Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

He inquired most eagerly for any news, and said he had not seen a paper for almost a week, as the wet weather had interfered with visitors, preventing any one from coming out. When I left he repeatedly invited me to come again, which I promised to do, as in our slight intercourse we had struck up a mutual friendship. My interest, too, had been increased, as I plainly saw that his life had become distasteful to him, and I had considerable curiosity to ascertain whether he would, according to his promise, remain the two full years upon the Crib; at any rate, I concluded that I would not lose sight of him.

Directly after this visit, business arrangements called me away from home, and detained me in New York City without interruption until last May. During this period, of course, I had no means of learning any thing whatever concerning Gustav Stahlmann. On my return, the first glimpse I caught of the familiar lake recalled him to my memory, and revived the old interest. I determined to renew our former acquaintance, but found, to my great disappointment, that all visitors to the Crib had been prohibited by the authorities soon after I was called from home; yet I did not give up in my attempt to find out if he still remained in his situation. After many fruitless inquiries, I finally learned that he was dead. This was the only knowledge I could gain, and, disappointed by the sad intelligence, I dismissed the subject from my mind.

A week ago I made the startling discovery that the Crib at the eastern terminus of the lake tunnel, within the year following its completion, had been the scene of a tragedy, the particulars of which, when I learned them, thrilled me with horror, and called forth my profoundest sympathy for the poor victim. The whole circumstance had been so carefully kept secret by an enforced reticence on the part of the authorities, that beyond two or three individuals no one in Chicago had the slightest suspicion of the sickening drama which was enacted but two miles from her shores.

I was walking through the Court House looking at the arrangement of the newly erected portion of the building, and while in the rooms occupied by the Water Board, I accidentally stumbled upon an old memorandum book which had evidently been misplaced during the recent removal of this department from their old quarters on Wells Street to the first floor of the west wing. Upon examination it proved to be a kind of diary, and was written with pencil in the German character. On the inside of the front cover, near the upper right hand corner, was inscribed the name Gustav Stahlmann, and underneath a date—1865. A small portion of the book, the first part, was filled with accounts, some of them of expenditures, others memoranda of days’ work in different parts of the city, and under various foremen. But it was to the body of the book that my attention was particularly called. This was in the journal form, being a record of successive occurrences with the attending thoughts. The entries were made at irregular intervals and without any regard to system. Sometimes it had been written in daily for a considerable period, then dropped, and taken up again apparently at the whim of the owner. In places there appeared no connection between the parts separated by a break of even short duration; at others the sense was obscure, and could only be attained by implication. The earliest records in the second part were in June, 1867, and I found dates regularly inserted as late as the November following. In December they ceased entirely; afterward the diary, if such it might then be called, was either by the day or the week, or without any direct evidence as to the time when the circumstances therein narrated had occurred. In fact, throughout the whole of the concluding portion there was nothing to indicate that the matter had not been written on a single occasion, except the variations which almost every person’s hand-writing exhibits when produced under different degrees of nervous excitement.

From this black morocco memorandum book; from the hand-writing of Gustav Stahlmann himself, I learned the incidents of his career after I parted from him. They constitute the history of a fate so horrible in every respect, that I shudder at the thought that any human being was doomed to experience it.

The main facts in this narrative I have translated, sometimes literally, at others using my own language, where the thoughts in the original were so carelessly or obscurely expressed as to render any other course simply impossible.

It seems, as I supposed, that when Stahlmann was first settled in the Crib, he was greatly pleased with his situation. The weather was mild and beautiful; the fresh air blowing across the water was a grateful change from the close and dusty atmosphere of Chicago. Many of his old friends came out to take a look at his new quarters, and almost surveyed them with envy while listening to an account of his easy, untroubled life. At dusk, after he had lighted his lamp, and it threw out its rays, he would watch to see how suddenly in the distance, as if to keep it company, the great white beacon in the lighthouse would flash out, burning bright and clear. Then along the western shore the city lights, one by one, would kindle up, multiplying into a thousand twinkling stars that threw a halo against the sky. Afterwards the soughing of the waves as they washed up the sides of his abode, fell pleasantly on his ear, and lulled him to sleep with Caspar lying at his feet.

But it seemed as if the same day came again and again, for still the waters broke around him, and still night after night the same lights flashed and burned. Then the time appeared to become longer, and he watched more eagerly for the arrival of some visitors, but, if his watching had been in vain, he went wearily to sleep at night with a feeling of disappointment, only to waken and go through the same cheerless routine. Sometimes for a whole week he would not see a single human being nor hear the sound of a human voice, save his own when he spoke to the dog, who seemed by sagacious instinct to sympathize in his master’s lonesome position, and capered about until he would attract his attention, and be rewarded by an approving word and caress upon the head.

Visitors had become less and less frequent until the last of September, when they ceased altogether. Stahlmann in trying to explain this to himself correctly concluded that the authorities must have prohibited them, as he had heard some time previously they entertained such an intention, although he had been reluctant to believe it, and still vainly hoped that it might not be true. But time only confirmed the suspicion which he had been so unwilling to accept, and although within two miles of a crowded city, he found himself completely isolated, cut off, as it were, from the human race.

Then he searched for something that might amuse him and help wear away the interminable days, but he found nothing. He would have been glad even if only the old newspapers had been preserved that he might re-read them, but they were destroyed, and he owned no books. His former severe labor, performed in company with his fellow men, was now far preferable in his eyes to this complete solitude, with nothing to occupy his hands or mind. He saw the vessels pass until they seemed to become companions for him in his loneliness; he had watched them all the Summer, but the winds grew chill and rough, sweeping out of sullen clouds, and boisterously drove home the ships.

Stahlmann found himself utterly alone on the wide lake, and the fierce blasts howled around his frame house, covering it with spray from the lashing billows that seemed ready to engulf it. Crusts of ice formed and snapped, rattling down to the waves. Heavy snow fell, but did not whiten the unchanging scenery, for it was drowned in the waste of waters. Night after night he lit the beacon and looked yearningly westward to the starred city. Then the solitude grew intolerable. It was like the vision of heaven to the lost spirits shut out in darkness forever. He was alone, all alone, craving even for the sound of a kindred voice, so that he cried out in his anguish. The flickering lights he was watching threw their rays over thousands of human beings, yet there was not one to answer his despairing call.

Sleep would no longer allow him to forget that he was shut out from all human society, for he lost consciousness of his lonesome position only to find himself struggling in some nightmare ocean, where there was no eye to see his distress. Then he would be awakened by the dog rubbing his nose against his face, and knew he had groaned aloud in his troubled slumber, and Caspar had crawled closer, as if to comfort his unhappy master. Sometimes the tempter whispered escape—escape from this Crib, which had been so correctly named, for it had, indeed, become a dismal cage. He felt himself strong to combat the waves in flying from the horrible solitude; he could swim twice the distance in his eagerness to be once again among his fellow beings; but his high principles shrank in horror from the thought of violating a promise. He had solemnly given his word that he would remain upon the place, and it bound him stronger than chains of iron. He cast the thought, which had dared to arise in his mind, from him with a sense of shame that it had been a moment entertained.

Early on one bitter cold night, when his house was thick-ribbed with ice, Stahlmann noticed a great light, which increased until it illumined all the western sky. He saw the city spires as plainly as though bathed in the rays of the setting sun, and the lurid glare lit up the waters, making the surrounding blackness along the lake shore appear more terrible. The fire brightened and waned, brightened and waned again. He watched it far into the night, and thought of the thousands of anxious faces that were turned toward the same light, until he fell into a troubled sleep, yearning for the sight of a single countenance. This fire which he witnessed must have been the great conflagration on Lake Street that occurred in February, 1868.

He was sitting one dull, cloudy afternoon, looking out over the dreary waves, when his attention was attracted by the strange behavior of Caspar. The dog was greatly excited; it would jump about him, whining and howling, then run to the door, which stood partly open, and look down into the water, at the same time giving a short, quick yelp. This was repeated so frequently that Stahlmann was aroused from his gloomy reverie. He followed it to the threshold, and saw for an instant some black object that the waves threw up against the Crib. A second time it arose, and Stahlmann plunged into the water with the quick instinct that prompts a brave man to peril his own life in attempting to save another from drowning. In one moment more he had grasped the body, and fastened it to the rope ladder that hung down the western side of the Crib. Then mounting it himself, he drew it up after him on to the floor.

It was the form of a young man, and Stahlmann eagerly kneeled over it, hoping yet to find a faint spark of vitality. A glance showed him that the body must have been in the water several hours, for it was already somewhat bloated; but even then, in his mad desire to restore life, he rubbed the stiffened limbs; but the rigid muscles did not relax. He wrung the water from the black hair, which in places was short and crisp, looking as if it might have been singed by fire. The features were not irregular, but the open eyes had a stony, death-glaze on them, and the broad forehead was cut across in gashes which had evidently been made by the waves beating it against the walls of the Crib. The hands were clenched and slightly blistered.

Stahlmann’s frenzied exertions could not call back the departed spirit, and he sat gazing wildly upon it in his bitter disappointment. Then a startling thought broke suddenly into his mind—What, out in his desolate and watery home, could he do with the dead? Where could he put the stiffened corpse? But as the night came on, he arose to light the beacon; then descended again immediately, taking up his former position by the lifeless form, for it appeared to exert a peculiar fascination over him; he felt a strange kind of pleasure in the presence of the form of a human being, even though it were dead. He seemed to have found a companion, and the thought, which had startled him at first died from his memory.

Hour after hour as he sat beside the corpse; its strange influence increased, until it gradually filled up in his troubled heart the aching void which had so yearned for society. He left it only as necessity called him away to attend to his duties, each time returning with increasing haste. Day by day the spell continued, and he grew to regard the dead body with all the tenderness he would have manifested toward a living brother. He did not shrink from the cold, clammy skin when he raised the head to place it on a stool, but sat and talked to it. He asked why it looked at him with that stony glare, and why its face had turned that dark and ugly color; but when no answer came, he said he realized that it was dead and could not speak. Then the terrible truth flashed upon him. With a groan he saw that he could keep the corpse no longer, and the thought which had startled him once before crept in again with increased significance. Where could he bury it? In the bottom of the lake, where nothing would disturb its peace. He gently let it down into the water, and, as he saw it disappear, he awoke to wild grief at losing it, and would have plunged in to rescue it the second time, but it was gone from sight forever.

Might not this body have been one of the lost from the ill-fated Sea Bird, which burned in the beginning of April, 1868, a few miles north of the city? Stahlmann must have found it about this time.

His grief for the loss of his dead companion grew upon him each day, and rendered the solitude more unendurable. Solitude? It was no longer solitude, for the place was peopled by the phantom creations of his inflamed imagination. Here a part of the diary is altogether incoherent, showing into what utter confusion his intellect had been thrown.

The waves roared at him in anger, and the winds joined them in their rage. Fiendish spirits seemed to rise up before him that were fierce to clutch him and gloat over his terror. The lights in the west danced together and glared at him in mockery, and his own beacon threw its cold white rays over the familiar aperture where the iron rods of the water-gates rose; but that opening had suddenly become an undefined horror to him. The very terror with which he regarded it drew him to its verge. He cast his eyes into its depths, down upon the troubled but black and silent water, and glared at the vision which met his strained sight, for the ghostly face of the man who had been murdered in the tunnel peered at him through the uncertain light.

There was only the dog that he could fly to in his agony, but it, too, had a strange appearance and answered his call by low plaintive howls that sent a shiver through his frame. He repeated its name aloud, and Caspar crawled closer to his master, still at times making moans that sounded sorrowful—almost like the pleading of a human voice in distress, and he thought its eyes had a strange reproachful gaze. While he spoke to it, the dog uttered a prolonged wail. Stahlmann shivered, and a cold chill crept through his blood; all his superstition was roused afresh. The wind lost its rage and died down to funeral-sobs. The sound of the waves fell into a dirge-like cadence, and that melancholy wail which had chilled his blood rang in his ears—it rang with the awful significance of an evil omen long after it had died upon the air. The dog lay perfectly motionless; he stooped to stroke it, but it did not move. He stared at it with a bewildered gaze, when suddenly the horrible reality with the fearful explanation, broke upon his half-crazed brain, and he staggered back with a wild shriek. In the utter misery of his solitude, in his strange grief for the loss of the drowned corpse, and his terror from the hallucinations of a disordered intellect, he had neglected to feed his faithful dog, and had starved to death the only living creature that existed for him in the world. Caspar was dead.

Stahlmann in his agony seemed to hear once more the piteous cry which the dog had uttered with its expiring breath, and to him the wail sounded in its pathetic mournfulness like the mysterious herald of another death.

The diary is so blurred at this point that it is hardly legible. What can be read is incomprehensible from broken, incoherent sentences—the empty language of a lunatic. Save one remaining passage, I could make out nothing further. This entry must have been written in a lucid interval when he realized to what a fearful condition he had been reduced by unbroken solitude. Because it is the last record, I translate it literally, as follows:

“That cry again—what have I come through? Hell with its host of furies
can not be worse than this awful Crib—I kill myself.

G. STAHLMANN.”

What remains is soon told. A few inquiries in the proper direction revealed that on the morning of the first of May, 1868, when the tug boat from Chicago made its usual trip to the Crib to supply provisions, the dog was discovered dead upon the floor, and near by—just to the right of the entrance, and about ten feet distant from it—hung the dead body of Gustav Stahlmann, suspended by the neck from one of the rafters. It was at once cut down and the Coroner quietly notified. Among his few effects was found the memorandum book which so curiously came into my possession.

The authorities were in no way to blame for this unfortunate occurrence. On that day they placed several persons in charge of this lonely structure and have changed them at regular intervals ever since. Because if the circumstance were known, they were fearful they could get no one to fill the situation, either on account of the solitude or from the fact that many persons are afraid to live in a house that has been the scene of a suicide—they wisely concluded to say nothing whatever about the melancholy event, and, as I said before, few persons in the city are acquainted with its details.

PROF. KELLERMANN’S FUNERAL.

It had snowed persistently all day, and now, at night, the wind had risen and blew in furious gusts against the windows, a bleak December gale.

The Professor tramped steadily up and down his floor, up and down his floor, from wall to wall and back again. It was not a cheerful room; with but one strip of carpet, a chair or two, a table and bedstead, and one dim tallow candle, flickering in a vain struggle to give any thing better than a sickly light, which was afflicted, at uncertain intervals, with violent convulsions. No, it was not a pleasant place, for the Professor was poor, and lived a lonely, hermit-like life in the heart of the great German city.

He had no relations—no friends. He was not a popular man, though he had once been well known, and the public had all applauded his great scholarship. His books, one after another, as they came out, if they brought him no money, had brought him some fame then; but the last one had appeared years ago, and been commented upon, and conscientiously put aside, and the public, never very much interested in the author personally, had about forgotten him.

During these long years he had been living secluded, waging a perpetual war with himself. Entangled in the meshes of the subtile German infidelity, which was at variance with his earlier training, he found himself encompassed about by unbelief—unbelief in the orthodox theology of his youth, unbelief, also, in the philosophy of this metaphysical land. A man of vast learning, and a close student, he discovered his knowledge to be always conflicting; and thus the long debate within him was no nearer a termination than at the moment when the first doubt had asserted itself.

Preyed upon by this harassing mental anxiety, and by encroaching poverty, he was seized by a nervous fever, which had gradually undermined his health, and almost disordered his mind.

And now, this night, in a condition of exhaustion, weary of life and its ceaseless struggle—without friends, without money, without hope—his black despair, like the evil tempter, rose before him and suggested a thought from which he had at first drawn back appalled. But it was only for a moment. Why not put an end forever to all these troubles? Had he not worked for years, and had he ever done the world any good, or had the world ever done him any good? No! The world was retrograding daily. The selfishness of humanity, instead of lessening, was constantly growing worse. How had they repaid him for his long studies? He had shut himself up and labored over heavy questions in metaphysics—sifting, searching, reading, thinking—only for a few thankless ones, who had glanced at his works, smiled a faint smile of praise, and straightway left them and him to be lost again in obscurity!

The future was dark, the present a labyrinth of care and suffering, from which there was but the one escape. Then why not accept it? So he had been arguing with himself all the evening, and, in his growing excitement, pacing the floor of his garret to and fro with a quick, nervous tread. But there had another cause risen in his mind which he, at first, would hardly acknowledge to himself.

A faint, undefined shadow, as it were, of his early faith stirred within him, and before him the “oblivion” of death was peopled with a thousand appalling fancies, illumined by the red flame of an eternal torment. In vain he strove to dispel it by remembering the more rational doctrine of reason, that death is but a dreamless sleep, lasting forever.

Suddenly, feeling conscious of the heinousness of the crime he was meditating, and knowing that he was in an unnatural feverish condition, he paused abruptly in his hurried tramp, stood a few moments utterly motionless, then, dropping on his knees, he made a vow that he would take twenty-four hours to consider the deed, and, if it were done, it should not be done rashly. “Hear me, O Heaven!” Springing up, he cried; “Heaven! Heaven!—There is no Heaven! Vow!—to whom did I vow? There is no God!” Muttering a faint laugh, he said, after a moment: “I vowed to myself; and the vow shall be kept. Not all the theories and philosophies of Germany shall cheat me out of it.”

It seemed like the last struggle of his soul to assert itself. Almost staggering with exhaustion, he fell upon the bed and slept.

A gentle breeze from the far past blew around him in his native land. He saw the white cliff at whose base the sea-foam threw up its glittering spray with a ceaseless strain of music. He saw the green meadows, where the quiet, meek-eyed cattle found a pasture, stretching away to the green hills, where flocks of sheep browsed in the pleasant shade beneath the tall oak trees. He saw, far off on the highest summit of the wavy ridge, the turrets of the great castle rear themselves above the foliage like a crown—the royal diadem upon all these sun-bathed hills and valleys. He stood within the cottage, the happy cottage under the sheltering sycamores; and, brighter, clearer, more beautiful than all these, he saw a face look down upon him with a calm and earnest smile. It was the home of his childhood, it was the face of his mother, all raised in the mirage of sleep—a radiant vision lifted from the heavy gloom of forty years, years upon which Immanuel Kant, years upon which the Transcendental school had crept with their baleful influence, poisonous as the deadly nightshade.

He struggled to speak, and wakened. A dream, yes, all a dream! He pressed his hands against his brow—A dream? Yes, childhood had been but a dream. Life itself is but an unhappy dream!

The wild December wind still blew with a rattling noise against the windows, and sometimes swept round the corner with a dreary, half-smothered cry. The candle had burned down almost to the socket, and was seized more frequently than before with its painful spasms, making each gaunt shadow of the few pieces of furniture writhe in a weird, silent dance on the wall. As the Professor sat on the bed, they appeared to him like voiceless demons, performing some diabolical ceremony, luring his soul to destruction. Then they seemed moving in fantastic measure to a soundless dirge, which he strained his ears to hear, when the candle burned steadily, and they paused in their dumb incantation.

A loud knock, which shook the door, made the Professor start up amazed, and the shadows re-begin their uncanny pantomime. For a moment he stood stupefied with surprise. It was far in the small hours of the night, and visitors at any time were unknown. He had lived there for months an utter stranger, and no footsteps but his own had ever crossed the floor. An uncontrollable fit of trembling came upon him, and he lay down once more, thinking it all the creation of his overwrought fancy. But the knock was repeated louder than before, and the gaunt shadows again made violent signals to each other in their speechless dialect, as though their grim desires were just then upon the eve of accomplishment.

With an effort the Professor got up and said “Come!” but the word died away in his throat, a faint whisper. He tried it a second time; then, partially overruling the weakness that had seized upon him, crossed the room and opened the door.

“Good gracious! What’s the matter with you?” said a voice from out of the dark on the landing.

It was the son of the undertaker, who lived down stairs. They were not acquainted, and had never spoken, but they had often passed each other in the street—though, until that moment, the Professor was not aware that he had ever even noticed him; but now he recognized him and drew back. The young man, however, entered uninvited.

“I say, what the deuce is the matter with you?”

“Nothing! What do you want, sir?”

“Want? Why your face is as white as a sheet, and your eyes, your eyes are—confound me if I want any thing!” he said, backing to the door in alarm.

Indeed, the expression which rested on the features of the Professor was hardly pleasant to look at alone, and in the night. But, having followed his instinct, so far as to his bodily preservation, and having backed into the hall so that the Professor could hardly distinguish the outline of his figure, the young man’s courage got the better of his fright. He came to a standstill, passed his hand nervously round his neck, cleared his throat several times, and then, in a husky voice—caused, evidently, by his recent alarm, and not by the message, singular as it was, that he came to deliver—said,—

“We want you. It is Christmas—we want you for a corpse.”

It may have been a very ordinary thing to them, considering their profession, to want people for corpses, either at Christmas or any other time; but it was hardly an ordinary thing to the Professor to be wanted for one; and the announcement was certainly somewhat startling, made in a sepulchral tone from out the gloom. It was still stranger that the young man himself appeared rather faint-hearted for one who entertained so malevolent a desire, and had the boldness to make the assertion outright. The Professor for a moment fairly thought him in league with the shadows, for they were at work once more, beckoning and pointing fiercely, as the wind swept up the staircase, to the indistinct figure out in the dusk, that was the son of the undertaker, and who said again,—

“We want you, sir, for a corpse—”

Here he paused abruptly, to clear his throat anew, as though he found himself disagreeably embarrassed by the unfriendly appearance of his host, whose face, if it had been pale at first, was of a gray, ashen color now. He evidently could not see why his request should have been taken in such ill part, and he stammered and stuttered, and was about ready to begin again, when the Professor said,—

“You will likely get me.”

The peculiar expression that rested upon the Professor’s mouth as he uttered these words, was hardly encouraging; but the young man—as though every body would recognize that it was absolutely essential to them, in order that they might celebrate the great gala-day with their family, to have a corpse, just as other people have a tree—immediately brightened up, and, advancing a step or two, said gratefully,—

“I am very glad, sir; I am very glad. It is Christmas, you know, and I told them as how I thought you’d do, for you are spare, sir, and—”

Here he found another blockade in his throat, which, after a slight struggle, he swallowed, and went on,—

“I told them as how I thought you’d do, sir, for you see we want somebody that is small and thin, and will be light to carry after he is all fixed up. Hans Blauroch did for us last time; but this year, instead of parading Santa Claus up and down the street, we’ve concluded to bury him. It will be something new this Christmas; and Hans is too heavy to carry; and when I thought of you, sir, I just took the liberty of coming right up; because it’s near daylight, and there ain’t no great while left to get the funeral ready.”

So the blockhead had finally jerked out what he came for, which was not so malevolent after all as he had at first made it appear. He deserved, rather, to be praised for his persistency than censured for his awkwardness, considering the difficulties under which he had labored.

The Professor did not show whether he felt relieved by this _denouement_. He had listened without moving; and when the young man finished speaking he hesitated a moment, then, with the same peculiar expression visible about his mouth, said he would be glad to place himself at their service; he would be with them directly; that he had not been feeling well; indeed, he only an hour ago almost fainted, and had not yet recovered when he heard the knock upon his door; but he was feeling better, and would come down immediately.

The young man laughed good-naturedly as he replied,—

“I am obliged to say I did not like the looks of you at first. You must have been out of your head.”

The Professor waited until the last echo of the retreating footsteps died away down at the bottom of the stairs, then shut his door.

“A strange thing,” he muttered; “what have I to do with Christmas? I, who have studied, studied! I had forgotten there was any time called Christmas. What is it to a scholar? Philosophy says nothing about it; and reason would teach that—ah, yes, it too is a dream, a dream within the dream called life. Then what have I to do with it? Why did I promise? I will not go. Yet my vow—twenty-four hours. I dare not trust myself alone. A funeral, did he say? I will see how it feels; yes, for I will probably need one in another day. They wanted me ‘for a corpse,’ and I said they would likely get me, and I would be glad to ‘place myself at their service.’ Ha, ha! They can bury me twice. But my vow, my vow! I will not trust myself alone. It is nothing to me; I will go.”

He had been tramping again rapidly up and down the room, when he suddenly turned, took up his hat, looked around for a moment at the shadows that were still making unintelligible signs to each other, then extinguished them in darkness and slowly went down stairs.

The lodgings were directly over the undertaker’s establishment. Living so secluded, speaking to none, it had never occurred to the Professor before what a grim place he had chosen for his home. But now the silver-barred coffins in the show-case were ghastly as he passed.

Night had not yet yielded up her supremacy. A heavy covering of snow, that clung to every roof, tower, and spire, made the place look unreal through the gloom, like some colorless apparition of a great specter city. Close-blinded, silent and cold, without one glimmer of life, the houses faced each other down the long street. Far off, the ghostly dome and pinnacles of the cathedral reached into the sky—the empty, soundless sky—for the wind had fallen away, leaving a gray expanse that seemed to stretch through infinitude. But, though the Professor did not notice, there was a rift that divided the dreary cloud down near the horizon, and disclosed, brighter than the pale light of the coming day, a star shining in the East.

And it was Christmas morning.

The Professor walked block after block, feeling unconsciously refreshed by the crisp air upon his heated brow. Then he turned back, and when he had reached the building went down an alley-way and entered by a door in the rear.

A great confusion and general dimness, not lessened any by two or three candles that were burning, pervaded the room, which was long and ran almost across the house. Half a dozen men were standing or moving about, and some were sitting or leaning upon coffins and biers, that covered all the floor, except where they occasionally left narrow passages between, like irregular aisles.

At the Professor’s entrance, the young man who had paid him so friendly a visit came up instantly, took hold of him by the arm, and turned him round, with the exclamation,—

“Here he is father! He is thin enough to be easily carried.”

The man denominated “father” by the young off-shoot of the establishment surveyed the Professor with a critical eye from head to foot, and, as there could be no better sample of physical spareness than he presented, said, laconically,—

“He’ll do.”

Then there was new confusion and bustling about, and two or three persons immediately seized the Professor, one by his hair, one by his feet, one by his arms. With a grim smile, he submitted, in perfect silence, to the operations of this dressing committee.

He saw himself—him, Gustav Kellermann, the philosopher!—blossom into brilliant colors, scarlet and blue and orange. He saw them clasp a girdle round his waist, to which they hung gilded toys and bells in all directions, until he was fairly covered over with trinkets of every device. He felt them encase his head—his learned, metaphysical head—in a cap that was adorned at the point and round the sides with innumerable swinging-dolls.

It had been daylight three or four hours when all the mysterious preparations, which had been done almost without speaking a single word, were finally completed, and every thing waited in readiness.

There, strangely conspicuous in that dismal room, with its dismal paraphernalia of death, was a brilliant, half-human, half-monkey-like creature, standing up on its hind legs, and flaming all over in gaudy colors. To this grotesque figure, the important actor, evidently the chief agent in the contract, a man of brief speech, came up and said, brusquely,—

“Now, you are dead, you know, and have nothing to do but be dead. You are not to be fidgeting, or stirring round, or peeping. When you are dead, you are dead, you know, and that is all.”

O, Immanuel Kant! O, transcendental school! Good reasoning! When you are dead, you are _dead_.

Then they picked up this half-human, half-monkey-like object, which had uttered not one word, placed it in a coffin, and put upon it a mask-face. Carrying it out by the rear door, they raised it and set it down on a catafalque, draped in a black velvet pall, and ornamented with tall black funeral plumes.

O vain pomp and grandeur of death! When you are dead, you are _dead_.

A confused hurry and tramp of many feet was succeeded by a pause, and some one said,—“Ready.”

The procession reached the open avenue and moved slowly down the street to the sound of a funeral march. Solemnly, with measured tread, they advanced, and the people flocked to the doors on every side. There was a cry of surprise and alarm. “What is it?” “Who is it?” ran from lip to lip. The crowd gathered. The procession, with its sable plumes and ribbons of _crepe_, still continued on its way. There was the sound of lamentation, and at every moment the throng and confusion increased, the multitude thickened, and men, women and children were held off by the guard. Do they go to the great cemetery? No, they turned eastward, and at the Rosenthal halted. There the wondering spectators saw, in its center, a pure white tomb. Before it the catafalque was brought to a stand, and the coffin solemnly lowered.

Immediately a broken shout ran through the crowd, that was taken up and repeated until it grew into a laugh, and men and women, catching up the children, cried,—

“It is Kriss Kringle! Ha! ha! See, child, it is Kriss Kringle! He is dead. Kriss Kringle is dead!”

It was a great relief to the people, so suddenly alarmed, and they good humoredly held up the little ones, saying,—

“See! Kriss Kringle is dead. He will never come any more. He is dead!”

There was a silence; and many little faces, awe-stricken, looked sorrowfully down, and many little arms were stretched out, and many little voices, quivering, sobbed,—

“No, no, no! He will come back. He brought us pretty things. He will come back to us.”

O, Immanuel Kant! O, transcendental school! Is your strength still greater than this?

There was a stir under the heavy pall, and a voice—hark! a voice!—

“Yes, children, I will come back to you. I have come back to you!” And from beneath the sable funeral drapery, Kriss Kringle sprang, all jingling with silver bells, and flashing with a thousand toys.

Then again there was great confusion, but this time no sound of lamentation; and the solemn funeral march swept into a strain of joyful music. And the children! Oh, the children, in wild delight, played in circles about the queer, grotesque being, who set to work destroying the snow-tomb. He threw it at them in small crystal showers that called up, each time as they fell, a burst of gleeful laughter. He detached the bright toys from his girdle, from his cap, from his elbows, from his knees, and rained them down upon the little ones who raced round him in their mad frolic. Then he took off the false face and threw it far away, and the people, in surprise, cried, “It is the Professor!” and drew back awe-struck, to think they had taken such liberties with so renowned a scholar. But the children never paused in their romp; and he said, while they scrambled about him in merry laughter,—

“I have come back to you, children. I have come back to you!”

And in his heart he cried, “I knew not what life was; then how should I know of death?” O, Immanuel Kant! O, transcendental school! Here are those who teach a philosophy of which you know nothing—a philosophy higher than the critics; a philosophy of life; a philosophy of love; a philosophy of death that is no sleep!

The sun came out and spread a jeweled splendor on the snow, over which, hand-in-hand, the happy children danced.

The Professor is an old man now, and the fame of his learning has become great in the land. And all the people tell about his funeral; and how, every Christmas since, in his scarlet clothes and furs, laden with “pretty things,” he leads the children in their play, and scatters on them a thousand toys, while they, in gleeful groups, join their hands and dance.

THE FEVERFEW.

During my youth I suffered from a naturally delicate constitution. I was pale, feeble and sickly, but from no decided disease. A dreamy, quiet cast of temperament caused me to shrink from the rough sports of my brothers; the contact of strangers was equally disagreeable, and I seldom strayed from home. Indeed, I lived almost entirely within myself, although by no means devoid of natural affection; on the contrary, my emotions were strong, and my sympathy easily aroused.

How it happened that I acquired a love of learning I do not know, all the outward circumstances by which I was surrounded tending to foster any thing rather than intellectual habits, for our family, although each member possessed a common education, were strictly practical; but this difference in my disposition cut me off from their pursuits, and I found my chief enjoyment in the volumes of a library to which I obtained access.

Perhaps it was the sedentary life I led, the close confinement, and lack of exercise, that brought on a violent attack of sickness when I was in my nineteenth year, so that I lay for several weeks completely prostrated. During two or three days my life hung as in a balance, which a breath might have turned and launched me beyond the confines of time. However, the disease succumbed to the persevering attention of experienced nurses. I arose from my weary bed and found my physical health slowly improving, but from that period I was subject at irregular intervals to what the physician pronounced temporary delirium, which I knew he used as a milder term for insanity.

But it was not insanity. I never lost control of my mind, but I lost control of my body. It obeyed a will that was not my own. A mighty antagonistic power seemed to creep over my brain, which impelled my movements and held my struggling soul in subjection. I presented the singular phenomenon of one person governed by two separate and distinct wills, for my mind was not disordered, but only mastered by superior strength. In this strange condition I would see familiar objects magnified, exaggerated, and contorted, in an atmosphere varying with all colors, at the same time being perfectly conscious of their real appearance. I would hear sounds sweet and musical grow into wails of heart-rending despair. I could recognize my friends when they were present, but was forced to regard them with the cold eye of a stranger. I would commit acts that no human agency could have compelled me to do when my faculties were untrammelled. I never submitted without a struggle, and always felt conscious that, if I could but once resist this seemingly invincible power, if I could but once disregard its promptings, I should be free.

The attacks were never of long duration. They always left me utterly exhausted, and it would sometimes require a week to recruit my expended strength. I could afterward recall every incident with the most distinct minuteness, for they were branded in characters of fire on my memory. Vainly I asserted again and again that it was not delirium, that I was forced into subjection to some mysterious power I could not withstand; my statements made no impression upon the physician, who evidently considered mine but a common case of one suffering from attacks of temporary insanity, and, when I persisted in my statement, he forbade any further reference to the subject.

However, I could not prevent my mind from continually dwelling upon it in secret. What was this so foreign, so antagonistic to myself that mastered my will, that controlled my actions, that made me literally another being? Why did I not shake off this evil influence and be free? I felt perfectly conscious of possessing the power, but was not able to arouse it from a latent condition.

As I have said before, I was naturally of a studious disposition, and I now turned my attention to metaphysics. I read works, ancient and modern, on its different branches; I studied medical treatises on insanity, and, the more I learned, the more thoroughly convinced I became that I was not suffering from mental aberration. Constant brooding over my disease greatly wore upon my physical strength; traveling was recommended, in hopes that change of climate and scene might benefit my health. My old aversion to strangers clung to me, and, although possessed by a restlessness to which I was wholly unaccustomed, I persistently refused to leave home; no arguments could gain my consent, so that my friends were forced to give up the project in despair.

One morning, when more than the usual gloom oppressed my spirits, I made an effort to arouse myself and throw off the melancholy that was settling upon me, which each day I felt to be growing more confirmed. I was sitting by a window, which stood wide open, and, just outside, a caged canary was singing and fluttering its feathers in the warm spring sunshine. The little bird was my particular property, and I regarded it with an affection which is rarely bestowed upon pets. With the exception of my young sister, a child about four years of age, this was the only living thing that I had taken any interest in since my sickness. I had trained the canary from the shell, and the little creature seemed to repay all my care, for from no other member of the family would it receive caresses. I was so much afraid of its being accidentally injured that I never allowed it to be freed from the cage, except in my presence. At my call it would fly about me, resting on my head, shoulders, or hands, and chirping in a perfect ecstasy of enjoyment.

I arose and opened the door of its prison, then, reseating myself, softly whistled while it darted into the air, wheeled once or twice, and descended upon my hand. Stroking its spotless yellow plumage, I regarded the little thing with a degree of pleasure I had not experienced for several weeks. But sudden horror almost caused my heart to cease its beatings, and the perspiration started from my forehead in great drops, for I felt my fingers slowly closing over the delicate bird. Although I made an attempt greater than the racking effort we sometimes exert in the nightmare, I had no power to restrain them. The canary fluttered in my clasp. I would have dropped it, I would have shrieked for help, but my muscles, my voice, my _body_, obeyed me not, and my fingers, like the steady working of machinery, gradually tightened their relentless grasp. In my agony the veins of my face protruded like lines of cordage. I heard the frail bones breaking beneath the crushing pressure, then my involuntary grip suddenly relaxed, and the bird fell upon my knee, dead and mangled!

At the same moment, I saw, through the open door, my little sister playing upon the grass-plat; and, almost before I was aware of moving, or of any volition, I found myself walking rapidly toward her, while my fingers twitched with a convulsive, clutching movement. Good Heavens! I already saw her face turn purple, and heard her gasping breath smothered by gurgling blood. With this terrible picture before my mental vision, my brain felt as if it would burst its bounds in the desperate, but unavailing effort I made to turn back, to fly from the spot. But I could not command myself. In that moment I endured suffering more intense than language can describe. Perhaps my strange and wild appearance frightened the child; for, in place of holding out her arms to me, her favorite brother, she fled crying to the nurse, who did not observe my approach, and carried her into the house. Saved! unconsciously saved—saved from a fate too terrible to contemplate.

I sank insensible upon the ground, and, when I recovered, found myself surrounded by the family, each one applying some restorative, for I had been in a long and death-like swoon. Slowly, but distinctly, the recollections of the events which had reduced me to this condition presented themselves to my memory with all their appalling horror, nearly depriving me again of consciousness.

I did not refer in any manner to the subject, which was also carefully avoided by all others in my presence, for fear that it might produce renewed excitement, and my friends had no suspicion of the circumstances which brought it about. The bird was found dead upon the floor, and the family imagined that it had met with some accident. They were evidently surprised, when the fact was communicated to me, that I made no remarks, for they had anticipated an outburst of grief.

Grief! I did not suffer from grief; grief was overpowered by the horror that racked my brain—horror for the act I had committed, and the more fearful one which had been so mercifully prevented. I had committed? No, it was not _my_ mind or will which had prompted my hand to do the deed. I was innocent, even though my fingers had dripped with the blood of a sister; but the frightful thought filled me with a terror that wrung my soul. I pondered continually upon it. When might not this mysterious demon again assert its evil control over me? Strange as it may seem, I felt certain that it was some foreign agency—I knew not what—that mastered my will, and not the result of my own intellect, in a disordered condition.

This overpowering dread of the future, of what might happen, which took possession of me, drove me to the decision of leaving home, as the best way of avoiding danger to my friends. Perhaps, too, if my physical health became better, I might gain strength enough to defy this infernal power; for, as I have said before, I possessed a singular consciousness that, if I could once successfully resist its promptings, my soul would be liberated from thraldom. I announced my determination of making a journey, without any explanation of my sudden change, and it was greeted with delight by my friends and relatives, who were anxious to hasten my departure while the humor was upon me; but they need not have feared any change of purpose on my part, for I was haunted by this terrible dread of the future, and I gladly said farewell for a time to my home and birthplace.

The incidents of travel and of new scenes broke the monotony, and dispelled to some degree the gloom that had taken fast hold upon me. In a short period I found myself rapidly improving. Every week brought me an increase of strength, and I suffered less frequently from these frightful attacks. Although they occurred at longer intervals than formerly, they seemed to grow more severe in character; the conflict was fiercer, and my mind made a more desperate effort to gain the supremacy. My whole frame would be racked by the intense struggle which I constantly maintained, though I was constantly vanquished.

The increasing delight I took in the scenery, the continued exercise and excitement, almost drove despair from me, and hope once more brightened my countenance. I began to look forward to the time when my health would be entirely restored, and my body and mind be in unison. I did not hope vainly, for the final conflict came, and with it a strange termination of my long sufferings.