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REMOTE STORAGE 
 
 HALF-HOURS 
 
 FOREIGN NOVELISTS 
 
 VOL. J. 
 
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON THE FIRST EDITION OF 
 
 HALF-HOURS WITH FOREIGN NOVELISTS. 
 
 ‘ The editors of the book before us are much to be congratulated on the 
 wav in which they have performed their work, so as to make it both enter- 
 taining and instructive. We have scenes in town and country, pathetic and 
 humorous, domestic and adventurous, tranquil and energetic, picturesque 
 and dramatic, mournful and laughable ; and this constant change gives 
 the book great piquancy and relish.’ —Spectator. 
 
 ‘A collection of exceedingly well- written notices of the lives of some of 
 the best modern novelists of most European countries, and also translations 
 of characteristic scenes or chapters from their books. There are scenes 
 of humour and of pathos, of adventure and of love-making ; and he must be 
 hard to please who cannot find something to entertain him, open the book 
 where he may.’ — St. James’s Gazette. 
 
 ‘An earnest and useful work of select translation. . . . The aim of this 
 well-designed and ably-executed work has been to afford an insight into 
 writings with which the greater number of English readers are unacquainted, 
 or, at all events, unfamiliar ; and also, by means of quotation, to depict the 
 life, character, and scenery of various countries.’ — Daily Telegraph. 
 
 ‘The translators of “Half-Hours with Foreign Novelists” have given 
 an opportunity to English readers of forming acquaintance with some 
 twenty or thirty different writers belonging to almost every countrj’^ of 
 civilised Europe.’ — Academy. 
 
 ‘ Twenty-six typical foreign novelists are selected, representing among 
 them almost every country on the Continent ; one or more characteristic 
 passages, usually chosen on account of their local colouring, are translated 
 from each, and each selection is prefaced by a vivid and accurate sketch of 
 the author’s life and writings.’ — I llustrated London News, 
 
 ‘ To enumerate all the authors from whose works the Misses Zimmern 
 give extracts, to po-int out all that is worth- reading in their book, would 
 far exceed our limits. We must refer our readers to the work itself, which 
 is full of interest and information.’ — Morning Post. 
 
 ‘The sketches of the stories, and the extracts from them, are admirabl}' 
 done, and they are not better done than the short notices of the novelists 
 themselves. These are, for the most part, written with great care and good 
 taste, and they add greatly to the value of the book. It would be difficult 
 to over-praise the work as a whole.’ — Scotsman. 
 
 ‘The “ Half-Hours” of the Misses Zimmern answer well to the promise 
 of their name ; and the extracts, which generally are happily chosen, give 
 a fair notion of the manner of the novelists, while they are long enough to 
 excite interest in the stories. The critical notices that preface the extracts 
 are, for the most part, sensible and to the point, while they give proof of 
 a 1 unusual and intelligent study of a varied range of foreign literature. In 
 many cases, where authors have produced their acknowledged masterpieces, 
 the selection is all that could be desired. Nor is there any one of the 
 subjects which does not make pleasant reading, while some of those which 
 treat of Dutch, Scandinavian, Hungarian, Italian, and Spanish novelists 
 will come to many people as new revelations.’ — 1'imks. 
 
HALF-HOURS 
 
 WITH 
 
 FOREIGN NOVELISTS 
 
 fVJ7Y/ SHOR'r NOTICES OF THEIR 
 LIVES AND WRITINGS 
 
 BY 
 
 HELEN AND ALICE ZIMMERN 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES —VOL, L 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 IToilbon 
 
 CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 
 
 1882 
 
 AU rights rtserved 
 


 
 •/■I 
 
 REMora & , ^,. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Some years ago a contributor to a distinguished 
 quarterly review, in introducing a foreign novelist 
 to English readers, wrote the following sentence : 
 It may be received as an axiom that the light 
 literature of any country — particularly' its novels 
 and romances — not only reveals the individual 
 talents and dispositions of the writers, but likevi^ise 
 affords, indirectly, an insight into the general cha- 
 racter of the inhabitants. Indeed it may be said 
 7. to reflect to some extent the varying phases of 
 national life.’ This idea suggested the plan of 
 this book, with the execution of ivhich we have 
 been intrusted. To anticipate any misunderstand- 
 ing which might arise as to its character, we 
 think it well clearly to define what is its aim. This 
 is twofold : to give English readers unacquainted 
 with foreign languages some insight into the writ- 
 ings of the best foreign novelists ; and also, by 
 VOL. I. 
 
 » I 
 
 A 
 
VI 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 means of extracts from these novelists, to depict 
 the life, character, and scenery of the various coun- 
 tries of which they write. To this end it was need- 
 ful to select such writers as are most popular and 
 most national. Since these qualities are not always 
 combined in one person, it has been necessary to 
 omit many writers of great popularity; such as, for 
 example, the German novelist G. Ebers, whose 
 novels deal solely with Egyptian, or early Chris- 
 tian history, and are thus placed beyond our pale.. 
 A further difficulty has arisen from the limited 
 space which could be accorded to each writer, and 
 the desire that as far as possible each section 
 should be interesting in itself, and contain some- 
 thing of a story. This has made it occasionally 
 necessary to choose such portions of an author’s 
 work as were most characteristic of his country,, 
 even though less characteristic of the writer him- 
 self, and hence not such as would have been 
 selected from a purely literary point of view. 
 
 The selection of authors, again, occasioned some 
 difficulty, especially with regard to Erance, which 
 indubitably possesses the best contemporary novel- 
 ists. Here choice was far from easy ; and being 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 Vll 
 
 unable to exceed a given number, we have been 
 compelled to omit many of secondary but distin- 
 guished talent, such as Droz, Souvestre, About, 
 Malot, and many others. Victor Hugo we have 
 omitted advisedly, regarding his works rather as 
 prose poems than novels proper. We think no 
 apology needed for discarding Zola and his school. 
 With regard to Germany, choice was not so diffi- 
 cult. Contemporary Germany boasts few novelists 
 of first-class merit, and her current fictitious litera- 
 ture has never yet found much favour in this coun- 
 try. We have passed by the works of those popular 
 writers, E. Werner and W. Hillern, inasmuch as 
 they are all translated into English as soon as they 
 appear ; and it has been our endeavour, as far as 
 possible, to introduce scenes from works not pre- 
 viously translated, although with the best authors 
 this has not always been possible. When forced, 
 from exigencies of space, to omit passages in 
 our selections, we have purposely refrained from 
 disturbing the reader’s enjoyment by indicating 
 these by asterisks. In conclusion, we have to 
 acknowledge our obligations to Mdlle. G. A. Neveu, 
 Mr. Richard Garnett of the British Museum, Miss 
 
Vlll 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Elise A. Haighton (to whose valuable aid we owe 
 the Dutch portion of this book), and various other 
 friends, for kind and efficient assistance. 
 
 H. AND A. Z. 
 
 London, Oct. 1880. 
 
CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 I' AGE 
 
 GEORGE SAND (France) i 
 
 The Marriage 7 
 
 The Cabbage . . . . . .17 
 
 HENRY MURGER (France) . . . .31 
 
 Francine’s Muff . . . . -37 
 
 The Passage of the Red Sea . . , 48 
 
 AUERBACH (Germany) . . . . *57 
 
 The Axe .64 
 
 BUSKEN-HUET (Holland) .... 77 
 
 Gitje ....... 82 
 
 Saturday at the Hague .... 92 
 
 Along the Churchyard .... 96 
 
 STIFTER (Austria) . . . . . • 103 
 
 The Balloon Ascent 109 
 
 The Heath 116 
 
 FARINA (Italy) 127 
 
 Separation 134 
 
X 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOE I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 DAUDET (France) . . . . . • i 53 
 
 Indret . . . . . . .160 
 
 The Vice . . . . . . -171 
 
 The Machines . ..... 178 
 
 SPIELHAGEN (Germany) 187 
 
 The Storm 195 
 
 VON SACHER-MASOCH (Galicia) . . .217 
 
 The Sledge-Ride ..... 232 
 
 FLYGARE-CARLEN (Sweden) .... 241 
 
 The Smugglers ..... 246 
 
 CHERBULIEZ (France) 259 
 
 L’Idee de Jean TI:terol .... 269 
 
 HACKL.^NDER (Germany) . . . .301 
 
 The Volunteer ..... 307 
 
 JOKAI (Hungary) . . . . . .327 
 
 The Plague ...... 335 
 
GEORGE SAND. 
 
 Born in Paris, July 5, 1804 ; died in Paris 
 June 8, 1876. 
 
GEORGE SAND. 
 
 The writer to whom Mrs. Browning addressed her 
 fine sonnet, 
 
 * Thou large-brained woman and large-hearted man, 
 Self-called George Sand !’ 
 
 was one of the most remarkable geniuses of our 
 own or any age. An original and genuine artist, 
 her best works will last as long as the French 
 language, though many of them will survive as 
 much for their manner as their matter, their style 
 as their contents. For George Sand is a master 
 of diction. Her countryman Michelet, himself no 
 mean stylist, calls her the great prose-writer of the 
 nineteenth century ; while Thackeray says of her : 
 ‘ Her style is noble and beautifully rich and pure. 
 She has an exuberant imagination, and with it a 
 very chaste style of expression. She never scarcely 
 indulges in declamation, and yet her sentences are 
 exquisitely melodious and full. She leaves you at 
 the end of one of her brief, rich, melancholy sen- 
 tences with plenty of food for future cogitation. 
 I cannot express to you the charm of them ; they 
 seem to me like the sound of country bells falling 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
2 
 
 GEORGE SAND. 
 
 sweetly and sadly upon the ear.’ Our younger 
 generation has a little neglected George Sand. 
 We have grown to think her too idealistic ; her 
 rose-coloured optimism clashes with our current 
 pessimism ; her stories of impossible intrigue and 
 adventure do not suit our more realistic taste ; her 
 characters, often vague in outline, do not satisfy 
 our more precise demands. Nevertheless, we can- 
 not take up a book of hers without becoming en- 
 tranced by its seductive grace ; and though we have 
 outgrown the taste for many of them, yet a large 
 number will always exercise an attraction over old 
 and young. Her versatility of mind is unexampled. 
 There are scarcely any subjects, any psychological 
 problems, she has not handled ; and however oppo- 
 site the opinions she upheld at various times of her 
 literary career, she threw the whole weight of her 
 genius into each theme as it gained the upper hand. 
 She was largely influenced by her surroundings and 
 friends, and her various intimacies mark distinct 
 stages in her productions. Thus Michel de Bourges, 
 the eminent lawyer, drew her into politics ; Lamen- 
 nais initiated her into his poetical and broad Ca- 
 tholicism ; Pierre Leroux converted her to Socialism, 
 and made her dream Utopias ; Chopin developed 
 her love of music. 
 
 And the life of this woman was as varied and 
 eventful as that of any of her tales. Of this life she 
 has left a voluminous autobiography. It breaks off, 
 
GEORGE SAND. 
 
 3 
 
 however, thirty years before her death, and is in 
 nowise exhaustive ; for while discursive upon points 
 of minor interest, it draws a discreet veil over most 
 of her impetuous aberrations. The daughter of an 
 aristocratic lieutenant and a Parisian bird-fancier, 
 already at the outset of her life Aurore Dupin saw 
 widely different phases of life : the stately hum- 
 drum existence at the Castle of Nohant, near Le 
 Chatre in Berri, where dwelt her paternal grand- 
 mother; the Bohemian surroundings of her Parisian 
 relatives ; the noisy bluster of her father s camp. 
 When this father died, she was sent to live at No- 
 hant, where she ran wild, dressed in boy’s clothes, 
 shot and rode, devoured all the books that came 
 in her way, and imbibed her love of country lore 
 and knowledge of country folk. For her tutor, 
 an ex-abbe, was, like her grandmother, a dis- 
 ciple of Rousseau, and believed in the education 
 of Nature. At thirteen she was sent to a con- 
 vent, and for two years never stepped outside its 
 walls. Here, for a time, her imagination was cap- 
 tivated by the Roman Catholic faith, and she de- 
 sired to devote herself to religion. This view did 
 not, however, suit her grandmother. In 1820 she 
 was brought back to Nohant and freedom ; a 
 freedom that proved of short duration ; for she lost 
 her grandmother, and her friends shortly after ar- 
 ranged a marriage for her with the Baron Dudevant. 
 The Baron was not, perhaps, a bad man ; but in 
 
4 
 
 GEORGE SAND. 
 
 any case he was a dull country squire, with no soul 
 above his farm, and little calculated to satisfy a 
 woman of this nature. Two children were born to 
 them ; and for nine years this ill-assorted couple 
 dragged on their existence side by side, till at last 
 the Baroness could bear it no longer, and, taking 
 with her her little daughter, sought liberty in Paris. 
 
 Accident made her turn to literature, after having 
 tried to support herself in vain by painting. Toge- 
 ther with Jules Sandeau, she wrote a novel. Rose et 
 Blanche, that attracted some notice, and a second 
 was proposed. Her partner, however, failed her ; 
 she wrote it alone ; but, out of respect for their bond,, 
 adopted in part the pseudonym under which her 
 first success was achieved, and which has become 
 of world-wide fame. This novel was Indiana, the 
 life -story of a woman of morbid sensibility, who 
 has suffered under the marriage-bond. It is a won- 
 derful work ; though not free from the faults of a 
 first attempt, it yet showed no crudeness of manner. 
 George Sand’s excellent style flowed from her pen 
 at once. 
 
 Parisian curiosity was excited as to the age, 
 name, and sex of this new light. The Reviie dcs 
 Denx Mondes opened to her its exclusive pages ; 
 she was regarded as an established author ; and 
 from that moment advanced from success to suc- 
 cess. Until her death she laboured indefatigably, 
 and the flow of her genius was constant and steady. 
 
GEORGE SAND. 
 
 5 
 
 To enumerate her works would be a tedious task. 
 We will therefore content ourselves with naming 
 a few that may be regarded as typical of her vari- 
 ous themes and manners. In Vale7itine, as in In- 
 diana, she treated of marriage. The scenes of La 
 Derniere Aldmi and Les Maitres Mosaistes are laid 
 in Venice, and give full scope for that exquisite de- 
 lineation of Venetian scenery that has made George 
 Sand stand foremost among all word-painters of 
 that city. Spiridion and Les Sept Cordes de la Lyre 
 are works of imagination interwoven with a high- 
 wrought philosophy. They represent the earlier 
 aspect of George Sand's religious views, the founda- 
 tion of which rests on a belief in progress, but which 
 is here reared with fantastic and mystical materials. 
 The same tendency towards a mystic phantasma- 
 goria recurs in Consnelo,'^\d<Av embodies her views on 
 art. Le Pcche de M. Antoine reflects her socialistic 
 phase. Manprat, LHoimne de Neige, and Fla^na- 
 rande, her last work, are novels of adventure, full 
 of spirit and well-sustained intrigue, written for 
 the pure pleasure of story-telling, with no ulterior 
 motives. Mademoiselle de la Quintinie depicts her 
 later, less transcendental, religious views, full of 
 true devotional feeling and high ideal aims. Fran- 
 qois le Champi, La Petite Fadette, La Ma^^e an Diable, 
 are all excellent specimens of the rustic tales in 
 which her talents shine at their brightest. 
 
 George Sand is at her best when she is purely 
 
6 
 
 GEORGE SAND. 
 
 objective and descriptive. Her metaphysical dis^ 
 quisitions are the least attractive portions of her 
 writings ; nor does her philosophy always bear criti- 
 cal analysis ; it is too apt to be swayed by her 
 caprices of the moment. Moral ideas are often 
 perverted ; though her intentions are always good 
 they are sometimes strangely misled by her passing 
 feelings, which make her sophistical. Occasionally 
 she sins against good taste. But all these faults are 
 absent from her incomparable country idyls, which 
 breathe sweetness and purity, and transport the 
 reader into a purer and fresher atmosphere. The 
 scenes are chiefly laid in Berri, and her love of 
 country life and knowledge of the primitive lan- 
 guage of the peasants have here full play. She was 
 even able to restore to the language some archaic 
 forms that still lingered in their mouths. 
 
 In 1838 Madame Sand was legally separated 
 from her husband, and restored to her fortune. The 
 Castle of Nohant was once more hers, and here she 
 spent most of her time, surrounded by her children 
 and grandchildren, and a faithful circle of friends. 
 She died in 1876, retaining to the last all her 
 vigour of mind and keen interest in life. 
 
 La Mare au Diable. 
 
 Where so much is excellent, it is invidious to 
 specialise ; but La Mare ait Diahle may, perhaps, 
 
LA MARE AU DIABLE, 
 
 7 
 
 be pronounced the most perfect of George Sand’s 
 tales for simplicity of theme and artistic presenta- 
 tion. The story merely relates the adventures of 
 one single night ; the personages are a farmer, his 
 child, and a peasant-girl, whom he eventually 
 marries. All the characters stand out sharp and 
 clear ; while the opening scene, which depicts Ger- 
 main ploughing, is a masterpiece of delineation 
 and language. Our extract is an account of Ger- 
 main’s second wedding, and tells of some of the 
 quaint marriage customs that survived in Berri. 
 
 The description of the ceremonies connected 
 with the marriage begins with the assembling of 
 the guests in the bride’s house, when they close 
 and barricade all the doors. The bridegroom and 
 his party then come and make a mock assault, and, 
 after many entreaties and much parley, are at 
 length admitted. The hemp-dresser, who is spokes- 
 man for the bride, has just agreed to open the door, 
 and admit the bridegroom’s party. 
 
 The Marriage. 
 
 The hempdresser then drew back the wooden 
 bolt which fastened the door inside, at that time 
 still the only lock known in most of the houses of 
 our hamlets. The bridegroom’s troop forced an 
 entrance into the dwelling of the bride ; but not 
 without a fight, for the youth who were quartered 
 
8 
 
 GEORGE SANDr 
 
 in the house, even the old hempdresser and the 
 old women, grouped themselves round the hearth 
 to guard it. The bearer of the spit, assisted by 
 his companions, must contrive to establish the 
 roast on the hearth. It was a regular battle, al- 
 though they abstained from blows, and there was 
 no anger in the fray. But they pushed and 
 squeezed one another so closely, and there was so 
 much ambition brought into play in the trial of 
 muscular strength, that the consequences might 
 have been more serious than they appeared amidst 
 the laughter and the songs. The poor old hemp- 
 dresser, who struggled like a lion, got pressed 
 against the wall, and squeezed by the crowd, so 
 that he almost lost his breath. More than one 
 champion was overthrown, and accidentally trod- 
 den on ; more than one hand that clung hold of 
 the spit was scratched. These games are danger- 
 ous ; and accidents have occurred in them lately 
 so serious as to make our peasants resolve to let 
 this ceremony of the bridal gifts fall into disuse. I 
 fancy we saw it for the last time at Frangoise 
 Meillart’s wedding, and then even there was only 
 a pretence of fighting. 
 
 The fight was hot enough still at Germain's 
 wedding. It was a point of honour on the one 
 side to invade, on the other to defend, Guillette’s 
 hearth. The enormous iron spit was twisted as in 
 a vice under the vigorous fists which were strug- 
 
THE MARRIAGE. 
 
 9 
 
 gling for it. A pistol-shot set on fire a little hemp 
 stored in bundles on a hurdle near the ceiling. 
 This incident made a diversion ; and while some 
 hastened to extinguish this germ of conflagration, 
 the gravedigger, who had climbed up to the hay- 
 loft unobserved, descended by the chimmey, and 
 seized the spit at the moment when the cowherd, 
 who was defending it, was lifting it above his head 
 to prevent its being snatched from him. Some 
 time before the assault began, the matrons had 
 taken the precaution of putting out the fire, for 
 fear that in the struggle some one might fall in 
 and be burnt. The facetious gravedigger, with the 
 connivance of the cowherd, took possession of the 
 trophy without any difficulty, and threw it across 
 the andirons. The deed was done : no one was 
 now allowed to touch it. He sprang into the 
 middle of the room, and lighted a wisp of straw 
 which was fastened round the spit, as a pretence 
 of cooking the roast ; for the goose was cut up 
 already, and strewed the floor with its scattered 
 limbs. 
 
 Then there was much laughter and boastful 
 talk. Every one displayed his bruises ; and as it 
 was often a friend’s hand that had given the blow, 
 no one thought of complaining or quarrelling. The 
 hempdresser, who had been squeezed half flat, was 
 rubbing his sides, saying that he did not mind at all 
 about it ; but that he protested against his friend 
 
lO 
 
 GEORGE SAND, 
 
 the gravedigger’s stratagem, and that, had he not 
 been half killed, the hearth should not have been 
 so easily conquered. The women swept the floor, 
 and order was established. The table was covered 
 with cans of fresh wine. When they had toasted 
 one another, and recovered their breath, the bride- 
 groom was conducted to the middle of the room, 
 and, armed with a little rod, was obliged to sub- 
 mit to a new trial. 
 
 During the combat, the bride had been hidden 
 with three of her companions, by her mother, her 
 godmother, and her aunts, who had seated the four 
 young girls on a bench in a distant corner of the 
 hall, and had covered them with a large white 
 sheet. The three companions had been chosen of 
 the same figure as Marie, and their cornettes (head- 
 dresses) were of the same height ; so that as the 
 sheet covered their heads and enveloped them 
 down to their feet, it was impossible to tell one 
 from another. 
 
 The bridegroom was only allowed to touch 
 them with the end of his stick, and that merely 
 to point out the one that he took to be his wife. 
 Time was given him to examine them, but only 
 with his eyes ; and the women, standing near him,, 
 kept vigorous watch to see that there was no cheat- 
 ing. If he guessed wrong, he might not dance all 
 the evening with his bride, but only with the one 
 he had chosen by mistake. 
 
THE MARRIAGE, 
 
 II 
 
 Germain, finding himself in the presence of 
 these phantoms, enveloped by the same shroud, 
 was much afraid of making a mistake ; and indeed 
 this had happened to others, for the precautions, 
 were always taken with the most conscientious 
 care. His heart was beating. Little Marie tried 
 to breathe hard, and to shake the sheet a little ; 
 but her malicious friends did the same, pushing at 
 the covering with their fingers ; and there were as 
 many mysterious signs as there were young girls 
 under the veil. The square headdresses held up 
 this veil so equally that it was impossible to dis- 
 cern the shape of a forehead through its folds. 
 
 Germain, after ten minutes’ hesitation, closed 
 his eyes, recommended his soul to God, and 
 stretched out the stick at random. It touched the 
 forehead of little Marie, who threw the sheet far 
 from her with a cry of ‘ Victory!’ He then received 
 permission to kiss her, and lifting her up in his 
 strong arms, he carried her to the middle of the 
 room, and they opened the ball, which lasted till 
 two o’clock in the morning. 
 
 Then the guests separated to meet again at 
 eight o’clock. As there were a good many young- 
 people from the neighbourhood, and there were 
 not beds enough for everybody, every girl from the 
 village who was invited received into her bed two 
 or three young companions, while the young men 
 went to stretch themselves out pell-mell on the. 
 
12 
 
 GEORGE SAND. 
 
 straw in the farmhouse granary. You may well 
 imagine that they did not sleep much, for they 
 only occupied themselves with teasing one another, 
 with exchanging jests, and with telling mad stories. 
 At weddings there should be three nuits blanches, 
 which are never regretted. 
 
 At the hour fixed for departure, after having 
 eaten bread-and-milk seasoned with a strong dose 
 of pepper, to give them an appetite — since the 
 nuptial repast promised to be copious — the whole 
 party assembled in the courtyard of the farm. As 
 our parish had been suppressed, they had to go a 
 distance of half a league to seek the nuptial bene- 
 diction. It was fine fresh weather ; but as the 
 roads were very bad, every man had provided him- 
 self with a horse, and each of the men took on to 
 the horse one of the women, either young or old. 
 Germain set out on the gray mare, which, well 
 groomed, freshly shod, and decorated with ribbons, 
 pranced and sent out fire from her nostrils. He 
 went to the cottage to seek his bride, accompanied 
 by his stepbrother Jacques, who, mounted on the 
 old gray mare, took good mother Guillette up with 
 him ; while Germain reentered the farmyard, lead- 
 ing his dear little wife with a triumphant air. 
 
 Then the joyous cavalcade started on its way, 
 escorted by the children on foot, who ran along 
 firing their pistols, and making the horses jump. 
 Mother Maurin was mounted on a little cart with 
 
THE MARRIAGE. 
 
 IS 
 
 Germain’s three children and the musicians. Thej^ 
 began their march to the sound of the instruments.. 
 Little Pierre looked so beautiful that the grand- 
 mother was quite proud of him ; but the impetuous 
 child did not remain long at her side. At a halt 
 they were obliged to make, on account of the bad^ 
 ness of the ground, he stole away, and went to beg 
 his father to seat him in front of him on the gray 
 mare. 
 
 ‘ No, no,’ answered Germain ; ‘ that might draw 
 bad jokes down on us, — no, it must not be.’ 
 
 ' I do not mind a bit what the people of St. 
 Chartier say,’ said little Marie. ‘ Do take him,, 
 Germain, I beg of you ; I shall be even prouder of 
 him than I am of my wedding-gown.’ 
 
 Germain yielded, and the handsome trio re- 
 joined the ranks, thanks to the gray mare’s triumph- 
 ant gallop. 
 
 And, in truth, the people of St. Chartier, although 
 much disposed to scoff, and somewhat sneering 
 about the neighbouring parishes united to theirs, 
 never thought of laughing at such a handsome 
 bridegroom, so pretty a bride, and a child that a 
 king’s wife might have envied. Little Pierre had a 
 complete costume of mullet-blue cloth, and a red 
 waistcoat so stylish and short that it hardly went 
 below his chin. The village tailor had made it so 
 tight in the armholes that he could not bring his 
 two little arms together. And how proud he was 1 
 
14 
 
 GEORGE SAND, 
 
 He had a round hat with a black-and-gold ribbon, 
 and a peacock’s feather rising audaciously out of a 
 tuft of guinea-fowl feathers. A bunch of flowers 
 bigger than his head covered his shoulder, and the 
 ribbons hung down to his feet. The hempdresser, 
 who was also the barber and hairdresser of the 
 place, had cut his hair in a round, covering his 
 head with a basin, and clipping all the hair that 
 projected — infallible means for guiding the scissors. 
 Thus accoutred, the poor child certainly presented 
 a less poetic appearance than with his long hair 
 floating in the wind and his sheepskin thrown 
 across his shoulders in the John the Baptist fashion. 
 But the child was not conscious of this ; and every 
 one admired him, saying that he was like a little 
 man. His beauty triumphed over everything ; and, 
 in truth, over what would not the incomparable 
 beauty of childhood triumph ? 
 
 His little sister Solange wore, for the first time 
 in her life, a regular cornette^ instead of the print 
 cap that little girls wear till they are two or three 
 years old. And what a coimette ! — taller and 
 broader than the whole body of the poor little 
 thing! And how beautiful she thought herself! 
 She dared not turn her head, and bore herself stiffly, 
 thinking she would be taken for the bride. 
 
 As for little Sylvain, he was still in a frock, and 
 fast asleep on his grandmother’s lap : he knew 
 nothing of any wedding. 
 
THE MARRIAGE. 
 
 15 
 
 Germain looked lovingly at his children ; and 
 when they reached the Mairie he said to his bride, 
 
 ‘ Well, Marie, I have come here a little happier 
 than on the day when I brought you home to our 
 house from the Chanteloube woods, thinking that 
 you would never love me. I took you in my arms 
 to set you down as I do now ; but I thought that 
 we should never again be together on the poor 
 good gray mare, with this child on our knees. Ah, 
 I love you so much ; I love our poor little ones so 
 much ; I am so happy that you love me, and that 
 my parents love you, and that I love your mother 
 and your friends so much — nay the whole world 
 to-day — that I ought to have three or four hearts 
 to suffice me. Indeed, one is too small to hold so 
 many friendships and so much happiness ; it is 
 almost too much to bear.’ 
 
 There was a crowd assembled at the door of 
 the Mairie and the church to see the pretty bride. 
 Why should we not describe her dress ? — it suited 
 her so well, the thin-muslin headdress embroidered 
 all over, and the lappets trimmed with lace. In 
 those days the. peasant- women would not allow a 
 single hair to be seen ; and though they hide under 
 their caps magnificent masses, rolled up with white- 
 thread ribbons to support the headdress, even to 
 this day it would be considered an indecent and 
 disgraceful action to show the head uncovered to a 
 man. However, they now permit a little band of 
 
i6 
 
 GEORGE SAND, 
 
 hair to pass along the forehead, which beautifies 
 them much. But I do regret the classic headdress 
 of my time ; that white lace immediately touching 
 the skin has a character of antique chastity which 
 seemed to me more solemn ; and when a face was 
 beautiful in this, it had a beauty whose charm and 
 simple majesty nothing can express. 
 
 Little Marie still wore this headdress ; and her 
 forehead was so white and pure that it defied the 
 white linen to darken it. Although she had not 
 closed her eyes the whole night, the morning air,, 
 and, above all, the inner happiness of love as pure 
 as the sky, and besides, a little secret ardour re-^ 
 strained by modesty, had called into her cheeks a. 
 radiance as soft as that which the first rays of the 
 April sun gives to the peach-blossom. 
 
 Her white kerchief modestly crossed over her 
 breast revealed only the delicate outlines of a neck 
 rounded like a turtle-dove's; her myrtle-green 
 wrapper of fine cloth marked her little form, which 
 seemed perfect, but which must still grow and de- 
 velop, for she was not yet seventeen. She wore a 
 violet-silk apron with a bib, which our village-girls 
 have done wrong in abandoning, and which lent 
 much elegance and modesty to the figure. Nowa- 
 days they display their kerchiefs with more vanity, 
 but there is no longer in their dress that fine flower 
 of antique modesty that made them resemble Hol- 
 bein's Virgins. They are more coquettish, more 
 
THE MARRIAGE. 
 
 17 
 
 gracious. Good tone was then a sort of severe 
 stiffness which rendered their rare smiles more pro- 
 found and more ideal. 
 
 At the offering Germain put, according to cus- 
 tom, the treizaine, i.e, thirteen pieces of silver, into 
 the hand of his bride. He slipped on to her finger 
 a silver ring, of a shape unchanged for centuries, 
 but which the golden wedding-ring has since dis- 
 placed. On leaving the church, Marie whispered 
 to him, 
 
 ‘ Is it really the ring I wished for, the one I 
 begged of you, Germain ?' 
 
 ‘ Yes,’ replied he, ‘ the one my Catharine had on 
 her finger till her^death. It is the same ring for 
 both my marriages.’ 
 
 ‘ I thank you, Germain,’ said the young wife, 
 gravely and with emotion. ' I will die with it; and 
 if I die before you, you will keep it for the marriage 
 of your little Solange.’ 
 
 The Cabbage. 
 
 The wedding-party then remounted their horses 
 and quickly returned to Bel-Air. The wedding- 
 banquet was magnificent, and lasted, with intervals 
 of singing and dancing, till midnight. The old men 
 did not leave the table for fourteen hours. The 
 gravedigger did the cooking, and did it very well. 
 He was famed for it, and he left the fire between 
 VOL. I. 
 
 L 
 
 c 
 
i8 
 
 GEORGE SAND, 
 
 every course to sing and dance. In spite of all this 
 poor Father Bontemps was epileptic. Who would 
 have thought it ? He was ruddy, strong, and as 
 merry as a young man. One day we found him 
 lying for dead in a ditch, where his illness had 
 thrown him at the beginning of the night. We- 
 carried him to our house in a wheelbarrow, and 
 spent the night tending him. Three days after he 
 went to a wedding, where he sang like a thrush, 
 sprang like a kid, dancing about in the ancient 
 fashion. On leaving a wedding, he went to dig a 
 grave and nail down a coffin-lid. He did his work 
 piously; and although his naturally cheerful disposi- 
 tion did not appear to be affected by it, yet his 
 work left on him a dark impression which hastened 
 the recurrence of his fit. His paralytic wife had 
 not left her chair for twenty years. His mother is 
 a hundred and forty, and lives still. But he, poor 
 man, so merry, so good, so amusing, he killed him- 
 self last year by a fall from his loft on to the pave- 
 ment. Doubtless, he was suffering from an attack 
 of his disease, and, as usual, had hidden himself 
 among the hay, so as not to frighten or distress his 
 family. Thus he ended tragically a life as strange 
 as himself, a medley of the lugubrious and the ab- 
 surd, the terrible and the amusing, in the midst of 
 which his heart had always remained good, and 
 his character amiable. 
 
 But we have come to the third day of the wed- 
 
THE CABBAGE. 
 
 19 
 
 ding, which is the most curious, and which has been 
 kept up in all its vigour to our own days. 
 
 Just as the ceremony of the livrces is the symbol 
 of the husband’s taking possession of his wife’s 
 heart and dwelling, that of the cabbage is the sym- 
 bol of fruitfulness. After breakfast on the day after 
 the wedding commences this fantastic representa- 
 tion springing from a Gallic origin, but which in 
 passing through primitive Christianity has gradually 
 become a sort of mystery or comic morality of the 
 Middle Ages. 
 
 Tw^o youths, the liveliest and readiest of the 
 party, disappear during breakfast, go and dress up, 
 and at last return accompanied by music, dogs, 
 children, and pistol-shots. They represent a couple 
 of beggars, man and wife, covered with the most 
 wretched rags. The husband is the dirtier of the 
 two, it is vice that has thus degraded him ; the 
 wife is only unhappy and abased by her husband’s 
 excesses. 
 
 They are called the gardener and gardener’s wife, 
 and state that they are intrusted with the cultiva- 
 tion of the sacred cabbage. But the husband bears 
 different titles, each of which has a particular mean- 
 ing. He may be called the Straw-man, because he 
 wears a headdress of straw or hemp, and because, 
 to hide his nakedness, which is ill concealed by 
 rags, he wraps his legs and great part of his body 
 round with straw. He also makes himself a big 
 
20 
 
 GEORGE SAND. 
 
 paunch or a humpback with straw or hay hidden 
 under his blouse. Or he is called the Rag-man, 
 because he is covered with rags. Finally he is 
 called the pagan, which is a still more significant 
 name, because he is supposed, by his cynicism and 
 debauchery, to typify the extreme opposite of all the 
 Christian virtues. 
 
 He appears with his face bedaubed with soot 
 and wine-dregs, sometimes covered by a grotesque 
 mask. A broken old earthenware cup or an old 
 wooden shoe suspended by a piece of string is used 
 to hold the alms of wine. No one refuses to give 
 him some, and he makes a pretence of drinking ; 
 then he pours the wine on the ground as a libation. 
 At every step he falls, he rolls in the mud, he pre- 
 tends to be a prey to the most disgraceful drunken- 
 ness. His poor wife runs after him, lifts him up, 
 calls for assistance, tears out the hempen hair which 
 peeps in dishevelled masses from under her dirty 
 cornette, bewails her husband’s debasement, and 
 reproaches him pathetically. 
 
 ‘ Unhappy man,’ she exclaims, ‘see to what your 
 disgraceful conduct has brought us ! I may spin 
 and work for you, and mend your clothes! You 
 are for ever tearing and soiling them. You have 
 eaten up my possessions, our six children are on 
 the straw, we live in a stable with the beasts. Here 
 are we reduced to beg alms ; and truly you are so 
 ugly, so disgusting, so contemptible, that soon they 
 
THE CABBAGE. 
 
 2 I 
 
 will throw bread to us as they do to the dogs. 
 Alas, my friends, have pity on us, have pity on me ! 
 I have not deserved my fate, and never has a 
 woman had a dirtier and more detestable husband. 
 Help me to lift him up, or the carriages will run over 
 him and crush him like an old bit of glass, and I 
 should be a widow, which would help to make me 
 die of grief, although every one says it would be the 
 best thing that could happen to me.’ 
 
 Such is the part played by the gardener’s wife, 
 and her continual lamentations throughout the 
 piece. For it is a veritable improvised comedy, 
 performed in the open air, on the roads, the fields, 
 in which every chance accident that turns up has a 
 share, in which everybody takes part, the wedding- 
 guests and outsiders, proprietors of houses and 
 passers-by, during three or four hours of the day, as 
 we shall see. The subject is always the same, but 
 there is no limit to the additions to it ; and here are 
 well displayed the mimic instinct, the abundance 
 of buffoonery, the loquacity, the repartee, and even 
 the natural eloquence of our peasants. 
 
 The part of the gardener’s wife is generally 
 intrusted to a thin beardless man with a fresh com- 
 plexion, who understands how to play his part with 
 an air of truth, and to make his burlesque despair 
 sufficiently natural to amuse and sadden in turn as 
 reality would do. These thin beardless men are 
 not uncommon in our part of the country ; and, 
 
22 
 
 GEORGE SAi\D, 
 
 strangely enough, they are often the most remark- 
 able for muscular strength. 
 
 When the wife’s misfortune has been made 
 known, the young members of the wedding-party 
 invite her to leave her drunken husband and come 
 and play with them. They take her arm and drag 
 her away. Gradually she throws off all constraint, 
 grows merry, and begins to run now with one, now 
 with another, indulging in shameless behaviour : 
 another moral lesson, namely that the husband’s bad 
 conduct provokes and incites his wife to imitate him. 
 
 The pagan then awakens from his drunkenness, 
 he looks about for his partner, arms himself with a 
 cord and stick, and runs after her. The others let 
 him run, hide themselves, pass the woman from 
 one to the other, they try to deceive the jealous 
 husband, and put him off the scent. His ‘friends’ 
 try to make him tipsy again. At last he finds his 
 faithless wife, and wants to beat her. What is 
 most natural and true to life in this parody of con- 
 jugal misery is that the jealous husband never 
 attacks those who have carried off his wife. He is 
 very polite and guarded towards them ; he wants 
 to quarrel with no one but the guilty person, be- 
 cause she is supposed to be unable to resist him. 
 
 But at the moment when he raises the stick 
 and produces the cord to bind the culprit, all the 
 men of the party interfere and throw themselves 
 between husband and wife. ‘ Do hot beat her ; 
 
THE CABBAGE. 
 
 23 
 
 never beat your wife f is the formula constantly 
 reiterated throughout these performances. The 
 husband is disarmed and forced to kiss his wife, 
 and very soon he pretends to love her more than 
 ever. They go off together arm in arm, singing 
 and dancing, until a new fit of drunkenness sends 
 him again rolling on the ground. Then there re- 
 commence the wife’s lamentations, her despair, her 
 pretended ill-behaviour, the husband’s jealousy, the 
 neighbours’ intervention, and the reconciliation. 
 All this is instructive in a naive, even coarse, 
 manner which betrays its medimval origin, but 
 which always makes an impression, if not on the 
 newly-married couple, too much in love and too 
 sensible on that day to need the lesson, at any rate 
 on the children and the youths. The pagan 
 frightens and disgusts the young girls so much by 
 pursuing themi and pretending to want to kiss 
 them, that they run away in a fright that is by no 
 means feigned. His besmeared face and his great 
 stick, although inoffensive, make the little children 
 scream. It is the most elementary form of social 
 comedy, but also the most striking. 
 
 When this farce has been fairly started, the com- 
 pany set out to seek for the cabbage. A handbarrow 
 is brought, on which they place the pagan, armed 
 with a spade, a cord, and a large basket. Four 
 strong men lift him on their shoulders. His wife 
 follows on foot, the elders follow in a body with 
 
24 
 
 GEORGE SAND, 
 
 grave and pensive mien ; then the wedding-party ^ 
 marches along two and two to the sound of the 
 music. The pistol-shots begin again, the dogs 
 howl more than ever at the sight of the dirty pagan 
 carried aloft in triumph. The children derisively 
 swing their sabots like censers. 
 
 But why this ovation to so repulsive a person- 
 age ? They are marching out to conquer the 
 sacred cabbage — emblem of matrimonial fruitful- 
 ness — and no one but this debased drunkard may 
 place his hand on the symbolic plant. Doubtless 
 this is some mystery, older than Christianity, which 
 recalls the saturnalia, or some ancient bacchanalia. 
 Perhaps this pagan, who at the same time repre- 
 sents the idea of the gardener, is no other than 
 Priapus in person, god of gardens and debauchery, 
 a divinity, who ought, however, originally to have 
 been secret and serious as the mystery he shadows 
 forth, but who has become insensibly degraded by 
 the license of manners and mistaken ideas. 
 
 However this' may be, the triumphal proces- 
 sion arrives at the bride’s house, and enters the 
 garden. There the finest cabbage is chosen, which 
 is by no means a speedy matter, for the elders hold 
 counsel and endless discussions, each person plead- 
 ing for the cabbage that seems to him most fitting. 
 The matter is put to the vote, and when the choice 
 is made the gardener puts his cord round the stalk, 
 and steps back as far as the extent of the garden 
 
THE CABBAGE. 
 
 25 
 
 will allow. The gardener s wife must see that in 
 its fall the sacred vegetable is not injured. The 
 wits of the wedding-party, the hempdresser, the 
 gravedigger, the carpenter, or the shoemaker (in 
 fact all those who do not till the ground, and who,, 
 spending their lives with others, are supposed to 
 possess, and really do possess, more wit and con- 
 versation than mere agricultural labourers) group 
 themselves round the cabbage. One opens up a 
 trench for the spade, so deep that one might sup- 
 pose they were going to hew down an oak. An- 
 other puts on his nose a pair of wooden or card- 
 board spectacles ; he performs the office of engineer 
 he approaches, retreats, displays his plan, stares at 
 the workers, acts the pedant, cries out that they 
 are spoiling everything, causes the work to be 
 stopped and recommenced according to his fancy, 
 and directs the labour in the most tedious and 
 absurd manner possible. Perhaps this is an addi- 
 tion to the ancient formula of the ceremony, a 
 mockery of theorists in general, whom the ordinary 
 peasant despises intensely; or hatred of the land- 
 surveyors who regulate the register and assess the 
 taxes, or of the commissioners of bridges and high- 
 ways, who turn common land into roads, and sup- 
 press ancient abuses dear to the peasants. At any 
 rate, this person in the comedy is called the geo- 
 meter, and he does his best to make himself ob- 
 noxious to those who hold the pickaxe and shovel. 
 
-26 
 
 GEORGE SAND. 
 
 At last, after a quarter of an hour of difficulties 
 and mummery, of which the purpose was to avoid 
 cutting the roots of the cabbage, and to transplant it 
 without injury, while shovelfuls of earth are thrown 
 at the noses of the bystanders (so much the worse 
 for those who do not spring aside fast enough ; be 
 they bishops or princes, they must receive their 
 baptism of earth), the pagan pulls the cord, and 
 the cabbage falls majestically to the sound of the 
 spectators’ hurrahs. Then the basket is brought, 
 and the pagan couple plant the cabbage in it with 
 all manner of care and precaution. They surround 
 it with fresh mould ; they prop it up with sticks 
 and supports as the flower-women in the town do 
 with their splendid camellias in pots ; they poise 
 rosy apples on the ends of the sticks, and place 
 branches of thyme, sage, and laurel all round ; 
 they bedizen the whole with ribbons and streamers ; 
 they establish the trophy on the pagan’s barrow, 
 and he must maintain its equilibrium and preserve 
 it from accident. At last they leave the garden in 
 due order at a marching pace. 
 
 But now when it has to pass through the gate, 
 just as afterwards when it has to enter the court- 
 yard of the bridegroom’s house, an imaginary ob- 
 stacle hinders its passage. The bearers of the load 
 stumble, exclaim, retreat, advance again, and, as 
 though overcome by an invisible force, pretend to 
 succumb to the weight. While this is going on, 
 
THE CABBAGE. 
 
 27 
 
 the bystanders cry out, urge on, and pacify the 
 human yoke : 
 
 ‘ Gently, gently, child ! There, there, courage ! 
 Take care, easy now, lower ; the gate is too low. 
 Press closer together ; it is too narrow. A little to 
 the left, now to the right ; come now, courage ! 
 There you are !’ 
 
 It is thus that in years of abundant harvest the 
 ox-wagon, over-laden with hay and corn, is some- 
 times too wide or too high to pass under the barn- 
 porch. It is thus one cries out to the strong 
 animals to hold them back or urge them on. It is 
 thus that, with skill and vigorous efforts, the moun- 
 tain of wealth is made to pass through the rustic 
 triumphal arch without any loss. It is especially 
 the last cartful, called the ge^'bande, which demands 
 these precautions, for this is also a rural festival ; 
 and the last sheaf lifted from the last furrow is 
 placed at the top of the wagon, adorned with rib- 
 bons and flowers like the horns of the oxen and 
 the cowherd’s button-hole. Thus the triumphal 
 difficult entrance of the cabbage into the house is 
 an emblem of the prosperity and fruitfulness it re- 
 presents. 
 
 Having entered the courtyard of the bride- 
 groom’s house, the cabbage is carried up to the 
 highest point of the house or barn. If there is a 
 chimney, gable, or pigeon-house higher than the 
 other summits, this burden must, at whatever risk. 
 
28 
 
 GEORGE SAND. 
 
 be carried to the highest point of the dwelling.. 
 The pagan accompanies it to the top, waters it 
 with a great can of wine, while a salvo of pistol- 
 shots, and the joyous contortions of the pagan 
 woman, celebrate its inauguration. 
 
 The same ceremony immediately recommences. 
 Another cabba^ge is disinterred from the bride- 
 groom’s garden, and carried with the same forms 
 to the roof that his wife is leaving to follow him. 
 These trophies remain there until the wind and 
 the rain destroy the baskets and carry off the cab- 
 bages. But they live there long enough to give 
 some manner of truth to the prediction that the 
 elders and the matrons make in saluting it thus : 
 
 ‘ Beautiful cabbage,’ say they, ‘ live and flourish, 
 so that our young bride may have a beautiful little 
 child before the end of the year ; for if you died 
 too soon it would be a sign of sterility, and you 
 would remain up there as a bad omen to the 
 house.’ 
 
 The day is already far advanced when all these 
 things are accomplished. There only remains to 
 escort home the godfathers and the godmothers of 
 the newly-married couple. When these putative 
 parents live at a distance, they are accompanied by 
 music, and the whole wedding-party escorts them 
 to the bounds of the parish. There they still dance 
 on the road, and embrace them at parting. The 
 pagan and his wife are then washed and cleanly 
 
THE CABBAGE. 
 
 29 
 
 clothed, when the fatigue of their characters has 
 not first made them take a nap. 
 
 They were still dancing, singing, and feasting at 
 the Bel-Air farm at midnight on the third day of 
 the wedding at Germain’s marriage. The elders, 
 still at table, could not go away for a good reason : 
 they did not recover their legs and their senses 
 till early next morning. Then, while they were 
 returning home, silently and stumbling, Germain, 
 proud and active, went out to yoke his oxen, leav- 
 ing his young companion sleeping till sunrise. The 
 lark, which sang as it mounted up to heaven, seemed 
 to him to be the voice of his heart returning thanks 
 to Providence. The hoar frost, which sparkled on 
 the bare bushes, seemed to him the whiteness of 
 the April flowers preceding the appearance of the 
 leaves-. Everything in nature was to him smiling 
 and serene. Little Pierre had laughed and jumped 
 so much the night before that he did not come to 
 help him to lead his oxen ; but Germain was content 
 to be alone. Pie knelt down in the furrow that he 
 was going to recut, and said his morning prayers 
 with such effusion that two tears poured down his 
 cheeks still moist with perspiration. 
 
 In the distance might be heard the songs of the 
 youths from the neighbouring parishes, who were 
 setting out to return home, and who repeated, in 
 somewhat hoarse tones, the joyous tunes of the 
 previous night. 
 
r" ■ ' 
 
 
 ■? 
 
 ' I ^ 
 
 ) 
 
 I 
 
 \ 
 
 '•v 
 
 i ‘if. 
 
 • 
 
HENRY MERGER. 
 
 Born in Paris, 1822 ; died in Paris, 1861 
 
HENRY MURGER. 
 
 Henry Merger’s name is inextricably bound up 
 with the artistic land of Bohemia, of which he con- 
 stituted himself the historian ; the gay, joyous, care- 
 less, laughter-loving, youthful region where illusions 
 are at high-water mark, ambitions lofty, and re- 
 sources low, where dwell the elected of genius as yet 
 unknown to fame. Though not unfamiliar to other 
 countries, Bohemia proper only exists, and is only 
 possible in Paris, where life is blithe and bright, 
 where the people by nature possess a lighthearted- 
 ness gracefully combined with a substratum of 
 sound common sense. Both Murger’s life and his 
 writings personify and reflect a certain aspect of 
 French, or, more correctly speaking, Parisian, exist- 
 ence. Born in the lodge of a concierge, Murger was 
 nursed on the knees of Malibran, who sang to him 
 and awakened his love of music and verse. He had 
 to work his way uphill along the thorny declivities 
 only too familiar to those who are not aided by 
 money or connection upon this arduous path. He 
 did what he could — all was grist that came to his 
 mill in the shape of work; and when the detached 
 sketches of Bohemian life, which he had published 
 VOL. I. D 
 
34 
 
 HENRY MURGER. 
 
 in a daily paper, met with success, and made him 
 an author in request, perhaps no one was more 
 astonished than Murger himself. For some little 
 time he continued in his self-made groove, then he 
 tried to attain the due gravity of the Revue des Deux 
 Mondes ; but this was not his proper sphere, and he 
 finally returned to reproduce the old familiar figures 
 of the Bohemian brotherhood. But though these 
 later sketches were good, a bitter sediment seemed 
 to have settled in Murger’s inkstand ; he could no 
 longer paint these lighthearted youths and maidens 
 with the gracious abandon of his early pen — an in- 
 effable something had vanished from his grasp. 
 Still these other books are by no means to be 
 underrated ; only the Vie de Bohenie remains Mur- 
 ger’s masterpiece, wherein he can be seen at his 
 best and worst. It is a book that must not be 
 measured with the narrow Philistine rule. There 
 is no doubt about it, its heroes are somewhat jovial 
 scapegraces, who, when they have money in hand, 
 squander it recklessly ; who do not know how to 
 regulate their desires by the demands of their purse- 
 strings ; who cannot balance the debit and credit 
 of their accounts. Their every-day existence is in 
 itself a work of genius, a daily problem which they 
 somehow succeed in solving by the most audacious 
 mathematical devices. They have raised borrow- 
 ing to an art, and would have extracted money 
 from Harpagon himself Their lodging is uncer- 
 
HENRY MURGER. 
 
 35 
 
 tain ; sometimes they have a garret to cover their 
 heads, though firing and furniture are often con- 
 :spicuous by their absence, and the winds of heaven 
 have full play through the broken panes of glass. 
 At other times they are not even so comfortably 
 housed, but live under the starry heavens. One of 
 their number gave his address during a whole 
 summer as the Avenue St. Cloud, the third tree to 
 the left on leaving the Bois de Boulogne, the fifth 
 branch. The future was always embroidering for 
 them a stately academical robe, though it took long 
 to manufacture. Still, in the end, Murger tells us 
 that his heroes became men of more or less repute ; 
 for according to him, the true Bohemians are only 
 those that have the right and real stuff in them. 
 He does not count as such uncomprehended geniuses 
 or idle dogs who adopt art as a cloak for sloth and 
 vice. So that for all their fun and frolic his heroes 
 work seriously. 
 
 Bohemia, as depicted by Murger, was a result 
 of the French Revolution of 1830, when the profes- 
 sion of art had been elevated into a worship, whose 
 offspring was the romantic movement. Then these 
 young madcaps existed in flesh and blood in the 
 Ouartier Latin on the other side of the Seine. The 
 Vie de Bohcnie has been called the students' Bre- 
 viary, in which they learnt to love and to forget, to 
 suffer and be healed ; from which they extracted 
 the secret of preserving buoyant hearts amid all pri- 
 
36 
 
 HENRY MURGER. 
 
 vations ; from which they learnt how to struggle 
 and remain hopeful and courageous. It is a book 
 both gay and sad. It shows the miseries of the 
 human lot when it has to tussle with poverty ; but 
 the picture is drawn by a hand that poetised all 
 it touched. It is a poem of merry misery told in 
 prose. Its sombrer aspects are softened by a gentle 
 heart and a charming style, so that an air of un- 
 reality pervades the whole ; we read, laugh, enjoy, 
 weep, but we take nothing too much mi grand 
 scrieux. The quintessence of youth is preserved in 
 Murger’s writings, and we judge its follies with a 
 tender smile. As he said of himself : 
 
 ‘ Comme un enfant de Boheme 
 Marchant toujours au hasard, 
 
 Ami, je marche de meme 
 Sur le grand chemin de Tart. 
 
 Et pour biton de voyage 
 Comme le Bohemien, 
 
 J’ai Tespoir et le courage : 
 
 Sans cela je n’aurais rien.’ 
 
 In the Vie de Boheme Murger painted the life he 
 was daily leading : it was written from day to day, 
 and therefore tears, laughter, want, discouragement, 
 success, alternate as they do in daily life. Rodolphe, 
 the man of letters in this Bohemian brotherhood, 
 was Murger himself, under a slight disguise. Each 
 chapter stands alone, and is complete in itself As 
 a whole, it would not bear translation into English ; 
 
LA VIE DE BOHEME. 
 
 37 
 
 it is too un-English in thought and feeling, too 
 foreign to English ideas to adapt itself to our 
 tongue. It is full of slang too, the slang of the 
 Parisian studio and editorial office. Yet a few 
 specimens can be culled from it that will give in 
 turn a notion of Murger’s pathos and tenderness, 
 his drollery and ingenuity. Space unfortunately 
 only admits of two such extracts ; for the rest the 
 reader must go to the book itself, and we specially 
 commend him to the story of how Marcel managed 
 to get a dress-coat on the occasion of his having 
 an invitation to go to a real salon and an aristo- 
 cratic party. 
 
 Francine's Muff. 
 
 Among the true Bohemians of the true Bohe- 
 mia, I once knew one named Jacques D ; he 
 
 was a sculptor, and gave promise of showing talent 
 some day. But misery did not give him time to 
 fulfil these promises ; he died of exhaustion in the 
 month of March 1844, in the Hospital St. Louis, 
 Ward St. Victoire, bed No. 14. 
 
 I knew Jacques in the hospital, where I was 
 myself detained by a prolonged illness. Made- 
 moiselle Francine had been Jacques’ sole and only 
 sweetheart ; he did not, however, die old, for he 
 was scarcely twenty-three years of age. This love- 
 .story was told to me by Jacques himself, when he 
 
3S 
 
 HENRY MURGER, 
 
 was No. 14 and I No. 16 of the Ward St. Victoire 
 — an ugly spot in which to die. 
 
 Jacques and Francine had met in a house in 
 the Rue de la Tour d’ Auvergne, where they had 
 both taken lodgings in the same April quarter. 
 The artist and the young girl were a whole week 
 before they entered into those neighbourly rela- 
 tions into which dwellers on the same floor are 
 almost always forced ; yet, without having ever ex- 
 changed a word, they already knew one another. 
 Francine knew that her neighbour was a poor devil 
 of an artist, and Jacques had heard that his neigh- 
 bour was a little dressmaker, who had left her 
 family to escape the unkind treatment of her step- 
 mother. She performed miracles of economy to 
 make both ends meet, as it is called ; and as she 
 had never known any pleasures, she did not covet 
 them. This is how it came about that they broke 
 through the restraint of the partition-wall. One 
 evening in the month of April Jacques returned 
 home worn out with fatigue, having fasted since 
 the morning, and intensely sad with that vague 
 sadness which has no exact cause, which comes 
 over us anywhere, at any time — a sort of apoplexy 
 of the heart, to which those unfortunate beings who 
 live alone are particularly subject. Jacques, feeling 
 stifled in his narrow cell, opened the window to 
 breathe a little. The evening was fine, and the 
 setting sun was displaying its melancholy enchant- 
 
FRANCINE'S MUFF, 
 
 39 
 
 ments on the hills of Montmartre. Jacques re- 
 mained pensively at his casement, listening to the 
 winged choir of springtime harmonies singing in 
 the quiet of eve, and that increased his sadness. 
 Seeing a croaking raven fly before him, he thought 
 of the time when ravens brought bread to Elijah ; 
 and he said to himself that ravens are not so chari- 
 table now. Then, able to endure this no longer, 
 he closed the window, drew the curtain, and, 
 since he had no money to buy oil for his lamp, 
 he lighted a candle of resin that he had brought 
 back with him from an excursion to the Grande 
 Chartreuse. Growing sadder and sadder, he filled 
 his pipe. 
 
 ' Fortunately I have still tobacco enough to 
 hide the pistol,’ he muttered, and began to smoke. 
 
 My friend Jacques must have been very sad 
 that evening to think of hiding the pistol. It was 
 his last resource in extreme cases, and it was gene- 
 rally successful. This is how it was done : Jacques 
 smoked tobacco on which he had poured a few 
 drops of laudanum, and he smoked until the cloud 
 of smoke from his pipe had become so thick as to 
 hide from him all the objects in the little room, 
 and especially a pistol that hung on the wall. It 
 needed some ten pipes to do this. When the pistol 
 had become quite invisible, it almost always hap- 
 pened that the smoke and the laudanum combined 
 sent Jacques to sleep ; and it happened just as often 
 
40 
 
 HENRY MURGER. 
 
 that his sadness left him on the threshold of his 
 dreams. 
 
 But this evening he had used up his tobacco, 
 the pistol was completely hidden, and still Jacques 
 was grievously sad. This evening Mademoiselle 
 Francine, on the contrary, was particularly cheerful 
 on returning home ; and there was no cause for her 
 cheerfulness any more than for Jacques’ sadness. 
 Hers was the sort of gaiety that drops from hea- 
 ven, and that God puts into good hearts. Thus 
 Mademoiselle Francine was in a joyous humour, 
 and she sang as she mounted the staircase. But 
 just as she was about to open her door, a gust of 
 wind from the open landing-window suddenly ex- 
 tinguished her light. 
 
 ' Dear me, how tiresome !’ exclaimed the young 
 girl. ‘Now I shall have to go down and up six 
 flights of stairs again.’ 
 
 Then, perceiving a light beneath Jacques’ door, 
 an impulse of laziness, combined with a feeling of 
 curiosity, suggested to her to go and beg a light of 
 the artist. ‘ It is a service that neighbours render 
 one another daily,’ thought she, ‘ and cannot be mis- 
 construed.’ She therefore gave two little taps at 
 Jacques’ door, which he opened, a little surprised 
 at this late visit. But hardly had she made a step 
 into the room, when the smoke with which it was 
 filled suffocated her ; and, without being able to 
 speak a word, she fell fainting into a chair, and let 
 
FRANCINKS MUFF. 
 
 41 
 
 her candle and key fall to the ground. It was mid- 
 night, and every one in the house was fast asleep. 
 Jacques did not think it advisable to call for help, 
 for he feared to bring his neighbour into an uncom- 
 fortable situation. He therefore merely opened the 
 window to let in a little fresh air ; and when he had 
 thrown a few drops of water into the young girl’s 
 face, he saw her open her eyes and gradually come 
 to herself 
 
 When, at the end of five minutes, she had en- 
 tirely recovered consciousness, Francine explained 
 her motive for having come to the artist, and 
 apologised much for what had happened. 
 
 ‘ Now I am well again,’ added she, ‘ I can return 
 to my own room.’ 
 
 And he had already opened the door before she 
 perceived that she had forgotten to light her candle, 
 and had not the key of her room. 
 
 ‘ Silly that I am,’ said she, applying her candle 
 to the resin-taper. ' I came in here to fetch a light, 
 and I was going away without it’ 
 
 But at that very moment the draught in the 
 room, caused by the open door and window, sud- 
 denly put out the light, and the two young people 
 were in the dark. 
 
 ‘ One might think it was done on purpose,’ said 
 Francine. ‘ Forgive me, sir, for all the trouble I am 
 giving you ; and be so good as to strike a light, so 
 that I may find my key.’ 
 
42 
 
 HENRY MURGER, 
 
 'Certainly, mademoiselle,’ answered Jacques, as 
 he felt about for his matches. 
 
 He very soon found them ; but a strange idea 
 crossed his mind. He slipped the matches into his. 
 pocket, exclaiming, 
 
 'Alas, mademoiselle, here is a new difficulty. 
 I have not a single match by me ; I used the last 
 when I came in.’ 
 
 ' This is an audaciously well-planned artifice,’' 
 thought he to himself. 
 
 ' Dear, dear !’ exclaimed Francine. ' I could 
 easily get back to my room without a light ; the 
 room is not so large that I could lose my way in it. 
 But I must have my key. I beg of you, sir, help 
 me to look for it ; it must be on the floor.’ 
 
 'Let us look, mademoiselle,’ said Jacques. 
 
 And there were they both in the dark hunting 
 for the object of their search ; but, as though they 
 were both guided by the same instinct, it happened 
 that during this search their hands, which were feel- 
 ing about in the same place, met each other ten 
 times a minute. And as they were both equally 
 clumsy, they did not find the key. 
 
 ' The moon, which is now hidden by the clouds, 
 shines full on my room,’ said Jacques. 'Let us 
 wait a little : presently it may illuminate our 
 search.’ 
 
 And so, while they awaited the rising of the 
 moon, they began to chat. A chat in the midst of 
 
FRANCINBS MUFF. 
 
 45 - 
 
 darkness, in a narrow chamber, on a spring night 
 a chat, which, at first frivolous and insignificant,, 
 gradually touches on the chapter of confidences — 
 well, you know to what that leads. Sentences after 
 a while become confused, full of reticence ; the 
 voice low ; words alternate with sighs ; hands meet 
 and complete the thought which mounts from the 
 heart to the lips, and — Seek the conclusion in your 
 own memory, O young couples ! Recall it, young- 
 man ; recall it, young woman, who walk to-day 
 hand-in-hand, and who had never seen each other 
 two days ago. 
 
 At last the moon unveiled, and its clear light 
 poured into the room. Mademoiselle Francine 
 started from her musings with a little cry. 
 
 'What ails you?’ asked Jacques, putting his 
 arm round her waist. 
 
 ' Nothing,’ murmured Francine. ' I thought I 
 heard some one knock.’ And, without Jacques ob- 
 serving it, she kicked under a piece of furniture the 
 key she had just perceived. 
 
 She did not want to find it. 
 
 « ^}C- 
 
 I have promised you a muff ; and I will give it 
 you presently, as my friend Jacques did to his poor 
 friend Francine, who had become his mistress, as I 
 explained to you in the blank lines above. She 
 was fair, was Francine — fair and lively, which is not 
 usual. She met with Jacques, and she loved him,. 
 
44 
 
 HENRY MURGER, 
 
 Their union lasted six months. They had met in 
 the spring ; they parted in the autumn. Francine 
 was consumptive ; she knew it, and her friend knew 
 it too. A fortnight after he became intimate with 
 the young girl he had heard it from one of his 
 friends, who was a doctor. ‘ She will leave you 
 when the leaves are yellow,’ he had said. 
 
 Francine had heard this verdict, and perceived 
 the despair that it caused her friend. 
 
 ‘ What matter the yellow leaves ?’ she said to 
 him, throwing all her love into a smile. ‘ What mat- 
 ters the autumn ? We are in summer now, and the 
 leaves are green ; let us make use of it, my friend. 
 When you see me ready to leave this life, you will 
 take me in your- arms and kiss me, and you will 
 forbid me to go. I am obedient, you know, and I 
 shall stay.’ 
 
 And thus this charming creature encountered, 
 during five months, the troubles of Bohemian life, 
 with a song and a smile on her lips. As for Jacques, 
 he let himself be blinded. His friend often said 
 to him, ' Francine is getting worse ; she needs care.’ 
 Then Jacques ran about all over Paris, trying to 
 obtain the needful means for carrying out the 
 •doctor’s directions ; but Francine would not have 
 him speak of it, and threw the medicines out of 
 the window. In the night, when her cough seized 
 her, she would leave the room and go out on to 
 the landing, so that Jacques might not hear her. 
 
FRANCINKS MUFF. 
 
 45 
 
 One day, when they had both gone to the coun- 
 try, Jacques perceived a tree whose foliage was. 
 turning yellow. He looked sadly at Francine, who- 
 walked slowly and somewhat musingly. 
 
 Francine saw Jacques turn pale, and she guessed 
 the cause of his pallor. 
 
 ' Go along with you, you are foolish !’ said she,, 
 kissing him. ‘We are only in July ; there are three 
 months still to October ; and by loving each other 
 night and day, as we do, we shall double the time 
 we have to spend together. And besides, if I 
 should feel worse when the leaves turn yellow, we 
 will go and live together in a pine-wood : there the 
 leaves are always green.’ 
 
 ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 
 
 In the month of October Francine was obliged 
 to keep her bed. Jacques’ friend attended her. 
 The little chamber in which they lodged was situ- 
 ated at the very top of the house, and looked out 
 into a yard, whence uprose a tree which daily lost 
 more and more leaves. Jacques had put a curtain 
 before the window to hide this tree from the in- 
 valid ; but Francine insisted on his drawing back 
 the curtain. 
 
 ‘ O my friend,’ said she to Jacques, ‘ I will give 
 you a hundred times as many kisses as it has 
 leaves.’ And she would add, ‘ Besides, I am a great 
 deal better. I shall soon go out ; but as it will be 
 
.46 
 
 HENRY MURGER. 
 
 cold, and I do not want to have red hands, you 
 shall buy me a muff.’ 
 
 During her whole illness this muff was her only . 
 'dream. 
 
 On All-Saints-eve, seeing Jacques more dis- 
 tressed than usual, she wanted to cheer him; and to 
 show him that she was better, she got up. The 
 'doctor arrived at that moment, ‘and forced her to 
 go back to bed. 
 
 'Jacques,’ he whispered to the artist, 'be brave. 
 All is over ; Francine is dying.’ 
 
 Jacques burst into tears. 
 
 ' You may give her anything she asks for now,’ 
 added the doctor ; ' there is no more hope.’ 
 
 Francine heard with her eyes what the doctor 
 Fad said to her lover. 
 
 ' Do not listen to him !’ exclaimed she, stretch- 
 ing out her arms to Jacques ; ' do not listen to him, 
 he lies ! We will go out together to-morrow ; it 
 is All-Saints-day. It will be cold ; go and buy me 
 a muff, I beg of you, for I am afraid of getting 
 chilblains this winter.’ 
 
 Jacques was going out with his friend, but Fran- 
 cine detained the doctor. 
 
 ' Go and get my muff,’ said she to Jacques ; ' get 
 the best, so that it may last a long time.’ But when 
 she was alone with the doctor, she said, ' O sir, I 
 am going to die, and I know it ! But before you 
 go, find me something that will give me strength for 
 
FRANCINES MUPF, 
 
 47 
 
 one night. - 1 beg of you, make me beautiful for 
 one more night; and after that let me die, since the 
 Lord does not wish me to live any longer.’ 
 
 As the doctor was consoling her to the best 
 of his power, a north-easterly blast blew into the 
 room, and threw upon the sick-bed a yellow leaf, 
 torn from the tree in the little yard. Francine drew 
 back the curtain, and saw that the tree was now 
 quite bare. 
 
 ‘ It is the last,’ she said, as she placed the leaf 
 under her pillow. 
 
 ' You will not die till to-morrow,’ said the doctor; 
 ^ you have one night more.’ 
 
 ‘ O, what happiness !’ cried the young girl. ' A 
 winter’s night ! It shall be long.’ 
 
 Jacques came back : he brought a muff. 
 
 ' It is very pretty,’ said Francine ; ‘ I shall wear 
 it for going out.’ 
 
 Next day, All-Saints-day, while the Angelus 
 bell was ringing, her last agony seized her, and her 
 whole body began to tremble. 
 
 ‘ My hands are cold,’ she murmured ; ' give me 
 my muff’ And she plunged her poor hands into 
 the fur. 
 
 ‘ It is over,’ said the doctor ; ' go and kiss her.’ 
 
 Jacques pressed his lips on those of his love. 
 
 At the last moment they wanted to remove the 
 muff, but she clutched it in her hands. 
 
 ‘No, no,’ she said; ‘leave it me; it is winter, 
 
48 
 
 HENRY MURGER. 
 
 and so cold. Ah, my poor Jacques! ah, my poor 
 Jacques ! what will become of you ? O my God !’ 
 And the next day Jacques was alone. 
 
 ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 
 
 After some silent prayers the procession moved 
 towards the cemetery. When it had come to the 
 appointed grave the Bohemian brotherhood, with 
 bared heads, grouped themselves around it. Jacques, 
 stood at the brink; his friend, the doctor, supported 
 his arm. In the midst of his sobs the doctor heard 
 this cry of egotism escape from his lips, 
 
 ' O my youth 1 it is you that they bury.’ 
 
 The Passage of the Red Sea. 
 
 Marcel had been working for the last five or 
 six years at that famous picture, which he stated 
 was to represent the Passage of the Red Sea ; and 
 for the last five or six years this masterpiece of 
 colour had been obstinately rejected by the jury. 
 Indeed, what with going backwards and forwards 
 between the artist’s studio and the museum, the 
 museum and the artist’s studio, the picture knew its 
 way so well that, had it been put on castors, it could 
 easily have made its way alone to the Louvre. 
 Marcel, who had ten times altered and retouched 
 this canvas from top to bottom, attributed to per- 
 sonal enmity on the part of the members of the 
 jury the ostracism which annually turned it away 
 
THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA. 
 
 from the Salon Carre ; and in abandoned moments 
 he had composed, in honour of the Cerberus of the 
 Academy, a little dictionary of abusive terms, 
 adorned with ferociously bitter illustrations. 
 
 For a long time Marcel was not discouraged by 
 the cruel rebuffs which greeted him at every exhi- 
 bition. He rested comfortably in the opinion 
 that his picture was, in smaller dimensions, the 
 proper pendant to the ‘ Marriage at Cana,' that 
 gigantic masterpiece whose eminent beauty even 
 the dust of three centuries has not effaced. There- 
 fore every year, at the time of the Salon, he sent 
 his picture to be examined by the jury. Only to 
 lead the committee astray, and to make them fail 
 in the determination they seemed to have of reject- 
 ing the ‘ Passage of the Red Sea,' he, without alter- 
 ing anything in the general composition, would 
 modify some detail and change the title of the 
 picture. 
 
 Thus it once appeared before the jury under the 
 title of 'Passage of the Rubicon;' but Pharaoh, badly 
 disguised by Csesar’s cloak, was recognised and re- 
 jected with all the honour due to him. 
 
 Next year Marcel spread over the foreground of 
 his canvas a stratum of white to represent snow, 
 planted a fir-tree in a corner, and dressing up an 
 Egyptian as a grenadier of the Imperial Guard, 
 christened his picture ' Passage of the Beresina.' 
 The jury, who had that day scrubbed their specta- 
 
 VOL. I, E 
 
HENRY MURGER, 
 
 50 
 
 cles on the palm -leaf- embroidered cuffs of their 
 academicians’ robes, were not taken in by this 
 new artifice. They perfectly recognised the ob- 
 stinate canvas, especially by help of a great devil 
 of a particoloured horse, who was rearing at 
 sight of one of the Red-Sea waves. This horse’s 
 coat served for ail Marcel’s experiments in colour ; 
 and in familiar conversation he spoke of it as a 
 synoptical table .of low tones, because it reproduced, 
 with all their play of light and shade, all the most 
 varied combinations of colour. Yet once again,, 
 regardless of this fact, the jury could not find black 
 balls enough to refuse the ' Passage of the Beresina.’ 
 
 ‘ How can they refuse it without all the ver- 
 milion of my Red Sea mounting into their faces, 
 and covering them with shame?’ muttered Marcel, 
 as he contemplated his picture. ‘ When one remem- 
 bers that there is a hundred crowns’ worth of colour 
 in it, and a million of genius, to say nothing of all 
 my fair youth, which has become as bald as my felt 
 hat. A serious work like this, which opens out a 
 new horizon to military science ! But they have 
 not had the last of it : to my last breath, I will send 
 them my picture. I wish it to be graven in their 
 memory. 
 
 ‘ Ah, they are determined not to have me !’ said 
 Marcel. ‘Ah, the Governmicnt pays them, lodges 
 them, and gives them their cross only for the sole 
 object of refusing once a year, on the ist of March,. 
 
THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA. 
 
 51 
 
 my canvas a yard in height on a stretcher. I 
 see their idea plainly, I see it quite plainly — 
 they want me to destroy my brushes. Perhaps 
 they hope that by refusing my “ Red Sea'’ they 
 will make me throw myself into it out of despair. 
 But they quite misunderstand my human heart, if 
 they expect me to yield to so gross an artifice. I 
 will not even await the time of the opening of the 
 Salon. From this day forth, my work shall be the 
 Damocles picture suspended over their existence. 
 Henceforth I mean once a week to send it to each 
 of them, to their own homes, to the bosom of their 
 families, to the very heart of private life. It shall 
 disturb their domestic joys, it shall make them think 
 their wine sour, their meat burnt, and their wives 
 unkind. They will very soon become mad, and 
 they will have to wear strait-waistcoats when they 
 are to go to the Academy on committee-days. 
 This idea smiles on me.’ 
 
 A few days later, when Marcel had already 
 forgotten his terrible designs of vengeance against 
 his persecutors, he received a visit from Father 
 Medicis. This was the name given among the 
 brotherhood to a Jew called Solomon, who at that 
 time was well known by the whole of artistic and 
 literary Bohemia, since he was in constant relations 
 with them. Father Medicis traded in all sorts of 
 bric-a-brac. He sold complete sets of furniture at 
 prices varying from 12 francs to lOOO crowns. He 
 
52 
 
 HENRY MURGER. 
 
 bought everything, and knew how to sell it again 
 at a profit. His business was concerned with 
 everything, absolutely everything that exists. 
 Medicis even dealt in the ideal. Medicis pur- 
 chased ideas to make use of himself, or to sell 
 again. Known by all the literary men and artists, 
 intimate with the palette and familiar with the 
 writing-desk, he was the Asmodeus of the arts. 
 He would sell you cigars for a sketch of a feuilleton 
 article, slippers for a sonnet, fresh sea-fish for para- 
 doxes ; he would chat by the hour together with 
 writers whose business it was to send to the papers 
 the scandals of society ; he could procure you a 
 seat in the gallery of the Parliament, and invita- 
 tions to private parties ; he could get your plays 
 accepted at the theatre. 
 
 A few extracts from the chaos of his account- 
 books will give a better idea than the most detailed 
 statements of the universality of his business : 
 
 ‘ Sold to M. L., antiquary, the compasses used 
 by Archimedes during the siege of Syracuse, 
 75 fr. 
 
 ‘ Bought of M. V., journalist, the complete 
 
 works, uncut, of M. , Member of the Academy, 
 
 lofr. 
 
 ‘ Sold to the above, a review of the complete 
 works of M. , Member of the Academy, 30 fr- 
 
 ‘ Bought of M. B., one lot of social articles and 
 the last three spelling-mistakes made by the Prefect 
 
THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA. 
 
 55 
 
 of the Seine, 6 fr., plus two pairs of Neapolitan 
 slippers. 
 
 ‘ Sold to Mdlle. O., a set of fair hair, 120 fr. 
 
 ‘ Procured for Madame , modiste, the cus- 
 
 tom of Mdlle. R. (Received for this 3 yards of 
 velvet and 6 ells of lace). 
 
 ‘Sold to M. Ferdinand, two love-letters, I2fr. 
 
 ‘Bought of M. , 75 kilog. of his work en- 
 
 titled Submarine Revolutions^ 15 fr.’ 
 
 Coming among the Bohemians with that intelli- 
 gent air for which he was so much distinguished, the 
 Jew had guessed that he arrived at a propitious mo- 
 ment. In fact the four friends were at that instant 
 assembled in council, and, under the presidency of 
 a ferocious appetite, were discussing the serious 
 question of bread-and-meat. It was a Sunday, and 
 the end of the month. Fatal day and sinister date ! 
 
 The entrance of Medicis was therefore greeted 
 by a joyous chorus ; for it was well known that the 
 Jew was too sparing of his time to spend it on visits 
 of politeness, so that his presence always promised 
 some business to be settled. 
 
 ‘ Good-evening, gentlemen,’ said the Jew ; ‘ how 
 are you ?’ 
 
 ‘ Colline,’ said Rudolphe, who was lying on his 
 bed, and lazy with the pleasures of the horizontal 
 line, ‘ exercise the duties of hospitality ; offer our 
 guest a chair, a guest is sacred. I greet you in 
 Abraham,’ added the poet. 
 
54 
 
 HENRY MURGER, 
 
 Colline took hold of an armchair possessing 
 the elasticity of bronze, and moved it towards the 
 Jew, saying, in hospitable tones, 
 
 ‘ Suppose for a moment that you are Cinna, 
 and take this seat’ 
 
 Medicis slipped into the armchair, and was just 
 about to complain of its hardness, when he remem- 
 bered that he himself had once exchanged it with 
 Colline for a profession of faith, sold to a deputy 
 who had not the gift of improvisation. As he sat 
 down the Jew’s pockets resounded with a silvery 
 noise ; and this melodious symphony threw the 
 four Bohemians into a pleasant muse. 
 
 ‘ This is my business,’ began Medicis. ‘A rich 
 amateur, who is arranging a gallery destined to 
 make the tour of Europe, has commissioned me to 
 procure for him a series of remarkable works. I 
 come to offer to admit you to this museum. In a 
 word, I come to buy your “ Passage of the Red 
 Sea.” ’ 
 
 ' For ready money?’ asked Marcel. 
 
 ‘ For ready money,’ answered the Jew, playing 
 on the orchestra of his pockets. 
 
 ‘ Go on, Medicis,’ said Marcel, showing his pic- 
 ture. ‘ I will leave you the honour of yourself fix- 
 ing the price of this work, which is priceless.’ 
 
 The Jew placed on the table fifty crowns in 
 beautiful new money. 
 
 'Go on,’ said Marcel ; 'this is only the vanguard.’ 
 
THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA. 55 
 
 ‘ M. Marcel/ said Medicis, ‘ you well know that 
 my first word is always my last. I will add no- 
 thing — reflect, fifty crowns, that makes one hun- 
 dred and fifty francs. That is a sum, that’ 
 
 ‘An insignificant sum/ replied the artist. ‘In 
 the dress of my Pharaoh alone there is fifty crowns’ 
 worth of cobalt.’ 
 
 ‘This is my last word/ replied Medicis. ‘ I do 
 not add one penny more ; but I offer dinner to 
 every one, as many different wines as you please ; 
 and at dessert I pay in gold.’ 
 
 A week after this festival, Marcel learnt in which 
 gallery his picture had been placed. Passing 
 through the Faubourg St Honore, he stepped 
 into the midst of a group, who seemed to be watch- 
 ing with curiosity the hanging of a signboard over 
 a shop-door. This signboard was no other than 
 Marcel’s picture. Only the ‘ Passage of the Red 
 Sea’ had undergone one more modification, and 
 bore a new title. A steamboat had been intro- 
 duced into it, and it was called ‘ At the Harbour of 
 Marseilles.’ A flattering ovation had commenced 
 among the curious when the picture was revealed. 
 And so Marcel returned home delighted with his 
 triumph, murmuring to himself, ‘ Vox populi, vox 
 Dei.’ 
 
56 
 
 HENRY MURGER. 
 
 ‘ Economy/ says one of Murger’s characters, — 
 ‘ economy is a science that is only within reach ot 
 the rich. You and I are ignorant of its first prin- 
 ciples.’ To the end of his days Murger remained 
 in Bohemia, and lived in an atmosphere of duns, 
 debts, and shifts. Work could have been his in 
 plenty ; but he would not work unless obliged or 
 in the mood ; he would enjoy existence, not labour 
 it away. By and by he began to withdraw from 
 Paris to the lovely village of Marlotte, that stands 
 on the skirts of the Forest of Fontainebleau. Here 
 he wrote, and relished life, and with this spot his 
 image has become associated. 
 
 Murger had laid it down as an axiom that Bo- 
 hemia is the preface to the Academy, the Hospital,, 
 or the Morgue. He was never allowed to pass the 
 threshold of the first institution ; probably his> 
 gambols would have disturbed the grave slumbers 
 of that stately body. He was saved from the 
 third ; he was successful, and was not driven to the 
 last terrible resource of the unfortunate artist ; but 
 the second claimed him as her own. An irregular 
 life, an abuse of coffee, late hours, privations, did 
 their work surely and swiftly. At the early age of 
 thirty-nine, Henry Murger breathed his last in the 
 hospital. 
 
 His faithful Bohemian brethren buried him at. 
 Marlotte under the trees he had loved so well. 
 
AUERBACH. 
 
 Born in Nordstetten, Feb. 28, 1812 ; now living 
 IN Berlin. 
 
AUERBACH. 
 
 The fame of Berthold Auerbach, which is not only 
 German, but European, is entwined with the dis- 
 trict that gave him birth. His Black Forest Stories 
 opened out quite a new branch of rustic tales, and 
 will be read and remembered long after his more 
 ambitious, but less pleasing, efforts are forgotten. 
 Born in a remote village of the Black Forest, Auer- 
 bach passed his childhood in his native hamlet, and 
 thus early became acquainted with the strange 
 manners and customs that yet lingered among this 
 rural population, and which he was destined to 
 preserve for the world. He had been intended for 
 a theological career; but he soon abandoned this 
 to devote himself to philosophy, history, and litera- 
 ture. Spinoza was the hero of his first literary 
 attempt, and it is an excellent biographical ro- 
 mxance, though by no means characteristic of the 
 Auerbach who will go down to posterity. We 
 must judge this writer neither from his first nor his 
 last works, but from those of his middle period. It 
 was then he wrote his village tales, by far the most 
 genuine, spontaneous, and artistic of his creations. 
 
6o 
 
 AUERBACH, 
 
 In these tales he has depicted the simple incidents 
 of the every-day life of the Black Forester, with 
 all the peculiar traits which still make this folk 
 an individual people, and which were yet more 
 strongly marked before the construction of the 
 wonderful railway that now intersects the once 
 secluded valleys. There are no stirring adventures 
 in these tales ; no art has been employed to round 
 a finished plot ; they are by no means always or 
 often well proportioned, and at times are verbose 
 and diffuse. Still these very defects help to render 
 them yet truer, for they reflect the peculiarities of 
 the peasant heroes, who are uncouth and boorish, 
 whose words come slowly and deliberately, who are 
 apt to digress in conversation, to whom time is no 
 object, and our modern hurry a thing unknown. 
 Sometimes pathetic, sometimes humorous, these 
 stories show different aspects of human life and 
 character as they manifest themselves in the narrow 
 framework of a hamlet. They are a series of genre 
 pictures, developed with minutiae of detail. The 
 language is simple, such as the peasant would 
 speak, and the idiomatic peculiarities of the Black 
 Forest dialect are carefully preserved. This em- 
 ployment of dialect has, however, with true artistic 
 feeling on the part of the author, not been exag- 
 gerated to the point of weariness. He only puts it 
 in here and there to keep before our memory that 
 it is peasants who are speaking, and thus sharpens 
 
AUERBACH. 
 
 6i 
 
 the outline of their native idiosyncrasies. His 
 grasp of character and poetic insight into psycho- 
 logical motives are very remarkable. In Auer- 
 bach’s pages we indubitably get at the feelings of 
 this peasant population, even if, as is mostly the 
 case, the author a little idealises his personages. 
 Still, as a whole, these idyls of country life are 
 handled with a realistic touch that enhances their 
 fidelity to nature. Few, however, if any, of Auer- 
 bach’s stories are told for the mere pleasure of story- 
 telling. In this respect one great motive unites all 
 the different themes that have sprung from his 
 facile pen. This motive is a deep love for humanity 
 and the cause of progress, a sympathy for the poor 
 and ill-used, a revolt against all oppressions exer- 
 cised by Church or State, against all that is unna- 
 tural and calculated to restrict the freedom of the 
 individual. For this purpose he had a specially 
 fortunate scene of action in the Black Forest, that 
 remote corner of Germany where the elements of 
 political freedom had not yet been crushed out of 
 life by military rigorism. The peasant who tills 
 his own land is the most conservative of men ; he 
 is afraid of any innovations, lest it should interfere 
 with his covenanted rights. Many of the village 
 -communes exercise a form of self-government, 
 which, though only exhibited in a narrow compass, 
 engenders a spirit of sturdy independence that dis- 
 tinguishes the peasant from the citizen. And this- 
 
62 
 
 AUERBACH, 
 
 trait, which is particularly marked in the Black 
 Forest, has been well brought out by Auerbach. It 
 is specially notable in the story of which we quote a 
 part. Befehlerles (‘Little Commands’) illustrates inci- 
 sively the bad effect of a bureaucracy upon a people 
 — how it either stupefies them or drives them to rer 
 sistance. These peasants are still healthy and un- 
 spoilt, they therefore resist. The bureaucracy does 
 not like anything that recalls the commune and its 
 ancient independence, and attacks its old rights 
 with petty restrictive regulations. One interdict 
 succeeds another until at last the men are angered, 
 and there occurs the scene described below. 
 
 Auerbach is also fortunate when he contrasts 
 the village and the town, nature and culture. This 
 is happily illustrated by Ivo^ the story of a boy who 
 was to have been a priest, but who could not re- 
 sign himself to the limitations and confinements of 
 this career. 
 
 From these shorter stories, which are his master- 
 pieces, Auerbach turned to novels of the same 
 class. His Edelweiss^ Joseph im ScJinee^ and Bar- 
 fiissle have all been translated into English, and 
 are better known than his shorter but more excel- 
 lent village tales. Though finely conceived and 
 well told, in these romances Auerbach had already 
 fallen into the sentimental falsetto that disfigures 
 his larger works. He now proceeded to more am- 
 bitious efforts. In his own words, he ‘ undertook 
 
AUERBACH, 
 
 65 
 
 to treat individual problems of speculative ethics in 
 so-called philosophical novels, to be made up, not 
 so much of events and actual conflicts in life, as of 
 conversations and the unfolding of definite objects 
 of thought/ Aiif der Hohe (' On the Heights’) and 
 Das Landhaus am Rhein ('The Country House on 
 the Rhine’) were the results of this change of 
 ground ; didactic, diffuse romances which have not 
 much appealed to English readers, though they are 
 accessible to them in fair translations. Of late, 
 Auerbach has even attempted to write plays ; but 
 here he has failed entirely. Though acted at Ber- 
 lin, out of compliment to the veteran author, they 
 only achieved a succcs d'estime. Auerbach’s best 
 is — and will remain — his village tales. 
 
 The scene of our story is laid in a little village 
 of the Black Forest. In these villages the peasants 
 own the forests," commune, and other lands, of 
 which they have the management under the con- 
 trol of the government commissioner of forests. 
 They have, therefore, a right to self-government in 
 all matters relating to their property ; and the 
 petty police is in the hands of one of their number, 
 called Schultheiss or Bailiff, who is assisted by 
 some of the most respectable villagers. Above the 
 Bailiff stands the Oberamtmann or Sheriff, an of- 
 ficer appointed by the crown. The story turns 
 upon the unwarrantable interference of this func- 
 tionary in the rights of the villagers, and shows 
 
<64 
 
 AUERBACH, 
 
 how this was resented. The first part of the story 
 treats of a custom of planting what were called 
 may-trees before the houses at Whitsuntide, which 
 was forbidden by the sheriff, as it had led to tres- 
 passes in the forests. The second part shows the 
 means by which the sheriff tried to put a stop to 
 such offences altogether. 
 
 The Axe. 
 
 With this story is connected another one of 
 more general importance. The planting of may- 
 poles, as well as other offences against the forest 
 laws, induced the sheriff to issue an order that had 
 for some time been at the end of his pen. It was 
 a privilege and custom of very old standing among 
 the peasants of the Black Forest to carry a little 
 hand-axe on their left arm when going across 
 country, i.e. from one village to another. Only the 
 married men bear this token, but not the unmar- 
 ried men or ‘ boys,’ as they are called. It may be 
 that, as report says, this is still a survival of the 
 universal custom of bearing arms. 
 
 On Whit-Sunday, in all the villages of the dis- 
 trict, the following proclamation might have been 
 read on the black board of the court-house : 
 
 ' Whereas it has been brought to our notice, 
 that much trespassing in the woods has been caused 
 by the purposeless carrying of axes, it is herewith 
 
THE AXE, 
 
 65 
 
 publicly made known that, from this day forth, 
 whoever shall be found ranging about on the road 
 or in the wood with an axe, shall account circum- 
 stantially to the gamekeeper, field, or wood-ranger, 
 as the case may be, for what purpose he bears the 
 axe ; and in default of so doing, he shall be liable 
 for the first offence to a fine of one reichsthaler ; 
 for the second, to a fine of three reichsthalers ; and 
 for a third offence, to imprisonment for a period of 
 one to four weeks. Rellings, Sheriff! 
 
 After afternoon service many peasants stood 
 before the court-house. Mathes, who now also be- 
 longed to the married men, read the proclamation 
 aloud. All shook their heads, and muttered curses 
 and imprecations ; only the old bailiff said aloud, 
 ‘ That would not have happened formerly : those 
 are our rights.' 
 
 Then the Buchmaier was seen coming down 
 from the upper village with his axe on his arm ; he 
 was a strong burly man, in his best years, not tall, 
 but broad-shouldered and stout ; his shirt was 
 puffed up a little about his hips, round his short 
 leathern breeches. Between his open red waist- 
 coat could be seen the broad crossband of the 
 braces fastened by strings, which, being of some 
 coloured material, looked from a distance like a 
 pistol-belt. His three-cornered hat was perched 
 on a head rather too small in proportion, whose 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 AUERBACH, 
 
 mild features had an expression of almost womanly 
 softness, especially about the mouth and chin ; the 
 large sparkling blue eyes, with the raised dark eye- 
 brows, indicated clearness and manly confidence. 
 
 Mathes sprang to meet the Buchmaier, told him 
 of the notice, and said, 
 
 ‘ Cousin, you are none of you true council-men 
 if you put up with that’ 
 
 The Buchmaier continued his measured steps, 
 without hurrying himself in the least ; he went 
 straight towards the board. All stepped aside so 
 that he might read more easily. He pushed his 
 hat back a little ; expectant silence reigned around. 
 When the Buchmaier had finished reading it in an 
 undertone, he struck the top of his hat with the 
 palm of his hand, pressing it more firmly on to his 
 head : that promised something adventurous. There- 
 upon he calmly took his axe from his left arm, and 
 with the exclamation, ‘ There !’ he threw it at the 
 black board right into the middle of the notice. 
 Then he turned to the bystanders, and said, 
 
 ‘ We are free men and members of the common 
 council : without an official meeting, without the 
 consent of all the council, no such proclamation can 
 be issued. I should like to know whether the clerks 
 are to be everything and we nothing any more ; and 
 I say, even if the matter should have to go to the 
 king, we must not put up with it. Whoever agrees 
 with me, let him take my axe there and hit it once 
 
THE AXE. 
 
 67 
 
 more into the board.' Mathes was the first to seize 
 it ; but the Buchmaier held back his arm, and said, 
 ‘ Let the older people come first.' 
 
 This word had the desired eflfect on the timid 
 and wavering, who were taken aback by the Buch- 
 maier's deed, and did not know what they should 
 do. The old bailiff was the first to direct his blow 
 with trembling hand ; then all boldly seized the 
 axe in their turn — of all the bystanders not one 
 refused ; and the sheriff's name was cut about in all 
 directions. Gradually the whole village assembled ; 
 all were encouraged to commit the same symbolical 
 act, and, amid laughter and shouts, every one struck 
 his blow. 
 
 The bailiff, being acquainted with what had 
 taken place, wanted to send to Horb for the 
 mounted patrol ; -but his wise minister advised 
 against the summons, since it could be of no 
 use. Besides, the cunning Soges thought to him- 
 self, 
 
 ‘ Well, let them all trespass ; that will yield a 
 whole harvest of summonses, and for each summons 
 one batzen. Go on hitting as hard as you can ; 
 you are hitting into your own flesh, and that means 
 my gain.' 
 
 Over a glass of beer at the Eagle, Soges, with 
 a cheerful air, calculated the profits that would 
 come to him from the village disturbance. 
 
 And so at last, with the exception of Soges and 
 
68 
 
 AUERBACH. 
 
 the bailiff, there remained no one in the village 
 who had not shared in the offence. 
 
 On the Tuesday, at the suggestion of the old 
 bailiff, the council-men themselves went before the 
 magistrates, and made announcement of what they 
 had done. The sheriff stormed and raged in the 
 room — he wished to have the offenders imprisoned 
 at once ; but the Buchmaier stepped boldly forward, 
 and said, > 
 
 ' Is that all you can do? Lock us up? We 
 will see about that. We have come to oppose you. 
 We freely confess what we have done, and there 
 can be no talk of imprisonment, for the present, at 
 any rate. I am no vagabond. You know where I 
 live. I am the Buchmaier ; that man there is the 
 baker, that other is Hans the smith ; and there is 
 Michel’s Basche. We are all to be found on our 
 own land. We cannot be imprisoned without a 
 sentence ; and even then there is still an appeal 
 open to us, if necessary, to Reutlingen and Stutt- 
 gart.’ 
 
 The sheriff returned to the charge, and sum- 
 moned the men to be examined next morning at 
 nine o’clock. 
 
 This was, at all events, a good thing, as Soges 
 was done out of his carefully counted money. Thus 
 both great and little men often deceive themselves 
 in their calculations. 
 
 There was something quite martial next morn- 
 
THE AXE. 
 
 69 
 
 ing in the appearance of more than a hundred 
 peasants marching through the village with their 
 hand-axes on their arms. They often stopped at a 
 house to call out to some one who was late, who 
 would then, in his hurry, pull on his coat in the street. 
 Many of their jokes and witty speeches were stopped 
 by the sight of the Buchmaier, who was frowning 
 gravely. Not a^ drop was drunk before going to 
 the magistracy. ‘ Business first, pleasure after- 
 wards,’ was the peasants’ motto. 
 
 The sheriff, in his dressing-gown, with the long 
 pipe in his mouth, was looking out of the window. 
 When he saw this armed troop coming along he 
 quickl}^ shut the window and ran to the bell ; but 
 as he always wore spurs on his boots, he entangled 
 himself in the curtain, and fell full-length on the 
 floor, his long pipedying like a weapon beside him. 
 However, he quickly sprang up, rang for the beadle 
 sent him to the commandant of the station and to 
 the sergeant of the mounted patrol, and ordered 
 them all to come with loaded guns. Unfortunately 
 there were only four of them now in the village ; 
 he commanded them to remain below in the wait- 
 ing-room, and hold themselves in readiness at any 
 . moment. He then gave orders in the hall that the 
 peasants should only come in one at a time, and 
 the door be immediately closed after each. But 
 when the Buchmaier was called in first, he said, 
 holding the door in his hand, ‘ Good-morning, Mr. 
 
70 
 
 AUERBACH, 
 
 Sheriff and immediately turning round, he said 
 to those standing outside, ‘ Come in, you other 
 fellows ; we have a common cause ; I shall not 
 speak for myself alone/ Before the Sheriff knew 
 what was happening the whole room was filled by 
 the peasants, wearing their axes on their left arm. 
 The Buchmaier stepped towards the clerk, and, 
 stretching out his hand, said, ‘ Write down word 
 for word what I say ; the officials of the district are 
 to know it too.' He then twice tugged his collar, 
 pressed his fist on to the green table, and began : 
 
 ‘ All due respect to you, Mr. Sheriff ; the king 
 has sent you, and we must obey you as the law 
 desires. The king is a good honourable man ; he 
 certainly does not wish the peasants to be tor- 
 mented like cattle, or to be managed like children 
 with the rod. The little officials, from the higher 
 to the lower ones, find a pleasure in playing at 
 commanding ; at last I suppose they will write 
 down the notes for the cackle of a hen when she 
 lays an egg. Now I mean for once to take the lid 
 off the pot ; I mean to tell you the truth. I know 
 well enough it is of no use now, but said it must be ; 
 I must put with it ; it has been choking me for a 
 long time. The council is of no account any more ; 
 everything is to be settled in the magistrate's office. 
 Well, then, you had better plough and sow and 
 reap too in the magistrate's office. One of those 
 miserable little clerks can worry a whole town-hall 
 
THE AXE, 
 
 71 
 
 full of peasants ; and, before one knows what is 
 happening, one clerk after another is made bailiff 
 of the village ; then everything is settled by a 
 regular system of clerks. Truth is truth, order 
 there must be ; but first we must see whether we 
 cannot get on better without the clerks. And then 
 we are not quite idiots ; and even if we cannot use 
 official language, yet we can do something. We 
 must have learned ‘men to keep supervision over 
 everything ; but, first of all, the burghers must 
 bring their affairs into order themselves.' 
 
 ‘ Come to the point — to the point !’ insisted the 
 Sheriff. 
 
 ‘ This is just the point of the matter. With all 
 your clerkship you have at last nothing more to 
 command, and so you begin with avoiding, precau- 
 tion, and prevention — yes, prevention. I had al- 
 most said, at last you would set a policeman in 
 front of every tree, so that it might not come to 
 blows with the wind, or drink too much when it 
 rains. If you go on like this with these little com- 
 mands we had better ride off on the cow.^ Every- 
 thing, everything you want to take from us. Now 
 here is one thing that we will not have taken from 
 us lifting up his axe, and then continuing as he 
 gnashed his teeth, ‘and if I must with this axe 
 break open all the doors till I reach the king, I will 
 
 ^ A proverb, meaning to make use of the last means of 
 flight. 
 
72 
 
 AUERBACH, 
 
 not give it out of my hand. It is our right since 
 ancient times to bear these axes, and if they are to 
 be taken from us, the whole Assembly or the Diet 
 must do it ; and then we have a word to say in 
 the matter too. But why do you want to take 
 them from us ? So that we may commit no tres- 
 pass in the woods. There are wood-rangers and 
 penalties and laws to provide for that, and they are 
 the same for nobleman and beggar. How many 
 teeth does a poor peasant need to eat potatoes 
 with ? Pull out the rest, so that we may not fall 
 into the temptation of stealing meat. And why 
 do you let the dogs run about with their fangs ? 
 When a boy is eight or nine years old he has his 
 knife in his pocket, and if he cuts his finger with it, 
 it is his own fault ; if he hurts any one else he gets 
 a slap on the finger. Now who tells you that we 
 are worse than little children, and you our teachers 
 and guardians? You gentlemen do just as if it 
 were your doing that I do not at this moment 
 jump out of the window. In the chief affairs of 
 life every man and every community must take 
 care of itself ; and it is not you who can do it, 
 masters. What do I say ? Masters ! It is our ser- 
 vants that you are, and we are the masters ! You 
 always fancy we are there on your account, so that 
 you can command something. We pay you to 
 keep peace in the country, and not to let ourselves 
 be worried. Servants of the state — that is what 
 
THE AXE. 
 
 73 
 
 you are ; and we, the burghers, are the state. If we 
 do not get justice we will go no longer to the pump ; 
 we will go to the fountain-head. I would sooner 
 lay my head on the block, and let it be cut off with 
 this axe by the executioner, than allow the axe to 
 be taken from me against my will by any official 
 That’s all. I have done.’ 
 
 Respectful silence reigned around ; every one 
 looked at his neighbour and winked, as much as to 
 say, ‘ He has got his deserts ; now he may put that 
 in his pipe and smoke it.’ But Basche whispered 
 quite low to the baker, ‘ There the proverb speaks 
 truth; he has hit the nail on the head.’ ‘Yes,’ 
 answered the baker, ‘ he has not put his tongue in 
 his pocket’ 
 
 The Sheriff did not let the impression of this 
 speech last long. Twisting a little piece of paper 
 between his fingers, he began, in a quiet voice, to 
 set forth the weight of the crime committed. Many 
 a sharp side-hit was aimed at the Buchmaier, who 
 only shook his head gently, as if he were warding 
 off flies. At last the Sheriff spoke of litigious per- 
 sons and rebels, of conceited gentlemen peasants, 
 who had once drunk a pint of beer with a lawyer, 
 who had heard the bells ringing, but did not know 
 where. From this general digression he then re- 
 turned to the matter in hand. He named a few 
 of those present ; praised them as quiet sensible 
 burghers, who would be incapable of such an action ; 
 
74 
 
 AUERBACH. 
 
 expressed his deep conviction that they had let 
 themselves be led astray by the Buchmaier. He 
 implored them, by their conscience, by their obedi- 
 ence to the king and the law, by their love for wife 
 and children, not to take upon themselves such 
 heavy guilt, but rather openly and freely to confess 
 that they had been led astray, and their punish- 
 ment should be mild. 
 
 Once more there was silence. A few of the 
 men looked at one another, and then looked down, 
 perplexed, to the ground ; but the Buchmaier lifted 
 his head up boldly, and looked straight into all their 
 faces. His breast was swelling full of expectation 
 — he held his breath. Mathes had already opened 
 his lips to speak, when John the smith closed his 
 mouth ; for just at that moment the old bailiff, who 
 alone of those present had been seated on a chair, 
 rose, and with heavy footsteps, hardly lifting up his 
 feet, went to the green table. At first he panted 
 and took breath frequently, but presently he con- 
 tinued fluently, 
 
 ‘ Many thanks, Mr. Sheriff, for the fine epilogue 
 which you have held to me and the others ; but as 
 for what the Buchmaier has said, I will subscribe 
 to every word of it. If 'another proof had been 
 needed that the masters look upon us as little 
 children not come to years of discretion, you would 
 have provided it, Mr. Sheriff. No ; I am seventy- 
 six years old, and have been bailiff for twenty years. 
 
THE AXE, 
 
 75 
 
 We are no children to be led astray to do that sort 
 of thing, like a childish prank. The axe shall re- 
 main with me until they cut me six boards with it 
 Whoever stands here as a child must say so. I 
 am a man who knows what he is doing ; if it comes 
 to punishment, I am ready for it.’ 
 
 ‘ We too !’ exclaimed all the peasants, with one 
 voice. Mathes’ voice sounded above all. 
 
 The Buchmaier’s face seemed covered with light. 
 He once more seized his axe with his right hand, 
 and pressed it to his heart. 
 
 When the customary formalities were ended, 
 the minutes signed, and the Buchmaier had begged 
 a copy, the peasants quietly left the Sheriff’s 
 house. 
 
 Several other communities protested against 
 the new order. The matter came before the district 
 government. Those who had themselves protested 
 so improperly with their axes were fined a con- 
 siderable sum. However, some time after Sheriff 
 Rellings was deprived of his office, but the order 
 was not renewed. 
 
 Now, as formerly, the men wear their axes on 
 the left arm. 
 
BUSKEN-HUET. 
 
 Born at the Hague, Dec, 28, 18^ ; now residing in 
 
 Paris. 
 
BUSKEN-HUET. 
 
 Though not the greatest Dutch novelist, Busken- 
 Huet may yet be pronounced representative 
 of national life, for in his pages we meet with 
 realistic pictures of Dutch every-day existence, 
 such as are revealed to us by the paintings of 
 Brouwer, Ostade, Teniers, Jan Steen, De Hooghe, 
 and others. Not that he is the first or the only 
 person who has depicted Dutch home-life. The 
 authoresses Wolff and Deken, in their Sara Burger- 
 hard and other works ; Jacob van Lennep, in his 
 Klaasje Zevejiter ; E. J. Potgieter, and other 
 novelists, have done so before him. But they de- 
 picted Dutch home-life in the past, although it was 
 a past nearer to our own time than that immortal- 
 ised by the great artists of the seventeenth century. 
 Busken-Huet gives us the life of to-day, such as we 
 should find it in any of those quaint red-brick 
 houses, alongside any of those canals, in any of 
 those wide flat reaches, so familiar to us in paint- 
 ings. 
 
 Busken-Huet was born at the Hague, and edu- 
 cated at its public school. In 1844 he became a 
 
8o 
 
 BUSKEN-HUET. 
 
 student at the University of Leyden, and passed 
 thence to Switzerland, completing his studies at 
 Geneva and Lausanne. In 1851 he was appointed 
 minister to the Walloon congregation at Haarlem. 
 After holding the post eleven years he felt obliged 
 to resign it, owing to a change of views. For a 
 brief space he still occasionally conducted the 
 services ; but his principles would not suffer him 
 to continue this. He grew restless ; he began to 
 feel that there was not room enough for his talents 
 in Holland. He had obtained employment upon 
 a daily paper ; but in Holland to be a contributor 
 to a daily paper is to work hard, and yet barely 
 gain a livelihood. Busken-Huet was discontented 
 with the general state of public affairs, and he was 
 especially disgusted with his own party. He 
 thought the Liberals at fault, and expressed his 
 views in rather hard terms. Being one of the 
 editors of the Dutch magazine Gids The Guide’), 
 he published in one number two articles that caused 
 a great stir among a nation generally so tranquil. 
 The one was an attack upon the policy of the 
 Liberal leader Thorbecke ; the other ridiculed the 
 Dutch Court, and above all, the Queen, who was 
 much beloved. The articles sowed discord among 
 the eight editors of the magazine, of whom only 
 one, E. J. Potgicter, a leading author and poet, 
 took H net’s part. Huet, disgusted with the laxity 
 of the Liberals, went over to the enemy, and be- 
 
BUSKEN-HUET. 
 
 8i 
 
 t rayed his party. He accepted the offer of a chief 
 editorship of a daily Conservative paper, published 
 in Batavia, and retreated to that colony. From 
 this post he obtained a splendid remuneration. A 
 few years ago he returned to Europe, and is still 
 writing for this paper, though living in Paris. 
 
 Busken-Huet, although he is past fifty, cannot 
 be better characterised than by calling him a boy, 
 and such he will remain till his last breath. He 
 cannot leave off doing mischief, literary mischief, 
 of course. He is just like a street-boy who flings 
 a stone at a passer-by, not because he wishes to 
 hurt him, but because he cannot resist the tempta- 
 tion to play a trick. Huet is the happy possessor 
 of much wit ; his power of sarcasm is well developed ; 
 he is fully master of his language. But while he 
 plays tricks upon others, his wit, in its turn, often 
 plays tricks upon him. It makes him say things 
 he cannot justify. A jeu de mots is something irre- 
 sistible to him, regardless of the pain it may occa- 
 sion to the person to whom it is applied. He often 
 commits murder by so doing. Yet he does not mind 
 whom he wounds, whom he kills. Many a time it 
 has been a writer of talent, one in whom he should 
 have recognised his equal. But he must not be 
 judged too severely for all this. His faults are in 
 great part the result of belonging to so small a 
 nation as the Dutch. And, indeed, in several re- 
 spects, he may be considered a victim. He has been 
 
 VOL. I. G 
 
82 
 
 BUSKEN-HUET. 
 
 wronged by his countrymen. Nor is he the only 
 one of whom this is true. Of late years mediocrity 
 has been in the ascendant in Holland. There is 
 no room to be found for superior men. Huet be- 
 longs to the superior ones ; but others have borne 
 their hard fate more worthily. 
 
 Huet is not only, or chiefly, a novelist, though 
 he has produced many novelettes of the kind of 
 which we give a few short specimens. He has also 
 written a novel in two volumes, called Lidewyde, 
 There is no lack of beauty in this work, though it 
 is marred by many blemishes. The work proved 
 that Huet could never become a great novelist, and 
 what he has published since confirms this opinion. 
 His most remarkable productions are his essays, 
 especially his Eerste Fantasien, Above all else 
 Huet is an observer, and, as such, we shall behold 
 him in our pages. 
 
 Gitje, 
 
 If any one had asked us at that time— we speak 
 of our childish, our boyish years — concerning the 
 name and appearance of Brigitta van der Bias, we 
 should have answered, ^ Whom do you mean ? We 
 have not the honour of knowing such a lady.' Had 
 the rejoinder been, ‘What! you do not know Bri- 
 gitta van der Bias, the seamstress, who was in the 
 service of your parents so many years I’ we should 
 
GITJE, 
 
 83 
 
 have replied again with the exclamation, ‘ Ah, you 
 mean Gitje, our seamstress ! Yes, indeed, we know 
 her very well. Give us a pair of scissors and a 
 piece of paper ; we will at once make you a likeness 
 of her. But how could we have thought that Bri- 
 gitta van der Bias was the same person as our 
 Gitje ?' 
 
 You may be sure we never heard her called 
 anything but Gitje. The future master or mistress 
 begins already as a child to show an aristocratic, 
 no doubt, a well-educated indifference to the fate 
 and the circumstances of the servants. But work- 
 people’s children also have aristocratic feelings. 
 We, who were the children of well-to-do people, 
 had never given it a thought, either that Gitje 
 could be the abbreviation of Brigitta, or that our 
 seamstress could- allow herself the luxury of a 
 family name. Still you might say van der Bias 
 sounds modest and simple enough. 
 
 Three or four times a week Gitje came to prac- 
 tise her trade at our parents’ house. One of her 
 regular occupations was to mend our blue-and- 
 white-striped blouses, in whose sleeves we managed 
 to tear such wonderfully large holes. At other 
 times she would iron up-stairs in the nursery, the 
 windows of which looked out on the garden, and 
 in which also stood a mangle and a linen-press. 
 She was a beautiful ironer. When she had put 
 her irons to the fire and all was in order, she would 
 
84 
 
 BUSKEN-HUET, 
 
 take the ironing-board from the wall against which 
 it leaned, and put it down in the usual way, i.e. 
 like a bridge, with one end resting on the trestle- 
 table and with the other on the back of a chair. 
 Thus Gitje, standing in the middle, had plenty of 
 room to move her arms and put her things down. 
 The board was swathed in a half-scorched woollen 
 blanket, and reminded us of a thin old woman 
 covered with a flannel vest. There was nothing 
 more amusing than to watch Gitje when she ironed 
 our sister’s balldresses. After they had been 
 damped and rolled up sufficiently long, she would 
 take up a dress, and, lifting the ironing-board at one 
 side, slip the frock over it. Then she took one of 
 the irons out of the red-hot iron pot at her left- 
 hand side, held it for a moment very close to her 
 cheek to feel if it was as hot as she wanted, rubbed 
 it lightly on a cloth lying for that purpose at her 
 right hand, and then began her real operations. 
 The balldress, first a limp, draggled, shapeless 
 mass, gained crispness and form with every touch 
 of the iron. My sisters were only half satisfied if 
 they were going to a ball and any one but Gitje 
 ironed their dresses. 
 
 Once a month* the scene of Gitje’s labours was 
 
 A wash once a month in a Dutch household is called 
 a children’s wash. The house-linen and the body-linen of 
 the grown-up people are only sent away to be washed three 
 or four times a year. The above description applies to the 
 
GITJE. 
 
 ss 
 
 down-stairs in the breakfast-room. This happened 
 when the linen had come home. The family to which 
 we belonged was a very large one, and consequently 
 our washing was also large. Now we purpose to de- 
 scribe the management of a very large one ; large 
 not in the etymological sense, but in the technical. 
 Gitje’s help was indispensable. She descended 
 from the less sacred sphere of the nursery, and was 
 closeted with our mother in the breakfast-room, the 
 holy of holies. Nothing was more fascinating than 
 to watch our mother and Gitje stretch the nume- 
 rous tablecloths and sheets. They did it exceed- 
 ingly neatly ; ay, not only neatly, but with energy, 
 with enthusiasm. They stood at the head and foot 
 of the large oblong table. The sheets, still un- 
 stretched, lay in gradually-diminishing piles on the 
 left-hand side, while those already stretched lay in 
 an ever-increasing heap upon the right. In the 
 middle lay their present victim, several yards long, 
 and pale as death, while they pinched it between 
 their fingers. Their elbows pressed closely to 
 their sides, their right feet forward, the upper part 
 of their body thrown backwards, stood the two 
 women, the mistress and the maid, and stretched, 
 stretched, stretched as fast as they could — types of 
 
 present day, with the exception that the mistress does not 
 now generally help in the work, and that instead of the 
 breakfast-room, the linen is dressed in the upper or lower 
 parts of the house. 
 
86 
 
 BUSKEN-HUET. 
 
 simplicity and fulfilment of duty, and pictures of 
 Dutch home-life. For us, who looked on passively, 
 but nevertheless with the greatest interest, the ques- 
 tion of questions was: will Gitje presently draw our 
 mother over the table ? or will our mother be quicker 
 than she and draw Gitje across ? Will our mother 
 drop the sheet ? or will Gitje open her fingers, and, 
 as a preventive measure proceeding solely from a 
 principle of permissible self-defence, play a trick 
 upon our mother? or will the sheet tear in the 
 middle ? Will Gitje keep one end in her hand and 
 our mother the other ? and will the sorrowful close 
 of the matter be that Gitje’s head will fall against 
 the mantelpiece, while ourmother's will recoil against 
 the wainscot, and thus both of them be hurt ? 
 
 Meanwhile the dexterous women stood im- 
 movable, emulating each other in perseverance. 
 The pile on the right grew bigger and bigger, and 
 before dinner-time the heap on the left had dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 With the beginning of autumn came the pre- 
 serving of greens and fruits. Good gracious ! what 
 a number of things were brought into our house 
 with Gitje’s assistance! We, who never felt too 
 grand to help for a little while, if required, with the 
 mangling, used also in our childhood, under Gitje's 
 guidance, to string a great many beans, especially 
 the small French beans. Afterwards, when we could 
 be trusted without danger with a knife, we also 
 
GITJE. 
 
 87 
 
 helped with the large beans, which, as you know, 
 are so much more difficult to manage. Besides this, 
 we saw Gitje throw numberless white cabbages 
 into a cask, after she had cut them into little bits. 
 Then she pressed them down with a wooden pestle, 
 and, last of all, she covered them with a few heavy 
 stones placed on a board nearly as large as the 
 width of the cask. This is to induce fermentation 
 in the contents of the cask, in contradiction to the 
 Dutch proverb, ‘What lies in the cask does not fer- 
 ment’ 
 
 What lies in the cask does not turn sour. 
 So people say ; and it would be ignoble to under- 
 mine the hopeful trust in the future embodied in 
 this proverb. Gitje too spoke in this manner as 
 often as she thought of Leendert van Kuyk, and 
 this happened now and then. You ask why? Well, 
 here our narrative takes quite a new turn. He was, 
 and had been for years and days, her lover. . At 
 the time of which we are speaking the silver wed- 
 ding of their engagement already lay far, far behind 
 them. ‘ Incredible !’ you exclaim. Well, I cannot 
 give you faith. We can assure you, as a well-sifted 
 and well-confirmed fact, that Brigitta van der Bias 
 had been for twenty-seven years the sweetheart of 
 Leendert van Kuyk. And then ? Then Leendert 
 van Kuyk died of the cholera at the age of fifty- 
 five. 
 
 His profession was making fishing-tackle. We 
 
88 
 
 BUSKEN-HUET. 
 
 used to buy angling-rods, fishing-lines, hooks, and 
 floats in great quantities at his little shop ; and 
 sometimes, poor though he was, he would make us 
 a present for Gitje’s sake. At that time we really 
 did not know that he led such a poor life. On the 
 contrary, we thought him very well off indeed. Had 
 he not a large stock in his little shop, an enviable 
 abundance of fishing-tools ? Did it not make our 
 mouths water to see his angling-rods, his trammels 
 and drag-nets ; his imitation breeze-flies, dunflies, 
 gadflies, beetles, and other kinds of bait ? We 
 dreamed of nothing more precious or desirable than 
 his worm-boxes, made of painted tin, and intended 
 to be worn slung across the shoulders, as a cavalry 
 officer carries his cartridge-boxes. But, even if we 
 had been acquainted with Leendert’s poor circum- 
 stances, we should none the less have accepted his 
 presents. Children are not only haughty, but greedy. 
 See how, after the death of a little brother or sister, 
 they immediately confiscate the dead child's toys — 
 dolls with real hair and movable eyes, magic-lan- 
 terns, humming-tops — and divide them, wrangling as 
 to ownership. You see at once these are grown-up 
 people in the bud. The wolf-nature is already in 
 them. The first time they will share a real inherit- 
 ance you will see them attack it with greed, unless 
 they have learnt in the mean time to behave them- 
 selves in accordance with the requirements of 
 society. 
 
GITJE, 
 
 89 
 
 Leendert and Gitje were not exactly a nice- 
 looking couple, still they were not repulsive. They 
 belonged to those worthy lovable people to whose 
 features one pays no attention after one has spent 
 two days in their company. Goodness and fidelity, 
 the foundations of their character, radiated from 
 both their faces. In the summer holidays, early in 
 the morning, before daybreak, Leendert would take 
 us out fishing ; and then his kindness was bound- 
 less. He woke us by ringing the bell, and then 
 waited patiently at the street-door, till we were 
 ready ; carried our barrels for us, showed us the 
 places where we should have the best chances, gave 
 us his own paste and worms, and presented us 
 with the greater part of his catch. He fished 
 splendidly. Do not fancy every one can fish if he 
 likes. Angling, especially requires much instinct 
 and long practice. The tales Leendert told us of 
 his exploits and good luck — of innumerable three- 
 pounder perches which he had caught one after 
 another in a small ditch ; of eels which he had to 
 split up to their tails to regain his fishing-hook ; 
 of pikes which had swum away with his rod ; of 
 bleeding tenches that cry like new-born babes ; of 
 large eels which he had skinned in the morning, 
 and which bit his finger next evening. We believed 
 them all, as we did the Arabian Nights. Two things 
 in special we learnt from him. In the first place, how 
 to put a new hook on the line, and to cover it over 
 
90 
 
 BUSKEN^HUET. 
 
 with tin-foil; so that it hung quite straight and did 
 not slope away from the float ; an indispensable 
 condition that alone makes it possible for the 
 angler to know surely if, and in what measure, the 
 fish has bitten. In the second place, we brought 
 from the school of Gitje’s faithful lover this lesson : 
 when the fish has really bitten, and the angler is 
 ready to strike, he should always do so by pushing 
 it, and not by pulling. In the latter case, when 
 the little fish has not bitten well, it swims away 
 backwards with your bait in its mouth, and grants 
 you at most a bloody piece of its gill. In the 
 former case, you oblige the creature to tumble, and 
 by so doing you insert with deadly force the angle 
 through the horny substance of the open lips. 
 
 Of Gitje’s appearance in her spring-time, when 
 she was twenty-three years of age, and plighted 
 her troth to her Leendert, he himself could have 
 told you more than we are able to do, had not the 
 great angler. Death, taken him away. At the time 
 of which we are speaking, all womanly beauty had 
 fled from her. She was then between forty and fifty, 
 very tall, looking delicate and weak, suffering much 
 from catarrhs and rheumatism, and carrying always 
 a silver snuff-box (containing coarse snuff and a 
 tonga-bean) about her. Now that we have grown 
 older and wiser, we do not think these peculiarities 
 at all ridiculous. On the contrary, we feel that we 
 have a right to make Leendert’s betrothed who was 
 
GITJE. 
 
 91 
 
 fifty-five years old, and who carried a tonga-bean in 
 her pocket, the heroine of a novelette. While yet a 
 child, and having never pondered the rudiments of 
 our art, we laughed at Gitje’s tediously long engage- 
 ment and her old-maidish complaints. For chil- 
 dren are not only haughty and greedy — they are also 
 cruel. They like to laugh at the misfortunes they do 
 not understand. We did not, however, commit this 
 cruelty. But this was not from amiability of dis- 
 position, but because the true relations between 
 Leendert and our seamstress were not known to us 
 till the funeral of the former, and because we had 
 never even wondered why this man treated us with 
 such marked kindness. 
 
 The first information of Leenderf s death, and 
 of his long courtship of Gitje, did not make us 
 laugh, you may be sure ; but still it did not make 
 that impression which the sad event deserved. 
 This proves that, had we been sooner informed, we 
 should undoubtedly have made many jokes about 
 Gitje and her lover. We heard the news from our 
 mother, in answer to our question why, on a certain 
 miorning, Gitje had not come. 
 
 ‘What is the reason Gitje has not come to- 
 day ?’ 
 
 ‘ Leendert is dead, and is at this moment being 
 buried.' 
 
92 
 
 BUSKEN-HUET. 
 
 Saturday Evening on the Kleine Groen^narkf" at 
 
 the Hague. 
 
 On Saturdays in the beginning and at the end 
 of summer, especially between nine and ten in the 
 evening, there was to be seen at the Kleine Groen- 
 markt a scene as bright and varied as it is possible 
 to imagine. It is a picture of van Schenkel that has 
 gained life and reality. It is clear moonlight. The 
 rows of houses cast deep large shadows. Art has 
 produced light where Nature has either refused it or 
 dispensed it too scantily. Here burn magic lamps 
 surrounded by large piles of greens and fruit ; there 
 sparkles a candle, incased in an oiled-paper globe, 
 from the wheelbarrow of that son of Israel. Yonder, 
 out of the opened shambles, glows the mysterious 
 red light of torches. At the sheds, piled up with 
 greens, sit women, silent and very busy, anxious to 
 sell off their wares. Behind the wheelbarrows stand 
 Jews and Jewesses, bawling loudly, praising their 
 goods with fiery ardour now that they have ended 
 their Sabbath celebrations. In and out of the 
 shambles hurry relays of maid-servants carrying 
 marketing-baskets on their left arms, and front-door 
 keys on their right thumbs. This spot is specially 
 dear to them. Here they meet their fellow-servants 
 from the other end of the town. Here the artillery- 
 man or dragoon of their choice is waiting, and they 
 * Small green-market. 
 
SA TURD A Y AT THE HA G UE. 
 
 93 
 
 can exchange a few sweet words of love. There is 
 a buzz of many voices, for the concourse is large. 
 The bustle distracts your brain. You are in the 
 midst of the weekly carnival of the Hague citizens. 
 
 Albert and Pietje are walking arm-in-arm, whis- 
 pering confidentially. Behind them, as near as the 
 crowd permits, skulks Samuel. He looks at them 
 incessantly. When they advance, he advances ; 
 when they stop, he follows their example. The 
 couple enjoy the liberty they have allowed them- 
 selves. Everything that lengthens the walk is wel- 
 come to them. Every incident is a reason for 
 lingering longer. Now it is the quack, who stands 
 in front of the town-hall upon a raised stage, and 
 whose impudent gabble detains them. He is re- 
 commending in high-flown terms a male walnut, i.e. 
 a worm-eaten nutmeg, and asserts that its posses- 
 sion is ‘ to you, O women, your purse ; to you, O 
 men, the pocket of your trousers ; for it will keep 
 from your dear bodies all manner of illness and 
 disease !’ Now they halt at the shambles ; now 
 they stop near the stony little island, consisting of 
 half-a-dozen trees planted in a circle, where a man 
 is giving a vociferous explanation of a coarse daub 
 of a picture. I will explain it to you. 
 
 On this island, between the trees, fixed upon a 
 pole, hangs a large picture. It is no Rembrandt. 
 Properly speaking, it is twelve pictures or more, 
 painted upon one canvas. This material bond is 
 
94 
 
 BUSKEN-HUET. 
 
 not the only one by which the parts are united. 
 There is also a unity of subject, for it depicts a 
 horrid murder, committed by two country lads, in 
 a village inn, upon the host and his wife. The 
 youth of the murderers and their early develop- 
 ment in wickedness is represented at the top of the 
 picture in the left-hand corner. Picture number 
 one is an apple-tree, in whose branches sit two 
 boys stealing its fruits, while at the foot stands an 
 indignant schoolmaster, long-coated, bald-headed, 
 shaking his fist at the culprits. • Number fourteen, 
 at the bottom of the right-hand corner, shows a 
 square of bayonets, borne by about fifty invisible 
 soldiers. They are standing upon guard round a 
 scaffold on which the former apple-thieves are to be 
 hanged by the neck until they be dead. Pictures 
 two to thirteen tell the whole sad psychological de- 
 velopment, to defraud, to drink, to steal, to drink 
 yet again, to commit burglary, to murder, to fall 
 into the hands of the police, to be judged, to deny, 
 to confess, to scold Wyntje, to accuse Tryntje,* to 
 be spoken to earnestly by the Lord Chief Justice, 
 and to end as on number fourteen. A man and a 
 woman, proprietors or showmen of the instructive 
 painting, do all they can to point out its beauties 
 of thought and execution. The man is armed with 
 
 ^ The Dutch use the expression Wyntje and Tryntje to 
 explain that the crime is founded on the abuse of spirits, 
 and the companionship of women of ill-fame. 
 
SATURDAY AT THE HAGUE, 
 
 95 
 
 a long bamboo-cane, with which he points out the 
 different periods of the story without looking up at 
 the picture, and yet without making a mistake. 
 He explains the events in blank verse, relieved by 
 rhymed and pithy refrains. The woman, who joins 
 in the refrain, accompanies it to the sounds of a 
 barrel-organ. ' The weight of this instrument, which 
 she carries round her neck by means of a leathern 
 strap, presses her thin shoulders together. Before 
 her, on the lid, are a wailing child of some fifteen 
 months, and a tin box to hold the pennies. The 
 man has retained a look of well-being. It may be 
 that the great lump of tobacco that he holds in his 
 mouth, and which has swelled out his cheek, makes 
 his face look better nourished, and that he would 
 certainly not think himself a well-fed man. The 
 woman looks far more decrepit than he. Her shrill 
 voice, which even sounds above the organ, reveals 
 the great exhaustion that is expressed by the whole 
 appearance of her body. But why do I trouble 
 about the looks of these grown-up people ? If 
 their way of getting their living is despicable, the 
 results scanty, it is certain that neither he nor 
 she can carry on a more honourable means of 
 livelihood, and that they do not deserve a better 
 piece of bread. Let them see to it themselves, how 
 they finish their days, and how they justify their 
 doings. 
 
 But what crime has that pale thin child com- 
 
96 
 
 BUSKEN-HUET, 
 
 mitted that it should be condemned to spend its 
 earliest life coughing on the lid of a street-organ ? 
 Probably he is the successor to half-a-dozen male 
 and female predecessors, who have been borne one 
 after another on this throne — a throne as shaky 
 as many another. Perhaps the four elder ones are 
 training for rope-dancers, while the two younger 
 are exercising themselves in imitating. But, per- 
 haps, we are only letting our fancy work. Does 
 it matter, you think, if these brothers and sisters 
 exist only in our imagination ? Is it of great con- 
 sequence whether there are many or only this one ? 
 Here anyway is a child, a human being, miserable 
 and wretched, suffering for the laziness and care- 
 lessness of its father and its mother ; a sick child 
 that is starving bodily and mentally, although it has 
 done nothing to deserve this fate. That is the 
 great point ; and that is quite enough. The ob- 
 server who has an open eye for the comical side of 
 things must also have an open heart for their 
 misery. Amidst your pleasant meditations you 
 here touch a painful enigma. 
 
 . Along the Churchyard. 
 
 Every one has his own ideal. She would, of 
 course, not have been yours. I speak of Gerritje, 
 the fisherman's daughter, when she was between 
 twenty and twenty-one years of age. Not that she 
 
ALONG THE CHURCHYARD, 
 
 97 
 
 was not at that time a good-looking woman, of 
 neat and tidy appearance the whole year round. 
 By no means. Perhaps she might even be called 
 the rose of the villagers. In any case it is certain 
 that he who saw her on Sunday morning sauntering 
 to church, accompanied by her father and mother, 
 or met her on Sunday evening walking with half 
 a dozen friends along the seashore, would declare 
 that rarely had he seen two fresher dimpled 
 cheeks, two whiter rows of teeth, and two better 
 shaped feet, incased in white-lined green slippers 
 and the cleanest of stockings. 
 
 But let us mention only her Sunday suit, and 
 leave alone her work-a-day clothes — more rags than 
 clothes. She wore a stiff-stretched cap of coarse 
 net, tastelessly embroidered ; two long golden ear- 
 rings, hanging down along the cheeks, and fastened 
 on the top to a lock of false hair ; a gaudy red- 
 and-yellow-flowered cotton jacket ; a huge apron of 
 a blue-and-violet lace, tied on at the back between 
 the shoulder-blades, where the collar of the jacket 
 is plaited together in the form of a rosette ; an ugly 
 red-coral necklace, fastened with a lock, not much 
 smaller than three inches square ; nothing of all 
 this resembles in the least degree what Dante loved 
 in Beatrice; Rousseau, in Juliet ; Werther, in Lotte; 
 or Lamartine, in Elvire. 
 
 And then, could Gerritje write? She under- 
 stood better how to drive into town with her dog- 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 BUSKEN^HUET. 
 
 cart full of shell-fish. Could she read? It was 
 much easier to her to carry a chest of drawers or a 
 kitchen-stove upon her head from the town to the 
 village. Could she play the piano ? No ; but when 
 her father was ill she could go with her cart to the 
 shore, and harness and unharness the stout horse 
 very deftly. Had she a nice voice ? If she re- 
 peated a joke at ‘ Halfweg’ you could hear her 
 laugh at the town-gate. Would it be likely that a 
 young man would beg for a kiss ? It might be ; but 
 a glance at her fleshy hands made even the most 
 audacious male flirt instinctively seize hold of his 
 ears as though they tingled already from a blow. 
 
 Arie’s cheek had never glowed from such a box 
 on the ears. But neither was he a flirt, though he 
 had begged Gerritje for a kiss, and even for more 
 than one. He was no dandy from the town, but a 
 courageous fisherman, sprung from fisher-blood ; a 
 giant outwardly, inwardly a child ; blameless, open- 
 hearted, and not rough. He was no fop from the 
 town ; he courted with the intention to marry, and 
 Gerritje accepted him, though he was many years 
 older than she. With regard to their natures, they 
 were made for each other. Her independence, her 
 rather too independent mind, bent willingly to the 
 authority of Arie's love ; and where he had too 
 much of gravity and earnestness, she balanced it by 
 her easy temper. Humanly speaking — for it came 
 about just otherwise — she could better have missed 
 
ALONG THE CHURCHYARD. 
 
 99 
 
 him than he her. She was his sunshine, his life, 
 his all. At every separation, for however brief a 
 space, he felt himself abandoned and lonely. The 
 invisible world existed for him only in the shape of 
 Gerritje's name ; faith, hope, love, were all called by 
 him Gerritje. Too clever for a fisherman — but so 
 he was. 
 
 We described Gerritje : fresh and stern and joy- 
 ful, and also tender, but for him alone. Such she 
 was, and as such he loved her dearly as his sweet- 
 heart and his wife for ten long years. The number 
 is exact ; for just at the beginning of May 1855, in 
 honour of their ten years’ wedding-day, he had pre- 
 sented her with a cake ; and next June, by the birth 
 of their fourth child, she was taken away by death 
 within a few moments. 
 
 Their eldest child, a boy of between seven and 
 eight, was like, milk and blood ; the second and 
 third, also boys, had died in their cradles ; the 
 fourth, a mortal stab to the mother, was a girl. 
 The midwife said, ‘A healthy child that will certainly 
 sustain all dangers.’ It sustained every danger, 
 and became, according to the neighbours, as fat as 
 a little mole, thanks to bread-and-milk and bread- 
 porridge. 
 
 The loss of his wife was for Arie a blow that 
 quite struck him down. In the twilight, the day 
 before her funeral, he was sitting opposite the fire- 
 place, next to the open coffin, feeling little faith 
 
lOO 
 
 BUSKEN-HUET. 
 
 and no hope. He lifted up his head out of his 
 
 hands that were wet with tears, and looked out 
 
 % 
 
 straight before him Thus there came within his 
 view the last present he had made to Gerritje, the 
 same cake which recalled the remembrance of their 
 tenth wedding-day, and which Gerritje, with house- 
 wifely care, had put upon the mantelpiece for 
 show. ' A trifle, but given by a loving heart,’ was 
 the inscription, deciphered with difficulty by Arie. 
 Without knowing how it came about, these words 
 riveted his attention. They no longer expressed 
 what they had meant originally — Aide’s love for his 
 wife. Their meaning enlarged ; he looked upon 
 them with another eye ; he transferred them to 
 another dominion; he connected them with thoughts 
 on the leader of his destiny. Overcome by an in- 
 clination to murmur, he thought them half true, 
 half untrue, but a more untruthful than truthful 
 description of his present state. ' A trifle ?’ he said, 
 in a questioning tone. ‘Yes, indeed a trifle; for 
 what have I had? Not even my copper wedding- 
 feast ! What remains to me ? Exceedingly little. 
 To work all day and all night until I look worn and 
 black, and when I leave my boat not even to find 
 a kind face to gaze upon. I am now left to myself 
 with two little children. The boy matters less, he 
 will make his way. But what shall I do with the 
 baby ? Little, terribly little — and does it come 
 from a loving heart?’ He rose and paced up and 
 
ALONG THE CHURCHYARD. 
 
 lOI 
 
 down the little room. As long as prosperity en- 
 dured he had believed and prayed, or rather said 
 grace more often than prayers, and both more 
 mechanically than from a desire to do so. Now 
 that Gerritje was dead — Gerritje dead ! — his whole 
 soul, with all the strength that was in him, revolted 
 against the idea that the fate of men could be 
 directed by One with a loving heart. Impossible ; 
 it could not be true ! If so, why was Gerritje not 
 left where she was and where she could not be 
 spared ? Why take away the wife from the hus- 
 band, the mother from the boy, the nurse from the 
 babe? Once more he put the question, ‘From a 
 loving heart, from a loving heart ?’ and while he 
 lighted the lamp and returned to the coffin once 
 more to devour Gerritje’s corpse with his eyes, he 
 muttered sadly-between his clenched teeth, ‘ A re- 
 markable fellow who is able to believe that !’ 
 
 Yes, Arie, a remarkable fellow, and at the same 
 time a good one ; a better and wiser one than you 
 are at present Best part of your error must be laid 
 at the door of the old spinster Kasper. She, who 
 was very orthodox, had scarcely heard of Gerritje’s 
 death when she rushed to Arie to inquire concern- 
 ing her last moments, and whether she had died as 
 a good Christian. 
 
 Arie was angered. She grew so too, and spoke 
 to him of death and perdition. Her hard words, 
 joined to the darkness and emptiness in his heart 
 
102 
 
 BUSKEN-HUET. 
 
 occasioned by Gerritje’s death, had disgusted Arie 
 with every consolation offered by religion. The tall 
 strong man could not forget the white-sugar letters, 
 written on the upper part of the sixpenny cake. 
 Although eloquent enough to refute the spinster 
 Kasper, he could find no words as often as the evil 
 spirit residing in his own heart began to speak and 
 to incite him. Other people he could silence, but 
 not himself. This happens frequently to a great 
 many, to nearly all of us. For, you see, to preach 
 and to practise are two quite different things. 
 
STIFTER. 
 
 Born in Oberplan, Bohemia, Oct. 23, 1806 ; died 
 IN Linz, Austria, Jan. 28, 1868. 
 
STIFTER. 
 
 In Adalbert Stifter, Austrian literature possesses 
 a true poet and an artist who painted the most 
 •exquisite cabinet pictures in words. He was a son 
 -of the people, had passed his childhood out of 
 doors, and drew his inspirations from actual contact 
 with Nature. His father was a linenweaver, who 
 owned a few cows, which his boy tended. He early 
 showed a love for fairy tales and marionette plays ; 
 ■and the village schoolmaster, recognising his abili- 
 ties, advised his father to give him a good education. 
 This advice would have been followed had the 
 father lived, but a terrible accident killed him when 
 Adalbert was but ten years of age. An uncle, how- 
 over, adopted him, and sent him to the Latin school 
 attached to the monastery of Kremsmiinster. Here 
 he began to write verses and show a talent for 
 landscape-painting. In 1826 he was removed to a 
 school at Vienna, where he studied history, philo- 
 sophy, and natural science, and in his leisure hours 
 painted landscapes. When he had passed through 
 the classes it became needful he should do some- 
 thing for his maintenance: he turned to teaching; and 
 
io6 
 
 STJFTER. 
 
 this brought him into contact with many families^ 
 among whom he soon made friends. His pupils 
 were chiefly of noble rank : among them was 
 Prince Richard Metternich, afterwards well known 
 as ambassador at Paris. To him, as to others, he 
 taught mathematics and physics, in which sciences 
 he excelled. His leisure moments were divided 
 between writing and painting, but he did not thrust 
 either of these favourite occupations into notice. 
 Accident, however, revealed to the Baroness von 
 Miinck, the mother of one of his pupils, that her 
 tutor was a gifted writer. She drew attention to 
 his talent, and procured for him an opening on 
 the Vienna papers, in which he forthwith published 
 some of his short tales. They found favour at 
 once, and he was able soon after to collect them in 
 book-form, under the title of Sticdieji Sketches’). 
 
 At the time that Stifter first wrote, Austria pos- 
 sessed no novelists ; her literature was altogether 
 at a low ebb. Political oppressions had much to 
 do with this ; it was so easy to offend against 
 Metternich’s stifling restrictions. The severe and 
 suspicious censorship scented contraband in even 
 the most innocent productions. There was no 
 encouragement to write, every encouragement to 
 keep silent. Such authors as could not be repressed 
 had to publish their works out of the country. 
 Stifter’s writings, however, could not offend the. 
 most narrow-minded autocrat. 
 
STIFTER. 
 
 107 
 
 Stifter was happy in naming his stories 
 ‘ Sketches/ for they are artists’ memoranda rather 
 than rounded works of art. Here a favourite bit 
 is drawn with detailed care, there one of less inter- 
 est is lightly touched in. His writings all bear the 
 character of landscape-painting ; they are pictures, 
 of still-life, in which scenery plays the chief part,, 
 and man a subordinate figure. There is not much 
 action in his stories, which are told in a calm nar- 
 rative tone, that never grows dramatic even in 
 dramatic situations. His heroes are the woods, the 
 wide-stretching moorlands, the Austrian alps, the 
 sombre Bohemian forests with their still tarns, the 
 Moldau with its rocky banks and ruined castles.. 
 These had been graven in on his boyish mind, and 
 these early impressions recur in his writings. His 
 native country was his Muse. Naturalist, artist,, 
 and poet in one, his wonderful knowledge of Nature 
 was employed with artistic perception and appre- 
 ciation. Every little trait was familiar to him 
 hence every touch is true, detailed to the smallest 
 minutiae. His descriptions are never tedious, for 
 they are filled with an animated sincere delight in 
 Nature which is infectious. It is not a cold ob- 
 server, it is a lover, that describes. While exact to- 
 nature, he never lapses into a scientific tone ; the 
 poet hovers over all, and gilds all hard angles, all 
 crude realities. Neither in avoiding this danger 
 does Stifter fall into the opposite one. The anthro- 
 
io8 
 
 STIFTER, 
 
 pomorphic conceptions that pervade too many of 
 our modern delineations of Nature are absent 
 with him. He does not attribute to her a soul or 
 psychological motives ; he puts nothing into her 
 that is not there. She is real, true, tangible, 
 objective, healthy in his pages; his objectivity is 
 quite classical in character, and recalls the Bucolics 
 of Virgil in their happy simplicity of wording. 
 
 Stifter did not wholly confine himself to his 
 own age. Der Hochzvald, of which the scene is laid 
 in the Austro-Bohemian mountains, deals with the 
 Thirty-Years War. In Witiko he attempted to 
 write an historical novel. This was a mistake ; 
 such a form of writing did not suit his style or 
 mode of handling. The Nachsommer was a novel 
 in three volumes, the longest work from his pen. 
 It tells of an attempt to create an earthly paradise 
 in the midst of roses, lakes, and alps, far removed 
 from the distracting haunts of men, where only 
 harmonious and agreeable surroundings shall pre- 
 vail, and all the ugly details of life are to be ban- 
 ished from sight and knowledge. The attempt 
 succeeds apparently, and it would appear that 
 Stifter did not doubt its feasibility ; but the effort 
 is too perceptible to the reader. An atmosphere 
 of forced quietism, a calm but deadening air, fills 
 this Utopia, which is an Austrian country version of 
 some of our modern pre-Raphaelite experiments. 
 
 Stifter is not at his best in this novel. His style, 
 
SJIFTER, 
 
 109 
 
 ito some of the mannerisms that 
 :r works. It is in his six volumes of 
 L we get him at his best ; and Stifter’s 
 / good indeed. His masterly language 
 noble, clear ; never rhetorical, never un- 
 ays chastened and subdued in tone. 
 Stifter’s life was as quiet as his writings. He 
 id married, and was happy in his home. In 1846 
 le Governmicnt appointed him school-inspector 
 t Linz, a post he filled till weak health forced him 
 o retire in 1865. From that time till his death, in 
 1868, he lived a retired existence, devoted to scien- 
 tific and literary work, to painting and horticulture. 
 In him Austria lost one of the most notable repre- 
 sentatives of her literature, a master of prose, a 
 lover of all things good and beautiful. 
 
 T/ie Balloon Ascent. 
 
 In order to avoid the presence of any uncalled- 
 for spectators, the ascent took place at early dawn. 
 The beautiful girl stood by looking on with sup- 
 pressed excitement while the balloon was being 
 filled She could scarcely control her beating heart, 
 and the foreboding expectation of the things that 
 were to come. For such bystanders as there were, 
 it was an anxious moment when the insignificant- 
 looking silk swelled into a gigantic ball, and tight- 
 
T TO 
 
 STIFTER. 
 
 €ned the mighty cords with whicl 
 to earth. Curious instruments and 
 were fastened into the compartments o 
 fine tall man — usually he was gentle, cl 
 good-humoured, but to-day pale and gi 
 round the machine several times, and 
 soundness at various points. At length he a: 
 the girl whether she persisted in her desire ; and 
 her answering ‘ Yes,’ he gave her a strange look 
 admiration, and helped her deferentially into tl 
 car, remarking, that he would not weary her b 
 a repetition of the warnings which he had giver 
 her a fortnight before, since she had doubtless well 
 considered them. He waited a few moments, and 
 as no answer came, he also got in. An old man 
 was the last to enter ; she took him to be some 
 gray-headed scientific assistant. 
 
 Now every one was ready, and the machine pre- 
 pared. Cornelia cast one more glance towards the 
 trees of the garden that stood around masked in 
 the morning mist, and looked on. Then, from the 
 lips of her companions, sounded the cry : ‘ Now, in 
 God’s name, let the good Condor fly — loosen the 
 ropes !’ It was done ; the thousand invisible arms 
 of the air seized and propelled the gigantic ball ; it 
 trembled, staggered, tottered for a moment, then 
 gently rising, it loosened the little car from the 
 motherly lap of earth, and, gaining speed with 
 every breath, it shot at last with an arrow’s swift- 
 
THE BALLOON ASCENT 
 
 III 
 
 ness right up into the morning stream of light. In 
 a moment the flames of the morning sun darted 
 on to the ball and among the ropes. Cornelia was 
 startled, and thought the whole balloon was on 
 fire ; for the lines of the ropes stood out like glowing 
 rods against the indigo-blue heavens, and its dome 
 shone like a gigantic sun. The retreating earth 
 was still quite black and indistinguishable, fading 
 ■away into darkness. Far in the west, on a bank 
 of mist, lay the fading moon. Thus they soared, 
 higher and higher, gaining a wider and wider vista. 
 Two hearts — and, perhaps, the third old one too — 
 were beating high at the grandeur of the moment. 
 The rolls of sublimity were beginning to be un- 
 furled, and the conception of space began to tell 
 with all its power. The sailors were just rising to- 
 wards a whole archipelago of clouds, which, at that 
 very moment, were scattering their morning roses 
 upon the earth ; but up here* were only white 
 gleaming icy lands, swimming in the terribly blue 
 brooks of the air, and cleft by abysses and cracks 
 that yawned towards the ship. And as they came 
 nearer, the icy lands stirred and moved as white 
 wavy mists. At that instant the sun rose over the 
 earth, and this earth became once more visible in 
 the distance. It still wore the accustomed motherly 
 aspect, such as we behold it from lofty mountain 
 peaks, only that it was blushing sweetly under its 
 network of morning sunbeams. 
 
I 12 
 
 STIFTER. 
 
 ‘ How far, Coloman ?’ asked the aeronaut. 
 
 ‘ Almost the height of Mont Blanc,’ replied the 
 old man ; ‘ rather over 14,000 feet, my lord.’ 
 
 ' It is well.’ 
 
 At these words Cornelia peeped cautiously over 
 the edge of the car, and bent her looks straight 
 down through the airy abyss on to the dear earth 
 left behind, now glimmering with light, to see whe- 
 ther she could discover any known spot. But, be- 
 hold, all was strange, the familiar habitable aspect 
 was already gone, and with it the little links that 
 bind us to some loved spot which we call home. 
 Like great shadows the woods stretched out to- 
 wards the horizon, a wonderful structure of moun- 
 tains spread far and wide like crowding waves, 
 inclining towards bare spots that were probably 
 plains. Only a stream was distinctly visible, a thin 
 trembling silver thread, such as is often seen on a 
 dark heath in late autumn. A strange yellow light 
 seemed to float over the whole. 
 
 When she withdrew her eyes from below, she 
 met Lord Richard’s calm glance, which reassured 
 her. He was adjusting a telescope, and was set- 
 ting it firm. 
 
 The balloon travelled westward, borne along 
 by a gentle current of air without rising. For the 
 last twenty minutes the mercury in the tube had 
 fallen no further. The two men were occupied 
 with their instruments ; Cornelia pressed her wraps 
 
THE BALLOON ASCENT. 
 
 113 
 
 more tightly about her, and shrank into the corner 
 of her seat The flowing air played round her 
 curls, and the vessel rocked gently. 
 
 The silence was broken by the monotonous 
 utterances of the men, as the one dictated while the 
 other wrote. Once upon the horizon there appeared 
 in the nebulous distance immense shimmering 
 snowfields, which Cornelia could not comprehend. 
 
 ' It is the Mediterranean, dear madam,’ said 
 Coloman ; ‘and we only want to pump a few more 
 samples of air into the compartments, and to test 
 the electricity up here, and then you shall see the 
 surface look still more beautiful — no longer silver, 
 but of pure sparkling gold.’ 
 
 Meantime the young aeronaut had filled a vial 
 with strong coffee, and placed it in unslaked lime, on 
 which he poured water, and thus warmed the fluid. 
 He then added a little rum, and handed the young 
 girl a glass of this hot and heating drink. In the 
 intense cold she felt the beneficent effect instantly 
 flowing like new life through her nerves. The 
 men drank also. Then they whispered together, 
 and the younger nodded. Hereupon the elder be- 
 gan to empty sacks of sand, which stood in the 
 car, out over its sides. The Condor swayed in its 
 air-bath, and with its namesake’s mighty wings it 
 swung itself, slowly and solemnly, into the highest 
 ether. Here the scene underwent a sudden and 
 overwhelming change. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 I. 
 
TI4 
 
 STIFTER. 
 
 Cornelia's first glance was once more down to 
 earth ; but it was no longer the well-known home. 
 It seemed to be reeling backwards, gleaming in a 
 strange golden vapour ; bearing on its forehead 
 the Mediterranean, like a narrow shining band of 
 gold ; it swam along over unknown fantastic masses. 
 The startled girl turned away her eyes as though 
 she had seen a monster ; but about their boat 
 too whirled far around thin white shrouds, which 
 when seen from the earth are the fleecy clouds 
 of heaven. Up to this heaven she now turned 
 her gaze wistfully ; but, lo, it was no longer there ! 
 The whole vault of heaven, the beautiful blue bell 
 over our earth, had become a black abyss of 
 measureless limitless depth. That gladness which 
 we enjoy so thoughtlessly below, the full flood 
 of light upon our beautiful earth, had completely 
 vanished up here. As if in mockery, the stars 
 became visible — tiny impotent golden specks, scat- 
 tered at random through the solitude ; and the sun 
 too — a threatening star, without warmth, without 
 rays, a sharply- outlined disk of wavy swollen 
 metal, smelted to a white heat. Thus it glared 
 forth from the abyss with destructive lustre, and 
 yet without retaining a breath of light in these 
 empty regions. Only on to the balloon and car 
 shone a glaring light that marked off the ma- 
 chine in a spectral manner from the surrounding 
 night, and gave a deathly hue to the faces of its 
 
THE BALLOON ASCENT. 
 
 115 
 
 occupants, as though they were seen in a magic- 
 lantern. 
 
 And yet, though fancy could scarcely grasp it, 
 it was our own dear gentle air in which they 
 were sailing, the same air that to-morrow will fan 
 the infant’s cheeks. As the old man remarked, the 
 balloon was entering the upper trade-wind, and must 
 be moving along with terrible speed, as was proved 
 by the very slanting position of the ship, and by 
 the powerful pulling and tugging at the silk, which, 
 in spite of all, gave forth no louder sounds than a 
 child’s whining ; for the domain of sound was at an 
 end too up here ; and when the ship turned away 
 from the sun there was nothing, nothing but the 
 dreadful stars, looking like ghosts that walk by day. 
 
 Now, after a long silence, two lips, pale as snow, 
 opened and spoke in low frightened tones, ‘ I am 
 giddy.’ 
 
 But they did not hear her. She wrapped her 
 furs more tightly round her to keep off the cold 
 that was shaking her with ague-like force. The 
 men were still working at things she did not under- 
 stand ; only the young, handsome, appalling man 
 seemed to her now and anon to turn his majestic 
 gaze towards the magnificent darkness, and play, 
 poet-like, with danger and grandeur. Not one sign 
 of emotion was perceptible in the old man. 
 
 After a long, long time of oblivion, the younger 
 man at length bent his face towards the girl to see 
 
STIFTER. 
 
 1 16 
 
 how she was. She was staring around her with 
 calm senseless eyes, and on her lips stood drops of 
 blood. 
 
 ‘ Coloman,' he cried, as loudly as he could up 
 here, ‘ Coloman, we must descend ; the lady is very 
 unwell.' 
 
 The old man rose from his instruments and 
 looked towards her. It was a look full of wrath, 
 and his countenance was deeply indignant. With 
 a voice of startling strength he exclaimed, 
 
 ' I told you so, Richard ; woman cannot endure 
 the heavens. The undertaking that has cost so 
 much is now incomplete. Such a splendid journey ! 
 The easiest and calmest of my whole life is lost for 
 nothing. We must descend, it is true, otherwise 
 the girl will die. Open the valves !' 
 
 After these words he sat down again, seized a 
 rope, and drew together the folds of his cloak. The 
 younger man gave a sharp tug to a green silken 
 cord ; and, like a giant falcon, the Condor plunged 
 down a hundred fathoms through the air, and then 
 sank slowly more and more. 
 
 The lord held the fainting Cornelia in his 
 arms. 
 
 The Heath. 
 
 In the real sense of the word, it is not a heath 
 to which I want to lead my dear reader and 
 listener, but a sad, lovely little spot of country far 
 
THE HEATH. 
 
 IT7 
 
 from our town, which is called the Heath, because 
 from time immemorial nothing but short grass has 
 grown upon it, with here and there a stem of heath- 
 fir or dwarf-birch, on which occasionally hangs a 
 lock of wool, torn from one of the few sheep and 
 goats who now and then wander about. Besides 
 these there was a plentiful sprinkling of juniper- 
 bushes, but no other ornament, unless we count as 
 such the distant mountains, which formed a beau- 
 tiful blue band round the dimly-coloured land- 
 scape. 
 
 But as it often happens that melancholy per- 
 sons, in whose hearts Nature has implanted won- 
 drous poetry and strange feelings, seek out and 
 love just such spots because they can there give 
 full vent to their dreams and their inner music, so 
 it was the case too^ with this heath. Thus a black- 
 eyed boy of ten or twelve years very often came 
 here with his sheep and goats, nominally to tend 
 them; but when the animals separated, the sheep to 
 pluck the short aromatic grass, the goats (for whom 
 in truth there was no suitable food) to follow their 
 own reflections and enjoy the fresh air, while every 
 now and then plucking at a soft sprig, he would 
 begin to make acquaintance with all the various 
 creatures that the heath bred, and enter into an 
 alliance and friendship with them. 
 
 There was a slight eminence on the heath, on 
 which the gray stone, another part owner of the 
 
ii8 
 
 STIFTER, 
 
 tract, was found in larger quantities. It pushed 
 itself out to view, and even formed an overhanging 
 mass, with a place of shelter and an orator’s tribune. 
 The juniper, too, crowded more closely at this spot, 
 spreading out into many-branched kindred, and 
 near it grew many a pretty flowering thistle. But 
 just here there were no trees far and wide, on 
 which account the view was more beautiful than 
 at other points, especially towards the south, where 
 the distant marsh, so unhealthy for its inhabitants, 
 so beautiful to the beholder, floated in a blue mist 
 out into all the grades of distance. The spot was 
 called the Horse Mountain ; why, none knew, since 
 within the memory of man no horse had ever been 
 here ; indeed it would have been far too expensive 
 a luxury for the heath. 
 
 It was to this spot that our little friend liked 
 best to stray, even if his charges had wandered far 
 away on their various business. He knew from 
 experience that not one of them would leave the 
 party, and he always brought them together at 
 last, however far he might have to seek for them. 
 Indeed the actual search was an adventure to him, 
 especially when he had to wander far and wide. 
 On the eminence of the Horse Mount he established 
 his kingdom. Beneath the overhanging block he 
 gradually formed a seat, by building or scooping 
 with sharp stones. At first it was only large 
 enough for one, but at last it grew roomy enough 
 
THE HEATH. 
 
 119 
 
 for three. A few shelves were discovered or made 
 in other convenient nooks and crannies, where he 
 placed his leathern heath-pouch, his bread, and the 
 countless heath-treasures which he collected and 
 brought up here. There was society in plenty. In 
 the first place, there were the many great blocks of 
 stone that formed his castle, all well known, and 
 named by him, each of a different colour and as- 
 pect ; not to mention the countless little ones, which 
 were often even more varied and brightly coloured. 
 He divided the large ones according as they de- 
 lighted him by their oddity or annoyed him by 
 their vulgarity ; he loved all the little ones. Then 
 there was the juniper, an obstinate fellow, of invin- 
 cibly tough limbs when he was to let go a beauti- 
 ful sweet-scented shepherd’s crook, or make room 
 for a road to be constructed. His branches were 
 thick-set with thorns ; nevertheless they were all 
 covered with gifts of honour, which he presented 
 all the year round to the numerous heath-guests, 
 in the shape of a million millions of blue and green 
 berries. Then there were the wondrous heath- 
 flowers, burning fire-coloured or sky-blue, between 
 the sunny grass of the stones, and those countless 
 little blossoms sprouting among the juniper, which 
 open a little white beak and show a little yellow 
 tongue. Many a strawberry, too, might be found ; 
 also some raspberry -bushes ; and there actually 
 grew between the stones a long hazel-rod. Nor was 
 
120 
 
 STIFTER. 
 
 bad company wanting either, which he knew from 
 his father to be such even when it was beautiful. 
 For instance, here and there, but rarely, grew the 
 herb Paris, which he only spared because it was of 
 such shining blackness, as black as nothing else on 
 the whole heath, except his own eyes, which, it is 
 true, he could not see. 
 
 We ought scarcely do speak now of the living' 
 and moving company ; there is so much without, 
 them. But this is the most excellent company. I 
 will not mention the thousand upon thousand 
 golden, ruby, and emerald creatures and worms 
 which climb, run, and work about on stone, grass, 
 and stalk, because of gold, ruby, and emeralds he 
 knew nothing yet but what the sky and the heath 
 displayed to him. But of other creatures I must 
 speak. There were his favourites, the creaking 
 purple-winged grasshoppers, who flew up in dozens 
 before him when he traversed his domains ; there 
 were his countless cousins, the greater and lesser 
 locusts, Heyducs clad in dull-green garbs, chirping 
 and dancing merrily and ceaselessly, so that on 
 sunny days there was a quivering sing-song along 
 the whole length of the heath. Then there were 
 the snails, with and without houses, brown and 
 striped, rounded and flat ; and they drew silvery 
 paths along the grass or over his felt hat, on which 
 he liked to place them. Then there were the flies — 
 humming, buzzing, fizzing — blue, green, or glass- 
 
THE HEATH. 
 
 I2I 
 
 winged ; the humble-bee, that hissed sleepily past 
 and the butterflies, especially one tiny one with 
 sky-blue wings, silver-gray beneath, marked with 
 such pretty little eye-like spots. Then there was 
 another still smaller kind, with wings of pure sun- 
 set red. Finally, there were the birds which sang 
 in many places: the yellow-hammer, the robin- 
 redbreast, the wood-lark, that often filled the whole 
 heavens with church music ; the greenfinch also, 
 the hedge-sparrow, the plover, and many more. All 
 their nests lay in his domain, and were sought out 
 and guarded. Many a small field-mouse would he 
 watch slipping along, and spared it when it sud- 
 denly stood still and looked up at him with its 
 little, shining, frightened eyes. Of wolves and other 
 dangerous depredators not one had been heard of 
 from time immemorial under all his ancestors, with 
 the exception of egg-sucking weasels, with which 
 he waged war to the knife. 
 
 In the midst of all these delights he stood, 
 walked, or sprang, or sat, a splendid child of the 
 heath. From his dark-brown little face, full of 
 goodness and sense, shone out in flashing un- 
 conscious brightness his coal - black eyes, loving 
 and bold, betraying that dangerous element which 
 had been granted to him, and was beginning to 
 sprout in the solitude of the heath — a dark fiery 
 fantasy. Around his forehead a wilderness of 
 dark-brown hair was artlessly abandoned to the 
 
122 
 
 STIFTER, 
 
 winds of the plain. If it were permitted to me, I 
 would compare my little favourite with that shep- 
 herd lad in Holy Writ, who also found his heart, 
 his God, and his dreams of future kingly greatness 
 upon the heath of Bethlehem. But I do not think 
 that shepherd lad could have been quite as poor as 
 our little friend, who had nothing the whole day 
 long but a good-sized piece of black bread, with 
 which, strangely enough, he managed to nourish 
 his blooming body and still more blooming soul. 
 He had, besides, some clear cool water that gushed 
 forth hard by the Horse Mount, filled a little well, 
 and then hastened swiftly along the heath to join 
 its sisters, and, united to them, hurried towards that 
 distant marsh of which we have spoken. In good 
 times he had a goat-cheese or two in his pouch. 
 ,But one source of nourishment he had in plenty, 
 which the wealthiest town-dweller cannot command 
 — a whole ocean of the most wholesome air around 
 him, and a fulness of light to ripen colour and 
 health above him. In the evening, when he came 
 home, his mother would cook him a dish of milk- 
 soup or good millet-broth. His dress was made of 
 half-bleached linen. He further possessed a broad 
 felt hat, which, however, he seldom wore, and gene- 
 rally hung up in his castle on a wooden peg that 
 he had knocked into a crack in the rock. 
 
 Nevertheless he was always joyous, and some- 
 times could hardly contain himself for mirth. From 
 
THE HEATH. 
 
 123 
 
 his regal throne he ruled over the heath. Some- 
 times he wandered over it far and wide ; sometimes 
 he sat up aloft on the stone block or orator’s tri- 
 bune, and as far as the eye could see, so far did 
 his fantasy roam ; further still sometimes, till it 
 spanned the whole distance with a network of 
 thoughts and imagination. And the longer he sat, 
 the more thickly his fancies crowded, so that at 
 last he was often himself entangled helplessly in 
 their web. He knew no fear of solitude ; and it 
 was just when far and wide not a human being 
 •could be seen, and only the hot midday air trem- 
 bled over the heath, that the whole array of his 
 inmost fancies came trooping forth and peopled 
 the heath. He would then often stand on the 
 stone block and hold a sermon and speech, and be- 
 low stood the kings and judges, and the people 
 and the generals, and children and children’s chil- 
 dren, countless like the sand on the seashore. He 
 exhorted them to penitence and conversion, and all 
 hung upon his words. He described to them the 
 promised land, declared that they would accomplish 
 heroic deeds, and at last longed for nothing so 
 much as that he too might perform a miracle. Then 
 he descended, and led them forth to the most dis- 
 tant and remote portions of the heath, which were 
 about a quarter of an hour’s walk, showed to them 
 the whole land of their fathers, and occupied it at 
 the point of the sword. Then it was divided among 
 
STIFTER, 
 
 1 24 
 
 the tribes, and each was bidden defend his own 
 land. 
 
 Or sometimes he built Babylon — a terrible town 
 of wide extent. He built it of the little stones of 
 the Horse Mount, and announced to the locusts 
 and beetles that a mighty kingdom was rising here 
 which no one would be able to conquer, save Cyrus,, 
 who would come to-morrow or the next day to 
 punish the godless king Belshazzar, as Daniel had 
 long since prophesied. 
 
 Or he turned the course of the Jordan, that is,, 
 the brook that flowed from the spring, and forced 
 it into another channel. Or he did none of these 
 things, but went to sleep on the open plain and let 
 a bright-coloured carpet of dreams be woven above 
 him. The sun looked down on him, and enticed 
 rose-colour out of his cheeks as he slept, as beauti- 
 ful and as healthy as on mellow apples, or as ripe 
 and as strong as on full-fruited hazel-nuts ; and 
 when at length it had drawn out of his forehead 
 great clear drops, then it took pity on the boy, and 
 waked him with a hot kiss. 
 
 Thus he lived many a day and many a year 
 upon the heath, and grew taller and stronger ; and 
 into his heart came deeper and darker and quieter 
 powers. He became full of sadness and longing, 
 and he knew not how it was with him. He had 
 completed his education — what the heath could 
 give him it had given. His rich intellect now pined 
 
THE HEATH, 
 
 125 
 
 for its bread of knowledge, and the heart for its 
 wine of love. His eye roamed over the distant 
 exhalations of the marsh, and yet farther, as though 
 out there must be something that he lacked, and as 
 though some day he must gird his loins, take up 
 his staff, and wander far, far away from his flock. 
 
 The meadows, the flowers, the field with its 
 corn, the wood with its innocent little insects are 
 the first and natural playmates and masters of the 
 youthful heart. You need but abandon the little 
 angel to his own inner god and keep the demons 
 ■away, and he will educate and prepare himself in 
 wondrous wise. Then, when the fruitful heart be- 
 gins to hunger for knowledge and feeling, then open 
 out to him the greatness of the world, of men, of 
 God. 
 
 And herewith let us take leave of the boy on 
 the heath. 
 
FARINA. 
 
 Born in Sardinia, Jan. to, 1846 ; now living in 
 
 Milan. 
 
FARINA. 
 
 Itai.Y, the land of imagination par exxellence, has 
 not, up to the present, been distinguished for her 
 novelists. Political conditions have probably had 
 much to do with this. Italy lacked the elements 
 from which spring works of fiction. With the 
 awakening of her national self-consciousness arose 
 a school of novelists. They were headed by Man- 
 zoni, the Scott of Italy, who chose for his themes 
 historical events. His successors took the French 
 as their models, and transplanted into Italian 
 soil the romantic atmosphere of contemporary 
 France. Their aim has been to arouse high-souled 
 and patriotic sentiments ; and they succeeded 
 in their noble mission. The younger school who 
 have arisen after these are also romanticists; 
 but they are so in the modern, more sober, and 
 subdued acceptation of the term. They have be- 
 sides enjoyed the immeasurable advantage of find- 
 ing the political groundwork ready made for them. 
 Like their forerunners, they too have wisely copied 
 the French in the matter of form ; and hence these 
 Italian novels of the day are distinguished by a 
 VOL. I. K 
 
130 
 
 FARINA. 
 
 conciseness very remarkable in so talkative a na- 
 tion. Bersezio is the Nestor of this school : he 
 stands half-way between it and Manzoni. Then 
 follow Turchetti, Barrili, Verga, and Farina — the 
 latter the youngest, most popular, and most original 
 of them all. A native of the north whence the 
 new power of Italy has sprung. Farina is likely to 
 continue its reputation as a regenerator of its father- 
 land. Farina is an Italian of the best type, and 
 both he and his works are very characteristically 
 national. A faculty for enjoying life, an optimistic 
 temperament, a capability of taking things easily 
 and yet not frivolously, a natural inclination to 
 look at their best side, a rich faith in the ultimate 
 triumph of good, distinguish his writings. A reli- 
 gious and political freethinker in the best sense of 
 these terms. Farina is no revolutionist ; he does 
 not expect changes to come suddenly and without 
 due intermediate stages. He can be patient and 
 wait — not sleepily, but observantly. He has studied 
 modern science and philosophy ; he is well read 
 and well cultured. All this is reflected in his 
 works, as yet few in number, small in bulk, but full 
 of achievement as well as promise. 
 
 Farina was born at Sorso, a small place in Sar- 
 dinia. When he was thirteen, his father left the 
 island to fill a legal post at Casale Monferrato. 
 When the young Farina had ended his school- 
 studies, he went to Paris and Turin to study law, 
 
FARINA. 
 
 ;and in 1868 took his degree. Immediately after he 
 married. Strongly attracted to literature, he forth- 
 with abandoned all idea of a legal career, and 
 •settled at Milan, as the intellectual centre of 
 Northern Italy. Soon after he issued his first 
 novelettes. 
 
 Amori^ Fruiti Proibiti, Romanzo di un Ve- 
 dovo^ are the fruits of Farina’s first style — a style 
 he soon happily abandoned .for more original and 
 worthy themes. In these first attempts he betrayed 
 the influences of the French Bohemian school, be- 
 sides a tendency to Manzoni’s highly-coloured style. 
 Tesoro di Donnina marked a decided advance. It 
 is evident that the real author spoke here, while 
 previously he had been little more than a copyist. 
 In this novel Farina’ first strikes the note that 
 so honourably distinguishes him — the encomium 
 of pure family life, the high ethical standard that 
 never defeats its purpose by assuming a didactic 
 garb. It was followed by Fante di Picclie^ Amor 
 bendato^ Un Tiranno di Bagni di Mare — all writ- 
 ten in a suave and charming style. These again 
 were followed by Della Spiuna del Mare — a novel 
 of artist-life — and O^^a Nascosto — scenes from the 
 every-day existence of the middle class. These are 
 at present his longest works. He contemplates 
 writing two long romances ; but, with a wisdom as 
 excellent as it is rare, he has waited until the 
 ‘’prentice hand’ should no longer be visible in 
 
132 
 
 FARINA. 
 
 manner or matter. ‘ Prima che Nascesse/ ‘ Le tre 
 Nutrici/ and ' Mio FigHo Studia’ are three 
 sketches that have just been followed up by two 
 more — ' Corraggio e Avanti’ and ‘ Mio Figlio s’in* 
 namora’ — the whole, when completed, to form a 
 cycle of novelettes — a prose poem of family life — 
 under the collective title of Mio Figlio. How need- 
 ful it is to recall to Italians the healthful influences 
 that emanate from the household-hearth only those 
 who know Italian life can rightly estimate ; and it 
 is a matter for rejoicing that one of her best con- 
 temporary writers should choose such sane and 
 honest themes. He is occasionally more outspoken 
 than is customary in English novels, but this is a 
 national naivete that springs from no reprehensible 
 source ; rather the contrary ; it is an innocent child- 
 like outspokenness that thinks and means no harm. 
 
 Though Farina’s writings at first reading, when 
 tried by the standard of English novels, may seem 
 but slight, they are yet thoroughly representative 
 of Italian life and modes of thought. Graceful and 
 delicately humorous, they show sympathy for human 
 sufferings without falling into an over-pathetic 
 strain. An Italian feels, but he does not torture 
 himself ; he is light-hearted ; he reflects the sunny 
 golden sky above his head ; he is somewhat care- 
 less even in his conduct of life ; he wisely lives an 
 jo2uMe jour ; he lets to-morrow take care of itself. 
 Farina’s Muse is an amiable one. Endowed with 
 
FARINA. 
 
 133 
 
 good observation of human nature, and witty, he 
 skims the surface lightly and easily. He can be 
 ironical too ; but his irony is not scathing. There 
 are no sensations, no startling adventures or compli- 
 cations in his dramas ; indeed, they err from want 
 of invention, and are scarcely original in plot, though 
 they are in treatment. Every-day life is the mate- 
 rial with which he rears his edifices ; the home, the 
 family, his domain. Marriage and love are holy 
 to him ; no French frivolity disfigures his pages. 
 Moreover he has both tact and taste. In his de- 
 scriptions of scenery, in his power of giving soul to 
 Nature and animals, he is excellent ; his delinea- 
 tions of life in the country are idyls, amid which, 
 however, move real, and not Arcadian, men and 
 women. Not the least of Farina’s charms is his 
 style ; and this is the very charm that evaporates 
 in translation. It is on this account that his Amor 
 bendato reads vapidly in English, the two tongues 
 being so far from cognate in mode of thought and 
 expression. Farina’s language is musical and suave, 
 full of playful amenity ; a subtle aroma pervades 
 it that tells of a people among whom a sensuous 
 perception of beauty and form has been at home 
 for centuries. 
 
 Farina, who is in the prime of life, lives at Milan, 
 where he edits a musical and literary newspaper 
 with taste and discrimination. His works have 
 found great favour among his German neighbours, 
 
134 
 
 FARINA, 
 
 by whom they are translated as soon as they ap- 
 pear. Dutch and French versions also exist. Farina 
 has thus already acquired a European fame. 
 
 The little genre picture of Italian life which we 
 translate has been pronounced, by no less an 
 authority than Signor de Gubernatis, as one of 
 Farina's most characteristic productions. It is cer- 
 tainly one of those that best lends itself for trans- 
 formation into another mode of thought and 
 speech. 
 
 Separation, 
 
 I. 
 
 My room in the Via Bagutta was really situated’ 
 a little higher than was necessary. I said so to 
 myself once a day, I had so often to climb the 
 one hundred and twelve stairs that separated me 
 from the world below ; but whenever I reached the 
 top, and gazed through the window over the splen- 
 did panorama of roofs and chimneys, I so much 
 enjoyed the view that I remained living there. 
 Four months later I had made the acquaintance 
 of all my neighbours ; and among a bachelor’s, 
 neighbours there are sure to be some from whom 
 it is better to keep aloof 
 
 Thus I made the acquaintance of the most 
 eccentric married couple that can be imagined. If 
 I were to say that Signor Sulpicio and Signora. 
 
SEPARA TION, 
 
 135 
 
 Concetta were each' the actual half corresponding 
 to the other, the statement need hardly be meta- 
 phorically taken ; for, in truth, both of them to- 
 gether owned only as much flesh and muscle as 
 usually belong to one ordinary mortal. If their 
 years were added together, their sum was consider- 
 ably over that of a century and a half And if I 
 imagined to myself — a funny, but not improper 
 notion — Signora Concetta standing on her hus- 
 band's head, it seemed to me as if the worthy lady 
 would just touch, or, perhaps, even project, a very 
 little beyond the ceiling ; and my room was only 
 three and a half metres high. 
 
 After the establishment of these mathematical 
 proportions, it will be easy for the reader to form 
 a picture of this couple ; and they will live in his 
 memory as in mine, a pair of lank haggard thin 
 forms, gray-headed, their faces furrowed with 
 wrinkles, and their eyes sunk and sparkling. 
 
 For fifty-five years they had shared bed and 
 board and all the vicissitudes of life with one 
 another ; they had so grown into one another, and 
 had so lived themselves one into another, even 
 their faces, with the exception of their noses, had 
 grown so like one another, that they might easily 
 have been taken for brother and sister. But those 
 noses, those noses [ They had obstinately retained 
 their own original shape ; and I must confess that 
 never in my life did I see two more differently 
 
136 
 
 FARINA. 
 
 shaped noses. The man's was hooked — eagle-fash- 
 ion — as though inquisitively to watch whatever 
 entered the mouth ; while the woman's was small 
 and retreating, as though it stepped aside to leave 
 the way to her mouth open for a good morsel. This 
 simile was not made by me in the first instance, 
 but had its origin with the couple. 
 
 It happened at dinner fifty-four years and eleven 
 months ago, in an unfortunate moment of mutual 
 anger about some sauce that tasted of smoke. 
 
 This was the first cloud that appeared on the 
 fair sky of their conjugal happiness ; but it was an 
 ugly dark cloud, and it mounted from the sauce 
 into their noses, from their noses into their heads, 
 from their heads into their minds. At last they 
 discovered that never on this earth had a married 
 pair more unwillingly borne the burden of the con- 
 jugal yoke than they. Concetta spoke of returning 
 to her relatives, and Sulpicio wished her to go at 
 once; but considering that they were on their wed- 
 ding journey, and that Concetta's relatives lived 
 two hundred miles away from the scene of this 
 first matrimonial quarrel, the execution of this 
 plan was, for the time being, deferred. 
 
 . But ‘ separation' was, and remained, the pass- 
 word between them. Next day it occurred to Sul- 
 picio that his companion had been intrusted to him 
 as a maiden treasure ; he remembered a touching 
 conversation which he had had with his father-in- 
 
SEPARATION. 
 
 137 
 
 law ; he bethought him of his vow ‘ to make her 
 happy a whole host of good thoughts and wise 
 resolves rose up in his soul, and at length brought 
 him to the conviction that it was his place to per- 
 suade Concetta not to forsake the domestic hearth. 
 
 Concetta too, on the whole a sensible woman, 
 thought of her mother’s advice ; of the ‘ yes’ she 
 had pronounced before the altar ; of the envy of her 
 friends who remained unmarried ; of the secret joy 
 and pretended pity of her youthful companions. 
 Then she considered that Sulpicio was not really 
 a bad man, and that it was only the unfortunate 
 smoky sauce that was at fault in the whole matter. 
 
 When Sulpicio approached her with his plea- 
 santest smile, Concetta also met him with her 
 pleasantest manner ; they pressed each other’s 
 hands, embraced warmly, and peace was concluded. 
 
 But in their hearts there remained the con- 
 sciousness that they had made trial of one another. 
 This trial was follow^ed by others no less stormy ; 
 and the fourth story in the Via Bagutta, and some- 
 times the whole neighbourhood, were occasionally 
 witnesses to sudden shrieking sounds. 
 
 ‘ That is Concetta,’ the people would say. It 
 was Concetta. After the unfortunate victim had 
 vainly cast at her tyrant’s head all the flattering 
 • terms she had collected during the last fifty-five 
 years, without being able to trump his supply, she 
 would finish by giving a terrible scream. At the 
 
FARINA. 
 
 138 
 
 end of such scenes old Sulpicio generally fled down- 
 stairs, so that Concetta sent her last abusive words 
 after him from one of the steps. 
 
 Then the good neighbours came to her assist- 
 ance. They let her talk till the attack of rage was 
 over ; then they joined in her lamentation, and 
 pitied her, ai^d declared her fate to be undeserved,, 
 and her husband a brute. Suddenly she seemed 
 quieted, and then she contradicted every one most 
 passionately, and defended her Sulpicio with in- 
 credible warmth, whom she alone could under- 
 stand, whose heart only she could read, and wha 
 was really better than any one else. 
 
 When the attack was over, and the landing 
 cleared again, the old woman crept quietly and 
 secretly back into their apartment, and buried her 
 trembling head in a large black-silk hood ; there- 
 upon she descended two flights of stairs, ’and 
 knocked at the door of Madame Nina, who lived 
 with a weak-headed uncle, a friend of Sulpicio’s. 
 Concetta knew that her husband thought very 
 highly of the young woman ; yet she was so far 
 from being jealous of her, that she even made use 
 of her assistance in reestablishing peace. 
 
 Almost at the same moment the husband re- 
 turned secretly to the house, came panting up the 
 stairs, and burst into my room. As he knew that 
 Concetta cherished almost motherly feelings towards 
 me, and that a word from me would go a long way 
 
SEPARA TION, 
 
 139^ 
 
 with her, he did me the troublesome honour of 
 intrusting me with the restoration of his domestic 
 peace. 
 
 II. 
 
 From me this office of peacemaker required no 
 great sacrifice, nor from Nina either, I believe. 
 
 As soon as Concetta saw me, she met me cor- 
 dially, seized my hand in both hers, and by mutely 
 nodding her head and casting up her eyes, she 
 declared to me all her sorrow for what had oc- 
 curred, her intention of returning to her conjugal 
 duties, and her gratitude for my successful efforts. 
 It was evident that neither could Concetta live 
 without her Sulpicio, nor Sulpicio without his Con- 
 cetta. They loved each other, as they had always 
 loved each other ; and in spite of being ever ready 
 to quarrel, they loved as much as any two people 
 can love. 
 
 As I had expected, as soon as Sulpicio appeared 
 at the door after his conversion, hiding his emo- 
 tion from me by assumed indifference, Concetta 
 would have given him any atonement in her power, 
 and in her confusion she sought through all her 
 pockets for her thimble and needlecase. 
 
 Meantime I occupied myself with the lock of 
 the door, or looked out of the window, or examined 
 some book or picture. Then the two came a little 
 nearer to one another ; my backward glances re- 
 
140 
 
 FARINA, 
 
 vealed two trembling hands that pressed one an- 
 other, two faces sparkling with glad smiles, and two 
 tears rolling down along the furrows of the wrinkles. 
 At last they fell into each other’s arms. I then 
 looked elsewhere, or I turned round as if acci- 
 dentally and said that it was beautiful weather — 
 unless it happened to be pouring with rain ; but I 
 thought to myself that in those tears youth had 
 come back to life, and that these smiles were well 
 worthy the rosy cheeks and foreheads of spring. 
 
 But one day the storm raged so terribly that 
 the diplomatic transactions lasted many hours, and 
 had to be very skilfully managed before the two 
 ships could be got to run into the calm matri- 
 monial harbour. The word ‘ Separation’ was pro- 
 nounced by both parties with the greatest decision, 
 and neither would give way. 
 
 In order to avoid any diplomatic transactions, 
 both parties had left the house and gone in oppo- 
 site directions. The servant, a half-silly little thing, 
 whom the two old people had turned up somewhere 
 and taken in, knew nothing except that her master 
 and mistress had gone out one after another. I 
 seated myself by the grate, stirred the fire, and 
 awaited the events that might come. It was a 
 beautiful winter’s day, the sun shone brightly and 
 the fire crackled merrily on the hearth. 
 
 My thoughts too were cheerful. I tried to 
 guess which of the two would be the first to return 
 
SEPARATION, 
 
 141 
 
 to the domestic hearth. Who ? Doubtless Concetta. 
 Suddenly I heard a dress rustling ! I rose, turned 
 round, and saw before me — Signora Nina, the 
 young widow from the third story. 
 
 The lady seemed surprised to find me. She 
 was the more embarrassed as she had entered with 
 her usual easy familiarity ; and to avoid the appear- 
 ance of having committed an indiscretion, she acted 
 as though she had not observed my presence, and 
 thus made me understand that in so entering she 
 had only made use of an old privilege. All the 
 more I felt it to be my place to salute and ad- 
 dress her ; but she anticipated me. 
 
 ‘ Is Signora Concetta not at home ?’ she asked. 
 
 ' Neither she nor Signor Sulpicio. I am wait- 
 ing for both.’ 
 
 ‘ And I wanted to speak to one of them. I will 
 come again.’ 
 
 The information that both husband and wife 
 had left the house seemed to make her anxious 
 still she remained. 
 
 ' I really meant to wait, but I will come again.’ 
 
 ' Thank you. Probably you come for — ’ 
 
 ‘ For the same reason.’ 
 
 With these words I stepped a little aside, as. 
 though to invite her to remain. The next minute 
 she was seated at my former place, near the fire, 
 and I — did not go. 
 
 Signora Nina did not know me, but I knew her 
 
142 
 
 FARINA. 
 
 well. From my window, which was over hers, I 
 had often examined the colour of her hair, and 
 vainly hoped some time to be able to behold that of 
 her eyes. Once I had sent her away by coughing ; 
 since then I had never coughed at the window. 
 Now those little white hands, that I had once seen 
 playing the scales, were resting on the mantelpiece, 
 -and I might openly look into that- face which had 
 hitherto been to me a veiled picture. 
 
 Yes, Nina was beautiful, at least she seemed so 
 to me. 
 
 As I was still standing before her, she invited 
 me, by a polite movement of her hand, to seat my- 
 self I did so. One moment of silent expectation 
 followed. No one came. 
 
 The silence began to become uncomfortable. 
 She broke it by speaking of Sulpicio. I spoke of 
 Concetta. 
 
 When I told her of the office whose duties I 
 had faithfully fulfilled ever since I had the good 
 fortune to be the neighbour of this couple, she 
 smiled. What a beautiful smile ! What splendid 
 teeth ! 
 
 ‘ What a misfortune !’ said she, after a short 
 pause. ‘ To live with one another fifty-five years 
 without being able to understand each other f 
 
 ‘ An eternal fight and squabble ! I have been 
 a witness to it. But in reality they are fond of one 
 another.’ 
 
SEPARATION. 
 
 143 
 
 The widow’s face showed a curious smile, but 
 she did not answer. 
 
 ‘ Such contradictions are like contrary winds,’ 
 continued I, ‘ which stir up wave after wave, and 
 toss them up to the sky ; then, when the storm is 
 over, the sea becomes calm again, and once more 
 shows the smooth surface of its clear waters. I 
 scarcely think that two people could live with one 
 another for any length of time without quarrel- 
 ling.’ 
 
 Still the widow did not answer. She shook 
 her head, and stirred impatiently among the ashes 
 in the grate. 
 
 I was silent. 
 
 ‘ What time is it ?’ asked she, as though she 
 thought her silence offended me. 
 
 ‘ Four o’clock.’ 
 
 ‘ It is late. I must go. I will come again.’ 
 
 ‘ By the right time, it is still thirteen minutes to 
 four.’ 
 
 Nina smiled, and did — not go. 
 
 I did not know why, but in my heart there was 
 a sound as of joy-bells. 
 
 Suddenly we saw Sulpicio and Concetta coming 
 along hand-in-hand. 
 
 ‘ Is peace restored ?’ both Nina and I inquired 
 with our eyes. 
 
 ‘ It is,’ answered husband and wife, in the same 
 language. 
 
144 
 
 FARINA, 
 
 ‘ I had come to offer my congratulations on the 
 peace/ said the widow. ‘Now it is late, and I must go.^' 
 
 Concetta was in good spirits ; her wrinkles, 
 revealed a kindly smile, and her eyes sparkled. 
 
 ‘ It was not a bad thing that Signor Carlo kept 
 you company,’ said she to the young widow. 
 
 Nina blushed, and I felt my heart beat faster. 
 
 She went, and soon after I took my leave. 
 
 The whole day long I only thought of Signora. 
 Nina, and only dreamt of her all night. All next 
 morning I stood at the window to see her. I was 
 fortunate enough to be observed by her, and to be 
 allowed to bow to her. For a whole month I stood 
 regularly at the window at the same time, and re- 
 joiced in the same good fortune ; now I smiled at 
 her, now she at me. Seven months and eight days 
 after I was permitted to press Signora Nina to my 
 heart She was no longer a widow. 
 
 III. 
 
 We were happy. We inhabited a little house 
 far removed from the noisy bustle of the town. Our 
 windows did not open on to the dwellings of trou- 
 blesome neighbours. We had the sun every day 
 from morning to noon, and our new furniture shone 
 in festive light. 
 
 She said her old uncle would on no considera- 
 tion remain alone with his infirmities, and had gone 
 to live with a sister in the town. 
 
SEPARATION. 
 
 145 
 
 We were alone with our dreams, our plans, and 
 thoughts ; and that was sufficient for us. Any 
 other society would only have been wearisome. 
 
 Our room was rose-coloured, like the happy 
 spirits that presided over it. The future appeared 
 to us as a beautiful dream. Nina was as graceful 
 as she was dignified. She could smile so sweetly ; 
 her glance was as bright and as clear as the moon’s 
 beam ; her voice was gentle and harmonious ; and 
 then she had such a bewitching way of approach- 
 ing me, laying her hands on my shoulders, and, 
 without one spoken word, saying to me, ‘ I love 
 you !’ that I could have gazed on her for hours, and 
 devoured her with my eyes. 
 
 She had only one fault : she could not go from 
 one room into another without banging the door 
 behind her. Often, when I was startled from my 
 thoughts and dreams by the slamming of a door, 
 I was on the point of giving expression to the un- 
 pleasant sensation ; but then I saw her rosy face, 
 and was silent. None the less did it constantly 
 irritate me, and I tried in vain to endure it more 
 calmly. 
 
 I must testify to myself that I was an almost 
 perfect husband to Nina. I left her alone as seldom 
 as possible, and then only for a short time. I never 
 contradicted her. I tried to anticipate all her 
 wishes, always spoke kindly to her, and committed 
 a thousand little absurdities to keep her in good 
 
 VOL. I. L 
 
146 
 
 FARINA. 
 
 humour. But I, too, had one little fault: ! was 
 terribly absent. Sometimes, when I was absorbed in 
 some stupid thought, I did not notice that she, her- 
 self smiling, demanded a smile from me ; and then 
 I would answer some joking fancy by a serious 
 shake of my head. 
 
 Certainly Fate, when it mated together two^ 
 such serious faults, could not have intended to pro- 
 duce an image of conjugal peace. 
 
 One day I was even more absent, and she 
 slammed the doors even more violently than usual 
 a loud ‘ O !’ escaped from me. She had heard it 
 and I repented it. In vain. Next time Nina did 
 not disturb me in my contemplation ; she walked 
 softly on tiptoe, and when she closed the door, she 
 did it with the greatest care, to avoid making the 
 least sound. 
 
 The roar of Vulcan’s smithy would not have 
 niade me spring up faster from my chair. I rushed 
 towards her, embraced and kissed her, and we 
 laughed together in the fulness of our hearts. 
 
 But the ice was broken ; a thought had come 
 to open expression between us : we were not per- 
 fect. In spite of all her exertions, Nina did not 
 succeed in curing herself of her fault ; only as soon 
 as she had committed it she assumed a half sorry, 
 half teazing manner, which made her seem even 
 more beautiful. 
 
 As for me, as often as my thoughts carried me 
 
SEPARATION. 
 
 147 
 
 away, I continued to shake my head and open 
 my eyes wide ; and so everything remained as 
 before. 
 
 Our honeymoon lasted several months without 
 the faintest shadow of a cloud resting on the brows 
 of the lovers. 
 
 One day — it was one of those sultry July days 
 on which the cruel hot sun mocks uS"--she swears 
 to this day that she first said to me, ‘ I should like 
 to know in what you are always so deeply absorbed. 
 I really should like to know f And would you 
 believe it, honoured reader, I am said first to have 
 offended her by a slight imprecation, which I did 
 not notice myself until it was more than half out of 
 my lips ? Yet, however that may be, one of us re- 
 plied with a rude speech, the other with a some- 
 what ruder one, then now and then was added a 
 touch of scorn and bitterness ; and at last Nina’s 
 eyes were as fulkof tears as my heart of wounded 
 pride. 
 
 Another time, the same beginning, the same 
 end ; and that was repeated again and again. 
 
 ‘ This life is becoming unendurable,’ said she. 
 
 ' So I think too,’ answered I. 
 
 ‘ Indeed ! Do you think so too ? But I for 
 my part am thoroughly tired of it. And we have 
 borne these chains now for nearly a year !’ 
 
 ‘Ten months,’ I answered. 
 
 ‘To you it may seem ten years, to me it does 
 
FARINA, 
 
 148 
 
 not yet seem quite so long. But I suppose our 
 happiness has already lasted too long ! O, how 
 unhappy I am ! I can see it already ; you will 
 come to hate me, if indeed you do not hate me 
 already. But I, too, shall at last hate you.’ 
 
 I longed to take her in my arms, and to carry 
 her with her wrath through all the rooms, until at 
 last she should laughingly exclaim, ‘ Now it is 
 enough.’ Best of all, I should have liked to kneel 
 before her, to confess my conjugal sins, and beg for 
 absolution, or to fall upon her neck and kiss it until 
 it was so red with my embraces that fright would 
 have brought her back to her senses ; in short, all 
 the good thoughts that can only occur to the best 
 sort of husband rose up in me. I give her a side- 
 long glance ; she sees my look, and shrugs her 
 shoulders. I make a step towards her, she leaves 
 the room, and I — do the same ; but in the opposite 
 direction, down the stairs, deeply hurt, yet full of 
 conscience-pricks before even I began to carry out 
 my terrible plans of vengeance. 
 
 For a long time I continued walking round and 
 round in a circle. I could not leave the spot, and 
 involuntarily my looks always rested on the house 
 in which dwelt my happiness. 
 
 Then all at once I remembered Concetta and 
 Sulpicio, our good friends of former times ; and I 
 thought that I had no one to undertake the office 
 of peacemaker with Nina for me, and besides that 
 
SEPARA TION, 
 
 149- 
 
 I would never intrust such an office to any one, or 
 ever permit it. 
 
 I said to myself, ‘ It is the first time ; but who 
 knows whether it is the last time? You must re- 
 turn to her, shorten her punishment as much as 
 possible ; you must speak kindly to her, and say 
 that we will not quarrel any more. But what if she, 
 instead of listening kindly to me, should prove 
 refractory ? O, what nonsense ! She will certainly 
 answer my first kind word with a hearty kiss. 
 Then we shall no longer talk or complain, but only 
 laugh together.' 
 
 Two or three times these conversations had 
 brought me as far as the threshold of my house, 
 and just as often I had gone away again. At 
 length I ventured to cross the Rubicon, ran quickly 
 through the doorway, sprang up the stairs, three 
 or four steps at a time, and a moment after I stood 
 before her, who had already come weeping to meet 
 me on the landing. 
 
 She covered her face with her hands, and did 
 not speak a word. I put my arm round her and 
 drew her into the room ; then I took her on my lap, 
 gently forced her hands away from her eyes, laid 
 my face next hers, and begged her forgiveness. But 
 instead of forgiving me she broke out into fresh 
 sobs, threw her arms round my neck, and laid her 
 head on my shoulder. My heart was beating vio- 
 lently. Nina's behaviour seemed to me to tell of 
 
FARINA, 
 
 150 
 
 some misfortune. What could have happened 
 during my absence? New caresses in kiss and 
 word. When at length I ventured to address her 
 with an anxious inquiry, she burst out afresh into 
 more violent sobs. 
 
 ’ ‘ She is dead !’ 
 
 ‘Who?’ 
 
 ‘ Concetta, poor Concetta !’ 
 
 I was silent. To tell the truth, the matter did 
 not affect me very deeply ; the worthy lady was a 
 good deal past seventy, and her place in heaven 
 had long been reserved for her. Still I felt it my 
 duty to pay some regard to Nina’s sincere distress. 
 When she had finished crying she said, in a voice 
 of deep emotion, 
 
 ‘ Now they are separated !’ 
 
 ‘ And who brought you the news ?’ 
 
 ‘ A friend who visited me. Poor Concetta died 
 quite suddenly the day before yesterday.’ 
 
 ‘ And Sulpicio ?’ 
 
 ‘ Is in despair. He does not speak a word, and 
 seems quite stunned.’ 
 
 ‘ I must go and see him.’ 
 
 ‘Yes, do, my friend ; go at once.’ 
 
 I went. When I arrived — Alas, the poor old 
 heart had not been able to endure the grief of de- 
 solation ! In that same night, a few hours after 
 they had carried out his life’s companion, he lay 
 
SEPARATION. 
 
 
 down in his widowed bed in the certain conviction 
 that he should not see the next morning. 
 
 The dead man's smiling face seemed to say to 
 me, ‘ Even death has not been able to separate us.' 
 
 With my heart full of sadness, but of mild be- 
 neficent sadness, I returned home. We were alone. 
 I said not a word to Nina. She fell sadly round 
 my neck and pressed me to her heart. 
 
 ‘ Carlo !' 
 
 ‘ Nina !' 
 
 She cast up her eyes, as though she wished to 
 read my thoughts in mine ; then she whispered, 
 
 ‘ We too ! Is it not true ?' 
 

 
 
 
 \ 
 
 J’ '' ■ . 
 
 * 
 
 ] 
 
 
 
 fcL 
 
 
 f- 
 
 \ 
 
 « 
 
DAUDET. 
 
 Born in Nismes, May 13, 1840 ; now living in 
 
 Paris. 
 
DAUDET. 
 
 Alphonse Daudet, a follower of the French 
 realistic school founded by Gustave Flaubert, may 
 be pronounced the most readable, as well as the 
 most moral of this coterie. Possessing a poetical 
 nature, he has not been able to sink into the depths 
 of systematic offensiveness that have ingulfed 
 the talents of a Zola. Indeed it is probable that, 
 but for current Parisian influences, Daudet might 
 never have become a realist. Born in Provence, 
 under a blue and sunny sky, where life is gay and 
 hearts are merry, his earliest and most spontaneous 
 productions reflect these influences. They are 
 Provengal in spirit, fantastic and poetical in form 
 and treatment. 
 
 Daudet came to Paris as a mere lad of seven- 
 teen, with a view to devote himself to literature, 
 rich in hopes, poor in pence. He brought with 
 him some poems, which had the good fortune 
 to find favour in the eyes of the Empress ; and, 
 thanks to her intercession, he became secre- 
 tary to the Due de Morny, whom, with doubtful 
 good taste, he has held up to public opprobrium 
 in his Nabobs under the transparent pseudonym 
 
DAUDET. 
 
 156 
 
 of the Due de Mora. His duties appear to have 
 been of the most nominal kind ; they allowed him 
 plenty of time for writing and for travelling. From 
 1859 to 1861 the Figaro published a series of 
 novelettes from his pen. In 1862 the Odeon brought 
 out a little one-act play, La Dernicre Idole, which 
 met with some success. This was followed by 
 dramas that failed, and it was evident that the 
 stage was not Daudet's province. In 1865 he lost 
 his patron, and forthwith consecrated himself en- 
 tirely to literature. He wrote novelettes in various 
 papers, meeting with much applause ; he went on 
 to produce longer works, among which Lettres de 
 mon Moidiiiy full of genial appreciation of Nature, 
 and a most delicate work of light French satire 
 and wit, Tartarin de Tarascon^ are the most not« 
 able. In these the Provengale, the poet, are still 
 uppermost. 
 
 The publication of Le Petit Chose marks the 
 transition from Daudet’s earlier to his later man- 
 ner. Daudet here first turned to the observa- 
 tion and delineation of real life. The book, though 
 painful, and in a sense realistic, rests on an ideal- 
 istic foundation ; the hero is of a poetical nature, for 
 whom the hard corners of life are smoothed by 
 less dreamy characters. He has his troubles too, 
 and they are no mean ones, but the solution is 
 reconciliatory and happy. Le Petit Chose is one of 
 the freshest and most charming of Daudet’s works, 
 
DAUDET, 
 
 157 
 
 even though in artistic construction it is by no 
 means perfect. The same want of finished plastic 
 modelling — a fault rare with the French, whose 
 eminent merit it is that they never overlook the 
 power and charm of form — is equally evident in 
 Jack. This novel, which saw the light in 1873, was 
 a pronounced success, and established the reputa- 
 tion of its author. It was followed by Froinont 
 jeune et Risler aine^ a work that was crowned by 
 the French Academy. It is a book of the most 
 inexorable realism, full of vivid descriptions of 
 Parisian bourgeois life, and sharp contrast of vice 
 ■and virtue. Its theme is one too well worn in 
 French novels, but the treatment and situations are 
 new. The accomplice of the wife’s crime is, in this 
 case, the husband’s partner, and the bankruptcy 
 that her extravagances all but draw down upon the 
 firm involves both her husband and her lover in 
 ruin. The characters are drawn with masterly 
 force: Risler, the good, confiding, unsuspecting 
 husband ; the gay, thoughtless, pleasure-loving 
 George ; the vain heartless Sidonie. The minor 
 characters are somewhat caricatured in their pecu- 
 liarities. It is this, and the fact that he treats of 
 bourgeois life, that has led to comparisons between 
 Daudet and Dickens. Daudet may have studied 
 Dickens, but the resemblance, if any, is of the most 
 superficial character. While Dickens looks at life 
 with a philanthropic eye, while his irony is kindly 
 
DA UDET, 
 
 158 
 
 and humorous, Baudot’s glance is scathing, his 
 irony cold and deadly; vice triumphs in his pages^ 
 and virtue perishes or succumbs. The Nabob 
 accentuated these faults, and introduced a new 
 element into Baudot’s works, the vulgar one of 
 personalities. In the Nabob Parisian notabilities 
 are held up to scorn under the flimsiest disguise ; 
 and though the book has passages of great power,, 
 in which the author is seen at his best, this element 
 vitiates the whole. This fault, without the merits 
 of the former work, is still more conspicuous in 
 Baudot’s latest production, Les Rois e7t Exil^ a dull 
 romance in which figure the Khedive of Egypt,, 
 Queen Isabella of Spain, and other deposed mon- 
 archs. It is much to be hoped that this, Baudot’s 
 latest manner may not prove permanent, for he is 
 capable of better things. His bold, nervous, ex- 
 cellent style is too good to employ it on flippancy 
 and gossip. He is said to compose slowly, elabo- 
 rating with care, and making no less than three 
 copies of all that he writes. This care is not lost ; 
 every word tells, is in its place. 
 
 Perhaps of Baudot’s two masterpieces. Jack and 
 Fromont jeune et Risler az7ie\ the former is the more 
 masterly. The story is cruelly sad. Baudot, in 
 his dedication to Gustave Flaubert, well calls it, 
 
 ‘ This book of pity, wrath, and irony.’ It is the 
 life-story of a boy who suffers for the sins of his 
 mother : father he has never known. Ida loves 
 
DAUDET. 
 
 159 
 
 her child in her foolish way, but she loves her loose 
 life more, and the boy is sacrificed. After enduring 
 miseries at a fifth-rate school, the delicate sensitive 
 boy is placed by his mother’s lover in the iron 
 foundry of Indret, where he suffers mental and 
 bodily tortures. He then journeys round the world 
 for three years as stoker upon a steamer, where 
 his physical and mental misery culminates. By a 
 vigorous effort he frees himself, and returns to Paris 
 to find that his mother and her lovej have squan- 
 dered a legacy that was really his. For a brief 
 moment love and a happier life seem to dawn 
 for him, but this too eludes him. He dies in 
 the Parisian Charite, not twenty in years, but old 
 in suffering. His end is deeply touching ; but the 
 causes that ultimately lead to it so false and over- 
 strained that they offend against aesthetic require- 
 ments, and almost fatally weaken the effect of the 
 whole. 
 
 The most powerful scenes in Jack and in Fro- 
 mont jeune et Risler aznc are those in which the 
 author introduces us to the homes of the Parisian 
 and Indret proletariat, and paints the life of its 
 workmen, with all their virtues and blemishes. He 
 makes them neither unduly good nor bad ; he 
 paints them as they are, never shrinking from bitter 
 truths. His wonderful power of creating person- 
 ages, his lifelike pictures, have full swing in these 
 pages. Characteristics are depicted with the mi~ 
 
DAUDET, 
 
 160 
 
 nutest detail, yet with a singular paucity of words. 
 A studied self-restraint is observable in his longest 
 'descriptions. The scene chosen by us to repre- 
 sent him is extracted from Jack’s residence in the 
 factory, and is a most vigorous piece of writing. 
 The din of the machinery, the hot oily smell of the 
 factory, seem to pervade its very pages. Unfor- 
 tunately much of this power and concentration is 
 inevitably lost by reproduction in another tongue ; 
 yet, even so, it reveals Daudet’s master-hand. 
 
 Indret. 
 
 The singer stood upright in the boat in which 
 the child and he were descending the Loire, a little 
 above Paimboeuf, and, overlooking the river, ex- 
 claimed with an emphatic gesture, 
 
 ‘ See there, my boy ! is not that beautiful ?’ 
 
 In spite of what there was grotesque and forced 
 in this theatrical admiration, it was justified by the 
 beautiful landscape that opened out before their 
 eyes. 
 
 It was four o’clock in the evening. A July 
 sun, a sun of melted silver, poured on to the waves 
 the long luminous line of its rays. It caused a 
 trembling reverberation in the air, like a mist of 
 light, in which the life of the river, active, silent, 
 appeared with the swiftness of a mirage. Tall 
 sails seen through it, shining white in the dazzling 
 beams, seemed to fly along in the distance. They 
 
IN D RET. 
 
 i6i 
 
 were large vessels coming from Noirmoutiers, 
 loaded to the brim with white salt, sparkling with 
 thousands of golden spangles. The boats were 
 manned by a picturesque crew — men with the large 
 three-cornered hats of the Breton salters, women 
 whose full fluttering headdresses were as white as 
 the salt. Then there were the coasters, like float- 
 ing drays, their decks piled with sacks of corn and 
 casks ; men towing endless lines of barges, or 
 some Nantes three-master, coming from the other 
 end of the world, returning home after two years' 
 absence, and ascending the river with a slow, al- 
 most solemn, movement, as though it bore with it 
 the silent remembrance of the fatherland found 
 again, and the mysterious poetry of things come 
 from afar. In spite of the July heat, a good breeze 
 blew through all this fair display ; for the wind 
 coming from the open sea, with all its freshness 
 and buoyancy, gave the feeling that a little further, 
 beyond those close waves, already being aban- 
 doned by the calm and tranquillity of sweet water, 
 extended the limitless green ocean, with its billows, 
 its spray, its tempests. 
 
 ‘But where is Indret?' asked Jack. 
 
 ‘ There ; that island in front of us.' 
 
 In the silver mist that enveloped the island. 
 Jack could indistinctly see rows of tall poplars and 
 lofty chimneys, from which ascended thick black 
 smoke, spreading out and darkening the sky above 
 
 VOL. I. M 
 
i 62 
 
 DAUDET, 
 
 it. At the same time he heard an echoing din, 
 blows of hammers on iron, on metal plates, some 
 noises rumbling, others more distinct, variously- 
 reverberated by the resonance of the water, and 
 above all a continuous roar, unceasing, as if the 
 island had been a huge steamer, held back and 
 muttering, driving its paddles at anchor, and simu- 
 lating movement without motion. 
 
 As the boat approached slowly, very slowly, 
 because the river was rough and difficult to cross, 
 the child began to distinguish long buildings, with 
 low roofs, blackened walls, extending on all sides 
 in uniform dulness ; then, on the banks of the 
 river, as far as the eye could see, rows of enormous 
 boilers painted with red lead, whose bright redness 
 produced a fantastic effect. Government transports, 
 steamboats, grouped near the quay, stood waiting 
 while the boilers were being embarked by the help 
 of an enormous crane standing close by, which, from 
 a distance, resembled a gigantic gallows. 
 
 At the foot of this gallows stood a man, watch- 
 ing the boat arrive. 
 
 ' It is Roudic,’ said the singer, shouting a formi- 
 dable hurrah in the deepest of his bass tones, which 
 was heard above all the roar of the hammering. 
 
 ' Is it you, brother?’ 
 
 ‘ Sacrebleu ! ’tis I. Are there two other notes 
 like mine under the vault of heaven ?’ 
 
 The boat stopped. The two brothers rushed 
 
INDRET. 
 
 163 
 
 into one another's arms, and gave each other a tre- 
 mendous salute. 
 
 ‘ And how are all your people ?’ asked Labas- 
 sindre. 
 
 ‘ All well, thank God. Ah, ah, here is our new 
 apprentice. He is a pretty fellow; only he does 
 not look strong.' 
 
 ‘ As strong as an ox, my dear, and guaranteed 
 by the first doctors in Paris.' 
 
 ' Well, so much the better, for our trade is a 
 rough one. And now, if you like, we will go and 
 see the director.’ 
 
 They went through a long alley of beautiful 
 trees, which soon changed into a street of a little 
 town bordered by white houses, very clean, and all 
 alike. In these live some of the labourers of the 
 factory, the masters, and the chief workmen. The 
 others lodge on the opposite bank, by Montagne, 
 or in Basse Indfe. 
 
 At this hour there was silence everywhere, for 
 life and movement were all centred in the factory; 
 and, but for the linen drying at the windows, the 
 pots of flowers arranged behind the panes, an in- 
 fant’s cry, and the sound of a cradle rocking, heard 
 through some half-open door, the whole place 
 would have seemed uninhabited. 
 
 ‘ Ah, the flag is down,’ said the singer, as they 
 reached the door of the workshops. ‘ Ah, that 
 cursed flag, what frights it has given me!’ 
 
DA UDET, 
 
 164 
 
 And he explained to his friend Jack that, five 
 minutes after the arrival of the labourers for their 
 work, the flag at the entrance was lowered on its 
 staff, announcing that the doors of the factory were 
 closed. So much the worse for the laggers ; they 
 were marked down as absent, and, after the third 
 time of absence, dismissed. 
 
 While he was giving these explanations, his 
 brother was conversing with the porter, and they 
 were allowed to penetrate into the establishment. 
 There was a terrific hubbub; roaring, hissing, grind- 
 ing, varying without lessening, answering each 
 other from a number of large rooms with triangu- 
 lar roofs, situated at regular distances on a piece 
 of sloping ground furrowed with numerous rail- 
 ways. 
 
 It was an iron city. 
 
 Footsteps resounded on the metal plates laid 
 into the floor. The way lay amid piles of wrought- 
 iron, pigs of cast-iron, ingots of copper ; between 
 rows of old cannons, brought there to be melted 
 down, rusty outside, inside black and as though 
 still smoking, old masters of fire about to perish 
 by fire. 
 
 As they passed on, Roudic pointed out the va- 
 rious departments of the establishment. 
 
 ‘ This is the fitting-up room — the workshops 
 of the big lathe — small lathe — the brazier's shop — 
 the smithy — the foundry.' 
 
INDRET. 
 
 
 He was obliged to shout, so overwhelming was 
 the noise. 
 
 Jack, bewildered, looked on in astonishment. 
 The workroom doors were almost all open on ac- 
 count of the heat ; and through them he saw a 
 confusion of lifted arms, of blackened heads, of 
 machines moving, as in the deep dull shadows of 
 a cave, lighted by fits with a red glare. 
 
 Puffs of heat, smells of coal, of burnt clay, of 
 melting iron, came out to them with black dust, 
 impalpable, sharp, burning ; retaining, even in the 
 sunlight, a metallic glitter — that sparkle of the coal 
 which might become a diamond. But what gave 
 to all this great labour its quick, hurried, breathless 
 character was the perpetual perturbation of sun and 
 air, a continuous trepidation, something like the 
 efforts of an enormous animal imprisoned under 
 the factory, whose cries and burning breath these 
 gaping chimneys sent far around. For fear of 
 appearing too ignorant. Jack durst not ask the 
 meaning of that tremendous din, which had already 
 impressed him at a distance. 
 
 Suddenly they came to an ancient castle, dating 
 from the time of the League, dark, flanked by large 
 towers, whose bricks, blackened by the smoke from 
 the factory, had lost their primitive brightness. 
 
 ' Here we are at the director’s.’ They passed 
 under the low doorway, and penetrated among the 
 old buildings — a group of little irregular rooms, 
 
i66 
 
 DAUDET. 
 
 badly lighted, where some clerks sat writing with- 
 out lifting their heads. In the last room a man 
 with a severe and cold look was seated at a desk in 
 the light of a high window. 
 
 ‘ Ah, it is you. Father Roudic !’ 
 
 ‘Yes, sir, I come to introduce to you the new 
 apprentice.’ 
 
 ‘ So this is the little prodigy. Good-day, my 
 boy. It seems we have a real vocation for me- 
 chanics. That’s a good thing.’ 
 
 Then, after looking more carefully at the boy, 
 
 ‘ How is this, Roudic ? He does not look strong, 
 this little fellow. Is he ill ?’ 
 
 ‘ No, sir ; on the contrary, I am told he is sur- 
 prisingly strong.’ 
 
 The director rose immediately, to cut short the 
 conversation. 
 
 ‘ Take your apprentice along with you. Father 
 Roudic, and try to turn him out a good workman. 
 I have no fear about your share in the matter.’ 
 Talking as they went, the two brothers and 
 Jack descended the iron streets of the factory, filled 
 at this hour, for the day’s work was just over, by 
 a crowd of men of all sizes, all trades — a medley of 
 blouses, loose jackets, mingling the overcoat of the 
 draughtsmen with the tunic of the overseers. 
 
 Jack was struck by the serious air with which 
 this deliv^erance from labour was conducted. He 
 contrasted this picture with the cries, the jostling 
 
INDRET. 
 
 167 
 
 on the pavement, which at Paris mark the depar- 
 ture from work, as noisy as the dismissal of boys 
 from school. Here were felt rule and discipline, 
 as on board one of the government ships. 
 
 A hot vapour was wafted over all these people, 
 a vapour that the sea-breeze had not yet dissipated, 
 and which hung like a heavy cloud over the still- 
 ness of this beautiful July evening. The silent 
 rooms were letting their odours of the forge escape. 
 The steam gushed forth in streamlets, perspiration 
 was running down all foreheads, and the gasping 
 breath that Jack had heard before now gave place 
 to the breath recovered by the lungs of those two 
 thousand men, exhausted by the efforts of the day. 
 
 Evening fell upon the confusion of this dispersed 
 ant-heap. The sun was sinking, the wind became 
 fresher, and shook the poplars as if they had been 
 palms ; and it was a great sight to see even the 
 laborious island entering into repose, restored to 
 Nature for a night. As the smoke disappeared, 
 masses of verdure appeared between the w^orkshops. 
 One could hear the tide beating against the shore ; 
 and the swallows, skimming the water with little 
 cries, whirled amongst the lines of great cauldrons 
 ranged on the quay. 
 
 Roudic’s house was the first in a long row of 
 like buildings, ranged barrack fashion in a wide 
 street at the back of the castle. 
 
 Behind the shallow house the cloth was laid in 
 
i68 
 
 DAUDET. 
 
 a little garden, dried up by the sun, full of veget- 
 ables tied on sticks and flowers run to seed. Other 
 similar gardens, only separated from one another 
 by trellis-work, extended all the way along a little 
 arm of the Loire, which seemed the Bievre of that 
 part of the country. Beside the road lay linen 
 spread out, nets drying, hemp steeping, and the 
 rubbish of all these workmen’s households. 
 
 Night came on ; a light was brought. The 
 neighbouring gardens were also illuminated ; and 
 all around was heard laughing, the sound of the 
 plates among the leaves, all the folly of one of 
 the suburban inns out here in the open air. 
 
 Labassindre was speaking, collecting in his 
 memory all the residue of ancient theories he had 
 heard in the Gymnasium about the rights of la- 
 bourers, the future of the people, the tyranny of 
 capital. He produced a great impression ; and 
 those comrades who had come to spend the even- 
 ing with the singer were in ecstasies over this easy 
 eloquence, untrammelled by the forgotten dialect, 
 free of all its commonplace. 
 
 These companions in working costume, black 
 and tired, whom Roudic invited to sit down as 
 they entered, extended themselves in indolent at- 
 titudes on the edge of the table ; poured themselves 
 out large quantities of wine, which they swallowed 
 noisily at one draught, wiping their mouths with 
 the back of their sleeves, a glass in one hand a 
 
INDRET. 
 
 169 
 
 pipe in another. Jack had never seen such man- 
 ners, and now and then some rustic expression 
 shocked him by its coarseness. Then they did not 
 talk like other people, but made use among them- 
 selves of a sort of jargon that the child thought 
 vulgar and ugly. 
 
 Jack was suddenly overcome by deep sadness 
 before this tableful of workmen constantly chang- 
 ing, and without the least attention being paid to 
 those who went out or came in. 
 
 ' That is what I must become,' said he to him- 
 self in terror. 
 
 In the course of the evening Roudic presented 
 him to the head of the smithing department — a man 
 of the name of Lebescam, under whom the child 
 was to make a beginning. This Lebescam, a hairy 
 Cyclops, whose beard went almost into his eyes, 
 made a face at the sight of this future apprentice 
 dressed as a gentleman, whose fists were so small 
 and his hands so white. In truth, Jack’s thirteen 
 years had retained a somewhat feminine mien. His 
 fair hair, although cut short, had pretty waves 
 and that caressing air given by his mother’s fingers ; 
 and his distinguished aristocratic manner was even 
 more noticeable now in his present vulgar surround- 
 ings. 
 
 Lebescam thought him looking very delicate, 
 very frail. 
 
 ' O, it is the fatigue of the journey and his gen- 
 
170 
 
 DAUDET, 
 
 tleman’s clothes that give him that look/ said the 
 worthy Roudic, and turning to his wife : ‘ Clarisse, 
 you will have to find a blouse for the apprentice, 
 ril tell you what, wife. You ought to make him 
 go to his own room at once. He cannot keep his 
 eyes open ; and to-morrow he must be up at five 
 o'clock. You understand, my little fellow — at five 
 o’clock punctually. I shall come and call you.’ 
 
 ‘ Yes, M. Roudic.’ 
 
 But before retiring Jack had to endure Labas- 
 sindre’s farewells, who wished to drink a glass for 
 his especial benefit. 
 
 ‘Your health. Jack, my boy — the health of the 
 workman ! It is I who tell you, my children, when- 
 ever you please you will be the masters of the 
 world.’ 
 
 ‘ O, the masters of the world, that is rather too 
 much !’ said Roudic, smiling. ‘ If only one were 
 sure of having a little house in one’s old days, with 
 a few acres sheltered from the wind, one would not 
 ask for more.’ 
 
 Jack felt himself in a new world, where he 
 would ever lack all that was necessary for success. 
 He was afraid, for he guessed the distance between 
 these people and himself ; and he felt that the 
 bridges were broken that spanned the impassable 
 abyss. The thought of his mother alone sustained, 
 reassured him. 
 
THE VICE, 
 
 171 
 
 The Vice. 
 
 In the middle of the smithy — an immense hall 
 as imposing as a temple, into which the light falls 
 from above in luminous yellow streaks, when the 
 darkness of the corners is suddenly illumined by 
 burning lights — an enormous piece of iron fixed to 
 the floor keeps opening, like ever-hungry jaws, ever 
 moving, ready to seize and grip fast the red-hot 
 metal that is fashioned by the fire among a shower 
 of sparks. It is the vice. 
 
 In beginning the education of an apprentice, he 
 is first of all sent to the vice. There, whilst manag- 
 ing the heavy vice, which alone demands more 
 strength than a child’s arm can supply, he learns 
 to know the tools of the workshop, and how to 
 use and manage the fire. 
 
 Little Jack is at the vice, and I might spend 
 ten years seeking another word without finding one 
 that would give a truer impression of the terror, 
 the suffocation, the horrible anguish caused him by 
 all his surroundings. 
 
 In the first place there is the din, a terrible din ; 
 three hundred hammers falling at the same time 
 on the anvil, the whistling of thongs, the roll- 
 ings of pulleys, and all the turmoil of a busy 
 people — three hundred bare panting breasts 
 rousing themselves, sending forth cries that have 
 nothing human about them, in an intoxication of 
 
172 
 
 DAUDET. 
 
 strength, where the muscles seem to burst and 
 respiration to be lost. Then there are wagons 
 loaded with glowing metal crossing the hall on rails ; 
 there is the motion of the fans moving around the 
 forges, blowing fire upon fire, nourishing the flame 
 with human heat. Everywhere grinding, roaring 
 echoings, howling, growling. One might im- 
 agine it to be the savage temple of some exacting 
 barbarous idol. On the walls are hung tools 
 formed like instruments of torture — cramps, tongs, 
 pincers. Heavy chains hang from the ceiling. 
 Everything is hard, strong, enormous, brutal ; and 
 quite at the end of the workshop, lost in a sombre, 
 almost religious darkness, a gigantic crushing- 
 hammer, moving a weight of thirty thousand kilo- 
 grammes, glides slowly between its two cast-iron 
 posts, surrounded by the respect and admiration 
 of the workshop as the shining black Baal of this 
 temple sacred to the gods of strength. When the 
 idol speaks, it is a deep hollow sound, which shakes 
 the walls, the ceiling, the floor, and sends up the 
 dust of the iron particles in clouds. 
 
 Jack is overwhelmed. He remains silently at 
 his task among those men moving round the vice, 
 half-naked, loaded with iron bars red at the point, 
 perspiring, hairy, propping one another, distorting 
 themselves ; they also, in the intense heat in which 
 they move, assuming the suppleness of melting fire, 
 the resistance of metal softened by flame. Ah, if. 
 
THE VICE, 
 
 173 
 
 leaping space, the eyes of that foolish Charlotte could 
 have seen her child Jack in the midst of this human 
 swarm — pale, wan, streaming with perspiration, his 
 sleeves turned back on to his thin arms, his blouse 
 and his chemise half-open over his delicate white 
 chest, his eyes red, his throat inflamed by the sharp 
 dust floating around — what pity and what remorse 
 she would have felt ! 
 
 As every one in the workshop had to have 
 some nickname, he received the appellation of the 
 Aztec, on account of his thinness ; and the boyp 
 once so pretty and fair, is likely to merit this namCp 
 to become the child of the factory — that poor little 
 being deprived of air, jaded, suffocated, whose face 
 ages as his body grows emaciated. 
 
 ‘ Here, Aztec ; fire, my boy. Tighten the screw.. 
 D — it, look sharp !’ 
 
 It is the voice of Lebescam the foreman, speak- 
 ing in the midst of the tempest of all these count- 
 less noises. This black giant, to whom Roudic 
 has intrusted the first education of the apprentice^ 
 every now and then stops to give him some advicCp 
 to teach him how to hold a hammer. The master 
 is brutal, the child awkward. The master despises 
 this feebleness ; the child fears this strength. He 
 does what he is bid, tightens the screw as well as he 
 can. But his hands are hardened and covered 
 with blisters — enough to give him a fever, to make 
 him cry. At times he is no longer conscious of 
 
174 
 
 DAUDET. 
 
 his life. It seems as though he also were a part 
 of this complicated machinery, that he is a tool 
 among the tools — something like a little pulley, 
 without consciousness, without will ; turning, 
 whistling along with the rest of the apparatus, 
 directed by a hidden invisible force — that he now 
 understands, that he admires and fears — steam ! 
 
 It is steam that jumbles at the ceiling all those 
 leathern bands that rise, fall, and cross one another, 
 corresponding to pulleys, hammers, and bellows. 
 It is steam that moves the crushing-hammer and 
 those enormous planing-machines, under which 
 the hardest iron is reduced by shavings thin as 
 threads, twirled and twisted like hairs. It is steam 
 that kindles the corners of the forge with a jet of 
 fire, which dispenses work and power to all parts 
 of the workshop. It is its dull sound, its regular 
 motion, which so much moved the child on his 
 first arrival ; and nowit seems to him as though he 
 only lived through steam, as though it had appro- 
 priated his breath, and made of him a thing as 
 docile as all the machines it impels. 
 
 A terrible life ! 
 
 At five o’clock in the morning Father Roudic 
 used to call him. ‘ Come, get up, youngster !’ His 
 voice resounded through the whole house, which 
 was built only of wood. A crust was hastily eaten, 
 a drop of wine was drunk at the corner of the table, 
 supplied by the beautiful Clarisse, still wearing her 
 
THE VICE, 
 
 175 
 
 nightcap. Then off to the factory, where a melan- 
 choly bell was tinkling, indefatigably prolonging its 
 dong — dong — dong, as though it had to awaken 
 not only the isle of Indret, but all the surrounding 
 shores also, the water, the sky, the ports of Paim- 
 boeuf and Saint-Nazaire. There was a confused 
 trampling, pushing, in the streets, in the yards, at 
 the doors of the workshops. After the obligatory 
 ten minutes were over, the flag was hauled down, 
 showing that the factory was closed to the late 
 comers. At the first time of absence, deduction 
 of pay ; after the second, temporary suspension ; 
 after the third, final expulsion. 
 
 Jack was very much afraid of ^ missing the flag,’ 
 and very often was at the door long before the first 
 stroke of the bell. 
 
 At the workshop Jack was not liked. Every 
 body of men needs a scapegoat, some being on 
 whom they can vent all their sarcasm, their nervous 
 impatience, their fatigue. Jack filled this office at 
 the forge. The other apprentices, who had almost 
 all been born at Indret, and were sons or brothers 
 of the workmen, being better protected, were also 
 more spared ; for these persecutions without retalia- 
 tion can only be employed against the feeble, the 
 harmless. No one defended him. The ‘ gaffer,’ 
 finding him quite too frail, had given up troubling 
 about him, and abandoned him to the tender 
 mercies of the whole room. Besides, what had he 
 
176 
 
 DAUDET. 
 
 come to Indret for, this delicate Parisian, who did 
 not talk like other people, who said to his com- 
 panions, ‘ Yes, sir, thank you, sir' ? His vocation for 
 mechanics had been so much vaunted. But the 
 Aztec understood nothing at all about it. He could 
 not even put in a rivet. Soon contempt aroused in 
 these people a sort of cold-blooded cruelty, the 
 revenge which strength exercises over intelligent 
 feebleness. Not a day passed without some un- 
 kindness being shown him. The apprentices es- 
 pecially were cruel. One day one of them handed 
 to him a piece of iron heated at the end to a dark- 
 red heat : ‘Take that, Aztec.' He had to spend a 
 week in the infirmary after. Then there was the 
 brutality, the thoughtlessness of all these men, 
 accustomed to carry heavy weights, and who no 
 longer knew the power of their blows. 
 
 It was only on Sundays that Jack had a little 
 rest and change. On that day he could take out 
 of his chest one of Dr. Rivals' books, and go off to 
 the banks of the Loire to read it. At the extreme 
 end of the island there is an old half-ruined tower 
 called St. Hermeland's tower, which looks as though 
 it might have been the lodge of some spy at the 
 time of the Norman invasions. At the foot of this 
 tower, in a hollow of the rock, the apprentice used 
 to sit, his book open on his lap, the sound, the 
 magic, the expanse of the water before him. The 
 Sabbath made a joyous sound with all its bells, 
 
THE VICE. 
 
 177 
 
 ringing out repose and rest. Boats passed by in 
 the distance ; and at many spots, far from him, chil- 
 dren were bathing amid shouts and laughter. 
 
 He used to read ; but often M. Rivals' books 
 were too difficult for him, were beyond the actual 
 limit of his understanding, and left, as it were, 
 nothing but a supply of good seed which was still 
 dry, and which time must bring to light. Then he 
 would stop, and remain there dreaming, losing him- 
 self in the splashing of the water on the stones, the 
 regular movement of the incoming waves. He 
 went away far, very far from the factory and the 
 workmen, back to his mother and his little friend, 
 to Sundays when he was very differently clad, very 
 much happier than now. Thus, during a few hours, 
 he could forget, could be happy. But the autumn 
 came with its heavy rains and cruel winds that put 
 an end to his sojourns at the St. Hermeland tower. 
 After that he spent his Sundays with the Roudics. 
 
 His favourite among all his books, the one he 
 read the oftenest, was Dante’s Inferno. The de- 
 scription of all those tortures impressed him. In 
 his childish imagination it was mingled with the 
 sight he had before his eyes every day. He saw in 
 the poet’s lines those half-naked men, those flames, 
 those great pits in the foundry, where the melted 
 metal flowed in a bloody sheet ; and the moaning 
 of the stream, the grinding of the gigantic saws, 
 the dull sound of the crushing-hammer echoing in 
 
 VOL. T. 
 
 N 
 
178 
 
 DAUDET. 
 
 those burning halls, made them resemble in his 
 eyes the circles of the Inferno. 
 
 The Machines. 
 
 Once, however, he was a witness at the factory 
 of an affecting ceremony, which helped him to 
 understand better than any of Father Roudic’s ex- 
 planations that there was a grandeur and beauty in 
 these things. 
 
 A magnificent steam-engine of one thousand 
 horse-power had just been completed for one of 
 the government gunboats. For a long time it had 
 been standing in the fitting-up department, taking 
 up its whole depth, surrounded by a swarm of work- 
 men, erect,complete,but wanting the finishing stroke. 
 Often Jack looked at it as he passed, but only from 
 a distance, through the windows ; for no one except 
 the fitters was allowed to enter. As soon as it was 
 finished, the engine was to be sent to St.-Nazaire ; 
 and what gave the particular and rare charm to its 
 departure was that, in spite of its enormous weight 
 and the complication of the machinery, the engi- 
 neers of Indret had decided to embark it, all fitted 
 up and in a single piece, since the formidable trans- 
 port-machines which the factory has at its disposal 
 permitted them to attempt this audacious under- 
 taking. Every day they said, ‘ It will come off to- 
 morrow but every time at the last moment there 
 
THE MACHINES. 
 
 179 
 
 was some detail to superintend, something to repair, 
 to make perfect. At last it was ready. The order 
 to embark was given. 
 
 It was a holiday for Indret. At one o’clock all 
 the workshops were closed, the houses and the 
 streets deserted. Men, women, children, all who 
 lived in the island wanted to see the machine leave 
 the fitting-up room, descend to the Loire, and cross 
 over to the vessel which was to bear it away. Long 
 before the great gate was opened, the crowd had 
 collected outside the hall, waiting noisily, indulging 
 in a holiday racket. At length the two portals of 
 the workshop opened, and from the shadowy back- 
 ground the enormous mass was seen advancing, 
 slowly, heavily, borne on a rolling platform, which 
 must presently serve as a stage for raising it, and 
 which halliards, moved by steam, carried along the 
 rails. 
 
 When it appeared in the light, shining and 
 grand and massive, it was greeted by tremendous 
 cheers. 
 
 It paused a moment, as if to take breath and to 
 let itself be admired, under the full sunshine, which 
 made it glitter. Among the two thousand work- 
 men at the factory there was, perhaps, not one who 
 had not cooperated in this beautiful work according 
 to his talent or his capability. But they had worked 
 at it separately, each in his own department, almost 
 groping their way, as the soldier fights during the 
 
i8o 
 
 DAUDET. 
 
 battle, lost amid the crowd and the noise, aiming 
 straight in front of him, without calculating the 
 effect or the use of his shots, enveloped by blinding 
 red smoke, which prevents him from seeing any- 
 thing beyond the corner in which he is fighting. 
 
 Now they saw her, their own machine, standing 
 there complete, every piece adjusted. And they 
 were proud. In one moment she was surrounded, 
 and saluted by joyous laughter and shouts of tri- 
 umph. They admired her as connoisseurs ; they 
 caressed her with their big hard hands ; they patted 
 her ; they addressed her in their rough way : ' How 
 are you, old lady ?’ The founders pointed with 
 pride to the enormous screws of solid bronze : 
 
 ‘ We founded them,' said they. The smiths re- 
 plied, AVe worked the iron, we did ; and there is 
 some of our perspiration, too, in there.’ And the 
 coppersmiths, the riveters, not without reason, 
 boasted of the enormous tank, painted with 
 red-lead, like a war-elephant. If these praised 
 the metal, the engineers, the draughtsmen, the 
 fitters, extolled the form. Even our friend Jack 
 said, gazing at his hands, ' Ah, rogue, you have 
 given me fine blisters !’ 
 
 It was almost necessary to employ force to 
 keep off this fanatic crowd, as enthusiastic as an 
 Indian tribe at the festival of Juggernaut, whom the 
 cruel idol would have crushed on its way. The 
 overseers ran about from side to side; dealing out 
 
THE MACHINES. 
 
 i8i 
 
 cuffs to clear the road ; and soon there only re- 
 mained around the machine three hundred work- 
 men, chosen out of all the workshops from among 
 the strongest, who, all armed with handspikes 
 or drawing mighty chains, only waited a sign to 
 set the monster in movement. 
 
 ‘ Ready, boys ? Hoist, then !’ 
 
 Then a little fife, sprightly and shrill, was heard ; 
 the machine began to move along the rails ; the 
 copper, bronze, and steel, in its mass, glittered, while 
 the gear of connecting-rods, bars, and pistons was 
 moved along with a metallic clang. Like a com- 
 pleted monument that the workmen are leav- 
 ing, it had been ornamented at the top with an 
 enormous bouquet of foliage, surmounting this 
 achievement of human labour with the grace, the 
 smile of Nature. Whilst below the enormous mass 
 of metal moved laboriously along, above the bunch 
 of green rose and fell at every step, rustling gently 
 in the pure air. On both sides the crowd formed 
 a procession ; the directors, inspectors, apprentices, 
 workmen, all marching pellmell with their eyes 
 fixed on the machine, while the indefatigable fife 
 directed them towards the river, where a steam- 
 boat stood smoking on a level with the quay ready 
 to start. 
 
 Behold it standing under the crane, the enor- 
 mous steam-crane of the factory at Indret, the most 
 powerful lever in the world. Two men climb on 
 
i 82 
 
 DAUDET. 
 
 to the platform, which is to rise with it by means 
 of iron cables, all joined together above the bou- 
 quet by a monstrous ring forged out of one single 
 piece. The steam whistles ; the fife redoubles its 
 little hurried, joyous, encouraging notes; the jib of 
 the crane bends down like the neck of a great bird, 
 seizes the machine in its curved beak, and lifts it 
 slowly, slowly, with jerks. Now it towers above 
 the crowd, the factory, and all Indret. There every 
 one can see and admire it at his ease. In the 
 golden sunlight, through which it moves, it seems 
 to bid farewell to those numerous halls which have 
 given it life, movement, even speech, and which it 
 will never behold again. 
 
 For their part, the workmen feel, in contem- 
 plating it, the satisfaction of accomplished labour, 
 that strange and divine emotion which repays in 
 one moment the labours of a whole year, and 
 places, even above all the trouble undergone, the 
 pride in a difficulty that is overcome. 
 
 ‘ That’s what I call a fine piece,’ muttered old 
 Roudic, who, with a serious mien, his arms bare, 
 still trembling from the great effort of hauling, was 
 wiping his eyes, almost blinded by tears of admi- 
 ration. The fife has not ceased its exciting music; 
 but the crane begins to turn, to bend towards the 
 side of the river, to deposit the machine on the 
 boat that stands impatiently waiting. 
 
 On a sudden, a deafening crack is heard, fob 
 
THE MACHINES. 
 
 183 
 
 lowed by a terrible piercing cry, reechoed from all 
 breasts. By the emotion that spreads through the 
 air, all recognise death, unexpected, sudden death, 
 which opens out a way for itself with strong and 
 violent hand. For one moment there is a tumult, 
 an indescribable terror. What can have happened? 
 One of the workmen on the platform has been 
 caught between one of the supporting chains sud- 
 denly extended for the descent and the hard metal 
 of the machine. 
 
 ‘ Quick, quick, boys, back the machine !' 
 
 But in vain they hasten and strive to snatch 
 the unhappy man from the raging beast ; it is all 
 over ! All heads are raised, all arms stretched out 
 in one great curse, and the women weep and hide 
 their eyes in their shawls and in the lappets of their 
 caps, so as not to see the shapeless remains which 
 are being placed on a barrow. The man has been 
 pounded, cut in two. The blood, driven forth vio- 
 lently, has besprinkled the steel, the copper, even 
 the green branch above. No more piping, no more 
 shouting. In the midst of sinister silence the ma- 
 chine completes its revolution, while one group 
 departs towards the village, bearers, women, a 
 whole troop, all in tears. 
 
 There is fear now visible in all eyes. The work 
 has become terrible ; it has received the baptism 
 of blood, and turned its strength against those from 
 whom it had received it. There is quite a sigh of 
 
184 
 
 DAUDET, 
 
 relief when the monster stands on the boat, which 
 gives way under its weight, and sends to both shores 
 two or three large waves. The whole river trembles, 
 and seems to say, ‘ How heavy it is !’ Yes, indeed, 
 it is heavy ; and the workmen look at one another, 
 and shudder. 
 
 Behold it embarked at last, with its cylinder and 
 its boilers beside it. The blood which soiled it has 
 been hastily wiped away ; it has resumed its former 
 splendour, but not its inert impassibility. It ap- 
 pears alive and armed. Standing proudly on the 
 deck of the boat which carries it away, and which 
 it appears itself to impel, it hastens towards the 
 sea as though it longed to consume coal, to devour 
 space, to shake its smoke where at this moment it 
 shakes its bunch of green. It is so beautiful now 
 that the workmen of Indret have forgotten its 
 crime, and, saluting its departure with one great 
 last hurrah, they follow and accompany it with 
 loving eyes. Go your ways, machine ; journey 
 across the whole world ; follow the line marked 
 out for you, straight and inexorable; march against 
 the wind, the sea and its storms. Men have made 
 you so strong that you have nothing to fear. But 
 since you are strong, be not wicked. Restrain that 
 terrible power that you have just tested at your 
 departure. Move the v^essel without anger, and, 
 above all, show respect for human life if you will 
 do honour to the factory of Indret. 
 
THE MACHINES. 
 
 i8s 
 
 That evening, from one end of the island to the 
 other, there was laughter and feasting. Although 
 the accident of the day had somewhat chilled the 
 enthusiasm, every home wished to partake of the 
 feast that had been prepared. It was no longer 
 the island of labour — breathless and panting, and 
 so soon asleep when evening came on. Every- 
 where, even in the gloomy castle, was heard singing 
 and the clinking of glasses behind the bright panes^ 
 whose light was reflected afar, mingled in the Loire 
 with the light of the stars. At the Roudics’ a long 
 table collected the numerous friends, the HzN of the 
 workshop. At first they spoke of the accident — = 
 the children were not old enough to work ; the 
 director had promised the widow a pension. Then 
 once more the machine occupied all thoughts. This 
 long labour of many months’ duration was now- 
 nothing but a remembrance. The men reminded 
 one another of the various episodes, the difficulties 
 of the work. It was something to hear Lebescam.^ 
 the hairy giant, telling of the resistance of the 
 metal, and the trouble they had had to bend it at 
 the forge. 
 
 ‘ I see that the welding does not hold. I say to 
 the comrades: “Now, at it — right good blows! 
 Now, at it, burners ; help me, and quickly !” ’ 
 
 He thought he was still at work. His clenched 
 fists resounded on the table, and made it tremble ; 
 his eyes shone as though they reflected the light of 
 
i86 
 
 DAUDET, 
 
 the forge ; and the others nodded their heads with 
 an air of approbation. Jack also listened with in- 
 terest for the first time. He was the conscript 
 among the veterans ; and you may fancy that the 
 remembrance of great labours made their throats 
 very dry, and that all this did not go on without 
 many a round and bumper. Presently they began 
 to sing — for it must come to that when there are 
 enough present to sing in chorus — 'Vers les rives 
 de France and Jack, mingling his voice with this 
 concert of false voices, repeated with the others, 
 
 ‘Vers les rives de France 
 Voguons en chantant.’ 
 
 If the people at Les Aulnettes had seen him, they 
 would have been satisfied. Bronzed by the open 
 air and the heat of the forge, the blisters on his 
 hands scarred and grown callous, joining his voice 
 to the commonplace refrain, he quite seemed to 
 belong to these people. He looked a true work- 
 man ; and Lebescam remarked it to Father 
 Roudic. 
 
SPIELHAGEN. 
 
 Born in Magdeburg, Feb. 24, 1829 ; now living in 
 
 Berlin. 
 
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SPIELHAGEN. 
 
 Friedrich Spielhagen, though born in Middle 
 Germany, was brought at the early age of five to 
 live in the romantic old town of Stralsund, situated 
 on the Baltic coast, and surrounded by some of its 
 most beautiful scenery. The impressions of this 
 childish home sank deep into his nature, and were 
 never forgotten ; he has become the novelist of the 
 Baltic — its storms, its calms, its beechwoods live in 
 his works. At the universities of Berlin and Leip- 
 zig he studied law, literature, and philosophy. He 
 then became a teacher (^privat docent) ; but litera- 
 ture exercised a powerful attraction over him, and 
 since 1862 he has devoted himself exclusively to 
 its pursuit. 
 
 Spielhagen has been unanimously considered 
 as the greatest of contemporary German novelists ; 
 and rightly so, for he embodies in his works all the 
 merits and failings of his countrymen’s romances, 
 their careful observation and thoroughness, their 
 inordinate length and tendency to sentimental- 
 ism. His novels are social photographs, that 
 admirably reflect the manners and ideas of his 
 time and country. The son of a Prussian bureau- 
 crat, Spielhagen had witnessed from childhood the 
 
igo 
 
 SPIELHAGEN. 
 
 working of the state machinery that acts upon the 
 people with the accuracy of a chronometer ; and he 
 saw how, just as this instrument is a passive tool in 
 the hands of its owner, so the German people, 
 naturally inelastic, have grown, after centuries of 
 over-government, to be mere helpless children in 
 the hands of the State. With rare insight and 
 comprehension of the real nature of Liberal ideas, 
 Spielhagen, even in his earliest productions, tried 
 to warn his countrymen against the dangers into 
 which they were blindly drifting. His novels 
 therefore are all, more or less, novels with a pur- 
 pose, and their various themes bear a visible 
 analogy to the development of his nation. His 
 first story, Clara Vere, an attempt to continue 
 Tennyson’s poem, was poor and utterly un-English 
 in sentiment ; still it attracted notice ; and so did 
 his second and far superior work, Auf der Diine^ 
 in which he first gave evidence of his power vividly 
 to describe scenery and atmospheric effects. The 
 scene is laid amid the weird, arid beauty of the flat 
 sandy Baltic shores. But Problematische Naturen 
 and its continuation, Dtirch Nacht zum Licht^ 
 published in i860 and 1861, established their 
 writer’s reputation. The novel and its sequel con- 
 sist of eight volumes, and contain as much matter 
 as half-a-dozen English three-volume romances. 
 They are oppressively long, and require much 
 leisure on the reader’s part. The characters de- 
 
SPIELHAGEN. 
 
 191 
 
 scribed are solitary uncomprehended souls of the 
 Byronic stamp, but born in Germany, and nourished 
 on German philosophy and theories. They are 
 men who can find no place or work in the world, 
 living embodiments of the German predilection for 
 dreaming and speculating till the capability of 
 living real life and seeing real things in their true 
 proportion has been enfeebled or destroyed. Every 
 character is unnatural and stilted, their language 
 as artificial as their ideas. The scene is laid in a 
 Prussian chateau, and the time is that immediately 
 preceding the revolution of 1848, when disquiet 
 reigned in all spirits, evincing itself among the 
 aristocracy in recklessness, among the burghers 
 and thinkers in Utopian or despairing conclusions. 
 The books reveal the impassable barrier that 
 exists in Germany between the aristocracy and the 
 middle classes — a mute but virulent antagonism — 
 and show the dangers that have resulted, and will 
 still result, from the insensate pride of caste 
 evinced by the Prussian nobility. 
 
 In Die von HoJmistein Spielhagen paints the 
 abortive revolution of 1848, and continues his at- 
 tacks upon the aristocracy. But the story is too 
 wildly romantic and unreal. All noblemen are 
 delineated as fools or knaves ; all plebeians as 
 models of virtue. This is to overshoot the mark. 
 In Reih und died (' In the Ranks’) was the next 
 of these social romances, and deals with the period 
 
192 
 
 SPIELHAGEN. 
 
 of political reaction that followed the outbreak of 
 2848. Its hero, a Socialist leader, has been identi- 
 fied with Ferdinand Lassalle, and certainly some of 
 the incidents of his romantic career present suspi- 
 cious analogies. It deals with the question of the 
 working man, and again the people and nobles are 
 placed in hostile juxtaposition. We are shown the 
 excellent qualities of the former, the coarse-minded- 
 ness and mere veneer of refinement that character- 
 ise their social superiors. This novel, too, is of 
 tedious length ; its main ideas are swamped by a 
 number of minor incidents and characters, by lay 
 sermons and didactic moralisings. It is intended to 
 hold up to view the two grand antagonistic social 
 principles of self-help and state-help. The latter, 
 of course, is made to prove a failure. The working 
 of the former unfortunately is not shown at all ; it 
 is talked and theorised about, but not put into 
 practice : hence the novel fails as a convincing 
 proof of that which it would assert. 
 
 Hammer unci Amboss may be pronounced 
 Spielhagen’s strongest novel. This, too, tries to 
 solve a social problem. Its fundamental idea is 
 that German social conditions sicken from being 
 overweighted by the traditions of the past ; that 
 Germans have not yetrid themselves of thebarbarian 
 notion that the world consists only of masters and 
 slaves, hammers and anvils ; that the whole work- 
 ing of their life tends to foster this slavery ; and 
 
SPIELHAGEN. 
 
 193 
 
 that it is this Svhich makes the German Hercules 
 a cripple, checks the free circulation of his blood, 
 creates hypertrophic asthenic conditions,’ this that 
 fills its prisons to overflowing. The hero of this 
 story is a young boy who runs away from school, 
 and is disowned by his father. Thrown upon the 
 world, he falls into the hands of a smuggler baron, 
 who receives him into his house and initiates him 
 into his trade. On the occasion of a contest with 
 the custom-house officers, Georg is caught and 
 imprisoned for seven years. The director of the 
 House of Correction, a large-hearted and liberal 
 man, recognises that the youth is no common 
 malefactor; he takes pity on him, and tries to 
 raise him. Once, on the occasion of a revolt, Georg 
 is able to save the director’s life. From this time 
 forward he is yet more trusted, and assumes a post 
 of some responsibility. Later on he obtains his 
 release, goes to work at a factory, and eventually 
 becomes its head. He has various adventures, and 
 marries twice. But this part is, as is usual with 
 Spielhagen, the weakest portion of the story ; his 
 love-scenes and his women are artificial and un- 
 attractive. The best parts are those in which 
 the wildly romantic life amongst the smugglers, 
 the existence in the House of Correction, and work 
 at the factory are described. 
 
 After the publication of this story there was a 
 decline in the merit of Spielhagen’s work. He 
 
 VOL. I. O 
 
194 
 
 SPIELHAGEN. 
 
 wrote many shorter stories — a department in which 
 he does not shine, since here his poverty of plot, 
 his want of art, are more visible. In Sturmflut, 
 written after the events of 1870, he once more rose 
 to his best level. The story deals with the financial 
 crisis that followed the senseless speculation fever 
 that seized Germany, and more or less all Europe, 
 after the Franco-German War. The bursting of 
 the bubble is very subtly connected with the burst- 
 ing of a destructive storm-wave upon the Baltic 
 coast. In Plattland, a long novel that tells of the 
 thunder-charged atmosphere that pervaded Ger- 
 many before 1848, and in a short novelette, Quisi- 
 Sana, Spielhagen has again fallen below the mark. 
 He is therefore an unequal writer, good at his best, 
 writing a lively and agreeable style, full of subtle 
 psychological and social observation, but apt to 
 run into verbosity, and swamp even his best scenes 
 in a flood of words. His denouements are inartistic, 
 his novels often end abruptly, his moral standard 
 is not high, and is reared upon expediency and 
 self-interest. He reproduces, without regard to art, 
 the unfinished and incomplete element in human 
 affairs, and this marks him a realist ; but he is not 
 so in the sense lately introduced by the French. 
 Perhaps he furnishes the best illustration of what 
 shape realistic novel-writing must take in a Ger- 
 man, for whom idealism is, after all, the ground- 
 work of national character. 
 
SPIELHAGEN, 
 
 195 
 
 One of the best scenes ever written by Spiel- 
 hagen is his account of a storm in the Baltic, 
 that occurs in Hammer und Amboss. Here his 
 power of bringing natural phenomena into con- 
 nection with the moods and acts of his characters 
 is admirably displayed. Chapters XXXV. and 
 XXXVI. of this book are masterly, though even 
 here we could wish for a little more brevity and 
 self-restraint. We have not space to quote the 
 scene in the House of Correction, where the direc- 
 tor, by his quiet decision, his humanitarian sympa- 
 thy, quells the disturbance created by the storm 
 that has roused the fears of the inmates. He ap- 
 peals to their better instincts, and not in vain. 
 
 The Storm. 
 
 And in truth there came a storm, such as had 
 never before raged over these shores within the 
 memory of man, although many a bold north-east 
 wind blows over this low sandy chalky coast all 
 through the year. 
 
 It was about midnight when I was awakened 
 by a thundering crash that made the old house 
 shake to its foundations, followed by a clatter and 
 smash of falling tiles, slamming doors and shutters, 
 which sounded like the report and clatter of the 
 smaller artillery while a battery of thirty-five 
 pounders is being fired. This was the storm that 
 
196 
 
 SPIELHAGEN, 
 
 had been so long predicted by Nature and by my 
 own feelings. 
 
 It was two o’clock when we returned to the 
 house. At the first stroke of the bell Paula ap- 
 peared in the hall, but the director only smiled 
 kindly, patted her cheeks, and stepped on quietly 
 to his own room, whither I followed him. He had 
 not spoken to his daughter, because he could not 
 speak. His face was ashy pale, while dark-red 
 spots glowed on his sunken cheeks. By a move- 
 ment of his hand he asked me to help him retire 
 to rest, then he gave me a look of thanks and closed 
 his eyes in deathlike exhaustion. 
 
 I had seated myself at his bedside, and never 
 turned my eyes from that pale noble countenance. 
 It was overspread by solemn peace ; gradually the 
 red spots disappeared from his cheeks, not a move- 
 ment revealed that a soul yet dwelt under this 
 lofty forehead. I felt as though I were watching 
 by a corpse. 
 
 Thus slowly and solemnly the hours passed by. 
 In my whole life I never felt any stronger contrast 
 than the calm noble face of the sleeping man 
 formed to the wild fury of the storm which raged 
 on outside with undiminished violence. Well might 
 he sleep ! The blessed heights among which his 
 spirit hovered could not be reached by the mightiest 
 pinions of any earthly storm. 
 
 I must also have slept some time, for when I 
 
THE STORM, 
 
 197 
 
 again raised my head the gray dawn was peeping 
 through the closed curtains. The director still lay 
 there, as he had lain in the night, his eyes closed, 
 his white hands folded across his breast. I got 
 up quietly and left the room. I needed air. I must 
 try to shake off the burden that lay on my heart. 
 
 When I stepped across the silent hall I was 
 surprised to see that the hand of the great clock at 
 the foot of the stairs pointed to eight. From the 
 scanty light I should have guessed it to be about 
 five or six. But when I stepped out I soon saw 
 why it could not be lighter. The black coffin-like 
 mantle that had covered the earth in the night had 
 now changed to gray — a pale dawn that was nei- 
 ther night nor day ; and the violence of the storm 
 was undiminished. When I left the sheltering 
 gable of the house behind me, I was obliged to 
 plant myself firmly on my feet, so as not to be 
 thrown down. Bending forward, I traversed the 
 garden, usually so lovely, now a desolate scene of 
 ruin. There lay little trees torn up by the roots, 
 and larger ones broken off a few feet above the 
 roots. The path was strewn with branches and 
 twigs ; the air was literally filled with whirling 
 leaves. Only the old plane-trees on the terrace 
 seemed as though they would resist the rage of the 
 storm, although their majestic summits were beaten 
 hither and thither in wild waves. I worked my 
 way to the terrace, the only spot from which there 
 
198 
 
 SPIELHAGEN. 
 
 was an outlook, even though limited, towards the 
 weather-side. 
 
 Terrible, indeed, it was. The sky and the sea 
 a leaden gray ; and between the sky and the sea 
 white spots like snowflakes that a November wind 
 whirls round. These white spots were seagulls, 
 and their mournful cry resounded now and then 
 over to us. On the lofty bastion opposite the 
 storm had pressed down the tall grass, that usually 
 played so merrily in the wind, till it was almost 
 flat, as though heavy rollers had passed across it ; 
 and above the long low dam on the right there rose 
 from time to time shining lines, for which I could 
 at first not account. Could these be the crests of 
 waves ? It seemed impossible. The dam was 
 twelve feet high, or more, and behind it was a 
 broad sandy beach, on which was a much-frequented 
 bathing establishment. Hitherto I had only seen 
 the sea across the dam in the perspective of dis- 
 tance ; but these shining lines, if they were waves, 
 were not dancing out at sea ; I could plainly see 
 how they rose and fell and tumbled over each 
 other, and torn off, lashed into dust and foam, were 
 driven on across the dam. It was the surge that 
 had risen up to the edge of the dam. 
 
 Sadder than I had ever felt before, I was seated 
 an hour afterwards in my office. 
 
 Suddenly, through the roar of the storm, pene- 
 trated a whining sound that seemed to come from 
 
THE STORM. 
 
 199 
 
 the clouds, followed by other similar single tones ; 
 at the same moment the door of the hall was torn 
 open, and in rushed the doctor breathlessly : 
 
 ^ It is as we thought,' he panted, hurrying past 
 me into the director’s room, whither I followed him, 
 with an emotion that was something better than 
 curiosity. 
 
 ‘ It is as we thought,’ repeated the doctor, taking 
 off his spectacles, and wiping from his face the wet 
 sand and the dust with which he was covered from 
 head to foot. ‘ In an hour, at most two hours, the 
 water will have mounted above the dam, unless it 
 should make a breach before, which is to be feared, 
 in one or two places.’ 
 
 ' And what precautions are being taken ?’ 
 
 ' Every one is folding his hands calmly. I ran 
 on the spot to the Director of Police and the Pre- 
 sident to tell them to send every man, who was 
 capable of moving his arms, to the dam ; and to 
 summon back the battalion. And — can you be- 
 lieve in such madness ? — because no counter-order 
 had come, they marched off an hour ago to the 
 manoeuvres, and are now working their way along 
 the high-road, unless the storm has already thrown 
 them all right and left into the ditch, which ap- 
 pears to me more probable. In any case they 
 cannot yet be far ; they can be back in an hour 
 or an hour and a half at most, if some messen- 
 gers are sent to them on horseback. They are 
 
200 
 
 SPIELHAGEN. 
 
 more wanted here than in the ditches along the 
 high-road. I represented all this to those gentle- 
 men. What do you suppose the police-director 
 answered ? He had been a soldier himself, he 
 said, and knew that an officer must obey orders. 
 He could not for one moment imagine that the bat- 
 talion could turn back at his command.’ 
 
 The director paced the room slowly, with his 
 eyes fixed on the ground. 
 
 ‘ What is the matter ?’ he asked of a turnkey, 
 who entered the room with an expression of 
 alarm. 
 
 ^ There are a number of people here, sir.’ 
 
 ‘ Where ?’ 
 
 ‘ At the gate, sir.’ 
 
 ‘ What sort of people ?’ 
 
 ‘ Most of them are from the street by the bridge,, 
 sir. They say they will all be drowned, sir. And 
 because the institution lies so much higher — ’ 
 
 Without answering a word, the director left the 
 room and the house. We followed him across the 
 courtyard. He had gone out just as he was, in 
 his short silk coat, with neither hat nor cap. 
 
 So he walked on before us, and the storm that 
 raged in the courtyard tore his hair and lashed the 
 ends of his long moustache like the ends of a flag. 
 
 We came to the gate, which the surly gate- 
 keeper was obliged to unlock. Last night, when 
 one of the prison -doors had been opened, I had 
 
THE STORM, 
 
 201 
 
 seen a horrible sight ; here I was to behold a touch- 
 ing mournful spectacle that has remained no less 
 clear in my remembrance. 
 
 There might have been about fifty people, 
 mostly women, but also some men, old and young,, 
 and children, some still in their mothers’ arms. 
 Almost all carried some possessions in their hands, 
 or had set them down on the ground before them,, 
 the first, and not always the best, that they could 
 lay hands, on in their hurry and fright. I saw a 
 woman holding a large water-jug on her shoulder,, 
 which she grasped with difficulty, as though it 
 would break if she put it down to the ground. 
 I saw a man carrying an empty birdcage that the 
 wind tossed backwards and forwards. Scarcely 
 was the gate opened than all rushed into the yard,, 
 as though driven by furies. The porter wanted to 
 hold them back, but the director seized his arm. 
 
 ' Not so,’ said he. 
 
 We had stepped aside to let the wild stream 
 rush past us. Now it spread out over the court- 
 yard, while some hastened towards the building. 
 
 ‘ Stop !’ cried the director. 
 
 The people stood. 
 
 ' Let in the women and children,’ said he to his. 
 people, ‘ and the old and sick. You men may go 
 in for a moment to warm yourselves ; in ten 
 minutes I expect you here again. This is no time 
 for men to sit over the fire.’ 
 
'202 
 
 SPIELHAGEN. 
 
 Fresh fugitives were already coming through 
 the open gate. 
 
 ‘ Let them in — let them all in V said the director. 
 
 ' Good people/ exclaimed I, ‘ comfort your- 
 selves ; he will help you, if any human being can 
 help !’ 
 
 They pressed towards me. They told me of 
 their great trouble : how the water had been rising 
 ever since midnight almost a foot an hour — that 
 was twelve hours ago now ; and in the highest places 
 the dam was only thirteen or fourteen feet high. 
 The Bridge-street and the next one to it, the Swede- 
 street, were situate very little above the level of the 
 sea ; and if the dam broke they would all perish. 
 Walter, the commander of the pilots, who under- 
 stood all about such matters, had always said that 
 something ought to be done about it ; but there 
 was never any money for that sort of thing, that 
 was needed for the bastions and casemates on the 
 land side. 
 
 ‘ And they have stuck my two boys into uni- 
 form/ said an old man. ‘ Now they are lying on the 
 high-road ; and there they certainly cannot help us.’ 
 
 ‘ But he will help you,’ I said. 
 
 The old man gave me an incredulous glance. 
 
 ‘ He is a good gentleman/ said he, ‘every child 
 knows that ; but what can he do ?’ 
 
 Just then the director came back from the 
 house, and at the same moment, from three differ- 
 
THE STORM, 
 
 203 
 
 ‘Cnt doors, which led to the different wings of the 
 principal buildings, the people from the House of 
 Correction poured forth. There were about four 
 hundred of them, all more or less vigorous men, 
 in their gray workhouse jackets. Most of them 
 were already provided with spades, hoes, axes, and 
 ropes, and whatever other tools and serviceable 
 implements could be taken from the stores of the 
 institution. The men were led by their overseers. 
 
 Thus they came on with military step. 
 
 ‘ Halt ! Face !' commanded the overseers ; and 
 the men stood drawn up in three ranks, firm and 
 straight, like a company under arms. 
 
 ‘ Come here, you men !’ cried the director, in a 
 resounding voice. The people stepped forward. All 
 eyes were fixed firmly on him, while he stood 
 meditating, his head bent down. Suddenly he 
 looked up, swept his gaze over the group, and, in a 
 voice of which no one could have thought his weak 
 chest capable, he spoke : 
 
 ‘ My men, every one of us has had an hour in 
 his life that he would give much to be able to buy 
 back. Now to-day great happiness is granted 
 you. Each of you, whoever he may be, whatever 
 he may have done — each of you will be able to buy 
 back that hour, and be again what he was before, 
 in the eyes of God, of himself, and of all good men ! 
 You have been told of the matter in hand. It is 
 to risk your own lives for the lives of others — of 
 
204 
 
 SPIELHAGEN, 
 
 women and children ! I do not make any vain 
 promises. I do not say, What you are going to 
 do will set you free.” On the contrary, I say to 
 you, you will return to this place as you left it — no 
 reward, no freedom, nothing awaits you when your 
 labour is achieved this evening, and that door 
 closes behind you again — nothing but the thanks 
 of your director, a glass of stiff grog, and a soft 
 bed, such as an honest fellow deserves. Will you 
 stand by your director on these terms ? Whoever 
 is willing, let him lift up his right hand and ex- 
 claim, “ Yes !” at the top of his voice.’ 
 
 And up flew four hundred arms, and from four 
 hundred throats came a thundering ‘Yes!’ that 
 sounded above the storm. 
 
 In an instant, at the director’s command, and 
 under his direction, the troop, joined by those men 
 who had before taken shelter in the institution, was- 
 divided into three bands. One of these was led 
 by Slissmilch, the second by me, and the third by 
 a prisoner named Mathes, who had formerly been 
 a shipwright, and was a very intelligent active 
 man. The overseers were drawn up in the ranks. 
 
 ‘To-day, my children, we are all alike; and 
 every one is his own overseer,’ said the director. 
 So we marched out to the gate. 
 
 The way along the narrow street into which 
 the chief gate led was not long, and we quickly 
 passed through it ; but at the old and rather narrow 
 
THE STORM, 
 
 205 
 
 gateway at the other end of the street, we found a 
 strange unexpected obstacle, which convinced me 
 more than anything that had occurred before of 
 the strength of the storm. The old gateway was 
 really nothing but a wide open archway ; yet it 
 took us longer to pass through than if we had been 
 obliged to burst open the heaviest gates of oak and 
 ironwork, with such violence did the wind press 
 through the opening. Like a hundred-armed giant, 
 he stood outside, and threw back each individual 
 who ventured towards him, as though he were a 
 powerless infant. Only by our combined efforts, 
 taking each other’s hands, and holding fast on to 
 the inner rough surface of the gateway, did we suc- 
 ceed in forcing our way through the pass. Then 
 we pressed quickly on along the ramparts, between 
 the tall bastion on one side and the buildings of 
 the institution on the other, till we reached the 
 spot where our help was needed. 
 
 It was the long low dam that touched the bas- 
 tion, and across which I had often cast longing 
 glances from the terrace on to the sea and the 
 island. It was about five hundred paces in length. 
 Then came the harbour, with its stone moles built 
 out far into the sea. Why this spot was in such 
 imminent danger during a storm was evident at 
 my first glance. The water driven in from the 
 open sea by the violence of the storm was caught, 
 as it were, in a cul-de-sac between the tall bastion 
 
2o6 
 
 SPIELHAGEN. 
 
 that rested on mighty retaining walls and the long 
 harbour-dam. Since it could neither escape to the 
 right nor to the left, it must seek to break through 
 the hindrance that here opposed it. But if the dam 
 gave way, the whole lower part of the town was. 
 lost That must be evident to any one who, look- 
 ing towards the town from the dam, saw the narrow 
 little alleys of the harbour. Most of the roofs were 
 not even so high as the dam, so that it was possible 
 to see right over them into the inner harbour,, 
 which lay on the side of the harbour-suburb oppo- 
 site to us, and where we could now see the masts 
 of the ships rocking to and fro like reeds. 
 
 I do not think it took me more than a quarter 
 of a minute completely to grasp the situation as I 
 have here represented it ; and I am hardly likely 
 to have had more time granted me. My mind and 
 nerves were too much overcome by the sight of the 
 danger we had come to combat. I, who had passed 
 my whole life on the seacoast, who had spent 
 whole days tossed about in little or big vessels, 
 who had watched many a storm — at any rate from 
 the shore — and with unwearied attention and sym- 
 pathetic shuddering, — I thought I knew the sea. 
 Now I found that I knew it no better than any 
 one can know a bomb, who has never seen one ex- 
 plode, scattering death and destruction around it 
 Not even in imagination had I come near the 
 reality. This was no longer the sea, consisting of 
 
THE STORM. 
 
 207- 
 
 water which forms greater or lesser waves, which 
 waves strike the shore with greater or lesser vio- 
 lence — this was a monster, a world of monsters,, 
 who, with wide-open foaming jaws, came roaring, 
 howling, snapping along. No longer was it any 
 definite thing ; all shape, even all colour, had dis- 
 appeared : it was chaos that had come to swallow 
 up the world of men. 
 
 I do not think there was one among the 
 whole troop on whom this sight had not a power- 
 ful effect. I see them still, those four hundred 
 men, standing where they had stormed on to the 
 dam, with pale faces, their eyes now fixed on the 
 howling chaos, now on their neighbours, and then 
 on the man who had led them hither, and who- 
 alone was able to say what ought to be done here 
 and what could be done. 
 
 Never yet had a helpless troop a better leader. 
 The splendid man ! I see him with the faithful 
 eyes of love, that look back into the past, so often, „ 
 in so many situations ; and always he appears to me 
 great and beautiful, but never greater and more 
 beautiful than in this moment, as he stood on the 
 highest point of the dam, holding on by a flagstaff 
 that he had caused to be set up there — never 
 greater, more beautiful, or more heroic. 
 
 Yes, his bearing was heroic, and his glance was 
 heroic, as in one moment it grasped danger and 
 deliverance ; and there was heroism in his voice,. 
 
2o8 
 
 SPIELHAGEN, 
 
 when, in unwearied sharp clear tones, in a few de- 
 termined words, he gave the necessary orders. 
 Some were to go down into the alleys of the har- 
 bour, and bring whatever empty casks, chests, and 
 boxes they could lay hands on ; some to go up to 
 the bastion, where there was earth in plenty, with 
 spades, shovels, barrows, and baskets. Some were 
 to descend with saws, axes, and ropes into the 
 neighbouring glacis, to fell the young trees that 
 had for years been awaiting an enemy who was 
 there to-day ; others were to go to the neighbour- 
 ing wharf to invite the ships' carpenters to come 
 and help, and to obtain a few dozen large planks 
 that we absolutely needed either by good words or 
 by force. 
 
 Not half an hour had gone by, and the work, 
 planned with true genius, was in full swing. Here 
 baskets of earth were being lowered into the 
 breaches that the sea had torn in the dam ; there 
 stakes were driven in, and a network of branches 
 made between them ; elsewhere a wall of planks 
 was being constructed. And all came hurrying 
 and hastening, and digging and shovelling, and 
 hammering and carting, and dragging hundred- 
 weights, with such zeal, such strength, such strong 
 self-sacrificing courage, that the tears still come 
 into my eyes if I only think of it. Then I remem- 
 ber that these were those same men whom society 
 had cast out ; those same men who had become 
 
THE STORM. 
 
 209 
 
 thieves, perhaps, for the sake of a few morsels or 
 for some childish desire ; the same men I had so 
 often seen creeping sadly through the yards of the 
 institution to their work ; the same men whom the 
 storm, striking against the walls of their prison, had 
 last evening roused to frantic terror. There lay the 
 town below them ; they could rush in and rob, burn, 
 and murder to their hearts’ content — who could 
 prevent them ? There lay the wide world open 
 before them ; they need only run in, and away — 
 who could keep them back ? Here was a labour, 
 more difficult, troublesome, and dangerous than 
 any they had yet done — who could force them to 
 it } There was the storm, at which they trembled 
 yesterday, raging in most terrible form ; why did 
 they not tremble to-day ? Why did they go joking 
 and laughing into actual danger of death, when 
 they were to fetch in the great ship’s mast, driven 
 hither from the harbour, and now cast against the 
 dam like a battering-ram by the waves. Why in- 
 deed ? I think if all men would answer this ‘ why’ 
 as I do, there would be no more masters and ser- 
 vants ; then we should no longer hear the old sad 
 song of the hammer that does not want to be an 
 anvil ; then — But why answer a question that only 
 the world’s history can answer } Why expose the 
 presentiments that we feel in our hearts to a world 
 that passes indifferently by, or perhaps only stops 
 to look, to mock at them ? 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 p 
 
210 
 
 SPIELHAGEN. 
 
 Whoever saw this labour, whoever saw these 
 men tearing skin from flesh and flesh from bone 
 in their tremendous dreadful exertions, did not 
 laugh ; and those who saw it were the poor inha- 
 bitants of the harbour-alleys, mostly women and 
 children, for the men had to share in the ’work. 
 They came and stood below in the shelter of the 
 wall, and looked up with anxious astonished looks 
 at the gray jackets there, whom they had hitherto 
 only regarded with shy suspicious glances, when 
 they were led through the streets, coming in little 
 troops from some external labour. To-day they 
 had no fear of the gray jackets ; to-day they prayed 
 that the food and drink might be blessed which 
 they themselves brought of their own free will. 
 They had no fear of the four hundred gray jackets; 
 rather they wished that their number could be 
 doubled or trebled. 
 
 But there were people who lived far out of 
 reach of danger, whose property and lives were 
 not in question at the present moment, and who 
 were therefore in a situation bitterly to resent the 
 improper and unlawful proceedings carried on here. 
 
 I remember that, one after another, the Police- 
 Director von Raharb ; the President von Krossow ; 
 the lieutenant-general and commander of the fort- 
 ress, his Excellency Count Dankelheim, came, and 
 endeavoured, by prayers, commands, and threats, 
 to persuade our leader to bring his dreaded brigade 
 
THE STORM. 
 
 21 I 
 
 once more under bolt and bar. Yes, I remember 
 that towards evening they all came together to 
 attempt a combined storm ; and I can still smile 
 when I remember the cheerful calm with which 
 that good brave man drove back their assault. 
 
 ' What would you have, gentlemen ?’ said he. 
 ' Would you really prefer that hundreds should 
 loose their lives, and the property of thousands be 
 destroyed, rather than that a dozen, or even a few 
 dozen, of these poor rogues should seek their liberty 
 in flight, which, to tell the truth, they have honestly 
 earned to-day ? Besides, when the danger is over, 
 I shall lead them back. Till then, no one shall 
 drive me from here, unless he can do so by force ; 
 and fortunately not one of you, gentlemen, is able 
 to do that. And now, gentlemen, this discussion 
 must come to an end, for night is coming on ; at 
 most we have only another half-hour to make our 
 preparations for the night. I wish you a good- 
 evening, gentlemen.' 
 
 And with these words he waved his hand 
 towards the dignitaries (who retreated with crest- 
 fallen looks), and turned to the spot where his 
 presence was needed. 
 
 More so than ever at this moment ; for now, 
 just before the beginning of the night, it seemed 
 as though the storm were gathering all its 
 strength for one last decisive attack. I feared we 
 must be defeated, that the desperate six hours' 
 
212 
 
 SPIELHAGEN, 
 
 labour had been in vain. The gigantic waves no 
 longer retreated ; their crests were torn off and 
 tossed across the dam far away into the streets. 
 The crowd assembled below rushed asunder with 
 cries of alarm. Scarcely a single one of us labourers 
 could stand now. I saw daring fellows who had 
 hitherto played with danger turn pale, and heard 
 them say, ' It is impossible ; it can no longer be done.’ 
 
 And now came the most horrible act in this 
 dreadful drama. 
 
 A little Dutch ship, that had lain outside on 
 the roadstead, had been torn away from its anchors,, 
 and was tossed hither and thither like a nutshell 
 by those dreadful breakers, from the depth to 
 the height, from the height to the depth, and with 
 each wave nearer to the dam that we were defend- 
 ing. We could see the despairing gesture of the 
 unfortunate men who clung to the yards ; we 
 could imagine that we heard their cries of alarm. 
 
 ‘ Can we do nothing,’ exclaimed I — ‘ nothing ?’ 
 turning to the director with tears of despair in my 
 eyes. 
 
 He shook his head sadly. 
 
 ‘ One thing, perhaps,’ said he. ‘ If the ship is. 
 thrown right up here, we may attempt to hold it 
 firm, so that it is not washed back by the breakers. 
 If we do not succeed, they are lost, and we too ; for 
 their vessel, tossed to and fro, would make a breach 
 in the dam that we could not possibly repair. Have 
 
THE STORM. 
 
 213 
 
 some strong stakes struck in, George, and let an 
 end of one of our thickest ropes be fastened to 
 them. There is still the barest possibility, but still 
 it is a possibility. Come !’ 
 
 We hastened to the spot where the vessel must 
 probably strand, and from which it was now only 
 a few hundred yards distant. The men had re- 
 treated from the dam, and had sought shelter from 
 the boundless fury of the storm wherever they 
 could ; but now, when they saw their leader himself 
 seize an axe, they all came back and worked with 
 a sort of madness, compared with which all that 
 they had till now achieved was but child’s play. 
 
 The stakes were driven in, the ropes attached 
 to them. I and three other men, who were con- 
 sidered the strongest, stood on the rampart, await- 
 ing the right moment — terrible moments, that froze 
 the blood in the veins of even the boldest, that 
 might have bleached the brown hair of a youth. 
 
 And what we had hardly deemed possible suc- 
 ceeded. An enormous breaker comes rushing on, 
 bearing the boat on its crest. It breaks, it pours 
 forth a deluge that flows over us, but we stand firm. 
 With our nails we hold on to the stakes ; and when 
 we are once more able to look round, the ship is 
 lying, like a dead whale, high up on the dam. We 
 rush forward : a hundred hands are at once occu- 
 pied in throwing ropes round the masts, a hundred 
 others in loosing the pale men — five in number — 
 
214 
 
 SPIELHAGEN, 
 
 from the yards, to which they had tied themselves. 
 It is done before the next wave comes in. Will it 
 tear our booty from us ? It comes on ; and one 
 more, and another ; but the ropes hold. Each 
 wave is weaker than its predecessor ; the fourth 
 does not even reach the top, the fifth remains far 
 below it. Suddenly there is a pause in the terrible 
 ceaseless thunder that has deafened us for so many 
 hours to-day ; the flags on the trembling masts in 
 the inner harbour, that had been lashed eastwards 
 all at once, hang straight down, and then flutter 
 towards the west. The violence of the storm is 
 broken, the wind has changed, the victory is ours ! 
 
 The victory is ours. Every one knows it at the 
 same moment. An endless shout of hurrah bursts 
 from the throats of these rough men. They shake 
 each other’s hands, they fall into each others’ arms. 
 Hurrah ! hurrah ! and once more, hurrah ! 
 
 The victory is ours ; it has been dearly bought. 
 
 When my eyes seek him whom we all have to 
 thank for everything, they no longer find him at 
 the spot where I had last seen him. 
 
 But I see men running to the spot, and I run 
 with them. I run faster than they do, driven by 
 anxiety that lends me wings. I push my way 
 through a few dozen of them closely grouped to- 
 gether, and all are bent over one man, who lies on 
 the ground on the knees of the old sergeant. And 
 the man is deathly pale, and his lips are covered 
 
THE STORM, 
 
 215 
 
 with bloody foam, and round about him the ground 
 is coloured with blood, freshly shed — with his blood, 
 the heart’s blood of the noblest of men. 
 
 ‘ Is he dead ?’ I hear one of the men asking. 
 But this hero must not die yet ; he has still one 
 more duty to fulfil. He beckons to me with his 
 eyes as I bend over him, and moves his lips, which 
 give forth no sound ; but I have understood him. 
 I put both my arms round him and raise him up. 
 Now his tall, thin, royal form stands upright, lean- 
 ing on me. All the men can see him — the men 
 he has led hither, and. whom he now means to 
 lead back. And now he beckons again with his 
 eyes to his hand, and I take it, as it hangs down 
 limp and wax-like, and it points in the direction 
 of the road along which we came at midday. 
 There was not one man present who durst disobey 
 that dumb silent command. They collect together, 
 they fall into their ranks ; the sergeant and I bear 
 the dying leader. So we go back in a long, slow, 
 solemn procession. 
 
 Night has come on ; only a few solitary gusts 
 of wind blow past us, and remind us of the terrible 
 day we have all passed through. The prisoners, 
 who have worked outside the house to-day, are 
 sleeping on the bed of a good conscience, which 
 their director had promised them that night Their 
 director sleeps too, and his pillow is as soft as death 
 for a great and good cause can make it. 
 
VON SACHER-MASOCH. 
 
 Born in Lemberg, Galicia, Jan. 27, 1836 ; now 
 LIVING in Gratz. 
 
LEOPOLD VON SACHER-MASOCH. 
 
 Leopold von Sacher-Masoch takes us into a. 
 fantastic and unfamiliar atmosphere. In his 
 novels we do not move among the pallid scenes 
 of the North, among ordered social conditions, and 
 men and women morally effete from cultured high 
 pressure. He transports us into a remote corner 
 of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and depicts its. 
 people and their social status with a powerful pen,,, 
 an accurate knowledge, and a pessimism as remark- 
 able as it is depressing. We hear much of the 
 Slavs nowadays and the Panslavonic question, but 
 few people are really well informed on the matter. 
 If they would gain information in a light and yet 
 striking and incisive way, we commend them to 
 Sacher-Masoch's novels. The best all deal with 
 Galicia, and the scenes are laid in or near the town 
 of Kolomea, and treat of the noble proprietors and 
 the peasants. These two classes are always wag- 
 ing an internecine warfare — a warfare that was yet 
 sharper many years ago before the Austrian Go- 
 vernment freed the tillers of the soil from a worse 
 than Egyptian bondage. The novelty of his themes 
 
.2 20 LEOPOLD VON SACHER-MASOCH, 
 
 alone would mark Sacher-Masoch an original 
 writer, even if his treatment did not bear out this 
 character. In France he has won for himself a 
 high reputation, while in Germany he is most un- 
 justly attacked, his strong anti-German feelings 
 having aroused against him all the hatred of the 
 patriotic press. Still even his enemies cannot deny 
 his genius. 
 
 Sacher-Masoch’s principal work is the Legacy 
 of Cain^ which proposes to treat of all the evils in- 
 cident to mankind. These are pronounced as six 
 by the author, and into these six sections he divides 
 his work. Only two of these six are as yet pub- 
 lished ; they deal with love and property, both of 
 which questions Sacher-Masoch investigates upon 
 the basis of Schopenhauer’s and Darwin’s theories. 
 He does not, however, seek to paint the world only 
 as under a curse — the curse of Cain — he does not 
 abandon it in despair ; and though he thinks it the 
 worst of all possible worlds, he shows how it is not 
 only man’s duty, but how it lies in his power to 
 extract the best from it. Like Darwin, he thinks 
 that man need not remain rooted in those condi- 
 tions in which he was born, but can rise above them 
 physically and intellectually. In an impressive 
 proem to this prose epic of human life, Sacher- 
 Masoch shows how the world is bad and imperfect ; 
 how life is a penance; how man is only the most 
 reasonable, rapacious, and cruel of all brutes. 
 
SA CHER-MASOCH. 
 
 221 
 
 Every one desires to live, no matter how and at 
 what cost. Joseph is daily sold by his brethren ; 
 the blood of Abel cries daily to Heaven. Neither 
 is enjoyment a reality. Love is a delusion ; we 
 wake all too soon to the humiliating perception 
 that we are Nature’s tools. Peoples and states are 
 only men who combine together to do injury. War, 
 not rarely entered upon under illusive enthusiasms, 
 is nothing but the struggle for existence on a larger 
 scale. Every one seeks to live through others, 
 through murder and theft, and must live through 
 himself and his work. Work alone frees us from 
 all misery. So long as some let others work for 
 them while they live in abundance, so long as a 
 portion of mankind is enslaved, there is, and will 
 be, no peace on earth. Death is the only good, the 
 only Deliverer. Happiness consists in the recogni- 
 tion of these truths. These six. Love, Property^ 
 the State, War, Work, and Death, are the legacy 
 of Cain, who slew his brother ; and his brother’s 
 blood cried unto Heaven, and the Lord spoke to 
 Cain : And now art thou cursed upon the earth ; 
 a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the 
 earth. 
 
 Each section is subdivided into five stories, in 
 four of which the evil passions, aroused by love 
 and property, are delineated with mordant power, 
 while in each case the last presents us with a pos- 
 sible and harmonious solution. Love may be merely 
 
2 22 LEOPOLD VON SACHER-MASOCH. 
 
 a passion used by nature as a means to an end ; 
 but it can and should be something higher. A 
 marriage should also rest upon intellectual sym- 
 pathy. Woman must not worship man blindly as 
 her superior whom she obeys without question ; he 
 must lift her, so that she stands beside him as his 
 friend. Only thus can the race be raised, and de- 
 velop to all its full possibilities ; only thus can man 
 and woman move side by side as equals, no longer 
 chained together by the fetters of love, while at 
 heart they are enemies, fighting an endless fight. 
 The question of property is not so easily solved. 
 The author shows us, in various forms and under 
 various conditions, how an eternal feud exists be- 
 tween the rich and the poor ; how money separates 
 the dearest ; how it disturbs what might be the best 
 and noblest relations of existence. The life of one 
 of the heroes — a robber-chief — has been wrecked 
 upon this rock ; for the woman he loved with all 
 the best qualities of his nature spurned him for a 
 richer husband. With passionate vehemence this 
 man speaks out the reason why he has outlawed 
 himself and revolted from the bonds of law. 
 
 ‘ There was a time, a thousand — what know I ? 
 — two thousand years ago, when mankind plundered 
 and murdered one another as the wild-beasts do 
 now. Then those children of Cain, who were sated 
 with the blood of their brethren, came to an agree- 
 ment among themselves and made laws. Since 
 
SA CHER-MA SO CH. 
 
 223 
 
 that time those who have property live at the ex- 
 pense of those who have none.' 
 
 But he has broken with these laws, he has 
 emancipated himself, and his speech, which is 
 longer than we can quote, reflects one of the dis- 
 tinctive Slav characteristics, namely, the instinct of 
 self-help, which, when it cannot find a legitimate 
 outlet, seeks a perverted one. Indeed, before the 
 year 1848, when Austria was reluctantly compelled 
 to abolish the serfdom, these wretched men had no 
 other champions than the brigands. Justice did not 
 exist for them ; they were forced to endure it if their 
 lords robbed them of their wives, cattle, and grain, 
 or beat them remorselessly, sometimes to death ; 
 and if they demurred they were subjected to every 
 species of outrage. Nay more ; these persecuted 
 men were not even suffered to invoke unmolested 
 the protection of their only friend, their Father 
 which is in heaven ; for these greedy nobles often 
 went to the length of renting the parish-churches 
 to the Jews, who obliged intending worshippers to 
 pay admission at the door of God's house. Small 
 wonder that the men with whom we come in con- 
 tact in these pages either have all spirit crushed 
 out of them, or — as is more often the case, for the 
 Slav nature has Oriental buoyancy and irrepressi- 
 bility — are inbred revolutionists, ready to revolt 
 at the faintest excuse. The women are proud, 
 strong, and beautiful ; and under their sheepskin 
 
2 24 LEOPOLD VON SACHER-MASOCH. 
 
 dresses beat hearts that often rival the Russian 
 Empress Catherine in imperiousness, love of sway, 
 and voluptuous passions. And as we read we 
 breathe the arid mental air of the nobleman’s house,, 
 situated in a lonely steppe or a petty provincial 
 town, almost as remote from the haunts of men,, 
 and can conceive why gambling and acting the 
 despot upon a small scale are their only diversions.. 
 We enter the squalid miserable home of his op- 
 pressed labourers, till lately his serfs, and still too 
 often treated by him as such, and can comprehend 
 why a stifling atmosphere of deadly hatred chokes 
 the free passage of the air ; and how it came about 
 that when these men rose in revolt against their 
 masters, they could calmly, as here depicted, bury 
 them deep into the ground, and then mow down 
 their proud inhuman heads with their scythes. 
 
 Galician Tales, Count Donski, and the Emissary 
 are some more of these striking books. The latter 
 deals with the abortive revolution of 1848, and 
 introduces us into the midst of the Polish nobles. 
 We thus learn how conspiracies are for them 
 merely diversions, undertaken upon the smallest 
 provocation to break the monotony of their daily 
 lives, justifying the proverb of the peasants con- 
 cerning them — ‘ The Fatherland upon their tongues, 
 and deceit in their hearts.’ Not the least remark- 
 able is the author’s latest work, which well merits 
 the honour of translation into English. It is called 
 
LEOPOLD VON SACHER-MASOCH, 
 
 225 
 
 the New Job {Der Neiie Hiob), and is the life-story 
 of a Galician peasant, thus nicknamed because 
 like his biblical prototype, he patiently endured 
 much misfortune until his latter end, when he was 
 blessed beyond the beginning. 
 
 Theophilus Pisarenko was born in 1794, in a 
 winter even harder than is common in Galicia. 
 Yet, nevertheless, his father baptised him a few 
 hours after his birth in the brook that ran beside 
 the house, after having first hacked open a hole in 
 the ice. ‘ He has been born to suffer,' said the 
 man, in answer to his wife’s pleading for the infant ; 
 
 ' and he must be hardened betimes.’ The little boy 
 grew up sturdy and strong, and did honour to his 
 stern initiation. Winter and summer he ran about 
 bareheaded and barefooted ; when he was six he 
 already drove the cow and horse out to grass, im- 
 bibed such knowledge as his mother could impart 
 to him from the Bible, refused staunchly to believe 
 in superstitions and fairy tales, and pricked up his 
 ears with interest whenever the name of General 
 Bonaparte was mentioned. For rumours of Napo- 
 leon and his wars had reached even this remote 
 village ; and it was told how he had subdued kings, 
 and said that there should be no more noblemen. 
 The boy learnt full soon to regard aristocrats as 
 the embodiment of all that was evil, the cause of 
 all suffering ; for did he not see his father forced 
 to do menial services for their village lord, or worse 
 VOL. I. Q 
 
2 26 LEOPOLD VON SACHER-MASOCH. 
 
 still, for his bailiff, who was a far more cruel despot 
 than even his master dared to be? When Pisa- 
 renko was only ten he was forced to join in one of 
 the abortiv^e attempts made by the nobles to recon- 
 stitute the kingdom of Poland ; for even distant 
 Galicia suffered from the after-waves of the French 
 revolution that shook all Europe. The attempt 
 ended in hardship, hunger, and thirst for the pea- 
 sants, in disappointment for the nobles. At the 
 age of twenty, Theophilus was impressed as a sol- 
 dier. He bore his hard lot, which carried him away 
 from his native land, its woods, and vast steppes, 
 into the close imprisonment of a Viennese barrack, 
 with the resignation of a true Slav. It was the 
 time of the Great Congress, and the city on the 
 Danube wore a festive dress. Pisarenko kept his 
 eyes and ears well open ; he drank in all he heard, 
 he tried to comprehend all he saw ; he learnt to 
 understand the benefits of education, though such 
 as was accorded to him was flogged into him in the 
 most barbarous mode. But at last the fierce, de- 
 vouring nostalgia of the Slav took hold of him ; he 
 could bear it no longer, and fled away to his home 
 in the vast, endless, monotonous plains. He did 
 not know he was doing wrong ; he meant to come 
 back, only he must breathe native air again, hear 
 native sounds. Day and night he walked, till, ex- 
 hausted and spent, he sank down upon his father’s 
 threshold, too weary even to open the door he had 
 
LEOPOLD VON SACHER-MASOCH. 
 
 227 
 
 so longed to pass again. All too soon he was put 
 into irons as a deserter, and condemned firstto death, 
 and then, in acknowledgment of his otherwise good 
 conduct, to run the gauntlet. He would not sue 
 for mercy, and was forced to run till he dropped 
 with exhaustion. Then the hospital had to receive 
 him ; even when dismissed his strength was gone ; 
 and at last he was discharged from the army as no 
 longer of use. He came home to find his mother 
 dead, his father dying. 
 
 By and by the open-air exercise of tilling the 
 parental acres restored Pisarenko to health. Pie 
 married an old playmate, Xenia ; and they were 
 happy in their few possessions. Five years of peace 
 and prosperity, and three blooming children were 
 theirs. Then followed quickly, one upon another, 
 heavy blows of fate. A dark strange cloud appeared 
 one evening upon the horizon, drifting rapidly for- 
 wards, though there was no wind to impel it. It 
 proved to be a cloud of locusts. Before morning the 
 land was a desert ; and when harvest came round, 
 barns and granaries were empty. Dearth followed 
 of necessity, and famine trod upon its footsteps. 
 The nobles would do nothing to help their serfs. 
 Many fled into the forests, and became brigands ; 
 but Pisarenko would not yield to such invitations. 
 A hard winter succeeded, famine and wolves domi- 
 nated and desolated the land. Pisarenko’s wife, 
 seeing her babe die at her breast, in her despair 
 
228 LEOPOLD VON SACHER-MASOCH. 
 
 kneeled before the wife of the proprietor, and im- 
 plored her aid. She was answered with taunts. 
 
 ‘ Are we to help you idlers and good-for-nothings ?’ 
 was the heartless reply. ‘ If you have not enough 
 wherewith to feed your children, why did you 
 marry?’ Pisarenko bore all with fortitude and 
 patience, encouraging others, and selling the last 
 rag which covered him for food for his babes. 
 Then at last the Emperor of Austria sent aid to his 
 starving subjects, but not before hundreds of them 
 had perished. Scarcely was this trouble a little 
 allayed than in May came the first European inva- 
 sion of the cholera, to add to the miseries of this 
 sorely-tried land, and Pisarenko was one of the first 
 to suffer from its scourge ; his wife and all his chil- 
 dren were taken from him. ‘ The Lord hath given, 
 the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of 
 the . Lord !’ spoke the deeply-bowed Pisarenko, in 
 the words of Job. 
 
 Lor months he continued to do his daily work 
 bravely, sadly, until a summons reached him that 
 he was to take domestic service in the castle, an 
 unwelcome post, which soon proved to be a temp- 
 tation of Joseph. The stately peasant had found 
 favour in the eyes of a fair lady, and soon Joseph’s 
 fate, too, was his ; he was dismissed with blows and 
 contumely. Again he went on his way patiently. 
 Soon after, his horses were ill ; and when he was 
 required to labour for his master, he could not 
 
LEOPOLD VON SACHER-MASOCH. 
 
 229 
 
 bring them. The master, who chose to believe that 
 this illness was a subterfuge, insisted that the 
 horses should be brought out. He then whipped 
 the one till it dropped down dead, the other till he 
 had lamed it, and then tethered Pisarenko himself 
 to the plough ; and for five days the man had to 
 draw it beneath a scorching sun. At last justice 
 threatened to interfere ; but the landlord fed the 
 commission of inquiry upon dainties and cham- 
 pagne, and the end was that the nobleman was 
 politely admonished to be a little less hasty in future, 
 and six zwanziger (about one shilling) were given to 
 Pisarenko as compensation. Not long after, the 
 landlord gave a picnic in the woods ; the ladies 
 objected to sit upon the ground because of the ants, 
 and Pisarenko and another peasant were simply 
 commanded to go down upon all fours and furnish 
 a seat for the ladies. In this attitude they had to 
 remain a long time, while the party chatted on about 
 frivolous themes, regardless of their living seats. 
 Could degradation be carried further ? 
 
 At last a brigand, the champion of the op- 
 pressed, could bear no longer to see Pisarenko and 
 his friends thus put upon. He complained to the 
 governor of the province ; the landlord was severely 
 censured, and Pisarenko received, to his amaze- 
 ment, 2000 gulden damages for his horses and his 
 pains. Not knowing what to do with such a sum, 
 he took it to the priest, and begged him to do 
 
230 LEOPOLD VON SACHER-MASOCH. 
 
 with it what he thought best, and then continued to 
 do his daily work in resignation and faith in God. 
 
 So years passed ; and though not spared by his 
 landlord, this worthy was careful not to impose too 
 much upon his servant, though his mercies would 
 be called by us atrocities. There came the insur- 
 rections of 1846 and 1848. When the peasants 
 turned upon their masters, Pisarenko, with true 
 Christian charity, saved from their fury the lady 
 who had so cruelly misused him, and to whom his 
 wife had once kneeled in vain. The deed was mis- 
 construed by his fellows, gave rise to murmurs, and 
 for a time they shunned him. Only one young girl, 
 who had long secretly admired him, sought him 
 out, and worked for him, and her he soon after 
 married. A son had not long been born to them 
 before the Austrians were forced to repeal the robot, 
 i.e, the necessity that the peasants should labour 
 unpaid for their lords ; and from that moment the 
 fortunes of the land-folk mended. But Pisarenko 
 had still to suffer much. A hailstorm utterly de- 
 stroyed one harvest, his old house was burnt to 
 the ground, the new one swept away by a flood, so 
 that it was as though he should never advance, 
 but must begin life over and over again. Illness 
 of a peculiar and painful kind also afflicted him ; 
 he could not work, eat, or sleep. It was then he 
 received his sad nickname. ‘ For is there a mis- 
 fortune in the world that has not pursued this 
 
LEOPOLD VON SACHER-MASOCH, 231 
 
 man ?’ said the peasants ; and his friends came 
 and comforted him, after the manner of Job's. 
 But he recovered, contrary to all expectations, 
 and suddenly found himself rich too ; in his eyes, 
 as rich as Rothschild. For the priest brought 
 him the money he had quite forgotten, and which 
 had borne interest in all these years. Forthwith 
 Pisarenko set about to carry out a darling wish, that 
 of introducing improved agricultural implements 
 into his village. At first mistrust and scoffs greeted 
 his endeavours, but after a while others followed 
 his example, and soon the whole country around 
 improved. Further, Pisarenko sent his children to 
 Vienna to school, that they might learn the best of 
 everything, and at last he was forced to go to the 
 capital himself, for the peasants pressed upon him 
 that he must represent their province in Parliament. 
 But the money received by the deputies to cover 
 their expenses was not spent by this man upon 
 himself He lived at Vienna in frugality, almost in 
 squalor, so that when he returned, it was a goodly 
 sum that he had collected ; and this sum he spent 
 upon schools for his village and local improve- 
 ments, and Sacher-Masoch avers that when he saw 
 him last, in 1878, he was a hale man of eighty-four, 
 happy and revered. 
 
 The story, of which this is a bald outline, is full 
 of graphic power, while the character of the hero is 
 a masterpiece of delineation. A rude unlettered 
 
232 LEOPOLD VON SACHER-MASOCH, 
 
 peasant, of a stern simplicity of character, Pisarenko 
 supplied by mother wit what he lacked in educa- 
 tion, and thus elevated his own condition, and that 
 of his fellows, by peaceful, in lieu of violent, means. 
 Both as a romance and an ethnographical study, 
 this book is remarkable. It also throws some side- 
 lights upon the vexed Eastern question, as well as, 
 like all Sacher-Masoch’s novels, upon the character 
 of the Slavs. 
 
 And no less ably than he depicts character 
 does this author depict scenery. The gloomy 
 grandeur of the Carpathians, the endless ocean-like 
 plains, stand forth in his pages ; and so also do the 
 burning summers, the stern terrible winters, that 
 are peculiar to Eastern Europe. We have only 
 room to quote one of the word-pictures with which 
 these pages abound. It is an account of a sledge- 
 drive across the wintry plain. 
 
 The Sledge Ride. 
 
 He who has glided over the peaceful ocean in 
 a light bark, and let the element play with him 
 and the shadowy coast-lines of continent and island 
 sink behind him, while he gazed into that second 
 ocean of air with its heaving clouds, will easily 
 understand me when I tell of the Galician plain, 
 the wintry snow-ocean, the ride in the fleeting 
 sledge. These two, the ocean and the plain, alike 
 
THE SLEDGE RIDE, 
 
 233 
 
 attract the soul of man with melancholy longing. 
 But the flight in the sledge is swifter, more eagle- 
 like, while the boat rolls in the water like a duck 
 in the air — only the colour of the endless plain and 
 its melody are graver, gloomier, more threatening. 
 We see Nature in her nakedness ; we feel the 
 struggle for existence ; we feel Death nearer ; we 
 perceive his atmosphere ; we hear his voice. 
 
 The clear winter afternoon had enticed me 
 out. 
 
 The day was glorious ; the air seemed to stand 
 still ; even the light, the golden sun-waves, did not 
 tremble in the gentle mist that rose from the 
 ground. Air and light were one element. In the 
 village too all was still ; not a sound betrayed the 
 inhabitants of the silent thatched cottages ; only 
 the sparrows flew in flocks on to the hedges, and 
 twittered. 
 
 Further on stood a little sledge to which a 
 lame horse, no higher than a foal, was harnessed, 
 and on it a peasant was bringing wood from the 
 forest. His daughter, a girl not yet fully grown, 
 called to him, and waded, with bare feet, through 
 a yard's depth of snow, to pick up a little fagot 
 that he had lost. 
 
 As we flew down the bare mountain-side with 
 clear-sounding bells, there lay before us the plain, 
 immeasurable, incomprehensible, endless. The 
 wintry ermine lent it the highest majesty. It was 
 
234 LEOPOLD VON SACHER-MASOCH. 
 
 enveloped by it ; only the bare stems of the stunted 
 willows, further off single long-armed draw-wells, 
 in the distance a few forlorn sooty huts, stood out 
 black against the white snow-fur. 
 
 We flew along over the hard road. 
 
 Opposite lay a farmhouse ; behind it a little 
 village. The snow had silvered over everything ; 
 had covered with silver the wretched overhanging 
 roofs, had adorned the little panes with silver 
 flowers ; and from every gutter, every pump, every 
 crippled fruit-tree hung silver tassels. High walls 
 of snow surrounded every dwelling ; there man has 
 been forced to scoop out for himself passages, like 
 the badger or the fox. The light smoke that rises 
 from the roof seems to freeze in the air. Tall 
 silver poplars surround the farm. Here and there 
 little grains of frost flutter into the air, and float 
 through it like swarms of diamond gnats, a minia- 
 ture thunderstorm, scattering a thousand little 
 lightning-flashes. 
 
 At the end of the hamlet peasant-boys, with 
 white heads and rosy cheeks, are tumbling about 
 half naked in the snow. They are forming a man 
 out of it, and they put a long pipe into his broad 
 mouth, such as noblemen smoke. There sits a 
 young peasant on a hand-sledge, and some pretty 
 girls, with long brown plats and full white bodices, 
 are drawing him along pellmell. The shouts of 
 their buoyant spirits rise above them like a carol- 
 
THE SLEDGE RIDE. 
 
 235 
 
 ling lark. How they laugh ! And he laughs even 
 more wildly, and has lost his cap. 
 
 We flew past the wood. 
 
 Where is now its melody ? The fox barks 
 hoarsely, and the daw shrieks. The bright-red 
 foliage is swathed in one monotony of snow. A 
 roseate watery atmosphere pervades wood and sky. 
 Before us lie only snowy hills, like the frozen waves 
 of a white sea. Where the white heavens dip into 
 it there rests a lustre. Only that eye can behold it 
 that can gaze into the sun. Behind us the village, 
 the red wood, disappear ; the last summits of the 
 bare mountains give forth one more ray of light ; then 
 they also disappear like the hills and the solitary 
 trees. The limitless plain has received us. Before 
 us naught but snow ; behind us snow ; above us 
 the white sky like snow ; around us the most in- 
 tense solitude, death, silence. 
 
 We glided on as in a dream. The horses swam 
 in the snow, the sledge followed noiselessly. Across 
 the snow-field ran a little gray mouse. Far and 
 wide not a chimney, not a hollow stem, not a mole- 
 hill, was in sight ; and so it ran on with cautious 
 earnestness. Whither? Now it was only a little 
 dark spot. Then again all around us was solitude. 
 It was as though we made no progress. Nothing 
 changed before us, nothing behind us ; not even 
 the sky. It stands stiff, cloudless, colourless, as 
 though newly washed with lime ; it does not move ; 
 
236 LEOPOLD EON SACHER-MASOCH. 
 
 it does not even glimmer. Only the air becomes 
 more evening-like and sharper ; it cuts like glass. 
 
 Surely our sledge must be standing still like a 
 vessel in the enchanted sea, that moves without 
 leaving the spot. We only believe that we are 
 driving — nothing before us, nothing behind us — 
 just as we believe we live. For do we live? Does 
 not to live mean to be ? and to be no more, never 
 to have been ? 
 
 There flies a raven ; he pushes on powerfully 
 with his dusky wings in silence, with open bill. 
 
 As the sun sets, it gradually becomes visible 
 down below as a shining ball of mist. It does not 
 set ; it sinks into the snow. It dissolves like mol- 
 ten gold ; golden waves play across to us ; won- 
 drous colours run over the snow, which is sprinkled 
 with liquid silver. Now it expires. The thousand 
 lights which it has thrown out run together, become 
 pale ; a light-red whiff yet floats in the air ; then it 
 too dissolves ; and once more everything is colour- 
 less, cold, and motionless. 
 
 Only for a moment. 
 
 Then we meet a sudden icy gust from the east. 
 
 In the distance floated a sledge ; the fleeting 
 waves of air carried the wailing sound of its bells 
 across to us ; then it was consumed by the ashy 
 fog, which, quickly rising on the horizon, gathered 
 into a compact mass, and began to surge towards 
 us. It became rapidly dark ; formless white-gray 
 
THE SLEDGE RIDE, 
 
 237 
 
 clouds spanned the sky ; a terrible armada, sail 
 upon sail. Now the wind strikes them and swells 
 them ; they swim nearer, they approach us, and we 
 drive into them. Evening mists spring up and 
 dissolve into light shadows. 
 
 On we flew. The torn mists whirled around us 
 like birds with large tired wings. 
 
 Already the wind is striking us in the neck with 
 both fists ; it howls with horrible, lamentable, mad 
 voices ; it leaps down from the height into the 
 snow, tears it up, bursts the great clouds, scatters 
 them to earth in flaky masses, and threatens to 
 bury us under them. The horses drop their heads 
 between their legs, and pant. The storm whirls up 
 white clouds to the heavens, sweeps the plain with 
 white broom, and forms immense heaps, in which 
 it buries men, beasts, whole villages. 
 
 The air burns as though it were glowing hot ; 
 it has become firm ; broken by the storm, it flies 
 about in pieces, and penetrates like glass-splinters 
 into the lungs when we take breath. 
 
 The horses can advance but slowly ; they dig 
 their way through snow, air, and wind. 
 
 The snow has become an element in which we 
 swim with all our might, so as not to be drowned ; 
 we breathe it ; it threatens to burn us. In the 
 most terrible commotion. Nature becomes fixed 
 and icy. We ourselves are but part of the uni- 
 versal rigid cold. We can now conceive how the 
 
238 LEOPOLD VON SACHER-MASOCH, 
 
 ice holds a world entombed, how we may cease to 
 live without death, without decay. 
 
 Thoughts are suspended in our brains like 
 icicles ; the soul is wrapt in ice ; the blood falls like 
 quicksilver. We no longer think our own thoughts, 
 no longer feel as human beings feel. 
 
 Here is the struggle for existence ; but we fight, 
 as the elements do, patiently, silently, resigned — 
 almost indifferent. The life that we love so much 
 is frozen ; we are a stone, a piece of ice — one more 
 rigid bubble in the battle of the elements. 
 
 A white curtain separates us from our horses ; 
 the sledge carries us through the storm like a boat 
 without oar, without sail — it almost stands still. 
 
 The hurricane howls on monotonously, the air 
 burns, the snow whirls, space and time vanish. Are 
 we advancing ? Are we standing still ? Is it night 
 — is it day ? 
 
 Slowly the clouds move towards the west. 
 Slowly the horses pant again ; now they rise up, 
 their backs covered with snow — thick flakes fall ; 
 they lie piled on the earth a yard’s height, but we 
 can see again, and advance. The storm only gasps 
 now, and, whining, rolls in the snow. The mists 
 lie on the ground like gray ashes. Where are 
 we ? 
 
 Round about everything has disappeared ; no 
 road — not a rubbish-heap, not a wooden cross, to 
 mark it. The horses wade up to their breasts ; 
 
THE SLEDGE RIDE. 
 
 239 
 
 only in the distance a few solitary sounds of the 
 storm. We stand, move, on our way again. 
 
 The horses shake themselves and go more 
 quickly/ Only light watery flakes fall now. But 
 in the distance everything is still veiled. Again 
 we halt and take counsel. 
 
 Night draws on ; dull cloudy twilight spreads 
 over us, and enwraps us more and more. 
 
 A glowing-red streak is on the horizon. We 
 turn towards it. It was as though the red moon 
 had fallen on to the earth, and were being extin- 
 guished in the snow ; it flickered up, and illumined 
 strong dark shadows. 
 
 ‘ It is the peasant-watch near the birch-wood,’ 
 said the Jew ; ' and behind the wood lies Tulawa.’ 
 
 Such is this robust and original writer at his 
 best. We regret to have to add that he is not 
 always true to himself, does not always strive to 
 attain to his own highest level. At intervals in his 
 literary career he has abandoned the field that he 
 has made his own, and in which he has so honour- 
 ably distinguished himself, and has written a num- 
 ber of worthless books, the more worthless, and the 
 more open to sharp censure, because he has shown 
 us how much better things he can achieve. These 
 books are of two kinds : historical novels and 
 
240 LEOPOLD VON SACHER-MASOCH, 
 
 novels of the coulisse that rival their French proto- 
 types for flimsiness. Sacher-Masoch has no call 
 for the former type of novel ; the second is, with 
 him, clearly a clum^sy imitation. Of late it would 
 seem, however, that he has seen the error of his 
 ways, and that he will continue and carry to a 
 worthy conclusion his grandly-conceived cycle of 
 stories, the Legacy of Cain. 
 
FLYGARE-CARLEN. 
 
 Born in Stromstad, Aug. 8, 1807 ; now living in 
 Stockholm. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 R 
 
FLYGARE-CARLEN. 
 
 Emilie Flygare-Carlen shares, with Frederike 
 Bremer, a reputation that, thanks chiefly to German 
 and English translations of their books, has ex- 
 tended beyond the narrow confines of their land 
 and little-spoken language. Both have excelled in 
 delineations of Swedish life, and awakened an in- 
 terest in their distant northern home, which, from 
 its geographical position and other causes, still 
 seems so remote from our horizon, notwithstanding 
 the fashion of Norwegian and Swedish tours that has 
 recently sprung up. But the every-day tourist cares 
 little for the language of the land he visits, and no- 
 thing for its literature. Thanks, however, to Wil- 
 liam and Mary Howitt, those industrious students 
 of Teutonic and Scandinavian letters. Miss Bre- 
 mer’s works have become familiar in this country 
 as household words. Madame Carlen’s novels 
 have also been translated, but more sparingly ; and 
 yet the scenes to which she introduces us are no 
 less typical of her country. Indeed, Madame Car- 
 len’s range of themes is far wider than that of her 
 sister-novelist, who confines herself almost exclu- 
 
244 
 
 FL YGARE-CARLEN. 
 
 sively, not only to domestic life, but also to the 
 domestic life of a section of society — the higher 
 middle class. She goes wider afield, and includes 
 all sections, thus furnishing us with spirited de- 
 scriptions of land and people, and making us ac- 
 quainted with life among the peasants, the fisher- 
 men, the clergy, the custom-house officers, as well 
 as among the burghers and the nobles. 
 
 This gifted and productive authoress was born 
 at Stromstad, a small seaport on the confines of 
 Norway, where her father, Roger Smith, was a 
 merchant. In 1827 she married a country medical 
 practitioner. Dr. Flygare. He died in 1833, leaving 
 her in bad circumstances, with two little children. 
 In order to eke out her slender income, it occurred 
 to her to turn her active imagination to account. 
 Novel-writing came naturally to her ; already at 
 school she had written romances, and her early 
 training under her father had shown her many dif- 
 ferent sides of human life. For, thanks to him, she 
 had received a practical education ; and he had made 
 her his companion on his frequent sea-journeys and 
 business tours among the villages and towns of the 
 land. Thus she acquired the exact knowledge of 
 maritime life displayed in so many of her books, 
 and learnt to know the ways and mode of thought 
 of the people, especially of those who inhabit the 
 rocky sea-fretted coast, and who live largely by 
 smuggling. For some years after her husband's 
 
FL YGARE-CARLEN. 
 
 245 
 
 death, Madame Flygare led a wandering life, visit- 
 ing different parts of Sweden, and extending her 
 acquaintance with the land and people. Her first 
 work, published anonymously, appeared in 1838, 
 and attracted some notice. After its publication she 
 came to Stockholm, where she soon after married 
 a Swedish author and lawyer, J. E. Carlen. 
 
 From this time until 1852, when she lost a pro- 
 mising son, Madame Carlen produced a large 
 number of works. They are not by any means of 
 equal merit, but all are distinguished by fidelity to 
 nature, by a pure high-minded tone, by consider- 
 able powers of description, and an agreeable style. 
 Their author shows much invention and some skill 
 in the management of plots, a delicate perception, 
 sound judgment, and a belief in the existence 
 and ultimate triumph of good. The characters are 
 true to human nature, and consistent in their de- 
 velopment, showing a sound acquaintance with the 
 human heart. The action is brisk and dramatic, 
 and over all is spread the subtle charm of local 
 colour. Madame Carlen’s novels are full of national 
 life, and help to make us acquainted with the 
 Swedes. Among the best may be named Gustav 
 Lindorm, A Night at the Lake of Butler^ The Rose 
 of Tistletdn, One Year, The P 7 vfessor, The Mer- 
 chant House among the Islands. We have chosen 
 our extract from the latter story. It recounts one 
 of those often desperate encounters between the 
 
246 
 
 FL YGARE-CARLEN. 
 
 revenue ofificers and the fishermen who drive an 
 illicit trade, that recur in Madame Carlen’s pages, 
 and are too graphically narrated not to have been 
 taken from life. 
 
 After pausing for some years, Madame Carlen, 
 in 1858, once more resumed her pen. In 1862 the 
 Swedish Academy did her the honour to award her 
 their gold medal, an undoubted acknowledgment of 
 the esteem with which she is regarded in her native 
 land. On the whole, her later novels have not at- 
 tained the standard of her earlier ones ; but all are 
 readable, and in many she touches upon burning 
 questions of the day. In Stockholm she is a well- 
 known figure, and until the death of her second 
 husband her house was a centre of literary interests. 
 This event occurred in 1875, and since that time 
 Madame Carlen has retired completely from the 
 world. She is still living, and a few years ago 
 published her autobiography, a rambling, chatty, 
 egotistical memoir, pleasant to read, but of no en- 
 during worth. 
 
 The Simcgglers. 
 
 When the Custom-house yacht had come as near 
 to the edge of the boat as it could without showing 
 its mast, the commander lay-to near a rock. Im- 
 mediately after he mounted on to the holm with 
 his telescope, took up his post behind a large stone, 
 and directed his gaze to the boat, which was gently 
 
THE SMUGGLERS. 
 
 247 
 
 drifting along with the current. He now noticed 
 two men, who were occupied, probably with the 
 cargo. He was not mistaken in his supposition. 
 Gudmar continued to watch their movements, 
 which he did not understand. And he really saw a 
 great many things while watching there. 
 
 The lieutenant had remained at his post about 
 three-quarters of an hour, and the boat had been 
 carried close to the little insignificant Mermaid 
 cliff, when he suddenly saw the men seize their 
 oars, and row quickly across the small intervening 
 space. Soon after a still more remarkable circum- 
 stance attracted his whole attention. 
 
 On the little fore-deck there now appeared a 
 third man, who could still less be one of the Es- 
 bjornssons. Gudmar saw him speak to the man 
 whom he took for Ragnar, and after a time, as the 
 boat glided to the edge of the cliff, he saw him spring 
 to shore, and disappear behind a rock that hid him 
 from sight. The lieutenant now assumed as certain 
 that the celebrated cave in this cliff was to be the 
 place of deposit for the cargo, and fancied that an 
 attempt had been made to play one of the tricks 
 on him that so often occur in the experience of a 
 Custom-house officer. He expected they would let 
 him find the boat when it was already empty. 
 
 ‘Well,’ thought he, ‘I know where to find it 
 now, and I will not annoy the boat by making a 
 search.’ 
 
248 
 
 FL YGARE-CARLEN. 
 
 But his idea was soon relinquished ; for, to 
 his great surprise, the boat went on again at once 
 without landing anything except the man, and the 
 smugglers continued their dreary way across the 
 still waters. 
 
 Gudmar now thought that he might go below 
 for a time, and ordered Sven to keep watch in his 
 place, and to inform him at once if anything else of 
 importance should occur. 
 
 ^ * eft * 
 
 Sven Dillhufvud entered with the information 
 that a little skiff had come into sight, in which were 
 three men, two at the oars and one seated behind. 
 
 Gudmar hastened back to his former post of 
 observation. His telescope was now directed to- 
 wards the new object. Through its excellent glass 
 he could watch, without himself being seen, the 
 very curious and suspicious movements of the skiff, 
 which seemed as though it did not care to reveal 
 any acquaintance with the boat, and yet was always 
 moving gradually towards it, while the crew on the 
 smuggling-boat did not make the least sign of 
 recognition. On both sides a neutral indifference 
 was observed, while each party was on the look-out 
 for ‘ dangerous eyes’ among the bays. And where 
 could the dangerous eyes be but on the Custom- 
 house yacht, which they seemed at last convinced 
 must be engaged in some other expedition. Now 
 the rower in the little boat was seen to rise, and, as 
 
THE SMUGGLERS, 
 
 249 
 
 though by chance, fan his hot face with his red 
 handkerchief. 
 
 ‘ God help me !’ exclaimed Gudmar, ‘ is not that 
 Olagus Esbjornsson ?' 
 
 Meantime he had seen that the signal given by 
 the red handkerchief was answered from the 
 smugglers’ boat by a gentle flutter of Ragnar’s yel- 
 low handkerchief. This exchange of signals pro- 
 bably imported a question on the one hand as to 
 the safety of the road, and an affirmative answer on 
 the other, for now the little skiff was quickly rowed 
 towards the boat, and anchored next its stern-post. 
 A few minutes later the great men of Morko had 
 gone on board with their third man, and the little 
 skiff had to float along behind in the dead water. 
 
 Immediately after, four oars flashed up in the 
 light of the setting sun. The chief of the tall men 
 himself took the oar of the boat. 
 
 Gudmar had seen enough. He hastily closed 
 his telescope. There was something more than 
 mere watching to be done now. 
 
 The lieutenant’s first hasty command, after he 
 had sprung down again, was, 
 
 ‘ Sven, go up quickly ! That cloud will soon 
 bring them wind. They are rowing in this direc- 
 tion, and mean to sail round the point. Tell me 
 when they are only a few hundred yards off.’ 
 
 Sven hastened thither. He began to feel a 
 breath of the Berserker spirit rising in him. The 
 
250 
 
 FL YGARE-CARLEN. 
 
 lieutenant himself put the priming in the little 
 cannons ; then fetched his gun, and kept it in his 
 hand. 
 
 ‘ Now, sir,' announced Sven, who came hurriedly 
 back — ‘ now I think it is time.' 
 
 Once more the lieutenant hurried up the cliff 
 and down again. 
 
 ‘Quick, boys, quick, to work — off! Out with 
 your oars, and row past the point as quietly as 
 possible.' 
 
 Soon the yacht, as light as a floating reed, had 
 accomplished this course, and the two boats were 
 brought face to face. The smugglers, in their 
 security, noticed nothing until the sense of hearing 
 aroused all the other senses. For the lieutenant 
 had taken the match which lay ready, and fired a 
 shot to hail the boat. 
 
 Olagus at the rudder, and the four others at 
 their oars, started up and rose. A single cry of 
 rage escaped the lips of the mighty man ; it 
 sounded deep and dull, and the cliffs returned the 
 echo. 
 
 ‘ Pull in your oars !' exclaimed the commander 
 of the Custom-house yacht. ‘ Stop before the royal 
 flag ! I mean to examine what you are carry- 
 ing.' 
 
 ‘ Go to the deepest hell, you dog of a Custom- 
 house officer!' roared Olagus. ‘You may thank 
 my kindness that I merely befool you.' 
 
THE SMUGGLERS, 
 
 251 
 
 Thereupon he thundered his command to his 
 companions : 
 
 ‘ Row, row as fast as you can to the open sea !’ 
 
 And, as though it had invisible wings, the boat 
 turned and shot forward. 
 
 ‘ Halt, halt !’ cried the lieutenant, whose blood 
 was now up. ‘ In the name of his Majesty and of 
 the Crown, down with the sails !’ 
 
 Loud laughter from the smugglers’ boat sounded 
 across the water. 
 
 This scornful laughter was answered from the 
 yacht by the firing of the second cannon, which 
 was fully loaded. The ball fell into the water close 
 to the windward of the boat. 
 
 The answer was renewed laughter from the 
 smugglers’ boat, whose crew, urged by the twofold 
 desire to save their cargo and make fools of the 
 Custom-house officers, continued to increase the 
 distance between themselves and the yacht. In 
 spite of the more skilful guidance, the two oars of 
 the latter could not overtake the four men. But 
 the lieutenant’s full strong voice could still be 
 heard : 
 
 ' Stop, or I will shoot you to the bottom !’ 
 
 But he did not shoot, for the smugglers’ boat 
 was already out of the reach of shot. 
 
 At this moment it would have been impossible 
 to detect the least trace of the amiable good- 
 natured Gudmar Guldbrandsson, the favourite of 
 
252 
 
 FL YGARE-CARLEN. 
 
 all the ladies, with his light-yellow curls and his 
 slightly-arched forehead, and the beautiful dark- 
 blue eyes, which, when not enlivened by the power 
 of some passion, sometimes revealed that half- 
 dreamy expression that women so often admire. 
 
 Majke ought to have seen her commander now, 
 as he stood for a moment on the deck, leaning on 
 his gun, his glass in his hand. 
 
 ‘ Row, boys, row with all your might ! I will 
 not allow — ' The remainder of the sentence was 
 lost in inarticulate tones. 
 
 Once more he raised the glass to his eyes. 
 
 The chase lasted some time, without anv in- 
 crease of the intervening distance, or any hope of 
 its diminution. It was a grave, a terrible chase. 
 
 Meantime new and strange intentions had oc- 
 curred to the commander of the smugglers' boat. 
 PTom what dark source could he have received the 
 inspiration that dictated the command ? 
 
 ‘ Knock out the bung of the top brandy-barrel, 
 and let us drink ; that will refresh our courage and 
 rejoice our hearts. Be merry and drink as long as 
 you like.' 
 
 And now ensued a wild bacchanalia. The men 
 drank out of large mugs, they drank out of cans, 
 and the result was not wanting, while the boat was 
 nearing the entrance to the sea. 
 
 ‘ Now, my men,' began Olagus, in powerful 
 penetrating tones, as he stroked his reddish beard, 
 
THE SMUGGLERS. 
 
 253 
 
 ‘ shall we allow one of those government fools to 
 force us to go a different way from the one we our- 
 selves wish to go ?’ 
 
 ‘ Olagus/ Tuve ventured to interpose — for Tuve 
 still possessed full consciousness, as he had only 
 made a pretence of drinking — ‘ dear Olagus, let us 
 be content if we can place the goods in safety. I 
 think I perceive that you mean something else — 
 something dangerous.’ 
 
 ‘Coward ! You ought to sit at home and help 
 your father weave nets. If you are afraid, creep 
 under the tarpaulin ; there are others here who do 
 not get the cramp when they are to follow the 
 Morko bears.’ 
 
 ‘ For my part,’ thought Borje, as he bent over 
 his oar, ‘ I should like to keep away from this hunt. 
 But who dare speak a word ? I feel as though I 
 were already in the fortress, the ship and crew in 
 the service of the crown.’ 
 
 Perhaps Ragnar thought so too ; but the great 
 man was so much feared that when he commanded 
 no contradiction was ever heard. 
 
 It was almost the first time that Tuve had 
 made an objection, and his brother’s scornful re- 
 buke had roused his blood also, but still he con- 
 trolled himself 
 
 What was resolved on meantime will be seen 
 from what follows. 
 
254 
 
 FL YGARE-CARLEN. 
 
 ' Why, what is that ?' exclaimed the lieutenant 
 of the yacht. ' The oars are drawn in ! He is turn- 
 ing, — on my life, he is turning !’ 
 
 ‘ He knew that we should catch him up,’ said 
 Sven, delighted once more to be able to indulge in 
 his usual humour. ‘ Fists and sinews like mine are 
 worth as much as four of them ; and if we take 
 Pelle into account, they might easily recognise that 
 the best thing they can do is to surrender at once.’ 
 
 ' Silence, you conceited idiot !’ commanded the 
 lieutenant ; ‘ this is no matter of parley. He is 
 making straight for us. The wind is falling, it is 
 becoming calm.’ 
 
 ‘ What does the lieutenant think, Pelle ?’ asked 
 Sven, in a loud whisper. ‘ Can Olagus have wea- 
 pons on board, and want to attack us ?’ 
 
 ' It almost looks like it,’ answered Pelle shortly. 
 Meantime the two boats approached one another 
 with alarming speed. 
 
 ' Whatever happens,’ said the lieutenant, with 
 icy calm, ‘ and the game looks suspicious, you 
 know, my friends, that the coastguardsman may 
 not look behind him. The flag of the crown may 
 wave over living or dead men ; that is no matter so 
 long as it does not wave over one who has not 
 done his duty.’ 
 
 ‘ Yes,’ answered Pelle. 
 
 Sven spread out his arms in a significant ges- 
 ture. 
 
THE SMUGGLERS, 
 
 255 
 
 ‘ They may be excited by drink, their copper- 
 coloured faces show that ; but here stands a man 
 who will not forget that his name is Sven Dillhuf- 
 vud. There, I have spoken ! But, dear sir, do 
 take care of yourself They have torn up the 
 boards, and are fetching up stones and pieces of 
 iron/ 
 
 'Yes, I see. If they attack us, take care of the 
 oars. Do not lay-to on the long side ; but row 
 past, and then turn. If they throw, watch their 
 movements carefully ; in that way you can escape 
 the danger.' 
 
 The boats, which were only a few fathoms apart, 
 glided gently towards one another. 
 
 The lieutenant's command was punctually exe- 
 cuted by his people. 
 
 ‘ Olagus Esbjornsson,' exclaimed the com- 
 mander of the Custom-house yacht, ' I charge you 
 once more in the king’s name to surrender !' 
 
 ' O dear yes,’ exclaimed the worthy descendant 
 of the Vikings. ' I have come back just with that 
 intention. Perhaps I also wanted to fulfil an old 
 vow. Do you remember what I vowed that night 
 by the Oternnest ?’ 
 
 At the same moment a whole shower of pieces 
 of iron whistled through the air, and fell rattling 
 on to the yacht ; but the sharp piece of iron thrown 
 by Olagus's own hands was aim.ed at the lieutenant 
 himself He, however, darted aside so quickly that 
 
256 
 
 FL VGARE-CARLEN, 
 
 he was not wounded, although it flew so close past 
 him that it tore off his straw hat and dashed it into 
 the sea. 
 
 ‘ Olagus, and you others,’ sounded his voice, in 
 all its youthful power, ‘ consider what you do ; 
 consider the price of an attack on a royal boat and 
 crew ! The responsibility may cost you dear. I 
 charge you to cease at once.’ 
 
 ‘ What ! Are you frightened, you crown slaves ?’ 
 roared Olagus, whose sparkling eyes and flushed 
 face, so different from his usual calm in peaceful 
 circumstances, lent increased wildness to his form 
 and gestures. ‘ Come, will this warm you ?’ And 
 at the same moment another piece of iron flew 
 past, aimed with such certainty, that it would have 
 cut off the thread of the lieutenant’s life if he had 
 not taken shelter behind the mast. The iron was 
 firmly fixed in the mast. 
 
 The yacht was now bombarded on all sides. 
 Here hung a torn sail, there an end of rope, and 
 the side planks had already received a good deal 
 of injury, so that the yacht was threatened with a 
 leak. But now was heard for the last time the 
 young commander’s warning. 
 
 ‘ Stop, Olagus, and tell your people to put aside 
 their wretched arms ; for, on my life, this gun is 
 loaded with a ball, and the first of you who throws 
 another piece shall be shot down like a stag.’ 
 
 ‘ Do it if you dare ! But there, see, miserable 
 
THE SMUGGLERS, 
 
 257 
 
 Custom-house dog, how the Mork5 Bears respect 
 your threats !' 
 
 The third piece of iron was just about to be 
 thrown; but at the same moment the lieutenant 
 took aim. 
 
 The shot was fired. 
 
 During the long chase and the attack which 
 followed it, the sun had been approaching the 
 horizon, and now might be seen one of those 
 beautiful sunsets which so often delight the eye on 
 this blue-green sea. They are the counterpart of 
 the autumn apparitions during the dark fogs, when 
 the ships wander about, seeking their way among 
 the cliffs, then glimmering whitely, and now shin- 
 ing red. 
 
 Worthy the inspiration of poet and painter, this 
 warm, divinely peaceful, and lovely scene of Nature 
 offered a new bitter contrast to the terrible picture 
 which human passion and the claims of duty had 
 conjured with lightning speed into these two spots 
 in the sea — the smugglers’ boat and the Custom- 
 house yacht. 
 
 The shot was fired, and the mighty giant of 
 Morko, Olagus Esbjornsson, sank back into the 
 tarpaulin. 
 
 ' The accursed devil has shot right into my 
 heart !’ 
 
 Pale as death, Tuve sprang forward, and wanted 
 to stay the blood. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 S 
 
25 ^ 
 
 FL VGARE-CARLEN. 
 
 ‘ Leave it alone/ panted Olagus. ‘ It is no use. 
 Give my love to father and Britje, she was a good 
 wife. You must be a father to — my boy. The 
 business may cease.' 
 
 The subduing touch of death had already ex- 
 tinguished the wild light which the fire of hatred 
 had kindled in these eyes. And the last glance 
 that sought his brother’s gaze was gentle. 
 
 Suddenly he was once more fired by the re- 
 membrance of the earthly life which was fast re- 
 treating from him. 
 
 ‘ Quickly away with the cargo ! No one must 
 know that Olagus Esbjornsson fell from a shot out 
 of the Custom-house yacht. I — I — fell upon them.’ 
 
 They were his last words. 
 
 Tuve’s head fell, sobbing, on the man whom he 
 had so completely honoured as his superior. 
 
 Tuve was now the first in Morko, and, as though 
 a stronger spirit had come over him, he began to 
 feel his duty. He rose, and gave orders to turn 
 towards the sea, but the crew stood motionless 
 with terror. 
 
CHERBULIEZ. 
 
 Born in Geneva, July 1829 ; now living in Paris. 
 
CHERBULIEZ. 
 
 Switzerland, as well as France, may be per- 
 mitted to claim Cherbuliez as her son, for he was 
 born in Geneva. His ancestors, staunch Protest- 
 ants, came thither from Dauphine, whence they 
 fled on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and 
 making Geneva their second home, distinguished 
 themselves in connection with its political and lite- 
 rary life. One of them was a chief of the faction 
 of the Natifs who warred against the old Patrician 
 families, and an intimate of Voltaire ; another as- 
 sisted De Saussure in his first scientific exploration 
 of Mont Blanc. Andre Cherbuliez, the father of 
 our novelist, was a professor of philology at the 
 Geneva Academy. He married a pastor’s daughter, 
 a gifted woman, with a talent for painting ; and 
 Victor was their only son. A friend of the family 
 has said that the son learnt from the father those 
 things which can be learnt, from the mother those 
 which cannot be learnt. He received a most care- 
 ful education, both at school and at home. At the 
 age of twenty, a legacy left to him for the purpose, 
 enabled him to travel and see the world. He went 
 
262 
 
 CHERBULIEZ. 
 
 first to Paris, where he remained a year and a half, 
 and continued to study, among other matters. 
 Oriental languages, in which he attained a respect- 
 able proficiency. He then went to Bonn, where he 
 devoted himself to German philosophy, Sanskrit, 
 and Greek, and passed thence to Frankfort, Weimar, 
 and Berlin, in all of which cities he endeavoured to 
 assimilate their intellectual wealth. After a three 
 years’ absence he returned to Geneva, and began to 
 earn his livelihood as a tutor. He was offered a 
 post at the Gymnasium, and also the tutorship to 
 a German prince, but declined both. He did not 
 wish to bind himself irrevocably to any career, for 
 he was bitten with the love of letters. With regard 
 to the prince, he refused because, as he said, he at 
 least had this resemblance with D’Alembert, that 
 he chose to be a slave to his liberty. 
 
 At the age of twenty-seven Cherbuliez con- 
 tracted a love-marriage with a Swiss lady, Mdlle. 
 Charlotte Rochaix. In i860 he and his wife visited 
 Smyrna, where Cherbuliez’s sister was married. Here 
 they spent ten months, making acquaintance with 
 the East, Cherbuliez at the same time delivering a 
 course of lectures on the history of French novels 
 since 1815. On the return journey, Pergamos, the 
 Troad, Athens, and Constantinople were visited. 
 While crossing to Trieste Cherbuliez conceived the 
 idea of his first work, Le Cheval de Phidias^ for which 
 Plato’s Symposium served as his model. This first 
 
CHERBULIEZ. 
 
 263 
 
 attempt is a humorous archaeological essay — a 
 rambling aesthetic dialogue concerning art, starting 
 from a horse modelled by Phidias and ranging over 
 all the domains of plastic art The work attracted 
 much notice ; it was especially praised by St.-Beuve, 
 while George Sand not only wrote to its author to 
 express her admiration, but obtained an introduc- 
 tion for him to the editor of the Revue des Deux 
 Mondes^ who at once invited Cherbuliez to contri- 
 bute to its pages. 
 
 His first contribution to this paper of European 
 fame, with which Cherbuliez was destined to be- 
 come intimately connected, was the bizarre novel 
 of Comte Kostia^ a work which, according to the 
 editor’s statement, was one of the most successful 
 the Revile had published. It was written in 1862 ; 
 and Cherbuliez has thus carried out Jean Paul’s 
 axiom, that no one should write a novel before he 
 had turned thirty, and had gained something of the 
 ‘ philosophic mind,’ which, as Wordsworth tells us, 
 comes with years and experience. Though now 
 attracted so powerfully to Paris, Cherbuliez for a 
 time continued to live at Geneva, though he roamed 
 much between this date and 1874, when he ulti- 
 mately left it. In 1863 he visited Rome, and stu- 
 died the history of the Renaissance ; next year he 
 wandered through Dauphine, in which is laid the 
 scene of his Roman d'une Honnete Femme. A short 
 time after he spent some months in Florence. At 
 
264 
 
 CHERBULIEZ, 
 
 the desire of the Revue, before the outbreak of the 
 war, Cherbuliez visited Germany, studying its poli- 
 tical circumstances, and writing essays thereupon, 
 which were republished, in book form, as L Alle~ 
 magne Politique apres la Paix de Prague. For the 
 same journal and purpose he also passed sometime 
 at Madrid. 
 
 The death of Cherbuliez's father snapped the 
 last link which bound him to Geneva. He settled 
 permanently in Paris, where his now intimate con- 
 nection with the Revue required his constant pre- 
 sence. He had become editor besides contributor, 
 and not only novels and political studies, but clever 
 satires on affairs and things German, written under 
 the pseudonym of G. Valbert, are from his pen. 
 For he is a versatile writer, a man of many gifts, 
 who has exercised them in all directions. It is as 
 a novelist that he concerns us here, and as such it 
 would be difficult to overrate his ability : for mere 
 cleverness he exceeds all living French authors. 
 His flexible and vivacious style is perfect of its 
 kind — every sentence is an epigram. There is, 
 perhaps, almost too much esprit ; for, owing to this, 
 and the fact that an effort after originality is a little 
 too visible, the sentiment, and at times even the 
 reality, suffers. As a writer, Cherbuliez amuses, 
 interests, delights, and surprises ; but his readers 
 remain unmoved, and think more of the author than 
 of his personages. He rarely, if ever, carries us 
 
CHERBULIEZ. 
 
 265 
 
 away, or ventures into the realms of passion. His 
 analysis is accurate ; he is an admirable psycholo- 
 gical observer, a finished writer, an accomplished 
 narrator; but he has in him no vein of the poet. 
 Perhaps this may result from the influence of our 
 age, which is adverse to sentiment ; for in the 
 Roman d'une Honnete Femme and in Comte Kostia 
 imagination, romance, and emotions worthy the 
 name come more into play than in his later lightly 
 cynical works. His animosity against the Germans 
 has prompted some of his most characteristic pro- 
 ductions. Meta Holdenis is a sort of foreign Becky 
 Sharp, ingratiating herself wherever she goes, seem- 
 ing to be a model of feminine virtue and unselfish 
 devotion, but never for an instant, except once, 
 losing sight of her ultimate aim, her own worldly 
 advancement. That she does lose sight of it once, 
 for an instant, shows that the Frenchman possessed 
 a keener insight into feminine character than 
 Thackeray. Samuel BroJd et Cie. is a companion 
 picture of a masculine adventurer, painted in blacker 
 colours, and without extenuating touches. The 
 plan of the story is so hopelessly disagreeable that 
 not all the ability of its narrator can redeem it ; 
 and on this account it must remain in the second 
 rank, as a picture admirably painted, but which it 
 was, perhaps, a pity to paint at all. The hero, a 
 German Jew, personates a deceased acquaintance 
 of his, a young Polish count, and as such makes 
 
266 
 
 CHERBULIEZ, 
 
 acquaintance in the Engadinewith a French heiress 
 and her father. The heiress falls in love with him, 
 and they become engaged. Some of her friends 
 suspect the nobility of the Count Larinski ; and 
 the story tells how gradually his imposture be- 
 comes disclosed, and how, at the eleventh hour, the 
 heroine is saved from giving her hand to an adven- 
 turer whose base origin and infamous character 
 have been known to the reader all along. There 
 is nothing great or exciting in the story ; it is coldly 
 realistic. Samuel Brohl, alias Count Larinski, is a 
 low villain, whose abject nature betrays itself 
 athwart his most careful efforts to play the hero of 
 romance. The heroine is a slightly strong-minded, 
 slightly obstinate, slightly obtuse young lady ; and 
 though we rejoice in her eventual rescue from the 
 arms of the scoundrel she has never suspected, we 
 feel as if some taint were already incurred by her 
 lengthened engagement to the disgraceful being, 
 who is, moreover, the figure in whom the whole 
 interest of the story centres. The want of some 
 pleasant counterfoil to the hero is painfully evi- 
 dent ; for this is not sufficiently supplied by an 
 exemplary French cousin, to whom Meta is ulti- 
 mately awarded, but who, in the novel, plays a 
 secondary part. Cherbuliez may claim that Samuel 
 B^vhl is true to nature ; but its strength consists in 
 the fact, which is a weakness in itself, that it relies 
 
CHERBULIEZ, 
 
 267 
 
 for its material on what is deformed, degraded, 
 tainted, and corrupt in human nature. 
 
 In a short story, ‘ Les Inconsequences de M. 
 Drommel,’ Cherbuliez has again had his fling at 
 the Germans. The story, which satirises German 
 pedantry, is purely humorous. The picture drawn 
 of the member for Gorlitz, blindly stupid, arrogant, 
 selfish, and inconceivably ignorant, is merely amus- 
 ing. Paule Merle and Le Roman dhtne Honnete 
 Femme are both psychological studies of the female 
 heart. It is in his heroines that Cherbuliez betrays 
 Teutonic influences. The majority of his women 
 are unmarried, and by no means bear the true 
 French stamp. The typical j ezine fille of French 
 novelists is conspicuous by her absence in his pages. 
 His heroines are individual characters that will 
 think and feel for themselves. They are cultivated 
 like Isabelle {Roman dhine Honnete Femme)^ eccen- 
 tric or wilful like Stephanie {Comte Kostia)^ or self- 
 reliant like Meta. Something of the English idea, 
 which allows of a little more development of cha- 
 racter in young unmarried females, seems to enter 
 into his conceptions, and with decided advantage 
 to his stories, which are not, therefore, entirely de- 
 pendent upon matrimonial complications. 
 
 Cherbuliez is an ingenious skilful writer, of deli- 
 cate perception, and full of subtleties of expression. 
 In some forcible scenes he rises to the level of the 
 
268 
 
 CHERBULIEZ. 
 
 occasion, but it would not be easy to find a second 
 writer so gifted, and yet such a stranger to pathos 
 or any strong emotion. He never appeals to the 
 heart, but invariably to the head, and here is unsur- 
 passed. His strong points are character-drawing 
 and analysis ; and on these, and his art of writing, 
 he relies rather than on elaborate plots and mysti- 
 fications, knowing he can afford to despise these 
 cheap ways of securing his readers’ attention. Of 
 his many L' Idee de Jean Teterolmd^y perhaps 
 
 be pronounced as his most perfect work, although 
 the tone of some of his earlier novels is more pleas- 
 ing. It is original, well-proportioned, and well and 
 equably carried out ; all but the end, which is un- 
 fortunately puerile. The leading idea is the oppo- 
 sition and ultimate reconciliation of old and new 
 France, typified in a 7iouveau riche and a nobleman. 
 We have chosen our extracts from this work. Be- 
 tween the first and second passage Jean Teterol 
 has grown rich, has acquired part of the baron’s 
 land, harries him in all conceivable manners, and 
 finally buys up his debts, offering to release him on 
 the condition of a marriage between his son and 
 the baron’s daughter. The young people are unac- 
 quainted with the bargain. 
 
LIDEE DE JEAN TETEROL, 
 
 26g 
 
 LIdce de Jean Tetei^oL 
 
 I. 
 
 Small things have sometimes great results. Some 
 men are so constituted that trivial incidents, hardly 
 worth relating, produce on them an indelible im- 
 pression, whose remembrance they will always 
 retain. They fancy they hear heaven or the devil 
 calling them, and they set out to go whither fate 
 may lead them. 
 
 On the 2d September 1833, about the middle 
 of the morning, the Baron of Saligneux, clad in a 
 dressing-gown of apple-green silk, his hands in his 
 pockets, left his study to take a turn in his garden. 
 The Baron of Saligneux, known for ten leagues 
 around under the name of Baron Adhemar, 
 possessed in the canton of Saligneux, situated on 
 the borders of Bugey and Bresse, a beautiful castle 
 that his ancestors had bequeathed to him, and 
 he also possessed fields, vines, woods, and mea- 
 dows, more than two hundred hectares held by one 
 proprietor. He occupied himself in managing 
 his affairs, cultivating his fields, having his eye on 
 everything, answerable only to himself, rather re- 
 spected than beloved by all his people. The baron 
 was considered to be somewhat severe, to have 
 rather rough manners : yet there were means of 
 approaching him ; it was only necessary to bend 
 the back before him, and to speak to him bare- 
 
270 
 
 CHERBULIEZ. 
 
 headed. All of his servants who followed this plan 
 were well off, but there are some stiffnecks, some 
 hard and proud foreheads, to whom all abasement 
 is repugnant. The baron had for under-gardener a 
 boy of eighteen called Jean Teterol, who either 
 could not or would not procure his good-will. This 
 boy had been a foundling, he had been picked up on 
 the high-road. He was named Teterol because this 
 name seemed to be written on a piece of paper sewn 
 to his swaddling-clothes. He was fed and brought 
 up by public charity, which, to tell the truth, did 
 not do much for him ; he was allowed to grow up 
 neglected, and perhaps he would have turned out 
 badly if the young cure of Saligneux, who possessed 
 all the virtues of an old curcy had not taken some 
 interest in the child. He sent for him, questioned 
 him, was struck by his open mind and his lively in- 
 telligence. He decided to keep him ; he taught him 
 to read and write and cipher. Abbe Miraud was 
 fond of gardening, and he gave Jean Teterol les- 
 sons in that art ; and some years later he found a 
 place for him with Baron Saligneux, who only con- 
 sented to retain him in his service out of regard for 
 the priest’s recommendation. Jean Teterol’s face 
 did not please the baron, and he by no means ap- 
 preciated his ways of proceeding. He complained 
 of his being reserved, absorbed in his own thoughts, 
 taciturn, sullen. ' There is never any knowing,’ said 
 he, ‘ whether this boy is your friend or your enemy. 
 
LIDEE DE JEAN TETEROL. 
 
 271 
 
 or rather he is neither one nor the other ; he is an 
 eternal stranger.’ Most of all, he resented the boy’s 
 iron head and inflexible back. The baron was 
 most tenacious of respect, and Jean Teterol was not 
 by nature respectful. He had come into the world 
 with the idea that a baron of the old stamp and a 
 foundling child were of about equal value, that they 
 were formed out of the same clay. Whoever could 
 have put that into his head ? 
 
 Baron Adhemar de Saligneux, dressed in an 
 apple-green silk dressing-gown, his hands in his 
 pockets, was walking in his garden, when he per- 
 ceived Jean Teterol occupied in pruning a pear-tree. 
 The antipathy that this foundling child inspired in 
 him increased every day ; for some time he had been 
 incessantly watching him, in the hope of catching 
 him at some fault ; but it was not easy to catch 
 Jean Teterol in fault. This taciturn fellow, who at 
 the end of his career became almost talkative, was 
 an indefatigable worker, sleeping little, rising early, 
 industrious, diligent, conscientious. Goethe has 
 said that ‘ for mediocre intellects a trade will always 
 be a trade, that for superior intellects it is an art, 
 and that a really great man in doing one thing does 
 all, or rather he sees in this one thing that he does 
 well the symbol of all the good work in the world.’ 
 Jean Teterol did well all that he did ; not that he 
 cared about pleasing his employers or gaining their 
 praise, but he cared a great deal about pleasing 
 
272 
 
 CHERBULIEZ. 
 
 Jean Teterol, who was not easily satisfied with him- 
 self. 
 
 The baron approached Jean, and watched him 
 working for a moment ; then, knitting his brows, 
 he began to upbraid him with not knowing how to 
 set about it 
 
 ‘You are crippling my pear-tree!’ exclaimed 
 he. ‘ Leave your stupid pruning-knife, and go at 
 once to fetch me the shears. I will teach you your 
 work.’ 
 
 Jean quietly answered that he knew his work, 
 and that in certain cases the knife was better than 
 the shears. Perhaps he was right, for we should 
 not despise pruning-knives ; but a baron who is in 
 the wrong gets angry, and that is exactly what 
 happened to Baron Adhemar de Saligneux. He 
 indignantly apostrophised the foundling-child, 
 called him insolent and conceited, and informed 
 him that there is nothing in the world more ridicu- 
 lous than conceit that has been picked up under a 
 cabbage. Jean at first listened to him in silence ; 
 presently, his patience being exhausted, he began 
 softly to hum the air of ‘ Marlborough.’ It was 
 the only song he had ever learnt, and he liked to 
 sing it. Unfortunately his voice was false, and as 
 he always applied himself thoroughly to whatever 
 he did, he sang false with method and with delight. 
 At the present moment his false voice shocked the 
 baron less than his insolence. Boiling over with 
 
LIDEE DE JEAN TETEROL. 
 
 273 
 
 anger, he raised his hand against the youth, who 
 made a bound to one side, and succeeded in avoid- 
 ing the blow. But he could not prevent the baron’s 
 foot from being as agile as his arm ; this foot struck 
 him in the pit of the stomach, and sent him back 
 against the pear-tree. When he had recovered his 
 equilibrium he turned, picked up his cap that had 
 fallen down, gave the baron a look from terrible 
 eyes filled with tears of rage, then suddenly he took 
 to his legs, scampered away, and disappeared. 
 
 Jean Teterol no longer knew where he was. 
 He saw the whole world in the light of his adven- 
 ture, and the whole world seemed to him changed. 
 The sun, the fields, the woods, the steeple of Salig- 
 neux, had a different aspect from any they had had 
 before. The fields, the steeple, the sun, had seen 
 that kick, and they made their own reflections on 
 the occurrence. 'He went to hide his shame in 
 the depths of an impenetrable thicket, where he 
 spent two hours biting his fists. He was ponder- 
 ing resolutions and thoughts, each more extrava- 
 gant than the last. The first was to go and set 
 fire to the castle ; the second was to await the 
 Baron de Saligneux at a turn in the road, and to 
 break his bones. He lopped off a branch of holly 
 for a stick, and examined it with satisfaction. 
 However, gradually his brain grew calmer. There 
 were few things he believed in ; but he did believe 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 T 
 
274 
 
 CHERBULIEZ, 
 
 in courts of justice, in policemen, and he had made 
 up his mind never to meddle with them. He said 
 to his stick, 
 
 VNo, not that. I will find something better.’ 
 
 And he resolved that this stick, which was con- 
 venient to carry, should not serve him for killing, 
 but that he would make it his companion. Then 
 he looked at an old oak which was watching him, 
 and called on it to witness that one day Jean 
 Teterol would teach the Baron de Saligneux man- 
 ners. He pronounced this vow in a vibrating tone, 
 and the oak seemed touched. All strong men 
 have commenced by a Hannibal vow. 
 
 He secretly reentered the mansion, tookhis clothes 
 and his papers, and made a packet of them. Then 
 he broke the money-box where he kept his pence, 
 of which he was very careful, and having added 
 them up, he v/as well-pleased with the result. After 
 that he departed, never to return. Arrived at the 
 gate, he took off his shoes, and struck the two 
 shoes, bound with iron-work, violently against each 
 other, to shake off all the dust that they might have 
 collected on the property of Baron Saligneux. He 
 spent the rest of the day seeking information, and 
 procuring a knapsack, into which he stuffed his 
 possessions and a leather purse, in which he put 
 his pence. He spent the night in the open air, 
 stretched out beside a ditch under a bush. He 
 slept deliciously, and woke up fresh and ready, 
 
riDEE DE JEAN TETEROL. 
 
 275 
 
 feeling in himself the power to brave cold, hunger, 
 thirst, and all the trials that awaited him. 
 
 Abbe Miraud was coming out of his church, 
 where he had said Mass, when he saw Jean Teterol 
 approaching him, his knapsack on his back, his 
 holly-stick in his hand. 
 
 ‘ Why, what is the matter ?’ said he. ‘ What is 
 the meaning of all this array ?' 
 
 Jean did not answer. Abbe Miraud seized his 
 arm. 
 
 ‘Jean, that is not right,’ said he. ‘ I know that 
 you had a scene with M. de Saligneux.’ 
 
 ‘ Do you know,’ exclaimed Jean, ‘ that he lifted 
 his hand and his foot against me, addressing me as 
 a foundling-child ? I did not feel my hand on his 
 face, but I felt his foot here, do you see ? And I 
 feel it still, and I always shall feel it, and what he 
 said will always remain here,’ putting his hand to 
 his ear. 
 
 ‘ M. de Saligneux is a little hasty,’ replied the 
 good priest, ‘ but you took his reproaches badly ; 
 you were insolent.’ 
 
 ‘ Let him meddle with his own affairs. He 
 shall not teach me how to prune a pear-tree !’ 
 
 ‘At any rate he can teach you to be polite. 
 You must be respectful to your superiors, my child. 
 Ah, fie ! while he was talking to you, you dared to 
 hum the air of “ Marlborough.” ’ 
 
276 
 
 CHERBLLIEZ. 
 
 ‘ Excuse me, sir, I know no other,’ answered 
 the young man, laughing. 
 
 Abbe Miraud assumed a severe expression. 
 ‘Jean,’ said he, ‘either I take no further interest in 
 you, or you make your peace with the baron.’ 
 
 ‘ Never !’ replied Jean. 
 
 ‘ Do you not know that the Gospel teaches us 
 to pardon insults ? I admit that the baron was 
 quite in the wrong ; forgive him.’ 
 
 ‘Never!’ replied Jean, rubbing his sides. 
 ‘“Never” is not a Christian word,’ replied the 
 priest sadly ; ‘ it is hardly a human word. And,’ 
 as Jean was silent, ‘what do you mean to do ?’ 
 
 ‘ Quit the country.’ 
 
 ‘ And where are you going ? 
 
 ‘ Ah, that is my secret. I have my own idea,’ 
 said Jean, raising his chin. 
 
 ‘ Wicked fool that you are,’ retorted the abb^ 
 ‘ very rich your idea will make you 1 This gentle- 
 man has an idea ! Does it nourish you, that idea 
 of yours ? does it keep you warm ? does it fill your 
 stomach ? and does it prevent you from dying of 
 hunger ?’ 
 
 ‘ No matter ; I have my idea,’ replied Jean. 
 
 ‘ I fear it is a bad one. Take care ; there are 
 ideas that lead to the hospital ; there are ideas that 
 lead straight to the penitentiary.’ And, looking 
 fixedly at him, the priest added, ‘ I really believe 
 you have the devil in your eyes.’ 
 
LIDEE DE JEAN TETEROL. 
 
 277 
 
 ‘ God or the devil/ said he, ‘ no matter. I be- 
 lieve in neither God nor devil, sir. Ah, well, wher- 
 ever I go I will promise to be honest ; it is only 
 fools that are not ; and besides, if ever I felt a de- 
 sire to steal, I should think of your old hat and 
 your old threadbare cassock, and that will prevent 
 me from putting my hand into other people’s 
 pockets. But you must not ask me to believe in 
 God or the devil. If there were a God, I should 
 not have been picked up under a cabbage ; and if 
 there were a devil, he would long ago have carried 
 off Baron Saligneux and his accursed castle ; but 
 as for stealing, that is not my idea, not that. I 
 promise you, sir, never to steal.’ 
 
 ‘Your servant. Lord Jean Teterol, with your 
 idea !’ exclaimed the priest. Then pulling from 
 his pockets two crowns, worth five francs each, he 
 slipped them into his hand. Jean hesitated to ac- 
 cept them ; however, he bethought himself, and 
 said, ‘Thank you.’ Thereupon he started on his 
 journey. Abbe Miraud followed him with his eyes 
 a few minutes and saw him depart, stirring up the 
 dust of the high-road, his holly-stick in his hand, 
 his knapsack on his back, and his idea in his head. 
 
 In truth Jean Teterol’s idea was still a little 
 confused. It was only a ‘ thereabouts,’ an em- 
 bryo. He had discovered that there are two sorts 
 of men — the rich and the poor ; that the former 
 are able to give kicks, and the latter to receive 
 
278 
 
 CHERBULIEZ. 
 
 them. What he also knew for a fact was that the 
 day before he had received one, and that some day 
 he would return it to him who had given it. Yes, 
 some day Jean Teterol would be rich, even richer 
 than Baron Saligneux, and he would take his 
 revenge, and then there would be something 
 worth seeing. What would it be? He did not 
 know, but assuredly those who had good eyes 
 should see something. The chief thing was to be- 
 come rich. How? He had promised his village 
 priest not to steal ; he reckoned on growing rich 
 by work ; he had for some time noticed that in 
 two hours he could do more work than others in a 
 whole day, and that his work was better done than 
 theirs. At what should he work ? On this point 
 he was also in doubt, and he waited for an inspira- 
 tion to come to him. But he had heard that Paris 
 is one of the places in the world where large for- 
 tunes are made, and he had taken it into his head 
 to go to Paris ; and it was to Paris that he went, 
 asking the passers-by the way to Paris, living on 
 crusts and water, sleeping on straw and in the open 
 air, humming the air of ‘ Marlborough,’ and con- 
 versing with his idea, which answered him. 
 
 II. 
 
 Lionel Teterol had not closed his eyes on his 
 journey, and the round of the property had kept 
 him on foot for seven consecutive hours. He was 
 
L'lDEE DE JEAN TETEROL. 279 
 
 very tired when he went to bed. In spite of the 
 preoccupation of his thoughts, and the trouble they 
 caused him, he had scarcely laid his head on his 
 pillow before he fell fast asleep, and slept without 
 waking till morning. On waking, however, he 
 found, beneath his bolster, his thoughts awaiting 
 him : they are always awaiting us. 
 
 He rose and dressed. . Having completed his 
 toilette, which was a speedy operation, he spent a 
 whole hour looking out of the window. The 
 country, like himself, had just awakened : the 
 young day looked on him with kindly glance ; it 
 seemed glad once more to behold the light. 
 
 Lionel might have remained even more than 
 an hour at his window, held by this charm, if he 
 had not, turning his head to the right, suddenly 
 perceived, in the depth of the valley, the Castle of 
 Saligneux. From that moment he could think of 
 nothing but Mdlle. de Saligneux, his evil genius, to 
 whom he sent all his maledictions across the inter- 
 vening space. 
 
 ‘ I do not believe,’ said he to himself, ‘ that 
 Mdlle. de Saligneux is bandy-legged, or hump- 
 backed, or frightfully ugly; but does she possess 
 the features of my unknown, the fire of her glances, 
 the proud look of her arched black eyebrows, her 
 straightforward, clear, and penetrating voice ; and 
 that tiny foot, that I have held in my hand ? That 
 would settle all.’ 
 
28 o 
 
 CHERBULIEZ, 
 
 Then he exclaimed, 
 
 ‘ No, I will not marry Mdlle. de Saligneux ! 
 I swear it, by my own pride and by your brown 
 eyes !’ 
 
 And he added, laughing at himself, 
 
 ‘ It is three months now since I saw her, and I 
 am still thinking of her. What a child I am !’ 
 
 He was indeed. Shall we blame him for it? 
 It is a good thing to have a thorough knowledge 
 of law; it is also a good thing to have some childish 
 fancies left, and to take them seriously. The first 
 duty of youth is to be young. 
 
 After breakfast Lionel took the same walk 
 alone that he had taken the previous evening with 
 his father. On the way he thought neither of 
 harvests nor irrigation, nor rotation of crops ; he 
 only thought of his own affair. In a few hours his 
 redoubtable father would return from Bourg, and 
 then the struggle would begin afresh. He fancied 
 he could see him before him, his brow knitted into 
 the deep straight furrow that anger had cut there, 
 his eyes sparkling, his hands clasped, saying, in 
 an icy voice, 
 
 ‘ Well, sir, have you reflected ?’ 
 
 And yet the further he went the firmer became 
 his resolution, and the stronger grew his invincible 
 antipathy for Mdlle. Saligneux. He imagined 
 her now as a silly girl, endowed by the nuns with 
 their petty manners; now as a great rough gawky 
 
riDEE DE JEAN TETEROL. 
 
 281 
 
 girl, with a yellow complexion, large teeth, and 
 pointed shoulders, moving awkwardly, as stiff as 
 though she had swallowed one of the weathercocks 
 of the paternal manor. In short, whatever her 
 looks or her manners might be, he did not want 
 her, because he was proud, because he was jealous 
 of his liberty, because he would not agree to have 
 his heart disposed of without his permission, be- 
 cause he had determined not to marry, or, at any 
 rate, no woman whom he did not love. 
 
 Reflecting as he went, he reached the grove of 
 oaks whither his father had taken him. He crossed 
 it, and descended the grassy slope which terminated 
 in the brook. He stopped near an old chestnut- 
 tree, about fifty paces from the spot where the 
 water-lilies grew. He looked at his watch. 
 
 ‘ I have still three hours to myself,' said he. 
 ‘ This is not the moment to beat a retreat.' 
 
 He stretched himself out full-length on the 
 grass, which was tall and bushy. Above him he 
 saw the twisted branches of the chestnut-tree, its 
 broad lacy leaves, among which the ripening fruit 
 showed their brown spots, like the eyes of an 
 unknown fair one. He soon half-closed his own, 
 and, by an eflbrt of will, he succeeded in forgetting 
 his situation, his father, Mdlle. de Saligneux. 
 He thought of nothing but a paper on English 
 judges that the editor of a legal review had asked 
 him to write. He was planning it out in his head. 
 
282 
 
 CHERBULIEZ. 
 
 drawing up its headings, and saying to himself, 
 even whilst thus occupied, 
 
 ‘ A man who thinks and works is never altoge- 
 ther unhappy.’ 
 
 Suddenly a voice made him start. The voice 
 was singing, or rather reciting, accompanying with a 
 sort of melopoeia these lines of a well-known song : 
 
 * Je n’ai ni bois ni.terre, 
 
 Ni chevaux ni laquais ; 
 
 Petit proprietaire, 
 
 Mes fonds sont deux crochets.’ 
 
 Lionel raised himself on his elbows and looked. 
 A young girl was seated on the banks of the Li- 
 mourde, near a clump of hazel-bushes. Her head 
 was bent, her chin rested in her hand, so that the 
 brim of her broad straw hat entirely hid her face. 
 The next moment she raised her head, and Lionel 
 thought he was dreaming ; his heart beat violently, 
 he almost gave a scream. O surprise ! O myste- 
 rious dispensation of that all-powerful divinity 
 whom Frederick the Great used to call his Sacred 
 Majesty Chance ! That young girl singing, that 
 young girl seated on the banks of the Limourde, 
 was the Amazon of the Avenue des Poteaux, was 
 the Cecile of the Theatre Frangais, was the un- 
 known ! Lionel took care not to show himself ; a 
 rising in the ground hid him. As soon as he had 
 somewhat recovered from his surprise, he gently 
 pushed aside with both hands the grass which was 
 
LIDEE DE JEAN TEJEROL. 
 
 283 
 
 before him, and placed himself so as to see without 
 being seen. 
 
 Silent and immovable he remained there, his 
 heart beating with emotion, holding back his 
 breath like a child who is afraid of putting a 
 butterfly to flight. He knew that fair unknowns 
 have wings, that they sometimes fly away and are 
 never seen again. 
 
 Upon an urgent appeal from her father, Mdlle. 
 de Saligneux had left the Marquis de Virevieille. 
 She had that very morning come from Paris, where 
 Madame de Juines had been to fetch her. After 
 breakfast she had made the round of her domain, 
 to make sure that it had sustained no fresh loss. 
 She adored her Saligneux, even clipped, cut, and 
 lessened ; but having seen it diminish year by year, 
 she never returned to it without wondering whether 
 there would be any of it remaining. She had just 
 reassured herself that the remainder was intact. 
 Nevertheless, thinking of its former greatness, she 
 could not resist a sigh. She was not, however, the 
 sort of girl to abandon herself to melancholy, and 
 to cheer herself she began to sing. As she sang, 
 having an enterprising mind, she conceived the 
 idea of obtaining and putting in her hair one of 
 those beautiful water-lilies that she perceived at a 
 little distance from her on the other side of the 
 brook. She knew that these water-lilies belonged 
 to the enemy, but this consideration only excited 
 
284 
 
 CHERBULIEZ, 
 
 her fancy. Yet she knew, too, that the enemy was 
 always on the watch, and that it was dangerous to 
 expose oneself before him ; and this second con- 
 sideration made her hesitate. Finally, covetousness 
 triumphed over prudence. She rose, and her first 
 care was to fetch a rake that had been left in one 
 of the meadows. She brought it, and then cast 
 her eyes all round her. She looked to the right, 
 to the left, everywhere ; she little thought that in 
 the grass, behind a little elevation of the ground, 
 in the shade of a chestnut-tree that protected him 
 with its long branches, was a doctor of laws who 
 lay and watched her. 
 
 Completely reassured, she sat down again and 
 began to take off first her boots, then her stock- 
 ings ; and soon Lionel, who did not miss one of 
 her movements, saw two tiny little feet appear, 
 which he thought he could see sparkling in the sun 
 like two diamonds. She herself was contemplating 
 them with some satisfaction. She had often been 
 told that she had pretty feet, and she had not 
 waited to be told before she knew it. 
 
 Having finished these preparations, she cau- 
 tiously climbed down the bank and entered the 
 water, which at this time of year was very shallow, 
 and scarcely went above her ankle. However, when 
 she reached the middle of the stream it went half- 
 way up her leg, and she was obliged to turn back 
 her skirt up to her knees, quite unconscious that 
 
niDEE DE JEAN TETEROL. 
 
 285 
 
 never in his life had the doctor of laws opened his 
 eyes so wide. She soon reached the opposite bank, 
 stretched out her arm and her rake, and pulled 
 back a long stalk crowned by a beautiful silvery- 
 white corolla. She hung her rake on the branch 
 of a willow, and, using both her hands, she plucked 
 the flower, which she regarded with delight, saying 
 out loud, 
 
 ‘ How beautiful you are ! All the more because 
 you are stolen property.’ 
 
 With these words she pressed it to her lips. 
 Then she regained the left bank, reascended the 
 slope, and hastened to put on her shoes and stock- 
 ings. When she had finished, and was about to 
 depart, she perceived that she had left her rake on 
 the other side, and at the same moment she per- 
 ceived that a handsome young man had just 
 sprung from the earth, and was bowing respect- 
 fully to her. 
 
 She uttered a frightened scream, and her first 
 impulse was to run away. Unfortunately she had 
 not gone three steps before a breath of wind car- 
 ried off her hat, whose strings were untied, and 
 threw it into the Limourde. She stopped in em- 
 barrassment. Lionel had already seized the rake, 
 by means of which he drew the hat that the current 
 was carrying away out of the brook. Hereupon 
 he returned, and, stationing himself in front of 
 Mdlle. de Saligneux, he said to her. 
 
286 
 
 CHERBULIEZ. 
 
 ‘ Have I the honour of speaking to Mdlle. de 
 Saligneux ?’ 
 
 ‘ That may be/ answered she, hardly conscious 
 of the superhuman effort he had made to articulate 
 calmly and without seeming an idiot that question, 
 for him so big with fate. She added, ‘ May I also 
 be allowed to know who is honouring me by this 
 question ?’ 
 
 ‘ M. Lionel Teterol/ answered he. 
 
 'Well, M. Lionel Teterol, will you be so oblig- 
 ing as to return what you have taken from me ?' 
 
 ' Presently, mademoiselle/ answered he gravely. 
 
 ' But first would you kindly explain to me how the 
 rake came here ; did it come all alone ?' 
 
 ' I swear to you, sir, that it is mine.’ 
 
 ' And can you swear to me, mademoiselle, that 
 the water-lily you hold in your hand is also yours ?’ 
 
 ' So you recognised your water-lily at once !’ 
 exclaimed she. ' I am not surprised at that, sir. 
 In your family there is a true fanaticism of owner- 
 ship. I might hold a hundred water-lilies before 
 you, and you would say, without a moment’s re- 
 flection, " That is mine.” O, what a fortunate gift ! 
 And if I refused to give back to you this charming 
 water-lily which belongs to you, would you resort 
 to a bailiff to get it back ? It is quite possible. It 
 rains bailiffs in this part of the world.’ 
 
 ' No, mademoiselle ; I should not send you a 
 bailiff, but I should sacredly keep this hat.’ 
 
LIDEE DE JEAN TETEROL. 
 
 287 
 
 ‘ Come, yield to a good impulse ; be generous ; 
 restore this without asking anything in return. 
 Why do you want to have back this poor flower?’ 
 
 ‘ In the first place, it belongs to me ; in the 
 second, it has been gathered by you.’ 
 
 ‘Very pretty,’ exclaimed she. ‘Sentiment, 
 poetry ! I did not know that plant grew in this 
 country.’ 
 
 ‘ Everything comes here, and flourishes here, 
 mademoiselle, as soon as you are here.’ 
 
 She made a deep curtsy, and, after a pause, 
 continued, 
 
 ‘ I have been awkward ; I have let myself be 
 caught ; I must pay. But how shall we manage to 
 restore our property? We cannot throw them 
 across the stream.’ 
 
 ‘ You forget that there is a bridge two hundred 
 steps from here.’ 
 
 ‘ And you, sir, you forget that this bridge has 
 been barricaded and closed by a gate, covered with 
 lattice-work, bolted, and padlocked.’ 
 
 ‘ I will climb over the gate.’ 
 
 ‘ At your own risk and peril,’ said she. 
 
 With these words, they began to descend, the 
 one the right, the other the left, bank of the 
 Limourde, and both arrived at the same time at 
 the two ends of the bridge. It was there that their 
 fathers had held their first colloquy, and there the 
 children held their first interview. 
 
288 
 
 CHERBULIEZ. 
 
 Lionel climbed the gate without much diffi- 
 culty. Mdlle. de Saligneux advanced to meet him, 
 but bethought herself otherwise, and suddenly re- 
 treated a few steps. 
 
 ‘ One moment, sir,' said she : ‘ I am withheld by 
 a scruple. Is this bridge yours or mine ?’ 
 
 ‘ I believe it is yours.' 
 
 ‘You believe! You must make sure. Think of 
 it ; the matter is one of importance. If I had the 
 misfortune and the audacity to put the tip of my 
 toe into the territory of the Teterols, then the 
 bailiff would certainly be sent to me ; for I tell 
 you they abound here.' 
 
 And then, changing her expression and her 
 manner, she added, with all the gravity of a fin- 
 ished diplomat, 
 
 ‘Ah, sir, between you and me, could we not 
 discover some means of putting an end to these 
 miserable lawsuits, which distress those who lose 
 them, and bring no glory to those who gain them ?' 
 
 She looked at him, their eyes met, and he felt 
 a transport of joy. He was on the point of answer- 
 ing her : 
 
 ‘ But you well know that this means has been 
 discovered for us, and that you approve of it. As 
 for me, know that since a quarter of an hour I 
 think it admirable, wonderful.' 
 
 He had not time to open his lips. She suddenly 
 exclaimed. 
 
niDEE DE JEAN TETEROL. 
 
 289 
 
 ‘ Certainly, sir; it seems to me that I must have 
 seen you somewhere.’ 
 
 ‘ For my part, I ana sure of it.’ 
 
 ‘ But where ?’ 
 
 ‘ Yes, it was — it must have been in the Bois dc 
 Boulogne one day, when I fell off my horse.’ 
 
 She blushed as she said these words ; for she 
 remembered that, in replacing her on the saddle, 
 he had held her foot, and at the same instant she 
 remembered that just now she had been barefooted. 
 
 ‘ What were you doing under that chestnut-tree?’ 
 she demanded, in a queenly voice. 
 
 ^ I was fast asleep.’ 
 
 ‘ And at what moment did you wake up ?’ 
 
 ‘ Excuse me. Before answering your question, 
 I have one to ask you.’ 
 
 ‘ Certainly ; you have a genius for barter, give 
 and take. I see we shall not have done with our 
 lawsuits so soon.' Well, then, ask.’ 
 
 She could say no more. A shrill voice cried, 
 
 ‘ Claire, wherever can you be ?’ 
 
 ‘ Coming, aunt,’ replied Mdlle. de Saligneux, 
 and, throwing the water-lily to Lionel, she seized 
 her hat and rake and ran away. 
 
 Lionel, too, ran away, like a man who has a 
 great joy to conceal ; for joy makes us run just as 
 tear does. His joy was almost frantic ; chance had 
 been kind tp him, and had just struck a great blow 
 to save him from the most cruel distress. He was 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 u 
 
290 
 
 CHERBULIEZ, 
 
 as happy as a golddigger who has discovered a 
 vein, or a poor man who hears that he has drawn 
 the greatest prize in the lottery ; as much overcome 
 by joy as a shipwrecked man who is miraculously 
 borne to land ; as surprised as a child who has 
 gone to sleep after asking for the moon, and wakes 
 to find it under his pillow. He felt the need of 
 embracing some one or something; he remembered 
 that he held in his hand the water-lily, on which 
 Mdlle. de Saligneux’s lips had rested ; he drank the 
 kiss that she had left there ; and this was the only 
 act of folly he committed, because there were two 
 labourers close at hand working in the fields. As 
 for being surprised and scandalised at the strange 
 facility with which Mdlle. de Saligneux had agreed 
 to marry a man whom she had never seen, he no 
 longer thought of it. To justify her conduct he 
 invented the most foolish arguments. She had had 
 presentiments, divinations, without her decision 
 being influenced by any interested motives ; her 
 expression, her beauty, testified to the perfect no- 
 bility of her sentiments. Lionel was in love, and 
 love is madness ; all inconsistencies are permitted 
 it, its kingdom is the absurd. 
 
 At the stroke of six, M. Teterol returned; he 
 was never a minute later. As he entered the din- 
 ing-room, the floor creaked under his boots, and he 
 greeted his son with a cold shake of the hand. 
 During the whole of dinner he had the sombre, sul- 
 
LIDEE DE JEAN TETEROL, 
 
 291 
 
 len, and fierce air of a Krupp cannon, loaded to the 
 mouth, waiting to be fired. When coffee had been 
 served, he emptied his whole cup at once, and dis- 
 missed Joseph. Then, leaning on the table, as was 
 his habit, his heavy hands, that crushed whatever 
 they touched, and his two strong elbows, which had 
 won a broad road for themselves across the human 
 crowd, he fixed on his heir an eye in which his 
 idea seemed kindled and flaming like the fire at a 
 forge, and said to him, in a jerky voice, 
 
 ‘ Well, Lionel, have you reflected ?’ 
 
 The flies buzzing round them were silent, feeling 
 the gravity of the moment, and a deathlike stillness 
 reigned throughout the room. Lionel did not an- 
 swer for two minutes ; these two minutes seemed 
 to his father two centuries. At length the young 
 man said., 
 
 ‘ Yes ; I have reflected. I will do as you wish.' 
 
 M. Teterol's face turned scarlet, and he drew his 
 handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his temples, 
 moist with joy. 
 
 ‘ Everything is for the best,' exclaimed he. ‘ I 
 knew well, Lionel, that you were a sensible fellow. 
 You have made your little calculations, and you 
 have found out that your father is in the right. 
 Remember, I am always in the right ; it is one of 
 my oldest habits. That is what comes of reflecting. 
 You have discovered that it is no contemptible 
 advantage for an ambitious young fellow to have 
 
292 
 
 CHERBULIEZ, 
 
 a Saligneux belonging to him. These country 
 squires have good connections ; there are marquises 
 related to them, and all these sort of people uphold 
 one another ; they have a genius at intriguing. For 
 a long time still, even during the Republic, they 
 will have a great deal of influence. Just think of 
 my lawsuits. They only had to whisper one word 
 into the judge’s ear, and it was found that the rab- 
 bits from their warren had not eaten my cabbages. 
 The world is so silly ! And, then, I have already 
 said to you, this harebrained baron will not grow 
 very old, and there is no male posterity to whom he 
 can leave his title. It is quite possible that at his 
 death — ’ 
 
 ‘ Let us speak no more about it,’ interrupted 
 Lionel. ' I have promised to do everything you 
 wish.’ 
 
 ‘ Rather let us speak about it,’ continued M. 
 Teterol. ‘ I insist that this marriage is a stroke of 
 fortune for you. This young lady is quite fresh 
 and blooming, and yet she has already a great deal 
 of sense and knowledge of the world. She will 
 help you to get on, to make your way in the world. 
 I have heard about her from M. Crepin.’ 
 
 ‘ Who is M. Crepin ?’ asked Lionel. 
 
 ^ A rascal. And do not go and think that Mdllc. 
 de Saligneux is frightfully ugly ; I only said that 
 to put you in a passion ; you can fancy that I do 
 not want a monster for my daughter-in-law. You 
 
LIDEE DE JEAN TETEROE 
 
 293 
 
 shall see her to-morrow. I met the baron just now ; 
 w^e have settled everything, and to-morrow I shall 
 introduce you. Of course I do not say that she is 
 a Venus.’ 
 
 ‘ I beg of you, do not let us say any more about 
 it,’ broke in Lionel once more ; for his father kept 
 him on the rack by persisting in praising Mdlle. de 
 Saligneux, as though he were determined to disgust 
 him with his happiness. 
 
 The obstinate old man never let go his victims. 
 He rose and went round the table to come and sit 
 beside his son. He himself opened the chest of 
 cigars, offered him one, and obtained fire by striking 
 a match on the sole of his boot. 
 
 While Lionel smoked, he continued : 
 
 ‘ Forgive me, my boy ; I was a little hasty to 
 you last night. Well, I can understand you ; you 
 had some little love-affair in your mind. Lovers 
 always fancy that there is only one woman in the 
 world, while there are really thousands of them. It 
 is not the most beautiful, it is the most useful, you 
 must marry. You are a serious man, a strong man. 
 I can already fancy you in your saddle, your prin- 
 cess behind you. Gee-up, trot ! I will supply the 
 oats.’ 
 
 ‘ For Heaven’s sake, say no more about it,’ ex- 
 claimed Lionel once more; for his father’s meta- 
 phors seemed to him even more terrible than his 
 direct thrusts. 
 
294 
 
 CHERBULIEZ. 
 
 At that moment Joseph announced the Abbe 
 Miraud, who had come to pay his respects to the 
 heir. 
 
 ‘ Come along, M. le Cure,’ exclaimed M. Teterol. 
 ‘ I want to introduce my Prince of Wales to you. 
 He is well built, is he not ? And to think that I 
 have seen him no taller than my boot ! Have I 
 ever told you that he is called Lionel, after you ? 
 Your godson will do you honour ; but you shall 
 not make a clergyman out of him. He and I 
 have the same opinions, the same heart, the same 
 will’ 
 
 ‘Yours, M. Teterol?’ replied the abbe, smiling, 
 with the air of a timid man determined to make a 
 venture. 
 
 ‘ Mine, mine, when I tell you that it is his also !’ 
 replied M. Teterol. ‘ That is just like those church- 
 men.’ 
 
 And he added, as he passed his big fingers 
 through his son’s chestnut hair, 
 
 ‘ You may say what you will, you cannot spoil 
 my Prince of Wales. He knows too well what he 
 owes me. And the deuce, I do not regret all that 
 I have spent on his education ! Look at this boy, 
 M. le Cure ; it is the best of my investments — twenty 
 per cent’ 
 
 Lionel availed himself of the first opportunity 
 of leaving the abbe and his father alone together, 
 and retired into his room. Happiness has its sleep- 
 
riDEE DE JEAN TETEROL. 
 
 295 
 
 less nights, and that night Lionel never closed his 
 eyes. It seemed to him as though before morning 
 a thief would descend from the sky to snatch away 
 his treasure, and he could not be quick enough in 
 placing it under lock and key. 
 
 III. 
 
 On the 1 2th of September 1875, at three o’clock 
 in the afternoon, M. Teterol, having opened a 
 little gate with a large key, crossed the bridge over 
 the Limourde with his son. A white necktie was 
 drawn tightly round his bull-like neck, and choked 
 him a little. He wore a brand-new overcoat of 
 black cloth, ordered for the occasion, and in which 
 he felt somewhat confined. He was always un- 
 comfortable in new clothes ; for not only was he 
 very stout, but when he thought of certain things 
 his chest expanded so much that all the seams of 
 his clothes began to crack. The tailor never had 
 sufficient cloth to dress M. Teterol’s pride. 
 
 He was in too good a humour that day to com- 
 plain of his necktie, or his overcoat, or his tailors, 
 or his shoes (which were too tight), or of any one. 
 Never before had his face been so cheerful, his lips 
 so smiling ; his thick grizzling eyebrows trembled 
 with happiness. All the way he had been hum- 
 ming the air of ‘ Marlborough.’ In crossing the 
 bridge, he could not resist the pleasure of pushing 
 
296 
 
 CHERBULIEZ, 
 
 a loose stone with the end of his stick, and making 
 it fall into the water, saying to Lionel, 
 
 ‘ That is how these squires maintain their pro- 
 perty. We will render them the service of mending 
 their bridge.’ 
 
 When C3esar perished^ the sun turned pale, the 
 Po left its banks, the statues shed bloody tears, 
 ghosts walked the streets, and the forests resounded 
 with dismal howls. When M. Teterol crossed the 
 Limourde, the sun did not grow pale, and no wolves 
 howled. It has, however, been related that, on the 
 1 2th September 1875, at three o’clock precisely, 
 something strange did happen at Saligneux. A 
 few moments before the air was perfectly still ; 
 suddenly a gust of wind violently bent the tops of 
 the elms on the terrace, and the walls of the castle 
 trembled. 
 
 The Baron of Saligneux had not a lively imagi- 
 nation ; the gust of wind surprised him without 
 moving him. M. Teterol had fixed three o’clock for 
 his visit. He knew that man’s terrible punctuality, 
 and he awaited the enemy, pacing one of the alleys 
 in the park. As soon as he saw him appear in the 
 distance, he advanced to meet him, his hat on one 
 side, a flower in his buttonhole, a switch in his 
 hand. 
 
 M. Teterol stopped short, and called out to him, 
 
 ‘ Here he is at last, M. le Baron ! What do you 
 think of him ?’ 
 
riDEE DE JEAN TETEROL, 
 
 297 
 
 The baron carefully surveyed Lionel, who bowed, 
 and then fixed on him his proud and penetrating 
 gaze. 
 
 ‘ Ah, sir,' said the baron, ‘ the trumpet of fame 
 had already published your praises here. I think 
 it is the first time that a trumpet has proclaimed 
 the truth.' 
 
 With these words he held out his hand to him, 
 and kindly wished him welcome. As they chatted, 
 M. Teterol had gone on in front ; he had an idea 
 in his head, and was preparing for an effect that 
 he did not wish to miss. When he came near the 
 orchard, which flanked the castle on the right, he 
 sought for something that he was disappointed not 
 to find there. He pushed open a little gate and 
 entered the orchard. It was a pear-tree he was 
 seeking ; it no longer existed, but his eagle-eye 
 recognised the place where he had seen it long ago. 
 He beckoned to M. de Saligneux and Lionel, and 
 when they had come up with him, 
 
 ‘ M. le Baron,' said he, in his loudest tones, 
 ‘ formerly there stood here a pear-tree — I seem to 
 see it still — a beautiful pyramidal pear-tree. I was 
 then a little country workman, an assistant gar- 
 dener, very proud of being in the service of a Baron 
 de Saligneux. And yet I have no reason to boast 
 of your father's kindness to me. I do not mean to 
 say any harm of him. But he pretended to know 
 something of horticulture, and he did not under- 
 
298 
 
 CHERBULIEZ. 
 
 stand its first principles. I will stick to what I 
 have said, sir — he did not understand the very rudi- 
 ments. He insisted that the shears are better than 
 the pruning-knife for pruning fruit-trees. That is 
 wrong, absolutely wrong. Every one who knows 
 anything about it will tell you that the shears al- 
 ways eat more or less into the branch that is being 
 cut.' 
 
 M. Teterol spoke of this pear-tree story with as 
 much animation and excitement as though it had 
 happened the day before ; it seemed as though the 
 question had remained an open one for forty years. 
 This man, with his eternal thoughts, had no idea of 
 time ; his anger, like his memory, was always young. 
 
 ‘ One day, then,' continued he, H was employed 
 in pruning a branch of this pear-tree ; and I was 
 just preparing to nip the twigs, cutting them a 
 length of eight centimetres. It was ten o'clock in 
 the morning. Your father comes up to me dressed 
 in an apple-green silk dressing-gown. For some 
 moments he watches me at work ; then, pulling his 
 hands out of his pockets, he begins to call me an 
 ass and an idiot, and abuses me for crippling his 
 pear-tree. Why should I cripple it ? I wished that 
 pear-tree neither good nor evil. I have never taken 
 very great interest in other people's property ; but 
 it has also been my principle to do well whatever I 
 did. Your father becomes angry. I answer him. 
 Then— are you listening to me ? — he was there, I 
 
riDEE BE JEAN TETEROL, 
 
 299 
 
 stood here ; then he gave me a great kick, which 
 sent me flying against the tree/ 
 
 M. Teterol burst into a noisy fit of laughter. 
 Then he drew himself up, planted his mighty hands 
 on his mighty hips, and exclaimed, 
 
 ‘ M. le Baron, what would your father have 
 thought, if, at the moment when he administered 
 this little punishment, some one could have told 
 him that one day I should have a son who would 
 marry his granddaughter ?’ 
 
 Saying this he puffed out his cheeks, turned 
 his head to right and left, as though with one 
 glance to embrace the universe, which in him ac- 
 knowledged its lord and master. 
 
 M. de Saligneux listened to him, and as he lis- 
 tened, he looked at his stick. Holding it in the 
 middle, between his thumb and first finger, he 
 made it turn and spin, rise and fall, and he felt it 
 tremble under his fingers. At last, driving from 
 him all evil thoughts, he replied, in soothing tones, 
 with an enchanting smile, 
 
 ‘ M. Teterol, it is possible that my father did 
 not understand about pruning fruit-trees, and that 
 he was wrong in preferring the shears to the prun- 
 ing-knife. For all that he was a man of sense. 
 Could he have foreseen that a kick skilfully given 
 would one day have such fortunate consequences 
 for his family, he would certainly have doubled the 
 dose to be more sure of the result.' 
 
300 
 
 CHERBULIEZ, 
 
 All the time his father had been speaking, 
 Lionel had experienced mingled feelings of dis- 
 comfort and confusion ; he had made himself small ; 
 he had tried to hide himself under the ground. M. 
 de Saligneux’s reply suddenly roused him, and he 
 felt himself blushing over his cheeks and ears. As 
 for M. Teterol, he had become meditative ; he was 
 considering whether he ought to take this reply 
 well or badly. The pill was gilded, but beneath 
 the gilt was a bean in the disguise of a bonbon, and 
 he had some difficulty in digesting the bean. He 
 looked at the baron, who had an air of perfectly 
 candid innocence. 
 
 ' Honi soit qui mal y pense !' said he to himself 
 
 And his good humour returned. 
 
 ‘ But where is Mdlle. de Saligneux ?’ asked he. 
 ‘ The time has come. I am anxious to introduce 
 my son to her."" 
 
 ‘ That is unnecessary,’ said the baron. ^ These 
 young people met already yesterday, and intro- 
 duced themselves to one another.’ 
 
 ‘ Ah, you sly fellow, you never told me that !’ 
 exclaimed M. Teterol, shaking his finger at his son. 
 
 ‘Sir,’ said the baron, turning to Lionel, ‘ I want 
 to ask some advice from your father, who under- 
 stands so well about pruning fruit-trees. My 
 daughter is somewhere in the garden ; be so kind 
 as to go and look for her. She knows of your 
 coming, and is expecting you.’ 
 
HACKL^ENDER. 
 
 Born in Burtscheid, Nov. i, i8i6 ; died in Stuttgart, 
 
 July 6, 1877. 
 
HACKL^NDER. 
 
 Hackl^ENDER has long enjoyed a popular reputa- 
 tion as a prolific writer of readable romances. His 
 collected works form sixty volumes, and not a few 
 of these have been translated into various Euro- 
 pean languages. He is considered one of the best 
 of Germany’s modern humorists, and his country- 
 men are fond of comparing him with Dickens, a 
 comparison in no wise appropriate, but indicating 
 the high estimation in which he is held. 
 
 Hacklaender was born at Burtscheid, near Aix- 
 la-Chapelle. At the age of twelve he was left a 
 destitute orphan. He was adopted by some rela- 
 tions as poor as himself, who could give him no 
 educational advantages, and soon apprenticed him 
 to a draper at Elberfeld. He disliked this business, 
 and enlisted into the army, for which he had con- 
 ceived an enthusiasm. A short experience proved 
 to him that, notwithstanding all his pains to satisfy 
 his superiors, he would be debarred from advance- 
 ment for lack of the necessary book-learning, al- 
 though he had acquired all the necessary practical 
 knowledge. Dispirited and disgusted, he quitted 
 the service, and successively entered three shops, all 
 
304 
 
 HACKLAlNDER, 
 
 of which failed soon after, so that his entry came to 
 be looked upon as of evil omen, and he could find no 
 fourth place. But Hacklsender did not lose courage. 
 He went to Leipzig, where he knew a bookseller’s 
 clerk, and began writing for a daily paper the 
 reminiscences of his soldier-life. Republished as a 
 volume, the sketches attracted notice, and opened 
 out a literary career for the author. With this 
 piece of good fortune came another. A Baron von 
 Taubenheim took a fancy to him, and begged him 
 to be his companion in a tour to the East. Hack- 
 Imnder accepted with alacrity ; it had always been 
 his wish to see the world, and the journey proved 
 of great use to his mental development. It also 
 procured him the acquaintance of the King of 
 Wurtemberg, who appointed him secretary to the 
 Crown Prince. By and by the narrow and anti-pa- 
 triotic spirit of this petty court made Hacklaender’s 
 position untenable. He was decried as ‘ a foreigner,’ 
 and the king had to dismiss him in 1849. He, 
 however, retired upon his full salary, and hereupon 
 proceeded to witness the Italian campaign in the 
 camp of Marshal Radetsky, and wrote its history. 
 He was also attached to the staff of the present 
 German Emperor during the campaign against 
 Baden. In 1859 King of Wurtemberg ap- 
 pointed him Director of the Royal Buildings and 
 Gardens ; and Hacklaender contributed greatly to 
 the embellishment of Stuttgart. 
 
HACKLyENDER. 
 
 305 
 
 Up to this time Hacklmnder had drawn his 
 literary themes from military life or his travels. 
 In Handel und Wandel he turned his trade ex- 
 periences to account. This was followed by his 
 chief work, European Slave-Life^ a book that has 
 been translated into every European language ; 
 twice into English. It endeavours to show that 
 social necessities make slaves of us all, and is the 
 only -novel with a pronounced tendency written by 
 Hacklaender. As a rule he is free from this national 
 propensity, and narrates simply to amuse. He 
 does not depict the life of the soul, but the outer 
 life ; he is a gem^e painter, who dashes-in his effects 
 with bold sharp strokes, and is free from ambiguity 
 and obscurity. He ridicules all empty social 
 forms ; he seeks for the true human kernel in all 
 beings. He does not set out with a purpose in 
 view, but lets characters and incidents develop 
 under his pen. Avoiding verbosity and over-minu- 
 tiae, he shows that he is a man of the world, and 
 not merely a closet-writer, like too many of his 
 countrymen. 
 
 In 1859 Hacklsender edited the popular illus- 
 trated journal, Ueber Land und Meer. Editing 
 and writing, he lived at Stuttgart quietly and 
 busily. Only when the Italian War of 1859 broke 
 out he once more was called among soldiers. The 
 Emperor of Austria sent for him to Verona, and 
 
 VOL. I. X 
 
3o6 
 
 HACKL^NDER, 
 
 he remained in the imperial head-quarters till after 
 Solferino. 
 
 Besides his fresh terse stories, full of humour, 
 life, and action, Hacklsender has written some popu- 
 lar plays, of which one, Der Gehehne Agents is es- 
 pecially excellent. Many of his tales are founded 
 upon his personal knowledge ; for he has seen 
 many and varied phases of life ; and his various 
 court, bourgeois, military, and literary experiences 
 stand him in good stead. A fresh healthy atmo- 
 sphere pervades all his writings. 
 
 The one of Hacklander’s works that is likely to 
 live longest, and which, though his first, is still, in 
 a sense, his most popular, is his Pictures from the 
 Life of a Soldier in Time of Peace, It purports to 
 be the memoirs of a young Prussian volunteer who 
 has entered the army, deluded by the poetical 
 glamour of a soldier’s life. He tells simply and 
 vividly all his experiences, from his entrance. He 
 takes us with him to the drill-ground, stables, 
 watch, prison, and military hospitals ; lets us assist 
 at manoeuvres and forced marches, and initiates us 
 into his growing disgust with this soulless career. 
 The various characters are admirably delineated : 
 the old colonel, rude and severe, enamoured of mi- 
 litary discipline, yet never forgetting that he too 
 has been young ; the major, who loves to show 
 his power and domineer over his subordinates ; 
 the guardian of the hospital, who half starves his ' 
 
THE VOLUNTEER, 
 
 307 
 
 patients, and pockets the money that should have 
 been spent on their nourishment. All are life-like 
 characters, and stand out boldly from the canvas. 
 We quote a passage from this lively book. 
 
 The Volunteer, 
 
 When a youthful spirit possesses natural cour- 
 age, a lively imagination, and some thoughtless- 
 ness, and has read many fine books, such as Spiess^ 
 Kramer^ and others, it is impossible for him to 
 believe that those glorious days of splendid armour, 
 of nodding plumes, of beautiful dames mounted on 
 light-brown steeds, should so completely have van- 
 ished from the face of the earth. Those whom 
 Fate has cast, as it did me, behind a shop-counter 
 in a little town where there are no soldiers, may 
 easily have the same experience as I. In my eyes, 
 the military profession was the only one in which 
 the old days of chivalry survived. I thought that 
 here the martial spirit, the fresh living existence of 
 the knights and mounted squires of the Middle 
 Ages, were still to be found. Only the valley, in 
 which lay our town, seemed to me dull and without 
 enchantment. Beyond the mountains that closed 
 it in, it must be very different. Doubtless there 
 were still dense forests, where wicked dragons lay 
 in wait for passing travellers ; and calm lakes, on 
 whose shores virgins, clad in white, sat wringing 
 their hands, waiting for deliverance out of the 
 
3o8 
 
 HACKL^NDER. 
 
 clutches of the terrible giant who held them en- 
 chained in golden fetters. 
 
 Once in my life I had seen two officers. Hence- 
 forth all my ideas of modern knighthood were con- 
 centrated in these two men. My imagination had 
 unfortunately found something to rest on. Yes, it 
 still lived on, that glorious time. In my mercantile 
 heart dangerous seed had been sown. I began to 
 make serious plans for leaving my hated trade 
 when my apprenticeship should be at an end, and 
 for becoming free, i.e. a king’s servant. 
 
 Some miles from my home lay the nearest gar- 
 rison town, where lived an old cousin of mine, a 
 retired lieutenant-colonel, with whom I resolved to 
 discuss the matter. I begged leave of absence, and set 
 off for the town one Sunday morning. My relation 
 received me very kindly. He was a little man, with 
 sharply-marked features, whose arched eyebrows 
 gave him a commanding expression. He had led 
 an infantry regiment in the battle of Pirmasens, 
 where an envious volley of grape-shot had cut off 
 all chance of his further promotion. He generally 
 wore a green overcoat, gray trousers, with broad 
 red stripes ; round his neck the Russian order of 
 St. Anne (ist class) ; and in his hand he carried a 
 large silver snuff-box, on which was engraved his 
 family arms. He was a kindly old gentleman, 
 especially when he sat in his room and told of his 
 campaigns. I communicated to him my desire to 
 
THE VOLUNTEER. 
 
 309 
 
 leave the career of merchant, and enter into the 
 
 nobler state of defender of my country. 
 
 ^ ^ ^ 
 
 My admission depended on the decision of the 
 colonel of the brigade. 
 
 ‘ Well,' said he at length, ‘ we will make a trial 
 together. But, above all, remember three things, 
 which I must have attended to in my brigade. In 
 the first place, order ; in the second place, order ; 
 and in the third place, order. Thus only can dis- 
 cipline be maintained ; and this sums up all. Go, 
 then, in Heaven's name, to the artillery barracks to 
 Sergeant Loffel, and say his colonel presents his 
 compliments to him, and sends him a trifling addi- 
 tion. Good-bye, young artilleryman.' Overcome 
 by my happiness, I made him a bow, and turned to 
 the door ; but the colonel called after me : ‘ When 
 I next have the pleasure of seeing you, I should 
 be glad not to see the high cravat and collar.' 
 
 I went into the barracks and presented myself 
 to the sergeant. He examined my slight figure 
 with no contented air, muttered something about 
 too many volunteers, hard service, weak build ; 
 then he called to a young man who was seated at 
 the table writing : 
 
 ‘ Bombardier, take this young man to the quar- 
 termaster, and let him try on his uniform.' 
 
 The bombardier went with me through a long 
 corridor. At last we entered No. 66, a large room. 
 
310 
 
 HACKL^NDER, 
 
 a sacred apartment, and therefore, as the first of its 
 kind, called The Chamber, just as the first book in the 
 world is called The Bible. Here all the best weapons 
 and clothes are kept. Here hung, ranged accord- 
 ing to numbers, the complete equipment for ser- 
 vice, from the shoe-nails of the artillery horses to 
 the new hair-broom for the mortars, from the mar- 
 tingale on the trousers to the warm cloth coat. If 
 war breaks out, all the gunners and horses can cast 
 off the old rags and trappings which they wear in 
 ordinary life, can enter the chamber naked, and 
 leave it fully equipped. 
 
 A holy awe, an elevating feeling, overcame me 
 when I entered this temple. I should have liked 
 to press the bright weapons and shining uniforms 
 to my full heart, when suddenly the quartermaster 
 appeared from behind a great heap of cloaks. My 
 bombardier said, 
 
 ‘ Quartermaster, the dozen (namely, of volun- 
 teers) is complete.’ Whereupon the other replied, 
 
 ‘ Well, then, we have eleven stockfishes and one 
 herring.’ 
 
 Before being dressed I was measured. For this 
 purpose the usual instrument was employed. I 
 stood on the step ; the quartermaster let the mov- 
 able ferrule fall on to my head so roughly that I 
 started and drew myself together. He laughed, 
 and calmly explained to me that he did this to get 
 the right measure, because the young gentlemen 
 
THE VOLUNTEER. 
 
 3TI 
 
 generally stretched themselves to seem taller than 
 they really were. Practically, this was not agree- 
 able, for my head ached. Then I was dressed, but 
 everything was too large and wide for me ; and 
 when I stood there, completely equipped, I looked 
 like the children in the well-known engraving, who 
 are playing at soldiers with their father’s weapons. 
 Besides a shako, uniform, trousers, sword, and boots 
 with spurs attached to them, he hung upon me 
 portmanteau, pistols, pouch, and a cloak; and in 
 this array, laughing, he led me back to the Ser- 
 jeant, who was no less amused at my appearance. 
 I was immediately taken to room No. 64, which I 
 was to share with a corporal and ten gunners ; and 
 from there direct to the tailor’s room, where my 
 clothes were to be altered to fit. 
 
 When I came back to my room I found my 
 new colleagues, who had taken possession of all 
 my weapons, busily employed in cleaning them. 
 My whole equipment was in a dreadful state. It 
 would be a mistake to suppose that recruits receive 
 bright arms from the chamber, least of all the 
 volunteers, who always receive the rustiest and 
 dirtiest that can be found. .This gives them an 
 opportunity of at once achieving a feat in cleaning 
 them. I should have been in no small perplexity 
 had I been obliged to clean my arms myself for 
 the first time, and was therefore heartily glad to 
 find them in such good hands. I expressed my 
 
3^2 
 
 HACKL^NDER, 
 
 gratitude to my companions for their kindness, and 
 was just going to attack the spurs, which were still 
 quite red and fastened to the dirty boots. But 
 the gunner with the largest beard said to me, 
 
 ‘ Leave that alone ; we will clean it in a few 
 minutes. But,’ he continued, with a grave mien, 
 ^ they have given you horribly dirty things ; and I 
 am afraid, without brandy, it will not be possible 
 to get them quite bright. A little butter will do no 
 harm to rub the sword-blade and the pistols ; but 
 a piece of sausage would do just as well.’ 
 
 I declared myself willing to provide brandy, 
 butter, and sausage, and pulled out a thaler. He 
 immediately sent out one of the men with it, and 
 said pleasantly, 
 
 ‘ If you care to get out and have a look at the 
 town, you will find all the things in excellent con- 
 dition by the time you come back.’ 
 
 I followed his agreeable advice ; and when I 
 returned a few hours later, I found my weapons 
 clean and bright on the stand. My companions 
 were cheerfully seated round the table, all of them 
 in a condition that plainly showed me that they 
 had not used all the brandy for cleaning purposes. 
 Before the bed that had been allotted me, there 
 hung, as before the others, a little card, on which 
 might be read, in large letters, H., GuNNER ; and 
 this delighted me. I contemplated it for some 
 time, and several times repeated my name and my 
 
THE VOLUNTEER, 
 
 313 
 
 present title of gunner. I had become something 
 in the world. 
 
 Next morning I was to be presented to the 
 captain. I must not mention his real name, and 
 therefore will call him Enemy — for God knows he 
 never was my friend ; in fact he disliked all the 
 volunteers, for they were generally rather wild 
 young men, who, when not actually serving, did 
 not always do exactly what was right. Thus we 
 seldom wore the coarse uniforms, but had finer 
 clothes of our own. We did not always wear the 
 prescribed heavy sword-belt ; a lighter kind, made 
 of white patent leather, seemed to us more desirable 
 for our promenades. Captain Enemy was also 
 much annoyed when we drank a bottle of wine in 
 the cafe where he drank a glass of sugar-water, 
 which we often did on purpose to vex him. 
 
 I was obliged to wait a full hour in the ser- 
 geant’s room before the captain appeared. The 
 stiff collar of my jerkin, which for the first time 
 enclosed my throat very tightly, drove the blood 
 to my head, and a glass into which I happened to 
 look revealed to me that I had a very red face. 
 The captain, who had meantime entered, seemed 
 to notice this, for his first remark, after he had 
 contemplated me with crossed arms for some time, 
 was, 
 
 ‘We seem to have made a particularly good 
 breakfast this morning.’ 
 
3H 
 
 HACKLjENDER, 
 
 This was one of his constant phrases. He 
 meant by it that I had drunk a great deal of 
 brandy. I answered truthfully that I had not yet 
 taken anything. He gave me an angry look, and 
 said, 
 
 ‘ We know better.’ 
 
 I bowed and was silent. He went on : 
 
 ‘ Sixteen years old ?’ 
 
 ‘Yes, captain.’ 
 
 ‘You should say, “At your service, captain.” ’ 
 
 ‘ At your service, captain. 
 
 ‘You seem to be very delicate.’ 
 
 ‘ At your service — no, captain.’ 
 
 ‘ I know better.’ 
 
 Hereupon he turned to the sergeant : 
 
 ‘ Let Corporal Dose take him into his depart- 
 ment and drill him.’ 
 
 Such was the first interview I had with my 
 chief, which had not greatly edified me. I had 
 hoped that he might make sympathetic inquiries 
 about my former condition, express his pleasure at 
 my love for the military profession, and such-like. 
 Nothing of the sort. On the sunny horizon of my 
 imagination there appeared some dark clouds. 
 Alas, how soon was my sky to be completely 
 overcast ! 
 
 I was to receive my first drill on foot ; and for 
 this purpose the sergeant conducted me to the bar- 
 rack-yard, and there presented me to my instructor, 
 
THE VOLUNTEER. 
 
 315 
 
 the Corporal Dose whom the captain had appointed 
 to this ofifice. This man was the tallest in the 
 whole battery — six foot two. With this unusual 
 height, and a figure as broad above as below, in his 
 uniform he looked, from a distance, something like 
 a coloured watch-case. His face always wore a 
 serious expression, and yet he was for ever trying 
 to be witty, even to his captain and other officers, 
 which often led* to bad results. In his leisure hours 
 he wrote poems. Such was Corporal Dose. 
 
 There we stood on the parade, where I was to 
 be made a man, as my instructor expressed it. 
 According to his catechism, an ordinary recruit 
 was at least three-quarters a brute. I, as a volun- 
 teer, had the good fortune to be counted among 
 the half-men ; he even allowed that I knew some- 
 thing of good manners, as I only partook of a sixth 
 part of some spirits that we drank together, and left 
 him the rest. 
 
 The drill began, and I devoted all my attention 
 to it. 
 
 ‘ Attention Y 
 
 I started as though struck by lightning, and 
 stood like a post. I had hit that. 
 
 ‘Now, you see,’ explained Dose, ‘when I com- 
 mand “ Stand at ease !” the soldier puts forward his 
 right foot and moves his limbs, but on no account 
 speaks ; but when I say “ Attention !” again, you 
 must not only literally obey the word of command, 
 
3i6 
 
 HACKL^NDER. 
 
 but I must perceive a starting, an alarm in you, 
 that proves to me you have understood the im- 
 portance of the moment. The word ‘‘Attention” 
 breathes a soul into the limbs, and converts the 
 unbridled ungoverned mass into a soldier. There- 
 fore “ Attention !” ' 
 
 There I stood, an unfinished statue, and the 
 corporal was putting the sculptor’s finishing touches. 
 He examined me closely, retreated a step, walked 
 round me, and noticed from a considerable distance 
 the faults in my posture. These he remedied with 
 a skilful hand, now bending me an inch to right or 
 left, now pulling back my shoulder-blades, now, by 
 gentle pressure under my chin, raising my face to 
 a good point for surveying the sky. Then he 
 twisted my hands and brought my little finger 
 into contact with the red seam of my trousers. 
 This last position seemed absolutely necessary in 
 his eyes. ‘ Finger on the seam’ was often intro- 
 duced at drill among the other words of command. 
 My posture on the first day did not displease 
 him. 
 
 ‘ Stand at ease !’ 
 
 My right foot moved forwards. I might once 
 more be a brute — Dose’s favourite expression for 
 recruits out of the ranks. 
 
 Thus began my practical military studies. Now 
 my instructor passed on to theory, and this he 
 commenced with a preface or introduction that 
 
THE VOLUNTEER. 
 
 3^7 
 
 was anything but bad. He began something in 
 this fashion : 
 
 ‘Just as in drill the word “Attention’' forbids 
 the soldier to make the slightest movement, the 
 word “ Subordination,” in its narrowest sense, gives 
 exactly the same command to the mind, and espe- 
 cially to speech. Subordination really means no- 
 thing but to hold one’s tongue ; for if a soldier 
 neither moves nor complains, not even in his 
 thoughts, z.e. does not put on a cross expression, 
 he understands subordination. The only word that 
 you may always say, even if an officer says to 
 you “You are an ass !” is “At your service then 
 there is an end of the matter. But this is the most 
 difficult of all tasks, especially to you young gen- 
 tlemen, who can never be silent, or at any rate give 
 a polite and modest answer, but are generally 
 much too ready with your tongues. And that is 
 all the worse for you. I could give you many an 
 instance. Therefore — Attention !’ 
 
 All of a sudden ? In spite of the instruction I 
 had just received concerning immobility, I could 
 not resist giving a little side glance. Why had 
 Dose so suddenly resumed the drill ? Ah, I saw 
 how it was ! Up above a flowered dressing-gown 
 was leaning against the window, and in it was the 
 sergeant, who was smoking a long pipe and watch- 
 ing my drill. Now I exerted myself doubly ; bent 
 over in front at an angle of at least sixty degrees ; 
 
HACKL^NDER, 
 
 318 
 
 raised my head so high that I could comfortably 
 see the weathercock on the steeple of the neigh- 
 bouring garrison church. I really stood splendidly, 
 and made several turns to right and left, treading 
 so violently that my heels ached. But the sergeant 
 at the window smiled graciously and approvingly ; 
 then the corporal ventured to look up and assure 
 the great man in the dressing-gown that I was 
 doing pretty well ; whereupon he immediately or- 
 dered the instruction to cease for to-day. We now 
 abandoned the serious stiff tone maintained when 
 on duty, and fell into a lighter and easier manner. 
 We then repaired to Madame Linksen, whose res- 
 taurant the corporal could not praise sufficiently. 
 
 I had imagined that this sort of military cafe 
 would be a large hall, where the soldiers would be 
 seated at long oak tables, doing justice to the con- 
 tents of full bright cans, which cans would be hang- 
 ing round the walls. I formed in my own mind a 
 sort of picture of a castle-hall. My imagination 
 had once more run away with me. Madame Link- 
 sen was the wife of the fire-master, and, in respect 
 of cleanliness, had the advantage over all other 
 similar establishments in the barracks. But it would 
 be a great mistake on that account to suppose that 
 her establishment was really conducted in a clean 
 and orderly manner. Only a regular soldier or an 
 innocent novice would become regular customers 
 here. Madame Linksen was known for giving the 
 
THE VOLUNTEER. 
 
 319 
 
 largest credit, but also for taking the largest pro- 
 fits. She had an especial art in enticing the re- 
 maining money out of the pockets of us young 
 fellows ; and she managed to make a sojourn with- 
 in her four walls endurable, nay, even pleasant, and 
 at last absolutely necessary, since there was nothing 
 better to be had. During my first months of ser- 
 vice, when I was still in pocket, whenever I ap- 
 peared at the door of her room, however full it 
 might be, she always managed to clear a place for 
 me. Madame would either turn her little boy off 
 the bed and offer it to me as a sofa, or glance 
 round with searching looks, and, in the spirit, open 
 her credit-book and see who of those present was 
 most in her debt. He must give up his seat ; and, 
 if he understood good manners, he rose of his own 
 accord at her significant glance, so that it might 
 seem as though he were tired of sitting. If he was 
 difficult of comprehension, Madame Linksen did 
 not hesitate to acquaint him with her wish in 
 words. 
 
 In this cafe militaire might be found, between 
 ten and eleven in the morning, all the gourmands 
 and fashionable gentlemen of the battery who pos- 
 sessed either money or credit. It was considered 
 the thing to take at this hour a glass of spirits 
 for four pfennige, a sausage or sandwich for eight 
 pfennige ; in fact, some breakfast for about a gro- 
 schenj and, while eating, to grumble at the ser- 
 
320 
 
 HACKL^NDER. 
 
 vice, the officers, the horses, and retail past adven- 
 tures. The young and inexperienced, like myself, 
 behaved quite passively, and listened eagerly to 
 the mighty words that fell from the lips of those 
 older in the service. The benches and chairs were 
 all occupied, even the tables and bed were covered ; 
 the men lay with their shakos hanging carelessly 
 on one side, and held them firm by clutching the 
 chains between their teeth. The swords, hanging 
 between their legs, served as a support to lean the 
 head upon. Thus the company sat together, chat- 
 ting, lying, and swaggering. One would declare 
 that he had come to words with an officer whom 
 he disliked ; and, if we were to believe his confused 
 account and his significant gesture of the hand, 
 accompanied by a self-satisfied smile, he had at 
 least offered his superior officer a box on the ear. 
 Another had been in a tavern the night before, 
 had broken everything there to bits, had run away, 
 had fallen into the hands of the patrol, had forced 
 it to flight, and finally, at the door of the barracks, 
 had run down the watch who wanted to arrest 
 him. They outdid one another in the relation of 
 their heroic deeds. So they sat talking, swearing, 
 and laughing until at length, towards eleven o'clock, 
 the flourish of a trumpet brought very different 
 movement into the assembly. Outside, the trum- 
 peter of the day was trying his instrument and 
 sounding it softly, preparatory to blowing the sum- 
 
THE VOLUNTEER. 
 
 321 
 
 mons to the roll-call clearly and correctly the next 
 moment. Instantly the assembly broke up ; every 
 one began to arrange his dress and his arms, paid 
 for what he had had or gave madame a significant 
 look. As soon as the signal sounded, all rushed off 
 in the greatest haste to the roll-call at the meeting- 
 place of the battery. 
 
 For a young soldier, especially for those of a 
 light disposition, such as we younger ones mostly 
 were, the roll-call is a bad ticklish moment. It may 
 truly be said that here everything is brought to the 
 light of day. This is the moment when the cap- 
 tain and the officers have nothing particular to do, 
 and are therefore able calmly to consider, censure, 
 and punish the faults and irregularities committed 
 by the company, as well as discover new offences. 
 If one of us unfortunates had replaced a missing 
 button by the most ingenious manoeuvre de force, 
 i,e. fastened the braces and trousers together with a 
 piece of string (the expression, manoeuvre de force, 
 which we gave to any contrivance of this sort, is 
 taken from the heading in our artillery text-book 
 to the paragraph on piecing together broken pieces 
 of cannon), however well he might have concealed 
 the deficiency, so that it had not been noticed in 
 the morning while riding or at drill, one of the offi- 
 cers was sure to spy it out and summon the culprit 
 before the battery to fitting punishment. If any 
 one had tried to evade the morning’s drill by de- 
 
 VOL. I. Y 
 
322 
 
 HACKL^NDER, 
 
 daring himself ill, and had even succeeded in de- 
 ceiving the doctor, and extorting from him a certi- 
 ficate of serious catarrh or bad colic, the illness 
 was reported to the captain at the roll-call, who 
 immediately sent the orderly to make sympathetic 
 inquiries after the invalid, his real object being to 
 discover whether the patient was really in his bed 
 or in his room at all. If the orderly reported that 
 the invalid could not be found, woe be to him. If, 
 however, the invalid was found in his room, he 
 generally had to appear before the company, and 
 usually arrived in an old torn dressing-gown and 
 slippers to be examined as to his condition. 
 
 One day about a dozen had reported them- 
 selves ill, and at the roll-call the captain made a 
 great hue-and-cry, and sent off the officer of the 
 day, in hot haste, to fetch them all together 
 to the courtyard. The officer went : but came 
 back directly with the answer that all the invalids 
 were in their beds, and refused to expose them- 
 selves to the air in their dangerous condition. 
 Renewed oaths from the captain, and the command 
 instantly to bring the invalids ‘ here.’ At the word 
 ‘ here’ he pointed to the ground before him ; and 
 the officer, being a very exact man, calmly drew 
 out his sword, marked a cross at the spot where 
 the captain’s finger would have touched the ground 
 if prolonged, and was about to go. A thundering 
 ‘ Stop !’ from the captain detained him. ‘ Sir, what 
 
THE VOLUNTEER. 
 
 323 
 
 is the meaning of that mark ?’ The officer calmly 
 replied that, in order exactly to obey the captain’s 
 command, he had marked the spot to which he was 
 to bring the invalids. The unfortunate officious 
 man ! He had not dreamt that morning that he 
 should that day eat his bread — bread, in the literal 
 sense of the word — in prison. Five minutes after 
 the above-mentioned occurrence the officer in charge 
 was led to No. This is the name given, for the 
 sake of brevity, to the military prison which bore 
 this number. 
 
 • Such scenes, with orders of imprisonment, were 
 the usual additions to the roll-call, which we there- 
 fore daily anticipated with great anxiety ; for mis- 
 fortunes come quickly, and our captain possessed a 
 little red book — in which every one, but especially 
 we volunteers, had his own account — in which he 
 entered everything disorderly and irregular. This 
 he consulted daily, and looked to see who had 
 enough crosses or remarks to be ready for punish- 
 ment. Then he thrust his right hand into his 
 uniform, looked up to heaven, and considered how 
 many days he should allow this or the other person 
 to contemplate the past and the future in that place, 
 ‘where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 
 He put out his right foot and began to make 
 several movements, the meaning of all which was 
 well understood by us. Thus, if he struck his heel 
 into the ground, it was an infallible sign of storm. 
 
3^4 
 
 HACKL^NDER. 
 
 and woe to him into whose tackle the wind struck ! 
 When the captain began to strike the ground with 
 his foot, all those who had a bad conscience stood 
 stretched out as straight as a pin, and the initiated 
 could have judged, from their excellent position, 
 the greatness of their debit in the captain’s book. 
 Sometimes when he saw on our faces the universal 
 desire to please him, and fear to displease him, 
 and if he happened to be in a good humour, he only 
 shook his finger at us, as much as to say, ‘ I shall 
 soon go among you and hold a terrible muster.’ 
 That would be all for the one day ; but if, on the 
 contrary, he wanted to begin a dispute with any 
 one, a dirty or dusty rowel would offer an excellent 
 opportunity. 
 
 ‘ Sir, when were your boots last cleaned ?’ 
 
 ‘ This morning, captain,’ was the answer. 
 
 ‘ Sir, that is a lie ! I know you well — you are 
 a sloven.’ 
 
 ‘ But, captain, this morning — ’ 
 
 ‘ Sir, will you be silent ? or it will be the worse 
 for you ! Sergeant, give that man three days in 
 prison for dirtiness and contradiction.’ 
 
 Then he held a long sermon, prepared the 
 lightning to hurl it at our heads on some future 
 occasion, and departed with clanging footsteps. 
 
 The real object of the roll-call is to assemble 
 the whole company once a day, to see whether 
 they are all at hand. For this purpose all are 
 
THE VOLUNTEER. 
 
 325 • 
 
 called by name, according to the list, and answer 
 by a loud ‘ Here ? The missing are of course pun- 
 ished. Then the sergeant, as the captain’s organ, 
 gives the orders for the next twenty-four hours ; 
 and if no intermezzo, like the one just described, 
 occur, the whole business may be concluded in a 
 quarter of an hour. However, we had almost always 
 the pleasure of standing a whole hour, between 
 twelve and one, in the burning heat of summer or 
 cold of winter. 
 
 My. first roll-call, at which I assisted to-day, 
 went off pretty well. Captain Enemy came up to 
 me several times, pressed my shoulder-blades to- 
 gether, drew up my head, and continually muttered, 
 ‘ Position, position !’ He asked some of my com- 
 rades whether they had not made a very large 
 breakfast ; but, on the whole, was very gracious. 
 I also learnt to know the other officers of the bat- 
 tery : I will speak of these gentlemen another time. 
 
 The first night I spent in the barracks I slept 
 very badly. The freshly-filled straw-bed did not 
 yield at all to the pressure of my body, and I had 
 several times in the night one and the same dream. 
 I thought I was lying on a hill, down which I tried 
 to roll as children do. At first I succeeded very 
 well, but when I reached the valley I knocked 
 against the trunk of a tree that lay in my way. 
 I woke and found, to my surprise, that I had fallen 
 out of bed. This happened to me several times ; 
 
• 325 
 
 HACKL^NDER, 
 
 I therefore resolved, towards three o’clock, not to 
 sleep any more. I was cheered by the thought, 
 ‘To-day, for the first time, you will be initiated 
 into the mysteries of the stables.’ Ah, I was to 
 learn to know them only too well, these true mys- 
 teries ! At four o’clock I got up, and anxiously 
 awaited the signal which should summon me to 
 the horses, those creatures that a brave knight must 
 honour, love, clean, and feed as his second self. 
 At last the trumpet sounded. The whole room was 
 in confusion, and I was the first in the passage, 
 where I was just in time to see the bugler blowing 
 the signal in his shirt. Then he slipped back into 
 his room, to spend a few more hours in his warm 
 bed. I did not like that in the bugler, the man 
 who must be first on the field, brave and ready. 
 What can he not effect by a single flourish of his 
 trumpet ! And he had not even his trousers on 
 when he blew the summons ! Did not this man re- 
 cognise the height of his calling ? When I had hith- 
 erto imagined a flourish of trumpet, it was blown 
 by a man with a mighty beard, armed, his sword 
 by his side — a man worthy that a whole troop of 
 brave men should follow the breath of his lips. 
 
 One more soap-bubble that had burst. It was 
 long before I could forget the bugler without his 
 trousers ; but soon I saw many things bare and 
 naked that had seemed from a distance glorious 
 and bright. 
 
JOKAI. 
 
 Born in Komorn in Hungary, Feb. 19, 1825 ; 
 LIVING IN Pest. 
 
THE UBfiAfty 
 Of THE 
 
 UNIVSMin Of luiWflis 
 
JOKAI. 
 
 JOKAI is the most popular and prolific writer of 
 Hungarian fiction. The scenes and characters to 
 which he introduces his readers are as interesting as 
 they are novel. Written by an ardent patriot, his 
 books have all the underlying purpose of rousing a 
 feeling of national pride and independence among 
 his countrymen. Almost without exception his 
 novels and tales embody the history of the national 
 movement and civil war that devastated Hungary 
 during 1848 and 1849, ^.nd first made the Hun- 
 garians the objects of keen and sympathising 
 interest to the rest of Europe. In Jokai’s writings 
 are to be found sketches of Hungarian life among 
 the upper and lower classes ; the haughty noble, 
 proud as Lucifer, poor, ignorant, superstitious, full 
 of generous impulses, perverted by want of politi- 
 cal and social expression ; the picturesque peasant, 
 clad in his sheepskin, who has a good feeling, a 
 bearing, a courtesy of demeanour far above all his 
 wild appearance.' Though till so recently mere serfs, 
 Jokai shows us what superior men these are, and 
 how it is merely the feudal system that has stood 
 
330 
 
 JOKAL 
 
 in the way of Hungary’s progress. It was top 
 long the part of the Hapsburg rule to crush out 
 of existence all the political institutions of this 
 country, while the severe censorship exercised over 
 printed productions repressed intellectual culture, 
 and hampered all original work. Prose fiction is 
 indeed of recent origin in Hungary. It first came 
 into existence early in this century. Josika created 
 it, he was followed by Kuthy and Eotvos, and they 
 in their turn by Jokai. 
 
 Jokai, who was born at Komorn, near Pressburg, 
 in Hungary, has penned a charming autobiogra- 
 phical account of his early years. While in his 
 teens he lived in very modest circumstances, asso- 
 ciating with Petofi, the great Hungarian lyrist, and 
 Orlay, the historical painter. Orlay in those days 
 desired to be a poet, Petofi an actor, and Jokai a 
 painter. All attained an eminent goal, only life 
 arranged their parts a little differently from their 
 desires. Jokai did indeed paint a few bad pictures, 
 but he also wrote at the age of seventeen a good 
 drama. The Jewish Boy^ which was crowned by the 
 Hungarian Academy. He was indentured to a 
 lawyer, and worked no less than sixteen hours daily, 
 devoting the day to his studies, the nights to his 
 pleasures, in the shape of literary pursuits. It 
 chanced that his master one day stumbled across 
 his manuscripts, and thought them so full of talent 
 that, without informing the author, he took them 
 
JOKAL 
 
 331 
 
 to a publisher, and caused them to appear in print. 
 This was in 1846, when Jokai was barely twenty- 
 one, and the work met with such success that the 
 lawyer advised him to quit his office and devote 
 himself solely to his pen. From that moment his 
 novels succeeded each other rapidly, and soon after 
 he became the editor of the best Hungarian weekly 
 journal, Eletkepek^ which counted the foremost 
 writers amongst its contributors. He married an 
 actress, with whom he has lived most happily ; but 
 unfortunately the step caused a breach with his 
 family. When the revolutionary days of 1848 
 dawned, and Hungary tried hard to wring from the 
 Austrians the constitution they had so long denied 
 her, Jokai stepped forward into the political arena, 
 and since that moment his figure has been a pro- 
 minent one in the public life of his nation. When 
 the revolution had ended in sorrow and depression, 
 he was among those condemned to die, and was 
 only saved, thanks to his wife’s bravery and resolu- 
 tion. For some months he lay hidden, but at last, 
 thanks also to his noble wife, was pardoned, and 
 allowed to return to Pest, where he has since lived. 
 
 Jokai returned to Pest in 1850. At that period 
 there was no national literature or energy left in 
 Hungary. It had been extinguished in this abor- 
 tive effort after freedom. Petofi had perished upon 
 the field of battle, Deak had retired from political 
 life, Edtvos was buried in learned researches con- 
 
332 
 
 JOKAL 
 
 cerning the equality of nations, Arany attended 
 only to his legal duties. The Academy at Pest had 
 closed its doors, not to reopen them until ten years 
 later. The National Museum could not exhibit its 
 treasures, its funds had been confiscated ; at the 
 national theatre only Italian operas might be 
 played. During the years of complete mental 
 stagnation, Jokai alone tried to rouse his nation 
 from their death-like stupor. He produced, in 
 twenty years, no less than one hundred and forty 
 volumes, containing twenty-three long novels, seven 
 dramas, and three hundred and fourteen novelettes, 
 works that were eagerly read by a Magyar popu- 
 lation numbering scarcely six million souls. In all 
 these works his one endeavour is to raise the 
 national self-confidence of his native land. The 
 politician, the patriot, is discernible in all. They 
 are stories of real life, giving a practical idea of 
 Hungary, its problems, difficulties, and aspirations. 
 The two natural evils from which the land has had 
 to suffer so cruelly, famine and floods, are brought 
 forward again and again with masterly force, not 
 with a view merely to describe them, but to show 
 how both could be obviated. To the honour of 
 his countrymen Jokai, though an author writing 
 in a language that has so limited an area, soon 
 grew rich. In 1863 he founded a paper called Hon 
 Fatherland'), which is the organ of the Moderate 
 Left, in which he daily writes at least one leading 
 
JOKAL 
 
 333 
 
 article. His fertility is astonishing, and so is his 
 versatility. He further edits a kind of Hungarian 
 Punchy Nestokos (' The Comet'), in which he not 
 only writes, but which he helps to illustrate with 
 spirited drawings full of local colour. As with his 
 pen, so with his pencil ; he dashes-in effects with 
 broad strong handling, so that by the simplest 
 means his situations are effective. 
 
 It has been objected to his novels that they are 
 wanting in artistic construction, and that the scenes 
 hang together rather loosely. And the objection is 
 just. At the same time the cause of this fault is 
 easy to discover. Nearly all Jokai's novels ap- 
 peared originally in the feuilleto7i of a newspaper, 
 hence they have not been written with a view to 
 consecutive reading. This is doubtless a serious 
 fault. To the non-Hungarian reader too there 
 is something almost bewildering in the variety of 
 nationalities with which he is constantly brought 
 into contact. The conglomeration of such distinct 
 nations and religions that make up the kingdom of 
 Hungary are all reflected in Jokai’s pages. It is a 
 kaleidoscope of colours and customs strange to our 
 eyes and habits. But we cannot fail to feel that we 
 have come in contact with a real native talent, from 
 whose pages all imitation of foreign types is far re- 
 moved. He has humour too, rich and individual ; 
 he draws characters with plastic force ; he is a keen 
 observer of men and things. If at times he writes 
 
334 
 
 JOKAL 
 
 carelessly, it is that he writes too much ; but 
 he is always readable, and his rich talent exer- 
 cises a great charm and influence over his country- 
 men. 
 
 Jokai has three times represented his nation in 
 Parliament as a member of the Moderate Left. 
 His country’s weal is his watchword, the aim 
 of all his efforts, whether as member, journalist, 
 poet, or novelist. He lives very quietly ; in the 
 summer, in an elegant villa near Pest, on one of 
 the picturesque eminences that surround that fine 
 old city, and where a fair wine ripens in his grounds ; 
 in the winter he moves into the city. He writes in 
 a room filled with exotic flowers, pictures, and 
 books, at a round table, by the side of which stands 
 a large telescope. In the summer it is his delight 
 to tend his flowers and fruits. He says of himself : 
 ‘ For twenty years I dared a terrible combat, in 
 which none aided or protected me save God, and 
 no one loved me save my wife. Now I have con- 
 quered, and know that my nation esteems me be- 
 yond my deserts.’ 
 
 In Jokai’s novel of Terrible Days he delineates 
 the conditions of Hungary in 1831, when the na- 
 tion suffered terribly under its political oppression, 
 and when the first European visitation of the 
 cholera added to the troubles it had to endure. 
 Our extract is taken from this book. 
 
THE PLAGUE. 
 
 335 
 
 The Plague. 
 
 There is among us a mighty mistress, whose 
 life the wise and learned men have not yet recog- 
 nised, although they can tell us so much of her 
 power ; whom they have not yet taught us to fear, 
 although we all turn to her with our hopes. 
 
 It is not Hell that I mean, but the Earth. 
 The good, blessed, peaceful earth, that is not so 
 passionate as the other elements — fire, water, and 
 air ; that calmly lets itself be trodden on, and 
 wounded, and its back be sown with towns, and 
 its bones be destroyed by mines ; which looks 
 calmly on, while man works and acts at his own 
 free will. 
 
 Has any one ever yet addressed the Earth with 
 this question : ‘ Lady and mistress, good and blessed 
 Earth, do you like our conduct up here ? Does it 
 please you that we devastate your beautiful cool 
 forests, and thus deprive your body of its shelter 
 from the burning gaze of the sun ; that we force 
 your rivers into beds, dry up your ponds, and 
 abandon you to torturing thirst ; that we cleave 
 your body and make use of its parts, and force 
 them to give us food and drink ; that we water 
 your blooming fields with blood, and bury our dead 
 in your lap ; that we live upon you, and bless you 
 and curse you, that you may nourish us ; that we 
 rack our brains to discover how in those spots as 
 
336 
 
 JOKAL 
 
 yet inhabited by but few men, we can make our 
 race more numerous. Does all this please you, 
 lady and mistress ?’ 
 
 And the earth lets everything be done on it, 
 only sometimes her innermost being trembles in 
 sudden horror, and towns and palaces begin to 
 totter. 
 
 Then again for whole centuries she shows no 
 sign of life. Like every good mother, she gladly 
 endures everything from her bad children. She 
 hides and keeps secret their sins, and in their stead 
 endures the punishment of Heaven. She is not 
 angry with them ; she does not punish them. She 
 tends and educates them, and asks no gratitude in 
 return. She only grieves in secret sorrow, and con- 
 sumes herself in eternal grief ; for the fate of her 
 children, of her self-seeking heartless children, 
 leaves her neither rest nor repose. Sorrow and 
 trouble, human dirt and sin, gradually undermine 
 her strength, and then all at once the poor Earth 
 falls sick. 
 
 O, how are men cast down when the Earth is 
 sick ! 
 
 They fall, as the parasitic aphis-worms fall from 
 the yellow leaves. 
 
 Among the terrified nations appear new forms 
 of death, whose names are hitherto unknown ; a 
 breath of air casts to earth the strong, the brave 
 man, so that he never rises again. In vain he hides 
 
THE PLAGUE, 
 
 337 
 
 himself behind unapproachable stone-walls, in vain 
 he anoints his body with the most precious balm, 
 and holds back his breath. Invisible Death knows 
 no locked doors, and seeks out just those who fear 
 him. No tainted air, no infection, are required ; 
 men hear the name of Death, they tremble and 
 die. 
 
 It is no human disease on the earth ; the Earth 
 herself is sick. 
 
 I can quite well remember those days. At the 
 time I was still perhaps a schoolboy (I say perhaps, 
 because I cannot state with certainty when I began 
 to grow old), the universal terror affected me but 
 little; I rather enjoyed the novelty of the situation. 
 We were not allowed to go to school ; we had holi- 
 days for an indefinite period, which, I do not at- 
 tempt to deny, caused us no little satisfaction. 
 Our town was shut off by cordons from the exam- 
 ination of strangers. My good father — whose 
 gentle serious countenance still stands before me — 
 put on his old sword, and also set out to guard the 
 cordon. Not the whole English fleet could have 
 inspired me with greater confidence than did that 
 sword. Our dear good mother hung round each 
 of our necks a little packet of camphor — now we 
 were convinced that nothing could happen to us — 
 and forbade us to eat melons and peaches. We 
 were good obedient children, and would on no 
 consideration have disobeyed her orders. And, as 
 
 VOL. I. Z 
 
33 ^ 
 
 JOKAL 
 
 though Nature wanted to mock us, our fruit-trees 
 were that year covered with the finest and most 
 tempting fruits. We let them rot untouched. We 
 had a worthy doctor — a friend of the family — who • 
 went in the greatest danger from one sick person 
 to another. I can still see before me his white hair, 
 his red cheeks, and his straight upright form : he 
 used to make fun of us, and to have the finest 
 yellow melons brought out of our garden, which he 
 cut up before our eyes, and devoured with an ex- 
 cellent appetite. ‘ Who is not afraid will not die,’ 
 he used to say ; ‘ we need only live temperately, 
 and trust in God.’ When we asked him whether 
 it was true that the air was filled with little invisible 
 insects, who caused the illness when they entered 
 the breath, he laughed, and answered, ^ Whoever 
 believes in these insects would do better, instead of 
 asking, to keep his mouth shut ; for while he is 
 speaking, they are walking into his throat’ And 
 when, day after day, morning and evening, I heard 
 in the street the monotonous tolling of bells, the 
 sad lament of the dead, and the sobs and cries of 
 the widows and orphans ; when we were told that 
 in the next house the whole family had died in two 
 days ; that in the house opposite doors and win- 
 dows stood open, and that no one went either out 
 or in, — then I felt so glad that I could fold my 
 hands and think that we were still all together, 
 that as yet no one had left our house for ever, and 
 
THE PLAGUE. 
 
 339 
 
 that God had protected us from all sorrow. Our 
 hope was feeble — indeed, on what could it rest ? — 
 but our faith was strong and reassuring. 
 
 These impressions are all I remember of that 
 fatal year. 
 
 And alas ! elsewhere this year was not content 
 to weave shining tears into its mourning mantle ; 
 it needed blood too, and much blood, to adorn it. 
 
 The open circular letters issued through the 
 country flew from village to village, and gave the 
 wise men of the various districts news of the ap- 
 proaching danger, which was as little understood 
 by the writers of the epistles as by those to whom 
 they were addressed. 
 
 The wise men of the villages, the judges and 
 schoolmasters, received orders to make the con- 
 tents of the epistles comprehensible to ignorant 
 people. 
 
 To make something comprehensible ! Men 
 who possessed the most elementary knowledge 
 were to explain to peasants who sought the super- 
 natural in the most natural phenomena. And 
 these people were to explain a matter that was 
 and still is a secret to all the wise men in the 
 world. 
 
 Michael Korde, one of the worthy teachers of 
 Hetfalu, had assembled his great and little subjects 
 
340 
 
 JOKAL 
 
 for the last day of school in that year. Drawing 
 from his pocket the official notice, which had then 
 become unrecognisable through dirt and grease, he 
 announced to his scholars that he acquainted them 
 with the contents of this document chiefly that 
 they might afterwards repeat it at home to their 
 parents. Since their parents did not go to school, 
 there was no other way in which they could learn 
 what the worthy committee required of them. 
 
 ‘ Boys,’ he then continued, raising his voice, 
 after he had blown his nose and expectorated, 
 ‘ here you see the document of the gracious Presi- 
 dent of the Tribunal, who announces to me that 
 the schools must be closed, and that the whole 
 people must rise like one man. And they must 
 rise, for the following sufficient reason. Because, 
 in the first place : 
 
 ‘ A terrible sickness is coming into the land — no, 
 not is coming, because a terrible sickness has come 
 into the land that is generally called “ morbus” by 
 us learned men. Whoever is attacked by this mor- 
 bus has not even time to expectorate ; he falls down 
 and dies. It is all up with him, no help is possible. 
 
 ‘ This is what causes the morbus : the gall is 
 poured out on to the spirit, which causes a gall 
 fever. A gall fever, boys ; so take care that you do 
 not put me in a passion. 
 
 ‘ And where is this morbus ? In green melons, 
 in yellow peaches, in short, in all this year’s fruit. 
 
THE PLAGUE, 
 
 341 
 
 Therefore,, whoever does not wish to die at once 
 must not venture to eat fruit.' 
 
 Here Korde was interrupted in his speech. Some 
 young Scythians on the last benches had actually 
 dared to laugh out loud. 
 
 ‘Miska Turtejik, long-eared idiot, what am I 
 speaking of now, eh ?' 
 
 The boy opened his eyes wide, stood up, and 
 answered, stammering, 
 
 ‘ That we must not steal peaches out of the 
 reverend gentleman's garden.' 
 
 ‘ O, indeed ? Come here then, here to me.' 
 
 And the future citizen was pulled hither and 
 thither by the ears, as though Korde's object were 
 to make them still longer and more projecting than 
 they were already. And yet the poor boy had not 
 answered so stupidly. He thought this command 
 was only inserted into the epistle to frighten away 
 the people from the minister’s orchard. In the 
 whole village no one else occupied himself with 
 cultivating fruit. 
 
 ‘ Let us return to the matter in hand. Atten- 
 tion, boys ! 
 
 ‘Besides this, bathing is very dangerous, and 
 washing the body in cold water ; for this may also 
 injure the spirit. On the other hand, it is good to 
 drink a great deal of brandy, for that gives power 
 and strengthens the spirit. It is also dangerous to 
 work on an empty stomach, to think and study 
 
342 
 
 JOKAL 
 
 much ; on the other hand, we ought to eat a great 
 deal of meat, and not walk about in the sun/ 
 
 This passage received the loud approval of all 
 the hearers. 
 
 ‘ But since, in spite of all precautions, it is not 
 impossible that some one out of another village 
 may bring this morbus in his szur (peasant’s cloak) 
 or knapsack into our village, the strict order is 
 issued that no one is to leave the village, either 
 walking or driving, and that no stranger shall be 
 admitted. But if a traveller wants to pass through 
 it, he must first be locked up in the ox-stall outside 
 the village, his clothes must be fumigated, he him- 
 self washed in warm alkali, and every piece of 
 money found about him rubbed with ashes. For 
 this dangerous work the gipsies of the place will 
 everywhere be employed.’ 
 
 Here M. Korde made a little pause, to watch 
 the impression of his words upon his hearers. Then 
 he continued as follows : 
 
 ‘ But if, in spite of all these wise precautions, 
 any one should have the morbus, there is only one 
 remedy, and that is, Bisanthum^ bis^nuthmn^ bis- 
 muthi, 7ieutrius secundce. Hungarian biszmuta^ Slo- 
 vakish biszmuthim^ and German biszmuthen. Hem, 
 hem !’ 
 
 Here the worthy schoolmaster coughed vio- 
 lently, for now ought to have followed the explana- 
 tion of what that mysterious something consists. 
 
THE PLAGUE, 
 
 343 
 
 whose name he himself had only just now spelt out 
 of the lines of the document. 
 
 ‘ And now you must prick up your ears ; for I 
 shall examine you afterwards, to see whether you 
 have remembered everything I am telling you. 
 
 ^ Bismuth is a powder — no, not a powder. 
 Bismuth is a fluid, or — yes, it is a powder — 
 whose colour — whose colour is one that cannot be 
 described. It is prepared from all manner of in- 
 gredients ; its taste resembles that of a certain kind 
 of pastry, and its smell is very faint. Whoever 
 takes bismuth will be cured. At first a teaspoonful 
 must be taken (the reverend gentleman will lend 
 teaspoons) ; if that is no use, a tablespoonful ; then, 
 if you feel no better, two tablespoonsful, and so on, 
 till the morbus leaves the sick man. Bismuth can 
 be had at the chemist's at Kaselan ; whoever does 
 not purchase bismuth has only himself to thank 
 if he dies. Poor people will, as a special favour, 
 receive it gratis from Dr. Sarkantyus ; if they re- 
 fuse to take it. Dr. Sarkantyus will force them, and 
 he will also have bismuth sprinkled in the wells. 
 It is therefore better to make friends willingly with 
 bismuth than to go straight to the devil.' 
 
 The susceptible boys broke out into loud 
 laughter at these last words. 
 
 One of the loudest laughers took the liberty of 
 stretching out two fingers, which merely signified 
 that the boy wanted to ask something. 
 
344 
 
 JOKAL 
 
 ‘Well, what do you want, SHzik?’ 
 
 ‘ Please, sir, is that — that — is that sweet ?’ 
 
 ‘ Asine ! have I not told you what that is ? You 
 were not attentive. Stretch out your hand.’ 
 
 The boy received a blow on the palm of his 
 hand. 
 
 ‘ The other one !’ And the same execution was 
 dealt for the second time. 
 
 ‘ Stand up, Gustel Klinza, and explain to this 
 Nebulo what I have been speaking about.’ 
 
 Gustel Klinza was the first on his bench. He 
 wore the best coat, and his father leased the brandy 
 factory. Reasons enough why Gustel should be 
 the master’s favourite. The boy quickly hid away 
 the penknife with which he had been carving on 
 the bench and stood up, blushing to the ears with 
 fright. In his anxiety to answer well, he opened 
 his mouth as wide as he could. 
 
 ‘ Well, my boy, what did I say ? — was it not 
 that bismuth is like — ’ 
 
 ‘ Bisbuss is a powder prepared from a fluid, and 
 from all sorts of things, and it tastes like cake,> 
 jabbered this young hopeful. 
 
 ‘ Bene^ prcestante}% eruditissime (Those who at- 
 tend know something).’ 
 
 Gustel Klinza returned to his seat delighted. 
 
 ‘ One thing more I must tell you, and that you 
 must tell your parents at home too, that in these 
 dangerous times there is nothing so good as a drop 
 
THE PLAGUE. 
 
 345 
 
 of brandy in the morning on an empty stomach? 
 another at noon, and one more before going to bed ; 
 and so on whenever one feels any foreign matter 
 not belonging there in the stomach. That is the 
 best of all. And you, Gustel Klinza, be sure not 
 to forget to tell your father that the rector is very 
 much afraid of the morbus, and that my brandy- 
 bottle is still at your place.’ 
 
 Gustel Klinza hid the quill, of which he was 
 just going to make a pistol, in his prayer-book, and 
 promised to deliver all these messages at home. 
 
 ‘ And now let us pray ; and then, till the mor- 
 bus ceases, there will be no more school.’ 
 
 Great was the joy of the boys at these words. 
 Gustel Klinza shot off his quill-pistol under the 
 bench : the potato-bullet just hit the rector’s nose ; 
 whereupon he dragged Joseph Slizik off the bench, 
 and gave him six blows with the cane, though he 
 knew that Slizik was not the culprit. 
 
 Amidst the howls of the boy, the others began 
 to sing. As long as they sang low notes, the rec- 
 tor’s voice was heard above the rest ; but when 
 there were any high notes, the boys joined in with 
 such a will that the windows shook. The rector beat 
 time every now and then, dealing one or other of 
 the boys a blow with his long ruler. 
 
 Then Gustel Klinza said the prayer ; and, in 
 his delight that the morbus had come, and there- 
 fore there would be no school for a long time, he 
 
346 
 
 JOKAL 
 
 babbled the evening instead of the morning prayer. 
 The rector did not notice it. Scarcely was the 
 ‘ Amen' spoken than the boys rushed at the door. 
 They knew from experience that M. Korde was in 
 the habit of ‘ bagging' the last in the schoolroom 
 for the noise made by all ; therefore, as they could 
 not get off without a noise, every one tried to be 
 out first. Then they poured into the street, and in 
 their delight that the morbus had come, and there- 
 fore, if all went well, there would be no school for 
 several weeks, they all threw themselves, as at a 
 sign given, on the Lutheran schoolboys, who were 
 just playing ball before their church ; threw stones 
 at them, and hit some on the head, and made such 
 a dreadful noise that all the dogs in the village 
 began to bark in chorus. In this way did they 
 announce to their parents that M. Korde had 
 granted to his hopeful pupils extra holidays, and 
 this because the morbus was coming ; and in such 
 dangerous times it is not well for large numbers of 
 people to be together. 
 
 All the inhabitants of the village, old and 
 young, were pouring out of church, and going 
 home. On every countenance could be seen the 
 expression of dumb terror. 
 
 In church also the contents of the circular 
 epistle had been read, and the minister reminded 
 the faithful in a little address that trust in God's 
 
THE PLAGUE, 
 
 347 
 
 blessed providence and a pure Christian conscience 
 were worth more than any remedy — than cordons 
 and Bismuth powders. ‘ Nevertheless/ said he, ‘ we 
 are all in God's hands ; and if we have lived well, 
 we shall die well too. The just man need not fear 
 death.' 
 
 On the steps of the church crouched the old 
 witch, known in the village as the screech-owl. In 
 her lap she had a heap of healing herbs, by her 
 side lay her crutch, and she leaned her chin on her 
 right hand, which rested on her knees. There she 
 sat, counting all who left the church — one, two, 
 three. At three she began afresh. Who knows 
 what she meant by that ? Perhaps every third 
 person is destined to be a victim. Who can tell ? 
 
 All had departed ; only she and the shaggy 
 Hanak, the bellringer, remained behind. 
 
 As often happens, a little dog approached the 
 church-door, and popped his head into the church. 
 When Hanak noticed the animal he gave it a kick, 
 and when it ran away howling, he threw his bunch 
 of keys after it. 
 
 The old witch lifted up her scraggy hand threat- 
 eningly at the bellringer, and spoke in a hollow 
 sepulchral tone that made him shiver : 
 
 ‘ Hanak, shaggy Hanak, why do you drive the 
 dog away from here? I tell you, shaggy Hanak, 
 that it would be better for you and for others to be 
 a dog than to be called a man ; for a time will come 
 
34S 
 
 JOKAI. 
 
 when not the tolling of your bells, but the barking 
 of the dogs, will accompany the dead to the grave. 
 Therefore do no harm to the dogs, Hanak, shaggy 
 Hanak.’ 
 
 The bellringer had not the courage to answer. 
 Slowly and trembling he locked the church-door, 
 and when he went away he avoided the old woman. 
 He felt almost giddy already, and his feet tottered. 
 
 And when at last, the minister, to whom he 
 handed the church keys, announced to him that, at 
 the breaking out of the plague, the dead were to 
 be buried without tolling of bells, so that the 
 people might not be too much alarmed at the 
 many deaths, then his hair began to stand on end, 
 and he felt as if each hair on his head weighed a 
 hundred-weight. The dogs were barking in the 
 yards. So from this time forth they must accom- 
 pany the dead ? 
 
 This thought was so painful to his already 
 troubled heart that he felt himself obliged, in order 
 to lessen his grief, to turn into the public-house in- 
 stead of going home, where he found the wise men 
 of the village debating in numerous assembly what 
 was to be done to encounter the great trouble now 
 coming upon them. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
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 Oakshott Castle. 
 
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 Patricia Kemball. 
 
 Atonement of Learn Dundas. 
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