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THE COMPLETE WORKS of

THEOPHILE GAUTIER
Ifllume VI

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Arria iflJaroila

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Translated and Edited by

PROFESSOR F. C. De SUMICHRAST

DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH, HARVARD UNIVERSITY

NEW YORK

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ONE THOUSAND COPIES OF THIS EDITION
HAVE BEEN PRINTED FOR SUBSCRIBERS

Contents

Introduction 3

Spirite '* 13

The Vampire "259

Arria Marcella " 3 1 5

2227591

List of Illustrations

He remained standing . . . gazing ardently at

the figure of Spirite " Frontispiece

" Her head fell back, but her arms were

still around me as if to hold me" Page 288, Part I

*' She appeared to be filled with the live-
liest fervour " , " 205, «'« II

" She . . . fitted it very skilfully to her

leg" ........ . . « 338, " II

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SPIRT T E

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I ntroduction

SPIRITE " is a standing proof of Gautier's
versatility, for the subject of the tale is not
one that would usually appeal to his intense
love of plastic beauty. However, the possi-
bilities of spiritual beauty that must necessarily be
expressed in terms of earthly loveliness, and the at-
traction of the fantastic and the extraordinary, an
attraction he could not readily resist, combined to
induce him to try his hand at writing a tender, delicate,
ideal, and dreamy poem in prose. He succeeded, as
the perusal of the story conclusively proves, in creating
a very lovely and winsome character, that of Lavinia
d'Audefini, the maiden whose confession of love had
so often been on her lips in this world, and at last made
itself heard from beyond the tomb.

Gautier has admirably rendered the suavity, the
chastity of the young girl's unrequited affection.

SPIRITE

Engaging herself, she compels the sympathy of the
reader, and her charming apparitions are watched for
as keenly by him as they were by Guy de Malivert.

It was a very difficult subject to treat, but Gautier
proved equal to the task. His touch is delicate, his
feeling tender •, he has cast aside all thought of the
earth and of sensuality ; his conception of beauty,
which is ever present with him, assumes a loftier and
more ideal aspect. He manages to describe super-
natural happenings without arousing in the reader's
mind any doubt of his own sincerity and belief in the
truth of what he relates. Though he was not a
believer in religion or the supernatural, he felt the in-
fluence of mystery, legend, tradition, the picturesque
and the imaginative, and this excursion into the realms
of the beyond was a delightful experience to him. He
must have been grateful to Swedenborg, whose doc-
trines he had made himself acquainted with, for fur-
nishing him with such a novel and attractive subject.

He has not borrowed much from the seer. He has
adopted his theory of the intercourse between man and
the beings in the spiritual world, and has turned it to
account in the creation of a dainty and delightful love-
story. He accepts his theory of the necessity for man

INTRODUCTION

to repress the carnal side of his own nature and to
develop the higher and purer. It is on this that Guy's
future happiness is made to depend. But Gautier has
not sought, and wisely, to follow the seer in the
recondite theories of the nature of God, of Heaven,
and of Hell any farther than was needed for the happy
ending of his story. Gautier is not at home in the
mystic depths of the Infinite, and where Chateaubriand
failed, he might well fall short, for he had not the deep
faith of the Father of Romanticism.

But he has handled with much skill the various ele-
ments that could contribute to the interest of a tale
that Parisians were to read in the columns of a daily
paper. He has brought in enough of the life of
society in his day, enough of the worldliness and the
luxury that the bourgeois delighted in being familiarized
with, to make his circle of readers follow attentively
the fortunes of this mystic love affair. He has used
his art to paint a delicate portrait of an innocent and ,
pure girl whose heart has been given once and for all
to the man of her choice. Indeed his portrait of
Lavinia d'Audefini is one of the sweetest he ever drew,
and far surpasses in true beauty the richly coloured,
but sensuous descriptions of Musidora and Arabella.

i: 4: i: d: -k i: db tfci?

SPIRITE

Nor is the character of Mme. d'Ymbercourt sacri-
ficed. Of course she had to be subordinated to
Spirite ; her charms were to be shown inferior to those
of the disembodied being, and her beauty had to lack
the peculiar attraction that irresistibly drew Guy to
Lavinia. She had to be worldly, and to symbolise, to a
large extent, the society that had caused Spirite to
suffer so bitterly while she remained on earth. But
beyond that, Gautier has not depicted her disagreeably ;
the reader even feels a natural sympathy for the poor
woman when she finds herself compelled to give up
hopes of marrying Guy and is forced to be content
with the empty-headed d'Avricourt. In her case, as in
that of the other characters, including even the myste-
rious Baron de Feroe, there is a noticeable abstention
from the exaggeration of which the Romanticists were
so regularly guilty. The characters are more human
than usual, more genuine, more true to life, even
though so much that is supernatural enters into the
composition of the tale.

" Spirite " appeared in serial form in the Monheur
universe/, the opening chapter being published on
November 17, 1865, and the concluding one on
December 7 of the same year. It was immediately

INTRODUCTION

reprinted in book form, and many successive editions
of the tale have since appeared.

" Aria Marcella " is a very different piece of work :
it is the evocation of a past age, of a vanished civilisa-
tion, such as Hugo had attempted with brilliant literary
and artistic success in " Notre-Dame de Paris," and
Flaubert was to attempt later in " Herodiade " and
especially in " Salammbo." Mingling with this is the
legend of the Vampire, one very wide-spread throughout
Europe in the Middle Ages, and traces of which have
not altogether disappeared even at the present day. It
is, at bottom, the same subject that Gautier had already
treated in " la Morte amoureuse," which figures in this
collection under the title " The Vampire ; " but in the
present tale the idea of the blood-sucking woman who
seeks in the veins of her lover the means to renew her
youth and conserve her fatal beauty, is subordinate to
the restoration of Pompe'i in the days of its splendour, .
just previous to its destruction. The legendary and
mystical part of the story is treated but slightly, and as
if by way of justifying the representation of the now
buried city as it must have existed. It is the reconsti-
tution of the buildings and public edifices, the recalling

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SPI RITE

of a vanished civilisation, unlike that with which he
himself was familiar, it is the delight of putting
together his classical recollections and turning his read-
ing to account that has fascinated Gautier in this
instance. And it must be owned, even by those who
contend that all such restitutions as the one here
attempted are but vain and illusory, that the author has
managed to give at least a strong aspect of truth and
probability to the picture of Pompei which he has
drawn.

He had not the ambition to reproduce exactly the
city of old ; he knew that it is not in the power of any
man to do so, no matter how sound his scholarship,
how vast his erudition, how powerful his imagination.
He was content to give his readers a notion of what a
great Roman city was in the days when Rome was
mistress of the world, the centre of letters and art, the
metropolis of commerce, and the greatest exponent of
luxury and splendour. In this respect he has certainly
not failed, and his descriptions add much to the interest
of the story.

To the student of Gautier, it possesses the additional
charm of exhibiting the working of his mind, of his
imagination. The mere sight of the mould of the

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INTRODUCTION

lovely breasts of the girl, or woman, who died on that
fatal day when Vesuvius sent down the awful shower
of ashes under which Pompei disappeared for centuries,
sufficed to excite him to the invention of a tale that
has perhaps no probability, but which is undoubtedly
dramatic. It is further interesting as presenting a
contrast to "Spirite; " the feeling of plastic beauty, as
distinguished from the spiritual beauty of the story of
Lavinia d'Audefini, is very marked. Indeed, one may
say that in " Aria Marcella " Gautier stands again
upon his favourite ground and gives free play to that
sense of loveliness which, if too exclusively sensual, is
none the less a sense of real beauty.

"Aria Marcella" was published on March I, 1852,
in the Revue de Paris, having been announced under
two different titles — " Pompeia" and " Mammia Mar-
cella." It was republished in le Pays in August of the
same year, and then appeared in book form, in the
volume entitled " Un Trio de Romans," still in 1852.
In 1863 it was placed among the "Romans et
Contes," in which it has since remained.

Spirite

******* j:***^***********

S P I R IT E

A FANTASTIC TALE

*****************tk******
I

GUY DE MALIVERT was stretched out,
almost resting upon his shoulders, in a
very comfortable arm-chair by his fireside,
in which blazed a good fire. He appeared
to have settled down with the intention of spending at
home one of those quiet evenings which fashionable
young men occasionally enjoy as a relief from the
gaieties of society. His dress, at once comfortable and
elegant, consisted of a black-velvet, braided boating-
coat, a silk shirt, red-flannel trousers, and morocco
slippers, in which his strong, well turned feet were
quite at ease. His body freed from any disagree-
able pressure, comfortable in his soft and yielding gar-
ments, Guy de Malivert, who had enjoyed at home
a simple but refined meal, washed down with a few

1 3

SPIRITE

glasses of claret that had gone to India and back, was
in a condition of physical beatitude due to the perfect
harmony of his organs. He was happy, though nothing
specially fortunate had happened to him.

Near him a lamp, placed in a stand of old crackled
celadon, shed through its ground-glass globe a soft, milky
light, like moonbeams through a mist. The light fell
upon a book which Guy held with careless hand, and
which was none else than Longfellow's " Evangeline."

No doubt Guy was admiring the work of the great-
est poet young America has yet produced, but he was
in that lazy state of mind in which absence of thought
is preferable to the finest thought expressed in sublime
terms. He had read a few verses, then, without drop-
ping his book, had let his head rest upon the soft
upholstering of the arm-chair, covered with a piece of
lace, and was enjoying to the full the temporary stop-
page of the working of his brain. The warm air of
the room enfolded him like a suave caress. All around
was rest, comfort, discreet silence, absolute repose.
The only sound perceptible was an occasional rush of
gas from a log and the ticking of the clock, the pendu-
lum of which rhythmically and softly marked the flight
of time.

•4

SPIRITE

It was winter ; the new-fallen snow deadened the
distant roll of carriages, infrequent enough in this
peaceful quarter, for Guy lived in one of the quietest
streets of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. Ten o'clock
had just struck, and the lazy fellow was congratulating
himself upon not being in evening dress, stuck in a
window recess at some ambassadorial ball, with no
other prospect than the angular shoulders of some old
dowager whose dress was cut too low. Although the
temperature of the room was that of a hot-house, it was
evident by the brisk burning of the fire and the deep
silence in the streets, that it was cold outside. The
splendid Angora cat, Malivert's companion on this
evening of idlesse, had drawn so close to the fire as to
scorch its lovely fur, and but for the gilded fender it
would have curled itself up on the hot ashes.

The room in which Guy de Malivert was revelling
in such peaceful joy was partly a studio and partly a
library. It was a large, high-ceiled room on the top
floor of the building, which was situated between a
great court and a garden in which grew trees so old as
to be worthy of a royal forest, and which are nowadays
found only in the aristocratic faubourg ; for it takes
time to grow a tree, and the new-made rich cannot

SPI RITE

improvise them to shade the mansions they build with
fortunes that seem to fear bankruptcy.

The walls were hung with tawny-coloured leather,
and the ceiling was a maze of old oaken beams, fram-
ing in compartments of Norway pine, of the natural
colour of the wood. The sober brown tints set off the
paintings, sketches, and water-colours hung on the walls
of this sort of gallery in which Malivert had collected
his art curiosities and fancies. Oak book-shelves, low
enough not to interfere with the paintings, formed a
wainscotting round the room, broken only by a single
door. An observer would have been struck by the
contrast offered by the books placed on the shelves :
they appeared to be a mingling of the library of an
artist and of a scholar. By the side of the classical
poets of every age and every country, Homer, Hesiod,
Vergil, Dante, Ariosto, Ronsard, Shakespeare, Milton,
Goethe, Schiller, Byron, Victor Hugo, Sainte-Beuve,
Alfred de Musset, Edgar Poe, stood Creuzer's " Sym-
bolism," Laplace's " Celestial Mechanics," Arago's
"Astronomy," Burdach's " Physiology," Humboldt's
" Cosmos," the works of Claude Bernard and Berthelot,
and others on pure science. Yet Guy de Malivert had
no pretensions to scholarship. He knew not much

SPI RITE

more than one learns at college, but after he had
refreshed his literary education, it seemed to him
that he ought not to remain ignorant of all the fine
discoveries which are the glory of our age. He had
made himself acquainted with them to the best of his
ability, and could talk astronomy, cosmogony, elec-
tricity, steam, photography, chemistry, micrography,
spontaneous generation ; he understood these matters,
and sometimes astonished his interlocutor by his novel
and ingenious remarks.

Such was Guy de Malivert at the age of twenty-eight
or twenty-nine. His hair had thinned a little on the
brow ; he had a pleasant, frank, and open expression ;
his nose, if not as regular as a Greek nose, was never-
theless handsome, and parted two brown eyes, the
glance of which was firm ; his mouth, with its some-
what full lips, betokened sympathetic kindliness. His
hair, of a rich brown, was massed in thick, close curls
that needed not the hair-dresser's irons, and a golden
auburn moustache shaded his upper lip. In a word,
Malivert was what is called a handsome fellow, and
when he had made his entrance into society he had
met with many unsought successes. Mothers provided
with marriageable daughters were most attentive to

SPI RITE

him, for he had an income of forty thousand a year
and a sickly multi-millionaire uncle, who had made him
his heir. An enviable lot ! Yet Guy had not married.
He was satisfied with nodding approvingly at the
sonatas young ladies performed for his benefit ; he
politely led his partners to their seats after the waltz,
but his conversation with them during the intervals of
the dance was confined to such commonplaces as,
"It is very hot in this room," — an aphorism from
which it was impossible to deduce any matrimonial
intentions. It was not that Guy lacked wit ; on the
contrary, he could have readily found something less
commonplace had he not feared to become entangled
in the web more tenuous than cobwebs, woven in
society round maidens whose marriage portion is small.

If he found himself made too welcome in a house
he ceased to call there, or started on a long trip; on
his return he noted with satisfaction that he was en-
tirely forgotten. Perhaps it will be supposed that
Guy, like many young men of to-day, formed in shady
society temporary morganatic unions which enabled
him to dispense with a more regular marriage, but it
was not so. Without being more of a rigorist than
became him at his age, Malivert had no liking for the

i~8

SPIRITE

made-up beauties who dressed their hair like that of
poodles and wore exaggerated crinolines. It was a
mere matter of taste. Like everybody else he had
had one or two love affairs. Two or three misunder-
stood women, more or less separated from their hus-
bands, had proclaimed him their ideal, whereunto he
had replied, "You are very kind," not daring to tell
them that they were in no wise his ideal. Malivert
was a well-bred young gentleman. A little supernu-
merary at the Delassements-Comiques, whom he had
presented with a few louis and a velvet mantle, had
attempted to asphyxiate herself in his honour, but in
spite of these stirring adventures, Guy de Malivert,
entirely frank towards himself, perceived that having
reached the solemn age of twenty-nine, when a young
man turns into a mature man, he was ignorant of love,
such, at least, as it is depicted in novels, dramas, and
poems, and even as described by his companions when
in a confidential or a boastful mood. He consoled
himself easily for this, however, by reflecting upon the
troubles, calamities, and disasters due to that passion,
and he patiently awaited the coming of the day when
chance would bring to him the woman destined to fix
his affections.

SPI R I TE

Yet, as the world is very apt to dispose of you as
best it fancies and as best suits it, it had been decided
in the society which Guy de Malivert most frequented,
that he was in love with Mme. d'Ymbercourt, a young
widow whom he visited very often. Mme. d'Ymber-
court's estates marched with those of Guy ; she had
about sixty thousand francs a year, and was only
twenty-two years of age. She had suitably mourned
lor M. d'Ymbercourt, a crusty old fellow, and she was
now in a position to take a young and handsome
husband, of birth and fortune on a par with her
own. So the world had married them on its own
authority, reflecting that they would have a pleasant
home, a neutral ground where people might meet.
Mme. d'Ymbercourt tacitly accepted the match
and looked upon herself as already somewhat Guy's
wife, though he made no haste to declare himself ;
thinking rather of ceasing his calls upon the young
widow, whose airs of anticipated proprietorship palled
upon him.

That very evening he was to have taken tea at
Mme. d'Ymbercourt's, but laziness had mastered him
after dinner. He had felt so comfortable in his own
apartments that he had rebelled at the thought of dress-

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SPI RITE

ing and driving out with the thermometer at ten or
twelve above zero, in spite of his having a fur coat,
and a hot-water bottle in his carriage. He satisfied
himself with the excuse that his horse's shoes had not
been sharpened for frost, and that the animal might
slip on the frozen snow and hurt himself. Besides, he
did not care to keep standing for two or three hours,
exposed to the cold north wind in front of a door, a
horse that Cremieux, the famous dealer of the Champs-
Elysees, had charged him five thousand francs for.
From this it will be seen that Guy was not very much
in love, and that Mme. d'Ymbercouit would have to
await a good deal longer the ceremony that was to
enable her to change her name.

As Malivert, feeling sleepy in the warm temperature
of the room, in which floated the blue, fragrant smoke
of two or three cabanas, the ashes of which filled a
small antique Chinese bronze cup on a stand of eagle-
wood, placed near him on the table that bore the lamp,
— as Malivert was beginning to feel in his eyes the
golden dust of sleep, the door opened gently and a ser-
vant entered, bearing upon a silver salver a dainty
letter, scented and sealed with a seal well known to
Guy, for his face immediately clouded. The odour of

SPI R ITE

musk exhaled by the note seemed also to produce
a disagreeable impression upon him. It was a note
from Mme. d'Ymbercourt, reminding him of his
promise to come and drink a cup of tea with her.

"The devil take her!" he exclaimed most ungal-
lantly, " and her wearisome notes too ! Much fun
there is in driving across the city merely to drink a
cup of hot water in which have been soaked a few
leaves coated with Prussian blue and verdigris, while
I have here in that lacquered Coromandel caddy
caravan tea, genuine tea, still bearing the seal of
the Kiatka custom-house, the uttermost Russian post
on the Chinese frontier. Most assuredly I shall
not go."

His habits of courtesy made him change his mind
nevertheless, and he ordered his valet to bring him
his clothes ; but when he saw the trousers' legs hang-
ing pitifully on the back of the arm-chair, the shirt as
stiff and white as a sheet of porcelain, the black coat
with its limp sleeves, the patent-leather shoes with their
brilliant reflections, the gloves stretched like hands that
have been passed through a rolling-mill, he was seized
with sudden desperation and plunged fiercely back into
his arm-chair.

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SPIRITE

" I shall stay at home after all, Jack ; get my bed
ready."

As I have already mentioned, Guy was a well-bred
young fellow and kind-hearted besides. Feeling some
slight remorse, he hesitated on the threshold of his bed-
room, every comfort in which smiled invitingly upon
him, and said to himself that ordinary decency required
that he should send a few words of apology to Mme.
d'Ymbercourt, pleading a headache, important busi-
ness, an unexpected obstacle, in order to explain, with
some show of politeness, his not having called upon
her. But Malivert, entirely capable as he was, though
not a literary man, of writing a tale or an account of
a trip for the Revue des Deux Monies, detested writing
letters, and especially merely formal, ceremonious notes,
such as women dash off by the score on the corner of
their toilet-table while their maid is busy attiring them.
He would much sooner have wrought out a sonnet
with rare and difficult rimes. His incapacity in this
respect was complete, and he would walk from one end
of Paris to the other rather than scribble a couple of
lines. The thought of having to reply to Mme.
d'Ymbercourt suggested to him the desperate expe-
dient of going to see her himself. He went to the

SP I RITE

window, pulled the curtains aside, and through the
damp panes saw the darkness of night, full of densely
falling flakes of snow that spotted it like a guinea-
hen's back. This led him to think of Grimalkin,
shaking off the snow heaped up on his shining har-
ness. He reflected upon the unpleasant passage
from his coupe to the vestibule; of the draft in the
stairs unchecked by the warmth of the stove, and
especially he thought of Mme d'Ymbercourt standing
by the mantelpiece, in a very low-necked dress, recall-
ing that character in Dickens that was always known
by the name of "The Bosom," and whose white form
advertised the wealth of a banker. He saw her superb
teeth set off by a fixed smile; her eyebrows, that might
have been drawn with Indian ink, so perfectly arched
were they, yet that owed nothing to art ; her beautiful
eyes ; her nose, so perfect in shape and modelling that
it might have been reproduced as a model in a student's
text-book; her figure, which all dressmakers declared
perfect ; her arms as round as if turned, and laden with
over massive bracelets. The remembrance of all these
charms that the world had assigned to him, by marry-
ing him, little as he cared for her, to the young widow,
filled him with such intense melancholy that he went

SPI RITE

to his desk, resolved, in spite of the horror of it, to
write ten lines rather than go and drink tea with that
lovely woman.

He took out a sheet of paper embossed with a
quaintly interlaced "G" and " M," dipped in the ink
a fine steel pen in a porcupine holder, and wrote, well
down the page in order to have the less to say, the word
" Madam." Then he paused, and leaned his cheek on
his hand, for his inspiration failed him. He remained
for some time thus, his wrist in place, his fingers grasp-
ing the pen, and his brain unconsciously filled with
thoughts wholly foreign to the subject of his note.
Then, as if Malivert's body were tired of waiting for
the words that did not come, his hand, nervous and im-
patient, seemed inclined to fulfil its task without further
orders. His fingers extended and contracted as if trac-
ing letters, and Guy was presently much amazed at
having written, quite unconsciously, nine or ten lines
which he read and which were about as follows: —

" You are beautiful enough and surrounded by
lovers enough for me to tell you, without giving you
cause for offence, that I do not love you. It is
not creditable to my taste that I should make this
confession — that is all. Why, then, keep up an

2 5

SPI R ITE

intercourse which must end in linking two souls so
little intended to be brought together, and involve
them in eternal unhappiness ? Forgive me; I am
going away, and you will not find it difficult to
forget me."

" What is this ? " exclaimed Malivert, when he had
read his letter over. " Am I crazy or a somnambulist ?
What a strange note ! It is like those drawings of
Gavarni's which exhibit at one and the same time in
the subscription the real and the expressed thought,
the true and the false. Only, in this case the words do
tell the truth. My hand, instead of telling the pretty
fib I meant it to write, has refused to do so, and,
contrary to custom, my real meaning is expressed in
my letter."

Guy looked carefully at the note and it struck him
that the character of the handwriting was not quite like
his usual hand.

" It is an autograph that would be contested by
experts," he said, " if my correspondence were worth
the trouble. How the devil did this curious trans-
formation take place ? I have neither smoked opium
nor eaten haschisch, and the two or three glasses of
claret I drank cannot have gone to my head. I carry

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S P I R I T E

my liquor better than that. What will become of me
if the truth takes to running off my pen without my
being aware of it ? It is fortunate that I re-read my
note, never being quite sure of my spelling in the
evening. What would have been the effect of these
too truthful lines? And how indignant and amazed
would Mme. d'Ymbercourt have been had she read
them ! After all, it might have been better had the
letter gone such as it is. I should have gained the
character of being a monster, a tattooed savage, un-
worthy of wearing a white neck-tie, but at least that
wearisome engagement would have been broken off
short. If I were superstitious, I might easily see in
this a warning from heaven instead of a most improper
forgetfulness."

After a pause Guy came to a sudden decision. " I
shall go to Mme. d'Ymbercourt, for I am incapable
of rewriting the note."

And he dressed in a very bad temper. .

As he was about to leave his room, he thought he
heard a sigh, but so faint, so soft, so airy that but for
the deep silence of night he would not have noticed it.

Malivert stopped short on the threshold of his room,
for that sigh affected him as the supernatural affects

S PI RITE

the bravest of men. There was nothing very terrify-
ing in the faint, inarticulate, plaintive sound, and yet
Guy was more deeply moved than he cared to confess
even to himself.

" Nonsense," said he ; " it must have been the cat
plaining in its sleep." And taking from his valet a
fur coat in which he wrapped himself with a skill that
testified to long trips in Russia, he descended, very
much out of sorts, the steps at the foot of which his
carriage awaited him.

SPIRITE

LEANING back in the corner of his coupe,
his feet on the hot-water bottle, his fur coat
drawn close round him, Malivert gazed,
without noticing them, upon the strange effects of
light and shade produced upon the carriage window,
slightly obscured by the frost, by the sudden blaze of
light from a shop brilliantly lighted with gas and still
open, late though the hour was, and at the prospect of
the streets dotted with brilliant points of light.

The carriage soon crossed the Pont de la Concorde,
under which flowed the dark waters of the Seine in
which amid the sombre gleams were reflected the
lights of the lamps. As he drove on Malivert could
not help recalling the mysterious sigh he had heard or
thought he had heard as he left his room. He ex-
plained it by means of all the common-sense reasons
with which sceptics explain the incomprehensible.
No doubt it had been due to the wind in the chimney,
to some noise from outside altered by an echo, to the

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low vibration of one of the piano-strings responding to
the passage of some heavy dray, or after all it was but
a sound uttered by his angora cat dreaming by the fire-
side, as he had at first believed. This was the most
probable explanation, the most reasonable. Yet Mali-
vert, while recognising the logical soundness of these
views, was inwardly dissatisfied with them ; a secret
instinct told him that the sigh was not due to any of
the causes to which his scientific prudence attributed
it ; he felt that the soft moan had been uttered by a
soul and was no mere vague sound of matter. There
was at once breath and grief in it. Whence, then, did
it come ? Guy dwelt on it with that sort of question-
ing uneasiness experienced by the strongest minds
when they find themselves face to face with the
unknown. There had been no one in the room, save
Jack, a by no means sentimental person. The softly
modulated, harmonious, tender sigh, softer than the
soughing of the breeze in the branches of the trem-
bling aspen, was unquestionably feminine — it was
impossible to deny it.

Another thing puzzled Malivert — the letter which
had, so to speak, written itself, as if a will independent
of his own had guided his hand. He could not seri-

3°

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ously explain this away, as he had at first endeavoured
to do, by attributing it to absent-mindedness. The
feelings of the soul are controlled by the mind before
they show on the paper ; and besides, they do not write
themselves down while the mind is elsewhere. Some
influence he could not define must have mastered him
and acted in his stead while he was dreaming, for now
he thought of it he was quite certain he had not fallen
asleep even for an instant. He had certainly felt lazy,
somnolent, comfortably stupid the whole evening, but
at that particular moment he had unquestionably been
wide awake. The unpleasant alternative of going to
Mme. d'Ymbercourt's or writing her a note of
apology had even somewhat feverishly excited him.
The lines that expressed his real feelings more accu-
rately and forcibly than he had yet confessed even to
himself, were due to an intervention which he felt
compelled to consider supernatural until it was ex-
plained away by investigation or another name were
found for it.

While Guy de Malivert revolved these thoughts in
his mind, the carriage was traversing streets more
deserted, owing to the frost and snow, than was usual
in those rich and fashionable quarters in which the day

3 1

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does not end until very late in the night. The Place
de la Concorde, the rue de Rivoli, the Place Vendome
had been quickly left behind, and the coupe, turning
into the boulevard, entered the rue de la Chaussee-
d'Antin where lived Mme. d'Ymbercourt.

As he entered the court-yard Guy experienced a
disagreeable shock : two files of carriages, the coach-
men muffled up in furs, occupied the sanded space in
the centre, and the restive horses, shaking their bits,
cast the foam from their mouths on to the snow on
the ground.

" This is what she calls a quiet, informal evening ;
tea by the fireside. That is always the way with her.
All Paris is here and I have not put on a white tie,"
grumbled Malivert. " I ought to have gone to bed,
but I tried to play the diplomat like Talleyrand, and
did not follow my first impulse just because it was the
right one."

He slowly ascended the steps, and, after throwing
off his fur coat walked up to the drawing-room, the
doors of which were opened for him with a sort of
obsequious and confidential deference by a lackey, as
for one who would soon be the master of the house
and in whose service he desired to remain.

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" There ! " said Guy de Malivert to himself, as he
noticed the man's servility was more marked than
usual ; " the very servants dispose of my liberty and
marry me on their own authority to Mme. d'Ymber-
court ! Yet the banns have not been published ! "

Mme. d'Ymbercourt, on perceiving Guy advancing
towards her with rounded back, — the modern way of
bowing to ladies, — uttered a slight exclamation of
pleasure, which she endeavoured to make up for by
assuming an air of coldness and dissatisfaction. But
her ever smiling lips, accustomed to exhibit teeth of
irreproachable pearliness, could not form the pout
called for, and the lady, observing in the mirror that
her attempt was a failure, made up her mind to show
herself good-natured, like an indulgent woman who
knows that nowadays masculine gallantry must not be
overtaxed.

" You are very late, Mr. Guy," said she, holding
out a hand gloved with such a small glove that it felt
like wood when pressed ; u no doubt you remained at
your club smoking and playing cards. Well, you
have been punished for your remissness by not hear-
ing the great German pianist Kreisler play Liszt's
4 Chromatic Galop,' and the charming Countess Salva-

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rosa sing Desdemona's air better than ever Malibran
did."

Guy, in a few well chosen words, expressed the
regret, not very deep, to tell the truth, he felt at having
missed the galop by the virtuoso and the aria by the
society leader, and as he felt rather awkward at having
on, among all those people dressed up to the nines, a
black-silk tie instead of a white-lawn one, he tried to
escape and to gain some less brilliantly lighted spot
where his involuntary solecism in dress might more
easily be concealed in relative shadow. He had much
difficulty in doing so, for Mme. d'Ymbercourt kept
recalling him to her side by a glance or a remark that
required a reply, brief though Guy strove to make it.

At last, however, he managed to gain the recess of
a door leading from the great drawing-room to a
smaller one, arranged like a hot-house, with trellises
covered with camellias.

Mme. d'Ymbercourt's drawing-room was furnished
in white and gold, and hung with crimson Indian
damask. The chairs, arm-chairs, and sofas were
easy, comfortable, and well upholstered. The chande-
lier with its gilded branches was filled with tapers in
rock-crystal foliage. Lamps, vases, and a tall clock,

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all evidently the work of Barbedienne, adorned the
white-marble mantelpiece. A handsome carpet, the
pile of which was soft and thick like sward, lay under
foot. Superb, full curtains draped the windows, and
on the wall smiled, even more than the original, a
magnificently framed portrait of the Countess painted
by Winterhalter.

There was no objection to be made to this drawing-
room filled with rare and costly articles, the like of
which, however, any one rich enough not to fear
the bills of an architect or a house-furnisher, could
easily obtain. The commonplace luxury of the room
was entirely suitable, but it lacked distinctiveness.
Not a single thing indicated the individuality of the
owner, and if the Countess had been absent, the room
might as well have been that of a banker, a lawyer, or
an American making a short stay in the capital. Soul
and individuality were wanting. So Guy, naturallv
artistic, considered the luxury exceedingly vulgar and
disagreeable, though it was exactly the background
best suited to Mme. d'Ymbercourt, whose beauty was
composed merely of commonplace perfections.

In the centre of the room, on a circular divan sur-
mounted by a great China vase in which bloomed a

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rare exotic plant, — whose name Mme. d'Ymbercourt
had not even the least idea of, and which had been put
there by her gardener, — were seated, in dresses of gauze.,
tulle, lace, satin, and velvet, the swelling folds of which
surged to their shoulders, ladies, most of them young
and beautiful, whose fancifully extravagant gowns testi-
fied to the inexhaustible and costly powers of invention
of Worth. On their brown, golden, red, and even
powdered hair, so abundant that even the least sar-
castic could not help thinking art had been called in
to beauty's aid, sparkled diamonds, waved feathers,
dewy leaves showed green, natural or imaginary
flowers bloomed, strings of sequins rustled, darts,
daggers, pins with double balls gleamed bright, orna-
ments of scarabeus-wings glistened, golden bands were
crossed, ribbons of red velvet wound in and out, stars
of gems quivered on the end of springs, and in general
there could be seen whatever may be piled upon the
head of a fashionable woman, — to say nothing of the
grapes, the currants, and the brightly coloured berries
which Pomona loans to Flora to complete an evening
head-dress.

Leaning against the door-post, Guy watched the
satiny shoulders covered with rice powder, the necks on

SPI RI TE

which curled stray threads of hair, the white bosoms
occasionally betrayed by the too low epaulet of the
bodice, small misfortunes to which a woman sure of
her charms easily reconciles herself. Besides, the
motion of drawing up the sleeve is uncommonly
graceful, and the act of adjusting the opening of the
dress on the bosom so that it shall have a satisfactory
contour affords opportunities for attractive poses. My
hero was indulging in this interesting study, which he
preferred to wearisome conversation, for, in his opinion,
it was the most profitable thing one could do at a ball or
a reception. He glanced with careless eye at these living
Books of Beauty, at these animated Keepsakes which
society scatters in drawing rooms just as it places
stereoscopes, albums, and papers on the tables for the
benefit of shy people who do not know which way to
turn. He enjoyed his pleasure in greater security
because, the report of his approaching marriage with
Mme. d'Ymbercourt having gone abroad, he was not
obliged to be careful of his glances, formerly closely
watched by mothers desirous of settling their daughters
in life. Nothing was expected of him now. He had
ceased to be a prey. He was settled and done for,
and although more than one woman thought to herself

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that he might have done better, the fact was accepted.
He might even, without running any risk, have spoken
two or three phrases running to a young girl, for
was he not already as good as married to Mme.
d'Ymbercourt ?

At the same door where stood Guy de Malivert
stood also a young gentleman whom he often met at
his club, and whose somewhat eccentric Northern
mode of thought he rather liked. It was the Baron de
Feroe, a Swede, a fellow-countryman of Swedenborg's,
bending like him over the abyss of mysticism, and
as fully taken up with the other world as with this.
He had a strange and characteristic head. His fair
hair, falling almost straight, was fairer even than his
skin, and his moustache was of so pale a gold that it
looked like silver. His gray-blue eyes were filled with
an indescribable expression, and his glance, usually
half veiled by long pale lashes, flamed sharply out and
seemed to reach beyond the ken of human vision.
But the Baron de Feroe was too thorough a gentleman
to affect the least eccentricity ; his manners, cold and
even, were as correct as an Englishman's, and he did
not pose in front of mirrors as a seer. That evening,
as he was going to the Austrian ambassador's ball on

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leaving Mme. d'Ymbercourt's reception, he was in
full dress, and on the breast of his coat, half concealed
by the facing, shone, suspended from a fine golden
chain, the stars of the Elephant and of the Dannebrog,
the Prussian Order of Merit, the order of Saint Alex-
ander Newsky, and other decorations from Northern
sovereigns which testified to his diplomatic services.

He was really an extraordinary man, but the fact
did not at once strike the beholder, so well was it con-
cealed by diplomatic phlegm. He went out into
society a great deal, and was to be met with at the
club, and the Opera, but under his outward appear-
ance of a fashionable man he lived in mysterious
fashion. He had neither intimate friends nor com-
panions. In his admirably kept house, no visitor had
ever got beyond the outer drawing-room, and the door
that led to the other apartments opened to no one.
Like the Turks, he devoted to outer life but a single
room which he plainly did not live in. Once his
visitor was gone, he withdrew within his apartment.
What did he busy himself with ? No one knew.
Occasionally he remained invisible for a considerable
time, and those who noted his absence attributed it to a
secret mission, or to a trip to Sweden, the home of his

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family ; but any one who had happened to pass, at a
late hour, through the unfrequented street where lived
the Baron, might have seen a light in his window or
the Baron himself leaning on the balcony, his gaze lost
amid the stars. No one, however, was interested in
spying upon Baron de Feroe ; he rendered exactly to
society what was society's, and the world asks no
more of any man. With women, though scrupulously
polite, he never trespassed beyond certain limits, even
when he might safely have done so. In spite of his
coldness he was considered rather attractive. The
classical purity of his features recalled the Greco-
Scandinavian work of Thorwaldsen. " He is a frozen
Apollo," said of him the lovely Duchess of C, who,
if gossip were to be believed, had tried to melt the
frost.

Like Malivert, Baron de Feroe was looking at a
beautiful snow-white neck and back, seen in a slightly
bending attitude, that imparted an exquisite curve to
the lines, and which occasionally shivered at the tick-
ling of a spray of green leaves that had become partially
detached from the head-dress.

" A lovely girl," said the Baron to Guy, whose
glance he had followed. " What a pity she has no

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soul. The man who falls in love with her will share
the fate of the student Nathaniel, in Hoffmann's tale;
he will run the risk of pressing a lay-figure in his arms
at the ball, and that is a deathly sort of dance for a
man of feeling."

"You need not fear for me, my dear Baron," laugh-
ingly replied Guy de Malivert ; "I do not feel the
least desire to fall in love with the fair owner of these
beautiful shoulders, though beautiful shoulders are in
themselves nowise to be disdained. At the present
time, to my shame be it spoken, I do not feel the
faintest approach to love for any one whomsoever."

"What! Not even for Mme. d'Ymbercourt, whom
people say you are going to marry ? " replied the Baron
with an air of ironical incredulity.

" There are people in this world," returned Mali-
vert, quoting Moliere, "who would marry the Grand
Turk to the Republic of Venice ; but for my part I
hope I shall remain a bachelor."

" And you will do right," affirmed the Baron, in a
tone that passed suddenly from friendly familiarity to
mysterious solemnity. "Do not bind yourself with
earthly ties. Remain free for the love that will per-
chance come to you. The spirits are watching over

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you, and in the next world you might have cause to
regret eternally a mistake committed in this."

As the young Swedish baron uttered these strange
words, his steel-blue eyes flashed singularly and his
glance seemed to burn into Guy de Malivert's breast.
Coming after the curious events of the evening, the
advice was received by him with less incredulity than
he would have felt the day before. He turned on the
Swede a look full of wonder and questioning, as if to
beg him to speak more clearly, but de Feroe, glancing
at his watch, said, " I shall be late at the Embassy,"
pressed Malivert's hand earnestly, and made his way to
the door without rumpling a single gown, treading
upon a single train, damaging a single flounce, with a
delicate skill that proved he was well used to society.

" Well, Guy, are you not coming for a cup of tea ? "
said Mme. d'Ymbercourt, who had at last discovered
her supposed admirer leaning thoughtfully against the
door of the smaller drawing-room. Malivert had to
follow the mistress of the house to the table whereon
smoked the tea in a silver urn surrounded with
porcelain cups.

The Real was trying to win its prey back from the
Ideal.

SPIRITE

III

THE singular words spoken by Baron de Feroe
and his almost sudden disappearance after
he had uttered them gave Guy food for
thought as he returned to the Faubourg Saint-Germain,
carried along at Grimalkin's fastest trot ; for the horse,
though a thorough-bred, did not need any urging to
speed, the cold north wind making the return to his
warm loose-box with its comfortable litter pleasant
indeed.

"What can he have meant by his solemn riddles
spoken in so mysterious a tone ? " thought Guy de
Malivert, as Jack assisted him to undress. "De Feroe
has been brought up in the least romantic of civilisa-
tions ; he is sharp, clean, and cutting like an English
razor, and his manners, for all their perfect courtesy,
are colder than the Arctic. I cannot suppose that he
was trifling with me. People do not fail in that way to
Guy de Malivert, even when they are as brave as the
white-eyebrowed Swede. Besides, what would be the

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object of such a joke ? He certainly did not stay to
enjoy it, for he disappeared at once like a man who is
determined to say no more. Well, let me dismiss all
this nonsense from my mind. I shall see the Baron
at the club to-morrow, and no doubt he will then be
more explicit. Let me to bed and try to sleep,
whether the spirits are watching me or no."

Guy did go to bed, but sleep did not come to his
call, though he courted it by reading the most soporific
pamphlets, perusing them with infinite mechanical
attention. In spite of himself he was watching for
those faint sounds which are perceptible even in the
deepest silence. The rattle of the clock ere the hour
or the half-hour struck, the crackling of the sparks in
the embers, the creaking of the wainscotting under the
influence of the heat of the room, the sound of the
dropping oil in the lamp, the draft of air attracted by
the hearth and moaning softly through the chinks of
the door in spite of the weather-strips, the unexpected
fall of a newspaper from his bed to the floor, — made him
start, as at the sudden explosion of a firearm, so excited
were his nerves. His hearing was so tense that he
could hear the pulsations of his arteries and the beating
of his heart. But amid all these confused murmurs he

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did not manage to distinguish anything resembling
a sigh.

His eyes, that he closed from time to time in hopes
of inducing sleep, would forthwith reopen and examine
the recesses of the room with a curiosity not unmixed
with apprehension. He strongly desired to see some-
thing, and yet dreaded to do so. Occasionally his
dilated pupils seemed to perceive dim shapes in the
corners, which the light of the lamp, covered with a
green shade, left in partial darkness ; the folds of the
curtains assumed the aspect of feminine garments and
appeared to move as though they clothed a living body,
but it was all imagination. Blooms, luminous points,
changing patterns, butterflies, waving vermiculated lines
undulated, danced, swarmed, swelled, and sank before
his weary eyes without his being able to make out any-
thing definite.

More agitated than I can express, and feeling, though
he neither saw nor heard anything, an unknown pres-
ence in his room, he rose, drew on a camel's-hair
dressing-gown he had brought back from Cairo, threw
two or three logs on the fire, and sat down by the
chimney in a great arm-chair more comfortable for a
sleepless man than the bed upset by his wakefulness.

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Near the arm-chair he saw lying on the carpet a
crumpled paper. It was the note he had written to
Mme. d'Ymbercourt under the spell of that mysterious
impulse which he could not yet account for. He
picked it up, smoothed it out, and noticed, on examin-
ing it carefully, that the writing was not quite like his
own. It seemed to be the work of an impatient hand,
incapable of controlling itself, attempting, in the pro-
duction of a fac-simile, to copy the model exactly, but
inserting, among the characters of the original, loops
and strokes of its own. The aspect of the writing
was more elegant, more slender, and more feminine
than Guy's.

As he noted these details, Guy thought of Edgar
Poe's " Golden Bug " and of the wonderful skill
with which William Legrand manages to decipher
the meaning of the cryptogram used by Captain Kidd
to indicate enigmatically the exact spot where he had
concealed his treasure. He longed to possess the deep
intuition which can guess so boldly and so accurately,
which fills up blanks and restores connections. But in
this case not even Legrand himself, even assisted by
Augustus Dupin, of "The Stolen Letter" and "The
Murder in the Rue Morgue," could have managed to

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guess at the secret power that had controlled Malivert's
hand.

Guy, however, at last fell into the heavy, troubled
sleep which, on the approach of dawn, follows a night
of insomnia. He woke when Jack entered to relight
the fire and to assist his master to dress. Guy felt
chilly and uncomfortable; he yawned, stretched his
limbs, took a cold bath, and, refreshed by his tonic
ablutions, was soon himself again. Gray-eyed morn,
as Shakespeare hath it, walking, not o'er the dew of a
high eastern hill, but down the slope of the snow-cov-
ered roofs, glided into the room, the shutters and cur-
tains having been opened by Jack, and restored to
every object its real aspect as it drove away the dreams
of the night. There is nothing so reassuring as the
sunlight, even if it be but the pale beams of a winter
sun such as just then streamed in through the frost-
flowers on the window-panes.

Having recovered the ordinary feelings of life, Guy
felt amazed at his agitation of the past night, and said
to himself, "I did not know I was so nervous;" then
tore open the wrappers of the newspapers which had
just been brought up, cast a glance at the articles they
contained, read the news of the town, took up the copy

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of 41 Evangeline " he had been reading the previous
evening, smoked a cigar, and having thus whiled away
the time until eleven o'clock, dressed, and, by way of
exercise, resolved to walk to the Cafe Bignon, where
he proposed to breakfast. The frost of the early
morning had hardened the snow fallen during the night,
and as he traversed the Tuileries Malivert enjoyed
looking at the mythological statues powdered with the
white snow, and the great chestnut-trees covered with a
silvery mantle. He breakfasted on choice and care-
fully selected dishes, like a man seeking to repair the
fatigue due to a sleepless night, and chatted gaily with
pleasant companions, the very flower of Parisian wits
and sceptics, who had adopted as a motto the Greek
maxim : " Do not forget not to believe." Yet, when
the jokes became rather too free, Guy smiled somewhat
constrainedly. He did not share unresistingly in the
paradoxes of incredulity and the boastfulness of cyni-
cism. The words of Baron de Feroe, " The spirits
are watching you," involuntarily recurred to him, and
he felt as though a mysterious witness stood close
behind him. He rose, waved an adieu to his friends,
and took a turn or two on that boulevard along which
more wit travels in one day than in a whole year in

:fc & rk & & & & & 4: ^ & 4rtb tl? tb & & db 4: ie sb sb
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the rest of the world, and finding it rather deserted on
account of the cold and the early hour, he mechanically
turned into the Rue de Chaussee-d'Antin. He was
soon at the house of Mme. d' Ymbercourt. As he was
about to ring he thought he felt a breath sweep by his
ear and that he heard these words whispered very softly
but very distinctly : " Do not go in." He turned round
quickly, but saw no one.

" What is the matter with me ? " said Malivert to
himself. " Am I going mad ? Am I suffering from
hallucinations in broad daylight ? Shall I or shall I
not obey the injunction ? "

But when turning abruptly he had let go the bell-
handle; the bell had rung and the door opened. The
porter, standing in front of his lodge, looked at Mali-
vert, who hesitated about entering. He did so, how-
ever, although he did not feel much like it after the
supernatural incident which had just occurred. Mme.
d'Ymbercourt received him in the small drawing-room,
decorated in buttercup yellow and blue ornaments, in
which she received her morning callers. That par-
ticular shade of yellow was especially unpleasant to
Guy. "Yellow is the favourite colour of brunettes,"
had replied the Countess to Malivert, who had more

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than once allowed himself to ask for the removal or
the odious colour.

Mme. d'Ymbercourt wore a skirt of black taffeta
with a jacket of brilliant colour braided and covered
with more jet and embroidery than a maja going to a
bull-fight or a ferla ever put on her bodice. The
Countess, although a woman of the world, was foolish
enough to allow dressmakers to clothe her in costumes
worn only by the rosy-cheeked and small-mouthed dolls
of fashion-plates.

Contrary to her habit, Mme. d'Ymbercourt seemed
to be seiious; a shade of annoyance darkened her
usually serene brow, while the corners of her mouth
were drawn down. One of her kind friends had just
left her and had asked her, with the feigned naturalness
of women on such occasions, when her marriage to
Guy de Malivert was to take place. The Countess
had blushed, stammered, and replied evasively that it
would soon come off, though Guy, whom every one
destined to be her husband, had never asked for her
hand or even formally declared himself, — a fact attrib-
uted by Mme. d'Ymbercourt to respectful timidity
and partly perhaps to that feeling of uncertainty'
which every young man experiences when on the

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point of giving up bachelor life. But she felt quite
sure that he would speak ere long, and she looked upon
herself already as his bride ; so much so that she had
determined upon the changes which the entrance of a
husband into her mansion would necessitate. More
than once she had said to herself, as she looked at
certain rooms : " This shall be Guy's room ; this
his study, and this his smoking-room."

Although he did not much care for her, Guy
could not help acknowledging that Mme. d'Ymber-
court was endowed with regular beauty, enjoyed an
umblemished character, and was possessed of a con-
siderable fortune. He had let himself drift, without
being particularly attracted, and like all people who
are heart-whole, into frequenting this house where
he was received more cordially than anywhere else,
and he returned to it because, if he were absent
for a few days, an engagingly amiable note compelled
him to do so.

Besides, there was no reason why he should not
return to it. Mme. d'Ymbercourt received the best of
society and he occasionally met there friends whom it
would not have been quite so convenient to seek out
in the busy life of Paris.

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" You seem a little out of sorts," said Malivert to
the Countess ; "did your green tea give you a sleepless
night ? "

" No, indeed. I put so much cream into it that it
loses all its strength. Besides I am the Mithridates of
tea ; it has ceased to affect me. The truth is, I am
annoyed."

" Have I come at the wrong time, or have I upset
some of your plans ? In that case I hasten to with-
draw, and we can take it that finding you were out I
left my card at your lodge-gate."

" You are not the least in the way, and you know
very well that it is always a pleasure to me to see
you," answered the Countess. " Your visits, though
I ought not to say it, even seem to me rather
infrequent, though others are not of the same opinion."

"Yet you are unencumbered with troublesome
relatives, talkative uncles, and chaperon aunts who
embroider in the window recess. Kind nature has
relieved you of the collection of disagreeable relatives
who too often surround a pretty woman, and has
left you their inheritances only. You may receive
whom you please, for you are not dependent on any
one."

SPIRITE

"That is true," replied Mme. d'Ymbercourt. "I
do not depend on any one, yet I am responsible to
every one. A woman is never wholly or really free,
even when a widow and apparently mistress of her
actions. A whole police force of interested people sur-
rounds and watches her, and interferes in her affairs.
So, my dear Guy, you compromise me."

" I ? — compromise you ? " exclaimed Malivert with
sincere surprise, that betokened a modesty quite uncom-
mon in young men not over twenty-eight years of age,
who have their clothes made by Renouard and send to
England for their trousers. " Why should I compro-
mise you, rather than d'Aversac, Beaumont, Janowski,
and de Feroe, each and all of whom are exceedingly
attentive to you ? "

" That is more than I can tell you," replied the
Countess. " Perhaps without knowing it you are a
dangerous man, or society has perceived in you some
power of which you are yourself ignorant. None of
the names you have mentioned have been connected
with mine ; people seem to think it quite natural that
these gentlemen should call on me on my dav at home,
that they should call every now and then between five
and six on their return from the Bois, and should drop

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in on me in my box at the Bouffes or the Opera. But
these very actions, innocent in themselves, assume,
it appears, when performed by you, a tremendous
meaning."

" And yet I am the steadiest fellow in the world,
and have never given cause for gossip. I do not wear
a blue frock coat like Werther, nor a slashed doublet
like Don Juan. No one has ever surprised me playing
the guitar under a balcony ; I never go to the races in
a four-in-hand with questionable women in loud dresses,
and never, at any evening party, do I discuss senti-
mental questions in the presence of pretty women for
the purpose of drawing attention to the purity and
delicacy of my feelings. I am never seen posing
against a pillar, one hand in my vest, gazing in
silence, with a sombre, woebegone look, at some fair
girl with long ringlets, like Alfred de Vigny's Kitty
Bell. Nor do I wear hair rings, or a sachet round my
neck in which I preserve Parma violets given me by
4 her.' My most secret drawers might be searched
without a single portrait of a fair or a dark beauty
being found in them ; nor even a bundle of scented
notes tied with ribbon or a rubber band ; not even an
embroidered slipper, a mask edged with lace, or any of

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the trifles which compose the secret collections of
lovers. Frankly, do I look like a lady-killer ? "

"You are very modest," replied Mme. d'Ymber-
court, " or else you are trying to make out that you
are very artless. Unfortunately, everybody does not
agree with you. Objection is raised to the attentions
you pay me, although for my part I see nothing to
object to in them.'''

" In that case," returned Malivert, " I shall call less
frequently. I shall not come more than once a fort-
night or once a month, and then I shall start on a
trip. But positively I do not know where to go. I
have been to Spain, Italy, Russia, Germany. Well, I
might go to Greece, for it is considered sinful not to
have seen Athens, the Acropolis and the Parthenon. I
could go by way of Marseilles or board an Austrian
Lloyds' steamer at Trieste. They call at Corfu, and
on the way one sees Ithaca soli occidenti bene objacentem,
basking in the setting sun now as in the days of Homer.
They go to the head of the Gulf of Lepanto. Then
you cross the Isthmus, and you can see the remains of
Corinth, which not every one was allowed to enter.
You get on board another steamer and in a few hours
you reach the Piraeus. Beaumont told me all about it.

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He started a fanatical Romanticist, but he got metope
on the brain there and will not hear of cathedrals now.
He has turned into a confirmed Classicist, and maintains
that since the days of the Greeks humanity has gone
back to barbarism and that our boasted civilisation is
but a form of decadence."

Mme. d'Ymbercourt did not feel particularly flattered
by this lyrical outburst of geographical knowledge, and
thought Malivert was much too ready to avoid compro-
mising her. She did not desire him to care for her
reputation by running away.

" No one wants you to go to Greece," she said.
And, with a faint blush and an imperceptible trembling
of the voice, " Is there not a simpler way of putting
an end to all this gossip than leaving your friends and
venturing into a country that is by no means safe,
if we are to believe Edmond About's 1 King of the
Mountains ' ? "

Fearing lest she had spoken too plainly, the Coun-
tess flushed more deeply than before. Her breath
came quick and short, and made the jet ornaments on
her bodice glitter and rustle; regaining her courage,
she looked at Malivert with eyes that a touch of emo-
tion made absolutely beautiful. She loved Guy, her

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silent admirer, as much as it was in her nature to love
any one. She liked the neat yet careless way in which
he tied his cravat, and with the deep logic of women,
a logic the deductions of which are often unintelligible
to the subtlest of philosophers, she had inferred from
that tie that Malivert possessed all the qualities needed
in an excellent husband. The trouble was that the
intended husband was strolling very slowly indeed
towards the altar and seemed in no hurry to light the
hymeneal torches.

Guy perfectly understood Mme. d'Ymbercourt's
meaning, but he more than ever dreaded uttering im-
prudent words that might bind him, so he answered :
" No doubt, no doubt ; a trip breaks off matters com-
pletely, and when one returns it is easier to see what
should be done."

On hearing this cold and indefinite reply the Countess
allowed a gesture of annoyance to escape her, and bit
her lips. Guy, very much embarrassed, kept silence,
and the situation was becoming unbearable when the
footman relieved the strain by announcing Baron de
Feroe.

SPIRITE

ON seeing the Swedish baron enter, Malivert
uttered an irrepressible sigh of content, and
cast a look of gratitude at M. de Feroe, for
he had never been so glad to see any one. But for
this opportune interruption Guy would have found
himself in a very embarrassing position. He was
bound to answer Mme. d'Ymbercourt plainly, and yet
he hated nothing so much as formal explanations ; he
always preferred to act rather than promise, and even
in matters of little moment he was very wary of pledg-
ing himself in any way. The glance which Mme.
d'Ymbercourt cast upon the visitor was not as kindly
as Malivert's, and did not good breeding teach dissimu-
lation, reproach, impatience, and anger might easily
have been read in her look. The Baron's unseason-
able intrusion deprived her of an opportunity that
would not soon recur and that her self-respect would
scarcely allow her to bring about, for it was certain
that Guy would not seek it, and, indeed would carefully

SPIRITE

avoid it. Although on most occasions Guy was a man
of resolution and courage, he dreaded any step that
might settle his life in any way. He was talented
enough to succeed in any career, but he had deliberately
avoided making any choice lest it should prove to be
the wrong one. He was not known to entertain any
attachment for any woman ; though the habit he had
got into of calling frequently on the Countess had led
to the supposition that the pair were thinking of mar-
riage. He mistrusted any kind of bond or obligation,
and it seemed as though, urged by a secret instinct, he
was trying to keep himself free for some future event.

After having exchanged a few preliminary common-
places, chords forming a prelude to conversation, like
those struck on the piano before beginning a piece,
Baron de Feroe, by a transition of the kind that in a
couple of sentences make you pass from the fall of
Nineveh to the last win of " Gladiator," entered upon
an esthetic and transcendental dissertation on Wag-
ner's most abstruse operas, — "The Flying Dutchman,"
" Lohengrin," " Tristan and Isolde." Mme. d'Ymber-
court, although a remarkable pianist, did not under-
stand music, and especially such deep, mysterious,
complex music as Wagner's, whose " Tannhauser "

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gave rise to such fierce discussions in France. While
working at a strip of embroidery she had taken from
a basket placed near the arm-chair she usually occu-
pied, she replied from time to time to the enthusiastic
analyses of the Baron, urging the commonplace objec-
tions always brought up against any new form of music,
and which were once made to Rossini's compositions
as well as to Wagner's, such as lack of rhythm and of
melody, obscurity, excessive use of brass instruments,
inextricably complicated orchestration, deafening noise,
and finally the material impossibility of performing the
compositions.

" Your discussion is too deep for me, who am simply
an ignoramus in the matter of music. I am moved
by what strikes me as beautiful ; I admire Beethoven
and even Verdi, though it is no longer fashionable to
do so, now that one has to be a partisan, as in the days
of the rivalry between Gluck and Piccini, when one
had to elect to side with the King or with the Queen.
So I shall leave you two to fight it out, for I cannot
throw any light on the question, and at most I can put
in a Hem! Hem! like the Minorite whom Moliere
and Chapelle chose for arbiter in a discussion on a
point in philosophy."

SPIRITE

With these words Guy de Malivert rose to take
leave and shook hands with Mme. d'Ymbercourt,
whose glance said, as plainly as feminine reserve per-
mitted, " Stay," and followed him to the door with
a sadness that would no doubt have touched him had
he seen it; but Guy's attention was engrossed by the
quietly imperious expression of the Swede, which
seemed to say : " Do not again expose yourself to
the peril from which I have rescued you."

When he found himself in the street, he thought,
with some feeling of dread, of the supernatural warning
he had received as he was about to enter Mme.
d'Ymbercourt's house, and of the call made by Baron
de Feroe, a call which coincided in the most singular
way with Guy's disregard of the mysterious warning.
The Baron seemed to have been sent to his assistance
by the occult powers of whose presence around him he
was vaguely conscious. Although Guy de Malivert
was not systematically incredulous or sceptical, he yet
found it hard to bring himself to believe in spirit influ-
ences, and he had never indulged in the fantasies of
table-turning and spirit-rapping. He felt indeed a sort
of repulsion for experiments intended to exploit the

marvellous, and he had refused to go to see the famous
_

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SPIRITE

Home, whom all Paris went crazy over for a season.
Until the previous evening he had led a careless
bachelor life, fairly satisfied on the whole with being
alive, and feeling that he was cutting by no means a
bad figure in the world; thinking of material things
only, and not troubling to ascertain whether or not the
earth carried with it, in its daily circling round the sun,
a world peopled with invisible and impalpable beings.
But he was compelled to own to himself that a change
had come over his life ; that a new element, unsought
by him, was seeking to enter into his hitherto peaceful
existence, from which he had carefully excluded all
possible disturbing causes. So far it was not much : a
sigh as soft as the breathing of an ^olian harp, a
thought substituted for his own in a letter written
mechanically, a word or two whispered in his ear, his
meeting with a solemn, mysterious-looking Sweden-
borgian Baron. It was plain, nevertheless, that a spirit
was circling round him qucerens quern devoret, as the
eternal wisdom of the Bible has it.

While thus ruminating Guy de Malivert had reached
the great open space in the Champs-Elysees without
having in the least intended to go in that direction rather
than in any other. His body had borne him thither,

SPIRITE

and he had allowed it to have its way. There were
not many people there. A few of those obstinate per-
sons who insist — for hygienic reasons — on exercising
at all times of the year, and who cut holes in the ice in
order to get their bath, were returning from the Bois de
Boulogne, their noses blue and their cheeks purple with
cold, riding horses with kneecaps. Two or three of
them waved a greeting to Guy, and he even received,
though he was on foot, a gracious smile from a lady in
an open carriage, and wrapped in costly Russian furs.

" As I happen to be the whole of the public, my
attention and admiration are worth having," thought
Malivert. " In summer I should not have received
such a bow. But what am I doing here ? This is not
the time of year to dine in an arbour with some lively
girl, and besides I do not feel particularly gay. All
the same the sun is setting behind the Arc de l'Etoile,
and it is time to think of satisfying the inner man."

Malivert was right. The great arch of the Trium-
phal Gate framed in a mass of clouds heaped up in
strange fashion, their edges brilliant with a foam of
light. The evening breeze, as it set them in motion,
imparted to them a sort of life, and it would have been
easy to make out figures and groups in the dark mass

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SPIRITE

of vapours through which flashed the sunbeams, just as
in those drawings of Dore's where the fancies that fill
the minds of the characters are reflected on the clouds,
making the Wandering Jew see Christ toiling up
Calvary, and Don Quixote behold knights tilting with
enchanters. Malivert thought he saw angels with great
wings of flame soaring over a swarming multitude of
indistinct beings that moved to and fro on a bank of
black clouds, like a sombre promontory jutting out
into a phosphorescent sea. Occasionally one of the
lower figures broke away from its companions and rose
towards the lighted regions, traversing the red disk of
the sun. On reaching the higher spheres, it flew for a
moment by the side of one of the angels and then
melted into the universal glow. No doubt fancy had
much to do with the ever changing combinations, and
of a cloud picture may be said, in the words of Ham-
let to Polonius : " Do you see yonder cloud that 's
almost in shape of a camel ? . . . Or like a whale ? "
And in either case one may answer affirmatively, with-
out necessarily being an imbecile courtier.

Night coming on put an end to the vaporous fanci-
fulness, and the gas lamps, as they were lighted, soon
traced, from the Place de la Concorde to the Arc de

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SPIRITE

l'Etoile, the two lines of fire, so magical in effect,
which delight the wondering strangers who enter Paris
at night by that triumphal avenue. Guy hailed a pass-
ing cab, on the look-out for a fare, and had himself
driven to the rue de Choiseul, where his club was situ-
ated. Leaving his overcoat to the care of the liveried
servants in the vestibule, he glanced over the book in
which members put down their names for dinner, and
noted with satisfaction that it contained Baron de
Feroe's. He wrote his own below, traversed the bil-
liard room, where the marker was sadly waiting until it
should please some one to indulge in a game, and
several other high-ceiled rooms, spacious and furnished
with every modern comfort, — the temperature kept at
an even warmth by a huge furnace, though great logs
blazed on the monumental andirons within the vast
fireplaces. Four or five members were idling on the
divans, or leaning on the green reading-table and glanc-
ing through the papers and reviews, arranged methodi-
cally and continually being disarranged. Two or three
were writing love letters or business notes on the club
stationery.

It was near the dinner hour, and the guests were
chatting together until the butler should announce that

SP I RITE

the meal was served. Guy began to fear that Baron
de Feroe* was not coming, but as he passed into the
dining-room, the Baron arrived and sat down by him.
The dinner, served with a wealth of glass ware and
silver plate, was distinctly good, and each man washed
it down with his own particular tipple, some with
claret, others with champagne, others again with pale
ale, according to individual habit or caprice. A few,
of English tastes, called for a glass of sherry or port,
which tall waiters in knee breeches brought ceremoni-
ously upon silver salvers, marked with the club mono-
gram. Every man drank to his liking, without troubling
about his neighbour, for at the club every man is at
home.

Contrary to his custom, Guy did not do honour to
the dinner. He left the dishes scarcely tasted and the
bottle of Chateau-Margaux in front of him was being
very slowly emptied.

" The white angel could not say to you," remarked
Baron de Feroe, " as he did one day to Swedenborg,
'You are eating too much,' for you are uncommonly
abstemious to-night, and it might be thought that
you are trying to attain to the spiritual state by
fasting."

db db db sb db db 4? :b :b db tb 4? db tb db db tb tb db tb dl? tb tb db

SPIRITE

" I do not know whether a few mouthfuls more or
less would free my soul from its material envelope,"
answered Guy, " and tend to make more diaphanous
the veils that separate the visible from the invisible,
but whatever the reason, I do not feel much appetite.
Certain circumstances you appear to be acquainted
with have, I confess, astonished me somewhat since
yesterday and caused me to be more absent-minded
than is my wont. Normally I am not usually preoc-
cupied at meals, but to-day other thoughts master me
in spite of myself. Have you any engagements this
evening, Baron ? If you have nothing better to do, I
propose that we smoke together after dinner in the
music room, where we shall not be disturbed, unless
the fancy strikes some of our fellow-members to pound
on the piano, — which is not at all likely, for our musi-
cal friends are all away to-night at the dress rehearsal
of the new opera."

Baron de Feroe courteously agreed to Malivert's
suggestion, and politely replied that no better way
could be devised of passing the time. So the two
gentlemen settled themselves on the couch and started
to puff clouds of smoke from excellent cigars of la
Vuelta de Abajo, each of them mentally thinking of the

SPI RITE

curious conversation which could not be put off long.
After a few remarks on the quality of the cigars they
were smoking, and on the respective merits of strong
and mild, the Swedish Baron himself opened the sub-
ject that Malivert was dying to enter upon.

" First," he said, " I must apologise for the liberty I
took in warning you in mysterious fashion the other
evening at Mme. d'Ymbercourt's, for as you had not
confided in me it was in a way indiscreet in me to
penetrate your thoughts before you had spoken. You
may be sure I should not have done so — for it is not
my habit to abandon my part as a man of the world and
to take up that of wizard — had you not inspired me
with a lively interest, and had I not been made aware,
by signs perceptible to adepts alone, that you had
recently been visited by a spirit, or at least that the
invisible world was seeking to enter into relations with
you."

Guy hastened to say that he had not been in the
least offended by the Baron, and that, indeed, in the
novel situation in which he found himself, he was only
too glad to have found a guide apparently so well
informed in matters supernatural, and whose seriousness
of disposition was so well known to him.

SPI RITE

" You readily understand," said the Baron, with a
slight bow by way of .thanks, " that I do not easily
break through my reserve, but you have perhaps seen
enough no longer to believe that our senses suffice to
inform us of everything, and I do not fear, therefore,
that you will take me, if our conversation should turn
upon such mysterious subjects, for a visionary or one of
the illuminati. My position is a guarantee that I am
not a charlatan and, besides, the world knows my outer
life only. I do not ask you to tell me what has happened
in your case, but I perceive that in the sphere beyond
that of ordinary life an interest is being taken in you."

"Yes," answered Guy de Malivert, "there is some-
thing indefinable floating around me, and I do not
think I am indiscreet, as far as the spirits, with which
you appear to be on an excellent footing, are con-
cerned, if I tell you in detail, what your superhuman
intuition has enabled you to divine."

Thereupon Guy related to the Baron the extraordi-
nary events which had marked the previous evening.

The Swedish nobleman, twisting his blond moustache
the while, listened to him with extreme attention, but
without manifesting the least surprise. He remained
silent for a time and seemed buried in thought. Then,

SP1RITE

as if the words summed up a series of reflections, he
suddenly said to Guy : —

" M. de Malivert, did a young girl ever break her
heart on your account ? "

" Neither girl nor woman ever did, so far as I am
aware at least," replied Malivert. " I am not con-
ceited enough to suppose myself capable of inspiring
so great a passion. My love affairs, if a kiss care-
lessly given and carelessly received, may be dignified
by such a name, have been of the most peaceful and
least romantic character, and ended as easily as they
began. Indeed, in order to avoid pathetic scenes,
which I have a horror of, I have always so managed
matters as to be betrayed and abandoned, my self-
love being very ready to make that sacrifice to my
repose of mind. So I fancy I have not left behind
me in life many disconsolate Ariadnes ; in our Parisian
mythology, the arrival of Bacchus invariably precedes
the departure of Theseus. Besides, even at the risk
of giving you but a poor opinion of mv power of lov-
ing, I must own that I have never felt for any one that
mad, exclusive, all-absorbing passion of which every-
body speaks without having experienced it perhaps.
No woman has ever inspired me with the desire to

S P I R I T E

attach her to myself by an indissoluble bond or made
me dream of two lives blended into one, or wish to
flee with her to that paradise of azure, light, and
beauty which love, it is said, can create even in a hut
or an attic."

" It does not follow, my dear Guy, that you are un-
able to feel passionate love. There are many varieties
of love, and no doubt, in the place where the fate of
souls is settled upon, you have been reserved to higher
destinies. But you have still time, for spirits have no
power over us save by our free consent. You are
standing on the threshold of a boundless, deep, myste-
rious world, full of illusions and shadows, wherein con-
tend influences for good or evil which a man must
learn to distinguish. In that world are to be seen
wonders and terrors fit to upset human reason.
No one ever returns from its depths without bearing
on his brow a pallor that time can never efface ; the
carnal eye cannot behold with impunity the things
reserved for spiritual sight alone; these excursions
beyond the material world are paid for by inexpressible
fatigue and inspire at the same time desperate nostalgia.
Stay your feet at that dread bourne ; do not pass from
this world into the other, and do not yield to the call

SPI R ITE

that seeks to draw you beyond the bounds of material
life. The enchanter is safe within the circle he traces
around him and which the spirits cannot cross. Let
reality be to you as that circle ; do not overpass it, or
you will lose your power. You see that, though I am
a hierophant, I do not indulge in proselytism."

" Do you mean," said Malivert, " that I should run
the risk of perilous adventures in that invisible world
by which we are surrounded, and which reveals its exist-
ence to but a small number of privileged beings ? "

" By no means," replied the Baron de Feroe.
" Nothing that the eye of the flesh can note will
happen to you, but your soul may remain for ever
deeply troubled."

" Is the spirit, then, which does me the honour to
concern itself with me of a dangerous character ? "

" It is sympathetic, kindly, and loving. I have met
it in the radiance of light. But heaven gives the
vertigo as does the abyss. Remember the story of
the shepherd that loved a star."

" Yet," replied Malivert, " what you said to me at
Mme. d'Ymbercourt's seemed to be a warning against
any terrestrial entanglement."

"I was bound to warn you," returned the Baron de

SPI R ITE

Feroe, "in the event of your answering the manifesta-
tions of that spirit, but since you have not as yet done
so, you are still your own master. Perhaps it would
be best for you to remain in that condition and to lead
your old life."

" And marry Mme. d'Ymbercourt," put in Guy de
Malivert with an ironical smile.

" Why not ? " said the Baron de Feroe. " She is
young, beautiful, and loves you ; I read in her glance
the genuine grief your veiled refusal caused her. She
might possibly acquire a soul."

"That is a risk I do not choose to run. Pray do
not endeavour, dear Baron, through a kindly feeling
which I quite understand, to tie me down to material
life. I am more detached from it than may appear at
first sight. The fact that I have ordered my days in
pleasant and convenient fashion does not involve
sensuality on my part. At bottom, comfort is a mat-
ter of indifference to me. If I have thought it best to
appear careless and joyous rather than to affect a
romantic melancholy, which is in very bad taste, it
does not follow that the world as I find it delights and
satisfies me. It is quite true that I do not maunder, in
drawing-rooms, and in presence of an assembly of

SPI RITE

pretentious women, about my heart, or the ideal, or
the passion of love, but I have kept my soul true and
unstained, unspotted by any vulgar love, in the ex-
pectation of the coming of the unknown deity."

While Malivert spoke thus, with more earnestness
than men of the world usually display, the eyes of
Baron de Feroe lighted up and his face assumed an
expression of enthusiasm which he generally concealed
under a mask of icy indifference.

He was pleased to see that Guy resisted prosaic
temptation and maintained his spiritual will.

" Since you have made up your mind, my dear Guy,
return home, and you will no doubt receive some
new communications. I have to stay ; I won a hun-
dred louis yesterday from d'Aversac, and I am going to
give him his revenge."

" The rehearsal must be over, for I hear our friends
returning and humming, very much out of tune, the
airs they have failed to catch."

"Away with you, then; the discord would throw
your soul out of harmony."

Guy shook hands with the Baron, and entered his
carriage, which was waiting for him at the door of the
club-house.

SPI RITE

GUY DE MALIVERT returned home, his
mind made up to run the venture. Though
he did not appear to be romantic, neverthe-
less he was so, but his proud, shy reserve led him to
conceal his feelings, and he did not expect of others
more than he was willing to give himself. His rela-
tions with society were pleasantly indifferent and in no
way binding upon him ; they were bonds that he could
easily cast off at any moment, but it can be readily
understood that he dreamed of a happiness which until
now he had never experienced.

Acting upon what Baron de Feroe had told him at
the club about the need of exercising his will in order
to summon the spirits from the vasty deep to the con-
fines of our own world, Malivert concentrated all his
powers within himself and mentally formulated his
desire to enter into more direct communication with
the mysterious spirit that he felt around him and
that would not, in all likelihood, prove very restive,

«4* jl* *4» 'i» rt» j» ti? ~» mh dir« fc tfe d j jjb «j?tfetj? ife tfes t

SPIRITE

since it had of its own accord attempted to manifest
itself.

Having done this, Malivert, who was in the room,
half studio, half drawing-room, in which he was sitting
at the beginning of this story, applied himself to listen
and watch with the utmost attention. At first he
neither saw nor heard anything, though the furniture,
the statuettes, the pictures, the old carved dressers, the
exotic curiosities, the trophies of weapons, struck him
as having an unusual and extraordinary aspect, and
a sort of fantastic lifelike appearance due to the lights
and shadows cast upon them by the lamp. A Chinese
grotesque of jade stone seemed to grin to the ears like
an old man in his dotage, and a copy of the Venus of
Milo, her pointed breasts standing out strongly in the
light that fell on them against a dark background,
assumed a disdainful look as she swelled her nostrils
and drew down the corners of her mouth. Both the
Chinese god and the Greek goddess disapproved of
Malivert's undertaking, or at least the expression on
the two lighted faces might have led him to believe
this. Unconsciously Malivert's eyes, as if urged by a
mental impulse, turned towards a Venetian mirror sus-
pended on the Cordova leather tapestry.

SPI RI TE

It was an eighteenth-century mirror, like those com-
monly seen in Loughi's "Lady at her Toilet" and
" Leaving for the Ball," subjects often painted by that
decadent Watteau, and like those to be found in the
shops of second-hand dealers in the Ghetto. The
glass itself was bevelled ; the frame was composed of
ornaments in cut glass, surmounted by a mass of scrolls
and flowers in the same material, which, against the
uniform tint of the background, sometimes resembled
mat silver, sometimes flashed prismatic rays from their
facets. Amid this sparkling and blazing, the glass
itself, of small size like all Venetian mirrors, showed
of a deep bluish-black, and resembled an opening into
a void full of ideal darkness.

Curiously enough, none of the objects opposite the
mirror were reflected in it, and it looked like one of
the stage mirrors which the scene painter washes over
with faint neutral tints to avoid the reflection of the
auditorium.

A vague instinct led Malivert to feel that if any
revelation was to be made to him, the mirror would
prove to be the medium employed. He was fascinated
by it, although as a rule he never looked at it, and it
attracted his glance irresistibly. Yet, though he gazed

SPIRITE

at it intently, he could make out nothing but the black
colour, made more intensely mysterious by the cut-glass
framework. At last he thought he perceived on its
surface a faint, milky whiteness, like a distant trem-
bling Rght that appeared to be drawing nearer. He
turned round to see what article in the room caused
this reflection, but saw nothing. Brave though Mali-
vert was, and he had proved his courage on more than
one occasion, he felt the hair of his flesh stand up and
the fear and trembling of which Job speaks. This
time he was about to cross, knowingly and of his
own free will, the dread threshold. He was about
to step outside the circle which Nature has traced
around man. Henceforth he might be thrown out
of his orbit and revolve around some unknown
point. Unbelievers may laugh at it, yet never
was a step fraught with more serious consequences,
and Guy fully realised its importance. An irre-
sistible attraction impelled him on, however, and he
continued to stare into the Venetian mirror. What
was he about to see ? Under what form would the
spirit present itself so as to become appreciable to his
human perception ? Would it be a sweet or a terrible
figure? Would it cause joy or terror? Although the

SPIRITE

luminousness within the glass had not yet assumed any
definite form, Guy was convinced that it would prove
to be a feminine spirit. It could not be otherwise,
he thought, as he recollected the sigh of the evening
before that still sounded softly in his heart. Had
that spirit belonged to this earth, or had it come from
a distant planet or a higher region ? That he could
not tell. However, judging by what Baron de Feroe
had said, he judged that it must be a soul that had
lived on earth, and which, drawn by reasons he would
probably learn later, was returning to its former
abode.

The luminousness in the mirror began to assume a
more distinct form and faint colours, immaterial, so to
speak, which would have dulled the pigments on the
brightest of palettes. It was rather a suggestion of
colour than colour itself; a vapour flushed with light
and of such delicate tints that human words are in-
capable of rendering it. Guy stared on, a prey to
nervous, intense emotion. The image became plainer
and plainer, without, nevertheless, acquiring the hard
precision of reality, and Guy de Malivert at last dis-
cerned, enclosed within the border of the mirror as
within a frame, the head of a young woman, or of a

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young girl rather, by the side of whose loveliness
earthly beauty was but as a shadow.

A faint, rosy flush gave colour to the head, on which
light and shade were scarcely noticeable, and which did
not need, as do earthly faces, the contrast of chiaroscuro
to bring out the modelling, for it was lighted by
another light than ours. The hair, halo-like, softly
outlined the brow like a golden vapour. The eyes,
half cast down, were of a dark blue, infinitely sweet,
recalling the spaces of heaven that at sunset are flushed
with violet tints. The fine, small nose was ideally
delicate ; a smile like that Leonardo da Vinci gives to
his female faces, but more tender and less ironical,
curved the lips adorably ; the willowy neck, bending
somewhat under the weight of the head, was bowed
forward and blended into a silvery half-tint that might
have served for light to another figure.

This slight sketch, necessarily written with words
intended to describe earthly things, can give but a most
imperfect idea of the apparition that Guy de Malivert
beheld in the Venetian mirror. And was it with the eye
of the flesh or the eye of the soul that he beheld it ?
Did the image really exist, and could it have been seen
by any one not under the same nervous influence as

SPIRITE

Guy ? That is a difficult question to answer. This
much may be said, that what he saw, though it was like
the face of a beautiful woman, in no respect resembled
what, on this earth, is called a beautiful female face.
The features were similar, but they were purer, trans-
figured, idealised, and rendered perceptible by an im-
material substance, so to speak, only just dense enough
to be visible in the gross earthly atmosphere by eyes
not yet freed from the veils that covered them. No
doubt the spirit or the soul that was entering into com-
munication with Guy de Malivert had borrowed the
form of its former perishable body, but such as it must
have become in a more subtile, more ethereal region
where the ghosts of things alone and not things them-
selves can exist. The vision was an ineffable delight
to Guy ; the feeling of fear which he had experienced
at first had vanished, and he gave himself up unre-
servedly to the strangeness of the situation, discussing
nothing, admitting everything and resolved to think the
supernatural natural. He drew nearer the mirror, in
the hope of noting the features more clearly ; the image
remained as it had at first appeared to him, very close
and yet very distant, resembling the projection, upon
the inner surface of a crystal, of a figure placed at a

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distance beyond the power of man to measure. The
reality of what he saw, if the expression may be
allowed in this connection, was evidently elsewhere,
in deep, distant, mysterious regions inaccessible to
mortals, on the outskirts of which even the boldest
thinker scarce dares venture. In vain did Guy try to
connect the face with some of his earthly memories ;
it was wholly new to him, and yet he seemed to
recognise it. Where had he seen it ? Assuredly not
in this sublunar, terraqueous world.

This, then, was the form under which Spirite desired
to show herself. Malivert seeking for a name by which
to call to himself the apparition he had beheld in the
mirror, had given her this appellation until he could
ascertain what name would suit her better. Presently
it seemed to him that the image was growing fainter
and vanishing within the depths of the mirror. It now
showed only as the light vapour of a breath, and even
that vapour disappeared in its turn. The passing of
the vision was marked by the sudden reflection of a
gilded frame suspended on the wall opposite the mirror,
which had regained its usual power of reflection.

When he could no longer doubt that the apparition
would not return, on that evening at least, Guy threw

SPIRITE

himself into an arm-chair, and although the clock had
just struck two in the morning, its silvery sound advis-
ing him to retire, he could not make up his mind to go
to bed. He felt fatigued, it is true ; the novel emo-
tions, the first step into an unknown world had brought
on the wakeful fatigue that prevents sleep. Besides,
he feared to miss another manifestation of Spirite if he
should fall asleep.

His feet stretched out on the fender before the fire
that had burned up again of itself, Guy thought over
the events that had just taken place and the very possi-
bility of which he would have denied a couple of days
before. He thought of the lovely head recalling, as if
to cause them to be forgotten like vain shadows, the
beauties revealed in dreams by the imagination of
poets or the genius of painters. He discovered in it
infinite, inexpressible suavity, innumerable charms that
neither nature nor art could unite in one and the same
face and he augured well, from the sample he had
beheld, of the looks of the inhabitants of the world
beyond. Then he asked himself by what strange
sympathy, by what mysterious and hitherto uncon-
fessed affinity that angel, that sylph, that soul, that
spirit, of the nature of which he was as yet ignorant,

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and which he was unable to connect with any imma-
terial order, could have been drawn towards him from
the infinite depths. He dared not flatter himself with
having inspired love in a being of a higher nature, for
conceit was no trait of Malivert, yet he could not help
owning that Spirite seemed to experience for him, Guy
de Malivert, a mere mortal, a sentiment entirely fem-
inine in its character and that in this world would have
been called jealousy. The sigh she had uttered, the
letter of which she had changed the wording, the warn-
ing whispered at Mme. d'Ymbercourt's door, and the
remark suggested by her, no doubt, to the Swedish
baron proved it. What Guy did understand quite
plainly and at once was that he himself was madly,
desperately, hopelessly in love ; a prey all of a sudden
to a passion that eternity itself could not satiate.

From that moment every woman he had ever
known was totally forgotten by him. On the appear-
ance of Spirite, he had forgotten earthly loves, just as
Romeo forgot Rosalind when he beheld Juliet. Had
he been Don Juan in person, the three thousand lovely
names would have vanished of themselves from his
book. He did experience a sense of terror on feeling
himself a prey to that sudden, flame that swept away

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thought, will, and resistance and left nothing alive in
his soul but passion. It was too late, however, and he
no longer belonged to himself. Baron de Feroe was
right, and Guy had found how dangerous it is for a
mortal man to overstep the bounds of life and to ven-
ture, in material form, among the spirits if he bears
not the golden branch to which all spirits bow.

A fearful thought occurred to Malivert. How was
he to bring Spirite back if she did not choose to reap-
pear ? If there were no means of doing so, how would
he be able to bear with the darkness of the sun after
having contemplated real light for a moment ? He
was filled with a sense of utter misfortune and sank
into deep despondency ; he passed through an instant,
as long as eternity itself, of hideous despair. The
mere possibility, unconfirmed by any indication of its
truth, brought the tears to his eyes, and try as he
might to restrain them, ashamed as he felt at the exhi-
bition of such weakness, they overflowed and slowly
rolled down his cheeks. As he wept, he felt, with
delight and surprise, a veil more tenuous than the
finest of stuffs, like woven air, being passed over his
face, absorbing, drying in its caress the bitter drops he
had shed. The touch of a butterfly's wing could not

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have been softer, yet it was no illusion, for he thrice
felt it, and when his tears had been dried, Malivert
thought he perceived a diaphanous white flake vanish-
ing in the shadows, like a cloudlet in the heavens.

This attentive and tender sympathy convinced Mali-
vert that Spirite, who seemed to be ever fluttering
around him, would answer his call and find, thanks to
her higher intelligence as a superior being, the means
of communicating easily with him. Spirite could enter
the world in which he lived, to the extent, at least,
that a soul can mingle with the living, while he, a
mortal, was prevented from following her within the
ideal region in which she moved, by the obstacle of
his carnal body. It will surprise no one that Malivert
passed from the deepest despair to the truest joy. If
a mere mortal woman can ten times in the course of
one day plunge you into the lowest depths or transport
you to the highest heavens, inspire you with the desire
of blowing your brains out or of purchasing on the
shores of Lake Como a villa in which to shelter your
loves forever, it may easily be understood that the
feelings awakened by a spirit are infinitely deeper.

Guy's love for Spirite may, it is true, appear rather
sudden, but it should be remembered that love is often

SPIRITE

called out by a single glance, and that a woman seen
through a pair of opera glasses at the theatre does not
differ very greatly from the reflection of a soul seen in
a mirror ; that many serious cases of passionate love
have begun in a manner precisely similar, and that
besides, though he himself was not aware of the fact,
Guy's love was far less sudden than it seemed to be.
Spirite had for a long time been haunting him, prepar-
ing his unconscious soul for supernatural communica-
tions, suggesting to him, in the midst of his worldly
frivolity, thoughts deeper than vain appearances,
inspiring him with the nostalgia of the ideal by vague
remembrances of higher spheres, drawing him away
from idle loves, and making him foresee a happiness
that earth could not give. She it was who had broken
the threads spun around Guy ; who had torn away the
webs in which he was to be caught; who had shown
him the ridiculous side or the perfidy of a mistress of
a day, and until now had kept him free from any
lasting tie. She had stopped him on the very brink of
the irrevocable, for, though nothing had happened to
Guy that was appreciably significant from the human
point of view, he had come to a crucial point in his
life ; his fate was hanging in the mysterious scales :

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this it was that had made Spirite resolve to issue from the
shadow in which her occult protection of him was
concealed, and to reveal herself to him, since he could
no longer be directed by secret influences alone. Why
did she interest herself thus in him ? Did she yield to
an impulse of her own, or did she obey an order
emanating from that radiant sphere where, as Dante
says, one can what one wills ? She alone could tell,
and the time was perhaps near when she would do so.

Malivert at last went to bed and soon fell asleep.
His slumbers were light, bright, and full of a won-
drous brilliancy that resembled visions rather than
dreams. Vast azure spaces, in which the long trails
of light formed endless perspectives of silvern and
golden vales, opened before his closed eyes ; then the
picture would vanish, leaving visible in even greater
depths streams of blinding phosphoresence, like unto a
cascade of molten suns falling from eternity into the
infinite; in its turn the cascade disappeared, and in its
place was outspread a heaven of that intense, luminous
whiteness that of yore clothed the three transfigured
figures on Mount Tabor. From its depths, that
seemed the very paroxysm of splendour, flashed here
and there bursts of stars, brighter gleams, still more

SPI RI TE

vivid scintillations. There was in that light, against
which the most brilliant stars would have shown black,
something like the swelling and surging of an incessant
becoming. From time to time, as pass birds across the
sun's disk, sped across that vast irradiation spirits
visible, not through the shadow they cast, but through
a different kind of light. Among them Guy thought
he recognised Spirite ; nor was he mistaken, though she
seemed to be but a brilliant point in space, but a glob
ule in the incandescent brightness. Spirite had desired
to show herself to her lover, by means of the dream
she evoked, in her real home. The soul, freed during
the hours of sleep from the bonds of the flesh, lent it-
self to the vision, and for a few moments Guy was
enabled to see with the inner sight, not the outer world
itself, the contemplation of which is permitted only to
souls wholly freed, but a ray filtering under the imper-
fectly closed door of the unknown, as from a darkened
street one sees under the door of a palace lighted within
a beam of brilliant light that suggests the splendour of
the feast.

Spirite, not wishing to fatigue Guy's yet too human
organ, dispelled the visions, and wafted him from ec-
stasy into ordinary sleep. He felt, as he fell back into

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the night of common dreams, that he was being caught,
as though he were a shell-fish, in a matrix of black
marble, in a darkness of deepest intensity. Then all
passed away, even that sensation, and for two hours
Guy rested in the non-existence whence life arises
more youthful and refreshed.

He slept until ten in the morning, and Jack, who
had been awaiting his awakening, seeing that his eyes
were fully opened, pushed open the door that he had
held ajar, entered the room, drew back the window
curtains, and directing his steps towards Malivert's bed,
handed him on a silver salver two letters that had just
been delivered. The one was from Mme. d'Ymber-
court, the other from Baron de Feroe. It was the
latter that Guy opened first.

SPIRITE

THE Baron's note contained these words
merely : " Has Caesar crossed the Rubi-
con ? " Mme. d'Ymbercourt's, much less
brief, insinuated, in cleverly turned phrases, that indefi-
nite gossip should not be taken seriously, and that to
break off suddenly visits that had become habitual
would perhaps be more compromising than to make
them more frequent. The note closed with a remark
about Adelina Patti, the purpose of which appeared to
be that a seat would be kept for him in box 22 at the
Opera. Guy certainly admired the young diva greatly,
but in his present state of mind he preferred to hear
her some other evening, and determined he would find
a way to avoid the appointment.

The human mind has a tendency to doubt that
extraordinary events have taken place when the envi-
ronment in which these have occurred has resumed its
normal appearance. So Malivert, on looking into the
Venetian mirror by daylight, asked himself, as he

9 1

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gazed at its silvery surface framed in by the cut-glass
border, and as he saw in it the reflection of his own
face only, whether it was true that that piece of pol-
ished glass had actually shown him, only a few hours
since, the loveliest face the eye of man had ever beheld.
In vain did his reason attempt to explain the celestial
vision as the effect of a dream, of a vain fancy, — his
heart gave his reason the lie. Difficult as it is to
appreciate the reality of the supernatural, he felt that
it was all true and that behind the outwardly calm
appearances surged a whole world of mystery. Yet
nothing was changed in the apartment, and a visitor
would not have noticed anything peculiar in it j as far
as Guy was concerned, however, the door of every
dresser, of every cupboard, might prove to be one
opening into the infinite. The least noises, which he
took for warnings, made him start.

In order to get rid of his nervous condition of excite-
ment, he resolved to take a long drive. He had a
fancy that Spirite would appear at night only; besides,
if she wished to communicate with him, her fantastic
ubiquity enabled her to find him and to manifest herself
to him wherever he might be. In this affair, if such
vague, frail, aerial, impalpable relations may be called

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an affair, Malivert's role was necessarily passive. His
ideal mistress could enter his world at any time she
chose, but he was unable to follow her in the mys-
terious spaces wherein she dwelt.

It had been snowing two nights before, and, a rare
thing in Paris, the white carpet had not melted, under
the influence of a soft wind, into that cold slush worse
even than the black slush of the old pavements or the
yellow mud of the new asphalt. It had been hardened
by a sharp frost and crunched under the foot like
crushed glass under carriage wheels. Grimalkin was
a capital trotter, and Malivert had brought back from
Saint Petersburg a sleigh and a complete set of Russian
harness. Opportunities of enjoying sleighing are infre-
quent in our temperate climate, and sportsmen seize on
them with avidity. Guy was very proud of his sleigh,
unquestionably the best turned-out in Paris, and which
might have figured advantageously in the races on the
Neva Place. He rather enjoyed the idea of a rapid
drive in the bracing icy air. He had learned, during
the winter he had spent in Russia, to enjoy the arctic
delights of snow and cold ; he loved to glide over the
white carpet scarce rayed by the steel of the skates,
driving a fast horse with both hands, like an izvostchick.

SPIRITE

He had the sleigh brought round, and soon reached the
Place de la Concorde and the Champs-Elysees. The
road had not been cared for and improved as on the
Neva Place, but the snow was deep enough to allow
the sleigh to glide along without bumping too much.
A Parisian winter cannot be expected to be as perfect
as a Russian one. At the Bois de Boulogne he might
have thought he was in the Islands, so even and white
did the snow lie, especially in the side drives where
fewer horsemen and carriages are met with. Guy de
Malivert turned down a road leading through a wood
of firs, the dark limbs of which, laden with snow that
the wind had not shaken off, recalled to him his drives
in Russia. He had plenty of furs, and the northern
blast seemed to him but a zephyr by comparison with
the cold gales he had faced in that country.

The approaches to the lake were crowded, and the
number of carriages as large as on fine days in autumn
or spring, when all sorts and conditions of men are
attracted to Longchamp by the races in which figure
celebrities of the turf. In carriages hung on easy
springs were to be seen ladies belonging to the great
world, warmly covered with huge bear-skin robes
edged with scarlet, and pressing against their fur-

SPIRITE

lined satin cloaks warm zibeline sable muffs. On the
box-seats, covered with heavily embroidered hammer-
cloths, coachmen of great houses, seated majestically,
their shoulders protected by fur capes, looked as dis-
dainfully as did their mistresses, at the women not in
society who were driving themselves in extravagant
and pretentious vehicles drawn by ponies. There
were also numerous closed carriages, for the idea of
driving in an open carriage with the thermometer
only twelve or thirteen degrees above zero, strikes
Parisians as far too arctic. A certain number of
sleighs were to be seen among the many wheeled
carriages, for the snow had evidently not been antici-
pated ; Malivert's sleigh, however, easily surpassed all
others. Some Russian noWemen, idling around, as
happy as reindeer in snow, condescended to approve
of the elegant curves of the douga and of the correct
way in which the harness straps were fastened to it.

It was about three o'clock ; the lower portion of
the sky was veiled by a soft haze, and against the
delicate gray background stood out the slender twigs
of the leafless trees which, with their slender branches
stripped of foliage, looked like skeleton leaves. A
rayless sun, resembling a great red seal, was sinking

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through the haze. The lake was covered with skaters,
three or four days of frost having made the ice thick
enough to bear the weight of the crowd. The snow,
swept off the surface and heaped up on the edges of
the shore, showed the dark, polished surface rayed in
every direction by the blades of the skates, like the
mirrors in restaurants on which lovers scratch their
names with a diamond. On the banks stood people
hiring skates to bourgeois amateurs, whose tumbles
formed the comic intermedes of the winter festival,
like the ballet in the Prophete on a large scale. In
the centre of the lake the more famous skaters, dressed
in neat costumes, indulged in fancy feats. They flew
like the wind, swung abruptly around, avoided colli-
sions, stopped short by digging in the heel of their
skates, cut curves, grapevines, figures of eight, letters,
like Arab horsemen who, with the rowels of their
spurs, write the name of Allah on the flanks of their
steeds. Others pushed around, in light hand-sledges
quaintly ornamented, handsome ladies wrapped in furs,
who leaned back and smiled at them, excited by
the speed and the cold air. Some guided by the hand
elegant young women, wearing Russian or Hungarian
fur caps, jackets frogged and braided, and trimmed

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with blue fox, bright-coloured skirts, looped up with
clasps, and pretty patent-leather boots, crossed, like
cothurns, by the straps of the skates. Others again,
racing each other, flew along on one foot, heading
forward like the Hippomenes and the Atalanta under
the chestnut trees in one of the parterres of the Tui-
leries. The best way to win the race, now as formerly,
might well have been to drop in front of these Atalan-
tas dressed by Worth a golden apple or two ; but
there were those among them of such rank that even
a diamond brooch would not have stopped them for
an instant. The constant passing and repassing of so
many people dressed with such strange elegance and
rich originality, making a sort of fancy-dress ball on
the ice, formed a graceful, charming, animated spec-
tacle worthy of the brush of Watteau, Lancret, or
Baron. Some of the groups recalled the paintings
placed above the doors in old chateaux representing
the Four Seasons, and in which Winter is personified
by gallants pushing, in swan-necked sledges, marchion-
esses wearing velvet masks, who turn their fur muffs
into receptacles for love letters. In the present case,
it is true, the pretty faces, made rosier by the cold,
lacked the masks, but the veils embroidered with steel

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beads or fringed with jet made a fair substitute for
them.

Malivert pulled up by the lake shore, and watched
the entertaining and picturesque scene, the chief per-
formers in which he was acquainted with. He was
enough of a society man to follow the loves, intrigues,
and flirtations that agitated the select few whom one
soon learns to distinguish from the vulgar herd, the
troop of supernumeraries that surrounds, without un-
derstanding it, every performance, and whose use is to
prevent the action from standing out too clearly and
too bare. But he looked on without any interest in
the scene, and he even saw pass by a very charming
lady, who had formerly favoured him, and who was
now leaning in loving, familiar fashion upon the arm
of a handsome skater, without feeling the least trace
of jealousy.

Grimalkin was impatiently pawing the snow-covered
ground, and presently Guy gave him his head, turned
in the direction of the city and drove along the
Lake Avenue, up and down which carriages were
constantly coming and going, to the great delight of
the foot passengers who appeared to enjoy seeing for
the tenth or twelfth time in the course of an hour the

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same yellow-bodied coach with a solemn dowager in it,
and the same little dark-green coupe, with a Havana
poodle at the window, and inside a light o' love with
her hair dressed like a poodle's coat.

Guy, as he drove homewards, checked the speed of
his horse, to avoid running over any one in the
crowded road ; and besides, it is not good form to drive
fast on that fashionable thoroughfare. He saw advanc-
ing in his direction a carriage he would rather not have
met. Mme. d'Ymbercourt was a chilly person, and
Guy had not supposed that she would come out in
such cold weather, which merely went to show how
little he knew women ; for no known cold would keep
a woman from going to a fashionable drive and show-
ing herself where she should do so. Now, in that
particular winter, the correct thing was to go to the
Bois de Boulogne, and to take a turn on the frozen
lake, the meeting-place, between three and five in the
afternoon, of all the celebrities, in one way or another,
that tout Paris can manage to collect in one spot. A
woman of any standing would never forgive herself did
her name fail to appear among those of the beauties of
the day in the columns of some well-informed news-
paper. Now Mme. d'Ymbercourt was beautiful

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enough, rich enough, and fashionable enough, to con-
sider herself bound to conform to the requirements of
fashion, and therefore, though shivering a little under
the furs in which she was wrapped up, she was per-
forming her pilgrimage to the lake. Malivert was
tempted to let Grimalkin, who would not have ob-
jected, swing into his fastest trot, but Mme. d'Ymber-
court had caught sight of him and he was forced to
drive alongside her carriage.

He chatted on various indifferent subjects, in an un-
interested way, putting forward as a pretext for not
accepting her invitation to the Opera that he had to
go to a dinner, when a sleigh passed so close as almost
to touch his own. This sleigh was drawn by a superb
horse of the Orloff breed ; it was iron gray, with a
white mane and a tail every hair in which gleamed like
silver. Held in by a Russian coachman with a long
beard, green cloth caftan and fur-bordered velvet cap,
the horse champed its bit and stepped along throwing
up its head and occasionally touching his knees with it.
The beauty of the equipage, the correct get-up of the
coachman, the handsome horse attracted Guy's atten-
tion, but great was his amazement when in the lady
seated in the sleigh, and whom he had at first assumed

IOO

SPIRITE

to be one of those Russian princesses that come to
Paris for a season or two to dazzle the capital by their
eccentric display of wealth — supposing that Paris can
be dazzled by anything — he recognised, or thought he
recognised, a likeness to a face he had had but a glimpse
of, but which was now forever ineffaceably imprinted
on his memory, though he certainly did not expect to
meet with it in the Bois de Boulogne, after having
seen it appear, as Helen to Faust, in a sort of magic
mirror. At the sight of her he started so suddenly that
Grimalkin, feeling the nervous thrill, plunged forward.
Guy, casting a word of apologv to Mme. d'Ymber-
court to the effect that he could not hold in his horse,
followed the sleigh, which increased its pace.

As if surprised at being followed, the lady looked
half round to see who was so bold as to do so, and
although she showed only a small portion of her profile,
Guy made out under the black net-veiling wavy golden
hair, deep blue eyes, and an ideal complexion, such as
the snow on lofty mountain-tops, flushed by the beams
of the setting sun, can alone give any idea of. She
wore turquoise earrings, and on the part of the neck
showing between the collar of her fur pelisse and her
hat, curled a stray lock of hair, light as down and fine

IOI

•A, rh* rl* »J/» JU *A« „t„ ri-. < i-» »Jji <4» ^t. »|» »K JU «^ .J*^ »^ »4» j|» jfe

SPI RITE

as a child's hair. It was, indeed, the face that had
appeared to him the night before, with the added reality
needed by a phantom in broad daylight and close to
the lake in the Bois de Boulogne. How did Spirite
happen to be there in so charmingly human a form,
visible, no doubt, to others as well as to himself? for
it was difficult to admit that, even were the apparition
itself impalpable, the coachman, the horse, and the
sleigh were likewise unsubstantial shadows. Guy did
not waste his time trying to solve the problem, for, in
order to make sure that he had not been deceived by a
likeness of the sort that disappears when it is examined
closely, he endeavoured to pass the sleigh so as to have a
good look at the mysterious face. He allowed Grimal-
kin to step out at his best gait, whereat the good horse
went off like an arrow, his breath, for a few moments,
steaming upon the back of the sleigh Guy was pursu-
ing. Nevertheless, although Grimalkin was a very
fast horse, he was no match for the Russian stepper,
perhaps the finest of his breed that Malivert had ever
seen. The caftan-clad coachman clicked his tongue,
and the iron gray in a few bounds put space sufficient
between the two sleighs to reassure his mistress, if she
happened to be disturbed by the proximity of Guy.

102

4* 4*4, 4* 4* 4j4«4^^4j4*4j4«^4*4^4j4j4*4«4*4*4*4k

SPIRITE

No doubt the object of the lady who bore such a
startling resemblance to Spirite was not to discourage
Malivert's pursuit, for her sleigh was again driven at a
more moderate pace. The race had taken the pair
into the Fir Avenue, at this moment empty of car-
riages, and the chase settled down in earnest. Yet
Grimalkin did not once manage to get alongside of the
Orloff stepper ; the best he could do was to prevent
the distance between the sleighs from increasing. The
hoofs of the horses sent lumps of white snow flying
against the dash-boards, where they broke into frosty
dust, and the two noble animals were enveloped in
clouds of steam as in classic clouds. For one moment,
at the end of the drive, barred by the file of carriages
driving down the main avenue, the two sleighs were
side by side, and Guy was enabled to see for a second
or two the face of the supposed Russian lady, whose
veil was blown aside by the wind. A celestially arch
smile played upon her lips, the curve of which recalled
that of Mona Lisa's. Her eyes were starry and blue
like sapphires, and a rosier flush warmed her velvety
cheeks. Spirite, for it was she, drew down her veil,
the coachman urged on his horse, and the animal
dashed forward furiously. A cry of terror escaped

103

SPI RITE

Guy, for at that very instant a carriage was crossing
the drive, and, forgetting that Spirite, as a disembodied
spirit, was safe from all earthly accidents, he looked for
a dreadful collision; but the horse, the coachman, and
the sleigh passed through the carriage as through a mist,
and were speedily out of Malivert's sight. Grimalkin
seemed terrified ; nervous shudders ran all over his
limbs, usually so firm, as if he were puzzled by the
disappearance of the sleigh. Animals have wonder-
fully deep instinct, and often see what escapes man's
careless glance. Many of them seem endowed with a
sense of the supernatural. But Grimalkin soon calmed
down on joining the procession of undoubted carriages
along the lake shore.

As he drove down the Avenue de PImperatrice,
Guy met Baron de Feroe who was also returning from
the Bois in a light drojky. After asking Malivert
for a light for his cigar, the Baron said to him, half
mysteriously, half quizzically : " Mme. d'Ymbercourt
will not be very well pleased, and you will be
scolded in rare fashion at the Opera to-night, if you
are imprudent enough to go. I fancy that sleigh-
race can scarcely have been to her taste. Meanwhile
you had better tell Jack to throw a blanket over

104

SPIRITE

Grimalkin, if you do not want him to catch his death
of cold."

Guy was past being amazed at strange things. It
had not appeared to him at all out of the way that a
sleigh should pass through a carriage. This facility in
traversing obstacles against which terrestrial vehicles
would have been smashed showed that it was indeed
a mysterious equipage come from the spheres of the
impossible, and which could contain Spirite only.
Unquestionably Spirite was jealous, or at least — for
all her actions proved it — she desired to keep Malivert
and Mme. d'Ymbercourt apart ; and evidently she had
gone about doing so in the right way, for as he turned
into the open space of the Arc de l'Etoile, Guy saw
the Countess in her carriage appearing to listen very
attentively to the doubtless gallant conversation of
M. d'Aversac, who was bending elegantly over his
horse's withers as he walked it by her side.

" That is to pay me for the sleigh," said Malivert
to himself ; " but I am not the kind of fellow to be
egged on in that way. D'Aversac is a sham clever
fellow, just as Mme. d'Ymbercourt is a sham beauty.
They are an excellent match for each other. I can
judge them in the most disinterested fashion, since

105

tlr ti? ts? ti? db 'A* *^* *^* ^^tbdbtl^tib dbtfbdb si? dbsS?
SPI RITE

affairs of this sort have ceased to concern me. They
will be a well assorted pair, as the song says."

Such was the net result of Mme. d'Ymbercourt's
manoeuvres. On perceiving Guy she had bent for-
ward, perhaps a little more than was proper, to reply
to the sweet sayings of M. d'Aversac. The poor
woman thought she might recall her lukewarm adorer
by touching his self-love. She had had a glimpse of
Spirite, and she had guessed that she had a formi-
dable rival in her. The eagerness displayed by Guy,
usually so cool, in pursuing the mysterious sleigh and
the woman whom no one had ever met at the Bois,
had stung her to the quick, for she had easily seen
through the excuse so hurriedly given, and did not
believe that Grimalkin had run away. D'Aversac,
who was swelling with satisfaction, for he was not in
the habit of being so well treated, modestly attributed
to his own merit what he would have been wiser to
ascribe to feminine annoyance. He even magnani-
mously pitied poor Malivert, who had reckoned too
surely on possessing Mme. d'Ymbercourt's affections.
All the projects which the gentleman's conceit, helped
by appearances, immediately proceeded to build up on
this slight event, may easily be imagined.

106

k k k k k k k k k k k kkkk k 'J: k kkkk k k

SPIRITE

On that day Guy was engaged to dinner to people
with whom it would be difficult to fail in keeping
an appointment made long before. Fortunately there
were many guests, and his absentmindedness was not
noticed. The dinner over, he exchanged a few words
with the mistress of the house, and having thus suffi-
ciently made plain that he had come, he performed
a masterly retreat towards the second drawing-room,
where he shook hands with men of distinction with
whom he was acquainted and who had withdrawn
there to talk more freely of important or secret
matters; then he vanished and went to his club,
where he expected to meet Baron de Feroe. He did
find him seated in front of a small card-table, playing
ecarte with the radiant d'Aversac, of whom it is only
just to say that he endeavoured to repress his joy in
order to avoid humiliating Malivert. Contrary to the
proverb, " Fortunate at cards unfortunate in love,"
d'Aversac was winning, and if he had been at all
superstitious he might have felt some doubt as to the
soundness of his hopes. The game having come to
an end, the Baron, as he was the loser, could rise,
pretexting fatigue, and simply refuse the revenge
offered by his adversary. Feroe and Guy de Malivert

107

4:dfc^: ± ic db & & & £ tirdb

SPI RITE

went out together, and walked up and down the
Boulevard near the club.

"What will the frequenters of that drawing-room
called the Bois," said Guy to the Baron, " think of
the lady and the sleigh, the horse and the coach-
man, all so very striking and yet unknown to every
one ? "

" The vision manifested itself but to you, to the
Countess, on whom Spirite desired to act, and to me
who, as one of the initiated, can see what is invisible
to other men. You may be sure that if Mme.
d'Ymbercourt speaks of the handsome Russian princess
and the splendid stepper, nobody will know what she
is talking about."

" Do you think," asked Malivert of the Baron,
"that I shall soon see Spirite again?"

"You may expect an early visit," replied de Feroe.
" The communications I receive from the other world
inform me that much interest is taken in you there."

" Shall it be to-night or to-morrow ? — in my rooms
or in a place where I do not expect to see her, as
happened to-day ? " cried Malivert, as impatient as a
passionate lover or a neophyte eager to penetrate a
mystery.

108

SPI RITE

" I cannot quite tell you that," replied the Swedish
Baron. " The spirits, for whom time does not exist
or has ceased to exist, do not reckon hours, since they
live in eternity. As far as Spirite is concerned, if she
saw you to-night or in a thousand years, it would be
exactly the same thing. But spirits that deign to enter
into communication with us poor mortals, remember
the brevity of our life, the imperfection and the fra-
gility of our organs ; they know that between one
apparition and another, if measured by the eternal dial,
the perishable envelope of man has time to dissolve
into dust a hundred times over; it is probable, there
fore, that Spirite will not keep you waiting. She has
descended to our sphere, and appears to have made up
her mind to go back to her own only after carrying
out her project."

"What is that project?" said Malivert. "You,
to whom nothing is closed in that supernatural
world, must know the motive which directs this
pure spirit towards a being yet subjected to material
conditions."

" On that point, my dear Guy," replied Baron de
Feroe, " my lips are sealed. I may not repeat the
secrets of the spirits. I was warned to put you on

109

SPI RITE

your guard against any terrestrial entanglement, and to
prevent your entering into bonds which might perhaps
chain your soul to a place in which it would suffer
from the eternal regret of having lost its freedom. My
mission does not go beyond that."

Thus chatting, Malivert and the Baron, followed
by their carriages which were being driven along
the pavement, reached the Madeleine, the Greek
columns of which, silvered by the pale beams of a
winter moon, looked at the end of the broad Rue
Royale something like the Parthenon, a resemblance
which disappears with daylight. On arriving there
the two friends separated and got into their respec-
tive coupes.

On reaching home, Malivert threw himself into his
arm-chair and, his elbow leaning on the table, began to
think. Spirite's apparition in the mirror had inspired
him with the immaterial desire, the winged volition to
which the sight of an angel gives birth, but her pres-
ence on the lake shore, under a more real feminine
form, had lighted in his heart the fire of human love.
He felt himself suffused with burning effluvia, and
possessed by that absolute love which even eternal
possession does not satisfy. As he was thinking, his

I 10

4, 4. 4, 4. 4* 4» 4« 4» 4; 4» 4» 4» 4» 4» 4; 4» 4» 4» 4; 4j 4» 4« 4; 4»

SPIRITE

hand outstretched on the table covered with papers, he
saw against the dark background of the Turkish table-
cover the outlines of another hand, slender, of a per-
fection unequalled by art and that nature would in vain
attempt to reach ; a tenuous hand with long fingers,
polished onyx-like nails ; on the back of the hand
showed a few veins of azure like the polished reflec-
tions which colour the milky opal, and it was lighted
by a light which was certainly not that of the lamp.
The rosy freshness of the tone and the ideal delicacy
of the form proved conclusively that it could be
Spirite's hand only. The small, clean, well-turned,
high-bred wrist ended in a mist of soft lace. As if to
plainly mark that the hand was there but as a sign, the
arm and the body were wanting. While Guy gazed
at it with eyes no longer amazed at anything extraordi-
nary, the fingers of the hand stretched out on one of
the sheets of writing-paper thrown confusedly on the
table and began to simulate the movements of one
writing. They seemed to trace lines, and when they
had gone over the whole page with the rapidity of an
actor writing a letter in a play, Guy caught hold of the
paper, expecting to find on it written sentences, known
or unknown signs. The paper was perfectly white.

1 1 1

dbdb 4: 4: i: £ £ 4? db i: 4?4rti?dbalrdbdbtbdbti?db tfc dbdb
SPI RITE

Guy looked at the sheet with considerable disappoint-
ment. He put it nearer the lamp, examined it in every
way, made the light fall upon it in every possible
manner without discovering the least trace of writ-
ing, and yet the hand was continuing upon another
sheet the same imaginary work, apparently producing
no result.

" What means this ? " asked Malivert of himself.
" Can Spirite have written with sympathetic ink that
one must heat in order to bring out the letters ? But
her mysterious fingers hold neither pen nor shadow
of a pen. What does it mean ? Am I to serve myself
as secretary to this spirit, to be my own medium — to
use the consecrated term ? The spirits, it is said,
which can produce illusions and appearances and call
up in the brain of those whom they haunt fearful or
superb spectacles, are incapable of acting upon material
reality and of displacing even a straw."

He remembered the impulse which had led him to
write the note to Mme. d'Ymbercourt, and it occurred
to him that by nervous influence Spirite might, perhaps,
succeed in dictating to him inwardly what she wished
to say to him. All he had to do was to let his hand
go and to still his own thoughts as much as he could,

112

SPIRITE

so that they should not mingle with those of the spirit.
Collecting himself and abstracting himself from the
external world, Guy calmed his over-excited brain,
turned up a little the wick of the lamp, took the pen,
dipped it in the ink, placed his hand on the paper, and,
his heart beating with timid hope, waited.

Very soon he experienced a curious sensation. It
seemed to him that he was losing the sense of his own
personality, that his individual remembrances were van-
ishing like those of a confused dream, that his thoughts
were disappearing like birds in the heavens. Although
his body was still near the table, preserving the same
attitude, Guy was inwardly absent; he had vanished,
disappeared. Another soul, or at least another mind
had taken the place of his own and was directing those
servants who, to act, were awaiting the unknown
master. The nerves of his fingers trembled and began
to execute movements of which he was unconscious,
the pen began to move on the paper, tracing rapid
signs in Guy's handwriting, slightly modified by the
external impulse. This is what Spirite dictated to
her medium. This confession of the outer world was
found among Malivert's papers, and I have been per-
mitted to transcribe it.

SPIRITE

SPIRITE'S DICTATION

" First, you must know the being, undefinable by
you, who has entered into your life. However
penetrating you may be, you cannot succeed in mak-
ing out its true nature, and as in a badly written
tragedy, in which the hero states his names, titles, and
references, I am obliged to explain myself ; but I have
this excuse, — that no one else can do it for me. Your
intrepid heart, which did not hesitate to confront at my
call the mysterious terrors of the unknown, does not
need to be reassured. Besides, even did danger exist,
it would not prevent your pursuing the adventure.
The invisible world, of which this world is but the
veil, has its pitfalls and abysses, but you shall not fall
into any of them. Spirits of falsehood and evil traverse
it ; there are angels of darkness as there are angels of
light, revolted powers and submissive powers, benefi-
cent and harmful forces. The lower portion of the
mystic ladder, the summit of which is lost in eternal
light, is shrouded in darkness. I hope that, with my
help, you will ascend the luminous rounds. I am
neither angel nor demon, nor one of the intermediary
spirits who bear through space the Divine Will as

114

SPIRITE

the nervous fluid communicates to the limbs of the
body the human will. I am merely a soul still await-
ing judgment and allowed by divine goodness to antici-
pate a favourable sentence. I, too, have dwelt on your
earth, and I could repeat the melancholy epitaph of
the shepherd in Poussin's picture, 4 Et in Arcadia ego?
Do not, because I quote Latin, mistake me for the
soul of a literary woman. In the place where I am
everything is known intuitively, and the various lan-
guages spoken by humankind before and after the con-
fusion of tongues are equally familiar to us. Words
are but the shadows of ideas and we possess the idea
itself in its essential state. If age could exist in a
place where time is not, I should be very young in my
new country. It is only a few days since, freed by
death, I left the atmosphere which you breathe and to
which I am recalled by a feeling that the passage from
one world to another has not effaced. My terrestrial
life, or rather, my last apparition on your planet, was
very short, but it was sufficient to give me time to
learn how deeply a loving soul may suffer. When
Baron de Feroe sought to ascertain the nature of the
spirit the vague manifestations of which troubled you,
and when he asked you if ever a woman or a girl

115

SPI R TTE

had died of a broken heart on your account, he was
nearer the truth than he believed, and although you
can recall nothing of the kind, since you were un-
aware of it, the remark deeply troubled you and your
confusion was ill concealed under a playfully sceptical
denial.

"You never knew it, yet my life touched yours.
Your eyes looked elsewhere, and as far as you were
concerned, I was lost in the shadow.

" The first time I saw you was in the parlour of the
Convent of the Birds, where you went to visit your
sister, who was boarding there as I was. She was in
a more advanced class, for I was then only thirteen or
fourteen at most, and I seemed younger, for I was
very frail, dainty, and fair. You paid no attention
then to the little chit, to the child who, while busy
eating the chocolate creams which her mother had
brought her, glanced timidly at you. You were then
about twenty or twenty-two. In mv childish simpli-
city I thought you very handsome. The air of kind-
ness and affection with which you spoke to your sister
touched and attracted me, and I wished I had a brother
like you. My childish imagination went no farther.
As Mile, de Malivert had finished her education, she

116

SPI RITE

left the convent, and you not did come again. But
your image was never effaced from my remembrance ;
it remained on the white parchment of my soul like
those light outlines traced in pencil by a skilled hand
which are found again long afterwards, almost invisi-
ble but persisting, the only traces at times of a van-
ished hand. The idea that so great a personage
could ever notice me, who was still in the young-
est class and treated somewhat disdainfully by the
older boarders, would have been much too ambitious,
and did not even occur to me, at least at that time.
But I very often thought of you, and in those chaste
romances woven by the most innocent imaginations,
you it was who always played the part of Prince
Charming, who delivered me from fancied perils,
who carried me off through underground ways, who
put to flight corsairs and brigands and brought me
back to the King my father. For such a hero as you
were must have at least an Infanta or a Princess, and
I modestly assumed that rank. At other times the
romance changed into a pastoral ; you were a shepherd
and I was a shepherdess, and our flocks mingled in
tender green meadows. Without suspecting it, you
formed a very considerable part of my life, and you

117

SPI RITE

.orded over it. It was to you that I ascribed all my
little successes at school, and I worked with all my
strength to deserve your approbation. I said : c He
does not know that I have won a prize, but he will
know it and he will be pleased ; ' and although nat-
urally idle, I set to work again with renewed energy.
Was it not curious that my child's soul should have
given itself to you secretly and acknowledged itself
the vassal of a lord of its own choice who did not
even suspect this homage ? Is it not stranger still
that that first impression should never have been
effaced? — for it lasted all my life, alas ! a very short
one, and is prolonged even beyond it. At sight of
you, something indefinable and mysterious moved in
me of which I understood the meaning only when my
eyes, as they closed, were opened forever. My con-
dition as an impalpable being, as a pure spirit, permits
me now to tell you those things which a daughter of
earth no doubt would hide; but the immaculate inno-
cence of a soul cannot blush ; celestial modesty may
confess love.

" Two years thus went by. I had grown out of
childhood into maidenhood, and my dreams began to
become less puerile, while still remaining innocent.

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SPIRITE

There was rather less rose and azure in them and
they did not always end in the blaze of an apotheosis.
I often went to the end of the garden, sat down on
a bench far from my companions busy with their
games or whispered conversations, and I murmured
like a litany the syllables of your name. Sometimes
even I was bold enough to think that that name
might become my own in consequence of chances
or adventures as entangled as those of a comedy of
cloak and sword, the plot of which I arranged to
suit my own fancy.

" I belonged to a family the peer of your own, and
my parents enjoyed a fortune and a rank which made
the distant project of marriage which I formed almost
timidly, in the most secret corner of my heart, seem
anything but a chimera or a foolish vision. It would
have been most natural that we should meet some
day in the society in which we both moved. But
would I take your fancy ? would you think me
pretty ? That was a question which my small board-
ing-school mirror did not answer in the negative, as
you may now judge by the reflection which I sent
to your Venetian mirror, and by my appearance in
the Bois de Boulogne. Supposing, however, you were

119

SPI RITE

to pay as little attention to the young lady as to the
child in the convent ? When I thought of that, I
was filled with the deepest discouragement. But
youth never despairs very long, and I would soon
indulge in brighter fancies. It seemed impossible to
me that when you saw me you should not recognise
that I was yours, that my soul was marked with your
seal, that I had adored you from childhood, — in a
word, that I was the one woman created purposely
for you. I did not say these things to myself so
plainly, for I did not then understand the emotions of
my heart as I do now, when I can see the two sides
of life, but it was the deep instinct of blind faith
and irresistible feeling. In spite of my virginal igno-
rance and a candour that has perhaps never been
surpassed, my soul was filled with a passion which
was to destroy me, and which to-dav has been revealed
for the first time. I had no bosom friend at the con-
vent, and I lived alone with my thoughts of you.
Jealous of my secret, I dreaded confidences, and every
friendship that would have drawn me away from my
one idea was repellent to me. I was called serious,
and the teachers used to propose me as a model. I
awaited the time when I was to leave the convent

120

SPIRITE

with less impatience than might be supposed. It was
a moment of respite between thought and action. As
long as I was shut up within the convent walls, I had
the right to lose myself indolently in my dream
without any self-reproach, but once I should have
flown forth from the cage, I should have to direct my
own flight, to tend to my aim, to ascend towards my
star; and customs, manners, conventionalities, infinite
modesty, the numerous veils with which civilisation
surrounds her, forbid a young girl to take the initia-
tive in a matter of love. She cannot take any step
to reveal herself to her own ideal; a proper pride is
opposed to her offering what must be priceless. Her
eyes must be cast down, her lips closed, her bosom
motionless ; no flush, no pallor must betray her when
she finds herself in the presence of the man she
secretly loves, and who often goes away believing her
disdainful or indifferent. How many souls created one
for the other have, for lack of a word, a glance, a
smile, gone different ways that separated them more
and more and made their meeting forever impossible.
How many lives deplorably wrecked owe their mis-
fortune to such a cause unperceived by all, and at
times unknown even to themselves. I had often

121

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SPIRITE

thought over these things, and they recurred more
strongly to my mind at the moment when I was about
to leave the convent to enter into the world. Yet I
held to my resolution. The time of my departure
came, my mother sent for me, and I bade farewell
to my companions with but slight marks of feeling.
I left no friendship and no remembrance within those
walls, where several years of my life had been spent.
The thought of you alone formed my treasure.

122

SPIRITE

VIII

IT was with a lively feeling of pleasure that I entered
the room, or rather the small apartment which
my mother had prepared for me on my leaving
the convent. It consisted of a bedroom, a large
dressing-room and a sitting-room, the windows of
which looked out on a garden prolonged by a view over
the neighbouring gardens. A low wall covered with a
thick mantle of ivy formed the boundary-line, but the
stone showed nowhere, and nothing was visible but a
procession of gigantic old chestnut trees, which gave the
gardens the appearance of a vast park. Scarcely at the
very extremity did the glance rest, between the more
distant masses of foliage, upon the corner of a roof or
the elbow of a chimney-pot, a signature which Paris
places upon every one of its horizons. It was a rare
satisfaction, possible only to wealth, to have before me,
in the very centre of the great city, a broad, free,
empty place with air, sky, sunshine, and verdure. Is
it not disagreeable to feel too close to one's self other

123

SPI RITE

lives, passions, vices, misfortunes, and is not the
delicate modesty of the soul somewhat depressed by
such close vicinage? I therefore felt genuine joy as I
gazed out of my windows upon that oasis of coolness,
silence, and solitude. It was August, for I had finished
my last school year in the convent, and the foliage v/as
still intensely green, but with the warmer tone which
the passing of summer imparts to vegetation. In the
centre of the flower garden under my windows a bed
of geraniums in full bloom dazzled the eyes with its
scarlet blaze. The sward surrounding this flower-bed,
a carpet of green velvet of English rye grass, brought
out by its emerald tint that red more ardent than fire.
On the finely sanded walk marked like a ribbon by the
teeth of the rakes, the birds were hopping about trust-
fully and seemed perfectly at home. I promised
myself that I should share their excursions without
making them fly away.

" My room was hung with white cashmere trimmed
with blue silk cords. This was also the colour of the
furniture and the window curtains. In my small
sitting-room, decorated in the same way, a magnificent
Erard piano offered its keyboard to my hands, and I at
once tried its soft sonority. A bookcase of rosewood

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placed opposite the piano contained the pure books, the
chaste poets which a maiden may read, and the lower
shelves contained the scores of the great composers ;
Bach elbowed Haydn, Mozart was side by side with
Beethoven, like Raphael and Michael Angelo, and
Meyerbeer leaned upon Weber. My mother had
brought together the masters I admired, those who
were my favourites. An elegant jardiniere full of
sweet-scented flowers bloomed in the centre of the
room like a great nosegay. I was being treated like a
spoiled child. I was the only daughter, and the whole
affection of my parents was naturally concentrated
upon me.

" I was to make my entrance into society at the begin-
ning of the season, — that is, two or three months later,
at the time which puts an end to country life, to travel,
to sojourns in watering-places and gambling-places, to
country-house parties, to hunting, racing, and all that
society invents to pass the time which it is not proper
for well-bred people to spend in Paris, where my
parents had been detained by business. I greatly pre-
ferred remaining in town to staying in the old and
rather gloomy chateau in the very depths of Brittany
to which I had gone regularly for every vacation.

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Besides, I fancied I should have a chance of meeting
you, of hearing you spoken of, or of coming across
people acquainted with you ; but I learned indirectly
that you had been gone for some time on a trip to
Spain which would last a few months longer. Your
friends, to whom you rarely wrote, did not expect you
back before winter. It was said that your fancy had
been caught by a mantilla-wearing Spanish girl. That
troubled me little, for in spite of my modesty, I was
conceited enough to think that my golden hair could
rival the jet tresses of Andalusia. I learned also that
you wrote in reviews under the Latinised pseudonym
of one of your given names, known only to your inti-
mate friends, and that the well-bred gentleman in you
concealed a distinguished writer. With a curiosity you
can easily understand, I sought in the files of news-
papers all the articles marked by that sign. To read a
writer is to place yourself in communication with his
mind, for is not a book confidences addressed to an
ideal friend, a conversation from which the interlocutor
is absent ? One must not always take literally what
the author says ; one must allow for philosophical or
literary systems, for fashionable affectations of the day,
for necessary reticence, for the style which imposes

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itself on him, for admiring imitations, and whatever
may modify the exterior form of a writer ; but under all
these disguises the true attitude of the soul at last reveals
itself to the real reader, the genuine thought is often to
be seen between the lines, and the poet's secret, which
he does not choose to tell to the crowd, is at least to
be guessed. One after another the veils fall and the
answers to the riddles are learned. In order to get an
idea of you, I studied with great attention your accounts
of travel, your articles on philosophy and criticism,
your tales and the pieces of verse scattered here and
there at rather long intervals, and which marked the
various phases of your mind. It is less difficult to
learn to know a subjective author than an objective.
The former expresses his own feelings, exposes his
ideas, and judges society and creation in virtue of an
ideal. The second presents objects such as they are in
nature ; he proceeds by images, by description ; he
brings things under the reader's eyes; he draws, dresses
up, colours his personages accurately, puts in their
mouths what they ought to have said, and keeps his
own opinion to himself. That is your way of doing.
At first sight you might have been accused of a certain
disdainful impartiality which did not see much differ-

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ence between a lizard and a man, between the glow of
a sunset and the glow of a conflagration ; but by read-
ing more closely and judging by certain sudden out-
breaks, swift rushes at once checked, I could divine
that you were possessed of deep feeling maintained by
a haughty reserve, which did not care to allow your
emotions to be seen.

" This judgment of you as a writer harmonised with
the instinctive judgment of my heart, and now that
nothing is concealed from me I know how true it was.
All sentimental trifling and hypocritically virtuous
magniloquence, you had in horror, and in your opinion
the worst of crimes was to deceive the soul. That
made you excessively shy of expressing tender or pas-
sionate feelings ; you preferred silence to falsehood or
exaggeration in such sacred matters, even though fools
considered you insensible, hard, and even cruel. I at
once perceived this, and not for a moment did I doubt
that you were kind-hearted. As to the nobility of
your mind, there could be not the least uncertainty.
Your proud disdain of vulgarity, of commonplaceness,
enviousness, and all moral ugliness amply proved it.
By dint of reading you, I learned to know you, whom
I had seen but once, as well as if I had met you inti-

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mately every day. I penetrated the intimate recesses
of your thought and knew your starting-point, your
motives, sympathies, antipathies, what you desired,
what you disliked, — in a word, your whole mental
being, — and from it I deduced what your character
must be. Sometimes when reading, struck by a pas-
sage which was a revelation to me, I would rise and
go to the piano, and play, as a comment on your
sentences, motives analogous in colour and sentiment
which prolonged the passage in sonorous or melancholy
vibrations. I enjoyed hearing in another way the echo
of your thought. Perhaps these relations were imagi-
nary and could have been seized by none but myself,
but unquestionably some of them were real. I know
it now that I dwell in the eternal source of inspiration,
and that I see it fall like luminous sparks upon the
head of genius.

" While reading those of your works which I could
procure, — for the range of action of a young girl is so
narrow that the smallest step is difficult for her, — the
season was advancing, the trees were turning yellow
with the golden tints of late autumn, the leaves, one
after another, fell from the branches, and the gardener,
in spite of his care, could not prevent the sward and

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the gravel from being thickly covered with them.
Sometimes, when I wandered in the garden under the
chestnut trees, the fall of a chestnut falling on my
head like a ball or rolling at my feet out of its broken
husk, interrupted my reverie and made me involuntarily
start. The delicate plants and shrubs were being taken
into the hot-house, the birds had the uneasy look which
they have at the approach of winter, and at evening I
could hear them quarrelling on the bare branches.
The season was about to begin ; society was returning
to Paris from every point of the horizon. On the
Champs Elysees were again to be seen carriages with
coats of arms on the panels driven slowly up towards
the Arc de l'Etoile to enjoy the last rays of the sun ;
the Theatre-Italien published its list of singers and its
repertoire, and announced the forthcoming opening. I
rejoiced at the thought that this general movement of
return would bring you back from Spain and that,
weary of the gloomy sierras, you would enjoy coming
to receptions, parties, and balls, where I hoped I might
meet you.

" Once, while driving in the Bois de Boulogne with
my mother, I saw you ride by our carriage, but so
swiftly that I had scarcely time to recognise you. It

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was the first time that I had seen you since your visit
to the convent. My blood rushed to my heart and I
felt a sort of electric shock. Under pretext of feeling
the cold, I lowered my veil to conceal the change in my
face, and I sank silently back into the corner of the
carriage. My mother pulled up the window and said :
'It is not warm. A mist is coming up and we had
better return, unless you wish to drive on.' I nodded
assent. I had learned what I wished to learn ; I knew
that you were in Paris.

" We used to go to the Opera once a week. It was
a great treat to me to hear the singers of whom I had
heard so much, but whom I did not know. Another
hope also stirred my heart j I need not tell you what it
was. Our day came. Patti was to sing 1 La Sonnam-
bula.' My mother had had made for me a pretty,
simple, dress suited to my age : an underskirt of white
taffeta with an overskirt of tarlatan, and bows of blue
velvet and pearls. My hair was dressed with a band
of velvet of the same colour, with pearls twisted around
it and the ends falling down on my shoulders. As I
looked in my mirror while my maid was putting on
the last touches, I asked myself, ' Is he fond of blue ? '
In Alfred de Musset's 'Caprice,' Mme. de Lery says

13 1

it***************:********

SPI RITE

it is a stupid colour. And yet I could not help think-
ing that the blue ribbon looked very well with my
golden hair. If you had seen me, I think you would
have loved me. Clotilde, my maid, as she arranged the
folds of the dress and the bows on my bodice, said
that I was very pretty that evening.

" The carriage deposited my mother and myself in
front of the peristyle, — my father was to join us later,
— and we began slowly to ascend the great, red-carpeted
staircase. The warm atmosphere was perfumed with
cuscus and patchouli ; ladies in full dress, their gowns
still concealed by the mantles, pelisses, burnouses, scarfs,
and opera cloaks which they were presently to hand to
their lackeys, were ascending the stairs, their long trains
of watered silk, satin, and velvet trailing behind them,
and resting their hands on the arm of grave men in
white neckties, whose black coats had in the button-
hole strings of orders, which meant that they intended,
after the opera, to proceed to some official or diplomatic
reception. Tall, slender young fellows, their hair parted
in the middle, most correctly and elegantly dressed,
followed close behind, drawn to a group by a smile.

" All this is no novelty to you, and you would paint
the picture better than I, but the sight was new to a

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little boarding-school girl making her entrance into
society. Life is always the same. It is like a play in
which the spectators alone change ; but one who has
not seen the performance is interested in it as if it were
made purposely for him and were being given for the
first time. I was happy. I felt I was beautiful ; ap-
proving glances had been cast upon me ; some women
had looked around after having examined me with a
rapid glance, and found nothing to blame either in my
dress or my coiffure.

" I had a secret presentiment that I should see you
that evening. This hope imparted a slight animation
to my features and flushed my cheeks more brilliantly
than usual. We sat down in our box, and soon glasses
were turned upon me. Mine was a new face, and
new faces are quickly noted at the Opera, which is like
a great drawing-room where everybody knows every-
body else. My mother's presence told people who I
was, and I understood from the way they bent towards
each other that I was being talked about in several
boxes, favourably no doubt, for kindly smiles followed
the whispered sentences. I felt somewhat awkward
at being the observed of all observers; wearing a low-
necked dress for the first time, I felt my shoulders

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SPIRITE

shiver under the gauze which covered them with its
semi-transparency. The rise of the curtain — for the
overture had been little listened to — made every one
look towards the stage and put an end to my embar-
rassment. Undoubtedly the aspect of that beautiful
hall starred with diamonds and bouquets, with its
gilding, its footlights, its white caryatids, awoke in me
both surprise and admiration, and Bellini's music per-
formed by artists of the first rank carried me away into
a world of enchantment ; yet the real interest of the
evening did not lie there so far as I was concerned.
While my ears listened to the suave melodies of the
Sicilian composer, my eyes were timidly examining
every box, roaming over the balcony, and examining
the orchestra stalls in order to discover you. The
first act was nearly ended before you came, and when
the curtain was rung down, you turned half round
towards the auditorium, looking rather bored and
gazing at the boxes indifferently without letting your
glance rest on any one in particular. Your complex-
ion was browned by six months' travel in Spain, and
there was on your face a certain expression of nostalgia,
as if you regretted the country you had left. My heart
beat loudly while you were making this rapid inspec-

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SPI RITE

tion, and for a moment I thought your glance had
noted me, but I was mistaken. I saw you leave your
seat and reappear shortly afterwards in a box opposite
our own. It was occupied by a pretty woman very
splendidly dressed, whose black hair shone like satin.
Her pale rose-coloured dress was almost undistinguish-
able from the flesh tones of her bosom ; diamonds
sparkled in her hair, in her ears, on her neck and her
arms. On the velvet-covered rail by the side of her
opera-glasses bloomed a great bouquet of Parma violets
and camellias. At the back, in the shadow, I could
make out an old, bald-headed, obese person, the lappel
of whose coat half-concealed the star of some foreign
order. The lady spoke to you with unmistakable
pleasure and you replied to her in a careless, easy way,
without seeming to be particularly taken with her more
than friendly manner. My disappointment at not
having been noticed by you was compensated for by
the joy of feeling that you did not love that bold-eyed
woman with the alluring smile and the dazzling
toilet.

"A few minutes later, as the musicians began to tune
up for the second act, you took leave of the lady with
the diamonds and the old gentleman with the foreign

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order, and returned to your seat. The performance
ended without your turning your head once, and in my
soul I felt annoyed with you. I wondered that you
could not guess that a young girl in a white dress with
blue bows wanted very much to be looked at by the
man she had secretly chosen. I had so long wished to
find myself in the same place as you ; my wish was
granted, and you did not even suspect that I was pres-
ent. You ought to have felt, it seemed to me, a sym-
pathetic thrill ; you ought to have turned around and
looked slowly through the hall impelled by a secret
emotion ; your glance should have stopped on the box
I was in, and you should have put your hand to your
heart and fallen into an ecstasy. The hero of a novel
would not have failed to do so. But you were not the
hero of a novel.

" My father, who had had to go to a state dinner,
came in the middle of the second act only, and seeing
you in the orchestra stalls, he said, ' Why ! there is
Guy de Malivert ! I did not know that he had re-
turned from Spain. His trip means for us endless
bull-fights in the Review, for Guy is a bit of a bar-
barian.' I delighted in hearing your name spoken by
my father's lips. You were not unknown to my

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SPI RI TE

family ; we might therefore meet. It would be easy
indeed to do so. I was thus somewhat consoled for
the lack of success I had met with that evening. The
performance closed without any other incident than
showers of bouquets, recalls, and ovations to Patti.
While waiting in the vestibule until our footman
announced our carriage, I saw you pass with a friend
and draw a cigar from a case of fine Manila esparto.
The desire to smoke made you careless, I am bound to
say, of the exhibition of beauties and ugly women, who
were ranged upon the lower steps of the staircase.
You made your way through the mass of dresses,
caring little whether or not you rumpled them, and
you soon reached the door with your friend following
in your wake.

" On returning home, happy and dissatisfied, I went
to bed after having tried with no great success some
of the melodies of 4 La Sonnambula,' as if to prolong
the vibrations of the evening ; and then I went to
sleep, thinking of you.

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Jl, »l< rtj. .Ji-. «i, «jr» *i» ^"jI? tI? it? jfctfe tf? tf? t~? tf? TsTTf?

ONE often finds when, after a certain time the
remembrance and the image are compared,
that imagination has worked like a painter,
who goes on with a portrait in the absence of his
model, softening the surfaces, graduating the tints,
making the contours melt one into another, and bring-
ing back, in spite of himself, the portrait to his own
particular ideal. I had not seen you for more than
three years, but my heart had accurately preserved the
memory of your face. Only, you had changed some-
what ; your features had become firmer and more ac-
centuated, and the sunburn of travel had imparted to
your complexion a warmer and more vigorous colour.
The man showed more in the young man, and you
had that air of tranquil authority and assured force
which takes women perhaps more than beauty. None
the less I preserved carefully within my soul the first
drawing, the slight sketch of the being who was to
have so much influence over me, just as one preserves

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SPI RITE

a miniature of the youth by the side of the portrait of
later days. My dreams had not harmed you, and I
was not obliged, when I saw you again, to strip you
of a mantle of fancied perfections. I thought of all
this, curled up in my bed and watching the gleam of
the night-light trembling on the blue roses of the car-
pet, while awaiting sleep that did not come, but which
towards morning closed my eyes, mingling vague har-
monies with disconnected dreams.

" A few weeks later we received an invitation to a

great ball given by the Duchess de C . For a

young girl her first ball is an event. This one was
the more interesting to me that it was likely you would
be at it, the Duchess being a great friend of yours.
Balls are our battles which we win or lose. It is there
that the young girl, issuing from the shadows of the
gynaeceum, shines in all her splendour. Custom
grants her during this short space of time, under the
pretext of dancing, a sort of relative freedom, and the
ball is to her like the foyer of the Opera where domin-
oes walk with uncovered faces. She may be ap-
proached with an invitation to dance a quadrille or a
mazurka, and during the figures of a country-dance
she may even be spoken to j but very often the long

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list on her engagement card does not contain the one
name that she really has longed for.

" I had to think of my dress, for a ball dress is a
poem, and that of a young girl is a very difficult thing
to make up. It has to be both simple and rich ; that
is to say, it must possess contrary characteristics. A
light dress entirely white would not have been the
thing, so I made up my mind, after a good deal of
hesitation, to have a skirt and overskirt of gauze
worked with silver, caught up with bouquets of forget-
me-nots, the blue of which matched admirably the
turquoise set which my father had purchased for me.
Clusters of turquoises, imitating the flowers scattered
over my dress, formed my head-dress. Thus attired,
I fancied myself capable of showing not too disadvan-
tageous^ among the splendid toilets and the famous
beauties. Indeed, for a mere child of earth, I looked
rather well.

" The Duchess de C inhabited one of those

vast mansions in the Faubourg Saint-Germain built
for the splendid lives of other days, mansions which
modern life finds it difficult to fill. It takes the crowd
and splendour of a feast to animate them as of yore.
From the outside no one would have suspected the

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extent of this princely mansion. A high wall between
two houses with a monumental carriage-gate, over
which, in gilt letters upon a tablet of green marble,

was written, 1 Hotel de C ,' was all that could be

seen from the street. A long avenue of old lime-trees,
trimmed in the shape of an arch after the old French
fashion and which winter had stripped of their
leaves, led to a vast court at the back of which rose
the mansion, built in the pure Louis XIV style, with
high windows, columns half engaged and mansard
attics, like the architecture of Versailles. A red and
white awning, supported by carved uprights, projected
over the red-carpeted steps. I had time to examine all
these details by the light given out by the clusters of
lamps, for the guests, though select, were numerous,
and we had to fall in line just as at a great reception.
The carriage drew up before the steps, and we handed
our pelisses to our footman. By a glass door, the
leaves of which he opened and shut, stood a gigantic
porter with splendid broad shoulders. In the vestibule
we passed between two lines of footmen in full livery
and powdered ; every one of them tall, motionless,
and perfectly serious. They looked like domestic
caryatids, and seemed to feel that it was an honour to

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be lackeys in such a house. The whole of the stair-
case, in which a small palace of to-day could easily
have been put, was lined with huge camellias. At
every landing great mirrors allowed the ladies to repair,
as they went up, the slight disorder caused in a ball
toilet by mantles, light as they may be, and which
was shown by the brilliant blaze of a chandelier
that hung, sustained by a golden cord, from a cupola
where in azure and clouds the brush of some pupil of
Lebrun or Mignard had painted a boldly foreshortened
mythological allegory in the taste of his day.

"Between the windows were landscapes, oblong in
shape, severe in style, and dark in colour, which might
have been attributed to Poussin, or at least to Gaspard
Dughet; so, at least, thought a famous painter who
was going up the stairs by our side, and who had put
his glass to his eye to examine them more closelv. At
the turn of the stairs, upon the steps of the balustrade,
which was a marvel of iron work, were statues of marble
by Lepautre and Theodon, bearing candelabra the bril-
liancy of which equalled that of the chandelier, so that
the feast, thanks to the splendour of the light, began
even on the staircase. At the door of the antechamber,
hung with Gobelins tapestries after cartoons by Oudry,

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SPIRITE

and wainscotted in old oak, stood an usher dressed in
black with a silver chain around his neck, who in a
voice more or less loud according to the importance of
the title, called out into the first drawing-room the
names of the guests.

"The Duke, tall, thin, made up of long lines like a
thorough-bred greyhound, had a distinguished, aristo-
cratic air, and in spite of his age, preserved traces
of his former elegance. Even in the street, no one
could have mistaken his rank. Standing a short dis-
tance from the door, he received the invited guests
with a gracious word, a hand-shake, a bow, a nod, a
smile, with a sure appreciation of what was due to
each, and with such perfect grace that every one was
satisfied and believed himself specially favoured. He
bowed to my mother in a respectful, friendly way, and
as it was the first time he had seen me, he spoke in a
few words a semi-paternal, semi-gallant madrigal that
smacked of the old Court. Near the mantel-piece stood
the Duchess, rouged with utter carelessness of illusion,
plainly wearing a wig and exhibiting historical dia-
monds upon her thin bosom intrepidly low-necked.
She was an uncommonly witty woman, and under her
broad brown eyelids her eyes still shone with extraordi-

143

SPI R I TE

nary brilliancy. She wore a dress of dark-garnet velvet
with great flounces of English point-lace, and a row of
diamonds at her bodice. With a careless hand she
fanned herself with a large fan painted by Watteau,
while she spoke to the persons who came to pay their
respects. She looked uncommonly aristocratic. She
exchanged a few words with my mother who presented
me to her, and as I bowed, she touched my brow with
her cold lips and said, ' Go, dear, and be sure not to
miss a single dance.'

" This ceremony over, we entered the next drawing-
room, which led to the ball-room. On the red damask
hangings, in magnificent frames contemporary with the
paintings themselves, hung family portraits that were
not put there through aristocratic pride, but simply as
masterpieces of art. They were by Clouet, Porbus,
Van Dyck, Philippe de Champagne and de Largilliere,
and every one was worthy of being placed in the Trib-
une of a museum. What I enjoyed about the luxury
in this house was that nothing was recent. The paint-
ings, the gilding, the damasks, the brocades, though not
faded, were dulled and did not annoy the eye by the loud
brilliancy of newness. One felt that the wealth was
of long standing, and that things had always been so.

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The ball-room was of a size now scarcely met with
save in palaces. Numerous standing-lamps and brack-
et-lamps placed in the bays between the windows
formed with their thousands of tapers a sort of luminous
conflagration through which the azure paintings of the
ceiling with their wreaths of nymphs and cupids showed
as through a rosy vapour. In spite of the brilliant light
the room was so large that there was no lack of air
and one breathed comfortably. The orchestra was
placed in a sort of gallery at the end of the room in a
grove of rare plants. On velvet benches arranged in
semicircles were rows of ladies dazzlingly dressed if
not dazzlingly beautiful, though there were some very
pretty ones. The sight was superb. We happened to
come in exactly between two dances and, seated near
my mother on the end of a bench which happened to
be free, I gazed on this spectacle, new to me, with
astonishment and curiosity. The gentlemen, hav-
ing taken their partners back to their seats, were
walking about in the centre of the room looking to
right and left, as if reviewing the women before mak-
ing their choice. It was the youthful time of the ball,
for somewhat mature men do not now dance. There
were young attaches of embassies, and secretaries of

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legations, auditors of the Council of State in expecta-
tion, beardless masters of requests, officers who had
gone through their first campaign, clubmen diplomati-
cally serious, youthful sportsmen thinking of keeping a
stud, dandies whose whiskers were not much more
than down, and eldest sons with the precocious
authority of a great name and of a great fortune.
Among these young people were a few serious person-
ages covered with orders, whose polished heads shone
like ivory in the light of the lustres, or were concealed
under wigs either too dark or too fair. As they passed
by, they addressed polite remarks to the dowagers con-
temporary with their own youth, then turning aside,
they would examine like experts and disinterested con-
noisseurs the feminine harem outspread before their
eyes and their glasses. The first strains of the
orchestra made them retrograde as quickly as their
gouty feet allowed towards quieter drawing-rooms,
where at tables lighted by tapers covered with green
shades they played at bouillotte or ecarte.

"You will readily believe that I did not lack dancers.
A young Hungarian in his magnate's dress, braided,
embroidered, studded with buttons of precious stones,
bowed gracefully to me and asked me for a mazurka.

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SPIRITE

His features were regular, romantically pale, with
great, black, somewhat shy eyes, and mustaches as
sharp as needles. An Englishman of twenty-two or
twenty-three who resembled Lord Byron except that
he was not lame, the attache of a Northern court, and
some others wrote their names at once on my card.
Although the old dancing master at the convent used
to boast of me as being one of his best and most grace-
ful pupils, and praised my lightness and my feeling for
time, I was not, I confess, entirely at my ease; I felt,
as the papers say, the emotions inseparable from a
debut. It seemed to me, as shy people always fancy,
that all eyes were fixed upon me. Fortunately my
Hungarian partner was an excellent dancer who helped
out my first attempts, and soon, carried away by the
music, intoxicated by the motion, I regained assurance
and allowed myself to be spun into the whirlpool of
floating skirts with a sort of pleasurable excitement.
Yet I never forgot my usual thought and my object in
coming to the ball. As I passed bv the dancers, with
a rapid glance I tried to see if you were in the other
rooms. I at last caught sight of you in the recess of
a window, talking with a dark-faced, long-nosed, black-
bearded man wearing a red fez, in the uniform of the

SPI RITE

Nizam, with the Medjidieh order on his breast, no doubt
either a bey or a pacha. When the whirl of the dance
brought me back, there you were still speaking with
animation to your orientally placid Turk, not deigning
to cast a glance at the pretty faces that passed before
you, flushed by the dance, in the shimmer of light.

" Nevertheless I did not lose hope, and for the time
I was satisfied to know that you were there. Besides,
the evening was not over, and some fortunate chance
might bring us together. My partner took me back
to my seat, and again the men began to walk up and
down the space circumscribed by the benches. You
took a turn with your Turk through the moving multi-
tude, looking at the ladies and the toilets, but with
no more interest than you might have looked at pictures
or statues. From time to time you made a remark to
your friend the pacha, who smiled gravely. I could see
you doing all this through my fan, which I closed, I
confess, when you approached the place where we were
seated. My heart beat high and I felt myself blush to
the shoulders. It was impossible this time that I
should escape your notice, for you walked as close to
the benches as the dazzling fringe of gauze, lace, and
flounces which overflowed, allowed you to do; but

148

SPIRITE

unfortunately two or three friends of my mother's
stopped before us and paid her compliments, some of
which were addressed to me. This screen of black
coats masked me entirely. You had to go around the
group and I remained invisible, though I did bend my
head somewhat in the hope that you might see me.
But you could not guess that those black coats, respect-
fully inclined, concealed from you a rather pretty girl
who thought of no one but you and who had come to
the ball on your account alone. I saw you leave the
room by the other end, the Turk's red cap being the
mark by which I followed you in the maze of dark
coats which answer for a festival as well as for mourn-
ing. My enjoyment vanished and I seemed dreadfully
discouraged. Ironical Fate seemed to enjoy teasing
me and taking you away from me. I danced the
dances I was engaged for, and pretending to be some-
what tired, I refused other invitations. The play had
lost its charm for me, the dresses seemed faded, and the
lights turning dim. My father, who was playing cards
in another room and who had lost some hundred louis
to an old gentleman, came in to take us around the
apartments, and show us the hot-house into which the
last room led, which was reputed to be marvellous ; in-

149

SPI RITE

deed, nothing could be more magnificent. It was like
a virgin forest, so vigorously did the banana trees, the
shaddocks, the palms, and other tropical plants grow in
the warm atmosphere saturated with exquisite perfumes.
At the end of the hot-house a white marble naiad poured
out the waters of her urn into a gigantic shell of the
Southern Seas surrounded by a mass of waterplants.
There I caught sight of you again. You had your
sister on your arm, but you were ahead of us and we
could not meet you, for we followed in the same direc-
tion the narrow path, covered with yellow sand and
bordered with verdure, that wound around the clumps
of shrubs, flowers, and plants.

"We walked two or three times through the drawing-
rooms, where the crowd had somewhat diminished, foi
the dancers had gone to restore their strength at the
buffet, served with elegant profusion in a gallery
wainscotted with ebony and gilding and adorned with
paintings by Desportes, representing flowers, fruits, and
game, of splendid colouring, which time had simply
made richer. All these details which I glanced at
carelessly remained in my memory, and I recall them
even in this world where life seems only the dream of
a shadow. They are connected for me with feelings

150

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SPIRITE

so deep that they compel me to return to earth. I
returned to my home as sad as I had left it joyous, and
attributed my mournful look to a slight headache.
As I exchanged for a night wrapper the ball toilet
which had been useless to me, since I desired to be
beautiful for you alone, I said with a sigh, 4 Why
did n't he ask me to dance, as the Hungarian, the
Englishman, and the other men did, although I cared
nothing for them ? It was a very easy matter. It
was the most natural thing at a ball. But everybody
looked at me except the one being whose attention I
desired to attract. There is no doubt that my unfor-
tunate love is very unlucky.' I went to bed, and a few
tears rolled from my eyelids to my pillow."

Here stopped Spirite's dictation. The lamp had
long since gone out for lack of oil, and Malivert, like
somnambulists who need no exterior light, was still
writing. Page followed page without Guy being con-
scious of it. Suddenly the impulse that guided his
hand stopped, and his own thought, suspended by that
of Spirite, returned to him. The faint light of dawn
was filtering through the curtains of his room. He
pulled them aside, and the pallid light of a winter

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SPIRITE

morning showed him on the table many pages covered
with feverish, rapid writing, the work of the night.
Although he had written them with his own hand, he
did not know their contents. With ardent curiosity,
with deep emotion, he read the artless and chaste con-
fidences of the lovely soul, of the adorable being, whose
executioner he had been ; innocently, it is needless to
add. This tardy confession of love coming from the
other world, breathed by a shadow, inspired him with
desperate regret and powerless rage against himself.
How could he have been stupid enough, blind enough
to pass thus by the side of happiness without perceiv-
ing it. But he grew calm at last. Happening to
look up at the Venetian mirror, he saw the reflection
of Spirite smiling upon him.

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tt: & i: & i: £ & & db & i: & & & £ & db 4: db dfe £ d?

A STRANGE experience it is, to receive a reve-
lation of retrospective happiness which has
passed close to you without being perceived,
and which you have lost through your own fault.
Never can regret for the irreparable be more bitter.
One would like to live over again one's past days.
Wonderful plans are made, and after the event one
indulges in the most amazing perspicacity ; but life
cannot be turned over like an hourglass ; the grain of
sand once fallen will never ascend again. Guy de
Malivert reproached himself in vain for not having
found out the charming creature, who was neither
buried in a Constantinople harem nor hidden behind
the gratings of an Italian or Spanish convent, nor
guarded like Rosina by a jealous guardian, but who
had been of his own world, whom he could have seen
every day, and from whom no insuperable obstacle
separated him. She loved him ; he could have asked
her in marriage, he would have obtained her hand, and

J53

SPIRITE

he would have enjoyed the supreme and rare felicity of
being united even in this life to the soul destined to his
soul. From the way in which he adored her shadow
he understood what a passion the girl herself would
have inspired in him. But soon his thoughts took
another course ; he ceased to reproach himself, and
regretted his commonplace grief. What had he lost,
since, after all, Spirite had preserved her love beyond
the tomb and had come from the depths of the Infinite
to descend to the sphere which he inhabited ? Was
not the passion he felt nobler, more poetic, more
ethereal, more like eternal love, since it was thus rid
of terrestrial contingencies, and had for its object a
being idealised by death ? Has not the most perfect
human union its weariness, its satiety, its lassitude ?
The most dazzled eyes see, after a few years, the
charms they first adored turn pale ; the soul is less
visible through the worn flesh and love seeks in
amazement its vanished ideal.

These reflections and the ordinary course of life
with its exigencies, which even the most enthusiastic
dreamers cannot escape, led on Malivert until the
evening, which he so impatiently awaited. When he
had shut himself up in his room and seated himself by

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SPIRITE

the table as the night before, prepared to write, the
little white, slender, blue-veined hand reappeared, sign-
ing to Malivert to take the pen. He obeyed and his
ringers began to move of themselves without his brain
dictating anything. Spirite's thought had taken the
place of his own.

SPIRITE'S DICTATION

" I do not intend to weary you in posthumous
fashion by telling you of all my disappointments. One
day, however, I did feel a lively joy, and I thought
that imperious fate, which seemed to enjoy concealing
me from your glance, was about to cease troubling
me. We were to dine the following Saturday at

Mine, de L 's. That alone would have been

very indifferent to me, had I not learned during the
week through Baron de Feroe, who sometimes came
to see us, that you were to be one of the guests at

this half worldly, half literary feast, for M. de L

enjoyed entertaining artists and writers. He was a
man of taste, a connoisseur of books and paintings,
and possessed a library and a very fine collection of
paintings. You occasionally went to his receptions, as
did also several famous authors, and others who were

155

SPI RITE

becoming famous. M. de L piqued himself on

his ability to discover talent, and he was not of those
who believe in settled reputations only. I said to my-
self, in my childish exultation, ' At last I have got
hold of that fugitive, of that unapproachable man.
This time he cannot escape me. When we shall be
seated at the same table, perhaps side by side, lighted
by fifty tapers, careless though he may be, he will have
to see me, unless, however, there happens to be be-
tween us a mass of flowers or a centre-piece which
may conceal me.' The days which still separated me
from the happy Saturday seemed dreadfully long, as
long as study hours at the convent. They went by,
however, and the three of us, my father, my mother,

and myself, reached M. de L 's some thirty minutes

before the dinner hour. The guests, grouped about
the drawing-room, were chatting with each other,
coming and going, looking at the pictures, glancing at
the pamphlets on the tables, or telling stage news to
some ladies seated on a divan near the mistress of the
house. Among them were two or three illustrious
writers whose names my father told me, but whose
faces did not seem to me in harmony with their works.
You had not yet arrived. The guests were all there,

156

£ db & & & 4: 4: & :lr 4? tlr tlr sb db sir 4? sir :Sr A
SPI RITE

and M. de L was beginning to complain of your

lack of punctuality, when a tall footman entered,
bringing on a silver salver, on which was a pencil to
sign and to mark the hour of delivery, a telegram from
you, sent from Chantilly and containing these words
only, in telegraphic style: 'Missed my train. Don't
wait. Awfully sorry.'

" Cruel was my disappointment. The whole week I
had caressed this hope, which vanished at the moment
it was about to be fulfilled. I was filled with a sad-
ness which I had great difficulty in concealing, and the
flush which animation had imparted to my cheeks van-
ished. Fortunately the doors of the dining-room were
opened, and the butler announced dinner. The move-
ment which took place among the guests prevented my
emotion being noticed. When everybody was seated,
a chair remained empty on my right. It was yours ;
I could not be mistaken, for your name was writ-
ten in fine writing upon a card with pretty coloured
arabesques placed near your glasses. So the irony of
fate was complete. But for this commonplace railway
difficulty I should have had you near me during the
whole meal, touching my dress, your hand touching
mine when paying those innumerable little attentions

1 57

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SPIRITE

that at table the least gallant man feels himself bound
to render to a woman. A few commonplace words
to begin with, like every overture to a dialogue,
would have been exchanged between us, then, the
ice having been broken, our conversation would
have become more intimate, and your soul, your mind
would soon have understood my heart. Perchance I
might not have displeased you, and although fresh
from Spain, you might have forgiven the rosy fairness
of my complexion, the pale gold of my hair. If you
had come to that dinner, your life and mine would
unquestionably have moved in another direction ; you
would no longer be a bachelor, and I should be alive
and not reduced to tell you my love from the other
world. The love which you feel for my shadow
leads me to believe, without being too conceited,
that you would not have been insensible to my terres-
trial charms. But it was not to be. The unoccupied
chair which isolated me from the other guests seemed
to me a symbol of my fate, — it betokened vain expec-
tation and solitude in the midst of the crowd. The
sinister omen has been too well fulfilled. My neigh-
bour on the left was, as I learned later, a very amiable
and very learned academician. He tried several times

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SPI RITE

to make me talk, but I answered in monosyllables
only, and even these were so ill fitted to the ques-
tions that my neighbour naturally took me for a
little idiot, left me to myself, and chatted with his
other partner.

" I scarcely touched the food ; my heart was so
heavy that I could not eat. At last the dinner ended
and we went to the drawing-room, where the guests
formed groups according to their preferences. In one,
rather close to the arm-chair in which I was seated, so
that I could hear what was being said, your name,
spoken by M. d'Aversac, excited my curiosity. ' That
chap Malivert,' said d'Aversac, 1 is cracked about his
pacha. On the other hand, the pacha is crazy about
Malivert. They are never apart. Mohammed or Mus-
tapha, I do not remember which is his name, wants to
take Guy to Egypt and talks of giving him a steamer
to take him to the first cataract, but Guy, who is as
barbaric as the Turk is civilised, would prefer a daha-
bheah. He rather likes the plan, for he thinks it is
very cold in Paris. He has a fancy for spending the
winter in Cairo and continuing the study of Arab
architecture which he commenced in the Alhambra ;
but if he does go, I am afraid we shall never see him

159

S P I R I T E

again, and that he will turn Moslem like Hassan, the
hero of " Namouna." '

" 4 He is quite capable of it,' answered a young
fellow who was in the group ; c he has never greatly
liked Western civilisation.'

" 1 Nonsense ! ' replied another. 1 Once he has worn
a few genuine costumes, taken a dozen vapour baths,
purchased from the Djellabs one or two slaves whom
he will sell at a discount, gazed on the Pyramids,
sketched the broken-nosed profile of the Sphinx, he
will calmly come back to tramp the asphalt of the
Boulevard des Italiens, which is, after all, the only in-
habitable place in the world.'

" This conversation filled me with deep anxiety.
You were about to leave and for how long .nobody
knew. Would I have the chance of meeting you
before your departure and leaving you at least my
image to carry away with you ? That was a piece of
happiness I dared no longer believe in after so many
disappointments.

" On returning home, after having reassured my
mother, who fancied I must be ill, so pale was I, for
she could not suspect what was going on in my heart,
I thought deeply over my position. I asked myself

160

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SPIRITE

whether the obstinacy of circumstances to separate us
was not a secret warning of Fate which it would be
dangerous to disobey. Perhaps you would be fatal to
me, and it was wrong to insist on throwing myself in
your way. My reason alone spoke, for my heart
repelled the idea and meant to incur to the very last
the risk of its love. I felt myself irresistibly drawn to
you, and the bond, frail though it seemed, was more
solid than a diamond chain. Unfortunately I was the
only one bound. 1 How painful is the fate of wo-
man ! ' I said to myself, 1 doomed to expectation, to
inaction, to solitude, she cannot without failing in
modesty, manifest her feelings. She must yield to the
love she inspires, but she must not declare that which
she feels. From the moment my heart awoke, one
sentiment alone filled it, — a pure, absolute, eternal
sentiment, — and the being who is the object of it will
never know it perhaps. How can I let him know that
a young girl whom he no doubt would love if he
could suspect such a secret, lives and breathes for him
alone ? '

"For a moment I thought of writing you one of those
letters such as authors, I am told, receive at times, in
which, under the veil of admiration crop out feelings

ii 161

SPI RITE

of another sort, and which solicit a rendezvous, in no
wise compromising, at the theatre or at the promenade ;
but my feminine modesty revolted at the employment
of such means, and I feared lest you should take me
for a bluestocking seeking your assistance to have a
novel accepted by the Revue des Deux Mondes.

" D'Aversac had spoken the truth : the next week you
had started for Cairo with your pacha. Your departure,
which postponed my hopes to an uncertain time, filled
me with a melancholy which I found it difficult to con-
ceal. I had lost interest in life. I cared nothing for
dress ; when I went into society, I let my maid select
my toilets. What was the use of being beautiful since
you were not there ? And yet I was still beautiful
enough to be surrounded like Penelope with a whole
crowd of suitors. Little by little our drawing-room,
frequented by my father's friends, serious and some-
what mature men, was filled with younger men, who
came very assiduously to our Fridays. In the recesses
of the doors I could see handsome dark fellows, cor-
rectly curled, whose cravats had cost them much
meditation before they tied them, and who cast on me
passionate and fascinating glances ; others, during the
figures of a quadrille, when we danced to the accom-

162

SPI RITE

paniment of the piano, uttered sighs which, with-
out being the least touched, I attributed to their
being breathless ; others, bolder, risked a few moral
and poetic phrases about the happiness of a suitable
marriage, and claimed to be created purposely for
legitimate happiness. They were all brave, irre-
proachable, well-dressed, ideally delicate ; the scent
on their hair came from Houbigant, their clothes
were made by Renard. What more could an exact-
ing, romantic imagination ask for ? Therefore those
handsome young fellows seemed somewhat surprised
at the slight impression they produced on me ; those
who were most annoyed even suspected me, I be-
lieve, of being poetical. I had some serious offers ;
my hand was more than once asked of my parents,
but on my being consulted I always replied in the
negative, managing to find excellent objections. My
parents did not insist. I was so young that there was
no need of hurrying and later repenting a precipitate
choice. Believing that I had some secret preference,
my mother questioned me, and I was on the point of
revealing the truth to her, but an invincible modesty
kept me back. The love which I alone felt and which
you were ignorant of, seemed to be a secret which I

163

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SPIRITE

had no right to tell without your consent. It did not
belong to me alone, you had a share in it ; so I kept
silence; and besides, I could never confess, even to
the most indulgent of mothers, my mad passion, —
for thus it might well seem, — born from an impression
of childhood in the convent parlour, obstinately main-
tained in my soul, and justified by nothing from a hu-
man point of view. Had I spoken, my mother, seeing
that my choice was in no wise blameworthy, or im-
possible of realisation, would no doubt have sought to
bring us together, and used, to make you declare your-
self, some of those subterfuges which, on similar occa-
sions, the most honest and virtuous women manage to
invent. But this was repugnant to my virginal probity.
I would have no intermediary between you and me.
You alone were to notice me and find me out. In
that way alone could I be happy and forgive myself for
having been the first to love you. My maidenly
modesty needed this consolation and this excuse. It
was neither pride nor coquetry, but a genuine feeling
of feminine dignity.

" Time passed and you returned from Egypt. I be-
gan to hear of your attentions to Mme. d'Ymbercourt,
with whom you were said to be very much in love.

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SPIRITE

My heart took fright and I wished to see my rival.
She was shown to me in her box at the opera. I tried
to judge her impartially, and I thought her handsome,
but without charm and without refinement. She was
like a copy of a classical statue made by a mediocre
sculptor. She united in herself everything that goes to
make up the ideal of dolts, and I wondered that you
could have the least fancy for such an idol. Mme.
d'Ymbercourt's face, so regular at first sight, lacked
distinguishing traits, original grace, unexpected charms.
Such as she appeared to me on that evening, such
she must always be. In spite of what I heard, I was
conceited enough not to be jealous of her. Yet the
reports of your marriage became more and more nu-
merous, and as ill news always reaches those whom it
interests, I was informed of everything that went on
between you and Mme. d'Ymbercourt. At one time
I was told that the banns had been called; at another
the exact day of the wedding was named. I had no
means of ascertaining the accuracy or falseness of
these reports. The whole thing appeared to every
one settled and most delightful in every respect, and
so I had to believe it; yet the secret voice of my
heart assured me that you did not love Mme. d'Ym-

SPIRITE

bercourt. But very often people marry without love,
to have an establishment, a settled position in society,
or because they feel the need of repose after the heat
and excitement of youth. I was filled with deep de-
spair and saw my life drawing to a close. My chaste
dream, caressed so long, vanished forever. I dared not
even think of you in the most mysterious recesses of
my soul, for as you now belonged to another before
God and men, my thoughts of you, hitherto innocent,
became culpable. In my passion as a girl nothing had
occurred to make my guardian angel blush. Once I
met you in the Bois de Boulogne, riding by Mme.
d'Ymbercourt's carriage, and I threw myself back in
my own, taking as much care to conceal myself as
formerly I would have taken to be seen by you. That
rapid glimpse was the last I had of you.

" I was scarcely seventeen. What was going to
become of me ? What would be the end of a life
secretly destroyed at its very beginning ? Should I
accept one of the suitors approved by my parents in
their wisdom ? That is what, on such occasions, have
done many young girls separated as I was from their
ideal by some obscure fatality. But my sense of
loyalty revolted from such a course, for I believed that,

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SPI R I TE

my first and only thought of love having been for you,
I could belong to no one but you in this world ; any
other union would have struck me as almost adul-
terous. My heart held but a single page ; you had
written your name on it unwittingly, and no other
was to take its place. Your own marriage would not
free me from being faithful to you. Unconscious of
my love, you were free, but I was bound. The idea
of being the wife of another man filled me with in-
surmountable horror, arid after having refused several
suitors, knowing well how difficult a position in
society is that of an old maid, I made up my mind to
leave the world and become a nun. God alone could
shelter my grief and perhaps console me.

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SPIRITE
£ £ "k & & db £ & 4: 4r :b tfc sb £ tb :b db tfc si? tf? tfc A

I ENTERED as a novice the convent of the Sisters
of Mercy in spite of my parents' remonstrances,
which moved me, but did not shake my courage.
Firm though one's resolve may be, the moment of the
final separation is terrible. At the end of a long pas-
sage a grating marks the limit between the world and
the cloister. The family may accompany to that
threshold, not to be crossed by the profane, the maiden
who gives herself to God. After the last embrace, the
end of which is awaited by gloomy, veiled figures with
an impassible air, the grating opens just wide enough
to allow the passage of the novice, whom shadowy
arms seem to carry away, and it closes with a rattle of
iron that echoes down the long corridors like distant
thunder. The sound of the closing of a coffin is not
more lugubrious, and does not strike the heart more
painfully. I felt myself grow pale and an icy chill
seized me. I had taken my first step out of earthly
life, henceforth closed to me ; I was penetrating into

168

SPIRITE

that cold region where passions die, where remem-
brance vanishes, and which the rumours of the world
no longer reach. There naught exists but the thought
of God. It suffices to fill the frightful void and the
silence which weighs on this place, a silence as deep as
that of the tomb. I may tell you all this, now I am
dead.

" My piety, though tender and fervent, did not go
to the length of mystical exaltation ; it was a human
motive rather than an imperious vocation that had
caused me to seek peace in the solitary cloister. I was
a shipwrecked soul, cast upon an unknown reef, and
my dream, invisible to all, had ended tragically. At
the beginning, therefore, I suffered what in the devout
life is called dryness of heart, weariness, longing for
the world, vague despair, — the last temptations of the
spirit of the day, trying to seize his prey; but soon the
tumult was appeased, the habit of prayer and of reli-
gious practices the regularity of the offices and the
monotony of a rule intended to overcome the rebellion
of the soul and of the body, turned towards heaven
thoughts that yet too often recalled the earth. Your
image still lived in my heart, but I succeeded in loving
you only in and through God. The Convent of the

169

SPI RITE

Sisters of Mercy is not one of those romantic cloisters
such as worldly people imagine might shelter a despair-
ing life. There were no Gothic arcades, no columns
festooned with ivy, no moonbeams entering through the
trefoil of a broken rose window and casting their light
upon the inscription of a tomb ; no chapel, with stained-
glass windows, slender pillars, and traceried vaultings,
forming excellent motives for a decoration or a pano-
rama. The religious feeling which seeks to understand
Christianity by its picturesque and poetic side would
find in it no theme for descriptions after the manner
of Chateaubriand. The building is modern and has not
the smallest obscure corner in which to lodge a legend.
Nothing satisfies the eyes, no ornaments, no fancy of
art, no paintings, no sculptures ; everywhere bare,
straight lines. A white light illumines like a winter's
day the pallor of the long corridors and the walls, cut
by the symmetrical doors of the cells, and glazes with
rippling beams the shining floors : everywhere gloomy
severity, heedless of beauty, and careless of clothing the
idea with a form. This dull architecture has the
advantage of not distracting souls which must lose
themselves in the contemplation of God. The win-
dows are placed very high and are grated; between the

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black bars one can get but a glimpse of the blue or
gray sky outside. It is like a fortress built as a defence
against the ambushes of the world. Solidity is suffi-
cient; beauty would be superfluous. The chapel itself
is but half opened to the devotions of the faithful out-
side. A huge screen rising from the ground to the
vaulting and provided with thick green curtains, inter-
poses like the portcullis of a fortress between the
nave and the choir reserved for the nuns. Wooden
stalls with sober mouldings polished by wear, run on
either side ; at the back, in the centre, are placed three
seats for the Mother Superior and her two assistants.
There the nuns come to hear divine service, their veils
down, their long black dresses on which shows a broad
strip of white stuff like the cross of a pall from which
the arms have been cut, trailing behind them. From
the trellised gallery of the novices I watched the nuns
bow to the Mother Superior and to the altar, kneel
down, prostrate themselves, and vanish into their stalls
changed into prie-Dieu. At the elevation of the Host,
the centre of the curtain opens somewhat and allows a
glimpse of the priest performing the Holy Sacrifice at
the altar, placed opposite the choir. The fervour of
the worship edified me and confirmed my resolution to

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break with the world to which I could not have re-
turned. In this atmosphere of ecstasy and incense, in
the trembling light of the tapers casting pale gleams
upon these prostrate brows, my heart felt it was
becoming winged, and tended more and more to rise to
ethereal regions. The ceiling of the chapel turned
azure and gold and in an opening of the heaven I
seemed to see in a luminous cloud, the smiling angels
bending towards me and signing to me to come to
them. I saw no longer the ugly tint of the whitewash,
the mediocre taste of the chandelier, and the meanness
of the black-framed paintings.

" The time for the taking of my vows approaching, I
was overwhelmed with the flattering encouragement,
the delicate attentions, the mystic caresses, the hopes of
perfect felicity lavished in convents upon young novices
about to consummate their sacrifice and to give them-
selves forever to God. I did not need these helps ; I
could walk to the altar with a firm step. Forced — or
at least, I thought so — to give you up, I regretted
nothing in the world, save the affection of my parents,
and my resolve never to re-enter it was unchangeable.

" I had passed the tests and the solemn day arrived.
The convent, usually so peaceful, was filled with an

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agitation which the severe monastic discipline repressed.
The sisters came and went in the corridors, sometimes
forgetting the phantom-like walk ordered by the rule ;
for the coming in of a new sister is a great event, and
the entrance of a new lamb into the flock throws the
whole fold into commotion. The worldly dress which
the novice puts on for the last time is a subject of
curiosity, joy, and astonishment; the satin, lace, pearls,
and gems intended to represent the pomps of Satan are
admired somewhat fearfully. Thus adorned, I was led
to the choir. The Mother Superior and her assistants
were in their places, and in the stalls the nuns were
praying on bended knee. I spoke the sacred words
which separated me forever from the living, and
as the ritual of the ceremony requires it, I pushed aside
with my foot the rich velvet carpet on which I had to
kneel at certain moments. I took off" my necklace
and bracelets and undid my ornaments in token of my
renunciation of vanity and luxury. I abjured the
coquetry of women, which was not a difficult thing
for me to do, since I had not had the joy to please you
and to be beautiful in your eyes.

" Then came the most lugubrious and the most
dreaded scene of the religious drama, — the moment

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when the new nun's hair is cut off as a vanity hence-
forth useless. It recalls the dressing of the condemned;
only, the victim is innocent, or at least purified by
repentance. Although I had sincerely and from my
heart given up all human bonds, I became pale as
death when the scissors began cutting my long, fair
hair, held up by one of the sisters. The golden curls
fell in thick quantities upon the flags of the sacristy into
which I had been led, and 1 gazed at them with dry
eyes as they fell around me. I was terrified and felt a
secret horror ; the cold of the scissors, as they touched
my neck, made me start nervously as if I felt the touch
of the axe ; my teeth chattered, and the prayer I strove
to utter could not pass my lips. Ice-cold sweat, as that
of one in agony, bathed my temples ; my sight grew
dim, and the lamp suspended before the altar of the
Virgin semed to be vanishing in a mist ; my knees sank
under me, and I had only time to say, as I stretched
out my arms as if clinging to emptiness, 'I am dying.'

" They made me breathe salts, and when I had re-
gained my senses, amazed, like one emerging from the
tomb, at the brightness of the day, I found myself in
the arms of the sisters, who supported me placidly,
accustomed as they were to such scenes.

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" c It does not amount to anything,' said the youngest
of the nuns with an air of sympathy. 'The most
trying part is over. Recommend yourself to the
Blessed Virgin, and all will be well. The same thing
happened to me when I took the vows. It is the last
effort of Satan.'

"Two sisters put on me the black dress of the order
and the white stole, took me back to the choir, and
cast over my head the veil, the symbolical shroud
which made me dead to the world, and left me visible
to God alone. A pious legend which I had heard
stated that if one asked of Heaven a favour when under
the folds of the funereal veil, it would be granted.
When the veil was cast over me, I implored of the
Divine goodness to allow me to reveal my love to you.
It seemed to me, as I felt a sudden inward joy, that
my prayer was granted, and I was greatly relieved ;
for that was my secret pain, that was the dagger
in my heart, the thorn in my flesh which made me
suffer night and day. I had given you up in this
world, but my soul could not consent to keep its
secret forever.

" Shall I tell you of my life in the convent ? There
day follows day exactly alike, every hour with its

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devotion, its task; life moves on with equal step
towards eternity, glad to approach the end. Yet the
apparent calm often conceals much languor, sadness,
and depression. Thoughts, although tamed by prayer
and meditation, will wander off in reverie ; the nos-
talgia of the world seizes upon you ; you regret your
liberty, your family, and nature ; you dream of the great
horizons filled with light, of the meadows diapered
with flowers, of the swelling, wooded hills, of the blue
smoke that rises in the evening over the fields, of the
road traversed by carriages, of the river with its boats,
of life, of motion, of joyous sounds, of incessant vari-
ety of objects. You would like to go out, to run, to
fly ; you wish you had wings like a bird ; you turn in
your tomb ; in imagination you cross the high walls of
the convent, and your thoughts return to the pleasant
places, to the scenes of your childhood and your youth,
which live again with magical vivacity of detail. You
form useless plans for happiness, forgetting that the
bolts of the irrevocable have been drawn upon you.
The most religious souls are exposed to these tempta-
tions, remembrances, mirages, which the will represses,
which prayer tries to dispel, but which nevertheless rise
again in the silence and solitude of the cell with its

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four white walls, whose sole decoration is a black
wooden crucifix. The thought of you, put away at
first in my early fervour, returned, more frequent and
more tender ; the regret of lost happiness oppressed
me painfully, and often silent tears streamed down my
pale cheeks. At night I would weep in my dreams,
and in the morning find my coarse pillow wetted with
bitter tears. In happier visions I found myself on
the steps of a villa, after a drive, walking with you
up a wide staircase on which the great neighbouring
trees cast bluish shadows. I was your wife, and your
caressing and protecting glance rested on me. Every
obstacle that had come between us had disappeared.
My soul did not consent to these fair imaginings,
which it strove against as if they were sinful. I con-
fessed them, I did penance for them. I sat up in
prayer and I struggled against sleep to avoid these
guilty illusions, but they ever returned. The struggle
impaired my strength, which soon began to abandon
me. Without being sickly, I was delicate ; the harsh
life of the cloister, its fasts, its abstinences, its mace-
rations, the fatigue of the night services, the sepul-
chral chill of the church, the rigours of the long
winter, against which I was ill protected by the thin

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serge dress, and above all, the struggle in my soul,
the alternate exaltation and despair, doubt and fervour,
the fear of delivering to my Divine spouse a heart
distracted by human attachments, and of suffering
celestial vengeance — for God is jealous; and perhaps
also the jealousy inspired in me by Mme. d'Ymber-
court — all these causes acted disastrously upon me.
My complexion had become of a mat, waxy tint ; my
eyes, showing larger in my wasted face, shone with
the light of fever in their dark orbits ; the veins of
my temples stood out in a network of darker azure;
my lips had lost their fresh, rosy colour ; my hands
had become slender and transparent like the hands of
a shadow. Death is not dreaded in the convent as it
is in the world. In the convent it is joyfully wel-
comed, for it is the deliverer of the soul, the door
opening into heaven, the end of the trials, and the
beginning of beatitude. God withdraws to Himself
earlier than others those He prefers, those He loves,
and shortens their passage through the vale of sorrow
and tears. Prayers full of hope in their funereal
psalmody surround the deathbed of the dying nun,
whom the sacraments purify of every terrestrial stain
and on whom beams the splendour of the other world.

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She is to her sisters an object of envy, and not of
terror.

" I saw the fatal day approaching without fear. I
hoped that God would forgive me my only love, so
chaste, so pure, and so involuntary, and which I had
endeavoured to forget as soon as it had appeared
culpable in my own eyes. I hoped that He would
receive me in His grace. Soon I became so weak
that I would swoon away at prayers, and remain as if
dead under my veil, with my face to the ground.
My immobility was respected, for it was mistaken
for ecstasy. Then, when it was seen that I did not
rise, two sisters, bending towards me, would make me
sit up like an inert body, and, their hands under my
arms, would lead me, or rather carry me back to my
cell, which before long I was unable to leave. I
would remain for long hours on my bed, dressed,
counting my beads with my thin fingers, lost in some
vague meditation, and asking myself if my hope would
be fulfilled after death. My strength was visibly ebb-
ing, and the remedies proposed for my illness dimin-
ished my sufferings, but did not cure me. Nor did I
wish to be cured, for beyond this life I had a hope
long caressed, the possible realisation of which inspired

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me with a sort of curiosity to enter the other world.
My passage from this world to the other was most
gentle. All the bonds between mind and matter had
been broken except one, more tenuous a thousand
times than the light cobwebs that float in the air of a
fine autumn day; it alone held back my soul ready to
open its wings in the breath of the Infinite. Alterna-
tions of light and shade, like the intermittent light of
a night-light before it goes out, palpitated before my
already dim eyes ; the prayers murmured near me by
the kneeling sisters, and which I tried to join in
mentally, reached me only as a confused buzzing, as
a vague, distant rumour. My deadened senses had
ceased to perceive anything earthly; my thoughts,
abandoning my brain, fluttered uncertain in a strange
dream half-way between the material and the imma-
terial world, no longer belonging to the one and not
yet pertaining to the other, while mechanically my
fingers, pale as ivory, were rumpling and drawing up
the folds of the sheet.

" At last my agony began, and I was stretched on
the ground, a bag of ashes under my head, to die in the
humble attitude which becomes a poor servant of God,
giving back her dust to the dust, Breathing became

SPIRITE

more and more difficult j I stifled ; a feeling of fear-
ful anguish racked my breast ; it was the instinct
of nature in me still fighting against destruction. But
soon the useless struggle ceased, and with a faint sigh
my soul was exhaled from my lips.

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XII

HUMAN words cannot render the sensation
of a soul which, freed from its earthly
bonds, passes from this life into the next,
from time into eternity, from the finite into infinity.
My motionless body, already white with a mat white-
ness, the livery of death, lay upon the funeral couch
surrounded by the nuns in prayer; but I was as
thoroughly freed from it as the butterfly is from its
chrysalis, an empty shell, a shapeless form, which it
abandons to open its young wings to the unknown
light suddenly revealed to it. An interval of deepest
darkness had been followed by dazzling splendour, by
the broadening of the horizon, by the disappearance of
every limit and every obstacle, and by the intoxication
of inexpressible joy. The sudden accession of new
sensations made me understand mysteries closed to
terrestrial thought and organs. Freed from the frame
of clay, no longer subject to the law of gravity, which
but a moment before still fettered me, I sprang with

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delighted eagerness into the unfathomable ether. Dis-
tance had ceased to exist for me, and my mere wish
enabled me to be wherever I wished to be. More
swiftly than light I soared in great circles through the
illimitable azure of space, as if to take possession of
immensity; crossing and recrossing on my way swarms
of souls and spirits.

" The atmosphere was formed of an ever-burning
light shining like diamond-dust, and I soon perceived
that every grain of the dazzling powder was a soul.
It was full of currents, eddies, billows, shimmerings
like the fine dust that is spread over a sounding-
board in order to study sonorous vibrations, and all
these movements caused increased brilliancy in the
splendour. The numbers which mathematics can fur-
nish to calculators who venture into the depths of the
infinite, cannot, with their millions of zeros adding their
tremendous power to the initial number, give even an
approximate idea of the tremendous multitude of souls
which compose this effulgence, differing from the
material light as much as day differs from night.

" To the souls that since the creation of our world
and of other spheres, had already passed through the
trials of life, were joined expectant or virgin souls,

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awaiting their turn to be incarnated in a body on a
planet belonging to some one system or another.
There were enough of them to people for thousands
and thousands of years all these worlds, the breath of
God, which He will re-absorb by drawing back to Him-
self His own breath when He becomes weary of His
work. These souls, though differing in essence and
aspect according to the globe they were to inhabit,
recalled, every one of them, in spite of the infinite
variety of their types, the Divine type, and were made
in the image of their Maker. Their constituent monad
was the celestial spark. Some were white as the dia-
mond ; others were of the colour of rubies, emeralds,
sapphires, topazes, and amethysts. For lack of terms
intelligible to you, I make use of these names of gems,
mere pebbles, opaque crystals black as ink, the most
brilliant of which make but a dark spot against that
background of living splendour.

" Sometimes there swept by a great angel, bearing an
order of God to the very ends of the infinite, and mak -
ing the universe oscillate by the beating of its vast wings.
The Milky Way was poured out over the heavens in a
great stream of glowing suns. The stars, which I be-
held in their real form and size, so enormous that the

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imagination of man cannot possibly conceive it, flamed
with vast, terrific fulguration. Behind these and be-
tween them, at depths more and more vertiginous, I
saw others and still others, so that nowhere was the
end of the firmament visible, and I might well have
believed myself enclosed in the centre of a prodigious
sphere constellated internally with stars. Their light,
white, yellow, blue, green, red, was of such intensity
and brightness as to make the light of our own sun
seem black, but the eyes of my soul stood it without
the least difficulty. I came and went, ascended and
descended, traversed in a second millions of leagues
through the light of rainbow-like reflections, golden
and silver irradiations, diamond-like phosphorescence,
stellar outbursts, amid all the magnificence, all the
beatitudes, all the ravishments of the divine life.

" I heard the music of the spheres, the echo of which
struck the ear of Pythagoras ; a mysterious harmony,
the pivot of the universe, marked the rhythm. With
a harmonious sound, as tremendous as thunder and as
soft as the flute, our own world, borne away by its
central sun, moved slowly through space, and with
one glance I beheld the planets, from Mercury to
Neptune, describing their ellipses, accompanied by

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SPI RITE

their satellites. A rapid intuition revealed to me the
names by which they are known in heaven, acquainted
me with their structure, with the thought and purpose
of their creation ; no secret of that prodigious life was
concealed from me. I read as in an open book the
poem of God, the lines of which were formed of suns.
Would it were permissible for me to explain some of
its pages to you ! But you are still living in inferior
darkness, and your eyes would be blinded by the
dazzling effulgence.

" In spite of the ineffable beauty of this wondrous
spectacle, I had not, however, forgotten earth, the poor
habitation I had just left. My love, triumphant over
death, followed me beyond the tomb, and I saw with
divine voluptuousness, with radiant felicity, that you
loved no one, that your soul was free, and that you
might be mine forever. Then I knew what I had dimly
felt before. We were predestined one for the other ;
our souls formed one of those celestial pairs which,
when they unite, form an angel. But these two halves
of the supreme whole, in order to meet in immortality,
must have sought each other in life, divined each other
under the veil of the flesh, through trials, obstacles, and
distractions. I alone had felt the presence of my sister

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SPI RI TE

soul and had hastened towards it, urged on by an
unerring instinct. In you, perception, not so clear,
had merely put you on your guard against vulgar bonds
and loves. You had understood that none of the souls
around you were intended for you, and passionate,
though apparently cold, you had reserved yourself for a
higher ideal. Thanks to the favour shown me, I could
make you know the love which you had ignored during
my life, and I hoped to inspire you with the desire to
follow me within the sphere in which I dwell. I felt
no regret, for what could the best of human ties be,
compared with the happiness of two souls in the eter-
nal kiss of divine love ? Until the supreme moment
arrived, my task consisted in preventing the world
from engaging you in its ways, and separating you
from me forever. Marriage binds in this world and
the next, but you did not love Madame d'Ymbercourt.
As a spirit I could read within your heart, and I had
nothing to fear on this account ; yet, not meeting the
ideal you dreamed of, you might have become tired,
and through fatigue, indolence, discouragement, or the
need of changing your state of life, you might have
allowed yourself to be drawn into that commonplace
union.

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" Leaving the fount of light, I flew earthward, where
I saw your globe rolling beneath me in its foggy atmos-
phere, and its strata of clouds. I found you easily,
and I watched over your life, an invisible witness,
reading your thoughts and influencing them without
your being conscious of it. Through my presence,
which you did not even suspect, I drove away the ideas
and caprices which might have turned you from the
aim towards which I directed you. Little by little I
detached your soul from every earthly bond ; to keep
you more safely, I cast over your home a mysterious
spell which made you love it. When there, you felt
around you a sort of faint, impalpable caress, and ex-
perienced inexpressible comfort. It seemed to you,
though you could not account for it, that your happi-
ness lay within the walls which I filled with life. The
lover who, on a stormy night, reads his favourite poet,
by a bright fire, while his sleeping mistress lies, her
head on her arm, in the deep alcove, lost in pleasant
dreams, feels just such deep happiness in the soli-
tude of love. Nothing could induce him to leave ; for
his whole world is contained within that room. I had
to prepare you gradually to behold me, and mysteriously
establish relations with you. Between a spirit and an

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uninitiated living being communications are difficult. A
deep gulf separates this world from the other. I had
crossed it, but it was not enough ; I still had to make
myself visible to your eyes, that were yet covered with
a bandage and unable to perceive the immaterial
through the opacity of matter.

" Mme. d'Ymbercourt, bent upon marrying you, at-
tracted you to her home, and wearied you with her
eagerness. Substituting my will for your sleeping
thought, I made you write that reply to the lady's
note in which your secret sentiments betrayed them-
selves and which caused you so much surprise. The
idea of the supernatural awoke in you, and having
become more attentive, you understood that a mys-
terious power had entered into your life. The sigh
which I uttered when, in spite of my warning, you
made up your mind to go out, faint and soft though
it was, like the vibration of an aeolian harp, troubled
you deeply, and awoke hidden sympathy in your soul.
You had recognised in it the note of feminine suffer-
ing. I could not then manifest myself to you in
plainer fashion, for you were not sufficiently free
from the bonds of matter. I therefore appeared to
the Baron de Feroe, a disciple of Swedenborg and a

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seer, to beg him to speak to you the mysterious words
which put you on your guard against the peril you
were running, and inspired you with the desire to pene-
trate into the world of spirits to which my love called
you. You know the rest. Now am I to return to the
regions above, or am I to remain here below, and will
the shadow be happier than was the woman ? "

Here the impulse that had driven Malivert's pen
over the paper stopped, and Guy's power of thought,
suspended for a time by the influence of Spirite, re-
sumed possession of his brain. He read what he had
just unconsciously written, and was strengthened in
the resolve to love till death the charming soul which
had suffered for him during her short stay upon earth.

" But what shall our relations be ? " he said to him-
self. " Will Spirite take me away with her into the
regions where she dwells, or will she hover around me,
visible to me alone ? Will she answer me if I speak
to her ? and how, in that case, shall I understand her ? "
These questions were not easy to answer, so Malivert,
after having turned them over in his mind, gave up the
effort and remained plunged in a deep reverie, from which
Jack roused him by announcing the Baron de Feroe.

SPIRITE

The two friends shook hands heartily, and the
Swede with the pale golden moustache threw himself
into an arm-chair.

" Guy, I have come very unceremoniously to break-
fast with you," he said, stretching out his feet on the fen-
der. " I went out early this morning, and on passing
your house, I was seized with a fancy to pay you a visit
almost as early as if I were an officer of the law."

" You were right, — it was a happy thought on your
part," replied Malivert, ringing for Jack, to whom he
gave orders to serve breakfast.

"My dear Guy, you look as if you had not gone to
bed," said the Baron, as he saw the tapers that had
burned down to their paper frills, and the sheets of
writing spread out on the table. " You have been
working during the night. Is it a novel or a poem ?
Shall you publish it soon ? "

" It may be called a poem," replied Malivert, " but
it is not of my own composition. I simply held the
pen, led by an inspiration superior to my own."

" I understand," went on the Baron ; " Apollo dic-
tated and Homer wrote. Such verses are the best."

" The poem, if it be one, is not in verse, and it was
no mythological god who dictated it to me."

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" I beg your pardon. I forgot that you are a
Romanticist, and that with you Apollo and the
Muses must be left to Chompre's Dictionary or the
' Letters to Emily ' ! "

" Since you have been in some sort my mystagogue
and my initiator into things supernatural, dear Baron,
there is no reason why I should conceal from you that
the writing which you take for ' copy,' to use the
printer's expression, was dictated to me last night and
the preceding night by the spirit who is interested in
me and who appears to have known you on earth, for
you are named in the story."

" You served as your own medium because relations
are not yet well established between you and the spirit
that visits you," replied Baron de Feroe; "but very
soon you will be able to dispense with these slow and
coarse means of communication. Your souls will
know each other by thought and desire, without any
external sign."

Jack now announced that breakfast was served.
Malivert, quite upset by his strange adventure, by his
love affair from beyond the tomb, that Don Juan
would have envied, scarcely ate the food placed before
him ; Baron de Feroe did eat, but with Swedenborgian

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SPIRITE

sobriety, for whoever desires to live in communion
with spirits must make the share of matter as small
as possible.

" That is excellent tea you have, Guy," said the
Baron. " It is the white-tipped, green-leafed tea plucked
after the first spring rains, which Mandarins drink
without sugar, steeping it in cups set in filigree holders
to avoid burning their fingers. It is the drink, par
excellence, of dreamers, for the intoxication it produces
is purely intellectual. Nothing more quickly dispels
human grossness and better predisposes to the vision
of things hidden from the vulgar herd. Since you
are now going to live in an immaterial sphere, I
recommend you to drink this tea. But you are not
listening to me, and I can easily understand your
inattention. So novel a situation must strike you as
very strange."

" Yes, I confess it," replied Malivert, " I am some-
what dazed, and constantly asking myself whether I am
not a prey to hallucinations."

" Drive away these thoughts, for they would cause
the spirit to fly forever. Do not seek to explain the
inexplicable, but yield with absolute faith and submis-
sion to your guiding influence. The least doubt would

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cause a break and entail eternal regret on your part.
By special favour, but rarely accorded, souls that have
not met in life may meet in heaven. Profit by the
chance given you and show yourself worthy of such
happiness."

" I shall indeed, and I shall not again inflict on
Spirite the pain of which I was the innocent cause
while she still dwelt in this world. But now that I
think of it, in the story she dictated to me, that ador-
able soul has not told me the name which she bore
upon earth."

"Would you like to know it? Go to Pere-La-
chaise, climb the hill, and near the chapel you will see
a white marble tomb on which is carved a cross laid
flat ; at the intersection of the arms of the cross there
is a wreath of roses with delicate marble leaves, a
masterpiece by a famous sculptor. In the medallion
formed by the wreath a brief inscription will tell you
what I am not formally authorised to impart to you.
The mute language of the tomb shall speak in my
place, although, in my opinion, your curiosity is vain.
What matters a terrestrial name when an eternal love
is at stake? But you are not yet quite detached from
human ideas, and I can understand it, for it is not so

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long since you stepped outside the circle that bounds
ordinary life."

Baron de Feroe took leave. Guy dressed, had his
carriage brought round, and hastened to the shops of
the most famous florists to purchase a quantity of
white lilac. As it was winter, he found it difficult
to obtain, but in Paris there is no such thing as im-
possibility when a man is willing to pay ; so he bought
his white lilac and ascended the hill with a beating
heart and eyes full of tears.

A few flakes of snow, still unmelted, shone like
silver tears upon the dark leaves of the yew-trees, the
cypresses, the firs, and the ivy, and brought out with
white touches the mouldings of the tombs, the tops
and the arms of the funereal crosses. The sky was
lowering, of a yellowish gray, heavy as lead, the right
kind of a sky to hang over a cemetery, and the sharp
wind moaned as it swept through the lines of monu-
ments, made for the dead and exactly proportionate to
human nothingness. Malivert soon reached the chapel,
and not far off, within a border of Irish ivy, he saw a
white tomb made whiter still by the light layer of snow.
He bent over the railing and read the inscription en-
graved within the wreath of roses: " Lavinia d'Aufi-

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deni, in religion Sister Philomena, died at the age of
eighteen."

He stretched his arm over the railing, threw the
lilacs over the inscription, and, although sure of having
been forgiven, remained for a few moments by the
tomb in a dreamy contemplation, his heart big with
remorse ; for was he not the murderer of that fair dove,
that had so soon returned to heaven ? While he was
thus leaning on the railing of the monument, letting
fall his hot tears upon the cold snow, that formed the
second shroud of the virginal tomb, there was a break
in the thick curtain of gray clouds. Like light shining
through successive thicknesses of gauze which are
gradually removed, the orb of the sun appeared less
indistinct, of a pale white, more like the moon than the
orb of day, the right sort of sun to light the dead.
Little by little the opening grew larger and from it
streamed a long sunbeam ; it showed against the dark
background of cloud, and lighted up and caused to
sparkle under the mica of the snow, as under a winter
dew, the mass of white lilacs and the marble wreath
of roses.

In the luminous tremulousness of the sunbeam in
which played icy dust, Malivert thought he made out,

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like a vapour from a silver perfume-burner, a slender
white form rising from the tomb, enveloped in the
floating folds of a gauze shroud like the robes of an
angel. The form made a friendly gesture to him with
its hand, a cloud passed across the sun, and the vision
disappeared.

Guy de Malivert withdrew whispering the name of
Lavinia d'Aufideni to himself, re-entered his carriage,
and drove back into Paris, which is filled everywhere
with the living who do not even suspect that they are
dead, for they lack the inner life.

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XIII

FROM that day Malivert's life was divided into
two distinct portions, the one real, the other
spiritual. There was apparently no change in
him. He went to the club and into society, he appeared
in the Bois de Boulogne and on the Boulevard. If
any interesting performance took place, he was present
at it, and to see him dressed in good taste, with neat
shoes and well fitting gloves, walking about through
human life, no one would have suspected that the
young man was in constant communication with
spirits, or that, when he left the Opera, he gazed into
the mysterious depths of the invisible universe. Yet
on examining him more closely, it would have been
noticed that he was more serious, paler, thinner, and
spiritualised as it were. The expression of his face
was no longer the same ; unless he was drawn out
of himself by others, it exhibited a sort of disdainful
beatitude. Fortunately society never observes unless
its interest requires it to do so, and Malivert's secret
was not suspected.

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The evening after his first visit to the cemetery
where he had learned Spirite's terrestrial name, and
while waiting for a manifestation which he desired
with all the strength of his will, he heard, like drops
of water falling within a silver basin, the sound of the
notes of the piano. There was no one in the room ;
but prodigies no longer astonished Malivert. A few
chords were struck in such a way as to command
attention and awaken his curiosity. Guy looked
towards the piano, and little by little there appeared in
a luminous mist the lovely form of a young girl. At
first the image was so transparent that objects behind
it were visible through its contours, just as the bottom
of a lake is visible through its limpid waters. Without
becoming in the least material, it gradually condensed
sufficiently to look like a living figure, but filled with
such light, impalpable, aerial life that it resembled
rather the reflection of a body in a mirror than the
body itself. Certain sketches of Prud'hon, scarcely
rubbed in with thin, vague contours, bathed in chiaro-
scuro and surrounded, as it were, with violet vapour,
the white draperies seeming to be made of moonbeams,
may give a faint idea of the graceful apparition then
seated before Malivert's piano. The pale fingers.

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faintly flushed, glided over the ivory keys like white
butterflies, merely touching the keys but bringing out
the sound, although the gentle contact would not have
bowed the feather of a pen. The notes, without hav-
ing to be struck, flashed out of themselves when the
luminous hands fluttered above them. A long white
dress of an ideal muslin infinitely finer than the Indian
tissues which can be drawn through a ring, fell in
abundant folds around her and foamed over her feet
like snow. Her head, bent slightly forward as if a
score were open upon the piano, enabled the neck to
be seen with its curling, golden, shimmering, fine hair,
as well as the upper portion of pearly, opaline shoul-
ders, the whiteness of which melted into the whiteness
of the dress. Between the bandeaux that rose and fell
as if lifted by the wind, shone a narrow starry band,
the ends of which were fastened on the chignon.
From where Malivert sat, one ear and a portion of the
cheek showed, blooming, rosy, velvety, of a tone that
would have made the colour of a peach look earthv.
It was Lavinia, or Spirite, to call her by the name she
has borne hitherto in this story. She looked around
rapidly, to make sure that Guy was attentive and that
she might begin. Her blue eyes shone with a tender

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light that penetrated his soul; there was still something
of the maiden in that angelic look.

The piece that she played was the work of a great
master, one of those inspirations in which human
genius seems to foresee the infinite, and which now
express so powerfully the secret desires of the soul,
and again recall the remembrance of the heavens and
the paradise from which it has been driven. It was
full of ineffable melancholy, of ardent prayer, of low
murmurs, last revolts of pride dashed from light into
darkness. Spirite interpreted all these feelings with a
maestria that made one forget Chopin, Liszt, Thalberg,
those wizards of the piano. Guy seemed to be hear-
ing music for the first time. A new art was being
revealed to him. Innumerable new thoughts awoke
within his soul; the notes stirred in him such deep,
divine, interior vibrations that he felt he must have
heard them in a former life that he had since forgotten.
Spirite not only rendered all the intentions of the
master, she expressed the ideal he had dreamed of, but
which human infirmity had not allowed him to attain.
She fulfilled his genius, she made perfection perfect,
she added to the absolute.

Guy had unconsciously arisen and walked to the

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piano like a somnambulist. He remained standing,
leaning his elbow upon the corner of the instrument,
his eyes gazing ardently at those of Spirite.

Her expression was truly sublime. Her head, up-
lifted and somewhat thrown back, showed her face
illumined by the splendours of ecstasy. Inspiration
and love shone with supernatural brilliancy in her eyes,
the azure of which almost disappeared under the upper
eyelid; her half-opened lips gleamed like pearls, and
her neck, bathed in bluish transparencies like those of
the heads in Guido's ceilings, swelled like the neck of
a mystic dove. The woman was diminishing in her,
the angel augmenting ; and the intensity of light which
she shed around her was so brilliant that Malivert was
constrained to turn away his eyes.

Spirite noticed this, and in a voice more harmonious
and sweeter than the music she was playing, she whis-
pered, " Poor friend ! I forgot that you are still con-
fined within your terrestrial prison and that your eyes
cannot bear the faintest ray of true light. Later I shall
show myself to you such as I am, in the sphere whither
you will follow me. Meanwhile the shadow of my
mortal form suffices to manifest my presence to you,
and you can contemplate me thus without peril."

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By invisible gradations she returned from super-
natural beauty to natural beauty ; the wings of Psyche
that had for a moment fluttered on her shoulders, dis-
appeared again ; her material appearance became some-
what more condensed, and a milky cloud spread about
her suave contours, bringing them out more plainly, as
water in which a drop of essence is thrown shows
more clearly the lines of the crystal that contains it.
Lavinia was reappearing through Spirite, somewhat
vaporous, no doubt, but sufficiently real to cause an
illusion.

She had ceased to play, and was looking at Mali-
vert, who stood before her, — a faint smile playing on
her lips, a smile of celestial irony, of divine arch-
ness, which mocked human debility while consoling it,
while her eyes, purposely dimmed, still expressed the
tenderest love, but such love as a chaste maiden might
allow to be seen on earth by the man to whom she
was engaged. Malivert might indulge in the belief
that he was with the Lavinia who had sought him so
earnestly while alive, and from whom he had always
been separated by ironical fate. Carried away, fas-
cinated, palpitating with love, forgetting that he had
before him but a shadow, he advanced, and by an in-

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stinctive motion sought to take one of Spirite's hands,
still resting on the piano, and bear it to his lips; but
his fingers closed on hers without touching anything,
as if they had passed through a mist. Although she
had nothing to fear, Spirite withdrew with a gesture of
offended maidenliness ; soon, however her angelic smile
reappeared, and she raised to Guy's lips, who felt a
soft freshness and a faint, delicious perfume, her hand
made of transparent, rosy light.

" I forgot," she said, in a voice which was not
formulated into words, but which Guy heard within
his heart, " that I am no longer a girl, but a soul, a
shadow, an impalpable vapour with nothing of human
sense ; so what Lavinia might perhaps have refused,
Spirite grants, not as a pleasure, but as a sign of pure
love and eternal union." And she left for a few
seconds her hand under the imaginary kiss of Guy.

Soon she returned to the piano, and played an air of
incomparable power and sweetness, in which Guy
recognised one of his poems, — his favourite one, —
transposed from the language of verse into the language
of music. It was an inspiration in which, disdaining
vulgar joys, he soared eagerly towards the higher spheres
in which the poet's desire is at last to be satisfied.

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Spirite, with marvellous intuition, rendered the unuttered
words, the unphrased human speech, the unsaid in
the best written verse, the mysteriousness, the depth,
the secrecy of things, the unavowed aspirations, the
indescribable, the inexpressible, the desideratum of
thought incapable of greater effort, — all the softness,
the grace, the suavity which overflow the too dry con-
tours of words. To the fluttering wings that rose in
air with such desperate rush, she opened the paradise
of realised dreams, of fulfilled hopes. She stood on the
luminous threshold, in a scintillation before which the
suns turn pale, divinely beautiful and yet humanly ten-
der, opening her arms to the soul thirsting for the
ideal, which is the end and the recompense, the starry
crown and the cup of love, — a Beatrix revealed be-
yond the tomb. In a phrase filled with purest passion
she told, with divine reticence, and celestial modesty,
that she herself, in the leisure of eternity and the splen-
dour of the infinite, would satisfy all his unsatisfied
desires. She promised to his genius happiness and
love such as the imagination of man, even when in
communion with a spirit, cannot conceive of.

While playing the finale, she had risen, her hands
no longer even pretending to touch the keys ; yet the

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melodies escaped from the piano in visible coloured
vibrations, spreading through the atmosphere of the
room in luminous undulations like those which vary
the flamboyant radiance of the aurora borealis.
Lavinia had disappeared and Spirite reappeared, but
taller, more majestic, enshrined in a brilliant light.
Long wings fluttered on her shoulders ; she had al-
ready, though plainly she desired to remain, left the
floor of the room ; the folds of her dress floated in
space ; an all-compelling breath bore her away, and
Malivert found himself alone in a state of agitation
easy to understand. But little by little he grew calm,
and delightful languor followed upon the feverish
excitement. He felt the satisfaction so rarely experi-
enced by poets and, it is said, by philosophers, at having
been understood in the most delicate and the deepest
parts of his imagination. How brilliantly and radiantlv
Spirite had commented on that poem, the meaning and
force of which he had never yet so well understood !
How thoroughly her soul identified itself with his own,
and her thought penetrated his !

The next day he made up his mind to work. His
inspiration, which had abandoned him for a long time,
was returning, ideas crowded in his brain, unlimited

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SPIRITE

horizons, endless perspectives opened before his eyes,
a world of new sensations surged within his breast, and
to express them he asked of speech more than it is able
to do. The old forms, the worn-out moulds burst
asunder, and sometimes the molten phrase broke forth
and overflowed in splendid splashes like rays of broken
stars. Never had he risen to such heights, and the
greatest poets would willingly have signed what he
wrote on that day.

As, having finished a stanza, he was thinking of the
next, he allowed his glance to roam around the room
and saw Spirite half lying on the divan, her chin resting
on her hand, her elbow sunk in the pillow, her slender
fingers playing in the golden waves of her hair. She
was watching him with a loving, contemplative look.
She seemed to have been there a long time, but had
not cared to reveal her presence lest she should break
in upon his work. As Malivert rose from his arm-
chair to draw nearer to her, she signed to him not to
move, and in a voice softer than any music, she
repeated, stanza by stanza, line by line, the poem
he had been writing. By a mysterious sympathy
she felt her lover's thought, followed it in its flight,
and even outstripped it, for not only did she see,

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but she foresaw, and she said in full the unfinished
stanza the end of which he was still seeking.

The poem, as will be readily understood, was
addressed to Spirite. On what other subject could
Malivert have written ? Carried away by his love
for her, he scarcely remembered earth, and plunged
into the heavens as high and as far as wings attached
to human shoulders could bear him.

"That is beautiful," said Spirite, whose voice Mali-
vert heard within his breast, for it did not reach his ear
like ordinary sounds. " It is beautiful, even for a
spirit. Genius is truly divine, it invents the ideal. It
sees higher beauty and eternal light. Whither can it
not ascend when it has the wings of faith and love ?
But descend again, come back to the regions the air of
which may be breathed by mortal lungs. Your nerves
are trembling still like the cords of a lyre, your brow
smokes like a censer, a feverish light burns in your
eyes. Beware of madness, for ecstasy is akin to it.
Calm yourself, and if you love me, live still your
human life, for it is my wish."

In order to obey her, Malivert went out, and al-
though men seemed to him only like distant shadows,
like phantoms with whom he had nothing in common,

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he tried to mingle with them, he endeavoured to interest
himself in the news and rumours of the day, and smiled
at the description of the wonderful costume worn by

Mile. at the last ball. He even agreed to play

whist with the old Duchess de C . Everything

was equally indifferent to him.

But in spite of his efforts to cling to life, an amorous
attraction drew him beyond the terrestrial sphere. He
desired to walk and felt himself rise ; he was a prey to
irresistible desire. The apparitions of Spirite no longer
sufficed him ; his soul hastened after her when she
disappeared, as if seeking to leave his body. Love,
excited by impossibility, and burning yet with some-
thing of an earthly flame, devoured him and clung to
his flesh as the poisoned tunic of Nessus clung to the
flesh of Hercules. In his rapid contact with Spirite,
he had been unable to entirely throw off the old
Adam. He could not hold in his arms the aerial
phantom of Spirite, but that phantom represented
the image of Lavinia with an illusion of beauty that
sufficed to blind his passion and to make him forget
that the adorable form, the loving eyes, the sweetly
smiling mouth, were, after all, but a shadow and a
reflection.

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At all hours of the day and night Guy beheld before
him the alma adorata, sometimes as a pure ideal in the
splendour of Spirite, sometimes in the more humanly
feminine appearance of Lavinia. Now she soared
above his head with the dazzling flight of an angel,
again she seemed seated in the great arm-chair, lying
on the divan, or leaning on the table. She appeared
to look at the papers scattered on his desk, to breathe
the scent of the flowers in the jardiniere, to open the
books, to move the rings in the onyx cup placed on
the mantelpiece, and to give herself up to the puerilities
of passion allowable to a young girl who has entered
by chance the room of her betrothed. Spirite enjoyed
showing herself to Guy such as Lavinia would have
been had fate favoured her love. She was living again,
after death, and chapter by chapter, her chaste boarding-
school girl romance. With a little coloured vapour
she reproduced her dresses of old, placed in her hair the
same flower, or the same ribbon ; her shadow assumed
once more the same grace, the same attitude, and the
poses of her maidenly body. She had wished, moved
by a coquetry that proved the woman had not wholly
disappeared in the angel, that Malivert should love her
not only with the posthumous love addressed to Spirite,

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but as she had been during her life on earth, when at
the Opera, in ball-rooms, in society, she sought the
ever missed opportunity of meeting him.

Had not his lips touched but a void when, carried
away by desire, mad with love, drunk with passion, he
indulged in some useless caress, he might have believed
that he, Guy de Malivert, had really married Lavinia
d'Aufideni, so clear, coloured, and living did the vision
become at times. In a perfectly consonant sympathy
he heard internally, but as in a real conversation,
the voice of Lavinia with its youthful, fresh, silvery
timbre, answering his burning confessions by chaste
and modest caresses.

It was indeed the torture of Tantalus ; the cup full
of ice-water was held to his burning lips by a loving
hand, but he could not even touch the edge ; the per-
fumed grapes, the colour of amber and rubies, hung
over his head, but vanished as they evaded an impossi-
ble touch. The short intervals during which Spirite
left him, recalled no doubt by some invincible order
pronounced in that place where one can what one
wills, had become unbearable to him, and when she
disappeared he felt like dashing out his brains against
the wall that closed upon her.

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One evening he said to himself : " Since Spirite
cannot put on an earthly frame and mingle in my life
otherwise than as a vision, what if I were to cast off
this troublesome mortal coil, this gross, heavy shape,
which prevents my rising with the adored soul into
the spheres where spirits dwell ? "

The idea struck him as sound. He rose and
selected from a trophy of barbaric weapons hanging
from the wall, — tomahawks, assegais, boarding cut-
lasses, — an arrow feathered with parrot feathers and
tipped with a sharp head of fishbone. The arrow had
been dipped in curare, that terrible poison of which
South American Indians alone possess the secret, and
which kills the victim without any antidote being able
to save him.

He was holding the arrow close to his hand and was
about to prick himself with it, when suddenly Spirite
appeared to him, terrified, horror-struck, and supplicat-
ing, casting around his neck her shadowy arms with a
movement of mad passion, pressing him to her phan-
tom heart, covering him with impalpable kisses. The
woman had forgotten that she was only a spirit.

" Unfortunate Guy ! " she cried. " Do not do that !
Do not kill yourself to join me ! Your death thus

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brought about would separate us hopelessly, and would
open between us abysses that millions of years would
not enable us to cross. Recover yourself ! Bear with
life, the longest term of which does not last more than
a grain of sand. In order to endure the time, think
of the eternity during which we can ever love each
other, and forgive my coquetry. The woman wished
to be loved as the spirit was ; Lavinia was jealous of
Spirite, and I nearly lost you forever."

Resuming her angelic form, she stretched out her
hands above Malivert's head, who felt celestial calm
and coolness descending upon him.

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XIV

MME. D'YMBERCOURT was surprised at
the little effect that her flirtation with
M. d'Aversac had had upon Guy de
Malivert. Her lack of success entirely upset all her
ideas of feminine strategy. She believed that nothing
could revive love so well as a touch of jealousy, but
she forgot that love had first to exist. She had taken
it for granted that a young fellow who had called
pretty regularly on her Wednesdays for the past three
years, who sometimes brought her a bouquet on opera
nights and remained awake at the back of her box,
must necessarily be somewhat in love with her. Was
she not beautiful, elegant, and rich ? Did she not play
the piano like a prize-winner at the Conservatory ?
Did she not pour out tea as correctly as Lady
Penelope herself? Did she not write her morning
notes in an English hand, long, sloping, angular, and
thoroughly aristocratic ? What objection could be
made to her carriages purchased from Binder, her

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SPIRI TE

horses bought from and warranted by Cremieux ?
Were her footmen not handsome fellows, and did they
not bear the appearance of aristocratic lackeys ? Did
not her dinners deserve to be approved by experts ?
It seemed to her that all these things formed a very
comfortable ideal. Nevertheless, the lady in the sleigh
whom she had caught sight of at the Bois de Boulogne
bothered her considerably, and several times she had
driven around the lake with the idea of meeting her
and seeing whether she was followed by Malivert.
The lady, however, did not reappear, and Mme. d'Ym-
bercourt's jealousy had nothing to work upon. Be-
sides, no one knew her or had seen her. Was Guy
in love with her, or had he simply yielded to curiosity
when he drove Grimalkin in pursuit of the stepper?
Mme. d'Ymbercourt could not make it out ; so she
concluded that she had frightened away Guy by her
suggestion that he was compromising her. She now
regretted having uttered the remark, which she had
made only to induce him to declare himself formally,
for Guy, much too faithful to his orders, and, besides,
taken up with Spirite, had refrained from calling on
her. His complete obedience piqued the Countess,
who would have preferred to have him less submissive.

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Although her suspicions had no other foundation than
the brief vision in the Bois de Boulogne, she felt that
there was some love concealed behind this excessive
care for her reputation. Yet apparently nothing was
changed in Guy's life, and Jack, secretly questioned
by Mme. d'Ymbercourt's maid, had assured her that
he had not for a long time heard the faintest rustle of
silk on the private stairs of his master, who, besides,
went out very little, saw scarcely any one but Baron
de Feroe, lived like a hermit, and spent the greater
part of his nights in writing.

D'Aversac increased his attentions, and Mme.
d'Ymbercourt accepted them with the tacit gratitude
of a woman who feels somewhat abandoned and needs
to be reassured as to the effect of her charms by new
worship. She was not in love with d'Aversac, but she
was grateful to him for prizing what Guy seemed to
disdain ; so on the Tuesday at the performance of
" La Traviata " it was noticed that Malivert's seat
was occupied by d'Aversac in white gloves and white
necktie, a camellia in his buttonhole, curled and
pomaded like a lady-killer who still has hair of his
own, and radiant with self-satisfaction. He had long
nourished the hope of making an impression upon

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Mme. d'Ymbercourt, but the marked preference she
accorded to Guy de Malivert had thrown him into the
background among the indifferent adorers who crowd
more or less round a pretty woman waiting for an
opportunity, a break, or a fit of annoyance which never
occurs. He was full of smiling attentions. He held
out to her her glasses or her programme, smiled at her
least remarks, bowed mysteriously in answer, and when
Mme. d'Ymbercourt brought together the tips of her
white gloves to approve some note sung by the diva,
he applauded heartily, raising his hands as high as his
head. In a word, he publicly took possession of his
office of attendant lover.

In some of the boxes people were already beginning
to say, " Is the marriage of Malivert and Mme.
d'Ymbercourt off? " There was a slight manifestation
of curiosity when Guy showed at the entrance of the
orchestra stalls after the first act, and when he was
seen, as he inspected the hall, to glance at the Coun-
tess's box. D'Aversac, who had also caught sight of
him, felt a little uneasy, but the most perspicacious
examination failed to notice the least sign of contra-
riety on Malivert's face. He neither blushed nor
turned pale; his brows did not bend, not a muscle of

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his face moved ; he did not have the terribly grim
aspect of a jealous lover at the sight of his fair courted
by another ; he looked perfectly calm and utterly
serene. The expression of his face was that which
comes from the radiancy of a secret joy, and on his
lips fluttered, as the poet says, —

" The mysterious smile of inward delight."

" If Guy were loved by a fairy or a princess, he
could not look more triumphant," said an old habitue
of the balcony, a Don Juan emeritus. " If Mme.
d'Ymbercourt cares for him, she may as well give him
up, for she will never call herself Mme. de Malivert."

Between the acts Guy paid a short visit to the
Countess's box to bid her farewell, for he was about
to start on a trip to Greece. He was naturally polite
to d'Aversac, without any trace of exaggeration, nor
did he have the coldly ceremonious look which people
assume when they are vexed. He shook hands very
quietly with Mme. d'Ymbercourt, whose face betrayed
her emotion, great as was the effort which she made to
appear indifferent. The blush which suffused her cheeks
when Guy left his box to come to her stall had been
replaced by a pallor of which rice powder was wholly

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innocent. She had looked for annoyance, anger, a
movement of passion, a mark of jealousy, perhaps even
a quarrel. His genuine coolness upset her and caught
her unprepared. She had believed that Malivert loved
her, and now she saw that she had been mistaken.
This discovery wounded at once her pride and her
heart. Guy had inspired her with a livelier affection
than she knew, and she felt unhappy. The comedy
that she had been playing, now that it was proved
useless, wearied and bored her. When Malivert had
gone, she leaned upon the edge of the box and replied
only in monosyllables to the compliments addressed to
her by d'Aversac, who was very much put out by her
silence and her coolness. He did not understand how
it was that winter had succeeded spring ; the sudden
frost withered the roses. " Have I said or done any-
thing foolish ? " asked of himself the poor fellow who
a moment ago was so well received. " Can it be that
she is making fun of me? Guy's ease of manner just
now was affected, and the Countess seemed very much
moved. I wonder if she still loves Malivert."

However, as d'Aversac knew that he was being
watched by a certain number of glasses, he went on
playing his part, and bent towards the countess, whis-

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pering in her ear with an intimate and mysterious air
commonplaces that anybody might have listened to.

The old habitue, who was very much amused by
this little drama, followed the incidents of it out of the
corner of his eye. " D'Aversac is putting a good face
on his ill luck, but he is not the man for such a game.
However, he is a fool, and fools are sometimes lucky
with women. Cupid gets along very well with folly,
and Laridon succeeds Caesar, especially when Caesar
does not care for his empire. But who can be Guy's
new mistress ? " Such were the reflections of the
veteran Cytherean, as well up in theory as he had been
in practice, while he followed Malivert's glances to
see whether they rested upon any of the beautiful
women who shone in the boxes like jewels in a case.
Could it be that vaporous blonde with the wreath of
silver leaves, the water-green dress, and opal ornaments,
who seemed to have touched up her complexion with a
moonbeam like a wraith or a nixie, and who gazed
sentimentally at the chandelier as if it were the orb of
night ? Or was it the brunette with hair darker than
night, with a profile carved out of marble, eyes like
black diamonds, red lips, so living under her warm
pallor, so passionate under her statuesque calm, and

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who might be taken for the daughter of the Venus of
Milo, if that divine masterpiece deigned to have chil-
dren. No, it was neither of them, neither the moon
nor the sun. The Russian princess in the stage-box
yonder, with her extraordinary dress, her exotic beauty,
and her extravagant grace, might have some chance,
for Guy was rather fond of eccentricity, and his travels
had inspired him with rather barbaric tastes. Yet it
was not she either ; Guy had just looked at her as
coldly as if he were examining a malachite cofFer.
Why might it not be the Parisian in the open box,
dressed in perfect taste, clever, witty, pretty, whose
every motion seemed to follow the sound of a flute and
to raise a foam of lace, as if she were dancing on a
panel in Herculaneum. Balzac would have devoted
thirty pages to the description of such a woman, and it
would have been style used to good purpose. She was
worth it. But Guy was not civilised enough to taste
the charm which seduced, even more than did beauty,
the author of the " Comedie Humaine." — " Well, I
shall have to give up fathoming this mystery to-day,"
said the old beau, as he put back into his case a pair
of glasses that looked like siege guns. " The lady that
occupies Malivert's thoughts is undoubtedly not here."

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As people left the house d'Aversac was standing
under the balustrade in as elegant an attitude as can be
assumed by a gentleman wrapped up in a great-coat.
He was by the side of Mme. d'Ymbercourt, who had
thrown over her dress a pelisse of satin edged with
swan's-down, the hood of which fell back on her shoul-
ders and left her head bare. The countess was pale,
and that evening she was really beautiful. The pain
she felt imparted to her face, usually coldly regular, an
expression and a feeling of life it had lacked hitherto.
For the rest, she seemed to have wholly forgotten her
escort, who remained within a couple of paces of her
with a set gravity that sought to dissimulate and to
express much.

" What is the matter with Mme. d'Ymbercourt to-
night ? " said a young man who stood in the vestibule
to watch the procession of beauties ; " she seems to
have acquired a new beauty. D'Aversac is a lucky
fellow."

" Not so very lucky, after all," said a young man
with a clever, intelligent face, who looked like a por-
trait of Van Dyck taken from its frame. " It is not
he who has given to the Countess's face, usually as
inexpressive as a wax mask moulded on a Venus by

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Canova, the animation and the accent you notice.
The spark comes from elsewhere. D'Aversac is not
the Prometheus of this Pandora; wood cannot give life
to marble."

" Never mind," replied another ; " I wonder at
Malivert giving up the Countess just at this time.
She deserves rather better than d'Aversac to avenge
her. I do not know if Guy can find a handsomer
woman, and he may have cause to repent his disdain."

" It would be a mistake in him to do so," replied
the Van Dyck portrait. " Pray follow me. Mme.
d'Ymbercourt is handsomer to-day than usual because
she is moved. Now, if Malivert had not given
her up, she would not feel any emotion, and her
classical features would remain insignificant. The
phenomenon which surprises you would, therefore,
not have taken place ; so Malivert is right to go off
to Greece, as he said last night at the club he would
do. Dlxir

The footman announcing the Countess's carriage
put an end to this conversation, and more than one
young fellow committed the sin of envy on seeing
d'Aversac get into the coupe with Mme. d'Ymbercourt.
The door was closed by the lackey, who climbed to

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SPIRITE

the box in a twinkling, and the carriage went off at
full speed. D'Aversac, half hidden in the folds of
satin, close to his partner, breathing in the vague scent
she gave out, tried to profit by the short tete-a-tete and
to say a few tenderly gallant words to the Countess.
He had to find at once something decisive and passion-
ate, for there was no great distance from the Place
Ventadour to the Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin; but
Guy's rival was not good at improvisation, and besides,
it must be confessed that he received scant encour-
agement from Mme. d'Ymbercourt, who, silent and
nestling in the corner of the coupe, was biting the
corner of her lace handkerchief. While d'Aversac
was laboriously trying to work out a loving phrase,
Mme. d'Ymbercourt, who had not listened to a single
word of it, busy as she was following out her own
thoughts, caught him suddenly by the arm and said to
him sharply, "Do you know who is the new mistress
of M. de Malivert ? "

This unexpected and astonishing question greatly
shocked d'Aversac. It was not wholly proper, and it
proved that the Countess had not thought of him for a
moment. The castle in Spain of his hopes fell in
ruins before this breath of passion.

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" I do not know," stammered d' Aversac ; " but if I
did, discretion — and politeness — would prevent —
Any well-bred man on such occasions knows what is
his duty — "

" Yes, yes," answered the Countess, in short, sharp
accents. " Men stand by each other even when they
are rivals. I shall not learn anything." Then, after
a short silence, partly mastering herself, she said, " I
beg your pardon, my dear M. d'Aversac. I am terri-
bly nervous to-night, and I feel that I am saying
absurd things. Do not be angry with me, and come
to see me to-morrow, — I shall be quieter. Here I am
at home," she said, holding out her hand to him.
" Where is my coachman to take you ? " And with a
rapid step she got out of the coupe and ascended the
stairs without allowing d'Aversac to assist her.

So it may be seen that it is not always as pleasant
as naive young fellows imagine to take home a beauti-
ful lady, and even to ride in her carriage from the
Opera to the Chaussee d'Antin. D'Aversac, rather
sat upon, had himself driven to the club in the Rue
de Choiseul where his own carriage was awaiting him.
He played and lost some hundred louis, which did not
help to improve his temper. As he returned home,

225

SPI R ITE

he said to himself, " How the devil does Malivert
manage to make all the women fall in love with
him ? "

Mme. d'Ymbercourt, after giving herself up to the
care of her maid, who undressed her and made her
ready for the night, put on a wrapper of white cash-
mere, and leaned on a desk, her hand plunged in her
hair. She remained thus for some time, her eyes fixed
on the paper, turning her pen in her fingers. She
wished to write to Guy, but it was a difficult matter.
Her thoughts, which crowded in her brain, disappeared
when she tried to express them in a phrase. She
scribbled five or six notes, crossed, interlined, illegible,
in spite of her beautiful English hand, without manag-
ing to satisfy herself. She said either too much or too
little, she did not succeed in expressing the feelings in
her heart. She tore up and threw into the fire every
note, and finally managed to produce this : —

" Do not be angry, dear Guy, at my coquettish im-
pulse, a very innocent one, I assure you, for my sole
object was to make you a little bit jealous and to bring
you back to me. You know very well that I love
you, although you do not love me very much. Your
cold, quiet look froze my very heart. Forget what I

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SPIRITE

have said to you. It was a wicked friend who made
me speak. Are you really going off to Greece ? Do
you really need to flee from me, who have no other
thought than to please you ? Do not go ; your absence
would make me too wretched."

The Countess signed the note " Cecilia d'Ymber-
court," sealed it with her arms, and wished to send
it at once, but as she rose to summon her attendant,
the clock struck two. It was too late to send a man
to the very end of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, where
Guy lived. "Never mind," she said, "I will send
my note very early and Guy shall have it when he
wakes, if only he is not then gone."

She went to bed tired and worn out, closing her
eyes in vain. She thought of the lady in the sleigh
and said that Malivert loved her, and jealousy drove
its sharp fangs into her heart. At last she fell asleep,
but her sleep was agitated ; she constantly started
awake, worse than the night before. A little lamp
hung from the ceiling by her, the night-light fixed in
a globe of blue ground-glass cast in the room an azure
light like that of the moon, and lighted with soft, mys-
terious beam the head of the Countess, whose loosened
hair spread out in great black ringlets on the white

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pillow, concealing one of her arms hanging out of
the bed.

At the bed-head, little by little a faint, transparent,
bluish vapour like the smoke from a perfume-burner
gradually condensed, assumed more decided contours,
and soon showed as a young girl of celestial beauty,
whose golden hair formed a luminous aureole around
her. Spirite, for it was she, watched the sleeping
woman with the air of melancholy pity that angels
must wear on beholding human suffering. Bending
towards her like the shadow of a dream, she let fall
upon her brow two or three drops of a sombre liquor
contained in a little flagon like the lacrymatory urns
found in the tombs of antiquity, whispering mean-
while : " Since you are no longer a danger to him
whom I love, and can no longer separate his soul from
mine, I take pity on you, for you are suffering on his
account, and I bring you the divine nepenthe. For-
get and be happy, O you who caused my death ! "

The vision disappeared. The features of the lovely
sleeper softened as if a pleasant dream had succeeded
to a painful nightmare. A faint smile fluttered over
her lips, by an unconscious movement she drew back
under the clothes her beautiful arm, which was as cold

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SPIRI TE

and white as marble, and covered herself up under the
light eider-down quilt. Her tranquil and restorative
sleep lasted until morning, and when she awoke, the
first thing she noticed was her letter upon the table.

" Shall I have this letter taken ? " said Aglae, who
had just entered the room to open the curtains, and
saw her mistress's glance rest upon the note.

" Oh, no ! " cried Mme. d'Ymbercourt, quickly,
" throw it into the fire." Then she added to herself,
"What was I thinking of to write such a letter? I
must have been crazy."

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SPIRITE

THE steamer from Marseilles to Athens was
off Cape Malia, the last dentellation of the
mulberry leaf which forms the point of
Greece and has given it its modern name. Fog and
cloud had been left behind. It was a passing from
night to light, from cold to warmth. The gray tints
of the Western skies had been succeeded by the azure
of the Oriental heavens, and the sea, of a deep blue,
rose and fell softly under a favouring wind, which the
steamer turned to advantage by setting its smoke-
blackened jibs, like the sombre-coloured sails which
Theseus hoisted by mistake when he returned from
the isle of Crete, where he had slain the Minotaur. It
was near the end of February, and already the ap-
proach of spring, so late with us, was felt in that happy
clime beloved of the sun. The air was so balmy that
most of the passengers, who had already got over sea-
sickness, remained on deck watching the coast, of
which they caught a glimpse through the blue haze of

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SPIRITE

evening. Above the darker zone rose a mountain still
visible, on whose snowy summit yet gleamed a ray of
light. It was Taygetus ; which enabled the travelling
bachelors of arts who knew a few lines of Latin to
quote with satisfied pedantry the well-known verses of
Virgil. A Frenchman who quotes correctly — which
is rare — a Latin line, is very nearly as perfectly happy
as it is possible for him to be. As regards Greek lines,
that is a happiness reserved for Germans and English-
men fresh from Jena or Oxford.

On the slatted benches and camp-stools that encum-
bered the stern of the ship were young ladies wearing
overcoats with huge buttons, small hats with blue veils,
their abundant brown hair enclosed in nets, their trav-
elling-bags hung about their neck by a strap. They
were looking at the coast shrouded in the evening
shadows, with glasses strong enough to make out the
satellites of Jupiter. Some, bolder and better sailors,
were walking the deck with the stride that drill-ser-
geants and teachers of walking teach to British girls.
Others were talking with gentlemen irreproachably
dressed and of perfect manners. There were also
Frenchmen, pupils of the School of Athens, painters,
architects, who had won the prize of Rome and who

231

SPIRITE

were going for inspiration to the sources of true
beauty. These, with all the enthusiasm of youth,
when it has hope before it and a small sum in its
pocket, were joking, laughing noisily, smoking cigars
and indulging in heated discussions on aesthetics. The
reputations of the great masters of ancient and modern
times were discussed, ridiculed or lauded ; everything
was admirable or absurd, sublime or stupid, for young
men always go to extremes and know no middle way.
They would never marry King Modus to Queen
Ratio ; that union takes place much later in life.

In this animated group was a young man draped in
his mantle like a philosopher of the Portico, and who
was neither a painter, a sculptor, nor an architect, but
whom the travelling artists called in as arbitrator when
a discussion ended in obstinate negation on either side.
It was Guy de Malivert. His judicious and clever
remarks proved that he was a true connoisseur, an art
critic worthy of the name ; and these very disdainful
young fellows, who sneered at any one who had not
handled the brush, the chisel, or the drawing-pen, as a
bourgeois^ listened to him with deference and sometimes
even adopted his views. The conversation ended,
for everything ends, even a discussion on the ideal

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SPI RI TE

and the real, and the disputants, their throats rather
dry, descended to the saloon to wet their whistles
with a glass of grog or other warm and restorative
drinks,

Malivert remained alone on the bridge. Night had
fallen, and it was now quite dark. In the deep azure
sky, the stars shone with a vivacity and a brilliancy no
one can imagine unless he has seen the sky of Greece.
Their reflections were lengthened in the water, making
long wakes, just as if they were lights placed upon
the bank. The foam, beaten up by the paddle-wheels,
flashed like innumerable diamonds, that gleamed for an
instant and then vanished in a bluish phosphorescence.
The black steamer seemed to proceed through a sea
of light. It was a sight that would have excited the
admiration of the most obtuse Philistine, and as Mali-
vert was not a Philistine, he enjoyed it to the full. It
did not even occur to him to go down to the saloon,
which is always sickeningly hot, and peculiarly objec-
tionable when one leaves the fresh air ; and he con-
tinued walking up and down the deck, moving around
the Levantines installed on carpets or thin mattresses
along the rail in the bows and among the coils of
chains and ropes ; sometimes he caused a woman,

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believing herself unnoticed, to lower the veil she had
drawn aside to enjoy the cool air of night.

Guy was keeping the promise he had made not to
compromise Mme. d'Ymbercourt.

He leaned on the bulwarks and let himself float
away into a reverie full of sweetness. No doubt, since
Spirite's love had freed him from earthly curiosity, the
trip to Greece had ceased to inspire him with as much
enthusiasm as formerly ; he would have liked to have
started on another voyage ; but he no longer thought
of hastening his departure from the world into which
his thought already reached. He was now aware of
the consequences of suicide, and waited, not too impa-
tiently, until the hour should come when he might flv
away with the angel who visited him. Secure in his
future happiness, he allowed himself to indulge in the
sensation of the present, and enjoyed, like the poet he
was, the superb spectacle of night. Like Lord Byron
he loved the sea. Its eternal restlessness and its inces-
sant plaint, even in hours of deepest calm, its sudden
anger and its mad fury against the immovable obstacle
had always struck his imagination, which saw in this
vast turbulence a secret analogy with useless human
effort. What he particularly loved in the sea was its

2 34

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immense isolation, the unchanging, yet ever changing
circle of the horizon, the solemn monotony and the
absence of any sign of civilisation. The same billow
that uplifted the steamer on its broad back had laved
the hollow-sided vessels of which Homer speaks, yet
no trace of the contact was left ; the water had exactly
the same tone that coloured it when it was traversed by
the fleet of the Greeks. The proud sea does not pre-
serve, like the earth, the marks of man's passage. It
is vague, immense, and deep, like the infinite. Never,
therefore, did Malivert feel happier, freer, and more
self-possessed than when, standing in the bows of a
ship, pitching and scending, he sailed into the un-
known. Soaked by the foam that flew over the decks,
his hair salt with the breath of the sea, it seemed to
him as though he were walking upon the waters ; and
just as a horseman becomes identified with the speed
of his steed, so he attributed to himself the swiftness
of the vessel, and his thought hurried on to meet the
unknown.

Spirite had silently descended like thistledown or
snowflake close to Malivert, and her hand rested on
the young man's shoulder. Although she was invisi-
ble to every one, it is possible to imagine the charming

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SPIRITE

group formed by Malivert and his aerial friend. The
moon had risen broad and bright, making the stars
pale, and the night had turned into a sort of blue day
absolutely magical in tone, like the light in an azure
grotto. One of her beams fell in the bows of the
ship upon that Love and that Psyche, effulgent in the
diamond scintillation of the foam, like two young gods
on the prow of an antique trireme. Over the waters,
with a perpetual luminous sparkling, spread a broad
wake of silvery spangles, the reflection of the orb
risen above the horizon and slowly ascending into
the heavens. Sometimes the swart back of a dolphin, a
descendant, perhaps, of the one that bore Arion,
flashed through the shining wake and suddenly disap-
peared in the shadow, or else, in the distance, like a
quivering red dot, appeared the light of a vessel.
From time to time the shore of an island, showing of a
deeper violet and soon passed, loomed for a moment.

"Undoubtedly," said Spirite, "this is a marvellous
spectacle, one of the finest, if not the very finest, which
the human eye can gaze upon ; but it is nothing by
the side of the wonderful prospects of the world which
I leave to visit you, and where soon we shall fly side by
side, 1 like doves called by the same desire.' This sea,

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which seems so vast to you, is but a drop in the cup
of the infinite, and the pale orb which lights it, an
imperceptible silver globule, is lost in the terrific im-
mensity, like the meanest grain of sidereal dust. Oh!
how I would have admired this sight with you, when I
still inhabited the earth and was called Lavinia. But
do not think that I am insensible to it, for I understand
its beauty through your own feeling."

" You make me impatient to be in your world, Spi-
rite," answered Malivert. " Eagerly I spring towards
those spheres, of a dazzling splendour beyond im-
agination or speech, which we are to traverse to-
gether and where never again we shall be separated."

"Yes, you shall see them, you shall know their mag-
nificence, their delight, if you love me, if you are
faithful to me, if your thought never turns to anything
lower, if you allow the impure and coarse human mud
to fall within you as within still water. On that con-
dition we shall be allowed to enjoy eternal union, the
peaceful intoxication of divine love, of unintermittent
love without weakness, without weariness, the ardour of
which would melt suns like grains of myrrh cast on a
fire; we shall be unity in duality, the ego in the non-
ego, motion in rest, desire in fulfilment, freshness in

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flame. To deserve these supreme felicities, think of
Spirite who is in heaven, and do not think too much
of Lavinia who sleeps yonder under her carved wreath
of white roses."

" Do I not love you madly ? " said Malivert ; "with
all the purity and ardour of which a soul still held to
this earth is capable ? "

" My darling," replied Spirite, " I am satisfied with
you."

And as she spoke the words, her sapphire eyes were
starred full of amorous promises, and a voluptuously
chaste smile parted her adorable lips.

The conversation between the living man and the
shadow was prolonged until the first gleam of dawn
mingled its rosy tints with the violet beams of the
moon, the orb of which was slowly paling. Soon a
segment of the sun appeared above the horizon, and
day came with a splendid rush. Spirite, an angel of
light, had nothing to dread from the sun, and remained
for a few moments in the bows of the vessel, radiant
in the rosy light and fires of morning that played like
golden butterflies in her hair, lifted by the breeze of
the Archipelago. If she chose night by preference to
appear to Malivert, it was because, the movements

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of common human life being then suspended, Guy
was freer, less noticed, and did not run the risk of
being thought crazy on account of actions unavoidably
eccentric in appearance.

As she saw Malivert pale and shiver in the chill of
dawn, she said to him in a sweetly scolding way : " Go,
you dear creature of clay, — do not struggle against
nature. It is cold, the sea dew is falling on the deck
and clinging to the rigging. Return to your cabin and
sleep." And then she added, with a purely feminine
grace : " Even sleep cannot separate us. I shall be
with you in all your dreams, and take you whither you
cannot go during your waking hours."

And as she had promised, Guy's sleep was filled
with azure, radiant, supernatural dreams, in which he
flew side by side with Spirite through an Elysian
paradise, a mingling of light, of ideal vegetation and
architecture, of which no words in our poor, scanty,
heavy, imperfect speech can suggest even the remotest
idea.

There is no need to describe in detail Malivert's
impressions of travel ; they have naught to do with this
story, and besides, Guy, filled with his love and drawn
by an inexorable desire, paid less attention than for-

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merly to material things. Nature now appeared to
him only in a vague, misty, splendid distance that
served as a background to his fixed thought. The
world was for him only the landscape of Spirite, and
he thought even the finest prospects unworthy of this
function. Nevertheless, the next day at dawn he could
not repress a cry of admiration and surprise when, as
the steamer entered the roads of the Piraeus, he be-
held the marvellous view lighted up by the rays of
morn ; Parnassus and Hymettus formed with their
amethyst-coloured slopes the wings of the splendid
setting of which Lycabetus, with its curious outline,
and Pentelicus formed the background. In the centre,
like a golden tripod upon a marble altar, rose on the
Acropolis the Parthenon, illumined by the golden light
of morn. The bluish tint of the distance, showing
through the interstices of the fallen columns, made
the noble form of the temple still more aerial and ideal.
Malivert felt that shiver which comes from the feeling
of beauty, and he understood then what, until that mo-
ment, had seemed obscure to him : the whole of Greek
art was suddenly revealed to him, a Romanticist, in
that rapid vision, — that is, the perfect proportion
of the ensemble, the absolute purity of the lines, the

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SPI RITE

incomparable suavity of the colour formed of white-
ness, azure, and light.

No sooner had he landed than, without troubling
about his luggage, which he left in Jack's hands, he
jumped into one of the coupes that, to the shame of
modern civilisation, bear, in the place of the cars
of antiquity, the travellers from the Piraeus to Athens,
along a road white with dust and bordered here and
there by a few dust-covered olive-trees. Malivert's
vehicle, broken-down and rattling, was carried along
at a gallop by two small, thin, dapple-gray horses with
hog manes, that looked like the skeletons, or rather,
like clay models of the marble horses that prance on
the metopes of the Parthenon. No doubt their ances-
tors had posed to Phidias. They were roundly lashed
by a youth wearing a Palikar costume, who, perhaps,
driving a more brilliant team might have carried off" the
prize for cars at the Olympic games.

Leaving the other travellers to invade the Hotel
d'Angleterre, Guy had himself driven to the foot of
the sacred hill on which humankind, in the flower of
youth, poetry, and love, heaped up its purest master-
pieces, as if to present them to the admiration of the
gods. He ascended the old Street of Tripods, buried

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under shapeless huts, and trod with respectful feet the
marble dust, coming at last to that staircase of the
Propylaea, some of the steps of which have been set
up as tombstones. He climbed through that strange
cemetery made of a maze of uplifted stones, between
the substructures, on one of which stands the small
temple of the Wingless Victory, while the other serves
as a pedestal to the equestrian statue of Cimon, and as
a platform for the Pinacothek, where were preserved
the masterpieces of Zeuxis, Apelles, Timanthes, and
Protogenes.

He crossed the Propylaea of Mnesicles, a master-
piece worthy to serve as an entrance to the masterpiece
of Ictinus and Phidias. He was filled with the sentiment
of religious admiration. He was almost ashamed that
he, a Western barbarian, should tread with his boots
that sacred soil. Soon he found himself before the
Parthenon, the Temple of the Virgin, the sanctuary
of Pallas Athene, the noblest conception of Polytheism.
The edifice rose in the serene blue air superbly placid
and suavely majestic. Divine harmony ruled its lines,
which sung the hymn of beauty on a secret rhythm.
All sweetly tended to an unknown ideal, converged to
a mysterious point, without effort, without violence,

242

SPIRITE

sure of attaining it. Above the temple one felt soar-
ing the thought to which the angles of the pediments,
the entablatures, the columns aspired and seemed to
wish to rise, imparting imperceptible curves to the
horizontal and the perpendicular lines. The exquisite
Doric columns, draped in the folds of their flutings and
leaning somewhat back, made one think of chaste
virgins languorously feeling vague desires. An atmos-
phere of warm, golden colour bathed the facade, and
the marble, kissed by time, had assumed a creamy tint
and something of a modest blush.

On the steps of the temple, between the two pillars
behind which opens the door of the pronaos, Spirite
stood in the pure Greek brightness so unfavourable to
apparitions, on the very threshold of the clear, perfect,
luminously beautiful Parthenon. A long white dress
pleated in little folds like the tunics of the canephorce,
fell from her shoulders to the tips of her little white,
bare feet. A crown of violets — of those violets the
scent of which Aristophanes celebrates in one of his
parabases — was placed upon the wavy bandeaux of
her golden hair. Thus dressed, Spirite resembled one
of the virgins of the Panathenaeon, come down from
her frieze. But in her blue eyes shone a light never

243

SPIRITE

seen in eyes of white marble ; to her radiant, plastic
beauty she added the beauty of the soul.

Malivert ascended the steps and approached Spirite,
who held out her hand to him. Then in a dazzling
vision he beheld the Parthenon as it was in the days
of its splendour. The fallen pillars were in their
places, the marbles of the pediment, carried away by
Lord Elgin, or broken by the Venetian shells, were
grouped again, pure and intact, in their human and
divine attitudes. At the door of the cella Malivert
saw, seated upon its pedestal, the statue of gold and
ivory, the celestial, the virgin, the immaculate Pallas
Athene. But he cast only a rapid glance upon these
wonders, and his eyes immediately turned to seek
Spirite's eyes. Seeing itself disdained, the retrospective
vision vanished.

" Oh ! " murmured Spirite, " art is forgotten for
love ! His soul is becoming more and more detached
from this earth. He is burning, he is being consumed !
Soon, dear soul, your wish shall be fulfilled."

And the heart of the maid, still beating within the
breast of the spirit, caused her white peplos to rise
and fall.

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SPI RITE

XVI

A FEW days after his visit to the Parthenon,
Guy de Malivert resolved to visit the beauti-
ful mountains which he saw from his win-
dows. He engaged a guide and a couple of horses,
leaving Jack at the hotel, as useless and likely even to
be in the way. Jack was one of those servants who
are more difficult to satisfy than their masters, and
whose disagreeable traits come out on a voyage. He
had as many fads as an old maid, and considered every-
thing abominable, — the rooms, the beds, the dishes,
the wines ; and exasperated by the wretched waiting,
he would cry, " Ah, the barbarians ! " Besides, if he
did own that Malivert had some literary talent, he con-
sidered him in his own mind incapable of taking care
of himself, and rather crazy, especially for some time
past ; he had therefore undertaken to watch over him.
True, if Malivert frowned, he immediately resumed
his old place, and Mentor, with a marvellous facil-
ity of metamorphosis, resumed the part of valet.

245

SPIRITE

Guy put a sum of money in gold coins in a leather
belt which he wore under his clothes, a couple of
pistols in his holsters, and when he left did not name
any definite day for his return, desiring to allow him-
self the freedom of the unforeseen, of adventure, of
wandering as he pleased. He knew that Jack, accus-
tomed to his disappearances, would not be alarmed,
even if he were several days, or even several weeks
late ; he would be quite happy as soon as he had
taught the hotel cook to prepare a beef-steak to his
taste, — that is, brown outside and underdone inside,
in the English fashion.

Guy's excursion, unless he changed his purpose, was
not to take him beyond Parnassus, and not to last
more than five or six days, but a month had gone by
and neither Malivert nor his guide had reappeared;
no letter had reached the hotel announcing a change
of plans or a prolongation of the trip ; the money he
had taken with him must have been nearly expended,
and his silence began to cause uneasiness.

"My master has not sent for funds," said Jack to
himself one morning, as he ate a beef-steak cooked at
last as he wanted it, and which he washed down with
white wine of Santorin, very pleasant in spite of its

246

SPI RITE

slightly resinous flavour. " It is strange, — something
must have happened to him. If he were continuing
his trip he would have informed me of the town to
which I was to send money, since I have his purse. I
hope he has not broken his neck down some precipice.
It is an absurd idea of his to go riding all the time
through dirty, ill-paved countries, queer places where
one starves, instead of remaining in Paris, comfortably
installed in a pleasant home free from insects, mos-
quitoes, and other abominable creatures which blister
one all over. I do not mind during the fine season ;
I can understand a man going to Ville-d'Avray, Celles,
Saint-Cloud, Fontainebleau, — no, not to Fontaine-
bleau, there are too many painters ; even then, I pre-
fer Paris. People may say what they like, the country
is made for peasants, and travelling for commercial
travellers, because that is their business. But it gets
to be pretty wearisome to be stuck in an inn to grow
young again in a city where there is nothing but ruins
to look at. What can our masters see in old stones ?
As if new, well-kept-up buildings were not a hundred
times more pleasant to look at ! There is no mistake
about it, my master is very impolite to me. It is true
I am his servant, and it is my duty to attend him, but

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SPIRITE

he has no right to make me die of weariness in the
Hotel d'Angleterre. Suppose some misfortune has
happened to that dear master of mine, — after all, he
is a kind master, — I should never get over it unless I
found a better situation. I have a good mind to set
out to look for him, — but in what direction? Who
knows whither his fancy has taken him ? No doubt
into the most extravagant and most improbable spots,
into break-neck places which he calls picturesque and
of which he makes sketches as if they were worth look-
ing at. Well, I will give him three days more to
return home; after that time I shall have him drummed
and posted at every street corner like a lost dog, with
a promise of a handsome reward to whoever brings
him back."

Acting up to his office of sceptical modern servant
who makes great fun of the devoted and faithful old-
fashioned valet, the worthy Jack was trying to blind
himself to his very genuine anxiety. At bottom he
loved Guy de Malivert and was greatly attached to
him. Although he was aware that his master had put
him down in his will for a very handsome sum which
would secure him a comfortable home, he did not wish
for Guy's death.

248

SPI RITE

The hotel-keeper also began to be anxious, not
concerning Malivert, whose bill was paid, but con-
cerning the two horses which he had furnished for the
expedition. As he mourned over the problematical
fate of these two peerless animals, so sure-footed, so
easy in their gait, so tender-mouthed, and which could
be driven with a silk thread, Jack said to him impa-
tiently, with an air of supreme disdain : " Well, if
your two hacks are dead, you will be paid for them," —
an assurance which restored the serenity of the worthy
Diamantopoulos.

Every evening the guide's wife, a handsome and
robust matron who might well have taken the place of
the caryatid removed from the Pandrasion, and for
which has been substituted a terra cotta reproduction,
came to inquire if Stavros, her husband, had returned,
either with or without the traveller. On hearing the
reply, which was invariably in the negative, she would
sit down on a stone at a little distance from the hotel,
undo the false tress of fair hair which bound her black
hair, shake it out, put her hands to her face as if she
were going to scratch herself, utter sighs like a ven-
triloquist, and engage in all the theatrical demonstra-
tions of antique grief. At bottom ^she was really not

249

SPI RITE

very sorry, for Stavros was not much of a man, and a
great deal of a drunkard, who beat her when he was
tipsy, and gave her very little money, although he
earned quite a sum by acting as guide ; but she owed
it to fashion to manifest proper despair. Gossip —
which was not slander in this case — charged her with
being consoled in her intermittent widowhood by a
handsome, wasp-waisted Palikar with a bell-like fusta-
nella that held at least sixty yards of fine pleated stuff,
and a red fez with a blue silk tassel falling down to
the middle of his back. Her grief, genuine or affected,
expressed in hoarse sobs that recalled the barking of
Hecuba, greatly bothered the worthy Jack, who al-
though incredulous, was somewhat superstitious. " I
do not like," he would say, " that woman who howls
over her absent husband like a dog that scents death."
And the three days which he had set as the extreme
limit of Malivert's return having passed, he went to a
magistrate and made his statement.

The most active search was undertaken in the direc-
tion probably followed by Malivert and his guide.
The mountain was traversed in every direction, and
in a hollow road was found the carcass of a horse
lying on its side stripped of its harness, and already

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SPIRITE

half devoured by the crows. The horse's shoulder
had been broken by a ball, and the steed had no doubt
fallen with its rider. Around the dead animal the
ground seemed to have been trampled as if in a strug-
gle, but too many days had elapsed since the probable
time of the attack, which had no doubt taken place
several weeks before. There was little to be learned
from the vestiges half-effaced by rain and wind. In a
lentisk bush near the road a branch had been cut by a
projectile ; the upper part was hanging withered.
The ball, which was that of a pistol, was found farther
off in a field. The person assailed seemed to have
defended himself. What had been the outcome of the
fight ? Probably fatal, since neither Malivert nor his
guide had reappeared. The horse was recognised as
one of the two hired by Diamantopoulos to the young
French traveller. But for lack of clearer indications,
the inquiry naturally came to a stop. Every trace of
the aggressors and of the victim, — or rather, victims,
for there must have been two, — was lost. The thread
was broken at the verv outset.

A detailed description of Malivert and Stavros was
sent to every possible place where the direction of the
roads might have taken them, but they had not been

251

SPI RITE

seen anywhere. Their voyage had ended there. Per-
haps the brigands had taken Malivert to some inaces-
sible cavern in the mountains in the hope of getting a
ransom out of him ; but on examination this theory
proved absurd. The brigands would certainly have
sent one of their number in disguise to the city to find
means of handing to Jack a letter stating the conditions
of the ransom, with a threat of mutilation in case of
delay, and of death in case of refusal, as is the way in
that sort of business. But nothing of the kind had
occurred ; no message had come from the mountains
to Athens, and the brigands' post-office had not been
utilised.

Jack, who was greatly worried at the idea of return-
ing to France without his master, whom he might be
supposed to have murdered, although he had never left
the Hotel d'Angleterre, did not know which way to
turn, and more than ever cursed the mania for travel-
ling which leads well-dressed men to gloomy places,
where robbers in carnival costumes shoot them down
like hares.

A few days after the search Stavros reappeared at
the hotel, in a most pitiable condition, — wan, thin,
worn, with a terrified, crazed look, like a spectre rising

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SPI RITE

from the tomb without having shaken off the dust of
the grave. His rich and picturesque costume, that he
was so proud of and which produced so marked an
effect upon travellers in love with local colour, had
been taken from him and replaced by filthy rags
covered with the mud of the camping-places. A
greasy sheepskin was drawn over his shoulders, and no
one would have recognised in him the tourists' favourite
guide. His unexpected return was at once reported to
the magistrates, and he was temporarily arrested, for
though well known in Athens and comparatively
honest, he had left with a traveller and was returning
alone, — a circumstance which judges are not apt to
think quite natural. Nevertheless, Stavros succeeded
in proving his innocence. His occupation of guide
naturally would not admit of his destroying travellers
by whom he profited ; and besides, he did not need to
murder them to rob them. Why should he have
waited by the edge of a road for victims when they
followed him on the high road most willingly, and
shared a sufficient quantity of their gold with him ?

But the story he told of Malivert's death was most
strange and very difficult to believe in. According to
him, while they were peaceably riding along the hollow

2 53

•4»»|» «i» *i* »4j »JU 'I* «4» d? ^Ct? d? ti? d? d? t?;

SPI R ITE

way at the place where the carcass of the horse had
been found, an explosion of firearms was heard, fol-
lowed almost immediately by another. The first shot
had knocked over the horse ridden by M. de Malivert,
and the second had struck the traveller himself, who
by an instinctive movement had put his hand to his
holster and fired a pistol-shot at random. Three or
four bandits had sprung over the bushes to strip Mali-
vert, and two others had made Stavros get off his
horse, although he did not attempt resistance, knowing
it to be useless.

So far the account was not very difFerent from the
usual highwayman stories, but the continuation was
much less credible, although the guide swore to its
truth. He claimed to have seen by Malivert, dying,
whose face, far from expressing anguish or agony,
beamed on the contrary with celestial joy, a figure of
dazzling whiteness and marvellous beauty, which must
have been the Panagia, and which placed upon the
traveller's wound, as if to still his sufferings, a hand of
light. The bandits, terrified by the apparition, had
fled to a distance, and then the lovely lady had taken
the dead man's soul and flown away to heaven with it.

Every effort to shake his account failed. The body

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SPIRITE

of the traveller had been hidden under a rock on the
bank of one of the torrents always dry in summer, the
bed of which was filled with rose-laurels. As for him,
as he was a poor devil not worth killing, he had been
first stripped of his handsome clothes, and then taken
a long way into the mountains to prevent his revealing
the murder, and had escaped only with the greatest
difficulty. Stavros was set free, for if he had been
guilty, it would have been very easy for him to have
reached the islands or the Asiatic coast with Malivert's
money. His return to Athens, therefore, proved his
innocence.

The account of Malivert's death was sent to Mme.
de Marillac, his sister, very much as it had been told
by Stavros ; even Spirite's apparition was mentioned,
but as an hallucination of the terrified guide, whose
brain did not seem sound.

Just about the time when the murder was being
committed on Mount Parnassus, Baron de Feroe had
withdrawn according to custom into his inaccessible
rooms, and was busy reading that strange and myste-
rious work of Swedenborg entitled, " Marriage in the
Other Life." While he was reading he felt a peculiar
sensation, as when he was warned of a revelation.

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SPIRITE

The thought of Malivert crossed his brain, although
it was not brought by any natural transition. A light
showed in his room, the walls of which became trans-
parent and opened like a hypaetral temple, showing at
an immense depth, not the sky beheld by human eyes,
but the heavens which are beheld by seers. In the
centre of a glory of light which seemed to issue from
the depths of the infinite, two points of still greater
intensity of splendour, like diamonds in a flame, scin-
tillated, palpitated, and drew near, assuming the appear-
ance of Malivert and Spirite. They floated side by
side in a celestial, radiant joy, caressing each other
with their wings and toying with divine endearments.
Soon they drew closer and closer, and then, like two
drops of dew rolling on the same lily leaf, they finally
formed a single pearl.

" There they are, happy forever, their united souls
forming an angel of love," said Baron de Feroe, with
a melancholy smile. " But how long have I still to
wait ? "

256

The Vampire

THE VAMPIRE

YOU ask me, brother, if I have ever loved.
I have. It is a strange story, and though
I am sixty, I scarce venture to stir the
ashes of that remembrance. I mean to
refuse you nothing, but to no soul less tried than
yours would I tell the story. The events are so strange
that I can hardly believe they did happen. I was for
more than three years the plaything of a singular and
diabolical illusion. I, a poor priest, I led in my dreams
every night — God grant they were dreams only ! —
the life of the damned, the life of the worldly, the life
of Sardanapalus. A single glance, too full of approval,
cast upon a woman, nearly cost me the loss of my
soul. But at last, by the help of God and of my holy
patron, I was able to drive away the evil spirit which
had possessed me. My life was complicated by an
entirely different nocturnal life. During the day I was
a priest of God, chaste, busied with prayers and holy
things; at night, as soon as I had closed my eyes, I
became a young nobleman, a connoisseur of women,
of horses and dogs, gambling, drinking, and cursing,

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&± 4: * ± * £ i: ± * a********** £ dbdb

THE VAMPIRE

and when at dawn I awoke, it seemed to me rather
that I was going to sleep and dreaming of being a
priest. Of that somnambulistic life there have re-
mained in my remembrance things and words I can-
not put away, and although I have never left the walls
of my presbytery, you will be apt to think, on hearing
me, that I am a man who, having worn out everything
and having given up the world and entered religion,
means to end in the bosom of God days too greatly
agitated, rather than a humble student in a seminary,
who has grown old in a forgotten parish in the depths
of a forest, and who has never had anything to do with
the things of the day.

Yes, I have loved, as no one on earth ever loved,
with an insensate and furious love, so violent that I
wonder it did not break my heart. Ah ! what nights !
what nights I have had !

From my youngest childhood I felt the vocation to
the priesthood and all my studies were therefore bent
in that direction. My life until the age of twenty-four
was nothing but one long novitiate. Having finished
my theological studies, I passed successfully through
the minor orders, and my superiors considered me
worthy, in spite of my youth, of crossing the last dread

260

THE VAMPIRE

limit. The day of my ordination was fixed for Easter
week.

I had never gone into the world. The world, to
me, lay within the walls of the college and of the
seminary. I knew vaguely that there was something
called a woman, but my thoughts never dwelt upon it ;
I was utterly innocent. I saw my old, infirm mother
but twice a year; she was the only connection I had
with the outer world. I regretted nothing ; I felt not
the least hesitation in the presence of the irrevocable
engagement I was about to enter into ; nay, I was joy-
ous and full of impatience. Never did a young bride-
groom count the hours with more feverish ardour. I
could not sleep ; I dreamed that I was saying Mass ;
I saw nothing more glorious in the world than to be a
priest. I would have refused, had I been offered a
kingdom, to be a king or a poet instead, for my ambi-
tion conceived nothing finer.

What I am telling you is to show you that what
happened to me ought not to have happened, and that
I was the victim of the most inexplicable fascination.

The great day having come, I walked to the church
with so light a step that it seemed to me that I was
borne in the air, or that I had wings on my shoulders ;

THE VAMPIRE

I thought myself an angel, and I was amazed at the
sombre and preoccupied expression of my companions,
— for there were several of us. I had spent the night
in prayer, and was in a state bordering on ecstasy.
The bishop, a venerable old man, seemed to me like
God the Father bending from eternity, and I beheld the
heavens through the vault of the dome.

You are acquainted with the details of the cere-
mony : the benediction, the Communion in both kinds,
the anointing of the palms of the hands with the oil
of the catechumens, and finally the sacred sacrifice
offered in conjunction with the bishop. I will not
dwell on these things. Oh ! how right was Job, " Im-
prudent is he who has not made a covenant with his
eyes " ! I happened to raise my head, which until then
I had kept bent down, and I saw before me, so close
that I might have touched her, although in reality
she was a long way off, on the other side of the railing,
a young woman of wondrous beauty dressed with regal
magnificence. It was as though scales had fallen from
my eyes. I felt like a blind man suddenly recovering
his sight. The bishop, so radiant but now, was sud-
denly dimmed, the flame of the tapers on their golden
candlesticks turned pale like stars in the morning light,
262

THE VAMPIRE

and the whole church was shrouded in deep obscurity.
The lovely creature stood out against this shadow like
an angelic revelation. She seemed illumined from
within, and to give forth light rather than to receive it.
I cast down my eyes, determined not to look up again,
so as to avoid the influence of external objects, for I
was becoming more and more inattentive and I scarcely
knew what I was about. Yet a moment later I opened
my eyes again, for through my eyelids I saw her daz-
zling with the prismatic colours in a radiant penumbra,
just as when one has gazed upon the sun.

Oh, how beautiful she was ! The greatest painters
had never approached this fabulous reality, even
when, pursuing ideal beauty in the heavens, they
brought back to earth the divine portrait of the Ma-
donna. Neither the verse of the poet nor the palette
of the painter can give you an idea of her. She was
rather tall, with the figure and the port of a goddess.
Her hair, of a pale gold, was parted on her brow and
flowed down her temples like two golden streams ; she
looked like a crowned queen. Her forehead, of a
bluish whiteness, spread out broad and serene over the
almost brown eyebrows, a singularity which added to
the effect of the sea-green eyes, the brilliancy and fire

263

THE VAMPIRE

of which were unbearable. Oh, what eyes ! With
one flash they settled a man's fate. They were filled
with a life, a limpidity, an ardour, a moist glow,
which I have never seen in any other human eyes.
From them flashed glances like arrows, which I dis-
tinctly saw striking my heart. I know not whether
the flame that illumined them came from heaven or
hell, but undoubtedly it came from one or the other
place. That woman was an angel or a demon, per-
haps both. She certainly did not come from the
womb of Eve, our common mother. Teeth of the
loveliest pearl sparkled through her rosy smile, and
little dimples marked each inflection of her mouth in
the rosy satin of her adorable cheeks. As to her nose,
it was of regal delicacy and pride, and betrayed the
noblest origin. An agate polish played upon the
smooth, lustrous skin of her half-uncovered shoulders,
and strings of great fair pearls, almost similar in tone
to her neck, fell upon her bosom. From time to time
she drew up her head with the undulating movement
of an adder or of a peacock, and made the tall em-
broidered ruff that surrounded her like a silver trellis
tremble slightly. She wore a dress of orange-red vel-
vet, and out of the broad, ermine-lined sleeves issued

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THE VAMPIRE

wondrously delicate patrician hands, with long, plump
fingers, so ideally transparent that the light passed
through them as through the fingers of Dawn.

All these details are still as vivid to me as if I had
seen her but yesterday, and although I was a prey to
the greatest agitation, nothing escaped me; the faintest
tint, the smallest dark spot on the corner of the chin,
the scarcely perceptible down at the corners of the lips,
the velvety brow, the trembling shadow of the eyelashes
on her cheeks, — I noted all with astonishing lucidity.

As I gazed at her, I felt open within me doors
hitherto fast-closed; passages obstructed until now were
cleared away in every direction and revealed unsus-
pected prospects ; life appeared in a new guise ; I had
just been born into a new order of ideas. Frightful
anguish clutched my heart, and every minute that
passed seemed to me a second and an age. Yet the
ceremony was proceeding, and I was being carried
farther from the world, the entrance to which was
fiercely besieged by my nascent desires. I said " yes,"
however, when I meant to say "no," when everything
in me was revolting and protesting against the vio-
lence my vow was doing to my will. An occult force
dragged the words from my mouth in spite of myself.

265

THE VAMPIRE

It is perhaps just what so many young girls do when
they go to the altar with a firm resolve to boldly
refuse the husband forced upon them. Not one car-
ries out her intention. It is no doubt the same thing
which makes so many poor novices take the veil, al-
though they are quite determined to tear it to pieces
at the moment of speaking their vows. No one dares
to cause such a scandal before everybody, nor to de-
ceive the expectations of so many present. The nu-
merous wills, the numerous glances, seem to weigh
down on one like a leaden cloak. And then, every
precaution is so carefully taken, everything is so well
settled beforehand in a fashion so evidently irrevocable
that thought yields to the weight of fact and completely
gives way.

The expression of the fair unknown changed as the
ceremony progressed. Her glance, tender and caress-
ing at first, became disdainful and dissatisfied as if to
reproach me with dulness of perception. I made an
effort, mighty enough to have overthrown a mountain,
to cry out that I would not be a priest, but I could not
manage it; my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth
and it was impossible for me to express my will by the
smallest negative sign. I was, although wide-awake,

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THE VAMPIRE

in a state similar to that of nightmare, when one seeks
to call out a word on which one's life depends, and yet
is unable to do so.

She seemed to understand the martyrdom I was suf-
fering, and as if to encourage me, she cast upon me a
look full of divine promise. Her eyes were a poem,
her every glance was a canto; she was saying to me :

" If you will come with me, I will make you more
happy than God Himself in Paradise. The angels will
be jealous of you. Tear away the funeral shroud in
which you are about to wrap yourself. I am beauty
and youth and love ; come to me, and together we
shall be Love. What can Jehovah offer you in com-
pensation ? Our life shall pass like a dream, and will
be but one eternal kiss. Pour out the wine in that
cup and you are free. We will go away to un-
known isles and you shall sleep on my bosom on a
bed of massive gold under a pavilion of silver. For I
love you and mean to take you from your God, before
whom so many youthful hearts pour out floods of love
that never reach Him."

It seemed to me that I heard these words on a
rhythm of infinite sweetness, for her glance was almost
sonorous, and the phrases her eyes sent me sounded

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THE VAMPIRE

within my heart as if invisible lips had breathed them.
I felt myself ready to renounce God, but my hand was
mechanically accomplishing the formalities of the cere-
mony. The beauty cast upon me a second glance so
beseeching, so despairing that sharp blades pierced my
heart, and I felt more swords enter my breast than did
the Mother of Sorrows.

Never did any human face exhibit more poignant
anguish. The maiden who sees her betrothed fall
suddenly dead by her side, the mother by the empty
cradle of her child, Eve seated on the threshold of the
gate of Paradise, the miser who finds a stone in place
of his treasure, the poet who has accidentally dropped,
into the fire the only manuscript of his favourite work,
— not one of them could look more inconsolable, more
stricken to the heart. The blood left her lovely face
and she turned pale as marble. Her beautiful arms
hung limp by her body as if the muscles had been un-
knotted, and she leaned against a pillar, for her limbs
were giving way under her. As for me, livid, my
brow covered with a sweat more bloody than that of
Calvary, I staggered towards the church door. I was
stifling ; the vaulting seemed to press down on me and
my hand to upbear alone the weight of the cupola.

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THE VAMPIRE

As I was about to cross the threshold, a woman's
hand suddenly touched mine. I had never touched
one before. It was cold like the skin of a serpent,
yet it burned me like the print of a red-hot iron.
It was she. " Oh, unfortunate man ! unfortunate
man ! What have you done ? " she whispered ; then
disappeared in the crowd.

The old bishop passed by. He looked severely at
me. My appearance was startlingly strange. I turned
pale, blushed red, and flames passed before my eyes.
One of my comrades took pity on me and led me
away ; I was incapable of finding alone the road to
the seminary. At the corner of a street, while the
young priest happened to look in another direction, a
quaintly dressed negro page approached me and without
staying his steps handed me a small pocket-book with
chased gold corners, signing to me to conceal it. I
slipped it into my sleeve and kept it there until I was
alone in my cell. I opened it. It contained but two
leaves with these words : " Clarimonda, at the Palazzo
Concini." I was then so ignorant of life that I did
not know of Clarimonda, in spite of her fame, and I
was absolutely ignorant where the Palazzo Concini
was situated. I made innumerable conjectures of the

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most extravagant kind, but the truth is that, provided I
could see her again, I cared little what she might be,
whether a great lady or a courtesan.

This new-born love of mine was hopelessly rooted
within me. I did not even attempt to expel it from
my heart, for I felt that that was an impossibility.
The woman had wholly seized upon me ; a single
glance of hers had been sufficient to change me ; she
had breathed her soul into me, and I no longer lived
but in her and through her. I indulged in countless
extravagant fancies ; I kissed on my hand the spot
she had touched, and I repeated her name for hours at
a time. All I needed to do to see her as plainly as if
• she had been actually present was to close my eyes ; I
repeated the words which she had spoken to me,
" Unfortunate man ! unfortunate man ! what have you
done ? " I grasped the full horror of my situation,
and the dread, sombre aspects of the state which I
had embraced were plainly revealed to me. To be a
priest; that is, to remain chaste, never to love, never
to notice sex or age ; to turn aside from beauty, to
voluntarily blind myself, to crawl in the icy shadows
of a cloister or a church, to see none but the dying, to
watch by strangers' beds, to wear mourning for myself"

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THE VAMPIRE

in the form of the black cassock, a robe that may readily
be used to line your coffin.

Meanwhile I felt life rising within me like an inter-
nal lake, swelling and overflowing ; my blood surged
in my veins ; my youth, so long suppressed, burst out
suddenly like the aloe that blooms but once in a
hundred years, and then like a thunder-clap. How
could I manage to see Clarimonda again ? I could find
no pretext to leave the seminary, for I knew no
one in town. Indeed, my stay in it was to be very
short, for I was merely waiting to be appointed to a
parish. I tried to loosen the bars of the window, but
it was at a terrific height from the ground, and hav-
ing no ladder, I had to give up that plan. Besides,
I could go out at night only, and how should I ever
find my way through the labyrinth of streets ? All
these difficulties, which would have been slight to other
men, were tremendous for me, a poor seminarist, in
love since yesterday, without experience, without money,
and without clothes.

" Ah, if only I had not been a priest, I might have
seen her every day ; I might have been her lover, her
husband," I said to myself in my blindness. Instead of
being wrapped in my gloomy shroud, I should have

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THE VAMPIRE

worn silk and velvet, chains of gold, a sword and a
plume, like handsome young cavaliers. My hair,
instead of being dishonoured by a broad tonsure, would
have fallen in ringlets around my neck ; I should have
worn a handsome waxed moustache ; I should have
been a valiant man. A single hour spent before an
altar, a few words scarcely breathed, had cut me off
forever from the living ; I had myself sealed the stone
of my tomb ; I had pushed with my own hand the
bolts of my prison door.

I looked out of the window. The heavens were
wondrously blue, the trees had assumed their spring-
time livery, nature exhibited ironical joy. The square
was full of people coming and going. Young dandies
and young beauties in couples were going towards the
gardens and the arbours ; workmen passed by, singing
drinking songs ; there was an animation, a life, a rush,
a gaiety, which contrasted all the more painfully with
my mourning and my solitude. A young mother
was playing with her child on the threshold of a
door. She kissed its little rosy lips still pearly with
drops of milk, and indulged, as she teased it, in
those many divine puerilities which mothers alone
can invent. The father, who stood a little way off,

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THE VAMPIRE

was smiling gently at the charming group, and his
crossed arms pressed his joy to his heart. I could not
bear the sight. I closed the window and threw myself
on my bed, my heart rilled with frightful hatred and
jealousy, and I bit my fingers and my coverlet as if I
had been a tiger starving for three days.

I know not how long I remained in this condition,
but in turning over in a furious spasm, I perceived
Father Serapion standing in the middle of the room
gazing attentively at me. I was ashamed of myself,
and letting fall my head upon my breast, I covered my
face with my hands.

" Romualdo, my friend, something extraordinary is
taking place in you," said Serapion after a few
moments' silence. " Your conduct is absolutely inex-
plicable. You, so pious, so calm, and so gentle, you
have been raging in your cell like a wild beast. Be-
ware, my brother, and do not listen to the suggestions
of the devil. The evil spirit, angered at your having
devoted yourself to the Lord, prowls around you like a
ravening wolf, and is making a last effort to draw you to
himself. Instead of allowing yourself to be cast down,
dear Romualdo, put on the breastplate of prayer, take
up the shield of mortification, and valiantly fight the

ig 273

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THE VAMPIRE

enemy. You will overcome him. Trial is indispen-
sable to virtue, and gold emerges finer from the crucible.
Be not dismayed nor discouraged ; the best guarded and
the strongest souls have passed through just such
moments. Pray, fast, meditate, and the evil one will
flee from you."

The father's discourse brought me back to myself,
and I became somewhat calmer. " I was coming,"
he said, " to inform you that you are appointed to the

parish of C . The priest who occupied it has just

died, and his lordship the Bishop has charged me to
install you there. Be ready to-morrow."

I signed that I would be ready, and the father
withdrew.

I opened my breviary and began to read my prayers,
but the lines soon became confused ; I lost the thread
of my thoughts, and the book slipped from my hands
without my noticing it.

To leave to-morrow without having seen her again !
To add one more impossibility to all those that already
existed between us ! To lose forever the hope of
meeting her unless a miracle occurred ! Even if I
were to write to her, how could I send my letter ?
Considering the sacred functions which I had assumed,

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THE VAMPIRE

to whom could I confide, in whom could I trust ? 1
felt terrible anxiety. Then what Father Serapion had
just said to me of the wiles of the devil recurred to my
memory. The strangeness of the adventure, the
supernatural beauty of Clarimonda, the phosphorescent
gleam of her glance, the burning touch of her hand,
the trouble into which she had thrown me, the sudden
change which had occurred in me, my piety vanished
in an instant, — everything went to prove plainly the
presence of the devil, and that satin-like hand could
only be the glove that covered his claws. These
thoughts caused me much terror. I picked up the
breviary that had fallen to the ground from my knees,
and I again began to pray.

The next day Serapion came for me. Two mules
were waiting for us at the door, carrying our small
valises. He got on one and I on the other as well as
I could. While traversing the streets of the town, I
looked at every window and every balcony in the
hope of seeing Clarimonda, but it was too early ; and
the town was not yet awake. My glance tried to
pierce through the blinds and curtains of all the palaces
in front of which we were passing. No doubt Sera-
pion thought my curiosity was due to the admiration

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THE VAMPIRE

caused in me by the beauty of the architecture, for he
slackened his mule's speed to give me time to look.
Finally we reached the city gate and began to ascend
the hill. When we reached the top, I turned around
once again to gaze at the spot where lived Clarimonda.
The shadow of a cloud covered the whole town ; the
blue and red roofs were harmonized in one uniform
half-tint, over which showed, like flecks of foam, the
morning smoke. By a singular optical effect there
stood out bright under a single beam of light a building
that rose far above the neighbouring houses, wholly
lost in the mist. Although it was certainly three miles
away, it seemed quite close ; the smallest detail could
be made out, — the turrets, the platforms, the windows,
even the swallow-tailed vanes.

" What is that palace yonder lighted by a sun-
beam ? " I asked Serapion.

He shaded his eyes with his hand, and after having
looked, answered : " That is the old palazzo which
Prince Concini gave to Clarimonda the courtesan.
Fearful things take place there."

At that moment, — I have never known whether it
was a reality or an illusion, — I thought I saw on the
terrace a slender white form that gleamed for a second

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and vanished. It was Clarimonda. Oh ! did she
know that at that very moment, from the top of the
rough road which was talcing me away from her,
ardent and restless, I was watching the palace she
dwelt in, and which a derisive effect of light seemed
to draw near to me as if to invite me to enter it as
its master? No doubt she knew it, for her soul was
too much in sympathy with mine not to have felt its
every emotion, and it was that feeling which had urged
her, still wearing her night-dress, to ascend to the
terrace in the icy-cold dew of morning.

The shadow reached the palace, and all turned into
a motionless ocean of roofs and attics in which noth-
ing was to be distinguished save swelling undulations.
Serapion urged on his mule ; mine immediately started
too, and a turn in the road concealed forever from me

the town of S , for I was never to return there.

After three days' travelling through a monotonous
country, we saw rising above the trees the weather-
cock of the steeple of the church to which I had been
appointed ; and after having traversed some tortuous
streets bordered by huts and small gardens, we arrived
before the facade, which was not very magnificent.
A porch adorned with a few mouldings and two or

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THE VAMPIRE

three sandstone pillars roughly cut, a tiled roof, and
buttresses of the same sandstone as the pillars, — that
was all. On the left, the cemetery overgrown with
grass, with a tall iron cross in the centre ; to the right,
in the shadow of the church, the presbytery, a very
plain, poor, but clean house. We entered. A few
hens were picking up scattered grain. Accustomed,
apparently, to the black dress of ecclesiastics, they were
not frightened by our presence, and scarcely moved
out of the way. A hoarse bark was heard, and an old
dog ran up to us ; it was my predecessor's dog. Its
eye was dim, its coat was gray, and it exhibited every
symptom of the greatest age a dog can reach. I patted
it gently with my hand, and it immediately walked be-
side me with an air of inexpressible satisfaction. An
old woman, who had been housekeeper to the former
priest, also came to meet us, and after having shown
us into the lower room, asked me if I intended to keep
her. I told her that I should do so, and the dog
and the hens also, and whatever furniture her master
had left her at his death, which caused her a transport
of joy, Father Serapion having at once paid her the
price she had set upon it.

Having thus installed me, Father Serapion returned

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THE VAMPIRE

to the seminary. I therefore remained alone and with-
out any other help than my own. The thought of
Clarimonda again began to haunt me, and in spite of
the efforts I made to drive it away, I was not always
successful. One evening as I was walking through
the box-edged walks of my little garden, I thought I
saw through the shrubbery a female form watching my
movements, and two sea-green eyes flashing amid the
foliage, but it was merely an illusion. Having passed
on the other side of the walk, I found only the imprint
of a foot on the sand, so small that it looked like a
child's foot. The garden was shut in by very high
walls. I visited every nook and corner of it, but found
no one. I have never been able to explain the fact,
which, for the matter of that, was nothing by compar-
ison with the strange things that were to happen to
me.

I had been living in this way for a year, carefullv
fulfilling all the duties of my profession, praying, fast-
ing, exhorting, and succouring the sick, giving alms
even to the extent of depriving myself of the most in-
dispensable necessaries ; but I felt within me extreme
aridity, and the sources of grace were closed to me.
I did not enjoy the happiness which comes of fulfilling

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a holy mission ; my thoughts were elsewhere, and
Clarimonda's words often recurred to me. O my
brother, ponder this carefully. Because I had a single
time looked at a woman, because I had committed
a fault apparently so slight, I suffered for several years
the most dreadful agitation and my life was troubled
forever.

I shall not dwell longer upon these inward defeats
and victories which were always followed by greater
falls, but I shall pass at once to a decisive circum-
stance. One night there was a violent ringing at my
door. The housekeeper went to open it, and a dark-
complexioned man, richly dressed in a foreign fashion,
wearing a long dagger, showed under the rays of Bar-
bara's lantern. Her first movement was one of terror,
but the man reassured her, and told her that he must
see me at once on a matter concerning my ministry.
Barbara brought him upstairs. I was just about to
go to bed. The man told me that his mistress, a very
great lady, was dying and asking for a priest. I replied
that I was ready to follow him, took what was needed
for extreme unction, and descended quickly. At the
door were impatiently pawing and stamping two horses
black as night, breathing out long jets of smoke.

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He held the stirrup for me and helped me to mount
one, then sprang on the other, merely resting his hand
upon the pommel of the saddle. He pressed in his
knees and gave his horse its head, when it went
off like an arrow. My own, of which he held the
bridle, also started at a gallop and kept up easily with
the other. We rushed over the ground, which flashed
by us gray and streaked, and the black silhouettes of
the trees fled like the rout of an army. We traversed
a forest, the darkness of which was so dense and icy
that I felt a shudder of superstitious terror. The
sparks which our horses' hoofs struck from the stones
formed a trail of fire, and if any one had seen us at
that time of night, he would have taken us for two
spectres bestriding nightmares. From time to time
will-o'-the-wisps flashed across the road, and the jack-
daws croaked sadly in the thickness of the wood, in
which shone here and there the phosphorescent eyes
of wildcats. Our horses' manes streamed out wildly,
sweat poured down their sides, and their breath came
short and quick through their nostrils ; but when the
equerry saw them slackening speed, he excited them
by a guttural cry which had nothing of human in
it, and the race began again madder than ever. At

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THE VAMPIRE

last our whirlwind stopped. A black mass dotted
with brilliant points suddenly rose before us. The
steps of our steeds sounded louder upon the iron-
bound flooring, and we entered under an archway the
sombre mouth of which yawned between two huge
towers. Great excitement reigned in the chateau.
Servants with torches in their hands were traversing
the courts in every direction, and lights were ascending
and descending from story to story. I caught a con-
fused glimpse of vast architecture, — columns, arcades,
steps, stairs, a perfectly regal and fairy-like splendour
of construction. A negro page, the same who had
handed me Clarimonda's tablets, and whom I at once
recognised, helped me to descend, and a majordomo,
dressed in black velvet, with a gold chain around his
neck and an ivory cane, advanced towards me. Great
tears fell from his eyes and flowed down his cheeks
upon his white beard. M Too late. 4 ' he said, shaking
his head. " Too late, my lord priest. But if you
have not been able to save the soul, come and pray for
the poor body." He took me by the arm and led me
to the room of death. I wept as bitterly as he did, for
I had understood that the dead woman was none else
than Clarimonda, whom I had loved so deeply and

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THE VAMPIRE

madly. A prie-dieu was placed by the bedside ; a
bluish flame rising from a bronze cup cast through the
room a faint, vague light, and here and there brought
out of the shadow the corner of a piece of furniture or
of a cornice. On a table, in a chased urn, was a
faded white rose, the petals of which, with a single
exception, had all fallen at the foot of the vase like
perfumed tears. A broken black mask, a fan, and dis-
guises of all kinds lay about on the armchairs, showing
that death had entered this sumptuous dwelling unex-
pectedly and without warning. I knelt, not daring to
cast my eyes on the bed, and began to recite the
psalms with great fervour, thanking God for having
put the tomb between the thought of that woman and
myself, so that I might add to my prayers her name,
henceforth sanctified. Little by little, however, my
fervour diminished, and I fell into a reverie. The
room had in no wise the aspect of a chamber of death.
Instead of the fetid and cadaverous air which I was
accustomed to breathe during my funeral watches, a
languorous vapour of Oriental incense, a strange, am-
orous odour of woman, floated softly in the warm air.
The pale light resembled less the yellow flame of the
night-light that flickers by the side of the dead than

THE VAMPIRE

the soft illumination of voluptuousness. I thought of
the strange chance which made me meet Clarimonda
at the very moment when I had lost her forever, and a
sigh of regret escaped from my breast. I thought I
heard some one sigh behind hie, and I turned involun-
tarily. It was the echo. As I turned, my eyes fell
upon the state-bed which until then I had avoided
looking at. The red damask curtains with great
flowered pattern, held back by golden cords, allowed
the dead woman to be seen, lying full length, her
hands crossed on her breast. She was covered with a
linen veil of dazzling whiteness, made still more bril-
liant by the dark purple of the hangings ; it was so
tenuous that it concealed nothing of the charming
form of her body, and allowed me to note the lovely
lines, undulating like the neck of a swan, which even
death itself had been unable to stiffen. She looked
like an alabaster statue, the work of some clever
sculptor, intended to be placed on a queen's tomb, or
a young sleeping girl on whom snow had fallen.

I was losing my self-mastery. The sensuous air
intoxicated me, the feverish scent of the half-faded
rose went to my brain, and I strode up and down the
room, stopping every time before the dais to gaze at

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the lovely dead woman through her transparent shroud.
Strange thoughts came into my mind ; I imagined that
she was not really dead, that this was but a feint she
had employed to draw me to her chateau and to tell
me of her love. Once indeed I thought I saw her
foot move under the white veil, disarranging the
straight folds of the shroud.

Then I said to myself, " But is it Clarimonda ?
How do I know ? The black page may have passed
into some other woman's service. I am mad to grieve
and worry as I am doing." But my heart replied, as
it beat loud, " It is she, — it is none but she." I drew
nearer the bed and gazed with increased attention at
the object of my uncertainty. Shall I confess it ?
The perfection of her form, though refined and sancti-
fied by the shadow of death, troubled me more volup-
tuously than was right, and her repose was so like
sleep that any one might have been deceived by it. I
forgot that I had come there to perform the funeral
offices, and I imagined that I was a young husband
entering the room of his bride who hides her face
through modesty and will not allow herself to be seen.
Sunk in grief, mad with joy, shivering with fear and
pleasure, I bent towards her and took up the corner

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THE VAMPIRE

of the shroud ; I raised it slowly, holding in my breath
for fear of waking her. My arteries palpitated with
such force that I felt the blood surging in my temples
and my brow was covered with sweat as if I had been
lifting a marble slab. It was indeed Clarimonda, such
as I had seen her in the church on the day of my
ordination. She was as lovely as then, and death
seemed to be but a new coquetry of hers. The pallor
of her cheeks, the paler rose of her lips, the long closed
eyelashes showing their brown fringes against the
whiteness, gave her an inexpressibly seductive expres-
sion of melancholy chastity and of pensive suffering.
Her long hair, undone, in which were still a few little
blue flowers, formed a pillow for her head and pro-
tected with its curls the nudity of her shoulders. Her
lovely hands, purer and more diaphanous than the
Host, were crossed in an attitude of pious repose and
of silent prayer that softened the too great seduction,
even in death, of the exquisite roundness and the ivory
polish of her bare arms from which the pearl bracelets
had not been removed. I remained long absorbed in
mute contemplation. The longer I looked at her, the
less I could believe that life had forever forsaken that
lovely frame. I know not whether it was an illusion

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THE VAMPIRE

or a reflection of the lamp, but it seemed to me that
the blood was beginning to course again under the mat
pallor ; yet she still remained perfectly motionless. I
gently touched her arm ; it was cold, yet no colder
than her hand on the day it touched me under the
porch of the church. I resumed my position, bending
my face over hers, and let fall upon her cheeks the
warm dew of my tears. Oh, what a bitter despair and
powerlessness I felt ! Oh, what agony I underwent
during that watch ! I wished I could take my whole
life in order to give it to her, and breathe upon her icy
remains the flame that devoured me. Night was
passing, and feeling the moment of eternal separation
approaching, I was unable to refuse myself the sad and
supreme sweetness of putting one kiss upon the dead
lips of her who had had all my love. But, oh, won-
der ! a faint breath mingled with mine, and Clari-
monda's lips answered to the pressure of mine. Her
eyes opened, became somewhat brighter, she sighed,
and moving her arms, placed them around my neck
with an air of ineffable delight. " Oh, it is you,
Romualdo ! " she said in a voice as languishing and soft
as the last faint vibrations of a harp. " I waited for
you so long that I am dead. But now we are be-

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THE VAMPIRE

trothed ; I shall be able to see you and to come to you.
Farewell, Romualdo, farewell ! I love you ; that is
all I wish to say to you, and I give you back the life
which you have recalled to me for one moment with
your kiss. Good-bye, but not for long."

Her head fell back, but her arms were still around
me as if to hold me. A wild gust of wind burst in
the window and rushed into the room ; the last leaf of
the white rose fluttered for a moment like a wing at the
top of the stem, then broke away and flew out of the
casement, bearing Clarimonda's soul. The lamp went
out and I swooned away on the bosom of the lovely
dead.

When I recovered my senses, I was lying on my
bed in my little room in my house, and the old dog of
the former priest was licking my hand that was hang-
ing out from under the blanket. Barbara, shaky
with old age, was busy opening and closing drawers
and mixing powders in glasses. On seeing me open
my eyes, the old woman uttered a cry of joy, while
the dog yelped and wagged his tail ; but I was so weak
that I could neither move nor speak. I learned later
that I had remained for three days in that condition,
giving no other sign of life than faint breathing. These

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THE VAMPIRE

three days are cut out of my life. I do not know where
my mind was during that time, having absolutely no
remembrance of it. Barbara told me that the same
copper-complexioned man who had come to fetch me
during the night, had brought me back the next morn-
ing in a closed litter and had immediately departed. As
soon as I could collect my thoughts, I went over in my
own mind all the circumstances of that fatal night. At
first I thought I had been the dupe of some magical
illusion, but real and palpable circumstances soon
shattered that supposition. I could not believe I had
been dreaming, since Barbara had seen, just as I
had, the man with two black horses, and described
his dress and appearance accurately. Yet no one
knew of any chateau in the neighbourhood answering
to the description of that in which I had again met
Clarimonda.

One morning I saw Father Serapion enter. Barbara
had sent him word that I was ill, and he had hastened
to come to me. Although this eagerness proved affec-
tion for and interest in me, his visit did not give me
the pleasure I should have felt. The penetration and
the inquisitiveness of his glance troubled me; I felt
embarrassed and guilty in his presence. He had been

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the first to notice my inward trouble, and I was an-
noyed by his clear-sightedness. While asking news of
my health in a hypocritically honeyed tone he fixed
upon me his two yellow, lion-like eyes, and plunged
his glance into my soul like a sounding-rod. Then
he asked me a few questions as to the way in which I
was working my parish, if I enjoyed my position, how
I spent the time which my duties left me, if I had
made any acquaintances among the inhabitants of the
place, what was my favourite reading, and many other
details of the same kind. I answered as briefly as pos-
sible, and he himself, without waiting for me to finish,
passed on to something else. The conversation evi-
dently had nothing to do with what he meant to say to
me. Then, without any preparation, as if it were a
piece of news which he had just recollected and which
he was afraid to again forget, he said, in a clear, vibrant
voice that sounded in my ear like the trump of the
Last Judgment : —

" The great courtesan Clarimonda died recently,
after an orgy that lasted eight days and nights. It was
infernally splendid. They renewed the abominations
of the feasts of Belshazzar and Cleopatra. What
an age we are living in ! The guests were served

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THE VAMPIRE

by dark slaves speaking an unknown language, who,
I think, must have been fiends; the livery of the
meanest of them might have served for the gala
dress of an emperor. There have always been very
strange stories about this Clarimonda ; all her lovers
have died a wretched and violent death. It is said that
she was a ghoul, a female vampire, but I am of opinion
that she was Beelzebub in person."

He was silent and watched me more attentively
than ever to see the effect his words produced upon
me. I had been unable to repress a start on hearing
the name of Clarimonda, and the news of her death,
besides the grief it caused me, through the strange
coincidence with the nocturnal scene of which I had
been a witness, filled me with a trouble and terror that
showed in my face in spite of the efforts I made to
master myself. Serapion looked at me anxiously and
severely ; then he said : " My son, I am bound to
warn you that you have one foot over the abyss. Be-
ware lest you fall in. Satan has a long arm, and tombs
are not always faithful. The stone over Clarimonda
should be sealed with a triple seal, for it is not, I am
told, the first time that she has died. May God watch
over you, Romualdo ! "

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'J: 'k'Jh'Jh'k'k is 'k d: £ "i* db sb d: ib £ d:
THE VAMPIRE

With these words he walked slowly towards the
door, and I did not see him again, for he left for
S almost immediately.

I had at last entirely recovered, and had resumed
my usual duties. The remembrance of Clarimonda
and the words of the old priest were ever present to
my mind; yet no extraordinary event had confirmed
Serapion's gloomy predictions. I therefore began to
believe that his fears and my terrors were exaggerated ;
but one night I dreamed a dream. I had scarcely
fallen asleep when I heard the curtains of my bed
open and the rings sliding over the bars with a rattling
sound. I sat up abruptly, leaning on my elbow, and
saw the shadow of a woman standing before me. I
at once recognised Clarimonda. In her hand she bore
a small lamp, of the shape of those put into tombs,
the light of which gave to her slender fingers a rosy
transparency that melted by insensible gradations into
the opaque milky whiteness of her bare arm. Her
sole vestment was the linen shroud that had covered
her upon her state bed, and the folds of which she
drew over her bosom as if she were ashamed of being
so little clothed, but her small hand could not manage
it. It was so white that the colour of the drapery was

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•J/> rlt r£/» «A» «J/» «J* «|* •i*^J^|j t^J^J^J tl? t{« »7-

THE VAMPIRE

confounded with that of the flesh under the pale light
of the lamp. Enveloped in the delicate tissue which
revealed all the contours of her body, she resembled an
antique marble statue of a bather rather than a woman
filled with life. Dead or living, statue or woman,
shadow or body, her beauty was still the same ; only
the green gleam of her eyes was somewhat dulled, and
her mouth, so purple of yore, had now only a pale,
tender rose-tint almost like that of her cheeks. The
little blue flowers which I had noticed in her hair
were dried up and had lost most of their leaves. And
yet she was charming, so charming that in spite of the
strangeness of the adventure and the inexplicable man-
ner in which she had entered the room, I did not ex-
perience a single thrill of terror.

She placed the lamp on the table and sat down on
the foot of my bed. Then bending towards me, she
said in the silvery, velvety voice which I had heard
from no one but her : —

" I have made you wait a long time, dear Romualdo,
and you must have thought I had forgotten you. But
I have come from a very long distance, from a bourne
whence no traveller has yet returned. There is neither
moon nor sun in the country whence I have come ;

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THE VAMPIRE

neither road nor path ; naught but space and shadow ;
no ground for the foot, no air for the wing ; and yet I
am here, for love is stronger than death and overcomes
it. Ah, what worn faces, what terrible things I have
seen on my way ! What difficulty my soul, which re-
turned to this world by the power of will, experienced
before it could find its own body and re-enter it !
What efforts I had to make before I could push up
the tombstone with which they had covered me !
See ! the palms of my poor hands are all bruised. Kiss
them and cure them, my dear love." And one after
the other, she put the cold palms of her hands upon
my lips. I did kiss them many a time, and she
watched me with a smile of ineffable satisfaction.

I confess it to my shame, — I had wholly forgotten
the counsels of Father Serapion and my own profes-
sion ; I had fallen without resisting and at the first
blow ; I had not even endeavoured to drive away the
tempter. The freshness of Clarimonda's skin pene-
trated mine, and I felt voluptuous thrills running
through my body. Poor child ! In spite of all that I
have seen of her, I find it difficult to believe that she
was a demon ; she certainly did not look like one, and
never did Satan better conceal his claws and horns.

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THE VAMPIRE

She had pulled her feet up under her, and was curled
up on the edge of my bed in an attitude full of
nonchalant coquetry. From time to time she passed
her little hand through my hair and rolled it into ringlets
as if to try how different ways of dressing it would
suit my face. I allowed her to go on with the most
guilty complaisance, and while she toyed with me she
chatted brightly. The remarkable thing is that I
experienced no astonishment at so extraordinary an
adventure, and with the facility we enjoy in dreams of
admitting as quite simple the most amazing events, it
seemed to me that everything that was happening was
quite natural.

" I loved you long before I had seen you, dear
Romualdo, and I had looked for you everywhere.
You were my dream, and when I saw you in church
at that fatal moment, I at once said, 1 It is he ! ' I
cast on you a glance in which I put all the love which
I had had, which I had, and which I was to have
for you ; a glance that would have damned a cardinal
and made a king kneel before my feet in the presence
of his whole court. But you remained impassible ;
you preferred your God to me. Oh, I am jealous of
God, whom you loved, and whom you still love more

295

& ± i: & i: ± d? i: i: & i: £ & :S? tir tS? dr d? tfc * sir & sfc

THE VAMPIRE

than me! Unfortunate that I am, — oh, most un-
fortunate ! Your heart will never be wholly mine,
though you brought me back to life with a kiss, though
I am Clarimonda, who was dead and who for your
sake burst the cerements of the tomb, and has come to
devote to you a life which she has resumed only to
make you happy ! "

With these words she mingled intoxicating caresses
which penetrated my senses and my reason to such a
degree that I did not hesitate, in order to console her,
to utter frightful blasphemies and to tell her that I
loved her as much as I did God.

Her eyes brightened and shone like chrysoprase.
"True? Quite true? as much as God?" she said,
clasping me in her lovely arms. " Since that is so,
you will go with me, you will follow me where I will.
You shall cast off your ugly black clothes, you shall
be the proudest and most envied of men, you shall be
my lover. Oh, the lovely, happy life we shall lead !
When shall we start ? "

"To-morrow ! to-morrow !" I cried in my delirium.

" To-morrow be it," she replied. " I shall have
time to change my dress, for this one is rather scanty
and not of much use for travelling. Then I must

296

THE VAMPIRE

also warn my people, who think me really dead, and
who are mourning as hard as they can. Money,
clothes, and carriage, — everything shall be ready, and
I shall call for you at this same hour. Good-bye, dear
heart," and she touched my brow with her lips.

The lamp went out, the windows were closed, and I
saw no more. A leaden, dreamless sleep, overcame me
and held me fast until the next morning. I awoke
later than usual, and the remembrance of the strange
vision agitated me the livelong day. At last I managed
to persuade myself that it was a mere fever of my
heated brain. Yet the sensation had been so intense
that it was difficult to believe it was not real, and it
was not without some apprehension of what might
happen that I went to bed, after having prayed God
to drive away from me evil thoughts and to protect
the chastity of my sleep.

I soon fell fast asleep and my dream continued.
The curtains were opened, and I saw Clarimonda,
not as the first time, wan in her pale shroud, and the
violets of death upon her cheeks, but gay, bright, and
dainty, in a splendid travelling-dress of green velvet
with gold braid, caught up on the side and showing a
satin under-skirt. Her fair hair escaped in great curls

297

THE VAMPIRE

from below her broad black felt hat with capriciously
twisted white feathers. She held in her hand a small
riding-whip ending in a golden whistle. She touched
me lightly with it and said : " Well, handsome sleeper,
is that the way you get ready ? I expected to find you
up. Rise quickly, we have no time to lose."
I sprang from my bed.

" Come, put on your clothes and let us go," she
said, pointing to a small parcel which she had brought.
" The horses are impatiently champing their bits at the
door. We ought to be thirty miles away by now."

I dressed hastily, and she herself passed me the
clothes, laughing at my awkwardness and telling me
what they were when I made a mistake. She arranged
my hair for me, and when it was done, she held out a
small pocket-mirror of Venice crystal framed with sil-
ver filigree and said to me, " What do you think of
yourself? Will you take me as your valet?"

I was no longer the same man and did not recognise
myself. I was no more like myself than a finished
statue is like a block of stone. My former face
seemed to me but a coarse sketch of the one reflected
in the mirror. I was handsome, and my vanity was
sensibly tickled by the metamorphosis. The elegant

298

THE VAMPIRE

clothes, the rich embroidered jacket, made me quite a
different person, and I admired the power of trans-
formation possessed by a few yards of stuff cut in a
certain way. The spirit of my costume entered into
me, and in ten minutes I was passably conceited. I
walked up and down the room a few times to feel
more at my ease in my new garments. Clarimonda
looked at me with an air of maternal complaisance and
appeared well satisfied with her work.

"Now, that is childishness enough. Let us be off,
dear Romualdo ; we are going a long way and we shall
never get there." As she touched the doors they
opened, and we passed by the dog without waking it.

At the door we found Margheritone, the equerry
who had already conducted me. He held three horses,
black like the first, one for me, one for himself, and one
for Clarimonda. The horses must have been Spanish
jennets, sired by the gale, for they went as fast as the
wind, and the moon, which had risen to light us at our
departure, rolled in the heavens like a wheel detached
from its car. We saw it on our right spring from tree
to tree, breathlessly trying to keep up with us. We
soon reached a plain where by a clump of trees waited
a carriage drawn by four horses. We got into it and

299

THE VAMPIRE

the horses started off at a mad gallop. I had one arm
around Clarimonda's waist and one of her hands in
mine; she leaned her head on my shoulder, and I felt
her half-bare bosom against my arm. I had never
enjoyed such lively happiness. I forgot everything
at that moment. I no more remembered having
been a priest, so great was the fascination which the
evil spirit exercised over me. From that night my
nature became in some sort double. There were in
me two men unknown to each other. Sometimes
I fancied myself a priest who dreamed every night
he was a nobleman ; sometimes I fancied I was
a nobleman who dreamed he was a priest. I was
unable to distinguish between the vision and the
waking, and I knew not where reality began and
illusion ended. The conceited libertine rallied the
priest ; the priest hated the excesses of the young
nobleman. Two spirals, twisted one within the other
and confounded without ever touching, very aptly
represent this bicephalous life of mine. Yet, in spite
of the strangeness of this position, I do not think that
for one instant I was mad. I always preserved verv
clearly the perception of my double life. Onlv there
was an absurd fact which I could not explain : it was

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THE VAMPIRE

that the feeling of the same self should exist in two
men so utterly different. That was an anomaly which
I did not understand, whether I believed myself to be

the parish priest of the little village of or il Signor

Romualdo, the declared lover of Clarimonda.

What is certain is that I was, or at least believed
that I was, in Venice. I have never yet been able to
make out what was true and what was imaginary in
that strange adventure. We dwelt in a great marble
palace on the Canaleio, full of frescoes and statues,
with two paintings in Titian's best manner in Clari-
monda's bedroom. It was a palace worthy of a king.
Each of us had his own gondola and gondoliers, his
own livery, music-room, and poet. Clarimonda liked
to live in great style, and she had something of Cleo-
patra in her nature. As for me, I lived like a prince's
son, and acted as if I belonged to the family of the twelve
Apostles or the four Evangelists of the Most Serene
Republic ; I would not have got out of my way to let
the Doge pass, and I do not think that since Satan fell
from heaven there was any one so proud and so insolent
as I. I used to go to the Ridotto and gamble fear-
fully. I met the best society in the world, ruined
eldest sons, swindlers, parasites, and swashbucklers ;

301

THE VAMPIRE

yet in spite of this dissipated life, I remained faithful
to Clarimonda. I loved her madly. She would have
awakened satiety itself and fixed inconstancy. I should
have been perfectly happy but for the accursed night-
mare which returned every night, and in which I
thought myself a parish priest living an ascetic life and
doing penance for his excesses of the daytime. Re-
assured by the habit of being with her, I scarcely ever
thought of the strange manner in which I had made
her acquaintance. However, what Father Serapion
had told me about her occasionally occurred to my
mind and caused me some uneasiness.

For some time past Clarimonda's health had been
failing. Her complexion was becoming paler and paler
every day. The doctors, when called in, failed to under-
stand her disease and knew not how to treat it. They
prescribed insignificant remedies, and did not return.
Meanwhile she became plainly paler, and colder and
colder. She was almost as white and as dead as
on that famous night in the unknown chateau. I
was bitterly grieved to see her thus slowly pining
away. She, touched by my sorrow, smiled gently
and sadly at me with the smile of one who knows she
is dying.

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One morning I was seated by her bed breakfasting
at a small table, in order not to leave her a minute.
As I pared a fruit I happened to cut my finger rather
deeply. The blood immediately flowed in a purple
stream, and a few drops fell upon Clarimonda. Her
eyes lighted up, her face assumed an expression of
fierce and savage joy which I had never before beheld.
She sprang from her bed with the agility of an animal,
of a monkey or of a cat, and sprang at my wound,
which she began to suck with an air of inexpressible
delight. She sipped the blood slowly and carefully like
a gourmand who enjoys a glass of sherry or Syracuse
wine ; she winked her eyes, the green pupils of which
had become oblong instead of round. From time to
time she broke off" to kiss my hand, then she again
pressed the wound with her lips so as to draw out a
few more red drops. When she saw that the blood
had ceased to flow, she rose up, rosier than a May
morn, her face full, her eyes moist and shining, her
hand soft and warm ; in a word, more beautiful than
ever and in a perfect state of health.

" I shall not die ! I shall not die ! " she said, half
mad with joy, as she hung around my neck. "I shall
be able to love you a long time yet. My life is in

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yours, and all that I am comes from you. A few
drops of your rich, noble blood, more precious and
more efficacious than all the elixirs in the world, have
restored my life."

The scene preoccupied me a long time and filled
me with strange doubts concerning Clarimonda. That
very evening, when sleep took me back to the presby-
tery, I saw Father Serapion, graver and more care-worn
than ever. He looked at me attentively, and said to
me : " Not satisfied with losing your soul, you want
to lose your body also. Unfortunate youth, what a
trap you have fallen into ! " The tone in which he
said these few words struck me greatly, but in spite
of its vivacity, the impression was soon dispelled and
numerous other thoughts effaced it from my mind.
However, one evening I saw in my mirror, the
perfidious position of which she had not taken into
account, Clarimonda pouring a powder into the cup
of spiced wine she was accustomed to prepare for me
after the meal. I took the cup, feigned to carry it to
my lips, and put it away as if to finish it later at
leisure, but I profited by a moment when my beauty
had turned her back, to throw the contents under the
table, after which I withdrew to my room and went to

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THE VAMPIRE

bed, thoroughly determined not to sleep, and to see
what she would do. I had not long to wait. Clari-
monda entered in her night-dress, and having thrown it
off, stretched herself in the bed by me. When she
was quite certain that I was asleep, she bared my arm,
drew a golden pin from her hair, and whispered,
" One drop, nothing but a little red drop, a ruby at the
end of my needle ! Since you still love me, I must
not die. Oh, my dear love ! I shall drink your beau-
tiful, brilliant, purple blood. Sleep, my sole treasure,
my god and my child. I shall not hurt you, I shall
only take as much of your life as I need not to lose
my own. If I did not love you so much, I might
make up my mind to have other lovers whose veins I
would drain ; but since I have known you, I have a
horror of every one else. Oh, what a lovely arm !
how round and white it is ! I shall never dare to
prick that pretty blue vein." And as she spoke, she
wept, and I felt her tears upon my arm which she
held in her hands. At last she made up her mind,
pricked me with the needle, and began to suck the
blood that flowed. Though she had scarcely imbibed
a few drops, she feared to exhaust me. She tied
my arm with a narrow band, after having rubbed

305

THE VAMPIRE

my wound with an unguent which healed it im-
mediately.

I could no longer doubt ; Father Serapion was
right. However, in spite of the certainty, I could not
help loving Clarimonda, and I would willingly have
given her all the blood she needed in order to support
her factitious existence. Besides, I was not much
afraid, for the woman guarded me against the vam-
pire; what I had heard and seen completely reassured
me. At that time I had full-blooded veins which
would not be very speedily exhausted, and I did not
care whether my life went drop by drop. I would
have opened my arm myself and said to her, " Drink,
and let my life enter your body with my blood." I
avoided alluding in the least to the narcotic which she
had poured out for me and the scene of the pin, and
we lived in the most perfect harmony.

Yet my priestly scruples tormented me more than
ever, and I knew not what new penance to invent to
tame and mortify my flesh. Although all these visions
were involuntary and I in no wise took part in them, I
dared not touch the crucifix with hands so impure and
a mind so soiled by such debauch, whether real or im-
aginary. After falling into these fatiguing hallucina-

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THE VAMPIRE

tions, I tried to keep from sleeping. I kept my eyes
open with my ringers, and remained standing by the
wall struggling against slumber with all my strength ;
but soon it would force itself into my eyes, and seeing
that the struggle was useless, I let fall my arms with
discouragement and weariness, while the current carried
me again to the perfidious shores. Serapion exhorted
me most vehemently, and harshly reproached me with
weakness and lack of fervour. One day, when he had
been more agitated than usual, he said to me : —

" There is but one way of ridding you of this obses-
sion, and although it is extreme, we must make use of
it. Great evils require great remedies. I know where
Clarimonda is buried. We must dig her up, and you
shall see in what a pitiful condition is the object of
your love. You will no longer be tempted to lose
your soul for a loathsome body devoured by worms
and about to fall into dust. It will assuredly bring you
back to your senses."

For myself, I was so wearied of my double life that
I accepted, wishing to know once for all whether it
was the priest or the nobleman who was the dupe of
an illusion. I was determined to kill, for the benefit
of the one or the other, one of the two men who were

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•4* *A* «4* *4* *b *^* *lr

THE VAMPIRE

in me, or to kill them both, for such a life as I had
been leading was unendurable. Father Serapion pro-
vided a pick, a crowbar, and a lantern, and at midnight

we repaired to the cemetery of , the place of

which he knew accurately, as well as the disposition
of the graves. Having cast the light of our lantern
upon the inscriptions on several tombs, we at last
reached a stone half hidden by tall grass and covered
with moss and parasitical plants, on which we made
out this partial inscription : " Here lies Clarimonda,
who in her lifetime was the most beautiful woman in
the world. . . ."

" This is the spot," said Serapion, and putting down
the lantern, he introduced the crowbar in the joints of
the stone and began to raise it. The stone yielded,
and he set to work with the pick. I watched him,
darker and more silent than the night itself. As for
him, bending over this funereal work, he perspired
heavily and his quick breath sounded like the rattle in
a dying man's throat. It was a strange spectacle, and
any one who might have seen us would have taken
us rather for men profaning the tomb and robbing the
shrouds than for priests of God. Serapion's zeal had
something harsh and savage which made him resemble

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THE VAMPIRE

a demon rather than an apostle or an angel, and his
face, with its austere features sharply brought out by
the light of the lantern, was in no wise reassuring. I
felt an icy sweat break out on my limbs, my hair rose
upon my head. Within myself I considered the action
of the severe Serapion an abominable sacrilege, and
I wished that from the sombre clouds that passed
heavily over our heads might flash a bolt that would
reduce him to powder. The owls, perched on the
cypresses, troubled by the light of the lantern, struck
the glass with their dusty wings and uttered plaintive
cries. The foxes yelped in the distance, and innu-
merable sinister noises rose in the silence.

At last Serapion's pick struck the coffin, which gave
out the dull, sonorous sound which nothingness gives
out when it is touched. He pulled ofF the cover, and
I saw Clarimonda, pale as marble, her hands clasped,
her white shroud forming but one line from her head
to her feet. A little red drop shone like a rose at the
corner of her discoloured lips. Serapion at the sight
of it became furious.

" Ah ! there you are, you demon, you shameless
courtesan ! You who drink blood and gold ! " and he
cast on the body and the coffin quantities of holy water,

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THE VAMPIRE

tracing with the sprinkler a cross upon the coffin.
The holy dew no sooner touched poor Clarimonda
than her lovely body fell into dust and became only
a hideous mass of ashes and half-calcined bones.
" There is your mistress, my lord Romualdo," said the
inexorable priest, as he pointed to the remains. " Are
you now still tempted to go to the Lido and Fusino
with your beauty ? "

I bowed my head. Something had been shattered
within me. I returned to my presbytery, and lord
Romualdo, the lover of Clarimonda, left the poor priest
with whom he had so long kept such strange company.
Only the next night I saw Clarimonda. She said to
me, as the first time under the porch of the church,
"Unfortunate man! unfortunate man! What have
you done ? Why did you listen to that foolish priest ?
Were you not happy ? What have I done to you,
that you should go and violate my poor tomb and lay
bare the wretchedness of my nothingness ? All com-
munion between our souls and bodies is henceforth
broken. Farewell ; you will regret me."

She vanished in air like a vapour, and I never saw
her again. Alas ! she spoke the truth. I have re-
gretted her more than once, and I still regret her. I

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THE VAMPIRE

purchased the peace of my soul very dearly. The
love of God was not too much to replace her love.

Such, brother, is the story of my youth. Never
look upon a woman, and walk always with your eyes
cast on the ground, for chaste and calm though you
may be, a single minute may make you lose eternity.

3 11

Arria Marcella

ARRIA MARCELLA

A SOUVENIR OF POMPEII

THREE young fellows, three friends who had
gone to Italy together, were last year visit-
ing the Studj Museum at Naples, where
have been collected various antiquities
from the excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum.

They wandered through the rooms as their fancy
led them, and examined the mosaics, bronzes, and
frescoes detached from the walls of the dead city.
When one of them came upon something interesting,
he would call to his companions with a joyous shout,
to the great disgust of the taciturn English and the
stolid tourists busy turning over their guide-books.

The youngest of the trio, who had stopped by a
glass case, appeared not to hear the exclamations of
the others, for he was absorbed in deep contemplation.
He was examining most attentively a heap of black
coagulated ashes, with a hollow imprint. It looked
like a fragment of a statue mould, broken in the
casting. An artist's practised eye would have easily

3*5

ARRIA MARCELLA

recognised in it the outline of a beautiful bosom,
and of a hip as pure in style as that of a Greek
statue. Every one knows, for every guide-book men-
tions the fact, that this lava ash, which cooled round a
woman's body, preserved the exquisite contours of
her frame. Thanks to the caprice of the eruption
which destroyed four cities, this noble form, that
turned to dust some two thousand years ago, has
come down to us. The rounded bosom has traversed
the ages ; while on the other hand, many vanished em-
pires have left no trace behind them. This mark of
beauty, stamped by chance upon the scoriae of a vol-
cano, has not been effaced.

Seeing that he could not drag himself away, Oc-
tavian's two friends returned to him, and Max, touching
him on the shoulder, made him start like a man whose
secret has been surprised. Plainly Octavian had not
heard Max and Fabio approach.

"Come, Octavian," said Max, "don't stop for
hours at a time by each case, or we shall miss the
train, and be unable to see Pompeii to-day."

" What is our friend looking at ? " added Fabio,
who had drawn near. " Ah, I see ! The imprint
found in the house of Anius Diomedes."

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He cast a quick, strange look at Octavian, who
blushed slightly as he took Max's arm, and the visit
ended without further incident.

On leaving the Museum, the three friends got into
a corricolo, and were driven to the station. The
corricolo, with its great red wheels, its seat studded
with brass nails, its thin and spirited horse, harnessed
like a Spanish mule, galloping along the broad lava
flags, is too well known to need describing here.
Besides, I am not writing impressions of travel in
Naples, but the simple account of a strange and rather
incredible adventure, which is nevertheless true.

The railway to Pompeii runs almost the whole way
along the seashore. The waves break in foam upon
a black sand that looks like sifted charcoal, for the
beach is formed of molten lava and volcanic ashes.
Its dark tone contrasts with the blue of the sky and
the blue of the water. The earth alone seems to be
in shadow in the midst of all that splendour.

The villages which the railway traverses, or skirts —
Portici, made famous by Auber's opera, Resina, Torre
del Greco, Torre dell' Annunziata, the arcaded houses
and terraced roofs of which are seen on the way —
have, in spite of the intensity of the sunshine and

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the southern whitewash, a Plutonian and ferruginous
character, like Manchester and Birmingham. The
dust is black ; impalpable soot clings to everything ;
one feels that the great forge of Vesuvius is puffing
and smoking close by.

The three friends alighted at the Pompeii Station,
amused by the mixture of antiquity and modern times
naturally suggested to the mind by the title " Pompeii
Station ; " a Greco-Roman city, and a railway terminus !

They traversed the cotton field — over which flut-
tered some white flakes — which lies between the rail-
way and the unburied city, and took a guide at the
osteria built outside the old ramparts — or, more cor-
rectly speaking, a guide took them, a calamity which it
is difficult to avoid in Italy.

It was one of those lovely days so frequent in
Naples, when, owing to the brilliancy of the sunshine
and the purity of the air, objects assume a colouring
which appears fabulous in the North, and seem to belong
rather to a dream world than to reality. Who ever has
once seen that light of mingled gold and azure remains
homesick for it when back amid his native fogs.

The innumerable details of the unburied city, which
had thrown off a corner of its ashen shroud, stood out

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in the blinding light. In the background showed the
cone of Vesuvius, rayed with blue, rose, and violet lava,
gilded by the sun. A faint mist, almost invisible in the
light, capped the mountain's broken crest. At the first
glance it might have been mistaken for one of those
cloudlets that often on the clearest day rest on the
summit of high peaks, but when observed more closely,
it was seen to contain slender whisps of white vapour,
issuing from the upper part of the mount as from the
holes of a perfume-burner, to meet in the form of a
light vapour. The volcano, good-tempered that day,
was quietly smoking its pipe, and but for the fact that
Pompeii lay buried at its feet, it might well have been
supposed as gentle-tempered as Montmartre. On the
other side lovely hills, with undulating and voluptuous
lines, like those of a woman's hips, bounded the hori-
zon ; and still farther away, the calm azure line of
the sea, that formerly brought biremes and triremes
up to the ramparts of the city.

Surprising indeed is the aspect of Pompeii. Even
the most prosaic and least intelligent natures are
amazed by the sudden retrogression of nineteen cen-
turies. In two steps one passes from modern to
antique life, from Christianity to Paganism. When

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ARRIA MARCELLA

the three friends saw the streets in which the forms of
a vanished existence have been preserved intact, though
they were prepared by the books they had read and
the drawings they had seen, they experienced a deep
and strange impression. Octavian in particular seemed
stupefied, and mechanically followed the guide like a
somnambulist, without listening to the monotonous
nomenclature, committed to memory, which the fel-
low was reciting like a lesson.

He looked with amazed glance at the ruts worn in
the cyclopean pavements of the streets, seemingly no
older than yesterday, so sharp are the lines ; the in-
scriptions, written in red letters with a free hand upon
the walls, the playbills, notices of houses to let, votive
formulas, signs, advertisements of all kinds, as interest-
ing as, two thousand years hence, will be to the yet
unknown nations of the future a wall of Paris found
with all its notices and posters. The houses with their
broken-in roofs, that allowed the glance to penetrate
the mysteries of the interior, the many domestic details
which historians neglect, and the secret of which civili-
sations carry away with them, the scarce dry fountains,
the Forum, caught by the catastrophe while being
repaired, the clean outlines of the columns and archi-

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traves cut and carved, waiting to be put in their
proper places ; the temples, consecrated to gods now
become mythological, but which then had not a single
atheist; the shops, in which nothing was lacking but
the shop-keeper ; the taverns, where might yet be seen
on the marble tops of the tables the circular stain left
by the topers' cups ; the barracks with the pillars painted
yellow and red, on which the soldiers had drawn cari-
catures of combatants; and the two theatres, of the
drama and of song, side by side, which might reopen
their doors but that the troupes which played there, now
reduced to dust, were, perhaps, stopping a bung-hole
or a crack in a wall, like the noble dust of Alexander
and Caesar, as Hamlet in melancholy mood remarked.

Fabio ascended the stage of the Tragic Theatre,
while Octavian and Max climbed to the top of the
benches, and there he began to recite, with abundant
pantomime, the passages of verse which occurred to
him, to the great terror of the lizards, which fled with
quivering tails and concealed themselves in the cracks
of the ruinous courses of stone. Although the brass
and earthen vessels intended to act as sounding-boards
no longer existed, his voice nevertheless was heard
sonorous and vibrant.

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The guide next led them, through the cultivated
ground which covers the yet buried portions of Pom-
peii, to the amphitheatre at the other extremity of the
city. They walked under trees the roots of which
plunged into the roofs of the buried houses, tearing away
the tiles, cracking the ceilings, dislocating the pillars ;
they passed through fields in which vulgar vegetables
ripened over marvels of art, material images of that
forgetfulness which time casts over the finest things.

The amphitheatre did not impress them much.
They had already seen that at Verona, which is larger
and fully as well preserved; they were as well ac-
quainted with the arrangement of these arenas of
antiquity as with that of the bull-fight arenas in Spain,
which resemble them closely, save that they are not as
solidly constructed nor of as fine materials.

So they retraced their steps, reached by a cross wav
the Street of Fortune, listening indifferently to the
guide, who, as he passed before each house, called it
by the name bestowed upon it when it was discovered,
and which was derived from some characteristic pecu-
liarity : the House of the Bronze Bull, the House
of the Faun, the House of the Ship, the Temple of
Fortune, the House of Meleager, the Tavern of For-

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tune at the corner of the Consular Street, the Academy
of Music, the Public Bake-house, the Pharmacy,
the Surgeon's Shop, the Custom House, the Ves-
tals' Dwelling, the Inn of Albinus, the Thermopoli,
and so on till they reached the gate leading to the
Way of the Tombs.

Within the interior arch of this brick gate, covered
with statues, and the ornaments of which have disap-
peared, there are two deep grooves intended for a
portcullis, just as in a mediaeval donjon, which might
have been supposed to possess the monopoly of this
particular kind of defence.

" Who would have suspected," said Max to his
friends, " that Pompeii, the Greco-Latin city, pos-
sessed a gate so romantically Gothic ? Can you
imagine a belated Roman knight sounding his horn
in front of this gate, like a page of the fifteenth
century, in order to have the portcullis raised ? "

" There 's nothing new under the sun," answered
Fabio, " and even that remark is not new, since
Solomon made it."

" Perhaps there may be something new under the
moon, " put in Octavian, with a smile of melancholy
irony.

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ARRIA MARCELLA

" My dear Octavian," said Max, who had mean-
while stopped before an inscription traced in red on
the outer wall, " would you like to be present at a
combat of gladiators ? Here are the advertisements :
Battle and hunt on the fifth of the nones of April ;
the masts will be raised; twenty pairs of gladiators
will fight on the nones ; and if you should happen to
fear for your complexion, you may be reassured, the
awnings will be stretched, — unless you prefer coming
to the amphitheatre early, for these fellows are to cut
each other's throats in the morning — matutini erunt.
Most kind indeed ! "

As they chatted thus, the three friends walked down
the Way, bordered by sepulchres, which to our
modern feelings would be a sombre entrance to a city,
but which had not the same meaning for the ancients,
whose tombs, instead of a hideous body, contained
merely a handful of ashes — the abstract idea of death.
Art embellished these final dwellings, and as Goethe
says, the Pagan decorated the sarcophagi and urns with
the images of life.

That was indeed the reason why Max and Fabio
were visiting, with bright curiosity and an enjoyment
of life which they would certainly not have felt in a

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Christian cemetery, these funereal monuments so richly
gilded by the sun, and which, placed as they were on
either side of the road, seemed still to belong to life,
suggesting nothing of that cold repulsion or of that
fantastic terror which is due to our lugubrious mode
of burial. They stopped before the tomb of Mamia,
the public priestess, near which has grown a tree, a
cypress or a poplar. They sat down in the hemicycle
of the triclinium of the funereal repasts, laughing as if
they had just come into an inheritance. They cracked
no end of jokes upon the epitaphs of Naevoleia,
Labeon, and the Arria family, save Octavian, who
seemed to feel more deeply than his careless com-
panions the fate of the dead of two thousand years
ago.

They thus came to the villa of Arrius Diomedes, one
of the largest dwellings in Pompeii. It is reached by
brick steps, and after passing through the door, flanked
by two small columns, one enters a courtyard, like the
patio in the centre of Spanish and Moorish houses, and
to which the ancients gave the name of impluvium or
cavcedium. Fourteen brick columns covered with
stucco formed on its four faces a portico, or covered
peristyle, like a convent cloister, in which the inhabi-

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ARRIA MARCELLA

tants could walk, sheltered from the rain. The court
is paved with a mosaic of bricks and white marble, the
effect of which is very soft and pleasant to the eye.
In the centre, a still existing square marble basin re-
ceived the rain water which fell from the roof of the
portico. It produces a strange impression to penetrate
thus into the life of antiquity, and to walk in patent-
leather boots upon the marble pavement worn by
the sandals and cothurns of the contemporaries of
Augustus and Tiberius.

The guide then took them into the hexedra or sum-
mer drawing-room, opening towards the sea, for the
sake of the cool breeze. This was the place where
visitors were received and a siesta was indulged in
during the hot hours of the day, when the mighty
African zephyrs laden with languor and storms were
blowing. He showed them into the basilica, a long
open gallery lighting the apartments, in which visitors
and clients waited until called by the usher. He next
led them to the terrace of white marble, whence the
view extends over the green gardens and the blue sea.
Then he showed them the nymphaeum, or bath-room,
with walls painted yellow, stucco columns and mosaic
pavement, and the marble bath which received so many

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lovely bodies now vanished like shadows ; the cubic-
ulum, in which floated so many dreams that had
entered through the ivory door ; the alcoves in the
wall, closed by a conopeum or curtain, the bronze
rings of which are still lying on the ground ; the tetra-
style or recreation-room ; the chapel of the household
gods, the cabinet of archives, the library, the museum
of paintings, the gynaeceum, or women's apartments,
composed of small chambers partly in ruins, on the
walls of which they observed some traces of paintings
and arabesques, like cheeks from which the rouge has
been unskilfully wiped.

Having finished this part of the visit, they went
down to the lower story, for the ground is much lower
on the garden side than on the side of the Street of
Tombs. They traversed eight halls, painted in rosso
antico, in one of which are niches like those in the
vestibule of the Hall of Ambassadors in the Alhambra,
and they at last reached a sort of cellar, the use
of which was plainly indicated by eight clay amphorae
standing against the wall, and which had no doubt
been perfumed like Horace's odes with Cretan, Faler-
nian, and Massican wine. A bright beam of light
entered through a narrow opening obstructed by nettles,

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ARRIA MARCELLA

the leaves of which the light transformed into emeralds
and topazes, this bright touch of nature smiling very
seasonably upon the gloom of the place.

" This is the spot," said the guide in his drawling
voice, the tone of which scarcely harmonized with the
meaning of the words, " where was found, among
seventeen skeletons, that of the lady the imprint of
which is in the Naples Museum. She had on gold
rings, and the remains of a fine tunic still adhered to
the ash cast that had preserved her shape."

The guide's commonplace statements moved Octa-
vian deeply. He desired to be shown the exact spot
where the precious remains had been discovered, and
had he not been restrained by the presence of his
friends he would have indulged in some extravagant
Ivrical outburst. His breast heaved, his eyes were
moist ; the catastrophe effaced by twenty centuries
of forgetfulness impressed him like a quite recent mis-
fortune ; the death of his mistress or of a friend would
not have moved him more, and a tear, two thousand
years late, fell, while Max's and Fabio's backs were
turned, upon the spot where had perished, stifled by
the hot ashes of the volcano, the woman for whom he
felt himself filled with retrospective love.

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" We have had enough archaeology,"' cried Fabio ;
" for we do not propose to write a dissertation upon a
pitcher or a tile of the days of Julius Caesar, in order
to be elected to some provincial academy. These
classical remembrances make me hungry. Let us go
and dine, if the thing is possible, at that picturesque
osteria ; though I am afraid they will serve us with fossil
beef-steaks and fresh eggs laid before Pliny's death."

" I shall not quote Boileau, and say, 1 A fool occa-
sionally gives good advice,' " said Max laughing ; " it
would not be polite. Your idea is a good one, though
it would have been pleasanter to have our meal here on
a triclinium, lying down after the antique fashion, and
waited on by slaves, after the manner of Lucullus and
Trimalcion. It is true that I don't see many oysters
from the Lucrine Lake; the turbots and mullets of the
Adriatic are wanting; the Apulian boar is not to be
found in the market ; the loaves and honey-cakes are
in the Naples Museum, hard as stones by the side of
their verdigrised moulds; raw macaroni, dusted with
caccia-cavallo, detestable though it is, is better than
nothing. What is dear Octavian's opinion ? "

Octavian, who greatly regretted not having been in
Pompeii on the day of the eruption of Vesuvius, so

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that he might have saved the lady with the gold rings
and thus deserved her love, had not heard a single
word of this gastronomical conversation. Only the
last two words uttered by Max struck his ear, and as
he had no desire to begin a discussion, he nodded
affirmatively at a venture, and the three friends started
back to the inn, following the line of the ramparts.

The table was set in a sort of open porch which
forms a vestibule to the osteria, and the whitewashed
walls of which were decorated with daubs claimed by
the host to be the work of Salvator Rosa, Spagnoletto,
Massimo, and other celebrated painters of the Neapoli-
tan school, which he felt it to be his duty to praise.

" Venerable host," said Fabio, " do not waste your
eloquence. We are not English, and we prefer girls
to old paintings. Rather send us your wine list by
that handsome brunette with velvet eyes whom 1
caught sight of on the stairs."

The palforio, perceiving that his guests did not
belong to the easily taken-in class of Philistines and
tradespeople, stopped praising his gallery in order to
praise his cellar. To begin with, he had every wine
of the best brands : Chateau-Margaux, Grand-Laffitte
which had been to India and back, Moet, Sillery,

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ARRIA MARCELLA

Hochmeyer, port and porter, ale and ginger beer,
white and red Lacryma Christi, Capri and Falernian.

" What ! You have Falernian, you wretch, and
put it at the bottom of your list ! You compel us to
listen to a prosy oenological litany," said Max, spring-
ing to the inn-keeper's throat with a gesture of comic
fury. " You are utterly lacking in feeling for local
colour; you are unworthy of living in this antique
neighbourhood. But, is your Falernian good ? Was
it put into amphorae under the consulship of Plancus
— Consule PlariLO?"

" I do not know who Consul Plancus is, and my
wine is not in amphorae ; but it is old and costs ten
carlini a bottle."

Day had fallen and night had come on, — a serene,
transparent night, brighter unquestionably than noon-
day in London. Wonderfully soft were the azure
tones of earth and the silvery reflections in the skv ;
the air was so still that the flame of the tapers placed
on the table did not even quiver.

A young lad playing a flute drew near the table
and remained standing, in the attitude of a bas-relief,
gazing at the three guests and blowing into his soft,
melodious instrument some of the popular cantilenes

33 1

ARRIA MARCELLA

in a minor key, the charm of which is so penetrating.
Perhaps the lad was a direct descendant of the flute-
player who walked before Duilius.

" Our meal is assuming quite an antique look. All
we lack are Gaditanian dancers, and wreaths of ivy,"
said Fabio, as he poured himself out a bumper of
Falernian.

"I feel like quoting Latin, as they do in newspapers.
Stanzas keep recurring to my memory," added Max.

" Keep them to yourself," cried Octavian and
Fabio, justly alarmed. " There is nothing so indigesti-
ble as Latin at table."

Conversation between young fellows who, with
cigars in their mouths, their elbows on the table,
contemplate a number of empty bottles, especially if
the wine is heady, generally turns pretty quickly to
the subject of women. Each of the three stated his
views, which are here briefly summarised.

Fabio cared for beauty and youth only. Volup-
tuous and practical, he had no illusions or prejudices in
matters of love. A peasant girl was just as good as a
duchess, provided she was beautiful. He cared more
for the beauty than for the dress. He made much fun
of some of his friends who were captivated by a few

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yards of lace and silk, and said it would be more rea-
sonable to be in love with a dressmaker's show window.
These opinions, very sound at bottom, and which he
did not conceal, caused him to pass for an eccentric
individual.

Max, less artistic than Fabio, cared only for difficult
undertakings and complicated intrigues. He wanted
to overcome resistance and seduce the virtuous ; love
to him was like a game of chess, with moves long
meditated, effects suspended, surprises and stratagems
worthy of Polybius. When he went into a drawing-
room, the woman he chose to attack was the one who
seemed least sympathetic to him. It was a delightful
pleasure for him to make her pass from aversion to
love by skilful gradations ; to impose himself on those
who repelled him, and to break down the wills that
rebelled against his ascendency seemed to him the
sweetest of triumphs. Like those sportsmen who
traverse fields, woods, and plains in rain, snow, and
sun, unmindful of fatigue, and with an ardour that noth-
ing checks, for the sake of some wretched game, which
they generally refuse to eat, Max, once he had secured
his prey, ceased to care for it, and immediately started
out in quest of another.

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Octavian confessed that reality had no great attrac-
tion for him. Not that he indulged in school-boy
dreams full of lilies and roses, but every woman was
surrounded by too many prosaic and repellent facts, too
many prosy fathers, coquettish mothers wearing real
flowers in false hair, bright-faced cousins turning over
declarations of love in their minds, ridiculous aunts
fond of little dogs. An engraving after a painting by
Horace Vernet or Delaroche hanging in a woman's
room, sufficed to kill in his breast a rising passion.
More poetical than amorous, he wanted a terrace on
Isola Bella, on Lago Maggiore, with a fine moonlight,
by way of setting for a rendezvous. f He would have
liked to remove his love from common life and to
transport it to the stars. Consequently he had felt a
mighty, impossible love for all the great feminine char-
acters preserved by art or history; ; like Faust, he had
loved Helen, and had wished that the undulations of
centuries had brought to him one of those sublime
incarnations of the desires and dreams of mankind, the
form of which, invisible to vulgar eyes, ever subsists
through time and space. He had formed an ideal
seraglio with Semiramis, Aspasia, Cleopatra, Diana of
Poitiers, Joan of Aragon. Sometimes, too, he fell in

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love with statues, and one day, as he passed before the
Venus of Milo in the Louvre, he had called out, " Oh,
who will give you back your arms, so that you may
press me to your marble breasts." At Rome, the
sight of a thick tress of hair, exhumed from an antique
tomb, had inspired him with a curious fancy. He had
endeavoured, by means of two or three threads of the
hair, purchased at the price of gold from the keeper
and handed to a very powerful somnambulist, to call
up the shadow and shape of this dead woman ; but the
conductive fluid had evaporated during the lapse of so
many years, and the apparition had been unable to
emerge from eternal night.

As Fabio had guessed when he saw his friend stand-
ing before the glass case in the Studj, the imprint found
in the cellar of the house of Arrius Diomedes had
excited in Octavian an insensate desire for a retrospec-
tive ideal. He was endeavouring to leave time and
life behind and to transport his soul to the age of
Titus.

Max and Fabio withdrew to their rooms, and, their
heads somewhat heavy, thanks to the classic vapours of
the Falernian, they speedily fell asleep. Octavian,
who had repeatedly left his glass untouched before

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ARRIA MARCELLA

him, — not caring to trouble by material intoxication
the poetic fervour that seethed in his brain, — felt
by the restlessness of his nerves that sleep would not
come to him. He left the osteria slowly, to cool his
brow and to quiet his thoughts in the air of night.

Unconsciously his feet took him to the dead city.
He removed the wooden bar that closed it and ventured
into the ruins. The white moonbeams illumined the
wan houses, and divided the streets into two parts of
silvery light and bluish shadow. This nocturnal light
concealed with its delicate tints the ruinous state of the
buildings. The broken columns, the cracked facades,
the roofs broken down by the eruption, were not
noticed as in the crude glare of noon. The parts that
were lacking were filled in by half-tints, and an unex-
pected beam, like a touch of feeling in a sketch for a
painting, suggested a whole fallen ensemble. The
mighty genii of night seemed to have restored the
fossil city for the performance of a strange life.

Sometimes, even, Octavian fancied he saw faint
human shapes moving in the darkness, but they van-
ished as soon as they reached the lighted part. Soft
whisperings, vague rumours, floated through the silence.
He attributed these at first to the winking of his eyes

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ARRIA MARCELLA

and the buzzing of his ears ; he thought they must be
due to optical illusions, the plaint of the sea breeze,
or the hurried flight of a lizard or of an adder through
the nettles ; for everything lives in nature, even death ;
everything sounds, even silence. Nevertheless, he
could not help a certain feeling of anxiety, a slight
shudder, due perhaps to the chilly air of night. Twice
or thrice he looked round. He did not feel alone in
the deserted town as he had done a moment since.
Could his comrades have done the same thing as he,
and were they looking for him among the ruins ? Were
the shapes he had caught glimpses of Max and Fabio ?
Were the indistinct sounds of steps produced by them
as they walked and chatted and disappeared round the
corner of a square ? Although this was a natural
explanation, Octavian felt that it was not the correct
one, and he failed to convince himself by any reason-
ing. The solitude and the shadow were peopled by
invisible beings whom he had disturbed. He had come
plump into the middle of a mystery, and it seemed as
though his departure were awaited before anything
could begin. Such were the absurd ideas which came
into his mind, and which assumed much likelihood,
owing to the time, the place, and the numerous causes

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of terror that will easily recur to those who have been
in some great ruin at night.

As he passed before a house which he had noticed
during the day, and on which the moon was shining
brightly, he saw, in a state of complete restoration, a
portico which he had endeavoured to reconstruct in his
mind. Four Doric columns fluted half-way up, the
shaft covered with a coat of red like a purple drapery,
supported a cyma covered with polychrome ornaments,
which seemed to have been finished but the day before.
On the side wall of the door a Laconian mastiff in
encaustic, accompanied by the usual legend, Cave canem,
was baying at the moon and at visitors with painted
fury. Above the mosaic threshold the word Have
in Oscan and Latin characters welcomed the guests
with its friendly syllables. The outer walls, painted
red and yellow, showed not a single crevice. The
house was higher by one story, and the tile roof,
topped by a bronze acroter, exhibited a perfect profile
against the pale-blue sky, in which glimmered a few
stars.

This strange restoration, carried out between after-
noon and night by some unknown architect, greatly
bothered Octavian, who was quite certain that during

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ARRIA MARCELLA

the day he had seen that same house in a very ruinous
condition. The mysterious restorer had worked very
fast, for the neighbouring dwellings had a similar re-
cent and new look. All the pillars were topped by
capitals ; not a stone, not a brick, not a pellicle of
stucco, not a morsel of paint was lacking on the
brilliant walls of the facades, and through the peristyles
he could see, round the marble basin in the cavaedium,
white and rose laurels, myrtles, and pomegranate trees.
History was at fault ; there had been no eruption, or
the hand of time had gone back twenty centuries upon
the dial of eternity.

Octavian, filled with deepest surprise, asked himself
whether he was sleeping standing or whether he was
walking in a dream. He examined himself seriously
to ascertain whether delirium were evoking hallucina-
tions in his mind; but he was compelled to recognise
that he was neither sleeping nor mad. A singular
change had taken place in the atmosphere. Faint rosy
tints mingled their violet gradations with the azure
beams of the moon. The heavens were growing
lighter on the horizon. It seemed as if day were
about to dawn. Octavian looked at his watch ; it
pointed to midnight. Fancying it might have stopped,

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ARRIA MARCELLA

he touched the repeater spring. The repeater sounded
twelve times. It was midnight unquestionably, and
yet the light kept on brightening, the moon was disap-
pearing in the azure, which was becoming more and
more luminous; the sun was rising.

Then Octavian, in whose mind the notion of time
was becoming confused, was fain to admit that he was
walking, not in dead Pompeii, — the cold corpse of a
city half drawn from its shroud, — but in a living,
young, intact Pompeii, on which the burning mud
torrents of Vesuvius had not yet flowed. An
inexplicable miracle had just carried him back, a
Frenchman of the nineteenth century, to the days of
Titus, not in spirit but in reality ; or else it was bring-
ing back to him from the depths of the past a destroyed
city, with its vanished inhabitants; for at that moment
a man wearing an antique costume emerged from a
neighbouring house.

The man wore his hair short and was smooth shaven.
He had on a brown tunic and a grayish cloak, the ends
of which were turned up so as not to impede his steps.
He walked rapidly, almost ran, and passed Octavian
without seeing him. On his arm he carried an esparto
basket and he was going towards the Forum. There

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ARRIA MARCELLA

was no doubt about it, he was a slave, a Davus going
to market.

The sound of wheels was heard. An antique cart,
drawn by white oxen and laden with vegetables, entered
the street. By the oxen walked a driver with bare
legs tanned by the sun, sandals on his feet, and wear-
ing a sort of linen shirt puffed out at the waist. A
pointed straw hat thrown behind his back and fastened
round his neck by a strap, showed his head, of a type
unknown at the present day; a low brow with hard
bumps, black, crinkly hair, a straight nose, eyes as soft
as those of the oxen, and a neck like that of a country
Hercules. He gravely touched his animals with the
goad, assuming a statuesque pose that would have
made Ingres go into ecstasies. He noticed Octavian
and seemed surprised, but went on his way. He did
turn round once, no doubt unable to understand the
presence of that personage, strange to him, but with
his placid rustic stupidity leaving cleverer men than he
to read the riddle.

Campanian peasants also came, driving before them
asses bearing skins of wine and tinkling their brazen
bells. Their faces were as different from those of our
modern peasants as medals differ from pennies.

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ARRIA MARCELLA

The town was gradually rilling up with people, like
one of those panorama pictures that show deserted at
first and which a change in the light fills with people
invisible before.

Octavian's feelings had now changed. A moment
ago, in the deceitful darkness of night, he had been a
prey to that uneasiness which the bravest cannot avoid
when reason fails to explain troubling, fantastic circum-
stances. His vague terror was replaced by deep stupe-
faction. He could not understand the evidence of his
senses, in view of the clearness of his perceptions, and
yet what he beheld was absolutely incredible. Still not
quite convinced, he sought by noting small realistic
details to assure himself that he was not the plaything
of a hallucination. It could not be phantoms that filed
past him, for the brilliant light of the sun illumined
them with unmistakable reality, and their shadows,
lengthened in the morning light, were cast on the
pavements and the walls.

Unable to understand what was happening to him,
Octavian, at bottom delighted at seeing one of his
dearest dreams realised, let himself go and simply
watched all these marvels without attempting to under-
stand them. He said to himself that since in virtue

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ARRIA MARCELLA

of some mysterious power he was enabled to live for a
few hours in a vanished age, he was not going to lose
his time in the solution of an incomprehensible prob-
lem ; and he continued bravely on his way, looking
right and left at a prospect which was to him at once
so new and so old.

But what was the particular period in the life of
Pompeii into which he had been transported ? The
names of the public personages in an aedile's inscription
engraved on the wall enabled him to ascertain that he
was at the beginning of the reign of Titus, —-that is,
in the year 79 of the Christian era. A sudden thought
flashed into Octavian's mind. The woman whose im-
print he had admired in the Naples Museum must be
alive, since the eruption of Vesuvius, in which she had
perished, had taken place on August 24 in that year ; so
it was possible for him to find her, to see her, to speak
to her. The great desire which he had experienced at
the sight of those ashes moulded upon divine contours,
was perhaps to be satisfied ; for nothing could be im-
possible to a love that could compel time to go back-
wards, and the same hour to pass twice through the
hour-glass of eternity.

While Octavian indulged in these reflections, hand-

343

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ARRIA MARCELLA

some young maids were going to the fountains, sup-
porting with the tips of their white fingers the jars they
balanced on their heads. Patricians in white togae
bordered with purple bands, and followed by their train
of clients, were proceeding to the Forum. Purchasers
crowded round the shops ; each of which was distin-
guished by a carved and painted sign, and recalled by
its small size and its shape the Moorish shops in
Algiers. Above most of the stalls a splendid phallus
in coloured terra cotta, bearing the words hie habitat
felicitas, gave proof of superstitious precautions against
the evil eye. Octavian noticed even an amulet shop,
the show-case of which was filled with horns, branches
of coral, and small golden Priapae, such as are still
to be found in Naples, as defences against jettatura,
whereupon he remarked to himself that superstition
was more durable than religion even.

Following the pavement, which borders every street
in Pompeii, — the English being thus deprived of the
honour of having invented that comfort, — Octavian
came face to face with a handsome young fellow of
about his own age, wearing a saffron-coloured tunic,
and draped in a mantle of fine white wool as soft as
cashmere. The sight of Octavian, wearing the hid-

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ARRIA MARCELLA

eous modern hat, an ugly black frock-coat, his legs
pinioned in trousers, his feet fastened in by shining
boots, appeared to surprise the young Pompeian as
much as the sight of a Redskin or a Botocudo with
his feathers, his necklace of grizzly-bear claws and his
queer tattooing would surprise us on the Boulevard.
However, as he was a well-bred young man, he did not
burst out laughing in Octavian's face, and taking pity
on the poor barbarian lost in the Greco-Roman city,
he said to him in a gently modulated voice : —
" Advena, salve."

It was quite natural that an inhabitant of Pompeii in
the reign of the divine Emperor Titus, Most Powerful
and Most August, should speak Latin ; yet Octavian
started on hearing that dead language spoken by a
living mouth. Then he congratulated himself on hav-
ing been one of the best Latin students and carried off
prizes in the competitions. The Latin taught in the
University served him for once, and recalling his class-
room experience, he replied to the Pompeian's welcome
in the style of De viribus lllustribus and of Selectee e
profanis, in a fairly intelligible manner, but with a
Parisian accent which compelled the young man to
smile.

345

ARRIA MARCELLA

" Perhaps it is easier for you to speak Greek," said
the Pompeian. " I know that language too, for I
studied at Athens."

" I know even less Greek than Latin," replied Oc-
tavian. " I am from Gaul, from Paris, from Lutetia."

"I know that country. My ancestor made war in
Gaul under the great Julius Caesar. But what a curi-
ous dress you wear ! The Gauls I saw at Rome were
not dressed like that."

Octavian attempted to make the young Pompeian
understand that twenty centuries had passed since the
conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar, and that fashions
had possibly changed in the meantime. But his Latin
was not sufficient for the purpose; and indeed, it did
not amount to much.

" I am called Rufus Holconius, and my house is
yours," said the young man ; " unless you prefer the
freedom of the tavern. You can be quite comfortable
at the inn of Albinus, near the gate of the Augustus
Felix suburb, and in the hostelry of Sarinus, the son of
Publius, near the second tower; but if you have no
objection, I should be glad to show you through the
city, which is strange to you. I like you, you young
barbarian, although you did try to play on my credulity

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ARRIA MARCELLA

bv pretending that Emperor Titus, who is reigning at
this moment, died two thousand years ago, and that
the Nazarene, whose abominable followers, covered
with pitch, lighted up the gardens of Nero, alone
reigns as master in the deserted heavens whence
the great gods have fallen. By Pollux," he added,
glancing at a red inscription on a corner of a street,
"you have come at the right moment. They are
playing Plautus' Casina, recently put again on the
stage. It is a curious and comical play, which will
amuse you, even if you can make out no more
than the gestures. Follow me, for it will soon begin.
I will have you placed in the seats for guests and
strangers."

Hereupon Rufus Holconius walked off toward the
small comic theatre which the three friends had visited
during the course of the day.

The Frenchman and the Pompeian walked through
the Street of the Fountain of Abundance, the Street of
Theatres, passed by the College and the Temple of
Isis, the Sculptor's Studio, and entered the Odeon, or
comic theatre, by a side entrance. Thanks to the
recommendation of Holconius, Octavian was placed
near the proscenium. Every glance was immediately

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ARRIA MARCELLA

turned upon him with kindly curiosity, and light whis-
perings ran all about the amphitheatre.

The play had not yet begun. Octavian turned the
time to account by examining the hall. The semi-
circular benches, ending at each extremity in a magni-
ficent lion's paw, carved out ofVesuvian lava, rose and
broadened from an empty space answering to our or-
chestra stalls, but much smaller and paved with a
mosaic of Greek marbles ; a broader bench formed
every here and there a distinctive zone, and four stair-
cases corresponding to the entrances, and ascending
from the base to the summit of the amphitheatre,
divided it into four wedges, wider at the top than at
the bottom. The spectators, provided with tickets
consisting of small ivory counters on which were
marked the compartment, the wedge, and the bench,
with the title of the play to be performed and the name
of the author, found their places without difficulty.
The magistrates and nobles, the married men, the
young men, the soldiers with their gleaming bronze
helmets, had separate seats. The beautiful togas and
the full white mantles, well draped, spreading over the
lower steps and contrasting with the varied dresses of
the women, who were seated above, and the gray capes

348

ARRIA MARCELLA

of the common people, relegated to the upper benches
near the pillars supporting the roof, between which one
could see a sky as intensely blue as the azure field of a
panathena, formed a wonderful spectacle. A fine spray
of water, scented with saffron, fell in imperceptible
drops from the friezes, and perfumed the air while
cooling it. Octavian recalled the fetid emanations that
poison the atmosphere of our theatres, so incommo-
dious that they may be considered places of torture,
and came to the conclusion that civilisation had not
improved greatly.

The curtain, supported by a transverse beam, fell
below the orchestra. The musicians seated themselves
in their tribune, and Prologue appeared, dressed gro-
tesquely, his head covered with an ugly mask, put on
like a helmet.

Prologue, after having bowed to the audience and
called for applause, began to make an argument.
"Old plays," he said, "were like wine, which im-
proves with use; and Casina, dear to the elders, should
surely not be less dear to the young. All could enjoy
it, the former because they were acquainted with it,
the latter because they did not yet know it. For the
rest, the play had been carefully restored, and the spec-

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tators ought to listen to it free from care, without
thinking of their debts or their creditors, for no arrests
could be made at a theatre. It was a lucky day, the
weather was fine, and the halcyons were soaring over
the Forum." Then he gave a summary of the com-
edy which the actors were about to perform, at such
length that it is clear surprise had little to do with the
pleasure the ancients took in dramatic performances.
He stated that the old man Stalino, in love with his
beautiful slave Casina, proposed to marry her to his
farmer Olympio, a complaisant husband, whose place
he was to occupy on the wedding night ; and that
Lycostrata, Stalino's wife, to checkmate her vicious
husband's lust, proposed to marry Casina to the equerry
Chalinus, with the intention of favouring her son's
amours; finally, how Stalino, completely taken in,
mistook a disguised slave youth for Casina, who, on
its being found that she was free and of ingenuous birth,
wedded the young master, whom she loved and by
whom she was beloved.

The young Frenchman paid little attention to the
actors with their bronze-mouthed masks as they per-
formed on the stage. The slaves ran hither and
thither to simulate haste ; the old man wagged his

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ARRIA MARCELLA

head and held out his trembling hands ; the matron,
loud-voiced, with sour and disdainful look, asserted her
importance and scolded her husband, to the great de-
light of the spectators The actors entered and went
out by three doors, cut in the wall at the back, and
leading to the actors' foyer. Stalino's house was at
one corner of the stage, and opposite was that of his
old friend Alcesimus. The setting, though very well
painted, rather gave an idea of the place than repre-
sented it, like the non-characteristic stage-setting of
the classic tragedy.

When the nuptial procession escorting the sham
Casina entered on the stage, a great burst of laughter,
such as Homer describes the laughter of the gods to
be, ran along every bench in the amphitheatre, and
thunders of applause awoke the echoes of the place.
But Octavian no longer listened or looked, for in the
compartment occupied by the women he had just
caught sight of a wonderful beauty. From that min-
ute the lovely face? which had attracted him were
eclipsed, as the stars are eclipsed by Phoebe. Every-
thing vanished, and .disappeared as in a dream. A mist
seemed to cover the benches that swarmed with peo-
ple, and the shrill voices of the actors seemed lost in

35i

ARRIA MARCELLA

infinite distance. He felt at his heart a sort of electric
shock, and when that woman's glance was turned upon
him, he felt that sparks flashed from his breast.

She was dark and pale ; her wavy, curly hair, black
as night, was slightly drawn back on the temples in
the Greek fashion, and in her white face shone sombre,
soft eyes, full of an indefinable expression of voluptu-
ous sadness and weariness of passion. Her mouth,
disdainfully curved at the corners, protested by the
ardent brilliancy of its flaming purple against the placid
whiteness of the face. Her neck had those lovely,
pure lines which nowadays are to be seen on statues
only. Her arms were bare to the shoulder, and from
the tips of her proud breasts, that lifted her rose
mauve-coloured tunic, fell two folds that might have
been carved in marble by Phidias or Cleomenes.

The sight of those breasts, so perfect in contour, so
pure in outline, filled Octavian with emotion. It
seemed to him that they exactly fitted the hollow im-
prints in the Museum of Naples, which had cast him
into such an ardent reverie, and a voice called out from
within his heart that that was the woman who had been
stifled by the ashes of Vesuvius in the villa of Arrius
Diomedes. By what miracle did he now behold her

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alive, present at the performance of Plautus' Casina ?
He did not attempt to understand it. For the matter
of that, how did he happen to be there himself? He
accepted her presence as in dreams we accept the in-
tervention of people who have long since died and who
nevertheless act as if they were still living. Besides,
his emotion checked his reasoning powers. As far as
he was concerned, the wheel of time was thrown out
of its rut, and his victorious desire had chosen its own
place amid the vanished centuries. He found himself
face to face with his dream, one of the least realisable,
a retrospective chimera. All at once his life was filled
out.

As he gazed upon that face, so calm and yet so full
of passion, he understood that he beheld his first and
last love, that he had before him his cup of supreme
intoxication. He felt the remembrances of all the
women he thought he had loved vanishing like faint
shadows, and his soul became virgin or any anterior
emotion. The past disappeared.

Meanwhile, the beautiful Pompeian girl, resting her
chin upon the palm of her hand, cast upon Octavian,
while appearing to watch the stage, the velvety glance
of her darksome eyes, a glance that fell upon him

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ARRIA MARCELLA

heavy and burning, like a jet of molten lead. Then
she leaned and whispered to a girl seated by her
side.

The performance was over. The crowd passed out
of the exits. Octavian, refusing the proffered service
of his guide Holconius, sprang out of the first exit
which he came upon. He had scarcely reached the
door, when he felt a hand on his arm, and a feminine
voice whispered to him, low, but so distinctly that he
lost not a word, —

" I am Tyche Nevoleia, and I minister to the
pleasures of Arria Marcella, daughter of Arrius Dio-
medes. My mistress loves you; follow me."

Arria Marcella had just entered her litter, borne by
four strong Syrian slaves, nude to the belt, their bronze
torsos shining in the sun. The curtains of the litter
were drawn apart, and a white hand, covered with
rings, was waving in friendly fashion to Octavian, as
if to confirm the message borne by the servant. The
purple curtain closed, and the litter went off, to the
cadenced step of the slaves.

Tyche led Octavian through side streets, crossing
from one to another by stepping lightly upon stones
which connected the pavements, and between which

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ARRIA MARCELLA

passed the car wheels, making her way through the
labyrinth with the readiness that comes of familiarity
with a city. Octavian observed that he was traversing
portions of Pompeii which had not yet been excavated,
and which consequently were wholly unknown to him.
This curious circumstance, amid so many other curious
circumstances, did not surprise him. He, had made up
his mind to be astonished at nothing. In all this
archaic phantasmagoria, which would have driven an
archaeologist crazy with delight, he saw but the dark,
deep glance of Arria Marcella, and her splendid bosom,
triumphant over the ages, which destruction itself
sought to preserve.

They reached a concealed door, that opened and
immediately closed, and Octavian found himself in a
court surrounded by Ionic columns of Greek marble,
painted half-way up a bright yellow, the capitals picked
out with red and blue ornaments. A plant of aristolo-
chia hung its broad, heart-shaped leaves from the cor-
ners of the building, like a natural arabesque, and near
a basin bordered with plants, a rose flamingo stood on
one leg, like a feather flower among the vegetable
flowers. Frescoed panels, representing fanciful build-
ings or landscapes, adorned the walls. Octavian noted

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ARRIA MARCELLA

these details with a rapid glance, for Tyche handed
him over to the slaves who attended the baths, and
who, in spite of his impatience, compelled him to
undergo all the refinements of the baths of antiquity.
After having passed through the different degrees of
vapourized heat, borne with the scraper of the rubber,
and had poured over him perfumes, cosmetics, and oil,
he was clothed in a white tunic, and at the farther door
found Tyche, who took his hand and led him into
another richly ornamented room.

On the ceiling were painted, with a purity of draw-
ing, a brilliancy of colour, and a freedom of touch that
marked a great master and not a mere decorator, Mars,
Venus, and Cupid ; a frieze composed of stags, hares,
and birds, playing amid foliage, ran around the room
above a wainscotting of Cipoline marble ; the mosaic
of the flooring, a wonderful piece of work, which was
perhaps done by Sosimus of Pergamus, represented ban-
queting meats admirably executed.

At the back of the room, on a biclinium, or bed for
two persons, leaned Arria Marcella, in a voluptuous,
serene pose that recalled the resting woman carved by
Phidias on the front of the Parthenon. Her pearl-
embroidered shoes lay at the foot of the bed, and her

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ARRIA MARCELLA

lovely bare feet, purer than white marble, showed from
under a light linen coverlet.

Two urns shaped like balances, with a pearl in each
scale, shimmered in the light by her pale cheeks ; a
necklace of golden balls, from which hung pear-shaped
drops, gleamed upon the bosom half revealed by the
careless opening of a straw-coloured peplum, bordered
with a black fret ; a gold and black band shone in her
auburn hair ; for she had changed her dress on return-
ing from the theatre, and round her arm, like the asp
round Cleopatra's arm, was a golden serpent, with eyes
formed of precious stones, trying to bite its tail.

A small table supported on griffins' feet, and inlaid
with mother-of-pearl, silver, and ivory, stood by the
bed, laden with various dishes served in gold and silver
plate, or on china enamelled with precious paintings.
There was a pheasant with its feathers on, and various
fruits that ripen at different seasons.

There was every indication that a guest was expected.
Fresh-cut flowers were strewn on the ground, and the
amphorae of wine were plunged in urns full of snow.

Arria Marcella signed to Octavian to lie down by
her on the biclinium and to share the meal. The
young man, half crazed with surprise and love, ate a

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ARRIA MARCELLA

few mouthfuls from the dishes held out to him by little
Asiatic slaves with curly hair and short tunics. Arria
did not eat, but she often bore to her lips an opalescent
Myrrhine cup filled with a dark purple wine, like coag-
ulated blood. As she drank, from her heart, which
had not beat for so many years, a faint rosy flush rose
to her pale cheeks, but her bare arm, which Octavian
touched as he raised his cup, was cold as a serpent's
skin or a marble tombstone.

" Oh, when you stopped at the Studj to look at the
piece of hardened clay which has preserved my shape,"
said Arria Marcella, as she cast a deep moist glance
upon Octavian, "and when your thought rushed ar-
dently to me, my soul felt it in the world in which I
float, invisible to material eyes. Belief makes a god,
and love makes woman. One really dies only when
no longer loved. Your desire has restored me to life ;
the mighty evocation of. your heart has suppressed the
distance which separated us."

This view of amorous evocation, expressed by the
young woman, coincided with the philosophical belief
of Octavian, — a belief which I am much inclined to
share. For, in truth, nothing dies ; everything goes on
existing. No power can annihilate whatever has once

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ARRIA MARCELLA

been created. Every act, every word, every shape,
every thought which has fallen into the universal ocean
of things makes circles which go on broadening to the
far confines of eternity. Material configurations dis-
appear only to the common glance ; their spectres peo-
ple the infinite. Paris still carries away Helen to some
unknown region of bliss ; the silken sails of Cleopatra's
galley still swell on some blue ideal Cydnus. Some
passionate minds, endowed with a powerful will, have
succeeded in recalling to themselves ages apparently
vanished, and have revived people dead to others.
Faust had the daughter of Tyndarus for a mistress, and
took her to his Gothic castle from the mysterious
depths of Hades. Octavian had just lived one day in
the reign of Titus, and had made himself beloved of
Arria Marcella, who was lying at this moment by him
on an antique bed, in a city that for every one else was
destroyed.

" By the disgust other women inspire me with," said
Octavian, « by the irresistible thought which drew me
to its own radiant, types in the depths of the ages, as
towards stars calling to me, I understood that I should
never love save outside all time and space. You are
the one I waited for, and the faint trace preserved by

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ARRIA MARCELLA

man's curiosity placed me in relation with your soul
through secret magnetism. I know not whether you
are a dream or a reality, a phantom or a woman ;
whether, like Ixion, I am clasping a cloud to my
breast, or whether I am the plaything of a sorcerer's
foul charm ; but what I do know is that you shall
be my first and my last love."

" May Eros, son of Aphrodite, hear your vow," said
Arria Marcella, resting her head upon her lover's
shoulder, as he drew her to him in a passionate em-
brace. " Oh, press me to your young breast, envelop
me with your warm breath ; I am cold from having
remained so long without love."

And Octavian felt that beautiful bosom, the mould
of which he had that very morning admired through
the glass of a case in the Museum, rising and falling
against his breast. He felt the coolness of the lovely
flesh through his tunic. It burned him. The black
and gold band had fallen from Arria's head, which was
thrown back in a passion of love, and her hair was
spread like a black river upon the blue pillow.

The slaves had removed the table. Naught was
heard but a confused sound of kisses and sighs. The
tame quails, heedless of this amorous scene, were chirp-

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ARRIA MARCELLA

ing and picking upon the mosaic floor the remains
of the feast.

Suddenly the brazen rings of the portiere that closed
the room slid along the pole, and an old man of severe
appearance, robed in a great brown mantle, appeared
on the threshold. He wore his gray beard in two
points, like the Nazarenes. His face appeared wrin-
kled by fatigue and maceration ; a small cross of black
wood hung round his neck, leaving no doubt as to his
belief: he belonged to the sect, then recently estab-
lished, of the disciples of Christ.

At sight of him Arria Marcella, overwhelmed with
confusion, concealed her face in a fold of her mantle,
like a bird that conceals its head under its wing in the
presence of a foe it cannot avoid, so as to escape at
least the horror of seeing it, while Octavian, leaning
on his elbow, looked fixedly at the troublesome indi-
vidual who had thus abruptly broken in upon his
enjoyment.

" Arria, Arria," said the austere individual, in a tone
of reproach, "was not your lifetime sufficient for your
dissipation, and must your infamous loves trespass upon
the ages which do not belong to you? Can you not
leave the living within their sphere ? Have your ashes

361

ARRIA MARCELLA

not cooled since the day you died unrepentant under
the volcano's rain of fire ? Have two thousand years
of death not quieted you, and do your greedy arms
still draw to your heartless marble bosom the poor mad
men intoxicated by your spells ? "

" Have mercy on me, father Arrius ; do not over-
whelm me in the name of that morose religion which
never was mine. I believe in our old gods, who loved
life, youth, beauty, and pleasure. Do not plunge me back
into wan nothingness; let me enjoy the life which love
has restored to me."

"Silence, impious one; speak not of your gods that
are but fiends. Let go that man, enchained by your
impure seductions ; cease attracting him outside the
circle of his life measured out by God ; return into the
limbo of paganism with your Asiatic, Roman, and Greek
lovers. Young Christian, do thou abandon that larva,
which would seem to thee more hideous than the Empusae
and Phorcydes, if thou couldst see her such as she is."

Octavian, pale and frozen with horror, strove to
speak, but his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth.

" Will you obey, Arria ? " cried the tall old man,
imperiously.

" Never," replied Arria, her eyes flashing, her nos-

362

A RRIA MARCEL LA

trils dilated, her lips quivering, as she clasped Octavian
in her lovely statue-like arms, cold, hard, and rigid like
marble. Her proud beauty, exasperated by the strug-
gle, shone with supernal brilliancy at this supreme
moment, as if to leave to her young lover an unforget-
table remembrance.

" Well, then, evil one," replied the old man, " I shall
have to use serious measures and make your nothingness
palpable and visible to that fascinated youth."

Whereupon he uttered in a voice of command a
formula of exorcism that drove from Arria's cheeks the
rosy tints they owed to the black wine in the Myrrhine
cup.

At that moment the distant bell of one of the vil-
lages on the seashore, or of one of the hamlets nestling
in the folds of the mountain, sounded the angelic
Salutation.

As she heard it, an agonizing sigh broke from the
young woman. Octavian felt the arms that clasped
him grow limp. The draperies that covered her fell
back of themselves as if the contours that supported
them had disappeared, and the unfortunate nocturnal
wanderer saw by his side on the festal bed nothing bui
a handful of ashes and shapeless remains mingled with

3 6 3

ARRIA MARCELLA

calcined bones, among which gleamed bracelets and
golden jewels, such as must have been discovered when
the house of Arrius Diomedes was excavated. — He
uttered a terrible cry and swooned away. The old
man had disappeared, the sun was rising, and the hall,
so brilliantly adorned but a moment before, was now
only a dismal ruin.

After a heavy sleep caused by the libations of the
evening before, Max and Fabio awoke with a start, and
their first thought was to summon their companion,
whose room was near theirs, by one of those burlesque
rallying-cries which young fellows sometimes agree
upon when travelling. Octavian did not reply, for
excellent reasons. Fabio and Max, receiving no reply,
entered their friend's room, and perceived that he had
not slept in his bed at all. " He must have been un-
able to get back to his bed, and have gone to sleep in a
chair," said Fabio, " for he has not a very strong head,
and then probably went out early to work off the fumes
of the wine in the morning air."

"He had not drunk very much," added Max, reflect-
ively. " This seems rather strange to me. Let 's go
and find him."

3 6 4

ARRIA MARCELLA

The two friends, with the assistance of the guide,
traversed every street, every lane, every square and
place in Pompeii ; entered every curious house in
which they fancied Octavian might be copying a paint-
ing or an inscription, and finally found him senseless
on the disjoined mosaics of a small half-ruinous room.
They brought him to his senses with much difficulty.
When he had come to himself, he gave no other ex-
planation save that the fancy had occurred to him of
seeing Pompeii by moonlight, and that he had been
seized with a fit that would probably have no ill
results.

The little company returned to Naples by railway
as they had come, and that evening, in their box at
San Carlo, Max and Fabio watched through their
glasses a band of nymphs skipping around in a ballet,
supporting Ammalia Ferraris, the then popular dancer,
and who wore under their gauze skirts hideous drawers
of a monstrous green, that made them look like frogs
stung by a tarantula. Octavian, pale, his eyes dim,
with a look of weariness on his face, did not seem to
notice what was going on on the stage, so difficult was
it for him, after the marvellous adventure of the night,
to re-enter into the feeling of real life.

3 6 5

ARRIA MARCELLA

From that day Octavian became the victim of a
sombre melancholy which the high spirits and jokes of
his companions increased rather than relieved. The
image of Arria Marcella pursued him constantly, and
the sad ending of his fantastic love affair did not destroy
its charms. Unable to resist the desire, he returned
secretly to Pompeii, and again, as on the former occa-
sion, walked through the ruins by moonlight, his heart
rilled with insensate hope ; but the hallucination was
not renewed. He saw only the lizards fleeing over the
stones, and heard only the calls of the terrified night-
birds. He did not meet his friend Rufus Holconius ;
Tyche's slender hand did not rest on his arm j and
Arria Marcella obstinately remained dust.

As a last resort Octavian recently married a young
and lovely English girl, who is madly in love with him.
He has turned out a perfect husband, and yet Helen,
with that secret instinct of the heart that cannot be de-
ceived, feels that her husband is in love with some one
else — but with whom ? The most active spying has
failed to give her any information. Octavian does not
keep a ballet-girl, and in society he pays ladies merely
commonplace compliments. He even received very
coolly the marked advances of a Russian princess, fa-

366

ARRIA MARCELLA

mous for her beauty and her coquetry. A secret drawer,
which the suspicious Helen opened during her husband's
absence, furnished no proof of infidelity. But then it
would never have occurred to her to be jealous of Arria
Marcella, daughter of Arrius Diomedes, a freedman of
Tiberius.

3 6 7

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Contents

INTRODUCTION ........ 3

THE QUARTETTE . « 13

THE MUMMY'S FOOT .... "325

THE QUARTETTE
Introduction

IT is probably impossible for the present genera-
tion of Europeans, and certainly for Ameri-
cans, to understand the passionate devotion felt
by Frenchmen, towards the latter part of the
first half of the nineteenth century for the great
Napoleon. While it is true that millions of the
French had breathed easier when he fell at Waterloo,
and the end of the long years of war that had sent
the best, the flower, of French youth to fall on foreign
and home battle-fields had come, there occurred before
long a tremendous reaction in favour of the Emperor.
Several causes contributed to this : in the first place,
the victory of Waterloo brought in its train invasion
and armed occupancy of the territory ; then the
Bourbons, restored by foreign arms, exhibited the
most absolute unintelligence of the changed condi-
tions of the country and of society ; further, the
exile of the fallen Emperor to Saint Helena, while

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THE QUARTETTE

quite justified by considerations of policy and human-
ity, aroused the deepest irritation in every French
breast that still conserved the feeling of national pride
and devotion to the man who had so long incarnated
the military glory of a people ever fond of war and
signally victorious on so many different fields and in
so many diverse countries. These feelings became all
the stronger as time passed and the recollections of
the fearful sufferings that Napoleon had caused passed
away, as all such recollections will pass. There then
sprang up a Napoleonic legend, to which poets, his-
torians, dramatists, painters, singers, politicians all con-
tributed in turns or together. Napoleon became the
incarnation of triumphant France, and men recalled
with swelling breasts that under him the nation had
dictated terms of peace to the sovereigns of Europe
in the capital of each of them. The glorious epic
of so many years' duration excited and inflamed all
imaginations, and the genuineness of the sufferings
of the illustrious captive lent an additional glamour
to the memory of him that was so sedulously culti-
vated. Beranger's songs were on all lips; Hugo,
who, in his first poems, had heaped obloquy upon
" the tyrant," changed his views and ere long became

4; 4; 4; 4; 4; £ 4» 4; 4; 4j 4* 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4; 4. 4* 4* 4* £ dbtfc

INTRODUCTION

an almost fanatical worshipper of the great warrior.
The tide set more and more strongly in favour of
the lost leader, and the French were ready to acclaim
again any one bearing the name of Napoleon, — a
name that was indeed one to conjure with, as was
shortly afterwards proved.

When Louis-Philippe obtained leave to bring back
to France the ashes of the dead Emperor, and sent the
Prince de Joinville with a frigate to Saint Helena, the
whole of France was in an indescribable state of fer-
ment and excitement. The translation of the remains
from the lone islet in the Atlantic to the superb rest-
ing-place prepared for them under the Dome of the
Invalides on the Champ de Mars, was the signal for
an outburst of patriotic and military fervour that has
perhaps never been equalled, and certainly never sur-
passed in France. It was on this occasion that
Victor Hugo wrote his magnificent " The Return of
the Emperor," three stanzas from which may here
be quoted, as expressing the very thoughts that led
Gautier to the selection of the theme he has devel-
oped in " The Quartette," and which will, therefore
make the meaning of the tale plainer to the modern
reader : —

THE QUARTETTE

" Saint Helena ! — O lesson ! O fall ! Warning ! Agony !
England, her hate to satisfy her whole genius using,
In open day the great man 'gan to devour ;
And once again men beheld the Homeric sight :
The fetters, the rock burned by scorching Afric sun,
The Titan, — and the vulture !

"But now these tortures, that mighty sorrow,
The Punic rage, the rancour implacable
That made the Great Crucified bleed,
Th' affronts that smote every soul of pride,
Like deep vase wherein pours a fountain's stream,
Slowly the whole world with pity filled.

'* Pity from noble hearts springing ! Cry of the wide world !
These angered thee in thy shadow, thou British gaoler !
For admiration, with its sov'ran flame,
Hardens vile man and softens great souls.
Alas ! when weeps the brave, the coward laughs ; for fire
The mud doth dry, but melteth bronze."

Gautier started to write a sort of historical novel,
with just enough history in it to account for the choice
of the subject and to interest the French reader ; for
the tale was intended for home consumption, or at most
for perusal by the foes of England, who would willingly
enjoy abuse of the country that had saved Europe and
whose crowning triumph at Waterloo had not been

INTRODUCTION

altogether palatable even to the enemies of Napoleon.
Chauvinism, as the French term it, jingoism, as the
modern term is, was as rampant in 1848 as at the
present day, and the author who dexterously appealed
to it was sure of a large audience and of a ready sale
for his works.

But Gautier, while sufficiently chauvinistic in this
story to satisfy all but the most exacting fanatics of
Napoleonism, introduced a clever variation of the
theme in making the attempted rescue of the illustri-
ous captive the work of Englishmen instead of French-
men. By doing this, he laid heavier condemnation
upon England herself, since he showed, to the satis-
faction of the readers of la Presse, at least, that even in
perfidious Albion there were men as devoted admirers
of the Little Corporal as any that could be found
within the confines of fair France. This clever
artifice, for it is scarcely more, enabled Gautier to
indulge safely in the most extraordinary representation
of English life and manners, which no one can read
at the present day without a smile. But his object
was, not to represent the manners and customs of a
land he knew but slightly, — for his trips to London
had not been devoted to a serious observation of the

THE QUARTETTE

people, — it was to write a dramatically interesting
story that should move deeply the public to which
it was addressed ; a public that devoured it greedily,
since it flattered its vanity, and justified its admiration
for Napoleon and its hatred for Sir Hudson Lowe.

Neither probability, therefore, nor an accurate pic-
ture of English life and ways is to be looked for in this
story, which is more in the style of Balzac's famous
" History of the Thirteen " than in that of the mod-
ern historical novel. Most probably Gautier was
inspired both by that celebrated work and by his own
recollections of the Society of the Red Horse, of
which he has given an account in his study on Balzac,
and of which he was himself a member. Indeed,
his description of the junta to which de Volmerange,
Arundel, Daksha, and the other prominent characters
belonged, recalls at once both the formidable associa-
tion of which Ferragus was the head, and the less
redoubtable Red Horse. The adventures of the per-
sonages, the breaking of the matches at the very
church door and in the nuptial chamber, the mys-
terious brig, the underground passage to the Thames,
the Indian mutinv, the conspiracy for the liberation
of Napoleon and the setting of the Emperor on the

INTRODUCTION

throne of India, recall constantly the somewhat gran-
diloquent schemes that Balzac is fond of ascribing
to the men he sets moving in his vast " Comedie
humaine."

But if the reader is willing to take things for
granted, and to allow Gautier to have his own way,
he is sure to enjoy the extraordinary adventures and
the astounding complications which the author has
evolved for his entertainment. In other words, the
book is not to be taken seriously as an attempt to
produce a true historical novel, but merely as a bril-
liant emanation of the author's imagination.

" The Quartette " appeared in the columns of la
Presse, from September 20 to October 15, 1848, the
very year in which Louis-Philippe was being driven
from the throne, to be succeeded by Louis Napoleon,
first as President of the French Republic, and then as
Emperor of the French. It was published in book
form in 1851.

The Quartette

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THE QUJRTETTE

************************
I

THE pale November dawn, not yet very
wide-awake, was rubbing its eyes behind
a curtain of gray clouds, and already the
worthy innkeeper Geordie was standing
at the door of his hostel, his arms crossed as far as he
could over a vast paunch that testified most eloquently
to the excellence of the cookery at the Red Lion.
He had the perfectly satisfied air of an innkeeper who,
being the only one in the place, feels that he is mas-
ter of the situation and is not afraid that travellers will
escape him ; for at that time the Red Lion was the
only inn in Folkestone.

At the time of the story we are about to relate,
Folkestone was a little village, the yellow brick and
timbered houses of which rose irregularly on the slope
that leads from the summit of the cliff to the sea.
Geordie's house was one of the handsomest, if not the
handsomest, in the place. At the corner of the build-

THE QUARTETTE

ing, at the end of an elegantly twisted iron volute,
swung in the sea-breeze a red lion of tin, the paint on
which, owing to the salt mists of the ocean, had to be
frequently renewed. This having been recently done,
the sign glowed as brightly as a lion gules on a field or
in a manual of heraldry.

Geordie was thinking, but his thoughts were in no
wise poetical. He was calculating in his own mind
the profits of the preceding months. Geordie rea-
soned that if the increase kept up, he might in a short
time purchase the piece of ground which he coveted
and which cut so unpleasantly into his own land.

He had just got to this point, when a grim-looking
individual who had been standing before him for a few
moments past and whom he had not observed, owing to
his preoccupation, apparently thinking that there was
no other way of being noticed, slapped him on the
stomach in the way that thin, bony men like to do to
stout men, either through irony or facetiousness.

Angered by this familiarity in very bad taste, which
was peculiarly disagreeable to him and which he
scarcely put up with from his intimate friends and his
rich customers, Geordie sprang backwards with remark-
able agility for a man of his size, and seeing that his

THE QUARTETTE

aggressor was dressed in a way that did not betoken
wealth, he mentally reasoned thus : " This fellow will
at most eat a slice of beef and drink a pint of half-and-
half and a glass of whiskey, and yet he is as insolent as
a nobleman who has for supper a fine pullet washed
down with claret and champagne. I do not risk
losing more than a shilling and a few pence by speak-
ing plainly to him."

" Well, you brute, you fool, you ass, you ill-bred
dolt ! " cried Geordie, after the mental reasoning which
I have just transcribed. " Is that the way to enter
into conversation with well-bred people ? I am sorry
for those who brought you up."

" Don't get excited, my stout friend. Could I go
on standing before you, stuck like a post, until the
Day of Judgment ? I coughed three times and twice
called you by your name, Master Geordie; yet you
moved no more than a hogshead. I had to make
you feel my presence," answered in a sarcastic tone
free from fear and repentance the individual who had
just slapped the FalstafF-like paunch of the worthy
innkeeper.

"You might have drawn attention to yourself in a
more delicate way," returned Master Geordie, in a still

THE QUARTETTE

indignant tone, to which, however, the firm speech and
assured glance of the stranger had already imparted a
more timid inflection.

" Come, you hospitable elephant, clear your own
door if I am to pass and enter the coffee-room of the
Red Lion inn, the best one in Folkestone."

Master Geordie, who was well acquainted with
humankind and with the pitiful look which the con-
sciousness of an empty purse brings to a face, judged
from the coolness of the stranger and the freedom of
his manners that, notwithstanding his modest dress, he
was probably fairly well off and would call for a
bottle of French wine, or at least a cup of Canary
sack; so, temporarily sacrificing his dignity, he drew
back as well as he could and allowed his aggressor to
enter the house.

The coffee-room of the Red Lion, lighted by four
windows, the sashes of which hung on counterweights,
and which have been called guillotines since the inven-
tion of that philanthropic instrument, was divided into
several wooden boxes not unlike private rooms and
recalling the shape and arrangement of loose boxes in
stables : for an Englishman is so fond of being alone
that he feels uncomfortable in the sight of his kind,

££££££££££££££££££££££££

THE QUARTETTE

and has to establish a separation, a sort of home for
himself, even on the neutral ground of the common
room in a tavern. Between the two rows of boxes
ran a passage powdered with fine yellow sand, leading
to a splendid mahogany counter inlaid with brass
ornaments, on which shone rows of pewters and jugs
with polished metal covers that gleamed like silver.
Behind the counter was a narrow mirror in a wooden
frame, and within reach of the hostess's hand a number
of faucets at the end of pipes that led into as many
barrels of ale and other liquids in the cellar. A few
engravings of Hogarth's framed in black, and depict-
ing the disadvantages of some vice or another, — not
that of drunkenness, — completed the decoration of
this part of the room, which was, as it were, the altar
and sanctuary of the house.

Geordie went up to the counter, followed by his
guest, who did not appear dazzled by the splendour of
the place, and put to him, in a tone which the habit
of flattering clients seemed to make more markedly
obsequious than he intended, the usual question,
" What will your honour take ? "

" A post-chaise and four," answered the man, in the
quietest, most careless way possible.

1 17

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THE QUARTETTE

At this unexpected reply the owner of the Red Lion
assumed a supremely disdainful attitude. He drew him-
self up, threw back his head and said : —

" Sir, I do not like practical jokes any more than
practical jokers. You have already slapped me in a
way that I do not care to characterise beyond saying
that ' familiar ' and ' indecent ' do not seem to me too
strong. Notwithstanding this discourteous action of
yours, I have allowed you to enter this inn of the Red
Lion, known, I venture to say, the world over ; I have
brought you to this counter where are sold refreshing,
tonic, or spirituous drinks, as people may prefer ; I ask
you politely what your honour will take, and you
answer nonsense. 4 A post-chaise and four ' is a reply
which in no wise fits in with my question, and shows
a formal intention on your part to insult me."

"Not so fast, Master Geordie. You talk too much.
Do not get so heated. Just now you were merely
crimson, now you have become purple, and you will
soon turn blue. Be calm. I have never had the least
intention of offending so respectable an individual as
you appear to be. I am quite serious. As a matter of
fact, I need a carriage, — landau, victoria, post-chaise,
I don't care what it is, provided it is strong and runs

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THE QUARTETTE

easily. With the carriage I need horses, and as I like
to travel fast, I called for four, and of the best which
have eaten oats in your stables. There is nothing
very surprising in that."

The logic of this reasoning struck Master Geordie
as plausible enough, although the dress and appearance
of his customer still inspired him with a mistrust, which
the latter no doubt suspected, for he plunged his hand
in one of his pockets and drew out a fairly large bag,
which he threw into the air. As it fell it gave out a
metallic sound which, to the practised ear of Geordie,
revealed the perfect harmonv of guineas and sovereigns,
without any discord of silver or copper money. The
innkeeper, who until now had kept on his cap,
took it off and twisted it in his hands somewhat
shamefacedly, for he was rather troubled by the plain
speech he had used to a man with so well-filled a
purse ; but who could have suspected that a traveller
whose dress was of common stuff and vulgar cut was
so well off?

" For how many of these round yellow coins do you
propose to exchange one of your vehicles ? " said the
stranger, — whom I shall call Jack or John, for the
purpose of my story ; for, being an Englishman, he was

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THE QUARTETTE

bound to be called by one or the other of these names,

— as he spread a large number of coins in a semicircle
on the table.

" I could sell you cheap the two-seated chaise, but
it has a broken wheel and it would take some time to
mend it ; or the landau, if the rear spring were not
broken," said the hotel-keeper, rubbing his nose with
his finger, while with the other hand he held his elbow,

— an attitude which at all times sculptors and painters
have used to express perplexed meditation.

"Why," said Jack, "instead of these horrible,
broken-down traps, do you not at once propose to let
me have your olive-green double-seated travelling-
carriage lined with Lincoln-cloth, and provided with
such beautiful silk blinds ? "

" My olive-green travelling-carriage, which cost me
so much ? " cried Geordie, terrified at the proposal.
" What are you thinking of? "

" I am thinking of the carriage. The price is but
a small matter. If I pay more for it than you did,
you will no doubt consent to part with it ? " And as
he said these words, Jack, with a very lordly look, care-
lessly let fall by the other pieces a dozen guineas more,
so as to almost close the circle of gold.

THE Q U A R T E T T E

" He must be a nobleman in disguise," said the
innkeeper to himself, as he nodded in acquiescence
to the peremptory request of Jack. " No doubt on
these terms I would agree to part with it," he con-
tinued aloud ; " and when does vour honour need the
carriage ? "

"At once. Tell the postilion to dress and have the
horses put to as quickly as possible."

" Two minutes to bring out the carriage from the
carriage-house, ten minutes to harness the horses and
put them to, — that is twelve; three for Little John to
put on his jacket, get into his boots and put a new lash
to his whip; — that makes fifteen minutes, by which
time you will be driving along at the best speed in the
world."

" Fifteen minutes and not one more," said Jack, as
he drew from his fob a big silver watch, " or for every
minute you are late, I shall administer to your precious
corporation one of those slaps which put you in such a
temper."

In order to avoid this unpleasantness, Master Geordie
hurried out and gave the necessary orders. Then he
returned, and with his long habit of urging customers to
drink, asked Jack whether he would not take some-

THE QUARTETTE

thing while the carriage was being got ready. " Would
your honour like a glass of sherry, or port, or arrack
punch ? "

" Nothing at all, Master Geordie. Not that I
doubt the excellence of your cellar and your skilfulness
as a mixer of drinks."

" Do you happen to belong to a temperance society ? "
asked the innkeeper, astonished at such sobriety.

" I am not enough of a drunkard for that," an-
swered Jack, laughing, " nor do I need to listen to
Father Matthew's sermons, but I promised myself
not to drink to-day."

" A papist, no doubt," murmured Geordie to him-
self, such a promise seeming to him even more impru-
dent than Jephthah's vow. " Well, I shall drink this
glass to your health," added Geordie, very much
grieved at the thought that his customer would not
pledge him in return.

" I can watch a man drink without breaking my
word," said Jack, " and indeed it is the more merito-
rious on my part, since I resist temptation ; your wine
looks so good."

" Real liquid ruby, sir, and what a bouquet! Spring-
time violets have not a more exquisite scent," said the

THE QUARTETTE

innkeeper, melting into poetry and putting his glass
under Jack's nose.

Jack breathed in the aroma of the wine with a deep
inspiration, followed by an expiration that sounded like
a sigh. It seemed as though he would give way
before a wine the merits of which he appreciated so
thoroughly ; so Geordie put the neck of the bottle over
the edge of the other glass ; but Jack was a man of
character and firm will. He recovered himself at once
and putting before the eyes of the innkeeper his watch,
which pointed to fourteen and a half minutes, he out-
stretched his big hand, the shape of a mutton-ham,
with an air of sarcastic threat.

" There are thirty seconds left," cried Geordie, try-
ing to change the convex line of his paunch into a
concave line, — a difficult and indeed impossible feat.

The watch was just about to the mark the fifteenth
minute, and the pitiless Jack was balancing his hand to
give it more swing, while Geordie was defending his
corporation by crossing his arms in a more compli-
cated way than chaste Venus, when fortunately the
crack of Little John's whip and the sound of the
olive-green carriage emerging from the yard put an
end to the embarrassing and pathetic situation.

THE QUARTETTE

Jack let fall his hand and Geordie drew himself up
again. " I said fifteen minutes," he exclaimed with
the intoxication of satisfied punctuality.

"•Your paunch has had a narrow escape of it,"
said Jack as he got into the carriage and sat down
without the least hesitation upon the cloth cushions
of Lincoln-green.

u Which way, sir?" asked the postilion.

" First, out of the village, and then I shall tell you
the road you are to take," answered Jack, who no
doubt did not care to let Master Geordie and the few
idlers who had drawn together to witness the depart-
ure of the carriage know the real object of his trip.

After the village had been left behind, Little John,
turning round, said to Jack, " Shall I take the London
road, sir ? "

" No, my lad," replied Jack ; " drive along the
shore until I tell you to stop."

Little John, somewhat astonished, drove in that
direction, without, however, manifesting any surprise,
for Master Jack, although facetious at times, had, it
must be confessed, a very terrifying aspect. " No
doubt," said Little John to himself, " it is a run-away
match with some young lady, who, coming from a

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THE QUARTETTE

house, will pretend to look at the sea and sketch the
landscape, and then leap into the carriage. I rather
like elopements, for lovers who feel that they have got
parents or guardians at their heels generally pay very
handsomely. And yet this fellow does not look like a
lover."

They drove for some miles along the shore, on
which the sea was breaking in regular waves and
dragging down the pebbles polished by slow wear.
Not far from the highest steep of the cliff which
overlooks the ocean, Jack cried, " Stop ! " without
any apparent reason, for nowhere around could be
seen a house, a farm, a manor, or a road.

Jack left the carriage and walked towards the cliff,
which he ascended as easily as would a cat, a sailor, or
a smuggler, helping himself by the smallest projections,
clutching the clumps of fennel and broom which hung
here and there from the rough chin of the rock. He
soon reached the top, followed by the amazed glance
of Little John, who had not supposed it possible to get
there without a ladder or ropes.

When Jack reached the top, a man who was lying
on his stomach in such a way as not to be seen
from below, and who was looking through a telescope

THE QUARTETTE

towards the open sea, raised his head and said : " Ah !
is that you, Jack ? Is the carriage ready ? "
" Yes, and with four horses."

" That is right. The vessel is in sight. I can tell
it by the red-and-white pennant which is the signal
agreed upon between us."

Even with the naked eye might be seen on the
horizon, where the Channel opened out into the
ocean, a small white sail like a feather fallen from a
swan's wing upon the blue water.

" She has to beat to windward just now, but as soon
as she can free her sheets, she will fly over the waters
like a gull," continued the man lying down, still look-
ing through the telescope. "The wind is southwest,
— just what we want, and as good as if we had bought
it from a witch."

Stretching himself out by his companion, Jack took
the telescope and looked at the vessel, which was grad-
ually drawing nearer, the hull being already visible.
As soon as she freed her wind, great spaces of canvas
fell from the yards like white clouds.

" Ah, there he is, showing more canvas in one
minute than ten Spitalfield weavers could make in a
year ! " said Jack.

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THE QUARTETTE

As soon as she felt the wind, the vessel heeled over,
gracefully inclining her masts, as if in salute ; then
her sails shivered two or three times, and answering
the helm, she resumed her upright position, while a
double fringe of silvery foam flashed past her black
sides.

" What a lovely craft ! " cried Jack, carried away
by enthusiasm. " She must reel ofF the knots in great
fashion."

Apparently the crew of the ship did not share Jack's
ideas as to her speed, for the fore-top-gallant sail was
set and another jib showed beyond the two already
swelling in the breeze.

" Look, Macgill," said Jack, handing the telescope
to his companion; "they evidently don't want to lose
any of the wind. With all that canvas set, the devil
take me if she is not going fifteen knots ! "

Impelled by a fresh breeze, the ship came on so
rapidly that in a few minutes the telescope was no
longer needed to make out the details.

" Why, they are mad ! the captain must have drunk
a ton of punch ! " cried Jack and Macgill, on seeing
the lower stunsails set, the ends of the booms dipping
in the sea like the wings of a gull.

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" If they keep on," said Macgill, " they will lift her
from the water and make her fly in the air or turn her
keel up. She is a fine brig. Everything hangs on ;
not a mast is bending, not a rope is giving," he went
on admiringly.

" Never did a smuggler chased by a king's ship,
never did a merchant vessel laden with gold and
cochineal, harried by a corsair, fly at such speed. One
would think their lives depended on it, and yet I can-
not see another sail on the horizon."

" Captain Peppercull knows his business. If he is
pressing his ship, it is because he is in a hurry or well
paid. He would not run the risk for nothing of cap-
sizing or of bringing the whole business down about
his ears. He is not fond enough of water for that,"
said Jack, sententiously. " There is a good reason for
our having been sent here and my being told to pur-
chase a travelling-carriage from that accursed Geordie."

" Heaven forgive me, Jack ! they are setting the
sky-scrapers on every mast."

" There is not a sail now in the ' Lovely Jenny's '
locker big enough to make a handkerchief out of.
Every rag is set."

" Although, thank Heaven, I am not afraid of water,

THE QUARTETTE

externally, at least, I prefer at this moment to be on
this rock rather than on Captain PepperculPs deck."

Feeling the weight of the increased canvas, the masts
bent like bows, the cut-water disappeared almost en-
tirely under the pressure of the wind, and a great
shower of foam broke on the bows, like the shavings
that rise from the hole of a plane vigorously driven.

" He will carry away his masts by the board," said
Macgill, deeply interested.

Nothing gave way, however, and the ship, carried
along like a whirlwind, shot up close to the cliff.
Stripped in an instant of her sails, she stopped, showing
her fine and delicate rigging. A boat left the side of
the " Lovely Jenny " and in a few strokes brought to
shore a man who appeared a prey to the liveliest
impatience.

" Half an hour late ! " he murmured as he jumped
ashore, looking at his watch. " Where is the carriage ? "

Jack, who with Macgill, had come down from the
cliff, called the carriage up. When the new-comer
was installed in it, Little John repeated his question,
" Which way, your honour ? "

" To London, and as fast as you can. Three
guineas for yourself."

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The carriage went off like lightning, the wheels
blazing like those of Elijah's car. Alone with Macgill,
Jack formulated this ingenious apothegm : —

"There goes a gentleman who is fond of travelling
fast. It would have been a great pity if he had been
born a tortoise."

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LITTLE JOHN, carried away beyond all ex-
pression by the promise of a three-guinea tip,
caused his whip to perform a series of cracks
and explosions which resembled a musketry contest
between two armies, for he was a virtuoso in this sort
of music. The horses, exasperated by the cracking of
the fusilade, and also by the lash of the whip, which
in its vagabond arabesques caught them on the ears,
galloped at full speed and rushed through space with
mad ardour. The wheels turned so fast that they
seemed to have no spokes ; nothing could be seen of
them but rapid flashes.

The stranger had ensconced himself in a corner of
the carriage with the motionless resignation and the
concentrated fury of a powerful will that meets natural
and insurmountable obstacles, such as time and space.
In the palm of his hand, stretched out on his knee, he
held a watch, the hands of which he followed with a
restless gaze. Then, glancing out of the window at

3 1

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the sides of the road, he measured the speed with which
the trees vanished past the narrow pane.

" The half-hour lost will soon be made up if the
horses can keep up this pace for a little while longer,"
murmured the mysterious personage, with a sigh of
satisfaction.

The man who was in such a hurry to reach London
deserves to have his appearance described with a few
strokes of the pen. He was young ; his features were
regular and cold, but marked with the stamp of reflec-
tion and of will. He did not appear to be more than
twenty-six or twenty-seven years of age. The lower
portion of his face, coloured by successive layers of
tan, betokened numerous voyages or long sojourns in
the East and the warm regions of the tropics, for the
dark complexion was not his natural one. The brow,
partially uncovered and flecked with short curls of very
fine fair hair, had a satiny whiteness, and protected
from the heat of the sun by the shade of the hat, it
preserved all the brilliancy of Northern blood. Even
after this examination, it would have been difficult to
assign a particular rank or a distinct social position to
the individual sitting on the Lincoln-green cloth cush-
ions of Master Geordie's olive-green travelling-carriage.

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Geordie, indeed, would unquestionably have uttered the
most doleful lamentations on seeing the pace at which
Little John was driving his horses and his favourite
carriage.

The man was not a soldier. He had not the stiff-
ness, the carriage of the head, and the square shoulders
which make a son of Mars recognisable at a glance, even
in civilian dress. Nor was he a clergyman. His face,
though serious and thoughtful, had not the beatific
expression and the sugary softness characteristic of
churchmen. Nor was he a merchant. His white
brow was not marked by any wrinkles full of figures
and calculations as to the chances of a rise or fall
in sugar. Nor was he a dandy. But it might be
safely affirmed, on looking at him, that he was a per-
fect gentleman.

What was the urgent interest which made him gal-
lop along the London road as if the salvation of the
world depended on his not being a minute late ? Was
he running away from or pursuing any one ? I cannot
yet tell that.

The horses began to show signs of fatigue. The
rubbing of the harness made the perspiration break out
on them in flakes of white, foamy lather; their breasts

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were covered with silvery foam like that of the sea-
coursers in the triumphs of Neptune or Galatea.
Long jets of smoke issued from their nostrils, and, car-
ried away by the wind, mingled with the silvery vapour
that rose from their heaving sides. The carriage
rolled in a cloud, like the car of a classic divinity.

In spite of his great desire to earn the three guineas,
Little John felt some scruple at driving his animals
in this way, and the fear of bringing them back broken-
winded to Master Geordie combated for a time
his very natural desire to deserve the splendid tip.
Then Little John was an Englishman, and his postil-
ion's heart began to bleed as he saw Black, his favour-
ite horse, breathless and covered with sweat. A French
postilion would not have felt any such scruples. So, to
quiet his own conscience, Little John rose somewhat in
his saddle, made a half-turn towards the carriage, and
said, resting his hand upon the quarter of the horse he
rode : " Is it your lordship's intention to kill the horses
and to pay for them ? "

" Yes," replied the stranger.

" Very good," answered Little John ; " vour lord-
ship's desire shall be fulfilled." And settling himself
in his boots and his saddle, he struck his horse with

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THE QUARTETTE

the handle of his whip. The animal reared, and the
pain calling out the remains of his strength, he dashed
forward, carrying along the remainder of the team.
The desperate speed was kept up, thanks to an inces-
sant application of blows, which would have wearied a
less practised arm than Little John's.

The stranger's eye was still fixed upon his watch-
dial ; he paid no attention whatever to the rural land-
scape softly gilded by autumn, or to the pretty cottages
peeping in all the simplicity of their morning dress
through the trees, already losing their leaves, along the
roadside, and showed himself insensible to all the grace-
ful details of English nature. He assuredly cared very
little for picturesqueness, at that time, at least, although
he did not appear to belong to the thick-headed class of
Philistines and bourgeois. He was engrossed by the one
thought of reaching his destination.

Thanks to the additional impulse given to the speed
of the horses by Little John, henceforth reassured as
regarded all possibility of accidents, the eager traveller
seemed to breathe more freely, his brow cleared, and he
put his watch in his pocket.

" Come ! " he said to himself, " I shall get there in
time, in spite of the bad luck which, in all this busi-

THE QUARTETTE

ness, seems to have taken pleasure in upsetting my
plans. It shall not be said that my will had to yield
to human obstacles. And what a series of circum-
stances apparently combined on purpose to delay me !
The vessel which brings the first letter in which I am
informed of the matter, which interests me to such
a degree as to make me leave India suddenly, is met
near the Moldave Islands by Javanese pirates, who take
and strip it ; so it is only by the second mail that I
learn what it is so important for me to know. I char-
ter the fastest sailing-vessel which I can find in Calcutta,
and a frightful gale makes me lose eight days in the
straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. Half of my crew leave the
Ganges carrying away the germs of black cholera, and
die most unseasonably. In the Red Sea I find the
plague, and the Isthmus of Suez barred by a series of
quarantines. I write on a camel's hump a letter to
worthy Macgill which must have reached him all in
tatters, perfumed with vinegar and aromatic fumiga-
tions, tattooed with twenty colours like the skin of a
Caribbean, and transmitted with respectful terror by the
tongs of the health officers. At the risk of being shot
down I evade quarantines, — for, amazing to relate,
the plague was afraid of the cholera. Fortunately I

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find idling along the shore not far from Alexandria
worthy Captain Peppercull, a man without any prej-
udices, who is kind enough, in return for an im-
mense sum, to take me on board his ship and carry
me to England, carefully avoiding ports provided with
lazarettos. Never have I been so nervous as on that
accursed trip. I, who am usually so calm, was just
like an empty-headed chit who has the vapours because
her husband refuses to satisfy some unreasonable whim
of hers. Well, I shall soon reach my journey's end ;
my letter, which must have arrived a day or two be-
fore me, has given them time to get everything ready.
It is nine o'clock. In two hours more I shall be in
London."

" Well, postilion," he said, going on with his mono-
logue, as he lowered the window, " it seems to me that
we are slackening our pace."

" My lord, unless we had the griffin spoken of in
Scripture, or the car of fire of Elijah, we could not go
any faster. I challenge any postilion, even were he
paid six guineas, to get, no matter how hard he might
whip them up, any greater speed out of the legs of four
poor animals," majestically replied Little John, as he
turned round.

THE QUARTETTE

However, as a slight concession to the extravagant
desires of the traveller, Little John, who in his inter-
course with society had acquired fine manners, cracked
his whip two or three times; but, as he had foreseen,
the stimulus was now useless, and the lash, though laid
on to the withers of the horses, did not bring out a
single shiver of impatience or pain. Soon the near
leader, who was blowing like a blacksmith's bellows,
was covered with lather, his coat grew rough, his head
plunged forward, his hoofs lost the rhythm of the gal-
lop ; he staggered and leaned against his companion,
then fell on his side. The equipage, going at full speed
and unable to pull up at once, dragged the poor animal
for quite a distance, rolling up with his body the dust
of the road.

Little John, having stopped his horses, dragged at
the fallen animal bv the bridle and struck it energeti-
cally with the handle of his whip, believing that it had
merely stumbled and fallen, but Black was never to
carry travellers any more in this life. His flanks, wet
as if laved in water of the sky and of the sea, heaved
with a last convulsion ; he rose up in a delirium of
pain and made a few steps, dragging the carriage out
of the straight line. He looked like one of those phan-

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toms of wan, mutilated horses that rise from amid the
heaps of bodies on abandoned battle-fields. Overcome
by the ascendency and terror of approaching death
which they felt with a wonderful instinct, the other
horses, in spite of Little John's efforts, who dragged
at their bits, followed the staggering steps of their poor
comrade, a prey to the black intoxication of agony.
At the very moment when the carriage, completely out
of its course, was about to upset on the edge of the
road, Black rolled to the ground as if invisible knives
had hamstrung him ; his great, wild eyes grew dim
and were covered with a bluish film ; a mass of foam
filled his bloody nostrils, and he stretched out his legs,
that stiffened like posts. It was all over with Black,
a fine horse, worthy of a better fate.

The whole thing had occurred in less time than it
takes to write it.

The stranger sprang quickly from the carriage, his
face giving evidence of the most violent annoyance.

" This is the last straw," he said in an accent of
concentrated fury, as he kicked Black's body. " That
wretched brute lying on the ground like a piece of
black paper might at least have lived some ten minutes
longer. Come, be quick ! I can see the post-house

THE QUARTETTE

yonder ; make haste towards it." And the stranger
helped Little John, who had got down, in a way
that betokened his thorough familiarity with horses.
He undid the buckles without any hesitation, and dis-
entangled easily the complications of the harness tangled
by the desperate efforts of poor Black. The postilion,
at first scandalised by the little feeling which the
stranger showed for the dead horse, felt sincere admira-
tion, and bestowed upon him his esteem, a thing which
he was most chary of.

14 What a pity that you are a nobleman ! " he said
to the stranger. " You could have made a handsome
living in my business. But perhaps it is better for us
that you are a lord. Poor Black ! " he went on as he
took off the bridle, " who would have thought this
morning that you were eating your last measure of
oats ? This is a sad life ! " Such was Black's funeral
eulogy. If the orator lacked eloquence, at least he
did not want for feeling. A suspicious moisture
showed in his eyes, and if he had not just in time
carried to his eyes the worn cuff of his sleeve, a tear
might perhaps have rolled between his cheek chapped
by cold and his nose reddened by wine. Black's soul,
if anything survives in animals, must have felt satisfied

THE QUARTETTE

and forgiven Little John for the blows he might have
unjustly struck on the body it had once inhabited ; for
he did not lavish marks of tenderness, and he was the
most stoical postilion that ever threw a leg across a
saddle.

"Forward ! " cried the stranger, sharply.

Little John again bestrode his horse, and the carriage
rolled on, not so fast, but still at a pretty good rate.

The post-house was reached in a few moments and
the stranger, having plunged his hand into his pocket,
drew it out full of coins which he poured hastily into
the horny hand of the postilion.

" That is for your tip and your horse."

Little John, perfectly amazed, began a sentence of
thanks so complicated that he was compelled to give
up the attempt to finish it, and called out abruptly in
the midst of his splendid periods, as if seized with a
sudden inspiration, to the stable-boy who was mooning
around the carriage : —

" Hey, Smith ! throw a pail of water on the wheels.
They are heated and might take fire." Indeed a light
smoke was rising from the axles and showed that Little
John's fear was in no wise chimerical.

The lout, as he saw the axles smoking, said :

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4 Why ! that is true. You must have driven rather
fast to-day, Little John, for without offence to you,
your carriage, and your horses, it is a long time since
you have had hot axles. Is your gentleman generous? "

" As generous as the lord mayor on the day he is
installed. But if he is liberal, he is also very short-
tempered, so you had better make haste."

Smith rapidly hastened to plunge the pail into a stone
trough, and lavishly poured water upon the axles.
Meanwhile the hostlers, as prompt as they were clever,
had harnessed four fresh, spirited and vigorous horses,
the postilion was in his saddle, and a well mounted courier
had gone on ahead to order relays. Jack, better versed
in matters of the sea than in travelling by land, had
neglected to take this precaution. Master Geordie's
carriage started again as if carried away by hippogriffs.

As he led back his horses, Little John could not
help stopping for a few minutes by the body of Black
stretched out on the road.

" Alas ! " said the postilion, u he was a willing horse,
— that was the cause of his death. He pulled the whole
team. You will never die like that, you idlers and
sloths," he added, as he made his whip light upon the
fat, dappled quarters of the survivors, which replied to

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THE QUARTETTE

this morality by a few kicks. " There is no fear of
your ever breaking down your nervous systems."

In order to be done with the interesting Little John
and to follow as we please our stranger on his mad
course, let us add that this fellow, honest and conscien-
tious in his own way, gave Master Geordie half the
sum which he had received from the stranger as the
price of Black ; less virtuous postilions might have kept
two-thirds for themselves.

No remarkable incidents marked the other stages.
Master Geordie's carriage rolled with steady velocity
over the wonderful English roads, smooth as billiard
tables and better kept than the roads in our royal parks.
Already on the horizon showed the vast pall of smoke
that always overhangs the city of London. The sight
of it gave greater pleasure to the traveller than the most
splendid Venetian azure.

" Oh ! there is the smoke of that old devil's kettle,"
said the stranger, as he rubbed his hands with an air of
deep satisfaction. " We are getting along."

The cottages and houses, at first scattered, were now
in denser masses, streets began to run into the road,
the high chimney-stacks of the works, like Egyptian
obelisks, rose in the heavens and belched their

THE QUARTETTE

black smoke into the gray mist ; the pointed spire of
Trinity Church, the squat belfry of St. Olave's, the
sombre tower of Saint Saviour's with its four finials,
mingled with the forest of chimney-pots, over which
they soared with the same superiority as a celestial
thought soars above terrestrial things and interests.
Farther on, behind this foreground with its irregular
outline due to the angles of the buildings, showed
vaguely, through the bluish mist which floated over the
river and the complicated spars and rigging of the ships,
the outline of the Tower of London and the gigantic
dome of Saint Paul's, a British imitation of Saint Peter's
at Rome, which, its contours softened by the mist,
showed rather well on the horizon. Whether the
prospect was familiar to him, or whether pre-occupa-
tion had killed curiosity, the stranger merely glanced at
the objects seen in succession through the window, in
order to assure himself of the distance he had traversed.

The carriage crossed Southwark Bridge, making as
much noise with its wheels as the chariot on the
Salmonean brazen bridge, then entered, on the other
side of the river coming up towards the Strand, the
labyrinth of narrow streets which border the Thames,
and stopped at the end of one of those passages known

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THE QUARTETTE

in London by the name of lanes, in the neighbourhood
of Saint Margaret's Church.

The stranger drew out his watch and seemed relieved
of a great weight, — the hands pointed to eleven. He
had come sixty miles in three hours. He cast on Saint
Margaret's a glance of satisfaction, then resolutely
entered the narrow lane, made darker by the shadow of
the church and the height of the houses.

Scarcely had he gone a few steps when a man
seemed to emerge from the wall against which he stood,
and from which he was scarcely distinguished, owing
to the dark colour of his garments. He advanced
towards the stranger.

" You have come from yonder for what you know ? "
he murmured as he passed near him.

" Yes, I am recommended by Macgill, Jack, and Cap-
tain Peppercull," replied the stranger in the same tone.

" Follow me. All is ready."

They walked to an ill-looking house whence they
were no doubt being watched from within, for the door
was at once noiselessly opened and closed.

While Master Geordie's olive-green travelling-car-
riage was travelling along the London road with the

THE QUARTETTE

terrific impetuosity we have described, the " Lovely
Jenny " had not remained idle either. After having
taken on board Macgill and Jack, she had continued on
her way driven by a pretty breeze. Shakespeare's
Cliff" having been rounded, she had passed Deal and
Dover, and following the line of white cliffs, had
reached Ramsgate. Then, entering the river, she had
stopped opposite Gravesend at nightfall, and had an-
chored behind the flotilla of Hull colliers, the black
sails of which might have caused Theseus' father to
die of grief. And there, with her debonair and peace-
ful look, she would have been taken for a respectable
ship waiting for the tide to get up to London Bridge
and land at the Custom House a most legitimate cargo.
Yet her two lofty masts, her square yards, the fine lines
of her hull, in which carrying power had been sacrificed
to speed, gave to the " Lovely Jenny," in spite of her
hypocritical appearance, a saucy, fly-away look which
is not to be seen in vessels whose sole business is to
carry molasses. On the other hand, however, no
master could have shown more satisfactory papers than
Captain Peppercull.

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THE QUARTETTE

LTHOUGH the house before which I have

J— ^ taken my reader is by no means of an en-
gaging appearance, I hope he will not object
to precede the stranger and his guide, and to enter it
with me.

Externally it had nothing particularly repulsive, and
looked very much like the other houses on the street.
However, its narrow facade, compressed by the neigh-
bouring buildings, which were wider, had an air of
constraint, like a rascal who finds himself in good com-
pany. By the side of the ruddy, healthy faces of the
neighbouring buildings, the brick of the walls, of an
unhealthy yellow, gave the impression of the wan, un-
pleasant face of a debauchee. This house, for fear of
squinting or being blind of one eye, had blinded itself
altogether. Every window was closed, and in order
to avoid reciprocity, nothing looked out of the house
into the street. As is usual in London, a small
area provided with a railing separated it from the

III

THE QUARTETTE

street. The railing, covered with the imperceptible
coal dust which the English sky is constantly rain-
ing down, was as black as the balustrade around a
tomb, and betokened on the part of the owner or the
tenant utter carelessness of comfort or cleanliness, —
that is, if the house were usually inhabited, for nothing
in it revealed the presence of man. No smoke rose
from the chimneys, and the brass bell-knob, covered
with dust and verdigris, did not appear to have been
touched for a long time ; there was nothing living on
the sleepy, gloomy, rain-washed walls.

If an attentive observer had studied the extraor-
dinary aspect of the house, — the front of which, on
account of the narrow breadth, admitted of only two
windows and one room on each story, including the
staircase, — he would have understood that the facade
masked another edifice situated at some distance from
the street and which was reached through this one ; for
the edges of the stone steps, worn and sunk in the
centre, testified to more frequent traffic than the mean-
ness of the place would have led one to suppose.

The door, in fact, opened into a long, dark, damp
passageway through which fetid, icy-cold air, rarely
renewed, circulated with difficulty. It was like the

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atmosphere of a tomb, a cellar, or a dungeon. The
walls of the narrow passage were polished about the
height of a man by the continuous rubbing of greasy
hands groping their way through the darkness. The
floor was covered with a layer of mud, sticky in some
places, hard in others, testifying to the coming and
going of a great number of muddy feet. A few steps
from the door the scanty light that filtered in through
the dirty panes of the fan-light died away. One had to
proceed then for a considerable space in the deepest
darkness. It was probable that the passage was made
through thick walls and could receive no light even by
loopholes. Perhaps even in certain places it passed
under-ground, judging from the water which made its
way through the stones.

A man following this passage for the first time
would very soon be thrown out of his reckoning by
the numerous turns, and could not possibly make out
in what direction he was proceeding. The stranger,
preceded by the queer individual in the drab clothes,
walked with a firm but prudent step, lifting up one
foot only when he had got the other firmly placed ; not
that he had to fear any ambush or any trap, since the
guide walked in front of him, but he felt that vague ap-

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prehension inspired in the bravest of men by darkness
and chill under a low vault between two narrow walls.
Instinctively his hands sought under his cloak whether
his two small pocket pistols were in their places.

At a great distance, in the obscurity, a few reddish
rays began to show, indicating a lighted room, the
beams filtering through the joints of an ill-closed door.
The guide uttered a curious sound, evidently a signal
agreed upon ; the sound of bolts being drawn was
heard within, and the door, opened slightly, suddenly
shed into the dark passage a red rush of light.

Using my privilege as a novelist, I shall penetrate
before the stranger into the strange place where he
seemed expected ; although in truth, it was impossible
to guess what kind of relations could exist between this
young man with the fine, noble face and the curious
dwellers within that den.

It was a rather large room, in which the eye was
first attracted by a chimneypiece of ancient form, in
which burned in a grate a very bright fire of coal,
the brilliant reflections of which illumined the room ;
for the wretched light coming in through the window,
the lower panes of which were carefully whitened, and
which opened upon one of those sombre wells that

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are called yards in great cities, counted for nothing.
The two window-panes left clean showed only awn-
ings and roofs covered with tiles of an ugly red,
chimney-pots, and black hoardings, — in a word, the
whole of the interior wretchedness of a mean, ignoble
building.

The walls, the lower part of which had been bared
by the constant rubbing of shoulders, preserved in the
upper portion some traces of a wash of a dark red tone
like dried blood. On this background the customers
of the place had, while waiting or while idle, engraved
with a nail or a knife innumerable drawings and ara-
besques of the most fanciful description ; the white lines
stood out like the outlines on Etruscan vases, and gave
proof of as pure and as primitive an art. The favour-
ite theme of these unknown artists, the one most fre-
quently reproduced amid the ornamental fantasies, was,
it must be confessed, a gallows adorned with its fruits.
Did this choice betray habitual preoccupation, or was it
due to the pretty effect produced by the three uprights
of the English gibbet united at the top by crossbeams
forming a triangle, the picturesque silhouette of which
attracted the artists ? That is a difficult question to
answer.

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The drawings, though coarse, were remarkable at
least for technical accuracy and fidelity. In spite of
the barbarous drawing and the monstrous anatomical
license indulged in, the movements and attitudes of the
small figures represented as hung had a striking truth-
fulness which the most advanced art does not alwavs
attain. The running knots were well placed, and it
was plain that they had been drawn by assiduous spec-
tators of the Tyburn stage. These grotesque sketches,
drawn with hideous joviality, made one laugh and
tremble.

Numerous drawings, sections and elevations of New-
gate, alternated with this pleasant subject ; these, though
lacking in architectural correctness, betrayed at least a
thorough knowledge and a very clear remembrance of
the place. Heads of smokers with the most bizarre
profiles faced crowned lions and other apocalyptic
beasts; vessels more fantastic than those of Delia
Bella rose and fell on impossible seas. All these
things were drawn boldly, without much regard to
the neighbouring sketch. Dates, monograms, and let-
ters of the most amazing caligraphy complicated this
hideous breviary on which the only words legible were
" idleness," " vice," and " crime."

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Yet the decoration of the room had not been wholly
left to the fancy of chance artists; a more cultured art
was evident in the coloured woodcuts representing the
seven-branched candlestick, Susannah and the Elders,
the portrait of George III, the Return of the Prodigal
Son, the principal figures of boxing, the exploits of
Jack Sheppard and Jonathan Wild, the Cid and the
Bernardo del Carpio of the picaresque romancero, cock-
fights, matches between famous bulldogs, Epsom and
Newmarket races, etc.

The hot stifling atmosphere, full of miasma and coal
smoke, tobacco and the strong smell of whiskey, floated
through the room and proved that those who could put
up with it had very strong olfactory nerves. Yet the
three or four individuals who were in the place did not
seem to experience any annoyance from it ; on the
contrary, their dull, vulgar faces had an expression
of coarse comfort. They were dressed in black coats,
satin vests and round hats; but before these clothes had
reached them — having once perhaps belonged to Beau
Brummel — they had evidently performed many a pil-
grimage, and suffered many a misadventure. These
tattered garments, of a cloth once lustrous and of a cut
still elegant, and which in their degradation preserved

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something of the shape which their first fashionable
possessor had given to them, formed a sadly comical
caricature, a mute satirical poem full of raillery and
derision. One of the men, however, did not wear the
wretched fashionable costume. A red woollen shirt,
an oilskin coat, and a leather hat with a string for a
chin-strap formed his dress, — that of a sailorman. A
bold expression relieved the triviality and harshness of
his features, and in his eyes, of a blue as clear and cold
as that of the Polar ocean, shone a ray of intelligence.
The others, indeed, seemed to address him somewhat
deferentially, though he was leaning on the same table
and helping himself from the same jug of half-and-half.

" Well, Saunders," said one of the men in black
coats to the red-shirted sailor, " the time is approach-
ing when the gentleman for whom we are to work is
to come."

"Yes," shortly answered Saunders, who, while drink-
ing, was busy kneading in the palm of his hand some
black stuff" pressed between two pieces of cloth.

" Do you know the gentleman, Saunders ? " went
on the speaker.

" No," replied Saunders, who plainly was fond of
monosyllables.

THE QUARTETTE

" Ah ! " added, by way of closing the conversation
the black-coated man, as he leaned meditatively on the
table.

Saunders rose, and going towards the fire, held out
to the flame the dark substance, which he spread on
the piece of linen cut in the shape of a mask.

" Do you propose to disguise yourself, and to go
to the masked ball with Handsome Nancy ? " went on
the obstinate talker.

" I feel uncommonly like sticking this plaster on
your face and shutting up your mouth with it, you
unbearable talker," replied Saunders, with a growl as
fierce as that of a white bear worried on an ice-floe by
a whaleman's boat-hook. " Instead of questioning me,
go and lift the trap and see if the others have arrived."

Noll went to one corner of the room, removed a
trunk and a few packages, took hold of a ring in the
floor, and with the help of his comrade Bob, raised the
heavy trap-door. As it opened, a pufF of cold, damp
air blew into the room. Bob stiffening his arms, which,
though thin and skinny, were very vigorous, supported
the half-open trap-door. Kneeling on the edge of the
opening, Noll plunged his head within the abyss. The
bottom was so obscure that nothing could be made out,

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yet the strength and freshness of the current of air for-
bade the supposition that this trap was merely an open-
ing into a cellar. By listening attentively, one might
discern in the distance the low lipping of water.

" I hear nothing," said Noll, after listening for a few
moments ; " I shall give the signal." And he uttered
a modulated, guttural cry which sounded within the
recesses of the subterranean place, though nothing
answered save the echo.

" Never mind," said Saunders, " we don't need them
yet, and it is no great fun to have to wait under that
black vault. It will be dark early to-day," he con-
tinued mentally, looking towards the two bars through
which one might have perceived the heavens if the
fog, thicker and thicker, had not completely covered
them. "All the better, the job will be so much the
easier. Bob, is the dray ready, the one loaded with
goods, which is to obstruct the end of the lane to pre-
vent our being interrupted during our job ? "

" Yes, Master Saunders, Cuddy is by his horses, and
will make such a fine block that a ferret itself could
not get into the lane. He is a clever fellow. To see
him got up as he is, you would swear that he had
never done anything in his life but drive drays, though

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it is not his business," answered Bob, laughing and
apparently delighted with his own joke. "You will
be able to do your work as if you were in a wood or
on a desert shore."

" You are too clever by half, Bob," answered
Saunders ; " you won't live to the day of your death.
You look out."

While this was going on in the room adorned with the
marvellous drawings which I have described, a narrow,
light, fish-like yawl pulled by four oarsmen who seemed
worked by mechanism, so mathematically synchronous
were all their movements, was ascending the Thames
without appearing to mind the roughness of the sea and
the tidal eddies. The oars struck the water without
a single splash, and opened and closed as easily as
a pretty woman's fan. Although the fog, still thick-
ening, made steering difficult and increased the
chances of collision among the lines of ships that
formed a floating city below London Bridge, the yawl
slipped rapidly between the obstacles with incredible
skill and speed. She seemed to carry at her bows, so
great was her divining sensibility, the tentacles which
make certain insects foresee objects, and which are, as
it were, the eyes of the sense of touch.

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When it had passed London Bridge, the enormous
arches of which showed in great black masses against
a gray sky, forming a Martyn-like effect which the
English call Babylonian, and found itself in a less
crowded reach, it flew along with increased speed.
It was capable, apparently, of ascending a weir or a
cascade like a trout.

Soon it passed, one after the other, Southwark
and Blackfriars Bridges, and hugging the shore more
closely, it ran past the Temple and the Temple
Gardens ; shaving Somerset House, it slipped under
Waterloo Bridge by the arch nearest the bank, drew
to the side, and disappeared within a low arch half
masked by the projections of the buildings in the
centre of which it was cut. A few laden barges
were moored around, and the building, of brick and
timber, so far as one could make out in the mist,
looked like a warehouse.

The boat shot in under the low vault, which ex-
tended much farther than might have been supposed,
as a sudden turn not far from the entrance cleverly
concealed its depth. After a few minutes of careful
rowing, the men unshipped their oars, and one of
them, groping for a ring made fast to the wall, found

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THE QUARTETTE

it, drew the painter through it, and made the boat fast.
Then, one after another they leaped on to the lower step,
half covered with water, of a stair which their knowl-
edge of the place made them find at once in spite of
the deep darkness in which they were plunged. An
iron grating which one of the seamen opened, closed
the passage at this spot.

The stair, after rising thirty steps, ended in a ceil-
ing which the first man struck pretty hard with his
head.

" The devil take it ! " he said, " I did n't count
right and missed one step as I came up. The conse-
quence is I have got a bump on my forehead. Fortu-
nately, my skull is hard."

" Well, Snuff, what has hit you ? What are you
cursing about there like an old papist woman spelling
her beads, instead of knocking on the floor and giving
the signal ? Do you think it is fun for us behind you
on this stair which is steeper than the ladder of a
gibbet ? "

" I shall knock on the ceiling and call out at the
same time."

A low knock was soon heard through the passage
followed by a prolonged yell.

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" Who is that below the floor ? " said Saunders,
starting at the well-known sound and stamping with
his heel on the trap. " Quiet, you old mole, I am
coming," he added, turning to his own use the speech
of Hamlet to the shadow, for Saunders had recently
seen at Drury Lane Theatre this play of old Shake-
speare's, which had made a deep impression on his
coarse but poetic nature.

The trap-door was opened, and, thrown back on its
hinges, gave passage out of the damp abyss to four
fellows who, if they did not look quite respectable, bore
at least on their weather-beaten faces a significantly
astute and bold expression indicative of energetic
qualities applied perhaps to other than lawful ends.

" Is there any gin or whiskey left ? " cried the first
man who set foot on the floor, and who at once pro-
ceeded to the table to ascertain whether a drop of the
precious liquors still remained.

" Oh ! " said the next one, " when Noll and Bob
are seated opposite each other for fifteen minutes with
a bottle between them, the poor little thing soon dies
of consumption."

" Don't worry, SnufF," answered Noll, drawing a
full bottle from a corner. " Beelzebub himself would

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lick his lips if he tasted this. It is pure vitriol, liquid
fire, undiluted by anything soft. I wonder if you are
like me. The longer I live, the weaker I think
gin."

" That is the way of life, old fellow. The longer
you go, the more you lose your illusions. We have
all believed that gin was strong. What fools we are
when we are young," moaned Snuff, as he poured
himself out a bumper of blue ruin.

The conversation had got so far when the stranger
and his guide, having first made the signal agreed upon,
entered the room. The stranger cast a quick glance
at the worthy rascals, who involuntarily looked down,
except Saunders, whose face showed fiercer among the
others. There was in him the stuff of a criminal; the
others were capable of misdemeanours only ; he was
a pirate; the others nothing more than thieves. The
stranger, with the quickness of a cultivated mind,
guessed that the least ignoble in the company was
Saunders. With a single glance he made him the
chief, and it was to him that he addressed himself.

" Has everything been prepared according to the
plan agreed upon ? " said the stranger, in a calm,
imperative tone.

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" Yes, my lord, we merely await your good pleas-
ure," answered Saunders, politely, but with no ser-
vility.

" Good. The time to act has come."

" All right," said Noll to Bob ; " go and tell Cuddy
to enter the lane with his dray."

Bob went out, after having tried to polish up his
hairless beaver, for he said a man must always en-
deavour to look as if he were a man of the world.
Saunders arranged his pitch mask in the palm of his
huge hand and prepared to follow him.

" The man with whom I shall be chatting when I
enter the lane is the one you have to carry off," said
the stranger; « but above all, be neither violent nor
brutal to him."

" You may rest assured of that, my lord. The gen-
tleman will be handled as delicately as a box marked
4 fragile,' " replied Noll with all a smuggler's conceit.

The men went out one after another, to avoid sus-
picion, and loafed in the most natural fashion into the
deserted lane. The stranger went on by himself
towards Saint Margaret's Church.

THE QUARTETTE
IV

USING my privilege as a novelist, I shall pass
without any transition from the sombre den
I have just described to an elegant residence
in the West End. This digression, far from taking
us away from our story, brings us back to it. The
scene is very different, but it is not because I have
sought a contrast.

Miss Annabel Vyvyan's maid had just put the
finishing touches to her bridal dress, and, by way of
final precaution, was fixing with another pin, passed
through the thick braid of brown hair on Annabel's
head, a long veil of English point-lace which fell in
transparent folds over the white wedding-dress. Mary
and Susan, the two other maids, when they saw the
veil at last adjusted, took two candles that were burn-
ing on the table, and held them up so that their young
mistress might conveniently see herself in the mirror;
for although it was nearly eleven in the forenoon,
scarcely did a faint ray of light penetrate through the

6 3

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windows and curtains. A yellow, thick, choking fog,
such as is not unusual in London, weighed down upon
the city and prolonged through the day the shadows
of night.

The head which, illumined by the sudden radiance
of light, was reflected as if surrounded by an aureole
upon the dark background of the mirror, was of a
beauty in no wise inferior to the purest creations of
Greek art. The most striking thing about that divine
face was the milky, marble-like, dazzling, luminous
whiteness, in which the features showed with the trans-
parency and delicacy of Oriental alabaster. Although
it is a habit of young brides about to proceed to the
altar to blush a rosy red, Annabel's cheeks were
scarcely coloured bv a faint, rosy flush like that which
colours the heart of a white rose. The blue blood of
aristocracy veined her delicate flesh, a hothouse flower
which neither wind nor rain had ever fallen upon, a
fine pulp composed of exquisite juices and pure ele-
ments in which plebeian rusticity had no share what-
ever. Freedom from material cares, the refinements
of hereditary luxury, the perfect comfort of life, the
living in vast apartments and in country-seats with
great shady parks traversed by running waters, joined

'•4

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to the purity of the race, often bring beauty to unimagin-
able perfection. The living marble in which are
carved these beautiful bodies has no rival in the world
for its brilliancy, its fineness, and the transparency of
the grain. The quarries of the human Paros and Pen-
telicus are found in ancient Albion, so called rather on
account of its women than of its cliffs. Annabel was
the fairest maid in that swans' nest anchored in
mid-ocean.

Two delicate black eyebrows met at the root of the
nose, — which a slight aquiline inflection made more
noble than a Greek nose, without depriving it of any
portion of its exquisite form, — and crowned two eyes
of an intense, warm brown, the pupils of which floated
on a crystal limpidly blue. Lips of a bright red
showed like a carnation in her pallor, which became
all the more marked and striking on that account.
Down Annabel's lovely cheeks fell two soft, silky lus-
trous curls which she twisted around her finger. In
giving this last touch to her toilet she showed a hand
of charming shape, narrow, somewhat long, with slen-
der fingers ending in polished nails brilliant as jade,
and of irreproachable aristocratic purity. Such hands,
that drive to despair the new-made rich, are the product

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of centuries of elegant life and are transmitted like
diamonds from generation to generation.

Apparently, Annabel was satisfied with her looks,
for a faint smile flitted over her serious face, and turn-
ing towards Fanny she said in a voice as harmonious
as music : " Fanny, you have surpassed yourself to-day.
I really do not look badly."

" You are not difficult to dress, Miss — for I may
still call you so. You become your gowns so well."

" You flatterer ! What o'clock is it ? "

"Just eleven," answered Fanny, after having glanced
at a clock inlaid with mother-of-pearl and standing
upon a pedestal.

" Eleven o'clock already, and my aunt Lady Eleanor
Braybrooke has not arrived ! "

" I think," replied Fanny, " that I hear a carriage
stopping at the door. It must be Lady Eleanor."

A thunder of raps sounded in the lower part of the
house as Fanny ended, betokening the arrival of an
important personage. A few minutes later a powdered,
silk-stockinged footman announced, as he raised the
portiere : —

" Lady Eleanor Braybrooke."

A majestic, stiff-looking woman, of that age politely

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called a certain age, entered the room with such
automatic stiffness that her thick silk dress did not
undulate in the least. She seemed to be moved by
internal wheels and to be advancing on little brass
casters like the dolls which a concealed mechanism
drives around a table. The corselet which moulded
her charms, developed by the stoutness of her fourth
youth, would have warded off a lance-thrust as surely
as Milanese mail, so well reinforced was it with whale-
bone, steel, and other compressive materials. How in
the world the lady had managed to get herself into that
sheath is a mystery of her toilet which I shall respect,
but she must have undergone a pressure of forty atmos-
pheres to attain the result.

Her broad, square face was diapered with all the
colours of an eruption. Her cheeks flamed, her nose
was almost like a live coal, her very brow was red.
Her incandescent face was framed in by hair of a
British auburn fiercely curled, and resembling filaments
of vegetable silks rather than human hair. Her ex-
pression would have been almost coarse but for two
eyes of a hard, cold steel-gray which relieved the
commonplaceness by their disdainful and imperative
look. That glance of hers stamped her as a great

THE QUARTETTE

lady, a woman in high life, in spite of the heaviness of
her shape and the brilliancy of her complexion.

Lady Eleanor Braybrooke was a widow, and acted
as chaperon to her niece, Miss Annabel Vyvyan, who
when quite young had been left an orphan and absolute
mistress of a large fortune. In the important ceremony
which was about to take place, Lady Eleanor Bray-
brooke was to act the part of the mother.

Miss Annabel was about to be married, although
not very romantically, no obstacle having come in the
way, to a charming young fellow, Sir Benedict Arun-
del, who loved her and whom she had been in love
with for nearly a year. He was young and handsome,
noble and rich ; the match was entirely suitable in
every respect, since the bride possessed precisely the
same qualities.

" Look, aunt ! what a horrid fog ! " said Miss
Annabel, turning her lovely eyes to the window.

" At the beginning of November that is not astonish-
ing," replied Lady Eleanor.

" No doubt. But I should have liked for this day,
the loveliest in my life, an azure sky, a bright sun, the
perfumes of flowers and the songs of birds."

" My dear, if you have a room with good hangings,

THE QUARTETTE

plenty of tapers, a bright fire in the grate, a bottle of
scent and an Erard piano you can dispense with all
these things. I never trouble about the weather, for
my own part."

"You are always practical, aunt."

" And you always poetic, my niece."

" 1 wish nature shared our feelings more. The sad-
ness of the heavens weighs down on my happy soul."

" My dear child, if God at your request were
suddenly to remove the fog, the splendour of the sun-
shine might perhaps strike some suffering heart as
ironical."

" That is true, aunt, but I cannot help being a little
nervous this morning."

"Well, Sir Benedict Arundel will soon relieve you
of that," answered Lady Eleanor Braybrooke, with the
equivocal, wrinkled smile people of her age are too
fond of indulging in.

The sound of a carriage was heard under the window,
and very soon Sir Benedict Arundel appeared.

He was dressed quietly and plainly, with that ex-
quisite perfection characteristic of the perfect gentle-
man, which never draws the eye, and the secret of
which the English alone possess. He had avoided the

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almost insurmountable ridicule of wedding garments,
and yet his costume was such as became the solemnity
of the occasion. In accordance with the custom of
the day, he wore neither beard, moustache, nor royal,
nor any of the ornaments which bristle upon the faces
of men on the continent. His smooth, polished face
was surrounded by dark-brown whiskers, carefullv
curled, which an artist fond of the picturesque might
have thought too regular, but which would certainly
have obtained the approval of the late Brummel and
Count d'Orsay. He had the Antinoiis features, some-
what long and cold, which the great families of Eng-
land often exhibit, and his head looked like a copy of that
of some Greek god made by Westmacott or Chantrev.
It was impossible to imagine a better-matched pair.

The cloud on Annabel's brow vanished at the sight
of her betrothed ; the blue eyes of Benedict were azure
enough for any heaven. A pure joy illumined the
charming face of the young girl, as she held out her
hand to Benedict, who kissed it. Lady Eleanor Bray-
brooke's gray eyes sparkled at the picture, that no
doubt recalled a similar scene in which she had played
a part, but so long ago that it certainly required an
excellent memory to remember it.

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" That is just the way we were," she whispered to
herself, " dear Sir George Alan Braybrooke and I, some
twenty years ago or so."

The " or so " was rather enigmatical, but Lady
Eleanor did not care to state more accurately, even
to herself, any date which might have given the exact
number of her years. That mental comparison would
have occurred to no one but the good lady, for when
young she had not even the devil's beauty, and Sir
George Alan Braybrooke, tall, thin, stiff, bony, with a
square chin, a nose like Wellington's and a square-cut
mouth, had never resembled, even in the days when
he was a lover, the elegant Benedict Arundel.

" Come, children, it is time to go," went on Lady
Eleanor. " The chaplain has no doubt already put on
his surplice, and the guests are arriving in numbers."
She entered her carriage with Annabel, and Benedict
took a seat in his own with William Bawtry, a friend
of his.

The coachmen, powdered and beribboned, wearing
huge bouquets, their scarlet faces made more crimson
still by numerous libations to the health of the future
pair and their descendants, took up the reins with an
incomparably grand air, clucked their tongues, touched

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up their horses, and the procession started for the
church. The sun had made useless efforts to dispel
the fog brought down by the west wind upon the city
of London, and its pale, rayless orb scarcely indicated
its place in the heavens by a livid spot liker the face
of a sick man than the brilliant star of day. The gas
lamps, still lighted, gave out beams almost immediately
swallowed up by the fog. At a short distance the
various objects, showing faint, assumed strange, fan-
tastic forms. The carriages loomed like leviathans
and behemoths, the passers-by like giant phantoms ;
the sombre walls of the buildings assumed the appear-
ance of Babel, and it took all the skill of the coachmen
not to lose their way through the opaque air in which
sonorous vibrations were deadened and which seemed
to have covered the streets with a pall of clouds.

The church where the wedding was to take place
was Saint Margaret's, a building in the Norman-Gothic
style, with a square tower, great buttresses, and a huge
quatrefoiled window. The building was lugubrious to
look at, with its walls black as ebony ; the mouldings,
washed by the rain, always appeared to be covered with
snow. It rose in the centre of a graveyard without any
verdure and strewn with tombs, the shape of which,

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faintly recalling that of a body, had a sinister and
horrible look. A railing, which the coal-dust given out
by the hundred thousand chimneys of London made
more sooty than the air-holes of hell, surrounded this
God's acre, made more gloomy still by the near bustle
of the city. The high tower rose with its crown of
invisible finials in the fog and seemed to have been cut
off. The porch, sombre and smoky like an oven,
opened its wide gates, looking like the mouth of an ore
or some other huge animal breathing vapour out of its
nostrils. The fog which filled the great nave seemed
to be the breath of the architectural monster. Un-
questionably, without being superstitious, a young
couple might very well, at the sight of this lugubrious
church, entertain some doubts as to their future hap-
piness. One shuddered unavoidably on entering this
church darker than Erebus, and within the depths of
which shone no beam of light, no star of hope. Cer-
tainly it would have been unjust to ask of an old and
wretched Protestant church in London, at the end of
September on a foggy day, the bright and happy look
of an antique temple with its white columns showing
against the blue of an Athenian sky ; but the truth is
that that morning Saint Margaret's looked more like a

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sepulchral vault prepared for the reception of the dead
than a church in which a loving couple was to be
married.

" Well," said Sir William Bawtry to his friend Sir
Benedict Arundel in their carriage, " so it is true that
you are going to be married at twenty-four, in the
flower of your age, when so long a life of pleasure and
enjoyment was still open to you ! "

"At twenty-four, — you are right, dear William.
Marriage is a piece of folly which one should not
commit save when young."

" I am quite of your opinion, and besides, Annabel
justifies your prompt resolution ; but when we were
together at Cambridge no one would have ventured to
predict that you would be the first of our jolly band to
be caught in the trap of wedlock."

While Sir William Bawtry and Sir Benedict Arun-
del were thus chatting as they drove to the Church of
Saint Margaret, a man who had left the neighbouring
street slipped under the sombre porch and stood against
the wall between two pillars like the stone statue of a
saint. He wore a broad-brimmed hat pulled down over
his eyes, and the end of his travelling-cloak thrown
over his shoulder concealed the lower part of his face.

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What was visible of his features appeared to be tanned
by the sun of other climes.

After a few moments of dreamy motionlessness he
freed one of his hands from the folds of his cloak, and
pulling out a large flat watch, he said to himself :
" This is the hour, they will soon come." And he
put back the watch into his pocket. Of whom were
these words, murmured with a strange accent, spoken ?

The carriages, turning the corner of the street, now
arrived before the porch of the church. Then the
man, whom my readers have already recognized as the
eager traveller, threw back his cloak and seemed to take
a firmer stand, like one approaching a supreme crisis.

The steps of the carriage were lowered. Annabel,
leaning slightly on Benedict's hand, was about to de-
scend and enter the porch, when the stranger, having
bowed deeply to the bride, touched Arundel's arm.
The latter turned around abruptly, astonished at such
an interruption at such a time, for, as he was turning
his back to the church, he had not seen the man with
the mantle coming forward.

" Sidney ! " cried Benedict, on recovering from his
first amazement.

" In person," replied gravely the man thus addressed.

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" And I, who accused you of indifference! And so
you have come from India to be present at my wed-
ding ! That is why you did not reply to my letters,
— you wanted to give me the pleasure of a surprise."

" Benedict, I have a single word to say to you, and
it is for that I have come."

" Well, you can tell me presently. I shall introduce
you to my wife, — and indeed, you are already pre-
sented to her. Lady Arundel, Sir Arthur Sidney."

" No, I must speak to you at once and alone, if but
for a moment."

There was something so firm in Sidney's look and
so imperious an accent in his voice that Benedict hesi-
tatingly let fall Annabel's hand and drew towards his
friend.

K Your ladyship will be kind enough to pardon my
insisting," said Sidney, seizing Benedict's arm with a
smile of affected grace. " I have but a word to say to
him." And he drew Benedict to the corner of the
church at the entrance to the little street that leads up
one side of it.

Annabel had sat down by her aunt, Lady Eleanor
Braybrooke, who grumbled at this untimely inter-
ruption.

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" Most improper, to turn up from India in that
way, to intercept a bridegroom at the very threshold
of the church ! A nice time he has chosen to talk his
nonsense ! "

" Sir Arthur Sidney is an eccentric man who never
does anything like any one else," replied Annabel.
" Benedict has often told me how queer he is."
' " But a well-bred man ought not to have any eccen-
tric friends," replied Lady Braybrooke, in the most
majestically disdainful tone.

Annabel smiled at her aunt's proud indignation.

" I should not," continued the dowager, whose face
had turned crimson, — " I should not have allowed Sir
George Alan Braybrooke to leave me at the moment
of leading me to the altar, were it for the empire of
the world. But the word which Mr. Sidney had to
say seems to be pretty long."

Lady Braybrooke's reflection had already occurred to
Annabel, for she put her head, crowned with virginal
flowers, out of the window of the carriage to see if
Benedict had returned. But no one yet appeared at
the corner of the church, the most distant point to
which the fog allowed the glance to reach. The posi-
tion was becoming singularly ridiculous.

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Helped by Sir William Bawtry, Annabel and Lady
Braybrooke got out of the carriage and took shelter
under the porch. Sir William offered to notify
Benedict and Sidney of the impropriety of such a
conversation prolonged so long.

The guests, already astonished, surrounded Miss
Vy vyan, and advised her to enter the nave ; the pas-
sers-by were beginning to look with surprise at the
beautiful girl dressed in white, a bride without a groom,
standing under the dark porch.

As she entered the church, Annabel felt on her
shoulders, scarcely covered by the thin lace veil, a
damp, cloister-like chill; she seemed to be enveloped
forever in the cold of the convent and the sepulchre.
She had a presentiment that she was passing from light
into shadow, from bustle into silence, from life into
death. She thought she felt breaking within her the
spring of her life.

Sir William Bawtry returned pale, thunder-struck,
not knowing which way to look. He had traversed
in all its length the lane entered by Benedict and Sid-
ney, had been round the church and had examined
every spot, but Benedict and Sidney had disappeared.

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AT about the same time when Annabel was
finishing dressing, in another London house
another young girl was also putting on, but
slowly and as if regretfully, her white wedding-robes.

She was beautiful and extremely pale ; faint violet
lines showed upon her eyelids and gave proof of tears
recently shed, the traces of which the corner of her
handkerchief, dipped in fresh water, had not caused to
disappear completely. Her drawn mouth tried to smile,
but the corners of her lips turned up with an effort
only to draw down again with pain. Short, painful
breathing made her bosom heave, and when the maid
approached to place upon her brow the wreath of
orange flowers, a slight flush coloured her pale cheeks.

Miss Edith Harley looked more like a victim being
prepared for sacrifice than a maiden going to the altar
to freely pledge her love and faith. Yet Edith was not
the victim of stern parents : neither a barbarous father
nor an ill-tempered mother compelled her choice. Her

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lovely, delicate hand was not being forcibly put into
the gouty hand of an obscene and abominable old man.
The man whom she was about to marry, Lord de Vol-
merange, was young, handsome, charming, and of an
excellent family ; in a word, all that the most practical
parents and the most romantic girl could wish. Edith
had even appeared to accept willingly the attentions of
Count de Volmerange, and in the interviews which had
preceded their betrothal, her eyes had often turned
towards the young lord with an indefinable expression
of melancholy and love ; though usually his presence
threw her into a state of agitation and anxiety visible
only to an observer, and which did not agree with cer-
tain glances full of fire, strange in a young girl other-
wise apparently so modest.

Did she hate or did she love de Volmerange ? That
was a mystery difficult to solve. If she did not love
him, why did she marry him ? If she did love him,
why was she so pale, weeping, and cast down ? An
only child, worshipped by her father and mother, she
had but to say a word to have the marriage broken off'.
Why should she not say it ? Any man of her choice
would have been accepted by Lord Harley and his
wife, for, having no other desire than to make their

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daughter happy, no prejudices of caste could have
induced them to force her inclinations ; they would
have accepted a poet even.

When Edith's maids had done their work, which
was delayed by the uneasiness and the preoccupation of
the girl, who unwillingly yielded herself up to them,
she signed that she was tired and wished to remain
alone for a few moments.

As soon as the women had withdrawn, a slight knock,
which might have been mistaken for the sound made
behind the hangings by the insect vulgarly called the
death beetle, as it strikes the wall with its antennae to
call its female, sounded in the corner of the room in a
place where was a condemned door. On hearing the
sound, evidently a signal, Edith started as if she had
not been forewarned. A look of deep anxiety darkened
her face, and she rose abruptly from the arm-chair in
which she had thrown herself. A second knock
sounded a little louder, though yet low.

Presently the young girl staggered towards the door,
pressing her hands to her heart, the beating of which
stifled her.

A third, sharp, imperious knock, in which annoyance
prevailed over the fear of being heard by any one else

6 81

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than Edith, testified to the impatience of the mysteri-
ous visitor.

Poor Edith moved away a small piece of furniture
which half masked the false door, and drew the bolts
with a trembling hand. A key, working from outside,
sounded in the lock, and the leaf, half opened and
at once closed, gave passage to a man who was not
Count de Volmerange.

The man who so singularly and so secretly entered
the room of a maiden who in a few hours was to be
another's wife, had a face which at first it would have
been difficult to characterise. His slightly olive com-
plexion with its mat tone brought out two singularly
mobile eyes, the expression of which was purposely
deadened. His mouth was well shaped, but the thin,
closely compressed lips seemed to preserve a secret,
and the lower lip, frequently bitten, betokened re-
pressed impulses and necessary restraint accepted by
the will, but not by the blood. The nose, too thin in
outline, too pointed in spite of its good shape, gave an
astute expression to the rest of the face. It was a
head in which no defect could be found, which one
was inclined to say was handsome, but which yet pro-
duced an unaccountably repellent effect. It attracted

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and repelled at one and the same time by a sort of
dangerous grace, of troublous charm. The colours
which shine brightly upon a bird's wing assume, on
the spotted skin of a serpent, without losing any of their
brilliancy, an evil, venomous tint which is beautiful but
terrifying. The man to whom Miss Edith had just
opened a door closed to every one had the beauty of the
viper and the grace of the tiger. It would have been
difficult to tell his age. His smooth brow had none of the
wrinkles, none of the marks made by years on a human
face ; he might have been a mere youth but for his icy
coldness and lack of spontaneity, signs of dissimulation
long practised. His was not a face, it was a mask.

His dress was black and neutral brown, quietly
elegant, not drawing the eye by any detail and leaving
no impression on the memory.

There was a moment of painful silence. Edith,
embarrassed, seemed to wait until the stranger should
speak, but the latter did not appear disposed to save
her the trouble. His attitude was respectful rather by
habit than from real deference, and he cast straight at
the girl a masterful glance.

" So you persist," said Edith, making an effort, " in
wishing me to be Count de Volmerange's wife ? "

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" I shall certainly not change my intention now.
The wedding is more necessary than ever."

"And yet you know that it is impossible."

"It is so absolutely impossible that in two hours it
will have taken place."

" Listen, Xavier, there is still time. Do not force
me to act a lie before God and man. I can throw
myself at my parents' feet, confess everything, and
obtain forgiveness for myself — and you. My crime
is great, but their indulgence is boundless."

"You shall not do it. I would give you the lie."

" Even if I took all the blame on myself? "

" I should maintain that I was always a stranger to
you."

" But I have proofs that can confound you," cried
Edith indignantly, as she hastened to a small box, the
concealed bottom of which she opened.

" You think so, do you," answered Xavier, with an
ironical smile playing over his thin lips.

With a convulsive hand Edith rummaged violently
in the box, from which she withdrew some papers that,
by the way they were folded, seemed to be letters.
She opened one and cast it down. It was blank ; a
second and a third were the same; then she dropped

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the parcel and her arms fell by her side. Every trace
of writing had disappeared ; the letters were now simply
plain sheets of paper.

" Happily your ink, Miss Edith, was intended to last
longer than mine. The precious characters traced by
your" lovely hand are quite visible on the letters which
you condescended to write to me."

" Xavier, there is in all this a riddle which I cannot
read. I am young and beautiful ; you have told me so
in more ways than did the serpent to Eve. The one
fault I have committed was for your sake. You alone
have the right to consider me innocent. My fortune
is great, my family bears one of the most honoured
names in England and has never been disgraced by any
one but me. This unsuspected stain you can wash
away with a word. You have no other resources than
those of your education, which makes you worthy of a
rank far higher than that which you now occupy. If
you marry me, a new world will open before you :
you shall pass from darkness into light, your life will
broaden out ; you will be able to use in a great sphere
the talents you possess. What has been a dream will
become a reasonable wish ; politics and diplomacy have
nothing too high for you."

8 5

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As Edith spoke, Xavier's pale face flushed, his eyes,
which he no longer deadened, flashed j he followed in
his mind the young girl into the regions which she
showed him as if to tempt him and to obtain from
ambition what she had failed to get from love. Once
indeed he seized Edith's hand, and grasped it firmly;
but the impulse was of short duration, the brilliancy of
his eyes died out, over his face spread again the gloomy
look which concealed the emotions of his soul, and he
went on in an icy tone : —

" You shall marry Count de Volmerange."

" Your refusal, which I fail to understand, can have
but one cause. In that case there is no remedy for
my misfortune. Perhaps you have already a wife in
France."

" No," replied Xavier, in a strange tone, " neither
in France nor elsewhere. I am a bachelor."

Edith, who until then had supplicated him, rose and
with the most dignified and majestic air said to the
young man : " It is not through love for you that I
have so earnestly entreated you. You fascinated me,
but I have never loved you. You acted on me as a
philter or a poison might do, and I am no more guilty
than if a potion had robbed me of my senses. I have

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never loved you, thank God ! I am proud of it. It
is my one consolation. My eyes, blinded for one
moment, were quickly opened. When I heard the
true eloquence of the heart, when I saw the heaven's
light shining in a true man's look, I saw at once that I
had been the prey and the sport of a demon, and I
loved Count de Volmerange as much as I hated you,
I esteemed him as highly as I despised you. Yes,
I love him madly, with all the strength of my heart
and soul," added Miss Edith Harley, insisting cruelly,
as she saw Xavier's pale face turning green ; " and I
desired to spare him the shame of marrying a girl
whom you have soiled. But I shall tell him every-
thing ; he will forgive me and avenge me. And now,
sir, go, or I shall ring and have you thrown out of the
window ! " she cried in a tone which betokened the
revolt of her aristocratic blood.

As she said these words, she advanced one step, and
Xavier, as if blasted by the blaze of indignation that
flashed from Edith's eyes, staggered back through the
door, which closed violently upon him. The last
glance of the wretch was like that of the serpent
which feels the lion's claw in its back. Edith shot
the bolts, put back the furniture, and the sound of

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Xavier's steps died away on the stairs as Lord and
Lady Harley entered the room.

Anger had brought back the colour of life to Edith's
cheeks, and the fire of indignation had concealed every
trace of tears in her burning eyes. The calm of a
supreme resolve smoothed her brow. So Lady Harlev,
as she drew her daughter to her heart, said to her
caressingly : —

" My dear Edith, I am delighted to see that you
have overcome the sadness in which you were plunged.
I was afraid this marriage was repugnant to you, and
that a vain fear of breaking your word at the last
moment alone induced you to carry it out. I would
not have a single worldly consideration compromise
the happiness of your life, and although Lord Harley
finds in Count de Volmerange every quality which one
could desire in a son-in-law, he has come with me to
tell you not to bind yourself by a marriage which has
so greatly troubled and distressed you. When I
was about to wed your dear father, I felt nothing
of the kind. The deepest confidence and the most
celestial serenity, the calmest and most penetrating
joy, filled my soul. These must be the feelings of
a girl when she is about to be married to him whom

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she is to accompany to the tomb and to meet in
the next life."

" Mother," answered Edith, kissing Lady Harley,
"and you, dearest and most honoured father, I thank
you with deep gratitude for what you have just said.
I cannot tell you how deeply I am touched by these
proofs of your love. Your anxiety is unfounded. Pray
be reassured ; your choice is mine. Like you, I think
Count de Volmerange high-bred, full of the noblest
and most generous feelings, of perfect elegance and
thorough grace. I firmly believe that if a man can
make any woman on earth happy, he is the one."
But Edith could not quite restrain a sigh, which
disagreed with the words she uttered and seemed
to indicate regret rather than hope.

"I love Count de Volmerange," she went on; "I
can say that before you, my dear parents, at the
moment of going to the altar. The tears I have
shed, the sadness in which I have indulged, are no
more than the melancholy fit of a nervous child,
whose only real grief is that of leaving you."

" So much the better for us, dear Edith. I feared
that a secret aversion inspired your tears and your
sighs."

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" Kiss me, father," said the girl, holding out her
brow to Lord Harley, who drew her to his breast.
Then she took her mother's hand and bent over it
with deep emotion. A few stifled sobs escaped her,
but when she raised her face she had resumed her
calm expression.

Count de Volmerange was announced.

He was a young fellow of twenty-five or twenty-six,
whose handsome face at once attracted by its curious
charm. He was born at Chandernagore, of a French
father and an Indian mother, and united in himself the
qualities of the two races. His eyes, of the purest
blue, were shaded by very long black lashes and sur-
mounted by ebony brows clearly marked on a forehead
of mat pallor. This contrast imparted a singular grace
to his face. The blue glance, showing between the
sombre fringes, had a sad, soft tone which the strength
of the neighbouring tones prevented from being femi-
nine. When a lively emotion moved him, his eyes,
made brighter by the warm tints of the eyelids, seemed
to be illumined, and turned from sapphire to turquoise.
This discord in tone, agreeable though it was, and
which a colourist painter would have studied with love,
imparted a fatal and supernatural look to his handsome

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face. Some of the dreamy, sinister angels of Albert
Diirer have that same glance, vast as the heaven, deep
as the sea, in which every form of melancholy seems
to have melted into a drop of azure water. Although
peace of the soul, frankness and kindness breathed in
that face, no artist, having to paint happiness, would
have taken it for a model.

; Count de Volmerange was tall, and although slight,
was endowed with uncommon strength. Though his
figure was aristocratically elegant, the breadth of his
chest and the muscles of his arms, which showed under
the cloth of his sleeves, betokened athletic vigour. His
robust nature, improved by the breeding and the perfect
style of a gentleman, was possessed of extreme grace,
the grace of strength.

The party left for the church, which happened to be
that very Church of Saint Margaret in Palace Yard
under the porch of which Miss Annabel Vyvyan, pale
as an alabaster statue upon a tomb, was awaiting her
bridegroom. Edith's veil touched Annabel's shoulder
as she passed. As for Volmerange, perfectly happy,
he did not even cast a glance at the unhappv girl wait-
ing on the threshold of the church and trying to look
into the fog ; yet two fates had just passed each other.

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Annabel, thinking of no one but Benedict, paid not the
least attention to this incident. A prey to her anxiety,
embarrassed by her peculiar situation, she did not notice
either Edith or Volmerange. No shudder warned
them.

Edith and Volmerange entered the dark church, and
the ceremony took place to the sound of the gusts of
wind which moaned through the shadowy naves and
made the doors slam. The fog was turning into rain,
and great drops, driven by the wind, struck against the
yellow panes of the huge Protestant windows ; a pale
light, dimmed constantly by the blasts of the tempest,
lighted with its sinister gleams the wedding couple, the
priest, and the spectators. The surplice looked like a
shroud, and the clergyman as livid as a spectre, or a
necromancer performing a spell. The sacred gestures
were like cabalistic signs, and the kneeling pair seemed
rather to be praying on a tomb than to be bending
happy and joyous, to receive the marriage blessing.
Near the door in the distance was seen a white shape
surrounded by black coats, who seemed to be kept to
the threshold of the church by an infernal power, like
an unhappy soul driven from Paradise by an angel. A
feeling of overwhelming sadness filled the spectators ; a

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vague presentiment of misfortune beat with bat-like
wings upon every brow ; an icy, penetrating cold which
chilled the very marrow within the bones, a cold like
that of a cellar, a sepulchre, or a prison, made the
guests shudder, and added to the painful impression.
The least superstitious, in spite of their incredulity,
could not help thinking to themselves : " This is not
a very auspicious wedding. If it turns out well, we
shall have to confess that happiness has sometimes
very sad omens."

The only one who did not feel any of these external
impressions was Volmerange. He worshipped Edith,
and if the day on which he received her hand in his
had been filled with lightning and thunder, clouds and
water-spouts, it would have appeared to him pure and
serene. What matter the winds of heaven and the
fogs of earth, when a man bears sunshine in his heart
and the heavens in his soul ?

As the couple left the church, a meanly dressed man
of humble mien, who might have been taken for a
poor beggar or a solicitor speculating upon the happi-
ness which leads a man to make others happy, held
out to Count de Volmerange a sealed envelope appar-
ently containing a few papers, — a petition, no doubt,

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with certificates in support of it. Volmerange took
the envelope with a careless hand and put it in
his pocket without looking at the man who proffered
it. Edith, at the sight of him, shuddered but said
nothing.

It was written above that no marriage should be
happily celebrated that day in the Church of Saint
Margaret.

Sir Benedict Arundel had disappeared. And towards
the middle of the night in the nuptial chamber of
Volmerange and Edith, a deep, painful moan had
sounded in the silence of the house. Some of the
servants had heard it, but no one had dared to seek to
penetrate, without being called, into the mysteries of
the marriage chamber. Only, the next morning, as
no sound was heard in the room, as no ring of the bell
was heard and it was already past noon, they ventured
to open the door.

The room was empty.

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LADY ELEANOR BRAYBROOKE, raging
and exasperated, looked apoplectic enough to
fill her heirs and collaterals with hope had
they seen her at that moment. She was unable to
keep still, and formed the greatest contrast to the
pallor and motionlessness of Annabel. She was like
a red-hot coal by the side of a snowflake, and the
wonder was that the nearness of her blazing face did
not make Annabel's white one melt.

" I cannot understand it," said Sir William Bawtry.
" I cannot even form the most absurd conjecture about
this disappearance."

" I can think of a reason," answered the choleric
Lady Braybrooke. " Benedict Arundel is the lowest of
wretches. But we cannot remain here forever, stuck
like statues. Let us return to your home, my niece."
She took Annabel's arm and led her to the carriage.
When Annabel, until then sunk in mute stupor,
found herself alone with her aunt, she gave way to a

THE QUARTETTE

hysterical fit, her lovely features were contracted,
violent sobs broke out, and if abundant tears had not
flowed from her eyes, she would have died of grief.

" The loss of fifty thousand Arundels is not worth
one of those pearls which flow from your eyes, my
darling," said Lady Eleanor, as she tried to calm Miss
Vyvyan. " I told you that a well-bred man would not
leave his bride at the door of the church to speak to
a friend. Sir George Alan Braybrooke would never
have indulged in such a piece of rudeness. Who can
this Sidney be ? The brother, I suppose, of some
creature whom that wretch Arundel had seduced, and
who was waiting in some neighbouring tavern with her
baby in her arms."

" Sidney has no sister, aunt ; Sir Benedict told me
so several times," replied Annabel to Lady Braybrooke ;
" so your supposition is unfounded. Besides, Sir
Benedict Arundel is incapable — "

" Oh, nonsense ! you girls always have excuses for
these handsome-whiskered gentlemen, who look at the
moon when they talk to you of an evening. Your
Benedict was poetical and a poet. I have always
detested such people, — one never knows which way
to take them. They have unintelligible ways of look-

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THE QUARTETTE

ing at things, and a sort of reversed logic which makes
them do the very thing that no one expects them to do.
They imagine absurd happiness, and fancy they are
suffering from chimerical misfortunes. What is needed
in marriage is a practical mind. Sir George Alan
Braybrooke — "

" But, aunt, suppose he has been the victim of a plot.
Suppose he has fallen into a trap — "

" Nonsense ! a plot in London in broad daylight, a
few steps from a file of carriages and a whole crowd of
footmen and policemen ! "

" If Benedict has not returned, it is because he is
dead," replied Annabel, stifling a sigh in her handker'
chief, which she had wetted with her tears.

For a few moments the girl was overwhelmed by
convulsive sobs.

" Come, come ! " said Lady Eleanor, troubled by
Annabel's despair. " Because a bridegroom disappears
for some more or less mysterious reason, it does not
follow that he is no longer on this earth."

" Oh, I am sure, aunt, I shall never see him again.
I feel a presentiment that I shall not. He is forever
lost to me."

" Oh, nonsense ! What do you mean by presenti-

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ments ? I have never had any. That may do in
Scotland, the country of second sight, but in London, in
the West End, people do not foresee the future."

" But the church had such a gloomy look ; I shud-
dered as I crossed the threshold."

" That is simply the effect of its age and of coal, a
mere Gothic phantasmagoria. If you had chosen the
new church at Hanover Square, imitated from the Par-
thenon and painted white, in which all the best people
are married, you would not have felt that prophetic
effect, and your future would nevertheless have been
the same."

" Your reasoning is cruel, aunt, but I feel that a bru-
tal hand has just blotted on the book of fate the page
on which his future life and mine were written."

" But, instead of seeking supernatural explanations,
I must say, even if I am to pain you, that there are
more plausible motives, — love for another — "

" How can you think so, aunt ? In that case, I
should prefer that he should be dead. Sir Benedict
Arundel is incapable of falsehood and treason. His
lips speak what his heart thinks, and his heart is in
accord with his eyes. Besides, is it possible to
deceive ? Then why should he have done it ? Has

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he not a great name, is he not as rich as I am, and
as young ? "

" And as handsome, you may add. The two of you
formed a lovely couple," added Lady Eleanor Bray-
brooke, with a sigh ; for she could not help acknowledg-
ing the accuracy of Annabel's reasoning, and her anger
had begun to yield to genuine anxiety. She understood
that what she had taken for an impertinence might
well be a misfortune. Her complexion, hitherto violet,
now became purple, then crimson, and finally red,
which was comparatively pale for her.

In the course of a few minutes the carriage drew
up at the door, and Miss Annabel Vyvyan walked up
alone, sad and despairing, the stairs which an hour
before she had descended with joy in her heart, a smile
on her lips, and the tip of her white glove in the hand
of her well-beloved.

The surprise of her maids was extreme to see her
return thus, but Lady Braybrooke's remarks soon made
them aware of what had happened, and although, with
the reserve of English servants, they did not permit
themselves to ask any questions or to say anything
about the misfortune which had just befallen their
young mistress, it was plain that in the inferior sphere

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in which they moved, they shared her great and well-
grounded grief ; and they showed it by the change in
their faces and the careful manner in which they walked
about the room for fear of disturbing her. Miss Anna-
bel had thrown herself, half fainting, on a sofa opposite
the mirror in which but a moment since she had looked
at herself in her wedding-dress. If mirrors, in spite of
their inconstancy, had the least feeling for the objects
which they reflect without preserving them, this one
would have been astonished and touched at reflecting,
so pale, so wan, and so despairing, the face that but
a few moments before had shone in the depths of its
burnished steel so fair, so fresh, so radiant with
happiness and hope.

Alas ! the pretty tea roses had lost their lovely tints,
and scarcely did the lips preserve a rosy touch almost
vanished. The living beauty had become a dead
beauty, and the statue animated with joy had turned
into an angel of melancholy weeping over a tomb.

The wedding bouquet and ornaments, of which
Annabel's distracted glance caught a glimpse in the
mirror, in their white freshness and their virginal
brilliancy, appeared to her an odious irony, a cruel
jeer.

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" Undress me," she said to her maids. " Of what
use are these wretched ornaments ? I am no longer a
bride, but a widow. Give me a black dress."

" There," cried Lady Eleanor, " is another romantic
idea. To wear black, — that is absurd. A brown
dress would suffice, for, after all, you are not married.
You will compromise yourself, Annabel, and it may
hurt you later. Benedict is not the only husband in
the world."

" So far as I am concerned, he is the only one."

" You talk like a love-sick girl. No love is irrep-
arable, everything can be made up, and one man is as
good as another, — you may believe my long experi-
ence," said Lady Eleanor, swelling out as, thanks to
the flattering sound of the word " experience " in such
matters, she risked the epithet " old " in order to give
more fulness to her periods and more authority to her
maxim.

On his part, poor William Bawtry, not knowing
what to think of so strange an occurrence, was travers-
ing the streets for the twentieth time with the stupid
obstinacy which is the result of incomprehensibility.
He hoped to find Sir Benedict by dint of going and
coming. He entered rapidly the few shops in the lane,

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and made the worthy dealers in West Indian goods,
the hospitable proprietors of oyster-houses and taverns,
repeat till they were tired that they had seen no one
pass by resembling the gentleman whose description
he gave. The police, on being questioned, said they
had seen no passer-by, no group of people at the time
when Sir Arundel disappeared ; that besides, the fog, so
thick at that moment, prevented any one seeing more
than three or four yards away; nevertheless, they had
heard no sound, no cries, no scuffling, had not noticed
the faintest signs of a struggle, and the gentleman
whom Sir William was looking for had no doubt gone
away of his own accord.

Where could he be sought for in so vast a city as
London, without any clue to guide investigators, who,
besides, would have to stop at the inviolable threshold
of an English home, in case the retreat which concealed
him could have been suspected? Nevertheless, Sir
William Bawtrv went to the police headquarters, where
he received a promise that the matter would be inquired
into ; and he sent through the city some fifty detectives
who walked up and down all sorts of unlikely streets,
and returned that evening, their shoes visibly worn and
with mud up to their necks, without, however, having

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found anything that could lead to the discovery of
Benedict or Sidney.

While walking towards Miss Annabel Vyvyan's
house, for the state of agitation in which he was, made
him prefer walking to driving, Sir William Bawtry, in a
monologue which the usual phlegm of the English did not
prevent his breaking in upon with gestures that would
have seemed eccentric if any one in London ever looked
at anybody else, asked himself a number of insoluble
questions about the event that had happened that morn-
ing. " What the devil ! " said Sir William to himself.
" Although we do deserve to a certain extent the repu-
tation of eccentricity which we enjoy on the continent,
my friend Benedict's act goes far beyond the bounds of
eccentricity. To drop on the threshold of the church
the handsomest girl in the three kingdoms is a savage
and abominable act. Benedict was unquestionably
madly in love with Miss Annabel. It was no caprice.
For the past year he had seen her almost every day, so
he had not taken fire unexpectedly. Miss Annabel's
soul is as lovely as her body; she is as beautiful within
as without. What can have so suddenly turned Bene-
dict against her ? Did he at the last moment discover
some hidden vice, some concealed offence in her? Yet

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in driving to church with me, he seemed radiant with
happiness, caressing dreams of the future, and not
having the slightest intention of running away. He
seemed to be ready to bow very gracefully to the yoke
of marriage, and no one could have foreseen that he
would so abruptly lay back his ears and bolt like a shy
colt. I suppose that at the moment of giving it up,
bachelor life appeared to him in the most attractive
colours ; or Sidney has told him about Miss Annabel
one of those terrible things which burn like a red-hot
iron and cut like an axe. But what could he have to
say about that pure, transparent life spent in a house of
glass, every hour of which can be accounted for, and in
which slander and calumny could not find the shadow of
a pretext ? What cool extravagance can Sidney have
proposed to him ? — a trip to the Arctic, a tiger or black-
panther hunt in his Java domains ? That would be
madness, and Benedict is not mad ; and unless Sidney
has taken him away with him and put him in his
pocket, I can make nothing of it. "

At this moment a happy thought occurred to Sir
William Bawtry.

14 Suppose I were to go to Sidney's house in Pall
Mall, the one he lived in before he left for India."

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The windows of the house were closed and every-
thing indicated that no one had lived there for a long
time. William lifted the knocker, and a servant opened,
after having made him wait a long time. The servant,
who had come from the farthest recesses of the man-
sion, testified at the sight of Sir William Bawtry a
surprise which proved how rare the appearance of a
visitor was in this deserted home.

" Is Sir Arthur Sidney at home just now ? " asked
Sir William Bawtry, at haphazard.

" Yes, sir, I think so."

" In that case, show me up to him. Here is my
card," said Sir" William, as he entered.

" Oh ! he is not here, but in Calcutta, in Blue
Elephant Street, number 25. This is the time at
which he was accustomed to come home. Sir Arthur
Sidney has been living in India for two years past."

" And has he not returned ? "

" Not that I am aware of, sir," answered the servant,
still edging Sir William towards the door.

" And yet I have just seen him in a street near Saint
Margaret's."

" You must have been deceived by some likeness,
sir, for if Sir Arthur were in London, he would have

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notified us of his arrival, and no doubt would have
come to his own home," answered the servant in a
tone of ironical politeness, and closing in Sir William
Bawtry's face, whom he evidently took for a swindler,
the leaf of the door, — the handle of which he had not
let go during the conversation.

Resuming his way, Sir William said to himself :
" Either Sidney is really not in London, or that rascal
has been drilled to say what he does. And yet I
clearly recognised Arthur, and Benedict spoke to him
and called him by name. If Benedict had debts, I
might suppose it was a sheriff's officer, dressed up like
Sir Arthur, to carry him off to a sponging-house.
Well, I may perhaps now find him at Miss Annabel's,
explaining his remarkable conduct in the most natural
fashion possible."

But Sir Benedict was not at his bride's house, and
Lady Braybrooke, seeing the girl's dreadful despair,
tried to prove to her that nothing was more natural
for a man than to disappear just as he was about to be
married, and that Sir George Alan Braybrooke, who
was the best bred of men, would have been equally
facetious.

If Benedict himself did not appear, he might at least
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have written ; but there was no letter, no note, nothing
to explain his strange conduct.

The investigations of the police were fruitless ; the
fate of Benedict Arundel remained sunk in the most
mysterious secrecy. It was difficult to believe that he
had been murdered, since Sidney, who had been
brought up at Harrow with Benedict, was his intimate
friend and had no motive of enmity towards him. As
for his being carried off and imprisoned, what could be
the purpose, what could be the motive ? It could not
be jealousy of a rejected lover, for Sidney had never
seen Miss Annabel, and there could be no rivalry
between him and Benedict.

As evening came on, the poor bride returned to her
maiden chamber, the threshold of which she thought
that morning she had crossed for the last time. Her
maids undressed her and laid her like a dead body in
the pretty white nest over which had fluttered so many
happy dreams, waving their rosy wings over the ivory
brow of the young girl. She remained in the same
position in which she had been put, her head sunk in
her hair, which flowed like the water from a river
urn, her pale face resting on her arm. She might
have been thought dead but that, from time to time,

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a tear rolled over her pale cheeks like a pearl over
marble.

" Good-bye, my dear child," said Lady Eleanor
Braybrooke, seeing that her niece remained obstinately
mute. " Keep up your heart."

A faint gesture of hopelessness made Annabel's
shoulders move, for she was absolutely convinced that
Benedict, not having returned at once, would never
reappear again. Not for one moment had she believed
in treachery on his part. She felt that she was beloved
by him, whether absent or present, in this life or in
the next. She had the unshakable faith of first love.
Thus she wept all night silently, until the heavy sleep
of morning weighed down upon her reddened eyelids;
but her dreams were as sad as her thoughts, for time
and again tears escaped from her closed eyes. And
thus was spent the wedding night of the young girl
who should have been Lady Arundel.

Lord Harley and his wife, overcome with grief,
were on their part making equal efforts to discover
their lost daughter and son-in-law.

The bed seemed not to have been slept in, the
tapers had burned quietly down to the frills. On the
table a crushed paper, burned at the flame of one of

1 08

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the tapers, had preserved its shape, represented by-
black ashes. On the floor lay the envelope, addressed
to the Count de Volmerange, without a stamp, and
evidently addressed in a disguised hand. Lord Harley
studied intently that shadow of a letter which the least
breath caused to flutter, and which contained perhaps
the secret of the irritating mystery of the flight of
Edith and Volmerange. He tried in vain to make out
on the fine calcined pellicle the few traces of letters
which the fire had not caused to disappear, but he
might just as well have attempted to decipher hiero-
glyphs, and worn hieroglyphs at that. The burned
paper gave no information, and yet it was evident that
it had played an important and decisive part on that
fatal night ; the very care taken to destroy it testified
to its value.

The great glass door opening on the terrace had
been opened and a careful inspection of the sanded
walks showed a few faint footprints of a small, well-
shaped woman's-foot, for the toe and the heel alone
had marked the damp ground. Others, larger and
deeper, mixed with these. All ended at the terrace
which rose at the end of the garden above the street.
That way Edith and Volmerange must have gone.

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From the terrace to the ground was a height of some
six or seven feet. How had they managed to get
down, and how could this amazing flight be explained ?
A young married couple to leave their nuptial chamber
on their wedding night as if they were culprits,
without a word of explanation, plunging a father
and mother in the most dreadful despair, was some-
thing terrible.

Lady Harley recalled Edith's sad and preoccupied
looks on the days preceding the marriage, and supposed
that she was the victim of some disappointed love.
But Edith had sworn that her heart was free, and that
Volmerange was the husband of her choice. To explain
the matter by a rape or a crime was no explanation,
for there were no prints of footsteps from the
terrace to the glass door, the road which malefactors
would have necessarily taken. The ground, wetted
by the night tempest, would have preserved these
traces as faithfully as the footprints of Edith and
Volmerange.

A bit of muslin caught on one of the iron spikes
placed upon the coping of the walls pointed out
the way by which the young wife had sprung into
the street. Unfortunately the pavement, muddy and

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covered with pools of water, had preserved no trace
of the fugitives. The storm had caused the streets
to be deserted early, and no one had seen anything.

« Perhaps," said Lord Harley, " they have gone to
their Twickenham estate. And yet Volmerange did
say that he could not understand the foolishness of
burying one's happiness within a postchaise, and turn-
ing postilions into confidants of true love. Still, let us
send a messenger to Twickenham."

The Count and the Countess had not appeared there,
and the housekeeper had received no orders from
them.

The reply plunged Lord and Lady Harley into the
deepest grief. During the time the messenger had
been gone, they had managed to prove to themselves
that their daughter had gone to Twickenham ; they
had clung to that vain hope so desperately that when
it escaped them like a tuft of fennel, they rolled into
an abyss of misery, and thought they had lost their
daughter for the second time.

The most careful search failed to bring about any
result, and the disappearance of the married pair
remained shrouded in mystery. The dark Church of
Saint Margaret had indeed realised the sad presenti-

1 1 1

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ments inspired by its austere and funereal aspect, and
justified Lady Braybrooke's preference for the new
church in Hanover Square as far as weddings went.
This time the good lady was not wrong when she
maintained that Gothic churches were good only to be
buried in.

I I 2

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THE QUARTETTE

jlj »>l» »A» »A» «X» «4* »4» tl? Js? Is? rl^ »J» »A» »4» rj^ «1*

VII

WELL, Sidney, what is the important mat-
ter you have come to tell me about?"
said Benedict Arundel to his friend, as
he stepped into the narrow lane which the shadow of
the church and the fog together made as black as a
corridor of hell.

" It will not take long," answered Sidney, as he
took Benedict by the arm and brought him nearly
opposite the house described in the preceding chapter,
as if he were not yet sufficiently far from the wedding
company to tell his secret.

Just at this moment a dray drawn by four of those
huge horses to be seen only in London, and which,
with their gray coats and their colossal form, look like
young elephants, entered the lane, which it filled almost
completely from one end to the other. The driver,
who was at the head of the horses, was the aforesaid
ingenious Cuddy. The dray, thus driven, formed a
moving barricade which completely stopped up the

THE QUARTETTE

street. It prevented Benedict from retracing his steps
and also people from coming to his help. On account
of the enormous load, the dray proceeded very slowly,
and had not yet passed the third or fourth house in the
street. Saunders was crawling along the wall near
Benedict, and in his hand, hanging at his side, was the
mask to which Noll had made anacreontic allusions,
supposing it intended for Nancy's pretty face. As for
Noll, who aimed at being a man of the world, — a pre-
tension which in his opinion was justified by a silver
pin set with imitation turquoises representing the harp
of Erin and stuck in a black satin rag, and especially
by a pair of gloves of indescribable colour which might
have been white at some remote time, and through the
finger-ends of which passed red knuckles and blue
nails, — Noll was gracefully dawdling, chewing an
unlighted cigar and caressing the bone of his stork-
like leg with a small switch used for beating clothes,
and which he carried as if it were a riding-whip. Bob,
true to his character, was spelling out on the sign of
a low drinking-shop the pompous and very deceitful
list of French wines and foreign liquors. He preferred
this sort of literature to all the poetry on earth ; Shake-
speare and Milton were in his eyes only wretched

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scribblers by the side of the letter-painter who had
written this superb list, much more lyrical than Pin-
dar's odes, — a Greek whom Bob would have assuredly
despised because he wrote a stanza beginning thus :
"Water, in truth, is very good."
When Sidney, followed by Benedict, passed near
Saunders, he winked at him almost imperceptibly.
Saunders understood and drew near Benedict. Noll let
fall his stick and bent, pretending to pick it up, and
Bob, who had got so far as " Cognac, Arrack, Rum, and
Tafia," dragged himself away from his intoxicating
reading. Cuddy left his horses, which quietly stopped,
and drew nearer the group. At the same moment
Benedict felt slapped in his face and spread over his feat-
ures a thick, warm, heavy mask which at once deprived
him of sight, breathing, and speech ; a strong arm was
pressed against his loins like an iron bar; broad bony
hands, with fingers like crabs' claws, caught his legs
and raised him from the ground. It was all done in a
flash, and Benedict, whose arms were held by human
fetters so that he could not get rid of his mask, felt
himself carried off towards some unknown place by a
mysterious force, as in those horrible dreams in which
Smarra carries vou off upon its monstrous back.

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The door of the deserted house opened as if by
magic, and the band entered the dark passage, fol-
lowed by Sir Arthur Sidney. When they had got
sufficiently far into the narrow corridor, so that the
light coming from the street had completely vanished,
Saunders wisely bethought himself that it was not
necessary to stifle the gentleman, and cleverly pulled
off" the pitch mask which covered Benedict's face. He
was just swooning away, and the mad efforts he had
made to free himself had greatly diminished. He was
tortured by inexpressible anxietv, the blood was surg-
ing in his temples, his breast heaved as if breathing
were an impossibility, his ears sang violently, and his
blinded eyes saw passing before them fantastic blue,
green, and red lights.

Assuredly the atmosphere in that dark, fetid, icy-
cold passage would at any other time have turned
Benedict sick ; but never was an Alpine breeze, un-
tainted by any human breath and laden with all the
scent of flowery solitudes, inspired by more eager lungs
than that almost mephitic air. That breath of tainted
air was life to Benedict. The immense relief he felt
was manifested by a deep sigh and a prolonged M Thank
God ! "

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" It looks," said Noll, to himself, " as if the gentle-
man began to feel the need of putting his nose out of
the window, and although Bob maintains there is noth-
ing better than a drink of whiskey, I think the gentle-
man would have preferred a breath of air."

Benedict, now realizing his situation, attempted to
resist, but eight vigorous arms drove him into the room
I have described, and which the crew of the yawl, who
had now returned to their boat by the subterranean
passage, had left empty. The door was dosed upon
him, and the key turned sharply in the lock. Still
overcome by weakness, Benedict sank upon a box and
leaned in an attitude of despair on the table covered
with glasses and jugs, the remains of the orgy Noll
and Saunders had shared in.

Strange was the transition, stranger still the turn in
his fate. But a few minutes since, Sir Benedict Arun-
del was sitting in a comfortable carriage opposite a
lovely girl, a fair angel that had come from heaven for
him, surrounded by his friends and his acquaintances,
in the midst of a brilliant, aristocratic company, so high
placed that it seemed impossible for misfortune to touch
any of its members. And yet, by an unheard-of treach-
ery, a perfidious trick, he was now a prisoner in a

117

THE QUARTETTE

horrible den where no doubt a dreadful death awaited
him.

He gazed with lack-lustre eye at the red glow of the
coal fire that was slowly dying out, at the blood-red
walls reeking with crime and vice, on which gallows,
portraits of murderers and robbers, scenes of blood and
debauch, scratched in white outlines, mingled in a sin-
ister saraband with obscene, enigmatical, or threatening
inscriptions, in the intermittent light of the fire.

The very elegance of Benedict's dress made the con-
trast still more striking. His perfumed, clean, white
glove resting upon the coarse wooden table cut bv
knives and shining with grease, produced a most pain-
ful impression. Such a man as Benedict could be in
such a place only as the result of a mysterious and
wicked plot.

Somewhat recovered from the shock of the sudden
blow, Benedict asked himself what could be the object
of this strange sequestration. Had Sir Arthur Sidney
wished to deliver him over to evil-doers, to assassins
perhaps ? Was it an eccentric way of punishing him
for not awaiting his arrival ? Had Sir Arthur planned
this kidnapping, or, being himself a powerless spectator,
had he hastened for help in the unequal struggle ? Sir

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Benedict passed from conjecture to conjecture without
being able to fathom the mystery.

Then he thought with despair of the mortal anxiety
and the painful situation of Miss Annabel on not seeing
return the man she had chosen for her husband, and
whose disappearance would remain inexplicable. The
thought maddened him. He cursed Sidney, and raged
round the room with the mechanical obstinacy of a wild
beast seeking an outlet. Several times he tried to break
down the door, but it was firm on its rusty old hinges,
and Benedict's fiercest blows had no effect upon the
thick boards. The window, placed at an inaccessible
height, was further guarded with flat iron bars with
serrated edges placed so closely together that a sylph
could not have slipped between them without tearing
its wings.

In the hope of being heard in some of the neigh-
bouring houses, the queer angles of whose roofs showed
faintly through the upper panes, Sir Benedict shouted
with all his might. In order to make the sound carry
farther, he endeavoured to imitate the calls of sailors in
a gale of wind and of mountaineers who signal to each
other from the two sides of a precipice separated by a
torrent, but the room was as mute as if it had been

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padded ; Benedict's voice awoke no echo, and came
back to him as it does on high summits where the
rarefied air stills the vibrations of words.

Maddened, Benedict passed from cries to howls, and
a bloody foam rose to his lips. Then, weary and
ashamed of his useless attempts, he let himself fall
upon the bench. The coals, almost entirely con-
sumed, gave out an occasional flicker only ; a tiny
violet flame meandered, ready to vanish, over the
heaps of ashes. Night, which had fallen, made
the window dark, and formidable shadows grew in
the corner of the room, in which the eye of terror
could easily have perceived the motions of monstrous
swarming forms.

Sir Benedict was unquestionably a brave man, but
to the fury and despair of being separated from
Annabel was added the instinct of personal preserva-
tion very properly awaking in him. His strange and
dark adventure was well calculated to inspire appre-
hension in the most courageous mind. Imprisoned,
alone, unarmed, defenceless, in a padded, mute chamber,
the door of which was perhaps about to give passage to
murderers, Benedict fell into the deepest discourage-
ment. Another still more terrible fear assailed him.

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Suppose the murderers should not come ! Suppose he
were to be abandoned in that hideous room, a wretched
oubliette used by ignoble assassins ! The thought of
dying there of thirst and hunger like a mad dog, far
from light and men, presented itself so vividly to his
mind that a cold sweat broke out on his forehead. He
would have welcomed an assassin standing on the
threshold of the open door as a delivering angel, for it
would have been swift death without torture, instead
of a hideous agony more frightful even than that
of Ugolino, for the latter had at least his seven sons
to eat.

He strode up and down the room, seeking an issue,
sounding the walls, but there was no other door than
that which he had vainly tried to break down; or if
there were, it was so skilfully masked that he could not
discover it. Besides, even if he had found it out, of
what use would it have been ? It was no doubt closed
by some secret or complicated lock, the key of which
would certainly have been taken away.

In the paroxysms of his despair Benedict cursed God
and man. He shook his list at the dark ceiling, for
lack of the vault of heaven, and stamped violently upon
the floor, unable to strike more directly the face of

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step-mother Cybele. The floor gave out a dull, hollow
sound, for Benedict happened to stamp right over the
trap I have spoken of.

Great joy filled his heart as he heard his steps
sounding over the void. The hope of escape immedi-
ately gave him back his energy and his coolness. He
knelt down, and feeling the floor with his hands,
searched in every direction for the ring, knob, or spring
that would cause the trap to fly open. He soon found
the ring, and with a mighty effort succeeded in lifting
up the heavy door.

The air of the underground passage struck his face,
and the abyss showed vaguely before him, more sombre
than obscurity and darker than night. Whither led
the opening ? Was it the commencement of an under-
ground passage, or a well into which the bodies of
victims were thrown ? Was it the receptacle where a
company of Burkers kept the bodies of their victims ?
Would he stumble over heaped-up bones, or upon the
laden tables of a clandestine morgue ? Perhaps some
eccentric physician wished to indulge in the anatomical
amusement of dissecting a gentleman's body and using
the scalpel upon the fibres of an aristocrat, and his
purveyors, considering Benedict a suitable subject, had

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seized him to sell him for a sufficient number of guineas
to this dilettante doctor.

But it was impossible to admit that Sidney, his child-
hood's friend, his chum at Harrow, was playing a part
in this awful conspiracy, and the most horrible part of
all, that of the tame ox which leads the wild bull to the
arena or the slaughter-house.

By putting out his arm Benedict felt the top step of
a stair, and like all brave men he preferred to meet
death rather than await it in stupid gloom. He slipped
through the opening of the trap, which he had been
unable to throw back on account of its weight, and
put out his arm to support the trap-door, though it
trembled and almost gave way. Then, thinking that he
had gone down enough steps for the trap not to smash
his skull as it closed, he bent down his head and took
away his hand. The trap-door, left to itself, fell with
a lugubrious sound like the cover of a coffin which falls
upon the dead. The obscure entrance to the subter-
ranean passage made the sound still more sinister and
lamentable. Brave though Benedict was, he felt chilled
to the very marrow, and said to himself: "If a man
can hear, when his body is sewn up in the shroud, the
sound of the earth falling upon the coffin cannot be

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more dreadful and lugubrious. Perhaps I have buried
myself alive and this black hole is to be my tomb."

He continued, nevertheless, to descend the steps,
going down carefully, his hands outstretched.

" I only hope that this passage has an opening, even
if it does lead me into a company of bandits, or into a
sabbath of witches," said poor Benedict, almost regret-
ting the blood-red chamber.

In the deep darkness there was no light, not even a
livid one, no star, not even a bloody one ; no ray of
light in the interstices of the planks ; nothing but
deep, cold, dreadful night. The unfortunate young
man seemed to have passed from the first to the
second room of his tomb. The wind, blowing under
the damp vault, moaned like a human voice, a sound
with which nature on stormy nights seems to deplore
unknown losses ; vague lamentations, stifled sighs,
sobs apparently escaping from a breaking heart, the
howls of victims pressed by the murderer's knee,
the organ of the tempest played for the wan auditor,
groping in the shadow, its whole symphony of sadness
and terror.

As he descended, the steps became damp and slip-
pery, and a fine mist driven by the wind struck his

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face. The low lipping of water could be heara
through the gusts, and the spume of a wave, break-
ing higher up than the others, wetted his feet. He
came to the conclusion that the passageway led to
the Thames, and as he might have rivalled Lord
Byron as a swimmer, he believed his escape certain.
Indeed nothing could be easier for a swimmer such as
he was than to reach the opening of the archway on
the river and then ascend or descend towards the shore
according to the place where he would find himself.
Cheered by this hope, he fancied himself already
seated by Annabel telling her of his strange adventure,
and begging her to forgive him the anxiety which he
had most involuntarily caused her. With the incredi-
ble speed characteristic of thought, which is a fluid
as swift, or even swifter than electricity, innumerable
lovely pictures passed through his mind during the
short space of time it took him to go down three
steps. He saw himself before the altar, pressing Miss
Annabel Vyvyan's delicate hand, then on the threshold
of the nuptial chamber, and, in a still more distant
picture, in his country seat at Richmond. He was
standing by Annabel's side under the veranda at
the top of the marble steps, watching a lovely, fair-

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haired child playing upon the green sward with a
tame deer.

His beautiful dreams vanished suddenly and were
replaced by the vision and the hallucination of despair.
His outstretched hand had struck against an iron grat-
ing. The road was barred on this side, and on the
other return was impossible. Arundel's exhausted
strength could never have sufficed to raise the heavy
trap-door.

" What have I done, O God, to be damned alive ? "
he cried sorrowfully. " What unknown crime am I
to expiate here ? Oh, Annabel ! however sad the
suppositions in which you are now doubtless indulg-
ing as to my fate, they are far from approaching the
reality." And by a last effort of ever-springing hope,
which never abandons man, and which abides with the
victim even when his neck is under the knife, Bene-
dict shook each one of the bars, one after another,
trying to move or to draw them away ; but they
were fastened firmly, and rust had soldered the joints.
A score of times, having found the lock, poor Benedict
tore his fingers as he attempted to unscrew it or to
shoot back the bolt. While he indulged in this useless
attempt, for the massive and complicated lock would

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have done honour to the door of one of the Newgate
cells, a wave lapped him with its icy-cold caress. Bene-
dict, chilled, his teeth chattering, his wedding garments
wetted, ascended a few steps to avoid the water, and
sat down like one of the sombre, crouching figures
which Dante Alighieri has placed upon the steps of
his Hell. He remained there with the gloomy resig-
nation of the wild beast at bay, of the savage taken
prisoner, — how long he knew not, whether it was an
eternity or an hour only. He had no longer a clear
perception of things, and the wheels of madness were
beginning to whirl in his head.

During a moment of comparative calm, he thought
he would like to know the hour, remembering that he
had his repeater in his pocket ; but his hand, chilled
by cold, pressed the spring too strongly or unskilfully.
It broke and sounded stridently under the gold of the
case. Poor Benedict was in the position of those
prisoners in the Siberian mines who are made to
work for two hours and then sleep for two hours,
in order that they may not know how much time
they have left ; for although they never see the sun,
the division of work and rest would allow them to
count. To await death in darkness without knowing

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THE QUARTETTE

the time, — what a torture! one which Satan has
forgotten.

Soon nothing was heard under the vault save the
low sound made by the yawl, as it rose and fell on
the tide, and bumped against the wall of the sub-
terranean canal.

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VIII

AFTER a time which seemed eternal to Sir
Arundel, but which in reality was not much
more than an hour, — for time does not
exist, and despair or weariness may make a minute
seem an age, — a dull sound of steps was heard above
the vault, and some rays of light showed the place where
lay the trap-door. Soon the heavy door was lifted, a
livid, flickering ray fell in the damp obscurity, and
through the narrow opening showed, by the side of
a candle, Saunders' characteristic face.

Arundel hastily ascended the steps, and though he
was bold as the brave knights from whom he was
descended, it was not without a real feeling of plea-
sure that he saw Saunders' head at the top of the
stairs. A winged cherub would not have seemed
lovelier to him, and yet there was nothing celestial
about Saunders. But Arundel felt at the sight of
him the same joy as a man buried alive, who sees
the tombstone lifted up, and to whom the hideous

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Shakespearean grave-digger is a bright angel of light.
Although the hero of a novel should never be sus-
ceptible to any emotions except love, it is uncom-
monly unpleasant to die of cold and starvation in
a frock coat, white gloves and patent-leather boots,
in an icy cave on a stair washed by the tide, on the
day of one's own wedding with one of the loveliest
heiresses in London.

" Where the devil has he got to ? " murmured
Saunders, before the ray of the candle fell upon
Arundel in the darkness. " I am quite sure I double
locked the grating, and the bars are close enough to
each other for the finest gentleman, even if he wore a
woman's corset, to find it impossible to get through. He
is bound to be either in the room or in the passageway.
Well, I '11 go down and explore for myself."

Scarcely had Saunders set foot upon the upper steps
when he found himself face to face with Arundel, who
was hastily coming up.

" Oh ! there you are, sir," said the sailor with an
air of rough cordiality and visible satisfaction. " You
found the second room of your apartment some-
what cold and damp, did n't you ? You regretted
the first." And with his rough hand, he supported

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Sir Benedict Arundel, who was staggering on the
edge of the trap.

Benedict let himself fall on the bench near the table.
Saunders poked up the half-burned coal and made it
flame again. Arundel, revived by the warm air of
the room, and assured at least of not dying without
explanation, actually thought the horrible den with its
queer, sinister drawings almost pleasant, and experi-
enced comparative comfort. Saunders' face, though
rough, was not malevolent, and Benedict attempted to
draw him into conversation.

" What is the meaning," he said, " of this absurd
kidnapping ? Do you intend to rob me, to have me
sign drafts, or to murder me ? "

Saunders shook his head and answered, " I think, on
the contrary, that if you needed money, sir, it would be
given you."

" Then what do you want to do with me ? "

" I don't know, but nothing to harm you, for on the
contrary I have been told to take the greatest care of
you, and you will be treated as carefully as a case of
clocks or Bohemian glass."

" Do you know the man by whom I was walking in
the lane, Sir Arthur Sidney ? "

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" I saw him to-day for the first time," answered
Saunders, whose steel-blue eyes steadily sustained Sir
Benedict's penetrating glance.

" Then Sidney has nothing to do with this abomi-
nable conspiracy," said Benedict to himself, happy at
being able to dismiss a suspicion which had painfully
weighed on his mind. " But how is it that, being so
close to me, he did not assist me and did not call for
help ? " he thought, as doubt again recurred to him.

"What induced you to do this?" continued Arun-
del ; " you would be severely punished if the law got
hold of you."

" I obeyed the orders of those whom I promised to
obey, and as for the law — " Saunders shrugged his
shoulders significantly, by way of inferring that he was
uncommonly sceptical with regard to the perspicacity
of the police.

" And who are the people whom you obey in such
venturesome enterprises ? "

" If I were to tell you their names, you would be no
wiser. You have never had anything to do with
them."

" Well, do you know who I am ? "

" No. I know neither your name nor your title.

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Only I can tell by your aristocratic face, your small
hands, and the quality of your clothes and linen, that
you belong to the aristocracy."

" If you will open that door to me and take me back
to the street, I am rich enough to secure you a small
competence which would enable you to live as you
please in the country you prefer."

On hearing this proposal, Saunders' tanned face
turned brick red, and his sea-blue eyes sparkled in his
face, which had become sombre. He quickly re-
covered himself, and quietly replied : " Although the
business I am in is not a very clean one, I am not in
the habit of betraying those who have trusted me, even
when it is an ugly piece of business. Besides, even if
I were willing to set you at liberty in return for your
gold, I could not do it. The door is locked outside,
and I am as much a prisoner as you are."

A moment of silence followed this reply. Then
Saunders, whose face had resumed its natural colour,
opened a closet in the wall and drew from it a piece
of salt beef, some bread, and a pewter of beer, which
he placed upon the table beside Arundel, saying with a
respectfully jovial look : " You must have breakfasted
early this morning, sir; I fancy you did not have any

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luncheon, and it is long past the dinner hour. How-
ever troubled you may be, nature does not lose its
rights, and though your heart is filled with grief, you
may not be sorry to eat something."

In spite of his despair and his anger, Arundel, or at
least the physical part of him, recognised the sound-
ness of the reasoning, drew near the food provided by
Saunders, and began to eat, with grief, but with a fairly
good appetite.

" The meat is not very delicate," said Saunders, " yet
that salt beef was cut from the haunch of one of the
best Lancashire beeves, and this beer, darker than pitch
and topped by golden froth, is double stout, the best
brewed in Dublin with barley and hops, such as you
cannot match in the most famous London tavern."

Benedict acknowledged the truth of Saunders' re-
marks as he cut several slices of the beef thus praised,
and drained to the dregs the pewter pot.

'34

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SIR BENEDICT ARUNDEL'S frugal repast
was scarcely ended, when the trap-door opened
and the four fellows whose appearance from
underground I have already described, issued slowly
from below. One of them exchanged a few words
with Saunders in a strange tongue, which Benedict
could not understand. The sentences appeared to be
composed of a single word, as in idioms which one
does not know. It was Gaelic, with, to make it more
difficult to understand, a certain number of slang words.

Two of the new-comers approached the trap, and
Saunders, advancing towards Sir Benedict Arundel, said
to him : " If you will be kind enough to follow us,
sir, — it is time to start."

" To start ! " cried Arundel, withdrawing instinc-
tively from the trap.

" I hope, sir," said Saunders, politely, " you will
understand that it is better to come with us willingly.
There are five of us, able-bodied, every one armed, so

!35

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that it is no use to make a fight. It is our business to
carry out the orders we have received ; if need be, we
shall use force, — as little as necessary, for we do not
wish to harm you."

" I will follow you," answered Arundel, seeing that
it was hopeless to do anything else, and thinking to
himself that he would have a chance to escape once he
got outside.

The company disappeared down the black opening,
Saunders going last, leading Benedict, resigned to his
fate for the time being. They went down some
twenty steps, and reached the grating which had
stopped Arundel's escape. There Saunders said to
him : —

" I shall be obliged to gag you, sir, though I should
be very sorry to do so, unless you will give me your
word of honour not to shout and not to call for help.
I do not care to muzzle you like a calf crying for its
mother."

As the result would be the same in either case,
whether he were gagged or gave his word, Arundel
promised to keep silence.

" I will not ask you not to try to escape ; that
is my business," said Saunders, putting the gag back

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into his pocket, and taking out the key to open the
grating.

One of the sailors held the lantern up, and the key,
having been put into the lock rusted by the damp,
would have turned with difficulty in a hand less vigo-
rous than that of Saunders. He turned it three times,
and the heavy gate, pushed by two of the sailors, grated
on its hinges with a harsh sound. The men sat down
on their thwarts and placed their sweeps on the gun-
wale of the yawl with perfect symmetry, waiting orders.
Saunders seated himself in the stern-sheets with Bene-
dict by his side. Just as the boat, impelled forward by
the oars, was starting, a stray gleam of the lantern
showed for a moment in the bow a sombre figure
enveloped in a cloak cast over the shoulder, and wear-
ing a hat pulled down over his eyes ; but Saunders
blew out the lantern, and everything was dark again.

In the course of a few moments the boat issued from
the sombre canal on to the waters of the Thames.
The fog, blown away by the wind, was vanishing in
rags like pieces of stuff carried off by "the tempest.
The heavens were low, gloomy, and black like the
vault of a tomb filled with the smoke of the visitors'
torches. The sinister dome, in which lighter veins

THE QUARTETTE

represented cracks, seemed about to fall in great blocks
upon the sleeping town, the dentellated ebony silhouette
of which on either side of the river was studded with
only occasional dots of light. The night was a hor-
rible one.

A heavy sea was running. The cables of the ships
drew taut with painful creakings like those of the
muscles of a patient stretched on the rack ; boats col-
lided with lugubrious sounds, and the heavy water fell
back on itself with a sigh of oppression and exhaustion,
like that which issues from a chest oppressed by the
nightmare. The wind uttered moans like the cries of
a child murdered by witches in their nameless work,
and over the maze of plaintive, indefinable, and sinister
sounds, soared like the low rumble of thunder the dis-
tant moaning of the waves returning to their homes.

The buildings along the river — stores, warehouses,
works with tall obelisks blue with flames, landing-
places with broad steps, churches raising above the
houses their great Norman towers or their pseudo-
classic campaniles — lost in the shadow the mean ap-
pearance they had in daylight, and assumed cyclopaean
and colossal proportions. The roofs became oriental
terraces, the chimney-pots obelisks and lighthouses,

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the gigantic sign of open-work letters looked like the
traceried balustrade of an aerial balcony ; the whole
place, sombre, immense, and vague, seemed a Nineveh
over which was passing the cloud of the wrath of God.
A mezzotint engraver would have made of it, with a
few gleams of livid light, one of those terrific Biblical
pictures in which the English excel.

Sir Benedict Arundel, seeing the boat passing fairly
near to the shore, and feeling the hand with which
Saunders grasped his arm as with an iron ring some-
what less close, thought he had a chance to deceive his
keeper, and made such an abrupt jump that the boat
nearly upset. He was almost over the gunwale, his
feet were touching the water, and a few strokes alone
separated him from the shore ; but Saunders' vigorous
grasp, clutching him like pincers, brought him back to
his seat, and with a mighty push compelled him to
keep down. During this episode, as rapid as thought,
the stranger, motionless and silent in the bows, had
risen, stretching out his hands as if to help Saunders,
for the four rowers had all they could do to keep the
boat on an even keel in the swirl of the tide. As the
stranger moved, the folds of his cloak fell aside, and
Benedict thought he recognised the face of his friend

THE QUARTETTE

Sidney, but the man drew his cloak over his shoulder
so that the upper portion of it concealed his face, while
his eyes were hidden in the shadow projected by the
broad-brimmed hat ; his identity had again become
impenetrable.

Meanwhile the gale increased. The furious wind
seemed to take filaments of rain and shoot them hissing
from its bow like icy arrows. The dense spray filled
the air, and the foam of the waves, blown in patches,
scattered sparkling through the darkness. The sea
was so heavy that it often rose over the gunwale, and
the rowers, their feet braced against the stretchers,
their bodies bent back, and tugging away with all their
might at the oars, had the greatest difficulty in keeping
the boat straight.

Concealed between two great waves, the yawl passed
unperceived before the police station, the red lamp of
which seemed half asleep, like the eyes of a drunkard.

" It is blowing fit to take your hair off," murmured
Saunders ; and seeing that Benedict was shivering in
his thin black coat, he threw over him a coarse cloak
which he picked up with his feet from the bottom of
the boat. " One thing is sure," he went on, " in this
weather we shall not meet many boats on the Thames.

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The weather favours us, — a little too much, perhaps,"
he added, as he was struck in the face by the spray of
a breaking wave.

The passage under the bridges was particularly terri-
fying. The water rolled under the arches in sombre
cataracts with a terrifying noise and fearful spraying ;
the wind, which was blowing in the opposite direction,
opposed, though it could not stop, the wild rush of the
waves, which whirled in eddies and were maddened by
this resistance in the narrow passage between the piles,
which caused their mass to bound back. The wind
howled, the water hissed and roared, and the damp
echoes of the arches repeated these noises and made
them more frightful still.

The boat, steered with miraculous tact and almost
inconceivable perspicacity in the deep night, shot safely
through the centre of the safest arch and then issued
on the other side, dainty, coquettish, and proud, as it
had certainly the right to be.

As it was passing Blackfriars Bridge, a white shape,
falling from above, shot rapidly past the axis of the
arch and fell in the water like swan's-down a short dis-
tance from the boat. The swan's-down struggled, and
the two arms of a woman showed above the skirt bal-

141

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THE QUARTETTE

looned by the fall. When the yawl, carried along,
passed near the pale phantom floating on the black
waters like an elf or a nixie of the German legends,
two desperate hands grasped the gunwale with such
nervous vigour, though they were weak and delicate,
that the nails sank into the wood like iron claws. If
any one in the boat had thought of looking up, and
especially if the night had been less dark, he might
have caught a glimpse of a human form bending over
the parapet of the bridge.

The boat heeled over suddenly, shipped a sea, and
would have capsized had the men not immediately
leaned over to the other side. A terrified face, so pale
that it was visible even in the darkness, rose above
the edge of the boat amid soaking hair ; the two dilated
eyes shone like globules of burnished silver, and the
purple lips spoke these words in inexpressible accents :

" Save me ! save me ! "

"What's to be done?" cried Saunders. "If she
goes on like that she will upset us or stop our way ; and
yet it would be hard to cut off" her hands, though there
is no other way to make her let go, and duck her again
in that ugly black water which so frightens her."

"That would be an abominable crime," said Bene-

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diet, as he seized the unfortunate woman's arms and
tried to pull her into the boat.

The men moved over to the other side, and as the
mysterious individual in the bows said nothing, Saunders
helped Benedict, and soon the woman, having been
helped into the yawl, sat down, or rather sank, at Bene-
dict's feet.

The boat's speed, retarded for a moment by this
incident, was increased to make up for lost time; Lon-
don Bridge was soon left behind, and the yawl flew
faster than an arrow among the lines of vessels, the
yards of which creaked with a mournful sound, while
the blocks shrieked like night birds.

A deep silence reigned in the boat; the men seemed
to hold their breath ; the muffled oars struck the water
quietly, as if it were a mist, and the only sound heard
was the chattering of the teeth of the poor woman,
shivering in her wet garments.

They at last emerged from the great city of ships
that lies between London Bridge and the Isle of Dogs,
and the oarsmen pulled harder and less carefully in a
less turbulent seaway, for the fury of the storm was
now somewhat spent.

Benedict, who had stretched a portion of the over-

143

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coat Saunders had lent him over the shoulders of the
unfortunate young woman, — who had nothing on but
a white muslin dress, — did not suspect that he had
seen her already once that day, under the porch of
Saint Margaret's, where his coat-sleeve had brushed
against her lace veil ; and surely poor Edith Harley,
for she it was, was far from supposing that the man at
whose feet she was sobbing convulsively on this icy-
cold night was the unfortunate Benedict Arundel.

A strange destiny had brought together in this frail
boat, in the midst of the storm, a wifeless husband and
a husbandless wife ; a capricious will, parting couples
that seemed so well made for each other, had formed
a new combination out of the broken and disjoined
pieces.

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THE QUARTETTE

THE boat proceeded some distance further,
until it was nearly opposite Gravesend.
The tempest had calmed down, and the
sky, though still threatening, allowed a few stars to
show in the dark blue of night, through broader open-
ings in the clouds. The sea, moved to its very depths,
was still running heavily, and breaking upon the shores
of the river, which here broadened out into an estuary.
The wind roared in the distance like a snarling, cow-
ardly dog that has been kicked.

A black hull, surmounted by light spars, seemed to
emerge from the water, and showed faintly in the dark ;
it was the " Lovely Jenny " at anchor. She had been
masked till then by a turn in the river. Every one on
board appeared to be sound asleep ; the hatches were
carefully closed ; not a light was visible i nothing was
heard but the creaking of the blocks and the last blasts
of the storm. Such a silence was too deep to be
natural ; in fact, the « Lovely Jenny " slept with one

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THE QUARTETTE

eye open, for the yawl had no sooner come within hail
than a head showed above the rail, and bending towards
the stream, called out in a low but distinct voice,
" Hello ! ahoy, is that you ? "

u Yes," replied Saunders, in the same careful way,
" and here is the watchword : Crabs walk backwards,
but they reach their destination."

" That is a wise maxim," added Macgill, as he
showed at the top of the side-ladder.

The boat had come alongside the " Lovely Jenny,"
and Saunders, still holding Arundel's arm with one
hand, with the other seized one of the side lines,
and began to ascend the ladder. Arundel thought for
a moment of letting himself fall, but Saunders' hand
held him like a vice; and besides, the other men who
were coming up had their hands within reach of his
feet, and would no doubt have held him back. Then
he might also have fallen into the boat below.

Any attempt at escape being therefore impossible,
he continued to ascend as slowly as if he were going
up to the gallows, for he felt that every step he took
separated him still further from Annabel. The way
he was being transferred, with so much precaution and
mystery, to a vessel that seemed to be waiting for him,

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proved that the plan had long been laid. All these
silent agents were obeying a will whose purpose he
could not fathom. What did they propose to do with
him ? To carry him to some distant place, to keep
him in return for a ransom to be exacted from his
parents or his friends ? Was he a victim, in London
itself, of a band of brigands such as those who carry
their prisoners away into the mountains, and then send
to the city one of the ears of their prisoner, by way of
hastening payment ?

After having intrusted Sir Benedict Arundel to Jack
and Macgill, Saunders went down into the boat again.
" What are we to do with the woman ? " he asked of
the man with the cloak, still seated in the bows ; " it
would be pretty hard to throw her overboard again,
after having saved her life."

" Take her up on deck," sharply returned the man
wrapped up in the mantle.

Edith had listened to this conversation, which was
to decide her fate, as if she were wholly unconcerned
in it. She was shivering all over, and delirium was
already attacking her brain. A prey to the daze of
fever, she allowed herself to be taken up and carried
away like a sick child by its nurse. Saunders, accus-

>47

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tomed to heavier burdens, climbed the ladder as nimbly
as a cat, and soon reached the deck with Miss Edith,
whom he placed against the mast, for she could scarcely
stand ; her limp limbs, no longer guided by her will,
refused to perform their office. The man with the
mantle ordered Saunders to take her below, where she
could neither see nor be seen.

The order was at once carried out, and the deck of
the " Lovely Jenny," once more deserted, sounded only
under the steps of the man with the mantle, who walked
up and down the quarter-deck, noting the veering of
the wind. Benedict had also been at once led into the
main cabin, by Jack and Macgill, and carefully locked
up in his new prison.

The cabin was adorned with much elegance : the
bed, concealed by damask curtains was of mahogany ; a
black horsehair sofa, a swinging table, and a small lamp
hanging from the ceiling, — formed the furniture.
But the port, as Benedict immediately discovered, was
formed of a round piece of ground glass, carefully fitted,
and so thick as to neither allow any one to look out
nor to give any hope of escaping that way. The door
appeared to be as carefully closed.

Seeing that any attempt at flight was useless, Arundel

ts? sb tfc *b db sb db 4? 4? 4? 4? tb tb tb ib tb 4? tb 4? sb 4? tb

THE QUARTETTE

sat down on the sofa, and remained there sunk into
something approaching insensibility, enduring his fate
with the dull patience of a savage or a captive wild
animal. He was weary of making suppositions and
useless projects ; neither perspicacity, intelligence, nor
resolution could be of any use to him. Caught in a
hopeless net by an unknown enemy, like a poor fly
in the web of a mysterious spider, the only result
of his struggles would be to make his position worse ;
a victim to a horrible trick or an infamous piece of
treachery, he had simply to await his fate silently.
Worn out by the events and emotions of that terrible
day, though he desired to remain awake and to note
what would happen, he felt his eyelids close in spite of
himself. Although his mind was wide awake, his body
was sinking into sleep.

Meanwhile the wind had veered, and Captain
Peppercull, who was engaged in drinking rum to keep
out the night air, abandoned his pleasant occupation,
and on the advice of the stranger with the black mantle,
who had watched the wind with the eye of an experi-
enced sea-faring man, went up on deck, staggering a
little. As the fog was particularly damp that night,
Captain Peppercull, like a very prudent man, had taken

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extraordinary precautions against it ; but he was not
the kind of fellow to be overcome by a glass of rum,
and two or three breaths of fresh air soon made him
himself again.

"Captain, the tide is with us, the wind has gone
around ; we must be off to sea, for our expedition to
England is over," said the man with the mantle, as
Peppercull came on deck.

" To hear is to obey," replied the latter, uncon-
sciously parodying the formula of Eastern devotion ;
for the man with the mantle seemed to inspire him
with respect mixed with fear, though naturally Captain
Peppercull was neither servile nor cowardly. The word
was passed to heave the anchor, the capstan bars were
shipped, and the crew having manned them began to
walk around, singing on a plaintive rhythm a singular
chant composed of the plaint of the wind, the sob of the
wave, and the cry of the gull, in which the restlessness
of nature seems to mingle with human effort. The
anchor came away, and already several turns of the
chain had been rolled around the drum of the capstan,
wetting the deck with mud.

By the strange sound, and the regular trampling
which accompanied it, Benedict — who was already half

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carried away into a dream full of strange catastrophes
and sinister apparitions, the confused image of his ad-
ventures of the day — understood that the anchor was
being got up and the vessel preparing to start. Al-
though this did not make his situation much worse,
and at bottom he cared little enough whether he was a
captive in a motionless prison or in a travelling one,
he felt deep sadness overcoming him. To be a pris-
oner in England, in a land full of friends engaged in
seeking him out, to breathe the same air as Annabel, —
was still some consolation ; now he could not count
upon the efforts of his relatives and friends to find him
out. How would it be possible to discover his track
in a wake which vanished almost as soon as formed?
Annabel was lost forever to him.

The singular chant still continued. Soon the anchor
was catted and fished j the crew, running up to the
tops and out on the yards, loosed the sails, which opened
to the breeze like the wings of a sea-bird about to take
flight; but held in by the sheets and tacks, they bellied
out, swelled, and imparting their own impulsion to the
" Lovely Jenny," made her gracefully heel over.

Macgill, standing by the panel lighted by a trembling
light, held the wheel, steering the "Lovely Jenny,"

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which was as sensitive as a horse with a tender mouth
is to the action of the bit and bridle ; he shook her up
or eased her away, avoiding the ships and boats which
the approach of daylight called from their torpor, and
which were tacking and cross-tacking in every direction
on the broad estuary.

The morning began to show : lines of faint light
rayed the thick banks of clouds ; the red lanterns of
the lightships were turning paler in the blaze of nas-
cent day ; the banks of the stream, scarcely visible,
were vanishing on the horizon, and the yellow waters
rose and fell in broader seas. One felt the nearness
of the open, and the " Lovely Jenny," cradled by the
roll, pitched and scended in a smother of foam.

Benedict, half asleep, was leaning upon his horsehair
pillow when the creaking of the door quickly awakened
him ; the panel slipped along its grooves, and the man
with the black mantle appeared on the threshold of the
cabin.

The room was dark and Benedict was unable to make
out at once the features of the man who broke upon
his solitude ; the shade of the broad-brimmed hat stil'
concealed his face, and the folds of the mantle his figure.

The new-comer's intention was not to maintain his

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THE QUARTETTE

incognito longer, for he advanced under the small lamp
that was burning, threw back his mantle, took off his
hat, and revealed to the surprised glance of Arundel
the face of Sir Arthur Sidney. Arundel could not keep
back a cry of surprise. Sir Arthur Sidney remained
perfectly calm, opposite his friend, as if nothing ex-
traordinary had happened ; the light of the lamp,
playing upon his satiny brow, formed a sort of halo
around his head ; his glance was calm, and his features
expressed perfect serenity.

" What, is it you, Arthur ? "

" Yes, I returned from India this morning."

" What does this mean, Arthur ? " cried Benedict,
convinced at last of Sidney's identity.

" It means," quietly replied Sidney, " that I had not
consented to your marriage, and I had to stop it; I
must ask you to forgive the means I had to employ —
I had no others, and so used these."

" That is very strange conduct of yours," replied
Benedict, somewhat disconcerted by the calm sim-
plicity of the answer. " Are you my father, my uncle,
or my guardian, to assume such rights over me ? "

" I am more than that ; I am your friend," replied
Sidney, gravely.

iS3

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" It is a curious way to prove it, to destroy the hap-
piness of my life and plunge me into the most dreadful
despair."

" Your grief will pass away," said Arthur, " lovers'
pains do not last long ; the wind carries them away
like sea-gulls' feathers at sea. Besides, you do not
belong to yourself," he continued, drawing from his
pocket a paper which he unfolded and presented to
Benedict.

The paper, already yellowed by time, seemed to have
been written long since ; the folds were worn, the ink
had no doubt changed colour; the writing was reddish,
as if blood had been used instead of ink.

At the sight of this cabalistic-looking paper, which
was not unlike a pact with the devil, Sir Benedict
Arundel seemed embarrassed and kept silence.

" Is that your signature ? " said Sidney, holding the
paper to Benedict's eyes.

" Yes, that is my name," replied Sir Benedict, in a
resigned tone.

" Did you freely put your name there ? "

" I cannot say that I was forced," answered Arundel.
" Yes, I did write my name there, when I was full of
enthusiasm and faith."

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" The oath contained in this letter is a dread one.
You swore by whatever can bind a man on the earth
on which we live, by the God who created the worlds,
by the demon who seeks to destroy them, by Heaven
and Hell, by your father's honour and your mother's
virtue, by your blood as a gentleman, by your soul as
a Christian, by your word as a free man, by the
memory of heroes and saints, on the Gospels and on
the sword ; and in case our religion should be but a mis-
take, you swore by fire and water, the sources of life,
by the secret forces of nature, by the stars, the mysteri-
ous regulators of Fate, by Chronos and Jupiter, by
Acheron and by Styx, which formerly bound the gods.
If there be on earth a more irrevocable formula, I do
not know of it ; but when you wrote those lines you
sought everything most dread and sacred, to give force
to the oath contained in this paper."

" That is true," replied Arundel.

" I needed you," continued Sidney, " and in virtue
of the rights which this paper confers upon me, I came
to fetch you, since you did not come."

Benedict, as if cast down, bent his head and made
no answer.

" When you are calmer," continued Sidney, " I

T 55

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shall tell you what I expect of you, and what you will
have to do." Whereupon he withdrew, closing be-
hind him the sliding panel ; and the " Lovely Jenny,"
driven by a strong wind, made her way into the open
sea.

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THE QUARTETTE
4:4:4:4:4: 4: 4:4: 4: 4: 4: 4:4: 4: 4: 4: 4: 4: 4: 4: 4: 4:4:4b

I SHALL profit by the fact that the " Lovely
Jenny" is reeling ofF her ten knots an hour, with
a good breeze, to go back some distance in my
story. I have to explain how Miss Edith happened to
be in the Thames on that stormy night, about to be
swallowed up in the waters, instead of being in her
scented bridal chamber.

No doubt my readers will remember that a meanly
dressed man had handed Count de Volmerange a sealed
letter, as he left the church. That letter the Count,
his mind full of other matters, had left in his pocket
without opening it, thinking he would read it later ;
but he had forgotten to do so amid the emotions of the
day. In the evening, however, having been left alone
for a moment, he felt the paper crackling in his pocket,
and mechanically opened and read it.

At that very moment he was informed that Edith
was waiting for him. He arose, straight and stiff like
the statue of the Commander when invited by Lepo-

THE QUARTETTE

rello to sup with Don Juan. In his hand he clutched
the fatal paper. A deadly pallor overspread his face,
in which his dark blue eyes showed bloodshot. His
feet struck the floor heavily, as if they were of marble.
Borne down by the weight of crushing misfortune, he
stepped heavily like the marble apparition.

Edith, protected by the transparent shade of the cur-
tains, half concealed her face in the lace-trimmed pil-
low ; her bloodless cheeks were so white they could
scarcely be distinguished from the cambric on which
they rested.

She was a prey to terrible perplexity ; she was agi-
tated by the knowledge of her fault, and knew
not what to resolve. Time and again she had en-
deavoured to make a confession, and yet had been
unable to begin ; nothing seemed to lead up to so
strange a confidence. That most improbable liaison, the
result of almost supernatural fascination, had remained
absolutely unsuspected by all. Everybody around
Edith had such complete faith in her purity, that she
herself at times wondered whether she had lost it.
There was no opening for such a confidence. Her
blushes, her pallor, her silence, were mistaken for the
maidenlv emotions which young girls experience as

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the marriage day approaches. Even legitimate love has
its troubles, and tears are the order of the day in the
eyes of young brides.

Every morning she said to herself, " I must speak,"
but the day would pass without her having spoken.
The preparations for the wedding went on without her
venturing to stay them, and the revelation became
more and more impossible. She loved Volmerange,
and although she was a girl of perfectly truthful
character, to whom the very shadow of deceit was
repugnant, she had not the strength to destroy her own
happiness. She had felt cowardly at the thought of
such a misfortune, and like all people who reckon on
some impossible event to free them from a desperate
situation, she had allowed matters to take their course ;
now the terrible moment had arrived, and like a dove
crouching on the ground as she hears around her the
swooping of the hawk, she was waiting and trembling
with anxiety and terror. Then it occurred to her it
would have been best to refuse Volmerange, and not to
accept the happiness of which she was no longer
worthy. Now, however, it was too late.

It should be said in Edith's favour, that she was
guilty, but not degraded ; hers was one of those natures

*59

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which evil can touch but cannot penetrate, like marble,
which mud soils, but does not stain, and which the rain
of heaven makes purer and whiter than before. Her
fall was due to the noblest motives. Xavier had played
to Edith a comedy of misfortune; he had represented
himself as an oppressed, misunderstood man, compelled
to remain within his humble sphere by the invincible
prejudices of aristocracy ; and he had contended that
Lord Harley's daughter could love but a lord, a fashion-
able man with a large fortune. These things, said very
quietly, with an air of coldness and resignation, but
with eyes that burned with suppressed passion, had
impelled Edith's noble and chivalrous nature to a mad
devotion and consolation.

She thought she should play the part of Providence
to that exiled angel, who was but a fiend ; so she had
given herself to him, mistaking pity for love. Vol-
merange's genuine passion had soon made her feel how
greatly she had been mistaken; and besides, Xavier,
having once triumphed over her, had speedily unmasked
himself, and far from opposing, as would have seemed
natural, the marriage of Edith and Volmerange, he had
in a way insisted upon it, in the pursuit of a dark and
sinister purpose, impossible to fathom. Besides, Vol-

160

THE QUARTETTE

merange was so madly in love with Edith that her con-
fession might have upset his reason. Up to a certain
point, Edith might still think herself worthy of being
loved by an honourable man, and her silence was not
perfidious.

When Volmerange entered, Edith understood she
was lost. The Count drew near the bed, and slowly
and automatically held out the paper to the terrified
girl, who huddled up under the blankets with a gesture
of instinctive fear.

" Tell me," cried the Count, in a choking voice,
with a sort of strident rattle, " tell me that the state-
ments in this letter are false, and I shall believe you,
even though the light should blind me."

Poor Edith, half-crazed by terror, sat up, and with
haggard eye, trembling lips, pallid cheeks, as if she
beheld the Medusa head, looked with the dull, lack-
lustre glance of dementia at the paper on which flamed
her condemnation. Her sudden gesture had broken
the ribbon that held her hair, and her black curls
flowed over her shoulders and bosom, — contrasting
strongly with their pallid whiteness. Desdemona her-
self did not start more terrified or more pale at the
sinister question of the Moor of Venice; and though

7t Tbi ~

THE QUARTETTE

v'olmerange was not black as a Moor, he nevertheless
had a fierce and terrible air.

There was a moment of silence, full of expectation,
anguish, and terror.

Outside, the tempest raged ; showers of rain lashed
the panes ; the wind seemed to press against the win-
dow as if to enter, apparently desiring to be present
at this nocturnal scene. The house, beaten by the
gale, trembled on its foundations; the doors creaked;
confused plaints sounded through the corridors ; the
lamp burned down, revived at times, and cast a pale
light, — everything tending to increase the terror of
the situation.

The clock struck two. The sound, usually so clear
and silvery, now struck lugubriously on the ear.

Volmerange bent over the bed, gnashing his teeth,
his eyes flashing ; he seized Edith by the arm with
imperious brutality, and repeated his words sharply and
feverishly. He foamed at the mouth, and had bitten
his lips so hard during the moment of silence that they
were bleeding.

The girl, seeing so close to her that face whose
wondrous beauty could not be effaced even by the con-
traction of fury, and which recalled the lineaments of

162

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an angered archangel, — felt her strength give way ;
the fear of swooning came upon her, and she would
have lost consciousness if a violent shock had not
recalled her to herself. She felt as if her arm had been
pulled away from her shoulder. Volmerange had
dragged her from the bed ; she was in the middle of
the room. Another shock made her fall on her knees.

" It is well," said Volmerange ; "you shall die! " and
he stormed around the room like a madman, looking
for a weapon with which to carry out his threat.

" Oh, do not harm me," murmured Edith, in a voice
full of anguish.

Volmerange was still searching ; a bridal chamber is
not usually provided with daggers, pistols, tomahawks,
or other lethal weapons.

" Blood and thunder ! " cursed he as he raged around
like a wild beast, " shall I be obliged to smash her
head against the furniture, to strangle her with my
hands, to tear her veins open with my nails, or to stifle
her under the mattress of my wedding couch ? Ha !
ha ! that would be beautiful," he continued with a
maniacal laugh. "A pretty scene, most dramatic and
most Shakespearean, in truth ! "

He drew near Edith, who was still kneeling, her

163

THE QUARTETTE

arms limp, her hands open, her head bowed upon her
breast, her hair hanging down,— -in the attitude of
Canova's Magdalen. As she saw the madman ap-
proach her, the poor child, moved by a supreme instinct
of self-preservation, rose as if pushed by a spring, ran
to the French window, which opened on the garden,
threw it open with the unconscious skill of somnabu-
lists and people in a desperate position, and sprang,
borne along by fear, into the dark walks of the garden,
followed by Volmerange.

She did not feel the gravel and shells hurting her
delicate bare feet ; the rain-laden branches swept her face
and her bare shoulders, and seemed to try to hold her back
by the folds of her wrapper. The burning breath of
Volmerange almost reached her neck, and several times
the madman's desperate hands had almost grasped her.

She thus reached the parapet of the terrace, which
she leapt over, leaving on the iron spikes a fragment
of muslin — the only trace left on which Lord and
Lady Harley could build conjectures. Her husband
reached the street almost as soon as she did, and the
pursuit continued.

Poor Edith's strength was beginning to give way ;
her knees knocked against each other ; the blood

164

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THE QUARTETTE

surged in her temples ; her breath came short and quick.
She had already traversed, poor hunted doe, one or two
streets, deserted on account of the advanced hour
and the storm ; but even if a belated passer-by had hap-
pened to be there, he would not have helped her,
taking her for a street-walker escaping after a row in
some nocturnal orgy, or pursued by some one she
had robbed.

In the course of her flight she reached the Thames,
and Blackfriars Bridge, and began to cross it breath-
less and with slower steps. When she was near the
centre, her breath and her strength abandoning her,
her feet bleeding, her wrapper covered with mud,
soaked by the last showers of the storm, and cling-
ing to her burning, chilled body, — she stopped and
leaned against the parapet, resolved no longer to dis-
pute her life ; after all, it was still a happiness to
die by his hand, since she could no longer live for
him.

The Count, having come up to her, seized her two
arms and said to her : —

" Swear that the contents of the letter are false."

Edith, who, after yielding to the impulse of physical
terror, had recovered all her natural dignity, replied : —

165

THE QUARTETTE

" The letter tells the truth ; I will not save my life
by a falsehood."

Volmerange raised her as if she had been a feather,
and swung her for a moment beyond the parapet over
the black gulf. The invisible waters roared and
stormed under the arch ; never had a thicker night
overspread the Thames.

" Sombre abyss, keep forever the secret of my dis-
honour ! " said the Count, leaning half way over the
parapet. Then he opened his hands.

A plaint as soft as the sigh of a stifled dove was
Edith's last prayer. The wind uttered a long moan
of despair, and a light white flake fell through the thick
mist like a feather falling from a swan's wing, and
dropped into the river ; from above, it was impossible
to hear the sound of the fall, drowned by the murmur
of the water, the creaking of boats, the shrieking of
the gale, and the innumerable sounds which form the
lamentation of nature on a stormy night.

" Now for the other," said Volmerange, as he re-
traced his steps ; " I must find him, were he concealed
in the very lowest circle of hell."

And he plunged into the labyrinth of streets, with a
swift, resolute step.

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THE QUARTETTE

Carried away by the rapidity of my narration, I did
not state that a man, who might have been taken for
a shadow, stood close to the wall of the Count's
house. Was he watching for himself or for some one
else ? That is what I am not aware of. Was he a
thief, a lover, a spy, a foe, or a friend? Did he foresee
the catastrophe which was bound to come, and did he
desire to witness it, himself invisible ? I am not yet
in position to answer these questions. All I can say
is that the nocturnal prowler saw Edith spring from
the terrace, Volmerange pursue her and throw her into
the Thames, without attempting to interfere with
the dreadful affair, satisfied with being a silent spec-
tator of it. When Volmerange, having accomplished
his vengeance, returned into the city, the shadow
followed him from afar, keeping step with him,
so as to not lose sight of him, and yet not to be
noticed.

His brain whirling, his heart filled with rage and
regrets, Volmerange walked on to Regent's Park,
where, overcome by fatigue, grief, and despair, he
let himself fall on a bench at the foot of a tree, in
a state of complete prostration. His mind was a
blank, and his head nodded on his shoulders ; his

THE QUARTETTE

vigorous figure was limp; he sank into that dull stupor
by which nature, weary of suffering, avoids moral or
physical torture.

While he dozed, the dark shadow drew near him,
with so light, furtive and cat-like a step that not a
grain of sand moved, not a blade of grass bent. He
placed on Volmerange's knees a paper of curious
shape, and an envelope full of letters; then withdraw-
ing still more softly, concealed himself behind the
trees, from which he could not be distinguished.

Light as had been the touch, it woke Volmerange,
who saw the paper and the envelope placed so mys-
teriously on his knees, and ran to the lamp. The en-
velope contained letters from Edith, proving her guilt ;
the paper bore these words : —

" I swear never to dispose of my person, never to
bind myself in any way, by marriage or otherwise, and
to ever hold myself free for the supreme junta ; I swear
it by the God who created the worlds, by the demon
who seeks to destroy them, by Heaven and Hell, by
my father's honour and my mother's virtue, by my blood
as a gentleman, by my soul as a Christian, by my word
as a free man, by the memory of heroes and saints, on
the Gospels and on my sword, and in case our religion

168

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should be but a mistake, I swear by fire and water, the
sources of life, by the secret forces of nature, by the
stars, the mysterious regulators of Fate, by Chronos
and Jupiter, by Acheron and by Styx, which formerly
bound the gods.

41 Signed with my blood,

" VOLMERANGE."

169

THE QUARTETTE

XII

AFTER he had read, the Count, maddened with
grief and rage, traversed the park in every
direction, seeking the mysterious being who
while he dozed had thrown on his knees Edith's
letters and the formula of the pact which bound him
to an unknown power. In vain he traversed the
walks and explored the shrubbery ; he failed to dis-
cover any one. It is true the night was dark, and
the pale light of distant lamps alone guided him in his
pursuit. Wearied by his mad chase, he left the park
and walked towards Primrose Hill.

The houses became more scattered, the fields began
to invade the city, and soon he found himself in the
country, climbing the lower slopes of the hill.

His goings and comings had taken time, and the
late November dawn was beginning to show in the
heaven, filled with great clouds like huge bodies left on
the tempest's battlefield. Nothing could be more un-
like Homer's rosy-fingered dawn than this sinister
British sunrise.

THE QUARTETTE

He let himself fall at the foot of a tree, that shivered
in the sharp breeze of morning, having lost already
more than half its leaves, and drew from his pocket
Edith's lacerated letters, which he had put there me-
chanically. While they left him no doubt as to his
own misfortune, they were written in a constrained
style ; passion expressed itself in them with embar-
rassment ; it seemed as though the girl had yielded
to involuntary fascination rather than to sympathy.

This reading embittered still further Volmerange's
suffering, but read he must, in order to justify his
vengeance to himself. After his violent and terrible
act doubts had occurred to him, not as to the certainty
of Edith's guilt, but as to the justice of the punish-
ment. Her white form falling through the darkness
into the black gulf of the river constantly passed
before his eyes, like a visible remorse ; he asked him-
self if he had not gone far beyond his rights as a
husband and a gentleman in inflicting a dreadful death
upon a young and lovely girl standing upon the threshold
of life. Guilty as Edith certainly was, she had been so
bitterly punished that it made her innocent.

Any one who that morning should have told him that
by night he would be a murderer would have appeared

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to him a maniac ; and yet he had just pitilessly de-
stroyed a defenceless woman, whom he had sworn
before God and man to protect. The terrible exe-
cution he had carried out, although justified by the
laws of honour, terrified him and appeared to him
in all its dread gravity. Besides, ought not his
vengeance to have been vented upon Edith's accom-
plice ? Carried away by blind wrath he had deprived
himself, by slaying the culprit, of all means of ascer-
taining the source of the crime. It was the infamous
seducer whose name he ought to have dragged from
Edith, and whom he would have delighted in tortur-
ing slowly, and with most ingenious barbarity; for
swift death would not have satisfied his thirst for
vengeance.

Then, recalling the bonds which connected him with
the mysterious association whose oath my readers have
read, he grew wrathy at this setting-up of authority
after years of silence ; and, although the oath had not
been extracted from him, he felt his independence
revolted at this claim to dispose of him. He had
sworn, it was true, but in the enthusiasm of youth, to
serve with his whole strength and mind a common idea,
but that was no reason why he should crush down the

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feelings of his heart, cease to be a man, and become
a reed in a hidden hand.

He aeemed to note a strange coincidence between
Edith's dishonour and this recalling of the oath he had
taken. Was not the purpose to detach him, by this
terrible blow, from human things, and to profit by his
despair to launch him into an impossible enterprise ?

He recalled a remark once made by one of the influ-
ential members of the association : " God put woman
on the earth lest man should do too great things." By
showing to him the unworthiness of the woman he
loved, no doubt they had expected to convince him
irrevocably of the truth of Shakespeare's maxim :
" Frailty, thy name is woman," and to make him
renounce forever her treacherous attraction.

" Oh ! " said he to himself, " whom can I trust
henceforth, if the face can lie like the lips, if candour
deceives, if chastity is but a mask, if the celestial spark
is but a reflection of hell, if the heart of the rose is full
of poison, if the virginal wreath is placed upon hair cast
loose in debauch ? Edith, Edith, I had intrusted to
you, fearlessly and unsuspectingly, the honour of my
ancient line; I believed you would transmit pure the
blood of the old knights and the royal blood of India

J 73

THE QUARTETTE

which flows in my veins. And yet she loved me, I am
sure of it," he exclaimed, striking his knee violently
with his fist; "her sweet glance told the truth; her
voice had the accent of real love ; there is in all this
some horrible machination! On the other hand, she did
not once deny the accusation ; she did not utter a single
word in her own defence. She is guilty, guilty, guilty,"
he went on, continually repeating the word with the
monotonous insistence of people who feel their ideas
escape them, and who cling to the last syllable they
have uttered, as a saving bough clutched by their fast
disappearing reason.

Tears rolled silently and uninterruptedly down his
cheeks ; he did not even think of wiping them awav,
and repeated with a crazed look, as if it were the
refrain of a ballad, " She is guilty, guilty, guilty ! "

Day had now come, and from the heights of Prim-
rose Hill the eye roamed over the city of London,
which was beginning to smoke like a boiling caldron ;
it was a grand and magnificent spectacle : long trails
of bluish mists outlined the course of the Thames,
and here and there arose from out the fog the pointed
spires of churches, touched by slanting beams of light.
The two towers of Westminster rose up almost directly

174

THE QUARTETTE

before him in the dark mist ; the statue of the Duke
of York stood like a little doll, upon its slender
column ; on the left the Monument raised to heaven
its flames of gilded bronze ; the Tower, its group of
dungeons j St. Paul's showed its dome, flanked by-
two campaniles ; light and shadow played over the
waves of houses, — broken here and there by islets
of parks or squares, — with a grandeur and majesty
worthy of the ocean ; but Volmerange, although his
set glance seemed to contemplate this marvellous pan-
orama with the deepest attention, actually saw noth-
ing ; the pale shadow of Edith concealed the prospect
from him.

His anger was expended, and he was in such a state
of prostration that a child could have mastered him at
that moment ; his vitality had been wholly exhausted
in that vast projection ; he had emptied himself into
his crime. He endeavoured to rise, but his knees sank
under him ; his eyes clouded, his brow was covered
with cold sweat, and he fell again at the foot of the
tree.

At that moment there passed along the road a man
of honest mien, and simple but comfortable dress ; one
with a face such as may be met a thousand times with-

175

THE QUARTETTE

out its being recognised, so cleverly do such men know
how to wear the mask and domino of the crowd.

He approached Volmerange, who, worn out by emo-
tion and fatigue, and chilled by the night air, was
almost fainting.

" What is the matter, sir ? " said the passer-by, with
an air of interest. " You are very pale, and seem to
be in pain."

" Oh ! nothing, a passing weakness," answered the
Count, almost inaudibly.

" It is a lucky chance that has brought me this way :
I am a physician, and was paying a visit to one of my
patients on Primrose Hill; I have some restoratives
here," said the man, drawing from his pocket a small
case like a surgeon's case, from which he drew a vial,
apparently containing salts.

" Yes, I do not feel very well," murmured Volme-
range, as his head fell.

The kindly passer-by opened the vial, from which
arose a penetrating smell, and placed it under the
patient's nostrils ; but whatever it contained did not
produce the effect which might have been expected :
instead of recovering from his faint, Volmerange seemed
to swoon away more completely, and the effort he had

176

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made to breathe in the exciting odour appeared to have
exhausted the little strength he had left.

The passer-by who had called himself a physician,
although he saw that the patient's swoon was being
prolonged, still held to his nostrils the vial, which he
ought to have drawn away when he saw it did not
produce the right effect. Lethargy seemed to have
followed on syncope. Volmerange, his arms limp, his
body sunk, his head rolling from one shoulder to the
other, was now merely an inert statue.

" A capital invention," murmured the strange physi-
cian, very much" satisfied with the peculiar result of his
assistance. " He is now in a suitable condition ; he
does not know whether he is in heaven, on earth, or in
hell ; he can be taken and carried off without being
any more aware of it than a bale of goods or a man
dead for a week. We could take him to China, as he
is now ; but let me see if I can find a carriage in which
to put him."

He sprang down to the road as if to see at a greater
distance. Nor did he remain long at his position : a
hackney coach, returning to London, appeared on the
horizon of the road, with a flashing and a thundering
of wheels.

I 2

I 77

THE QUARTETTE

The supposed physician made a sign to the coach-
man ; the carriage was empty, and the coachman drew
up near the bank on which lay Volmerange.

Help me," said the false doctor, " to put this
gentleman in your carriage ; he took too much Spanish
and French wine at supper, and fell asleep under this
tree while taking his morning walk. I know him and
will take him home."

The coachman helped the stranger to place Volme-
range into the coach without a word, for a drunken
gentleman was not so uncommon as to cause astonish-
ment. The driver as he climbed back to his box,
merely sighed in a melancholy fashion, and said to
himself : " What a lucky man that lord is, to be drunk
so early." And thereupon he drove in the direction
indicated by the man, who had pointed out a house
situated along one of the roads that succeed the streets
in the suburbs of London.

After a few minutes, the carriage stopped before a
wall in which was a little green door, with a brass
knob shining like gold. Trees almost leafless, showing
over the coping of the wall, denoted that a pretty large
garden separated the house from the street.

The man who had given Volmerange the cordial

178

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THE QUARTETTE

that had stupefied him, pulled the bell ; he rang several
times, leaving between each ring an interval which
seemed to have a meaning settled upon beforehand.

A servant opened ; the man whispered a few words
to him ; the servant went back into the house, and
soon reappeared, followed by two men with olive com-
plexions and queer faces, who took Volmerange and
carried him awav into a wing of round shape, which
formed, at the corner of the main building, one of those
towers frequently met with in English architecture.

The coachman, handsomely paid, drove away think-
ing the matter quite natural ; he had driven back to
his home more than one nobleman in a state at least as
peculiar as that of Volmerange.

The man with the vial, having finished his mission,
withdrew at once, after having written on a square of
paper, which he tore from his note-book, a few words
half in cipher, half in characters in an unknown tongue,
and handed it to the servant who had opened the gate.

The house to which Volmerange had been brought,
was so elegant and rich as to preclude any idea of
robbery or kidnapping. A white and rose awning
shaded the white marble steps ; perfectlv clear mirrors,
placed above the chimney-places, reflected huge China

179

THE QUARTETTE

vases, filled with flowers ; the glass roof and sides of
a vast greenhouse, which seemed to prolong the draw-
ing-room, rose above a regular virgin forest ; Bourbon
palms, bamboos, tulip trees, roseapple trees, creepers,
passion flowers, shaddocks, cacti, bloomed with tropical
exuberance, bristling with darts, knives, and claws, —
their calyxes bursting like shells of perfume and colour,
and the petals of their flowers palpitating like the wings
of Cashmere butterflies.

The two dark-complexioned lackeys placed the sleep-
ing Volmerange upon a sofa and withdrew silently,
appearing in no wise surprised at the arrival of this
gentleman, whom, no doubt, they then saw for the first
time.

He had been resting for some little time, still under
the influence of the narcotic, and yet no one appeared.
The room in which he was laid presented, though
furnished with elegance and simplicity, some peculiar-
ities that might have assisted a careful observer : a
fine Indian matting covered the flooring, and on the
mantel was placed the figure of the Trimorti, represent-
ing Brahma, Vishnu, and Siwa ; a buckler of elephant-
skin, a curved sabre, a Malay creese, and two javelins
were arranged in a trophy upon the wall. These char-

THE QUARTETTE

acteristic details, less remarkable in London than any-
where else, seemed to denote the abode of a wealthy
Calcutta nabob, or of a high official of the Honour-
able East India Company.

Presently a brocade portiere was drawn aside, and
gave passage to a strange figure ; it was a pale, old
man, somewhat bent, who advanced leaning on a stick
as white as ivory. His thin, dry, mummified face was
the colour of Cordova leather or Havana tobacco ;
broad, dark rings circled his hollow eyes, that gleamed
like those of a wild beast, and the brilliancy of which
was in no wise deadened by age ; his eagle nose was
almost ossified, and the hardened cartilage shone like
bone ; his hollow cheeks, deeply wrinkled, clung to the
jaws, and his lips, shrivelled by the use of betel, had
turned his teeth the colour of gold. The knuckles of
the hands, almost like those of an ourang-outang, were
transversely wrinkled, like the insteps of hussars' boots.
A small reddish wig covered his tanned head, burned
and as it were calcined by the sun, and within which
glowed fierce passions and the devouring fire of a fixed
thought. Below the wig, sparkled two golden rings,
hung from the lobe of the ears, that were like pieces
of old leather.

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THE QUARTETTE

Any one seeing that yellow, wrinkled spectre, so dry
that his joints creaked as he walked, would have taken
him, not for a centenarian, but for a millenarian. He
looked fabulously old, and yet his eyes, the only living
things in his odd face, shone like those of a youth ; the
whole vigour of his body, kept alive by a powerful will,
had concentrated in them.

If Volmerange could have thrown off the invincible
torpor that overmastered him and kept him sunk in a
stupor of sleep, he would have shuddered on beholding
that strange being gliding towards him like a phantom ;
he would have believed himself a prey to nightmare ;
for in spite of the full, black coat, the breeches and the
silk stockings, — which a clergyman about to ascend the
pulpit would not have disavowed, and which constituted
a dress not entirely suited to an apparition, — the old
man seemed to have arrived direct from the other world.

Yet he did not seem to be inspired by any evil
feeling, and he drew near the bed with an air as plainly
satisfied as his stuffed Pharaoh complexion and innu-
merable wrinkles, called out on his antediluvian face
by his smile, were capable of assuming.

He still held in his hand the paper on which the
man who had handed Volmerange over to the servant

182

THE QUARTETTE

had scribbled a few mysterious signs, and the contents
were no doubt agreeable to him, for as he read it once
more before throwing it into the fire, he murmured :
" The fellow is very intelligent ; I must remember to
reward his zeal."

He then sat down near Volmerange, waiting for the
effects of the narcotic to pass off; but, seeing that the
young Count did not awake, he called for his dark
lackeys and had him placed upon a bed in a neighbour-
ing room.

This room, decorated and furnished with extreme
magnificence, recalled the fabulous splendours of East-
ern tales ; there was none richer or more splendid in
any palace in Hyderabad or Benares. Slender columns
of white marble, up which ran vine-stalks, the leaves
represented by seed emeralds, and the clusters by
garnets, — supported a ceiling carved, wrought, orna-
mented, and divided into numerous compartments full
of flowers, stars, and fantastic ornaments, as thick as
a forest glade. On the walls ran a carved frieze repre-
senting the chief mysteries of Indian theogony, — a
whole world of gods, with elephants' trunks and polyps'
arms, holding in their hands lotus-flowers, sceptres,
scourges ; monsters, half man, half animal, with leafy

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THE QUARTETTE

limbs twisted into arabesques, mystic symbols of deep
cosmogonic thoughts. In spite of their hieratic stiff-
ness and the childish artlessness of the work, these
carvings had a strange, lifelike look ; the complica-
tions and interlacings made them swarm before one's
eyes, and imparted to them a sort of motionless action.

Broad damask portieres brocaded with gold fell in
heavy folds between the pillars ; a thick, soft multi-
coloured carpet of complicated design, the palm leaves
on which made it resemble a cashmere shawl woven
for a giantess, covered the floor. Around the room
ran a low divan, covered with one of those marvellous
stuffs on which India seems to weave with silks the
brilliant tints of its sky and its flowers.

A soft, milky light, passing through ground glass,
illumined this Asiatic magnificence, and was made stili
fainter by an imperceptible cloud of bluish smoke aris-
ing from perfume-burners in the four corners of the
room, — imparting to it, though it was already surpris-
ing enough, a fairylike aspect. Through this vaporous
gauze the gold, the garnets, the crystals, and projecting
carvings were strangely phosphorescent, and flashed
with sudden gleams. A portion of the bas-relief,
touched by the light, seemed to leave the pillar, to turn

184

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THE QUARTETTE

on itself, and to twist into a spiral. Either the aroma
of the exotic flowers springing from great vases had
an intoxicating effect, or the perfume-burners contained
some of those inebriating preparations of which India
has the secret, and which it is accustomed to use, for
in the course of a few minutes everything assumed in
this hall, that resembled a pagoda, the vague and
changing appearance of objects seen in dreams.

The strange personage whose appearance I have
sketched reappeared after a short absence, but he had
thrown off* his black European clothes; a turban, artist-
ically rolled, had replaced the red wig on his shaven
skull ; two white lines, drawn with consecrated powder,
rayed his tawny brow ; a ring of brilliants sparkled in
his nose ; a muslin robe fell from his shoulders to his
feet in straight folds, unbroken by the body they
covered, so thin was the old man. His copper
face, showing between the great turban and the long
white dress, produced a strange contrast ; the two
white lines had restored to the dark features their
Indian sombreness. He looked like a devotee emerg-
ing from the caves of Elephanta, or the pagoda of
Juggernaut, for the function of the car with the bloody
wheels.

185

THE QUARTETTE

He stood by the bed waiting until the Count, having
got rid of the narcotic, should wake from his slumbers.

Volmerange had already tried to open his eyes, and
through his half-openlids had faintly caught sight of the
tall pillars, the lofty ceiling of the hall, and the old
Hindoo standing by him like a phantom, gazing upon
him with the fixed glance of a figure in a dream ; but
Volmerange did not believe that what he saw was a
reality ; he still fancied himself wandering through the
chimerical countries of sleep. To have fainted at the
foot of a tree on Primrose Hill, and to recover one's
senses upon a Cashmere divan in a hall of Aureng
Zeb's palace, in the very depths of India, nine thousand
miles from the place where one lost consciousness, is
enough to astonish a brain less shaken than was Vol-
merange's. So he remained motionless, not knowing
whether he was awake or asleep, and seeking to re-
cover the broken thread of his thoughts. At last,
making up his mind to open his eyes fully, he cast
around him a look of astonishment, and could not this
time refuse to believe in the existence of what he
beheld.

The place in which he found himself, though very
fanciful, had nothing of the architecture of dreams: it

186

THE QUARTETTE

was the hand of man, and not that of the spirits which
fill sleep with impalpable wonders, that had fluted the
columns, painted the ceiling, carved the bassi-relievi ;
he was not resting on a bank of clouds, but upon an
unmistakable bed. He could see a huge China peony,
with its scarlet bloom, in a vase of Japanese porcelain ;
the perfume tickled his olfactory nerves with genuine
aroma. The face of the Hindoo, though worthy of a
nocturnal fancy, presented shadows and lights that
were quite appreciable, and the modelling was positive.
There was no further reason for doubt.

Raising himself on his elbow, Volmerange put to
the tall, white phantom the inevitable question in such
cases, and said, like the hero of a tragedy who has
recovered from his bewilderment : —

"Where am I ? "

" In a place in which you are most welcome," re-
plied the Hindoo, bowing respectfully.

At this moment the sound of bells was heard behind
the curtain, the rings slid over the bars, and a third
person entered the room.

187

THE QUARTETTE
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XIII

A YOUNG girl of incredible beauty, wearing a
rich Indian costume, appeared in the room, —
appeared is the word, for she would have been
taken for an Apsara, come down from Indra's courr,
rather than tor a mere mortal.

Her complexion — a singular one according to
European ideas — had the brilliancy of gold; its amber
tint, like that which time has given to the flesh tints
in pictures by Titian, did not prevent, however, a rosy
bloom flushing the maiden's cheeks. Her almond-
shaped eyes, surmounted by such clean brows that tney
seemed drawn with Indian ink, lengthened towards
the temples, and were made longer still by a line of
surmeh. The eyelids were fringed with blue lashes;
the pupils shone with velvet brilliancy, and looked like
two black stars on a silver sky. The nose, thin and
delicately formed, with rosy nostrils, was slightly tat-
tooed at the root, with tincture of gorothchana ; and
from the nostrils hung a golden ring, studded with

188

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THE QUARTETTE

diamonds, through the circle of which shone purest
pearls set in a smile as golden as the fruit of the jujube
tree. The diamonds and pearls, mingling their gleams,
imparted to the somewhat dull complexion a light
which it otherwise might have lacked. The smooth
cheeks, as unctuous as ivory, ran into the chin in lines
of ideal purity. King Douchmonta himself, the
Indian Raphael, could not have reproduced with his
graceful brush all the delicacy of these contours.
Behind the ears, which were small and bordered with a
pearly line, like a Ceylon shell, the silky, scented bloom
of a branch of siricah, fastened to a filigree knot, fell
gracefully over the delicate cheek of the maiden. Her
hair, the parting of which was marked by a line of car-
mine, was divided into bands, joined on her neck in
tresses bound with gold thread, and covered with plates
of jewels that stood out against its dark-blue colour.
Her breasts, bound in bv a narrow vest of crimson
silk, so covered with ornaments that the stuff almost
disappeared, were separated bv a knot formed of fila-
ments of lotus, that shone like silver threads or woven
moonbeams. Her lovely arms, round and flexible as
creepers, were clasped near the shoulders by bracelets
in the form of serpents, like those of the god Maha-

189

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THE QUARTETTE

dava, and the wrists by quintuple ropes of pearls.
The palms of her hands, small as a child's, were dyed
red, and diamond rings shone on every finger. A
golden girdle studded with amethysts and garnets,
bound her supple waist, — bare from the corset to the
hip, according to Oriental fashion, — and held in the
folds of trousers of striped stuff, which, fastened at the
ankles, showed, emerging from a mass of pearly anklets
and gilded circlets adorned with little bells, two pretty
little feet with polished heels and toes laden with rings
and dyed red with henna like the cheeks of a virgin
blushing with shame. A scarf, with as many colours
as the rainbow, or the tail of the peacock on which
rides Saravasti, and the two ends of which were drawn
under her golden belt, played caressingly around her
undulating body, slender as the stalk of a palm. On
her bosom streamed, with metallic rustlings, a cascade
of necklaces of pearls of all colours, of shimmering
necklets of golden balls, and lotus flowers strung in
chaplets, — in a word, all that Hindoo coquetry can
invent in the way of splendour and beauty ; mysterious
marks, made with sandal powder, showed faintly on
the lower portion of her neck amid this phosphorescent
brilliancy; and in order that the costumes should lack

190

THE QUARTETTE

not the least trace of local colour, the maiden breathed
a faint and delightful perfume of ousire.

Neither Parvati, the spouse of Mahadava, nor Mis-
rakesi, nor Menaca, equalled in beauty the young Hin-
doo maid who advanced towards Volmerange, petrified
with surprise, — her necklets, her bracelets, and the
bells of her anklets rustling as she walked.

The mysterious poetry of India seemed to be in-
corporated in that lovely girl, brilliant and sombre,
delicate and wild, splendid and nude, appealing to every
thought and to every sense, — to thought by her sym-
bolical tattooing and ornaments, to the senses by her
beauty, her radiance, and her perfume ; gold, diamonds,
pearls and flowers turned her into a focus of beams the
brightest of which were those that flashed from her
eyes.

She came thus to the divan with soft undulations,
full of chaste voluptuousness, pressing on her heels
like Sacountala on the sand of the flowery path ; and
when she had come opposite to Volmerange, she knelt
and remained in the same attitude of respectful con-
templation as Lakmi admiring Vishnu lying on his
lotus leaf, and floating on the infinite, under the
shadow of his serpent dais.

THE QUARTETTE

Although Volmerange had every reason to believe
he was awake, he must have thought himself the play-
thing of some prodigious hallucination ; there was so
little connection between the events of the past night
and what he now beheld that he might well have
believed his brain was turned; yet nothing could be
more real than the lovely being kneeling before
him.

The scene deeply impressed him : his mother was a
Hindoo, who belonged to one of the royal races dis-
possessed by the English conquest ; the Asiatic blood
which flowed in his veins, mingling with the colder
blood of the North, seemed at this moment to run
more rapidly, and to carry away with it the European
portion. The remembrances of his childhood came
crowding back, and he saw as in a mirage rising on the
horizon, the snow crests of the Himalayas, the swelling
domes of the pagodas, the orange bloom of the asoca,
and the loving couples of swans floating on the blue
waters of the Malini. The whole poetry of the past
revived in that retrospective revelation. The architec-
ture of the room, the perfume of the madhavi, the old
Hindoo's dress, the dazzling radiance of the maiden,
awoke in him forgotten remembrances ; the very face

192

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THE QUARTETTE

of the lovely creature, prostrate before him in an atti-
tude of amorous adoration, was not wholly new,
although he was sure he saw her for the first time.
Yet where had they met ? In the world of dreams, or
in some anterior incarnation ? He could not tell ; yet
a confused swarm of thoughts buzzed around his head,
and he seemed to have lived a long time with her
whom he had seen but for a few minutes.

The old, yellow-faced, white-robed phantom seemed
to have reckoned on this effect ; with strange persist-
ency he fixed his flashing glance on Volmerange, as if
to read his inmost thoughts.

Apparently the Count did not manifest his emotions
strongly enough to satisfy Daksha, — for thus was the
Hindoo called, — for he signed to the maiden to speak.

" My dear lord," said she, in Hindoostani speech,
full of vowels and sweet as music, " have you forgot-
ten Priyamvada ? "

The sounds of the tongue he had spoken in India in
his childhood, but which he had neglected since he lived
in Europe, first sounded on his ears merely as a melo-
dious, murmuring rhythm, and it took him some time to
make out the meaning ; he had understood the air be-
fore he grasped the words.

*93

THE QUARTETTE

" Priyamvada ? " he said slowly, and as if talcing
time to recollect, — " Priyamvada, she whose speech is
sweet as honey ? No, I do not remember her, and yet
it seems to me — why, yes, I knew a child, a little
girl-"

" The lapse of ten years has changed into a young
girl the child born to your mother's sister."

" Ah ! it is you, then, to whom I used to give, for
playthings, little ivory elephants, tigers carved of
wood, and peacocks of burned clay, painted with many
colours. Priyamvada, my cousin with the golden
complexion, I had somewhat forgotten our barbaric
relationship."

" I had not forgotten it, and I honour in you the last
line of kings whose ancestors were gods, and who were
seated on the clouds before they were seated on
thrones."

" Although your father was European," added Dak-
sha, "a single drop of that divine blood transmitted by
your mother makes you the heir of dynasties that
lived and flourished centuries before your cold Europe
had emerged from chaos or risen from the diluvian
waters."

" You are the hope of a whole nation," added Pri-

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yamvada, in a musical and caressing voice, with an
accent of witching flattery.

" I, the hope of a whole nation ? what nonsense ! "
replied Volmerange.

" Priyamvada has spoken the truth," went on Dak-
sha, bowing and crossing over his bony chest his skinny
hands, as black as a monkey's ; " Heaven intends you
for a great destiny. Touched by the sufferings of my
country I devoted myself for thirty years to the most
awful austerity, in order to obtain the favour of the
gods ; born wealthy, I have lived as the poorest pariah ;
I have treated this miserable body so harshly that it
resembles a dried mummy which has lain for forty
centuries in the mummy pits of Egypt ; for I sought
to destroy this weak flesh in order to allow my freed
soul to ascend to the sources of things, and to read the
thoughts of the gods. Oh ! I have suffered much," he
continued with increasing exaltation, " and I have paid
dearly for the gift of sight. The rain has poured its
icy torrents, and the sun its fiery waves, upon my
body, which I kept motionless in the most constrained
attitude. My nails have grown into my closed hands ;
burning with thirst, worn out by hunger, repulsive,
soiled with filth, having nothing human left about me,

THE QUARTETTE

— I have remained for many a summer and many a
winter, an object of terror and pity. The termites
built their cities by my side ; the birds of heaven made
their nests in my brush-like hair ; and the mud-caked
hippopotamus rubbed against me as against a tree
trunk •, the tiger sharpened his claws upon my side,
taking me for a stone ; the children tried to drag out
my eyes, when they saw them shine like pieces of
crystal in the heap of inert clay that I was. The
thunderbolt fell on me once, but did not interrupt mv
prayers. So, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, took my pen-
ance into consideration, and the venerable Trimorti,
when, my time having been served, I went to consult
it in the caves of the Elephanta, deigned to tell me
three times, by the mouths of its triple head, the name
of the predestined Saviour."

As he spoke these strange words, Daksha seemed to
be transfigured ; his bowed frame was erect, his eyes
glowed with enthusiasm, his brown face was lighted
up, his wrinkles had almost disappeared, and the youth
of the soul coming to the surface effaced for a time the
decreptitude of the body.

Volmerange, surprised, listened with a sort of respect-
ful terror, while Priyamvada, filled with admiration,

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took the hem of the old man's dress and kissed it
respectfully ; to her, Daksha was a gouro, a divine
being, and when she arose her eyes were filled with
tears, like the two calixes of lotus pearly with morn-
ing dew.

They formed a charming group ; the young girl
with her graceful movements, her rounded forms, her
sumptuous garments, presented an apparently designed
contrast to this dry, angular, tall old man : they looked
like the incarnation of poetry and fanaticism.

The strange scene had drawn the Count's mind
from the events of the night. All that had passed in
the nuptial chamber, and on Blackfriars Bridge seemed
to him a feverish nightmare, driven away by the soft
light of the morning. He asked himself whether he
had really been married the day before, and had really
hurled his guilty wife into the Thames. He could
scarcely believe in the reality of the warning, the
letters, the ruin of his happiness, the horrible catas-
trophe, and he looked dreamily at Daksha and Priyam-
vada.

Daksha, his excitement over, was little by little
returning to commonplace life, and losing his inspired
look ; he was now only the parchment-like old man,

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whose portrait I have already drawn ; the prophet had
disappeared, the man alone was left, and he said to the
Count, with an obsequious smile : —

" Now that your lordship knows you are in the home
of Daksha, the mouni of the Brahmin sect, I will
withdraw ; the ablutions I must make, to purify myself
from the soil which even the saint cannot avoid in
these infidel cities, compel me to withdraw to my
oriental room. Priyamvada shall remain with you, and
her conversation will doubtless be more agreeable than
that of an old Brahmin, worn out by penance." With
these words Daksha let fall the heavy portiere which
he had raised, and disappeared.

Priyamvada, reclining at Volmerange's feet with the
grace of a tame gazelle, took his hand and looking up
at him with eyes that shone in their lines of surmeh,
said to him in a voice that sounded like a melodious
cooing : —

" What troubles mv gracious lord ? He seems sad
and preoccupied ; is he not happy ? "

For sole reply Volmerange uttered a sigh.

" Oh ! no one is happv," continued Privamvada,
" in this accursed climate, in this ungrateful land, where
the flowers bloom only under glass, with a stove for a

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sun, where the women are pale as the snow on moun-
tain summits and know not what love is."

This remark, which caused Volmerange's wound to
bleed again, made him start painfully ; his eyes flashed,
and the Hindoo maid, noting the look of anger, under-
stood she was right, and went on in her softest voice :

" Has a European woman grieved the descendant of
the kings of the lunar dynasty ? "

Volmerange did not reply, but his breast heaved with
a deep sigh.

Her voice melting into a still softer intonation,
Priyamvada continued her questions : —

" Is it possible that my lord, whose dazzling beauty
surpasses that of Chandra traversing the heavens on his
silver car, was not loved as soon as he deigned to cast
his glance on a mere girl, — when the apsaras them-
selves vvould rejoice to serve him on bended knee ? "

As she uttered these words the maid clasped her
arms around Volmerange, like a pretty malica flower
clinging to the trunk of the amra. Her lovely face,
which she brought close to that of the Count, seemed
to say, by the moist brilliance of the eyes and the grace
of the smile, how completely safe from such a misfor-
tune her European cousin would have been with her !

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For sole reply Volmerange bent his head on Priyam-
vada's shoulder, who soon felt his tears falling.

" Can it be," said Priyamvada, wiping away with a
chaste kiss the tears from Volmerange's eyes, " that
this capricious woman of the North, more changeable
than the fire of the opal or the chameleon skin, de-
ceived my gracious lord, who has no equal on earth ?
For a man of the race of the gods weeps only when
betrayed."

" Yes, Priyamvada ; I have been betrayed, shame-
fully betrayed," cried Volmerange, unable to keep back
his fatal secret any longer.

" And I hope," went on Priyamvada, in the quietest
and most musical tone, " that my dear lord has slain
the guilty one ? "

" The Thames has concealed and punished her
fault."

"That is a very gentle punishment; in mv country
an elephant would have trampled upon her lying bosom,
and would have slowly crushed her perfidious heart ;
or a tiger would have torn like a gauze veil the body
she had soiled with another love, — unless her master
had preferred to shut up the criminal in a sack with a
number of cobras. Let that remembrance fade away

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THE QUARTETTE'

from your mind like a cloudlet swept from heaven,
like a flake of foam in the ocean ; forget Europe, and
come to India where worship awaits you ; there in
our burning climate, you shall breathe breezes laden
with intoxicating scents ; there giant flowers bend their
calyxes like urns ; the lotus spreads languorously upon
the consecrated tirthas ; in the forests and meads grow
the five flowers with which Cama, the god of love, tips
his arrows : the tchampaca, the amra, the kesara, the
ketaca, and the bilva, — which all inflame the heart
with a different but equally hot fire. The dulcet songs
of the cokilas and tchavatracas sound from bank to
bank ; there a glance enslaves one for life ; there
woman loves beyond the tomb, and her passion burns
out only in the ashes of the pyre. There must one
live and die for a single love. Oh ! come thither,
master, and in Priyamvada's arms, on Priyamvada's
bosom, will soon pass awav, like a winter night's
dream, that long Northern nightmare which you mis-
take for life ! "

The Hindoo girl, no doubt believing herself already
back in her own land, drew Volmerange to her bosom,
on which shivered the golden necklets, and the pearls
rustled as her quick breath made her breasts rise

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•THE QUARTETTE

and fall. Thus caught, seized by the bold, virginal
caress of the girl, whose passions were as artless and
chaste as those of nature in the first days of creation,
— Volmerange felt deep emotion ; he seemed to see
waves of flame pass across his face ; unconsciously his
arm clasped Priyamvada's firm waist.

The portiere was slightly drawn aside, and in the
interstices shone the metallic eyes of the old Brahmin ;
but Volmerange and Priyamvada were too much taken
up with each other to notice this.

" Good," said Daksha, as he gazed ; " it looks as if
Europe and India were being reconciled, and Priyam-
vada and Volmerange proposed to wed after the gand-
harva mode, — a most respectable way since Manou
has admitted it among his laws. Nothing could better
further my plans."

He then withdrew as gently as possible.

" Will you accompany me into the Punjab ? " asked
Priyamvada of the count, who had just pressed his lips
to' her brow.

" Yes ; but I still have a culprit to punish," an-
swered Volmerange, in a tone full of fury.

" That is proper," replied the maiden ; " but permit
your slave to feel surprised at the fact that the man

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THE QUARTETTE

who has offended you has not yet been destroyed by
your vengeance."

" I do not know him ; I have proof of the crime,
but I do not know who is the criminal; the plot was
wrought with infernal skill ; I have no clue to help
me."

" Listen to me," said Priyamvada, thoughtfully.
"You Europeans, who depend on your fictitious sciences
born yesterday, have ceased to live in communion with
nature ; you have broken the bonds that bind man to
the occult powers of creation. India is the land of
traditions and mysteries, its inhabitants know many
secrets formerly imparted by the gods, which would
amaze your incredulous wise men. Priyamvada is
but a little girl whom proud English ladies would con-
sider a savage fit only to amuse their guests ; but
more than once have I heard the Brahmins, seated on
a gazelle skin between the four mysterious braziers,
speak of the possible and the impossible. Well, I can
show you the culprit, were he concealed in the utter-
most ends of the earth."

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XIV

PRIYAMVADA arose and fetched from a corner
of the room a small Chinese lacquered table,
which she placed before Volmerange, who
was following her every motion with restless curiosity.

In a crystal cup full of water was a rose-lotus flower,
just opened. Priyamvada took the flower and emptied
the water into a Japanese vase; then she placed it on
the table, after having filled it with water newly drawn
from a curiously wrought and carefully closed flagon.

" This," said the young Hindoo girl, " is the myste-
rious water which flowed from heaven upon Mount
Chimavonta ; it falls from the mouth of the sacred
cow, which is guided in its course by pious Bagireta;
it is the sacred water of the river formerly known as
the Chlialoros, which now bears the name of Ganges.
I drew it as I bent over the marble steps of the Benares
pagoda, while performing the prescribed formalities ; it
therefore possesses all its divine virtues, and our ex-
periment is an assured success."

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The Count listened most attentively to Priyamvada,
without understanding, however, what she proposed
to do.

From a number of boxes she drew powders that she
placed upon the porcelain perfume-burners at the four
corners of the room ; wreaths of faint, bluish vapour
arose, and gave out a penetrating odour.

" Now," said Priyamvada to Volmerange, " bend
over that cup, and look as attentively as you can into
the water it contains, while I pronounce the magic
words and call upon the mystic powers."

The scene was utterly unlike an ordinary incanta-
tion : there was no cavern, no hovel, no familiar toad,
no black cat, no greasy book ; but a large, splendid hall,
a cup of clear water, perfumes, and a lovely maid.
There was nothing very terrific about all this, yet as
Volmerange bent over the cup, his heart beat quickly ;
the unknown is always somewhat alarming, under what-
ever form it presents itself.

Standing by the table, Priyamvada recited a form of
incantation, in a low voice and in a tongue unknown
to Volmerange; she appeared to be filled with the live-
liest fervour; her eyes were raised to the ceiling, the
pupils concealed under the eyelids, and only the pearly

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white of the orbs showing ; her bosom swelled with
ardent sighs, and the fire of prayer imparted a rosy tint
to the golden amber of her skin. She continued for
some time, then, speaking in an intelligible language,
she said, as if addressing beings visible to her alone: —

"Come, Red and Gold, do your duty."

Volmerange, who up to this time had been bending
over the cup without perceiving anything else than the
pure water, suddenly saw its limpidity clouded by a
milky tint, as if smoke were ascending from the
bottom.

"Has a cloud appeared?" asked the young Hindoo
girl.

"Yes, one would say that an invisible hand had
poured some essence in the water, for it has suddenly
turned a milky white."

" It is the hand of the spirit troubling the water,"
answered Priyamvada, quietly.

The Count could not help looking up.

u Do not look beyond the table," cried Priyamvada,
in a beseeching tone; "you would break the spell."

Obeying the injunction of his dark cousin, Volmer-
ange again bent his head.

" Now what do you see ? "

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" A circle of colour is forming at the bottom of the
cup."

" Only one ? "

" No, it is now double, and has all the colours of
the prism."

"Two is not enough, — three are needed, one for
Brahma, one for Vishnu, and one for Siva; look very
carefully, I shall repeat the incantation," said Priyam-
vada, reassuming her curious attitude.

The third circle appeared, at first faint and pale, like
the shadow of a rainbow seen by the side of the true
one ; soon, however, its outline became clear, and shone
radiant and brilliant by the others.

" There are now three circles ! " cried the Count,
who in spite of his European incredulity, could not
help being astonished at the appearance of the flaming
rings, unexplained by any physical reason.

" The three rings are there," said Priyamvada ; " the
frame is ready. Spirits, bring him we wish to see. In
whatever part of the world, and at whatever time he
lived, were it before Adam, who is buried in the isle
of Serendib, compel him to appear and to reveal him-
self, — a shadow if he be dead, a portrait if he be
living."

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THE QUARTETTE

These words, uttered in the most solemn tone, caused
Volmerange to bend more eagerly over the cup ; could
he trust the efficacy of Priyamvada's magic incanta-
tions ? His prejudices as a civilized man revolted at
the thought, yet the effects she had already produced
scarcely allowed of incredulity ; in any case, his uncer-
tainty would not last long.

At the bottom of the cup, within the space cir-
cumscribed by the three luminous rings, Volmerange
saw, appearing in the depths of a vast distance, a
point which approached rapidly, becoming clearer and
clearer.

" Do you see anything appear ? " asked Priyamvada
of Volmerange.

" A man whose features I cannot yet make out is
approaching towards me."

" When you see him more distinctly, endeavour to
fix his features carefully in your mind, for I cannot
twice bring up the spectre of the same person," added
the young girl, gravely. The figure now became
more defined, as if produced under the water by a
mysterious brush. A flash passed through the cup,
and Volmerange recognized unmistakably Xavier's pale,
delicate face.

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He uttered a cry of astonishment and rage ; the
milky cloud again filled the cup, the image became
faint, and everything disappeared.

" Dolfos, one of the members of our Junta ! " went
on Volmerange, thunder-struck.

Dolfos was Xavier's true name, though it was under
the latter pseudonym alone that Edith knew him.
Xavier, or more properly Dolfos, could not have fore-
seen these hydromancist performances, and had thought
by changing his name he could make darker still the
sombre intrigue he had wrought.

Priyamvada, who appeared in no way surprised at
the amazing result, poured back the Ganges water into
the flagon from which she had drawn it.

" Now my dear lord may be avenged if he pleases,"
said the maiden ; " my art has shown him the culprit."

u Listen, Priyamvada," roared the Count, as he
drew himself up to his full height ; " I shall follow you
to India, and do whatever you please ; my heart and my
arm belong to you, in return for the service you have
just rendered me. Now let me go. I can think of
nothing but my vengeance."

" Go," replied Priyamvada ; " be dread as Durga when
he plunges his trident into the heart of vice, fierce as

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Narsingha, the man lion, when he tears the entrails of
Hiranycasipu."

She took the Count by the hand, and led him through
devious windings, to a door that opened on the street.

When she returned, Daksha, who had watched the
whole scene, concealed by the curtains, was standing in
the centre of the hall, his chin in his hand, and his
elbow resting in the other, in a meditative attitude.
After a few moments he said to Priyamvada : —

" I think, maiden, you were wrong to let the dear
lord go: suppose he should not come back? "

" He will come back," replied the girl, a smile full
of witching and artless coquetry showing behind her
diamond-studded nose-ring.

When Volmerange found himself in the street, he
thought he must have been the plaything of a dream ;
how could he believe in such phantasmagoria ? Was
Dolfos really the culprit ? A secret instinct convinced
him that he was, although he had nothing else on which
to base his belief.

But supposing he were guilty, how was Volmerange
to prove it ? The only creature who could have told
the truth was now being carried out to sea, or at least
so thought the Count, in the turbid waters of the

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Thames. Again, where could he find Dolfos, whom
he had lost sight of for two or three years, and whose
manner of life he knew nothing of, for the man's cold
and secret nature had always aroused Volmerange's
antipathy. They had occasionally met, but had con-
fined themselves to that strict politeness which
borders on insult. Some love affairs in which Dolfos
had been an unsuccessful rival of Volmerange, appeared
to have left in his soul a deep rancour, which he care-
fully concealed, but which had awakened every evil
feeling in his vile heart.

A further uncertainty tortured the Count : possibly
Dolfos had acted in accordance with the orders of the
Junta, and then, backed by the powerful association, he
might escape his well-merited chastisement; no doubt
some ship was already carrying him away towards an
unknown country, and concealing him forever from his
pursuer.

He had got so far in his reasoning, when suddenly,
by one of those chances which are true in life though
improbable in a novel, Dolfos, turning the corner of
the street, found himself face to face with him.

At the sight of Volmerange, Dolfos understood
that he knew all ; he was terror-struck at the sight of

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the livid face, in which flamed two glaring eyes, and
threw himself back abruptly ; but the Count's hand
clutched his arm like a grappling-iron, and held him
back.

" Dolfos," said the Count, " I know everything ; do
not attempt to lie ; you belong to me, follow me."

The wretch tried to escape from the grasp of the
strong hand, but failed.

w Shall I have to strike you in the open street, like
the coward you are, to compel you to fight ? " went on
Volmerange ; " I have the right to kill you, and yet I
shall risk my life against yours, as if you were an hon-
ourable man. I can understand a man seducing a
woman, for love excuses everything ; but there is noth-
ing more monstrous and abominable in hell than to
ruin her coolly and hatefully : you have made me a
murderer, and I now must kill you, — I owe it to
Edith's memory."

" Very well, I shall follow you," replied Dolfos ;
" but let go my wrist, you are breaking it."

" No," replied Volmerange, " you would run away."

The Count called a passing carriage and made the
pale and trembling Dolfos enter it before him

"Drive to ," said the Count. It was a little

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THE QUARTETTE

country-house, a cottage which he owned in the neigh-
bourhood of Richmond.

Although the drive was rapid, it seemed long to the
two enemies. Dolfos, cowering in a corner of the
carriage, looked like a hyena driven to bay by a lion,
while Volmerange watched him with sinister feelings.
Volmerange was calm, Dolfos perturbed.

The cottage was at last reached ; an old servant was
in charge of the house, to which the Count rarely
repaired with his friends, when he gave a bachelor
party.

The cottage was planned discreetly : no one could
look into the grounds, surrounded by high palings ;
there was no importunate neighbour; neither the breath-
ings of love nor the yells of an orgy would awake any
one's attention ; on the other hand, two men might
kill each other there quite comfortably. To one who
had voluptuous intentions it was a Calypso's grotto ;
with sinister ones it became the cave of Cacus. I hope
all this mythology will be forgiven me. Volmerange's
intentions were not pleasant ; hence the cottage became
a cut-throat place.

Day was sinking, and the room into which Volme-
range entered, driving Dolfos before him, was damp

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THE QUARTETTE

and cold like a chamber in a tomb ; it had not been
opened for a long time.

Dolfos let himself fall into an arm-chair, and leaned
his head on his hand ; he was terribly cast down ;
although boldly imaginative, he lacked physical cour-
age ; he began to repent, as is the habit of cowards
when found out. Although he had received orders
from the Junta to keep Volmerange and Edith apart,
he had unquestionably overstepped his powers in a
most audacious fashion, and indulged too largely his
own private hatred ; he experienced the bitter, hopeless
regret of unsuccessful rascality.

" Daniel, take that letter to the city," said Volme-
range, after having folded the paper, to the old man
whom he had called in ; " it is in a great hurry."

The old servant went off, and when Volmerange
heard the entrance door close, he said to Dolfos : —

" Now we can have it out together."

Then, livid as a spectre, his teeth set, his eyes
bloodshot, he took from a trophy suspended from the
wall, two swords of equal length, put them under his
arm, and started for the garden ; Dolfos followed him
mechanically, as a criminal follows the executioner;
he tried to scream, but his voice stuck in his dry throat ;

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THE QUARTETTE

besides, no one would have heard. He wanted to
stop, to grovel on the ground, to resist passively ; but
he knew Volmerange would drive him or drag him
along with his powerful hand, like a hook dragging a
body to the charnel pit. So Dolfos, usually so elo-
quent and so crafty, walked on, mute and stupefied,
for he had at once felt that prayer and falsehood were
equally useless.

As they passed before a rustic hut, Volmerange
entered it for a moment, and returned with a spade.

This ominous action made the blood of Dolfos run
colder still. The pair thus proceeded to the very end
of the grounds.

Once there, Volmerange stopped and said : —

" This place will do."

It was indeed very well arranged. The trees, which
autumn had stripped of their leaves, and whose black
limbs stood out against the crimson clouds of evening,
formed at this place a sort of circle, apparently designed
expressly for a duelling ground.

The Count, placing the two swords beyond the
reach of Dolfos, took the spade and drew on the sand
a parallelogram about as long as a man lying down ;
then he began to dig, throwing the earth to right and

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THE QUARTETTE

left. Stiff with terror, Dolfos leaned against the tree,
and in a faint voice said to Volmerange : —

" In God's name, what are you doing ? "

"What am I doing?" answered Volmerange, with-
out stopping his work; "I am digging your grave or
mine, as it may chance, — the survivor will bury the
other."

" That is horrible ! " groaned Dolfos.

" I do not think ac," went on Volmerange, with
cruel irony ; "I do noi suppose that we intend to
scratch each other merely. What I am doing is con-
venient and decent. However, you dig in your turn,"
he added, emerging from the half-made grave ; " it is
not right that I alone should tire myself out. We
must both make the bed in which one of us is to
lie."

So saying, he handed the spade to Dolfos, who,
trembling all over, made five or six attempts to dig,
but succeeded in removing only a small quantity of
earth.

"Come, let me finish," said Volmerange, taking the
spade back ; " though you are such a good actor, you
would not do for the part of the grave-digger in
'Hamlet,' — you dig badly, my master."

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THE QUARTETTE

The night had almost fallen when the Count had
finished his dreadful work.

" Come, that is dug deep enough. Now for the
swords," said the Count, throwing one to Dolfos and
keeping the other.

"There is no more light," cried the wretch; "are
we to slay each other in the dark ? "

" There is always light enough to kill each other ;
passing from life to death is an easy transition. Dark
as it may be, we can always feel a sword penetrating
our bodies," said the Count, lunging fiercely at Dolfos,
who uttered a groan.

" I have hit you," said the Count, " for the point
of my sword is wet."

Dolfos immediately lunged hard at the Count.

Volmerange parried the thrust by a prompt retreat,
and binding his adversary's sword with his own,
made it fly from his hands.

Seeing himself lost, Dolfos threw himself on the
ground, crouched like a tiger, seized Volmerange round
the legs, and made him fall.

Then began a dreadful struggle ; bound by the mad
grasp of Dolfos, whom cowardice and despair turned
into a raging wild beast, Volmerange was unable to use

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THE QUARTETTE

his sword ; he had tried to thrust it into Dolfos' back,
even at the risk of running it through his own heart
after piercing his adversary, but he could not manage
it, and the sword escaped him. With his hand now
free, he seized his enemy by the throat.

The two adversaries had fallen near the open grave ;
as they rolled on the ground in that cannibal-like
struggle, their turnings and twistings brought them
near the open grave, into which they rolled, without
letting go, pell-mell with the fallen earth. Only,
Dolfos was underneath. Volmerange's fingers sank
deep into his flesh and strangled him like a Spanish
garrote ; the wretch foamed at the mouth, a low rattling
was heard in his throat, his limbs stiffened ; soon the
convulsions ceased, and Volmerange, freeing himself
from the dead man's grasp, sprang out of the grave,
saying : —

" A very obliging corpse — he has buried himself."

Taking the spade he hastily covered up the body,
smoothed the ground carefully, and trampled it down.

" Now that I have settled this matter, let me return
to Priyamvada, and together we will forsake this old
Europe, where I leave two dead bodies."

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WE left the " Lovely Jenny " issuing from
the Thames into the open. Probably
the captain did not know whither they
were bound, for when the great waves of the open sea
began to lave the bulwarks of the ship, he respectfully
asked Sidney, who, sunk in thought, was seated upon
a coil of rope : —

" Where are we going to, sir ? "
"You will find out when we get there, my dear
Captain Peppercull."

"Oh! I did not ask through curiosity," answered
the latter, " but the wheelman has to know whether to
put the helm to port or starboard."

" That is right," answered Sir Arthur Sidney, with a
faint smile, though he still named no course.

" The wind," went on Peppercull, " has hauled since
yesterday ; it is fair for a clear course down Channel
and out into the Atlantic ; but if you happen to
have business in the Baltic or the Arctic, why, by
beating to windward we can manage to get there."

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" Since the wind is taking us down Channel," said Sid-
ney, with an air of carelessness admirably assumed if it
was not genuine, " let us go where the wind takes us."

The captain at once gave orders to have the " Lovely
Jenny " kept away ; in a twinkling the yards were
hauled, and the ship, with a strong and steady free
wind, dashed rapidly on between two lines of foam.

Seeing that Sidney kept silence, Peppercull did not
think fit to attempt to enter into conversation, and
respectfully withdrew some distance away.

Sidney called Jack, MacgilPs friend, who was busy
splicing a rope.

" Show to my cabin the woman we picked up last
night."

" I shall bring her to your lordship," said Jack, dis-
appearing down the hatchway like an opera demon
down a trap-door.

While Jack fetched Edith, — who was lying in a
hammock between decks, — Sidney, his brow darkened
by deep thought, proceeded to his cabin to meet the
young woman.

But when the cabin door opened, it was not the
drowning woman whose white form had flashed through
the darkness that appeared, but a slender young fellow

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of medium stature, wearing a sailor's jersey and oil-skin
coat ; the delicate, regular features of his oval face
were extraordinarily pale ; the sunken eyes shone with
the light of fever, and the colourless lips were scarcely
distinguishable from the rest of the skin ; shame min-
gled with his sadness, and when Sidney looked at him,
a faint blush rose to his cheeks.

Sidney's glance betrayed his astonishment at seeing
a sailor lad when he expected a woman, but Jack,
coming up behind the supposed youth, understood his
chief's surprise and put an end to it.

" When we drew the lady from the water, sir, she
had on nothing but a muslin wrapper, and as we did not
happen to have a woman's dress on board, I put by
her hammock that red jersey and the oil-skin coat ; that
is how the lady we picked up turns out to be a hand-
some sailor lad."

u That will do, Jack ; leave us," said Sir Arthur
Sidnev, with a gesture of command.

Sidney, left alone with Edith, fixed upon her a scru-
tinising glance, as piercing as that of an eagle ; it was
less a glance than a luminous beam that seemed to
seek within the head and the heart the thought in the
brain and the feeling in the bosom.

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Edith remained impassible during this examination,
which was no doubt favourable to her, for Sidney rose
with as much respectful politeness as if he had been in
a drawing-room, took her by the tips of the fingers,
and said, as he led her to a sofa, provided with cushions,
that stood in the corner of the cabin : —

" I beg you will sit down, madam ; you appear weak
and ill, and any one who has not yet got his sea legs
finds it difficult to stand."

The fact is the " Lovely Jenny," going free, plunged
into the sea like a spirited horse, and the level of the
floor changed constantly.

Led by Sidney, Edith let herself fall rather than she
sat down upon the sofa.

There was a moment's silence, which Sidney broke
with his harmonious, calm voice, made softer still by
an accent of pity.

" I will not ask you, madam, whether it was crime or
despair that cast you into the Thames on that dreadful
stormy night. By a miracle there passed near you a
boat filled with people hastening in the darkness to
perform a mysterious work. You fell from heaven
into that secret ; by a most unexpected chance you
upset the best-laid precautions, which no one should

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have seen, and no one must tell of. A blow from an
oar would have hurled you back into the water — my
men awaited but a sign from me."

" Then why did you not make it ?" interrupted Edith,
putting her diaphanous hands to her reddened eyes.

u I did not do it," continued Sidney, " for something
called out to me ; it seemed to me that to give back to
death a being whom a marvellous chance was keeping
alive, would have been cold barbarity, a sort of impiety
towards fate. But I am bound to tell you that the life
I give you back, I cannot give you the free use of, — .
not at least, until the great work in which I am engaged
has been finished. The vessel on which we are will
not stop before it has reached the most distant seas;
until that time comes, you must be dead to the world."

"You need not fear, sir; I have no desire to come
back to life."

" The costume you have put on," continued Sidney,
" you shall keep for some time. Later, I shall tell you
when to change it. You need have no fear; in spite
of our sinister and gloomy appearance, we are honest
men, working for a great end."

As he uttered these words, Sidney's eyes lighted up,
his brow became radiant, his whole face was illumined ;

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but soon, as if ashamed of this effusion, he resumed his
cool look and his cold attitude.

M You may trust to my honour, madam ; I have not
saved you from death to devote you to infamy ; since
murder or suicide threw you into the river, you must
emerge from it radiant and pardoned ; with me danger
becomes glorious, and if you die in the fulfilment of
the work we are engaged in, future ages will bless your
name."

" Oh ! yes," answered Edith ; " now that every tie
which connected me with life is broken, I feel I can
live for devotion only; my life is over; I have neither
end, hope, nor reason for living ; everything is impossi-
ble to me, even death, since God suspended me over
the abyss without letting me sink into it. Do as you
please with your handmaid ; let your will be mine; let
your soul take the place of my empty heart ; be my
thought ; I forswear myself from this day, and forget
who I am ; I shall forget even my own name, and take
the one you shall give me ; a phantom may be baptised
at will ; I shall stand and go on until the day when
you shall say to me : ' Spectre, I need thee no longer ;
lie down again in thy tomb.' "

" I accept you," said Sir Arthur Sidney, in an almost

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solemn and religious tone ; " and since, poor broken
young soul, you give yourself unreservedly, and devote
yourself to our task with ardour and faith, I promise
you, if not happiness, at least rest. Henceforth
you shall inhabit this little room by my cabin, and
in the eyes of the crew, which has not seen you
in your woman's dress, you shall pass for my cabin
boy."

Edith was installed in the small cabin ; her duties,
more apparent than real, were limited to fetching a
book for Sidney, or bringing him his spy-glass j the
rest of the time, leaning on the rail or perched in the
top, she let her glance wander over the clouds and
the ocean, which seemed small to her by the side of
her grief. The vessel sailed on, enclosed within that
brazen circle which the horizon at sea traces around
ships ; the sun rose and set ; the white horses shook
their foaming manes; the dolphins played in the ship's
wake like tritons and sirens ; from time to time a
grey streak, bordered with foam, shone far away to
port, looking like a cloud-bank coloured by a sun-
beam j albatrosses, sleeping in their flight, soared above
the masts or skimmed the waves, one wing in the
water, the other in the air; the farther the ship pro-

T 5

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ceeded, the brighter became the sky, as the Northern
fogs were left behind like vanishing spectres.

But soon everything disappeared, — the birds and the
outlines of the distant shores; and nothing was visible but
the sea and the sky in their monotonous grandeur and
sterile agitation. The Venetian song says, with won-
drous melancholy, that it is sad to go to sea without
love : it is both true and beautiful, for love alone can
fill the infinite; but no doubt the song did not mean a
hopeless, broken love, like that of Edith for Volmerange.
Deep sadness filled the poor girl's heart ; she could not
help thinking of the happy life she might have led, for
which God and society had meant her, and which a
complication of wicked intrigues had made impossible ;
she thought of Lord and Lady Harley, and the dreadful
despair of her noble father and kind mother ; the tears
flowed silently down her beautiful pale face, more
bitter than the ocean into which they fell.

By a strange contradiction, which will not astonish
women, she loved Volmerange more than ever since
that terrible night ; his fierce violence proved the great-
ness of his love; his implacable rigour pleased her; had
he been more indulgent she would have thought him
cold ; a man must love madly when he believes he has

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the right to slay. What hopes of happiness must Vol-
merange have entertained, since he could not bear their
being swept away ! What was he doing now, desper-
ate, filled with remorse, no doubt compelled to flee ?
What effect had the sinister and mysterious catastrophe
produced in society ? Such were the questions, ever
the same, and answered in a hundred ways, which
Edith asked herself as the " Lovely Jenny," sometimes
driven by a strong breeze, sometimes coaxing into her
sails the faintest of airs, proceeded towards her mysteri-
ous destination.

Benedict, on his part, thought a great deal of Miss
Annabel, and every time he passed Edith on deck, the
two looked sadly at each other, for each knew the
other was in grief.

At last Madeira hove in sight. Sidney sent a boat
ashore to renew his supplies, and to purchase a com-
plete outfit for Edith, — gowns, linen, shawl, bonnets,
— nothing was lacking; it was like a bridal trousseau.
Yet she was not permitted to leave off her sailor-boy's
dress.

Whether Benedict had thought it his duty to obey
the oath which he had once taken, or whether Sidney
had really converted him to his views, — he had ceased

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to rebel against the strange kidnapping which had
snatched him away so suddenly from happiness, and did
not seem to bear any grudge against his friend.

They would spend long days in the cabin, leaning
on the swinging table, covered with papers and mathe-
matical instruments. Sir Arthur Sidney, after long
meditation, would draw on a slip of paper complicated
designs covered with algebraic signs and reference
letters, which Benedict carefully copied in ink with the
greatest possible accuracy ; sometimes before he copied
them he would make remarks, to which Sidney listened
with deep attention, and which occasionally brought
about some change in the original plan.

Soon the two friends passed from the drawing of
plans to the making of a model on a small scale ; they
gravely cut small pieces of wood, as long as a finger,
the use of which it would have been difficult to guess.
When they were all cut Sidney put together very skil-
fully the separate numbered pieces which Benedict
handed him, the latter appearing to take an equally
lively interest in the work. After a month of this
constant labour they turned out a boat one foot long,
externally exactlv like those which compose the flotil-
las that children sail on the basins of the parks or the

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THE QUARTETTE

royal gardens, — but internally it was filled with wheels,
tubes, and bulkheads.

The result, though apparently puerile, seemed to
delight the two friends greatly ; Sidney uttered a cry
of satisfaction as he fixed the last board.

" I think we have succeeded," said he, " at least as
much as we may be certain of in theory."

"We must test it," answered Arundel.

"Nothing is easier," replied Sidney, ringing a bell
placed near him.

Emerging from the forecastle, where he was busy
with a friend, in making a comparative study of the
specific strength of rum, Jack presently appeared and
waited, twisting his hat between his fingers, for Sir
Arthur's orders.

" Bring me a tub full of water," said Sidney to Jack,
who, surprised at the strange order, asked to have it
repeated.

" Your honour said a tub full of water ? "
" Yes, what is there surprising in that ? " answered
Sidney.

" Nothing, sir ; I had not heard you correctly,"
answered Jack. " I will fetch it at once."

A few minutes later he reappeared with his friend

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Macgill carrying between them the tub full of water,
which they carefully placed at the entrance of the
cabin.

When the two sailors had gone, Sidney carefully
took the little boat and placed it in the water as seri-
ously as a child launching a ship of war in a basin.

But curiously enough, the boat, instead of floating, as
might have been expected, gradually sank and disap-
peared under the water in the tub ; a performance that
appeared to give great satisfaction to both Sidney
and Benedict, — though boats are not usually built to
sink.

Sidney, who noticed with enthusiasm that the little
boat had not sunk to the bottom, cried out : —

" Look, Benedict, it keeps just at the right depth.
My calculations were correct ; now I am sure of
everything."

His eyes flashed, and his nostrils dilated with noble
pride ; but soon recovering his customary coolness, he
pulled up his sleeve, plunged his bare arm into the
water, drew out the little boat, and carefully locked it
up after drying it. Benedict also seemed very much
pleased at the success of the operation, and from that
day a ray of hope lightened his sadness.

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As for poor Edith, who was not in the secret of the
craft, her melancholy had turned into a dull resigna-
tion ; as I have said, she had no other distraction than
the prospect of ocean.

The voyage had lasted nearly three months, and did
not seem to be drawing to an end ; the Canary and
Cape Verde Islands had disappeared in the far distance.
On passing Ascension Island Macgill and Jack were
sent in the boat to the post-office cave, and found in
the bottle suspended from the ceiling a roll of paper
covered with enigmatical signs, which they handed to
Sir Arthur Sidney.

Sir Arthur easily read the curious writing, after hav-
ing placed upon it a grille which he drew from his
pocket-book ; he appeared satisfied with the contents
of the note, for he said to Benedict : " It is all right,
everything is going on satisfactorily."

A few days after they had passed Ascension Island,
a small gray cloud began to rise from the sea, like a
wisp of mist drawn up by the sun ; soon it became
somewhat denser, and its outlines showed more plainly
on the clear horizon. With a telescope it could be
plainly made out ; it assuredly was not a cloud, but
land ; the island rose gradually from the waters, and,

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owing to the curve of the sea, showed as yet only its
mountain summits ; soon, however, it was seen in its
entirety, motionless and sombre, and girdled with foam,
in the centre of space.

Huge precipitous rocks, two thousand feet high,
overhung in volcanic masses the sea, which beat at
their feet and rolled with mad anger into the caves
hollowed out by its attacks ; it seemed to be conscious
of what it was doing, so fiercely did the billows return
to the charge. The cloud-capped tops of these granite
masses, shrouded at their feet by a mist of spray, were
tipped with sunbeams ; the gigantic steeps and bare
slopes, on which the lava of extinct volcanoes ran in
furrows, like the cicatrices of former wounds, the
summits, worn by torrential rains, formed a picture at
-once majestically savage and sinister ; it had a grandly
horrible look. The rocks seemed to have fallen from
heaven on the day the giants endeavoured to scale it ;
they were still shattered and burned by the thunder-
bolts; evidently something superhuman was going on
there, — some incredible vengeance, a torture like that
of the cross of the Caucasus ; involuntarily the eye
sought upon the summits the colossal silhouette of a
chained Prometheus. Indeed it would not have taken

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THE QUARTETTE

much fancy to see in the wind-shaped cloud which
hovered above the broken crest, like a human form,
the fierce vulture itself.

In point of fact a Prometheus, as great as his pro-
totype, was suffering there, crucified for five years
past by strength and power, as in the tragedy of
Aeschylus.

The whole crew was on deck. Sir Arthur Sidney
gazed at the black island with an unfathomable glance
of mingled shame, grief, and hope •, he grasped mutely
the hand of Benedict standing by him and apparently
also a prey to deep emotion. Captain Peppercull had
left a gallon of rum half emptied, a most striking mark
of his mental perturbation.

Orders were given to cast anchor opposite the town,
the grey houses of which showed within the deep
ravine between the mountains, open at this place alone,
for everywhere else the hills surround the island like a
girdle of towers and bastions.

Edith, who had lived aboard the " Lovely Jenny "
in absolute isolation, and had no knowledge of the dis-
tance traversed by the ship, moved by curiosity at the
sight of land, timidly approached Sir Arthur Sidney,
who, unable to detach his glance from the prospect

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THE QUARTETTE

before him, placed his hand on her arm, for he paid
no attention to her. She said to him, in a somewhat
trembling voice, for she never spoke to him first : —

" What is the name of that island ? "

" That island," replied Sir Arthur Sidney, in a sin-
gular tone, as he came out of his reverie, " that island
is called St. Helena."

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tfc 4; db & £ ir 4?ir^tfc^rtfcdb4rdbdb4?* 4: tfc^b

XVI

ST. HELENA," sighed Edith, whose eyes were
wet with tears.

" Yes," answered Sidney, noting with interest
the effect produced on Edith by the magical name.

41 Oh ! what a dreadful place," continued Edith,
clasping her hands.

" Dreadful, indeed," cried Sir Arthur, his eyes still
fixed upon her.

" It would be cruel to take criminals to such a spot."

" Yet they have transported genius there," said Sir
Benedict Arundel, taking part in the conversation.

" Shame on our nation," went on Sidney, as if to
himself, and sunk in deep thought; "but patience — "

He stopped as if he were afraid of saying too much,
then resumed his impassible look.

A few minutes later he ordered Captain Peppercull
to get the boat ready, and returned to the cabin with
Edith and Sir Benedict Arundel.

Sidney took Edith's hand, and in the presence of
Benedict said to her : —

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" You have given me the right to make use of your
devotion and intelligence in carrying out my end ; you
promised to trust me blindly, and to walk with closed
eyes on the road in which I shall place you, even
though it should end in an abyss."

" I have said so ; my life is yours," answered the
young woman.

"Very good," continued Sir Arthur; "at present,
however, I do not mean to make so serious a demand
upon you. The time has come for you to leave off your
sailor dress ; go to your cabin, in which I have had
put everything you will need."

Edith rose and went out.

Sir Arthur Sidney, left alone with Benedict, crossed
his arms upon his breast, as if to keep down the beat-
ing of his heart ; then he opened them to his friend
and said to him : —

" Brother, in case we never again meet in this world,
let us embrace."

Benedict advanced towards Sidney, and the two
friends clasped each other for a moment.

" When everything is ready," said Sidney, drawing
Benedict to the port-hole, " vou will cut down that
little tree which twists and blows in the wind at the

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top of that black rock ; it can be seen a long distance
at sea. I am going to Tristan d'Acunha, or to the
African coast, at the mouth of the Coanga river, it is
nearer, to build the boat. It will take me two months.
During these two months the 1 Lovely Jenny ' will
cruise in these seas, and then we shall strike our great
blow."

" History will be amazed at it, and never — "

He was going to say more when Edith entered.
Benedict and Sidney remained astounded at her beauty ;
her man's dress had until then prevented both the
friends — absorbed, the one by a great thought, the
other by a great grief — from noting how very ador-
able and charming Miss Edith was.

The time that had elapsed had, if not appeased, at
least softened her grief ; the only traces of the horrible
catastrophe were the delicate pallor of her cheeks, and
a light azure tint on the temples, that brought out the
distinction of her lovely face by making the soul within
it in some sort visible.

She was dressed with the most charming simplicity :
a gown of white India muslin, dotted with little sprays
of flowers, set off her young and supple figure, and fell
in abundant folds over her hips ; a bonnet of fine

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THE QUARTETTE

Manila straw, trimmed with rose-coloured ribbons,
framed in the soft oval of her face ; and over her
shoulders was draped a China shawl.

As she caught the admiring glances of Sidney and
Benedict, Miss Edith felt her pale cheeks blush ; the
woman was being re-born in her.

" You are lovely," Sidney could not help saying.
" Now you shall leave with Benedict ; you shall pass for
his sister or his wife. I think his wife would be better,
and that is what you shall be called. You will take a
house in Jamestown, and a country-house as near Long-
wood as possible ; later on Benedict will tell you what
you have to do."

" I shall obey," replied the young woman, somewhat
troubled at the thought of passing for Benedict's wife,
and living alone under the same roof with a young and
handsome man.

Then with the humility of a pure soul, ever unjust
to itself, she said to herself that she had no right to con-
sider the situation equivocal, and that, after all, Xavier's
mistress had no right to be so very scrupulous.

« Come," said Sidney, taking Edith by the hands and
leading her to Benedict, " it is time for the bride and
bridegroom to go : the boat is ready alongside."

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THE QUARTETTE

Then with his characteristically serene smile he said
to his friend : —

" Confess that if I took a bride from you, I have
given you back one who is no less beautiful."

Benedict turned pale at this embarrassing remark, but
restrained himself, for he knew that nothing was farther
from Arthur's thought than even the most innocent sar-
casm ; and looking at Miss Edith he could not help
thinking she was in no wise inferior to Miss Annabel
Vyvyan.

Edith, without being quite conscious of it, felt a cer-
tain pleasure in again wearing the dress of her sex.
The white gown, the fine straw bonnet, the knots of
ribbon brightened her in spite of herself; the thought
of landing was pleasant. A long sea passage is so
monotonous that even the most arid and inhospitable
place is to be preferred to that of a ship ; and for three
months past Edith had seen nothing but sky and water.

When she found herself in the stern-sheets of the
boat, by Sir Benedict Arundel's side, she experienced a
sense of comfort and freedom, and a brighter expression
illumined her lovely face, usually so melancholy.

The sea was fairly smooth, and the boat, pulled by
six vigorous seamen, drew near the shore, shot alongside

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THE QUARTETTE

the landing-place, and Benedict held out his hand to
Edith to help her out. Jack and Saunders loaded on
the shoulders of a pair of copper-coloured fellows the
boxes, which Sir Arthur had filled with everything
necessary for the installation of the young couple.

Saunders soon found a suitable house in the town, and
there the young couple, after having satisfied the author-
ities by the exhibition of perfectly regular papers,
provided by the far-sighted Sidney, settled down under
the name of IVIr. and Mrs. Smith.

The tale told by Jack was that Mrs. Smith, who was
going to India with her husband, to visit the great indigo
estates they possessed in that country, had been so tried
by the sea that she had asked to rest, for a month or
two, on the nearest habitable land met with, before she
resumed a voyage from which she suffered so much.

That very evening Sir Arthur Sidnev set sail, and the
"Lovely Jenny " soon disappeared in the blue distance.
Benedict, leaning at the window of his new dwelling,
which looked out on the sea, followed with his eyes the
vessel, that grew smaller and smaller, until a gull's wing
would have sufficed to conceal it.

The house inhabited by the supposed husband and
wife was exactly like a Chelsea or Ramsgate house,

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THE QUARTETTE

thanks to the obstinacy peculiar to the English race,
which neither distance nor climate can overcome. The
walls were of that yellow brick which in London wor-
ries the stranger's eyes; and the internal arrangements
were exactly the same as if the house were built opposite
Temple Bar, or near Trinity Church. The only con-
cession to the climate consisted of a striped blue awning,
shading the entrance door, — and the substitution of
Philippine mattings for woollen carpets.

In the arid, dry garden was a row of tamarisks, the
delicate, verdigrised, lace-like leaves of which trembled at
the least breath, and cast a slight shade upon the dusty
sand, in which languished a few thirsty flowers cultivated
by a Malay gardener.

Sir Benedict Arundel and Miss Edith felt very strange
when they found themselves alone at table, placed, in
conjugal fashion, opposite each other, and served by a
silent attendant. This sudden intimacy, springing from
their supposed marriage, and perfectly natural under
those circumstances, amazed and frightened them, though
possibly it also unconsciously pleased them. The com-
bination of unusual events, which had brought about this
impossible situation, had probably not occurred since
the earth began revolving round the sun ; and even now,

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they had not yet fathomed its full strangeness, for Arundel
and Miss Edith did not know that they were, the one a
wifeless husband, the other a husbandless wife; for
Benedict, drawn away by Sidney, had not entered the
church of St. Margaret ; and the two fair brides alone
had met under the dark porch.

What they did know was that they were eight
thousand miles from home, on the gloomy island of St.
Helena, compelled by the remorseless working-out of a
mysterious scheme to live day and night under the same
roof, — both young, handsome, and loveless.

The meal over, they visited the house more carefully
and saw that there was but a single bedroom. Edith,
with her English modesty, blushed ; Benedict stopping
on the threshold, and understanding the embarrassment
of his supposed wife, said: —

" I shall have a hammock hung up for myself in the
upper room."

Edith, reassured, smiled gently, and threw her scarf
on the bed, by way of taking possession.

Then they went down into the garden, where they
walked up and down the long tamarisk walk, with the
satisfaction of people who for three months have had
their walks bounded by the narrow quarter-deck of a ship.

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Edith's arm rested on Arundel's, for she stumbled,
unaccustomed as she now was to walking ; and certainly
Annabel and Volmerange would have been amazed at
seeing the couple traversing the solitary walk in appar-
ent conjugal intimacy.

A few days thus passed ; Edith had made up her
mind to consider Benedict as a brother ; on his part,
Benedict accepted her as a sister; yet a greater attraction
than they were aware of was drawing them towards each
other.

Spending almost the whole of their days together, they
ended by confiding in each other ; Benedict told Edith
of his love for Annabel, and the way she had been sep-
arated from him : Edith told him of her marriage in the
sombre church of St. Margaret.

" What, was it your carriage that crossed mine before
the portal ? "

" Yes," replied Edith.

" What a strange coincidence, — the wedding which
everything seemed to lead up to, did not take place ;
those who were to be united, were separated, and those
who were separated are united; couples are made and
unmade in spite of choice and will. We who are not
in love with each other, for our hearts are given away,

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are here in the same house, alone, free, thousands of
miles from those we love and whom we shall never
again see."

"That is true," replied Edith, thoughtfully ; "fate
has indeed strange caprices."

The supposed husband and wife henceforth had one
of those convenient subjects of conversation in which
a growing inclination finds a way of making indirect
confessions, which may be confirmed or retracted ac-
cording to whether they succeed or not. Benedict
spoke of Annabel and her beauty, in words which, after
all, might have applied to Edith equally well ; he vented
his regrets and painted his passion in the liveliest man-
ner, and in burning language. His companion, atten-
tive and deeply interested, listened to his passionate
eloquence with the less hesitation that it was not
directly intended for her.

She replied to it by protestations of love for Vol-
merange, whose anger she acknowledged having justlv
deserved, for not having been entirely frank with him.
In these ambiguous conversations each showed his
tenderness, his love, his capacity for devotion, and dis-
played fearlessly the treasures of his soul. Under the
protection of the names of Annabel and Volmerange,

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they indulged in subtle amorous metaphysics ; theii
passion, unknown to themselves, and concealed behind
that mask, enjoyed the freedom of a masked ball.
Little by little Edith was taking Annabel's place, and
Benedict that of Volmerange.

It should be said for them that they were not con-
scious of the change, and yielded the more willingly to
the charm attracting them one to the other, because
they believed it perfectly safe, and were sure they could
never love each other. If Benedict had been asked
whether he loved Annabel as much as ever he would
have replied, " Yes," with heartfelt sincerity ; and had
Edith been questioned, she would also have sworn that
her passion for Volmerange was in no wise diminished.

A few weeks passed by with magical swiftness.
Before parting at night they would shake hands in
fraternal fashion, and each withdraw to his room with
a sigh and a sort of indefinable sadness. Once Bene-
dict said laughingly to Miss Edith: —

"Mrs. Smith, I claim my rights as a husband; I
should like to kiss your brow."

The young woman bent forward without a word,
and offered her head submissively to Benedict's lips ;
the kiss lighted half upon her satin brow, half upon her

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silky, scented hair. Then with a movement like a
frightened doe, she abruptly returned to her room and
closed the door.

That night Benedict did not sleep well.

Meanwhile, however, Sir Arthur's instructions were
being literally carried out ; a country-house, as near
over the dwelling of the illustrious prisoner as the Eng-
lish allowed, had been rented, and the pretended Mrs.
Smith withdrew to it, on the pretext that she lacked air
in the narrow confines of Jamestown.

Benedict remained in town for some days, apparently
busy with commercial affairs. Edith, accompanied by
a mulatto servant, went every day, at the same hour,
as Benedict had told her to do, for a walk which took
her as close as possible to Longwood.

" Especially do not forget to carry or wear in your
straw bonnet, a bouquet of violets," Benedict told her
as he left, and as there happened to be a bed of violets
in the garden of the country-house, the order was easily
carried out.

For several days Edith's walk proved barren of
results; the prisoner, ill and weaker, did not come
out.

Impatient to learn the result of Edith's perambula-

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tions, and perhaps also impelled by some other motive,
Sir Benedict Arundel had joined her in the country-
house, and every time she returned from her walk, he
questioned her eagerly, but the reply was invariably the
same, —

" I have seen nothing but the eagles soaring in the
air, and the albatrosses over the waters."

Finally, one day at a turn in the road, Edith found
herself face to face with the imperial captive, who
seemed to walk with difficulty, followed at a distance
by his trusted companions, and guarded from afar by
red-coated sentinels. A marble pallor covered his thin
features, which, accentuated by grief, had resumed the
beautiful lines of youth.

He looked at Edith and smiling with irresistible
grace, took two or three steps towards her and bowed.
In presence of the fallen god, Edith, who might per-
haps have preserved her self-possession in the radiant
light surrounding the emperor, was troubled, turned
pale, and almost fainted.

The hero advanced towards her and said to her in a
grave, sombre voice, like an inhabitant of Olympus
speaking to a mortal, —

« Madam, reassure yourself."

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And noting the bouquet of violets she held in her
hand, —

" It is long since I have seen such fresh flowers."

Mechanically Edith bowed and held them out to him.

" Their scent is sweet, but less sweet than that of
the violets of France," said Caesar, handing back the
flowers to the young woman, after having breathed in
their perfume. Then he bowed with noble majesty,
and resumed his way.

Dazzled by this imperial vision, Edith returned to the
country-house, and to Benedict's question answered, —

" At last I have seen him."

" What did he say ? repeat it word for word."

" He said the scent of the violets was sweet, but
less sweet than that of the violets of France. That
was all."

Benedict turned pale, so deeply was he moved by
these simple words. Without making any reply he
took a telescope and an axe, and started for the rock
on which the tree pointed out by Sir Arthur Sidney
showed its contorted silhouette.

He scanned the ocean with his glass. An almost im-
perceptible little white dot — was it a gull or a flake
of foam? — alone broke the blue solitude of ocean.

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" It is well," said Benedict.

And he struck the trunk of the tree with the axe ;
very soon he had cut down the tree, which fell from
the top of the rock into the sea, with a dull, lugubrious
sound.

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XVII

AT some distance from Arungabad, in India, at
about the same time as these events were
happening on St. Helena, silent shadows
were gliding, on a moonless night, through the reeds
and the jungle on the banks of the Godavari, in the
direction of an old, half-ruined pagoda, formerly dedi-
cated to Siva, but abandoned since the English con-
quest. Nature, emboldened by solitude, was reasserting
its rights over man's handiwork; the dust collected ill
the hollows of the carvings, and wetted by the rains
formed a loam for the seeds brought by the winds;
wall plants had clung with their tendrils, their roots,
and their thorns ; the roots of the shrubs, forcing them-
selves into the cracks of the stones, had slowly separated
the blocks ; mangroves, favoured by the damp, multi-
plied their leafy arches around; the thick, luxuriant,
vigorous vegetation of India was little by little conceal-
ing the monument, and turning the pyramid into a
hill.

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Faintly seen through the darkness, with its broken
outlines and its crest of brushwood, the ruined pagoda
had a formidable and monstrous aspect. The temple
of the god of destruction, itself destroyed, spoke,
silently, with sinister eloquence.

The main door, closed by palisades formed of boards,
by fallen earth, and an inextricable interlacing of vege-
tation, led to the belief that the building was deserted ;
yet lights occasionally appeared, moving past the half-
filled openings, and indicated that something was going
on in the interior. The shadows I have mentioned
proceeded towards one part of the wall, into which
they crawled and vanished. A huge stone, which had
been moved out of its place, gave ingress, and through
secret passages, cut within the thickness of the walls,
the centre of the pagoda was reached.

At the end of a vast hall, supported by squatty
columns, circled by granite rings and wearing, like
women, triple ropes of carved pearls, the capitals
formed of four elephant's-heads, stood, in a niche
framed in by a rich border of arabesques, the statue of
the god Siva, — a very old idol, rendered still more terri-
ble by its archaic form. It breathed anger and ven-
geance ; in two of its four arms it held a whip and a

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trident, and a collar of death's-heads fell upon its
breast; by its side Durga, its hideous spouse, rolled
her cross eyes, gnashed her hippopotamus teeth, and
stretched out her hands provided with claws, and
while twisting her body, bound with serpents, crushed
the monster Mahishasura, which tried to enfold her in
its loathsome clasp.

Set within the walls, innumerable horrible figures,
symbols of struggle or destruction, grimaced at the
spectator ; here the monstrous Mana-Pralaya, with a
beast's-head, swallowing a whole city in his enormous
mouth ; there, Arddha-Nari, with a chaplet of skulls
and chains, fiercely brandishing a sword ; elsewhere
Maha-Kali, holding in each of his four hands a head
cut off; Mahadeva, with a river flowing from his
brain, and bracelets made of vipers, was struggling with
the deformed Tripurasura, while Garuda beat its wings,
and sharpened its parrot-like beak and its eagle's-talons.

This was all that could be made out by the light of
the lamp hanging before the statue of Siva; in the
depths of the hall, filled with ruddy shadows, the eye
could only make out, beyond the circle of light, vague
forms, inexplicable interlacings, a hideous mingling of
legs, dragon's-heads, and monsters of all kinds.

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Within the circle of light, were grouped on tiger or
gazelle skins, extraordinary and fantastic-looking beings,
whose white eyebrows and beards brought out stiikingly
their dark complexions. The Brahmin cord hanging
around their necks marked their caste ; some of the
more austere wore in lieu of it a serpent's-skin ; all
were ascetically lean, — through their open tunics
could be seen their dried breasts, with their ribs pro-
truding like those of a skeleton. They remained
motionless, muttering prayers, and appeared to be
awaiting, with Hindoo phlegm, some important person-
age who had not arrived.

Behind them was a confused, copper-coloured crowd,
the first rows of which alone were visible in the faint
red light of the lamp ; the rest were speedily lost in the
shadows. From time to time a new-comer disappeared
silently in some group.

At last there was a stir; the crowd opened up, and
soon appeared on the spot where the light of the lamp
shone most brilliantly, three new-comers, whose arrival
was received with murmurs of satisfaction. The one
was an old Brahmin, as dried up and yellow as a
mummy, with inspired, flaming eyes, wearing a muslin
robe down to his heels. The second was a young

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girl, as beautiful as Sakountala or Vasatensena ; a
transparent veil half concealed her rich costume, the
embroideries and spangles of which sparkled through
the gauze ; as she walked, her necklets, her bracelets
and anklets rattled with metallic sound. The third
was a handsome young man, fairer than the girl, whose
eyes were peculiar in being dark-blue ; he wore a
Mahratta warrior's dress, but much richer and more
ornamented ; a steel coat-of-mail protected his breast
and fell to the bottom of his yellow tunic ; full red
trousers, caught at the ankles, and a muslin turban
rolled around a steel helmet completed his dress.
He wore golden bracelets, a curved sabre with velvet
sheath, enriched with gold and precious stones. On
his left arm he carried a buckler of hippopotamus-
skin, studded with metal bosses ; in his right hand he
held a long musket, inlaid with mother-of-pearl and
silver.

The old Brahmin was, as the reader has no doubt
guessed, the same Daksha whose acquaintance we made
in London ; the lady was unaccountably like Priyam-
vada, and as for the Mahratta warrior, his features and
his blue eyes proved him, in spite of his disguise, to be
Volmerange, the European, a member of many clubs

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in London, a descendant of the kings of the Lunar
dynasty.

Daksha advanced towards the three leanest and most
dried up Brahmins, and taking Volmerange by the hand,
led him under the lamp, the light of which formed a
sort of halo around his head, and presented him to the
personages who appeared to be the most prominent in
the assembly.

" He has the look of a Pradjati," murmured the spec-
tators, delighted with Volmerange's fine appearance ;
" he looks like one of the first ten creatures that issued
from the hands of Brahma."

Volmerange was indeed very handsome in his singu-
lar and picturesque costume.

" Sarngarava, Saradouata, and you, Canoua," said the
old Brahmin, " I have brought him of whom I spoke,
the descendant of the Douchmantas and Barahtas. He
alone — so the gods, touched by my long penance, have
revealed to me — he alone can bring back the former
splendour of our land ; he it is who shall drive away
the coarse barbarians, — Englishmen who profane the
waters of the Ganges, speak to pariahs, prevent widows
from burning themselves alive as decency requires, who
make their belly the tool of their life, and — a piece

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of monstrosity that calls for vengeance, an abominable
impiety — who dare to feed on the sacred flesh of the
ox and the cow."

This last remark caused a thrill of horror to run
through the assembly ; the Brahmins raised their eyes
to the ceiling, and a low muttering of imprecations
sounded in the dark depths of the pagoda. The gods
of granite, partially lighted by the quivering gleams
of the lamp, seemed to frown and move on their
pedestals.

" Is everything ready for the revolt ? " asked Daksha ;
" are the weapons, horses, and elephants collected ? "

"The crypts of the pagoda, the existence of which
is unknown to any one outside our sacred college, are
filled with muskets, lances, and arrows ; the Mahratta
chiefs, who are not as well tamed as the European bar-
barians imagine, have furnished us with horses ; fifty
trained war elephants with their howdahs, camped in
the centre of a forest impenetrable to any who are not
acquainted with its recesses, are awaiting the signal,"
answered Sarngarava ; " the province will rise like one
man."

" Oh ! venerable Trimourti, Vishnu, Brahma, and
Siva, thanks be to thee for allowing me to live until

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this day, old and broken though I am," said Daksha,
whose withered hands shook with pleasure. " We
shall succeed, I am certain of it ; the celestial powers
will assist our enterprise ; Brahma reveals the future to
me ; the god of war, in his last avatar, has assumed the
human form, and comes to our help from the West,
riding on a divine eagle, greater and stronger than the
bird Garuda, which holds the lightning in its talons,
and with its iron beak slays the battalions overthrown
by the wind of its wings ; that god shall shoot seven
arrows at the English, who will flee terrified, and we
shall become masters of the seven douipas, of which
the world consists, as may be seen in the holy book of
the Pouranas."

This curious address, delivered with an accent of
deep conviction, produced a great effect upon the as-
sembly. Priyamvada in particular, was delighted, and
thought she already saw arriving the marvellous bird,
bearing the hero seated upon its back.

" Barahta, we shall set thee again on the throne
of thy ancestors, " said Saradouata, " swear to fight
with us to your last breath, and if you are success-
ful to stay everywhere the slaying of the sacred
animals."

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" I swear it," replied Volmerange, in Hindoostanee.

" It is well," said the Brahmin Sarngarava. " And
now, people, listen. He who stands before you is
Barahta, a descendant of Douchmanta, the most glorious
and most famous king, the conqueror and tamer, who
lived familiarly with Aditi and Casyapa ; devote your-
selves to him, follow him and obey him to the death ;
if you are slain while carrying out his orders, you will
return to Pantchatouam, — you will return into the
elements, without the atoms of which you are com-
posed suffering ; and after your soul has been purified
in lovely bodies, and is judged worthy of Moucti, it will
be absorbed in the Divinity. Now disperse, and be
to-day at the place of meeting."

The crowd vanished as if by magic ; the Brahmins
re-entered the walls through the secret passages, and no
one was left in the hall but Daksha, Priyamvada, and
Volmerange.

"Would you prefer to spend the remaining portion
of the night here," said the old Brahmin to Volmerange,
" or set out for the mountain camp ? "

" Let us go," cried Volmerange. " This old cave,
with its grimacing monsters, is not comfortable. Give
me your hand, Priyamvada, for the devil take me if

2^8

THE QUARTETTE

I can walk without stumbling through these dark
passages."

After having groped for some time through the laby-
rinth of passages, which Priyamvada and the old Brah-
min appeared to be well acquainted with, they reached
an opening, and it was not without secret satisfaction
that Volmerange again breathed the open air. The
performance which had just taken place, so full of
meaning for the spectators, so ridiculous in his opinion,
had wearied him ; he found it difficult to look upon
himself seriously as a prince of the Lunar dynasty, and
but for Priyamvada, his lovely friend with the golden
complexion, he would most willingly have given up his
throne.

The elephant that had brought the trio was still
waiting patiently under guard of its keeper, plucking
at the foliage with its trunk and slowly swallowing the
leaves, rather by way of filling up the time than be-
cause it was hungry. With characteristic intelligence,
on hearing the steps of its master, it bent its pillar-like
legs and knelt down.

Priyamvada and Daksha climbed to the shoulders of
the colossal animal with the ease of people accustomed
to that kind of mount. Volmerange was not quite so

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skilful, and the young Hindoo girl had to hold out hei
hand to help him. In his education as a sportsman,
which had been very thorough, my hero had not given
a thought to this kind of riding.

The keeper, crouching on the skull of the huge
animal, drove in his anker, and the elephant started
off at a rhythmic trot or amble, the steadiness of which
would have worn down the fastest running horse.
From time to time it stretched out its trunk, and broke
a creeper or branch which was in the way, or if the
path was too narrow it leaned against the obstructing
tree and broke it down ; at other times it trampled
over the bamboos, that broke with a snap or bent like
grass.

Priyamvada, lying in the howdah placed upon the
animal's back, had fallen asleep on Volmerange's
breast ; as he was much taller than she, she looked
like one of those dainty statues of goddesses which the
gods hold in their arms : like Parvata on Mahadeva's
bosom, Lakshmi on Vishnu's, and Saravasti on Brah-
ma's. Volmerange remained motionless for fear of
waking the lovely girl, and gazed upon the strange
landscape outspread confusedly before him, and which
assumed in the darkness most weird forms : carob

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THE QUARTETTE

trees, fig trees, banyan trees, babobabs as old as crea-
tion, mangroves, and palms mingled their foliage,
through which, as on a black spot, suddenly shone a
star or a bit of the night sky.

Seated by the keeper, Daksha muttered devoutly a
prayer for the success of the enterprise.

After two hours of travel, a reddish light began to
gleam between the trunks of the trees, indicating the
nearness of the camp where the first mutineers had
already collected. The sentries, hearing the noise of
the leaves and branches displaced by the elephant bear-
ing the trio, came forward to reconnoitre, and Volme-
range, Daksha, and Priyamvada entered the camp.

The sight was most strange, and took one back to
the days of the wars between Darius and Alexander.
A great fire of brushwood, branches, and broken trees,
cast a fantastic light through the leafy vaults of the
forest. Around the fire, arranged in a circle, fifty
elephants, picturesquelv lighted from below, stood
motionless, grave, and pensive, like Ganesa, the god of
wisdom ; scarcely from time to time did their great
ears move, and had they not occasionally lifted up
their restless trunks as they scented in the distance a
prowling tiger or an enemy seeking to enter the wood,

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they might have been thought carved out of granite,
like their stone brethren that adorn the pagodas. On
their backs they bore howdahs, and their tusks were
ribbed with iron to prevent their breaking in battle.

Farther off were the Mahrattas and other Hindoos,
lying by their horses, and their weapons hanging near
them on the trees.

Volmerange and his two friends had not yet de-
scended from their tall mount, when a plaintive cry
was heard, immediately succeeded by a tremendous
shout. The elephants knelt of themselves to receive
their masters ; the Mahrattas sprang to their horses ;
every one ran to his weapons — taking up whatever
came first, a musket, a lance, or a bow.

Firing broke out to the right and the left ; the terri-
fied outposts were driven back on the main body, and
sepoys, supported by red-coated soldiers, were seen
running from one tree to another, to take cover and
aim in safety. The elephants, driven by their keepers,
dashed forward in every direction, breaking down trees,
and trampling under foot the enemy they met. The
English, for it was they, informed by a traitor of
Daksha's plans and the meeting-place of the mutineers,
were arriving on all sides and surrounding the camp.

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Soon the fight became concentrated upon the space
where shone the great fire, and the centre of the melee
was where stood Volmerange, Daksha, and Priyamvada ;
by the fierceness with which this point was defended,
the assailants understood that there must be the most
important personages. Eight or ten Mahrattas, who
had climbed on top of Volmerange's elephant, kept up
a continual fire ; Volmerange himself, helped by Pri-
yamvada, who loaded his musket, shot down an English-
man every time ; his valiant steed, taking part in the
combat, uttered furious screams, seizing sometimes a
man, sometimes a horse in his trunk, and throwing
him into the air, or else, bending forward, crushed a
whole squad of the enemy against the wall of rock.
Bullets rattled on its hide like hail, without other result
than making its ears bleed, as if it were tormented by
flies. As for Daksha, he held in his hand a sprig of
the sacred plant cousa, which he kept rubbing between
his fingers, while murmuring the ineffable syllable cm.
The confusion became inexpressible; muskets exploded,
arrows hissed, horses neighed, elephants screamed and
trumpeted, the wounded groaned, and the smoke, kept
in by the leafy vault, formed a heavy pall over the
combat.

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A group of Englishmen, braver and more resolute
than the rest, attempted to scale Volmerange's elephant,
but the intelligent animal, backing up against a mon-
strous babobab, used its trunk like a flail, and struck
them down half dead from the horrible blows dealt at
their heads; those who escaped the trunk fell under
the bullets of Volmerange and the Mahrattas.

The struggle could not last long. Priyamvada, who
was loading Volmerange's musket, was struck in the
breast ; she did not utter a single cry, but the red
foam rising to her lips, marked her last kiss on Vol-
merange's hand, which she took and had just strength
to bear to her lips, after having held out to him his
second loaded musket. Volmerange fired and killed
the Englishman who had shot poor Priyamvada.
Three of the five Mahrattas fighting by the side of
Volmerange and Daksha had slipped to the ground
killed or mortally wounded.

His ammunition expended, Volmerange was now
hacking with his sword the heads of the regulars and
sepoys who clung to the elephant's ears or climbed
upon its tusks to storm the howdah. At last a sepoy,
crawling on the ground, got behind the courageous
animal, and with a sword as sharp-edged as a Damascus

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THE QUARTETTE

blade, hamstrung it ; the elephant, falling backwards,
uttered a terrible scream, broke the sepoy's back
with a blow of his tail, tried to rise, and fell upon its
side. Priyamvada's body was hurled from the howdah
on to the heap of dead, as was also Daksha, who by a
miraculous chance had escaped unhurt. Volmerange
had let himself slip behind a tree, the branches of
which he used to break his fall j a riderless horse
passing by, he sprang upon his back and drove his
heels into its sides. The horse, which was of the
Nedji breed, went off like an arrow.

Daksha, who had never let go his sprig of cousa,
said to himself as he resumed his former attitude, —

" The business failed because I was too sensual ; I
should have put five iron spikes, instead of three, into
my back ; five is a more mysterious number."

The elephant, which was not dead although it had
fallen, sought with its trunk for the body of its young
mistress, which it piously replaced on the velvet how-
dah, after which it expired ; for a soldier had driven
his bayonet into its brain at the back of the skull.

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XVIII

THE small white dot noted by Benedict, that
marked with imperceptible silvern fleck the
vast green mantle of ocean, was indeed the
" Lovely Jenny," keeping its appointment with com-
mendable punctuality ; it had already been cruising off"
and on for three days, within range of the island, at
such a distance as not to attract attention, though not
so great but that the ship could be made out, through a
strong glass, by one who knew of its being near St.
Helena.

Twenty times an hour Sir Arthur Sidney would go
on deck and look through his telescope towards the
black rock ; the thin outline of the stunted tree still
showed against the heavens.

" It is still there," Sidney would reflect, letting fall
the glass with discouragement ; but a few minutes later
he would again scour the horizon, and still on the
summit of the rock the silhouette of the tree showed
steadily.

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"Well," said Sidney to himself, "I suppose the
password could not be exchanged, and my undertaking,
prosecuted with so much care and prudence, will fail
at the moment of success ! "

Carried away with feverish impatience he strode up
and down the quarter-deck, climbed the forecastle, and
again scanned the isle. Now the crest of the rock
showed angular and bare against the bright sky ; the
tree had vanished !

This simple fact, suddenly answering a world of
ideas and projects, moved him so deeply that in spite
of his coolness and firmness, he was obliged to lean
against the rail ; a deadly pallor covered his handsome
features : but he soon recovered himself, and went
down firmly into his cabin.

There he wrote on a piece of parchment a sort of
testament, which he enclosed in a strong glass bottle,
which he sealed with a leaden cap; he then enclosed it
in the canoe which he had had constructed on the
African coast by a ship's carpenter, from the small
model I have mentioned.

When night fell he ordered the boat to be launched ;
Saunders and Jack having each taken an oar, and
Sidney the yoke lines, the craft proceeded towards the

267

THE QUARTETTE

island. On reaching a point where it might be per-
ceived, Sidney, Saunders, and Jack entered the low
cabin below the deck, for the boat was of very peculiar
construction and decked over. Having carefully closed
the hatch, Sidney touched a button, and the boat began
to sink, until the water closed over it in eddies. Outer
fins, worked from within, replaced the oars, and drove
the submarine craft, the steersman standing behind
plates of glass placed in the bows. A leather tube
ending in a floating buoy, which any one would have
mistaken for a piece of wreckage driven by the waves,
supplied fresh air to the narrow cabin ; a compart-
ment which could be filled or emptied at will by means
of a pump performed the function of an air-bladder, and
enabled the boat to descend or to keep at a given depth.

When Sidney knew by the darker colour of the sea,
that they had reached the shadows cast by the high
cliffs that surround the island, the boat rose again to
the surface, and as it was half submerged, the waves
washing over it, it would have been taken, if it had
been noticed, for a small whale or a shark travelling
close to the surface.

The party thus reached the rock at the foot of
which the waves were still tossing the trunk of the

268

THE QUARTETTE

tree cut down by Benedict, carrying it away and throw-
ing it against the rocks with endless play of foam and
spray.

Sidney emerged carefully from the hatchway, and
landing on a narrow, sandy beach, and clinging to the
asperities of the rocks, reached a platform several yards
above the level of the highest waves, where he sat
down and listened attentively.

For a few moments he heard nothing but the deep
breathing of the ocean and the flapping wings of the
sea birds, troubled by the presence of man at night in
that solitary waste. Presently some pebbles falling
from the upper portion of the cliff, rolled, fell down,
and shot into the water.

A dark form, clinging to the tufts of brush that grew
here and there, and to the cracks in the granite, was
descending carefully the almost vertical cliff and ap-
proaching Sidney.

Although the meeting had been agreed upon for a
long time, Sir Arthur, lest there should have occurred
one of those improbable betrayals that always happen
in such enterprises, cocked two small pistols in his
pockets ; the sharp sound caused the dark form to stop
in its progress.

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" Crabs walk backward, but they reach their destina-
tion," said a low, but distinct voice.

" Ah ! it is you, Benedict," answered Sir Arthur Sid-
ney in the same way.

" It is I," replied Benedict, sitting down by Sidney's
side.

" Well ? " said the latter, in a tone full of questioning.

" On seeing the bouquet of violets he spoke the
words agreed upon."

" It is well ; now we shall act."

" That is not all : that very evening a note, written
in cipher, of which you and I alone possess the key,
was thrown by an unknown hand into Edith's chamber.
The note contained these words : 4 Cesar is too ill to
risk the enterprise, and postpones it to the first days of
next month, to the night of the fourth to the fifth.' "

" Three weeks more to wait ! " cried Sir Arthur Sid-
ney. " Does he not know that the air here is deadly,
and that Prometheus would need no vulture to pick out
his heart ? Are you sure of the note ? We are so
surrounded with traps."

" I have brought it, you can examine it," said Sir
Benedict Arundel, holding out to his friend a paper
folded into the shape of a square.

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THE QUARTETTE

"Good-bye, Benedict, in twenty days I shall be back,"
said Sidney ; " I go back to my submarine boat, and will
cruise off and on with the ' Lovely Jenny.' In twenty
days the stain which Sir Hudson Lowe has made on
England's name shall be washed away."

Benedict climbed back to the top of the cliffs ; Sid-
ney climbed down to the shore, where the half sub-
merged boat was awaiting him, and on the rock, again
deserted, the sea continued to toy with the tree it was
tearing to pieces.

On the appointed day the " Lovely Jenny " re-ap-
peared on the horizon, but the heavens were dark and
threatening ; huge black clouds were spread like funeral
draperies ; the ocean, stirred to its very depths, rose
and moaned, and the wind uttered a chant of desolation,
like an invisible chorus ; it seemed as if the three
thousand Oceanides had come to mourn the Titan. St.
Helena, amid the foam that smoked around it as tripods
round a catafalque, was even gloomier than usual ; on
its brow the storm had set a sinister diadem of light-
ning.

Already signs had been seen in the heavens, as at
the death of Julius Caesar and Jesus Christ ; a bloody
comet had dragged its tail above the accursed island,

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THE QUARTETTE

and the clouds, blazing in the furnaces of the West,
had assumed the form of great eagles flapping their
gigantic wings in the flames ; but never had Nature, so
impassible, appeared so moved, so terrified, so beside
itself as on that night.

The ocean hurled to heaven its bitter tears, the sky
wept with its cataclysms, and the gale summed up in
its great voice the despairing cry of humanity. In-
trepid as he was, Sir Arthur Sidney felt troubled and
discouraged in the presence of the formidable sadness of
the elements. What was happening, that all Nature
thus mourned ? What great soul was about to take
flight, bearing away with it the wrath of the world ?
What God, crying on his cross the lama sabachthani of
the last agony, caused this vast ululation of winds and
waves ? He dreaded the answer, and as he entered the
boat, pale as marble, a cold sweat ran down his temples,
his teeth chattered, and yet it was not physical danger
that troubled him.

The craft, hermetically closed, sank below the waves
or rose on their crests, and advanced, sometimes plung-
ing, sometimes floating, towards the rock where had
taken place the last interview between Benedict and
Sidney. An open boat would have infallibly been sunk.

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THE QUARTETTE

It was difficult to avoid being smashed against the
granite cliffs, and to land exactly at the little sandy
beach. Sidney and his two sailors made the most pro-
digious efforts. The air was beginning to fail, in spite
of the supply coming through the tubes ; their lungs
were swelling in their breasts, seeking for the vital
fluid ; their light turned dim, and Jack and Saunders
were pulling at the fins less heartily, while Sidney was
pumping hard to bring the boat to the surface.

The waves were breaking against the rocky coast
with terrific roar and thundering, and smashed heavily
against the sides of the boat, which they rolled along
their crests.

" Well," said Sidney to himself, "we are lost ; " and
he looked at his two companions in the dying light of
the lamp ; on their manly faces the same thought was
visible.

" Sir Arthur," said Jack, U it is very unpleasant to
be drowned like rats in a trap, but what can't be helped
must be endured."

Saunders nodded acquiescence.

Sidney raged at the thought that they were about to
perish so wretchedly because of a stupid tempest, at the
very moment of accomplishing the plan for which he
18 273

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THE QUARTETTE

had sacrificed everything; there occurred in him one
of those mad revolts of mind against brutal force, of
the soul against the elements, and he uttered in his
heart a blasphemy such as the giants must have uttered
when smitten by the thunderbolts.

The lamp went out. Jack and Saunders said : —

" Good-night ; lights out ! "

The boat struck heavily. Sidney, springing to the
hatchway, gave access to a puff of air mingled with sea-
water. The keel had caught in the sand, and as a
projecting rock broke the seas, the waters were less tur-
bulent here than elsewhere. Sidney managed to jump
ashore with the painter and made the boat fast to a
huge fallen block of granite. Jack and Saunders fol-
lowed him, and the three men climbed up to the high
platform where Benedict had met his friend on his last
visit.

There they were safe from the back-wash ; the tem-
pest could only insult them with its foam. They re-
mained for two hours on the rock, drenched, dazzled
by the lightning, soaked by the salt spray driven by the
winds, — Jack and Saunders, with the devoted impassi-
bility of dogs awaiting their masters' orders; Sir Arthur
Sidney, nervous, trembling, almost hysterical ; every

274

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THE QUARTETTE

minute seeming an age; biting his lips, tearing his
breast with his nails, as he tried to be patient.

The night wore on, the gale gradually passed away,
the weary sea was running less heavily.

" What can be the matter ? " murmured Sidney ; " it
will soon be day."

Indeed the dawn now shone pale along the lower
sky, and then the bloody sun showed above the heavy
sea, still disturbed by the night gale, its orb cut by the
undulating line of the horizon. In the distance the
" Lovely Jenny" was rising and falling upon the wa\es.

Day had come, but not the Emperor !

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THE QUARTETTE
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XIX

WHY does not Benedict send me word ? What
can have happened ? What unexpected ob-
stacle has caused our well-planned scheme
to fail ? " asked Sir Arthur of himself, as he strode up
and down the narrow platform, to warm his limbs chilled
by the coolness of the night. " To live so long, with
but one thought, one hope ; to devote one's self to it
absolutely, with the most complete self-abnegation ; to
give up for it love, family, and friendship; to sacrifice to
it every human feeling and one's own genius ; to put at
its service a mighty and inflexible will and forces that
could overturn the world, — then, at the very moment
of fulfilment, to be stopped by some idiotic obstacle :
yesterday, by an absurd tempest ; this morning, by some
foolish incident I cannot imagine, — a key, perhaps, that
would not turn in a lock ; a soldier who had been bribed
and who feels scruples after he has the money, and wants
to be paid twice over ; even less than that, it may be,
for no one can foresee the innumerable, stupid resistances
of thoughts to ideas, and of matter to mind."

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While these thoughts passed through his mind,
Sidney was gesticulating wildly; he suddenly stopped,
crossed his arms on his breast, and remained for a few
moments sunk in deep thought.

" Suppose chance has a will, too ? Oh ! " he went
on after a pause, " in that case my will shall break the
other down."

While Sidney was indulging in these thoughts,
Jack and Saunders, very much less inclined to medi-
tation, were chewing their quid, passing it now into
the right and now into the left cheek, and gazing at
the sea with the attentive though apparently careless
glance of the sailor, who cannot help watching, even
when he is safe on land, the element on which his life
depends.

The gale had fallen, and the boat's stern, the bows
caught in the sand and held by the painter, rose and fell
softly upon the lessening heave.

" Come, Saunders, climb that rock, and stand sentry
up there. As for you Jack, get into the boat and pump
out any water that may have found its way into the
cabin."

The two sailors started to carry out Sidney's orders,
— the one climbed up, the other climbed down.

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THE QUARTETTE

At first glance, the notion of a man ascending to the
top of the cliffs seemed absurd j but on closer examina-
tion the rock proved less vertical than it appeared ; it
sloped here and there, and resting-places seemed to have
been provided by Nature's industrious hands ; at the
least accessible spots shrubs, brambles, or plants offered
a hold to the climber. Saunders therefore quickly got
to the top, but the country was deserted, and he signed
to Sidney that he could make out nothing.

Jack soon pumped the boat dry, for in spite of the
heavy tossing of the night before, it had not been dam-
aged ; so if only the Emperor came nothing was yet
lost.

But the day passed without any one appearing.

It is impossible to express Sidney's sufferings during
those long hours of waiting. Towards midday he said
to himself: —

" Yes, it will come off to-night. No doubt yester-
day's gale made them think I would not put in ; the
wind was so strong and the sea so heavy. That
must have been the reason — I was a fool not to
have thought of it at first ; for indeed no one but
a madman like myself would venture out in such
weather."

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This notion buoyed him up until evening, and he even
grew calm enough to eat some biscuit and drink some
rum, which Jack brought from the boat.

Saunders had seen nothing from his observatory.
The " Lovely Jenny," troubled at not seeing the boat
return, had drawn closer to the island than prudence
dictated, and was tacking off and on and signalling.

" Although I am a prey to the deepest anxiety,"
thought Sidney, " Benedict was right not to come and
inform me of the cause of the delay ; his going and
coming might have excited suspicion ; they keep so
strict watch on this accursed island that the least impru-
dence might have been fatal on this supreme occasion."

Thus did Sidney pass the day, in alternations of hope
and despair, and in such lively anxiety that the hair on
his temples turned white. Evening came on, and the
sun sank gradually on the other side of the sea, after
having plunged through several banks of clouds, as a
shell bursts through the floors of a building ; the bloody
reflection was prolonged over the luminous waves, then
died out, and night fell with the rapidity peculiar to
tropical regions.

The hours of darkness seemed to Sidney longer than
endless eternities, and I cannot attempt to depict the

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THE QUARTETTE

night he spent ; expectation, uneasiness, rage, despair,
and the wildest suppositions, struggled in the mind of the
unfortunate man until dawn returned.

A thought suddenly struck Sidney, and chilled him as
if a steel blade had been driven into his heart : Could
the emperor have mistrusted him ?

"Of course; I am an Englishman," he went on
with a bitter laugh that was almost maniacal. 11 Or
can he be worse ? "

Utterly careless of safety, at the repeated risk of fall-
ing into the sea, using his hands and feet, clinging to the
projections and shrubs, driving his nails into the smooth
wall, — he reached in a few moments the top of the
cliffs, and started to run in the direction of Longwood.

The environs of the residence presented .an unwonted
aspect ; the gale of the night before had uprooted all the
trees, which lay with soiled leaves, their roots in the air;
a feeling of sombreness, solemnity, and irreparable mis-
fortune weighed down upon the humble dwelling, in and
around which there were evidences of discreet activity
and silent agitation. The sentinels, leaning on their
muskets, no longer challenged, and seemed to have
relaxed their watchfulness ; remaining motionless in their
places they carelessly fulfilled a useless duty, rather

280

THE QUARTETTE

through obedience to military orders than through neces-
sity. The officers who passed did not reproach them
with their negligence. The residents of the island went
and came without being stopped, and Sidney crossed the
line of guards without any one paying attention to him.

He approached Longwood ; men and women, sus-
pending their steps, spoke in a low voice, with an air
of constraint, entered the house and came out in a few
minutes paler than before, their eyes red.

Sir Arthur Sidney, his heart filled with a dreadful pre-
sentiment, his limbs giving way under him, leaning
against the wall, stumbling, intoxicated by grief, followed
the crowd without quite knowing what he was doing.

But he had not gone many steps before a sorrowful
spectacle of majesty presented itself to his eye. Lying
in his war mantle, rather like a soldier resting before the
next day's victory than like a body which life has left,
Napoleon, stretched upon his state bed, wearing the uni-
form of the Light Infantry of the Guard, his breast
covered with orders and brilliant stars, his trusty sword
by his side like a faithful friend, — was dreaming his
first dream of eternity. A strange expression of seren-
ity and deliverance illumined his pale, marble-like face,
which the convulsions of agony had respected ; every-

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THE QUARTETTE

thing which the intoxication of triumph, the pain of
reverses, the fatiguing thoughts of suffering can leave
in the way of material traces upon the human face,
had vanished. It was no longer the body of a man,
but the statue of a god ; death allowed the celestial
portion to show through the terrestrial ; the dungeon
was transformed into a tomb, the funeral chamber
into an Olympus. Neither Christ on his cross nor
Prometheus on his rock had a nobler or handsomer
face.

Oh ! great, imperial soul, what did you behold during
your first hours of immortality ? Who dared to meet
you, to lead you to God ? Alexander, Charlemagne,
Julius Caesar, your well-beloved Lannes, who called
upon you alone as he died, — or your dear Duroc ?
Or was it some poor grenadier of your Old Guard,
who thought his blood well shed when he found that
you remembered his name ?

At the sight of dead Napoleon, Sidney turned faint ;
the pinions of vertigo flapped noisily within his brain ;
he staggered forward, and falling upon his knees by the
bedside, kissed the icy hand that had held the sceptre
of the world. He was not interfered with, for kisses
bring no one back to life ; only, as he remained some-

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THE QUARTETTE

what too long sunk in his grief, he was urged with a
musket-butt to give way to others.

He went out, wan, broken down, scarcely able to
drag himself, — more like a phantom than a man,
having aged a score of years in one minute ; his hag-
gard, lack-lustre eyes wandering around or sometimes
resting upon some insignificant object with puerile
obstinacy. He was amazed to find himself alive now
that the Emperor was dead ; he wondered that the sun
still shone, that the mountains had not changed their
shapes, that Nature went on with its work. As for
himself, he was weak, as after a long illness ; the light
dazzled him ; the air was too strong for him ; his
faculties, so long kept on a stretch, suddenly failed him ;
his firm, powerful will had lost its bearings and went
around like a crazy needle; a tremendous crash had
occurred in him.

His body, moved by a distant remembrance, took

him to Edith's country-house; he pushed the garden

gate, entered the parlour, and sank on a chair without

a word. Edith, whose pallor was made the greater by

the black dress she wore, advanced silently towards

him and took his hand. This mark of sympathy

caused Sidney's tears, which sought to flow, to rush
__

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THE QUARTETTE

forth impetuously through the hand with which he had
covered his eyes.

At this moment Benedict entered, and explained to
Sidney why he had failed to be at the meeting-place :
he had been questioned and detained, his movements
having excited suspicion ; the Emperor's death and
lack of proof had caused him to be at once released.
But Sidney did not listen, for explanations had no
meaning for him henceforth.

He remained a few days longer on the island, seek-
ing to satisfy his grief to the utmost ; he followed the
funeral procession into the Valley of Fermain, into
which falls from Diana's Peak the brook the Emperor
loved, and where weep the willows whose sacr-ed leaves
have since been scattered over the universe. He
watched the English soldiers bear away the coffin on
their shoulders ; saw it lowered into the stone tomb,
and withdrew only when the black opening was closed
by the long and narrow stone. He wanted, by taking
in carefully all these details of the funeral, to persuade
himself that his misfortune was real ; he feared lest
later he should believe that the Emperor was not dead ;
he already felt that illusion arising in his mind, although
he had beheld Napoleon dead on his state bed, and had

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THE QUARTETTE

touched his icy cold hand ; he meant to have a recol-
lection of the funeral and tomb to oppose to his own
fancies.

As he climbed the hill towards Hutsgate, he turned
around a last time, to look at the new white stone
under the soft shade of the willows, and said : —

" My soul is buried with that body."

At that moment a man dressed in mourning, and
speaking English with a French accent, held out a
paper to Sidney, and said : —

"Take this from him who is gone."

Sidney opened the envelope, sealed with black wax ;
it contained a small lock of fine silk hair, and a note
on which were written these words: —

" Console yourself, no one can prevail against God.

» N."

When Sidney looked up the man who had handed
him the paper had vanished.

So he sat down on the slope of the hill, and
sank into a deep reverie. When he arose his fea-
tures had become more calm ; a change had come
over him ; he returned to Benedict's house, and said
to him : —

" Forgive me for having turned you away from hap-

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THE QUARTETTE

piness, in order to make you a partner in my mad
attempt. I free you from your oath."

And he drew from his pocket-book the yellowed
paper, which he tore and cast at Benedict's feet.

"Return to Europe; you are free; nothing now
binds you longer to our mysterious association ; follow
the inclination of your heart, be happy ; do not seek to
alter the book of Fate, — other hands than ours hold
the threads of events, and perhaps what seems to us
unjust is supreme equity. As for me, the car of my
life has been thrown out of its rut, and cannot get
back into it ; I was fit for one thing only ; that thing
has failed; it is all over; and whether I am buried
to-day, the day after to-morrow, or later, is no matter
— I am dead. Thought, feeling, and will have fled
and vanished. And you, my dear Edith, do you try to
find some reason for living — it may be you have
already done so."

As he said this, Sir Arthur Sidney looked steadily at
Edith, who could not help blushing.

"Love some one, a man, a child, a dog, a flower,
but never an idea, — that is dangerous."

Having spoken these words, Sidney shook hands
with his friends, and returned to the black rock where

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THE QUARTETTE

Saunders and Jack, who had used up their tobacco,
were beginning to feel very weary.

Arundel and Miss Edith, left alone on the island,
did not hasten their departure as might at first have
been thought they would do, although St. Helena is a
pretty lonely place. Edith, thrown into the sea by her
husband, was in no hurry to return to Europe; Bene-
dict, although he claimed and believed himself to be
still deeply in love with Annabel, was in no wise
weary of life in the cottage, which a city merchant
would have declared uncomfortable, but which was
illumined by Edith's presence. The young woman on
her part, was astonished to find she thought so little
of Volmerange ; and the pair of them made incredible
efforts to retain within their hearts the love which was
escaping.

Already Benedict could not find in his memory the
lovely features of his beauteous bride ; Edith's always
mingled with them ; sometimes a sweet, veiled glance,
sometimes a tender and melancholy smile ; the two
faces melted one into the other. Edith was in pre-
cisely the same position ; when in her thoughts she
called up Volmerange, it was very often Benedict who
appeared, — indeed after some time, Volmerange did

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THE QUARTETTE

not come, and Edith began to think that a man who
drowned his wife so summarily was not, perhaps, an
ideal husband.

Naturally the two young people insisted on anticipat-
ing uncommon happiness on their return to London,
when Benedict might at last marry Annabel, and
Edith, sufficiently punished, would be reconciled to
her terrible husband.

Usually these conversations began gaily, but they
generally ended in a somewhat melancholy mood.
Benedict did not like the idea of Edith returning to
Volmerange, and Edith was not greatly delighted at
the thought of the happiness which awaited her friend
with Miss Vyvyan. Such were the thoughts which
filled the minds of the young couple in St. Helena,
while a few yards from the house the weeping willow
drooped its leaves over the greatest tomb in the world,
— if there be any difference between tombs.

Their own tender feelings occupied them much
more than the effect of Napoleon's death upon the
destinies of the world ; even when at night they went
to Fermain Valley to contemplate the Titan's tomb, to
listen to the brook murmuring past the corner of the
funeral stone, and to watch the wind whirl away the

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pale leaves of the melancholy tree, — they were thinking
of themselves.

A curl of hair falling upon Edith's neck, brought
out with its rich brown colour the pale rosy cheek,
and drew Benedict away from the great thoughts
which the tomb of the most illustrious of captains
ought to have inspired, while his admiring glance
promptly dried in Edith's lovely eyes the tears that
sprang to them at the remembrance of the great
captive.

They at first thought of writing to Europe, to inform
their friends of their return, but they thought better of
it and agreed it was wiser to come unexpectedly into
the midst of the general grief ; it would be a pleasant
philosophical experiment. They would be able to
judge for themselves of the depth and the sincerity of
the regrets they had excited ; they would see for them-
selves whether the places they had left empty had been
filled, and whether faith had been kept in Europe as in
Africa. Annabel must certainly be in tears, Volme-
range devoured by remorse. But suppose it should not
be so ? Suppose Miss Vyvyan, indignant at Benedict's
inexplicable disappearance, had taken back her heart ?
Suppose Volmerange did not feel the least regret at

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having thrown his wife into the Thames? — what
would they do in that case ? Our two innocent
hypocrites dared not confess, even to themselves, that
they would be delighted if that were the case, and
that the proper thing under those circumstances would
be to go on loving each other, as they had been doing
secretly for the last two months.

They allowed one or two vessels proceeding from
Calcutta to London to pass by, and at last made up
their minds to board the third, — a swift sailing-vessel,
built of teak, copper-fastened and copper-bottomed, —
which took them in six weeks to Cadiz, whence they
continued their trip by land, visiting Andalusia, Seville,
Granada, Cordova, — still under the convenient appel-
lation of Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Everybody thought
they were married ; some gossip-mongers saying they
were two young lovers enjoying their honeymoon.
Their pillows alone knew the truth ; they were madly
in love, but the angel of modesty might have been
present at every moment of their life. Only they did
not hasten back, and what with visiting mosques and
cathedrals, Alcazars, palaces, going to tertulias and bull-
fights, — it took them some four months to traverse
Spain ; so that they reached Paris just in time for the

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THE QUARTETTE

winter season. Finally, when they had no longer anv
decent pretext to delay, as they were exceedingly con-
scientious, they remarked to each other one evening: —
" Is it not time to go back to London, and to see
whether we are loved and forgiven, or replaced and
cursed ? "

The thought of meeting again those whom they pre-
tended they loved best in the world, made them so sad
that they felt ready to burst into tears, and to fall into
each other's arms, never again to separate. But the
situation was becoming embarrassing : Sir Benedict
Arundel could not go on calling himself Mr. Smith,
nor Ladv Edith Harlev, Countess of Volmerange, Mrs.
Smith, which is a very prosaic and commonplace name.
So the next morning they called for post horses for
Calais, and a few hours later were awaiting the
departure of the steamer.

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THE horse caught by Volmerange was a
thorough-bred, swift as the wind ; in a few
minutes it carried its rider beyond the centre
of the battle, or rather of the massacre, for it was now
only a confused battling of elephants, horses, and men.
The rout was complete.

For some time Volmerange heard the elephants
trumpeting in the distance, and saw on the ground, red
with the reflection of the burning wood, the shadow of
his horse, galloping before him like a strange, mon-
strous form he was pursuing ; the horse itself, maddened
by the deformed shape, sprang furiously forward, and
bent down to bite at it.

Little by little the fleeing men who, during the first
part of Volmerange's mad rush, had been galloping by
his side, were left behind ; the screams of the elephants
had ceased to be heard, and the night had resumed its
blue tint. Volmerange still galloped at top speed along
the banks of the Godavari, his horse with marvellous

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instinct avoiding the pitfalls, jumping fallen trees, and
swerving from quagmires without ever diminishing its
speed in the least.

When Volmerange had ridden some twenty-five or
thirty miles from the battle-field, he pulled in his horse,
and guided by a light which twinkled on the river bank,
reached the hut of a fisherman, busy mending his net,
who prostrated himself before him after having helped
him to dismount.

The Count sat down against the wall of the hut on
a bench covered with saptaparna, and speaking to the
fisherman in Hindoostanee asked him if he could pro-
cure for him other clothes, and a boat in which he
might descend the river.

" I can do so," answered the fisherman, who had
recognized his rank by his insignia, "but your lordship
may not care to put on the humble dress of a poor
Hindoo of the lowest class, a wretched soudra, who is
not worthy of pressing with his brow the dust on your
lordship's road."

" The meaner the dress, the more suitable it will be,"
said Volmerange, entering the hut.

Helped by the fisherman, he threw off" his warrior's
dress and put on the humble garments, under which it

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would have been difficult to recognize the leader of the
insurrection. The fisherman, for greater safety, ad-
vised him to stain his face and hands with the juice of
the colocynth, as his comparatively fair complexion
might betray him.

Having taken these precautions, the fisherman cast
loose his boat, and the horse, that had come down
to the river bank, seeing that its services were no
longer needed, dashed off", after noisily breathing in
the air, towards the hill, where, no doubt, lay his
pasturage.

I shall not follow Volmerange day by day during the
course of his river trip, which was long. Let it suffice
that he gained the coast in safety, and after rewarding
the fisherman with one of the precious stones that
adorned the hilt of his sabre, he boarded a French
vessel sailing up the gulf of Bengal, which had stopped
at the river mouth to fill up with fresh water.

As he was returning alone, or at least accompanied
but by the remembrance of two dead women, — Edith
whom he had drowned, and Priyamvada shot by his
side, — he did not, although the distance was great,
take nearly as much time to return to Europe as did
Edith and Sir Benedict Arundel.

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In spite of himself a secret attraction dragged him
back to London, which he had so many reasons to
avoid ; it may be he obeyed that singular magnetism
which men feel just as much as animals, and which
induces them to return to the same place after every
violent blow of Fate which has compelled them to
leave it ; like bulls, that always return to the querencia
until they die.

Although, owing to the rush of events, the Count
had not had time to mourn Priyamvada's unhappy fate,
as it deserved, it had, nevertheless, produced a deep
impression upon him ; he felt himself circumvented by
some dark fatality, and he resolved to dwell alone for
fear of bringing evil upon those he might love ; so he
lived in isolation, going out at night only, and then to
deserted places, — not that there was any reason why
he should hide, for before leaving for India he had sent
Edith's letters to Lord and Lady Harley, with these
words at the foot : " Justice has been done." The
family had spread the report that the girl, taken to Italy
by the Count, to enjoy the honeymoon, had died at
Naples of a fever caught in the Pontine marshes. As
this was in no wise unlikely, society, which does not
busy itself much about those that have dropped out, was

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satisfied with the specious statement, — Lord and Lady
Harley's grief confirming it.

One evening the Count de Volmerange was walking
in the quietest part of Hyde Park. A young lady,
whose elegant and rich dress marked her as belonging
to the highest aristocracy, was walking swiftly, ac-
companied at some distance by a servant in livery,
along the pond which lies in the solitary portion of the
park which is frequented usually only by lovers, poets,
and dreamers ; sometimes also by pickpockets, for a man
of evil appearance, issuing suddenly from the shrubbery,
sprang towards the lady, and seizing her shawl, which
was fastened by a large jewelled pin, endeavoured to
drag away the rich tissue. The servant ran up, but a
blow, delivered in accordance with the best rules of
boxing, and which struck him square in the face, sent
him to the ground, a couple of yards away, his nose
and mouth bleeding.

The thief still pulled at the shawl, and the young
woman, almost strangled, could scarcely call for help.
Volmerange, happening to reach a turn of the walk,
saw the struggle, and reaching the group at one bound,
re-established the balance of affairs by a blow of his
stick, which slashed the thief's face like a sabre cut, and

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made him flee howling with pain in spite of his very
natural desire to hold his tongue.

The lady was so terrified she could scarcely stand,
and Volmerange was obliged to give up pursuing the
thief, in order to support her. When she had some-
what recovered, Volmerange was about to withdraw
after having gravely bowed to her, but the lady held
out her hand, stopped him, and said in a timid and be-
seeching voice : —

"Oh! sir, be chivalrous a little longer j kindly take
me back to my carriage ; my poor Daniel is in a pite-
ous condition, and I am afraid that if these evil-doers
see me alone again, they may attack me once more."

It was scarcely possible to refuse such a request,
and although Volmerange had sworn to himself never
to trouble again with any woman, he could not help
offering, graciously enough for a misanthrope who in-
tended to surpass the savageness of Timon of Athens,
the protection which was asked with an insistence that
terror rendered almost caressing.

The carriage was waiting at a somewhat distant
point, so that on the way these two persons, so unex-
pectedly brought together, were enabled to become
somewhat acquainted with each other. And, indeed,

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a woman with whom you have gone a couple of hun-
dred yards, holding on to your arm, and still agitated
by deep emotion, pressing you with her hand because
her feet are trembling, ceases to be a stranger. So
Volmerange, who had time to notice the beauty of the
lady, and to gather from the few remarks they ex-
changed on the way that she was clever, involuntarily
slackened his steps, when he saw, drawn up near one
of the park gates, a carriage with its shining panels
and its splendid coat of arms.

" I hope you will not refuse," she said after having
seated herself in the satin-lined carriage, and before the
footman closed the door, " to tell me the name of my
deliverer. I am Miss Annabel Vyvyan."

" I am Count de Volmerange," he replied, with a
deep bow.

Miss Annabel Vyvyan, for it was she, walked,
after the fashion of young English women, every day
in that part of the park, and though her adventure
might well have caused her to abandon her pedestrian
excursions, she returned the next day at the accustomed
hour. Perhaps she had a vague presentiment that in
case of accident her protector would not fail to be
there, for she went down the same walk as the day

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before, and skirted the Serpentine as she usually did ;
although she did not quite say so to herself, she desired
to delicately reward Volmerange's courage, the recom-
pense being the opportunity to meet her a second time.

Possibly Volmerange, for his part, fancied Miss
Annabel Vyvyan was not quite safe in that part of the
park, in spite of the footman who followed her, for the
next day he took his walk precisely at the same place
and at the same hour.

Neither of them appeared astonished at meeting, and
they chatted for some little time, — longer perhaps than
strict • conventionality allowed ; and Volmerange, for
fear of an unpleasant occurrence, escorted Miss Anna-
bel back to her carriage.

Not long afterwards the Count was regularly pre-
sented to Lady Eleanor Braybrooke, who thought him
charming, and noted with pleasure that he paid long
and frequent visits ; for the practical lady considered
that Miss Annabel carried too far her faithfulness to her
imaginary widowhood.

What I have now to relate violates the poetics of
novels, which admit of but a single, eternal love ; this,
however, is not a novel. Miss Annabel Vyvyan, who
had scarcely believed that after the disappearance or

299

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THE QUARTETTE

death of Benedict, she could ever love again, was quite
surprised to feel her heart — which she believed extin-
guished forever under the ashes of her first disappoint-
ment — beating again: the name of Count Volmerange,
when he was announced by the footman, always brought
a faint colour to Miss Annabel's pale cheeks ; at night,
when after two or three hours' delightful conversation
with Volmerange, she laid her head upon her lace-
trimmed pillow, and submitted to that little self-exami-
nation which every pretty woman indulges in about the
flirtations of the day, — she would acknowledge that
she had replied with too indulgent^a glance to a burning
look, discussed too long points of amorous metaphysics,
and had not withdrawn her hand quickly enough when
bidding good-night. When she had gone to sleep, her
dreams were filled with the face of Volmerange rather
than that of Benedict.

The two couples that had met at the door of St.
Margaret's church, had physically and morally crossed
over, and, by a curious symmetry, just as Benedict now
loved Edith, so did Miss Annabel love Volmerange,
who returned her love. Chance in these contradictory
combinations seemed to enjoy crossing human pur-
poses ; neither of the projected unions had been

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accomplished, none of the pledges given had been
kept; those of the four who were apparently well
matched, had on the contrary, fallen in love with the
others. A mysterious power had substituted for the
rational plan of these lives, a fantastic scenario, extrava-
gant, illogical ; the unity of place and action had been
violated by the great Romanticist who arranges human
dramas, and is called the Unexpected.

Lady Braybrooke, who greatly desired to see Annabel
married, after what she called Benedict's affront, never
ceased to praise Volmerange to her ; her praise was
naturally accompanied by reprobation of the former
bridegroom. Nothing definite had yet been spoken,
but their hearts understood each other ; Volmerange
was a declared lover, and gave his arm to Lady Eleanor
Braybrooke, and when the aunt and niece went to the
theatre he always had a seat at the back of the box,
behind Miss Annabel. It must be confessed that the
finest settings and most pathetic scenes scarcely caused
him to look up, for his glance rested by preference
upon the sweeping lines of Miss Annabel's neck and
lovely shoulders. And so it was that, though he fre-
quented the theatre, no one was less acquainted with
the repertoire; and Lady Eleanor Braybrooke was

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somewhat surprised at so intelligent a gentleman profit-
ing so little by the fine things which he seemed to
listen to so attentively.

Annabel did indeed, from time to time, feel a vague
dread of the sudden appearance of Benedict, who would
reproach her with her disloyalty : for no woman will
admit that a man can be faithless, though she herself
never lacks excellent reasons to justify a similar fault on
her own part ; but the months passed, and Benedict's
disappearance was still enveloped in the deepest obscur-
ity ; Miss Vy vyan had therefore gradually overcome her
dread of any posthumous claim, and .was beginning to
love Volmerange without feeling too much terrified at
the possible consequences ; while the latter had totally
forgotten Edith and even Priyamvada.

His adventures with the latter only occurred to him
as the hallucinations of an opium dream, — her golden
complexion, her painted eyes, her exotic perfumes, their
excursions on elephants' backs, their meetings in the
pagodas, the battles in the forest filled with creepers, —
all these strange scenes recurred to the Count as unreal
remembrances. Had Priyamvada lived, charming
though she was, she would certainly have proved an
embarrassment to Volmerange, for what would have

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THE QUARTETTE

been said, had he taken her to Almack's, of a lady who
wore ear-rings in her nose, and whose brow was tattooed
with gorothchana? Yet the Count could not help a
feeling of sadness, as he recalled the perfect beauty, the
ardent love, and the boundless devotion of the poor
Hindoo maid. These qualities, although somewhat
uncommon and irregular, did deserve some regrets.

During all these chances and changes, Miss Edith and
Sir Benedict Arundel, whom we left on the Calais pier,
had taken ship and reached England.

Before entering London, they had separated, and each
had taken a house in a retired section. Naturally the
fiction of the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Smith could no
longer be kept up ; besides, Miss Edith was Countess
of Volmerange, and Sir Benedict the husband of Miss
Annabel Vyvyan, or nearly so. They had returned from
St. Helena, with the intention of resuming wedded life;
then they had also to carry out the philosophical test
they had agreed upon.

Volmerange had received a note from Annabel, invit-
ing him to call for her with her aunt, and to go to a

concert at Princess 's. He was dressed and ready

to go when his valet informed him that a veiled lady
desired to speak to him.

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"A veiled lady? that is a curious visit at such an
hour as this! It is a long time since I have given up
frequenting the wings of Drury Lane, and this is not
the operatic season. Who the devil can it be? 1 sup-
pose some high-principled mother, who wants me to
engage her daughter as companion."

"What shall I tell the lady, sir? " asked the valet, who
evidently waited for an answer.

" Tell her to write her name, and what she wants, on
her card."

"I did so, sir," answered the valet, "but she replied
she did not wish to give her name, and would speak to
you alone."

" Is she young or old, ugly or pretty ? " asked the
Count, through an excess of precaution.

" As far as I can judge of the appearance of the
veiled lady, sir, she is pretty, and by the lightness of her
walk I should judge she is young."

The Count looked at the clock, and saw he had a
half-hour to spare before calling on Annabel ; he told
his servant to show in the mysterious person.

The curious visit, the determination not to give her
name, the veil drawn over the features, combined to
give a romantic turn to the adventure, which easily

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captivated the lively imagination of the Count; and yet,
in spite of himself, he felt a vague terror, and shuddered
involuntarily. He happened to catch sight of himself in
the mirror, and saw that he was pale.

The room was large, richly but quietly furnished, and
lighted by a single lamp, the beams of which, concen-
trated in a single point, left the rest of the room in
shadow. It was raining, and the rain beat on the win-
dows in a way that recalled a certain tempestuous
night.

An anxious expectation, contrasting with the trifling
nature of his replies to his servant, filled Volmerange's
heart. When the door opened to give passage to the
stranger, the slight creaking of the hinges caused him to
start nervously.

The door was in shadow, so the Count could not at
first make out the lady who had entered, but with the
well-bred courtesy which marked him, he advanced
towards her. The light of the lamp now fell full upon
the new-comer ; the valet was right — it was not ugliness,
but a secret or modesty, which induced the use of the
veil, through which the beauty of the lady shone like a
fire behind a metallic grating. She could not be seen,
but one felt she was beautiful. She wore a long white

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gown, which fell in fine close folds like those of Phidias,
and over it fell, with coquettish but funereal lines, a
black lace mantilla.

" Madam," said Volmerange, " will you not draw up
your veil ? Since you can trust me so far as to call at
my house at this hour, these precautions are useless :
your secret is safe. You will not let me know your
name, let me at least see your face."

" Do you wish it ? " replied the unknown, in a sweet,
penetrating voice.

The well-known accents made Volmerange shiver.

The lady, with a slender white hand, the shape of
which recalled innumerable remembrances to the Count,
began slowly to draw up the black folds of her veil ;
first showed her lovely chin, marked with a little mark
that filled Volmerange with dread ; then lips of the
brightest red, which carried his terror to the highest
point ; then the Greek nose and the lovely brown eyes
that made him mad with fright.

Holding her veil above her head with her beautiful
marble hand, in an attitude worthy of an antique statue,
she placidly presented herself to Volmerange's startled
gaze. He had drawn back and trembled like a leaf.

" Oh ! " he uttered in a low voice, " who are you?"

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" I am Lady Edith, Countess of Volmerange."

" No, you lie! you are a spectre ; your dress must be
wet ; you have come from the Thames. Go, leave me !
I drowned you ; you know it, I had the right to do it.
What a strange adventure ! Is Dolfos going to come
back to life too ? It would be very funny," said the
Count, bursting into shrill laughter.

He was a maniac.

3°7

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THE QUARTETTE
4:4:4:4:4: db 4:4: 4: 4r^dbdb 4:4:4? dbdb 4: 4:4:4: 4:4?

XXI

MISS ANNABEL, in her ball-dress, was
studying in the mirror the effect of a sprig
of Cape heath, coquettishly placed in her
beautiful hair; she had never looked lovelier; the
thought of the coming of the man she loved lighted
her beauty with an inward glory that made her radiant.
It is sweet at such a time to feel one's self beautiful,
and to increase love by admiration. Fair, rosy, daz-
zling, in a dress that seemed cut out of the petals of a
flower, in a gauze tunic more tenuous and transparent
than the wings of a dragon-flower and caught up by
sprigs of heath like that she wore in her hair, Annabel
Vyvyan looked like a sylph indulging in the fancy of
going out for the evening.

The maid, having done her work, withdrew. Anna-
bel, left alone, — for Lady Eleanor Braybrooke, having
much more to do in the way of repairing her beauty,
remained much longer than her niece in the hands of
her women, — felt that sort of restlessness which
people who have dressed too early for an entertain-

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ment are apt to experience. She had written Vol-
merange to come at nine; it was scarcely eight, so she
had an hour of idleness and motionlessness to spend ;
for she might have disarranged her dress had she
indulged in any occupation.

By way of passing the time she took up a book and
read inattentively a few pages ; she opened the piano
and ran her polished fingers up and down the bright
ivory keys, but the sound of the notes and the vibration
of the strings made her nervous, so she closed the
instrument. One of her bracelets, somewhat too large,
slipped down on her hand, and was in her way ; she
went to her jewel-case to take out another ; as she
replaced the jewel-case, her eyes fell upon the letters
Benedict had written in the days of his courtship. It
so happened that this was the very anniversary of the
wedding so strangely interrupted at St. Margaret's.

This fact, recalled to Miss Annabel's memory by
the sight of the casket, made her sigh ; moved by a
melancholy fancy she drew one letter from the bundle,
and standing by the mantel-piece, for she felt chilly in
her low-necked dress, she began to read.

" Dear Annabel," said the letter, which had been
written during a short absence, " how am I to spend

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the three days which I have to pass far from you, after
having become accustomed to your sweet presence,
and seeing every evening your soul shining in your
eyes, and your mind in your smile ? The only thing
which enables me to bear with the separation is the
thought that soon we shall never again be parted, and
that our two lives shall flow on like two streams that
mingle their waters."

The reading of the note plunged Miss Annabel into
a deep reverie.

" What is the use," she said to herself, " of keeping
these tokens of a false love ? "

And she cast the letter into the fire.

She took a second, which she read, and which joined
the first in the burning coals. She thus traversed,
letter by letter, the whole course of her vanished love.
As soon as she had breathed the vague perfume of
remembrance that clung to the notes, she threw into
the flames the remains of a vanished time of happiness.

41 Nine o'clock," she said as she threw away the
last letter in the casket, " and Volmerange has not
come."

The paper caught fire, and owing to the coals burn-
ing away, rolled on the floor in front of the fireplace ;

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just as it was about to go out, but revived no doubt by
some draft, the letter, more than half consumed, blazed
up, and the dying flame, seeking for food, touched the
hem of Annabel's gauze dress, and flashed like a ser-
pent up the folds of the light stuff. Annabel saw her-
self suddenly in the midst of a flaming light and a hot
atmosphere ; she ran to the bell-rope, but maddened
by terror and pain she looked for it on the left when
it was on the right, and the flames, excited by her
movements, enveloped her victoriously and trium-
phantly. The poor child rolled on the floor to try to
put out the fire, and tried to drag off her clothes as she
screamed.

At that very moment the door was opened and the
servant announced : —
" Sir Benedict Arundel."

u Save me, save me ! " cried unfortunate Annabel,
enveloped in flames.

Benedict and the servant sprang forward, but it was
too late ; and in the delirium of horrible agony she
fixed her terrified eyes on her former lover, and mur-
mured as the death rattle was heard : —

" Benedict here ! Oh ! this is too great a punish-
ment ! "

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The servant, terrified, half beside himself, sprang
out for a doctor and water, while Benedict endeavoured
to stifle the flames that still burned Annabel's under-
garments by wrapping her up in the table-cover ; but
when assistance came Annabel had just expired.

Benedict, half crazed, went away, unable to bear the
dreadful sight ; no one, in the excitement of the terri-
ble catastrophe, paid any attention to his coming or
going. — A few days later, Lady Eleanor Braybrooke
received a few half-burned letters that had been picked
up on the floor, and that explained the dreadful event;
through her tears she managed to make out the few
incomplete lines that remained, and understood that
these bits of paper had caused the accident, — a dis-
covery which further increased the hatred the good lady
entertained for Benedict.

By a strange coincidence, by a mysterious fatality,
Benedict's love-letters had taken back Annabel at the
very moment when she expected a different visitor; a
superstitious soul might have seen a chastisement in
this, — but a chastisement of what? Innocence, no
doubt, unless innocence pays the ransom of crime
by a law of inversion, the reason for which escapes
me.

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The visits paid by Benedict and Miss Edith had not
resulted very fortunately, and their experiment had
ended as most philosophical experiments do end.

On arriving at the close of this story, or episode
rather, I feel the need of clearing up the parts of the
narration which would otherwise remain obscure.

During the latter years of the Empire, friendships
contracted at college, acquaintances made in society or
elsewhere, similarity of tastes in work or pleasure, a
certain bold conformity of, thought, and the curious
chances of fortune had drawn together in England
men of different countries and different ranks, but
every one of great mind, and strong will, — men of
mark in their own way. A sort of involuntary
free-masonry had speedily arisen among them ; they
spoke to each other in society, and exchanged in the
recesses of windows rapid remarks that summed up
a whole philosophy in an imperceptible smile or a
slight shrug of the shoulders. Many were rich, others
were powerful, some were both ; others skilful, some
great poets, others great politicians.

The ordinary amusements of a club — wine, horses,
and women — could not satisfy such people, who were

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weary of the emotions of orgies and gambling ; several
of them, besides, could have exhibited a longer and
better selected list of names than that of Don Juan.
They therefore sought for an aim to which they could
devote their activity, and this is what they found : the
triumph of Will over Fate.

Constituting themselves into a sort of secret tribunal,
they summoned before them contemporary history, and
gave themselves the task of annulling its decrees when
they did not consider them just. In a word, they pro-
posed to work events overhand to correct Providence.
These intrepid gamblers, bolder than the Titans of
fable, tried to win back from God the games lost on
the green cloth of the world, and bound themselves by
most formidable oaths to assist each other in these
undertakings.

The insurrection in India, the re-establishment of
Napoleon on a greater throne, the deliverance of Spain,
the freeing of Greece, where later Byron, who was one
of the members of the Junta, came to his death, —
such were the plans which these men proposed to
carry out. The various movements and revolts which
took place about that time were their work. They it
was who guided the Mahrattas against England, who

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agitated in the Peninsula, prepared the Greek insur-
rection, and tried to carry off the Emperor, for whom
the Oriental empire he had dreamed of in his youth
had been made ready in India, whence he was to
return to Europe by retracing Alexander's road.

These great minds, these inflexible wills, which
made over the map of the world, and determined to
make Chance obey their orders, had never yet suc-
ceeded in their purpose ; whenever they had nearly
attained their end, they had been overthrown by that
small, soft air, which is perhaps the spirit of God ; all
their carefully worked-out plans had failed, and, though
they could not tell why, in spite of all their efforts,
mysterious Fate continued on its blind way, maintain-
ing its decisions. What appeared to them the right
was beaten ; what appeared to them injustice was
triumphant. Genius was crucified, and mediocrity
bloomed out under its golden crown. An unexpected
obstacle, a treason, or some other obstacle, invariably
upset their arrangements at the very moment of suc-
cess. They tried to stem events, and felt themselves,
in spite of their prodigious efforts, carried away by the
resistless tide.

Most of them stuck to their task with the fury of a

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gambler in ill-luck, the delirium of pride struggling
with the impossible ; madmen that they were, they
cast handfuls of dust against Heaven, and like Xerxes,
would willingly have had the sea beaten with rods.
Others, stronger-minded, had begun to suspect what,
for lack of a better expression, I shall call "the mathe-
matics of Chance ; " they began to feel that events
were determined by a gravitation, the law of which
had yet to be discovered by some future Newton ; they
agitated the world as a physicist stirs the glass to mix
the liquids in it, and to see them resume their places
according to their specific gravity.

Sir Arthur Sidney, Sir Benedict Arundel, Count de
Volmerange, Dolfos, and Daksha belonged to this pow-
erful association ; Sidney and Daksha, as members of
the upper circle, had the right to select from among their
brethren those whom they considered necessary for the
execution of their projects. Benedict and Volmerange,
who, in spite of their oath, had taken upon themselves
to dispose of their own lives, had been brought back to
duty in the way narrated in this story. Yet the many
lives disturbed or destroyed, the manifold sacrifices of
money, courage, and genius, had effected no results ;
the invisible player had always won.

316

THE QUARTETTE

What I have just said will suffice to give an idea of
the purpose and methods of the association, — a sort
of philosophical Vehmgerichte, which used incredible
energies and vast resources to substitute in history the
human will for the divine. These men, who had little
religion, who believed only in power and genius, had
mistaken Providence for Chance, and taking the pen
from the hand of God, had attempted to write in His
place upon the Book of Eternity.

Now, as is customary at the end of a story, I have
merely to state the fate of the few characters which
have survived the violence of the action.

Volmerange constantly sees standing before him the
white form of Edith, and crouches with terror in the
corner of his cell at Bedlam, withdrawing as far as he
can from the spectre which his crazed imagination
shows him at the other end of the room.

As for Miss Edith and Sir Benedict Arundel, some
English tourists, who were going to Smyrna and visiting
the Ionian islands, said they had seen at Rhodes, in a
lovely marble palace built in the days of the knights,
and in which were set antique fragments, a young
couple whose grave and sweet serenity gave the im-
pression that they were enjoying as much happiness as

3 J 7

££££££££££££££££££££££££

THE QUARTETTE

can fall to the lot of those whose lives have been filled
with grief and divers vicissitudes ; although known only
under the name of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, they appeared
to belong to a higher class than that humble name
would indicate. They neither avoided nor sought out
their fellow-countrymen, but they preferred to be alone,
— a plain indication that they were happy.

Sidney never re-appeared, and no news of him was
ever received. Was he dead, or had he buried in some
solitude his despair at having failed in the enterprise
which had been the sole aim of his life for five years ?
That was never known. Only, some years later, a
vessel returning from India, and which had been driven
by a gale towards Tristan d'Acunha, landed some of
its crew upon an islet in the group to catch turtles and
gather sea-birds' eggs, by way of varying somewhat the
salt fare on board. One of the men stumbled on the
sand over a mass of small shells which had the general
outline of a bottle. Delighted with his discovery, the
sailor, convinced that the bottle must contain rum,
cleared away the crust of earth and shells, and forcing
ofF the lead cap, he found, instead of the liquor he
hoped for, a parchment, which he handed to his cap-
tain with a fidelity he would not have exhibited had the

THE QUARTETTE

contents been spirits. The captain opened the parch-
ment, folded in four, and read the following : —

"On the point of carrying out the boldest and
strangest undertaking a man ever attempted, I, Sir
Arthur Sidney, my mind clear and my hand firm, know-
ing that the waves under which I am about to plunge
may swallow me up, write these lines, which perhaps
will be read later, should I perish in my submarine
voyage, so that my secret may not wholly die with me.

" As an Englishman I have been deeply humiliated
by the shameful behaviour of England towards the
great Emperor. As a respectful son I sought to wash
away this stain from my mother's honour, and to spare
her the shame of having murdered her guest. I made
up my mind to tear this page from the history of my
country, so that hereafter men should say that if Eng-
land had made him a prisoner, an Englishman had de-
livered him and redeemed his country's word.

" I am endeavouring to prevent my country, which I
love, from committing deicide, which may bring down
upon it the execration of the world, as the murder of
Jesus made the Jews hated over the whole world. I
have saciificed my life to that idea ; for what aim can

3*9

THE QUARTETTE

one have greater and holier than the glory of the human
family of which we are a part ? To-morrow either
Prometheus, taken down from his cross, shall be on
board a vessel that awaits him, and which will carry
him to a new empire, and to a greater destiny perhaps
than that which has astonished the world, or else God
will have decreed that, in what I am undertaking, I am
trespassing upon the attributes of Providence.
"May 4, 1821, in sight of St. Helena.'"

The captain looked thoughtfully at the parchment,
the writing on which had turned yellow, and read
several times the letter which, after tossing about so
long in its close prison, had been cast ashore upon the
deserted island, and was probably the only trace left of
the fate of a noble idea, a strong will, and a great cour-
age. He then remembered having sometimes seen Sir
Arthur Sidney in London and in Calcutta.

When the ship passed St. Helena the captain saluted
from afar the tomb of the great man, and said to him-
self:—

" God did not justify Sidney, since the Emperor is
sleeping under the willow, and I have that letter in my
pocketbook. Sir Arthur must have been drowned. I
am sorry for it, for I should willingly have shaken hands

320

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THE QUARTETTE

with him, frankly and loyally, and should like to have
had him seated opposite me at table in the 1 Lovely
Jenny's' cabin."

The " Lovely Jenny," for it was she, had been sold
to a Calcutta merchant by Captain Peppercull, to whom
Sidney had said that if he did not return within five
days he was to dispose of the vessel as he pleased. By
a singular chance it was the " Lovely Jenny " which
had picked up the will of its former owner.

Now let me state what I have managed to learn con-
cerning Daksha. After finding Priyamvada's body by
that of the elephant, he buried it, carefully observing
every rite ; he then resumed his former austerities and
invented an attitude of frightful constraint, which must
have caused the greatest pleasures to the trinities, the
quadrinities, and the quintinities of the Hindoo Olym-
pus. He has not given up hopes of re-establishing the
Lunar dynasty, and still looks for Volmerange. His
withered fingers rub the cousa more feverishly than
ever, and his black lips murmur with delirious piety the
inefFable monosyllable which contains everything — and
other things besides.

In pursuance of the idea which occurred to him dur-
ing the fight, he no longer suspends himself by three

THE QUARTETTE

hooks in the muscles of his back, but with five ; thanks
to this ingenious penance, he is convinced that the
English will be driven from India, and that he will ob-
tain of Heaven the favour of dying while holding on to
a cow's tail, a belief which does not prevent his being
a very deep philosopher, an impenetrable diplomat, a
remarkable politician, or his secretly causing revolts in
the provinces, and weaving endless deep intrigaes, while
he remains seated on his gazelle skin between four bra-
ziers, and gives a great deal of trouble to the Honour-
able East India Company.

322

The Mummy^s Foot

THE MUMMY'S FOOT

HAVING nothing particular to do, I had
entered the shop of one of those dealers
in curiosities called bric-a-brac dealers in
our Parisian slang, which is utterly unin-
telligible in other parts of France. No doubt you have
sometimes glanced at the windows of some of these
shops, which have multiplied since it has become
fashionable to purchase old furniture, and every stock-
broker thinks he must have a mediaeval room. They
have at one and the same time something of the junk-
dealer, the upholsterer, the alchemist's laboratory, and
the painter's studio. In these mysterious dens, through
which a prudent half-light niters, what is most genuinely
old is the dirt. The cobwebs there are more authentic
than the lace, and old pear-tree wood is younger than
mahogany imported last week from America.

The shop d my bric-a-brac dealer was a regular
lumber-room ; every age and every country appeared to
be represented in it. A red clay Etruscan lamp rested
upon a cabinet by Boule, with ebony panels austerely
inlaid with brass ; a half-lounge of the days of Louis

3 2 5

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THE MUMMY'S FOOT

XV carelessly extended its fawn feet under a thick
Louis XIII table, with heavy oaken spirals and carved
foliage and monsters. In one corner gleamed the
wavy breastplate of a damascened suit of Milan
armour. Parian porcelain cupids and nymphs, Chinese
grotesques, vases of celadon and craqutle, cups of
Dresden and old Sevres china, covered the shelves and
filled up the corners. On the denticulated shelves
of the sideboards shone resplendently great Japanese
dishes with red and blue ornaments, set off by gold
hatchings, side by side with enamels by Bernard Palissy,
representing adders, frogs, and lizards in relief. From
wardrobes that burst open escaped cascades of silk
damask, overlaid with silver, waves of brocatelle, which
a sunbeam covered with luminous dots ; while portraits
of every period in more or less dull gold frames smiled
through their yellow varnish.

The dealer carefully followed me along the narrow
passage left open between the piles of furniture, keep-
ing down the fluttering skirts of my coat, and watching
my elbows, with the restless attention of an antiquarian
and a usurer.

He had a curious face, that dealer ; a big skull,
polished like marble, with a thin aureole of white hair,

326

THE MUMMY'S FOOT

brought out more strongly by the pale salmon colour
of his skin, giving him a sham look of patriarchal kind-
ness, which was neutralised, however, by the sparkling
of two little yellow eyes that shone in their orbs like
two gold coins laid on mercury. The aquiline profile
of his nose recalled the Oriental or Jewish type; his
thin, slender hands, covered with veins and full of
nerves standing out like the strings of a violin, and
provided with nails like the claws at the end of a bat's
wings, had a most unpleasant senile trembling ; but
when they lifted some precious object, an onyx cup, a
Venetian glass, or a tray of Bohemian crystal, these
trembling hands became stronger than steel pincers or
lobster's claws. The old rascal had such a thoroughly
rabbinical and cabalistic look that he would have burned
at the stake three centuries ago merely on account of
his appearance.

" Are you not going to buy anything to-day, sir ?
Here is a Malay -ieese, the blade of which is waved
like a flame. Look at the grooves for the blood to run
down ; and at these teeth cut the reverse way to tear
the entrails as you pull out the weapon. It is a fero-
cious arm, very characteristic, which would look un-
commonly well on your wall. This two-handed sword

3 2 7

THE MUMMY'S FOOT

is very handsome. It is by Joseph de la Hera. And
this great duelling-sword with open-work pearl handle
is a superb piece of work."

" No, I have enough weapons and instruments of
destruction. I want a statuette, a trifle, for a paper-
weight, for I cannot bear those cheap bronzes sold by
stationers, which are to be found on every writing-
table."

The old gnome, rummaging among his possessions,
spread out before me antique bronzes, — or at least
claimed to be antique — pieces of malachite, small
Hindoo or Chinese jade idols, grotesque incarnations
of Brahma or Vishnu, uncommonly well fitted to the
not very divine purpose of keeping down newspapers
and letters.

I was hesitating between a porcelain dragon covered
with warts, its mouth adorned with fangs and tentacles,
and a small abominable Mexican fetish representing
the god Witziliputzili, when I noticed a lovely foot,
which at first I thought must be a fragment of some
antique Venus. It had the lovelv tawny, ruddy tints
that give to Florentine bronze its warm and living tints
so preferable to the verdigrised tone of ordinary bronzes,
which might easily be mistaken for statues in a state of

328

THE MUMMY'S FOOT

putrefaction. Satiny gleams shimmered over its round
forms, polished by the loving kisses of twenty centuries ;
for it unquestionably was of Corinthian brass, a piece
of work of the best epoch, perhaps a casting by
Lysippus.

"This foot will do for me," said I to the dealer,
who looked at me with a sly, ironical glance, as he
held it out to allow me to examine it more comfortably.

I was surprised at its lightness. It was not a foot
of metal, but of flesh ; an embalmed foot, a mummy's
foot. On looking closely the grain of the skin and the
almost imperceptible mark made by the bandages could
be perceived. The toes were small and delicate, with
perfect, pure nails, transparent as agate ; the great toe,
somewhat apart, after the fashion of antiquity, con-
trasted happily with the direction of the other toes, and
gave it a free attitude, the neat aspect of a bird's foot.
The sole, scarcely marked by a few faint lines, had
evidently never corue in contact with the ground, and
had trodden only upon the finest matting of Nile reeds,
and the softest carpets of panther's-skins.

" Ha ! ha ! you want the foot of the Princess Her-
monthis," said the dealer, with a horrible chuckle, as
he fixed upon me his owl-like glance. " Ha ! ha ! —

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THE MUMMY'S FOOT

for a paper-weight ! That is a novel idea; that is an
artist's idea. If old Pharaoh had been told that his
adored daughter's foot would be used as a paper-weight
he would have been astounded, considering that he was
having a mountain of granite hollowed out in order to
put inside the triple painted and gilded coffin, covered
with hieroglyphs, with beautiful paintings representing
the judgment of the soul," added the queer little dealer,
in a low voice, as if speaking to himself.

" How much will you sell me this fragment of a
mummy for ? "

" As dear as I can, for it is quite a curiosity. If I
had the companion to it, I would not let you have the
pair for less than five hundred francs. Pharaoh's
daughters are scarce, very scarce."

" I know it ; I am aware that it is not very common ;
but how much do you want ? To begin with, I must
inform you that my whole wealth amounts to five louis.
I shall buy whatever may cost five louis, but nothing
more. You might search the back pockets of my vests,
and my most secret drawers, you would not find another
sou in them."

w Five louis for the foot of Princess Hermonthis !
That is very little, very little indeed for an authentic

330

THE MUMMY'S FOOT

foot," said the dealer, wagging his head and rolling his
eyes. " Well, take it. I will give you the wrapper
into the bargain," he added, as he rolled the foot in an
old piece of damask. " It is very beautiful genuine
Indian damask ; never has been dyed ; it is strong and
sound," he muttered, as he rubbed with his fingers the
worn tissue ; the force of commercial habit making him
praise an object of so little value that even he thought
it might as well be given away.

He slipped the gold pieces into a sort of mediaeval
purse hanging from his belt, repeating, " The foot of
Princess Hermonthis for a paper-weight ! "

Then, fixing on me his flaming eyes, he said, in a
voice as strident as the mewing of a cat that has just
swallowed a fish-bone: " Old Pharaoh will not be
very pleased ; he was very fond of his daughter, the
worthy man."

"You talk about him as if you were his contempo-
rary. Old though you are, you do not quite go back to
the Pyramids of Egypt," I replied laughingly, as I passed
out of the shop.

I returned home, very well satisfied with my purchase,
and in order to turn it to account at once, I placed the
foot of the divine Princess Hermonthis upon a bundle

THE MUMMY'S FOOT

of papers, drafts of verses, an undecipherable mosaic of
corrections, beginnings of articles, forgotten letters
which I had posted in the drawer, — a mistake often
committed by absent-minded people. The effect the
foot produced was charming, eccentric, and romantic.

Greatly pleased with this embellishment of my table,
I went out into the street and walked along with the
gravity and the pride that become a man who has over
every passer-by he elbows the ineffable advantage of
possessing a portion of the Princess Hermonthis, daugh-
ter of the Pharaoh. I considered as beneath contempt all
those who did not possess, as I did, so notoriously
Egyptian a paper-weight, and it appeared to me that the
proper business in the life of a sensible man was to have
a mummy's foot on his writing-table. Happily, I met
some friends, who drew me out of my infatuation. I
went to dinner with them, for it would have been diffi-
cult for me to dine with myself.

When I returned at night, my head filled with a light,
pearly-gray vapour, a faint puff of oriental perfume
tickled my olfactory nerves. The warmth of the room
had warmed up the natron, bitumen, and myrrh in which
the embalmers had dipped the princess's body. It was
a sweet and penetrating perfume that had not wholly

33 2

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THE MUMMY'S FOOT

evaporated during the lapse of four thousand years ; for
Egypt dreamed of eternity : its odours have the solidity of
granite and last as long.

I soon drank deep of the black cup of sleep. For an
hour or two everything remained a blank, and I sank
in the sombre waves of forgetfulness and nothingness.
Then my intellectual darkness lightened, and dreams
began to flutter silently around. The eyes of my soul
were opened, and I saw my room such as it actually
was. I might have thought myself awake. A strange
feeling convinced me that I was asleep and that some-
thing curious was about to happen.

The odour of myrrh had grown stronger, and I felt
a slight headache, which I very naturally attributed to a
number of glasses of champagne which we had drunk to
the unknown gods and our future success. I looked
round the room with a feeling of expectation that noth-
ing justified. The furniture was in its place, the lamp
burning on the table, pleasantly softened by the milky
whiteness of the ground-glass globe; the water-colours
shimmered under their Bohemian glass; the curtains
hung languidly; everything looked serene and quiet.

But after a few moments this peaceful interior seemed
to be disturbed. The wood-work cracked furtively, the

333

THE MUMMY'S FOOT

log buried in the ashes suddenly shot out a jet of blue
flame, and the disks of the coat-hooks looked like metal
eyes, attentively watching, as I was, for whatever was
about to happen.

By chance I glanced at the table on which I had
placed the foot of the Princess Hermonthis. Instead of
resting quietly as became a foot embalmed for more than
four thousand years, it was moving, contracting, and
hopping about the papers like a frightened frog. I
could have sworn it was in contact with a voltaic bat-
tery. I could quite distinctly hear the sharp sound made
by its little heel, as hard as a gazelle's hoof.

I was not quite satisfied with my purchase, for I
prefer sedentary paper-weights, and it does not seem
natural to me to see feet going about without limbs.
Indeed, I began to experience something not unlike
fear.

Suddenly I saw a fold of one of my curtains move,
and I heard a sound like that made by a person hopping
round on one foot. I must confess I turned cold and
hot alternately ; a strange chill ran up and down my
back, and my hair stood up on my head.

The curtains opened, and I saw coming forward the
strangest figure imaginable. It was that of a young girl

3.34

THE MUMMY'S FOOT

of a very dark coffee-colour, like Amani the bayadere, of
perfect beauty, and recalling the purest Egyptian type.
Her almond-shaped eyes were turned up at the corners,
and her eyebrows were so black that they showed blue.
Her nose was delicately shaped, almost Greek in its
outline, and she might have been taken for a Corinthian
bronze statue, but that the prominence of the cheek-
bones and the somewhat African size of the mouth
showed plainly that she belonged to the hieroglyphic
race of the banks of the Nile. Her well-shaped arms,
slender like those of very young girls, were clasped by
metal and glass bracelets ; her hair was plaited into little
tresses ; and on her bosom hung an idol of green clay,
which I recognised by the seven-tailed whip as Isis, the
conductress of souls ; on her brow shone a plate of gold,
and some traces of rouge were visible on her copper-
coloured cheeks.

As for her costume, it was strange indeed. Imagine
a loin cloth of narrow bands covered with black and red
hieroglyphics, stiff with bitumen, which seemed to
belong to a recently unrolled mummy.

By one of those sudden changes of thought which
are so frequent in dreams, I heard the shrill, hoarse voice
of the bric-a-brac dealer repeating like a monotonous

335

THE MUMMY'S FOOT

refrain the remark he had made in his shop in so enig-
matic a tone: —

" Old Pharaoh will not be very much pleased. He
was very fond of his daughter, the worthy man."

There was one curious peculiarity which did not
contribute to reassure me, — the apparition had but one
foot. The other leg was broken off at the ankle.

She went to the table, where the mummy's foot was
jumping and quivering with greater rapidity. On reach-
ing it, she leaned upon the edge, and I saw a tear grow
in her eyes. Though she said not a word, I could
clearly make out her thoughts. She looked at the foot,
for it was hers, with an infinitely graceful expression of
coquettish sadness, while the foot ran and leaped hither
and thither as if moved by steel springs.

Twice or thrice she stretched out her hand to seize
it, but failed to do so.

Then there took place between the Princess Hermon-
this and her foot, which appeared endowed with a
life of its own, a very curious dialogue, in a very
ancient Coptic dialect, such as was spoken some thirty
centuries ago in the mummy pits of the country of
Ser. Luckily that night I happened to know Coptic
perfectly well.

33 6

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THE MUMMY'S FOOT

Princess Hermonthis said in a sweet voice that vibrated
like a crystal bell : —

" Well, my dear little foot, so you are still fleeing from
me, though I took good care of you. I washed you
with scented water in an alabaster basin ; I polished your
heel with pumice-stone dipped in palm oil ; I cut your
nails with golden scissors, and polished them with hippo-
potamus-teeth ; I took care to choose for you painted
and embroidered sandals with turned-up points, that
made every Egyptian girl envy us. I put on your toes
rings representing the sacred scarabaeus, and you sup-
ported one of the daintiest bodies that a lazy foot could
wish for."

The foot replied in a sulky tone : —

"You know very well I do not belong to myself any
more. I have been purchased and paid for. The old
dealer knew what he was doing. He is still angry with
you for refusing to marry him. It is a trick that he is
playing upon you. The Arab that broke open your
royal coffin in the subterranean well of the Theban
Necropolis had been sent by him. He meant to prevent
your going to the meeting of the people in darkness in
the lower cities. Have you got five gold pieces to buy
me back with ? "

337

THE MUMMY'S FOOT

" Alas, I have not. My gems, my rings, my purses
of gold and silver, everything has been stolen from
me," replied Princess Hermonthis, with a sigh.

" Princess," I cried then, " I have never unjustly
kept back any one's foot. Although you have not got
the five louis which I paid for it, I return it to you
most willingly. I should be uncommonly sorry to
cripple so lovely a person as Princess Hermonthis."

The beautiful Egyptian must have been surprised at
the Regency manner and the troubadour tone in which
I spoke this speech. She cast upon me a glance full
of gratitude, and her eyes lighted up with blue flashes.
She took her foot, which allowed itself to be caught
this time, like a woman about to put on a shoe, and
fitted it very skilfully to her leg, after which she took
two or three steps through the room, as if to make
certain that she was really no longer a cripple.

" How glad my father will be, for he was so troubled
by the mutilation I suffered. The very day I was
born he had set a whole nation to work to dig me
a tomb deep enough to preserve me intact until the
great day when souls are to be weighed in the balances
of Amenthi. Come with me to him. He will wel-
come you, for you have restored my foot to me."

338

THE MUMMY'S FOOT

The proposal struck me as quite natural. I put on
a dressing-gown with a great flowered pattern, in
which I looked most Pharaoh-like, hastily slipped my
feet into a pair of Turkish slippers, and told Princess
Hermonthis that I was ready to follow her.

Before leaving, she took from her neck the little
figure in green china, and placed it upon the scattered
papers that covered my table.

" It is only right," she said, " that I should give
you something in place of your paper-weight."

She held out her hand to me. It was soft and cold
as a serpent's skin. We were off.

We sped for some time as swift as an arrow through
a grayish fluid air in which faintly outlined forms
passed to right and left. At one time nothing was
visible but sky and water. Presently obelisks began to
show up j pylons and long stairs, with sphinxes ranged
all the way down, stood out against the horizon. We
had arrived.

The princess led me to a mountain of rose granite,
in which there was a low, narrow opening which it
would have been difficult to distinguish from the cracks
in the stone had not a couple of stelae covered with
carvings made it recognisable.

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THE MUMMY'S FOOT

Hermonthis lighted a torch and walked on before me.

We entered corridors cut in the living rock ; the
walls, covered with panels of hieroglyphs and allegorical
processions, must have occupied thousands of men for
thousands of years. These corridors, interminably
long, ended in square halls, in the centre of which
were dug wells. We descended these by means of
cramp-irons or of spiral staircases. The wells led into
other chambers from which issued other corridors, also
adorned with hawks, serpents biting their tails, repre-
sentations of the mystic tau, pedum, and bari, — a pro-
digious piece of work which no living eye was to see,
endless legends in granite which the dead alone had
time to read during eternity.

At last we entered so vast, so enormous, so immense
a hall that its limits were invisible. As far as I could
see stretched rows of monstrous pillars, between which
gleamed limpid stars of yellow light. These brilliant
points indicated incalculable depths.

Princess Hermonthis still held my hand, and bowed
graciously to the mummies of her acquaintance.

My eyes becoming accustomed to the twilight, I
began to discern objects. I saw seated upon thrones
the kings of subterranean races. They were tall, dry

340

THE MUMMY'S FOOT

old men, wrinkled, parchment-like, black with naphtha
and bitumen, wearing the golden pschent, pectorals,
and neckplates covered with gems, their eyes staring
like those of sphinxes, and they wore long beards,
whitened with the snow of centuries. Behind them
stood their embalmed peoples, in the stiff, con-
strained attitudes of Egyptian art, preserving forever
the pose prescribed by the hieratic code ; behind the
peoples, the cats, ibises, and crocodiles of those days,
made more mysterious still by being swathed up in
bands, mewed, flapped their wings, and chuckled.

Every Pharaoh was there, Cheops, Chephrenes,
Psammetichus, Sesostris, Amenoteph ; all the swarthy
lords of pyramids and pits. On a higher throne
sat King Chronos, Xixouthros, who lived in the
days of the deluge, and Tubal Cain, who preceded
him.

King Xixouthros's beard had grown so much that
it had already circled seven times the granite table on
which he leaned, dreamy and sleepy.

Farther away, through a dusty vapour, through the
mist of eternities, I managed to make out the seventy-
two pre-Adamite kings, with their seventy-two peoples,
vanished forever.

34i

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THE MUMMY'S FOOT

Princess Hermonthis, having allowed me to enjoy
this marvellous spectacle for a few moments, presented
me to the Pharaoh, her father, who nodded to me
most majestically.

" I have found my foot, I have found my foot ! "
cried the Princess, clapping her little hands together,
with every mark of mad joy. " It is this gentleman
who gave it back to me."

The races of Kerne, of Nahasi, all the black, bronze,
and copper-coloured nations, repeated together : —

" The Princess Hermonthis has found her foot
again."

Xixouthros himself was interested. He raised his
heavy lids, stroked his moustache, and let fall upon
me his glance, laden with centuries.

" By Oms, the dog of Hades, and Tmei, daughter
of the Sun and of Truth, you are a fine and worthy
fellow," said the Pharaoh, extending towards me his
sceptre, ending in a lotus flower. " What will you
have for a reward ? "

Bold as one is in dreams, in which nothing seems
impossible, I asked for the hand of Hermonthis. It
struck me that to get the hand in return for the foot
was an antithetical reward in pretty good taste.

342

THE MUMMY'S FOOT

The Pharaoh opened wide his glass eyes, amazed at
my joke and my request.

"What is your country, and what is your age ? "

" I am a Frenchman, and I am twenty-seven years
old, venerable Pharaoh."

" Twenty-seven years ! and he proposes to wed
Princess Hermonthis, who is thirty centuries old,"
cried out together all the thrones and all the circles of
nations.

Hermonthis alone did not think my request at all
improper.

r If you were only two thousand years old," an-
swered the old king, " I would willingly give you the
Princess; but the disproportion is too great; and then,
we must have for our daughters husbands that can last.
You people do not know how to preserve yourselves.
The last, brought here scarcely fifteen centuries ago,
are now nothing but a handful of ashes. See, my own
flesh is hard as basalt, my bones are like bars of steel.
I shall see the last day of the world with the same body
and the same face as I had when alive. My daughter
Hermonthis will endure longer than a bronze statue.
By that time the wind will have scattered the last grain
of your dust, and Isis herself, who managed to find the

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THE MUMMY'S FOOT

pieces of Osiris, would be hard put to it to reconstruct
your frame. See how vigorous I am yet, and how
strong my arms are," said he, as he shook hands with
me in English fashion, so that he cut my fingers with
my rings.

He squeezed my hand so hard that I awoke, and
perceived my friend Alfred, pulling me by the arm,
and shaking me to make me get up.

" Look here, you confounded sleeper, shall I have
to take you out into the street and to set off fireworks
at your ears ? It is past noon. Have you forgotten
that you promised to call for me to go to see Aguado's
Spanish paintings ? "

" Good gracious, I had forgotten all about it," replied
I, as I dressed. " We shall go at once. I have the
invitation here on my table."

As I spoke, I stepped forward to take up the card ;
but judge of my astonishment when, instead of the
mummy's foot which I had bought the night before,
I saw the little figure of green clay put in its place by
the Princess Hermonthis.

344