We drove straight to Dalrymple's rooms, and, going in with a pass-key, went up without disturbing the concierge. Arrived at home, my friend's first act was to open his buffetier and take out a loaf, a paté de foie gras, and a bottle of wine. I could not eat a morsel; but he supped (or breakfasted) with a capital appetite; insisted that I should lie down on his bed for two or three hours; and slipping into his dressing-gown, took out his desk and cash-box, and settled himself to a regular morning's work.
"I hope to get a nap myself before starting," said he. "I have not many debts, and I made my will the day after I married--so I have but little to transact in the way of business. A few letters to write--a few to burn--a trifle or two to seal up and direct to one or two fellows who may like a souvenír,--that is the extent of my task! Meanwhile, my dear boy, get what rest you can. It will never do to be shaky and pale on the field, you know."
I went, believing that I should be less in his way; and, lying down in my clothes, fell into a heavy sleep, from which, after what seemed a long time, I woke suddenly with the conviction that it was just ten o'clock. To start up, look at my watch, find that it was only a quarter to seven and fall profoundly asleep again, was the work of only a few minutes. At the end of another half-hour I woke with the same dread, and with the same result; and so on twice or thrice after, till at a quarter to nine I jumped up, plunged my head into a basin of cold water, and went back to the sitting-room.
I found him lying forward upon the table, fast asleep, with his head resting on his hands. Some half-dozen letters lay folded and addressed beside him--one directed to his wife. A little pile of burnt paper fluttered on the hearth. His pistols were lying close by in their mahogany case, the blue and white steel relieved against the crimson-velvet lining. He slept so soundly, poor fellow, that I could with difficulty make up my mind to wake him. Once roused, however, he was alert and ready in a moment, changed his coat, took out a new pair of lavender gloves, hailed a cab from the window, and bade the driver name his own fare if he got us to the terrace at Bellevue by five minutes before ten.
"I always like to be before my time in a matter of this kind, Damon," said he. "It's shabby to be merely punctual when one has, perhaps, not more than a quarter of an hour to live. By-the-by, here are my keys. Take them, in case of accident. You will find a copy of my will in my desk---the original is with my lawyer. The letters you will forward, according to the addresses; and in my cash-box you will find a paper directed to yourself."
I bent my head. I would not trust myself to speak. "As for the letter to Hélène--to my wife," he said, turning his face away, "will you--will you deliver that with your own hands?"
"I will."
"I--I have had but little time to write it," he faltered, "and I trust to you to supply the details. Tell her how I made the quarrel, and how it ended. No one suspects it to be other than a fracas over a game at écarté. No one supposes that I had any other motive, or any deeper vengeance--not even De Caylus! I have not compromised her by word or deed. If I shoot him, I free her without a breath of scandal. If I fall--"
His voice failed, and we were both silent for some moments
We were now past the Barrier, and speeding on rapidly towards the open country. High white houses with jalousies closed against the sun, and pretty maisonnettes in formal gardens, succeeded the streets and shops of suburban Paris. Then came a long country road bordered by poplars--by-and-by, glimpses of the Seine, and scattered farms and villages far away--then Sèvres and the leafy heights of Bellevue overhanging the river.
We crossed the bridge, and the driver, mindful of his fare, urged on his tired horse. Some country folks met us presently, and a wagoner with a load of fresh hay. They all smiled and gave us "good-day" as we passed--they going to their work in the fields, and we to our work of bloodshed!
Shortly after this, the road began winding upwards, past the porcelain factories and through the village of Sèvres; after which, having but a short distance of very steep road to climb, we desired the cabman to wait, and went up on foot. Arrived at the top, where a peep of blue daylight came streaming down upon us through a green tunnel of acacias, we emerged all at once upon the terrace, and found ourselves first on the field. Behind us rose a hillside of woods--before us, glassy and glittering, as if traced upon the transparent air, lay the city of palaces. Domes and spires, arches and columns of triumph, softened by distance, looked as if built of the sunshine. Far away on one side stretched the Bois de Boulogne, undulating like a sea of tender green. Still farther away on the other, lay Père-la-Chaise--a dark hill specked with white; cypresses and tombs. At our feet, winding round a "lawny islet" and through a valley luxuriant in corn-fields and meadows, flowed the broad river, bluer than the sky.
"A fine sight, Damon!" said Dalrymple, leaning on the parapet, and coolly lighting a cigar. "If my eyes are never to open on the day again, I am glad they should have rested for the last time on a scene of so much beauty! Where is the painter who could paint it? Not Claude himself, though he should come back to life on purpose, and mix his colors with liquid sunlight!"
"You are a queer fellow," said I, "to talk of scenery and painters at such a moment!"
"Not at all. Things are precious according to the tenure by which we hold them. For my part, I do not know when I appreciated earth and sky so heartily as this morning. Tiens! here comes a carriage--our men, no doubt."
"Are you a good shot?" I asked anxiously.
"Pretty well. I can write my initials in bullet-holes on a sheet of notepaper at forty paces, or toss up half-a-crown as I ride at full gallop, and let the daylight through it as it comes down."
"Thank Heaven!"
"Not so fast, my boy. De Caylus is just as fine a shot, and one of the most skilful swordsmen in the French service."
"Ay, but the first fire is yours!"
"Is it? Well, I suppose it is. He struck the first blow, and so--here they come."
"One more word, Dalrymple--did he really cheat you at écarté?"
"Upon my soul, I don't know. He did hold the king very often, and there are some queer stories told of him in Vienna by the officers of the Emperor's Guard. At all events, this is not the first duel he has had to fight in defence of his good-fortune!"
De Simoncourt now coming forward, we adjourned at once to the wood behind the village. A little open glade was soon found; the ground was soon measured; the pistols were soon loaded. De Caylus looked horribly pale, but it was the pallor of concentrated rage, with nothing of the craven hue in it. Dalrymple, on the contrary, had neither more nor less color than usual, and puffed away at his cigar with as much indifference as if he were waiting his turn at the pit of the Comédie Française. Both were clothed in black from head to foot, with their coats buttoned to the chin.
"All is ready," said De Simoncourt. "Gentlemen, choose your weapons."
De Caylus took his pistols one by one, weighed and poised them, examined the priming, and finally, after much hesitation, decided.
Dalrymple took the first that came to hand.
The combatants then took their places--De Caylus with his hat pulled low over his eyes; Dalrymple still smoking carelessly.
They exchanged bows.
"Major Dalrymple," said De Simoncourt, "it is for you to fire first."
"God bless you, Damon!" said my friend, shaking me warmly by the hand.
He then half turned aside, flung away the end of his cigar, lifted his right arm suddenly, and fired.
I heard the dull thud of the ball--I saw De Caylus fling up his arms and fall forward on the grass. I saw Dalrymple running to his assistance. The next instant, however, the wounded man was on his knees, ghastly and bleeding, and crying for his pistol.
"Give it me!" he gasped--"hold me up! I--I will have his life yet! So, steady--steady!"
Shuddering, but not for his own danger, Dalrymple stepped calmly back to his place; while De Caylus, supported by his second, struggled to his feet and grasped his weapon. For a moment he once more stood upright. His eye burned; his lips contracted; he seemed to gather up all his strength for one last effort. Slowly, steadily, surely, he raised his pistol--then swaying heavily back, fired, and fell again.
"Dead this time, sure enough," said De Simoncourt, bending over him.
"Indeed, I fear so," replied Dalrymple, in a low, grave voice. "Can we do nothing to help you, Monsieur de Simoncourt?"
"Nothing, thank you. I have a carriage down the road, and must get further assistance from the village. You had better lose no time in leaving Paris."
"I suppose not. Good-morning."
"Good-morning,"
So we lifted our hats; gathered up the pistols; hurried out of the wood and across a field, so avoiding the village; found our cab waiting where we had left it; and in less than five minutes, were rattling down the dusty hill again and hurrying towards Paris.
Once in the cab, Dalrymple began hastily pulling off his coat and waistcoat. I was startled to see his shirt-front stained with blood.
"Heavens!" I exclaimed, "you are not wounded?"
"Very slightly. De Caylus was too good a shot to miss me altogether. Pshaw! 'tis nothing--a mere graze--not even the bullet left in it!"
"If it had been a little more to the left...." I faltered.
"If he had fired one second sooner, or lived one second longer, he would have had me through the heart, as sure as there's a heaven above us!" said Dalrymple.
Then, suddenly changing his tone, he added, laughingly--
"Nonsense, Damon! cheer up, and help me to tear this handkerchief into bandages. Now's the time to show off your surgery, my little Æsculapius. By Jupiter, life's a capital thing, after all!"
Having seen Dalrymple to his lodgings and dressed his wound, which was, in truth, but a very slight one, I left him and went home, promising to return in a few hours, and help him with his packing; for we both agreed that he must leave Paris that evening, come what might.
It was now close upon two o'clock, and I had been out since between three and four the previous afternoon--not quite twenty-four hours, in point of actual time; but a week, a month, a year, in point of sensation! Had I not seen a man die since that hour yesterday?
Walking homewards through the garish streets in the hot afternoon, all the strange scenes in which I had just been an actor thronged fantastically upon my memory. The joyous dinner with Franz Müller; the busy Temple; the noisy theatre; the long chase through the wet streets at midnight; the crowded gaming-house; the sweet country drive at early morning; the quiet wood, and the dead man lying on his back, with the shadows of the leaves upon his face,--all this, in strange distinctness, came between me and the living tide of the Boulevards.
And now, over-tired and over-excited as I was, I remembered for the first time that I had eaten nothing since half-past five that morning. And then I also remembered that I had left Müller waiting for me under the archway, without a word of explanation. I promised myself that I would write to him as soon as I got home, and in the meantime turned in at the first Café to which I came and called for breakfast. But when the breakfast was brought, I could not eat it. The coffee tasted bitter to me. The meat stuck in my throat. I wanted rest more than food--rest of body and mind, and the forgetfulness of sleep! So I paid my bill, and, leaving the untasted meal, went home like a man in a dream.
Madame Bouïsse was not in her little lodge as I passed it--neither was my key on its accustomed hook. I concluded that she was cleaning my rooms, and so, going upstairs, found my door open. Hearing my own name, however, I paused involuntarily upon the threshold.
"And so, as I was saying," pursued a husky voice, which I knew at once to be the property of Madame Bouïsse, "M'sieur Basil's friend painted it on purpose for him; and I am sure if he was as good a Catholic as the Holy Father himself, and that picture was a true portrait of our Blessed Lady, he could not worship it more devoutly. I believe he says his prayers to it, mam'selle! I often find it in the morning stuck up by the foot of his bed; and when he comes home of an evening to study his books and papers, it always stands on a chair just in front of his table, so that he can see it without turning his head, every time he lifts his eyes from the writing!"
In the murmured reply that followed, almost inaudible though it was, my ear distinguished a tone that set my heart beating.
"Well, I can't tell, of course," said Madame Bouïsse, in answer, evidently, to the remark just made; "but if mam'selle will only take the trouble to look in the glass, and then look at the picture, she will see how like it is. For my part, I believe it to be that, and nothing else. Do you suppose I don't know the symptoms? Dame! I have eyes, as well as my neighbors; and you may take my word for it, mam'selle, that poor young gentleman is just as much in love as ever a man was in this world!"
"No more of this, if you please, Madame Bouïsse," said Hortense, so distinctly that I could no longer be in doubt as to the speaker.
I stayed to hear no more; but retreating softly down the first flight of stairs, came noisily up again, and went straight into my rooms, saying:--
"Madame Bouïsse, are you here?"
"Not only Madame Bouïsse, but an intruder who implores forgiveness," said Hortense, with a frank smile, but a heightened color.
I bowed profoundly. No need to tell her she was welcome--my face spoke for me.
"It was Madame Bouïsse who lured me in," continued she, "to look at that painting."
"Mais, oui! I told mam'selle you had her portrait in your sitting-room," laughed the fat concierge, leaning on her broom. "I'm sure it's quite like enough to be hers, bless her sweet face!"
I felt myself turn scarlet. To hide my confusion I took the picture down, and carried it to the window.
"You will see it better by this light," I said, pretending to dust it with my handkerchief. "It is worth a close examination."
Hortense knelt down, and studied it for some moments in silence.
"It must be a copy," she said, presently, more to herself than me--"it must be a copy."
"It is a copy," I replied. "The original is at the Château de Sainte Aulaire, near Montlhéry."
"May I ask how you came by it?"
"A friend of mine, who is an artist, copied it."
"Then it was done especially for you?"
"Just so."
"And, no doubt, you value it?"
"More than anything I possess!"
Then, fearing I had said too much, I added:--
"If I had not admired the original very much, I should not have wished for a copy."
She shifted the position of the picture in such a manner that, standing where I did, I could no longer see her face.
"Then you have seen the original," she said, in a low tone.
"Undoubtedly--and you?"
"Yes, I have seen it; but not lately."
There was a brief pause.
"Madame Bouïsse thinks it so like yourself, mademoiselle," I said, timidly, "that it might almost be your portrait."
"I can believe it," she answered. "It is very like my mother."
Her voice faltered; and, still kneeling, she dropped her face in her hands, and wept silently.
Madame Bouïsse, in the meantime, had gone into my bedchamber, where she was sweeping and singing to herself with the door three parts closed, believing, no doubt, that she was affording me the opportunity to make a formal declaration.
"Alas! mademoiselle," I said, hesitatingly, "I little thought..."
She rose, dashed the tears aside, and, holding out her hand to me, said, kindly--
"It is no fault of yours, fellow-student, if I remind you of the portrait, or if the portrait reminds me of one whom it resembles still more nearly. I am sorry to have troubled your kind heart with my griefs. It is not often that they rise to the surface."
I raised her hand reverently to my lips.
"But you are looking worn and ill yourself," she added. "Is anything the matter?"
"Not now," I replied. "But I have been up all night, and--and I am very tired."
"Was this in your professional capacity?"
"Not exactly--and yet partly so. I have been more a looker-on than an active agent--and I have witnessed a frightful death-scene."
She sighed, and shook her head.
"You are not of the stuff that surgeons are made of, fellow-student," she said, kindly. "Instead of prescribing for others, you need some one to prescribe for you. Why, your hand is quite feverish. You should go to bed, and keep quiet for the next twelve hours."
"I will lie down for a couple of hours when Madame Bouïsse is gone; but I must be up and out again at six."
"Nay, that is in three hours."
"I cannot help it. It is my duty."
"Then I have no more to say. Would you drink some lemonade, if I made it for you?"
"I would drink poison, if you made it for me!"
"A decidedly misplaced enthusiasm!" laughed she, and left the room.
It was a glorious morning--first morning of the first week in the merry month of June--as I took my customary way to Dr. Chéron's house in the Faubourg St. Germain. I had seen Dalrymple off by the night train the evening previous, and, refreshed by a good night's rest, had started somewhat earlier than usual, for the purpose of taking a turn in the Luxembourg Gardens before beginning my day's work.
There the blossoming parterres, the lavish perfume from geranium-bed and acacia-blossom, and the mad singing of the little birds up among the boughs, set me longing for a holiday. I thought of Saxonholme, and the sweet English woodlands round about. I thought how pleasant it would be to go home to dear Old England, if only for ten days, and surprise my father in his quiet study. What if I asked Dr. Chéron to spare me for a fortnight?
Turning these things over in my mind, I left the gardens, and, arriving presently at the well-known Porte Cochère in the Rue de Mont Parnasse, rang the great bell, crossed the dull courtyard, and took my usual seat at my usual desk, not nearly so well disposed for work as usual.
"If you please, Monsieur," said the solemn servant, making his appearance at the door, "Monsieur le Docteur requests your presence in his private room."
I went. Dr. Chéron was standing on the hearth-rug, with his back to the fire, and his arms folded over his breast. An open letter, bordered broadly with black, lay upon his desk. Although distant some two yards from the table, his eyes were fixed upon this paper. When I came in he looked up, pointed to a seat, but himself remained standing and silent.
"Basil Arbuthnot," he said, after a pause of some minutes, "I have this morning received a letter from England, by the early post."
"From my father, sir?"
"No. From a stranger,"
He looked straight at me as he said this, and hesitated.
"But it contains news," he added, "that--that much concerns you."
There was a fixed gravity about the lines of his handsome mouth, and an unwonted embarrassment in his manner, that struck me with apprehension.
"Good news, I--I hope, sir," I faltered.
"Bad news, my young friend," said he, compassionately. "News that you must meet like a man, with fortitude--with resignation. Your father--your excellent father--my honored friend--"
He pointed to the letter and turned away.
I rose up, sat down, rose up again, reached out a trembling hand for the letter, and read the loss that my heart had already presaged.
My father was dead.
Well as ever in the morning, he had been struck with apoplexy in the afternoon, and died in a few hours, apparently without pain.
The letter was written by our old family lawyer, and concluded with the request that Dr. Chéron would "break the melancholy news to Mr. Basil Arbuthnot, who would doubtless return to England for the funeral."
My tears fell one by one upon the open letter. I had loved my father tenderly in my heart. His very roughnesses and eccentricities were dear to me. I could not believe that he was gone. I could not believe that I should never hear his voice again!
Dr. Chéron came over, and laid his hand upon my shoulder.
"Come," he said, "you have much to do, and must soon be on your way. The express leaves at midday. It is now ten, you have only two hours left."
"My poor father!"
"Brunet," continued the Doctor, "shall go back with you to your lodgings and help you to pack. As for money--"
He took out his pocket-book and offered me a couple of notes; but I shook my head and put them from me.
"I have enough money, thank you," I said. "Good-bye."
"Good-bye," he replied, and, for the first time in all these months, shook me by the hand. "You will write to me?"
I bowed my head in silence, and we parted. I found a cab at the door, and Brunet on the box. I was soon at home again. Home! I felt as if I had no home now, either in France or England--as if all my Paris life were a brief, bright dream, and this the dreary waking. Hortense was out. It was one of her busy mornings, and she would not be back till the afternoon. It was very bitter to leave without one last look--one last word. I seized pen and paper, and yielding for the first time to all the impulses of my love, wrote, without weighing my words, these few brief sentences:--
"I have had a heavy loss, Hortense, and by the time you open this letter I shall be far away. My father--my dear, good father--is no more. My mother died when I was a little child. I have no brothers--no sisters--no close family ties. I am alone in the world now--quite alone. My last thought here is of you. If it seems strange to speak of love at such a moment, forgive me, for that love is now my only hope. Oh, that you were here, that I might kiss your hand at parting, and know that some of your thoughts went with me! I cannot believe that you are quite indifferent to me. It seems impossible that, loving you as I love, so deeply, so earnestly, I should love in vain. When I come back I shall seek you here, where I have loved you so long. I shall look into your eyes for my answer, and read in them all the joy, or all the despair, of the life that lies before me. I had intended to get that portrait copied again for you, because you saw in it some likeness to your mother; but there has been no time, and ere you receive this letter I shall be gone. I therefore send the picture to you by the concierge. It is my parting gift to you. I can offer no greater proof of my love. Farewell."
Once written, I dared not read the letter over. I thrust it under her door, and in less than five minutes was on my way to the station.
Beautifully and truly, in the fourth book of the most poetical of stories, has a New World romancist described the state of a sorrowing lover. "All around him," saith he, "seemed dreamy and vague; all within him, as in a sun's eclipse. As the moon, whether visible or invisible, has power over the tides of the ocean, so the face of that lady, whether present or absent, had power over the tides of his soul, both by day and night, both waking and sleeping. In every pale face and dark eye he saw a resemblance to her; and what the day denied him in reality, the night gave him in dreams."
Such was, very faithfully, my own condition of mind during the interval which succeeded my departure from Paris--the only difference being that Longfellow's hero was rejected by the woman he loved, and sorrowing for that rejection; whilst I, neither rejected nor accepted, mourned another grief, and through the tears of that trouble, looked forward anxiously to my uncertain future.
I reached Saxonholme the night before my father's funeral, and remained there for ten days. I found myself, to my surprise, almost a rich man--that is to say, sufficiently independent to follow the bent of my inclinations as regarded the future.
My first impulse, on learning the extent of my means, was to relinquish a career that had been from the first distasteful to me--my second was to leave the decision to Hortense. To please her, to be worthy of her, to prove my devotion to her, was what I most desired upon earth. If she wished to see me useful and active in my generation, I would do my best to be so for her sake--if, on the contrary, she only cared to see me content, I would devote myself henceforth to that life of "retired leisure" that I had always coveted. Could man love more honestly and heartily?
One year of foreign life had wrought a marked difference in me. I had not observed it so much in Paris; but here, amid old scenes and old reminiscences, I seemed to meet the image of my former self, and wondered at the change 'twixt now and then. I left home, timid, ignorant of the world and its ways, reserved, silent, almost misanthropic. I came back strengthened mentally and physically. Studious as ever, I could yet contemplate an active career without positive repugnance; I knew how to meet and treat my fellow-men; I was acquainted with society in its most refined and most homely phases. I had tasted of pleasure, of disappointment, of love--of all that makes life earnest.
As the time drew near when I should return to Paris, grief, and hope, and that strange reluctance which would fain defer the thing it most desires, perplexed and troubled me by day and night. Once again on the road, the past seemed more than ever dream-like, and Paris and Saxonholme became confused together in my mind, like the mingling outlines of two dissolving views.
I crossed the channel this time in a thick, misting rain; pushed on straight for Paris, and reached the Cité Bergère in the midst of a warm and glowing afternoon. The great streets were crowded with carriages and foot-passengers. The trees were in their fullest leaf. The sun poured down on pavement and awning with almost tropical intensity. I dismissed my cab at the top of the Rue du Faubourg Montmatre, and went up to the house on foot. A flower-girl sat in the shade of the archway, tying up her flowers for the evening-sale, and I bought a cluster of white roses for Hortense as I went by.
Madame Bouïsse was sound asleep in her little sanctum; but my key hung in its old place, so I took it without disturbing her, and went up as if I had been away only a few hours. Arrived at the third story, I stopped outside Hortense's door and listened. All was very silent within. She was out, perhaps; or writing quietly in the farther chamber. I thought I would leave my travelling-bag in my own room, and then ring boldly for admittance. I turned the key, and found myself once again in my own familiar, pleasant student home. The books and busts were there in their accustomed places; everything was as I had left it. Everything, except the picture! The picture was gone; so Hortense had accepted it.
Three letters awaited me on the table; one from Dr. Chéron, written in a bold hand--a mere note of condolence: one from Dalrymple, dated Chamounix: the third from Hortense. I knew it was from her. I knew that that small, clear, upright writing, so singularly distinct and regular, could be only hers. I had never seen it before; but my heart identified it.
That letter contained my fate. I took it up, laid it down, paced backwards and forwards, and for several minutes dared not break the seal. At length I opened it. It ran thus:--
"FRIEND AND FELLOW-STUDENT.
"I had hoped that a man such as you and a woman such as I might become true friends, discuss books and projects, give and take the lesser services of life, and yet not end by loving. In this belief, despite occasional misgivings, I have suffered our intercourse to become intimacy--our acquaintance, friendship. I see now that I was mistaken, and now, when it is, alas! too late, I reproach myself for the consequences of that mistake.
"I can be nothing to you, friend. I have duties in life more sacred than marriage. I have a task to fulfil which is sterner than love, and imperative as fate. I do not say that to answer you thus costs me no pain. Were there even hope, I would bid you hope; but my labor presses heavily upon me, and repeated failure has left me weary and heart-sick.
"You tell me in your letter that, by the time I read it, you will be far away. It is now my turn to repeat the same words. When you come back to your rooms, mine will be empty. I shall be gone; all I ask is, that you will not attempt to seek me.
"Farewell. I accept your gift. Perhaps I act selfishly in taking it, but a day may come when I shall justify that selfishness to you. In the meantime, once again farewell. You are my only friend, and these are the saddest words I have ever written--forget me!
"HORTENSE."
I scarcely know how I felt, or what I did, on first reading this letter. I believe that I stood for a long time stone still, incapable of realizing the extent of my misfortune. By-and-by it seemed to rush upon me suddenly. I threw open my window, scaled the balcony rails, and forced my way into her rooms.
Her rooms! Ah, by that window she used to sit--at that table she read and wrote--in that bed she slept! All around and about were scattered evidences of her presence. Upon the chimney-piece lay an envelope addressed to her name--upon the floor, some fragments of torn paper and some ends of cordage! The very flowers were yet fresh upon her balcony! The sight of these things, while they confirmed my despair, thawed the ice at my heart. I kissed the envelope that she had touched, the flowers she had tended, the pillow on which her head had been wont to rest. I called wildly on her name. I threw myself on the floor in my great agony, and wept aloud.
I cannot tell how long I may have lain there; but it seemed like a lifetime. Long enough, at all events, to drink the bitter draught to the last drop--long enough to learn that life had now no grief in store for which I should weep again.
There are times when this beautiful world seems to put on a mourning garb, as if sympathizing, like a gentle mother, with the grief that consumes us; when the trees shake their arms in mute sorrow, and scatter their faded leaves like ashes on our heads; when the slow rains weep down upon us, and the very clouds look cold above. Then, like Hamlet the Dane, we take no pleasure in the life that weighs so wearily upon us, and deem "this goodly frame, the earth, a sterile promonotory; this most excellent canopy, the air, this brave, overhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors."
So it was with me, in the heavy time that followed my return to Paris. I had lost everything in losing her I loved. I had no aim in life. No occupation. No hope. No rest. The clouds had rolled between me and the sun, and wrapped me in their cold shadows, and all was dark about me. I felt that I could say with an old writer--"For the world, I count it, not an inn, but an hospital; and a place, not to live, but to die in."
Week after week I lingered in Paris, hoping against hope, and always seeking her. I had a haunting conviction that she was not far off, and that, if I only had strength to persevere, I must find her. Possessed by this fixed idea, I paced the sultry streets day after day throughout the burning months of June and July; lingered at dusk and early morning about the gardens of the Luxembourg, and such other quiet places as she might frequent; and, heedless alike of fatigue, or heat, or tempest, traversed the dusty city over and over again from barrier to barrier, in every direction.
Could I but see her once more--once only! Could I but listen to her sweet voice, even though it bade me an eternal farewell! Could I but lay my lips for the last, last time upon her hand, and see the tender pity in her eyes, and be comforted!
Seeking, waiting, sorrowing thus, I grew daily weaker and paler, scarcely conscious of my own failing strength, and indifferent to all things save one. In vain Dr. Chéron urged me to resume my studies. In vain Müller, ever cheerful and active, came continually to my lodgings, seeking to divert my thoughts into healthier channels. In vain I received letter after letter from Oscar Dalrymple, imploring me to follow him to Switzerland, where his wife had already joined him. I shut my eyes to all alike. Study had grown hateful to me; Müller's cheerfulness jarred upon me; Dalrymple was too happy for my companionship. Liberty to pursue my weary search, peace to brood over my sorrow, were all that I now asked. I had not yet arrived at that stage when sympathy grows precious.
So weeks went by, and August came, and a slow conviction of the utter hopelessness of my efforts dawned gradually upon me. She was really gone. If she had been in Paris all this time pursuing her daily avocations, I must surely have found her. Where should I seek her next? What should I do with life, with time, with the future?
I resolved, at all events, to relinquish medicine at once, and for ever. So I wrote a brief farewell to Dr. Chéron and another to Müller, and without seeing either again, returned abruptly to England.
I will not dwell on this part of my story; enough that I settled my affairs as quickly as might be, left an old servant in care of the solitary house that had been my birthplace, and turned my back once more on Saxonholme, perhaps for years--perhaps for ever; and in less than three weeks was again on my way to the Continent.
The spirit of restlessness was now upon me. I had no home; I had no peace; and in place of the sun there was darkness. So I went with the thorns around my brow, and the shadow of the cross upon my breast. I went to suffer--to endure,--if possible, to forget. Oh, the grief of the soul which lives on in the night, and looks for no dawning! Oh, the weary weight that presses down the tired eyelids, and yet leaves them sleepless! Oh, the tide of alien faces, and the sickening remembrance of one, too dear, which may never be looked upon again! I carried with me the antidote to every pleasure. In the midst of crowds, I was alone. In the midst of novelty, the one thought came, and made all stale to me. Like Dr. Donne, I dwelt with the image of my dead self at my side.
Thus for many, many months we journeyed together---I and my sorrow--and passed through fair and famous places, and saw the seasons change under new skies. To the quaint old Flemish cities and the Gothic Rhine--to the plains and passes of Spain--to the unfrequented valleys of the Tyrol and the glacier-lands of Switzerland I went, but still found not the forgetfulness I sought. As in Holbein's fresco the skeleton plays his part in every scene, so my trouble stalked beside me, drank of my cup, and sat grimly at my table. It was with me in Naples and among the orange groves of Sorrento. It met me amid the ruins of the Roman Forum. It travelled with me over the blue Mediterranean, and landed beside me on the shores of the Cyclades. Go where I would, it possessed and followed me, and brooded over my head, like the cloud that rested on the ark.
Thinking over this period of my life, I seem to be turning the leaves of a rich album, or wandering through a gallery of glowing landscapes, and yet all the time to be dreaming. Faces grown familiar for a few days and never seen after--pictures photographed upon the memory in all their vividness--glimpses of cathedrals, of palaces, of ruins, of sunset and storm, sea and shore, flit before me for a moment, and are gone like phantasmagoria.
And like phantasmagoria they impressed me at the time. Nothing seemed real to me. Startled, now and then, into admiration or wonder, my apathy fell from me like a garment, and my heart throbbed again as of old. But this was seldom--so seldom that I could almost count the times when it befell me.
Thus it was that travelling did me no permanent good. It enlarged my experience; it undoubtedly cultivated my taste; but it brought me neither rest, nor sympathy, nor consolation. On the contrary, it widened the gulf between me and my fellow-men. I formed no friendships. I kept up no correspondence. A sojourner in hotels, I became more and more withdrawn from all tender and social impulses, and almost forgot the very name of home. So strong a hold did this morbid love of self-isolation take upon me, that I left Florence on one occasion, after a stay of only three days, because I had seen the names of a Saxonholme family among the list of arrivals in the Giornale Toscano.
Three years went by thus--three springs--three vintages--three winters--till, weary of wandering, I began to ask myself "what next?" My old passion for books had, in the meantime, re-asserted itself, and I longed once more for quiet. I knew not that my pilgrimage was hopeless. I know that I loved her ever; that I could never forget her; that although the first pangs were past, I yet must bear
"All the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied longing,
All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of patience!"
I reasoned with myself. I resolved to be stronger--at all events, to be calmer. Exhausted and world-worn, I turned in thought to my native village among the green hills, to my deserted home, and the great solitary study with its busts and bookshelves, and its vista of neglected garden. The rooms where my mother died; where my father wrote; where, as a boy, I dreamed and studied, would at least have memories for me.
Perhaps, silently underlying all these motives, I may at this time already have begun to entertain one other project which was not so much a motive as a hope--not so much a hope as a half-seen possibility. I had written verses from time to time all my life long, and of late they had come to me more abundantly than ever. They flowed in upon me at times like an irresistible tide; at others they ebbed away for weeks, and seemed as if gone for ever. It was a power over which I had no control, and sought to have none. I never tried to make verses; but, when the inspiration was upon me, I made them, as it were, in spite of myself. My desk was full of them in time--sonnets, scraps of songs, fragments of blank verse, attempts in all sorts of queer and rugged metres--hexameters, pentameters, alcaics, and the like; with, here and there, a dialogue out of an imaginary tragedy, or a translation from some Italian or German poet. This taste grew by degrees, to be a rare and subtle pleasure to me. My rhymes became my companions, and when the interval of stagnation came, I was restless and lonely till it passed away.
At length there came an hour (I was lying, I remember, on a ledge of turf on a mountain-side, overlooking one of the Italian valleys of the Alps), when I asked myself for the first time--
"Am I also a poet?"
I had never dreamed of it, never thought of it, never even hoped it, till that moment. I had scribbled on, idly, carelessly, out of what seemed a mere facile impulse, correcting nothing; seldom even reading what I had written, after it was committed to paper. I had sometimes been pleased with a melodious cadence or a happy image--sometimes amused with my own flow of thought and readiness of versification; but that I, simple Basil Arbuthnot, should be, after all, enriched with this splendid gift of song--was it mad presumption, or were these things proof? I knew not; but lying on the parched grass of the mountain-side, I tried the question over in my mind, this way and that, till "my heart beat in my brain," How should I come at the truth? How should I test whether this opening Paradise was indeed Eden, or only the mirage of my fancy--mere sunshine upon sand? We all write verses at some moment or other in our lives, even the most prosaic amongst us--some because they are happy; some because they are sad; some because the living fire of youth impels them, and they must be up and doing, let the work be what it may.
"Many fervent souls,
Strike rhyme on rhyme, who would strike steel on steel,
If steel had offer'd."
Was this case mine? Was I fancying myself a poet, only because I was an idle man, and had lost the woman I loved? To answer these questions myself was impossible. They could only be answered by the public voice, and before I dared question that oracle I had much to do. I resolved to discipline myself to the harness of rhythm. I resolved to go back to the fathers of poetry--to graduate once again in Homer and Dante, Chaucer and Shakespeare. I promised myself that, before I tried my wings in the sun, I would be my own severest critic. Nay, more--that I would never try them so long as it seemed possible a fall might come of it. Once come to this determination, I felt happier and more hopeful than I had felt for the last three years. I looked across the blue mists of the valley below, and up to the aerial peaks which rose, faint, and far, and glittering--mountain beyond mountain, range above range, as if painted on the thin, transparent air--and it seemed to me that they stood by, steadfast and silent, the witnesses of my resolve.
"I will be strong," I said. "I will be an idler and a dreamer no longer. Books have been my world. I have taken all, and given nothing. Now I too will work, and work to prove that I was not unworthy of her love."
Going down, by-and-by, into the valley as the shadows were lengthening, I met a traveller with an open book in his hand. He was an Englishman--small, sallow, wiry, and wore a gray, loose coat, with two large pockets full of books. I had met him once before at Milan, and again in a steamer on Lago Maggiore. He was always reading. He read in the diligence--he read when he was walking--he read all through dinner at the tables-d'-hôte. He had a mania for reading; and, might, in fact, be said to be bound up in his own library.
Meeting thus on the mountain, we fell into conversation. He told me that he was on his way to Geneva, that he detested continental life, and that he was only waiting the arrival of certain letters before starting for England.
"But," said I, "you do not, perhaps, give continental life a trial. You are always absorbed in the pages of a book; and, as for the scenery, you appear not to observe it."
"Deuce take the scenery!" he exclaimed, pettishly. "I never look at it. All scenery's alike. Trees, mountains, water--water, mountains, trees; the same thing over and over again, like the bits of colored glass in a kaleidoscope. I read about the scenery, and that is quite enough for me."
"But no book can paint an Italian lake or an Alpine sunset; and when one is on the spot...."
"I beg your pardon," interrupted the traveller in gray. "Everything is much pleasanter and more picturesque in books than in reality--travelling especially. There are no bad smells in books. There are no long bills in books. Above all, there are no mosquitoes. Travelling is the greatest mistake in the world, and I am going home as fast as I can."
"And henceforth, I suppose, your travels will be confined to your library," I said, smiling.
"Exactly so. I may say, with Hazlitt, that 'food, warmth, sleep, and a book,' are all I require. With those I may make the tour of the world, and incur neither expense nor fatigue."
"Books, after all, are friends," I said, with a sigh.
"Sir," replied the traveller, waving his hand somewhat theatrically, "books are our first real friends, and our last. I have no others. I wish for no others. I rely upon no others. They are the only associates upon whom a sensible man may depend. They are always wise, and they are always witty. They never intrude upon us when we desire to be alone. They never speak ill of us behind our backs. They are never capricious, and never surly; neither are they, like some clever folks, pertinaciously silent when we most wish them to shine. Did Shakespeare ever refuse his best thoughts to us, or Montaigne decline to be companionable? Did you ever find Molière dull? or Lamb prosy? or Scott unentertaining?"
"You remind me," said I, laughing, "of the student in Chaucer, who desired for his only pleasure and society,
"'---at his bedde's head
A'twenty bokes clothed in black and red,
Of Aristotle and his philosophy!'"
"Ay," replied my new acquaintance, "but he preferred them expressly to 'robes riche, or fidel or sautrie,' whereas, I prefer them to men and women, and to Aristotle and his philosophy, into the bargain!"
"Your own philosophy, at least, is admirable," said I. "For many a year--I might almost say for most years of my life--I have been a disciple in the same school."
"Sir, you cannot belong to a better. Think of the convenience of always carrying half a dozen intimate friends in your pocket! Good-afternoon."
We had now come to a point where two paths diverged, and the reading traveller, always economical of time, opened his book where he had last turned down the leaf, and disappeared round the corner.
I never saw him again; but his theory amused me, and, as trifles will sometimes do even in the gravest matters, decided me. So the result of all my hopes and reflections was, that I went back to England and to the student life that had been the dream of my youth.