as happy as if no such thing as a goblin had ever been heard of, and
personal chattels were as well fenced in by law as real property. Not
so Tom Ingoldsby: the mystery, for mystery there evidently was,--had
not only piqued his curiosity, but ruffled his temper. The watch of
the previous night had been unsuccessful, probably because it was
undisguised. To-night he would “ensconce himself,” not indeed “behind
the arras,”--for the little that remained was, as we have seen, nailed
to the wall,--but in a small closet which opened from one corner of
the room, and by leaving the door ajar, would give to its occupant a
view of all that might pass in the apartment. Here did the young ghost
hunter take up a position, with a good stout sapling under his arm,
a full half-hour before Seaforth retired for the night. Not even his
friend did he let into his confidence, fully determined that if his
plan did not succeed, the failure should be attributed to himself alone.
At the usual hour of separation for the night, Tom saw, from his
concealment, the lieutenant enter his room, and after taking a few
turns in it, with an expression so joyous as to betoken that his
thoughts were mainly occupied by his approaching happiness, proceed
slowly to disrobe himself. The coat, the waistcoat, happiness,
the black silk stock, were gradually discarded; the green morocco
slippers were kicked off, and then--ay, and then--his countenance grew
grave; it seemed to occur to him all at once that this was his last
stake,--nay, that the very breeches he had on were not his own,--that
to-morrow morning was his last, and that if he lost them----A glance
showed that his mind was made up; he replaced the single button he
had just subducted, and threw himself upon the bed in a state of
transition,--half chrysalis, half grub.
Wearily did Tom Ingoldsby watch the sleeper by the flickering light of
the night-lamp, till, the clock striking one, induced him to increase
the narrow opening which he had left for the purpose of observation.
The motion, slight as it was, seemed to attract Charles’s attention;
for he raised himself suddenly to a sitting posture, listened for a
moment, and then stood upright upon the floor. Ingoldsby was on the
point of discovering himself, when, the light flashing full upon his
friend’s countenance, he perceived that, though his eyes were open,
“their sense was shut,”--that he was yet under the influence of sleep.
Seaforth advanced slowly to the toilet, lit his candle at the lamp that
stood on it, then, going back to the bed’s foot, appeared to search
eagerly for something which he could not find. For a few moments he
seemed restless and uneasy, walking round the apartment and examining
the chairs, till, coming fully in front of a large swing glass that
flanked the dressing-table, he paused as if contemplating his figure
in it. He now returned towards the bed; put on his slippers, and with
cautious and stealthy steps, proceeded towards the little arched
doorway that opened on the private staircase.
As he drew the bolt, Tom Ingoldsby emerged from his hiding-place;
but the sleep-walker heard him not; he proceeded softly downstairs,
followed at a due distance by his friend; opened the door which led
out upon the gardens; and stood at once among the thickest of the
shrubs, which there clustered round the base of a corner turret, and
screened the postern from common observation. At this moment Ingoldsby
had nearly spoiled all by making a false step: the sound attracted
Seaforth’s attention,--he paused and turned; and, as the full moon shed
her light directly upon his pale and troubled features, Tom marked,
almost with dismay, the fixed and rayless appearance of his eyes.
The perfect stillness preserved by his follower seemed to reassure
him; he turned aside; and from the midst of a thicket laurustinus
drew forth a gardener’s spade, shouldering which he proceeded with
greater rapidity into the midst of the shrubbery. Arrived at a certain
point where the earth seemed to have been recently disturbed, he
set himself heartily to the task of digging, till, having thrown up
several shovelfuls of mould, he stopped, flung down his tool, and very
composedly began to disencumber himself of his pantaloons.
Up to this moment Tom had watched him with a wary eye: he now advanced
cautiously, and, as his friend was busily engaged in disentangling
himself from his garment, made himself master of the spade. Seaforth,
meanwhile, had accomplished his purpose: he stood for a moment with
“his streamers waving in the wind,” occupied in carefully rolling up
the small-clothes into as compact a form as possible, and all heedless
of the breath of heaven, which might certainly be supposed at such a
moment, and in such a plight, to “visit his frame too roughly.”
He was in the act of stooping low to deposit the pantaloons in the
grave which he had been digging for them, when Tom Ingoldsby came close
behind him, and with the flat side of the spade----
The shock was effectual--never again was Lieutenant Seaforth known
to act the part of a somnambulist. One by one, his breeches,--his
trousers,--his pantaloons,--his silk-net tights,--his patent
cords,--his showy grays with the broad red stripe of the Bombay
Fencibles were brought to light,--rescued from the grave in which they
had been buried, like the strata of a Christmas pie; and after having
been well aired by Mrs. Botherby, became once again effective.
The family, the ladies especially, laughed--the Peterses laughed--the
Simpkinsons laughed--Barney Maguire cried “Botheration!” and Ma’mselle
Pauline, “Mon Dieu!”
Charles Seaforth, unable to face the quizzing which awaited him on all
sides, started off two hours earlier than he had proposed:--he soon
returned, however; and having, at his father-in-law’s request, given up
the occupation of Rajah-hunting and shooting Nabobs, led his blushing
bride to the altar.
THE MYSTERIOUS SKETCH
By ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN
I
Opposite the chapel of Saint Sebalt in Nuremberg, at the corner of
Trabaus Street, there stands a little tavern, tall and narrow, with
a toothed gable and dusty windows, whose roof is surmounted by a
plaster Virgin. It was there that I spent the unhappiest days of my
life. I had gone to Nuremberg to study the old German masters; but in
default of ready money, I had to paint portraits--and such portraits!
Fat old women with their cats on their laps, big-wigged aldermen,
burgomasters in three-cornered hats--all horribly bright with ochre and
vermilion. From portraits I descended to sketches, and from sketches to
silhouettes.
Nothing is more annoying than to have your landlord come to you every
day with pinched lips, shrill voice, and impudent manner to say: “Well,
sir, how soon are you going to pay me? Do you know how much your bill
is? No; that doesn’t worry you! You eat, drink, and sleep calmly
enough. God feeds the sparrows. Your bill now amounts to two hundred
florins and ten kreutzers--it is not worth talking about.”
Those who have not heard any one talk in this way can form no idea
of it; love of art, imagination, and the sacred enthusiasm for the
beautiful are blasted by the breath of such an attack. You become
awkward and timid; all your energy evaporates, as well as your feeling
of personal dignity, and you bow respectfully at a distance to the
burgomaster Schneegans.
One night, not having a sou, as usual, and threatened with imprisonment
by this worthy Mister Rap, I determined to make him a bankrupt by
cutting my throat. Seated on my narrow bed, opposite the window, in
this agreeable mood, I gave myself up to a thousand philosophical
reflections, more or less comforting.
“What is man?” I asked myself. “An omnivorous animal; his jaws,
provided with canines, incisors, and molars, prove it. The canines
are made to tear meat; the incisors to bite fruits; and the molars
to masticate, grind, and triturate animal and vegetable substances
that are pleasant to smell and to taste. But when he has nothing to
masticate, this being is an absurdity in Nature, a superfluity, a fifth
wheel to the coach.”
Such were my reflections. I dared not open my razor for fear that the
invincible force of my logic would inspire me with the courage to make
an end of it all. After having argued so finely, I blew out my candle,
postponing the sequel till the morrow.
That abominable Rap had completely stupefied me. I could do nothing but
silhouettes, and my sole desire was to have some money to rid myself
of his odious presence. But on this night a singular change came over
my mind. I awoke about one o’clock--I lit my lamp, and, enveloping
myself in my grey gabardine, I drew upon the paper a rapid sketch after
the Dutch school--something strange and bizarre, which had not the
slightest resemblance to my ordinary conceptions.
Imagine a dreary courtyard enclosed by high dilapidated walls. These
walls are furnished with hooks, seven or eight feet from the ground.
You see, at a glance, that it is a butchery.
On the left, there extends a lattice structure; you perceive through
it a quartered beef suspended from the roof by enormous pulleys. Great
pools of blood run over the flagstones and unite in a ditch full of
refuse.
The light falls above, between the chimneys where the weathercocks
stand out from a bit of the sky the size of your hand, and the roofs of
the neighboring houses throw bold shadows from story to story.
At the back of this place is a shed, beneath the shed a pile of wood,
and upon the pile of wood some ladders, a few bundles of straw, some
coils of rope, a chicken-coop, and an old dilapidated rabbit-hutch.
How did these heterogeneous details suggest themselves to my
imagination? I don’t know; I had no reminiscences, and yet every stroke
of the pencil seemed the result of observation, and strange because it
was all so true. Nothing was lacking.
But on the right, one corner of the sketch remained a blank. I did not
know what to put there.... Something suddenly seemed to writhe there,
to move. Then I saw a foot, the sole of a foot. Notwithstanding this
improbable position, I followed my inspiration without reference to my
own criticism. This foot was joined to a leg--over this leg, stretched
out with effort, there soon floated the skirt of a dress. In short,
there appeared by degrees an old woman, pale, dishevelled, and wasted,
thrown down at the side of a well, and struggling to free herself from
a hand that clutched her throat.
It was a murder scene that I was drawing. The pencil fell from my hand.
This woman, in the boldest attitude, with her thighs bent on the curb
of the well, her face contracted by terror, and her two hands grasping
the murderer’s arm, frightened me. I could not look at her. But the
man--he, the person to whom that arm belonged--I could not see him. It
was impossible for me to finish the sketch.
“I am tired,” I said, my forehead dripping with perspiration; “there
is only this figure to do; I will finish it tomorrow. It will be easy
then.”
And again I went to bed, thoroughly frightened by my vision.
The next morning, I got up very early. I was dressing in order to
resume my interrupted work, when two little knocks were heard on my
door.
“Come in!”
The door opened. An old man, tall, thin, and dressed in black, appeared
on the threshold. This man’s face, his eyes set close together and
his large nose like the beak of an eagle, surmounted by a high bony
forehead, had something severe about it. He bowed to me gravely.
“Mister Christian Vénius, the painter?” said he.
“That is my name, sir.”
He bowed again, adding:
“The Baron Frederick Van Spreckdal.”
The appearance of the rich amateur, Van Spreckdal, judge of the
criminal court, in my poor lodging, greatly disturbed me. I could not
help throwing a stealthy glance at my old worm-eaten furniture, my damp
hangings and my dusty floor. I felt humiliated by such dilapidation;
but Van Spreckdal did not seem to take any account of these details;
and sitting down at my little table:
“Mister Vénius,” he resumed, “I come----” But at this instant his
glance fell upon the unfinished sketch--he did not finish his phrase.
I was sitting on the edge of my little bed; and the sudden attention
that this personage bestowed upon one of my productions made my heart
beat with an indefinable apprehension.
At the end of a minute, Van Spreckdal lifted his head:
“Are you the author of that sketch?” he asked me with an intent look.
“Yes, sir.”
“What is the price of it?”
“I never sell my sketches. It is the plan for a picture.”
“Ah!” said he, picking up the paper with the tips of his long yellow
fingers.
He took a lens from his waistcoat pocket and began to study the design
in silence.
The sun was now shining obliquely into the garret. Van Spreckdal never
said a word; the hook of his immense nose increased, his heavy eyebrows
contracted, and his long pointed chin took a turn upward, making a
thousand little wrinkles in his long, thin cheeks. The silence was so
profound that I could distinctly hear the plaintive buzzing of a fly
that had been caught in a spider’s web.
“And the dimensions of this picture, Mister Vénius?” he said without
looking at me.
“Three feet by four.”
“The price?”
“Fifty ducats.”
Van Spreckdal laid the sketch on the table, and drew from his pockets
a large purse of green silk shaped like a pear; he drew the rings of
it----
“Fifty ducats,” said he, “here they are.”
I was simply dazzled.
The Baron rose and bowed to me, and I heard his big ivory-headed cane
resounding on each step until he reached the bottom of the stairs.
Then recovering from my stupor, I suddenly remembered that I had not
thanked him, and I flew down the five flights like lightning; but when
I reached the bottom, I looked to the right and left; the street was
deserted.
“Well,” I said, “this is strange.”
And I went upstairs again all out of breath.
II
The surprising way in which Van Spreckdal had appeared to me threw me
into deep wonderment. “Yesterday,” I said to myself, as I contemplated
the pile of ducats glittering in the sun, “yesterday I formed the
wicked intention of cutting my throat, all for the want of a few
miserable florins, and now today Fortune has showered them from the
clouds. Indeed it was fortunate that I did not open my razor; and, if
the same intention ever comes to me again, I will take care to wait
until the morrow.”
After making these judicious reflections, I sat down to finish the
sketch; four strokes of the pencil and it would be finished. But here
an incomprehensible difficulty awaited me. It was impossible for me
to take those four sweeps of the pencil; I had lost the thread of my
inspiration, and the mysterious personage no longer stood out in my
brain. I tried in vain to evoke him, to sketch him, and to recover him;
he no more accorded with the surroundings than with a figure by Raphael
in a Teniers inn-kitchen. I broke out into a profuse perspiration.
At this moment, Rap opened the door without knocking, according to his
praiseworthy custom. His eyes fell upon my pile of ducats and in a
shrill voice he cried:
“Eh! eh! so I catch. Will you persist in telling me, Mr. Painter, that
you have no money?”
And his hooked fingers advanced with that nervous trembling that the
sight of gold always produces in a miser.
For a few seconds I was stupefied.
The memory of all the indignities that this individual had inflicted
upon me, his covetous look, and his impudent smile exasperated me. With
a single bound, I caught hold of him, and pushed him out of the room,
slamming the door in his face.
This was done with the crack and rapidity of a spring snuff-box.
But from outside the old usurer screamed like an eagle:
“My money, you thief, my money!”
The lodgers came out of their rooms, asking:
“What is the matter? What has happened?”
I opened the door suddenly and quickly gave Mister Rap a kick in the
spine that sent him rolling down more than twenty steps.
“That’s what’s the matter!” I cried quite beside myself. Then I shut
the door and bolted it, while bursts of laughter from the neighbors
greeted Mister Rap in the passage.
I was satisfied with myself; I rubbed my hands together. This adventure
had put new life into me; I resumed my work, and was about to finish
the sketch when I heard an unusual noise.
Butts of muskets were grounded on the pavement. I looked out of my
window and saw three soldiers in full uniform with grounded arms in
front of my door.
I said to myself in my terror: “Can it be that that scoundrel of a Rap
has had any bones broken?”
And here is the strange peculiarity of the human mind: I, who the
night before had wanted to cut my own throat, shook from head to foot,
thinking that I might well be hanged if Rap were dead.
The stairway was filled with confused noises. It was an ascending flood
of heavy footsteps, clanking arms, and short syllables.
Suddenly somebody tried to open my door. It was shut.
Then there was a general clamor.
“In the name of the law--open!”
I arose trembling, and weak in the knees.
“Open!” the same voice repeated.
I thought to escape over the roofs; but I had hardly put my head out
of the little snuff-box window, when I drew back, seized with vertigo.
I saw in a flash all the windows below with their shining panes, their
flowerpots, their bird-cages, and their gratings. Lower, the balcony;
still lower, the street-lamp; still lower again, the sign of the “Red
Cask” framed in iron-work; and, finally three glittering bayonets,
only awaiting my fall to run me through the body from the sole of my
foot to the crown of my head. On the roof of the opposite house a
tortoise-shell cat was crouching behind a chimney, watching a band of
sparrows fighting and scolding in the gutter.
One cannot imagine to what clearness, intensity, and rapidity the human
eye acquires when stimulated by fear.
At the third summons I heard:
“Open, or we shall force it!”
Seeing that flight was impossible, I staggered to the door and drew the
bolt.
Two hands immediately fell upon my collar. A dumpy little man, smelling
of wine, said:
“I arrest you!”
He wore a bottle-green redingote, buttoned to the chin, and a stovepipe
hat. He had large brown whiskers, rings on every finger, and was named
Passauf.
He was the chief of police.
Five bull-dogs with flat caps, noses like pistols, and lower jaws
turning upward, observed me from outside.
“What do you want?” I asked Passauf.
“Come downstairs,” he cried roughly, as he gave a sign to one of his
men to seize me.
This man took hold of me, more dead than alive, while several other men
turned my room upside down.
I went downstairs supported by the arms like a person in the last
stages of consumption--with hair dishevelled and stumbling at every
step.
They thrust me into a cab between two strong fellows, who charitably
let me see the ends of their clubs, held to their wrists by a leather
string--and then the carriage started off.
I heard behind us the feet of all the urchins of the town.
“What have I done?” I asked one of my keepers.
He looked at the other with a strange smile and said:
“Hans--he asks what he has done!”
That smile froze my blood.
Soon a deep shadow enveloped the carriage; the horses’ hoofs resounded
under an archway. We were entering the Raspelhaus. Of this place one
might say:
“Dans cet antre,
Je vois fort bien comme l’on entre,
Et ne vois point comme on en sort.”
All is not rose-colored in this world; from the claws of Rap I fell
into a dungeon, from which very few poor devils have a chance to escape.
Large dark courtyards and rows of windows like a hospital, and
furnished with gratings; not a sprig of verdure, not a festoon of ivy,
not even a weathercock in perspective--such was my new lodging. It was
enough to make one tear his hair out by the roots.
The police officers, accompanied by the jailer, took me temporarily to
a lock-up.
The jailer, if I remember rightly, was named Kasper Schlüssel; with his
grey woollen cap, his pipe between his teeth, and his bunch of keys at
his belt, he reminded me of the Owl-God of the Caribs. He had the same
golden yellow eyes, that see in the dark, a nose like a comma, and a
neck that was sunk between the shoulders.
Schlüssel shut me up as calmly as one locks up his socks in a cupboard,
while thinking of something else. As for me, I stood for more than ten
minutes with my hands behind my back and my head bowed. At the end of
that time I made the following reflection: “When falling, Rap cried
out, ‘I am assassinated,’ but he did not say by whom. I will say it was
my neighbor, the old merchant with the spectacles: he will be hanged in
my place.”
This idea comforted my heart, and I drew a long breath. Then I looked
about my prison. It seemed to have been newly whitewashed, and the
walls were bare of designs, except in one corner, where a gallows had
been crudely sketched by my predecessor. The light was admitted through
a bull’s-eye about nine or ten feet from the floor; the furniture
consisted of a bundle of straw and a tub.
I sat down upon the straw with my hands around my knees in deep
despondency. It was with great difficulty that I could think clearly;
but suddenly imagining that Rap, before dying, had denounced me, my
legs began to tingle, and I jumped up coughing, as if the hempen cord
were already tightening around my neck.
At the same moment, I heard Schlüssel walking down the corridor;
he opened the lock-up, and told me to follow him. He was still
accompanied by the two officers, so I fell into step resolutely.
We walked down long galleries, lighted at intervals by small windows
from within. Behind a grating I saw the famous Jic-Jack, who was going
to be executed on the morrow. He had on a strait-jacket and sang out in
a raucous voice:
“Je suis le roi de ces montagnes.”
Seeing me, he called out:
“Eh! comrade! I’ll keep a place for you at my right.”
The two police officers and the Owl-God looked at each other and
smiled, while I felt the goose-flesh creep down the whole length of my
back.
III
Schlüssel shoved me into a large and very dreary hall, with benches
arranged in a semicircle. The appearance of this deserted hall, with
its two high grated windows, and its Christ carved in old brown oak
with His arms extended and His head sorrowfully inclined upon His
shoulder, inspired me with I do not know what kind of religious fear
that accorded with my actual situation.
All my ideas of false accusation disappeared, and my lips trembling
murmured a prayer.
I had not prayed for a long time; but misfortune always brings us to
thoughts of submission. Man is so little in himself!
Opposite me, on an elevated seat, two men were sitting with their backs
to the light, and consequently their faces were in shadow. However, I
recognized Van Spreckdal by his aquiline profile, illuminated by an
oblique reflection from the window. The other person was fat, he had
round, chubby cheeks and short hands, and he wore a robe, like Van
Spreckdal.
Below was the clerk of the court, Conrad; he was writing at a low table
and was tickling the tip of his ear with the feather-end of his pen.
When I entered, he stopped to look at me curiously.
They made me sit down, and Van Spreckdal, raising his voice, said to me:
“Christian Vénius, where did you get this sketch?”
He showed me the nocturnal sketch which was then in his possession. It
was handed to me. After having examined it, I replied:
“I am the author of it.”
A long silence followed; the clerk of the court, Conrad, wrote down my
reply. I heard his pen scratch over the paper, and I thought: “Why did
they ask me that question? That has nothing to do with the kick I gave
Rap in the back.”
“You are the author of it?” asked Van Spreckdal. “What is the subject?”
“It is a subject of pure fancy.”
“You have not copied the details from some spot?”
“No, sir; I imagined it all.”
“Accused Christian,” said the judge in a severe tone, “I ask you to
reflect. Do not lie.”
“I have spoken the truth.”
“Write that down, clerk,” said Van Spreckdal.
The pen scratched again.
“And this woman,” continued the judge--“this woman who is being
murdered at the side of the well--did you imagine her also?”
“Certainly.”
“You have never seen her?”
“Never.”
Van Spreckdal rose indignantly; then, sitting down again, he seemed to
consult his companion in a low voice.
These two dark profiles silhouetted against the brightness of the
window, and the three men standing behind me, the silence in the
hall--everything made me shiver.
“What do you want with me? What have I done?” I murmured.
Suddenly Van Spreckdal said to my guardians:
“You can take the prisoner back to the carriage; we will go to
Metzerstrasse.”
Then, addressing me: