I arose the next morning almost at daybreak, and rushed to my
microscope. I trembled as I sought the luminous world in miniature
that contained my all. Animula was there. I had left the gas-lamp,
surrounded by its moderator's, burning, when I went to bed the night
before. I found the sylph bathing, as it were, with an expression of
pleasure animating her features, in the brilliant light which
surrounded her. She tossed her lustrous golden hair over her
shoulders with innocent coquetry. She lay at full length in the
transparent medium, in which she supported herself with ease, and
gambolled with the enchanting grace that the Nymph Salmacis might
have exhibited when she sought to conquer the modest Hermaphroditus.
I tried an experiment to satisfy myself if her powers of reflection
were developed. I lessened the lamp-light considerably. By the dim
light that remained, I could see an expression of pain flit across
her face. She looked upward suddenly, and her brows contracted. I
flooded the stage of the microscope again with a full stream of light,
and her whole expression changed. She sprang forward like some
substance deprived of all weight. Her eyes sparkled, and her lips
moved. Ah! if science had only the means of conducting and
reduplicating sounds, as it does the rays of light, what carols of
happiness would then have entranced my ears! What jubilant hymns to
Adonaïs would have thrilled the illumined air!
I now comprehended how it was that the Count de Gabalis peopled his
mystic world with sylphs,--beautiful beings whose breath of life was
lambent fire, and who sported forever in regions of purest ether and
purest light. The Rosicrucian had anticipated the wonder that I had
practically realized.
How long this worship of my strange divinity went on thus I scarcely
know. I lost all note of time. All day from early dawn, and far into
the night, I was to be found peering through that wonderful lens. I
saw no one, went nowhere, and scarce allowed myself sufficient time
for my meals. My whole life was absorbed in contemplation as rapt as
that of any of the Romish saints. Every hour that I gazed upon the
divine form strengthened my passion,--a passion that was always
overshadowed by the maddening conviction, that, although I could
gaze on her at will, she never, never could behold me!
At length I grew so pale and emaciated, from want of rest, and
continual brooding over my insane love and its cruel conditions,
that I determined to make some effort to wean myself from it.
"Come," I said, "this is at best but a fantasy. Your imagination has
bestowed on Animula charms which in reality she does not possess.
Seclusion from female society has produced this morbid condition of
mind. Compare her with the beautiful women of your own world, and
this false enchantment will vanish."
I looked over the newspapers by chance. There I beheld the
advertisement of a celebrated danseuse who appeared nightly at
Niblo's. The Signorina Caradolce had the reputation of being the
most beautiful as well as the most graceful woman in the world. I
instantly dressed and went to the theatre.
The curtain drew up. The usual semi-circle of fairies in white
muslin were standing on the right toe around the enamelled
flower-bank, of green canvas, on which the belated prince was
sleeping. Suddenly a flute is heard. The fairies start. The trees
open, the fairies all stand on the left toe, and the queen enters.
It was the Signorina. She bounded forward amid thunders of applause,
and lighting on one foot remained poised in air. Heavens! was this
the great enchantress that had drawn monarchs at her chariot-wheels?
Those heavy muscular limbs, those thick ankles, those cavernous eyes,
that stereotyped smile, those crudely painted checks! Where were the
vermeil blooms, the liquid expressive eyes, the harmonious limbs of
Animula?
The Signorina danced. What gross, discordant movements! The play of
her limbs was all false and artificial. Her bounds were painful
athletic efforts; her poses were angular and distressed the eye. I
could bear it no longer; with an exclamation of disgust that drew
every eye upon me, I rose from my seat in the very middle of the
Signorina's _pas-de-fascination_ and abruptly quitted the house.
I hastened home to feast my eyes once more on the lovely form of my
sylph. I felt that henceforth to combat this passion would be
impossible. I applied my eye to the lens. Aninula was there,--but
what could have happened? Some terrible change seemed to have taken
place during my absence. Some secret grief seemed to cloud the
lovely features of her I gazed upon. Her face had grown thin and
haggard; her limbs trailed heavily; the wondrous lustre of her
golden hair had faded. She was ill!--ill, and I could not assist her!
I believe at that moment I would have gladly forfeited all claims to
my human birthright, if I could only have been dwarfed to the size
of an animalcule, and permitted to console her from whom fate had
forever divided me.
I racked my brain for the solution of this mystery. What was it that
afflicted the sylph? She seemed to suffer intense pain. Her features
contracted, and she even writhed, as if with some internal agony.
The wondrous forests appeared also to have lost half their beauty.
Their hues were dim and in some places faded away altogether. I
watched Animula for hours with a breaking heart, and she seemed
absolutely to wither away under my very eye. Suddenly I remembered
that I had not looked at the water-drop for several days. In fact, I
hated to see it; for it reminded me of the natural barrier between
Animula and myself. I hurriedly looked down on the stage of the
microscope. The slide was still there,--but, great heavens! the
water-drop had vanished! The awful truth burst upon me; it had
evaporated, until it had become so minute as to be invisible to the
naked eye; I had been gazing on its last atom, the one that contained
Animula,--and she was dying!
I rushed again to the front of the lens, and looked through. Alas!
the last agony had seized her. The rainbow-hued forests had all
melted away, and Animula lay struggling feebly in what seemed to be
a spot of dim light. Ah! the sight was horrible: the limbs once so
round and lovely shrivelling up into nothings; the eyes--those eyes
that shone like heaven--being quenched into black dust; the lustrous
golden hair now lank and discolored. The last throe came. I beheld
that final struggle of the blackening form--and I fainted.
When I awoke out of a trance of many hours, I found myself lying amid
the wreck of my instrument, myself as shattered in mind and body as
it. I crawled feebly to my bed, from which I did not rise for months.
They say now that I am mad; but they are mistaken. I am poor, for I
have neither the heart nor the will to work; all my money is spent,
and I live on charity. Young men's associations that love a joke
invite me to lecture on Optics before them, for which they pay me,
and laugh at me while I lecture. "Linley, the mad microscopist," is
the name I go by. I suppose that I talk incoherently while I lecture.
Who could talk sense when his brain is haunted by such ghastly
memories, while ever and anon among the shapes of death I behold the
radiant form of my lost Animula!