MAX'S STORY CONTINUED--THE DARK SHADOW
"But a cloud was moving up to cover the fair face of this pleasant
prospect; and yet the sun was shining and the birds singing.
"Christina was very busy during the day with her teachers. She loved
music and was anxious to excel. She had her lessons on the piano; she
improved her mind by a judicious course of reading, in which I helped
her somewhat; she went twice a week to a grand Italian maestro, who
perfected her in her singing. And she took long walks to the poor
neighborhood where she had formerly lived, to visit the sick and
wretched among her old acquaintances, and she never left them
empty-handed.
"At the theater she grew more and more popular. Even the rudest of
the audience recognized instinctively in her the goodness which they
themselves lacked. Every song was an ovation. Her praises began to
resound in the newspapers; and she had already received advances from
the manager of one of the grand opera-houses. A bright future opened
before her--a vista of light and music and wealth and delight.
"She did not escape, however, the unpleasant incidents natural to
such a career. Her mother accompanied her to every performance, and
was, in so far, a shield to her; but she was beset with visitors at
the house; she was annoyed by men who stopped and claimed
acquaintance with her on the streets; she received many gifts,
flowers, fruit, jewelry, and all the other tempting sweet nothings
which it is thought bewitch the heart of frail woman. But they had no
effect upon her. Only goodness seemed to cling to her, and evil fell
far off from her. You may set two plants side by side in the same
soil--one will draw only bitterness and poison from the earth; while
the other will gather, from the same nurture, nothing but sweetness
and perfume.
'For virtue, as it never will be moved,
Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven;
So lust, though to a radiant angel linked,
Will sate itself in a celestial bed,
And prey on garbage."
"Among the men who pestered Christina with their attentions was a
young fellow named Nathan Brederhagan, the son of a rich widow. He
was one of those weak and shallow brains to whom wealth becomes only
a vehicle in which to ride to destruction. He was in reality all that
I pretended to be--a reckless, drunken, useless spendthrift, with no
higher aim in life than wine and woman. He spent his days in vanity
and his nights in debauchery. Across the clouded portal of this
fool's brain came, like a vision, the beautiful, gentle, gifted
Christina. She was a new toy, the most charming he had ever seen,
and, like a child, he must possess it. And so he began a series of
persecutions. He followed her everywhere; he fastened himself upon
her at the theater; he showered all sorts of gifts on her; and, when
he found she returned his presents, and that she refused or resisted
all his advances, he grew so desperate that he at last offered to
marry her, although with a consciousness that he was making a most
heroic and extraordinary sacrifice of himself in doing so. But even
this condescension--to his unbounded astonishment--she declined with
thanks. And then the silly little fool grew more desperate than ever,
and battered up his poor brains with strong drink, and wept in
maudlin fashion to his acquaintances. At last one of these--a fellow
of the same kidney, but with more enterprise than himself--said to
him: 'Why don't you carry her off?' Nathan opened his eyes very wide,
stopped his sniffling and blubbering, and made up his mind to follow
this sage advice. To obtain the necessary nerve for such a prodigious
undertaking he fired up with still more whisky; and when the night
came he was crazy with drink. Obtaining a carriage and another
drunken fool to help him, he stationed himself beside the pavement,
in the quiet street where Christina lived, and but a few doors
distant from her house; and then, as she came along with her mother,
he seized upon her, while his companion grasped Mrs. Jansen. He began
to drag Christina toward the carriage; but the young girl was
stronger than he was, and not only resisted him, but began to shriek,
ably seconded by her mother, until the street rang. The door of their
house flew open, and Mr. Jansen, who had recognized the voices of his
wife and daughter, was hurrying to their rescue; whereupon the little
villain cried in a tone of high tragedy, 'Then die!' and stabbed her
in the throat with a little dagger he carried. He turned and sprang
into the carriage; while the poor girl, who had become suddenly
silent, staggered and fell into the arms of her father.
"It chanced that I was absent from the house that night, on some
business of the Brotherhood, and the next morning I breakfasted in
another part of the city, at a restaurant. I had scarcely begun my
meal when a phonograph, which, in a loud voice, was proclaiming the
news of the day before for the entertainment of the guests, cried out:
PROBABLE MURDER--A YOUNG GIRL STABBED.
Last night, at about half-past eleven, on Seward Street,
near Fifty-first Avenue, a young girl was assaulted and
brutally stabbed in the throat by one of two men. The girl
is a singer employed in Peter Bingham's variety theater, a
few blocks distant from the place of the attack. She was
accompanied by her mother, and they were returning on foot
from the theater, where she had been singing. The man had a
carriage ready, and while one of them held her mother, the
other tried to force the young girl into the
carriage; it was plainly the purpose of the men to abduct
her. She resisted, however; whereupon the ruffian who had
hold of her, hearing the footsteps of persons approaching,
and seeing that he could not carry her off, drew a knife
and stabbed her in the throat, and escaped with his
companion in the carriage. The girl was carried into her
father's house, No. 1252 Seward Street, and the
distinguished surgeon, Dr. Hemnip, was sent for. He
pronounced the wound probably fatal. The young girl is
named Christina Jansen; she sings under the stage-name of
Christina Carlson, and is the daughter of Carl Jansen,
living at the place named. Inquiry at the theater showed
her to be a girl of good character, very much esteemed by
her acquaintances, and greatly admired as a very brilliant
singer.
LATER.--A young man named Nathan Brederhagan, belonging to
a wealthy and respectable family, and residing with his
mother at No. 637 Sherman Street, was arrested this morning
at one o'clock, in his bed, by police officer No. 18,333,
on information furnished by the family of the unfortunate
girl. A bloody dagger was found in his pocket. As the girl
is likely to die he was committed to jail and bail refused.
He is represented to be a dissipated, reckless young
fellow, and it seems was in love with the girl, and sought
her hand in marriage; and she refused him; whereupon, in
his rage, he attempted to take her life. His terrible deed
has plunged a large circle of relatives and friends into
great shame and sorrow.
"I had started to my feet as soon as I heard the words, 'The girl is
a singer in Peter Bingham's Variety Theater,' but, when her name was
mentioned and her probable death, the pangs that shot through me no
words of mine can describe.
"It is customary with us all to think that our intellect is our self,
and that we are only what we think; but there are in the depths of
our nature feelings, emotions, qualities of the soul, with which the
mere intelligence has nothing to do; and which, when they rise up,
like an enraged elephant from the jungle, scatter all the
conventionalities of our training, and all the smooth and
automaton-like operations of our minds to the winds. As I stood
there, listening to the dead-level, unimpassioned, mechanical voice
of the phonograph, pouring forth those deadly sentences, I realized
for the first time what the sunny-haired little songstress was to me.
"'Wounded! Dead!'
"I seized my hat, and, to the astonishment of the waiters, I rushed
out. I called a hack. I had to alter my appearance. I grudged the
time necessary for this very necessary precaution, but, paying the
driver double fare, I went, as fast as his horses' legs could carry
me, to the place, in a saloon kept by one of the Brotherhood, where I
was in the habit of changing my disguises. I dismissed the hack,
hurried to my room, and in a few minutes I was again flying along, in
another hack, to 1252 Seward Street. I rushed up the steps. Her
mother met me in the hall. She was crying.
"'Is she alive?' I asked.
"'Yes, yes,' she replied.
"'What does the doctor say?' I inquired.
"'He says she will not die--but her voice is gone forever,' she
replied.
"Her tears burst forth afresh. I was shocked--inexpressibly shocked.
True, it was joy to know she would live; but to think of that noble
instrument of grace and joy and melody silenced forever! It was like
the funeral of an angel! God, in the infinite diversity of his
creation, makes so few such voices--so few such marvelous adjustments
of those vibrating chords to the capabilities of the air and the
human sense and the infinite human soul that dwells behind the
sense--and all to be the spoil of a ruffian's knife. Oh! if I could
have laid my hands on the little villain! I should have butchered him
with his own dagger--sanctified, as it was, with her precious blood.
The infamous little scoundrel! To think that such a vicious, shallow,
drunken brute could have power to 'break into the bloody house of
life' and bring to naught such a precious and unparalleled gift of
God. I had to clutch the railing of the stairs to keep from falling.
Fortunately for me, poor Mrs. Jansen was too much absorbed in her own
sorrows to notice mine. She grieved deeply and sincerely for her
daughter's sufferings and the loss of her voice; but, worse than all,
there rose before her- the future! She looked with dilated eyes into
that dreadful vista. She saw again the hard, grinding, sordid poverty
from which they had but a little time before escaped-she saw again
her husband bent down with care, and she heard her children crying
once more for bread. I read the poor woman's thoughts. It was not
selfishness--it was love for those dear to her; and I took her hand,
and--scarcely knowing what I said--I told her she must not worry,
that she and her family should never suffer want again. She looked at
me in surprise, and thanked me, and said I was always good and kind.
"In a little while she took me to Christina's room. The poor girl was
under the influence of morphine and sleeping a troubled sleep. Her
face was very pale from loss of blood; and her head and neck were all
bound up in white bandages, here and there stained with the ghastly
fluid that flowed from her wounds. It was a pitiable sight: her
short, crisp yellow curls broke here and there, rebelliously, through
the folds of the linen bandages; and I thought how she used to shake
them, responsive to the quiverings of the cadenzas and trills that
poured from her bird-like throat. 'Alas!' I said to myself, 'poor
throat! you will never sing again! Poor little curls, you will never
tremble again in sympathy with the dancing delight of that happy
voice.' A dead voice! Oh! it is one of the saddest things in the
world! I went to the window to hide the unmanly tears which streamed
down my face.
"When she woke she seemed pleased to see me near her, and extended
her hand to me with a little smile. The doctor had told her she must
not attempt to speak. I held her hand for awhile, and told how
grieved I was over her misfortune. And then I told her I would bring
her a tablet and pencil, so that she might communicate her wants to
us; and then I said to her that I was out of a job at my trade (I
know that the angels in heaven do not record such lies), and that I
had nothing to do, and could stay and wait upon her; for the other
children were too small, and her mother too busy to be with her all
the time, and her father and I could divide the time between us. She
smiled again and thanked me with her eyes.
"And I was very busy and almost happy--moving around that room on
tiptoe in my slippers while she slept, or talking to her in a bright
and chatty way, about everything that I thought would interest her,
or bringing her flowers, or feeding her the liquid food which alone
she could swallow.
"The doctor came every day. I questioned him closely. He was an
intelligent man, and had, I could see, taken quite a liking to his
little patient. He told me that the knife had just missed, by a
hair's breadth, the carotid artery, but unfortunately it had struck
the cervical plexus, that important nerve-plexus, situated in the
side of the neck; and had cut the recurrent laryngeal nerve, which
arises from the cervical plexus and supplies the muscles of the
larynx; and it had thereby caused instant paralysis of those muscles,
and aphonia, or loss of voice. I asked him if she would ever be able
to sing again. He said it was not certain. If the severed ends of the
nerve reunited fully her voice might return with all its former
power. He hoped for the best.
"One morning, I was called down stairs by Mrs. Jansen; it was three
or four days after the assault had been made on Christina. There I
found the chief of police of that department. He said it had become
necessary, in the course of the legal proceedings, that Brederhagan
should be identified by Christina as her assailant. The doctor had
reported that there was now no danger of her death; and the family of
the little rascal desired to get him out on bail. I told him I would
confer with the physician, when he called, as to whether Christina
could stand the excitement of such an interview, and I would notify
him. He thanked me and took his leave. That day I spoke upon the
subject to Dr. Hemnip, and he thought that Christina had so far
recovered her strength that she might see the prisoner the day after
the next. At the same time he cautioned her not to become nervous or
excited, and not to attempt to speak. She was simply to write 'Yes'
on her tablet, in answer to the question asked her by the police. The
interview was to be as brief as possible. I communicated with the
chief of police, as I had promised, giving him these details, and
fixed an hour for him to call."