VI

I arose the next morning almost at daybreak, and rushed to my

microscope, I trembled as I sought the luminous world in miniature that

contained my all. Animula was there. I had left the gas-lamp, surrounded

by its moderators, burning when I went to bed the night before. I found

the sylph bathing, as it were, with an expression of pleasure animating

her features, in the brilliant light which surrounded her. She tossed

her lustrous golden hair over her shoulders with innocent coquetry. She

lay at full length in the transparent medium, in which she supported

herself with ease, and gamboled with the enchanting grace that the nymph

Salmacis might have exhibited when she sought to conquer the modest

Hermaphroditus. I tried an experiment to satisfy myself if her powers of

reflection were developed. I lessened the lamplight considerably. By the

dim light that remained, I could see an expression of pain flit across

her face. She looked upward suddenly, and her brows contracted. I

flooded the stage of the microscope again with a full stream of light,

and her whole expression changed. She sprang forward like some some

substance deprived of all weight. Her eyes sparkled and her lips moved.

Ah! if science had only the means of conducting and reduplicating

sounds, as it does rays of light, what carols of happiness would then

have entranced my ears! what jubilant hymns to Adonais would have

thrilled the illumined air!

I now comprehended how it was that the Count de Cabalis peopled his

mystic world with sylphs-beautiful beings whose breath of life was

lambent fire, and who sported forever in regions of purest ether and

purest light. The Rosicrucian had anticipated the wonder that I had

practically realized.

How long this worship of my strange divinity went on thus I scarcely

know. I lost all note of time. All day from early dawn, and far into the

night, I was to be found peering through that wonderful lens. I saw

no one, went nowhere, and scarce allowed myself sufficient time for my

meals. My whole life was absorbed in contemplation as rapt as that of

any of the Romish saints. Every hour that I gazed upon the divine form

strengthened my passion--a passion that was always overshadowed by the

maddening conviction that, although I could gaze on her at will, she

never, never could behold me!

At length I grew so pale and emaciated, from want of rest and continual

brooding over my insane love and its cruel conditions, that I determined

to make some effort to wean myself from it. "Come," I said, "this is

at best but a fantasy. Your imagination has bestowed on Animula charms

which in reality she does not possess. Seclusion from female society has

produced this morbid condition of mind. Compare her with the beautiful

women of your own world, and this false enchantment will vanish."

I looked over the newspapers by chance. There I beheld the advertisement

of a celebrated _danseuse_ who appeared nightly at Niblo's. The

Signorina Caradolce had the reputation of being the most beautiful as

well as the most graceful woman in the world. I instantly dressed and

went to the theatre.

The curtain drew up. The usual semicircle of fairies in white muslin

were standing on the right toe around the enameled flower-bank of green

canvas, on which the belated prince was sleeping. Suddenly a flute is

heard. The fairies start. The trees open, the fairies all stand on

the left toe, and the queen enters. It was the Signorina. She bounded

forward amid thunders of applause, and, lighting on one foot, remained

poised in the air. Heavens! was this the great enchantress that had

drawn monarchs at her chariot-wheels? Those heavy, muscular limbs,

those thick ankles, those cavernous eyes, that stereotyped smile, those

crudely painted cheeks! Where were the vermeil blooms, the liquid,

expressive eyes, the harmonious limbs of Animula?

The Signorina danced. What gross, discordant movements! The play of

her limbs was all false and artificial. Her bounds were painful athletic

efforts; her poses were angular and distressed the eye. I could bear it

no longer; with an exclamation of disgust that drew every eye upon me,

I rose from my seat in the very middle of the Signorina's

_pas-de-fascination_ and abruptly quitted the house.

I hastened home to feast my eyes once more on the lovely form of

my sylph. I felt that henceforth to combat this passion would be

impossible. I applied my eyes to the lens. Animula was there--but what

could have happened? Some terrible change seemed to have taken place

during my absence. Some secret grief seemed to cloud the lovely features

of her I gazed upon. Her face had grown thin and haggard; her limbs

trailed heavily; the wondrous lustre of her golden hair had faded. She

was ill--ill, and I could not assist her! I believe at that moment I

would have forfeited all claims to my human birthright if I could only

have been dwarfed to the size of an animalcule, and permitted to console

her from whom fate had forever divided me.

I racked my brain for the solution of this mystery. What was it that

afflicted the sylph? She seemed to suffer intense pain. Her features

contracted, and she even writhed, as if with some internal agony. The

wondrous forests appeared also to have lost half their beauty. Their

hues were dim and in some places faded away altogether. I watched

Animula for hours with a breaking heart, and she seemed absolutely to

wither away under my very eye. Suddenly I remembered that I had not

looked at the water-drop for several days. In fact, I hated to see it;

for it reminded me of the natural barrier between Animula and myself.

I hurriedly looked down on the stage of the microscope. The slide was

still there--but, great heavens, the water drop had vanished! The awful

truth burst upon me; it had evaporated, until it had become so minute

as to be invisible to the naked eye; I had been gazing on its last atom,

the one that contained Animula--and she was dying!

I rushed again to the front of the lens and looked through. Alas! the

last agony had seized her. The rainbow-hued forests had all melted away,

and Animula lay struggling feebly in what seemed to be a spot of dim

light. Ah! the sight was horrible: the limbs once so round and lovely

shriveling up into nothings; the eyes--those eyes that shone like

heaven--being quenched into black dust; the lustrous golden hair now

lank and discolored. The last throe came. I beheld that final struggle

of the blackening form--and I fainted.

When I awoke out of a trance of many hours, I found myself lying amid

the wreck of my instrument, myself as shattered in mind and body as it.

I crawled feebly to my bed, from which I did not rise for many months.

They say now that I am mad; but they are mistaken. I am poor, for I have

neither the heart nor the will to work; all my money is spent, and I

live on charity. Young men's associations that love a joke invite me to

lecture on optics before them, for which they pay me, and laugh at me

while I lecture. "Linley, the mad microscopist," is the name I go by. I

suppose that I talk incoherently while I lecture. Who could talk sense

when his brain is haunted by such ghastly memories, while ever and anon

among the shapes of death I behold the radiant form of my lost Animula!