Chapter VII: Part 7

"Trust!" exclaimed Agatha; "in those frightful burning eyes, those thousandfold wrinkles, that pale contracted mouth, and that strange laugh which looks and sounds so scornfully! No, God preserve me from such a friend! If evil spirits wish to clothe themselves as men, they must assume such a form as this."

"Probably a younger and handsomer one," replied the mother; "but I cannot recognise the good old man in thy description. One can see that he is of a hasty temperament, and has been used to lock up his feelings within himself; he may have experienced much misfortune, and so is become mistrustful, and has lost that simple openness which especially belongs to those who are happy."

Their conversation was interrupted by the coming in of the rest of the party. Dinner was served, and the stranger sat by Agatha and the rich merchant.

When the toasts were beginning, Leopold cried out, "Now stop a little, my worthy friends; we must have the festal goblet for this, which shall then go the round."

He was about to rise, but his mother beckoned him to keep his seat. "Thou wilt not be able to find it," she said; "for I have packed all the plate away." She went out hastily to seek it herself.

"How active and sprightly our old lady is to-day," observed the merchant, "for all her breadth and weight! and though she reckons full sixty, how nimbly she can move! Her countenance is always bright and joyful, and to-day is she especially happy, for she makes herself young again in the beauty of her daughter."

The stranger applauded his saying, and the mother returned with the goblet. They filled it full of wine, and from the head of the table began to pass it round, each proposing the health that was dearest. The bride drank the welfare of her husband; he, the love of his fair Julia; likewise every one in his turn. The mother lingered as the goblet came to her.

"Now quickly," said the officer, somewhat roughly and hastily; "we know well that you think all men faithless, and not one of them worthy of a woman's love. What, then, is dearest to you?"

The mother looked at him, as an angry seriousness suddenly overspread the mildness of her countenance. "As my son," said she, "knows me so well, and so severely blames my disposition, let me be permitted not to express what I was thinking, and let him endeavour by his constant love to falsify what he attributes to me as my conviction." She passed on the cup without drinking, and the company was for some time in silent embarrassment.

"It is reported," said the merchant, in an under-tone, leaning over to the stranger, "that she did not love her husband, but another who proved faithless to her; they say she was once the handsomest maiden in all the town."

When the goblet came to Ferdinand, he looked at it with astonishment, for it was the very same from which Albert had aforetime called up to him the beautiful shadow. He looked down into it and on the waving of the wine; his hand trembled; it would not have surprised him had that form again bloomed forth from the magic bowl, and therewith his evanished youth. "No," said he, after some time; "that which glows here is wine."

"What else should it be?" said the merchant, laughing. "Drink, and be happy."

A thrill of terror struck the old man, as he hastily pronounced the name, "Francesca!" and placed the goblet to his burning lips. The mother cast on him an inquiring and astonished look.

"Whence is this beautiful goblet?" said Ferdinand, who was ashamed of his embarrassment.

"Many years ago," replied Leopold; "even before I was born, my father bought it, with this house and all the furniture, from an old lonely bachelor, a reserved man, whom all the neighbourhood considered a magician."

Ferdinand did not like to say that he had known that man; for his whole soul was too much perplexed, as it were in a strange dream, to let the rest look into it, even from a distance.

After the cloth was removed, Ferdinand was left alone with the mother, while the young people withdrew to make preparations for the ball. "Sit down by me," said she; "we will rest, for our dancing years are past; and, if the question is not too bold, pray tell me if you have ever seen our goblet elsewhere, or what was it that so very much moved you?"

"O, gracious lady," cried the old man, "pardon me my foolish vehemence and emotion, for since I have been in your house I feel as if I were no longer myself; every moment I forget that my hair is grey, that my loved ones are dead. Your beautiful daughter, who now celebrates the happiest day of her life, is so like a maiden whom I knew and adored in my youth, that I regard it as a miracle. But no, not like, that expression is too weak, she is her very self. Here, also, in this house have I often been, and once in the strangest manner became acquainted with this goblet." Hereupon he related to her his adventure. "On the evening of that day," he concluded, "I saw for the last time my beloved one, in the park as she went into the country. A rose fell from her, this I have preserved; but she herself was lost to me, for she became faithless, and soon after married."

"Merciful God!" cried the old lady, starting with emotion; "surely thou art not Ferdinand!"

"That is my name," said he.

"And I am Francesca," replied the mother.

They wished to embrace, but immediately started back. Each contemplated the other with searching glance; both endeavoured to develop again out of the ruins of time those features which erewhile they had known and loved in one another. And as in dark tempestuous nights, amid the flight of black clouds, for a few fleeting moments solitary stars ambiguously glimmer, immediately again to disappear,--so shone for the time to these two, lightening from the eyes, the brow, and lips, a transient glimpse of some well-known feature, and it seemed as if their youth wept smiling in the distance.

He bowed himself low, and kissed her hand, as two big tears burst from his eyes; then they embraced each other heartily.

"Is thy wife dead?" asked the mother.

"I was never married," sobbed Ferdinand.

"Heavens!" cried the lady, wringing her hands; "then I have been the faithless one! Yet no, not faithless. When I returned from the country, where I stayed two months, I heard from every one, from thy friends, not from mine only, that thou hadst long since gone away and been married in thy fatherland. They shewed me the most credible letters, and pressed me vehemently, availing themselves as well of my despair as of my indignation; and so it happened that I gave my hand to another, a deserving man; but my heart, my thoughts, were ever devoted to thee."

"I never removed from this place," said Ferdinand; "but after a time I heard of thy marriage. They wished to part us, and they have succeeded. Thou art a happy mother; I live in the past: and all thy children I will love as if they were my own. But how wonderful that we should never since have met!"

"I seldom went abroad," said she; "and as my husband soon after assumed another name on account of an estate which he inherited, you could have had no suspicion that we both were living in the same city."

"I avoided men," said Ferdinand, "and lived only to solitude. Leopold is almost the only one that has again drawn me forth and led me amongst men. O my beloved friend, it is like a horrible spectre-story, how we lost and have again found each other!"

The young people, on their return, found the old couple dissolved in tears and in the deepest emotion. Neither told what had befallen them; the secret seemed too holy. But from that time the old man was the friend of the house; and death alone parted the two beings who in so strange a manner had again found each other, in order shortly after to be re-united.

THE LOVE-CHARM.

Emilius was sitting in deep thought by a table, waiting for his friend Roderick. A light was burning before him; the winter evening was cold; and, glad as he was at other times to dispense with his companion's society, on this occasion he was particularly anxious for his presence, as he wished to tell him a secret, and to ask his advice. The shy, retiring Emilius, in the common business and the ups and downs of life, found such difficulties and so many insuperable obstacles, that Destiny seemed to have been in one of her ironical moods when she connected him with Roderick, who was, in all respects, the very opposite of his friend. Unstable and flighty, with the first impression he was all on fire; there was nothing he would not undertake; he had plans for every thing; no project could be too difficult, no obstacle could deter him; while in carrying them out he soon tired, and flagged as rapidly as he had been eager and elastic at the outset; and difficulties, instead of being a spur to urge him to increased activity, then only caused him to fling aside in disgust what he had at first so enthusiastically undertaken. Hence he was for ever full of schemes of some sort, but throwing them away and forgetting them with as little reason as he had before thoughtlessly adopted them. Between two such contradictory tempers not a day passed without a quarrel, which threatened to be fatal to their friendship. Yet perhaps, what seemed at first sight only to be a cause of division, was, at bottom, one of the closest bonds that held them together. In their hearts they were exceedingly fond of each other, yet each found the greatest satisfaction in being able to complain of the way the other treated him.

Emilius was a young roan of property. His father and mother were dead, so that he was his own master. He was of an imaginative though somewhat melancholy turn of mind; and being now on his travels to complete his education, he had been staying some time at a large town to enjoy the pleasure of the carnival, about which he did not care a straw, and to transact certain business with some of his relations whom he had not yet taken the trouble to call upon. On his way there he had stumbled upon the quicksilver Roderick, who was living not on the best possible terms with his guardians, and, to rid himself of them and their troublesome admonitions, had gladly availed himself of his new friend's offer to take him with him as a companion on his travels. Again and again they had been on the point of separating, but their quarrels had only served to shew them how indispensable they were to each other. When they came to any place of importance, they were hardly out of their carriage before Roderick had seen every thing there was there worth notice--the next day most likely to forget all about it again. While Emilius, after first spending weeks in preparing himself with books, that nothing might escape his observation, out of indolence generally left the place having seen hardly any thing. Roderick went to all the public places, made a thousand acquaintances, and not unfrequently would bring them to the solitary apartments of his friend, and as soon as he began to be tired of them himself, leave them alone for Emilius to entertain. Emilius's modesty too was often severely distressed by the way in which Roderick would speak of his talent and knowledge to sensible, well-informed people; for he never confined himself to strict truth; and although for himself he said he could never find time to listen to what his companion had to say on these matters, yet he gave them to understand there was scarce a subject in literature, history, or art on which they could not derive from him the most valuable information. If Emilius was disposed to do any thing, Roderick was sure to have been at a ball the night before, or to have caught cold at a sledging party, and be obliged to keep his bed; so that in the society of the most restless and excitable of sociable mortals, he lived almost wholly by himself.

This evening, however, Emilius counted on him with some certainty, as he had promised faithfully to spend it at home, to learn what it was that for some weeks past had been weighing on his friend's spirits. Emilius spent the interval in composing the following verses:

Spring-time, it is blithe and gay
When the nightingale sits on the hawthorn-spray,
And every leaf and every flower
Quivers with joy at the music's power.

The play of the gentle evening air
In the golden moonlight is passing fair,
As over the tree-tops it whispering sweeps
And its wings in the linden's fragrance steeps.

The glance of the new-blown rose is bright
As the gleaming of stars on a summer's night,
Like a bride for the altar the garden arraying,
And love in a thousand flowerets playing.

Yet brighter, and fairer, and lovelier far
Is the pale little lamplet's trembling star
Which yonder my love in her chamber shews
As she lingers at night, to her couch ere she goes.

Her delicate tresses I watch her unbind,
From around her fair temples the rose-wreath unwind;
Her exquisite form to my rapturous gaze
With each motion the tightening nightdress betrays.

And oh, when the lute in her fingers she takes,
And stirr'd at her bidding sweet music awakes,
With a thrill at her exquisite touch, from the strings
The spirit of melody laughingly springs.

She sends out a song to recall him again,
The wandering rogue--but she sends it in vain;
For he flies to my heart with a shout of loud laughter
For shelter; and there the pursuer flies after.

Oh, out with thee, mischievous villains, away!
But together they bar themselves in as they say,
"Till this shall be broken we budge not from here,
And the Love-god we'll teach thee to know and to fear."

Emilius stood up impatiently. It was now dark, and Roderick was not come; he was craving to tell him of his love for an unknown beauty who lived opposite to them, and kept him all day watching at the window, and all night waking in his bed. A sound of footsteps on the stairs. The door opened without any one knocking, and in came two gay-looking figures with very ugly masks on their faces; one dressed as a Turk, in a long gown of blue and red; the other as a Spaniard, in a doublet of red and light yellow, and a plume of feathers in his cap. Emilius was getting impatient, when the Turk took off his mask, and shewed the well-known, broad, merry face of Roderick.

"My dear fellow," he said, "what a dismal-looking face! that is not the way to look at carnival-times. I and my young officer friend here are come to carry you off. There is a great ball to-night at the saloon. I know you have sworn never to go about in any other dress than this dingy old every-day black; but come along as you are--it is late."

"As usual," replied Emilius very angrily. "You have forgotten our agreement it seems.--I am exceedingly sorry," he added, turning to the stranger, "that it is not in my power to accompany you. My friend is too hasty in making engagements for me. I cannot possibly leave the house, as I have subjects of importance to talk over with him."

The stranger, who understood Emilius's manner, and felt his visit was ill-timed, took his leave immediately.

Roderick, however, who took it all with the greatest coolness, put on his mask again and stood up before the mirror. "What an object it makes of me!" he said; "it is a miserable, tasteless device after all: don't you think so?"

"What a question!" said Emilius in the greatest indignation. "To make a caricature of yourself, and drown your senses in dissipation, is just the sort of thing you most enjoy."

"Because you do not like dancing," said the other, "and take it to be a pernicious invention, no one else is to amuse himself. How ridiculous it is when a man is made up of nothing but whims and fancies!"

"Yes, indeed," replied his irritated friend, "I am sure I have reason enough to remark it too of you. I had hoped that, as you promised, you would give this one evening to me, but----"

"But it is the carnival," said Roderick, "and all my friends and a number of ladies are expecting me at the great ball to-night. Really, my dear friend, if you will but think of it, you will see it is mere disease in you to feel such extreme dislike to these things."

"Which of us two is most diseased," answered Emilius, "is a point I will not attempt to decide. Your astonishing levity, your craving for dissipation, your restless hunting after pleasures which do not reach the heart, but only leave it sick and weary, does not seem to me to indicate a very healthy frame of mind. Granted, however, if you will, that my feeling is mere weakness, you would do better in some things to let it take its way; and there is nothing in the whole world which drives me more frantic than a ball with its fearful music. Some one has said that to a deaf man, who cannot hear the music, a ball-room must look like Bedlam let loose; but to me this terrible music itself, these infernal tunes whirling and whizzing round with inconceivable swiftness faster and faster, seizing all one's thoughts, saturating one's body and soul, and haunting one like so many spectres,--is not this the very jubilee of frenzy and madness itself? If dancing is ever to be endurable to me, it must be to the tune of silence."

"Well done, Mr. Paradox," said his friend; "you have got to this, have you? to find the innocentest, naturalest, pleasantest thing in the world a horrid, unnatural monster."

"I cannot help my feelings," said he very seriously; "as long as I can remember, these tunes have made me miserable, have often driven me to despair. To me they are the fiends and furies of the world of sound; they squeak and gibber round my head, and grin at me with hideous laughter."

"Mere nervousness," answered the other; "it is just like your ridiculous horror of spiders, and a number of other innocent creatures."

"Innocent you call them," he said passionately, "because they do not affect you; but some people feel, and I am one of them, at the sight of these hideous creatures, such as toads and spiders, or that most odious of all nature's abortions, the bat, their very souls shaken with unutterable horror and loathing; to them they can be neither indifferent nor unmeaning, because their very being is the contradiction of their own. Truly one may laugh at unbelievers whose imagination is too weak for ghosts and hobgoblins, and other children of darkness that we see in fevers or in one of Dante's pictures, when the commonest life gives us master-pieces of all that is most horrible. No one can have a real love for the beautiful unless he feels a hatred of these monsters."

"Why feel hatred?" asked Roderick. "Look at the sea, the great water-kingdom, full of the strangest, comicalest, most amusing figures, the whole deep looking like a grotesque masquerade; why is one to find nothing there but the horrible phantoms your mind makes them seem to you? But these fancies of yours do not stop here; you make an idol of the rose, while for other flowers you have as passionate a hatred. What has the poor orange-lily done to offend you, and the many other beautiful children of the summer? So there are colours you cannot bear, and scents, and thoughts. And you never do any thing to overcome these repugnances; you yield to the first temptation; so that at last, instead of a person, you will be nothing but a bundle of whims and caprices."

Emilius was now angry to the bottom of his heart, and would not answer. He had given up all present purpose of making his communication; indeed, importantly as he had said he had a secret that he wished to tell, his volatile friend seemed to have no curiosity to hear it, but sat playing with his mask on the sofa in the greatest indifference. At last he cried out suddenly, "Be so good, Emilius, as to lend me your large cloak."

"What for?" he asked.

"I hear music in the church yonder," answered Roderick. "I have never happened to be at home any evening at this hour before, and now it comes in just at the very nick of time. I can put on your cloak over my dress; and when the service is over, go on straight to the ball."

Emilius muttered something, and fetched the cloak from his wardrobe, which he flung to Roderick, who had just risen, with an ironical laugh.

"Take my Turkish dagger I bought yesterday, if you please," Roderick said, as he wrapped the cloak round him. "It is rather too serious an article to have about one as a plaything. Some trifle goes wrong, an angry word or two, perhaps, with some one, and no one knows how one might not use it. Adieu till to-morrow then. Peace be with you." He did not wait for an answer, but ran down the stairs.

As soon as Emilius was by himself, he tried to forget his indignation, and take his friend's behaviour as absurd. He took up the white, glittering, beautifully-wrought dagger in his hand, and looked at it. "I wonder," he said to himself, "how a man feels that has run this sharp steel into an enemy's breast? or suppose he was to hurt with it the object of his love." He ran it into the sheath, and then carefully turned back the shutters from his window, and looked across the narrow street. The house opposite was all dark; there was no light stirring; the dear form that dwelt in it, and at this hour was generally to be seen engaged in some household matter, seemed to be away. "Perhaps she is at the ball," thought Emilius; "and yet it is not like her retired ways." Suddenly a light appeared, and a little girl, that his beloved unknown had as a companion, and was usually with her a great part of the day, carried a candle across the room, set it down, and closed the window-shutters. A broken binge prevented them from completely shutting, and an opening remained large enough for any one standing where Emilius was, to see over a part of the little room; and here he would sit in a trance of happiness till long after midnight, watching every gesture, every movement of his beloved's hand. Delightedly he would observe her teaching the child to read, or giving it lessons in sewing and knitting. On inquiry he learnt that this child was a poor orphan whom the beautiful maiden out of compassion had taken to live with her, and was herself educating. It was a mystery to Emilius's friends why he was living in this narrow, out-of-the-way street, in such inconvenient lodgings, and what he could possibly be doing that he was seen so little in society. By himself, and doing nothing, he was most happy as he was; all that vexed him was, that he could not so far overcome his shyness as to seek a nearer acquaintance with this beautiful being, who had more than once encouraged him with a smile of greeting or thanks for some trifling compliment he had ventured to pay. He little knew that she would sit gazing over at him as intoxicated as he; he never guessed what wishes were working in her heart; of what an effort, what a sacrifice she was capable to gain possession of his love.

After walking uneasily up and down his room for some time, and the light and the child had again disappeared, he suddenly came to the resolution, contrary to his inclination and his nature, to go to the ball; it had struck him that his unknown must have made an exception to her usual retired way of living, and gone, for once in a way, to take a taste of the world and its dissipation.

The streets were brilliantly lighted; the snow crackled under his feet. Carriages rolled by, and masques in all sorts of guises past him, chattering and humming as they went along. In a number of houses he heard the odious music; and he could not prevail on himself to take the shortest road to the saloon, to which people were hurrying and streaming from all directions. He walked round the old church, and gazed at the tall spire as it rose up majestically across the sky; the loneliness and silence of the place forming a striking contrast to the thronging of the town. The deep porch of the church was covered with all sorts of carved work, which he had several times examined with the greatest pleasure, and had called back into his memory the days of ancient art and times gone by; and he now stept aside into it for a few moments to give himself up to his meditations.

He had scarcely entered, when his attention was caught by a figure moving restlessly backwards and forwards, and apparently waiting for some one. By the light of a lamp, which was burning before an image of the Virgin, he was able to make out the face as well as the strange dress. It was an old woman with features of the extremest ugliness, which struck the eye the more because they were set off, in a singular manner, against a scarlet boddice covered with gold lace. She wore a dark petticoat, and her cap also glittered with gold. He thought at first it must be some tasteless masque that had missed his way and strayed there by mistake. As she passed under the light, however, it was plain that the old yellow withered face was no imitation, but a real one. Presently two men appeared wrapped in long cloaks; they seemed to approach the place with caution, stop, looking often from side to side, to see if any one followed them.

The old woman went up to them. "Have you got the candles?" she asked hastily, in a gruff, hoarse voice.

"Here they are," said one of the men. "You know the price; it is all right."

The old woman seemed to give some money, which the man counted under his cloak.

"I may rely on it," she said again, "that they are made exactly by the prescription, and that there is no fear of their working?"

"Small doubt about that," answered the man, and disappeared again with hasty steps in the darkness.

The other, who stayed behind, was a young man. He took the old woman's hand, and said, "Is it possible, Alexia, that these rites and forms and strange old words, which I never can have any faith in, have power to fetter the free will of man, and force it to love and to hate?"

"Ay is it, young gentleman," said the old woman; "but one and one must make two before that can be. It is not these candles alone that can do the work, though they are steeped in human blood, and moulded at midnight under the new moon; nor the magic rites, nor the invocation; there are many other things wanted besides these, as the artists in these matters know well."

"Then I may depend on you?" said the stranger.

"To-morrow, after midnight, I am at your service," replied the old woman; "and you shall not be the first to have reason to complain of my skill. To-night, as you may have heard, I have some one else on hand, a fellow with sense and understanding, whom it may be my art shall produce some effect upon." The last words she muttered with a half laugh; and the two then separated and went off in different directions.

Emilius passed out shuddering under the dark arch, and raised his eyes to the image of the Virgin and Child. "Before thy eyes, thou blessed one," he said half aloud, "these children of darkness dare make their schemes for their infernal deeds! Oh, as thou holdest thy Child in thy embrace of love, so may the Invisible Love keep us continually in its all-powerful arms, and our poor hearts beat ever in joy and sorrow in the presence of One greater, who will never let us fall."

Clouds swept by over the tower and the sharp edge of the roof of the church. The everlasting stars looked down serene and calm; and Emilius with a strong effort flung off these horrors of darkness, and thought of the beauty of his unknown. He went back into the crowded streets, and approached the brilliantly illuminated mansion which contained the ball-room. A crowd was round the door, a confused din of voices and carriages rattling backwards and forwards, and at intervals the swell of the alarming music pealing upon his ears.

He had no sooner got into the room than he was lost in the rolling crowd. Dancers sweeping past him; masques running against him and pushing him from side to side; kettle-drums and trumpets dinning in his ear; life itself seemed on a sudden to be turned into a dream. He passed up and down among the rows of people with his eye alert only to find one pair of bright eyes and the brown tresses of one beautiful head. Never had he more passionately longed to catch a sight of her; yet, with the adoration he felt for her, he could not help being provoked to think she could find any pleasure in losing herself in such a stormy ocean of madness and dissipation. "No," he said to himself, "she cannot love me; no heart that loves could seek such an infernal scene, where human beings are turned to fiends, and wild shrieks of laughter, and these trumpets clanging, drown every pure and holy feeling in devilish scorn. The rustling trees, the bubbling fountains, lute-music, and the voice of noble song streaming out from the impassioned bosom,--these are the sounds amidst which is the home of love; but this is the very jubilee and thunder-cry of hell in all the madness of despair."

He could not find the object of his search, however, though he had three times gone up and down the saloon, and scrutinised carefully all the unmasked ladies, either dancing or sitting; and the idea that that beautiful face was concealed under one of the disgusting masks was too intolerable to be admitted for a moment.

"You are here after all, then?" said the Spaniard, who came up and joined him. "You are looking for your friend, I suppose?"

Emilius had really never thought of him. Somewhat ashamed, he replied, "Indeed I am surprised not to see him here. His mask is remarkable enough."

"Only conceive what the strange fellow is about," said the young officer. "He has not danced once since he has been in the saloon. Directly he entered he fell in with his friend Anderson, who, it seems, has just come back from his travels. Their conversation fell upon literature; and as Anderson did not know the new poem which has just come out, nothing would satisfy Mr. Roderick but that they must shut themselves up in one of the back rooms; and there he is now with a single candle reading the whole production aloud to him."

"That is so like him," answered Emilius. "He is made up of whims and fancies. I have done all I could--I have even risked one or two friendly quarrels--to cure him of this way of living so altogether extempore, gambling away his existence in impromptus; but these follies are so grown into his heart, that he would sooner lose his dearest friend than part with them. This book you speak of he professes to be passionately fond of, and always has it about with him. The other day I asked him to read it to me, and he began to do so. We had scarcely got beyond the opening, and I had begun to enter into the beauties of it, when suddenly he jumped up, ran out of the room, and presently came back with the cook's apron on, made a prodigious fuss to light a fire, and all to do me a beef-steak, for which I had not the slightest inclination, and which, though he fancies he does them better than any one in Europe, few people that have tried once are very anxious to attempt a second time."

The Spaniard laughed. "Has he never been in love?" he asked.

"After his fashion," said Emilius bitterly; "as if he wanted to make a fool of himself and turn love into ridicule; with a dozen women at once, and, if you believe what he says, to desperation. In a week he has forgotten them all."

They were parted by the crowd, and Emilius went off to the room the Spaniard had pointed out to him, where he heard his friend's voice declaiming long before he reached it.

"Ah! there you are, are you!" Roderick cried to him; "you are come in the very nick of time; we are just at the place you and I left off at the other day; so sit down and listen."

"I am not in the mood at present," said Emilius; "neither do place and time seem the best adapted for the purpose."

"And why not, pray?" answered Roderick. "It is all in ourselves. Every time is the right time to employ oneself in a proper way. Or perhaps you want to dance? They want men; and at the expense of an hour or two skipping about, and a pair of tired legs, you may make half a dozen grateful young damsels fall in love with you."

Emilius was already at the door: "Good night," he said; "I am going home."

"Stay one moment," called Roderick after him; "I am going away early to-morrow morning into the country with this gentleman. I will look in upon you before I go, to say good-by; but if you are asleep, don't trouble yourself to wake, as I shall be back again in two or three days.--That is the strangest fellow," he said, turning to his new friend; "so solemn, so serious and soberminded, he is a regular kill-joy; or rather, he does not know what joy means. Every thing must be lofty, ideal, exalted, for him. His heart must take a part, even if it be a puppetshow he is looking at; and when things do not come up to his notions, as of course most things can't, then he gets upon stilts, turns tragical, and the whole world is going to the devil. Under every clown's and pantaloon's mask he looks for a heart overflowing with longings and supernatural impulses; harlequins must philosophise on the nothingness of human wishes: and if these expectations are not exactly realised, tears start into his eyes, and he turns his back on the pretty show in a fever of scorn and indignation."

"Is he melancholy?" asked his hearer.

"Not exactly that," said Roderick; "only his parents, I think, indulged him too much, and he has taken no pains with himself. He has let his feelings ebb and flow regularly, till it has grown into a habit; and if ever the usual set of emotions are put out, he cries, 'A miracle!' and offers premiums to doctors to come and clear up a marvellous natural phenomenon. He is the best fellow in the world; but all the pains I have taken to cure him of these absurdities are thrown away: nothing does him any good. It is as much as I can do to keep in his good graces at all, he is so angry when I speak to him."

"A doctor would be the thing for him, I should think," said the other.

"It is one of his peculiarities," answered Roderick, "to despise the whole art of medicine from beginning to end. Disorders, he says, are all different in different persons, and all general rules and theories are mere absurdities. He would rather go to old women, and use their sympathetic simples. Again, on other grounds, he despises all prudential proceedings, and every thing like orderliness and moderation. From his childhood he has had his ideal of what a great man ought to be, and what his endeavour is to be to make of himself; and one of the points of this ideal is to have an utter scorn of all _things_, particularly of money; and so, that he may never be suspected of being economical, or not liking to give away, or indeed of thinking of money at all, he flings it away in the absurdest way in the world. Consequently, with all his fine property, he is always poor and in difficulties, and is made a fool of by every one who is not great in the sense in which he understands greatness. To be his friend is the most difficult of things; for he is so irritable, that if one does but cough, it is a sign one is not spiritual, and to pick one's teeth would throw him into convulsions."

"Has he never been in love?" inquired Anderson.

"Why, who is he to love?" answered Roderick: "he despises all the daughters of earth. If his ideal were to shew a fancy for a bow or a ribbon, much more to dance, it would break his heart. And if she did but catch a cold, I don't know what would become of him."

Emilius was again in the crowd; when on a sudden the shock and pain which such scenes and concourses often produced came over him again, and chased him away out of the room and the house, along the now empty streets, to his house. It was not till he found himself alone in his own room that he recovered his self-possession. His servant lit his candle and placed it on the table; and Emilius told him to go to bed. The other side of the street all was dark as the grave; and he sat himself down to let the thoughts the ball had awakened in him flow off into a poem.

There was calm in the spirit's depths;
In chains the demons slept;
With purpose fell to work his ill
Uprose the wicked will.
"Fling wide," he cried,
"The prison-gate,
Come forth, ye demons all!"
With yell and shout
That hideous rout
Sprung out at the welcome call.

Tralala! Tralala!
Whoop, whoop, whoop, hurrah, hurrah!
Trumpet crash and cymbal clash;
Flute, and fife, and violin,
Squeaking, shrieking, clattering;
Clarions ring with deafening din;
Now hell's chorus shall begin,
Now the fiends of madness reign;
Gentle child-like peace is slain.

In and out, across, about,
Whither pass this tumbling rout?
Merry dance we, and the lights flash free,
Jubilee, jubilee, jubilee!
Kettle-drums bang and cymbals clang,
And the devil drown care in the pool of despair.

With smiling lip and flashing eye
Yon fair one bids me to her side;
Yet silent soon those lips shall lie,
And wither'd be her beauty's pride.
Death's clammy hand is on her brow--
Ha! 'tis a skull that's beckoning now!
She must die; yet what care I?
Well to-day and well to-morrow,
What have I to do with sorrow?
Ay, grin as thou wilt, thou pale spectre, at me;
I'll live and dance on, and I care not for thee.

To-day that face is fresh and fair,
To-morrow 'tis bleach'd, and white, and bare:
Come then, dearest, while we may,
Let us drain love's sweets to-day.
Oh, seize the moment ere it flies!
Anguish and tears,
Sorrow and fears,
Have mark'd thee for their prize.
The angel of death
Swept by on the blast;
On thee fell his breath
Or ever he past.
Gnawing worms and rottenness,
Death, decay, and nothingness:
These are thy doom--how soon, how soon!
Thou must die, and so must I.

One touch of thy robe, as the dance sweeps by,
One squeeze of the hand, one glance of the eye,
And the grim king has clutch'd thee--on! on! let us fly!
Thou art lost, thou art gone; and away stagger I.
So why should I care?
There is joy in despair:
More maids by dozens at my feet,
With tempting bait of proffer'd sweet.
Here's a fair dame would be my bride,
And she is fair as are the maids
That wander in Elysian glades:
Shall it be she, or shall it be another?
There's a bold beauty at her side,
That looks as if she'd like a lover,
Ready to take whate'er she can,
Provided only 'tis a man.

Oh, these mad pleasures and these sirens smiling,
With cheating hopes and mocking shows beguiling--
Hell's curse is on them! Is the blossom fair?
Hate, envies, murders, are the fruit they bear.
So fast we whirl along the stream,
Life is death, and love a dream;
Ebbing, flowing, wave on wave,
Soulless, lifeless to the grave.
Nature's beauty is a lie--
She is all deformity;
Flower and tree the mocking guise
Which cheat our fond believing eyes.
On then, ye cymbals, with your din;
Scream clarionets, and bugles ring:
Crash, crash, crash! 'tis the fiend-world's knell,
Yoicks forward--forward--home to hell!

He had finished, and was standing at the window. Then came she into the room beyond him, beautiful as he had never seen her: her dark hair was loose, and hung in long waving tresses on her ivory neck. She was lightly dressed, and it seemed she had some household matter to arrange before retiring to rest; for she placed two candles on stands in front of the window, spread a cloth on the table, and again disappeared.

Emilius was sunk in his sweet dreamy visions, and the image of his beloved was still playing before his fancy, when, to his horror, he saw the fearful scarlet old woman stride across the room, her head and bosom gleaming hideously as the gold caught the light from the candles, and again vanished. Could he trust his eyes? The darkness had deceived him; it was but a spectre his fancy had conjured up. But no; she comes again, more hideous than before; her long grizzled hair in loose and tangled masses floating down upon her breast and shoulders. The beautiful maiden is behind her, with pale and rigid features, her fair bosom all unveiled, her form like a marble statue. Between them was the little lovely child, weeping and praying, and watching imploringly the maiden's eyes, who looked not down. In agony it raised its little hands and stroked the neck and cheeks of the marble beauty. She caught it fast by the hair, and in the other hand she held a silver basin. The old woman howled and drew a knife and cut across the little thing's white neck.

Then came there something forward from behind, which they did not seem to see, or it must have filled them with the same horror as it did Emilius. A hideous serpent-head drew out coil after coil from the darkness, and inclining over the child, which now hung with relaxed limbs in the arms of the old woman, licked up with its black tongue the spouting blood. And a green sparkling eye shot across through the open shutter into the brain and eye and heart of Emilius, who fell fainting to the ground. Roderick found him senseless some hours after.

* * * * *

On a beautiful summer morning a party of friends were sitting round a breakfast-table in a garden summer-house. They seemed very merry, laughing and chattering, and drinking the health of the young bride and bridegroom, and wishing them long life and happiness. The young couple themselves were not present; the beauty herself being still engaged at her toilet, while the bridegroom was wandering up and down the walks at the other end of the garden, to enjoy in solitude the sweetness of his own reflections.

"What a shame it is," said Anderson, "that we are not to have any music! All our young ladies are put out about it: they say they never longed so much for a dance, and it is not to be: it is said he cannot endure it."

"We are to have a ball though, I can tell you, and a right mad and merry one too," said a young officer; "every thing is arranged; the musicians are come, and we have stowed them away where no one shall know any thing about them. Roderick has taken the direction on himself; he says we ought not to give way to him too much; and that to-day, of all days in the world, his whims and fancies must not be indulged."

"He is so much more sociable and like his fellow-creatures than he used to be," said another young man, "that I do not think he will be displeased at the alteration. The whole affair of this marriage has come on so suddenly, so little like what we expected of him, he must be changed."

"His whole life," said Anderson, "has been as remarkable as his character is. You all know how he came last autumn to the city on a tour he was making, and lived all the winter through there by himself, shut up in his room as if he was melancholy mad. He never went near the theatre, or any other of our places of diversion; and had very nearly quarrelled with Roderick, who was his most intimate friend, for trying to dissipate him a little, and prevent him from for ever indulging his gloomy humours. All this excitableness and irritability of temper was at the bottom nothing but disease, as the event proved; for four months ago, I believe you know, he fell into a violent nervous fever, and was so ill that every one gave him up. He recovered at last, and got rid of some of his fancies; but the strange thing was, that when he came to his senses again, his memory was entirely gone: his memory, that is, of all that had happened immediately previous to his sickness. He could remember his childhood, and all his boyish adventures were fresh as ever; but the last year or two were blanks. All his friends, even Roderick, he had to become acquainted with over again; and it is only by slow degrees that here and there faint glimmerings of the past are beginning to come back upon his recollection. When he was taken ill, his uncle took him into his own house, where he could be better attended to: he was just like a child in their hands, and let them do any thing they pleased with him. The first time he went out to enjoy the fresh spring-air in the park, he saw by the road-side a young maiden sitting apparently in deep thought on a bank. She looked up as he passed; their eyes met, and, as if overcome by some indescribable feeling, he sprung out of the carriage, sat down at her side, caught her hands in his, and dissolved into a flood of tears. His friends were afraid that this outburst of feeling was a relapse into fever; he was quite quiet, however, and seemed happy and good-humoured. He paid a visit to the parents of the young lady, and the first time he saw her again he asked her to marry him. Her father and mother made no difficulty, and she consented. He was now happy; a new life seemed to have sprung up in him; every day he got better and stronger, and his mind easier: a fortnight ago he came here on a visit to me, and the place delighted him so much that nothing would satisfy him but what I must part with it to him. If I had pleased, I might have turned his inclination to my advantage: any thing I asked he was ready to give, so that the bargain be concluded immediately. He made his arrangements, sent furniture down, and his plan is to spend all the summer months here. And so it has come to pass that here we are all of us to-day gathered together at my old place for his wedding."

The house was large, and most beautifully situated; on one side it looked upon a river, with a garden sloping down to the water's edge full of flowers, which filled the air with fragrance; and beyond, a long range of hills skirting the bank of the river, and magnificently wooded. Along the front was a broad open terrace, with rows of orange and citron trees, and little doors leading to the various offices underneath the house. The other side a lawn extended out to the park, from which it was only divided by a light fence. This front of the house had a very beautiful though very singular appearance. The two projecting wings enclosed a spacious area, which was partly roofed over, and divided into three stories, forming open galleries running along the centre of the building, supported on tiers of pillars rising one above another. From these galleries were doors opening into all the different rooms in the house; and the various figures passing along these spacious corridors, behind the columns above or below, and disappearing into the different doors, in their various occupations, produced a very singular effect. In one or other of them the party used to collect itself at teatime, or for any games that might be going on; so that from below the whole had the air of a theatre, when it was the greatest pleasure to stand and watch the passing forms above, as in a beautiful tableau.

The young party were just rising, when the bride crossed the garden to join them. She was richly dressed in violet velvet, with a necklace of brilliants on her ivory throat, and her white swelling bosom gleaming through the rich lace which covered it; a myrtle sprig and a wreath of roses formed her simple though most tasteful head-dress. She greeted them kindly, and the young men were overcome by her extraordinary beauty. She had gathered some flowers in the garden, and was returning to the house to see after the arrangements for the banquet. The tables were set out in the lowest of the open galleries. Their white damask coverings, and the glass and crystal vessels on them, were of the greatest beauty. Multitudes of flowers of every hue and colour stood in elegant vases; the pillars were wound with wreaths of green leaves and roses; and how enchanting it was to see the bride moving up and down among the flowers, so gracefully passing between the table and the column, looking that all was right in the arrangement. Presently she vanished, and then appeared again for a moment at the upper gallery as she passed to her chamber.

"She is the most charming, the most beautiful creature I ever saw," Anderson cried; "my friend is a lucky man."

"And her very paleness," put in the young officer, "enhances her beauty; her dark eyes flash so above those marble cheeks; and those lips, so glowingly red, make her whole appearance truly enchanting."

"The air of silent melancholy," said Anderson, "which surrounds her, adds to the majesty of her bearing."

The bridegroom came up to them and asked for Roderick. The party had already missed him for some time, and no one could guess what had become of him; they now dispersed in search of him. At last a young man they asked told them he was down below in the hall, playing off tricks at cards, to the great amazement of a troop of grooms and servants. They went down and disturbed the circle of gapers. Roderick, however, did not let himself be put out, but went on for some time with his conjuring. As soon as he had done, he went with the rest of the party into the garden, saying, by way of accounting for his employment, "I merely do it to strengthen those fellows' faith for them. Their groomships are setting up to be free-thinkers, and it is as well to give them a staggerer now and then--it helps to their conversion."

"I perceive," the bridegroom said, "that my friend, among his other accomplishments, does not think charlatanism beneath his notice."

"We live in strange times," he answered; "one must not despise any thing now-a-days; nobody knows what he may not come to."