TALES FROM THE GERMAN. (continued 9)

“Elizabeth now also described to me all the extravagances she committed when she heard of our engagement; at first, she intended to destroy both herself and sister; then again she said she knew how to conquer me, so that I should love her and abandon Elizabeth, whom she excelled both in goodness and intellect.

“I was naturally grieved at this news, feeling full well how imprudently I had acted in making such friendly advances to Ernestine, in my endeavours to reconcile her. I was somewhat relieved, when, a few days afterwards, Elizabeth told me that her sister had apologised with tears for what she had spoken in anger, that she had conjured her not to communicate to me any thing of these aberrations, and only implored her to be allowed to accompany us to our future residence, as she could not possibly live without the company of her sister and myself, without our conversation and our music.

“Now plans and preparations were made, and the aunt accompanied us to the Klausenburg, to celebrate, with a few friends, our nuptials in quiet, as Elizabeth had always been excessively averse from pomp and display. I had had a few apartments and the ball-room prepared, as far as it was possible, the greater part of the castle being in ruins. But Elizabeth had a poetical predilection for old castles, solitary mountainous countries, and the historical legends connected with them. After the wedding, we intended to take up our residence in a new house not far distant, and only occasionally to spend a few days or hours in the Klausenburg.

“We arrived; the gate was opened to us, and the first object that met our view in the court-yard, from amidst the ivy that twined the high walls, was the old mad Sibyl, whom you, my friend, knew some years ago. My wife was terrified, and I shuddered. ‘Welcome! Welcome!’ cried the old hag, jumping about with wild gestures; ‘there comes the destroyer, the woman murderer, and brings his two brides with him, whom he will murder also.’ ‘How do you come here?’ I exclaimed. The porter replied, ‘She must have climbed down the other side of the cliffs, which form the extreme wall of the small garden, and must have concealed herself among the shrubs and ruins.’ ‘You are right, you are right,’ screamed the old hag, ‘it is pleasant to live there.’ Terrified as we were, Ernestine seemed merry, for she did not cease laughing.

“During the days on which we celebrated the festival, Ernestine did not appear; she had vanished; and being anxious about her, we despatched people in search of her, when, on the third day, she returned on foot, merry and in high spirits. She told us she had not been able to withstand the inclination to roam about in the mountains, as she always had had a desire to do so. ‘But thus alone, without informing us?’ said Elizabeth. ‘Alone!’ she replied, ‘No! I have kept constant company with that old prophetess whom you so unkindly sent away. There I have learnt many things quite new, that I never even read of, and we have become very good friends.’

“We looked at her with astonishment. I formed an idea without expressing it, that Ernestine was mad. So awful and ominous was her return to our residence, such sad forebodings crowded in our minds, that, in spite of my happiness, I felt no confidence on life, and Elizabeth could not regain her cheerfulness.

“In other respects we were reconciled, and enjoyed the present moment, and the beauty of the surrounding woods and mountains. Our few guests, as well as the aunt, had left us, and we might have lived contented and in happy union in this delightful solitude, had I not observed that my wife avoided her sister as much as circumstances permitted. When I asked her the reason of this, she answered after some hesitation: ‘Dearest, I am terrified at Ernestine; she has become quite malicious, though formerly she had not the least disposition that way. Whenever she can vex me, spoil any thing, or even expose me to danger, so that I may be startled, stumble, or even fall; or if any stones fall in my way she shows the most malicious joy, as she did when she lately set the curtains of my bed on fire by bringing the candle too near them. She has told me laughing, that the country people talk of travellers and rangers having seen two spectres by moonlight, or in the morning-dawn in the lonely parts of the forests, whom they describe as terrible hideous beings; that these were herself and the old gipsy, and that she only wished that the circumstance might appear in print, in order that she, with her own signature, Ernestine Fräulein von Jertz, might contradict the story of ghosts, and state that she was one of the imagined spirits. Is not all this terrible?’

“‘Dear child,’ said I, ‘I must now tell you, in confidence, that I believe she is mad.’

“‘Is any malice, when it becomes a passion, any thing but madness?’ remarked Elizabeth, very naturally.

“On the approach of autumn we left the Klausenburg to take possession of our new house, for, to my terror, I discovered a disposition to melancholy in my wife, for which our solitude seemed any thing but beneficial. While we were once walking through the ancient apartments and the gothic hall, which was in tolerable preservation, and our footsteps echoed in the solitary room, my wife started with a sudden shudder. I asked the reason.

“‘Oh! it is awful here,’ she replied, trembling; ‘I feel as if invisible spectres haunted this place.’ I was terrified, and the thought that my wife’s mind, like that of her sister, might perhaps have suffered, stared at me like a monster.

“When residing in our new house, we often missed Ernestine, and on inquiry, found that she staid in the Klausenburg and the ruins of the old castle. Although we had been living on an unpleasant footing, still my wife, as well as myself, could not help wishing her with us when she was away. But how different was my life from that which I had once pictured to myself when I courted Elizabeth!

“Other domestic calamities united with our sufferings to increase our grief. That document, which, really constituted my fortune and supported my existence, which proved that large sums were paid, and some still owing to me, as well as all the deeds and papers which had been produced as proofs after the death of Count Moritz,—all these important papers which I had discovered after a long troublesome search, and had in my hands but a short time before, had again disappeared. I had always kept them carefully locked up, and it was my intention to travel to town and deliver them to my solicitor in person, as on them the recovery of my estates depended. They were gone; and much as I meditated and reflected, I could not discover, nor even find a trace of the way in which they had been purloined. When at length I communicated my anxiety to my wife, she did not seem surprised, and told me calmly, ‘Can you still doubt? I have no doubt as to what has become of them. Ernestine has profited by some moment of your absence when you might have left your escritoire open, or some other forgetfulness, to take the papers away.’

“‘Not possible!’ I cried with horror. ‘Possible?’ she repeated. ‘What is impossible to her?’

“As these documents were wanting, our long standing law-suit proceeded but slowly, and I felt sure that I must lose it whenever it was decided. I therefore availed myself of an opportunity which the court afforded me, by proposing to quash it, that I might defer the decision to some future period. Still I could not help questioning Ernestine and informing her of my suspicions. I was horrorstruck at the manner in which she heard me communicate a suspicion, which would have shocked any innocent mind. When I had overcome my embarrassment and had concluded, she burst out in such laughter that I lost all composure. Recovering again, I urged her to reply, but she only said, with a sarcastic coldness, ‘My dear brother-in-law, there are here only two cases possible, as you must yourself see, notwithstanding your short-sightedness, namely, that I am either guilty or innocent. Is it not so? If I have committed the robbery, I must have been induced by weighty reasons, or goaded to such an act by malice, or something else. And then I ought to say: yes! I have done it, pray do not take it amiss. Now you must confess that this would be more than stupid. If I were a fool I might have done it without any particular intention,—may be to light the kitchen fire with them; or because I was pleased with the red seals, and might now say: there, take these pretty papers back, considering they have some value for the dear count. But a fool I have not been up to this moment; and if I am malicious, I am of course not silly enough to confess the deed. Or again, assuming the second case that I am innocent, then you, sir brother-in-law (pray don’t contradict me), are the simpleton for putting such unbecoming questions to me.’

“I could not answer the spectral being. When I saw that Elizabeth no longer took any pleasure in playing the piano that I procured from abroad in our retirement, and asked the reason of it, she said, sadly, ‘Dearest, if I do not wish to incur deadly vexation, I must no longer play.’ ‘How so?’ ‘Because Ernestine has flatly forbidden me. She says that in a house where there lives such an accomplished pianist as herself, she could not allow any one else even to strike a note.’ This presumption was too much for my patience. I ran to her chamber and asked her ironically to play me something, since she would not allow any one else to touch the instrument. She followed me, laughing loudly; and truly she played in such a masterly style, that my anger was turned into admiration and rapture. ‘Well!’ she said, gravely, when she had finished, ‘one may have in one’s own house all enjoyments for which connoisseurs would travel fifty miles, and yet one can be satisfied with such bungling and such hammering up and down the keys with clumsy fingers. Oh! fools and idiots, who, rogues as they are, talk of art and only mean vapour; they can only sip the nectar, and the wonderful becomes but trash in their rude hands. If I did not feel a constant disgust for life, if men were not repulsive to me, I should never cease laughing.’ From that time she often joined in our music, at most permitting Elizabeth and myself to sing, though she maintained that we possessed neither school nor method. Thus the winter passed away. I was already poor, and with the prospect of being reduced quite to beggary; Elizabeth was sickly, and the serenity of my life was gone.

“It was almost to be called a relief to our existence, when on the approach of spring, Ernestine became ill, and was shortly so much worse that she could not leave her bed. She grew more irritable as her illness increased, and nothing vexed her more than that she could not visit the Klausenburg, of which she had become so fond. One warm day I sent her in the carriage, she searched long in the rooms, loitered among the shrubs and ruins, and returned much worse than before. It was now evident that she could not recover. The physician said that he could not understand her disease, nor the state of the sufferer, for the vital powers were so strong in her that all the symptoms usually indicating death did not show themselves, and there was a probability of her speedy recovery; in a few days, however, he gave up all hope.

“We now really looked forward to a quieter future. Although we felt pity for the unhappy being, yet we could not deny that she had a disturbing effect on our life and the happiness of our love. We heard that she was near death, but as she had arranged with her doctor and nurse that we should not disturb her we had kept away. All of a sudden she much desired to see me, but requested that Elizabeth should not be present. I went and said as I entered: ‘Dear friend, you will doubtless be kind enough to give me back the documents which you took from my escritoire to vex me.’ She looked at me significantly with her dying eyes, which now seemed larger and sparkled brighter than formerly. There was something so singular, bright and glaring in her look, that any one having witnessed it would never wish to see any thing more terrible and inconceivable. After a pause she said: ‘Brother, do these foolish trifles still occupy your head? Yet it is no wonder, every one lives as he can. Sit down, my friend,’ she continued, with an air of contempt; I complied and sat down by her bed.

“‘You fancy,’ she now began in a repulsive, cutting tone, ‘you will get rid of me; but do not deceive yourself by flattering yourself too soon with such an idea. Death, life, non-existence, continuation! what useless, unmeaning words! When I had scarcely passed my childhood, I could not help laughing at men, if I saw them fretting about continued existence after death. They drag in and heap up like towers, proof after proof, probabilities and wishes, entreaties, prayers, and the mercy of the Almighty; they talk of many fine talents which cannot on this side of the grave, as they call it, be possibly perfected, much less brought to maturity,—and all these preparations are but to hush their base cowardice and fear of death. Poor wretches! If I collect myself, become conscious of my various energies in every direction, and then call to eternity, to the Creator and the millions of spirits of the past and the future, I will be immortal! I will!—what more is necessary, and what omnipotence can interfere to destroy my eternal, almighty will? What further security of being immortal and eternal does the man want who has any consciousness? How, and in what manner, that is another question. What farce we shall then play, what mask, what party-coloured wig, what gibbous labyrinth of entrails we shall then possess, what etiquette and court taste of ugliness and beauty will then be introduced, is uncertain. But, my good friends, as my own power, without any thing more, preserves me immortal, the same energy and free-will may bring me back to you whenever and as often as I like. Believe me, ye fools, the spectres, as you call them, are not exactly the worst or weakest spirits. Many a one would fain return, but he has as little individual character there as here, and hence the impossibility of doing so. And to you,—you paragon, rogue, vain, amiable character, full of talents, you bud of virtue, you barterer of beauty, whom I was compelled to love so intensely, yea, compelled despite of my inmost soul, which told me that you did not deserve it,—to you, smooth skinned, straight grown, human animal, I shall ever be quite near, believe me. For this love and jealousy, this rage after you and your breathing, and conversation, will urge me to the earth, and this will be, as the pious would say, my purgatory. Therefore, no leave-taking; we shall meet again!’[1] Thus saying she offered me her cold, dead hand.

“When life was extinct I returned to Elizabeth, but took care not to communicate any thing of the frantic ravings of the deceased, as her nerves were already excited by great anxiety, and she often suffered from spasms.

“We now lived in still retirement in a rural solitude which, in spite of our reduced finances, might have become delightful had I not remarked that the morbid and melancholy mood of Elizabeth was on the increase. She became pale and wasted, and I often found her weeping when entering her chamber unexpectedly. When I asked her the reason of this, she told me she knew not herself what was the matter with her, that she always felt sorrowful without being able to say why; that when she was alone she felt quite awed, it seemed so terrible to her that her sister had been obliged to end her existence in such a frantic passion, and that often when entering or sitting alone in her chamber it was as if Ernestine stood near her; she fancied she heard her singing, felt her breath, and her looks appeared to force themselves through the empty air.

“I quieted her, left her rarely by herself, read to her, we took walks together, and sometimes paid visits to our acquaintance in the neighbourhood. As she became calmer she recovered by degrees her naturally beautiful complexion. Feeling once unwell and lying comfortably stretched out on the sofa, while she was reading an interesting story to me, I said, how beautiful and melodious is your voice; will you not sing again for once? For a long time you have not opened your music books, your instrument is locked, and your beautiful fingers will at length become quite stiff.

“‘You know,” she replied, ‘that a few months ago my sister flatly forbade me to practise music; we were obliged to concede to her ill health and thus I have become quite out of practice.’

“‘Sing now,’ I cried, ‘the delight will be the greater to me for its novelty.’

“We looked out a cheerful, pleasing piece of music, to avoid any thing melancholy, and Elizabeth poured forth, with a truly heavenly voice, the clear light tones, which thrilled bliss into my heart. Suddenly she stopped, and was again seized with that violent hysteric fit of weeping which had so often terrified me. ‘I cannot,’ she cried, deeply moved, ‘all these sounds rise up before me like fiends; I always feel my sister quite near me, her dress rustling against mine, and her anger terrifies me.’ I felt clearly that my peace of mind as well as hers was destroyed.

“Our physician, a very judicious man, and a friend of ours, when she confessed all these feelings, her trembling, and the anxiety which almost incessantly preyed on her and undermined her health, applied every remedy to calm her, physically and mentally. This honest and judicious persuasion had a good effect, and his medicines proved salutary. When summer came we were much in the open air. We were once taking a drive to the estate of an acquaintance who told us that he intended to give a musical festival, composed of friends and some virtuosi. My wife’s great talent for music being known, we were invited, and she promised to play and sing; being then surrounded by strangers, flattered by both sexes and in a cheerful mood. I was the more rejoiced at this as our physician made it a part of his advice that she should forcibly combat these gloomy feelings and this hypochondriacal anxiety. She determined to follow his advice. Very pleased and rejoiced, we returned to our humble residence. Elizabeth with spirit went through the difficult pieces of music, and the idea that she might in this way, perhaps, recover her youthful vigour delighted me.

“A few days after this, while I was reading a letter, that had just arrived, the door was suddenly burst open, and Elizabeth rushed in, deadly pale, and fell as if dead in my arms. ‘What is the matter?’ I cried, seized with horror. Her eye wandered wildly round, her heart palpitated almost to bursting, and she was some time before she regained her voice and breath.

“‘Oh! heavens,’ she at length exclaimed, every word being expressive of horror, ‘in there, while I practised—in a cheerful mood—I accidently cast a look in the glass—and I saw behind me Ernestine looking at me with that strange smile, and having her withered arms folded across her chest. I know not whether she is still there, I hardly know how I reached here.’

“I gave her in charge of her maid; she retired, and the doctor was immediately sent for. I went into the other room, and found the music books scattered under the instrument. Elizabeth must have thrown them down in her fright.

“‘Of what avail are reasoning, joke, and consolation, diet and medicines against perfect madness,’ said I to myself, and yet I could not help thinking of the words with which her dying sister had threatened us.

“The news of my wife having been taken ill reached our friend’s ears, and was likely to prevent the musical festival taking place. His wife came a few days afterwards with a female singer to inquire after Elizabeth’s health. Not having said any thing, even to the doctor, of the apparition which my wife imagined she had seen, we of course did not mention this singular circumstance to our visiters. To all appearances my wife having quite recovered from her fright, we walked in our small garden with our friends conversing about the festival, and the baroness and the singer at length proposed to practise some music in my wife’s presence, that they might have her opinion, though she might not perhaps be able to join.

“We therefore returned to the drawing-room, and as it became dark, candles were lighted. The singer sat at the instrument to accompany herself, on her right was the baroness, I was just behind, and my wife was on her left. We could not help admiring the voices and the style of the singers. The music by degrees became more animated and impassioned, and I had once already omitted turning the page, when, just as the next leaf was played, a long bony finger appeared on it, quickly turned the leaf at the right time, and the melody proceeded. I looked round and beheld the terrible Ernestine standing close by me behind the baroness; I know not how I kept my composure, but I looked searchingly and almost unmoved at the terrific apparition. She smiled at me with that malicious expression which, even when living, made her countenance repelling. She wore her usual dress, her eyes were fiery, and her face was white as chalk. I felt almost a satisfaction in the gloomy sensation of awe, remained silent, and was glad that Elizabeth did not perceive the spirit. Suddenly there was a shriek of terror, and my wife fell fainting on the ground, while the withered finger was just going again to turn the page. The music of course ended, my wife was in a fever, and our friends who had not seen the spectre returned home.”

Here the invalid paused. The physician looked significantly at me, shaking his head.

“And you have,” he at length said, “never before told your present doctor any thing of that apparition.”

“No,” replied Francis, “you may call it shame, or fear of his cold, searching understanding; you may call it weakness or what you please; suffice it to say I could not prevail on myself to make this confession.”

“But it was very necessary,” said the physician, “for how could he judge correctly of your illness without that information?”

“From that time,” resumed Francis in a faint voice, “we determined to quit the neighbourhood in hopes that the furious spectre would not follow us beyond the mountains. But while we continued in our house we often saw her, mostly in the music-room. Our doctor being with us one morning, he sat down to the instrument and played some passages extempore. Suddenly the terrible spectre again stood by my wife’s chair, and laid her cold withered hand on her shoulder. Hysterics and faintings again followed.”

“And did your doctor see it also?”

“No,” said Francis, “she appeared behind him, but I saw her distinctly then, as I often did afterwards by broad daylight. We had only to touch the keys of the instrument when she immediately appeared, so that to strike a note was a summons. When I once revisited the ancient Klausenburg, I found her sitting upon a stone staring at me. Thus persecuted, terrified, and in constant fear and anxiety, we have become ripe for death, and the physician despairing of our recovery advised us at last to visit this watering-place, as a last resource for restoring our shattered health. But hitherto we have not found any beneficial result. And who can assure us that the spectre may not here haunt us also. She intends to destroy us, and the most inconceivable things are possible to her strong will. I believe we need only sing an air, or play a sonata even at this distance, and she would make her appearance.”

“I will answer for that, count,” cried the doctor in a firm voice, “our faculty knows how to keep such malicious spirits at a distance.”

Here our conversation ended; we sent the patient home in a sedan chair to his hotel, and I accompanied the physician.

While walking in the quiet of night through the dark avenues of trees, he said to me, “Dear sir, we are too much excited to sleep, favour me with your company to my lodging; a powerful aromatic cardinal[2] will keep up our spirits, and I will there tell you my opinion respecting our two invalids, of whose recovery, after what I have heard, I no longer doubt. I would almost promise that in two months I shall send them home in tolerably good health.”

I was astonished at this, as I had given up all hope of the recovery of my friends. Our strongly-spiced beverage much enlivened us; and the doctor continued: “The mental disease of your friend is to me one of the most interesting psychological phenomena that has ever passed under my observation. He, as well as his wife, are labouring under a singular madness; and if we once succeed in attacking it rightly, then, in weakening, and finally in eradicating it altogether, the physical recovery will follow of itself. Though I did not know your friend formerly, yet, from his communications, I can exactly and truly construe his character and fate. He is naturally good and tender, the latter rather preponderating; and, like most men of this disposition, is more subject to vanity than those of firmer character. He has been handsome and amiable, possessed of talents, and persuasive manners, and has, therefore, been everywhere well received, so that, being a general favourite, and naturally pliant, he may have turned the head of many a pretty girl. Meeting, at last, with his beautiful wife, he determined to change his condition, and her naturally sensitive and nervous nature was delighted to call so amiable a gentleman her husband. And, as usually happens to enthusiasts, so is it in this case; they do not find in matrimony that transcendant felicity which they anticipated; a slight discord takes possession of the tender cords of the nerves, which impatiently look forward to new vibrations. The ugly, deformed sister felt, like most persons of the sort, jealousy and envy against the preferred, flattered, and fondled wife. She plainly showed her indignation, and confessed that she hated the count. This amiable conqueror of hearts now employed all his art to overcome this hatred. He succeeded, and the poor deluded creature even fancied that she had excited his affection, while his vanity exulted in the triumph. This heartlessness could not but mortify and shock the unfortunate Ernestine. An inward rage consumed her, she fell a victim to her unfortunate passion; and, dying, she uttered the menace to persecute them in every possible way. This is plainly madness. This madness, as has often been observed, is hereditary, and relations, brothers, sisters, and children, are seized with it whenever it is manifested in a member of the family. So in the case of your friend. Perhaps the affectionate count has not been quite silent on the subject to his wife; and she, being already in a delicate state, has indulged these fancies, and with anxious curiosity pursues the gloomy feelings produced by her nerves. Thus, what is more natural than that she should soon find an occasion on which she fancied she really saw her sister? The fears of his wife were communicated to him, anguish of mind at his misfortunes heated his imagination, and he also sees the apparition. Thus they go on, until both have nearly destroyed themselves by a mere phantom. If we can dissipate this phantom, they may be restored to health.”

“Dear doctor,” I replied, “I know not whether I have a particular propensity for superstition, but your reasons do not satisfy me. Much that has been handed down, both by tradition and writing, on this curious subject, cannot be mere fancy or invention, however much our reason may be opposed to it. There are, no doubt, states of the mind and of the nerves, as well as diseases, during which certain persons see what is veiled from all others. What is spirit? What notions does this word suggest? Do we know the nature, talent, or power, which these millions of differently constituted souls possess, after having shaken off their earthly frame? Do we know by what possibility this or that strong mind, by the power of his will, or anxious repentance, or a secret tormenting yearning after home, forms from his imagination a visible frame, such as he used to wear?”

“And supposing you to be quite right, what would you profit by it?” exclaimed the zealous doctor. “If any one who is in a discontented mood, or state of excitement, sees any thing, it is, indeed, only and always his own fancies, his own internal phases, which appear before his bodily eye. This may happen to any one at times. We have in the morning a vivid dream; we certainly awake, and still, for a moment, we see the child for whom we yearned, the lily or rose which delighted us, or an old friend who is a hundred miles distant. Perhaps it never yet happened that, to one of the many ghost-seers, his aged father or grandfather appeared as a youth or bridegroom, the murderer as a boy in his innocence, the wild spectre of an aged prisoner as a blooming virgin. Why, then, do not these spectres, for once, change their shape?”

“Because,” rejoined I, “they perhaps can express their imagination only in the last state immediately preceding their change.”

“Ah! this is idle,” exclaimed the doctor, impatiently; “yield the point quietly rather than vainly endeavour to refute me. Assist me rather in restoring your friend.”

“In what way can I do so?”

“It is only by some violent means that a happy beginning can be made. Believe me, in the deepest recesses of our minds there are still growing some weeds of vanity, concerning which we fondly deceive ourselves, by fancying that the external surface is the proper soil for them to luxuriate in. Even in moments of terror, in the horror of death, or during tormenting disease, we are tickled by the consciousness that, notwithstanding these, we experience something apart—that we see apparitions which awaken anxiety. Nay, we go further; we wish them back again, and as it were call them forth; our plastic and pliant nature, and our almost inconceivable fancy obey, and again such a bugbear is conjured up. Assist me then in persuading and disposing our invalid to have music in the count’s or your own apartments; let us procure an instrument, and as the countess cannot sing, she will at least play. That they may not cause an excitement, should they again be seized by this mania, no one but yourself and I must be present, or at most her attendant in case of a relapse. But it will not happen in my presence, as I shall have my quick eyes everywhere. By these means our patients will gain confidence and tranquillity, and by a daily repetition, and the use of stronger remedies we shall cure their wild fancies.”

“And if not?” I replied, with anxious doubt.

“Well then, by heavens!” he replied, with a loud laugh, “if I, without having previously taken too much, see any thing, then—”

“Then?”

“Then, baron, you shall call me a fool, which, viewed in the proper light, we are all by nature.”

Thus we parted, and it required much persuasion to prevail upon my afflicted friend to consent to our experiment. His wife, to my astonishment was more easily persuaded. She said, not without reason, “I feel it, my life is drawing to a close, all help is vain, the nearer death is, the better. So much the better if a new terror can crush me like a stroke of lightning. And if the event which I anticipate does not take place, then my last days will at least be free from this fear and anxious horror; I shall be able to amuse and divert myself, and it remains in the hand of Omnipotence whether I and my husband shall have further hope of recovery.”

The third day was fixed upon for music, and a late hour in the evening was appointed, because the countess, like most persons suffering from fever felt it strongest at that time, and would thereby shorten the night, as she seldom slept till morning. An instrument had been placed in the room; more lights than were required were burning, and the adjoining chamber likewise was brilliantly lighted, in order that no doubtful shadow might be produced in the dark. Besides the easy chair and sofa in the sitting-room, there was a couch, on which the countess reposed in the day. The piano was placed against the wall, between two windows, looking over the garden and some vineyards beyond. After tea, the door being locked, the waiter and servant were dismissed; no one remained but the countess’s attendant, a strong young woman, whom we begged to keep up her spirits.

The countess took her seat at the instrument. The doctor stood beside her, in order to observe her, as well as to overlook both rooms, while I sat and stood alternately on the other side. Francis, in his morning-gown and slippers, walked slowly up and down behind us, and the attendant leaned against the open chamber-door.

At first the countess played faintly, uncertainly, and timidly. But by degrees the beauty of the composition, and the consciousness of her talent inspired her, and she played with precision and fire a humorous and melodious fantasia. Her eyes sparkled, her cheeks were flushed, and a smile, full of soul, played upon her once beautiful mouth. The doctor cast a triumphant glance at me, and by the strong light, the mien and feature of every one in the room were distinctly visible. All praised the performer, and the doctor gave her something to revive her. She was as if inspired with new life, and confessed that she had not felt so well for the last year. Poor Francis was in raptures, and his tearful eyes were full of hope.

With the same arrangement we proceeded to the second piece, while she played still more confidently, and with less exertion. Bravos and applause accompanied her—when suddenly—a terrible shriek was heard—how shall I describe it? Never were my ears rent by such terrific sounds—it was some time after that I perceived that Francis had uttered it—the candles burned with a blue flame, but yet there was light enough.—And what a spectacle!—Francis, with foaming mouth, and eyes starting from their sockets, was clasping a horrible spectre; and wrestled with the withered hideous form. “You or I,” he now cried, and it clasped him with its bony arms so firmly, pressed its crooked deformed body so strongly against his, and its pale face so firmly against his chest, that we all heard how in this struggle his bones were crashing. The attendant had hastened to assist the countess, who had fainted. The doctor and myself approached the count, just as he threw the spectre with gigantic force on the couch, which creaked under her. He stood erect. It lay on the couch like a cloud, like a dark cover, and as we approached, it was gone.

Francis now felt all his bones broken, his last strength was annihilated. In three days he was no more, and the physician found his body much bruised. The countess never recovered from her state of delirium, and two days afterwards she followed her beloved and unfortunate husband to his early grave.

C. A. F.

THE MOON.

BY JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER.

When, Oh Eugenius and Rosamond,—you, whom I may no longer designate by your right names,—I was first about to tell your short history, my friends and I walked into an English garden.[1] We went by a new-painted coffin, on the foot-board of which was written: “I pass away.” Above the verdant garden rose a white obelisk, with which two sister-princesses had marked the spot where they now met and embraced, and the inscription on which was: “Here we have found each other again.” The point of the obelisk was glittering in the full moon, and here I told my simple story. But do thou, gentle reader, draw—which is as much as coffin and obelisk—draw, I say, the inscription on the coffin into the ashes of oblivion, and write the letters of the obelisk with pure human heart’s blood in thy inmost self.

Many souls drop from heaven like flowers; but, with their white buds, they are trodden down into the mud, and lie soiled and crushed in the print of a hoof. You also were crushed, Eugenius and Rosamond. Tender souls like yours are attacked by three robbers of their joys—the mob, whose rough gripe gives to such soft hearts nothing but scars; destiny, which does not wipe away the tear from a fair soul full of brilliancy, but the lustre should perish also, as we do not wipe a wet diamond, lest it should grow dim; your own hearts which rejoice too much, and enjoy too little, have too much hope, and too little power of endurance. Rosamond was a bright pearl, pierced by anguish—parted from all that belonged to her, she only quivered in her sorrows like a detached twig of the sensitive plant at the approach of night—her life was a quiet warm rain and that of her husband was a bright lost sunshine. In his presence she averted her eyes, when they had just been fixed on her sick child, that was only two years old, and was in this life a wavering thin-winged butterfly, beneath a pelting shower. The imagination of Eugenius, with its too large wings shattered his slight, delicate frame; the lily bell of his tender body could not contain his mighty soul; the place whence sighs originate, his breast, was destroyed like his happiness. He had nothing left in the world but his affectionate heart, and for that heart there were but two human beings.

These persons wished, in the spring-time, to quit the whirlpool of mankind, which beat so hardly and so coldly against their hearts. They had a quiet cottage prepared for them on one of the high Alps opposite to the silver chain of the Staubbach. On the first fine spring morning they went the long road to the high mountain. There is a holiness which sorrow alone can give in its purity; the stream of life becomes white as snow when it is dashed against rocks. There is an elevation where little thoughts no more intrude between sublime ones, as when upon a mountain one sees the summits close to each other without their connection in the depth below. Thou hadst that holiness, Rosamond, and thou that elevation, Eugenius.

A morning mist was gathered round the foot of the mountain, and in that three fluttering forms were suspended. These were the reflections of the three travellers, and the timid Rosamond started, thinking she saw herself. Eugenius thought, “That which the immortal spirit hath around it is, after all, but a denser mist.” And the child snatched at the cloud, and wished to play with its little misty brother. One single invisible angel of the future accompanied them through life and up this mountain. They were so good and like each other that one angel was all they needed.

As they ascended the angel opened the book of fate, one leaf of which contained the sketch of a three-fold life—every line was a day—and when the angel had read the line that belonged to this day, he wept and closed the book for ever.

The travellers, in their delicate condition, required nearly a day to arrive at the desired spot. The earth crept back into the valleys, the sky rested itself on the mountains. The waving, glimmering sun seemed to our Eugenius a mirror of the moon, and he said to his beloved, when the icy summits had already cast their flames upon the earth: “I feel so weary, and yet so well. Will it not be as if we left two dreams—the dream of life and the dream of death—if we enter the cloudless moon as the first shore beyond the hurricanes of life?”

“It will be still better,” replied Rosamond, “for in the moon, as thou hast taught me, dwell the little children of this earth, and their parents remain with them till they themselves become as mild and tranquil as children.” Then they proceed further.

“Ay, from heaven to heaven—from world to world!” said Eugenius, ecstatically.

They ascended as the sun declined; when they climbed more slowly, the mountain summits like rising, loosened branches, concealed them from the luminary. They hastened on into the evening glimmer, which was already advancing, but when they had reached the mountain where their cottage stood, the eternal mountains stepped before the sun;—the earth then veiled her graces and her cities, adoring heaven, before it looked upon her with all its star-eyes, while the waterfalls laid aside their rainbows,—and the earth spread higher for heaven, which was bending over her with out-stretched cloud-arms, a gauze of golden exhalations, and hung it from one mountain to another, and the icebergs were set on fire, so that they glared even to midnight, while opposite to them on the grave of the sun was raised a towering funeral pile of clouds, forming the evening glow and the evening ashes. But through the glimmering veil kind heaven let its evening tears fall deep into the earth, even upon the humblest grass and the smallest flower.

Oh, Eugenius, how great then did thy soul become! The life of earth lay at a distance and far below thee, free from all the distortions which we see in it, because we stand too near it, as the decorations of shorter scenes change from landscapes to mis-shapen strokes when we look at them closely.

The two living ones embraced each other with a long and gentle embrace, as they stood before the cottage, and Eugenius said: “Oh, thou quiet, eternal heaven, take nothing more from us!” But his pale child with its snapped lily-head was before him; he looked at the mother, and she lay with her moistened eye reaching into heaven, and said softly: “O take us all at once!”

The angel of futurity, whom I will call the angel of rest, wept as he smiled, and his wings swept away the sighs of the parents with an evening breeze, that they might not sadden each other.

The transparent evening flowed round the red mountain like a bright lake, and washed it with the circles of cool evening waves. The more the evening and earth grew, still the more did the two souls feel that they were in the right place. They had no tears too many, none too few, and their bliss needed no other increase than its repetition. Eugenius sent the first harmonious tones floating like swans through the pure Alpine sky. The weary child, twined in a flowery wreath, leaned against a sun-dial, and played with the flowers which it drew around it, to entwine them in its circle. The mother at last awoke from her harmonious transport; her eye fell on the large eyes of her child, which opened wide upon her; singing and smiling, and, with overflowing motherly love, she stepped to the little angel, which was cold and dead. For its life, which had descended from heaven, had, like other tones, been dissipated in the atmosphere of earth; death had breathed upon the butterfly, and it had ascended from the rushing streams of air to the ever-refining ether; from the flowers of earth to the flowers of paradise.

Oh, ever flutter away, ye blessed children! The angel of rest wakes you in the morning-hour of life with cradle songs, two arms bear you and your little coffin, and your body, with the two red cheeks, the forehead free from the print of grief, and the white hands, glide down by a chain of flowers to the second cradle, and you have only exchanged one paradise for another. But we—oh, we are crushed by the storm-winds of life; our heart is weary, our face is deeply marked with earthly care, and our soul stiffened, still clings to the earthy clod.

Turn away thine eye from Rosamond’s piercing shriek, fixed glance, and petrifying features, if thou art a mother, and hast already felt this pain! look not upon the mother, who, with senseless hand, squeezes against her the corpse which she now cannot stifle; but look at the father, who, with his breast, silently covers his struggling heart, although black grief has twined around it with an adder’s folds, and poisoned it with an adder’s teeth. Ah, when he at last had conquered the pain, his heart was envenomed and riven. A man bears the pain of the wound, but sinks under the scar: a woman seldom combats her grief, but yet she survives it. “Remain here,” he said, with a suppressed voice, “I will lay it to rest before the moon rises.” She said nothing, kissed the child in silence, broke up its wreath of flowers, sunk down upon the sun-dial, and laid her cold face upon her arm, that she might not see it carried away.

On the way the dawning light of the moon shone upon the shaking body of the infant, and the father said: “Burst forth, oh moon! that I may see the land wherein He dwells. Rise, oh Elysium! that I may think the soul of the corse is within thee. Oh child, child, dost thou know me—dost thou hear me? Hast thou above so fair a face as this one, so sweet a mouth? Oh thou heavenly mouth, thou heavenly eye, no more spirit visits thee!” He laid the child beneath flowers which supplied the place of all that we are generally laid upon for the last time; but his heart was breaking when he covered the pale lips, the open eyes, with flowers and earth, and streams of tears fell first into the grave. When with the verdant coating of the clods he had built a little mound, he felt that he was weary of his journey and of life; that his weakly chest could not endure the thin mountain air, and that the ice of death had settled in his heart. He cast a longing glance at the bereaved mother, who had long stood trembling behind him, and they fell silent into each other’s arms, and their eyes could scarcely weep more.

At last, from behind a glacier that was glimmering out, the glorious moon flowed forth in loveliness on the two silent unhappy ones, and showed them its white peaceful meadows, and the gentle light with which it softens man. “Mother, look up,” said Eugenius; “yonder is thy son! See there, the white flowery groves, in which our child will play, are passing over the moon.” Now a burning fire filled his inmost self with consuming power,—the moon made his eye blind to all that was not light; sublime forms rolled before him in the light stream, and he heard in his soul, new thoughts which are not indigenous in man, and are too great for memory; just as in a dream small melodies may come to the man who can make none when awake. Death and pleasure press upon his heavy tongue. “Rosamond, why sayest thou nothing? Dost thou see thy child? I look beyond the long earth, even to where the moon begins. There is my son flying between angels. Full flowers cradle him,—the spring of earth waves over him—children lead him—angels instruct him—God loves him. Oh! thou dear one, thou art smiling; the silver light of paradise flows with heavenly radiance about thy little mouth, and thou hearest me, and callest thy parents. Rosamond, give me thy hand; we will go and die!”

The slight corporeal chains grew longer. His advancing spirit fluttered higher on the borders of life. With convulsive power he seized the paralysed Rosamond, and blind and sinking, stammered forth, “Rosamond, where art thou? I fly! I die! We remain together!”

His heart burst,—his spirit fled; but Rosamond did not remain with him, for fate snatched her from his dying hand, and cast her back upon earth, living. She felt if his hand had the coldness of death, and since it had, she placed it softly against her heart, sunk slowly upon her failing knees, and raised her face, which had become inexpressibly serene, towards the starry power. Her eyes, from their tearless sockets, pressed forth dry, large, and happy, into the sky, and therein calmly sought a supernatural form, which should descend and bear her up. She almost fancied she was dying then, and prayed thus: “Come, thou angel of rest, come and take my heart, and bear it to my beloved. Angel of rest! leave me not so long alone among the corses. Oh, God! is there then nought invisible about me? Angel of death! thou must be here, thou hast already snatched away two souls close by me, and hast made them ascend. I, too, am dead, draw forth my glowing soul from its cold kneeling corse.”

With mad disquiet, she looked about in the vacant sky. Suddenly, in that still desert, a star shone forth, and wound its way towards the earth. She spread her arms in transport, and thought the angel of rest was rushing towards her. Alas! the star passed away, but she did not. “Not yet? Do I not die yet, All-merciful One?” sighed poor Rosamond.

In the east a cloud arose,—it passed over the moon, sailed in loneliness across the clear sky, and stood over the most agonised heart upon earth. She threw back her head, so as to face the cloud, and said to the lightning, “Strike this head, and release my heart!” But the cloud passed darkly over the head that was thrown back for it, and flying down the sky, sunk behind the mountains. Then, with a thousand tears, she cried, “Can I not die? Can I not die?”

Poor Rosamond! How did pain roll itself together, give an angry serpent-spring at thy heart, and fix in it all its poisonous teeth. But a weeping spirit poured the opium of insensibility into thine heart, and the bursts of agony flowed away in a soft convulsion.

She awoke in the morning, but her mind was unsettled. She saw the sun and the dead man, but her eye had lost all tears, and her burst heart had, like a broken bell, lost all tone; she merely murmured, “Why can I not die?” She went back cold into her hut, and said nothing but these words. Every night she went half an hour later to the corpse, and every time she met the rising moon, which was now broken, and said, while she turned her mourning, tearless eye towards its gleaming meadows, “Why cannot I die?”

Ay, why canst thou not, good soul? for the cold earth would have sucked out of all thy wounds the last venom with which the human heart is laid beneath its surface, just as the hand when buried in earth recovers from the sting of a bee. But I turn mine eye away from thy pain, and look up at the glimmering moon, where Eugenius opens his eyes among smiling children, and his own child, now with wings, falls upon his heart. How quiet is every thing in the dimly lit portico of the second world, a misty rain of light silvers o’er the bright fields of the first heaven, and beads of light instead of sparkling dew hang upon flowers and summits,—the blue of heaven is darker over the lily plains, all the melodies in the thinner air are but a dispersed echo,—only night-flowers exhale their scents, and dazzle waving around calmer glances—here the waving plains rock as in a cradle the crushed souls, and the lofty billows of life fall gliding apart—then the heart sleeps, the eye becomes dry, the wish becomes silent. Children flutter like the hum of bees around the heart which is sunk in earth, and is still palpitating, and the dream after death represents the earthly life, as a dream here represents childhood here, magically, soothingly, softly, and free from care.

Eugenius looked from the moon towards the earth, which for a long moon-day—equal to two earth-weeks—floated like a thin white cloud across the blue sky; but he did not recognise his old motherland. At last the sun set to the moon, and our earth rested, large, glimmering, and immoveable, on the pure horizon of Elysium, scattering, like a water-wheel upon a meadow, the flowing beams upon the waving Elysian garden. He then recognised the earth, upon which he had left a heart so troubled, in a breast so beloved; and his soul, which reposed in pleasure, became full of melancholy, and of an infinite longing after the beloved of his former life, who was suffering below. “Oh, my Rosamond! why dost thou not leave a sphere, where nothing more loves thee?” And he cast a supplicating look at the angel of rest, and said: “Beloved one, take me down from the land of quiet, and lead me to the faithful soul, that I may see her, and again feel pain, so that she may not pine alone.”

Then his heart began suddenly, as it were, to float without any bounds; breezes fluttered around him, as though they raised him flying, wafted him away as they swelled, and veiled him in floods; he sank through the red evening twilights as through roses, and through the night as through bowers, and through a damp atmosphere which filled his eye with drops. Then it seemed as though old dreams of childhood had returned—then there arose a complaint from the distance, which re-opened all his closed wounds; the complaint, as it drew nearer, became Rosamond’s voice—at last she herself was before him, unrecognisable, alone, without solace, without a tear, without colour.

And Rosamond dreamed upon the earth, and it was to her as though the sun took wings, and became an angel. This angel, she dreamed, drew down towards her the moon, which became a gentle face. Beneath this face, as it approached her, a heart at last formed itself. It was Eugenius, and his beloved arose to meet him. But as she exclaimed, with transport, “Now I am dead!” the two dreams, both hers and his, vanished, and the two were again severed.

Eugenius waked above, the glimmering earth still stood in the sky, his heart was oppressed, and his eye beamed with a tear which had not fallen on the moon. Rosamond waked below, and a large warm dew-drop hung in one of the flowers of her bosom. Then did the last mist of her soul shower down in a light rain of tears, her soul became light and sun-clear, and her eye hung gently on the dawning sky; the earth was indeed strange to her, but no longer hateful; and her hands moved as though they were leading those who had died.

The angel of rest looked upon the moon, and looked upon the earth, and he was softened by the sighs from both. On the morning-earth he perceived an eclipse of the sun, and a bereft one; he saw Rosamond during this transient night sink upon the flowers that slept in the darkness, and into the cold evening-dew which fell upon the morning-dew, and stretching forth her hands towards the shaded heaven, which was full of night-birds, look up towards the moon with inexpressible longing, as it floated trembling in the sun. The angel looked upon the moon, and near him wept the departed one, who saw the earth swimming deep below,—a flood of shade, fitted into a ring of fire, and from whom the mourning form that dwelt upon it, took all the happiness of heaven. Then was the heavenly heart of the angel of peace broken—he seized the hand of Eugenius and that of his child—drew both through the second world, and bore them down to the dark earth. Rosamond saw three forms wandering through the obscurity, the gleam from whom reached the starry heaven, and went along hovering over them. Her beloved and her child flew like spring-days to her heart, and said, “Oh, thou dear one, come with us!” Her maternal heart broke with maternal love, the circulation of earth-blood was stopped, her life was ended; and happily, happily, did she stammer forth to the two beloved hearts, “Can I not then die?” “Thou hast died already,” said the angel of the three fond ones, weeping with joy, “Yonder thou seest the sphere of earth, whence thou comest, still in shade.” And the waves of joy closed on high over the blessed world, and all the happy and all children looked upon our sphere which still trembled in the shade.

Yea, indeed, is it in shade! But man is higher than his place. He looks up and spreads the wings of his soul, and when the sixty minutes, which we call sixty years, have finished striking, he then lifts himself up, and kindles himself as he rises, and the ashes of his plumage fall back, and the unveiled soul rises alone, free from earth, and pure as a musical tone. But here, in the midst of dark life, he sees the mountains of the future world standing in the morning gold of a sun that does not arise here. Thus, the inhabitant of the North Pole in the long night, when the sun has ceased to rise, discerns at twelve o’clock, a dawn gilding the highest mountains, and he thinks of his long summer, when it will set no more.

J. O.

THE ELEMENTARY SPIRIT.

BY E. T. W. HOFFMANN.

On the 20th of November, 1815, Albert von B——, lieutenant-colonel in the Prussian service, found himself on the road from Liège to Aix-la-Chapelle. The corps to which he belonged was on its return from France to march to Liège to head-quarters on that very day, and was to remain there for two or three days more. Albert had arrived the evening before; but in the morning he felt himself attacked by a strange restlessness, and—as he would hardly have confessed to himself—an obscure dream, which had haunted him all night, and had foretold that a very pleasant adventure awaited him at Aix-la-Chapelle, was the only cause of his sudden departure. Much surprised even at his own proceeding, he was sitting on the swift horse, which would, he hoped, take him to the city before nightfall.

A severe cutting autumn wind roared over the bare fields, and awakened the voices of the leafless wood in the distance, which united their groans to its howling. Birds of prey came croaking, and followed in flocks the thick clouds which gathered more and more, until the last ray of sunlight had vanished, and a faint dull gray had overspread the entire sky. Albert wrapped his mantle more closely about him, and while he trotted on along the broad road, the picture of the last eventful time unfolded itself to his imagination. He thought how, a few months before, he had travelled on the same road, in an opposite direction, and during the loveliest season of the year. The fields then bloomed forth luxuriantly, the fragrant meadows resembled variegated carpets, and the bushes in which the birds joyously chirped and sung, shone in the fair light of golden sunbeams. The earth, like a longing bride, had richly adorned herself to receive in her dark nuptial chamber, the victims consecrated to death—the heroes who fell in the sanguinary battles.

Albert had reached the corps to which he was appointed, when the cannon had already begun to thunder by the Sambre, though he was in time enough to take part in the bloody battles of Charleroi, Gilly, and Gosselins. Indeed, chance seemed to wish that Albert should be present just when any thing decided took place. Thus he was at the last storming of the village Planchenoit, which caused the victory in the most remarkable of all battles—Waterloo. He was in the last engagement of the campaign, when the final effort of rage and fierce despair on the part of the enemy wreaked itself on the immoveable courage of the heroes, who having a fine position in the village of Issy, drove back the foe as they sought, amid the most furious discharge of grape, to scatter death and destruction in the ranks; and indeed drove them back so far, that the sharp-shooters pursued them almost to the barriers of Paris. The night afterwards (that of the 3rd and 4th of July), was, as is well known, that on which the military convention for the surrender of the metropolis was settled at St. Cloud.

The battle of Issy now rose brightly before Albert’s soul; he thought of things, which as it seemed, he had not observed, nay, had not been able to observe during the fight. Thus the faces of many individual officers and men appeared before his eyes, depicted in the most lively manner, and his heart was struck by the inexplicable expression, not of proud or unfeeling contempt of death, but of really divine inspiration, which beamed from many an eye. Thus he heard sounds, now exhorting to fight, now uttered with the last sigh of death, which deserved to be treasured up for posterity like the animating utterances of the heroes of antiquity.

“Do I not,” thought Albert, “almost feel like one who has a notion of his dream when he wakes, but who does not recollect all its single features till several days afterwards? Ay, a dream, and only a dream, one would think, by flying over time and space, with its mighty wings, could render possible, the gigantic, monstrous, unheard-of events, that took place during the eighteen eventful days of a campaign, which mocks the boldest thoughts, the most daring combinations of the speculative mind. Indeed the human mind does not know its own greatness; the act surpasses the thought. For it is not rude physical force, no! it is the mind, which creates deeds as they have happened, and it is the psychic power of every single person, really inspired, which attaches itself to the wisdom and genius of the general, and helps to accomplish the monstrous and the unexpected.”

Albert was disturbed in these meditations by his groom, who kept about twenty paces behind him, and whom he heard cry out, “Eh! Paul Talkebarth, where the deuce do you come from?” He turned his horse, and perceived that a horseman, who had just trotted past him, and whom he had not particularly observed, was standing still with his groom, beating out the cheeks of the large fox-fur cap with which his head was covered, so that soon the well-known face of Paul Talkebarth, Colonel Victor von S——’s old groom, was made manifest, glowing with the finest vermilion.

Now Albert knew at once what it was that impelled him so irresistibly from Liège to Aix-la-Chapelle, and he could not comprehend how the thought of Victor, his most intimate and dearest friend, whom he had every reason to suppose at Aix, merely lay dimly in his soul, and attained nothing like distinctness. He now also cried out, “Eh! Paul Talkebarth, whence do you come? Where is your master?”

Paul curvetted up to him very gracefully, and said, holding the palm of his hand against the far-too-large cockade of his cap, by way of military salutation: “Yes, ‘faith, I am Paul Talkebarth indeed, gracious lieutenant-colonel. We’ve bad weather here, Zermannöre (sur mon honneur). But the groundsel brings that about. Old Lizzy always used to say so. I cannot say, gracious lieutenant-colonel, if you know Lizzy: she lives at Genthin, but if one has been at Paris, and has seen the wild goat in the Schartinpland (Jardin des Plantes).—Now, what one seeks for one finds near, and here I am in the presence of the gracious lieutenant-colonel, whom I was to seek at Liège. The spirus familis (spiritus familiaris), whispered yesterday evening into my master’s ear, that the gracious lieutenant-colonel had come to Liège. Zackermannthö (sacré mon de Dieu), there was delight! It may be as it will, but I have never put any faith in the cream-colour. A fine beast, Zermannöre, but a mere childish thing, and the baronness did her utmost—that is true! There are decent sort of people here, but the wine is good for nothing—and when one has been in Paris—! Now, the colonel might have marched in, like one through the Argen trumph (Arc de triomphe), and I should have put the new shabrach on the white horse; gad, how he would have pricked up his ears! But old Lizzy,—she was my aunt, at Genthin, was always accustomed to say—I don’t know, gracious lieutenant-colonel, whether you—”

“May your tongue be lamed,” said Albert, interrupting the incorrigible babbler. “If your master is at Aix, we must make haste, for we have still above five leagues to go.”

“Stop,” cried Paul Talkebarth, with all his might; “stop, stop, gracious lieutenant-colonel, the weather is bad here; but for fodder—those who have eyes like us, that shine in the fog.”

“Paul,” cried Albert, “do not wear out my patience. Where is your master? Is he not in Aix?”

Paul Talkebarth smiled with such delight, that his whole countenance puckered up into a thousand folds, like a wet glove, and then stretching out his arm he pointed to the building, which might be seen behind the wood, upon a gentle declivity, and said, “Yonder, in the castle!” Without waiting for what Paul might have to prattle further, Albert struck into the path that led from the high road, and hurried on in a rapid trot. After the little that he has said, honest Paul Talkebarth must appear to the gracious reader as an odd sort of fellow. We have only to say, that he being an heir-loom of the family, served Colonel Victor von S—— from the moment when the latter first put on his officer’s sword, after having been the intendent-general and maître des plaisirs of all the sports and mad pranks of his childhood. An old and very odd magister, who had been tutor to the family through two generations, completed, with the amount of education which he allowed to flow to honest Paul, those happy talents for extraordinary confusion and strange Eulenspiegelei[1] with which nature had by no means scantily endued him. At the same time he was the most faithful soul that could possibly exist. Ready every moment to sacrifice his life for his master, neither his advanced age nor any other consideration could prevent the good Paul from following him to the field in the year 1813. His own nature rendered him superior to every hardship; but less strong than his corporeal was his spiritual nature, which seemed to have received a strange shock, or at any rate some extraordinary impulse during his residence in France, especially in Paris. Then, for the first time, did he properly feel that Magister Spreugepileus had been perfectly right when he called him a great light, that would one day shine forth brightly. This shining quality Paul had discovered by the aptness with which he had accommodated himself to the manners of a foreign people, and had learned their language. Therefore, he boasted not a little, and ascribed it to his extraordinary talent alone, that he could often, in respect to quarters and provisions, obtain that which seemed unattainable. Talkebarth’s fine French phrases, the gentle reader has already been made acquainted with some pleasant curses—were current, if not through the whole army, at any rate through the corps to which his master was attached. Every trooper who came to quarters in a village, cried to the peasant with Paul’s words, “Pisang! de lavendel pur di schevals!” (Paysan, de l’avoine pour les chevaux.)

Paul, as is generally the case with eccentric natures, did not like things to happen in the ordinary manner. He was particularly fond of surprises, and sought to prepare them in every possible manner for his master, who was certainly often surprised, though in quite another manner than was designed by honest Talkebarth, whose happy schemes generally failed in their execution. Thus, he now entreated Lieutenant-colonel von B——, when the latter was riding straight up to the principal entrance of the house, to take a circuitous course and enter the court-yard by the back way, that his master might not see him before he entered the room. To meet this view, Albert was obliged to ride over a marshy meadow, where he was grievously splashed by the mud, and then he had to go over a fragile bridge on a ditch. Paul Talkebarth wished to show off his horsemanship by jumping cleverly over; but he fell in with his horse up to the belly, and was with difficulty brought back to firm ground by Albert’s groom. Now, in high spirits, he put spurs to his horse, and with a wild huzza leaped into the court-yard. As all the geese, ducks, turkeys, and poultry of the household were gathered together here to rest; while from the one side a flock of sheep, and from the other side a flock of pigs, had been driven in, we may easily imagine that Paul Talkebarth, who not being perfect master of his horse, galloped about the court in large circles, without any will of his own, produced no little devastation in the domestic economy. Amid the fearful noise of squeaking, cackling, bleating, grunting animals, the barking of the dogs, and the scolding of the servants, Albert made his glorious entrance, wishing honest Paul Talkebarth at all the devils, with his project of surprise.

At last Albert leaped from his horse, and entered the house, which, without any claim to beauty or elegance, looked roomy and convenient enough. On the steps he was met by a well-fed, not very tall man, in a short, gray, hunting-jacket, who, with a half-sour smile, said: “Quartered?” By the tone in which the man asked this question, Albert perceived at once that the master of the house, Baron von E—— (as he had learned from Paul) was before him. He assured him that he was not quartered, but merely purposed to visit his intimate friend, Colonel Victor von S——, who was, he was told, residing there, and that he only required the baron’s hospitality for that evening and the night, as he intended to start very early on the following morning.

The baron’s face visibly cleared up, and the full sun-shine, which ordinarily seemed to play upon his good-humoured, but somewhat too broad, countenance, returned completely, when Albert as he ascended the stairs with him remarked, that in all probability no division of the army now marching would touch this spot.

The baron opened a door, Albert entered a cheerful-looking parlour, and perceived Victor, who sat with his back towards him. At the sound of his entrance Victor turned round, and with a loud exclamation of joy fell into the arms of the lieutenant. “Is it not true, Albert, you thought of me last night? I knew it, my inner sense told me that you were in Liège at the very moment when you first entered the place. I fixed all my thoughts upon you, my spiritual arms embraced you; you could not escape me.”

Albert confessed that—as the gentle reader already knows—dark dreams which came to no clear shape had driven him from Liège.

“Yes,” cried Victor, with transport, “yes, it is no fancy, no idle notion; the divine power is given to us, which, ruling space and time, manifests the supersensual in the world of sense.”

Albert did not know what Victor meant. Indeed the whole behaviour of his friend, so different from his usual manner, seemed to denote an over-excited state. In the meanwhile the lady, who had been sitting before the fire near Victor, arose and approached the stranger. Albert bowed to her, casting an inquiring glance at Victor. “This is the Baroness Aurora von E——,” said Victor, “my hospitable hostess, who tends me ever carefully and faithfully in sickness and in trouble!”

Albert as he looked at the baroness felt quite convinced that the little plump woman had not yet attained her fortieth year, and that she would have been very well made had not the nutritious food of the country, together with much sunshine, caused her shape to deviate a little from the line of beauty. This counteracted the favourable effect of her pretty, fresh-coloured face, the dark blue eyes of which might otherwise have beamed somewhat dangerously for the heart. Albert considered the attire of the baroness almost too homely, for the material of her dress, which was of a dazzling whiteness, while it showed the excellence of the washing and bleaching department, also showed the great distance at which the domestic spinning and weaving stood from perfection. A cotton kerchief, of a very glaring pattern, thrown negligently about the neck, so that its whiteness was visible enough, did not at all increase the brilliant effect of the costume. The oddest thing of all was, that the baroness wore on her little feet the most elegant silken shoes, and on her head the most charming lace cap, after the newest Parisian fashion. This head-dress, it is true, reminded the lieutenant-colonel of a pretty grisette, with whom chance had made him acquainted at Paris, but for this very reason a quantity of uncommonly gallant things flowed from his lips, while he apologised for his sudden appearance. The baroness did not fail to reply to these prettinesses in the proper style, and having once opened her mouth the stream of her discourse flowed on uninterruptedly, till she at last went so far as to say, that it would be impossible to show sufficient attention to such an amiable guest, the friend of the colonel, who was so dear to the family. At the sudden ring of the bell, and the shrill cry: “Mariane, Mariane!” a peevish old woman made her appearance, who, by the bunch of keys which hung from her waist, seemed to be the housekeeper. A consultation was now held with this lady and the husband, as to what nice things could be got ready. It was soon found, however, that all the delicacies, such as venison and the like, were either already consumed, or could only be got the next day. Albert, with difficulty suppressing his displeasure, said, that they would force him to quit immediately in the night, if on his account they disturbed the arrangements of the house in the slightest degree. A little cold meat, nay, some bread and butter, would be sufficient for his supper. The baroness replied by protesting that it was impossible for the lieutenant-colonel to do without something warm, after his ride in the rough, bleak weather, and after a long consultation with Mariane, the preparation of some mulled wine was found to be possible and decided on. Mariane vanished through the door-way, rattling as she went, but at the very moment when they were about to take their seats, the baroness was called out by an amazed maid-servant. Albert overheard that the baroness was being informed at the door of the frightful devastations of Paul Talkebarth, with a list—no inconsiderable one—of the dead, wounded, and missing. The baron ran out after his wife, and while she was scolding he was wishing honest Paul Talkebarth at Jericho, and the servants were uttering general lamentations. Albert briefly told his friend of Paul’s exploit in the yard. “That old Eulenspiegel is always playing such tricks,” said Victor, angrily, “and yet the rascal means so well from the very bottom of his heart, that one cannot attack him.”

At that moment all became quiet without; the chief maid-servant had brought the glad intelligence that Hans Gucklick had been frightened indeed, but had come off free from other harm, and was now eating with a good appetite.

The baron entered with a cheerful mien, and repeated, in a tone of satisfaction, that Hans Gucklick had been spared from that wild, life-disregarding Paul Talkebarth. At the same time he took occasion to expatiate at great length, and from an agricultural point of view, the utility of extending the breeding of poultry. This Hans Gucklick, who had only been very frightened, and had not been otherwise hurt, was the old cock, who was highly prized, and had been for years the pride and ornament of the whole poultry-yard.

The baroness now made her re-appearance, but it was only to arm herself with a great bunch of keys, which she took out of a cupboard. Quickly she hurried off, and Albert could hear both her and the housekeeper clattering and rattling up stairs and down stairs, accompanied by the shrill voices of the maid-servants who were called, and the pleasant music of pestles and mortars and graters, which ascended from the kitchen. “Good heavens!” thought Albert. “If the general had marched in with the whole of the head-quarters, there could not have been more noise than has been occasioned by my unlucky cup of mulled wine.”

The baron, who had wandered from the breeding of poultry to hunting, had not quite got to the end of a very complicated story of a fine deer which he had seen, and had not shot, when the baroness entered the room, followed by no less a person than Paul Talkebarth, who bore the mulled wine in a handsome porcelain vessel. “Bring it all here, good Paul,” said the baroness, very kindly. Whereupon Paul replied, with an indescribably sweet, “A fu zerpir (à vous servir), madame.” The manes of the victims in the yard seemed to be appeased, and all seemed forgiven.

Now, at last, they all sat down quietly together. The baroness, after she had handed the cup to the visiter, began to knit a monstrous worsted stocking, and the baron took occasion to enlarge upon the species of knitting which was designed to be worn while hunting. During his discourse he seized the vessel, that he also might take a cup. “Ernest!” cried the baroness to him, in an angry tone. He at once desisted from his purpose, and slunk to the cupboard, where he quietly refreshed himself with a glass of Schnapps. Albert availed himself of the moment to put a stop to the baron’s tedious disquisitions, by urgently asking his friend how he was going on. Victor was of opinion that there was plenty of time to say, in two words, what had happened to him since their separation, and that he could not expect to hear from Albert’s lips all the mighty occurrences of the late portentous period. The baroness assured him, with a smile, that there was nothing prettier than tales of war and murder; while the baron, who had rejoined the party, said that he liked amazingly to hear of battles, when they were very bloody, as they always reminded him of his hunting-parties. He was upon the point of returning to the story of the stag that he did not shoot, but Albert cut him short, and laughing out loud, though with increased displeasure, remarked that, though there was, to be sure, some smart shooting in the chase, it was a comfortable arrangement that the stags, hares, &c., whose blood was at stake, could not return the fire.

Albert felt thoroughly warmed by the beverage which he had drunk, and which he found was excellently made of splendid wine, and his comfortable state of body had a good effect on his mind, completely overcoming the ill-humour which had taken possession of him in this uncomfortable society. He unfolded before Victor’s eyes the whole sublime and fearful picture of the awful battle, that at once annihilated all the hopes of the fancied ruler of the world. With the most glowing imagination, he described the invincible, lion-like courage of those battalions who at last stormed the village of Planchenoit, and concluded with the words: “Oh! Victor, Victor! would you had been there, and fought with me!”

Victor had moved close to the baroness’s chair, and having picked up the large ball of worsted, which had rolled down from her lap, was playing with it in his hands, so that the industrious knitter was compelled to draw the threads through his fingers, and often could not avoid touching his arm with her long needle.

At the words, which Albert uttered with an elevated voice, Victor appeared suddenly to wake as from a dream. He eyed his friend with a singular smile, and said, in a half-suppressed tone: “Yes, dear Albert, what you say is but too true! Man often implicates himself early in snares, the gordian knot of which death alone forcibly sunders! As for what concerns the raising of the devil in general, the audacious invocation of one’s own fearful spirit is the most perilous thing possible. But here every thing sleeps!”

Victor’s dark, unintelligible words were a sufficient proof that he had not heard a syllable of all that Albert had said, but had been occupied all the time with dreams, which must have been of a very singular kind.

Albert, as may be supposed, was dumb with amazement. Looking around him he perceived, for the first time, that the master of the house, who with hands folded before him, had sunk against the back of a chair, had dropped his weary head upon his breast, and that the baroness with closed eyes continued to knit mechanically like a piece of clock-work wound up.

Albert sprung up quickly, making a noise as he rose, but at the very same moment the baroness rose also, and approached him with an air, so free, noble, and graceful, that he saw no more of the little, plump, almost comical figure, but thought that the baroness was transformed to another creature. “Pardon the housewife who is employed from break of day, lieutenant-colonel,” said she, in a sweet voice, as she grasped Albert’s hand, “if in the evening she is unable to resist the effects of fatigue, even though she hears the greatest events recorded in the finest manner. This you must also pardon in the active sportsman. You must certainly be anxious to be alone with your friend and to open your heart to him, and under such circumstances every witness is an incumberance. It will certainly be agreeable to you to take, alone with your friend, the supper which I have served in his apartment.”

No proposal could have been more opportune to Albert. He immediately in the most courteous language, wished a good night to his kind hostess, whom he now heartily forgave for the bunch of keys, and the grief about frightened Hans Gucklick, as well as for the stocking-knitting and the nodding.

“Dear Ernest!” cried the baroness, as the friends wished to bid good night to the baron; but as the latter, instead of answering only cried out very plainly: “Huss! Huss! Tyrus! Waldmann! Allons!” and let his head hang on the other side, they tried no more to arouse him from his pleasant dreams.

“Now,” said Albert, finding himself alone with Victor for the first time, “tell me how you have fared. But, however, first let us eat a bit, for I am very hungry, and it appears there is something more here than the bread and butter.”

The lieutenant-colonel was right, for he found a table elegantly set out with the choicest cold delicacies, the chief ornament of which was a Bayonne ham, and a pasty of red partridges. Paul Talkebarth, when Albert expressed his satisfaction, said, waggishly smiling, that if he had not been present, and had not given Mariane a hint of what it was that the lieutenant-colonel liked, as suppenfink (super-fine)—but that, nevertheless, he could not forget his aunt Lizzy, who had burned the rice-pudding on his wedding-day, and that he had now been a widower for thirty years, and one could not tell, since marriages were made in heaven, and that Mariane—but that it was the gracious baroness who had given him the best herself, namely, a whole basket of celery for the gentleman. Albert did not know why such an unreasonable quantity of vegetable food should be served, and was highly delighted, when Paul Talkebarth brought the basket, which contained—not celery—but six bottles of the finest vin de Sillery.

While Albert was enjoying himself, Victor narrated how he had come to the estate of the Baron von E——.

The fatigues of the first campaign (1813), which had often proved too much for the strongest constitutions, had ruined Victor’s health. The waters at Aix-la-Chapelle would, he hoped, restore him, and he was residing there when Bonaparte’s flight from Elba gave the signal for a new and sanguinary contest. When preparations were making for the campaign, Victor received orders from the Residence to join the army on the Lower Rhine, if his health permitted; but fate allowed him no more than a ride of four or five leagues. Just before the gate of the house in which the friends now were, Victor’s horse, which had usually been the surest and most fearless animal in the world, and had been tried in the wildest tumults of battle, suddenly took fright, and reared, and Victor fell—to use his own words—like a schoolboy who has mounted a horse for the first time. He lay insensible, while the blood flowed from a severe wound in his head, which he had struck against a sharp stone. He was carried into the house, and here, as removal seemed dangerous, he was forced to remain till the time of his recovery, which did not yet seem complete, since, although the wound had been long healed, he was weakened by the attacks of fever. Victor spoke of the care and attention which the baroness had bestowed upon him in terms of the warmest gratitude.

“Well,” cried Albert, laughing aloud, “for this I was not prepared. I thought you were going to tell me something very extraordinary, and now, lo, and behold—don’t be offended—the whole affair seems to turn out a silly sort of story, like those that have been so worn out in a hundred stupid novels, that nobody with decency can have any thing to do with such adventures. The wounded knight is borne into the castle, the mistress of the house tends him, and he becomes a tender Amoroso. For, Victor, that you, in spite of your good taste hitherto, in spite of your whole mode of life, should all of a sudden fall in love with a plump elderly woman, who is homely and domestic to the last degree, that you should play the pining lack-a-daisical youth, who, as somebody says, ‘sighs like an oven, and makes songs on his mistress’s tears,’—that, I say, I can only look upon as a sort of disease! The only thing that could excuse you in any way, and put you in a poetical light, would be the Spanish Infanta in the ‘Physician of his Honour,’[2] who, meeting a fate similar to yours, fell upon his nose before Donna Menzia’s gate, and at last found the beloved one, who unconsciously—”

“Stop!” interrupted Victor, “stop! Don’t you think that I see clearly enough, that you take me for a silly dolt? No, no, there is something else—something more mysterious at work. Let us drink!”

The wine, and Albert’s lively talk, had produced a wholesome excitement in Victor, who seemed aroused from a gloomy dream. But when, at last, Albert, raising his full glass, said, “Now, Victor, my dear Infanta, here’s a health to Donna Menzia, and may she look like our little pet hostess.”—Victor cried, laughing, “No, no, I cannot bear that you should take me for a fool. I feel quite cheerful, and ready to make a confession to you of every thing! You must, however, submit to hear an entire youthful period of my life, and it is possible that half the night will be taken up by the narrative.”

“Begin!” replied Albert, “for I see we have enough wine to cheer up our somewhat sinking spirits. I only wish it was not so confoundedly cold, nor a crime to wake up the good folks of the house.”

“Perhaps,” said Victor, “Paul Talkebarth may have made some provision.” And, indeed, the said Paul, cursing in his well-known French dialect, courteously assured them, that he had cut small and kept excellent wood for firing, which he was ready to kindle at once. “Fortunately,” said Victor, “the same thing cannot happen to me here, that happened at a drysalter’s at Meaux, where honest Paul lit me a fire that cost, at least, 1200 francs. The good fellow had got hold of Brazilian sandal-wood, hacked it to pieces, and put it on the hearth, so that I looked almost like Andolosia, the famous son of the celebrated Fortunatus, whose cook had to light a fire of spices, because the king forbade him to buy wood. You know,” continued Victor, as the fire merrily crackled and flamed up, and Paul Talkebarth had left the room, “you know, my dear friend, Albert, that I began my military career in the guards, at Potsdam; indeed, that is nearly all you know of my younger days, because I never had a special opportunity to talk about them—and, still more, because the picture of those years has been represented to my soul in dim outlines, and did not, until I came here, flame up again in bright colours. My first education, in my father’s house, does not even deserve the name of a bad one. I had, in fact, no education at all, but was left entirely to my own inclinations, and these indicated any thing rather than a call to the profession of arms. I felt manifestly impelled towards a scientific culture, which the old magister, who was my appointed tutor, and who only liked to be left in quiet, could not give me. At Potsdam I gained with facility a knowledge of modern languages, while I zealously and successfully pursued those studies that are requisite for an officer. I read, besides, with a kind of mania, all that fell into my hands, without selection or regard to utility; however, as my memory was excellent, I had acquired a mass of historical knowledge, I scarcely knew how. People have since done me the honour to assure me that a poetical spirit dwelled in me, which I myself would not rightly appreciate. Certain it is that the chefs-d’oeuvre of the great poets, of that period, raised me to a state of inspiration of which I had previously no notion. I appeared to myself as another being, developed for the first time into active life. I will only name the ‘Sorrows of Werther,’ and, more especially, Schiller’s ‘Robbers.’ My fancy received an impulse quite of a different sort from a book, which, for the very reason that it is not finished, gives the mind an impetus that keeps it swinging like a pendulum in constant motion. I mean Schiller’s ‘Ghostseer.’ It may be that the inclination to the mystical and marvellous, which is generally deep-rooted in human nature, was particularly prevalent in me;—whatever was the cause, it is sufficient for me to say that, when I read that book, which seems to contain the exorcising formula belonging to the mightiest black art, a magical kingdom, full of super-terrestrial, or, rather, sub-terrestrial marvels, was opened to me, in which I moved about as a dreamer. Once given to this mood, I eagerly swallowed all that would accord with it, and even works of far less worth did not fail in their effect upon me. Thus the ‘Genius,’ by Grosse, made a deep impression upon me, and I have the less reason to feel ashamed of this, since the first part, at least, on account of the liveliness of the style and the clear treatment of the subject, produced a sensation through the whole literary world. Many an arrest I was obliged to endure, when upon guard, for being absorbed in such a book, or perhaps only in mystic dreams, I did not hear the call, and was forced to be fetched by the inferior officer. Just at this time chance made me acquainted with a very extraordinary man. It happened on a fine summer evening, when the sun had already sunk, and twilight had already begun, that, according to my custom, I was walking alone in a pleasure ground near Potsdam. I fancied that, from the thicket of a little wood, which lay by the road-side, I could hear plaintive sounds, and some words uttered with energy in a language unknown to me. I thought some one wanted assistance, so I hastened to the spot whence the sounds seemed to proceed, and soon, in the red glimmer of the evening, discovered a large, broad-shouldered figure, enveloped in a common military mantle, and stretched upon the ground. Approaching nearer I recognised, to my astonishment, Major O’Malley of the grenadiers. ‘Good heavens!’ I exclaimed, ‘is this you, major? In this situation? Are you ill? Can I help you?’ The major looked at me with a fixed, wild stare, and then said, in a harsh voice, ‘What the devil brings you here, lieutenant? What does it matter to you whether I lie here or not? Go back to the town!’ Nevertheless, the deadly paleness of O’Malley’s face made me suspect that there was something wrong, and I declared that I would not leave him, but would only return to the town in his company. ‘Good!’ said the major, quite coldly and deliberately, after he had remained silent for some moments, and had endeavoured to raise himself, in which attempt, as it appeared to be attended with difficulty, I assisted him. I perceived now that—as was frequently the case when he went out in the evening—he had nothing but a shirt under the cloak, which was a common commis-mantel as they call it, that he had put on his boots, and that he wore upon his bald head his officer’s hat, with broad gold lace. A pistol, which lay on the ground near him, he caught up hastily, and, to conceal it from me, put it into the pocket of his cloak. During the whole way to the town he did not speak a syllable to me, but now and then uttered disjointed phrases in his own language—he was an Irishman by birth—which I did not understand. When he had reached his quarters he pressed my hand, and said, in a tone in which there was something indescribable—something that had never been heard before, and which still echoes in my soul: ‘Good night, lieutenant! Heaven guard you, and give you good dreams!’ This Major O’Malley was one of the strangest men possible, and if, perhaps, I except a few somewhat eccentric Englishmen, whom I have met, I know no officer in the whole great army to compare in outward appearance with O’Malley. If it be true—as some travellers affirm—that nature nowhere produces such peculiarities as in Ireland, and that, therefore, every family can exhibit the prettiest cabinet pictures, Major O’Malley would justly serve as a prototype for all his nation. Imagine a man strong as a tree, six feet high, whose build could scarcely be called awkward, but none of whose limbs fitted the rest, so that his whole figure seemed huddled together, as in that game where figures are composed of single parts, the numbers on which are decided by the throw of the dice. An aquiline nose, and delicately formed lips would have given a noble appearance to his countenance, but his prominent glassy eyes were almost repulsive, and his black bushy eyebrows had the character of a comic mask. Strangely enough there was something lachrymose in the major’s face whenever he laughed, which, by the way, seldom happened, while he seemed to laugh whenever the wildest passion mastered him, and in this laugh there was something so terrific, that the oldest and most stout-hearted fellows would shudder at it. But, however, seldom as Major O’Malley laughed, it was just as seldom that he allowed himself to be carried away by passion. That the major should ever have an uniform to fit him seemed an utter impossibility. The best tailors in the regiment failed utterly when they applied their art to the formless figure of the major; his coat, though cut according to the most accurate measure, fell into unseemly folds, and hung on his body as if placed there to be brushed, while his sword dangled against his legs, and his hat sat upon his head in such a queer fashion that the military schismatic might be recognised a hundred paces off. A thing quite unheard of in those days in which there was so much pedantry in matters of form—O’Malley wore no tail! To be sure a tail could scarcely have been fastened to the few gray locks that curled at the back of his head, and, with the exception of these, he was perfectly bald. When the major rode, people expected every moment to see him tumble from his horse, when he fought they expected to see him beaten; and yet he was the very best rider and fencer,—in a word, the very best Gymnastiker that could exist.