Emilius was sitting in deep thought at his table, awaiting his friend
Roderick. A light was burning before him; the winter-evening was cold;
and today he wisht for the presence of his fellow traveller, though at
other times wont to avoid his society; for on this evening he purpost
to disclose a secret to him and ask his advice. The timid, shy Emilius
found so many difficulties, such insurmountable hinderances, in every
affair he was engaged in, and in every event that befell him, that it
almost seemed as if his destiny had been in an ironical mood when it
threw him and Roderick together, Roderick being in all things the
reverse of his friend. Fickle, flighty, always determined and fixt by
the first impression, he attempted everything, had a plan for every
emergency; no undertaking was too arduous for him, no obstacles could
deter him. But in the midst of the pursuit he wearied and broke down
just as suddenly as at first he had kindled and sprung forward:
whatever then opposed him did not act as a spur to urge him more
eagerly onward, but only made him abandon and despise what he had so
hotly rusht into; and thus Roderick was evermore thoughtlessly
beginning something new, and with no better reason relinquishing and
carelessly forgetting what he had begun just before. Hence no day ever
passed but the friends got into a quarrel, which threatened to be a
death blow to their friendship: and yet what to all appearance thus
divided them, was perhaps the very thing that bound them most closely
together: each loved the other heartily; but each found passing
satisfaction in being able to discharge the most justly deserved
reproaches upon his friend.
Emilius, a rich young man of a sensitive and melancholy temperament,
had become master of his fortune on his father's death, and had set
out on his travels for the sake of cultivating his mind: he had
already been spending several months however in a large town, to enjoy
the pleasures of the carnival, about which he never gave himself the
slightest trouble, and to make certain important arrangements
concerning his fortune with some relations, whom he had scarcely yet
visited. On his journey he had fallen in with the restless,
ever-shifting and veering Roderick, who was living at variance with
his guardians, and who, to get rid altogether of them and their
troublesome admonitions, had caught eagerly at his new friend's offer
to take him with him on his travels.
On their road they had already been often on the point of separating;
but after every dispute both had only felt the more forcibly that
neither could live without the other. Scarcely had they got out of
their carriage in any town, when Roderick had already seen everything
remarkable in it, to forget it all again on the morrow: while Emilius
took a week to study thoroughly whatever was said in books about it,
that he might not leave anything unnoticed; and after all out of
indolence thought there was hardly anything worth going to look at.
Roderick had immediately made a thousand acquaintances, and been to
every public place of entertainment; and he would often bring his
new-made friends to Emilius in his solitary chamber, where, as soon as
he began to be tired of them, he left him alone with them. At other
times he would confound the modest Emilius by heaping extravagant
praises on his talents and acquirements in the presence of learned and
intelligent men, and by telling them how much information they might
derive from his friend with regard to languages, antiquities, or the
fine arts, though he himself could never find leisure to listen to him
on these subjects when the conversation happened to turn on them. But
if Emilius ever chanced to be in a more active mood, he might almost
make sure that his truant friend would have caught cold the night
before at some ball or sledge-party, and be forced to keep his bed; so
that, with the liveliest, most restless, and most communicative of men
for his companion, Emilius lived in the greatest solitude.
On this day he confidently expected him, having made Roderick give him
a solemn promise to spend the evening with him, in order to hear what
it was that for several weeks had been depressing and agitating his
pensive friend. Meanwhile Emilius wrote down the following lines:
'Tis sweet when spring its choir assembles,
And every nightingale is steeping
The trees in his melodious weeping,
Till leaf and bloom with rapture trembles.
Fair is the net that moonlight weaves;
Fair are the breezes gambolings
As with lime-odours on their wings
They chase each other through the leaves.
Bright is the glory of the rose,
When Love's rich magic decks the earth,
From countless roses Love peeps forth,
Those stars wherewith Love's heaven glows.
But sweeter, fairer, brighter far
To me that little lamp's pale gleaming,
When, through the narrow casement streaming
It bids me hail my evening star;
As from their braids she flings her tresses,
Then twines them in a flowery band,
While at each motion of her hand
The light robe to her fair form presses;
Or when she wakes her lute's deep slumbers,
And, as at morning's touch updarting,
The notes beneath her fingers starting,
Trip o'er the strings in playful numbers.
To stop their flight her voice she pours
Full after them; they laugh, and fly,
And to my heart for refuge hie:
Her voice pursues them through its doors.
Leave me, ye mischiefs! hence remove!
They bar themselves within, and say:
Till this be broken here we stay,
That thou mayst know what 'tis to love.
Emilius stood up fretfully. It grew darker, but no Roderick came; and
he was wishing to tell him of his love for an unknown fair one, who
dwelt in the opposite house, and who kept him at home all day long,
and waking through many a night.
At length footsteps sounded on the stairs; the door opened without
anybody knocking at it: and in came two gay masks with ugly visages,
one of them a Turk, drest in red and blue silk, the other a Spaniard,
in pale yellow and pink, with a plume of feathers waving on his hat.
When Emilius was losing patience, Roderick took off his mask, shewed
his well-known laughing countenance, and cried: "Heyday, my good
friend, what a drowned puppy of a face! Is this the way to look in the
carnival? I am come with my dear young officer here to carry you off:
there is a grand ball tonight at the masquerade-rooms; and, as I know
you have forsworn ever putting on any other suit than that which you
always wear of the devil's own colour, come with us black as you are;
for it is getting somewhat late."
Emilius felt angry, and said: "It seems that according to custom you
have totally forgotten your engagement. I am extremely sorry," (he
added, turning to the stranger) "that I cannot possibly be of your
party: my friend has been overhasty in promising for me; indeed I
cannot go out at all, having some matters of importance to talk over
with him."
The stranger, who was well-bred and saw Emiliuses meaning, withdrew:
but Roderick with the utmost indifference put on his mask again, took
his stand before the glass, and exclaimed: "Verily, I am a most
hideous figure, am I not? After all my pains it is a tasteless,
disgusting device."
"That there can be no question about!" answered Emilius in vehement
displeasure. "Making a caricature of yourself, and stupefying your
senses, are among the pleasures you are the fondest of driving at."
"Because you don't like dancing," said the other, "and look upon it as
a pernicious invention, not a soul in the world is to be merry. How
tiresome it is when a man is made up of nothing but whims!"
"Doubtless!" replied his irritated friend; "and you afford me ample
opportunity for finding that it is so. I fancied that after our
agreement you would have given me this one evening; but--"
"But it is the carnival, you know," interposed the other; "and all my
acquaintances, and divers fair ladies are expecting me at the grand
ball tonight. Rely upon it, my dear friend, it is mere disease in you
that makes you so unreasonably averse to all such amusements."
"Which of us has the fairest claim to be called diseased," said
Emilius, "I will not examine. But I cannot think that your
incomprehensible frivolousness, your hunger and thirst for
dissipation, your restless chase after pleasures that leave the heart
empty, are altogether the healthiest state of human nature. On certain
points at all events you might make a little allowance for my
weakness, if you are determined to call it so; and you know there is
nothing in the world that so sets my whole soul on edge as a ball with
its frightful music. Somebody has said, that to a deaf person who
cannot hear the music a party of dancers must look like so many
patients for a madhouse: but to my mind this detestable music itself,
this twirling and whirling and pirouetting of half a dozen notes, each
treading on its own heels, in those odious tunes, which ram themselves
into our memory, nay, I might say, mix themselves up with our very
blood, so that one cannot get rid of the taint for many a woful day
after,--this to me is the very trance of madness: and if I could ever
bring myself to think dancing endurable, it would be dancing to the
tune of silence."
"Bravo, signor paradox-monger!" exclaimed the mask: "You are so far
gone, that you choose to think the most natural, the most innocent,
and the merriest thing in the world unnatural, ay, and shocking."
"I cannot change my feelings," said his grave friend. "From my very
childhood these tunes have made me unhappy, and have often all but
driven me out of my senses. They are to me the ghosts and spectres and
furies in the world of sound, and they come and buz round my head, and
grin at me with horrid laughter."
"Sheer nervousness!" returned the other; "just like your extravagant
abhorrence of spiders and divers other harmless insects."
"Harmless you call them!" cried Emilius indignantly, "because you have
no repugnance to such things. To him however that feels the same
disgust and loathing, the same unutterable shuddering, as I feel,
start up within him and shoot through his whole frame at the sight of
them, these miscreate deformities, such as toads, beetles, or that
most nauseous of all Nature's abortions, the bat, are not indifferent
or insignificant: their very existence is a state of direct enmity and
warfare against his. In good truth one might smile at the unbelievers
whose imagination is too barren for ghosts and fearful goblins, and
such births of night as we see in sickness, to grow up in it, or who
stare and marvel at Dante's descriptions; when the commonest everyday
life is perpetually paralysing our eyesight with some of these
portentous distorted masterpieces among the works of horrour. Yet how
can we have a real feeling and love for beauty, without detesting and
recoiling from such monstrosities?"
"Why recoil from them?" askt Roderick: "why should we see nothing in
the vast realm of water, in lakes, rivers, and seas, but those dismal
objects which you have taught yourself to find there? why not rather
look on such creatures as queer, amusing, and ludicrous mummers? so
that the deep might be called a kind of large maskt ballroom. But your
caprices go still further; for while you love roses with a sort of
idolatry, there are other flowers for which you have a no less
passionate hatred: yet what harm has the dear bright tulip ever done
you? or all the other gay children of summer that you persecute? Thus
again you have an antipathy to sundry colours, to sundry scents, and
to a number of thoughts; and you never take any pains to strengthen
yourself against these moods, but give way to them and sink down into
them as into a luxurious feather bed; so that I often fear I shall
lose you altogether some day, and find nothing but a patchwork of
whims and prejudices sitting at that table instead of my Emilius."
Emilius was wroth to the bottom of his heart, and answered not a word.
He had now given up all thought of making his intended confession; nor
did the thoughtless Roderick shew the least wish to hear the secret
which his melancholy companion had announced to him with such an air
of solemnity. He was sitting carelessly in the armchair, playing with
his mask, when on a sudden he cried: "Be so kind, Emilius, as to lend
me your large cloak."
"What for?" askt the other.
"I hear music in the church over the way," answered Roderick; "and
some how or other I have mist this hour every evening since we have
been here. Today it comes just in the nick: I can cover my dress with
your cloak, hiding my mask and turban under it; and so, when the music
is over, I may go straight to the ball."
Emilius muttered between his teeth as he went for the cloak to his
wardrobe, and then, forcing himself to put on an ironical smile, he
gave it to Roderick who was already on his legs.
"There, I'll leave you my Turkish dagger that I bought yesterday,"
said the mask, as he wrapt himself up: "Take care of it for me; it is
a bad habit, this carrying about toys of cold steel: one can never
tell what ill use may not be made of them, should a quarrel arise, or
any other knot that it is easier to cut than untie. We shall meet
again tomorrow; good bye; a pleasant evening to you." He did not wait
for an answer, but ran down stairs.
When Emilius was alone, he tried to forget his anger, and to look only
at the laughable side of his friend's behaviour. His eyes rested on
the shining, finely wrought dagger, and he said: "What must be the
feelings of a man who could thrust this sharp iron into the breast of
an enemy! but oh, what must be his who should hurt a beloved object
with it!"
He lockt it up, then gently folded back the window shutters, and lookt
across the narrow street. But no light was stirring; the opposite
house was quite dark; the dear form that dwelt in it, and that was
wont to appear there about this time engaged in divers household
affairs, seemed to be absent. 'Perhaps she may be at the ball,'
thought Emilius, little as it sorted with her retired way of life. Ere
long however a light came in: the little girl whom his beloved unknown
had about her, and with whom she used to pass a great part of the day
and of the evening, carried a candle through the room and closed the
shutters. A chink still let the light through, wide enough for
Emilius, where he stood, to overlook a part of the little room: and
there the happy youth would often stay till after midnight as if
charmed to the spot, watching every motion of her hand, every look of
her beloved face. It was a joy to see her teaching the child to read,
or giving her lessons in sewing and knitting. On inquiry he had learnt
that the little girl was a poor orphan, whom his fair maiden had
charitably taken into the house, to educate her.
Emiliuses friends could not conceive why he lived in this narrow
street, in this comfortless lodging, why he was so little to be seen
in society, or how he employed himself. Without employment, in
solitude, he was happy: only he felt out of humour with himself at his
own bashfulness, which withheld him from trying to become nearer
acquainted with this beauteous being, notwithstanding the friendliness
with which she had several times greeted and thankt him. He knew not
that she would often gaze over at him with eyes no less lovesick than
his own: he guessed not what wishes were forming in her heart, of what
an effort, what a sacrifice she felt herself capable, so she might but
attain the possession of his love.
After walking a few times up and down the room, the light having gone
away again with the child, he suddenly made up his mind, in spite of
all his feelings and inclinations, to go to the ball; for it struck
him that his unknown might have made an exception for once to her
usual secluded habits, for the sake of enjoying the world and its
gaieties.
The streets were brilliantly lighted up; the snow crackled under his
feet; carriages rolled by him; and masks in every variety of dress
whistled and twittered as they passed him. Many of the houses
resounded with the dancing music which he so much abhorred; and he
could not bring himself to take the nearest way to the ballroom, to
which people from all quarters were streaming and flocking.
He walkt round the old church, gazed at its high tower rising
majestically into the dark sky, and enjoyed the stillness and solitude
of this deserted place. Within the recess of a large doorway, the
varied sculptures of which he had often contemplated with pleasure,
while calling up visions of the olden times and the arts that adorned
them, he now again took his stand, to give himself up for a few
moments to his musings.
He had not been there long, when his attention was attracted by a
figure that was pacing restlessly to and fro, and seemed to be waiting
for somebody. By the light of a lamp burning before an image of the
Virgin, he distinctly made out the face, as well as the strange dress.
It was an old woman of the uttermost hideousness, which struck the eye
the more from her being grotesquely clad in a scarlet bodice
embroidered with gold. Emilius fancied at first it must be some
extravagant mask that had lost its way: but the bright light soon
convinced him that the old brown wrinkled face was one of Nature's
ploughing, and no mimic exaggeration.
In a few minutes two men made their appearance, wrapt up in cloaks,
who seemed to approach the spot with cautious steps, often turning
their heads aside to see whether anybody was following. The old woman
went up to them.
"Have you got the candles?" she askt hastily and with a gruff voice.
"Here they are," said one of the men: "you know the price; let us
settle the matter and have done with it."
The old woman seemed to be giving him some money, which he counted
over beneath his cloak. "I rely upon you," she again began, "that they
are made exactly according to rule, at the right time and place, so
that they cannot fail of their effect."
"You need not be uneasy on that score," returned the man, and hurried
away.
His companion, who staid behind, was a youth: he took the old woman by
the hand, and said: "Can it be true, Alexia, that certain rites and
spells, as those old wild stories, in which I could never put faith,
tell us, can fetter the free will of man, and make love and hatred grow
up in the heart?"
"Ay forsooth!" answered the scarlet woman; "but one and one must make
two, and many a one must be added thereto, before such mighty things
come to pass. It is not these candles alone, moulded beneath the
midnight darkness of the new moon, and drencht with human blood, it is
not the mere uttering magical words and incantations, that can give
you the mastery over the soul of another: there is much more belonging
to such works, as the initiated well know."
"I may depend upon you then!" cried the stranger.
"Tomorrow after midnight I am at your service," replied the old woman.
"You shall not be the first person that ever was dissatisfied with my
skill. Tonight, as you have heard, I have some one else in hand, one
whose senses and soul our art shall twist about whichever way we
choose, just as easily as I twist this hair out of my head."
These last words she uttered with a half grin; and they separated,
walking off in different directions.
Emilius came forth from the dark niche shuddering, and lifted his
looks to the image of the Virgin with the Child. "Before thine eyes,
thou mild and blessed one," he said half aloud, "are these miscreants
audaciously holding their market and trafficking in their infernal
drugs. But as thou embracest thy child with thy love, so doth heavenly
Love encircle us all with its protecting arms; we feel their touch;
and our poor hearts beat joyously and tremulously toward a greater
heart that will never forsake us."
Clouds were rolling along over the pinnacles of the tower and the high
roof of the church; the everlasting stars lookt down through the midst
of them gleaming with mild serenity; and Emilius drew his thoughts
resolutely away from these nightly abominations, and mused on the
beauty of his unknown. He again entered the peopled streets, and bent
his steps toward the brightly illuminated ballroom, from which voices,
and the rattling of carriages, and now and then, when there was a
pause, the clamorous music, came sounding to his ears.
In the ballroom he was instantly lost amid the streaming throng:
dancers ran round him; masks darted by him to and fro; kettledrums and
trumpets stunned his ears; and it seemed to him as if human life had
melted away into a dream. He walkt along one row after another, and
his eye alone was wakeful, seeking after those beloved eyes and that
fair head with its brown locks, for the sight of which he yearned this
evening more intensely than ever, at the same time that he inwardly
reproacht their adored possessor, for allowing herself to plunge and
be lost in this stormy sea of confusion and folly. 'No!' he said to
himself; 'no heart that loves can willingly expose itself to this
dreary hubbub of noise, in which every longing and every tear is scoft
and mockt at by the wild laughter of pealing trumpets. The whispering
of trees, the murmuring of brooks, the soft notes of the harp, and the
song that gushes forth in all its richness and sweetness from an
overflowing bosom, are the sounds in which love dwells. But this is
the very thundering and shouting of hell in the frenzy of its
despair....'
He saw nothing like her whom he was seeking for; and he could not
possibly give enterance to the notion that her beloved face might
perhaps be lurking behind some odious mask.
He had already ranged up and down the room three times over, and had
in vain run his eyes along all the ladies that were sitting and
unmaskt, when the Spaniard joined him and said: "I am glad you are
come after all; are you looking for your friend?"
Emilius had quite forgotten him; he said however somewhat embarrast:
"In truth I wonder I have not met him here, for his mask is not to be
mistaken."
"Can you guess what the harum-scarum fellow is about?" answered the
young officer. "He never danced at all, and hardly staid ten minutes
in the ballroom: for he soon fell in with his friend Anderson, who is
just come up from the country: their conversation turned upon books;
and as Anderson has never seen the new poem, Roderick would not rest
till he had made them open one of the back rooms for him; and there he
is now sitting beside a solitary taper, holding his companion fast,
and declaiming the whole poem to him, not omitting even the invocation
to the muse."
"It's just like him," said Emilius; "he is always the child of the
moment. I have done all in my power, and even run the risk of some
amicable quarrels, to cure him of this habit of for ever living
extempore, and playing out his whole life in impromptus, card after
card, as it chances to turn up, without once looking over his hand.
But these follies have struck such deep root in his heart, he would
sooner part with his best friend than with them. That very same poem,
which he is so fond of that he always carries it about in his pocket,
he wanted to read to me a few days ago, and I had earnestly begged him
to do so: but he had scarcely got beyond the first description of the
moon, when, just as I had resigned myself to the enjoyment of its
beauties, he suddenly jumpt up, ran out of the room, came back with
the cook's apron round his waist, tore down the bell-rope in ringing
to have the fire lighted, and insisted on broiling me some beefsteaks,
for which I had not the least appetite, and which he fancies nobody in
Europe dresses so well, though, if he is in luck, he does not spoil
them above nine times in ten."