Days, weeks, months had passed by, and Otto, a wanderer in a foreign
land, had heard no tidings of his Aurelia. Ye who have loved may well
conceive how her ring was all in all to him. He divided his time pretty
equally between gazing into its cerulean depths, as though her lovely
image were mirrored therein, and pressing its chilly surface to his
lips, little as it recalled the warmth and balminess of hers.
The burnished glow of gold, the chaste sheen of silver, the dance and
sparkle of light in multitudinous gems, arrested his attention as he
one evening perambulated the streets of a great city. He beheld a
jeweller’s shop. The grey-headed, spectacled lapidary sat at a bench
within, sedulously polishing a streaked pebble by the light of a small
lamp. A sudden thought struck Otto; he entered the shop, and,
presenting the ring to the jeweller, inquired in a tone of suppressed
exultation:
“What hold you for the worth of this inestimable ring?”
The jeweller, with no expression of surprise or curiosity, received the
ring from Otto, held it to the light, glanced slightly at the stone,
somewhat more carefully at the setting, laid the ring for a moment in a
pair of light scales, and, handing it back to Otto, remarked with a
tone and manner of the most entire indifference:
“The worth of this inestimable ring is one shilling and sixpence.”
“Caitiff of a huckster!” exclaimed Otto, bringing down his fist on the
bench with such vigour that the pebbles leaped up and fell rattling
down: “Sayest thou this of a gem framed by genii in the bowels of the
earth?”
“Nay, friend,” returned the jeweller with the same imperturbable air,
“that thy gem was framed of earth I in nowise question, seeing that it
doth principally consist of sand. But when thou speakest of genii and
the bowels of the earth, thou wilt not, I hope, take it amiss if I
crave better proof than thy word that the devil has taken to
glass-making. For glass, and nothing else, credit me, thy jewel is.”
“And the gold?” gasped Otto.
“There is just as much gold in thy ring as sufficeth to gild handsomely
a like superficies of brass, which is not saying much.”
And, applying a sponge dipped in some liquid to a small part of the
hoop, the jeweller disclosed the dull hue of the baser metal so
evidently that Otto could hardly doubt longer. He doubted no more when
the lapidary laid his ring in the scales against another of the same
size and make, and pointed to the inequality of the balance.
“Thou seest,” he continued, “that in our craft a very little gold goes
a very great way. It is far otherwise in the world, as thou, albeit in
no sort eminent for sapience, hast doubtless ere this ascertained for
thyself. Thou art evidently a prodigious fool!”
This latter disparaging observation could be safely ventured upon, as
Otto had rushed from the shop, speechless with rage.
Was Aurelia deceiver or deceived? Should he execrate her, or her
venerable grandmother, or some unknown person? The point was too knotty
to be solved in the agitated state of his feelings. He decided it
provisionally by execrating the entire human race, not forgetting
himself.
In a mood like Otto’s a trifling circumstance is sufficient to
determine the quality of action. The ancient city of which he was at
the time an inhabitant was traversed by a large river spanned by a
quaint and many-arched bridge, to which his frantic and aimless
wanderings had conducted him. Spires and gables and lengthy façades
were reflected in the water, blended with the shadows of boats, and
interspersed with the mirrored flames of innumerable windows on land,
or of lanterns suspended from the masts or sterns of the vessels. The
dancing ripples bickered and flickered, and seemed to say, “Come hither
to us,” while the dark reaches of still water in the shadow of the
piers promised that whatever might be entrusted to them should be
faithfully retained. Swayed by a sudden impulse, Otto drew his ring
from his finger. It gleamed an instant aloft in air; in another the
relaxation of his grasp would have consigned it to the stream.
“Forbear!”
Otto turned, and perceived a singular figure by his side. The stranger
was tall and thin, and attired in a dusky cloak which only partially
concealed a flame-coloured jerkin. A cock’s feather peaked up in his
cap; his eyes were piercingly brilliant; his nose was aquiline; the
expression of his features sinister and sardonic. Had Otto been more
observant, or less preoccupied, he might have noticed that the
stranger’s left shoe was of a peculiar form, and that he limped some
little with the corresponding foot.
“Forbear, I say; thou knowest not what thou doest.”
“And what skills what I do with a piece of common glass?”
“Thou errest, friend; thy ring is not common glass. Had thy mistress
surmised its mystic virtues, she would have thought oftener than twice
ere exchanging it for thy diamond.”
“What may these virtues be?” eagerly demanded Otto.
“In the first place, it will show thee when thy mistress may chance to
think of thee, as it will then prick thy finger.”
“Now I know thee for a lying knave,” exclaimed the youth indignantly.
“Learn, to thy confusion, that it hath not pricked me once since I
parted from Aurelia.”
“Which proves that she has never once thought of thee.”
“Villain!” shouted Otto, “say that again, and I will transfix thee.”
“Thou mayest if thou canst,” rejoined the stranger, with an expression
of such cutting scorn that Otto’s spirit quailed, and he felt a secret
but overpowering conviction of his interlocutor’s veracity. Rallying,
however, in some measure, he exclaimed:
“Aurelia is true! I will wager my soul upon it!”
“Done!” screamed the stranger in a strident voice of triumph, while a
burst of diabolical laughter seemed to proceed from every cranny of the
eaves and piers of the old bridge, and to be taken up by goblin echoes
from the summits of the adjacent towers and steeples.
Otto’s blood ran chill, but he mustered sufficient courage to inquire
hoarsely:
“What of its further virtues?”
“When it shall have pricked thee,” returned the mysterious personage,
“on turning it once completely round thy finger thou wilt see thy
mistress wherever she may be. If thou turnest it the second time, thou
wilt know what her thought of thee is; and, if the third time, thou
wilt find thyself in her presence. But I give thee fair warning that by
doing this thou wilt place thyself in a more disastrous plight than any
thou hast experienced hitherto. And now farewell.”
The speaker disappeared. Otto stood alone upon the bridge. He saw
nothing around him but the stream, with its shadows and lights, as he
slowly and thoughtfully turned round to walk to his lodgings.