Volume 1 — 'A FRAGMENT OF THE LIVES OF THREE FRIENDS.

'A FRAGMENT OF THE LIVES OF THREE FRIENDS.

"One Whit Monday the 'Webersche Zelt,' a place of public resort in the Thiergarten, Berlin, was so densely crowded by people of every sort and kind that it was only by dint of unremitting and assiduous shouting, and the most dogged perseverance of pursuit, that Alexander succeeded in capturing a much-vexed and greatly-badgered waiter, and inducing him to set out a small table under the trees beside the water, where he, with his friends Severin and Marzell (who had managed, by the exercise of fine strategical talent, to possess themselves of a couple of chairs), sat down in the happiest possible frame of mind. It was only a few days since they had come back to Berlin. Alexander had arrived from a distant province to take possession of the heritage of an aunt deceased, and the two others had come back to resume the duties of their Government appointments, from which they had been absent for a considerable time on military duty, during the important campaign which was just at an end. This was the day when they had arranged to celebrate their reunion in famous style, and, as it often happens, it was the Present, with its doings and strivings, more than the eventful Past, that was occupying their minds.

"'I can assure you,' said Alexander, taking up the steaming coffee-pot and filling the cups, 'that if you saw me in my aunt's old house--how I wander pathetically up and down the lofty chambers hung with gloomy tapestry; how Mistress Anne, my aunt's former housekeeper, a little spectral-looking creature, comes in wheezing and coughing, carrying the pewter salver with my breakfast in her trembling arms, putting it down on the table with a curious backward-sliding curtsey, and then making her exit without a word, sighing, and scuffling along on slippers too large for her feet, like the beggar wife of Locarno, while the tom-cat and the pug, eying me with dubious glances, go out after her; how I then, with a low-spirited parrot scolding at me, and china mandarins nodding at me with scornful smiles, swallow cup after cup of the coffee, scarcely daring to desecrate this virginal chamber, where amber and mastic have been wont to shed their perfumes, with vulgar tobacco reek,--I say, if you were to see me in these circumstances, you would say I was under some spell of enchantment; you would regard me as a species of Merlin. I can assure you that the easy adaptability to circumstances which you have so often blamed me for was the sole cause of my having at once taken up my quarters in my aunt's lonely house, instead of looking out for some other lodging; for the pedantic scrupulosity of her executor has rendered it an exceedingly uncanny place to be in. That strange creature of an aunt of mine (whom I scarcely ever saw) left directions in her will that everything was to remain till my arrival exactly as she left it at her death. By the side of the bed, which is resplendent in snow-white linen and sea-green silk, still stands the little tabouret, on which, as of yore, is laid out the maidenly night-dress and the much be-ribboned nightcap; under it are the embroidered slippers,--and a brightly polished silver mermaid (the handle of some piece of toilet apparatus or other) glitters as it projects from beneath the quilt, which is all over many-tinted flowers. The unfinished piece of embroidery, which she was working at shortly before her death, is still lying in the sitting-room, with Arndt's 'True Christianity' open beside it; and (what for me, at all events, fills up the measure of eeriness) in this same room there is a life-size portrait of her, taken some thirty-five or forty years ago, in her wedding-dress; in which wedding-dress, as Mistress Anne tells me with many tears, just as it is shown in the picture, she was buried.'

"'What a strange idea!' said Marzell.

"'Yet not so very odd, after all,' said Severin; 'those who die maids are called the brides of Christ, and I trust nobody would be reprobate enough to make fun of this pretty old fancy, which well beseems an old maiden's creed. At the same time I don't quite gather why the aunt had her portrait taken as a bride forty years ago.'

"'As the tale was told to me,' said Alexander, 'my aunt was engaged to be married at one time--indeed the wedding-day had arrived, and she was dressed and waiting for the bridegroom; but he never made his appearance, having thought proper to leave the place that morning with a "flame" of his of earlier date. My aunt took this deeply to heart, and, without being exactly queer in the head, always kept the anniversary of that marriage-day of hers, that was to have been, in a curious way. Early in the morning of it she used to put on her wedding-dress complete, and (as she had done on the day itself) lay out a little table of walnut-wood with gilt carvings in her dressing-room, with chocolate, wine, and cake for two people, and then walk slowly up and down, sighing and softly lamenting, till ten at night, when, after she had prayed fervently, Mistress Anne would undress her, and she would go silently to bed, sunk in deep reflection.'

"'I call that exceedingly touching,' said Marzell. 'Woe to the traitor who caused the poor creature that never-forgotten pain!'

"'But there may be another side to the question,' said Alexander: 'the man whom you accuse of perfidy--and who was a traitor, no doubt, whatever may have been his motives--may have had a warning from his good genius; or, if you prefer to say so, a better feeling may have come to him. Perhaps it was her money that was the attraction; he may have found out that she was imperious, quarrelsome, miserly--in short, a disagreeable person to have much to do with.'

"'Perhaps,' said Severin, laying his pipe on the table, and looking reflectively before him with his arms crossed; 'but could those silent, affecting funereal observances--those resigned regrets, heard only in her own heart, for the unfaithful scoundrel--have existed in any but a deep and tender nature, which must have been a stranger to the worldly infirmities which you accuse your aunt of? No doubt the bitter feeling--(how seldom can we altogether master it, hard beset as we are in this life of ours?)--may sometimes have manifested itself in her in various forms, not always very easily recognizable, and having a more or less unpleasant effect upon the old lady's surroundings; still, that yearly day of pious sorrow would have atoned, in my eyes, at all events, for any amount of shortcomings during the rest of the time.'

"'I agree with you, Severin,' said Marzell. 'The old lady can't have been quite so bad as Alexander--though only from hearsay--makes her out to have been; at the same time I must confess I don't like to have anything to do with folks who have had their lives embittered, and it's better that Alexander should edify himself with the story of the old lady's way of keeping her wedding-day (that ought to have been), and rummage in the well-filled boxes and chests she has left him, or gloat over the valuable "inventory," than that he should see the deserted bride, dressed for the altar, walking up and down beside her chocolate-table.'

"Alexander set the coffee-cup which he was raising to his lips down untasted on the table with a clatter; beat his hands together, and cried, 'For Heaven's sake don't put ideas of that sort into my head! Really I feel in that state that it wouldn't astonish me if I were to see my old aunt in her bride-clothes suddenly peering, in a horrible, spectral manner, out of the middle of that group of nice-looking girls there, in the bright sunshine!'

"'That serves you right for having said what you did about your aunt, who never did you anything but kindness, even in death,' said Severin, with a quiet laugh, puffing away little blue cloudlets from his pipe, which he had resumed.

"Do you know, my dear fellows,' said Alexander, 'that the very atmosphere of that old house of mine seems to be so thoroughly impregnated with the essence and spirit of the old lady, that one has only to be in it for a day or two to find one's self imbibing it to a very appreciable extent?'

"Marzell and Severin chanced to be handing their empty cups to Alexander as he spoke; he put in the sugar and milk, and poured out the coffee with a dainty, deliberate care, and said:

"'I daresay you notice how differently I do a thing of this sort from my old way of doing it; I mean, I do it much more like an old lady; and you will be more astonished still when I tell you that I find myself taking a strange pleasure in well-polished pewter and copper, and in linen and silver plate--in everything relating to a well-ordered household. In one word, I feel like some old housekeeper. I find myself looking with a funny satisfaction at household paraphernalia of every sort, and it has suddenly dawned upon me that it is good to be the possessor of something besides a bed, a chair, a table, a lamp and an inkstand. My aunt's executor smiles and tells me I can marry whenever I choose, and have nothing to do but fix upon the bride and the parson. What he really means is that the bride's not far to seek. He has a little bit of a daughter himself; a dressy little thing with great big eyes, excessively childish and innocent in her ways, always gushing with artlessness, and hopping about like a water-wagtail. I daresay this may have been all very well, considering her little elfin figure, some sixteen years ago or so; but now that she's two- or three-and-thirty, it gives one rather a queer sensation.'

"'Ay,' said Severin, 'and yet how very natural that kind of self-mystification is. Where is the precise point where a girl, who has taken up some particular line, in consequence of some personal peculiarity or other, is to say to herself, "I am no longer what I was; the colours I put on are still fresh and youthful, but my face has lost its bloom; so, patience! what can't be cured must be endured!" The sight of a poor girl in these circumstances fills me with pity, and, for that very reason, I could put my arms about her, take her to my heart, and comfort her.'

"'You see, Alexander,' said Marzell, 'that Severin's in his most beneficent mood to-day. First, he takes up the cudgels for your aunt, and now the executor's daughter (I think I know who the executor is--Falter, the Kriegsrath); Falter's little witch of two- or three-and-thirty, whom I know very well, inspires him with sentiments of sad, compassionate sympathy; presently he'll advise you to marry her, and cure her of that inappropriate naïveté of hers; for that she will lay aside, as far as you are concerned at all events, the moment she says "Yes!" Don't you do anything of the kind. Experience teaches that naïve little creatures of that kind are sometimes--or rather very often--of feline nature, and, out of the velvet paws which they stroke you with before the parson's blessing, can soon stick out sharp enough claws, on suitable opportunity afterwards.'

"'Heavens and earth!' cried Alexander, 'what nonsense you're talking! Neither Falter's little witch of thirty-two, nor anybody else, were she ten times as young and charming, could induce me to go and sacrifice, of my own free will and accord, the golden years of youthful liberty and freedom which, now that a slice of the good things of this world has fallen to my share, I mean to set to work to thoroughly enjoy; and the fact is that the old bridely aunt has such a ghostly, haunting effect upon me, that I can't help associating all sorts of eery, uncanny, shuddery feelings with the very word "bride."'

"I'm sorry for you,' said Marzell; 'for my part, the moment I think of a girl dressed for her wedding, I feel sweet, secret thrills going all through me; and if I see such a creature, I feel impelled to clasp her to me, mentally, with a lofty, pure affection which has nothing in common with mundane passion.'

"'Oh!' said Alexander, 'I know you always fall in love with every bride you come across; and often even other people's sweethearts are to be found set up in that inner sanctuary which you have established in your imagination.'

"'He loves with them that love,' said Severin; 'that's why I like him so much.'

"I shall set my aunt at him,' said Alexander, laughing, 'and see if that will rid me of a species of haunting which is becoming rather a nuisance to me. You are looking at me with questioning glances, are you?--very well then; I'll make a clean breast of it. The old-maid nature is traceable in me in this further respect, that I feel a perfectly unendurable terror of ghosts, and go on like some little child whom its nurse has frightened with a bogy. What happens is no less than this: that often in broad daylight, and particularly about mid-day, when I'm looking into the chests and boxes, I suddenly seem to catch a glimpse of my aunt's peaky nose close beside me, and of her long, lean fingers poking in among the clothes and linen, and rummaging among them. If I take down a teacup, or a saucepan off the wall, to look at them with a feeling of satisfaction, all the rest rattle, and I expect to see a ghostly hand offering me another; then I throw the things down, and run to the front-room without looking over my shoulder. There I sing or whistle out of the open window into the street, at which Mistress Anne is greatly scandalized: and that the aunt "walks" every night at twelve o'clock is a positive and undoubted fact.'

"Marzell laughed heartily at this. Severin remained grave, and said, 'Let us hear all about that; it'll probably turn out to be some trick or other. Fancy a fellow with your enlightened, advanced views, turning spirit-seer!'

"'Well, Severin,' said Alexander, 'you know quite well, and so does Marzell, that nobody could be less of a believer in ghosts and apparitions than I have always been. Never in my life till now have I ever met with anything in the least out of the common, and I had never had the slightest experience of that strange, nervous sense of the proximity of spiritual principles belonging to another state of being which paralyzes both body and mind; but let me tell you what happened the very first night I spent in the house.'

"'Not too loud, then,' said Marzell, 'for I think our neighbours here are doing us the favour of listening to what we are saying.'

"'They shan't hear,' said Alexander; 'indeed I scarcely like to tell even you; however, here goes, I may as well out with it. Mistress Anne received me, dissolved in tears, and went before me with a branched silver candlestick in her trembling hands to the bedroom, groaning and coughing as she went. The postboy had to bring in my trunk, and as he pocketed, with profuse thanks, the tip I gave him, he took a survey of the room with a grin on his face, till he fixed his eyes on the great towering bed with the sea-green curtains.

"'"My word!" he cried, "the gentleman'll have a better night of it than he would have had in the old coach!--and the nightgown and nightcap all ready and waiting!"

"'Mistress Anne, almost fainting with the shock of this irreverent mention of the maidenly night-gear, was letting the candlestick fall, but I caught it in time, and lighted the fellow out. He cast a facetious look at the old woman as he departed. When I came back she was all in a tremble; she thought I would tell her to go, and proceed coolly to desecrate the maidenly couch by sleeping in it, but she revived when I told her I wasn't accustomed to anything so soft, and should be obliged if she would make me up a shake-down as well as she could in the sitting-room. Her wrinkles of annoyance vanished, and her face lighted up, in a way it never has since, into a most gracious smile. She dipped her long lean arms down to the ground, fingered up the down-trodden heels of her slippers, and trotted off, half frightened and half delighted. As I meant to have a fine long sleep, I told her not to come with my coffee before nine o'clock; so I left the old woman for the night almost with Wallenstein's words.

"I was tired to death, and thought I should fall asleep in a moment, but the manifold thoughts and fancies which began to cross each other in my brain drove sleep away. I seemed to be only beginning to realize the rapid change which had taken place in my position and circumstances. It was only now, when I had actually taken possession of my property, and was absolutely in my house, that I quite grasped the fact that I was suddenly lifted out of very narrow circumstances to a position of affluence, and that life was opening before me a vista of most agreeable ease and comfort. The watchman's discordant voice croaked out "Eleven," and "Twelve." I was so wide awake that I distinctly heard my watch ticking on the table, and a cricket chirping somewhere a long way off; but as the last stroke of twelve sounded, hollow and faint, from a church-clock in the distance, measured footfalls began to walk up and down the room, and at every step came the sounds of sobbing and sighing, growing louder and louder, till they were like the heart-breaking cries of some creature in deadly pain or peril, and then there came a scuffling and a scratching on the outside of the door, and a dog whimpered and moaned, in tones that were almost human. I had noticed the old pug--my aunt's pet and darling--the evening before. It was evidently him, whining to get in. I got out of bed: I stared most scrutinizingly all about the room, which was dimly lighted by the glimmer of the sky. Everything that was in it I could make out distinctly; but no form was to be seen moving up and down, though the footsteps, and the sobbing and sighing, still went on, apparently close beside my bed. And then, suddenly, I was seized by that terror, arising from the proximity of a spirit, which I had never known before. I felt a cold perspiration dropping from my forehead, and my hair standing straight up on end, as if frozen by its iciness. I could not move a limb, nor open my mouth to scream, for terror; but my blood streamed faster in my throbbing veins, and kept my inner senses active, though they could exercise no control over my organs, which were paralyzed as with a spasm of death. Suddenly the footsteps stopped, and the sobbing ceased; then I could hear a sort of coughing sound--like a clearing of the throat more than coughing; the door of a cupboard seemed to open; there was a clattering as of a silver spoon; then a sound as if some bottle was opened and put back on the shelf; a sound of swallowing, and then a deep-drawn sigh. At that instant a tall, white figure seemed to come wavering forward out of the wall. I sunk down into the depths of an ice river of the wildest terror. I lost consciousness.

"I came to myself with the sensation of a fall from some height. You all know that every-day dream sensation; but the peculiar feeling that I experienced then I hardly know how to describe to you. It was some time before I could make out where I was, and then there was a sense as if something terrible had been happening, which a long, death-like sleep had wiped away the remembrance of. At last it all came gradually back to me, but I thought it was nothing but a painful dream. However, when I got up I noticed the portrait for the first time--the portrait in the wedding-dress; a life-size, three-quarter length portrait. A cold shiver ran down my back, for I felt sure I recognized in it the figure which I had seen in the night. But then I could see nothing in the shape of a cupboard in the room, and that confirmed me in the conclusion that I had only been dreaming.

"'Mistress Anne brought my coffee. She looked me long in the face, and said, "Eh, sir! you are looking pale and badly!--has anything been happening?" Far from telling her anything about it, I said an oppression in my chest had prevented me from sleeping. "It's the stomach!--it's the stomach!" said the old woman. "Eh! we've help at hand for that!" She scuffled up to the wall; opened a door in the hangings which I had not noticed before, and I saw into a cupboard where there were glasses, small bottles, and two or three silver spoons. The old woman took out one of the spoons, clattering and tinkling it as she did so; opened a bottle; poured a few drops from it into the spoon; put it back in its place, and then came towards me with her unsteady, wavering gait. I gave a scream of horror. It was the exact reproduction, in broad, waking daylight, of the scene of the previous night.

"'"Well, well!" croaked the old woman, with a strange grin; "it's only a drop of medicine, sir. The mistress was troubled with her stomach too, and often had to take a little."

"'I manned myself, and swallowed the stuff, which was bitter and hot. My eyes were on the bride's picture, which was just over the wall-press. "Whose portrait's that?" I asked.

"'"Good gracious, sir! don't you know?" she cried. "That's poor dear mistress, that's dead and gone your aunt." The tears ran down her cheeks. The dog began to whimper, as it had done in the night. I mastered my inward shudder, and forced myself with some difficulty to be composed. I said:

"'"Mistress Anne! I feel quite positive that my aunt was at that cupboard last night at twelve o'clock, taking some of those drops."

"'The old woman showed no surprise. A strange, deadly pallor seemed to extinguish the last sparks of life in her wrinkled face, and she said softly, "Has the Feast of the Invention of the Cross come round again?--No; it's long past the third of May."

"'I didn't feel able to ask anything further, and the old woman went away. I dressed as fast as I could, left my breakfast untouched, and ran as quickly as possible into the open air to try and shake off the dreadful feeling of unreality--as if everything was a horrible dream--which had taken possession of me again. That night, without my having given any orders on the subject, Mistress Anne made up my bed in a nice cheerful room facing the street. I have never said another word to her about what I heard and saw, far less to Falter. Do me the favour, you two, to say nothing about it either, or there will only be a lot of annoying tittle-tattle, and endless troublesome questions, and, very likely, all the bother of a formal investigation by the Psychological Society. Even in the room where I sleep now, I feel pretty certain I can hear the footsteps and the sobs every night at midnight. However, I mean to put up with it the best way I can for a short time, and then try to get rid of the house as quietly as possible, and look out for another.'

"When Alexander had finished, there was a short silence. Then Marzell said:

"'All this about your old aunt haunting the house is strange and uncanny enough. But, firmly as I believe that an extraneous Spiritual Principle, or "Entity," has the power of making itself felt by, or perceptible to, us in some way or other, this adventure of yours strikes one as being very largely tinctured with a purely material element. The footsteps, and the sighing and sobbing, might pass well enough: but that the poor old aunt deceased should go and swallow stomachic drops, as she did when she was feeling a little out of sorts in this life--well, it's too much like the lady who, when she revisited the glimpses of the moon after death, used to scrabble outside the window like a cat shut out by accident.'

"'Now that,' said Severin, 'is just one of the regular, stereotyped ways in which we go wilfully mystifying ourselves. We admit that an extraneous Spiritual Principle can affect us (apparently, at all events), by acting on our bodily senses, but we insist on giving said spiritual principle a certain amount of education, and on teaching it what it is proper, and what it is improper that it should do. According to your theory, my dear Marzell, a spirit may go about in slippers and sigh and sob, but it mustn't take the cork out of a bottle, or swallow any of its contents. Here it is to be observed that our own spirit, in dreams, often hangs commonplace matters out of our own imprisoned state of life on to that higher condition of being which only indicates itself dimly, even in dreams; and that it employs a great deal of irony in so doing. May not this irony, which lies so very deep in our nature (so conscious of its state of decadence from what it originally was) still exist in the soul after it has burst from the chrysalis of the body, and out of this life of dreams, when it is allowed a glance back at its discarded envelope? On this theory, the essential factor in every case of spirit-seeing is the Will of the Spiritual Entity, and the influence exerted by it. This influence is what sends the person affected by it, though in the waking state, into the world of dreams--(though the person seeing relieves that he does so by means of his natural senses)--and it would be absurd enough were we to insist on establishing, for appearances of this sort, any particular "Norm," corresponding to our ideas of what ought, or ought not to be. It's worthy of remark that people who walk in their sleep, active dreamers, are often employed about the most trivial functions of life: for instance, the fellow who, on the night of full moon, always used to saddle his horse, take it out of the stable, and then lead it back, unsaddle it, and go to his bed again. However, all these matters are mere disjecta membra. What I really am driving at is, briefly----'

"'You believe in the old aunt then, do you?' asked Alexander, turning rather pale.

"'What is there that he doesn't believe?' said Marzell. 'And I am a true believer, too, though not such a confirmed one, perhaps. But now I'm going to tell you that I have been haunted too; and that by a much worse apparation, in the house where I'm lodging at present. I assure you it nearly frightened me to death.'

"'And I haven't been so much better off, neither,' said Severin.

"'When I got back here to Berlin the other day,' said Marzell, 'I took a nice, comfortable, well-furnished room in Friedrich Strasse. Like Alexander, I was tired to death when I threw myself into bed; but I had hardly been asleep for an hour or so when I became aware of something like a bright light shining on my closed eyelids. I opened my eyes--and, fancy my horror--close beside my bed stood a tall, attenuated figure, with a face as pale as death, and frightfully distorted, staring at me fixedly with glassy-looking spectral eyes! A white shirt was hanging from the shoulders of this figure, so that its breast was bare, and seemed to be bloody. In its left hand it had a branched candlestick, with two lighted wax candles; and in its right, a tall glass full of water. Speechlessly, I kept my eyes riveted on this spectral being as it began swinging the lights and the glass in wide circles, uttering horrible, whimpering sounds as it did so. Like Alexander, I was seized by "ghost terror." Slower and slower the spectre swung the lights and the water-glass, till they came to a stop. Then I fancied I could hear a sort of low, whispering singing in the room, and, with a curious sardonic sort of laugh, the figure went slowly away, out of the door. It was long before I could summon up courage to get up and hurriedly bolt the door, which I found I had neglected to do the night before when I went to bed. Often and often, when I was serving in the field, I have found some stranger standing beside me when I awoke; but that never frightened me at all, so that I was firmly persuaded there was something supernatural about the affair in this instance. Well, I was going downstairs next morning to talk to the landlady about what had happened in the night. As I came out on to the landing the opposite door opened and a tall attenuated figure, muffled up in a white dressing-gown, came out meeting me. At the first glance I recognized the deadly white face and the sunken, glassy eyes I had seen at my bedside in the night. And, although I knew, now, that, if the ghost appeared again it was kickable, still, I felt a sort of echo of the terror which had been on me in the night, and was starting off downstairs as fast as I could. But the individual barred my passage, took me politely by the hand and said, in a kindly manner, with a good-tempered smile on his face:

"'"Good-morning, dear neighbour. I trust you had a quiet night, and that nothing disturbed you?"'

"'I told him what had happened without a moment's hesitation; adding that I felt pretty certain he had been the apparition himself, and that I was glad I hadn't given him a pretty warm reception, as, from my recent experience in the field, I was, not unnaturally, rather apt to think that people who came in upon me in that sort of fashion were not exactly friendly. I added that I could scarcely be expected to answer for myself, in that respect, in the future.

"'As I said this the man kept on smiling and shaking his head; and, when I had finished, he said, very softly and gently:

"'"Well, my dear neighbour, I hope you won't be annoyed. Ay--ay--the fact is, I thought, I felt quite sure it would be so, and this morning I knew it had been, I felt so well and happy, so composed and reassured in myself. You see, I'm a very anxious, nervous man: how could it be otherwise? Yes, yes: and so they say that, the day after to-morrow,--"

"'And he went on to talk about common, every-day gossip of the town, and then to other matters connected with the place, likely to be of interest to a new arrival; and all this he dished up not without a spice of irony which was entertaining enough. So, now that he began to be interesting, I went back to the events of the night, and asked him to tell me, without reserve or hesitation, what had induced him to come and wake me up in that alarming manner.

"'"Ah, my dear neighbour," he said, "I really hope you won't be much annoyed with me for taking the liberty--I'm sure I scarcely know how I could have been so bold. It was only that I was anxious to know how you were disposed towards me. I'm an exceedingly anxious, nervous man; and a new neighbour can be a very painful trial to me till I know what terms we're going to be upon."

"'I assured this extraordinary fellow that, so far, I hadn't the slightest idea what he was driving at; and then he took me by the hand, and led me into his room.

"'"Why should I hide from you, dear neighbour," he said, taking me to the window--"why should I deny, or make any secret of the miraculous power which I possess? God's strength is made perfect in our weakness; and thus it is that, to me, wretched creature that I am, exposed without shield to all the fiery darts of the adversary, has been vouchsafed, as a means of help and protection, the miraculous power of seeing, under certain conditions, into the hearts of men, and reading their inmost thoughts. I take up this clear, bright vessel, containing distilled water" (he took a tall drinking-glass from the window-sill, it was the same he had had in the night), "I fix my thoughts and concentrate my will upon the person whose heart I wish to read, and I swing the glass to and fro, observing certain prescribed oscillations, known only to myself. Presently little bubbles begin to move up and down in the water, throwing reflections, something like the back of a looking-glass, and by-and-by, as I look at them, I seem to see, as it were, my own inner spirit reflected in them, perceptibly and legibly, although a higher consciousness recognizes the image and its reflection as that of the person upon whom I am exerting my will. Often, when the propinquity of a stranger, as yet uninvestigated, makes me over anxious and uneasy, it chances that I make an experiment in the night; and I presume this was the case last night; for I can assure you you caused me no little uneasiness yesterday evening. Oh! my dear, dear neighbour, surely I can't be wrong, surely I'm not making a mistake here: you and I spent many happy days together in Ceylon, just as nearly as possible two hundred years ago? Did we not?"

"'Then he got into all sorts of labyrinths of incoherence, and I saw well enough whom I had to do with, and got away from him as quickly as I could, though not without some difficulty.

"'When I asked the landlady about him, I found that my neighbour, who had long been a much esteemed savant and man of business, with much many-sided cultivation, had a short time before fallen into a profound maliconia, in which he believed that everybody was inimically disposed to him and wanted to do him some harm; till all at once he thought he had discovered the means of finding out those who were his enemies and were hostile to him; upon which he had passed into his present tranquil and contented condition of madness with "fixed idea." It seems he sits nearly all day at his window making experiments with his glass. His own kindly disposition is seen in the circumstance that he nearly always augurs well of the people whom he experiments upon, and when he comes across anybody whom he thinks inimical, or dubious, he is not angry, but droops into a state of quiet sadness. So that his madness is quite harmless, and his elder brother, who manages his affairs, can let him live wherever he chooses, and has no occasion to give himself any trouble about him.'

"'So that your ghost,' said Severin, 'belongs to the category of those in Wagner's "Book of Apparitions," inasmuch as your explanation--to the effect that it was due to natural causes, and was chiefly the result of your own imagination--comes dragging in at the tail of the story, as is always the case in that most prosy of books.'

"'If nothing short of a ghost will satisfy you,' said Marzell, 'of course that is so. However, this madman of mine with whom I'm now on the most intimate terms--is a very interesting specimen; and there's only one thing connected with him that I don't altogether like, namely, that he's beginning to take to other fixed ideas; for instance, that he's the King of Amboyna, and has been taken prisoner, and exhibited for money about the country, as a bird of paradise, for fifty years. Now that sort of thing is capable of turning into a violent form of insanity. I knew a man who used to shine as the moon in the quietest and happiest madness every night, till he took it in his head that he had got to rise as the sun also, and then he broke out into the wildest violence.'

"'My dear fellows,' cried Alexander, 'is this talk for a place like this, in the middle of thousands of people in their holiday clothes, enjoying themselves in the bright sunshine? All we want to make us perfect is that Severin--who's looking much paler and more pensive than I like to see him shall have had some more terrible experience than even we have, and will tell us about it.'

"'Well,' said Severin, 'the fact is, though I haven't been seeing any ghost, still the mysterious, the supernatural, has come in contact with my life so nearly and closely, that I have been most painfully made aware of the existence of "the electric chain with which we are darkly bound."'

"I was certain,' said Alexander, 'that the strange mood he is in must be traceable to something out of the common.'

"'We shall hear strange matters now, I feel certain,' said Marzell with a laugh.

"On which Severin said:

"'If Alexander's aunt deceased takes doses of stomachic drops, if Nettelmann, the ex-private secretary--(for he's the madman, and a very old acquaintance of mine he is)--has divined Marzell's good disposition towards him in a glass of water, perhaps I may be allowed to tell you of a curious instance of foreboding, or presentiment, or call it a prescience, which I have experienced in the form of the perfume of a flower. You know that I am living at the far end of the Thiergarten, near the park-ranger's? Very well. The day of my arrival----'

"Here Severin was interrupted by an old gentleman, vary nicely dressed, who politely asked him to be kind enough to move his chair a little forward to let him pass. Severin rose, and the old gentleman, bowing courteously, led forward an elderly lady, apparently his wife. A boy of some twelve years followed them. Severin was about to sit down again, when Alexander said softly, 'Wait a moment; that young lady there seems to belong to the family, too.'

"The friends looked, and saw a wonderfully beautiful creature approaching, with hesitating steps, looking backwards over her shoulder. She seemed to be looking for some one whom she was anxious to see, or perhaps had noticed in passing. Almost immediately a young fellow came gliding up to her through the crowd, and slipped a note into her hand, which she quickly concealed in her breast. Meanwhile, the old gentleman had taken possession of a table which some people had just left, and was telling the flying waiter (whom he had checked in his flight, and was holding tight by the flap of his jacket) at much length, and with great minuteness, what he was to go and bring. The lady was occupied in dusting the chairs, and consequently they did not observe the loitering of their daughter, who, without taking any notice of Severin (who still stood politely holding the chair to allow her to pass), made haste to rejoin her people. She sat down so that the friends were able to look straight into her wonderfully beautiful face, and dark, exquisitely 'appealing' eyes. There was something immensely attractive and irresistible in her whole being, and in all her movements. She was beautifully dressed in the latest fashions, a trifle too much dressed, perhaps, for the promenade, but still in perfect taste. The mother recognised a lady sitting a short distance off, and they rose and talked to each other; the old gentleman lighted his pipe. The young lady took advantage of this chance to take the letter from her breast and read it hastily, and the friends saw the colour come quickly to the poor thing's cheeks, and the big tears rise in her eyes, while her bosom rose and fell with emotion. She tore the letter into little fragments, and let the wind carry them one by one away, as if each was some beautiful hope hard to relinquish. The old people came back: the father looked keenly at her tearful eyes, and seemed to be asking her what was the matter. She answered a word or two in a tone of gentle regret (the friends couldn't hear them), but, as she took out her handkerchief and held it to her cheek, they concluded she was pretending to have toothache; and therefore it struck them as strange that her father--who had a somewhat caricature-like face of irony on him--made funny grimaces, and laughed heartily.

"Neither Alexander, Severin, nor Marzell had said a word, but kept their eyes riveted on the lovely creature who had suffered such a bitter sorrow. The boy now came and sat down, and his sister changed her place so that her back was turned to our friends. This broke the spell, and Alexander, standing up, and tapping Severin on the shoulder, said:

"'Well, friend Severin, what has become of your prescience in the shape of a flower; and of Nettelmann, my aunt, and all the other subjects we were discussing so profoundly? What is this apparition which has tied our tongues and amazed our eyes?'

"'One remark I will make,' said Marzell with a heavy sigh, 'to wit, that that poor girl there is the most divinely and exquisitely beautiful creature that ever I beheld.'

"'Oh!' said Severin, sighing more deeply than Marzell; 'and to think that this lovely darling is under the burden of some terrible sorrow!'

"'Ay,' said Marzell, and has probably just received a crushing blow.'

"Exactly,' said Alexander. 'What I wish to goodness is, that I could get hold of that great, awkward-looking lout of a fellow who gave her the letter. If I could only give him a good hiding, I should feel relieved in my mind. Of course it was he whom she was expecting to meet here; and, instead of joining the family party, like a man, he has gone and handed her some boshy letter telling her he couldn't come. Some preposterous piece of jealousy, I suppose; some lover's quarrel or another.'

"Marzell interrupted him impatiently. 'How little you know the world! Your hiding would fall upon the shoulders (temptingly broad they are, I admit) of an innocent, inoffensive messenger. You could see that in the silly smile of him, in his whole manner, even in his walk. He was only the letter-carrier, not the letter-writer. You may do what you like, but if you hand a person a letter of your own writing, the contents of it are legible in your face. At all events your face is always a condensed "summary" of the full official report inside. Nothing but the most cruel irony (easily recognisable into the bargain) would have made a man give the woman he loved a letter with the particular sort of bow that the fellow made when he handed that one. No! what seems certain is, that the poor thing expected to meet her sweetheart--prevented from seeing her at home--in this place. He has been unavoidably prevented from coming; or perhaps, as Alexander thinks, some silly lover's quarrel has kept him away: so that he sent some friend with the letter. At all events, whatever the facts may be, the little scene was quite heart-breaking.'

"And yet,' said Severin, 'you ascribe this deep, heart-breaking sorrow to some trumpery, every-day cause! No, no! she has a secret passion, most likely against her parents' will. All her hopes depended upon some one event which to-day was to decide. It has all turned out amiss! hope's star has set for ever, all earthly happiness is a thing of the past! Didn't you see the heart-breaking look of deep, inconsolable sorrow with which she sent the fragments of the fatal letter fluttering away on the breeze, like Ophelia with her straw flowers, or Emilia Galotti with her roses? I could have wept tears of blood when the wind whirled away those words of death, as in bitter, sneering mockery! Is there no comfort on earth? Does the world contain no more hope or consolation for that most lovely, interesting young creature?'

"'Bravo, Severin,' said Alexander, 'you're fairly afloat and under way, now! you've got your tragedy fairly in hand! No, no! we'll leave her some hope still, some prospect of happiness in this world; and I believe she hasn't many misgivings on the subject herself. She seems to be pretty composed and comfortable in her mind. See how carefully she's putting her new white gloves down on the tablecloth, and how quietly and daintily she's dipping her cake in her tea. See, she's nodding at the old fellow as he puts a tiny droplet of rum into the cup. The boy's munching away at the bread-and-butter. Plump! goes a fid of it into his tea, which splashes up in his face. The old folks are laughing, and so's the young lady, she's actually shaking with laughter.'

"'Ah!' said Severin, 'that's just the terrible part of it; to be obliged to pretend to be interested in every day matters when the heart is breaking. Indeed, it's easier to laugh, then, than to seem indifferent.'

"'I do beg, Severin,' said Marzell, 'that you'll be quiet for a little. If we keep on looking at her in this way we shall get so terribly interested in her that we shan't see the end of it. Let's talk about something else.'

"Alexander agreed, and they set to work to carry on a conversation, lightsomely fluttering from topic to topic. In this they were so far successful that they talked about utterly trivial matters with a great expenditure of noise. But everything they said had such a strange character and peculiar tone, never in the least appropriate to the subject, that the words seemed to be mere cyphers with some hidden, mysterious meaning. They determined to celebrate this day of their reunion with a bowl of cold punch; and at the third glass of it they fell weeping into each other's arms. The young lady rose, went to the railing above the stream, and stood there pensively gazing at the clouds.

quoted Marzell, in accents of gentle sorrow. But Severin banged his glass on the table, and spoke of a battle-field which he had seen by the light of a full-moon, and of the pale corpses that had gazed at him with eyes instinct with life.

"'God be about us!' cried Alexander. 'What's the matter with you, brother?'

"The girl sat down again at the table. With one impulse the three fellows jumped up and ran a sort of race to the rail she had been leaning on. Alexander depassed the other two by a powerful leap over a couple of chairs, leant upon the spot where the girl had been standing, and stuck to it like a leech, though the other two tried to shove him away, on pretext of embracing him affectionately. Severin spoke with great solemnity of the clouds and the way they were floating, and described, louder than was necessary, their shapes and figures. Marzell, without listening to him, compared Bellevue to a Roman villa; and, although he had just come back by way of Switzerland, said the flat, bare, ugly country, with the lightning-conductors on the powder-magazines--which he called 'masts surmounted by gleaming stars'--was beautiful and romantic. Alexander contented himself with saying it was a lovely evening, and the Webersche Zelt a charming spot.

"The family seemed to be preparing for a move. The old gentleman knocked the ashes out of his pipe, the young lady put away her knitting, and the boy sought--and called for--his cap, which, after a little, the busy house poodle (who had been playing with it) brought and laid down at his feet, and then stood looking up in his face, eager to be of further service, and anxious to set about it at once (after the nature of his kind). The friends' conversation subsided in tone. The family bowed civilly to them as they passed, on which they, ducking their heads faster and further than the occasion demanded, banged them all three together with a resounding thwack. Ere they recovered from this, the family had gone. Then they slunk, in gloomy silence, back to their cold punch, which they found miserable. The imagery of the clouds paled into cold darksome mist; Bellevue was Bellevue again, each lightning-conductor a lightning-conductor, and the Webersche Zelt a common refreshment shop. And, as there was hardly anybody else left in the place, an unpleasant chill began to be perceptible, the very pipes wouldn't keep alight; and the friends crept away, in a conversation which only flared up for a moment now and then, like a burnt-out candle. Severin left the others while they were still in the Thiergarten, as he lived in it at the other end; and Marzell, turning off at the Friedrich Strasse, left Alexander to wend his way to his distant dwelling, and the society of his 'walking' aunt. It was on account of the distance at which they lived from one another that they had chosen a public place for their meetings, where they might see each other on particular days of the week. They came, however, more for the sake of keeping their promise than from any strong desire to see each other. They found it impossible to hit back again upon the old confidential tone which had formerly prevailed among them. Each of them seemed to have something on his mind which destroyed all enjoyment and freedom, and which he felt bound to keep to himself like some dark and dangerous secret. In a very short time Severin suddenly disappeared from Berlin altogether. Soon after that, Alexander complained, in a highly despairing manner, that he had applied unsuccessfully for an extension of his leave, and would be obliged to go away before he had settled all the legal business connected with his heritage affairs, and say good-bye to his nice, comfortable house.

"'But I thought you found it so uncanny to live in,' said Marzell. 'Isn't it pleasant to get away from the sound of your aunt "walking" every night at twelve o'clock?'

"'Oh,' said Alexander, 'she's given that up some time ago; and I can assure you that I regularly long for household ease and quietness, and I shall most likely apply for my retirement almost at once, so as to devote myself to art and literature altogether.'

"Indeed, Alexander was obliged to go away within a very few days. Soon after that, the war broke out again, and Marzell had to rejoin the army. So that the three friends were once more separated, almost before they could be said to have met, in the proper sense of the word.

"Two years afterwards, when Whit Monday came round in due course, Marzell, who had come back a second time from field service, was standing leaning over the old balustrade, in the Webersche Zelt, and revolving many things in his mind. Somebody tapped him on the shoulder, and when he looked round, lo! Alexander and Severin were both there.

"'See how one comes across one's friends!' cried Alexander, joyfully. 'I was strolling along to keep an engagement, thinking of anything rather than of seeing either of you here. Close past me goes a figure; I couldn't believe my eyes, but it was Severin. I called to him; he turned round, and was just as glad to see me as I was to meet him. I asked him to come to my house, but he said he had an irresistible desire to come here, so I gave up my engagement, and came here too. His presentiment was right, you see; we have found you here!'

"'The truth is,' said Severin, 'that I felt quite certain I should find you here, and I hardly knew how to keep my patience till you came.'

"'Don't you think Severin looks remarkably well?' said Marzell; 'he has quite got rid of that sickly pallor he used to have, and there are none of those nasty cloud shadows which used to be upon his brow.'

"'I may say just the same of you, dear Marzell,' said Severin; 'for, though you didn't look so seedy as I did--and I really was very far from nourishing, either in body or mind--still, the strange depression and perturbation of spirit you were in had so completely got the upper hand with you, that it had turned your bright young face into the likeness of a crabbed old gentleman's. I suspect both of us have passed through a good deal of purifying purgatorial fire; and Alexander looks as if he had done the same, for he had lost all his good-spirits towards the end, and put on a damned medicine face, where one might read, "a tablespoonful every hour." Whether it was the aunt that was at the bottom of it, or, as I shrewdly suspect, something else, I don't know; at all events, he seems to be a new man now, as well as we.'

"'You're quite right,' said Marzell; 'and, the more I look at the fellow, the more clearly I see what wonders a comfortable income can work here below. Had he ever such rosy cheeks?--such a rounded chin? Don't these sweetly-smiling lips say, "The roast-beef was superior, and the burgundy first quality"?'

"Severin laughed.

"'Observe,' said Marzell, taking Alexander by the arms and turning him round, 'what superfine cloth his coat's made of! Look at the dazzling whiteness of his linen!--that splendid gold chain with about seven hundred seals! Tell us, lad, how you have managed to turn out such a terrific swell? It's so unlike what you used to be. One might almost have said of you, quoting Sir John Falstaff, that you might be wrapped in an eel-skin; and now you're getting almost pudgy. What does it all mean?'

"'Well,' said Alexander, blushing a little, 'have you got anything more to say about me? You know I took my retirement a year ago, and am leading a happy, comfortable life?'

"'The fact is,' said Severin, who had not been listening much to what Marzell was saying, but had been standing lost in thought, 'we parted in a strange sort of fashion; not at all as old friends should.'

"'You, in particular,' said Alexander, 'for you went off without saying a word to either of us.'

"'Ah!' said Severin, 'I was in the height of a phase of most extraordinary folly just then, and so were you, and Marzell, too, for----'

"He suddenly stopped, and the three looked at one another with sparkling eyes, like people all struck at once by the same idea, like an electric shock. While Severin had been speaking, they had been going along arm-in-arm, and they now found they were at the very table where the beautiful creature who had turned all their heads two years before had been sitting that day. What their eyes all said was, 'There! there is the place where she was sitting!' There was a strong feeling as if she were coming back again. Marzell was beginning to move out the chairs. However, they went on, and Alexander had a table set out on the spot where they themselves had been sitting that eventful Whit Monday. The coffee had come; but neither of them had spoken a word, and Alexander seemed the most embarrassed of the three. The waiter stood waiting for his money. He looked in amazement from one of these speechless customers to another; he rubbed his hands; he coughed; at last he said, in a feebly voice:

"'Shall I bring some rum, gentlemen?'

"On which they looked in each other's faces, and burst out into fits of extravagant laughter.

"Oh, Lord!' cried the waiter, starting back a couple of paces, 'they're all off their heads!'

"Alexander calmed him by paying for the coffee, and, when he had gone, Severin began:

"'What I was just going to say, we have all represented in pantomime; and the denouement, with the "moral" of the story as well, were expressed by that hearty burst of laughter of ours. This day two years ago, we all fell into a condition of the most egregious folly; we're ashamed of it now, and completely cured.'

"'The fact was,' said Marzell, 'that that exquisitely beautiful creature turned all our heads to a frightful extent.'

"'Exquisitely beautiful!' said Alexander; 'exquisitely beautiful, indeed! But,' he continued, with a little dash of anxiety in his tone, 'you say, Marzell, that we are all quite cured of our folly--id est, of our having lost our hearts to that girl whom we none of us knew anything about. Now let me ask you one thing. If she were to come back here again to-day, and sit down in her old place, shouldn't we fall back into the old folly again, just as we did before?'

"'For my part,' said Severin, 'I'm quite certain, beyond the possibility of any mistake about it, that I am most thoroughly cured of it.'

"'And so am I," said Marzell, quite as unmistakeably. Nobody was ever made such a thorough ass of as I was, when I came to a closer acquaintance with that incomparable lady.'

"'"Closer acquaintance?--incomparable lady?"' interrupted Alexander eagerly.

"'Well, yes,' said Marzell; 'it's impossible to deny the fact that that adventure of ours here, which I might almost call a novelette in one volume, was followed in my case by a regular screaming farce.'

"'My luck was no better,' said Severin. 'Only, if your novelette was in one volume, and your farce in one act, all I played in was a little duodecimo sheet, and a single scene.'

"During this, Alexander's face had got red as fire; the perspiration stood on his forehead; his breath came short and quick, he ran his hands through his curly hair; in short, he showed every symptom of the greatest excitement, and was so clearly unable to retain any control over himself that Marzell cried:

"What on earth's the matter with you, my dear fellow? What are you getting into such a state of mind about?'

"He's simply over head and ears in love still with the lady whom we've given up,' said Severin, laughing, 'and he doesn't believe us, doesn't think it possible we can have had our little romances or novelettes; at all events, he's getting infernally jealous. And I'm sure he may save himself the trouble. I was most abominably treated, at all events.'

"So was I, in a way,' said Marzell, 'and I give you my word that the spark which fell into my heart that Whit Monday has gone out most completely, beyond the possibility of ever being kindled again. So you may be as deeply in love with the lady as ever you like!'

"'So you may as far as I'm concerned too,' said Severin.

"Alexander, now quite reassured again, laughed very heartily, and said:

"'You were right about me, to a certain extent, though you're partly on a wrong scent, too. So just listen a moment. It is quite true that, when I remembered that eventful afternoon, that lovely girl, in all her marvellous attractiveness, came so vividly to my mind's eye that I fancied I could hear her beautiful voice, and touch her white, delicate hand as she held it out to me. I felt as though it was to her alone that I could devote the whole affection of my heart and being, and as if I never could be happy without her! Now, supposing this to be true, just think what a terrible thing it would be!'

"'What for? Why on earth?' cried Severin and Marzell, both together.

"'Because I have been married for the last year,' answered Alexander quietly.

"You married, for the last year?' the friends cried, clapping their hands, and then shouting with laughter. 'Who is it? Is she nice-looking? Rich, poor, young, old: how, when, what, where?'

"Alexander stopped his ears. 'I beg of you,' he cried imploringly, as he leant his left hand on the table, and with the right (on the little finger whereof the betrothal ring glittered, beside a chrysophrase) took the spoon and stirred his coffee. 'I implore you to spare me all these questions, and, if you would do me a real favour, tell me what happened to you after our adventure here with the lady.'

"'Ay! ay! brother!' said Marzell; 'it strikes me you haven't made a very good job of it. It isn't Falter's little witch, is it?'

"'If you have any real regard for me,' said Alexander, 'please don't badger me with questions, but let me hear about your own adventures.'

"'It's the ghost's doing,' said Severin. 'He felt himself compelled to add some wife or another to his collection of pots and pans and plate and household linen. So there he sits, with a heart torn with regret and forbidden love; though that flourishing exterior of his doesn't quite seem to suit that theory either. What does the aunt, of the stomach drops, say to it all?'

"'She is highly satisfied,' said Alexander. 'But oh! if you have any real commiseration for me, if you don't want to embitter for ever this occasion of our meeting again after all this time, do, for Heaven's sake, leave off your damnable questions, and begin your stories.'

"They saw that Alexander was so terribly in earnest, that it would be cruelty to keep him on tenter-hooks any longer. So Marzell at once began his part of the tale, as follows:

"'We all admit and know that, this day two years ago, a very pretty girl turned all our heads at the first glance; that we conducted ourselves as young asses do in such circumstances, and couldn't shake off the insanity which had come upon us. Night and day, wherever I went, that girl's image haunted me. She went with me to the War Office, into the Secretary of State's private sanctum; she came to meet me out of his writing-table, and confused all my finely turned official periods with her beautiful eyes, so that people asked me, with melancholy faces, if the old wound in my head was troubling me again. To see her again was my goal, the object of all my restless efforts. 1 ran from one street to another like a letter-carrier, from morning till night. I looked up at all the well-to-do people's windows, all in vain. Every afternoon I used to come to the Webersche Zelt here.'

"So did I! So did I!' cried Severin and Alexander.

"'I used to see you,' said Marzell, 'but I kept carefully out of your way.'

"That's exactly what we did, too,' they all cried in tutti.' Oh, what infernal donkeys!'

"'It was no use,' said Marzell. 'But I had neither peace nor rest. The very idea that she was in love with somebody else already, that I could but perish in hopeless misery, even if ever I succeeded in making her acquaintance; that I should only then clearly find out the extent of my misery, to wit, her inconsolable regret for the man she had lost, her love for him, and her fidelity--I say, just this very idea was what fanned the fire within me to a terrific pitch of fury. The tragic pictures of her condition which Severin painted here for us came back to my mind, and, while I piled up all imaginable love-misfortunes on to her head, I seemed to myself to be the more unfortunate of the two. In my sleepless nights, and on lonely walks, I used to spin the wildest and most ingenious romances, in which, of course, the unknown lover and I myself played the leading parts. No scenes were too improbable to be introduced into these imaginary dramas of mine, and I was immensely delighted with myself in my character of the hero, resigned to suffer a hopeless passion. As I have said, I went all over the town, in the most senseless manner, searching for her who ruled my thoughts and my whole being. Very well; one forenoon, I found myself in the new street called "Green Street;" and, as I was strolling along there, deep in thought, a young gentleman stopped me, took off his hat politely, and asked if I could tell him where Mr. Asling, the Geheime Rath, lived in that street. I said I could not. But the name "Asling" struck me, somehow. "Asling? Asling?" I said to myself. Then, all at once I remembered that my romantic passion had so occupied my head that I had forgotten all about a letter for this very Mr. Asling, which a nephew of his (whom I had left, wounded, in hospital at Deutz) had given me to deliver to him. I determined to atone for this unpardonable oversight at once. I saw that a shopkeeper directed the young gentleman to a fine-looking house just over the way, and I followed him. I was shown into an anteroom, and the servant begged me to wait there a few minutes, his master being engaged with a strange gentleman. He left me alone there, and I was glancing carelessly at the engravings on the wall, when the door behind me opened, I turned round, and saw her! her very self, the beautiful creature whom we saw in the Thiergarten. I really cannot describe to you with any clearness what my feelings were, but I know I could scarcely breathe, couldn't utter a syllable, and felt ready to fall down at the angel's feet.'

"Ay, ay!' said Alexander, rather astonished; 'then you were really very seriously in love with her, old fellow?'

"'At all events,' continued Marzell, 'my feelings at that moment were those of the wildest devotion. My state of consternation and speechlessness must have been queer enough to see, for Pauline looked at me as if she were considerably alarmed; and as I couldn't utter a syllable, and she very naturally thought I must be either a bumpkin or a born idiot, she said at last, with a delicate smile of irony just fluttering over her lips, "You're waiting to see my father, are you not?" The bitter shame that I felt for myself gave me back complete self-control. I pulled myself together with an effort: I told her my name with a courteous bow, and explained the commission which I was entrusted with for the Geheime Rath. On this Pauline cried, loudly and joyfully:

"'"Oh, how delightful! News of my cousin? You have met him: you know him; you've spoken to him? I don't believe his letters. He always says he's almost well. Do, please, let me know the worst. He'll be lame for life, won't he, poor fellow?"'

"'I assured her, as I was quite justified in doing, that the bullet-wound which had nearly fractured his kneecap, though it certainly had been dangerous at one time, and though amputation had been talked of, was now so very much better that there was no more danger, and that, as he was a fine healthy young fellow, there was every prospect of his soon being able to leave off his crutches, which he had been obliged to use for a month or two.

"'As I got more accustomed to be actually looking at Pauline, to see her eyes, to be under the magic spell of her presence, and having got a little of my confidence back, from talking about these matters of fact, I took heart of grace, and told her all about the action where her cousin got wounded. We had both been in this action together, serving in the same battalion, as it happened. You know how one manages, in such a case, to give a pretty graphic and vivid account of things, and, indeed, is rather apt to get--more than is quite called for--into that emphatic and picturesque "manner" which never fails in its effect upon young women. Of course you will understand that I didn't dwell so much upon the disposition of the troops, the plan of attack, the "general idea" of the operations, the feigned attacks, masked batteries, debouching and development of the cavalry arm, etc., etc., as upon the minor incidents of a more personal kind, which are what really interest friends at home. Many an incident which I scarcely noticed when it happened put on quite an interesting and affecting appearance when I was telling her about it; and thus it came about that Pauline was sometimes pale from sorrow and alarm, and at other times smiling gently through her tears.

"'"Ah!" she said, "when I came in just now, and you were standing so still and so thoughtfully, looking at that picture of a battle, it must have been recalling some painful memory to your mind."

"'A red-hot dart seemed to go through my heart at this. I suppose I must have turned as red as blood.

"'"What I was thinking of," I said, "was probably the happiest moment of my life, though at that moment I received a mortal wound."

"'"But you've quite got over it, have you not?" she asked with much anxious sympathy. "I suppose some bullet struck you at the moment of victory?"

"'I felt a good deal of an ass; but I suppressed this feeling to the best of my power, and without looking up, but fixing my eyes on the ground like some naughty schoolboy who has just been having a blowing up, I said in a feeble voice:

"'"I have had the pleasure of seeing you before."

"'Then the conversation went on in most edifying fashion, Pauline saying:

"'"Oh, really, I didn't know!"

"'"Yes," I went on; "it was such magnificent spring weather, and I was enjoying it with two friends of mine, whom I hadn't seen for several years."

"'"Ah! that must have been very nice," she said.

"'"I saw you, Miss Asling," I said.

"'"Did you really?" she answered. Oh, that must have been in the Thiergarten."

"'"Yes," said I; "one Whit Monday, in the Webersche Zelt."

"'"Yes, yes; quite right," cried Pauline. "I was there with my father and mother. There was a great crowd of people. I enjoyed it immensely. But I don't remember seeing you."

"My former state of idiocy came back upon me in full force, and I was on the point of saying something very absurd, when the Geheime Rath came in, to whom Pauline announced with much joy that I had brought a letter from her cousin. The old gentleman was charmed, and cried:

"'"What! a letter from Leopold! He's alive, then? How's his wound getting on? When will he be able to be moved?"

"'And with that he took me by the lapels of the coat, and led me into his own room. Pauline followed; he called for breakfast, and asked endless questions. In short, I had to stay two good hours, and when at last I tore myself away with much difficulty (for Pauline sat close beside me, and kept looking me in the eyes with childlike unconstraint), he put his arm about my shoulders and begged me to come in as often as I could--at breakfast-time, for preference.

"'I was now (as often happens in field service) right in the thick of the fire, without expecting it. If I were to detail to you the tortures that I underwent; how I often, as if impelled by some irresistible power, rushed away to that house which appeared to me a place so fatal to my peace; how I used to drop the bell-handle, without ringing it, and go home, then go back again, wander round and round the house, and at last go bursting into it, like a moth which can't keep away from the candle which is to burn it to a cinder, verily you would laugh, because you anticipate my admission that at that time I was deliberately making myself an ass of the very first water. Nearly every evening when I went I found a number of people there, and I must say that I never was so happy as I was on these occasions, and in that house; notwithstanding that, in the character of my own "dæmon" or warning angel, I mentally gave myself constant digs in the ribs, and cried into my own ears, "You're a lost man! It's all up with you."

"Every night I went home more hopelessly in love and more intensely miserable. I soon felt convinced, from Pauline's happy, untroubled behaviour, that any thing like an unhappy love-affair on her part was quite out of the question; and frequent allusions of the guests clearly pointed to the fact that she was engaged, and would soon be married. There was a great amount of pleasant, jovial fun and merriment about the whole circle. It was quite a peculiarity of that house; and Asling himself--a fine, vigorous, jolly fellow, in first-rate health and well-to-do circumstances--was the leading spirit in all this. Often there seemed to be schemes of fun and mystification, on an extensive scale, on the tapis, which I, as a comparative outsider, not knowing the persons and circumstances, wasn't admitted to share in. There was generally great laughter and amusement going on among the habitués over these affairs. I remember that one time when, after a long struggle with myself, I had yielded to the temptation and gone in rather late, I found the old gentleman and Pauline sitting in one of the windows with a group of young ladies round them. The old gentleman was reading something out to them; and when he had finished there was a ringing burst of laughter. To my astonishment he had a big nightcap in his hand, with an enormous bunch of carnations stuck on to it; this, after saying a word or two more, he put on his head, and nodded out of the window with it several times, moving his head up and down, at which they all burst out laughing again tremendously.'

"'Damnation! damnation!' cried Severin, getting up from his chair, and walking about.

"'What's the matter with you?' cried the other two anxiously.

"'Nothing! oh, nothing!' he said; 'I'm all right. Go on, my dear fellow, go on, that's all. Let's hear the rest of it.'

"He repeated this request, not without laughing bitterly within himself. Marzell went on:

"'I don't know whether it was from my having been a comrade of his nephew, or because the curious state I always was in on account of my continual condition of excitement endowed me with some odd interest in his eyes. But at all events the old gentleman soon took a great liking to me, and I should have been utterly blind had I not observed that Pauline evidently cared much more for me than for any of the other fellows who came about her.'

"'Really! really!' said Alexander, in a tone of anxiety.

"'There could be no doubt about it,' continued Marzell, and no wonder that I should have got nearer to her liking; because, like any girl with a head on her shoulders, she couldn't, with her delicate tact, help hearing in every thing that I said (or did) a full-choired hymn in praise of her marvellous attractiveness, my deepest devotion to that whole nature of hers, instinct with the most passionate fervour. She would often let her hand remain in mine for minutes, she would return my gentle pressure, and, once, when the girls were all waltzing to the rather wheezy old piano, she came into my arm, and I felt her bosom rising and falling, and her sweet breath on my cheek. I was beside myself. Fire burned on my lips. I should have kissed her in a minute.'

"'The devil! the devil!' roared Alexander, jumping up like a man possessed, and grabbing hold of his hair with both hands.

"'For shame! for shame! remember you're a married man,' said Severin, pushing him back into his chair again. 'I'll be hanged if you're not daft about Pauline at this moment, married though you be. Think shame of yourself, wretched Benedict, with your neck fast in the yoke.'

"'Well! go on with your story,' said Alexander, in an inconsolable tone, 'we shall hear of fine goings on, I can see.'

"From what I have told you,' continued Marzell, 'you can form some idea of my state of mind. I was torn by a thousand passions, and worked myself up to the highest pitch of heroism. I made up my mind that I would quaff the brimming cup of poison, and then go and breathe out what was left to me of life far, far away from the beloved one. In other words, I meant to tell her I loved her, and then avoid her, till the wedding day, at all events; for then I meant to do as the heroes in so many novels do, that is, look on at the ceremony concealed behind a pillar in the church, and after the fatal "yes" fall down at full length, with a tremendous crash, senseless on the floor; be carried out by the sympathizing spectators, and so forth. Possessed with this idea, I went to the house earlier than usual one day, like a man out of his mind. I found Pauline alone in the drawing-room, and, before she had time to be frightened at my agitated condition, I fell at her feet, seized her hands, pressed them to my heart, vowed that I loved her to distraction, and, pouring out a flood of tears, said I was the most miserable of mankind, doomed to a cruel death, as she had given her heart and promised her hand to another, before we had met. Pauline let me rage out what I had to say; then, with a charming smile, she made me rise and sit down by her on the sofa, and then she asked me, in a voice of gentle concern:

"'"What's the matter with you? Please calm yourself, dear Mr. Marzell, you're in a state which terrifies me."

"'I repeated all I had said before, more coherently however. Then Pauline said:

"'"But how did you ever get it in your head that I'm in love with anybody, or engaged to be married? There's not a word of truth in either the one story or the other, I can assure you."

"'I maintained, on the other hand, that I had been quite certain ever since the first moment I had set eyes on her that she was in love; and as she kept pressing me to explain more clearly, I told her the whole story of that first Monday of ours in the Webersche Zelt. Scarcely had I finished it when Pauline got up and danced about the room with shouts of laughter, crying:

"'"Oh! good gracious! It's too delicious altogether! Well! what dreams! what ludicrous absurdities to take in one's head! Oh! I never heard anything like it! it's really beyond everything!"

"'I sat nonplussed; Pauline came back to me, took me by the hands, and shook me by them, as one does to rouse a person from a deep sleep.

"'"Now please to listen to what I'm going to tell you," she said, trying hard, but not very successfully, to restrain her laughter. "The young man whom you took for a messenger of love was a shopman from Bramigk, the draper's; the note he gave me was from Bramigk himself. He, like the most charming and courteous of shopkeepers as he is, had promised to get me a hat from Paris (I had admired the pattern when I saw it), and to let me know as soon as it arrived. I wanted it particularly to wear the evening of that Whit Monday when we were all in the Webersche Zelt. I wanted to put it on to go to a singing tea in; you know what we call a singing tea here? A place where people sing in order to drink tea, and drink tea for the purpose of singing. Very well! The hat had come, but it was so badly made that it had to be all altered before I could wear it. This was the fatal news that made me shed a tear or two. I didn't want my father to see that it had made me cry, but he soon found out what I was vexed about, and chaffed me unmercifully on the subject. You know I have a habit of holding my handkerchief to my face, as I did that day, when anything annoys me?"

"Pauline burst out laughing again. But a bitter frost seemed to go through my veins and marrow, and a voice within me seemed to cry, "Wretched, shallow, disgusting dress-worshipper!"

"'Come, come!' interrupted Alexander, 'that's terribly severe, and not true of her. I call it going too far.... However, let's hear the rest of your story.'

"'My feelings,' said Marzell, 'I really cannot describe to you. I had awakened from the mocking dream in which some wicked demon had held me enthralled. I felt, now, that I had never really been in love with Pauline, but had only been the sport of some incomprehensible self-mystification. I could scarcely find a syllable to say; my whole body shook and trembled with rage and vexation. When Pauline, in alarm, asked what was the matter with me, I pretended that I was taken suddenly unwell, and I fled, like a hunted deer, out of the house for ever. As I was crossing the square of the Gendarmerie, I saw a body of volunteers falling in to march off and join the army. This showed me clearly the course I ought to adopt, for the calming of my mind, and to forget this miserable business. Instead of going home, I went off and enrolled myself for service in the field. Everything was arranged in a couple of hours' time. I ran home, put on my uniform, packed my knapsack, took my musket and bayonet, and went to hand over to the charge of my landlady what things I was going to leave behind. While I was talking to her, I heard some commotion going on on the stairs outside.

"'"Ah! they're bringing him down," said the landlady, and opened the door. I saw Nettelmann, the madman, coming down between two keepers. He had on a lofty crown of gilt paper, and was carrying a long ruler, with a gilt apple on the top of it.

"'"He thinks he's King of Amboyna again, now," the landlady whispered, "and he's been doing such extraordinary things of late that his brother has had to have him taken to the asylum."

"'He recognized me; smiled down at me with proud benignity, and said, "Now that the Bulgarians have been vanquished by our trusty General Tellheim, we are returning to our capital."

"Though I wasn't making any attempt to speak to him, he motioned me to silence with a wave of his hand, and said:

"'Enough, enough! we are aware what you would say, good sir. No more! We are satisfied with you; you have done your duty. Accept this trifle as a mark of our favour and esteem."

"'With which he took two or three cloves from his waistcoat-pocket and put them into my hand. The men put him into a carriage which was waiting. The tears came to my eyes as I saw him driven off.

"'"I hope we soon shall see you back again, safe and sound, and covered with glory," said the landlady, shaking me warmly by the hand. With many a painful thought in my tormented breast, I ran out into the night, and soon came up with the party of my comrades, who were singing cheery soldier-songs as they marched along.'

"'Then,' said Alexander, 'you feel certain that your love for Pauline was a mere self-mystification?'

"'As sure as that I'm alive,' answered Marzell; 'and it won't require much knowledge of mankind to convince you that my rapid change of sentiment, when I found I hadn't a rival, would have been impossible otherwise. Moreover, I am seriously in love now; and although I laughed at the notion of your being married, because the idea of you in the capacity of Paterfamilias seems rather too funny, somehow (I hope you won't be vexed at my saying so), I am expecting very soon to lead a darling girl home as my bride, in a fairer land than ours.'

"'I'm very glad, and I give you my heartiest congratulations, my dear, dear old fellow,' said Alexander, quite delighted.

"'See how pleased he is that somebody else is going to follow his own absurd example,' said Severin. 'As far as I'm concerned, the idea of marriage fills me with absolute horror. However, I should like to tell you the adventure I had with Pauline; it will amuse you.'

"'Well, what had you to do with Pauline?' asked Alexander, in an irritable tone, 'We must hear that.'

"'It didn't amount to very much,' said Severin, 'compared to Marzell's long tale, with all its psychological remarks and illustrations. Mine is a very commonplace piece of fun. You know that, about this time two years ago, I was in a very strange condition altogether. Probably it was the state of my health, which was very queer at that time, which had converted me into a terribly sensitive, overstrung, fanciful spirit-seer. I was always floating on a boundless ocean of dreams and presentiments. I thought I understood the language of birds, like a Persian Mage. I heard voices in the rustling of the trees, sometimes of warning, sometimes of consolation. I saw my own image wandering in the clouds of the sky. Very well! It happened one day, when I was sitting in a lonely part of the Thiergarten on a bank of grass, that I got into a condition which I can only compare to that species of delirium which one often feels just when one is falling asleep. I seemed to be suddenly surrounded with the scent of a most delicious rose, but at the same time I became aware that this rose odour really was a beautiful being, whom I had long, though unconsciously, loved with the deepest and most passionate devotion. I strove to see her with my corporeal eyes; but it seemed to me that a great, dark-red carnation was laid on my brow, and the scent of this carnation burned away the rose perfume, as with a scorching ray, benumbing my senses so that a bitter sense of pain took possession of me, which strove to find expression in accents of wild anguish. Through the trees came sighing a sound like that when the evening wind touches the Æolian Harp with a gentle waft of its pinions, and breaks the spell which holds the music prisoned and sleeping within the strings. But this was not my sound. It was that of the beautiful being who was stricken to death (as I was also) by the hostile contact of the carnation. If I may put this vision of mine into the form of an Indian myth, I might say that the rose and the carnation represented, for me, life and death; and all the absurdities which I said and perpetrated this day two years ago were chiefly due to the circumstance that in that beautiful creature, who was sitting in that chair there, and who has since assumed the corporeal form of Pauline Asling, I fancied I recognized her whose love had disclosed itself to me in the form of the rose perfume. You remember that I got away from you as soon as I could, leaving you in the Thiergarten. A sure presentiment told me that if I made an effort, and got quickly through the Leipzig gate, and then to Unter den Linden, I should meet the family, at the slow rate they were walking at, somewhere near the castle; so I ran as hard as I could; and I did meet them, very near the place where I had thought I should. I followed them at a little distance, and found out, that same evening, where the beautiful creature lived. You will probably laugh when I tell you that I thought I could scent a mysterious perfume of rose and carnation, actually in Green Street itself. For the rest, I conducted myself like some boy in a state of calf-love, who destroys the finest trees, contrary to the forest regulations, by carving interlaced initials on them, and carries about a withered petal, which the beloved has dropped, next his heart, wrapped in seven pieces of paper. That is, I used to pass under her window twelve, fifteen, or twenty times a-day; and if I saw her at it, I would stare at her, without any salutation, in a way which must have been funny enough. Heaven only knows how I arrived at the conviction that she understood me, and was fully conscious of the psychical influence which she had exerted on me in that flower-vision, and recognized in me him over whom the hostile carnation had cast a dark pall as he was striving to clasp her, who had thus risen as a planet of love in the depths of his being. That very day I sat down and wrote to her. I told her my vision; how I had then seen her at the Webersche Zelt, and known her as the being of my dream. I said I knew she fancied she loved another, and that in this connection something disastrous had come into her life. There could be no doubt, I said, that she, like me, had become aware of our intimate psychic relation, and our mutual devotion, in some dream-consciousness such as my own; though perhaps it was but now that my vision had clearly revealed to her all that had been slumbering in the depths of her nature; but, in order that this might come, joyfully and gladsomely, into actual life, so that I might approach her with a heart at rest, I implored her to be at the window the next day, at twelve o'clock, and, as an unmistakeable symbol of our happy love, to wear fresh-blown roses on her breast. Should she, however, be irresistibly drawn away from her rapport with me, through hostile deception, by some other--if she rejected me without remead--I asked her to wear carnations instead of roses. The letter was probably a mad and senseless affair. That I am prepared to admit now. I sent it by such a trusty messenger that I knew it would reach the proper hands. Full of inward anxiety, and with a heavy heart, I went the next day at twelve o'clock to Green Street. I neared the house. I saw a white form at the window. My heart throbbed so that it almost burst my bosom. I came in front of the house. The old gentleman--he was the white figure--opened the window. He had a great white nightcap on, with a large bunch of carnations stuck in front of it. He nodded in a friendly way, so that the flowers waved and quivered; he wafted kisses of his hand at me, with the sweetest smiles. Just then I caught sight of Pauline, as well, peeping out from behind the curtains. She was laughing! I had been standing motionless, like a man under a spell; but when I saw her, I rushed away like a mad creature. There! you can understand, if you had any doubt about it before, that this cured me completely; but the shame of it would not let me rest. As Marzell did later, I went off at once to join the troops on active service, and nothing but the adversity of fate prevented us from meeting again.'

"Alexander laughed immoderately over the humorous old gentleman.

"'Then this,' said Marzell, 'was what he was after that time when I found him with the nightcap; and of course it was your letter that he was reading to the girls.'

"'Of course,' said Severin; 'and although I can see the absurdity of the thing now, and think the old gentleman was perfectly right, and feel really obliged to him for the drasticity and appropriateness of the dose of medicine he made me swallow, still that adventure of mine causes me the most intense annoyance, and, to this hour, I can't endure the sight of a carnation.'

"'Well,' said Marzell, 'we've both been pretty severely punished for our folly. Alexander, who doesn't seem to have fallen in love with Pauline till we had gone through with our share of the business, turns out to have been the wisest of the three: and, for that reason, he has kept clear of further absurdities, and has none to tell us about.'

"'But, at all events,' said Severin, 'he can tell us how he came by his wife.'

"Really, my dear old fellow,' said Alexander, 'there's very little to tell; except that I saw her, fell in love with her, and married her. But there's one thing connected with it which may interest you, because my aunt has to do with it.'

"'Well! well! tell us!' they both cried.

"'You will remember,' said Alexander, 'that at that time I left Berlin, and my house--uncanny though it was to me by reason of my aunt's "walking" in it at night--greatly against my will. The connection of all these matters was as follows. One fine morning, after T had been terribly disturbed the whole of the night by tappings and rappings in all directions--which came into the room where I was sleeping, this time--I was lying in the window seat, quite tired and exhausted, and excessively out of temper and annoyed with the whole affair. I was looking out into the street mechanically, when, right opposite, in the big house over the way, a window opened, and a most beautiful girl in a pretty morning dress looked out. Much as I had admired Pauline, I thought her whom I then saw more charming still. I couldn't withdraw my eyes from her. At last she looked down; she couldn't help seeing me. I made her a greeting, and she returned it with indescribable pleasantness of manner. I found out from Mistress Anne who the people who lived there were, and I made up my mind that I must make their acquaintance somehow, so as to get nearer to her. It was an odd thing that, as soon as my thoughts were occupied with this young lady, and I was wholly sunk in sweet love-dreams about her, all the supernatural noises connected with my aunt ceased. Mistress Anne, whom I made as much of as ever I could, and who had quite got over her dread of me, often told me a good deal about my aunt. She was inconsolable because the poor soul, who had led such a pious, and exemplary life, could find no rest in her grave, and she laid all the blame upon the man who had treated her so cruelly, and the insuperable disappointment she had suffered on her wedding day--that was to have been. I told her, with much joy, that I never heard anything at night now.