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Title: Soap bubbles
Author: Max Simon Nordau
Translator: Mary J. Safford
Release date: January 24, 2026 [eBook #77764]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: F. Tennyson Neely, 1896
Credits: Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net/ for Project Gutenberg (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOAP BUBBLES ***
SOAP BUBBLES
BY
MAX NORDAU
Author of “Degeneration,” “Comedy of Sentiment,”
“The Right to Love,” “How Women Love,” Etc.
TRANSLATED BY MARY J. SAFFORD
F. TENNYSON NEELY
PUBLISHER
114 Fifth Avenue, New York
1896
INDEX TO STORIES.
PAGE
CANT AND HUMBUG. A story of English selfishness and
American thriftiness. 5
WIFE VERSUS NATIVE LAND. This story shows how a man
may quit smoking for spite, but not for love. 38
ALI HADJI EFFENDI. The adventures of a wandering
fanatic of Islam. 59
THE CROSS AT THE CORNER. A story of the religious
devotion of an aged Hungarian. 80
THE ALTAR PAINTING. The love tragedy of an Italian artist. 100
A CHRISTMAS EVE IN PARIS. A pathetic incident of suffering
in the Franco-Prussian War, during the siege of Paris. 120
THE STEPMOTHER. An ingenious discussion of that
much-abused matron. 139
PAS DE CHANCE (No Chance). The story of a girl found in a
morgue. 158
HOW THE FOX HUNTER FARED IN ENGLAND. A tragic and humorous
denouement, turning upon the Englishman’s code of fox
hunting. 186
WITHIN AN INCH OF ETERNITY. This relates how a prison
physician’s hair turned white in a night, from horror
inflicted on him by two escaped prisoners. 213
CANT AND HUMBUG.
Our train had pulled out of Ostend a few minutes before. The carriage
in which I had my seat contained its regular complement of six
passengers, all of whom, with the exception of myself, belonged to the
Anglo-Saxon race. We had scarcely left the station when tongues were
loosed, and an animated general conversation began, which enabled me to
recognize my companions by their shrill, loud tones and somewhat nasal
accents, as Americans. The only person who took no share in the talk
was a portly gentleman dressed in a traveling suit of conspicuous
style, who had placed his numerous articles of baggage in the net with
small regard for the effects of his fellow mortals, then settled
himself comfortably in a corner by the window and, after a swift,
searching glance at the other inmates of the railway carriage, began to
scan the somewhat monotonous landscape. Remarks which were indirectly
addressed to him were so utterly ignored that it would have been
supposed he did not understand English, had he not said—when one of the
Americans was preparing to light a cigar—in unmistakable English and
very emphatically:
“I object to your smoking, sir; I am not aware that this is a smoking
carriage.”
The Englishman’s bluntness and reserve evidently did not suit the taste
of the Americans, for they began to exchange pointed remarks about the
inhospitable social customs of the “Britishers,” their awkwardness in
their intercourse with others, and their punctilious formality in
social, political and religious matters, of which, however, the
Englishman took no more notice than he had formerly done of the
indirect attempts to draw him into the conversation.
“I heard a story in London which describes the Britisher better than a
whole library could do,” exclaimed one of the Yankees who had been
among the loudest talkers.
“Out with it! Hear! Hear!” cried the others in chorus, casting scornful
glances at the Englishman. The latter did not appear to notice it, he
was gazing very intently at a windmill, whose bizarre outline was
relieved against the horizon.
“I must premise that the story is true, and that I met one of the
heroes only yesterday evening in London—my friend, Mr. Brown, from whom
I had it. This Mr. Brown was obliged, two years ago, to take a business
journey to Chili. He secured passage on one of the boats of the Pacific
Steam Navigation Co., and arrived without incident at Montevideo, where
several more passengers came on board. Beyond Punta Arenas a terrible
storm suddenly burst upon them, which first broke the helm, then swept
the smokestack from the deck, and finally shattered the screw. The
vessel was now a total wreck, the sport of the wind and waves, and,
after drifting aimlessly in the storm for several hours, it was at last
flung upon a reef, where it stuck fast. The captain, who had not lost
his calmness and presence of mind for a moment, ordered the lifeboats
to be lowered, and remained on board until the last passenger and the
last sailor had left the ship. The boats vainly endeavored to make
their way through the surges thundering upon the reef. One after
another was caught beneath the combing surf and overturned, a cry of
despair was heard above the howling of the tempest, then the boat, keel
uppermost, drifted in one direction, while in another faces distorted
by fear and hands clenched convulsively appeared above the foam-flecked
water only to vanish speedily. The boat Mr. Brown entered shared the
fate of the rest, but when it upset, my friend and another passenger
clung to the edge and, with tremendous effort, climbed up so that they
sat astride of the sharp keel. In this horrible situation, one behind
the other, they remained for several hours till the waves, whose
violence had now somewhat subsided, at last flung them on the flat,
sandy shore of a small island. The immediate peril of death was now
over, but Mr. Brown considered his situation a very melancholy one. He
had no taste for literary renown, and did not find the slightest
consolation for the financial loss which he must inevitably meet if he
did not reach Valparaiso at a certain time, in the thought that he
would eventually be celebrated as another Robinson Crusoe. However, he
tried to accommodate himself to the situation as well as he could.
After resting a short time and drying his clothes in the sun, he went
on an investigating tour through the island, which was not more than a
league in circumference. He discovered without difficulty that it was
uninhabited, but contained a sufficient quantity of fruit trees, birds’
nests, shells, springs and caves to sustain the life of a shipwrecked
person. So he immediately prepared a sort of nest for himself of moss
and leaves at the foot of a large tree, and calmly accommodated himself
to the necessity of living here until some lucky accident should
deliver him from his unpleasant position. His companion in misfortune
had pursued precisely the same course as Mr. Brown. He, too, after a
tour of investigation had found a tolerably habitable grotto, in which
he made himself at home.”
“But it would have been far more natural for them to live together,”
remarked one of the listeners.
“It’s evident, Brother Josh, that you have lived in Europe only a week
and don’t understand English customs. How could Mr. Brown speak to the
other shipwrecked passenger, associate with him, or live in the same
cave, when they had not been introduced to each other?”
The Americans laughed, while the Englishman appeared to be more than
ever absorbed in gazing at the landscape.
“Several weeks,” the speaker continued, “elapsed in cheerless monotony.
Every morning the two shipwrecked men left their beds of moss and
washed at the only large spring in the island, during which they looked
coldly at each other, then they went in search of a few eggs, shells
and roots for breakfast, after which, of course, without taking the
slightest notice of each other, they met on the narrow top of a high
rock which projected into the sea and sat there silently for hours,
scanning the horizon with anxious eyes, always hoping to discover a
distant sail. For a long time this hope was unfulfilled. At last, after
they had spent nearly two months and a half on the island, Mr. Brown
had scarcely stationed himself at his usual post of observation when he
thought he saw, at the farthest verge of the horizon, a dark, moving
spot. Starting up, as if he had received an electric shock, he shaded
his eyes with his hand and gazed until he could no longer doubt that
what he beheld was the trail of smoke from a steamer. His companion,
whose attention had been attracted by Mr. Brown’s vehement movements,
followed the direction of his eyes, and a faint ‘Oh!’ which he suddenly
uttered revealed that he, too, had discovered the ship. Both now
transformed all their garments, coats, vests, shirts, flannel jackets,
into flags, which they waved frantically with both hands. But it needed
no special exertions to bring the steamer which was in sight to the
island. As they learned afterward, some of the men shipwrecked on their
own vessel had succeeded in righting one of the overturned boats,
getting into it, and, after unspeakable hardships, reaching the
mainland, where they brought tidings of the catastrophe. A ship was
sent to the scene of the disaster as quickly as possible to search for
any survivors of the wreck, and it was this vessel which Mr. Brown and
his companion had discovered on the morning described. After two hours
of excitement and anxiety, the rescuing steamer came so near that a
boat put off for the two involuntary islanders. They rushed down to the
flat, sandy tongue of land where the boat had touched, and a few
minutes later, comfortably seated in it, were on their way to the
steamer. The captain stood near the man-rope, waiting for them, greeted
them with a silent bow and a clasp of the hand, and requested them to
accompany him to his cabin. Here he placed a register before them and
asked them to write their names and residences. The stranger who had
been Mr. Brown’s companion on the island was the first to comply with
the request, as he happened to be standing nearer to the table. After
making the desired entries he yielded the pen to my friend Brown, who,
before beginning to write himself, glanced mechanically at the lines
which had just been inscribed in the book. Scarcely had he read them
when a strange emotion suddenly overpowered him. ‘Mr. William Lloyd
Jones, Valparaiso!’ he exclaimed aloud in a tremulous voice, then,
turning to the gentleman who stood beside him, he added: ‘Are you Mr.
W. L. Jones?’ ‘Yes,’ replied the other curtly, looking at him with
surprise and disapproval. ‘Oh, in that case,’—and Mr. Brown thrust his
hand into the breast pocket of his coat, whence he drew out a
letter,—‘in that case I have a letter of introduction to you from our
mutual friend, Mr. Smith, in London.’ While speaking, Mr. Brown handed
Mr. Jones his ‘introduction,’ whose address, it is true, was somewhat
effaced by the sea-water, but was still perfectly legible. Mr. Jones
methodically unfolded the paper, read it through attentively, and when
he had reached his friend Smith’s signature his hitherto stern face
suddenly brightened, he turned to Brown with overwhelming cordiality,
shook him vigorously by both hands, and exclaimed again and again:
‘Very happy to make your acquaintance, really very happy!’ Brown struck
himself on the forehead: ‘To think that I could not give you my
introduction on the island!’ ‘It is a pity, certainly,’ observed Jones;
‘we might have spent some very pleasant hours together.’ The
captain—also an Englishman—who had listened all the time in silence,
guessed the connection of affairs without difficulty, and, after this
little scene, was perfectly convinced that he was dealing with thorough
gentlemen. Brown and Jones became the best possible friends, and even
now, though one is living in London and the other in Valparaiso,
maintain a very active correspondence.”
During the last few sentences of the story the American listeners gave
way to noisy mirth, which lasted several minutes after the speaker
stopped. When the outburst of hilarity was at last followed by silence,
we saw the Englishman—who until then had sat in his corner with an
expression of the utmost indifference on his immovable face—suddenly
smile and bow slightly to the narrator of the anecdote. “Sir,” he said,
“you have told a very interesting story, and I congratulate you upon
your acquaintance with the admirable Mr. Brown. But perhaps you will
now permit me also to relate an anecdote which, though less
entertaining, is also true, and whose scene is the United States.”
Another “Hear! Hear!” even more eager than the former one, echoed from
all sides, and the Englishman began:
“The French captain of cuirassiers, Monsieur Durand, one of my most
intimate friends in Paris, was sent to America by his government during
the last war between France and Germany, to buy horses for the army.
Late in October in the year 1870 he found himself in a little town in
Texas, which was famed only for a roughly built, very spacious circus,
where, shortly before, Mexican bull-fighters had given several
performances. Monsieur Durand, who had arrived in the afternoon and
gone to the only hotel in the place, was sitting in the drawing-room
that evening before an open fire which was extremely comfortable, and
had beside him a little table holding a bottle of claret and a glass.
As he stretched out his limbs, wearied by the long railway journey, and
gazed thoughtfully into the fire, the door opened and a second guest
entered the room. This was Mr. Jonathan Oilking, one of the most
prominent personages in the place, a man who had the reputation of
possessing great wealth and rare urbanity. Oilking, without a word of
greeting, or even touching his soft, broad-brimmed felt hat, went
straight to the fireside, pushed the chair occupied by the captain a
little aside, and, leaning against the mantelpiece with his back to the
fire, directly opposite to Durand, stared him directly in the face.
“The Frenchman was strongly tempted to spring at the newcomer’s throat,
but thought, ‘custom of the country,’ and contented himself with
shrugging his shoulders and gazing at the ceiling instead of the
flames. Oilking warmed himself for some time with great satisfaction,
and then perceived the wine standing on the little table beside the
captain. With the greatest composure he seized the bottle, filled a
glass from it, and emptied it at a single gulp, after which he replaced
it, smacking his lips. Durand’s blood boiled, but he still controlled
himself and continued to scan the ceiling and walls with increased
attention. Oilking now remained motionless for a time, and only
occasional expectorations, which he performed noisily, always aiming at
a certain point, which he hit with great accuracy, proved that life
existed in his long, thin body. At last he interrupted the silence by
turning to Durand, with the question, ‘Stranger, are you the French
officer who has come here to buy horses?’ The Frenchman pretended not
to hear and gazed through the window at the woodland landscape outside.
Oilking laid his hand on the captain’s shoulder, repeating his
question. But the measure was now full to overflowing. Starting up, he
roared, in very doubtful English, ‘You are a boor, do you understand
me?’ Jonathan straightened himself and answered gently: ‘Stranger,
don’t repeat that, or I shall throw you out of the window.’ ‘You must
answer to me for this,’ raved Durand, ‘you shall give me satisfaction
for all the impertinences which you have already committed this
evening.’ ‘If that’s all,’ observed Oilking, still very calmly, ‘you
can be accommodated at once. Here is a bowie knife and here is a
revolver’—he drew both articles from his belt as he spoke—‘if you also
have weapons at hand, I’ll leave the choice to you whether I shall make
a buttonhole in your skin or rip a seam in your body. The room is
convenient, there is nothing to prevent our settling the matter at
once.’ Durand had become somewhat calmer and said to Oilking: ‘It is
not the custom in my country for people to kill themselves in closed
rooms without witnesses. I will try to find two seconds and send them
to you. They will arrange the conditions of the duel with you, and when
that is done you will find me at your disposal.’ With these words he
left the room and went directly to the landlord, to whom he related
what had happened and proposed that he should act as a witness and
provide another second. The landlord said that witnesses were a
superfluous luxury in a duel; but if the captain insisted upon his wish
he would willingly serve him; the head-waiter could act as a second
witness; he would merely add five dollars to the bill for this extra.
Durand, who had already become somewhat accustomed to American
peculiarities, took no offense at this latter remark of the landlord,
but requested him to go with the waiter at once to Oilking and settle
the affair with him. Returning to his room, Durand awaited the result
of the interview. At the end of an hour the landlord returned, and
hastily informed him that the duel could not take place until the
morning of the day after to-morrow; the weapon which Oilking, as the
challenged party, had chosen was the revolver; as to the place, he, the
landlord, would conduct Mr. Durand to it at the proper time. He had
scarcely uttered the last word of his hastily delivered message when
he, too, vanished without awaiting an answer from the captain.
“Durand went quietly to rest and slept well all night. The next day he
spent in his room, wrote letters to his relatives and friends in France
and directions concerning his wishes in case he should be killed or
severely wounded. Toward noon he wanted to speak to the landlord, but
the latter could not be found; the captain was told that his second had
left town the evening before and would not return until that evening.
About twilight he did appear, and with him a number of guests, who
filled the hotel from attic to cellar with noisy life. The streets
which, hitherto, had been very quiet, were now full of bustle, and our
captain, who did not sleep as well as on the preceding night, could
hear the rattle of wheels, the sound of horses’ hoofs, and loud voices
from the street beneath.
“At last the fateful morning dawned. Durand dressed carefully and
awaited what was to come. Toward nine o’clock the landlord and
head-waiter entered unceremoniously, asking, ‘Are you ready, Captain?’.
‘Yes.’ ‘Then come.’ Both led the way at a rapid pace, he followed. They
took him through the principal street and several side ones to a large
open square, in whose center stood the circus building previously
mentioned. The second went to a little door, opened it, and entered a
dark, narrow passage, into which Durand followed them with some little
hesitation. They evidently noticed his reluctance, for they seized the
astonished captain by the arms, hurried him swiftly along for several
paces, opened another little door, and ere the captain could prevent it
they were standing in the ring of the circus, which was packed from top
to bottom with a crowd numbering many hundreds of human beings, who, at
the appearance of Durand and his seconds, burst into a thunder of
applause and exultant cheers.
“Durand stood as if a thunderbolt had struck him, not knowing what to
make of all this. ‘What does this ridiculous farce mean?’ he stammered,
turning to the landlord; but the latter did not hear, he was motioning
with both hands to the spectators to keep silence and, when the tumult
had partly subsided, he shouted with all the strength of his lungs:
‘Gentlemen, I have the honor to introduce the brave and famous French
captain of cuirassiers, Monsieur Durand, the sole survivor of the
glorious cuirassier charge at Reichshoffen. He will have the honor of
exchanging shots in your presence with an esteemed citizen of this
town, Mr. Jonathan Oilking.’ Again the audience began to applaud and
cheer and, at the same moment, a little door opposite to the one
through which Durand had entered, opened, and in came Jonathan in a
fantastic Indian costume, accompanied by two friends.
“Durand now guessed what was in store. Half stifled with rage and
excitement, he dealt the landlord, who was standing by his side, a
violent blow in the breast and darted with the speed of lightning to
the little door, through which, an instant after, he vanished.
“You can guess, gentlemen, what had happened. The appearance of the
landlord whom Durand sent to him gave Oilking a brilliant idea. He
agreed with him to make the duel a business matter. That very evening
they sent several workmen to the circus, who, by torchlight, repaired
the somewhat dilapidated building and mended the rows of seats. They
themselves went at once to the neighboring town, called Rome or Paris,
I don’t remember which, ordered placards to be printed, in which the
public was offered on the following day, for a payment of two dollars,
the spectacle of a public duel ‘with the brave and famous Captain
Durand, of Paris, the sole survivor of the charge of the cuirassiers at
Reichshoffen,’ inserted advertisements in the two local papers, induced
one to publish a leading article upon the battle of Reichshoffen, the
other an account of the heroic deeds of Captain Durand in this battle,
personally diffused the expectation that Durand would appear in the
uniform worn on the day of Reichshoffen, and by all these expedients
achieved so great a success that in the evening a special train left
Rome—or Paris—to convey the curious spectators, and the next morning,
an hour before the time appointed on the placards, every seat in the
circus was sold at two dollars.
“Durand made his way out of the place as speedily as possible, and
after this adventure gave up his plan of buying horses in Texas. As for
Oilking and the landlord, they had some very unpleasant minutes to
experience after Durand’s departure from the ring. Part of the audience
laughed, others grumbled, some demanded the return of their money,
others wanted to have a duel at any rate, and said that they would be
satisfied with one between the landlord and Oilking; in short, there
was a great uproar, and I have been told that the special
correspondents who had hastened here from the neighboring cities did
not return without having to report the exchange of several bullets and
blows.”
The Englishman paused. At the same moment the train stopped and the
guard shouted loudly: “Brussels!” The Americans, who had listened to
the speaker with great amusement, left the carriage, but not without
first shaking hands with the Englishman, exclaiming merrily: “Well
parried, Cousin Britisher!”
WIFE VERSUS NATIVE LAND.
A STORY FOR SMOKERS.
The L. drawing-room is not large, but it is uncommonly pleasant. The
tastefully furnished apartment, heated by a tall white porcelain stove,
is very comfortable. A pretty hanging lamp of antique form diffuses a
subdued light, which is far more adapted to promote innocent chat than
a strong, brilliant illumination.
Eight or ten of us formed a merry party in this drawing-room, as we
leaned comfortably back in the velvet armchairs, while tea, in Chinese
cups, sent forth its fragrance before us. The round table consisted
principally of ladies, and the time was just after the first
fashionable balls, yet our conversation did not turn upon the carnival
and its pleasures. It is almost incredible that a tea party in the
carnival season could occupy itself with so abstract a question, but we
were actually discussing which would probably be the stronger, love or
patriotism? Since there was not a single blue-stocking in the group, it
is still perfectly incomprehensible how we could have reached this
serious subject; but the fact is that, without perceiving how the topic
came on the carpet, we suddenly found ourselves in the midst of the
most animated interchange of thought.
Opinions were greatly divided. Some ascribed larger powers and more
mighty influence over the human mind to patriotism, others to love.
“Oh,” murmured a slender girl with fair hair and pale blue eyes, the
happy bride of a fortnight, “I am firmly convinced that love is a
stronger feeling than patriotism, nay, that no other can equal it in
might. How many more human beings love has inspired to heroic deeds,
nay, to self-sacrifice, than patriotism!” While thus declaiming in a
sentimental tone, she cast at her husband, who was sitting by her side,
a tender, languishing glance, which was probably intended to be an
eloquent commentary on her words.
The enviable bridegroom did not entirely agree with the being of his
choice, but thought that in youth love, in mature years, on the
contrary, patriotism would exert the greater power.
“As for me,” quoth the doctor, a somewhat pedantic man, who, even at
tea parties, can neither think nor speak except according to
Aristotelian categories, “I think that here national and race
characteristics have the strongest influence. The cold Northerner can
be roused to more intense enthusiasm by the abstract idea of the native
land than the hot-blooded Southron, who would be fired more speedily by
a creature of flesh and blood. The German stock of the Swiss Alemanni
could produce a Winkelried, but the Indian who, for love of the invalid
daughter of the Spanish governor, betrayed the secret of the chinchona
tree, known only to the native, and thereby broke the power of the
fever, which was on the point of ridding America of the foreign
oppressor, was a Southerner, and more accessible to the suggestions of
love than to those of patriotism. A Swede or an Englishman may be able
to sacrifice more for his native land than for the woman whom he loves,
but I doubt if this is true of a Spaniard or an Italian.”
The most noticeable woman in our circle was Frau von G. She was a
somewhat stout but remarkably well-preserved person, whose forty years
would scarcely be noticed even by an eye which did not look through the
glasses of gallantry. Shining black hair framed a face of noble mould;
sparkling black eyes, a classically moulded nose, a delicately curved
upper lip, slightly shaded by an almost imperceptible velvety down, and
a full, firm, round chin, combined with a delicate brunette complexion
to produce a countenance whose Southern type was unmistakable. Had not
her appearance and manner betrayed it, her accent would have revealed
that she was a foreigner.
Frau von G. had listened silently and attentively, but the doctor’s
last remark called a smile to her lips, and induced her to mingle in
the conversation.
“I cannot fully assent to what you have just said of the Spaniards and
Italians, Doctor,” she remarked. “If you will allow me, I’ll relate a
little episode from my own life which will prove that, under certain
circumstances, patriotism can influence even an Italian more powerfully
than love.”
The interest with which every face turned toward the fair speaker
contained the most flattering invitation to tell her story.
“You know that I am a native of Milan, and did not leave my birthplace
until ten years ago, when my husband’s business summoned him here. I
was a girl of eighteen when the insurrection in Lombardy was quelled.
Marshal Radetzky entered Milan at the head of a victorious army, the
‘sword of Italy’ was broken, and every patriot, with bleeding heart,
was forced to renounce the hopes which he had seen on the verge of
realization. Oh, you who have not experienced those days can have no
idea of their sorrow and discouragement. The state of siege, to which
city and country were condemned, exerted a disturbing influence upon
every detail of our daily lives. We avoided the Scala, for there we
beheld the hateful spectacle of two soldiers, standing with their guns
in the proscenium at the right and left of the stage, and constantly
reminding us of the humiliation and misfortune of our native land; we
omitted our usual walks on the Corso, for there we were continually
insulted by Austrian officers. Every family was restricted to its own
circle. We lived within our own four walls, and you can scarcely
imagine how much weariness and melancholy this means to us Italians.
“During this terrible period I made the acquaintance of Albert v. G.,
who afterwards became my husband. He was my brother’s classmate at
college, and afterward, like him, became an engineer. Albert was
handsome and agreeable, and his visits were doubly welcome in that
dull, wearisome time. That I was not indifferent to him, I soon
discovered. At first he came with my brother, and left the house with
him. Later he came alone, but soon went away if he was not at home.
Finally, he became our daily guest, and as my parents, too, did not
object to his visits, he remained longer and longer with me, and at
last entertained me for hours with his clever, pleasant chat.
“We were very well acquainted and already on familiar terms, when one
day—he had been sitting all the morning reading aloud to me—he suddenly
asked permission to light a cigar.
“‘What,’ I exclaimed, almost terrified, ‘are you a smoker, Albert?’
“You must know that at that time I had a great aversion to men who
smoked. I could not praise my brother enough for not having acquired
the unpleasant habit, and declared a hundred times that I would rather
endure anything than to kiss a man who sullied his lips with the
disagreeable weed.
“Until then I had not known that Albert was a smoker, for, of course,
there was no smoking in my drawing-room, and I had no opportunity to
discover his vice elsewhere.
“The vehemence of my question confused him.
“‘Yes, I smoke,’ he answered hesitatingly, ‘but what is there
extraordinary about that?’
“‘True,’ I cried, ‘unfortunately there is nothing extraordinary about
it, but I will tell you this that I will never marry a man who takes a
cigar into his mouth. I cannot endure such a person, he is utterly
detestable in my eyes.’
“Albert looked at me in surprise, but said nothing and merely slipped
the cigar he had already taken out back into his pocket. Then he
remained with me a short time in a depressed, silent mood, and soon
took his leave.
“The next day he came again and tried to assume a cheerful,
unembarrassed manner. Without any introduction he seized the first
opportunity to turn the conversation upon smoking, and said jestingly
that yesterday he had been fairly frightened out of his wits, probably
I did not mean what I said so seriously, he hoped I should become
accustomed to his habit, etc. But I understood no jesting on this
subject, and again, with the utmost earnestness, protested that I could
not endure a man who smoked and never would accustom myself to the
habit. On the contrary, I expected that a man who loved me would make
the sacrifice of renouncing the unpleasant vice.
“My avowal threw Albert into a state of melancholy, which would now
seem to me very comical, but then grieved me to the heart. He was very
sorrowful, and left me with the air of a most miserable man. From that
time his cheerfulness deserted him, he sighed constantly in the most
heartrending manner, and his eyes always had a sorrowful expression.
This mood lasted about a week and caused me much suffering, but I could
not and would not change it; Albert must give up smoking, or we would
separate.
“One day my brother came to me, and took me to task for my folly.
Albert was stealing about like a shadow, and no longer dared to visit
me; I ought not to torment him any longer with my foolish obstinacy,
but, in Heaven’s name, let him have his cigar; he had already made the
attempt to give up smoking, but the habit was stronger than his will,
and he would really fall sick from it. Here I could no longer refrain
from interrupting him bitterly: ‘So I am to have a husband who is not
strong enough to give up a ridiculous habit? If he loves me he must do
it for my sake; now I really insist upon it, for I shall see in it a
test of his love.’
“My brother scolded and raged, but all was useless, and I clung to my
resolve. I should weary you if I were to tell you all the details of
this quarrel, whose memory has a peculiar charm for me. Suffice it to
say that at last Albert came to me, and, with tears in his eyes, begged
me not to be cruel any longer, and, as usually happens, I wept, too,
and said: ‘Very well, I will show you that my love is stronger than
yours. You would not give up your habit for my sake, I will try, for
yours, to conquer my repugnance.’
“Shortly after we were married Alfred smoked as before. In spite of his
cigars I felt very, very happy with him, and had entirely forgotten the
sorrowful weeks of sulking, when I was reminded of it in a very
peculiar way.
“We had been wedded about six months when I noticed, one evening, that
Albert did not light a cigar after supper, as usual. I secretly
wondered, but thought it mere accident. The next day there was the same
abstinence, which I remarked, and which engaged my attention
completely. When, on the third evening, it was repeated, I was
extremely curious and much excited. ‘What,’ I thought, ‘is Albert
voluntarily making the sacrifice for the wife which he would not yield
to the entreaties of the betrothed bride?’ My heart exulted over this
proof of love, and I considered myself—don’t laugh—the happiest of
mortals. I set about a careful inspection and made the most delightful
discoveries. The cigar box on Albert’s desk was empty; his beautiful
amber mouthpiece, which he usually had with him, lay on some papers as
a paper-weight—there was no doubt of it, Albert had given up smoking.
“I could no longer help expressing my joy. ‘Albert,’ I said one
evening, ‘you are an angel, you not only relinquish smoking for my
sake, but you are too delicate to say a single word about it, or to
betray, by the slightest sign, what a painful effort it costs you.’
While speaking, I embraced and kissed him with genuine enthusiasm.
“But, to my great astonishment, this outburst of tenderness embarrassed
him. He escaped from my arms and lowered his eyes before my questioning
gaze. After a sorrowful pause, he said at last, in a hesitating,
uncertain voice: ‘My sweet, little wife, I might play the part of being
generous and self-sacrificing, but I think it is more manly to confess
the truth. So learn that I have not given up my cigar for your sake,
but—for that of my native land! You know that the tobacco monopoly has
been introduced by the Austrian government; we have now agreed that
every patriot will give up smoking, in order, so far as lies in his
power, to lessen the receipts of the treasury. This may seem to you
trivial, but we must deal the foe needle-pricks, if we cannot attack
him with the sword.’
“To tell you the truth, I sulked for several days; but at last I
considered the matter, and resolved to show that an Italian woman can
be no less patriotic than an Italian man. I forgave my husband, and
even praised him for his resolution, which I could not help thinking
heroic. ‘The idea that you love anything better than you do me,’ I said
to him, ‘becomes endurable only by remembering that this something
is—our native land.’
“So you see,” added Frau von G., as she concluded her story, turning to
the doctor with a smile, “that, even in an Italian, patriotism is more
powerful than love, and the hot-blooded Italian sacrificed to the
abstract idea of his native land the cigar which he had not been
willing to give up for the sake of a creature of flesh and blood.”
MEMORIES OF HUNGARY.
I.
ALT HADJI EFFENDI.
The inhabitants of Pesth are very ungrateful people. Venice bestowed a
thousand ducats upon a poet who glorified the splendor of the city of
the Doges in two mediocre distiches; Rome gladdened her historian,
Gregorovius, with the offer of publishing his work at her own expense;
even Belgrade knew how to honor Laboulaye, because he had written a few
friendly essays about the metropolis of Servia; the people of Pesth
alone did nothing for a writer who had striven unweariedly to bring the
beauties of the Hungarian capital near the distant East in the most
musical Persian ghasels and quatrains. He lived in their midst, the
enthusiastic bard of their renown, but no one troubled himself about
poor Ali Hadji Effendi, and the only attention which the authorities
showed him consisted in having him occasionally locked up by the
policemen for unauthorized peddling.
Worthy Ali Hadji Effendi was not blessed with worldly goods; for
reasons which Schiller has explained in his “Division of the Earth,” he
had not succeeded in obtaining a place in the temple service of the
golden calf, and since, in consequence of the defective school system
of Hungary, the Persian language is still far too little diffused among
the people of Pesth for him to hope to be able to maintain himself
respectably by the sale of his poems, he had determined to carry on a
little retail business, whose flourishing development was often checked
by an act of official rigor.
He was an interesting figure, this slender, black-bearded, dreamy-eyed,
sunburnt Oriental, who, years ago, established his perambulating wares,
sometimes on one street corner of Pesth, sometimes on another and with
quiet satisfaction awaited purchasers behind them. A dense throng of
school children, maid-servants, and apprentices constantly surrounded
him, eyeing with great interest the treasures he displayed. Real glass
diamonds glittered in polished brass rings, Turkish and Christian
rosaries of amber and coral lay side by side in a tolerance worthy of
imitation, small knives, toothpicks, and needle-books completed the
stock of wares, with the exception of one evidently unpurchasable
show-piece, an exquisitely wrought halberd—which he had to show.
Customers were allowed to rummage among the articles at will, and only
when some boy, with insolvency written upon his—nose, created too much
disorder, did Ali raise his voice, ordering him, in deep, guttural
tones, to desist from his mischief. He could support his Persian words
with such expressive gestures of the hands that even the most ignorant
cobbler’s apprentice instantly understood them.
How had Ali Hadji Effendi come to Pesth? The question is not difficult
to answer. In the Mohammedan world there is an order of dervishes whose
members have all taken upon themselves the vow of a life of constant
wandering. The adherents of this order are called Hadjis. The Hadji has
no home, or rather his home is the great world of Islam. And Islam
never gives up a province which it has once possessed. So, as kings
bear the title of provinces which their forefathers lost centuries ago,
Islam regards as its own countries where, for a long time, no mosque
has raised its slender minaret and airy dome toward the sky. As the
seas of former geological periods have everywhere left their shell
fish, which are now found on lofty mountain peaks in the midst of
continents, the Turkish flood which submerged Europe a century and a
half ago has also, after subsiding, everywhere left a trace, the grave
of a Mohammedan saint. Ofen cherishes the resting-place of such a
saint; Gül Baba, the Father of Roses, sleeps his eternal sleep there,
and an ancient, half ruined mosque, which rises above his grave, is the
last monument in this neighborhood of the former greatness and power of
the Turkish Empire. From the frontiers of China, from India to the
Ofner Mountains, stretches an unbroken chain of the graves of saints,
and many formerly in Mohammedan soil are now surrounded by unbelievers.
But an army of Hadjis is constantly in motion, passing from one saint’s
grave to another, and there is no resting-place of a pious Moslem so
remote, or so hidden, that some Hadjis do not annually visit it, to
throw themselves upon their faces, murmur proverbs from the Koran,
humbly praise the goodness and wisdom of Allah, and then continue their
aimless pilgrimage. The Orientals have the devout belief that the dead
whose graves are now in the land of the infidels would throw themselves
over the bridge of hell, in sheer anguish, if they should learn that
the crescent had been driven from these regions. Therefore, from time
to time, Moslems must visit these graves, in order to maintain their
belief that everything remained as it was during their lives, and that
the crescent still shone with undimmed radiance.
The Hadjis do not beg; in the sunny lands of the East, where the sky
and the earth provide for the poor as loving parents care for their
infant children, where the shade of the roof above a well, or of a
mosque, affords hospitable shelter, and the fig tree by the wayside
sweet food, they can spend the whole day in pious, contemplative
idleness, but when they enter the inhospitable country of the Giaours,
where the sky is as harsh as the manners of the people, and the prison
is the only place which affords shelter gratis, they carry on a trade
in all sorts of trifles, and thus obtain the means to satisfy their few
needs.
Ali Hadji Effendi was one of these wandering dervishes; he had seen
many lands and peoples; had washed the dust of the roads from his feet
in the rivers of three-quarters of the globe; he had listened to the
dashing of the Ganges, the Euphrates, the Nile, and the Danube, and was
versed in the languages of all the nations that dwell in the wide
region between the Himalaya and the Caucasus. In his Persian home he
had been renowned as a poet, and the street singers still chant his
love songs in the squares of Bagdad. One spring, in his journeying, he
came to Pesth, where he instantly sought out several well-known
Orientalists—Vámbéry, Goldziher, and others—and asked them to write in
Persian characters the Hungarian words which would be indispensable for
daily use, for instance, reckoning, the names of coins, of his goods,
etc.
It would scarcely be believed that the Persian dervish knew the Pesth
Orientalists, yet it was so. Somewhere in Roumelia, at the foot of the
Balkans, or still farther away in Anatolia, a Hadji journeying westward
meets such men on their way to the East. They sit silently side by side
on the divan or the rush-mat, their fingers play with the beads of the
rosary, and their lips softly murmur passages from the Koran. Suddenly
one raises his voice and says: “Brother! You are going toward the West,
to the land of the unbelievers. If you reach the city of the Magyars,
Pesth, go to the great palace on the bank of the Danube. It is called
the Academy. Mention the names of Vámbéry and Goldziher Effendi, and
you will be taken to men who fear God and are kind to strangers.” The
other answers: “Brother, you are directing your steps eastward and will
reach Benares. Walk through the bazaar there, and where you see the
shop of a dealer in weapons, between two silk merchants, enter and
greet him; you will be well treated.” So the Hadjis bear the fame of
hospitable men to distant quarters of the world, and wherever they meet
one another they exchange addresses.
Ali Hadji Effendi was soon at home in Pesth. What great trouble was
necessary for the purpose? His patrons obtained from the authorities
permission for him to remain, and he could pursue his business. Every
morning he came from his night quarters with his wares, and wandered
through the streets. Wherever he found shade and a clean spot he
unfolded his rug, sat down with crossed legs, arranged his goods, and,
with Oriental patience, awaited customers. Nothing could disturb his
equanimity. If the children teased him, he smilingly shook his finger
at them. To a boy who once thrust a pin through his turban from behind,
he addressed a very edifying and moral lecture in the Persian language,
summing up the instruction at the close in the two words “Nem szip”
(not right), which he uttered with a grave shake of the head. He could
not be roused to anger; it was impossible to irritate him.
If a soldier came, who wanted to give his sweetheart, usually one of
the Slavonic race, a surprise, and wished to buy a brass ring with
glass, or even a silver one, set with turquoise, Ali waited quietly
till he had selected something, and then named the price, about
twenty-three kreuzers. The purchaser, usually in a shout, as if the
Persian could understand German better if spoken in a loud than in a
low tone, made his offer, but Ali did not say another word and would
not have accepted twenty-two kreuzers and a half for the ring. Not
until the sum which he had named was paid in full did he deliver the
article and receive the money, which, without counting, he thrust into
his belt. He never allowed any haggling, this was a principle of his
business, and it may readily be supposed that, under such
circumstances, his receipts were not large from customers who mainly
belonged to the servant class.
If he thought he had made enough, or if the time seemed long, he spread
an old piece of sack cloth over his wares and lay down on his carpet to
sleep. He had no fear of thieves, and the kindness and honesty of the
public had never disappointed him. Often, too, the poetic inspiration
seized him, and then he drew from his girdle a small yellow book and
wrote Persian verses in it. If, at such a time, customers attempted to
interrupt him, he waved them off with a gesture of the hand, and
remained for hours utterly oblivious of his surroundings. When the poem
was finally finished, he beckoned to the bystanders until they formed a
dense circle around him, and declaimed his verse in a half song. His
ears feasted on the melody of his own creation. In the zeal of reading
aloud he rose, his eyes flashed, his voice trembled, he explained
single verses, described to his listeners the beauty of an image, the
wit of a turn of speech, and when he had finished and his glance
wandered over the spectators, who were staring at him in astonishment,
he smilingly protested, “Szip, szip!” (Fine, fine!), pointing to the
little book with his finger.
On the very first day of his sojourn in Pesth he composed a ghasel of
four lines, a literal translation of which would run as follows:
“O city on the Danube, home of men with open hand,
Thy loins the river girdles like unto a silver band,
Thy head the mountains, diadem of emerald green, doth grace,
Alas, that the crescent from thee must now avert its face.”
One day a hard-hearted policeman arrested him and drove him to the
town-hall. There he cleared himself and was released in a few hours. He
avenged himself on the rude fellow with the following sarcastic ghasel:
“As the laden camel through the streets of Samarcand men drive,
So here, mistaking a command, to urge me on they strive.
The armed policeman, swearing, doth press me toward the gaol,
Yet he, too, is also driven: for folly drives his soul.”
Daily he composed a song in praise of the city of Pesth and of Hungary.
He described the beauty of the Ofner Mountains, the majesty of the
giant river, the splendor of the palatial buildings, the proud men, the
fair women; and when he had a series of ghasels he went to his patrons
and read them aloud to them. Often, too, he carried his goods home at
midday and paid a visit to Vámbéry or Goldziher. Removing his slippers
outside the door, he silently entered the room, mutely greeted the
occupant by touching his brow, lips, and breast with his hand, then
went to the book-case, took from the place he knew so well the heroic
verse of Firdusi, the divine poems of Hâfiz, or the mocking ones of
Omar Khayyám, sat down on the floor with crossed legs, read the Persian
writers for an hour, then closed the volume, restored it to its place
and, with another silent greeting, went away.
Thus one whole summer passed, autumn came, the leaves began to fall
from the trees, and the swallows were preparing to depart. Our Hadji
Ali Effendi soon felt too cold in his blue calico caftan, and one day
he was no longer seen in the streets of Pesth.
He had drawn his girdle closer, wound his turban anew, taken in his
hand the knotted staff which had been his companion from Küenlün to the
Blocksberg, and set forth again on his pilgrimage. Outside the city he
had paused, raised his hand to his brow, his lips, and his breast, and
then silently continued his way eastward without another backward
glance.
But perhaps, years later, some beautiful almeh will sing in the bazaar
of Bassora, to the music of the mandolin, the song which the traveling
dervish composed in praise of the hospitable city in the distant West,
and the visitors to the market, seated in a circle around, will nod
their heads approvingly to the rhythm of the verse:
“O city on the Danube, home of men with open hand,
Thy loins the river girdles like unto a silver band,
Thy head the mountains, diadem of emerald green, doth grace,
Alas, that the crescent from thee must now avert its face.”
MEMORIES OF HUNGARY.
II.
THE CROSS AT THE CORNER.
For years my way led me, several times a day, through Tabakgasse in
Pesth, and I was therefore obliged to pass a crucifix erected at the
corner where Kreuzgasse opens into Tabakgasse. It was a weather-beaten,
insignificant affair, such as is rarely seen in the cities, but more
frequently met with on country roads and in poor villages, and was
evidently as old as the quarter of the city in whose midst it stood;
Kreuzgasse undoubtedly took its name from it. A century and a half
before, when the “inner city” became too small for the population, and
a few bold colonists built the first houses outside the wall upon the
loose sand of the Rákos, the founders of the Theresienstadt erected at
the same time this crucifix, probably to place the new quarter of the
city under the special protection of the Crucified One.
The artless piety of these people required no external stimulation by
works of art. Their religious feeling did not demand a beautiful and
monumental form for the object of their reverence, and was sufficiently
intense to be satisfied even with a badly-colored image, a shapeless
wooden cross. The crucifix just mentioned was a proof of that touching
power of faith, which understands how to transfigure even the rude and
ugly with the nimbus of reverence. It is difficult to imagine a less
beautiful and imposing structure than this crucifix. Two rough beams,
fastened into the form of a cross, on which was nailed a piece of iron
shaped into the outlines of a human figure, that was all. The hand of
some Beotian, doubtless very devout, but totally ignorant of the beauty
of oak blackened by age, had smeared the cross with a coat of the most
hideous shade of brick-red, and painted on the iron, with much
goodwill, but very little art, the image of the Saviour.
A hundred and fifty years do not pass over so primitive a work of art
without some trace. In many spots on the iron, now half corroded with
rust, the color had come off entirely; the Redeemer’s image lacked an
eye, only a small portion of the crown of thorns remained, the legs
showed especially comprehensive damages, the face and breast were
covered with rust stains, which looked like dried drops of blood and
produced effects which the “artist” certainly had not intended. Even
the wood had not been left untouched by the tooth of time; countless
cracks and crevices intersected the entire length of the beams; one
could not expect them to continue to oppose the invincible tenacity and
defiance of the oak to the attacks of the drenching autumn rains, the
parching heat of summer, and the fierce blasts of the tempest. When, at
a late hour of the silent night, I walked through the empty street and
passed the cross, I heard distinctly the monotonous tapping of the
wood-beetle, whose jaws vied with decay and disintegration to
accomplish the destruction of the crucifix.
This description has probably convinced everyone that the cross in
itself was neither remarkable nor valuable; yet the sight of it always
made me thoughtful, nay filled me with a certain emotion. Poor, iron
Saviour! There he stood, deserted by God and man. No one prayed to Him,
no one offered vows, He was in everyone’s way. The generation that
placed Him here, the other generations, whose hearts He had filled with
devotion, had died long ago; in this age and environment He was alien
and desolate. Most people passed the crucifix without vouchsafing it a
single glance. True, in rainy weather it attracted a certain degree of
attention, but this was wholly profane. As it stood exactly in the
center of the narrow sidewalk, no one carrying an open umbrella could
pass between it and the wall, so there was only the choice of shutting
the umbrella and walking several paces under the streaming eaves, or
keeping it open and leaving the sidewalk, that is, wading several paces
through mire a foot deep. Both equally aroused the wrath of pedestrians
against the obstacle in their path, and they complained that the
magistrates allowed such hindrances to traffic.
A crucifix degraded to be a hindrance to traffic! Could it fail to lose
its sanctity in the eyes of the populace? No one raised his hat, no one
made the sign of the cross in passing. Only plain peasants still knelt
devoutly before it, and the birds used it as a welcome resting-place.
The swallow, seeking food for her nestlings, wearied by the busy
exercise of her maternal duties, perched for a moment’s rest on the
Saviour’s outstretched arm and, at the foot of the crucifix, an old
beggar woman frequently crouched, letting the worn, distorted features
of the Crucified One plead for sympathy and alms for herself.
At a certain time a momentous change suddenly occurred. Workmen began
to demolish the corner-house, whose faithful Eckart the crucifix had
been for a century. And in fact it was not too soon. The low structure,
built of unbaked bricks, which looked as if it had sunk to its knees in
the earth, its windowless wall facing the street, its mouldering,
moss-grown shingle roof, and horribly dirty courtyard, no longer suited
the modern city with its fashionable boulevards. As at that time I
expected to be obliged to pass through this street for a considerable
time longer, I followed every change for the better in its physiognomy
with very natural interest. I watched with satisfaction the rise of
lofty scaffoldings, which indicated the erection of a new building
several stories high, the piles of brick, heaps of sand and building
stones, and the throngs of masons and hod-carriers. Only when, one
morning, I again passed by and noticed the rapid progress of the
demolition, I suddenly observed that the crucifix was missing. It had
been there the evening before, now it had vanished. It had been torn
from the ground in the night, a rude hand had hacked the wood and
broken the iron, the cross at the corner no longer existed.
I will not deny that its disappearance grieved me. I was so accustomed
to see it several times a day as I hurried by. A beggar at the corner,
a swallow’s nest under the cornice, a flower seller in front of the
door, may gain importance in a man’s habits of life; why not also a
crucifix at the crossing of two streets? The thought that I should
never again see that shabby old iron image, the rude red cross, filled
me with regret. I involuntarily asked myself whether anybody in the
world would miss the poor old crucifix. Hardly. And yet, forgotten and
forsaken as it was, it must still have had one faithful friend. Traces
of a care-taking hand were often visible on the cross; many signs
showed that now and then some one still remembered it. The thick layers
of dust and dirt which usually darkened the Saviour’s painted face were
often carefully washed off, though the wind soon renewed them; on many
feast days a modest wreath, a little bunch of flowers, adorned the
cross, and on the great festivals of the Catholic Church an ancient
lantern, behind whose red panes glimmered a dim little light, hung
before it.
While still thinking of the unknown person who had addressed me through
the attentions lavished upon the ancient crucifix, a new figure that
appeared on the scene aroused my interest. An old woman, shabbily but
neatly dressed, came up the street and suddenly stopped, as if rooted
to the earth, when she noticed the absence of the cross. With an
emotion which she was unable to subdue, she clasped her hands and gazed
fixedly at the hole in the ground where, for a century and a half, the
cross had been set. Several minutes passed ere she recovered herself
and hastily approached a man who was giving the workmen directions—he
was evidently the overseer of the building operations.
“Sir,” she said in a trembling voice, “the cross has been taken away.
Could you tell me what has been done with it?”
The person addressed stared at her a moment, then, with a rude laugh,
answered: “What has been done with the cross? Why, what should be done
with it? Somebody used it to cook his supper!”
With these words he turned from the old woman and continued his orders
to the workmen.
I approached the aged dame and asked sympathizingly why she had
inquired about the fate of the cross? At first she did not reply, then,
after a short pause, she said in an agitated tone:
“If I should tell you, perhaps you would laugh, like yonder fellow.”
I assured her of the contrary, and my expression probably confirmed the
truth of my words, for she allowed herself to be persuaded to open her
heart to me.
“You see,” she began, “I am an old woman—seventy-five years—and I have
no relatives left in the world. All my kindred, all the friends of my
youth are dead, and this old cross was the sole object which reminded
me of the happy days of my childhood. What do I say—object? It was a
friend, a living being that could speak to me. I was born in the house
which they are tearing down. I played at the foot of the crucifix when
I was a little child. Later, when I grew older and began to go to
school, my mother told me to kiss the cross whenever I passed it,
because then God would help me and I should repeat my lessons well at
school.
“In those days the cross was not so old and unsightly as it became
afterward. The image of the Christ was kept freshly painted, and had a
beautiful gilt halo around its head. And the people showed great
reverence for it. You know,” she added, glancing with a peculiar
expression upward to the steeples of the neighboring synagogue, “at
that time this neighborhood was almost exclusively Catholic, and not
one of these men would have passed without at least lifting his hat and
crossing himself. The crucifix was always adorned with flowers, images
of the saints, and wreaths, and the master of the house kept a light
burning before it. Corpus Christi Day was the most beautiful holiday in
the year to the girls in the house. Then the procession passed, and we
adorned the cross with flowers, leaves and ribbons. It was our task,
and we performed it so gladly.
“Don’t laugh at me, but from my earliest childhood I regarded ‘our’
crucifix as my friend and patron. If, when a little girl, I wished for
anything, I slipped out of the door, late at night, when there was no
one in the street, went to the cross, clasped my arms around it, and
said softly: ‘Dear Jesus, I pray Thee, give me this or that!’ If I
received it, I went out again and thanked the crucifix for it.
“I grew up and people said that I was a pretty girl. Then I made the
acquaintance of a young student, who visited me two years—and afterward
married me,” she added hastily. “He always spent the evening with me,
and, when he went away, I accompanied him first to the gate, where we
lingered a while, and then to the corner, where we paused again. If he
wanted to kiss me when we parted I would not permit it—the presence of
the crucifix shamed me.”
“But not always!” I interrupted, smiling.
The old dame pretended not to hear my remark and hurriedly continued:
“My lover obtained an appointment in the city and married me. On my
wedding day my girl friends adorned the crucifix as beautifully as if
the Corpus Christi procession was to pass. A year later a son was born,
a beautiful child, fair, blue-eyed and chubby; when I went out,
carrying him in my arms, people stopped, took him from me, and never
wearied of kissing him. He grew finely and learned to walk and to talk,
then he suddenly fell sick and the doctors said he would die.
“One night”—the old woman’s eyes filled with tears at the memory—“I was
watching beside his little bed. The physician had told me that he would
scarcely live until the next morning. I thought my heart would break,
and I should go mad. Toward midnight the child grew quieter and fell
asleep. An irresistible yearning, to which I could not help yielding,
seized upon me. I lived near; opening the door, I rushed hither through
the darkness and did as I had always done. Weeping, I embraced the
cross and prayed: ‘Dear Jesus, I beseech Thee, save my child!’ I
returned home greatly relieved—the child was still asleep, it slept
until the morning, grew better, and in a fortnight was well.
“I have already detained you a long time with my talk—to be brief, I
was destined to survive my parents, my husband, my only son, all my
relatives and friends; the single remaining friend of my childhood was
the cross at the corner, and now that, too, is gone——”
I understood the old woman’s feelings, and, deeply moved, bowed and
silently left her.
MEMORIES OF HUNGARY.
III.
THE ALTAR PAINTING.
Who among my readers has ever heard the name of Péteri? Very few,
certainly, and it is no wonder, for one may be a good geographer
without knowing that Péteri is a pleasant little village, four miles
from Pesth, secluded from all intercourse with the world, in the midst
of a charming plain, still untrodden by the iron steed which imposes
upon the earth, wherever he directs his victorious course, fetters
which are very willingly endured.
This quiet hamlet was the goal of an excursion, which I took with a
small party the first of October in the year 1867.
We had started early and were rolling over the boundless Rákos plain.
The landscape presented a marvelously beautiful aspect. In the
background rose the Ofner Mountains, covered with a gray hood of mist;
here and there a single peak was illumined by the rising sun,
displaying a peculiar blending of shades of purple and violet, which
produced the most magnificent effect. The course of the Danube was
marked by a broad mass of vapor, hovering over the stream, as if the
spirits of the ancient Ister, shrouded in clouds, were floating above
their watery domain. Before us the sun was just rising, revealing the
historic plain of Rákos, with its undulating sand-hills, meadows, and
stubble fields, sparsely scattered with solitary, straw-thatched
houses, a few groups of trees, and clattering mills. On both sides of
the dusty high road cows were grazing, which stared at us with scarcely
less curiosity than the little barefooted boy who tramped after them.
The tinkling of the cow-bells blended musically with the notes of the
matin-bells, borne in low, subdued tones by the keen morning air.
Our horses moved so swiftly that the tall clumps of straw, and the
still taller poles of the wells in the pastures flitted past us like
ghosts, and after a drive of barely an hour we reached Keresstur, where
we breakfasted in a tavern which, considering its proximity to the
capital, was incredibly primitive. The hamlet has no remarkable sights
except an old castle where the Emperor Joseph II. once spent the night,
and a little tavern-keeper with an enormous beard. After a short rest
we set out on our journey again. If the road had formerly been
uncomfortable, it now began to be actually bad. The surrounding country
still retained the monotonous character of a plain, but the road
supplied a tolerable alternation of mountain and valley; cliffs and
lakes, owing to the limited space, were represented by huge stones and
deep puddles, between which obstacles the driver zig-zagged with
marvelous skill. It was about nine o’clock when we saw, in the
distance, the little houses and slender, beautiful church-spire of
Péteri.
Péteri, the goal of our excursion, is a very small village, inhabited
by Slovaks, which consists of two parallel streets and a few dozen
insignificant peasant houses, all built with the gable in front. A
stranger must be a very rare spectacle in its streets, for great was
the excitement which we awakened among the inhabitants. Accompanied by
the barking of dogs and the cries of children, we drove slowly on
between the straw-thatched huts, and stopped before the house of the
Protestant pastor, whom we found engaged in the patriarchal occupation
of whipping a large, shaggy black dog, which had been accused by his
wife of the crime of killing chickens.
When the man of God saw us, he let the dog go, and, casting an
embarrassed glance at his coat, which bore numerous traces of rural
labor, he conducted us into his room, which was destitute of a floor.
After exchanging a few civil speeches, we told him that we had come to
see the village church, which, we had heard, was the handsomest in the
neighborhood. The pastor looked astonished, but at once expressed his
readiness to open the sacred edifice, if we were really interested in
it. Clanking several huge keys, he led the way and we followed. A large
open square, with a fountain in the center, surrounded by several
majestic oaks, occupied the space in front of it. Several steps led to
the entrance of this house of God, which, judging from the exterior,
was tolerably plain. The upper one afforded a view of the entire length
of the two streets of which Péteri consists.
The doors creaked on their hinges. We entered, walked directly to the
communion table, which was totally devoid of ornament, and at the first
glance we were irresistibly attracted by a picture hung above the
pulpit between two pillars. The brilliant coloring of the painting
contrasted strangely with the bare, austere appearance of the spacious
interior, which threw it into still stronger relief.
The picture represented the Sermon on the Mount. Christ, attired in
flowing robes, with an ample mantle draped over them, stands upon a
boulder, his indescribably beautiful face illumined by divine
enthusiasm, his radiant eyes most expressively proclaim to us the words
of love and divine wisdom which are flowing from his half-parted lips.
Around him, extending to the distant background, we see a throng of
people in picturesque groups, evidently hanging on the Saviour’s lips;
but only a few figures, immediately surrounding the rock, are executed
in detail. Behind the divine preacher we behold an ascetic, clad in a
garment of skins, his brows contracted in a gloomy frown, and his
bearded chin propped on his hand, evidently pondering over the words he
has heard. Beside him stands a youth, with his arms folded across his
breast, uplifting his clear brow and dark eyes to Christ with fervent
devotion, unheeding the words of a third figure, a doubter, who stands
by his side, and, with the mocking expression of a Mephistopheles,
appears to be whispering something into his ear, while his hand
secretly points to the Saviour. In the foreground two female figures
rivet our attention; one, a large, voluptuous woman, is lying at the
feet of the divine preacher, her face, drenched with tears, expresses
infinite suffering and the deepest contrition; the other, a most
wonderful contrast, possessing supernatural beauty, as with divine
calmness she raises her beaming eyes and, with clasped hands, her whole
figure breathing angelic innocence, listens to the sermon of the Son of
God. The picture is completed by two lovely naked children, who, with
their little round faces turned toward the spectator, are carelessly
playing with a shell which they have found. It is the most magnificent
and yet the most charming scene imaginable. The divine, glorified form
of the inspired preacher; the gloomy ascetic, examining ere he
believes; the devout youth, who hears revelations in every word; the
doubter, who has come to listen and to scoff; the sinful woman, whose
heart is shaken and crushed to its depths by every word of mercy and
heavenly love; the chaste, pure angel, with the gloriously beautiful
face, to whom Christ speaks a kindred language—and, in contrast with
all this, the unsuspecting, ignorant children who, unconcerned about
the great events, the mighty passions and overmastering emotions astir
around them, play quietly with their shell—the impression which this
poetic composition, glowing with the vivid colors of a Titian, produced
upon us is not easily described. We stood a long time before the
painting, unable to express in words our admiration of the masterpiece.
At last I asked the pastor, who had remained modestly at the back of
the church, busying himself with various trifles, if he could not tell
us the name of the artist who had created this beautiful work.
“I really cannot give you his name, I know only that he was a young
Italian. But I see that the painting has deeply impressed you, so you
will probably be interested in hearing some particulars of its origin.”
Accepting the kind clergyman’s invitation, we went back with him to his
house, and, over a glass of wine, he related the following story:
“Péteri formerly belonged to an old count, the last scion of an ancient
noble family, who died, childless, about thirty years ago. His estates
went to a distant relative and, in this way, our village passed into
the possession of a young married couple, who came here soon after the
death of the old lord, to make it their permanent residence. Herr von
F., our new lord, had been an officer for several years, but after his
marriage had retired to private life. His wife was young, bright,
gracious, and possessed beauty unrivaled far or near. They had scarcely
moved here before Frau von F. noticed the dilapidated condition of the
little church, and determined to have a new and handsome building
erected at her own expense. The fact that she was a Catholic, while the
parish was Protestant, did not disturb her in the least.
“It happened about this time that a carriage passing through the
village was overturned, and the traveler within had his foot severely
injured. Herr von F., who had heard of the accident, went himself to
the injured man and invited him to be his guest until he was able to
continue his journey. The offer was gratefully accepted, and the
gentleman was carried to the castle. He introduced himself to his
hostess as an Italian artist, on the way to visit his friend, the owner
of an estate a few miles away, but who had been prevented from carrying
out his plan by the upsetting of his carriage and the wounds received.
The artist probably found his stay here very pleasant, for, though at
the end of a few days he could walk without assistance, he made no
preparations for departure. Under the pretext that he wished to express
his gratitude in this way, he begged his charming hostess to allow him
to paint her; he wished to leave the portrait in the castle as a
memento. After some little reluctance, the proposal was accepted, and
the young artist now had an opportunity to gaze into the lovely woman’s
eyes an hour a day. She was, as has been said, a rare beauty, he was
young and ardent—what marvel that he became passionately in love with
her?
“The farther he progressed toward recovery, the more his depression
increased; this, and the numerous sittings, aroused Herr von F.’s
suspicions and one day he entered unexpectedly when the artist and his
wife were alone together. He saw the youth on his knees before her,
weeping bitterly, while she, bending over him, was trying to comfort
him. The scene which followed was brief but terrible. F. rushed upon
the Italian and dealt him a blow in the face. The insulted youth seized
a rapier hanging on the wall, pressed furiously upon his host, and
would have killed him if the unhappy wife had not thrown herself
between them. At the noise servants rushed in, who seized the raging
artist, thrust him into the traveling carriage into which the horses
had been hastily harnessed, and advised his coachman to drive to his
destination, wherever that might be.
“The affair caused great excitement at the time; Herr von F. refused to
accept a challenge sent to him from Pesth, and his wife, for a long
period, sought refuge on a secluded estate.
“About five months after the scene just described, a box arrived
containing the altar painting and a letter, in which the artist
entreated Frau von F. to think often of him as an unfortunate man, who
had seen the sun of his life rise once for a moment only to lose it
forever. He also asked that the picture might be placed in the
newly-built church, which, after much opposition from the owner of the
estate, was done. The beautiful woman whom you saw in the foreground of
the picture is Frau von F., the youth with the folded arms is the
artist himself.
“Heaven knows that the young couple did not have a single happy hour
afterward. A dark suspicion, though a wholly groundless one, rested on
the husband’s heart, and this, with the gossip of the people, made the
poor, beautiful wife utterly wretched. When, after a few years, she
became a widow—I came here just at that time—I often saw her, when the
church was empty, kneel before the picture for hours, shedding burning
tears. She did not remain here long, but withdrew to her lonely estate,
whence she often comes to the village, and never neglects to visit the
church.
“Nothing more was heard from the artist himself, who disappeared
without leaving a trace, only some of the owners of the neighboring
estates, who knew him, said that he had gone to Africa as a missionary
and vanished there.”
We thanked the pastor for his story and set out on our way home.
END.
A CHRISTMAS EVE IN PARIS.
It was Christmas Eve of the year 1874. We were slowly pressed forward
by the human tide constantly surging to and fro upon the broad pavement
of the Boulevard des Italiens. Often it was scarcely possible to pause
a moment in front of the brilliantly-lighted show windows of a shop, to
admire, here the diamonds, yonder the bronzes and ivory carvings
displayed within. But one exhibit attracted us too strongly to pass it
with a hasty glance. We checked our steps, which produced the same
effect as when a drifting log suddenly grounds across a stream. First
there was a violent shock, then an angry murmur, an excited chattering,
and the stream gradually turns aside and flows in a slight bend around
the obstacle which cannot be swept away.
The articles in this show window, which belonged to a fashionable
confectioner, were far too tempting. A Christmas Fair, a veritable
paradise for children: miniature Hussar boots, cradles, tiny champagne
bottles, bomb-shells, burning logs, a poodle dressed as a waiter, with
a napkin at his neck, all made of sugar and executed with Parisian
daintiness, and in the midst of this French fiddle-faddle stood the
sturdy, simple German pine tree.
“Is the Christmas tree much used in French families?” I asked my
companion, Monsieur G., a Paris architect, who has recently won much
renown.
“I think not,” he replied, “but I have always had my arbre de noël in
my own house, and it is the central point of one of my most sorrowful
memories.”
A mournful expression shadowed his mobile features as he spoke, and a
heavy sigh escaped his lips. We went on and, a few steps beyond, turned
into the “Rue du 4 Septembre.” I did not wish to interrupt my friend’s
deep reverie by obtrusive, curious questions, so for a short time we
walked silently side by side. It was he who interrupted this pause by
voluntarily telling his sad story.
“Four years,” he began, “have passed since that terrible winter, but
everything is still as vividly impressed upon my mind as though it had
happened only yesterday. The Prussians had forged their iron ring
around the city, and we breathed more and more heavily. The whole world
knows the epic of that siege, from its commencement to its close. In
the beginning ‘useless mouths’ were banished, and the assurance was
given that those who remained need have no anxiety about suffering
want; first we ate pork, then horse-flesh, and at the end of six weeks
the most incredible things supplied us with food. In addition, the
winter was one of those severe seasons which we do not have once in a
decade. The Seine froze, and loaded carts could cross the lake in the
Bois de Boulogne. Our foes were warmly ensconced in our country-houses,
they cut down our groves and the trees in our parks to keep the flames
on the hearths burning, and fed their camp-fires with our grand pianos
and carved furniture. We had no woods to fell, and naturally were less
ready to use our pianos for fire-wood than our enemies. The lack of
fuel was really less keenly felt than the lack of food. All the wood
and coal remaining in Paris was purchased by the rich at fabulous
prices, and the poor, nay, even the well-to-do classes had to shift for
themselves. The proletarians succeeded in doing so without much
difficulty. Our stock of absinthe was inexhaustible, unfortunately it
was the only thing with which we were supplied for months or years;
‘Une goutte’ will fully compensate the Paris workman for the fire on
the hearth or the warmth of the stove—but what was to become of our
women, our children, who do not drink absinthe?
“It was comparatively easy for us men. We were all soldiers, we were
daily occupied either in drilling within the city or in digging and
building at the out-works; and that keeps one tolerably warm, I can
assure you. But when we came home in the evening, we found a room cold
and dismal as a vault, a black, fireless hearth, the children huddled
under the bed-clothes, the wife muffled in cloak and shawls. We clasped
cold hands and kissed cold lips, which had forgotten how to smile.
“So the Christmas festival approached. Did I say festival? Suffering
and want had reached their height, and our eyes constantly saw too much
blood flow to have the red hue in the calendar attract our attention.
The poor children! The siege cut off even their pure, innocent
pleasures; there was no Christmas for them that year. The first week in
December my little Louise asked me if the naughty Prussians would let
St. Nicholas into the city, and a few days before Christmas she
anxiously asked the same question about the Christ child. Both times I
answered that I was afraid this year neither St. Nicholas nor the
little Christ-child could get through to the children who expected
them, but next year they would doubtless make ample amends for it.
Louise looked very sorrowful and was not easily comforted; it was so
long since the last Christmas festival, and the next one would probably
come no earlier than usual! But I could not help her; neither I nor my
wife were in the mood to prepare Christmas pleasures for the poor
child.
“Nor was Louise in a condition to enjoy such pleasures. She had been
ailing all the Winter and on Christmas Eve the illness broke out with
alarming violence. She was tortured by attacks of convulsive coughing
and in a high fever. We put the child to bed and sent at once for our
physician. My wife was greatly alarmed, and I, too, awaited the
doctor’s verdict with much anxiety. He came; we silently exchanged
greetings, and he approached the little one’s sick bed. My wife and I
in trembling suspense watched every line of his face, every expression
of his eyes; we scarcely dared to breathe. The doctor was an old and
dear friend, and Louise was very fond of playing with him; this time,
however, she did not recognize him, and thrust him back with her little
hand as he stroked the hair away from her flushed face and felt her
throbbing pulse.
“‘It is a long time since I have been here but, as you know, the
numerous wounded men, the crowded hospitals,’ he said apologetically,
as he watched the little sufferer.
“‘Of course, of course, but what do you think of our Louise?’
“The doctor forced a smile.
“‘It would not be difficult to give good advice,’ he said in a tone
whose lightness was evidently assumed. ‘Louise has grown excessively
thin since I last saw her; she must be better nourished. Under
different circumstances I should say: give her chicken broth, eggs, do
not let her go out of a moderately warm room, but now’—his eyes rested
on a piece of bread which lay on the table, the bread furnished by the
government, of which a clumsy wit said that it contained every possible
ingredient, among others even grain. ‘However,’ he added after a
painful pause, ‘there will be time enough to nourish her better after
the siege, which cannot last forever. What is immediately necessary is
a cup of hot tea, which must be repeated in two hours.’
“My wife cast a despairing glance at me, whispering with quivering
lips, ‘I have neither wood nor coal in the house.’ A deathlike
stillness pervaded the room, interrupted only by the gasping breath and
an attack of coughing from the child. I cannot describe now what I felt
at that moment, I only know that I would infinitely rather have been
dead than alive. The doctor was the first to break the silence. He
looked very grave as he said: ‘The hot tea is indispensable; if you
have no wood, no coal—not even any alcohol?’ My wife shook her head
mournfully. ‘Has not some neighbor—?’ (The same answer.) ‘Well, then
you must sacrifice some piece of furniture at once, for much depends
upon this tea.’
“I instantly rushed into the kitchen, which no longer contained
anything combustible, seized the ax, and was on the point of dealing a
blow on the piano, my wife’s favorite instrument, but the only large
article in the room, except an armoire, which contained little wood.
During the last fortnight we had been obliged to use our furniture to
supply the fuel for cooking, there was no attempt at heating! I was
already lifting the ax, when my wife suddenly uttered a faint cry,
seized my arm, and directly after rushed out of the room, exclaiming:
‘I have something!’
“Was any neighbor fortunate enough to have some wood? Did she expect to
find a coal dealer’s shop open at this hour and procure fuel there? I
was not to remain in uncertainty long. Five minutes after, the door
opened and my wife, her face radiant with joy, while tears of gratitude
sparkled in her eyes, entered, carrying with both hands—last year’s
huge Christmas tree which, since the festival, had remained unnoticed
in a corner of the attic.
“The whole terrible contrast between the present and the past suddenly
rose before me as if sharply illumined by a flash of lightning. There
was the slender, beautiful pine, which twelve short months ago, so
brief a span of time, a mere moment, looking back upon it, had formed
the center of a lovely picture of family happiness! It was in that very
room, a bright fire was blazing on the hearth, merry children were
dancing and bounding around the table, a happy father and mother were
smiling at the delight of the little ones; there was Louise, looking
like an angel in her white dress, with a blue ribbon in her fair curls,
her arms round, her cheeks plump, her dark eyes sparkling with joy,
and, with her, two little playmates whom she had invited to the
festival. They laughed and shouted as if fifty invisible angels were
laughing and clapping their hands with the children to fill the room to
the utmost with mirth and childish glee. On the table had stood the
magnificent Christmas tree, with tiny candles, gilded fruits, and tin
soldiers glittering among its green boughs, soldiers in French,
English, and Prussian uniforms. We jested and played and made merry
until after midnight, till the children fell asleep from sheer
happiness with dolls and soldiers from the Christmas tree clasped in
both hands.
“Now, here was the same Christmas tree, withered, dry and dusty, its
needles yellow, many of its boughs broken and drooping, others, instead
of golden apples and bonbons, bearing long trailing cobwebs, the room
was cold, the fire dead, and Louise lay on her bed, her little arms
emaciated, her little face thin and flushed by fever, racked by that
torturing cough.
“Her mother’s entrance had attracted her attention, and she partially
recovered her consciousness. Noticing the Christmas tree, she clapped
her little hands joyfully. ‘Oh, the Christmas tree, the pretty
Christmas tree!’ she exclaimed in a faint voice. Then, in touching
words, she begged her mamma to light the pretty candles and hang the
gold apples and the soldiers, only no Prussian ones, and to send for
Mimi and Lolotte, they had been good, and she, too, would be good in
future, very good.
“I was on the point of doing a cowardly act; I longed to go out into
the darkness, into the streets, the outposts, in order not to be
obliged to witness this sorrowful scene; I wished that a shell might
enter the house and put an end to everything. But, no, shells were not
fired on the night when the foe was also celebrating the Christmas
festival. I regained my composure with difficulty, and while my wife
sat on the edge of the bed, with one arm round the child, softly
singing songs, stroking and soothing her, I chopped the Christmas tree
with trembling hands and lighted a fire.
“The dry needles crackled and snapped, blazing high aloft, a sweet,
heavy aroma of resin pervaded the room, and the water in the pot began
to sing and boil. The doctor had gone out, my wife was still whispering
loving words and promises to the sick child, and while watching the
flames, and preparing the tea, I thought: ‘I thank thee, I thank thee,
thou blessed tree, which once made my child happy, and will now make
her well!’
“The Christmas tree did not make Louise well. And since that time I
have not needed one—she was my only child.”
THE STEPMOTHER.
AN OPEN LETTER TO FRAU I. H.
There are ideas which affect the mind, as the touch of a spider feels
on the finger. They awaken horror, loathing, lasting discomfort. I fear
that the conception “stepmother” is one of them. The word is uttered in
our presence, and awakes in our souls a series of images, some painful,
some repulsive; on the one hand is the poor motherless child in the
care of strangers, meanly clad, ill-fed, scolded, beaten, burdened with
impossible tasks, who secretly steals out on Winter nights to its
mother’s grave, and there, with heart-rending sobs, calls to the
snow-clad mound the reproachful question why she did not take her child
with her, why she had left it alone in the world; on the other hand is
the wicked woman, toothless, blear-eyed, with hooked chin and nose,
which almost meet, fingers as bony as a skeleton’s, who is happy only
when she has devised some new torture, some new humiliation for her
foster-child. How have these images entered our sphere of thought?
Perhaps from fairy tales, perhaps from poems and stories, I don’t know
myself. Not from experience, that is certain. Most of us have probably
no knowledge of stepmothers, and those with whom we are acquainted do
not bear the remotest resemblance to the idea which dwells in our
minds. Yet the contradiction between preconceived opinions and the
reality does not impress us, and we do not think of correcting the
former by the latter.
The letter which you, madame, addressed to me a few days ago, for a
definite purpose and in which, with noble excitement, you demanded
justice for the stepmother, first led me to reflect, and I have now
become aware of my prejudices, my cruel injustice toward one of the
most meritorious classes of the human race. You are right, the
stepmother is a martyr. She is a sufferer, but no one pities her, a
martyr who never receives the reward of canonization, a tragic heroine
who never finds her poet. She has married a widower and enters her new
home, where she meets a beautiful, sorrowful orphaned child. Her heart
is overflowing with the noblest feelings. She will be a loving mother
to the poor orphan, will kiss away the shadow of premature grief from
the young brow! Fate was less kind to her than to her companions, who,
during the first months after marriage, saw only the bright side of
wedded life; pleasant wedding journeys, inexhaustible proofs of
tenderness, endless love tokens. She is obliged to learn, with the
pleasant side of married life, its hardest duties, for which nature has
given to others of her sex long months of preparation; she has become
at the same time wife and mother. But what of that? With the enthusiasm
of a young soul, in whom love for the child and the pleasure of acting
a mother’s part are a heritage of the female sex, she assumes her
sublime task; she surrounds the child with solicitude and tenderness;
she kisses it awake in the morning and sings it to sleep at night; she
talks to it, plays with it, never loses sight of it. Under this warmth
of affection the child instantly begins to flourish, as the earth
responds to the heat of the sun. It has the coquettish beauty of a
wax-doll, its cheeks grow rosy, its eyes bright, its little arms round
and plump, but no love beams in the eyes, the arms do not learn to
clasp the neck of the stepmother, and the little mouth does not smile.
The stepmother is puzzled, and begins to reflect. Before her mind rises
the scene when her husband first brought her to their future home and
introduced her to the child with the words: “Baby, here is your new
mamma; be good and obedient, and she will love you very, very dearly.
There, now, give mamma a pretty kiss!” She had bent over the child, and
while pressing it warmly to her heart a tear fell on its little fair
head. The child had stood motionless, with its eyes fixed on its toes;
it had submitted to everything, but without a word of affection or even
a kiss in response. This had chilled the young mother like an icy
breath; the husband noticed or felt it, and said: “You know how
children are; the poor thing is shy, she is so unaccustomed to see
strange faces. But she will soon love you as you deserve.” This had
satisfied her, and she believed it. But now a year, two years had
passed; the child must have become accustomed to the “strange face,” it
must have felt long ago that the “new mamma” loved it very, very
dearly! Yet it is as cold, as distant, as reserved, as on the first
day. The stepmother looks tenderly at it, it lowers its eyes; she
kisses it, it obediently offers its lips, but they are motionless; she
speaks pleasantly to it, it maintains a sullen silence. The stepmother
goes out with the child, everybody turns, admires its beauty, envies
the woman who has such a treasure. Alas, this angel has a joyous glance
for all except the stepmother, a gay, childlike laugh for every one
save her. The beautiful child is only lively in the street, out of the
house; at home it is sulky. Every act of kindness from a stranger is
eagerly and enthusiastically acknowledged, but the loving words of the
foster-mother find no echo; they die away with no more effect than if
they had been flung into the sea.
The stepmother, with deep sorrow, asks herself the cause of all this,
and can find no answer. Poor woman! Busily, untiringly you weave your
web of love around the heart of the child confided to you, and do not
know that behind your back an evil Penelope sits, raveling at night
what you have done during the day! First, there are the first wife’s
relatives; from devotion to the dead they are wicked to the living;
whenever the child visits them it hears itself pitied; it is told of
its mamma, not the new one, for she is not its mother, but the old one,
how differently she would have loved it, how differently she would have
treated it; it is questioned about the stranger’s acts, and whether she
treats it kindly. Then there are servants, governesses, foolish
strangers, who, partly to win the child’s affection, partly from
wretched sentimentality, which considers it noble and kindhearted to
roll up the eyes and express pity where there is no cause for
compassion—sing the same song to the little one from morning till
night. It never hears itself called anything but “poor child! poor
orphan!” It learns that it tells an untruth whenever it calls its
stepmother “mamma”; it is taught to play the spy, to suspect, to
dissimulate; it is robbed of the frankness and guilelessness of
childhood and accustomed to seek beneath its stepmother’s words
different thoughts, beneath her acts hostile motives. Poor child, in
whose mind distrust is roused ere the judgment is formed! The mother
denies it an apple because it has already eaten too many, and it feels
sure that it is her malice which prompts her to refuse it the most
innocent pleasure; the mother will not permit it to visit a friend
because it has taken cold, and the weather is stormy, and it no longer
doubts the enmity of this woman, of whom everybody tells it so much
evil. And now come Christmas gifts of fairy tales, which describe the
wicked stepmother who thrice poisoned Snow-White, and the other one who
killed her stepson and served him to the father on the dinner table,
and if the child has previously doubted, it is now confident, for the
book, printed, bound, and filled with pictures, cannot deceive! So it
learns to hate at an age when it is our fairest privilege to love, and
to doubt at a time whose happiness is implicit faith.
Can this criminal poisoning of the child’s soul remain without
influence upon the stepmother? I deny it. What can you expect? Even the
noblest woman is mortal, and she has a still keener sensitiveness to
the return, or the failure to return her feelings than the rest of us.
Categorical necessity was not created for women, it is hard enough for
men. To fill a bottomless cask was rightfully considered by the subtle
Greek the most terrible punishment which could be devised for women. In
the bitter conflict with constant ingratitude, even the strongest sense
of duty, the most self-sacrificing nobility, must finally succumb. We
can give love only when, in some degree, we receive love in return.
One-sidedness here leads finally to impoverishment, and at last the
stepmother really feels for the child indifference, possibly aversion,
or even hate.
When we have once reached this point what a tragic picture unrolls
before our eyes! When the stepmother married she made herself the
priestess, who was to erect a new statue in a deserted temple, kindle a
fresh flame amid the dead embers of a cold altar; she set herself the
noble task of becoming a mother to the orphan, creating a pleasant home
for a lonely man, bringing happiness and joy into a sorrowful family
circle. And now, after years of humble, but heroic labor and exertion,
amid which the bloom of her life has withered, here is the result; a
cold-hearted child, whose soul is filled with hate and who is
unspeakably poor and pitiable because she lacks the treasure of sunny
memories of childhood, on which we happier mortals can draw during a
long life; a husband, whose home is distasteful because he cannot
endure the silent reproach in the sad eyes of his child, and she
herself, the wife, tortured by the most painful sting, bitter grief for
a marred life, an object of aversion to her husband, her foster-child,
the whole careless world! Who is to blame for such mournful results?
The mother? The child? The father? Neither of the three. It is the
fault of the senselessness and malice of prejudiced people.
This is the way in which the stepmother’s life presented itself to me,
and I wish that the whole world could see it with my eyes. Only how is
the evil, when recognized, to be remedied? You, madame, would fain see
the books of fairy tales, with their Snow-Whites and wicked stepmothers
abolished, or rather you would like to have these stories omitted from
the volume. That would be desirable and useful, but I fear it is
impracticable. Man is weak and irrational, and I confess that,
notwithstanding its baneful tendencies, which I admit, I would not for
the world see Snow-White torn from my own childish memories. I am
afraid that it will not do to throw away, for the sake of stepchildren,
some of the most precious pearls in the treasury of fairy tales. The
wisdom and tact of the father, and the absolute sincerity of the
stepmother can do more for the child.
One thing is especially necessary: the woman who resolves to undertake
the thankless office of a stepmother must fully realize the magnitude
of the task and the measure of strength which she can bring to the
fulfillment of her arduous duty. She is to conquer a child’s heart,
which is defended by a strong garrison of hostile insinuations, and by
constant watchfulness guard it against continual attacks; she must
daily wage a fierce warfare against the stupid, the thoughtless and the
wicked people, in which she will continually receive aching wounds; she
must struggle and bleed for years, alone and unaided, but at last
victory will be hers, for in the battle against evil and injustice love
always triumphs because it is the strongest of the three. If the future
wife feels that her powers will not be equal to this conflict, then let
her remain away from the house where children await a foster-mother;
she would render it a hell for them and for herself. But if the goal
seems to her attainable and the road not too rough, let her confidently
take up the cross, for her reward will be rich and enviable. She will
work miracles such as can be wrought by love alone. The children will
gradually see the living image of the stepmother merge into the fading
one of the dead mother, and will no longer be able to separate the one
from the other. They will always hold the stepmother in grateful
remembrance as the angel whom God sent to the languishing Ishmael, when
poor Hagar could no longer obtain water for her child. Perhaps, in
later years, when the second mother has followed the first, foolish
people will speak in the customary way of stepmothers, in the presence
of the children, whose heads already have the snow of years. Then they
will—and, judging from your letter, madame, I think you, too, would do
the same—then they will look upward with tearful eyes to the portrait
of the dead stepmother, whispering: “Forgive them, for they know not
what they do!”
“PAS DE CHANCE!”
The dissecting room in the old Hôtel Dieu, in Paris, which was torn
down in the year 1877, was a strange and gruesome place. To reach it,
one was obliged to go upstairs and down, past the wards occupied by the
sick, through spacious, lofty vestibules, echoing corridors paved with
tiles, turning now to the right, now to the left, and across covered
wooden bridges, spanning the little arm of the Seine which flowed
between the two buildings of the hospital, and, after a walk of many
minutes, finally descend into the spacious subterranean chambers, which
were the most ancient portion of a structure erected many centuries
ago, and dating from the early part of the Middle Ages. On reaching the
foot of the worn stone steps leading to the dissecting room, one found
one’s self in a narrow, unpaved outer cellar, lighted by a grated
window above, and containing at one end a low, rusty iron door as broad
as it was high. A person familiar with the place opened this door by
turning a rude handle in the center, which moved a heavy, creaking
double-bolt inside, and entered a low vaulted chamber about fifteen
paces long and ten wide, which was very insufficiently lighted by two
square grated windows, which pierced the thick wall directly under the
vaulted ceiling, and which could be opened only when the Seine was low.
The cellars of the Hôtel Dieu were below the surface of the river, from
which it was separated by its strong walls, overgrown with moss and
blackened by age, and when it rose ever so little, one could look from
the lower portions of the windows of the dissecting-room several inches
into the turbid waves of the river. Usually several gaslights burned
here, filling the place with a bright glare, in which human beings and
all objects assumed unpleasantly sharp outlines and a livid,
disagreeable color, while dark shadows, like silhouettes, were thrown
upon the floor and walls. But it was a fitting illumination of the
place and its contents. The blackish-gray walls were always covered
with a clammy moisture, which, on the side facing the river, gathered
here and there into thick drops, that slowly, gradually trickled down
on the slippery, dirty marble floor, and suggested, even to the
observer least susceptible to sentimental fancies, the sorrowful
impression of tears, held back by a strong will, yet slowly oozing
forth. On the windowless side of the room was a wash basin set in the
wall, supplied with a faucet and waste pipe. Several pieces of soap lay
on it, and, upon a nail at the side, hung towels of doubtful
cleanliness, and a dilapidated yellow tablet which contained, in faded
letters, the rules of the dissecting room. On the opposite side six
tables were ranged in a row, above each of which a gas jet descended
from the ceiling; the first, of the usual shape, held a pair of scales
and a number of rusty weights. The brass balances, soiled with horrible
fat and blood stains, showed the purpose for which they were used—the
weighing of diseased portions of the human body. The form of the other
five was peculiar. The top was long, narrow, slightly concave, like a
trough covered with tin, a little inclined, wider at the upper end than
at the lower, where it was perforated by a hole leading into a metal
pipe, which discharged its contents into a tin pail standing under the
narrow end of the table. These were the dissecting tables, “Morgagni’s
tables,” as we used to call them in our technical jargon. Upon them,
surrounded by knives, scissors, chisels and hammers of singular form,
lay cold, rigid human forms, in which the disciples of science searched
with sacred curiosity to surprise, in the mysterious depths of the
organs, the secret of life. On the wall at the head of each table hung
a little blackboard, on which was fastened a label bearing the name,
age, and date of death of the body beneath. At the back of the
dissecting room was a glass door, opening into an adjoining chamber,
much smaller and lighted only by a single window. Two laths, painted
black, formed a cross extending from the floor to the ceiling on the
side wall, and several roughly-made coffins stood on the floor, which
was thickly covered with aromatic pine shavings. This was the death
chamber. After dissection the bodies were brought here, wrapped in a
linen sheet supplied by the hospital, and laid in the coffin to await
burial. If within the next twelve hours relatives came to claim the
body, it was delivered to them; if not, it was conveyed the following
morning in the hearse to the overseer of the poor, and buried in the
paupers’ ground in the cemetery of Père la Chaise. The only living
creature in these uncanny rooms, during the time when no dissections
were being made, was a beautiful white cat, which sprang gaily to meet
every one who entered and, mewing and purring, pressed and twisted
around him, and the master of the affectionate creature, a little,
thin, one-eyed old man, who coughed continually and had lived here
thirty years, yet in the midst of the scene of constant sorrow and
destruction, in which he worked, maintained so cheerful a spirit that
he was always humming a gay little song while preparing the bodies for
dissection, or washing, sewing them up, and wrapping them in sheets
after it. He assumed a serious, nay, even melancholy mien, only when
the relatives of any corpse came to carry away their dead, for during
the many years of his sorrowful occupation, the worthy man had retained
sufficient courtesy and consideration not to wound the feelings of the
mourners by displaying a face of business-like indifference or of
cheerfulness.
Most of the physicians and students who visited the Hôtel Dieu were in
the habit, at the close of the morning call, of going down to the
dissecting room to see “what there was new.” In the same way the
habitué of the theater, after witnessing the performance, goes on the
stage to cast a glance behind the scenes. One morning in May, 1877,
following this custom, I entered the subterranean chamber just
described. The cat was sitting in the corner, washing her fur, old Jean
was busy with some empty coffins in the death chamber, one of the
dissecting tables was empty, while on the other four lay subjects.
Around the first body, that of a strong old man, who had died of a
brain disease, stood a group of young people, some with white aprons
and blood-stained hands, others with hats on their heads, gloved hands,
and cigars in their mouths, eagerly discussing the ravages which the
knife had just disclosed, and the phenomena caused during the progress
of the illness. At the second and third tables the work was already
done. A hasty glance at the cruelly emaciated bodies and the organs on
the table sufficed to reveal the cause of death. “Consumption!” It is
so common a disease, the ravages it produces in the organism are so
often seen, that people do not linger over it. So I passed on without
delay to the fifth table, the last in the row, and perceived that it
contained a corpse still undisturbed, the sight of which instantly
filled me with sympathy. It was the body of a woman, very young, and of
remarkable beauty, whom death must have snatched away in the midst of
health. No long sickness could have preceded it, for the outlines of
the form were full, round, almost sensuous; illness had had no time to
caricature the noble lines of the figure by the ugly angles of
emaciation. The skin, in spite of the horrible chill which it sent
through the whole frame to the heart at the lightest touch of the
finger-tips, was as smooth and fine as velvet, and the hue so
dazzlingly white that it had the iridescent tints of mother-of-pearl.
The features of the oval face had assumed, in the last agony, an
expression of suffering which death had stereotyped. The lips were
slightly parted, revealing teeth which resembled transparent white
enamel. The dark eyes were wide open, and the dull, glassy pupils gazed
at me with the leaden stare of a corpse. The shining black hair was
gathered at the back of the head into a knot held by several pins,
which were half slipping out, and a few waving locks still rested
lightly on the smooth brow, as an unsuspecting little child plays
happily around its dead mother. The shadows of death shrouding the
beautiful form had not wholly effaced the bloom of youth. As it lay in
its chaste, pure, classic loveliness, one might believe that he had
before him a Greek statue carved from Parian marble. To examine the
body on all sides I walked around the table and, in doing so, made a
discovery which increased the interest already awakened by the mute,
rigid form. The right arm of the corpse bore on the upper surface
several tattooed inscriptions. I read in one line: “Marie Balok,” below
the date “1876,” and below this, in a third line, the words: “Pas de
chance!” (No chance.)
“Pas de chance!” It seemed as if these words contained the sorrowful
index of the hapless human life, which a few hours before had found its
pitiful end in a hospital bed. The label at the head of the table
informed me that “Marie Balok” had been the name of the body and that
she was not more than seventeen. Old Jean, in reply to my questions,
could tell me that the beautiful Marie had been brought to the hospital
the night before and had died a few minutes after. She was at a dancing
hall in the outer boulevards, and, from jealousy, made a furious scene
with a young man; in the midst of the outburst of her rage she suddenly
sank fainting; when they were unable to revive her by dashing cold
water on her and using scent bottles, two of her women friends put her
into a carriage and brought her to the hospital, where they gave the
physician on duty the explanation Jean repeated. The girl had died
without recovering her consciousness, and early in the morning she had
been brought down to the dissecting room.
This much the label and old Jean could tell me. But far more than
either was revealed by the words tattooed on the girl’s arm: “Pas de
chance!” I had before me the title of a biographical romance, and, with
little difficulty, read in the dim eyes, on the pale lips and
snow-white form of the corpse the romance itself from the first to the
last chapter. Marie Balok, her name proved it, was the child of
foreigners, who had come to Paris as ten thousand other foreigners do
every year to seek a more favorable place for the battle of life. Her
father was a workman in Belleville, or on the slopes of Montmartre.
Marie had grown up in dirt and poverty, played during the day in the
dust and the gutters of the streets of the suburb, and at night went
home to find a crust of bread and a pallet in the corner of the room
with her parents. She was ten or eleven years old when the insurrection
of the Commune occurred. Her father put on the uniform of the
insurgents, her mother followed the battalion as a vivandière or a
nurse. Eight or nine weeks passed like a whirlwind, and ended with her
mother’s leaning against a wall one beautiful May morning and being
shot as a petroleuse, and her father’s first being driven to Versailles
with blows from the butt ends of muskets, and then sent to New
Caledonia.
Marie was left alone in the world, without relatives or acquaintances,
like a young swallow thrust from the nest, which must perish miserably
in the dust unless Heaven works a miracle in its behalf. The beginning
of this miracle was apparently wrested from iron-hearted fate. Marie
neither starved to death in summer, nor froze during the following
winter. A family of work people, poor and wretched themselves, received
the still poorer and more wretched child, and gave it a seat at the
scantily spread table and a place on the floor of the bare room. It
learned to do something, sewing, embroidery, or flower-making, and soon
earned so much that it was no longer compelled to accept the favors of
the kindhearted neighbors as alms. Thus Marie spent several years until
she had become a blooming, beautiful girl of fifteen. People cannot be
beautiful, young, and poor in Paris, unpunished. A temptation sprang
from every stone in the pavement, and the finger of evil beckoned to
her at every street corner. Soon she no longer went to her work alone,
nor returned home without a companion. She found it inconvenient to
live with her benefactors, and one day left them to go to a garret room
in a shabby house in Montmartre, with a lover in blouse and silk cap.
Now, scarcely beyond childhood, she began to lead the life of a
solitary Parisian working girl. Toil during the day, in the evening a
ball, the cancan till midnight, blows from the friend, hunger, rags,
misery, singing and merriment, and withal, total forgetfulness of the
past and the future. If a friend carried palpable jealousy too far, she
dismissed him unceremoniously with a scornful shrug of the shoulders,
and sought another, with whom she remained until the vague, burning
longing for happiness and contentment, which filled her heart, urged
her once more into new and unknown paths.
It was in the summer of the year 1876 when, one Sunday, she went on an
excursion to St. Germain with the friend whom she was making happy by
her affection. These summer Sunday excursions to the charming places
near the city are the object of longing to all Parisian work-women, who
go fairly crazy with joy when they have the prospect of skipping about
on the grass during a whole warm, sunny day, gathering flowers,
catching butterflies, and singing sentimental songs in the arbor of a
country tavern over a bottle of wine. Marie had been gay to the verge
of recklessness all day long, had laughed and chattered and sung till
she was hoarse and thirsty; in the evening she found herself, with her
friend, in a restaurant of St. Germain; they were alone in the tavern,
and emptied one glass after another of the cheap wine of the
neighborhood. The friend, who had taken off his coat and rolled up his
shirt sleeves to cool himself, was tattooed on the arm like most Paris
workmen. There, in various colors, was a flaming heart, two hearts
transfixed by a huge arrow as if on a spit, and several names, dates,
and inscriptions, such as “Ever Thine!” or “Faithful unto Death!” Marie
saw these signs and figures, and a reckless thought darted through her
mind. “Tattoo my arm, too!” she cried, and the workman, bursting into a
loud laugh, asked what he should tattoo. “First, my name; so that I can
try whether it hurts.”
No sooner said than done. Some indigo was quickly obtained, Marie had a
needle, and the workman went to work at once. At every prick Marie
uttered a faint cry and shrank away a little, but in the pauses she
laughed and drank, and the workman did not stop until in large,
distinct letters appeared the name: “Marie Balok.”
“Shall I tattoo anything else?”
“Yes, the date.”
Five minutes after the date, “1876,” was inscribed beneath the name.
While the workman was rubbing indigo into the little wounds, from each
of which a tiny drop of blood was oozing, the landlord brought in a
fresh bottle of wine, and Marie soothed the slight pain of the
operation with another drink. The man eyed his work approvingly, and
then asked:
“Are you satisfied?”
“Yes, my dear fellow.”
“Don’t you want to add something to it? A name and a date—that’s silly.
We’ll make it more amusing. Shall I draw an emblem?”
“No.”
“Or a motto?”
“Stop, you’re right. A motto—that’s it. But what shall it be? Let me
think.”
The workman proposed some of the usual amorous phrases, but Marie would
not accept them. The usual relapse had followed the exuberant
mirthfulness of the day, and she now sank into a melancholy reverie.
Perhaps, for the first time in her life, she looked back upon her past
and found it miserable beyond measure. A wicked fairy seemed to have
sat beside her cradle. Every phase of her existence appeared to be
under the influence of a curse. Born in poverty, orphaned, growing up
in penury, living in shame, vegetating without a future, without a
purpose, without pleasure,—this was her past, her present, her future
destiny, and her eyes involuntarily filled with tears, as she examined
this dark, hideous picture, destitute of light and beauty. And when her
friend roused her from her sorrowful reverie with the exclamation:
“Then find a motto yourself, if you don’t like mine!” She condensed the
substance of her life, as it presented itself to her mental vision,
into a phrase which, in this application, lost its triviality, and
charged itself with profound desolation as if with electricity, as with
a sorrowful smile she said to the workman: “Tattoo Pas de chance! That
is the real motto of my life.”
No chance! It was not only the motto of her life, it was also a
prophecy. Poor Marie was to have no happiness to the end. Barely
seventeen, in the dawn of her young life, only a few months after she
had had the sorrowful, resigned motto inscribed upon her arm, she died
in a hospital bed. This was the story of beautiful Marie, as, standing
beside her lifeless body, I imagined it. Was it really her history? I
cannot warrant it, but it is probable. But it is certain that the
lovely young girl lay dead before me on the table, and that on the
pearly skin of her plump, nobly-moulded arm, as if written in blue,
phosphorescent characters by the finger of a malicious demon, were the
words: “Pas de chance!”
The dissection showed that Marie had suffered from a defect in the
valvular action of the heart. This explained her sudden death in a
moment of passionate excitement. I waited until all was over, the other
physicians had left the room, and old Jean came forward with his big
needle and coarse woolen thread to attend to the body. Now I closed the
beautiful Marie’s open eyes, still staring at me with a strange, vacant
glance, and slowly withdrew. As I closed the heavy iron door of the
dissecting room behind me, it seemed as if, from the last table at the
end of the hall, a faint, ghostly voice whispered in my ears: “Pas de
chance!”
HOW THE FOX HUNTER FARED IN ENGLAND.
Baron K. is one of the pleasantest young fellows I ever met. In fact,
he possesses the rarest combination of all the qualities which cannot
fail to make a man the favorite of every circle. He captivates women by
his twenty-five years, a handsome, slender figure, expressive dark
eyes, and a coquettish little moustache; men he wins by the chivalrous
frankness of his nature, and his heartfelt and therefore contagious
cheerfulness. He speaks several languages with great fluency, is an
admirable conversationalist, who would appear to advantage in any
Parisian drawing-room; he dances admirably, sings well in a fine
baritone voice, plays excellently on the piano, and does not easily
find a rival as a horseman, fencer or shot. Aristocratic birth and a
fortune which, according to Continental ideas, is considerable, placed
him from early youth in a position which enabled him to develop his
social talents and put his light into a suitable candlestick.
I made his acquaintance in London, in the spring of the year 1874. He
had apparently given himself up completely to the swelling flood-tide
of the “season,” and let it bear him unresistingly away. His days and
nights were spent at the clubs, in Hyde Park, at dinners, theaters, and
evening parties. He was rarely in any costume except a dress suit and a
white cravat, and if any one wished to be sure of finding him in his
elegant lodgings in Bruton street, he was obliged to go there between
five and eleven o’clock in the morning and feel no hesitation about
rousing him from his sleep. An introduction from his ambassador, Count
B., secured him admittance to the best circles, and there were few of
the most prominent families where he could not be found at least once a
fortnight, singing Hungarian folk songs, playing the czardas, and
awakening universal enthusiasm. The “nice Hungarian” often formed the
subject of very animated conversations between young and older ladies,
and once, when contrary to English custom, he appeared in the
drawing-room of Alderman Sir Frederick Fr. in the rich,
gold-embroidered uniform of a Honved Hussar lieutenant, he created the
greatest sensation, and even a young Tamil prince who was present,
attired in a gay silk caftan, with a girdle of gold brocade and a
cachemire shawl turban, in which blazed a magnificent ruby, could not
divert the attention of the company from our baron. Though the favorite
of so many circles, received everywhere with open arms, and loaded with
half a dozen invitations for every evening, Baron K. showed a very
marked preference for the home of Mr. George F.
The master of the house, a member of Parliament for one of the central
counties of England, is one of the most eminent sportsmen in the
country; he has broken all his limbs, and once very nearly his neck, in
fox-hunting, won the Queen’s cup at Wimbledon, was one of the champions
of his county versus the neighboring one, at cricket, fifteen years
ago, and if he did not conquer, it was only because he had the
misfortune of being pitted against the champion of the United Kingdom;
but to succumb with honor to such an antagonist is more glorious than
to conquer a Mr. Nobody. Mr. F.’s library contains all the numbers of
the Field bound in handsome volumes; he has a copy of the first edition
of Isaak Walton’s superb book on angling, obtained at an auction of
Christie, Mason & Co.’s for 115 guineas, and in his private reception
room, besides a fine collection of dog and horse whips and pretty
models of saddles of every form, the eyes are specially attracted by a
large number of fox brushes tastefully arranged, the most precious
trophies of as many hunting seasons, in which he took part as one of
the most esteemed sportsmen.
It is apparent that Mr. George F. is a sufficiently interesting person
for it to be perfectly natural that Baron K. should prefer him to many
others, but I do not believe that it was the master of the house who
attracted our friend so often to the elegant residence on Albion
street. Mr. F. has a daughter, a charming creature of nineteen, slender
and pliant as a reed, with the roseate complexion which Nature bestows
on English women in their cradles as an enviable gift and a national
inheritance, and sparkling blue eyes, into which one cannot look
without instantly feeling the most intense poetic sentiments. There are
satisfactory reasons for the assertion that Miss Bridget, not her papa,
was the great magnet of the F. household for our friend. The relation
between Baron K. and the F. family soon became one of great intimacy.
The young Hungarian and the beautiful Bridget F. rode together alone in
Hyde Park; in Drury Lane; and at Her Majesty’s Theater they were always
in the same box; in going to Ascot Baron K. did not fail to accompany
the F. family; in short, no one could doubt that their intercourse
meant something more than the mere acquaintanceship of fashionable
society. In fact, Baron K. had already made Bridget a formal
declaration of love; she had asked him, in the usual way, to speak to
mamma, at the same time assuring him, with a lovely blush, that she
would not fail to support his wishes, and papa had already taken one
step: he had closely questioned certain persons, to whom Baron K.
introduced him, about his family and his position at home. Fortune
played no part in the affair, for Miss Bridget, according to the
statements of well-informed people, was “worth 18,000 a year”—ten times
as much as the baron possessed.
The happy suitor now withdrew more and more from general society, in
order to devote himself exclusively to Bridget, he could already
venture to say his Bridget. He spent all his evenings with her, and
went to entertainments only when he knew that she would be present
also.
One evening, as had so often happened of late, he was taking tea with
the F. family. No one was in the drawing-room except the father,
mother, and daughter, and our friend. The conversation turned upon
sporting matters, and Mr. F. asked if there was any fox-hunting in
Hungary.
“I should think so!” exclaimed Baron K. eagerly. “Foxes are as numerous
in some parts of our country as hares are here! I myself shot five
specimens of Mr. Charley in a single day.”
“What?” cried Mr. and Mrs. F. in the same breath, the former starting
from his rocking chair, the latter dropping her tea-cup, while Bridget
could not repress a low cry of terror.
Baron K. was silenced by bewilderment, and a brief, painful pause
followed. He could not imagine what there had been in his words to
produce so startling an effect upon his hearers, and hit upon the
luckless idea that they perhaps suspected him of exaggeration. So,
after a few minutes, he added somewhat timidly: “You may believe me, I
have shot five foxes in a day and, in a battue, even more!”
“Oh!” said Mr. F, and made no farther comment. Bridget cast imploring
glances at the speaker, which caused him still greater embarrassment,
because he did not understand in the least, and Mrs. F. rang for the
servant to remove the fragments of the cup. Poor Baron K. did not know
what to think. He ventured to ask Mrs. F. what had startled her so, but
received only the reply, accompanied by an icy glance. “Oh, nothing, a
little nervousness, but it’s over now.” Mr. F. suddenly remembered that
he must read the long parliamentary report which had been sent to him
that day, and even Bridget remarked that she had a headache. It was
impossible not to understand. So Baron K. bade them good evening, and
retired, but was not a little perplexed when he saw that Mr. F. did not
shake hands with him, and the lady of the house did not, as usual,
invite him to come again soon.
The young man set out on his walk home with a heavy heart and a
whirling brain. He was in no mood to seek other society, though it was
only eleven o’clock. So he strolled about the park for an hour,
pondering with the utmost earnestness, with all his penetration, over
the incidents of the evening, yet without being able to obtain the
least clue to the mystery. It was barely midnight when he sought his
couch, but he tossed about in his spacious bed, which was almost as
large as a bedroom of moderate size on the Continent, until morning
dawned, without finding sleep.
The next day he reached a decision. He would go to Mr. F. and ask
openly, frankly, and without circumlocution, for an explanation of the
scene of the previous evening. He waited in feverish impatience until
one o’clock, and the hour had scarcely struck when, though not without
hesitation, he let the “knocker” fall on the metal plate of the
well-known door in Albion street. The footman opened it. His face wore
a peculiar expression as he said that—no one was at home. “Not Mrs.
F.?” “No one.” “Nor Miss F.?” “No one, sir. I’ve already said so
twice.” “And when will they return?” “Oh, that’s hard to tell. Not
to-day, nor to-morrow. Who knows.”
Baron K. cast a contemptuous glance at the lackey, and went away. But
he could not help feeling the bang with which the footman closed the
door as an insult. What was to be done now? He must have a clear
understanding at any cost. Entering a stationer’s shop at the corner of
Oxford street and Park lane, he wrote a few hasty lines to Mr. F. The
London mail is prompt and punctual. An hour and a half after, the
postman’s familiar double knock echoed on Baron K.’s door; the
housekeeper brought in a letter, which he snatched from her hand in the
utmost excitement, only to drop it the next moment, fairly stupefied.
It was his own note, on whose back Mr. F. himself had written: “Not
accepted. Return to Baron K.”
An hour after the poor young fellow was seated in the elegant reading
room of the Army and Navy Club, into which a friend had introduced him
as a guest for several weeks; he held in his hand the last number of
the Echo, but, instead of reading, he was gazing into vacancy. His
frank countenance showed mental agitation which even a dull eye could
not fail to notice. At this hour he was almost alone in the spacious
apartments of the aristocratic club, and, consequently, almost
unobserved. But he did not remain solitary long. One of his most
intimate friends, Captain W., entered, looked around in search of
acquaintances, and as soon as he saw Baron K. came up to him, shook
hands, and exclaimed loudly: “What brings you here at so unusual an
hour, old fellow?” But, glancing keenly at him, he instantly added in
an altered tone: “How you look! Are you ill? Is anything wrong?”
The other burst into a peal of angry laughter as he replied: “Not ill,
but crazy. If, perhaps, I am not already, I soon shall be! But Heaven
sends you to me; perhaps you can give me some explanation. Listen.
Yesterday evening I was at Mr. F.’s.”
“I know,” interrupted the captain, with a significant smile.
“Well, I was at Mr. F.’s. We were talking together in the pleasantest
manner about various matters; I told him that, in Hungary, I had shot
five foxes and even more in a single day—”
“What?” exclaimed the captain, sharply. “You mean killed!”
“Why yes, killed, shot dead.”
“Oh! I see,” answered the captain, in a voice whose chill fairly froze
the marrow in K.’s bones, and, without another syllable, he turned on
his heel, went to the next table, took up a magazine, and walked slowly
to an armchair.
K. looked after him a moment with dilated eyes and open mouth, then,
reaching his side at a single bound, he grasped his shoulder with a
trembling hand and fairly roared into, his ears:
“You too! This is an actual conspiracy! But you must give me an
explanation, you shall not escape.”
The captain looked at the excited young man before him with the cold
apathy of the Englishman, shrugged his shoulders, and answered very
calmly:
“I don’t wish to have anything to do with you, sir.”
The two or three men who were in the room began to turn their heads
toward the pair and, when K. continued to demand explanations from
Captain W. in vehement tones, the latter quietly left the apartment,
while the poor baron remained a prey to the most conflicting emotions.
He let himself drop into an armchair, buried his face in his hands, and
thought of nothing at all. But he was not to retain this position long
undisturbed. Scarcely ten minutes had passed ere a servant entered,
stopped before K., and, with a courteous bow, offered him a note on a
silver tray.
Baron K. opened it; it contained only the following words, very
hurriedly written:
“Upon an oral report made by Captain W., the secretary of the Army and
Navy Club begs to inform Baron K. that he shall not be considered any
longer the guest of our club.”
Baron K. did not utter a word, but convulsively crushed the note,
thrust it into his pocket and left the room.
He went directly to the embassy, where he found a young friend, whom he
entreated to aid him in an affair of honor. But the other, shrugging
his shoulders, said that he could not serve if the person to be
challenged was an Englishman. Besides, he must be on his guard, for the
authorities here understood no jesting in these matters.
Baron K. went out with his wrath unappeased; he had only one
thought—vengeance. Captain W. was an officer and a member of the Horse
Guards, he could not avoid giving him satisfaction. Without troubling
himself any farther about seconds, he went home and wrote a letter, in
which he challenged him to meet him with arms in his hands unless he
desired to be declared a miserable coward and chastised in the public
streets. The letter was posted, and Baron K. felt somewhat calmer. He
spent this evening at home, for he had a secret hope that Captain W.
would answer at once. But half-past nine o’clock came, the last double
knocks echoed and died away in the street, but this time none sounded
at his door. The next morning also the expected reply did not arrive,
but, late in the afternoon, he received an official document, summoning
him to appear the next morning at eleven o’clock before the Westminster
Police Court, on pain of legal penalties, etc., etc.
Baron K. went from one state of astonishment to another; he no longer
knew what to think of himself, the English, the world, and began to
feel really ill. Under such circumstances the hours passed slowly
enough, he naturally felt no inclination for society, and it seemed as
if, in the last two days, he had lived ten years, when, punctually at
eleven o’clock the next morning, he appeared before the alderman who
acted as judge in the Westminster Police Court. He had not long to
wait. First a cabman was condemned to pay four shillings and sixpence
because he had charged a passenger three pence too much, then Baron K.
heard his own name called. Advancing to the judge, he asked what was
wanted. The judge showed him the letter which he had written to Captain
W. and asked if he knew the epistle. K assented. Did he acknowledge
that he was its author? Another affirmative answer. Was it a jest, or
had he been serious in the challenge and threats which the letter
contained? Very serious, K. answered.
The judge then raised his voice, saying impressively:
“I ought to condemn you, for disturbance of the peace and dangerous
threats, to three months imprisonment with hard labor, but in
consideration of the fact that you are a young, ignorant, foolish
foreigner, unfamiliar with the laws of the country, you need only pay a
fine of fifty pounds sterling. You must, however, find two persons who
will give bail that you will keep the peace for six months, and you
must also keep in mind that if you utter even the slightest threat you
will be sentenced to hard labor!”
A few days after the incidents related, I chanced to meet Baron K. in
the Zoological Gardens, where, with a friend—an author who had traveled
extensively and possessed much experience of the world—I was inspecting
some animals which had just arrived. I thought that K. was greatly
altered and told him so. He laughed bitterly, and answered:
“Pray don’t ask me to tell you the reason, otherwise the same thing
might happen which has already befallen me twice.”
But as I urged him, he at last resolved to gratify my wishes. When I
had heard the story as I have just related it, I stood still and stared
at him in astonishment, as much bewildered as Baron K. himself. The
English author who was in our company smiled in amusement and, after
looking at the luckless young fellow a while, he said:
“Then you do not know that to shoot a fox, or to kill it in any way
except with a pack of hounds, horses, etc., is a far baser crime, in
the eyes of the majority of my countrymen, than to steal a purse? You
do not know that there is scarcely a gentleman in England who would
give his hand to a man who had killed a fox with a bullet?”
We certainly had not known it, but it was true. Baron K. was now a
wiser, but a sadder man. He left England soon after, and I shall not be
surprised to hear that he does not express the kindest opinions of the
island kingdom and its inhabitants.
WITHIN AN INCH OF ETERNITY.
The windows of the restaurant were open, and the cool, fragrant air of
the spring night was struggling with the smoke-laden atmosphere of the
room. A glance out of doors showed the azure sky and the brilliant full
moon, whose glimmering bluish rays shone through the young leafage of
the blossoming trees, which swayed gently to and fro before the windows
in the light breeze. But nothing was more remote from the minds of our
circle, which met every evening at a certain table for social
intercourse, than poetical ideas. The club, of which I was one,
consisted principally of worthy citizens, who had a far greater liking
for bright gaslight than for dim moonlight, and who appreciated the
charms of a good supper much more than the spell of the loveliest
spring night. The topic of our conversation was prosaic town gossip,
which, as usual, gradually merged into foolish talk about politics or
discussions concerning the Government, the theater, high taxes, and
similar subjects. By a connection of ideas which I do not now recall,
the question had arisen whether it was credible that a person’s hair
could suddenly turn gray from violent mental excitement. Part of the
company received the anecdotes current about such cases with slight
doubts, while others most pitilessly derided persons who were simple
enough to believe such nursery tales.
Just as the conversation became most animated, a man of unusual height
and herculean frame, whom he had not previously noticed, rose from a
side table and approached us. His intelligent features, which bore the
stamp of resolution, seemed spiritualized by the large, kindly blue
eyes. But the most striking peculiarity in his appearance was the snow
white hair and the gray beard framing his face, which, at the utmost,
indicated an age of only thirty-five years.
“Pardon me if I enter into your conversation,” he said, bowing
courteously. “You are speaking of a subject which greatly interests me.
I myself am a living proof that terrible mental agitation really does
exert the physical influence which you all doubt.”
His words awakened the utmost interest. We made room for him at our
table, and, after he had taken his seat, unanimously urged him to tell
us what had caused the whiteness of his hair.
The stranger feigned no undue modesty, but yielded to our entreaties
and related the following story:
“If you have ever paid any attention to American affairs, the name of
Auburn cannot be unfamiliar; it has about the same significance in the
United States as Spielberg has in Austria. You must not imagine Auburn
as an immense gloomy prison, a single large building, but rather a
whole colony of criminals, a metropolis of the miserable outcasts of
society. Inclosed by enormous walls, which rise menacingly to a
considerable height above the plain, are a great number of single
structures, houses which contain the cells of the prisoners, the
residences of the wardens, barracks, hospitals, and workshops, all
desolate and dreary, with here and there a bit of turf, a row of trees,
a bed of flowers, like an innocent memory of childhood among the evil
thoughts of a criminal.
“Circumstances which I will not weary you by recounting had led me,
after completing my education in my native city, Hamburg, to America,
and after a brief time in New York I found myself prison surgeon in
Auburn, which, as perhaps you know, is in the State of New York.
“I had charge of a part of the prison which contained the worst
criminals, men, or, rather, human hyenas, to whom blood had ceased to
be a very special liquid, as Mephistopheles terms it. Two, who were
condemned to lifelong imprisonment in the institution, and were
distinguished among the others by great bodily strength, craftiness,
and intelligence, had, in consequence of repeated bold and cunning
attempts to escape, been placed under more rigid oversight than the
rest. I had incurred their special hate because I had once caused the
discovery of several iron tools, which—heaven knows how obtained—they
had concealed under their clothing, and on another occasion discovered
that they were shamming when, on the plea of illness, they desired to
be placed in the hospital, probably because they hoped to find the
conditions there more favorable for their plans of escape. The
scoundrels were separated and heavily chained, but nevertheless one
morning one and, a few days later, the other vanished, chains and all,
without leaving a trace. About a fortnight afterward I went to Cayuga
Bridge on some private business.
“It was noon when I reached the end of my ride, and I gazed with
delight at the sunlit landscape before my eyes. Cayuga Lake, one of
those which, with Lake Erie, form the network of inland lakes, lay
before me in its peculiar loveliness. Between rugged, rocky shores,
confronting each other like sullen foes, the long, narrow sheet of
silver extended its clear surface as if striving to reconcile the two
enemies who had stared defiantly at each other for centuries. Across
the lake, which is about forty miles long, and, at this point, a mile
wide, the railway trains run on an immense wooden bridge, a marvel of
American enterprise, which has a station at Cayuga Bridge, an
insignificant village.
“My business was soon completed, and toward evening I set out on my way
home. Are you familiar with the pleasure of a ride on a summer evening?
Cayuga Bridge is surrounded by extensive oak forests, through which I
had to ride a considerable distance. The huge, lofty trunks cast long
shadows and the tops rustled so softly that one rather felt than heard
them. As I passed beneath these woodland giants, sweet memories of my
far-off home stole into my heart. Absorbed in thought, I loosened the
bridle of my horse, which trotted slowly forward. I admired the
bewitching blending of colors produced by the rays of the setting sun,
as they shone through the dense, dark green foliage and seemed to
kindle the edges of the leaves. Suddenly I was roused from my dreams by
a rustling in the underbrush on both sides of the road. I seized my
pistol and turned quickly, but at the same moment received a terrible
blow, which deprived me of my senses. True, I opened my eyes once more
and fancied I saw indistinctly, as if in a dream, one of the escaped
criminals bending over me, then darkness shrouded my mind.
“It must have been late at night when consciousness returned. I opened
my eyes and saw above me in the deep blue sky a radiant full moon. A
dull, heavy sensation in the back of my head made me try to put my hand
on the aching spot, but I discovered that I was bound hand and foot.
Gradually I collected my thoughts, remembered the attack by highwaymen,
and a terrible foreboding, which made my heart stop beating, darted
through my brain. I felt that I was laid across two sharp parallel
projections, which pressed against me most painfully and, listening
intently, I heard, far below me, a faint splashing noise. There was no
doubt—I was lying across the rails of the Cayuga Bridge, bound, unable
to move, with the terribly certain prospect of being cut into three
pieces by the next train.
“I almost lost consciousness again. But I soon recovered my composure.
Then I tugged desperately at my bonds till they almost cut my muscles,
shrieked, and at last wept like a child. I tried to roll myself into a
different position, and remembered that an incautious movement would
hurl me into the silent waves of the Cayuga—bound hand and foot,
motionless as a stone.
“I shuddered and lay still. But not long. The light of the large, to
me, fearfully brilliant moon, the plashing of the water below, the wind
blowing softly, then the deathlike silence again, rarely interrupted
even by the distant note of a bird—all became unendurable and inspired
me with unspeakable terror. And the rails! The rails! My senses
tortured me. I could not escape them. The wooden beams of the bridge
trembled almost imperceptibly from the washing of the water. I imagined
I felt the approach of the train and my hair bristled; the wind sighed
a little louder, I fancied I heard the dull panting of the engine and
my heart stood still, only to throb the next instant with such dreadful
speed that the pulsations were almost audible.
“There are some things, gentlemen, which are totally incomprehensible
to me; one of them is how I survived that night. One thought stood
distinctly before my mind. I must endeavor to work myself into another
position—if possible, get into the space between the rails—if I was
not, perhaps the next moment, to become the victim of the most
agonizing death.
“And I succeeded! I strained every muscle, every sinew to the point of
breaking. I writhed, I twisted, I panted, my head seemed bursting, and,
after tremendous exertion, which appeared to me to last an eternity,
though perhaps it was only moments, I found myself in the hollow
between the rails.
“Was I safe? I had not time to consider or rejoice in my new hope, for
all my vital powers were concentrated in the single sense of hearing.
In the far distance I distinguished, at first vaguely, then more and
more distinctly, the regular, monotonous, dull noise which is produced
by the engine of a moving locomotive. The awful silence of the night
merged minute by minute into the still more awful, confused jarring
sounds, the rattling and groaning, rumbling and panting of a
locomotive, which was rushing forward at the mad speed of American
trains. A thousand feet more, five hundred—all the terrors of the
infernal regions assailed me, but not a muscle moved; I lay as if
turned to stone. I tried to shriek, but did not even hear my own voice;
how should it reach those on the train?
“Now, for an infinitely brief space of time, I fancied that I saw a
bright light, a blast of hot air fanned me, then suddenly darkness
shrouded me, I heard a thundering roar as though the very heavens were
falling.
“Close, very close, barely an inch above, the monster dashed over me—I
was safe. Still half unconscious, I heard a deafening rumbling and
clattering, and saw shadowy masses flit by; there was another moment of
mortal dread—the hook of a chain which hung lower than the rest caught
me, dragged me along a few feet and finally tore a large piece from the
breast of my coat, releasing me—then every object danced around me, the
moon, the bridge, and the high bank whirled in a giddy maze above and
below me, and my senses failed.
“When I regained my consciousness I found myself in my bed, with
familiar faces around me. To make the story short, I had been picked up
the morning after that terrible night by a signal man, recognized, and
taken to Auburn. A violent fever kept me for a fortnight within the
shadow of death, but my strong constitution conquered. When, after my
recovery, I looked in the glass for the first time, I saw what traces
those moments had left upon me.”
The physician paused. His pallid face, the expression of horror in his
eyes, the perspiration which stood in large drops upon his brow, showed
how vivid must be his remembrances of the scene, and how greatly the
narration had exhausted him.
Gradually the breathless anxiety with which we had listened to the
story related with such graphic power passed away, and cheerfulness
returned.
Then we paced to and fro for a long time in the moonlight, in the
garden behind the tavern, listening to the doctor’s tales of less
harrowing experiences in the young land of liberty, wonders, and
adventure.
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