letting the other know that youth was past, and each Sunday conscientiously took the magic drop. Then it happened that one morning a gray hair remained between Hans’s fingers as he combed his hair. And he thought: “Now is the time for me to tell the truth to my wife.” With a heavy heart, he began: “Greta, it seems to me that our water of youth has lost its strength. Look there! I have found a gray hair. I am getting old.” Greta was frightened, but composed herself, and, forcing a loud laugh, cried: “A gray hair! When I was a little girl, ten years old, I had even then a gray lock amid my hair. The like has frequently happened. Thou hast lately dressed a badger; perhaps something has happened to your hair from the fat, for badger’s fat, you know, colors the hair gray. No, dear Hans, the water has not lost its old virtue, or”—here she cast an anxious glance on him—“or perhaps thou also findest that I am growing old?” Now Hans laughed very loudly. “Thou, old! Thou bloomest, indeed, like a peony!” And then he threw his arms about her and gave her a kiss. But when he was alone he said, with quiet thankfulness: “God be[Pg 856] thanked! She knows not that we are getting old. Now it matters not.” And similarly thought the wife. On the evening of the same day the young folks of the village danced to the fiddle of a wandering musician, and no couple wheeled more merrily under the linden than Hans and Greta. The peasant women made sarcastic remarks, to be sure; but the two heard nothing of the ridicule in their happiness. After that it happened in the fall, as Hans with his family was eating a Martinmas goose, that Frau Greta broke a tooth. There was great lamenting, for she was so proud of her white teeth. And when the couple were alone together the wife said, in an unsteady voice: “This misfortune would not have occurred if the water—” But at this Hans blurted out: “You think the water is good for everything. Has it not often happened before that a child has broken out a tooth by cracking a nut? What hast thou against the excellent water? Art thou not fresh and sound as a rose? Or perhaps thou hast turned thine eyes upon another that thou mistrustest the virtue of the water?” Then the wife laughed, wiped the tears from her cheeks, and kissed her husband so that the breath almost left him. But in the afternoon, when they sat on the stone bench before the house door and sang two-part songs about true love, the passers-by said: “The silly old people!” However, the happy ones heard them not. [Pg 857] So passed many years. The house had become too small for the children. They had gone forth, had married and had children of their own. The two old people were again alone, and were as dear to each other as on their wedding day; and every Sunday, when the church-bell rang, each drank a drop from the flask. Then once again the day of the summer solstice drew near. On the evening before, Hans and Greta sat before their door and looked toward the heights where the St. John’s fire blazed, and from the distance sounded the mirth of the young fellows and maids, who stirred the fire and sprang through its flames in couples. Then the wife said: “Dear Hans, I would like to go once more to the forest. If thou desirest it also, then will we start early in the morning. But thou must waken me early, for when the elder blossoms the young women like to sleep until the sun is high in the heavens.” Hans agreed. On the next morning he wakened his wife, and they went together into the forest. They walked like lovers, and each gave a careful heed to the steps of the other. When Hans cautiously jumped over the root of a tree, the wife said: “Ah, Hans, thou leapest indeed like a young kid!” and when Greta timidly stepped over a little ditch, her husband laughed and cried: “Tuck up your dress, Greta! Jump!” And then they selected an old pine tree, feasting in its shade on what Greta had brought with her. “It was here,” said Hans, “where the wood-sprite appeared to us that day, and there yonder must lie the[Pg 858] forest meadow with the fountain of youth. But I have never again found the meadow and the spring.” “And, God be thanked! that has mattered not,” hastily interrupted Greta. “For our flask is still far from being empty.” “Certainly, certainly,” nodded Hans. “But yet it would please me if we could see the good wood-sprite once again, and thank her for our good fortune. Come—let us go and seek her. Perhaps I will be as lucky to-day as formerly.” Then they set out and went deeper into the forest, and after a quarter of an hour saw there, before their eyes, the sunny forest meadow. Lilies and bluebells bloomed in the grass, gay-colored butterflies flew to and fro, and on the edge of the forest stood also the little house, just as in years before. They went toward the house with beating hearts, and best of all, there was indeed the fountain of youth at hand, and dragon-flies, in green and gold, hovered over it. Hans and Greta stepped to the brim of the spring. They embraced each other and stooped over the water; and from out the clear surface of the spring there confronted them two gray heads with friendly, wrinkled faces. Then hot tears fell from the eyes of the old couple, and they stood stammering and sobbing in mutual guilt. It required a long time before it became clear to them that each had deluded and for long years had lovingly deceived the other. “Thou hast also known that we have both grown old?” cried out Hans, joyfully. [Pg 859] “Of course, of course,” laughed the wife, amid tears. “And I, also,” rejoiced old Hans. Then he took his wife and kissed her as on the day she had said “Yes” to him. Then the forest-sprite suddenly stood before them, as if she had sprung out of the earth. “Welcome,” said she. “You have not appeared before me for a long time. But—but,” continued the little woman, and threatened with her finger, “you have kept a bad home with the water of youth. Wrinkles and gray hair! Ah, ah! Now,” continued she again, “that is easy to remedy, and you are come at a good hour. Quick! Spring into the fountain of youth; it is not deep; dip your gray heads under; then you shall see a miracle. The bath will restore to you youthful vigor and beauty. But quick, before the sun sinks!” Hans and Greta looked at each other. “Wilt thou?” asked the husband, in an uncertain voice. “Never,” answered Greta, quickly. “Oh, if thou only knowest how happy I am, that at last I may be old! And, also, it would be impossible on account of our children and grandchildren. No, gracious forest-sprite, a thousand thanks for your good deed, but we remain as we are. Is it not so, Hans?” “Yes,” nodded Hans, “we remain old. If thou couldst but know, Greta, how well your gray hair becomes you.” “As you will,” said the wood-sprite, a little vexed.[Pg 860] “There is no ceremony here.” So speaking, she went into the house and locked the door behind her. But the old couple kissed each other anew. Then they stepped homeward, arm in arm, through the forest, and the midsummer sun shed a golden light upon their gray heads.
srijeda, 10. rujna 2025.
Countess Mara Barovic was the Circe, Omphale, and Semiramis of the mountainous part of Croatia. Old and young (men, be it understood) were at her feet; and this despite the fact that she was regarded as plain-looking rather than pretty. Her ugliness, however, was the sort that strikes attention, attracts consideration, and excites interest. Moreover, she boasted a “past” that cast a halo about the present. It was rumored that one of her lovers had “accidentally” shot her husband while out hunting, and that this accident had occurred at a time when the Count had become “embarrassing.” Besides, she was original. If it be true that woman is a work of art, as a celebrated poet has said, it must be borne in mind that in these days the agreeable and pleasing in art is no longer “the thing.” Cruel, unadorned truth is preferred to draped loveliness, in love as well as in art. The Countess belonged to the type demanded by the modern school. By her two most ardent admirers, Baron Kronenfels and Mr. De Broda, she was termed respectively the iconoclast and the naturalist. She mounted her horse like a hussar, was a dashing [Pg 840]whip, and indulged a passionate fondness for hunting. One of her favorite pastimes was roaming field and forest in the picturesque costume of the Croatian peasant; and she could apply the horsewhip as dexterously and mercilessly to her creditors as to her refractory horses. The fair lady was head over ears in debt. There was nothing she could longer call her own, not even the furniture in Chateau Granic, not even the false braid which adorned her well-poised little head. The young aristocrats who danced attendance upon her ladyship explained the preference displayed by this Croatian Circe for the “wise men of the East”—as they called Kronenfels and De Broda—by the brilliant financial position of her two Jewish admirers. Of the two, Baron Kronenfels’s noble birth rested upon the more ancient foundation, and for that reason, perhaps, he enjoyed a certain priority in the fair lady’s preference. De Broda was a mere sapling in the forest of aristocracy, having been but recently ennobled. The unfeigned adoration he displayed for his armorial bearings made him the butt of endless practical jokes. His coat-of-arms glittered wherever it could find a resting-place. It shone upon the collar of his dog; it was emblazoned on his cigarettes, made especially for him at Laferme’s. Despite certain differences of taste, Kronenfels and De Broda were good friends, good comrades as well, for they were both officers in the Reserve. But how often does friendship stand its ground against the whispers of jealousy, especially when a woman’s favor[Pg 841] is the prize at stake? The relationship between the two grew strained and unnatural, and they were both secretly conscious that they were walking along a path where the least deviation from the centre would result in a catastrophe. The long-looked-for altercation took place one evening at the club. Wine had been flowing freely, the betting had been high. Countess Mara was the subject under discussion, and Baron Roukavina was telling an amusing story in that lady’s eventful life. She had not paid her taxes for years, was threatened with an execution, and had been moving heaven and earth to avert the impending disgrace. She had gone to Agram, from there to Buda-Pesth, importuning ministers, seeking favor with deputies, and had actually got so far as to ask an audience of the king. She had received hopeful promises everywhere, but the danger hung heavier over her head with the passing of every hour. At this particular juncture, Baron Meyerbach called on her, and offered to settle her troubles. Meyerbach was an intelligent fellow, with a good heart, and a purse with the proverbial open mouth; but Hungarian aristocracy could not receive him within its inner circle for the simple reason that he was a Jew. “Have you so much influence?” asked the Countess. Her breath was almost taken away by the offer. “Do not inquire too closely into my modus operandi, Countess,” said the Baron. “It must be sufficient for you to know that my success is assured.” [Pg 842] “And what do you ask in exchange for this service?” “Simply this: that for the next two weeks you will take a walk with me every day for an hour in Vaitzen Street; that you will skate with me an hour in the park; and that each evening you will give me the privilege of escorting you to a different theatre.” “And is that all?” “All.” The Countess yielded willingly to the Baron’s terms. At the end of the fortnight, she received a receipt in full for the payment of her taxes—thirty-two thousand florins—and Baron Meyerbach found Hungarian aristocracy ready to receive him with open arms even within its most inner of inner circles. The Countess had launched him. The story closed in a burst of laughter, and the diplomat Meyerbach’s health was drunk repeatedly and variously. Of all the convivial party, De Broda alone was silent. Finally, with Goethe’s words in mind, he said in a low voice: “Everybody seeks money, and everybody clings to it.” Kronenfels flung his cards noisily on the table, looked savagely at De Broda, and said, with an ugly frown: “Do you imply by that that such a woman as Countess Mara Barovic would willingly let herself be blinded by money?” De Broda shrugged his shoulders. Springing from his seat, the Baron cried out, scornfully: “You are a Jew.” [Pg 843] For a moment, participants and listeners seemed paralyzed with astonishment; then De Broda, every nerve tingling with rage, hurled angrily back at his assailant: “You are another!” A challenge to a duel was the result of the quarrel. Seconds were chosen on the spot, the weapons were to be pistols, and the oak forest near De Granic was to witness the affair early the following morning. De Broda had gone home. He was arranging his papers in order, when Rabbi Solomon Zuckermandel walked into his sanctum. “You are going to fight?” were the old man’s first words. “Yes.” “And with a Jew? No, Mr. De Broda; you can not, you dare not shoot a man! You will not do it.” “Pardon me, Rabbi Solomon, but my knowledge is somewhat deeper than yours in affairs of honor.” “Do you think so!” replied the old man, with an indulgent smile. “Ah, well, we shall see. You think we can wash our honor only in blood? My dear Mr. De Broda, spotless honor needs no washing; and if it has a blemish, it can not be effaced even by blood. The Baron called you a Jew. Is that an insult?” “In the sense he attached to the word, yes.” “Not so. Neither in that sense nor in any other. Does the name of soldier become an insult because soldiers have deserted their flag? The Jews we call to mind when the word ‘Jew’ is used in reproach are those who have forsaken their standard. They are no[Pg 844] longer Jews. Judaism is the fear of the Lord, love of liberty, love of the family and humanity. The honor of the Jew consists not in spilling blood, but in acting uprightly and doing good.” “You are right; but—” “No, no. No ‘buts.’ When God in the midst of thunder and lightning gave the Tables of the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai, there were no ‘buts’; He said: ‘Thou shalt not kill!’ You are a Jew, Mr. De Broda. In other words: Man, thou shalt not kill!” The young fellow turned toward the window. The rabbi should not see his emotion. But the Jewish heart was touched, and the old man who gave no thought to title and coat-of-arms had conquered the aristocrat’s pride and prejudice. Midnight had struck when Rabbi Solomon reached Kronenfels’s quarters. The letter he handed the Baron from his adversary read as follows: “Dear Sir—You have insulted me grossly in calling me a Jew in the presence of a number of gentlemen, and have added to the insult, as it were, by making it at a time when Mr. De Treitschke in Berlin has spoken of the Jews as the schlamassl [the plague of the Germans]. You are, however, an only son, the pride of your family, and I should like to avoid our meeting for to-morrow. You have often seen me hit the ace at a good range; and you know as well that I am no phrase-maker. I propose, therefore, that we shall both shoot in the air, and that we shall mutually[Pg 845] exchange our word of honor not to speak of this arrangement. “Broda.” Kronenfels held the letter to the rabbi. “What is to be done?” he asked, with a smile. “Mr. De Broda has proved himself a true Jew,” responded Zuckermandel, gently. “Do not let him surpass you. Prove to him that you, too, are of a race which, boasting the most ancient civilization, is above all others from the humanitarian standpoint.” Kronenfels wrote some hurried lines which Rabbi Solomon conveyed to Mr. De Broda before daybreak. The Baron’s answer was couched in these words: “Dear Sir—I was about to address you when I received your note. “I, too, should deeply regret having a mortal encounter with a young man upon whom so many hopes are placed. “I accept your proposition. “Moreover, between ourselves be it said, we are Jews—in other words, descendants of ancestors whose house is more ancient than that of the Lichtensteins or Auerspergs, ancestors who have transmitted to us two qualities which Mr. De Treitschke could scarcely possess, being as it were the offshoot of a somewhat recent civilization: and these are, repugnance to shed blood, and the ‘rachmonni’[5] of the Jewish heart. “Kronenfels.” [Pg 846] The duel took place at six o’clock in the morning, the venerable oaks of De Granic forest casting an air of solemnity over the bloodless scene. The adversaries kept their word; the pistols were discharged in the air; and the witnesses declared that honorable satisfaction had been made. As De Broda and Kronenfels were shaking hands with hearty good-will, the brushwood parted, and old Rabbi Solomon slowly approached the young men. Raising his arms in benediction, he said, and the light of happiness beamed from his eyes: “Gentlemen, you are Jews!” FOOTNOTES: [5] The exact translation of “rachmonni” is “merciful.” It is used as a name of God, because the Jew does not pronounce the proper name of God except in his prayers.
utorak, 9. rujna 2025.
ISRAEL ATTACKS DOHA IN QATAR - Qatar condemns ‘cowardly’ Israeli attack in Doha
The Israeli army says it has carried out an assassination attempt on top Hamas leaders in Qatar's capital, Doha, where multiple explosions ...
Perhaps we had better not land after all,” said Lewis as he was stepping into the boat; “we can explore this island on our way home.” “We had much better land now,” said Stewart; “we shall get to Teneriffe to-morrow in any case. Besides, an island that’s not on the chart is too exciting a thing to wait for.” Lewis gave in to his younger companion, and the two ornithologists, who were on their way to the Canary Islands in search of eggs, were rowed to shore. “They had better fetch us at sunset,” said Lewis as they landed. “Perhaps we shall stay the night,” responded Stewart. “I don’t think so,” said Lewis; but after a pause he told the sailors that if they should be more than half an hour late they were not to wait, but to come back in the morning at ten. Lewis and Stewart walked from the sandy bay up a steep basaltic cliff which sloped right down to the beach. “The island is volcanic,” said Stewart. “All the islands about here are volcanic,” said Lewis. “We shan’t be able to climb much in this heat,” he added. “It will be all right when we get to the trees,” said Stewart. Presently they reached the top of the cliff. The basaltic rock ceased and an open grassy incline was before them covered with myrtle and cactus bushes; and further off a thick wood, to the east of which rose a hill sparsely dotted with olive trees. They sat down on the grass, panting. The sun beat down on the dry rock; there was not a cloud in the sky nor a ripple on the emerald sea. In the air there was a strange aromatic scent; and the stillness was heavy. “I don’t think it can be inhabited,” said Lewis. “Perhaps it’s merely a volcanic island cast up by a sea disturbance,” suggested Stewart. “Look at those trees,” said Lewis, pointing to the wood in the distance. “What about them?” asked Stewart. “They are oak trees,” said Lewis. “Do you know why I didn’t want to land?” he asked abruptly. “I am not superstitious, you know, but as I got into the boat I distinctly heard a voice calling out: ‘Don’t land!’” Stewart laughed. “I think it was a good thing to land,” he said. “Let’s go on now.” They walked towards the wood, and the nearer they got to it the more their surprise increased. It was a thick wood of large oak trees which must certainly have been a hundred years old. When they had got quite close to it they paused. “Before we explore the wood,” said Lewis, “let us climb the hill and see if we can get a general view of the island.” Stewart agreed, and they climbed the hill in silence. When they reached the top they found it was not the highest point of the island, but only one of several hills, so that they obtained only a limited view. The valleys seemed to be densely wooded, and the oak wood was larger than they had imagined. They laid down and rested and lit their pipes. “No birds,” remarked Lewis gloomily. “I haven’t seen one—the island is extraordinarily still,” said Stewart. The further they had penetrated inland the more oppressive and sultry the air had become; and the pungent aroma they had noticed directly was stronger. It was like that of mint, and yet it was not mint; and although sweet it was not agreeable. The heat seemed to weigh even on Stewart’s buoyant spirits, for he sat smoking in silence, and no longer urged Lewis to continue their exploration. “I think the island is inhabited,” said Lewis, “and that the houses are on the other side. There are some sheep and some goats on that hill opposite. Do you see?” “Yes,” said Stewart, “I think they are mouflon, but I don’t think the island is inhabited all the same.” No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he started, and rising to his feet, cried: “Look there!” and he pointed to a thin wreath of smoke which was rising from the wood. Their languor seemed to leave them, and they ran down the hill and reached the wood once more. Just as they were about to enter it Lewis stooped and pointed to a small plant with white flowers and three oval-shaped leaves rising from the root. “What’s that?” he asked Stewart, who was the better botanist of the two. The flowers were quite white, and each had six pointed petals. “It’s a kind of garlic, I think,” said Stewart. Lewis bent down over it. “It doesn’t smell,” he said. “It’s not unlike moly (Allium flavum), only it’s white instead of yellow, and the flowers are larger. I’m going to take it with me.” He began scooping away the earth with a knife so as to take out the plant by the roots. After he had been working for some minutes he exclaimed: “This is the toughest plant I’ve ever seen; I can’t get it out.” He was at last successful, but as he pulled the root he gave a cry of surprise. “There’s no bulb,” he said. “Look! Only a black root.” Stewart examined the plant. “I can’t make it out,” he said. Lewis wrapped the plant in his handkerchief and put it in his pocket. They entered the wood. The air was still more sultry here than outside, and the stillness even more oppressive. There were no birds and not a vestige of bird life. “This exploration is evidently a waste of time as far as birds are concerned,” remarked Lewis. At that moment there was a rustle in the undergrowth, and five pigs crossed their path and disappeared, grunting. Lewis started, and for some reason he could not account for, shuddered; he looked at Stewart, who appeared unconcerned. “They are not wild,” said Stewart. They walked on in silence. The place and its heavy atmosphere had again affected their spirits. When they spoke it was almost in a whisper. Lewis wished they had not landed, but he could give no reason to himself for his wish. After they had been walking for about twenty minutes they suddenly came on an open space and a low white house. They stopped and looked at each other. “It’s got no chimney!” cried Lewis, who was the first to speak. It was a one-storeyed building, with large windows (which had no glass in them) reaching to the ground, wider at the bottom than at the top. The house was overgrown with creepers; the roof was flat. They entered in silence by the large open doorway and found themselves in a low hall. There was no furniture and the floor was mossy. “It’s rather like an Egyptian tomb,” said Stewart, and he shivered. The hall led into a further room, which was open in the centre to the sky, like the impluvium of a Roman house. It also contained a square basin of water, which was filled by water bubbling from a lion’s mouth carved in stone. Beyond the impluvium there were two smaller rooms, in one of which there was a kind of raised stone platform. The house was completely deserted and empty. Lewis and Stewart said little; they examined the house in silent amazement. “Look,” said Lewis, pointing to one of the walls. Stewart examined the wall and noticed that there were traces on it of a faded painted decoration. “It’s like the wall paintings at Pompeii,” he said. “I think the house is modern,” remarked Lewis. “It was probably built by some eccentric at the beginning of the nineteenth century, who did it up in Empire style.” “Do you know what time it is?” said Stewart, suddenly. “The sun has set and it’s growing dark.” “We must go at once,” said Lewis, “we’ll come back here to-morrow.” They walked on in silence. The wood was dim in the twilight, a fitful breeze made the trees rustle now and again, but the air was just as sultry as ever. The shapes of the trees seemed fantastic and almost threatening in the dimness, and the rustle of the leaves was like a human moan. Once or twice they seemed to hear the grunting of pigs in the undergrowth and to catch sight of bristly backs. “We don’t seem to be getting any nearer the end,” said Stewart after a time. “I think we’ve taken the wrong path.” They stopped. “I remember that tree,” said Stewart, pointing to a twisted oak; “we must go straight on from there to the left.” They walked on and in ten minutes’ time found themselves once more at the back of the house. It was now quite dark. “We shall never find the way now,” said Lewis. “We had better sleep in the house.” They walked through the house into one of the furthest rooms and settled themselves on the mossy platform. The night was warm and starry, the house deathly still except for the splashing of the water in the basin. “We shan’t get any food,” Lewis said. “I’m not hungry,” said Stewart, and Lewis knew that he could not have eaten anything to save his life. He felt utterly exhausted and yet not at all sleepy. Stewart, on the other hand, was overcome with drowsiness. He lay down on the mossy platform and fell asleep almost instantly. Lewis lit a pipe; the vague forebodings he had felt in the morning had returned to him, only increased tenfold. He felt an unaccountable physical discomfort, an inexplicable sensation of uneasiness. Then he realised what it was. He felt there was someone in the house besides themselves, someone or something that was always behind him, moving when he moved and watching him. He walked into the impluvium, but heard nothing and saw nothing. There were none of the thousand little sounds, such as the barking of a dog, or the hoot of a night-bird, which generally complete the silence of a summer night. Everything was uncannily still. He returned to the room. He would have given anything to be back on the yacht, for besides the physical sensation of discomfort and of the something watching him he also felt the unmistakable feeling of impending danger that had been with him nearly all day. He lay down and at last fell into a doze. As he dozed he heard a subdued noise, a kind of buzzing, such as is made by a spinning wheel or a shuttle on a loom, and more strongly than ever he felt that he was being watched. Then all at once his body seemed to grow stiff with fright. He saw someone enter the room from the impluvium. It was a dim, veiled figure, the figure of a woman. He could not distinguish her features, but he had the impression that she was strangely beautiful; she was bearing a cup in her hands, and she walked towards Stewart and bent over him, offering him the cup. Something in Lewis prompted him to cry out with all his might: “Don’t drink! Don’t drink!” He heard the words echoing in the air, just as he had heard the voice in the boat; he felt that it was imperative to call out, and yet he could not: he was paralysed; the words would not come. He formed them with his lips, but no sound came. He tried with all his might to rise and scream, and he could not move. Then a sudden cold faintness came upon him, and he remembered no more till he woke and found the sun shining brightly. Stewart was lying with his eyes closed, moaning loudly in his sleep. Lewis tried to wake him. He opened his eyes and stared with a fixed, meaningless stare. Lewis tried to lift him from the platform, and then a horrible thing happened. Stewart struggled violently and made a snarling noise, which froze the blood in Lewis’s veins. He ran out of the house with cold beads of sweat on his forehead. He ran through the wood to the shore, and there he found the boat. He rowed back to the yacht and fetched some quinine. Then, together with the skipper, the steward, and some other sailors, he returned to the ominous house. They found it empty. There was no trace of Stewart. They shouted in the wood till they were hoarse, but no answer broke the heavy stillness. Then sending for the rest of the crew, Lewis organised a regular search over the whole island. This lasted till sunset, and they returned in the evening without having found any trace of Stewart or of any other human being. In the night a high wind rose, which soon became a gale; they were obliged to weigh anchor so as not to be dashed against the island, and for twenty-four hours they underwent a terrific tossing. Then the storm subsided as quickly as it had come. They made for the island once more and reached the spot where they had anchored three days before. There was no trace of the island. It had completely disappeared. When they reached Teneriffe the next day they found that everybody was talking of the great tidal wave which had caused such great damage and destruction in the islands.
ponedjeljak, 8. rujna 2025.
The Sentimentalists By MURRAY LEINSTER - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/51102/pg51102-images.html
The Sentimentalists
By MURRAY LEINSTER
He heard the bell of the Badia sound hour after hour, and still sleep refused its solace. He got up and looked through the narrow window. The sky in the East was soft with that luminous intensity, as of a melted sapphire, that comes just before the dawn. One large star was shining next to the paling moon. He watched the sky as it grew more and more transparent, and a fresh breeze blew from the hills. It was the second night that he had spent without sleeping, but the weariness of his body was as nothing compared with the aching emptiness which possessed his spirit. Only three days ago the world had seemed to him starred and gemmed like the Celestial City—an enchanted kingdom, waiting like a sleeping Princess for the kiss of the adventurous conqueror; and now the colours had faded, the dream had vanished, the sun seemed to be deprived of his glory, and the summer had lost its sweetness. His eye fell upon some papers which were lying loose upon his table. There was an unfinished sonnet which he had begun three days ago. The octet was finished and the first two lines of the sestet. He would never finish it now. It had no longer any reason to be; for it was a cry to ears which were now deaf, a question, an appeal, which demanded an answering smile, a consenting echo; and the lips, the only lips which could frame that answer, were dumb. He remembered that Casella, the musician, had asked him a week ago for the text of a canzone which he had repeated to him one day. He had promised to let him have it. The promise had entirely gone out of his mind. Then he reflected that because the ship of his hopes and dreams had been wrecked there was no reason why he should neglect his obligations to his fellow-travellers on the uncertain sea. He sat down and transcribed by the light of the dawn in his exquisite handwriting the stanzas which had been the fruit of a brighter day. And the memory of this dead joy was exceedingly bitter to him, so that he sat musing for some time on the unutterable sadness which the ghosts of perished joys bring to man in his misery, and a line of Virgil buzzed in his brain; but not, as of yore, did it afford him the luxury of causeless melancholy, but like a cruel finger it touched his open wound. The ancients, he thought, knew how to bear misfortune. Levius fit patientia Quidquid corrigere est nefas. As the words occurred to him he thought how much better equipped he was for the bitter trial, since had he not the certain hope of another life, and of meeting his beloved in the spaces of endless felicity? Surely then he should be able to bear his sorrow with as great a fortitude as the pagan poets, who looked forward to nothing but the dust; to whom the fabled dim country beyond the Styx was a cheerless dream, and to whom a living dog upon the earth was more worthy of envy than the King of all Elysium. He must learn of the ancients. The magic of the lemon-coloured dawn had vanished now before the swift daylight. Many bells were ringing in the city, and the first signs of life were stirring in the streets. He searched for a little book, and read of the consolation which Cicero gave to Laelius in the De Amicitia. But he had not read many lines before he closed the book. His wound was too fresh for the balm of reason and philosophy. “Later,” he thought, “this will strengthen and help me, but not to-day; to-day my wound must bleed and be allowed to bleed, for all the philosophy in the world cannot lessen the fact that yesterday she was and to-day she is not.” He felt a desire to escape from his room, which had been the chapel of such holy prayers, the shrine where so many fervent tapers of hope had burnt, where so sweet an incense of dream had risen. He left his room and hurried down the narrow stone stairs into the street. As he left the house he turned to his right and walked on till he reached Or San Michele; there he turned to his right again and walked straight on till he reached the churches of Santa Reparata and San Giovanni. He entered San Giovanni and said a brief prayer; then he took the nearest street, east of Santa Reparata, to the Porta a ballo, and found himself beyond the walls of the city. He walked towards Fiesole. The glory of the sunrise was still in the sky, the fragrance of the dawning summer (it was the 11th of June) was in the air. He walked towards the East. The corn on the hills was green, and pink wild roses fringed every plot of wheat. The grass was wet with dew. The city glittered in the plain beneath, clean and fresh in the dazzling air; it seemed a part of the pageant of summer, an unreal piece of imagery, distinct and clear-cut, yet miraculous, like a mirage seen in mid-ocean. “Truly,” he thought, “this is the city of the flower, and the lily is its fitting emblem.” But while his heart went out towards his native town he felt a sharp pang as he remembered that the flower of flowers, the queen of the lilies, had been mowed down by the scythe, and the city which to him had heretofore been an altar was now a tomb. The lovely Virgilian dirge, Manibus date lilia plenis . . . His saltem accumulem donis et fungar inani Munere, rang in his ears, and he thought that he too must bring a gift and scatter lilies on her grave; handfuls of lilies; but they must be unfading flowers, wet with immortal tears. He pondered on this gift. It must be a gift of song, a temple built in verse. But he was still unsatisfied. No dirge, however tender and solemn; no elegy, however soft and majestic; no song, however piteous, could be a sufficient offering for the glorious being who had died in her youth and beauty. But what could he fashion or build? He thought with envy of Arnolfo and of Giotto: the one with his bricks could have built a tomb which would prove to be one of the wonders of the world, and the other with his brush could have fixed her features for ever, for the wonder of future generations. And yet was not his instrument the most potent of all, his vehicle the most enduring? Stones decayed, and colours faded, but verse remained, outliving bronze and marble. Yes, his monument should be more lasting than all the masterpieces of Giotto, than all the proud designs of Arnolfo; but how should it be? He had reached a narrow lane at the foot of a steep hill covered with corn and dotted with olives. He lay down under a hedge in the shade. The sun was shining on two large bramble bushes which grew on the hedge opposite him. Above him, on his right, was a tall cypress tree standing by itself, and the corn plots stretched up behind him till they reached the rocky summits tufted with firs. Between the two bramble bushes a spider had spun a large web, and he was sitting in the midst of it awaiting his prey. But the bramble and the web were still wet with the morning dew, whose little drops glistened in the sunshine like diamonds. Every tiny thread and filament of the web was dewy and lit by the newly-awakened sun. He lay on his back in the shade and pondered on the shape and nature of his gift of song, and on the deathless flowers that he must grow and gather and lay upon her tomb. The spider’s web caught his eye, and from where he lay the sight was marvellous. The spider seemed like a small globe of fire in the midst of a number of concentric silvery lines studded with dewy gems; it was like a miniature sun in the midst of a system of gleaming stars. The delicate web with its shining films and dewdrops seemed to him as he lay there to be a vision of the whole universe, with all its worlds and stars revolving around the central orb of light. It was as though a veil had been torn away and he were looking on the naked glory of the spheres, the heart of Heaven, the very home of God. He looked and looked, his whole spirit filled with ineffable awe and breathless humility. He lay gazing on the chance miracle of nature till a passing cloud obscured the sun, and the spider’s web wore once more its ordinary appearance. Then he arose with tears in his eyes and gave a great sigh of thankfulness. “I have found it,” he thought, “I will say of her what has never yet been said of any woman. I will paint all Hell, all Purgatory, and all that is in them, to make more glorious the glory of her abode, and I will reveal to man that glory. I will show her in the circle of spotless flame, among the rivers and rings of eternal light, which revolve around the inmost heart, the fiery rose, and move obedient to the Love which moves the sun.” And his thought shaped itself into verse and he murmured to himself: L’amor che muove il sole e l’altre stelle.
nedjelja, 7. rujna 2025.
In the eleventh year of the reign of Abd-ul-Hamid, son of Ahmid, emperor of the Turks; when the Nogais-Tartars were driven from the Crimea, and a Mussulman prince of the blood of Gengis-Kahn became the vassal and guard of a Christian woman and queen,* I was travelling in the Ottoman dominions, and through those provinces which were anciently the kingdoms of Egypt and Syria. * In the eleventh year of Abd-ul-Hamid, that is 1784 of the Christian era, and 1198 of the Hegira. The emigration of the Tartars took place in March, immediately on the manifesto of the empress, declaring the Crimea to be incorporated with Russia. The Mussulman prince of the blood of Gengis-khan was Chahin-Guerai. Gengis-Khan was borne and served by the kings whom he conquered: Chahin, on the contrary, after selling his country for a pension of eighty thousand roubles, accepted the commission of captain of guards to Catherine II. He afterwards returned home, and according to custom was strangled by the Turks. My whole attention bent on whatever concerns the happiness of man in a social state, I visited cities, and studied the manners of their inhabitants; entered palaces, and observed the conduct of those who govern; wandered over fields, and examined the condition of those who cultivated them: and nowhere perceiving aught but robbery and devastation, tyranny and wretchedness, my heart was oppressed with sorrow and indignation. I saw daily on my road fields abandoned, villages deserted, and cities in ruin. Often I met with ancient monuments, wrecks of temples, palaces and fortresses, columns, aqueducts and tombs. This spectacle led me to meditate on times past, and filled my mind with contemplations the most serious and profound. Arrived at the city of Hems, on the border of the Orontes, and being in the neighborhood of Palmyra of the desert, I resolved to visit its celebrated ruins. After three days journeying through arid deserts, having traversed the Valley of Caves and Sepulchres, on issuing into the plain, I was suddenly struck with a scene of the most stupendous ruins—a countless multitude of superb columns, stretching in avenues beyond the reach of sight. Among them were magnificent edifices, some entire, others in ruins; the earth every where strewed with fragments of cornices, capitals, shafts, entablatures, pilasters, all of white marble, and of the most exquisite workmanship. After a walk of three-quarters of an hour along these ruins, I entered the enclosure of a vast edifice, formerly a temple dedicated to the Sun; and accepting the hospitality of some poor Arabian peasants, who had built their hovels on the area of the temple, I determined to devote some days to contemplate at leisure the beauty of these stupendous ruins. Daily I visited the monuments which covered the plain; and one evening, absorbed in reflection, I had advanced to the Valley of Sepulchres. I ascended the heights which surround it from whence the eye commands the whole group of ruins and the immensity of the desert. The sun had sunk below the horizon: a red border of light still marked his track behind the distant mountains of Syria; the full-orbed moon was rising in the east, on a blue ground, over the plains of the Euphrates; the sky was clear, the air calm and serene; the dying lamp of day still softened the horrors of approaching darkness; the refreshing night breezes attempered the sultry emanations from the heated earth; the herdsmen had given their camels to repose, the eye perceived no motion on the dusky and uniform plain; profound silence rested on the desert; the howlings only of the jackal,* and the solemn notes of the bird of night, were heard at distant intervals. Darkness now increased, and through the dusk could only be discerned the pale phantasms of columns and walls. The solitude of the place, the tranquillity of the hour, the majesty of the scene, impressed on my mind a religious pensiveness. The aspect of a great city deserted, the memory of times past, compared with its present state, all elevated my mind to high contemplations. I sat on the shaft of a column, my elbow reposing on my knee, and head reclining on my hand, my eyes fixed, sometimes on the desert, sometimes on the ruins, and fell into a profound reverie. * An animal resembling a dog and a fox. It preys on other small animals, and upon the bodies of the dead on the field of battle. It is the Canis aureus of Linnaeus. CHAPTER II. THE REVERIE. Here, said I, once flourished an opulent city; here was the seat of a powerful empire. Yes! these places now so wild and desolate, were once animated by a living multitude; a busy crowd thronged in these streets, now so solitary. Within these walls, where now reigns the silence of death, the noise of the arts, and the shouts of joy and festivity incessantly resounded; these piles of marble were regular palaces; these fallen columns adorned the majesty of temples; these ruined galleries surrounded public places. Here assembled a numerous people for the sacred duties of their religion, and the anxious cares of their subsistence; here industry, parent of enjoyments, collected the riches of all climes, and the purple of Tyre was exchanged for the precious thread of Serica;* the soft tissues of Cassimere for the sumptuous tapestry of Lydia; the amber of the Baltic for the pearls and perfumes of Arabia; the gold of Ophir for the tin of Thule. * The precious thread of Serica.—That is, the silk originally derived from the mountainous country where the great wall terminates, and which appears to have been the cradle of the Chinese empire. The tissues of Cassimere.— The shawls which Ezekiel seems to have described under the appellation of Choud-choud. The gold of Ophir.—This country, which was one of the twelve Arab cantons, and which has so much and so unsuccessfully been sought for by the antiquarians, has left, however, some trace of itself in Ofor, in the province of Oman, upon the Persian Gulf, neighboring on one side to the Sabeans, who are celebrated by Strabo for their abundance of gold, and on the other to Aula or Hevila, where the pearl fishery was carried on. See the 27th chapter of Ezekiel, which gives a very curious and extensive picture of the commerce of Asia at that period. And now behold what remains of this powerful city: a miserable skeleton! What of its vast domination: a doubtful and obscure remembrance! To the noisy concourse which thronged under these porticoes, succeeds the solitude of death. The silence of the grave is substituted for the busy hum of public places; the affluence of a commercial city is changed into wretched poverty; the palaces of kings have become a den of wild beasts; flocks repose in the area of temples, and savage reptiles inhabit the sanctuary of the gods. Ah! how has so much glory been eclipsed? how have so many labors been annihilated? Do thus perish then the works of men—thus vanish empires and nations? And the history of former times revived in my mind; I remembered those ancient ages when many illustrious nations inhabited these countries; I figured to myself the Assyrian on the banks of the Tygris, the Chaldean on the banks of the Euphrates, the Persian reigning from the Indus to the Mediterranean. I enumerated the kingdoms of Damascus and Idumea, of Jerusalem and Samaria, the warlike states of the Philistines, and the commercial republics of Phoenicia. This Syria, said I, now so depopulated, then contained a hundred flourishing cities, and abounded with towns, villages, and hamlets.* In all parts were seen cultivated fields, frequented roads, and crowded habitations. Ah! whither have flown those ages of life and abundance?—whither vanished those brilliant creations of human industry? Where are those ramparts of Nineveh, those walls of Babylon, those palaces of Persepolis, those temples of Balbec and of Jerusalem? Where are those fleets of Tyre, those dock-yards of Arad, those work-shops of Sidon, and that multitude of sailors, of pilots, of merchants, and of soldiers? Where those husbandmen, harvests, flocks, and all the creation of living beings in which the face of the earth rejoiced? Alas! I have passed over this desolate land! I have visited the palaces, once the scene of so much splendor, and I beheld nothing but solitude and desolation. I sought the ancient inhabitants and their works, and found nothing but a trace, like the foot-prints of a traveller over the sand. The temples are fallen, the palaces overthrown, the ports filled up, the cities destroyed; and the earth, stripped of inhabitants, has become a place of sepulchres. Great God! whence proceed such fatal revolutions? What causes have so changed the fortunes of these countries? Wherefore are so many cities destroyed? Why has not this ancient population been reproduced and perpetuated? * According to Josephus and Strabo, there were in Syria twelve millions of souls, and the traces that remain of culture and habitation confirm the calculation. Thus absorbed in meditation, a crowd of new reflections continually poured in upon my mind. Every thing, continued I, bewilders my judgment, and fills my heart with trouble and uncertainty. When these countries enjoyed what constitutes the glory and happiness of man, they were inhabited by infidel nations: It was the Phoenician, offering human sacrifices to Moloch, who gathered into his stores the riches of all climates; it was the Chaldean, prostrate before his serpent-god,* who subjugated opulent cities, laid waste the palaces of kings, and despoiled the temples of the gods; it was the Persian, worshipper of fire, who received the tribute of a hundred nations; they were the inhabitants of this very city, adorers of the sun and stars, who erected so many monuments of prosperity and luxury. Numerous herds, fertile fields, abundant harvests—whatsoever should be the reward of piety—was in the hands of these idolaters. And now, when a people of saints and believers occupy these fields, all is become sterility and solitude. The earth, under these holy hands, produces only thorns and briers. Man soweth in anguish, and reapeth tears and cares. War, famine, pestilence, assail him by turns. And yet, are not these the children of the prophets? The Mussulman, Christian, Jew, are they not the elect children of God, loaded with favors and miracles? Why, then, do these privileged races no longer enjoy the same advantages? Why are these fields, sanctified by the blood of martyrs, deprived of their ancient fertility? Why have those blessings been banished hence, and transferred for so many ages to other nations and different climes? * The dragon Bell. At these words, revolving in my mind the vicissitudes which have transmitted the sceptre of the world to people so different in religion and manners from those in ancient Asia to the most recent of Europe, this name of a natal land revived in me the sentiment of my country; and turning my eyes towards France, I began to reflect on the situation in which I had left her.* * In the year 1782, at the close of the American war. I recalled her fields so richly cultivated, her roads so admirably constructed, her cities inhabited by a countless people, her fleets spread over every sea, her ports filled with the produce of both the Indies: and then comparing the activity of her commerce, the extent of her navigation, the magnificence of her buildings, the arts and industry of her inhabitants, with what Egypt and Syria had once possessed, I was gratified to find in modern Europe the departed splendor of Asia; but the charm of my reverie was soon dissolved by a last term of comparison. Reflecting that such had once been the activity of the places I was then contemplating, who knows, said I, but such may one day be the abandonment of our countries? Who knows if on the banks of the Seine, the Thames, the Zuyder-Zee, where now, in the tumult of so many enjoyments, the heart and the eye suffice not for the multitude of sensations,—who knows if some traveller, like myself, shall not one day sit on their silent ruins, and weep in solitude over the ashes of their inhabitants, and the memory of their former greatness. At these words, my eyes filled with tears: and covering my head with the fold of my mantle, I sank into gloomy meditations on all human affairs. Ah! hapless man, said I in my grief, a blind fatality sports with thy destiny!* A fatal necessity rules with the hand of chance the lot of mortals! But no: it is the justice of heaven fulfilling its decrees!—a God of mystery exercising his incomprehensible judgments! Doubtless he has pronounced a secret anathema against this land: blasting with maledictions the present, for the sins of past generations. Oh! who shall dare to fathom the depths of the Omnipotent? * Fatality is the universal and rooted prejudice of the East. "It was written," is there the answer to every thing. Hence result an unconcern and apathy, the most powerful impediments to instruction and civilization. And sunk in profound melancholy, I remained motionless. CHAPTER III. THE APPARITION. While thus absorbed, a sound struck my ear, like the agitation of a flowing robe, or that of slow footsteps on dry and rustling grass. Startled, I opened my mantle, and looking about with fear and trembling, suddenly, on my left, by the glimmering light of the moon, through the columns and ruins of a neighboring temple, I thought I saw an apparition, pale, clothed in large and flowing robes, such as spectres are painted rising from their tombs. I shuddered: and while agitated and hesitating whether to fly or to advance toward the object, a distinct voice, in solemn tones, pronounced these words: How long will man importune heaven with unjust complaint? How long, with vain clamors, will he accuse Fate as the author of his calamities? Will he forever shut his eyes to the light, and his heart to the admonitions of truth and reason? The light of truth meets him everywhere; yet he sees it not! The voice of reason strikes his ear; and he hears it not! Unjust man! if for a moment thou canst suspend the delusion which fascinates thy senses, if thy heart can comprehend the language of reason, interrogate these ruins! Read the lessons which they present to thee! And you, evidences of twenty centuries, holy temples! venerable tombs! walls once so glorious, appear in the cause of nature herself! Approach the tribunal of sound reason, and bear testimony against unjust accusations! Come and confound the declamations of a false wisdom or hypocritical piety, and avenge the heavens and the earth of man who calumniates them both! What is that blind fatality, which without order and without law, sports with the destiny of mortals? What is that unjust necessity, which confounds the effect of actions, whether of wisdom or of folly? In what consist the anathemas of heaven over this land? Where is that divine malediction which perpetuates the abandonment of these fields? Say, monuments of past ages! have the heavens changed their laws and the earth its motion? Are the fires of the sun extinct in the regions of space? Do the seas no longer emit their vapors? Are the rains and the dews suspended in the air? Do the mountains withhold their springs? Are the streams dried up? And do the plants no longer bear fruit and seed? Answer, generation of falsehood and iniquity, hath God deranged the primitive and settled order of things which he himself assigned to nature? Hath heaven denied to earth, and earth to its inhabitants, the blessings they formerly dispensed? If nothing hath changed in the creation, if the same means now exist which before existed, why then are not the present what former generations were? Ah! it is falsely that you accuse fate and heaven! it is unjustly that you accuse God as the cause of your evils! Say, perverse and hypocritical race! if these places are desolate, if these powerful cities are reduced to solitude, is it God who has caused their ruin? Is it his hand which has overthrown these walls, destroyed these temples, mutilated these columns, or is it the hand of man? Is it the arm of God which has carried the sword into your cities, and fire into your fields, which has slaughtered the people, burned the harvests, rooted up trees, and ravaged the pastures, or is it the hand of man? And when, after the destruction of crops, famine has ensued, is it the vengeance of God which has produced it, or the mad fury of mortals? When, sinking under famine, the people have fed on impure aliments, if pestilence ensues, is it the wrath of God which sends it, or the folly of man? When war, famine and pestilence, have swept away the inhabitants, if the earth remains a desert, is it God who has depopulated it? Is it his rapacity which robs the husbandman, ravages the fruitful fields, and wastes the earth, or is it the rapacity of those who govern? Is it his pride which excites murderous wars, or the pride of kings and their ministers? Is it the venality of his decisions which overthrows the fortunes of families, or the corruption of the organs of the law? Are they his passions which, under a thousand forms, torment individuals and nations, or are they the passions of man? And if, in the anguish of their miseries, they see not the remedies, is it the ignorance of God which is to blame, or their ignorance? Cease then, mortals, to accuse the decrees of Fate, or the judgments of the Divinity! If God is good, will he be the author of your misery? If he is just, will he be the accomplice of your crimes? No, the caprice of which man complains is not the caprice of fate; the darkness that misleads his reason is not the darkness of God; the source of his calamities is not in the distant heavens, it is beside him on the earth; it is not concealed in the bosom of the divinity; it dwells within himself, he bears it in his own heart. Thou murmurest and sayest: What! have an infidel people then enjoyed the blessings of heaven and earth? Are the holy people of God less fortunate than the races of impiety? Deluded man! where then is the contradiction which offends thee? Where is the inconsistency which thou imputest to the justice of heaven? Take into thine own hands the balance of rewards and punishments, of causes and effects. Say: when these infidels observed the laws of the heavens and the earth, when they regulated well-planned labors by the order of the seasons and the course of the stars, should the Almighty have disturbed the equilibrium of the universe to defeat their prudence? When their hands cultivated these fields with toil and care, should he have diverted the course of the rains, suspended the refreshing dews, and planted crops of thorns? When, to render these arid fields productive, their industry constructed aqueducts, dug canals, and led the distant waters across the desert, should he have dried up their sources in the mountains? Should he have blasted the harvests which art had nourished, wasted the plains which peace had peopled, overthrown cities which labor had created, or disturbed the order established by the wisdom of man? And what is that infidelity which founded empires by its prudence, defended them by its valor, and strengthened them by its justice—which built powerful cities, formed capacious ports, drained pestilential marshes, covered the ocean with ships, the earth with inhabitants; and, like the creative spirit, spread life and motion throughout the world? If such be infidelity, what then is the true faith? Doth sanctity consist in destruction? The God who peoples the air with birds, the earth with animals, the waters with fishes—the God who animates all nature—is he then a God of ruins and tombs? Demands he devastation for homage, and conflagration for sacrifice? Requires he groans for hymns, murderers for votaries, a ravaged and desolate earth for his temple? Behold then, holy and believing people, what are your works! behold the fruits of your piety! You have massacred the people, burned their cities, destroyed cultivation, reduced the earth to a solitude; and you ask the reward of your works! Miracles then must be performed! The people whom you extirpated must be recalled to life, the walls rebuilt which you have overthrown, the harvests reproduced which you have destroyed, the waters regathered which you have dispersed; the laws, in fine, of heaven and earth reversed; those laws, established by God himself, in demonstration of his magnificence and wisdom; those eternal laws, anterior to all codes, to all the prophets those immutable laws, which neither the passions nor the ignorance of man can pervert. But that passion which mistaketh, that ignorance which observeth neither causes nor effects, hath said in its folly: "All things flow from chance; a blind fatality poureth out good and evil upon the earth; success is not to the prudent, nor felicity to the wise;" or, assuming the language of hypocrisy, she hath said, "all things are from God; he taketh pleasure in deceiving wisdom and confounding reason." And Ignorance, applauding herself in her malice, hath said, "thus will I place myself on a par with that science which confounds me—thus will I excel that prudence which fatigues and torments me." And Avarice hath added: "I will oppress the weak, and devour the fruits of his labors; and I will say, it is fate which hath so ordained." But I! I swear by the laws of heaven and earth, and by the law which is written in the heart of man, that the hypocrite shall be deceived in his cunning—the oppressor in his rapacity! The sun shall change his course, before folly shall prevail over wisdom and knowledge, or ignorance surpass prudence, in the noble and sublime art of procuring to man his true enjoyments, and of building his happiness on an enduring foundation.
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1397/pg1397-images.html#link2HCH0001
Meditação Acerca da Destruição dos Impérios
Conde de Volney
Um dos textos mais influentes sobre as causas da queda dos impérios e da corrupção moral e social que lhes está na base.
The Referendarius had three junior clerks to carry on the business of his department, and they in their turn were assisted by two scribes, who did most of the copying and kept the records. The work of the Department consisted in filing and annotating the petitions and cases which were referred from the lower Courts, through the channel of the Referendarius, to the Emperor. The three clerks and their two scribes occupied a high marble room in the spacious office. It was as yet early in April, but, nevertheless, the sun out of doors was almost fierce. The high marble rooms of the office were cool and stuffy at the same time, and the spring sunshine without, the soft breeze from the sea, the call of the flower-sellers in the street, and the lazy murmur of the town had, in these shaded, musty, and parchment-smelling halls, diffused an atmosphere of laziness which inspired the clerks in question with an overwhelming desire to do nothing. There was, indeed, no pressing work on hand. Only from time to time the Referendarius, who occupied a room to himself next door to theirs, would communicate with them through a hole in the wall, demanding information on some point or asking to be supplied with certain documents. Then the clerks would make a momentary pretence of being busy, and ultimately the scribes would find either the documents or the information which were required. As it was, the clerks were all of them engaged in occupations which were remote from official work. The eldest of them, Cephalus by name—a man who was distinguished from the others by a certain refined sobriety both in his dark dress and in his quiet demeanour—was reading a treatise on algebra; the second, Theophilus, a musician, whose tunic was as bright as his flaming hair, was mending a small organ; and the third, Rufinus, a rather pale, short-sighted, and untidy youth, was scribbling on a tablet. The scribes were busy sorting old records and putting them away in their permanent places. Presently an official strolled in from another department. He was a middle-aged, corpulent, and cheerful-looking man, dressed in gaudy coloured tissue, on which all manner of strange birds were depicted. He was bursting with news. “Phocas is going to win,” he said. “It is certain.” Cephalus looked vaguely up from his book and said: “Oh!” Theophilus and Rufinus paid no attention to the remark. “Well,” continued the new-comer cheerfully, “Who will come to the races with me?” As soon as he heard the word races, Rufinus looked up from his scribbling. “I will come,” he said, “if I can get leave.” “I did not know you cared for that sort of thing,” said Cephalus. Rufinus blushed and murmured something about going every now and then. He walked out of the room, and sought the Referendarius in the next room. This official was reading a document. He did not look up when Rufinus entered, but went on with his reading. At last, after a prolonged interval, he turned round and said: “What is it?” “May I go to the races?” asked Rufinus. “Well,” said the high official, “what about your work?” “We’ve finished everything,” said the clerk. The Head of the Department assumed an air of mystery and coughed. “I don’t think I can very well see my way to letting you go,” he said. “I am very sorry,” he added quickly, “and if it depended on me you should go at once. But He,” he added—he always alluded to the Head of the Office as He—“does not like it. He may come in at any moment and find you gone. No; I’m afraid I can’t let you go to-day. Now, if it had been yesterday you could have gone.” “I should only be away an hour,” said Rufinus, tentatively. “He might choose just that hour to come round. If it depended only on me you should go at once,” and he laughed and slapped Rufinus on the back, jocularly. The clerk did not press the point further. “You’d better get on with that index,” said the high official as Rufinus withdrew. He told the result of his interview to his sporting friend, who started out by himself to the Hippodrome. Rufinus settled down to his index. But he soon fell into a mood of abstraction. The races and the games did not interest him in the least. It was something else which attracted him. And, as he sat musing, the vision of the Hippodrome as he had last seen it rose clearly before him. He saw the seaweed-coloured marble; the glistening porticoes, adorned with the masterpieces of Greece, crowded with women in gemmed embroideries and men in white tunics hemmed with broad purple; he saw the Generals with their barbaric officers—Bulgarians, Persians, Arabs, Slavs—the long line of savage-looking prisoners in their chains, and the golden breastplates of the standard-bearers. He saw the immense silk velum floating in the azure air over that rippling sea of men, those hundreds of thousands who swarmed on the marble steps of the Hippodrome. He saw the Emperor in his high-pillared box, on his circular throne of dull gold, surrounded by slaves fanning him with jewel-coloured plumes, and fenced round with golden swords. And opposite him, on the other side of the Stadium, the Empress, mantled in a stiff pontifical robe, laden with heavy embroidered stuffs, her little head framed like a portrait in a square crown of gold and diamonds, whence chains of emeralds hung down to her breast; motionless as an idol, impassive as a gilded mummy. He saw the crowd of gorgeous women, grouped like Eastern flowers around her: he saw one woman. He saw one form as fresh as a lily of the valley, all white amidst that hard metallic splendour; frail as a dewy anemone, slender as the moist narcissus. He saw one face like the chalice of a rose, and amidst all those fiery jewels two large eyes as soft as dark violets. And the sumptuous Court, the plumes, the swords, the standards, the hot, vari-coloured crowd melted away and disappeared, so that when the Emperor rose and made the sign of the Cross over his people, first to the right, and then to the left, and thirdly over the half-circle behind him, and the singers of Saint Sofia and the Church of the Holy Apostles mingled their bass chant with the shrill trebles of the chorus of the Hippodrome, to the sound of silver organs, he thought that the great hymn of praise was rising to her and to her alone; and that men had come from the uttermost parts of the earth to pay homage to her, to sing her praise, to kneel to her—to her, the wondrous, the very beautiful: peerless, radiant, perfect. A voice, followed by a cough, called from the hole in the wall; but Rufinus paid no heed, so deeply sunk was he in his vision. “Rufinus, the Chief is calling you,” said Cephalus. Rufinus started, and hurried to the hole in the wall. The Head of the Department gave him a message for an official in another department. Rufinus hurried with the message downstairs and delivered it. On his way back he passed the main portico on the ground floor. He walked out into the street: it was empty. Everybody was at the games. A dark-skinned country girl passed him singing a song about the swallow and the spring. She was bearing a basket full of anemones, violets, narcissi, wild roses, and lilies of the valley. “Will you sell me your flowers?” he asked, and he held out a silver coin. “You are welcome to them,” said the girl. “I do not need your money.” He took the flowers and returned to the room upstairs. The flowers filled the stuffy place with an unwonted and wonderful fragrance. Then he sat down and appeared to be once more busily engrossed in his index. But side by side with the index he had a small tablet, and on this, every now and then, he added or erased a word to a short poem. The sense of it was something like this:— Rhodocleia, flowers of spring I have woven in a ring; Take this wreath, my offering, Rhodocleia. Here’s the lily, here the rose Her full chalice shall disclose; Here’s narcissus wet with dew, Windflower and the violet blue. Wear the garland I have made; Crowned with it, put pride away; For the wreath that blooms must fade; Thou thyself must fade some day, Rhodocleia.
subota, 6. rujna 2025.
“The King said that nobody had ever danced as I danced to-night,” said Columbine. “He said it was more than dancing, it was magic.” “It is true,” said Harlequin, “you never danced like that before.” But Pierrot paid no heed to their remarks, and stared vacantly at the sky. They were sitting on the deserted stage of the grass amphitheatre where they had been playing. Behind them were the clumps of cypress trees which framed a vista of endless wooden garden and formed their drop scene. They were sitting immediately beneath the wooden framework made of two upright beams and one horizontal, which formed the primitive proscenium, and from which little coloured lights had hung during the performance. The King and Queen and their lords and ladies who had looked on at the living puppet show had all left the amphitheatre; they had put on their masks and their dominoes, and were now dancing on the lawns, whispering in the alleys and the avenues, or sitting in groups under the tall dark trees. Some of them were in boats on the lake, and everywhere one went, from the dark boscages, came sounds of music, thin, tinkling tunes played on guitars by skilled hands, and the bird-like twittering and whistling of flageolets. “The King said I looked like a moon fairy,” said Columbine to Pierrot. Pierrot only stared at the sky and laughed inanely. “If you persist in slighting me like this,” she whispered in his ear, in a whisper which was like a hiss, “I will abandon you for ever. I will give my heart to Harlequin, and you shall never see me again.” But Pierrot continued to stare at the sky, and laughed once more inanely. Then Columbine got up, her eyes flashing with rage; taking Harlequin by the arm she dragged him swiftly away. They danced across the grass semi-circle of the amphitheatre and up the steps away into the alleys. Pierrot was left alone with Pantaloon, who was asleep, for he was old and clowning fatigued him. Then Pierrot left the amphitheatre also, and putting a black mask on his face he joined the revellers who were everywhere dancing, whispering, talking, and making music in subdued tones. He sought out a long lonely avenue, in one side of which there nestled, almost entirely concealed by bushes and undergrowth, a round open Greek temple. Right at the end of the avenue a foaming waterfall splashed down into a large marble basin, from which a tall fountain rose, white and ghostly, and made a sobbing noise. Pierrot went towards the temple, then he turned back and walked right into the undergrowth through the bushes, and lay down on the grass, and listened to the singing of the night-jar. The whole garden that night seemed to be sighing and whispering; there was a soft warm wind, and a smell of mown hay in the air, and an intoxicating sweetness came from the bushes of syringa. Columbine and Harlequin also joined the revellers. They passed from group to group, with aimless curiosity, pausing sometimes by the artificial ponds and sometimes by the dainty groups of dancers, whose satin and whose pearls glimmered faintly in the shifting moonlight, for the night was cloudy. At last they too were tired of the revel, they wandered towards a more secluded place and made for the avenue which Pierrot had sought. On their way they passed through a narrow grass walk between two rows of closely cropped yew hedges. There on a marble seat a tall man in a black domino was sitting, his head resting on his hands; and between the loose folds of his satin cloak, one caught the glint of precious stones. When they had passed him Columbine whispered to Harlequin: “That is the King. I caught sight of his jewelled collar.” They presently found themselves in the long avenue at the end of which were the waterfall and the fountain. They wandered on till they reached the Greek temple, and there suddenly Columbine put her finger on her lips. Then she led Harlequin back a little way and took him round through the undergrowth to the back of the temple, and, crouching down in the bushes, bade him look. In the middle of the temple there was a statue of Eros holding a torch in his hands. Standing close beside the statue were two figures, a man dressed as a Pierrot, and a beautiful lady who wore a grey satin domino. She had taken off her mask and pushed back the hood from her hair, which was encircled by a diadem made of something shining and silvery, and a ray of moonlight fell on her face, which was as delicate as the petal of a flower. Pierrot was masked; he was holding her hand and looking into her eyes, which were turned upwards towards his. “It is the Queen!” whispered Columbine to Harlequin. And once more putting her finger on her lips, she deftly led him by the hand and noiselessly threaded her way through the bushes and back into the avenue, and without saying a word ran swiftly with him to the place where they had seen the King. He was still there, alone, his head resting upon his hands. In the temple the Queen was upbraiding her lover for his temerity in having crossed the frontier into the land from which he had been banished for ever, and for having dared to appear at the court revel disguised as Pierrot. “Remember,” she was saying, “the enemies that surround us, the dreadful peril, and the doom that awaits us.” And her lover said: “What is doom, and what is death? You whispered to the night and I heard. You sighed and I am here!” He tore the mask from his face, and the Queen looked at him and smiled. At that moment a rustle was heard in the undergrowth, and the Queen started back from him, whispering: “We are betrayed! Fly!” And her lover put on his mask and darted through the undergrowth, following a path which he and no one else knew, till he came to an open space where his squire awaited him with horses, and they galloped away safe from all pursuit. Then the King walked into the temple and led the Queen back to the palace without saying a word; but the whole avenue was full of dark men bearing torches and armed with swords, who were searching the undergrowth. And presently they found Pierrot who, ignorant of all that had happened, had been listening all night to the song of the night-jar. He was dragged to the palace and cast into a dungeon, and the King was told. But the revel did not cease, and the dancing and the music continued softly as before. The King sent for Columbine and told her she should have speech with Pierrot in his prison, for haply he might have something to confess to her. And Columbine was taken to Pierrot’s dungeon, and the King followed her without her knowing it, and concealed himself behind the door, which he set ajar. Columbine upbraided Pierrot and said: “All this was my work. I have always known that you loved the Queen. And yet for the sake of past days, tell me the truth. Was it love or a joke, such as those you love to play?” Pierrot laughed inanely. “It was a joke,” he said. “It is my trade to make jokes. What else can I do?” “You love the Queen nevertheless,” said Columbine, “of that I am sure, and for that I have had my revenge.” “It was a joke,” said Pierrot, and he laughed again. And though she talked and raved and wept, she could get no other answer from him. Then she left him, and the King entered the dungeon. “I have heard what you said,” said the King, “but to me you must tell the truth. I do not believe it was you who met the Queen in the temple; tell me the truth, and your life shall be spared.” “It was a joke,” said Pierrot, and he laughed. Then the King grew fierce and stormed and threatened. But his rage and threats were in vain! for Pierrot only laughed. Then the King appealed to him as man to man and implored him to tell him the truth; for he would have given his kingdom to believe that it was the real Pierrot who had met the Queen and that the adventure had been a joke. Pierrot only repeated what he had said, and laughed and giggled inanely. At dawn the prison door was opened and three masked men led Pierrot out through the courtyard into the garden. The revellers had gone home, but here and there lights still twinkled and flickered and a stray note or two of music was still heard. Some of the latest of the revellers were going home. The dawn was grey and chilly; they led Pierrot through the alleys to the grass amphitheatre, and they hanged him on the horizontal beam which formed part of the primitive proscenium where he and Columbine had danced so wildly in the night. They hanged him and his white figure dangled from the beam as though he were still dancing; and the new Pierrot, who was appointed the next day, was told that such would be the fate of all mummers who went too far, and whose jokes and pranks overstepped the limits of decency and good breeding.
petak, 5. rujna 2025.
Mrs. Bergmann was a widow. She was American by birth and marriage, and English by education and habits. She was a fair, beautiful woman, with large eyes and a white complexion. Her weak point was ambition, and ambition with her took the form of luncheon-parties. It was one summer afternoon that she was seized with the great idea of her life. It consisted in giving a luncheon-party which should be more original and amusing than any other which had ever been given in London. The idea became a mania. It left her no peace. It possessed her like venom or like madness. She could think of nothing else. She racked her brains in imagining how it could be done. But the more she was harassed by this aim the further off its realisation appeared to her to be. At last it began to weigh upon her. She lost her spirits and her appetite; her friends began to remark with anxiety on the change in her behaviour and in her looks. She herself felt that the situation was intolerable, and that success or suicide lay before her. One evening towards the end of June, as she was sitting in her lovely drawing-room in her house in Mayfair, in front of her tea-table, on which the tea stood untasted, brooding over the question which unceasingly tormented her, she cried out, half aloud:— “I’d sell my soul to the devil if he would give me what I wish.” At that moment the footman entered the room and said there was a gentleman downstairs who wished to speak with her. “What is his name?” asked Mrs. Bergmann. The footman said he had not caught the gentleman’s name, and he handed her a card on a tray. She took the card. On it was written:— MR. NICHOLAS L. SATAN, I, Pandemonium Terrace, BURNING MARLE, HELL. Telephone, No. I Central. “Show him up,” said Mrs. Bergmann, quite naturally, as though she had been expecting the visitor. She wondered at her own behaviour, and seemed to herself to be acting inevitably, as one does in dreams. Mr. Satan was shown in. He had a professional air about him, but not of the kind that suggests needy or even learned professionalism. He was dark; his features were sharp and regular, his eyes keen, his complexion pale, his mouth vigorous, and his chin prominent. He was well dressed in a frock coat, black tie, and patent leather boots. He would never have been taken for a conjurer or a shop-walker, but he might have been taken for a slightly depraved Art-photographer who had known better days. He sat down near the tea-table opposite Mrs. Bergmann, holding his top hat, which had a slight mourning band round it, in his hand. “I understand, madam,” he spoke with an even American intonation, “you wish to be supplied with a guest who will make all other luncheon-parties look, so to speak, like thirty cents.” “Yes, that is just what I want,” answered Mrs. Bergmann, who continued to be surprised at herself. “Well, I reckon there’s no one living who’d suit,” said Mr. Satan, “and I’d better supply you with a celebrity of a former generation.” He then took out a small pocket-book from his coat pocket, and quickly turning over its leaves he asked in a monotonous tone: “Would you like a Philosopher? Anaxagoras, Aristotle, Aurelius, M.?” “Oh! no,” answered Mrs. Bergmann with decision, “they would ruin any luncheon.” “A Saint?” suggested Mr. Satan, “Antony, Ditto of Padua, Athanasius, Augustine, Anselm?” “Good heavens, no,” said Mrs. Bergmann. “A Theologian, good arguer?” asked Mr. Satan, “Aquinas, T?” “No,” interrupted Mrs. Bergmann, “for heaven’s sake don’t always give me the A’s, or we shall never get on to anything. You’ll be offering me Adam and Abel next.” “I beg your pardon,” said Mr. Satan, “Latimer, Laud—Historic Interest, Church and Politics combined,” he added quickly. “I don’t want a clergyman,” said Mrs. Bergmann. “Artist?” said Mr. Satan, “Andrea del Sarto, Angelo, M., Apelles?” “You’re going back to the A’s,” interrupted Mrs. Bergmann. “Bellini, Benvenuto Cellini, Botticelli?” he continued imperturbably. “What’s the use of them when I can get Sargent every day?” asked Mrs. Bergmann. “A man of action, perhaps? Alexander, Bonaparte, Caesar, J., Cromwell, O., Hannibal?” “Too heavy for luncheon,” she answered, “they would do for dinner.” “Plain statesman? Bismarck, Count; Chatham, Lord; Franklin, B; Richelieu, Cardinal.” “That would make the members of the Cabinet feel uncomfortable,” she said. “A Monarch? Alfred; beg pardon, he’s an A. Richard III., Peter the Great, Louis XI., Nero?” “No,” said Mrs. Bergmann. “I can’t have a Royalty. It would make it too stiff.” “I have it,” said Mr. Satan, “a highwayman: Dick Turpin; or a housebreaker: Jack Sheppard or Charles Peace?” “Oh! no,” said Mrs. Bergmann, “they might steal the Sevres.” “A musician? Bach or Beethoven?” he suggested. “He’s getting into the B’s now,” thought Mrs. Bergmann. “No,” she added aloud, “we should have to ask him to play, and he can’t play Wagner, I suppose, and musicians are so touchy.” “I think I have it,” said Mr. Satan, “a wit: Dr. Johnson, Sheridan, Sidney Smith?” “We should probably find their jokes dull now,” said Mrs. Bergmann, thoughtfully. “Miscellaneous?” inquired Mr. Satan, and turning over several leaves of his notebook, he rattled out the following names: “Alcibiades, kind of statesman; Beau Brummel, fop; Cagliostro, conjurer; Robespierre, politician; Charles Stuart, Pretender; Warwick, King-maker; Borgia, A., Pope; Ditto, C., toxicologist; Wallenstein, mercenary; Bacon, Roger, man of science; Ditto, F., dishonest official; Tell, W., patriot; Jones, Paul, pirate; Lucullus, glutton; Simon Stylites, eccentric; Casanova, loose liver; Casabianca, cabin-boy; Chicot, jester; Sayers, T., prize-fighter; Cook, Captain, tourist; Nebuchadnezzar, food-faddist; Juan, D., lover; Froissart, war correspondent; Julian, apostate?” “Don’t you see,” said Mrs. Bergmann, “we must have some one everybody has heard of?” “David Garrick, actor and wit?” suggested Mr. Satan. “It’s no good having an actor nobody has seen act,” said Mrs. Bergmann. “What about a poet?” asked Mr. Satan, “Homer, Virgil, Dante, Byron, Shakespeare?” “Shakespeare!” she cried out, “the very thing. Everybody has heard of Shakespeare, more or less, and I expect he’d get on with everybody, and wouldn’t feel offended if I asked Alfred Austin or some other poet to meet him. Can you get me Shakespeare?” “Certainly,” said Mr. Satan, “day and date?” “It must be Thursday fortnight,” said Mrs. Bergmann. “And what, ah—er—your terms?” “The usual terms,” he answered. “In return for supernatural service rendered you during your lifetime, your soul reverts to me at your death.” Mrs. Bergmann’s brain began to work quickly. She was above all things a practical woman, and she immediately felt she was being defrauded. “I cannot consent to such terms,” she said. “Surely you recognise the fundamental difference between this proposed contract and those which you concluded with others—with Faust, for instance? They sold the full control of their soul after death on condition of your putting yourself at their entire disposal during the whole of their lifetime, whereas you ask me to do the same thing in return for a few hours’ service. The proposal is preposterous.” Mr. Satan rose from his chair. “In that case, madam,” he said, “I have the honour to wish you a good afternoon.” “Stop a moment,” said Mrs. Bergmann, “I don’t see why we shouldn’t arrive at a compromise. I am perfectly willing that you should have the control over my soul for a limited number of years—I believe there are precedents for such a course—let us say a million years.” “Ten million,” said Mr. Satan, quietly but firmly. “In that case,” answered Mrs. Bergmann, “we will take no notice of leap year, and we will count 365 days in every year.” “Certainly,” said Mr. Satan, with an expression of somewhat ruffled dignity, “we always allow leap year, but, of course, thirteen years will count as twelve.” “Of course,” said Mrs. Bergmann with equal dignity. “Then perhaps you will not mind signing the contract at once,” said Mr. Satan, drawing from his pocket a type-written page. Mrs. Bergmann walked to the writing-table and took the paper from his hand. “Over the stamp, please,” said Mr. Satan. “Must I—er—sign it in blood?” asked Mrs. Bergmann, hesitatingly. “You can if you like,” said Mr. Satan, “but I prefer red ink; it is quicker and more convenient.” He handed her a stylograph pen. “Must it be witnessed?” she asked. “No,” he replied, “these kind of documents don’t need a witness.” In a firm, bold handwriting Mrs. Bergmann signed her name in red ink across the sixpenny stamp. She half expected to hear a clap of thunder and to see Mr. Satan disappear, but nothing of the kind occurred. Mr. Satan took the document, folded it, placed it in his pocket-book, took up his hat and gloves, and said: “Mr. William Shakespeare will call to luncheon on Thursday week. At what hour is the luncheon to be?” “One-thirty,” said Mrs. Bergmann. “He may be a few minutes late,” answered Mr. Satan. “Good afternoon, madam,” and he bowed and withdrew. Mrs. Bergmann chuckled to herself when she was alone. “I have done him,” she thought to herself, “because ten million years in eternity is nothing. He might just as well have said one second as ten million years, since anything less than eternity in eternity is nothing. It is curious how stupid the devil is in spite of all his experience. Now I must think about my invitations.” II The morning of Mrs. Bergmann’s luncheon had arrived. She had asked thirteen men and nine women. But an hour before luncheon an incident happened which nearly drove Mrs. Bergmann distracted. One of her guests, who was also one of her most intimate friends, Mrs. Lockton, telephoned to her saying she had quite forgotten, but she had asked on that day a man to luncheon whom she did not know, and who had been sent to her by Walford, the famous professor. She ended the message by saying she would bring the stranger with her. “What is his name?” asked Mrs. Bergmann, not without intense irritation, meaning to put a veto on the suggestion. “His name is——” and at that moment the telephone communication was interrupted, and in spite of desperate efforts Mrs. Bergmann was unable to get on to Mrs. Lockton again. She reflected that it was quite useless for her to send a message saying that she had no room at her table, because Angela Lockton would probably bring the stranger all the same. Then she further reflected that in the excitement caused by the presence of Shakespeare it would not really much matter whether there was a stranger there or not. A little before half-past one the guests began to arrive. Lord Pantry of Assouan, the famous soldier, was the first comer. He was soon followed by Professor Morgan, an authority on Greek literature; Mr. Peebles, the ex-Prime Minister; Mrs. Hubert Baldwin, the immensely popular novelist; the fascinating Mrs. Rupert Duncan, who was lending her genius to one of Ibsen’s heroines at that moment; Miss Medea Tring, one of the latest American beauties; Corporal, the portrait-painter; Richard Giles, critic and man of letters; Hereward Blenheim, a young and rising politician, who before the age of thirty had already risen higher than most men of sixty; Sir Horace Silvester, K.C.M.G., the brilliant financier, with his beautiful wife Lady Irene; Professor Leo Newcastle, the eminent man of science; Lady Hyacinth Gloucester, and Mrs. Milden, who were well known for their beauty and charm; Osmond Hall, the paradoxical playwright; Monsieur Faubourg, the psychological novelist; Count Sciarra, an Italian nobleman, about fifty years old, who had written a history of the Popes, and who was now staying in London; Lady Herman, the beauty of a former generation, still extremely handsome; and Willmott, the successful actor-manager. They were all assembled in the drawing-room upstairs, talking in knots and groups, and pervaded by a feeling of pleasurable excitement and expectation, so much so that conversation was intermittent, and nearly everybody was talking about the weather. The Right Hon. John Lockton, the eminent lawyer, was the last guest to arrive. “Angela will be here in a moment,” he explained; “she asked me to come on first.” Mrs. Bergmann grew restless. It was half-past one, and no Shakespeare. She tried to make her guests talk, with indifferent success. The expectation was too great. Everybody was absorbed by the thought of what was going to happen next. Ten minutes passed thus, and Mrs. Bergmann grew more and more anxious. At last the bell rang, and soon Mrs. Lockton walked upstairs, leading with her a quite insignificant, ordinary-looking, middle-aged, rather portly man with shiny black hair, bald on the top of his head, and a blank, good-natured expression. “I’m so sorry to be so late, Louise, dear,” she said. “Let me introduce Mr. —— to you.” And whether she had forgotten the name or not, Mrs. Bergmann did not know or care at the time, but it was mumbled in such a manner that it was impossible to catch it. Mrs. Bergmann shook hands with him absent-mindedly, and, looking at the clock, saw that it was ten minutes to two. “I have been deceived,” she thought to herself, and anger rose in her breast like a wave. At the same time she felt the one thing necessary was not to lose her head, or let anything damp the spirits of her guests. “We’ll go down to luncheon directly,” she said. “I’m expecting some one else, but he probably won’t come till later.” She led the way and everybody trooped downstairs to the dining-room, feeling that disappointment was in store for them. Mrs. Bergmann left the place on her right vacant; she did not dare fill it up, because in her heart of hearts she felt certain Shakespeare would arrive, and she looked forward to a coup de theatre, which would be quite spoilt if his place was occupied. On her left sat Count Sciarra; the unknown friend of Angela Lockton sat at the end of the table next to Willmott. The luncheon started haltingly. Angela Lockton’s friend was heard saying in a clear voice that the dust in London was very trying. “Have you come from the country?” asked M. Faubourg. “I myself am just returned from Oxford, where I once more admired your admirable English lawns—vos pelouses seculaires.” “Yes,” said the stranger, “I only came up to town to-day, because it seems indeed a waste and a pity to spend the finest time of the year in London.” Count Sciarra, who had not uttered a word since he had entered the house, turned to his hostess and asked her whom she considered, after herself, to be the most beautiful woman in the room, Lady Irene, Lady Hyacinth, or Mrs. Milden? “Mrs. Milden,” he went on, “has the smile of La Gioconda, and hands and hair for Leonardo to paint. Lady Gloucester,” he continued, leaving out the Christian name, “is English, like one of Shakespeare’s women, Desdemona or Imogen; and Lady Irene has no nationality, she belongs to the dream worlds of Shelley and D’Annunzio: she is the guardian Lady of Shelley’s ‘Sensitiva,’ the vision of the lily. ‘Quale un vaso liturgico d’argento.’ And you, madame, you take away all my sense of criticism. ‘Vous me troublez trop pour que je definisse votre genre de beaute.’” Mrs. Milden was soon engaged in a deep tete-a-tete with Mr. Peebles, who was heard every now and then to say, “Quite, quite,” Miss Tring was holding forth to Silvester on French sculpture, and Silvester now and again said: “Oh! really!” in the tone of intense interest which his friends knew indicated that he was being acutely bored. Lady Hyacinth was discussing Socialism with Osmond Hall, Lady Herman was discussing the theory of evolution with Professor Newcastle, Mrs. Lockton, the question of the French Church, with Faubourg; and Blenheim was discharging molten fragments of embryo exordiums and perorations on the subject of the stage to Willmott; in fact, there was a general buzz of conversation. “Have you been to see Antony and Cleopatra?” asked Willmott of the stranger. “Yes,” said the neighbour, “I went last night; many authors have treated the subject, and the version I saw last night was very pretty. I couldn’t get a programme so I didn’t see who——” “I think my version,” interrupted Willmott, with pride, “is admitted to be the best.” “Ah! it is your version!” said the stranger. “I beg your pardon, I think you treated the subject very well.” “Yes,” said Willmott, “it is ungrateful material, but I think I made something fine of it.” “No doubt, no doubt,” said the stranger. “Do tell us,” Mrs. Baldwin was heard to ask M. Faubourg across the table, “what the young generation are doing in France? Who are the young novelists?” “There are no young novelists worth mentioning,” answered M. Faubourg. Miss Tring broke in and said she considered “Le Visage Emerveille,” by the Comtesse de Noailles, to be the most beautiful book of the century, with the exception, perhaps, of the “Tagebuch einer Verlorenen.” But from the end of the table Blenheim’s utterance was heard preponderating over that of his neighbours. He was making a fine speech on the modern stage, comparing an actor-manager to Napoleon, and commenting on the campaigns of the latter in detail. Quite heedless of this Mr. Willmott was carrying on an equally impassioned but much slower monologue on his conception of the character of Cyrano de Bergerac, which he said he intended to produce. “Cyrano,” he said, “has been maligned by Coquelin. Coquelin is a great artist, but he did not understand Cyrano. Cyrano is a dreamer, a poet; he is a martyr of thought like Tolstoi, a sacrifice to wasted, useless action, like Hamlet; he is a Moliere come too soon, a Bayard come too late, a John the Baptist of the stage, calling out in vain in the wilderness—of bricks and mortar; he is misunderstood;—an enigma, an anachronism, a premature herald, a false dawn.” Count Sciarra was engaged in a third monologue at the head of the table. He was talking at the same time to Mrs. Bergmann, Lady Irene, and Lady Hyacinth about the devil. “Ah que j’aime le diable!” he was saying in low, tender tones. “The devil who creates your beauty to lure us to destruction, the devil who puts honey into the voice of the siren, the dolce sirena— “Che i marinari in mezzo il mar dismaga” (and he hummed this line in a sing-song two or three times over)—“the devil who makes us dream and doubt, and who made life interesting by persuading Eve to eat the silver apple—what would life have been if she had not eaten the apple? We should all be in the silly trees of the Garden of Eden, and I should be sitting next to you” (he said to Mrs. Bergmann), “without knowing that you were beautiful; que vous etes belle et que vous etes desirable; que vous etes puissante et caline, que je fais naufrage dans une mer d’amour—e il naufragio m’e dolce in questo mare—en un mot, que je vous aime.” “Life outside the garden of Eden has many drawbacks,” said Mrs. Bergmann, who, although she was inwardly pleased by Count Sciarra’s remarks, saw by Lady Irene’s expression that she thought he was mad. “Aucun ‘drawback,’” answered Sciarra, “n’egalerait celui de comtempler les divins contours feminins sans un frisson. Pensez donc si Madame Bergmann——” “Count Sciarra,” interrupted Mrs. Bergmann, terrified of what was coming next, “do tell me about the book you are writing on Venice.” Mrs. Lockton was at that moment discussing portraiture in novels with M. Faubourg, and during a pause Miss Tring was heard to make the following remark: “And is it true M. Faubourg, that ‘Cecile’ in ‘La Mauvaise Bonte’ is a portrait of some one you once loved and who treated you very badly?” M. Faubourg, a little embarrassed, said that a creative artist made a character out of many originals. Then, seeing that nobody was saying a word to his neighbour, he turned round and asked him if he had been to the Academy. “Yes,” answered the stranger; “it gets worse every year doesn’t it?” “But Mr. Corporal’s pictures are always worth seeing,” said Faubourg. “I think he paints men better than women,” said the stranger; “he doesn’t flatter people, but of course his pictures are very clever.” At this moment the attention of the whole table was monopolised by Osmond Hall, who began to discuss the scenario of a new play he was writing. “My play,” he began, “is going to be called ‘The King of the North Pole.’ I have never been to the North Pole, and I don’t mean to go there. It’s not necessary to have first-hand knowledge of technical subjects in order to write a play. People say that Shakespeare must have studied the law, because his allusions to the law are frequent and accurate. That does not prove that he knew law any more than the fact that he put a sea in Bohemia proves that he did not know geography. It proves he was a dramatist. He wanted a sea in Bohemia. He wanted lawyer’s ‘shop.’ I should do just the same thing myself. I wrote a play about doctors, knowing nothing about medicine: I asked a friend to give me the necessary information. Shakespeare, I expect, asked his friends to give him the legal information he required.” Every allusion to Shakespeare was a stab to Mrs. Bergmann. “Shakespeare’s knowledge of the law is very thorough,” broke in Lockton. “Not so thorough as the knowledge of medicine which is revealed in my play,” said Hall. “Shakespeare knew law by intuition,” murmured Willmott, “but he did not guess what the modern stage would make of his plays.” “Let us hope not,” said Giles. “Shakespeare,” said Faubourg, “was a psychologue; he had the power, I cannot say it in English, de deviner ce qu’il ne savait pas en puisant dans le fond et le trefond de son ame.” “Gammon!” said Hall; “he had the power of asking his friends for the information he required.” “Do you really think,” asked Giles, “that before he wrote ‘Time delves the parallel on beauty’s brow,’ he consulted his lawyer as to a legal metaphor suitable for a sonnet?” “And do you think,” asked Mrs. Duncan, “that he asked his female relations what it would feel like to be jealous of Octavia if one happened to be Cleopatra?” “Shakespeare was a married man,” said Hall, “and if his wife found the MSS. of his sonnets lying about he must have known a jealous woman.” “Shakespeare evidently didn’t trouble his friends for information on natural history, not for a playwright,” said Hall. “I myself should not mind what liberty I took with the cuckoo, the bee, or even the basilisk. I should not trouble you for accurate information on the subject; I should not even mind saying the cuckoo lays eggs in its own nest if it suited the dramatic situation.” The whole of this conversation was torture to Mrs. Bergmann. “Shakespeare,” said Lady Hyacinth, “had a universal nature; one can’t help thinking he was almost like God.” “That’s what people will say of me a hundred years hence,” said Hall; “only it is to be hoped they’ll leave out the ‘almost.’” “Shakespeare understood love,” said Lady Herman, in a loud voice; “he knew how a man makes love to a woman. If Richard III. had made love to me as Shakespeare describes him doing it, I’m not sure that I could have resisted him. But the finest of all Shakespeare’s men is Othello. That’s a real man. Desdemona was a fool. It’s not wonderful that Othello didn’t see through Iago; but Desdemona ought to have seen through him. The stupidest woman can see through a clever man like him; but, of course, Othello was a fool too.” “Yes,” broke in Mrs. Lockton, “if Napoleon had married Desdemona he would have made Iago marry one of his sisters.” “I think Desdemona is the most pathetic of Shakespeare’s heroines,” said Lady Hyacinth; “don’t you think so, Mr. Hall?” “It’s easy enough to make a figure pathetic, who is strangled by a nigger,” answered Hall. “Now if Desdemona had been a negress Shakespeare would have started fair.” “If only Shakespeare had lived later,” sighed Willmott, “and understood the condition of the modern stage, he would have written quite differently.” “If Shakespeare had lived now he would have written novels,” said Faubourg. “Yes,” said Mrs. Baldwin, “I feel sure you are right there.” “If Shakespeare had lived now,” said Sciarra to Mrs. Bergmann, “we shouldn’t notice his existence; he would be just un monsieur comme tout le monde—like that monsieur sitting next to Faubourg,” he added in a low voice. “The problem about Shakespeare,” broke in Hall, “is not how he wrote his plays. I could teach a poodle to do that in half an hour. But the problem is—What made him leave off writing just when he was beginning to know how to do it? It is as if I had left off writing plays ten years ago.” “Perhaps,” said the stranger, hesitatingly and modestly, “he had made enough money by writing plays to retire on his earnings and live in the country.” Nobody took any notice of this remark. “If Bacon was really the playwright,” said Lockton, “the problem is a very different one.” “If Bacon had written Shakespeare’s plays,” said Silvester, “they wouldn’t have been so bad.” “There seems to me to be only one argument,” said Professor Morgan, “in favour of the Bacon theory, and that is that the range of mind displayed in Shakespeare’s plays is so great that it would have been child’s play for the man who wrote Shakespeare’s plays to have written the works of Bacon.” “Yes,” said Hall, “but because it would be child’s play for the man who wrote my plays to have written your works and those of Professor Newcastle—which it would—it doesn’t prove that you wrote my plays.” “Bacon was a philosopher,” said Willmott, “and Shakespeare was a poet—a dramatic poet; but Shakespeare was also an actor, an actor-manager, and only an actor-manager could have written the plays.” “What do you think of the Bacon theory?” asked Faubourg of the stranger. “I think,” said the stranger, “that we shall soon have to say eggs and Shakespeare instead of eggs and Bacon.” This remark caused a slight shudder to pass through all the guests, and Mrs. Bergmann felt sorry that she had not taken decisive measures to prevent the stranger’s intrusion. “Shakespeare wrote his own plays,” said Sciarra, “and I don’t know if he knew law, but he knew le coeur de la femme. Cleopatra bids her slave find out the colour of Octavia’s hair; that is just what my wife, my Angelica, would do if I were to marry some one in London while she was at Rome.” “Mr. Gladstone used to say,” broke in Lockton, “that Dante was inferior to Shakespeare, because he was too great an optimist.” “Dante was not an optimist,” said Sciarra, “about the future life of politicians. But I think they were both of them pessimists about man and both optimists about God.” “Shakespeare,” began Blenheim; but he was interrupted by Mrs. Duncan who cried out:— “I wish he were alive now and would write me a part, a real woman’s part. The women have so little to do in Shakespeare’s plays. There’s Juliet; but one can’t play Juliet till one’s forty, and then one’s too old to look fourteen. There’s Lady Macbeth; but she’s got nothing to do except walk in her sleep and say, ‘Out, damned spot!’ There were not actresses in his days, and of course it was no use writing a woman’s part for a boy.” “You should have been born in France,” said Faubourg, “Racine’s women are created for you to play.” “Ah! you’ve got Sarah,” said Mrs. Duncan, “you don’t want anyone else.” “I think Racine’s boring,” said Mrs. Lockton, “he’s so artificial.” “Oh! don’t say that,” said Giles, “Racine is the most exquisite of poets, so sensitive, so acute, and so harmonious.” “I like Rostand better,” said Mrs. Lockton. “Rostand!” exclaimed Miss Tring, in disgust, “he writes such bad verses—du caoutchouc—he’s so vulgar.” “It is true,” said Willmott, “he’s an amateur. He has never written professionally for his bread but only for his pleasure.” “But in that sense,” said Giles, “God is an amateur.” “I confess,” said Peebles, “that I cannot appreciate French poetry. I can read Rousseau with pleasure, and Bossuet; but I cannot admire Corneille and Racine.” “Everybody writes plays now,” said Faubourg, with a sigh. “I have never written a play,” said Lord Pantry. “Nor I,” said Lockton. “But nearly everyone at this table has,” said Faubourg. “Mrs. Baldwin has written ‘Matilda,’ Mr. Giles has written a tragedy called ‘Queen Swaflod,’ I wrote a play in my youth, my ‘Le Menetrier de Parme’; I’m sure Corporal has written a play. Count Sciarra must have written several; have you ever written a play?” he said, turning to his neighbour, the stranger. “Yes,” answered the stranger, “I once wrote a play called ‘Hamlet.’” “You were courageous with such an original before you,” said Faubourg, severely. “Yes,” said the stranger, “the original was very good, but I think,” he added modestly, “that I improved upon it.” “Encore un faiseur de paradoxes!” murmured Faubourg to himself in disgust. In the meantime Willmott was giving Professor Morgan the benefit of his views on Greek art, punctuated with allusions to Tariff Reform and devolution for the benefit of Blenheim. Luncheon was over and cigarettes were lighted. Mrs. Bergmann had quite made up her mind that she had been cheated, and there was only one thing for which she consoled herself, and that was that she had not waited for luncheon but had gone down immediately, since so far all her guests had kept up a continuous stream of conversation, which had every now and then become general, though they still every now and then glanced at the empty chair and wondered what the coming attraction was going to be. Mrs. Milden had carried on two almost interrupted tete-a-tetes, first with one of her neighbours, then with the other. In fact everybody had talked, except the stranger, who had hardly spoken, and since Faubourg had turned away from him in disgust, nobody had taken any further notice of him. Mrs. Baldwin, remarking this, good-naturedly leant across the table and asked him if he had come to London for the Wagner cycle. “No,” he answered, “I came for the Horse Show at Olympia.” At this moment Count Sciarra, having finished his third cigarette, turned to his hostess and thanked her for having allowed him to meet the most beautiful women of London in the most beautiful house in London, and in the house of the most beautiful hostess in London. “J’ai vu chez vous,” he said, “le lys argente et la rose blanche, mais vous etes la rose ecarlate, la rose d’amour dont le parfum vivra dans mon coeur comme un poison dore (and here he hummed in a sing-song):— ‘Io son, cantava, Io son, dolce sirena’ Addio, dolce sirena.” Then he suddenly and abruptly got up, kissed his hostess’s hand vehemently three times, and said he was very sorry, but he must hasten to keep a pressing engagement. He then left the room. Mrs. Bergmann got up and said, “Let us go upstairs.” But the men had most of them to go, some to the House of Commons, others to fulfil various engagements. The stranger thanked Mrs. Bergmann for her kind hospitality and left. And the remaining guests, seeing that it was obvious that no further attraction was to be expected, now took their leave reluctantly and went, feeling that they had been cheated. Angela Lockton stayed a moment. “Who were you expecting, Louise, dear?” she asked. “Only an old friend,” said Mrs. Bergmann, “whom you would all have been very glad to see. Only as he doesn’t want anybody to know he’s in London, I couldn’t tell you all who he was.” “But tell me now,” said Mrs. Lockton; “you know how discreet I am.” “I promised not to, dearest Angela,” she answered; “and, by the way, what was the name of the man you brought with you?” “Didn’t I tell you? How stupid of me!” said Mrs. Lockton. “It’s a very easy name to remember: Shakespeare, William Shakespeare.”
četvrtak, 4. rujna 2025.
GRIM GREEN WORLD by JOHN STARR - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/63981/pg63981-images.html
I lit the last cigarette I would ever smoke
Sitting opposite me in the second-class carriage of the express train which was crawling at a leisurely pace from Moscow to the south was a little girl who looked as if she were about twelve years old, with her mother. The mother was a large fair-haired person, with a good-natured expression. They had a dog with them, and the little girl, whose whole face twitched every now and then from St. Vitus’ dance, got out at nearly every station to buy food for the dog. On the same side of the carriage, in the opposite corner, another lady (thin, fair, and wearing a pince-nez) was reading the newspaper. She and the mother of the child soon made friends over the dog. That is to say, the dog made friends with the strange lady and was reproved by its mistress, and the strange lady said: “Please don’t scold him. He is not in the least in my way, and I like dogs.” They then began to talk. The large lady was going to the country. She and her daughter had been ordered to go there by the doctor. She had spent six weeks in Moscow under medical treatment, and they had now been told to finish this cure with a thorough rest in the country air. The thin lady asked her the name of her doctor, and before ascertaining what was the disease in question, recommended another doctor who had cured a friend of hers, almost as though by miracle, of heart disease. The large lady seemed interested and wrote down the direction of the marvellous physician. She was herself suffering, she said, from a nervous illness, and her daughter had St. Vitus’ dance. They were so far quite satisfied with their doctor. They talked for some time exclusively about medical matters, comparing notes about doctors, diseases, and remedies. The thin lady said she had been cured of all her ills by aspirin and cinnamon. In the course of the conversation the stout lady mentioned her husband, who, it turned out, was the head of the gendarmerie in a town in Siberia, not far from Irkutsk. This seemed to interest the thin lady immensely. She at once asked what were his political views, and what she herself thought about politics. The large lady seemed to be reluctant to talk politics and evaded the questions for some time, but after much desultory conversation, which always came back to the same point, she said:— “My husband is a Conservative; they call him a ‘Black Hundred,’ but it’s most unfair and untrue, because he is a very good man and very just. He has his own opinions and he is sincere. He does not believe in the revolution or in the revolutionaries. He took the oath to serve the Emperor when everything went quietly and well, and now, although I have often begged him to leave the Service, he says it would be very wrong to leave just because it is dangerous. ‘I have taken the oath,’ he says, ‘and I must keep it.’” Here she stopped, but after some further questions on the part of the thin lady, she said: “I never had time or leisure to think of these questions. I was married when I was sixteen. I have had eight children, and they all died one after the other except this one, who was the eldest. I used to see political exiles and prisoners, and I used to feel sympathy for them. I used to hear about people being sent here and there, and sometimes I used to go down on my knees to my husband to do what he could for them, but I never thought about there being any particular idea at the back of all this.” Then after a short pause she added: “It first dawned on me at Moscow. It was after the big strike, and I was on my way home. I had been staying with some friends in the country, and I happened by chance to see the funeral of that man Bauman, the doctor, who was killed. I was very much impressed when I saw that huge procession go past, all the men singing the funeral march, and I understood that Bauman himself had nothing to do with it. Who cared about Bauman? But I understood that he was a symbol. I saw that there must be a big idea which moves all these people to give up everything, to go to prison, to kill, and be killed. I understood this for the first time at that funeral. I cried when the crowd went past. I understood there was a big idea, a great cause behind it all. Then I went home. “There were disorders in Siberia: you know in Siberia we are much freer than you are. There is only one society. The officials, the political people, revolutionaries, exiles, everybody, in fact, all meet constantly. I used to go to political meetings, and to see and talk with the Liberal and revolutionary leaders. Then I began to be disappointed because what had always struck me as unjust was that one man, just because he happened to be, say, Ivan Pavlovitch, should be able to rule over another man who happened to be, say, Ivan Ivanovitch. And now that these Republics were being made, it seemed that the same thing was beginning all over again—that all the places of authority were being seized and dealt out amongst another lot of people who were behaving exactly like those who had authority before. The arbitrary authority was there just the same, only it had changed hands, and this puzzled me very much, and I began to ask myself, ‘Where is the truth?’” “What did your husband think?” asked the thin lady. “My husband did not like to talk about these things,” she answered. “He says, ‘I am in the Service, and I have to serve. It is not my business to have opinions.’” “But all those Republics didn’t last very long,” rejoined the thin lady. “No,” continued the other; “we never had a Republic, and after a time they arrested the chief agitator, who was the soul of the revolutionary movement in our town, a wonderful orator. I had heard him speak several times and been carried away. When he was arrested I saw him taken to prison, and he said ‘Good-bye’ to the people, and bowed to them in the street in such an exaggerated theatrical way that I was astonished and felt uncomfortable. Here, I thought, is a man who can sacrifice himself for an idea, and who seemed to be thoroughly sincere, and yet he behaves theatrically and poses as if he were not sincere. I felt more puzzled than ever, and I asked my husband to let me go and see him in prison. I thought that perhaps after talking to him I could solve the riddle, and find out once for all who was right and who was wrong. My husband let me go, and I was admitted into his cell. “‘You know who I am,’ I said, ‘since I am here, and I am admitted inside these locked doors?’ He nodded. Then I asked him whether I could be of any use to him. He said that he had all that he wanted; and like this the ice was broken, and I asked him presently if he believed in the whole movement. He said that until the 17th of October, when the Manifesto had been issued, he had believed with all his soul in it; but the events of the last months had caused him to change his mind. He now thought that the work of his party, and, in fact, the whole movement, which had been going on for over fifty years, had really been in vain. ‘We shall have,’ he said, ‘to begin again from the very beginning, because the Russian people are not ready for us yet, and probably another fifty years will have to go by before they are ready.’ “I left him very much perplexed. He was set free not long afterwards, in virtue of some manifesto, and because there had been no disorders in our town and he had not been the cause of any bloodshed. Soon after he came out of prison my husband met him, and he said to my husband: ‘I suppose you will not shake hands with me?’ And my husband replied: ‘Because our views are different there is no reason why both of us should not be honest men,’ and he shook hands with him.” The conversation now became a discussion about the various ideals of various people and parties holding different political views. The large lady kept on expressing the puzzled state of mind in which she was. The whole conversation, of which I have given a very condensed report, was spread over a long time, and often interrupted. Later they reached the subject of political assassination, and the large lady said:— “About two months after I came home that year, one day when I was out driving with my daughter in a sledge the revolutionaries fired six shots at us from revolvers. We were not hit, but one bullet went through the coachman’s cap. Ever since then I have had nervous fits and my daughter has had St. Vitus’ dance. We have to go to Moscow every year to be treated. And it is so difficult. I don’t know how to manage. When I am at home I feel as if I ought to go, and when I am away I never have a moment’s peace, because I cannot help thinking the whole time that my husband is in danger. A few weeks after they shot at us I met some of the revolutionary party at a meeting, and I asked them why they had shot at myself and my daughter. I could have understood it if they had shot at my husband. But why at us? He said: ‘When the wood is cut down, the chips fly about.‘[*] And now I don’t know what to think about it all. [*] A Russian proverb. “Sometimes I think it is all a mistake, and I feel that the revolutionaries are posing and playing a part, and that so soon as they get the upper hand they will be as bad as what we have now; and then I say to myself, all the same they are acting in a cause, and it is a great cause, and they are working for liberty and for the people. And, then, would the people be better off if they had their way? The more I think of it the more puzzled I am. Who is right? Is my husband right? Are they right? Is it a great cause? How can they be wrong if they are imprisoned and killed for what they believe? Where is the truth, and what is truth?”
srijeda, 3. rujna 2025.
The village was called Moe-tung. It was on the edge of the big main road which leads from Liao-yang to Ta-shi-chiao. It consisted of a few baked mud-houses, a dilapidated temple, a wall, a clump of willows, and a pond. One of the houses I knew well; in its square open yard, in which the rude furniture of toil lay strewn about, I had halted more than once for my midday meal, when riding from Liao-yang to the South. I had been entertained there by the owner of the house, a brawny husbandman and his fat brown children, and they had given me eggs and Indian corn. Now it was empty; the house was deserted; the owner, his wife and his children, had all gone, to the city probably, to seek shelter. We occupied the house; and the Cossacks at once made a fire with the front door and any fragments of wood they could find. The house was converted into a stable and a kitchen, and the officers’ quarters were established in another smaller building across the road, on the edge of a great plain, which was bright green with the standing giant millet. This smaller cottage had an uncultivated garden in front of it, and a kind of natural summer-house made by the twining of a pumpkin plant which spread its broad leaves over some stakes. We lay down to rest in this garden. About five miles to the north of us was the town of Liao-yang; to the east in the distance was a range of pale blue hills, and immediately in front of us to the south, and scarcely a mile off, was the big hill of Sho-shantze. It was five o’clock in the afternoon, and we had been on the move since two o’clock in the morning. The Cossacks brought us tea and pancakes, and presently news came from the town that the big battle would be fought the next day: the big battle; the real battle, which had been expected for so long and which had been constantly put off. There was a complete stillness everywhere. The officers unpacked their valises and their camp-beds. Every one arranged his bed and his goods in his chosen place, and it seemed as if we had merely begun once more to settle down for a further period of siesta in the long picnic which had been going on for the last two months. Nobody was convinced in spite of the authentic news which we had received, that the Japanese would attack the next day. The sunset faded into a twilight of delicious summer calm. From the hills in the east came the noise of a few shots fired by the batteries there, and a captive balloon soared slowly, like a soap-bubble, into the eastern sky. I walked into the village; here and there fires were burning, and I was attracted by the sight of the deserted temple in which the wooden painted gods were grinning, bereft of their priest and of their accustomed dues. I sat down on the mossy steps of the little wooden temple, and somewhere, either from one of the knolls hard by or from one of the houses, came the sound of a flute, or rather of some primitive wooden pipe, which repeated over and over again a monotonous and piercingly sad little tune. I wondered whether it was one of the soldiers playing, but I decided this could not be the case, as the tune was more eastern than any Russian tune. On the other hand, it seemed strange that any Chinaman should be about. The tune continued to break the perfect stillness with its iterated sadness, and a vague recollection came into my mind of a Chinese legend or poem I had read long ago in London, about a flute-player called Chang Liang. But I could not bring my memory to work; its tired wheels all seemed to be buzzing feebly in different directions, and my thoughts came like thistledown and seemed to elude all efforts of concentration. And so I capitulated utterly to my drowsiness, and fell asleep as I sat on the steps of the temple. I thought I had been sleeping for a long time and had woken before the dawn: the earth was misty, although the moon was shining; and I was no longer in the temple, but back once more at the edge of the plain. “They must have fetched me back while I slept,” I thought to myself. But when I looked round I saw no trace of the officers, nor of the Cossacks, nor of the small house and the garden, and, stranger still, the millet had been reaped and the plain was covered with low stubble, and on it were pitched some curiously-shaped tents, which I saw were guarded by soldiers. But these soldiers were Chinamen, and yet unlike any Chinamen I had ever seen; for some of them carried halberds, the double-armed halberds of the period of Charles I., and others, halberds with a crescent on one side, like those which were used in the days of Henry VII. And I then noticed that a whole multitude of soldiers were lying asleep on the ground, armed with two-edged swords and bows and arrows. And their clothes seemed unfamiliar and brighter than the clothes which Chinese soldiers wear nowadays. As I wondered what all this meant, a note of music came stealing through the night, and at first it seemed to be the same tune as I heard in the temple before I dropped off to sleep; but presently I was sure that this was a mistake, for the sound was richer and more mellow, and like that of a bell, only of an enchanted bell, such as that which is fabled to sound beneath the ocean. And the music seemed to rise and fall, to grow clear and full, and just as it was floating nearer and nearer, it died away in a sigh: but as it did so the distant hills seemed to catch it and to send it back in the company of a thousand echoes, till the whole night was filled and trembling with an unearthly chorus. The sleeping soldiers gradually stirred and sat listening spellbound to the music. And in the eyes of the sentries, who were standing as motionless as bronze statues in front of the tents, I could see the tears glistening. And the whole of the sleeping army awoke from its slumber and listened to the strange sound. From the tents came men in glittering silks (the Generals, I supposed) and listened also. The soldiers looked at each other and said no word. And then all at once, as though obeying some silent word of command given by some unseen captain, one by one they walked away over the plain, leaving their tents behind them. They all marched off into the east, as if they were following the music into the heart of the hills, and soon, of all that great army which had been gathered together on the plain, not one man was left. Then the music changed and seemed to grow different and more familiar, and with a start I became aware that I had been asleep and dreaming, and that I was sitting on the temple steps once more in the twilight, and that not far off, round a fire, some soldiers were singing. It was a dream, and my sleep could not have been a long one, for it was still twilight and the darkness had not yet come. Fully awake now, I remembered clearly the old legend which had haunted me, and had taken shape in my dream. It was that of an army which on the night before the battle had heard the flute of Chang Liang. By his playing he had brought before the rude soldiers the far-off scenes of their childhood, which they had not looked upon for years—the sights and sounds of their homes, the faces and the spots which were familiar to them and dear. And they, as they heard this music, and felt these memories well up in their hearts, were seized with a longing and a desire for home so potent and so imperative that one by one they left the battlefield in silence, and when the enemy came at the dawn, they found the plain deserted and empty, for in one minute the flute of Chang Liang had stolen the hearts of eight thousand men. And I felt certain that I had heard the flute of Chang Liang this night and that the soldiers had heard it too; for now round a fire a group of them were listening to the song of one of their comrades, a man from the south, who was singing of the quiet waters of the Don, and of a Cossack who had come back to his native land after many days and found his true love wedded to another. I felt it was the flute of Chang Liang which had prompted the southerner to sing, and without doubt the men saw before them the great moon shining over the broad village street in the dark July and August nights, and heard the noise of dancing and song and the cheerful rhythmic accompaniment of the concertina. Or (if they came from the south) they saw the smiling thatched farms, whitewashed, or painted in light green distemper, with vines growing on their walls; or again, they felt the smell of the beanfields in June, and saw in their minds’ eye the panorama of the melting snows, when at a fairy touch the long winter is defeated, the meadows are flooded, and the trees seem to float about in the shining water like shapes invoked by a wizard. They saw these things and yearned towards them with all their hearts, here in this uncouth country where they were to fight a strange people for some unaccountable reason. But Chang Liang had played his flute to them in vain. It was in vain that he had tried to lure them back to their homes, and in vain that he had melted their hearts with the memories of their childhood. For the battle began at dawn the next morning, and when the enemy attacked they found an army there to meet them; and the battle lasted for two days on this very spot; and many of the men to whom Chang Liang had brought back through his flute the sights and the sounds of their childhood, were fated never to hear again those familiar sounds, nor to see the land and the faces which they loved.
utorak, 2. rujna 2025.
Jean Francois was a vagabond by nature, a balladmonger by profession. Like many poets in many times, he found that the business of writing verse was more amusing than lucrative; and he was constrained to supplement the earnings of his pen and his guitar by other and more profitable work. He had run away from what had been his home at the age of seven (he was a foundling, and his adopted father was a shoe-maker), without having learnt a trade. When the necessity arose he decided to supplement the art of balladmongering by that of stealing. He was skilful in both arts: he wrote verse, sang ballads, picked pockets (in the city), and stole horses (in the country) with equal facility and success. Some of his verse has reached posterity, for instance the “Ballads du Paradis Peint,” which he wrote on white vellum, and illustrated himself with illuminations in red, blue and gold, for the Dauphin. It ends thus in the English version of a Balliol scholar:— Prince, do not let your nose, your Royal nose, Your large Imperial nose get out of joint; Forbear to criticise my perfect prose— Painting on vellum is my weakest point. Again, the ballade of which the “Envoi” runs:— Prince, when you light your pipe with radium spills, Especially invented for the King— Remember this, the worst of human ills: Life without matches is a dismal thing, is, in reality, only a feeble adaptation of his “Priez pour feu le vrai tresor de vie.” But although Jean Francois was not unknown during his lifetime, and although, as his verse testifies, he knew his name would live among those of the enduring poets after his death, his life was one of rough hardship, brief pleasures, long anxieties, and constant uncertainty. Sometimes for a few days at a time he would live in riotous luxury, but these rare epochs would immediately be succeeded by periods of want bordering on starvation. Besides which he was nearly always in peril of his life; the shadow of the gallows darkened his merriment, and the thought of the wheel made bitter his joy. Yet in spite of this hazardous and harassing life, in spite of the sharp and sudden transitions in his career, in spite of the menace of doom, the hint of the wheel and the gallows, his fund of joy remained undiminished, and this we see in his verse, which reflects with equal vividness his alternate moods of infinite enjoyment and unmitigated despair. For instance, the only two triolets which have survived from his “Trente deux Triolets joyeux and tristes” are an example of his twofold temperament. They run thus in the literal and exact translations of them made by an eminent official:— I wish I was dead, And lay deep in the grave. I’ve a pain in my head, I wish I was dead. In a coffin of lead— With the Wise and the Brave— I wish I was dead, And lay deep in the grave. This passionate utterance immediately preceded, in the original text, the following verses in which his buoyant spirits rise once more to the surface:— Thank God I’m alive In the light of the Sun! It’s a quarter to five; Thank God I’m alive! Now the hum of the hive Of the world has begun, Thank God I’m alive In the light of the Sun! A more plaintive, in fact a positively wistful note, which is almost incongruous amongst the definite and sharply defined moods of Jean Francois, is struck in the sonnet of which only the first line has reached us: “I wish I had a hundred thousand pounds.” (“Voulentiers serais pauvre avec dix mille escus.”) But in nearly all his verse, whether joyous as in the “Chant de vin et vie,” or gloomy as in the “Ballade des Treize Pendus,” there is a curious recurrent aspiration towards a warm fire, a sure and plentiful supper, a clean bed, and a long, long sleep. Whether Jean Francois moped or made merry, and in spite of the fact that he enjoyed his roving career and would not have exchanged it for the throne of an Emperor or the money-bags of Croesus, there is no doubt that he experienced the burden of an immense fatigue. He was never quite warm enough; always a little hungry; and never got as much sleep as he desired. A place where he could sleep his fill represented the highest joys of Heaven to him; and he looked forward to Death as a traveller looks forward to a warm inn where (its terrible threshold once passed), a man can sleep the clock round. Witness the sonnet which ends (the translation is mine):— For thou has never turned A stranger from thy gates or hast denied, O hospitable Death, a place to rest. And it is of his death and not of his life or works which I wish to tell, for it was singular. He died on Christmas Eve, 1432. The winter that year in the north of France was, as is well known, terrible for its severe cold. The rich stayed at home, the poor died, and the unfortunate third estate of gipsies, balladmongers, tinkers, tumblers, and thieves had no chance of displaying their dexterity. In fact, they starved. Ever since the 1st of December Jean Francois had been unable to make a silver penny either by his song or his sleight of hand. Christmas was drawing near, and he was starving; and this was especially bitter to him, as it was his custom (for he was not only a lover of good cheer, but a good Catholic and a strict observer of fasts and feasts) to keep the great day of Christendom fittingly. This year he had nothing to keep it with. Luck seemed to be against him; for three days before Christmas he met in a dark side street of the town the rich and stingy Sieur de Ranquet. He picked the pocket of that nobleman, but owing to the extreme cold his fingers faltered, and he was discovered. He ran like a hare and managed easily enough to outstrip the miser, and to conceal himself in a den where he was well known. But unfortunately the matter did not end there. The Sieur de Ranquet was influential at Court; he was implacable as well as avaricious, and his disposition positively forbade him to forgive any one who had nearly picked his pocket. Besides which he knew that Jean had often stolen his horses. He made a formal complaint at high quarters, and a warrant was issued against Jean, offering a large sum in silver coin to the man who should bring him, alive or dead, to justice. Now the police were keenly anxious to make an end of Jean. They knew he was guilty of a hundred thefts, but such was his skill that they had never been able to convict him; he had often been put in prison, but he had always been released for want of evidence. This time no mistake was possible. So Jean, aware of the danger, fled from the city and sought a gipsy encampment in a neighbouring forest, where he had friends. These gipsy friends of his were robbers, outlaws, murderers and horse-stealers all of them, and hardened criminals; they called themselves gipsies, but it was merely a courtesy title. On Christmas Eve—it was snowing hard—Jean was walking through the forest towards the town, ready for a desperate venture, for in the camp they were starving, and he was sick almost to death of his hunted, miserable life. As he plunged through the snow he heard a moan, and he saw a child sitting at the roots of a tall tree crying. He asked what was the matter. The child—it was a little boy about five years old—said that it had run away from home because its nurse had beaten it, and had lost its way. “Where do you live?” asked Jean. “My father is the Sieur de Ranquet,” said the child. At that moment Jean heard the shouts of his companions in the distance. “I want to go home,” said the little boy quietly. “You must take me home,” and he put his hand into Jean’s hand and looked up at him and smiled. Jean thought for a moment. The boy was richly dressed; he had a large ruby cross hanging from a golden collar worth many hundred gold pieces. Jean knew well what would happen if his gipsy companions came across the child. They would kill it instantly. “All right,” said Jean, “climb on my back.” The little boy climbed on to his back, and Jean trudged through the snow. In an hour’s time they reached the Sieur de Ranquet’s castle; the place was alive with bustling men and flaring torches, for the Sieur’s heir had been missed. The Sieur looked at Jean and recognised him immediately. Jean was a public character, and especially well known to the Sieur de Ranquet. A few words were whispered. The child was sent to bed, and the archers civilly lead Jean to his dungeon. Jean was tired and sleepy. He fell asleep at once on the straw. They told him he would have to get up early the next morning, in time for a long, cold journey. The gallows, they added, would be ready. But in the night Jean dreamed a dream: he saw a child in glittering clothes and with a shining face who came into the dungeon and broke the bars. The child said: “I am little St. Nicholas, the children’s friend, and I think you are tired, so I’m going to take you to a quiet place.” Jean followed the child, who led him by the hand till they came to a nice inn, very high up on the top of huge mountains. There was a blazing log fire in the room, a clean warm bed, and the windows opened on a range of snowy mountains, bright as diamonds. And the stars twinkled in the sky like the candles of a Christmas tree. “You can go to bed here,” said St. Nicholas, “nobody will disturb you, and when you do wake you will be quite happy and rested. Good-night, Jean.” And he went away. The next day in the dawn, when the archers came to fetch Jean, they found he was fast asleep. They thought it was almost a pity to wake him, because he looked so happy and contented in his sleep; but when they tried they found it was impossible.
ponedjeljak, 1. rujna 2025.
It was nine o’clock in the evening. Sasha, the maid, had brought in the samovar and placed it at the head of the long table. Marie Nikolaevna, our hostess, poured out the tea. Her husband was playing Vindt with his daughter, the doctor, and his son-in-law in another corner of the room. And Jameson, who had just finished his Russian lesson—he was working for the Civil Service examination—was reading the last number of the Rouskoe Slovo. “Have you found anything interesting, Frantz Frantzovitch?” said Marie Nikolaevna to Jameson, as she handed him a glass of tea. “Yes, I have,” answered the Englishman, looking up. His eyes had a clear dreaminess about them, which generally belongs only to fanatics or visionaries, and I had no reason to believe that Jameson, who seemed to be common sense personified, was either one or the other. “At least,” he continued, “it interests me. And it’s odd—very odd.” “What is it?” asked Marie Nikolaevna. “Well, to tell you what it is would mean a long story which you wouldn’t believe,” said Jameson; “only it’s odd—very odd.” “Tell us the story,” I said. “As you won’t believe a word of it,” Jameson repeated, “it’s not much use my telling it.” We insisted on hearing the story, so Jameson lit a cigarette, and began:— “Two years ago,” he said, “I was at Heidelberg, at the University, and I made friends with a young fellow called Braun. His parents were German, but he had lived five or six years in America, and he was practically an American. I made his acquaintance by chance at a lecture, when I first arrived, and he helped me in a number of ways. He was an energetic and kind-hearted fellow, and we became great friends. He was a student, but he did not belong to any Korps or Bursenschaft, he was working hard then. Afterwards he became an engineer. When the summer Semester came to an end, we both stayed on at Heidelberg. One day Braun suggested that we should go for a walking tour and explore the country. I was only too pleased, and we started. It was glorious weather, and we enjoyed ourselves hugely. On the third night after we had started we arrived at a village called Salzheim. It was a picturesque little place, and there was a curious old church in it with some interesting tombs and relics of the Thirty Years War. But the inn where we put up for the night was even more picturesque than the church. It had been a convent for nuns, only the greater part of it had been burnt, and only a quaint gabled house, and a kind of tower covered with ivy, which I suppose had once been the belfry, remained. We had an excellent supper and went to bed early. We had been given two bedrooms, which were airy and clean, and altogether we were satisfied. My bedroom opened into Braun’s, which was beyond it, and had no other door of its own. It was a hot night in July, and Braun asked me to leave the door open. I did—we opened both the windows. Braun went to bed and fell asleep almost directly, for very soon I heard his snores. “I had imagined that I was longing for sleep, but no sooner had I got into bed than all my sleepiness left me. This was odd, because we had walked a good many miles, and it had been a blazing hot day, and up till then I had slept like a log the moment I got into bed. I lit a candle and began reading a small volume of Heine I carried with me. I heard the clock strike ten, and then eleven, and still I felt that sleep was out of the question. I said to myself: ‘I will read till twelve and then I will stop.’ My watch was on a chair by my bedside, and when the clock struck eleven I noticed that it was five minutes slow, and set it right. I could see the church tower from my window, and every time the clock struck—and it struck the quarters—the noise boomed through the room. “When the clock struck a quarter to twelve I yawned for the first time, and I felt thankful that sleep seemed at last to be coming to me. I left off reading, and taking my watch in my hand I waited for midnight to strike. This quarter of an hour seemed an eternity. At last the hands of my watch showed that it was one minute to twelve. I put out my candle and began counting sixty, waiting for the clock to strike. I had counted a hundred and sixty, and still the clock had not struck. I counted up to four hundred; then I thought I must have made a mistake. I lit my candle again, and looked at my watch: it was two minutes past twelve. And still the clock had not struck! “A curious uncomfortable feeling came over me, and I sat up in bed with my watch in my hand and longed to call Braun, who was peacefully snoring, but I did not like to. I sat like this till a quarter past twelve; the clock struck the quarter as usual. I made up my mind that the clock must have struck twelve, and that I must have slept for a minute—at the same time I knew I had not slept—and I put out my candle. I must have fallen asleep almost directly. “The next thing I remember was waking with a start. It seemed to me that some one had shut the door between my room and Braun’s. I felt for the matches. The match-box was empty. Up to that moment—I cannot tell why—something—an unaccountable dread—had prevented me looking at the door. I made an effort and looked. It was shut, and through the cracks and through the keyhole I saw the glimmer of a light. Braun had lit his candle. I called him, not very loudly: there was no answer. I called again more loudly: there was still no answer. “Then I got out of bed and walked to the door. As I went, it was gently and slightly opened, just enough to show me a thin streak of light. At that moment I felt that some one was looking at me. Then it was instantly shut once more, as softly as it had been opened. There was not a sound to be heard. I walked on tiptoe towards the door, but it seemed to me that I had taken a hundred years to cross the room. And when at last I reached the door I felt I could not open it. I was simply paralysed with fear. And still I saw the glimmer through the key-hole and the cracks. “Suddenly, as I was standing transfixed with fright in front of the door, I heard sounds coming from Braun’s room, a shuffle of footsteps, and voices talking low but distinctly in a language I could not understand. It was not Italian, Spanish, nor French. The voices grew all at once louder; I heard the noise of a struggle and a cry which ended in a stifled groan, very painful and horrible to hear. Then, whether I regained my self-control, or whether it was excess of fright which prompted me, I don’t know, but I flew to the door and tried to open it. Some one or something was pressing with all its might against it. Then I screamed at the top of my voice, and as I screamed I heard the cock crow. “The door gave, and I almost fell into Braun’s room. It was quite dark. But Braun was waked by my screams and quietly lit a match. He asked me gently what on earth was the matter. The room was empty and everything was in its place. Outside the first greyness of dawn was in the sky. “I said I had had a nightmare, and asked him if he had not had one as well; but Braun said he had never slept better in his life. “The next day we went on with our walking tour, and when we got back to Heidelberg Braun sailed for America. I never saw him again, although we corresponded frequently, and only last week I had a letter from him, dated Nijni Novgorod, saying he would be at Moscow before the end of the month. “And now I suppose you are all wondering what this can have to do with anything that’s in the newspaper. Well, listen,” and he read out the following paragraph from the Rouskoe Slovo:— “Samara, II, ix. In the centre of the town, in the Hotel —, a band of armed swindlers attacked a German engineer named Braun and demanded money. On his refusal one of the robbers stabbed Braun with a knife. The robbers, taking the money which was on him, amounting to 500 roubles, got away. Braun called for assistance, but died of his wounds in the night. It appears that he had met the swindlers at a restaurant.” “Since I have been in Russia,” Jameson added, “I have often thought that I knew what language it was that was talked behind the door that night in the inn at Salzheim, but now I know it was Russian.”
nedjelja, 31. kolovoza 2025.
It was a Saturday afternoon in June. St. James’s School was playing a cricket match against Chippenfield’s. The whole school, which consisted of forty boys, with the exception of the eleven who were playing in the match, were gathered together near the pavilion on the steep, grassy bank which faced the cricket ground. It was a swelteringly hot day. One of the masters was scoring in the pavilion; two of the boys sat under the post and board where the score was recorded in big white figures painted on the black squares. Most of the boys were sitting on the grass in front of the pavilion. St. James’s won the toss and went in first. After scoring 5 for the first wicket they collapsed; in an hour and five minutes their last wicket fell. They had only made 27 runs. Fortune was against St. James’s that day. Hitchens, their captain, in whom the school confidently trusted, was caught out in his first over. And Wormald and Bell minor, their two best men, both failed to score. Then Chippenfield’s went in. St. James’s fast bowlers, Blundell and Anderson minor, seemed unable to do anything against the Chippenfield’s batsmen. The first wicket went down at 70. The boys who were looking on grew listless: three of them, Gordon, Smith, and Hart minor, wandered off from the pavilion further up the slope of the hill, where there was a kind of wooden scaffolding raised for letting off fireworks on the 5th of November. The headmaster, who was a fanatical Conservative, used to burn on that anniversary effigies of Liberal politicians such as Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Chamberlain, who was at that time a Radical; while the boys whose politics were Conservative, and who formed the vast majority, cheered, and kicked the Liberals, of whom there were only eight. Smith, Gordon, and Hart minor, three little boys aged about eleven, were in the third division of the school. They were not in the eleven, nor had they any hopes of ever attaining that glory, which conferred the privilege of wearing white flannel instead of grey flannel trousers, and a white flannel cap with a red Maltese cross on it. To tell the truth, the spectacle of this seemingly endless game, in which they did not have even the satisfaction of seeing their own side victorious, began to weigh on their spirits. They climbed up on to the wooden scaffolding and organised a game of their own, an utterly childish game, which consisted of one boy throwing some dried horse chestnuts from the top of the scaffolding into the mouth of the boy at the bottom. They soon became engrossed in their occupation, and were thoroughly enjoying themselves, when one of the masters, Mr. Whitehead by name, came towards them with a face like thunder, biting his knuckles, a thing which he did when he was very angry. “Go indoors at once,” he said. “Go up to the third division school-room and do two hours’ work. You can copy out the Greek irregular verbs.” The boys, taken completely by surprise, but accepting this decree as they accepted everything else, because it never occurred to them it could be otherwise, trotted off, not very disconsolate, to the school-room. It was very hot out of doors; it was cool in the third division school-room. They got out their steel pens, their double-lined copy books, and began mechanically copying out the Greek irregular verbs, with which they were so superficially familiar, and from which they were so fundamentally divorced. “Whitey,” said Gordon, “was in an awful wax!” “I don’t care,” said Smith. “I’d just as soon sit here as look on at that beastly match.” “But why,” said Hart, “have we got to do two hours’ work?” “Oh,” said Gordon, “he’s just in a wax, that’s all.” And the matter was not further discussed. At six o’clock the boys had tea. The cricket match had, of course, resulted in a crushing and overwhelming defeat for St. James’s. The rival eleven had been asked to tea; there were cherries for tea in their honour. When Gordon, Smith, and Hart minor entered the dining-room they at once perceived that an atmosphere of gloom and menacing storm was overhanging the school. Their spirits had hitherto been unflagging; they sat next to each other at the tea-table, but no sooner had they sat down than they were seized by that terrible, uncomfortable feeling so familiar to schoolboys, that something unpleasant was impending, some crime, some accusation; some doom, the nature of which they could not guess, was lying in ambush. This was written on the headmaster’s face. The headmaster sat at a square table in the centre of the dining-room. The boys sat round on the further side of three tables which formed the three sides of the square room. The meal passed in gloomy silence. Gordon, Smith and Hart began a fitful conversation, but a message was immediately passed up to them from Mr. Whitehead, who sat at the bottom of one of the tables, to stop talking. At the end of tea the guests filed out of the room. The headmaster stood up and rapped on his table with a knife. “The whole school,” he said, “will come to the library in ten minutes’ time.” The boys left the dining-room. They began to whisper to one another with bated breath. “What’s the matter?” And the boys of the second division shook their heads ominously, and pointing to Gordon, Smith, and Hart, said: “You’re in for it this time!” The boys of the first division were too important to take any notice of the rest of the school, and retired to the first division school-room in dignified silence. Ten minutes later the whole school was assembled in the library, from which one flight of stairs led to the upper storeys. The staircase was shrouded from view by a dark curtain hanging from a Gothic arch; it was through this curtain that the headmaster used dramatically to appear on important occasions, and it was up this staircase that boys guilty of cardinal offences were led off to corporal punishment. The boys waited in breathless silence. Acute suspense was felt by the whole school, but by none so keenly as by Gordon, Smith, and Hart minor. These three little boys felt perfectly sick with fear of the unknown and the terror of having in some unknown way made themselves responsible for the calamity which would perhaps vitally affect the whole school. Presently a rustle was heard, and the headmaster swept down the staircase and through the curtain, robed in the black silk gown of an LL.D. He stood at a high desk which was placed opposite the staircase in front of the boys, who sat, in the order of their divisions, on rows of chairs. The three assistant masters walked in from a side door, also in their gowns, and took seats to the right and left of the headmaster’s desk. There was a breathless silence. The headmaster began to speak in grave and icily cold tones; his face was contracted by a permanent frown. “I had thought,” he said, “that there were in this school some boys who had a notion of gentlemanly behaviour, manly conduct, and common decency. I see that I was mistaken. The behaviour of certain of you to-day—I will not mention them because of their exceeding shame, but you will all know whom I mean. . . .” At this moment all the boys turned round and looked hard at Gordon, Smith, and Hart minor, who blushed scarlet, and whose eyes filled with tears. . . . “The less said about the matter the better,” continued the headmaster, “but I confess that it is difficult for me to understand how any one, however young, can be so hardened and so wanton as to behave in the callous and indecent way in which certain of you—I need not mention who—have behaved to-day. You have disgraced the school in the eyes of strangers; you have violated the laws of hospitality and courtesy; you have shown that in St. James’s there is not a gleam of patriotism, not a spark of interest in the school, not a touch of that ordinary common English manliness, that sense for the interests of the school and the community which makes Englishmen what they are. The boys who have been most guilty in this matter have already been punished, and I do not propose to punish them further; but I had intended to take the whole school for an expedition to the New Forest next week. That expedition will be put off: in fact it will never take place. Only the eleven shall go, and I trust that another time the miserable idlers and loafers who have brought this shame, this disgrace on the school, who have no self-respect and no self-control, who do not know how to behave like gentlemen, who are idle, vulgar and depraved, will learn by this lesson to mend their ways and to behave better in the future. But I am sorry to say that it is not only the chief offenders, who, as I have already said, have been punished, who are guilty in the matter. Many of the other boys, although they did not descend to the depths of vulgar behaviour reached by the culprits I have mentioned, showed a considerable lack of patriotism by their apathy and their lack of attention while the cricket match was proceeding this afternoon. I can only hope this may be a lesson to you all; but while I trust the chief offenders will feel specially uncomfortable, I wish to impress upon you that you are all, with the exception of the eleven, in a sense guilty.” With these words the headmaster swept out of the room. The boys dispersed in whispering groups. Gordon, Smith, and Hart minor, when they attempted to speak, were met with stony silence; they were boycotted and cut by the remaining boys. Gordon and Smith slept in two adjoining cubicles, and in a third adjoining cubicle was an upper division boy called Worthing. That night, after they had gone to bed, Gordon asked Worthing whether, among all the guilty, one just man had not been found. “Surely,” he said, “Campbell minor, who put up the score during the cricket match, was attentive right through the game, and wouldn’t he be allowed to go to the New Forest with the eleven?” “No,” said Worthing, “he whistled twice.” “Oh!” said Gordon, “I didn’t know that. Of course, he can’t go!”
subota, 30. kolovoza 2025.
Heraclius Themistocles Margaritis was a professional musician. He was a singer and a composer of songs; he wrote poetry in Romaic, and composed tunes to suit rhymes. But it was not thus that he earned his daily bread, and he was poor, very poor. To earn his livelihood he gave lessons, music lessons during the day, and in the evening lessons in Greek, ancient and modern, to such people (and these were rare) who wished to learn these languages. He was a young man, only twenty-four, and he had married, before he came of age, an Italian girl called Tina. They had come to England in order to make their fortune. They lived in apartments in the Hereford Road, Bayswater. They had two children, a little girl and a little boy; they were very much in love with each other, as happy as birds, and as poor as church mice. For Heraclius Themistocles got but few pupils, and although he had sung in public at one or two concerts, and had not been received unfavourably, he failed to obtain engagements to sing in private houses, which was his ambition. He hoped by this means to become well known, and then to be able to give recitals of his own where he would reveal to the world those tunes in which he knew the spirit of Hellas breathed. The whole desire of his life was to bring back and to give to the world the forgotten but undying Song of Greece. In spite of this, the modest advertisement which was to be found at concert agencies announcing that Mr. Heraclius Themistocles Margaritis was willing to attend evening parties and to give an exhibition of Greek music, ancient and modern, had as yet met with no response. After he had been a year in England the only steps towards making a fortune were two public performances at charity matinees, one or two pupils in pianoforte playing, and an occasional but rare engagement for stray pupils at a school of modern languages. It was in the middle of the second summer after his arrival that an incident occurred which proved to be the turning point of his career. A London hostess was giving a party in honour of a foreign Personage. It had been intimated that some kind of music would be expected. The hostess had neither the means nor the desire to secure for her entertainment stars of the first magnitude, but she gathered together some lesser lights—a violinist, a pianist, and a singer of French drawing-room melodies. On the morning of the day on which her concert was to be given, the hostess received a telegram from the singer of French drawing-room melodies to say that she had got a bad cold, and could not possibly sing that night. The hostess was in despair, but a musical friend of hers came to the rescue, and promised to obtain for her an excellent substitute, a man who sang Greek songs. When Margaritis received the telegram from Arkwright’s Agency that he was to sing that night at A—— House, he was overjoyed, and could scarcely believe his eyes. He at once communicated the news to Tina, and they spent hours in discussing what songs he should sing, who the good fairy could have been who recommended him, and in building castles in the air with regard to the result of this engagement. He would become famous; they would have enough money to go to Italy for a holiday; he would give concerts; he would reveal to the modern world the music of Hellas. About half-past four in the afternoon Margaritis went out to buy himself some respectable evening studs from a large emporium in the neighbourhood. When he returned, singing and whistling on the stairs for joy, he was met by Tina, who to his astonishment was quite pale, and he saw at a glance that something had happened. “They’ve put me off!” he said. “Or it was a mistake. I knew it was too good to be true.” “It’s not that,” said Tina, “it’s Carlo!” Carlo was their little boy, who was nearly four years old. “What?” said Margaritis. Tina dragged him into their little sitting-room. “He is ill,” she said, “very ill, and I don’t know what’s the matter with him.” Margaritis turned pale. “Let me see him,” he said. “We must get a doctor.” “The doctor is coming: I went for him at once,” she said. And then they walked on tiptoe into the bedroom where Carlo was lying in his cot, tossing about, and evidently in a raging fever. Half an hour later the doctor came. Margaritis and Tina waited, silent and trembling with anxiety, while he examined the child. At last he came from the bedroom with a grave face. He said that the child was very seriously ill, but that if he got through the night he would very probably recover. “I must send a telegram,” said Margaritis to Tina. “I cannot possibly go.” Tina squeezed his hand, and then with a brave smile she went back to the sick-room. Margaritis took a telegraph form out of a shabby leather portfolio, sat down before the dining-table on which the cloth had been laid for tea (for the sitting-room was the dining-room also), and wrote out the telegram. And as he wrote his tears fell on the writing and smudged it. His grief overcame him, and he buried his face in his hands and sobbed. “What the Fates give with one hand,” he thought to himself, “they take away with another!” Then he heard himself, he knew not why, invoking the gods of Greece, the ancient gods of Olympus, to help him. And at that moment the whole room seemed to be filled with a strange light, and he saw the wonderful figure of a man with a shining face and eyes that seemed infinitely sad and at the same time infinitely luminous. The figure held a lyre, and said to him in Greek:— “It is well. All will be well. I will take your place at the concert!” When the vision had vanished, the half written telegram on his table had disappeared also. The party at A—— House that night was brilliant rather than large. In one of the drawing-rooms there was a piano, in front of which were six or seven rows of gilt chairs. The other rooms were filled with shifting groups of beautiful women, and men wearing orders and medals. There was a continuous buzz of conversation, except in the room where the music was going on; and even there in the background there was a subdued whispering. The violinist was playing some elaborate nothings, and displaying astounding facility, but the audience did not seem to be much interested, for when he stopped, after some faint applause, conversation broke loose like a torrent. “I do hope,” said some one to the lady next him, “that the music will be over soon. One gets wedged in here, one doesn’t dare move, and one had to put up with having one’s conversation spoilt and interrupted.” “It’s an extraordinary thing,” answered the lady, “that nobody dares give a party in London without some kind of entertainment. It is such a mistake!” At that moment the fourth and last item on the programme began, which was called “Greek Songs by Heraclius Themistocles Margaritis.” “He certainly looks like a Greek,” said the lady who had been talking; “in fact if his hair was cut he would be quite good-looking.” “It’s not my idea of a Greek,” whispered her neighbour. “He is too fair. I thought Greeks were dark.” “Hush!” said the lady, and the first song began. It was a strange thread of sound that came upon the ears of the listeners, rather high and piercing, and the accompaniment (Margaritis accompanied himself) was twanging and monotonous like the sound of an Indian tom-tom. The same phrase was repeated two or three times over, the melody seemed to consist of only a very few notes, and to come over and over again with extraordinary persistence. Then the music rose into a high shrill call and ended abruptly. “What has happened?” asked the lady. “Has he forgotten the words?” “I think the song is over,” said the man. “That’s one comfort at any rate. I hate songs which I can’t understand.” But their comments were stopped by the beginning of another song. The second song was soft and very low, and seemed to be almost entirely on one note. It was still shorter than the first one, and ended still more abruptly. “I don’t believe he’s a Greek at all,” said the man. “His songs are just like the noise of bagpipes.” “I daresay he’s a Scotch,” said the lady. “Scotchmen are very clever. But I must say his songs are short.” An indignant “Hush!” from a musician with long hair who was sitting not far off heralded the beginning of the third song. It began on a high note, clear and loud, so that the audience was startled, and for a moment or two there was not a whisper to be heard in the drawing-room. Then it died away in a piteous wail like the scream of a sea-bird, and the high insistent note came back once more, and this process seemed to be repeated several times till the sad scream prevailed, and stopped suddenly. A little desultory clapping was heard, but it was instantly suppressed when the audience became aware that the song was not over. “He’s going on again,” whispered the man. A low, long note was heard like the drone of a bee, which went on, sometimes rising and sometimes getting lower, like a strange throbbing sob; and then once more it ceased. The audience hesitated a moment, being not quite certain whether the music was really finished or not. Then when they saw Margaritis rise from the piano, some meagre well-bred applause was heard, and an immense sigh of relief. The people streamed into the other rooms, and the conversation became loud and general. The lady who had talked went quickly into the next room to find out what was the right thing to say about the music, and if possible to get the opinion of a musician. Sir Anthony Holdsworth, who had translated Pindar, was talking to Ralph Enderby, who had written a book on “Modern Greek Folk Lore.” “It hurts me,” said Sir Anthony, “to hear ancient Greek pronounced like that. It is impossible to distinguish the words; besides which its wrong to pronounce ancient Greek like modern Greek. Did you understand it?” “No,” said Ralph Enderby, “I did not. If it is modern Greek it was certainly wrongly pronounced. I think the man must be singing some kind of Asiatic dialect—unless he’s a fraud.” Hard by there was another group discussing the music: Blythe, the musical critic, and Lawson, who had the reputation of being a great connoisseur. “He’s distinctly clever,” Blythe was saying; “the songs are amusing ‘pastiches’ of Eastern folk song.” “Yes, I think he’s clever,” said Lawson, “but there’s nothing original in it, and besides, as I expect you noticed, two of the songs were gross plagiarisms of De Bussy.” “Clever, but not original,” said the lady to herself. “That’s it.” And two hostesses who had overheard this conversation made up their minds to get Margaritis for their parties, for they scented the fact that he would ultimately be talked about. But most of the people did not discuss the music at all. As soon as the music had stopped, James Reddaway, who was a Member of Parliament, left the house and went home. He was engrossed in politics, and had little time at his disposal for anything else. As soon as he got home he went up to his wife’s bedroom; she had not been able to go to the party owing to a sudden attack of neuralgia. She asked him to tell her all about it. “Well,” he said, “there were the usual people there, and there was some music: some violin and piano playing, to which I didn’t listen. After that a man sang some Greek songs, and a curious thing happened to me. When it began I felt my head swimming, and then I entirely lost account of my surroundings. I forgot the party, the drawing-room and the people, and I seemed to be sitting on the rocks of a cliff near a small bay; in front of me was the sea: it was a kind of blue green, but far more blue or at least of quite a different kind of blue than any I have seen. It was transparent, and the sky above it was like a turquoise. Behind me the cliff merged into a hill which was covered with red and white flowers, as bright as a Persian carpet. On the beach in front, a tall man was standing, wading in the water, little bright waves sparkling round his feet. He was tall and dark, and he was spearing a lot of little silver fish which were lying on the sand with a small wooden trident; and somewhere behind me a voice was singing. I could not see where it came from, but it was wonderfully soft and delicious, and a lot of wild bees came swarming over the flowers, and a green lizard came right up close to me, and the air was burning hot, and there was a smell of thyme and mint in it. And then the song stopped, and I came to myself, and I was back again in the drawing-room. Then when the man began to sing again, I again lost consciousness, and I seemed to be in a dark orchard on a breathless summer night. And somewhere near me there was a low white house with an opening which might have been a window, shrouded by creepers and growing things. And in it there was a faint light. And from the house came the sound of a sad love-song; and although I had never heard the song before I understood it, and it was about the moon and the Pleiads having set, and the hour passing, and the voice sang, ‘But I sleep alone!’ And this was repeated over and over again, and it was the saddest and most beautiful thing I had ever heard. And again it stopped, and I was back again in the drawing-room. Then when the singer began his third song I felt cold all over, and at the same time half suffocated, as people say they feel when they are nearly drowning. I realised that I was in a huge, dark, empty space, and round me and far off in front of me were vague shadowy forms; and in the distance there was something which looked like two tall thrones, pillared and dim. And on one of the thrones there was the dark form of a man, and on the other a woman like a queen, pale as marble, and unreal as a ghost, with great grey eyes that shone like moons. In front of them was another form, and he was singing a song, and the song was so sad and so beautiful that tears rolled down the shadowy cheeks of the ghosts in front of me. And all at once the singer gave a great cry of joy, and something white and blinding flashed past me and disappeared, and he with it. But I remained in the same place with the dark ghosts far off in front of me. And I seemed to be there an eternity till I heard a cry of desperate pain and anguish, and the white form flashed past me once more, and vanished, and with it the whole thing, and I was back again in the drawing-room, and I felt faint and giddy, and could not stay there any longer.”
petak, 29. kolovoza 2025.
i was staying not long ago in a small town in the centre of Russia which I will call T⸺. It was a small, sleepy town, through which an indolent river wended its way. The houses were low, one-storeyed, built of wood and painted white, adorned with old-fashioned delicate stucco, delicate pilasters and wooden verandahs; and many of them had gardens and trellis-work arbours. The place breathed a spirit of the dying eighteenth century. One seemed to be in a kind of Russian “Cranford.” The shops and market-places, the hotel with its stiff early Victorian furniture—mahogany, stuffed with faded red rep—the squatting churches, the slow moving, leisurely inhabitants, all seemed to belong to a remoter time than ours. Here, I thought, in any case, the Revolution cannot have penetrated; to seek for politics here would be like looking p. 255for bombs in the Garden of Proserpine. But when I was waiting for my dinner in the dining-room of the hotel, when the great mechanical barrel-organ had played a tune by Donizetti out of Lucrezia Borgia for the tenth time, I was disillusioned by the innkeeper, a fat, smiling man, with a huge beard, high boots, and a loose, white untucked shirt, with a red corded waistband round it. “Here,” I said to him, “you have in any case the advantage of being free from revolutionary turmoil.” “How so?” he asked, in a slightly injured tone, which was due to the fact, not that I had suspected his native city of being anti-revolutionary, but of being void of teeming events. “We, too, have our disorders, very serious disorders,” he said, with pride. “The day before yesterday there were terrible occurrences.” “Really,” I answered, with great interest, “what were they?” “Is it possible that you have not heard,” he asked, “Why, everybody knows that the p. 256day before yesterday the Amorphists made an attempt.” I confessed that I had not heard of it, because I had been very busy, and I pressed him to relate to me the proceedings of the Amorphists, adding that I was not quite sure who the Amorphists were. “Everybody knows,” said my host, “that the Amorphists are the extreme left wing of the Free Law Party. They are to the left of all left parties, which run thus: Social Revolutionaries, Maximalists, Anarchists, Amorphists.” “But what are the Free Law Party?” I asked. “The Free Law Party,” he answered, “are those people who wish the law to be free.” “How free?” I asked. “Free Law,” he answered, “is like free trade. In some countries there is free trade. We wish for free law; everybody to be free to make whatever laws he likes, and everybody else to be free to obey them.” “And to disobey them?” I asked. “Yes, of course, and to disobey them. Well, I will tell you what happened. The p. 257Amorphists—that is to say the left wing of the Free Law Party—were getting discontented at the inactivity of the rest of their party”⸺ “What are Amorphists?” I interrupted. “It is a secret,” he answered, “but I will tell you this; nobody can be an Amorphist who recognises any law or rule, and nobody can be an Amorphist who is more than seventeen years of age. They have no President, for every Amorphist is a President. Their watchword is, ‘Death to the Bourgeoisie; away with the intellectuals; down with the students; to hell with the Jews; Life, Liberty, Anarchy; Death.’ They wear a sign nobody can recognise unless he is initiated, and whoever betrays it is condemned to be drowned on dry land, like a Catholic Freemason.” “What are those?” I asked. “Freemasons,” he replied—he had now become used, and consequently indulgent to my ignorance—“are those people who drink each other’s healths in water. Well, as I was saying, the Amorphists who constituted the left wing of the Free Law Party were discontented with the apathy of the rest of their p. 258colleagues, and they decided that this state of things could not last any longer, and that they must make themselves felt; so they decided to kill Michael Ivanovitch.” “Who,” I asked, “is Michael Ivanovitch?” The innkeeper’s astonishment knew no bounds. My not having heard of the Amorphists, of free law, or freemasons, he quite understood, but Michael Ivanovitch! That was too much. Everybody knew Michael Ivanovitch. “He is the assistant of the Police Inspector,” he said, with an air of patient pity. “They settled to kill him. Lots were drawn, and Vasili, Paul, and Trafim were chosen to kill him—Vasili the floor-cleaner, Paul the stone-mason, and Trafim the stove-maker.” (He now gave explanations unasked, as one does to small children.) “So Vasili, Paul, and Trafim went off to buy a bomb at the Apothecary’s opposite—he is cunning in the making of bombs. They bought a bomb, and they then went to make the attempt. Vasili and Paul were chosen to act, Trafim was to keep guard. It was he who told the story afterwards. They went and sat on a seat in the big street here (it was p. 259quite deserted at this hour), along which they knew Michael Ivanovitch would pass at five minutes to six, since he passed that way every night on his way to dinner. But Heaven knows why! Michael Ivanovitch was late; it was cold, dark, and drizzly, a fine rain was falling, and on Paul, Vasili, and Trafim, as they waited, a great tediousness descended. At last Paul asked Vasili if he had ever been to the Circus. Vasili said he had never been to the Circus. Paul said Vasili knew nothing of anything, and that he for his part had been to the Circus often, and that it was a fine sight. There was a maiden, beautiful as the day, glittering with spangles, who stood on a horse, and leapt through a paper hoop, and alighted once more on the horse. Then there was a Chinaman, a real Chinaman with a big pigtail, who spun a pail of water on his finger. There was also a clown who threw a great golden ball into the air and caught it on his nose as easily as a trout catches a fly. ‘Yes,’ said Vasili, ‘I know how that is done; I can do it myself. You throw the ball up like this,’ and he made a gesture. ‘Fool!’ said Paul, ‘thou knowest nothing at all. May the soul of thy mother be vexed! p. 260He does it like this,’ and suiting the action to the word he lightly threw the bomb which he was holding in his left hand into the air. The bomb exploded, Paul was blown to bits, and Vasili was left a mangled heap. “Trafim, who was only wounded, was very angry, and after taking from the mangled corpse of Vasili a Browning pistol, saying, ‘It is no use wasting twenty-four roubles,’ he went straight to the Apothecary who had sold him the bomb. ‘Scoundrel,’ he said, ‘what sort of goods do you sell? And you even dared to boast. Melinite! Melinite! Here is Melinite for you! It goes off before it is meant to. You do not know how to make a simple bomb. Cheat! Rascal!’ “‘Who says I don’t know how to make bombs?’ said the Apothecary, wounded in his professional pride. “‘I say so,’ said Trafim. ‘The bomb you sold us yesterday went off of its own accord. It was worth nothing at all. May the soul of thy mother be annoyed, you yellow-eyed Arcadia!’” “What is an Arcadia?” I asked. “An Arcadia is the same as a Cholera,” he answered. p. 261 “‘You say I am a yellow-eyed Arcadia,’ he continued, ‘and you are a yellow-eyed Arcadia yourself. You say I cannot make bombs! Look at this!’ and he produced a bomb from a drawer, and banged it down on the counter. The bomb went off, the shop was wrecked, the assistant of the Apothecary was killed; Trafim was blown through the window and wounded; but the Apothecary, who came off with a scratch, smiled triumphantly amidst the wreckage, and said, ‘Who says I do not know how to make bombs? Yellow-eyed Arcadia, indeed!’ “Now a large crowd had gathered outside, attracted by the noise; a policeman came, and every one said something must be done. ‘Send for the Chief of the Police,’ they cried. But the policeman began to cry and said he was a family man; and at last Peter Alexandrovitch, merchant, went and fetched the Chief of Police. The Chief of Police said he could not act without orders, and went to the Prefect. The Prefect telephoned for orders to the Governor, who telephoned back that the Apothecary’s house must be searched, and any bombs and weapons found there must be taken instantly p. 262to the Police Station. The Chief of Police came back with the news, and told the policeman to search the Apothecary’s house, for only the shop had been damaged. But the policeman said, ‘For the sake of Heaven, have mercy on a family man.’ The Chief of Police appealed to the crowd for a patriotic volunteer, but the crowd began at once to melt away. “‘It is not our business,’ at last he said, ‘it is the Electrotechnician’s business; send for the Electrotechnician.’ No sooner said than done. People rushed to fetch the Electrotechnician. He soon arrived, and was told what to do. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘These bombs are Melinite; give me five hundred roubles, and I will bring them out.’ The police said, ‘We have no such sum.’ Nevertheless, in an hour’s time the money was found, and by evening a basketful of bombs was carefully carried by the terrified policemen to the Police Station. Here the bombs were left, and yesterday the Governor drove to the Police Station with an engineer, who examined the bombs; he found that all the explosive had been taken out, and that they were filled with cotton wool.” p. 263 “Who did that?” I asked. “Why, the Electrotechnician, of course,” said the innkeeper. “Do you not know he is the Honorary Vice-President of Amorphists?” “And was he arrested?” I asked. “Heaven be with him, no,” said the innkeeper. “He was thanked by the Governor in person.”
četvrtak, 28. kolovoza 2025.
it was the fourth day of the armed rising in Moscow. Early in the morning some of the shops had opened, especially the tobacconists, and there had been a certain amount of movement in the streets; but later on, towards noon, a stillness had again descended on the city. From the centre of the town came the noise of artillery, and in the side streets one heard a ceaseless clicking of firing, though one could not tell whence it came or where it was going on. At half-past six in the evening, when Alexander Petrovitch Pavlov, a police officer, went home to dinner, all the city seemed empty, quiet and deserted, yet at the same time full of an intermittent, unwonted noise. He went down the Square from the Governor’s house where he had had business, past the Hotel Dresden, and stopped to say a few words to p. 244the policeman there on duty. The policeman, in reply to some question he had vaguely asked (for Alexander Petrovitch was tired, sick of the whole business and discouraged by what seemed to him to be a tissue of absurdities), said: “They are fools, little fools—nothing will come of it.” He did not pay much attention to this; he was thinking how absurd the whole matter was, and what a nuisance these abnormal upheavings were when they were prolonged. Alexander Petrovitch was a man about forty years of age. He had been an officer in an infantry regiment and had once been a man of considerable means, but he had lost all his money quite suddenly playing cards. He had been fond of adventure, and had even taken part in foreign wars in Cuba, in Greece, and in China. Then he married. He did this as he had done everything else, suddenly and impulsively. He married the daughter of a landowner whom he met in a provincial town, and he married her after three days’ acquaintance. His wife was good-looking and prided herself on her European culture; she spoke French and English. They had two children. It was p. 245after his marriage that he had lost his money, and shortly before the war. When the war broke out he went to Manchuria. He was wounded at the battle of Mukden and promoted to be a captain; he also received two orders. After Mukden he was invalided home and some influential person who had met him in the Far East obtained for him a place in the police at Moscow, for which he received good pay. He was what is called in Russian a “Pristav”; that is to say, the police officer of a town district. His wife considered that this position was an inferior one; she was humiliated by it. She also considered her husband to be beneath her in social rank (which was in reality absurd) and she constantly reminded him of the fact. Alexander Petrovitch was quick-witted, good-natured, impulsive, but hopelessly incapable of any prolonged effort or any sort of concentration or fixity of purpose. His mind continually went off at a tangent, and as a Russian proverb says, “there was no Tsar in his head.” When the Manifesto of the 17th of October had been published he had greeted it with enthusiasm, and had taken part in the processions p. 246which had filled the streets that day, and the crowds that sang the “Marseillaise” and “God Save the Emperor,” alternately, and displayed together the red and the National flag. But now he was discouraged. His innate scepticism and his pessimism which every now and then gave way to fitful outbursts of enthusiasm, had once more got the upper hand, and he muttered as he walked home through the snowy streets on that grey evening: “What a beastly state of things! What a beastly state of things!” When he got home he saw at a glance that his wife was not in the best of tempers. “Late as usual!” she said. “The soup’s been standing twenty minutes and it’s quite cold.” “I’m very sorry,” he said; “I was kept at the Governor’s.” He sat down to the table on which there were a few sardines in a broken saucer, a little stale pickled caviare which had got hard and slightly grey, and some slices of sausage no longer fresh. He gulped down three small glasses of vodka. “What about Ermolov?” asked his wife. “He has been arrested,” said Alexander p. 247Petrovitch. “He will be examined by the doctors.” “What nonsense!” said his wife, “why should he be examined? Why should he be arrested? I think he ought to be rewarded. They don’t care who they kill; they shoot policemen round the corner; they profit by the red cross uniform to kill the police; they were shooting from some of the churches to-day.” Ermolov was a high police official who had walked into a doctor’s house the day before and had shot him with a pistol for no reason at all. Alexander Petrovitch shrugged his shoulders. “It’s the Government’s fault,” he said. “There is no order and no law anywhere. Protection is everything. What does it matter what the Revolutionaries do? That has nothing to do with the question. If an officer breaks the law he ought to be punished. He won’t be punished because he’s got protection. Besides which, Ermolov is not a normal man: he is mad, quite mad.” “What I say is,” said his wife, “that men who pretend to be doctors and use the protection of the red cross badges to shoot innocent p. 248policemen in the streets, ought to be shot in the street at sight.” “The whole thing is absurd!” said Alexander Petrovitch. “What did I tell you?” said his wife; “I told you so from the very first when the Manifesto was published. I said that nothing would come of it, and that it was a mistake. What do we want with a Constitution in Russia? It is all the Jews—all this chaos is the work of the Jews. And look what is happening now. One cannot even go out into the streets for fear of being shot. They killed the Schwetzar (the hall porter) next door this morning; he had been sent on a message.” “If people would stay at home and mind their own business,” said Alexander Petrovitch, “they would be quite safe. All day long I have been pestered by people who want to pass here and want to pass there; and they know quite well they can’t. And it’s no good telling them ‘Don’t go there, it’s dangerous; don’t go there, you’ll be shot,’ because the moment you tell them that, they make a point of going there at once. I’m sick of always saying the p. 249same thing. If they go out in the streets they must expect to be killed.” “These students and these Jews,” said his wife, “come and shoot you round the corner. I always said this would be the end of it. I always said no good would come of it. It is disgraceful!” Alexander Petrovitch settled down to his dinner, and, putting a napkin under his chin, began to eat the soup, but it was cold and he had no appetite. “Where are the children?” he said. “They’ve had their dinner,” said his wife. “Kolia and Peter are reading in the next room.” Alexander Petrovitch called his children, and two little boys came into the room. Kolia, a fair-haired, pasty-faced boy with large grey eyes, was aged nine, and Peter, a fat, dark-haired little creature in a sailor’s suit was aged seven. Peter climbed on to his father’s knee and his father asked him what he had been doing. “We’ve been making bombs with the snow,” said Peter; “and playing at the Revolution. Kolia was a policeman and I was a Social p. 250Democrat, and I made a bomb and threw it at him and killed him.” “How dare you play such games?” said their mother—“that’s all your fault,” she added to her husband; “it’s you who have put such ideas into their heads. Heaven knows when children begin to get such ideas; I think the end of the world is come. Look at our schools: the children can’t read; the universities are all in the hands of the Jews. The girls at school have all gone quite mad. Nothing but hysteria, hysteria, hysteria! It’s a disgrace. Don’t let me ever hear of your playing such games again,” she said to the children. The children, used to perpetual scolding, said nothing. Alexander Petrovitch laughed. “At least, I hope,” said his wife, “that the result of all this, and of your having to do all this extra work, will be that you will get promotion.” “I doubt it,” said Alexander Petrovitch. “I have got no protection, and protection is everything. I have finished my dinner. I want some tea.” His wife called Sasha, the maid, and told p. 251her to bring the samovar, and then scolded her violently because it was not ready. She then made a further scene about the way in which the lemon was cut. Finally the samovar was brought, Alexander Petrovitch was given his tea and began smoking cigarette after cigarette in gloomy silence. His wife sat at the head of the table and said nothing. The children played in the corner with some wooden soldiers, and every now and then a dull boom was heard outside, and once or twice the window shook and rattled. “Guns!” said Alexander Petrovitch. “They are firing in the Tverskaia, I suppose.” At that moment the bell rang. “I think,” said Alexander Petrovitch’s wife, “that it must be Ivan Ivanovitch; he said he would come round this evening if he could.” “I shall have to go presently,” said Alexander Petrovitch; “I’ve got to go back to the office.” Then the door was opened, and seven or eight people walked into the room. They were young schoolboys and students between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, and there were two girls with them. p. 252 Alexander Petrovitch and his wife were surprised at this influx of guests, and the children stood up in the corner and stared. “Whom have I the honour to address and what can I do for you?” said Alexander Petrovitch. A young student with long black hair, a seedy overcoat, and a worn fur cap appeared to be the spokesman of the group, and, taking off his cap, said: “We are the representatives of the flying column of the Social Revolutionaries. We have come to carry out our orders.” Alexander Petrovitch’s wife stood up and turned pale. The schoolboys and the students surrounded Alexander Petrovitch and, linking their arms in his, forced him out of the room. He turned round and looked at his wife and the children. “I thought as much!” he said. Then he was pushed out of the room and down the staircase. All this happened in a moment. His wife stood still as though transfixed, and could not move or utter. Two or three minutes passed in breathless silence, and Peter began to cry. They had p. 253left the door open. The banging of the street door was heard, and then two or three shots rang out. Sasha, the maid, came rushing into the room, screaming with all her might— “They have killed Alexander Petrovitch in the yard!”
srijeda, 27. kolovoza 2025.
irina andreevna was a fair-haired, blue-eyed girl aged twenty-two. She went to lectures at the St. Petersburg University in the daytime; in the evening she went to balls and parties. Irina was an orphan, but she lived with an aunt of hers in a large house in St. Petersburg, where on Thursday evenings there was always a considerable gathering of girls and young men, officers chiefly. When the war broke out in 1904, Irina spent all the days at the hospital, learning to tend the sick and the wounded, and making bandages and clothes for the soldiers at the war. In 1905, when peace was declared, and followed by tumultuous events, she was deeply infected by the atmosphere of excitement which prevailed everywhere, the wild hopes and the great expectations. She went to public p. 234meetings and attended private discussions—the private discussions of small groups of students, men and women, which took place in private houses. All the people who attended these informal meetings belonged, as far as their political opinions were concerned, to the Extreme Left. Some of them called themselves Social Democrats, others Social Revolutionaries. Irina’s special friend belonged to the extremer shade of the latter party. Irina’s nature was enthusiastic; she hated compromise. She wanted all or nothing. Violent means such as terrorism or assassination seemed to her of no account where the cause was great and the end noble. As the months went on, she became more and more closely bound to the more ardent spirits among the Social Revolutionaries, and they regarded her as one of their most inspiring leaders. But she continued during all this time to live the ordinary life of the St. Petersburg society, to talk and dance with the young officers at evening parties, and go to the opera, and to take part in sledging and ski-ing parties. Neither her relations nor any of her ordinary acquaintances suspected the p. 235intensity of the inner life that was going on within her. They knew she was interested in politics, but so was everybody else. Her friends chaffed her for being what they called “red”; but then a great many people were red. In February 1906, her uncle, General Steinberg, a brother of her deceased father, was appointed to the Governorship of O., a large manufacturing city. It was just at this time that she joined the branch of the Social Revolutionaries which called themselves Maximalists, and whose business it was to remove by violence the persons whom they considered to be obstacles in the way of their cause. These people, when they had decided that some one should be removed, drew lots among themselves as to who should accomplish the deed of destruction. It so happened that, in February 1906, the Executive Committee of the Maximalists condemned General Steinberg to death for suppressing certain riots in the town of O., during which affray a certain number of workmen had been killed and wounded. Lots were drawn as to who should kill General Steinberg—and the lot fell to Irina, his niece. She p. 236received the decision with calm, and made preparations for leaving St. Petersburg. She told her aunt she was going to Moscow to stay with some intimate friends of the family: from Moscow it is but a short distance to O. Her relations saw her off at the station, also a young man in the regiment of the Chevalier-Gardes, who was particularly devoted to her. She seemed in excellent spirits. When she arrived at Moscow she went straight to O., and stayed at the hotel, from whence she wrote a letter to her uncle saying that she was on her way to the estate of her St. Petersburg relations, which was a night’s journey from O. Everything was made easy for her, for the next morning she received a letter from him asking her to come to luncheon at half-past twelve. The next morning at the appointed time she started off in a sledge to the Governor’s house, wrapped in a fur shuba, and in her muff was concealed a small dynamite bomb capable of enormous destruction. Her uncle greeted her with the utmost simplicity and affection. He was a short, grey-haired man between fifty and sixty, with p. 237a thick grey moustache and kind blue eyes. He was a widower and had no children. He took her into his sitting-room. “My dear little Irina,” he said, kissing her on both cheeks, “it is years since I’ve seen you; I should not have recognised you, you’ve grown into such a lovely grown-up creature. It is lucky that I have been appointed here, just on your way to X. (the country estate of Irina’s relations), but why did you go to the hotel? Another time you must stay here. And mind, I expect to see you often now; you must stop here every time you go to X. There is always plenty of room in this old barrack of a house. But come, we will go and have something to eat.” And he took her into the dining-room. “We shall be quite alone,” he said. “It is better, isn’t it? When you were a little girl, when we were all at X. together, you used to love pancakes; you never could have enough; so I’ve had some made to-day. And my cook understands how to make them properly.” Irina blurted out a few confused phrases. Her uncle could not get over the fact that she was grown up; that she was a tall and pretty p. 238girl. He took her to the window to observe her properly, and he kept on making exclamations of admiration and surprise. Then he led her to the sideboard, and chose out for her titbits among the hot and cold zakouski (hors-d’oeuvre) that were there. “It does one good,” he said, “to see a face like yours in this detestable hole. I can’t tell you what a life it is. One never has a moment’s peace, and nobody is satisfied. There are fifteen or sixteen different parties in the town, all quarrelling. I have to settle everything. There are Revolutionaries, Social Democrats, Social Revolutionaries, Maximalists, Minimalists, merchants, students, Jews, anti-Jews, Reactionaries, the Alliance of the Russian People—all fighting against each other, and all appealing to me to settle their difficulties; and if one does manage to keep things smooth, what thanks does one get from the Government? Absolutely none. The other day all the Reactionaries, the Alliance of the Russian People, and so forth, met together and sang the National Hymn and collected a crowd of hooligans, and went to set fire to the school. I had to go down and make a speech p. 239to them, and it was with the greatest difficulty I got them away. “Then the other day there was a man called Savin, who was arrested for making revolutionary propaganda among the troops. He sent and appealed to me to be allowed to go and see his son, who, he said, was dying of scarlet fever. I gave him permission, and it turned out that the son had not got scarlet fever at all; that the whole thing was a pretext; and he took advantage of the occasion to shoot a policeman and to get away. The result of this is that the Reactionaries here say I am a Revolutionary, and, of course, the Revolutionaries say I’m a satrap and a brutal oppressor, and all the rest of it. But it doesn’t matter what one does, it is impossible to satisfy any one. And every day I receive threatening letters from both sides: letters from people telling me I am a traitor to my country, that I am sold to the Jews and in league with England and all the Continental finance; and others saying that I am an executioner, and the enemy of freedom and of light. However, why should I bore you with all these stories? Let’s talk of more cheerful things.” p. 240 They sat down at the table. “Here are the pancakes,” he said. “The country is turned upside down, but we have to go on eating pancakes just the same, don’t we? The best thing is not to think at all in times like this.” Irina looked at him and smiled; she found it difficult to speak. But he did not give her much opportunity, for he went on gaily, talking first about one thing, then about another—of the coming elections, of the plays that were being acted in St. Petersburg and Moscow, of the modern literature and its hysterical tendencies; and he told many amusing anecdotes illustrating the strange anomalies and the curious ideas that were rife in the present condition of things. When they had finished eating, he said: “Now, you must come into my own sitting-room, where no one is allowed to disturb me, and I will have at least a half-hour of human intercourse before I go back to my convict’s existence; because, you know, my dear, a Governor’s life is worse than a convict’s. At least, a convict does not have to make up his mind twenty hundred times a day p. 241about questions which cannot be solved at all.” He led her into his sitting-room, which was as simply furnished as possible: it contained a large writing-table and a low divan; the carpets had holes in them; there was a gramophone and a small piano. “That gramophone,” he said, “is my one consolation. When I am tired I turn it on and listen to gipsy songs and to Caruso.” He hummed a tune from an Italian opera. “It’s a beautiful gramophone; you must hear it,” and he fixed a Caruso record on it which sang a song from Cavalleria Rusticana. When this was over he talked on for about twenty minutes, of the memories of his youth, of his travels, and many trifling episodes concerning their common relations and acquaintances. Presently he looked at his watch. “My time is really up,” he said, “and now I want to talk to you seriously. You know, Irina, I am alone in the world, and you have got no parents either; so that in a kind of way I look upon myself as your father, and I want you to treat me like a father. I want you to come here whenever you like and to confide in me if ever you have p. 242anything that troubles you in any way. And I will always be ready to do anything I can for you; because, you know, little Irina, I am very, very fond of you. And now, I’m afraid my time is up, and I must go back to my work.” He kissed her on both cheeks, and made the sign of the cross on her face. “God bless you,” he said. Irina left the house, and the General rang for his aide-de-camp and settled down to his work. Ten minutes later a loud explosion was heard in the street where the hotel was situated at which Irina had stopped. She had thrown her bomb, but the street was empty at the time, and she had killed no one save herself.
utorak, 26. kolovoza 2025.
the following story was told me by a doctor. It happened in the village in the government of Tambov. There was a peasant called Vichareff who had three daughters; one of them was called Anoushka, one Douniasha, and the third Natasha. Their father was well off, but extraordinarily close-fisted; his thirst for land and his ambition to accumulate were unlimited. He arranged an advantageous match for his eldest daughter, Douniasha, and was exerting all his wits to find a husband for his younger daughter who should be equally well-to-do, so that the two weddings might take place on the same day, and thereby save him trouble and expense. His third daughter was considered to be too young as yet to marry. Now Anoushka repeated over and over again, not without tears, that she did not wish p. 224to be married; but her father and her mother (whose will, always feeble, had now completely ceased to work, owing to years of unceasing compliance with the views and the wishes of her domineering husband) paid no attention to this. At last Vichareff succeeded in striking a bargain with one of his neighbours named Kroustalieff, the purport of which was that Kroustalieff’s son, Dimitri, should marry Anoushka, in return for which Vichareff promised to get him some horses at an unusually low price, since Vichareff was a horse-dealer on a small scale. The bargain was struck, and the matter was arranged, and Anoushka was told that she was to marry Dimitri. Dimitri was a young man aged eighteen, nice-looking, and not unintelligent; notwithstanding this, when Anoushka was informed of the matter, she burst into a storm of tears, and declared no power on earth could induce her to marry him. Her father and mother, however, took no notice of her tears and her protest, and invited their friends to an evening party to celebrate the engagement. Now the reason Anoushka was determined not to marry p. 225Dimitri, was that she loved her sister’s affianced husband, Ivan. He, for his part, was quite unaware of this, and indeed nobody knew of it in the whole village except an old man, Alexis by name, who was said to be versed in astrology and whom the peasants often consulted in matters which concerned the other world. Anoushka went to Alexis and told him her story; he promised to cast her horoscope and to see what could be done, and he bade her return to him in a few days. She did so. When Alexis saw her he shook his head. “There is nothing to be done, child,” he said, “the stars are against you: you must wed Dimitri; but no good will come of it, neither to you nor to him.” Then Anoushka asked him if he could not give her a love philtre or a charm, which would make Ivan love her. “I can give you a charm,” said Alexis, “and I can give you love philtres, but I cannot turn the stars from their courses, nor prevent you wedding Dimitri in the church, although no good shall come of it, either to you or to him. There is nothing to be done, save to p. 226obey; this matter is the business of Providence.” And so Anoushka went home, taking neither philtre nor charm, and spent the whole day weeping at her work, but her parents did not even trouble to scold her, so surely did they know that their will would be accomplished. And in the evenings Ivan and Dimitri would come to their cottage and sing and play on the Balalaika; and while Douniasha and Ivan looked at each other with love, and spoke in whispers of a thousand nothings, like two happy birds twittering in a tree, Anoushka said no word to Dimitri, although he was gentle with her and civil-spoken; and he attributed her silence and her gloomy look to bashfulness and modesty. When the evening of Vichareff’s party arrived, the whole village came to his house. And some of the gentry from the landowner’s house came to look on at the dancing. The small room of Vichareff’s cottage was crowded to overflowing, a little space being left in the centre for the dancers. Outside the cottage there were more people, those for whom there was no room inside, and they crowded round p. 227the door and windows, straining and craning their necks to get a glimpse of the festivity. Those who were at the window, finding that the window-panes got in their way, broke the glass and put their heads through the empty sash. Inside, some one was playing on a large concertina, and the dancers walked up and down the room with faces of grave and solemn indifference, performing the necessary steps and singing the usual chant. The couples paced to and fro opposite each other, and at the end of every verse of the chanted music, each girl was kissed by her partner. When this dance was over sunflower seeds were handed round on a plate to the guests, and glasses of tea were brought for the gentry; then a soldier who was home on leave, performed a solo in the centre of the room, dancing and stamping according to intricate rule, until he could no more. Douniasha looked radiantly happy; she was dressed in pale green, and wore a necklace of bright beads; but Anoushka, in her pink silk finery, looked as white as a ghost, and said no word during the whole evening. And when Dimitri danced with her and kissed her, she p. 228seemed no more to notice him than if he had been a phantom. They danced all night, but never once during all those hours of mirth and gaiety, did Anoushka smile. Three weeks later preparations were made for the wedding. Vichareff bought provisions; the wedding was to be a magnificent one. The landowner lent his horses, and Anoushka and Douniasha were to be driven to the church in two troikas. Dimitri had a new salmon-pink shirt for the occasion, and in his high boots there was an unusual number of creases; he appeared with pride to show himself to Anoushka, but she took no notice of him. On her wedding day she was paler than ever, and her eyes were red with crying. Dimitri asked her if anything was the matter with her and whether she was not feeling well; but she said that she was perfectly well. So he attributed her strange appearance and ways to the inscrutable habits of womankind, and asked no further questions. But, shortly before the wedding pairs were to leave for the church, Anoushka went to her mother and said that she could not marry Dimitri. Her mother p. 229said that she supposed the child had another sweetheart; such was the way of girls. But if she had, it was of no consequence, she said; she would soon forget him. In any case she was to marry Dimitri, and that immediately. Then Anoushka broke into a passion of weeping, and begged and implored her mother not to let her marry Dimitri; and her mother lost patience, and said she deserved to be beaten; that she never heard such nonsense in her life. “Now stop that crying,” she ended by saying, “or I will call your father, and he shall put an end to this nonsense!” Then Anoushka dried her tears and said: “Very well, since it is so, let it be so. But I will never be Dimitri’s wife!” Then the troikas drove up to the cottage door, their bells jangling and tinkling, and the bridal couples all in their best clothes were driven off at a canter to the church, and the wedding took place. And Anoushka and Douniasha were crowned with gold crowns, and walked round the altar (which was placed in the centre of the church with a tall candle on it) in memory of David dancing round the Ark, p. 230according to the rite of the Orthodox Church. After the ceremony was over, they drove home once more and the feasting, which had already lasted one day, began again. The two bridegrooms were taken by their friends through the village, stopping at nearly every cottage to have their healths drunk, and to join in the toasts, while crowds of children followed them, some of them beating small tom-toms and scrambling every fifty yards or so for sugar, which was thrown to them in handfuls by the bridegrooms and their friends. Towards the evening the bridegrooms were fairly intoxicated, although they could both walk quite straight and speak without difficulty. In Vichareff’s house an uproarious feast ended in general music and dancing, which took place on the green in front of the cottage. In the yard behind the house a special chamber, like a tent, had been made for Anoushka, hung with pieces of striped linen. The dancing company ultimately moved from Vichareff’s house and visited various parts of the village, settling now here and now there, and gaining fresh liveliness and zest at each place where it settled. Anoushka was left alone, and shortly p. 231afterwards Dimitri returned. He went into the cottage and saw that it was empty. He then went into the yard and into the tent which had been prepared; and glimmering in the darkness he saw the tall white figure of Anoushka standing up. He called to her, but she did not answer. Being half-intoxicated he could not see clearly, and he was not sure whether it was in reality Anoushka or not that he seemed to see. He called once more, as loudly as he could, and, receiving no answer, he walked up to her and grasped her by the arm, and as he did so her whole body swung backwards and forwards as though it were dancing on air. Then in a moment he grew sober, for he realised that Anoushka had hanged herself, and he went and shouted for the neighbours. The body was cut down, and efforts were made to restore her to life, but she had already been dead about an hour, and there was nothing more to be done. The next day Dimitri’s father and Vichareff held a consultation; Vichareff even said that he considered his bargain cancelled, and Dimitri’s father, after a great deal of argument, refused to admit that this was so. Ultimately Vichareff’s p. 232cunning mind found a way out of the matter. “Why should not Dimitri,” he said, “marry Natasha my third daughter? It is true she is only fifteen, but she is a good strong girl, and will make him a good wife. And then,” he added, “we can have the wedding at once, so that the food shall not be wasted, and we shall thus be spared the burden and expense of two weddings.” So this was arranged, and the priest was informed of it. But the priest declined to celebrate the wedding, and said that such a proceeding was unchristian and inhuman; they must be married, he said, after a decent interval of time had elapsed. Vichareff and Dimitri’s father were forced to comply, for public opinion in the village was entirely on the side of the priest; but the wedding food, so far from being wasted, did double service all the same, for it served to satisfy the guests who thronged to Anoushka’s funeral; so that in these days in the village there was both dirge in marriage and mirth in funeral.
ponedjeljak, 25. kolovoza 2025.
in the village of X., which is in the government of O., in Central Russia, there were two men: one was called Michael and the other was called Andrew. They were both deeply religious and concerned with the things of a world which is not this world. They spent days and nights in reading the Scriptures and in pondering over the meaning of difficult texts. They had both resolved in their early youth never to marry, for they considered that the human race had something so radically bad about it that the sooner it came to an end the better. They decided, therefore, that it was their duty not to prolong its existence. But when they attained to early manhood the parents of Andrew contracted an alliance for him, and he was wedded to a girl named Masha. Their union was not blessed with offspring, and Michael, who continued to lead a p. 215solitary life, with rigorous fasting and uninterrupted meditation, said such was the will of Providence. The young wife of Andrew did not share the views of the mystic, and she yearned to be the mother of a child. Unbeknown to her husband, she sought one night the Wise Woman of the village, who was skilled in finding lost objects, and who was versed in the properties of herbs, and knew the words of power which cured the sick of dreadful disease. Masha sought the Wise Woman in the night, and told her her trouble. The Wise Woman lit a candle, muttered a brief saying in which the name of King David was mentioned, and that of a darker Prince. She gave her a small green herb, telling her to eat it on the first moonless night in June, and that her wish would be fulfilled. Masha obeyed the Wise Woman’s behest. A year passed by and the wish of her heart was granted. A son was born to her. And Masha and Andrew greatly rejoiced over this. But when Michael heard of it his spirit was troubled. He consulted the Scriptures, and the meaning of the event became clear to him. He sought Andrew and said to him— p. 216 “This is the work of Satan. You have dabbled in black magic, and you are in danger of eternal perdition. Moreover, the truth has been revealed to me—the child which has been born to you is none other than the Antichrist, of which the Book of Revelation tells. And that is why our poor country is distressful, seething with trouble, sedition, and revolt, and why our Sovereign is vexed, and why evil days have fallen upon Russia, our Mother. We must slay the Antichrist, and immediately the dark cloud will be lifted from our land, and peace and prosperity shall come to us once more.” That night Michael convoked Andrew and Masha to his house. It was a small, one-storeyed, wooden cottage, thatched with straw. It was swept and clean, and in one corner of the room were many glittering images of the Queen of Heaven and the Saints, before which burned small red lights; and besides this Michael had erected a shrine on which more than a dozen thin waxen tapers were burning. Michael convoked Andrew and his wife to his house, and the elders of the village also, and they spent an hour in chanting and in prayer, p. 217each holding a candle in his hand, but to the priest he said no word of this matter, for he did not trust him nor believe him to be possessed of celestial grace. After they had prayed for an hour, Michael said to Masha— “Go home and fetch your child.” Masha obeyed, and returned presently, bearing the infant for whose advent she had so sorely longed, and which in coming had been the cause of such joy to her. Michael took the infant and said— “In the body of this child is the power of Satan: in the body of this child is the Antichrist of whom the Scriptures tell—this is the cause of the misfortunes which have visited our dear country, and vexed the spirit of our Lord and Sovereign.” He then extinguished all the lights and the tapers in the room: it was pitch dark, and no sound was heard save the muttering of Michael’s continuous prayer. Masha trembled, for she was afraid. Michael took the infant. It lay quite still, for it was asleep. And as Michael took the infant he said: “We must exorcise the spirit and slay the Antichrist, who has been born in this child p. 218to be the bane of Russia and to vex the heart of our Sovereign!” And Michael bade the people who were gathered together in the room—there were five men, the eldest in the village, and seven women—be prepared for the great event, and he lifted his voice, and in a wailing whisper he addressed the Evil Spirit. “Evil Spirit,” he said, “Antichrist, of whom the Holy Scriptures tell, through the dark dealings of our brother Andrew and his wife, who have trafficked with Satan, thou hast found a way into the body of this child, but it is written that the troubles of Russia and of our Sovereign shall be at their thickest at thy advent, but shall diminish and pass away with thy disappearance. Evil Spirit, I conjure thee, leave the body of this child.” Then the infant cried plaintively, twice. “Hark!” said Michael, in a solemn voice, “the spirit of the Antichrist is speaking. Hark to the cry of Satan, who is leaving the body of the child. Pray, pray with all your might, and help me to slay the Antichrist.” And fear came upon everybody, nor durst p. 219they utter in the stillness, but their spirits were spellbound and seemed to be drawn, tense and taut as stretched wires, in that effort of prayer for the passing of the spirit of Satan and for the slaying of the Antichrist. The infant cried once again—and then it cried no more!... “The Antichrist has been slain,” said Michael, and a deeper stillness came on the assembly. “The Antichrist,” said Michael, “must be buried.” And he walked out of his cottage into the yard where in a shed his horse and cart were kept. He unloosed his horse and said: “Whither the horse shall lead, thither must we follow.” The horse trotted slowly down the deserted street. That night there was neither moon nor stars in the sky. Beyond the village was a marshy plain. It was just before dawn, and in the thick velvet darkness of the sky there was a glow as of a living sapphire. They reached the marsh, and there the horse stopped, and began to browse. “It is here that the Antichrist must be buried,” said Michael. And they buried the infant by the reedy marsh. And all this time p. 220neither Andrew nor Masha, nor the elders, nor the women who were there, spoke a single word; and when they had finished burying the infant a breeze came from the east, and the dawn, grey and chilly, trembled over the horizon, and the wild ducks rose from the marsh, uttered their cry, and flew away into distance, seeking the fields. The spell that had kept this assembly mute and speechless vanished with the vanishing darkness. The noises of life began: the creaking of carts was heard from the village, and the cocks were crowing. Andrew and Masha looked at each other, and a great fear came upon them, and indeed upon all the assembly, for what they had done. They did not speak, but returned severally to their homes; and Masha, when she reached her home, too frightened to cry or even to speak, sat motionless before the swinging cradle which hung from the roof of her cottage, and which was now empty. And Andrew durst not look at her. Presently he left the house and sought the dwelling of the priest. The priest let him in, and there he found Michael, who, likewise overcome with terror p. 221and misgivings as to what had been done, had come to tell the story. The priest reported the whole matter to the local policeman, who in his turn reported it to the police captain of the district, and three days afterwards Michael, Andrew, Masha, and the others were locked up in the prison of a neighbouring town, and a day after their arrest an old woman of the village sought out the police captain and asked to see him. “I was present,” she said to him, “at the slaying of the Antichrist. I held the candle in my hands myself when the evil spirit was exorcised, and the cause of all Russia’s trouble was destroyed. They say the Tsar has given money to the others for having destroyed his enemy; and I, who am poor and old, and who was there also, have received nothing. Let me receive my due. Give me the money that the Tsar owes me, for I also helped to slay the Antichrist.” This story is true. It happened last September, and was recorded in the newspapers, with many more details than I have told. And at the station of Kozlov, as I have p. 222already related, in the government of Tambov, between the hours of midnight and 2 a.m., a railway guard told it to myself and a newsvendor, and when he had finished telling it he sighed and bewailed the blindness of his fellow-creatures, the peasants of Russian villages, who, as he wisely said, had so much kindness in their hearts, but were often led through their ignorance to do dreadful deeds.
nedjelja, 24. kolovoza 2025.
count x was a landowner who lived in the south of Russia, not far from one of the large manufacturing towns. He spent the whole summer in a small country house, about six miles from the town, with his wife and children. Not far from the house, at about a mile’s distance, was a village which was bigger than an ordinary village and less big than an ordinary town. The greater part of the population consisted of Jews; they were poor Jews mostly, some of them very poor indeed. The Count and his wife knew the people of the place well, and their relations with the poor Jews were of the friendliest description; they were constantly employing them to do small jobs, and their special friends were the tailor and the bootmaker, p. 204whose shops were in the Jewish bazaar, the poorest quarter of the place. The bootmaker’s name was Gertzel, and the tailor was called Daniel. When the Dreyfus case was drawing to its close, the whole of this population was in a great state of excitement, and the Countess X. used every afternoon to go and give Gertzel and Daniel the latest news. Just before the result of the final court-martial at Rennes was known, Countess X. received a telegram from a friend of hers abroad saying that Dreyfus had been acquitted. She went post haste with the news to the village, and soon the whole place was in a tumult of thanksgiving and rejoicing. Next day, when the authentic news of the verdict arrived, she was obliged to go and tell the disappointing news. During all those summer months nothing else had been discussed in this little place; and, as everywhere else, the world was split up into two factions; and in the Countess’ family, while she and her husband believed violently in the innocence of Dreyfus, her brother-in-law and her uncle were equally p. 205firmly convinced of his guilt, and equally violent in their affirmations of it. In the village there was a strong orthodox faction which earnestly longed for the death of the traitor, and the Jewish populace cared more for his acquittal than for their own affairs. When Countess X. imparted to them the disappointing verdict, they lamented bitterly: all the more so on account of the false joy they had experienced the day before. And in the whole population there were no two beings more downcast and upset by the result than Gertzel and Daniel. It was in the autumn of that year, shortly after the result of the Dreyfus case became known, that one morning Gertzel and Daniel appeared in Countess X.’s garden and requested to see her. Gertzel was a thin, solidly built man, with dark tangled hair and mild soft eyes. He had a thick, untidy beard, a dirty loose shirt with a torn collar. Daniel was smaller, and younger; he wore no beard, and his eyes were penetrating and glistening; he was quiet and modest, and was passionately fond of reading books. p. 206 The Countess came out and asked them whether they wanted work. “No, it is not work that we want,” said Gertzel, “we want to know if we may bring our furniture to-day, and put it in your stables? It will not take up very much room,” he added. “Certainly you may,” said the Countess; “but why do you want to get rid of your furniture? Is it your feast day?” “No, it is very far from being our feast day—it is little enough a feast day,” said Gertzel; “but we want you in your kindness to let us store our furniture in your stables—in the barn perhaps. It will take little room. There are some chairs, a table, and the tools and implements that are necessary for our work. And Daniel has a lot of books he would like to bring, too—some of those which your Brightness gave him, if your Brightness remembers, last year.” “You may certainly bring your things,” said the Countess, “and put them in the stables or in the barn or anywhere else you please. But why do you want to do this?” p. 207 “It is because,” said Gertzel, “to-morrow morning there will be a Pogrom.” “How a Pogrom?” asked the Countess. “A Pogrom,” said Gertzel, “an ordinary Pogrom. It has been arranged; the date is fixed for to-morrow. It will be all right if we may store our furniture in your barn; and if we may ask as much, we have several friends who would like to do the same. For in that case all will be well, and we shall incur no loss. We cannot afford the loss this year: we are all poor people; we cannot afford to lose our property.” “But,” said the Countess, “I don’t understand. Who is going to make this Pogrom? The people here?” “God forbid!” said Gertzel. “We are living with all the people here in peace. They are coming from O. (O. was the big manufacturing town) and from A. (another town about fifty miles distant). They are coming by train; they will arrive early to-morrow morning. The Pogrom will take place in the morning; it will be all over by the evening, and they will go back by the night train.” “But who?” the Countess asked, “and what are they?” p. 208 “They say they have been sent; some people say it is the Tsar’s orders; others that it is the Governor, but what does it matter? In any case, they have been sent to make a Pogrom.” “Surely,” said the Countess, “if you inform the police, measures will be taken to prevent this. It is absurd! It can’t possibly happen!” “It must be,” said Gertzel, and Daniel nodded his head in agreement, and repeated: “It must be: it is so decreed!” “It has all been arranged,” said Gertzel. “To-morrow there will be the Pogrom. Let us bring our furniture to your barn, our furniture and our friends’ furniture, and all will be well.” “It must be prevented!” said the Countess, “You must go to the police.” “It is useless,” said Gertzel; “it cannot be prevented; it has been arranged for to-morrow.” And no argument was of any avail; they merely repeated over and over again that the Pogrom was to be, and they left, with tears of gratitude in their eyes for having been p. 209allowed to store their furniture in the Count’s stables. The Countess went to her husband and related what had happened. They sent for Ivan, the moujik, who washed the plates, and who, being a native of the place, would be likely to know what was going on, and they asked him if it were true that there was to be a Pogrom. “Yes, your Brightness,” he said, “it is quite true. There will be a Pogrom to-morrow; it has been arranged.” “Who has arranged it?” asked the Countess. “I cannot know,” answered Ivan; “but it has been arranged.” “You mean the people here?” asked the Countess, “they will attack the Jews?” “God forbid!” said Ivan. “The Jews are a nice people. We live with them in peace; but everything may happen. Sometimes an orthodox Russian is worse than a Jew. But the Jews were much offended by the last Pogrom, and they have been giving false evidence, and attributing to many people crimes which they had not committed.” p. 210 “When was the last Pogrom?” asked the Countess. “It was in the spring,” said Ivan, “when your Brightness was away.” “And did they kill the Jews?” asked the Count. “God forbid!” Ivan answered. “They sinned a little, and they destroyed some of the Jews’ property, but murder—God forbid! they were innocent of that!” “But who is going to do this?” asked the Count. “They will come from various places,” said Ivan. “They will come by the night train from O. and A. They will arrive in the morning; there will be a Pogrom, and they will go away.” “But who?” asked the Count. “Those who are sent,” said Ivan. “But who is sending them?” repeated the Count. “I cannot know,” said Ivan. “How do you know this is so?” asked the Countess. “Everybody knows it,” said Ivan—“all the morning carts have been arriving from p. 211all the neighbouring villages just as when there is a fair.” “What for?” asked the Countess. “To take away all that is left after the Pogrom,” said Ivan. “It is advantageous for the peasants to get the property of the Jews and to pay nothing at all for it.” “It must be prevented,” said the Count. Ivan smiled, and merely repeated that there would be a Pogrom on the following day, for so it had been arranged, and nothing more could be got out of him. The Count went and interviewed the local police sergeant and spoke seriously to him about the matter. The police sergeant shrugged his shoulders and wrung his hands, and said that he could do nothing; what was his authority in the place? What could he and two policemen do against the populace? “If there is to be a Pogrom there will be a Pogrom,” he said. “We can do nothing. We should only be killed too. There is nothing to be done.” All day long Jews from the village who knew the Count and the Countess came to their house, bringing with them furniture and p. 212goods of every description, till the whole stables were filled with them, and all day long large creaking carts drove slowly into the village from the neighbouring villages, bringing the peasants who had come to bear off the booty when the Pogrom should be over. And they met and conversed with the Jews in the friendliest manner possible, discussing the Pogrom merely as an event of not very considerable importance, but as a fact, such as an eclipse or a feast day, about which there could be no possible doubt, and no possible change. The Countess had a further interview with Sasha, the cook, a peasant woman who was also a native of the place; but she, like Ivan, merely repeated over and over again that the Pogrom was fixed for the morrow, and that it would be executed by people sent for the purpose, who would come by train from the various big towns. The Count went once more to the police sergeant, and told him to take some steps; he replied that he would do his best, but that he was a married man, and the Count must have pity on him, that there were no steps to be p. 213taken—that he could do nothing—that nothing could be done—that nobody could do anything! The next morning, as soon as the Countess awoke, Sasha the cook came into her room and said— “There will be no Pogrom: it has been put off!”
subota, 23. kolovoza 2025.
This is a story told by the late Benson Foley of San Francisco: “In the summer of 1881 I met a man named James H. Conway, a resident of Franklin, Tennessee. He was visiting San Francisco for his health, deluded man, and brought me a note of introduction from Mr. Lawrence Barting. I had known Barting as a captain in the Federal army during the civil war. At its close he had settled in Franklin, and in time became, I had reason to think, somewhat prominent as a lawyer. Barting had always seemed to me an honorable and truthful man, and the warm friendship which he expressed in his note for Mr. Conway was to me sufficient evidence that the latter was in every way worthy of my confidence and esteem. At dinner one day Conway told me that it had been solemnly agreed between him and Barting that the one who died first should, if possible, communicate with the other from beyond the grave, in some unmistakable way—just how, they had left (wisely, it seemed to me) to be decided by the deceased, according to the opportunities that his altered circumstances might present. “A few weeks after the conversation in which Mr. Conway spoke of this agreement, I met him one day, walking slowly down Montgomery street, apparently, from his abstracted air, in deep thought. He greeted me coldly with merely a movement of the head and passed on, leaving me standing on the walk, with half-proffered hand, surprised and naturally somewhat piqued. The next day I met him again in the office of the Palace Hotel, and seeing him about to repeat the disagreeable performance of the day before, intercepted him in a doorway, with a friendly salutation, and bluntly requested an explanation of his altered manner. He hesitated a moment; then, looking me frankly in the eyes, said: “‘I do not think, Mr. Foley, that I have any longer a claim to your friendship, since Mr. Barting appears to have withdrawn his own from me—for what reason, I protest I do not know. If he has not already informed you he probably will do so.’ “‘But,’ I replied, ‘I have not heard from Mr. Barting.’ “‘Heard from him!’ he repeated, with apparent surprise. ‘Why, he is here. I met him yesterday ten minutes before meeting you. I gave you exactly the same greeting that he gave me. I met him again not a quarter of an hour ago, and his manner was precisely the same: he merely bowed and passed on. I shall not soon forget your civility to me. Good morning, or—as it may please you—farewell.’ “All this seemed to me singularly considerate and delicate behavior on the part of Mr. Conway. “As dramatic situations and literary effects are foreign to my purpose I will explain at once that Mr. Barting was dead. He had died in Nashville four days before this conversation. Calling on Mr. Conway, I apprised him of our friend’s death, showing him the letters announcing it. He was visibly affected in a way that forbade me to entertain a doubt of his sincerity. “‘It seems incredible,’ he said, after a period of reflection. ‘I suppose I must have mistaken another man for Barting, and that man’s cold greeting was merely a stranger’s civil acknowledgment of my own. I remember, indeed, that he lacked Barting’s mustache.’ “‘Doubtless it was another man,’ I assented; and the subject was never afterward mentioned between us. But I had in my pocket a photograph of Barting, which had been inclosed in the letter from his widow. It had been taken a week before his death, and was without a mustache.”
petak, 22. kolovoza 2025.
An old man named Daniel Baker, living near Lebanon, Iowa, was suspected by his neighbors of having murdered a peddler who had obtained permission to pass the night at his house. This was in 1853, when peddling was more common in the Western country than it is now, and was attended with considerable danger. The peddler with his pack traversed the country by all manner of lonely roads, and was compelled to rely upon the country people for hospitality. This brought him into relation with queer characters, some of whom were not altogether scrupulous in their methods of making a living, murder being an acceptable means to that end. It occasionally occurred that a peddler with diminished pack and swollen purse would be traced to the lonely dwelling of some rough character and never could be traced beyond. This was so in the case of “old man Baker,” as he was always called. (Such names are given in the western “settlements” only to elderly persons who are not esteemed; to the general disrepute of social unworth is affixed the special reproach of age.) A peddler came to his house and none went away—that is all that anybody knew. Seven years later the Rev. Mr. Cummings, a Baptist minister well known in that part of the country, was driving by Baker’s farm one night. It was not very dark: there was a bit of moon somewhere above the light veil of mist that lay along the earth. Mr. Cummings, who was at all times a cheerful person, was whistling a tune, which he would occasionally interrupt to speak a word of friendly encouragement to his horse. As he came to a little bridge across a dry ravine he saw the figure of a man standing upon it, clearly outlined against the gray background of a misty forest. The man had something strapped on his back and carried a heavy stick—obviously an itinerant peddler. His attitude had in it a suggestion of abstraction, like that of a sleepwalker. Mr. Cummings reined in his horse when he arrived in front of him, gave him a pleasant salutation and invited him to a seat in the vehicle—“if you are going my way,” he added. The man raised his head, looked him full in the face, but neither answered nor made any further movement. The minister, with good-natured persistence, repeated his invitation. At this the man threw his right hand forward from his side and pointed downward as he stood on the extreme edge of the bridge. Mr. Cummings looked past him, over into the ravine, saw nothing unusual and withdrew his eyes to address the man again. He had disappeared. The horse, which all this time had been uncommonly restless, gave at the same moment a snort of terror and started to run away. Before he had regained control of the animal the minister was at the crest of the hill a hundred yards along. He looked back and saw the figure again, at the same place and in the same attitude as when he had first observed it. Then for the first time he was conscious of a sense of the supernatural and drove home as rapidly as his willing horse would go. On arriving at home he related his adventure to his family, and early the next morning, accompanied by two neighbors, John White Corwell and Abner Raiser, returned to the spot. They found the body of old man Baker hanging by the neck from one of the beams of the bridge, immediately beneath the spot where the apparition had stood. A thick coating of dust, slightly dampened by the mist, covered the floor of the bridge, but the only footprints were those of Mr. Cummings’ horse. In taking down the body the men disturbed the loose, friable earth of the slope below it, disclosing human bones already nearly uncovered by the action of water and frost. They were identified as those of the lost peddler. At the double inquest the coroner’s jury found that Daniel Baker died by his own hand while suffering from temporary insanity, and that Samuel Morritz was murdered by some person or persons to the jury unknown.
četvrtak, 21. kolovoza 2025.
OMNILINGUAL BY H. BEAM PIPER - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/19445/pg19445-images.html
To translate writings, you need a key to the code—and if the last writer of Martian died forty thousand years before the first writer of Earth was born ... how could the Martian be translated...?
On the 16th day of June, 1874, the ship Mary Jane sailed from Malta, heavily laden with cat. This cargo gave us a good deal of trouble. It was not in bales, but had been dumped into the hold loose. Captain Doble, who had once commanded a ship that carried coals, said he had found that plan the best. When the hold was full of cat the hatch was battened down and we felt good. Unfortunately the mate, thinking the cats would be thirsty, introduced a hose into one of the hatches and pumped in a considerable quantity of water, and the cats of the lower levels were all drowned. You have seen a dead cat in a pond: you remember its circumference at the waist. Water multiplies the magnitude of a dead cat by ten. On the first day out, it was observed that the ship was much strained. She was three feet wider than usual and as much as ten feet shorter. The convexity of her deck was visibly augmented fore and aft, but she turned up at both ends. Her rudder was clean out of water and she would answer the helm only when running directly against a strong breeze: the rudder, when perverted to one side, would rub against the wind and slew her around; and then she wouldn't steer any more. Owing to the curvature of the keel, the masts came together at the top, and a sailor who had gone up the foremast got bewildered, came down the mizzenmast, looked out over the stern at the receding shores of Malta and shouted: "Land, ho!" The ship's fastenings were all giving way; the water on each side was lashed into foam by the tempest of flying bolts that she shed at every pulsation of the cargo. She was quietly wrecking herself without assistance from wind or wave, by the sheer internal energy of feline expansion. I went to the skipper about it. He was in his favorite position, sitting on the deck, supporting his back against the binnacle, making a V of his legs, and smoking. "Captain Doble," I said, respectfully touching my hat, which was really not worthy of respect, "this floating palace is afflicted with curvature of the spine and is likewise greatly swollen." Without raising his eyes he courteously acknowledged my presence by knocking the ashes from his pipe. "Permit me, Captain," I said, with simple dignity, "to repeat that this ship is much swollen." "If that is true," said the gallant mariner, reaching for his tobacco pouch, "I think it would be as well to swab her down with liniment. There's a bottle of it in my cabin. Better suggest it to the mate." "But, Captain, there is no time for empirical treatment; some of the planks at the water line have started." The skipper rose and looked out over the stern, toward the land; he fixed his eyes on the foaming wake; he gazed into the water to starboard and to port. Then he said: "My friend, the whole darned thing has started." Sadly and silently I turned from that obdurate man and walked forward. Suddenly "there was a burst of thunder sound!" The hatch that had held down the cargo was flung whirling into space and sailed in the air like a blown leaf. Pushing upward through the hatchway was a smooth, square column of cat. Grandly and impressively it grew—slowly, serenely, majestically it rose toward the welkin, the relaxing keel parting the mastheads to give it a fair chance. I have stood at Naples and seen Vesuvius painting the town red—from Catania have marked afar, upon the flanks of Ætna, the lava's awful pursuit of the astonished rooster and the despairing pig. The fiery flow from Kilauea's crater, thrusting itself into the forests and licking the entire country clean, is as familiar to me as my mother-tongue. I have seen glaciers, a thousand years old and quite bald, heading for a valley full of tourists at the rate of an inch a month. I have seen a saturated solution of mining camp going down a mountain river, to make a sociable call on the valley farmers. I have stood behind a tree on the battle-field and seen a compact square mile of armed men moving with irresistible momentum to the rear. Whenever anything grand in magnitude or motion is billed to appear I commonly manage to beat my way into the show, and in reporting it I am a man of unscrupulous veracity; but I have seldom observed anything like that solid gray column of Maltese cat! It is unnecessary to explain, I suppose, that each individual grimalkin in the outfit, with that readiness of resource which distinguishes the species, had grappled with tooth and nail as many others as it could hook on to. This preserved the formation. It made the column so stiff that when the ship rolled (and the Mary Jane was a devil to roll) it swayed from side to side like a mast, and the Mate said if it grew much taller he would have to order it cut away or it would capsize us. Some of the sailors went to work at the pumps, but these discharged nothing but fur. Captain Doble raised his eyes from his toes and shouted: "Let go the anchor!" but being assured that nobody was touching it, apologized and resumed his revery. The chaplain said if there were no objections he would like to offer up a prayer, and a gambler from Chicago, producing a pack of cards, proposed to throw round for the first jack. The parson's plan was adopted, and as he uttered the final "amen," the cats struck up a hymn. All the living ones were now above deck, and every mother's son of them sang. Each had a pretty fair voice, but no ear. Nearly all their notes in the upper register were more or less cracked and disobedient. The remarkable thing about the voices was their range. In that crowd were cats of seventeen octaves, and the average could not have been less than twelve. Number of cats, as per invoice 127,000 Estimated number dead swellers 6,000 ———— Total songsters 121,000 Average number octaves per cat 12 ———— Total octaves 1,452,000 It was a great concert. It lasted three days and nights, or, counting each night as seven days, twenty-four days altogether, and we could not go below for provisions. At the end of that time the cook came for'd shaking up some beans in a hat, and holding a large knife. "Shipmates," said he, "we have done all that mortals can do. Let us now draw lots." We were blindfolded in turn, and drew, but just as the cook was forcing the fatal black bean upon the fattest man, the concert closed with a suddenness that waked the man on the lookout. A moment later every grimalkin relaxed his hold on his neighbors, the column lost its cohesion and, with 121,000 dull, sickening thuds that beat as one, the whole business fell to the deck. Then with a wild farewell wail that feline host sprang spitting into the sea and struck out southward for the African shore! The southern extension of Italy, as every schoolboy knows, resembles in shape an enormous boot. We had drifted within sight of it. The cats in the fabric had spied it, and their alert imaginations were instantly affected with a lively sense of the size, weight and probable momentum of its flung bootjack.
srijeda, 20. kolovoza 2025.
The good ship Nupple-duck was drifting rapidly upon a sunken coral reef, which seemed to extend a reasonless number of leagues to the right and left without a break, and I was reading Macaulay's "Naseby Fight" to the man at the wheel. Everything was, in fact, going on as nicely as heart could wish, when Captain Abersouth, standing on the companion-stair, poked his head above deck and asked where we were. Pausing in my reading, I informed him that we had got as far as the disastrous repulse of Prince Rupert's cavalry, adding that if he would have the goodness to hold his jaw we should be making it awkward for the wounded in about three minutes, and he might bear a hand at the pockets of the slain. Just then the ship struck heavily, and went down! Calling another ship, I stepped aboard, and gave directions to be taken to No. 900 Tottenham Court Road, where I had an aunt; then, walking aft to the man at the wheel, asked him if he would like to hear me read "Naseby Fight." He thought he would: he would like to hear that, and then I might pass on to something else—Kinglake's "Crimean War," the proceedings at the trial of Warren Hastings, or some such trifle, just to wile away the time till eight bells. All this time heavy clouds had been gathering along the horizon directly in front of the ship, and a deputation of passengers now came to the man at the wheel to demand that she be put about, or she would run into them, which the spokesman explained would be unusual. I thought at the time that it certainly was not the regular thing to do, but, as I was myself only a passenger, did not deem it expedient to take a part in the heated discussion that ensued; and, after all, it did not seem likely that the weather in those clouds would be much worse than that in Tottenham Court Road, where I had an aunt. It was finally decided to refer the matter to arbitration, and after many names had been submitted and rejected by both sides, it was agreed that the captain of the ship should act as arbitrator if his consent could be obtained, and I was delegated to conduct the negotiations to that end. With considerable difficulty, I persuaded him to accept the responsibility. He was a feeble-minded sort of fellow named Troutbeck, who was always in a funk lest he should make enemies; never reflecting that most men would a little rather be his enemies than not. He had once been the ship's cook, but had cooked so poisonously ill that he had been forcibly transferred from galley to quarter-deck by the dyspeptic survivors of his culinary career. The little captain went aft with me to listen to arguments of the dissatisfied passengers and the obstinate steersman, as to whether we should take our chances in the clouds, or tail off and run for the opposite horizon; but on approaching the wheel, we found both helmsman and passengers in a condition of profound astonishment, rolling their eyes about towards every point of the compass, and shaking their heads in hopeless perplexity. It was rather remarkable, certainly: the bank of cloud which had worried the landsmen was now directly astern, and the ship was cutting along lively in her own wake, toward the point from which she had come, and straight away from Tottenham Court Road! Everybody declared it was a miracle; the chaplain was piped up for prayers, and the man at the wheel was as truly penitent as if he had been detected robbing an empty poor-box. The explanation was simple enough, and dawned upon me the moment I saw how matters stood. During the dispute between the helmsman and the deputation, the former had renounced his wheel to gesticulate, and I, thinking no harm, had amused myself, during a rather tedious debate, by revolving the thing this way and that, and had unconsciously put the ship about. By a coincidence not unusual in low latitudes, the wind had effected a corresponding transposition at the same time, and was now bowling us as merrily back toward the place where I had embarked, as it had previously wafted us in the direction of Tottenham Court Road, where I had an aunt. I must here so far anticipate, as to explain that some years later these various incidents—particularly the reading of "Naseby Fight"—led to the adoption, in our mercantile marine, of a rule which I believe is still extant, to the effect that one must not speak to the man at the wheel unless the man at the wheel speaks first. II It is only by inadvertence that I have omitted the information that the vessel in which I was now a pervading influence was the Bonnyclabber (Troutbeck, master), of Malvern Heights. The Bonnyclabber's reactionary course had now brought her to the spot at which I had taken passage. Passengers and crew, fatigued by their somewhat awkward attempts to manifest their gratitude for our miraculous deliverance from the cloud-bank, were snoring peacefully in unconsidered attitudes about the deck, when the lookout man, perched on the supreme extremity of the mainmast, consuming a cold sausage, began an apparently preconcerted series of extraordinary and unimaginable noises. He coughed, sneezed, and barked simultaneously—bleated in one breath, and cackled in the next—sputteringly shrieked, and chatteringly squealed, with a bass of suffocated roars. There were desolutory vocal explosions, tapering off in long wails, half smothered in unintelligible small-talk. He whistled, wheezed, and trumpeted; began to sharp, thought better of it and flatted; neighed like a horse, and then thundered like a drum! Through it all he continued making incomprehensible signals with one hand while clutching his throat with the other. Presently he gave it up, and silently descended to the deck. By this time we were all attention; and no sooner had he set foot amongst us, than he was assailed with a tempest of questions which, had they been visible, would have resembled a flight of pigeons. He made no reply—not even by a look, but passed through our enclosing mass with a grim, defiant step, a face deathly white, and a set of the jaw as of one repressing an ambitious dinner, or ignoring a venomous toothache. For the poor man was choking! Passing down the companion-way, the patient sought the surgeon's cabin, with the ship's company at his heels. The surgeon was fast asleep, the lark-like performance at the masthead having been inaudible in that lower region. While some of us were holding a whisky-bottle to the medical nose, in order to apprise the medical intelligence of the demand upon it, the patient seated himself in statuesque silence. By this time his pallor, which was but the mark of a determined mind, had given place to a fervent crimson, which visibly deepened into a pronounced purple, and was ultimately superseded by a clouded blue, shot through with opalescent gleams, and smitten with variable streaks of black. The face was swollen and shapeless, the neck puffy. The eyes protruded like pegs of a hat-stand. Pretty soon the doctor was got awake, and after making a careful examination of his patient, remarking that it was a lovely case of stopupagus œsophagi, took a tool and set to work, producing with no difficulty a cold sausage of the size, figure, and general bearing of a somewhat self-important banana. The operation had been performed amid breathless silence, but the moment it was concluded the patient, whose neck and head had visibly collapsed, sprang to his feet and shouted: "Man overboard!" That is what he had been trying to say. There was a confused rush to the upper deck, and everybody flung something over the ship's side—a life-belt, a chicken-coop, a coil of rope, a spar, an old sail, a pocket handkerchief, an iron crowbar—any movable article which it was thought might be useful to a drowning man who had followed the vessel during the hour that had elapsed since the initial alarm at the mast-head. In a few moments the ship was pretty nearly dismantled of everything that could be easily renounced, and some excitable passenger having cut away the boats there was nothing more that we could do, though the chaplain explained that if the ill-fated gentleman in the wet did not turn up after a while it was his intention to stand at the stern and read the burial service of the Church of England. Presently it occurred to some ingenious person to inquire who had gone overboard, and all hands being mustered and the roll called, to our great chagrin every man answered to his name, passengers and all! Captain Troutbeck, however, held that in a matter of so great importance a simple roll-call was insufficient, and with an assertion of authority that was encouraging insisted that every person on board be separately sworn. The result was the same; nobody was missing and the captain, begging pardon for having doubted our veracity, retired to his cabin to avoid further responsibility, but expressed a hope that for the purpose of having everything properly recorded in the log-book we would apprise him of any further action that we might think it advisable to take. I smiled as I remembered that in the interest of the unknown gentleman whose peril we had overestimated I had flung the log-book over the ship's side. Soon afterward I felt suddenly inspired with one of those great ideas that come to most men only once or twice in a lifetime, and to the ordinary story teller never. Hastily reconvening the ship's company I mounted the capstan and thus addressed them: "Shipmates, there has been a mistake. In the fervor of an ill-considered compassion we have made pretty free with certain movable property of an eminent firm of shipowners of Malvern Heights. For this we shall undoubtedly be called to account if we are ever so fortunate as to drop anchor in Tottenham Court Road, where I have an aunt. It would add strength to our defence if we could show to the satisfaction of a jury of our peers that in heeding the sacred promptings of humanity we had acted with some small degree of common sense. If, for example, we could make it appear that there really was a man overboard, who might have been comforted and sustained by the material consolation that we so lavishly dispensed in the form of buoyant articles belonging to others, the British heart would find in that fact a mitigating circumstance pleading eloquently in our favor. Gentlemen and ship's officers, I venture to propose that we do now throw a man overboard." The effect was electrical: the motion was carried by acclamation and there was a unanimous rush for the now wretched mariner whose false alarm at the masthead was the cause of our embarrassment, but on second thoughts it was decided to substitute Captain Troutbeck, as less generally useful and more undeviatingly in error. The sailor had made one mistake of considerable magnitude, but the captain's entire existence was a mistake altogether. He was fetched up from his cabin and chucked over. At 900 Tottenham Road Court lived an aunt of mine—a good old lady who had brought me up by hand and taught me many wholesome lessons in morality, which in my later life have proved of extreme value. Foremost among these I may mention her solemn and oft-repeated injunction never to tell a lie without a definite and specific reason for doing so. Many years' experience in the violation of this principle enables me to speak with authority as to its general soundness. I have, therefore, much pleasure in making a slight correction in the preceding chapter of this tolerably true history. It was there affirmed that I threw the Bonnyclabber's log-book into the sea. The statement is entirely false, and I can discover no reason for having made it that will for a moment weigh against those I now have for the preservation of that log-book. The progress of the story has developed new necessities, and I now find it convenient to quote from that book passages which it could not have contained if cast into the sea at the time stated; for if thrown upon the resources of my imagination I might find the temptation to exaggerate too strong to be resisted. It is needless to worry the reader with those entries in the book referring to events already related. Our record will begin on the day of the captain's consignment to the deep, after which era I made the entries myself. "June 22nd.—Not much doing in the way of gales, but heavy swells left over from some previous blow. Latitude and longitude not notably different from last observation. Ship laboring a trifle, owing to lack of top-hamper, everything of that kind having been cut away in consequence of Captain Troutbeck having accidently fallen overboard while fishing from the bowsprit. Also threw over cargo and everything that we could spare. Miss our sails rather, but if they save our dear captain, we shall be content. Weather flagrant. "23d.—Nothing from Captain Troutbeck. Dead calm—also dead whale. The passengers having become preposterous in various ways, Mr. Martin, the chief officer, had three of the ringleaders tied up and rope's-ended. He thought it advisable also to flog an equal number of the crew, by way of being impartial. Weather ludicrous. "24th.—Captain still prefers to stop away, and does not telegraph. The 'captain of the foretop'—there isn't any foretop now—was put in irons to-day by Mr. Martin for eating cold sausage while on look-out. Mr. Martin has flogged the steward, who had neglected to holy-stone the binnacle and paint the dead-lights. The steward is a good fellow all the same. Weather iniquitous. "25th.—Can't think whatever has become of Captain Troutbeck. He must be getting hungry by this time; for although he has his fishing-tackle with him, he has no bait. Mr. Martin inspected the entries in this book to-day. He is a most excellent and humane officer. Weather inexcusable. "26th.—All hope of hearing from the Captain has been abandoned. We have sacrificed everything to save him; but now, if we could procure the loan of a mast and some sails, we should proceed on our voyage. Mr. Martin has knocked the coxswain overboard for sneezing. He is an experienced seaman, a capable officer, and a Christian gentleman—damn his eyes! Weather tormenting. "27th.—Another inspection of this book by Mr. Martin. Farewell, vain world! Break it gently to my aunt in Tottenham Court Road." In the concluding sentences of this record, as it now lies before me, the handwriting is not very legible: they were penned under circumstances singularly unfavorable. Mr. Martin stood behind me with his eyes fixed on the page; and in order to secure a better view, had twisted the machinery of the engine he called his hand into the hair of my head, depressing that globe to such an extent that my nose was flattened against the surface of the table, and I had no small difficulty in discerning the lines through my eyebrows. I was not accustomed to writing in that position: it had not been taught in the only school that I ever attended. I therefore felt justified in bringing the record to a somewhat abrupt close, and immediately went on deck with Mr. Martin, he preceding me up the companion-stairs on foot, I following, not on horseback, but on my own, the connection between us being maintained without important alteration. Arriving on deck, I thought it advisable, in the interest of peace and quietness, to pursue him in the same manner to the side of the ship, where I parted from him forever with many expressions of regret, which might have been heard at a considerable distance. Of the subsequent fate of the Bonnyclabber, I can only say that the log-book from which I have quoted was found some years later in the stomach of a whale, along with some shreds of clothing, a few buttons and several decayed life-belts. It contained only one new entry, in a straggling handwriting, as if it had been penned in the dark: "july2th foundered svivors rescude by wale wether stuffy no nues from capting trowtbeck Sammle martin cheef Ofcer." Let us now take a retrospective glance at the situation. The ship Nupple-duck, (Abersouth, master) had, it will be remembered, gone down with all on board except me. I had escaped on the ship Bonnyclabber (Troutbeck) which I had quitted owing to a misunderstanding with the chief officer, and was now unattached. That is how matters stood when, rising on an unusually high wave, and casting my eye in the direction of Tottenham Court Road—that is, backward along the course pursued by the Bonnyclabber and toward the spot at which the Nupple-duck had been swallowed up—I saw a quantity of what appeared to be wreckage. It turned out to be some of the stuff that we had thrown overboard under a misapprehension. The several articles had been compiled and, so to speak, carefully edited. They were, in fact, lashed together, forming a raft. On a stool in the center of it—not, apparently navigating it, but rather with the subdued and dignified bearing of a passenger, sat Captain Abersouth, of the Nupple-duck, reading a novel. Our meeting was not cordial. He remembered me as a man of literary taste superior to his own and harbored resentment, and although he made no opposition to my taking passage with him I could see that his acquiescence was due rather to his muscular inferiority than to the circumstance that I was damp and taking cold. Merely acknowledging his presence with a nod as I climbed abroad, I seated myself and inquired if he would care to hear the concluding stanzas of "Naseby Fight." "No," he replied, looking up from his novel, "no, Claude Reginald Gump, writer of sea stories, I've done with you. When you sank the Nupple-duck some days ago you probably thought that you had made an end of me. That was clever of you, but I came to the surface and followed the other ship—the one on which you escaped. It was I that the sailor saw from the masthead. I saw him see me. It was for me that all that stuff was hove overboard. Good—I made it into this raft. It was, I think, the next day that I passed the floating body of a man whom I recognized as, my old friend Billy Troutbeck—he used to be a cook on a man-o'-war. It gives me pleasure to be the means of saving your life, but I eschew you. The moment that we reach port our paths part. You remember that in the very first sentence of this story you began to drive my ship, the Nupple-duck, on to a reef of coral." I was compelled to confess that this was true, and he continued his inhospitable reproaches: "Before you had written half a column you sent her to the bottom, with me and the crew. But you—you escaped." "That is true," I replied; "I cannot deny that the facts are correctly stated." "And in a story before that, you took me and my mates of the ship Camel into the heart of the South Polar Sea and left us frozen dead in the ice, like flies in amber. But you did not leave yourself there—you escaped." "Really, Captain," I said, "your memory is singularly accurate, considering the many hardships that you have had to undergo; many a man would have gone mad." "And a long time before that," Captain Abersouth resumed, after a pause, more, apparently, to con his memory than to enjoy my good opinion of it, "you lost me at sea—look here; I didn't read anything but George Eliot at that time, but I'm told that you lost me at sea in the Mudlark. Have I been misinformed?" I could not say he had been misinformed. "You yourself escaped on that occasion, I think." It was true. Being usually the hero of my own stories, I commonly do manage to live through one, in order to figure to advantage in the next. It is from artistic necessity: no reader would take much interest in a hero who was dead before the beginning of the tale. I endeavored to explain this to Captain Abersouth. He shook his head. "No," said he, "it's cowardly, that's the way I look at it." Suddenly an effulgent idea began to dawn upon me, and I let it have its way until my mind was perfectly luminous. Then I rose from my seat, and frowning down into the upturned face of my accuser, spoke in severe and rasping accents thus: "Captain Abersouth, in the various perils you and I have encountered together in the classical literature of the period, if I have always escaped and you have always perished; if I lost you at sea in the Mudlark, froze you into the ice at the South Pole in the Camel and drowned you in the Nupple-duck, pray be good enough to tell me whom I have the honor to address." It was a blow to the poor man: no one was ever so disconcerted. Flinging aside his novel, he put up his hands and began to scratch his head and think. It was beautiful to see him think, but it seemed to distress him and pointing significantly over the side of the raft I suggested as delicately as possible that it was time to act. He rose to his feet and fixing upon me a look of reproach which I shall remember as long as I can, cast himself into the deep. As to me—I escaped.
utorak, 19. kolovoza 2025.
ASSASSIN BY J. F. BONE - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/32237/pg32237-images.html
The aliens wooed Earth with gifts, love, patience and
peace.
Who could resist them? After all, no one shoots Santa
Claus!
This ship was named the Camel. In some ways she was an extraordinary vessel. She measured six hundred tons; but when she had taken in enough ballast to keep her from upsetting like a shot duck, and was provisioned for a three months' voyage, it was necessary to be mighty fastidious in the choice of freight and passengers. For illustration, as she was about to leave port a boat came alongside with two passengers, a man and his wife. They had booked the day before, but had remained ashore to get one more decent meal before committing themselves to the "briny cheap," as the man called the ship's fare. The woman came aboard, and the man was preparing to follow, when the captain leaned over the side and saw him. "Well," said the captain, "what do you want?" "What do I want?" said the man, laying hold of the ladder. "I'm a-going to embark in this here ship—that's what I want." "Not with all that fat on you," roared the captain. "You don't weigh an ounce less than eighteen stone, and I've got to have in my anchor yet. You wouldn't have me leave the anchor, I suppose?" The man said he did not care about the anchor—he was just as God had made him (he looked as if his cook had had something to do with it) and, sink or swim, he purposed embarking in that ship. A good deal of wrangling ensued, but one of the sailors finally threw the man a cork life-preserver, and the captain said that would lighten him and he might come abroad. This was Captain Abersouth, formerly of the Mudlark—as good a seaman as ever sat on the taffrail reading a three volume novel. Nothing could equal this man's passion for literature. For every voyage he laid in so many bales of novels that there was no stowage for the cargo. There were novels in the hold, and novels between-decks, and novels in the saloon, and in the passengers' beds. The Camel had been designed and built by her owner, an architect in the City, and she looked about as much like a ship as Noah's Ark did. She had bay windows and a veranda; a cornice and doors at the water-line. These doors had knockers and servant's bells. There had been a futile attempt at an area. The passenger saloon was on the upper deck, and had a tile roof. To this humplike structure the ship owed her name. Her designer had erected several churches—that of St. Ignotus is still used as a brewery in Hotbath Meadows—and, possessed of the ecclesiastic idea, had given the Camel a transept; but, finding this impeded her passage through the water, he had it removed. This weakened the vessel amidships. The mainmast was something like a steeple. It had a weathercock. From this spire the eye commanded one of the finest views in England. Such was the Camel when I joined her in 1864 for a voyage of discovery to the South Pole. The expedition was under the "auspices" of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Fair Play. At a meeting of this excellent association, it had been "resolved" that the partiality of science for the North Pole was an invidious distinction between two objects equally meritorious; that Nature had marked her disapproval of it in the case of Sir John Franklin and many of his imitators; that it served them very well right; that this enterprise should be undertaken as a protest against the spirit of undue bias; and, finally, that no part of the responsibility or expense should devolve upon the society in its corporate character, but any individual member might contribute to the fund if he were fool enough. It is only common justice to say that none of them was. The Camel merely parted her cable one day while I happened to be on board—drifted out of the harbor southward, followed by the execrations of all who knew her, and could not get back. In two months she had crossed the equator, and the heat began to grow insupportable. Suddenly we were becalmed. There had been a fine breeze up to three o'clock in the afternoon and the ship had made as much as two knots an hour when without a word of warning the sails began to belly the wrong way, owing to the impetus that the ship had acquired; and then, as this expired, they hung as limp and lifeless as the skirts of a clawhammer coat. The Camel not only stood stock still but moved a little backward toward England. Old Ben the boatswain said that he'd never knowed but one deader calm, and that, he explained, was when Preacher Jack, the reformed sailor, had got excited in a sermon in a seaman's chapel and shouted that the Archangel Michael would chuck the Dragon into the brig and give him a taste of the rope's-end, damn his eyes! We lay in this woful state for the better part of a year, when, growing impatient, the crew deputed me to look up the captain and see if something could not be done about it. I found him in a remote cobwebby corner between-decks, with a book in his hand. On one side of him, the cords newly cut, were three bales of "Ouida"; on the other a mountain of Miss M.E. Braddon towered above his head. He had finished "Ouida" and was tackling Miss Braddon. He was greatly changed. "Captain Abersouth," said I, rising on tiptoe so as to overlook the lower slopes of Mrs. Braddon, "will you be good enough to tell me how long this thing is going on?" "Can't say, I'm sure," he replied without pulling his eyes off the page. "They'll probably make up about the middle of the book. In the meantime old Pondronummus will foul his top-hamper and take out his papers for Looney Haven, and young Monshure de Boojower will come in for a million. Then if the proud and fair Angelica doesn't luff and come into his wake after pizening that sea lawyer, Thundermuzzle, I don't know nothing about the deeps and shallers of the human heart." I could not take so hopeful a view of the situation, and went on deck, feeling very much discouraged. I had no sooner got my head out than I observed that the ship was moving at a high rate of speed! We had on board a bullock and a Dutchman. The bullock was chained by the neck to the foremast, but the Dutchman was allowed a good deal of liberty, being shut up at night only. There was bad blood between the two—a feud of long standing, having its origin in the Dutchman's appetite for milk and the bullock's sense of personal dignity; the particular cause of offense it would be tedious to relate. Taking advantage of his enemy's afternoon siesta, the Dutchman had now managed to sneak by him, and had gone out on the bowsprit to fish. When the animal waked and saw the other creature enjoying himself he straddled his chain, leveled his horns, got his hind feet against the mast and laid a course for the offender. The chain was strong, the mast firm, and the ship, as Byron says, "walked the water like a thing of course." After that we kept the Dutchman right where he was, night and day, the old Camel making better speed than she had ever done in the most favorable gale. We held due south. We had now been a long time without sufficient food, particularly meat. We could spare neither the bullock nor the Dutchman; and the ship's carpenter, that traditional first aid to the famished, was a mere bag of bones. The fish would neither bite nor be bitten. Most of the running-tackle of the ship had been used for macaroni soup; all the leather work, our shoes included, had been devoured in omelettes; with oakum and tar we had made fairly supportable salad. After a brief experimental career as tripe the sails had departed this life forever. Only two courses remained from which to choose; we could eat one another, as is the etiquette of the sea, or partake of Captain Abersouth's novels. Dreadful alternative!—but a choice. And it is seldom, I think, that starving sailormen are offered a shipload of the best popular authors ready-roasted by the critics. We ate that fiction. The works that the captain had thrown aside lasted six months, for most of them were by the best-selling authors and were pretty tough. After they were gone—of course some had to be given to the bullock and the Dutchman—we stood by the captain, taking the other books from his hands as he finished them. Sometimes, when we were apparently at our last gasp, he would skip a whole page of moralizing, or a bit of description; and always, as soon as he clearly foresaw the dénoûement—which he generally did at about the middle of the second volume—the work was handed over to us without a word of repining. The effect of this diet was not unpleasant but remarkable. Physically, it sustained us; mentally, it exalted us; morally, it made us but a trifle worse than we were. We talked as no human beings ever talked before. Our wit was polished but without point. As in a stage broadsword combat, every cut has its parry, so in our conversation every remark suggested the reply, and this necessitated a certain rejoinder. The sequence once interrupted, the whole was bosh; when the thread was broken the beads were seen to be waxen and hollow. We made love to one another, and plotted darkly in the deepest obscurity of the hold. Each set of conspirators had its proper listener at the hatch. These, leaning too far over would bump their heads together and fight. Occasionally there was confusion amongst them: two or more would assert a right to overhear the same plot. I remember at one time the cook, the carpenter, the second assistant-surgeon, and an able seaman contended with handspikes for the honor of betraying my confidence. Once there were three masked murderers of the second watch bending at the same instant over the sleeping form of a cabin-boy, who had been heard to mutter, a week previously, that he had "Gold! gold!" the accumulation of eighty—yes, eighty—years' piracy on the high seas, while sitting as M.P. for the borough of Zaccheus-cum-Down, and attending church regularly. I saw the captain of the foretop surrounded by suitors for his hand, while he was himself fingering the edge of a packing-case, and singing an amorous ditty to a lady-love shaving at a mirror. Our diction consisted, in about equal parts, of classical allusion, quotation from the stable, simper from the scullery, cant from the clubs, and the technical slang of heraldry. We boasted much of ancestry, and admired the whiteness of our hands whenever the skin was visible through a fault in the grease and tar. Next to love, the vegetable kingdom, murder, arson, adultery and ritual, we talked most of art. The wooden figure-head of the Camel, representing a Guinea nigger detecting a bad smell, and the monochrome picture of two back-broken dolphins on the stern, acquired a new importance. The Dutchman had destroyed the nose of the one by kicking his toes against it, and the other was nearly obliterated by the slops of the cook; but each had its daily pilgrimage, and each constantly developed occult beauties of design and subtle excellences of execution. On the whole we were greatly altered; and if the supply of contemporary fiction had been equal to the demand, the Camel, I fear, would not have been strong enough to contain the moral and æsthetic forces fired by the maceration of the brains of authors in the gastric juices of sailors. Having now got the ship's literature off his mind into ours, the captain went on deck for the first time since leaving port. We were still steering the same course, and, taking his first observation of the sun, the captain discovered that we were in latitude 83° south. The heat was insufferable; the air was like the breath of a furnace within a furnace. The sea steamed like a boiling cauldron, and in the vapor our bodies were temptingly parboiled—our ultimate meal was preparing. Warped by the sun, the ship held both ends high out of the water; the deck of the forecastle was an inclined plane, on which the bullock labored at a disadvantage; but the bowsprit was now vertical and the Dutchman's tenure precarious. A thermometer hung against the mainmast, and we grouped ourselves about it as the captain went up to examine the register. "One hundred and ninety degrees Fahrenheit!" he muttered in evident astonishment. "Impossible!" Turning sharply about, he ran his eyes over us, and inquired in a peremptory tone, "who's been in command while I was runnin' my eye over that book?" "Well, captain," I replied, as respectfully as I knew how, "the fourth day out I had the unhappiness to be drawn into a dispute about a game of cards with your first and second officers. In the absence of those excellent seamen, sir, I thought it my duty to assume control of the ship." "Killed 'em, hey?" "Sir, they committed suicide by questioning the efficacy of four kings and an ace." "Well, you lubber, what have you to say in defense of this extraordinary weather?" "Sir, it is no fault of mine. We are far—very far south, and it is now the middle of July. The weather is uncomfortable, I admit; but considering the latitude and season, it is not, I protest, unseasonable." "Latitude and season!" he shrieked, livid with rage—"latitude and season! Why, you junk-rigged, flat-bottomed, meadow lugger, don't you know any better than that? Didn't yer little baby brother ever tell ye that southern latitudes is colder than northern, and that July is the middle o' winter here? Go below, you son of a scullion, or I'll break your bones!" "Oh! very well," I replied; "I'm not going to stay on deck and listen to such low language as that, I warn you. Have it your own way." The words had no sooner left my lips, than a piercing cold wind caused me to cast my eye upon the thermometer. In the new régime of science the mercury was descending rapidly; but in a moment the instrument was obscured by a blinding fall of snow. Towering icebergs rose from the water on every side, hanging their jagged masses hundreds of feet above the masthead, and shutting us completely in. The ship twisted and writhed; her decks bulged upward, and every timber groaned and cracked like the report of a pistol. The Camel was frozen fast. The jerk of her sudden stopping snapped the bullock's chain, and sent both that animal and the Dutchman over the bows, to accomplish their warfare on the ice. Elbowing my way forward to go below, as I had threatened, I saw the crew tumble to the deck on either hand like ten-pins. They were frozen stiff. Passing the captain, I asked him sneeringly how he liked the weather under the new régime. He replied with a vacant stare. The chill had penetrated to the brain, and affected his mind. He murmured: "In this delightful spot, happy in the world's esteem, and surrounded by all that makes existence dear, they passed the remainder of their lives. The End." His jaw dropped. The captain of the Camel was dead.
ponedjeljak, 18. kolovoza 2025.
FIRTH'S WORLD BY IRVING COX, JR. - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/59252/pg59252-images.html
His world was Utopia inhabited only by
wealthy, brilliant, creative, ambitious people;
it was the ultimate in freedom, exempt from
taxes, social problems, petty responsibilities....
As I left the house she said I was a cruel old thing, and not a bit nice, and she hoped I never, never would come back. So I shipped as mate on the Mudlark, bound from London to wherever the captain might think it expedient to sail. It had not been thought advisable to hamper Captain Abersouth with orders, for when he could not have his own way, it had been observed, he would contrive in some ingenious way to make the voyage unprofitable. The owners of the Mudlark had grown wise in their generation, and now let him do pretty much as he pleased, carrying such cargoes as he fancied to ports where the nicest women were. On the voyage of which I write he had taken no cargo at all; he said it would only make the Mudlark heavy and slow. To hear this mariner talk one would have supposed he did not know very much about commerce. We had a few passengers—not nearly so many as we had laid in basins and stewards for; for before coming off to the ship most of those who had bought tickets would inquire whither she was bound, and when not informed would go back to their hotels and send a bandit on board to remove their baggage. But there were enough left to be rather troublesome. They cultivated the rolling gait peculiar to sailors when drunk, and the upper deck was hardly wide enough for them to go from the forecastle to the binnacle to set their watches by the ship's compass. They were always petitioning Captain Abersouth to let the big anchor go, just to hear it plunge in the water, threatening in case of refusal to write to the newspapers. A favorite amusement with them was to sit in the lee of the bulwarks, relating their experiences in former voyages—voyages distinguished in every instance by two remarkable features, the frequency of unprecedented hurricanes and the entire immunity of the narrator from seasickness. It was very interesting to see them sitting in a row telling these things, each man with a basin between his legs. One day there arose a great storm. The sea walked over the ship as if it had never seen a ship before and meant to enjoy it all it could. The Mudlark labored very much—far more, indeed, than the crew did; for these innocents had discovered in possession of one of their number a pair of leather-seated trousers, and would do nothing but sit and play cards for them; in a month from leaving port each sailor had owned them a dozen times. They were so worn by being pushed over to the winner that there was little but the seat remaining, and that immortal part the captain finally kicked overboard—not maliciously, nor in an unfriendly spirit, but because he had a habit of kicking the seats of trousers. The storm increased in violence until it succeeded in so straining the Mudlark that she took in water like a teetotaler; then it appeared to get relief directly. This may be said in justice to a storm at sea: when it has broken off your masts, pulled out your rudder, carried away your boats and made a nice hole in some inaccessible part of your hull it will often go away in search of a fresh ship, leaving you to take such measures for your comfort as you may think fit. In our case the captain thought fit to sit on the taffrail reading a three-volume novel. Seeing he had got about half way through the second volume, at which point the lovers would naturally be involved in the most hopeless and heart-rending difficulties, I thought he would be in a particularly cheerful humor, so I approached him and informed him the ship was going down. "Well," said he, closing the book, but keeping his forefinger between the pages to mark his place, "she never would be good for much after such a shaking-up as this. But, I say—I wish you would just send the bo'sn for'd there to break up that prayer-meeting. The Mudlark isn't a seamen's chapel, I suppose." "But," I replied, impatiently, "can't something be done to lighten the ship?" "Well," he drawled, reflectively, "seeing she hasn't any masts left to cut away, nor any cargo to—stay, you might throw over some of the heaviest of the passengers if you think it would do any good." It was a happy thought—the intuition of genius. Walking rapidly forward to the foc'sle, which, being highest out of water, was crowded with passengers, I seized a stout old gentleman by the nape of the neck, pushed him up to the rail, and chucked him over. He did not touch the water: he fell on the apex of a cone of sharks which sprang up from the sea to meet him, their noses gathered to a point, their tails just clearing the surface. I think it unlikely that the old gentleman knew what disposition had been made of him. Next, I hurled over a woman and flung a fat baby to the wild winds. The former was sharked out of sight, the same as the old man; the latter divided amongst the gulls. I am relating these things exactly as they occurred. It would be very easy to make a fine story out of all this material—to tell how that, while I was engaged in lightening the ship, I was touched by the self-sacrificing spirit of a beautiful young woman, who, to save the life of her lover, pushed her aged mother forward to where I was operating, imploring me to take the old lady, but spare, O, spare her dear Henry. I might go on to set forth how that I not only did take the old lady, as requested, but immediately seized dear Henry, and sent him flying as far as I could to leeward, having first broken his back across the rail and pulled a double-fistful of his curly hair out. I might proceed to state that, feeling appeased, I then stole the long boat and taking the beautiful maiden pulled away from the ill-fated ship to the church of St. Massaker, Fiji, where we were united by a knot which I afterward untied with my teeth by eating her. But, in truth, nothing of all this occurred, and I can not afford to be the first writer to tell a lie just to interest the reader. What really did occur is this: as I stood on the quarter-deck, heaving over the passengers, one after another, Captain Abersouth, having finished his novel, walked aft and quietly hove me over. The sensations of a drowning man have been so often related that I shall only briefly explain that memory at once displayed her treasures: all the scenes of my eventful life crowded, though without confusion or fighting, into my mind. I saw my whole career spread out before me, like a map of Central Africa since the discovery of the gorilla. There were the cradle in which I had lain, as a child, stupefied with soothing syrups; the perambulator, seated in which and propelled from behind, I overthrew the schoolmaster, and in which my infantile spine received its curvature; the nursery-maid, surrendering her lips alternately to me and the gardener; the old home of my youth, with the ivy and the mortgage on it; my eldest brother, who by will succeeded to the family debts; my sister, who ran away with the Count von Pretzel, coachman to a most respectable New York family; my mother, standing in the attitude of a saint, pressing with both hands her prayer-book against the patent palpitators from Madame Fahertini's; my venerable father, sitting in his chimney corner, his silvered head bowed upon his breast, his withered hands crossed patiently in his lap, waiting with Christian resignation for death, and drunk as a lord—all this, and much more, came before my mind's eye, and there was no charge for admission to the show. Then there was a ringing sound in my ears, my senses swam better than I could, and as I sank down, down, through fathomless depths, the amber light falling through the water above my head failed and darkened into blackness. Suddenly my feet struck something firm—it was the bottom. Thank heaven, I was saved!
nedjelja, 17. kolovoza 2025.
Le Phénomène Futur Un ciel pâle, sur le monde qui finit de décrépitude, va peut-être partir avec les nuages: les lambeaux de la pourpre usée des couchants déteignent dans une rivière dormant à l'horizon submergé de rayons et d'eau. Les arbres s'ennuient; et, sous leur feuillage blanchi (de la poussière du temps, plutôt que de celle des chemins), monte la maison en toile du Montreur de choses Passées: maint réverbère attend le crépuscule et ravive les visages d'une malheureuse foule, vaincue par la maladie immortelle et le péché des siècles, d'hommes près de leurs chétives complices enceintes des fruits misérables avec lesquels périra la terre. Dans le silence inquiet de tous les yeux suppliant là-bas le soleil qui, sous l'eau, s'enfonce avec le désespoir d'un cri, voici le simple boniment: «Nulle enseigne ne vous régale du spectacle intérieur, car il n'est pas maintenant un peintre capable d'en donner une ombre triste. J'apporte, vivante (et préservée à travers les ans par la science souveraine) une Femme d'autrefois. Quelque folie, originelle et naïve, une extase d'or, je ne sais quoi! par elle nommé sa chevelure, se ploie avec la grâce des étoffes autour d'un visage qu'éclaire la nudité sanglante de ses lèvres. A la place du vêtement vain, elle a un corps; et les yeux, semblables aux pierres rares! ne valent pas ce regard qui sort de sa chair heureuse: des seins levés comme durs d'un lait éternel/la pointe vers le ciel, aux jambes lisses qui gardent le sel de la mer première.» Se rappelant leurs pauvres épouses, chauves, morbides et pleines d'horreur, les maris se pressent: elles aussi par curiosité, mélancoliques, veulent voir. Quand tous auront contemplé la noble créature, vestige de quelque époque déjà maudite, les uns indifférents, car ils n'auront pas eu la force de comprendre, mais d'autres navrés et la paupière humide de larmes résignées, se regarderont; tandis que les poëtes de ces temps, sentant se rallumer des yeux éteints, s'achemineront vers leur lampe, le cerveau ivre un instant d'une gloire confuse, hantés du Rythme et dans l'oubli d'exister à une époque qui survit à la beauté.
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subota, 16. kolovoza 2025.
When Joel Bird was up for Governor of Missouri, Sam Henly was editing the Berrywood Bugle; and no sooner was the nomination made by the State Convention than he came out hot against the party. He was an able writer, was Sam, and the lies he invented about our candidate were shocking! That, however, we endured very well, but presently Sam turned squarely about and began telling the truth. This was a little too much; the County Committee held a hasty meeting, and decided that it must be stopped; so I, Henry Barber, was sent for to make arrangements to that end. I knew something of Sam: had purchased him several times, and I estimated his present value at about one thousand dollars. This seemed to the committee a reasonable figure, and on my mentioning it to Sam he said "he thought that about the fair thing; it should never be said that the Bugle was a hard paper to deal with." There was, however, some delay in raising the money; the candidates for the local offices had not disposed of their autumn hogs yet, and were in financial straits. Some of them contributed a pig each, one gave twenty bushels of corn, another a flock of chickens; and the man who aspired to the distinction of County Judge paid his assessment with a wagon. These things had to be converted into cash at a ruinous sacrifice, and in the meantime Sam kept pouring an incessant stream of hot shot into our political camp. Nothing I could say would make him stay his hand; he invariably replied that it was no bargain until he had the money. The committeemen were furious; it required all my eloquence to prevent their declaring the contract null and void; but at last a new, clean one thousand-dollar note was passed over to me, which in hot haste I transferred to Sam at his residence. That evening there was a meeting of the committee: all seemed in high spirits again, except Hooker of Jayhawk. This old wretch sat back and shook his head during the entire session, and just before adjournment said, as he took his hat to go, that p'r'aps'twas orl right and on the squar'; maybe thar war'n't any shenannigan, but he war dubersome—yes, he war dubersome. The old curmudgeon repeated this until I was exasperated beyond restraint. "Mr. Hooker," said I, "I've known Sam Henly ever since he was so high, and there isn't an honester man in old Missouri. Sam Henly's word is as good as his note! What's more, if any gentleman thinks he would enjoy a first-class funeral, and if he will supply the sable accessories, I'll supply the corpse. And he can take it home with him from this meeting." At this point Mr. Hooker was troubled with leaving. Having got this business off my conscience I slept late next day. When I stepped into the street I saw at once that something was "up." There were knots of people gathered at the corners, some reading eagerly that morning's issue of the Bugle, some gesticulating, and others stalking moodily about muttering curses, not loud but deep. Suddenly I heard an excited clamor—a confused roar of many lungs, and the trampling of innumerable feet. In this babel of noises I could distinguish the words "Kill him!" "Wa'm his hide!" and so forth; and, looking up the street, I saw what seemed to be the whole male population racing down it. I am very excitable, and, though I did not know whose hide was to be warmed, nor why anyone was to be killed, I shot off in front of the howling masses, shouting "Kill him!" and "Warm his hide!" as loudly as the loudest, all the time looking out for the victim. Down the street we flew like a storm; then I turned a corner, thinking the scoundrel must have gone up that street; then bolted through a public square; over a bridge; under an arch; finally back into the main street; yelling like a panther, and resolved to slaughter the first human being I should overtake. The crowd followed my lead, turning as I turned, shrieking as I shrieked, and—all at once it came to me that I was the man whose hide was to be warmed! It is needless to dwell upon the sensation this discovery gave me; happily I was within a few yards of the committee-rooms, and into these I dashed, closing and bolting the doors behind me, and mounting the stairs like a flash. The committee was in solemn session, sitting in a nice, even row on the front benches, each man with his elbows on his knees, and his chin resting in the palms of his hands—thinking. At each man's feet lay a neglected copy of the Bugle. Every member fixed his eyes on me, but no one stirred, none uttered a sound. There was something awful in this preternatural silence, made more impressive by the hoarse murmur of the crowd outside, breaking down the door. I could endure it no longer, but strode forward and snatched up the paper lying at the feet of the chairman. At the head of the editorial columns, in letters half an inch long, were the following amazing head-lines: "Dastardly Outrage! Corruption Rampant in Our Midst! The Vampires Foiled! Henry Barber at his Old Game! The Rat Gnaws a File! The Democratic Hordes Attempt to Ride Roughshod Over a Free People! Base Endeavor to Bribe the Editor of this Paper with a Twenty-Dollar Note! The Money Given to the Orphan Asylum." I read no farther, but stood stockstill in the center of the floor, and fell into a reverie. Twenty dollars! Somehow it seemed a mere trifle. Nine hundred and eighty dollars! I did not know there was so much money in the world. Twenty—no, eighty—one thousand dollars! There were big, black figures floating all over the floor. Incessant cataracts of them poured down the walls, stopped, and shied off as I looked at them, and began to go it again when I lowered my eyes. Occasionally the figures 20 would take shape somewhere about the floor, and then the figures 980 would slide up and overlay them. Then, like the lean kine of Pharaoh's dream, they would all march away and devour the fat naughts of the number 1,000. And dancing like gnats in the air were myriads of little caduceus-like, phantoms, thus—$$$$$. I could not at all make it out, but began to comprehend my position directly Old Hooker, without moving from his seat, began to drown the noise of countless feet on the stairs by elevating his thin falsetto: "P'r'aps, Mr. Cheerman, it's orl on the squar'. We know Mr. Henly can't tell a lie; but I'm powerful dubersome that thar's a balyance dyue this yer committee from the gent who hez the flo'—if he ain't done gone laid it yout fo' sable ac—ac—fo' fyirst-class funerals." I felt at that moment as if I should like to play the leading character in a first-class funeral myself. I felt that every man in my position ought to have a nice, comfortable coffin, with a silver door-plate, a foot-warmer, and bay-windows for his ears. How do you suppose you would have felt? My leap from the window of that committee room, my speed in streaking it for the adjacent forest, my self-denial in ever afterward resisting the impulse to return to Berrywood and look after my political and material interests there—these I have always considered things to be justly proud of, and I hope I am proud of them.
petak, 15. kolovoza 2025.
While I was in Kansas I purchased a weekly newspaper—the Claybank Thundergust of Reform. This paper had never paid its expenses; it had ruined four consecutive publishers; but my brother-in-law, Mr. Jefferson Scandril, of Weedhaven, was going to run for the Legislature, and I naturally desired his defeat; so it became necessary to have an organ in Claybank to assist in his political extinction. When the establishment came into my hands, the editor was a fellow who had "opinions," and him I at once discharged with an admonition. I had some difficulty in procuring a successor; every man in the county applied for the place. I could not appoint one without having to fight a majority of the others, and was eventually compelled to write to a friend at Warm Springs, in the adjoining State of Missouri, to send me an editor from abroad whose instalment at the helm of manifest destiny could have no local significance. The man he sent me was a frowsy, seedy fellow, named Masthead—not larger, apparently, than a boy of sixteen years, though it was difficult to say from the outside how much of him was editor and how much cast-off clothing; for in the matter of apparel he had acted upon his favorite professional maxim, and "sunk the individual;" his attire—eminently eclectic, and in a sense international—quite overcame him at all points. However, as my friend had assured me he was "a graduate of one of the largest institutions in his native State," I took him in and bought a pen for him. My instructions to him were brief and simple. "Mr. Masthead," said I, "it is the policy of the Thundergust first, last, and all the time, in this world and the next, to resent the intrusion of Mr. Jefferson Scandril into politics." The first thing the little rascal did was to write a withering leader denouncing Mr. Scandril as a "demagogue, the degradation of whose political opinions was only equaled by the disgustfulness of the family connections of which those opinions were the spawn!" I hastened to point out to Mr. Masthead that it had never been the policy of the Thundergust to attack the family relations of an offensive candidate, although this was not strictly true. "I am very sorry," he replied, running his head up out of his clothes till it towered as much as six inches above the table at which he sat; "no offense, I hope." "Oh, none in the world," said I, as carelessly as I could manage it; "only I don't think it a legitimate—that is, an effective, method of attack." "Mr. Johnson," said he—I was passing as Johnson at that time, I remember—"Mr. Johnson, I think it is an effective method. Personally I might perhaps prefer another line of argument in this particular case, and personally perhaps you might; but in our profession personal considerations must be blown to the winds of the horizon; we must sink the individual. In opposing the election of your relative, sir, you have set the seal of your heavy displeasure upon the sin of nepotism, and for this I respect you; nepotism must be got under! But in the display of Roman virtues, sir, we must go the whole hog. When in the interest of public morality"—Mr. Masthead was now gesticulating earnestly with the sleeves of his coat—"Virginius stabbed his daughter, was he influenced by personal considerations? When Curtius leaped into the yawning gulf, did he not sink the individual?" I admitted that he did, but feeling in a contentious mood, prolonged the discussion by leisurely loading and capping a revolver; but, prescient of my argument, Mr. Masthead avoided refutation by hastily adjourning the debate. I sent him a note that evening, filling-in a few of the details of the policy that I had before sketched in outline. Amongst other things I submitted that it would be better for us to exalt Mr. Scandril's opponent than to degrade himself. To this Mr. Masthead reluctantly assented—"sinking the individual," he reproachfully explained, "in the dependent employee—the powerless bondsman!" The next issue of the Thundergust contained, under the heading, "Invigorating Zephyrs," the following editorial article: "Last week we declared our unalterable opposition to the candidacy of Mr. Jefferson Scandril, and gave reasons for the faith that is in us. For the first time in its history this paper made a clear, thoughtful, and adequate avowal and exposition of eternal principle! Abandoning for the present the stand we then took, let us trace the antecedents of Mr. Scandril's opponent up to their source. It has been urged against Mr. Broskin that he spent some years of his life in the lunatic asylum at Warm Springs, in the adjoining commonwealth of Missouri. This cuckoo cry—raised though it is by dogs of political darkness—we shall not stoop to controvert, for it is accidentally true; but next week we shall show, as by the stroke of an enchanter's wand, that this great statesman's detractors would probably not derive any benefits from a residence in the same institution, their mental aberration being rottenly incurable!" I thought this rather strong and not quite to the point; but Masthead said it was a fact that our candidate, who was very little known in Claybank, had "served a term" in the Warm Springs asylum, and the issue must be boldly met—that evasion and denial were but forms of prostration beneath the iron wheels of Truth! As he said this he seemed to inflate and expand so as almost to fill his clothes, and the fire of his eye somehow burned into me an impression—since effaced—that a just cause is not imperiled by a trifling concession to fact. So, leaving the matter quite in my editor's hands I went away to keep some important engagements, the paragraph having involved me in several duels with the friends of Mr. Broskin. I thought it rather hard that I should have to defend my new editor's policy against the supporters of my own candidate, particularly as I was clearly in the right and they knew nothing whatever about the matter in dispute, not one of them having ever before so much as heard of the now famous Warm Springs asylum. But I would not shirk even the humblest journalistic duty; I fought these fellows and acquitted myself as became a man of letters and a politician. The hurts I got were some time healing, and in the interval every prominent member of my party who came to Claybank to speak to the people regarded it as a simple duty to call first at my house, make a tender inquiry as to the progress of my recovery and leave a challenge. My physician forbade me to read a line of anything; the consequence was that Masthead had it all his own way with the paper. In looking over the old files now, I find that he devoted his entire talent and all the space of the paper, including what had been the advertising columns, to confessing that our candidate had been an inmate of a lunatic asylum, and contemptuously asking the opposing party what they were going to do about it. All this time Mr. Broskin made no sign; but when the challenges became intolerable I indignantly instructed Mr. Masthead to whip round to the other side and support my brother-in-law. Masthead "sank the individual," and duly announced, with his accustomed frankness, our change of policy. Then Mr. Broskin came down to Claybank—to thank me! He was a fine, respectable-looking gentleman, and impressed me very favorably. But Masthead was in when he called, and the effect upon him was different. He shrank into a mere heap of old clothes, turned white, and chattered his teeth. Noting this extraordinary behavior, I at once sought an explanation. "Mr. Broskin," said I, with a meaning glance at the trembling editor, "from certain indications I am led to fear that owing to some mistake we may have been doing you an injustice. May I ask you if you were really ever in the Lunatic asylum at Warm Springs, Missouri?" "For three years," he replied, quietly, "I was the physician in charge of that institution. Your son"—turning to Masthead, who was flying all sorts of colors—"was, if I mistake not, one of my patients. I learn that a few weeks ago a friend of yours, named Norton, secured the young man's release upon your promise to take care of him yourself in future. I hope that home associations have improved the poor fellow. It's very sad!" It was indeed. Norton was the name of the man to whom I had written for an editor, and who had sent me one! Norton was ever an obliging fellow.
četvrtak, 14. kolovoza 2025.
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