Chapter III: The Altar Painting (1)

Who among my readers has ever heard the name of Péteri? Very few, certainly, and it is no wonder, for one may be a good geographer without knowing that Péteri is a pleasant little village, four miles from Pesth, secluded from all intercourse with the world, in the midst of a charming plain, still untrodden by the iron steed which imposes upon the earth, wherever he directs his victorious course, fetters which are very willingly endured.

This quiet hamlet was the goal of an excursion, which I took with a small party the first of October in the year 1867.

We had started early and were rolling over the boundless Rákos plain. The landscape presented a marvelously beautiful aspect. In the background rose the Ofner Mountains, covered with a gray hood of mist; here and there a single peak was illumined by the rising sun, displaying a peculiar blending of shades of purple and violet, which produced the most magnificent effect. The course of the Danube was marked by a broad mass of vapor, hovering over the stream, as if the spirits of the ancient Ister, shrouded in clouds, were floating above their watery domain. Before us the sun was just rising, revealing the historic plain of Rákos, with its undulating sand-hills, meadows, and stubble fields, sparsely scattered with solitary, straw-thatched houses, a few groups of trees, and clattering mills. On both sides of the dusty high road cows were grazing, which stared at us with scarcely less curiosity than the little barefooted boy who tramped after them. The tinkling of the cow-bells blended musically with the notes of the matin-bells, borne in low, subdued tones by the keen morning air.

Our horses moved so swiftly that the tall clumps of straw, and the still taller poles of the wells in the pastures flitted past us like ghosts, and after a drive of barely an hour we reached Keresstur, where we breakfasted in a tavern which, considering its proximity to the capital, was incredibly primitive. The hamlet has no remarkable sights except an old castle where the Emperor Joseph II. once spent the night, and a little tavern-keeper with an enormous beard. After a short rest we set out on our journey again. If the road had formerly been uncomfortable, it now began to be actually bad. The surrounding country still retained the monotonous character of a plain, but the road supplied a tolerable alternation of mountain and valley; cliffs and lakes, owing to the limited space, were represented by huge stones and deep puddles, between which obstacles the driver zig-zagged with marvelous skill. It was about nine o’clock when we saw, in the distance, the little houses and slender, beautiful church-spire of Péteri.

Péteri, the goal of our excursion, is a very small village, inhabited by Slovaks, which consists of two parallel streets and a few dozen insignificant peasant houses, all built with the gable in front. A stranger must be a very rare spectacle in its streets, for great was the excitement which we awakened among the inhabitants. Accompanied by the barking of dogs and the cries of children, we drove slowly on between the straw-thatched huts, and stopped before the house of the Protestant pastor, whom we found engaged in the patriarchal occupation of whipping a large, shaggy black dog, which had been accused by his wife of the crime of killing chickens.

When the man of God saw us, he let the dog go, and, casting an embarrassed glance at his coat, which bore numerous traces of rural labor, he conducted us into his room, which was destitute of a floor. After exchanging a few civil speeches, we told him that we had come to see the village church, which, we had heard, was the handsomest in the neighborhood. The pastor looked astonished, but at once expressed his readiness to open the sacred edifice, if we were really interested in it. Clanking several huge keys, he led the way and we followed. A large open square, with a fountain in the center, surrounded by several majestic oaks, occupied the space in front of it. Several steps led to the entrance of this house of God, which, judging from the exterior, was tolerably plain. The upper one afforded a view of the entire length of the two streets of which Péteri consists.

The doors creaked on their hinges. We entered, walked directly to the communion table, which was totally devoid of ornament, and at the first glance we were irresistibly attracted by a picture hung above the pulpit between two pillars. The brilliant coloring of the painting contrasted strangely with the bare, austere appearance of the spacious interior, which threw it into still stronger relief.

The picture represented the Sermon on the Mount. Christ, attired in flowing robes, with an ample mantle draped over them, stands upon a boulder, his indescribably beautiful face illumined by divine enthusiasm, his radiant eyes most expressively proclaim to us the words of love and divine wisdom which are flowing from his half-parted lips. Around him, extending to the distant background, we see a throng of people in picturesque groups, evidently hanging on the Saviour’s lips; but only a few figures, immediately surrounding the rock, are executed in detail. Behind the divine preacher we behold an ascetic, clad in a garment of skins, his brows contracted in a gloomy frown, and his bearded chin propped on his hand, evidently pondering over the words he has heard. Beside him stands a youth, with his arms folded across his breast, uplifting his clear brow and dark eyes to Christ with fervent devotion, unheeding the words of a third figure, a doubter, who stands by his side, and, with the mocking expression of a Mephistopheles, appears to be whispering something into his ear, while his hand secretly points to the Saviour. In the foreground two female figures rivet our attention; one, a large, voluptuous woman, is lying at the feet of the divine preacher, her face, drenched with tears, expresses infinite suffering and the deepest contrition; the other, a most wonderful contrast, possessing supernatural beauty, as with divine calmness she raises her beaming eyes and, with clasped hands, her whole figure breathing angelic innocence, listens to the sermon of the Son of God. The picture is completed by two lovely naked children, who, with their little round faces turned toward the spectator, are carelessly playing with a shell which they have found. It is the most magnificent and yet the most charming scene imaginable. The divine, glorified form of the inspired preacher; the gloomy ascetic, examining ere he believes; the devout youth, who hears revelations in every word; the doubter, who has come to listen and to scoff; the sinful woman, whose heart is shaken and crushed to its depths by every word of mercy and heavenly love; the chaste, pure angel, with the gloriously beautiful face, to whom Christ speaks a kindred language—and, in contrast with all this, the unsuspecting, ignorant children who, unconcerned about the great events, the mighty passions and overmastering emotions astir around them, play quietly with their shell—the impression which this poetic composition, glowing with the vivid colors of a Titian, produced upon us is not easily described. We stood a long time before the painting, unable to express in words our admiration of the masterpiece.

At last I asked the pastor, who had remained modestly at the back of the church, busying himself with various trifles, if he could not tell us the name of the artist who had created this beautiful work.

“I really cannot give you his name, I know only that he was a young Italian. But I see that the painting has deeply impressed you, so you will probably be interested in hearing some particulars of its origin.” Accepting the kind clergyman’s invitation, we went back with him to his house, and, over a glass of wine, he related the following story:

“Péteri formerly belonged to an old count, the last scion of an ancient noble family, who died, childless, about thirty years ago. His estates went to a distant relative and, in this way, our village passed into the possession of a young married couple, who came here soon after the death of the old lord, to make it their permanent residence. Herr von F., our new lord, had been an officer for several years, but after his marriage had retired to private life. His wife was young, bright, gracious, and possessed beauty unrivaled far or near. They had scarcely moved here before Frau von F. noticed the dilapidated condition of the little church, and determined to have a new and handsome building erected at her own expense. The fact that she was a Catholic, while the parish was Protestant, did not disturb her in the least.

“It happened about this time that a carriage passing through the village was overturned, and the traveler within had his foot severely injured. Herr von F., who had heard of the accident, went himself to the injured man and invited him to be his guest until he was able to continue his journey. The offer was gratefully accepted, and the gentleman was carried to the castle. He introduced himself to his hostess as an Italian artist, on the way to visit his friend, the owner of an estate a few miles away, but who had been prevented from carrying out his plan by the upsetting of his carriage and the wounds received. The artist probably found his stay here very pleasant, for, though at the end of a few days he could walk without assistance, he made no preparations for departure. Under the pretext that he wished to express his gratitude in this way, he begged his charming hostess to allow him to paint her; he wished to leave the portrait in the castle as a memento. After some little reluctance, the proposal was accepted, and the young artist now had an opportunity to gaze into the lovely woman’s eyes an hour a day. She was, as has been said, a rare beauty, he was young and ardent—what marvel that he became passionately in love with her?

“The farther he progressed toward recovery, the more his depression increased; this, and the numerous sittings, aroused Herr von F.’s suspicions and one day he entered unexpectedly when the artist and his wife were alone together. He saw the youth on his knees before her, weeping bitterly, while she, bending over him, was trying to comfort him. The scene which followed was brief but terrible. F. rushed upon the Italian and dealt him a blow in the face. The insulted youth seized a rapier hanging on the wall, pressed furiously upon his host, and would have killed him if the unhappy wife had not thrown herself between them. At the noise servants rushed in, who seized the raging artist, thrust him into the traveling carriage into which the horses had been hastily harnessed, and advised his coachman to drive to his destination, wherever that might be.

“The affair caused great excitement at the time; Herr von F. refused to accept a challenge sent to him from Pesth, and his wife, for a long period, sought refuge on a secluded estate.

“About five months after the scene just described, a box arrived containing the altar painting and a letter, in which the artist entreated Frau von F. to think often of him as an unfortunate man, who had seen the sun of his life rise once for a moment only to lose it forever. He also asked that the picture might be placed in the newly-built church, which, after much opposition from the owner of the estate, was done. The beautiful woman whom you saw in the foreground of the picture is Frau von F., the youth with the folded arms is the artist himself.

“Heaven knows that the young couple did not have a single happy hour afterward. A dark suspicion, though a wholly groundless one, rested on the husband’s heart, and this, with the gossip of the people, made the poor, beautiful wife utterly wretched. When, after a few years, she became a widow—I came here just at that time—I often saw her, when the church was empty, kneel before the picture for hours, shedding burning tears. She did not remain here long, but withdrew to her lonely estate, whence she often comes to the village, and never neglects to visit the church.

“Nothing more was heard from the artist himself, who disappeared without leaving a trace, only some of the owners of the neighboring estates, who knew him, said that he had gone to Africa as a missionary and vanished there.”

We thanked the pastor for his story and set out on our way home.

END.

A CHRISTMAS EVE IN PARIS.

It was Christmas Eve of the year 1874. We were slowly pressed forward by the human tide constantly surging to and fro upon the broad pavement of the Boulevard des Italiens. Often it was scarcely possible to pause a moment in front of the brilliantly-lighted show windows of a shop, to admire, here the diamonds, yonder the bronzes and ivory carvings displayed within. But one exhibit attracted us too strongly to pass it with a hasty glance. We checked our steps, which produced the same effect as when a drifting log suddenly grounds across a stream. First there was a violent shock, then an angry murmur, an excited chattering, and the stream gradually turns aside and flows in a slight bend around the obstacle which cannot be swept away.

The articles in this show window, which belonged to a fashionable confectioner, were far too tempting. A Christmas Fair, a veritable paradise for children: miniature Hussar boots, cradles, tiny champagne bottles, bomb-shells, burning logs, a poodle dressed as a waiter, with a napkin at his neck, all made of sugar and executed with Parisian daintiness, and in the midst of this French fiddle-faddle stood the sturdy, simple German pine tree.

“Is the Christmas tree much used in French families?” I asked my companion, Monsieur G., a Paris architect, who has recently won much renown.

“I think not,” he replied, “but I have always had my arbre de noël in my own house, and it is the central point of one of my most sorrowful memories.”

A mournful expression shadowed his mobile features as he spoke, and a heavy sigh escaped his lips. We went on and, a few steps beyond, turned into the “Rue du 4 Septembre.” I did not wish to interrupt my friend’s deep reverie by obtrusive, curious questions, so for a short time we walked silently side by side. It was he who interrupted this pause by voluntarily telling his sad story.

“Four years,” he began, “have passed since that terrible winter, but everything is still as vividly impressed upon my mind as though it had happened only yesterday. The Prussians had forged their iron ring around the city, and we breathed more and more heavily. The whole world knows the epic of that siege, from its commencement to its close. In the beginning ‘useless mouths’ were banished, and the assurance was given that those who remained need have no anxiety about suffering want; first we ate pork, then horse-flesh, and at the end of six weeks the most incredible things supplied us with food. In addition, the winter was one of those severe seasons which we do not have once in a decade. The Seine froze, and loaded carts could cross the lake in the Bois de Boulogne. Our foes were warmly ensconced in our country-houses, they cut down our groves and the trees in our parks to keep the flames on the hearths burning, and fed their camp-fires with our grand pianos and carved furniture. We had no woods to fell, and naturally were less ready to use our pianos for fire-wood than our enemies. The lack of fuel was really less keenly felt than the lack of food. All the wood and coal remaining in Paris was purchased by the rich at fabulous prices, and the poor, nay, even the well-to-do classes had to shift for themselves. The proletarians succeeded in doing so without much difficulty. Our stock of absinthe was inexhaustible, unfortunately it was the only thing with which we were supplied for months or years; ‘Une goutte’ will fully compensate the Paris workman for the fire on the hearth or the warmth of the stove—but what was to become of our women, our children, who do not drink absinthe?

“It was comparatively easy for us men. We were all soldiers, we were daily occupied either in drilling within the city or in digging and building at the out-works; and that keeps one tolerably warm, I can assure you. But when we came home in the evening, we found a room cold and dismal as a vault, a black, fireless hearth, the children huddled under the bed-clothes, the wife muffled in cloak and shawls. We clasped cold hands and kissed cold lips, which had forgotten how to smile.

“So the Christmas festival approached. Did I say festival? Suffering and want had reached their height, and our eyes constantly saw too much blood flow to have the red hue in the calendar attract our attention. The poor children! The siege cut off even their pure, innocent pleasures; there was no Christmas for them that year. The first week in December my little Louise asked me if the naughty Prussians would let St. Nicholas into the city, and a few days before Christmas she anxiously asked the same question about the Christ child. Both times I answered that I was afraid this year neither St. Nicholas nor the little Christ-child could get through to the children who expected them, but next year they would doubtless make ample amends for it. Louise looked very sorrowful and was not easily comforted; it was so long since the last Christmas festival, and the next one would probably come no earlier than usual! But I could not help her; neither I nor my wife were in the mood to prepare Christmas pleasures for the poor child.

“Nor was Louise in a condition to enjoy such pleasures. She had been ailing all the Winter and on Christmas Eve the illness broke out with alarming violence. She was tortured by attacks of convulsive coughing and in a high fever. We put the child to bed and sent at once for our physician. My wife was greatly alarmed, and I, too, awaited the doctor’s verdict with much anxiety. He came; we silently exchanged greetings, and he approached the little one’s sick bed. My wife and I in trembling suspense watched every line of his face, every expression of his eyes; we scarcely dared to breathe. The doctor was an old and dear friend, and Louise was very fond of playing with him; this time, however, she did not recognize him, and thrust him back with her little hand as he stroked the hair away from her flushed face and felt her throbbing pulse.

“‘It is a long time since I have been here but, as you know, the numerous wounded men, the crowded hospitals,’ he said apologetically, as he watched the little sufferer.

“‘Of course, of course, but what do you think of our Louise?’

“The doctor forced a smile.

“‘It would not be difficult to give good advice,’ he said in a tone whose lightness was evidently assumed. ‘Louise has grown excessively thin since I last saw her; she must be better nourished. Under different circumstances I should say: give her chicken broth, eggs, do not let her go out of a moderately warm room, but now’—his eyes rested on a piece of bread which lay on the table, the bread furnished by the government, of which a clumsy wit said that it contained every possible ingredient, among others even grain. ‘However,’ he added after a painful pause, ‘there will be time enough to nourish her better after the siege, which cannot last forever. What is immediately necessary is a cup of hot tea, which must be repeated in two hours.’

“My wife cast a despairing glance at me, whispering with quivering lips, ‘I have neither wood nor coal in the house.’ A deathlike stillness pervaded the room, interrupted only by the gasping breath and an attack of coughing from the child. I cannot describe now what I felt at that moment, I only know that I would infinitely rather have been dead than alive. The doctor was the first to break the silence. He looked very grave as he said: ‘The hot tea is indispensable; if you have no wood, no coal—not even any alcohol?’ My wife shook her head mournfully. ‘Has not some neighbor—?’ (The same answer.) ‘Well, then you must sacrifice some piece of furniture at once, for much depends upon this tea.’

“I instantly rushed into the kitchen, which no longer contained anything combustible, seized the ax, and was on the point of dealing a blow on the piano, my wife’s favorite instrument, but the only large article in the room, except an armoire, which contained little wood. During the last fortnight we had been obliged to use our furniture to supply the fuel for cooking, there was no attempt at heating! I was already lifting the ax, when my wife suddenly uttered a faint cry, seized my arm, and directly after rushed out of the room, exclaiming: ‘I have something!’

“Was any neighbor fortunate enough to have some wood? Did she expect to find a coal dealer’s shop open at this hour and procure fuel there? I was not to remain in uncertainty long. Five minutes after, the door opened and my wife, her face radiant with joy, while tears of gratitude sparkled in her eyes, entered, carrying with both hands—last year’s huge Christmas tree which, since the festival, had remained unnoticed in a corner of the attic.

“The whole terrible contrast between the present and the past suddenly rose before me as if sharply illumined by a flash of lightning. There was the slender, beautiful pine, which twelve short months ago, so brief a span of time, a mere moment, looking back upon it, had formed the center of a lovely picture of family happiness! It was in that very room, a bright fire was blazing on the hearth, merry children were dancing and bounding around the table, a happy father and mother were smiling at the delight of the little ones; there was Louise, looking like an angel in her white dress, with a blue ribbon in her fair curls, her arms round, her cheeks plump, her dark eyes sparkling with joy, and, with her, two little playmates whom she had invited to the festival. They laughed and shouted as if fifty invisible angels were laughing and clapping their hands with the children to fill the room to the utmost with mirth and childish glee. On the table had stood the magnificent Christmas tree, with tiny candles, gilded fruits, and tin soldiers glittering among its green boughs, soldiers in French, English, and Prussian uniforms. We jested and played and made merry until after midnight, till the children fell asleep from sheer happiness with dolls and soldiers from the Christmas tree clasped in both hands.

“Now, here was the same Christmas tree, withered, dry and dusty, its needles yellow, many of its boughs broken and drooping, others, instead of golden apples and bonbons, bearing long trailing cobwebs, the room was cold, the fire dead, and Louise lay on her bed, her little arms emaciated, her little face thin and flushed by fever, racked by that torturing cough.

“Her mother’s entrance had attracted her attention, and she partially recovered her consciousness. Noticing the Christmas tree, she clapped her little hands joyfully. ‘Oh, the Christmas tree, the pretty Christmas tree!’ she exclaimed in a faint voice. Then, in touching words, she begged her mamma to light the pretty candles and hang the gold apples and the soldiers, only no Prussian ones, and to send for Mimi and Lolotte, they had been good, and she, too, would be good in future, very good.

“I was on the point of doing a cowardly act; I longed to go out into the darkness, into the streets, the outposts, in order not to be obliged to witness this sorrowful scene; I wished that a shell might enter the house and put an end to everything. But, no, shells were not fired on the night when the foe was also celebrating the Christmas festival. I regained my composure with difficulty, and while my wife sat on the edge of the bed, with one arm round the child, softly singing songs, stroking and soothing her, I chopped the Christmas tree with trembling hands and lighted a fire.

“The dry needles crackled and snapped, blazing high aloft, a sweet, heavy aroma of resin pervaded the room, and the water in the pot began to sing and boil. The doctor had gone out, my wife was still whispering loving words and promises to the sick child, and while watching the flames, and preparing the tea, I thought: ‘I thank thee, I thank thee, thou blessed tree, which once made my child happy, and will now make her well!’

“The Christmas tree did not make Louise well. And since that time I have not needed one—she was my only child.”

THE STEPMOTHER.

AN OPEN LETTER TO FRAU I. H.

There are ideas which affect the mind, as the touch of a spider feels on the finger. They awaken horror, loathing, lasting discomfort. I fear that the conception “stepmother” is one of them. The word is uttered in our presence, and awakes in our souls a series of images, some painful, some repulsive; on the one hand is the poor motherless child in the care of strangers, meanly clad, ill-fed, scolded, beaten, burdened with impossible tasks, who secretly steals out on Winter nights to its mother’s grave, and there, with heart-rending sobs, calls to the snow-clad mound the reproachful question why she did not take her child with her, why she had left it alone in the world; on the other hand is the wicked woman, toothless, blear-eyed, with hooked chin and nose, which almost meet, fingers as bony as a skeleton’s, who is happy only when she has devised some new torture, some new humiliation for her foster-child. How have these images entered our sphere of thought? Perhaps from fairy tales, perhaps from poems and stories, I don’t know myself. Not from experience, that is certain. Most of us have probably no knowledge of stepmothers, and those with whom we are acquainted do not bear the remotest resemblance to the idea which dwells in our minds. Yet the contradiction between preconceived opinions and the reality does not impress us, and we do not think of correcting the former by the latter.

The letter which you, madame, addressed to me a few days ago, for a definite purpose and in which, with noble excitement, you demanded justice for the stepmother, first led me to reflect, and I have now become aware of my prejudices, my cruel injustice toward one of the most meritorious classes of the human race. You are right, the stepmother is a martyr. She is a sufferer, but no one pities her, a martyr who never receives the reward of canonization, a tragic heroine who never finds her poet. She has married a widower and enters her new home, where she meets a beautiful, sorrowful orphaned child. Her heart is overflowing with the noblest feelings. She will be a loving mother to the poor orphan, will kiss away the shadow of premature grief from the young brow! Fate was less kind to her than to her companions, who, during the first months after marriage, saw only the bright side of wedded life; pleasant wedding journeys, inexhaustible proofs of tenderness, endless love tokens. She is obliged to learn, with the pleasant side of married life, its hardest duties, for which nature has given to others of her sex long months of preparation; she has become at the same time wife and mother. But what of that? With the enthusiasm of a young soul, in whom love for the child and the pleasure of acting a mother’s part are a heritage of the female sex, she assumes her sublime task; she surrounds the child with solicitude and tenderness; she kisses it awake in the morning and sings it to sleep at night; she talks to it, plays with it, never loses sight of it. Under this warmth of affection the child instantly begins to flourish, as the earth responds to the heat of the sun. It has the coquettish beauty of a wax-doll, its cheeks grow rosy, its eyes bright, its little arms round and plump, but no love beams in the eyes, the arms do not learn to clasp the neck of the stepmother, and the little mouth does not smile.

The stepmother is puzzled, and begins to reflect. Before her mind rises the scene when her husband first brought her to their future home and introduced her to the child with the words: “Baby, here is your new mamma; be good and obedient, and she will love you very, very dearly. There, now, give mamma a pretty kiss!” She had bent over the child, and while pressing it warmly to her heart a tear fell on its little fair head. The child had stood motionless, with its eyes fixed on its toes; it had submitted to everything, but without a word of affection or even a kiss in response. This had chilled the young mother like an icy breath; the husband noticed or felt it, and said: “You know how children are; the poor thing is shy, she is so unaccustomed to see strange faces. But she will soon love you as you deserve.” This had satisfied her, and she believed it. But now a year, two years had passed; the child must have become accustomed to the “strange face,” it must have felt long ago that the “new mamma” loved it very, very dearly! Yet it is as cold, as distant, as reserved, as on the first day. The stepmother looks tenderly at it, it lowers its eyes; she kisses it, it obediently offers its lips, but they are motionless; she speaks pleasantly to it, it maintains a sullen silence. The stepmother goes out with the child, everybody turns, admires its beauty, envies the woman who has such a treasure. Alas, this angel has a joyous glance for all except the stepmother, a gay, childlike laugh for every one save her. The beautiful child is only lively in the street, out of the house; at home it is sulky. Every act of kindness from a stranger is eagerly and enthusiastically acknowledged, but the loving words of the foster-mother find no echo; they die away with no more effect than if they had been flung into the sea.

The stepmother, with deep sorrow, asks herself the cause of all this, and can find no answer. Poor woman! Busily, untiringly you weave your web of love around the heart of the child confided to you, and do not know that behind your back an evil Penelope sits, raveling at night what you have done during the day! First, there are the first wife’s relatives; from devotion to the dead they are wicked to the living; whenever the child visits them it hears itself pitied; it is told of its mamma, not the new one, for she is not its mother, but the old one, how differently she would have loved it, how differently she would have treated it; it is questioned about the stranger’s acts, and whether she treats it kindly. Then there are servants, governesses, foolish strangers, who, partly to win the child’s affection, partly from wretched sentimentality, which considers it noble and kindhearted to roll up the eyes and express pity where there is no cause for compassion—sing the same song to the little one from morning till night. It never hears itself called anything but “poor child! poor orphan!” It learns that it tells an untruth whenever it calls its stepmother “mamma”; it is taught to play the spy, to suspect, to dissimulate; it is robbed of the frankness and guilelessness of childhood and accustomed to seek beneath its stepmother’s words different thoughts, beneath her acts hostile motives. Poor child, in whose mind distrust is roused ere the judgment is formed! The mother denies it an apple because it has already eaten too many, and it feels sure that it is her malice which prompts her to refuse it the most innocent pleasure; the mother will not permit it to visit a friend because it has taken cold, and the weather is stormy, and it no longer doubts the enmity of this woman, of whom everybody tells it so much evil. And now come Christmas gifts of fairy tales, which describe the wicked stepmother who thrice poisoned Snow-White, and the other one who killed her stepson and served him to the father on the dinner table, and if the child has previously doubted, it is now confident, for the book, printed, bound, and filled with pictures, cannot deceive! So it learns to hate at an age when it is our fairest privilege to love, and to doubt at a time whose happiness is implicit faith.

Can this criminal poisoning of the child’s soul remain without influence upon the stepmother? I deny it. What can you expect? Even the noblest woman is mortal, and she has a still keener sensitiveness to the return, or the failure to return her feelings than the rest of us. Categorical necessity was not created for women, it is hard enough for men. To fill a bottomless cask was rightfully considered by the subtle Greek the most terrible punishment which could be devised for women. In the bitter conflict with constant ingratitude, even the strongest sense of duty, the most self-sacrificing nobility, must finally succumb. We can give love only when, in some degree, we receive love in return. One-sidedness here leads finally to impoverishment, and at last the stepmother really feels for the child indifference, possibly aversion, or even hate.

When we have once reached this point what a tragic picture unrolls before our eyes! When the stepmother married she made herself the priestess, who was to erect a new statue in a deserted temple, kindle a fresh flame amid the dead embers of a cold altar; she set herself the noble task of becoming a mother to the orphan, creating a pleasant home for a lonely man, bringing happiness and joy into a sorrowful family circle. And now, after years of humble, but heroic labor and exertion, amid which the bloom of her life has withered, here is the result; a cold-hearted child, whose soul is filled with hate and who is unspeakably poor and pitiable because she lacks the treasure of sunny memories of childhood, on which we happier mortals can draw during a long life; a husband, whose home is distasteful because he cannot endure the silent reproach in the sad eyes of his child, and she herself, the wife, tortured by the most painful sting, bitter grief for a marred life, an object of aversion to her husband, her foster-child, the whole careless world! Who is to blame for such mournful results? The mother? The child? The father? Neither of the three. It is the fault of the senselessness and malice of prejudiced people.

This is the way in which the stepmother’s life presented itself to me, and I wish that the whole world could see it with my eyes. Only how is the evil, when recognized, to be remedied? You, madame, would fain see the books of fairy tales, with their Snow-Whites and wicked stepmothers abolished, or rather you would like to have these stories omitted from the volume. That would be desirable and useful, but I fear it is impracticable. Man is weak and irrational, and I confess that, notwithstanding its baneful tendencies, which I admit, I would not for the world see Snow-White torn from my own childish memories. I am afraid that it will not do to throw away, for the sake of stepchildren, some of the most precious pearls in the treasury of fairy tales. The wisdom and tact of the father, and the absolute sincerity of the stepmother can do more for the child.

One thing is especially necessary: the woman who resolves to undertake the thankless office of a stepmother must fully realize the magnitude of the task and the measure of strength which she can bring to the fulfillment of her arduous duty. She is to conquer a child’s heart, which is defended by a strong garrison of hostile insinuations, and by constant watchfulness guard it against continual attacks; she must daily wage a fierce warfare against the stupid, the thoughtless and the wicked people, in which she will continually receive aching wounds; she must struggle and bleed for years, alone and unaided, but at last victory will be hers, for in the battle against evil and injustice love always triumphs because it is the strongest of the three. If the future wife feels that her powers will not be equal to this conflict, then let her remain away from the house where children await a foster-mother; she would render it a hell for them and for herself. But if the goal seems to her attainable and the road not too rough, let her confidently take up the cross, for her reward will be rich and enviable. She will work miracles such as can be wrought by love alone. The children will gradually see the living image of the stepmother merge into the fading one of the dead mother, and will no longer be able to separate the one from the other. They will always hold the stepmother in grateful remembrance as the angel whom God sent to the languishing Ishmael, when poor Hagar could no longer obtain water for her child. Perhaps, in later years, when the second mother has followed the first, foolish people will speak in the customary way of stepmothers, in the presence of the children, whose heads already have the snow of years. Then they will—and, judging from your letter, madame, I think you, too, would do the same—then they will look upward with tearful eyes to the portrait of the dead stepmother, whispering: “Forgive them, for they know not what they do!”

“PAS DE CHANCE!”

The dissecting room in the old Hôtel Dieu, in Paris, which was torn down in the year 1877, was a strange and gruesome place. To reach it, one was obliged to go upstairs and down, past the wards occupied by the sick, through spacious, lofty vestibules, echoing corridors paved with tiles, turning now to the right, now to the left, and across covered wooden bridges, spanning the little arm of the Seine which flowed between the two buildings of the hospital, and, after a walk of many minutes, finally descend into the spacious subterranean chambers, which were the most ancient portion of a structure erected many centuries ago, and dating from the early part of the Middle Ages. On reaching the foot of the worn stone steps leading to the dissecting room, one found one’s self in a narrow, unpaved outer cellar, lighted by a grated window above, and containing at one end a low, rusty iron door as broad as it was high. A person familiar with the place opened this door by turning a rude handle in the center, which moved a heavy, creaking double-bolt inside, and entered a low vaulted chamber about fifteen paces long and ten wide, which was very insufficiently lighted by two square grated windows, which pierced the thick wall directly under the vaulted ceiling, and which could be opened only when the Seine was low. The cellars of the Hôtel Dieu were below the surface of the river, from which it was separated by its strong walls, overgrown with moss and blackened by age, and when it rose ever so little, one could look from the lower portions of the windows of the dissecting-room several inches into the turbid waves of the river. Usually several gaslights burned here, filling the place with a bright glare, in which human beings and all objects assumed unpleasantly sharp outlines and a livid, disagreeable color, while dark shadows, like silhouettes, were thrown upon the floor and walls. But it was a fitting illumination of the place and its contents. The blackish-gray walls were always covered with a clammy moisture, which, on the side facing the river, gathered here and there into thick drops, that slowly, gradually trickled down on the slippery, dirty marble floor, and suggested, even to the observer least susceptible to sentimental fancies, the sorrowful impression of tears, held back by a strong will, yet slowly oozing forth. On the windowless side of the room was a wash basin set in the wall, supplied with a faucet and waste pipe. Several pieces of soap lay on it, and, upon a nail at the side, hung towels of doubtful cleanliness, and a dilapidated yellow tablet which contained, in faded letters, the rules of the dissecting room. On the opposite side six tables were ranged in a row, above each of which a gas jet descended from the ceiling; the first, of the usual shape, held a pair of scales and a number of rusty weights. The brass balances, soiled with horrible fat and blood stains, showed the purpose for which they were used—the weighing of diseased portions of the human body. The form of the other five was peculiar. The top was long, narrow, slightly concave, like a trough covered with tin, a little inclined, wider at the upper end than at the lower, where it was perforated by a hole leading into a metal pipe, which discharged its contents into a tin pail standing under the narrow end of the table. These were the dissecting tables, “Morgagni’s tables,” as we used to call them in our technical jargon. Upon them, surrounded by knives, scissors, chisels and hammers of singular form, lay cold, rigid human forms, in which the disciples of science searched with sacred curiosity to surprise, in the mysterious depths of the organs, the secret of life. On the wall at the head of each table hung a little blackboard, on which was fastened a label bearing the name, age, and date of death of the body beneath. At the back of the dissecting room was a glass door, opening into an adjoining chamber, much smaller and lighted only by a single window. Two laths, painted black, formed a cross extending from the floor to the ceiling on the side wall, and several roughly-made coffins stood on the floor, which was thickly covered with aromatic pine shavings. This was the death chamber. After dissection the bodies were brought here, wrapped in a linen sheet supplied by the hospital, and laid in the coffin to await burial. If within the next twelve hours relatives came to claim the body, it was delivered to them; if not, it was conveyed the following morning in the hearse to the overseer of the poor, and buried in the paupers’ ground in the cemetery of Père la Chaise. The only living creature in these uncanny rooms, during the time when no dissections were being made, was a beautiful white cat, which sprang gaily to meet every one who entered and, mewing and purring, pressed and twisted around him, and the master of the affectionate creature, a little, thin, one-eyed old man, who coughed continually and had lived here thirty years, yet in the midst of the scene of constant sorrow and destruction, in which he worked, maintained so cheerful a spirit that he was always humming a gay little song while preparing the bodies for dissection, or washing, sewing them up, and wrapping them in sheets after it. He assumed a serious, nay, even melancholy mien, only when the relatives of any corpse came to carry away their dead, for during the many years of his sorrowful occupation, the worthy man had retained sufficient courtesy and consideration not to wound the feelings of the mourners by displaying a face of business-like indifference or of cheerfulness.

Most of the physicians and students who visited the Hôtel Dieu were in the habit, at the close of the morning call, of going down to the dissecting room to see “what there was new.” In the same way the habitué of the theater, after witnessing the performance, goes on the stage to cast a glance behind the scenes. One morning in May, 1877, following this custom, I entered the subterranean chamber just described. The cat was sitting in the corner, washing her fur, old Jean was busy with some empty coffins in the death chamber, one of the dissecting tables was empty, while on the other four lay subjects. Around the first body, that of a strong old man, who had died of a brain disease, stood a group of young people, some with white aprons and blood-stained hands, others with hats on their heads, gloved hands, and cigars in their mouths, eagerly discussing the ravages which the knife had just disclosed, and the phenomena caused during the progress of the illness. At the second and third tables the work was already done. A hasty glance at the cruelly emaciated bodies and the organs on the table sufficed to reveal the cause of death. “Consumption!” It is so common a disease, the ravages it produces in the organism are so often seen, that people do not linger over it. So I passed on without delay to the fifth table, the last in the row, and perceived that it contained a corpse still undisturbed, the sight of which instantly filled me with sympathy. It was the body of a woman, very young, and of remarkable beauty, whom death must have snatched away in the midst of health. No long sickness could have preceded it, for the outlines of the form were full, round, almost sensuous; illness had had no time to caricature the noble lines of the figure by the ugly angles of emaciation. The skin, in spite of the horrible chill which it sent through the whole frame to the heart at the lightest touch of the finger-tips, was as smooth and fine as velvet, and the hue so dazzlingly white that it had the iridescent tints of mother-of-pearl. The features of the oval face had assumed, in the last agony, an expression of suffering which death had stereotyped. The lips were slightly parted, revealing teeth which resembled transparent white enamel. The dark eyes were wide open, and the dull, glassy pupils gazed at me with the leaden stare of a corpse. The shining black hair was gathered at the back of the head into a knot held by several pins, which were half slipping out, and a few waving locks still rested lightly on the smooth brow, as an unsuspecting little child plays happily around its dead mother. The shadows of death shrouding the beautiful form had not wholly effaced the bloom of youth. As it lay in its chaste, pure, classic loveliness, one might believe that he had before him a Greek statue carved from Parian marble. To examine the body on all sides I walked around the table and, in doing so, made a discovery which increased the interest already awakened by the mute, rigid form. The right arm of the corpse bore on the upper surface several tattooed inscriptions. I read in one line: “Marie Balok,” below the date “1876,” and below this, in a third line, the words: “Pas de chance!” (No chance.)

“Pas de chance!” It seemed as if these words contained the sorrowful index of the hapless human life, which a few hours before had found its pitiful end in a hospital bed. The label at the head of the table informed me that “Marie Balok” had been the name of the body and that she was not more than seventeen. Old Jean, in reply to my questions, could tell me that the beautiful Marie had been brought to the hospital the night before and had died a few minutes after. She was at a dancing hall in the outer boulevards, and, from jealousy, made a furious scene with a young man; in the midst of the outburst of her rage she suddenly sank fainting; when they were unable to revive her by dashing cold water on her and using scent bottles, two of her women friends put her into a carriage and brought her to the hospital, where they gave the physician on duty the explanation Jean repeated. The girl had died without recovering her consciousness, and early in the morning she had been brought down to the dissecting room.

This much the label and old Jean could tell me. But far more than either was revealed by the words tattooed on the girl’s arm: “Pas de chance!” I had before me the title of a biographical romance, and, with little difficulty, read in the dim eyes, on the pale lips and snow-white form of the corpse the romance itself from the first to the last chapter. Marie Balok, her name proved it, was the child of foreigners, who had come to Paris as ten thousand other foreigners do every year to seek a more favorable place for the battle of life. Her father was a workman in Belleville, or on the slopes of Montmartre. Marie had grown up in dirt and poverty, played during the day in the dust and the gutters of the streets of the suburb, and at night went home to find a crust of bread and a pallet in the corner of the room with her parents. She was ten or eleven years old when the insurrection of the Commune occurred. Her father put on the uniform of the insurgents, her mother followed the battalion as a vivandière or a nurse. Eight or nine weeks passed like a whirlwind, and ended with her mother’s leaning against a wall one beautiful May morning and being shot as a petroleuse, and her father’s first being driven to Versailles with blows from the butt ends of muskets, and then sent to New Caledonia.

Marie was left alone in the world, without relatives or acquaintances, like a young swallow thrust from the nest, which must perish miserably in the dust unless Heaven works a miracle in its behalf. The beginning of this miracle was apparently wrested from iron-hearted fate. Marie neither starved to death in summer, nor froze during the following winter. A family of work people, poor and wretched themselves, received the still poorer and more wretched child, and gave it a seat at the scantily spread table and a place on the floor of the bare room. It learned to do something, sewing, embroidery, or flower-making, and soon earned so much that it was no longer compelled to accept the favors of the kindhearted neighbors as alms. Thus Marie spent several years until she had become a blooming, beautiful girl of fifteen. People cannot be beautiful, young, and poor in Paris, unpunished. A temptation sprang from every stone in the pavement, and the finger of evil beckoned to her at every street corner. Soon she no longer went to her work alone, nor returned home without a companion. She found it inconvenient to live with her benefactors, and one day left them to go to a garret room in a shabby house in Montmartre, with a lover in blouse and silk cap. Now, scarcely beyond childhood, she began to lead the life of a solitary Parisian working girl. Toil during the day, in the evening a ball, the cancan till midnight, blows from the friend, hunger, rags, misery, singing and merriment, and withal, total forgetfulness of the past and the future. If a friend carried palpable jealousy too far, she dismissed him unceremoniously with a scornful shrug of the shoulders, and sought another, with whom she remained until the vague, burning longing for happiness and contentment, which filled her heart, urged her once more into new and unknown paths.