CHAPTER XXXVI.

IN LETTERS OF FIRE.

THE storm which had threatened to break last night still held off,

but the spirit of the weather had changed. It was no longer bright and

clear, but sunless, airless, heated, silent--the stillness which seems

to presage as much sorrow to man as it heralds tumult to Nature. Leam,

however--interpenetrated by her love, which gave what it felt and

saw what it brought--always remembered this early day as the ideal of

peace and softness, where was no prophecy of coming evil, no shadow of

the avenging hand stretched out to punish and destroy--only peace and

softness, love, joy and rest.

The gray background of the heavy sky, which to others was heavy and

gloomy, was to her the loveliest expression of repose, and the absence

of sunlight was as grateful as a veil drawn against the glare. If

not beautiful in itself, it added beauty to other things: witness

the passionate splendor given by it to the flowers, which seemed

by contrast to gain a force and vitality of color, a richness and

significance, they never had before. She specially remembered in days

to come a bed of scarlet poppies that glowed like so many cups of

flame against the dark masses of evergreens behind them; and the

scarlet geraniums, the bold bosses of the blood-red peonies, the fiery

spathes of salvia and gladiolus the low-lying verbenas like rubies

cast on the green leaves and brown earth, the red gold, flame-color

streaked with lines of blood, of the nasturtiums festooning the

bordering wires of the centre beds, all seemed to come out like spires

of flame or rosettes dyed in blood, till the garden was filled with

only those two colors--the one of fire and the other of blood.

But though Leam remembered this in after-days as the weird prophecy

of what was to come, at the time those burning beds of flowers

simply pleased her with their brilliant coloring; and she sat in her

accustomed place on the garden-chair, under the cut-leaved hornbeam,

and looked at the garden stretching before her with the fresh,

surprised kind of admiration of one who had never seen it before--as

if it told her something different to-day from what it had in times

past; as indeed it did.

Presently Edgar came down from the Hill. He had not told his people

yet of the double bond which he designed to make between the two

houses. He thought it was only fitting to wait until Sebastian had

returned and he had gained the paternal consent in the orthodox way.

And the false air of secrecy which this temporary reticence gave his

engagement gave it also a false air of romance which exactly suited

his temperament in the matter of love. Perhaps for the woman

destined to be his wife he would have preferred to dispense with

this characteristic of his dealings with those other women, her

predecessors, not destined to be his wives. All the same, it was

delightful, as things were, to come down to Ford House on this sultry

day and sit under the shadow of the hornbeam, with Leam looking her

loveliest by his side, and butterfly-like Fina running in and out in

the joyous way of a lively child fond of movement and not afflicted

with shyness; delightful to feel that he was enacting a little poem

unknown to all the world beside--that he was the magician who had

first wakened this young soul into life and taught it the sweet

suffering of love; and delightful to know that he was king and

supreme, the only man concerned, with not even a father to share, just

yet, his domain.

Edgar, at all times charming, because at all times good-humored and

not inconveniently in earnest, when specially pleased with himself was

one of the most delightful companions to be found. He had seen much,

and he talked pleasantly on what he had seen, whipping up the surface

of things dexterously and not forcing his hearers to digest the

substance. Hence he was never a bore, nor did he disturb the placid

shallows of ignorance by an unwelcome influx of information. He

had just so much of the histrionic element, born of vanity and

self-consciousness, as is compatible with the impassive quietude

prescribed by good-breeding, whereby his manner had a color that was

an excellent substitute for sincerity, and his speech a pictorial

glow that did duty for enthusiasm when he thought fit to simulate

enthusiasm. He had, too, that sensitive tact which seems to feel weak

places as if by instinct; and when he was at his best his good-nature

led him to avoid giving pain and to affect a sympathetic air, which

was no more true than his earnestness. But it took with the uncritical

and the affectionate, and Major Harrowby was quoted by many as an

eminently kind and tender-hearted man.

To women he had that manner of subtle deference and flattering

admiration characteristic of men who make love to all women--even to

children in the bud and to matrons more than full-blown--and who are

consequently idolized by the sex all round. And when this natural

adorer of many laid himself out to make special love to one he was,

as we know, irresistible. He was irresistible to-day. He was really in

love with Leam; and if his love had not the intensity, the tenacity of

hers, yet it was true of its kind, and for him very true.

But he was not so much in love as to be unconscious of the most

graceful way of making it; consequently, he knew exactly what he was

doing and how he looked and what he said, while Leam, sitting there by

his side, drinking in his words as if they were heavenly utterances,

forgot all about herself, and lived only in her speechless, her

unfathomable adoration of the man she loved. Her life at this moment

was one pulse of voiceless happiness: it was one strain of sensation,

emotion, passion, love; but it was not conscious thought nor yet

perception of outward things by her senses.

If yesterday at Dunaston had been a day of blessedness, this was its

twin sister, and the better favored of the two. There was a certain

flavor of domesticity in these quiet hours passed together in the

garden, interrupted only by the child as she ran hither and thither

breaking in on them, sometimes not unpleasantly when speech was

growing embarrassed because emotion was growing too strong, that

seemed to Leam the sweetest experience which life could give her were

she to live for ever; and the sunless stillness of the day suited her

nature even better than the gayer glory of yesterday. To-day, too,

it was still more peace in her inner being and still less unrest. The

more accustomed she was becoming to the strange fact of loving and

being loved by a man not a Spaniard, and one whom mamma would neither

have chosen nor approved of, the more she was at ease both in heart

and manner, and the more exquisite and profound her blessedness. And

who does not know what happiness can do for a girl of strong emotions,

naturally reserved, by circumstances friendless, by habit joyless,

and how the soul of such a one seems to throw off its husk like the

enchanted victim of a fairy-tale when the true being that has been

hidden is released by love? It is a transformation as entire as any

wrought by magic word or wand; and it was the transformation wrought

with Leam to-day. She was Leam Dundas truly in all the essential

qualities of identity, but Leam Dundas with another soul, an added

faculty, an awakened consciousness--Leam set free from the darkness of

the bondage in which she had hitherto lived.

"You look like another being: you have looked like this ever since you

told me you loved me," said Edgar, drawing himself a little back and

gazing at her with the critical tenderness of a man's pride and love.

"You are like Psyche wakened out of her sleep, and for the first time

using your wings and living in the upper air."

The metaphor was a little confused, but that did not signify. The

whole image was essentially Greek to Leam, and she only knew that it

sounded well and did somehow apply to her--that she had just awakened

out of sleep, and was for the first time using her wings and living in

the upper air.

"I have not really lived till now," she answered. "And now things seem

different."

"In what way?" asked Edgar, smiling.

He knew what she meant, but he wanted to hear her reveal herself.

She smiled too. "More beautiful," she said, a little vaguely.

"As what? I like to be precise, and I want to know exactly what my

darling thinks and means."

He said this with his most bewitching smile and in his tenderest

voice. It was so pleasant to him to receive these first shy, confused

confessions.

"The flowers and the sky," said Leam, raising her eyes and looking

through the garden and on to the gray and narrowed horizon. "I

remember when flowers were weeds and one day was like another. I did

not know if the sun shone or not. But this year seems now to have been

always summer and sunshine. The very weeds are more lovely than the

flowers used to be."

"Flowers and sunshine since you knew me, my darling?"

"Yes," she answered shyly.

Edgar glanced at the heavy clouds hanging over head, but he did not

say that he found this gray day singularly gloomy and oppressive, and

that even love could not set a fairy sun in the sky. He took up the

second clause of her loving speech: "And I am your flower? What

a precious little compliment! I hope I shall be your amaranth, my

Leam--your everlasting flower--if a rough soldier may have such

a pretty comparison made in his favor. Do you think I shall be

everlasting to you?"

"When God dies my love will die, and not before," said Leam, with her

grave fervor, her voice of concentrated passion.

Her voice and manner thrilled Edgar. Her words, too, in their very

boldness were more exciting than the most refined commonplaces of

other women. It was this union of more than ordinary womanly reticence

with almost savage passion and directness that had always been Leam's

charm to Edgar; nevertheless, he hesitated for a few minutes, thinking

whether he should correct her manner of speech or not, and while

loving chasten her. Finally, he decided that he would not. She was

only his lover as yet: when she should be his wife it would then

be time enough to teach her the subdued conventionalism of English

feeling as interpreted by the English tongue used commonly by

gentlemen and ladies. Meanwhile, he must give her her head, as he

inwardly phrased it, so as not frighten her in the beginning and thus

make the end more difficult.

"You love me too much," he said in a low voice, half oppressed, half

excited by her words, for men are difficult to content. The love of

women given in excess of their demand embarrasses and maybe chills

them; and Edgar had a sudden misgiving, discomposing if quite natural,

which appeared, as it were, to check him like a horse in mid-career

and throw him back on himself disagreeably. He asked himself

doubtfully, Should he be able to answer this intense love so as

to make the balance even between them? He loved her dearly,

passionately--better than he had ever loved any woman of the many

before--but he did not love her like this: he knew that well enough.

"I cannot love you too much," said Leam. "You are my life, and you are

so great."

"And you will never tire of me?"

She looked into his face, her beautiful eyes worshiping him. "Do we

tire of the sun?" she answered.

"Where did you get all your pretty fancies from, my darling?" he

cried. "You have developed into a poet as well as a Psyche."

"Have I? If I have developed into anything, it is because I love you,"

she answered, with her sweet pathetic smile.

"But, my Leam, sweetheart--"

"Ah," she interrupted him with a look of passionate delight, "how I

like to hear you call me that! Mamma used to call me her heart. No one

else has since--I would not let any one if they had wanted--till now

you."

"And you _are_ my heart," he answered fervently--"the heart of my

heart, my very life!"

"Am I?" she smiled. "And you are mine."

"But, sweetheart, tell me if, when you know me better, you do not

find me all you think me now, what then? Will you hate me for very

disappointment?"

He asked the question, but as if he believed in himself and the

impossibility of her hatred or disappointment while he asked it.

She looked at him with naïve incredulity and surprise. It would have

been a challenge to be kissed from any other woman, but Leam, with her

fire and passion and personal reticence all in one, had no thought

of offering such a challenge, still less of submitting to its

consequences.

"Find you all I think?" she repeated slowly. "When I know the saints

in heaven, will not they be all I think? Was not Columbus?"

"But I am neither a saint nor a hero," said Edgar, drawing a sprig of

lemon-plant which he held in his hand lightly across her face.

"You are both," answered Leam as positively as she used to answer

Alick about the ugliness of England and the want of flowers in the

woods and hedges, and with as much conviction of her case.

"And you are an angel," he returned.

"No," said Leam quietly, "I am only the woman who loves you."

"Ah, but you must not depreciate yourself for my sake," he said. "My

choice, my love, my wife, must be perfect for my own honor. You must

respect me in respecting yourself, and if you were to say yes indeed

you were an angel, that would only be what is due to me. Don't you

see?" pleasantly.

"Yes," she answered. "And only an angel would be good enough for you."

"My sweetest, your flattery is too delicious. It will make me vain and

all sorts of bad things," said Edgar with a happy smile, finding this

innocent worship one of the most charming tributes ever brought to the

shrine of his lordly manhood by woman.

"It is not flattery: you deserve more," said Leam. Then lapsing into

her old manner of checked utterance, she added, "I cannot talk, but

you should be told."

Edgar thought he had been told pretty often by women the virtues which

they had seen in him. Whether they saw what was or what they imagined

was not to the point. If love creates, so does vanity, and of the two

the latter has the more permanence.

After this there was a long pause. It was as if one chapter had been

finished, one cup emptied. Then said Edgar suddenly, "And you will

be happy at the Hill?" lightly touching her face again with the

lemon-plant.

"With you anywhere," she answered.

"And my mother? Do you remember when you said one day you would not

like to be my mother's daughter? Ah, little puss, you did not know

what you were saying; and now tell me, do you object to be my mother's

daughter?"

Leam looked grave. "I had not thought of that," she said, a certain

shadow of distress crossing her face.

"Does the idea displease you?" he asked, in his turn grave.

"No," she answered after a short silence. "But I only thought of you.

Shall I be Mrs. Harrowby's daughter?"

"Of course. How should you not?" he laughed.

"And Miss Josephine's too--two mothers?--mother and daughter both my

mothers? I cannot understand," said poor Leam, a little hopelessly.

"Never mind the intricacies now. You are to be my wife: that is all we

need remember. Is it not?" bending toward her tenderly.

"Yes," echoed Leam with a sigh of relief. "That is all we need

remember."

So the day passed in these broken episodes, these delightful little

scenes of the fooling and flattery of love, till the evening came,

when Edgar was obliged to go up to the seven-o'clock dinner at the

Hill. He might sit with Leam, as he had done, for nearly six hours in

the garden, without more comment than that which servants naturally

make among themselves, but if he remained through the evening he would

publish more than he cared to publish at the present moment. So he had

arranged to go back to the family dinner at seven, and thus keep his

mother and sisters hoodwinked for a few hours longer.

As the time of parting drew nearer and nearer Leam became strangely

sad and silent. Little caressing as she was by nature or habit, of her

own accord she had laid her small dry feverish hand in Edgar's, and

had gathered herself so much nearer to him that her slight shoulder

touched his broad and powerful arm. It was a very faint caress for an

engaged girl to offer, but it was an immense concession for Leam to

make; and Edgar understood it in its meaning more than its extent.

With the former he was delighted enough: the latter would scarcely

have contented a man with loose moist lips and the royal habit of

taking and having all for which he had a fancy. Nothing that Leam had

said or done through the day had told him so plainly as did this quiet

and by no means fervent familiarity how much she loved him, and how

the power of that love was breaking up her natural reserve.

"It is as if I should never see you again," she said sadly when,

looking at his watch, he had exclaimed, "Time's up, my darling! I must

be off in five minutes from this. But I shall see you to-morrow," he

answered tenderly. "I shall come down in the morning, as I have done

to-day, and perhaps you will ride with me. We will go over some of the

old ground, where we used to go when I loved you and you did not think

you would ever love me. Ah, fairy that you are, how you have bewitched

me!"

"That will be good," said Learn, who did not resent it in him that she

was compared to a thing that did not exist, but adding with a piteous

look, "it is taking my life from me when you go."

"You lovely little darling! I don't like to see you look unhappy, but

I do delight to see how much you love me," said Edgar. "But you will

not have to part with me for very long now. I shall see you every day

till the time comes when we shall never be separated--never, never."

"Ah, that time!" she sighed. "It is far off."

He smiled, as his manner was, behind his beard, so that she did not

see it. "It shall not be far off," he said gravely. "And now," looking

again at his watch and then at the sky, "I must go."

The storm that had been threatening through the day was now gathering

to a head, and even as Edgar spoke the first flash came, the first

distant peal of thunder sounded, the first heavy raindrops fell. There

was evidently going to be a fearful tempest, and Edgar must leave now

at once if he would not be in the thick of it before he reached home.

"Yes," said Leam, noting the change in the sky, and unselfish always,

"you must go."

They rose and turned toward the house. Hand in hand they walked slowly

across the lawn and entered the drawing-room by the way of the window,

by the way by which she had entered twice before--once when she had

disclaimed madame, and once when she had welcomed Josephine.

Tears were in her eyes: her heart had failed her.

"It is like losing you for ever," she said again.

"No, not for ever--only till to-morrow," he answered.

"To-morrow! to-morrow!" she replied. "There will be no to-morrow."

"Yes, yes: in a very few hours we shall have come to that blessed

day," he said cheerfully. "Kiss me, darling, that I may carry away

your sweetest memory till I see you again. You will kiss me, Leam,

of your own free will to-night, will you not?" He said this a little

tremulously, his arms round her.

"Yes," she answered, "I will kiss you to-night."

She turned her face to him and put her hands round his neck frankly:

then with an uncontrollable impulse she flung herself against his

breast and, clasping her arms tight, bent his head down to her

level and kissed him on the forehead with the passionate sorrow,

the reluctant despair of an eternal farewell. It was something that

irresistibly suggested death.

Edgar was distressed at her manner, distressed to have to leave her;

but he must. Life is made up of petty duties, paltry obligations.

Great events come but rarely and are seldom uninterrupted. A shower

of rain and the dinner-hour are parts of the mosaic and help in the

catastrophe which looks as if it had been the offspring of the

moment. And just now the supreme exigencies to be attended to were the

dinner-hour at the Hill and the rain that was beginning to fall.

Saddened, surprised, yet gratified too by her emotion, Edgar answered

it in his own way. He kissed her again and again, smoothed her hair,

passed his hand over her soft fresh cheeks, held her to him tightly

clasped; and Leam did not refuse his caresses. She seemed to have

suddenly abandoned all the characteristics of her former self:

the mask had fallen finally, and her soul, released from its long

imprisonment, was receiving its gift, not of tongues, but of fire--not

of healing, but of suffering.

"My darling," he half whispered, "I shall see you to-morrow. Come,

do not be so cast down: it is not reasonable, my heart. And tears in

those sweet eyes? My Leam, dry them: they are too beautiful for tears.

Look up, my darling. Give me one happy little smile, and remember

to-morrow and for all our lives after."

But Learn could not smile. Her face was set to its old mask of tragedy

and sorrow. Something, she knew not what, had passed out of her life,

and something had come into it--something that Edgar for the moment

could neither restore nor yet banish. He pressed her to him for the

last time, kissed her passive face again and again, caught the scent

of the lemon-plant in her hair where he had placed it, and left her.

As he passed through the gate the storm burst in all its fury, and

Leam went up into her own room in a voiceless, tearless grief that

made the whole earth a desert and all life desolation.

She did know herself this evening, nor understand what it was that

ailed her. She had only consciously loved for two days, and this was

the anguish to which she had been brought. No, not even when mamma

died had she suffered as she was suffering now. She felt as if she had

lost him even as she had lost her. She did not believe in to-morrow:

it would never come. She would never be with him again as she had been

to-day. No self-reasoning, feebly aimed at, could calm her or convince

her of the folly of her fears. He had gone, she was left, and they

were parted for ever.

She sat by the window desolate, deserted, more alone than she had ever

been before, because she had lost more than she had ever either held

or lost before. The storm that was raging in the sky grew gradually

stronger and came still nearer, but she scarcely noticed it: it was

only as the symphony sounding in sad harmony with her unspoken wail.

Flash followed flash, swifter, nearer, more vivid; the thunder crashed

and roared as if it would have beaten the house to the ground and rent

the very earth whereon it stood; the rain fell in torrents that broke

the flowers like hail and ran in turbulent rivulets along the paths.

Never had there been such a furious tempest as this at North Aston

since the days of tradition. It made the people in the village below

quail and cry out that the day of judgment had come upon them: it made

Leam at last forget her sorrow and quail in her solitude as if her day

of judgment too had come upon her.

Then there came one awful flash that seemed to set the whole room on

fire; and as Leam started up, thinking that the place was indeed in

flames, her eyes fell on the Tables of the Ten Commandments given

her by madame; and there, in letters of blood that seemed to cry out

against her like a voice, she saw by the light of that accusing flash

those words of terrible significance to her:

THOU SHALT DO NO MURDER!

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

ROSE-MORALS.

I.--RED.

Would that my songs might be

What roses make by day and night---

Distillments of my clod of misery

Into delight.

Soul! could'st thou bare thy breast

As yon red rose, and dare the day,

All clean, and large, and calm with velvet rest?

Say yea--say yea!

Ah, dear my Rose! good-bye!

The wind is up; so drift away.

That songs from me as leaves from thee may fly,

I strive, I pray.

II.--WHITE.

Soul! get thee to the heart

Of yonder tuberose: hide thee there--

There breathe the meditations of thine art

Suffused with prayer.

Of spirit grave but light,

How fervent fragrances uprise

Pure-born from these most rich and yet most white

Virginities!

Mulched with unsavory death,

Grow, Soul! unto such white estate,

Strong art and virginal prayer shall be thy breath,

Thy work, thy fate.

SIDNEY LANIER.

AN OLD HOUSE AND ITS STORY.

[Illustration: MOUNT PLEASANT.]

It is pleasant, on a warm, sunny afternoon in the spring-time (or,

indeed, at any season of the year, but I love the spring-time

best), to take the broad, well-shaded avenue on the east bank of the

Schuylkill at Fairmount Park, and, passing the pretty little club

boat-houses already green with their thick overhanging vines, to

saunter slowly along the narrow roadway on the water's edge to the

great Girard Avenue Bridge, and so on through the cool dark tunnel,

coming out on the steep railed path that winds up and away from the

river to bury itself for a while in rich deep woodlands, only to bring

you presently to the water-side again, where stands the fine old Mount

Pleasant mansion, the country-seat of Benedict Arnold nearly a hundred

years ago, and bestowed by him as a marriage-gift upon his new-made

bride in April, 1779. A sweet, cool air blows up to you from the

river, purple and white violets, buttercups and Quaker ladies are set

thickly about your feet, the newly-arrived orioles are piping their

pert little tunes nigh at hand, and you can spend a meditative hour or

two sitting in the shifting specks of yellow sunshine filtered

through the tender young leaves overhead, undisturbed by the shades of

departed revelers that may be wandering behind the close shutters of

the silent old house you have come so far to see. There is a curious

and distinct flavor of antiquity about the place; for the woodwork

around the doors and windows, which has so bravely withstood the

corroding tooth of Time and the wearing rain-drip from the great

tree-branches creaking above the roof, is of a quaint but excellent

pattern, of which we see too little in these days of hideous sawed

scrollery and gimcrack ornament--the masonry of such an honest

solidity as may well cause the dweller in modern brick and sandy

mortar to sigh enviously for the "good old times." Although the house

appears to be extremely large, it contains very few rooms, and none

of these are so spacious as might be reasonably expected from the

outside. The staircases are singularly ill-contrived, the landings

upon the upper floors occupying a space quite sufficient for

goodly-sized chambers. The ceilings and a chimney-panel or two are set

out bravely with the usual stucco imitation of wood-carving we almost

invariably find (and sigh over) in old American houses--a piteous

attempt on the part of our honest ancestors to reproduce in some sort

the rare wood-sculpture of their own old English manor-houses: it is

a satisfaction, too, to note what little progress we have contrived

to make in this unworthy branch of decorative art in the lapse of a

century.

In two of the rooms are queer corner fireplaces, where, doubtless,

many pairs of dainty high-heeled slippers and great military

jack-boots have been toasted at the huge hickory fires, long since

extinguished. In one of the upper chambers is an odd sort of closet,

the shelves of which are furnished with low railings, presumably a

protection for the handsome and valuable china that women have always

loved to store up--a check upon the ravages of careless housemaids. It

is quite worth while to climb the breakneck garret-stairs, which must

have bruised many a shin in their day, and the short flight leading

to the roof, in order to get the glorious view of the Park stretching

away down to the city of Philadelphia, and of the beautiful Schuylkill

River winding in and out among the trees and flashing so silvery white

in the afternoon sunshine.

In the cellarage, where we disturb many busy spiders and stealthy

centipedes, is a large, solidly-floored apartment, where possibly the

house-servants were used to congregate in the old slave days. There is

no chimney-place in this room, nor, indeed, is there any convenience

whatever for cooking purposes in the main building, which omission

inclines me to the opinion that one of the detached wings was used

for the kitchen offices, there being large fireplaces in both of them,

very suitable for the getting up of good dinners.[3] The grounds about

the house have been much altered of late years--the gardens long

since destroyed. A smug, close-shaven turf replaces the old-fashioned

flower-beds and shrubbery, amid which I love to fancy sweet Peggy

Arnold trailing her French brocades and flowered chintzes, her rosy

ear attuned to the high-flown compliments of the men of fashion whom

her beauty and her husband's lavish hospitality drew about her--her

husband the traitor who a few months afterward was flying, a detected

felon, from justice, leaving his fair young wife, with her babe in her

arms, to face the awful wrath of Washington.

[Footnote 3: A proposition has been recently made to the Fairmount

Park Commissioners by Colonel Frank W. Etting, a Philadelphia lawyer

of well-known taste and culture, to fit up the Mount Pleasant

mansion in the fashion of Colonial times, he having at his command a

sufficient quantity of furniture, pictures, china, etc. for the proper

representation of a house of the best sort in those days. It is to

be hoped that this generous offer may meet with the attention it

deserves, as such a memorial could scarcely fail to prove a great

attraction to our Centennial visitors. Mount Pleasant is fortunately

associated with the memories of better men than Benedict Arnold. The

brave Major Macpherson built the house for his own occupancy before

the Revolutionary war, and General Baron Von Steuben passed a part

of his honorable retirement there, dating his letters humorously from

"Belisarius Hall, on the Schuylkill."]

Doubtless, many a stately minuet and frolicsome country-dance has been

trod in those now dark and empty rooms by the Philadelphia belles

and beaux of 1780, when, the rich furniture all set back against the

walls, the general's blacks were had up from the negro quarters with

blaring horns and shrill fiddles to play for the quality. Alas! the

horns and fiddles sound no more, the merry, grinning players are but

a pinch of dust like their betters, their haughty master but a scorned

memory where once he reigned so royally, while the modish guests who

frisked it so gayly in satin and velvet have long, long ago shaken the

powder out of their locks, tied up their jaws and packed themselves

away in their scant winding-sheets, resigned to the mournful company

of the worm.

Brief tenure held the fair châtelaine of this castle: a year and

a half after the date inscribed upon her title-deeds the republic

claimed the traitor's possessions, and pretty Peggy was driven forth

by the Executive Council to find a home with strangers, but fourteen

days being granted her in which to prepare for her doleful journey.

Our excellent forefathers were made of stern stuff to suit the humor

of those trying times, and doubtless they did but their duty in

ridding their country of the "traitor's brood;" but for my part I can

scarcely think, even at this late day, without a pang of indignant

pity, of this innocent and forlorn young creature hounded forth from

her father's peaceful home in Philadelphia, with her child in her

arms--driven almost to the protection of the man whose crime she

abhorred, and from whom in her first frenzied grief she was even

willing to be for ever separated. There have not been wanting certain

persons, headed by that noble patriot and veracious gentleman, Colonel

Aaron Burr, who from time to time have busied themselves in putting

stray hints together with the intent to make Arnold's wife an

accomplice, if not the direct instigator, of his infamous design;

but there is not in existence, so far as I have been able to learn,

a particle of evidence sufficient to justify the casting of ever so

small a stone at the memory of this most unfortunate lady, whose name

is so pitilessly linked with that of the traitor.

She must have been extremely beautiful. I have had the good fortune to

see her portrait, painted about 1795 at Bath, England, by Sir Thomas

Lawrence, and now in the possession of her grand-niece, a lady to

whom I am indebted for much that I have been able to gather of the

character of Mrs. Arnold. The picture is taken in crayons, and the

colors are wonderfully fresh and lovely after eighty years and a

voyage across the sea, the delicate flesh-tints being especially well

preserved. Besides real beauty of feature, there is an enchanting

softness in the character of the face that seems to belong only to

temperaments the most feminine and refined. A pale pink gown falls

back from her gracious neck and shoulders, liberally and innocently

displayed according to the fashion of the time, and is tied about

her waist with a broad sky-blue ribbon: her hair, lightly dashed with

powder and rolled away from her face, strays in rich curls about her

throat. A child of two or three years leans upon her knee, and pulls

at one of her ringlets with a roguish smile upon his chubby face.

The century that has nearly elapsed since Arnold's defection has not

served to lighten in any degree the load of obloquy that rests

upon his name. In the whole world no man has been found willing

to undertake his defence; yet a believer in the dark old Calvinist

doctrine might urge in the traitor's favor the thousand invisible

influences which from the very birth of the wretched man seem to have

goaded him on in the downward path that led to his final disgrace and

ruin. His home-training, if such it might be called, was of the

very worst. His mother an ignorant, uncultured woman, his father a

defaulter in middle life, in his age a sot, the boy was left to follow

the promptings of his own will, naturally strong and turbulent. His

youth was stormy and insubordinate, his young manhood not without the

reproach of dishonorable mercantile dealings, and even the splendor of

his military achievements in the service of his country could scarcely

blind the judgment of his warmest admirers to the suspicious

stains upon his moral character. That the last link in the chain

of influences might not be wanting, Arnold, while in command of

Philadelphia in 1778, fell deeply in love with and married the

youngest daughter of Mr. Edward Shippen (afterward chief-justice), a

distinguished lawyer of well-known Tory proclivities, although he

was entirely acquitted of any share in the treasonable design of

his son-in-law. It does not appear that there was any very serious

objection made in the Shippen household to the rebel general's suit

for the hand of the lovely Peggy. Arnold was at this time about

thirty-eight years of age, in the vigorous prime of a life whose

declining years were destined to be passed in a sort of contemptuous

tolerance among those with whom he had been at bargain and sale for

the liberties of his country. Covered with well-earned glory from

his brilliant feats of bravery at the battles of Bemis Heights and

Stillwater, and slightly lame from a severe wound in the leg received

at Quebec, he was at last accorded his full rank in the army,

and entered upon the military command of Philadelphia with every

conceivable circumstance in his favor. The stories of his courage and

daring which had preceded him, aided by his handsome person and fine

military bearing, combined to ensure his success in society, and he

was at once given the entrée to the best city families, from one of

which he soon singled out the lady who became his wife. Her father

writes to Colonel Burd in January, 1779, that "General Arnold, a fine

gentleman, lays close siege to Peggy," and goes on to hint that a

wedding may soon be expected. If the traitor's tongue was only half

as persuasive as his pen, small wonder that the damsel capitulated.[4]

"Dear Peggy," sighs the ardent lover upon paper, "suffer that

heavenly bosom (which cannot know itself the cause of pain without a

sympathetic pang) to expand with a sensation more soft, more tender

than friendship.... I have presumed to write to your papa, and have

requested his sanction to my addresses. Consult your own happiness,

and, if incompatible, forget there is so unhappy a wretch. May I

perish before I would give you one moment's inquietude to procure the

greatest possible felicity to myself! Whatever my fate may be, my most

ardent wish is for your happiness, and my latest breath will be to

implore the blessing of Heaven on the idol and only wish of my soul."

And yet the writer of these fine sentiments presently sells her

peace and happiness and his own honor for a sum of money almost too

pitifully small to be named! They were married in April, 1779. By this

union with the daughter of a loyalist, however professing neutrality,

Arnold must have been thrown much into the society of the enemies of

his country's cause--men whose principles were entirely at variance

with his own--and doubtless his defection may be indirectly laid to

the subtle influence of Tory companionship: certainly, his reckless

intimacy with well-known if not openly-avowed foes of American

independence caused his military superiors to look askance at his

movements, and more than justified the caution of a Congress jealous

of the least shadow that menaced the struggling cause of liberty.

[Footnote 4: See _Letters and Papers relating to the Provincial

History of Pennsylvania_, by Mr. Thomas Balch.]

The newly-wedded pair set up their household in the old Penn mansion

(long since torn down) on a scale of magnificence in no way warranted

by Arnold's means. Their great coach-and-four was seen thundering back

and forth through the streets of the quiet little town, and a motley

throng of guests, Whig and Tory, were entertained at a table where

nothing was thought too choice and costly for their delectation.

Matters were carried with such extravagance that debt soon pressed

upon the thoughtless pair, and prudent people began to inquire

curiously into Arnold's administration of public affairs. Whispers

soon grew into loud complaints, and a court-martial was presently

convened to investigate certain charges brought against him by the

Executive Council, comprising peculation, misappropriation of public

funds, etc. During the tedious deliberation of this body of his

fellow-officers, and in the almost certain event of the day going

against him, Arnold laid his plan for the grand coup, which, if

successful, would at once gratify his deep longing for revenge and

place him, as he fondly hoped, at the very summit of his ambition--the

equal of the proudest noble, the lauded servant of a grateful prince.

It seems almost incredible that he should have persevered in his

design after the very lenient decision of his judges, who acquitted

him of all save the most trifling of the charges against him,

and decreed that he should merely receive a reprimand from the

commander-in-chief. Every one knows the encouraging and beautiful

advice with which this slight censure was tempered, and must recognize

the fine manly spirit that prompted it: it should have sunk deeply

into the culprit's heart and made of him the grateful friend of

Washington for ever. It did indeed sink deeply, but it was into a

traitor's heart, and it rankled there.

It is very possible that here, in this lovely retreat on the banks

of the Schuylkill, in the long summer days of 1780, was matured the

slowly-ripening plot, which but for its timely discovery must have

seriously imperiled, if not altogether lost to us, the glorious

inheritance we have held these hundred years. One can fancy the

martial figure of the brave, bad man pacing back and forth beneath

these very trees perhaps, absorbed in bitter reflections on his real

and fancied wrongs--the rapid promotion of men younger than himself

both in years and services, whilst his own bold deeds had met with but

tardy acknowledgment from a cold and cautious Congress; the long array

of debts which arose like spectres to harass him even in this peaceful

Eden; and, worst of all, the humiliating remembrance of Washington's

rebuke. It cannot be denied that the temptation to free himself from

the toils in which his own dishonest course had entangled him must

have beset the unhappy man with almost resistless power. With his

hopelessly impaired character, and weighed down by debts he had

no means of discharging--for he could scarcely hope for an early

settlement of his accounts from a Congress already impoverished by an

expensive war--to remain in the army was, to a man of Arnold's proud,

selfish nature, almost out of the question. By going over to the

enemy he could at once shake off associations which were now become

intolerable to him, gain perpetual immunity from his liabilities, and

secure for himself a life of distinction and luxury. He grasped at the

delusive vision and was lost for ever.

In August of this year he received the coveted appointment to the

command of West Point, and Philadelphia saw him no more. He took up

his residence in Beverley Robinson's lately-vacated house on the

east bank of the Hudson and nearly opposite the entrenchments at West

Point. The story of the discovered plot and Major André's detention

is too well known to be more than glanced at here: everything was in

readiness for the surrender of the post into the hands of Sir Henry

Clinton when the unfortunate young adjutant was taken, and the papers

criminating Arnold found upon his person. No one, I am sure, can read

unmoved Dr. Thacher's eye-witness account of the execution of this

officer, lost through Arnold's cowardly blundering. The gravity of his

offence against a flag of truce need not prevent our admiration of his

soldierly conduct after his arrest, the perfect truthfulness to which

he adhered during his examination, and the noble resignation with

which he met his dreadful fate. Arnold had here a fine opportunity to

retrieve in some degree the bitter mischief of which he had been the

occasion. Had he but come forth and suffered in André's place, the

blackness of his crime would have almost disappeared in the brilliancy

of his atonement; but he chose a living death instead, and his hapless

victim went to his doom accompanied by the pity of every honest

American heart. His manly figure affords a fine contrast to that of

the traitor skulking down the lane (still shown as "Arnold's Path")

at the back of the Robinson House in his flight to the British frigate

moored out in the stream fifteen miles below the fort. A few hasty

words had put his innocent wife in possession of the horrid story,

and she had fallen, as if struck by his hand, in a swoon to the floor,

where he left her unconscious of his frantic farewell. In her sad

interview with Washington next day she manifested such frenzied grief

and horror at her husband's guilt, such tender concern for the future

of her helpless babe, that the stern commander was melted to the

heart's core, and left her entirely convinced of her innocence. He

gave orders that her comfort should be fully attended to, and offered

her an escort to protect her from insult on the journey to her

father's house in Philadelphia. Further, he sent her word in a day or

two that, however sorely he must regret the escape of a traitor, he

was glad to be able to assure her of her husband's safety with the

British. Then came the mournful pilgrimage to the loving home in

Philadelphia. She set out at the time when poor André was making his

preparations for the still longer journey whence he was nevermore to

return--the brilliant young officer with whom she had danced at the

great fête, the "Mischianza," given by the British army to Sir William

Howe only two years before in Philadelphia--the gay man of fashion who

had written versicles in her honor, and whose graceful pen-portrait

of the fair girl is still in the possession of the Shippen family--her

thickly-powdered hair drawn up into a tower above her forehead and

bedecked with ribbons and strings of pearls in the fashion then newly

imported out of France, the last modish freak of Marie Antoinette

before she laid her own stately head under the axe of the guillotine.

One can easily picture the terror and anguish she bore with her to

her old home; the uncertainty regarding her own fate and that of her

child; the haunting thought of young André's approaching doom, and,

more piteous than all else, the ever--recurring temptation that sorely

beset her to see no more the author of her undoing, the still beloved

father of her babe. It is difficult to imagine a more awful situation,

and one can almost forgive her first hasty sentence against the man

who had wrought her such ill. She forgot for a while that she had

taken upon her those sacred vows "for better, for worse:" the worst

indeed had come, and for my part I own I am glad that she chose the

nobler part. He was a traitor, but she, alas! was the traitor's wife.

She accompanied him to England, where her dignity and sweetness helped

to sustain her husband in the doubtful position he held in society.

Her letters to her family bear witness to his unfailing love for her

and anxious care of her welfare, but breathe a spirit of resignation

incompatible with perfect happiness. Once only did she return to

America. After peace was proclaimed she visited her beloved old home,

but meeting with much unkindness from her former friends, soon left

for England again. She died in 1804, surviving Arnold but three years.

A lady of this city, the granddaughter of our first republican

governor, told me that two of Arnold's grandsons came to America some

years ago, and to their great surprise found themselves unable to

make any figure in Philadelphia society, where they were quietly but

persistently ignored, so strong was the public prejudice against their

name.

Arnold died in London in the winter of 1801. We shrink away almost

appalled from the awful picture of that death-bed--the neglected,

despised old man, with the gloom closing in about him and left to face

it almost alone. The great people to whom he had sold his honor had

long ago paid him his price, and, washing their hands of him, had

passed over to the other side of the way with averted faces; the stout

old king who had protected him from insult as long as he could was

already in the clutch of the fatal malady which was soon to consign

his intellect to eternal night; and it is said that but one creature

stood beside the dying traitor in that supreme hour--the fond woman

who had so lightened the burden of shame he had borne for twenty long

years of splendor and misery, and whose own deliverance was so nigh at

hand.

A singular story is told of Arnold's last moments, which if true (and

pray God it may be!) should be linked with the memory of his crime for

ever. It is said that he ordered to be brought from the garret of his

house the old Continental uniform and sword he had worn for the

last time on the memorable day of his escape from West Point. With

trembling hands he unfolded the coat, and, drawing it painfully over

his shoulders, sat lost in long and deep reflection: then, rousing

himself with a sigh, he drew the sword from its scabbard, and

clenching one hand upon the rich hilt, passed the other absently along

the blade; then with a wild look of regret in his fast-glazing eyes he

let the weapon drop from his grasp, his head sank upon his breast and

he remained motionless until he died, drawing each breath longer and

longer until all were spent. I love to think that he died with the

Continental coat upon his shoulders, nor was it again dishonored by

the contact: it even seems to have lent a ray of its own untarnished

lustre to brighten the last dark, remorseful hours of a ruined life.

K.T.T.

THE WATCH: AN OLD MAN'S STORY.

BY IVAN TOURGUENEFF.

I.

I will tell you my story about the watch. A singular story! The whole

thing at the very beginning of the century, in the year 1801. I was

just sixteen. I lived at Riasan with my father, aunt and cousin, in

a little wooden house not far from the banks of the Oka. I don't

remember my mother: she died when she had been only three years

married, and my father had no child but me. My father's name was

Porphyr Petrovitch: he was a quiet man with feeble health, who

occupied himself with managing law-business, and--in other ways. In

old times they used to call such people sowers of discord: he called

himself an attorney. His sister, my aunt, kept the house. She was an

old maid of fifty: my father had already left his fortieth year behind

him. She was a very pious woman. In fact, to tell the truth, she was a

great hypocrite, gossiping and meddlesome, and she did not have a kind

heart like my father. We were not poor, but we had no more than we

really needed. My father had also a brother, named Gregory, but he had

been accused of seditious actions and Jacobinical sentiments (so it

ran in the _ukase_), and he had been sent to Siberia in 1797.

Gregory's son David, my cousin, was left on my father's hands, and he

lived with us. He was only a year older than I, but I gave way to him

and obeyed him as if he had been a most important personage. He was a

bright boy of a good deal of character, sturdy and broad-shouldered,

with a square, freckled face, red hair, small gray eyes, thick lips, a

short nose and short fingers, and of a strength far beyond his years.

My aunt could not endure him, and my father was afraid of him, or

perhaps had a consciousness of guilt before him. There had been a

rumor that if my father had not told too much and left his brother in

the lurch, David's father would not have been sent to Siberia. We

were both in the same class in the gymnasium, and we both made good

progress--I somewhat better than David. My memory was stronger than

his, but boys, as every one knows, do not appreciate that advantage:

they are not proud of it; and in spite of it I always looked up to

David.

II.

My name, as you know, is Alexis. I was born on the seventh of March,

and celebrate my birthday on the seventeenth. They gave me, according

to the old custom, the name of one of those saints whose anniversary

fell ten days after my birth. My godfather was a certain Anastasius

Anistasiovitch Putschkow, or Nastasa Nastasaitch, as he was always

called. He was a fearful liar and slanderer and cheat--a thoroughly

bad man: he had been turned out of a government office, and had been

brought before the court more than once; but my father needed him:

they "worked" together. In appearance he was stout and bloated, with a

face like a fox, a nose as sharp as a needle, little dark, glistening

eyes, like a fox's eyes, and he kept them always moving from side to

side; and he moved his nose too, as if he were sniffing something in

the air. He wore high-heeled shoes, and he powdered his hair every

day, which was considered strange conduct in the provinces in

those days. He assured people he could not do otherwise, as he was

acquainted with so many generals and generals' wives. And my birthday

came, and Nastasa Nastasaitch appeared at our house and said, "I have

never yet given you anything, but see what I have brought you to-day."

And he took from his pocket an old-fashioned silver watch, with a rose

painted on the face, and a bronze chain.

I stood motionless with joy, and my aunt screamed out, "Kiss his hand,

kiss his hand, stu--, boy!"

I kissed my godfather's hand, but my aunt added, "Oh, Nastasa, why do

you spoil him so? What should he want of a watch? He will be sure to

lose it or break it."

My father came in, looked at the watch, and having thanked Nastasa

somewhat coolly, called him into his office. I heard my father say, as

if he were talking to himself, "If you hope to get off in that way--"

But I could not wait a moment longer: I stuck the watch in my pocket

and rushed off to show it to David.

III.

David took the watch, opened it and examined it carefully. He had

a great talent for mechanics: he could work in iron, copper and all

kinds of metals. He had got himself several kinds of tools, and he

could easily repair or make anew a screw, a key, and so on. David

turned the watch about in his hands, and muttered between his

teeth--he was not talkative--"Old--poor," and asked, "Where did you

get it?"

I told him my godfather gave it to me.

"Nastasa?"

"Yes, Nastasa Nastasaitch."

David set the watch down on the table and walked off without a word.

"You don't like it?" I asked.

"No: that's not it; but in your place I would not have taken any

present from Nastasa."

"Why not?"

"Because he is a contemptible creature, and I would not be under any

obligations to him, or have to thank him for anything if I could help

it. You kissed his hand, I suppose?"

"Yes: my aunt made me."

David smiled with a singular expression. That was his way. He never

laughed aloud: he considered it a sign of weakness. David's words and

his quiet smile pained me much. "He is blaming me in his heart," I

thought. "In his eyes I am contemptible. He would never have lowered

himself in that way: he would never accept a present from Nastasa. But

what shall I do now?"

To give back the watch was impossible.

I tried to talk it over with David and get his advice, but he answered

that he never gave any one advice, and that I must do what I thought

best. I remember I could not sleep all that night, so great was my

anxiety. It was hard to part with the watch. I put it on the table at

my bedside, and it ticked so pleasantly! But then to feel that David

despised me--and there was no doubt that he did--was unendurable. By

morning I had come to a determination. It made me cry, but I went to

sleep as soon as I had made it, and when I awoke I put on my clothes

quickly and ran out in the street. I had determined to give my watch

to the first poor person I met.

IV.

I had not gone far from the house when I met what I wanted. A boy

about ten years old ran across my path--a ragged, barefooted little

fellow, who was often idling in front of our windows. I sprang toward

him, and without giving him or myself time for reflection I offered

him my watch. The boy stared at me, and raised one hand to his mouth

as if he was afraid of burning his fingers, while he held out the

other.

"Take it, take it!" I murmured: "it's mine--I give it to you. You

can sell it and get something with the money, whatever you want.

Good-bye!"

I thrust the watch into his hand, and ran quickly home. I stood for a

minute behind the door of our common bedroom, and when I had recovered

my breath I went up to David, who had nearly dressed himself and was

combing his hair. "Do you know, David," I began with as calm a voice

as I could muster, "I have given Nastasa's watch away?"

David looked at me and went on arranging his hair.

"Yes," I added in the same business-like tone, "I have given it away.

There's a little boy very poor and miserable, and I've given it to

him."

David put the brush down on the washstand.

"For the money he will get for it he can buy himself something useful.

He will certainly get something for it." I was silent.

"Well, that's good," said David at last; and he went into our study, I

following him.

"And if they ask you what you have done with it?" he suggested.

"I shall say I have lost it," I answered, as if that did not trouble

me a bit. We spoke no more about the watch that day, but it seemed to

me that David not only approved of what I had done, but that he really

admired it to some extent. I was sure he did.

V.

Two days went by. It happened that no one in the house thought about

the watch. My father had some trouble with his clients, and did not

concern himself with me or my watch. I, on the contrary, was thinking

of it all the time. Even the supposed approval of David comforted me

but little. He had not openly expressed it; only he had said once when

we were talking together that he would not have expected it of me.

Decidedly, my sacrifice was of but little use, since the satisfaction

of my vanity did not compensate me for it. As luck would have it,

there came a schoolmate of ours, the son of the city physician, who

kept bragging of not even a silver, but of a pinchbeck watch his

grandmother had given him. At last I could bear it no longer, and one

day I slunk quietly out of the house, determined to find the boy to

whom I had given my watch. I soon came across him: he was playing

jackstones with some other boys in the church-porch. I called him

aside, and, hardly waiting to take breath, I stammered out that my

parents were very angry with me for giving the watch away, and that if

he was willing to give it back to me I would gladly pay him for it. I

had brought an Elizabeth ruble with me, which was all my savings.

"But I haven't got your watch," answered the boy with a tearful voice.

"My father saw me have it and took it away from me: he did, and he

wanted to whip me too. He said I must have stolen it somewhere. He

said, 'Who would be such a fool as to give you a watch?'"

"And who is your father?"

"My father? Trofimytsch."

"But what is he? what's his business?"

"He is a discharged soldier, a sergeant, and he has no business. He

mends and soles old shoes. That's all the business he has. He supports

himself by that, too."

"Where does he live? Take me to him."

"Yes, I'll show you the way. You'll tell him you gave me the watch,

won't you? He keeps calling me names about it, and my mother keeps

asking, 'Who do you take after, that you're such a scamp?'"

The boy and I went together to his house. It was merely a rickety

hut built in the back yard of a factory that had been burned down and

never built up again. We found Trofimytsch and his wife at home. The

discharged sergeant was a tall old man, straight and strong, with

grayish-yellow whiskers, unshaven chin, a network of wrinkles on his

forehead and cheeks. His wife looked older than he: her eyes shone

dimly from the midst of a somewhat swollen face, into which they

seemed to have been driven. Both wore dirty rags for clothes. I

explained to Trofimytsch what I wanted and why I had come. He listened

in silence, without even winking or turning his dull, attentive,

soldierlike glance away from me.

"How foolish!" he said at last with a rough, toothless bass voice.

"Do fine young men behave like that? If Petka did not steal the watch,

that is one thing; but if he did, then I'll give it to him with the

stick, as they used to do in the regiment. What is that? 'What a

pity!' The stick, that's all. Pshaw!" Trofimytsch uttered these

incoherent exclamations in falsetto: he had apparently understood

nothing.

"If you will give me back the watch," I explained--I did not venture

to say "thou" to him, although he was but a common soldier--"I'll

willingly give you a ruble for it. I don't think it's worth more."

"Humph!" muttered Trofimytsch, who still did not understand, but

continued to gaze at me attentively as if I were his superior officer.

"So that's the way the matter stands? Well, then, take it.--Be still,

Uliana!" he screamed angrily at his wife, who opened her mouth as if

she were about to speak.--"There is the watch," he continued, opening

a drawer: "if it's yours, be kind enough to take it, but why should I

take the ruble?"

"Take the ruble, Trofimytsch, you fool!" sobbed his wife. "Have you

gone crazy, old man? Not a single farthing have we left in our pockets

if we were to turn them inside out, and here you are putting on airs!

They've cut off your pigtail, but you're an old woman still. How can

you act so? Take the money! Would you give the watch away?"

"Be still, you chatterbox!" repeated Trofimytsch. "When did one ever

see such a sight? A woman reasoning! ha! Her husband is the head, and

she--disputes!--Petka, don't mutter, or I'll kill you.--There's the

watch." Trofimytsch held out the watch toward me, but would not let go

of it. He considered for a moment: then he lowered his eyes and fixed

that dull, straightforward glance upon me, and then suddenly screamed

as loud as he could, "Where is it? where is the ruble?"

"Here, here!" I said hastily, and pulled the money out of my pocket.

He did not take it, however, but continued to stare at me. I put the

ruble on the table. He pushed it with one shove into the table-drawer,

threw the watch to me, turned to the right about, and hissed at his

wife and boy, "Away with you! get out!"

Uliana tried to stammer out a few words, but I was already outside the

door on the street. I dropped the watch into the bottom of my pocket,

held it tight with my hand and hastened homeward.

VI.

I was again in possession of my watch, and yet it gave me no pleasure.

I could not wear it, and above everything I had to hide from David

what I had done. What would he have thought of me and of my lack of

character? I could not even put my watch in the drawer, for we kept

all our things there in common. I had to hide it--at one time on the

top of the wardrobe, at another under the mattress, again behind the

stove; and yet I did not succeed in deceiving David.

Once I had taken the watch from under the planks of our floor, and was

trying to polish its silver case with an old leather glove. David

had gone somewhere down town, and I did not think he was back when

suddenly there he stood in the doorway! I was so confused that I

almost let the watch drop, and, my face hot with blushes, I felt

despairingly for my waistcoat pocket to put my watch into it. David

looked at me and smiled in his silent way. "What are you after?" he

said at last. "Did you think I didn't know you'd got the watch again?

I saw it the first day you brought it back."

"I assure you--" I began with tears.

David shrugged his shoulders: "The watch is yours: you can do what you

please with it."

When he had said those hard words he went out. I was overcome with

mortification. This time there was no doubt that David despised me.

That could not be borne. "I will show him," I said to myself, setting

my teeth hard. With a firm step I walked into the next room, where our

servant Juschka was, and gave him the watch. At first Juschka would

not take it, but I declared to him that if he would not take the watch

I would break it into pieces, trample it to powder, crush it to atoms.

He thought for a moment, and finally consented to take it. When I came

back to our room I found David reading a book. I told him what I

had done. He did not lift his eyes from the page he was reading, but

shrugged his shoulders again and said, "The watch is yours to do what

you like with it." But it seemed to me as if he despised me a little

less. I was fully determined not again to lay myself open to the

charge of having no character, for this watch, this hateful present

of my hateful godfather, had become so detestable that I could not

understand how I could ever have been sorry to lose it, how I could

have brought myself to begging it from a man like Trofimytsch, and

give him the right to believe that he had behaved generously to me in

regard to it.

Some days passed by. I remember that on one of them there came a great

piece of news: the emperor Paul was dead, and his son Alexander, of

whose generosity and humanity much had been said, had ascended the

throne. This news greatly excited David, and awoke in him the hope

of again seeing his father, and of seeing him soon. My father too was

very glad. "All the exiles will now be allowed to return from Siberia,

and they won't forget my brother Jegor," he repeated, rubbing his

hands, but with a somewhat anxious expression. David I and I

stopped working, and we did not even make a pretence of going to the

gymnasium; indeed, we did not even go out to walk, but we used to hang

about the house and conjecture and reckon in how many months, how many

weeks, how many days "brother Jegor" would return--where we should

write to him, how we would receive him, and how we should live then.

"Brother Jegor" was an architect, and we both decided that he should

move to Moscow and build there great schools for the poor, and

we should be his assistants. The watch meanwhile we had entirely

forgotten, but it was determined to recall itself to our memory.

VII.

One morning, just after breakfast, I was sitting alone in the window

thinking of my uncle's return. The April thaw was dripping and

sparkling without, when my aunt, Pulcheria Petrovna, rushed suddenly

into the room. She was always very excitable and complaining, and she

always spoke with a shrill voice, gesticulating a great deal; but this

time she pounced upon me. "Come, come, go to your father this minute,

young sir," she sputtered out. "What tricks you've been up to, you

shameless boy! But you'll catch it, both of you. Nastasa Nastasaitch

has discovered all your goings on. Go! Your father has sent for you:

go this moment."

I mechanically followed my aunt, without in the least understanding

what it was all about, and as I crossed the thresh-hold I saw my

father with his hair on end walking up and down the room with long

strides. Juschka was in tears near the door, and my godfather was

sitting on a stool in the corner with a very malicious expression in

his open nostrils and wandering eyes. My father flew at me as soon as

I entered the room: "Did you give Juschka the watch? What?"

I looked at Juschka.

"Tell me," repeated my father, stamping with his feet.

"Yes," I answered, and immediately received a violent box on the ear,

which gave my aunt a great deal of satisfaction. I heard her smack

her lips with pleasure, as if she had just taken a good swallow of hot

tea. My father rushed from me to Juschka. "You rascal! you ought not

to have taken the watch," he cried, seizing him by the hair; "and you

sold it to the watchmaker, you good-for-nothing fellow!"

Juschka, in fact, as I afterward learned, had in the simplicity of his

heart sold my watch to a neighboring watchmaker. The watchmaker had

hung it up in his window, where Nastasa had seen it. He bought it and

brought it back to us. Juschka and I were not detained long: my father

got out of breath and began to cough, and besides it was not his way

to be cross.

"Brother," said my aunt, who noticed with regret that he was getting

over his wrath, "don't trouble yourself any more about this matter:

it's not worth dirtying your hands about. And listen to my proposal:

if Nastasa consents, in view of your son's great ingratitude, I

will take charge of the watch myself, and since he has shown by his

behavior that he is no longer worthy of wearing it, I will give it in

your name to a person who will know how to value your kindness as it

deserves."

"Who is that?" asked my father.

"Christian Lukitsch," answered my aunt with a little hesitation.

"Christian?" asked my father; and then added with a wave of the hand,

"It's all the same to me: you may throw it into the fire, for all I

care."

He buttoned his waistcoat, which had come undone, and went out,

doubled up with coughing.

"And you, cousin, do you agree?" said my aunt, turning to Nastasa.

"Entirely," he answered. During the whole scene he had not stirred

from his stool, but there he sat, breathing audibly, rubbing the tips

of his fingers together, and turning his fox eyes by turns on me, my

father and Juschka. We gave him a great deal of amusement.

My aunt's proposal stirred me to the depths of my soul. I did not care

for the watch, but I had a great dislike for the person to whom she

proposed giving it. This Christian Lukitsch, whose family name was

Trankwillitatin, a lanky blockhead of a student, had the habit of

coming to see us, the deuce knows why. To see about the children's

education, my aunt used to say; but he could not do anything of the

sort, because he was very ignorant and as stupid as a horse. He was

like a horse, too, in other ways: he used to stamp his feet like

hoofs, he neighed rather than laughed, and opened his jaws when he did

so till you could see down his throat; and he had a long face with

a curved nose and large, flat check-bones: he wore a rough coat and

smelt of raw meat. My aunt called him a respectable man, a cavalier,

and even a grenadier. He had a way of tapping children on the forehead

with the hard nails of his long fingers (he used to do it to me when

I was younger) and saying, "Hear how empty your head sounds," and then

laughing at his own wit. And this idiot was to have my watch? Never!

was what I determined as I rushed from the room and flung myself at

full length on my bed, my cheeks burning with the box on the ear I had

just received. But in my heart was burning the bitterness of outraged

dignity and thirst for revenge. Never would I let him triumph over

me--wear the watch, hang the chain over his waistcoat, and neigh with

joy. That was all very well, but how prevent it? I determined to steal

the watch from my aunt.

VIII.

Fortunately, Trankwillitatin was just at this time out of town. He

could not come to see us before the next day: advantage must be

taken of the intervening night. My aunt did not sleep with her door

locked--indeed, throughout the house we had no keys in the doors--but

where did she hide the watch? Until evening she carried it about in

her pocket, and so ensured its safety, but at night where will she put

it? Well, that's just what I must find out, I thought, and clenched my

fist. I was glowing with audacity and fear and joy at the idea of the

crime I was about to commit. I kept nodding my head, I wrinkled my

forehead, I whispered to myself, "Just wait!" I kept threatening every

one: I was cross, I was dangerous; and I even avoided David. No one,

and particularly not he, should have any suspicion of what I was about

to do. I would act alone, and bear the whole responsibility. Slowly

the day crept by, then the evening: at last night came. I did nothing:

I scarcely moved. One thought filled my head. At supper my father,

whose anger never lasted very long, and who was already a little

sorry for his violence, tried to bring me back to my good-humor, but I

repelled his advances--not, as he thought, because I could not conquer

my wrath, but simply because I feared becoming sentimental. I must

preserve undiminished the whole glow of my indignation, the whole

vigor of an unalterable determination. I went to bed early, but you

may well believe I did not close my eyes. I kept them wide open,

although I had pulled the bed-clothes over my head. I had not thought

over beforehand what I should do: I had no fixed plan. I was only

waiting for the house to get quiet. The only precaution I took was

to keep on my stockings. My aunt's chamber was in the second story. I

should have to go through the dining-room, the ante-room, up a flight

of stairs, along an entry, and on the right was the door. It was not

necessary to take a candle or lantern: I knew that in the corner of my

aunt's chamber there was a shrine with a light always burning before

it, so I should be able to see well enough. I lay with my eyes wide

open, my mouth open and dry: the blood throbbing in my temples, my

ears, throat, back, throughout my whole body. I waited, but it seemed

to me as if a demon were tormenting me. Time went by, but the house

did not get quiet.

IX.

Never, it seemed to me, had David been so long in going to sleep:

David, the taciturn David, even talked to me. Never did the people in

the house clatter and walk about and talk so late. And what are they

talking about now? thought I. Haven't they had time enough since

morning? Outdoors, too, the noise kept up very late. A dog would bark

with long-protracted howls; then a drunken man would go by with a

racket; then a rattling wagon would seem as if it took for ever to

get past the house. But these outdoor noises did not vex me: on the

contrary, I was glad to hear them. They would make the people in the

house indifferent to sounds. But at last it seems as if everything

were quiet. Only the pendulum of an old clock ticks loudly and

solemnly in the dining-room: one can hear the heavy, long-drawn, even

breathing of the sleepers. I am just going to get up when something

buzzes in my ears: suddenly there is a creaking sound, and something

soft falls, and the sound spreads itself in waves along the walls of

the room. Or was it nothing, after all, but fancy? At last it has all

died away, and the darkness and churchyard stillness of night descend.

Now is the time! Cold with anticipation, I throw off the bed-clothes,

let my feet glide down to the floor, stand up: one step--a second--I

creep along; the soles of my feet don't seem to belong to me; they are

heavy and my steps are weak and uncertain. Stop! what is that noise?

Is it some one filing, scraping or snoring? I listen with a feeling as

if ants were running over my cheeks, my eyes filling with cold tears.

It is nothing. I creep along again. It is dark, but I know the way.

Suddenly I hit against a chair. What a racket! and how it hurts! I hit

just on my knee-pan. I shall die here. Now will they wake up? Well,

let them! Boldness and crossness come to my aid. Forward! Now I have

passed through the dining-room: I reach the door and shove it open,

but the confounded hinge creaks. Never mind! Now I'm going up the

stairs--one! two! one! two! One step creaks beneath my tread: I look

down angrily, as if I could see it. Now the second door! I seize the

handle: it does not rattle. It swings softly open. Thank Heaven! I'm

in the entry at last. In the upper entry is a little window beneath

the roof. The faint light of the night-sky shines through the dim

panes, and by the uncertain light I make out our maid-servant lying on

a fur robe on the floor, her tangled head supported by both hands. She

sleeps soundly, with light, quick breathing, and just behind her head

is the fatal door. I step over the robe, over the girl. Who was it

opened the door? I don't know, but I am in my aunt's room. There

is the lamp in one corner and the bed in the other, and my aunt in

night-gown and cap in bed with her face toward me. She is asleep; she

does not stir; even her breathing is inaudible. The flame of the lamp

wavers slightly with the fresh draught, and the shadows dance through

the whole room and on my aunt's yellow, waxen hair.

And there is the watch! It is hanging behind the bed in an embroidered

watch-pocket on the wall. That's lucky! I hesitate, but there is no

use in delaying. But what are these--soft, quick footsteps behind me?

Oh no, it is only my heart beating. I take a step forward. Heavens!

Something round and quite large touches me just below the knee once

and then again. I am on the point of crying out: I am near sinking to

the ground with terror. A striped cat, our cat, stands before me

with her back curved and her tail in the air. Now she jumps on the

bed--heavily but softly--turns round and sits without purring, looking

at me with her yellow eyes as grave as a judge. "Puss! puss!" I

whisper hardly above my breath, and leaning over her and over my aunt,

I take hold of the watch. Suddenly my aunt raises herself, and opens

her eyes wide. Heavens! what is going to happen now? But the lids

quiver and close, and with a gentle murmur her head sinks back on the

cushion. Another moment and I am back in my own room, in bed, with the

watch in my hand. I come back lighter than a feather. I am a man; I am

a thief; I am a hero. I am breathless with joy; I glow with pride;

I am happy, and I will wake up David and tell him all about it; and

then, strange to say, I fall asleep and sleep like the dead. At last

I open my eyes; it is light in my room; the sun has already risen.

Fortunately, no one is yet awake. I spring up as if I were shot: I

wake David and confide the whole story to him. He listens and smiles.

"Do you know what we'll do?" he said at last: "we'll bury this stupid

watch in the ground, so that there shall be nothing left of it."

I consider this an admirable plan, and in a few minutes we dress

ourselves, run into the orchard behind the house, and when we have dug

a deep hole in the soft earth with David's knife, we bury beneath an

old apple tree my godfather's hated present, which now will never fall

into the hands of the disagreeable Trankwillitatin. We throw back the

earth, sprinkle rubbish over the spot, and, proud and happy, without

being seen, we return to the house, go back to bed, and enjoy for

another hour a light, happy sleep.

X.

You can imagine what a row there was the next morning when my aunt

woke up and missed the watch. To this day her piercing cry resounds in

my ears. "Help! robbers!" she shrieked, and alarmed the whole house.

But David and I only smiled quietly to ourselves, and our smiles were

sweet. "Every one must be punished," screamed my aunt. "The watch

has been taken from beneath my head--from beneath my pillow!" We

were prepared for everything, for the worst, but, contrary to our

expectations, it all blew over.

At first my father was very angry: he even spoke of the police, but

the trial of the day before must have tired him a good deal, and

suddenly, to my aunt's indescribable astonishment, he vented his wrath

on her instead of us. "You have given me enough trouble already

about the watch, Pulcheria Petrovna," he cried: "I don't want to hear

anything more about it. It did not take itself off by magic, and what

do I care if it did? They stole it from you? That was your lookout.

'What will Nastasa say?' Confound Nastasa! He does nothing but cheat

and practice dirty tricks. Don't dare to bother me any more with this:

do you hear?"

My father then went to his room, slamming the door behind him. David

and I did not at first understand what his last words referred to:

we found out later that my father was at that time much vexed with

Nastasa, who had snapped up some paying piece of business which had

belonged to him. So my aunt had to withdraw with a long face. She was

nearly bursting with rage, but there was nothing to do, and she was

obliged to content herself with whispering hoarsely, "Rascal! rascal!

jailbird! thief!" whenever she passed me. My aunt's reproaches were a

great delight to me, and it was also very pleasant whenever we went by

the garden fence to throw an apparently indifferent glance at the spot

beneath the apple tree where the watch rested, and also, if David was

by, to exchange with him a knowing wink.

My aunt first tried to set Trankwillitatin against me, but I made

David help me. He spoke up to the tall student, and told him he'd cut

him open with a knife if he didn't leave me alone. Trankwillitatin

was frightened, for, although my aunt called him a grenadier and a

cavalier, he was not remarkable for bravery.

But you don't suppose I have come to the end of my story yet? No, it's

not yet finished; only, in order to continue it, I must introduce a

new person, and to introduce this new person I must go back a little.

XI.

My father was for a long time on very friendly and even intimate terms

with a former official, named Latkin, a poor man, slightly lame, with

shy, queer manners--one of those beings of whom people say the hand of

God is upon them. He had the same business as my father and Nastasa:

he was also a private "agent" and commissioner, but as he had neither

an imposing exterior nor a fluent tongue, nor much self-confidence,

he could not make up his mind to act independently, and so formed a

partnership with my father. His handwriting was wonderful, he had a

thorough knowledge of law, and was perfectly at home in all the ins

and outs of lawsuits and office-practice. He was connected with my

father in several business operations, and they shared their gains and

losses, so that it seemed as if nothing could impair their friendship.

But one day it was brought to an abrupt conclusion once for all: my

father quarreled irreconcilably with his former associate. If Latkin

had snapped a profitable bit of my father's business, as Nastasa did

afterward, he would have been no more angry with him than he was with

Nastasa, perhaps even less. But Latkin, under the influence of some

unexplained, incomprehensible feeling of envy or greed, and perhaps

also moved by a momentary feeling of honesty, had played him false in

exposing him to their patron, a rich young merchant, by opening the

careless young man's eyes to some sharp practice by which my father

expected to make a very pretty sum. It was not the loss of the

money, however much it may have been--no, it was the treachery--which

embittered and enraged my father. He could not forgive swindling.

"See there! we have discovered a new saint," said he, trembling with

rage and his teeth chattering as if he had a chill. (I happened to be

in the room, a witness of this painful scene.) "Very well, from this

day forth all is over between us. The heavens are above us, and there

is the door. I have nothing more to do with you, nor you with me. You

are too honest for me, sir: how could we get along together? But you

sha'n't have a bit of ground to stand on, nor a roof over your head."

In vain did Latkin beg for mercy and fling himself on the ground

before him: in vain did he try to explain what had filled his own soul

with painful astonishment. "Just consider, Porphyr Petrovitch," he

stammered forth. "I did it without any hope of gain: I cut my own

throat."

My father was immovable, and Latkin never more set foot in the house.

It seemed as if fate had determined to fulfill my father's last evil

wishes. Soon after the breach between them, which took place about two

years before my story began, Latkin's wife died: it is true, however,

that she had for a long time been ill. His second daughter, a child of

three years, became deaf and dumb one day from fright: a swarm of bees

lit on her head. Latkin himself had a stroke of paralysis and fell

into the most extreme misery. How he managed to scrape along at all,

what he lived on, it was hard to imagine. He dwelt in a tumbledown

hovel but a short distance from our house. His eldest daughter,

Raissa, lived with him and managed for him as well as she could. This

very Raissa is the new person whom I must introduce into my story.

XII.

So long as her father was on friendly terms with mine we used to see

her continually: she would sometimes spend whole days at our house,

sewing or knitting with her swift, delicate fingers. She was a tall,

somewhat slender girl, with thoughtful gray eyes in a pale oval face.

She spoke little, but what she said was sensible, and she uttered

it in a low, clear voice, without opening her mouth much and without

showing her teeth: when she laughed--which was seldom--she showed them

all suddenly, large and white as almonds. I also remember her walk,

which was light and elastic, with a little spring in every step: it

seemed to me always as if she were going up stairs, even when she was

on level ground. She held herself erect, with her hands folded, and

whatever she did, whatever she undertook--if she only threaded a

needle or smoothed her dress--was well and gracefully done. You will

hardly believe it, but there was something touching in her way of

doing things. Her baptismal name was Raissa, but we called her "Little

Black-Lip," for she had a little mole, like a berry-stain, on her

upper lip, but this did not disfigure her; indeed, it had the contrary

effect. She was just a year older than David. I had for her a feeling

akin to reverence, but she had very little to do with me. Between her

and David, on the other hand, there existed a friendship--a childish

but warm if somewhat strange friendship. They suited one another well:

sometimes for hours they would not exchange a word, but every one felt

that they were enjoying themselves merely because they were together.

I have really never met another girl like her. There was in her

something questioning, yet decided--something honest, and sad,

and dear. I never heard her say anything clever, and also nothing

commonplace, and I have never seen anything more intelligent than her

eyes. When the breach between her family and mine came I began to see

her seldom. My father positively forbade my seeing the Latkins, and

she never appeared at our house; but I used to meet her in the street,

at church, and Little Black-Lip used to inspire me with the same

feeling--esteem, and even a sort of admiration, rather than pity.

She bore her misfortunes well. "The girl is a stone," the coarse

Trankwillitatin once said of her. But in truth one could not help

sympathizing with her. Her face wore a troubled, wearied expression,

and her eyes grew deeper: a burden beyond her strength was laid on

her young shoulders. David used to see her much oftener than I did.

My father troubled himself very little about him: he knew that David

never listened to him. And Raissa used to appear from time to time at

the gate between our garden and the street, and meet David there. She

did not chatter with David, but merely told him of some new loss or

misfortune that had happened to them, and begged for his advice.

The after-consequences of Latkin's paralysis were very strange: his

hands and feet became weak, but still he could use them. Even his

brain worked normally, but his tongue was confused and used to utter

one word in the place of another: you had to guess at what he really

meant to say. "Choo, choo, choo," he would with difficulty stammer

forth--he always began with "Choo, choo, choo"--"the scissors, the

scissors," but the scissors meant "bread." He hated my father with

all the strength that was left him: he ascribed his sufferings to my

father's curses, and called him sometimes "the butcher," and sometimes

the "jeweler." "Choo, choo, don't you dare to go to the butcher,

Wassilievna:" by this name he called his daughter. Every day he

grew more exacting: his needs increased; and how should his needs be

satisfied? where get the money? Sorrows soon make people old, but

it was painful to hear these questions from the lips of a

sixteen-year-old girl.

XIII.

I remember I happened to be present at her conversation with David by

the hedge on the day her mother died.

"Mother died this morning," first letting her dark, expressive eyes

wander around and then fall on the ground. "The cook has undertaken

to buy a cheap coffin, but she is not to be trusted: she may spend the

money in drink. You must come and look after her, David: she is afraid

of you."

"I will come," answered David: "I will see to it. And your father?"

"He cries and says, 'You'll spoil me, too!'--he means bury him. Now

he has gone to sleep." Raissa suddenly drew a deep sigh: "Oh, David!

David!" She drew her half-closed hand across her brow and eyes, a

gesture graceful and sad, like all her movements.

"But you must take care of yourself," said David. "You can't have

slept at all; and why cry? It won't help matters."

"I have no time to cry," answered Raissa.

"The rich can indulge themselves in the luxury of crying," said David.

Raissa started to go, but she turned back: "We are thinking of

selling the yellow shawl: you know the one that belonged to mother's

trousseau. We have been offered twelve rubles for it. I think that is

too little."

"Yes, indeed, much too little."

"We wouldn't sell it," said Raissa after a short pause, "if we didn't

need money for the funeral."