B A L D I 1ST E 
 
 ot&er Cales 
 
 BY 
 
 KARL ERDMANK EDLER 
 
 TRANSLATED FROJI THE GERMAN 
 
 BY THE EAEL OF LYTTON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 
 
 1887
 
 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 OCR novel-reading public is plenteously supplied by 
 its book -market with native productions and French 
 imports of every description; and for the lighter prod- 
 uce of German literature there is, at present, little or 
 no demand. To the Dii Minores of that literature 
 their own countrymen no longer accord the immortal- 
 ity so confidently certificated by Carlyle half a century 
 ago. But the Seer of Chelsea w r as not far-seeing in his 
 estimates of the relative importance of German writers 
 after Goethe; nor can he be altogether exempted from, 
 the censure passed by himself upon Mr. Taylor, as an 
 expositor of German literature to whom some of its 
 most characteristic productions were " a sealed book, 
 or, what is worse, an open book in which he would not 
 read." 
 
 Upon Tieck, and Novalis, and Jean Paul Richter 
 Carlyle bestowed elaborate criticism quite out of pro- 
 portion to their permanent literary value; while Grill- 
 parzer, the most genuine dramatic poet of his time, 
 he contemptuously dismissed from notice as "a mere 
 playwright." The philosophy of Fichte and Schelling 
 found in him an appreciative interpreter ; and his 
 miscellanies make respectful mention of minor German 
 poets whose names are now almost forgotten. But of 
 
 2135297
 
 4 TKANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 Schopenhauer and Heine he had nothing to tell us; nor 
 of their transcendent influence in departments of Ger- 
 man literature, which continued to engage his atten- 
 tion after the death of those writers, although both of 
 them were his literary contemporaries ; the one his 
 senior, and the other not greatly his junior, in author- 
 ship.* 
 
 Ilabent sua fata libelli! and no predictions are so 
 often falsified as those of literary criticism. Countess 
 Hahn-Hahn (that once popular novelist!) has gone the 
 way of all flesh, and her works follov/ her. Of the lat- 
 er writers of German fiction, Gustav Freytag and Paul 
 Heyse are not unknown to the English novel-reader; 
 but they have certainly exercised no influence over 
 English thought or sentiment. The illustrious author 
 of ""Wilhelm Meister" and " Wahlvervandtschaf ten " 
 would perhaps have disdained the title of novelist. 
 Regarded as works of art, however, his fictions cannot 
 be placed in the category of good novels. To say the 
 truth, the novel, whether of manners or of character, is 
 a form of fiction so unsuccessfully cultivated by Ger- 
 many, that in the department devoted to its production 
 her imaginative literature scarcely deserves the atten- 
 tion it has failed to receive from the countrymen of 
 Fielding and Richardson. 
 
 But, though I hope they may please our novel-read- 
 ing public, it is not exclusively to it that I offer these 
 specimens of the lighter workmanship of a German 
 writer whose genius has created a type of fiction sui 
 generis. Like some of Nathaniel Hawthorne's " Mosses 
 from an Old Manse," or the " Marchen " of Hans Chris- 
 
 * Schopenhauer was born in 1788, and Carlyle in 1795. IIeine,who 
 jokingly called himself the first man of his century, was born on the 
 1st of January, 1800. He died in 1856, and Schopenhauer in 1860.
 
 TRANSLATORS PREFACE. 5 
 
 tian Andersen, though written in prose, they belong, in 
 all essentials, to the province of poetry. They do not 
 fetch their subject from the clouds, however, though 
 they lift it above the common level. They are not 
 abstractions of pure fancy, but ideal delineations of 
 real feeling, with a definite core of human interest. In 
 this respect they differ fundamentally from all such fic- 
 tions as those of Lamotte-Fouque, Arnim, Brentano, 
 and Hoffmann. The world into which they admit us 
 is neither supernatural nor grotesque, but thoroughly 
 human. It is a world peopled by men and women 
 not by spectres, or sylphs, or abstract qualities in fancy 
 costume. Some of their descriptive passages reveal 
 an intimacy with the feelings of childhood and the 
 significance of inanimate objects which will occasion- 
 ally remind an English reader of the humor of Ander- 
 sen. But between the genius of their author and that 
 of the Danish poet the difference is also far-reaching; 
 for where Andersen ends, this author only begins. His 
 imagination hovers tenderly over the realm of child- 
 hood, but it does not rest there ; and \vhat it seeks 
 in the child is the father of the man. 
 
 Those to whom any work of original genius is al- 
 ways welcome, come whence it may, will probably be 
 able to find some charm even in the clumsiest trans- 
 lation of it. But much of the peculiar charm of Edler's 
 writings is, I fear, inseparable from their original form. 
 Germanisms which are graceful in their native idiom 
 would appear grotesque in ours. Colors delicately 
 brilliant in one medium, become opaque and crude 
 when mixed with any other. Each language, more- 
 over, has not only an idiom, but also a cadence, special 
 to itself. These conditions of his task sometimes make 
 it impossible for a translator to preserve the spirit, if he
 
 6 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 maintains a strict fidelity to the letter, of the original. 
 And yet even slight variations in the structure of a 
 sentence or the position of an epithet may injuriously 
 change the whole character of an original style; just 
 as the addition of a pair of whiskers sufficed to con- 
 vert the honest face of Sir Roger de Coverley into the 
 Saracen's Head. 
 
 The author of these tales is a consummate master 
 of the idiom of his own language. In his hands Ger- 
 man prose, that generally cumbrous vehicle of expres- 
 sion, becomes a perfect instrument, and he plays it to 
 perfection. His style is not put on, and therefore it 
 cannot be taken off. "Edler," says one of his Ger- 
 man critics, "combines great poetic gifts with a wide 
 culture and an original mind ; but these are merits 
 which, though rare, are shared with him by other writ- 
 ers. What is peculiarly his own is the mastery of 
 style which marked even his first appearance as an 
 author; and it is this which renders his genius as cap- 
 tivating as it is original." Fortunately, however, the 
 charm of this author's individuality, though enhanced 
 by his style, is not wholly dependent on it. The 
 depth and tenderness of his humanity; the accuracy 
 of his touch upon the finer emotions ; the delicacy 
 with which he lifts the inner folds of feeling ; the 
 pensive sweetness of his humor, and an instinctive 
 refinement of taste that never by inadvertence strikes 
 a jarring note these are merits which his writings 
 may still retain, even in versions that lack the light, 
 melodious movement of his style. 
 
 Karl Erdmann Edler was born in 1844, at Padebrod 
 in Bohemia, and, whether of Slavonic or (as his name 
 implies) of German parentage, he seems to have been 
 born with a genius in which the characteristic note
 
 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 7 
 
 of both nationalities is curiously distinguishable. He 
 commenced his university career at Vienna ; and it 
 was there, last spring, that I first became acquainted 
 with his works, through Prince Philip Hohenlohe, a 
 friend of their author. I began the perusal of them 
 with reluctance, and in a sceptical spirit. I had been 
 asked to read them with special reference to the ques- 
 tion whether some of them, if translated, would have 
 any chance of a favorable reception from the English 
 public ; and I expected to find them written in the 
 style of Freytag's " Sollen und Haben." But I had 
 not read many pages before I felt 
 
 " As a watcher of the skies, - 
 When some new planet swims into his ken." 
 
 I was conscious of being in contact with the mind of 
 a new and genuine poet ; and hence the present at- 
 tempt to make some few of his writings known to 
 those of my countrymen who are dependent on trans- 
 lations for their knowledge of German books. 
 
 Edler's first work, entitled " Koloritstudien," was 
 published at Vienna in 1873. It consisted of two 
 short romances, "Wilfred" and "Gabor;" the first a 
 tale of the German Middle Age, and the second a 
 story of the steppes. " Gabor," says an Austrian 
 writer, " is a magnificent symphony, which has in it 
 the very soul of the gypsy music." And here I may 
 observe that, with rather less absurdity than is com- 
 monly involved in the prevalent fashion of applying 
 to the effects of one art the technical terminology of 
 another, the three little stories printed together in 
 these volumes might perhaps be described as sym- 
 phonies of sentiment, each in a different key. 
 
 Karl Edler's genius is psychological and dramatic.
 
 8 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 All his works, whatever the form or the subject of 
 them, are dramas of the inner life. But he respects 
 the order of Nature, which has decently placed out of 
 sight the inward organs of life, and his heroes and 
 heroines are not continually turning themselves inside 
 out for the purpose of self-examination. lie works 
 by synthesis rather than by analysis, and builds up 
 his characters instead of taking them to pieces. In 
 his style there is no flourish of the anatomist's scal- 
 pel, in his work no odor of the dissecting-room. His 
 characters are alive, and we hear the beating of their 
 hearts ; though we hear them only through the fine 
 
 atmosphere of those 
 
 "liohen Regioncn 
 Wo die rcincn Formcn wobnen." 
 
 He has been justly praised as a colorist, but he does 
 not aim at startling spectacular effects, and the pe- 
 culiar merit of his coloring is in a subtle harmony be- 
 tween the pervading tone of the picture and the cen- 
 tral idea of its design. That idea, moreover, is always 
 beautiful, always graceful, and intellectually high- 
 born. For Edler is not a literary photographer, but 
 an ideal artist. Hence, in his slightest sketches we 
 find a noble breadth of suggestiveness, and large pro- 
 portions in small dimensions. His workmanship, how- 
 ever, is highly finished ; and, unlike Jean Paul, of 
 whom it has been well said that he gives us his brains 
 instead of his thoughts, Edler's conceptions are never 
 crude or confused. 
 
 The defect more or less common to the imaginative 
 writers of Germany is an undefinable flavor of some- 
 thing provincial and Kleinstattig. Even the great 
 Goethe is not wholly free from it. But of this no 
 trace is to be found in Edler's writing. Nor in his
 
 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 9 
 
 humor is there anything disorderly or uncouth. All 
 is select, symmetrical, reticent, refined. He is an es- 
 sentially well-bred writer. 
 
 The romance of "Wilfred," published with "Ga- 
 bor" under the title of " Koloritstudien," has been 
 compai'ed with Scheffcl's " Ekkerhard," I suppose be- 
 cause it presents to us the image of a mediaeval monk 
 under the influence of a passion forbidden by his 
 vows. But in nothing else do the two books bear 
 any resemblance to each other. 
 
 Scheffel is a vigorous and racy writer. I am very 
 far from wishing to speak of his remarkable talent in 
 any spirit of depreciation. His " Trompeter von Seck- 
 ingcn" and his "Frau Aventura" are works of great 
 force and spirit, which leave a lasting mark upon the 
 memory ; and the whimsical fun of his paleontologi- 
 cal poems is delightful. But the difference between 
 his writings and those of Edler is still a difference be- 
 tween talent and genius. 
 
 Scheffel goes to the Middle Ages for his materials, 
 as a connoisseur goes to a curiosity shop to furnish 
 his house in a particular genre. Whenever Edler re- 
 verts to a past age for the raw material of his ro- 
 mances, it is as a student of those human emotions 
 which are common to all ages, and of which time only 
 varies the external conditions. The predominant sen- 
 timent of all his writing is a profound compassion for 
 the incompleteness and sorrowfulness of human life. 
 In Scheffel's writings there is no compassion, nor in 
 his view of life is there any cause for it. 
 
 The fact is, Germany is no longer a Prometheus 
 Vinctus ; and Scheffel's books reflect the justifiable 
 contentment of a successful people, whose chief con- 
 cern is to enjoy what it has so patiently and painfully
 
 10 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 acquired its mental culture, its national importance, 
 its picturesque past and promising future. All his 
 productions, whether in prose or verse, are variations 
 on the theme of Gaudeamus iyitur ! 
 
 Compare the medievalism of Scheffel with that of 
 Novalis, the difference between them is enormous. 
 And it is historical; for it marks the progress made 
 by educated Germany, in less than two generations, 
 from aspiration to attainment. Edler is the reverse of 
 all this; and, with nothing in him either of the mys- 
 ticism of Novalis or the jollity of Scheffel, he stands 
 in a totally different relation to German literature. 
 
 Scheffel was born at Karlsruhe, and educated at 
 Heidelberg. Edler was born at Padebrod, and edu- 
 cated at Vienna. Scheffel was a young man, and 
 Edler only a child, in 1848; and these facts go far to 
 explain, not only the difference between the tempera- 
 ments of the t\vo poets, but also why Young Germany 
 has accorded to the complacent conservatism of the 
 elder a popularity not likely to be ever attained, in the 
 present generation, by the wistful, questioning sadness 
 of the younger. 
 
 The " Koloritstudien " were followed by the classi- 
 cal romances of "Ursinia" and "Artemis," the first 
 of which appears to me one of the most charming of 
 all its author's creations. In a German criticism of 
 this book I find a passage which so correctly indicates 
 the general characteristics of the author's genius that 
 I cannot forbear quoting it. " What nobility," ex- 
 claims the critic, " in the conception, and what magic 
 in the execution! This is not skill, but inspiration a 
 complete and unconscious surrendering of the artist's 
 whole mind to a high ideal, and an unerring adherence 
 to that ideal the perfect embodiment of a beautiful
 
 TRANSLATORS PREFACE. 11 
 
 mind in a beautiful form, by some process as mysteri- 
 ously spontaneous as that of Nature herself, in which 
 there is no perceptible trace of art, or effort, or self-con- 
 sciousness of any kind. The fanciful, the humorous, 
 and the tender find here an expression which not only 
 satisfies, but transports us. I remember, in particular, 
 that scene upon the Esquiline where Ursina is waiting 
 for Eleanus. With what subtle strokes, in what living 
 tints, does the author reveal to us the inmost motions 
 of the girl's spirit, its rapidly changing moods, and its 
 abiding undertone of unfathomable sadness! And all 
 without a word of interposed description or explana- 
 tion! With what witchery, moreover, in the attain- 
 ment of this effect, does he contrive to impart, as it 
 were, a human echo to the surrounding scenery! There 
 is but one name for such writing. It is poetry of the 
 purest and highest order." 
 
 To*"Ursinia" and "Artemis" succeeded the three 
 little modern idyls which make up the contents of the 
 present volumes. Of one of them, "Notre Dame des 
 Flots," a French translation, by Princess Hohenlohe, 
 was, I believe, published some years ago in the Revue 
 de France. In the list of Edler's works must also be 
 mentioned a drama, of which, however, I know nothing 
 except that it is entitled "Theodora," and has been 
 acted at Hanover. His two latest productions are 
 " Peire de Cinqtors," a troubadour romance, and " The 
 Last Jew," which is generally regarded in Germany as 
 its author's greatest work. The power of the book is 
 indisputable, but I must avow a strong personal prefer- 
 ence for his smaller idyls. Great historical novels 
 are less uncommon than such literary cameos. 
 
 From this enumeration of Edler's works, the reader 
 will see that the three translated here have been select-
 
 12 TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. 
 
 ed from the shortest and least elaborate of them all. 
 They illustrate rather the delicacy of the author's 
 workmanship than the full scope and variety of his 
 creative powers. But I doubt whether, since Goethe's 
 "Mignon," imaginative literature has produced a cre- 
 ation more novel in its beauty, or more touching in 
 its pathos, than that of Baldine the child who, reared 
 in silence and solitude, with the dumb playmates, the 
 dumb nurse, and the dumb god, has in her, all the while, 
 a gift of surpassingly expressive song; a gift unknown 
 to herself, and revealed only through an overwhelm- 
 ing sorrow. And the process whereby the great for- 
 lorn artist is at last redeemed from moral petrifaction, 
 through the stimulus gradually given to that capacity 
 of gratitude which, equally unknown to herself, had 
 survived in her the loss of every other human feeling, 
 appears to me a conception of wonderful subtlety 
 and truth. The art with which the story is tld is 
 equally remarkable. There is not a single incident, 
 however trivial, in the opening chapters, which does 
 not bear, with steadily increasing significance, upon the 
 whole development of the character of Baldine and 
 the final solution of the problem it presents. 
 
 In the nature of its subject, " Notre Dame des Flots " 
 approaches nearer than any of Edler's other fictions to 
 the level of the ordinary novel. But it has, in common 
 with them all, a certain spaciousness of spirit ; and 
 this is a supreme merit, considering how many long 
 and elaborate works of fiction resemble large - scale 
 maps of Little Pedlington. In these short tales the 
 circumference of the actual story is small, but not so 
 the scope of its suggestiveness. It is like a pinhole, 
 through which the eye sees far. The field of vision 
 swept by the gaze through so minute an outlet is of
 
 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 13 
 
 course restricted; but what we see is the segment of a 
 vast orb; and, as the segment has all the qualities of 
 the unseen circle to which it belongs, its significance is 
 large. This far-reaching suggestiveness is not want- 
 ing to the story of "Notre Dame des Flots;" and it is 
 specially potent in the closing picture of the happy 
 daughter treading over the nameless grave of the de- 
 voted mother, on her way to inspect the monument she 
 is raising to the honored memory of the utterly worth- 
 less father. The best judge I know of imaginative 
 literature has said to me of this story, "It is very pa- 
 thetic, but I cannot help wishing it had stopped with 
 the adoption of Blanche's daughter by Duraont. The 
 mind would have reposed in the hopes it would have 
 formed for the child. To destroy this illusion balks 
 us, and creates a feeling of disappointment." I should 
 entirely agree in this criticism, if it were only an ab- 
 stract statement of that principle of art which requires 
 that at the close of the tragedy we should 
 
 " With peace and consolation be dismist, 
 And calm of mind." 
 
 But it implies that there is a violation of the princi- 
 ple, which I am unable to recognize, in the denodment 
 of " Notre Dame des Flots." No principle of art re- 
 quires that such a story as this should end comfort- 
 ably in relation to the order of external fact; and the 
 story would not end with greater comfort to the mor- 
 al sense if it ended in the manner suggested. The il- 
 lusion retained would, in that case, be a fraud upon 
 the imagination ; and it seems to me that its reten- 
 tion would have lowered the whole tone of the work. 
 Nor do I feel that the author has disappointed any 
 hopes for the daughter which can be legitimately ex-
 
 14 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 cited by our sympathy with the self-sacrificing devo- 
 tion of the mother. On the contrary, all such hopes 
 are satisfied with exact propriety. The only proper 
 reward of effort is the attainment of its aim; and no 
 other can be admitted into the justice of ideal art. 
 The mother's aim was to secure the daughter's happi- 
 ness; and that object is completely attained, for the 
 daughter is perfectly happy. Her happiness, more- 
 over, in relation to its sources as well as its effects, is 
 precisely of the kind which the mother would have 
 wished it to be; for it proceeds not merely from her 
 good fortune, but from a sweetness of disposition 
 which bad fortune might have marred. We are told 
 that, beautiful as she is, her chief beauty is in her 
 smile; and the mention of this little fact is full of sig- 
 nificance and purpose. The author must have meant 
 us to understand by it the woman's whole character, 
 for such smiles are the sunshine of the soul. We 
 know, too, by the act of piety which brings her to the 
 church at Havre, that she is not deficient in filial af- 
 fection and gratitude. 
 
 But to win to herself the gratitude of her daughter, 
 or to Avean the child's filial reverence from the mem- 
 ory of a father who was tin worthy of it, was not the 
 object of the mother's life, or the wish of her heart. 
 Such motives w r ould have been incompatible with this 
 woman's character; and equally incompatible with the 
 daughter's happiness (which was the mother's object) 
 would have been her knowledge of the truth about her 
 parents. The denodment, therefore, does completely ful- 
 fil, and under the only conditions satisfactorily imagina- 
 ble, the supreme prayer of the martyred wife, that her 
 child might never be pained or shamed by a suspicion 
 of the baseness to which she herself was a victim.
 
 TRANSLATOR S PKEFACE. 15 
 
 Tiie distressing appearance of injustice is, after all, 
 in its perceived relation to the infinite scheme of hu- 
 man life, only an appearance / which disappears as 
 soon as we lose sight of the particular in the contem- 
 plation of the universal. So far from referring it to 
 any erroneous conception of the nature of art, I ad- 
 mire in it a true reflection of the inevitable nature of 
 things on their external .side; and I think it ceases to 
 be distressing when we regard it, as the author obvi- 
 ously intends us to regard it, in its relation to a mys- 
 tery so vast and universal as to excite a sense of aw- 
 ful wonder which entirely transcends the fretfulness 
 of hope and disappointment. To present to the im- 
 agination both the sorrowful and the terrible aspects 
 of " the painful riddle of the earth," I conceive to be 
 a salutary, as well as a legitimate, function of ideal 
 art. It is, at any rate, the constant tendency of Ed- 
 ler's writings; but he also reconciles our imagination 
 to the real sorrowfulness of the world by revealing to 
 it the ideal loveliness of sorrow. The highest achieve- 
 ment of poetry must ever be in the ideal representa- 
 tion of the terrible side of life. Hence the high rank 
 accorded to Tragedy in- the hierarchy of imaginative 
 art. But injustice is a purely personal quality, and 
 Tragedy knows no other justice than that which be- 
 longs to the impersonal order of the Universe; which, 
 however terrible in many of its aspects and effects, 
 has at least this consolatory quality that it is in- 
 evitable. For, as no evils arc harder to endure than 
 those of which we think that they might have been 
 averted, so is no consolation more effectual than that 
 which springs from a complete recognition of unalter- 
 able necessity. 
 
 Of these three stories, the "Journey to the Gross-
 
 16 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 glockncr Mountain" best exhibits, perhaps, that pecu- 
 liarity of its author's genius which gives tears to his 
 humor and smiles to his pathos. 
 
 Karl Edler's writings belong to the literature of a 
 sentiment for which Europe has adopted the name 
 given to it by Germany. They reveal a profound con- 
 sciousness of that Weltschmertz which has claimed so 
 many illustrious victims, and given birth to so many 
 great works. But perhaps what most distinguishes 
 him from each of the writers who have successively 
 contributed to the literary current he continues, is his 
 freedom from the egotism common to them all. 
 
 Goethe has been called the physician, but he was 
 rather the physiologist, of a malady which he did not 
 attempt to cure, and which has long survived his 
 diagnosis of its symptoms. Edler's relation to this 
 Weltschmertz is that of the sympathizing friend, who 
 would fain mitigate the pain of the sufferer in whom 
 he recognizes his own kindred. During the Waljuir- 
 gisnacht of 1848 he must have been asleep in his 
 cradle, and safe from the spells of that Red-capped 
 Sorceress whose wand transformed so many tolerably 
 good poets into intolerably bad politicians. His writ- 
 ings are not polemical, like those of Heine and Borne; 
 and there is no bitterness, perhaps because there is no 
 egotism, in the humor of them. What apparently in- 
 terests him in the world is its relation to itself, not its 
 relation to him. Few poets seem more habitually ca- 
 pable of that intense but impersonal interest in man 
 and nature which makes it all one to the contemplat- 
 ing eye whether the object it contemplates be seen 
 by it " from the window of a palace or of a prison." * 
 
 * Schopenhauer.
 
 TRANSLATOR S PBEFACE. 17 
 
 Byron's writing is the passionate utterance of a be- 
 wildered revolt, the cry of a wounded animal that 
 suffers without understanding why, and resents it 
 knows not what. Edler's is the thoughtful expression 
 of intelligent resignation to a universal and inevitable 
 condition of things a resignation well assured that 
 " J&verything has its Why, could ice only understand 
 it; though it is not everything that cries out when it is 
 hurt." Senancour's is a moan of despair prolonged in 
 one monotonous note ; Edler's a voice of consolation 
 speaking in many tones, but always proclaiming that 
 "Every human sorrow helps to hind together the whole 
 human race, like a high and holy doctrine delivered 
 unto all." In him the Weltschmertz is absorbed by the 
 Ilumanitatsidee, and has thus become impersonal. 
 The subject of De Musset's lament is his own discom- 
 fort; the source of Edler's sadness is a deep compas- 
 sion for a world in which the nobler the sufferer the 
 greater the suffering. Leopard! contemplates this suf- 
 fering without hope, and perceives in its conditions 
 no possibility of relief ; Edler seeks, and finds, in a 
 sympathetic study of those conditions the reconciling 
 element of beauty. " What is it in the human heart" 
 he exclaims, " which, when we search it to the depths, 
 appears so unspeakably sad, and yet so unspeakably 
 beautiful?" And this is the key-note to all his writ- 
 ings. 
 
 The imaginative literature of to-day is not a liter- 
 ature of Weltschmertz, nor yet of Weltfreude, but of 
 Freudensucht. The moral malady of the last genera- 
 tion had its source in the fretfulness of unsatisfied 
 ideals. Our own age is a prey to the incoherence of 
 a society which has no longer any ideals at all. The 
 Revolutionary Gospel has ceased to be what it was 
 2
 
 18 TRANSLATORS PREFACE. 
 
 even fifty years ago a credited promise capable of 
 kindling to enthusiasm men of strong and cultivated 
 intellect. It is only a manual of clap-trap for the use 
 of charlatans, who proclaim, not the freedom, but the 
 sovereignty of the People, because they know that, 
 during the endless minority of such a sovereign, the 
 most impudent rogues and vilest flatterers will have 
 the best chance of a place in the Council of Regency. 
 The fervors which burned to a climax in 1848, con- 
 sumed in that explosion a vast number of generous 
 illusions; and we live now in a disenchanted world, 
 whose strongest aspiration is towards a mere general 
 diffusion of material comfort. Heine was the poet- 
 laureate of the era which has come at last " to this 
 complexion." 
 
 " O my friends," he sings, " I will give you a new 
 song, and a better one. It is upon earth that we intend 
 to establish the Kingdom of Heaven. We mean to be 
 happy here below, and no longer beggars. The idle 
 belly must cease to devour what has been acquired by 
 the industrious hands. There grows down here bread 
 enough for all the children of men. Ay, and roses too, 
 and myrtles, and pleasure, besides green-peas in abun- 
 dance ! Yes, green-peas for all the world, and as soon 
 as their pods are fit for shelling ! As for Heaven, we 
 leave that to the angels and sparrows." * 
 
 He called this song the epithalamium of the nuptials 
 of Europe with the Genius of Liberty. But the epitha- 
 lamium was composed in 1844, the year of Edler's 
 birth, and many things have happened since then. The 
 nuptials have been not only celebrated but consum- 
 mated. The guests got intoxicated at the wedding- 
 
 * " Germania."
 
 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 19 
 
 feast, and behaved uproariously. They hugged and 
 embraced each other all round, and toasted the bride 
 and bridegroom to their heart's content. But after the 
 embracing came the quarrelling, as it generally does 
 on such occasions, when people have drunk more than 
 is good for them. Many heads were broken; and some 
 lost their heads altogether, and have not recovered them 
 since. The Happy Couple have led much the same 
 life as all other happy couples a life of little joys, 
 little sorrows, and little cares; scarcely one of tran- 
 scendent felicity or splendid achievement. Their chil- 
 dren have grown up with no exuberant satisfaction in 
 their lot, and no profound reverence for their illustri- 
 ous parents. On the whole, these promising infants 
 have turned out rather dull adults. The poor old horn- 
 book of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity has been 
 fumbled to tatters; but its most enterprising pupils 
 have not yet succeeded in satisfactorily solving a single 
 one of its elementary problems. 
 
 Yes ! the mountains in labor have brought forth but 
 exiguous mice, and we live in a world disenchanted. 
 What wonder that we are sick of sentiment ? It has 
 done so little for us ! And so from sentiment we turn 
 to sensation, in the belief that we are thereby escaping 
 from illusion to reality which is also, perhaps, an illu- 
 sion. Meanwhile, we have done with the Unknowable, 
 and would be well content with the Comfortable only, 
 could we but get it. Green-peas and plenty of them ! 
 That were a reality to be sensibly appreciated. Green- 
 peas in abundance, and as fast as they can be shelled, 
 for all the children of men ! This is still the Gospel of 
 the New Philanthropy; and its apostles assure us that 
 the promise of it is to be attained automatically, without 
 painful moral effort on the part of any individual, by
 
 20 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 the natural evolution of a society whose ethics are 
 utilitarian, its aesthetics realistic, its religion a ritual, 
 and its Kingdom of Heaven a political reform. Gau- 
 deamus iyitur! 
 
 Responsive only with a pensive sigh to these practi- 
 cal aspirations of an age whose disillusioned soul is to 
 be saved, like Faust's, by industrial enterprise, Edler's 
 genius has taken an unfrequented direction of its own. 
 A shy and solitary stream, it diverges from the main 
 current in which imaginative literature is now moving. 
 But its narrow banks are haunted by the wings of 
 bright fancies that hover among the blossoms of beau- 
 tiful ideas; and in the lonely waters of it are fair re- 
 flections from old deserted altars of the Graces, and 
 bowers where Eros is still a child. 
 
 LYTTOX. 
 
 KNEBWORTH, June, 1886.
 
 BALDINE.
 
 
 BALDINE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IN the forest clearing the sunbeams dance round 
 an old pine-tree. 
 
 At the time when the other trees were felled to 
 make the clearing, this one was so small that its 
 largest boughs were no longer than the fingers of 
 an infant's hand. The woodmen, with their threat- 
 ening axes, passed it by ; for the gentian lured their 
 looks away from it to her own bine bells, and the 
 wild strawberry covered with her leaves its tender 
 limbs, and above its small green head the protective 
 bramble spread her tangling hooks and spikes. 
 
 Thus the tree, surviving all its elders, has grown 
 up alone; and now it looks down forlornly upon 
 the solitude they have left around it. The sun- 
 beams play about its dark pyramid, which they can- 
 not penetrate. Nor can stem or branch peep out to 
 them through the thick black layers of drooping 
 fringes that enshroud the old pine from head to 
 foot, giving it a sombre aspect not, indeed, mo- 
 rose, but melancholy, as of a thing forgotten even by 
 itself in its long loneliness. Only now and then,
 
 34 BALDINE. 
 
 when the wind wafts to it faint greetings from its 
 distant kindred in the forest, does a soft tremor stir 
 the solitary tree, lightly rustling its heavy shroud. 
 
 In the shadowy circuit of the pine crouches a lit- 
 tle girl. 
 
 She is examining a large india-rubber ball. The 
 ball bears traces of better days, when it wore fine 
 belts and was bright with all the colors of the rain- 
 bow. But of that extravagant foppery it is now 
 happily divested; so far, at least, as little fingers 
 have been able to scrape the colors off. The result, 
 however, is clearly not worth all the trouble it must 
 have cost; for the only secret revealed by the re- 
 moval of the colors is a dull monotony of colorless 
 gray, too insipid to satisfy even the moderate expec- 
 tations of a mind easily contented. Deeper still 
 within the ball must lurk the essential mystery of 
 its being; and a wondrous seriousness deepens in 
 the eyes of the little girl as she musingly exam- 
 ines it. 
 
 "Why do you jump so?" the child said to the 
 ball. 
 
 He pretended not to have heard or was it per- 
 haps that he really did not hear that question ? And 
 again, putting her month close to him, she cried still 
 louder, " Why do you jump?" 
 
 But he was even more dull of hearing than she 
 had supposed. 
 
 Then the child's eyebrows went into a frown, her 
 teeth shut fast behind her half-open lips, her small 
 feet planted themselves firmly against the ground, 
 and it seemed as if the whole of her little body were
 
 BALDINE. 25 
 
 trying with all its might to concentrate itself into a 
 single point. That point was the tip of her short 
 forefinger, which she thrust hard into the ball. He 
 yielded good-lmmoredly to the pressure, and made 
 a shallow recess for the little finger which was not 
 strong enough to pierce his tough skin. When he 
 had had enough of this sport, however, he resumed 
 his dignity, and jerked the little finger sharply back. 
 He played the same sly trick upon the knuckle and 
 the tip of the tiny foot, with both of which she 
 tried to get the better of him ; and, apparently quite 
 resolved not to have a hole bored into him, there he 
 lay upon the ground in a sulk, his fat gray cheek 
 and plump lazy body swollen with pride and obsti- 
 nacy. Worse still! when the child, pouting, spurned 
 him aside with her little foot, he even sprang and 
 capered about as if wild with pleasure. 
 
 The meaning of such conduct could not be mis- 
 taken ; it was pure insolence. 
 
 She jumped up and kicked the ball angrily over 
 the grass and moss of the clearing to the border of 
 the forest. A push, a splash, and there he lay in the 
 pool! She had meant to drown him; but his bath 
 seemed to do him good, and he looked as if he thor- 
 oughly enjoyed it after his exercise. Up and down 
 he bounded merrily on the water, hopped lightly 
 across the ripples, dipped, and sprawled, and swung 
 himself about, and looked saucily up at her. Then, 
 refreshed by the romp, he swam comfortably on at 
 a leisurely pace round, gray, swollen, as before. It 
 was intolerable. 
 
 The child now remembered she had once heard
 
 26 BALDINE. 
 
 the old wife of a glass-cutter in the village saying to 
 a farm-servant, " That fellow is such a rascal, he de- 
 serves to be thrown into the water with a stone tied 
 to his neck." She did not know who the fellow was, 
 but she felt he could not possibly be a greater rascal 
 than the ball. With one hand she picked up a stone, 
 with the other she drew a string from her pocket, 
 and eagerly she watched the saucy swimmer. 
 
 Suddenly, however, stone and string fell from her 
 fingers. With both hands she seized her little frock 
 (it was a frock of many colors, gayly patched and 
 darned all over), lifted it up to her eyes, so high that 
 her rosy knees shone bare beneath it, and burst out 
 weeping bitterly. 
 
 He had no neck, not even a little one ; and all out 
 of pure spite! 
 
 So the ball kept his secret; and the child went 
 sobbing back to her old place in the shadow of the 
 pine-tree. There, upon the grass, all broken and 
 covered with mould, lay her other toy a little 
 wooden jumping- man. lie also had kept his se- 
 cret. The headless body of him still commandingly 
 stretched out its arm, and the bodiless head at the 
 side of it was still grinning from ear to ear. But 
 why he grinned so, and what important orders he 
 was giving, the child had failed to find out, even 
 after his destruction ; for the sawdust, gushing from 
 a gaping breast-wound, vouchsafed no satisfactory 
 answer to her questions. 
 
 Then the eyes of the child, heavy with tears, wan- 
 dered away from the dead jumping -man to the 
 living ants that were building an elaborate edifice
 
 BALDI3STE. 27 
 
 between two roots of the pine-tree. Farther on in 
 the clearing the butterflies and forest -bees fluttered 
 about the flowers; and in the midst of the flowers 
 rose a shining stone, on which the lizards were 
 wanning themselves in the sun. Farther still, in 
 the forest itself, the squirrels and sunbeams darted 
 from branch to branch. And all of them the child 
 had questioned, as she questioned the ball and the 
 wooden man, and none of them had answered her. 
 None ! 
 
 Again she lifted her frock to her C} T CS, and ran 
 weeping to the cottage on the forest border. There 
 she stood still, and sobbed aloud, 
 
 "Zenz! Zenz !" 
 
 Through the little cottage window an old woman 
 put out her head. In the old woman's face were a 
 thousand wrinkles, and the sound of the child's 
 voice crooked and bent them all into so many anx- 
 ious notes of interrogation. 
 
 "lie would not tell me, Zenz ! No, oh he, he 
 oh, oh !" sobbed the child, her words dying away in 
 her sobs. 
 
 The thousand notes of interrogation deepened 
 their lines upon the wrinkled face, and the old wom- 
 an's eyes looked searchingly along the clearing. 
 
 The little girl understood the questioning wrin- 
 kles and the searching eyes, and said, " The ball, 
 Zenz ! Oh, the ball'' 
 
 Then the head disappeared from the window- 
 frame, and a little old woman came, half hobbling, 
 half trotting, out of the door. Without stopping, 
 she went straight on across the forest grass; and
 
 28 BALDINE. 
 
 the child followed her, looking np into her face. 
 The woman's eyes were bent upon the ground, still 
 searchingly; but the little girl took hold of her by 
 the gown and drew her towards the pool. 
 
 "Look! look!" cried the child. "There he is, 
 sulking! the bad, bad, wicked ball!" 
 
 The old woman pulled a crooked stick from the 
 thicket, and tried to fish out the ball. But the girl 
 seized her arm. 
 
 "Leave it alone!" she sobbed. "I will not have 
 him now ! No, never, never more ! And they are 
 all just like him ! The jumping-man has nothing 
 in him but sawdust, and the dragon -flies, and the 
 little worms, and the lizards, that only run away 
 oh, all, all ! they are just the same ! And you, too, 
 Zenz, you too! You say nothing. It is only grand- 
 father that speaks, but he is always far away." 
 
 After a pause she added, " And the doctor he 
 also can speak. Tell him, Zenz, to give me some- 
 thing that will make me die. The doctor can do 
 everything. Zenz, I should so like to die !" 
 
 Thereupon, all those interrogative wrinkles sub- 
 sided into numberless fine lines of the tendcrest 
 pity ; and in the eyes now bent upon the child, the 
 restless gleam was softened to a quiet, loving light. 
 The old woman lifted the little girl from the ground 
 and carried her on her left arm, not without difficul- 
 tj r , back to the cottage. With her right hand she 
 talked to the child all the way as they went along. 
 With her lips she could not talk, for she was dumb. 
 But the little girl understood the old woman's dumb 
 language, and each of the crumpled fingers touched
 
 BALUINE. 09 
 
 a key intelligible to the child, whose lips replied 
 aloud to their silent motions. All day long, how- 
 ever, no audible word had come to the ear of the 
 little girl ; nor yesterday, nor the day before, nor for 
 many a long day before that. 
 
 When at last the dumb woman had laid the child 
 safe in her poor little bed, the silent fingers consol- 
 ingly announced to her that to-morrow the grand- 
 father would come home. The grandfather! Ah, 
 yes, Ad would talk with her to her heart's content; 
 and so at that news she ceased weeping. 
 
 The little dumb dame sat by the bedside, and em- 
 ployed all her ten fingers in lulling the child to 
 sleep. At last, when the moonlight, gliding through 
 the casement, glimmered on their hushed fantastic 
 movement, those flitting fingers began to seem to 
 the child, as they gleamed and faded in the gloom 
 beneath her closing eyelids, like the fitful sunlights 
 playing far away in the dim forest. But they, too, 
 kept their secret, and she fell asleep. 
 
 The evening of the next day the little girl was 
 seated alone on the pathway skirting the forest bor- 
 der. Her fingers were stained with the black forest 
 earth, for in it she had just been burying the ball, 
 which the old woman had fished out of the pool f oi- 
 lier; and with the ball the jumping-man. She did 
 not bury them under the old pine-tree in the clear- 
 ing, where she loved to sit, but some way off, in a 
 part of the forest where she never went. What she 
 had once rejected she would never, never more, have 
 anything to do with ; she would not even think of it !
 
 30 I3ALDINE. 
 
 The child had worked hard at her sexton's task ; 
 and now her tired hands lay resting in her lap, while 
 her blue eyes looked dreamily into the blue distance. 
 
 Suddenly out of that distance came a faint, low, 
 creaking sound. She sprung up and listened, turn- 
 ing towards the upland, over which a way led from 
 the valleys beyond the mountains down into the for- 
 est quarter. This way wound along what had once 
 been the fence of an old deer-park. The park had 
 long ago been thrown open, and was now a clear, 
 unenclosed space. The fence, however, or at least 
 the ruins of it, remained, leaning crazily towards 
 the forest, in one place half rotten, in another quite 
 broken, with here and there wide gaps between the 
 splintered planks. 
 
 The creaking sound grew louder. When at last 
 it turned into a discordant shriek, the child sprung 
 into one of the gaps in the fence and looked eagerly 
 through the opening. 
 
 On the brow of the upland appeared, first a head, 
 then by degrees a whole man. 
 
 The man was pushing a huge wheelbarrow heav- 
 ily before him; and though his way was downhill, 
 he seemed to find it hard and wearisome. The path 
 he plodded if path it could be called was only a 
 narrow furrow across the slope of a sandy potato- 
 field. It was neither drained nor metalled, beins: 
 
 t o 
 
 entirely the work of the rain, which had displayed 
 in its production a turn for picturesque effects; here 
 scooping out the ground into holes, there heaping it 
 up into hillocks; and in the washed-out soil between 
 them laying bare a good many blocks of stone, some
 
 BALDINE. 31 
 
 pointed, others rounded in shape, but all of a con- 
 siderable size. 
 
 The barrow staggered along like a ship on a stormy 
 sea, now rising high, now sinking deep, swaying 
 sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left, and at 
 every moment on the point of being capsized. Its 
 steersman, moreover, was old and feeble, and his 
 beard gleamed in the sun as white as snow. 
 
 When the wheelbarrow had got quite close to the 
 fence, the girl darted along the palings and hid her- 
 self behind them. Then she called out in a feigned 
 voice, " Featherheltn ! Featherhelm !" 
 
 The man stood still ; that call was to him. His 
 name was Willielm ; the "Feather" was his profes- 
 sional nickname; and, by a combination of the two 
 words, he was called Featherhelm. 
 
 All was still. He listened for a while, but there 
 was nothing more to be heard. 
 
 The old man, however, went on no farther, but 
 bcs;an to make himself comfortable for a longer rest 
 
 o o 
 
 where he had halted. lie pushed the barrow against 
 a heap of earth, put down the handle, drew forth his 
 head from under the strap, and set a stone under the 
 wheel. Having completed these arrangements, he 
 took off his shaggy cap, wiped his dripping forehead, 
 and holding the cap with both hands before his face, 
 cried out, also in a feigned high voice, " Baldine ! 
 Baldine !" 
 
 But the silence remained unbroken, and nothing 
 stirred. Then, out of the old man's clear blue eyes 
 a smile crept softly, round their wrinkled corners, 
 all clown his face. But there it found no egress;
 
 32 BALDINE. 
 
 the face was so full of wrinkles and crevices that it 
 wandered, quite lost in their labyrinth, here and 
 there, up and down, like the barrow on its rugged 
 way, till at last, not knowing where to get out, it 
 crept back slowly, from wrinkle to wrinkle, and, 
 with a brisk little leap, was safe home again in the 
 eyes. Presently the old man said, turning round to 
 his barrow, 
 
 "The sun is already below the Grunberg; we 
 must go home, old friend !" 
 
 Just then, however, something behind him tugged 
 at his coat-tail. 
 
 "Baldine! Baldine!" he said, without turning, and 
 speaking into his shaggy cap. The smile again de- 
 scended the labyrinth of wrinkles, and settled round 
 the corners of liis mouth. 
 
 "It is I, grandfather! dear grandfather!" cried 
 the child, as she flung her arms about him, laughing 
 and crying all at once with exuberant delight. 
 
 After the grandfather had again set his cart go- 
 ing, she walked proudly at his side, and stroked now 
 and then, caressingly, the coarse cloth of the old 
 man's sleeve. The cart, too,. she stroked sometimes, 
 because it belonged to her grandfather. When they 
 reached the cottage, she helped to unload the cart. 
 The grandfather and Zenz pretended to be very fee- 
 ble, and the child so strong, so extraordinarily strong, 
 that she must herself carry everything inside. The 
 two old people appeared only to help now and then, 
 just a little. The shaggy cap Baldine carried into 
 the room entirely without any help at all, and hung 
 it on the nail near the door. Then she sat down
 
 BALDINE. 33 
 
 beside her grandfather, and looked on with grow- 
 ing impatience while he ate his supper. This he 
 did very slowly, for he had only a few teeth ; but at 
 last he managed to get to the end of his meal, and 
 now he must talk to her at once with the last bit 
 in his mouth. Eagerly she hung on his words her 
 ear caught every syllable. They were human words, 
 such as she had not heard for many a long day. 
 
 By-and-by the old man rose and went to the cart- 
 shed, lie always brought home something for his 
 granddaughter; gifts worth only a few pence, like 
 the jumping-man, or found, like the india-rubber 
 ball, by the wayside. For Featherhelm was very 
 poor; but the scanty gifts of his poverty made the 
 little Baldine very rich. To-day's gift was also a 
 treasure which had cost nothing a nosegay, which 
 Featherhelm himself had gathered on his way home. 
 Fatigued though he was by pushing his heavy cart, 
 and weary from the summer heat, yet his old back 
 had bent, and his tired arm been stretched, as many 
 times as there were flowers in that nosegay. And 
 there were a great many flowers in it, quite a big 
 bunch of them ; and all were blue bluer than any 
 flowers Baldine had ever seen before, bluer than ev- 
 erything but the sky. 
 
 She clapped her hands, and cried, " Give me them, 
 grandfather ! give me them, dear, dear grandfather !" 
 Then she began at once to ask, " From what garden 
 did they come, grandfather?" 
 
 "From a very large garden!" said the old man. 
 "It begins on the other side of the Griinberg, and 
 where it ends only our Lord God knows. The blue 
 3
 
 34 BALDINE. 
 
 flowers arc called corn-flowers; they grow wild there, 
 all about the fields. Here we have only woods, 
 meadows, and potato-fields, but no corn; so that no 
 such flowers grow in our neighborhood, nor can one 
 find them without going far beyond the forest. But 
 corn and corn-flower are always to be found togeth- 
 er, like me and my cart." 
 
 He took a blossom out of the nosegay, and shawed 
 her the delicate petals round its calyx, and the lit- 
 tle stamens inside. Then he went on talking to 
 her about the villages in that large garden where the 
 corn and corn-flowers grow; and of the town, with 
 its tall houses and crowds of people. 
 
 Baldine held her nosegay very fast all the while, 
 and she took it with her when she went to bed. 
 Even then the grandfather must sit down beside 
 her, and go on with his stories. That he might not 
 steal away, she took one of his coat-tails into her 
 bed, and held it there with one hand, while the oth- 
 er still grasped the flowers. The old man was tired, 
 but he went on talking ; though his talk grew slower, 
 and his voice lower, and less and less audible, till at 
 last he fell into a quiet doze. 
 
 But Baldine could not sleep. She mused awake 
 on all his words, and how different they were from 
 those which Zenz spoke with her fingers. She did 
 not like to waken the sleeping grandfather, but lay 
 quite still, and only kept looking at him with her 
 large blue eyes, while he nodded in his sleep, and 
 bowed over her, as the bearded corn bows over the 
 nestled corn-flower. 
 
 Baldine awoke late in the morning. Long be-
 
 BALDINE. 35 
 
 fore she was up Featherhelm had driven his cart 
 across the potato-fields to the glass-works, and home 
 again. When she stepped out upon the threshold, 
 the grandfather, already seated on his little bench be- 
 fore the cottage, was busily varnishing a large beech- 
 mushroom. Baldine sat down at his feet, but he was 
 so absorbed in this work of art that he did not speak. 
 She looked at him musingly for a while, and at last 
 she said, 
 
 " Grandfather, why have you no hair on your 
 head?" 
 
 Featherhelm laid aside his brush, and held the shin- 
 ins: mushroom against the sun. 
 
 o o 
 
 " Well," said he, " in summer, you know, the sun 
 is very strong, arid in driving my cart I get very hot. 
 Then I perspire. The perspiration soaks out the 
 hairs ; and in this manner all mine have been soaked 
 away slowly one after the other." 
 
 "Ah, then, why don't you tell that to the doctor, 
 grandfather, that he may make other hairs grow? 
 The new doctor is like God : he can do everything; 
 he can even make people live, if they are not already 
 quite dead ^you have often told me so yourself. 
 Why don't you tell him, grandfather ?" 
 
 " It is more comfortable as it is," replied the old 
 man, quietly. 
 
 "More comfortable?" repeated the child. 
 
 "Yes, does it not save combing? You, for in- 
 stance, have to let Zenz plague you with her comb 
 every morning, and I have often heard you crying 
 under the process ; yet botli the plaguing and the 
 crying seem in vain, for in the evening no one could
 
 3C BALDINE. 
 
 ever guess that Zenz had braided your hair in the 
 morning. Nor could I ever remove all the little 
 feathers out of my hair, when I had it, though I took 
 great pains. Featherhelm would have had to be 
 combing his head all daj r long ; and for that he had 
 no time. Now, thank God, it is no longer necessary. 
 All is for the best !" 
 
 Baldine looked with mingled pity and vexation on 
 the grandfather. He had really and truly not a sin- 
 gle hair on his head, and it must have been out of 
 pure perversity that he would not ask the doctor. 
 Featherhelm understood her look, and, as he again 
 took up his brush, he repeated, 
 
 "It is more comfortable as it is. All is for the 
 best !" 
 
 Baldine sprung from the position in which she had 
 been crouching near the old man's feet, and stepped 
 up to him with a triumphant composure in her face. 
 
 " So !" she said, slowly. " And why, then, do you 
 keep so many white hairs on your face ?" 
 
 "That, too, is more comfortable," said the grand- 
 father. 
 
 " Look, grandfather," exclaimed the child, " how 
 wicked you are! and you are even telling a lie! I 
 know why. It is because you are afraid. You fear 
 the doctor will give you something bitter. Well, I 
 also was once, you know, afraid of his medicine. I 
 didn't like it myself. And when I upset the spoon 
 Zenz put it into, she and you cried because you 
 thought I would die. And so I would, too, rather 
 than swallow the bitter stuff, if I could have helped 
 it ! But the doctor didn't let me die : he himself
 
 BALDINE. 37 
 
 held the spoon to my mouth, and told me what I 
 must do. You must shut your eyes, grandfather, 
 and swallow it quickly, all at once. Then you feel 
 almost nothing, and can have hairs on your head 
 again. The doctor can do everything, and you know 
 it. Why do you tell such a lie, grandfather?" 
 
 "I don't tell a lie, Baldine. If I did not like my 
 beard, I should be obliged to scrape it off every day 
 with a sharp knife, and should probably cut my face 
 all over; like the clergyman in Oberan, who has to 
 shave himself every morning, and cannot do it with- 
 out scraping his chin to pieces. So, you see, it is 
 more comfortable for me as it is. All is for the best. 
 If you had a beard you would have to do as I do ; 
 but it were a pity that your milk-white face " 
 
 "Fie!" interrupted Baldine. "Girls don't have 
 beards." And after a little pause she asked, " But 
 why is that? Tell me, grandfather." 
 
 Featherhelm smiled, and began to tell a story, 
 lie did this every time that he could not or would 
 not answer a question. Baldine had plenty of such 
 questions in store ; but the stories Featherhelm could 
 tell were even more numerous than Baldine's ques- 
 tions, and they were all delightful. 
 
 So the little girl sat down again at his feet and 
 listened attentively. After a while, however, she 
 tapped him on the knee. 
 
 " Grandfather," she exclaimed, " why is one of your 
 boots pointed, and the other rounded?" 
 
 Featherhelm glanced down at his boots approv- 
 ingly. "The left boot," he said, "of the pointed 
 pair is torn, and so is the right one of the rounded
 
 38 BALDINE. 
 
 pair; and that is the reason. I gave botli the pa- 
 tients to the boot-doctor; and meanwhile I wear the 
 sound one of each pair. By-and-by the right pair 
 will come together again. All is for the best." 
 
 As he said this, the old man rose and put his work 
 in the sun to dry. Then he took a large bag on his 
 back, and Baldine a little one in her hand, and they 
 went together across the clearing into the forest. 
 Baldine gathered up the finest of the fir-cones and 
 put them in her little bag. She also kept a sharp eye 
 upon the acorns, the beech-nuts and bearded lichens, 
 the catkin-blossoms of the hazel-trees, and the grass- 
 es that had feathery seeds; for all these things the 
 grandfather would afterwards glue together, and with 
 the scales of the fir-cones, make them into little 
 frames, boxes, and other pretty ornaments. Feather- 
 helm searched meanwhile for the beech-mushrooms, 
 of which the Germans make tinder. Those that 
 were particularly large and Hue he varnished, for sale 
 to the wealthy town-folks, who hang them on their 
 walls, and use them as brackets for little flower-pots 
 and knick-knacks. 
 
 The old man and the child returned from the for- 
 est heavily laden. At home they found Zenz stand- 
 ing by the hearth, where she had just finished cook- 
 ing their dinner; and all three sat down to a repast 
 of potatoes and a soup made of sour milk,which could 
 not have been more relished were they the greatest 
 dainties in the world. 
 
 The evening found the whole family again in the 
 clearing beneath the pine-tree. Zenz knitted a little 
 stocking for Baldine ; Featherhelm carved away at
 
 BALDINE. 39 
 
 his little picture-frames. The old man was never 
 idle. He was so old, and pence so hard to gain ! 
 Those which would be wanted by-and-by for the 
 support of his orphan grandchild must now be earn- 
 ed quickly. 
 
 Baldine told him all about the wicked india-rubber 
 ball, and the stupid jumping-man with the sawdust 
 in his body; and how neither of them had answered 
 her, though she had asked them hundreds of times, 
 " Why this 2" and " Why that ?" The recollection of 
 their spiteful obstinacy brought the tears back to her 
 eyes, and she again began to sob. 
 
 Then the old man laid down his knife, took the 
 child on his knee, and stroked her hair softly, say- 
 ing* 
 
 "You are quite right, Baldine. Everything has 
 its Why, but it is not everything that tells it when 
 you ask. One must find it out one's self. Moreover, 
 everything does not cry when it is in pain. And that, 
 too, is for the best." 
 
 " Your cart cries, grandfather," said the child, 
 " though nothing hurts it. Why does your cart cry 
 so much ?" 
 
 "It cries for me, Baldine. When I enter a vil- 
 lage, it cries, ' Here is Featherhelm ! He sells goose- 
 feathers for the town beds !' When I come into the 
 town, it cries, 'Here is Featherhelm ! lie sells goose- 
 feathers, and buys glass pots for the glass-works !' 
 And those whom it concerns understand its cry." 
 
 " Yes, but why does it cry all along the forest, 
 where it concerns nobody?" 
 
 "Ah, there it cries more than ever for me, whom
 
 40 BALDINE. 
 
 its cry then specially concerns. But that you can- 
 not understand." 
 
 "Why not, grandfather? Oh! you, too, are like 
 the ball you will tell me nothing." 
 
 Featherhelm got up and went to the place in the 
 forest where the freshly turned-up earth betrayed the 
 grave of the ball. With a little stick he dug the ball 
 out of the earth, and carried it to Baldine. Then he 
 took out his knife, and stabbed the ball with it. The 
 ball emitted a faint sigh ; the wounded spot deepened 
 inward, the perverse plumpness was flattened slowlj T , 
 and sunk and shrunk, till at last nothing was left of 
 it but a deformed gray rag. Baldine held her eyes 
 wide open, and fastened them on the thing. 
 
 "It is not always good," said Featherhelm, "to 
 speak, and tell one's Why ; and therefore many things 
 are dumb. That is best for them. One has to find 
 out many things by one's self; which is good for us 
 also. You cannot do this yet, Baldine, but all is for 
 the best. Now go and help Zenz to peel the pota- 
 toes. You understand that very well, and they taste 
 much better when you have helped to prepare them." 
 
 After these words Featherhelm's head sunk upon 
 his breast. He was answering to himself the question 
 asked by Baldine, why the cart cried so specially for 
 him in the long forest, where its cry concerned no 
 one else. 
 
 The child had begun to walk slowly towards Zenz, 
 as the grandfather bade her; but she stopped ab- 
 ruptly half-way, paused a moment, and going back 
 to the old man, softly stroked his coat-sleeve, while 
 her eyes overflowed with silent tears. It hurt her
 
 13ALDINE. 41 
 
 to sec him so sad. When Featherhelm looked tip 
 and saw her standing there, he did not send her away 
 again, but lifted her once more on to his knees, and 
 said, 
 
 " Has it ever happened to you, Baldine, to lose 
 something that was very dear to you ?" 
 
 " Oli yes, grandfather the little white cock ! You 
 know, the rat caught him." 
 
 " A}*, I remember ! When that happened, I found 
 you here beneath the pine-tree, lying on the ground 
 and sobbing. Well, you see, I once had a daughter. 
 When she was as small as yon, she looked just as 
 you do now. I delighted in her how much I can- 
 not tell you and my wife, your grandmother, also. 
 Then she grew up, and our joy grew with her. 
 When she was grown up, she married the glass-cut- 
 ter, Sepp. He was the best man in the village, and 
 the most skilful cutter in the glass-works. These 
 two people were your mother and father, child. 
 Then you came into the world. But the Lord our 
 God was sparing at. that time. To you ho gave life, 
 and from your mother he took it away. Your grand- 
 mother could not live without her daughter, and she 
 soon followed her. After the burial of your moth- 
 er your father began to cough constantly, and often 
 he clutched at his breast. He and others knew 
 what that meant. The surgeon spoke about the 
 lungs, but they call it here the glass-cutter's malady. 
 The splinters of glass which spring off in the cutting 
 fly about in the air by thousands, and the glass-cut- 
 ters breathe them in. That scratches and cuts them 
 inside the chest, but so finely that at first they do
 
 43 BALDIXE. 
 
 not feel it. Later on, little by little, it begins to feel 
 like a thousand knives inside them, and they die of 
 it slowly. The glass-cutter, Sepp, he, too, was finally 
 delivered. But he did not look on death as a deliv- 
 erer; he suffered much; yet, in spite of his pain, he 
 was always sighing, ' Oh, that I might once more see 
 the furnace heated, and so lay up yet a little more 
 money for my child !' And he worked on till the 
 day of his death. He did not live to see a new fur- 
 nace heated. Then there were onlv you and I. But 
 
 / / 
 
 Zenz came to live with us, because she also had no- 
 body in the world, and was alone like ns. After 
 this, when I was driving my cart along through the 
 forest, I would have liked to lie upon the ground, as 
 you did when the little white cock died, and weep 
 about many tilings. But meanwhile the cart would 
 have stood still, and that would have been a thou- 
 sand pities. If the grandfather had wept for those 
 who were dead, his living granddaughter would have 
 cried for bread. So I restrained my trouble till the 
 day comes when it will throw me down entirely. 
 There will be time enough for it all when I can 
 never rise again. I kept it to myself, and laughed, 
 and made jokes with the people I met; for a pleas- 
 ant face is best for trade. I let my cart cry for me, 
 and busied myself about the customers it brought 
 me, and the beech-mushrooms growing for me in the 
 forest. Sometimes, it is true, when the cart cries in 
 too heart-rending a tone for those beneath the earth, 
 the water comes into my eyes. That is not good, 
 because then I cannot see the mushrooms; and they 
 are precious to me, for I have bought the right to
 
 I3ALDINE. 43 
 
 gather them at the rate of three dollars a year. The 
 cart soon finds this out, and it begins to cry in its 
 sharpest tones, 'Baldine! think of Baldine. Feather- 
 helm !' Then I take a firmer hold of it, and ray 
 sight grows clear again. All is for the best. Only 
 one must learn to understand it, be it dumb, or cry 
 it never so loudly !" 
 
 Thus the time passed away for Baldine in asking 
 and hearing, till the day came when the cart again 
 shrieked up the hedgeway. Then, after many long 
 and longer days, it came crying back again. And 
 so things went on variably till the summer was 
 over. During the winter the cart slept its winter 
 sleep. Featherhelm cut and carved and hammered 
 and glued his treasure-troves together, and Baldine 
 sat looking and listening. When spring came, the 
 first cuckoo and the cart cried together in the forest 
 quarter, but the cuckoo's voice was the soonest tired. 
 
 Baldine still hears the cart when the grandfather 
 has disappeared below the upland, while the cuckoo 
 has long been silent. She knows now that the good 
 cart cries for the grandfather. She knows also that 
 other dumb things have their language; only one 
 must find it out, as the grandfather said. She no 
 longer asks " Why ?" of all the silent things and 
 dumb animals. She looks at them a long time, and 
 then she knows it of her own accord. She has 
 watched the squirrels in the tops of the pine-trees; 
 and since then she understands very well what the 
 sunbeams are about. They play, just as the squir- 
 rels do. All the golden lights climb up and down
 
 44 BALDINE. 
 
 the stems, spring for pure merriment from bough to 
 bough, and hide themselves in the tree-tops covered 
 with leaves, through which only a lurking sparklet 
 peeps pertly here and there. Then they chase one 
 another from one tree to another, and scamper like 
 mad across the clearing. 
 
 But in their sport the sunbeams, like the squirrels, 
 are shy of Baldine. They do not venture in to 
 where she sits under the branches of the old pine. 
 For them its aspect is too melancholy, and they only 
 dance about it. There their choral revel glides round 
 and round the maiden gayly, but never nearer to her 
 than the length of her own shadow a black phan- 
 tom, blackest where the glory seems most bright, al- 
 ways present between the sunlight and herself, and. 
 always isolating her from the glittering Fairy Ring 
 that flees from its approach, and fades beneath its 
 touch. If she stretches out her hand, the sunbeams, 
 like the squirrels, spring back frightened from the 
 shade it throws upon them ; and the dark image of 
 that out-stretched hand, which is her own, rests sharp- 
 ly printed on the golden ground. 
 
 From Zenz, too, Baldine has learned so much, by 
 watching her when she speaks with her fingers, that 
 now she also understands the ants, and their whole 
 system of house-keeping between the pine-tree roots. 
 She studies them daily, and knows what trouble 
 they give themselves to put all in order, and keep 
 everything clean, as Zenz does in the forest cottage. 
 They sometimes roll little round white things in the 
 sun backward and forward ; just as Zenz rolls the 
 bread before putting it in the oven. Sometimes t\vo
 
 BALDINE. 45 
 
 of them approach each other, and converse by means 
 of little threads upon their heads, which they move 
 to and fro. They embrace and fondle and bow, and 
 bid each other farewell with these threads, which are 
 just like the speaking fingers of Zenz. But they 
 quarrel also, and beat one another. Zenz never does 
 that ; it is only the bad boys in the village that 
 do it. 
 
 The ants, the snails, the butterflies, and all the 
 dumb creatures, are sometimes glad and sometimes 
 sorry; and they all have fine threads on their heads, 
 with which they speak without a word, as Zenz 
 speaks with her fingers. Baldine knows all this 
 quite well. 
 
 But at home she knows One who is also dumb, 
 but never glad, always sorry. That is our Lord God, 
 who hangs upon the cross in the corner of the room, 
 high above the table. The cross is of black wood, 
 and fastened to it is the white God. He cannot 
 even speak with His fingers, for both hands are 
 nailed to the cross. The drops of blood run down 
 over His forehead and breast, from His hands and 
 feet. His face is very pale and mournful ; one can- 
 not look at Him without weeping. 
 
 Once Baldine climbed upon a chair, and thence 
 on to the table, to look at Him closely ; but, when 
 quite near, He looked even still more mournful. 
 Then Baldine leaned her cheek against His bleeding 
 arm, as at other times she used to lean it against the 
 grandfather's coat -sleeve, and wept. She stroked 
 the pale, worn cheeks, and said through her sobs, 
 
 " Poor God ! be not so sad, dear God !"
 
 46 BALDINE. 
 
 But He remained still as sad as ever, and did 
 not smile, as her grandfather always did when she 
 stroked his sleeve. Then she grew angry at the 
 nails, which hurt His hands and feet; and she tore 
 and tugged at them till her cheeks were glowing, 
 her curls all tumbled, and her little fingers bleeding. 
 The grandfather once found her in this condition. 
 It was a long time before she could be quieted ; but 
 he told her then that the good God heard all, even 
 if He did not answer, and that He was only sad be- 
 cause He had taken upon himself to bear the sor- 
 rows of all mankind. 
 
 Since that time Baldine often climbs up on the 
 table, and sits before the sad, pale face. The blood- 
 less lips remain always dumb, the eyes staring, the 
 fingers motionless; but she knows that he hears all. 
 Everything which at other times she tells her grand- 
 father is confided to the dumb God when the grand- 
 father is not at home. Has she any sorrow ? She 
 weeps before Him. He is so good, the grandfather 
 has told her. Has she any wish ? Of Him she 
 craves it caressingly, or with a wild impatience. 
 The doctor can do everything when somebody is 
 ill; but the dumb God is yet more mighty than the 
 doctor. All that the sunbeams, dancing round the 
 pine-tree, or the moonbeams, hovering about her 
 bed, suggest to Baldine's fancy all she has ever 
 thought or dreamed of He can do. 
 
 One evening Featherhelm came home very weary ; 
 so weary that he could not get up the next morn- 
 ing. Baldine sat by his bed and talked to him, be- 
 cause he could not talk to her. The old story-tell-
 
 BALDINE. 47 
 
 ing had conic at last to an end ; the old story-teller 
 was worn out. 
 
 Zcnz went to fetch the doctor ; and, when she 
 brought him back with her, Baldine laughed and 
 leaped for joy. Now all was well! To-morrow 
 her grandfather would be able to get up and go 
 with her into the forest to look for mushrooms. 
 The doctor was there, and he could do all. 
 
 But the grandfather did not rise next day, as Bal- 
 dine had expected, and he could scarcely speak. 
 
 When the doctor came again, a little hand convul- 
 sively clutched his own, and squeezed his fingers till 
 they ached. It was Baldine's. She looked reproach- 
 fully up to him, and cried, 
 
 " Why don't you give the bitter water to the grand- 
 father ? When you gave it to me it made me able to 
 get up. You can do all, and yet you do nothing! 
 There you let grandfather lie look at him unable 
 to rise or speak ! Give him the bitter water, please!" 
 
 The doctor smiled, and said, comfortingly, 
 
 "Yes, yes, I will!" 
 
 She loosed his hand, and he gave Featherhelm a 
 bitter w r ater; but it could not have been the right 
 one, for Featherhelm did not speak a word all day. 
 At nightfall he said, smilingly, to Baldine, 
 
 "All is for the best. Only, to understand it " 
 
 But what lie was about to say remained unsaid, 
 for he became suddenly silent. And so he rested 
 as the pine-tree outside in the forest, as the sunbeams 
 playing round it, as the sad God above in the corner 
 dumb forever! The last audible human word in 
 the child's world had died away.
 
 48 BALDINE. 
 
 The doctor came to look after the dead. Baldine 
 threw on him a look of the most glowing hatred. 
 Till he came, she would not leave her grandfather, 
 but now she went out; nor did she enter the house 
 again till the doctor had left it and was far away. 
 From that time forward she avoided him, and when- 
 ever, in the after-years, they met by some untoward 
 chance, not a word would she say to him. 
 
 For, oh the detected imposture! He could not 
 do all not even a little; he had let her grandfather 
 die ! His image in her soul was overthrown, shat- 
 tered, annihilated a thing collapsed and shrivelled 
 up, like the ball stabbed by the grandfather's knife 
 nothing left of it! 
 
 And Baldine threw the doctor away forever 
 threw him to the deformed gray rag, and to the 
 jumping-man with sawdust in his body. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 YEARS are gone by since then. Baldine has grown 
 up alone with the dumb God and the dumb Zenz. 
 But at last Zenz also has ceased to speak, even with 
 her fingers. She is dead ; and Baldine has taken her 
 dumb God with her to the saw-mill high up in the 
 forest. 
 
 There swift feet and young arms are wanted. 
 The miller and his wife are old. They find it more 
 and more difficult sometimes quite impossible to 
 get through all the work there is to do in the mill,
 
 BALDINE. 49 
 
 and about the stable and the house, and the forest 
 meadow above, and the potato-field below in the val- 
 ley. They have no need to go on working; for 
 though the mill is not their own property, but be- 
 longs, like everything else in that part of the coun- 
 try, to the master of the glass-works, they have 
 lived up there for forty years, and laid by an honest 
 penny for a rainy day. They could, therefore, stop 
 working and retire from business altogether if they 
 pleased, but working has become to them like breath- 
 ing: if it ceased, their life would stop. 
 
 The old miller is busy every day, from early dawn, 
 in the saw-mill, and his wife in the house. Baldino 
 lends a hand here and there, wherever she finds any- 
 thing to do. 
 
 At dinner and supper all three sit together in the 
 miller's parlor, but nobody speaks. The two old 
 people have lived there for forty years quite alone, 
 and what wonder if, by degrees, they have at last 
 forgotten how to talk ? 
 
 But there is also something to be seen in that 
 whitewashed room which may have made them si- 
 lent long ago. Against the middle of the wall, op- 
 posite to the window, stands an odd little bit of old 
 furniture; it is a child's chair. By the side of it 
 is a glazed cupboard, and in the cupboard a doll, a 
 child's cap, and some little shirts and socks all 
 clean, but yellow from age. There is nothing else 
 in all that part of the clean, bright, tidy room. From 
 all the household fixtures, and all the furniture in 
 daily use, the child's chair and the cupboard are set 
 apart like an altar. The whole room itself seems 
 4
 
 50 BALDINE. 
 
 to be there only for their sake ; as for their sake, also, 
 the musing silence of the old couple, when the four 
 eyes gleaming under their white locks are turned 
 towards the little chair that stands there so still and 
 empty. 
 
 Baldine thinks that, just as formerly the grandfa- 
 ther with his cart, so now the old miller and his 
 wife let the forest brook cry for them, when it 
 plunges loud over the mill-wheel, or murmurs low 
 beside the floodgate. 
 
 Baldine had been accustomed to silence from her 
 childhood. It had been her sole companion in the 
 days when her grandfather was away with his cart, 
 and in the years afterwards, when he was gone for- 
 ever, and she lived alone with Zenz. In those days 
 she did not often leave the lonely forest cottage, 
 with its dumb God and the dumb Zenz. The peo- 
 ple of the village she had long ago thrown to the 
 ball, with the jumping-man and the doctor. They 
 had taken no interest in the illness, death, and burial 
 of her grandfather, nor in those of Zenz. Both were 
 too poor to be objects of the least interest to those 
 village folks who were so much better off. And at 
 Zenz they used to laugh ill-naturedly, making sport 
 of her, and mockingly imitating her finger language. 
 The children especially were never tired of play- 
 ing malicious pranks upon the poor, dumb, helpless 
 creature. Baldine had not forgotten all this. She 
 never forgot anything. 
 
 Later on, whenever she came to the village, the 
 boys, now grown up, would nod and smile, and try 
 to chat with her. They even left other girls to run
 
 BALDINE. 51 
 
 after her and tell her what was true that she was 
 the prettiest girl in all that part of the country. 
 Ever}* where, in admiring tones, the cry went after 
 her, " Baldina !" " Paulina !" " Palina !" according as 
 each accommodated her name to his own pronunci- 
 ation. But it mattered not how they pronounced it, 
 no response did any of them get from her. She did 
 not laugh, she did not look angiy, she did not even 
 look up. Gravely and silently she passed them with- 
 out notice, as if for her they were not. 
 
 Just as little did she notice the girls, who envied 
 her for her beauty, and therefore made spiteful re- 
 marks upon her poor dress. And as, in spite of all 
 invitations, she never joined the Sunday dance in 
 the village, all the young men came by degrees to 
 the conclusion that she gave herself insufferable 
 airs; while all the young women asserted, on the 
 contraiy, that she was too ashamed of her poverty 
 to look at her betters. Such as she had been before 
 she went to live at the mill, she continued to be after 
 she had taken up her abode there ; and as she in her 
 ways, so the villagers in theirs, remained unchanged. 
 
 For a while, indeed, many an enterprising lad 
 would still secretly hang about the mill now and 
 then, in the hope of a word with her, or at least a 
 look ; but at last they gave it up, and nobody tried 
 any more to speak to her. Only, they stood still 
 when she went past them, and looked after her. 
 Sometimes, too, they followed her at a distance, so 
 that Baldine could not see them, and listened to her 
 song while she was cutting grass in the forest for 
 the goats.
 
 52 BALDINE. 
 
 She had a singularly strange voice, with such deep 
 tones in it that no girls in the village could imitate 
 her song. It sounded almost awful through the for- 
 est, and nobody who had ouce heard it could ever 
 forget the sound of it. It was also strange that she 
 never sang any of the songs of the country ; neither 
 the tunes nor the words of them were ever heard 
 from her lips. Not that her songs were foreign 
 ones. To say the truth, they were not even songs at 
 all. Her singing was a kind of song without words. 
 All that was unspoken in her loneliness seemed to 
 flow into a wild, wordless music from her otherwise 
 mute lips. 
 
 Of whom could she have learned such song? It 
 was a strange, many-toned sound, now as of birds 
 piping on the branches, now as of the forest wind 
 when it rushes athwart the multitudinous tree-tops 
 with the moan of a mighty organ, and now like the 
 low buzzing of wild bees. 
 
 Up at the saw-mill the brook and the mill-wheel 
 keep holy the Lord's Day, ceasing from their labor; 
 and in the afternoon the whole house is at rest. 
 
 The miller silently smokes his special Sunday pipe; 
 his wife silently dusts the doll and the child's cap 
 in the cupboard. Baldine leaves the mill-house and 
 goes wandering through the forest. Fitful and faint, 
 from the valley below, the music of the village dance 
 comes trembling to her ear; but she does not stop 
 to listen to it. The miller's black dog walks behind 
 her, as usual ; for wherever Baldine goes, that dog 
 follows her like her shadow. Over moss and tree-
 
 BALDINE. 53 
 
 roots go she and the dog together, till they reach the 
 forest path and climb up it. 
 
 At the top of the path, close by the wayside ditch, 
 an old, old, beech -tree rises from the lower wood. 
 The trunk of the tree is not visible ; for, slanted 
 round about it, are rows of wooden planks, some of 
 them only rough-hewn, with a cross rudely cut on 
 them, others gayly painted and decorated. 
 
 These are the so-called "dead-planks" of the vil- 
 lage. Church and church-yard lie far away from the 
 forest, only to be reached with difficulty by rough 
 mountain -paths in summer and isolated by snow- 
 drifts during the long winter. For this reason it is 
 the custom of the villagers, when any of them dies, 
 to lay the dead body on one of these planks, and let 
 it rest there till it can be put into its coffin and car- 
 ried away to the distant graveyard at Oberau. It is 
 thought that the plank is consecrated by the touch 
 of the dead ; and when the body has been removed 
 from it, they take the plank to the forest and lean it 
 there against the beech-tree. 
 
 Those who care to think of the dead, but cannot 
 visit their distant graves, come to muse or pray be- 
 side the dead-planks on which their loved ones were 
 borne to their long sleep. But to this place come 
 also many others who are not concerned about lost 
 friends or kindred ; for it is impossible to get to or 
 from the village without passing it; there is no oth- 
 er way across the mountains. Thus, nobody is suf- 
 fered to forget the dead ; for the dead-planks stand 
 at the wayside, craving from every passer-by some 
 recognition of their presence a prayer, an uncover-
 
 54 BALDINE. 
 
 ing of the head, a brief remembrance, or even only a 
 pitying glance. 
 
 And if the rough-hewn plank of the poor man, 
 and the polished and painted one of the rich, seem 
 as emblems of their different ways through life 
 
 v O 
 
 rough, hard, and joyless for the one ; smooth, gay, 
 and easy for the other yet all the planks are made 
 of the same wood, as all the lives of men have the 
 same destiny to suffer and to die. So that, rough 
 or smooth, blank or colored, each dead-plank might 
 with equal truth bear this inscription 
 
 " At my birthday as man 
 My disquiet began, 
 And it lasted till now. 
 
 " Wouldst thou suffer no more? 
 Follow me; when all's o'er, 
 As I rest so shall thou. 
 
 " From the pining and striving 
 Of the dying, called living, 
 Here at last is release. 
 
 "Be consoled: hap what may, 
 Thou, too, treadest the way 
 That hath led to this peace." 
 
 Nor is this all. The poor souls, say the folk of 
 the forest, suffer in Purgatory just so long as upon 
 earth their dead-planks stand ; but the planks of the 
 rich last longest, for the paint upon them retards the 
 progress of their decay. 
 
 On the ground, about the bole of the beech-tree, 
 lie the oldest of the dead-planks, crumbled and rot- 
 ten. They who once cared for them have dealt with
 
 BALDINE. 55 
 
 tlic remembrance of the dead as time has dealt with 
 these, its fading tokens, letting it fall away and be 
 forgotten ; or else the mourners themselves are now 
 dead, and their own planks already lean against the 
 beech. Thus, one row of planks rests on the re- 
 mains of those which stood there before it, as one 
 generation rises above another. 
 
 Baldine likes to sit, on Sundays, upon the stone 
 before the beech. The dead-planks of her parents 
 have long ago fallen to the ground ; those of her 
 grandfather and Zenz still stand, but already they are 
 beginning to give way at the base. The spirits of 
 the old man and the old woman hover round the 
 spot, and doubtless understand, without words, what 
 Baldine is thinking and feeling and dreaming as she 
 sits upon that stone. Without words, also, Baldine 
 understands what the dead whisper to her, and what 
 the brook murmurs, and what meaning there is in 
 the song of the bullfinch and the cry of the sparrow- 
 hawk, while she garlands the two dead-planks which 
 are so dear to her with the wild flowers she has gath- 
 
 CD 
 
 cred in the forest. Then she begins, in that deep mel- 
 low voice of hers, the strange song without words, 
 which no one can forget who has once heard it by 
 chance ; a song heard only when the singer is un- 
 seen ; for, like the forest-bird above her, at the sight 
 of a living face, or the sound of a living footstep, she 
 is mute. 
 
 There came, as the days w r ent by in this still way, 
 a busier time, when Baldine ran to the dead-planks 
 only to hang up the garlands she had woven on her 
 way, and return, without loitering, to the mill. For
 
 56 BALDIXE. 
 
 wheel and water enjoyed no longer their Sabbath 
 rest. 
 
 The master of the glass-works had long been med- 
 itating how he might turn to better profit the splen- 
 did old forest he possessed upon the Griinberg. The 
 timber there was magnificent, but the transport of 
 it to the nearest market was so difficult and circui- 
 tous that he could make nothing of it. After fre- 
 quent consultation with some of his neighbors in 
 the town, he at last went off in search of more scien- 
 tific advice : and when he returned he brought with 
 
 / o 
 
 him a sunburnt man who, after one shrewd look at 
 the forest, was able to settle exactly what ought to 
 be done with it. 
 
 Signor Vico that was the man's name had a 
 well-experienced, sharp eye for cases of this sort; 
 and he could see at a glance things to which the 
 learned, looking through their scientific spectacles, 
 were blind. He was not learned himself, but he was 
 an old hand at such work. For years he had col- 
 lected, every spring, at his home in Lombardy, a num- 
 ber of strong young men, whom he took with him 
 northward, wherever there were railways, roads, or 
 dams to be made, a rock to be blasted, a river-course 
 to be regulated, or a swamp to be drained. In all 
 work of this kind, the Italians displayed a remark- 
 able skill ; they laid hold of everything at the right 
 end, and they were diligent and easily satisfied. Lead- 
 ing, moreover, more temperate lives than their north- 
 ern neighbors, they were able, every autumn, to bring 
 home considerable sums. 
 
 Signor Yico was the Impresario of this travelling
 
 BALDINE. 57 
 
 industrial company. He spoke the most horribly 
 broken German, but it was just good enough for in- 
 telligible bargains with his foreign employers about 
 work and wages ; and his talent for languages made 
 him, during the working season, the general interpret- 
 er on all occasions between his Italians and the peo- 
 ple of the country. Moreover, he was chief staff- 
 officer, commander-in-chief, commissary-general, in- 
 spector-general, and factotum universal of his army. 
 
 His wife, a lively olive-colored little woman, with 
 sparkling black eyes, had a warm heart and a kindly 
 hand. She adroitly tempered the stern despotism of 
 her husband ; diverted his angry grumblings from 
 the culprit; gave, behind his back, here and there an 
 advance of wages ; healed the sick with home-made 
 physic; tended the wounded; and patched the dam- 
 aged coats with her own kind fingers. Having no 
 children of her own, she regarded all the young work- 
 men as such. To the supremacy of this motherly 
 kind-hearted influence even her husband's energetic 
 nature gave way. Signora Yico knew the ways and 
 habits, the heartaches and love affairs, the hopes and 
 cares, of all ; and she chattered about them with each, 
 under the large workmen's hut in the evening lei- 
 sure hours. 
 
 Thus the hearts of all were drawn to her, and, it 
 must be added, their stomachs also ; for she it was 
 who, over the open fire, in the enormous kettle which 
 always accompanied the army, prepared for them 
 their general meal the daily-eaten, ever newly rel- 
 ished, and by all beloved, "polenta!" 
 
 She alone knew how to cook it exactly after the
 
 58 BALDINE. 
 
 home tradition, with plenty of the proper cheese in 
 it, so that during the enjoyment of that repast every 
 one of them could fancy himself at home again in 
 beautiful Lombardy. The first who laid down his 
 wooden spoon involuntarily began singing some 
 sweet Italian song; the second in his turn took up 
 the tune, and so on, till the whole group was singing 
 in chorus, while Signora Yico beat time with her 
 mighty spoon upon the polenta-kettle. Signer Yico 
 upon these occasions sat throned, apart from his sub- 
 jects, and smoked with great dignity his Cavour cigar. 
 But even he could not refrain from humming a deep 
 bass accompaniment, though he did it pianissimo, 
 not to lower his dignity. 
 
 After a single visit to the Griinberg, Signer Vico 
 entered the parlor of the master of the glass-works, 
 and explained to him, in his dreadful German, the 
 conclusion at which he had arrived. It was like the 
 egg of Columbus. " The brook plunges down the 
 side of the mountain. Why let it plunge to no pur- 
 pose? Why use human hands and oxen, when the 
 brook can do the work? Why should the brook 
 only stroll and saunter for its own pleasure, instead 
 of working like all the rest of the world?" 
 
 Signor Vico went on asking these very pertinent 
 questions, till he had worked himself into a violent 
 tit of anger against the idle brook; and clinching 
 his brown fists, he shook them at it out of the win- 
 dow. Why make a tedious, fatiguing, circuitous 
 cart-road in ever so many zigzags up to the brow of 
 the Griinberg ? Why go to the expense of employ- 
 ing oxen for heavy traffic on such a road ? The
 
 BALDINE. 59 
 
 brook lias a ready-made road of its own, along which 
 it takes its pleasure daily, without any useful object 
 in view. Signor Yico will bring his workmen, who 
 have just finished the railway- works in the town. 
 They shall partly regulate and considerably improve 
 the course of this idler, remove some bits of rock that 
 obstruct it, establish a reservoir on the height with a 
 floodgate, fell the trees, throw the collected timber 
 into the standing water, open the floodgate, and 
 " Fuori dl qua ! Out with him ! Forest and water 
 move on ; at first adagio, then animo, coraggio! 
 piu presto ! then prestissimo, and ma di qua ! Be 
 off with you ! Son voyage /" 
 
 Signor Yico accompanied this animated harangue 
 by imitative gestures, which represented the behavior 
 of the wood in the water ; now springing up and 
 down the room, faster and faster, now stooping lower 
 and lower, till he cowered upon the floor; which last 
 expressive posture distinctly signified that the tim- 
 ber had arrived below at the glass-works. Thus con- 
 vincingly explained, the feasibility and advantage of 
 the project were so evident to the master that he 
 willingly assented to it. 
 
 A few days later the Italians made their entry 
 into the village, stared at by its astonished denizens 
 as if they were a troop of w r ild beasts. Signora Yico 
 especially, with her yellow face and sparkling eyes, 
 was an apparition which struck terror to the hearts 
 of all beholders when they saw her stirring the enor- 
 mous polenta-kettle. They were not long in arriving 
 at the unanimous conviction that she was a witch; 
 but the first suspicions of that dreadful fact were ex-
 
 60 BALDINE. 
 
 cited by the strangeness of the animal that drew the 
 little carriage, in which she made her entry into 
 the village. This creature seemed half a horse and 
 half an ass, and was only known to the inhabitants 
 of the forest by hearsay, like the dragons and winged 
 serpents of popular tradition. 
 
 Among the village youths the whole train pro- 
 voked much scornful laughter, malicious looks, and 
 significant shrugging of shoulders. They themselves 
 wore the same sort of clothes as their fathers and 
 forefathers had worn before them ; for the remote 
 forest and its folk are tenacious of old traditions. 
 But now there came, skipping and dancing among 
 them, lads with high, broad-brimmed felt hats, and 
 blood-red kerchiefs round their necks some of them 
 even wore red shirts ! The village maidens, howev- 
 er, more tolerant of novelties, were only all eyes and 
 blushes for the interesting strangers. The comely, 
 bold brown faces, the black locks and beards, the 
 bright, dark eyes, and the strong figures of these 
 new-comers, presented a pleasing contrast to the sal- 
 low features of a race stunted by the glowing oven, 
 the pounding-house, and the polishing-wheel of the 
 glass-works. 
 
 Next morning the Italians were already at work on 
 the Griinberg. Signer Yico, stationed on the brow 
 of the hill, his chin resting on his staff, was giving 
 his orders in a loud voice; while, by the open fire 
 below, Signora Vico was watching over the polenta- 
 kettle. Between these two poles of its diurnal mo- 
 tion the little new world was in full swing, and its 
 brown people bestirred themselves as brisk and busy
 
 BALDINE. Gl 
 
 as an ant's nest. After four weeks they were ready 
 to risk an experiment. The floodgate was opened. 
 "Fuori dl qua /" cried Signer Vico ; and below the 
 hill the signora greeted the arriving tree-trunks with 
 a far resound ing".Z?yyawz/" 
 
 And this is how it came to pass that the forest 
 brook which drove the saw -mill had no more rest 
 than his brother of the Griinbersr : for Signer Vico 
 
 o ' cu 
 
 kept a sharp lookout on all idlers, and the brook was 
 now forced, even on Sundays, to turn the wheel that 
 kept the saw at work upon the loads of timber sent 
 down to it from the mountain. 
 
 Nor was this all ; for Toniello, who was the Italian 
 Impr&aritf* Jack-of-all-trades, found yet more work 
 for the poor mill-brook. After a conversation with 
 the master of the glass-works, at which Signer Vico 
 performed his customary function of dragoman, To- 
 niello constructed in the rnill-brook, just under the 
 large saw-mill, another water-wheel, which, by means 
 of various leather straps, put in motion a third wheel 
 with chopping teeth that, swift as lightning, cut into 
 large logs for the glass-ovens all the spoilt timber 
 that was unfit for boards and planks. 
 
 Toniello also came up to the saw-mill, and pointed 
 out to the old miller many things in the machinery 
 which were defective, as well as others susceptible of 
 great improvement. Some of them the miller had 
 already noticed himself, but he now became aware 
 of faults which till then he had not even guessed. 
 The explanation was carried on by means of gestures 
 in dumb-show and various drawings, which Toniello 
 sketched rapidly on the nearest board. If the miller
 
 62 BALDIXE. 
 
 could not understand it all, Baldinc translated tlio 
 gestures distinctly into words ; for she understood 
 the language of the arms and lingers, having learned 
 it thoroughly from Zenz. 
 
 Toniello did not rest satisfied with disclosing faults, 
 he also undertook to remove them. The master had 
 an absolute trust in him, after his successful estab- 
 lishment of the second saw, and left all the improve- 
 ments to his discretion. 
 
 In the evenings, when the wheel stood still, Toniel- 
 lo used to set about this work. On the hearth blazed 
 cheerily the huge pine-wood fire; the miller helped 
 Toniello as well as he could, and Baldine looked at 
 the young man's eyes and fingers, interpreting their 
 signals, ready to tell the miller what he had to do, 
 and herself giving now and then a helping hand. 
 
 On these occasions, when the old miller lighted his 
 pipe, he thought, as he smoked it, that his dead boy 
 would have been just old enough to help him as the 
 stranger at his side was doing. He contemplated 
 Toniello with a musing eye, and wondered whether 
 his boy would have looked like this young stranger. 
 Then he shook his head. Such tall, slender figures 
 were not to be found in the forest quarter ; and if 
 any of its native youths chanced to be as tall as the 
 Italian, none had a frame so flexibly and finely built. 
 The old miller thought that the great gentlemen in 
 the town must move their feet and hands like this 
 young Italian, whose graceful gait and gestures, small, 
 well-cut nose with sensitive nostrils, curved mouth, 
 and high forehead, had the charm of a refinement 
 unfamiliar to the old man's experience.
 
 BALDINE. 63 
 
 So strange, indeed, to this patriarch of a flaxen- 
 haired race was the blue -black color of Toniello's 
 flowing locks, finely pencilled eyebrows, long eye- 
 lashes, and small mustache, that again he shook his 
 head despondingly. His son, he felt, would have 
 looked otherwise ; yet he would not have been sorry 
 had the lad looked just like this stranger. 
 
 Baldine stood all the while between the two, hush- 
 ed and thoughtful as was her wont, in the glow of 
 the blazing pine-logs, and looked fixedly at the fin- 
 gers, and into the eyes of the young workman. 
 
 When at last things were so far in order as not to 
 hinder the mill from working on the morrow, To- 
 niello sprang up, silently pressed the miller's hand, 
 nodded to Baldine, put on his broad-brimmed hat, 
 and wandered through the darkness down to the vil- 
 lage. II is clear song sounded from the forest path 
 up to the miller and to Baldine, farther and farther 
 off, lower and lower down, till at last all was still. 
 
 Baldine went up -stairs to her garret, and knelt 
 down before the dumb God on the old, black wood- 
 en cross. She prayed her evening prayer, and then 
 went to bed. It seemed as if something sang to her 
 in the coming on of sleep, farther and farther off, 
 lower and lower down, till all was still. And low 
 to herself she hummed the tune of that distant song, 
 singing it without words, till at last she fell asleep. 
 
 The miller stood, before going to bed, a long while 
 musing in front of the child's empty chair. Then 
 he murmured, shaking his head, " He would not have 
 looked like that young man !" 
 
 Toniello went his way down to Signora Vico. He
 
 64 BALDINE. 
 
 was her great favorite; she always kept his snppcr 
 for him, giving him into the bargain a tidbit from 
 
 ) O O O 
 
 her own. Toniello requited the good little woman 
 with sincere attachment. She was the only one with 
 whom he chatted about everything. With his com- 
 rades he confined his intercourse to the business and 
 hours of their common work ; for in his leisure 
 hours he preferred to sit alone, thinking out ingeni- 
 ous combinations of mechanism, sketching plans of 
 wheels and levers that could act upon one another, 
 or painting in bad water-colors flowers and animals 
 which looked wonderfully life-like. On Sunday he 
 usually sat an hour with Signora Vico, and then dis- 
 appeared nobody knew where. 
 
 The other Italians spent their Sunday at the inn. 
 They had there their own large table, played mora, 
 sang choruses, and made a great bustle; but did not 
 consume much, because of their inveterate frugality. 
 
 Beppo alone was the consolation of the innkeeper; 
 he consumed in food and drink all that he earned 
 during the week, and sometimes even more. But 
 he was also a cause of some trouble to mine host ; 
 for he made such a noise, first on the table with his 
 fists, then on the ground with his heels, and lastly 
 with his throat, whenever he got a chance of exercis- 
 ing its powers of sound, that in his presence both 
 villagers and Italians were obliged to speak louder 
 and louder. If he succeeded in his endeavors to set 
 the whole room in an uproar, the noise he had pro- 
 voked only furnished a deep bass accompaniment 
 to his own voice, which forthwith shrilled high and 
 loud above it. When he had thus out-bawled the
 
 BALDINE. 65 
 
 loudest, he began to feel tolerably satisfied, but not 
 yet quite comfortable ; bis effervescence needed fur- 
 ther vent in quarrelling and fighting, for which he 
 did not even give himself the pains to find a plausi- 
 ble pretext. If the nose of a village lad did not ex- 
 actly correspond to his ideal of noses, or the shape 
 of a comrade's beard displeased him, that was enough ; 
 and however good-humoredly his sarcasms might be 
 taken by the object of them, Beppo thought himself 
 deeply offended. To revenge his wrong, he forth- 
 with resorted to acts of violence ; and the victim, who 
 had understood nothing of his taunts, was promptly 
 admonished by a blow that he had unconsciously 
 given offence to Signor Beppo. 
 
 This was of pretty frequent occurrence when 
 heads, on hot summer days, had been heated by 
 drink; and the single combat generally developed 
 into a general scuffle, in which the combatants used 
 as weapons the beer pitchers, chairs, and stools. In 
 the midst of this hurly-burly Beppo moved about 
 like a fish in the water. It was his element. But 
 he was only perfectly happy when he could stick his 
 knife into somebody. 
 
 These tastes of his, and the zest with which he in- 
 dulged them, had subjected Signor Vico to many in- 
 conveniences. The Impresario's wife warned him 
 every time to dismiss Beppo, whom she disliked for 
 his want of heart as well as of temper. Signor Yico 
 agreed with her that Beppo was a heartless, ill-condi- 
 tioned fellow, and an incorrigible agitator and brawl- 
 er, besides being the laziest workman and greediest 
 guzzler and guttler in his whole troop; but then 
 5
 
 66 BALDIXE. 
 
 Beppo was also his brother's son, and a Vico like 
 himself. So the Padrone let Beppo stay on, and 
 continue his disorderly life, till one of his tricks with 
 the knife got him into trouble with the local author- 
 ities, who treated him to a short term of imprison- 
 ment. When he came out of jail, however, Signer 
 Vico had the weakness to take his brother's son 
 again into his employment; and the old life began 
 anew. 
 
 Beppo's ambition was to subdue the men by his 
 voice or his knife, and the women by his looks. His 
 face, which had, to be sure, a coarse, bad expression, 
 was disfigured by small-pox, and his stout figure and 
 restless limbs were not attractive; but he thought 
 himself irresistible. Whenever he caught sight of a 
 village beauty, he kissed his hand and looked lan. 
 guishingly at her; nor could he pass by a young 
 wench without chucking her under the chin, or put- 
 ting his arm round her waist. He tried, moreover, 
 to improve his appearance by wearing, on Sundays 
 and Feast-days, a frock-coat which he had bought in 
 the town, second-hand, from a dealer in old clothes. 
 
 When he contemplated his own image thus at- 
 tired on his head the broad-brimmed Calabrese hat, 
 with a cock's feather stuck jauntily into it, and his 
 crooked legs incased in high boots that came up to 
 his knees ; round his hips a blood-red kerchief, and 
 round his neck an orange-colored one ; a rosy waist- 
 coat over his crimson Garibaldi shirt; and, sur- 
 mounting all these adornments, the black frock-coat 
 he could only compassionately think of the wom- 
 en whose heads he was going to turn.
 
 BALDINE. 67 
 
 One of them, at least, should be made happy, one 
 of them he would kindly notice ; and she was the 
 girl at the saw- mill. She was unquestionably the 
 fairest maiden in the neighborhood all round, with 
 her heaven-blue eyes and her golden tresses. When 
 he came to think of it, he had never seen a girl like 
 her; not even when he bought his frock-coat in the 
 town. Yes, she alone was worthy of him ; and, 
 to say the truth, if he rightly remembered, he had 
 bought that coat only for her sake. 
 
 Caparisoned in this fatal garment, he passed all 
 his leisure hours prowling about the mill -house. 
 There he had opportunities enough of seeing the 
 girl, bnt she was never alone; the miller or his wife 
 was always with her, and very often Toniello. He 
 was convinced, however, that her heart had absorbed 
 his amorous glances, and knew how to value them. 
 To any other of his comrades he would have made 
 it as clear as the point of his knife th'at he alone had 
 rights over the girl to which all others must give 
 way ; but Toniello was the only one he never vent- 
 ured to attack. Once, indeed, he had tried to draw 
 a knife upon that young man, but Toniello had 
 wrested the weapon from his hand, seized him with 
 his nimble arms, and thrown him to the ground with 
 a shock from which his head ached for several days 
 after. 
 
 Beppo, however, understood the art of espionage 
 and ambuscade. One afternoon, when Baldine was 
 carrying a pail of milk down to the village, he sud- 
 denly placed himself, with legs astride, upon the for- 
 est path. As she approached, he began his wonted
 
 68 BALDINE. 
 
 tricks: kissing his hand, tossing his arms towards 
 heaven, and slapping that part of his body which 
 he supposed to be the residence of his heart. Bal- 
 dine went on without heeding this ridiculous de- 
 
 o 
 
 meaner, which she supposed to be meant for some- 
 body behind her. As she drew nearer, however, she 
 must have perceived that she herself was the object 
 of it, for Beppo stood across the path, and barred her 
 passage with his out-stretched arms. 
 
 She quietly turned aside from the path into the 
 forest, and tried to continue her way between the 
 trees. Beppo sprang after her, and seized her right 
 arm. With her left hand she had to hold the full 
 milk-pail steadily on her head, so that she had no 
 other weapon, than a haughty look ; but for that 
 Beppo did not care, and lie tried to pat his arm 
 round her waist. 
 
 The girl drew herself up, took the pail from her 
 head, and poured over him its whole contents. For 
 a moment he was staggered, and nearly blinded, by 
 the unexpected douche. But his wrath only in- 
 creased his desire ; and rushing upon Baldine, he 
 threw his arms about her and clasped her close. 
 
 " Beppo !" 
 
 The sound of his own name rang sharp in the ras- 
 cal's ear, and he looked up. But, in the storm of 
 his passion, the glance he turned upon the speaker 
 was purely mechanical ; and whether or not he rec- 
 ognized Toniello, whose shout it was that *he had 
 heard what was Toniello, what all the world, to 
 him at such a moment ? 
 
 The next moment, however, he lay sprawling on
 
 BALDINE. 69 
 
 the ground ; and as he instinctively began to fum- 
 ble at his knife, his wrist was clasped with iron fin- 
 gers, and the knife wrested from him. In impotent 
 rage he picked himself up, and ran off as fast as his 
 heels could take him, without once looking behind 
 him. 
 
 Toniello gazed for a while after the discomfited 
 Don Juan, and then turned to Baldine, who was 
 standing there, pale, with a strange, dark look in her 
 deep eyes. There was something intricate in the 
 expression of her brow ; but it was an expression of 
 visible pain. Her maiden pride had been hurt, and 
 Toniello tried to console her. lie pointed to the re- 
 treating Beppo, and laughingly lifted his finger to 
 his forehead ; Beppo was a madman, a fool ; what he 
 did was of no consequence. Then he approached 
 Baldine, and softly touched the painful wrinkle be- 
 tween her eyebrows. 
 
 At once the girl's forehead grew clear and smooth 
 as before, beneath her golden hair. She half opened 
 her lips to say a word ; but, remembering that he 
 could not understand her, she closed them again, 
 and only a smile stole gently into the curve of their 
 sweet clasp. Toniello smiled also. Thus they stood 
 a moment, both of them silent; then each nodded 
 to the other, and Baldine returned with her empty 
 milk-pail to the mill, and Toniello went downward 
 to the village. 
 
 As he went, he sung again that melancholy na- 
 tional song which had found its way to Baldine's 
 ear along the silence of the dark night air, when 
 Toniello wandered home from the mill
 
 70 BALDINE. 
 
 "Oh, were I slumbering deep 
 In death's eternal night, 
 My love would light my sleep, 
 And breathe the darkness bright! 
 
 "And when they lay me low 
 Upon my cold death bier, 
 In death I still shall know 
 That she is standing near. 
 
 " If o'er my grave she sighs 
 One little sigh of pain, 
 I soon shall ope mine eyes, 
 And smile on her again. 
 
 "But if, when I am dead, 
 My love her smile should keep, 
 Mine eyes will ope instead 
 To weep, and weep, and weep. 
 
 "Then, if she whispers low, 
 ' My love, what aileth thee?' 
 My lips will ope, I know, 
 And answer, 'Pray for me!' " 
 
 That evening Toniello sat, as usual, in the saw- 
 mill, and worked with the miller. Baldine watched, 
 as heretofore, the speech of his fingers and eyes ; 
 and when he looked at her, she smiled. Her smile 
 was meant to thank and assure him that she was 
 no longer troubled or vexed about that madman, 
 Beppo. 
 
 Nevertheless, ever after her encounter with Bep- 
 po, she made the miller's black dog run beside her 
 as often as she went to the village ; whereas, before, 
 she had only let him accompany her in her lonely 
 walks through the forest, where there was no fear
 
 BALDINE. 71 
 
 of his falling out with the village dogs, with whom 
 lie was not on good terms. 
 
 Toniello continued his visits to the mill. After 
 he had so improved its machinery that everything 
 worked perfectly, he set to work upon a new piece 
 of mechanism a clock which was to be put in mo- 
 tion by the large water-wheel, with the help of 
 smaller ones. Toniello bestowed much ingenuity 
 and care upon this construction. When he had 
 completed and fixed it against the wall of the saw- 
 mill, the clock went extraordinarily well, and Bal- 
 dine always regulated her work by it. 
 
 But Toniello was not yet satisfied with his master- 
 piece. Every night he took it down and inserted 
 into it new little wheels, which he skilfully con- 
 nected with the old ones. For every hour he fash- 
 ioned a little man who walked out on a board at 
 the side of the dial, to announce the fleeting time. 
 Then he constructed a dog, just like the miller's 
 dog, and painted him black. At last he added 
 chimes to the clock and, in fact, it seemed as if his 
 work would never be finished. 
 
 Sometimes, when he was at work upon something 
 that did not require all his attention, he would begin 
 singing with his fine, clear tenor voice the songs of 
 his native land. While thus singing, he glanced 
 across every now and then to the miller and Baldine, 
 as though inquiring if they liked it; but whenever 
 he came to his favorite song, the melancholy one be- 
 ginning !< o^ vrere I slumbering deep 
 In death's eternal night," 
 
 he always looked down, and never raised his eyes.
 
 72 BALDINE. 
 
 Before these later visits to the mill, he had heard 
 in the forest the strange, wordless song of Baldine, 
 with its deep tones so rich in variety of power; 
 sometimes suddenly swelling into a passionate burst 
 of thrilling sound, and then trembling away in faint 
 silvery notes along the stillness of the great wood- 
 land. He loved singing, as all Italians do; and he 
 especially loved the sound of an alto voice, because 
 that was the voice in which his mother had sung 
 to him the songs of his own land, and it is more 
 common among the women of Italy than in our 
 northern countries. Once (it was after the Beppo 
 incident), when he was leaning against a tree and lis- 
 tening to that wonderful wordless melody, its capri- 
 cious variations suddenly glided into the soft sad 
 air of his favorite song 
 
 " Ob, were I slumbering deep 
 In deatb's eternal nigbt, 
 My love would light my sleep, 
 And breathe the darkness bright!" 
 
 It was the tune without the words, of course ; but it 
 was sung in a voice as pathetic as the words them- 
 selves. Toriiello stood and listened long after the 
 song had died away. But since that day he never 
 looked up when singing it himself; he was afraid of 
 betraying that he had listened, for he well knew 
 that the girl only sung when she thought herself 
 alone. And yet an irresistible longing to hear that 
 song once more from her lips continually tormented 
 and urged him, without clearly knowing what he 
 was about, to haunt the forest ways, where Baldine 
 used to wander by herself.
 
 BALDINE. 73 
 
 Thus it happened that he saw her standing, one 
 Sunday afternoon, near the dead -planks, lie was 
 hidden in the thicket, and there he waited long to 
 hear her singing. But she did not sing. She knelt 
 a while before the planks, and then sat down upon 
 the stone, with her face hidden in her hands, and 
 her head stooping forward so that her golden hair 
 streamed down over her fingers. In this posture 
 she remained, till the miller's black dog laid a cau- 
 tious, questioning paw in her lap, arid looked consol- 
 ingly up at her with his good, honest eyes. At this 
 she rose, stroked the head of the dog, and moved 
 towards the outskirts of the forest. 
 
 There she lingered a while, stooping down to 
 pluck the flowers at her feet, or standing on tiptoe 
 to strip off the lowest and slightest of the leafy 
 branches above her head. With what she thus 
 gathered she made two garlands, which she placed 
 upon the two dead-planks; and then she went home 
 again. 
 
 But all the way home she did not sing. 
 
 Toniello waited a little ; and when she was out of 
 sight, he went up to the old beech-tree. He exam- 
 ined all the planks, especially the two rough-hewn 
 ones, with the fresh garlands on them ; and that 
 night he asked Signor Yico what was the meaning 
 of the beech-tree and the planks. 
 
 Signor Yico explained it all to him ; and why 
 some of the planks were painted, and others only 
 rough -hewn. "Rich poor!" were the words in 
 which he summed up his explanation of the mat- 
 ter; and, with his strong impulse to make everything
 
 74 BALDINE. 
 
 plain, lie pointed, as he said them, first to himself, 
 and then to Toniello. 
 
 In a certain sense, however, Toniello was richer 
 than Signer Yico. The Padrone never gave him- 
 self an hour's relaxation from his survey work : but 
 Toniello the next morning renounced his wages for 
 that day, with a request for leave to go to Oberau, 
 where he had some purchases to make. 
 
 Signor Yico was reluctant to spare him, for his 
 general skill in all departments of the business made 
 him a trustworthy substitute for the Padrone him- 
 self in the supervision of many of its details. The 
 Padrone, however, said nothing, but in dignified si- 
 lence scored out one day's work from the wages ac- 
 count. Signora Yico had meanwhile surreptitiously 
 slipped some victuals into the pocket of her favorite, 
 who was well upon his way a little after daybreak. 
 
 At noon Toniello reappeared upon the brow of 
 the hill, laden with a large supply of paint-pots; but 
 after this he must have stopped somewhere on the 
 road, for he did not reach the village before night- 
 fall. And all the rest of the week, day after day, 
 he was off again before sunrise, while all the camp 
 was still asleep ; returning, however, in time for the 
 beginning of the day's work. 
 
 When Baldine, next Sunday, made her weekly pil- 
 grimage to the old beech-tree, she was greeted by 
 it with a wonderful surprise. No sooner had she 
 reached the tree, than she stopped and stood motion- 
 less before it ; her figure turned into stone, and her 
 eyes fixed upon the bole of the tree. There were 
 her two dear dead-planks, leaning against it in their
 
 BALDINE. 75 
 
 accustomed place ; but they were painted white, 
 their edges adorned with black lines, and their cross- 
 es brilliantly gilt, and freshly decorated with little 
 garlands of flowers. 
 
 Baldine crept nearer to them. Her lips were pale, 
 her limbs trembling. She looked all around. There 
 was no one to be seen, Long she knelt and prayed 
 longer than usual at those reconsecrated shrines. 
 Then she went slowly homeward, never lifting her 
 eyes from the ground. 
 
 And the dog followed her dejectedly, for she took 
 no notice of him that day. 
 
 Returning to the mill, she found Toniello already 
 with the miller, who was smoking his Sunday pipe 
 on the bench before the house. Toniello was hard 
 at work on the construction of a mechanical cock, 
 that was to spring out of the clock-door, and flap his 
 wings, when the clock struck. When he saw Bal- 
 dine, he only nodded to her, and then kept his eyes 
 obstinately fixed on his work, while he went on sing- 
 ing to himself in low tones. 
 
 Baldine, however, went straight to him, and stood 
 before him so close that he was obliged to look up. 
 About her tremulous lips hovered the same smile 
 which had sweetened their pensive loveliness after 
 the discomfiture of Beppo's assault. Toniello feigned 
 not to see it. He again took up his knife, but han- 
 dled it so clumsily that he cut his finger. He tried 
 to continue his favorite song, which the arrival of 
 Baldine had interrupted; but the words stuck in his 
 throat, the notes came false, he sung out of tune, and 
 could not sret on.
 
 76 BALDINE. 
 
 Then Baldine took up the right note, clear as a 
 bell, and sung the air to the end. Her voice trem- 
 bled a little, for it was the first time she had ever 
 snng before any one ; but she turned her back to 
 the listener, as she sung, and looked far away, over 
 the hillside, towards the beech -tree and the dead- 
 planks. Still singing, with averted face, she went 
 slowly into the house ; and the last notes of her song 
 came faintly through the open window to Toniello. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 NEXT evening Baldine does not sing, even to her- 
 self. She is sitting by the brook in the forest, below 
 the mill ; and the dog lies at her feet. lie does not 
 lift his paw to touch her knee and remind her that 
 they must go home; he does not put his head into 
 her lap, nor look up at her with his good, honest eyes, 
 consolingly, as it was his wont to do when she was 
 sad. 
 
 And yet this evening her sadness is heavy and 
 sore. The dog does not care for it, however: he lies 
 there motionless and callous, for he is dead. With 
 difficulty he has dragged himself to this spot, that 
 he might die at her feet. A strong poison must 
 have been given him, for his agony was great when 
 he looked up at her, with his dim eyes, for the last 
 time. 
 
 And the agonized look in those poor dying eyes 
 Baldine instinctively associates with her recollection
 
 BALD1NE. 77 
 
 of a strange, vindictive gleam in the glowing eyes 
 of Beppo, whom she had seen a few hours -before, 
 prowling about near the mill. 
 
 When Toniello arrived at the mill-house that even- 
 ing, the old miller and his wife tried to explain to 
 him, by various signs, the fate of the dog. The mill- 
 er imitated the barking, his wife the dying. Nei- 
 ther of them had much skill in mimetic art; but at 
 last Toniello understood them, and hastened away in 
 the direction they pointed out to him. 
 
 lie found Baldine sitting motionless, and staring 
 at the dog. Toniello knelt down, lifted the dog's 
 head, and stroked him compassionately. The dog 
 had been attached to him, too, with a touching affec- 
 tion ; and till now had always greeted his coming 
 with jumps and barks of joy. 
 
 To Baldine, who had borne her own sorrow silent- 
 ly, without a tear, the thought that Toniello also had 
 lost a friend, brought fresh grief ; and she began to 
 sob. Moved by her tears, Toniello seized her hand, 
 pressed it tenderly, and murmured, 
 
 "Poverinaf" 
 
 To be sure, it was only for a dumb animal, a poor 
 dog, that Baldine was weeping ; but Toniello thought 
 of how poor she was herself, and how lonelj 7 of her 
 own still, joyless life and of how the dog at her 
 feet had been her sole intimate, and her last; the 
 constant companion and faithful friend of her seclu- 
 sion ; the trusty protector of her lonely forest walks. 
 
 "jPovennaf" 
 
 He repeated the word so sorrowfully, that Bal- 
 dine's tears flowed faster than before, in sympathy
 
 78 BALDINE. 
 
 for his supposed grief about the dog. Then Toniel- 
 lo drew her softly to him, and stroked her hair, and 
 wiped away the large tears that trickled down her 
 cheeks. He leaned her head against his breast, and 
 said nothing but "Poverina! Poverina!" and that 
 each time in a lower tone. 
 
 Baldine looked up, and saw the tears standing in 
 his eyes. She could not console him in his own lan- 
 guage, much as she wished to do so ; but through 
 her tears she smiled on his. And, because it had 
 comforted her when he had done it for her, she 
 wiped his wet eyes and stroked his hair. Then he 
 gratefully put his arm around her neck, and she felt 
 that she must do as much for him ; and when he 
 softly pressed his lips to hers, still more softly here 
 returned the pressure. 
 
 Baldinc had much to say that night to the dumb 
 God, up in her little garret : and Toniello had a long 
 talk with Signora Vico, who was an experienced 
 woman, and loved him like a mother. 
 
 Next day the signora went bravely up to the saw 
 mill, though it was a hard and a long climb for such 
 a fat, short-legged little woman. As soon as she got 
 there, she asked for Baldine, gave the girl a hearty 
 kiss on her cheek, and then began, in broken German, 
 to speak to the old couple in the way she had seen 
 her husband do it. After a good many bewildering 
 mistakes, they understood at last that she had come 
 to the miller, who was Baldine's guardian, with a 
 matrimonial proposal from Toniello. 
 
 She also made known to them that Toniello pos-
 
 BALDINE. 79 
 
 scssed a little farm of his own at home, which ho 
 let out only because he had wished to see the world 
 and satisfy his craving for information about foreign 
 things and countries. As he had no parents, this 
 way of life had till now been easy to him ; but now 
 he would return, with his wife, to his own land, and 
 manage the farm himself. She and Signor Vico 
 would miss him grievously, for Toniello had an ex- 
 cellent head on his shoulders, and was no common 
 workman ; but she rejoiced in his happiness, as if 
 he were her own son. The miller and his wife felt 
 how grievously they also would rniss their Baldine; 
 but, like the talkative little lady, they were glad of 
 the maiden's good-fortune. The signora then took 
 her leave, with two hearty kisses to Baldine; and 
 all was happily arranged. 
 
 After their betrothal, Toniello and Baldine used to 
 walk together to the old beech-tree and sit beside 
 each other on the stone before the dead-planks. 
 
 As a blossom that grows out of a grave, was the 
 growth of Baldine's love ; and because he could not 
 tell how he loved her, Toniello sung out all his heart 
 to her in the songs of his own land. She accompa- 
 nied these songs with the music of a voice whose 
 strains were deep and soft and full as those of a vi- 
 olin. Words she had never sung, and those that 
 Toniello sung to her she had never heard before ; 
 but she understood all they were meant to tell her, 
 and her frank, fond eyes answered with loving looks 
 the message of those loving words. 
 
 Sometimes, as thus they sit together on the stone 
 by the dead-planks, she caressingly strokes his sleeve,
 
 80 BALD1NK 
 
 as she used to stroke the sleeve of her grandfather 
 when she was a child. But all this is not enough ; 
 and there is at least one little word, which she knows 
 so well how to utter, in every conceivable tone, that 
 it is forever on her lips. That word is "Toni"- 
 the beginning of his soft foreign name. 
 
 To be sure, it is only one word ; and that, too, a lit- 
 tle one. But the birds that build their nest about 
 her home in the lonely mill have also only one little 
 chirp between them; and listening to them when 
 they talk together in the leaves, Baldine has discov- 
 ered that, with only this one sound, they can tell 
 each other all they feel ; and that according to the 
 tone in which it is uttered, it means welcome or fare- 
 well, joy or sorrow, pleasure or pain, or even the 
 manifold blissfulness of love. 
 
 So she with her " Toni !" What is there that this 
 poor little word does not say for her, or say to him ? 
 How proud it sounds when she looks up at Toniello ! 
 How humble when she whispers it musingly to her- 
 self! How grateful when he brings her any little 
 gift! How fond, when to him she gives a forest 
 flower ! How sweet, how inexpressibly sweet, when 
 she is hanging on his arm and listening to his voice ! 
 
 Meanwhile, the necessary papers had arrived from 
 Toniello's home. Next Sunday, when he and Bal- 
 dine passed by the dead-planks in the forest, it would 
 be on their way to the church and the altar at Obe- 
 rau. Signora Yico had prepared the wedding-feast, 
 at which, of course, the indispensable polenta would 
 not be wanting. The whole Italian colony wished 
 to make it a splendid festival. Everybody planned
 
 BALDINE. 81 
 
 in secret some surprise for Toniello. The standard 
 of excellence was who should make the greatest noise. 
 Gunpowder played an important part in all these re- 
 joicings. Rusty old horse-pistols, and indeed all sorts 
 of old fire-arms, were hunted up ; and on the heights 
 of the Griinberg various primitive preparations for 
 fireworks were stored in readiness for the occasion. 
 
 Beppo alone remained unsympathetic. But nobody 
 minded him, for it had been decreed that in a few 
 days his connection with the company was to come 
 to an end. Of late, his quarrelsomeness had in- 
 creased beyond endurance ; and he had even exhaust- 
 ed the forbearance of Signor Vico. Toniello he al- 
 ways shunned. Toniello had once spoken to him 
 about the worthless fellow who had poisoned the mill- 
 er's dog; but he turned his back and hurried away, 
 grinding his teeth and clinching his fist, with an in- 
 articulate growl. 
 
 Toniello took no further notice of him, but Bal- 
 dine, whenever the thought of him came back to 
 her, which it often did, was haunted by a vague fear 
 not for herself, but for Toniello. It was for this 
 reason that, dreading a dispute between them, she 
 had never told Toniello of the many times she had 
 caught sight of Beppo's gloomy eyes peering through 
 a thicket as they passed, and felt that he was watch- 
 ing them when they walked together in the forest. 
 
 The last time this had happened was on the day 
 before their wedding, when Toniello came for a mo- 
 ment to the mill. 
 
 He only came to tell her, in their now familiar 
 sign-language, that lie had something to do at the 
 G
 
 82 BALDINE. 
 
 Griinberg, and would not come again that evening, 
 so that she must go to bed very early, to be ready 
 next morning for the wedding walk to Oberau. 
 
 o o 
 
 Which last injunction he explained by nodding as if 
 asleep, shutting her eyes with a kiss, and rocking her 
 head gently, while he sung to her in these words the 
 lullaby, Vattene dormire 
 
 " Sleep, dear, and be thy slumbers sweet! 
 
 Of violets all shall be thy bed : 
 Six angels watching at thy feet, 
 Six angels at thy head. 
 
 " Sleep, dear, until the morning-star 
 
 Hath opened with his golden key 
 That day, of all the days that are, 
 The dearest day to me !" 
 
 Toniello went on to the Griinberg. Signor Vico 
 had been speaking to him about some obstruction, 
 which, he said, he had lately detected in the water- 
 course, and which he wished Toniello to have the 
 credit of removing. He would close the water-gate, 
 and shut off the water that evening, so that Toniello 
 might be able to examine the bed of the stream. 
 
 This, however, was only a pretence, suggested to 
 her husband by the signora, for getting Toniello out 
 of the way during the final preparation of the fire- 
 works, with which the Italians intended to celebrate 
 the eve of his wedding. 
 
 They had all been racking their brains how to 
 manage it, till the signora hit on this notable plan ; 
 and, although Signor Vico was at first reluctant to 
 join in her friendly subterfuge, which he thought a 
 little beneath his dignity, his wife had so effectually
 
 BALDINE. 83 
 
 talked him over that he ended by discharging his 
 part in. it with a zest which persuaded Toniello that 
 the Padrone's whole reputation depended on the 
 speedy removal of the pretended impediment. 
 
 So Toniello strolled leisurely up the bed of the 
 stream. The water-gate was closed, the water-course 
 dry, and empty of all but the confused heaps of 
 stones that strewed its rocky channel. Toniello 
 paused from time to time to examine the banks; and 
 then, shaking his head, he climbed on slowly. No- 
 where was a damaged place to be seen. At length 
 lie had got close under the floodgate, where the banks 
 had been artificially raised ; but here also he could 
 find nothing wrong, though he carefully examined 
 the spot. 
 
 Once he thought he heard a creaking above him. 
 He listened, and looked up ; but it must have been 
 only the dull, angry sound of the imprisoned waters 
 behind the dam ; all around was still, lie glanced 
 up at the trees, thinking it might perhaps have been 
 the flutter of some big night-bird in their boughs 
 which had produced that strange sound; but no, the 
 branches were motionless. 
 
 Then he thought of Baldine, who used to sing like 
 the forest birds without any words, and wondered 
 how her song would sound when she had learned 
 the words sung by his own people in his own land 
 the songs of that home which would so soon be 
 hers as well as his. 
 
 At last Toniello thought it was time to return ; 
 and he looked up to judge how far the evening was 
 advanced. The narrow strip of sky above him rip-
 
 84 BALDINE. 
 
 pled in and out like a rose-colored ribbon through 
 the dark branches of the trees; and this set him 
 thinking of the glow to-morrow upon Baldine's 
 cheek. 
 
 Suddenly he was startled by a tremendous sound, 
 like a mighty thunder-clap, just above his head ; and 
 through the opened floodgate, back into its old chan- 
 nel, came rushing and roaring the whole vast mass 
 of the emancipated waters, which dragged along with 
 them, fiercely tossed and jostled in their headlong 
 course, all the logs and trunks thrown into them 
 above the dam. 
 
 The Italians below in the valley, who had also 
 heard this sound, supposed that Toniello, having dis- 
 covered and removed the alleged obstruction, had 
 opened the floodgates, in order to try the effect of 
 his work ; and they concluded that he would soon 
 be back. All their preparations for his reception 
 were now finished. Baldine, who had been sum- 
 moned on some slight pretext, was sitting with Sign- 
 ora Vico in the workmen's hut ; and Luigi, who 
 was the swiftest of foot, had been sent to fetch 
 Toniello, with a message that Signor Vico had some- 
 thing to tell him. They were only waiting for To- 
 niello's return, and their thoughts impatiently fol- 
 lowed Lnigi up the Griinberg. 
 
 " Luigi must now be half-way up," they said to 
 one another. And then again, after a little while 
 
 " Surely by this time he has reached Toniello, and 
 they must now be well on their way back. It is not 
 too soon. Let us begin !" 
 
 And off went the fireworks! crackling, fizzing,
 
 . 
 BALDINE. 85 
 
 popping, blazing, banging, and merrily spouting into 
 the dark heaven brilliant showers of colored sparks, 
 while the drums beat, and the Italians shouted 
 
 But, on the height above, Luigi was lifting from 
 the rocky bank a man stunned and crushed by the 
 shock with which the whirling waters had flnng him 
 against it. The shouts, and the sound of the beating 
 drums and bursting fireworks, were clearly audible 
 in the still air upon the height ; and the glare of the 
 rockets and bonfires reddened the narrow strip of 
 sky from which the faint ribbon of rose-colored light 
 had long since faded. All these tokens of rejoicing 
 rose up to the man who was lying there upon the 
 wet moss. They were all addressed to him ; they 
 were all for his sake ; but he neither saw nor heard 
 them. 
 
 At last Luigi returned, breathless, panting, with- 
 out Toniello. 
 
 The shouting and shooting suddenly ceased. There 
 was a confused low buzz of troubled voices, and 
 then all started off with a rush to the Griinberg. 
 Baldine did not understand what was the matter, 
 but she wrenched herself away from the hands of 
 the signora, who, trembling, tried to hold her back. 
 
 When she reached the height, which the Italians 
 had gained already, some of them were standing in 
 a ring round something which she could not see ; 
 the others had lighted a fire, and were collecting 
 about it a number of large branches. 
 
 Were these preparations for some special bon- 
 fire, she wondered. The Italians made way for her,
 
 86 BALDIXE. 
 
 and she found herself at once inside the ring. In 
 the midst of it a wounded man was lying on the 
 ground, motionless. She gazed at him and bowed 
 above his face, lower and lower, till her bright hair 
 Streamed over it. Then she glanced up, with a trou- 
 bled look, to the faces around, as if asking, "Is this 
 really Toniello ? For God's sake, say no !" 
 
 But the men remained silent. Some turned aside 
 to brush the tears from their eyes, while the others 
 bent still more busily over the litter they were mak- 
 ing near the fire. Baldine knelt beside Toniello. 
 She did not weep, nor move, nor lift her eyes from 
 his face, till they put him on the litter. Then she 
 rose slowly, as if wearied to death, and silently 
 pointed out to the bearers the way down to the 
 mill. 
 
 They followed her directions ; and as she walked 
 beside the litter just as in by-gone days when, a 
 child, she used to walk by the side of her grandfa- 
 ther's cart she sometimes stooped and touched ca- 
 ressingly Toniello's sleeve. The moon lighted the 
 forest-path, and no one spoke a word. 
 
 When they got to the mill-house, they carried To- 
 niello, in obedience to Baldine's mute instructions, 
 up to her chamber, and laid him on her bed. Sign- 
 ora Vico was there, with her little medicine-chest. 
 She made them all leave the room, undressed Toni- 
 ello, and then called Baldine to him. Life was not 
 yet entirely flown. He breathed faintly, but could 
 not raise his eyelids. 
 
 Towards morning the doctor and the curate ar- 
 rived from Oberau ; and with them many people
 
 I3ALDINE. 87 
 
 from the village. Baldine's chamber was entirely 
 filled. The people outside the house were talking 
 in low tones, and those inside spoke only in whis- 
 pers, while the doctor examined Toniello's wounds ; 
 but all were asking the same question 
 
 " How could the accident have happened? How 
 was it possible? Could Toniello have loosened the 
 sluice-gates, without knowing, while lie was examin- 
 ing the bed of the watercourse ?" 
 
 Baldine had turned from the bed, when the doctor 
 approached it. She heard, as in a dream, the whis- 
 perers round her discussing all these possibilities, as 
 she stood by the open window staring at the forest 
 where, all at once, she seemed to have seen something 
 in the distance, for, with a loud cry, she stretched 
 forth her arm, and exclaimed, " Beppo !" 
 
 All shook their heads. Beppo was a bad fellow, 
 but not so bad as that! Moreover, he had left the 
 neighborhood the day before, and taken leave of all 
 before he went away. 
 
 But Baldine did not heed these incredulous prot- 
 estations; she repeated several times her emphatic 
 exclamation of " Beppo ! Beppo !" and when the doc- 
 tor, turning to the assembly, shrugged his shoulders, 
 she smiled bitterly. She had known it ah yes, 
 long, long ago! that he could do nothing for those 
 who are at death's door. He had let her grandfa- 
 ther die; and him and his science she had long ago 
 contemptuously dismissed, as since then so many oth- 
 er things, to the limbo of detected lies. 
 
 One, however, she still knows, in Whom there is 
 help at all times, and for all. That is the dumb
 
 88 BALDINE. 
 
 God on the black cross. She had learned to speak 
 to Him without reserve or doubt, when He still 
 looked down on her from the corner of her little 
 room in the forest cottage ; and she had done so, day 
 and night, ever since He had been hanging above 
 the table in her garret at the mill-house. All that 
 she had borne and suffered so silently, all that was 
 hidden away in her young breast its great heart- 
 sore, its humble joy all this she had trustfully laid 
 bare to His sad eyes ; and He, that could do every- 
 thing, knew all. His lips are mute, and His hands 
 are motionless; but His love and power are not as 
 human lips that lie, and human hands that fail, and 
 He will save Toniello. 
 
 So she stands before the crucifix with lifted looks 
 and supplicating hands, and lips that murmur unin- 
 telligible words. 
 
 A faint sigh reached her ear. 
 
 She ceased to pray, and ran to the bedside. To- 
 niello had opened his eyes and was looking at her. 
 She sunk on her knees beside him, and softly stroked 
 his arm in her old childlike way. The one poor little 
 word she had so often said to him before, meekly, 
 humbly, heartily, was all she could say to him now, 
 in the anguish of her last hope. 
 
 " Toni !" she whispered, bending over his face, and 
 smiling. 
 
 He must have heard that word and seen that smile ; 
 for he too smiled and whispered, 
 
 " Oh, were I slumbering deep 
 In death's eternal night, 
 My love "
 
 BALD1NE. 89 
 
 But there the whisper died away. His eyes closed 
 again, and a shadow passed across his face. 
 
 The doctor signed to the curate to come for- 
 ward. 
 
 Baldine started up, rushed to the table, sprung upon 
 it, and stood before the crucifix. 
 
 " Save him, O God ! dear God !" she murmured, 
 fervently. 
 
 The curate, at Toniello's bedside, was muttering 
 the prayers for the dying. 
 
 " Save him, O God !" cried Baldine, with a heart- 
 broken wail, which she repeated again and again, 
 louder and louder, wilder and more wild. She did 
 not pray any longer ; she stormed, she raved, and 
 threatened. 
 
 "He is gone!" whispered the doctor to the cu- 
 rate ; and the other murmured calmly, 
 
 "Lord, be merciful to the poor soul, and receive 
 him into Thy heavenly kingdom !" 
 
 Then Baldine furiously tore the crucifix from the 
 wall, and held it close, with both hands, before her 
 face. Her eyes looked deep into the eyes of the im- 
 age on the cross, and once more her lips repeated 
 that piercing wail. 
 
 It was a dreadful and a terrible cry, and for years 
 and years afterwards it haunted the ears of those 
 who heard it. 
 
 With the cross still in her hand, she rushed to To- 
 niello. Now at last he must recover! The dumb 
 God was not like the worthless doctor, and He would 
 make all well again ! 
 
 " Toni !" she whispered.
 
 90 BALDINE. 
 
 But be did not look up, and on his face the shadow 
 remained unchanged. 
 
 "Toni!" Baldine repeated, and clasped her arm 
 about his breast, and laid her head upon his heart ; but 
 it beat no more. 
 
 Toniello was dead. 
 
 Once again that dreadful cry ! 
 
 And then, after a silence which no one dared to 
 break, Baldine rose, with tearless eyes and a bitter, 
 disdainful smile upon her lips. All the melancholy 
 softness of her features was turned into the hardness 
 of frozen ice. 
 
 She deliberately lifted the crucifix high above her 
 head, and dashed it against the wall, from which the 
 broken wood flew splintered in all directions. 
 
 The priest covered his head and hurried out of the 
 room. The villagers hastily followed him. Their 
 religion had been insulted, their superstition alarmed ; 
 and around the house uprose, upon a hundred voices, 
 the ominous cry of ancient days, " Stone the blas- 
 phemer ! stone her !" 
 
 The popular indignation extended even to him for 
 whose sake the sacrilege had been committed. No 
 villager accompanied the funeral procession of the 
 Italians. The dead-plank of Toniello, placed accord- 
 ing to the usages of the place against the beech-tree 
 in the forest, was removed the next morning. And 
 the curse ran backward, excommunicating the pre- 
 ceding generation ; so that with Toniello's dead-plank 
 those of Zenz and Featherhelm likewise disappeared. 
 
 Baldine, amid execrations, was carried away by 
 Signora Vico.
 
 BALDINE. 91 
 
 The miller's people had loved her well ; but they 
 belonged to the old forest race, which clings fast to 
 its old reverence for its old God, and they would not 
 harbor the blasphemer another night beneath their 
 roof. 
 
 The priest preached next Sunday at Oberau a 
 moving sermon on that strange event, and the Church 
 condemned her with deliberation, as the people had 
 already condemned her with haste. If the signora 
 ever suffered Baldine to be seen at the door of the 
 little house where they now lived together, every one 
 crossed to the other side of the road, as if flying from 
 an infected person ; and the village boys had always 
 stones in their pockets, ready to throw if they caught 
 sight of her. 
 
 Baldine, however, was utterly callous to all these 
 demonstrations. She did not even perceive them. 
 Even of what was said to her by the friends with 
 whom she lived, she seemed scarcely conscious. She 
 was not ill, but she looked like a person who had 
 gone through a long and wasting illness. In her 
 face there was a waxen hue, and in her eyes a glassy 
 stare. 
 
 Signora Yico was kindness itself to her, and so was 
 the signora's husband. With his assistance Toniello 
 had, after his betrothal to Baldine, so arranged his 
 affairs as to secure to her his little property in Lom- 
 bardy, in the event of his death. But as Baldine 
 could not manage this property, and was unwilling 
 to live there, Signor Yico exerted himself, through 
 friends of his upon the spot, to dispose of it advan- 
 tageously on her behalf; and the produce of the sale,
 
 92 BALDINE. 
 
 which he handed over to her, was sufficient for the 
 modest requirements of her future maintenance. 
 
 She learned the success of his efforts with appar- 
 ent indifference, and signed, without reading them, 
 the papers which Signora Vico put before her. 
 
 The signora, however, had devoted her whole heart 
 to this poor girl, and it was her wish that Baldine 
 should accompany her and her husband back to Italy. 
 The villagers of the Griinberg, who were stupid and 
 pitiless, would be the death of her if she remained. 
 The signora herself, moreover, childless as she was, 
 longed to have some one about her whom she could 
 love as her child. 
 
 Baldine, to whom she explained all this, nodded 
 silently. Baldine would have given the same silent 
 assent had they proposed to lay her living in the 
 grave; it was her way of answering everything. 
 
 Meanwhile the autumn was far advanced, and the 
 Italians were preparing to return to their own land. 
 
 It was rumored about the village that Baldine 
 would go with them, and the villagers were glad of 
 it. Bad harvests, sickness, and fires were less to be 
 feared when the taint of sacrilege was thus removed 
 from among them. All the children had their pock- 
 ets full of stones, and the grown-up folks their months 
 full of maledictions, for the departure of the Italians. 
 
 But the signora was not only kind-hearted, sho 
 was also prudent, and before daybreak had contrived 
 to get Baldine away on foot. Signor Yico, smoking 
 with wonted dignity his Cavonr cigar, was the only 
 person seen beside her, as she sat, with her polenta- 
 kettle, on the little wagon, drawn as before by the
 
 BALDINE. 93 
 
 unnatural beast which had so greatly excited the 
 suspicions of the villagers on the day of her arriv- 
 al. This was a bitter disappointment to the boys 
 with stones in their pockets, and the mule had to 
 pay for it. 
 
 The Italians followed behind the wagon, shouting 
 and singing louder than when they first entered the 
 village, whence they were now joyfully returning, 
 with their hardly earned wages, to their own beauti- 
 ful country. 
 
 Only two of them were missing, who at their en- 
 trance into the village had sung with them the bad 
 Beppo and the good Toniello. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " 11 Cartdlone ! 11 Cartellone /" 
 
 The news-venders roared it in the streets and 
 squares ; the loungers in the cafes cried out for it 
 till they were hoarse ; and in all the saloons of Na- 
 ples the word went round from mouth to mouth. 
 Crowds collected at the street-corners, whispering, 
 murmuring, shouting, about the gigantic placard in 
 which the Impresario announced all the operas se- 
 lected for the Stagione, and the names of his artist 
 troupe. 
 
 This was "il cartellone" the greatest event of the 
 day. 
 
 Among the artists mentioned on its list were some 
 whose names, like stars of the seventh magnitude,
 
 04 BALDINE. 
 
 gleamed only in a pale phosphoric light, when looked 
 at through a powerful telescope. Others were dis- 
 cernible through spectacles, and some even visible to 
 the naked eye. Then came a few whose place in the 
 operatic firmament everybody knows ; and, finally, 
 the sun, round which all the other stars revolve. 
 
 This sun was Signora Iduni. 
 
 Her name was written on the cartellone in letters 
 three times as big as all the others. But on the stage 
 she had, as yet, been seen by no one. One does not 
 begin all at once with the sun. When he rises, the 
 dazzled gaze can see no stars; the eye must get ac- 
 customed by degrees to the increasing brilliancy. 
 For which reason, only the little telescopic stars ap- 
 peared at the beginning; and at these the public 
 hissed with an energy belonging only to the South. 
 That was, in the opinion of the Impresario, exactly 
 what the public ought to do. The sooner he threw 
 a victim to its satirical propensities, and the more 
 mercilessly that victim was mauled and mangled, the 
 sooner would the public get tired of its sport. 
 
 The Impresario had this time every reason to be 
 satisfied. All joined in the whistling and hooting; 
 the public was full of life, agitation, and interest. 
 When the greater artists made their appearance, it 
 had grown weary of whistling and hooting. So it 
 rested its lips, and began to feel a pleasing restless- 
 ness in the palms of its hitherto inactive hands. 
 The applause increased, the large opera-house grew 
 more and more crowded, the Impresario rubbed his 
 own hands, and felt that the world was going all 
 right, though the sun had not yet risen.
 
 BALDINE. 95 
 
 He held that luminary hidden under the horizon 
 with great secrecy, nobody knew where. In other 
 respects excessively communicative, on this question 
 he remained as silent as a fish; and the expectations 
 of the public were raised to a pitch that, for nervous 
 temperaments, was quite intolerable. 
 
 Then, one fine morning, symptoms of the dawning 
 of the mysterious sun began to appear in the jour- 
 nals ; little revelations, that steadily increased in in- 
 tensity, like the glow before the sunrise. At first, 
 the shades of night yield to the disturbing glimmer 
 of twilight; then there appears in the east a streak 
 of pale splendor, across which a rosy flush begins 
 to hover; forthwith, a sudden fiery beam leaps up; 
 then a second, then a third ; then a full sheaf of 
 brilliant rays, till at last the whole heaven is set 
 alight, though the sun still lingers under the hori- 
 zon and bides its time. 
 
 The first disturbing glimmer of twilight was sent 
 forth by a newspaper which announced the discov- 
 ery that this long-expected sun, in spite of its Italian 
 name, was not an Italian sun. 
 
 The discoverer was a man of national spirit, and a 
 stanch protectionist. He coupled his announcement 
 with an elegy on the neglect and suppression of na- 
 tive talent, and a bitter philippic against the impor- 
 tation of foreign products. The Impresario had 
 perpetrated an act of treason to his country, and 
 Signora Iduni was the corpus delicti. 
 
 This at once compelled the opposition journals to 
 preach a crusade against the Government. And they 
 started it with very spirited and eloquent leaders
 
 96 BALDINE. 
 
 upon the gross financial mismanagement, the outra- 
 geous growth of the public burdens, the depression 
 of trade, the impoverishment of the people, the in- 
 crease of emigration, the bankruptcy of the to\vns, 
 the starving condition of the agricultural laborers, 
 the frightful Pellagra- epidemic in the north, the 
 eighty per cent, of crass ignorance in the south, the 
 Massia, Camorra, and Brigentaggio of all which 
 things the sole cause was Signora Iduni ! 
 
 Soon afterwards came the second discovery. 
 
 The Diva was not only not an Italian, she was 
 even a German ; though whether she was born in 
 Austria, or in Germany, had not yet been ascer- 
 tained. 
 
 The organs of the "Italia irredenta" however, 
 decided that she must be an Austrian lady, who 
 had made her escape from that land of hideous tyr- 
 anny, where she had been threatened with the most 
 painful death. This view of the matter was copi- 
 ously illustrated by thrilling romances about under- 
 ground dungeons full of water and rats, with hang- 
 men, and sworn tormentors, torture -chambers, and 
 the most horrible tortures. The romances, natural- 
 ly, ended in the wonted cry for the deliverance of 
 the brethren who, in Trieste, the Tyrol, and Dalma- 
 tia, were languishing under the same tortures. 
 
 Nevertheless, the other journals asserted that the 
 Diva was from Germany proper; where the chil- 
 dren, as soon as weaned, swallow every morning a 
 ruler for breakfast. By that interesting piece of in- 
 formation the Italian public might adjust its expec- 
 tations of the plastic grace and dramatic l/'io of this
 
 BALDINE. 97 
 
 lady's acting; and as for the art of singing as prac- 
 tised in Germany, it was well known that one end of 
 the ruler always remained in the German throat. 
 
 People who did not write for the press were be- 
 ginning to ask, with a titter, " Have you read?" 
 And before long the question was, "By -the -bye, 
 have you seen ?" For the comic papers had opened 
 a complete course of illustrated lectures on 'the Ger- 
 man system of swallowing the ruler. 
 
 I>ut all this was only the twilight and glimmer of 
 dawn. 
 
 The fiery glory came later. It began with a dry 
 statement of fact in one of the morning papers, to 
 the effect that the voice of Signora Paolina Idmri 
 was an alto. 
 
 A host of astonished readers spelled out that para- 
 graph slowly, over and over again, open-mouthed, 
 and with eyes round as a plate, to assure themselves 
 that they were really and truly under no hallucina- 
 tion. But it was no hallucination, it was not even a 
 typographical error; for there it stood, plainly print- 
 ed : " She is certainly a contraltist." 
 
 Few could swallow their chocolate, that morning, 
 unchoked by just indignation. Here was a coarse 
 outrage upon all the proprieties, a clinched fist 
 shaken in the face of the public, and of each indi- 
 vidual a thing unheard of! And what unprece- 
 dented insolence, to have announced on the cartel- 
 lone, in letters thrice as big as usual, the appearance 
 as Diva of a person whose voice, it now appeared, 
 was only fit for the parts of old mothers, elderly 
 confidantes, crones, witches, gypsies, enchantresses, 
 7
 
 98 BALDINE. 
 
 and fortune-tellers ! Even the least sensitive souls 
 felt that the Impresario had practised a sorry joke 
 upon them, and were outspoken on the subject of 
 his shameless insolence. 
 
 An enterprising tradesman, who was up to the 
 spirit of the day, immediately advertised for sale a 
 new sort of whistles with an exceedingly loud and 
 shrill note in them, which were made of tin, lead, 
 pinchbeck, silver, silver-gilt, and even gold, for every 
 rank and condition of purchasers. They were a 
 great success, and he drove a roaring trade with 
 them; while the very poorest portion of the popu- 
 lation practised at home upon all the keys they could 
 find, with a view to the discovery of which gave the 
 shrillest whistle. 
 
 That was the morning glow. 
 
 The sun, which was the cause of it all, still lingered 
 under the horizon, and knew nothing about it ; but 
 the Impresario kept his eyes and ears open to the 
 signs of the times, and was well on the qui vive. 
 
 At first he had been frantically delighted at the 
 manner in which the journals occupied themselves 
 about his Diva. It was just as if he had paid them 
 for it, and yet it had not cost him a penny. But 
 now lie perceived that all was lost. The thing had 
 gone too far ; and he presented himself as a broken 
 man before Signora Iduni, with chattering teeth, 
 for the purpose of duly impressing upon her the ex- 
 tremely precarious nature of the business, and the 
 ticklish state in which it stood. 
 
 Signora Iduni smiled. 
 
 The Impresario had drawn a smelling-flask from
 
 BALD1NE. 99 
 
 his pocket; for the situation was one of which he 
 had long experience, and he knew that the announce- 
 ment he had come to make was invariably followed 
 by a fainting-fit on the part of the lady concerned. 
 Now, however, he stood staring at the Diva, with 
 e} r es greatly surprised, and even a little frightened. 
 The disdainful tranquillity of her smile disconcerted 
 him, and at last it put him fairly out of temper. 
 
 "Ah," he exclaimed, "you are able to smile, sign- 
 ora? Smile! Good heavens! Do you know that 
 Iduni whistles are being bought by the thousand, 
 every day, to welcome you ?" 
 
 " Childish playthings !'' said the cantatrice, con- 
 temptuously. 
 
 " How ? Childish playthings ? You make a jest 
 of it, do you ?" 
 
 " A jest !" she said. " That would have been the 
 first jest you have ever heard from me. But I have 
 noticed that, among a number of children, if one 
 child laughs or cries, or pouts or throws stones, all 
 the others often do the same without knowing why. 
 You, signor, I should think, must have observed a 
 like tendency in the conduct of your theatrical pub- 
 lic. Such things do not in the least affect me." 
 
 " But they aifect me, signora for your sake, of 
 course !" 
 
 "What is the drift of these fine phrases?" said 
 she. "I don't like them. I know, and so do you, 
 that what excites you is not sympathy, but self-in- 
 terest. You fancied that by your manner of an- 
 nouncing me to the public you were doing a clever 
 thing, and had made a lucky move. Had I known
 
 100 BALUINE. 
 
 of it, I would not have allowed such a proceeding; 
 but now the thing is done, and cannot be undone. 
 The golden mountains you hoped to gain have fall- 
 en visibly flat, and this is what upsets you. Had 
 you not interrupted me, I would have told you be- 
 fore what may now be of some comfort to you. As 
 for myself, you have already had my assurance that 
 things of this sort never disturb me in the smallest 
 degree ; and as for you, yon have only to reflect that 
 children soon tire of one plaything, and take to an- 
 other." 
 
 "Yes, I know that!" groaned the Impresario. 
 ' After the whistling comes the drumming with 
 lists and feet, and then " 
 
 " Et ccetera ! Well, then, let us dissolve our con- 
 tract! I release yon, unconditionally, from all your 
 obligations." 
 
 "No, no! Never! What do yon think of me? 
 Can you suppose that my word no, your word- no, 
 I mean my word is to be broken in this way ? That 
 I would take advantnge of your generosity ? That 
 I am capable of cheating you in so unheard-of a man- 
 ner ? That would be ... unconscientious !" 
 
 "You mean imprudent. I like to look at things 
 as they are. Let us come to the root of the matter. 
 Why this continual draping and posturing? To 
 state matters plainly, your real meaning is that my 
 so-called generosity would certainly be very incon- 
 venient to you just now, when no celebrated singer 
 happens to be disengaged ; and that you want me 
 to help you to find a vein of gold where your shaft 
 has hitherto only struck barren rock. Well, then, I
 
 BALDINE. 101 
 
 can give you back your word. I never take back 
 mine." 
 
 " But what do you propose to do ? We are in a 
 terrible fix. You will be hissed and whistled off the 
 stage. They are all provided with whistles. Even 
 the boxes will whistle; among the thousand Idnni 
 whistles there are at least ten of pure gold. Just 
 think of that, signora ! The Iduni whistles have 
 become articles of fashion. They are all the rage. 
 People wear them as brdoques. The whole theatre 
 will be filled with whistles. They'll whistle you 
 into fits before you know where you are. You'll 
 infallibly falter and break down. That's what al- 
 ways happens. You stop choke down a sob try 
 again no use whistling louder than ever burst 
 out crying go into hysterics swoon away carried 
 off feet uppermost and then general confusion, 
 uproar, revolution, universal smash, and the devil to 
 pay ! I see it all. I've seen it dozens of times be- 
 fore, and this time " 
 
 " This time you will not see it. They will go on 
 whistling, and I shall go on singing. For a moment, 
 perhaps, the whistling may drown my voice the or- 
 chestra does that sometimes. But 'tis not I that 
 will first be out of breath." 
 
 "You don't know! They will compel you to 
 stop singing. This is not an ordinary occasion. No 
 means have been spared to make you hated and ri- 
 diculous. Some threaten, others scoff, all are against 
 you. Do not reckon either on your art or your in- 
 difference, consummate as they both are, to win you 
 a fair hearing from such an audience."
 
 102 BALDIXE. 
 
 " I do not," said slic. 
 
 " Upon what, then, can you rcl y ?" 
 
 "Their injustice, and rny own scorn of it. I am 
 not afraid of what I despise. When the injustice of 
 anything has been publicly exposed, the tiling itself 
 becomes ridiculous, and soon drops. Now, to con- 
 vince these people of the injustice, and make them 
 ashamed of the absurdity, of the proceedings you an- 
 ticipate with such terror, there is one very simple 
 means." 
 
 " And that is " 
 
 " You shall learn it, and it is perfectly easy." 
 
 Hereupon followed a long conference between the 
 Impresario and the Diva, at the end of which he 
 fervently kissed her hand. 
 
 All the way home he ejaculated to himself in un- 
 abated ecstas} r , " Angelic conception ! heavenly idea ! 
 infernally clever! d-e-v-ilish good!" 
 
 The people he passed in the street looked after 
 him with a smile, thinking how cheap wine must be 
 this year. 
 
 Several days after this interview the play-bills for 
 the evening announced the performance of the"Mu- 
 etta di Portici."* At noon, however, these bills were 
 covered by a fiery red placard, which informed the 
 public that the first dancer was prevented by a sud- 
 den indisposition from appearing in the part of Fe- 
 nella; but that the Impresario had succeeded in 
 procuring a competent substitute. 
 
 * " The Dumb Girl of Portici." An opera better known in 
 England as "Masaniello."
 
 BALDINE. 103 
 
 "Substitute? Competent substitute! But of 
 what kind?" 
 
 This question occupied everybody ; and through- 
 out the first three scenes of the opera the audience 
 remained in a subdued fret, exhibited only by a low 
 humming. 
 
 At the end of the third scene Elvira starts up 
 suddenly from her throne to ascertain the cause of 
 an approaching tumult. The thousand heads of the 
 public are simultaneously turned, with lively curiosi- 
 ty, in the same direction. The humming stops. All 
 eyes follow those of Elvira with an interest incom- 
 parably keener than any which the singer is able to 
 simulate; and when she asks "What is that?" the 
 question appears as if written on a thousand aston- 
 ished faces. 
 
 "What is it, indeed? 
 
 Has a daughter of Palma loosed herself and her 
 golden locks in all her enchanting beauty from some 
 old picture-frame in which her father's hand first set 
 her? Yet, no this is scarcely a daughter of Palma, 
 with that ever-beaming smile of hers, in which Gior- 
 gione, Titian, and the Veronese once sunned them- 
 selves. The look with which Fenella, flying before 
 her pursuers, rushed upon the stage, never visited 
 the face of Palma' s daughter; had she once looked 
 thus she could not have so smiled again. 
 
 The girl's deep-blue eyes are opened wide, with 
 a feverish glare in them ; her desperate look appeals 
 in heart-felt anguish to the whole public, craving 
 help of all and each, till it rests suddenly fixed on 
 Elvira. In an instant the out-stretched hands are
 
 104 BALDINE. 
 
 clasped with a convulsive clutch upon Elvira's gar- 
 ment ; and as, clinging wildly to the feet of the 
 princess, the dumb girl's passionate gestures depict 
 her love, her incarceration, her flight, the whole au- 
 dience is hushed and breathless. It is as if each 
 spectator were not only looking, but listening intent- 
 ly, and afraid to lose a syllable. The eyes of the 
 dumb girl, every muscle, every nerve of her, ponr 
 forth intelligible words without sound, which power- 
 fully express all she is feeling, in a silence more 
 poignant than the most thrilling song. The whole 
 body vibrates and speaks in every tone of emotion, 
 like some perfect instrument under the hand of a 
 great virtuoso; and when, at the sight of Alphonso 
 at the nuptial altar, the woman's image appears 
 miraculously transported, as it were, in the flash of a 
 single infinitesimal moment, to the threshold of the 
 chapel it is impossible to say whether her feet have 
 carried her there, or her arms been changed into 
 wings. 
 
 Then again, in the succeeding scenes of rapidly 
 increasing passion the meeting with her brother, 
 and the tent scene her acting is an incomparable 
 presentation of love, anxiety, jealousy, hatred, strug- 
 gle, despair a marvellous alternation of intense emo- 
 tions visible in every glance of her eye, every feat- 
 ure of her face, every finger of her hand, every 
 changing outline of her noble figure. Each fresh 
 movement is a distinct external revelation of the in- 
 nermost life ; and the whole effect is like a glorious 
 picture - gallery, through which the spectator must 
 hasten with a rapid foot too rapid, indeed ; for
 
 BALDINE. 105 
 
 there is no time to study each successive masterpiece 
 as one would wish ; one can only feel, at every step, 
 increasing astonishment at the wonderful faculty 
 which has produced them all. 
 
 The audience could no longer restrain its enthusi- 
 asm ; and an applause such as never before had been 
 heard in that house at last burst forth from every 
 part of it. 
 
 Already, after the first act, the spectators had sent 
 out in all directions for flowers and garlands. No- 
 body had been prepared for this, nobody had brought 
 a single flower, but now the stage was changed to 
 a flower-garden, through which Fenella needs must 
 pass in response to the innumerable and vociferous 
 calls for her which greeted the close of the perform- 
 ance. 
 
 She came forward quietty, as if taking a walk, 
 turned her eyes with indifference towards the thou- 
 sands of crowded heads below, just as if they were 
 so many stones in a pavement, and then bowed slight- 
 ly, as a lady might do out of her carriage to a distant 
 acquaintance in the street. 
 
 Such conduct was as entirely new to the audience 
 as the performance which had preceded it, and it 
 increased their admiration. They had been accus- 
 tomed to see the strangest affectation in the acknowl- 
 edgment of their applause ; the archest coquetry 
 simulating the most mincing modesty; the folding 
 of the hands, the pressing of the heart, the imploring 
 looks and deprecating gestures; and finalh 7 , the usu- 
 al die-away retreat, in humble gratitude for so much 
 unmerited favor. But on the present occasion all
 
 100 BALDINE. 
 
 such customary demonstrations of humility were con, 
 spicuously absent; and with the totally new and 
 strange behavior of this equally strange and new 
 apparition every one was enchanted. 
 
 As soon as the performance was over, all tliejeun- 
 esse doree crowded about the stage door, resolved to 
 carry their applause into the streets, and to take Fe- 
 nella's horses out of her carriage and draw her home 
 in triumph. 
 
 The ripest of these gilded youths, who indeed were 
 over-ripe, took the entrance of the stage by storm, 
 and lined it like a hedge. At last the greenroom 
 door was opened ; but the lady who came out was 
 not Fenella. It was a little elderly woman, with a 
 good-humored smile on her face. 
 
 Encouraged by that smile, they besieged and be- 
 sought her not to deprive them of the pleasure of a 
 supplementary ovation. She had not the least ob- 
 jection, and threw the door wide open. The room 
 within was empty. Fenella had long ago escaped 
 by a side door. Only the countless garlands and 
 flowers lay about in gay heaps upon the floor. 
 
 "Fenella, then, has not taken home with her these 
 tokens of her triumph?" they all exclaimed. 
 
 "No," said the little lady, putting on her bon- 
 net. 
 
 "True," said they, "it would have been impossi- 
 ble. Here are flowers enough to iill a wagon but 
 .she will send for them afterwards?" 
 
 "No," said the little lady, buttoning her gloves. 
 
 " Then what will she do with them ?" 
 
 " Some one will put them away. My niece docs
 
 BALDINE. 107 
 
 not like flowers," said the lady, with her kindly smile, 
 as she bowed and went off. 
 
 The gilded youths were left alone with the flow- 
 ers, at which they stared dismally through their eye- 
 glasses. 
 
 "She does not like flowers? Cosa stupenda! 
 Not like flowers? But that is not to like what 
 every artist dotes upon applause, fame, honor, tri- 
 umph ! Well, they would go their ways, and discuss 
 at the Club what other outward and visible expres- 
 sion of their homage it were best to select for a lady 
 who does not like flowers. Strange, but truly inter- 
 esting phenomenon ! And, in any case, decidedly 
 chic." 
 
 Then they remembered that they had ascertained 
 neither her name nor her lodging. The Impresario 
 had excused himself, pleading indisposition, and to 
 the whole staff of the opera company Fenella was 
 quite unknown. So, at least, they had a~ll declared, 
 in reply to the countless questions about her with 
 which they were plied. Some of them, to be sure, 
 had smiled significantly, with an air of superior 
 knowledge; but none of them had vouchsafed a par- 
 ticle of information. 
 
 The next morning the newspapers treated their 
 readers to a fresh surprise. 
 
 They announced that the artist who, on the pre- 
 vious night, had unexpectedly appeared in the part 
 of the dumb girl of Portici was herself a born mute. 
 
 This information furnished the public with a per- 
 fectly simple explanation of the startling naturalness 
 of the performance; which, thus explained, ceased to
 
 108 BALDINE. 
 
 be wonderful. Any person to whom mimetic action 
 was not merely the special accompaniment, but the 
 single habitual and only possible vehicle of expres- 
 sion, would of course employ gesture as naturally and 
 easily as words are employed by those who possess 
 articulate speech. The muscular and facial flexibili- 
 ty of the performance was clearly the product not 
 of art but of custom ; just as, by mere force of habit, 
 the person who can speak knows how to choose his 
 words instinctively, without the troublesome prelim- 
 inary of a conscious intellectual effort every time 
 that he uses the organs of speech. Those, therefore, 
 who had yesterday fancied they were contemplating 
 an achievement of ideal art, might now lower their 
 too exalted conceptions to the level of a pleasing 
 reality. 
 
 It was not till several days afterwards that the 
 long-looked-for sun, which had lately been quite for- 
 gotten in the unexpected triumph^ of Fenella, rose 
 at last above the horizon. 
 
 " A'ida" was the opera announced on colossal plac- 
 ards, and at the head of them, in no less colossal 
 letters, 
 
 AMNERIS . . Signora PAOLINA IDUNI. 
 
 Forthwith Fenella was forgotten in the renewed 
 excitement about the German contraltist said to have 
 been reared upon rulers. 
 
 This singer was not, it seemed, to make her first 
 appearance in the character of an old woman or a 
 witch. So much the worse for her ! As the young 
 daughter of Pharaoh, such a creaking angular incar-
 
 BALDINE. 109 
 
 nation of Teutonic rulers would be all the more ri- 
 diculous. The boxes and pit had brought their 
 whistles with them in their waistcoats, the gallery 
 had their keys in their breeches-pockets, and all were 
 ready for the signal of revolt. 
 
 Excitement was at its highest pitch. Every place 
 had been sold for five times its ordinary price ; and 
 half an hour before the doors opened, not a seat was 
 to be had for love or money. The whole world and 
 his wife had resolved to be present at the " execu- 
 tion." For in the breast of the public this occasion 
 revived a passion which had slumbered for a century 
 and a half the savage blood -thirst that, in ages 
 gone, rushed up in the hearts, and surged through 
 the veins of the old Italians when a Christian maiden 
 was exposed to the wild beasts in the Amphitheatre. 
 
 The ancient classic drama of martyrdom was now 
 to be re-enacted as of old ; and again, as of old, the 
 lion, panting f or Jblood, stretched his huge limbs at 
 ease in the arena. 
 
 The first scene of the opera passes uninterrupted, 
 unnoticed. The house is ominously still. The lion 
 awaits his victim ; motionless, but on the watch, and 
 ready for a spring. 
 
 At length Amneris appears upon the threshold of 
 the scene. 
 
 The lion stares at his victim stares and glares, 
 yet makes no motion. His eyes are sparkling, his 
 limbs strained for the leap, but he does not move. 
 He is petrified. 
 
 The Amneris of to-night is the same as the Fe- 
 nclla of last week.
 
 110 BALDINE. 
 
 Those deep-bine eyes of hers have already spoken 
 to Radames. Her inward agitation at his aspect is 
 already revealed in the delicate tremor of the whole 
 frame, and every eloquent ripple of the glorious 
 hair, before she has yet opened her lips. But now, 
 from those opening lips pours forth the first pure 
 note of a voice that goes ringing, full and rich, 
 through the wide theatre to its remotest corners. 
 Like a stream of electric lire, the strong sweetness 
 of that sound passes, with an instantaneous thrill, 
 through all the thousand hearts of the astonished 
 multitude. 
 
 There is a charming poem by Hartmann von der 
 Aue, taken from the Arthurian legends, of Sir Iwein 
 and the lion. Iwein delivers a lion from the jaws 
 of a dragon, and from that time forward the grate- 
 ful beast becomes the knight's devoted companion, 
 following him with touching fidelity. 
 
 In the present case the old Arthurian legend is 
 pleasantly revived. 
 
 The dragon has for weeks been vomiting fire and 
 venom ; and the lion, inebriated, stupefied, and ob- 
 fuscated by those poisonous fumes, is unable to ex- 
 tricate himself from the foul jaws of that ravenous 
 monster. All at once, however, an heroic woman ap- 
 pears, and delivers him from this position, with as 
 much composure as an ordinary woman would 
 smooth her hair or tie up her tresses. The liberated 
 lion,who,in his blind distemper, had been crouching, 
 ready to spring on the approaching heroine, there- 
 upon suddenly recognizes in her his intrepid deliv- 
 erer, the dauntless slayer of the dragon ; and as of
 
 BALDING. 1H 
 
 yore for Iwein, the noble knight, so now for this 
 noble woman, the grateful beast becomes all eyes 
 and ears, following with touching fidelity every mo- 
 tion of her hand, every sound of her voice. 
 
 Nor was it gratitude alone that touched and 
 subdued the lion's heart. He was transported to 
 rapture by the irresistible magic of that woman's 
 voice. 
 
 The few words "Come, beloved, enchant my 
 soul!" communicated to the whole audience the en- 
 chantment they invoked ; and eyes and ears alike 
 were spellbound by the pathetic scene, in which, 
 while the priests below condemn, Amneris above for- 
 gives, and passes mute through all the tortures of a 
 broken heart. 
 
 This time there were no storms of applause, bnt 
 only paroxysms of convulsed emotion ; trances, 
 spasms, surges of sobbing sound that rolled round 
 the theatre with a suppressed but unappeasable pas- 
 sion, till the calm blue eyes looked down with tran- 
 quil indifference, and their glance was followed by 
 a slight inclination of the stately head. 
 
 There are eyes of which it is said that they can 
 subdue madness better than a strait -waistcoat, and 
 these are of that kind. But scarcely is their look 
 withdrawn than the delirium begins anew. Is it 
 that the spell of their power is so soon broken, or 
 that the instinctive longing for the sweet subjuga- 
 tion of their glances is so strong? 
 
 And so it goes on again and again a continual 
 wonder! No one is willing to leave the theatre 
 though Signora Iduni herself has already left it, as
 
 112 BALDINE. 
 
 the Impresario finally announces, stepping forward 
 instead of her. 
 
 The dragon, who for weeks had been disporting 
 himself in every conceivable color, was dead. 
 
 The journals had now not another word to say 
 about rulers or witches. The serious connoisseur, 
 the experienced judge of music, the well-bred au- 
 thor, stepped at once into the gap previously oc- 
 cupied by the dragon. They analyzed the per- 
 formances of Fenella and Amneris ; but even the 
 masters of both arts found it difficult to decide 
 whether Signora Iduni was greatest as an actress or 
 as a singer. One thing only was certain, that the 
 ideal of a dramatic singer was attained by this won- 
 derfully harmonious combination of both. 
 
 It was characteristic of the disposition of the pub- 
 lic that nobody any longer spoke of the opera as 
 "A'ida." All, as if by common agreement, called it 
 " Amneris." Verdi's work was rebaptized. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE little lady with the pleasant smile had already 
 given the Diva's adorers to understand that her 
 niece did not like flowers. They consequently pre- 
 pared in her honor a serenade and a torch-light pro- 
 cession. But the serenaders were told, when they 
 arrived, that Signora Iduni had driven that evening 
 into the country; although, from the information 
 given them by their scouts, they had every reason to 
 believe her safe at home.
 
 BALDINE. 113 
 
 The costly gifts gold ornaments, diamonds, and 
 magnificent antiques daily despatched to the sign- 
 ora's lodgings, were invariably returned, with the 
 unanswered letters that had accompanied them. 
 Visitors were received by the aunt, with the well- 
 known smile, but by her alone, and so dismissed. 
 All invitations, without any exception, were declined. 
 
 The aunt's face was never without that good-hu- 
 mored smile, except when the bolder spirits expa- 
 tiated on the princely fortunes with which they were 
 willing to purchase a smile less constant from her 
 niece. Those gentlemen the little lady promptly 
 sent home with a flea in their ear. To some who 
 seriously added to the offer of the princely fortune 
 that of an illustrious name, she smilingly returned 
 her customary answer "My niece doesn't care 
 about it." 
 
 It was heart-rending ! What in the world did she 
 care about ? 
 
 "IV'iente" replied the little lady, with a cheerful 
 smile, as if she were telling them the most natural 
 thing in the world; and, so saying, she dropped a 
 short courtesy and disappeared. 
 
 But what really went beyond all bounds was that 
 the aunt appeared to be as incorruptible as the niece 
 was indifferent. No sort of bribe could obtain from 
 her admission to Signora Iduni, nor even a promise 
 to mention the suitor's name to the signora. 
 
 The aunt and niece were of the same impenetra- 
 ble stuff, and "Mente!"Was that all that either 
 of them liked ? 
 
 Impossible ! 
 8
 
 114 BALDINE. 
 
 Thus arose the second all-important question 
 "What was the aunt's weak point?" 
 
 And this question proved exceedingly difficult to 
 answer. It was no use to assail her with nicknames 
 behind her back, and call her Cerberus or Argus, or 
 the Colchean or Ilesperian Dragon ; the truth re- 
 mained unshaken, that this aunt was an outwork 
 which must be taken before the besiegers could 
 hope to get a sight of even the finger-tips of the 
 niece. 
 
 The Impresario also, to the question, " What does 
 Signora Iduni like?" returned the stereotyped an- 
 swer, " Niente!" and to all appeals for his inter- 
 vention, he replied, with a shrug, that it would be 
 utterly fruitless. The signora, he said, had her pe- 
 culiarities, which the gods themselves could neither 
 bend nor turn by so much as a hair's-breadth ; and 
 as for the aunt, she was a virgin fortress. 
 
 Nevertheless, this apparently impregnable breast- 
 work was at last insidiously carried by a surprise. 
 
 One day a card was presented to the inexorable 
 aunt, and the name upon the card was 
 
 Conte Gaetano Armoneta. 
 
 The good lady sighed compassionately as she glanced 
 at it. 
 
 " One more to the many !" she muttered. " Well, 
 let him enter !" 
 
 The count was a handsome, distinguished-looking 
 man ; but so, alas, had been not a few of his pred- 
 ecessors in this Forlorn Hope. He looked a little 
 more serious than the others, and that made her sor-
 
 BALDINE. 115 
 
 rj for him ; for she saw at the first glance that lie 
 would be harder to get rid of, and might take his 
 dismissal more to heart. There was a certain ear- 
 nestness in his features which rather distressed her 
 on his account, and a melancholy expression in his 
 eyes which a little softened her motherly heart to 
 him. 
 
 But she soon discovered, to her great relief, that 
 he was not of the tribe with which she had so long 
 been dealing. He did not inquire after her niece, 
 nor even allude to that lady by so much as a single 
 word. 
 
 "Allow me, signora," said he, "to ask you if you 
 can give me any information concerning a young 
 man named Antonio Bardi?" 
 
 " Toniello," cried the little lady, springing up in 
 spite of her corpulence. 
 
 " Yes, Toniello," replied the count. " He was my 
 foster-brother, but I loved him like a real brother; 
 and like a real mother was his mother to me. She 
 it was who brought me up when my own poor moth- 
 er died. In my }'oung days I was a great traveller, 
 and during one of my absences from Italy my fa- 
 ther died also. He bequeathed to Toniello, by his 
 will, a little farm, with the intimation that this was 
 not to stand in the way of Gaetano's intentions on 
 his behalf. For my father knew how much I had 
 at heart Toniello's welfare; and he approved of my 
 intention to intrust him with the management of all 
 my estates as soon as he had learned to manage his 
 own little farm. On my return, I was informed that 
 Toniello had let out his inheritance and gone with
 
 116 BALDINE. 
 
 a party of workmen northward, to see the world. 
 Later, the news reached Lombardy that Toniello 
 had perished abroad, and his little property was pur- 
 chased by the tenant to whom he had let it. After 
 many fruitless inquiries, I was directed to you, Sign- 
 ora Yico ; and I have come directly from the station 
 to your house." 
 
 Signora Vico was seized with a fit of her old volu- 
 bility. She indulged in a detailed account of Toni- 
 cllo's life and death, mingled with ejaculations, sighs, 
 and sobs. 
 
 The count drooped his handsome head, and was 
 silent for some time. At last he said, looking up 
 with moist eyes, 
 
 "And his poor bride? Does she still live?" 
 
 " She does," said the signora. 
 
 "Where? What can I do for her?" cried the 
 count, with eagerness. 
 
 "Niente!" said Signora Yico, sadly. "Come this 
 evening to the Opera. There we can speak of this 
 again. But, for Heaven's sake, no more just now ! 
 I am beside myself with all these cruel reminiscences. 
 Eight years have passed since then, and to me it ap- 
 pears as if it had all happened yesterday. Go now, 
 Signor Conte ! You cannot stay here any longer. I 
 am every moment expecting my No matter ! some- 
 body who never receives visitors. 
 
 "Addio, Contino /" she added, as the count with- 
 drew. 
 
 Contino! He was already adopted by her mother- 
 ly heart, as years ago it had adopted Toniello. Those 
 moist eyes had bewitched her.
 
 BALDINE. 117 
 
 Once again "A'ida," or as it was now called, "Amne- 
 ris," was performed. 
 
 Signora Yico sat in her box near the stage. The 
 count had seen and sainted her as he entered the- 
 theatre, but he never came to her box. He must 
 have forgotten all about her ; he did not even once 
 look towards her during the performance. Indeed, 
 he did not look either way, to right or left, but kept 
 his eyes immovably fixed upon the stage ; and, dur- 
 ing the entr'actes ^ he looked at the curtain as if his 
 gaze were trying to pierce through it. Signora Vico 
 supposed, at first, that this abstraction was entirely 
 due to his admiration for Amneris ;, but she dismiss- 
 ed that idea when she noticed that he did not move 
 a finger to join in the repeated rounds of applause. 
 
 The opera appointed for the next evening, in com- 
 pliance with the vociferous demand of the public, 
 was "Fenella;" for so also was the"Muetta di Por- 
 tici " now generally called. 
 
 The count sat in his previous place, and conducted 
 himself just as before. 
 
 And so on for several evenings. 
 
 At last, one forenoon, he paid a second visit to 
 Signora Vice's house. He was pale, the earnestness 
 of his features appeared more pronounced than on 
 the occasion of his first visit, and his whole face was 
 pervaded by an expression of profound melancholy. 
 
 " I come," he said, " to take leave of you, signora. 
 I am going in search of Taniello's bride. She is to 
 me a holy legacy." 
 
 " Don't, Signor Contino !" cried the signora. " You 
 can do nothing at all for Baldine. Pecuniarily, she is
 
 118 BALDINE. 
 
 very well off ; she possesses more than she ever pos- 
 sessed before, much more than she requires for her 
 support. And mentally Dear Mother of God, 
 what's gone is gone ! You cannot bring her back. 
 You cannot restore to her what was once hers the 
 love of man and beast, and bird and blossom, the 
 kindly human trust in human kindness ! They are 
 gone. And ah, Signor Conte, worst of all, gone with 
 them is the comfortable Christian faith the faith in 
 the Madonna, the faith in God and His holy saints ! 
 What is left to look for ? Niente ! niente /" 
 
 And Signora Yico shook her head sadly. 
 
 "Nevertheless," said the count, "I will bring Bal- 
 dine here." 
 
 " Here ! And why ? For what purpose ?" 
 
 "For what purpose ? That she may once see Sign- 
 ora Iduni as Fenella. Fenella suffers deeper pain 
 than that poor girl. She also loses her lover loses 
 him, moreover, by base treason, yet she finds a ref- 
 nge in her love for her brother. Baldine, too, has a 
 brother myself and I will accomplish my task. I 
 will find her, even if I lose myself in the attempt." 
 
 " What do you mean, Contino ? How can you lose 
 yourself in the attempt?" 
 
 "Did you never hear, signora, that what is an an- 
 tidote for one may be a poison for another? Addio, 
 signora ! I must be gone, for I leave in an hour." 
 
 "Blessed Madonna! how hot your blood is, Signor 
 Contino ! Who would have guessed it ? You look 
 so cool ! But Baldine is no longer in the forest quar- 
 ter of Oberau." 
 
 " Where is she, then ?"
 
 BALDINE. 119 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 " Then I sliall seek her out, wherever she be. Till 
 now I have wandered purposeless about the world. 
 Henceforth, at least, my wanderings will have an 
 aim. Addio, signora!" 
 
 Signora Yico grasped his arm. 
 
 "You must not go away, Signer Contino, to wan- 
 der about the world again at random. Wait only 
 a few days, till I myself have made inquiries about 
 her. Promise me this ! What, you will not? Then, 
 at least, one day ! No, I do not let go of you thus ! 
 Presently my niece will be coming home from 
 the rehearsal. I will speak with her that is, I 
 shall She would be anxious if I went out with- 
 out telling her." 
 
 "Your niece? Ah yes, Signora Iduni!" said the 
 count, looking down. 
 
 And then, as if following out a long train of 
 thought, he murmured to himself, 
 
 "They say nobody has seen her off the stage ; they 
 tell strange things of her." 
 
 "As of you, too, Contino!" put in Signora Yico. 
 " How in the Indian jungles you have stalked wild 
 tigers; how in Africa you have hunted lions, and ele- 
 phants, and unicorns ; how you have been engaged 
 in conflicts with the slave-traders, and have thrust 
 yourself everywhere into the most dangerous places, 
 where death is ever at hand ; how you " 
 
 " Good God ! yes, signora, one runs away, and wan- 
 ders through the whole world, to be anywhere happi- 
 er than at home. That is an illusion. Nowhere have 
 I felt so well and glad as at home, in my childhood,
 
 120 BALDINE. 
 
 while Tonicllo's mother, the kind-hearted Maruccia, 
 sat on the bench before the house shelling chestnuts 
 or stripping maize, and Toniello and I lay on the 
 lawn at her feet, listening to the homely songs she 
 was never tired of singing the songs of our own 
 people. Ah, those dear old songs !" 
 
 " Yes," sighed the signora, " dear old songs ! To- 
 niello inherited them from his mother. He sung them 
 so beautifully! And there was ono in particular 
 his favorite song, which I think I shall never forget. 
 Let me see, how does it go?" 
 
 And she hummed softly the beginning of the 
 melody, but presently paused. She seemed unable' 
 to continue it. 
 
 The count rose and opened the piano. He touch- 
 ed the keys dreamily, and then began, in a soft bary- 
 tone, Toniello's favorite song 
 
 " Oh, were I slumbering deep 
 In death's eternal night " 
 
 "While he was thus singing, his eyes fell upon the 
 mirror on the wall opposite to him. In the frame 
 of the mirror appeared the image of the woman he 
 had seen as Fenella and Amneris. Her eyes were 
 staring at him, and her arms hung slack at her side 
 as she stood, leaning slightly forward through an 
 opened door, beside which sat Signora Vico, watching 
 her with a face of great anxiety. 
 
 The count's voice failed him. 
 
 His fingers for a while went on moving the keys 
 automatically, but suddenly they struck a discord 
 as he sprung np, and, with a face which had been
 
 BALDINE. 121 
 
 rapidly growing paler, bowed in silence to Signora 
 Idtini. 
 
 " This is Toniello's foster-brother," said Signora 
 Vico, in a suppressed voice. 
 
 The Diva looked a long time silently and keenly 
 at the count, but she said nothing. 
 
 In a tone still more broken, Signora Vico went 
 on 
 
 "Conte Armoneta has called on me to learn the 
 fate of Toniello ; and now he has set his heart upon 
 going in search of Baldine, that he may bring her here 
 
 fn " 
 
 \,\J 
 
 She stopped suddenly. 
 
 "To what?" said the deep, soft voice of Amneris. 
 
 " To find in him a brother, because to him she is, 
 as it were, a legacy from Toniello. And he wishes 
 to bring her here in order that Fcnella may show 
 her how a brother's love can be a refuge from de- 
 spair." 
 
 Once more Signora Iduni looked fixedly upon the 
 count. 
 
 "A brother's love!" she said, slowly. "But the 
 love of a sister brings no good to Masaniello. He 
 dies by sword and poison. For Fenella, too, perhaps 
 the happiest end is to warm herself at last from the 
 world's chill in the fire of Vesuvius. A brother! 
 and wherefore a brother ? But why all these mysti- 
 fications, which seem to be to the taste of my Im- 
 presario ? You need look no farther, count. It is 
 I who was Toniello's bride. I am that Baldine you 
 wished to find and fetch. Be assured, however, that 
 Baldine died long ago, and that you have only found
 
 123 BALDINE. 
 
 a person who can tell yon, perhaps, more of Toniello 
 than any one else. 
 
 "Mamma mia" she added, turning to Signora 
 Yico, " Toniello' s foster-brother may come again, if 
 he wishes to hear of Toniello. lie is an exception 
 he does not come for my sake; it is just to him 
 that I, too, should make an exception." 
 
 Thenceforward the count occasionally availed him- 
 self of this exceptional permission. 
 
 Signora Iduni told him all she knew of Toniello. 
 She was always perfectly tranquil, indifferent, and 
 cold ; and she spoke without betraying any feeling 
 in her features or her voice, as if she were reciting 
 some old legend of by-gone ages. There was not a 
 lyric note in the whole narrative : not a single col- 
 ored thread did she suffer to entwine itself with the 
 monotonous gray woof of her recital. It sounded 
 like an ancient epic, whose rhapsodist entirely sup- 
 presses his own personality exhibiting no emotion, 
 and interposing no comment, in the course of what 
 is given him to tell, but standing aside from his 
 theme, as it were, a passive listener to all that he re- 
 lates. 
 
 There was no lack, however, of glowing lyric and 
 blooming idyl in the tales narrated by the count. 
 His talk always reverted to the childhood of Toniel- 
 lo and his own, and the nnforgotten foster-mother, 
 the good Maruccia. In the intervals of conversation 
 on these topics he would sit down to the piano and 
 sing some song of Maruccia's, while Signora Iduni 
 stood behind him, and he could see her staring eyes 
 and drooping figure in the mirror. Sometimes also
 
 BALDINE. 123 
 
 he told her stories of his later life, of its restless 
 wanderings iu distant countries, and of outlandish 
 folk, and their strange ways and doings. 
 
 Then, as Signora Iduni sat in the sofa corner, lis- 
 tening with bent head, an old, sweet, by-gone dream 
 returned to her. A loudly creaking cart came la- 
 boring up a mountain -path; behind it appeared a 
 head with a snowy-white beard an old man's head 
 and then, by degrees, as from depths of mist, the 
 whole figure of the old man. Nearer and nearer he 
 staggers on his way to her, and begins to relate to 
 the listening child stories of strange lands beyond 
 the mountain-brow, and of distant folk, and all their 
 doings. And clearly and distinctly at last the words 
 come to her, in the accents of a well-known, long- 
 lost voice 
 
 " All is for the lest, and everything has its Why. 
 Only one must find it out /" 
 
 She passed her hand across her eyes, to sweep 
 away the dream-picture. 
 
 "Find it out?" she mused "find out what? 
 What is there to find where nothing is ? Most prob- 
 ably the old man meant that into all things one 
 must put something. A something that may per- 
 haps benefit for a while, or comfort those who have 
 not the courage to look open-eyed into the terrible 
 emptiness around them. Yet this, too, is nothing 
 worth! What comes of it all, at the utmost? Il- 
 lusions, fictions! and beyond them a bottomless 
 abyss! Niente! Niente !" 
 
 One day the count entered in a state of painful 
 agitation, ill-suppressed, and wholly unlike his habit-
 
 124 BALDINE. 
 
 ually quiet melancholy. Ho stepped hurriedly for- 
 ward, as if he had something of pressing importance 
 to communicate to Signora Iduni, but suddenly 
 checked himself, paused in evident confusion, went 
 to the table, turned over the leaves of an album, 
 then opened the piano, struck a few chords, closed 
 the instrument again, and finally sat down silent in 
 the recess of the window. 
 
 The actress looked at him inquiringly. 
 
 He felt her keen gaze resting on him, rose abrupt- 
 ly, walked to tbefavteuU in which she was sitting, 
 and said, with a trembling voice, 
 
 "I have in the course of my life wasted a good 
 deal of foolhardy courage upon nothing; and now, 
 when I most want it, my courage forsakes me. I 
 have learned to know what fear is, and I feel it at 
 this moment. Will you not help me, signora?" 
 
 " What is the matter with you 3" she said. " Tell 
 me." 
 
 "It was once Toniello's wish to make you happy," 
 lie replied. "His wishes are holy legacies to me. 
 I cannot fulfil them all. I am not Toniello. I can- 
 not make you happy, but I wish, at least, to see you 
 less sad ; and I believe that I can make you more 
 cheerful. Fate and men have wronged you. For 
 that wrong I would make amends ; and I feel in 
 myself the power to achieve what I desire more than 
 all things in the world, loving you as I do unspeak- 
 ably. Be my wife, Paolina !" 
 
 " And you, too !" she said, sorrowfully ; "you, too, 
 then, are like all the others! But they, at least, did 
 not know me. To them my manner must have
 
 BALDINE. 125 
 
 seemed a strange caprice, which might, perhaps, 
 change any moment, like the weather. You, how- 
 ever? Yon, who, for Toniello's sake, have been 
 admitted to stand inside my life ; you, by whom I 
 thought it possible to be understood !" 
 
 " It is because I understand you," he answered, 
 quickly, " that I have faith in my own power to 
 make your life less sad. Only in the strength of 
 this faith could I have told you all I feel. Be my 
 wife ! I love you fervently, but I would have 
 crushed into everlasting silence the cry of my heart 
 if I did not feel that it was the voice of a prophetic 
 faith." 
 
 " And yet," she replied, " it is only the voice of a 
 twofold superstition. Both your faith in what you 
 deem your love for me, and your confidence in its 
 power to effect the smallest change in either my life 
 or my character, are pure illusions !" 
 
 " I swear by God " 
 
 " God?" she interrupted, almost fiercely ; and then, 
 eying him coldly, she added, in a hard tone, 
 
 "You have been very piously brought np, count?" 
 
 Both compassion and scorn seemed mingled in the 
 tone of this question. lie did not reply to it; but 
 she, who had learned to interpret mute expressions 
 better even than uttered words, could read in his 
 looks and features the pain it had caused him. 
 
 She gave him her hand, and said, 
 
 "I am sorry. Forgive me if I hurt you. I know 
 you mean it well, but you are deceiving yourself 
 about me, and about yourself too." 
 
 " About myself, no !" he answered, earnestly. " I
 
 126 BALDINE. 
 
 once knew a girl who is no more. We were little 
 neighbors in childhood ; and as children our souls 
 grew together in a thousand ways, like young trees 
 whose branches interlace as they grow up, till they 
 have but one foliage between them. She became 
 my wife. A few weeks after that she died ; and it 
 was her death that drove me abroad. My spirit, 
 longing for escape from a life that was only the con- 
 sciousness of suffering, dragged my body with it 
 through the pestilential air of the Indian swamps 
 and jungles, under the murderous climates of Af- 
 rica, and into the company of wild beasts and wild 
 men. But, wherever I went, my grief followed me 
 from place to place, and the death I sought evaded 
 my pursuit. Thus I returned to my own country 
 the same as when I left it, a man with no hope or 
 purpose in life. The rumor of Toniello's unknown 
 fate eventually led me to this town. But here I 
 have discovered that my heart is not yet dead. A 
 single look of yours, Paolina,has quickened it to the 
 core. A spark, still smouldering under the ashes, 
 leaped up when I saw you. Then you sung. Yours 
 is a voice which does more than charm the ear with 
 a sensuous delight; it penetrates the depths of the 
 heart. On mine its influence was like the breath 
 of spring, thawing the laid-up ice, moving the foun- 
 dations of the deep, and awaking what till then lay 
 still and dead. It swept the withered leaves from 
 the loosened soil, and revealed the liberated bud- 
 dings of new life. I felt my heart begin to move 
 once more. It beat feebly and coldly, then stronger 
 and warmer, and at last, little by little, loud and glow-
 
 BALUINE. 127 
 
 ing, as now, with all the love you have taught it to 
 feel for you !" 
 
 " For me ?" she said. " No, but for the artist ! 
 You have yourself proved, better "than I could have 
 done, the truth of what I tell you. I did not dis- 
 courage your enthusiasm for my art, because I saw 
 that it was for you a source of happiness. But now 
 that I see you deluded and ensnared by it, I must 
 speak out. It were no kindness to prolong a dan- 
 gerous illusion. You talk to me of my singing and 
 my acting. Neither the one nor the other has ever 
 been to me a matter of feeling. Both are entirely 
 the products of acquired skill." 
 
 "Skill?" he exclaimed. "You speak thus of a 
 performance so profoundly touching, in its truth to 
 Nature's deepest feelings and highest forms, that ev- 
 ery time I behold it the applause it elicits from oth- 
 ers seems to startle me out of a deep dream ! I feel 
 something like a physical pain whenever I hear that 
 applause ; and I cannot but imagine that to you, also, 
 the shock must be painful when the reality of the 
 effect you have produced thus shatters and scatters, 
 like a brutal blow, the inspiration that has enabled you 
 to produce it. To yourself, no doubt, the intoxication 
 of such applause may perhaps partially soften what " 
 
 "You are doubly mistaken, "she interrupted. "The 
 applause cannot intoxicate me. I am absolutely in- 
 different to it. Nor does it snatch me out of dream- 
 land, for the simple reason that I have never quitted 
 the firm ground of reality." 
 
 " Impossible ! You ? No, Paolina, I do not be- 
 lieve it !"
 
 128 BALDINE. 
 
 "All, it troubles your illusions," she said, sadly. 
 " Once I, also, had illusions of the same kind. Like 
 you, I supposed that on the stage, in order to move 
 others by the representation of the passions, one must, 
 one's self, really feel, or at least be capable of feeling, 
 love, hatred, anger, ecstasj 7 , despair, and so forth. In 
 this belief I invariably replied to all the exhortations 
 of my masters that I knew myself to be unfit for a 
 dramatic singer; I could not simulate on the stage 
 what I was incapable of feeling off it. "When they 
 assured me that this supreme self -composure was 
 just the mint-mark that stamped me for a genuine 
 artist of the rarest quality, I entirely disbelieved 
 them. Then, to the place where I was living at 
 that time, there came a great tragic actress, a woman, 
 such as one sees only once in a century, with power 
 to stir the most stagnant spirits to their deepest 
 depths. She roused my own from its long apathy. 
 Like you, I felt again a movement in my soul. Once 
 I saw her as Desdemona. I shall never forget it. I 
 sat as if I were petrified, and could have knelt to her, 
 as I saw her standing there before me on the stage. 
 On either side of me I heard a growing trouble of 
 soft sounds. I looked up ; the women were sobbing, 
 the men had tears in their eyes. To me it is not 
 given to weep, but with dry eyes I stared again at 
 Desdemona. Then I saw that mighty mistress of 
 the emotions of others, just at the conclusion of a 
 scene the most passionate and affecting that you can 
 possibly conceive, lightly turn and nod and smile at 
 some one in the side -scenes. I rose and left the 
 theatre. That one look convinced me that I was fit
 
 BALDINE. 129 
 
 to be an artist. I never again beheld the great tra- 
 gedian. I threw her image to the rest of the rubbish 
 I had so often before mistaken for truth. Call all 
 that refuse 'Lost Illusions!' This one was my last. 
 But do as I did, count! Throw the Oantatrice Iduni 
 to the great rubbish-heap of discarded fictions and 
 shattered faiths. For you, at least, other illusions, 
 fairer, and perhaps more lasting, still remain. For 
 me there is nothing left." 
 
 "In yon, Paolina," cried the count, "the capacity 
 for deep feeling is only asleep. Your ordinary life 
 does not disturb its slumber, and therefore your or- 
 dinary self is unconscious of its existence. But on 
 the stage it awakens with Titanic, because unex- 
 hausted, power ; and then it is the existence of your 
 ordinary self that becomes effaced. Between the 
 two extremes there is no intermediate stage of con- 
 sciousness. The life that informs the ideal image is 
 your own, and it is the only life that is truly yours. 
 Yon do not see this, any more than one sees one's 
 self. You are not conscious of the process, for proc- 
 ess there is none. It is not you that gives life to 
 that image, it is the image that gives life to you." 
 
 " That is so," she replied. " But why ? This im- 
 age, as it shapes itself out, displaces nothing in my 
 inmost self. Nothing there need give way to make 
 room for it, for there all else is empty. In such a 
 desert every form finds space enough for expansion. 
 Once I knew an old man who let his cart moan and 
 cry for him. So I, who cannot do it for myself, let 
 these creations of the great masters cry and moan 
 for me. And if I sing, and sometimes laugh, upon 
 9
 
 130 BALDINE. 
 
 the stage "Well, I once possessed, when a child, a 
 ball, from which I tried in vain to learn the cause of 
 all the irrepressible gayety and wild delight with 
 which it was always springing about. The ball would 
 not reveal to me its secret ; but at a single stab of 
 that old man's knife the thing shrunk, and collapsed 
 into a wretched gray rag. The secret of its buoyan- 
 cy, and all that deceptive gayety, was air, nothing 
 but air! Art remains. Yet even to Art I owe but 
 little. By far the greater portion of all you admire 
 in me is only the product of an acquired skill. I 
 lived in my childhood with a dumb person, and af- 
 terwards with those who seldom spoke ; so that, with- 
 out conscious effort, I have learned to understand the 
 language of mutes and dumb animals better than 
 spoken speech." 
 
 " And your song, Paolina ?" said the count. " That 
 wonderful interfusion of words, gestures, and melo- 
 dies ! that song which sets vibrating every heart- 
 string, now touching softly the tenderest chords, 
 now sweeping into storm the whole diapason of feel- 
 ing!" 
 
 "It is all the same," she replied. "Words have 
 ever been a burden to me. There was once a time 
 when I could sing true song, though it was a song 
 without words; a time when my own thoughts were 
 as harp-strings, and my heart was a lute on which all 
 things played. Now, the song draws the reluctant 
 words along with it, as a gang of prisoners is drawn 
 along by the chain to which they are fastened." 
 
 The count let his head sink on his breast. 
 
 " What does this woman love ?" he thought. " Not,
 
 BALDINE. 131 
 
 even the art she lias brought to supreme perfection ! 
 not even her own superlative genius! Does she, 
 then, feel nothing, believe nothing, care for nothing, 
 hope for nothing, wish for nothing in this world ?" 
 
 And he put these questions to her. 
 
 "You ask what is my faith, my hope, my love?" 
 she replied. " I have none. What I feel ? I know 
 not. I only know it is neither love nor hatred. Call 
 it indifference, apathy, hebetude what you will! 
 And this is why I cannot become your wife. A 
 phantom is no wife, especially for a man like yon, 
 who has yet a heart and a faith a man who hopes 
 and loves." 
 
 "It was the belief of the old times," said he, "that 
 a phantom gets life by drinking the blood of a liv- 
 ing person. Take my heart's blood, Paolina I give 
 it willingly. You seem to yourself a phantom, only 
 because there is nothing in your life for the sake of 
 which you care to live, nothing in the present that 
 points to the future." 
 
 "And you naturally wonder," she replied, "why 
 I live, and how I contrive to live, with nothing to 
 live for ? But do not suppose, count, that I could 
 live, even thus, without a purpose in life. I have 
 one. From childhood the main-spring of my life has 
 been an inveterate and inflexible sense of justice. 
 This is a cold motive, but, in my case at least, it is a 
 firm one, and it moves me like a spring of steel." 
 
 "You have looked deep enough," she continued, 
 "into the very simple mechanism of my life to 
 guess the direction in which it is kept going by this 
 motive. The Yicos have dealt by me, she as the
 
 132 BALDINE. 
 
 tenderest mother, her husband as the most careful 
 father. Cursed and rejected by my own people, I 
 found with them a new home. The signora's broth- 
 er was the Maitre de Chapelle, Iduni. He was my 
 first music-master, and it was he who afterwards pro- 
 cured me others whom he deemed greater than him- 
 self. But to him I owe more than to all of them ; 
 and to him, too, I owe even my name, for he adopt- 
 ed me. My German name, he said, was impossible 
 for the cartellone / and rejecting 'Baldine' as bar- 
 baric, he always called me ' Paolina.' When he had 
 done for me all he could do, and before I had yet 
 been able to do anything for him, .he died. 
 
 " Signer Yico, meanwhile, had risked and lost all 
 his hardly gained fortune on an enterprise which, 
 not being in the way of his own business, turned out 
 a dead failure. He has been compelled to resume 
 his old labors, and every year he migrates northward 
 with the swallows, while his wife remains with me. 
 It were a great injustice did increasing years bring 
 no rest to this excellent couple. What they have so 
 richly merited on my behalf it is now in my power 
 to procure them ; nor can I rest till I have done 
 enough. 
 
 " As for my Impresario, I look upon him only as 
 the cashier of the Yicos. Whenever my thoughts 
 turn from them, it is to wander back to my former 
 home. The people there have cruelly wronged and 
 injured all I loved in my childhood. My grandfa- 
 ther was poor, the old woman who reared me was 
 dumb. That was their only crime, yet these people 
 illtreatcd them ! Me, whom they cursed and out-
 
 BALDINE. 133 
 
 lawcd, they had perhaps some right to punish, for I 
 had insulted their Faith. But what had the two old 
 people done to them from the grave, or what the 
 dead Toniello, on whose desecrated ashes fell the 
 bitter ban of their anathema? I say that this was 
 an injustice which is still to be redressed. 
 
 " My dead ones shall be righted. The Impresario 
 here is my cashier for Signer Vico ; but I have an- 
 other in America, who is my agent for the purchase 
 of the whole forest quarter of Oberau. Every house 
 and field there belongs to the master of the glass- 
 works; the people are only his workmen. Every 
 house and field there I intend to buy, and for work 
 and home those people shall go elsewhere. The old 
 beech-tree, with its dead-planks, shall go with them, 
 and in its stead I will make a graveyard in the val- 
 ley. The first three monuments erected there will 
 contain the dear and injured ashes of those whose 
 dead -planks they have banished from the place. 
 
 " My dead shall be righted ! In the forest valley 
 my Lombards shall live at ease, where of old they 
 worked with Toniello, whom they loved. There shall 
 every Lombard colonist have a little house and mead- 
 ow of his own ; and the sole lord of the manor- 
 house, the forest, and the glass-works shall be a 
 Yico! 
 
 "One only of that race and name still lives as to 
 whom I cannot yet tell you my intentions, for my 
 present thoughts of him may be unjust. As yet 
 they are only surmises ; and as I never trust to ap- 
 pearances, so I have never acted on suspicion. But 
 could I see this man with my own eyes, I know that
 
 134 BALDINE. 
 
 I should read in his, and at once be able to say, 
 whether justice demands his death, or sanctions the 
 continuance of his worthless life. To the police of 
 the province where he still prowls and plunders I 
 have offered a sum of ten thousand lire if they bring 
 this man to me, alive. Not one of them has yet 
 been able to gain the reward. But I shall find other 
 means; it would be unjust to leave any untried. 
 Have you heard, count, of the notorious robber, Bep- 
 po, the captain of a gang of banditti as ferocious as 
 himself? That man is also a Vico, and he is the 
 man I seek." 
 
 The count had listened to all these words in un- 
 broken silence. 
 
 What did they reveal to him? Was it nothing 
 but the frigid impulse of the steel spring, to which 
 she had likened the sole motive power of her life ? 
 Were there not here, at least, glimpses of feelings 
 warmer and more far-reaching than those which are 
 exclusively dictated by an abstract sense of justice? 
 Was her heart really so empty as she supposed ? In 
 this threefold aim of her life, was there not some- 
 thing like attachment, gratitude, and hatred? 
 
 Such were the count's thoughts while she was speak- 
 ing. But when she ceased he rose without a word. 
 
 Paolina approached him, gave him her hand, and 
 said, 
 
 " You understand me now, and what you under- 
 stand can you not forgive ? As for what you spoke 
 of before you knew all this, you will not think any 
 more of it, will you ?" 
 
 He bowed, but did not answer.
 
 BALDINE. 135 
 
 Then lie took his hat, and made a few steps to the 
 door. 
 
 " We meet to-night at the Opera," she called after 
 him. 
 
 "No," he said, half turning, "I cannot come to- 
 night." 
 
 She looked wistfully at him. 
 
 It would be the first time that he had missed her 
 sin inns'. 
 
 o o 
 
 " To-morrow, then !" she added, with a little dis- 
 appointment in her tone. . 
 
 "I start to-night," he replied, "to look after my 
 estates." 
 
 Once more she looked at him wistfully, and then, 
 with a bitter smile, bowed her head, and turned 
 away. 
 
 He went out. 
 
 She leaned against the window, and watched his 
 carriage disappearing down the street. The bitter 
 smile still lingered on her face. 
 
 This was the man to whom she had told all, be- 
 fore whom she had opened her whole soul. To cure 
 him of his passion she had conquered her pride; and 
 now he had gone away in a fit of wounded vanity 
 and egotism unjust to her, yea, more unjust than 
 all the others ! 
 
 The carriage disappeared round the corner; the 
 bitter smile died about her mouth ; and the count 
 was thrown away with the stabbed ball, and the 
 broken jumping-man, and the doctor, and the dumb 
 God, and the old home to the great rubbish-heap 
 of "Lost Illusions."
 
 136 BALDINE. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE great Diva continued to live her lonely life, 
 celebrated on the stage, unknown in the world, and 
 invisible at home. When the Italian season was over 
 she went to England, where she won new triumphs. 
 A short time before the end of the English Opera 
 season she received a letter from Lombardy. The 
 handwriting of it was unknown to her, but the words 
 and signature were as follows : 
 
 "SiGNORA, You were right. Justice did de- 
 mand the death of Beppo. He lives no more. It 
 was not possible to bring him, as you wished, alive 
 before } r our eyes, but he has made a dying confession 
 that, impelled by jealousy and hatred, he opened 
 the floodgate at Oberau, and thus accomplished the 
 murder of Toniello. GAETANO ARMONETA." 
 
 The letter bore no address, neither was it in the 
 handwriting of the count, which was not unknown to 
 Paolina. 
 
 Whose were the hands that had slain Beppo ? To 
 whom had the robber made that dreadful confes- 
 sion? 
 
 On these points the letter contained not a word 
 of information. 
 
 She telegraphed to the chief of the police, and re-
 
 BALDINE. 137 
 
 ceived from him, after some delay, a detailed account 
 of the affair. 
 
 From this it appeared that Count Armoneta, a per- 
 sonal friend of the chief, had organized, at his own 
 risk and cost, a powerful expedition for the capture 
 of the notorious robber. The whole band had been 
 surprised and surrounded by a force which the count 
 himself commanded. Some of the robbers perished 
 in a desperate struggle ; the rest were taken prison- 
 ers ; but their leader, Beppo, had fallen in single com- 
 bat by the hand of Armoneta. Of any special con- 
 fessions made by the dying robber to the count, the 
 police had no knowledge. The count had ever since 
 this event been living in great privacy on his estates 
 in Lombardy. 
 
 Thither Paolina hastened, accompanied by Signora 
 Vico, as soon as she was able to return to Italy, and 
 one afternoon in autumn the two ladies arrived at 
 the Villa Armoneta. 
 
 They were informed that the count was at home, 
 but too unwell to receive visitors. On learning their 
 names, however, the count summoned the physician 
 who was staying at his house ; and he, after a short 
 conversation with his patient, conducted Paolina into 
 a chamber from which every ray of light had been 
 carefully excluded. 
 
 Through the darkness of this room, which was as 
 black as midnight, the doctor guided the cantatrice 
 to a sofa, and requesting her to sit down, immediate- 
 ly withdrew. Presently she felt a hand upon her 
 own. It was the count's, who was seated at the other 
 end of the sofa. He said, cheerfully,
 
 138 BALDINE. 
 
 "This is just like some grewsome old ghost story, 
 is it not, signora?" 
 
 "Don't laugh, count!" said Paolina. " Mamma 
 mia at once assailed your doctor with her usual vol- 
 ubility ; and he, with of course the oracular ambi- 
 guity of his profession, has told her of the inflamma- 
 tion in your eyes. I do not believe in doctors, nor 
 in the airs of sagacity they give themselves, but I 
 do know that these affections of the eyes are no laugh- 
 ing matter." 
 
 " Why not ?" said the count, still cheerfully. " This 
 inflammation is only the result of an ophthalmia I 
 once had in Egypt. But you did not come here to 
 talk about my eyes, and you must be impatient to 
 hear the confession of the robber Beppo." 
 
 "No," she replied ; " you are mistaken. I came be- 
 cause I was haunted by a consciousness of injustice 
 in my rnvn conduct. I have wronged you, count. 
 When we last parted, I thought you a vain egotist, 
 who had requited the openness with which I laid my 
 whole soul before you by simply turning your back 
 upon rne. I know now that you went to risk your 
 life for my sake." 
 
 "Holy Virgin! what an idea!" said he. "Yon 
 have not been at all unjust. I went away because I 
 could no longer endure your presence. I had need 
 of distraction from a great inward trouble ; and, in- 
 stead of hunting wild beasts, as formerly, I took to 
 hunting robbers, out of pure dissipation. Besides, 
 was it not my duty to pursue the murderer of my 
 foster-brother ?" 
 
 "Count, did yon even guess, when you went away
 
 BALDINE. 139 
 
 to set your life against the life of that man, that he 
 was Toniello's murderer ? No ; you have no talent 
 for lying ! You set out only for my sake, and you 
 imperilled your life, only for sofnething which you 
 must then have regarded as one of my caprices. That 
 was foolish very foolish ! But I thank you for it. 
 I have wronged you, but I am glad that I have a 
 wrong to confess, and that it is to you this confession 
 is cine." 
 
 " Allow me," interrupted the voice in the dark, 
 " to tell you of Beppo ; how he " 
 
 " No ; we will talk of all that by-and-by, when you 
 are well again. For then you will come to see me 
 at Naples, will you not?" 
 
 " Yes, I will come." 
 
 " Soon ? How long will you be obliged to lead 
 this life of darkness, my poor friend?' 
 
 " Oh, only a short time a few days." 
 
 "But do you not find it very tedious? Are you 
 well taken care of here ? Who waits upon you ?" 
 
 " The old Baldassare, my father's valet. He can- 
 not reconcile himself to the change which time has 
 made, and would like to carry me about in his arms 
 as when we were children, Toniello and I Tom on 
 one arm, and I on the other. He spoils me, as a 
 mother her baby. The butler, too, is an heirloom 
 from my father, and so are the other servants. The 
 old folks here have known me since I was a child. 
 I am only too much spoiled by them all." 
 
 "So much the better! And now somebody else 
 wishes to enter. Mamma mia, to whom you are 
 greatly endeared, is waiting outside. Be kind to
 
 140 BALDINE. 
 
 her, and make haste to get well again ! Addio, a 
 pronto rivederci in Napoli /" 
 
 While Signora Vico was sitting with the count, 
 Paolina, in the adjacent saloon, leaned against the 
 window, and gazed in a soft reverie upon the gay 
 colors in which autumn had painted the vine -gar- 
 lands hanging round the elms. While she was thus 
 absorbed, a gentleman, conducted by Baldassare, en- 
 tered the room, and at once began a conversation 
 with her about the master of the house. 
 
 " It is a sad case," he said " a very sad case !" 
 
 "What?" asked Paolina, startled. 
 
 "Well," said the stranger, "the loss of the one 
 eye is a misfortune easily endured ; for after a little 
 while a man sees with one eye as well as with two. 
 But, in the abnormally depressed condition of the pa- 
 tient, I greatly fear that he will also lose the other 
 eye. There is a dangerous want of nervous energy 
 and rallying power " 
 
 Paolina had risen and approached the stranger. 
 
 " How ?" she said, falteringly ; " what do you 
 mean ? That one eye is lost ?" 
 
 " Oh yes, the robber's bullet fortunately destroyed 
 only one eye ; but, my dear signora, the eyes are 
 like the Siamese Twins the one always participates 
 in the suffering of the other. Add to this the 
 count's profound dejection of spirits, which in turn 
 affects the physical stamina. There is in the consti- 
 tution, or, at least, in the disposition of the organs, 
 no natural healthy resistance to the development of 
 the mischief; for body and soul are also Siamese 
 Twins."
 
 BALDINE. 141 
 
 Signora Vico came out, and the stranger was con- 
 ducted by Baldassare to the count's room. 
 
 Paolina asked Signora Yico to wait a little before 
 they left the house. She turned again to the win- 
 dow, and stared at the gay vine-garlands, but with- 
 out seeing them. She thought of the half -blind 
 man there, in the adjoining room how cheerfully 
 lie had laughed, and how much he had concealed 
 from her! An old saying, heard long ago in her 
 childhood, was sounding again in her ears 
 
 "Not everything laughs when it is glad, but nei- 
 ther does everything cry when it is hurt" 
 
 Baldassare came out of the room, and she asked 
 after the name of the stranger. 
 
 It was a famous oculist from the capital, who had 
 twice before been at the chateau for consultation 
 with the local doctor. If any one could save the 
 padrone, it was he. 
 
 Paolina cast a disdainful look at the door through 
 which the famous oculist had disappeared, and the 
 old bitter smile played about her mouth. 
 
 Then she had a long conference with Baldassare 
 and the butler. 
 
 When the famous gentleman had departed, shrug- 
 ging his shoulders, Baldassare guided the count out 
 of the room where the physician had examined his 
 eye back to his wonted seat on the sofa in the dark 
 chamber. 
 
 But to-day the count sat down in the other corner 
 of the sofa, where Paolina had sat before, and sent 
 Baldassare away. He wished to be alone. 
 
 All was still in that room, and all was still out-
 
 143 13ALDINE. 
 
 side. Nothing was audible to the sufferer, in the 
 darkness where he sat alone, but the throbbing of 
 his own pain in the sore eye-socket. Nothing, till 
 suddenly a voice, a hand, and oh, what a rushing 
 welcome glowed in the darkness to that voice and 
 hand ! It was the voice of Amneris, the hand of 
 Fenella. The voice which had taken possession of 
 his whole being with its mysterious charm, the hand 
 which could give such deep expression to the keys 
 of the commonest piano! 
 
 And the song ah, that was the dear old song that 
 Maruccia used to sing in the days of their childhood 
 to Toniello and to him 
 
 "Oh, were I slumbering deep 
 In death's eternal night " 
 
 But the song could go no further. At the feet of 
 her who sung it lay a man, with liis face buried in 
 the folds of her dress, sobbing like a child. 
 
 She lifted her hand from the keys, and laid it 
 soothingly on his head. 
 
 "Gaetano, these tears are injuring the other eyo 
 which Beppo has left you !" 
 
 "Paolina!" 
 
 " Hush ! I now know all. "Will you suffer your- 
 self to become quite blind, and never see me again in 
 this world? You used to like to look at Fenella, 
 and now " 
 
 " Ah, now, Paolina !" 
 
 " Yes, now," continued the sweet voice, calmly, 
 "is it not just that she should help to while away 
 the dark, tedious hours you endure only for her
 
 BALDINE. 143 
 
 sake? You like music. I shall play and sing to 
 you. Is ifc not natural that my eye should fill the 
 place of yours, which suffers thus for me? Hence- 
 forth, therefore, it is upon my arm that you will 
 take your daily w r alk in this dark room. I shall 
 read to you by a dark-lantern ; Mamma mia and I 
 have already settled ourselves in the other wing of 
 your house. This is only simple justice. What do 
 you find strange in it?" 
 
 Gaetano had risen. 
 
 "It is impossible, Paolina !" he exclaimed. "It 
 would be the ruin of your reputation, and I cannot 
 allow it. You must go away to-day at once !" 
 
 "My reputation ? Surely," she said, "you cannot 
 seriously suppose that I care for such things? What 
 is to me the opinion of the world?" 
 
 " You must carry out your engagement to the 
 Opera. I shall never 
 
 "Signora Vico has already sent my resignation to 
 the Impresario. Baldassare posted the letter just 
 now. Child, have you any other objection to raise ? 
 Hush ! give me your arm !" 
 
 And she led him back to the sofa-corner. Then 
 she returned to the piano, feeling her way to it 
 through the darkness, and sung to him all the na- 
 tional songs she knew. 
 
 Presently Signora Yico came in, and chatted away 
 to him with such incessant volubility that at last she 
 fairly sent him to sleep. 
 
 Not a single moment was Gaetano ever left alone. 
 By night the old Baldassare remained with him, and 
 by day one or other of the two ladies.
 
 144 BALDINE. 
 
 Signora Vico possessed the gift of indefatigable 
 chatter. Paolina sung to him by degrees her whole 
 Opera repertoire^ or she read aloud for hours by the 
 light of a lamp specially constructed for the occa- 
 sion. With Dottore Corn', the count's physician, she 
 never exchanged a word ; but Signora Vico talked 
 with him all the more, and many a disquieting re- 
 mark escaped her before Paolina. Such remarks, 
 however, could tell Paolina nothing about the con- 
 tino which she had not observed for herself. 
 
 As for Gaetano, his days of tediousness were over. 
 There were moments when lie appeared even hap- 
 py, but they were brief, and always followed by 
 long hours of deep melancholy ; and the inflamma- 
 tion of the eye increased more and more. 
 
 Once, when Paolina had ceased singing to him, 
 and was sitting quite still, he imagined himself alone, 
 and murmured, 
 
 "Always' night! never more to see the light of 
 day ! And yet how easily could I bear it, were she 
 always here !" 
 
 All at once he felt her hand upon his own, and 
 that deep, sweet voice of hers answered him quietly, 
 
 " And why should she not be always here ? If it 
 makes you happy, Gaetano, I will always stay by 
 you. I will even become your wife if you wish it." 
 
 Again he was sobbing at her feet, and again she 
 laid her hand soothingly upon his head. 
 
 Then she left the room softly, and Gaetano re- 
 mained alone with his new felicity. 
 
 Several days after this occurrence the famous oc- 
 ulist came again, and was agreeably astonished by
 
 BALDINE. 145 
 
 the changed condition of his patient. The count 
 laughed and jested, and seemed in irrepressibly high 
 spirits. 
 
 The great man, after a careful examination, de- 
 clared that his patient's room might at once be par- 
 tially undarkened. The inflammation in the socket 
 of the lost eye was already healed. The safety of 
 the remaining eye was now assured ; and if 'the ad- 
 mission of light were judiciously adjusted to the 
 progress of its recovery, the cure would be com- 
 pleted in a few days. 
 
 "It is useless," he continued, "for me to come 
 again ; and in taking leave of you, count, I may now 
 tell you that I had at first but very little hope of 
 your case. You were threatened with entire blind- 
 ness. By-the-bye, may I ask who was the interest- 
 ing lady I met in your drawing-room on the occa- 
 sion of my last visit ?" 
 
 "My bride." 
 
 " Ah, I congratulate you, and understand !" 
 
 " Understand what, dottore ?" 
 
 " Signor Conte, I understand what has banished 
 the wretched dejection in which I found you some 
 time ago. When I tell you that this greatly in- 
 creased the inflammation, you, too, will understand 
 who has been your real oculist. Not Dottore Corn 
 not I, but your bride. Remember me to my amia- 
 ble colleague ! I lay down my arms before her. Ad- 
 
 dio, conte !" 
 
 **.*** -K 
 
 From the subdued light Gaetano was at last led 
 out into the full daylight. 
 10
 
 146 BALDINE. 
 
 It had been his wish that Paolina should be his 
 guide on that occasion. Her eyes must be the first 
 sight that met his own. 
 
 In the quiet look of those eyes did he find what 
 he sought? 
 
 He said nothing; but the ardent gaze with which 
 his own solitary eye long searched their depths sunk 
 slowly to the ground. 
 
 "It will come," lie thought, " by-and-by !" 
 
 But it did not come neither in the days of their 
 betrothal, nor on the day of their wedding. Once 
 only a warmer glow wanner, but not with the 
 warmth he longed for kindled those sad blue eyes 
 of hers: when she found among the wedding-gifts 
 the deed he had completed in her name for the pur- 
 chase of the forest valley of Oberau. Silently she 
 pressed Gaetano's hand in gratitude for that gift. 
 
 The wedding was celebrated, according to her 
 wish, in private and with great simplicity. Their 
 honey-moon was passed in visiting the various cha- 
 teaus and villas belonging to the count's extensive 
 property. Paolina had no wish either to travel or 
 to go into the world; and it was in compliance with 
 her request that Gaetano now undertook the person- 
 al management of his large estates. By degrees he 
 found an interest in the occupation. 
 
 All the while Paolina would sit at home playing 
 on the piano, singing, reading, or listening to the 
 chatter of Signora Vico, whose husband was now, 
 through Gaetano's recommendation and help, at the 
 head of a great enterprise. Or else, she walked alone 
 under the elms, and watched the horizon with her
 
 BALDINE. 147 
 
 old listless look. Every evening when Gaetano came 
 home her eyes greeted him with the same soft but 
 indifferent tranquillity; yet every morning he went 
 out to his business, hoping for a change which never 
 came in those quiet eyes. Her demeanor towards 
 him was always that of a tenderly devoted sister. 
 
 He sought to surround her so completely with the 
 evidence of his love that at every step she must no- 
 tice something he had done for her. And how dif- 
 ficult it was to know what he could do to please her ! 
 She never asked for anything, and ever since her wed- 
 ding-day she had been very sparing of words. But 
 Gaetano was learning to spell out her face as a child 
 spells out its lesson-book ; and by degrees his love 
 was able to read and understand the thoughts work- 
 ing behind her smooth white brow, as clearly as if 
 it were made of glass. 
 
 Thus he read there, distinctly, the reasons why she 
 became his wife. It had not been from love, but 
 from the wish to redress an injustice unconsciously 
 done to the man who had risked his life for her. 
 And she remained kind and good to him, because 
 that also was an obligation of justice. 
 
 So long as his illness and helplessness had claimed 
 her constant personal help, and filled her hours with 
 fatiguing tasks, a warmer stream of blood had seemed 
 to run through her body, and a brighter light to 
 gleam in her soul ; but it was only as if she again 
 were standing on the stage, and animating some ideal 
 image with a life not given to her own habitual self. 
 And again, as of old, he, the spectator of her per- 
 formance, had mistaken the ideal image for the
 
 148 BALDINE. 
 
 living woman. The motive power of the whole 
 performance was only a strong, clear, coldly clear, 
 impulse of justice. And now that he was well again, 
 and could see with one eye as well as formerly with 
 two, her task was finished, and justice satisfied. 
 
 The eyes in which Gaetano read his dreary lesson 
 were not those of Fenella or Amneris. They were 
 the tranquil, indifferent eyes with which the great 
 Diva used to look down upon the passionately agi- 
 tated public when she had finished her part. 
 
 He said nothing about it; but all night long he 
 lay awake, silently invoking from Heaven some star- 
 beam to rekindle in Paolina's eyes the light that was 
 gone out of them ; and all day long he wandered 
 about, searching a wild world of troubled thoughts 
 for something to recall to Paolina's lips the smile 
 that seemed fled from them forever. 
 
 And he searched in vain ! 
 
 Eye and lip retained their cold tranquillity. Yea, 
 there even came a time when the woman he adored 
 avoided him more and more, as if the sight of him 
 afflicted her. 
 
 He suffered silently, and bore his torment without 
 showing it. He even rode away to the farthest 
 farms upon his property, and remained absent for 
 days together, perceiving that his presence distressed 
 her. It was as if he had done her an injury of 
 which she was too proud to complain. 
 
 Then came days more anxious still, and full of 
 torment, each one of them a horrible eternity, when 
 Paolina was lying ill and would not see him. 
 
 Nor was even the Dottore Corri permitted to ap-
 
 BALDINE. 149 
 
 proach her. By her orders the doctor was refused 
 admittance to the house. Signora Yico was her so]e 
 companion. 
 
 At last, one day, Mamma Yico smilingly called her 
 Contino into Paolina's room. 
 
 This is a strange surprise to him, for he has not 
 seen a smile for many a long day upon any face in 
 the whole house. 
 
 lie enters softly. Paolina's face looks like a faint 
 white rose ; but glowing like a little red rose, and 
 fast asleep in its cradle beside her, is her baby. 
 Gaetano stands still, between the bed and the cradle. 
 He is quite upset, and does not venture to look 
 across to Paolina, fearing to aggravate her recent 
 aversion to him. He is grateful that she allows him 
 to stay near her, and to look at the child. Only, as 
 often as he thinks she does not notice it, he glances 
 towards her bed ; and when she closes her eyes, he 
 hovers round it in distant circles. Her eyes remain 
 shut; so, ever and anon, he looks at her from afar; 
 then he steals hesitatingly forward on tiptoe, and 
 looks passionately upon her, a little nearer, and ever 
 nearer still. There are the beautiful long golden 
 tresses floating loose over the white pillow ! Long 
 and adoringly he gazes on them ; then, stooping low, 
 he kisses them cautiously that cannot awake her ! 
 
 But she opens her eyes, over which the lids had 
 fallen only from exhaustion, and smiles at him. 
 
 There is a melancholy, but sweet, softness in this 
 smile. 
 
 He only says, " Paolina !" and goes out quickly. 
 She lets him go, and does not call him back.
 
 150 BALDINE. 
 
 She has noticed how tenderly his voice trembled 
 in that fervent utterance of her name, and that the 
 tears were standing in his eyes ; and half closing her 
 own, she looks again upon the cradle. A strange rosy 
 flush rises, slowly suffusing the mother's pale face, 
 and mingles with the smile about her lips. Her 
 blue eyes open suddenly, large and wide; and in 
 them is glowing a celestial splendor. It seems to 
 have streamed into them from the cradle on which 
 they are gazing, and they are filled with the tender 
 radiance of it. 
 
 This is the star-beam which Gaetano, in his sleep- 
 less nights, had invoked from heaven. 
 
 The child there in the cradle has brought it down 
 with him. And the celestial splendor glows in Pao- 
 lina's eyes every time that she looks upon her child. 
 
 Once Gaetano was blessed with a gleam of it for 
 himself. 
 
 That was when, returning from the baptism, he 
 put the child into her arms. She had left to him 
 the choice of the infant's name. 
 
 " "What is thy name, little one ?" she asked the baby 
 when it was brought back to her. But the baby did 
 not seem to appreciate the new dignity conferred on 
 him, and he only cried lustily. 
 
 Then Gaetano said, smiling, "Don't you under- 
 stand, Paolina, that he is trying to say to you, ' My 
 name is Toniello ?' " 
 
 In spite of the cheerful tone, and in spite of the 
 smile with which he said it, his voice trembled. 
 
 Paolina stretched her hand to him, and clasped his 
 own.
 
 BALDINE. 151 
 
 She said nothing, but her husband saw the star- 
 beam from her eyes, resting, this time, on himself. 
 
 The little Toniello was the incarnation of injus- 
 tice. 
 
 He seemed to think that the whole world was 
 made to wait upon him, and that the universe exist- 
 ed only for the reception of his commands, and the 
 prompt satisfaction of all his wishes. He cried, at 
 first, for the mere sake of crying ; he cried, after- 
 wards, for nourishment ; and then lie cried for Heav- 
 en only knows how many different and incredible 
 reasons. The capacity of noise contained in that 
 little lump of rosy flesh was inexhaustible. When- 
 ever the poor mother fell into one of her habitual 
 reveries, and began to think of old days and events, 
 her little tyrant immediately set up an intolerable 
 howl. By night his shrill small voice left her no 
 sleep, and by day it vouchsafed her no repose. For 
 her the daity reverie, the nightly dream, was over. 
 
 All this was exceedingly unjust. 
 
 But she hugged the incarnate injustice to her bos- 
 om, and refused to part with it by day or night. She 
 said cheerfully that no one but herself could under- 
 stand the child's cries, and that the short intervals 
 of broken sleep, which were all those cries allowed 
 her, were the most refreshing she had ever had, be- 
 cause so sound and dreamless. 
 
 Toniello already possessed a remarkable power of 
 making his will respected, lie disdainfully reject- 
 ed his nourishment when it was given to him, and 
 roared for it all the more vehemently the next mo- 
 ment. He insisted on having light about him when
 
 153 BALDINE. 
 
 it was dark, and vice versa. He was intolerably 
 querulous till his cradle was rocked, and then he was 
 not to be pacified till they made it stand still. In 
 the shortest possible time, and with the greatest pos- 
 sible case, this baby had reduced to abject subjection 
 his father, Signora Yico, and the old Baldassare. 
 They became his slaves, but the infatuated mother 
 had been, from the very outset, the unresisting in- 
 strument of his capricious despotism. 
 
 That was unjust. 
 
 Yet although the innumerable whims and insati- 
 able exactions of her little tyrant left the poor wom- 
 an no time to breathe, they were all welcomed and 
 extolled by her with the liveliest satisfaction, as sin- 
 gularly promising indications of a resolute and man- 
 ly character. She was proud of her slavery. It was 
 one of Toniello's amusements to thrust his little lin- 
 gers into his mother's eyes, which gleamed with grate- 
 ful pleasure while they winced and watered under 
 the operation. He also took a special and ferocious 
 delight in pulling her golden tresses, and trying to 
 tug them out. 
 
 This also was unjust. 
 
 But his patient victim wiped the tears from her 
 eyes and smiled when the tiny tormentor had got a 
 good handful of her beautiful hair plucked out in 
 his little clinched fist ; for then it was evident to 
 her that her boy was thoroughly enjoying himself. 
 
 Nor was it less than a gross injustice that Toniello, 
 in spite of his poor mother's increasing tenderness 
 and boundless devotion, greatly preferred being in 
 the arms of his father ; that the father's harsh beard
 
 BALDINE. 153 
 
 pleased him better than the mother's soft hair ; that 
 he crowed louder on the father's knee than in the 
 mother's lap, and liked no plaything half as well as 
 the paternal forefinger. 
 
 But the poor mother only smiled, and said noth- 
 ing. 
 
 And so in this way the injustice went on. Ay, 
 and in many other ways too ! 
 
 A path stretched straight from her present life to 
 the earliest childhood of this woman. It was the 
 Path of Justice ; but of that severe Justice that 
 walks with bandaged eyes, into which compassion 
 may never steal, lest the hand of the executioner 
 tremble, and the sword of judgment falter as it falls. 
 Narrow as the sword's edge is the path ; and thus 
 far, the woman had walked it without staggering, 
 without stumbling, without looking to the right or 
 to the left ; strict in love as in hatred an eye for 
 an eye, and a tooth for a tooth ! Now, however, 
 had come a day when Injustice clothed itself in flesh 
 and blood and became a child her own ! With its 
 little hands, that baby has softly diverted her from 
 the narrow path, and even without her knowing it ! 
 
 Whither the child leads her now, thither had a 
 graybeard once pointed out the way to her. 
 
 "All is for the best, only one must find it out" the 
 old man had told her. 
 
 She did not understand him then, did not find 
 the way he spoke of ; but now she follows the child 
 step by step, further and further, far beyond the old 
 man's purpose; for even there, where she finds noth- 
 ing good, she believes all just.
 
 154 BALDINE. 
 
 In this process, the incarnate injustice thrives 
 bravely, and grows apace. 
 
 Its first experiments on human speech are but 
 awkward stammerings of its little tongue. The 
 stammerings are utterly senseless, but the mother 
 detects in them a rare precocity of thought. They 
 are not melodious, but the great singer thinks that 
 the most sublime masters of music have never com- 
 posed or conceived anything so enchanting. 
 
 The little creature's first articulate word is not 
 " Mamma," but " Papa." And the mother says, 
 
 " Of course ! how intelligent ! ' Papa ' is so much 
 easier to pronounce !" 
 
 The woman who had been so sparing of words 
 ever since her wedding-day, and indeed throughout 
 her whole childhood, now chatters all day long. To- 
 niello wishes it ; and words must come, even when 
 ideas fail. 
 
 The child wants to know the name of this and 
 that, in such a hurry ! He insists on knowing at once 
 what the people are doing down there in the garden. 
 
 " They are weeding," says the mother. 
 
 "Weeding," he repeats, with a grave face. Sud- 
 denly he laughs aloud, and repeats the word ever so 
 many times "Weeding! weeding! weeding!" 
 
 The sound is the main point with him ; he enjoys 
 the word, he does not trouble himself about the 
 idea. What " weeding" is, concerns him not, but so 
 is it called ; and the word sounds well. 
 
 The mother never gets tired of producing for him 
 all day long such wonderful artificial sounds. One 
 day the little tyrant makes the discovery that the
 
 BALDINE. 155 
 
 singing of his mamma is no bad thing. And so she 
 sings to him ; not at the piano, not from notes, not 
 what she sung on the stage, not what the great mas- 
 ters have taught her, not words at all! She sings as 
 she sung in the days gone by, when she herself was a 
 child ; as she sung in her girlhood, to herself, unheard 
 in the lonely forest. A song without words, that rises 
 in her heart from the long-silenced depths of far-dis- 
 tant years, sweet, solemn, mysterious, sounding like 
 the flutter of the birds, and the breathing of the 
 wind, in the forest branches. 
 
 Gaetano leans, in the adjoining room, against the 
 door, and listens. 
 
 The phantom has come to life, he thinks, the emp- 
 ty spirit has found a joy to fill it, and the aimless 
 days a purpose. But it is not his heart's blood that 
 has given life to the phantom, or joy to the life 
 restored. One Toniello took it away, another has 
 given it back. Between the two, he stands aside 
 forgotten ! 
 
 And there, in the outer room, unseen, unmissed 
 out of sight, out of mind alone, he stands; listen- 
 ing wildly, heart-brokenly, to that strange, wonderful 
 song a song which is no longer the product of 
 skill, but a spontaneous utterance of pure emotion. 
 It is the song of which she told him once ah, how 
 vividly her words came back to him as he listened 
 to it now ! 
 
 " There was a time when I sung true song, though 
 without words; a time when my own thoughts were 
 like harp-strings, and my heart a lute upon which all 
 things played."
 
 150 BALDINE. 
 
 In those days she sung that song for Toniello; 
 and now again it is to Toniello that she sings it. 
 Between the two Toniellos, where may Gaetano 
 stand? aside, unwanted, unnoticed! His place 
 knows him not. 
 
 In that moment the living man envied the dead. 
 
 Suddenly he started up, shuddering, rushed out of 
 the house, leaped on to his horse, and rode fierce and 
 fast away, no matter where ! 
 
 He was afraid of himself. He felt for a moment 
 something like jealousy of his own child. 
 
 Had the Dark Angel, who hovers forever over all 
 that lives, looked, in that moment, into Gaetano's 
 heart? For he suddenly folded his sombre wings, 
 and settled down by the tiny cot of the little Toni- 
 ello. 
 
 Softly that angel touches with his cold finger the 
 restless children of earth ; but beneath its touch the 
 stricken ones struggle painfully for breath, the throat 
 rattles, the limbs stiffen, the fluttering life departs. 
 Sometimes, however, the angel falls asleep, weary of 
 his endless work, which ceases not by night or day ; 
 and then, with relaxing touch, the cold finger slips 
 from the little throat, and the child breathes again. 
 
 Over the cot of the little Toniello stoops the An- 
 gel of Destruction. 
 
 The feathers of the angel's wings are compressed 
 sharply into the form of a scythe. His unseen arm 
 is stretched over the cot, his unseen eyes are fixed 
 upon the child, and his unseen finger has touched 
 the little forehead. There, unfl itting, day and night, 
 sits the Dark Angel. Doth he drowse and slum-
 
 BALDINE. 157 
 
 ber ? dotli ho wake and watch ? Is ho weary of his 
 work, or only patient that he sits there so long, 
 never flitting? Who knows? 
 
 The physicians, summoned by Gaetano, are unable 
 to read those unseen eyes. They know of no potion 
 to lull that angel into slumber, and it is not in hu- 
 man power to relax his stiffening finger. 
 
 The mother utters not a word to these men ; she 
 knows that they are powerless. Nor does she breathe 
 one prayer to God, nor lean her aching head upon 
 her husband's breast. 
 
 She stands at the feet of her child, and stares at 
 the Destroying Angel, who waits at the child's head 
 never flitting. 
 
 Help is nowhere to be found, either on earth or in 
 heaven ; she does not even think of seeking it. She 
 only longs wildly, impotently, to breathe her own 
 breath into the child's suffocating throat, to offer her 
 own throat to the unseen strangling finger, and ran- 
 som with her own life the life of her little darling. 
 
 Thus the angel and the mother stand, night and 
 day, staring at eacli other across the body of the 
 child he at the head, she at the feet. 
 
 To and fro between them, Gaetano wanders rest- 
 \ess\y. 
 
 The man who had suffered in silence the most 
 poignant grief, who had braved the most pestilen- 
 tial climates, and endured the most violent exertions, 
 is now completely broken down. 
 
 Three physicians have passed the night in the 
 chateau. They watch. Gaetano talks with them 
 falteringly, confusedly. He casts a long look upon
 
 158 BALDINE. 
 
 liis child, then upon his wife, and creeps away, stag- 
 gering like a drunken man. 
 
 Slowly, the shadow of night wanders across the 
 earth. Loiteringly, the dawn approaches. The 
 morning glow begins to glimmer, casting a pale-red 
 gleam into Gaetano's chamber. 
 
 At last the first sunbeam glitters through the 
 window-pane, and falls on the golden hair of Pao- 
 lina, who has entered softly, as silent as the beam it- 
 self. 
 
 Gaetano kneels at the prie-dieu, his head buried 
 in his hands, and sobs aloud. He feels that all is 
 over. 
 
 Paolina steals up to him, and softly strokes his 
 arm for the first time as she used to stroke the 
 arm of her father when she was a child, and Toniel- 
 lo's in the days of her girlhood's brief happiness. 
 
 "Gaetano!" she says, in a low voice, almost a 
 whisper. 
 
 Gaetano springs up with a ravaged face. His 
 feverish eyes peruse the features of his wife. 
 
 Paolina is weeping for the first time. 
 
 Till now, he has never seen her shed tears. He 
 knows that these are the first she has shed since her 
 childhood. 
 
 " Dead, dead !" he thinks, shuddering. 
 
 But through Paolina's tears a sunny smile steals 
 out. 
 
 "Gaetano," she says, "our child lives. He is 
 saved !" 
 
 And with a wild, joyful cry from the depths of 
 a frozen ocean suddenly thawed, she flings herself
 
 BALDINE. 159 
 
 upon her husband's breast, throws her arms about 
 his neck, and weeps aloud. 
 
 All the long woe of her desolate soul, all the re- 
 strained tears of a life-long suffering, she is weeping 
 out on that true heart, which has become so dear to 
 her. 
 
 He knows it when he gently lifts up her head 
 and looks into her eyes. He has no need to ask it, 
 but yet she tells him, 
 
 "I love you, Gaetano! 1 love yon very dearly 
 and deeply, only I did not know it." 
 
 And then her hand glides again, caressingly, across 
 his arm. 
 
 " Go, now," she murmurs, " to our child, Gaetano ! 
 Embrace for me the good Dottore Corri, as well as 
 the other physician. I will follow you, but let me 
 linger here a moment. I wish first to pray, Gaetano 
 to pray to your God !" 
 
 He looses his embrace, and goes to the rescued 
 child. 
 
 Above the prie-dieu hangs the dumb God upon 
 the cross, mute and sad. 
 
 The sunbeam falls upon the stooping face of the 
 dumb God and on the upturned forehead of the 
 woman, whose hands are stretched out to Him in 
 prayer. .The blood-drops on the brow of the divine 
 image glow like kingly rubies, and the tear-drops 
 falling from the woman's eyes shine pure as orient 
 pearls in the beam that has kindled both. 
 
 And around those two silent figures the dawn 
 grows slowly brighter.
 
 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS.
 
 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 To the west of the seaport town of Havre, a huge 
 heap of earth rises ont of the English Channel. This 
 is Cap la Hove. Like a gloomy side-scene darken- 
 ing the lighted stage of some great theatre, it jnts 
 out, stretched in the daytime along the wide gleam- 
 ing sea, and in the evening across the setting sun. 
 The dark outlines of a church pierce the bright 
 clouds above the promontory ; and the slender spire 
 of the church, fine and sharp as a needle, is distinct- 
 ly visible, not only from Havre itself, and the Cote 
 de Grace, whose low mountain-range cuts the hori- 
 zon beyond the estuary of the Seine, but also far out 
 at sea. 
 
 In that church is the shrine of Our Dear Lady of 
 the Waters, the patroness of ships and the mariners, 
 La Dame des Flats. 
 
 The apse behind the altar of the little church has 
 been closed in, up to a level with the top of the side- 
 wall, leaving open above it the recess of the pointed 
 arch ; through which, far in the background, and al- 
 most as if hovering close under the parti -colored
 
 164 NOTKE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 cross-beams of the vault, gleams the image of Our 
 Lady, with the Infant in her arms. 
 
 Inaccessible from the recess of the choir, unap- 
 proachably receding in the misty spaces of that lofty 
 vault, and far withdrawn from human touch, the 
 holy effigy, as there it hangs on high, awakens an 
 awful veneration. But the forehead that gleams so 
 pale under that black hair, that painfully puckered 
 mouth, that head so sorrowfully bowed, with the far- 
 off look in the eyes of it, that seem to be watching 
 all the shipwrecks on all the oceans of the world 
 these aspects of the sublime image bring it down in 
 sympathy so close to each sad heart, and make it 
 seem so human, that one fancies one must have some- 
 where seen that face before among the restlessly 
 wandering and secretly suffering race of men. 
 
 "What Pallas Athene, enthroned on the Acropolis, 
 once was to the Greek sailor, is Our Lady of the 
 Waters now to those who plough the seas a light 
 far shining through the darkness of the storm and 
 the perils of the deep. 
 
 "toile du matin, Notre Dame dcs Plots, 
 Tu re9ois tous les veux des pauvres matelots. 
 De ton temple sacre, vu du loin sur les eaux, 
 Delivre du peril, et marins et vaisseaux!"* 
 
 This prayer is inscribed on one of the memorial 
 tablets which, closely crowded together, cover the sur- 
 rounding walls. Most of these tablets are rcpre- 
 
 * Our Lady of the Waters! Morning star 
 Of us poor sbipraen! from thy shrine afar, 
 Fair o'er the rolling waters shine, and save 
 The shipman and his ship from wind and wave!
 
 NOTRE DAME DES PLOTS. 165 
 
 sentations of ships ; from great three-masted vessels, 
 carved in ivory, to little fishing-smacks, rudely drawn, 
 but sometimes touching in the artlessness of the in- 
 scription under them. As, for instance 
 
 "Petit travail, sans aucun talent, d'un mousse, offert & Notre 
 Dame des Flots, par reconnaissance." 
 
 Or pathetic in their laconic simplicity, like the fol- 
 lowing 
 
 " J'ai prie, ct j'ai etc cxauce." 
 
 And thus they rise one above the other, up to the 
 vaulted roof. Here and there among them is the 
 bridal -crown of some fisherman's wife, offered in 
 homage to Our Lady. And thick about the Guard- 
 ian Image leaned the last props of the poor fisher- 
 men, whole bundles of crutches, ripe harvest-sheaves, 
 which Death has reaped. 
 
 Among these votive offerings hangs a poor wooden 
 frame with a glass cover, wherein are placed two long 
 tresses of thickly plaited hair. The woman to whom 
 they once belonged must have bent her head under 
 the burden of their bright abundance ; and when she 
 loosed and combed them out, they must have covered 
 her whole body as with a flowing garment. These 
 tresses have the color of ripe corn ; and if a sunbeam 
 glides across them, they gleam like dead gold. Noth- 
 ing else is in the little casket. The wooden frame 
 bears no name, nor does the narrow space of the wall 
 above contain any inscription or dedication. It is a 
 touchingly shy gift to Our Dear Lady a gift silent 
 and faint-hearted, yet withal so splendid that a queen 
 could not have offered to that shrine a richer tribute.
 
 166 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 And pathetic as the gift is the story of it, which 
 by those who will may here be read. If to thee, 
 reader, it seem a tale too full of woe, recall whatever 
 thine own heart hath suffered; and in that peace of 
 resignation which succeeds to griefs outlived, bethink 
 thee how sorrow helps to bind together the whole 
 human race, like a high and holy doctrine delivered 
 unto all. But if, when thus thou lookest into the 
 depths of thy heart, what thou seest there is only 
 the still, clear splendor seen by the fisherman in the 
 depths of the windless waters when the sea is calm, 
 then lay aside this tale. For then, to myself alone 
 shall I have told it now again, as often heretofore, 
 when I stood within the little church upon the windy 
 cape, looking at those golden tresses through the 
 black frame of their wordless casket, and listening to 
 the lone low roar of the waters beneath. 
 
 In Normandy, not far from Louviers, was once sit- 
 uated a small country-seat closely secluded from the 
 outer world. The park was bounded on one side by 
 the winding waters of the Eure, and on the other by 
 a waving line of low mountains. If, turning from 
 the banks of the Eure, you followed the main avenue 
 of the park, the dark foliage of its tall old trees grad- 
 ually subsided as you advanced into the lighter tints 
 of a lower and more scattered woodland. This in 
 turn gave way to graceful groups of young trees and 
 shrubs, and finally you would find yourself in a large 
 old flower-garden. From the midst of the flower- 
 garden, and in striking contrast to the gay colors of
 
 NOTRE DAME DBS FLOTS. 167 
 
 the ephemeral blossoms whose breath was sweet upon 
 the air around it, rose a gloomy remnant of past ages 
 a rigid mass of ancient stone, gray and stern, with 
 steep roofs and heavily walled towers. 
 
 In the right wing of this building, which was the 
 only inhabited part of it, lived an old widowed lady 
 by name, Madame de Mersay. Her estate, which 
 she managed herself, was not of wide extent. Had 
 she ever found time, in the restless activity of her 
 daily occupations, to look out of her bay-window, she 
 might with those keen eyes of hers have overlooked 
 it all. To the right, beyond the park walls, were farm 
 buildings and a pasture-ground; straight in front a 
 sweep of field and meadow, stretching to the foot of 
 the low mountain -range; and to the left, the last 
 skirt of the forest, which at that point joined the 
 mountain-line. 
 
 This was all that Monsieur de Mersay had left to 
 his widow ; and it was exactly as much as he himself 
 had inherited from his father. 
 
 A stiff Legitimist, firmly insisting upon the hered- 
 itary position of his family, he stood out into the 
 latter half of the nineteenth century, like his own 
 castle, an uncompromising anachronism, stern, but 
 venerable. Acting with none of the new political 
 parties, circumstances had withdrawn him from con- 
 tact with the gentry of his own opinion ; and it was 
 only now and then that he ever had occasion to no- 
 tice, with a wondering shake of the head, how these 
 also were going with the altered current of the time. 
 That was when he chanced to look at a newspaper 
 (a chance that happened rarely), and found there in
 
 168 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 strange company the proudest names of the anicen 
 regime. lie could not comprehend what induced 
 the owners of these noble names to allow penny-a- 
 liners to inform all sorts of persons, whom the in- 
 formation in nowise concerned, that they had given 
 an evening party, that they had been at the races, or 
 had gone to Baden-Baden, or had appeared in the 
 Bois do Boulogne with a new equipage. He could 
 not understand why, instead of maintaining their 
 honor with the point of their swords, they stooped 
 to appear before the public tribunals in the undigni- 
 fied positions of plaintiffs and defendants; nor why, 
 whenever they gave alms, an act so natural, and so 
 essentially private, should be announced in francs and 
 centimes by all the journals. 
 
 If, in one of these journals, Monsieur de Mersay 
 chanced to find an old Legitimist name at the head 
 of an industrial enterprise, he blushed crimson, and 
 tore the newspaper deliberately into little bits. The 
 world in which such things were possible was to him 
 an unintelligible world. His ideas about this world 
 he had learned from his father, and his ideas about 
 the next from an old abbe. That was the sum total 
 of his knowledge ; and all that it had taught him was 
 to preserve the escutcheon of his house unstained 
 by the rank breath of the swarming vulgarities he 
 shunned. His life was passed in retirement, and in 
 doing what was right and good the right noiselessly, 
 the good secretly. 
 
 Thus living and acting, he had never added an acre 
 to his patrimony, notwithstanding his incessant ac- 
 tivity.
 
 NOTRE DAME DBS FLOTS. 1G9 
 
 Daily, at early dawn, the old gentleman's giant fig- 
 ure might be seen moving across the misty fields, 
 mounted on his gray Norman horse; and wherever 
 his large hawk-nose appeared, the laborers set to work 
 with the utmost ardor. He was a benevolent mas- 
 ter, for he understood the orders he gave, and could 
 himself lend a hand to the work if it were wanted. 
 Moreover, he had the strength of two strong men, 
 and if a wheel stuck in the furrow or the ditch, he 
 could draw it out with one jerk of his powerful 
 hand. 
 
 Never did the most vehement exertions of this 
 sort set his face glowing half as red as it grew on 
 one occasion, when Monsieur Chauvel, a manufactur- 
 er from Louviers, pointed out to him that, although 
 his farm was situated in the centre of the most flour- 
 ishing industrial districts, he was making nothing of 
 it, in spite of the care and labor lie devoted to it. 
 
 Chauvel proved to him, by an array of unanswera- 
 ble figures, that a large percentage of his income was 
 annually carried to waste by the waters of the Eure, 
 and how their motive power might be turned to bet- 
 ter account by a judicious application of industrial 
 capital. To which the old gentleman replied, 
 
 " You and I, Monsieur Chauvel, can no more do 
 the same things than we can bear the same name." 
 
 Madame de Mersay had grown up among the same 
 antiquated views and traditions, in a chateau of Brit- 
 tany, even lonelier and more isolated than that of her 
 husband. 
 
 In her own departments of daily duty the house, 
 the poultry-yard, the orchard, and the fruit-garden
 
 170 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 her activity was not surpassed by his. The only 
 moment when she sat still was in the morning, over 
 her chocolate. It was then that she planned out her 
 day's work ; and it augured no lucky day if the 
 spoon with the crest of the Mersays did not stand 
 upright in the chocolate, thickened with rice-flour. 
 At all other times the green ribbons of the old lady's 
 cap were to be seen twinkling, under her cheerful, 
 kindly face, all about the house and its precincts, 
 where their apparition had the same influence on the 
 maid-servants as the mighty hawk-nose of her hus- 
 band on the men. 
 
 When Monsieur de Mersay died, of a fall from his 
 horse,his widow redoubled her activity, and took into 
 her own hands the principal direction of the farm, 
 leaving only to an old head-servant of the property 
 the detailed execution of her instructions. 
 
 All was as before, except that the old lady's cap- 
 ribbons twinkled, not only about the house, but also 
 about the fields ; and that they no longer displayed 
 the favorite color of Monsieur de Mersay, the bright 
 green of his family arms, but were now black a color 
 which they never changed again. It was, however, 
 a color that suited her face much better; for the 
 face, too, had lost its lively hues since Mersay's death. 
 Her dependants scarcely noticed this change in their 
 daily and hourly intercourse with her, and only felt 
 concerned about their mistress when the morning 
 chocolate remained untasted, even though the spoon 
 stood upright in it. Her activity was never relaxed, 
 and in the example of her late husband was the 
 main-spring that kept it going.
 
 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 171 
 
 That example, indeed, she followed in .nil tilings, 
 with unselfish disregard of her own interests. 
 
 Monsieur Chauvel came from Louviers on a visit 
 of condolence to her; he was willing to buy at a high 
 price the property which her husband had left her. 
 
 "Allow me, madam," said he, "in consideration of 
 the. friendly relations which have so long subsisted 
 between your family and myself, to relieve you of a 
 burden which I fear you will find it impossible to 
 support under conditions that would severely tax all 
 the strength and energy of a man. Moreover, you 
 are so happy as to possess in Mademoiselle de Mer- 
 say a daughter already old enough to take her natu- 
 ral place in the Grand Monde, where her personal 
 attractions cannot fail to command the consideration 
 to which she is entitled by her birth and rank. Par- 
 don my frankness. Monsieur de Mersay was so 
 good as to honor me with his confidence in financial 
 and other matters, and I have therefore deemed it a 
 sacred obligation to speak to you on this subject 
 with the unreserve of an old man, whose white hairs 
 may, I trust, sufficiently excuse the freedom of his 
 speech." 
 
 "I thank you, Monsieur Chauvel," replied the 
 widow ; " but pray be good enough to tell me, w T ith 
 the same frankness, whether you are under the im- 
 pression that Monsieur de Mersay would have sold 
 his estate, merely to introduce his daughter into the 
 Grand Monde?" 
 
 " No, madam, I cannot say that." 
 
 "Then, if you please, we will not speak of it any 
 more, sir."
 
 172 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 Mademoiselle de Mcrsay, the subject of this con- 
 versation, was fair, slender, and delicate as the seraph 
 in the old picture of the Madonna that hung above 
 her bed. Kind-hearted she was, as the sun, to every 
 living creature; and dreamy, as the rnoon, at which 
 she was so fond of gazing with her large blue eyes 
 eyes that gleamed under clusters of bright curls, 
 like two little bits of blue heaven peeping through a 
 mass of golden cloudlets. 
 
 When this young lady wanders, in the morning, 
 about the flower-garden of the old chateau, those 
 golden curls hang loosely undulating down to the 
 skirt of her dress, like waves of ripe corn rippled by 
 the breeze ; and the blue eyes glow between them, 
 like large corn-flowers half hidden by the waving 
 wheat. She stops and pauses over every blossom 
 which has opened during the night, as if putting to 
 it some question, which the blossom answers, as best 
 it can, with its sweet odor. Above her, thousands of 
 little leaves are whispering on the trees; beneath 
 her, thousands of little ripples lisp and laugh along 
 the river; arpund her, is the multitudinous murmur 
 of the morning bees, and the humming of tiny wings 
 that sparkle in the sun ; and from the bushes and 
 the hedges, the branches and the ivied eaves, sweetly 
 tremble innumerable bird-notes. 
 
 When she pauses here and there, she stands in- 
 tently listening to all these sounds, and trying hard 
 to guess what they are saj'ing to her. But she can- 
 not understand it. 
 
 Then she thinks of her Uncle Godefroy ; and of his 
 sayings, and his books; wherein she learned how un-
 
 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 173 
 
 speakably large the world is, and how full of sounds, 
 because of the millions of human beings in it, laugh- 
 ing and weeping, shouting and sobbing and she 
 herself, how lost in the midst of them all, not under- 
 standing any of their sounds ! 
 
 In herself all is so still ! She neither laughs nor 
 weeps. 
 
 And all at once this thought so pains her that it 
 takes away her breath ; and she lays her hand anx- 
 iously upon her bosom. 
 
 There she listens, standing quite still there, she 
 feels something beating, distinct, loud, quick, impetu- 
 ous. Longer and longer she listens, and ponders. 
 Then she begins to smile softly. She has found it 
 at last the sound which she also has within her, 
 like all else around her, and the wide world itself. 
 A poor, monotonous sound only, but it pleases her. 
 
 She has still, however, to discover what it means, 
 and long she presses her hand against her heart. But 
 she cannot make it out. 
 
 The mean ing escapes her, like that of all the other 
 sounds. Within her, as without, look and listen as 
 she may, the only answer returned to her question 
 is the echo of the question itself. But within her 
 there is something which she cannot tell in words. 
 It is like a shoreless sea; and floating up from the 
 deeps of it come blossoming islands with strange 
 flowers, such as she has never seen before, and forms 
 that have no likeness upon earth, and melodies won- 
 drous sweet. 
 
 Often, sitting alone in her own little room, she 
 has sought to fix these images, not in words, but in
 
 174 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 lines and colors; but ever they floated softly away, 
 and her finders could not follow their fading out- 
 
 O O 
 
 lines, nor her pencil find any color as warm and 
 bright and vivid as theirs. And many an evening, 
 alone in the ivy-arbor, she has tried timidly to sing 
 those strange melodies; but they also changed in the 
 song that glided from her lips, and were no longer 
 the same. 
 
 It is evening; and a little bird has begun to sing 
 in the rose-bush beside the arbor. The bird sings all 
 alone. Everything is suddenly silent. The other 
 birds, the rustling of the leaves, the murmuring of 
 the waters all the unintelligible sounds, the incom- 
 prehensible harmonies, without her as within are 
 hushed around that little bird. Is it, she wonders, 
 that they all are listening to his song, or that he 
 sings so loud no other voice is audible? 
 
 Yes, that is the nightingale ! How sweet, and yet 
 withal how woful, is his song sobs and exultations, 
 pangs and raptures, lamentations and delights, all to- 
 gether ! 
 
 Meanwhile, the moon swims slowly up into the 
 sky, across the dark tree-tops; and far away the land 
 glimmers in a bluish light,. like a still, soft, bound- 
 less sea, wherefrom emerge dim images, dubious and 
 full of mystery. 
 
 And she listens, and looks, and dreams. Then 
 she goes slowly home, and kneeling before the pict- 
 ure of the Madonna, dreams of Heaven. At last, 
 nothing is awake in the little room but the moon, 
 whose rays glide softly across the floor to the feet 
 of the slumbering maiden. But around the maid-
 
 NOTItE DAME DES FLOTS. 175 
 
 en's head hover heavenly visions, that graciously 
 mingle with the dreams of earth and of her own 
 beating heart. 
 
 Blanche de Mersay had neither brother nor sister, 
 nor playfellow of any sort. The neighboring town 
 of Lonviers was only visited for Divine Service on 
 special holydays; and there, also, she had no inti- 
 mate acquaintances. How pleasant the town looked, 
 though, with its many gardens lying fair in the riv- 
 er-valley of the Eure ! Its factories were partially 
 hidden behind high green trees ; buildings of great 
 antiquity surmounted the little new houses of its 
 manufacturing population, and the venerable Gothic 
 cathedral towered high above a range of chimneys. 
 
 The priest of the neighboring village taught 
 Blanche all that he himself had learned in his 
 youth ; or, at least, so much of it as he had not 
 forgotten in the after -years of his long life. She 
 asked him at first much more than he could an- 
 swer, and many things which he had never even 
 thought of before. The good man went home in a 
 more and more meditative mood each time he came 
 to the chateau. 
 
 Monsieur de Mersay would sometimes shake his 
 head, and knit his bushy eyebrows above his hawk- 
 nose, while listening to the chatter of his child. He 
 took her on his knee, and passed his hand over her 
 forehead, as if to wipe away something. The child 
 felt, sensibly enough, the roughness of that hard, la- 
 borious old hand ; but the hand was not sensible of 
 what was behind the fine white wall it brushed so 
 hard.
 
 176 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 For Madame do Mersay, a rose was always a rose, 
 and nothing but a rose. Its odor could suggest to 
 her no idea of anything else. To her eyes, the lily 
 was the only flower that signified something; for it 
 belonged to the arms of the De Mersay family. 
 Neither of the child's parents understood her; and 
 knowing no name for something in her which was 
 not in themselves, they said, 
 
 "Blanche has taken after Godefroy." 
 
 Godefroy was the name of Monsieur de Mcrsay's 
 younger brother. lie had once wandered far away 
 over the world, because his home had become too nar- 
 row for him ; and he returned, years afterwards, be- 
 cause the world had become too wide for him. Weary 
 and broken-hearted, he came home only to die there, 
 slowly; as the stricken deer trails itself with limp- 
 ing foot out of the light into the dark thicket. 
 
 Like Blanche, ho, too, used often to pause sudden- 
 ly, and linger long, as he wandered about the little 
 garden of the old chateau, listening to some distant 
 sound, or poring over some folded blossom, as if his 
 gaze would burst it open ; or he would stand for 
 long hours together on the banks of the En re, gazing 
 at the fleeting current, or watching the slow rising 
 of the moon. 
 
 In the house he was habitually silent, and spoke 
 only when alone with Blanche. She did not quite 
 understand his talk, but she liked to listen to it, be- 
 cause his voice sounded so gentle and kind ; and 
 when he passed his hand over her hair and brow, it 
 was not as when her father did it. The uncle's hand 
 was so soft and tender, that its touch always sent a
 
 NOTRE DAME DBS FLOTS. 177 
 
 faint thrill through her. At other times he would 
 sit bending over one or other of the many books he 
 had brought home with him, and thrusting back, 
 from time to time, with wasted fingers, his long 
 black hair that drooped over the page. Blanche sat 
 beside him, and noticed that, when thus thrust back- 
 ward from his temples, the roots of the long black 
 hair were snowy-white. Sometimes she noticed also 
 that he could smile ; but it was only when he coughed 
 and put his hand convulsively to his chest. 
 
 He showed her the pictures painted in his books: 
 they were bright with gold and rich colors. By-and- 
 by he taught her to read the books, which were writ- 
 ten in an old tongue, spoken ages ago in France; 
 and she read in them of kings, and knights, and no- 
 ble dames, and charcoal-burners, and valorous deeds, 
 and wicked witchcraft. When her uncle rose from 
 his books, tossed back his long black hair, and stood 
 gazing out of the window at the wan, rolling clouds, 
 she thought he was himself like one of the knights 
 in those old books, who had gone forth in search of 
 distant adventures, and come home mortally wound- 
 ed. And she liked him all the better for it. She 
 could not yet understand how much she loved him. 
 
 One evening Uncle Godefroy died, with his hand 
 on his breast, and a smile on his lips. 
 
 But Godefroy's knights continued to live on in 
 her soul fair and dauntless, as they rode forth in 
 the morning twilight, with their waving locks under 
 their plumed helmets, and their glowing hearts un- 
 der their white armor, to conquer the heathen, and 
 slay the dragon, and free noble ladies from wicked 
 12
 
 178 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 spells. And, because she had no other companion, 
 she related all their glorious exploits to her dog 
 Lyon. 
 
 Uncle Godefroy had bequeathed to her this dog, 
 which he had once saved from being drown c'd. 
 
 Lyon was a big, rough, shepherd's dog, and not at 
 nil pretty ; but lie had such true eyes ! with which 
 lie looked up at her, never moving, while she sat un- 
 der a tree in the park and told him all the wonders 
 of the olden time. When she stopped talking to 
 him, having come to the end of her tale, he lifted up 
 his paw and softly touched her knee with it. By 
 this gesture Lyon implied that she might go on 
 speaking he was all attention. But for the present 
 she had no more to say, having told him all she 
 knew. So many a time would she steal away into 
 the corridor, where the pictures of her ancestors 
 hung along the walls, and thoughtfully study those 
 pictures till she had invented a story for every 
 knight, adding every day some new adventure to his 
 strange quest; or else she fetched one of her late 
 uncle's books which she had not yet read, and sat 
 with it, as still as a little mouse, in any corner of the 
 old chateau where nobody was likely to interrupt her. 
 
 In this way she always found new matter for 
 Lyon's instruction. But she was sorry that the old 
 knights were now nowhere to be seen, except in 
 their pictures. She would have liked to be tor- 
 mented by an old magician, that some brave young 
 knight might come and deliver her just in time to 
 save her life. They had quite disappeared, however, 
 these knights of old. Blanche had found that out,
 
 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 179 
 
 when she went with her parents to Louviers, and 
 saw-the gentry there entering the church. 
 
 Even the people of quality, even the rich manu- 
 facturers they were none of them knights-errant, 
 nor did they look at all knightly. It was not the 
 coat, nor the high black hat which everybody held 
 in his hand she could not tell what it was, but she 
 felt it distinctly, that none of them would go forth 
 in search of noble adventures. 
 
 Yet, the world is so large somewhere about it, 
 she thought, such men must still be living; and 
 among them, perhaps, one who would undertake 
 great things for her sake. She knew exactly how 
 .he looked, that one in a thousand. She had de- 
 scribed him in every detail to Lyon, so that her 
 faithful dog should not bark at him when he came. 
 Lyon would not have done that, however, for, from 
 her description of him, the knight must have looked 
 exactly like Lyon's beloved benefactor and late mas- 
 ter, Godefroy do Mersay. 
 
 She liked also to look over the garden wall, now 
 and then, and listen, where along the woodland 
 might she not, some day, hear the neigh of a pranc- 
 ing steed approaching the chateau ? or from the out- 
 skirts of the park to watch if, down the winding wa- 
 ters of the Euro, there came no mystic bark with a 
 purple banderole and a golden prow. 
 
 And so the years went by, and the child became a 
 young woman. 
 
 But still her lonely path was through the dream- 
 land of her maiden fancies, wherein she had created 
 for herself a world of her own, a world known only
 
 180 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 to herself. And with all the scenes and images of 
 that strange world the tender brightness of her own 
 fair soul was interwoven, like the silver clew that 
 winds among the glowing depths of a fairy laby- 
 rinth. 
 
 The lingering winter imperceptibly subsided into 
 the spring. The first rose-bud had burst open on 
 the bush, and the nightingale began to sing, where 
 between the branches of the trees the moon was 
 peeping. 
 
 Blanche sat in the arbor and listened, motionless, 
 to the bird. 
 
 She thought of the king's daughter who was 
 changed, by a lame old witch, into a flower. But 
 soft-hearted little wood -goblins crept out of the 
 mosses, and clambered down from every rifted tree 
 to comfort the kind's daughter. And some of them 
 
 o o 
 
 played to her sweet tunes on blades of trembling 
 grass till their puffed cheeks were glowing, and their 
 little hearts nearly bursting with the effort, while 
 others danced round her in graceful circles. So the 
 goblin dance and minstrelsy went on, till the prince 
 came riding through the forest; and, lured nearer 
 and nearer by the sweet sounds that hovered round 
 it, beheld the enchanted flower; and plucked it, and 
 breathed it open with his warm breath, and touched 
 it with his lips; and the spell was broken. 
 
 And Blanche thought that the enchanted flower 
 must have been just like the rose upon the bush be- 
 side her. 
 
 For the little bird never left that flower, but sung 
 to it, like the goblin minstrels in the fairy tale, so
 
 NOTRE DAME DBS FLOTS. 181 
 
 sweetly and sadl} r , that it seemed as if his little heart 
 must burst with the fulness of its emotion. 
 
 But how, she thought, did the other wood-sprites 
 dance round the enchanted flower? 
 
 And softly she rose on tiptoe, and began to dance 
 in the moonlight round the rose-bush, to the music 
 of the nightingale. 
 
 The moonlight illuminated all her fairy figure, 
 flowed from her glittering tresses to her twinkling 
 feet, and spread a silver carpet on the grass they 
 tripped. And elfin as the image was the movement 
 of the dancing girl ; a soft, unearthly wavering of 
 the flower-like form ; from throat to ankle a boun- 
 teous pulsation of the slender, supple limbs; a mys- 
 terious budding and blossoming of beautiful emo- 
 tions, revealed only to the dreamy light that never 
 shone by day. 
 
 Suddenly the nightingale stopped his jubilant 
 song, and was silent. 
 
 Blanche also stopped her dance, and looked at the 
 rose-bush, watching for the bird to begin again. But 
 he did not begin again ; and leaning over the gate, 
 and looking at her, stood the figure of a man. 
 
 Blushing from head to foot, she plunged into the 
 shadow of the trees, and hastened back to the house. 
 There, safe in her own little room, she stood, press- 
 ing both her hands against the loud beating of her 
 heart, and wondered whether it was the prince, who 
 had come to deliver the rose, or only some inquis- 
 itive mortal. 
 
 The night was late before she fell asleep, and then 
 she dreamed that she herself was the enchanted rose.
 
 182 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 But it was not the Fairy Prince that she had seen ; 
 it was only Arthur de Mersay, Godefroy's son, who 
 came next day to visit his aunt. 
 
 The aunt and nephew had never met before, and 
 they knew each other only by name. 
 
 When his father died, Arthur was beyond the At- 
 lantic. The first news of his loss reached him only 
 when he landed at Havre, on his return to France ; 
 and he had arrived in Louviers the night before this 
 visit to the chateau. Thinking it too late to drive 
 over to his aunt's that night, he had strolled out of 
 the town on foot, with that longing to stretch one's 
 legs which is familiar to all who have just landed 
 from a long sea voyage. 
 
 The garden to which his steps had rambled along 
 the banks of the Euro was unknown to him ; he had 
 no idea that the girl he saw dancing in the moon- 
 light was his own cousin ; and it was with a pleased 
 surprise that he learned the name of the chateau, 
 when the next morning it was pointed out to him 
 as the seat of Madame de Mersay. 
 
 The moonlight fairy had been dancing all night 
 in his head; and such was his longing to see her 
 again in broad daylight, that he would certainly have 
 returned to the little garden gate, even had it not 
 led to his aunt's house, and have opened it, even if 
 it had been the postern of a nunnery. 
 
 Arthur de Mersay was not the man to let any hin- 
 derance stand between him and his desires. He rec- 
 ognized the little gate as he passed through it this 
 morning; and the rose-bush, too, where the nightin- 
 gale had sung.
 
 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 183 
 
 From the rose-bush, as he went by it, he plucked 
 a rose, inhaled for a moment the sweetness of the 
 flower, and then flung it away. 
 
 Blanche, who was sitting in the arbor, sprung up, 
 frightened and vexed. 
 
 Why, if he wished to enjoy the sweetness of the 
 rose, could he not stoop his head to the poor flower, 
 and leave it to bloom uninjured on its stem? She 
 would take the stranger to task for this ungentle 
 act, and ask him by whose authority he was entitled 
 to rob the nightingale of what belonged to it the 
 first rose of spring. 
 
 But now he stood before her, and she did not ask 
 him. 
 
 The question was needless. The stranger's author- 
 ity was distinctly certificated on his forehead, when, 
 as he took off his hat to salute her, the deep sabre- 
 scar on his temples became visible, just under the 
 roots of his black waving hair. By other signs, more- 
 over, the question was already answered. Blanche, 
 with a thrill of inward awe, recognized in this 
 stranger a being from higher worlds. His was, in 
 
 00*0 ' 
 
 all particulars, the image of the fairy prince the 
 long-dreamed-of knight from afar who. from her 
 
 ~ o * 
 
 childhood till this hour, had haunted her thoughts, 
 waking and sleeping. Even to the minutest de- 
 tails, the counterpart was complete, as he tossed 
 back his long black locks with a proud impatience; 
 just like the hero of the tales she had so often told 
 to Lyon, and prophetically interpreted to herself, 
 as he used to appear when the visionary combat for 
 her life was about to begin. And the motion of
 
 184 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 his hand seemed to Blanche exactly like that of her 
 uncle. 
 
 The knight of her dreams had come to life; and, 
 
 O 7 ' 
 
 with a graceful salutation, lie informed her that he 
 was the son of Godefroy de Mersay ! 
 
 Confused, she gave him her hand, and said, 
 
 "I am Godefroy's niece Blanche." 
 
 "I must needs believe it," he replied, retaining 
 her hand in his, "since you tell me so." 
 
 She looked at him, puzzled. 
 
 "I saw last night," he continued, smiling, "upon 
 the very spot where you now stand, a form unearth- 
 ly fair, a form of such ravishing beauty as, till then, 
 I had nowhere seen, and only once heard of in 
 Germany, the land of legends. There, I once heard 
 a legend of a fairy who dances in the moonlight, en- 
 chanting all who have the chance to see her. But, 
 soon as seen, she glides away from the beholder, 
 leaving him nothing but a wounded heart, which 
 can never again be healed. I then thought it only 
 a pretty fairy tale; but since yesterday I know it is 
 a truth !" 
 
 Blanche, as she freed her imprisoned hand from 
 the young man's clasp, felt the blood rushing to her 
 cheeks, and would have liked to run to her room as 
 she had done the night before. 
 
 But across the entrance of the arbor Lyon was ly- 
 ing at full length, upon the grass. He did not bark ; 
 but he had nuzzled his head low between his out- 
 stretched forepaws, and was meditatively contemplat- 
 ing the stranger. 
 
 " I will lead you to my mother," she said, hurriedly.
 
 NOTRE DAME DE8 FLOT8. 185 
 
 She had fortunately seen the black cap-ribbons flut- 
 tering in the kitchen garden. 
 
 Madame de Mersay was walking slowly between 
 the beds, and examining the young plants, which 
 stretched forth their little heads, prudently testing 
 the spring air. She looked up surprised as the stran- 
 ger approached accompanied by her daughter. But 
 her surprise changed at once to enthusiastic welcome 
 when he told her his name. 
 
 He was a De Mersay, and that was enough for 
 her. 
 
 Before he could say another word, she sounded a 
 little silver whistle that hung from her neck, and or- 
 dered an old white-headed servant who presently an- 
 swered its summons to see that her nephew's lug- 
 gage was promptly fetched from Louviers, as also to 
 prepare for him the chief guest-chamber ; to which, 
 when they had re-entered the house, she finally con- 
 ducted that young gentleman herself "for a good 
 long stay !" said the old lady, cordially, as there she 
 left him, after casting a housewifely glance around 
 the room to assure herself that it was all in order. 
 
 As soon as the young man found himself alone, 
 he began to pace restlessly up and down his sitting- 
 room. But he looked at none of the things around 
 him there, and did not even notice the fresh nosegay 
 of spring flowers which had been placed upon his 
 table. His gaze, as if eagerly bent on some distant 
 object, was fixed straight before him. 
 
 This far-off look was habitual to Arthur de Mer- 
 say. It was the key to his character. He had ever 
 before his eyes some distant object, ardently desired ;
 
 186 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 and in the excitement of its pursuit all that stood 
 between that object and himself was completely ob- 
 literated from his perception. 
 
 His character was capable of only one passion ; 
 but that passion was intense, all-pervading, and irre- 
 pressible. It was the passion of acquisition. This 
 passion was the main-spring of all his feelings and 
 actions. Deprived of its animating force, the whole 
 man would have fallen to pieces as an earthen image 
 that is crumbled into atoms by the displacement of 
 its centre of gravity. And, for that reason, the thing 
 acquired had no lasting value for him. He threw 
 it aside as carelessly as he had thrown away the rose 
 that morning. The prize once possessed, all delight 
 in it was gone, and already in the distance hovered 
 some new attraction. 
 
 As for the goodness or reasonableness of the 
 means employed for its attainment, he gave to the 
 future no more thought than he vouchsafed to the 
 past concerning the worth of what he had gained 
 and then forsaken. His passion urged him forward 
 with an egotism as blind, senseless, and unfeeling as 
 the mechanical impulsion with which a billiard-ball 
 thrusts the other balls aside, and, after hitting the 
 mark, recoils from it always polished, shining, elas- 
 tic, nimble, and always hard hard as a stone ! 
 
 Never anywhere had he yet found rest in life. 
 The unappeasable craving of his disposition had 
 driven him, always with the same yearning for some- 
 thing afar, from the soon-exhausted excitements of 
 Paris, first as a soldier to Algeria, and then as a trav- 
 eller over all the world.
 
 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 187 
 
 And so, for years, he liad roamed from land to 
 land a restless, indefinite volition not, however, 
 like the wind, which impels the ship and turns the 
 mill, or fans the forge and heats the iron in the stithy 
 still less as the light breeze, that caresses the petals 
 of the roses, and plays with the loosened locks of 
 laughing maidens; but rather as one of those ele- 
 mentary gases which, in the blind conflict of natu- 
 ral forces, rushes into sudden combination with the 
 atoms of another; and then, whirled away by some 
 new attraction, violently dissolves the evanescent 
 bond. 
 
 In this way he had squandered his youth, his best 
 energies, and the considerable fortune he inher- 
 ited from his mother, without winning from the 
 waste of all those treasures a moment of genuine 
 happiness, or even of partial contentment. In the 
 attainment of his ever -shifting aim he had never 
 failed ; but in this sterile monotony of success he 
 felt no more satisfaction than a man who is a prac- 
 tised marksman might feel in always hitting the 
 bull's-eye, which he knows he cannot miss. 
 
 And from all these successes, such as the} 7 were, 
 his only lasting acquirement was a dull weariness of 
 the world, and a disgust of his own existence some- 
 times so intolerable, that his hand involuntarily lifted 
 his revolver to his head ; only, in the very moment 
 of lifting it, his aim had changed again ; and again, 
 just as involuntarily, he had followed the new aim, 
 with always the old result desire ever insatiable, 
 and possession never enjoyed. 
 
 Now, as he paced the floor of his apartment in
 
 188 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 the Chateau de Mersay, his face assumed its old 
 eager expression, and the far-off look grew more and 
 more intensely fixed in the keen, hungry eyes. For 
 there, on the horizon of his fancy, was still dancing 
 the moonlit Fairy ; and to her exquisite image his 
 soul went forth, in all the sudden intensity of its in- 
 veterate passion, and with all its consuming impa- 
 tience of time and means. 
 
 While Arthur do Mersay was thus employed, 
 Blanche had gone quietly back to the rose-bush by 
 the ivy-arbor. 
 
 She stooped and picked up the enchanted rose, 
 which she found there, lying in the sand. Then 
 she shook it carefully, and softly blew the dust from 
 its petals, and carried it stealthily to her own little 
 room. There, she put the flower into a glass of 
 water which stood upon her table, and sat down be- 
 fore it. And thus for hours she sat alone, her elbow 
 on the table, her cheek propped upon her hand, mus- 
 ingly watching the poor little wounded blossom ; 
 which, refreshed by the bath she had given it, seemed 
 to revive gradually beneath her gaze. 
 
 Meanwhile, as softly came and went the sweet 
 days of May, every morning in that old garden the 
 young couple went wandering side by side, closer 
 and closer daily, as their hearts drew nearer together 
 one with impetuous desire, the other shyly and 
 dreamily, through a sunny mist of golden fancies. 
 
 Blanche now saw breathing alive before her the 
 phantom image which had so often baffled the effort 
 of her pencil to fix its fleeting outlines. To individ- 
 ualize her maiden fancies, she need only steal a tim-
 
 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 189 
 
 id glance at her cousin Arthur, as he stood there, 
 tall and strong, the black locks hanging about his 
 pale, finely moulded face; and, across his forehead, 
 the scar, which sometimes reddened while, with that 
 steadfast, eager gaze of his, he told her all about his 
 combats with the Kabyles, or his adventures in all 
 sorts of distant lands and seas. 
 
 Nor was it only the longed-for outlines that she 
 had found at last ; but, therewith, all the magic hues, 
 all the starry splendors of that glowing treasure 
 which till then she had only seen shining far out of 
 reach, like a sunken argosy, in the hushed depths of 
 her own day-dreams. 
 
 All this, she thought, belonged to Arthur. She 
 knew not, in the touching and beautiful simplicity 
 of her heart, that she herself had fetched it, piece by 
 piece, from the fairy riches of her own soul, and un- 
 consciously clothed him in the glory of it. With all 
 the innocence, the softness, and the warmth of her 
 nature all the generosity and greatness of her soul 
 she had invested him, as with a splendid garment. 
 And, like precious gems on the broidered mantle of 
 some royal saint, into that splendid garment her 
 adoring hands had woven all the sweet and holy vi- 
 sions of her youth. 
 
 When, at night, she returned to her little room, 
 and knelt at her bedside, with folded hands, before 
 the old picture of the Madonna with the Seraph, her 
 eyes now beheld there, instead of the sacred image 
 to which the prayers of her childhood had been ad- 
 dressed, only the glowing image of Arthur ; from 
 which her gaze sunk dazzled and abashed by the ra-
 
 190 NOTHE DAME DES PLOTS. 
 
 diance that trembled down from it throngli all her 
 frame. 
 
 She was incapable of perceiving that it was the 
 celestial glory of the love in her own heart which 
 shed this halo around the form she had unconscious- 
 ly created, out of the depths of its unfathomable 
 tenderness, in the image of its immaculate ideal. 
 She only sunk lower on her knees, till her young 
 head almost touched the ground, as she murmured 
 meekly and brokenly, 
 
 " It is tJwu whom I adore !" 
 
 In Arthur, on the other hand, his longing for the 
 moonlit Fairy grew more and more overpowering, 
 till it absorbed his thoughts, and stifled every other 
 
 Ox / 
 
 wish in the heart it filled to bursting. 
 
 The looks he fixed on Blanche, with all the hun- 
 gry eagerness of his nature, were so imperious in their 
 usurpation of her will that the girl was constrained 
 to lift her eyelids, trembling and blushing from head 
 to foot, and suffer those despotic looks to flow un re- 
 sisted into her eyes and soul. And, believing that 
 the Realm of the Beautiful and Good extended just 
 so far as that all-penetrating gaze, and that where its 
 radiance fell not there only were sorrow and death, 
 she looked up into his eyes, gratefully, humbly, 
 adoringly, in the boundless confidence of the deli- 
 cious conviction that ho loved her. 
 
 Blanche's mother had nothing to say against this 
 love. She was a woman whose own life's happiness 
 had withered away with the loss of the husband in 
 whose heart it was rooted, and to whose affection it 
 had opened its earliest blossoms. All her prayers
 
 KOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 191 
 
 had been for him while he lived, and to him ever 
 since his death. 
 
 It was a Mersay who had made her own life un- 
 speakably happy, and he who now wooed her daugh- 
 ter was also a Mersay. She need, therefore, have no 
 fears for the security of her daughter's internal hap- 
 piness. She beheld her child's future with the love- 
 veiled looks in whose gaze was reflected all the fe- 
 licity of her own past. 
 
 But for the security of the child's external wel- 
 fare she had the sharp, anxious eye with which she 
 scanned her fields when hail-storms hovered on the 
 horizon. She at once undertook to set in order the 
 worldly affairs of her future son-in-law, and was the 
 more scrupulous in the matter that Arthur himself 
 had neither any idea of the condition to which his 
 fortune was reduced, nor any care to know it. 
 
 The result at which she arrived made her desirous 
 that the young couple should settle at Havre. 
 
 Arthur's mother had been born there. She was 
 the daughter of one of those merchant princes whose 
 riches float on every sea. There it was that she had 
 first met Godefroy do Mersa} 7 , in the salons of the 
 Sous-Prefct. The young lady's lively fancy was at 
 once attracted by the soft dark eyes and knightly 
 grace of the interesting, dreamy-looking youth who 
 had come from Paris to pore over the manuscripts 
 of Bernardin de St. Pierre in, the museum at Havre. 
 His character pleased her by its contrast to the pas- 
 sionate violence of her own. She had little trouble 
 in inducing him to forsake Bernardin's Virginia for 
 her sake. She was an only child ; and being also a
 
 192 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 wilful and a spoiled one, she overcame with equal 
 ease the purse-pride of her father, whom she soon per- 
 suaded to receive with open arms, as a son-in-law, 
 the younger scion of a noble but impoverished fami- 
 ly and one, moreover, who was a scholar and poet, 
 quite incapable of managing the great fortune he 
 would receive with her hand. 
 
 Having thus attained her object, she again became 
 entirely her father's daughter. Because Godefroy 
 had but few wants, she looked upon him as a poor- 
 spirited fellow, and because he was soft and gentle, 
 he soon bored her. His ideal aspirations seemed to 
 her a mild sort of lunacy, and his steady, intense de- 
 votion to her, intolerably burdensome. Her father, 
 she said, had been right all through. She went off 
 to Paris, pour se distraire unpeu, intending to pass 
 the winter there, as she informed her husband ; and 
 there she remained for the rest of her life. What 
 little good there was in her selfish and capricious 
 disposition soon perished in an unceasing whirl of 
 dissipation. 
 
 The child born of this ill-assorted marriage was 
 not suffered to interfere with the excitement and 
 frivolity of the mother's unquiet existence. The 
 boy, as soon as born, was put to nurse in the coun- 
 try ; and afterwards, as soon as he left college, the 
 stripling himself was prematurely plunged into the 
 same mad whirl. 
 
 Godefroy de Mersay meanwhile pursued his sad 
 and lonely path unnoticed. The tender, weak man 
 bore his burden uncomplainingly, as an inevitable 
 dispensation. He idolized his wife; and when at
 
 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 193 
 
 last, worn out with dissipation, she breathed away 
 her restless soul, he returned to the solitude of his 
 home, only to die there. He had nothing more to 
 do in the world, for his son had been quite estranged 
 from him by his wife. 
 
 The prodigal daughter of the Havre merchant had 
 dissipated before she died no inconsiderable portion 
 of her large fortune. Arthur, who, though in face 
 and figure he resembled his father, was in character 
 and heart the exact image of his mother, had been 
 equally prodigal, and not much of his maternal in- 
 heritance now remained. Only an estate near Havre, 
 which was let to strangers, and a large country-house 
 with a garden, in the town itself. The rent of the 
 property had been fixed more than a generation ago 
 by Arthur's maternal grandfather; and since then, as 
 it was regularly paid, no one had thought of raising it. 
 
 Madame de Mersay drove over to Havre, and re- 
 turned with the conviction that the rent ought to be 
 doubled, and that it would be best for Arthur to 
 take the management of the property into his own 
 hands, so that he might henceforth have some settled 
 and orderly occupation. 
 
 Such was the pecuniary position of Arthur at the 
 time of his marriage, and the dowry of Blanche was 
 not large. The moderate revenues of the De Mer- 
 say estate had long been declining. But Arthur did 
 not mind that ; he never cared for money-matters. 
 He wished to settle at once in Paris; and indeed, he 
 had already formed plans for the maintenance of 
 his wife's Parisian establishment on the most mag- 
 nificent scale. 
 13
 
 194 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 Madame de Mersay listened with a smile to these 
 boasts. She treated him like a child who cries for 
 the moon, and quietly pointed out to him the impos- 
 sibility of setting up house in Paris, even on the 
 most modest footing. 
 
 He would have obstinately adhered to his plans 
 (for the Havre prospect he regarded only as a pet 
 hobby of his aunt's, to which he had no intention of 
 paying serious attention) had it not been for a sud- 
 den thought which rendered the idea of married life 
 at Paris unexpectedly distasteful to him. 
 
 This thought came into his mind one day as he 
 watched Blanche standing in the garden and softly 
 stroking Lyon's head. A poignant jealousy seized 
 him at that sight jealousy of the dog, jealousy of 
 the whole world, and more especially of the seduc- 
 tions of Paris. For he thought of his mother, and 
 how she had been hurried along by that great frivo- 
 lous Parisian world into a life of distraction, incom- 
 patible with any sort of domestic affection. Before 
 his eyes, between him and Blanche, rose the unwill- 
 ingly remembered images of his own Parisian friends 
 idlers of the salon and the boulevard and finally 
 the image of his own Parisian life. And gloomy, 
 almost menacing, in those eyes was the flash which 
 in that moment kindled the hard, far-off look of 
 them. 
 
 "No," he thought, "not Paris! never again Par- 
 is!" 
 
 He would have Blanche all to himself. His pos- 
 session of the woman he loved should be absolute 
 and exclusive. Every word and look of her, every
 
 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 195 
 
 thought and interest of that woman's life, must be, 
 not only his, but his entirely, and his alone. And so, 
 from the window he turned suddenly to Madame do 
 Mersay, who supposed that all this while he had been 
 carefully considering her plans about Havre, and 
 said, 
 
 " You are right ; I will not take Blanche to Paris." 
 
 Madame de Mersay embraced her nephew. 
 
 And in the month when the summer roses be- 
 gin to bloom the bridal pair, beaming with hap- 
 piness, stood before the altar in the cathedral of 
 Louviers. 
 
 Arthur did not know that what he had led to that 
 sacred altar was only his own glowing desire; and 
 Blanche did not guess that the hand in which her 
 own lay trembling was only that of a vision. 
 
 As she passed out of the porch of the cathedral 
 into the church-yard she paused a moment to press 
 her beating heart, its happiness was so great. 
 
 The marvellously carved stone-work of the old ca- 
 thedral, whose delicate traceries she had so often ad- 
 mired, hung rich above the portal through which 
 she had entered into her new life. It was like a 
 mysterious curtain broidered with fairy figures, shut- 
 ting out all that once had been. On this side of it 
 began all that was now to be ; and when she lifted 
 her eyes, and saw the bright blue sky, and all the by- 
 standers looking kindly at her, life seemed so beauti- 
 ful, and all the world so dear and good, that tears of 
 joy filled her eyes, and she could not speak in answer 
 to Arthur's whispered question, 
 
 " Blanche, are you happy ?"
 
 196 NOTEE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 She only looked gratefully up at him with her 
 moist eyes ; and her golden hair gushed from be- 
 neath her veil, as she bowed her happy head in all- 
 sufficient response to that whisper. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MADAME DE MERSAY continued to live at the old 
 chateau, near the grave of her husband. 
 
 The young couple left her, some daj'S after the 
 wedding, for their home at Havre. During their 
 journey, they chattered, at first, like two silly chil- 
 dren; then they spoke of the future like two serious 
 children; and finally they sat quite silent. 
 
 Arthur was weaving his ambitious thoughts, fur- 
 ther and deeper every moment, into the widening 
 woof of a vast enterprise in South America, of 
 which the grand and original conception had been 
 fascinating his fancy ever since his first visit to 
 Havre for the preparatiqn of the home to which he 
 was now taking his bride. 
 
 The precise form which this enterprise was to as- 
 sume he had not yet quite settled ; lie only saw, in 
 the future, numerous ships belonging to it ploughing 
 the Atlantic, and pouring the treasures of the New 
 World at his feet. He had no fear of failure ; his 
 fancy presented to him a picture of all the merchant 
 princes of Havre eagerly rallying around him in 
 support of the enterprise which was to bear his name. 
 Possibly it was the business-like character of his
 
 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 197 
 
 mother- in -law's preoccupations on liis behalf that 
 had thus turned his thoughts, for the first time, along 
 the track of commercial calculations. But he did 
 not fix them on the track itself they were already 
 concentrated upon the end of it ; and the idea of 
 South America had occurred to him because the last 
 years of his life had been passed there. 
 
 While thus musing, he held Blanche's hand in his 
 own. It was only for her sake, he said to himself, 
 that he had thought of all this. She should be rich, 
 and surrounded by every splendor and luxury that 
 wealth could procure for her. 
 
 Blanche, meanwhile, as she leaned her head upon 
 her husband's shoulder, was dreamily absorbing into 
 the bliss of her own heart the shining repose of the 
 beautiful valley of the Seine, which, as they passed 
 along it, softly melted from one delightful picture 
 into another, clear and bright as the sunny landscapes 
 of Claude Lorraine. 
 
 The busy life of the seaport town recalled them 
 both to earth. With a start the two dreamers awoke, 
 the husband from his calculations, the wife from her 
 golden reveries ; and at last they were at home upon 
 the sea-girt cliffs of Ingouville, which, covered with 
 villas and gardens, stretch northward from the town 
 of Havre. 
 
 When, arm-in-arm with Arthur, Blanche stepped 
 on to the balcony of her new drawing-room, she saw 
 beneath her, in the warm evening light, a terraced 
 garden glowing with flowers ; and lower down, at 
 the foot of the cliffs, the bay of Havre, its shore clus- 
 tered with houses, its haven thronged with masts ;
 
 198 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 and all around, and far beyond it, far as her gaze 
 could reach, the shining levels of the great calm 
 sea. 
 
 The sun was already deep in the west, and had 
 begun to dip his broad red orb below the ridge of 
 Cap la Here; but his rays still overspread the heav- 
 ens and the earth, and gleamed along a golden inlet 
 in the east, where the waters of the Seine flowed 
 down into the sea. About the sea itself numbers 
 of little sails were glittering red, like festive flags in 
 the evening glow, and upon the wide unrippled wa- 
 ters a red-gold glory rested. Far away upon the 
 distant horizon the streaming smoke of a great pack- 
 et-ship, outward bound, looked only like a little dark 
 feather floating in the flushed air of sunset. 
 
 Blanche passed one hand across her eyes, as if it 
 were all a dream, and laid the other on her heart. 
 It was long before she could find words for what 
 she felt there ; but at last she said, speaking under 
 her breath, 
 
 "Arthur, your father often stood just where we 
 are standing now, in the evening glow, gazing on 
 this enchanting picture. Uncle Godefroy often spoke 
 to me of the sunsets he had watched from Ingou- 
 ville. He called them his evening prayers. It was, 
 he once told me, in such an hour as this here, on 
 this very balcony that he first confessed his love to 
 your mother. How all these reminiscences seem to 
 mingle, in splendor and repose, with the unspeakable 
 felicity of our own love, while we stand as they did, 
 on the same spot, looking at the same scene!" 
 
 Arthur's gaze had been fixed all this while upon
 
 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 199 
 
 one dark spot on the distant splendors of the horizon 
 the smoke of that outward-bound packet-ship. 
 
 " I am so glad, for your sake, Blanche," he an- 
 swered, " that you like this place." 
 
 And then, with a start, he added, "Blanche de 
 Mersoy shall one day rule over yonder sea ; hers shall 
 be the ships in yonder haven, and like a queen shall 
 she look down upon the merchant town that now lies 
 stretched at her feet!" 
 
 Blanche looked up wonderingly at these words, 
 which were quite unintelligible to her. Then, with 
 a shy smile, she leaned her head timidly upon his 
 breast and whispered, 
 
 "I want nothing, Arthur, but to love and serve 
 you." 
 
 And truly this she did from that time forward. 
 All the virtues which had taken steadfast root in the 
 characters of her parents put forth their brightest 
 blossoms in her own. From her mother she inher- 
 ited the gift of making a pleasant home ; from her 
 father, an activity never tired, always cheerful. Her 
 love taught her to guess her husband's wishes in his 
 looks, and enabled her to anticipate their utterance. 
 
 In these active pieties of affection the full beau- 
 ty and abundant loveliness of her nature found, for 
 the first time, their complete expression. As the 
 warmth of spring dissolves the snows of May, the 
 devotion of the wife relaxed the maiden reserve of 
 the girl, only to bring forth in ever-increasing opu- 
 lence the bloom and fragrance of her perfect wom- 
 anhood. 
 
 And for all she gave she was contented with such
 
 300 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 small returns. IHs love was to her not the natural 
 recognition of a right, but the miraculous bestowal 
 of a grace so great that the least manifestations of 
 it were priceless. For a kind look or a tender word 
 she was unboundedly grateful. If Arthur picked 
 her a flower to put in her hair, she could not find in 
 the fulness of her heart words enough to thank him. 
 She stood before her glass admiring the flower he 
 had given her, with as much pride and satisfaction 
 as any other woman, if only half as beautiful, would 
 have felt, when she looked at her glass, in admiring 
 herself. 
 
 "You are too good to me, Arthur!" she would 
 exclaim on those occasions, clasping her exquisite 
 arms about his neck ; and then she would stand on 
 tiptoe, that he might the better see how beautiful 
 his flower looked. 
 
 In this way Blanche took and cherished, as the 
 highest and the best in life, the nearest and least 
 gift of the passing moment a gift unexpected and 
 undeserved. And in return for such gifts, she cheer- 
 fully consecrated to his service every occasion that 
 time and place vouchsafed her. 
 
 The abiding vigilance of her affection never failed 
 to detect and seize even the most fleeting opportuni- 
 ty of proving its devotion. And her hands instinct- 
 ively turned to whatever work, and her feet to what- 
 ever way, chance placed from hour to hour within 
 the reach of this unwearied purpose. All she did, 
 and all she refrained from doing, was in submissive 
 obedience to love's claim upon each hour as it came 
 a tender abandonment of her whole being to the
 
 NOTRE DAME DBS FLOTS. 201 
 
 present, and a gracious devotion to it. What thus 
 might come to her, or become of her, by -and -by, 
 was a consideration which found no place in her life. 
 She heaped together, as it we're, with both hands, 
 the treasures of her heart, and poured them at the 
 feet of her beloved, never heeding how many of 
 them thus fell unseen and unnoticed by him. Why 
 should she reckon her riches or stint their expendi- 
 ture ? She knew her heart was inexhaustible. 
 
 Arthur's nature, which, unlike his wife's, was al- 
 ways fretfully straining towards the future and the 
 far, yielded at first to the charm with which, for him, 
 she had invested the present; and its habitual im- 
 patience slumbered for a while beneath the spell of 
 those soft hands which held the sweet hours fast. 
 
 lie was like a wanderer who, hastening with eager 
 steps from hill to hill along some mountain -range, 
 lias reached at last the summit nearest heaven. 
 There he rests a while, well pleased. The pure air of 
 those serene precincts fans his heated forehead cool ; 
 and in contented repose he gazes now upon the ethe- 
 real azure above him, now upon the smiling valleys 
 below, and then upon the mountain -flowers that 
 blossom at his feet. This lasts perhaps an hour. 
 Then he is rested, and keenly scans the distant pros- 
 pect towards which his way still lies. Fresh sum- 
 mits rise there, half veiled in cloud summits still to 
 climb, and vast mysterious gorges still to be explored ! 
 Already the spot on which he stands has lost its 
 charm. 
 
 So fared it with the charm which the present, em- 
 bodied in the sweet image of his wife, still exercised
 
 202 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 over Arthur. It lasted, but not for long. After a 
 short while the devouring acquisitiveness of his nat- 
 ure had consumed all that was given to it without 
 resistance or reserve ; and he again fell a prey to 
 that dissatisfaction with the world and himself that 
 lethargy of satiety into which he invariably relapsed 
 after the attainment of his wishes. 
 
 In this condition of mind, his great South Ameri- 
 can scheme was the first stimulant to which he had 
 recourse. He who had never known the worth of a 
 franc, and had always cherished the maxim "L'argent 
 pen," now began to read with eagerness the quota- 
 tions of the Bourse, the foreign exchanges, and the 
 commercial news. He became a subscriber to the 
 Courrier du Havre, and studied in it the numbers, 
 names, and freights of the local shipping. lie stood 
 for hours before an enormous map of South America, 
 and knit his eyebrows if, during these important oc- 
 cupations, Blanche stole into his room. 
 
 She no longer ventured to go near him, or to take 
 his arm and wander chatting with him about the 
 house or through the garden. Their pleasant daily 
 walks down to Havre or round the cape were grad- 
 ually discontinued. Their delightful excursions 
 across the bay of Honfleur, or Trouville, and even 
 sometimes to Caen, had grown rarer by degrees, and 
 at last they ceased altogether. 
 
 When Arthur took up his hat, and Blanche looked 
 at him with the imploring eyes of a timid child, 
 whose look was a mute entreaty to be allowed to go 
 with him, he now invariably replied, in a hasty tone, 
 and with an absent air,
 
 NOTRE DAME DBS FLOTS. 203 
 
 " Yon must excuse me to-day, my angel ; I am go- 
 ing out upon pressing and important business. Go 
 and see, meanwhile, if the hyacinths in the garden are 
 yet in bloom." 
 
 To-day it was the hyacinths, to-morrow the roses 
 every day a different flower that she was asked to 
 look after, for the sake of varying that otherwise in- 
 variable answer. The flowers he named were, gen- 
 erally, those which happened to be out of season, and 
 faded long ago ; but Blanche went through the re- 
 quired formality, and duly examined the dead brown 
 flowers lying on the ground. 
 
 The walks she was not permitted to accompany 
 were indeed " upon business bent," for her husband 
 was now looking everywhere for connections with 
 the principal merchants and ship-owners of the town. 
 These worthies honored his name with a respectful 
 bow, and listened to his projects with a polite smile; 
 but not one of them ever treated him au serieux. 
 He called them a set of narrow-minded epiciers, and 
 turned with his usual impetuosity, in search of bet- 
 ter fortune, to the minor magnates of the mercantile 
 community. They also, however, regarded him only 
 as a petulant child, who seemed to think that he could 
 have the sun and moon for playthings. 
 
 Arthur never took his wife with him into these 
 commercial circles ; nor, indeed, did he ever take her 
 into society of any sort. He still held fast to what 
 he told Blanche when she became his bride : that they 
 were to live only for each other, and entirely out of 
 the world. 
 
 Blanche herself, reared as she was in loneliness and
 
 204 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 seclusion, had no other wish. The charming idyl of 
 two lives thus woven into one had always been a 
 sweet dream to her; but it was now a dream which 
 she was often left to dream alone. 
 
 About this time the sudden death of Madame de 
 Mersay brought about a situation in which Blanche 
 became once more, for a while, the central object of 
 Arthur's thoughts and occupations. The intensity 
 of her grief was an entirely new revelation to him. 
 It opened to his sight depths in her soul quite un- 
 known to him, and not even intelligible to such a 
 nature as his. Till then he had seen the imago of 
 his wife only in the sunshine of love; now it stood 
 before him in the double light of love and sorrow. 
 
 The unwonted coloring its beauty took from this 
 twofold aspect was not unattractive to him. But his 
 eye soon became accustomed to it; and meanwhile 
 his mind was already occupied less about Blanche 
 herself than about the sale of her property. 
 
 Blanche, for her part, though she was fond of In- 
 gouville, would have liked to live with Arthur where 
 her father and mother had passed their lives in tran- 
 quil happiness; yet she was content, since Arthur 
 wished it otherwise. It pained her, however, when 
 she heard that the home of her forefathers was to be 
 pulled down, and the old trees in the park felled and 
 sold, to make room for mills and factories. 
 
 Arthur was obliged to go several times to Paris for 
 the personal negotiation with Monsieur Dumont, its 
 purchaser, of various details connected with the sale 
 of the estate. Blanche meanwhile lived upon the 
 few last words and looks with which he had taken
 
 NOTKE DAME DES FLOTS. 205 
 
 hasty leave of her; and what was at first a cause, 
 became by degrees only a pretext, for absence. 
 
 He now went oftener to Paris, and he stayed there 
 longer every time. The Boulevards, on which he 
 had not set foot since his voyage to South America, 
 had assumed for Arthur do Mersay all the charm of 
 novelty. The Bois de Boulogne appeared to him, 
 after an absence of several years, like a newly dis- 
 covered country. The old acquaintances he picked 
 up again at Paris were as good as new ones, since 
 they presented to him features which time had either 
 altered or effaced from his recollection. The figure 
 he himself cut in the midst of them seemed to him 
 at first a little ridiculous, and he felt rather ashamed 
 of his own provincialism. Then he wondered wheth- 
 er provincial life would ever move in a century as 
 fast as the world of Paris in a year. He longed to 
 explore this altered world in all its aspects, and he 
 was soon whirled away by it. 
 
 After a little while the thought of Havre threw 
 him into a cold shudder; for there, and indeed ev- 
 erywhere except at Paris, the spectre of Ennui lay 
 in lurk for him, and it was only inside the walls of 
 Paris that he thought himself safe from its pursuit. 
 For-a while he entertained a vague intention of tell- 
 ing Blanche to join him there; but he forgot it, as 
 he forgot all his grand commercial projects, and ev- 
 erything that he had cared about before. A more 
 potent attraction had already excited his never-rest- 
 ing covetousness ; and towards the attainment of the 
 object to which it allured him he was straining to 
 the utmost all the energies it had revived in him.
 
 206 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 This object was Mademoiselle Julie Oeillet, a mem- 
 ber of the corps de ballet of the Grand Opera. 
 
 Mademoiselle Oeillet had the blue-black hair and 
 the eyebrows and the eyes of a native of the Equa- 
 torial Desert, with the olive complexion of a Sicilian. 
 All about her breathed of the glowing south ; and 
 in the fervid atmosphere of her presence Arthur 
 forgot that snow-white image of the north his wife. 
 Between these two women the inward contrast was 
 even greater than the outward ; only here the differ- 
 ence was reversed. In the soul of the fair daughter 
 of the north were all the sweets and ardors of the 
 south ; and in the swarthy child of torrid suns, all 
 the frost and ice of the polar zone. 
 
 Mademoiselle Oeillet was no coryphee of the bal- 
 let, nor could she ever become one. Her body was 
 made for the plastic repose of the antique tragedy, 
 and not for lively movement. Her form and feat- 
 ures served upon the stage as a restful background 
 to a series of shifting groups, and such was the nar- 
 row sphere relentlessly proscribed by the stage man- 
 agement to her activity. Mademoiselle Oeillet had 
 rebelled against this decree, and first she stormed, 
 and then she wept, but finally she accepted it with a 
 smile; for in the mean while she had discovered that 
 she could play in the world a more shining part than 
 that which was reserved for the prima ballerina on 
 the stage. 
 
 At first she was satisfied with the modest dt'but of 
 Monsieur de Mersay. He did very well, to begin with. 
 He had a handsome face, a distinguished appearance, 
 agreeable friends, and money always ready as often
 
 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 207 
 
 as she wanted anything and her wants were many. 
 She allowed him to send her nosegays and bracelets, 
 to pay her bills, to put a carriage at her disposal, to 
 call on her in her house, and to reciprocate the in- 
 flaramatory glances she vouchsafed him at the Op- 
 era. These were his privileges, but they went no 
 farther. Mademoiselle Oeillet had an intuitive tal- 
 ent for the art of taking everything and granting 
 nothing. She only liked beginnings, and knew ex- 
 actly when and how to glide gracefully out of the 
 room before the end got too near. Hope Deferred 
 knocked all the more eagerly at her door next day. 
 
 Julie Oeillet could only read print with difficulty, 
 but she read human character with ease. In an hour 
 she had read Arthur de Mersay through and through, 
 and knew that his devotion was only to be retained 
 by constantly stimulating, and never satisfying, his 
 covetousness. This was to her an easy task, for it 
 coincided with the bent of her own nature. Its 
 performance, instead of obliging her to play a part, 
 permitted her to indulge her natural disposition un- 
 restrained. She listened with cool indifference to 
 Arthur's passionate declarations, answered his sighs 
 with a laugh, and his despair with an air from Offen- 
 bach. If this threw him into a cold fit, she could 
 always revive him from it by a gush of Syrian sun- 
 shine from that sultry heaven in her eyes which at 
 once became overclouded and as cold as winter when 
 the hot fit on him grew too hot. 
 
 Into the sweetest understanding she contrived to 
 
 o 
 
 introduce an indefinable something which jarred its 
 symmetry; she knew how to strike a discord from
 
 208 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 the most perfect harmony, how to temper the most 
 excited flights of emotion by the timely application 
 of a prosaic word ; and could drench tire or kindle 
 oil to precisely the temperature she wanted. Her 
 relations with Arthur de Mersay were a continual 
 conflict between blind passion on the one side and 
 calculating coquetry on the other, which kept him 
 breathless, and oblivious of everything else. 
 
 To Havre he only returned occasionally, and at 
 long intervals, for the few days during which Julie, 
 in her calculated caprices, from time to time denied 
 her door to him. She never withdrew these inter-- 
 dictions, which he obeyed, grinding his teeth with 
 unavailing rage; and his wife became the victim of 
 the ill-temper in which, on these occasions only, he 
 rejoined her. 
 
 Blanche was all this while as if in a narcotic slum- 
 ber a sort of opium-dream from which she could 
 not rouse herself, though the warning alarum sound- 
 ed shrill and often at her ear. She awaited Arthur's 
 return, at first for days, then for weeks, then for 
 months; and each time she had to learn anew the 
 lesson of absence, as if each time were the first time, 
 so hard that lesson was to her, and so incomprehen- 
 sible! 
 
 She counted the seconds as a deserted child counts 
 the rain-drops on the pane, and their loitering fall 
 was infinitely slower than the unsatisfied beating of 
 her young heart. She sat at the window, starting 
 and looking out countless times in the course of the 
 endless day, whenever a wheel or a footstep sounded 
 near, and then searching the empty high-road with
 
 NOTRE DAME DBS FLOTS. 209 
 
 an anxious look that was ever on the watch for what 
 it never found. She lay during the long nights 
 listening in the dark for the sound of a step that 
 she remembered, and heard nothing but the feverish 
 throbbing in her own temples. 
 
 The knowledge came to her at last of the secret 
 which Arthur was keeping so far away from her. 
 With his accustomed carelessness, he let bills, ac- 
 counts, and letters lie about upon his table. Julie's 
 letters were among them. During his absence, 
 Blanche, whose instinct was to make all around her 
 neat and orderly, used to tidy his papers for him; 
 and on one of these occasions her eye fell by chance 
 on the contents of a letter from Julie to her husband. 
 She looked no farther, but what she had seen went 
 far enough. It was a shock that took away her 
 breath a pang of acute physical pain. She turned 
 deadly pale, and clasped both hands convulsively 
 upon her heart. 
 
 This lasted no longer than the stab of a knife. 
 But the open wound remained ; and for many a long 
 day after that, the stricken woman wept silently, un- 
 complainingly, by herself, and to herself alone, in 
 her fresh solitude. 
 
 The heart of Blanche, however, was one of those 
 which must continue to dream until they cease to 
 beat. Even the rudest experience does not entirely 
 awake them from their visions ; and to her this shock 
 was only like a cold wind blowing upon her shut 
 eyes, which, with a heavy effort, opened a little, and 
 then closed again before the reality could become 
 distinctly perceptible to her. 
 14
 
 210 NOTRE DAME DES PLOTS. 
 
 So the dream went on, though upon a new track 
 less lovely than the old one, which that rnde inter- 
 ruption had broken down. The old track blossomed 
 like the garden of her home, and was sweet with the 
 breath of roses and the song of nightingales, in shad- 
 owy depths of unfathomable verdure. The new one 
 stretched barren before her, like a long, unshadowed 
 waste of stony ground, beneath a burning glare, 
 which she henceforth must tread, barefooted and 
 bareheaded, as a penitent. For she laid upon her- 
 self all the fault of Arthur's estrangement from her, 
 though she could not guess in what she had fail- 
 ed towards him ; and she believed that, at the end 
 of her weary penitential pilgrimage, a new garden 
 would blossom by-and-by. 
 
 Her faith in him was still unshaken. Something 
 of the glamour with which her heart had first adorned 
 him was stripped off ; but she thought, with self-re- 
 proach, that it was the awkwardness of her own hand 
 that had done this. She never gave wav to doubts 
 
 o */ 
 
 of her ultimate success in the unceasing endeavor to 
 fill up or bridge over the abyss which had so inex- 
 plicably opened between them, and the tenacity of 
 her infinite trustfulness was unconfounded by the 
 persistence with which his inveterate indifference to 
 the treasures she threw into it was daily widening 
 that abyss. 
 
 That she did not completely break down, however, 
 was mainly owing to the fact that about this time 
 she became a mother. Now, at least, there was one 
 living human creature about whose being she might 
 pour, in unrepnlsed abundance, all the long -pent
 
 NOTBE DAME DBS FLOTS. 211 
 
 yearning love of her heart, all the overflowing fer- 
 vor of her soul. And from the faded dreams of her 
 own childhood she wove fresh dreams for her child. 
 
 When, with tears of joy, she showed his infant 
 daughter for the first time to Arthur, who, some 
 weeks after her confinement, had unexpectedly re- 
 turned to Havre for a day or two, he looked absent- 
 ly at the child. Then, after a few irresolute turns 
 up and down the room, he walked to the window, 
 and said, looking through it, with his back to her, 
 
 "Financial affairs, full of anxiety aud difficulty, 
 will probably keep me long away from you on my 
 return to Paris. For the short time I can stay here 
 I shall live down-stairs. The noise of children has 
 always made me nervous, and would now make me 
 ill. Call this an idiosyncrasy of mine, or what you 
 will, but I can't bear it." 
 
 Blanche turned her large eyes steadfastly towards 
 him ; and for this one time she tried to speak, and did 
 speak, to her husband words of clear and weighty 
 truth, while she kept her hand upon the beating heart 
 of her child ; for so weak was her power of self-asser- 
 tion that she would not have had the courage to utter 
 them had she felt the beating of her own heart ; and, 
 as it was, they died away at last in sobs. 
 
 Arthur listened silently. The scar upon his fore- 
 head turned to a deep red, while his face beneath it 
 grew colorless. 
 
 Just so, in days long passed, had another woman, 
 driven at last to bay, risen up and stood before him 
 with a child in her arms another woman, fair and 
 wan as this one. And the words of this one were
 
 212 NOTKE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 as the words of the other. They came back to him 
 like ghostly echoes from a long-forgotten world that 
 was no more. And the image of the living woman 
 was so terribly like that of the dead one ! 
 
 lie shivered, and stared with wide-open eyes on 
 BlancliCj but did not answer her. Half an hour af- 
 terwards, however, lie returned to Paris, without a 
 word of farewell. 
 
 Three months passed away without a line from 
 him. 
 
 At the end of that time he came back unexpect- 
 edly, and in great agitation. He entered the house 
 in haste, without a word or a look to any one, strode 
 restlessly through all the rooms, then through all the 
 garden, and then back again from room to room. 
 He examined everything with keen eyes, as if seeing 
 it for the first time, and at last he sunk wearily into 
 a fauteuil, and in a hard, dry voice said, without look- 
 ing at Blanche, 
 
 "I am obliged to sell this place. It is too expen- 
 sive, and I can no longer afford the luxury of keep- 
 ing it up. The money realized from the sale of 
 your property is unfortunately lost in an unlucky 
 speculation, as also the greater part of your dowry. 
 I regret it for your sake, but regret helps nothing. 
 We must retrench our expenses." 
 
 He said all this rapidly and fluentlj r , without chang- 
 ing his voice, like a school-boy who is repeating a 
 lesson he has got by heart. 
 
 The words were cold and lifeless, but Blanche at- 
 tributed them to all the emotions of a mind broken 
 by afflicting anxiety ; and as her own best consola-
 
 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 213 
 
 tiou was the child, she hoped it might be his also. 
 So she took him by the hand, and led him np-stairs 
 to the little bed in which the infant lay smiling 
 asleep. She said not a word about her lost fortune, 
 or the home she was to lose. She onty spoke to him 
 about the smile upon their child's face. But to him 
 her words were as lifeless as his own. 
 
 The purchaser of Ingouville was Monsieur Du- 
 mont, who had also bought the De Mersay estate near 
 Louviers. He arrived the same day, to inspect the 
 premises he had offered to buy. He had a large man- 
 ufactory at Havre, and wanted Ingouville for a sum- 
 mer residence. He took advantage of Arthur's vis- 
 ible impatience to have the whole purchase-money 
 paid at once, and thus got the place, without lengthy 
 negotiations, for half its real value. 
 
 Arthur, taking for Blanche a small lodging in 
 Havre, returned to Paris with the banker. 
 
 Some weeks after his departure, Blanche stood for 
 the last time upon the balcony of her home at Ingou- 
 ville not this time with Arthur, who had not re- 
 turned from Paris, bu-t with her child in her arms. 
 The last evening was like the first in all its external 
 aspects, at least. The broad flame of sunset spread 
 bright and pure behind Cap la Heve; sea, land, and 
 sky shone rosy red, and the spire of Notre Dame des 
 Flots pointed, like a dark finger, to the glowing clouds 
 that roofed the golden chambers of the west. 
 
 Blanche embraced all this glory with a farewell 
 gaze, but she shed no tears. She was taking her hap- 
 piness away with her. The little one smiled while it 
 spread out its plump dimpled arms, as if to grasp the
 
 214 NOTRE DAME DBS FLOTS. 
 
 glory of the evening sky ; and the mpther, smiling 
 also, pressed her happiness to her breast, and went. 
 
 But there was no staying in the new home. Soon 
 she was ordered to change it for another, and a poor- 
 er one, in the remotest part of the town near the sea, 
 where the fishermen lived. Arthur now never came 
 to see her. The little sums he sent her from time 
 to time were insufficient for the most indispensable 
 wants. Gradually they grew more and more infre- 
 quent. At last he wrote to her that, being himself 
 without a son in the world, he could send her noth- 
 ing more. 
 
 Blanche had sold by degrees all her jewels, and 
 whatever else of life's external embellishments was 
 left her ; her only remaining personal property be- 
 longed to its strictest necessities. 
 
 In some of the idle hours of her girlhood she had 
 once done embroidery-work for her amusement ; now 
 she did it again for her livelihood. When the last 
 letter came from Arthur, she took her embroideries 
 to a shop, where she succeeded in disposing of them 
 for less than they were worth. She begged for or- 
 ders, and got as many as she could execute. The 
 delicate daughter of the De Mersays sat from morn- 
 ing till night, bent at her low window, and working 
 for her daily bread. Forty sous a day she got for it, 
 and that was her all in all. 
 
 On Sundays she took a walk with her child to the 
 church of Notre Dame des Plots, upon the cape. 
 Through all the rest of the week, day by day, hour 
 by hour, she worked unceasingly. 
 
 And yet Blanche thought that joy enough was left
 
 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 215 
 
 her; and when she knelt in the church of Notre 
 Dame des Flots, beneath the image of the Madonna, 
 she could not comprehend why the face of the sacred 
 image looked so woe-begone; for Our Lady held her 
 divine infant in her arms, and the infant smiled. 
 
 To Blanche the smile of her own child was every- 
 thing; it was the ever fresh renewal of the old dreams 
 of her youth, and the never-failing promise of their 
 ultimate fulfilment. Those dreams replaced for her 
 all that Arthur had promised her in the first days of 
 their life together at Ingouville jewels and Indian 
 stuffs; sumptuous entertainments, resonant with mu- 
 sic and radiant with light; operas, plays, balls, and 
 voyages ; the loud festivities of the world and the 
 silent festivals of the heart. All this, and more im- 
 measurably more than all this was to Blanche the 
 smile of her child. 
 
 When the little girl, on awaking in the morning, 
 played with her mother's tresses, laughingly hiding 
 behind them all but the peeping beam of her blue 
 eyes, the poor mother thought herself the richest 
 woman in the world ; and she began to love her own 
 beautiful hair, because it was such a dear daily play- 
 thing for her child. 
 
 When, as the day went on, she looked up now and 
 then from her work towards the child, or lifted her 
 upon her lap, and the little girl threw her arms around 
 her neck and hugged her, till the child's curls and 
 the mother's became indistinguishable from each 
 other (for they were both of the same color), then 
 she thought herself the happiest woman in the world. 
 And she took up her needle again with courage, and
 
 216 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 the room was filled with music sweeter to her than 
 any other, for the child began to chatter with Lyon 
 in that language which only God and mothers un- 
 derstand. 
 
 Lyon was both a big playfellow and a good play- 
 thing which could not be broken. He let the child 
 pull his shaggy hair ; he opened his jaws wide, that 
 her little hands might inquisitively examine his teeth 
 and tongue; he let her grasp his ears and feel his 
 nose; he touched cautiously with his paws her little 
 arm when she wanted to play at " catch-catch." And 
 anon he was a careful guardian, solemnly following 
 her as she crawled about, like himself, on all fours. 
 If she stumbled in the attempt to go alone on her 
 two little legs, Lyon was at her side, that she might 
 cling to his hair with all her ten little fingers. And 
 finally he made himself a soft cushion for the child, 
 on which, when she was tired, she might lean her 
 little head and go to sleep. He did not go to sleep 
 himself, but lay stretched out upon the floor without 
 once moving, while his faithful eyes twinkled with 
 intelligence at Blanche. 
 
 " Our little one is asleep," they seemed to saj*. 
 " We must make no noise." 
 
 But one misfortune brings another; the loosened 
 sand-grain grows into the rolling ball, and this, in 
 turn, into the devastating avalanche. 
 
 The caprice of fashion suddenly renounced the sort 
 of embroidery that Blanche was able to work. One 
 morning she was told at the shop that no more of it 
 was wanted. She tried other shops, and got every- 
 where the same answer. When she came home, tired
 
 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 217 
 
 of her long, fruitless walks about the town, strangers 
 were in her house. lu the name of the law they 
 claimed the scanty furniture of Monsieur de Mersay 
 as security for a debt long overdue. Blanche did 
 not understand what it all meant ; and she pressed 
 her little girl to her bosom, fearing that they would 
 take the child from her too. 
 
 When the strangers went away, Lyon, who had 
 been showing his teeth, ready at a sign from Blanche 
 to attack them, growled after them at the door, and 
 then all was still. 
 
 The child is asleep in the mother's arms. The 
 mother lays her carefully in bed, and thinks, " This 
 bed no longer belongs to me !" Then she goes to 
 the table, which will be sold in a few days, and writes 
 to Arthur at Paris. Then she puts on her bonnet, 
 and walks, with weary feet that nearly fail her at 
 every step, back into the town, and through it to the 
 jeweller's, where she sells the little cross she has 
 worn till now on her breast, as her mother had worn 
 it before her, and her grandmother before that. It 
 is her last possession ! 
 
 Several days later, the letter she had written to 
 Arthur returned to her unopened, with the words, 
 "Parti pour 1} Angleterre" written by a strange 
 hand upon the cover. 
 
 Then, at last, Blanche let sink her head and hands, 
 and sat staring at the floor in a stunned, senseless, 
 helpless lethargy. 
 
 It was not given to her, as it is to some, to grow 
 hard and strong, like a wind -beaten tree, in the 
 stormy climate of a life of struggle. She never out-
 
 218 NOTRE DAME DBS FLOTS. 
 
 grew the shrinking softness of her flower-like nature. 
 Her love for her child had indeed driven several 
 sturdy little roots into the hard, stony soil of her 
 life, but they gave her no support now. Turn where 
 she might, far as sight could reach or thought wan- 
 der, there was no help. Nothing before her and 
 around her but hopeless desolation ; and into that 
 desolation she stared with wild, dry, reckless eyes. 
 
 A low sobbing aroused her. 
 
 The child was sitting beside Lyon on the floor, 
 and looking at her mother. The little girl knew 
 nothing of all this misery and mischance, but she 
 was frightened by the look of the mother's face, and 
 began to cry, till the whole of her little face was 
 like a rose-bud drenched in rain. 
 
 The dog lay still, one arm of the child about his 
 neck, and he, too, was looking strangely at Blanche. 
 Like her, he had eaten nothing all day, but he did 
 not whine. 
 
 Blanche looked up. She saw the eyes of the 
 child and of the dog fixed upon her, and suddenly 
 she seized her head with both her hands, and felt 
 she must be going mad. For there, in the corner, 
 behind the child, was hovering, white as death, a 
 shivering spectre, thinly clad in tattered rags, with 
 glassy eyes, gaunt cheeks, and bare, bony feet ; and 
 the spectre was clutching at the child with fleshless 
 fingers, as if to snatch it away from her. 
 
 With a cry of terror, Blanche threw herself as a 
 shield over her child, and stretched out her hands 
 above its head in passionate expostulation towards 
 this horrible apparition. Then she lifted her life's
 
 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 219 
 
 last treasure to her bosom, clasped it close, and rock- 
 ed herself above it. This soothed her mind a little, 
 and she burst at last into a flood of tears, as if she 
 could weep out her whole soul. 
 
 After a while she looked round the room and out 
 of the window. In the whole town of Havre she 
 had not made a single acquaintance; for Arthur, in 
 her happier days with him, had wished her not to 
 mix with the local society, and ever since she had 
 continued to order her life in accordance with her 
 remembrance of his wishes. She had not a friend 
 in all the world, not a human being to whom she 
 could appeal for aid. 
 
 But One there was on high who had saved others 
 from shipwreck One who might still, perchance, 
 save her also. And to the shrine where dwells Our 
 Lady of the Waters, in the little windy church on 
 Cap la Ileve, she went forth with her child in her 
 arms. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 IT is a jour defete, and the sky above keeps holi- 
 day with the earth below ; for the sun is laughing 
 gayly down at the gayety of the laughing crowd. 
 
 Blanche emerges from the gloomy suburb into 
 the splendid Rue de Paris. As she catches sight 
 of herself in the gigantic plate-glass mirrors of the 
 shop -windows, the wretched mother smooths with 
 trembling hand her child's threadbare dress. Tim- 
 idly she crosses the public garden in front of the
 
 230 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 Hotel dc Villc. Hundreds of smartly dressed peo- 
 ple are listening there to the music of the military 
 band ; hundreds hurry past her joyously, on their 
 way to the Aquarium ; and farther up, along the Rue 
 deSainte-Adresse, is flowing a brilliant stream of car- 
 riages and hackney-coaches, crowded witli holiday- 
 makers. She wonders if her child will one day wan- 
 der barefoot here. 
 
 On both sides of her way stand the luxurious vil- 
 las and country-houses of Sainte-Adresse, surround- 
 ed by blooming gardens. And again she wonders 
 where she is to find a bed for her child when they 
 have been turned out of their lodging a fc\v days 
 hence. 
 
 Under the trees the restaurants resound with song, 
 and laughter, and merry chatter, and the clink of 
 glasses. Below, along the shore, the Parisians, who 
 have come to Havre for the bathing-season, are fish- 
 ing the oyster-beds of Queen Christina, and calling 
 and laughing to each other over their sport. And 
 Blanche thinks that to - morrow her child will be 
 starving. 
 
 Now she has climbed the heights of Cap la Ilcve. 
 The crowd disperses into groups: some gather round 
 the shooting-booths, others about the cider-stalls, and 
 some are strolling on to the light-house. Blanche 
 enters the church, and kneels down before the ima^e 
 
 ' O 
 
 of the sailors' patroness, Our Lady of the Waters. 
 
 She, too, is a shipwrecked sailor, lost in life's wide 
 ocean, without a plank to cling to. Her lips can 
 form no words of prayer, but her heart prays pas- 
 sionately not for herself; only for her child. She
 
 NOTKE DAME DES FLOTS. 221 
 
 lifts her little one imploringly up to Her who has 
 also a child in Her arms. But upon the human 
 mother and her child our dear Lady looks down so 
 wofully, and with a face so full of unutterable pain, 
 that Blanche rises shuddering, and turns away her 
 troubled looks. All around, upon the wall before 
 her, she sees the names and votive offerings of those 
 who have been saved. But they who have perished ? 
 Blanche suddenly thinks, where are their names in- 
 scribed? and, were they written here, would these 
 walls be high enough to hold all the inscriptions? 
 
 And as she gazes up to the roof with a bewil- 
 dered e^ye, all the suffering that is in store for her 
 child gathers and heaps itself suddenly before her. 
 She does not merely feel, she sees it. The mass of 
 its growing misery rises higher and higher; it rolls 
 above her head, which rests submerged beneath it ; 
 it mounts the walls, it reaches the groinings of the 
 arch, it crams and bursts the vaulted roof above. 
 
 Blanche, with a sense of suffocation, groped her 
 way along the wall to the door, and went out, won- 
 dering if it had yet touched the sky. There, outside 
 the church, she stood a long while, gazing up into 
 heaven ; and then, shaking her head drearily, she 
 wandered away with the child from the loud, many- 
 colored swarm of holiday-makers, to the lonely edge 
 of the downs above the sea. 
 
 The cannon of the Coast Battery stand peacefully 
 beside each other in the grass. On the last of the 
 row sits a young wife, stitching a baby-frock, and 
 smiling sometimes at her little girl, who is playing 
 in the grass beside her. Leaning against the wall
 
 222 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 of the signal-house stands the coast-guard officer on 
 duty for the day. His eyes blink in the flood of 
 sunshine from the sea; but he opens them now and 
 then to steal a look at his wife and child. A couple 
 of swallows are darting about the air in search of 
 food for their young ones, who thrust their broad 
 heads greedily out of their nest in the signal-tower. 
 Above, in the blue, trills a lark. The bird is out of 
 sight, but its song sounds clear from the sk} T , whence 
 it is sending messages of love to its brooding mate 
 below. 
 
 And Blanche looks far across the sea, to where, be- 
 yond the horizon, the English coast is hidden from 
 her sight. Suddenly a child's voice sings shrill, out 
 of the grass close by, 
 
 " Malbrook s^en va-t-cn guerre" 
 
 Then the song stops, and she hears nothing but 
 the carolling of the lark and the sighing of the sea. 
 As she lifts her eyes, the young father, thinking 
 himself unobserved, has just stepped backward and 
 embraced his wife and child. 
 
 Blanche turns and stares again across the rolling 
 waves, in the direction of England. Her nerves are 
 overwrought, her strength is going, and all around 
 her reels and hovers in a glaring mist. With deliri- 
 ous eyes she gazes up again into the blue sky, and, 
 with a voice that startles the coast-guard officer back 
 to his post, cries out, 
 
 "Is it all empty up there, and no one in heaven 
 or on earth to save my child?" 
 
 And she listens, and stares, and listens. But the 
 radiant stillness of heaven returns no answer to her
 
 NOTRE DAME DBS FLOTS, 223 
 
 cry, and over sea and land hangs fast the azure vault 
 in vast impenetrable peace. 
 
 She drooped her head, her lips twitched and trem- 
 bled. 
 
 "No one up there in heaven," she muttered, faint- 
 ly, " and none on earth to care for ray little girl ! 
 None," she added, with a soft sob, " but I alone !" 
 
 Deeper and deeper drooped the mother's head, 
 till the child in her arms was covered with her gold- 
 en tresses. 
 
 Then a sudden thought struck her. What was it 
 that the poor old water-carrier had once told her? 
 That somebody had been asking whether the woman 
 with the golden hair could not be induced to sell it? 
 that a rich gentleman was trying to buy hair of that 
 peculiar color, and would give a great price for it? 
 
 Blanche had allowed the poor woman to chatter 
 on, not wishing to hurt her feelings, but had paid 
 no attention to her words, not understanding the 
 drift of them. The possibility of selling her hair 
 had never before occurred to her. Now, howev- 
 er, as these salable golden tresses lay spread out be- 
 fore her eyes in the lap of her child, the words of 
 the water-carrier returned to her recollection with. 
 a sudden significance, swift and clear as a flash of 
 lightning. 
 
 She rose hastily, re-entered the church, and knelt 
 once more before the Madonna, in grateful thanks- 
 giving for that ray of hope. This time she did not 
 look up, but held her eyes down and her head bent 
 in self-reproach at having doubted for one moment. 
 And thus she could not see that Our Lady of the
 
 224 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 Waters was still looking down at her, as before, with 
 the same expression of unutterable woe. 
 
 Blanche returned to the town with hope in her 
 heart. 
 
 The poor water-carrier directed her next day to 
 the lodging of the man who had asked about her hair. 
 He told her he had been for a long time commis- 
 sioned to find hair for sale of that peculiar golden 
 tint which hers possessed, but that till now all his 
 researches had been in vain. After endless expres- 
 sions of astonishment and admiration at the treasure 
 she carried on her head, he declared that she must 
 present herself with it to the gentleman who had 
 given him the commission. This gentleman was the 
 wealthy banker and manufacturer, Monsieur Du- 
 mont, who was to be found every afternoon at his 
 country-seat at Ingouville. 
 
 Dumont ! That was the name of the purchaser and 
 possessor of the home of her earlier married life at 
 Ingouville, and of her girlhood, near Louviers. 
 
 Blanche, without a moment's hesitation, continued 
 her way up the steep road over the cliff to Ingou- 
 ville. 
 
 She rang timidly at the door of the house in which 
 the happiest hours of her life had been passed. The 
 porter rudely refused her admittance. She went 
 away through the garden ; she knew a little entrance 
 there, leading into the house through the flower- 
 beds, where she used once to gather flowers for Ar- 
 thur every morning. She found it open, slipped 
 through it, and crept up the stairs she had first 
 mounted leaning on her husband's arm.
 
 NOTRE DAME DBS FLOTS. 225 
 
 How well she remembered it all the old house, 
 the old days, the old feelings ! Her heart was fit to 
 burst, and she had not even her child with her, to 
 clasp to it and give it courage. 
 
 A servant met her, and without asking her name, 
 told her to wait in the anteroom. 
 
 "One of the factory lot," he muttered to himself 
 as he left her there. 
 
 In the adjoining room, from which she was only 
 separated by a portiere, she heard the sound of a 
 man's voice speaking fast in broken tones of ago- 
 nized entreaty. 
 
 "Monsieur Dumont," said the voice, " I have work- 
 ed hard all these years in your factory, and now my 
 children are starving!" 
 
 " I dare say," replied the voice of the banker, calm- 
 ly, " considering that you have not done a stroke of 
 work for eight weeks." 
 
 " But I have been ill, monsieur, grievously ill you 
 know that very well !" 
 
 " How am I to know it? and what has this to do 
 with the matter? Do you mean to say that I am the 
 cause of your illness ?" 
 
 "Monsieur Dumont ! mon ~bon Monsieur Dumont ! 
 I do beseech and implore you, for pity's sake, advance 
 me two months' wages, and I'll go back to my work 
 to-morrow." 
 
 "But what security can you give me that you'll be 
 able to go on working ? How can I tell that you are 
 quite recovered ? You don't look like it ; you may 
 fall ill again you may die !" 
 
 "Monsieur, my savings are all gone. Everything 
 15
 
 226 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 we possess is sold. Ah, monsieur, for the love of 
 God, be not so hard ! I have six children !" 
 
 " I dare say. And is that ray fault, too ? I know 
 people who would be glad to have six children. I 
 tell you I cannot lend you the money. I have no 
 money, and, what is more, I have no time to waste." 
 
 Blanche pressed her hands to her throbbing tem- 
 ples. She could not have believed it possible that 
 God had made human hearts as hard as this. But 
 she braced herself for the ordeal, and entered the 
 banker's room as the poor workman staggered out of 
 it. She, at least, was not come to borrow, but to sell. 
 
 The banker was writing. 
 
 " Who are you?" he asked, without looking up from 
 his desk. 
 
 " I have been told," she replied, " that you want 
 to buy hair of a certain color, and I am come to offer 
 you mine for sale." 
 
 Dumont waited to hear what the woman would say 
 next. But she said no more; so, turning carelessly 
 in his chair, he looked up at her. Suddenly the tall, 
 strong figure of the man was jerked, as by an electric 
 shock, and he started to his feet with a keen glance 
 at Blanche. 
 
 "Madam," said he, "your hair is indeed beautiful, 
 incomparably beautiful, and perhaps unique. Will 
 a check for t\vo thousand francs satisfy you ? "Well, 
 I will write it out at once. Be so good " 
 
 The banker paused. A strange, nervous contrac- 
 tion rapidly crossed his brown, Proveii9al face, but 
 it quickly resumed its hard and cold expression. 
 
 "Pray sit down !" he continued. "I think, mad-
 
 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 227 
 
 am, that I have already had the pleasure of speaking 
 with you once before, though only for a moment. 
 That was enough, however, for the lasting recollec- 
 tion of such features as yours. It was in this house, 
 in this very room, I think, when I came here about 
 the purchase of the place. Have I not the honor 
 of speaking to Madame de Mersay ?" 
 
 Blanche bowed. 
 
 " I pity you, madam." 
 
 "Sir," said Blanche, rising, "I came here to sell 
 you my hair." 
 
 " Pray have the goodness to sit down, madam, and 
 honor me with your patience for a moment. Mon- 
 ey-maker as I am, I am aware that it does not become 
 me to express any opinion in reference to your per- 
 sonal situation, even if it be only in the way of sym- 
 pathy and regret. But the pity I expressed just now 
 has reference to matters which must soon become 
 public, and which concern myself no less than yon, 
 madam. Suffer me to mention first so much of them 
 as concerns myself. Monsieur de Mersay incurred 
 heavy debts long before the sale of this property, and 
 he has largely increased them since. I have lent him 
 money without hesitation, relying on the security he 
 pledged me. That security was his wife's fortune. 
 Madam, you have just now offered me the wonderful 
 treasure bestowed on you by nature ; I trust that this 
 is the only sacrifice " 
 
 "Monsieur Dtimont," interrupted Blanche, proud- 
 ly, " rest assured that your money will be repaid you. 
 It is not my husband who will ever suffer the name 
 of De Mersay to be sullied by a public prosecution
 
 238 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 for the recovery of a legitimate debt. Whatever may 
 be the liabilities he has contracted towards yon, he 
 will assuredly find the means of discharging them; 
 and it is doubtless for this purpose that he has now 
 gone to England." 
 
 The same nervous contraction as before overspread 
 the dark face of Duuiont. It was a singular expres- 
 sion, which his friends used to call " Dumont's smile/' 
 
 "I know about Monsieur de Mersay's journey to 
 England," he replied, " and I know very well what 
 is the object of it. In not mentioning that object to 
 you, madam, I believe that I shall best observe the 
 consideration which is due to you. But if you sup- 
 pose that Monsieur de Mersay would shrink from in- 
 volving his name in a comparatively innocent civil 
 suit, you are forgive me under a pious illusion. 
 You have a great and a generous faith in you. I 
 am sorry to be obliged to disturb it, but it is in your 
 own interest." 
 
 Saying this, Monsieur Dnmont opened a drawer 
 in his writing-table, and took out of it a bundle of 
 papers. He held them out before Blanche's eyes. 
 
 " Madam," said he, " these papers aver that Mon- 
 sieur de Mersay, for the pleasure of seeing an obscure 
 ballet-dancer adorned with a costly necklace, has 
 soiled an ancient name by the perpetration of a vul- 
 gar crime. These checks are all forged, and I have 
 in my possession not only the proofs of the forgery, 
 but also the identification of the forger." 
 
 Blanche sprang up, trembling all over. 
 
 "No, no!" she cried, loudly ; "this is impossible! 
 it is a damnable calumny !"
 
 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 229 
 
 " In a few days," said Dumont, coldly, " the judg- 
 ment of a court of justice will, I trust, have satisfied 
 your own judgment that the son of Provenal peas- 
 ants, who has raised himself in the world by honest 
 work, does not calumniate the offspring of Norman 
 knighthood in calling Monsieur de Mersay a swindler 
 and a forger. I have had at heart, madam, no other 
 interest than your own in thus placing you in a posi- 
 tion to take the necessary steps for protecting your- 
 self and your family, by separating your destiny from 
 that of Monsieur de Mersay. But in punishing this 
 man I have a personal interest, and I avow it. I hate 
 the aristocracy even a peasant's son has his antipa- 
 thies and I wage an inexorable war against aristo- 
 crats whenever and wherever I can. Against wom- 
 en, however, I never fight, and against you, madam, 
 least of all, for you resemble one who No matter ! 
 Calumny has never been my weapon, for I find 
 money the all-sufficient instrument of my purposes. 
 Money ! money ! money ! Money is power, money 
 is revenge, retribution, justice ! Slowly and painful- 
 ly have I forged this mighty instrument; for long 
 laborious and penurious years scraping together sous, 
 as now I sweep together millions. I have said that 
 even a peasant's son has his antipathies ay, for even 
 a peasant's son has a history. Allow me, madam, to 
 tell you a story which I happen to know by heart. 
 It is the story of a young Provenal peasant. I knew 
 him years ago. He had then a heart as glowing as 
 any in Provence. But a fine aristocratic young offi- 
 cer, fresh from Algiers, condescended to be at the 
 pains of teaching this young fool that persons in his
 
 230 NOTRE DAME DE3 FLOTS. 
 
 class have no right whatever to a heart. As for me, 
 if at any moment I grow weary of the bitter war my 
 life is passed in waging, I have only to think of a 
 grave in Provence a grave beneath which lies 
 mouldering the broken heart of a young girl, be- 
 trayed, abandoned, lost, ruined, by that fine young 
 aristocrat ! She was as beautiful, madam, as you are 
 yourself, and like : O God, how like you! You 
 might have been twin-sisters. She came from a race 
 
 o 
 
 of northern emigrants. She had your white fore- 
 head, and the same soft golden hair above it. When 
 I look upon your face, it all seems to me like a dream. 
 But forgive me, I forgot myself! You doubtless 
 wonder why I presume to tell you this story. Well, 
 1 will be brief. I speak only of facts the hardest 
 and the driest. It is not for me to speak to you of 
 feelings, and there are some which cannot be told. 
 Have you ever observed, madam, in the museum of 
 this town, among the geological remains of antedilu- 
 vian epochs, the fossilized flora of a perished world 
 things that were once flowers and are now stones ? 
 Well, such is the end of my story ; for it is only a 
 record of fossilization the story of a heart turned 
 into stone. 
 
 "And now," said the banker, rising, and pointing 
 to the window, " look yonder, madam. Do you see, 
 on the horizon, a thin cloud of smoke just above the 
 sea-line? That is the English steamer. Monsieur de 
 Mersay has probably by this time concluded his ne- 
 gotiations about Mademoiselle Oeillet's London en- 
 gagement, and in two hours hence that steamer will 
 have entered the port of Havre, where the agents of
 
 NOTRE DAME DES PLOTS. 231 
 
 the police arc waiting to arrest one of her passengers. 
 By-the-way, I forgot to tell you, machun, that the 
 name of the peasant's son was Dumont, and that of 
 the aristocratic young officer, Arthur de Mersay." 
 
 Blanche sat stunned and speechless, her lips and 
 her whole face as white as death. At last, with a 
 shuddering effort, she flung out her hands towards 
 Dumont, and clasping them, exclaimed, 
 
 " Mercy ! mercy for that unfortunate man !" 
 
 " I fear," said the banker, " that you have not quite 
 understood my little story." 
 
 " For the sake of my child," cried the wretched 
 woman, " mercy ! pardon !" 
 
 "Madam," he replied, "there was also a child 
 in that story of Provence. I forgot to mention 
 this. The child is lying in the same grave as its 
 mother." 
 
 Blanche fell upon her knees before him. 
 
 " It is not for him that I pray," she said, " nor yet 
 for me. I would bear it willingly for him and for 
 myself. But my poor, helpless child that she should 
 be branded for a crime she has not committed ! that 
 the chain on the hand of the father should eat into 
 the heart of the daughter! and that her sinless steps 
 should be through a world where every one w r ill 
 point to her as the offspring of a criminal! Her 
 smile killed forever! her life blighted before it be- 
 gins ! her dear, frank eyes forbidden to look up into 
 any human face without shame and fear ! Ah ! Mon- 
 sieur Dumont, you will not thus condemn the inno- 
 cent? The child has never wronged you, sir. You 
 have not seen her have not seen her smile; you do
 
 332 XOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 not know, you cannot tell ; ah, if you could only see 
 her smile, you would not be so hard !" 
 
 She crept nearer to him and took his hand. 
 
 "Monsieur Dumont! Monsieur Dumont! let me 
 bring my little girl to you ! Only wait till you have 
 seen her. She has such beautiful hair! It is the 
 color that you like the same golden color, only so 
 much more beautiful ; and her smile, and her voice 
 ah, if you could hear her voice !" 
 
 Dumont looked down at Blanche as she knelt at 
 his feet; and wasted and stricken as she was wast- 
 ed with the long vigil of a hopeless grief, and strick- 
 en, with a mortal pang never had she looked more 
 beautiful. Even then, in the agony of that moment, 
 she could not speak of her child without a celestial 
 smile that suffused her whole face. As he watched 
 it shining through her tears, he thought again of the 
 lonely grave far away in, Provence, and the dead 
 girl whom the living woman so strangely resembled, 
 and how she, too, had smiled just so, through all her 
 misery and shame while her child still lived. He 
 thought of all this; and in the vision on which he 
 gazed without speaking, past and present were inex- 
 tricably mingled. The fair white brow, the golden 
 hair above it, the beauty and the anguish all the 
 same as of old, a re-enacted tragedy ! 
 
 Dumont snatched away the hand which Blanche 
 was desperately clasping. He turned from her 
 roughly, tore the forged checks to pieces, thrust the 
 fragments into her hand, and exclaimed in a hoarse 
 voice, 
 
 " Now go, madam ! Leave me !"
 
 NOTRE DAME DBS FLOTS. 233 
 
 But Blanche seized liis hand once more, and cov- 
 ered it with tears and kisses. 
 
 " Monsieur D union t," she said, " my child will live 
 to requite you, and God in heaven will reward you 
 too. But I cannot go yet. My child owes to you her 
 rescue from starvation to-morrow, and from shame 
 forever. And I owe to you yet more and this is all 
 I have to give!" 
 
 She rose from her knees and loosened her hair. 
 It rolled down over her neck and breast, down over 
 her whole figure, like a golden raiment, thick, soft, 
 and glossy as silk. 
 
 Dumont sprang to her side. 
 
 " The check was for your child," lie cried. "I no 
 longer want your hair. Don't ! don't ! I couldn't 
 bear it !" 
 
 He was about to seize her hand, but something 
 threw itself between them both; for Lyon, who 
 had followed Blanche un perceived, sprang upon Du- 
 mont. The banker seized the dog by the throat, 
 dragged him to the door, and flung him out of the 
 room. But before he conld prevent her, Blanche 
 had cut her hair short to the roots. When lie re- 
 joined her, it lay across the whole table, which it 
 covered entirely, hanging over the edge, down to the 
 carpet. 
 
 "Monsieur Dumont," said Blanche, " my child shall 
 learn to pray for you with me. You have prolonged 
 her life by buying my hair. How I can ever suffi- 
 ciently thank you," she added, in a faltering voice, as 
 she looked at the forged checks, "for thus sparing 
 my husband, I know not. It is so little that I can
 
 234 NOTRE DAME DBS FLOTS. 
 
 do, however much I long to do ! But if, with these 
 hands, I could dig out of the grave the woman you 
 loved, restore her to you alive, and lay myself down 
 instead of her where now she lies, I would do it 
 with all my heart !" 
 
 Into the eyes and features of Dumont came a sud- 
 den glow. 
 
 " Madam," he said, taking her hand, "you could 
 
 But there lie stopped ; and flinging her hand vio- 
 lently from him, he turned away with a fierce cry, 
 
 " Go, go ! For God's sake, leave me !" 
 
 And she went. 
 
 The evening breeze came sighing from the sea, 
 and as it wandered through the trees they shuddered 
 and shook down their leaves upon the woman who 
 was hastening along the garden. She, too, shivered 
 in the breeze from the sea, and tightened the poor 
 kerchief she had tied about her cropped head. Her 
 look was turned to the sea, where the smoke-cloud 
 of a steamer, nearing the coast, waved over the blue 
 sky like a long gray ribbon, and her hand pressed 
 convulsively a little parcel of torn papers. 
 
 At the same moment, watching from the balcony 
 of the house she had just left, stood a man who knew 
 not what to do. Should he rush after that woman, 
 clasp her to his breast, and carry her back in his 
 arms? or should he seize his revolver and shoot her 
 dead while she is still within reach ?
 
 NOTRE DAME DBS FLOTS. 235 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 As Blanche descended the steep road from Ingon- 
 ville, she often stopped, trembling from head to foot, 
 and leaned for support against the walls through 
 which it wound. For she could not help looking 
 now and then at the papers she held in her hand, 
 and the sight of them made her faint and sick. On 
 her way through the town she changed her check 
 and bought some food. When she reached her poor 
 lodging, the old water -carrier, who had stayed to 
 look after the child during her absence, was scared 
 by the ghastly change in her appearance; but being 
 assured by Blanche that there was nothing the mat- 
 ter with her, she went away, shaking her head. 
 
 The child was asleep, and smiled in her slumber. 
 The sight of the child's smile brightened the moth- 
 er's face, as when the light of a candle shines on the 
 face of a corpse. 
 
 " They will not kill my darling's smile," she said 
 to herself, and knelt down at the bedside, with her 
 eyes fixed on the face of the sleeping child till all 
 was dark. Then she lighted a candle, and continued 
 her gloating, doting watch over that rescued treas- 
 ure. About midnight Lyon crept close to her, put 
 his head on her arm, and looked up into her face, 
 with eyes that said plainly, " It is time for us to go
 
 236 NOTRE DAME DBS FLOTS. 
 
 to sleep." But Blanche remained in the same atti- 
 tude all night, never once closing her eyes. 
 
 When mornins came, and the sun shone into the 
 
 O ' 
 
 room, the child awoke, and looked at her mother 
 with a puzzled, dissatisfied face. She plucked at the 
 unfamiliar kerchief which the poor mother had tied 
 about her shorn head, and not finding underneath it 
 her customary plaything the lost locks began to 
 cry. Lyon heard the child crying, and sprang upon 
 the bed. He had long, crisp hair, and the child 
 thrust all her little fingers into it, laughed through 
 her tears, and thought no more of the pale woman 
 with the cropped head, who retreated humbly, and 
 yielded her place to the dog. 
 
 It was enough for her that her child was laughing 
 again. 
 
 Just about the same hour, Monsieur Dumont was 
 being admitted to the apartment of Mademoiselle 
 Julie Oeillet. He had arrived in Paris by the night 
 train from Havre, and a servant carried after him a 
 large bandbox. The danseuse was not yet out of 
 bed, and the banker waited in the boudoir till she 
 joined him there in a most fascinating peignoir. 
 
 "You are a wicked man, Monsieur Dumont," said 
 Julie, pouting, " to break in upon people's rest at 
 this unnatural hour of the morning. It is robbing 
 and murdering sleep." 
 
 "Mademoiselle Oeillet," replied Dumont, " for your 
 sake I have just passed a whole night in the train 
 without sleeping at all." 
 
 "And for aught I care," said the lady, "you might 
 as well have passed it comfortably in your bed ; nor
 
 XOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 237 
 
 did I get up for your sake, but for that of the big 
 bandbox in whose company my maid tells me you 
 have arrived." 
 
 " Well, guess what is in it?" 
 
 "An infant elephant, to judge by its size." 
 
 " No ; guess again." 
 
 "Monsieur Dumont, I have not yet breakfasted, 
 and am in no humor to guess riddles." 
 
 "Mademoiselle," said the banker, "you have often 
 had the goodness to inform me that till now the su- 
 preme longing of your life has been for a peruke 
 of a particular indescribable color, only seen in your 
 dreams a color indispensable to your satisfactory 
 appearance in the part of a wood-nj^mph. You have 
 everywhere sought for hair of this ideal color, as if 
 the happiness of your existence depended upon it, 
 and you have repeatedly assured me that you would 
 grudge no price for it. But hitherto you have been 
 unable to find it. Well, will you now be so good as 
 to look into that bandbox ?" 
 
 The dancer lifted herself in the correct conven- 
 tional attitude on the tips of her toes, and cautiously 
 dipped her nose over the side of the bandbox. But 
 the next moment she plunged both her hands into 
 it, and was laughing and crying with frantic delight. 
 Then she sprang up, whisked and bounded about the 
 room, lifted the bandbox, put it down again, danced 
 round it, and, as she passed the banker, seized his 
 arm and exclaimed, 
 
 '''"Bon ! I keep my promise. No price is too high 
 for me ! How many kisses will you have for it, 
 black Dumont? When? where? how? Shall I
 
 238 NOTRE DAME UES FLOTS. 
 
 dance before you for fifteen minutes and then em- 
 brace you, mon petit Dumont ! or what else ? Quick ! 
 your price 2" 
 
 " Ten thousand thanks, mademoiselle. But my 
 price is not nearly so high as all that. You will 
 merely cease to receive Monsieur de Mersay." 
 
 "Tu me fais pitie, mon Otellonf" laughed the 
 danseuse. 
 
 "Pardon me," replied the banker, "it is you, made- 
 moiselle, who are to be pitied, if you do not follow 
 my advice. In the first place, it is the only price at 
 which the bandbox is for sale. In the next place, I 
 have called this morning to inform you that Mersay 
 is completely ruined. Is it your intention to under- 
 take a course of performances for his benefit?" 
 
 " Vbus vous emportez, monsieur ! I am in love 
 with Monsieur de Mersay." 
 
 " Indeed ? What a pity ! and you don't believe me ? 
 Well, then, I have further the honor to inform you, 
 mademoiselle, that yesterday the hair in that band- 
 box was growing on the head of Madame de Mersay, 
 and that she has just parted with it to save herself 
 and her child from starvation. You see, then, that 
 this poor lady's husband is really and truly a beg- 
 gar." 
 
 The dancer turned and dived once more deep into 
 the bandbox. She thought that she herself would 
 rather have died of hunger than part with such an 
 adornment. Mersay was a handsome man ; Mersay 
 was her devoted slave ; but as she looked at the hair 
 she believed that Dumont must have told her the 
 truth. Mersay was charming, but he was ruined ;
 
 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 239 
 
 and her eye wandered to the millionaire. She rang 
 the bell. 
 
 "Another plate! Monsieur Dumont breakfasts 
 with me." 
 
 "Mademoiselle," said the banker, "this fair hair 
 will become your mourning for Monsieur do Mersay 
 to perfection. Are twenty thousand francs enough 
 for the mourning? . . . Well, you have only to ap- 
 ply for it quarterly at my counting-house. The 
 amount of the first quarter lies already under the 
 plate you have had the amiability to order for me, 
 but of which I regret to say I cannot avail myself, 
 as I must get back to Havre immediately." 
 
 When Arthur de Mersay returned to Paris with 
 the London contracts, and humbly rang at the door 
 of the danseuse, he was informed that Mademoiselle 
 Oeillet was no longer living there. He hastened to 
 her new house, a little luxurious hotel, and was re- 
 fused admittance. He came again the same even- 
 ing and got the same answer. After repeated visits, 
 all equally in vain, the porter told him that made- 
 moiselle had given the strictest orders not to admit 
 Monsieur de Mersay under any pretext whatever, as 
 she did not wish to see him any more. His master, 
 whom he named a certain foreign nobleman well- 
 known for his immense fortune and dissolute life 
 had placed the hotel, the servants, and himself at 
 the disposal of mademoiselle, whose orders he was 
 intrusted to obey. 
 
 All De Mersay's entreaties were in vain, and his 
 letters were returned unopened. 
 
 Then Arthur went back to Havre. Pale as death,
 
 240 NOTKE DAME DES PLOTS. 
 
 he entered his wife's wretched little home. He 
 never once looked at her, and therefore lie did not 
 notice how shyly Blanche shrank from the light, nor 
 why she wore that tight-fitting cap, from which not 
 a tress of hair escaped. Nor did he touch the food 
 she put before him. For some time he sat still, in a 
 gloomy reverie, without speaking, and whenever the 
 child or the dog approached him, he pushed them 
 away fiercely. Then he called for pen and paper, 
 and began to write. 
 
 Blanche left the room for a moment to fetch a 
 glass of water. Suddenly she heard the report of a 
 fire-arm, and rushed back. Arthur sat leaning back 
 in his chair, a dead man. A revolver lay near him 
 on the ground, a letter was open before him on the 
 table. It was addressed to Mademoiselle Julie Oeil- 
 let, and contained only these words 
 
 " Unable to live without thcc, I die. AKTHUR." 
 
 They were the very words with which, in the days 
 of her courtship, he had once threatened Blanche if 
 she would not accept him ! 
 
 Why he came from Paris to write this letter, and 
 kill himself under the eyes of his wife, remained a 
 mystery. But Blanche, when all was over, sent the 
 letter to its address. 
 
 Mademoiselle Oeillet answered not by letter, but 
 by a large bandbox, addressed to Blanche. 
 
 This woman, who every time before going on the 
 stage used to cross and sprinkle herself with holy 
 water, was afraid that misfortune might befall her if 
 she performed in that blond wig. For the whole
 
 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 241 
 
 afternoon of the day on which she received De Mer- 
 say's posthumous letter, she had a bad headache ! 
 
 Blanche made up the hair, which thus came back 
 to her, into a votive offering to Notre Dame des 
 Flots. 
 
 Some time after Arthur's death she received a let- 
 ter from Dumont asking her to become his wife. 
 
 " You know not," said the letter, " what it is to 
 have carried in one's breast for years and years 
 nothing but a stone, and then suddenly to feel again 
 a heart there ! I love you devotedly, as I once loved 
 her whom you resemble. All of me that is not 
 buried in her grave all of me that unconsciously, 
 to myself, has survived the petrifying process of the 
 long, miserable years since then all this belongs to 
 you, and is irrevocably yours." 
 
 Blanche replied that her resemblance to the dead 
 girl would soon be complete, for she knew she had 
 not long to live. "Even if I had two hearts," she 
 said, " instead of the one that is already dying away, 
 you have merited a better lot than to weep over two 
 graves." 
 
 And after that Blanche heard no more of Dumont. 
 
 Suddenly, however, she was overwhelmed with 
 commissions for light embroideries, for which high 
 prices were spontaneously offered. One day she re- 
 ceived from a solicitor at Paris, whose name was un- 
 known to her, a considerable sum of money, which 
 the solicitor's letter declared to be the residue of her 
 dowry, after payment of all Monsieur de Mersay's 
 debts. 
 
 It was as if a careful eye kept watch over her at 
 1C
 
 243 NOTRE DAME DES PLOTS. 
 
 every step, and Blanche thought it was the eye of 
 Heaven, which, delighting in her child, had care of 
 the little one's future. 
 
 For herself she wanted nothing; and if the child, 
 leaning on her bosom, had not often wonderingly 
 said to her, u Jcunan t what is it that beats so here in 
 your breast ?" she would have believed that her heart 
 was standing quite still. 
 
 Slowly she faded away. 
 
 Only in response to the merry laughter of her lit- 
 tle girl did there ever come a wan gleam into the 
 weary eyes, and a faint smile to the pale lips, and a 
 soft glow upon the faded cheek. They were the dying 
 signals of a fearful joy; for terrible, indeed, was the 
 hourly conflict between the body of the woman, pin- 
 ing for rest in the grave, and the heart of the mother 
 willing to live on for her child's sake. 
 
 But Blanche's hair never grew long again. And 
 when she breathed her last, smiling still because her 
 child was smiling, it was only little short golden 
 locks that curled over the fair dead forehead. 
 
 The child smiled, even when the mother was lj*- 
 ing in her coffin, and played merrily with the flowers 
 which a stranger had brought and strewn over the 
 dead. 
 
 This stranger was a man with a dark brown face 
 and deep mournful eyes. He stood for hours look- 
 ing in silence at the dead, before the coffin was tak- 
 en away ; and afterwards he was also present when 
 it was lowered into the grave. 
 
 The child, still smiling, did as she saw the others 
 do, and threw down upon the coffin a little clod of
 
 NOTRE DAME DES FLOTS. 243 
 
 earth which the stranger had put into her hand. 
 Then the man took that little hand in his, and led 
 the child away to a carriage which waited at the gate 
 of the churchward. She clapped her hands and 
 shouted with pleasure when the horses started off at 
 a brisk pace ; but suddenly she remembered Lyon, 
 who had remained in the church-yard, and she be- 
 gan to call for him, and to cry so loud that the 
 strange gentleman ordered the coachman to drive 
 back. 
 
 Lyon was lying on the grave, and moaning. They 
 could not get him away. The stranger told the 
 sexton to employ some workmen to remove the dog 
 by force, if necessary, and bring him to Ingouville. 
 This they did ; but the dog, as soon as he was free, 
 sprang from the balcony into the garden, and rushed 
 back to the grave, from which he could not again 
 be removed. And there at last he died. 
 
 The child, as she grew older, was sent for a short 
 while to a well-known boarding-school at Paris, where 
 she was educated at the expense of her adopted 
 father, Monsieur Dumont. He was kept duly in- 
 formed of all that concerned his little ward, but he 
 himself never went to Paris. He had sold all his 
 estates, and gone to live again in his native village 
 in Provence. Later on, another pension was found 
 for the completion of the education of this young 
 lady, who, while there, received news of the sud- 
 den death of Monsieur Dumont, and the announce- 
 ment that, with the exception of a few legacies, he 
 had bequeathed to her the whole of his immense 
 fortune.
 
 244 NOTRE DAME DBS FLOTS. 
 
 The rich heiress was soon surrounded by suitors. 
 Her beauty attracted all eyes, and her name opened 
 to her all doors in the best circles of French society. 
 About her millions and her parentage the gossip of 
 Paris created a whole cycle of romantic legends; 
 according to which her father had shot himself, in 
 consequence of the heartless frivolity of his wife, 
 whom he passionately loved. Every one lamented 
 the tragic and untimely death of that intelligent 
 and handsome young man, who, but for his wife's 
 misconduct, might have had such a splendid fut- 
 ure. 
 
 This is what Mademoiselle de Mersay heard on all 
 sides about her parentage. She could neither contra- 
 dict nor corroborate the tale, for she had not the least 
 recollection of her early childhood. But it made 
 her often think sadly and tenderly of her poor, dear 
 father. 
 
 At this moment she is the finest, as well as the 
 fairest, of all the fine ladies in Paris; where the 
 whole world is lost in admiration of her beauty, her 
 taste, her extravagance, and above all, the magnifi- 
 cent abundance of her glorious, unique, indescribable 
 corn-colored hair. She is never so enchanting all 
 the world asserts as when she smiles ; for her smile 
 has in it something wonderfully sweet and soft. But 
 nobody knows, and least of all herself, what a price 
 this smile has cost. The only human being who 
 knew this is no more; but even she could not have 
 told the cost of this smile, for in her opinion no 
 price was too dear for it. 
 
 And the smile is not for her the dead, forgotten
 
 NOTKE DAME DES FLOTS. 345 
 
 mother ! She does not see it. She is sleeping some- 
 where in the church-yard at Havre, but no one ex- 
 actly knows where. 
 
 Many a year has passed away since the death of 
 Dumont, who put no stone upon that woman's grave, 
 but only planted roses round it, like those which, 
 years before, he had planted round another grave in 
 the village church-yard of Provence. And as since 
 Dumont's death no one has looked after this name- 
 less grave, it is now quite indistinguishable. 
 
 Perhaps the dead woman's daughter trod smiling 
 over it, when, upon her wedding-tour, she stopped 
 at Havre to give orders about the magnificent mar- 
 ble monument she has erected there to the memory 
 of her father. 
 
 It happened that on that occasion she strolled into 
 the little church of Notre Dame des Flats, and saw 
 there, hanging on the wall, in their poor black \vood- 
 en frame, among the votive tablets offered to Our 
 Lady of the Waters, some wonderful tresses of hair, 
 in color and abundance exactly like her own. She 
 looked at them with surprise and curiosity, and a 
 strange, uncomfortable feeling came across her as 
 she wondered who could have been the woman to 
 whom those tresses once belonged, and what could 
 have induced that woman to sacrifice such a splen- 
 did gift of nature. Nervously she lifted her hand 
 to her own beautiful head, and hastened out of the 
 church, which all at once appeared to her dismal and 
 haunted. Her husband, and the friends who accom- 
 panied them, joked and rallied her a good deal about 
 this odd little fit of superstitious sentiment; but she
 
 346 NOTKE DAME DES FLOTS. 
 
 could not smile any more that day, though she knew 
 not why. 
 
 The wooden frame has since become stained and 
 broken, the paint has peeled off it, the glass is loos- 
 ened, the dust has got thick behind it; and the last 
 time I stood in the little church, the hair itself had 
 begun to fade. Soon this offering will be removed 
 to make way for others. The walls of the little 
 church are not spacious enough to record the sorrows 
 and sufferings of every mourner, as the endless gen- 
 erations go and come. 
 
 And this is the end of one poor heart's romantic 
 dream a mournful end ! But to how few of our 
 dearest dreams does this world vouchsafe a joyful 
 fulfilment ! Not all can end unhurt and happy ; and 
 least of all those who have a tender heart and a dis- 
 position to sacrifice themselves for others. 
 
 Therefore is it, that from her high and lonely 
 shrine in the little church upon the windy cliff, 
 where the great sea waves came rolling and moaning 
 from the north round Cap la H6ve, Our Lady of the 
 Waters looks down on all below with a face so sad, 
 so unutterably sad !
 
 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 GKOSSGLOCKNER MOUNTAIN.
 
 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 GROSSaLOCKNER MOUNTAIN. 
 
 A PERFUME, faint and fleeting, that is gone as soon 
 as come, sometimes conjures into motion, wave upon 
 wave within us, a sudden sea of reminiscences. 
 
 To some it comes on the breath of a rose-bud, or a 
 whiff of woodland air ; to others, in the scent of the 
 pine-log burning on a cottage hearth, or the fragrance 
 of a goblet of noble wine : for each the magic incense 
 has a different savor, but to all alike it comes as the 
 coming of the spring, that wakes to life a whole dead 
 world. Faded pictures glow again in all their pris- 
 tine colors ; weary eyes, long closed, reopen ; lips, 
 long silent, begin to speak ; dear ones, long forgot- 
 ten, wander as of old beside us ; we see them, we 
 hear them, we feel the soothing pressure of their 
 hands in ours ; and the dead are alive once more. 
 
 This is a sensation I invariably experience when- 
 ever, in after-dinner musings, I happen to scent upon 
 the air the aroma of Syrian tobacco. For then it 
 seems to me as if my old friend Radenburg w r ere 
 still sitting in the corner near me, silently smoking 
 his chibouque, or rousing himself out of a reverie to 
 answer some intrusive question of mine.
 
 250 A JOURNEY TO 
 
 How distinctly do I see again the tall figure of 
 the man, and his sunburnt face! A man at the 
 prime of life, just thirty years of age, but having in 
 his features and his manners the quiet gravity of a 
 man much older. And even a ghostly fragment of 
 the man's life comes floating to me on those soft 
 gray fumes that unfold themselves like the faded 
 pages of some hoary volume, inscribed with the rec- 
 ord of long past events. 
 
 Hadenburg moved through life so unobtrusively 
 that, by his fellow-travellers along its crowded thor- 
 oughfare, he was but little noticed. He never put 
 himself forward. He had no hankering after a min- 
 isterial portfolio or an academic chair, nor even any 
 care to increase his private means. It was not from 
 lack of ability, however. In the scientific world his 
 attainments as a naturalist were well known and 
 highly esteemed. Not a few of his contemporaries 
 in that department of science had privately benefited 
 by his researches ; but the results of those researches 
 he had no inclination to publish in any form ; and 
 the Chair of Natural History, to which he had been 
 called at an unusually early age, he quitted shortly 
 afterwards, to join an expedition to Africa. He did 
 not resume it on his return, but continued his studies 
 only for the silent satisfaction of his own mind, and 
 with unselfish benefit to all who applied to him for 
 information or advice. On the whole, he lived a life 
 of noble, though quiet activit} r , in the unostentatious 
 pursuit and enjoyment of what is good and beau- 
 tiful. 
 
 In society his position was that of an agreeable and
 
 THE GEOSSGLOCKNER MOUNTAIN. 251 
 
 clever man, whom everybody welcomed as a guest, 
 but whom nobody ever thought of as a promising 
 subject for matrimonial projects; although, in age, 
 disposition, and person, he seemed just the sort of 
 man to make any woman happy. One after another, 
 the wiliest mothers of marriageable daughters had 
 been obliged to give him up as a bad job, baffled by 
 his passionless good-humor, and the undistinguishing 
 amiability of his behavior, whether to } r oung ladies 
 or married women ; for both maidens and matrons 
 had attempted his capture with the same disappoint- 
 ing result. To all alike he was equally attentive, and 
 equally indifferent. 
 
 This equable placidity, which became him exceed- 
 ingly well for it was in complete harmony with all 
 the rest of the man would certainly have seemed 
 to any observer of his own sex only the normal con- 
 dition of the man's natural temperament. But the 
 women ascribed it rather to the effect of some ex- 
 ternal chill than to a natural deficiency of internal 
 warmth ; and with their fine instinct in matters of 
 sentiment, they observed that my friend's invariable 
 amiability was but a superficial gleam of winter sun- 
 shine, and that the mark on the thermometer beyond 
 which his temperature never rose, and rarely sunk, 
 was only a few degrees above zero. 
 
 By degrees, however, finding in him no other ca- 
 pacity suited to their requirements, they had accus- 
 tomed themselves to regard him as one of those use- 
 ful human beings who, in a quiet way, contribute to 
 the comfort of houses not their own ; who are gen- 
 erally recognized as belonging to the lady of the
 
 252 A JOURNEY TO 
 
 house, without being suspected of claiming over her 
 any reciprocal proprietary rights; who serve to en- 
 liven many a vacant hour with the charm of their 
 conversation, and temper many a family affliction 
 with the solace of their sympathy; who are always 
 present, and always ready, to take a fourth hand at 
 whist if it is wanted; and who benevolently keep 
 the children quiet by entertaining them with bonbons 
 and fairy tales. 
 
 To hosts and guests alike such persons are the in- 
 dispensable conditions of a thoroughly pleasant salon. 
 They constitute a sort of household furniture, con- 
 venient for general use, but not inconveniently at- 
 tractive of general notice. Their place in the fam- 
 ily is scarcely perceived so long as it is filled. It is 
 only when that place is empty forever that, missing 
 something, both husband and wife, and, above all, 
 the children, cannot keep their looks away from 
 the vacant seat ; for then, every day, and every hour 
 of the day, they all feel the want of what is gone. 
 And because my friend pursued so good-humoredly 
 and inoffensively his course through life, spectators 
 of it more distant than myself found nothing notice- 
 able in the ways of him ; which neither shed before 
 them any very shining light, nor left behind them 
 any deep shadow. 
 
 To the few, however, who were more intimately 
 acquainted with Radenburg, or by whom his charac- 
 ter had been more attentively studied, it was appar- 
 ent that this equable demeanor was only an exceed- 
 ingly well-made coat which he wore in society ; and 
 that the even temperature of his manner was the re-
 
 THE GROSSGLOCKNER MOUNTAIN. 353 
 
 suit of a vigilant self-control, which it sometimes 
 cost him a considerable exertion to maintain. There 
 were unguarded moments, revealing to an observant 
 eye the inward struggle whereby this external equa- 
 nimity was achieved, and what strength of will was 
 exhausted in the hourly effort of it. There were 
 times, too, when the combat was suspended by the 
 fatigue of the combatant when an immense lassi- 
 tude completely overcame him, and every nerve and 
 faculty of the man subsided into a state of resigned 
 abeyance, in, which both the desire and the capacity 
 of enjoj'inent were extinguished. 
 
 But he rarely succumbed to these fits of depres- 
 sion ; and, when they came upon him, he shook them 
 off quickly with a resolute resumption of his habit- 
 ual smile. One saw that he had a determined will 
 to keep his mind clear, as it were, of every course 
 into which he did not wish others to suppose it ca- 
 pable of wandering. Nor did any element of violence 
 ever enter into the arena of this secret conflict. 
 There were no attempts to drown the voice of the 
 adversary in paroxysms of loud mirth or wild gayety. 
 It was an honest, steady wrestling of the man with 
 himself a dreadful hand-to-hand struggle, which 
 looked, nevertheless, so like a friendly embrace that 
 only a keen listener could hear the labored breath- 
 ing of the wrestler. 
 
 And thus there was in the whole demeanor of this 
 man that high tone which belongs to men of calm 
 and composed character, but with a nuance distin- 
 guishable only by a well-trained ear; as when the 
 string of a viol is broken, and the violinist goes
 
 254 A JOUENEY TO 
 
 on courageously playing his score upon a lower 
 one. 
 
 I was the more impressed by tin's appearance of 
 restrained composure in the character of my friend 
 when I met him again in after-life, from my remem- 
 brance of the impulsive, open-hearted gayety which 
 had been particularly noticeable in him during his 
 college days. In those days we were drawn togeth- 
 er by similarities of taste and disposition. After- 
 wards our paths in life diverged ; and I had not seen 
 him for several years, when an accidental meeting 
 renewed the friendship of our youth, which subse- 
 quent intercourse confirmed and deepened by a com- 
 mon interest in many things. 
 
 Radenburg's sister possessed a delightful villa in 
 one of those summer resorts which are within easy 
 
 reach of . She was fond of receiving her 
 
 friends there, and they were all delighted to come 
 whenever she asked them ; for she was still an ex- 
 ceedingly handsome woman, and her young daughter 
 was already a very lovely creature. Moreover, both 
 mother and daughter had the most charming man- 
 ners, and were as amiable and intelligent as they 
 were good-looking. 
 
 In the course of one unusually hot summer, a rath- 
 er mixed gathering of guests from town was assem- 
 bled at this villa, and I happened to be one of them. 
 My own visit, however, was more particularly to Ra- 
 denburg,\vho had come to stay with his sister for the 
 rest of the season. 
 
 It was close upon the dinner hour. The ladies of 
 the house had gone to their toilet, and Radenburg
 
 THE GROSSGLOCKNER MOUNTAIN. 255 
 
 was not yet returned from one of his daily botanical 
 excursions. We guests were sitting or lying on the 
 lawn under the shady trees, with our faces all hun- 
 grily turned to the north side of the house, where 
 the cool dining-room opened on to the terrace. The 
 country air sharpens the appetite; and, as we had 
 been breathing it all the morning, we were now 
 nearly famished. There was also a thirsty influence 
 in the scene around us. Every leaflet hung breath- 
 less in the glowing heat, as if longing for refresh- 
 ment ; the flowers drooped their heads ; and stretch- 
 ed under a bush, with his tongue lolling out of his 
 mouth, Raspe, our hostess's white poodle, was audi- 
 bly panting. 
 
 It was horribly wearisome. Every one was silent, 
 and yawning. The stillness was rather emphasized 
 than relieved by an occasional hungry sigh from one 
 of the guests, or an impatient snort from Raspe at 
 some flv which had settled on his nose, and which 
 
 t/ ' 
 
 he was too lazy to snap at. When the sigh and the 
 snort subsided, the only sounds upon the silence were 
 a distant chirping in the hedges and a restless tap- 
 ping on the gravel path. Both these sounds were 
 monotonous and incessant ; both went on with a sort 
 of rabbia ; both were short, sharp, and yet continuous 
 an endless staccato f without pause; each by itself 
 was irritating, and both together were maddening. 
 
 The chirping was from the crickets, the tapping 
 from the tiny bottines of Countess Achenberg. 
 
 This little countess was as fair and slight as a 
 sylph. Her flesh seemed diaphanous; her beauty 
 was all in expression, and her fine and delicate figure
 
 256 A JOURNEY TO 
 
 had the Affect of an apparition which might at any 
 moment vanish away while you looked at it. Mean- 
 while, it was full of a restless, though fitful vitality. 
 She liked to be moving about when every one else 
 was quiet ; and to chatter, irrepressibly and charm- 
 ingly, whenever there was a general indisposition to 
 talk. On the other hand, however, in the midst of 
 the most animated company, she would curl herself 
 up in an easy-chair as still as a dozing kitten, and 
 listen to the most brilliant conversation with eyes 
 half shut, as if unconscious of all around her. 
 
 Her physician had no idea how she contrived to 
 live on, so long after her life had been given up by 
 himself and his colleagues. He shook his head du- 
 biously, and even resentfully, every time he saw her. 
 And indeed her face consisted almost entirely of 
 two immense blue eyes, to which all the rest of it 
 was only a kind of delicate filagree setting. This 
 lady's illegitimately prolonged life was to his mind 
 a sort of blasphemy against the sacred infallibility 
 of the laws of Nature. Savonarola, however, would 
 have probably said of her that in her case the fleshy 
 veil had been worn away by the spirit into a refined 
 medium, transparent to its inner light. For, in re- 
 pose, she looked like one of those affecting little im- 
 ages of mediaeval saints which one sees enshrined 
 under a Gothic baldachin. But whenever she roused 
 herself as she was continually doing, with a sudden 
 impulse out of these states of immobility, all their 
 rigidness melted at once into a vivacity of outline 
 and movements as quick and sparkling as sunbeams 
 on a rivulet ; and forthwith the Gothic saint was
 
 THE GKOSSGLOCKNER MOUNTAIN. 257 
 
 transformed into a very captivating woman, singu- 
 larly graceful and lively. 
 
 Nor could any one then doubt the thoroughly 
 modern texture of the fine nervous system whose 
 sensitive fibres had been stiffened but a moment be- 
 fore into the saintly outlines of the rigid mediaeval 
 image. These vibrating nerves it must have been 
 that had frayed so thin and fine the fleshly veil ; and 
 they alone seemed now to sustain in fitful animation 
 the spiritualized body that remained. What it was, 
 however, that kept these restless nerves themselves 
 still going, and imparted to them such surprising 
 elasticity and endurance, remained to the physician 
 a riddle and a rebuke. There was, moreover, in the 
 general tone of this lady's character a certain note 
 which in others would have been, perhaps, unpleas- 
 antly eccentric; but in her it was only as if a strain 
 of tender tone were being played upon a violin that 
 has been newly strung. 
 
 Suddenly the countess stopped short in her restless 
 pacing of the gravel-walk, and glanced at our circle. 
 It was a glance which had on all of us the effect of an 
 untimely flourish of fiddles in the midst of a gener- 
 al pause. A thrill went through the whole hungry 
 group. Imagine a bear who is expected to growl sa- 
 gaciously, or even dance, when he is sulking for his 
 food. But it was no use. One had to dance to the 
 tune of those big eyes whenever they pleased. And 
 the only question was which of us should be their 
 first victim ; for it is a well-known fact that whoever 
 s-peaks first after a general silence is sure to say some- 
 thing silly. 
 17
 
 258 A JOURNEY TO 
 
 " I should like to know," said one of our party, a 
 thin, sallow man, " why Kadenbnrg always leaves us 
 so suddenly, and without any sort of reason." 
 
 The speaker was a would-be dramatic poet; and 
 in these disappearances of Badeabnrg he had evi- 
 dently begun to sniff the plot of a tragedy he had 
 for years been in search of. Apart from this dra- 
 matic hobby of his, he was really a most inoffensive 
 creature; and if he would have allowed us to cut his 
 long hair a good deal shorter, and prevent him from 
 continually sucking his pencil, I am sure we should 
 all have been ready to do him these little kindnesses 
 with the best will in the world. As it was, I think 
 that, in a passive sort of way, we were grateful to him 
 for having started a general subject of conversation 
 adapted to the depressed condition of our faculties. 
 
 The motif given, the variations followed ; and 
 " Yes, why ?" grunted a stout millionaire, whose serv- 
 ant always carried his umbrella behind him, and 
 whose social habit was to let other people talk for 
 him. 
 
 "Yes, why?" repeated the millionaire. 
 
 "He is a poet!" said the millionaire's daughter a 
 rose-bud only just transplanted from an educational 
 forcing-house into the open air of society. 
 
 "My brother-in-law, Conrad Kadenburg," said our 
 host, "is on one of his customary excursions into the 
 insect world. He has in hand the discovery of a 
 tremendous secret of the coleoptera or lej)idoj)tera, 
 or something of that sort, and is always at it. His 
 room here is already a den of insectivorous plants." 
 
 "That is an explanation of the mystery," replied
 
 THE GliOSSGLOCKNER MOUNTAIN. 359 
 
 the dramaturgist, "entirely inconsistent with, and, as 
 I conceive, emphatically contradicted by, the deeply 
 tragical expression I have 'noticed in his face on these 
 occasions. It is not the face of an eager naturalist, 
 but the countenance of Saul when the dark spirit 
 was on him." 
 
 " Quelle ingenieuse invention!" laughed, from un- 
 der her pretty mustache, the Baroness Boden ; a bru- 
 nette as seductive as she was coquettish, with the 
 archest of downy upper lips, the roundest of arms, 
 the softest of hands, the pertest little foot, and the 
 longest retinue of devoted slaves. 
 
 " Ce Ijon Radenburg /" she continued, "why can- 
 not he take his afternoon doze like any one else? 
 He assumes these mysterious airs to make himself 
 interesting." 
 
 "Perhaps he suffers from headaches," suggested 
 an old lady companion with blue spectacles, thought- 
 fully sticking her needle into a horrible little bit of 
 brimstone -colored embroidery on which it was em- 
 ployed. 
 
 And so the conversation rambled on inanely, till 
 it became a sort of round game of idiotic guesses, 
 to which every one in turn contributed some new 
 banality ; except, indeed, the old lady, who never 
 changed her card, but stuck to the headache. 
 
 Griifin Achenberg, who had been listening to the 
 conversation without uttering a word, suddenly 
 turned towards me with a quick jerk. 
 
 " And yon," she said, " who are his friend ?" 
 
 I felt those big eyes of hers upon me as if two burn- 
 ing stars were boring their beams into my forehead.
 
 260 A JOURNEY TO 
 
 "I doirt know," said I. "Bnt since all you ladies 
 have failed to reclaim him, I take it for granted that 
 he is incurable, and that whatever be his idee fixe, no 
 power on earth will move him from it." 
 
 The Griitin turned sharply round without another 
 word, and continued her promenade. 
 
 Over the faces of the other ladies fleeted, at the 
 same time, a curiously complicated and slightly omi- 
 nous expression, which, however, was happily con- 
 verted into a general smile of satisfaction by the 
 welcome announcement of dinner. 
 
 Radenburg, who meanwhile had returned in time 
 to join us at table, sat between an inquisitive spinster 
 of forty and the millionaire's daughter. They both 
 treated him like a pet doll. The elder lady, in her 
 pertinacious efforts to "pluck out the heart of his 
 mystery," bored a deal of dry sawdust out of him, 
 and the younger one clothed the supposed poet in 
 all the finery of her young imagination. Radenburg 
 submitted passively to the boring and costuming, 
 like a well-conducted doll that moves hands, feet, 
 and eyes, and even says "yes" and "no" when 
 pinched in the proper place. By the time that des- 
 sert was served, however, he had begun to grow rest- 
 ive ; and no sooner had we risen from table than he 
 artfully endeavored to effect his retreat. 
 
 But the elderly spinster was not to be evaded, and 
 promptly placing her arm in his, "I want," said she, 
 "to ask your advice, Herr von Radenburg." 
 
 "My advice?" faltered Radenburg, looking the 
 picture of dismay ; " must you have it at once ?" 
 
 "If you please," said the lady, as she calmly car-
 
 THE GROSSGLOCKNER MOUNTAIN. 261 
 
 ried him off along the terrace, and down one of the 
 alleys in the garden. 
 
 Soon, however, Radenburg was seen re-emerging 
 from the alley all alone. There was a general and 
 significant simper among the ladies as my friend loi- 
 tered back to the house, innocently contemplating 
 the tips of his toes while he went along. 
 
 This interesting study of his was suddenly inter- 
 rupted by a hand on his arm ; and a very pretty hand 
 too, exceedingly well -shaped and dazzlingly white, 
 for it belonged to Baroness Boden. 
 
 " Radenburg, a word with you in confidence !" said 
 the baroness, familiarly, as she opened upon him her 
 half -closed eyes, which were of the color of cats' 
 eyes. Their opaline gleam, and the glittering teeth 
 which her smile simultaneously unsheathed from un- 
 der the delicately curved and downy upper lip, put 
 me in mind, as I watched her, of those beautiful 
 beasts of prey whose graceful movements have a 
 cruel purpose. The white hand which had just ar- 
 rested my friend's loitering steps was attached to an 
 arm equally white, and deliciously rounded. With a 
 scarcely perceptible movement, this white arm coiled 
 itself round Radenburg's, and lay there in a snake- 
 like repose. 
 
 'The enchantress paused a moment, swept with a 
 swift, confident glance the whole group who were 
 watching her from the terrace, and then bore away 
 the victim, carefully lifting, as she went, the frill of 
 her dainty petticoat just enough to reveal an exqui- 
 site foot and ankle. 
 
 The ladies on the terrace all looked like the chorus
 
 262 A JOURNEY TO 
 
 in an opera when the hero has departed to his doom. 
 In the dark shadows of the trees under which Raden- 
 burg had disappeared with the baroness, mortal was 
 the combat about to be waged between the power 
 of woman and the obstinacy of man; and armed 
 in all the fascinations of their sex was the champion 
 who had undertaken to maintain its cause. 
 
 Conceive, then, their consternation when the des- 
 tined victim presently reappeared in the broad sun- 
 shine, apparently unscathed ! There was a dead si- 
 lence all round ; and as slowly as Banquo's ghost, 
 Radenburg stalked on towards the house unaccom- 
 panied ! 
 
 In this solemn moment up rose the old lady with 
 the blue spectacles. Laying aside her brimstone- 
 colored embroidery, she advanced towards Raden- 
 burg, fumbled in her reticule, and fished out of it a 
 little bottle which she placed in his hand. 
 
 There was something awful in the tone of her 
 voice as she said to him, 
 
 "A sovereign cure for headache ten drops on a 
 lump of sugar!" 
 
 Meanwhile the millionaire's rose-bud daughter had 
 stolen up to the other side of him. She said noth- 
 ing, but she looked her prettiest, as with a blush she 
 placed a flower in his button-hole. 
 
 Radenburg bowed silently, right and left, to the 
 two ladies, and fled as fast as his feet could carry 
 him, 
 
 The old lady and the young one were left looking 
 at each other, like the first and last man in Ilebel's 
 poem
 
 THE GROSSGLOCKNER MOUNTAIN. 263 
 
 " They meet, and there silently, face to face, 
 
 Stand staring, brother at brother; 
 The first and the last of the human race, 
 With nothing to say to each other!" 
 
 Then they both plunged into the shadows of the 
 alley; and one by one the other ladies left the ter- 
 race, and dispersed, like threatening clouds, about the 
 garden. 
 
 Countess Achenberg alone remained, curled up in 
 her arm-chair, near the gentlemen, who were smok- 
 ing on a retired part of the terrace, to which they 
 had betaken themselves immediately after dinner. 
 She had noticed every detail of this little comedy 
 (that I felt sure of) with those big eyes of hers, 
 which were now bent upon the ground in one of her 
 fits of self - absorption ; and knowing that at such 
 moments she did not like to be disturbed, I descend- 
 ed the steps of the terrace and strolled through the 
 garden towards an arbor at the outskirts of the al- 
 lev, in which some of the other ladies were sitting. 
 
 / * o 
 
 Outside this arbor all was clear and sunny, but not 
 so were the fair faces within it; and not caring to 
 confront the storm I saw brewing there, I hastily 
 retraced my steps back to the terrace. Here I found 
 the smokers discussing politics over their coffee. It 
 was jnst before the Franco-German War, and conse- 
 quently the social atmosphere was here, also, in a 
 rather stormy condition; so I again beat a retreat. 
 But I felt horribly bored and restless; and as there 
 is nothing which a generous man is more willing to 
 share with a friend than ennui, I at last instinctive- 
 ly re-entered the house, mounted the stairs to Eaden-
 
 264 A JOURNEY TO 
 
 burg's room, and knocked without compunction at 
 his door. 
 
 My knock elicited first an angry growl, which was 
 quickly followed by a fine clicking sound like the 
 snapping of a lock or the cocking of a pistol, and 
 then a reluctant " Come in !" 
 
 The room, as I entered, was so full of tobacco- 
 smoke that I had some difficulty in discovering its 
 inmate through the clouds that surrounded him. 
 lie was lying on a chaise lonyue, his coffee on a lit- 
 tle table beside it, and one end of an enormously 
 long Turkish pipe in his mouth. lie turned towards 
 me a dreamy, absent look, which slowly changed 
 into one of reproachful surprise, as he exclaimed, 
 
 " And thou too ?" 
 
 He was right ; and the question sounded to my 
 conscience like "Et tu, Brute?" 
 
 There in one corner lay the poor little rose-bud; 
 in another the unfortunate bottle with its precious 
 drops; and I felt with shame that I deserved to oc- 
 cupy a third. I retreated without answering a word ; 
 but just as my hand was on the door, he called after 
 me, 
 
 "Do you smoke Syrian tobacco? I have no 
 other." " 
 
 " Yes," said I. 
 
 "Then," said he, "sit down and take a chibouque." 
 
 I threw myself into an arm-chair, and for a while 
 we smoked our Latakia in silence. 
 
 lladenburg's eyes were fixed upon a casket which 
 was placed on the table beside him. There was 
 something peculiar in the shape of the little key
 
 THE GROSSGLOCKNEIi MOUNTAIN. 265 
 
 which stood in the lock of it. I remembered that 
 liadenburs: always wore this key attached to his 
 
 O / 9 
 
 watch-chain; and it struck me that the clicking 
 sound I had heard, before he bade me come in, must 
 have been caused by the hasty shutting and locking 
 of the casket. 
 
 Before my friend spoke again, the clouds of smoke 
 between us had become so thick that I could no lon- 
 ger discern his features; and his dreamy voice came 
 to me out of an impenetrable mist. 
 
 " Have you ever been up the Grossglockner Mount- 
 ain ?" asked the voice. 
 
 "No," said I. 
 
 " Then," replied the voice, "you shall ascend it 
 with me. Don't be afraid. I know you are no 
 lover of alpine adventures. The expedition shall 
 be only in thought. I make it every day with my 
 chibouque. You can impart this information to our 
 inquisitive friends down -stairs. The rest of my 
 time is at their service, and I am always glad when 
 I can be of the least use or amusement to others ; 
 but this one hour of the day they must really be 
 good enough to spare me, for 
 
 He stopped suddenly, and then added, in a hesi- 
 tating tone, "No matter, 'tis no business of theirs, 
 but you shall know it if you will." 
 
 Radenburg paused again. For some time he went 
 on smoking in a profound silence, which I did not 
 venture to disturb. The fragrant cloud that con- 
 cealed him from my sight grew denser and denser. 
 At last the voice came again out of the mist, and in 
 tones even dreamier than before.
 
 266 A JOURNEY TO 
 
 " There was, once upon a time," said the voice, " a 
 girl, fair and shy, and a boy, reserved and taciturn. 
 They both lived just outside the mediaeval fosse and 
 many-towered rampart which enclosed the crowded 
 buildings of an ancient city. The city was old ; but 
 the life in it, still young and vigorous, had boldly 
 overleaped the rampart and the ditch, from which a 
 broad, long street had thus adventured forth, all by 
 itself, across the green glacis and the meadows be- 
 yond a street of houses surrounded by large gar- 
 dens. 
 
 "Right against the dark old tower of the rampart 
 stood a villa, completely overgrown with a luxuriant 
 variety of bright creepers ; and in this villa the girl 
 lived with her mother, a widowed lady, of old but 
 impoverished family. Just opposite the villa lived 
 the boy, in a large, high-gabled hguse. 
 
 "All the windows of the villa were closely cur- 
 tained against the light, with the exception of one, 
 opening on to a balcony, where, between the parted 
 draperies, a fine female profile was sometimes illumi- 
 nated by the rays of the setting sun. Without that 
 illumination it would scarcely have been distinguish- 
 able from the whiteness of the curtains through which, 
 moonlike, it borrowed its faint lustre from the sun. 
 It was generally bent over a book, brushed by its 
 drooping ringlets; and here and there about the 
 green framework of creeping plants w r hich formed a 
 background to its fine, slight outlines, hung the sullen 
 blossoms of a luxuriant passion-flower. By the gar- 
 den-gate of the villa was always crouching a little 
 pug-dog, whose eyes with a wof til stare said as plainly
 
 THE GROSSGLOCKNER MOUNTAIN. 267 
 
 as eyes can say, ' The world is a vale of tears !' The 
 pug-dog had round his neck a velvet ribbon, colored 
 like the passion-flowers on the screen behind the bal- 
 cony, and the draperies drawn across the other case- 
 ments of the villa ; and the soft violet tone of all these 
 tints harmonized with the face of the woman above 
 at the window, and the child below in the garden. 
 
 "There, under a weeping willow, stands a stone 
 chair, fantastically carved, and in the chair is sitting 
 the child, a little girl, whose delicate face glimmers 
 through a cloud of soft curls. The fair young face 
 has a pensive and refined expression ; and the child 
 sits there as motionless as a little marble goddess, set 
 for a garden ornament on her quaintly carved pedes- 
 tal, in a bower of blossoming verdure. The whole 
 image and its harmonious surroundings have a ten- 
 der charm, which fails, however, to attract a single 
 glance from the boy at the other garden-gate on the 
 opposite side of the street. Whenever he looks up 
 from what he is about, it is only to stare at the cor- 
 ner window of the house behind him. This, like 
 all the other windows of that house, is thrown wide 
 open to the fresh air and sunlight ; and by the win- 
 dow-sill is seated a buxom, comely dame, with a cheer- 
 ful face and a beaming smile. She is mending a very 
 big rent in a very small pair of breeches ; and over 
 her homely task, as if it had for her some irresistibly 
 humorous association, the good soul privately breaks 
 now and then into a little cordial chuckle, which she 
 hastens to hide away under a mien of dignified ma- 
 ternal reproof whenever the boy in the garden be- 
 low looks up to that corner window.
 
 268 A JOURNEY TO 
 
 "Many a time, perchance, ere the day is over, wilt 
 tliou again have occasion to renew both the inward 
 chuckle and the outward expression of reproof, thou 
 good, kind-hearted mother! That little pickle of 
 thine is, meanwhile, busily engaged in the examina- 
 tion of a small wooden tray on which he has pinned 
 a multitude of dead butterflies. Beside him, on the 
 ground, is a large bottle crammed with all manner of 
 crawling and creeping creatures, and a handkerchief, 
 tightly knotted together by its four corners into a 
 bulging bag, which heaves and struggles with a snaky 
 movement from within, and seems to be making a 
 huge effort to wriggle itself away sidcwise across the 
 lawn. The young naturalist is beginning to feel hun- 
 gry, but he is restrained by 'sundry scruples from en- 
 tering the house with his hard-won treasures ; and 
 he keeps one hand awkwardly tucked behind him, as 
 if to conceal some unlucky rent in that part of his 
 garments. 
 
 " The little goddess of the weeping willow has also 
 at last begun to show signs of restlessness. She is 
 not hungry, but she is bored to death. She, with 
 her silken curls and her violet frock, is not allowed 
 to associate with the children in the street, and for 
 many a day, perhaps, she may have cast longing 
 glances now and then across to the lad in the oppo- 
 site garden. He does not seem inclined to come and 
 play with her. nor, indeed, does he look at all a fit 
 playmate for such a dainty little damsel; for he is 
 always poring over his horrid insect-cases, and he is 
 ragged and soiled from scrambling into all sorts of 
 holes and corners, and up the trees and through the
 
 THE GROSSGLOCKNER MOUNTAIN. 269 
 
 bushes, in search of their ugly contents. But then, 
 at least, he is something different from her only oth- 
 er playthings the melancholy pug, and the monot- 
 onous parrot, and the baronial coronet worked in 
 hair, and framed under glass, which, whether prized 
 as a family relic or admired as a work of art, was only 
 interesting to an acquired taste. 
 
 " Just at this moment the little maiden, by good 
 or ill luck, detected a creature of unknown name and 
 unpleasant appearance comfortably curled up on the 
 arm of her marble throne; and forthwith she set up 
 a very human cry for help. 
 
 " The cry itself would not have elicited any re- 
 sponse from the boy in the opposite garden, for he 
 was accustomed, and perfectly indifferent, to every 
 variety of noise which the street was capable of pro- 
 ducing. But the cry was an articulate one, in which 
 the two words, 'A snake! a snake!' were distinctly 
 audible; and by those two words he was instant- 
 ly and powerfully attracted. In three bounds he 
 crossed the street ; with the fourth he upset the 
 pug-dog; and the next moment he had climbed the 
 rail, cleared the hedge, and smashed a hydrangea. 
 
 " As he stretched out his hand, however, to seize 
 the monster, he burst into a n't of rude and uncon- 
 trollable laughter. 
 
 " ' You stupid !' cried the boy, ' that's not a snake, 
 it's only a common slug.' 
 
 "The little maiden stood trembling all over; and 
 as she bent forward, with a shuddering mixture of 
 fear and curiosity, to look at the thing in his hand, 
 she stammered out,
 
 270 A JOUKNEY TO 
 
 " ' Ol), you dirty, dirty boy !' 
 
 "She must, however, have felt a secret admiration 
 for the courage with which he had laid hold of the 
 repulsive creature, for the next day she used all her 
 little arts to tempt him back again. Tor this pur- 
 pose she placed herself on her carved throne, raised 
 herself up on tiptoe, and made a sign to him with 
 her finger; but she was so hidden by the intervening 
 boughs of the weeping willow that the boy could 
 only see a bit of her violet dress. She did not know 
 his name, and so she called out to him, 
 
 "'Dirty boy, there's another animal here.' 
 
 "And he came. The 'dirty boy 'did not make 
 any impression on him, the 'other animal' did. 
 
 " She led him on tiptoe to a rose-bush, and pointed 
 to one of its blossoms, in which a green and gold 
 beetle had ensconced itself. The boy quietly popped 
 the unlucky little creature into a bottle of spirits 
 which he had in his pocket, and turned to her with 
 a disappointed and rather contemptuous face. 
 
 " ' It's nothing out of the way,' said the boy ; ' only 
 a rose-beetle of the common kind vulgaris, you 
 know.' 
 
 "While the rose -beetle was going through its 
 death-struggle in the bottle, the little girl stood pale 
 and speechless with horror. At last she exclaimed, 
 
 " ' Oh, you naughty, naughty boy !' 
 
 " The wretch only laughed, and went off with his 
 victim. 
 
 "He now possessed two names which the goddess 
 of the weeping willow had deigned to bestow upon 
 him ; and who knows how many more she might
 
 THE GROSSGLOCKNER MOUNTAIN. 271 
 
 have graciously found for him, if they had not, some 
 little while later, had a long talk together, followed 
 by a short dispute, which she triumphantly closed, 
 by observing, 
 
 "'My mother makes poems, and your father only 
 makes houses !' 
 
 " At these words he turned his back on her, and 
 went home slowly. 
 
 ' : The little girl clinched her right hand, struck its 
 little fist passionately into the palm of her left, and 
 made up her mind, as firm as a rock, not to think 
 anything more about him. There were plenty of 
 other boys in the new street, and she would show 
 him at once that she no longer cared for him the 
 least little bit in the world. 
 
 " So she placed herself between two pyramids of 
 clipped box, and stared resolutely down the street, 
 where the little boys were turning somersaults, spin- 
 ning tops, or playing at robbers and soldiers, while 
 the little girls sat demurely on the door-steps, nurs- 
 ing their dolls or prattling to each other. She looked 
 at it all musingly for a long while, but somehow or 
 other it didn't interest her; and while she still stood 
 listening to the voices from the street she was fur- 
 tively trying to catch a glimpse of the ' naughty boy ' 
 in the garden opposite. 
 
 " She now began to feel very sorry that she had 
 hurt his feelings; and after hesitating for a few mo- 
 ments, she went shyly round to the garden -gate. 
 There she stopped a while, still hesitating, and then 
 she suddenly ran across the street. That he might 
 not turn his back upon her again, she had taken the
 
 272 A JOUKXEY TO 
 
 precaution to carry with her a peace-offering. It 
 was a bit of green glass, which she regarded as a rare 
 curiosity, for it had a wonderful effect when you 
 looked through it. 
 
 " The peace-offering was so far successful that the 
 naughty boy did not again turn his back on her. 
 He let her remain at his side while he leisurely test- 
 ed the effects of the glass by looking through it at 
 the house and garden. All this while she stood 
 breathless, clasping her little hands behind her back ; 
 but when he had finished his experiment, and turned 
 round to her with a dissatisfied look, she let her anus 
 fall at her side, and ground a hole into the gravel 
 with her heel. 
 
 "'It is too stupid !' said the boy, 'and there's no 
 truth in it. Our red house-roof, \'our horrible pug- 
 dog, and your own pug-nose are all grass-green !' 
 
 "This was outrageous. And she had meant so 
 well by him ! 
 
 "Weeping, she crept home to her garden -chair. 
 And after that the grass grew undisturbed over the 
 foot-paths to the two garden-gates. One of them 
 was untravcrsed by the girl, and the other by the 
 boy. 
 
 "And so the time passed on. 
 
 " But one summer morning the boy stood again at 
 the garden-gate of the opposite house. He held the 
 green glass before his face, and M'as looking through 
 it. Thus looking, he attentively examined every- 
 thing except the garden-chair opposite and its lonely 
 little inmate; for whenever the glass turned in that 
 direction he quickly withdrew it. And the little
 
 THE GROSSGLOCKNER MOUNTAIN. 373 
 
 goddess sat quite still on her garden throne. This 
 he could not help noticing plainly enough, as every 
 now and then her unwelcome image reappeared in 
 the green glass. In the afternoon the boy posted 
 himself in the street, still with the green glass before 
 his C3'es. He looked through the glass inquiringly 
 at the pavement, then at the garden rails on the op- 
 posite side, and finally at the pug-dog behind them. 
 The png-dog, thus contemplated, looked more pro- 
 foundly melancholy than ever; for he was complete- 
 ly green a color which did not at all become him. 
 The boy seemed unable to take his eyes oil this phe- 
 nomenon, but he felt that he was too far away to 
 examine it satisfactorily; so he slowly crossed the 
 street, opened the garden-gate, and planted himself 
 directly in front of the animal. The pug-dog opened 
 wide his melancholy eyes, and stared pensively at the 
 boy. Through the green glass the boy also stared 
 pensively at the pug-dog. Just then, however, he 
 felt his neck enclasped by two soft, warm, slender 
 arms, and the next moment he was heartily embrac- 
 ing his little friend. 
 
 " From that day forth the two children loved each 
 other sincerely, and lived only for one another. 
 
 " Later on the boy went away to school, and after- 
 wards to college ; but from the distant city to which 
 his life was then transplanted, his thoughts were ever 
 wandering back, through the garden-gate, to the lit- 
 tle girl under the weeping willow. When he came 
 home for his holidays, no sooner had the coach set 
 him down at the inn than he hastened through the 
 town, and passed out by its opposite gate-way down 
 18
 
 274 A JOURNEY TO 
 
 the new street, with a heart beating as if it must 
 burst at every step that brought him nearer to that 
 beloved garden. 
 
 "His tirst look was ever to the green-mantled vil- 
 la her home; and it was only second looks that 
 then turned, with second thoughts, to the high-ga- 
 bled house which was his own. There he could see 
 his father's white hair and his mother's dark locks 
 mingled together, and their four loving eyes turned 
 towards the gate of the town with looks that seemed 
 to say, 'Is he coming?' Then their white poodle, a 
 sedate and venerable animal who had long survived 
 the vivacity of } T outli, sprang out to greet him with 
 unwonted capers and a spasmodic wag of his stumpy 
 tail ; then the father's stalwart figure appeared, till- 
 ing up the door-way through which the mother had 
 already passed out into the garden ; and as she 
 clasped her boy to her faithful heart, over her stoop- 
 ing shoulders, one on each side, peeped two bloom- 
 ing girls the boy's sisters, who, as sisters do, had 
 outstripped their brother in the short journey from 
 childhood to youth. 
 
 " But opposite, across the street ah, there by the 
 open garden-gate, in her old place, between the two 
 pyramids of box, stood she, the goddess of the weep- 
 ing willow! Her arms hung down; each side of 
 her violet dress the small white hands fluttered ner- 
 vously, and her little head bent sideways towards her 
 right shoulder. There was nothing graceful, or even 
 becoming, in her attitude, but something, neverthe- 
 less, which spoke in deeply penetrating tones to the 
 boy's heart. It was an inexpressibly touching em-
 
 THE GROSSGLOCKNER MOUNTAIN. 275 
 
 barrassment that pervaded the whole figure as she 
 stood there so shy and still and painfully constrain- 
 ed ; like some angel in an old German picture, who 
 would fain fly or wander away, but must needs stand 
 waiting motionless upon the watch. The arrested 
 feet, the drooping arms, the bent head, the longing 
 eyes, all were saying in the same tone, ' What can I 
 do without thee ? Come to me ! come to me !' 
 
 " And the boy broke loose from his family, and 
 came. 
 
 "She stood still and waited. lie hastened forward 
 and stood still too. Then her arms went round his 
 neck, and her large eyes grew larger and larger as 
 they looked into his, and she murmured, 
 
 " Thou art here at last !' " 
 
 Here the voice of Radenburg faltered, and his 
 story came to a sudden stop. 
 
 "You knew that boy," he continued, after a mo- 
 ment's silence, "in our happy college days, and you 
 know how hard he worked to attain distinction and 
 an independent position ; for that boy was myself. 
 Our college contemporaries used to talk of my impa- 
 tient ambition, but I was only thinking all the while 
 of the girl under the willow-tree, and her dear eyes, 
 with the longing prayer in them, 
 
 " ' Come back to me ! come soon !' 
 
 "And at length the longed-for day arrived when 
 come I could ; a day for which I had labored hard, 
 and waited patiently, when I might rejoin her, nev- 
 er more to part ; for the object of all my efforts was 
 attained. At home they were not expecting my re- 
 turn. They knew nothing of my success. I wished
 
 276 A JOURNEY TO 
 
 to surprise them. The train left at noon. I was up 
 betimes that day, had breakfasted early, and was 
 restlessly pacing my chamber, too impatient to sit 
 still. The postman brought me a circular. I threw 
 it, unnoticed, on the table. What announcement of 
 any kind could interest me that morning ? But af- 
 terwards, as I was lighting a cigar, a Spark from it 
 fell on the paper, which began to smoulder ; and tak- 
 ing it up to shake out the little cinder, I was startled 
 by the first words of its lithographed lines which I 
 chanced to catch sight of. 
 
 "The circular was afairepart demariage, where- 
 in a certain baroness of my native town announced 
 to all the world the engagement of her daughter 
 Marie to a count, whose titles and estates were 
 enumerated at a length which nearly filled the whole 
 page. I knew this count very well, and had often 
 met him. He was an amiable, corpulent man, about 
 forty years of age, and a widower without children. 
 Alas ! I also knew his bride. Those deep, large, 
 longing eyes, how well I knew them ! The loving 
 clasp of those dear arms about my neck, how intense- 
 ly I could feel it still ! And that violet dress ! Vio- 
 let was the color she habitually wore. For which 
 reason, perhaps, every thing around me now suddenly 
 assumed that hue. Even the lithographed circular 
 was dyed in it. The last thing I remember was the 
 violet appearance of my own hand as the paper fell 
 from it. 
 
 " When I recovered consciousness they told me I 
 had long been ill, and in a thoroughly miserable con- 
 dition. That was untrue. It was only when I came
 
 THE GROSSGLOCKNER MOUNTAIN. 277 
 
 back to myself that my condition was thoroughly 
 miserable. I remember the day when, for the first 
 time since my recovery, I was allowed to sit at the 
 open window. It was a mild, dull day, not sunny, 
 but still and soft. I took up the circular, which 
 was lying on my knee. I had not forgotten its con- 
 tents. I kneV them by heart; but with the perver- 
 sity which impels the sufferer's finger to the sore spot, 
 I wished to study them again, word by word. In 
 doing so, I now perceived in them something which 
 had escaped my notice. It was a little pencil-line 
 faintly traced under the name of the baroness, and 
 at the end of it was an M. 
 
 " The line was a strange one ; soft as a delicate 
 secret, tremulously traced, and all uneven as if the 
 poor heart's violent beating had unsteadied the hand 
 that drew it, and then broken off and begun again 
 lower down, as if the eyes that guided the unsteady 
 hand had lost their way blinded by tears! That 
 little sign told me as plainly as words the plainest 
 could have said 'It was my mother's doing, but 
 I'" 
 
 After another short silence, " This," continued Kad- 
 enburg, " is the only bit of her handwriting that I 
 possess. It was as if, with her own hand, she had 
 written the epitaph of her heart, and sent it to me 
 thus. Since then I have wandered about the world, 
 and trifled with my life as with a useless thing. 
 Yet useless as it was, a charm seemed in it against 
 which nothing could prevail. I tried to concentrate 
 my thoughts, now on this thing, now on that ; hop-
 
 278 A JOURNEY TO 
 
 ing that here or there some particle of my being 
 might find an interest in the world, and cleave to it 
 
 O * 
 
 as the drifting seed to the jutting rock. In vain ! 
 Look where I would, it was ever and ever the same 
 picture that I saw. In the midst of a broad plain, a 
 many-towered city. Just beyond its walls, a house 
 muffled in creepers. And in that housfe a pale wom- 
 an, who traced, with tearful eyes and trembling hand, 
 the line, so faint yet so impassable, which, from all 
 that was once mine and hers together, divided all 
 that was no longer hers or mine a life in which it 
 was no longer lawful even to think of each other ! 
 
 "But enough of this. I never willingly speak of 
 the past at all ; and that is why, perhaps, it has set 
 me talking too much now. The dam once broken, 
 I cannot stem the flood that carries me away. I 
 must not forget, however, that I have promised to 
 take you with me up the Grossglockner Mountain. 
 
 "One evening in the early autumn, my wander- 
 ings, which had always the pretext of a scientific 
 object, had brought me, as it happened, through the 
 Mollthal to Pleilingbluth, a little village in the high- 
 est part of the Carinthian Mountains. Having se- 
 cured my lodgings at the pretty little inn there, I 
 strolled out to look at the old Gothic church ; and, 
 when I had sufficiently examined its internal ar- 
 chitecture, I stepped out of the porch into the old 
 church-yard. The shades of evening had already 
 fallen over the village below, and the darkness, mov- 
 ing slowly up the steep hill-side, completely covered 
 the whole lower range of the mountain chain. But 
 above the sky was clear and bright, and in a lucid
 
 THE GROSSGLOCKNER MOUNTAIN. 279 
 
 space of pure ether gleamed a solitary, many-tinted 
 mountain-peak. It was the snowy summit of the 
 Glockner, in all the splendor of an alpine after-glow. 
 
 "'That is the last summit on which the sunset 
 lingers ; the others are already wrapped in night,' 
 said a low voice in front of me. 
 
 "I knew the voice, and I knew the speaker a 
 woman who, seated on the hill-side, was gazing at 
 the glowing mountain before us. And I knew the 
 man at her side. I shuddered, seeing them togeth- 
 er; and unable to endure the torturing sight, I re- 
 turned to the inn, and shut myself up in my room 
 there. 
 
 " I was gazing, in a sort of trance, out of the win- 
 dow into the darkness beyond, when the maid, en- 
 tering with lights, offered me the visitors' book. I 
 could scarcely realize that she was, indeed, the wife 
 of another; out there in the book I found it written 
 in her own hand the same pointed M that stood at 
 the end of the pencil-mark on the circular. And al- 
 though, in the pang of the first unprepared moment, 
 1 had thought it impossible to bear what the sight 
 of her recalled, I now longed with a fervent eager- 
 ness to see her once again. 
 
 " Entering the bright little salle a manger, I found 
 them both there. The count recognized me at once, 
 and heartily shook me by the hand. His wife stood 
 perfectly still, and said not a word. She was very 
 pale ; her hands drooped listlessly at her side, her 
 head was slightly bent over her right shoulder, and 
 her large pining eyes were fixed upon me. As of 
 old, she stood still and waited ; only she looked paler
 
 280 A JOURNEY TO 
 
 than of old, and her eyes had lost something of their 
 old lustre. I approached her, and she gave me her 
 hand. It was icy cold. We met as strangers not 
 as those who had known and loved each other. 
 
 "The count and countess had planned for the 
 next morning an ascent of the Parterre, the glacier 
 of the "Grossglocken. He pressed me to join them 
 in it. 
 
 "'I am a little awkward at climbing,' said he, 
 with a cheery glance at his figure, which had grown 
 much more corpulent since I had last seen him. 
 
 " ' You must for once in a way,' he added, 'conde- 
 scend to sacrifice your scientific researches to a lady's 
 caprice or a friend's necessity, and lend a helping 
 hand to my wife. In expeditions of this sort it is 
 all I can do to take care of myself, and in fact I had 
 much rather remain on level ground. But what can 
 I do ? Ce quefemme veut, you know !' 
 
 "She had moved meanwhile to the window, and 
 stood there looking out, though there was nothing to 
 
 O / C7 O 
 
 be seen outside but the starless blackness of the night. 
 Then she began to pace the room up and down with 
 restless steps, like a person in a fever, whom the burn- 
 ing heat within goads wearily from place to place. 
 This was something quite new to me; but the count, 
 as if it were a habit of his wife's which had become 
 familiar to him, did not seem to notice it. He 
 laughed and chatted gayly till we said good-night. 
 
 "But that was no good-night for me. 
 
 "When I came down next morning, in the twi- 
 light of the early dawn, the two guides were already 
 at the door of the inn, laden with plaids and pro-
 
 THE GROSSGLOCKNER MOUNTAIN. 281 
 
 visions. After a little while she came out quickly, 
 and at once mounted her horse. The count followed 
 slowly on foot. He and I had agreed the night be- 
 fore that we would not go on horseback ; I, because 
 I was accustomed to walking, and he, because he 
 wanted to reduce his corpulence a little. 
 
 " The day was still dawning, and the little village 
 fast asleep as we passed through it silently. We 
 were surrounded by a thick, torpid fog. Above, 
 before, and behind us nothing was visible but the 
 gray mist, into which the countess and her horse 
 at one moment disappeared as if by magic, and the 
 next moment emerged from it like a ghost arising 
 out of the depths of the earth. My companion was 
 not in his usual cheery humor. It was evident that 
 early rising did not agree with him, and he seemed 
 still half asleep. Walking appeared to fatigue him 
 much; the fog added to his discomfort; his honest 
 face distinctly expressed his wish to be in bed; he 
 was gloomy and taciturn. 
 
 "Just where the ascent began, we came up with 
 the lady and her guide on the stony slope- of the 
 mountain path. I now walked beside her horse, 
 which cautiously picked its way over the loose shin- 
 gles. The fog was still heavy, but less motionless. 
 It seemed to be gradually breaking up. 
 
 " The countess watched the shifting motions of 
 the mist, and said to me, 'It looks as if a sculptor 
 stood hidden yonder in the background, shaping with 
 invisible hand grotesque weird figures from the flaky 
 substance of the fog. Wildly his fancy kneads it 
 into wondrous forms; then, dissatisfied with his
 
 282 A JOUKNEY TO 
 
 work, he flings them from him, and anon lie fash- 
 ions from their shattered fragments other images 
 still stranger than the last. Do you notice that 
 giant phantom high above us yonder towards the 
 left?' 
 
 " ' Yes,' said I, ' it has long flowing gray hair.' 
 
 " 'And a cap,' she continued 'a high cap drawn 
 low over its forehead. Look, now. The giant has 
 lifted his mighty arm, as if to hurl across the valley 
 the enormous ball he is holding in his hand.' 
 
 '"A}-, but whither?' 
 
 " ' Oh, to the little wight here to the right just be- 
 fore us.' 
 
 " ' What, that one who has three arms?' 
 
 "'Yes, three arms, so he has. And with one of 
 them he is preparing to throw another ball at the 
 giant. How craftily he stoops down ! Do you see 
 how fast he diminishes in size? There ! he has dis- 
 appeared altogether !' 
 
 "And she rode on fast, to see what had become of 
 the crafty gnome. 
 
 "The fog wove a transparent veil between us, 
 through which I saw her glimmering on before me. 
 It seemed to me that she was no longer alive, and 
 that it was not a living woman, but the ghost of my 
 dead love, I saw there, luring me into the mist in 
 which it moved. Her floating hair gleamed white, 
 and white the ghostly skirt of her long dress. Then 
 the gray mist wrapped her in its folds, and hid her 
 completely from my sight beneath its heavy pall. 
 
 " I rushed after her. A great longing seized me 
 to hear, if only once more, the sound of her dear
 
 THE GROSSGLOCKNER MOUNTAIN. 283 
 
 voice. She had reined in her horse, and was wait- 
 in*; for me. 
 
 o 
 
 "'He has hidden himself,' she said, 'in the round 
 tower which our mist-mason has built for him yon- 
 der.' 
 
 "'Ah, that mist- mason,' I answered, still out of 
 breath, ' must have once visited our native town, and 
 seen there the tower on its ancient rampart. His 
 work is exactly like our dear old tower.' 
 
 " She was silent, and steadily perused the fog land- 
 scape. Her face was like that of a beautiful dead 
 woman. All its lineaments were unchanged, but so 
 motionless and rigid that it seemed as if no smile 
 could ever thaw, or tear-drop melt, the hoar-frost fall- 
 en on its beauty in a single night. 
 
 " ' I feel chilly !' she said at length. 
 
 " I took a shawl and wrapped it round her shoul- 
 ders. 
 
 "< Where is Emil ?' she asked. 
 
 " I told her that the count was resting a little, and 
 had sent on his guide to say w r e were not to wait for 
 him ; he would follow presently at his own pace. 
 
 " She was silent again ; and in silence we both con- 
 tinued to watch the changing cloud-towers before 
 us. 
 
 "At last she said, in a low voice, as if speaking to 
 herself, ' The old tower in our garden ! That, too, 
 is gone.' 
 
 " ' Oh no !' said I, ' it stands there still. I saw it 
 last year.' 
 
 " ' But the new proprietor,' she answered, surprised, 
 'told my mother, when he bought the villa, that he
 
 284 A JOURNEY TO 
 
 meant to pull it down at once. What made him 
 change his mind ?' 
 
 <Idid.' 
 
 "'You!' 
 
 " ' Yes,' I said ; ' it was such an old friend of mine, 
 that tower. I should have missed something in the 
 world if it had gone. And as I could not otherwise 
 prevent its destruction, I well, I bought the villa 
 and the garden the whole property, in short, from 
 the person to whom your mother sold it.' 
 
 " 'I did not know that you -were so devoted to an- 
 tiquities,' she replied, in a low, tremulous voice, al- 
 most inaudible. 
 
 "I noticed only the trembling of her voice, and 
 not that she wished to change the subject. 
 
 '"It was not that,' I went on. ' The old tower is 
 a memorial monument of my youth nay, it is more ; 
 for beneath that gravestone my youth lies dead. 
 Gravestones only speak well and kindly of the dead. 
 I would not, for all the world, have missed what this 
 one says; and I went back to read what it records 
 for me alone, with the feelings of a man who turns 
 to contemplate the little earthen mounds which are 
 a graveyard's chronicles, or peers into that tomb 
 wherein he has buried all the past his own heart. 
 In the house opposite that tower where once, with 
 loving eyes, my parents smiled upon my childish oc- 
 cupations, strangers were now watching their own 
 children at play, and by the garden rail of the villa, 
 below the tower, a little girl whom I had never seen 
 before sat singing a lullaby to her doll. IIow long 
 will it be before these little ones also, in their turn,
 
 THE GROSSGLOCKNER MOUNTAIN. 285 
 
 go forth into the wide world, and the loving eyes 
 that watch them now are closed in death like those 
 that watched me then ? It is ever the same old story. 
 And the old tower knows it all, and tells it still. 
 How many hundreds of times, as it looked down upon 
 us, has it looked down on other children, who have 
 since grown up and passed away forever? How 
 many hundreds of times will the same thing happen 
 again? The human life below it changes with the 
 changing years, but not the tower above. The chil- 
 dren playing in its shadow come and go, but it re- 
 mains. As the rising follows the setting sun, one 
 generation follows another. Bringing hopes and 
 leaving memories, each comes and goes, as the others 
 came and went. And year by year spring renews 
 what winter withered, and the flowers blossom again 
 in the same way, only not with the same blossom. 
 But it is all the same to the old tower. As sunrise 
 after sunset, spring after winter, blossoms after snows 
 so, to it, are the children of to-day, who play about 
 it where those of yesterday shall play no more. And 
 I could not but remember that we, too, in our child- 
 hood had looked with hopeful eyes upon the same 
 old ruin.' 
 
 "I was no longer able to restrain the rushing flood 
 
 O O 
 
 of reminiscences which the thought of the old tower 
 had set flowing. She at flrst listened with marked 
 impatience to my words; and already she had made 
 three or four abortive efforts to urge on her horse, 
 and break away from the spell that was deepening 
 round us. But I heeded them not. The floodgates 
 were opened, and I could not close them, for all the
 
 280 A JOUKNEY TO 
 
 past rushed through them in an irrepressible cat- 
 aract. Little by little, as, wave upon wave of mem- 
 ory, the whirling stream rushed on, she, too, yield- 
 ed to the current that was carrying us both away 
 with it. 
 
 "When I reminded her of the titles of 'Dirty 
 boy' and 'Naughty boy,' which she had deigned to 
 bestow on me in the first days of our friendship, she 
 smiled. 
 
 " It was the first smile I had seen on her dear face 
 since we had met again, and at the sight of it I felt 
 as if I had still something to live for. 
 
 "All our great joys and little sorrows, every word 
 we had once spoken to each other, the whole sweet 
 idyl of our childhood, passed in that moment through 
 my soul, and from my lips. She listened in silence, 
 but no longer unwillingly, her eyes still fixed upon 
 the moving mists. And when I reminded her of 
 our quarrel about her boast that her mother made 
 poems, and my father only houses, a clear, silvery 
 laugh rang lisrht and sweet through the curtaining 
 
 c/ o d> zj o 
 
 vapors round us. 
 
 "She remembered it all, word for word, as well as 
 I did. And I drank with thirsting soul, drank deep 
 to intoxication, the long-missed music of her voice, 
 as, laughing, she rejoined, 
 
 "'Yes, and that was the cause of the dreadful 
 judgment by which I, in my turn, was put to confu- 
 sion. "Our red house -roof, your horrible pug-dog, 
 and your own pug-nose, are all grass-green /" 
 
 " ' Ah,' said I, ' but what was the cause of the two 
 children's subsequent reconciliation ? What was it
 
 THE GROSSGLOCKNER MOUNTAIN. 287 
 
 that forced us by-and-by to make up our quarrel? 
 Was it the song of the birds and the scent of the 
 flowers, so hoveringly interwoven, song and scent, 
 with that soft tissue of sunbeams the balmy air of 
 the glad green garden, where all around us the buds 
 and leaves were interchanging with each other a 
 thousand gentle greetings? or was it those tender 
 threads which the gossamer spiders had so finely spun 
 from house to house, that silently exhorted our young 
 hearts to follow their example? or was it something 
 else ? One thing only is certain ; that reconciliation 
 was inevitable and irresistible. We could not long 
 remain estranged from each other. And then, how 
 fondly were the girl's arms thrown about the boy's 
 neck, and how fervently the boy embraced his little 
 friend ! I believe the two children wept bitterly to 
 think that anything should ever have come between 
 them, so dearly did they love each other!' 
 
 "'I should like to rest a little/ said. the Griifin, 
 softly. She smiled no longer, and I saw that her 
 face had grown fearfully pale, and that she was 
 trembling all over. 
 
 "I sprang forward; and as I lifted her from her 
 horse, my feelings completely overcame, me. 
 
 " ' Marie !' I cried, clasping her to my heart ' Ma- 
 rie ! Marie !' 
 
 " She struggled like a frightened child, sprang out 
 of my arms, and was already hanging over the preci- 
 pice. Had I not instantly seized her arm and 
 dragged her back, she would have dashed herself to 
 death. 
 
 "She shrank from me, and stood under the rock
 
 288 A JOURNEY TO 
 
 that beetled over the narrow path, staring at me, 
 deadly pale, with flashing eyes. But the flash of 
 those eyes was cold as the light that glitters on an 
 icicle, and she looked at me vacantly, as if she had 
 never seen me before. Beneath that look my own 
 drooped abashed, and the arm with which I had held 
 her sank nerveless at my side. I reeled back, and 
 leaned against the mountain -shelf, like a drunken 
 man who has been staggered by a sudden sobering 
 blow. 
 
 " She walked slowly on, without speaking, follow- 
 ed by the guide, who had overtaken us, and was now 
 leading her horse behind her. 
 
 "I went after them, looking neither to the right 
 nor to the left, and seeing before me nothing but the 
 shifting movements of the mist, that, as they shut 
 and opened, alternately veiled from my sight, and 
 then again revealed, each time mere distant, her re- 
 ceding image. 
 
 "But she never once paused, or turned to look be- 
 hind her. And as a man who walks in sleep, 1 fol- 
 lowed her footsteps unconscious of my own. 
 
 "Dreaming still, I reached at last our mountain 
 goal; and still to me like the recollection of a dread- 
 ful dream is all that happened after that. 
 
 "Even as I speak of it now the dreary vision re- 
 appears. The great white glacier, with the double 
 peaks of the Glockner rising above it ; the little 
 woodman's hut, where we were to have stopped only 
 for refreshment ; the count, in his recovered good- 
 humor, laughing and jesting with the two guides and 
 the shepherd over their meal ; and then the htirri-
 
 THE GROSSGLOCKNER MOUNTAIN. 289 
 
 cane and driving rain that suddenly surprised us 
 there, and rendered our return impossible. 
 
 "I remember that all through the storm I sat out- 
 side the hut in the pouring rain, and that the night 
 which darkened round me there was not gloomier 
 than my own thoughts. 
 
 " On returning to the hut, I found the count 
 stretched full length upon a heap of hay, and fast 
 asleep. The shepherd was seated at the door of the 
 hut smoking, and he smiled to himself as I entered. 
 I thought he took me for an eccentric Englishman. 
 There was scarcely room enough for a third person, 
 but I threw myself down upon the hay beside the 
 count, and the shepherd presently followed my ex- 
 ample. Soon he, too, was fast asleep. 
 
 "I know not how long a time I had passed in a 
 horrible wakefulness between these two sound sleep- 
 ers, when I was startled \>y a piercing cry from the 
 little inner cabin, where a bed had been made up for 
 the countess. I awakened the count, who laughed 
 at my frightened face, but, yielding to my entreaties, 
 went to assure himself that nothing was the matter. 
 
 " He soon returned, and asked the shepherd to 
 fetch some water. It was with no laughing face 
 that he said to me, 
 
 " ' I fear my wife has taken cold. She is un- 
 well.' 
 
 " The shepherd, meanwhile, who had gone out 
 with a lighted torch to look for the water, now came 
 back, bringing it; and as soon as the count had left 
 us again, he turned to me and said, shaking his head, 
 
 " ' I was afraid of this.' 
 19
 
 290 A JOURNEY TO 
 
 "'What do you mean?' I cried, with increasing 
 alarm. 
 
 " ' Well,' said the man, ' this evening, while you 
 were out in the storm, the lady asked for you. The 
 other gentleman was asleep, and she seemed anxious; 
 so I told her I would go and look for you. When I 
 had got but a little distance from the hut, I saw where 
 you were ; but just as I turned to go back, I was sur- 
 prised to see the lady herself, lightly clad as she was, 
 standing out in the rain, and looking all about her. 
 I pointed out to her the stone on which you were sit- 
 ting; for, being so white, it was just visible through 
 the darkness. And then she returned to the hut. 
 But, instead of going at once to her room, she stood 
 at the door-way in her wet clothes till she saw you 
 coming.' 
 
 "Just as the shepherd said this, the count opened 
 the door and called me into the cabin. 
 
 "She was lying on a plaid which had been spread 
 for her over the hay, and I saw at once that she was 
 in a high fever. 
 
 "The count stood by her, perfectly helpless; and 
 this, perhaps, gave me more presence of mind. The 
 shepherd was a young giant; and though the night 
 was pitch-dark, and the storm unabated, he, at my 
 request, agreed to set out instantly to Ileilingbluth, 
 whence he was to despatch a mounted messenger to 
 Winklern, or elsewhere, for the nearest doctor. The 
 doctor was to wait for us at Ileilingbluth, and the 
 shepherd to rejoin us at the hut with all possible ex- 
 pedition, bringing with him two strong men. lie 
 declared himself qnite ready to undertake this dan-
 
 THE GROSSGLOCKNER MOUNTAIN. 291 
 
 gerous enterprise even before I had said a word 
 about his reward. 
 
 " 'I am so sorry for the poor little lady!' said he; 
 and forth he strode, strong of step and stout of heart, 
 into the vast black night. 
 
 "I then waked up the two guides, who had found 
 a bedroom for themselves in a big hay-stack not far 
 from the hut. With their assistance I managed to 
 construct, out of such bits of timber as we could 
 iind, a sort of sedan-chair, tolerably comfortable; 
 and in this, as soon as the dawn broke, we carried 
 our patient down the mountain towards Heiling- 
 bluth. 
 
 " The count rode silently on just in front, and I as 
 silently walked just behind the bearers. The clouds 
 hung low, but the rain had stopped. The whole 
 landscape was shrouded in a gloomy gray color. The 
 Moll, rushing from its unseen sources in the glacier, 
 rolled beside us all the way with a dismal, dirge-like 
 sound, and I seemed to myself to be walking in a 
 funeral procession. 
 
 "Near the Briccius Chapel we found the shepherd, 
 and the two men he had brought with him now re- 
 lieved the other bearers. And so, at last, we got her 
 down to Ileilingbluth. 
 
 "After some hours of the most intense anxiety, 
 the doctor arrived. He was a kindly -looking old 
 man, with snow-white hair, and a mild, smiling face, 
 which had assumed an expression of ominous grav- 
 ity when he rejoined us after his visit to the sick- 
 room. 
 
 "'An inflammation of the lungs!' he said, in re-
 
 292 A JOURNEY TO 
 
 ply to my breathless inquiry; and I could see by 
 his face that he had formed the worst opinion of 
 the case. 
 
 "Famous physicians were summoned from a dis- 
 tance. They came, and consulted together; and hav- 
 ing declared that they could do no more than the 
 old doctor had already done, they went away. 
 
 "Then followed long, weary days of endless dis- 
 tress, when daily I looked in vain for a favorable 
 change in the countenance of the old doctor. He 
 was a very old man ; he must have stood by the sick- 
 beds of two generations; and yet he always seemed 
 greatly affected and troubled when he entered my 
 room after leaving hers. He said little, but on 
 those occasions I noticed that he eyed me search ing- 
 ly and thoughtfully, as if I, also, were one of his 
 patients. 
 
 "Once when I vehemently seized his arm, and 
 asked, in a tone of agony, 'Must she die?' he looked 
 earnestly into my eyes before answering. I believe 
 that the kind-hearted old man read my soul like an 
 open book. 
 
 "'Must?' he said, slowly. 'No! If she wished- 
 to live, she would not die.' 
 
 " The evening of the same day the doctor entered 
 my room, accompanied by the count, whose distress 
 throughout the whole of this wretched time had been 
 so great as to render him quite incapable of doing 
 or saying anything. The count sank helplessly into 
 a chair, while the old doctor walked without speak- 
 ing to the window, and looked silently at the mount- 
 ains outside. I had risen at their entrance, but I
 
 THE GROSSGLOCKNER MOUNTAIN. 293 
 
 could scarcely breathe, so great was my anxiety and 
 four to learn the worst. Suddenly I felt the grasp 
 of the count's hand upon my arm. 
 
 " ' It is the doctor's wish,' said he, ' that you should 
 see her. A crisis, he says, is close at hand. She lias 
 called for you several times. Go to her, dear friend, 
 I beseech you !" 
 
 "He pressed both my hands, and burst into tears. 
 I turned to the old doctor, and asked if he had any 
 instructions to give me. The old man was so affected 
 that he could not speak. But he looked at me ear- 
 nestly, just as he had done that morning, and his eyes 
 seemed to repeat what his lips had then said. 
 
 "So I went. 
 
 " She was lying quite calm and still. Her eyes 
 were closed, and her face was hueless. 
 
 "'Marie!' I whispered. 
 
 " She opened her eyes and looked at me. It was 
 the soft, tender look of her childhood, the same deep, 
 longing look as of old a look which said plainer 
 than words can say, ' Come, then, come to me quick- 
 ly. I have waited so long for thy coming!' 
 
 "I bent over her, and to her poor white face the 
 old smile of childlike welcome returned the old 
 smile, which seemed to say, 'Thou art here at last!' 
 She lifted her feeble hands, put her arms about my 
 neck, drew my head softly down to her breast, press- 
 ed her lips upon my own, and kissed me again and 
 again with unrestrained tenderness. Then she took 
 my head in both her hands, held it before her eyes, 
 and gazed at me a long while without speaking. 
 
 "At last she murmured faintly, ' Good-by, dear !'
 
 294 A JOURNEY TO 
 
 "The weak hands unlocked their clasp, the tired 
 eyelids closed, and the smile died slowly away. 
 
 "'Don't go!' I sobbed. 'Don't leave me, Marie!' 
 
 C* * 
 
 " But she lay quite still. 
 
 " Then, through that dreadful stillness, I seemed 
 to hear again the words which the old doctor had 
 said to me that morning, 
 
 " ' If she wished to live, she would not die.' 1 
 
 "And I spoke to her again broken words, that 
 came in sobs out of the depths of my heart as I bent 
 above her. 
 
 "'Marie,'! sobbed, 'have you, then, forgotten the 
 days of our childhood? forgotten that if you go, I 
 go, and that only while you stay, I stay ? Not for 
 your sake, Marie, but for mine for my sake only 
 still, as it was so often in those old days ! Ilad you 
 ever before the heart to deny me anything? For 
 my sake, dear, for my sake only, stay !' 
 
 "'Oh, you naughty boy!' she said. And the old 
 smile broke out again, and the tears were trickling 
 softly down her cheek." 
 
 Raclenburg was suddenly silent again. I looked 
 hard at him. 
 
 " The smoke went into my eyes," he said, in a 
 hoarse voice; and I saw that down his own cheek, 
 also, a tear was trickling softly. 
 
 After a while he resumed in a steadier tone. 
 
 " Our journey is done," he said. " We have made 
 the ascent of the Grossglockner Mountain, and the 
 ascent is over. Every day at this hour I renew that 
 journey. A foolish habit, is it not? Here in this
 
 THE GEOSSGLOCKNER MOUNTAIN. 395 
 
 casket I keep her portrait. Her husband gave it me 
 in remembrance of the sad days we passed together 
 at Ileilingbluth. The smoke rises from my chi- 
 bouque, and encircles her dear head with clouds, as 
 did the mountain mist that day when she and I as- 
 cended the Glockner together. It shapes itself into 
 giant images, and piles itself up in phantom tow- 
 ers, and takes the forms of distant mountain peaks. 
 And sometimes the ghastly vapor envelops her so 
 completely that I see her through it only as a wan- 
 dering shadow; and then again it disperses, and she 
 emerges from the mist, every feature of her gentle 
 face distinct and lovely and loving, as of old. 'Thou 
 art here at last !' it seems to say to me again. And 
 around us both the soft caressing vapor flings its 
 flaky mantle, separating us from the loud wide world 
 outside, and opening to us secret labyrinths through 
 cloud-land, where we wander once again together, 
 telling each other stories stories of the buried lives 
 which we ourselves once lived in the days forever 
 gone and interpreting, by a key that is ours alone, 
 the mystic image-writing of the mist. Every move- 
 ment of that cherished form I see again as when I 
 saw it first; every sound of that dear voice I hear 
 once more as first I heard it; and looking and lis- 
 tening thus entranced, I dream awake with eyes wide 
 open." 
 
 "And she died, then ?" I asked, hesitatingly, when 
 he ceased speaking. For he remained silent, as if 
 he had told me all there was to tell. 
 
 Kadenburg rose, took the key out of the casket, 
 and attached it again to his watch-chain. Then he
 
 296 A JOURNEY TO 
 
 went to the window and stood there, looking down 
 upon the terrace below. After a while, without 
 turning round, he spoke again, with his buck to me, 
 and his face to the window. 
 
 " Died ?" he said. "Perhaps. Who knows? It 
 is all the same to me. If she died, it was for my 
 sake. Her death came to her from watching for me 
 in the midnight storm, and she died because, for my 
 sake, she wished to die. And if she lived, it was for 
 my sake also though not for me. For she lived a 
 true and faithful wife. Between her life and death 
 there is for me no difference left both dear, both 
 dead ! And it is this that has given rest to my heart 
 and resignation to my soul. I may always think of 
 her, now that I can only think of her as of a shy 
 child seated motionless upon a marble throne beneath 
 a bower of passion-flowers. Whenever I see any lit- 
 tle girl sitting all alone by herself, I think of that lit- 
 tle girl all by herself in the lonesome past that noth- 
 ing can now disturb. Her childlike eyes gaze down 
 on me whenever I wander alone in the forest and 
 Took up into the blue heaven above me. Ay, and 
 even when I do but think of heaven, and of what 
 fathomless depths there are in the still, unchanging, 
 all-embracing watch with which, wherever I go, its 
 presence follows me about the world a presence so 
 constant and so fair, yet so far away, so unattainable ! 
 Ever the heaven is there above me, and never is its 
 heavenliness defaced by what is here around me. 
 It looks down to-day on the resignation of the man, 
 as it looked in the days that are no more upon the 
 hopefulness of the boy. And just so, forever there,
 
 TUB GKOSSGLOCKNER MOUNTAIN. 297 
 
 where first I saw it in my childhood, yet forever 
 with me still, and forever the same as of old, is the 
 changeless image of that lonely child in the bowery 
 garden under the ruined tower. 
 
 "Here, too, in the cloud-land that rises around me 
 on the fumes of this solitary pipe, when with her I 
 wander away among the gray, rolling vapors far- 
 ther and farther through the misty shadows that 
 deepen and darken towards the scene of that last 
 struggle on the painful sick-bed in the little mount- 
 ain inn it is still ever the same image that I see 
 and follow the child's image, not the woman's! It 
 was not the wife of another who, in that lifelong 
 farewell, so tenderly embraced me. It was the child 
 whose childhood was all my own, with her holy child- 
 eyes, and her pure child-lips, and her divine child- 
 heart. And when she lay upon my breast for one 
 dear moment, it was the fairy song of our childhood 
 whose enchantment trembled through our souls the 
 same pure song which our hearts had first sung to- 
 gether under the old tower. We heard it then for 
 the last time, as we had heard it for the first pure 
 and sweet, with the music of a sinless joy, only that 
 then the music was sad as well as sweet; and again 
 it died away, as how often had it died away before, 
 whenever for my sake her true heart condemned it- 
 self to suffer and endure. ' Oh, you naughty ~boy /' 
 she murmured, smiling through her tears when I 
 implored her to live for my sake. And any one 
 who has never heard those words from her dear lips 
 may well smile at such a dying out of childhood's 
 sonir."
 
 298 A JOUKNEY TO 
 
 Badenborg said no more ; nor did he move away 
 from the window, where he remained, with his hands 
 clasped behind him, silently looking down upon the 
 trees in the garden below. 
 
 O 
 
 111 silence, too, I pressed his hand, and without a 
 word I stole out of the room. 
 
 I returned to the garden, pondering how the life 
 of two persons would shape itself out if one of them 
 lived, only for the other's sake, a life otherwise un- 
 willingly prolonged. The one, I mused, wrestles 
 with death only to insure the life of the other, and 
 life's mightiest impulse, that of self-preservation, be- 
 comes only the instrument of a purpose mightier 
 still the preservation of another. Sanctified to it- 
 self must such a life become by all that has made 
 dependent on the issue of its hourly trial the salva- 
 tion of another life that is dearer to it than its own, 
 when in every moment of dejection and defeat the 
 warning voice cries to the aching heart, " If thou 
 diest, he must die!" and the weary one returns to 
 the struggle, triumphing over sickness and suffer- 
 ing, and death itself, in the thought that whispers, 
 "The longer this struggle lasts, the longer his re- 
 prieve !" 
 
 And then I mused again over my poor friend's 
 story, and I said to myself, " What is it in the human 
 heart that, when you search it to the depths, is al- 
 ways so unspeakably sad, and yet so unspeakably 
 beautiful ?" 
 
 As I strolled along, thus musing, my steps uncon- 
 sciously led me back to the deserted terrace, and I 
 saw that some one was still sitting there all alone.
 
 THE GROSSGLOCKNER MOUNTAIN. 299 
 
 It was Countess Achenberg. She had not noticed 
 my approach, and consequently she did not look up 
 when I took possession of a garden seat beside her. 
 She was sitting in the same place, and in the same 
 attitude, as when I had left her two hours ago. 
 
 A light breeze had sprung up. It softly stirred 
 the leaves upon the garden trees about us, and grace- 
 fully swayed the long, delicate tufts of Indian grass 
 under the veranda, as it crept into the trellised vine. 
 The aloes on the balustrade, however, remained mo- 
 tionless, and so did the solitary woman who was 
 sitting under them, while the breeze fluttered about 
 her. 
 
 Lightl}' the fluttering breeze played over that mo- 
 tionless figure, and blowing softly up the terrace, 
 breathed upon my face with a faint, sweet odor. 
 Whence had it brought this perfume ? Was it stolen 
 from some flowering shrub in the garden, or wafted 
 from the hair of the silent woman at my side ? or was 
 its home in the warmth of the little white hand that 
 lay so languid in her quiet lap ? or was it a sweet ef- 
 fusion from the whole figure of the "woman which, 
 overshadowed by the spreading canopy of rigid aloe- 
 shafts a spiky baldachin of sombre hue seemed to 
 have relapsed again into the solemn fixity of a sacred 
 image? 
 
 Whatever the source of it, this perfume seemed to 
 me like the breath of some delicate flower which, 
 when the rains are over and the winds are still, soft- 
 ly opens to heaven all its hushed and fragrant heart 
 in a stillness of unclouded light. 
 
 Penetrated in every pore by the beauty and fra-
 
 300 A JOURNEY TO 
 
 grance of it, I gazed upon the fragile human flower 
 before me. But sweet and lovely as it was, I felt 
 that of all who must be sensible of its charm, not 
 one would ever wish to pluck that beautiful blossom. 
 Such a wish would have been sacrilege. The beau- 
 ty on which I gazed was so unmistakably a beauty 
 dedicated to the grave! "Farewell," not "wel- 
 come," was the word its sweetness breathed. The 
 perfume I inhaled was not the freshness of a grow- 
 ing flower, but the fragrance of a fading one the 
 last sweet emanation of a beautiful soul that was 
 slowly and proudly withering away with the secret 
 of its suffering nnbetrayed a soul which only lin- 
 gered still in those .large eyes (life's last outposts), 
 like the gallant leader of a vanquished host, to cover 
 the retreat of its defeated forces. Why she thus 
 willed to live on, who could say? Her life seemed 
 so joyless, so fatigued ! But one felt, as one looked 
 at her, that if she chose, she had only to close those 
 eyes in which the light of life still lingered, and to 
 cease to live, without an effort. 
 
 I knew that she must have been sitting thus, mo- 
 tionless, for tw r o long mortal hours and more; and 
 the painful contemplation of this dreary trance so 
 affected and oppressed me that I felt an irresistible 
 impulse to endeavor at any price to arouse her from 
 it, even at the risk of appearing intrusive and im- 
 portunate. 
 
 A walking-stick lying on the table near her sig- 
 nificantly warned me that some other guest had 
 probably been making such an attempt, with a fail- 
 ure so ignominious that he had left part of his equip-
 
 THE GROSSGLOCKNER MOUNTAIN. 301 
 
 merit behind him in the confusion of his retreat. 
 But I remembered that she had shown some inter- 
 est in the general discussion which had taken place 
 under the trees while we were waiting for dinner, 
 
 o 
 
 and I fancied that by recurrence to the subject of 
 that discussion I might possibly extract a smile from 
 her. 
 
 " Countess," I said, drawing my chair a little near- 
 er to hers, "you asked me this afternoon if I, as 
 Radenburg's friend, was acquainted with his secret. 
 Well, it happens that I am ; and I will tell it you. 
 Every day at a certain hour he makes the ascent of 
 the Grossglockner Mountain." 
 
 My heart stopped beating under the look she gave 
 me as I said those words. Her large, childlike eyes 
 opened wide, and stared at me with an expression I 
 cannot describe. On their long, soft lashes two big 
 heavy tears were trembling. She had risen sudden- 
 ly from her seat. Her arms hung flat at her side, 
 and her beautiful head was slightly slanted towards 
 her right shoulder. Over her lips fluttered a strange 
 quivering movement that was neither a smile nor 
 a sigh, though in it was something kindred to each. 
 The expression of it was both sweet and painful 
 like that dying away of a soul's song, of which Rad- 
 enburg had said to me that he only could imagine 
 the effect of it who had heard it from her own lips. 
 And his words rushed back to my memory like a 
 revelation " Did she die ? Perhaps. Who knows f 
 But if she lived, it was for my sake though not for 
 me for she lived a true and faithful wife" 
 
 I held my breath, listening for the childish words
 
 802 A JOURNEY TO THE GROSSGLOCKNER MOUNTAIN. 
 
 of childhood's renewed farewell, " Oh, you nauyhty 
 boy !" But she said nothing. 
 
 The silence remained unbroken ;' and the cry of 
 her heart, whatever it was, had died out unheard in 
 that inaudible movement of her lips. 
 
 All I could see was that the two big tears had 
 slipped from the heavy lashes on which, but a mo- 
 ment before, I had seen them suspended, and were 
 slowly trickling down the pale cheeks of the little 
 countess. 
 
 ' *> 
 - 
 
 THE END.
 
 BEN-HUB: A TALE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 By LEW. WALLACE. New Edition, pp. 552. 16mo, 
 " Cloth, $1 50. 
 
 Anything so startling, new, and distinctive as the leading feature of this 
 romance does not often appear in works of fiction. . . . Some of Mr. Wal- 
 lace's writing is remarkable for its pathetic eloquence. The scenes de- 
 scribed in tlie New Testament are rewritten with the power and skill of 
 an accomplished master of style. JV. Y. Times. 
 
 Its real basis is a description of the life of the Jews and Romans at the 
 beginning of the Christian era, and this is botli forcible and brilliant. . . . 
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 chapters of history. Indianapolis Journal. 
 
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 wonted interest by many readers who are weary of the conventional novel 
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