Chapter XXV (2)

Taking up the papers convulsively she read as follows:--"It is he. I have seen him again and free. I thought that he, like myself, had contracted a life-long obligation. Is this joy or grief? The ties he was about to form, the ties the mere thought of which caused me a terrible anguish, were imposed on me by myself. Oh my God! what have I done? What perfidious demon inspired me when I yielded to another than to him the _right_ to love me? When I promised a love I knew could be given to no other than to him? Why on the day of that fatal marriage did I see him only when I was about to leave the church? I would have broken off had I stood at the foot of the altar--I would have told him who was about to give me his name--ask me not to perjure myself! do not ask me to pledge you a faith I cannot keep! my heart, my soul, my love are his. I thought, alas! because he was not free that I too might cease to be. I fancied my agony to be power, my spite to be courage. When, however, I saw him pale and sombre, leaning against the door of the temple, I felt the coldness of death take possession of me, and I doubted long after that sad day, if I had seen a shadow, if some hallucinations of my senses had not evoked a phantom of my vanished love, to inspire me with eternal regret. Yet HE it was! HE it was! and when at the risk of my very life I would have flown towards that man, I was forced to follow another." The poor woman paused; for a mist obscured her sight, a distillation of burning tears. She resumed her task:--"I am a Duchess but of what value is that vain title which I sought, as an ægis against memory, to me? Have I found it such? For a long time, I thought so. I should, however, never have seen him again. I should have passed no happy days near him, and have been ignorant of the delirium and intoxication of his presence, which I never can forget. I had been the wife of the Duke of Palma six months, when a mission of the King of Naples forced him to leave me at a villa on the _Lago di Como_, while he went in a foreign country to discharge the duties his monarch had imposed on him. I scarcely dared to confess to myself, in spite of the kindness of the Duke, how I was delighted during his absence, for it gave me a liberty of mind and thought which was absolutely necessary to my heart. Resolved to discharge all my duties, I lived, or rather vegetated, in this existence, so unoccupied and objectless as all marriages contracted without love must be. Amid, however, the dead calm of a marriage contracted without love, there glittered sometimes a burst of passion repressed, but alas! not stifled. Dark passions filled my bosom, and I felt the poison of regret. I found myself often longing for my independence, which, however, would not have contributed to my happiness, but would at least have permitted me to indulge in my secret sorrow. My temporary solitude, therefore, became precious to me, for I was about to abandon myself to sadness without annoying any one, and without exciting a curiosity which it was impossible for me to satisfy. When one evening I had been wandering alone on the banks of the lake, I was terrified by a terrible scene on the water. At a great distance a man made every effort to approach the shore--for his boat was evidently sinking beneath him. Some opening, beyond doubt, permitted the water to penetrate, and his danger became every moment more imminent. I was too far from the villa to send him any assistance, and as a secret presentiment was joined to the horror and pity caused by the spectacle, I felt the greatest anxiety about the stranger. The night was near, and the sky became darker every moment. By the flashes of lights here and there, I saw the bark almost sinking, and ere long, it was entirely gone--and the tranquil waves of the lake, calm as they are wont to be, rolled over it. My strength deserted me, and almost in a fainting condition, I fell on the strand. I did not absolutely lose consciousness; for far in the distance I heard the sound of sudden blows on the water, for which at the time I could not account. The noise approached, and grew every moment more distinct. I then heard the sound, as it were, of a body falling on the sand, accompanied by a painful cry. I heard no more. Soon I saw the light of the torches of my servants, who being uneasy, had come to look for me. They found me, and also a half inanimate body, dripping with water. It was doubtless the person whose boat had foundered in the water, and I ordered him to be taken to the villa and carefully attended to. It was late, and I returned. A few hours had passed since the event, and I was sitting alone at the piano. Fancy bore me back to my last appearance at San-Carlo, where a mad and infatuated public had bade me so enthusiastic an adieu. While all that crowd had eyes, for him alone I wished to be beautiful--for him alone to be worthy of the admiration I excited. Dreaming this, my fingers run over the keys, and joining my voice to the instrument, I sang almost unconsciously that touching air in which I had been so much applauded. My song was at first low and half-whispered, but gradually increased in power. I thought I spoke to him, and that his eyes were fixed on mine. At last I paused, pale with surprise, joy and terror. In the glass before me I saw Count Monte-Leone."

The memory of this event was so distinct and exciting, that the Duchess paused and looked around for the apparition which had caused her such keen emotion. Then, as if she delighted to place the knife in the wound, she took up the manuscript, and continued:--

"'Excuse me, Madame,' said the Count, 'for having thus introduced myself into your house; but I am come to thank you for the cares I have received in your name.'

"'You--you here?' said I, yet doubting my eyes. 'Is it a dream or vision? Speak, speak once more, that, I may be sure I do not dream.'

"'Felina,' said he, in a tone full of melancholy, 'I know not why our fate should thus constantly bring us together. But one might think, that still faithful to your old oath, you continue the providence you used to be to me. When a few months since, after the wreck of all my hopes of happiness, after having been misconceived by those for whom I had done so much, when sad and desperate, I cursed my egotistical and cold career, you appeared to me in the Church of Ferentino and cast on me, in the face of your marriage vows, one of those deep-loving looks which cheer the heart and attach it to life. And when on the lake, exhausted with fatigue and ready to yield under the struggle necessary to avert my threatened fate, you again came to my relief. You see, then,' continued he, smiling sadly, 'that in becoming the good angel of the Duke of Palma, you do not cease to be mine.'

"Never had the Count spoken thus to me. He had always been cold, and seemed most unwillingly to acknowledge the services I had rendered him. I had never received an affectionate word from his mouth before. He saw the trouble he gave me, and taking my hand, said, with a voice full of sensibility, 'Are you happy?' At this question, it seemed as if my heart would break, and I burst into tears.

"'Felina,' said he, 'why do you weep? what is the meaning of this?'

"'Do not question me,' said I. 'Let me keep the cause of those tears a secret, for you can neither dry up nor understand them. Tell me though about yourself, said I. Tell me of your marriage.'

"Monte-Leone grew pale, and said, 'I am not married, I am free.'

"I could not repress a feeling of joy.

"'Ah!' said he, bitterly, 'Do you enjoy my misfortune?'

"This word restored me to my _sang-froid_. I became more calm, and questioned him. The Count told me all.

"For many months, he had travelled and returned to Europe to arrange some pecuniary matters previous to his return to France, where he purposed to remain. Passing by _la Tremezzina_, he learned, indirectly, that certain malevolent reports had been circulated in relation to him by the brothers of the powerful association, of which he had been the chief. A venta was to meet on the opposite shore of Lake Como. Taking a rude costume--he had gone thither, for the purpose of protesting against the perfidious insinuations of his enemies. Afraid, however, of being watched by some agent of his enemies, he resolved to cross the lake alone and at night. Thus he became so near being lost. The Count wished to leave me that night, for he was aware of the absence of the Duke of Palma, and was afraid of compromising me. I, however, retained him for several days in the villa, for the purpose of throwing off the vigilance of his enemies. Alas! how have I regretted those days, the only happy ones of my life. How rapidly they passed away! The Count knew the mystery I wished to hide from him. He read it in my soul, the only thought of which he long had been. He knew why I had married, what tears and sorrow I had known, and what anguish it had caused me. Touched by this vast sacrifice, understanding the extent of my love, I saw the ice of his heart gradually begin to melt. But as his heart warmed to mine, a secret terror took possession of me. Tasting all the joy of seeing arise in the heart of the Count, sentiments which, when I was free I could not have heard without pride and satisfaction, I trembled at the idea of being able to listen to them only with crime. Soon it was I who besought the Count to fly--to leave me--to see me no more. Strange, however, is the human heart; the passion of Monte-Leone seemed to feed on my opposition. He forgot the past, he could not realize it to have existed.

"Sitting by my side during the long days, beneath the flowery bowers of the villa, the Count, as he said, saw through the darkness in which he had been enveloped--his eyes recovered their vision, and at last I appeared to him, for the first time, the most charming, the most adorable of women. Never was there a more eloquent tenderness than his--and to me who lived for him alone--whose image was ever before me, who had loved him in spite of his coldness and indifference, almost his contempt, to me he used this language of entreaty.... Yet he did so to a woman who loved him. A month passed in this cruel contest of love and duty. The contest was not equal, and passion triumphed. The Count had left the villa, but was concealed in the vicinity, and I saw him every day become more tender and affectionate. One must have suffered as I have to understand the intoxication of my happiness. To be loved by him had never seemed possible; and to possess this life-dream, to read in his looks a passion I alone had experienced hitherto, was a veil, thin indeed, but this prevented me from discerning how great was my fault. If it did become known to me, I loved it; for in my delirium I thought that I gave to this man a heart which belonged to him, and a person of which, in defiance of his rights, another was possessed. The other though, whom I doubly injured by this thought, had given me truly, loyally, and nobly, his heart, his rank, his name. So completely, however, was I led astray, that I censured the Duke for this very generosity. Sometimes, however, my life of love had its sorrows. The Count would be sad, and in his moments of melancholy, forgot my presence, and spoke slightingly on the volatility of women and of their caprices. I used to look at him with surprise, and seek to discover his secret thoughts. One day it was revealed to me.

"'When women are young,' said he, 'they suffer themselves to be led away by brilliant exterior, and by that studied gallantry of which the French make such a display.' A few words full of venom escaped him involuntarily in relation to a rival that she whom he _had_ loved preferred to him. So shocked was I, that I asked him, if ill-humor at his repulse alone had led him to my feet. Without knowing how he had done so, the Count saw he had wounded me, and by increased care and tenderness lulled a suspicion which ultimately was to rise in all its power and agony.

"One day, we were to separate. The Count was obliged to go to Naples, where he was impatiently waited for. My despair at this intelligence was terrible. How could I leave this sweet happiness which had grown around me in two months! It seemed above my power and ability. Nothing seemed to influence the Count. I knew him well, and was aware that he never yielded. I soon ceased to contend, and he left me--not, however, without the tenderest oaths of constancy. 'We will soon meet again,' he remarked, 'and in Paris: in that vast city where mystery is so easy, and where secret love finds an impenetrable shelter, we will reside--you still as beautiful, I devoted as ever.'"

This was the end of the manuscript.

"Vain promises," said La Felina, crushing the papers in her hands. "I wished to read these pages once more. I wrote them after he had gone, and they are the history of my fleeting happiness. I wished to be satisfied that I had been happy. I doubt it sometimes, for during the three months the Count has been here, I see him every day resume more and more his old coldness to me. Formerly, I could reproach myself with nothing. I had betrayed no one; and he, in his disdain, had violated no promise. Now, though, he has created eternal remorse and regret. He has revived in my heart a flame which was nearly out--yet has nothing but indifference and contempt for me. He forgets, though, how dangerous it is to offend an Italian woman. He has forgotten what he read in my letter to his friend: 'Had I been to the Count but an ordinary woman, the charms of whom would have fixed him for a time, but whom he would repudiate as he has his other conquests, _I would have killed him_.'"

VII.--DOCTOR MATHEUS.

At the time we write of, there was in _la rue Babylonne_, near the faubourg Saint-Germain, an old house, the owner of which was really to be pitied. In consequence of a kind of fate which overhung this house, no room had been occupied for many years, and the persons who went thither in search of room, terrified at their sombre air, heard, subsequently, such stories of what had happened within its walls, took good care not to take up their abode there, even if they had given the _denier-à-Dieu_, an important matter in Paris, and a kind of bargain between the lodger and landlord, made in the presence of the porter, who is the notary, witness, and depository of the contract. If, however, any quiet family, led astray by the retirement of the house, established themselves in it, the servants soon heard such stories from their neighbors in No. 15, that they lived in perpetual terror--madame grew pale, and as often as monsieur sang louder than usual, or came in without noise, had nervous attacks. The unfortunate lodgers, menaced by jaundice or some other bilious complaint, in consequence of the repeated emotions to which they were subjected, were anxious always to go, even under the penalty of indemnifying the landlord. The latter saw himself again forced to submit to the reign of solitude in the old halls, which were gilt and painted _à la Louis XV._, and saw the mildew and dust again rest on the windows and cells, as soon as the fires ceased to burn; not even the presence of a trunk, belonging to a chance sojourner in this desert isle, relieved the landlord from apprehensions of the recurrence of his old calamity. The Crusoe of this desert island had declared that he had rather pay the lodging three, six, or nine-fold, than live in such proximity with the miserable ideas which the house suggested. True, the Crusoe was an Englishman, predisposed to the _spleen_, and the sadness of his abode would soon have led him to augment by a new scene the dramas which had already happened in this house. The landlord, afraid that he would do so, hurried to conclude matters as soon as possible with the islander.

The following was the reason of the bad repute of No. 13:

A man had hung himself there for love. This was a horrid story,
but it was not the whole drama. Three years after, two very old
men, who were very rich, and said to be retired merchants, were
found stifled beneath their mattress, and the criminal was
never found out. The people of the quartier, however, knew all
about it, and said who was the murderer. They maintained it was
the old suicide, the shadow of whom was ill at ease, and had a
mortal aversion to any one who disagreed with him about a
suitable and pleasant residence.

Yet for some time No. 13 had looked like all the other houses in the vicinity. People went in and came out, just as if it had been the domicile of no ghost. The knocker on the door was often heard, and when the porter opened his door, a little flower-garden was seen, with various horticultural treasures, expanding beneath the spring sun.

At length a lodger was found, a very godsend to No. 13, whose lofty reason was superior to all the fables told of the house, and, by his presence defended it from the calumny which had been circulated about it; not by words but deeds, for he lived there, and was neither hung nor stifled, like the old merchants, who had several very evil disposed nephews, and who, to say the least, assisted the man that was hung in procuring the rich inheritance for them. This house had a large ground-floor, and many handsome rooms on the first story. The second story was very expensive, having previously been the _studio_ of a painter, but which had been appropriated by the new lodger to an object which we will describe by and by. We will not attempt a description of this new lodger, but will introduce to our readers one more competent to do it. This person is Mlle. Celestine Crepineau, an old maid between thirty-seven and forty-nine years of age. She was tall and thin, and had all her life rejoiced at this, for she had a form three fingers in diameter. True, a broomstick can be grasped between the thumb and index finger, and yet is not very graceful. Let not any one think, though, in spite of this infantine vanity, that Mlle. Crepineau was of those virgins whom the Bible condemns _as foolish about their beauty_. She was a prudent honest-minded girl, the heart of whom if it ever spoke, did so in such low terms, that no one ever heard it. Mademoiselle Celestine's virtue was a proverb. Mothers in all that part of the town spoke of her as a model of prudence, and fathers pointed her out to their sons as a warning against the passions of youth. Without father or mother, from her very childhood Mlle. Crepeneau had no protector but her god-father, an old lawyer, who owned No. 13 of Babylonne-street. The worthy lawyer had provided for the youth of Mlle. Celestine, and had long intrusted her with the control of his kitchen: discovering, however, how little talent his god-daughter had for the art of _Cussy_ and _Brillot-Savarin_, and wishing to provide an honorable and comfortable home for her, he removed her from the charge of her personal to that of his real property. We will see how fully Mlle. Celestine justified the esteem of her god-father: with what martial courage she took possession of this kingdom of shadows; and how, after sprinkling the whole house with holy water and hung a bough of a blessed tree, she had declared that this asylum, thus purified, henceforth would be unapproachable to the man who had been hung.

The fact is, for three years, neither the suicide nor any one else had violated this sanctuary of virtue. But Mlle. Celestine was not only a virtuous and sensible woman, but a woman of eloquence. Nothing could be more attractive than the harangues she made use of to induce lodgers to occupy her rooms. Honey flowed from her mouth, and many persons were led away by the siren's song. But generally they soon became terrified and fled from the terrors which besieged them. Mlle. Celestine Crepeneau therefore could not praise her new lodger too highly. "What a charming man," said she to her neighbors in 11 and 51, the porters of which looked on her as an oracle. "Doctor Matheus is an angel, pure as those of Paradise. God forgive me for saying so, for I think he is handsomer than they, with his magnificent whiskers and moustache. I do not see why angels do not wear them! I am sure they are very becoming. Besides, he is so kind to other people. Only the other day he wished to set _Tamburin's_ leg, which some Jacobin had broken." In Mlle. Crepeneau's mind, a Jacobin was capable of any thing. "And what a magnificent room he has! how beautiful: all full of noble skeletons, Jacobins' heads, and books enough to fill all the Place Louis XV. He has also a fine practice, and patients of every kind coming on horseback, in carriages, on foot, and in wooden shoes. He refuses no one, and cures every body--even _Tamburin_. The poor animal is very fond of him, never barking when he passes, but wagging his tail as if he knew his physician. I alone attend to Doctor Matheus," continued Mlle. Crepeneau, "and I flatter myself he is well waited on. He has a great deal of trouble, too, especially on his consultation days. One would think then all Paris met at his house. He is a brave man, and is not afraid of ghosts! Yet he said the other day, 'I have killed so many people that one more would run me mad.'"

Yet while Mlle. Crepineau was thus prodigal of her praises, in front of No. 13, her lodger, as she called him, was in the third story of the house, and was shut up in his room engaged in the strangest manner. The studio had preserved nothing of its original destination but its name. Instead of pictures, plaster casts, statuettes, and manikins, the table was covered with manuscripts, books, pamphlets, and loose papers; on this battle-field, where science, art and politics seemed to contend together, stood a noble Japan vase from which arose a noble bouquet of white camelias--above this hung the portrait of a protestant preacher.

Doctor Matheus, as Mlle. Celestine had said, was young and handsome. He had luxuriant fair hair, hanging in clusters around his face and falling on his shoulders, so as to give a seraphic air to his face, very well calculated to touch the heart of pious Celestine. In his mild blue eyes, however, there was an expression of will, decision and daring which strangely contrasted with the rest of his face. The Doctor was tall and elegantly formed, and wore at home the costume yet popular at Leipsig, Gottingen and Heidelberg, a doublet of velvet and a kind of cap surmounted by a plume. He had suppressed the plume. This is exactly the costume of Karl de Moor in Schiller's robber; and in 1847 we saw the pupils of those venerable universities strolling through the streets of the German capitals in this very theatrical costume, precisely that of Wilhelm Meister's actors when they met Mignon on the Ingolstadt road just after their unfortunate representation of Hamlet. The Doctor, we have said, was strangely engaged. He leaned over a vast chart of Europe, extended before him like a body waiting for the knife of the anatomist. His eyes were expanded, his brow flushed, and from time to time he stuck black pins into this chart, and whenever he did so consulted the manuscripts which he held in his hand. When he had inserted the last pin, he arose, and with a cry of joy looked around like a conqueror; as great men are wont to survey their fields of triumphs. "Europe is ours," said he, "and the world is Europe's." The vaccine of _Carbonarism_ has taken, and courses from vein to vein, to the very noblest portion of the social body. It has reached and taken possession of the heart. The old man is dead and a new being is about to be born. Better still, Lazarus, regenerated, is about to burst from the tomb.

Afraid to yield to a false hope, trembling lest he should be deceived in his calculations, the Doctor leaned again over his chart, and began to compute the black pins which, like a mourning cloak, covered the map of Europe. And indeed the terrible monster he had named was a pall thrown over the happiness of the people of the world. The idealists and ambitious men who sought to extend it were the murderers of all prosperity. A Gothic clock which leaned against the wall struck eleven. The features of the Doctor at once changed their expression, and infinite grief replaced the enthusiasm which pervaded them. He hurried to a low window of his cabinet, and pushing aside the curtain, looked anxiously into a garden which was behind the house he dwelt in, and from which he was separated only by the _parterre_ of which we have spoken before. This garden belonged to a magnificent hotel in the street of Verennes. A large portal decked with flower vases led to rooms on the ground-floor. This door was just then opened and a beautiful girl hurried past, when the Doctor went to the window of his cabinet. The young girl walked down an alley well lighted; she seemed to seek for the generous heat of the sun, and turned toward it like a true Heliotrope. She seemed to take no care of her complexion, for her head was scarcely covered by a straw-hat which could not avert the heat. A thin dress of embroidered muslin with short sleeves displayed her arms, and a blue sash surrounded her thin and delicate form. She gathered a few flowers, and cut away a few bad branches of the rose-trees with an elegant English pruning-knife. Then after having passed two or three times up and down the alley in front of the portal, she put her hand to her brow as if to make a visor to shield her eyes from the burning rays of the sun. Just in front of her was the window--the curtain of which Doctor Matheus had drawn aside, and there he stood more beautiful and radiant than ever. The young girl blushed slightly and looked hastily away, for the sun probably appeared too bright just then. The Doctor seemed fascinated by what he had seen, and we cannot say how long his ecstasy continued. At last a well-known voice exclaimed on the other side of the door, which was closed even to Mlle. Celestine Crepineau, "Doctor--you are wanted in the parlor. A gentleman--a patient. He has given me his card to bring you."

"Very well," said the Doctor, "I am coming."

"But, sir, if you will open the door I will give you his card."

"Keep it," said the Doctor, "as I am coming down and do not need it."

"Yet," said the inquisitive porteress.--"Monsieur may wish to know the name in advance."

"I do not," said the Doctor, "and hope Mlle. Crepineau that you will go away."

"My God!" said Mlle. Celestine, terrified at the Doctor's manner. "What is the matter with my new lodger? Why will he not let me enter his cabinet? Perhaps though he is cutting up some human body, and has respect for my sex."

The Doctor left his room, and locked the door carefully; putting the key in his pocket, he went down. When he entered the room he was amazed to see who was waiting for him.

"The Duke d'Harcourt here!" said he, bowing respectfully to his visitor.

The Duke said, "My visit should not surprise you, for I came, after all, only to thank you for your services to my dear Marie."

"Duke," said Doctor Matheus, "your benevolent reception, when I had the honor to be presented to you, has converted a duty into a pleasure. The natural interest," added he, with profound emotion, "with which your daughter inspires all who see her, would make me most proud of her cure."

"Doctor," said the Duke, looking most earnestly at the physician, "you inspire me with a confidence I have had in none of your brethren. Your reply, therefore, to my question, I shall look on as a sentence. Do not fear to be frank, Doctor, for I am prepared for every misfortune; already crushed by my sufferings, my heart looks forward to no earthly happiness. The lives of my two surviving children are the objects of my own life, but uncertainty is too much for me. Reply therefore, I beg you, sincerely to me whether the life of my child is in danger."

"Duke," said Doctor Matheus, "the hand of God is more powerful than that of science.--HE often strikes down the strong, and preserves the weak, so that none here can tell when to expect his blows. I can, however, assure you on my honor, that your daughter, delicate as she is, at this time has not even a germ of the terrible malady which has ravaged your hearth. This germ is always in the blood of members of the same family. Art establishes this, though it can provide no remedy.--This secret enemy, however," said the physician, with a kind of pride, "before which all known remedies are powerless, I can perhaps oppose and conquer."

"Tell me, Doctor, tell me!" said the Duke, clasping the Doctor's hands, "save my child, grant her life, and my fortune is yours."

"Duke," said Matheus, "if I had the honor of a better acquaintance with you, I would not listen to such language as you have used.--Gold has little value in my eyes, and reputation no more, for I do not place my hopes for the future in my profession. Since, however, study has revealed to me the art of assisting those who suffer, and of saving those who are in danger, I would esteem it a crime not to do so; and I promise this art shall be employed in the cure of Mlle. d'Harcourt.

"And," said the Duke, "will this be a secret to me?"

"No, Duke; I will use it in your presence. I will also own that I have already made use of it, though but slightly, in the case of Mlle. d'Harcourt; what I have done, satisfies me that I may hope to see her completely restored."

"It is true;" said the Duke. "The interview and the simple remedies you prescribed, have sufficed to soothe the sufferings of my daughter. Ah! Monsieur," added he, clasping the Doctor's hand kindly, "how can I discharge my obligations towards you?"

"By granting me a boon, invaluable to me, and which all Paris will envy, and of which I know you are prodigal indeed, your esteem--the respect of the Duke d'Harcourt--the most honorable and virtuous of men. You see, Monsieur, I place a great value on my consultations; and few persons have received so noble a recompense from you."

"Doctor," said the Duke d'Harcourt, with a smile, "in that case you are already paid; for I know all that you do in Paris, and especially in this neighborhood. I know that want meets here with a better reception than opulence, and that you look on all sufferers as having an equal claim on your attention. You must be aware, that knowing this I have already given you all you ask."

"Well, then," said the Doctor, "let me continue to have your respect, and we shall be equal."

Just then Mlle. Celestine Crepineau knocked at the door.

"Come in," said Doctor Matheus.

"Sir, there are in the reception-room an English Milord, and two miserable creatures waiting to see you."

"Who are the latter?"

"One is an Auvergnat, very badly dressed, with a bandage over his eye, who has already been here once or twice."

Doctor Matheus seemed annoyed, and turned away lest the Duke should observe it.

"The other is a peasant from the environs, who has a handkerchief over his face as if he _enjoyed a fluxion_."

"I will go," said the Duke, "for your visitors are impatient, and sorrow should not wait. I will give place to Milord."

"Mademoiselle," said the Doctor, "show in the poor wretches."

"Very well," said the Duke, "the poor before the rich, I expected that." Bowing kindly to the Doctor, the old nobleman left.

As he passed through the reception room, he saw the Doctor's visitors, each of whom looked towards him. The _Milord_ rushed towards a window, which luckily was closed. The other two were introduced to the Doctor's room. No sooner were they there, than the one threw off his handkerchief, and the Auvergnat his bandage. The Doctor gave them his hand and exclaimed, "MONTE-LEONE! Taddeo."

"And here, too, am I," said the Milord, entering the room and throwing aside his red wig and burning whiskers.

"D'Harcourt, too"--said the Doctor, hurrying to meet the new comer--and then closing the curtains, "Here we all are," said he.

"Yes, dear Von Apsbury," said the Count, embracing him. "_The Pulcinelli of the Etruscan villa are again united._"

* * * * *

Dr. Franklin's father had seventeen children. He was the fifteenth. He says in his autobiography, that his father died at the age of eighty-nine, and his mother at the age of eighty-five, and that neither were ever known to have any sickness except that of which they died.

FOOTNOTES:

[H] Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by Stringer & Townsend, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New-York.

From Fraser's Magazine.

LIFE AT A WATERING PLACE.

THE DOG OF ALCIBIADES.

BY C. ASTOR BRISTED.

We left Tom Edwards mysteriously swallowed up, like a stage ghost down a trap-door. And do you know, reader, I am very near leaving him so for good and all, and suspending these sketches indefinitely,--yea, even to the time of the Mississippi dividends, or any other period beyond the Greek Calends that your imagination can conjure up. For the wise men--and the wise women, too--of Gotham are wroth with me, and one says that I am writing on purpose to libel this man or puff that woman, and another charges me with sketching my own life in _Fraser_, for self-glorification, and a third holds up the last number of _Pendennis_ at me and says, "If you could write like _that_, there would be some excuse for you, but you won't as long as you live." "Alas, no!" said I, and was just going to burn my unfinished papers, and vow that I would never again turn aside from my old craft of reviewing. But then came reflection in the shape of a bottle of true Dutch courage--genuine Knickerbocker Madeira--and said, "Why should you be responsible for resemblances you never meant, if people will insist on finding them? Consider how prone readers, and still more hearers who take their reading at second-hand, are to suppose that the author, be he great or small, must have represented himself in some one of his personages." True enough, Mr. Bottle; for instance, any one of our fashionables will tell you that "our _spirituel_ and accomplished friend" (as Slingsby calls him), M. Le Vicomte Vincent Le Roi, is the hero of his thrilling romance, _Le Chevalier Bazalion_--why they should, or what possible resemblance they can find between the real man in New-York, and the ideal one in the novel, it passeth my poor understanding to discover. Bazalion is a stalwart six-footer, who goes about knocking people's brains out, scaling inaccessible precipices, defending castles single-handed against a regiment or two, and, by way of relaxation after this hard work, victimizing all the fair dames and blooming damsels that come in his way--breaking the hearts of all the women when he has broken the heads of all the men. Le Roi is a nice gentlemanly man, of the ordinary size, who sings prettily and talks well, and makes himself generally agreeable, and not at all dangerous in society--much the more Christian and laudable occupation, it seems to me. If ever he does bore you, it is with his long stories, not with a long pike as Bazalion used to do. Be the absurdity, then, on the head of him who makes it; _Qui vult decipi decipiatur_: if any one chooses to think that I am bodied forth under the character of Harry Benson, and am, in consequence, a handsome young man, who can do a little of every thing instead of----but never mind what; your actor has not yet sufficient standing to come down before the footlights, and have his little bit of private chaff with the audience. Only this will I say, so help me N. P. Willis, I mean to go on with these sketches till they are finished, provided always that _Fraser_ will take them so long and that you continue to read them, or fall into a sweet and soothing slumber over them, as the case may be. For if we are all to shut up shop until we can write as well as Mr. Titmarsh, there will be too extensive a bankruptcy of literary establishments.

Before Ashburner could form any conjecture to account for the evanishment of Edwards--indeed before he could altogether realize it to himself--the little man's head reappeared above the ground, though there were no signs of his horse; and at the same time Benson began to ride round the scene of the catastrophe, at an easy canter, laughing immoderately. The Englishman shook up his brute into the best gallop he could get out of him, and a few more strides brought him near enough to see the true state of things. There was a marsh at no great distance, which rendered the grass in the immediate vicinity moist and sloppy, and just in this particular spot the action of the water had caved away a hole precisely large enough to receive a horse and rider--it could hardly have made a more accurate grave had they been measured for it--and so marked by a slight elevation in front, that it was ten to one any person riding over the ground at such a rate, and unacquainted with the position of this trap, but must fall headlong into it, as Edwards had done. There was some reason to suspect that our friend Harry, who was an habitual rider, and knew all the environs of Oldport pretty well, and was fonder of short cuts and going over grass than most American horsemen are, had not been altogether ignorant of the existence of the pitfall; it looked very much as if he had led Edwards, who was no particular friend of his, purposely into it: but if such was the case, he kept his own counsel. When the fallen man and mare had scrambled out of the hole, which they did before Benson had offered to help them, or Ashburner had time to be of any assistance, it appeared that she had sprained her off foreankle, and he his nigh wrist. But they were close to the main road; by good luck a boy was found to conduct the animal home, and by a still greater piece of good luck the Robinsons' carriage happened to be coming along just then, so the little man, who did not take up much room, was popped into it, and as much pitied and mourned over by the lady occupants as was _père Guilleri_ in the French song. And, to do him justice, even without this consolation, he had taken his mishap very quietly from the first, as soon as he found himself not injured in any vital, _i. e._ dancing part.

Having finished their road at a more leisurely pace, our two horsemen arrived at the glen after most of the company were assembled there. And as the place was one of general resort, they noticed traces of other parties, people of the Simpson class, hail-fellow-well-met men, who didn't dance but took it out in drinking, and who in their intercourse with the other sex, betrayed more vulgar familiarity and less refined indecency than characterized the men and boys of White, Edwards, Robinson, and Co.'s set. But of these it may be supposed that the set took no heed. There was some really pretty scenery about the glen, but they took no heed of that either--to be sure, most of them had seen it at least once before. They had gone straight to the largest parlor of the house, and led, as usual, by the indefatigable Edwards, had begun their tricks with the chairs. Booted and spurred as he was, and with his arm in a sling, the ever-ready youth had already arranged the German cotillion, taking the head himself, and constituting Sumner his second in command. Benson was left out of this dance for coming too late, one of the ladies told him; but he did not find the punishment very severe, as he rather preferred walking with Ashburner, and showing him the adjacent woods. As they passed out through several specimens of the Simpson species, who were smoking and lounging around the door, Ashburner nearly ran over a very pretty young woman who was coming up the steps. She was rather rustically, but not unbecomingly dressed, and altogether so fresh and rosy that it was a treat to see her after the fine town ladies, even the youngest of whom were beginning to look faded and jaded from the dissipation of the season. But when she opened her mouth in reply to Benson's affable salutation, it was like the girl in the fairy tale dropping toads and adders, so nasal, harsh, and inharmonious was the tone in which she spoke.

"That's Mrs. Simpson," said Harry, as they went on, "the Bird's wife. Pretty little woman: what a pity she has that vulgar accent! She belongs to New England originally; one finds many such girls here, every way charming until they begin to talk. But I suppose you saw no difference between her and any of us. In your ears we all speak with a barbarous accent--at least you feel bound to think so."

"What do you think yourself? You have known a good many of my countrymen, and heard them talk, and are able to make the comparison. Do you, or do you not, find a difference?"

"To say the truth, I do; it is a thing I never think seriously of denying, for it seems to me neither singular nor to be ashamed of. You can tell an Irishman from a Londoner by his accent; so you can a Scotchman; or a Yorkshireman for that matter: why should you not be able to tell an American? The error of your countrymen consists in attributing to all our people the nasal twang, which is almost peculiar to one section of the country. If I were asked the peculiar characteristic of a New-Yorker's speech, I should say _monotone_. Notice any one of our young men--you will find his conversational voice pitched in the same key. Sumner goes on at the same uniform growl, Edwards in an unvaried buzz. When I first landed in England, I was struck with the much greater variety of tone one hears in ordinary conversation. Your women, especially, seemed to me always just going to sing. And I fancied the address of the men affected--just as, very likely, this monotone of ours seems affected to you."

"What I remark most is a hardness and dryness of voice, as if the extremes of climate here had an injurious effect on the vocal organs."

"Perhaps they do; and yet I think you will find a better average of singers, male and female, in our society than in yours, notwithstanding our fashionables are so engrossed by dancing. Holla! here's Harrison. How are you, old fellow? and how are the Texas Inconvertibles?"

It was indeed the broker, wandering moodily alone. What had he in common with the rest of the company--the fops and flirts, the dancing men and dancing women? The males all snubbed and despised him, from tall White down to little Robinson; the women were hardly conscious of his existence. He knew, too, that he could thrash any man there in a fair stand-up fight, or buy out any three of them, ay, or talk any of them down in the society of sensible and learned people; and this very consciousness of superiority only served to embitter his position the more. There were other sets, doubtless, who would have welcomed him gladly, but either they were not sufficiently to his taste to attract him, or he was in no mood to receive consolation from their sympathy. So he had wandered alone, untouched by the charming scenery about him--a man whom nobody cared for; and when Benson addressed him genially, and in an exuberance of spirits threw his arm over the other's neck as they walked side by side, the broker's heart seemed to expand towards the man who had shown him even this slight profession of kindness, his intelligent eyes lighted up, and he began to talk out cheerfully and unassumingly all that was in him.

Harrison's own narrative of his personal prowess, as well as the qualified panegyric pronounced upon him by Benson, had led Ashburner to expect to find in him a manly person with some turn for athletic sports and good living, but no particular intellectual endowments beyond such as his business demanded. He was, therefore, not a little astonished at (inasmuch as he was altogether unprepared for) the variety of knowledge and the extent of mental cultivation which the broker displayed as their conversation went on. They talked of the hills and valleys, and ravines and water-courses around them, and Harrison compared this place with others in a way that showed a ready observer of the beauties of nature. They talked of Italy, and Harrison had at his fingers' ends the principal palaces in every city, and the best pictures in every palace. They talked of Greece, and Harrison quoted Plato. They talked of England and France, and Harrison displayed a familiar acquaintance, not merely with the statistics of the two countries, but also with the habits and characteristics of their people. Finally, they talked on the puzzling topic of American society--puzzling in its transition state and its singular contrasts--and, whether the broker's views were correct or not, they were any thing but commonplace or conventional.

"Our fashionable society has been all a mistake hitherto," said Harry (Ashburner could not well make out whether there was a spice of irony in his observation); "Mrs. Benson and some others are going to reform it indifferently. The women thus far have been lost sight of after marriage, and have left the field to the young girls. Now they are beginning to wake up to their rights and privileges."

"They will not remedy any of the present evils in that way," answered Harrison, apparently addressing himself to Ashburner, but he seemed to be talking at Benson and through him at Benson's wife, or his own, or both of them. "Our theory and practice was that a young girl should enjoy herself in all freedom; that her age and condition were those of pleasure and frolic--of dissipation, if you will--that after her marriage she, comparatively speaking, retired from the world, not through any conventional rule or imaginary standard of propriety, but of her own free will, and in the natural course of things; because the cares of maternity and her household gave her sufficient employment at home. A woman who takes a proper interest in her family gives them the first place in her thoughts, and is always ready to talk about them. Now these domestic details are the greatest possible bore to a mere fashionable casual drawing-room acquaintance. Hence you see that the French, whose chief aim is to talk well in a drawing-room or an opera box, utterly detest and unmercifully ridicule every thing connected with domesticity or home life. On the other hand, if a married woman never talks of these things or lets you think of them, she does not take a proper interest in her family. No, the fault of youth is with the other sex. There are too few men about, and too many boys. And the more married belles there are the more will the boys be encouraged. For your married belles like to have men about them younger than themselves--it makes them appear younger, or at least they think so; and besides, such youths are more easily managed and more subservient. But, still worse, the more these boys usurp the place of men in society, the more boyish and retrograde will the few men become who continue to divide the honors of society with them. When Plato enumerated among the signs of a republic in the last stage of decadence, that the youth imitate and rival old men, and the old men let themselves down to a level with the youth, he anticipated exactly the state of things that has come to pass among us. Look at that little friend of yours with the beard--I don't mean Edwards, but an older man about his size."

"Dicky Bleecker, I suppose you mean," growled Benson: "he's as much your friend--or your wife's--as he is mine."

"Well, he is my contemporary, I may say; perhaps five years at most my junior. What perceptible sign of mature age or manliness is there about him? In what is he superior to or distinguishable from young Snelling, who but this season rejoices in his first white tie and first horse, and in the fruits of his first course of dancing lessons?"

"Well, but consider," said Benson, who was always ready to take up any side of an argument--it was one of the first criticisms Ashburner made on American conversation, that the men seemed to talk for victory rather than for truth--"it stands to reason, that an intelligent married woman must be better able than a girl to converse with a mature man, and her conversation must have more attraction for him. As to our boys coming out too soon, doubtless they do, but that depends not on the persons ready to receive them, but on the general social system of the country which pushes them into the world so early. For instance, I was left my own master at twenty-one. So, too, with the want of proper progress and growth in knowledge of the men. It is and must be so with the man of fashion every where, for he is not occupied in learning things that have a tendency to develop or improve his mind, but the contrary. I myself have seen Frenchmen of fifty as easily amused and as eager after trifles as boys."

"Frenchmen?" sneered the other; "yes, but they _are_ boys all their lives, except in innocence."

"Very amusing and pleasant, at any rate; the best people for travelling acquaintances that I know."

"Exactly--very pleasant to know for a little while. I have met with a great many Frenchmen who impressed me favorably, and I used to think as you say, what amusing people they were, but I never had occasion to live with one for any length of time without finding him a bore and a nuisance. A Frenchman turns himself inside out, as it were, at once. He shows off all that there is to show on first acquaintance. You see the best of him immediately, and afterwards there is nothing left but repetitions of the same things, and eternal dissertations on himself and his own affairs. He is like a wide, shallow house, with a splendid front externally, and scanty furniture inside."