In the month of February, at the close of an exceedingly severe winter,
a singular tumult took place in the town of ----, the origin, progress,
and final pacification of which, gave rise to the most strange and
contradictory reports. Where every one _will_ relate, and no one knows
any thing of the matter, it is natural that the simplest circumstance
should become invested with an air of the marvellous.
It was in one of the narrowest streets of the populous suburbs of the
town that this mysterious event took place. According to some, a traitor
or desperate rebel had been discovered and captured by the police;
others said that an atheist, who had secretly conspired with others to
tear up Christianity by the roots, had, after an obstinate resistance,
surrendered himself to the authorities, and was now lying in prison,
there to learn better principles. All agreed that the criminal had
defended himself in the most desperate manner. One man, who was a
profound politician and an execrable shoemaker, laboured to convince his
neighbours that the prisoner was at the head of a hundred secret
societies, which had their ramifications over France, Germany, Spain,
Italy, and the far East; and that, in fact, a monstrous insurrection was
on the very point of breaking out in the furthest parts of India, which,
like the cholera, would spread over Europe, and set in flame all its
combustible material.
Thus much was certain, that a tumult had arisen in a small house in the
suburbs; that the police had been called in; that the populace had made
an uproar; that some eminent personage was seen amongst the crowd; and
that, after a little time, all became still again, without any body
being the wiser. In the house itself certain devastations had
undoubtedly been made, which some explained one way, some another,
according to their humours: the carpenters and joiners were busy in
repairing them.
In this house had lived a man of whom no one in the neighbourhood knew
any thing. Whether he was a poet or a politician, a native or a
foreigner, no one could divine. The wisest were at fault. This only was
certain, that the unknown lived in a most quiet and retired manner; he
was seen on none of the promenades, nor in any public place; he was
young, was pronounced to be handsome, and his newly married bride, who
shared his solitude with him, was described as being miraculously
beautiful.
It was about Christmas time when this young couple were sitting together
over the stove in their little apartment. "Of a truth," said the young
man, "how all this is to end is a riddle. All our resources seem now
exhausted."
"Alas! yes, Henry," answered the beautiful Clara, to whom this was
addressed; "but whilst you, dearest, are still cheerful, I cannot feel
myself unfortunate."
"Fortunate and unfortunate," replied Henry, "shall be with us but empty
words. The day when you quitted your father's house, and for my sake
abandoned all other considerations, decided our fortune for all our
lifetime to come. To live and to love, this is our watchword; in what
manner exactly we live shall be indifferent."
"Indeed we are deprived of almost every thing," said the young wife,
"except each other. But I knew you were not rich, and you knew when I
left my father's house I could bring nothing with me; so love and
poverty came to us hand in hand. And now this little chamber, which we
never quit, and the talking together, and the looking into the eyes we
love--this is all our life."
"Right! right!" said Henry, and springing up from his seat, he embraced
his charming companion with renewed fondness. "Here are we like Adam and
Eve in their paradise; and I think," he added, looking round the
apartment as he spoke, "no angel will come down from heaven for the
express purpose of driving us out of it."
"If it were not," said Clara, a little dejected, "that the wood begins
to fail--and this winter is certainly the severest I ever knew"----
"Certainly," said Henry; "some fuel must somewhere be found. It is
inconceivable that we should be allowed to freeze from without, with all
this warm love within us. Quite impossible! I cannot help laughing
amidst it all, with a sense of ridiculous embarrassment, at the idea
that so simple a thing as a little coin cannot be procured."
Clara smiled. "If only," said she, "we had some superfluous furniture,
any brass pans or copper kettles."
"Ah! if only we were millionaires!" interrupted Henry gaily; "then we
could get wood in abundance, and perhaps," he added, looking slyly over
to the stove where some bread-soup was in preparation for their very
temperate repast, "some better fare for dinner. But," he continued in a
tone of humorous banter, which he frequently adopted, and pushing back
his chair a few paces as he spoke, "while you superintend the household
concerns, and give the necessary orders to the cook, I will withdraw
into my study. Now, what would I not write if only pen, paper, and ink,
were to be got at; and how studiously would I read if but a book could
be procured."
"You must _think_, dearest," said Clara waggishly; "the stock of
thoughts, it is to be hoped, is not quite so low as our wood."
"Dearest wife," he replied, "the cares of our establishment demand all
your attention; let me proceed undisturbed with my studies. I will
read," he continued, speaking as if to himself, "the journal I formerly
kept in our palmy days of stationery. And it strikes me that it would be
particularly profitable to study it backwards; to begin at the end, and
so lay a proper foundation for a full comprehension of the beginning.
All true wisdom goes in a circle, and is typified by a serpent biting at
its own tail. We will begin this time at the tail."
Opening his journal at the last page, he began to read in the same
subdued tone--"They tell a tale of a raving criminal, who, being
condemned to death by starvation, ate himself gradually up. This is, in
fact, the story of life, and of all of us. In some there remains nothing
but the stomach and the mouth. With us there is left the soul, which is
expressly said to be inconsumable. So far as externals are concerned, I
have certainly flayed and devoured myself. That I should, up to this
day, have retained a certain dress-coat--I, who never go out--was
perfectly ridiculous. Mem.--Next birthday of my wife to appear before
her in a waist-coat and shirt sleeves, as it would be highly indecorous
to present myself to a person of her rank in a frock-coat somewhat
overworn."
Here he came to the end both of the page and the book. Turning back, he
commenced at the page immediately preceding--"One can live very well
without napkins. And now I think of it, what are these miserable napkins
but a niggardly expedient for saving the table-cloth? Nay, what is this
table-cloth itself but a base economy for sparing the table! I pronounce
them both to be mere superfluities; both shall be sold, that we may eat
off the table in the manner of the patriarchs. We will live in the
fashion of our magnanimous ancestors. It is in no cynical,
Diogenes-humour that I banish them from the house, but from a resolution
not to follow the example of this poor-spirited age, which encumbers
itself with extravagant superfluities out of a sordid economy."
"Exactly so," said Clara laughing. "Meanwhile, on the proceeds of those
and other superfluities, I invite you to a repast which, at all events,
shall not savour of extravagance."
So saying, they sat down to their bread-soup. He who had seen them,
whatever he might have thought of the dinner, would have envied those
who partook of it, so cheerful were they, so joyful, so full of freaks
and frolics, over their simple provender. When the bread-soup was
dispatched, Clara slyly brought from the stove a covered plate, and set
before her astonished husband--a reserve of potatoes! "Long live thou
second Sir Walter Raleigh!" cried Henry. Whereupon they drank to each
other out of the pure element, and _hob-nobbed_ with such glee, that
Clara looked anxiously the next moment at the glasses, to see that they
had not cracked them in their enthusiasm.
The dinner concluded, they drew their chairs, by way of variety, up to
the solitary window of their apartment, and amused themselves with
looking at the fantastic filigree work with which the frost had
decorated the inside of the glass.
"My aunt used to maintain," said Clara, "that the room was warmer with
this ice on the window than when the glass was clear."
"Possibly!" replied Henry. "But on the strength of this faith I would
not dispense with the fire."
"How wonderfully various," said Clara, "are these ice-flowers! Is it not
strange, one seems to have seen them all in reality, yet cannot give a
name to a single one of them? And look how one grows over the other, and
how the noble leaves seem to expand, even as we speak of them."
"It is your sweet breath, my dear, that is calling up these ghosts and
spirits of departed flowers," said Henry. "I imagine that some invisible
genius is reading all thy gentle and loving fancies, and pictures them
forth, as they arise, in these flower-phantoms; so that, by looking at
this glass, I know, even while you are silent, that your thoughts are
full of love--that they are dwelling upon me."
A fond kiss was the answer and the reward of this pretty speech.
Henry took up his journal, and beginning at the ante-penultimate page,
read aloud:--"To-day--Sold to that old miser of a bookseller, my rare
copy of Chaucer, the costly edition of Caxton. My friend, the dear,
noble Andreas Vandelmeer, made me a present of it on my birthday, when
we were at the university together. He had written to London for it
himself: paid an enormous price for it; and then had it bound, after his
own taste, in rich Gothic style. The old hunks of a bookseller will, no
doubt, send it back to London, and will get for it tenfold what he has
given me. I ought, at least, to have cut out the leaf where the
circumstance of this gift is recorded; and here I have written some
lamentable lines, signed with my present name and address. This is
vexatious. Parting with this book almost persuades me that something
like want is pressing on us; for, without doubt, it was the most
precious thing I possessed, and the memorial of my dearest and my only
friend. Oh, Andreas Vandelmeer! art thou still living? Where art thou?
And dost thou still think of me?"
"I saw your pain," said Clara, as he concluded, "when you sold that
book; but this friend of your youth--you have never described him to
me."
"He was in person," replied Henry, "somewhat resembling myself--rather
older and more staid. We knew each other as boys at school. I might say
he almost persecuted me with his love, so passionately did he press it
on me. He was ever complaining that my friendship was too cold. Rich as
he was, and tenderly as he had been brought up, no indulgence had made
him selfish. On leaving the university, he determined on going to India,
that distant land of wonder having fascinated his ardent imagination.
There was then quite a storm of entreaties and supplications that I
should accompany him. He assured me that I should make my fortune there,
as his own forefathers had in fact done. But my mother died about this
time, and my friends, moreover, procured for me a position in the
diplomatic body. He persuaded me, at least, to entrust to him the small
fortune I had inherited from my mother, that he might employ it
advantageously for me; a request which I have always suspected was made
in order that he might have, some future time, a pretext and disguise
for his generosity. We took leave of each other, and I repaired, in the
suite of my ambassador, to the town where your father resided--and
where"----
"The history becomes tolerably well known to us both. But this noble
Andreas--did you never hear of him again?"
"I received two letters," answered Henry, "from that remote quarter of
the world. After which I heard, but through no authentic source, that he
died of the cholera. So far as fortune was concerned, I was left as you
see, entirely dependent on myself. Still, I enjoyed the favour of my
ambassador--was not unpopular at my court--could reckon on some powerful
friends;--but all this has disappeared."
"All this, alas!" said Clara, "you have sacrificed for me. And I also am
a fugitive from home."
"Then love must supply all. And so it has, and so it will. Has not our
honeymoon, as they vulgarly call it, lasted nearly a year?"
"It shall last for ever!" said Clara. Then after a pause, which was
filled up as lovers' pauses usually are, she added. "But the worst blow
of all was the loss of your own book;--that dear poetry you had written.
If we had but kept a copy of it, we might have passed many hours of
these winter evenings in reading it. But then," she added, with a smile
and a sigh at the same time, "we should have wanted a candle."
"We talk--we gossip," said Henry, "which is much better. I hear the
sweet tones of your voice; you sing me a song, or you break suddenly out
into that heavenly laugh of yours. What is there not in that musical,
jubilee laugh? When I hear it, angel mine, I am not only delighted, I
muse, I meditate, I am rapt. How much of character is there in a laugh!
You know no man till you have heard him laugh--till you know when and
how he will laugh. There are occasions--there are humours when a man
with whom we have been long familiar, shall quite startle and repel us,
by breaking out into a laugh which comes manifestly right from his
heart, and which yet we had never heard before. Even in fair ladies with
whom I have been much pleased, I have remarked the same thing. As in
many a heart a sweet angel slumbers unseen till some happy moment
awakens it, so there sleeps often in gracious and amiable characters,
deep in the background, a quite vulgar spirit, which starts into life
when something rudely comical penetrates into the less frequented
chambers of the mind. Our instinct teaches us that in that being there
lies something we must take heed of.
"As to that young and thoughtless publisher," continued Henry, "who
became bankrupt and ran off with my glorious manuscript, he, no doubt,
did us good service; for how easily might my intercourse with him, while
the book was being printed, have led to our discovery? Your father has
not yet, be assured, relinquished his pursuit of us--my passport would
have been examined again with severer scrutiny--something, no doubt,
would have led to the suspicion that the name I bear is assumed. We
should have been separated. So, angel mine, we are happy as we are--most
happy!"
It had now grown dark, and the fire was burned out; a candle to talk by
would have been certainly superfluous: so they retired early to their
sleeping apartment. Here they could continue their chat in the dark,
quite heedless of the heavy fall of snow that was encumbering their
windows.