THE
STRAND MAGAZINE
An Illustrated Monthly
EDITED BY
GEO. NEWNES
Vol. I.
JANUARY TO JUNE
London:
BURLEIGH STREET, STRAND
1891
THE
STRAND MAGAZINE.
JANUARY, 1891.
CONTENTS
Introduction
The Story of the Strand
A Deadly Dilemma
The Metropolitan Fire Brigade
Scenes of the Siege of Paris
Portraits of Celebrities at different times of their Lives.
A Fair Smuggler
The Maid of Treppi
At the Animals’ Hospital
The Mirror
Fac-simile of the Notes of a Sermon by Cardinal Manning
The Queen of Spades
The Two Genies
Transcriber’s Notes
Introduction.
he Editor of The Strand Magazine
respectfully places his first number in the
hands of the public.
The Strand Magazine will be issued
regularly in the early part of each month.
It will contain stories and articles by the best British writers,
and special translations from the first foreign authors. These
will be illustrated by eminent artists.
Special new features which have not hitherto found place in
Magazine Literature will be introduced from time to time.
It may be said that with the immense number of existing
Monthlies there is no necessity for another. It is believed, however,
that The Strand Magazine will soon occupy a position
which will justify its existence.
The past efforts of the Editor in supplying cheap, healthful
literature have met with such generous favour from the public,
that he ventures to hope that this new enterprise will prove a
popular one. He is conscious of many defects in the first issue,
but will strive after improvement in the future.
Will those who like this number be so good as to assist, by
making its merits, if they are kind enough to think that it has any,
known to their friends.
The Story of the Strand.
Strand is a great
deal more than London’s
most ancient
and historic street: it
is in many regards the
most interesting street
in the world. It has
not, like Whitehall or the Place de la
Concorde, seen the execution of a king; it
has never, like the Rue de Rivoli, been
swept by grape-shot; nor has it, like the
Antwerp Place de Meir, run red with
massacre. Of violent incident it has seen
but little; its interest is the interest of
association and development. Thus it has
been from early Plantagenet days, ever
changing its aspect, growing from a riverside
bridle-path to a street of palaces, and
from the abiding-place of the great nobles,
by whose grace the king wore his crown, to
a row of shops about which there is nothing
that is splendid and little that is remarkable.
It is not a fine street, and only here
and there is it at all striking or picturesque.
But now, as of yore, it is the high road between
the two cities—puissant London and
imperial Westminster. From the days of
the Edwards to this latest moment it has
been the artery through which the tide of
Empire has flowed. Whenever England
has been victorious or has rejoiced, whenever
she has been in sadness or tribulation,
the Strand has witnessed it all. It has been
filled with the gladness of triumph, the
brilliant mailed cavalcades that knew so
well how to ride down Europe; filled, too,
with that historic procession which remains
the high water-mark of British pageantry,
in the midst of which the king came to his
own again. The tide of Empire has
flowed westward along the Strand for
generations which we may number but not
realise, and it remains to-day the most important,
as it was once the sole, highway
between the two cities.
What the Strand looked like when it was
edged with fields, and the road, even now
not very wide, was a mere bridle-path, and
a painful one at that, they who know the
wilds of Connemara may best realise. From
the western gate of the city of London—a
small and feeble city as yet—to the Westminster
Marshes, where already there was
an abbey, and where sometimes the king
held his court, was a long and toilsome
journey, with the tiny village of Charing for
halting-place midway. No palaces were
there; a few cabins perhaps, and footpads
certainly. Such were the unpromising beginnings
of the famous street which
naturally gained for itself the name of
Strand, because it ran along the river bank—a
bank which, be it remembered, came up
much closer than it does now, as we may
see by the forlorn and derelict water-gate of
York House, at the Embankment end of
Buckingham-street. Then by degrees, as
the age of the Barons approached, when
kings reigned by the grace of God, perhaps,
but first of all by favour of the peers, the
Strand began to be peopled by the salt of
the earth.
Then arose fair mansions, chiefly upon the
southern side, giving upon the river, for the
sake of the airy gardens, as well as of easy
access to the stream which remained London’s
great and easy highway until long after the
Strand had been paved and rendered practicable
for wheels. It was upon the water, then,
that the real pageant of London life—a fine
and well-coloured pageant it must often have
been—was to be seen. By water it was that[Pg 5]
the people of the great houses went to their
plots, their wooings, their gallant intrigues,
to Court, or to Parliament. Also it was by
water that not infrequently they went, by
way of Traitor’s Gate, to Tower Hill, or at
least to dungeons which were only saved
from being eternal by policy or expediency.
This long Strand of palaces became the
theatre of a vast volume of history which
marked the rise and extension of some of
the grandest houses
that had been
founded in feudalism,
or have been
built upon its ruins.
Some of the families
which lived
there in power and
pomp are mere
memories now;
but the names of
many of them are
still familiar in
Belgravia as once
they were in the
Strand. There was,
to start with, the
original Somerset
House, more picturesque,
let us
hope, than the
depressing mausoleum
which now
daily reminds us
that man is mortal.
Then there was
the famous York
House, nearer to
Charing Cross, of
which nothing but
the water-gate is
left. On the opposite
side of the
way was Burleigh
House, the home
of the great statesman
who, under God and Queen Elizabeth,
did such great things for England. Burleigh
is one of the earliest recorded cases
of a man being killed by over-work. “Ease
and pleasure,” he sighed, while yet he was
under fifty, “quake to hear of death; but
my life, full of cares and miseries, desireth
to be dissolved.” The site of Burleigh
House is kept in memory, as those of so
many other of the vanished palaces of the
Strand, by a street named after it; and the
office of this magazine stands no doubt upon
a part of Lord Burleigh’s old garden. When
Southampton House, Essex House, the
Palace of the Savoy, and Northumberland
House, which disappeared so lately,
are added, we have still mentioned but
a few of the more famous of the Strand
houses.
But the Strand is distinguished for a vast
deal more than that. Once upon a time, it
was London’s Belgravia. It was never
perhaps the haunt of genius, as the Fleet-street
tributaries
were; it was never
an Alsatia, as
Whitefriars was,
nor had it the
many interests of
the City itself. But
it had a little of
all these things,
and the result is
that the interest
of the Strand is
unique. It would
be easy to spend a
long day in the
Strand and its
tributaries, searching
for landmarks
of other days, and
visiting sites which
have long been
historic. But the
side streets are, if
anything, more interesting
than the
main thoroughfare,
and they deserve
a special and separate
visit, when
the mile or so of
road-way between
what was Temple
Bar and Charing
Cross has been exhausted.
Could
Londoners of even
only a hundred years ago see the Strand as
we know it, they would be very nearly as
much surprised as a Cockney under the
Plantagenets, who should have re-visited his
London in the time of the Georges. They
who knew the picturesque but ill-kept
London of the Angevin sovereigns found
the Strand a place of torment.
In 1353 the road was so muddy and so
full of ruts that a commissioner was
appointed to repair it at the expense of the
frontagers. Even towards the end of
Henry VIII.’s reign it was “full of pits and[Pg 6]
sloughs, very perilous and noisome.”
Yet it was by this miserable road that
Cardinal Wolsey, with his great and
stately retinue, passed daily from his house
in Chancery-lane to Westminster Hall. In
that respect there is nothing in the changed
condition of things to regret; but we may,
indeed, be sorry for this: that there is left,
save in its churches, scarcely a brick of the
old Strand.
SNOW’S BANK: FROM A SKETCH, 1808.
Still there are memories enough, and
for these we may be thankful. Think only
of the processions that have passed up from
Westminster to St. Paul’s, or the other way
about! Remember that wonderful cavalcade
amid which Charles II. rode back
from his Flemish exile to the palace which
had witnessed his father’s death. Nothing
like it has been seen in England since.
Evelyn has left us a description of the
scene, which is the more dramatic for being
brief: “May 29, 1660. This day His Majesty
Charles II. came to London, after a sad and
long exile and calamitous suffering, both of
the King and Church, being seventeen years.
This was also his birthday, and, with a triumph
above 20,000 horse and foot, brandishing
their swords and shouting with
inexpressible joy; the way strew’d
with flowers, the bells ringing, the
streets hung with tapestry, fountains
running with wine; the
mayor, aldermen, and all the
companies in their liveries, chains
of gold, and banners; lords and
nobles clad in cloth of silver, gold,
and velvet; the windows and
balconies well set with ladies;
trumpets, music, and myriads of
people…. They were eight
hours passing the city, even from
two till ten at night. I stood in
the Strand, and beheld it, and
bless’d God.” A century earlier
Elizabeth had gone in state to St.
Paul’s, to return thanks for the
destruction of the Armada. Next,
Queen Anne went in triumph up
to St. Paul’s, after Blenheim; and,
long after, the funeral processions
of Nelson and Wellington were
added to the list of great historic
sights which the Strand has seen.
The most recent of these great
processions was the Prince of
Wales’s progress of thanksgiving
to St. Paul’s in 1872.
Immediately we leave what was
Temple Bar, the Strand’s memories
begin. We have made only a few
steps from Temple Bar, when we come to
a house—No. 217, now a branch of the
London and Westminster Bank—which,
after a long and respectable history, saw
its owners at length overtaken by shame
and ruin. It was the banking-house of
Strahan, Paul & Bates, which had been
founded by one Snow and his partner
Walton in Cromwell’s days. In the beginning
the house was “The Golden
Anchor,” and Messrs. Strahan & Co.
have among their archives ledgers (kept in
decimals!) which go back to the time of
Charles II.
In 1855 it was discovered that some of
the partners had been using their customers’
money for their own pleasures or
necessities. The guilty persons all went to
prison; one of the few instances in which,
as in the case of Fauntleroy, who was
hanged for forgery, English bankers have
been convicted of breach of trust. Adjoining
this house is that of Messrs. Twining,
who opened, in 1710, the first tea-shop in
London. They still deal in tea, though
fine ladies no longer go to the Eastern[Pg 7]
Strand in their carriages to drink it, out of
curiosity, at a shilling a cup.
One of the most interesting buildings
in Essex-street, the “Essex Head” tavern,
has only just been pulled down. There
it was that Dr. Johnson founded “Sam’s”
Club, so named after the landlord, Samuel
Graves. Dr. Johnson himself drew up
the rules of the club, as we may see
in Boswell’s “Life.” The chair in
which he is reported to have sat was
preserved in the house to the end. It
is now cared for at the “Cheshire
Cheese” in Fleet-street. A very redoubtable
gentleman who formerly lived in
Essex-street was Dr. George Fordyce, who
for twenty years drank daily with his dinner
a jug of strong ale, a quarter of a pint of
brandy, and a bottle of port. And he was
able to lecture to his students afterwards!
Nearly opposite Essex-street stands one
of the most famous of London landmarks—the
church of St. Clement Danes. Built as
recently as 1682, it is the successor of a far
older building. Its most
interesting association is
with Dr. Johnson, whose
pew in the north gallery is
still reverently kept, and
an inscription marks the
spot. In this church
it was that Miss
Davies, the heiress,
who brought the
potentiality of untold
wealth into the
family of the Grosvenors,
was married
to the progenitor of
the present Duke of
Westminster. St.
Clement Danes is
one of the few English
churches with
a carillon, which is
of course set to
psalm tunes. Milford-lane,
opposite, was
once really a lane with a
bridge over a little stream
which emptied into the
Thames. Later on it
marked the boundary of
Arundel House, the home
of the Dukes of Norfolk,
who have built Arundel,
Norfolk, Howard, and Surrey
streets upon its site. In
the time of Edward VI. the Earl of
Arundel bought the property for forty
pounds, which would seem to have been a
good bargain even for those days. In
Arundel House died “old Parr,” who, according
to the inscription upon his tomb in
Westminster Abbey, lived to be 152 years
old. Happily for himself he had lived all
his life in Shropshire, and the brief space
that he spent in London killed him.
The streets that have been built upon the
site of old Arundel House are full of interesting
associations. The house at the
south-western corner of Norfolk and
Howard-streets—it is now the “Dysart
Hotel”—has a very curious history. A
former owner—it was some sixty years since—was
about to be married. The wedding
breakfast was laid out in a large room on
the first floor, and all was ready, except the
lady, who changed her mind at the last
minute. The jilted bridegroom
locked up the banquet-chamber,
put the key
in his pocket, and, so the[Pg 8]
story runs, never again allowed it to be
entered. There, it was said, still stood
such mouldering remains of the wedding
breakfast as the
rats and mice had
spared. Certainly
the window curtains
could for
many years be
seen crumbling to
pieces, bit by bit,
and the windows
looked exactly as
one would expect
the windows of the
typical haunted
chamber to look.
It is only of late
that the room has
been re-opened.
The name of the
supposed hero of
this story has often
been mentioned,
but, since the story
may quite possibly
be baseless, it
would be improper
to repeat it.
But there is no
doubt whatever
that for nearly
half a century
there was something
very queer
about that upper
chamber.
This same
Howard-street
was the scene,
in 1692, shortly
after it was
built, of a
tragedy which
remained for generations in the popular
memory. It took place within two or
three doors of the “Dysart Hotel.” The
central figure of the pitiful story was Mrs.
Bracegirdle, the famous and beautiful
actress. One of her many admirers, Captain
Richard Hill, had offered her marriage,
and had been refused. But he was not to
be put off in that way. If he could not
obtain the lady by fair means he was
determined to get her by force. He therefore
resolved, with the assistance of Lord
Mohun—a notorious person, who was afterwards
killed in Hyde-park in a duel with
the Duke of Hamilton—to carry her off.
They stationed a coach in Drury-lane, and
attempted to kidnap her as she was passing
down the street after the play. The lady’s
screams drew such
a crowd that the
abductors were
forced to bid their
men let her go.
They escorted her
home (a sufficiently
odd proceeding
in the circumstances),
and then
remained outside
Mrs. Bracegirdle’s
house in Howard-street
“vowing revenge,”
the contemporary
accounts
say, but
against whom is
not clear. Hill
and Lord Mohun
drank a bottle of
wine in the middle
of the street, perhaps
to keep their
courage up, and
presently Mr. Will
Mountfort, an actor,
who lived in
Norfolk-street,
came along.
Mountfort had already
heard what
had happened, and
he at once went
up to Lord Mohun
(who, it is said,
“embraced him
very tenderly”),
and reproached
him with “justifying
the rudeness
of Captain Hill,” and with “keeping
company with such a pitiful fellow.” “And
then,” according to the Captain’s servant,
“the Captain came forward and said he
would justify himself, and went towards the
middle of the street and drew.” Some of
the eye-witnesses said that they fought, but
others declared that Hill ran Mountfort
through the body before he could draw his
sword. At all events, Hill instantly ran
away, and when the watch arrived they
found only Lord Mohun, who surrendered
himself. He seems to have had no part in
the murder, and his sword was still sheathed
when he was made prisoner. It is said that[Pg 9]
Hill already had a grudge against Mountfort,
whom he suspected of being Mrs.
Bracegirdle’s favoured lover. But the best
contemporary evidence agrees that the
lady’s virtue was “as impregnable as the
rock of Gibraltar.”
Nearly opposite the scene of this brutal
tragedy, the church of St. Mary-le-Strand
was built some five-and-twenty years later.
It is a picturesque building, and makes a
striking appearance when approached from
the west. It has of late been more than
once proposed that it should be demolished,
at once by reason of the obstruction which
it causes in the roadway, and because of its
ill-repair. But since it has now been put
into good condition, the people who would
so gaily pull down a church to widen
a road will perhaps not be again heard from.
According to Hume, Prince Charles Edward,
during his famous stolen visit to London,
formally renounced in this church the
Roman Catholic religion, to strengthen his
claim to the throne; but there has never
been any manner of proof of that statement.
The site of St. Mary-le-Strand was
long famous as the spot upon which the
Westminster maypole stood, and what is
now Newcastle-street was called Maypole-lane
down to the beginning of the present
century. At the Restoration, a new maypole,
134 feet high, was set up, the Cromwellians
having destroyed the old one, in
the presence of the King and the Duke of
York. The pole is said to have been spliced
together with iron bands by a blacksmith
named John Clarges, whose daughter Anne
married General Monk, who, for his services
in bringing about the Restoration, was
created Duke of Albemarle. Three or four
suits were brought to prove that her first
husband was still living when she married
the Duke, and that consequently the second
(and last) Duke of Albemarle was illegitimate,
but the blacksmith’s daughter gained
them all. Near the Olympic Theatre there
still exists a Maypole-alley.
SOMERSET HOUSE: FROM A DRAWING BY S. WALE, 1776.
It is hardly necessary to say that the
present Somerset House, which is exactly
opposite the church of St. Mary-le-Strand,
is not the original building of that name.
People—praise to their taste!—did not build
in that fashion in the time of the Tudors.
The old house, built by not the cleanest
means, by the Protector Somerset, was
“such a palace as had not been seen in
England.” After Somerset’s attainder it
became the recognised Dower House of the
English Queens. It was built with the
materials of churches and other people’s
houses. John of Padua was the architect,
and it was a sumptuous palace indeed; but
if Somerset ever lived in it, it was for a very
brief space. One of the accusations upon
which he was attainted was that he had
spent money in building Somerset House,
but had allowed the King’s soldiers to go
unpaid. It was close to the Water Gate of
Somerset House that the mysterious murder
of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey took place in
1678. The story of the murder is so doubtful
and complicated that it is impossible to
enter upon it here. Sir Edmundbury was
induced to go to the spot where he was
strangled under the pretence that, as a
justice of the peace, he could stop a quarrel
that was going on. Titus Oates, the most
finished scoundrel ever born on British soil,[Pg 10]
suggested that the Jesuits and even Queen
Henrietta Maria were concerned in instigating
the murder, and three men were hung
at Tyburn for their supposed share in it.
Around the Somerset House of that day
there were extensive gardens of that square
formal fashion which, although pleasing
enough to the antiquary, are anathema to
the artistic eye. Old Somerset House was
demolished in the early days of George III.,
and the present building, of which Sir
Wm. Chambers was the architect, was commenced
in 1776.
Another interesting bit of the southern
side of the Strand is the region still called
The Savoy. The old Palace of the Savoy
was built by Simon de Montfort, but it
afterwards passed to Peter
of Savoy, uncle of Queen
Eleanor, who gave to the
precinct the name which
was to become historical.
There it was that King John
of France was housed after
he was taken prisoner at
Poictiers; and there too he
died. The Palace of the
Savoy was set on fire and
plundered by Wat Tyler and
his men in 1381. It was
rebuilt and turned into a
hospital by Henry VII. In
the new building the liturgy
of the Church of England
was revised after the restoration
of Charles II.; but the
most interesting association
of the place must always be
that there Chaucer wrote a portion of the
“Canterbury Tales,” and that John of
Ghent lived there. After many vicissitudes
and long ruin and neglect, the last remains
of the Palace and Hospital of the Savoy
were demolished at the beginning of the
present century, to permit of a better
approach to Waterloo Bridge.
COUTTS’ BANKING HOUSE, 1853: FROM A DRAWING BY T. HOSMER SHEPHERD.
A little farther west, in Beaufort-buildings,
Fielding once resided. A contemporary
tells how he was once hard put to it to
pay the parochial taxes for this house. The
tax-collector at last lost patience, and
Fielding was compelled to obtain an advance
from Jacob Tonson, the famous publisher,
whose shop stood upon a portion of the site
of Somerset House. He returned home
with ten or twelve guineas in his pocket,
but meeting at his own door an old college
chum who had fallen upon evil times, he
emptied his pockets, and was unable to
satisfy the tax-gatherer until he had paid a
second visit to the kindly and accommodating
Tonson. Another of the great Strand
palaces stood on this site—Worcester House;
which, after being the residence of the
Bishops of Carlisle, became the town house
of the Earls of Worcester. Almost adjoining
stood Salisbury, or Cecil House, which was
built by Robert Cecil, first Earl of Salisbury,
a son of the sage Lord Burghley, whose
town house stood on the opposite side of
the Strand. It was pulled down more than
two hundred years ago, after a very brief
existence, and Cecil and Salisbury streets
were built upon its site. Yet another
Strand palace, Durham House, the “inn”
of the Bishops Palatine of Durham, stood
a little nearer to Charing Cross. It was of
great antiquity, and was rebuilt as long ago
as 1345. Henry VIII. obtained it by
exchange, and Queen Elizabeth gave it to
Sir Walter Raleigh. The most interesting
event that ever took place in the house was
the marriage of Lady Jane Grey to Lord
Guildford Dudley. Eight weeks later she
was proclaimed Queen, to her sorrow. Still
nearer to Charing Cross, and upon a portion
of the site of Durham House, is the famous
bank of the Messrs. Coutts, one of the oldest
of the London banks. The original Coutts
was a shrewd Scotchman, who, by his wit
and enterprise, speedily became rich and
famous. He married one of his brother’s
domestic servants, and of that marriage,
which turned out very happily, Lady
Burdett-Coutts is a grandchild. Mr. Coutts’
second wife was Miss Harriet Mellon, a distinguished
actress of her day, to whom he[Pg 11]
left the whole of his fortune of £900,000.
When the lady, who afterwards became
Duchess of St. Albans, died in the year of
the Queen’s accession, that £900,000 formed
the foundation of the great fortune of Miss
Angela Burdett, better known to this
generation as Lady Burdett-Coutts. Messrs.
Coutts’ banking-house is an interesting
building, with many portraits of the early
friends and customers of the house, which
included Dr.
Johnson and
Sir Walter
Scott. The
cellars of the
firm are reputed
to be
full of boxes containing coronets and patents
of nobility. Upon another part of the site
of Durham House the brothers Adam built,
in 1768, the region called the Adelphi.
There, in the centre house of Adelphi-terrace,
with its wondrous view up and
down the river, died in 1779 David Garrick.
Buckingham-street and Villiers-street,
which lie between the Adelphi and Charing
Cross Station, carry their history, like so
many other of the Strand tributaries,
written in their names. They recall the
long-vanished glories of Villiers, Duke of
Buckingham, who lived at York House,
so called as having been the town palace of
the Archbishops of York. Wolsey lived
there for a time; Bacon was living there
when he was degraded.
The Crown
granted it to George
Villiers, Duke of
Buckingham, by
whom it was splendidly
rebuilt. The
second Duke sold it
to pay his debts,
making it a condition
that he should
be commemorated in
the names of the
streets placed on the
site—George, Villiers,
Duke, and Buckingham
streets. The
only remaining relic
of York House is the
fine water-gate at the
bottom of Buckingham-street.
Close to
this water-gate, in a
house marked by a
Society of Arts tablet,
for a short time lived
Peter the Great; opposite
lived Samuel
Pepys; and No. 14
was occupied by
Etty. In Villiers-street
both Evelyn
and Steele lived; but
it is now the haunt
of anything rather
than genius. Northumberland
House,
the last and best
known of the riverside
palaces, which
was demolished only
at the end of 1874,[Pg 12]
was not, properly speaking, in the Strand
at all. It may therefore be sufficient to
recall that it was built in 1605, and became
the home of the Percies in 1642. It was
sold to the Metropolitan Board of Works,
with great and natural reluctance, for half
a million of money; and the famous blue
lion of the Percies, which for so long stood
proudly over the building, was removed to
Sion House.
The northern side of the Strand is not
quite so rich in memories as the side which
faced the river, but its associations with
Lord Burleigh, that calm, sagacious, and
untiring statesman, must always make it
memorable. Burleigh House, the site of
which is marked by Burleigh and Exeter-streets,
was the house from which he
governed England with conspicuous
courage, devotion, and address. There,
too, he was visited by Queen Elizabeth.
According to tradition she wore, on
that occasion, the notorious pyramidal
head-dress which she made fashionable,
and was besought by an esquire in
attendance to stoop as she entered.
“For your master’s sake I will stoop,
but not for the King of Spain,” was
the answer which might have been
expected from a daughter of Henry
VIII. Lord Burleigh lived there in
considerable state, spending thirty
pounds a week, which in Elizabethan
days was enormous. There, broken
with work and anxiety, he died in
1598. When his son was made Earl
of Exeter he called it Exeter House.
This historical house was not long in
falling upon evil days. By the beginning
of the eighteenth century a
part of it had been demolished, while
another part was altered and turned
into shops, the new building being
christened “Exeter Change.” Nearer
to our own time the “Change” became
a kind of arcade, the upper floor
being used as a wild-beast show. When
it was “Pidcock’s Exhibition
of Wild Beasts” an imitation
Beef-eater stood outside, in
the Strand, inviting the cockney
and his country cousin to
“walk up.” The roaring of
the animals is said to have
often frightened horses in the
Strand. “Exeter Change”
was the home of “Chunee,”
an elephant as famous in his
generation—it was more than
sixty years since—as “Jumbo” in our own.
“Chunee,” which weighed five tons, and was
eleven feet high, at last became unmanageable,
and was shot by a file of soldiers, who
fired 152 bullets into his body before killing
him. His skeleton is still in the Museum
of the College of Surgeons, in Lincoln’s-inn-fields.
It should be remembered that in
Exeter-street Dr. Johnson lodged (at a cost
of 4-1/2d. per day) when he began his struggle
in London. A little farther east once stood
Wimbledon House, built some three centuries
ago by Sir Edward Cecil, Viscount
Wimbledon, a cadet of the great house
founded by Lord Burleigh. Stow records
that the house was burned down in
1628, the day after an accidental explosion[Pg 13]
of gunpowder demolished the owner’s
country seat at Wimbledon. Nearly all
the land hereabouts still belongs to the
Cecils. Upon a portion of the site of
Wimbledon House arose the once famous
“D’Oyley’s Warehouse,” where a French
refugee sold a variety of silk and woollen
fabrics, which were quite new to the English
market. He achieved great success,
and a “D’Oyley” is still as much a part of
the language as an “antimacassar”—that
abomination of all desolation. The shop
lasted, at 346, Strand, until some thirty
years ago. The Lyceum Theatre, which
also stands upon a piece of the site of
Exeter House, occupies the spot where
Madame Tussaud’s waxworks were first
exhibited in 1802.
With Bedford House, once the home of
the Russells, which stood in what is now
Southampton-street, we exhaust the list
of the Strand palaces. There is but little
to say of it, and it was pulled down in 1704.
Southampton-street—so called after Rachel,
the heroic wife of Wm. Lord Russell, who
was a daughter of Thomas, Earl of Southampton—Tavistock-street,
and some others
were built upon its site. It was in Southampton-street
that formerly stood the
“Bedford Head,” a famous and fashionable
eating-house. Pope asks:—
Except on pea-chicks at the ‘Bedford Head’?”
He who loves his London, more especially
he who loves his Strand, will not forget
that No. 332, now the office of the Weekly
Times, was the scene of Dickens’ early
work in journalism for the Morning
Chronicle.
It would be impossible to find a street
more entirely representative of the development
of England than the long and not
very lovely Strand. From the days of feudal
fortresses to those of penny newspapers is a
far cry; and of all that lies between it has
been the witness. If its stones be not historic,
at least its sites and its memories are; and
still it remains, what it ever has been, the
most characteristic and distinctive of English
highways.
A Deadly Dilemma.
By Grant Allen.
hen Netta Mayne came to
think it over afterward in her
own room by herself, she
couldn’t imagine what had
made her silly enough to
quarrel that evening with
Ughtred Carnegie. She could only say, in
a penitent mood, it was always the way like
that with lovers. Till once they’ve quarrelled
a good round quarrel, and afterwards
solemnly kissed
and made it all up
again, things never
stand on a really
firm and settled
basis between
them. It’s a move
in the game. You
must thrust in
tierce before you
thrust in quarte.
The Roman playwright
spoke the
truth, after all: a
lovers’ quarrel begins
a fresh chapter
in the history of
their love-making.
It was a summer
evening, calm, and
clear, and balmy,
and Netta and
Ughtred had strolled
out together,
not without a suspicion
at times of
hand locked in
hand, on the high
chalk down that
rises steep behind
Holmbury. How
or why they fell
out she hardly
knew. But they
had been engaged
already some
months, without a
single disagreement,
which of
course gave Netta
a natural right to
quarrel with Ughtred by this time, if she
thought fit: and as they returned down the
hanging path through the combe where the
wild orchids grow, she used that right at
last, out of pure unadulterated feminine
perversity. The ways of women are wonderful;
no mere man can fathom them.
Something that Ughtred said gave her the
chance to make a half petulant answer.
Ughtred very naturally defended himself
from the imputation of rudeness, and Netta
retorted. At the end of ten minutes the
trifle had grown
apace into as
pretty a lovers’
quarrel as any
lady novelist could
wish to describe
in five chapters.
“NETTA AND UGHTRED HAD STROLLED OUT TOGETHER.”
Netta had burst
into perfectly
orthodox tears,
refused to be comforted,
in the most
approved fashion,
declined to accept
Ughtred’s escort
home, and bidden
farewell to him
excitedly for ever
and ever.
It was all about
nothing, to be sure,
and if two older
or wiser heads had
only stood by unseen,
to view the
little comedy, they
would sagely have
remarked to one
another, with a
shake, that before
twenty-four hours
were out the pair
would be rushing
into one another’s
arms with mutual
apologies and
mutual forgiveness.
But Netta
Mayne and Ughtred
Carnegie
were still at the
age when one takes love seriously—one
does before thirty—and so they turned away[Pg 15]
along different paths at the bottom of the
combe, in the firm belief that love’s young
dream was shattered, and that henceforth
they two were nothing more than the
merest acquaintances to one another.
“Good-bye, Mr. Carnegie,” Netta faltered
out, as in obedience to her wishes, though
much against his own will, Ughtred turned
slowly and remorsefully down the footpath
to the right, in the direction of the railway.
“Good-bye, Netta,” Ughtred answered,
half choking. Even at that moment of
parting (for ever—or a day), he couldn’t
find it in his heart to call her “Miss
Mayne” who had so long been “Netta” to
him.
He waved his hand and turned along the
foot-path, looking back many times to see
Netta still sitting inconsolable where he had
left her, on the stile that led from the combe
into the Four-acre meadow. Both paths,
to right and left, led back to Holmbury over
the open field, but they diverged rapidly,
and crossed the railway track by separate
gates, and five hundred yards from each
other. A turn in the path, at which
Ughtred lingered long, hid Netta at last
from his sight. He paused and hesitated.
It was growing late, though an hour of
summer twilight still remained. He couldn’t
bear to leave Netta thus alone in the
field. She wouldn’t allow him to see her
home, to be sure, and that being so, he was
too much a gentleman to force himself upon
her. But he was too much a man, too, to
let her find her way back so late entirely
by herself. Unseen himself, he must still
watch over her. Against her will, he must
still protect her. He would go on to the
railway, and there sit by the side of the
line, under cover of the hedge, till Netta
crossed by the other path. Then he’d walk
quietly along the six-foot way to the gate
she had passed through, and follow her,
unperceived, at a distance along the lane,
till he saw her back to Holmbury.
Whether she wished it or not he could
never leave her.
“NETTA WAS STILL SITTING INCONSOLABLE.”
He looked about for a seat. One lay
most handy. By the side of the line the
Government engineers had been at work
that day, repairing the telegraph system.
They had taken down half a dozen mouldering
old posts, and set up new ones in
their place—tall, clean, and shiny. One of
the old posts still lay at full length on
the ground by the gate, just as the men had
left it at the end of their day’s work. At
the point where the footpath cut the line,
was a level crossing, and there Ughtred sat
down on the fallen post by the side, half-concealed
from view by a tall clump of
willow-herb, waiting patiently for Netta’s
coming. How he listened for that light
footfall. His heart was full, indeed, of gall
and bitterness. He loved her so dearly,
and she had treated him so ill. Who would
ever have believed that Netta, his Netta,
would have thrown him over like that for
such a ridiculous trifle? Who, indeed?
and least of all Netta herself, sitting alone
on the stile with her pretty face bowed
deep in her hands, and her poor heart
wondering how Ughtred, her Ughtred,
could so easily desert her. In such strange
ways is the feminine variety of the human
heart constructed. To be sure, she had of
course dismissed him in the most peremptory
fashion, declaring with all the vows
propriety permits to the British maiden, that
she needed no escort of any sort home, and[Pg 16]
that she would ten thousand times rather
go alone than have him accompany her.
But, of course, also, she didn’t mean it.
What woman does? She counted upon
a prompt and unconditional surrender.
Ughtred would go to the corner, as in
duty bound, and then come back to her,
with profuse expressions of penitence for the
wrong he had never done, to make it all up
again in the orthodox fashion. She never
intended the real tragedy that was so soon
to follow. She was only playing with her
victim—only trying, woman-like, her power
over Ughtred.
So she sat there still, and cried and
cried on, minute after minute, in an
ecstasy of misery, till the sunset began to
glow deeper red in the western sky, and the
bell to ring the curfew in Holmbury Tower.
Then it dawned upon her slowly, with a
shock of surprise, that after all—incredible!
impossible!—Ughtred had positively taken
her at her word, and wasn’t coming back at
all to-night to her.
At that, the usual womanly terror seized
upon her soul. Her heart turned faint.
This was too terrible. Great heavens,
what had she done? Had she tried Ughtred
too far, and had he really gone? Was
he never going to return to her at all?
Had he said good-bye in earnest to her for
ever and ever?
Terrified at the thought, and weak with
crying, she rose and straggled down the
narrow footpath toward the further crossing.
It was getting late now, and Netta by this
time was really frightened. She wished
with all her heart she hadn’t sent away
Ughtred—if it were only for the
tramps: a man is such a comfort.
And then there was that
dreadful dog at Milton Court to
pass. And Ughtred was gone,
and all the world was desolate.
Thinking these things in a
tumult of fear to herself, she
staggered along the path, feeling
tired at heart, and positively ill
with remorse and terror. The
colour had faded now out of her
pretty red cheeks. Her eyes
were dim and swollen with crying.
She was almost half glad
Ughtred couldn’t see her just
then, she was such a fright with
her long spell of brooding. Even
her bright print dress and her
straw hat with the poppies in it,
couldn’t redeem, she felt sure,
her pallor and her wretchedness. But Ughtred
was gone, and the world was a
wilderness. And he would never come
back, and the dog at Milton Court was so
vicious.
As she walked, or rather groped her way
(for she couldn’t see for crying) down the
path by the hedge, at every step she grew
fainter and fainter. Ughtred was gone;
and the world was a blank; and there were
tramps and dogs; and it was getting dark;
and she loved him so much; and Mamma
would be so angry.
Turning over which thoughts with a
whirling brain, for she was but a girl after
all, she reached the little swing-gate that
led to the railway, and pushed it aside with
vague numbed hands, and stood gazing
vacantly at the long curved line in front of
her.
“SHE CRIED AND CRIED.”
Suddenly, a noise rose sharp in the field
behind her. It was only a colt, to be sure,
disturbed by her approach, dashing wildly
across his paddock, as is the way with
young horseflesh.
But to Netta it came
as an indefinite
terror, magnified ten
thousand-fold by her
excited feelings. She
made a frenzied dash
for the other side of
the railway. What
it was she knew not,
but it was, or might
be, anything, everything—mad
bulls,
drunken men, footpads, vagabonds, murderers.
Oh, how could Ughtred ever have taken
her at her word, and left her like this, alone,
and in the evening? It was cruel, it was
wicked of him; she hated to be disloyal,
and yet she felt in her heart it was almost
unmanly.
“IT WAS A TERRIBLE POSITION.”
As she rushed along wildly, at the top of
her speed, her little foot caught on the first
rail. Before she knew what had happened,
she had fallen with her body right across
the line. Faint and terrified already, with
a thousand vague alarms, the sudden shock
stunned and disabled her. Mad bull or
drunken man, they might do as they liked
now. She was bruised and shaken. She
had no thought left to rise or recover herself.
Her eyes closed heavily. She lost
consciousness at once. It was a terrible
position. She had fainted on the line, with
the force of the situation.
As for Ughtred, from his seat on the
telegraph post on the side of the line five
hundred yards farther up, he saw her pause
by the gate, then dash across the road,
then stumble and trip, then fall
heavily forward. His heart came up
into his mouth at once at the sight.
Oh, thank heaven he had waited.
Thank heaven he was near. She had
fallen across the line, and a train
might come along before she could rise
up again. She seemed hurt, too. In
a frenzy of suspense he darted forward
to save her.
It took but a second for him to
realise that she had fallen, and was
seriously hurt, but in the course of
that second, even as he realised it all,
another and more pressing terror
seized him.
Hark! what was that? He listened
and thrilled. Oh no, too terrible. Yes, yes,
it must be—the railway, the railway! He
knew it. He felt it. Along the up line, on
which Netta was lying, he heard behind
him—oh, unmistakable, unthinkable, the
fierce whirr of the express dashing madly
down upon him. Great heavens, what
could he do? The train was coming, the
train was almost this moment upon them.
Before he could have time to rush wildly
forward and snatch Netta from where she
lay, full in its path, a helpless weight, it
would have swept past him resistlessly, and
borne down upon her like lightning.
The express was coming—to crush Netta
to pieces.
In these awful moments men don’t think:
they don’t reason; they don’t even realise
what their action means; they simply act,
and act instinctively. Ughtred felt in a
second, without even consciously feeling it,
so to speak, that any attempt to reach
Netta now before that devouring engine
had burst upon her at full speed would be
absolutely hopeless.
His one chance lay in stopping the train
somehow. How, or where, or with what,
he cared not. His own body would do it
if nothing else came. Only stop it, stop it.
He didn’t think of it at all that moment as
a set of carriages containing a precious
freight of human lives. He thought of it
only as a horrible, cruel, devouring creature,
rushing headway on at full speed to Netta’s
destruction. It was a senseless wild beast,
to be combated at all hazards. It was
a hideous, ruthless, relentless thing, to be
checked in its mad career in no matter[Pg 18]
what fashion. All he knew, indeed, was
that Netta, his Netta, lay helpless on the
track, and that the engine, like some madman,
puffing and snorting with wild glee
and savage exultation, was hastening
forward with fierce strides to crush and
mangle her.
At any risk he must stop it—with anything—anyhow.
As he gazed around him, horror-struck,
with blank inquiring stare, and with this
one fixed idea possessing his whole soul,
Ughtred’s eye happened to fall upon the
dismantled telegraph post, on which but
one minute before he had been sitting.
The sight inspired him. Ha, ha! a glorious
chance. He could lift it on the line. He
could lay it across the rails. He could
turn it round into place. He could upset
the train! He could place it in the way
of that murderous engine.
No sooner thought than done. With
the wild energy of despair, the young man
lifted the small end of the ponderous post
bodily up in his arms, and twisting it on
the big base as on an earth-fast pivot,
managed, by main force and with a violent
effort, to lay it at last full in front of the
advancing locomotive. How he did it
he never rightly knew himself, for the
weight of the great balk was simply
enormous. But horror and love, and
the awful idea that Netta’s life was at
stake, seemed to supply him at once
with unwonted energy. He lifted it in
his arms as he would have lifted a
child, and straining in every limb
stretched it at last full across both
rails, a formidable obstacle before the
approaching engine.
Hurrah! hurrah! he had succeeded
now. It would throw the train off the
line—and Netta would be saved for
him.
To think and do all this under
the spur of the circumstances took
Ughtred something less than
twenty seconds. In a great crisis
men live rapidly. It was quick as
thought. And at the end of
it all, he saw the big log laid
right across the line with
infinite satisfaction. Such a
splendid obstacle that—so
round and heavy! It must
throw the train clean off the
metals! It must produce a
fine first-class catastrophe.
As he thought it, half
aloud, a sharp curve brought the train
round the corner close to where he stood,
great drops of sweat now oozing clammily
from every pore with his exertion. He
looked at it languidly, with some vague,
dim sense of a duty accomplished, and a
great work well done for Netta and
humanity. There would be a real live
accident in a moment now—a splendid
accident—a first-rate catastrophe!
Great heavens! An accident!
And then, with a sudden burst of inspiration,
the other side of the transaction flashed
in one electric spark upon Ughtred’s brain.
Why—this—was murder! There were
people in that train—innocent human
beings, men and women like himself, who
would next minute be wrecked and mangled
corpses, or writhing forms, on the track
before him! He was guilty of a crime—an
awful crime. He was trying to produce
a terrible, ghastly, bloody railway accident!
“IT WOULD THROW THE TRAIN OFF THE LINE.”
Till that
second, the
idea had
never even
so much as
occurred to[Pg 19]
him. In the first wild flush of horror at
Netta’s situation, he had thought of nothing
except how best to save her. He had
regarded the engine only as a hateful,
cruel, destructive
living being.
He had forgotten
the passengers,
the
stoker, the
officials. He had
been conscious
only of Netta
and of that awful
thing, breathing
flame and steam,
that was rushing
on to destroy
her. For another
indivisible
second of time
Ughtred Carnegie’s
soul was
the theatre of a
terrible and appalling
struggle. What on earth was he to
do? Which of the two was he to sacrifice?
Should it be murder or treachery? Must
he wreck the train or let it mangle Netta?
The sweat stood upon his brow in great
clammy drops, at that dread dilemma. It
was an awful question for any man to
solve. He shrank aghast before that deadly
decision.
They were innocent, to be sure, the
people in that train. They were unknown
men, women, and children. They had the
same right to their lives as Netta herself.
It was crime, sheer crime, thus to seek to
destroy them. But still—what would you
have? Netta lay there all helpless on the line—his
own dear Netta. And she had parted
from him in anger but half an hour since.
Could he leave her to be destroyed by that
hideous, snorting, puffing thing? Has not
any man the right to try and save the lives
he loves best, no matter at what risk or
peril to others? He asked himself this
question, too, vaguely, instinctively, with
the rapid haste of a life-and-death struggle,
asked himself with horror, for he had no
strength left now to do one thing or the other—to
remove the obstacle from the place
where he had laid it or to warn the driver.
One second alone remained and then all
would be over. On it came, roaring,
flaring, glaring, with its great bulls’ eyes now
peering red round the corner—a terrible,
fiery dragon, resistless, unconscious, bearing
down in mad glee upon the pole—or Netta.
Which of the two should it be—the pole
or Netta?
“THE DRIVER’S HEART STOOD STILL WITH TERROR.”
And still he waited; and still he temporised.
What,
what could he
do? Oh heaven!
be merciful.
Even as the
engine swept,
snorting and
puffing steam
round the corner,
he doubted
yet—he doubted
and temporised.
He reasoned
with his own
conscience in
the quick short-hand
of thought.
So far as intent
was concerned
he was guiltless.
It wouldn’t be
a murder of malice prepense. When he
laid that log there in the way of the train,
he never believed—nay, never even knew—it
was a train with a living freight of
men and women he was trying to imperil.
He felt to it merely as a mad engine unattached.
He realised only Netta’s pressing
danger. Was he bound now to undo what
he had innocently done—and leave Netta
to perish? Must he take away the post
and be Netta’s murderer?
It was a cruel dilemma for any man to
have to face. If he had half an hour to
debate and decide, now, he might perhaps
have seen his way a little clearer. But
with that hideous thing actually rushing
red and wrathful on his sight—why—he
clapped his hands to his ears. It was
too much for him—too much for him.
And yet he must face it, and act, or
remain passive, one way or the other.
With a desperate effort he made up his
mind at last just as the train burst upon him,
and all was over.
He made up his mind and acted accordingly.
As the engine turned the corner, the
driver, looking ahead in the clear evening
light, saw something in front that made
him start with sudden horror and alarm.
A telegraph pole lay stretched at full
length, and a man, unknown, stood agonised
by its side, stooping down as he thought to
catch and move it. There was no time left[Pg 20]
to stop her now; no time to avert the
threatened catastrophe. All the driver
could do in his haste was to put the brake
on hard and endeavour to lessen the force
of the inevitable concussion. But even as
he looked and wondered at the sight,
putting on the brake, meanwhile, with all
his might and main, he saw the man in
front perform, to his surprise, a heroic
action. Rushing full upon the line, straight
before the very lights of the advancing
train, the man unknown lifted up the
pole by main force, and brandishing its end,
as it were, wildly in the driver’s face, hurled
the huge balk back with a terrible effort to
the side of the railway. It fell with a crash,
and the man fell with it. There was a
second’s pause, while the driver’s heart
stood still with terror. Then a jar—a
thud—a deep scratch into the soil. A
wheel was off the line; they had met with
an accident.
For a moment or two the driver only
knew that he was shaken and hurt, but not
severely. The engine had left the track,
and the carriages lay behind slightly
shattered. He
could see how it
happened. Part
of the pole in
falling had rebounded
on to
the line. The
base of the
great timber
had struck the near-side
wheel, and sent it off the
track in a vain effort to
surmount it. But the
brake had already slackened
the pace and broken
the force of the shock, so
the visible damage was
very inconsiderable. They must
look along the carriages and find
out who was hurt. And above all
things, what had become of the
man who had so nobly rescued
them? For the very last thing
the engine-driver had seen of
Ughtred as the train stopped short
was that the man who flung the
pole from the track before the
advancing engine was knocked
down by its approach, while the
train to all appearance passed
bodily over him. For good or evil,
Ughtred had made his decision at last at
the risk of his own life. As the train
dashed on, with its living freight aboard,
his native instinct of preserving life got the
better of him in spite of himself. He
couldn’t let those innocent souls die by his
own act—though if he removed the pole,
and Netta was killed, he didn’t know himself
how he could ever outlive it.
He prayed with all his heart that the
train might kill him.
The guard and the driver ran hastily
along the train. Nobody was hurt, though
many were shaken or slightly bruised.
Even the carriages had escaped with a few
small cracks. The Holmbury smash was
nothing very serious.
“THE HOLMBURY SMASH.”
But the man with the pole? Their preserver,
their friend. Where was he all
this time? What on earth had become of
him?
They looked along the line. They
searched the track in vain. He had disappeared
as if by magic. Not a trace could
be found of him.
After looking long and uselessly, again
and again, the guard and the driver both
gave it up. They had seen the man distinctly—not
a doubt
about that—and so had
several of the passengers
as well. But no
sign of blood was to be
discovered along the
track. The mysterious
being who, as they all
believed, risked his own
life to save theirs, had
vanished as he had come, one might almost
say by a miracle.
And indeed, as a matter of fact, when[Pg 21]
Ughtred Carnegie fell on the track before
the advancing engine, he thought for a
moment it was all up with him. He was
glad of that, too; for he had murdered Netta.
He had saved the train; but he had murdered
Netta. It would dash on, now, unresisted,
and crush his darling to death. It was
better he should die, having murdered
Netta. So he closed his eyes tight and
waited for it to kill him.
But the train passed on, jarring and
scraping, partly with the action of the brake,
though partly, too, with the wheel digging
into the ground at the side; it passed on
and went over him altogether, coming, as it
did so, to a sudden standstill. As it stopped,
a fierce joy rose uppermost in Ughtred’s
soul. Thank heaven, all was well. He
breathed once more easily. He had fallen
on his back across the sleepers in the middle
of the track. It was not really the train
that had knocked him down at all, but the
recoil of the telegraph post. The engine
and carriages had gone over him safely.
He wasn’t seriously hurt. He was only
bruised, and sprained, and jarred, and
shaken.
Rising up behind the train as it slackened,
he ran hastily along on the off side, towards
where Netta lay still unconscious on the line
in front of it. Nobody saw him run past;
and no wonder either, for every eye was
turned toward the near side and the obstruction.
A person running fast by the
opposite windows was very little likely to
attract attention at such a moment. Every
step pained him, to be sure, for he was
bruised and stiff; but he
ran on none the less till
he came up at last to
where Netta lay. There,
he bent over her eagerly.
Netta raised her head,
opened her eyes, and
looked. In a moment the
vague sense of a terrible
catastrophe averted came
somehow over her. She
flung her arms round his neck. “Oh,
Ughtred, you’ve come back!” she cried in
a torrent of emotion.
“Yes, darling,” Ughtred answered, his
voice half choked with tears. “I’ve come
back to you now, for ever and ever.”
He lifted her in his arms, and carried her
some little way off up the left-hand path.
His heart was very full. ‘Twas a terrible
moment. For as yet he hardly knew what
harm he might have done by his fatal act.
He only knew he had tried his best to undo
the wrong he had half unconsciously
wrought; and if the worst came, he would
give himself up now like a man to offended
justice.
But the worst did not come. Blind fate
had been merciful. Next day the papers
were full of the accident to the Great
Southern Express; equally divided between
denunciation of the miscreant who had
placed the obstruction in the way of the
train, and admiration for the heroic, but
unrecognisable stranger who had rescued
from death so many helpless passengers at
so imminent a risk to his own life or safety.
Only Ughtred knew that the two were one
and the same person. And when Ughtred
found out how little harm had been done
by his infatuated act—an act he felt he
could never possibly explain in its true
light to any other person—he thought it
wisest on the whole to lay no claim to either
the praise or the censure. The world could
never be made to understand the terrible
dilemma in which he was placed—the one-sided
way in which the problem at first presented
itself to him—the
deadly struggle through
which he had passed before
he could make up his
mind, at the risk of Netta’s
life, to remove the obstacle.
Only Netta understood;
and even Netta
herself knew no more
than this, that Ughtred
had risked his own life to
save her.
The Metropolitan Fire Brigade.
ITS HOME AND ITS WORK.
ire! Fire!”
This startling cry aroused
me one night as I was putting
the finishing touches to some
literary work. Rushing, pen
in hand, to the window, I
could just perceive a dull red glare in the
northern sky, which, even as I gazed, became
more vivid, and threw some chimneys near
at hand into strong relief. A fire undoubtedly,
and not far distant!
The street, usually so quiet at night, had
suddenly awakened. The alarm which had
reached me had aroused my neighbours on
each side of the way, and every house was
“well alight” in a short space of time.
Doors were flung open, windows raised,
white forms were visible at the casements,
and curiosity was rife. Many men and some
venturesome women quitted their houses,
and proceeded in the direction of the glare,
which was momentarily increasing, the glow
on the clouds waxing and waning according
as the flames shot up or temporarily died
down.
CAPTAIN SHAW.
“Where is it?” people ask in a quick,
panting way, as they hurry along. No one
can say for certain. But just as we think it
must be in Westminster, we come in sight
of a huge column of smoke, and turning a
corner are within view of the emporium—a
tall, six-storied block, stored with inflammable
commodities, and blazing fiercely.
Next door, or rather the next warehouse,
is not yet affected.
The scene is weird and striking; the
intense glare, the shooting flames which
dart viciously out and upwards, the white
and red faces of the crowd kept back by the
busy police, the puff and clank of the engines,
the rushing and hissing of the water,
the roar of the fire, and the columns of
smoke which in heavy sulky masses hung
gloating over the blazing building. The
bright helmets of the firemen are glinting
everywhere, close to the already tottering
wall, on the summit of the adjacent buildings,
which are already smoking. Lost on
ladders, amid smoke, they pour a torrent of
water on the burning and seething premises.
Above all the monotonous “puff, puff” of
the steamer is heard, and a buzz of admiration
ascends from the attentive, silent crowd.
Suddenly arises a yell—a wild, unearthly
cry, which almost makes one’s blood run cold
even in that atmosphere. A tremor seizes
us as a female form appears at an upper
window, framed in flame, curtained with
smoke and noxious fumes.
“Save her! Save her!”
The crowd sways and surges; women
scream; strong men clench their hands and
swear—Heaven only knows why. But before
the police have headed back the people
the escape is on the spot, two men are on
it, one outstrips his mate, and darting up
the ladder, leaps into the open window.
He is swallowed up in a moment—lost to
our sight. Will he ever return out of that
fiery furnace? Yes, here he is, bearing a
senseless female form, which he passes out
to his mate, who is calmly watching his
progress, though the ladder is in imminent
danger. Quick! The flames approach!
The man on the ladder does not wait as
his mate again disappears and emerges with
a child about fourteen. Carrying this
burthen easily, he descends the ladder. The
first man is already flying down the escape,
head-first, holding the woman’s dress round
her feet. The others, rescuer and rescued,
follow. The ladder is withdrawn, burning.[Pg 23]
A mighty cheer arises ‘mid the smoke.
Two lives saved! The fire is being mastered.
More engines gallop up. “The
Captain” is on the spot, too. The Brigade
is victorious.
In the early morning hour, as I strolled
home deep in thought, I determined to see
these men who nightly risk their lives and
stalwart limbs for the benefit and preservation
of helpless fire-scorched people. Who
are these men who go literally through fire
and water to assist and save their fellow
creatures, strangers to them—unknown,
save in that they require help and succour?
I determined there and then to see these
brave fellows in their daily work, or leisure
in their homes, amid all the surroundings of
their noble calling. I went accompanied
by an artistic friend, to whose efforts the
illustrations which accompany this record
are due.
Emerging from Queen-street, we find
ourselves upon Southwark Bridge, and we
at once plunge into a flood of memories
of old friends who come, invisibly, to
accompany us on our pilgrimage to old
Winchester House, now the head-quarters
of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, in the
Southwark Bridge-road. On the bridge—once
a “tolled” structure
known as the
Iron Bridge—we find
“Little Dorrit” herself,
and her suitor,
young John Chivery,
in all his brave attire;
the young aspirant is
downhearted at the
decided refusal of Miss
Amy to marry him,
as they pace the then
almost unfrequented
bridge. Their ghosts
cross it in our company,
with Clennan
and Maggie behind
us, till we reach
the Union-road, once
known as Horsemonger-lane,
where young
John’s ghost quits us
to meditate in the
back yard of Mr.
Chivery’s premises,
and become that
“broken-down ruin,”
catching cold beneath
the family washing,
which he feared.
The whole neighbourhood is redolent of
Dickens. From a spot close by the head
office we can see the buildings which have
been erected on the site of the King’s
Bench Prison, where Mr. Micawber waited
for something to turn up, and where
Copperfield lost his box and money. The
site of the former “haven of domestic tranquillity
and peace of mind,” as Micawber
styled it, is indicated to us by Mr. Harman—quite
a suitable name in such a connection
with Dickens—by whom we are courteously
and pleasantly received in the office
of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade.
Our credentials being in order there is
no difficulty experienced in our reception.
Nothing can exceed the civility and politeness
of the officials, and of the rank and file
of the Brigade. Fine, active, cheerful
fellows, all sailors, these firemen are a
credit to their organisation and to London.
The Superintendent hands us over to a
bright young fellow, who is waiting his
promotion—we hope he has reached it, if
not a death vacancy—and he takes us in
charge kindly.
ENGINES GALLOP UP.
Standing in the very entrance, we had
already remarked two engines. The folding,
automatic doors are closed in front of these
machines. One, a steamer, is being
nursed by means of a gas tube
to keep the fire-box warm. When
the fire-call rings there is no time
to begin to get up steam. The
well-heated interior soon acts in
response to the quickly lighted fire
as the engine starts, and by the
time our steamer reaches its destination
steam is generated. A
spare steamer is close at hand.
Very bright and clean is the machine,
which in a way puts its useful ally, the
“manual,” in the shade; though at present
the latter kind are more numerous, in the
proportion of seventy-eight to forty-eight.
Turning from the engines, we notice a row
of burnished helmets hanging over tunics,
and below these, great knee-boots, which
are so familiar to the citizen. When the
alarm is rung, these are donned rapidly;
but we opine the gates will occupy some
time in the opening.
Our guide smiles, and points out two
ropes hanging immediately over the driving
seat of each engine.
“When the engine is ready the coachman
pulls the rope, and the gates open of
their own accord, you may say. See
here!”
He turns to the office entrance, where
two ropes are hanging side by side. A pull
on each, and the doors leading to the back-yard
open and unfold themselves. The
catch drops deftly into an aperture made to
receive it, and the portals are thus kept
open. About a second and a half is occupied
in this manœuvre.
We consider it unfortunate that we shall
not see a “turn out,” as alarms by day are
not usual. The Superintendent looks
quizzical, but says nothing then. He gives
instructions to our guide to show us all we
want to see, and in this spirit we examine
the instrument room close at hand.
Here are fixed a number of telephonic
apparatus, labelled with the names of the
stations:—Manchester-square, Clerkenwell,
Whitechapel, and so on, five in number,
known by the Brigade as Superintendents’
Stations, A, B, C, D, E Districts. By these
means immediate communication can be
obtained with any portion of the Metropolis,
and the condition and requirements of the
fires reported. There is also a frame in the
outer office which bears a number of electric
bells, which can summon the head of
any department, or demand the presence of
any officer instantly.
It is extraordinary to see the quiet way
in which the work is performed, the ease
and freedom of the men, and the strict
observance of discipline withal. Very few
men are visible as we pass on to the repairing
shops. (Illustration, p. 29.) Here the
engines are repaired and inspected. There
are eleven steamers in the shed, some
available for service, and so designated. If
an outlying station require a steamer in
substitution for its own, here is one ready.
The boilers are examined every six months,
and tested by water-pressure up to 180 lbs.
on the square inch, in order to sustain
safely the steam pressure up to 120 lbs.,
when it “blows off.”
Passing down the shed we notice the
men—all Brigade men—employed at their
various tasks in the forge or carpenters’
shop. Thus it will be perceived that the
head-quarters enclose many different
artizans, and is self-contained. The men
were lifting a boiler when we were present,
and our artist “caught them in the act.”
Close to the entrance is a high “shoot”
in which hang pendant numerous ropes and
many lengths of drying hose. The impression
experienced when standing underneath,
and gazing upwards, is something
like the feeling one would have while
gazing up at the tops of the trees in a pine
wood. There is a sense of vastness in this
narrow lofty brick enclosure, which is some
70 ft. high. The hose is doubled in its
length of 100 ft., and then it drains dry,
for the moisture is apt to conceal itself in
the rubber lining, and in the nozzles and
head-screws of the hoses.
No precaution is neglected, no point is
missed. Vigilant eyes are everywhere;
bright responsive faces and ready hands are
continually in evidence, but unobtrusively.
Turning from the repairing shops we
proceed to the stables, where we find things
in the normal condition of preparedness.
“Be ready” is evidently the watchword of
the Brigade. Ready, aye ready! Neatness
and cleanliness are here scrupulously
regarded. Tidiness is the feature of the
stables. A pair of horses on either side are
standing, faces outward, in their stalls.
Four handsome, well-groomed, lithe animals
they look; and as we enter they regard us
with considerable curiosity, a view which we
reciprocate.
Round each horse’s neck is suspended his
collar. A weight let into the woodwork of
the stall holds the harness by means of a
lanyard and swivel. When the alarm rings
the collar is dropped, and in “half a
second” the animals, traces and splinter-bar
hanging on their sleek backs and sides,
are trotted out and harnessed. Again we
express our regret that no kind householder
will set fire to his tenement, that no nice
children will play with matches or candle
this fine morning, and let us “see everything,”
like Charles Middlewick.
Once more our guide smiles, and passes
on through the forage and harness-rooms,[Pg 25]
where we also find a coachman’s room for
reading, and waiting on duty.
IN THE STABLES.
It is now nearly mid-day, and we turn to
see the fire-drill of the recruits, who, clad in
slops, practise all the necessary and requisite
work which alone can render them fit for
the business. They are thus employed from
nine o’clock to mid-day, and from two till four
p.m. During these five hours the squads are
exercised in the art of putting the ladders
and escapes on the wagons which convey
them to the scene of the fire. The recruit
must learn how to raise the heavy machine
by his own efforts, by means of a rope rove
through a ring-bolt. We had an opportunity
to see the recruits raising the machine
together to get it off the wagon. The men
are practised in leaping up when the
vehicle is starting off at a great pace after
the wheels are manned to give an
impetus to the vehicle which carries
such a burthen.
But the “rescue drill” is still
more interesting, and this exhibited
the strength and dexterity
of the firemen in a surprising
manner. It is striking to notice
the different ways in which the
rescue of the male and female
sexes is accomplished. The sure-footed
fireman rapidly ascends the
ladder, and leaps upon the parapet.
The escape is furnished with a
ladder which projects beyond the
net. At the bottom a canvas
sheet or “hammock” is suspended,
so that the rescued shall not suffer
from contusions, which formerly were
frequent in consequence of the rapid
descent.
One fireman passes into a garret
window and emerges with a man.
He makes no pause on the parapet,
where already, heedless of glare and
smoke and the risk of a fall, he has
raised on his shoulders the heavy,
apparently inanimate, form, and grasping
the man round one leg, his arm inside
the thigh, he carries him steadily, like a
sack of coals, down the ladder as far as the
opening of the bag-net of the escape.
Here he halts, and puts the man into the
net, perhaps head downwards, he himself
following in the same position. The man
rescued is then let down easily, the fireman
using his elbows and knees as “breaks” to
arrest their progress. So the individual is
assisted down, and not permitted to go unattended.
FIRE ESCAPES
The rescue of a female is accomplished in
a slightly different manner. She is also
carried to the ladder, but the rescuer grasps
both her legs below the knees, and when he
reaches the net he places her head downwards
and grasps her dress tightly round her
ankles, holding her thus in a straight position.
Thus her dress is undisturbed, and
she is received in the folds of the friendly
canvas underneath, in safety.
There is also a “jumping drill” from the
windows into a sheet held by the other
men. This course of instruction is not so[Pg 26]
popular, for it seems somewhat of a trial
to leap in cold blood into a sheet some
twenty feet below. The feat of lifting
a grown man (weighing perhaps sixteen
stone) from the parapet to the right
knee, then, by grasping the waist, getting
the limp arm around his neck, and then,
holding the leg, to rise up and walk on
a narrow ledge amid all the terrible surroundings
of a fire, requires much nerve
and strength. Frequently we hear of deaths
and injuries to men of the Brigade, but no
landsman can attain proficiency in even
double the time that sailors do—the latter
are so accustomed to giddy heights, and to
precarious footing.
RECRUITS DRILLING.
Moreover, the belt, to which a swivel
hook is attached, is a safeguard of which
Jack takes every advantage. This equipment
enables him to hang on to a ladder
and swing about like a monkey, having
both hands free to save or assist a victim of
the fire or one of his mates. There is a
death-roll of about five men annually, on
the average, and many are injured, if not
fatally yet very seriously, by falling walls and
such accidents. Drenched and soaked, the
men have a terrible time
of it at a fire, and they
richly deserve the leisure
they obtain.
RESCUE DRILL.
This leisure is, however,
not so pleasant as might
be imagined, for the fireman
is always on duty;
and, no matter how he
is occupied, he may be
wanted on the engine, and
must go.
Having inspected the American ladder in
its shed, we glanced at the stores and pattern
rooms, and at the firemen’s quarters. Here
the men live with their wives and families,
if they are married, and in single blessedness,
if Love the Pilgrim has not come
their way. Old Winchester House, festooned
with creepers, was never put to more
worthy use than in sheltering these retiring
heroes, who daily risk their lives uncomplainingly.
Somewhat different now the
scenes from those when the stately palace
of Cardinal Beaufort extended to the river,
and the spacious park was stocked with
game and venison. As our conductor seeks
a certain key we muse on the old time, the
feasts and pageants held here, the wedding
banquet of James and Jane Somerset, when
the old walls and precincts rang with merry
cheer. Turning, we can almost fancy we
perceive the restless Wyatt quitting the
postern-gate, leaving fragments of the
mutilated books of Winchester’s proud
bishop. These past scenes vanish as our
guide returns and beckons us to other sights.
A SAD RECORD.
Of these, by far the most melancholy interest
is awakened by the relics of those
brave firemen who have died, or have been
seriously injured, on duty. In a cupboard,
in a long, rather low apartment, in the
square or inner quadrangle of the building,
are a number of helmets; bruised, battered,
broken, burnt; the fragments of crests
twisted by fire, dulled by water and dust
and smoke. Here is a saddening record
indeed. The visitor experiences much the
same sensations as those with which he
gazes at the bodies at the Great Saint Bernard,
only in this instance the cause of
death is fire and heat, in the other snow
and vapour, wind and storm; but all “fulfilling
His word,” Whose fiat has gone forth,
“To dust shalt thou return.”
Aye, it is a sad moment when on a canvas
pad we see all that remains of the brave
Fireman Jacobs, who perished at the conflagration
in Wandsworth in September,
1889.
It was on the 12th of that month that
the premises occupied by Messrs. Burroughs
and Wellcome, manufacturing chemists,
took fire. Engineer Howard and two third-class
firemen, Jacobs and Ashby, ran the
hose up the staircase at the end of the building.
The two latter men remained, but
their retreat was suddenly cut off, and exit
was sought by the window. The united
ladder-lengths would not reach the upper
story, and a builder’s ladder came only
within a few feet of the casement at which
the brave men were standing calling for a
line.
Ashby, whose helmet is still preserved,
was fortunately able to squeeze himself
through the bars, drop on the high ladder,
and descend. He was terribly burned.
But Jacobs being a stout man—his portrait
is hanging on the wall in the office waiting-room
in Southwark—could not squeeze
through, and he was burned to a cinder,
almost. What remained of him was laid
to rest with all Brigade honours, but in this
museum are his blackened tunic-front, his
hatchet and spanner, the nozzle of the hose
he held in his death-grip. That is all! But
his memory is green, and not a man who
mentions but points with pride to his picture.
“Did you tell him about Jacobs?”
is a question which testifies to the estimation
in which this brave man is held; and
he is but a sample of the rest.
For he is not alone represented. Take
the helmets one by one at random. Whose
was this? Joseph Ford’s? Yes, read on,
and you will learn that he saved six lives at
a fire in Gray’s Inn-road, and that he was in
the act of saving a seventh when he lost his
life. Poor fellow!
Stanley Guernsey; T. Ashford; Hoad;
Berg, too, the hero of the Alhambra fire in
1882. But the record is too long. Requiescant
in pace. They have done their
duty; some have survived to do it again,
and we may be satisfied…. Come away,
lock the cupboard, good Number 109. May
it be long ere thy helmet is placed with sad
memento within this press.
Descending the stairs we reach the office
once again. Here we meet our Superintendent.
All is quiet. Some men are
reading, others writing reports, mayhap;
a few are in their shirt-sleeves working,
polishing the reserve engine: a calm
reigns. We glance up at the automatic
fire-alarm which, when just heated, rings the
call, and “it will warm up also with your
hand.” See? Yes! but suppose it should
ring, suppose—
Ting, ting, ting, ting-g-g-g!
What’s this? The call? I am at the
office door in a second. Well it is that I
proceed no farther. As I pause in doubt
and surprise, the heavy rear doors swing
open by themselves as boldly and almost as
noiselessly as the iron gate which opened
for St. Peter. A clattering of hoofs, a
running to and fro for a couple of seconds;
four horses trot in, led by the coachman;
in the twinkling of an eye the animals are
hitched to the ready engines; the firemen
dressed, helmeted, and booted are seated on
the machines; a momentary pause to learn
their destination ere the coachman pulls
the ropes suspended over head; the street
doors fold back, automatically, the prancing,
rearing steeds impatient, foaming, strain
at the traces; the passers-by scatter helter-skelter
as the horses plunge into the street
and then dash round the corner to their
stables once again.
“A false alarm?”
“Yes, sir. We thought you’d like to see
a turn out, and that is how it’s done!”
A false alarm! Was it true? Yes, the
men are good-temperedly doffing boots and
helmets, and quietly resuming their late
avocations. They do not mind. Less than
twenty seconds have elapsed, and from a
quiet hall the engine-room has been transformed
into a bustling fire station. Men,
horses, engines all ready and away! No one
knew whither he was going. The call was
sufficient for all of them. No questions put
save one, “Where is it?” Thither the
brave fellows would have hurried, ready to
do and die, if necessary.
It is almost impossible to describe the
effect which this sudden transformation
scene produces; the change is so rapid, the
effect is so dramatic, so novel to a stranger.
We hear of the engines turning out, but to
the writer, who was not in the secret, the
result was most exciting, and the remembrance
will be lasting. The wily artist had
placed himself outside, and secured a view,
an instantaneous picture of the start; but
the writer was in the dark, and taken by
surprise. The wonderful rapidity, order,
discipline, and exactness of the parts secure
a most effective tableau.
A TURN OUT.
After such an experience one naturally
desires to see the mainspring of all this
machinery, the hub round which the wheel
revolves—Captain Eyre M. Shaw, C.B.[Pg 29]
But the chief officer has slipped out,
leaving us permission to interview his
empty chair, and the apartments which he
daily occupies when on duty in Southwark.
This unpretending room upstairs is
plainly but comfortably furnished—though
no carpet covers the floor, oilcloth being
cooler. Business is writ large on every side.
On one wall is a large map of the fire
stations of the immense area presided over
by Captain Shaw. Here are separately indicated
the floating engines, the escapes,
ladders, call points, police stations, and
private communications.
The chair which “the Captain” has temporarily
vacated bristles with speaking
tubes. On the walls beside the fire-place are
portraits of men who have died on duty;
the chimney-piece
is decorated with
nozzles—hose-nozzles—of
various
sizes. Upon
the table are reports,
map of
Paris, and many
documents, amid
which a novel
shines, as indicating
touch with
the outside world.
There is a book-case
full of carefully
arranged
pamphlets, and
on the opposite
wall an illuminated
address of
thanks from the
Fire Brigade Association
to Captain Shaw, which concludes
with the expression of a hope “That his
useful life may long be spared to fill the
high position in the service he now adorns.”
With this we cordially concur, and we
echo the “heartfelt wishes” of his obliged
and faithful servants as we retire, secure in
our possession of a picture of the apartment.
THE REPAIRING SHOP.
There are many interesting items in
connection with the Brigade which we find
time to chronicle. For instance, we learn
that the busiest time is, as one would
expect, between September and December.
The calls during the year 1889 amounted
to 3,131. Of these 594 were false alarms,
199 were only chimneys on fire, and of the
remainder 153 only resulted in serious
damage, 2,185 in slight damage. These
calls are exclusive of ordinary chimney
fires and small cases, but in all those above
referred to engines and men were turned
out. The grand total of fires amounted to
4,705, or on an average 13 fires, or supposed
fires, a day. This is an increase of 350 on
those of 1888, and we find that the increment
has been growing for a decade.
However, considering the increase in the
number of houses, there is no cause for
alarm. Lives were lost at thirty-eight fires
in 1889.
The personnel of the Brigade consists
of only seven hundred and seven of all
ranks. The men keep watches of twelve
hours, and do an immense amount of
work besides. This force has the control
of 158 engines, steam and manual of
all sorts; 31-1/2 miles of hose, and 80
carts to carry it; besides fire-floats,
steam tugs, barges, and escapes; long
ladders, trolleys, vans, and 131 horses.
These are to attend to 365 call points, 72
telephones to stations, 55 alarm circuits,
besides telephones to police stations and
public and private buildings and houses, and
the pay is 3s. 6d. per day, increasing!
From these, not altogether dry, bones of
facts we may build up a monument to the
great energy and intense esprit de corps of
Captain Shaw and his Brigade. In their
hands we place ourselves every night.
While the Metropolis sleeps the untiring
Brigade watches over its safety. Whether
at the head-quarters or at the outer stations,
at the street stations, boxes, or escape stations,
the men are continually vigilant; and
are most efficiently seconded by the police.[Pg 30]
But for the latter force the efforts of the
firemen would often be crippled, and their
heroic attempts perhaps rendered fruitless,
by the pressure of the excited spectators.
We have now seen the manner in which
the Metropolitan Fire Brigade is managed,
and how it works; the splendid services
it accomplishes, for which few rewards are
forthcoming. It is true that a man may
attain to the post of superintendent, and to
a house, with a salary of £245 a year, but
he has to serve a long probation. For consider
that he has to learn his drill and the
general working of the Brigade. Every
man must be competent to perform all the
duties. During this course of instruction
he is not permitted to attend a fire; such
experience being found unsuitable to beginners.
In a couple of months, if he has
been a sailor, the recruit is fit to go out,
and he is sent to some station, where, as
fireman of the fourth class, he performs
the duties required.
By degrees, from death or accident, or
other causes, those above him are removed,
or promoted, and he ascends the ladder to
the first class, where, having passed an examination,
he gets a temporary appointment
as assistant officer on probation. If
then satisfactory, he is confirmed in his
position as officer, proceeds to head-quarters,
and superintends a section of the establishment
as inspector of the shops, and finally
as drill instructor.
CAPTAIN SHAW’S SANCTUM.
After this service, he is probably put
under the superintendent at a station as
“engineer-in-charge,” as he is termed. He
has, naturally, every detail of drill and
“business” at his fingers’ ends. The wisdom
of such an arrangement is manifest.
As the engineer-in-charge has been lately
through the work of drill instructor, he
knows exactly what is to be done, and
every other officer in similar position also
knows it. Thus uniformity of practice is
insured.
There are many other points on which
information is most courteously given at
head-quarters. But time presses. We accordingly
take leave of our pleasant guide,
and the most polite of superintendents, and,
crossing the Iron Bridge once more, plunge
into the teeming thoroughfares of the City,
satisfied.
Scenes of the Siege of Paris.
From the French of Alphonse Daudet.
[Alphonse Daudet, the most brilliant of French novelists alive, was born at Nîmes in 1840. His
parents were not rich, and he started life by drudging as an usher. Then he resolved to break his chains, and
to earn his bread at Paris with his pen. He began by painting in the Figaro, with great graphic power, the
miseries of ushers in provincial schools. Then he turned to writing stories, with the success to which he owes
his world-wide fame. Most of his novels are well known in England; but the characteristic little stories here
translated will probably be new to English readers.]
I.—THE BOY SPY.
“HE WOULD TAKE HIS PLACE IN THE LONG LINE.”
is name was Stenne: they
called him Little Stenne.
He was a thorough child of
Paris; delicate-looking, pale,
about ten years old—perhaps
fifteen—one never can tell the
ages of these scaramouches. His mother
was dead; his father, an old marine, used
to guard a square in the Temple quarter.
Babies, nursemaids, the old women with
folding-chairs, poor mothers—all the leisurely-moving
world of Paris which puts
itself out of the way of carriages in those
gardens—knew Father Stenne, and worshipped
him. People knew that under that
bristling moustache, the terror of dogs and[Pg 32]
tramps, there lurked a tender, pleasant,
almost a maternal smile; and that to see
it one had only to say to the good man—
“How is your little boy?”
Father Stenne was very fond of his son.
He was never so happy as in the evening
after school when the little fellow came to
fetch him, and when they went together
round the walks, halting at every bench to
speak to the regular loungers, and to reply
to their civil greetings.
With the siege all this unfortunately
changed. The square was closed; petroleum
had been stored in it, and poor Stenne,
obliged to keep watch incessantly, passed
his life amid the deserted, and partly destroyed,
clumps of trees without being able
to smoke, and without the company of his
son until he returned home late in the
evening. You should have seen his moustache
when he spoke of the Prussians!
Little Stenne, however, did not complain
very much of this new life. A siege is
such fun for the street boys! No more
school; no lessons; holidays all the
time, and the streets just like a fair!
The lad stayed out all
day till quite evening,
running about. He
would accompany the
battalions of the quarter
on their turn of duty
to the ramparts, choosing
those specially
which had good bands;
and on this question
little Stenne was quite
critical. He would
have told you plainly
that the band of the
Ninety-sixth was not
good for much; but
that the Fifty-fifth had
an excellent one. At
other times he watched
the mobiles drilling,
and then there were
the queues to occupy
him.
With his basket on
his arm he would take
his place in the long
lines which, in the
half-light of the winter
mornings—those gasless
mornings—were formed outside the
gates of the butchers and bakers. There
the people, waiting for rations, their feet
in the puddles, talked politics and made
acquaintances; and, as the son of M.
Stenne, every one asked the lad his
opinion. But the greatest fun of all was
the cork-throwing parties—the famous
game of galoche—which the Breton
mobiles had introduced during the siege.
When little Stenne was not on the ramparts,
or at the distribution of rations, you
would surely find him in the Place Château
d’Eau. He did not play galoche himself,
you must understand: too much money
was needed for that. He contented himself
by watching the players “with all his eyes.”
One lad—a big fellow in a blue jacket—who
never ventured aught but five-franc
pieces, especially excited the admiration of
little Stenne. When this fellow moved
about you could hear the coins jingling in
his pocket.
One day, when picking up a
piece that had rolled to the feet of
our hero, the big boy said to him:
“Ah! that makes your mouth
water, eh? Well, if you wish, I
will tell you where to
find some like this.”
“LET US PASS, GOOD SIR.”
When the game was finished he led
Stenne to a corner of the Place, and proposed
that he should go with him and sell
newspapers to the Germans—at thirty[Pg 33]
francs the trip! At first Stenne indignantly
refused, and he did not go again to watch
the game for three whole days—three
terrible days. He no longer ate nor slept.
At night he had visions of heaps of
galoches at the foot of his bed, and five-franc
pieces rolling and shining brightly.
The temptation was too strong. On the
fourth day he returned to the Château
d’Eau, saw the big boy again, and permitted
himself to be led astray!
“THE MEN GAVE THEM A DROP OF COFFEE.”
One snowy morning they set out carrying
a linen bag, and with a number of newspapers
stuffed under their blouses. When
they reached the Flanders Gate it was
scarcely daylight. The big boy took Stenne
by the hand and approaching the sentry—a
brave “stay-at-home,” who had a red nose,
and a good-natured expression—said to him,
in a whining tone:
“Let us pass, good sir; our mother is ill,
papa is dead. We are going—my little
brother and I—to pick up some potatoes in
the fields.”
He began to cry. Stenne, shame-faced,
hung down his head. The sentry looked at
the lads for a moment, and then glanced
down the white, deserted road.
“Get on with you, quick!” he said, turning
away; and then they were in the Aubervilliers-road.
The big boy laughed heartily!
Confusedly, as in a dream, little Stenne saw
the factories, now converted into barracks;
abandoned barricades decked out with wet
rags, and high chimneys, now
smokeless, standing up, half in
ruins, against the misty sky.
At certain distances were sentries;
officers, cloaked and
hooded, sweeping the horizon
with their field glasses; and
small tents saturated by the
melting snow beside the expiring
watch-fires. The big boy
knew the paths, and took his
way across the fields so as to
avoid the outposts.
Presently, however, they
came upon a strong guard of
Franc-tireurs, and were unable
to pass by unnoticed.
The men were in a
number of small
huts concealed in a
ditch full of water
all along the line of
the Soissons railway.
Here it was no avail
for the big boy to
tell his story; the
Franc-tireurs would
not let him pass.
But while he was
lamenting, an old
sergeant, with white hair and wrinkled face,
came out from the guard-house; he was
something like Father Stenne.
“Come, come, you brats, don’t cry any
more!” he said. “You may go and fetch
your potatoes; but first come in and warm
yourselves a little. The youngster there
looks nearly frozen!”
Alas! little Stenne was not trembling
from cold, but for fear, for very shame!
In the guardhouse were some soldiers
huddled round a very poor fire—a true
“widow’s fire,” at which they were toasting
biscuits on the points of their bayonets.
The men sat up close to make room for the
boys, and gave them a drop of coffee. While
they were drinking it an officer came to the
door and summoned the sergeant of the
guard. He spoke to him very rapidly in a
low tone and went off in a hurry.
“My lads,” said the sergeant, as he turned
round with a beaming countenance, “There
will be tobacco to-night! The watch-word
of the Prussians has been discovered, and[Pg 34]
this time we shall take
that cursed Bourget from
them!”
There was an explosion of “bravos” and
laughter. The men danced, sang, and
clashed their sword-bayonets, while the
lads, taking advantage of the tumult,
wended on their way.
The trench crossed, the plain lay extended
in front of them; beyond it was a long
white wall, loopholed for musketry. Towards
this wall they made their way,
halting at every step, pretending to pick up
potatoes.
“Let us go back; do not go there,”
little Stenne kept saying. But the other
only shrugged his shoulders, and continued
to advance. Suddenly they heard
the click of a fire-lock.
“Lie down,” cried the
big boy, throwing himself
flat on the ground as he
spoke.
As soon as he was
down he
whistled.
“THE BOYS CRAWLED ON.”
Another whistle came across the snow in
reply. The boys crawled on. In front of
the wall, on the level of the plain, appeared
a pair of yellow moustaches under a dirty
forage-cap. The big boy leaped into the
trench beside the Prussian.
“This is my brother,” he said, indicating
his companion.
He was so small, this little Stenne, that
the Prussian laughed when he looked at
him, and he was obliged to lift him up to
the embrasure.
On the further side of the wall were
great mounds of earth, felled trees, dark
holes in the snow, and in every hole was a
dirty cap and a yellow moustache, whose
wearer grinned as the lads passed.
“THEIR FACES BECAME MORE GRAVE.”
In one corner stood a gardener’s cottage,
casemated with trunks of trees. The lower
storey was filled with soldiers playing cards,
or busy making soup over a clear fire. How
good the cabbage and bacon smelt! What
a difference from the bivouac of
the Franc-tireurs! Upstairs the
officers were quartered. Someone
was playing a piano, while
from time to time the popping of
champagne corks was also audible.
When the Parisians entered a
cheer of welcome assailed them.
They distributed their newspapers,
had something to drink, and the
officers “drew them out.” These
officers wore a haughty and disdainful
air, but the big boy amused
them with his street slang and
vulgar smartness. Little Stenne
would rather have spoken, to have
proved that he was not a fool, but
something restrained him. Opposite[Pg 35]
to him was seated a Prussian older
and more serious than the rest, who was
reading, or rather pretending to read, for his
gaze was fixed on little Stenne. In his steadfast
look were tenderness and reproach, as
if he had at home a child of the same age as
Stenne—as if he was saying to himself—
“I would rather die than see my own
son engaged in such a business!”
From that moment Stenne felt as if a
heavy hand had been laid upon his heart,
and that its beatings were checked—stifled.
To escape from this terrible feeling he
began to drink. Soon the room and its
occupants were turning round him. In a
vague way he heard his companion,
amidst loud laughter, making game of
the National Guard—of their style of
drill; imitating a rush to arms; a night
alarm on the ramparts. Subsequently the
“big fellow” lowered his tone, the
officers drew nearer, their faces became
more grave. The wretch was about to
tell them of the intended attack of the
Franc-tireurs.
Then little Stenne stood up in a rage,
as his senses returned to him; he cried
out, “None of that, big one, none of
that!” but the other only laughed and
continued. Ere he had finished, all the
officers were on their feet. One of them
opened the door.
“Get out,” he said to the boys. “Be off!”
Then they began to converse among
themselves in German. The big boy
walked out as proud as the Doge, clinking
his money in his pocket. Stenne followed
him with drooping head, and as he passed
the elderly Prussian, whose glance had so
discomposed him, he heard him say in a
sad tone in broken French, “This is bad!
Very bad!”
Tears came into Stenne’s eyes. Once
in the plain again, the lads set out running,
and returned quickly. The bag was
full of potatoes which the Prussians had
given them, and with it they passed the
Franc-tireurs unmolested. The troops were
preparing for the attack that night; bodies
of men were coming up silently and massing
themselves behind the walls. The old
sergeant was present, engaged in posting his
men, and seemed quite happy. As the lads
passed he nodded at them, and smiled
kindly in recognition.
Ah! how bad Stenne felt when he saw
that smile: he felt inclined to cry out—
“Don’t advance yonder; we have betrayed
you!”
But the “big one” had told him that
if he said anything they would both be
shot; and fear restrained him.
At La Courneuve the pair went into
an empty house to divide the money.
Truth compels me to state that the
division was honourably made, and little
Stenne did not feel his crime weigh so
heavily on his mind when he heard the
coins jingling in his pocket, and thought
of the prospective games of galoche!
But—unhappy child!—when he was
left alone! When, after they had passed
the gate, and his companion had left him—oh,
then his pocket weighed heavily,
and the hand which pressed upon his
heart was hard indeed! Paris was no
longer the same. The people passing
looked at him severely, as if they were
aware of his mission. The word spy
seemed to ring in his ears, and he heard it
above the din of carriages, and in the rolling
of the drums along the canal.
At length he reached home, and was very
glad to find that his father had not yet
come in. He hurried upstairs to his room
to hide the crowns which had become so
burdensome to him.
Never had Father Stenne been in such
spirits, never in such good humour, as on
that evening when he returned home.
News had come in from the provinces:
things were going better. As he ate his
supper the old soldier gazed at his musket
which was hanging on the wall, and exclaimed:
“Hey, my lad, how you would
go at the Prussians if you were big
enough!”
About eight o’clock the sound of cannon
was heard.
“That’s Aubervilliers; they are fighting
at Bourget,” said the good old man, who
knew all the forts. Little Stenne turned
pale, and feigning fatigue went to bed, but
not to sleep. The thunder of the cannon
continued. He pictured to himself the
Franc-tireurs marching in the darkness to
surprise the Prussians, and falling into an
ambuscade themselves. He recalled the
sergeant who had smiled, and pictured him,
with many others, extended lifeless on the
snow. The price of all this blood was
then under his pillow, and he—he, the son
of M. Stenne, a soldier—what had he
done? Tears choked him. He could hear
his father walking about in the next room;
he heard him open the window. In the
Place below the rappel was being beaten;
a battalion of mobiles was mustering. Yes[Pg 36]
it was a real battle—no mistake about
it! The unhappy lad could not repress
his sobs.
“Why, what’s the matter?”
cried Father Stenne,
coming into the bedroom.
The lad could bear it
no longer; he jumped
out of bed, and was about
to throw himself at his
father’s feet when the
silver coins rolled out upon
the floor.
“What’s this? Have
you robbed anyone?”
asked the old soldier in a
tremulous voice.
Then, all in a breath,
little Stenne told him how
he had gone to the Prussian
lines and what he had
done. As he continued
to speak the weight on
his heart grew less—it was
a relief to accuse himself.
Father Stenne listened;
his face was terrible to
see. When the lad had finished his
narrative the old man buried his face in his
hands and wept aloud.
“OH, FATHER! FATHER!”
“Oh, father! father!”—
The boy would have
spoken, but the old man
pushed him aside, and
picked up the money
without a word.
“Is this all?” he asked.
Little Stenne made a
sign in the affirmative.
The old soldier took down
his musket and cartouche-box,
and putting the silver
money in his pocket, said
calmly:
“Very well; I am
going to pay it back
to them!”
Then, without
another word, without
even turning his
head, he descended
the stairs, and joined
the mobiles who were
marching out into
the darkness.
No one ever saw him again!
II.—BELISAIRE’S PRUSSIAN.
Here is a story which I heard this very
week in a drinking-shop at Montmartre.
To do the tale justice I ought to
possess the faubourg accents of Master
Belisaire, and his great carpenter’s apron;
and to drink two or three cups of that
splendid white wine of Montmartre, which
is capable of imparting a Parisian accent
to even a native of Marseilles. Then I might
be able to make your flesh creep, and your
blood run cold, as Belisaire did when he
related this lugubrious and veracious story
to his boon companions.
“It was the day after the ‘amnesty’ (Belisaire
meant armistice). My wife wished me
to take our child across to Villeneuve-la-Garenne
to look after a little cottage we
had there, and of which we had heard and
seen nothing since the siege had commenced.
I felt nervous about taking the little chap
with me, for I knew that we should fall in
with the Prussians; and as I had not yet
encountered them, I was afraid that something
unpleasant would happen. But his
mother was determined. ‘Get out!’ she
cried. ‘Let the lad have a breath of fresh
air!’
“And the fact is he wanted it badly, poor
little chap, after five months of the siege
operations and privations.
“So we started off together across the
fields. I suppose he was happy, poor mite,
in seeing the trees and the birds again,
and in dabbling himself with mud in the
ploughed land; but I was not so comfortable
myself; there were too many spiked
helmets about for me. All the way from
the canal to the island we met them every
moment; and how insolent they were! It
was as much as I could do to restrain
myself from knocking some of them down.
But I did feel my temper getting the better
of me as we reached Villeneuve, and saw
our poor gardens all in disorder, plants
rooted up, the houses open and pillaged,
and those bandits established in them!
They were shouting to each other from
the windows, and drying their clothes on
our trellises. Fortunately the lad was trotting
along close beside me, and I thought[Pg 37]
when I looked at him, if my hands itched
more than usual, ‘Keep cool, Belisaire;
take care that no harm befall the brat!’
“WE STARTED OFF TOGETHER.”
“Nothing but this feeling prevented me
from committing some foolish act. Then I
understood why his mother had been so
determined about my bringing the boy out.
“The hut is at the end of the open space,
the last on the right hand on the quay. I
found it empty from top to bottom, like all
the others. Not an article of furniture, not
a pane of glass, was left in it! There was
nothing except some bundles of straw and
the last leg of the big arm-chair, which was
smouldering in the chimney. These signs
were Prussian all over; but I could see
nothing of the Germans.
“I SEIZED THE BENCH-IRON.”
“Nevertheless it seemed to me that[Pg 38]
somebody was stirring in the
basement. I had a bench down
there at which I used to amuse
myself on Sundays. So I told
the child to wait for me, and
went down.
“No sooner had I opened the
door than a great hulking soldier
of William’s army rose growling
from the shavings and came at
me, his eyes starting from his
head, swearing strange oaths
which I did not understand. I
could perceive that the brute
meant mischief, for at the first
word that I attempted to speak
he began to draw his sword.
“My blood boiled in a second. All the
bile which had been aroused during the
previous hour or so rushed to my face. I
seized the bench-iron and struck him with
it. You know, my lads, whether my fist is
usually a light one, but it seemed to me
that that day I had a thunderbolt at the
end of my arm. At the first blow the
Prussian measured his length upon the floor.
I thought he was only stunned.
Ah! well, yes! But all I had
to do was to clear out, to get
myself out of the pickle.
“It seemed queer to me, who
had never killed anything—not even a lark—in
my life, to see the great body lying
there. My faith! but he was a fine fair-haired
fellow, with a curly beard like deal
shavings. My legs trembled as I looked—and
now the brat upstairs was beginning to
feel lonely, and to yell out, ‘Papa, papa!’
at the top of his voice.
“There were some Prussians passing along
the road. I could see their sabres and their
long legs through the casement of the underground
room. Suddenly the idea struck
me—’If they enter the child is lost.’ That
was enough. I trembled no longer. In a
second I dragged the corpse under the
bench, covered it with planks and shavings,
and hurried up the stairs to join the child.
“‘Here I am!’ I said.
“‘What is the matter, papa? How pale
you are!’
“‘Come, let us get on!’
“I declare to you that the ‘Cossacks’
might hustle me, or regard me with suspicion,
but I would not take any notice of
them. It seemed that some one was running
after me, and crying out behind us all
the time. Once when a horseman came
galloping up, I thought I would have fallen
down in a faint! However, after I had
passed the bridges I began to pull myself
together. Saint Denis was full of people.
There was no risk of our being fished out
of the crowd. Then I only thought of our
little cottage. The Prussians would surely
burn it when they found their comrade, to
say nothing of the risk of Jaquot, my neighbour,
the water-bailiff, who, being the only
Frenchman left in the hamlet, would be
held responsible for the dead soldier!
Truly it was scarcely plucky to save myself
in such a way!
“I RAISED HIM ON MY BACK.”
“I felt that I must arrange for the concealment
of the body somehow! The nearer
we came to Paris the closer I cherished this
idea. I could not leave that Prussian in
my basement. So at the ramparts I hesitated
no longer.
“‘You go on,’ I said to the brat, ‘I have
another place to visit in Saint Denis.’
“I embraced him, and turned back. My
heart was beating rather fast, but all the
same I felt easier in my mind, not having
the child with me then.
“When I again reached Villeneuve, night
was approaching. I kept my eyes open, you
may depend, and advanced foot by foot.
The place seemed quiet enough, however.
I could discern the hut still standing yonder
in the mist. There was a long black line,
or row, upon the quay. This ‘palisade’
was composed of Prussians calling the roll.
A splendid opportunity to find
the house deserted. As I
made my way along I noticed
Father Jaquot engaged in
drying his nets. Decidedly
nothing was known yet. I
entered my house, I went
down into the basement and
felt about among the shavings.
The Prussian was there!
There were also a couple of
rats already busy at work at his helmet,
and, for a moment, I had a horrible fright,
when I felt his chinstrap move! Was he
reviving? No; his head was heavy and
cold.
“I crouched in a corner and waited. I
had the idea to throw the body into the
Seine when the others were all asleep.
“I do not know whether it was the
proximity of the dead, but I was uncommonly
sorry when the Prussians sounded
the ‘retreat’ that night. Loud trumpet
blasts resounded—Ta-ta-ta! three by three,
regular toad’s music. It is not to such
music that our fellows wish to go to bed!
“For some five minutes I heard the
clanking of sabres, the tapping at doors; and
then the soldiers entered the court-yard and
began to shout—
“‘Hofmann! Hofmann!’
“Poor Hofmann remained quite quiet
under his shavings; but ’twas I who was on
the alert. Every instant I expected to see
the guard enter. I had picked up the dead
man’s sabre, and there I was ready, but
saying to myself, ‘If you get out of this
scrape, my boy, you will owe a splendid
wax taper to Saint John the Baptist of
Belleville!’
“I PUSHED AND PUSHED.”
“However, after they had called several
times my tenants decided to return. I
could hear their heavy boots upon the staircase,
and in a few moments the whole house
was snoring like a country clock. This was
all I had been waiting for. I looked out.
“The place was deserted; all the houses
were in darkness. Good for me! I redescended
quickly, drew my Hofmann from
beneath the bench, stood him upright,
raised him on my back, like a burden, or
a bale. But wasn’t he heavy, the brigand!
What with his weight, my terror, and the
want of food, I was afraid that I should not
have strength to reach my destination.[Pg 40]
Then no sooner had I reached the centre of
the quay than I heard someone walking
behind me. I turned round. There was no
one! The moon was rising. I said to myself,
‘I must look out; the sentries will fire!’
“To add to my trouble the Seine was
low. If I had cast the corpse on the bank
it would have remained there as in a cistern.
I went on; no water! I could not go out
any farther: my breath came thick and
short. I panted. At length when I thought
I had gone far enough, I threw down my
load. There he goes into the mud! I
pushed and pushed! Hue! There!
“Fortunately a puff of wind came up
from the east, the river rose a little, and I
felt the ‘Maccabee’ leave his moorings
gently. Pleasant journey to him! I took
a draught of water, and quickly mounted
the bank.
“As I passed the bridge at Villeneuve
the people were gazing at something black
in the water. At that distance it had the
appearance of a wherry. It was my Prussian,
who was coming down on the current, in
the middle of the stream!”
Portraits of Celebrities at different times of their Lives.
From a Painting by Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A.
AGE 22.
ALFRED
TENNYSON.
Born 1809.
he
novel
portrait
gallery
which
is here
commenced, and in
which it is our purpose
to give portraits,
month by month, of
the most eminent men
and women of the day
at different times of
life, cannot be more
fitly opened than with
those of the great poet whose name has
been for more than fifty years the glory of
our literature. Portraits of Lord Tennyson
in youth are rare; but Lord Tennyson
himself has had the kindness to assist us.
“Mayall, of Regent-street,”
he writes,
“has done the best
photograph, and Cameron,
of 70, Mortimer-street,
has a photograph,
as a young
man, from a portrait
by Lawrence.” These
are the two here reproduced.
Both have
a special interest, besides
the interest of
comparison which
belongs to all the
series: the first, as a
portrait of the poet,
by one of the best
artists of that day, at
an age when his first volume—tiny, but of
dazzling promise—had just been given to
the world; and the second, as that which
Lord Tennyson regards as the best portrait
of himself in later life.
From a Photograph by Mayall, Regent Street.
AGE 52.
From a Painting.
AGE 5.
From a Lithograph.
AGE 45.
PROF. BLACKIE.
From a Photograph by Messrs. Elliott & Fry.
AGE 80.
Born 1809.
e are indebted
to the
kindness
of Professor
Blackie
for three
portraits of himself at
widely different ages.
Three-quarters of a century
is so vast a span of
human life, that the resemblance
between the
charming little boy of five
in frills and the grey Professor
of eighty, who
might be his great-grandfather,
though distinctly
traceable, may not at first
be visible to all. At five
years old John Stuart
Blackie was, we may
assume, most interested
in tops and pop-guns; at
forty-five he was a University
Professor, and just
returning from his tour
to Athens, which was the
origin of his well-known
advocacy of the study of
modern Greek; at eighty
he was—as he still is, and
as we trust he may long
be—at once the most
learned and the most popular
of living Scotchmen.
AGE 21.
AGE 30.
AGE 36.
AGE 54.
THE REV. C. H. SPURGEON.
Born 1834.
ost men born to be great
preachers have, at the age of
twenty-one, not yet attempted
their first sermon. Four years
before that age Mr. Spurgeon,
“the boy preacher,” was
speaking every Sunday to a crowd which
overflowed the chapel doors and mobbed
the very windows. Before 1855—the date
of our first portrait—he had been called to
London, and was drawing such a throng to
the chapel in New Park-street, that the
building had speedily to be enlarged. That
year was also memorable for another reason;
in January Mr. Spurgeon issued the first
sermon of the unexampled series which was
to run without an interruption, week by
week, for five-and-thirty years. Long
before the date of our second portrait, the
New Park-street chapel, in spite of its
enlargement, had become too small to
hold the congregation. The Metropolitan
Tabernacle was erected, and from that time
down to this has been crowded every
Sunday to the doors.
For leave to reproduce the portraits above
given, our thanks are due alike to Mr.
Spurgeon, and to Messrs. Passmore &
Alabaster, to whom the copyright belongs.
From a Photo. by Miss Bond, Southsea.
AGE 8.
From a Photo. by Window & Grove.
AGE 18.
From a Photo. by Window & Grove.
AGE 28.
From a Photo. by Window & Grove.
PRESENT DAY.
MISS ELLEN TERRY.
here is an old wives’ saying,
that pretty children often
grow up plain, and vice versâ;
but, as our readers may determine
for themselves, Miss
Ellen Terry has been always
charming. And she has always been an
actress. At the age of eight, as our first
portrait shows her, she was playing as the
child Mamillius in the “The Winter’s
Tale,” with Charles Kean’s company, at
the Princess’s, and was already giving promise
of the mingled power and charm which
perhaps have never been more fully manifest
than in the part of Lucy Ashton, which
all London is now crowding the Lyceum
to see.
For all the photographs here reproduced
we have to thank the kindness of
Miss Terry.
From a Photograph by Messrs. Walker & Sons.
AGE 29.
From a Photograph by Messrs. Lock & Whitfield.
AGE 30.
From a Photograph.
AGE 39.
From a Photograph by Mr. S. A. Walker.
AGE 42.
HENRY IRVING.
Born 1838.
r. Irving
wearing a moustache
presents
an unfamiliar
aspect; but such
was his appearance when, in
1867, he had just made his great success in
“Hunted Down,” at Manchester. The year
after, Mr. Irving deprived himself of his
moustache in order to play Dorincourt in
“The Belle’s Stratagem,” and appeared as
in our second portrait—which, however, he
assures us, is a shade too plump to be his
accurate presentment. Ten years later,
when Mr. Irving was preparing to amaze
the world as Hamlet, at the Lyceum,
his features had assumed the well-known
aspect which they wear in our third portrait,
and which is still more visible in the
last of the series, which has been selected as
one of Mr. Irving’s favourites among the
stock of photographs which he has very
kindly placed at our disposal.
AGE 29.
From a Photograph by
Messrs. Elliott & Fry.
From a Photograph by Messrs. Elliott & Fry.
AGE 52.
ALGERNON C. SWINBURNE.
Born 1837.
t has been said that
every poet destined
to become famous has
written a great poem before
five-and-twenty. Mr. Swinburne
is, however, an exception
to this rule. He was seven-and-twenty
when, 1864, he published “Atalanta in
Calydon,” his first great work, and the
finest imitation of a Greek play ever
written. Two years later, the first series of
“Poems and Ballads” proved conclusively
that the new singer who had arisen must
be classed with Shelley at the head of all the
lyric bards of England. Mr. Swinburne’s
appearance at that time is given in the
first of our two portraits, which is said by
those who knew him to be an admirable
likeness.
Nearly a quarter of a century has since
elapsed, and it is interesting to notice how
the course of years, which has failed to tame
the fiery vigour of his verse, has wrought
the younger aspect of the poet into the
older and still finer one.
From a Photograph by Messrs. Maull & Co.
AGE 19.
From a Photo. by Messrs. Sayer & Bird, Norwich.
AGE 28.
From a Photograph by Messrs. Elliott & Fry.
AGE 55.
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK, BART.
Born 1834.
ir John Lubbock, at
nineteen, was already showing,
in his father’s bank in
Lombard-street, the remarkable
capacity for business
which he combines beyond
example with pre-eminence in literature
and science. At twenty-eight, the age at
which our second portrait represents him,
he was already meditating his great work
on “Prehistoric Times”—a book which has
been translated into all the leading languages,
and to which the writer chiefly owes his
fame. Sir John Lubbock’s mind, as is
well known, is of the enviable kind which
can find its interests alike in the great and
in the little, in the past and in the present—which
can pass from the wigwam of a
prehistoric savage to the London of to-day,
and turn with equal gusto from canoes
to County Councils, and from banks to
bees.
Our portraits are reproduced from photographs
kindly lent by Sir John Lubbock
for the purpose.
From a Daguerreotype.
AGE 3.
From a Photograph.
AGE 7.
From a Photograph by M. G. Blaise, Tours.
AGE 19.
From a Photograph by Mr. A. J. Melhuish.
AGE 34.
H. RIDER HAGGARD.
Born 1856.
t is not often possible to
present a portrait of a well-known
writer taken in his
nursery days; but in the case
of Mr. Rider Haggard, he
has obligingly enabled us to
do so, as well as to reproduce a portrait
of himself when, as a boy of seven, he was
probably about to quit the nursery for the
schoolroom. The third portrait of the
series represents him when, at nineteen, as
secretary to Sir Henry Bulwer, he was about
to pay a lengthy visit to Natal—there to
acquire the thorough familiarity with the
scenery and the people of South Africa,
which he was afterwards to turn to excellent
account, especially in “Jess.” Our final
portrait, which is taken from a recent
photograph, represents him as he is at
present, when he has proved himself the
best romantic writer of the day.
A Fair Smuggler.
FROM THE RUSSIAN OF MICHAEL LERMONTOFF.
[Michael Lermontoff was born at Moscow in the year 1814. His father was an officer on active
service; and, his mother having died while he was still in petticoats, he was brought up by his grandmother,
a rich old lady, who had a pretty house at the village of Tarkhanui. Michael, who was in temperament a
kind of Russian Hotspur, and who was petted and spoilt at home, was sent in due course to the University,
where he picked a quarrel with a bullying tutor, and was speedily expelled. Then he entered the Military
College at St. Petersburg, and obtained a commission in the Horse Guards. His bitter wit and biting tongue
involved him in perpetual duels. His genius was still sleeping; but the sound of the pistol which killed
Pushkin awoke it suddenly to life. Pushkin’s works had long been his delight; and, indeed, their characters
had much in common—though in appearance, with his tall and powerful figure, his fair and waving hair, his
large blue eyes and chiselled mouth, Lermontoff was exactly the reverse of the dusky little gipsy-looking
Pushkin. His fate also was to be the same. In a piece of fiery verse he called upon the Czar to avenge the
death of the great poet. The poem was regarded by the Czar as an impertinence, and Lermontoff was
banished to the Caucasus. The wild and savage mountains suited well his fiery temper, and he became “the
poet of the Caucasus,” the singer of the lives, the legends, and the adventures of the stern and rocky
mountaineers. He wrote also one prose work, “A Hero of our Times,” from which we take the present story.
Something in the book involved him in a duel—the last he was to fight, though he was only twenty-seven.
As the challenged party, he possessed the choice of weapons and the mode of fighting; and he chose to
fight with pistols on the margin of a precipice, so that, if either of the rivals staggered from a wound, he must
infallibly fall over and be dashed to pieces. This strange encounter actually took place; and Lermontoff,
struck by his opponent’s bullet, reeled, and fell back into the terrible abyss.]
“OUT CAME THE SERGEANT AND CORPORAL.”
aman is the most
wretched of all
our maritime
towns. I almost
died of hunger
there, besides being
nearly drowned.
I arrived very late at night
in a wretched telega. The
coachman stopped his tired
horses close to a stone building,
which stands by itself at
the entrance to the town. A
Black Sea Cossack, who was
on guard, heard the bells of
my carriage, and cried out, with
the sharp accent of a person
suddenly waked up, “Who goes
there?”
Out came the sergeant and
corporal. I told them I was an
officer, travelling by order of
the Crown, and that I wanted
a billet somewhere.
The corporal took us into
the town. All the houses we
tried were already occupied.
The weather was cold; I had
been three nights without sleep.
I was very tired, and our useless
inquiries ended by irritating
me.
“My friend,” I said to the
corporal, “take me to some
place where I can at least lie
down, no matter where it is.”
“I know a hut in the neighbourhood,”
replied the corporal, “where you might
sleep; but I am afraid it would scarcely
suit your honour.”
“Go on,” I said, paying no attention to
his observation.
After much walking through dirty little
streets, we at last reached a sort of cabin on
the edge of the sea.
The full moon cast its light on the
thatched roof and the white walls of my
proposed habitation. In the court, surrounded
by a sort of palisade, I saw a
hut, older and more broken down than the
principal one. From this hut the ground
sloped rapidly through the court down
towards the sea, and I saw at my feet the
foam of the troubled waters. The moon
seemed to be contemplating the restless
element, which was undergoing her influence.
By the rays of the ruler of the
night, I could make out, at a considerable
distance from the shore, two ships,
whose black sails stood out like spiders’
webs against the dull tints of the sky.
“This will do,” I said to myself, “to-morrow
morning I shall start for
Ghelendchik.”
A Cossack of the line was acting as my
servant. I told him to take out my trunk
and send away the postilion; after which I
called the master of the house. I could
get no answer. I knocked, but there was
still no reply. What could it mean? I
knocked again, and at last a boy of about
fourteen showed himself.
“Where’s the master of the house?”
“There is none,” returned the child, in
the dialect of Little Russia.
“No master! then where is the mistress?”
“Gone into the village.”
“Who will open the door then?” I cried,
at the same time
kicking at it.
The door opened
of itself, and out
came a wave of damp
steam.
I struck a match,
and saw by its light
a blind boy, standing
motionless before
me.
I must here say
that I am strongly
prejudiced against
the blind, the deaf,
the lame, the hunchbacked;
in short, against the deformed
in general. I have remarked that there
is always a singular correspondence between
the physical formation of a man
and his moral nature; as though by the
loss of a member the individual lost certain
faculties of the soul.
I examined the child’s face; but what can
one make of a physiognomy without eyes?
I looked at him for some time, with a feeling
of compassion, when suddenly I saw on
his lips a cunning smile, which produced
upon me a very disagreeable impression.
“Could this blind boy be not so blind as he
appeared?” I said to myself. Answering
my own question I said that the boy was
evidently suffering from cataract, and that
the appearance of cataract cannot be
simulated. Why, moreover, should he
affect blindness? Yet in spite of my
argument I still remained vaguely suspicious.
“Is the mistress of the cabin your
mother?” I said to the boy.
“No.”
“Who are you, then?”
“A poor orphan,”
he replied.
“Has the mistress
any children?”
“She has one
daughter, who
has gone to sea
with a Tartar.”
“What Tartar?”
“How do I
know? A Tartar
of the Crimea,
a boatman
from Kertch.”
“THE WOMAN TRIED TO PIERCE THE DARKNESS.”
I went into the hut. Two benches, a
table, and a large wardrobe, placed near
the stove, composed the whole of the
furniture. No holy image against the wall—bad
sign!
The sea-breeze came in through the
broken panes of the window. I took a
wax candle from my portmanteau, and
after lighting it prepared to install myself.
I placed on one side my sabre and my
carbine, laid my pistols on the table,
stretched myself out
on a bench, and,
wrapping myself up
in my fur-lined coat,
lay down.
My Cossack took
possession of the
other bench. Ten
minutes afterwards
he was fast asleep;
I, however, was still
awake, and could
not drive from my
mind the impression
made upon me by
the boy, with his
two white eyes.
An hour passed.
Through the window
fell upon the
floor the fantastic
light of the moon.
Suddenly a
shadow was cast,
where before there
had been bright
light. I sprang up,
and went to the
window. A human
figure passed once
more, and then disappeared—heaven
knows where. I
could scarcely believe
that it had
escaped by the slope
into the sea; yet there was no other
issue.
Throwing on my overcoat, and taking
my sabre, I went out of the cabin, and saw
the blind boy before me. I concealed myself
behind the wall, and he passed on confidently,
but with a certain cautiousness.
He was carrying something under his arm,
and advanced slowly down the slope towards
the sea. “This is the hour,” I said to myself,
“in which speech is restored to the
dumb and sight to the blind.”
I followed him at some distance, anxious
not to lose sight of him.
During this time the moon became
covered with clouds, and a black fog rose
over the sea. It was just possible to distinguish
in the darkness a lantern on the
mast of a ship at anchor, close to the shore.
The waves were rolling in, and threatened,
if he continued to advance, to swallow up
my blind adventurer. He was now so near
the sea, that with another step he would be
lost. But this was
not the first of his
nocturnal expeditions;
so at least I
concluded from the
agility with which
he now sprang from
rock to rock, while
the sea poured in
beneath his feet.
Suddenly he stopped
as though he had
heard some noise,
sat down upon a
rock, and placed his
burden by his side.
He was now joined
by a white figure
walking along the
shore. I had concealed
myself behind
one of the
rocks, and overheard
the following conversation.
“The wind,” said
a woman’s voice, “is
very violent; Janko
will not come.”
“Janko,” replied
the blind boy, “Janko
is not afraid of
the wind.”
“But the clouds
get thicker and
thicker.”
“In the darkness it is easier to escape
the coast-guard.”
“And what if he gets drowned?”
“You will have no more bright ribbons
to wear on Sunday.”
As I listened to this colloquy, I remarked
that the blind boy, who had spoken to me
in the Little Russian dialect, talked quite
correctly the true Russian language.
“WHERE WERE YOU GOING LAST NIGHT?”
“You see,” he continued, clapping his
hands, “I was right. Janko fears neither
the sea, nor the wind, nor the fog, nor the[Pg 52]
coast-guard. Listen! It is not the breaking
of the waves I hear. No, it is the noise
of his oars.”
The woman got up, and, with an
anxious look, tried to pierce the darkness.
“You are wrong,” she said, “I hear
nothing.”
I also tried to see whether there was not
some sort of craft in the distance, but could
distinguish nothing. A moment later, however,
a black speck showed itself among the
waves, now rising, now falling. At last I
could make out the form of a boat dancing
on the waters, and rapidly approaching the
shore.
The man who was guiding it must have
been a bold sailor to cross on such a night
an arm of the sea some fourteen miles
across, and must have had good reasons for
braving so much danger. I watched the
frail little craft which was now diving and
plunging like a duck through the breakers.
It seemed as though she must the next
moment be dashed to pieces on the shore,
when suddenly the skilful rower turned into
a little bay, and there, in comparatively calm
water, effected a landing.
The man was of middle height, and
wore on his head a cap of black sheep-skin.
He made a sign with his hand,
when the two mysterious persons who
had been talking together, joined him.
Then the three united their forces to drag
from the boat a burden which seemed to be
so heavy, that I cannot even now understand
how so slight a craft could have supported
such a weight. They at last hoisted
the cargo on their shoulders, then walked
away and soon disappeared.
The best thing for me to do now was to
return to my resting-place. But the strange
scene I had witnessed had so struck me that
I waited impatiently for daybreak.
My Cossack was much surprised when,
on waking up, he found me fully dressed.
I said nothing to him about my nocturnal
excursion. I remained for some little time
looking through the window with admiration
at the blue sky, studded with little
clouds, and the distant shore, the Crimea,
stretched along the horizon like a streak
of violet, ending in a rock, above which
could be seen the tower of a lighthouse.
Then I went out, and walked to the fort of
Chanagora to ask the commandant when
I could go to Ghelendchik.
Unfortunately the commandant could
give me no positive answer; the only
vessels in port were stationary ones, and
trading ships which had not yet taken
in their cargo. “Perhaps,” he said,
“in three or four days a mail packet
will come in, and then something can be
arranged.”
I went back in a very bad humour to my
lodging. At the door stood the Cossack,
who, coming towards me with rather a
scared look, said inquiringly:—
“Bad news?”
“Yes,” I answered. “Heaven knows
when we shall get away from here.”
At these words the anxiety of the soldier
seemed to increase. He came close to me,
and murmured, in a low voice:—
“This is not a place to stop at. I met
just now a Black Sea Cossack of my acquaintance—we
were serving in the same
detachment last year. When I told him
where we had put up: ‘Bad place,’ he
said; ‘bad people.’ And what do you think
of that blind boy? Did anyone ever before
see a blind person running about from one
place to another; going to the bazaar,
bringing in bread and water? Here they
seem to think nothing of it.”
“Has the mistress of the place come
in?”
“This morning, while you were out, an
old woman came with her daughter.”
“What daughter? Her daughter is
away.”
“I don’t know who it is, then. But look,
there is the old woman sitting down in the
cabin.”
I went in. A good fire was shining in
the stove, and a breakfast was being prepared,
which, for such poor people, seemed
to me rather a luxurious one. When I
spoke to the old woman, she told me that
she was stone deaf.
It was impossible, then, to talk with her.
I turned to the blind boy, and, taking him
by the ear, said:—
“I say, you little wizard, where were you
going last night with that parcel under your
arm?”
He at once began to moan and cry, and
then sobbed out:
“Where was I going last night? I went
nowhere. And with a parcel! What
parcel?”
The old woman now proved that her
ears, when she so desired it, were by no
means closed.
“It is not true,” she cried. “Why do
you tease an unfortunate boy? What do
you take him for? What harm has he done
you?”
I could stand the noise no longer. So I
went out, determined somehow or other to
find the solution of this riddle.
Wrapped up in my overcoat, I sat down
on a bench before the door. Before me
broke the waves of the sea, still agitated by
the tempest of the night. Their monotonous
noise seemed to resemble the confused
murmurs of a town. As I listened I thought
of bygone years—of the years I had passed
in the north, of our bright, fresh capital;
and little by little I became absorbed in my
recollections.
“ON THE ROOF OF THE CABIN I SAW A YOUNG GIRL.”
About an hour passed, perhaps more.
Suddenly the cadences of a singing voice
struck my ear. I listened, and heard a
strange melody, now slow and sad, now
rapid and lively. The sounds seemed to
fall from the sky. I looked up, and on the
roof of the cabin I saw a young girl, in a
straight dress, with dishevelled hair, like a
naiad. With one hand placed before her
eyes to keep off the rays of the sun, she
looked towards the distant horizon and still
continued her song.
It seemed to me that this was the woman
whose voice I had heard the night before
on the sea-shore. I looked again towards
the singer, but she had disappeared. A
moment after she passed rapidly before me,
singing another song and snapping her
fingers. She went to the old woman and
said something to her. The old woman
seemed annoyed. The young girl burst
into a laugh. Then, with a bound, she
came close to me, suddenly stopped and
looked at me fixedly, as though surprised
to see me. Then turning away with an
air of indifference, she walked quietly towards
the shore.
But her manœuvres were not yet at
an end. All the rest of the day I saw her
at short intervals, always singing and
dancing. Strange creature! There was
nothing in her physiognomy to denote
insanity. On the contrary, her eyes were
intelligent and penetrating. They
exercised on me a certain magnetic
influence, and seemed to
expect a question. But whenever
I was on the point of speaking
she took to flight with a sly
smile on her lips.
I had never seen such a woman
before. She could scarcely be
called beautiful; but I have my
own ideas on the subject of
beauty. There was a thoroughbred
look about her, and with
women as with horses, there is
nothing like breed. It can be
recognised chiefly in the walk
and in the shape of the hands
and feet. The nose is also an
important feature. In Russia
regular noses are more rare than
little feet. My siren must have
been about eighteen years of age.
What charmed me in her was
the extraordinary suppleness of
her figure, the singular movements
of her head, and her long,
fair hair, hanging down in waves of gold
on her neck, and her nose, which was
perfectly formed.
In her sidelong glance there was something
dark and wild; as there was something
fascinating in the pure lines of her
nose. The light-hearted singer recalled
to me the Mignon of Goethe, that fantastic
creation of the German mind. Between
these two personages there was
indeed a striking resemblance. The same
sudden transitions from restless agitation
to perfect calm; the same enigmatic words
and the same songs.
Towards the evening I stopped my
Undine at the door of the hut, and said
to her:
“Tell me, my pretty one, what you
were doing to-day on the roof?”
“I was seeing in what direction the
wind blew.”
“How did that concern you?”
“Whence blows the wind, thence comes
happiness.”
“And your singing was to bring you
good fortune?”
“Where singing is heard, there is
joy.”
“But what should you say if your singing
caused unhappiness?”
“If unhappiness arrives it must be
borne. And from grief to joy the distance
is not great.”
“Who taught you these songs?”
“No one; I dream and I sing; those
who understand me listen to me, and those
who do not listen to me cannot understand
me.”
“What is your name?”
“Ask those who baptized me.”
“And who baptized you?”
“I do not know.”
“Ah! you are very mysterious,
but I know something about
you.”
There was no sign of emotion
on her face; her lips did not
move.
“Last night,” I continued,
“you were on the sea-shore.”
Then I told her the scene I had
witnessed. I thought this would
have caused her to evince some
symptom of anxiety, but it had
no such effect.
“You assisted at a curious
interview,” she said to me with
a laugh, “but you do not know
much, and what you do know
you had better keep under lock
and key, as you would keep some
precious treasure.”
“But if,” I continued, with a
grave and almost menacing air,
“I were to relate what I saw to
the commandant?”
At these words she darted
away, singing, and disappeared
like a frightened bird. I was
wrong in addressing this threat
to her. At the moment I did
not understand all its gravity.
“THEN SHE DISAPPEARED.”
The night came. I told my Cossack to
prepare the tea urn, lighted a wax candle,
and sat down at the table, smoking my long
pipe. I was drinking my tea when the
door opened, and I heard the rustling of a
dress. I rose hastily and recognised my
siren.
She sat down silently before me, and
fixed me with a look which made me tremble;
one of those magical looks which had
troubled my life in earlier days. She
seemed to expect me to speak to her, but
some undefinable emotion deprived me of
the faculty of speech. Her countenance
was as pale as death. In this paleness I[Pg 55]
thought I could see the agitation of
her heart. Her fingers struck mechanically
on the table; her body seemed
to shudder; her bosom rose violently
and the moment afterwards seemed compressed.
This species of comedy tired me at last,
and I was about to bring it to an end, in
the most prosaic manner, by offering my
fair visitor a cup of tea; when suddenly
she rose, and taking my head in her
hands, gazed at me with all the appearance
of passionate tenderness.
A cloud covered my eyes,
and I wished in my turn
to kiss her, but she escaped
like a snake, murmuring as
she did so, “To-night, when
everything is quiet, meet me
on the shore.” Then she
disappeared, upsetting as
she did so my tea-urn and
my solitary light.
“She is the very mischief!”
cried my Cossack,
who had been looking out
for his share of the tea.
He then lay down on his
bench; and gradually my
agitation subsided.
“Listen,” I said to him.
“If you hear a pistol-shot,
hurry down as fast as you
can to the shore.”
He rubbed his eyes, and
replied mechanically, “Yes,
sir.”
I placed my pistol in my
belt, and went out. The
siren was waiting for me at
the top of the path leading
down to the sea, lightly clad
in a stuff which clung to her
waist like a scarf.
“Follow me,” she said,
taking me by the hand.
We walked down the rocky path in such
a manner that I cannot understand how I
failed to break my neck. Then we turned
sharply to the right, as the blind boy had
done the night before. The moon was not
yet up. Two little stars, like the fires of
lighthouses, relieved the darkness. The
agitated waves lifted and let fall in regular
cadence a solitary boat close to the shore.
“Get in,” she said. I hesitated, for I
confess that I have not the least taste for
sentimental excursions on the sea. But it
was impossible to refuse. She leapt into
the bark, I followed her, and off we
went.
“What does all this mean?” I said
getting angry.
“It means,” she replied, making me sit
down on a bench, and putting her arms
round my waist, “it means that I love you.”
Her burning cheek was close to mine, and
I felt her hot breath on my face. Suddenly
I heard something fall into the water.
Instinctively my hand went to my belt.
The pistol was no longer there!
“I THREW HER INTO THE SEA.”
A horrible suspicion seized me. The
blood rushed to my brain. I looked at
her. We were far from the shore and I
could not swim. I tried to escape from her
embrace, but she clung to me like a cat,
and almost succeeded by a sudden jerk in
throwing me out of the boat, which was
already on one side. I contrived, however,
to restore the equilibrium; and then began,
between my perfidious companion and myself,
a desperate struggle, in which I employed
all my strength, while feeling that
the abominable creature was overcoming me
by her agility.
“What do you mean?” I said to her,
squeezing her little hands so tightly that I
heard her fingers crack; but whatever pain
I may have caused her she did not utter a
word. Her reptile nature could not thus
be overcome.
“You saw us,” she cried at last. “You
want to denounce us.” Then by a rapid and
violent effort she threw me down. Her body
and mine were now bending over the side of
the frail craft, and her hair was in the water.
The moment was a critical one. I got up
on my knees, took her with one hand by
the hair, with the other by the throat, and
when I had at last compelled her to unclutch
my clothes, I threw her into the
sea.
Twice her head reappeared above the
foaming waves. Then I saw her no more.
In the bottom of the boat I found an old
oar, with which, after much labour, I
succeeded in getting to the shore. As I
walked back to the hut by the path leading
to the sea, I looked towards the place where
the night before the blind boy had been
awaiting the arrival of the sailor. The
moon at this moment was shining in the
sky, and I fancied I could discern on the
seashore a white figure. Filled with curiosity,
I concealed myself behind a sort of
promontory, from which I could remark
what was going on around me. What was
my surprise, and I almost say my joy, when
I saw that the white figure was my naiad?
She was wringing the water out of her long,
fair locks, and her wet dress clung to her
body. A boat, which I could just see in
the distance, was coming towards us. Out
of it sprang the same boatman whom I had
seen the night before, with the same Tartar
cap. I now saw that his hair was cut in
the Cossack fashion, and that from his
girdle hung a large knife.
“Janko,” cried the young girl, “all is
lost.”
Then they began to talk, but in so low a
voice that I could not hear them.
“Where is the blind boy?” said Janko
at last, raising his voice.
“He will be here soon,” was the answer.
At that very moment the blind boy
appeared, carrying on his back a packet,
which he placed in the bark.
“Listen,” said Janko, “keep a good
watch here; the things you know are
valuable. Tell”—(here a name was uttered
which I could not catch) “that I am no
longer in his service. Things have taken
a bad turn. He will see me no more. The
situation is so dangerous that I must get
something to do elsewhere. He will not
find such another very easily. You
may add that, if he had rewarded more
liberally the dangerous services rendered
to him, Janko would not have left him in
the lurch. If he wants to know where to
find me—where the wind howls, where the
sea foams, that is where I am at home.”
After a moment’s silence, Janko went
on: “Say she accompanies me. She cannot
remain here. Tell the old woman that
she has done her time, and that she ought
to be satisfied. We shall not see her again.”
“And I?” murmured the blind boy.
“I cannot be troubled about you.”
The young girl leapt into the boat, and
with her hand made a sign to her companion.
“Here,” he said to the blind boy, “that
will do to buy a gingerbread.”
“Nothing more?” replied the child.
“Yes, take this,” and a piece of money
fell upon the sands.
The blind boy did not pick it up.
Janko took his place in the boat. The
blind boy remained sitting down on the
seashore, and he seemed to be crying.
Poor fellow! his grief afflicted me. Why
had fate thrown me in the midst of this
peaceful circle of smugglers? As a stone
troubles the water, I had brought disorder
into these lives, and like the stone, moreover,
I had very nearly sunk.
When I got back to the cabin, my Cossack
was so fast asleep that it would have
been cruel to disturb him. I lighted the
candle, and saw that my little box containing
my valuables, my sabre with silver
mountings, my Circassian dagger (given
to me by a friend), had all been carried off.
I now understood what the packet placed
in the boat by the blind boy must have
contained.
I woke up my Cossack with a blow, reproached
him for his negligence, and fairly
lost my temper. But my anger could not
make me find what I had lost.
And how could I complain to the authorities?
Should not I have been laughed at
if I had told them that I had been robbed
by a blind boy, and almost drowned by a
young girl?
The Maid of Treppi.
From the German of Paul Heyse.
[Paul Heyse, the greatest German novelist now living, was born in 1830, at Berlin. His father was a
celebrated scholar and professor at the University; and he himself, while still a student, undertook a special
tour in Italy in order to examine manuscripts in the libraries of Florence, Rome, and Venice. He was only
twenty-four, when King Maximilian of Bavaria invited him to Munich, where he married the daughter of the
eminent art critic, Franz Kugler, and where he has ever since resided. He had already turned from the dry
bones of scholarship to the more congenial task of writing dramas, poems, and romances. His short stories—of
which “The Maid of Treppi” is an excellent example—are his best achievements, and are full of passion,
character, and romantic charm.]
CHAPTER I.
n the summit of the Apennines,
just between Tuscany
and the northern part of the
States of the Church, there lies
a solitary little village called
Treppi. The paths that lead
up to it are not fit for driving. Some miles
further south the road for the post and
“vetturine” goes winding through the
mountains.
None but the
peasants who
have to deal
with the shepherds
pass by
Treppi; occasionally,
too, a
painter or pedestrian
anxious
to avoid the
highroad, and at
night the smugglers
with their
pack-mules, who,
better than anyone,
know of
wild rocky paths
by which to
reach the solitary
little village at
which they
make but a short
stay.
It was towards
the middle of
October, a season
when up in
those heights
the nights are
still very clear
and bright. But
after the burning
hot sun of the day in question, a fine
mist rose up from the ravine, and spread
itself slowly over the bare but noble-looking
rocks of the highland. It was
about nine in the evening. A faint light
from the fires was still visible in the
scattered low stone huts, which, during the
day, were taken care of by the oldest
women and the youngest children only.
The shepherds with their families lay
sleeping round the hearths where the great
kettles were swinging; the dogs had
stretched themselves amongst the ashes;
one sleepless old
grandmother
still sat upon a
heap of skins,
mechanically
moving to and
fro her spindle,
and muttering a
prayer or rocking
a restless
child in its cradle.
The damp,
autumnal night
breeze came in
through large
crevices in the
walls, and the
smoke from the
expiring flames
on the hearth
encountering the
mist was forced
back heavily and
thickly, and
floated beneath
the ceiling of
the hut without
seeming to inconvenience
the
old woman.
Presently she,
too, slept as well
as she could,
but with wide open eyes.
“THE DOG RUBBED HIS NOSE IN HER HAND.”
In one house alone the dwellers were[Pg 58]
still stirring. Like the other houses it
had only one storey, but the stones were
better put together, the door was broader
and higher, and adjoining the large square
formed by the actual dwelling house were
various sheds, extra rooms, stables, and a
well-built brick oven. A group of well-laden
horses stood before the door; one of
the farm servants was just removing the
empty mangers, while six or seven armed
men emerged from the house into the fog
and began hastily getting their steeds
ready. A very ancient dog, lying near the
door, merely wagged its tail at their departure.
Then he raised himself wearily from
the ground and went slowly into the hut,
where the fire was still burning brightly.
His mistress stood by the hearth, turned
towards the fire; her stately form was
motionless, her arms hanging loosely at her
sides. When the dog gently rubbed his
nose in her hand, she turned round as
though startled out of some dream.
“Fuoco,” she said, “poor fellow, go to
bed, you are ill!” The dog whined and
wagged its tail gratefully. Then he crept
on to an old skin by the hearth, and lay
down coughing and moaning.
Meanwhile a few menservants had come
in and seated themselves round the large
table on which stood the dishes left by the
departing smugglers. An old maid-servant
filled these again with polenta out of the
big kettle, and taking her spoon sat down
and joined the others. Not a word was
spoken whilst they were eating; the flames
crackled, the dog growled hoarsely in his
sleep, the grave and solemn girl sitting on
the stone slab by the hearth left untouched
the little dish of polenta specially put there
for her by the old maid, and gazed about the
room buried in thought. In front of the
door the fog was like a dense white wall.
But at that moment the half-moon appeared,
rising above the edge of the rock.
Then there was a sound of horses’ hoofs
and footsteps approaching up the path.
“Pietro!” called out the young mistress of
the house in quiet but admonishing tones.
A tall young fellow immediately got up
from the table and disappeared into the fog.
Steps and voices were heard drawing
nearer, till the horse stopped at the door.
After a pause, three men appeared in the
doorway and entered with a brief greeting.
Pietro went up to the girl who was gazing
at the fire without showing the slightest
interest. “These are two men from Porretta,”
he said to her, “without any wares;
they are conducting a gentleman across the
mountains; his passport is not quite in
order.”
“Nina!” called the girl. The old maid-servant
got up and went across to the
hearth.
“It is not only that they want something
to eat, Padrona,” continued the man, “can
the gentleman have a bed for the night?
He does not wish to go further before daybreak.”
“Get ready a bed of straw for him in
the chamber.” Pietro nodded and went
back to the table.
The three new arrivals had seated themselves
without any particular attention being
paid to them on the part of the servants. Two
of them were contrabandists, well armed,
their jackets thrown carelessly across their
shoulders, and hats pushed well down over
their brows. They nodded to the others
as though they were old acquaintances, and
leaving a good space between their companion
and themselves they crossed themselves
and began to eat.
The traveller who had come with them
ate nothing. He removed his hat from a
rather high forehead, passed his hand
through his hair, and let his eyes survey
the place and company. He read the pious
proverbs traced with charcoal on the walls,
looked at the picture of the Virgin with its
little lamp in the corner, the hens sleeping
beside it on their perches, then at the heads
of maize hanging on a string from the
ceiling, at a shelf with bottles, and jars, and
skins, and baskets, all heaped up together.
At last his eyes were attracted by the girl at
the hearth. Her dark profile stood out
clear and beautiful against the flickering
red of the fire. A great nest of black plaits
lay low on her neck, and her joined hands
were clasped round one knee, while the
other foot rested on the rocky floor of the
room. He could not tell how old she was,
but he could see from her manner that she
was the mistress of the house.
“Have you any wine in the house,
Padrona?” he asked at last.
Hardly were the words out of his mouth
before the girl started as though struck by
lightning, and stood upright on the hearth,
leaning with both arms on the slab. At
the same moment the dog woke up out of
his sleep, a savage growl issuing from his
wheezing chest. Suddenly the stranger saw
four fiery eyes fixed on him.
“May one not ask whether you have
any wine in the house, Padrona?” he[Pg 59]
repeated. The last word was still unspoken
when the dog, in quite inexplicable fury,
rushed at him, barking loudly, seized his
cloak with his teeth, and tore it from his
shoulder, and would have flown at him
again if his mistress had not promptly called
him off.
“Down, Fuoco, down! Quiet! Quiet!”
The dog stood in the middle of the room,
whisking his tail angrily, and keeping
his eye on the stranger. “Shut him up in
the stable, Pietro!” said the girl in an
undertone. She still stood petrified by
the hearth, and repeated her order, seeing
Pietro hesitate. For many years the old
dog’s nightly resting place had been by the
fireside. The men all whispered together
as the dog followed most reluctantly, howling
and barking terribly outside until at
last he seemed to stop from sheer exhaustion.
“HAVE YOU ANY WINE IN THE HOUSE, PADRONA?”
Meanwhile, at a sign from her mistress,
the maid had brought in the wine. The
stranger took a drink, passing on the goblet
to his companions, and meditated in silence
on the very extraordinary scene he had unconsciously
been the cause of. One after
another the men laid down their spoons,
and went out with a “Good-night,
Padrona!” At last the three were left
alone with the hostess and the old maid.
“The sun rises at four o’clock,” said one
of the smugglers in an undertone to the
stranger. “Your Excellency need not rise
any earlier—we shall reach Pistoja in good
time. Besides, we must think of the horse,
which must have six hours’ rest.”
“Very well, my friends. Go to bed!”
“We will waken your Excellency.”
“Do so in any case,” answered the
stranger, “although the Madonna knows
I do not often sleep six hours at a stretch.
Good-night, Carlone; good-night, Master
Baccio!”
The men raised their hats respectfully,
and got up. One of them went up to the
hearth, and said:—
“I have a greeting for you, Padrona,
from Costanzo of Bologna; he wants to
know if he forgot his knife here last Saturday?”
“No,” she answered shortly and impatiently.
“I told him you would certainly have
sent it back to him if it had been left here.
And then—”
“Nina,” interrupted the girl, “show them
the way to their room, in case they have
forgotten it.”
The maid got up from her seat. “I only
wanted to tell you, Padrona,” continued the
man with great calmness and a slight
blinking of the eyes, “that the gentleman
there would not grudge the money if you
give him a softer bed than what we get.
That is what I wanted to say, Padrona, and
now may the Madonna give you a good
night, Signora Fenice!”
Thereupon he turned to his companion,
and both bowing before the picture in the
corner they crossed themselves and left the
room with the maid. “Good night, Nina!”
called out the girl. The old woman turned
on the threshold and made a sign of inquiry;
then quickly and obediently closed the
door after her.
Hardly were they alone before Fenice
took up a brass lamp which stood by the
fireside and lit it hurriedly. The flames
from the hearth were gradually dying out,
and the three little red flames of the lamp
only sufficed to light up quite a small portion[Pg 60]
of the large room. It seemed as though
the darkness had made the stranger sleepy,
for he sat at the table with his head bowed
on his arms, his cloak well wrapped round
him, as if he intended passing the night
there. Then he heard his name called, and
looked up. The lamp was burning before
him on the table, and opposite stood the
young hostess who had called him. Her
glance met his with the utmost firmness.
“Filippo,” she said, “do you not know
me again?”
For a short time he gazed inquiringly
into the beautiful face which glowed partly
from the rays of the lamp and partly from
fear as to what would be the answer to her
question. The face was indeed one worthy
to be remembered. The long silky eyelashes
as they rose and fell softened the
severity of the forehead and delicately-cut
nose. The mouth was rosy—red in freshest
youth; save only when silent there was a
touch of mingled grief, resignation, and
fierceness not gainsayed by the black eyes
above. And as she stood there by the table
the charm of her figure, and especially the
beauty of her head and neck, were plainly
visible. Still, however, after some consideration,
Filippo merely said:
“I really do not know you, Padrona!”
“It is impossible,” she answered in a
strange low tone of certainty. “You have
had time these seven years to keep me in your
memory. It is a long time—long enough
for a picture to be imprinted on the mind.”
It was only then that the strange words
seemed fully to rouse him out of his own
thoughts.
“Indeed, fair maid,” he answered, “he
who for seven years has nothing else to do
but think of one fair girl’s face, must end
at last in knowing it by heart.”
“Yes,” she said meditatively, “that is it;
that is just what you used to say, that you
would think of nothing else.”
“Seven years ago? I was a gay and
merry youth seven years ago. And you
seriously believed that?”
She nodded gravely three times. “Why
should I not believe it? My own experience
shows me that you were right.”
“Child,” he said, with a good-natured
look that suited his decided features, “I am
very sorry for that. I suppose seven years
ago I thought all women knew that the
tender speeches of a man were worth about
as much as counters in a game, which certainly
can be exchanged for true gold, if
expressly sealed and arranged so. How
much I thought of all you women seven
years ago! Now, I must honestly confess,
I seldom think of you at all. Dear child,
there is so much to think of far more
important.”
She was silent, as though she did not understand
it all, and was quietly waiting
till he should say something that really
concerned her.
After a pause, he said: “It seems to
dawn upon me now that I have once before
wandered through this part of the mountain.
I might possibly have recognised the village
and this house, if it had not been for
the fog. Yes, indeed, it was certainly seven
years ago that the doctor ordered me off to
the mountains, and I, like a fool, used to
rush up and down the steepest paths.”
“I knew it,” she said, and a touching
gleam of joy spread over her face. “I
knew well you could not have forgotten
it. Why, Fuoco, the dog, has not forgotten
it and his old hatred of you in those bygone
days—nor I, my old love.”
She said this with so much firmness and
so cheerfully, that he looked up at her,
more and more astonished.
“I can remember now,” he said, “there
was a girl whom I met once on the summit
of the Apennines, and she took me home
to her parents’ house. Otherwise, I should
have been obliged to spend the night on the
cliffs. I remember, too, she took my
fancy—”
“Yes,” she interrupted, “very much.”
“But I did not suit her. I had a long
talk with her, when she hardly uttered ten
words. And when I at last sought by a
kiss to unseal her lovely sullen little
mouth—I can see her before me now—how
she darted to one side and picked up
a stone in each hand, so that I hardly got
away without being pelted. If you are
that girl, then, how can you speak to me of
your old love?”
“I was only fifteen then, Filippo, and I
was very shy. I had always been very
defiant, and left much alone, and I did not
know how to express myself. And then I
was afraid of my parents. They were still
living then, as you can remember. My
father owned all the flocks and herds, and
this inn here. There are not many changes
since then. Only that he is no longer here
to look after it all—may his soul rest in
Paradise! But I felt most ashamed before
my mother. Do you remember how you
sat just at that very place and praised the
wine that we had got from Pistoja? I heard[Pg 61]
no more. Mother looked at me sharply,
and I went outside and hid myself by the
window, that I might still look at you. You
were younger, of course, but not any handsomer.
You have still the same eyes with
which you then could win whomsoever you
would, and the same deep voice that made
the dog mad with jealousy, poor thing!
Until then I had loved him alone. He felt
that I loved you more; he felt it more than
you did yourself.”
SOMETIMES ABUSING YOU
“Yes,” he said, “he was like a mad creature
that night. It was a strange night!
You had certainly captivated me, Fenice. I
know I could not rest because you did not
come back to the house, and I got up and
went to look for you outside. I saw the
white kerchief on your head and then
nothing more, for you fled into the room
next the stable. Even now I feel ashamed
when I think of the rage I was in as I went
angrily away and lay the whole night
through in one long dream of you.”
“I sat up all through the dark night,”
said she. “Towards morning sleep overcame
me, and when at last I started up and
saw the sun was high—what had become of
you? No one told me, and I dared not ask.
I felt such a horror and dislike of seeing
anyone, just as though they had killed you
on purpose that I might never see you
again. I ran right away, just as I was, up
and down the mountains, sometimes calling
aloud for you and sometimes abusing you,
for I knew I could never love anyone
again, and all through you. At last I
descended to the plain; then I took fright
and went home again. I had been away
two days. My father beat me when I got
back, and mother would not speak to me.
Well, they knew why I had run away.
Fuoco the dog had been away with me, but
whenever in my solitude I called aloud for
you, he always howled.”
There ensued a pause; the eyes of each
of them were fastened on the other. Then
Filippo said: “How long is it since your
parents died?”
“Three years. They both died in the
same week—may their souls rest in Paradise!
Then I went to Florence.”
“To Florence?”
“Yes. You had told me you came from
Florence. Some of the contrabandists sent
me to the wife of the ‘caffetiere’ out at
San Miniato. I lived there for a month,
and used to send her into the town every
day to ask for you. In the evening I went
down to the town myself and sought you.
At last we heard that you had long since
gone away, but no one quite knew where.”
Filippo got up and paced the room with
long strides. Fenice turned and followed
him with her eyes, but she showed no signs
of such emotion as he in his restlessness
evinced. At last he approached, and looking
at her for a little, said, “And wherefore
do you confess all this to me, my poor
child?”
“Because I have had seven long years in
which to summon up courage to do it.
Ah! if only I had confessed it to you then,
this cowardly heart of mine would never
have caused me such grief. I knew you
would come again, Filippo, but I did not
think you would have waited so long; that
grieved me. But it is childish of me to
talk like this. What does it matter now
all is past and over? Here you are, Filippo,
and here am I; and I am yours for ever and
ever!”
“Dear child!” said he softly; but then
was silent and kept back the words trembling
on his lips. She, however, did not
notice how silent and absorbed he was as
he stood thus before her, gazing above her
head at the wall beyond. She went on
talking quite calmly; it was as though her
own words were all well known to her, as[Pg 62]
if she had thousands of times pictured to
herself: He will come again, and then I will
say this or that to him.
“FILIPPO PACED THE ROOM WITH LONG STRIDES.”
“Many have wanted to marry me, both
up here and when I was in Florence. But
I would have none but you. When anyone
asked me, and made sweet speeches to
me, at once I seemed to hear your voice
that memorable night—your words, sweeter
far than any words ever spoken on this
earth. For many years now they have let
me be in peace, although I am not old
or ugly. It is just as if they all
knew that you were soon to come again.”
Then continuing: “And now, whither
will you take me? Will you stay up here?
But no, that would never do for you.
Since I have been to Florence I know that
it is dull up in the mountains. We will
sell the house and the flocks, and then I
shall be rich. I have had enough of this
wild life with the people here. At Florence
they were obliged to teach me everything
that was proper for a town maiden to know,
and they were astonished that I understood
it all so quickly. To be sure, I had not much
time, and all my dreams told me that it
would be up here that you would come to seek
me. I have consulted a fortune-teller too,
and it has all come to pass as she said.”
“And what if I already have a wife?”
She looked at him in amazement. “You
want to try me, Filippo! You have no
wife. The gipsy told me that, too. But
she could not tell me where you lived.”
“She was right, Fenice, I have no wife.
But how could she or you tell that I ever
intended to take one?”
“How could you not want to take me?”
asked she in unwavering confidence.
“Sit down here beside me, Fenice!
I have much to tell you. Give me your
hand. Promise me that you will hear me
quietly and sensibly to the end.”
As she did not comply with his request,
he continued with a beating heart, standing
erect before her with his eyes fixed
on her sadly, while hers, as though apprehending
danger to her life, were sometimes
closed, and sometimes roamed restlessly
about the room.
“It is some years since I was obliged
to flee from Florence,” he resumed. “You
know, it was just the time of those political
tumults, and they lasted a long time. I am
a lawyer, and know a great many people,
and I write and receive a quantity of letters
throughout the year. Besides, I was independent,
proclaimed my opinion when
necessary, and was hated accordingly,
although I never took part in any of their
secret plots and plans. At last I was
obliged to leave the country with nothing
in prospect, if I did not wish to be imprisoned,[Pg 63]
and go through endless trials. I
went to Bologna, and lived there very
quietly, attended to my own business, and
saw very few people, least of all any
women; for nothing now is left of the mad
youth whose heart you so grievously
wounded seven years ago, save only that
my head, or if you will, my heart,
is fit to burst when I cannot overcome any
difficulty in my path. You may, perhaps,
have heard that Bologna is in an unsettled
state, too, latterly. Men of high position
have been arrested, and amongst them
one whose life and habits have long been
known to me, and of whom I knew that all
such things were foreign to his mind. My
friend asked me to undertake his case, and
I helped him to liberty. Hardly was this
made public, when one day a wretched individual
accosted me in the street, and
loaded me with insults. He was drunk and
unworthy of notice; but I could not get rid
of him otherwise than by giving him a blow
on the chest. No sooner had I made my
way out of the crowd and entered a café,
when I was followed by a relative of
his, not drunk with wine, but mad
with rage and indignation. He accused
me of having retaliated with
a blow instead of acting as every
man of honour would have done. I
answered him as moderately as I could,
for I saw through the whole thing; it
was all arranged by the Government in
order to render me powerless. But one word
followed another, and my enemies at last
won the day. The other man pretended
that he was obliged to go to Tuscany, and
insisted on having the affair settled
there. I agreed to this, for it was high
time that one of our prudent party should
prove to the unruly ones that it was not
want of courage that restrained us, but
solely and entirely the hopelessness of all
secret revolutionary movements, when opposed
to so superior a power. But when I
applied for a passport the day before yesterday,
it was refused, without their even
deigning to give me a reason for it; I was
told it was by order of the highest authorities.
It was evident that they either wished
to expose me to the disgrace of having
shirked the duel, or else to force me to cross
the frontier in some disguise, and thereby
certainly cause my detention. Then they
would have had an excuse for bringing an
action against me, and letting it drag on as
long as they thought fit.”
“The wretches! The ungodly sinners!”
interrupted the girl, and clenched her
fists.
“Nothing then was left me but to give
myself up to the contrabandists at Porretta.
They tell me we shall reach Pistoja to-morrow
morning early. The duel is fixed
for the afternoon in a garden outside the
town.”
Suddenly she seized his hand in hers. “Do
not go down there, Filippo,” she said. “They
will murder you.”
“Certainly they will, my child. But how
do you know?”
“I feel it here and—here!” and she
pointed with her finger to her brow and heart.
“You, too, are a fortune-teller, an
enchantress,” he continued, with a smile.
“Yes, child, they will murder me. My
adversary is the best shot in the whole
of Tuscany. They have done me the
honour of confronting me with a goodly
enemy. Well, I shall not disgrace myself.
But who knows whether it will be all fair
play? Who can tell? Or can your magic
arts foretell that too? Yet what would be
the use, child! it would make no difference.”
After a short silence he went on: “You
must banish entirely from your thoughts
any further encouragement of your former
foolish love. Perhaps all this has come
about so that I might not leave this world
without first setting you free, free from
yourself, poor child, and your unlucky
constancy. Perhaps, too, you know, we
should have suited each other badly.
You have been true to quite a different
Filippo, a young fellow full of vain desires
and without a care save those of love.
What would you do with such a brooding,
solitary being as I?”
He drew near to her, muttering the
last words as he walked up and down, and
would have taken her hand, but was startled
and shocked to see the expression of her face.
All trace of softness had left her features,
and her lips were ashy pale.
“You do not love me,” she said, slowly
and huskily, as though another voice were
speaking in her, and she were listening to
hear what was meant. Then she pushed
away his hand with a scream; the little
flames of the lamp were nearly blown out,
and outside the dog began suddenly barking
and howling furiously. “You do not
love me, no, no!” she exclaimed, like one
beside herself. “Would you rather go to
the arms of death than come to me? Can
you meet me like this after seven years,
only to say farewell? Can you speak thus[Pg 64]
calmly of your death, knowing it will be
mine too? Better had it been for me had
my eyes been blinded before they saw you
again, and my ears deaf before they heard
the cruel voice by which I live and die.
Why did the dog not tear you to pieces
before I knew that you had come to rend
my heart? Why did your foot not slip on
the chasm’s brink? Alas! woe is me!
Madonna, save me!”
She flung herself down before the picture,
her forehead bowed to the ground. Her
hands were stretched out before her; she
seemed to pray. Her companion listened to
the barking of the dog, and with it the mutterings
and groanings of the unhappy girl,
while the moon increasing in power shone
through the room. But before he could
collect himself or utter a word he again
felt her arms round his neck, and the hot
tears falling on his face.
“Do not go to meet your death, Filippo,”
sobbed the poor thing. “If you stay with me,
who could find you? Let them say what
they will, the murderous pack, the malicious
wretches, worse than Apennine wolves.
Yes,” she said, and looked up at him
radiant through her tears, “you will stay with
me; the Madonna has given you to me that
I might save you. Filippo, I do not know
what wicked words I may have spoken, but
I feel they were wicked; I knew it by the
cold chill they sent to my heart. Forgive
me. It is a thought fit only for hell, that
love can be forgotten, and faithful constancy
crushed and destroyed. But now
let us sit down and discuss everything.
Would you like a new house? We will
build one. Other servants? We will send
these all away, Nina too, even the dog
shall go. And if you still think that they
might betray you—why, we will go away
ourselves, to-day, now; I know all the
roads, and before the sun has risen we
should be down in the valley away northwards,
and wander, wander on to Genoa, to
Venice, or wherever you will.”
“Stop!” said he harshly. “Enough of
this folly. You cannot be my wife, Fenice.
If they do not kill me to-morrow, it will
only be put off a short time. I know how
much I am in their way.” And gently, but
firmly, he loosed her arms from round his
neck.
“See here, child,” he continued, “it is
sad enough as it is; we do not need to make
it harder to bear through our own foolishness.
Perhaps when in years to come you
hear of my death, you will look round at
your husband and your lovely children, and
will feel thankful that he who is dead and
gone was more sensible than you at this interview,
although on that night of seven
years ago, it may have been otherwise.
Let me go to bed now, and go you
too, and let us settle not to see each other
to-morrow. Your reputation is a good one,
as I heard from my companions on the way
here. If we were to embrace to-morrow,
and you made a scene—eh, dear child?
And now—good-night, good-night, Fenice!”
Then again he offered her his hand. But
she would not take it. She looked as pale as
ashes in the moonlight, and her eyebrows
and downcast lashes seemed all the darker.
“Have I not already suffered enough,” she
said in an undertone, “for having acted
too coyly that one night seven long years
ago? And now he would again make me
miserable with this wretched prudence, and
this time my misery would last to all
eternity! No, no, no! I will not let him
go—I should be disgraced in the eyes of all
if I let him go and he were to die.”
“Do you not understand that I wish to
sleep now, girl,” he interrupted angrily,
“and to be alone? Why do you go on
talking in this wild fashion and making
yourself ill? If you do not feel that my
honour forces me to leave you, then you
would never have suited me. I am no
doll in your lap to fondle and play with.
My path is cut out for me, and it is too
narrow for two. Show me the skin on
which I am to lie to-night; and then—let
us forget one another!”
“And if you were to drive me from you
with blows I will not leave you! If death
were to come and stand between us, I would
rescue you from him with these strong arms
of mine. In life and death—you are mine,
Filippo!”
“Silence!” cried he, very loudly. The
colour rushed to his very brow as he with
both arms pushed the passionate pleader
from him. “Silence! And let there be
an end of this, to-day, and for ever. Am I
a creature or thing to be seized upon by
whoever will and whoever takes a fancy to
me? I am a man, and whoever would have
me I must give myself up to freely. You
have sighed for me for seven years—have
you any right therefore in the eighth year
to make me act to my dishonour? If
you would bribe me, you have chosen the
means ill. Seven years ago I loved you
because you were different from what you
now are. If you had flown round my neck[Pg 65]
then and sought to wrest my heart from
me with threats, I would have met your
threats with defiance as I do to-day. All
is over now between us, and I know that
the pity I felt for you was not love. For
the last time, where is my room?”
He had said all this in harsh and cutting
tones, and as he stopped speaking the sound
of his own voice seemed to give him a pang.
But he said no more, though wondering
silently that she took it much more quietly
than he had expected. He would gladly
now, with friendly words, have appeased
any stormy outbreak of her grief. But she
passed coldly by him, opened a heavy
wooden door not far from the hearth,
pointed silently to the iron bolt on it, and
then stepped back again to the fireside.
“HE BOLTED THE DOOR BEHIND HIM.”
So he went into the room and bolted the
door behind him. But he stayed for some
time close by the door, listening to what
she was doing. No movement was heard
in the room, and in the whole house there
was no sound save from the restless dog, the
horse stirring in the stable, and the moaning
of the wind outside as it scattered the
last remains of the fog. For the moon in
all its splendour had risen, and when he
pulled away a large bundle of heather out
of the hole in the wall that served as
a window, the room was lit up by its
rays. He saw then that he was evidently
in Fenice’s room. Against the wall
stood her clean, narrow bed, an open chest
beside it, a small table, a wooden bench;
the walls were hung with pictures, saints
and Madonnas; a holy water bowl was seen
beneath the crucifix by the door.
He sat himself down on the hard bed,
and felt that a storm was raging within him.
Once or twice he half rose up to hasten to
her and tell her that he had only thus
wounded her in order to comfort her afterwards.
Then he stamped on the floor,
vexed at his own soft-heartedness. “It is
the only thing left for me to do,” he said to
himself, “unless I would add to my guilt.
Seven years, poor child!” Mechanically
he took in his hand a comb ornamented
with little pieces of metal that was lying
on the table. This recalled to him her
splendid hair, the proud neck on which it
lay, the noble brow round which the curls
clustered, and the dusky cheek. At last he
tossed the tempting object into the chest,
in which he saw dresses, kerchiefs, and all
sorts of little ornaments neatly and tidily
put away. Slowly he let fall the lid and
turned to look out at the hole in the wall.
The room was at the back of the house,
and none of the other huts in Treppi interfered
with the view across the mountains.
Opposite was the bare ridge of rock rising
up from behind the ravine, and all lit up
by the moon, then just over the house. On
one side were some sheds, past which ran
the road leading down to the plain. One
forlorn little fir-tree, with bare branches,
was growing among the stones; otherwise
the ground was covered with heather only,
and here and there a miserable bush.
“Certainly,” thought he, “this is not the
place to forget what one has loved. I would
it were otherwise. In truth, she would
have been the right wife for me; she would
have loved me more than dress and gaiety,
and the whisperings of gallants. What
eyes my old Marco would make if I suddenly
came back from my travels with a
lovely wife! We should not need to
change the house; the empty corners were
always so uncanny. And it would do me
good, old grumbler that I am, if a laughing
child—but this is folly, Filippo, folly!
What would the poor thing do left a widow
in Bologna? No, no! no more of this!
Let me not add a fresh sin to the old ones.
I will wake the men an hour earlier, and
steal away before anyone is up in Treppi.”
He was just going to move away from
the window and stretch his limbs, wearied
from the long ride, on the bed, when he
saw a woman’s figure step out from the[Pg 66]
shadow of the house into the moonlight.
She never turned her head, but he did not
for a moment doubt that it was Fenice.
She walked away from the house with slow,
steady steps down the road leading to the
ravine. A shudder ran through his frame
as at that moment the thought flashed
across his mind that she would do herself
some injury. Without stopping to think,
he flew to the door and pulled violently at
the bolt. But the rusty old iron had stuck
so obstinately fast in its place that he spent
all his strength in vain. The cold sweat
stood on his brow; he shouted and shook
and beat the door with fists and feet, but
it did not yield. At last he gave up,
and rushed back again to the window.
Already one of the stones had given way
to his fury, when suddenly he saw the
figure of the girl reappear on the road
and come towards the hut. She had
something in her hand, but in the uncertain
light he could not make out what it was,
but he could see her face distinctly. It was
grave and thoughtful—no trace of passion in
it. Not a single glance did she send to his
window, and disappeared again into the shade.
“NO ONE SHALL EVER DRINK OUT OF IT AGAIN.”
As he still stood there and drew a deep
breath after his fright and exertion, he
heard a great noise which seemed to come
from the old dog, but it was no barking or
whining. This puzzled him more than
ever, it was so uncanny. He stretched his
head far out of the opening, but could see
nothing save the still night in the mountains.
Suddenly there was a short, sharp
howl, then a low convulsive groan from the
dog, but after that, though he listened long
and anxiously, not another sound the whole
night through, save that the door of the
adjoining room was opened and Fenice’s
step was heard on the stone floor. In vain
he stood for long at the bolted door, listening
at first, then asking and begging and imploring
the girl for one little word only—all
remained still and quiet.
At length he threw himself on the bed in
a fever, and lay awake thinking and thinking,
till at last the moon went down an hour
after midnight, and fatigue conquered his
thousand fleeting thoughts. But still in his
uneasy slumber he seemed to see the lovely
face continually before his eyes, and to hear
the pleading and impassioned voice still
ringing in his ears.
When he awoke next morning, the light
around him was dim; but as he raised himself
from the bed and collected his thoughts, he
was aware that it was not the dim light of
dawn. On one side a faint ray of sunlight
reached him, and he soon saw that the hole in
the wall which he had left open before he fell
asleep, had, nevertheless, been filled up again
with branches. He pushed them out, and was[Pg 67]
dazzled by the bright rays of the morning
sun. In a towering rage with the contrabandists,
with himself for having slept, but
above all with the girl to whom he attributed
this treachery, he hurried to the door,
the bolt of which yielded easily to his pressure,
and stepped out into the other room.
He found Fenice there alone, sitting
quietly by the fire, as though she had long
been expecting him. Every trace of the
stormy scenes of the day before had left her
face; no sign of any grief, and no mark of
any painfully acquired composure, met his
stern glance.
“This is your fault,” he said, angrily,
“my sleeping beyond the time.”
“Yes, it is,” she answered, indifferently.
“You were tired. You will reach Pistoja
early enough, if you do not need to meet
your murderers before the afternoon.”
“I did not ask you to take heed of my
fatigue. Do you still mean to force yourself
on me? It will avail you nothing, girl.
Where are my men?”
“Gone.”
“Gone? Would you make a fool of me?
Where are they? As if they would go
away before I paid them!” And he strode
rapidly to the door, thinking to leave.
Fenice remained sitting where she was,
and said, in the same placid voice: “I have
paid them. I told them that you needed
sleep, and also that I would accompany you
down the mountain myself; for my supply
of wine is at an end, and I must buy fresh
at about an hour’s distance from Pistoja.”
For a moment he was speechless with
rage. “No,” he burst out at last, “not with
you; never again with you! It is absurd
for you to think that you can still entangle
me in your smooth meshes. We
are now more completely parted than ever.
I despise you, that you should think me
soft and weak enough to be won by these
poor devices. I will not go with you! Let
one of your men go with me; and here—pay
yourself what you gave to the contrabandists.”
He flung a purse to her, and opened the
door to look for some one who could
show him the way down. “Do not trouble
yourself,” she said, “you will not find any
of the men; they are all in the mountains.
And there is nobody in Treppi who can be
of use to you. Poor feeble old women and
men, and children who have to be taken
care of themselves. If you do not believe
me—go and look!”
“And altogether,” she went on, as he, in
vexation and anger, stood undecided in the
doorway, turning his back to her, “why
does it seem to you so impossible and so
dangerous for me to be your guide? I had
dreams last night, from which I can tell
that you are not destined for me. It is true
enough that I still have a liking for you,
and it would be a pleasure to me to have a
few more hours’ talk with you. But I do
not, on that account, wish to intrude. You
are free to go from me for ever, and wherever
you will, to death or to life. Only I
have so arranged it that I may walk beside
you part of the way. I swear to you, if it
will ease your mind, that it will only be
part of the way—on my honour, not as far
as Pistoja. Only just until I have put you
in the right direction. For if you were to
go away alone, you would lose your way,
and would neither get forward nor backward.
Surely you must remember that,
from your first journey in the mountains.”
“Plague upon it!” muttered he, biting
his lips. He saw, however, that the sun
was getting higher, and all things well
considered, what grave cause for fear had
he? He turned to her, and thought, from
the indifferent look in her large eyes, that
he could take it for granted there was no
treachery hidden in her words. She really
seemed to him to be a different person from
the day before; and there was almost a feeling
of discontent mingled with his surprise
as he was forced to allow that her fit of grief
and passion on the preceding day had passed
away so soon, and left no trace. He looked
at her for some time, but she did not in
any way arouse his suspicions.
“Well,” he said dryly, “since you have
become so very prudent, let us start. Come!”
Without any particular sign of delight
she got up, and said: “We must eat first;
we shall get nothing for many hours.”
She put a dish before him and a pitcher,
and ate something herself, standing at the
hearth, but did not touch a drop of wine.
But he, to get it over, ate some spoonfuls,
dashed down the wine, and lit his cigar
from the ashes on the hearth. All this
time he had not deigned to look at her,
but when he chanced to look up, standing
near her, he saw a strange red in her cheeks,
and something like triumph in her eyes.
She now rose hurriedly, seized the pitcher,
and, flinging it on the stone floor, shattered
it at a blow. “No one shall ever drink out
of it again,” she said, “after your lips have
touched it.”
He started up in alarm, and, for a second,[Pg 68]
the suspicion crossed his mind: “Has she
poisoned me?” but then he chose to
think that it was the last remains of her
lovesick idolatry which she had forsworn,
and without further comment he followed
her out of the house.
“They took the horse back with them to
Porretta,” she said to him outside, as he
seemed to be searching for it. “You would
not have been able to ride down without
danger. They
are steeper roads
than those of
yesterday.”
Then she
went on before
him, and they
soon left behind
them the huts,
which, deserted
and without the
faintest cloud of
smoke from the
chimneys, stood
out clear in the
bright sun. It
was then only
that Filippo became
fully aware
of the majestic
scenery of this
desolate place,
with the clear
transparent sky
above it. The
path, now hardly
visible, like a
faint track in
the hard rock,
ran northward along
the broad ridge; and
here and there, where
there was a bend in
the opposite parallel
range of mountains, a
narrow strip of sea
shone in the far horizon
to the left. There was still no sign of
vegetation, far or near, except the hard
and stunted mountain plants and interwoven
bush and bramble. But then they
left the summit, and descended into the
ravine, which had to be crossed in order to
climb the rocky ridge on the other side.
Here they soon came upon fir-trees, and
streams, which flowed into the glen; and far
below them they heard the roaring of the
water. Fenice now went on in front,
stepping with sure feet upon the safest
stones, without looking round, or uttering
a single word. He could not help letting
his eyes rest on her, and admiring the
graceful strength of her limbs. Her face
was entirely hidden from him by the great
white kerchief on her head, but when it so
chanced that they walked side by side, he
had to force himself to look before him,
and away from her, so greatly was he
attracted by the wondrous regularity of her
features. It was only when
in the full light of the sun
that he noticed her strangely
child-like expression, without
being able to say
wherein it lay. It was
as though for the last
seven years something
had remained unaltered
in her face, while
all else had
grown and developed.
At last he
began to talk to
her of his own
accord, and she
answered him in
a sensible and
even easy way.
Only that her
voice, which as
a rule was not
so dull and harsh
as is the case
with the generality
of the
women in the
mountains,
sounded to him
monotonous and
sad, though only
speaking of the
most indifferent
things.
“THEN SHE WENT ON BEFORE HIM.”
While thus
talking, Filippo
never noticed how the sun had climbed
higher and higher and still no glimpse of the
Tuscan plains came in view. Neither did he
give a thought to what awaited him at the
close of the day. It was so refreshing to be
walking along the thickly wooded paths,
fifty paces above the waterfall, to feel the
spray sometimes reach him, to watch the
lizards darting over the stones, and the
fluttering butterflies chasing the sun’s rays,
that he never even noticed that they walked
on towards the stream, and had not as yet[Pg 69]
turned off to the left. There was a magic
in the voice of his companion which made
him forget everything which, the day before,
had so occupied him in the society of the
contrabandists. But when they left the
ravine and saw an endless, unknown mountainous
tract, with fresh peaks and cliffs lying
barren and deserted before them, he awoke
suddenly from his enchanted dreams, stood
still, and looked at the heavens. He saw
clearly that she had brought him in an
utterly opposite direction, and that he was
some miles further from his destination than
when they started.
“IS THIS THE WAY, YOU TREACHEROUS CREATURE?”
“Stop!” said Filippo. “I see betimes
that you are still deceiving me. Is this
the way to Pistoja, you treacherous
creature?”
“No,” she said fearlessly, but with downcast
eyes.
“Then, by all the infernal powers, the
fiends might learn deceit from you. A curse
upon my infatuation!”
“One who loves can do all things—love
is more powerful than devil or angel,” said
she in deep, mournful tones.
“No,” shouted he, in maddened anger,
“do not triumph yet, you insolent girl, not
yet! A man’s will cannot be broken by
what a mad wench calls love. Turn back
with me at once, and show me the shortest
paths—or I will strangle you, with these
very hands—you fool, not to see that I must
hate you, who would make me seem a
scoundrel in the eyes of the world.”
He went up to her
with clenched fists,
beside himself with
passion.
“Strangle me,
then!” she said in a
clear but trembling
voice; “do it, Filippo.
But, when the deed
is done, you will cast
yourself on my body
and weep tears of
blood that you cannot
bring me to life
again. Your place
will be here beside
me; you will fight
with the vultures
that will come to eat
my flesh; the sun by
day will burn you;
the dew at night will
drench you; till you
fall and die beside me—for you can never
more tear yourself away from me. Do you
think that the poor, silly thing, brought up
in her mountain home, would throw away
seven years like one day? I know what they
have cost me, how dear they were, and that
I pay an honest price in buying you with
them. Let you go to meet your death? It
would be absurd. Turn from me as you
will, you will soon feel that I can force you
back to me for all eternity. For in the
wine which you drank to-day I mixed a
love-potion, which no man under the sun
has been able to withstand!”
Most queenly did she look as she
uttered these words, her arm stretched out
towards him, as though her hand wielded
a sceptre over one who had deserted her.
But he laughed defiantly, and exclaimed,
“Your love-potion will do you a bad turn,
for I never hated you more than at this
moment. But I am a fool to take the
trouble to hate a fool like you. May you be
cured of all your folly as of your love
when you no longer see me near you. I
do not need you to guide me. On yonder
slope I see a shepherd’s hut, and the flocks
are near. A fire, too, is burning. They
will show me the right way up there.
Farewell, you poor hypocrite; farewell!”
She answered not a word as he left her,
but sat down quietly in the shadow of a
rock by the ravine, burying her great eyes
in the dark green of the fir trees growing
below by the stream.
(To be continued.)
At the Animals’ Hospital.
A HAPPY FAMILY IN BONE.
ne hundred years ago! A
century since the first two
stones were joined together
from which was to spring a
veritable boon to the sick
and suffering amongst all sorts
and conditions of domesticated animals—an
abiding-place where horse and dog, calf
and sheep, even down to the maligned and
sorely-tried drawer of the costermonger’s
cart might receive assistance and advice to
meet the thousand and one ills to which
their flesh and bones are heir. The Royal
Veterinary College is within a month of
claiming a hundred years’ good labour to its
credit.
Hence the reason of our mounting the
“knife-board” of a yellow-bodied ‘bus,
conspicuously painted “Camden Town,”
with a view of obtaining a preliminary
interview with the driver regarding the ills
of most animals in general, and of horseflesh
in particular. He knew little, and
kept that meagre knowledge to himself,
regarding us with suspicion, probably as a
spy in the employ of an opposition company,
and screwed his mouth artfully when a
question was volleyed, and met it with a
knowing crack of the whip in irritating
response.
“Orf side down, ‘Arry. Just show the
way where the donkeys is doctored, and the
‘osses waccinated. Whoa! Whoa! ‘Er’,
‘pon my word, ‘Arry, if I didn’t forget to
give Betsy”—a frisky-looking mare on the
near side—”her cough mixture. Wot
time does the Wet’inary College shut?”
The way pointed out by the conductor
was King-street, at the top of which runs
Great College-street, where the great gates
of the Hospital for Animals are facing you.
Here, congregated together about the entrance,
are a dozen or twenty students, the
majority of them arrayed in garments of a
decidedly “horsey” cut, their appearance
suggesting that they are somewhere about
one remove from the medical student
proper, though in full possession of all
their traditional love of fun and irrepressible
spirits. For a charge of sixty guineas
these young men may revel in the anatomy
of a horse for a period of three years, walk
the straw-carpeted floor of the sick stable,
pay periodical visits, and learn how to prescribe
the necessary remedies for the inmates
of the dogs’ ward. The secretary, Mr. R.[Pg 71]
A. N. Powys, assures us that three hundred
students are at present located here, and,
together with the educational staff, numbering,
amongst others, such veterinary
authorities as
Professors Axe,
Penberthy, McQueen,
Coghill,
and Edwards,
they visit the
beds of some
fifty horses
every day, together with those of some ten
or a dozen dogs, to say nothing of pigs and
sheep weakly inclined, and cows of nervous
temperament. During the past twelve
months 1,174 horses have been examined
for unsoundness. More than four thousand
animals were treated either as in-patients or
out-patients during that period.
THE RESULTS OF SWALLOWING TIN-TACKS.
Passing through the gateway, a fine open
space is immediately in front, with a roadway
laid down for the purpose of testing the
soundness of horses. Just at this moment a
fine prancing steed, a typical shire horse,
with his coat as brown as a new chestnut,
and his limbs and quarters as they should be,
is led out by a stalwart groom. For all the
animal’s 16-1/2 hands, there is a question as
to his soundness. A professor hurries up,
followed by a score of students, with notebooks
and pencils ready. The horse is
trotted round the gravel-path, then galloped
with a rider bare-back. A thoughtful
consultation follows, and the verdict pronounced
upon its respiratory organs is:
“As sound as a bell.”
There is an estimable and enterprising
gentleman touring the London streets who
is the proprietor of a
group of animals which
he facetiously calls
“The Happy Family.”
These are in the flesh,
alive and frolicsome;
but here in Camden
Town, where all things
veterinary are studied,
is a happy family—in
the bone. They are
gathered together in
unison around the bust
of the late Professor
Robertson. The “ship
of the desert” has on
its left an elephant of
formidable size, near which stands an
ostrich. On the camel’s right is a cow,
and a lion, originally part of a menagerie
in the Edgware-road. A pig is readily
recognised, and a fine dog seems to be
looking up to the late Professor as an old
friend. This interesting collection will
shortly be added
to by all that is
left of the celebrated
race-horse
“Hermit.”
It is to the
Museum that
the students repair
two or three times a week, and gain a
practical knowledge of the ailments which
are associated with animals.
The glass cases contain horses’ mouths,
showing the various stages of the teeth.
Innumerable are the bottles holding preserved
portions of each and every animal.
In one of the cases is a very interesting
specimen of the students’ work. It illustrates
the anatomy of a dog’s leg. The bone is
taken in hand by the student, and by an
ingenious arrangement of red sealing wax
the blood-vessels are faithfully and realistically
introduced.
Every case contains a curiosity—one is
full of the feet of horses, and its next-door
neighbour protects a wonderful array of
horseshoes. The ideal horse-shoe is one
which requires no nails. The nearest
approach to this is a shoe which clamps the
hoof, is screwed up tightly, and the whole
thing kept in place by an iron band. The
great amount of pressure which is required
to keep the shoe from shifting, and the
possible injury it may cause the wearer, has
prevented its universal use.
Here is an old-fashioned drenching bit—the
old idea of administering
medicine
to horses. The bit is
hollow and a funnel is
attached to it, to be
inserted in the animal’s
mouth and the mixture
poured in. To-day,
however, a tin drenching
can of a somewhat
pyramidical shape is
simply used.
“POLLY.”
At the door one may
brush against what appears
to be a mop of
extra size. It is—to
use a homely expression—a
calf’s leg with “a housemaid’s
knee.” This curious growth is five feet in
circumference and a foot and a half in[Pg 72]
depth. But perhaps the most remarkable
corner is that devoted to the storing of
massive stones and cement, hardened
together, which have been taken from the
bodies of various animals.
These are of all shapes and sizes. Two
of them taken from a mare, weigh fifty-four
pounds, and many of them would turn the
scale at thirty-five to forty pounds. The
formation of such stones is curious. Above
is a drawing—in miniature—of a huge stone
formed inside a cow. The cow—by no
means a careful one—enjoyed the green
grass of the meadow in blissful ignorance
that even tin-tacks and nails get lodged on
the sward occasionally. The cow, in her
innocence, swallowed the nail—there it is,
imbedded in the centre. Lime and earth
deposited and hardened round it, with the
result that an immense stone was formed of
nearly forty pounds in weight.
“JOE.”
Next comes the instrument-room. This
is an apartment not calculated to act as a
sedative upon the visitor who is forced to
be a frequent caller on the dentist. The
forceps for drawing horses’ teeth are more
than a yard long, and it requires a man of
might and muscle to use them with effect.
The tracheotomy tubes—inserted when a
horse has difficulty in breathing—stand out
brightly from amongst the dull and heavy
appearance of the firing irons, which are
employed in lameness, as a blister on the
limb. It is interesting to be told that there
are a number of horses in the hunting field,
in the streets, and the park, wearing silver
tracheotomy tubes, as an assistance to their
breathing, and, to put it in the words of a
doctor, “doing well.”
The pharmacy is by no means to be
hurriedly passed by. It is the chemist’s
shop of the establishment, the place where
students enter to be initiated into all the
mysteries of compounding a prescription.
They may crush the crystals into powder
in a mortar of diminutive size, or pound them
in one as big as a copper with a pestle as
long as a barber’s pole. A great slate is
covered with veterinary hieroglyphics; the
shelves are decorated with hundreds of blue
bottles, the drawers brimming over with
tiny phials and enormous gallipots. Step
behind a substantial wooden screen, which
practically says “Private,” and you have
the most approved of patterns in the way of
a chemist’s counter. Here is every item,
down to the little brass scales and weights,
the corks and sealing wax, the paper and
string.
From the pharmacy to the Turkish bath
is but a step. Veterinary authorities have
arrived at the conclusion that a Turkish
bath is the finest remedy that can be found
for skin disease in horses. This takes the[Pg 73]
form of a square stable, heated by a furnace
at the back. Not an outlet is permitted
for the escape of the hot air, and it can be
heated to any temperature required. The
horse, too, can enjoy all the luxuriousness
of a shower bath, and if necessary can dabble
his four feet in a foot-bath handy. Indeed,
everything goes to prove the whole system
of treating sick animals is founded on the
same principle as that meted out to human
beings.
One must needs look in at the open door
of the shoeing-forge. The clang of the
blacksmith’s hammer makes a merry accompaniment
to the prancing of a dozen fine
creatures just entering to be shod. The
whistling of the bellows, and the hissing of
the roused-up flames vie with the snorting
of a grand bay mare who cannot be numbered
amongst the most patient of her sex.
“Stand over, miss—stand over,” cries a
strapping, brawny lad. “She’ll take a
number five;” and from a stock of three
hundred and fifty dozen new shoes which
adorn the walls—and, if numbers count for
anything, good luck should pervade every
nook and corner of the forge—a five-inch
shoe is quickly adjusted, and the bay, not
yet realising the new footing upon which
she stands, enlists the services of a pair of
men to hold her in.
The paddock in the immediate neighbourhood
of the forge is the sick-ward of the
hospital for horses. Every horse has its
own apartment—a loose box, the door of
which is fitted with iron bars
through which the doctor can
inspect his patient. The inmate’s
card, which tells its sex and
colour, date of entrance, number,
disease, and treatment prescribed,
is affixed to the door, and every
day a professor goes his rounds.
The hospital surgeon also pays
continual visits, and medicine is
administered at intervals varying
from two or three hours to three
or four days.
Here is one of the most patient
of the inmates, “Polly,” a pretty
creature who would add to the picturesqueness
of any hunting-field
in the country, and who has dislocated
her shoulder. Polly might
be held up as a credit to any
hospital. She bore her bandaging—not
always a painless operation, for
the linen must needs be fastened firmly—without
moving a muscle, only heaving
a sigh of relief as soon as the tying-up was
over.
A slip of linen or calico is carefully cut
to size and strapped on with strong tapes.
It is likewise considered beneficial that the
patient should be kept in ignorance as to
its whereabouts: for the horror of “hospital”
which pervades most people’s minds
exists in the imaginations of animals as well.
Therefore the sick Polly must needs submit
to having her eyes bandaged that she
may realise the position of being in the
dark as to her lodging for a week or two.
A strip of the same material from which
the shoulder-strap was cut is tied on to the
head-collar.
“Polly’s” next-door neighbour, however,
presents a much more serious case.
“DAVID.”
“Joe” has recently been gaining experience
in the fact that life is but a chapter of
accidents. Joe could not be characterised
as a careless creature; indeed, it is chronicled
of him that he would positively feel
for every step he took, and pick out the
safest spots in the line of route. Poor Joe!
His careful line of action and method of
travelling did not meet with that reward to
which it was entitled. Alas! he now rests
here as a warning to his fellow-horses not
to put trust in the treacherous smoothness
of the agreeable asphalt, or too much faith
in the comfort afforded by the pleasures of
travelling on a newly-repaired
road. He is
laid up with an injured
thigh, and a severe fracture has
befallen one half of what he depended
upon to carry him through life.
“Rest, complete rest, is what he needs,”
remarks a passing doctor. And a very ingenious
arrangement is provided in order
to attain the desired end.
This consists of a big canvas sling, held
up by half a dozen pulleys. On this the
whole weight of the body
is supported, and the
comfort afforded is equivalent
to that provided by
a good bed to a weary
man. The animal is so
weak that, if he tumbled
down, it is doubtful
whether he would get up
again. Here he will remain
until completely
recovered, which means
enjoying the repose
afforded by this horsey
hammock for a period
between six weeks and
six months.
The two fractured limbs
are, for the time being,
imbedded in iron splints
with leather bands, and
fitted with little pads in
front in order not to cut
the leg. All these surgical
appliances are in every way as perfect
as if they were intended for the human
frame, instead of for a horse’s.
Sickness does not seem to diminish the
appetites of the inmates, and doses of iron
and quinine are not of frequent occurrence.
It may take three or four months to cure a
case of lameness, and long terms of confinement
may possibly be needed for diseases of
the respiratory or digestive organs, or of
the skin. But the bill for food, hay and
straw, amounted to the comfortable sum of
£1,510 0s. 8d. last year, against the modest
outlay of £166 11s. 5d. which was spent in
drugs. The number of horse-patients confined
to well-kept beds of straw and healthy
peat-moss, in admirably ventilated apartments,
averages fifty at one time. Their
paddock—or sick-ward—is a pattern of cleanliness,
neatness, and good order.
There is only a moment to spend in the
operating theatre, acknowledged to be the
finest in Europe. It is a huge space covered
with a glass canopy, where four or five
horses can be operated on at once. There
is ample accommodation for every student
in the hospital to obtain a good view of
the proceedings. Only a moment also to
peep in at a little apartment in the far
corner—a small operating room fitted up
with a trevis, a wooden structure where the
animal to be operated upon is placed, and
strapped in with ropes, so that movement
is impossible; only a moment, such a barking
and a whining breaks upon the peaceful
air—troublous cries that find an outlet
from the open door of an upper room, to
which ascends a stable staircase. It is the
dogs’ ward!
THE NURSERY.
The barking of the inmates is to be interpreted
into an unmistakable welcome. Here,
in corners of the cosiest, and beds of the
whitest wood-fibre, reclines many a magnificent
specimen. These fine St. Bernard pups
are worth £250 a piece, and only a week or
two ago a patient was discharged as convalescent,
upon whose head rested the figure
of £1,200. Most of them are suffering from
skin disease; but here is a pup, with a coat
of impenetrable blackness, afflicted with
St. Vitus’s dance. He wears a pitiful expression;
but, save for an occasional twitter
of a muscle, rests very quietly. Every cage
is occupied, save one, and that is an apartment
with double iron gates. It is set
apart for mad dogs. Every creature bears
its affliction with remarkable resignation,
and, as one passes from bed to bed, runs out
to the length of its chain and stands looking
up the sawdust-strewn floor which leads to
“the nursery.”
One fine fellow, however, rests in a[Pg 75]
corner, near the bath, the very personification
of all that is dignified.
“David” is a grand St. Bernard, upon
whom a coat of shaggy beauty has been
bestowed and the blessing of a majestic presence.
He sits there with his front paw
dangling over the bed-side; helpless, but not
uncared for. His leg is broken, and he holds
it out, tightly tied up and bandaged, as
token thereof. Cheer up, David, old boy—look
a bit pleasant, David, my brave fellow.
But David only shakes his head in grateful
thanks for a word of sympathy. He is a
credit to his breed, and his noble disposition
would lead him to forget what brought him
there. It is a touching story. His owner’s
little daughter was his mistress; David
followed her wherever she went, and—save
at night time—never allowed her out of
his sight, and even then he would nestle
outside her door on the mat, until the
child woke in the morning. Just a week
ago the little girl had wandered down
the river bank, climbing over the iron
railings separating the pathway from the
tiny valley which led down to the water.
David did not notice this action, and when he
turned his head saw that his mistress had
disappeared. With his mind bent on the
water, he took a leap, intending to spring
over the rails; but his front paw caught
the iron bars, and his leg was broken. The
child was quite safe; she was only gathering
flowers.
“The Nursery” is a room set apart at
the far end for the reception of the smaller
species of the canine tribe.
The two little Skye terriers fondling
one another are suffering from ingrown toe-nails
and must needs have them cut. The
cot next to them is empty; but a “King
Charles” will convert the apartment into
a royal one on the morrow. His Majesty,
too, requires the application of the scissors
to his royal toes. Above is a terrier—beautifully
marked—but, withal, wearing
a remarkably long expression of countenance.
Something is wrong with one of
his ears, and his face is tied up like that of
an individual writhing beneath the tortures
of toothache. “Dot” envies his brother
terrier next door. There is nothing wrong
with him; he is not an inmate, but a
boarder, and the property of one of the
officials. A pretty little couple of colleys
are sympathising with each other in their
affliction as they lie cuddled up in the corner.
They are both queer—something wrong
with their lungs.
DISSECTING ROOM.
Out in the open again, we look in upon
a fine bullock with a very ugly swollen
face. But here, in a corner all to itself, we[Pg 76]
meet with a veritable curiosity—a cow with
a wooden leg!
This is a strapping young Alderney,
of such value that it was deemed advisable
to provide her with a wooden support
instead of killing her at once. “Susan”
was a pet, and had
her own way in most
things. Probably
this aroused the
green-eyed monster within the breast of a
mare who sometimes shared her meadow.
Whether the cause was jealousy or not, one
thing is certain—after a particularly hearty
meal, which seems to have endowed the mare
with exceptional strength and vigour, to
say nothing of a wicked and revengeful
mind, she deliberately, and without warning,
kicked the fair Susan. Susan had to lie
up for three or four months, and now a
wooden leg supports her injured frame.
“SUSAN.”
A strap is fastened round the body of the
cow; then a wooden support is placed
near the neck and attached to the main
strap with leather bands. Finally, the iron-bound
timber leg is set in place; and it is
said that the animal sustains but little
inconvenience.
Following a number of students, we are
soon within the precincts of the dissecting
room. This is a square room containing a
dozen or twenty dead donkeys, each laid out
on a table for dissection. The enterprising
students repair to Islington Cattle Market,
and for a pound or thirty shillings purchase
a likely subject from an obliging costermonger.
Half a dozen of them will each
take a share in the expense incurred, and
work together at a table, passing from head
to tail until a complete examination has
been made.
But what most interests the casual
visitor is “The Poor Man’s Corner,” a
portion of the yard set apart for out-patients,
and termed by the hospital authorities their
“cheap practice.”
Every day—excepting Sundays—between
the hours of two and four, a motley crowd
assembles here, bringing with them an
animal which has betrayed signs to its
owner that it is not altogether “fit.” The
cabby who is the proud possessor of a four-wheeler
and an ancient-looking steed comes
with a face which
tells another tale
than that which betokens
a small fare.
The coster thrusts
his hands deep into
his trousers pockets
and waits in gloomy
meditation. Visions
of his donkey being
condemned to death
on the spot flash
through his mind,
and he almost regrets
he came.
“Guvnor—I say,
guvnor, it ain’t a ‘opeless case, is it? Don’t
say it’s all up wi’ it. Yer see, guvnor, I
couldn’t help but bring it along. I’m a
rough ‘un, but I’ve got a ‘art, and, there, I
couldn’t stand it no longer, seein’ the poor
creeter a limpin’ along like that. On’y say
it ain’t a ‘opeless case.”
He will soon be out of his suspense, for
his donkey will be examined in its turn.
Not only is advice given gratis and the
animal thoroughly examined, but, should
it need medicine, or call for an operation,
this is readily done, the students generally
performing it under the superintendence of
one of the professors.
The “poor man’s” gate has just been
opened, and Mr. E. R. Edwards, the hospital
surgeon, holds the bridle of the first horse for
examination as the students gather round.
One of the professors appears upon the
scene, and asks the owner what is the
matter with his horse.
“He can ‘ardly walk, sir.”
“Lame, eh?”
“I expec’s so, sir.”
“What are you?”
“Hawks wegetables about, sir.”
The horse is trotted up the yard and back
again. Then the professor turns to a
student and asks what he considers is wrong
with the animal.
“Lame in both hind legs;”—and, the
student having diagnosed the case correctly,[Pg 77]
the animal is walked off to be further
treated and prescribed for.
Case after case is taken. One horse that
draws firewood from seven in the morning
until ten or eleven at night, cannot eat.
Away it goes for examination, and the temperature
of its pulse is taken. A lad,
evidently not used to the stubborn disposition
and immovable spirit of donkeys in
general, has brought his own, which he
informs the professor he only purchased
“the week afore last.” Now, nothing
under the sun in the shape of argument
with whip or words will make it go at anything
like the pace which the man from
whom he bought it guaranteed.
“Why, sir, I had to drag it here. ‘Pon
my word, I believe as ‘ow he knew where I
was a takin’ ‘im, for he crawled more’n ever.
I thought as ‘ow there might be something
wrong wi’ his wind.”
“Trot him along,” said the professor; but
the donkey turned a deaf ear to the inviting
cries of forty or fifty students to “go on,”
and bravely stood his ground. The victor
was placed on one side to be dealt with
later on.
The next case was one connected with a
pathetic story. The horse—a poor creature
which had evidently seen better days—was
owned by a laundryman, a widower, who
had eleven children to support, the oldest
of whom was only fifteen years of age, and
the youngest six months. He depended
entirely on his horse to carry the laundry
round from house to house.
The poor fellow stood quietly by and
seemed to read in the professor’s face and
gather from his hurried consultation with a
brother “vet.” that something out of the
common was the matter with his horse.
In response to the doctor’s beckoning, he
approached the spot where the animal stood,
and, with tears in his eyes, asked in a choking
voice, “Not an operation, I hope, sir?”
The professor shook his head.
Then the truth flashed upon the laundryman’s
mind. He stood dumbfounded for a
moment. The students ceased their chatter,
and, save for the movement of a horse’s
foot upon the uneven stones, the yard was
as still as the ward of a hospital where
human beings lie. The horse was condemned
to death!
“POOR MAN’S CORNER.”
The poor fellow threw his arms about the
animal’s neck, and the horse turned its
head in response to his master’s caresses,
and the cry which came from the man’s heart
could not have been more pitiful had he
been parting from his only friend.
The Mirror.
From the French of Léo Lespès.
[Léo Lespès was born at Bonchain, June the 18th, 1815—the day of Waterloo. At seventeen he was
compelled to take up arms as a conscript of Fusiliers, and for eight years passed his life amidst the scenes of
camps and guard-rooms. But Lespès was not born to be a soldier; nature had meant him for a man of letters.
As soon as he obtained his liberty, he began to write for newspapers and magazines; and from that time until
his death in 1875 he lived a busy but uneventful life, as one of the most popular of authors. He was one of
the chief founders of the Petit Journal, which, owing largely to the tales and articles which he wrote under the
signature of “Timothy Trimm,” attained at once to a gigantic circulation. During his lifetime, his brilliant
little stories were the delight of thousands; but beyond the limits of his native country his fame has never
been so great as it deserves.]
LETTER I.
ou wish me to write to you,
my dear Anaïs—me, a poor
blind creature whose hand
moves faltering in the darkness? Are you
not afraid of the sadness of my letters,
written as they are in gloom? Have you
no fear of the sombre thoughts which must
beset the blind?
Dear Anaïs, you are happy; you can see.
To see! Oh, to see! to be able to distinguish
the blue sky, the sun, and all the
different colours—what a joy! True, I
once enjoyed this privilege, but when I
was struck with blindness, I was scarcely
ten years old. Now I am twenty-five. It
is fifteen long years since everything around
me became as black as night! In vain,
dear friend, do I endeavour to recall the
wonders of nature. I have forgotten all
her hues. I smell the scent of the rose,
I guess its shape by the touch; but its
boasted colour, to which all beautiful
women are compared, I have forgotten—or,
rather, I cannot describe. Sometimes under
this thick veil of darkness strange gleams
flit. The doctors say that this is the
movement of the blood, and that this may
give some promise of a cure. Vain delusion!
When one has lost for fifteen years the
lights which beautify the earth, they are
never to be found again except in heaven.
The other day I had a rare sensation. In
groping in my room I put my hand upon—oh!
you would never guess—upon a
mirror! I sat down in front of it, and
arranged my hair like a coquette. Oh! what
would I have given to be able to regard
myself!—to know if I was nice!—if my
skin is as white as it is soft, and if I have
pretty eyes under my long lashes!—Ah!
they often told us at school that the
devil comes in the glasses of little girls who[Pg 79]
look at themselves too long! All I can
say is, if he came in mine he must have
been nicely caught—my lord Satan. I
couldn’t have seen him!
You ask me in your kind letter, which
they have just read to me, whether it is true
that the failure of a banker has ruined my
parents. I have heard nothing about it.
No, they are rich. I am supplied with every
luxury. Everywhere that my hand rests
it touches silk and velvet, flowers and precious
stuffs. Our table is abundant, and
every day my taste is coaxed with dainties.
Therefore, you see, Anaïs, that my beloved
folks are happily well off.
Write to me, my darling, since you are
now back from that aristocratic England,
and you have some pity for the poor blind
girl.
LETTER II.
You have no idea, Anaïs, what I am going
to tell you! Oh! you will laugh as if you
had gone crazy. You will believe that with
my sight I must have lost my reason. I
have a lover!
Yes, dear; I, the girl without eyes, have
a wooer as melting and as importunate as
the lover of a duchess. After this, what is
to be said? Love, who is as blind as blind
can be, undoubtedly owed me this as one of
his own kind.
How he got in amongst us I don’t
know; still less, what he is going to do
here. All I can tell you is that he sat on
my left at dinner the other day, and that
he looked after me with extreme care and
attention.
“This is the first time,” I said, “that I
have had the honour of meeting you.”
“True,” he answered, “but I know your
parents.”
“You are welcome,” I replied, “since you
know how to esteem them—my good
angels!”
“They are not the only people,” he continued,
softly, “for whom I feel affection.”
“Oh,” I answered, thoughtlessly, “then
whom else here do you like?”
“You,” said he.
“Me? What do you mean?”
“That I love you.”
“Me? You love me?”
“Truly! Madly!”
At these words I blushed, and pulled
my scarf over my shoulders. He sat quite
silent.
“You are certainly abrupt in your announcement.”
“Oh! it might be seen in my regards,
my gestures, all my actions.”
“That may be, but I am blind. A blind
girl is not wooed as others are.”
“What do I care about the want of
sight?” said he, with a delightful accent of
sincerity; “what matters it to me if your
eyes are closed to the light? Is not your
figure charming, your foot as tiny as a
fairy’s, your step superb, your tresses long
and silky, your skin of alabaster, your
complexion carmine, and your hand the
colour of the lily?”
He had finished his description before his
words ceased sounding in my ears. So then,
I had, according to him, a beautiful figure,
a fairy foot, a snowy skin, a complexion like
a rose, and fair and silky hair. Oh, Anaïs,
dear Anaïs, to other girls such a lover, who
describes all your perfections, is nothing but
a suitor; but to a blind girl he is more than
a lover, he is a mirror.
I began again: “Am I really as pretty as
all that?”
“I am still far from the reality.”
“And what would you have me do?”
“I want you to be my wife.”
I laughed aloud at this idea.
“Do you mean it?” I cried. “A marriage
between the blind and the seeing,
between the day and the night? Why, I
should have to put my orange blossoms on
by groping! No! no! my parents are rich:
a single life has no terrors for me; single I
will remain, and take the service of Diana,
as they say—and so much the worse for her
if she is waited on amiss!”
He went away without saying a word
more. It is all the same: he has taught
me that I am nice! I don’t know how it
is that I catch myself loving him a little,
Mr. Mirror mine!
LETTER III.
Oh, dear Anaïs, what news I have to tell
you! What sad and unexpected things
befall us in this life! As I tell you what
has happened to me, the tears are falling
from my darkened eyes.
Several days after my conversation with
the stranger whom I call my mirror, I was
walking in the garden, leaning on my
mother’s arm, when she was suddenly and
loudly called for. It seemed to me that the
maid, in haste to find my mother, betrayed
some agitation in her voice.
“What is the matter, mother?” I asked
her, troubled without knowing why.
“Nothing, love; some visitor, no doubt.
In our position we owe something to
society.”
“In that case,” I said, embracing her, “I
will not keep you any longer. Go and do
the honours of the drawing-room.”
She pressed two icy lips upon my forehead.
Then I heard her footsteps on the
gravel path receding in the distance.
“HEARD VOICES.”
She had hardly left me when I thought
I heard the voices of two neighbours—two
workmen—who were chatting together,
thinking they
were alone. You
know, Anaïs,
when God deprives
us of one
of our faculties,
he seems, in
order to console
us, to make the
others keener:
the blind man
has his hearing
sharper than his
whose gaze can
traverse space. I
did not lose a
word of their remarks,
although
they spoke in a
low tone. And
this is what they
said:
“Poor things!
how sad! The
brokers in
again!”
“And the girl
has not the least
suspicion. She
never guesses that
they take advantage
of her loss
of sight to make
her happy.”
“What do you mean?”
“There isn’t any doubt about it. All
that her hand touches is of mahogany or
velvet; only the velvet has grown shabby
and the mahogany has lost its lustre. At
table she enjoys the most delicious dishes
without dreaming, in her innocence, that
the domestic misery is kept concealed from
her, and that alongside of that very table
her father and mother seldom have anything
except dry bread.”
Oh, Anaïs, you can understand my
agony! They have practised on me for
my happiness; they have made me live in
luxury amidst my darkness—and me alone.
Oh! marvellous devotion. All the wealth
which a most grateful heart can offer cannot
pay this everlasting debt.
LETTER IV.
I have not told anyone that I have
guessed this sad yet charming secret. My
mother would be overwhelmed to learn that
all her trouble to conceal her poverty from
me has been useless.
I still affect
a firm belief in
the flourishing
condition of our
house. But I
am determined
to save it.
M. de Sauves,
as my lover is
called, came to
see me—and may
Heaven forgive
me!—I set myself
to play the
coquette with
him.
So I said:
“Have you still
the same esteem
for me?”
“Yes,” said he.
“I love you because
you are
beautiful with the
noblest beauty,
which is pure and
modest.”
“And my
figure?”
“As exquisite
and graceful as a
vine.”
“Ah! and my forehead?”
“Large, and smooth as the ivory which
it outshines.”
“Really?” And I began to laugh.
“What makes you so merry?”
“An idea—that you are my mirror. I see
myself reflected in your words.”
“Dearest, I would that it might be so
always.”
“Would you agree, then——?”
“To be your faithful mirror, to reflect
your qualities, your virtues. Consent to
be my wife. I have some fortune;
you shall want for nothing, and I will[Pg 81]
strive with all my power to make you
happy.”
At these words I thought of my poor
parents, whom my marriage would relieve
of an enormous burden.
“If I consent to marry you,” I answered,
“your self-love, as a man, would suffer. I
could not see you.”
“Alas!” he cried, “I owe you a confession.”
“Go on,” I said.
“I am a graceless child of nature. I have
neither charm of countenance, nor dignity
of carriage. To crown my misfortune, a
scourge, nowadays made powerless by the
art of vaccination, has mercilessly scarred
my features. In marrying a blind girl,
therefore, I show that I am selfish and without
humility.”
I held out my hand to him.
“I don’t know whether you are too hard
on yourself, but I believe you to be good
and true. Take me, then, such as I am.
Nothing, at any rate, will turn my thoughts
from yours. Your love will be an oasis in
the desert of my night.”
Am I doing right, or wrong? I know
not, dear Anaïs, but I am going to my
parents’ rescue. Perhaps, in my groping, I
have found the right way.
LETTER V.
I thank you for your kind friendliness,
for the compliments and congratulations
with which your letter is filled.
Yes, I have been married for two months,
and I am the happiest of women. I have
nothing to desire; idolised by my husband,
and adored by my parents, who have not
left me, I do not regret my infirmity, since
Edmond sees for both of us.
The day I was married, my mirror—as I
call him—reflected complacently my bridal
pomp. Thanks to it, I knew that my veil
was nicely made, and that my wreath of
orange-blossoms was not all on one side.
What could a Venetian mirror have done
more?
In the evening we walk out together in
the gardens, and he makes me admire the
flowers by their perfume, the birds by their
song, the fruit by its taste and its soft
touch. Sometimes we go to the theatre,
and there, too, he reproduces, by his wit, all
that my closed eyes cannot see. Oh! what
does his ugliness matter to me? I no
longer know what is beautiful, or what is
ugly, but I do know what is kind and loving.
Farewell, then, dear Anaïs, rejoice in my
happiness.
LETTER VI.
I am a mother, Anaïs, the mother of a
little girl, and I can’t see her! They say
she looks sweet enough to eat. They make
out that she is a living miniature of me,
and I can’t admire her! Oh, how mighty
is a mother’s love! I have borne without
a murmur not to look upon the blue of
heaven, the glamour of the flowers, the
features of my husband, of my parents, of
those who love me; but it seems that I cannot
bear with resignation not to see my
child! Oh, if the black band which covers
my sight would fall for a minute, a second
only; if I could look at her as one looks
at the vanishing lightning, I should be
happy—I should be proud for the remainder
of my life!
Edmond this time cannot be my mirror.
It is in vain that he tells me that my cherub
has fair curly hair, great wayward eyes, and
a vermilion smile. What good is that to me?
I cannot see my little darling when she
stretches out her arms to me!
LETTER VII.
My husband is an angel. Do you know
what he is doing? He has had me cared
for during the past year without my knowing
it. He wishes to restore the light to
me, and the doctor is—himself!—he who for
my sake has adopted a profession from
which his sensibility recoils.
“Angel of my life,” he said to me yesterday,
“do you know what I hope?”
“Is it possible?”
“Yes; those lotions which I made you
use under the pretext that they would
beautify the skin, were really preparations
for an operation of a very different importance.”
“What operation?”
“For the cure of cataract.”
“Will not your hand tremble?”
“No; my hand will be sure, for my
heart will be devoted.”
“Oh!” said I, embracing him, “you are
not a man, you are a ministering angel.”
“Ah!” he said, “kiss me once more,
dearest. Let me enjoy these last few
moments of illusion.”
“What do you mean, dear?”
“That soon, with the help of God, you
will regain your sight.”
“And then——?”
“Then you will see me as I am—small,
insignificant, and ugly.”
At these words it seemed to me as if a[Pg 82]
flash shot through my darkness: it was my
imagination which was kindling like a
torch.
“Edmond, dearest,” I said rising, “if you
do not trust my love, if you think that,
whatever your face may be, I am not your
willing slave, leave me in my nothingness,
in my eternal night.”
He answered nothing, but pressed my
hand.
The operation, my mother told me, might
be attempted in a month.
I called to mind the details which I had
asked about my husband. Mamma had
told me that he was marked by small-pox;
papa maintains that his hair is very thin:
Nicette, our servant, will have it that he is
old.
To be marked by the small-pox is
to be the victim of an accident. To be
bald is a sign of intellectual power:
so said Lavater. But to be old—that is
a pity. And then, if, unfortunately, in
the course of nature, he were to die before
me, I should have less time to love
him.
In fact, Anaïs, if you remember the
stories in the fairy book which we read
together, you with eyes and voice, I in
heart and spirit, you will admit that I
am rather in the interesting situation of
“The Beauty and the Beast,” without
having the resource of the transformation
miracle. Meanwhile, pray for me; for,
with God’s help, who knows whether I
shall not soon be able to read your precious
letters!
LAST LETTER.
Oh, my friend, don’t look at the end of
this letter before you have read the beginning.
Take your share of my griefs, my
vicissitudes, and my joys, by following their
natural course.
The operation took place a fortnight
ago. A trembling hand was placed
upon my eyes. I uttered two piercing
cries; then I seemed to see day, light,
colour, sun. Then instantaneously a
bandage was replaced upon my burning
forehead. I was cured! only a little
patience and a little courage were required.
Edmond had restored me to the sweetness
of life.
But, must I confess it? I did a foolish
thing. I disobeyed my doctor—he will not
know it: besides, there is no danger in my
rashness now. They had brought me my
little one to kiss. Nicette was holding her
in her lap. The child said in her soft voice,
“Mamma!” I could resist no longer. I
tore off the bandage.
“My child! oh, how lovely she is!” I
cried out. “I see her! oh, I see her!”
“MY CHILD! OH, HOW LOVELY SHE IS!”
Nicette quickly put the bandage on
again. But I was no longer lonely in the
darkness. This cherub face, restored by
memory, from that moment lighted up my
night.
Yesterday my mother came to dress me.
We were long over my toilette. I had on
a beautiful silk dress, a lace collar, my hair
dressed à la Marie Stuart. When my
arrangements were complete, my mother
said to me:—
“Take off the bandage.”
I obeyed, and though
only a twilight prevailed
in the room, I thought
that I had never seen
anything so beautiful. I
pressed to my heart my
mother, my father, and
my child.
“You have seen,” said
my father, “everybody
but yourself.”
“And my husband,” I
cried out, “where is my
husband?”
“He is hiding,” said
my mother.
Then I remembered his
ugliness, his attire, his thin
hair, and his scarred face.
“Poor dear Edmond,” I said, “let him
come to me. He is more beautiful than
Adonis.”
“While we are waiting for your lord
and master,” mamma answered, “admire
yourself; look in the glass. You may
admire yourself for a long time without
blame, if you are to make up for lost
time.”
I obeyed; a little from vanity, a little
from curiosity. What if I was ugly? What
if my plainness, like my poverty, had been
concealed from me? They led me to my
pier-glass. I uttered a cry of joy.
With my slender figure, my complexion
like a rose, my eyes a little
dazed, and like two shimmering
sapphires, I was charming. Nevertheless,
I could not look at myself
quite at my ease, for
the glass was trembling
without cessation, and
my image reflected on
its brilliant surface
seemed as if it danced
for joy.
I looked behind the
glass to see what made
it tremble.
A young man came
out—a fine young man,
with large black eyes
and striking figure,
whose coat was adorned
by the rosette of the
Legion of Honour. I
blushed to think that
I had been so foolish
in the presence of a
stranger.
“A YOUNG MAN CAME OUT.”
“Just look,” said my mother to me,
without taking any notice of him, “how
fair you are; like a white rose.”
“Mamma!” I cried.
“Only look at these white arms,” and
she pulled my sleeves above the elbow
without the smallest scruple.
“But, mamma,” I said, “what are you
thinking of, before a stranger!”
“A stranger? it is a mirror.”
“I don’t mean the glass, but this young
gentleman who was behind it, like a lover
in a comedy.”
“Eh! goose,” cried my father, “you
need not be so bashful. It is your husband.”
“Edmond!” I cried out, and made a step
forward to embrace him.
Then I fell back. He was so beautiful!
I was so happy! Blind, I had loved in confidence.
What made my heart beat now
was a new love, swollen by the generosity
of this truly noble man, who had ordered
everyone to say that he was ugly, in order
to console me for my blindness.
Edmond fell at my knees. Mamma put
me in his arms, as she wiped away her tears.
“How lovely you are,” said my husband
to me, in an ecstasy.
“Flatterer!” I answered, looking down
at him.
“No, when I alone was your mirror I
always told you so—and see! my colleague,
here, whom you have just consulted, is of
the same opinion, and declares that I am
right!”
Fac-simile of the Notes of a Sermon by Cardinal Manning.
By the kindness of Cardinal Manning, we are able to present our readers with a fac-simile of the
Cardinal’s synopsis of a sermon on Charity, preached on the 9th of July, 1890, in the chapel of the Sisters
of Charity, Carlisle Place, Westminster. The fac-simile shows the Cardinal’s handwriting at the age of 83,
and also his peculiar method of jotting down his notes on long, narrow slips, two of which are here given to
a page. These notes are for a sermon of an hour’s duration.
The Queen of Spades.
Translated from the Russian of Alexander Pushkin.
[Alexander Sergeivitch Pushkin, the first of the great Russian writers, was born at Moscow
on Ascension Day, 1799. His father was a Russian nobleman, an officer, a courtier, and a wit, but so
fiery-tempered that he threw up his commission in a rage at being reprimanded on parade for having used his
cane to poke the fire. Pushkin’s mother was the granddaughter of a negro slave named Abraham Hannibal,
whom Peter the Great had made a favourite and at last had raised to be an admiral—a piece of history stranger
than romance. Pushkin’s African descent was visible in his appearance—in his crisp black hair, his irregular
though mobile features, and his swarthy skin. At school he hated work—his sums always made him cry—and
he was the ringleader in every prank. When scarcely yet of age he wrote an “Ode to Liberty,” for
which he was condemned to exile in Bessarabia. There for some years he continued to pour forth the lofty,
fiery, and romantic poems which have caused him to be termed the Byron of the North. Besides his poems
Pushkin also wrote a striking volume of prose stories, from which “The Queen of Spades” is taken. When
Nicholas was crowned he was recalled to Court, and in 1831 he married. For five years he lived in happiness;
but the husband of his wife’s sister, who was named George Danthès, preferred the wife of Pushkin to his own.
Pushkin, who was as jealous as Othello, challenged Danthès to a duel. On the 29th of January, 1837, the
brothers-in-law met with pistols at six paces, and Pushkin was shot through the body. Two days afterwards
he breathed his last. He was buried, at his own desire, at a monastery near his early home, where his grave
is still denoted by a cross of marble, bearing simply the initials A. S. P.]
The Queen of Spades denotes ill-luck.
Complete Fortune-Teller.
here was a
card party at
the rooms of
Naroumoff, a
lieutenant in the
Horse Guards. A
long winter night
had passed unnoticed,
and it
was five o’clock in the morning when
supper was served. The winners sat down
to table with an excellent appetite; the
losers let their plates remain empty before
them. Little by little, however, with
the assistance of the champagne, the conversation
became animated, and was shared
by all.
“How did you get on this evening,
Surin?” said the host to one of his friends.
“Oh, I lost, as usual. I really have no
luck. I play mirandole. You know that I
keep cool. Nothing moves me; I never
change my play, and yet I always lose.”
“Do you mean to say that all the evening
you did not once back the red? Your
firmness of character surprises me.”
“What do you think of Hermann?” said
one of the party, pointing to a young[Pg 88]
Engineer officer. “That fellow never made
a bet or touched a card in his life, and yet
he watches us playing until five in the
morning.”
“It interests me,” said Hermann; “but
I am not disposed to risk the necessary in
view of the superfluous.”
“Hermann is a German, and economical;
that is the whole of the secret,” cried
Tomski. “But what is really astonishing
is the Countess Anna Fedotovna!”
“How so?” asked several voices.
“Have you not remarked,” said Tomski,
“that she never plays?”
“Yes,” said Naroumoff, “a woman of
eighty, who never touches a card; that is
indeed something extraordinary!”
“You do not know why?”
“No; is there a reason for it?”
“Just listen. My grandmother, you
know, some sixty years ago, went to Paris,
and became the rage there. People ran
after her in the streets, and called her the
‘Muscovite Venus.’ Richelieu made love
to her, and my grandmother makes out
that, by her rigorous demeanour, she
almost drove him to suicide. In those
days women used to play at faro. One
evening at the Court she lost, on parole, to
the Duke of Orleans, a very considerable
sum. When she got home, my grandmother
removed her beauty-spots, took off
her hoops, and in this tragic costume went
to my grandfather, told him of her misfortune,
and asked him for the money she
had to pay. My grandfather, now no more,
was, so to say, his wife’s steward. He
feared her like fire; but the sum she named
made him leap into the air. He flew into a
rage, made a brief calculation, and proved
to my grandmother that in six months she
had got through half a million roubles. He
told her plainly that he had no villages to
sell in Paris, his domains being situated in
the neighbourhood of Moscow and of Saratoff;
and finally refused point blank. You
may imagine the fury of my grandmother.
She boxed his ears, and passed the night in
another room.
“The next day she returned to the charge.
For the first time in her life, she condescended
to arguments and explanations. In vain did she try to
prove to her husband that there
were debts and debts, and that she
could not treat a Prince of the
blood like her coachmaker.
“All this eloquence was lost.
My grandfather was inflexible. My
grandmother did not know where
to turn. Happily she was acquainted
with a man who was very
celebrated at this time. You have heard of
the Count of St. Germain, about whom so
many marvellous stories were told. You
know that he passed for a sort of Wandering
Jew, and that he was said to possess an
elixir of life and the philosopher’s stone.
“Some people laughed at him as a charlatan.
Casanova, in his memoirs, says that
he was a spy. However that may be, in
spite of the mystery of his life, St. Germain
was much sought after in good society, and
was really an agreeable man. Even to this
day my grandmother has preserved a
genuine affection for him, and she becomes
quite angry when anyone speaks of him with
disrespect.
“It occurred to her that he might be able
to advance the sum of which she was in
need, and she wrote a note begging him to
call. The old magician came at once, and
found her plunged in the deepest despair.
In two or three words she told him everything;
related to him her misfortune and
the cruelty of her husband, adding that she
had no hope except in his friendship and
his obliging disposition.
“THE OLD MAGICIAN CAME AT ONCE.”
“‘Madam,’ said St. Germain, after a few
moments’ reflection, ‘I could easily advance
you the money you want, but I am
sure that you would have no rest until you
had repaid me, and I do not want to get
you out of one trouble in order to place
you in another. There is another way of
settling the matter. You must regain the
money you have lost.’
“‘But, my dear friend,’ answered my
grandmother, ‘I have already told you that
I have nothing left.’
“‘That does not matter,’ answered St.
Germain. ‘Listen
to me, and I will
explain.’
“He then communicated
to her
a secret which any
of you would, I am
sure, give a good
deal to possess.”
All the young
officers gave their
full attention.
Tomski stopped to
light his Turkish
pipe, swallowed a
mouthful of smoke,
and then went on.
“That very
evening my grandmother
went to
Versailles to play
at the Queen’s
table. The Duke
Of Orleans held
the bank. My
grandmother invented
a little story
by way of excuse
for not having
paid her debt, and
then sat down at
the table, and
began to stake.
She took three cards. She won with the
first; doubled her stake on the second, and
won again; doubled on the third, and still
won.”
“SEATED BEFORE HER LOOKING-GLASS.”
“Mere luck!” said one of the young
officers.
“What a tale!” cried Hermann.
“Were the cards marked?” said a third.
“I don’t think so,” replied Tomski,
gravely.
“And you mean to say,” exclaimed
Naroumoff, “that you have a grandmother
who knows the names of three winning
cards, and you have never made her tell
them to you?”
“That is the very deuce of it,” answered
Tomski. “She had three sons, of whom
my father was one; all three were determined
gamblers, and not one of them was
able to extract her secret from her, though
it would have been of immense advantage
to them, and to me also. Listen to what
my uncle told me about it, Count Ivan
Ilitch, and he told me on his word of
honour.
“Tchaplitzki—the one you remember who
died in poverty after devouring millions—lost
one day, when he was a young man, to
Zoritch about three hundred thousand
roubles. He was in despair. My grandmother,
who had no mercy for the extravagance
of young men, made an exception—I
do not know why—in favour of Tchaplitzki.
She gave him three cards, telling
him to play them one after the other, and
exacting from him at the same time his[Pg 90]
word of honour that he would never afterwards
touch a card as long as he lived.
Accordingly Tchaplitzki went to Zoritch
and asked for his revenge. On the first
card he staked fifty thousand roubles. He
won, doubled the stake, and won again.
Continuing his system he ended by gaining
more than he had lost.
“But it is six o’clock! It is really time
to go to bed.”
Everyone emptied his glass and the party
broke up.
CHAPTER II.
The old Countess Anna Fedotovna was in
her dressing-room, seated before her looking-glass.
Three maids were in attendance.
One held her pot of rouge, another a box of
black pins, a third an enormous lace cap,
with flaming ribbons. The Countess had
no longer the slightest pretence to beauty,
but she preserved all the habits of her
youth. She dressed in the style of fifty years
before, and gave as much time and attention
to her toilet as a fashionable beauty of the
last century. Her companion was working
at a frame in a corner of the window.
“Good morning, grandmother,” said the
young officer, as he entered the dressing-room.
“Good morning, Mademoiselle Lise.
Grandmother, I have come to ask you a
favour.”
“What is it, Paul?”
“I want to introduce to you one of my
friends, and to ask you to give him an invitation
to your ball.”
“Bring him to the ball and introduce
him to me there. Did you go yesterday to
the Princess’s?”
“Certainly. It was delightful! We
danced until five o’clock in the morning.
Mademoiselle Eletzki was charming.”
“My dear nephew, you are really not
difficult to please. As to beauty, you should
have seen her grandmother, the Princess
Daria Petrovna. But she must be very old,
the Princess Daria Petrovna!”
“How do you mean old?” cried Tomski
thoughtlessly; “she died seven years ago.”
The young lady who acted as companion
raised her head and made a sign to the
officer, who then remembered that it
was an understood thing to conceal from
the Princess the death of any of her contemporaries.
He bit his lips. The Countess,
however, was not in any way disturbed on
hearing that her old friend was no longer
in this world.
“Dead!” she said, “and I never knew it!
We were maids of honour in the same year,
and when we were presented, the Empress”—and
the old Countess related for the
hundredth time an anecdote of her young
days. “Paul,” she said, as she finished her
story, “help me to get up. Lisabeta, where
is my snuff-box?”
And, followed by the three maids, she
went behind a great screen to finish her
toilet. Tomski was now alone with the
companion.
“Who is the gentleman you wish to introduce
to madame?” asked Lisabeta.
“Naroumoff. Do you know him?”
“No. Is he in the army?”
“Yes.”
“In the Engineers?”
“No, in the Horse Guards. Why did
you think he was in the Engineers?”
The young lady smiled, but made no
answer.
“Paul,” cried the Countess from behind
the screen, “send me a new novel; no
matter what. Only see that it is not in the
style of the present day.”
“What style would you like, grandmother?”
“A novel in which the hero strangles
neither his father nor his mother, and in
which no one gets drowned. Nothing
frightens me so much as the idea of getting
drowned.”
“But how is it possible to find you such
a book? Do you want it in Russian?”
“Are there any novels in Russian? However,
send me something or other. You
won’t forget?”
“I will not forget, grandmother. I am
in a great hurry. Good-bye, Lisabeta. What
made you fancy Naroumoff was in the
Engineers?” and Tomski took his departure.
Lisabeta, left alone, took out her embroidery,
and sat down close to the window.
Immediately afterwards, in the street, at
the corner of a neighbouring house, appeared
a young officer. The sight of him
made the companion blush to her ears.
She lowered her head, and almost concealed
it in the canvas. At this moment the
Countess returned, fully dressed.
“Lisabeta,” she said, “have the horses
put in; we will go out for a drive.”
Lisabeta rose from her chair, and began
to arrange her embroidery.
“Well, my dear child, are you deaf? Go
and tell them to put the horses in at once.”
“I am going,” replied the young lady,
as she went out into the ante-chamber.
A servant now came in, bringing some
books from Prince Paul Alexandrovitch.
“Say, I am much obliged to him. Lisabeta!
Lisabeta! Where has she run off
to?”
“I was going to dress.”
“We have plenty of time, my dear. Sit
down, take the first volume, and read to
me.”
The companion took the book and read
a few lines.
“Louder,” said the
Countess. “What is the
matter with you? Have
you a cold? Wait a
moment, bring me that
stool. A little closer;
that will do.”
Lisabeta read two pages
of the book.
“Throw that
stupid book
away,” said the
Countess. “What
nonsense! Send
it back to Prince
Paul, and tell him
I am much obliged
to him; and the
carriage, is it never
coming?”
“Here it is,”
replied Lisabeta,
going to the window.
“And now you
are not dressed.
Why do you always
keep me
waiting? It is intolerable!”
Lisabeta ran to her room.
She had scarcely been there
two minutes when the Countess
rang with all her might.
Her maids rushed in at one
door and her valet at the
other.
“You do not seem to hear
me when I ring,” she cried.
“Go and tell Lisabeta that I am waiting
for her.”
At this moment Lisabeta entered, wearing
a new walking dress and a fashionable bonnet.
“At last, miss,” cried the Countess. “But
what is that you have got on? and why?
For whom are you dressing? What sort of
weather is it? Quite stormy, I believe.”
“No, your Excellency,” said the valet;
“it is exceedingly fine.”
“What do you know about it? Open
the ventilator. Just what I told you! A
frightful wind, and as icy as can be. Unharness
the horses. Lisabeta, my child, we
will not go out to-day. It was scarcely
worth while to dress so much.”
“What an existence!” said the companion
to herself.
PAUL AND LISABETA.
Lisabeta Ivanovna was, in fact, a most unhappy
creature. “The bread of the stranger
is bitter,” says Dante, “and his staircase
hard to climb.” But who can tell the torments
of a poor little companion attached
to an old lady of quality? The Countess
had all the caprices of a woman spoilt by the
world. She was avaricious and egotistical,
and thought all the more of herself now that[Pg 92]
she had ceased to play an active part in
society. She never missed a ball, and she
dressed and painted in the style of a bygone
age. She remained in a corner of the
room, where she seemed to have been placed
expressly to serve as a scarecrow. Every
one on coming in went to her and made
her a low bow, but this ceremony once at
an end no one spoke a word to her. She
received the whole city at her house, observing
the strictest etiquette, and never failing
to give to everyone his or her proper name.
Her innumerable servants, growing pale and
fat in the ante-chamber, did absolutely as
they liked, so that
the house was
pillaged as if its
owner were really
dead. Lisabeta
passed her life in
continual torture.
If she made tea
she was reproached
with
wasting the sugar.
If she read a novel
to the Countess
she was held responsible
for all
the absurdities of
the author. If
she went out with
the noble lady for
a walk or drive,
it was she who
was to blame if
the weather was
bad or the pavement
muddy. Her
salary, more than
modest, was never
punctually paid,
and she was expected
to dress
“like everyone
else”; that is to say, like
very few people indeed.
When she went into
society her position was
sad. Everyone knew her;
no one paid her any attention. At a
ball she sometimes danced, but only when
a vis-à-vis was wanted. Women would
come up to her, take her by the arm,
and lead her out of the room if their
dress required attending to. She had her
portion of self-respect, and felt deeply the
misery of her position. She looked with
impatience for a liberator to break her
chain. But the young men, prudent in the
midst of their affected giddiness, took care not
to honour her with their attentions; though
Lisabeta Ivanovna was a hundred times
prettier than the shameless or stupid girls
whom they surrounded with their homage.
More than once she slunk away from the
splendour of the drawing-room, to shut herself
up alone in her little bed-room,
furnished with an old screen and a pieced
carpet, a chest of drawers, a small looking-glass,
and a wooden bedstead. There she
shed tears at her ease, by the light of a
tallow candle in a tin candlestick.
“THERE SHE SHED TEARS.”
One morning—it
was two days
after the party at
Naroumoff’s, and
a week before the
scene we have
just sketched—Lisabeta
was sitting
at her embroidery
before
the window,
when, looking
carelessly into the
street, she saw an
officer, in the
uniform of the
Engineers, standing
motionless
with his eyes fixed
upon her. She
lowered her head,
and applied herself
to her work
more attentively than
ever. Five minutes
afterwards she looked
mechanically into the
street, and the officer
was still in the same
place. Not being in
the habit of exchanging
glances with young men
who passed by her window,
she remained with
her eyes fixed on her
work for nearly two
hours, until she was told that lunch was
ready. She got up to put her embroidery
away, and, while doing so, looked into the
street, and saw the officer still in the same
place. This seemed to her very strange.
After lunch she went to the window
with a certain emotion, but the officer of
Engineers was no longer in the street.
She thought no more of him. But two days[Pg 93]
afterwards, just as she was getting into the
carriage with the Countess, she saw him once
more, standing straight before the door. His
face was half concealed by a fur collar, but his
black eyes sparkled beneath his helmet.
Lisabeta was afraid, without knowing why,
and she trembled as she took her seat in the
carriage.
On returning home, she rushed with a
beating heart towards the window. The
officer was in his habitual place, with his
eyes fixed ardently upon her. She at once
withdrew, burning at the same time with
curiosity, and moved by a strange feeling,
which she now experienced for the first
time.
No day now passed but the young officer
showed himself beneath the window.
Before long a dumb acquaintance was
established between them. Sitting at her
work she felt his presence, and when she
raised her head she looked at him for a
long time every day. The young man
seemed full of gratitude for these innocent
favours.
She observed, with the deep and rapid
perceptions of youth, that a sudden redness
covered the officer’s pale cheeks as soon as
their eyes met. After about a week she
would smile at seeing him for the first
time.
When Tomski asked his grandmother’s
permission to present one of his friends, the
heart of the poor young girl beat strongly,
and when she heard that it was Naroumoff,
she bitterly repented having compromised
her secret by letting it out to a giddy young
man like Paul.
Hermann was the son of a German settled
in Russia, from whom he had inherited a
small sum of money. Firmly resolved to
preserve his independence, he had made it
a principle not to touch his private income.
He lived on his pay, and did not allow himself
the slightest luxury. He was not very
communicative; and his reserve rendered
it difficult for his comrades to amuse themselves
at his expense.
Under an assumed calm he concealed
strong passions and a highly-imaginative
disposition. But he was always master of
himself, and kept himself free from the
ordinary faults of young men. Thus, a
gambler by temperament, he never touched
a card, feeling, as he himself said, that his
position did not allow him to “risk the
necessary in view of the superfluous.” Yet
he would pass entire nights before a card-table,
watching with feverish anxiety the
rapid changes of the game. The anecdote
of Count St. Germain’s three cards had
struck his imagination, and he did nothing
but think of it all that night.
“If,” he said to himself next day as he
was walking along the streets of St. Petersburg,
“if she would only tell me her secret—if
she would only name the three winning
cards! I must get presented to her, that I
may pay my court and gain her confidence.
Yes! And she is eighty-seven! She may
die this week—to-morrow perhaps. But
after all, is there a word of truth in the
story? No! Economy, Temperance, Work;
these are my three winning cards. With
them I can double my capital; increase it
tenfold. They alone can ensure my independence
and prosperity.”
Dreaming in this way as he walked along,
his attention was attracted by a house built
in an antiquated style of architecture. The
street was full of carriages, which passed
one by one before the old house, now
brilliantly illuminated. As the people
stepped out of the carriages Hermann saw
now the little feet of a young woman, now
the military boot of a general. Then came
a clocked stocking; then, again, a diplomatic
pump. Fur-lined cloaks and coats
passed in procession before a gigantic
porter.
Hermann stopped. “Who lives here?”
he said to a watchman in his box.
“The Countess Anna Fedotovna.” It
was Tomski’s grandmother.
Hermann started. The story of the three
cards came once more upon his imagination.
He walked to and fro before the house,
thinking of the woman to whom it belonged,
of her wealth and her mysterious power.
At last he returned to his den. But for
some time he could not get to sleep; and
when at last sleep came upon him, he saw,
dancing before his eyes, cards, a green table,
and heaps of roubles and bank-notes. He
saw himself doubling stake after stake,
always winning, and then filling his pockets
with piles of coin, and stuffing his pocket-book
with countless bank-notes. When he
awoke, he sighed to find that his treasures
were but creations of a disordered fancy;
and, to drive such thoughts from him, he
went out for a walk. But he had not gone far
when he found himself once more before the
house of the Countess. He seemed to have
been attracted there by some irresistible
force. He stopped, and looked up at the
windows. There he saw a girl’s head with
beautiful black hair, leaning gracefully over[Pg 94]
a book or an embroidery-frame. The head
was lifted, and he saw a fresh complexion
and black eyes.
“HERMAN SAW THE LITTLE FEET.”
This moment decided his fate.
CHAPTER III.
Lisabeta was just taking off her shawl and
her bonnet, when the Countess sent for her.
She had had the horses put in again.
While two footmen were helping the old
lady into the carriage, Lisabeta saw the
young officer at her side. She felt him
take her by the hand, lost her head, and
found, when the young officer had walked
away, that he had left a paper between her
fingers. She hastily concealed it in her
glove.
During the whole of the drive she neither
saw nor heard. When they were in the
carriage together the Countess was in the
habit of questioning Lisabeta perpetually.
“Who is that man that bowed to us?
What is the name of this bridge? What is
there written on that signboard?”
Lisabeta now gave the
most absurd answers, and
was accordingly scolded by
the Countess.
“What is the matter with
you, my child?” she asked. “What are
you thinking about? Or do you really not
hear me? I speak distinctly enough, however,
and I have not yet lost my head,
have I?”
Lisabeta was not listening. When she
got back to the house she ran to her room,
locked the door, and took the scrap of paper
from her glove. It was not sealed, and
it was impossible, therefore, not to read it.
The letter contained protestations of love.
It was tender, respectful, and translated
word for word from a German novel. But
Lisabeta did not read German, and she
was quite delighted. She was, however,
much embarrassed. For the first time in
her life she had a secret. Correspond with
a young man! The idea of such a thing
frightened her. How imprudent she had
been! She had reproached herself, but
knew not now what to do.
Cease to do her work at the window, and
by persistent coldness try and disgust the
young officer? Send him back his letter?
Answer him in a firm, decided manner?
What line of conduct was she to pursue?
She had no friend, no one to advise her.
She at last decided to send an answer. She
sat down at her little table, took pen and
paper, and began to think. More than once
she wrote a sentence and then tore up the[Pg 95]
paper. What she had written seemed too
stiff, or else it was wanting in reserve. At
last, after much trouble, she succeeded in
composing a few lines which seemed to
meet the case. “I believe,” she wrote,
“that your intentions are those of an honourable
man, and that you would not wish to
offend me by any thoughtless conduct. But
you must understand that our acquaintance
cannot begin in this way. I return your
letter, and trust that you will not give me
cause to regret my imprudence.”
“SHE TORE IT INTO A HUNDRED PIECES.”
Next day as soon as Hermann made his
appearance, Lisabeta left her embroidery,
and went into the drawing-room, opened
the ventilator, and threw her letter into
the street, making sure that the young
officer would pick it up.
Hermann, in fact, at once saw it, and,
picking it up, entered a confectioner’s shop
in order to read it. Finding nothing discouraging
in it, he went home sufficiently
pleased with the first step in his love adventure.
Some days afterwards, a young person
with lively eyes called to see Miss Lisabeta,
on the part of a milliner. Lisabeta wondered
what she could want, and suspected,
as she received her, some secret intention.
She was much surprised, however, when
she recognised, on the letter that was now
handed to her, the writing of Hermann.
“You make a mistake,” she said,
“this letter is not for me.”
“I beg your pardon,” said the
milliner, with a slight smile; “be
kind enough to read it.”
Lisabeta glanced at it. Hermann
was asking for an appointment.
“Impossible!” she cried,
alarmed both at the boldness of
the request, and at the manner in
which it was made. “This letter
is not for me,” she repeated; and
she tore it into a hundred pieces.
“If the letter was not for you,
why did you tear it up? You
should have given it me back, that
I might take it to the person it
was meant for.”
“True,” said Lisabeta, quite
disconcerted. “But bring me no
more letters, and tell the person
who gave you this one that he
ought to blush for his conduct.”
Hermann, however, was not a
man to give up what he had once
undertaken. Every day Lisabeta received
a fresh letter from him,—sent now in one
way, now in another. They were no longer
translated from the German. Hermann
wrote under the influence of a commanding
passion, and spoke a language which was
his own. Lisabeta could not hold out
against such torrents of eloquence. She
received the letters, kept them, and at last
answered them. Every day her answers
were longer and more affectionate, until at
last she threw out of the window a letter
couched as follows:—
“This evening there is a ball at the
Embassy. The Countess will be there. We
shall remain until two in the morning.
You may manage to see me alone. As
soon as the Countess leaves home, that is
to say towards eleven o’clock, the servants
are sure to go out, and there will be no
one left but the porter, who will be sure to[Pg 96]
be asleep in his box. Enter as soon as it
strikes eleven, and go upstairs as fast as
possible. If you find anyone in the ante-chamber,
ask whether the Countess is at
home, and you will be told that she is out,
and, in that case, you must resign yourself,
and go away. In all probability, however,
you will meet no one. The Countess’s
women are together in a distant room.
When you are once in the ante-chamber,
turn to the left, and walk straight on, until
you reach the Countess’s bedroom. There,
behind a large screen, you will see two
doors. The one on the right leads to a
dark room. The one on the left leads to a
corridor, at the end of which is a little
winding staircase, which leads to my parlour.”
At ten o’clock Hermann
was already on duty before
the Countess’s door. It was
a frightful night. The winds
had been unloosed, and the
snow was falling in large
flakes; the lamps gave an
uncertain light; the streets
were deserted; from time to
time passed a sleigh, drawn
by a wretched hack, on the
look-out for a fare. Covered
by a thick overcoat, Hermann
felt neither the wind
nor the snow. At last the
Countess’s carriage drew up.
He saw two huge footmen
come forward and take beneath
the arms a dilapidated
spectre, and place it on the
cushions, well wrapped up
in an enormous fur cloak.
Immediately afterwards, in
a cloak of lighter make, her
head crowned with natural
flowers, came Lisabeta, who
sprang into the carriage like
a dart. The door was closed,
and the carriage rolled on
softly over the snow.
“A FOOTMAN IN A GREASY DRESSING GOWN.”
The porter closed the street door, and
soon the windows of the first floor became
dark. Silence reigned throughout the house.
Hermann walked backwards and forwards;
then coming to a lamp he looked at his
watch. It was twenty minutes to eleven.
Leaning against the lamp-post, his eyes
fixed on the long hand of his watch, he
counted impatiently the minutes which had
yet to pass. At eleven o’clock precisely
Hermann walked up the steps, pushed open
the street door, and went into the vestibule,
which was well lighted. As it happened
the porter was not there. With a firm and
rapid step he rushed up the staircase and
reached the ante-chamber. There, before a
lamp, a footman was sleeping, stretched out
in a dirty greasy dressing-gown. Hermann
passed quickly before him and crossed the
dining-room and the drawing-room, where
there was no light But the lamp of the
ante-chamber helped him to see. At last
he reached the Countess’s bedroom. Before
a screen covered with old icons [sacred
pictures] a golden lamp was burning. Gilt
arm-chairs, sofas of faded colours, furnished
with soft cushions, were arranged symmetrically
along the walls, which were hung
with China silk. He saw two large portraits,
painted by Madame le Brun. One
represented a man of forty, stout and full
coloured, dressed in a light green coat,
with a decoration on his breast. The
second portrait was that of an elegant young
woman, with an aquiline nose, powdered[Pg 97]
hair rolled back
on the temples,
and with a rose
over her ear.
Everywhere
might be seen
shepherds and
shepherdesses in
Dresden china,
with vases of all
shapes, clocks by
Leroy, work-baskets,
fans, and
all the thousand
playthings for
the use of ladies
of fashion, discovered
in the
last century, at
the time of Montgolfier’s
balloons
and Mesmer’s
animal magnetism.
Hermann passed behind the
screen, which concealed a little
iron bedstead. He saw the two
doors; the one on the right
leading to the dark room, the
one on the left to the corridor.
He opened the latter, saw the
staircase which led to the poor little companion’s
parlour, and then, closing this door,
went into the dark room.
The time passed slowly. Everything was
quiet in the house. The drawing-room
clock struck midnight, and again there was
silence. Hermann was standing up, leaning
against the stove, in which there was no
fire. He was calm; but his heart beat with
quick pulsations, like that of a man determined
to brave all dangers he might have
to meet, because he knows them to be inevitable.
He heard one o’clock strike;
then two; and soon afterwards the distant
roll of a carriage. He now, in spite of himself,
experienced some emotion. The
carriage approached rapidly and stopped.
There was at once a great noise of servants
running about the staircases, and a confusion
of voices. Suddenly the rooms were
all lit up, and the Countess’s three antiquated
maids came at once into the bedroom.
At last appeared the Countess herself.
The walking mummy sank into a large
Voltaire arm-chair. Hermann looked
through the crack in the door; he saw
Lisabeta pass close to him, and heard her
hurried step as she went up the little
winding staircase. For a moment he felt
something like remorse; but it soon passed
off, and his heart was once more of
stone.
“A STRANGE MAN HAD APPEARED.”
The Countess began to undress before a
looking-glass. Her head-dress of roses was
taken off, and her powdered wig separated
from her own hair, which was very short and
quite white. Pins fell in showers around
her. At last she was in her dressing-gown
and her night-cap, and in this costume,
more suitable to her age, was less hideous
than before.
Like most old people, the Countess was
tormented by sleeplessness. She had her
armchair rolled towards one of the windows,
and told her maids to leave her. The lights
were put out, and the room was lighted
only by the lamp which burned before the
holy images. The Countess, sallow and
wrinkled, balanced herself gently from right
to left. In her dull eyes could be read
an utter absence of thought; and as she
moved from side to side, one might have
said that she did so not by any action of
the will, but through some secret mechanism.
Suddenly this death’s-head assumed a
new expression; the lips ceased to tremble,[Pg 98]
and the eyes became alive. A strange
man had appeared before the Countess!
“ONE GLANCE SHOWED HER THAT HE WAS NOT THERE.”
It was Hermann.
“Do not be alarmed, madam,” said Hermann,
in a low voice, but very distinctly.
“For the love of Heaven, do not be alarmed.
I do not wish to do you the slightest harm;
on the contrary, I come to implore a favour
of you.”
The old woman looked at him in silence,
as if she did not understand. Thinking she
was deaf, he leaned towards her ear and
repeated what he had said; but the
Countess still remained silent.
“You can ensure the happiness of my
whole life, and without its costing you
a farthing. I know that you can name to
me three cards——”
The Countess now understood what he
required.
“It was a joke,” she interrupted. “I
swear to you it was only a joke.”
“No, madam,” replied Hermann in an
angry tone. “Remember Tchaplitzki, and
how you enabled him to win.”
The Countess was agitated. For a moment
her features expressed strong emotion; but
they soon resumed their former dulness.
“Cannot you name to me,” said Hermann,
“three winning cards?”
The Countess remained silent. “Why
keep this secret for your great-grandchildren,”
he continued. “They are rich
enough without; they do not know the
value of money. Of what profit would
your three cards be to them? They are
debauchees. The man who cannot keep
his inheritance will die in want, though he
had the science of demons at his command.
I am a steady man. I know the value of
money. Your three cards will not be lost
upon me. Come!”
He stopped tremblingly, awaiting a reply.
The Countess did not utter a word.
Hermann went upon his knees.
“If your heart has ever known the
passion of love; if you can remember its
sweet ecstasies; if you have ever been
touched by the cry of a new-born babe; if
any human feeling has ever caused your
heart to beat, I entreat you by the love of
a husband, a lover, a mother, by all that is
sacred in life, not to reject my prayer. Tell
me your secret! Reflect! You are old;
you have not long to live! Remember
that the happiness of a man is in your
hands; that not only myself, but my children
and my grandchildren will bless your
memory as a saint.”
The old Countess answered not a word.
Hermann rose, and drew a pistol from
his pocket.
“Hag!” he exclaimed, “I will make you
speak.”
At the sight of the pistol the Countess
for the second time showed agitation.
Her head shook violently; she stretched out
her hands as if to put the weapon aside.
Then suddenly she fell back motionless.
“Come, don’t be childish!” said Hermann.
“I adjure you for the last time;
will you name the three cards?”
The Countess did not answer. Hermann
saw that she was dead!
CHAPTER IV.
Lisabeta was sitting in her room,
still in her ball dress, lost in the
deepest meditation. On her return to the
house, she had sent away her maid, and
had gone upstairs to her room, trembling
at the idea of finding Hermann there;
desiring, indeed, not to find him. One glance
showed her that he was not there, and she[Pg 99]
gave thanks to Providence that he had
missed the appointment. She sat down
pensively, without thinking of taking off
her cloak, and allowed to pass through her
memory all the circumstances of the intrigue
which had begun such a short time back,
and had already advanced so far. Scarcely
three weeks had passed since she had first
seen the young officer from her window,
and already she had written to him, and he
had succeeded in inducing her to make an
appointment. She knew his name, and that
was all. She had received a quantity of
letters from him, but he had never spoken
to her; she did not know the sound of his
voice, and until that evening, strangely
enough, she had never heard him spoken of.
“THE DOOR OPENED AND HERMANN ENTERED.”
But that very evening Tomski, fancying
he had noticed that the young Princess
Pauline, to whom he had been paying
assiduous court, was flirting, contrary to
her custom, with another man, had
wished to revenge himself by making a
show of indifference. With this noble
object he had invited Lisabeta to take part
in an interminable mazurka; but he teased
her immensely about her partiality for
Engineer officers, and pretending all the
time to know much more than he really
did, hazarded purely in fun a few guesses
which were so happy that Lisabeta thought
her secret must have been discovered.
“But who tells you all this?” she said
with a smile.
“A friend of the very officer you know,
a most original man.”
“And who is this man that is so original?”
“His name is Hermann.”
She answered nothing, but her hands
and feet seemed to be of ice.
“Hermann is a hero of romance,” continued
Tomski. “He has the profile of
Napoleon, and the soul of Mephistopheles.
I believe he has at least three crimes on his
conscience…. But
how pale you are!”
“I have a bad headache.
But what did
this Mr. Hermann tell
you? Is not that his
name?”
“Hermann is very
much displeased with
his friend, with the
Engineer officer who has
made your acquaintance.
He says that in his place he
would behave very differently.
But I am quite sure
that Hermann himself has
designs upon you. At least,
he seems to listen with remarkable
interest to all that his friend
tells him about you.”
“And where has he seen me?”
“Perhaps in church, perhaps in the
street; heaven knows where.”
At this moment three ladies came forward
according to the custom of the mazurka,
and asked Tomski to choose between
“forgetfulness and regret.”[A]
And the conversation which had so painfully
excited the curiosity of Lisabeta came
to an end.
The lady who, in virtue of the infidelities
permitted by the mazurka, had just been
chosen by Tomski, was the Princess Pauline.
During the rapid evolutions which the
figure obliged them to make, there was a
grand explanation between them, until at
last he conducted her to a chair, and returned
to his partner.
But Tomski could now think no more,
either of Hermann or Lisabeta, and he tried
in vain to resume the conversation. But
the mazurka was coming to an end, and
[Pg 100]immediately afterwards the old Countess
rose to go.
Tomski’s mysterious phrases were nothing
more than the usual platitudes of the
mazurka, but they had made a deep
impression upon the heart of the poor little
companion. The portrait sketched by
Tomski had struck her as very exact; and
with her romantic ideas, she saw in the
rather ordinary countenance of her adorer
something to fear and admire. She was
now sitting down with her cloak off, with
bare shoulders; her head, crowned with
flowers, falling forward from fatigue, when
suddenly the door opened and Hermann
entered. She shuddered.
“Where were you?” she said, trembling
all over.
“In the Countess’s bedroom. I have
just left her,” replied Hermann. “She is
dead.”
“Great heavens! What are you saying?”
“I am afraid,” he said, “that I am the
cause of her death.”
Lisabeta looked at him in consternation,
and remembered Tomski’s words: “He
has at least three crimes on his conscience.”
Hermann sat down by the window, and
told everything. The young girl listened
with terror.
So those letters so full of passion, those
burning expressions, this daring obstinate
pursuit—all this had been inspired by
anything but love! Money alone had
inflamed the man’s soul. She, who had
nothing but a heart to offer, how could she
make him happy? Poor child! she had
been the blind instrument of a robber, of
the murderer of her old benefactress. She
wept bitterly in the agony of her repentance.
Hermann watched her in silence;
but neither the tears of the unhappy girl,
nor her beauty, rendered more touching by
her grief, could move his heart of iron.
He had no remorse in thinking of the
Countess’s death. One sole thought distressed
him—the irreparable loss of the
secret which was to have made his fortune.
“You are a monster!” said Lisabeta,
after a long silence.
“I did not mean to kill her,” replied
Hermann coldly. “My pistol was not
loaded.”
They remained for some time without
speaking, without looking at one another.
The day was breaking, and Lisabeta put
out her candle. She wiped her eyes,
drowned in tears, and raised them towards
Hermann. He was standing close to the
window, his arms crossed, with a frown on
his forehead. In this attitude he reminded
her involuntarily of the portrait of Napoleon.
The resemblance overwhelmed her.
“How am I to get you away?” she said
at last. “I thought you might go out by
the back stairs. But it would be necessary
to go through the Countess’s bedroom, and
I am too frightened.”
“Tell me how to get to the staircase, and
I will go alone.”
She went to a drawer, took out a key,
which she handed to Hermann, and gave
him the necessary instructions. Hermann
took her icy hand, kissed her on the forehead,
and departed.
He went down the staircase, and entered
the Countess’s bedroom. She was seated
quite stiff in her armchair; but her
features were in no way contracted. He
stopped for a moment, and gazed into her
face as if to make sure of the terrible reality.
Then he entered the dark room, and, feeling
behind the tapestry, found the little door
which opened on to a staircase. As he
went down it, strange ideas came into his
head. “Going down this staircase,” he
said to himself, “some sixty years ago, at
about this time, may have been seen some
man in an embroidered coat with powdered
wig, pressing to his breast a cocked hat:
some gallant who has long been buried;
and now the heart of his aged mistress has
ceased to beat.”
At the end of the staircase he found
another door, which his key opened, and he
found himself in the corridor which led to
the street.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] The figures and fashions of the mazurka are
reproduced in the cotillon of Western Europe.—Translator.
CHAPTER V.
Three days after this fatal night, at nine
o’clock in the morning, Hermann entered
the convent where the last respects were
to be paid to the mortal remains of the old
Countess. He felt no remorse, though he
could not deny to himself that he was the
poor woman’s assassin. Having no religion,
he was, as usual in such cases, very superstitious;
believing that the dead Countess
might exercise a malignant influence on
his life, he thought to appease her spirit by
attending her funeral.
The church was full of people, and it
was difficult to get in. The body had been
placed on a rich catafalque, beneath a
canopy of velvet. The Countess was
reposing in an open coffin, her hands joined
on her breast, with a dress of white satin,
and head-dress of lace. Around the[Pg 101]
catafalque the family was assembled, the
servants in black caftans with a knot of
ribbons on the shoulder, exhibiting the
colours of the Countess’s coat of arms.
Each of them held a wax candle in his
hand. The relations, in deep mourning—children,
grandchildren, and great-grandchildren—were
all present; but none of
them wept.
To have shed tears would have looked
like affectation. The Countess was so old
that her death could have taken no one by
surprise, and she
had long been
looked upon as
already out of the
world. The funeral
sermon was delivered
by a celebrated
preacher.
In a few simple,
touching phrases
he painted the
final departure of
the just, who had
passed long years
of contrite preparation
for a Christian
end. The
service concluded
in the midst of
respectful silence.
Then the relations
went towards the
defunct to take a
last farewell. After
them, in a long
procession, all who
had been invited
to the ceremony
bowed, for the last
time, to her who
for so many years
had been a scarecrow
at their entertainments.
Finally
came the Countess’s household; among
them was remarked an old governess, of the
same age as the deceased, supported by two
women. She had not strength enough to
kneel down, but tears flowed from her eyes,
as she kissed the hand of her old mistress.
In his turn Hermann advanced towards
the coffin. He knelt down for a moment
on the flagstones, which were strewed with
branches of yew. Then he rose, as pale as
death, and walked up the steps of the
catafalque. He bowed his head. But
suddenly the dead woman seemed to be
staring at him; and with a mocking look she
opened and shut one eye. Hermann by a
sudden movement started and fell backwards.
Several persons hurried towards
him. At the same moment, close to the
church door, Lisabeta fainted.
Throughout the day, Hermann suffered
from a strange indisposition. In a quiet
restaurant, where he took his meals, he,
contrary to his habit, drank a great deal of
wine, with the object of stupefying himself.
But the wine had no effect
but to excite his imagination,
and give fresh activity
to the ideas with which
he was preoccupied.
“HERMANN STARTED AND FELL BACKWARDS.”
He went home earlier
than usual; lay
down with his
clothes on upon
the bed, and fell
into a leaden sleep.
When he woke up
it was night, and
the room was
lighted up by the
rays of the moon.
He looked at his
watch; it was a
quarter to three.
He could sleep no
more. He sat up
on the bed and
thought of the old
Countess. At this
moment someone
in the street passed
the window, looked into the
room, and then went on.
Hermann scarcely noticed
it; but in another minute
he heard the door of the
ante-chamber open. He
thought that his orderly,
drunk as usual, was returning
from some nocturnal excursion; but the
step was one to which he was not accustomed.
Somebody seemed to be softly
walking over the floor in slippers.
The door opened, and a woman, dressed
entirely in white, entered the bedroom. Hermann
thought it must be his old nurse, and
he asked himself what she could want at
that time of night.
But the woman in white, crossing the
room with a rapid step, was now at the
foot of his bed, and Hermann recognised the
Countess.
“THREE, SEVEN, ACE.”
“I come to you against my wish,” she
said in a firm voice. “I am forced to grant
your prayer. Three, seven, ace, will win,
if played one after the other; but you must
not play more than one card in twenty-four
hours, and afterwards as long as you live
you must never touch a card again. I
forgive you my death, on condition of
your marrying my companion, Lisabeta
Ivanovna.”
With these words she walked towards the
door, and gliding with her slippers over the
floor, disappeared. Hermann heard the door
of the ante-chamber open, and soon afterwards
saw a white figure pass along the
street. It stopped for a moment before his
window, as if to look at him.
Hermann remained for some time astounded.
Then he got up and went into
the next room. His orderly, drunk as
usual, was asleep on the floor. He had much
difficulty in waking him, and then could
not obtain from him the least explanation.
The door of the ante-chamber was
locked.
Hermann went back to his bedroom, and
wrote down all the details of his vision.
CHAPTER VI.
Two fixed ideas can no more exist together
in the moral world than in the physical
two bodies can occupy the same place
at the same time; and “Three, seven,
ace” soon drove away Hermann’s recollection
of the old Countess’s last moments.
“Three, seven, ace” were now in his head
to the exclusion of everything else.
They followed him in his dreams, and
appeared to him under strange forms.
Threes seemed to be spread before him like
magnolias, sevens took the form of Gothic
doors, and aces became gigantic spiders.
His thoughts concentrated themselves on
one single point. How was he to profit by
the secret so dearly purchased? What if
he applied for leave to travel? At Paris,
he said to himself, he would find some
gambling-house where, with his three cards,
he could at once make his fortune.
Chance soon came to his assistance. There
was at Moscow a society of rich gamblers,
presided over by the celebrated Tchekalinski,
who had passed all his life playing
at cards, and had amassed millions. For while
he lost silver only, he gained bank-notes.
His magnificent house, his excellent kitchen,
his cordial manners, had brought him
numerous friends and secured for him
general esteem.
When he came to St. Petersburg, the
young men of the capital filled his rooms,
forsaking balls for his card-parties, and preferring
the emotions of gambling to the
fascinations of flirting. Hermann was taken
to Tchekalinski by Naroumoff. They
passed through a long suite of rooms, full
of the most attentive, obsequious servants.
The place was crowded. Generals and high
officials were playing at whist; young men
were stretched out on the sofas, eating ices
and smoking long pipes. In the principal
room at the head of a long table, around
which were assembled a score of players,
the master of the house held a faro bank.
He was a man of about sixty, with a
sweet and noble expression of face, and hair
white as snow. On his full, florid countenance
might be read good humour and
benevolence. His eyes shone with a perpetual
smile. Naroumoff introduced Hermann.
Tchekalinski took him by the[Pg 103]
hand, told him that he was glad to see him,
that no one stood on ceremony in his
house; and then went on dealing. The
deal occupied some time, and stakes were
made on more than thirty cards. Tchekalinski
waited patiently to allow the winners
time to double their stakes, paid what he
had lost, listened politely to all observations,
and, more politely still, put straight
the corners of cards, when in a fit of absence
some one had taken the liberty of turning
them down. At last when the game was
at an end, Tchekalinski collected the cards,
shuffled them again, had them cut, and then
dealt anew.
“Will you allow me to take a card?”
said Hermann, stretching out his arm above
a fat man who occupied nearly the whole
of one side of the table. Tchekalinski, with
a gracious smile, bowed in consent.
Naroumoff complimented Hermann, with a
laugh, on the cessation of the austerity by
which his conduct had hitherto been
marked, and wished him all kinds of happiness
on the occasion of his first appearance
in the character of a gambler.
“There!” said Hermann, after writing
some figures on the back of his card.
“How much?” asked the banker, half
closing his eyes. “Excuse me, I cannot
see.”
“Forty-seven thousand roubles,” said
Hermann.
Every one’s eyes were directed toward the
new player.
“He has lost his head,” thought
Naroumoff.
“Allow me to point out to you,” said
Tchekalinski, with his eternal smile, “that
you are playing rather high. We never
put down here, as a first stake, more than
a hundred and seventy-five roubles.”
“Very well,” said Hermann; “but do
you accept my stake or not?”
Tchekalinski bowed in token of acceptation.
“I only wish to point out to you,”
he said, “that although I am perfectly sure
of my friends, I can only play against ready
money. I am quite convinced that your
word is as good as gold; but to keep up
the rules of the game, and to facilitate calculations,
I should be obliged to you if you
would put the money on your card.”
Hermann took a bank-note from his
pocket and handed it to Tchekalinski, who,
after examining it with a glance, placed it
on Hermann’s card.
Then he began to deal. He turned up on
the right a ten, and on the left a three.
“I win,” said Hermann, exhibiting his
three.
A murmur of astonishment ran through
the assembly. The banker knitted his
eyebrows, but speedily his face resumed its
everlasting smile.
“Shall I settle at once?” he asked.
“If you will be kind enough to do so,”
said Hermann.
Tchekalinski took a bundle of bank-notes
from his pocket-book, and paid. Hermann
pocketed his winnings and left the table.
Naroumoff was lost in astonishment.
Hermann drank a glass of lemonade and
went home.
The next evening he returned to the
house. Tchekalinski again held the bank.
Hermann went to the table, and this time
the players hastened to make room for him.
Tchekalinski received him with a most
gracious bow. Hermann waited, took a
card, and staked on it his forty-seven thousand
roubles, together with the like sum
which he had gained the evening before.
Tchekalinski began to deal. He turned
up on the right a knave, and on the left a
seven.
Hermann exhibited a seven.
There was a general exclamation.
Tchekalinski was evidently ill at ease, but
he counted out the ninety-four thousand
roubles to Hermann, who took them in the
calmest manner, rose from the table, and
went away.
The next evening, at the accustomed
hour, he again appeared. Everyone was
expecting him. Generals and high officials
had left their whist to watch this extraordinary
play. The young officers had
quitted their sofas, and even the servants of
the house pressed round the table.
When Hermann took his seat, the other
players ceased to stake, so impatient were
they to see him have it out with the banker,
who, still smiling, watched the approach
of his antagonist and prepared to meet him.
Each of them untied at the same time a
pack of cards. Tchekalinski shuffled, and
Hermann cut. Then the latter took up a
card and covered it with a heap of bank-notes.
It was like the preliminaries of a duel.
A deep silence reigned through the room.
Tchekalinski took up the cards with
trembling hands and dealt. On one side he
put down a queen and on the other side
an ace.
“Ace wins,” said Hermann.
“HE SAW BEFORE HIM A QUEEN OF SPADES.”
“No. Queen loses,” said Tchekalinski.
Hermann looked. Instead of ace, he
saw a queen of spades before him. He
could not trust his eyes! And now as he
gazed, in fascination, on the fatal card,
he fancied that he saw the queen of spades
open and then close her eye, while at the
same time she gave a mocking smile. He
felt a thrill of nameless horror. The
queen of spades resembled the dead Countess!
Hermann is now at the Oboukhoff
Asylum, room No. 17——a hopeless
madman! He answers no questions which
we put to him. Only he mumbles to himself
without cessation, “Three, seven, ace;
three, seven, queen!”
The Two Genies.
A Story for Children; from the French of Voltaire.
EBONY AND TOPAZ.
very one in the province of
Candahar knows the adventures
of young Rustem. He
was the only son of a Mirza
of that country—or, as we
might say, a lord. His father,
the Mirza, had a good estate. Rustem was
to be married to the daughter of a Mirza
of his own rank, as both families ardently
desired. He was intended to be the comfort
of his parents, to make his wife happy,
and to be happy with her.
But, unfortunately, he had seen the
Princess of Cashmere at
the great fair at Cabul,
which is the most important
fair in the whole
world. And this was the
reason why the old Prince
of Cashmere had brought
his daughter to the fair.
He had lost the two most
precious objects in his
treasury: one was a diamond
as big as my thumb,
on which, by an art then
known to the Indians,
but now forgotten, a portrait
of his daughter was
engraved; the other was
a javelin, which of its
own accord would strike
whatever mark the owner wished.
A fakir in his Highness’s train had stolen
these treasures, and carried them to the
Princess. “Take the greatest care of these
two things,” said he; “your fate depends
upon them.” Then he went away, and was
seen no more.
The Prince of Cashmere, in great despair,
determined to travel to the fair at Cabul,
to see whether among all the merchants
who collected there from the four quarters
of the earth, there might not be one who
had his diamond or his weapon. He took[Pg 106]
his daughter with him wherever he went,
and she carried the diamond safe in her
girdle; but as for the javelin, which she
could not conveniently hide, she left it in
Cashmere, safely locked up in a large
Chinese chest.
At Cabul she and Rustem saw each
other, and they fell in love with all the
ardour of their nation. As a love-token the
Princess gave him the diamond; and, at
parting, Rustem promised to go to see her
secretly in Cashmere.
The young Mirza had two favourite
attendants who served him
as secretaries, stewards,
and body-servants. One
was named Topaz; he
was handsome and well-made,
as fair as a Circassian
beauty, as gentle
and obliging as an
Armenian, and as
wise as a Parsee.
The other was
called Ebony, a
good-looking negro;
more active
and more industrious
than Topaz,
and who never
made objections.
To them he spoke
about his journey.
Topaz tried to dissuade
him, with the cautious zeal of a
servant who is anxious not to offend, and
reminded him of all the risks. How could
he leave two families in despair, and cut
his parents to the heart? He shook
Rustem’s purpose; but Ebony once more
confirmed it, and removed his scruples.
The young man had not money enough
for so long a journey. Wise Topaz would
have refused to get it for him. Ebony
provided it. He quietly stole his master’s
diamond, and had a false one made exactly
like it, which he put in its place, pledging
the real one to an Armenian for many
thousands of rupees.
“AN ELEPHANT WAS LOADED WITH HIS BAGGAGE.”
As soon as Rustem had the rupees he
was ready to start. An elephant
was loaded with his baggage, and
they set out on horseback.
“I took the liberty,” said Topaz
to his master, “of remonstrating against
your enterprise; but after speaking it was
my duty to obey. I am your slave. I love
you, and will follow you to the end of the
world. But let us consult the oracle which
is on our way.”
Rustem agreed. The answer of the oracle
was this: “If you turn to the east you will[Pg 107]
turn to the west.” Rustem could not understand
this. Topaz maintained that it boded
no good; Ebony, always accommodating,
persuaded him that it was very favourable.
There was yet another oracle in Cabul,
which they consulted also. The Cabul oracle
replied as follows: “If you possess you will
not possess; if you get the best of it, you will
get the worst; if you are Rustem you will
not be Rustem.” This saying seemed still
more incomprehensible than the other.
“Beware,” said Topaz.
“Fear nothing,” said Ebony. And he,
as may be supposed, seemed to his master
to be always in the
right, since he encouraged
his passion and
his hopes.
On leaving Cabul
they marched through
a great forest. Here
they sat down on the
grass to eat, while the
horses were turned
loose to feed. They
were about to unload
the elephant, which
carried the dinner and
the service, when it
was discovered that
Topaz and Ebony were
no longer with the
party. They called
them loudly; the forest
echoed with the names
of Topaz and Ebony;
the men sought them
in every direction and
filled the woods with
their shouts, but they
came back having seen
no one and heard no
answer. “We saw nothing,”
they said to
Rustem, “but a vulture fighting with an
eagle and plucking out all its feathers.”
The history of this struggle excited
Rustem’s curiosity; he went to the spot on
foot. He saw no vulture or eagle, but he
found that his elephant, still loaded with
baggage, had been attacked by a huge
rhinoceros. One was fighting with his horn,
the other with his trunk. On seeing
Rustem the rhinoceros retreated, and the
elephant was led back. But now the horses
were gone. “Strange things happen to
travellers in the forest!” exclaimed Rustem.
The servants were dismayed, and
their master was in despair at having lost
his horses, his favourite negro, and the sage
Topaz, for whom he had always had a
regard, though he did not always agree with
his opinion.
He was comforting himself with the hope
of soon finding himself at the feet of the
beautiful Princess of Cashmere, when he
met a fine striped ass, which a vigorous
peasant was beating violently with a stick.
There is nothing rarer, swifter, or more
beautiful than an ass of this kind. This one
retorted on the rustic for his thrashing by
kicks which might have uprooted an oak.
The young Mirza very naturally took the
ass’s part, for it was a beautiful beast. The
peasant ran off, crying out to the ass: “I
will pay you out yet!” The ass thanked
its liberator after its fashion, went up to
him, fawned on him, and received his
caresses.
THE ASS RETORTED BY KICKS.
Having dined, Rustem mounted him, and
took the road to Cashmere with his servants,
some on foot and some riding the elephant.
Hardly had he mounted his ass, when the
animal turned towards Cabul, instead of
proceeding on the way to Cashmere. In vain
his rider tugged at the bridle, jerked at the
bit, squeezed his ribs with his knees, drove
the spurs into his flanks, gave him his head,[Pg 108]
pulled him up, whipped him right and left.
The obstinate beast still made direct for
Cabul.
Rustem was growing desperate, when he
met a camel-driver, who said to him—
“You have a very stubborn ass there,
master, which insists on carrying you where
you do not want to go. If you will let me
have him, I will give you four of my camels,
which you may choose for yourself.”
Rustem thanked Providence for having
sent so good a bargain in his way. “Topaz
was all wrong,” thought he, “to say that
my journey would be unlucky.” He
mounted the finest of the camels, and the
others followed. He soon rejoined his
little caravan, and went on his way towards
happiness.
He had not marched more than four
miles, when he was stopped by a torrent,
wide, deep, and impetuous, tumbling over
rocks all white with foam. On each shore
rose precipitous cliffs which bewildered the
eye and chilled the heart of man. There
was no way of getting across, of turning to
the right hand or to the left.
“I am beginning to fear,” said Rustem,
“that Topaz may have been right to reprehend
me for this journey, and I very
wrong to undertake it. If he were but here
he might give me some good advice, and if
I had Ebony, he at any rate would comfort
me, and suggest some expedient. As it is
I have no one left to help me.”
His dismay was increased by that of his
followers. The night was very dark, and
they spent it in lamentations. At last
fatigue and dejection brought sleep to the
love-sick traveller. He awoke, however, at
daybreak, and saw a fine marble bridge
built across the torrent from shore to shore.
Then what exclamations, what cries of
astonishment and delight. “Is it possible?
Is it a dream? What a marvel! It is
magic! Dare we cross it?” All the Mirza’s
train fell on their knees, got up again, went
to the bridge, kissed the ground, looked up
to heaven, lifted their hands; then tremulously
set foot on it, went over, and came
back in perfect ecstasy. And Rustem said,
“Heaven is on my side this time. Topaz
did not know what he was saying. The
oracles were in my favour. Ebony was
right; but why is he not here?”
Hardly had the caravan crossed in safety,
when the bridge fell into the torrent with
an appalling crash.
“So much the better!” cried Rustem.
“God be praised! He does not intend
me to return to my own country, where
I should be only a private gentleman.
He means me to marry the Princess. I
shall be Prince of Cashmere. In that
way, when I possess my Princess, I shall
not possess my humble rank in Candahar;
I shall be Rustem, and I shall not,
since I shall be a great prince. There
is a great deal of the oracle interpreted in
my favour. The rest will be explained in
the same way. I am too happy! But
why is not Ebony at my side? I regret
him a thousand times more than Topaz.”
He rode a few miles further in great glee;
but as evening fell, a chain of mountains,
steeper than a rampart, and higher than the
Tower of Babel would have been when
finished, entirely closed the road against the
travellers, who were filled with fears.
Everyone exclaimed: “It is the will of
God that we should perish here! He has
broken down the bridge that we may have
no hope of returning; He has raised up
this mountain to hinder our going forward.
Oh, Rustem! Oh, hapless Mirza! We
shall never see Cashmere, we shall never
return to the land of Candahar!”
In Rustem’s soul the keenest anguish
and most complete dejection succeeded the
immoderate joy and hopes which had intoxicated
him. He was now very far from
interpreting the oracles to his advantage:
“Oh merciful Heaven!” he cried. “Have
I really lost my friend Topaz?”
As he spoke the words, heaving deep
sighs and shedding bitter tears in the
sight of his despairing followers, behold,
the base of the mountain opened, and a long
vaulted gallery lighted by a hundred thousand
torches was revealed to his dazzled
eyes!
Rustem broke into exclamations of joy;
his people fell on their knees or dropped
down with amazement, crying out that it was
a miracle, and that Rustem was destined to
govern the world. Rustem himself believed
it, and was uplifted beyond measure. “Ah!
Ebony, my dear Ebony, where are you?”
he cried. “Why are you not here to see
all these wonders? How did I come to
lose you? Fair Princess of Cashmere,
when shall I again behold your charms?”
He marched forward with his servants,
his elephant, and his camels into the tunnel
under the mountain, and at the end of it
came out upon a meadow enamelled with
flowers and watered by brooks. Beyond
this meadow, avenues of trees stretched
into the far distance; at the end of them[Pg 109]
was a river bordered by delightful houses
in the loveliest gardens. On every side he
heard concerts of voices and instruments,
and saw dancing. He hurried across one of
the bridges over the river, and asked the
first man he met what was this beautiful
country.
The man to whom he spoke replied:
“You are in the province of Cashmere;
the inhabitants, as you see, are holding
great rejoicings. We are doing honour to
the wedding of our beautiful Princess, who
is about to marry a certain lord named
Barbabou to whom her father has plighted
her. May Heaven
prolong their happiness!”
“THE CLEVEREST PHYSICIANS WERE CALLED IN.”
On hearing these
words Rustem fell
down in a swoon.
The gentleman of
Cashmere, supposing
that he was
liable to fits, had him carried to his own
house, where he lay some time unconscious.
The two cleverest physicians of the district
were called in; they felt their patient’s
pulse; and he having somewhat recovered,
sobbed and sighed, and rolled his eyes,
exclaiming, “Topaz, Topaz, you were right
after all!”
One of the physicians said to the gentleman
of Cashmere, “I perceive by his accent
that this young man comes from Candahar;
the air of this country does not agree with
him, and he must be sent home again. I
can see by his eyes that he is mad; leave
him in my hands; I will take him back to
his own country and cure him.” The other
physician declared that his only complaint
was melancholy, and that he ought to be
taken to the Princess’s wedding and compelled
to dance.
While they were discussing his case the
sick man recovered his powers; the two
physicians were sent away, and Rustem
remained alone with his host.
“Sir,” said he, “I ask your pardon for
fainting in your presence; I know that it
is not good manners, and I entreat you to
accept my elephant in acknowledgment
of all the kindness with which you have
received me.”
He then related his adventures, taking
good care not to
mention the object
of his journey.
“But, in the name
of Brahma,” said
he, “tell me who
is this happy Barbabou
who is to
be married to the
Princess of Cashmere,
and why her
father has chosen
him for his son-in-law,
and why the
Princess has accepted
him for her
husband.”
“My lord,” replied
the gentleman
of Cashmere,
“the Princess is far
from having accepted
him. On
the contrary, she is
drowned in tears,
while the province
rejoices over her
marriage. She is
shut up in the Palace Tower, and refuses
to see any of the festivities prepared in her
honour.”
Rustem, on hearing this, felt new life in
his soul, and the colour which sorrow had
faded came again into his cheeks.
“Then pray tell me,” he continued,
“why the Prince of Cashmere persists in
marrying her to Barbabou against her will.”
“The facts are these,” replied his friend.
“Do you know that our august Prince lost
some time ago a diamond and a javelin, on
which his heart was greatly set?”
“I know it well,” said Rustem.
“Then, I must tell you,” said his host,
“that the Prince, in despair at hearing
nothing of his two treasures, after searching
for them all the world over, promised his
daughter in marriage to anyone who would
bring him either of them. Then Barbabou
arrived and brought the diamond with him;
and he is to marry the Princess to-morrow.”
Rustem turned pale. He muttered his
thanks, took leave of his host, and went off
on his dromedary to the capital where the
ceremony was to take place. He reached
the palace of the sovereign, announced that
he had matters of importance to communicate
to him, and craved an audience.
He was told that the Prince was engaged
in preparing for the wedding. “That is
the very reason,” said he,
“why I wish to speak to
him.” In short, he was so
urgent that he was admitted.
“My lord,” said he, “may
Heaven crown your days
with glory and magnificence!
Your son-in-law is a rascal.”
“A rascal! How dare you
say so? Is that the way to
speak to a Prince of Cashmere
of the son-in-law
he has chosen?”
“Yes, a rascal,”
said Rustem. “And
to prove it to your
Highness, here is
your diamond, which I have brought back
to you.”
The Prince, in much amazement, compared
the two diamonds, and, as he knew
nothing about gems, he could not tell which
was the true one.
“Here are two diamonds,” said he, “but
I have only one daughter. I am in a strange
dilemma!”
Then he sent for Barbabou, and asked
him whether he had not deceived him.
Barbabou swore that he had bought the
diamond of an Armenian. Rustem did not
say from whom he had got his, but he
proposed, as a solution, that his Highness
should allow him and his rival to fight in
single combat on the spot.
“It is not enough that your son-in-law
should possess a diamond,” said he, “he
ought also to show proof of valour. Do you
not think it fair that the one who kills the
other should marry
the Princess?”
“THE COMBAT BEGAN.”
“Very good,” said
the Prince; “it will
be a fine show for
all the Court. You
two shall fight it out
at once. The conqueror
shall have
the armour of the
conquered man, after
the custom of Cashmere; and he shall marry
the Princess.”
The rivals immediately descended to the[Pg 111]
palace court. On the stairs they saw a magpie
and a raven. The raven cried, “Fight
it out, fight it out!” the magpie, “Do not
fight!” This made the Prince laugh. The
rivals scarcely noticed the two birds.
The combat began. All the courtiers
stood round them in a circle. The Princess
still shut herself up in her tower and would
see nothing of it. She had no suspicion
that her lover could be in Cashmere, and
she had such a horror of Barbabou that she
would not look on. The fight went off as
well as possible. Barbabou was left stone
dead, and the populace were delighted, for
he was ugly and Rustem very handsome—a
fact which almost always turns the scale
of public favour.
The conqueror put on the dead man’s
coat of mail, his scarf and his helmet, and
approached the window of his mistress to
the sound of trumpets, followed by all the
Court. Everyone was shouting: “Fair
Princess, come and see your handsome
bridegroom who has killed his hideous
rival!” and the ladies repeated the words.
The Princess unfortunately looked out of
window, and seeing the armour of the man
she abhorred she flew in despair to the
Chinese trunk, and took out the fatal javelin,
which darted, at her wish, to pierce her dear
Rustem through a joint in his cuirass. He
gave a bitter cry, and in that cry the
Princess thought that she recognised the
voice of her hapless lover.
She flew into the courtyard, her hair all
dishevelled, death in her eyes and in her
heart. Rustem was lying in her father’s
arms. She saw him! What a moment,
what a sight! Who can express the
anguish, the tenderness, the horror of that
meeting? She threw herself upon him and
embraced him.
“These,” she cried, “are the first and
last kisses of your lover and destroyer.”
Then snatching the dart from his wound,
she plunged it into her own heart, and died
on the breast of the lover she adored.
Her father, horror-stricken and heart-broken,
strove in vain to bring her back
to life; she was no more. He broke the
fatal weapon into fragments, and flung away
the ill-starred diamonds; and while preparations
were proceeding for his daughter’s
funeral instead of her wedding, he had the
bleeding but still living Rustem carried into
his palace.
Rustem was laid upon a couch. The first
thing he saw, one on each side of his death-bed,
were Topaz and Ebony. Surprise gave
him strength. “Cruel that you were,”
said he; “why did you desert me? The
Princess might still perhaps be living if
you had been at hand!”
“I have never left you for a moment,”
said Topaz.
“I have been always at your side,” said
Ebony.
“What do you mean? Why do you
insult me in my last moments?” replied
Rustem, in a weak voice.
“Believe me, it is true,” said Topaz.
“You know I never approved of this ill-advised
journey, for I foresaw its disastrous
end. I was the eagle which struggled with
the vulture, and which the vulture plucked;
I was the elephant which made off with
your baggage to compel you to return
home; I was the striped ass which would
fain have carried you back to your father;
it was I who led your horses astray, who
produced the torrent which you could not
cross, who raised the mountain which
checked your unlucky advance; I was the
physician who advised your return to your
native air, and the magpie which urged you
not to fight.”
“I,” said Ebony, “was the vulture who
plucked the eagle, the rhinoceros which
thrust its horn into the elephant, the peasant
who beat the ass, the merchant who gave
you the camels to hasten you to your ruin;
I raised the bridge you crossed; I bored the
mountains for you to pass; I was the physician
who advised you to proceed, and the
raven which encouraged you to fight.”
“Alas! And remember the oracles,”
added Topaz; “‘If you turn to the east
you will turn to the west.'”
“Yes, here they bury the dead with their
faces turned westward,” said Ebony. “The
oracle was plain; why did not you understand
it? You possessed and you possessed
not; for you had the diamond, but it was
a false one, and you did not know it; you
got the best of it in battle, but you also got
the worst, for you must die; you are Rustem,
but you will soon cease to be so. The
oracle is fulfilled.”
Even as he spoke two white wings appeared
on the shoulders of Topaz, and two
black wings on those of Ebony.
“What is this that I see?” cried Rustem.
And Topaz and Ebony replied: “We are
your two genies.” “I,” added Topaz, “am
your good genie.”
“And you, Ebony, with your black wings,
are apparently my evil genie.”
“As you say,” replied Ebony.
Then suddenly everything vanished.
Rustem found himself in his father’s house
which he had not quitted, and in his bed
where he had been sleeping just an hour.
He awoke with a start, bathed in sweat
and greatly scared. He shouted, he called,
he rang. His servant Topaz hurried up in
his night-cap, yawning.
THE TWO GENIES.
“Am I dead or alive?” cried Rustem.
“Will the beautiful Princess of Cashmere
recover?”
“Is your Highness dreaming?” said
Topaz, calmly.
“And what,” cried Rustem, “has become
of that cruel Ebony, with his two black
wings? Is it his fault that I am dying so
dreadful a death?”
“Sir, I left him upstairs snoring. Shall
I call him down?”
“The villain! He has been tormenting
me these six months. It was he who took
me to that fatal fair at Cabul;
it was he who stole the diamond
the Princess gave me;
he is the sole cause of my
journey, of the death of my
Princess and of the javelin-wound
of which I am dying
in the prime of youth.”
“Make yourself easy,” said
Topaz. “You have never
been to Cabul. There is no
Princess of Cashmere; the
Prince has but two sons, and
they are now at school. You
never had any diamond. The
Princess cannot be dead since
she never was born; and you
are perfectly sound and well.”
“What! Is it not true
that you became in turn an
eagle, an elephant, an ass, a
doctor, and a magpie, to protect
me from ill?”
“It is all a dream, sir. Our
ideas are no more under our
control when sleeping than
when awake. The Almighty
sent that string of ideas
through your head, as it
would seem, to give you
some lesson which you may
lay to heart.”
“You are making game of
me,” said Rustem. “How
long have I been sleeping?”
“Sir, you have only slept
one hour.”
“Well, I cannot understand it,” said
Rustem.
But perhaps he took the lesson to heart,
and learnt to doubt whether all he wished
for was right and good for him.
Transcriber’s Notes:
Images can be clicked to access higher-resolution versions.
The original text contains some inconsistencies of hyphenation (e.g. “tea urn” vs. “tea-urn”); these have been retained.
Page 14, added missing close quote to “NETTA AND UGHTRED HAD STROLLED OUT TOGETHER.”
Page 26, changed typo “or” to “of” in “victim of the fire.”
Page 28, added missing period to “The wonderful rapidity, order,
discipline, and exactness of the parts secure
a most effective tableau.”
Page 29, added missing “s” to “buildings” in “public and private buildings and houses.”
Pages 41-48, rejoined broken image captions for readability (e.g. changed “From a] AGE 5. [Painting.” to
“From a Painting. AGE 5.”)
Page 47, added missing period to image caption: “AGE 19.”
Page 80, added missing open quote to image caption: “HEARD VOICES.”
Page 81, removed a stray quote after “What could a Venetian mirror have done
more?”
Page 83, added missing period after “in order
to console me for my blindness” and removed duplicate “in” from “so foolish in the presence
of a stranger.”
Page 91, corrected typo “Lisbeta” to “Lisabeta” in “Lisabeta Ivanovna was, in fact, a most unhappy
creature.”
Page 99, corrected single quote to double quote after “Is not that his
name?”
Page 108, added missing close quote after “I will give you four of my camels,
which you may choose for yourself.”