Chapter I: WALKED along aimlessly, recounting all the happenings of the last few (3)

At home he began, “Yes, as you have said, our interview with Arkush was not fruitful. We have simply learned the name—or the assumed name—of the last owner of your father’s picture—for, that it is your father’s picture I have no sort of doubt. The next step would logically be to find Mr. White and question him. It is possible that a tempting advertisement in the newspaper might fetch him; but it is not probable. Very likely, he would never see it. Very likely, he is a thief, and even if he did see it, would be restrained by caution from replying to it. So that the outlook is not hopeful. As for this box being the box—why, the hypothesis is absurd. It was not on that supposition that I bought it. And even if it were the box, it would be of little consequence, empty as it is. I trust you are not too much disappointed.”

“By no means. I have managed to live for a considerable number of years in my present state of ignorance about my vanished legacy, and doubtless I shall pull through a few years more. Only, of course I was bound to follow the clew that this picture seemed to furnish, as far as it would lead; and having done so I am contented. I was not very hopeful when we started out, wherefore I am not very disappointed at the result. Let’s think no more about it.”

“Good! Your mind is imbued with a sound philosophy. But now—”

“But now, tell me why in the name of common sense you invested five dollars in that box?”

“Precisely what I was driving at. Now you are going to have a practical illustration of the value of experience.”

He took the box up from the table where he had laid it.

“You think that ‘intrinsically, this wasn’t worth carrying away,’ and that my expenditure of half an eagle was a reckless waste of good material. To an inexperienced observer your view would certainly seem the correct one. The box is scarcely beautiful. The wood is oak. The metal with which its surface is so profusely ornamented looks like copper. The thing as a whole appears to have been designed for a cheapish jewel-case, now in the last stage of decrepitude. Do I express your sentiments?”

“Eloquently and with precision.”

“But you, my dear Lexow, are not a connoisseur. I, as chance would have it, have seen a box of this description before; saw one in France, the property of a lady of high degree; and, strange as it may seem, I don’t believe a hundred bright gold pieces such as the one I gave Rebecca, could have induced my French lady friend to part with it. Guess why.”

“Why? Oh, I suppose it had certain associations that made her want to keep it. We often prize things quite irrespective of their market value. But go on: don’t be so roundabout.”

“Well, the reason—at least one reason—for her setting such store by the box in question—which, I must remind you, was the very duplicate of the one we have here—the reason, I say, was that she knew enough about such matters to recognize that box for a specimen of cinque-cento—a specimen of cinque-cento! Now do you begin to realize that the paltry five dollars were not exorbitant?”

“Oh, from the standpoint of an antiquary, an amateur of bric-a-brac, I suppose it was not.”

“Excellent! No, sir; on the contrary, it was an immense bargain, a thorough-going stroke of luck. But now please take the box into your own hands, treat it gingerly, inspect it carefully, and tell me whether you remark any thing extraordinary about it.”

“Nothing, except that it is extraordinarily ugly and doesn’t speak well for cinque-cento,” I replied, after the requisite examination.

“Another proof that das Sehen muss gelernt sein! Here, I will enlighten you.—You behold this metal work which a moment since we disposed of as copper; learn that it is bronze; and not cast bronze, either, but wrought bronze, bronze shaped with hammer and chisel. Look closely at it; note the forms into which it has been modeled. See these roses, these lilies, these lotus leaves; see how exquisitely they are fashioned; see how they are massed together into a harmonious ensemble. Now hold it close to your eyes: see—do you see?—this serpent twined among the flowers! The artist must have worked from life—the very texture of the skin is reproduced—it makes one shudder.”

“Yes,” I said, “I admit it is a fine piece of work.”

“But we have not yet exhausted the list of its virtues by any means. Now open it and look at the interior.”

“I see nothing remarkable about the interior,” I replied, “nothing but bare wood.”

“That is all you see; but watch.”

He applied the point of a pencil to one of the series of nail-heads with which the top of the lid was studded. It appeared to sink a hair’s-breadth into the wood. Thereat the lower surface of the lid dropped down, disclosing a hollow space between it and the upper.—“A double cover,” he said, “a place for hiding things and—hello! it isn’t empty!”

No, it wasn’t empty. It contained a large, square envelope. Merivale hastily made a grab for it, and crossed over to the gas-fixture. “Have we stumbled upon a romance?” he cried. Holding it up to the light, presently he said: “Come hither, Lexow. The writing is German script. I can’t read it. Come and help.”

He put the envelope into my hands. I ran my eyes over the writing. Next moment the envelope fluttered to the floor. I grasped Merivale’s arm to support myself. My breath became short and quick. “I was not prepared for this,” I gasped.

“For what? What is the trouble?” he asked.

I sank into a chair. Merivale picked up the envelope and studied it intently. “I can make nothing out of it,” he said.

“Give it to me—I will read it to you,” I rejoined.

This is what I read:—

“To be delivered to my son, Ernest Neuman, upon his attaining the age of one-and-twenty years. Let there be no failure, as the will of a dying man is honored.—To my son: Open and read on your twenty-first birthday. Be alone when you read.—Your father, Ernest Neuman.”

Neither of us broke silence for some minutes afterward.

At last, “I guess I’d better clear out,” said Merivale. “This is considerably more than we had bargained for. I suppose you’d like to be alone. I’ll remain in the next room. Call, if you want me.”

“Yes,” I returned, “I may as well read it at once. But do you know—it’s quite natural, doubtless—I really dread opening it? Who can tell what its contents may be? Who can tell what information it may convey, to the detriment of that ignorance which is bliss? Who can tell what duty it may impose—what change it may make necessary in my mode of life? I—I am really afraid of it. The superscription is not reassuring—and then, this strange accident by which it has reached its destination after so many years! It is like a fatality.”

“It is inevitable that you should feel this way. The suddenness of the business was enough to shatter your self-possession. At the same time you would best not delay about reading it. You won’t be able to rest until you’ve done so, you know.—Yes, indeed, it is like a fatality—like an incident in a novel—one of those happenings that we never expect to see occur in real life. I’ll wait in the next room till you call.”

My heart stood still as I broke the seal. Four double sheets of thin glazed paper, covered with minute German script. The ink was faded, and there were a good many blots and interlineations; so that it was only by dint of straining my eyesight to the utmost that I could decipher my father’s message. But screwing up my courage, I attacked it, nor did I pause till I had read the last word.

XI.

H ERE is a translation:—

“In the name of God, Amen!

“To my son:

“You are a little less than two years old; I, your father, am dying. I shall be dead before your birthday. That will be the 6th Cheshvan. It is now the 2nd Ellul The physician gives me till some time in Tishri to keep possession of my faculties. I am dying before my time. I have something yet to accomplish in this world. has willed that it be accomplished. He has willed that you accomplish it in my stead. I am in my bed as I write this, in the bed from which I shall not rise again. Through the open door of my room I can hear you crowing in your nurse’s arms. Ah, would that you could understand by word of mouth from me now, what I am compelled to write. There is so much that a man can not but forget to put down, when he is writing. Yet will illumine my mind and strengthen my trembling fingers. It will not allow me to forget any thing that is essential. When this is completed, I shall put it into safe hands, that it may be delivered to you at the proper time. I have no fear. I am sure it will reach you. It will reach you sooner or later, though all men conspire to the contrary. has promised it. He will render this writing indelible, this paper indestructible. He will guide this to you, even as He guides the river to the sea, the star to the zenith. Blessed be the name of forever.

“My son, before you read further, cover your head and pray. Pray to for strength. Pray that the will of your father may be done. Pray that you may be directed aright for the fulfillment of this errand of justice with which I charge you.

“You have prayed. I also have laid aside my pen for a moment, and, summoning your nurse to bring you to my bedside, have prayed with my hand upon your head. will be with you as you read. Read on.

“My son, you do not, you will never know your mother. You do not love her; you hear not the sound of her voice; it is forbidden you to gaze into the lustrous depths of her eyes. Ah, my son, you little guess how much you lost when you lost your mother. But you must learn the truth.

“Your mother was younger than I by seven years. I am thirty. Your mother would be three-and-twenty had she lived. She was nineteen when I married her. It was in Savannah, Georgia, going on five years ago. Ah, my Ernest, I can not tell you how beautiful your mother appeared to me when I saw her first. I can not tell you with what great love I loved her. Suppose that you had never seen a stone more precious than a pebble such as may be picked up in our back garden, and that all at once a diamond were shown to you, a diamond of the purest water: would you not distrust your eyes, crying, ‘Ah, so fine, so wonderful! Can it be?—So was it when I saw your mother. I had seen pebbles innumerable, ay, and mock diamonds too. She was the first true diamond I had ever seen. I loved her at the first glance.—How long, after the sun has risen, does it take the waters of the earth to sparkle with the sunlight? So long it took my heart to love, after my eyes for the first time had met your mother’s. But how much I loved her, how every drop of my life was sucked up and absorbed into my love of her, it would be useless for me to try to make you understand.

“And yet, loving her as I did, I hesitated to bespeak her for my wife. Why?

“In my eighteenth year my own father—your grandfather, of holy memory—had died. On his death-bed he called me to him. He said: ‘When you have become a man you will meet many women. To one of them your heart will go out in love. You will desire her for your wife. But I say to you here on my death-bed, beware! Do not marry, though your love be greater than your life.

“‘In the fourth generation back of me our ancestor was betrayed by the wife of his choice. So great was his hatred of her on this account, that he wished his seed, contaminated as it was by having taken root in her womb, to become extinct. Therefore he forbade his son to marry. And to this prohibition he attached a penalty.

“If, in defiance of his wish, his son should take unto himself a woman, then should he too taste the bitterness of infidelity within the household, then should he too be betrayed and dishonored by his wife. And this penalty he made to extend to the seventh and eighth generations. Whosoever of his progeny should enter into the wedded state should enter by the same step into the antechamber of hell.

“‘But his son laughed as he listened; and within two years he was married. But within two years also the laughter froze upon his lips. For behold, the curse of his father had come to pass!

“‘Thus ever since. Each of our ancestors, despite his father’s caution, has taken a wife. He has been betrayed and dishonored by her even as I have been betrayed and dishonored by your mother. He has repeated to his own son the family malediction even as I am now repeating it to you.—Let that malediction then go down into the grave with me. Do not marry, as you wish for peace now and hereafter.’

“It was in this wise that on his death-bed my father had spoken to me. I remembered his words when I found that I had begun to love a woman. It was for this reason that I hesitated to ask your mother to become my wife.

“Ah, but, my son, of what avail is hesitation at such a moment?—when you are gazing into the eyes of the woman you love? With sails set and a strong wind behind it, can the ship hesitate to speed across the sea? Thrust into a bed of live coals, can the wood hesitate to kindle and burn? With the sun beating hot upon the earth above it, can the seed hesitate to sprout and send forth rootlets? How long then could I, with the light of your mother’s face shining upon my pathway, how long could I hesitate to say, ‘I love you. Be my wife’.—We were married.

“You, my son, will never know how happy it is possible for a man to be. A woman such as your mother is born only once in all time. You will never meet with her like. You will never know the supreme joy of having her for your wife. Her breath was sweeter than the fragrance of the sweetest flower. The song of the nightingale was less musical than her simplest word. All the light of heaven was eclipsed by the light that glowed far down in her eyes. Her presence at my side was a foretaste of paradise. Only to take her hand into my own and stroke its warm, satiny skin, was an ecstasy which I can not describe, which I can not remember even at this extreme moment without a quickening of the pulse. For three, yes, for four years after our marriage we were so happy that we cried each morning and each evening at our prayers, ‘Lord, what have we done to merit such happiness?’—I, my son, laughed as I recalled the dying words of my father. ‘The family curse in my case,’ I said, ‘has gone astray. I have no fear.’—Alas! I took too much for granted. I congratulated myself too soon. Our happiness was doomed to be burst like a bubble at a touch. The family curse had perhaps gone astray for a little while: it was bound to find its way back before the end. The will of our ancestor could not be thwarted.

“The first three years of our married life we passed at Savannah, dwelling with the parents of your mother. There you were born—as it seemed, in order to consummate and seal with the seal of our perfect joy. Then, when you were still but three months old, it became necessary that I should return and take up my residence again in New York. We were not sorry to come to New York.

“Nicholas had been my closest friend for many years. Boys together at Breslau, we had crossed the sea together, and had started our new life together here in America. Before our wedding I had described Nicholas to your mother, saying, ‘Him also must you love;’ and to Nicholas I had written, bidding him include my wife in his love of me.—This was why we were not sorry to leave Savannah and come to New York: because Nicholas was here, because we wanted to be near to our best friend.—Nicholas met us as we disembarked from the sailing vessel that had brought us hither. It made my heart warm to greet my old comrade and to present to him my wife and my son.

“I was a true friend to Nicholas. After your mother and you, he was first in my heart. I would have shared with him my last drop of water, my last crumb of bread; and he, I believed, would have done the same by me. My purse was always open for Nicholas to put in his hand and take out what he would, even to the last penny. I thought Nicholas was pure gold. I trusted him as I trusted myself. I said to your mother, ‘No evil can betide you so long as Nicholas is alive. If any thing should happen to me, in him you will have a brother, in him our Ernest will have a second father.’ It gave me a sense of perfect security, made me feel that the strength of my own right arm was doubled, the fact that Nicholas was my friend.

“Good. After my return to New York the intimacy between Nicholas and myself increased. He was constantly at our house. We were always glad to see him. A place was always laid for him at our table; it made our hearts light to have him with us, so bright, so gay, withal so good, so sterling, such a trusty friend was he. I delighted to witness the friendship that rapidly sprang up between your mother and Nicholas. He entertained her, told her stories, made her laugh.—She would often exclaim, ‘Dear, good Nicholas! What should we do without him?’ I replied, ‘That is right. Let him be next to your son and your husband in your affection.’ I do not think it is common for one man to love another as I loved Nicholas.

“But after we had been in New York a little more than two months, your mother’s manner toward Nicholas began to change. She was cold and formal to him; when he would arrive, instead of running up with outstretched hands and crying, ‘Ah, it is you!’ she would courtesy to him and say without smiling, ‘How do you do?’—She laughed no more at his stories, she appeared to avoid him when she could; when she could not, she was silent and morose. I could see no reason for this. I was pained. I said, ‘Bertha, why do you behave so toward our best friend?’ Your mother pretended not to understand. ‘Don’t deny it,’ I insisted. ‘You are as distant, as polite to him, as if he were a mere acquaintance.’ Your mother answered, ‘I am sorry to distress you. I don’t know what you mean. I was not aware that I had been discourteous to your friend.’—’Has Nicholas done any thing?’ I asked.—’No, he has done nothing.’—I blamed your mother severely. I besought her to subdue what I took for her caprice. Yet every day her conduct toward Nicholas grew colder and more formal. Every day I reproved her more and more earnestly. This was the nearest approach to a quarrel that your mother and I had ever had. It grieved me deeply that she should adopt such a manner toward my friend. I was all the more cordial to him in consequence. I hoped that he would not notice the turn affairs had taken.

“Thus till almost a year ago. You lacked but a fortnight of being one year old.

“Business had kept me down town till late. At last I made up my mind that I should not be able to go home at all that night. So I told Nicholas to visit Bertha and let her know. ‘Spend the evening with her,’ I said. ‘Explain how it is that I am compelled to remain here. Tell her that I will come home to breakfast. Be sure to entertain her. I don’t want to think of her as lonesome.’

“Next morning I hurried home. I stole softly into the house, to surprise your mother. Ah, my son, my son, I need not give you the details.—The house was empty. There was a brief letter from your mother. As I read it, my head swam, a mortal weakness overpowered me, I sank in a swoon upon the floor.

“When I recovered from my swoon, I was lying undressed in bed. There were people round about. I remembered every thing. What! I was lying idle in bed, and Nicholas still alive? I started up to be upon his track. I fell back, impotent. ‘What has befallen me?’ I asked. I was informed that I had had a hemorrhage of the lungs.

“I need not tell you what I suffered. My suffering was great in proportion to my love. The shame, the disgrace, were nothing. But at one blow to be deprived of wife, child, friend; to have my love and my faith and my happiness shattered at one stroke: it was too much. Yet, let this be impressed upon you, that not for one instant did I blame your mother. I realized that she, like myself, was but the helpless victim of the family curse. It was my fault. I had defied the inevitable. The keenest agony of all was to lie there, unable to rise, and think of Nicholas. Ah, a thousand times in imagination I tore his heart bleeding from his breast! I hated him now, as much as I had formerly cherished him. And yet, I believe I could in the end have forgiven him, if—ah, but of what use to say, ‘If’. Listen to the truth.

“It was a short four months afterward—four months that had seemed, however, a thousand years to me—and I still lay here dead in life, when the good Dr. Hirsch, (to whom now in my dying hours I commend you, my son), came to my bedside and said that he had seen your mother. He believed that if I would take her back, she would be glad. If I would take her back! ‘Bring her to me,’ I cried. And I thanked for this manifestation of his mercy. ‘You must prepare for a sad change in her,’ said Dr. Hirsch.—’Bring her, bring her,’ I cried impatiently.

“Not even to you, my son, can I reveal the secret of that first hour, of that deep hour, when your mother sat again at my side and received my pardon—nay, not my pardon, for it was her place to pardon me. If before that it had been possible for me to forgive Nicholas, it was so no longer. For your mother’s face was deathly pale, her cheek hollow, her eye bright with fever. Nicholas had—what? Petted her for a month; for a month, ignored her; for another month, ill treated her; in the end, abandoned her, it might be to starve. Nicholas had done this Nicholas whom I had loved and trusted. As I saw your mother pine away, grow paler and more feeble beneath my sight, my hatred of that man intensified. On the day your mother died, I promised her that I would get well and live and force him to atone for his offense in blood. My great hatred seemed to endow me with strength. I believed that would not let me die until I had once again met Nicholas face to face.

“But this delusion was short-lived. A second hemorrhage threw me back, weaker than ever, upon my bed. The physician told me that I had absolutely no ground for hope. It was evident that had willed that the chastisement of my enemy should not be wrought out by my hand. ‘But’ is just,’ I said. ‘He will not allow a crime like this to go unavenged.’

“It was then that my thought turned to you. And all this time, what of you? You too were lying at the point of death. Of you too the physician said, ‘He can not survive the winter.’ You, my single hope, threatened at any moment to breathe your last. ‘But no,’ I cried, ‘it shall not be so. My Ernest must live. As is both just and merciful, Ernest will live.’

“I watched the fluctuations of your illness, divided between hope and fear, between faith in the goodness of and doubt lest the worst might come to pass. Ah, that was a breathless period. Day after day passed by, and there was no certainty. Constantly the doctor said, ‘Death is merely a question of a few days, more or less.’ Constantly my heart replied, ‘No, no, he will not die.” has decreed that he shall live.’ I prayed that your life might be spared, morning, noon, and night. My own strength was ebbing away. But that was of little matter. I wanted to hold out only until I should know for good and all whether my son was to survive.

“Blessed be the name of forever! At the moment when the physician said, ‘He will die within an hour,’ lo! the God of our fathers touched your body with his healing wand. There was a change for the better. The physician himself could not deny it. He maintained that it was but transitory. ‘Nothing short of a miracle,’ said he, ‘can save this baby’s life.’

“‘We will see,’ said I aloud. To myself I said, ‘The miracle has been performed.’

“I was right. Two days later the physician confessed that your chances of recovery were good. Two days later still you were out of danger. had heard my prayers. The God of Israel is a righteous God! Oh, for the tongue of the prophets to sing a sufficient song of thanksgiving to . He has snatched you from the clutch of death for a purpose. He will see to it that you fulfill that purpose, though your heart be burned to ashes in the task. He will make you to be great like Ephraim and Manasseh. (Y si me ha Elohim k’.phraim v’chi Manasseh!)

“Again I have summoned your nurse, to bring you to my bedside. Again I have laid down my pen, to place my hand upon your head and bless you in the name of Again, before reading further, pause for a space and pray that the breath of God may make strong your heart.”

“My son, I allow you one-and-twenty years to become a man, one-and-twenty years to gain strength of arm and firmness of will. I allow you one-and-twenty years of youth, one-and-twenty years in which to enjoy life, free of care. On your twenty-first birthday, if the good and reverend Dr. Hirsch live, he will put this writing into your hands. Should he be dead, others will see that you receive it. On your twenty-first birthday you will be a boy no longer. You will recognize yourself for a man. You will ask, ‘What is to be the aim, the occupation of my life?’ You will read this writing, and your question will be answered. Your father on the brink of the grave pauses to speak to you as follows:—

“In the name of , who in response to my prayers has saved your life, who created you out of the dust and the ashes, who tore you from the embrace of death and restored health to your shattered body for one sole purpose, in Ins name I charge you: Find my enemy out and put him to death. He is still a young man. He will scarcely be an old man when you have become of age. It is a long time to wait, a long time to defer my vengeance, one-and-twenty years, but so I believe has willed it. After you have reached the age of one-and-twenty years, let that be the single motive and object of your days: to find him out and put him to death by the most painful mode of death you can devise. Do not strike him down with one blow. Torture him to death. Pluck his flesh from his bones shred by shred. Prolong his agony to the utmost. Thus shall you compensate in some measure for the one-and-twenty years of delay. And again and again as he is writhing under your heel, cry out to him, ‘Remember, remember the friend who loved you and whom you betrayed, whose honey you turned to gall and wormwood.’ But, if meanwhile from other causes death should have overtaken him, then shall you transfer your anger to his next-of-kin; then, I charge you, visit the penalty of his sin upon his children and his children’s children. For has not decreed that the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children even unto the third and fourth generations? The blood of Nicholas must be spilled, whether it courses in his veins or in the veins of his posterity. The race of Nicholas must be exterminated, obliterated from the face of the earth. As you honor the wish of a dying father, as you dread the wrath of , falter not in this that I command. Search the four corners of the world until you have unearthed my enemy or his kindred. Empty his blood upon the sand as you would the blood of swine. And think, as he is calling out to you for mercy, think, ‘At last my father’s revenge is wreaked! At last my father’s spirit can rest content. Even now my father is in transports of delight as he witnesses this fruition of his hope. At each thrust of my knife into our enemy’s flesh, the heart of my father leaps with satisfaction. At each scream of pain that escapes from our enemy’s throat, the voice of my father waxes great with joy.’

“Ah, my son, at that mighty hour, whether I be confined in the bottom fastnesses of hell or exalted to the mountain tops of paradise, I shall know what is happening, I shall fling myself upon my face and sing a song of praise to for the unspeakable rapture which he has permitted me to enjoy.

“My son, I trust you. You will not falter. You will remember that has saved you from death for this solitary purpose, that you have no right to your own life except as you employ it for the chastisement of my foe. I have no fear. You will hate him with a hatred equal to my own. You will wreak that hatred as I should have wreaked it, had my life been spared.

“I have no fear, no distrust, and yet—all things are possible. My son, I warn you. In case you be faint-hearted, in case you recoil from this mission you are charged with, or in case by any accident—though will allow no such accident to happen—in case by any accident this writing should fail to reach you, I shall be prepared. From my grave I shall watch over you. From my grave I shall guide you. From my grave I shall see to it that you do not neglect the duty of your life. Though seas roll between you and him, I shall see to it that you two meet.

“Though your heart be bound to him as to your own flesh and blood, I shall see to it that you swerve not. And if he be dead, I shall see to it that you are brought face to face with his kindred. Man, woman, or child, spare neither. Young or old, able or feeble-bodied, let it matter not. In case your strength desert you, in case your courage weaken, I shall be at your side, I shall nerve your arm. If you hesitate, remember that my spirit will possess your body and do what must be done in spite of your hesitation. There will be no escape for you. As certainly as the moon must follow the earth, so certainly will and must you, my son, accomplish the purpose for which your life is given.—But falter not, as you cherish the fair name of your mother, as you honor the desire, as you fear the curse, of a dying father, as you hope for peace for your own soul.

“I have done. I think I have made every thing clear. Farewell.

“Your father, Ernest Neuman.

“I have written the above during my moments of strength for the last four days. Now I have just read it over. I find that it but feebly expresses all that I mean and feel. But will enlighten you as you read. It is enough. I find also that I have omitted to mention his full name. His name is Nicholas Pathzuol.”

XII.

THE emotions that grew upon me, as I read my father’s message, need not be detailed. How, as I painfully deciphered it, word following upon word added steadily to the weight of those emotions, until at length it seemed as though the burden was greater than I could bear, I need not tell. Indeed, so engrossed had I become by what had gone before, that the sense of the last line did not penetrate my mind. I leaned back in my chair and drew a long breath like one exhausted by an effort beyond his strength. I waited for the commotion of thought and feeling to quiet a little. I was completely horror-stricken and tired out and bewildered.

But by and by it occurred to me, “What did he say the man’s name was?” And languidly I picked up the paper and read the postscript for a second time. The next instant I was on my feet, rigid, aghast, for consternation. What!

Pathzuol! The name of Veronika! My head swam. It was as if I had sustained a terrific blow between the eyes. Could it be that this Pathzuol, the man who had dishonored my mother, the man whom my father had commissioned me to murder, was her father? the father of her who had indeed been murdered, and of whose murder I had been accused? The mere possibility stunned and sickened me. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I had been under a pretty tense nervous strain ever since the reception of Tikulski’s letter in the afternoon. This last utterly undid me. My muscles relaxed, my knees knocked together, the perspiration trickled down my forehead. I went off into a regular fit of weeping, like a woman.

It was not long before Merivale entered. I looked up and saw him standing over me, with a physiognomy divided between astonishment and contempt.

“Ah, Lexow,” he said, shaking his head, “I am surprised at you.” Then his eyes grew stern, and he continued sharply, “Stop! Stop your crying. You ought to be ashamed. Whatever new misfortune has befallen you, you have no right to act like this. It is a man’s part to bear misfortune silently. It is a school-girl’s or a baby’s to take on in this fashion. Stop your crying, dry your eyes, and show what you are made of. Grit your teeth and clench your fists and don’t open your mouth till you are ready to behave like a reasonable being.”

His words sobered me to some extent.

“Well,” I said, “I am calm now. What do you want?”

“If I should do what I want,” he answered, “you would not speedily forget it. I should—but never mind that. What I want you to do is to speak up like a man and explain the occasion of this rumpus, if you can.”

“Here, read this,” I said, offering him the paper.

He took it, glanced at it, turned it this way and that, handed it back. “How can I read it?” he said. “It’s German. Read it to me.—Come, read it to me,” he repeated, as I hesitated.

I gulped down my reluctance and read the whole thing through as rapidly as I could in English. He sat across the table, smoking and drawing figures in the ash-pan with the ashes of his cigarette. Once in a while I heard him whistle softly to himself. He had thrown his last cigarette aside and was biting his fingernails when the reading drew to a close.

“No more?” he asked.

“Isn’t that enough?” I rejoined.

“Oh, I didn’t mean that. Oh, yes; that’s enough; and it’s pretty bad too. But I expected something worse from the rough way you cut up.”

“Worse? In heaven’s name what could be worse? My mother dishonored, my father broken hearted, and I marked out for a murderer, even from my cradle? And then—”

“I say it’s hard, deucedly hard. But inasmuch as you’re not a murderer, you know, I wouldn’t let that side of the matter bother me, if I were you. The bad part of the business is to think of how your father’s happiness, your mother’s innocence, were destroyed. Think how he must have suffered!”

“But you haven’t listened, you haven’t understood the worst, yet. Here, see his name—Pathzuol.”

“Well, what of it?”

“Why, don’t you remember? It is the same name as hers—Veronika’s—my sweetheart’s.”

“Decidedly!” exclaimed Merivale. “That is a startling coincidence, I admit.”

“Couple that with—with the rest of my father’s story and with—with the—well, with all the facts—and I think you’ll confess that it was sufficient to shake me up a bit. To come upon that name at the end of such a letter, it was like being knocked down. I lost my self-possession. Think! if he was her father! But, oh no; it isn’t credible. It’s sheer accident, of course.”

“Of course it is. The letter doesn’t say that he was even married. I suppose there’s more than one Pathzuol in the world as well as more than one Merivale. But all the same, it’s a coincidence of a sort to stir a fellow up. I don’t wonder you lost your balance. Only, the idea of boohooing like a woman! That’s inexcusable. Mercy! what a good hater your father was! And what an unspeakable wretch, Nicholas!”

“Yes,” I went on, “it gave me a pretty severe jolt, the sight of that name; and I can’t seem to get over it. I don’t know why, but I can’t help feeling as though there were more in this than either you or I perceive, as though there were some deduction or other to be drawn from it which is right within arm’s reach and yet which I can’t grasp—some horrible corollary, you know. My brain is in a whirl, I—I—”

“You are quite unstrung, as it is natural you should be. But you must exert your reason and put the stopper upon your imagination. Let deductions and corollaries take care of themselves. Confine yourself to the facts, and you’ll see that they’re not as bad as they might be, after all. For example—”

“But it is just the facts that perplex and horrify me. My father destines me to be the murderer of Nicholas Pathzuol or of his next of kin. All ignorant of this destiny, I meet and love a lady whose name is Pathzuol—a name so rare that I had never heard it before, and have not since, except in this writing to-day. My lady is murdered; and I, though innocent, am suspected and accused of the crime. Add to this my father’s threat to come back from the grave and use me as his instrument, in case I hesitate or in case I never receive his letter; and—well, it is like a problem in mathematics—given this and that, to determine so and so. No, no, there’s no use denying it, this strange combination of facts must have some awful meaning. It seems as though each minute I was just on the point of catching it, and then as I tighten my fingers around it, it escapes again and eludes me.”

“Nonsense, man. You are yielding to your fancy, like a child who, because he feels oppressed in the dark, conjures up ghosts and goblins, and can not be persuaded that there are none about, till you light the gas and show him that the room is empty. Come, light the gas of your common sense! Recognize that your problem has no solution, none because it is not a true problem, but merely a fortuitous arrangement of circumstances which chances to bear a superficial resemblance to one. Reduce your quasi problem to its simplest terms: thus, given x and y and z, to find the value of b. Don’t you see that there’s no connection?”

“Oh, of course, I acknowledge that I can’t see any connection. That’s just the trouble. I feel that there must be a connection—one that I can’t see. If I could only see it, it wouldn’t be so bad. But this perplexity, this——”

“This fiddle-stick! You are resolved to distress yourself, and I suppose it’s useless for me to labor with you. Only this much I will say, that if you should bestow a little of the energy you are expending in the effort to catch hold of a non-existent inference, upon sympathy with your father’s unhappiness, I should have more respect for you. They talk about suffering ennobling and chastening men, forsooth! So far as you are concerned, suffering has done nothing but intensify your natural egotism. For instance, after reading that letter of your father’s, the first idea that strikes you is, ‘How does it affect me, how am I concerned by it?’ whereas the spectacle of your father s immense grief ought to have absorbed you to the exclusion of every thing else, ought to have left no room in your mind for any other thought.”

But for all Merivale could say by way either of appeal or of reprimand, I was powerless to subdue that feeling which had begun to stir in my breast. I recognized that I was unreasonable and selfish, but I was also helpless. I could not get over the shock I had sustained when Pathzuol’s name first took shape before my eyes. Every time I remembered that moment—and it kept recurring to me in spite of myself—my heart sank and my breath became spasmodic, as if I had been confronted by a ghost. And then ensued that sensation of groping in the dark after something invisible, unknown, yet surely there, hovering within arm’s reach, but as elusive as a will-o’-the-wisp. I struggled with this sensation, tried my utmost to shake it off, but it sat like a monster on my heart. Its weight was deadly, its touch was icy; it would not be dislodged.

“It is true, all that you say, Merivale,” I returned at length. “But the question is not one of what I ought to do; it is one of what I can do. I know I ought to regard this matter in the same collected spirit that you display; but it concerns me so intimately, you see, that I can’t resist being somewhat perturbed. My wits, so to speak, have been scattered by an unexpected blow. I shan’t be able to emulate your sang-froid until they have got back to their proper places. I’m so heated and upset that I don’t really know what I think or what I feel. I guess perhaps I’d better go for a walk and cool off, and arrive at an understanding with myself.”

“The very worst thing you could possibly do—go away by yourself and brood and get more and more morbid every minute. What you want is to think of something else for a while, and then when you come back to this subject you’ll be in a condition to regard it in its correct light. Let’s—let’s play a game of cribbage, or read some Rossetti; or suppose you fiddle a little?”

“No, I feel the need of air and exercise. I’ll go out and take a walk. I sha’n’. brood, I’ll reflect on the sensible things you’ve said. Good-by.”

I walked briskly through the streets, striving to collect my faculties, striving to regain sufficient mental tranquillity to comprehend exactly what the long and short of the whole business was. But the feeling that there was something more in it than I could make out, intensified. It would not be dispelled. The oftener I went over the circumstances, the more significant they seemed.—Significant of what? Precisely the question that I could not answer. The longer I allowed my mind to dwell upon them, the more acute became that sensation of wrestling with a problem, of groping for a something suspended near to me in the dark. My father had destined me to be a murderer; the name of my intended victim was Pathzuol; I had been engaged to a young lady of the same name, very possibly the daughter of my father’s foe; she had indeed been murdered, though not by my hand; and yet I, despite my innocence, had been deemed guilty of the crime: this chain of facts kept passing over and over before me. I felt that it must mean something; it could not be purely fortuitous; there was a break, a missing link, which, if I could but supply it, would make the hidden meaning clear. I walked the streets all night, unable to fix my thoughts on any thing else. I said, “You are merely wearing yourself out and getting your brains into a tangle: try to divert your attention. Count up to a thousand. See how much you can remember of the Moonlight Sonata. Conjugate a Hebrew verb. Do what you will, only stop puzzling over this matter. As Merivale says, when you have thought of something else for a while, you will be in a condition to return to it with refreshed intelligence, and view it in the right light.” But the next moment I was at it again, in greater perplexity than ever. Of course, I succeeded in working myself up to a high degree of nervousness: was as exhausted and as exasperated as though I had spent an hour in futile attempts to thread a needle.

But now it began to get light. The stillness of the night was broken, my solitude was disturbed.

Hosts of sparrows began to congregate upon the window sills, and their busy twittering filled the air. First one steam-whistle blew in the distance, then another nearer by, then another, and finally a chorus of them: bells began to ring, wagons rattled over the pavement, the shrill whoo-hoop of the milk-man resounded through the streets. The clatter of footsteps became audible upon the sidewalk.

People began to walk abroad. The sky turned from black to gray, from gray to blue. Shutters were banged, doors slammed, windows thrown open: housemaids with brooms and buckets appeared upon the stoops. Dawn had arrived from across the Ocean with the smell of the sea-breeze still clinging to her skirts. The city was waking to its feverish multifarious life.—And the result was that I forgot myself—was penetrated and exalted by that vague tremulous exhilaration which always accompanies the first breath of morning. I expanded my lungs and inhaled the fresh air and felt a glow of warmth and animation shoot through my limbs.

“Ah,” I cried, “a truce to the blue devils! I will go home and take up my regular life again, just as though this interruption had not occurred.”

I hurried back to our lodgings. Merivale was already up and dressed, smoking a cigarette over the newspaper.

“Hail!” I exclaimed. “I am glad to see you out of bed so early!”

“I have not been abed since you left,” he answered.

“Why not? What have you been doing?”

“Thinking about you—about what can be done to make a man of you.”

“Oh, you needn’t worry about that. I’m all right now. I sha’n’. play the fool again, I promise you. I propose that we sink the last four-and-twenty hours into eternal oblivion. What do you say?”

“Nothing would more delight me.”

“Good! Let’s begin at the first cause. Where’s the manuscript? We’ll set fire to it, and agree to believe that it never really existed.”

“No,” said Merivale, “I wouldn’t set fire to it—at least not till it is manifest whether your present mood is merely a reaction from your late one, or whether it is going to last. I will dispose of the manuscript—see.”

He found it on the table, opened the double cover of the box, restored the papers to the place they had occupied formerly, and locked the box up in the closet of his writing-desk.

“There,” he said, “that’s the best thing to do. I’ll take care of it. Some day you may have a little sympathy to waste on your father, and then you’ll be glad this writing was not destroyed.”

We had breakfast, and after the cups and saucers were cleared away, applied ourselves to our ordinary forenoon occupation. It turned out indeed that my good spirits were, as Merivale had suspected, to some extent reactionary: but they left me sober rather than sad. I was absent-minded and committed numberless blunders while my friend dictated his poems: but I did not let my thoughts settle down again upon the matters that had engaged them during the night. They simply wandered about in a random way from one indifferent topic to another, as it is the habit of thoughts to do when the thinker has not had his customary allotment of sleep. Presently Merivale suspended his dictation, and I waited passively for him to resume, supposing that he had reached a point where reflection was necessary to further progress. His silence continued. Pretty soon my eyelids dropped like leaden curtains over my eyes, and my chin sank upon my breast. I was actually nodding. I started up and pinched myself, ashamed of appearing drowsy.

Lo! I perceived that my friend had met with the same mishap. He too was nodding in his chair. For a moment we eyed each other sheepishly, each endeavoring to feign wide wakefulness. Then Merivale rose and stretched himself and laughed.

“For my part I cast off the mask,” he cried. “I am sleepy and I am going to bed. You’d better follow suit.”

I needed no urging. We retired to our dormitory, and as speedily as was practicable one of us at least fell into an unfathomable slumber.

XIII.