Chapter VI: The Poem of One-Eyed Alexander (2)

We had got back to the hut and started up the steep arête above it, when the sun disappeared, the air turned white, and the wind resumed its wrestle. So powerful was it that on our narrow ridge it had the advantage of us, and we crouched behind a projecting point.

"It is too perilous," said Couttet, "and we must descend. I will not take the risk."

I saw it was necessary to yield, and down we went. Hunger was beginning to tell, and we made haste. Where the slopes were not seamed with open crevasses we "glissaded," which is a very expeditious and exhilarating method of getting down a mountain, although unsafe unless one is certain of his ground. Sometimes we slid on our feet, steadying ourselves with our batons or ice-axes, and sometimes I sat on the hard snow and glided like a Turk on a toboggan slide, the tassel of my woollen cap fluttering behind in the wind. We took the unbridged crevasses with flying leaps, and so plunged rapidly downward, with frequent keen regrets on my part, because the weather seemed mending again. But it would not do to turn back now in our half-famished condition, and we were glad when the Grands Mulets hove in sight below, a black squadron in a sea of snow.

In Chamonix I took a day or two to thaw out and mend bruises, and then ran over to Martigny, crossed the Grand St. Bernard, the St. Gotthard, and the Grimsel passes, spent a week in William Tell's country, prowling about the ruins of old castles and the sites of legendary battles, and finally settled down in Milan to feast my eyes on the pinnacles of its wondrous cathedral. But my failure to reach the top of Mont Blanc cast a perceptible shadow over everything I saw.

One day, the 27th of August, as I stood on the cathedral spire, the sun lay warm upon the Alps, and Mont Blanc shone in the distance. "It is time to go," I said to myself; and descending, I hurried to my hotel and packed a gripsack. The night express via Mont Cenis placed me in Geneva the next morning in time to catch the first train for Cluses. The same evening the diligence landed me in Chamonix. I sent for Couttet.

"Mont Blanc in the morning," I said.

"Delighted, monsieur; we'll do it this time."

"Storm or no storm?"

"Yes."

It so happened that I was to hear one more story of disaster before getting to the top of Mont Blanc. While I watched the distant mountain from the Milan cathedral spire the closing scene of a new tragedy was being enacted amid its merciless crevasses. Dr. Robert Schnurdreher, an advocate of Prague, accompanied by Michael Savoye, guide, and Laurent Brou, porter, ascended Mont Blanc from the Italian side on August 17th, and passed the night in the hut on the Bosses du Dromadaire where, six days before, I had had a stormy experience. But now the weather was superb, and when, on the morning of the 18th, they started to descend to Chamonix, no thought of impending evil could have oppressed their minds.

They passed the Grand Plateau and the Petit Plateau in safety, and reached the labyrinth of crevasses between the cliffs of the Dome du Gouter and the Grands Mulets. Just what happened then no one will ever know, but there they disappeared from the world of the living.

Eight days went by, and then a telegram was received at Chamonix from the family of the guide Savoye, in Courmayer, Italy, inquiring if he and his party had been seen. All Chamonix comprehended in an instant the significance of that telegram, and thirty guides started post haste for the mountains.

The fact was now recalled that several days before some of Monsieur Janssen's porters had noticed an ice axe lying on the snow a little aside from the ordinary route. They thought nothing of it at the time, supposing that the implement had either been thrown away, or left behind by some one who would return to get it. This abandoned axe now became the first object of the search. Having discovered it, the guides knew well where to look for its owner. The axe lay on a slope of snow almost as hard as ice, and at the foot of the slope was the inevitable crevasse; not one of the largest, being only fifteen feet wide by two hundred long, and one hundred deep, but all too sufficient. They crept to the edge, and peered into the gloomy depths. There lay the missing men, still tied together. Schnurdreher and Savoye had apparently been killed at once; but there was heart-rending evidence that Brou had survived the fall, and made a pitiful effort to scale the perpendicular walls of the ice chasm. Enclosed in bags of rough sacking, the bodies were dragged with ropes down to the Pierre Pointue, and thence carried to Chamonix. This is a time-honored procedure in such cases. Every boy in Chamonix understands how a body should be brought down from Mont Blanc.

On the night of my arrival Savoye and Brou had just been buried at Chamonix, and money was being raised for the relief of their almost destitute families. But Schnurdreher, in his mountain dress, with his spiked shoes on his feet, still lay at the undertaker's, awaiting the coming of his relatives.

A RACE FOR THE SUMMIT.

The morning of August 29th was cloudless, and with the same outfit as before, but with a scion of the house of Balmat for porter in place of the man who had filled that office on the first occasion, I started once more for the frosty topknot of Europe. At the Grands Mulets we found two Germans with their retinue of guides and porters, six persons in all, who were also bound for the summit. They left the Grands Mulets at midnight, and we followed them three-quarters of an hour later. There was no moon, and Couttet carried a lantern. On reaching the Petit Plateau we saw the lights of the other party flashing ahead of us, and at the foot of the Grands Montées we overtook them. They had talked confidently of making the ascent in extraordinarily quick time, and some good-natured chaffing now passed between Couttet and the rival guides. I had had no thought of a race; but I defy anybody, under the circumstances in which we were placed, not to experience a little spurring from the spirit of emulation. Jerking the rope to attract Couttet's attention, I told him in a low voice to pass the others at the first opportunity.

"We'll do it on the Grand Plateau," he whispered.

Five minutes later, however, the advance party paused to take breath. We immediately broke out of their tracks in the snow and started to pass around them; but they instantly accepted the challenge, and a scrambling race began up the steep slope. Sometimes we sank so deep that time was lost in extricating our legs, and again we slipped back, which was even more annoying than sticking fast. The powdery snow flew about like dust, and was occasionally dumped into my face by the piston-like action of my knees. The lanterns jangled and flickered wildly, and in their shifting and uncertain light, with our odd habiliments, we must have resembled a company of mad demons on a lark.

Such a race in such a place could only last a couple of minutes, and it was soon over, the American coming out ahead. Getting upon the Grand Plateau, we did not stop to rest, but broke into a dog trot.

"Whatever happens, Couttet, we must be first at the top."

"Very well, monsieur."

From the Grand Plateau there are two ways to the summit: one by the Bosses du Dromadaire, which we followed on the first attempt; the other, which we now adopted, by the "Corridor." This is a steep furrow, crossed by an ice precipice with a great crevasse near its foot, which leads upward from the left-hand border of the Grand Plateau to a snowy saddle between the Mont Maudit and a precipitous out-cropping of rock called the Mur de la Cote. A faint glimmer of approaching dawn now lay on part of the rim of mountains surrounding us.

When we reached the foot of the Corridor the lights of the other party were not visible. But here step-cutting became necessary, and this delayed us so much that presently I caught dancing gleams from the pursuing lanterns moving rapidly at the bottom of the bowl of night out of which we were climbing. They were fast gaining upon us.

"We must hurry, Couttet!"

"Yes, but no man goes quick here who does not go for the last time."

In fact, our position had an appearance of peril. We were part way up the frozen precipice that cuts across the Corridor, and were balancing ourselves on an acute wedge of ice which stood off several feet in front of the precipice, being separated from it by a deep cleft. The outer side of this wedge, whose edge we were traversing lengthwise, pitched down into the darkness and ended, I believe, in a crevasse. Presently we reached a place where the precipice overhung our precarious footway, and an inverted forest of icicles depended above us.

"Make as little noise as possible, and step gently," said Couttet.

This is a familiar precaution in the High Alps, where the vibrations of sound sometimes act the part of the trigger of a gun and let loose terrific energies ready poised for action. The clinking of particles of ice that shot from our feet into the depths distracted attention from the beautiful play of the light of the lanterns on some of the hanging masses.

At last we attained a point where it was possible, by swinging round a somewhat awkward corner, to get upon the roof of the precipice. This we found so steep that occasional steps had also to be cut there.

The lights of the pursuers had approached the foot of the wall, and though now invisible, we knew the party was ascending close behind, taking advantage of the steps we had made. This spurred us on, although I was beginning to suffer some inconvenience from the rarity of the air, and had to stop to breathe much oftener than I liked. In truth, the spurt we had made, beginning at the Grands Montées, involved an over-expenditure of energy whose effects I could not escape, and nature was already demanding usury for the loan.

As we approached the ridge of the saddle, day rose blushing in the east, and Couttet put out the lantern. Turning to the right, we hurried in zigzags up the slippery Mur de la Cote, stopping to cut steps only when strictly necessary. While we were ascending this wall the sun appeared, and hung for a moment, a great, dazzling, fire-colored circle, on a distant mountain rim. Below us for a long time the great valleys remained filled with gloom, while out of and around there rose hundreds of peaks, tipped with pink and gold. But very few of the towering giants now reached to our level, and in a little while we should be above them all.

Once on top of the Mur we had level going again for a space, and hurrying to the base of the crowning dome, which swells upward another thousand feet, we began its ascent without stopping. About half way up the dome the highest visible rocks of Mont Blanc on this side break through the Mur. They are called the Petits Mulets. We had nearly reached them when, looking back, I saw the heads of the other party appearing on the brink of the Mur. They looked up at us hanging right above them on the white slope, while Couttet carried my handkerchief, streaming triumphantly in the morning wind, from the end of his baton. Waving their hands, they sat down and gave up the race. While they lunched we pushed upward more slowly, and at six o'clock entered the door of Monsieur Janssen's observatory, fifteen thousand seven hundred and seventy-seven feet above the sea.

My first look was directed to the Matterhorn, which, thirty-five miles away, pierced the morning sky with its black spike. Glittering near it were the snow turrets of Monte Rosa, the Dent Blanche, and all the marvellous circle of peaks that stand around Zermatt. There was not a cloud to break the view. On one side lay Italy; on the other France. It would be impossible to imagine the wild scene immediately below us. The tremendous slopes of snow falling away on all sides, now in steep inclines and now in broken precipices, ever down and down, were not after all so imposing as the jagged pinnacles of bare rock that sprang out of them.

There was something peculiarly savage, almost menacing, in the aspect of these lower mountains, pressing in serried ranks around their white-capped chief. They seemed to shut us far away from the human world below, and one felt that he had placed himself entirely in the hands of nature. This was her realm, where she acknowledged no laws but her own, and was incapable of sympathy, pity, or remorse.

FAIRY GOLD.

BY MARY STEWART CUTTING,

Author of "The Coupons of Fortune," "Henry," and other stories.

When Mr. William Belden walked out of his house one wet October evening and closed the hall door carefully behind him, he had no idea that he was closing the door on all the habits of his maturer life and entering the borders of a land as far removed from his hopes or his imagination as the country of the Gadarenes.

He had not wanted to go out that evening at all, not knowing what the fates had in store for him, and being only too conscious of the comfort of the sitting-room lounge, upon which, after the manner of the suburban resident who travelleth daily by railways, he had cast himself immediately after the evening meal was over. The lounge was in proximity--yet not too close proximity--to the lamp on the table; so that one might have the pretext of reading to cover closed eyelids and a general oblivion of passing events. On a night when a pouring rain splashed outside on the pavements and the tin roofs of the piazzas, the conditions of rest in the cosey little room were peculiarly attractive to a man who had come home draggled and wet, and with the toil and wear of a long business day upon him. It was therefore with a sinking of the heart that he heard his wife's gentle tones requesting him to wend his way to the grocery to purchase a pound of butter.

"I hate to ask you to go, William dear, but there really is not a scrap in the house for breakfast, and the butter-man does not come until to-morrow afternoon," she said deprecatingly. "It really will only take you a few minutes."

Mr. Belden smothered a groan, or perhaps something worse. The butter question was a sore one, Mrs. Belden taking only a stated quantity of that article a week, and always unexpectedly coming short of it before the day of replenishment, although no argument ever served to induce her to increase the original amount for consumption.

"Cannot Bridget go?" he asked weakly, gazing at the small, plump figure of his wife, as she stood with meek yet inexorable eyes looking down at him.

"Bridget is washing the dishes, and the stores will be closed before she can get out."

"Can't one of the boys--" He stopped. There was in this household a god who ruled everything in it, to whom all pleasures were offered up, all individual desires sacrificed, and whose Best Good was the greedy and unappreciative Juggernaut before whom Mr. Belden and his wife prostrated themselves daily. This idol was called The Children. Mr. Belden felt that he had gone too far.

"William!" said his wife severely, "I am surprised at you. John and Henry have their lessons to get, and Willy has a cold; I could not think of exposing him to the night air; and it is so damp, too!"

Mr. Belden slowly and stiffly rose from his reclining position on the sofa. There was a finality in his wife's tone before which he succumbed.

The night air _was_ damp. As he walked along the street the water slopped around his feet, and ran in rills down his rubber coat. He did not feel as contented as usual. When he was a youngster, he reflected with exaggerated bitterness, boys were boys, and not treated like precious pieces of porcelain. He did not remember, as a boy, ever having any special consideration shown him; yet he had been both happy and healthy, healthier perhaps than his over-tended brood at home. In his day it had been popularly supposed that nothing could hurt a boy. He heaved a sigh over the altered times, and then coughed a little, for he had a cold as well as Willy.

The streets were favorable to silent meditation, for there was no one out in them. The boughs of the trees swished backward and forward in the storm, and the puddles at the crossings reflected the dismal yellow glare of the street lamps. Every one was housed to-night in the pretty detached cottages he passed, and he thought with growing wrath of the trivial errand on which he had been sent. "In happy homes he saw the light," but none of the high purpose of the youth of "Excelsior" fame stirred his heart--rather a dull sense of failure from all high things. What did his life amount to anyway, that he should count one thing more trivial than another? He loved his wife and children dearly, but he remembered a time when his ambition had not thought of being satisfied with the daily grind for a living and a dreamless sleep at night.

"'Our life is but a sleep and a forgetting,'" he thought grimly, "in quite a different way from what Wordsworth meant." He had been one of the foremost in his class at college, an orator, an athlete, a favorite in society and with men. Great things had been predicted for him. Then he had fallen in love with Nettie; a professional career seemed to place marriage at too great a distance, and he had joyfully, yet with some struggles in his protesting intellect, accepted a position that was offered to him--one of those positions which never change, in which men die still unpromoted, save when a miracle intervenes. It was not so good a position for a family of six as it had been for a family of two, but he did not complain. He and Nettie went shabby, but the children were clothed in the best, as was their due.

He was too wearied at night to read anything but the newspapers, and the gentle domestic monotony was not inspiring. He and Nettie never went out in the evenings; the children could not be left alone. He met his friends on the train in that diurnal journey to and from the great city, and she occasionally attended a church tea; but their immediate and engrossing world seemed to be made up entirely of persons under thirteen years of age. They had dwelt in the place almost ever since their marriage, respected and liked, but with no real social life. If Mr. Belden thought of the years to come, he may be pardoned an unwonted sinking of the heart.

It was while indulging in these reflections that he mechanically purchased the pound of butter, which he could not help comparing with Shylock's pound of flesh, so much of life had it taken out of him, and then found himself stepping up on the platform of the station, led by his engrossing thoughts to pass the street corner and tread the path most familiar to him. He turned with an exclamation to retrace his way, when a man pacing leisurely up and down, umbrella in hand, caught sight of him.

"Is that you, Belden?" said the stranger. "What are you doing down here to-night?"

"I came out on an errand for my wife," said Belden sedately. He recognized the man as a young lawyer, much identified with politics; a mere acquaintance, yet it was a night to make any speaking animal seem a friend, and Mr. Belden took a couple of steps along beside him.

"Waiting for a train?" he said.

"Oh, thunder, yes!" said Mr. Groper, throwing away the stump of a cigar. "I have been waiting for the last half hour for the train; it's late, as usual. There's a whole deputation from Barnet on board, due at the Reform meeting in town to-night, and I'm part of the committee to meet them here."

"Where is the other part of the committee?" asked Mr. Belden.

"Oh, Jim Crane went up to the hall to see about something, and Connors hasn't showed up at all; I suppose the rain kept him back. What kind of a meeting we're going to have I don't know. Say, Belden, I'm not up to this sort of thing. I wish you'd stay and help me out--there's no end of swells coming down, more your style than mine."

"Why, man alive, I can't do anything for you," said Mr. Belden. "These carriages I see are waiting for the delegation, and here comes the train now; you'll get along all right."

He waited as the train slowed into the station, smiling anew at little Groper's perturbation. He was quite curious to see the arrivals. Barnet had been the home of his youth, and there might be some one whom he knew. He had half intended, earlier in the day, to go himself to the Reform meeting, but a growing spirit of inaction had made him give up the idea. Yes, there was quite a carload of people getting out--ladies, too.

"Why, Will Belden!" called out a voice from the party. A tall fellow in a long ulster sprang forward to grasp his hand. "You don't say it's yourself come down to meet us. Here we all are, Johnson, Clemmerding, Albright, Cranston---all the old set. Rainsford, you've heard of my cousin, Will Belden. My wife and Miss Wakeman are behind here; but we'll do all the talking afterward, if you'll only get us off for the hall now."

"Well, I am glad to see you, Henry," said Mr. Belden heartily. He thrust the pound of butter hastily into a large pocket of his mackintosh, and found himself shaking hands with a score of men. He had only time to assist his cousin's wife and the beautiful Miss Wakeman into a carriage, and in another moment they were all rolling away toward the town hall, with little Mr. Groper running frantically after them, ignored by the visitors, and peacefully forgotten by his friend.

The public hall of the little town--which called itself a city--was all ablaze with light as the party entered it, and well filled, notwithstanding the weather. There were flowers on the platform where the seats for the distinguished guests were placed, and a general air of radiance and joyful import prevailed. It was a gathering of men from all political parties, concerned in the welfare of the State. Great measures were at stake, and the election of governor of immediate importance. The name of Judge Belden of Barnet was prominently mentioned. He had not been able to attend on this particular occasion, but his son had come with a delegation from the county town, twenty miles away, to represent his interests. On Mr. William Belden devolved the task of introducing the visitors; a most congenial one, he suddenly found it to be.

His friends rallied around him as people are apt to do with one of their own kind when found in a foreign country. They called him Will, as they used to, and slapped him on the shoulder in affectionate abandon. Those among the group who had not known him before were anxious to claim acquaintance on the strength of his fame, which, it seemed, still survived him in his native town. It must not be supposed that he had not seen either his cousin or his friends during his sojourn away from them; on the contrary, he had met them once or so in two or three years, in the street, or on the ferry-boat--though they travelled by different roads--but he had then been but a passing interest in the midst of pressing business. To-night he was the only one of their kind in a strange place---his cousin loved him, they all loved him. The expedition had the sentiment of a frolic under the severer political aspect.

In the welcome to the visitors by the home committee Mr. Belden also received his part, in their surprised recognition of him, almost amounting to a discovery.

"We had no idea that you were a nephew of Judge Belden," one of them said to him, speaking for his colleagues, who stood near.

Mr. William Belden bowed, and smiled; as a gentleman, and a rather reticent one, it had never occurred to him to parade his family connections. His smile might mean anything. It made the good committeeman, who was rich and full of power, feel a little uncomfortable, as he tried to cover his embarrassment with effusive cordiality. In the background stood Mr. Groper, wet, and breathing hard, but plainly full of admiration for his tall friend, and the position he held as the centre of the group. The visitors referred all arrangements to him.

At last they filed on to the platform--the two cousins together.

"You must find a place for the girls," said Henry Belden, with the peculiar boyish giggle that his cousin remembered so well. "By George, they _would_ come; couldn't keep 'em at home, after they once got Jim Shore to say it was all right. Of course, Marie Wakeman started it; she said she was bound to go to a political meeting and sit on the platform; arguing wasn't a bit of use. When she got Clara on her side I knew that I was doomed. Now, you couldn't get them to do a thing of this kind at home; but take a woman out of her natural sphere, and she ignores conventionalities, just like a girl in a bathing-suit. There they are, seated over in that corner. I'm glad that they are hidden from the audience by the pillar. Of course, there's that fool of a Jim, too, with Marie."

"You don't mean to say she's at it yet?" said his cousin William.

"'At it yet'! She's never stopped for a moment since you kissed her that night on the hotel piazza after the hop, under old Mrs. Trelawney's window--do you remember that, Will?"

Mr. William Belden did indeed remember it; it was a salute that had echoed around their little world, leading, strangely enough, to the capitulation of another heart--it had won him his wife. But the little intimate conversation was broken off as the cousins took the places allotted to them, and the business of the meeting began.

If he were not the chairman, he was appealed to so often as to almost serve in that capacity. He became interested in the proceedings, and in the speeches that were made; none of them, however, quite covered the ground as he understood it. His mind unconsciously formulated propositions as the flow of eloquence went on. It therefore seemed only right and fitting toward the end of the evening, when it became evident that his Honor the Mayor was not going to appear, that our distinguished fellow-citizen, Mr. William Belden, nephew of Judge Belden of Barnet, should be asked to represent the interests of the county in a speech, and that he should accept the invitation.

He stood for a moment silent before the assembly, and then all the old fire that had lain dormant for so long blazed forth in the speech that electrified the audience, was printed in all the papers afterward, and fitted into a political pamphlet.

He began with a comprehensive statement of facts, he drew large and logical deductions from them, and then lit up the whole subject with those brilliant flashes of wit and sarcasm for which he had been famous in bygone days. More than that, a power unknown before had come to him; he felt the real knowledge and grasp of affairs which youth had denied him, and it was with an exultant thrill that his voice rang through the crowded hall, and stirred the hearts of men. For the moment they felt as he felt, and thought as he thought, and a storm of applause arose as he ended--applause that grew and grew until a few more pithy words were necessary from the orator before silence could be restored.

He made his way to the back of the hall for some water, and then, half exhausted, yet tingling still from the excitement, dropped into an empty chair by the side of Miss Wakeman.

"Well done, Billy," she said, giving him a little approving tap with her fan. "You were just fine." She gave him an upward glance from her large dark eyes. "Do you know you haven't spoken to me to-night, nor shaken hands with me?"

"Let us shake hands now," he said, smiling, flushed with success, as he looked into the eyes of this very pretty woman.

"I shall take off my glove first--such old friends as we are! It must be a real ceremony."

She laid a soft, white, dimpled hand, covered with glistening rings, in his outstretched palm, and gazed at him with coquettish plaintiveness. "It's so _lovely_ to see you again! Have you forgotten the night you kissed me?"

"I have thought of it daily," he replied, giving her hand a hearty squeeze. They both laughed, and he took a surreptitious peep at her from under his eyelids. Marie Wakeman! Yes, truly, the same, and with the same old tricks. He had been married for nearly fourteen years, his children were half grown, he had long since given up youthful friskiness, but she was "at it" still. Why, she had been older than he when they were boy and girl; she must be for--He gazed at her soft, rounded, olive cheek, and quenched the thought.

"And you are very happy?" she pursued, with tender solicitude. "Nettie makes you a perfect wife, I suppose."

"Perfect," he assented gravely.

"And you haven't missed me at all?"

"Can you ask?" It was the way in which all men spoke to Marie Wakeman, married or single, rich or poor, one with another. He laughed inwardly at his lapse into the expected tone. "I feel that I really breathe for the first time in years, now that I'm with you again. But how is it that you are not married?"

"What, after I had known you?" She gave him a reproachful glance. "And you were so cruel to me--as soon as you had made your little Nettie jealous you cared for me no longer. Look what I've declined to!" She indicated Jim Shore, leaning disconsolately against the cornice, chewing his moustache. "Now don't give him your place unless you really want to; well, if you're tired of me already--thank you ever so much, and I _am_ proud of you to-night, Billy!"

Her lustrous eyes dwelt on him lingeringly as he left her; he smiled back into them. The lines around her mouth were a little hard; she reminded him indefinably of "She;" but she was a handsome woman, and he had enjoyed the encounter. The sight of her brought back so vividly the springtime of life; his hopes, the pangs of love, the joy that was his when Nettie was won; he felt an overpowering throb of tenderness for the wife at home who had been his early dream.

The last speeches were over, but Mr. William Belden's triumph had not ended. As the acknowledged orator of the evening he had an ovation afterward; introductions and unlimited hand-shakings were in order.

He was asked to speak at a select political dinner the next week; to speak for the hospital fund; to speak for the higher education of woman. Led by a passing remark of Henry Belden's to infer that his cousin was a whist player of parts, a prominent social magnate at once invited him to join the party at his house on one of their whist evenings.

"My wife, er--will have great pleasure in calling on Mrs. Belden," said the magnate. "We did not know that we had a good whist player among us. This evening has indeed been a revelation in many ways--in many ways. You would have no objection to taking a prominent part in politics, if you were called upon? A reform mayor is sadly needed in our city--sadly needed. Your connection with Judge Belden would give great weight to any proposition of that kind. But, of course, all this is in the future."

Mr. Belden heard his name whispered in another direction, in connection with the cashiership of the new bank which was to be built. The cashiership and the mayoralty might be nebulous honors, but it _was_ sweet, for once, to be recognized for what he was--man of might; a man of talent, and of honor.

There was a hurried rush for the train at the last on the part of the visitors. Mr. William Belden snatched his mackintosh from the peg whereon it had hung throughout the evening, and went with the crowd, talking and laughing in buoyant exuberance of spirits. The night had cleared, the moon was rising, and poured a flood of light upon the wet streets. It was a different world from the one he had traversed earlier in the evening. He walked home with Miss Wakeman's exaggeratedly tender "Good-by, dear Billy!" ringing in his ears, to provoke irrepressible smiles. The pulse of a free life, where men lived instead of vegetating, was in his veins. His footstep gave forth a ringing sound from the pavement; he felt himself stalwart, alert, his brain rejoicing in its sense of power. It was even with no sense of guilt that he heard the church clocks striking twelve as he reached the house where his wife had been awaiting his return for four hours.

She was sitting up for him, as he knew by the light in the parlor window. He could see her through the half-closed blinds as she sat by the table, a magazine in her lap, her attitude, unknown to herself, betraying a listless depression. After all, is a woman glad to have all her aspirations and desires confined within four walls? She may love her cramped quarters, to be sure, but can she always forget that they are cramped? To what does a wife descend after the bright dreams of her girlhood! Does she really like above all things to be absorbed in the daily consumption of butter, and the children's clothes, or is she absorbed in these things because the man who was to have widened the horizon of her life only limits it by his own decadence?

She rose to meet her husband as she heard his key in the lock. She had exchanged her evening gown for a loose, trailing white wrapper, and her fair hair was arranged for the night in a long braid. Her husband had a smile on his face.

"You look like a girl again," he said brightly, as he stooped and kissed her. "No, don't turn out the light, come in and sit down a while longer, I've ever so much to tell you. You can't guess where I've been this evening."

"At the political meeting," she said promptly.

"How on earth did you know?"

"The doctor came here to see Willy, and he told me he saw you on the way. I'm glad you did go, William; I was worrying because I had sent you out; I did not realize until later what a night it was."

"Well, I am very glad that you did send me," said her husband. He lay back in his chair, flushed and smiling at the recollection. "You ought to have been there, too; you would have liked it. What will you say if I tell you that I made a speech--yes, it is quite true--and was applauded to the echo. This town has just waked up to the fact that I live in it. And Henry said--but there, I'll have to tell you the whole thing, or you can't appreciate it."

His wife leaned on the arm of his chair, watching his animated face fondly, as he recounted the adventures of the night. He pictured the scene vividly, and with a strong sense of humor.

"And you don't say that Marie Wakeman is the same as ever?" she interrupted, with a flash of special interest. "Oh, William!"

"_She_ called me Billy." He laughed anew at the thought. "Upon my word, Nettie, she beats anything I ever saw or heard of."

"Did she remind you of the time you kissed her?"

"Yes!" Their eyes met in amused recognition of the past.

"Is she as handsome as ever?"

"Um--yes--I think so. She isn't as pretty as you are."

"Oh, Will!" She blushed and dimpled.

"I declare, it is true!" He gazed at her with genuine admiration. "What has come over you to-night, Nettie?--you look like a girl again."

"And you were not sorry when you saw her, that--that--"

"Sorry! I have been thinking all the way home how glad I was to have won my sweet wife. But we mustn't stay shut up at home as much as we have; it's not good for either of us. We are to be asked to join the whist club--what do you think of that? You used to be a little card fiend once upon a time, I remember."

She sighed. "It is so long since I have been anywhere! I'm afraid I haven't any clothes, Will. I suppose I _might_--"

"What, dear?"

"Take the money I had put aside for Mary's next quarter's music lessons; I do really believe a little rest would do her good."

"It would--it would," said Mr. Belden with suspicious eagerness. Mary's after-dinner practising hour had tinged much of his existence with gall. "I insist that Mary shall have a rest. And you shall join the reading society now. Let us consider ourselves a little as well as the children; it's really best for them, too. Haven't we immortal souls as well as they? Can we expect them to seek the honey dew of paradise while they see us contented to feed on the grass of the field?"

"You call yourself an orator!" she scoffed.

He drew her to him by one end of the long braid, and solemnly kissed her. Then he went into the hall and took something from the pocket of his mackintosh which he placed in his wife's hand--a little wooden dish covered with a paper, through which shone a bright yellow substance--the pound of butter, a lump of gleaming fairy gold, the quest of which had changed a poor, commonplace existence into one scintillating with magic possibilities.

Fairy gold, indeed, cannot be coined into marketable eagles. Mr. William Belden might never achieve either the mayoralty or the cashiership, but he had gained that of which money is only a trivial accessory. The recognition of men, the flashing of high thought to high thought, the claim of brotherhood in the work of the world, and the generous social intercourse that warms the earth--all these were to be his. Not even his young ambition had promised a wider field, not the gold of the Indies could buy him more of honor and respect.

At home also the spell worked. He had but to speak the word, to name the thing, and Nettie embodied his thought. He called her young, and happy youth smiled from her clear eyes; beautiful, and a blushing loveliness enveloped her; clever, and her ready mind leaped to match with his in thought and study; dear, and love touched her with its transforming fire and breathed of long-forgotten things.

If men only knew what they could make of the women who love them--but they do not, as the plodding, faded matrons who sit and sew by their household fires testify to us daily.

Happy indeed is he who can create a paradise by naming it!

The Ruhmkorff coil in the background; the Crookes tube in front of it; under the hand is the photographic plate in its plate-holder.]

THE USE OF THE RÖNTGEN X RAYS IN SURGERY.

BY W.W. KEEN, M.D., LL.D.

The nineteenth century resembles the sixteenth in many ways. In or about the sixteenth we have the extensive use of the mariner's compass and of gunpowder, the discovery of printing, the discovery and exploration of America, and the acquisition of territory in the New World by various European states. In the nineteenth century we have the exploration of Africa and the acquisition of territory in its interior, in which the various nations of Europe vie with each other again as three centuries before; the discovery of steam, and its ever-growing application to the transportation of goods and passengers on sea and land; of the spectroscope, and through it of many new elements, including helium in the sun, and, later, on the earth; of argon in the earth's atmosphere; of anæsthetics and of the antiseptic methods in surgery, and, lastly, the enormous recent strides in electrical science.

Not only has electricity been applied to transportation and the development of light and power; but the latest discovery by Professor Röntgen of the X rays seems destined, possibly, not only to revolutionize our ideas of radiation in all its forms on the scientific side, but also on the practical side to be of use in the domain of medicine. It is, therefore, with great pleasure that I accede to the request of the editor of this Magazine to state briefly what has been achieved in the department of medicine up to the present time.

The method of investigating the body by means of the X rays is very simple, as is shown in Figure 1. The Crookes tube, actuated from a storage battery or other source of electricity through a Ruhmkorff coil, is placed on one side of the body. If need be, instead of using the entire tube, the rays from the most effective portion of it only are allowed to impinge upon the part of the body to be investigated, through an opening in a disk of lead interposed between the Crookes tube and the body. On the other side of the part to be investigated is placed a quick photographic plate shut up in its plate-holder, and is exposed to the rays emanating from the tube for a greater or less length of time. The parts of the plate not protected by the body are acted upon by the rays, through the lid of the plate-holder (to which the rays are pervious), while the tissues of the body act, feebly or strongly, as the case may be, as obstacles to the rays. Hence, the part of the plate thus protected is less acted upon than the rest, and a shadow is produced upon the plate. The soft tissues of the body form but a very slight obstacle to the passage of the rays, and, hence, throw very faint shadows on the plate. The more dense portions, presenting a greater obstacle to the passage of the rays, throw deeper shadows; hence the bones are seen as dark shadows, the soft parts as lighter ones. That the flesh or soft parts are not wholly permeable to the rays is well shown in the skiagraph--i.e., a "shadow picture"--of a foot. (Figure 2.) Where two toes overlap, it will be observed that there is a deeper shadow, like the section of a biconvex lens.

(From the "British Medical Journal.")]

When we attempt to skiagraph the thicker portions of the body, for example, the shoulder, the thigh, or the trunk, even the parts consisting only of flesh obstruct the rays to such an extent, by reason of their thickness, that the shadows of the still more dense tissues, like the thigh bone, the arm bone, or the bones of the trunk, cannot be distinguished from the shadows of the thicker soft parts. Tesla ("Electrical Review," March 11, 1896) has to some extent overcome these difficulties by his improved apparatus, and has skiagraphed, though rather obscurely, the shoulder and trunk, and Rowland has been able to do the same. Doubtless when we are able to devise apparatus of greater penetration, and to control the effect of the rays, we shall be able to skiagraph clearly even through the entire thickness of the body.

It might be supposed that clothing or surgical dressings would prove an obstacle to this new photography, but all our preconceived notions derived from the ordinary photograph must be thrown aside. The bones of the forearm or the hand can be as readily skiagraphed through a voluminous surgical dressing or through the ordinary clothing, as when the parts are entirely divested of any covering. Even bed-ridden patients can be skiagraphed through the bed-clothes, and, therefore, without danger from exposure.

(From the "American Journal of the Medical Sciences," March, 1896.)]

(From the "American Journal of the Medical Sciences," March, 1896.)]

One of the principal difficulties of the method at present is the time ordinarily required to obtain a good picture. Usually this time may be stated at in the neighborhood of an hour, though many good skiagraphs have been taken in a half hour or twenty minutes. It is stated that Messrs. McLeennan, Wright, and Keele of Toronto have reduced the necessary time to one second, and that Mr. Edison has taken even instantaneous pictures; but I am not aware of the publication of any pictures showing how perfect these results are. Undoubtedly, as a result of the labors of so many scores of physicists and physicians as are now working at the problem, before long we shall be able to skiagraph at least the thinner parts of the body in a very brief interval. The brevity of the exposure will also better the pictures in another way. At present, if the attempt is made to skiagraph the shoulder or parts of the trunk, we have to deal with organs which cannot be kept motionless, since the movements incident to breathing produce a constant to and fro movement of the shoulder, the lungs, the heart, the stomach, the liver, and other organs which, hereafter, may be made accessible to this process. There is no serious discomfort excepting the somewhat irksome necessity of remaining absolutely still.

Another method of seeing the denser tissues of the body is by direct observation. A means of seeing through the thinner parts of the body, such as the fingers or the toes, has been devised simultaneously by Salvioni of Italy, and Professor Magie of Princeton. Their instruments are practically identical, consisting of a hollow cylinder a few inches long, one end of which is applied to the eye, the other end, instead of having a lens, being covered by a piece of paper smeared with a phosphorescent salt, the double cyanide of platinum and barium. When the hand is held before a Crookes tube, and is looked at through the cylinder, we can see the bones of the hand or foot almost as clearly as is shown in Figure 2. It has not yet, I believe, been applied to thicker parts of the body. Figures 3 and 4 show a baby's foot and knee as seen through this tube. The partial development of the bones accounts for the peculiar appearance. There is no bony knee-pan, or patella, at birth, and the bones of the toes consist only of cartilage, which is translucent, and therefore not seen. The name given by Professor Salvioni to this sort of "spy-glass"--if one may apply this term to an instrument which has no glass--is that of "cryptoscope" (seeing that which is hidden). The name suggested by Professor Magie is "skiascope" (seeing a shadow.)

This leads me to say a word in reference to the nomenclature. The very unfortunate name "shadowgraph" has been suggested and largely used in the newspapers, and even in medical journals. It has only the merit of clearness as to its meaning to English-speaking persons. It is, however, an abominable linguistic crime, being an unnatural compound of English and Greek. "Radiograph" and its derivatives are equally objectionable as compounds of Latin and Greek. The Greek word for shadow is "skia," and the proper rendering, therefore, of shadowgraph is "skiagraph," corresponding to photograph.

The first question that meets us in the use of the method in medicine is what normal constituents of the body are permeable or impermeable to the X rays. It may be stated, in a general way, that all of the fleshy parts of the body are partially permeable to the rays in a relatively short time; and if the exposure is long enough, they become entirely permeable, so that no shadow is cast. Even the bones, on _prolonged_ exposure, do not present a sufficient obstacle to the passage of the rays, and the shadow originally cast becomes obliterated. Hence, skiagraphs of the same object exposed to the rays for varying times may be of value in showing the different tissues. The most permeable of the normal tissues are cartilage or gristle, and fat. A kidney (out of the body) is stated by Dr. Reid of Dundee to show the difference between the rind, or secreting portion, which is more transparent, and the central portion, consisting chiefly of conducting tubes, which is less transparent. On the contrary, in the brain the gray cortex, or rind, is less transparent than the white nerve tubules in the centre.

The denser fibrous tissues, such as the ligaments of joints and the tendons or sinews of muscles, cast very perceptible shadows, so that when we come to a thick tendon like the tendo Achillis, the shadow approaches even the density of the shadow cast by bone. I presume that it is for the same reason (the dense fibrous envelope, or sclerotic coat) that the eye-ball is not translucent to the rays, as is seen in Figure 5, of a bullock's eye.

(From the "American Journal of the Medical Sciences," March 1896.)]

Mr. Arthur H. Lea has ingeniously suggested that the translucency of the soft parts of the living and of those of the dead body might show a difference, and that, if such were the case, it might be used as a definite test of death. Unfortunately Figure 6, of a dead hand, when contrasted with Figure 11, of a living hand, shows virtually no difference, and the method cannot be used as a positive proof of death.

That we are not able at present to skiagraph the soft parts of the body, does not imply that we shall not be able to do it hereafter; and should this be possible, especially with our increasing ability to penetrate thick masses of tissue, it is evident, without entering into details, that the use of the X rays may be of immense importance in obstetrics.

The bones, however, as is seen in nearly all of the skiagraphs illustrating this paper, cast well-defined shadows. This is at once an advantage and a hindrance. To illustrate the latter first, even one thickness of bone is difficult to penetrate, so that the attempt to skiagraph the opening which had been made in a skull of a living person by a trephine entirely failed, since the bone upon the opposite side of the skull formed so dense an obstacle that not the slightest indication of the trephine opening appeared. To take, therefore, a skiagraph of a brain through two thicknesses of skull, with our present methods, is an impossibility. Even should the difficulty be overcome, it is very doubtful whether there would be any possibility of discovering diseases of the brain, since diseased tissues, such as cancer, sarcoma, etc., are probably as permeable to the X rays as the normal tissues. Thus Reid ("British Medical Journal," February 15, 1896) states that a cancerous liver showed no difference in permeability to the rays through its cancerous and its normal portions.

Foreign bodies, such as bullets, etc., in the brain may be discovered when our processes have become perfected. Figure 7 shows two buck-shot skiagraphed inside of a baby's skull, and therefore through two thicknesses of bone. It must be remembered, however, that not only are the bones of a baby's skull much less thick than those of an adult's skull, but they are much less densely ossified, and so throw far less of a shadow.

The dense shadows cast by bone are, at least at present, an insuperable obstacle to skiagraphing the soft translucent organs of the body which are enclosed within a more or less complete bony case, as the rays will be intercepted by the bones. Efforts, therefore, to skiagraph the heart, the lungs, the liver, and stomach, and all the pelvic organs, probably will be fruitless to a greater or less extent until our methods are improved. While a stone in a bladder outside the body would undoubtedly be perceptible, in the body the bones of the pelvis prevent any successful picture being taken.

("American Journal of the Medical Sciences," March, 1896.)]