Short-Stories
by
Various
Part 4 out of 5
"It is grateful," said she, with a placid smile. "Methinks it is like
water from a heavenly fountain; for it contains I know not what of
unobtrusive fragrance and deliciousness. It allays a feverish thirst
that had parched me for many days. Now, dearest, let me sleep. My
earthly senses are closing over my spirit like the leaves around the
heart of a rose at sunset."
She spoke the last words with a gentle reluctance, as if it required
almost more energy than she could command to pronounce the faint and
lingering syllables. Scarcely had they loitered through her lips ere
she was lost in slumber. Aylmer sat by her side, watching her aspect
with the emotions proper to a man, the whole value of whose existence
was involved in the process now to be tested. Mingled with this mood,
however, was the philosophic investigation characteristic of the man
of science. Not the minutest symptom escaped him. A heightened flush
of the cheek, a slight irregularity of breath, a quiver of the eyelid,
a hardly perceptible tremor through the frame,--such were the details
which, as the moments passed, he wrote down, in his folio volume.
Intense thought had set its stamp upon every previous page of that
volume; but the thoughts of years were all concentrated upon the last.
While thus employed, he failed not to gaze often at the fatal hand,
and not without a shudder. Yet once, by a strange and unaccountable
impulse, he pressed it with his lips. His spirit recoiled, however, in
the very act; and Georgiana, out of the midst of her deep sleep, moved
uneasily, and murmured, as if in remonstrance. Again Aylmer resumed,
his watch. Nor was it without avail. The crimson hand, which at first
had been strongly visible upon the marble paleness of Georgiana's
cheek, now grew more faintly outlined. She remained not less pale than
ever; but the birthmark, with every breath that came and went, lost
somewhat of its former distinctness. Its presence had been awful; its
departure was more awful still. Watch the stain of the rainbow fading
out of the sky, and you will know how that mysterious symbol passed
away.
"By Heaven! it is well-nigh gone!" said Aylmer to himself, in almost
irrepressible ecstasy. "I can scarcely trace it now. Success! success!
And now it is like the faintest rose color. The lightest flush of
blood across her cheek would overcome it. But she is so pale!"
He drew aside the window-curtain and suffered the light of natural day
to fall into the room and rest upon her cheek. At the same time he
heard a gross, hoarse chuckle, which he had long known as his servant
Aminadab's expression of delight.
"Ah, clod! ah, earthly mass!" cried Aylmer, laughing in a sort of
frenzy, "you have served me well! Matter and spirit--earth and
heaven--have both done their part in this! Laugh, thing of the senses!
You have earned the right to laugh."
These exclamations broke Georgiana's sleep. She slowly unclosed her
eyes and gazed into the mirror which her husband had arranged for that
purpose. A faint smile flitted over her lips when she recognized how
barely perceptible was now that crimson hand which had once blazed
forth with such disastrous brilliancy as to scare away all their
happiness. But then her eyes sought Aylmer's face with a trouble and
anxiety that he could by no means account for.
"My poor Aylmer!" murmured she.
"Poor? Nay, richest, happiest, most favored!" exclaimed he. "My
peerless bride, it is successful! You are perfect!"
"My poor Aylmer," she repeated, with a more than human tenderness,
"you have aimed loftily; you have done nobly. Do not repent that, with
so high and pure a feeling, you have rejected the best the earth could
offer. Aylmer, dearest Aylmer, I am dying!"
Alas! it was too true! The fatal hand had grappled with the mystery of
life, and was the bond by which an angelic spirit kept itself in union
with a mortal frame. As the last crimson tint of the birthmark--that
sole token of human imperfection--faded from her cheek, the parting
breath of the now perfect woman passed into the atmosphere, and her
soul, lingering a moment, near her husband, took its heavenward
flight. Then a hoarse, chuckling laugh was heard again! Thus ever does
the gross fatality of earth exult in its invariable triumph over the
immortal essence which, in this dim sphere of half-development,
demands the completeness of a higher state. Yet, had Aylmer reached a
profounder wisdom, he need not thus have flung away the happiness
which would have woven his mortal life of the selfsame texture with
the celestial. The momentary circumstance was too strong for him; he
failed to look beyond the shadowy scope of time, and, living once for
all in eternity, to find the perfect future in the present.
NOTES
[1] Published in the March, 1843, number of _The Pioneer_, edited by
J. R. Lowell. Republished in _Mosses from an Old Manse_ in 1846.
[2] 154:29 "Eve," of Powers. A noted American sculptor (1805-1873).
"Eve," "The Fisher Boy," and "America" are some of his chief works.
[3] 168:28 Pygmalion. A sculptor and king of Cyprus.
[4] 181:16 recondite. Abstruse or secret.
[5] 168:27 corrosive. Destructive of tissue.
[6] 184:12 vitae. Of life.
[7] 166:3 infusion. The act of pouring in.
[8] 167:1 Albertus Magnus. A famous scholastic philosopher and member
of the Dominican order (1193-1280).
[9] 167:1 Cornelius Agrippa. A German philosopher and student of
alchemy and magic (1486-1535).
[10] 167:1 Paracelsus. A German-Swiss physician, and alchemist
(1492-1541).
[11] 167:10 Royal Society. An association for the advancement of
science, founded in London a little before 1660.
BIOGRAPHY
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts, July 4, 1804.
His ancestors were prominent in the affairs of the colony: John
Hawthorne was one of the judges who tried the witches in 1620; and
another John Hawthorne was a member of the dignified school committee
of Salem in 1796. Hawthorne's father, a ship captain, died in a
foreign land when his son was only four years old; his mother lived
for forty years after the death of her husband the life of a recluse
in her own house. The family's star was in the decline and the people
of Salem looked on Nathaniel as a lazy and very queer boy. He grew up
in a unique solitude. During these years of seclusion Hawthorne
acquired the habit of keeping silent on all occasions, and reading a
few books frequently and thoroughly. The _Newgate Calendar_ must have
supplied him with many subtle suggestions for his later writings on
sin and crime, for in almost all of his productions his imagination is
tinged with, this old Puritanic philosophy and theology.
He entered Bowdoin College in 1821 and graduated from this institution
in 1825. He had as classmates Longfellow, and Franklin Pierce, who
afterward became president of the United States. After his graduation
Hawthorne returned to Salem, where he lived with his mother and
sisters in almost absolute seclusion for fourteen years. During this
period he wrote daily, and spent his nights in burning what he had
written in the daytime.
He was clerk of the Boston Custom House from 1839 to 1841, when the
Whig party removed him for being ultra-partisan in behalf of the
Democrats. At this time Hawthorne wrote: "As to the Salem people, I
really thought I had been exceedingly good-natured in my treatment of
them. They certainly do not deserve good usage at my hands, after
permitting me to be deliberately lied down, not merely once, but at
two separate attacks, and on two false indictments, without hardly a
voice being raised in my behalf." He married Sophia Peabody, July 9,
1842. From 1842 until 1846 they lived in Concord in the house formerly
occupied by Emerson. These were the happiest years of his life. In
1846 he returned to Salem as surveyor in the Salem Custom House. He
retired from this office in 1850 and lived in Lenox, Massachusetts,
for two years. In 1852 he settled in Concord. President Pierce
appointed him consul at Liverpool in 1853, and he served in this
position until 1857.
After leaving Liverpool he travelled three years in England and on the
continent. He returned to Concord in 1860. He died in the White
Mountains, May 18, 1864. Although a silent man and a seeker of
solitude during his life, few writers have ever experienced such wide
publicity of their inmost lives as has Hawthorne since his death. The
publication of his _Notes_ has opened his desk and work-shop to every
one, and has revealed to us a magnanimous, sympathetic, and pure man,
who realized his responsibilities as a writer and improved all his
literary opportunities.
BIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
_History of American Literature_, Moses Coit Tyler.
_Introduction to American Literature_, Henry S. Pancoast.
_Studies in American Literature_, Charles Noble.
_Introduction to American Literature_, Brander Matthews.
"Gloom and Cheer in Hawthorne," _Critic_, 45: 28-36.
"Hawthorne and his Circle," _Nation_, 77: 410-411.
"Hawthorne as seen by his Publisher," _Critic_, 45: 51-55.
"Hawthorne from an English Point of View." _Critic_, 45: 60-66.
"Hawthorne's Last Years," _Critic_, 45: 67-71.
"Life of Hawthorne," _Atlantic Monthly_, 90: 563-567,
CRITICISMS
Many influences in Hawthorne's environment served to condition and
mold him as a writer. Salem had reached its highest prosperity in all
lines and was just beginning its retrogression in Hawthorne's time;
the primeval forests of Maine produced a subtle and lasting influence
on him during his sojourn in Maine for his health; transcendentalism
was the ruling thought at the time when Hawthorne was in his most
plastic and solitary age; his interest in _Brook Farm_ brought him in
contact with all the good and bad points of that social movement; his
life in the _Old Manse_ in Concord and in the Berkshire Hills
contributed largely to the deepening of his convictions and
sympathies; and over all, like a sombre cloud, hung his ancestral
Puritanic training which penetrated and suffused all his writings. He
is the most native and the least imitative of all our fiction writers.
Hawthorne did not write on the common subjects and facts of his day,
but chose to have his readers go with him, away from prosaic life, out
into a world of mysteries where we may revel in all kinds of imaginary
sports. By this process he succeeded in producing poetic effects from
the most unpromising materials. His writings are fanciful. He enjoyed
subjects that deal with the occult, such as mesmerism, hypnotism, and
subtle suggestions. He harked back to the rigid beliefs and laws of
the Puritans, but he and his subjects are spiritually advanced far
above the crude, ponderous, and highly theological tenets of his
forefathers.
Hawthorne is very provincial. He travelled little until he was fifty
years old. He naturally loved the antique and poetic countries, but he
always qualified his admiration of these foreign lands by praising
something in his own New England. He conceded that there was little or
nothing in this prosperous and crude country to inspire a writer to
produce poetry, but his patriotism was so strong that he could never
free himself wholly from its provincial effects. All his works were
produced in the stress created by this pull of opposing forces--his
high poetic ideals and his love of country.
In form he tends toward the polish of a classicist; in quality and
freedom of thought he is very responsive to the mysteries of
romanticism. He is introspective in his thinking and symbolical in his
writing. Naturally he thinks abstractly, but is compelled to construct
concrete methods of presenting his ideas. He never describes a strong
emotion in detail, but delights in using suggestions and sidelights.
His pure and refined manhood, his delicate fancy and deep interest in
moral and religious questions, his conscience in its most artistic
form, all are presented to the reader in the choicest garb of well
chosen words and attuned to a subtle rhythm that adds beauty and
attractiveness to his style.
GENERAL REFERENCES
_Hours in a Library_, Leslie Stephen.
_A Literary History of America_, Barrett Wendell.
_American Literature_, William P. Trent.
_Makers of English Fiction_, W.J. Dawson.
_Leading American Novelists_, J. Erskine.
_Studies and Appreciations_, L.E. Gates.
"An Estimate," _Scribner's Magazine_, 43: 69-84.
"Unknown Quantity in Hawthorne's Personality," _Current Literature_,
42: 517-518.
COLLATERAL READINGS
_Biographical Stories for Children_, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
_Mosses from an Old Manse_, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
_The Wonder Boot_, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
_The Blithedale Romance_, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
_Tanglewood Tales_, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
_Lady Eleanore's Mantle_, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
_The Great Stone Face_, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
_The Prophetic Pictures_, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
_The Necklace_, Guy de Maupassant.
_A Solitary_, Mary Wilkins Freeman.
_The Lady or the Tiger_, Frank R. Stockton.
_The Strange Ride_, Rudyard Kipling.
_Rikki-Tikki-Tavi_, Rudyard Kipling.
_They_, Rudyard Kipling.
_The Twelfth Guest_, Mary Wilkins Freeman.
_The Shadows on the Wall_, Mary Wilkins Freeman.
ETHAN BRAND[1]
A Chapter From An Abortive Romance
_By Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)_
Bartram the lime-burner, a rough, heavy-looking man, begrimed with
charcoal, sat watching his kiln, at nightfall, while his little son
played at building houses with the scattered fragments of marble,
when, on the hillside below them, they heard a roar of laughter, not
mirthful, but slow, and even solemn, like a wind shaking the boughs of
the forest.
"Father, what is that?" asked the little boy, leaving his play, and
pressing betwixt his father's knees.
"O, some drunken man, I suppose," answered the lime-burner; "some
merry fellow from the bar-room in the village, who dared not laugh
loud enough within doors lest he should blow the roof of the house
off. So here he is, shaking his jolly sides at the foot of Graylock."
"But, father," said the child, more sensitive than the obtuse,
middle-aged clown, "he does not laugh like a man that is glad. So the
noise frightens me!"
"Don't be a fool, child!" cried his father, gruffly. "You will never
make a man, I do believe; there is too much of your mother in you. I
have known the rustling of a leaf startle you. Hark! Here comes the
merry fellow now. You shall see that there is no harm in him."
Bartram and his little son, while they were talking thus, sat watching
the same lime-kiln that had been the scene of Ethan Brand's solitary
and meditative life, before he began his search for the Unpardonable
Sin. Many years, as we have seen, had now elapsed, since that
portentous night when the IDEA was first developed. The kiln, however,
on the mountain-side stood unimpaired, and was in nothing changed
since he had thrown his dark thoughts into the intense glow of its
furnace, and melted them, as it were, into the one thought that took
possession of his life. It was a rude, round, towerlike structure,
about twenty feet high, heavily built of rough stones, and with a
hillock of earth heaped about the larger part of its circumference; so
that the blocks and fragments of marble might be drawn by cart-loads,
and thrown in at the top. There was an opening at the bottom of the
tower, like an oven-mouth, but large enough to admit a man in a
stooping posture, and provided with a massive iron door. With the
smoke and jets of flame issuing from the chinks and crevices of this
door, which seemed to give admittance into the hillside, it resembled
nothing so much as the private entrance to the infernal regions, which
the shepherds of the Delectable Mountains[2] were accustomed to show
to pilgrims.
There are many such lime-kilns in that tract of country, for the
purpose of burning the white marble which composes a large part of the
substance of the hills. Some of them, built years ago, and long
deserted, with weeds growing in the vacant round of the interior,
which is open to the sky, and grass and wild flowers rooting
themselves into the chinks of the stones, look already like relics of
antiquity, and may yet be overspread with the lichens of centuries to
come. Others, where the lime-burner still feeds his daily and
night-long fire, afford points of interest to the wanderer among the
hills, who seats himself on a log of wood or a fragment of marble, to
hold a chat with the solitary man. It is a lonesome, and, when the
character is inclined to thought, may be an intensely thoughtful,
occupation; as it proved in the case of Ethan Brand, who had mused to
such strange purpose, in days gone by, while the fire in this very
kiln was burning.
The man who now watched the fire was of a different order, and
troubled himself with no thoughts save the very few that were
requisite to his business. At frequent intervals he flung back the
clashing weight of the iron door, and, turning his face from the
insufferable glare, thrust in huge logs of oak, or stirred the immense
brands with a long pole. Within the furnace were seen the curling and
riotous flames, and the burning marble, almost molten with the
intensity of heat; while without, the reflection of the fire quivered
on the dark intricacy of the surrounding forest, and showed in the
foreground a bright and ruddy little picture of the hut, the spring
beside its door, the athletic and coal-begrimed figure of the
lime-burner, and the half-frightened child, shrinking into the
protection of his father's shadow. And when again the iron door was
closed, then reappeared the tender light of the half-full moon, which
vainly strove to trace out the indistinct shapes of the neighboring
mountains; and, in the upper sky, there was a flitting congregation of
clouds, still faintly tinged with the rosy sunset, though thus far
down into the valley the sunshine had vanished long and long ago.
The little boy now crept still closer to his father, as footsteps were
heard ascending the hillside, and a human form thrust aside the bushes
that clustered beneath the trees.
"Halloo! who is it?" cried the lime-burner, vexed at his son's
timidity, yet half infected by it, "Come forward, and show yourself,
like a man, or I'll fling this chunk of marble at your head !"
"You offer me a rough welcome," said a gloomy voice, as the unknown
man drew nigh. "Yet I neither claim nor desire a kinder one, even at
my own fireside."
To obtain a distincter view, Bartram threw open the iron door of the
kiln, whence immediately issued a gush of fierce light, that smote
full upon the stranger's face and figure. To a careless eye there
appeared nothing very remarkable in his aspect, which was that of a
man in a coarse, brown, country-made suit of clothes, tall and thin,
with the staff and heavy shoes of a wayfarer. As he advanced, he fixed
his eyes--which were very bright--intently upon the brightness of the
furnace, as if he beheld, or expected to behold, some object worthy of
note within it.
"Good evening, stranger," said the lime-burner; "whence come you, so
late in the day?"
"I come from my search," answered the wayfarer; "for, at last, it is
finished."
"Drunk!--or crazy!" muttered Bartram to himself. "I shall have trouble
with the fellow. The sooner I drive him away, the better."
The little boy, all in a tremble, whispered to his father, and begged
him to shut the door of the kiln, so that there might not be so much
light; for that there was something in the man's face which he was
afraid to look at, yet could not look away from. And, indeed, even the
lime-burner's dull and torpid sense began to be impressed by an
indescribable something in that thin, rugged, thoughtful visage, with
the grizzled hair hanging wildly about it, and those deeply sunken
eyes, which gleamed like fires within the entrance of a mysterious
cavern. But, as he closed the door, the stranger turned towards him,
and spoke in a quiet, familiar way, that made Bartram feel as if he
were a sane and sensible man, after all.
"Your task draws to an end, I see," said he. "This marble has already
been burning three days. A few hours more will convert the stone to
lime."
"Why, who are you?" exclaimed the lime-burner. "You seem as well
acquainted with my business as I am myself."
"And well I may be," said the stranger; "for I followed the same craft
many a long year, and here, too, on this very spot. But you are a
newcomer in these parts. Did you never hear of Ethan Brand?"
"The man that went in search of the Unpardonable Sin?" asked Bartram,
with a laugh.
"The same," answered the stranger. "He has found what he sought, and
therefore he comes back again,"
"What! then you are Ethan Brand himself?" cried the lime-burner, in
amazement. "I am a newcomer here, as you say, and they call it
eighteen years since you left the foot of Graylock, But, I can tell
you, the good folks still talk about Ethan Brand, in the village
yonder, and what a strange errand took him away from his lime-kiln.
Well and so you have found the Unpardonable Sin?"
"Even so!" said the stranger, calmly.
"If the 'question is a fair one." proceeded Bartrarn, "where might it
be?"
Ethan Brand laid his finger on his own heart.'
"Here!" replied he.
And then, without mirth in his countenance, but as if moved by an
involuntary recognition of the infinite absurdity of seeking
throughout the world for what was the closest of all things to
himself, and looking into every heart, save his own, for what was
hidden in no other breast, he broke into a laugh of scorn. It was the
same slow, heavy laugh that had almost appalled the lime-burner when
it heralded the wayfarer's approach.
The solitary mountain side was made dismal by it. Laughter, when out
of place, mistimed, or bursting forth from a disordered state of
feeling, may be the most terrible modulation of the human voice. The
laughter of one asleep, even if it be a little child,--the madman's
laugh,--the wild, screaming laugh of a born idiot,--are sounds that we
sometimes tremble to hear, and would always willingly forget. Poets
have imagined no utterance of fiends Or hobgoblins so fearfully
appropriate as a laugh. And even the obtuse lime-burner felt his
nerves shaken, as this strange man looked inward at his own heart, and
burst into laughter that rolled away into the night, and was
indistinctly reverberated among the hills.
"Joe," said he to his little son, "scamper down to the tavern in the
village, and tell the jolly fellows there that Ethan Brand has come
back, and that he has found the Unpardonable Sin!"
The boy darted away on his errand, to which Ethan Brand made no
objection, nor seemed hardly to notice it. He sat on a log of wood,
looking steadfastly at the iron door of the kiln. When the child was
out of sight, and his swift and light footsteps ceased to be heard
treading first on the fallen leaves and then on the rocky mountain
path, the lime-burner began to regret his departure. He felt that the
little fellow's presence had been a barrier between his guest and
himself, and that he must now deal, heart to heart, with a man who, on
his own confession, had committed the one only crime for which Heaven
could afford no mercy. That crime, in its indistinct blackness, seemed
to overshadow him. The lime-burner's own sins rose up within him, and
made his memory riotous with a throng of evil shapes that asserted
their kindred with the Master Sin, whatever it might be, which it was
within the scope of man's corrupted nature to conceive and cherish.
They were all of one family; they went to and fro between his breast
and Ethan Brand's, and carried dark greetings from one to the other.
Then Bartram remembered the stories which had grown traditionary in
reference to this strange man, who had come upon him like a shadow of
the night, and was making himself at home in his old place, after so
long absence that the dead people, dead and buried for years, would
have had more right to be at home, in any familiar spot, than he.
Ethan Brand, it was said, had conversed with Satan himself in the
lurid blaze of this very kiln. The legend had been matter of mirth
heretofore, but looked grisly now. According to this tale, before
Ethan Brand departed on his search, he had been accustomed to evoke a
fiend from the hot furnace of the lime-kiln, night after night, in
order to confer with him about the Unpardonable Sin; the man and the
fiend each laboring to frame the image of some mode of guilt which
could neither be atoned for nor forgiven. And, with the first gleam of
light upon the mountain-top, the fiend crept in at the iron door,
there to abide the intensest element of fire, until again summoned
forth to share in the dreadful task of extending man's possible guilt
beyond the scope of Heaven's else infinite mercy.
While the lime-burner was struggling with the horror of these
thoughts, Ethan Brand rose from the log, and flung open the door of
the kiln. The action was in such accordance with the idea in Bartram's
mind, that he almost expected to see the Evil One issue forth, red-hot
from the raging furnace.
"Hold! hold!" cried he, with a tremulous attempt to laugh; for he was
ashamed of his fears, although they overmastered him. "Don't, for
mercy's sake, bring out your Devil now!"
"Man!" sternly replied Ethan Brand, "what need have I of the Devil? I
have left him behind me, on my track. It is with such halfway sinners
as you that he busies himself. Fear not, because I open the door. I do
but act by old custom, and am going to trim your fire, like a
lime-burner, as I was once."
He stirred the vast coals, thrust in more wood, and bent forward to
gaze into the hollow prison-house of the fire, regardless of the
fierce glow that reddened upon his face. The lime-burner sat watching
him, and half suspected his strange guest of a purpose, if not to
evoke a fiend, at least to plunge bodily into the flames, and thus
vanish from the sight of man. Ethan Brand, however, drew quietly back,
and closed the door of the kiln.
"I have looked," said he, "into many a human heart that was seven
times hotter with sinful passions than yonder furnace is with fire.
But I found not there what I sought. No, not the Unpardonable Sin!"
"What is the Unpardonable Sin?" asked the lime-burner; and then he
shrank farther from his companion, trembling lest his question should
be answered.
"It is a sin that grew within my own breast," replied Ethan Brand,
standing erect, with a pride that distinguishes all enthusiasts of his
stamp. "A sin that grew nowhere else! The sin of an intellect that
triumphed over the sense of brotherhood with man and reverence for
God, and sacrificed everything to its own mighty claims! the only sin
that deserves a recompense of immortal agony! Freely, were it to do
again, would I incur the guilt. Unshrinkingly I accept the
retribution!"
"The man's head is turned," muttered the lime-burner to himself. "He
may be a sinner, like the rest of us,--nothing more likely,--but, I'll
be sworn, he is a madman too."
Nevertheless, he felt uncomfortable at his situation, alone with Ethan
Brand on the wild mountain side, and was right glad to hear the rough
murmur of tongues, and the footsteps of what seemed a pretty numerous
party, stumbling over the stones and rustling through the under-brush.
Soon appeared the whole lazy regiment that was wont to infest the
village tavern, comprehending three or four individuals who had drunk
flip beside the bar-room fire through all the winters, and smoked
their pipes beneath the stoop through all the summers, since Ethan
Brand's departure. Laughing boisterously, and mingling all their
voices together in unceremonious talk, they now burst into the
moonshine and narrow streaks of firelight that illuminated the open
space before the lime-kiln. Bartram set the door ajar again, flooding
the spot with light, that the whole company might get a fair view of
Ethan Brand, and he of them.
There, among other old acquaintances, was a once ubiquitous[3] man,
now almost extinct, but whom we were formerly sure to encounter at the
hotel of every thriving village throughout the country. It was the
stage-agent. The present specimen of the genus was a wilted and
smoke-dried man, wrinkled and red-nosed, in a smartly cut, brown,
bob-tailed coat, with brass buttons, who, for a length of time
unknown, had kept his desk and corner in the bar-room, and was still
puffing what seemed to be the same cigar that he had lighted twenty
years before. He had great fame as a dry joker, though, perhaps, less
on account of any intrinsic humor than from a certain flavor of brandy
toddy and tobacco smoke, which impregnated all his ideas and
expressions, as well as his person. Another well-remembered though
strangely altered face was that of Lawyer Giles, as people still
called him in courtesy; an elderly ragamuffin, in his soiled
shirt-sleeves and tow-cloth trousers. This poor fellow had been an
attorney, in what he called his better days, a sharp practitioner, and
in great vogue among the village litigants; but flip, and sling, and
toddy, and cocktails, imbibed at all hours, morning, noon, and night,
had caused him to slide from intellectual to various kinds and degrees
of bodily labor, till, at last, to adopt his own phrase, he slid into
a soap vat. In other words, Giles was now a soap boiler, in a small
way. He had come to be but the fragment of a human being, a part of
one foot having been chopped off by an axe, and an entire hand torn
away by the devilish grip of a steam engine. Yet, though the corporeal
hand was gone, a spiritual member remained; for, stretching forth the
stump, Giles steadfastly averred that he felt an invisible thumb and
fingers with as vivid a sensation as before the real ones were
amputated. A maimed and miserable wretch he was; but one,
nevertheless, whom the world could not trample on, and had no right to
scorn, either in this or any previous stage of his misfortunes, since
he had still kept up the courage and spirit of a man, asked nothing in
charity, and with his one hand--and that the left one--fought a stern
battle against want and hostile circumstances.
Among the throng, too, came another personage, who, with certain
points of similarity to Lawyer Giles, had many more of difference. It
was the village doctor; a man of some fifty years, whom, at an earlier
period of his life, we introduced as paying a professional visit to
Ethan Brand during the latter's supposed insanity. He was now a
purple-visaged, rude, and brutal, yet half-gentlemanly figure, with
something wild, ruined, and desperate in his talk, and in all the
details of his gesture and manners. Brandy possessed this man like an
evil spirit, and made him as surly and savage as a wild beast, and as
miserable as a lost soul; but there was supposed to be in him such
wonderful skill, such native gifts of healing, beyond any which
medical science could impart, that society caught hold of him, and
would not let him sink out of its reach. So, swaying to and fro upon
his horse, and grumbling thick accents at the bedside, he visited all
the sick chambers for miles about among the mountain towns, and
sometimes raised a dying man, as it were, by miracle, or quite as
often, no doubt, sent his patient to a grave that was dug many a year
too soon. The doctor had an everlasting pipe in his mouth, and, as
somebody said, in allusion to his habit of swearing, it was always
alight with hell-fire.
These three worthies pressed forward, and greeted Ethan Brand each
after his own fashion, earnestly inviting him to partake of the
contents of a certain black bottle, in which, as they averred, he
would find something far better worth seeking for than the
Unpardonable Sin. No mind, which has wrought itself by intense and
solitary meditation into a high state of enthusiasm, can endure the
kind of contact with low and vulgar modes of thought and feeling to
which Ethan Brand was now subjected. It made him doubt--and, strange
to say, it was a painful doubt,--whether he had indeed found the
Unpardonable Sin and found it within himself. The whole question on
which he had exhausted life, and more than life, looked like a
delusion.
"Leave me," he said bitterly, "ye brute beasts, that have made
yourselves so, shrivelling up your souls with fiery liquors! I have
done with you. Years and years ago, I groped into your hearts, and
found nothing there for my purpose. Get ye gone!"
"Why, you uncivil scoundrel," cried the fierce doctor, "is that the
way you respond to the kindness of your best friends? Then let me tell
you the truth. You have no more found the Unpardonable Sin than yonder
boy Joe has. You are but a crazy fellow,--I told you so twenty years
ago,--neither better nor worse than a crazy fellow, and a fit
companion of old Humphrey, here!"
He pointed to an old man, shabbily dressed, with long white hair, thin
visage, and unsteady eyes. For some years past this aged person had
been wandering about among the hills, inquiring of all travellers whom
he met for his daughter. The girl, it seemed, had gone off with a
company of circus performers; and occasionally tidings of her came to
the village, and fine stories were told of her glittering appearance
as she rode on horseback in the ring, or performed marvellous feats on
the tight rope.
The white-haired father now approached Ethan Brand, and gazed
unsteadily into his face.
"They tell me you have been all over the earth," said he, wringing his
hands with earnestness. "You must have seen my daughter, for she makes
a grand figure in the world, and everybody goes to see her. Did she
send any word to her old father, or say when she was coming back?"
Ethan Brand's eye quailed beneath the old man's. That daughter, from
whom he so earnestly desired a word of greeting, was the Esther of our
tale, the very girl whom, with such cold and remorseless purpose,
Ethan Brand had made the subject of a psychological experiment, and
wasted, absorbed, and perhaps annihilated her soul, in the process.
"Yes," murmured he, turning away from the hoary wanderer; "it is no
delusion. There is an Unpardonable Sin!"
While these things were passing, a merry scene was going forward in
the area of cheerful light, beside the spring and before the door of
the hut. A number of the youth of the village, young men and girls,
had hurried up the hillside, impelled by curiosity to see Ethan Brand,
the hero of so many a legend familiar to their childhood. Finding
nothing, however, very remarkable in his aspect,--nothing but a
sunburnt wayfarer, in plain garb and dusty shoes, who sat looking into
the fire, as if he fancied pictures among the coals,--these young
people speedily grew tired of observing him. As it happened, there was
other amusement at hand. An old German Jew, travelling with a
diorama[4] on his back, was passing down, the mountain road towards
the village just as the party turned aside from it, and, in hopes of
eking out the profits of the day, the showman had kept them company to
the lime-kiln.
"Come, old Dutchman," cried one of the young men, "let us see your
pictures, if you can swear they are worth looking at!"
"O yes, Captain," answered the Jew,--whether as a matter of courtesy
or craft, he styled everybody Captain,--"I shall show you, indeed,
some very superb pictures!"
So, placing his box in a proper position, he invited the young men and
girls to look through the glass orifices of the machine, and proceeded
to exhibit a series of the most outrageous scratchings and daubings,
as specimens of the fine arts, that ever an itinerant showman had the
face to impose upon his circle of spectators. The pictures were worn
out, moreover, tattered, full of cracks and wrinkles, dingy with
tobacco smoke, and otherwise in a most pitiable condition. Some
purported to be cities, public edifices, and ruined castles in Europe;
others represented Napoleon's battles and Nelson's sea fights; and in
the midst of these would be seen a gigantic, brown, hairy hand,--which
might have been mistaken for the Hand of Destiny, though, in truth, it
was only the showman's,--pointing its forefinger to various scenes of
the conflict, while its owner gave historical illustrations. When,
with much merriment at its abominable deficiency of merit, the
exhibition was concluded, the German bade little Joe put his head into
the box. Viewed through the magnifying glasses, the boy's round, rosy
visage assumed the strangest imaginable aspect of an immense
Titanic[5] child, the mouth grinning broadly, and the eyes and every
other feature overflowing with fun at the joke. Suddenly, however,
that merry face turned pale, and its expression changed to horror, for
this easily impressed and excitable child had become sensible that the
eye of Ethan Brand was fixed upon him through the glass.
"You make the little man to be afraid. Captain." said the German Jew,
turning up the dark and strong outline of his visage, from his
stooping posture, "But look again, and, by chance, I shall cause you
to see somewhat that is very fine, upon my word!"
Ethan Brand gazed into the box for an instant, and then starting back,
looked fixedly at the German. What had he seen? Nothing, apparently;
for a curious youth, who had peeped in almost at the same moment,
beheld only a vacant space of canvas.
"I remember you now," muttered Ethan Brand to the showman.
"Ah, Captain," whispered the Jew of Nuremburg, with a dark smile, "I
find it to be a heavy matter in my show-box,--this Unpardonable Sin!
By my faith, Captain, it has wearied my shoulders, this long day, to
carry it over the mountain."
"Peace," answered Ethan Brand, sternly, "or get thee into the furnace
yonder!"
The Jew's exhibition had scarcely concluded, when a great, elderly
dog--who seemed to be his own master, as no person in the company laid
claim to him--saw fit to render himself the object of public notice.
Hitherto, he had shown himself a very quiet, well-disposed old dog,
going round from one to another, and, by way of being sociable,
offering his rough head to be patted by any kindly hand that would
take so much trouble. But now, all of a sudden, this grave and
venerable quadruped, of his own mere motion, and without the slightest
suggestion from anybody else, began to run round after his tail,
which, to heighten the absurdity of the proceeding, was a great deal
shorter than it should have been. Never was seen such headlong
eagerness in pursuit of an object that could not possibly be attained;
never was heard such a tremendous outbreak of growling, snarling,
barking, and snapping,--as if one end of the ridiculous brute's body
were at deadly and most unforgivable enmity with the other. Faster and
faster, round about went the cur; and faster and still faster fled the
unapproachable brevity of his tail; and louder and fiercer grew his
yells of rage and animosity; until, utterly exhausted, and as far from
the goal as ever, the foolish old dog ceased his performance as
suddenly as he had begun it. The next moment he was as mild, quiet,
sensible, and respectable in his deportment, as when he first scraped
acquaintance with the company.
As may be supposed, the exhibition was greeted with universal
laughter, clapping of hands, and shouts of encore, to which the canine
performer responded by wagging all that there was to wag of his tail,
but appeared totally unable to repeat his very successful effort to
amuse the spectators.
Meanwhile, Ethan Brand had resumed his seat upon the log, and moved,
it might be, by a perception of some remote analogy between his own
case and that of this self-pursuing cur, he broke into the awful
laugh, which, more than any other token, expressed the condition of
his inward being. From that moment, the merriment of the party was at
an end; they stood aghast, dreading lest the inauspicious sound should
be reverberated around the horizon, and that mountain would thunder it
to mountain, and so the horror be prolonged upon their ears. Then,
whispering one to another that it was late,--that the moon was almost
down,--that the August night was growing chill,--they hurried
homewards, leaving the lime-burner and little Joe to deal as they
might with their unwelcome guest. Save for these three human beings,
the open space on the hillside was a solitude, set in a vast gloom of
forest. Beyond that darksome verge, the firelight glimmered on the
stately trunks and almost black foliage of pines, intermixed with the
lighter verdure of sapling oaks, maples, and poplars, while here and
there lay the gigantic corpses of dead trees, decaying on the
leaf-strewn soil. And it seemed to little Joe--a timorous and
imaginative child--that the silent forest was holding, its breath,
until some fearful thing should happen.
Ethan Brand thrust more wood into the fire, and closed the door of the
kiln; then looking over his shoulder at the lime-burner and his son,
he bade, rather than advised, them to retire to rest.
"For myself, I cannot sleep." said he, "I have matters that it
concerns me to meditate upon. I will watch the fire, as I used to do
in the old time."
"And call the Devil out of the furnace to keep you company, I
suppose," muttered Bartram, who had been making intimate acquaintance
with the black bottle above mentioned. "But watch, if you like, and
call as many devils as you like! For my part, I shall be all the
better for a snooze. Come, Joe!"
As the boy followed his father into the hut, he looked back at the
wayfarer, and the tears came into his eyes, for his tender spirit had
an intuition of the bleak and terrible loneliness in which this man
had enveloped himself.
When they had gone, Ethan Brand sat listening to the crackling of the
kindled wood, and looking at the little spirits of fire that issued
through the chinks of the door. These trifles, however, once so
familiar, had but the slightest hold of his attention, while deep
within his mind he was reviewing the gradual but marvellous change
that had been wrought upon him by the search to which he had devoted
himself. He remembered how the night dew had fallen upon him,--how the
dark forest had whispered to him,--how the stars had gleamed upon
him,--a simple and loving man, watching his fire in the years gone by,
and ever musing as it burned. He remembered with what tenderness, with
what love and sympathy for mankind, and what pity for human guilt and
woe, he had first begun to contemplate those ideas which afterwards
became the inspiration of his life; with what reverence he had then
looked into the heart of man, viewing it as a temple originally
divine, and, however desecrated, still to be held sacred by a brother;
with what awful fear he had deprecated the success of his pursuit, and
prayed that the Unpardonable Sin might never be revealed to him. Then
ensued that vast intellectual development, which, in its progress,
disturbed the counterpoise between his mind and heart. The Idea that
possessed his life had operated as a means of education; it had gone
on cultivating his powers to the highest point of which they were
susceptible; it had raised him from the level of an unlettered laborer
to stand on a starlit eminence, whither the philosophers of the earth,
laden with the lore of universities, might vainly strive to clamber
after him. So much for the intellect! But where was the heart? That,
indeed, had withered,--had contracted.--had hardened,--had perished!
It had ceased to partake of the universal throb, He had lost his hold
of the magnetic chain of humanity. He was no longer a brother-man,
opening the chambers of the dungeons of our common nature by the key
of holy sympathy, which gave him a right to share in all its secrets;
he was now a cold observer, looking on mankind as the subject of his
experiment, and, at length, converting man and woman to be his
puppets, and pulling the wires that moved them to such degrees of
crime as were demanded for his study.
Thus Ethan Brand became a fiend. He began to be so from the moment
that his moral nature had ceased to keep the pace of improvement with
his intellect. And now, as his highest effort and inevitable
development,--as the bright and gorgeous flower, and rich, delicious
fruit of his life's labor,--he had produced the Unpardonable Sin!
"What more have I to seek? what more to achieve?" said Ethan Brand to
himself, "My task Is done, and well done!"
Starting from the log with a certain alacrity in his gait and
ascending the hillock of earth that was raised against the stone
circumference of the lime-kiln, he thus reached the top of the
structure. It was a space of perhaps ten feet across, from edge to
edge, presenting a view of the upper surface of the immense mass of
broken marble with which the kiln was heaped. All these innumerable
blocks and fragments of marble were red-hot and vividly on fire,
sending up great spouts of blue flame, which quivered aloft and danced
madly, as within a magic circle, and sank and rose again, with
continual and multitudinous activity. As the lonely man bent forward
over this terrible body of fire, the blasting heat smote up against
his person with a breath that, it might be supposed, would have
scorched and shrivelled him up in a moment.
Ethan Brand stood erect, and raised his arms on high. The blue flames
played upon his face, and imparted the wild and ghastly light which
alone could have suited its expression; it was that of a fiend on the
verge of plunging into his gulf of intensest torment.
"O Mother Earth," cried he, "who art no more my Mother, and into whose
bosom this frame shall never be resolved! O mankind, whose brotherhood
I have cast off, and trampled thy great heart beneath my feet! O stars
of heaven, that shone on me of old, as if to light me onward and
upward!--farewell all, and forever. Come, deadly element of
Fire,--henceforth my familiar frame! Embrace me, as I do thee!"
That night the sound of a fearful peal of laughter rolled heavily
through the sleep of the lime-burner and his little son; dim shapes of
horror and anguish haunted their dreams, and seemed still present in
the rude hovel, when they opened their eyes to the daylight.
"Up, boy, up!" cried the lime-burner, staring about him. "Thank
Heaven, the night is gone, at last; and rather than pass such another,
I would watch, my lime-kiln, wide awake, for a twelvemonth. This Ethan
Brand, with his humbug of an Unpardonable Sin, has done me no such
mighty favor, in taking my place!"
He issued from the hut, followed by little Joe, who kept fast hold, of
his father's hand. The early sunshine was already pouring its gold
upon the mountain tops; and though the valleys were still in shadow,
they smiled cheerfully in the promise of the bright day that was
hastening onward. The village, completely shut in by hills, which
swelled away gently about it, looked as if it had rested peacefully in
the hollow of the great hand of Providence. Every dwelling was
distinctly visible; the little spires of the two churches pointed
upwards, and caught a fore-glimmering of brightness from the sun-gilt
skies upon their gilded weathercocks. The tavern was astir, and the
figure of the old, smoke-dried stage-agent, cigar in mouth, was seen
beneath the stoop. Old Graylock was glorified with a golden cloud upon
his head. Scattered likewise over the breasts of the surrounding
mountains, there were heaps of hoary mist, in fantastic shapes, some
of them far down into the valley, others high up towards the summits,
and still others, of the same family of mist or cloud, hovering in the
gold radiance of the upper atmosphere. Stepping from one to another of
the clouds that rested on the hills, and thence to the loftier
brotherhood that sailed in air, it seemed almost as if a mortal man
might thus ascend into the heavenly regions. Earth was so mingled with
sky that it was a day-dream to look at it.
To supply that charm of the familiar and homely, which Nature so
readily adopts into a scene like this, the stage-coach was rattling
down the mountain road, and the driver sounded his horn, while echo
caught up the notes, and intertwined them into a rich and varied and
elaborate harmony, of which the original performer could lay claim to
little share. The great hills played a concert among themselves, each
contributing a strain of airy sweetness.
Little Joe's face brightened at once.
"Dear father," cried he, skipping cheerily to and fro, "that strange
man is gone, and the sky and the mountains all seem glad of it!"
"Yes," growled the lime-burner, with an oath, "but he has let the fire
go down, and no thanks to him if five hundred bushels of lime are not
spoiled. If I catch the fellow hereabouts again, I shall feel like
tossing him into the furnace!"
With his long pole in his hand, he ascended to the top of the kiln.
After a moment's pause, he called to his son.
"Come up here, Joe!" said he.
So little Joe ran up the hillock, and stood by his father's side. The
marble was all burnt into perfect, snow-white lime. But on its
surface, in the midst of the circle,--snow-white too, and thoroughly
converted into lime,--lay a human skeleton, in the attitude of a
person who, after long toil, lies down to long repose. Within the
ribs--strange to say--was the shape of a human heart.
"Was the fellow's heart made of marble?" cried Bartram, in some
perplexity at this phenomenon. "At any rate, it is burnt into what
looks like special good lime; and, taking all the bones together, my
kiln is half a bushel the richer for him."
So saying, the rude lime-burner lifted his pole, and, letting it fall
upon the skeleton, the relics of Ethan Brand were crumbled into
fragments.
NOTES
[1] Written in 1848; published in Holden's _Dollar Magazine_ in 1851.
[2] 182:26 Delectable Mountains. A range of mountains referred to in
Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_.
[3] 190:22 ubiquitous. Being present everywhere.
[4] 194:29 diorama. A series of paintings arranged for exhibition. See
dictionary.
[5] 195:30 Titanic. Characteristic of the Titans; therefore large.
COLLATERAL READINGS
_The Scarlet Letter_, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
_The House of Seven Gables_, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
_The Marble Faun_, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
_The Gray Champion_, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
_The Wedding Knell_, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
_The Great Carbuncle_, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
_Dr. Heidegger's Experiment_, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
_The Haunted Mind_, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
_Feathertop_, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
_Rip Van Winkle_, Washington Irving.
_The Elixir of Life_, Honore de Balzac.
_The Leather Funnel_, A. Conan Doyle.
_The Return of Imray's Ghost_, Rudyard Kipling.
_A Gentle Ghost_, Mary Wilkins Freeman.
THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR[1]
_By Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)_
Denis de Beaulieu was not yet two-and-twenty, but he counted himself a
grown man, and a very accomplished cavalier into the bargain. Lads
were early formed in that rough, warfaring epoch; and when one has
been in a pitched battle and a dozen raids, has killed one's man in an
honorable fashion, and knows a thing or two of strategy and mankind, a
certain swagger in the gait is surely to be pardoned. He had put up
his horse with due care, and supped with due deliberation; and then,
in a very agreeable frame of mind, went out to pay a visit in the gray
of the evening. It was not a very wise proceeding on the young man's
part. He would have done better to remain beside the fire or go
decently to bed. For the town was full of the troops of Burgundy and
England under a mixed command; and though Denis was there on
safe-conduct, his safe-conduct was like to serve him little on a
chance encounter.
It was September, 1429; the weather had fallen sharp; a flighty piping
wind, laden with showers, beat about the township; and the dead leaves
ran riot along the streets. Here and there a window was already
lighted up; and the noise of men-at-arms making merry over supper
within came forth in fits and was swallowed up and carried away by the
wind. The night fell swiftly: the flag of England, fluttering on the
spire top, grew ever fainter and fainter against the flying clouds--a
black speck like a swallow in the tumultuous, leaden chaos of the sky.
As the night fell the wind rose, and began to hoot under archways and
roar amid the tree-tops in the valley below the town.
Denis de Beaulieu walked fast and was soon knocking at his friend's
door; but though he promised himself to stay only a little while and
make an early return, his welcome was so pleasant, and he found so
much to delay him, that it was already long past midnight before he
said good-by upon the threshold. The wind had fallen again in the
meanwhile; the night was as black as the grave; not a star, nor a
glimmer of moonshine, slipped through the canopy of cloud. Denis was
ill-acquainted with the intricate lanes of Chateau Landon; even by
daylight he had found some trouble in picking his way; and in this
absolute darkness he soon lost it altogether. He was certain of one
thing only--to keep mounting the hill; for his friend's house lay at
the lower end, or tail, of Chateau Landon, while the inn was up at the
head, under the great church spire. With this clew to go upon he
stumbled and groped forward, now breathing more freely in the open
places where there was a good slice of sky overhead, now feeling along
the wall in stifling closes. It is an eerie and mysterious position to
be thus submerged in opaque blackness in an almost unknown town. The
silence is terrifying in its possibilities. The touch of cold window
bars to the exploring hand startles the man like the touch of a toad;
the inequalities of the pavement shake his heart into his mouth; a
piece of denser darkness threatens an ambuscade or a chasm in the
pathway; and where the air is brighter, the houses put on strange and
bewildering appearances, as if to lead him further from his way. For
Denis, who had to regain his inn without attracting notice, there was
real danger as well as mere discomfort in the walk; and he went warily
and boldly at once, and at every corner paused to make an observation.
He had been for some time threading a lane so narrow that he could
touch a wall with either hand, when it began to open out and go
sharply downward. Plainly this lay no longer in the direction of his
inn; but the hope of a little more light tempted him forward to
reconnoitre. The lane ended in a terrace with a bartizan[2] wall,
which gave an outlook between high houses, as out of an embrasure,
into the valley lying dark and formless several hundred feet below.
Denis looked down, and could discern a few tree-tops waving and a
single speck of brightness where the river ran across a weir. The
weather was clearing up, and the sky had lightened, so as to show the
outline of the heavier clouds and the dark margin of the hills. By the
uncertain glimmer, the house on his left hand should be a place of
some pretensions; it was surmounted by several pinnacles and
turret-tops; the round stern of a chapel, with a fringe of flying
buttresses, projected boldly from the main block; and the door was
sheltered under a deep porch carved with figures and overhung by two
long gargoyles[3]. The windows of the chapel gleamed through their
intricate tracery with a light as of many tapers, and threw out the
buttresses and the peaked roof in a more intense blackness against the
sky. It was plainly the hotel of some great family of the
neighborhood; and as it reminded Denis of a town house of his own at
Bourges, he stood for some time gazing up at it and mentally gauging
the skill of the architects and the consideration of the two families.
There seemed to be no issue to the terrace but the lane by which he
had reached it; he could only retrace his steps, but he had gained
some notion of his whereabouts, and hoped by this means to hit the
main thoroughfare and speedily regain the inn. He was reckoning
without that chapter of accidents which was to make this night
memorable above all others in his career; for he had not gone back
above a hundred yards before he saw a light coming to meet him, and
heard loud voices speaking together in the echoing narrows of the
lane. It was a party of men-at-arms going the night round with
torches. Denis assured himself that they had all been making free with
the wine bowl, and were in no mood to be particular about
safe-conducts or the niceties of chivalrous war. It, was as like as
not that they would kill him like a dog and leave him where he fell.
The situation was inspiriting but nervous. Their own torches would
conceal him from sight, he reflected; and he hoped that they would
drown the noise of his footsteps with their own empty voices. If he
were but fleet and silent, he might evade their notice altogether.
Unfortunately, as he turned to beat a retreat, his foot rolled upon a
pebble; he fell against the wall with an ejaculation, and his sword
rang loudly on the stones. Two or three voices demanded who went
there--some in French, some in English; but Denis made no reply, and
ran the faster down the lane. Once upon the terrace, he paused to look
back. They still kept calling after him, and just then began to double
the pace in pursuit, with a considerable clank of armor, and great
tossing of the torchlight to and fro in the narrow jaws of the
passage.
Denis cast a look around and darted into the porch. There he might
escape observation, or--if that were too much to expect--was in a
capital posture whether for parley or defence. So thinking, he drew
his sword and tried to set his back against the door. To his surprise
it yielded behind his weight; and though he turned in a moment,
continued to swing back on oiled and noiseless hinges until it stood
wide open on a black interior. When things fall out opportunely for
the person concerned, he is not apt to be critical about the how or
why, his own immediate personal convenience seeming a sufficient
reason for the strangest oddities and revolutions in our sublunary
things; and so Denis, without a moment's hesitation, stepped within
and partly closed the door behind him to conceal his place of refuge.
Nothing was further from his thoughts than to close it altogether; but
for some inexplicable reason--perhaps by a spring or a weight--the
ponderous mass of oak whipped itself out of his fingers and clanked
to, with a formidable rumble and a noise like the falling of an
automatic bar.
The round, at that very moment, debouched[4] upon the terrace and
proceeded to summon him with shouts and curses. He heard them
ferreting in the dark corners; the stock of a lance even rattled along
the outer surface of the door behind which he stood; but these
gentlemen were in too high a humor to be long delayed, and soon made
off down a corkscrew pathway which had escaped Denis' observation, and
passed out of sight and hearing along the battlements of the town.
Denis breathed again. He gave them a few minutes' grace for fear of
accidents, and then groped about for some means of opening the door
and slipping forth again. The inner surface was quite smooth, not a
handle, not a moulding, not a projection of any sort. He got his
finger nails round the edges and pulled, but the mass was immovable.
He shook it, it was as firm as a rock, Denis de Beaulieu frowned, and
gave vent to a little noiseless whistle. What ailed the door? he
wondered. Why was it open? How came it to shut so easily and so
effectually after him? There was something obscure and underhand about
all this, that was little to the young man's fancy. It looked like a
snare, and yet who could suppose a snare in such a quiet by-street and
in a house of so prosperous and even noble an exterior? And yet--snare
or no snare, intentionally or unintentionally--here he was, prettily
trapped; and for the life of him he could see no way out of it again.
The darkness began to weigh upon him. He gave ear; all was silent
without, but within and close by he seemed to catch a faint sighing, a
faint sobbing rustle, a little stealthy creak--as though many persons
were at his side, holding themselves quite still, and governing even
their respiration with the extreme of slyness. The idea went to his
vitals with a shock, and he faced about suddenly as if to defend his
life. Then, for the first time, he became aware of a light about the
level of his eyes and at some distance in the interior of the house--a
vertical thread of light, widening toward the bottom, such as might
escape between two wings of arras over a doorway.
To see anything was a relief to Denis; it was like a piece of solid
ground to a man laboring in a morass; his mind seized upon it with
avidity; and he stood staring at it and trying to piece together some
logical conception of his surroundings. Plainly there was a flight of
steps ascending from his own level to that of this illuminated
doorway, and indeed he thought he could make out another thread of
light, as fine as a needle and as faint as phosphorescence, which
might very well be reflected along the polished wood of a handrail.
Since he had begun to suspect that he was not alone, his heart had
continued to beat with smothering violence, and an intolerable desire
for action of any sort had possessed itself of his spirit. He was in
deadly peril, he believed. What could be more natural than to mount
the staircase, lift the curtain, and confront his difficulty at once?
At least he would be dealing with something tangible; at least he
would be no longer in the dark. He stepped slowly forward with
outstretched hands, until his foot struck the bottom step; then he
rapidly scaled the stairs, stood for a moment to compose his
expression, lifted the arras and went in.
He found himself in a large apartment of polished stone. There were
three doors, one on each of three sides, all similarly curtained with
tapestry. The fourth side was occupied by two large windows and a
great stone chimney-piece, carved with the arms of the Maletroits.
Denis recognized the bearings, and was gratified to find himself in
such good hands. The room was strongly illuminated; but it contained
little furniture except a heavy table and a chair or two; the hearth
was innocent of fire, and the pavement was but sparsely strewn with
rushes clearly many days old.
On a high chair beside the chimney, and directly facing Denis as he
entered, sat a little old gentleman in a fur tippet. He sat with his
legs crossed and his hands folded, and a cup of spiced wine stood by
his elbow on a bracket on the wall. His countenance had a strong
masculine cast; not properly human, but such as we see in the bull,
the goat, or the domestic boar; something equivocal and wheedling,
something greedy, brutal and dangerous. The upper lip was inordinately
full, as though swollen by a blow or a toothache; and the smile, the
peaked eyebrows, and the small, strong eyes were quaintly and almost
comically evil in expression. Beautiful white hair hung straight all
round his head, like a saint's, and fell in a single curl upon the
tippet. His beard and mustache were the pink of venerable sweetness.
Age, probably in consequence of inordinate precautions, had left no
mark upon his hands; and the Maletroit hand was famous. It would be
difficult to imagine anything at once so fleshy and so delicate in
design; the taper, sensual fingers were like those of one of
Leonardo's[5] women; the fork of the thumb made a dimpled protuberance
when closed; the nails were perfectly shaped, and of a dead,
surprising whiteness. It rendered his aspect tenfold more redoubtable,
that a man with hands like these should keep them devoutly folded like
a virgin martyr--that a man with so intent and startling an expression
of face should sit patiently on his seat and contemplates people with
an unwinking stare, like a god, or a god's statue. His quiescence
seemed ironical and treacherous, it fitted so poorly with his looks.
Such was Alain, Sire de Maletroit.
Denis and he looked silently at each other for a second or two.
"Pray step in," said the Sire de Maletroit. "I have been expecting you
all the evening."
He had not risen, but he accompanied his words with a smile and a
slight but courteous inclination of the head. Partly from the smile,
partly from the strange musical murmur with which the sire prefaced
his observation, Denis felt a strong shudder of disgust go through his
marrow. And what with disgust and honest confusion of mind, he could
scarcely get words together in reply.
"I fear," he said, "that this is a double accident. I am not the
person you suppose me. It seems you were looking for a visit; but for
my part, nothing was further from my thoughts--nothing could be more
contrary to my wishes--than this intrusion."
"Well, well," replied the old gentleman indulgently, "here you are,
which is the main point. Seat yourself, my friend, and put yourself
entirely at your ease. We shall arrange our little affairs presently."
Denis perceived that the matter was still complicated with some
misconception, and he hastened to continue his explanation.
"Your door," he began.
"About my door?" asked the other raising his peaked eyebrows. "A
little piece of ingenuity." And he shrugged his shoulders. "A
hospitable fancy! By your own account, you were not desirous of making
any acquaintance. We old people look for such reluctance now and then;
when it touches our honor, we cast about until we find some way of
overcoming it. You arrive uninvited, but believe me, very welcome."
"You persist in error, sir," said Denis. "There can be no question
between you and me. I am a stranger in this countryside. My name is
Denis, damoiseau de Beaulieu. If you see me in your house it is
only--"
"My young friend," interrupted the other, "you will permit me to have
my own ideas on that subject. They probably differ from yours at the
present moment," he added with a leer, "but time will show which of us
is in the right."
Denis was convinced he had to do with a lunatic. He seated himself
with a shrug, content to wait the upshot; and a pause ensued, during
which he thought he could distinguish a hurried gabbling as of a
prayer from behind the arras immediately opposite him. Sometimes there
seemed to be but one person engaged, sometimes two; and the vehemence
of the voice, low as it was, seemed to indicate either great haste or
an agony of spirit. It occurred to him that this piece of tapestry
covered the entrance to the chapel he had noticed from without.
The old gentleman meanwhile surveyed Denis from head to foot with a
smile, and from time to time emitted little noises like a bird or a
mouse, which seemed to indicate a high degree of satisfaction. This
state of matters became rapidly insupportable; and Denis, to put an
end to it, remarked politely that the wind had gone down.
The old gentleman fell into a fit of silent laughter, so prolonged and
violent that he became quite red in the face. Denis got upon his feet
at once, and put on his hat with a flourish.
"Sir," he said, "if you are in your wits, you have affronted me
grossly. If you are out of them, I flatter myself I can find better
employment for my brains than to talk with lunatics. My conscience is
clear; you have made a fool of me from the first moment; you have
refused to hear my explanations; and now there is no power under God
will make me stay here any longer; and if I cannot make my way out in
a more decent fashion, I will hack your door in pieces with my sword."
The Sire de Maletroit raised his right hand and wagged it at Denis
with the fore and little fingers extended.
"My dear nephew," he said, "sit down."
"Nephew!" retorted Denis, "you lie in your throat;" and he snapped his
fingers in his face.
"Sit down, you rogue!" cried the old gentleman, in a sudden, harsh
voice like the barking of a dog. "Do you fancy," he went on, "that
when I had made my little contrivance for the door I had stopped short
with that? If you prefer to be bound hand and foot till your bones
ache, rise and try to go away. If you choose to remain a free young
buck, agreeably conversing with an old gentleman--why, sit where you
are in peace, and God be with you."
"Do you mean, I am a prisoner?" demanded Denis.
"I state the facts," replied the other. "I would rather leave the
conclusion to yourself."
Denis sat down again. Externally he managed to keep pretty calm, but
within, he was now boiling with anger, now chilled with apprehension.
He no longer felt convinced that he was dealing with a madman. And if
the old gentleman was sane, what, in God's name, had he to look for?
What absurd or tragical adventure had befallen him? What countenance
was he to assume?
While he was thus unpleasantly reflecting, the arras that overhung the
chapel door was raised, and a tall priest in his robes came forth,
and, giving a long, keen stare at Denis, said something in an
undertone to Sire de Maletroit.
"She is in a better frame of spirit?" asked the latter.
"She is more resigned, messire," replied the priest.
"Now the Lord help her, she is hard to please!" sneered the old
gentleman. "A likely stripling--not ill-born--and of her own choosing,
too? Why, what more would the jade have?"
"The situation is not usual for a young damsel," said the other, "and
somewhat trying to her blushes."
"She should have thought of that before she began the dance! It was
none of my choosing, God knows that; but since she is in it, by our
Lady, she shall carry it to the end." And then addressing Denis,
"Monsieur de Beaulieu," he asked, "may I present you to my niece? She
has been waiting your arrival, I may say, with even greater impatience
than myself."
Denis had resigned himself with a good grace--all he desired was to
know the worst of it as speedily as possible; so he rose at once, and
bowed in acquiescence. The Sire de Maletroit followed his example and
limped, with the assistance of the chaplain's arm, toward the chapel
door. The priest pulled aside the arras, and all three entered. The
building had considerable architectural pretensions. A light groining
sprang from six stout columns, and hung down in two rich pendants from
the centre of the vault. The place terminated behind the altar in a
round end, embossed and honeycombed with a superfluity of ornament in
relief, and pierced by many little windows shaped like stars,
trefoils, or wheels. These windows were imperfectly is glazed, so that
the night air circulated freely in the chapel. The tapers, of which
there must have been half a hundred burning on the altar, were
unmercifully blown about; and the light went through many different
phases of brilliancy and semi-eclipse. On the steps in front of the
altar knelt a young girl richly attired as a bride. A chill settled
over Denis as he observed her costume; he fought with desperate energy
against the conclusion that was being thrust upon his mind; it could
not--it should not--be as he feared.
"Blanche," said the sire, in his most flute-like tones, "I have
brought a friend to see you, my little girl; turn round and give him
your pretty hand. It is good to be devout; but it is necessary to be
polite, my niece."
The girl rose to her feet and turned toward the newcomers. She moved
all of a piece; and shame and exhaustion were expressed in every line
of her fresh young body; and she held her head down and kept her eyes
upon the pavement, as she came slowly forward. In the course of her
advance her eyes fell upon Denis de Beaulieu's feet--feet of which he
was justly vain, be it remarked, and wore in the most elegant
accoutrement even while travelling. She paused--started, as if his
yellow boots had conveyed some shocking meaning--and glanced, suddenly
up into the wearer's countenance. Their eyes met; shame gave place to
horror and terror in her looks; the blood left her lips, with a
piercing scream she covered her face with her hands and sank upon, the
chapel floor.
"That is not the man!" she cried. "My uncle, that is not the man!"
The Sire de Maletroit chirped agreeably. "Of course not," he said; "I
expected as much. It was so unfortunate you could not remember his
name."
"Indeed," she cried, "indeed, I have never seen this person till this
moment--I have never so much as set eyes upon him--I never wish to see
him again. Sir," she said, turning to Denis, "if you are a gentleman,
you will hear me out. Have I ever seen you--have you ever seen
me--before this accursed hour?"
"To speak for myself, I have never had that pleasure," answered the
young man. "This is the first time, messire, that I have met with your
engaging niece."
The old gentleman shrugged his shoulders.
"I am distressed to hear it," he said. "But it is never too late to
begin. I had little more acquaintance with my own late lady ere I
married her; which proves," he added, with a grimace, "that these
impromptu marriages may often produce an excellent understanding in
the long run. As the bridegroom is to have a voice in the matter, I
will give him two hours to make up for lost time before we proceed
with the ceremony." And he turned toward the door, followed by the
clergyman.
The girl was on her feet in a moment. "My uncle, you cannot be in
earnest," she said. "I declare before God I will stab myself rather
than be forced on that young man. The heart rises at it; God forbids
such marriages; you dishonor your white hair. Oh, my uncle, pity me!
There is not a woman in all the world but would prefer death to such a
nuptial. Is it possible," she added, faltering--"is it possible that
you do not believe me--that you still think this"--and she pointed at
Denis with a tremor of anger and contempt--"that you still think
_this_ to be the man?"
"Frankly," said the old gentleman, pausing on the threshold, "I do.
But let me explain to you once for all, Blanche de Maletroit, my way
of thinking about this affair. When you took it into your head to
dishonor my family and the name that I have borne, in peace and war,
for more than threescore years, you forfeited, not only the right to
question my designs, but that of looking me in the face. If your
father had been alive, he would have spat on you and turned you out of
doors. His was the hand of iron. You may bless your God you have only
to deal with the hand of velvet, mademoiselle. It was my duty to get
you married without delay. Out of pure goodwill, I have tried to find
your own gallant for you. And I believe I have succeeded. But before
God and all the holy angels, Blanche de Maletroit, if I have not, I
care not one jack-straw. So let me recommend you to be polite to our
young friend; for, upon my word, your next groom may be less
appetizing."
And with that he went out, with the chaplain at his heels; and the
arras fell behind the pair.
The girl turned upon Denis with flashing eyes.
"And what, sir," she demanded, "may be the meaning of all this?"
"God knows," returned Denis, gloomily, "I am a prisoner in this house,
which seems full of mad people. More I know not; and nothing do I
understand."
"And pray how came you here?" she asked.
He told her as briefly as he could. "For the rest," he added, "perhaps
you will follow my example, and tell me the answer to all these
riddles, and what, in God's name, is like to be the end of it."
She stood silent for a little, and lie could see her lips tremble and
her tearless eyes burn with a feverish lustre. Then she pressed her
forehead in both hands.
"Alas, how my head aches!" she said, wearily--"to say nothing of my
poor heart! But it is due to you to know my story, unmaidenly as it
must seem. I am called Blanche de Maletroit; I have been without
father or mother for--oh! for as long as I can recollect, and indeed I
have been most unhappy all my life. Three months ago a young captain
began to stand near me every day in church. I could see that I pleased
him; I am much to blame, but I was so glad that any one should love
me; and when he passed me a letter, I took it home with me and read it
with great pleasure. Since that time he has written many. He was so
anxious to speak with me, poor fellow! and kept asking me to leave the
door open some evening that we might have two words upon the stair.
For he knew how much my uncle trusted me." She gave something like a
sob at that, and it was a moment before she could go on. "My uncle is
a hard man, but he is very shrewd," she said, at last. "He has
performed many feats in war, and was a great person at court, and much
trusted by Queen Isabeau in old days. How he came to suspect me I
cannot tell; but it is hard to keep anything from his knowledge; and
this morning, as we came from mass, he took my hand into his, forced
it open, and read my little billet, walking by my side all the while.
"When he finished, he gave it back to me with great politeness. It
contained another request to have the door left open; and this has
been the ruin of us all. My uncle kept me strictly in my room until
evening, and then ordered me to dress myself as you see me--a hard
mockery for a young girl, do you not think so? I suppose, when he
could not prevail with me to tell him the young captain's name, he
must have laid a trap for him; into which, alas! you have fallen in
the anger of God. I looked for much confusion; for how could I tell
whether he was willing to take me for his wife on these sharp terms?
He might have been trifling with me from the first; or I might have
made myself too cheap in his eyes. But truly I had not looked for such
a shameful punishment as this? I could not think that God would let a
girl be so disgraced before a young man. And now I tell you all; and I
can scarcely hope that you will not despise me."
Denis made her a respectful inclination.
"Madam," he said, "you have honored me by your confidence. It remains
for me to prove that I am not unworthy of the honor. Is Messire de
Maletroit at hand?"
"I believe he is writing in the _salle[6]_ without," she answered.
"May I lead you thither, madam?" asked Denis, offering his hand with
his most courtly bearing.
She accepted it; and the pair passed out of the chapel, Blanche in a
very drooping and shamefast condition, but Denis strutting and
raffling in the consciousness of a mission, and the boyish certainty
of accomplishing it with honor.
The Sire Maletroit rose to meet them with an ironical obeisance.
"Sir," said Denis, with the grandest possible air, "I believe I am to
have some say in the matter of this marriage; and let me tell you at
once, I will be no party to forcing the inclination of this young
lady. Had it been freely offered to me, I should have been proud to
accept her hand, for I perceive she is as good as she is beautiful;
but as things are, I have now the honor, messire, of refusing."
Blanche looked at him with gratitude in her eyes; but the old
gentleman only smiled and smiled, until his smile grew positively
sickening to Denis.
"I am afraid," he said, "Monsieur de Beaulieu, that you do not
perfectly understand the choice I have offered you. Follow me, I
beseech you, to this window." And he led the way to one of the large
windows which stood open on the night. "You observe," he went on,
"there is an iron ring in the upper masonry, and reeved through that,
a very efficacious rope. Now, mark my words: if you should find your
disinclination to my niece's person insurmountable, I shall have you
hanged out of this window before sunrise. I shall only proceed to such
an extremity with the greatest regret, you may believe me. For it is
not at all your death that I desire, but my niece's establishment in
life. At the same time, it must come to that if you prove obstinate.
Your family, Monsieur de Beaulieu, is very well in its way; but if you
sprung from Charlemagne[7], you should not refuse the hand of a
Maletroit with impunity--not if she had been as common as the Paris
road--not if she was as hideous as the gargoyle over my door. Neither
my niece nor you, nor my own private feelings, move me at all in this
matter. The honor of my house has been compromised; I believe you to
be the guilty person, at least you are now in the secret; and you can
hardly wonder if I request you to wipe out the stain. If you will not,
your blood be on your own head! It will be no great satisfaction to me
to have your interesting relics kicking their heels in the breeze
below my windows, but half a loaf is better than no bread, and if I
cannot cure the dishonor, I shall at least stop the scandal."
There was a pause.
"I believe there are other ways of settling such imbroglios among
gentlemen," said Denis. "You wear a sword, and I hear you have used it
with distinction."
The Sire de Maletroit made a signal to the chaplain, who crossed the
room with long silent strides and raised the arras over the third of
the three doors. It was only a moment before he let it fall again; but
Denis had time to see a dusky passage full of armed men.
"When I was a little younger, I should have been delighted to honor
you, Monsieur de Beaulieu," said Sire Alain: "but I am now too old.
Faithful retainers are the sinews of age, and I must employ the
strength I have. This is one of the hardest things to swallow as a man
grows up in years; but with a little patience, even this becomes
habitual. You and the lady seem to prefer the _salle_ for what remains
of your two hours; and as I have no desire to cross your preference, I
shall resign it to your use with all the pleasure in the world. No
haste!" he added, holding up his hand, as he saw a dangerous look come
into Denis de Beaulieu's face. "If your mind revolt against hanging,
it will be time enough two hours hence to throw yourself out of the
window or upon the pikes of my retainers. Two hours of life are always
two hours. A great many things may turn up in even as little a while
as that. And, besides. If I understand her appearance, my niece has
something to say to you. You will not disfigure your last hours by a
want of politeness to a lady?"
Denis looked at Blanche, and she made him an imploring gesture.
It is likely that the old gentleman was hugely pleased at this symptom
of an understanding; for he smiled on both, and added sweetly: "If you
will give me your word of honor, Monsieur de Beaulieu, to await my
return at the end of the two hours before attempting anything
desperate, I shall withdraw my retainers, and let you speak in greater
privacy with mademoiselle."
Denis again glanced at the girl, who seemed to beseech him to agree.
"I give you my word of honor," he said.
Messire de Maletroit bowed, and proceeded to limp about the apartment,
clearing his throat the while with that odd musical chirp which had
already grown so irritating in the ears of Denis de Bealieu. He first
possessed himself of some papers which lay upon the table; then he
went to the mouth of the passage and appeared to give an order to the
men behind the arras; and lastly he hobbled out through the door by
which Denis had come in, turning upon the threshold to address a last
smiling bow to the young couple, and followed by the chaplain with a
hand lamp.
No sooner were they alone than Blanche advanced toward Denis with her
hands extended. Her face was flushed and excited, and her eyes shone
with tears.
"You shall not die!" she cried, "you shall marry me after all."
"You seem to think, madam," replied Denis, "that I stand much in fear
of death."
"Oh, no, no," she said, "I see you are no poltroon[8]. It is for my
own sake--I could not bear to have you slain for such a scruple."
"I am afraid," returned Denis, "that you underrate the difficulty,
madam. What you may be too generous to refuse, I may be too proud to
accept. In a moment of noble feeling toward me, you forget what you
perhaps owe to others."
He had the decency to keep his eyes on the floor as he said this, and
after he had finished, so as not to spy upon her confusion. She stood
silent for a moment, then walked suddenly away, and falling on her
uncle's chair, fairly burst out sobbing. Denis was in the acme of
embarrassment. He looked round, as if to seek for inspiration, and,
seeing a stool, plumped down upon it for something to do. There he
sat, playing with the guard of his rapier, and wishing himself dead a
thousand times over, and buried in the nastiest kitchen-heap in
France. His eyes wandered round the apartment, but found nothing to
arrest them. There were such wide spaces between the furniture, the
light fell so badly and cheerlessly over all, the dark outside air
looked in so coldly through the windows, that he thought he had never
seen a church so vast, nor a tomb so melancholy. The regular sobs of
Blanche de Maletroit measured out the time like the ticking of a
clock. He read the device upon the shield over and over again, until
his eyes became obscured; he stared into shadowy corners until he
imagined they were swarming with horrible animals; and every now and
again he awoke with a start, to remember that his last two hours were
running, and death was on the march.
Oftener and oftener, as the time went on, did his glance settle on the
girl herself. Her face was bowed forward and covered with her hands,
and she was shaken at intervals by the convulsive hiccough of grief.
Even thus she was not an unpleasant object to dwell upon, so plump and
yet so fine, with a warm brown skin, and the most beautiful hair,
Denis thought, in the whole world of womankind. Her hands were like
her uncle's: but they were more in place at the end of her young arms,
and looked infinitely soft and caressing. He remembered how her blue
eyes had shone upon him, full of anger, pity, and innocence. And the
more he dwelt on her perfections, the uglier death looked, and the
more deeply was he smitten with penitence at her continued tears. Now
he felt that no man could have the courage to leave a world which
contained so beautiful a creature; and now he would have given forty
minutes of his last hour to have unsaid his cruel speech.
Suddenly a hoarse and ragged peal of cockcrow rose to their ears from
the dark valley below the windows. And this shattering noise in the
silence of all around was like a light in a dark place, and shook them
both out of their reflections.
"Alas, can I do nothing to help you?" she said, looking up.
"Madam," replied Denis, with a fine irrelevancy, "if I have said
anything to wound you, believe me, it was for your own sake and not
for mine."
She thanked him with a tearful look.
"I feel your position cruelly," he went on. "The world has been
bitter, hard on you. Your uncle is a disgrace to mankind. Believe me,
madam, there is no young gentleman in all France but would be glad of
my opportunity, to die in doing you a momentary service."
"I know already that you can be very brave and generous," she
answered. "What I _want_ to know is whether I can serve you--now or
afterward," she added, with a quaver.
"Most certainly," he answered, with a smile. "Let me sit beside you as
if I were a friend, instead of a foolish intruder; try to forget how
awkwardly we are placed to one another; make my last moments go
pleasantly; and you will do me the chief service possible."
"You are very gallant," she added, with a yet deeper sadness--"very
gallant--and it somehow pains me. But draw nearer, if you please; and
if you find anything to say to me, you will at least make certain of a
very friendly listener. Ah! Monsieur de Beaulieu," she broke
forth--"ah! Monsieur de Beaulieu, how can I look you in the face?" And
she fell to weeping again with a renewed effusion.
"Madam," said Denis, taking her hand in both of his, "reflect on the
little time I have before me, and the great bitterness into which I am
cast by the sight of your distress. Spare me, in my last moments, the
spectacle of what I cannot cure even with the sacrifice of my life."
"I am very selfish," answered Blanche. "I will be braver, Monsieur de
Beaulieu, for your sake. But think if I can do you no kindness in the
future--if you have no friends to whom I could carry your adieux.
Charge me as heavily as you can; every burden will lighten, by so
little, the invaluable gratitude I owe you. Put it in my power to do
something more for you than weep."
"My mother is married again, and has a young family to care for. My
brother Guichard will inherit my fiefs; and if I am not in error, that
will content him amply for my death. Life is a little vapor that
passeth away, as we are told by those in holy orders. When a man is in
a fair way and sees all life open in front of him, he seems to himself
to make a very important figure in the world. His horse whinnies to
him; the trumpets blow and the girls look out of window as he rides
into town before his company; he receives many assurances of trust and
regard--sometimes by express in a letter--sometimes face to face, with
persons of great consequence falling on his neck. It is not wonderful
if his head is turned for a time. But once he is dead, were he as
brave as Hercules[9] or as wise as Solomon[10], he is soon forgotten.
It is not ten years since my father fell, with many other knights
around him, in a very fierce encounter, and I do not think that any
one of them, nor so much as the name of the fight, is now remembered.
No, no, madam, the nearer you come to it, you see that death is a dark
and dusty corner, where a man gets into his tomb and has the door shut
after him till the judgment day. I have few friends just now, and once
I am dead I shall have none."
"Ah, Monsieur de Beaulieu!" she exclaimed, "you forget Blanche de
Maletroit."
"You have a sweet nature, madam, and you are pleased to estimate a
little service far beyond its worth."
"It is not that," she answered. "You mistake me if you think I am
easily touched by my own concerns. I say so because you are the
noblest man I have ever met; because I recognize in you a spirit that
would have made even a common person famous in the land."
"And yet here I die in a mousetrap--with no more noise about it than
my own squeaking," answered he.
A look of pain crossed her face and she was silent for a little while.
Then a light came into her eyes, and with a smile she spoke again.
"I cannot have my champion think meanly of himself. Any one who gives
his life for another will be met in paradise by all the heralds and
angels of the Lord God. And you have no such cause to hang your head.
For--Pray, do you think me beautiful?" she asked, with a deep flush.
"Indeed, madam, I do," he said.
"I am glad of that," she answered heartily. "Do you think there are
many men in France who have been asked in marriage by a beautiful
maiden--with her own lips--and who have refused her to her face? I
know you men would half despise such a triumph; but believe me, we
women know more of what is precious in love. There is nothing that
should set a person higher in his own esteem; and we women would prize
nothing more dearly."
"You are very good," he said; "but you cannot make me forget that I
was asked in pity and not for love."
"I am not so sure of that," she replied, holding down her head. "Hear
me to an end, Monsieur de Beaulieu. I know how you must despise me; I
feel you are right to do so; I am too poor a creature to occupy one
thought of your mind, although, alas! you must die for me this
morning. But when I asked you to marry me, indeed, and indeed, it was
because I respected and admired you, and loved you with my whole soul,
from the very moment that you took my part against my uncle. If you
had seen yourself, and how noble you looked, you would pity rather
than despise me. And now," she went on, hurriedly checking him with
her hand, "although I have laid aside all reserve and told you so
much, remember that I know your sentiments toward me already. I would
not, believe me, being nobly born, weary you with importunities into
consent. I too have a pride of my own: and I declare before the holy
mother of God, if you should now go back from your word already given,
I would no more marry you than I would marry my uncle's groom."
Denis smiled a little bitterly.
"It is a small love," he said, "that shies at a little pride."
She made no answer, although she probably had her own thoughts.
"Come hither to the window," he said with a sigh. "Here is the dawn."
And indeed the dawn was already beginning. The hollow of the sky was
full of essential daylight, colorless and clean; and the valley
underneath was flooded with a gray reflection. A few thin vapors clung
in the coves of the forest or lay along the winding course of the
river. The scene disengaged a surprising effect of stillness, which
was hardly interrupted when the cocks began once more to crow among
the steadings[11]. Perhaps the same fellow who had made so horrid a
clangor in the darkness not half an hour before, now sent up the
merriest cheer to greet the coming day. A little wind went bustling
and eddying among the tree-tops underneath the windows. And still the
daylight kept flooding insensibly out of the east, which was soon to
grow incandescent and cast up that red-hot cannon-ball, the rising
sun.
Denis looked out over all this with a bit of a shiver. He had taken
her hand, and retained it in his almost unconsciously.
"Has the day begun already?" she said; and then illogically enough:
"the night has been so long! Alas! what shall we say to my uncle when
he returns?"
"What you will," said Denis, and he pressed her fingers in his.
She was silent.
"Blanche," he said, with a swift, uncertain, passionate utterance,
"you have seen whether I fear death. You must know well enough that I
would as gladly leap out of that window into the empty air as to lay a
finger on you without your free and full consent. But if you care for
me at all do not let me lose my life in a misapprehension; for I love
you better than the whole world; and though I will die for you
blithely, it would be like all the joys of Paradise to live on and
spend my life in your service."
As he stopped speaking, a bell began to ring loudly in the interior of
the house; and a clatter of armor in the corridor showed that the
retainers were returning to their post, and the two hours were at an
end.
"After all that you have heard?" she whispered, leaning toward him
with her lips and eyes.
"I have heard nothing," he replied.
"The captain's name was Florimond de Champdivers," she said in his
ear.
"I did not hear it," he answered, taking her supple body in his arms,
and covered her wet face with kisses.
A melodious chirping was audible behind, followed by a beautiful
chuckle, and the voice of Messire de Maletroit wished his new nephew a
good morning.
NOTES
[1] Published in 1878. Acknowledgment is due to the Charles Scribner's
Sons Company, Publishers, for the use of the text of their edition of
Stevenson's works.
[2] 207:18 bartizan. A small overhanging turret with loop-holes and
embrasures projecting from the parapet of a medieval building.
[3] 208:1 gargoyles. Mouths of spouts, in antic shapes.
[4] 209:30 debouched. Passed out.
[5] 212:29 Leonardo. (1452-1519.) A famous Italian painter, architect,
sculptor, scientist, engineer, mechanician, and musician.
[6] 222:7 salle. French word for hall or room.
[7] 223:13 Charlemagne. (742 or 747-814.) A great king of the Franks
and emperor of the Romans.
[8] 225:25 poltroon. A coward, a dastard.
[9] 229:12 Hercules. A mighty hero in Greek and Roman mythology.
[10] 229:13 Solomon. Son of David. King of Israel, 993-953 B.C.
[11] 231: 26 steadings. A farmstead--barns, stables, cattle-sheds,
etc.
BIOGRAPHY
Robert Louis Stevenson was born November 13, 1850, in Edinburgh. He
was an only child. On his mother's side he came from a line of Scotch
philosophers and ministers; on his father's, from a line of active
workers and scientists. His grandfather, Robert Stevenson, and his
father, Thomas Stevenson, gained world-wide reputations in
engineering.
Robert inherited from his mother throat and lung troubles. His health
was very poor from his birth and his life was preserved only by the
careful watchfulness of his mother and his devoted nurse, Alison
Cunningham. As a child he was very lovable and possessed a very active
imagination.
He went to school in Edinburgh between the years 1858-1867. He first
attended a preparatory school, then the Edinburgh academy. He spent
considerable time at his maternal grandfather's home. It was there
that he first tasted the delights of romance. In his school work he
was none too studious, but all his teachers were charmed by his
pleasing manner and general intelligence. Though an idler in other
things, he worked constantly on the art of writing. Throughout his
study in Edinburgh University and his unsuccessful efforts in
engineering and the practice of law, literature became more and more a
passion with him.
The period between 1875 and 1879 was one of improved health and
considerable literary activity. During this time he published _A
Lodging for the Night, Will o' the Mill, The New Arabian Nights_, and
an _Inland Voyage_.
While in southern Europe he met and fell in love with Mrs. Osbourne.
So after she returned to her home in California, Stevenson received
the news that she was seriously ill. He immediately sailed for San
Francisco, travelling as a steerage passenger because of lack of funds
and a desire for literary material. Out of this experience grew a
number of stories and essays. Exposure on the voyage affected his
health and caused a very dangerous illness. After his recovery he
married Mrs. Osbourne and returned to England with his wife and
stepson.
For a few years his work was more or less spasmodic on account of his
bitter struggle with poor health, in 1883 he achieved success by the
publication of _Treasure Island_. _Markheim_ appeared in 1884.
_Kidnapped_ and _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_ were published in 1886.
After the death of his father in 1887, Stevenson and his family sailed
to America, where they settled in the Adirondacks for the winter of
1888. Here his health was good and he wrote a number of essays for
_Scribner's Magazine_. In the spring of the same year they started on
a cruise of the south seas. They visited many of the southern islands
and settled at Vailima, Samoa. Stevenson was interested in the Samoaas
and took an active part in their political affairs. The tropical
climate agreed with him and his creative power was renewed. He wrote a
number of short stories, a series of letters on the South Seas, and
the novel _David Balfour_.
Political reverses and failing strength took away for a time his power
to write. He was again stimulated, however, by the love and
appreciation of his Samoan followers, and started on what promised to
be his period of highest achievement. This promise was soon blighted
by his untimely death from a stroke of apoplexy, December 13, 1894. He
was buried in Samoa.
BIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
_Life of Robert Louis Stevenson_, 2 vols., Graham Balfour.
_Robert Louis Stevenson_, Isobel Strong.
_Memories and Portraits_, Robert Louis Stevenson.
_Friends on the Shelf_, Bradford Torrey.
"Personal Recollections," Edmund Gosse, _Century Magazine_, 50:447.
"Character Sketch," _Atlantic Monthly_, 89:89-99.
"The Real Stevenson," _Atlantic Monthly_, 85:702-5.
_A Bibliography of the Works of Robert Louis Stevenson_, W.F.
Prideaux.
CRITICISMS
Fundamentally Stevenson's style is marked by a conscious aim to
entertain. His engaging humor, free of all affectation,
sentimentality, and exaggeration, is spontaneous and natural. His most
original writing is _The Child's Garden of Verses_. His touch is light
and his thought is clear and lucid. _Across the Plains_ is written in
his most straightforward and natural style.
Stevenson was a careful writer, doing with great skill any established
piece of art. He practised diligently, and gained, as he himself
states, his high rank by constantly drilling himself in the art of
writing. This imitation of form to the point of perfection, rather
than an expression of a great and moving idea, gives an air of
insincerity to some of Stevenson's works. Yet, although seemingly
artificial, he never chose words for the sake of mere sounds, but for
their accuracy in truth and fitness. He was as an ephemeral shadow
with an optimistic and real spirit. He infused an intimacy and
spirituality into his writings that prove delightful to all his
readers.
The subject of Markheim, a man failing through weakness, was a
favorite topic for Stevenson. Markheim is almost an ideal specimen of
the impressionistic short-story. It has a plot in which Hawthorne
might justly have revelled, a treatment as intellectual as that of
Poe, descriptions not unlike those of Flaubert's, and a moral ending
true to the Puritanic type. The movement of the story is swift and
possesses perfect unity. The surprise at the end comes as a shock
although the author has consistently and logically constructed his
plot.
GENERAL REFERENCES
_Emerson and Other Essays_, John Jay Chapman.
_Robert Louis Stevenson_, L. Cope Cornford.
_Modern Novelists_, William Lyon Phelps.
_Makers of English Fiction_, W.J. Dawson.
"Art of Stevenson," _North American Review_, 171: 348-358.
"Criticism," _Dial_, 30:345. May 18, 1901.
COLLATERAL READINGS
_The Suicide Club (New Arabian Nights)_, Robert Louis Stevenson.
_Story of the Physician and the Saratoga Trunk_, Robert Louis
Stevenson.
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