WHAT HAPPENED AT THE CHOOSING OF THE CASKETS, AND THE
CONCLUSION OF THE TALE.
As may be imagined, Albertine got into a condition of the most utter
despair when her father told her about the wretched lottery in which
her hand was to be the prize, and all her prayers and tears were
powerless to turn him from this idea, when he had once got it fairly
into his head. Then, besides this, Lehsen seemed indifferent and
indolent, in a way that nobody who really loved could be, not making
any attempt to see her privately, or even to send her a message.
On the Saturday night before the fateful Sunday she was sitting alone
in her room, as the twilight was deepening into night, her mind full of
the misfortune which was threatening her. She was calculating whether
or not it would be better to come to a speedy determination to fly from
her father's roof, rather than wait till the most fearful destiny
conceivable should accomplish itself, that of marrying either the
pedantic old Tussmann, or the insufferable Baron Benjie, and then she
remembered the mysterious Goldsmith, and the strange, supernatural way
in which he had prevented the Baron from touching her. She felt quite
sure that he had been on Edmund's side then; wherefore a hope began to
dawn in her heart that it must be on him that she should rely for help
at this crisis of her affairs. Above all things she wished that she
only could just have a little talk with him then and there; and was
quite sure that she shouldn't be at all frightened, really, if he were
to appear to her suddenly, in some strange, spectral sort of manner.
So that she really was not in the least frightened when she saw that
what she had been thinking was the stove was really Leonhard the
Goldsmith, who came up to her and said, in a gentle, harmonious
voice:--
"My dear child, lay aside all grief and anxiety. Edmund Lehsen, whom,
at present at all events, you believe you love, is a special _protégé_
of mine; and I am helping him with all the power at my command. Let me
further tell you that it was I who put the lottery idea into your
father's head; that I am going to provide and prepare the caskets, and,
of course, you see that no one but Edmund will find your portrait."
Albertine felt inclined to shout for joy. The Goldsmith continued:--
"I could have brought about the giving of your hand to Edmund in other
ways; but I particularly wish to make the two rivals, Tussmann and the
Baron, completely contented at the same time. So that that is going to
be done, and you and your father will be quite sure to have no more
trouble on their part."
Albertine poured forth the warmest expressions of gratitude. She almost
fell at his feet, she pressed his hand to her heart, she declared that,
notwithstanding all the magic tricks he had performed, nay, even after
the way he had come into her room, she wasn't in the least afraid of
him; and she concluded with the somewhat naive request that he would
tell her all about himself, and who he really was.
"My dear child," he answered, "it would not be by any means an easy
matter for me to tell you exactly who I am. Like many others, I know
much better whom I take other people for than what I really and truly
am myself. But I may tell you, my dear, that many think I am none other
than that Leonhard Turnhäuser the Goldsmith, who was such a famous
character at the court of the Elector Johann Georg, in the year 1580,
and who disappeared, none knew how or where, when envy and calumny
tried to ruin him; and if the members of the imaginative or romantic
school say that I am this Turnhäuser, a spectral being, you may imagine
what I have to suffer at the hands of the solid and enlightened portion
of the community, the respectable citizens, and the men of business,
who think they have something better to do than to bother their heads
about poetry and romance. Then, even the aesthetic people want to watch
me and dog my steps, just as the doctors and the divines did in Johann
Georg's time, and try to embitter and spoil whatever little modicum of
an existence I am able to lay claim to, as much as ever they can. My
dear girl, I see well enough already, that though I take all this
tremendous interest in young Edmund Lehsen and you, and turn up at
every corner like a regular _deux ex machina_, there will be plenty of
people of the same way of thinking with those of the aesthetic school,
who will never be able to swallow me, historically speaking, who will
never be able to bring themselves to believe that I ever really existed
at all. So that, just that I might manage to get something like a more
or less firm footing, I have never ventured to say, in so many words,
that I am Leonard Turnhäuser, the Goldsmith of the sixteenth century.
The folks in question are quite welcome to say, if they please, that I
am a clever conjurer, and find the explanations of every one of my
tricks (as they may style the phenomena and the results which I
produce) in Wieglieb's 'Natural Magic,' or some book of the kind. I
have still one more 'feat,' as they would call it, to perform, which
neither Philidor, nor Philadelphia, nor Cagliostro, nor any other
conjurer would be able to do, and which, being completely inexplicable,
must always remain a stumbling-block to the kind of people in question.
But I cannot help performing it, because it is indispensable to the
_dénouement_ of this Berlinese tale of the Choice of a Bride by three
personages, suitors for the hand of Miss Albertine Bosswinkel. So keep
up your heart, my dear child, rise to-morrow morning in good time, put
on the dress which you like the best, because it is the most becoming
you happen to have; do your hair in the way you think suits you best,
and then await, as quietly and patiently as you can, what will happen."
He disappeared exactly as he had come.
On the next day--the Sunday--at eleven o'clock--the appointed
time--there arrived at the place of rendezvous old Manasseh with his
hopeful nephew--Tussmann--and Edmund Lehsen with the Goldsmith. The
wooers, not excepting the Baron, were almost frightened when they saw
Albertine, who had never seemed so lovely and taking. I am in a
position to assure every lady, married or otherwise, who attaches the
proper amount of importance to dress, that the way in which Albertine's
was trimmed, and the material of the trimmings, were most elegant; that
the frock itself was just the right length to show her pretty little
feet in their white satin shoes; that the arms of it (short, of
course), and the corsage were bordered with the richest Point; that her
white French gloves came up to just the least little bit above her
elbows, showing her beautiful arm; that the only thing she had on her
head was a lovely gold comb set with jewels; in short, that her dress
was quite that of a bride, except that she had no myrtle wreath in her
bonny brown hair. But the reason why she was so much more beautiful
than she ever had been before was that love and hope beamed in her eyes
and bloomed on her cheeks.
Bosswinkel, in a burst of hospitality, had provided a splendid lunch.
Old Manasseh glowered at the table laid out for this repast with
malignant glances askance, and when the Commissionsrath begged him to
fall to, on his countenance could be read the answer of Shylock:--
"Yes, to smell pork, to eat of the habitation which your prophet, the
Nazarite, conjured the devil into. I will buy with you, sell with you,
talk with you, walk with you, and so following; but I will not eat with
you, drink with you, nor pray with you."
The Baron was less conscientious, for he ate more beefsteak than was
seemly, and talked a great deal of stupid nonsense, as was his wont.
The Commissionsrath behaved wholly contrarily to his nature on this
important occasion. Not only did he pour out bumpers of Port and
Madeira, regardless of expense, and even told the company that he had
some Madeira in his cellar a hundred years old; but when the luncheon
was over he explained to the suitors the method in which his daughter's
hand was to be disposed of in a speech much better put together than
anybody would ever have expected of him. They were given to understand
most clearly that the successful one must find her portrait in the
casket which he chose.
When twelve o'clock struck the door of the hall opened, and there was
seen in the middle of it a table with a rich cover on it, bearing the
three caskets.
One was of shining gold, with a circle of glittering ducats on its lid,
and the inscription inside them--
"Who chooseth me doth gain that which he much desires."
The second was of silver, richly chased. On its lid were many words and
letters of foreign languages, encircling this inscription--
"Who chooseth me doth find more than he hopes."
The third, plainly carved of ivory, was inscribed--
"Who chooseth me doth gain his dreamed-of bliss."
Albertine took her place on a chair behind the table, her father by her
side. Manasseh and the Goldsmith drew away into the background.
The lots were drawn, and, Tussmann having the first choice, the Baron
and Edmund had to go into the other room.
The Clerk of the Privy Chancery went carefully and considerately up to
the table, looked at the caskets with much minuteness of observation,
read the inscriptions on them one after another. Soon he found himself
irresistibly attracted by the beautiful characters of foreign languages
so charmingly intertwined on the cover of the silver casket.
"Good heavens!" he cried, "what beautiful lettering, with what skill
those Arabic characters are brought in amongst the Roman letters, and
'Who chooseth me doth gain more than he hopes.' Now have I gone on
cherishing the slightest hope that Miss Albertine would be so gracious
as to honour me with her hand? wasn't I going to throw myself into the
basin? Evidently here is comfort, here is good fortune.
Commissionsrath! Miss Albertine! I choose the silver one."
Albertine rose and handed him a little key, with which he opened the
casket. Great was his consternation to find, not Albertine's portrait,
but a little book bound in parchment, which, when he opened it,
appeared to consist of blank white pages. Beside it lay a little scrap
of paper, with the words--
"Thy choice was, in a way, amiss,
But those few words do tell thee this--
What thou hast won will never alter,
To use it thou needs't never falter.
What 'tis as yet thou dost not see,
An endless source of joy 'twill be.
_Ignorantiam_ 'twill enlighten,
_Sapientiam_ further brighten."
"Good heavens!" cried Tussmann, "it's a book. Yet, no, it's not a book,
and there's nothing in the shape of a portrait. It's merely a lot of
paper bound up together; my hopes are dashed to earth, all is over with
me now. All I have got to do is to be off to the frog-pond as quickly
as I can."
But as he was hurrying away the Goldsmith stopped him, and said--
"Tussmann, you're very foolish; you've got hold of the most priceless
treasure you could possibly have come across. Those lines of verse
ought to have told you so at once. Do me the favour to put that book
which you found in the casket into your pocket."
Tussmann did so.
"Now," said the Goldsmith, "think of some book or other which you would
wish that you had in your pocket at this moment."
"Oh, my goodness," said Tussmann, "I went and shied Thomasius's little
treatise on 'Diplomatic Acumen' into the frog-pond, like an utter fool
as I was."
"Put your hand in your pocket," said the Goldsmith, "and take out the
book."
Tussmann did so, and lo, the book which he brought out was none other
than Thomasius's treatise!
"Ha!" cried Tussmann, "what is this? Why it is Thomasius's treatise, my
beloved Thomasius, rescued from the congregation of frogs in the pond,
who would never have learned diplomatic acumen from him."
"Keep yourself calm," the Goldsmith said; "put the book into your
pocket again."
Tussmann did so.
"Think of some other rare work," the Goldsmith said: "one which you
have never been able to come across in any library."
"Oh, good gracious!" cried Tussmann in melancholy accents. "I have
been, you see, in the habit of sometimes going to the opera, so that I
have wanted, very much, to ground myself a little in the theory of
music, and I have been trying in vain hitherto to get hold of a copy of
a certain little treatise which explains the arts of the composer and
the performer, in an allegorical form. I mean Johann Beer's 'Musical
War,' an account of the contest between composition and harmony, which
are represented under the guise of two heroines, who do battle with
each other, and end by being completely reconciled."
"Feel in your pocket," said the Goldsmith; and the Clerk of the Privy
Chancery shouted with joy when he found that his paper book now
consisted of Johann Beer's 'Musical War.'
"You see now, do you not," said the Goldsmith, "that in the book which
you found in the casket you possess the finest and most complete
library that anybody ever had? and more than that, you take it about
with you in your pocket. For, while you have this remarkable book in
your pocket, it will always be whatever book you happen to want to
read, as soon as you take it out."
Without wasting a thought on Albertine or the Commissionsrath, Tussmann
went and sat down in an armchair in a corner, stuck the book into his
pocket, pulled it out again, and it was easy to see, by the delight in
his countenance, how completely the Goldsmith's promise had been
fulfilled.
It was the Baron's turn next. He came strolling up to the table in his
foolish, loutish manner, looked at the caskets through his eyeglass,
and murmured out the inscriptions one after the other. But soon a
natural, inborn, irresistible instinct drew him to the gold casket,
with the shining ducats on its lid. "Who chooseth me doth gain that
which he much desires." "Certainly ducats are what I much desire, and
Albertine is what I much desire. I don't see much good in bothering
over this."
So he grasped the golden casket; took its key from Albertine, opened
it, and found a nice little English file! Beside it lay a piece of
paper with the words:--
"Now thou hast the thing thy heart
Longed for, with the keenest smart.
All besides is mere parade.
Onward--never retrograde--
Moves a truly thriving Trade."
"And what the Devil's the use of this thing?" Benjie cried, surveying
the file. "It isn't Albertine's picture, you know; however, I shall
hold on to the casket; it'll be a wedding-present to Albertine. Come to
me, dearest child!" With which he was making straight for Albertine;
but the Goldsmith held him back by the shoulders, saying--
"Stop, my good sir; that's not in the bargain: you must content
yourself with the file. And you will be content with it, when you find
out what a treasure it is. In fact, the paper tells you, if you can
understand it. Have you got a worn ducat in your pocket?"
"Well," said Benjie, angrily, "and what then?"
"Out with it," the Goldsmith said, "and try the file on the edge of
it."
The Baron did so, with an amount of skill which told of much previous
practice; and the more ducats he filed at--for he tried a good many,
one after another--the fresher the edges of them came out.
Up to this point Manasseh had been looking on in silence at what was
transpiring; but here he jumped up, with eyes sparkling wildly, and
dashed at his nephew, crying, in a hollow, terrible voice--
"God of my Fathers! what do I see? Give me that file!--here with it
instantly! It is the piece of magic-work for which I sold my soul more
than three hundred years ago. God of my Fathers!--hand it over to me!"
And he made at his nephew to take it from him; but Benjie pushed him
back, crying, "Go to the Deuce, you old idiot! It was I who found the
file, not you!"
To which Manasseh responded, in fury: "Viper! Worm-eaten fruit of my
race!--Here with that file! All the Demons of Hell be upon you,
accursed thief!"
Manasseh clutched hold of the Baron, with a torrent of Hebrew curses,
and foaming and gnashing his teeth, he exerted all the strength at his
command to wrest the file from him. But Benjie fought for it as a
lioness does for her cubs, till at length Manasseh was worn out; on
which his nephew seized him by the shoulders and threw him out of the
door, with such force that all his limbs cracked again. Then, coming
back like a flash of lightning, he shoved a small table into a corner,
and sitting down there, opposite to the Clerk of the Privy Chancery,
took a handful of ducats from his pocket, and set to work to file away
at them as hard as he could.
"Now," said the Goldsmith, "we have seen the last of that terrible
Manasseh. He is off our hands, for good and all. People say he is a
second Ahasuerus, and has been going spooking about since the year
1572. That was the year in which he was put to death for diabolical
practices and sorcery, under the name of Lippolt, the Jew-coiner. But
the Devil saved his body from death at the price of his immortal soul.
Many folk who understand those things say they have seen him in Berlin
in a good many forms; so that, if all tales are true, there are a good
number of Lippolts at the present time about. However, I, who have a
certain amount of experience in those mysterious matters, can assure
you that I have given him his quietus."
It would weary you very needlessly, dear reader, were I to waste words
in telling you what you know quite well; namely, that Edmund Lehsen
chose the ivory casket, inscribed--
"Who chooseth me doth gain his dreamed-of bliss,"
and found in it a beautiful portrait of Albertine, with the lines--
"Yes--thou hast it--read thy chance
In thy darling's loving glance.
What has past returns no more--
Earthly fate so willeth this.
All the joy which lies _before_
Gather from thy sweetheart's kiss."
And Edmund, like Bassanio, followed the counsel of the last line, and
pressed his blushing sweetheart to his breast, and kissed her glowing
lips; whilst the Commissionsrath greatly rejoiced, and was full
of happiness over this happy _dénouement_ of this most involved
love-affair.
Meanwhile the Baron had been filing at ducats quite as eagerly and
absorbedly as the Clerk of the Privy Chancery had been reading, neither
of them taking the slightest notice of what had been going on, till the
Commissionsrath announced, in a loud voice, that Edmund Lehsen had
chosen the casket containing Albertine's portrait, and was,
consequently, to be her husband. Tussmann seemed to be quite delighted
to hear it, and expressed his satisfaction in his usual manner, by
rubbing his hands, jumping a little way up and down for a moment or
two, and giving a delicate little laugh. The Baron seemed to feel no
further interest about the matter; but he embraced the Commissionsrath;
said he was a real "gentleman" and had made him most utterly happy by
his present of the file, and told him that he could always count upon
him, in all circumstances. With which he took his departure.
Tussmann, too, thanked him, with tears of the most heartfelt emotion,
for making him the happiest of men by this most rare and wonderful of
all rare and wonderful books; and, after the most profuse expenditure
of politeness to Albertine, Edmund, and the old Goldsmith, he followed
the Baron as quickly as ever he could.
Benjie ceased to torture the world of letters with literary abortions,
as he had formerly done, preferring to employ his time in filing
ducats; and Tussmann no longer made the booksellers' lives a burden to
them by pestering them to hunt out old forgotten books for him.
But when a few weeks of rapture and happiness had passed, a great and
bitter sorrow took possession of the Commissionsrath's house. For the
Goldsmith urged, in the strongest terms, upon Edmund that for his own
sake, and for the sake of his art, he was bound to keep his solemn
promise and go to Italy.
Edmund, notwithstanding the dreadful parting from Albertine, felt the
strongest possible impulse urging him towards the country of the arts;
and, although Albertine shed the bitterest tears, she could not help
thinking how very nice it would be to be able to take out letters from
her lover at Rome, and read them out--or extracts from them--at
aesthetic teas of an afternoon.
Edmund has been in Rome now more than a year, and people do say that
his correspondence with Albertine languishes, and that the letters are
becoming rarer and colder. Who knows whether or not anything will ever
come, ultimately, of the engagement between those two people? Certainly
Albertine won't be long "in the market" in any case; she is so pretty,
and so well off. Just at present, there is young Mr. Gloria (just going
to be called to the bar), a very nice young gentleman indeed, with a
slim and tightly-girded waist, a couple of waistcoats on at once, and a
cravat tied in the English style; and he danced all last season with
Albertine, and is to be seen now going continually with her to the
Thiergarten, whilst the Commissionsrath trots very complacently after
them, looking like a satisfied father. Moreover, Mr. Gloria has passed
his second examination at the Supreme Court with flying colours.
"So perhaps he and Albertine may make a match of it, should he get a
fairly good appointment. There's no telling. Let us see what happens."
"You have certainly written a wonderfully crack-brained thing in that,"
Ottmar said, when Lothair had finished. "This 'Tale containing
improbable incidents,' as you have called it, appears to me to be a
kind of mosaic, composed of all kinds of stones put together at random,
which dazzles and confuses one's eyes so that they can't take firm hold
of any definite figure."
"As far as I am concerned," Theodore said, "I must confess that I think
a great deal of it is exceedingly delightful, and that it might very
likely have been a very superior production, if Lothair hadn't, most
imprudently, gone and read Hafftitz. The consequence of this was that
those two practitioners of the black art, the Goldsmith and the
Jew-coiner, had to be brought into the story somehow, willy-nilly; and
thus those two unfortunate revenants make their appearance as
heterogeneous elements, working, with their sorceries, in an
unnaturally constrained manner among the incidents of the tale. It is
well your story hasn't been printed, or you would have been hauled over
the coals by the critics."
"Wouldn't it do to light up the pages of a Berlin Almanack?" the Author
asked, with one of his ironical smiles. "Of course I should still more
localize the localities, and add a few names of celebrities, and so
gain a little applause from the literary-aesthetic, if from nobody
else.[2]
[Footnote 2: "This speech of Lothair's shows what the Author had in his
mind at the time. The tale _did_ appear in the Berlin Almanack of 1820,
with additional localities, and names of celebrities in the Art-World,
but the publishers told him he ought to try to keep within the bounds
of 'probability,' in future."--(Note of Editor of Collected Works.)]
"However, all the same, my dear friends, did you not laugh heartily
enough at times, as I was reading it? and ought that not to deprive
your criticism of some of its severity? If you, Ottmar, say my tale is
a mosaic, you might admit that it has something of a Kaleidoscope
character, in spite of its crackiness, and that its matters, though
most adventitiously shaken together, do ultimately form more or less
interesting combinations. At all events, you surely admit that there
are one or two good characters in my story, and at the head of them,
the love-stricken Baron Benjie, that worthy scion of the Jew-coiner
race of Lippolts; however, we've had far too much of my piece of
patchwork, which was only intended to amuse you for a moment as a
_bizarre_ jest. What I would have you notice is that I have been
faithful to my principle of welding on the Legendary to the every-day
life of the present day."
"And," said Theodore, "I am a great adherent of that principle. It used
to be supposed to be necessary to localize everything of the legendary
kind in the remote East, taking Scheherezade as the model in so doing;
and, as soon as we touched upon the manners, the customs, the ways of
life of the East, we got into a world which was apparently hovering,
adrift, all in a sort of unreality, anchorless, before our eyes, on the
point of floating away and disappearing. This is why those tales so
often strike coldly on us, and have no power to kindle the inner
spirit--the fancy. What I think, and mean, is, that the foot of the
heavenly ladder, which we have got to mount in order to reach the
higher regions, has to be fixed firmly in every-day life, so that
everybody may be able to climb up it along with us. When people then
find that they have got climbed up higher and higher into a marvellous,
magical world, they will feel that that realm, too, belongs to their
ordinary, every-day life, and is, merely, the wonderful and most
glorious part thereof. For them it is the beautiful flower-garden
beyond the city-wall into which they can go, and in which they can
wander and enjoy themselves, if they have but made up their minds to
quit the gloomy walls of the city, for a time."
"Don't forget, though, Theodore, my friend," said Ottmar, "that there
are quantities of people who won't go up the ladder at all, because it
isn't 'proper' or 'becoming.' And many turn giddy by the time they get
to the third rung of it. Many never see the ladder at all, though it is
facing them in the broad, daily path of their lives, and they pass by
it every day. As regards the tales of the 'Thousand and One Nights,' it
is remarkable enough that most of those who have tried to imitate them
have overlooked that which is just what gives them life and reality--
exactly what Lothair's principle is. All the cobblers, tailors,
dervishes, merchants, and so forth, who appear as the characters in
those tales, are people who are to be met with every day in the
streets. And--inasmuch as life is independent of times and manners, but
is always the same affair--in its essential conditions (and always must
be so), it follows that we feel that all those folks--upon whom, in the
middle of their everyday lives, such extraordinary and magical
adventures came, and such spells wound themselves--are really the sort
of people who are actually walking about amongst us. Such is the
marvellous, mighty power of description, characterization, and
representation in that immortal book."
As the evening was fast growing colder, it was thought advisable--on
account of Theodore's having but half recovered from his late
illness--that the friends should go to the great summer-house, and
indulge in a cup of refreshing tea, in place of anything more exciting.
And when the urn was on the table, singing its usual little domestic
tune, Ottmar said--
"I don't think I could have a better opportunity for reading you a
tale which I wrote a long while ago, and which happens to begin with
tea-drinking. I mention, to begin with, that it is in Cyprian's style."
Ottmar read--
THE UNCANNY GUEST.
A storm was raging through the heavens, announcing the coming of
winter, whirling black clouds on its wings, which dashed down hissing,
rattling squall-showers of rain and hail.
"Nobody will come to-night," said Madame von G. to her daughter
Angelica, as the clock struck seven. "They would never venture out in
such weather. If your father were but home!"
Almost as she was speaking, in came Captain Moritz von E. (a cavalry
officer), followed by a young Barrister, whose brilliant and
inexhaustible fund of humour and wit was the life and soul of the
circle which was accustomed to assemble every Thursday evening in
Colonel von G.'s house. So that, as Angelica said, there was little
cause to be sorry that the less intimate members of the circle were
away, seeing that the more welcome ones had come.
It felt very chilly in the drawing-room. The lady of the house had had
a fire lighted, and the tea-table brought.
"I am sure," she said, "that you two gentlemen, who have been so
courageous as to come to see us tonight through such a storm, can
never be content with our wretched tea. Mademoiselle Marguerite shall
make you a brew of that good, northern beverage which can keep any
sort of weather out." Marguerite--a young French lady, who was
"companion" to Angelica, for the sake of her language, and other
lady-like accomplishments, but who was only about her own age, or
barely more--came, and performed the duty thus entrusted to her. So the
punch steamed, while the fire sparkled and blazed; and the company sate
down round the little tea-table.
A shiver suddenly passed through them--through each and all of them;
and they felt chilled. Though they had been talking merrily before they
sat down, there fell now upon them a momentary silence, during which
the strange voices which the storm had called into life in the chimney
whistled and howled with marvellous distinctness.
"There can be no doubt," said Dagobert (the young barrister), "that the
four ingredients, Autumn, a stormy Wind, a good fire, and a jorum of
punch, have, when taken together, a strange power of causing people to
experience a curious sense of awesomeness."
"A very pleasant one, though," said Angelica. "At all events, I do not
know a more delightful sensation than the sort of strange shiveriness
which goes through one when one feels--heaven knows how, or why--as if
one were suddenly casting a glance, with one's eyes open, into some
strange, mystic dream-world."
"Exactly," said Dagobert; "that delicious shiveriness was exactly what
came over all of us just now; and the glance into the dream-world,
which we were involuntarily making at that moment, made us all silent.
It is well for us that we have got it over, and that we have come back
so quickly from the dream-world to this charming reality, which
provides us with this grand liquid." He rose, and, bowing politely to
Madame von G., emptied the glass before him.
"But," Moritz said, "if you felt all the deliciousness of that species
of shudder, and of the dreamy condition accompanying it (as Miss
Angelica and I did), why shouldn't you be glad to prolong it?"
"Let me say, my dear friend," Dagobert answered, "that the kind of
dreaminess which we have to do with in this instance is not that in
which the mind, or spirit, goes losing and sinking itself in all kinds
of vague labyrinths of complexity of wondrous, calm enjoyment. The
storm-wind, the blazing fire, and the punch are only the predisposing
causes of the onsetting of that incomprehensible, mysterious
condition--deeply grounded in our human organism--which our minds
strive, in vain, to fight against, and which we ought to take great
care not to allow ourselves to yield to over much. What I mean is, the
fear of the supernatural. We all know that the uncanny race of ghosts,
the haunters, choose the night (and particularly in stormy weather), to
arise from their darksome dwellings, and set forth upon their
mysterious wanderings. So that we are right in expecting some of those
fearsome visitants just at a time like this."
"You do not mean what you say, of course," Madame von G. answered; "and
I need not tell you that the sort of superstitious fear which we so
often, in a childish way, feel, is not in any degree inherent in our
organization as human beings. I am certain that it is chiefly traceable
to the foolish stories of ghosts, and so forth, which servants tell us
while we are children."
"No, Madame," Dagobert answered; "those tales--which we enjoyed more
than any others which we heard as children--would never have raised up
such an enduring echo in us if the strings which re-echo them had not
existed within us to begin with. There is no denying the existence of
the mysterious spirit-world which lies all around us, and often gives
us note of its Being in wondrous, mystic sounds, and even in marvellous
sights. Most probably the shudder of awe with which we receive those
intimations of that spirit-world, and the involuntary fear which
they produce in us, are nothing but the result of our being hemmed
in--imprisoned--by our human organization. The awe and the fear are
merely the modes in which the spirit imprisoned within our bodies
expresses its sorrow thereat."
"You are a spirit-seer, a believer in all those things--like all people
who have lively imaginations," said Madame von G. "But if I were to go
the length of admitting, and believing, that it is permitted that an
unknown spirit-world should reveal its existence to us by means of
sounds and sights, I should still have to say that I am unable to
comprehend why that mysterious realm, and its denizens, should stand in
such a relation to us that they bring merely paralyzing fear and horror
upon us."
"Perhaps," Dagobert said, "it is the punishment inflicted on us by that
mother from whose care and discipline we have run away. I mean, that in
that golden age when our race was living in the most perfect union with
all nature, no dread or terror disturbed us, for the simple reason that
in the profound peace and perfect harmony of all created things, there
was nothing hostile that could cause us any such emotion. I was
mentioning strange spirit-sounds; but why is it that all the real
_nature_-tones--of whose origin and causes we can give the most
complete account--sound to us like the most piercing sorrow, and fill
our hearts with the profoundest dread? The most remarkable of those
nature-tones is the air-music, or, as it is called, the 'devil-voice,'
heard in Ceylon and the neighbouring countries, spoken of by Schubert
in his 'Glances at the Night-side of Natural Science.' This nature-tone
is heard on calm and bright nights, sounding like the wail of some
human creature lamenting in the deepest distress. It seems to come
sometimes from the most remote distance, and then again to be quite
close at hand. It affects the human intelligence so powerfully that the
most self-controlled cannot help feeling the deepest terror when they
hear it."
"Yes," said Moritz, "it is so. I have never been in Ceylon, certainly,
or in any of the neighbouring countries; but I have heard that terrible
nature-sound; and not only I, but every one else who heard it, felt
just that precise effect which Dagobert alludes to."
"I should be extremely obliged to you," said Dagobert, "and you would
probably convince Madame von G. also, if you would not mind telling us
what happened."
"You know," Moritz said, "that I served the campaign in Spain under
Wellington, with a mixed force of English and Spanish cavalry against
the French. The night before the battle of Vittoria I was bivouacking
in the open country. Being wearied to death by the long march we had
made during the day, I had fallen into a deep sleep of exhaustion, when
I was awakened by a piercing cry of distress. I naturally thought--and
it was the only idea that came into my mind--that what I heard was the
death-cry of some wounded soldier near me; but the comrades who were
lying round me were all snoring, and there was no other sound to be
heard. The first gleams of the dawn were breaking through the deep
darkness, and I got up and strode away over the bodies of the sleepers,
thinking that I might perhaps come across the wounded man, whoever he
was, who had uttered that cry. It was a singularly calm night, and
only most gradually and imperceptibly did the morning breeze begin to
move, and to cause the leaves to tremble. Then a second cry, like the
former--a long wail of woe--came ringing through the air, and died away
in the remotest distance. It was as though the spirits of the slain
were rising up from the battlefield, and wailing their boundless sorrow
out into the wide heaven. My breast throbbed, was overwhelmed by an
inexpressible awe; all the sorrow which I had ever heard exhaled from
all human breasts was nothing in comparison with that heart-piercing
wail. Our comrades now awoke from their sleep, and, for the third time,
that terrible cry of sorrow arose, and filled the whole air, more
fearful and awful than before. We were all smitten with the profoundest
fear; even the horses were terrified; they snorted and stamped. Many of
the Spaniards fell on their knees and prayed aloud. One of the English
officers told us that he had several times met with this phenomenon in
southern countries; and that it was of electrical origin, and there
would probably be a change in the weather. The Spaniards, with their
bent towards the supernatural, heard in it the mighty voices of
supernatural beings, announcing great events about to happen. In this
they were confirmed when, next day, the battle came thundering in upon
them, with all its horrors."
"Is there any occasion." Dagobert said, "to go to Ceylon, or to Spain,
to hear these marvellous Nature-tones of sorrow and complaining? Surely
the howling of the storm-wind, the rattling of the hail, the groanings
and creakings of the vanes are just as capable of filling us with
profound terror as are those other Nature-tones we have been speaking
of. Listen to that weird music which some hundreds of fearful voices
are organing down this chimney; or to the strange little spirit-like
ditty which the tea-urn is just beginning to sing."
"Oh! most ingenious indeed!" cried Madame von G. "Even into the very
tea-urn Dagobert conjures spirits which render themselves cognisable to
us by fearful cries of woe."
"But he is not far wrong, dear mother!" Angelica said. "I could very
soon be seriously frightened at the extraordinary way in which that
whistling, and rattling, and hissing is going on in the chimney; and
the little tune which the tea-urn is singing, in such a tone of
profound sorrow, is--to me--so eery and uncomfortable, that I shall go
and blow out the spirit lamp, that there may be an end of it at once."
Angelica rose: her handkerchief fell. Moritz quickly picked it up and
handed it to her. She allowed a glance, full of soul, from her heavenly
eyes to rest upon him; he took her hand, and pressed it fervently to
his lips.
At that moment Marguerite shuddered convulsively, as if touched by some
electric current, and allowed the glass of punch, which she had just
poured out for Dagobert, to drop from her hand. It shattered to atoms
on the floor. She cast herself down at Madame von G.'s feet sobbing
bitterly--said she was a stupid creature, and implored that she might
be allowed to go to her room. She said that what they had been talking
about had made her frightened and nervous--although she had not
understood it; that she felt frightened still--as if she could not stay
in the room--though she could not explain why; that she was feeling
unwell, and would like to get to bed. So saying, she kissed Madame von
G.'s hands, and bedewed them with the tears she was shedding.
Dagobert felt the painfulness of the incident, and the necessity of
giving matters a different turn. He, too, fell at Madame von G.'s feet,
and in the most pathetic voice at his command, begged forgiveness for
the culprit. As regarded the stain of punch on the floor, he vowed that
he would put waxed brushes on his feet in the morning, and go figuring
athwart the boards in the most exquisite tours, and steps that ever
inspired the brain of a court dancing-master.
Madame von G., who had at first been looking very grave over
Marguerite's mishap, strange as it seemed, and inexplicable, cleared up
a little at Dagobert's words. She gave each of them her hand with a
smile and said, "Rise, and wipe away your tears. You are forgiven,
Marguerite; you have this champion of yours to thank that I do not
inflict a very severe punishment upon you. But I can't let you go
altogether scot free. If you _are_ a little out of sorts, you must try
to forget it. I shall ordain you to stay here, be more assiduous than
before at filling the gentlemen's glasses with the punch, and, above
all things, you must reward your champion and defender with a kiss, in
token of your sincere gratitude."
"So that Virtue is its own reward," Dagobert said, with a comic pathos,
as he took Marguerite's hand. "All I ask of you, beauteous lady," he
continued, "is to believe that the world contains (though you might be
sceptical on the subject) legal luminaries of such a heroic sort that
they do not hesitate a moment to offer themselves up a sacrifice at the
shrine of Innocence and Truth. But we must obey the commands of our
fair judge, from whose award there is no appeal." And he impressed a
fugitive kiss upon Marguerite's lips, and then led her back to her seat
with much solemnity. Marguerite, blushing like a rose, laughed very
heartily; but the bright tears still stood in her eyes.
"Stupid fool that I am," she cried in French, "have I not got to do
whatever Madame von G. bids me? I will keep perfectly calm. I will go
on making their punch. I will listen to their ghost-stories without
being in the least afraid."
"Bravo, angelic child," cried Dagobert. "My heroism has infected you,
and the sweetness of your lips has inspired _me_. My imagination has
unfolded new wings, and I feel ready to serve up the most awful events
and mysteries from the 'Regno di Pianto.'"
"I thought we had done with this unpleasant subject," said Madame von
G.
"Oh no, mother dear," cried Angelica eagerly; "please to let Dagobert
go on! I am exactly like a child about those things. I don't know
anything I so delight in as a nice ghost story--something that makes
all one's flesh creep."
"Oh, how I _do_ like that!" Dagobert cried. "Nothing is so utterly
delightful in young ladies as their being tremendously superstitious,
and easily frightened; and I should never dream of marrying a woman who
was not terribly afraid of ghosts."
"You were saying a little while ago, dear Dagobert," said Moritz, "that
we ought to guard ourselves against--or take care how we allow
ourselves to get into--that dreamy state of awe which is the
commencement of spirit-fear--the dread of the superhuman, the ghostly
world. You have still got to explain to us the _why_."
"If there is, at the commencement of it, any real cause for that sense
of awesomeness--which is at first so thoroughly blended up with the
_dreamily_ pleasurable--it by no means remains at that stage. Soon
there supervenes a deadly fear--a horror which makes the hair stand on
end; so that the said pleasurable feeling at the commencement would
seem to be the fascination of temptation with which the Spirit World
lures us on and ensnares us. We were talking of certain Nature-tones
which are capable of explanation, and of their fearsome effect upon our
senses. But we at times hear sounds more extraordinary, of which the
origin and cause are indiscoverable by us, and which produce in us the
profoundest awe and terror. All reassuring ideas--such as that they
proceed from some animal in pain, or are produced by currents of air,
or other natural causes--are useless and of no avail. Every one, I
presume, has experienced that, in the night, the very faintest sound,
if only it occurs at regular intervals with pauses between, completely
drives away sleep, and goes on increasingly stirring up one's inward
disquiet till it reaches the point of complete disorganization of the
faculties. Not very long ago I had to spend a night, on a journey, at
an inn, where the landlord put me in a nice, comfortable, lofty, airy
bedroom. In the middle of the night I started up from my sleep, wide
awake. The moon was shining brightly in at the window, which was
uncurtained, so that I could see every article of the furniture, and
even the minutest objects in the room. There was a sound as of water
dropping into some metallic dish. I lay and listened. The drops went on
falling at regular, measured intervals, drip, drip, drip. My dog, who
was lying under the bed, crept out, and went about the room whimpering
and crying, scratching on the walls and on the floor. I felt as if
streams of icy water were running all through me, and the cold
perspiration dripped from my brow. However, I collected myself by a
great effort, and--after first of all giving a good loud shout--I got
out of bed, and went forward to the middle of the room. There the drops
seemed to be falling close in front of me, or rather I should say
_right through_ me into the metal, of which I heard the reverberation
ringing loud and clear as they fell. Then, overcome by terror, I crept
back, somehow, to the bed, and covered myself up with the bedclothes.
And then it seemed to me that the dropping--still going on at the same
regular intervals--grew gradually fainter and fainter, and died away as
if in the distance. I fell into a deep sleep, out of which I did not
wake till it was bright daylight in the morning. The dog had come and
lain down close beside me in bed, and did not move till I got up, when
he jumped up too, barking vigorously, as if he had got over his terror
of the previous night. It occurred to me that it might only be to me
that the (doubtless) natural cause or causes of this strange sound were
a mystery, and I told the landlord of my adventure--of which I still
felt the terror in all my frame. I ended by saying that he could, no
doubt, explain the whole affair to me, but that he ought to have told
me of it beforehand. He turned as pale as a sheet, and begged me never
to tell any one what had happened to me, as he would risk the loss of
his customers. He said many travellers had complained about that sound,
which they had heard on bright moonlight nights--that he had examined
everything with the utmost care and attention, and even had the floor
of that room and the adjoining one taken up, as well as making
inquisition into everything in the neighbourhood, without coming upon
the faintest trace of anything to account for this awe-inspiring noise.
It had not been heard for nearly a year before the night I speak of,
and he had been flattering himself that the Principle--whatever it
might be--which was haunting the room had ceased its operation. But
seeing, to his great alarm, that in this he was mistaken, he determined
that he would never, in any circumstances, allow anybody to pass the
night there again."
"Oh! how terrible!" cried Angelica, shuddering like one in the cold
stage of an ague. "That is really most terrible! Oh! I am sure I should
have died if anything like that had happened to me! But I have often
woke up from sleep, suddenly, feeling an indescribable, inexplicable
alarm and anxiety, as if I had been going through something terrible
and alarming; and yet, I had not the slightest idea what it was that I
had been going through, nor the very faintest recollection of any
fearful dream, or anything of that kind. Rather I seemed to be waking
from some condition of complete unconsciousness, like death."
"I know that feeling perfectly well," Dagobert said. "Perhaps it points
straight to the effect upon us of psychical influences external to us,
to which we are compelled to yield ourselves up, whether we choose or
not. Just as the mesmeric subject has no remembrance of the mesmeric
sleep, or of anything which happens in it. Perhaps that sense of fear
and anxiety which we feel on awaking (as we have said), of which the
cause is hidden from us, may be the lingering echo of some mighty spell
which has forced us out of ourselves."
"I remember very distinctly," Angelica said, "some four years ago, the
night before my fourteenth birthday, awaking in a condition of that
kind. I could not shake off the terror of it for several days
afterwards. But I strove in vain to remember anything about my dream
(if dream it was, that had so terrified me). I knew, and I know quite
well, that in the very dream itself I had told several people--my own
dear mother amongst them--what the dream was, several times. But all I
could remember when I woke was that I had told the dream. I could not
recall the slightest trace of what the dream had been."
"This strange psychical phenomenon," Dagobert said, "is closely
connected with the magnetic principle."
"Our conversation is getting more and more dreadful," said Madame von
G. "We are getting deep, and losing ourselves in matters I can't bear
even to think about. Moritz, I must beg you to tell us something
entertaining--outrageous even--that we may get away from this terrible
region of the supernatural."
"I should be very happy to try," said Moritz, "if you will just allow
me to tell one gruesome tale, which has been hovering on my lips for a
long time. At this moment all my being is so filled with it that I feel
that I could not talk about anything else."
"Discharge yourself, then," said Madame von G., "from the load of
awesomeness which so weighs upon you. My husband will be home
immediately, and then I should be so delighted to work through some
battle or other with you and him, or to hear you talk in your absorbed
manner about horses, or anything, to get me out of this overstrained
condition into which all this supernatural stuff, I must admit, puts
me."
"In my last campaign," said Moritz, "I made the acquaintance of a
Russian Lieutenant-Colonel, a Livonian by birth, scarcely thirty, who,
as chance willed it that we should be serving together before the
enemy for a considerable time, soon became my very intimate friend.
Bogislav--that was his Christian name--possessed every quality fitted
to gain for him, everywhere, the highest consideration and the most
sincere regard. He was tall and fine-looking, with an intellectual
face. He possessed masculine beauty, much mental cultivation, and was
kindliness itself, while brave as a lion. He could be particularly
cheerful and entertaining, especially over a glass of wine; but there
would often come over him, and overwhelm him, the thought of something
terrible which had happened to him, leaving traces of the most intense
horror and terror on his face. When this happened he would lapse into
silence, leave the company, and stroll about up and down, alone. In the
field, he used to ride all round the outposts at night, from one to
another, restlessly, only yielding to sleep when completely exhausted;
and as, in addition to this, he would often expose himself to the
extremest danger, without any special necessity, and seemed to seek, in
battle, death, which fled from him--for in the toughest hand-to-hand
engagement never a bullet touched him; no sword-cut came near him--it
seemed evident that his life had been marred by some irreparable
bereavement, or perhaps some rash deed.
"We stormed, and captured, a fortified castle on the French territory,
and remained quartered there for a day or two, to give the men some
rest. The rooms where Bogislav was quartered were but a few steps from
mine. In the night I was awakened by a gentle knocking at my door. I
asked who was there. My name was called out: I recognised Bogislav's
voice, and went to let him in. There he stood in his night-dress, with
a branched candlestick in his hand, pale as death, with his face
distorted, trembling in every limb, unable to utter a word.
"'For heaven's sake! what has happened?--what is the matter, dearest
Bogislav?' I cried. I took him to the arm-chair; made him swallow a
glass or two of the full-bodied wine which was on the table; held his
hand fast in mine, and spoke what comforting words I could, in my
ignorance of the cause of his strange condition.
"He recovered himself by degrees, heaved a deep sigh, and then began,
in a hollow voice: 'No! no! I shall go mad, unless death takes me; God
knows I throw myself with eager longing into his arms. To you, my
faithful Moritz, I will confide my fearful secret. I told you once that
I was in Naples a good many years ago. There I met the daughter of one
of the most distinguished families, and fell deeply in love with her.
She returned my affection, and, as her parents gave their approval, I
saw the fulfilment of my brightest hopes at hand. The wedding-day was
fixed, when there appeared on the scene a Sicilian Count, who came
between us with a most eager suit to my beloved and betrothed. I took
him to task; he insulted me; we met, and I sent my sword through his
body. I hastened to my love; I found her bathed in tears. She called me
the accursed murderer of the man she had adored, and repelled me with
every mark of disgust; screamed and wept in inconsolable sorrow; fell
down fainting, as if stung by a scorpion, when I touched her hand. Who
can describe my amazement! Her parents could not give the slightest
explanation of the sudden change in her. She had never given any
favourable heed to the Count's attentions.
"'Her father concealed me in his palazzo, and, with the most noble
zeal, took care that I should be enabled to leave Naples undiscovered.
Driven by all the furies, I pushed on to St. Petersburg without a halt.
It is not the faithlessness of my love which plays havoc with my life.
No! it is a terrible mystery. Since that unhappy day in Naples I have
been dogged and pursued by the terrors of hell itself. Often by day,
but still oftener by night, I hear--sometimes as if a long distance
away, sometimes as if quite close beside me--a deep death-groan. It is
the voice of the Count whom I killed! It makes my inmost soul quiver
with horror. I hear that horrible sound distinctly, close to my ear, in
the thick of the thunder of the heavy siege-guns, and the rattle of
musketry, and all the wild despair of madness awakes within me. This
very night----' Bogislav paused; and I, as well as he, was seized with
the wildest horror; for there came to our hearing a long-sustained,
heart-breaking wail of sorrow, as if proceeding from the stair outside.
Then it was as if some one raised himself, groaning and sighing, with
difficulty from the ground, and was coming towards us with heavy,
uncertain steps.
"At this Bogislav started up from his seat, and, with a wild glow in
his eyes, cried out, in a voice of thunder: 'Appear to me, abominable
one, if you only will! I am more than a match for you, and all the
spirits of hell that are at your disposal!'
"On this there came a tremendous crash, and----"
Just then the door of the drawing-room flew open with a startling
noise.
And just as Ottmar read those words, the door of the summer-house in
which the friends were sitting flew open, also with a startling noise,
and they saw a dark form, wrapped in a mantle, approaching slowly, with
noiseless footfalls, as of a spirit. They all gazed at this form, a
little startled, holding their breaths.
"Is it right," said Lothair at length, when the full light of the
lamps, falling upon his face, displayed their friend Cyprian. "Is it
right to try to frighten good folks with foolish playing the ghost?
However, I know, Cyprian, that you don't content yourself with studying
spirits and all sorts of strange, visionary matters; you would often
fain be a spook or ghost yourself. But where have you appeared from so
suddenly? How did you find out that we were here?"
"I came back to-day from my journey," Cyprian said. "I went at once to
see Theodore, Lothair, and Ottmar, but found none of them at home. In
the fullness of my annoyance I ran out here into the open; and chance
so willed it that, as I was returning to the town, I struck into the
walk which leads past this summer-house. Then I seemed to hear a
well-known voice; I peeped in at the window, and saw my worthy Serapion
Brethren, and heard Ottmar reading 'The Uncanny Guest.'"
"What," interrupted Ottmar, "you know my tale?"
"You forget," said Cyprian, "that it was from me that you got the
ingredients of the tale. It was I who told you of the 'Devil's Voice,'
the aerial music of Ceylon, who even gave you the idea of the sudden
appearing of the 'Uncanny Guest'; and I am curious to hear how you have
worked out this 'Thema' of mine. You see that it was a matter of course
that just when Ottmar had made the drawing-room door fly open I had
necessarily to do the like, and appear to you myself."
"Not as an uncanny guest, though," said Theodore, "but as a true and
faithful Serapion Brother, who, although he frightened me not a little,
as I must perforce admit, is a thousand times welcome to me all the
same."
"And," said Lothair, "if he insists on being a spirit, he must, at all
events, not be an unquiet spirit, but sit down and drink tea, without
making too much clattering with his cup, and listen to Ottmar, as to
whose tale I am all the more curious, that this time it is a working up
of a thema given to him by another."
Theodore, who was still easily excited after his recent illness, had
been affected by Cyprian's proceedings rather more than was desirable.
He was deadly pale, and it was evident that he had to put some
constraint on himself to appear at his ease.
Cyprian saw this, and was not a little concerned at what he had done.
"The truth is," he said, "that I had not thought about our friend's
having only recently recovered, and hardly that, from a severe illness.
I was acting contrarily to my own fundamental principle, which totally
prohibits the perpetration of jokes of this description, because it has
often happened that the terrible serious reality of the spirit-world
has come gripping in into jokes of this kind, resulting in very
terrific things. I remember, for instance----"
"Stop! stop!" cried Lothair. "I can't have any more interruptions.
Cyprian is on the point of carrying us away, after his manner, into
that dark world of spells where he is at home. Please to go on with
your story, Ottmar." Ottmar went on reading.
And in came a man, dressed in black from top to toe, with a pallid
face, and a set, serious expression. He went up to Madame von G.
with the most courtly bearing of a man of the highest rank, and in
well-selected terms, begged her to pardon him for having been so long
in arriving, though his invitation was of such old standing--but that,
to his regret, he had been detained by having to pay an unavoidable
visit first. Madame von G., unable to recover all in a moment from the
start which his entry had caused her, murmured a few indistinguishable
words, which seemed to amount to saying, would the stranger be kind
enough to take a seat. He drew a chair close to her, and opposite to
Angelica, sat down, and let his eyes pass over every member of the
company. Every one felt paralysed; none could utter a word. Then the
stranger began to speak, saying that he felt he stood doubly in need of
excuses; firstly, for arriving at such a time, and, secondly, for
having made his entrance in such a sudden manner, and so startlingly.
The latter, however, he was not to blame for, inasmuch as the door had
been thrown open in that violent manner by the servant whom he had
found in the hall. Madame von G., overcoming with difficulty the eery
feeling with which she was seized, inquired whom she had the honour of
welcoming. The stranger seemed not to notice this question, his
attention being fixed on Marguerite, who had suddenly become changed in
all her ways and bearing, kept tripping and dancing close up to the
stranger, and telling him, with constant tittering and laughter, and
with much volubility, in French, that they had all been in the very
thick of the most delightful ghost-stories, and that Captain Moritz had
just been saying that some evil spectre ought to make its appearance at
the very instant when he had come in. Madame von G., feeling all the
awkwardness of having to ask this stranger, who had said he came by
invitation, as to his name and so forth, but more distressed and
rendered uncomfortable by his presence, did not repeat her question,
but reprimanded Marguerite for her behaviour, which almost passed the
limits of the "_convenable_." The stranger put a stop to Marguerite's
chatter, turning to the others, and leading the conversation to some
event of indifference which had happened in the neighbourhood. Madame
von G. answered him. Dagobert tried to join in the conversation, which
soon dragged painfully along in detached, interrupted sentences; and
during this, Marguerite kept trilling couplets of French chansons, and
seemed to be trying steps, as if remembering the "tours" of the newest
gavotte, while the others were scarcely capable of moving. They all
felt their breasts oppressed; the presence of the stranger weighed upon
them like the sultry oppressiveness which precedes a thunderstorm. The
words died on their lips when they looked at the deathly pale face of
this uncanny guest. The markedly foreign accent with which he spoke
both French and German indicated that he was neither a German nor a
Frenchman.
Madame von G. breathed freely, with an enormous sense of relief, when
at length horses were heard drawing up at the door, and the voice of
her husband, Colonel von G., was distinguishable.
When the Colonel came in, and saw the stranger, he went up to him
quickly, saying, "Heartily welcome to my house, dear Count." Then
turning to his wife, he said, "This is Count S., a very dear friend of
mine; I made his acquaintance in the north, but met him afterwards in
the south."
Madame von G., whose anxiety began to be relieved, assured the Count,
with pleasant smiles, that it was only because her husband had omitted
to tell her of his visit that he had been received perhaps a little
strangely, and not as a welcome friend ought to have been. Then she
told the Colonel how the conversation had been running all the evening
upon the supernatural; how Moritz had been telling a dreadful story of
events which had happened to him and a friend of his, and that, at the
very moment when he had been saying, "There came a tremendous crash,"
the door had flown open, and the Count had come in.
"Very good indeed," said the Colonel, laughing; "they thought you were
a ghost, dear Count! I fancy I see traces of alarm and nervousness
about Angelica's face still, and Moritz looks as though he had scarcely
shaken off the excitement of the story he was telling. Even Dagobert
does not seem quite in his ordinary spirits. Really, Count, it is a
little too bad to take you for a _revenant_; don't you think so?"
"Perhaps," the Count replied; "I really may have something more or less
ghostly about me. A good deal is being said nowadays, about people who,
by virtue of some peculiar psychical quality, possess the power of
influencing others, so that they experience very remarkable effects. I
may be endowed with such a power."
"You are not serious, my dear Count," said Madame von G. "But there is
no doubt that people are discovering very wonderful mysteries
nowadays."
"People are pampering their curiosity, and weakening their minds over
nursery tales and absurd fancies," was the Count's reply. "We ought all
to take care not to allow ourselves to be infected by this curious
epidemic. However, I interrupted this gentleman at the most interesting
point of his story, and as none of his hearers would like to lose the
finale, the explanation of the mystery, I would beg him to go on with
it."
To Captain Moritz this stranger Count was not only uncomfortable and
uncanny, but utterly repugnant, in all the depths of his being. In his
words he found--all the more that he gave them out with a most
irritating, self-satisfied smile--something indescribably contemptuous
and insulting; and he replied, in an irritated tone, and with flashing
eyes, that he feared his nursery tales might interfere with the
pleasantness--the sense of enjoyment--which the Count had introduced
into the circle, so that he would prefer to say no more.
The Count seemed scarcely to notice what Moritz said. Playing with the
gold snuff-box which he had taken in his hand, he asked Madame von
G---- if the "lively" young lady was French. He meant Marguerite, who
kept dancing about the room, trilling. The Colonel went up to her and
asked her, half aloud, if she had gone out of her senses. Marguerite
slunk, abashed, to the tea-table, and sat down there quite quiet. The
Count now took up the conversation, and spoke, in an entertaining
manner, of this and the other events which had recently happened.
Dagobert was scarcely able to put in a word. Moritz stood, red as fire,
with gleaming eyes, as if waiting eagerly for the signal of attack.
Angelica appeared to be completely immersed in the piece of feminine
"work" at which she had set herself to labour. She did not raise an
eyelid. The company separated in complete discomfort.
"You are a fortunate man," Dagobert cried, when he and Moritz were
alone together. "Doubt no longer that Angelica is much attached to you.
Clearly did I read in her eyes to-day that she is devotedly in love
with you. But the devil is always busy, and sows his poisonous tares
amongst the blooming wheat. Marguerite is on fire with an insane
passion. She loves you with all the wild, passionate pain which only a
fiery temperament is capable of feeling. The senseless way in which she
behaved tonight was the effect of an irresistible outbreak of the
wildest jealousy. When Angelica let fall the handkerchief--when you
took it up and gave it to her--when you kissed her hand--the furies of
hell possessed that poor Marguerite. And you are to blame for that. You
used formerly to take the greatest pains to pay every kind of attention
to that very beautiful French girl. I know well enough that it was only
Angelica whom you had in your mind. Still, those falsely directed
lightnings struck, and set on fire. And now the misfortune is there;
and I do not know how the matter will end without terrible tumult and
trouble."
"Marguerite be hanged (if I may use such an expression)," said Moritz.
"If Angelica loves me--and ah! I can't believe, quite, that she does--I
am the happiest and the most blest of men, and care nothing about all
the Marguerites in the world, nor their foolishnesses neither. But
another fear has come into my mind. This uncanny, stranger Count, who
came in amongst us like some dark, gloomy mystery--doesn't he seem to
place himself, somehow, most hostilely between her and me? I feel, I
scarce know how, as if some reminiscence came forward out of the dark
background--I could almost describe it as a dream--which reminiscence,
or dream, whichever it may be, brings this Count to my memory under
terrible circumstances of some sort. I feel as though, wherever he
makes his appearance, some awful misfortune must come flashing out of
the depths of the darkness as a result of his conjurations. Did you
notice how often his eyes rested on Angelica, and how, when they did, a
feeble flush tinted his pallid cheeks, and disappeared again rapidly?
The monster has designs upon my darling; and that is why the words
which he addressed to me sounded so insulting. But I will oppose him
and resist him to the very death!"
Dagobert said the Count was a supernatural sort of fellow, no doubt,
with something very eery and spectral about him, and that it would be
as well to keep a sharp look-out on his proceedings, though, perhaps,
he thought there was less in, or behind, him than one would suppose;
and that the uncanny feelings which everybody had experienced with
regard to him were chiefly attributable to the excited state in which
they had all been when he made his appearance. "Let us face all this
disquieting affair," said Dagobert, "with firm courage and unshakable
confidence. No dark power will bend the head which holds itself up with
true bravery and indomitable resolution."
A considerable time had elapsed. The Count, whose visits to the
Colonel's house increased in frequency, had rendered himself almost
indispensable. It was universally agreed, now, that the accusation
against him of being uncanny recoiled on those who made it. "He might
very well have styled us uncanny people, with our white faces and odd
behaviour," as said Madame von G----. Everything he said evinced a
store of the most valuable and various information; and although, being
an Italian, he spoke with a foreign accent, his command of the German
language was most perfect and fluent. His narratives had a fire which
bore the hearers irresistibly along, so that even Moritz and Dagobert,
hostile as were their feelings to this stranger, forgot their
repugnance to him when he talked, and when a pleasant smile broke out
over his pale, but handsome and expressive face, and they hung upon his
lips, like Angelica and the others.
The Colonel's friendship with him had arisen in a way which proved him
to be one of the noblest-minded of men. Chance had brought them
together in the far north, and there the Count, in the most unselfish
and disinterested manner, came to the Colonel's aid in a difficulty in
which he found himself involved, which might have had the most
disastrous consequences to his fortune, if not to his good name and
honour. Deeply sensible of all that he owed him, the Colonel hung on
him with all his soul.
"It is time," the Colonel said to his wife one day when they were alone
together, "that I should tell you the principal reason why the Count is
here. You remember that he and I, when we were in P----, four years
ago, grew more and more intimate and inseparable, so that at last we
occupied two rooms which opened one into the other. He happened to come
into my room one morning early, and he saw the little miniature of
Angelica, which I had with me, lying on my writing-table. As he looked
more and more closely at it, he lost his self-command in a strange way.
Not able to answer me, he kept gazing at it. He could not take his eyes
from it. He cried out excitedly that he had never seen a more beautiful
creature--had never before known what love was--it was now blazing up
in the depths of his heart. I jested about the extraordinary effect of
the picture on him--called him a second Kalaf, and congratulated him on
the fact that my good Angelica was not a Turandot. At last I told him
pretty clearly that at his time of life--for, though not exactly
elderly, he could not be said to be a very young man--this romantic way
of falling in love with a portrait rather astonished me. But he vowed
most vehemently--nay, with every mark of that passionate excitement,
almost verging on insanity, which belongs to his country--that he loved
Angelica inexpressibly, and, if he were not to be dashed into the
profoundest depths of despair, I must allow him to gain her affection
and her hand. It is for this that the Count has come here to our house.
He fancies he is certain that she is not ill-disposed to him, and he
yesterday laid his formal proposal before me. What do you think of the
affair?"
Madame von G---- could not explain why his latter words shot through
her being like some sudden shock. "Good heavens," she cried, "_that_
Count for our Angelica! that utter stranger!"
"Stranger!" echoed the Colonel with darkened brow; "the Count a
stranger! the man to whom I owe my honour, my freedom, nay, perhaps my
life! I know he is not quite so young as he has been, and perhaps is
not altogether suited to Angelica in point of age; but he is of high
lineage, and rich, very rich."
"And without asking Angelica," said Madame von G----. "Very likely she
may not have any such liking for him as he, in his fondness, imagines."
The Colonel started from his chair, and placed himself in front of her
with gleaming eyes. "Have I ever given you cause to imagine," he said,
"that I am one of those idiotic, tyrannical fathers who force their
daughters to marry against their inclinations, in a disgraceful way?
Spare me your absurd romanticisms and sentimentalities. Marriages may
be made without any such extraordinary, fanciful love at first sight,
and so forth. Angelica is all ears when he talks; she looks at him with
most kindly favour; she blushes like a rose when he kisses her hand,
which she willingly leaves in his. And that is how an innocent girl
expresses that inclination which truly blesses a man. There is no
occasion for any of that romantic love which so often runs in your
sex's heads in such a disturbing fashion."
"I have an idea," said Madame von G----, "that Angelica's heart is not
so free as, perhaps, she herself imagines it is."
"Nonsense," cried the Colonel, and was on the point of breaking out in
a passion, when the door opened, and Angelica came in, with the
loveliest smile of the most ingenuous simplicity. The Colonel, at once
losing all his irritation, went to her, took her hand, kissed her on
the brow, and sat down close beside her. He spoke of the Count,
praising his noble exterior, intellectual superiority, character, and
disposition; and then asked her if she thought she could care for him.
She answered that at first he had appeared very strange and eery to
her, but that now those feelings had quite disappeared, and that she
liked him very much.
"Heaven be thanked then!" cried the Colonel. "Thus it was ordained to
turn out, for my comfort, for my happiness. Count S--- loves you, my
darling child, with all his heart. He asks for your hand, and you won't
refuse him." But scarcely had he uttered those words when Angelica,
with a deep sigh, sank back as if insensible. Her mother caught her in
her arms, casting a significant glance at the Colonel, who gazed
speechless at the poor child, who was as pale as death. But she
recovered herself; a burst of tears ran down her cheeks, and she cried,
in a heart-breaking voice, "The Count! the terrible Count! oh, no, no;
never, never!"
As gently as possible the Colonel asked her why it was that the Count
was so terrible to her. Then Angelica told him that at the instant when
he had said that the Count loved her, that dream which she dreamt four
years before, on the night before her fourteenth birthday--from which
she awoke in such deadly terror without being able to remember the
images or incidents of it in the very slightest--had come back to her
memory quite clearly.
"I thought," she said, "I was walking in a beautiful garden where there
were strange bushes and flowers which I had never seen the like of
before. Suddenly I found myself close before a wonderful tree with dark
leaves, large flowers, and a curious perfume something like that of the
elder. Its branches were swaying and making a delicious rustling, and
it seemed to be making signs inviting me to rest under its shade.
Irresistibly impelled by some invisible power, I sank down on the grass
which was under the tree. Then strange tones of complaint or lamenting
seemed to come through the air, stirring the tree like the touch of
some breeze; and it began to utter sighs and moans. And I was seized by
an indescribable pain and sorrow; a deep compassion arose in my heart,
I could not tell why. Then, suddenly, a burning beam of light darted
into my breast, and seemed to break my heart in two. I tried to cry
out, but the cry could not make its way from my heart, oppressed with a
nameless anguish--it became a faint sigh. But the beam which had
pierced my heart was the gleam of a pair of eyes which were gazing on
me from under the shade of the branches. Just then the eyes were quite
close to me; and a snow-white hand became visible, describing circles
all round me. And those circles kept getting narrower and narrower,
winding round me like threads of fire, so that, at last, the web of
them was so dense and so close that I could not move. At the same time
I felt that the frightful gaze of those terrible eyes was assuming the
mastery over my inmost being, and utterly possessing my whole existence
and personality. The one idea to which it now clung, as if to a feeble
thread, was, to me, a martyrdom of death-anguish. But the tree bent
down its blossoms towards me, and out of them spoke the beautiful
voice of a youth, which said, 'Angelica! I will save you--I will save
you--but----'"
Angelica was interrupted. Captain von P---- was announced. He came to
see the Colonel on some matter of duty. As soon as Angelica heard his
name she cried out with the bitterest sorrow, in such a voice as bursts
only from a breast wounded with the deepest love-anguish--while tears
fell down her cheeks--"Moritz! oh, Moritz!"
Captain von P---- heard those words as he came in; he saw Angelica,
bathed in tears, stretch out her hands to him. Like a man beside
himself he dashed his forage cap to the ground, fell at Angelica's
feet, caught her in his arms, as she sank down overwhelmed with rapture
and sorrow, and pressed her fervently to his heart.
The Colonel contemplated this little scene in speechless amazement.
Madame von G---- said: "I thought this was how it was; but I was not
sure!"
"Captain von P----," said the Colonel angrily, "what is there between
you and my daughter?"
Moritz, quickly recovering himself, placed Angelica--more dead than
alive--gently down on the couch, picked up his cap, advanced to the
Colonel with a face red as fire, and eyes fixed on the ground, and
declared that he loved Angelica unutterably; but that, upon his honour,
until that moment, not a word approaching to a declaration of his
feelings had crossed his lips. He had been but too seriously doubtful
as to its being possible that Angelica could return his love. He said
it was only at this moment--which he could not possibly have
anticipated--that the bliss accorded to him by heaven had been fully
disclosed to him; and that he trusted he should not be repulsed by the
noblest hearted of mankind, the tenderest of fathers, when he implored
him to bestow his blessing on a union sealed by the purest and
sincerest affection.
The Colonel gazed at Moritz, and then at Angelica, with looks of gloom;
then he paced up and down with folded arms like one who strives to
arrive at a resolution. He paused before his wife, who had taken
Angelica in her arms and was whispering to her words of consolation.
"What," he inquired, "has this silly dream of yours to do with
Count----?"
Angelica threw herself at his feet, kissed his hands, bathed them in
her tears, and said, half-audibly, "Oh, father! dearest father! those
terrible eyes which mastered my whole being were the Count's eyes. It
was his spectral hand which wove round me those meshes of fire. But the
voice of comfort which spoke to me out of the perfumed blossoms of the
wondrous tree, was the voice of Moritz--my Moritz!"
"Your Moritz!" cried the Colonel, turning so quickly that he nearly
threw Angelica down. He continued, speaking to himself in a lower tone:
"Thus a father's wise resolve, and the offer of a grand and noble
gentleman, are to be cast to the winds, for the sake of childish
imaginations, and a clandestine love affair." And he walked up and down
as before. At last, addressing Moritz, he said--
"Captain von P----, you know very well what a high opinion of you I
have. I could not have wished for a better son-in-law. But I have
promised my daughter to Count S----, to whom I am bound by the deepest
obligations by which one man can be bound to another. At the same time,
please do not suppose that I am going to play the part of the obstinate
and tyrannical father. I shall hasten to the Count at once. I shall
tell him everything. Your love will be the cause of a cruel difference
between me and this gentleman. It may cost me my life. No matter; it
can't be helped. Wait here till I come back."
Moritz warmly declared that he would sooner face death a hundred times
than that the Colonel should run the very slightest risk; but the
Colonel hurried away without reply.
As soon as he had gone, the lovers fell into each other's arms, and
vowed unalterable fidelity. Angelica said that it was not until her
father told her of the Count's views with regard to her, that she felt,
in the depths of her soul, how unspeakably precious and dear Moritz was
to her, and that she would rather die than marry any one else. Also
that she had felt certain for a long time, that he loved her just as
deeply. Then they both bethought themselves of all the occasions when
they had given any betrayal of their love for each other; and, in
short, were in a condition of the highest enjoyment and blissfulness,
like two children, forgetting all about the Colonel and his anger and
opposition. Madame von G----, who had long watched the growth of this
affection, and approved of Angelica's choice with all her heart,
promised, with deep emotion, to leave no stone unturned to prevent the
Colonel from entering into an alliance which she abhorred, without
precisely knowing why.
When an hour or so had passed, the door opened and, to the surprise of
all, Count S---- came in, followed by the Colonel, whose eyes were
gleaming. The Count went up to Angelica, took her hand, and looked at
her with a smile of bitter pain. Angelica shrank, and murmured almost
inaudibly, "Oh! those eyes!"
"You turn pale, Mademoiselle," said the Count, "just as you did when
first I came into this house. Do you truly look upon me as a terrible
spectre? No, no; do not be afraid of me, Angelica. I do but love you
with all the fervour and passion of a younger man. I had no knowledge
that you had given away your heart, when I was foolish enough to make
an offer for your hand. Even your father's promise does not give me the
slightest claim to a happiness which it is yours alone to bestow. You
are free, Mademoiselle. Even the sight of me shall no longer remind
you of the moments of sadness which I have caused you. Soon, perhaps
to-morrow, I shall go back to my own country."
"Moritz! My Moritz!" Angelica cried in the utmost joy and delight, and
threw herself on her lover's breast. The Count trembled in every limb;
his eyes gleamed with an unwonted fire, his lips twitched convulsively;
he uttered a low inarticulate sound. But turning quickly to Madame von
G---- with some indifferent question, he succeeded in mastering his
emotion.
But the Colonel cried, again and again, "What nobility of mind! What
loftiness of character! Who is there like this man of men--my heart's
own friend for ever!" Then he pressed Moritz, Angelica, and his own
wife, to his heart, and said laughingly, that he did not care to hear
another syllable about the wicked plot they had been laying against
him, and hoped, too, that Angelica would have no more trouble with
spectral eyes.
It being now well on in the day, the Colonel begged Moritz and the
Count to remain and have dinner. Dagobert was sent for, and arrived in
high spirits.
When they sat down to table, Marguerite was missing. It appeared she
had shut herself up in her room, saying she was unwell and unable to
join the company. "I do not know," said Madame von G----, "what has
been the matter with Marguerite for some time; she has been full of the
strangest fancies, laughing and crying without apparent reason. Really,
she is at times almost unendurable."
"Your happiness is Marguerite's death," Dagobert whispered to Moritz.
"Spirit-seer!" answered Moritz in the same tone, "do not mar my joy."
The Colonel had never been in better spirits or happier, and Madame von
G---- had never been so pleased in the depths of her heart, relieved as
she was from anxieties which had often been present with her before.
When, in addition to this, Dagobert was revelling in the most brilliant
high-spirits, and the Count, forgetting his pain, suffered the stores
of his much experienced mind to stream forth in rich abundance. It will
be seen that our couple of lovers were encircled by a rich garland of
gladness.
Evening was coming on, the noblest wines were pearling in the glasses,
toasts to the health of the betrothed pair were drunk enthusiastically;
when suddenly the door opened and Marguerite came tottering in, in
white night-gear, with her hair down, pale, and distorted, like death
itself.
"Marguerite, what extraordinary conduct!" the Colonel cried.
But, paying no heed to him, she dragged herself up to Moritz, placed
her ice-cold hand on his breast, laid a gentle kiss on his brow,
murmured in a faint, hollow voice, "The kiss of the dying brings luck
to the happy bridegroom," and sank on the floor.
"This poor foolish girl is in love with Moritz," Dagobert whispered to
the Count, who answered--
"I know. I suppose she has carried her foolishness so far as to take
poison."
"Good heavens!" cried Dagobert, starting up and hurrying to the
arm-chair where they had placed poor Marguerite. Angelica and her
mother were busy besprinkling her and rubbing her forehead with
essences. When Dagobert went up she opened her eyes.
"Keep yourself quiet, my dear child," said Madame von G----; "you are
not very well, but you will soon be better--you will soon be better!"
Marguerite answered in a feeble, hollow voice, "Yes; it will soon be
over. I have taken poison."
Angelica and her mother screamed aloud.
"Thousand devils!" cried the Colonel. "The mad creature! Run for the
doctor! Quick! The first and best that's to be found; bring him here
instantly!"
The servants, Dagobert himself, were setting off in all haste.
"Stop!" cried the Count, who had been sitting very quietly hitherto,
calmly and leisurely emptying a beaker of his favourite wine--the fiery
Syracuse. "If Marguerite has taken poison, there is no need to send for
a doctor, for, in this case, I am the very best doctor that could
possibly be called in. Leave matters to me."
He went to Marguerite, who was lying profoundly insensible, only giving
an occasional convulsive twitch. He bent over her, and was seen to take
a small box out of his pocket, from which he took something between his
fingers, and this he gently rubbed over Marguerite's neck and the
region of her heart. Then coming away from her, he said to the others,
"She has taken opium; but she can be saved by means which I can
employ."
By the Count's directions Marguerite was taken upstairs to her room,
where he remained with her alone. Meanwhile, Madame von G---- had found
the phial which had contained the opium-drops prescribed some time
previously for herself. The unfortunate girl had taken the whole of the
contents of the phial.
"The Count is really a wonderful man," Dagobert said, with a slight
touch of irony. "He divines everything. The moment he saw Marguerite he
knew she had taken poison, and next he knew exactly the name and colour
of it."
In half-an-hour the Count came and assured the company that Marguerite
was out of danger, as far as her life was concerned. With a side-glance
at Moritz, he added that he hoped to remove all cause of mischief from
her mind as well. He desired that a maid should sit up with the
patient, whilst he himself would spend the night in the next room, to
be at hand in case anything fresh should transpire; but he wished to
prepare and strengthen himself for this by a few more glasses of wine;
for which end he sat down at table with the other gentlemen, whilst
Angelica and her mother, being upset by what had happened, withdrew.
The Colonel was greatly annoyed at this silly trick, as he called it,
of Marguerite's, and Moritz and Dagobert felt very eery and uncanny
over the whole affair; but the more out of tune they were the more did
the Count give the rein to a joviality which had never been seen in him
before, and which, in sober truth, had a certain amount of gruesomeness
about it.
"This Count," Dagobert said to Moritz, as they walked away, "has a
something most eerily repugnant to me about him, in some strange
inexplicable way. I cannot help a feeling that there must be something
exceedingly mysterious connected with him."
"Ah!" said Moritz, "there is a weight as of lead on my heart. I am
filled with a dim foreboding that some dark mischance threatens my
love."
That night the Colonel was aroused from sleep by a courier from the
Residenz. Next morning he came to his wife, looking rather pale, and
constraining himself to a calmness which he was far from feeling, said,
"We have to be parted again, dearest child. There's going to be another
campaign, after this little bit of a rest. I shall have to march off
with the regiment as soon as ever I can, perhaps this evening."
Madame von G---- was greatly startled; she broke out into bitter
weeping. The Colonel said, by way of consolation, that he felt sure
this campaign would end as gloriously as the last--that he felt in such
admirable spirits about it that he was certain nothing could go amiss.
"What you had better do," he said, "is, take Angelica with you to the
country-house, and stay there till we send the enemy to the rightabout
again. I am providing you with a companion who will keep you amused,
and prevent your feeling lonely. Count S---- is going with you."
"What!" cried Madame von G----. "Good heavens! the Count to go with
us!--Angelica's rejected lover--that deceitful Italian, who is hiding
his annoyance in the bottom of his heart, only to bring it out in
fullest force at the first proper opportunity; this Count who--I cannot
say why--seems more intensely antipathetic to me since yesterday than
ever?"
"Good God!" the Colonel cried; "there really is no bearing with the
nonsensical ideas--the silly dreams--which your sex gets into its head.
The magnanimity of soul of a man of his firmness and fineness of
character is too much for you to comprehend. The Count passed the whole
night in the room next to Marguerite's, as he said he should do. He was
the first person I told the news of the fresh campaign to. It would
scarcely be possible for him to go home now. This was very annoying to
him, and I gave him the option of going to our country-place and
staying there. He accepted my offer, after much hesitation, and gave me
his word of honour that he would do everything in his power to take
care of you, and make the time of our separation pass as quickly as
possible. You know what obligations I am under to him. My country-place
is, just now, a real asylum for him; could I refuse him that?"
Madame von G---- could say nothing further. The Colonel did as he had
said he would. In the course of the evening the trumpets sounded boot
and saddle, and every description of nameless pain and heart-breaking
sorrow came upon the loving ones.
A few days after, when Marguerite had recovered, the three ladies went
off to the country-house. The Count followed, with a number of
servants.
And at first, the Count, showing the utmost delicacy of feeling, was
careful never to enter the ladies' presence except when they sent for
him specially; at all other times he remained in his own rooms, or went
for solitary walks.
At first the campaign seemed to go rather in favour of the enemy, but
important successes were soon scored against him, and the Count was
always the very first to hear the news of those operations, and
particularly the most accurate and minute intelligence of what was
happening to the regiment which the Colonel commanded. In the bloodiest
engagements neither the Colonel nor Moritz had met with so much as a
scratch; and the despatches from headquarters confirmed this.
Thus the Count always appeared to the ladies in the character of a
heavenly messenger of victory and good-fortune; besides this, all his
behaviour betokened the most deep and sincere attachment to Angelica,
which he exhibited to her as the tenderest of fathers might have done,
occupied constantly about her happiness. Both she and her mother were
compelled to admit to themselves that the Colonel's opinion of this
tried friend of his was the correct one, and that all their--and other
people's--prejudices against him had been the most preposterous
fancies. At the same time Marguerite seemed to be quite cured of her
foolish passion, and to have become the same gay, talkative, sprightly
French lady whom we saw at an earlier period.
A letter from the Colonel to his wife, enclosing one from Moritz to
Angelica, dispelled the last remnant of anxiety. The enemy's capital
city was captured, and an armistice established.
Angelica was floating in a sea of blissfulness; and always it was the
Count who spoke of the brave deeds of Moritz, and of the happiness
which was opening its blossoms for the lovely future bride. After such
speeches he would take Angelica's hand, press it to his heart, and ask
if he were still as hateful to her as ever. With blushes and tears she
would assure him that she had never hated him, but that she had loved
Moritz too deeply and exclusively not to dread the idea of any other
suitor for her hand. And the Count would say, very solemnly and
seriously, "Look on me as your true, sincere, fatherly friend,
Angelica," breathing a gentle kiss upon her forehead, which she
suffered without ill-will; for it felt much like one of her father's
kisses, which he used to apply about the same place.
It was almost expected that the Colonel would very soon be home again,
when a letter from him arrived containing the terrible news that Moritz
had been set upon by some armed peasants, as he was passing with his
orderly through a village. Those peasants shot him down at the side of
the brave trooper, who managed to fight his way through; but the
peasants carried Moritz away. Thus the joy with which the house was
inspired was suddenly turned into the deepest and most inconsolable
sorrow.
The Colonel's household was all in busy movement from roof to ceiling.
Servants in gay liveries were hurrying to and fro; carriages filled
with guests were rattling into the courtyard, the Colonel in person
receiving them with his new order on his breast.
In her room upstairs sate Angelica in wedding-dress, beaming in the
full pride of her loveliness: her mother was with her.