The Serapion Brethren, Vol. I.

by E. T. A. Hoffmann

THE SERAPION BRETHREN.

[SECTION I.]

"Look at the question how one will, the bitter conviction is not to be got rid of by persuasion, or by force, that what has been never, never can be again. It is useless to contend with the irresistible power of Time, which goes on continually creating by a process of constant destruction. Nothing survives save the shadowy reflected images left by that part of our lives which has set, and gone far below our horizon; and they often haunt and mock us like evil, ghostly dreams. But we are fools, and expect that matters which, in reality, were nothing but our ideas, parts and portions of our own individualities, are to be found actually existent in the world outside us, and blooming in perpetual youth! The woman we have loved and parted from, the friend to whom we have said good-bye, are both lost to us for ever. The people whom, perhaps years afterwards, we meet as being them, are not the same whom we left, neither are we ever the same to them."

So saying, Lothair got up from his seat, and folding his arms on the mantel-piece, gazed, with gloomy sadness, into the fire which was blazing and crackling merrily.

"One thing is certain enough," said Theodore, "that, at all events, you, dear Lothair, are so far actually the same Lothair whom I bade good-bye to twelve years ago, that whenever any little thing vexes or disappoints you at all, you immediately sink down to the lowest depths of gloom and despair. It is quite true--and Cyprian, Ottmar and I feel it as much as you that this first meeting of ours after our twelve years' separation comes short of being quite all that we had pictured it to be. Put the blame on me, who raced through one of those endless streets of ours after another, leaving no stone unturned to get you all assembled here to-night by my fireside. Perhaps I had better have left it to chance. But I could not bear the idea that we--who had spent so many years together in such close friendship, joined by the bonds of our common pursuits in art and knowledge, and only driven asunder by the hurricane which raged during that fateful time--that we, I say, should come to cast anchor in the same harbour, for so much as a single day, and yet not look upon each other with the eyes of the body, as we had with the eyes of the spirit in the interval. And now, we have been sitting here together for some hours, wearying ourselves to death over the enthusiastic quality of our revived friendship, yet not one of us has said anything worth listening to: we have talked tedious, tiresome stuff, to a perfectly astonishing extent. And why is this, but because we are a set of very childish children, thinking we were going to take up the old tune which we sang twelve years ago, at the point where we broke off with it, and go on singing it as we were doing then. Lothair, we will say, should have read Tieck's 'Zerbino' aloud to us for the first time, to our astonished delight; or Cyprian should have brought some fanciful poem, or perhaps the text of a whole operatic extravaganza, to which I should then have composed the music on the spot, and thundered it out on the old weak-loined piano of twelve years back; or Ottmar should have told us about some wonderful curiosity he had come across--some remarkable wine, some extraordinary nincompoop, etc., and set us all on fire with projects and ideas how to make the most of our enjoyment of either, or both; and because none of all this has happened, we sit secretly sulking at each other, each thinking (of the other) 'Ay! what a change in the dear old fellow. Well! I never should have believed he could have altered so!' Of course we none of us are the same. I say nothing of the circumstance that we are twelve years older; that, no doubt, every year lays more earth upon us, which weighs us down from aerial regions, till we go under the earth at last. But whom of us, all this time, has not the wild whirlpool carried surging on from event to event, and from action to action? The terror, the trouble, the anxiety of that stormy time,[¹] could not pass over us without leaving bleeding scars graven on our hearts. The pictures of our early days are pale compared with that, and we cannot revive their colours. No doubt, too, there is much in life and in ourselves which looked very bright and glorious, and has lost its dazzling glitter for our eyes, grown accustomed to a brighter light; but the modes of thinking and feeling which gave rise to our friendship remain pretty much the same. I mean that we all consider each other something rather above the common, in suitability to each other at all events, so as to be worthy of a thorough friendship. So let us leave the old days out of sight, with all the promise and anticipations belonging to them, and, starting from the conviction which I have expressed, see how we can best establish a new bond of union."

"Heaven be thanked," said Ottmar, "that Lothair could no longer endure the forced, unnatural condition in which we were, and that you, Theodore, have at once exorcised the malignant little fiend which was vexing and teasing us. This constrained feeling of 'You are bound to be enjoying yourself, whether you really are or not,' was beginning to stifle me, and I was just getting fearfully out of temper, when Lothair broke out as he did. But now that Theodore has pointed out so clearly what it was that was amiss, I seem to be brought much nearer to you all, and things appear as if the old kindly unconstrained comfort, with which we used to meet, were getting the upper hand. Theodore is right; though Time has altered a good many things, our belief in each other remains untouched. And with this, I solemnly declare the preliminaries of our new League established; and it is laid down as a rule that we come together once every week on a certain day--otherwise we shall lose sight of each other in this big town, and be further asunder than ever."

"A great idea," cried Lothair, "only you should add a few regular rules as to our weekly meetings; for instance, that we are, or are not, to talk upon certain subjects; or that each of us is bound to be three times as witty as usual; or that we must always eat sardine-salad. In this fashion, the fullest blown form of Philistinism that flourishes in any club will burst in upon us. Don't you think, Ottmar, that anything in the shape of a formal stipulation connected with our meetings would at once introduce an element of constraint, destructive, at all events, of my enjoyment in them? Let me remind you of the extreme repugnance which we used to feel towards everything in the shape of a 'club,' or whatever name might be given to absurd institutions of the kind, where all sorts of tedium and wearisomeness are carried forward on system. And now you propose to force and constrain, artificially, this four-bladed clover-plant of ours--which can only flourish and thrive naturally without any gardener's training--into an evil form of this sort."

"Our friend Lothair," said Theodore, "does not get out of his moods so very quickly, that we all know; as also that when he is in them he sees spectres, and fights with them sturdily until he is dead-beat, and obliged to acknowledge that they were nothing but spectres, the creations of his own brain. How is it possible, Lothair, that Ottmar's harmless and very innocent suggestion should at once set you thinking of clubs, and the Philistinism inherent in them? All the same, you have brought to my memory a very amusing remembrance of our former days. I dare say you remember the time when we first left the Residency and went to the little town of P----? The customs of society made it incumbent on us to join the club which the so-called 'Upper ten' of the place belonged to. We received due notification, in a solemn document, worded in the most formal juridical style, that, after the due formalities, we had been admitted as members; and this notification was accompanied by a great book, of some fifteen to twenty sheets of paper, handsomely bound, containing the Club Rules. They had been drawn up by an old legal luminary, exactly in the style of the Prussian Municipal Code, all divided into titles and paragraphs, and were the most entertaining reading it is possible to conceive. For instance, one title was superscribed, 'Concerning Women and Children, and their Rights, and Privileges,' in which nothing more or less was sanctioned than that the wives and daughters of the members had the privilege of coming to tea within the precincts of the club every Thursday and Sunday evening, and might even dance there some five or six times during the winter. Concerning children the law was still more accurately and critically enunciated, the jurist having handled this subject with even more than his usual care, jealously distinguishing between children under age, children of age, and children under parental tutelage. Those under age were further sub-divided, according to their moral qualities, into well-behaved, and ill-behaved, and the latter were unconditionally debarred from admission, 'good behaviour' being a fundamental principle of the club constitution. The next title was the noteworthy one, 'Concerning Dogs, Cats, and other irrational creatures,' and laid down that nobody might bring into the club any dangerous wild beast. So that, had any member taken to himself (for example) a lion, a tiger, or a panther by way of lapdog, it would have been impossible for him to take it into the club. Even had its mane and claws been cut, a schismatic of this description would have been excluded unconditionally by the committee. Even the cleverest poodles, and the most highly-trained pugs were declared ineligible, and might only, (on exceptional occasions in summer, when dinner was in the open air,) be introduced, on presentation of a card of permission by the committee. We--Lothair and I--invented a number of addenda and declarations supplementary to this deeply-considered codex, which we proposed, with the most solemn gravity, at the next meeting, and, to our great entertainment, carried the thing so far that the most preposterous nonsense was discussed and debated on with the gravest deliberation. But at last one or two saw through our joke, so that all confidence in us was at an end--although our expectations were not realised, for we had thought it a certainty that we should be solemnly expelled from the club."

"I remember it quite well," said Lothair, "and I'm not a little annoyed to feel that nowadays I could not carry out a similar mystification. I have grown much too dull and sluggish, and inclined to be annoyed with matters which used to make me laugh."

"Nothing shall induce me to believe that," said Ottmar; "rather I feel convinced, Lothair, that the echoes of something painful are louder in you to-day than common. But a new life will shortly breathe through you like a breeze of spring; those jarring discords will die away, and you will be the same Lothair that you were twelve years since. Your club at P---- reminds me of another, whose founders must have been witty fellows. It was on the plan of a regular kingdom, with a King, Ministers, a Parliament, &c. Its sole raison d'être was good eating, and better drinking, and its meetings were held in the principal hotel, where the wines and cuisine were of the best. At those meetings, the Minister for Foreign Affairs would give notice of the arrival of some remarkably superior Rhine wine at some merchant's in the town. An embassy would then be despatched, furnished with minute instructions, and provided with necessary credits to be drawn against a special reserve-fund in the hands of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. On occasions when a ragout turned out badly, everything was at sixes and sevens. Pourparlers and diplomatic notes were exchanged relating to the threatening aspect of the affairs of the realm. Then Parliament would meet to decide as to the particular wine to be used on a given day in compounding the cold punch. The decision had to be solemnly laid before His Majesty in Council, and, after due deliberation, the King would bow, in assent; the ordinance concerning the cold punch, duly passed, would be remitted for execution to the Minister of the Interior. Art and Science, also, were represented in these ceremonies; the poet who wrote a new drinking song, and the musician who composed and performed it, receiving a decoration from His Majesty's hands in the shape of a red hen's feather, coupled with the permission to drink an extra bottle of wine--at their own expense. On State occasions the King had a crown, orb, and sceptre of gilt pasteboard, and the dignitaries of the realm wore quaint head-dresses. The symbol of the fraternity was a silver box with a hen sitting on eggs on the lid. At the time when I forgathered with this pleasant company, there was a large proportion of talented people in its ranks, so that it was entertaining enough, as far a it went."

"I have no doubt it was," said Lothair, "but I can't comprehend how a thing of the kind could be kept up for any length of time. The best of jokes loses its point if it is kept going so long as it seems to have been in this 'Lodge of the Clucking Hen,' if I may so style it. You have both, Theodore and Ottmar, told us of clubs on a grand scale, with their rules, regulations, and mystifications. Let me direct your attention to what was probably the very minutest club that ever, I should think, existed on this earth. In a certain little town on the Polish frontier, occupied, at the time, by Prussia, the only German officials were an old captain--retired on account of bad health--who was postmaster, and the exciseman. Every evening as the clock struck five, these two repaired to the only inn which there was in the place, to a little room where nobody else was admitted. Generally, the exciseman arrived there before the captain, who would find him smoking his pipe over his jug of beer. The captain, on coming in, would greet him with, 'Fine evening! Any news?' sit down opposite to him at the table; light his pipe--filled beforehand; take the paper out of his pocket, and hand each sheet, as he finished it, across to the exciseman, who would read it with equal care and avidity. They would go on puffing their clouds of smoke into each other's eyes in profound silence, till the clock struck eight, when the exciseman would get up, knock the ashes out of his pipe, and with a 'Not much news, to speak of,' be off to his bed. This they styled, in all seriousness, 'Our Club.'

"Very good indeed," said Theodore, "and our Cyprian here would have been a splendid candidate for membership in that club. He never would have broken the sacred silence by any ill-timed remark. He seems to have taken a vow of silence, like the monks of La Trappe, for up to this moment not a syllable has passed his lips."

Cyprian, who had indeed been completely silent up to this point, heaved a deep sigh, as if awaking from a dream; raised his eyes to the ceiling, and said, with a quiet smile:

"I don't mind confessing that all this day I have been unable to banish from my recollection a certain strange adventure which I met with several years ago; and perhaps when the voices within one are loud, the lips are not very apt to open for speech. But I have been attending to all that has been said, and can give a proper account of it all. In the first place, Theodore was quite right in saying that we had been childish in fancying that we could begin again just where we left off twelve years ago, and were sulking with each other because this was not, and could not be, the case. I maintain that nothing could have so established us as Philistines incarnate as to have gone ambling along in our old track. And this reminds me of two savants--but I must tell this story at full length. Imagine two men--whom I shall call Sebastian and Ptolemy--imagine to yourselves these two studying Kant's philosophy as hard as they could at College at K----, and daily carrying on long discussions as to various points of it. Just at the moment when Sebastian was going to deliver his most clenching blow, and Ptolemy pulling himself together to answer it, they were interrupted; and Fate so arranged matters that they never met again in K----, one going off in one direction, the other, in another. Nearly twenty years afterwards Ptolemy saw in the streets of B----, a figure walking, whom he at once recognised as his friend Sebastian. He rushed after him, slapped him on the shoulder, and when he looked round, Ptolemy said: 'Then you maintain that----'

"In short, struck the (argumentative) blow which he had lifted his arm to deliver twenty years before! Sebastian sprung the mines which he had laid in K----. They argued for two hours, three hours, walking up and down the streets, and in the heat of their discussion, agreed to submit the question to the Professor for his decision, never recollecting that poor old Emanuel had been many a year in his grave. They parted, and never met again. Now to me there is something almost terrific about this story (which has this peculiarity, that it is strictly true). My imagination boggles at a Philistinism of a depth so ghastly! So we are not going to be Philistines. We are not going to insist on spinning on at the thread which we were spinning twelve years ago, nor be annoyed with each other for having on different hats and coats. We will be different to what we were then, and yet the same; so that is settled. What Lothair, without much relevancy, said of clubs is, I dare say true enough, and proves how prone poor Humanity is to dam up the minutest remnants of its freedom, and build an artificial roof to prevent it looking up to the clear blue sky. But what have we to do with this? For my part, I adhere to Ottmar's proposal, that we meet every week on a certain day."

"I shall oppose it persistently," said Lothair. "But to put an end to this horrible argument and discussion, let Cyprian tell us the strange adventure which is so much in his thoughts to-day."

"My idea," said Cyprian, "is rather that we should try to get into a merrier mood; and it would greatly conduce to this if Theodore would be so kind as to open yon old mysterious vase, which, judging by the delicate aroma it gives out, might have pertained to the Brotherhood of the Clucking Hen. Nothing on earth could have a more opposite effect than my adventure, which you would consider inappropriate, altogether uninteresting--nay, silly and absurd. It is gloomy in its character at the same time, and the part which I play in it is the reverse of distinguished: abundant reasons for saying nothing about it."

"Did I not tell you," cried Theodore, "that our Cyprian, our dear Sunday-child, had been seeing all kinds of questionable spirits again, which he won't allow our utterly carnal eyes to look upon? Out with your adventure, Cyprian, and if you do play rather an ungrateful part in it, I promise that I will soon recollect, and dish you up adventures of my own in which I play a more ungrateful part than you can possibly do. I assure you I have a large stock of them."

"So be it then," said Cyprian; and after gazing reflectively before him for a few seconds, he commenced as follows:--

"[You know that], some years ago I spent a considerable time in B----, a place in one of the pleasantest districts of the South of Germany. As my habit is, I used to take long walks in the surrounding country by myself, without any guide, though I should often have been the better for one. On one of these occasions I got into a piece of thickly wooded country and lost my way; the farther I went, the less could I discover the smallest vestige of a human footstep. At last the wood grew less thick, and I saw, not far from me, a man in a brown hermit's robe, with a broad straw hat on his head, and a long, wild black beard, sitting on a rock, by the side of a deep ravine gazing, with folded hands, thoughtfully into the distance. This sight had something so strange, unexpected, and out of the common about it that I felt a shiver of eeriness and awe. One can scarcely help such a feeling when what one has only heretofore seen in pictures, or read of in books, suddenly appears before one's eyes in actual, every-day life. Here was an anchorite of the early ages of Christianity, in the body, seated in one of Salvator Rosa's wild mountain scenes. But it soon occurred to me that probably a monk on his peregrinations was nothing uncommon in that part of the country. So I walked up to him, and asked if he could tell me the shortest way out of the wood to the high road leading to B----. He looked at me from head to foot with a gloomy glance, and said, in a hollow and solemn voice:

"'I know well that it is merely an idle curiosity to see me, and to hear me speak which has led you to this desert. But you must perceive that I have no time to talk with you now. My friend Ambrosius of Camaldoli is returning to Alexandria. Travel with him.'

"With which he arose and walked down into the ravine.

"I felt as if I must be in a dream. Presently I heard the sound of wheels close by, I made my way through the thickets, and found myself in a forest track, where I saw a countryman going along in a cart. I overtook him, and he shortly brought me to the high road leading to B----. As we went along I told him my adventure, and asked if he knew who the extraordinary man in the forest was?

"'Oh, sir,' he said, 'that was the worthy man who calls himself Priest Serapion, and has been living in these woods for some years, in a little hut which he built himself. People say he's not quite right in his head, but he is a nice, good gentleman, never does any harm, and edifies us of the village with pious discourses, giving us all the good advice that he can.'

"I had come across the anchorite some six or eight miles from B----, so I concluded that something must be known of him there, and this proved to be the case. Dr. S---- told me all the story. This hermit had once been one of the most brilliant intellects, one of the most universally-accomplished men in M----; and belonging, as he did, to a very distinguished family, he was naturally appointed to an important diplomatic post as soon as he had completed his studies: the duties of this office he discharged with great ability and energy. Moreover, he had remarkable poetical gifts, and everything he wrote was inspired by a most brilliant fancy, a mind and imagination which sounded the profoundest depths of all subjects. His incomparable humour, and the unusual charm of his character made him the most delightful of companions imaginable. He had risen from step to step of his career, and was on the point of being despatched on an important diplomatic mission, when he disappeared, in the most incomprehensible fashion, from M----. All search for him was fruitless, and conjecture and enquiry were baffled by a combination of circumstances.

"After a time there appeared amongst the villages, in the depths of the Tyrolese mountains, a man in a brown robe, who preached in these hamlets, and then went away into the wildest parts of the forests, where he lived the life of a hermit. It chanced one day that Count P---- saw this man (who called himself Priest Serapion), and at once recognised him as his unfortunate nephew, who had disappeared from M----. He was taken into custody, became violent, and all the skill of the best doctors in M---- could do nothing to alleviate his terrible condition. He was taken to the lunatic asylum at B----, and there the methodical system, based upon profound psychological knowledge, pursued by the medical man then in charge of that institution, succeeded in bringing about a condition of much less excitement, and greater quietness in the form of his malady. Whether this doctor, true to his theory, gave the patient an opportunity of escaping, or whether he himself found the means of doing so, escape he did, and was lost sight of for a considerable time.

"Serapion appeared, ultimately, in the country some eight miles from B----, where I had seen him; and the doctor declared that if any true compassion was to be shown him, he should not be again driven into a condition of wild excitement; but that, if he was to be at peace, and, after his fashion, happy, he should be left in these woods in perfect freedom, to do just as he liked; in which case he, the said doctor, would be responsible for the consequences. Accordingly, the police authorities were content to leave him to a distant and imperceptible supervision by the officials of the nearest village, and the result bore out what the doctor had said. Serapion built himself a little hut, pretty, and, under the circumstances, comfortable. He made chairs and tables, wove mats of rushes to lie upon, and laid out a garden where he grew flowers and vegetables. In all that did not touch the idea that he was the hermit Serapion who fled into the Theban desert in the days of the Emperor Decius, and suffered martyrdom in Alexandria, his mind was completely unaffected. He could carry on the most intellectual conversation, and often showed traces of the brilliant humour and charming individuality of character for which he had been remarkable in his former life. The aforesaid doctor declared him to be completely incurable, and strongly deprecated all attempts to restore him to the world and to his former pursuits and duties.

"You will readily understand that I could not drive this anchorite of mine out of my thoughts, and that I experienced an irresistible longing to see him again. But just picture to yourselves the excess of my folly! I had no less an undertaking in my mind than that of attacking Serapion's fixed idea at its very roots. I read Pinel, Reil, every conceivable book on insanity which I could lay my hands on. I fondly believed that it might be reserved for me, an amateur psychologist and doctor, to cast some rays of light into Serapion's darkened intelligence. And I did not omit, either, to make myself acquainted with the stories of all the Serapions (there were no fewer than eight of them) treated of in the histories of saints and martyrs.

"Thus equipped, I set out one fine morning in search of my anchorite.

"I found him working in his garden with hoe and spade, singing a devotional song. Wild pigeons, for which he had strewed an abundant supply of food, were fluttering and cooing round him, and a young deer was peeping through the leaves on the trellis. He was evidently living in the closest intimacy with the woodland creatures. Not the faintest trace of insanity was visible in his face; it bore a quiet expression of remarkable serenity and happiness; and all this confirmed what Dr. S---- in B---- had told me. When he heard of my projected visit to the anchorite, he advised me to go some fine, bright pleasant morning, because, he said, his mind would be less troubled then and he would be more inclined to talk to a stranger, whereas at evening he would shun all intercourse with mankind.

"As soon as he saw me he laid down his spade, and came towards me in a kind and friendly manner. I said that, being weary with a longish journey, I should be glad if he would allow me to rest with him for a little while.

"'You are heartily welcome,' he said. 'The little which I can offer you in the shape of refreshment is at your service.'

"And he took me to a seat of moss in front of his hut, brought out a little table, set on bread, magnificent grapes, and a can of wine, and hospitably begged me to eat and drink. He sat down opposite to me, and ate bread with much appetite, washing it down with draughts of water.

"In good sooth I did not see how I was to lead the conversation to my subject--how I was to bring my psychological science to bear upon this peaceful, happy man. At last I pulled myself together and began:

"'You style yourself Serapion, reverend sir?'

"'Yes, certainly,' he answered. 'The Church has given me that name.'

"'Ancient ecclesiastical history,' I continued, 'mentions several celebrated holy men of that name. An abbot Serapion, known for his good works the--learned Bishop Serapion alluded to by Hieronimus in his book "De Viris Illustribus." There was also a monk Serapion, who (as Heraclides relates in his "Paradise") on one occasion, coming from the Theban desert to Rome, ordered a virgin, who had joined him--saying she had renounced the world and its pleasures--to prove this by walking with him naked in the streets of Rome, and repulsed her when she hesitated, saying, "You still live the life of Nature, and are careful for the opinions of mankind. Think not that you are anything great or have overcome the world." If I am not mistaken, reverend sir, this was the "filthy monk" (Heraclid himself so styles him) who suffered a terrible martyrdom under the Emperor Decius--his limbs being torn asunder at the joints, and his body thrown down from a lofty rock.'

"'That was so,' said Serapion, turning pale, and his eyes glowing with a sombre fire. 'But Serapion the martyr, had no connection with that monk, who, in the fury of his asceticism, did battle against human nature. I am Serapion the martyr, to whom you allude.'

"'What?' I cried, with feigned surprise. 'You believe that you are that Serapion who suffered such a hideous martyrdom so many hundred years ago?'

"That,' said Serapion with much calmness, 'may appear incredible to you; and I admit that it must sound very wonderful to many who cannot see further than the points of their own noses. However, it is as I tell you. God's omnipotence permitted me to survive my martyrdom, and to recover from its effects, because it was ordained, in His mysterious providence, that I had still to pass a certain period of my existence, to His praise and glory, here in the Theban desert. There is nothing now to remind me of the tortures which I suffered except sometimes a severe headache, and occasional violent cramps and twitchings in my limbs.'

"Now,' thought I, 'is the time to commence my cure.'

"I made a wide circumbendibus, and talked in an erudite style concerning the malady of 'Fixed Idea,' which attacks people, marring, like one single discord, the otherwise harmonious organisms. I spoke of the scientific man who could not be induced to rise from his chair for fear he would break the windows across the street with his nose. I mentioned the Abbot Molanus, who conversed most rationally upon every subject, but would not leave his room because he thought he was a barleycorn, and the hens would swallow him. I came to the fact that to confound oneself with some historical character was a frequent form of Fixed Idea. 'Nothing more absurd and preposterous,' I said, 'could possibly be imagined than that a little bit of woodland country eight miles from B----, daily frequented by country folk, sportsmen, and people walking for exercise was the Theban desert, and he himself that ascetic who suffered martyrdom many centuries ago.'

"Serapion listened in silence. He seemed to feel what I said, and to be struggling with himself in deep reflection. So that I thought it was time to strike my decisive blow. I stood up, took him by both hands, and cried, loudly and emphatically:

"'Count P----, awake from the pernicious dream which is enthralling you; throw off that abominable dress, and come back to your family, which mourns your loss, and to the world where you have such important duties to discharge.'

"Serapion gazed at me with a sombre, penetrating gaze. Then a sarcastic smile played about his lips and cheeks, and he said, slowly and solemnly:

"'You have spoken, sir, long, and, as you consider, wisely and well. Allow me, in turn, to say a few words in reply. Saint Anthony, and all the men of the Church who have withdrawn from the world into solitude, were often visited by vexing spirits, who, envying the inward peace and contentment of their souls, carried on with them lengthy contests, until they had to lie down conquered in the dust. And such is my fortune also. Every now and then there appear to me emissaries, sent by Satan, who try to persuade me that I am Count P---- of M----, and that I ought to betake myself to the life of Courts, and all sorts of unholiness. Were it not for the efficacy of prayer, I should take these people by the shoulders, turn them out of my little garden, and carefully barricade it against them. But I need not do so in your case; for you are, most unmistakably, the very feeblest of all the adversaries who have ever come to me, and I can vanquish you with your own weapons--those of ratiocination. It is insanity that is in question between us. But if one of us two is suffering from that sad malady, it is evident that you are so in a much greater degree than I. You maintain that it is a case of Fixed Idea that I believe myself to be Serapion the martyr--and I am quite aware that many persons hold the same opinion, or pretend that they do. Now, if I am really insane, none but a lunatic can think that he could argue me out of the Fixed Idea which insanity has engendered in me. Were such a proceeding possible, there would soon be no madmen on the face of the earth, for men would be able to rule, and command, their mental power, which is not their own, but merely lent to them for a time by that Higher Power which disposes of them. But if I am not mad, and if I am really Serapion the martyr, it is insane to set about arguing me out of that, and leading me to adopt the Fixed Idea that I am Count P---- of M----. You say that Serapion the martyr, lived several centuries ago, and that, consequently, I cannot be that martyr, presumably for the reason that human beings cannot remain so long on this earth. Well, as regards this, the notion of time is just as relative a notion as that of number; and I may say to you that, according to the notion of time which I have in me, it is scarcely three hours (or whatever appellation you may choose to give to the divisions of time), since I was put to martyrdom by the Emperor Decius. But, leaving this on one side, can you assert, in opposition to me, that a life of such length as I say I have lived, is unexampled and contrary to human nature? Have you cognizance of the precise length of the life of every human being who has existed in all this wide world, that you can employ the expression 'unexampled' in this pert and decisive manner? Do you compare God's omnipotence to the wretched art of the clockmaker, who can't save his lifeless machinery from destruction? You say this place where we are is not the Theban desert, but a little woodland district eight miles from B----, daily frequented by country folk, sportsmen and others. Prove that to me.'

"Here, I thought I had my man.

"'Come with me,' said I, 'and in a couple of hours we shall be in B----, and what I assert will be proved.'

"'Poor, blinded fool,' said Serapion. 'What a wide distance lies between us and B----! But put the case that I went with you to some town which you call B----; would you be able to convince me that we had been travelling for two hours only, and the place we had arrived at was really B----? If I were to assert that you were insane, and suppose the Theban desert is a little bit of wooded country, and far-away Alexandria the town of B---- in the south of Germany, what would you say in reply? Our old discussion would go on for ever. Then there is another point which you ought seriously to consider. You must, I should suppose, perceive that I, who am talking with you, am leading the peaceful and happy life of a man reconciled with God. It is only after having passed through martyrdom that such a life dawns upon the soul. And if it has pleased the Almighty to cast a veil over what happened before my martyrdom, is it not a terrible, and diabolical action to try to tear that veil away?'

"With all my wisdom, I stood, confounded and silenced in the presence of this insane man! With the very rationality of his irrationality he had beaten me completely out of the field, and I saw the folly of my undertaking in all its fulness. Still more than that, I felt the reproach contained in what he had last said as deeply as I was astounded at the dim remembrance of his previous life which shone through it like some lofty, invulnerable, higher spirit.

"Serapion seemed to be reading my thoughts, and, looking me full in the face with an expression of the greatest kindliness, he said:

"'I never took you for an evil-disposed adversary, and I see I was not mistaken. You may have been instigated by somebody--perhaps by the Evil One himself--to come here to vex and try me, but I am sure it was not a spontaneous act of yours. And perhaps the fact that you found me other than you expected, may have strengthened you in your expression of the doubts which you have suggested. Although I in no sense deviate from the devoutness beseeming him who has given up his life to God and the Church, that cynicism of asceticism into which many of my brethren have fallen--thereby giving proof of the weakness, nay, utter destruction of their mental vigour, instead of its boasted strength--is utterly foreign to me! You expected to find the Monk Serapion pale and haggard, wasted with fast and vigil, all the horror of visions, terrible as those which drove even St. Anthony to despair, in his sombre face, with quivering knees scarce able to support him, in a filthy robe, stained with his blood. You find a placid, cheerful man. But I, too, have passed through those tortures, and have overcome them and survived. And when I awoke with shattered limbs and fractured skull, the spirit dawned, and shone bright within me, restoring my mind and my body to health. May it please Heaven speedily to grant to you also, my brother, even here on earth, a peace and happiness such as those which daily refresh and strengthen me. Have no dread of the terror of the deepest solitude. It is only there that a life like this can dawn upon the pious soul.'

"Serapion, who had spoken with genuine priestly unction, raised, in silence, his eyes to Heaven with an expression of blissful gratitude. How could I feel otherwise than awe-struck! A madman, congratulating himself on his condition, looking upon it as a priceless gift from Heaven, and, from the depths of his heart, wishing me a similar fate!

"I was on the point of leaving him, but he began in an altered tone, saying:

"'You would, probably, scarcely suppose that this wild inhospitable desert is often almost too full of the noise and bustle of life to be suitable for my silent meditations. Every day I receive visits from the most remarkable people of the most diverse kinds. Ariosto was here yesterday, and Dante and Petrarch afterwards. And this evening I expect Evagrus, the celebrated father, with whom I shall discuss the most recent ecclesiastical affairs, as I did poetry yesterday. I often go up to the top of that hill there, whence the towers of Alexandria are to be seen distinctly in clear weather, and the most wonderful and interesting events happen before my eyes. Many people have thought that incredible, too, and considered that I only fancy I see before me, in actual life, what is merely born in my mind and imagination. Now I say that is the most incomprehensible piece of folly that can exist. What is it, except the mind, which takes cognizance of what happens around us in time and space? What is it that hears, and feels, and sees? Is it the lifeless mechanism which we call eyes, ears, hands, etc., and not the mind? Does the mind give form and shape to that peculiar world of its own which has space and time for its conditions of existence, and then hand over the functions of seeing, hearing, etc., to some other principle inherent in us? How illogical! Therefore, if it is the mind only which takes cognizance of events around us, it follows that that which it has taken cognizance of has actually occurred. Last evening only, Ariosto was speaking of the images of his fancy, and saying he had created in his brain forms and events which had never existed in time and space. I at once denied the possibility of this, and he was obliged to allow that it was only from lack of a higher knowledge that a poet would box up within the narrow limits of his brain that which, by virtue of his peculiar seer gift, he was enabled to see in full life before him. But the complete acquirement of this higher knowledge only comes after martyrdom, and is strengthened by the life in profound solitude. You don't appear to agree with me; probably you don't understand me here. Indeed how should a child of this world, however well disposed, understand an anchorite consecrated in all his works and ways to God? Let me tell you what happened before my eyes, as I was standing this morning at sunrise at the top of that hill.'

"He then related a regular romance, with a plot and incidents such as only the most imaginative poet could have constructed. The characters and events stood out with such a vivid, plastic relief, that it was impossible--carried away as one was by the magic spell of them--to help believing, as if in a species of dream, that Serapion had actually witnessed them from the hilltop. This romance was succeeded by another, and that by another, by which time the sun stood high above us in the noon-tide sky. Serapion then rose from his seat, and looking into the distance, said: 'Yonder comes my brother Hilarion, who, in his over strictness, always blames me for being too much given to the society of strangers.'

"I understood the hint, and took my leave, asking if I should be allowed to pay him another visit. Serapion answered with a gentle smile, 'My friend, I thought you would be eager to get away from this wilderness, so little adapted to your mode of life. But if it is your pleasure to take up your abode for a time in my neighbourhood, you will always be welcome to my cottage and my little garden. Perhaps it may be granted to me to convert him who came to me as an adversary. Farewell, my friend.'

"I am wholly unable to characterize the impression which my visit to him had made upon me. Whilst his condition, his methodical madness in which he found the joy of his life, produced the weirdest effect upon me, his extraordinary poetical genius filled me with amazement, and his kindly, peaceful happiness, instinct with the quietest resignation of the purest mind, touched me unspeakably. I thought of Ophelia's sorrowful words:

"O what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!

The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword:

The expectancy and rose of this fair state,

The glass of fashion, and the mould of form,

The observ'd of all observers! quite, quite down!

Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,

Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;

That unmatched form and feature of blown youth,

Blasted with ecstasy."

Yet I could not make plaint against the Omnipotence, which probably had, in this mysterious fashion, steered his bark away from reefs, which might have wrecked it, into this secure haven.

"The oftener I went to see him, the more attached to him I became. I always found him happy, and disposed to converse, and I took great care never again to essay my rôle of the psychological doctor. It was wonderful with what acuteness and penetration he spoke of life in all its aspects, and most remarkable of all, how he deduced historical events from causes wholly remote from all ordinary theories on the subject. When sometimes--notwithstanding the striking acuteness of those divinations of his--I took it upon me to object that no work on history made any mention of the circumstances which he alluded to, he would answer, with his quiet smile, that probably no historian in the world knew as much about them as he did, seeing that he had them from the very lips of the people concerned, when they came to see him.

"I was obliged to leave B---- and it was three years before I could go back there. It was late in Autumn, about the middle of November--the 14th, if I do not mistake--when I set out to pay my anchorite a visit. Whilst I was still at a distance, I heard the sound of the little bell which hung above his hut, and was filled with gloomy forebodings, without apparent cause. At last I reached the cottage and went in.

"Serapion was lying on his mat, with his hands folded on his breast. I thought he was sleeping, and went softly up to him. Then I saw that he was dead."

"And two lions came and helped you to bury him," interrupted Ottmar.

"What do you say?" cried Cyprian astonished.

"Yes," Ottmar went on. "While you were in the forest, before you reached Serapion's hut, you met strange monsters of all kinds, and talked with them; a deer brought you St. Athanasius's mantle, and told you to wrap it about Serapion's body. At any rate, your last visit to your mad anchorite reminds me a good deal of that wonderful one which St. Anthony paid to Paul the Hermit, of which the holy man relates so much fantastic stuff that it's not difficult to see what a big bee was buzzing in his bonnet. I know something of the Legends of the Saints, you see, as well as you. Now I understand why it was that your head was so full of monks and monasteries, saints and hermits a few years ago. I saw that it was so by the letters you sent me, which were so strange and mystic in their tone that they set me supposing all sorts of odd things. And if I am not mistaken, it was about that time that you wrote a curious book, treating of the profounder mysteries of the Catholic Church, but containing madness and diablerie sufficient to give you a very bad name amongst quiet, respectable folks. At that time you were possessed with Serapionism to a very dangerous degree."

"Quite true," said Cyprian, "and although that fanciful book does bear the devil on its forehead, by way of danger-signal--so that those who prefer to give it a wide berth may do so if they choose--I almost wish now I had never brought it into the world. It is quite true that it was suggested to me by my intercourse with the anchorite. I ought to have kept out of his way, perhaps; but you all of you know what a fascination insane people have always had for me. I have always thought that in connection with those abnormal conditions nature vouchsafes us glimpses into her most mysterious depths. In fact, by the very gruesomeness which I have felt in the society of mad people, I have found myself led upon the track of suggestions and ideas which have inspired my mind and fancy to flights of unusual loftiness. Perhaps people who are utterly sane may look upon flights such as these as mere paroxysms of dangerous ill-health. But that is nothing when one knows that one is sound and well."

"There is no doubt, dear Cyprian, that you are as sound and as well as possible," said Theodore, "and in fact all this is a proof of the strength and vigour of your constitution--which I almost could envy you for. You speak of glimpses into Nature's mysterious depths; but people who are not quite sure that they are exempt from anything like giddiness ought to keep away from glimpses of the kind. Of course this could never have applied to your Serapion, as you have described him to us, inasmuch as to associate with him must have been better than companionship with the most brilliant and splendid poet. But you will admit that, chiefly because so many years have passed since you saw him, you have pictured him to tie in all the brilliant colours in which he glows in your memory. Now I consider that, in the society of a man, insane in the particular way in which your Serapion was, I should never have been able to divest myself of an immense uneasiness, nay, I may say terror! Even when you were telling us how he considered his condition to be the happiest conceivable, and wished that it could be yours, I felt my hair beginning to stand on end! What if the notion that this condition was a happy one should take root in one's mind, and eventuate in real madness! Terrible thought! I could never have been much with Serapion, just for that reason. Then, besides the risk to the mind, there was the danger to the body, too. Pinel mentions plenty of cases of people suffering from Fixed Idea who have suddenly become fearfully violent, and murdered everybody whom they came near, like furious wild beasts."

"Theodore is right," said Ottmar. "Cyprian, I blame you for your foolish penchant for folly, your insane interest in insanity. There is a morbidness about it which may give you some trouble one of these days. For my part I shun mad people like the plague; and even people of over-excitable temperaments, which lead them into marked eccentricities of any kind, are repulsive and repugnant to me."

"You go too far," said Theodore, "in your distaste for every expression of feeling which takes any rather peculiar or unusual form. The incongruity which excitable people, as they are called, perceive between their inner selves and the world without them makes them grimace, in a manner which quiet folks, over whom pain has as little power as pleasure, can't understand, and are only annoyed with. Yet you yourself, Ottmar, with all your sensitiveness to this kind of behaviour in others, often lay yourself open to be accused of very distinct eccentricity.

"I happen to remember a man whose eccentricities were so extreme that half his fellow-citizens considered him a lunatic, although no one really less deserved to be so characterized. The way in which I made his acquaintance was as quaintly comic as the circumstances in, which I met with him at a later period were tragic and terrible. I should like to tell you all this story, as a sort of transition from pure insanity, viâ eccentricity, to the realms of every-day rationality. Only I am afraid that, as I should have to say a good deal about music, I should be open to the objection which I made to Cyprian's story--that of giving my own particular hobby undue prominence, and introducing too much of my own personality into my tale. In the meantime, I see that Lothair is casting longing looks at that vase which Cyprian calls 'mysterious,' so we may as well break the spell which binds it."

"Now," said Lothair, when glasses of a fluid which would have merited the encomiums of the fraternity of the "Clucking Hen" had been passed round, "tell us about your eccentric friend--be entertaining, be affecting, be merry, or sad; but get us away from the atmosphere of that abominable mad anchorite, and out of the bedlam where Cyprian has been keeping us immured."

"[The man,]" said Theodore, "whom I am going to tell you about was Krespel, a Member of Council in the town of H----. This Krespel was the most extraordinary character that I have ever, in my lifetime, come across. When I first arrived in H---- the whole town was talking of him, because one of his most extraordinary pranks chanced to be in its fullest swing. He was a very clever lawyer and diplomate, and a certain German prince---not a person of great importance--had employed him to draw up a memorial, concerning claims of his on the Imperial Chancery, which had been eminently successful. As Krespel had often said he never could meet with a house quite to his mind, this prince, as recompense for his services, undertook to pay for the building of a house, to be planned by Krespel according to the dictates of his fancy. He also offered to buy a site for it; but Krespel determined to build it in a delightful piece of garden ground of his own, just outside the town-gate. So he got together all the necessary building materials, and had them laid down in this piece of ground. After which, he was to be seen all day long, in his usual extraordinary costume--which he always made with his own hands, on peculiar principles of his own--slaking the lime, sifting the gravel, arranging the stones in heaps, etc., etc. He had not gone to any architect for a plan. But one fine day he walked in upon the principal builder, and told him to come next morning, to his garden, with the necessary workmen--stonemasons, hodmen, and so forth--and build him a house. The builder, of course, asked to see the plan, and was not a little astonished when Krespel said there was no plan and no occasion for one; every thing would go on all right without one.

"The builder arrived next morning with his men, and found a great rectangular trench, carefully dug in the ground; and Krespel said 'this is the foundation; so set to work, and go on building the walls till I tell you to stop.'

"'But what about the doors and windows,' said the builder; 'are there to be no partition walls?'

"'Just you do as I tell you, my good man,' said Krespel, as calmly as possible; 'everything will come quite right in its own good time.'

"Nothing but the prospect of liberal payment induced the man to have anything to do with a job so preposterous--but never was there a piece of work carried through so merrily; for it was amid the never-ceasing jokes and laughter of the workmen--who never left the ground, where abundance of victuals and drink were always at hand--that the four walls rose with incredible celerity, till one day Krespel cried, 'Stop!'

"Mallets and chisels paused. The men came down from their scaffolds, and formed a circle about Krespel, each grinning countenance seeming to say--'What's going to happen now?'

"'Out of the way! 'cried Krespel, who hastened to one end of the garden, and then paced slowly towards his rectangle of stone walls. On reaching the side of it which was nearest--the one, that is, towards which he had been marching--he shook his head dissatisfied, went to the other end of the garden, then paced up to the wall as before, shaking his head, dissatisfied, once more. This process he repeated two or three times; but at last, going straight up to the wall till he touched it with the point of his nose, he cried out, loud--

"Come here, you fellows, come here! Knock me in the door! Knock me in a door here!' He gave the size it was to be, accurately in feet and inches; and what he told them to do they did. When the door was knocked out, he walked into the house, and smiled pleasantly at the builder's remark that the walls were just the proper height for a nice two-storied house. He walked meditatively up and down inside, the masons following him with their tools, and whenever he cried 'here a window six feet by four; a little one yonder three feet by two,' out flew the stones as directed.

"It was during these operations that I arrived in H----, and it was entertaining in the extreme to see some hundreds of people collected outside the garden, all hurrahing whenever the stones flew out, and a window appeared where none had been expected. The house was all finished in the same fashion, everything being done according to Krespel's directions as given on the spot. The quaintness of the proceeding, the feeling--not to be resisted--that it was all going to turn out so marvellously better than was to have been expected; but, particularly, Krespel's liberality, which, by the way, cost him nothing, kept everybody in the best of humour. So the difficulties attending this remarkable style of house-building were got over, and in a very brief time there stood a fully-finished house, which had the maddest appearance, certainly, from the outside, no two windows being alike, and so forth, but was a marvel of comfort and convenience within. Everybody said so who entered it, and I was of the same opinion, when Krespel admitted me to it after I made his acquaintance.

"It was some time, however, ere I did so. He had been so engrossed by his building operations that he had never gone, as he did at other times, to lunch at Professor M----'s on Thursdays, saying he should not cross his threshold till after his house-warming. His friends were expecting a grand entertainment on that occasion. However, he invited nobody but the workmen who built the house. Them he entertained with the most recherché dishes. Journeymen masons feasted on venison pasties, carpenters' apprentices and hungry hodmen, for once in their lives stayed their appetites with roast pheasant and paté de foie gras. In the evening their wives and daughters came, and there was a fine ball. Krespel just waltzed a little with the foremen's wives, and then sat down with the town-band, took a fiddle, and led the dance-music till daylight.

"On the Thursday after this house-warming, which had established Krespel in the position of a popular character--'a friend to the working classes'--I at last met him at Professor M----'s, to my no small gratification. The most extravagant imagination could not invent anything more extraordinary than Krespel's style of behaviour. His movements were awkward, abrupt, constrained, so that you expected him to bump against the furniture and knock things down, or do some mischief or other every moment. But he never did; and you soon noticed that the lady of the house never changed colour ever so little, although he went floundering heavily and uncertainly about, close to tables covered with valuable china, or manœuvring in dangerous proximity to a great mirror reaching from floor to ceiling; even when he took up a valuable china jar, painted with flowers, and whirled it about near the window to admire the play of the light on its colours. In fact, whilst we were waiting for luncheon, he inspected and scrutinised everything in the room with the utmost minuteness, even getting up upon a cushioned arm-chair to take a picture down from the wall and hang it up again. All this time he talked a great deal; often (and this was more observable while we were at luncheon) darting rapidly from one subject to another, and at other times--unable to get away from some particular idea--he would keep beginning at it again and again, and get into labyrinths of confusion over it, till something else came into his head. Sometimes the tone of his voice was harsh and screaming, at other times it would be soft, sustained, and singing; but it was always completely inappropriate to what he happened to be talking about. For instance, we were discussing music, and some one was praising a new composer: Krespel smiled, and said in his gentle cantabile tone, 'I wish to heaven the devil would hurl the wretched music-perverter ten thousand millions of fathoms deep into the abysses of hell!' and then he screamed out violently and wildly, 'She's an angel of heaven, all compounded of the purest, divinest music:' and the tears came to his eyes. It was some time ere we remembered that, about an hour before, we had been talking of a particular prima donna. There was a hare at table, and I noticed that he carefully polished the bones on his plate, and made particular enquiries for the feet, which were brought to him, with many smiles, by the professor's little daughter of fifteen. All the time of luncheon the children had been fixing their eyes upon him as on a favourite, and now they came up to him, though they kept a respectful distance of two or three paces.' 'What's going to happen,' thought I. The dessert came, and Krespel took a small box from his pocket, out of which he brought a miniature turning-lathe, made of steel, which he screwed on to the table, and proceeded to turn, from the bones, with wonderful skill and rapidity, all sorts of charming little boxes, balls, etc., which the children took possession of with cries of delight.

"As we rose from table, the professor's niece said--

"'And how is our dear Antonia, Mr. Krespel?'

"'Our--OUR dear Antonia!' he answered, in his sustained singing tone most unpleasant to hear. At first he made the sort of face which a person makes who bites into a bitter orange, and wants to look as if it were a sweet one; but soon this face changed to a perfectly terrible-looking mask, out of which grinned a bitter, fierce--nay, as it seemed to me, altogether diabolical, sneer of angry scorn.

"The professor hastened up to him. In the look of angry reproach which he cast at his niece I read that she had touched some string which jarred most discordantly within Krespel.

"'How get on the violins?' said the professor, taking Krespel by both hands.

"The cloud cleared away from his face, and he answered in his harsh rugged tone, 'Splendidly, Professor. You remember my telling you about a magnificent Amati, which I got hold of by a lucky accident a short time ago? I cut it open this very morning, and expect that Antonia has finished taking it to pieces by this time.'

"'Antonia is a dear, good child,' said the Professor.

"'Ay! that she is--that she is!' screamed Krespel, and seizing his hat and stick, was off out of the house like a flash of lightning.

"As soon as he was gone, I eagerly begged the Professor to tell me all about those violins, and more especially about Antonia.

"'Ah,' said the Professor, 'Krespel is an extraordinary man; he studies fiddle-making in a peculiar fashion of his own.'

"'Fiddle-making?' cried I in amazement.

"'Yes,' said the Professor; 'connoisseurs consider that Krespel's violin-making is unapproachable at the present day. Formerly, when he turned out any special chef d'œuvre, he would allow other people to play upon it; but now he lets no one touch them but himself. When he has finished a fiddle, he plays upon it for an hour or two (he plays magnificently, with a power and an amount of feeling and expression which the greatest professional violinists rarely equal, let alone surpass), then he hangs it up on the wall beside the others, and never touches it again, nor lets anyone else lay hands upon it.'

"'And Antonia?' I eagerly asked.

"'Well, that,' said the Professor, 'is an affair which would make me have a very shady opinion of Krespel, if I didn't know what a thoroughly good fellow he is; so that I feel convinced there is some mystery about it which we don't at present fathom. When he first came here some years ago, he lived like a hermit, with an old housekeeper, in a gloomy house in ----Street. His eccentricities soon attracted people's attention, and, when he saw this, he soon sought and made acquaintances. Just as was the case in my house, people got so accustomed to him that they couldn't get on without him. In spite of his rough exterior even the children got fond of him, though they were never troublesome to him, but always looked upon him with a certain amount of awe which prevented over-familiarity. You have seen how he attracts children by all sorts of ingenious tricks. Everybody looked upon him as a regular old bachelor and woman-hater, and he gave no sign to the contrary; but after he had been here some time, he went off on some excursion or other, no one knew where, and it was some months before he came back. The second evening after his return, his windows were lighted up in an unusual way--and that was enough to attract the neighbours' attention. Presently, a most extraordinarily beautiful female voice was heard singing to a pianoforte accompaniment. Soon the tones of a violin were heard joining in, responding to the voice in brilliant, fiery emulation. It was easy to distinguish that it was Krespel who was playing. I joined the little crowd assembled outside the house myself, to listen to the wonderful concert, and I can assure you that the greatest prima-donnas I have ever heard were poor every-day performers compared to the lady we heard that night. I never heard any one sing with such marvellously touching expression, and such absolute finish of execution; never had had any idea of such long-sustained notes, such nightingale roulades, such crescendoes and diminuendoes, such swellings to an organ-like forte, such dyings down to the most imperceptible whisper. There was not a soul in all the crowd able to resist the magic spell of this wonderful singing; and when she stopped, you heard nothing but sighs breaking the silence. It was probably about midnight, when, all at once we heard Krespel talking loudly and excitedly; another male voice, to judge by the tone of it, bitterly reproaching him about something, and a woman intervening as best she could tearfully, in broken phrases. Krespel screamed louder and louder, till at last he broke into that horrible singing tone which you know. A loud shriek from the lady interrupted him: then all was as still as death; and suddenly steps came rapidly down the stairs, and a young man came out, sobbing, and, jumping into a carriage which was standing near, drove rapidly away.

"'The next day Krespel appeared quite in his ordinary condition, as if nothing had happened, and no one had the courage to allude to the events of the previous night; but the housekeeper said Krespel had brought home a most beautiful lady, quite young; that he called her Antonia, and that it was she who sung so splendidly; and that a young gentleman had also come, who seemed to be deeply attached to Antonia, and, as she supposed, was engaged to her; but that he had had to go away, because Krespel had insisted on it. What Antonia's precise position with respect to Krespel is, remains a mystery; at all events he treats her in the most tyrannical style. He watches her as a cat does a mouse, or as Dr. Bartolo, in Il Barbiere, does his niece. She scarcely dares to look out of the window. On the rare occasions when he can be prevailed upon to take her into society, he watches her with Argus-eyes, and won't suffer a note of music to be heard, far less that she shall sing; neither will he now allow her to sing in his own house; so that, since that celebrated night, Antonia's singing has become, for the people of the town, a sort of romantic legend, as of some splendid miracle, and even those who never heard her often say, when some celebrated prima-donna comes to sing at a concert, 'Good gracious! what a wretched caterwauling all this is, nobody can sing but Antonia!'

"You know how anything of this sort always fascinates me, and you can imagine how essential it became to me that I should make Antonia's acquaintance. I had heard those sayings of the public about Antonia's singing often, but I had had no idea that this glorious creature was there, on the spot, held in thraldom by this crack-brained Krespel, as by some tyrant enchanter. Naturally, that night, in my dreams I heard Antonia singing in the most magnificent style; and as she was imploring me, in the most moving manner, to set her free, in a gloriously lovely adagio--absurdly enough, it seemed as if I had composed it myself--I at once made up my mind that, by some means or other, I would make my way into Krespel's house, and, like another Astolfo, set this Queen of Song free from her shameful bonds.

"Things came about, however, quite differently to what I had anticipated; for after I had once or twice met Krespel and had a talk with him about fiddle-making, he asked me to go and see him. I went, and he showed me his violin treasures: there ere some thirty of them hanging in a cabinet; and there was one, remarkable above the rest, with all the marks of the highest antiquity (a carved lion's head at the end of the tail-piece, etc.), which was hung higher than the others, with a wreath of flowers on it, and seemed to reign over the rest as queen.

"'This violin,' said Krespel, when I questioned him about it, 'is a very remarkable and unparalleled work, by some ancient master, most probably about the time of Tartini. I am quite convinced there is something most peculiar about its interior construction, and that, if I were to take it to pieces, I should discover a certain secret which 1 have long been in search of. But--you may laugh at me if you like--this lifeless thing, which I myself inspire with life and language, often speaks out of itself, to me in an extraordinary manner; and when I first played upon it, I felt as if I were merely the magnetiser--the mesmerist--who acts upon his subject in such sort that she relates in words what she is seeing with her inward vision. No doubt you think me an ass to have any faith in nonsense of this sort; still, it is the fact that I have never been able to prevail upon myself to take that lifeless thing there to pieces. I am glad I never did, for since Antonia has been here, I now and then play to her on that fiddle; she is fond of hearing it--very fond.'

"He exhibited so much emotion as he said this, that I was emboldened to say 'Ah! dear Mr. Krespel, won't you be so kind as to let me hear you play on it?' But he made one of his bitter-sweet faces, and answered in his cantabile sostenuto:

"'Nay, my dear master student, that would ruin everything;' and I had to go and admire a number of curiosities, principally childish trash, till at length he dived into a chest and brought out a folded paper, which he put into my hand with much solemnity, saying: 'There! you are very fond of music: accept this as a present from me, and always prize it beyond everything. It is a souvenir of great value.' With which he took me by the shoulders and gently shoved me out of the door, with an embrace on the threshold--in short, he symbolically kicked me out of his house.

"When I opened the paper which he had given me, I found a small piece of the first string of a violin, about the eighth of an inch in length, and on the paper was written--

"'Portion of the first string which was on Stamitz's violin when he played his last Concerto.'

"The calmly insulting style in which I had been shown to the door the moment I had said a word about Antonia, seemed to indicate that I should probably never be allowed to see her; however, the second time I went to Krespel's I found Antonia in his room, helping him to put a fiddle together. Her exterior did not strike me much at first, but after a short time one could not resist the charm of her lovely blue eyes, rosy lips, and exquisitely expressive, tender face. She was very pale; but when anyone said anything interesting, a bright colour and a very sweet smile appeared in her face, but the colour quickly died down to a pale-rose tint. She and I talked quite unconstrainedly and pleasantly together, and I saw none of those Argus-glances which the Professor had spoken about. Krespel went on quite in his ordinary, beaten track, and seemed rather to approve of my being friendly with Antonia than otherwise. Thus it came about that I went pretty often there, and our little circle of three got so accustomed to each other's society that we much enjoyed ourselves in our quiet way. Krespel was always entertaining with his strange eccentricities; but it was really Antonia who drew me to the house, and made me put up with a great deal which, impatient as I was in those days, I should never have endured but for her. In Krespel's quirks and cranks there was often a good deal which was tedious, and not in the best of taste. What most annoyed me was that, whenever I led the conversation to music--particularly to vocal music--he would burst in, in that horrible singing voice of his, and smiling like a demon, with something wholly irrelevant and generally disgustingly unimportant at the same time. From Antonia's looks of annoyance on those occasions, it was clear that he did this to prevent me from asking her to sing. However, I wasn't going to give in: the more he objected, the more determined was I to carry my point. I felt that I must hear her, or die of my dreams of it.

"There came an evening when Krespel was in particularly good humour. He had taken an old Cremona violin to pieces, and found that the sound-post of it was about half a line more perpendicular than usual. Important circumstance!--of priceless practical value! I was fortunate enough to start him off on the true style of violin playing. The style of the great old masters--copied by them from that of the really grand singers--of which he spoke, led to the observation that now the direct converse held good, and that singers copied the scale, and skipping 'passages' of the instrumentalists. 'What,' said I, hastening to the piano and sitting down at it, 'can be more preposterous than those disgusting mannerisms, more like the noise of peas rattling on the floor of a barn than music?' I went on to sing a number of those modern cadenza-passages, which go yooping up and down the scale, more like a child's humming-top than anything else, and I struck a feeble chord or two by way of accompaniment. Krespel laughed immoderately, and cried 'Ha! ha! ha! I could fancy I was listening to some of our German Italians, or our Italian Germans, pumping out some aria of Pucitt or Portugallo, or some other such maestro di capella, or rather schiavo d' un prime uomo.'

"'Now,' thought I, 'is my chance at last.--I am sure Antonia,' I said, turning to her, 'knows nothing of all that quavering stuff,' and I commenced to roll out a glorious soulful aria of old Leonardo Leo's. Antonia's cheeks glowed; a heavenly radiance beamed from her beautiful eyes; she sprang to the piano; she opened her lips--but Krespel instantly made a rush at her; shoved her out of the room, and, seizing me by the shoulders, shrieked--'Little son, little son, little son.' He continued, in a soft and gentle singing voice, while he took me by the hand, bending his head with much courtesy, 'No doubt, my dear young Master Student, it would be a breach of all courtesy and politeness if I were to proceed to express, in plain and unmistakable words, and with all the energy at my command, my desire that the damnable, hellish devil might clutch hold of that throat of yours, here on the spot, with his red-hot talons; leaving that on one side for the moment, however, you will admit, my very dear young friend, that it's getting pretty late in the evening, and will soon be dark; and as there are no lamps lighted, even if I were not to pitch you down stairs, you might run a certain risk of damaging your precious members. Go away home, like a nice young gentleman, and don't forget your good friend Krespel, if you should never--never, you understand--find him at home again when you happen to call.' With which he took me in his arms, and slowly worked his way with me to the door in such fashion that I could not manage to set eyes on Antonia again for a moment.

"You will admit that, situated as I was, it was impossible for me to give him a good hiding, as, probably, I ought to have done by rights. The Professor laughed tremendously, and declared that I had seen the last of Krespel for good and all; and Antonia was too precious, I might say too sacred, in my sight, that I should go playing the languishing amoroso under her window. I left her, broken-hearted; but, as is the case with matters of the kind, the bright tints of the picture in my fancy gradually faded, and toned down with the lapse of time; and Antonia, ay, even Antonia's singing, which I had never heard, came to shine upon my memory only like some beautiful, far-away vision, bathed in rosy radiance.

"Two years afterwards, when I was settled in B----, I had occasion to make a journey into the South of Germany. One evening I saw the familiar towers of H---- rising into sight against the dewy, roseate evening sky; and as I came nearer, a strange, indescribable feeling of painful, anxious uneasiness and alarm took possession of me, and lay on my heart like a weight of lead. I could scarcely breathe. I got out of the carriage into the open air. The oppression amounted to actual physical pain. Presently I thought I could hear the notes of a solemn hymn floating on the air; it grew more distinct, and I made out male voices singing a choral. 'What's this, what's this,' I cried, as it pierced through my heart like a dagger stab. 'Don't you see, sir?' said the postillion, walking beside me, 'it's a funeral going on in the churchyard.' We were, in fact, close to the cemetery, and I saw a circle of people in black assembled by a grave, which was bring filled in. The tears came to my eyes. I frit as if somehow all the happiness and joy of my life bring buried in that grave. I had been descending the hill pretty quickly, so that I could not now see into the cemetery. The choral ceased, and I saw, near the gate, black-dressed men coming away from the funeral. The Professor with his niece on his arm, both in deep mourning, passed close to me without noticing me. The niece had her handkerchief at her eyes' and was sobbing bitterly. I felt I could not go into the town; I sent my servant with the carriage to the usual hotel, and walked into the well-known country to try if I could shake off the strange condition I was in, which I ascribed to physical causes, being overheated and tired with my journey, etc. When I reached the alley which leads to the public gardens, I saw a most extraordinary sight--Krespel, led along by two men in deep mourning, whom he seemed to be trying to escape from by all sorts of extraordinary leaps and bounds. He was dressed, as usual, in his wonderful grey coat of his own making; but from his little three-cornered hat, which he had cocked over one ear in a martial manner, hung a very long, narrow streamer of black crape, which fluttered playfully in the breeze. Round his waist he had buckled a black sword-belt, but instead of a sword he had stuck into it a long fiddle bow.

"The blood ran cold in my veins. 'He has gone quite mad,' I said as I followed them slowly.

"They took him to his own door, where he embraced them, laughing loud. They left him, and then he noticed me. He stared at me in silence for a considerable time; then he said, in a mournful, hollow voice:

"'Glad to see you, Master Student, you know all about it.' He seized me by the arm, dragged me into the house, and upstairs to the room where the violins hung. They were all covered with crape, but the masterpiece by the unknown maker was not in its place, a wreath of cypress bung in its stead.

"I knew then what had happened. 'Antonia, alas! Antonia,' I cried in uncontrollable anguish.

"Krespel was standing in front of me with his arms folded, like a man turned to stone.

"'When she died,' he said, very solemnly, 'the sound-post of that fiddle shivered to pieces with a grinding crash. The faithful thing could only live with her and in her; it is lying with her in her grave.' I sank into a chair overpowered; but Krespel began singing a merry ditty, in a hoarse voice; and it was a truly awful sight to see him dancing, as he sang it, upon one foot, while the crape on his hat kept flapping about the fiddles on the wall; and I could not help giving a scream of horror as this crape streamer, during one of his rapid gyrations, came wafting over my face, for I felt as if the touch of it must infallibly infect me, and drag me, too, down into the black, terrible abyss of madness. But when I gave the scream, Krespel stopped dancing, and said, in his singing voice:

"'What are you shrieking out like that for, little son? Did you see the death angel, think you? people always do before the funeral.' Then, walking into the middle of the floor, he drew the bow out of his belt, and, raising it with both hands above his head, he broke it into splinters. Then he laughed long and loud, and cried, 'The staff's broken over me now, you think, little son, don't you?[²] nothing of the kind, nothing of the kind!'

"'I'm free now--I'm free! I'm free!

And fiddles I'll make no more, boys!

And fiddles I'll make no more!

Hurray! hurray! hip-hip hurray!

Oh! fiddles I'll make no more.'"

"This he sang to a terribly merry tune, dancing about on one foot again as he did so. Full of horror I was making for the door; but he held me back, saying, quite quietly and soberly this time:

"'Don't go away, Master Student. Don't think that those outbreaks of my pain, which is so terrible that I can scarcely bear it longer, mean that I am mad. No, no, I am as sane as you are, and as calmly in my senses. The only thing is, a little while ago I made myself a nightshirt, and thought when I had it on I should be like Destiny, or God.' He went on talking the wildest incoherence for a time, till he sank down, completely exhausted. The old housekeeper came at my summons, and I was thankful when I found myself outside in the open air.

"I never doubted for an instant that Krespel had gone completely mad; but the Professor maintained the contrary. 'There are people,' he said, 'in whose cases Nature, or some destiny or other, has deprived them of the cover--the exterior envelope--under which we others carry on our madnesses unseen. They are like certain insects who have transparent integuments, which (as we see the play of their muscular movements) give the effect of a malformation, although everything is perfectly normal. What never passes beyond the sphere of thought in us becomes action in Krespel. The bitter scorn and rage which the soul, imprisoned as it is in earthly conditions of being and action, often vividly feels, Krespel carries out, or expresses, into external life, by extraordinarily frantic gesticulations and hare jumps. But those are his lightning conductors. What comes out of the earth he delivers back to the earth again; the heavenly he retains, and consequently apprehends it quite clearly and distinctly with his inner consciousness, notwithstanding all the crackiness which we sparking out of him. No doubt Antonia's unexpected loss touches him very keenly, but I should bet that he'll be going on in his usual jog trot to-morrow as if nothing had happened.'

"And it turned out very much as the Professor had expected: Krespel appeared next morning very much as if nothing had happened. Only he announced that he had given up fiddle-making, and would never play on one again. And it afterwards appeared that he kept his word.

"All that I had heard from the Professor strengthened my conviction that the relation in which Antonia had stood to Krespel--so very intimate, and so carefully kept unexplained--as also the fact that she was dead--very probably involved him in a very serious responsibility, which he might find it by no means easy to clear himself from. I made up my mind that I would not leave H---- until I had given him the full benefit of my ideas on this subject. My notion was to thoroughly alarm him, to appeal to his conscience, and, if I could, constrain him to a full confession of his crime. The more I considered the matter the clearer it seemed that he must be a terrible villain; and all the more eloquent and impressive grew the allocution which I mentally got ready to deliver to him, and which gradually took the form of a regular masterpiece of rhetoric.

"Thus prepared for my attack, T betook myself to him in a condition of much virtuous indignation one morning.

"I found him making children's toys at his turning lathe, with a tranquil smile on his face.

"'How,' said I, 'is it possible that your conscience can allow you to be at peace for an instant, when the thought of the horrible crime you have been guilty of must perpetually sting you like a serpent's tooth?'

"He laid down his tools, and stared at me in astonishment.

"'What do you mean, my good sir?' he said. 'Sit down on that chair there.'

"But I went on, with much warmth, and distinctly accused him of having caused Antonia's death, threatening him with the vengeance of Heaven. Nay more, being full of juridical zeal--as I had just been inducted into a judicial appointment--I went on to assure him that I should consider it my duty to leave no stone unturned to bring the affair thoroughly to light, so as to deliver him into the hands of earthly justice. I was a little put out, I admit, when, on the conclusion of my rather pompous harangue, Krespel, without a word in reply, merely looked at me as if waiting for what I had to say next: and I tried to find something further to add: but everything that occurred to me seemed so silly and feeble that I held my peace. He seemed rather to enjoy this breakdown in my eloquence, and a bitter smile passed over his face, but then he became very grave, and said in a solemn tone:

"'My good young sir! Very likely you think me a fool--or a madman. I forgive you. We are both in the same madhouse, and you object to my thinking myself God the Father, because you think you are God the Son. How do you suppose you can enter into another person's life, utterly unknown to you in all its complicated turnings and windings, and pick up and follow all its deeply hidden threads? She is gone, and the riddle is solved!'

"He stopped, rose, and walked two or three times up and down the room. I ventured to ask for some explanation. He looked at me fixedly, took me by the hand, and led me to the window, opening both the outside jalousies. He leaned upon the sill with both his arms, and, so looking out into the garden, he told me the story of his life.

"When he had ended, I left him deeply affected, and bitterly ashamed.

"To make a long tale short, matters as concerned Antonia stood as follows:

"Some twenty years previously, his fancy of making a collection of the finest violins of the great old makers had taken him to Italy. At that time he had not begun to make violins himself, neither, consequently, to take them to pieces. At Venice he heard the renowned prima donna, Angela, at that time shining in the leading rôles at the Teatro di San Benedetto. She was as supereminent in beauty as she was in art: and well became, and deserved, her name of Angela. He sought her acquaintance, and, in spite of all his rugged uncouthness, his most remarkable violin playing, with its combination of great originality, force and tenderness, speedily won her artist's heart. A close intimacy led, in a few weeks, to a marriage--which not made public--because Angela would neither leave the stage, give up her well-known name, nor tack on to it strangely-sounding 'Krespel.' He described, with the bitterest irony, the quite peculiar ingenuity with which Signora Angela commenced, as soon as she was his wife, to torment and torture him. All the selfishness, caprice, and obstinacy of all the prima donnas on earth rolled into one, were, as Krespel considered, incorporated in Angela's little body. Whenever he tried to assert his true position in the smallest degree, she would launch a swarm of abbates, maestros, and academicos about his ears, who, not knowing his real relations with her, would snub him, and set him down as a wretched unendurable ass of an amateur inamorato, incapable of adapting himself to the Signora's charming and interesting humours. After one of those stormy scenes, Krespel had flown off to Angela's country house, and phantasizing on his Cremona, was forgetting the sorrows of the day. This had not lasted long, however, when the Signora, who had followed him, came into the room. She happened to be in a tender mood: she embraced Krespel with sweet, languishing glances, she laid her little head upon his shoulder. But Krespel, lost in the world of his harmonies, went on fiddling, so that the walls reechoed; and it so chanced that he touched the Signora, a trifle ungently, with his bow-arm. She blazed up like a fury, screamed out, 'Bestia tedesca,' snatched the violin out of his hand, and dashed it to pieces on a marble table. Krespel stood before her for a moment, a statue of amazement, and then, as if awaking from a dream, he grasped the Signora as with the fists of a giant, shied her out of the window of her own palazzo, and set off--without concerning himself further about the matter--to Venice, and thence to Germany. It was some little time before he quite realized what he had done. Though he knew the window was only some five feet from the ground, and the necessity of throwing the Signora out of it under the circumstances was quite indisputable, still he felt very anxious as to the results, inasmuch as she had given him to understand that he was 'about to be a father.' He was almost afraid to make any inquiries, and was not a little surprised, some eight months afterwards, to receive an affectionate letter from his beloved wife, in which she did not say a syllable about the little circumstance which had occurred at the country palazzo, but announced that she was the happy mother of a charming little daughter, and prayed the 'marito amato e padre felicissimo' to come as quickly as he could to Venice. However, Krespel didn't go, but made inquiries through a trusted friend as to what had happened. He was told that the Signora had dropped down on to the grass as lightly as a bird, and the only results of her fall were mental ones. The Signora had been like a new creature after Krespel's heroic achievement. All her wilfulness and charming caprices had disappeared completely; and the maestro who wrote the music for the next Carnival considered himself the luckiest man under the sun; inasmuch as the Signora sang all his arias without one of the thousand alterations which, in ordinary circumstances, she would have insisted on his making in them. Krespel's friend added that it was most desirable to give no publicity to what had occurred, because, otherwise, prima donnas would be getting pitched out of window every day.

"Krespel was in great excitement. He ordered horses. He got in to the post-chaise.

"'Stop a moment, though,' he said. 'Isn't it a positive certainty that, as soon as I make my appearance, the evil spirit will take possession of Angela again? I've thrown her out of window once already. What should I do a second time? I don't see what I could do.'

"He got out of the carriage, wrote an affectionate letter to his wife, and--remained in Germany. They carried on a warm correspondence. Assurances of affection, fond imaginings, regrets for the absence of the beloved, etc., etc., flew backwards and forwards between H---- and Venice. Angela came to Germany, as we know, and shone as prima donna on the boards at F----. Though she was no longer young, she carried everything before her by the irresistible charm of her singing. Her voice had lost nothing at that time. Meanwhile Antonia had grown up; and her mother could scarce find words in which to describe, to Krespel, how, in Antonia, a Cantatrice of the first rank was blossoming out. Krespel's friends in F----, too, kept on telling him of this; begging him to go there and hear these two remarkable singers. Of course they had no idea of the relationship in which Krespel stood to them. He would fain have gone and seen his daughter, who lived in the depths of his heart, and whom he often saw in dreams. But the thought of what his wife was restrained him: and he stayed at home, amongst his dismembered fiddles.

"I daresay you remember a very promising young composer in F---- of the name of B----, who suddenly ceased to be heard of--no one knew why: perhaps you may have known him. Well, he fell deeply in love with Antonia; she returned his affection, and he urged her mother to consent to a union consecrated by art. Angela was quite willing, and Krespel gave his consent all the more readily that this young maestro's writings had found favour before his critical tribunal. Krespel was expecting to hear of the marriage every day, when there came a letter with a black seal, addressed in a stranger's hand. A certain Dr. M---- wrote to say that Angela had been taken seriously ill, in consequence of a chill caught at the theatre, and had passed away on the very night before the day fixed for Antonia's marriage. He added that Angela had told him she was Krespel's wife, and Antonia his daughter; so that he ought to come and take charge of her. Deeply as he was shocked by Angela's death, he could not but feel that a certain disturbing element was removed from his life, and that he could breathe freely, for the first time for many a long day. You cannot imagine how affectingly he described the moment when he saw Antonia for the first time. In the very oddness of his description of it lay a wonderful power of expression which I am unable to give any idea of. Antonia had all the charm and attractiveness of Angela, with none of her nasty reverse side. There was no cloven foot peeping out anywhere. B----, her husband that was to have been, came. Antonia comprehending her quaint father, with delicate tact, and seeing into his inner depths, sang one of those motetts of old Padre Martini which she knew Angela used to sing to him during the fullest blossom-time of their days of love. He shed rivers of tears. Never had he heard even Angela sing so splendidly. The tone of Antonia's voice was quite sui generis--at times it was like the Æolian harp, at others like the trilling roulades of the nightingale. It seemed as though there could not be space for those tones in a human breast. Antonia, glowing with love and happiness, sang all her best solos, and B---- played between whiles as only ecstatic inspiration can play. At first, Krespel floated in ecstasy. Then he grew thoughtful and silent, at last he sprung up, pressed Antonia to his heart, and said, gently and imploringly, 'Don't sing any more, if you love me. It breaks my heart. The fear of it--the fear of it! Don't sing any more.'

"'No,' said Krespel next morning to Dr. M----, 'when, during her singing, her colour contracted to two dark red spots on her white cheeks, it was no longer a mere everyday family likeness--it was what I had been dreading.' The doctor, whose face at the beginning of the conversation had expressed deep anxiety, said, 'Perhaps it may be that she has exerted herself too much in singing when over-young, or her inherited temperament may be the cause. But Antonia has organic disease of the chest. It is that which gives her voice its extraordinary power, and its most remarkable timbre, which is almost beyond the scope of the ordinary human voice. At the same time it implies her early death. If she goes on singing, six months is the utmost I can promise her.' This pierced Krespel's heart like a thousand daggers. It was as if some beautiful tree had suddenly come into his life, all covered with beautiful blossoms, and it was sawn across at the root. His decision was made at once. He told Antonia all. He left it to her to decide whether she would follow her lover, and yield to his and the world's claims on her, and die young, or bestow upon her father, in his declining years, a peace and happiness such as he had never known, and live many a year in so doing.

"She fell sobbing into her father's arms. It was beyond his power to think at such a moment. He felt too keenly all the anguish involved in either alternative. He discussed the matter with B----; but although he asseverated that Antonia should never sing a single note, Krespel knew too well that he never would be able to resist the temptation to hear her sing compositions of his own at all events. Then the world--the musical public--though it knew the true state of the case, would never give up its claims upon her. The musical public is a cruel race; where its own enjoyment is in question, and terrible.

"Krespel disappeared with Antonia from F----, and came to H----. B---- heard with despair of their departure, followed on their track, and arrived at H---- at the same time that they did.

"'Only let me see him once, and then die!' Antonia implored.

"'Die--die!' cried Krespel in the wildest fury. His daughter, the only creature in the wide world who could fire him with a bliss he had never otherwise felt, the only being who had ever made life endurable to him, was tearing herself violently away from him. So the worst might happen, and he would give no sign.

"B---- sat down to the piano, Antonia sang, and Krespel played the violin, till suddenly the dark red spots came to Antonia's cheeks. Then Krespel ordered a halt, but when B---- took his farewell she fell down insensible in a swoon.

"'I thought she was dead,' Krespel said, 'for I quite expected it would kill her; and as I had wound myself up to expect the worst, I kept quite calm and self-possessed. I took hold of B---- by the shoulders (in his frightful consternation he was staring before him like a sheep), and said (here he fell into his singing voice), "My dear Mr. Pianoforte-teacher, now that you have killed the woman you were going to marry by your own deliberate act, perhaps you will be so kind as to take yourself off out of this with as little trouble as you can, unless you choose to stay till I run this little hunting-knife through you, so that my daughter, who, as you see, is looking rather white, may derive a shade or two of colour from that precious blood of yours. Even though you run pretty quick, I could throw a fair sized knife after you." I suppose I must have looked rather terrible as I said this, for B---- dashed away with a scream of terror downstairs, and out of the door.'

"When, after B----'s departure, Krespel went to raise Antonia, who was lying senseless on the floor, she opened her eyes with a profound sigh, but seemed to close them again, as if in death. Krespel then broke out into loud, inconsolable lamentations. The doctor, fetched by the old housekeeper, said that Antonia was suffering from a violent shock, but that there was no danger, and this proved to be the case, and she recovered even more speedily than was to be expected. She now clung to her father with the most devoted filial affection, and entered warmly into all his favourite hobbies, however absurd. She helped him to take old fiddles to pieces, and to put new ones together. 'I won't sing any more. I want to live for you,' she would often say to her father with a gentle smile, when people asked her to sing, and she was obliged to refuse. Krespel endeavoured to spare her those trials, and this was why he avoided taking her into society, and tried to taboo all music. He knew, of course, what a pain it was to her to renounce the art which she had cultivated to such perfection. When he bought the remarkable violin already spoken of--the one which was buried with her--and was going to take it to pieces, Antonia looked at him very sorrowfully, and said, gently imploring him, 'This one, too?' Some indescribable impulse constrained him to leave it untouched, and to play on it. Scarcely had he brought out a few notes from it when Antonia cried, loudly and joyfully, 'Ah! that is I--that is I singing again.' And of a verity its silver bell-like tones had something quite extraordinarily wonderful about them. They sounded as if they came out of a human heart. Krespel was deeply affected. He played more gloriously than ever he had done before. And when, with his fullest power, he would go storming over the strings, in brilliant, sparkling scales and arpeggios, Antonia would clap her hands and cry, delighted, 'Ah! I did that well. I did that splendidly!' Often she would say to him, 'I should like to sing something, father'; and then he would take the fiddle from the wall, and play all her favourite solos, those which she used to sing of old,--and then she was quite happy.

"A short time before I came back, Krespel one night thought he heard some one playing on the piano in the next room, and presently he recognized that it was B----, preluding in his accustomed rather peculiar fashion. He tried to rise from his bed, but some strange heavy weight seemed to lie upon him, fettering him there, so that he could not move. Presently he heard Antonia singing to the piano, in soft whispering tones, which gradually swelled, and swelled to the most pealing fortissimo. Then those marvellous tones took the form of a beautiful, glorious aria which B---- had once written for Antonia, in the religious style of the old masters. Krespel said the state in which he found himself was indescribable, for terrible alarm was in it, and also a bliss such as he had never before known. Suddenly he found himself in the middle of a flood of the most brilliant and dazzling light, and in this light he saw B---- and Antonia holding each other closely embraced, and looking at each other in a rapture of bliss. The tones of the singing and of the accompanying piano went on, although Antonia was not seen to be singing, and B---- was not touching the piano. Here Krespel fell into a species of profound unconsciousness, in which the vision and the music faded and were lost. When he recovered, all that remained was a sense of anxiety and alarm. He hastened into Antonia's room.

"She was lying on the couch, with her eyes, closed, and a heavenly smile on her face, as if she were dreaming of the most exquisite happiness and bliss. But she was dead!"

Whilst Theodore had been telling this tale, Ottmar had been manifesting his impatience nay, his lively repugnance in various ways. Sometimes he would get up and walk about the room, then he would sit down again, and drink glass after glass of the contents of the vase; then he sat down at Theodore's table, and pulled the papers about, till he found an almanac, of which he eagerly turned over the leaves for a time, till at length he laid it down before him, open on the table, with the air of having discovered something in it of the deepest interest and importance.

"Well!" cried Lothair, when Theodore had ended his story; "this is almost too much. You can't bear the idea of the kindly visionary whom Cyprian told us about; you tell us it is dangerous to peep down into those mysterious abysses of nature; you will neither talk about things of the sort, nor hear them talked about, yet you come in upon us with a story which, frightful as it is in its crackiness, is infinitely beyond, at all events, my powers of endurance. What was the gentle, happy, contented Serapion in comparison with this splenetic Krespel--absolutely terrific in his spleneticism? You said we were to be led, gently, from insanity, viâ eccentricity, to ordinary, everyday rationality; and you go on to show us pictures which, if we look at them with any closeness, are enough to drive us clean out of our senses. Cyprian's story was largely tinctured by his own individuality, but yours was so by yours in a far higher degree, for I know that the moment music is in question, you get into a sort of magnetized condition, and see the strangest visions. As is usual with you, you have given your story a strong dash of mystery which, of course, excites and enthrals a listener, as anything out of the common groove will do, be it never so morbid. But there are limits to all things; and it is not right to drive people to the verge of insanity in this gratuitous sort of way. Antonia's story and circumstances, and the mysterious sympathy between her and that ancient violin are very touching, but in a way which makes one's blood curdle, and the finale of the tale produces an inconsolable misery which I cannot but call excessively painful--in fact, I consider it 'abominable.' It is a strong expression; but I really don't see that I can well retract it."

"Are you accusing me," asked Theodore with a smile, "of having harrowed your feelings with a more or less elaborately constructed fiction? I was merely telling you about a strange character, of whom I was reminded by the story of Serapion. I merely related circumstances which actually occurred; and if you think any of them improbable, remember, my dear sir, that it is nearly always the most improbable things that really come to pass."

"Very likely," said Lothair. "Still, that is small excuse for you. You should cither have told us nothing about this horrible Krespel, or (admirable colourist as you are) you should have shown him in more agreeable tints. However, we have had more than enough of that distressful architect, diplomate, and fiddle maker. May he sink Into oblivion? But now, Cyprian, I bend my knee to you. I shall never call you a fanciful spirit-seer again. You have given us a strange proof that reminiscences are very remarkable and mysterious things. All this day you have not been able to get poor Serapion out of your mind, and I see quite clearly that you have been much relieved, and happier, since you told us his story. Now just come and look at this book here, this excellent specimen of the ordinary household almanac, for it contains a key to the whole mystery. This, you see, is the 14th of November. It was on the 14th of November that you found your hermit lying dead in his hut, and though you were not vouchsafed the assistance of a couple of lions to bury him--as Ottmar suggested--and met with no particularly wonderful adventures in the forest, of course you were deeply affected at the sight of your friend, who had passed to his rest so gently. The impression was ineradicable; and it may well be supposed that the spirit within you brought the image of your friend more vividly before you than usual on the anniversary of his death, by some process of which you were unconscious. Do me the kindness, Cyprian, to add a miraculous circumstance or two to your account of Serapion's death, just to enrich the conclusion of it a little."

"When I was leaving the hut," said Cyprian, "the tame deer, which I told you about, came up to me with great tears in its eyes, and the wild doves hovered about me with anxious cries; and as I was approaching the village, to give information of his death, I met some peasants coming with a bier, all ready, who said that when they had heard the hermit's bell tolling at an unusual time they had known that the holy man had laid himself down to die, or was dead already. That is all, dear Lothair, that I have to serve up by way of a subject for your banter."

"Banter, do you say?" cried Lothair, rising. "What do you take me for, O my Cyprianus? Am I not, like Brutus, an honourable man; just and upright; a lover of the truth? Don't I enthusi-ize with the enthusiasts, and phantazize with the phantazizers? Do I not rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with those that weep? Just look here, my Cyprianus! Look once again at this book, this literary production here, crammed with incontrovertible facts, this most excellent specimen of the common, every-day household almanac. At the date '14th November' you find, it is true, the commonplace, every-day name 'Levin.' But cast your eyes upon this 'catholic' column here. There stands, in red letters,

"'SERAPION, MARTYR.'

"Consequently, your Serapion died on the very name-day of the Saint whom he took himself to be! Come; I drink this cup to the memory of Serapion, saint and martyr, and do you all do likewise!"

"'With all my heart!' said Cyprian, and the glasses clinked.

"Looking at the subject all round," said Lothair, "and especially now that Theodore has so thoroughly stirred my bile with that horrible Krespel of his, I am quite reconciled to Cyprian's Serapion. More than that, I honour and reverence his insanity; for none but a grand and genuine poet could have been attacked by a madness of that particular form. I needn't advert to the circumstance--it's an old, well-worn story--that, originally, the same word was used to denote the poet and the seer; but it is certain that we might often doubt just as much of the existence of real poets as of that of genuine seers, recounting in their extasis the wonders of a higher realm; or else why is it that so much poetry, by no means to be termed 'bad' (so far as its form and workmanship are concerned), affects us no more than some pale, faded picture, so that we are not carried away by it at all, and the gorgeousness of its diction only serves to increase the frost which it permeates us with? Why is this, but because the poet has never really seen what he is telling us about: the events and incidents have never appeared to his mental vision, in all their joy, terror, splendour, majesty, gloom, and sadness, inspiring him, and setting him aglow, so that his inward fire blazes forth in words of lightning? It is useless for a poet to set to work to make us believe in a thing which he does not believe in himself, cannot believe in, because he has never really seen it. What can the characters of a poet of this sort--who (according to the old expression) is not at the same time a genuine seer--be but deceptive puppets, glued together out of heterogeneous stuff? Your hermit, dear Cyprian, was a true poet. He had actually seen what he described; and that was why he affected people's hearts and souls. Poor Serapion! Wherein did your madness consist? except that some hostile star had taken away your faculty of discerning that duplexity which is, really, the essential condition of our earthly existence. There is an inner world; and a spiritual faculty of discerning it with absolute clearness, nay, with the most minute and brilliant distinctness. But it is part of our earthly lot that it is the outer world, in which we are encased, which is the lever that brings that spiritual faculty into play. The things of the inner world appear to us only inside the circle which is formed round us by the objects of the outer world, beyond which circle our spirits cannot soar, except in dim mysterious bodings--never; becoming distinct images--that such things exist. But you, happy hermit, lost sight of the outer world, and did not perceive the lever which set your inward faculty in motion; and when, with that gruesome acumen of yours, you declared that it is only the mind which sees, hears, and takes cognizance of events and incidents, and that, as a consequence, whatever the mind takes cognizance of has actually happened, you forgot that it is the outer world which causes the spirit to exercise those functions which, take cognizance. Your life was a constant dream, from which your awaking in another world was assuredly not a painful one. I consecrate this glass to your memory."

"Don't you notice," said Ottmar, "that Lothair is looking quite a different person--thanks to Theodore's admirably compounded beverage, which has driven the evil spirit out of him?"

"Don't ascribe my better mood to the influence of the bowl," said Lothair. "You all know that, till the evil mood has left me, I never can touch wine. The truth is that I have only just begun to feel at ease, and at home, amongst you. The restless, excited state in which I was at first has gone; and as I not only forgive Cyprian for telling us about Serapion, but feel a real affection for him, why, Theodore's horrible 'Krespel' may pass muster as well. But there are a good many things I should like to say to you. We seem to be all agreed that we are a set of rather uncommonly superior people, and we have made up our minds to reconstitute our old alliance; whilst the bustle of this great town, our distance from each other, and the diversity of our occupations tend to keep us apart. Let us determine, then, this evening, the times and places of our weekly meetings. More than that, it cannot but be that, as of old, we shall wish to read to each other such little stories, and so forth, as we may have been writing from time to time. Let us remember Serapion the Hermit in connection with this. Let each of us try, and examine himself well, as to whether he has really seen what he is going to describe before he sets to work to put it in words. At all events, let each of us strive, very strenuously, to get a clear grasp, in his mind, of the picture he is going to produce,--in every one of its forms, colours, lights and shadows, and then, when he feels himself thoroughly permeated and kindled by it, bring it out into outer life. Thus shall our society be established on solid foundations, and be a source of comfort and gratification to us all. Let Serapion the Hermit be our patron saint: may his seer-gift inspire us. His rule we will follow, as true Serapion Brethren."

"Now," said Cyprian, "is not our Lothair the most extraordinary of all extraordinary fellows? At first he was the one who flamed furiously up in opposition to Ottmar's very sensible suggestion that we should meet every week on a certain evening, and dragged in the subject of clubs, without rhyme or reason. And now he is the very one to prove to us that our meetings are a necessity, as well as a pleasure, and to set to work to determine their character, and lay down the rules which are to govern them."

"I certainly did, at first, feel opposed to the idea of there being anything in the shape of formal conditions attached to our meetings," said Lothair, "but I was in a peculiar mood then, which has passed away now. There is no danger of our drifting into Philistinism. Everybody has more on less of a tendency towards it, however sublimely he may strive against it; and perhaps a certain spice of it may not always be an unmitigated evil. However, we needn't bother ourselves about whatever little clouds, of any sort, may rise on our horizon from time to time. The devil is sure to bring some over us, as opportunities offer. Let us discuss the Serapiontic principle. What are your views about it?"

Theodore, Ottmar and Cyprian all thought that their union would have been sure to assume a literary character, of itself, though nothing had been expressly stipulated to that affect,--and at once took the vow of obedience to the rule of Serapion the Hermit, so clearly formulated by Lothair; which, as Theodore pointed out, amounted to this--that they should never vex each other's souls by the production of scamped work.

So they clinked their glasses joyously, and gave each other the fraternal embrace of the true Serapion Brother.

"Midnight," said Ottmar, "is still a long way off, and I think it would be very nice if one of us were to relate something more pleasant and amusing, by way of throwing the melancholy, nay terrible, events we have been dealing with into the background a little. I think it rests properly with Theodore to operate his promised 'Transition to Ordinary Rationality.'"

"If you like," said Theodore, "I will read you a little story which I wrote some time ago, which was suggested to me by a picture. When I saw this picture, I discovered a meaning in it which the painter of it had certainly never dreamt of--could not have dreamt of in fact--because it referred to circumstances in my own early life, which the picture brought strangely back to my memory."

"I sincerely trust there are no mad people in it," said Lothair; "for I have had more than my fill of them already: and I hope it conforms to the rule of our patron saint."

"There are no mad people in it," said Theodore, "but, as to its conformity with Serapiontic rule, I must leave that to the verdict of my worthy brethren, begging them at the same time not to judge me too severely, seeing that my little story was suggested by a light, airy picture, and makes no pretence but to cause a passing moment's entertainment."

With which Theodore produced his manuscript, and began as follows:

"[AN INTERRUPTED CADENCE.]

"In the Berlin autumn Exhibition of 1814, there was a charming picture of Hummel's, called 'A Scene in an Italian Locanda,' which attracted much attention. It was both light and vigorous, and had all the effect of representing a real occurrence. The scene was a garden-arbour, thick with the luxuriant leafage of the South. Two Italian ladies, seated opposite to one another, at a table, with wine and fruit--one of them singing, the other accompanying her on a guitar. Between them, and behind the table, an abbate, standing beating the time, as music-director; his hand was raised, as a conductor's is when a singer is executing a cadenza, watching carefully and anxiously for the precise instant when the singer--evidently warbling out her cadence, with eyes upraised to the sky--should come in with her trillo--her long shake; at the precise termination of which it would be his duty to make his down-beat, on which signal the guitarist should strike in with her chord of the dominant. The abbate, all admiration and intense enjoyment, was watching for the proper instant to made his down-beat as a cat watches a mouse. Not if his life depended on it would he depass that precise instant by a hair's-breadth. Fain would he muzzle every fly, every mosquito, humming about under the leaves. Most distressful to him the approach of the landlord, who had selected that particular moment to come in with more wine. Beyond the arbour, in the middle distance, a shaded alley, with streams of bright sunlight breaking athwart it through the branches; and a man on horseback, drinking a cool draught, served to him by a girl from the locanda.

"Edward and Theodore were standing studying this picture; and Edward said:

"'The more I look at this picture; at that lady singing--not quite so young as she has been, but inspired by genuine artistic enthusiasm--at the pure, intellectual Roman profile, and the magnificent figure of the lady accompanying on the guitar, and at the delicious little abbate beating the time, the more convinced I am that they are portraits of real, living persons. I feel as if I should like to step into that arbour and open one of those delightful wicker-covered flasks that are smiling at me on that table there. I can almost fancy I scent the aroma of the noble wine. And that latter idea must be realised, and not allowed to evaporate in this chill atmosphere. I propose that we go and drink a bottle of real Italian wine, in honour of this charming picture, and of the happy land of Italy, the only country where life is worth living.'

"As Edward so spoke, Theodore was standing silent, sunk in deep reflection.

"'Very well--yes--we may as well,' he answered, like a man waking from a dream. Yet he seemed loth to tear himself away from the picture, and still kept casting longing glances at it when he had mechanically followed his friend to the door.

"It was an easy matter to put Edward's idea into practice. They had only to cross the street to find themselves in the little blue room in the Sala Tarone, with a wicker-covered flask, like those in the picture, on the table before them.

"'You seem, somehow,' said Edward, when they had swallowed two or three glasses of the Italian wine, and Theodore was still sitting silent and thoughtful,--'you seem, somehow, as if that picture had produced a different impression, and a far less pleasant one, on you than on me.'

"'I delight in that picture as much as anybody,' answered Theodore. 'But the extraordinary thing about it is, that it chances to represent a scene in my early life, with the utmost exactness, so that the very characters in it are absolute portraits of the real actors in that scene. You will admit that even pleasant reminiscences affect us strangely when they come bursting in upon us in this utterly unexpected sort of manner, as if evoked by the wand of an enchanter.'

"'What a very extraordinary affair,' said Edward. 'You say this picture represents an incident, in your own life? It seems probable enough that the two ladies and the abbate are likenesses of real people: but that they should ever have had anything to do with you is certainly amazing enough. Do tell me all about it. We are not pressed for time, and nobody is likely to come in and disturb us at this hour of the day.'

"'I should rather like to tell you about it,' said Theodore, 'only I shall have to go a longish way back, to the time when I was a mere boy.'

"Please go on, then, and tell me about it,' said Edward. 'I don't know much about your early life; and if it does take some time in telling we shall only have to send for another bottle of this Italian wine; nobody will be the worse for that, neither we nor Signor Tarone.'

"'Nobody who knows me,' said Theodore, 'need feel any surprise at my having thrown everything else overboard, and devoted myself, body and soul, to the glorious art, music. Even when I was a mere child, music was the only thing I really cared about. I would hammer all day, and all night, too, if people would have allowed me, upon my uncle's old rattle-trap of a piano. Music was at an extremely low ebb in the little place where we lived; there was nobody to give me any instruction but an old, conceited, self-opinionated organist. His music was of the lifeless, mathematical order. He wearied my soul with a lot of ugly gloomy toccatas and fugues. However, I did not let this discourage me, but laboured faithfully on. The old fellow would often gird at me in bitter and unsparing terms; but he had only to sit down and play me something in his severely accurate manner, to reconcile me to life and art in a moment. Often the most wonderful ideas would come into my head on such occasions; many of Sebastian Bach's works, for instance, and they above all others, would fill me with a weird awe, as if they were legends about spirits and enchanters. But a perfect paradise opened upon me when, as happened in winter, the town band gave a concert, assisted by a few local amateurs, and I was allowed to play the kettledrums in the symphony, a favour granted to me on account of the accuracy of my time. It was many a day before I knew what wretched and ludicrous affairs those concerts were. My master, the organist, generally played a couple of pianoforte concertos of Wolff or Emanuel Bach; one of the bandsmen tortured himself--and his hearers--with some violin solo of Stamitz, and the excise officer blew terrifically on a flute, and wasted so much breath in the process, that he kept blowing out the candles on his desk, so that they had to be constantly lighted up again. Nothing in the shape of singing could be accomplished, and this was a source of deep regret to my uncle, a "great" amateur musician. He remembered the days when the choir-masters of the four churches used to sing "Lottchen am Hofe" at the concerts, and he used to refer, with high approbation, to the fine spirit of religious tolerance which actuated those musicians, who laid aside their religious differences, and united in these performances, coming together, irrespective of creed, on a common basis of art. For, besides the Catholic and the Evangelical communities, the Protestants themselves were divided into French and German churches. The French choir-master used to take the part of "Charlotte," and my uncle used to say he sang it--spectacles on nose--in the loveliest falsetto that ever issued from a human throat.

"'There dwelt amongst us, at this period, a certain "court-singer," retired on pension, whose name was Mademoiselle Meibel. She was a demoiselle of some five-and-fifty summers, but my uncle thought it would be only a proper thing if she could be induced to emerge occasionally from her pensioned retirement, so far as to sing a solo now and then at our concerts. After giving herself the proper amount of airs, and saying "no" a sufficient number of times, she graciously yielded, so that we got the length of including an occasional "Aria di Bravura" in our programmes. She was an extraordinary-looking creature, Mademoiselle Meibel. I can see her little wizened figure at this moment as if she were here before my eyes. She used to come forward on to the platform, very grave and dignified, her music in her hand, dressed in nearly all the colours of the rainbow, and make a ceremonious dip of the upper part of her body to the audience. She used to have on a miraculous sort of head-gear, with Italian porcelain flowers stuck on the front of it; and, as she sung, these flowers used to nod and quiver in the oddest fashion. When she ended her solo--received always by the audience with boundless applause--she would hand her music, with a glance of pride, to my master, who was accorded the privilege of dipping his forefinger and thumb into the little box, in the shape of a pug dog, which she at such times produced, and took snuff from with a courtly air. She had a most disagreeable, quavering voice, and introduced all kinds of horrible, vulgar grace-notes and flourishes; and you can imagine the ludicrous effect which this, in combination with her external appearance, produced on me. My uncle was loud in encomiums, but this was incomprehensible to me, and I sided all the more with my organist, who despised all vocal music, and used to mimic old Mademoiselle Meibel in the most entertaining style.

"'The more I coincided with my master in considering all singing to be an inferior province of the musical art, the higher waxed his estimate of my musical endowments. He taught me counterpoint with untiring, indefatigable pains and zeal, and ere long I was able to write the correctest of fugues and toccatas.

"'On my nineteenth birthday, I was playing one of those compositions of mine to my uncle, when the waiter of our principal hotel came in, and announced that two foreign ladies, who had just arrived in the town, were coming to see us.

"Before my uncle had time to throw off his large-flowered dressing-gown and dress himself, the ladies were in upon us.

"You know the electrical effect which any unusual apparition of this sort has upon people who live in small provincial places, but the one which now appeared to me was really such as to produce on me the effect of the wave of some enchanter's wand.

"'Picture to yourself two tall, handsome Italian girls, dressed in the latest fashions, walking up to my uncle, with a combination of artistic ease and charming courtesy of manner, and talking away to him in voices which were extremely loud, and yet remarkably beautiful in tone. What was the curious language they were speaking? Now and then but only now and then it sounded something like German.

"'My uncle didn't understand a word of it. He stepped back, completely nonplussed, and pointed in silence to the sofa; they sat down there and talked to each other. That was real music. Ultimately they managed to explain to my uncle that they were singers on a tour, intended giving some concerts, and had been recommended to apply to him as a person who could assist them in the necessary arrangements. While they had been talking to each other I had gathered their names; Lauretta, who seemed to be the elder of the two, kept talking away to my bewildered uncle, with immense energy and eager gesticulation, glancing about her with beaming eyes the while. Without being to be called "stout," she was luxuriant of figure to a degree which was at that time something wholly novel to my inexperienced--and admiring--eyes. Teresina, taller and slighter, with a long earnest face, spoke, in the intervals, very little, but much more comprehensibly. Every now and then she would smile, in a curious way, as if a good deal amused at the aspect of my poor uncle, who kept shrinking into his flowered dressing-gown as a snail does into its shell, vainly trying to stick away a certain string belonging to his nether garments, which would keep fluttering out every now and then, to the length of an ell or so.

"'At last they rose to go. My uncle had promised to arrange a concert for the next day but one, and he and I (whom he had presented to them as a young virtuoso) were invited to go and take chocolate with the sisters that evening.

"'When the time came, we walked slowly and solemnly up the stairs accordingly. We both felt very queer: somewhat as if we were going forward to undertake some rather perilous adventure, for which we were by no means adequately prepared.

"After my uncle, who had carefully prepared himself beforehand, had spoken much and learnedly about music--(nobody understood a word he said, neither he himself, nor we others)--after I had burnt my tongue, three times, terribly with the scalding chocolate smiling at my tortures with the stoicism of a Scaevola--Lauretta said she would sing something. Teresina took the guitar tuned it, and struck two or three handfuls of chords. I had never heard the instrument before, and was much impressed by the strange, mysterious effect of its hollow vibrations.

"'Lauretta commenced a note, very piano, swelled it out to a ringing fortissimo, and then broke out into a bold warbling cadenza, extending over an octave and a half. I remember the words of the beginning of her aria:--

"Sento l'amica speme."

"'My blood seemed to pause in my veins! I never had had an idea that there could be anything like this, and as Lauretta soared on her bright pinions of song, higher and higher, and as the beams of those beautiful tones shone brighter and brighter upon me, all the music within me--dead and dormant hitherto--caught fire, and blazed on high in glorious and mighty flames.

"'Ah! that was the first time in my life that I ever heard music! Next the sisters sang together, some of those earnest, quiet, deep-drawn duets of Abbate Steffani'e. Teresina's rich, exquisitely beautiful contralto stirred the depths of my soul. I could not keep back my tears, they rolled down my cheeks. My uncle blew his nose a great deal, and cast reproachful looks at me. It was no use; I couldn't control myself. This seemed to please the sisters; they asked about my musical studies. I felt utterly disgusted with all I had done, and declared, in my enthusiasm, that I had never heard music before.

"'"Il buon fanciullo!" said Lauretta, very sweetly and tenderly.

"'When I got home I felt almost out of my mind. I seized all the toccatas and fugues which I had so laboriously carpentered together (as well as forty-five Variations on a Thema in Canon, which the organist had composed for me, and presented to me in a beautifully written MS.), and shied the whole boiling of them into the fire. I laughed sardonically as this mass of double counterpoint crackled and blazed, and went sparkling out into ashes. Then I sat down to the instrument, and tried, first to imitate the guitar, and then to play, and next to sing, the melodies which I had heard the sisters execute. At last, about midnight, my uncle came out of his bedroom crying, "For the love of heaven stop that caterwauling, be off to your bed, and let's try to get some sleep," with which he blew out the lights and left me in the dark. I had nothing for it but obey; but in my dreams I thought I had solved the secret of song, and was singing the "Sento l'Amica Speme" in the most exquisite style myself.

"'Next morning my uncle had got together everybody who could play on string or wind instruments, to a rehearsal in the concert-room, and a proud man he felt himself to be able to turn out such a fine show of performers. The rehearsal was anything but a success, however. Lauretta essayed a grand scena, but we had not got many bars into the recitative when everything was at sixes and sevens; none of the players had the slightest idea of accompanying. Lauretta screamed, stormed, wept, with rage and disgust. The organist was at the piano, and him she attacked with her bitterest objurgations. He rose from his seat, and walked slowly, and with much composure, out at the door. The band-master, at whom she had hurled an "asino tedesco" put his violin under his arm, and cocked his cap martially over one ear; he, too, was making for the door, his men, unscrewing their mouthpieces, and sticking their bows in among their strings, preparing to follow him. Only the amateurs were left, looking at each other, almost with tears in their eyes, the exciseman saying, "Oh, dear me! how very much I do feel a thing of this sort!"

"'But all my natural bashfulness had abandoned me. I stopped the band-master; I entreated and implored him; in the anguish of the moment I promised I would write him six minuets, with double trios each, for the county-ball. I succeeded in pacifying him. He went back to his music-stand; the bandsmen followed his example, and the orchestra was ready to commence operations once more. All except the organist; his place at the piano was vacant. I found him strolling--a calm, contemplative man--up and down in the market-place, by no process whatever to be prevailed upon to cross the threshold of the concert-room any more.

"'Teresina had been looking on at all this, biting her lips to keep back her laughter. Lauretta was now just as conciliatory as she had previously been the contrary. She thanked me most warmly for all I had done. She asked if I could play the piano, and, ere I knew where I was, I found myself occupying the organist's vacant place, with the score before me. Up to this time I had never accompanied a singer, or directed an orchestra. Teresina sat down beside me, and indicated the various tempi to me. Lauretta gave me an encouraging "bravo!" now and then; the orchestra began to understand, and things went better. At the second rehearsal all was clear, and the sensation the sisters produced at the concert was indescribable.

"'There were going to be great doings at the Residenz, on the occasion of the prince's return from abroad, and the sisters were engaged to sing there; in the meantime they decided on remaining in our little town, and giving one or two more concerts. The admiration of the towns-folk for them amounted to a species of insanity. Only old Mdlle. Meibel would take a reflective pinch out of her pug-dog snuff-box, and remark that screeching of that sort was not singing. My organist was no more to be seen, and I by no means regretted his absence. I was the happiest creature on earth. I sat with the sisters all day long, playing their accompaniments, and writing out the parts from the scores for the concerts at the Residenz. Lauretta was my ideal; all her naughty tempers, her artistic outbreaks of fury, impatience with her accompanyist, and so forth, I bore like a lamb. I began to learn Italian, and wrote a canzonetta or two. How I rose to the empyrean when Lauretta sang my compositions, and even praised them! I often felt as if I had never thought and written those things, but as if the ideas streamed out for the first time when she sang them. With Teresina I did not get on so well. She sang very seldom; didn't seem to take much interest in me or my doings, and sometimes gave me the impression of laughing at me behind my back.

"'The time arrived at last when they had to leave us: then it was that I fully realized what Lauretta had become to me, and how impossible it was for me to be parted from her. After she had been unusually smorfiosa with me, she would be kind and caressing, but always in such a fashion that, although my blood would seethe, the coldness which I could feel that she brought to bear upon me was sufficient to prevent me from throwing myself at her feet with passionate avowals of love.

"'I had a pretty fair tenor voice then: it had never had any cultivation, but it was beginning to improve, and I used to sing, with Lauretta, numbers of those tender Italian duets whose name is legion. We were singing one of those duets one day; the time of her departure was at hand--

"Senza di te, ben mio!

Vivere non poss' io."

"'Who could have resisted this? I threw myself at Lauretta's feet, wild with despair.

"'She helped me to rise. "Why should we part, dear friend?" she said. I listened in delighted amazement. She said I had much better go with her and Teresina to the Residenz. If I meant to devote myself to music altogether, I should have to quit my little native town some day or other.

"'Picture to yourself a person who has bidden good-bye to life and hope, and is falling down some black, fathomless abyss; but, at the very instant when he expects the crash which is to dash him in pieces, lo and behold! he is in a beautiful bower of roses, with hundreds of little many-tinted lights dancing round him, and saying, "Darling! you're still alive, you see!" These were my sensations at that moment. To go with them to the Residenz was the one prominent, tangible idea of my life.

"'I shan't weary you by describing how I set about proving to my uncle the absolute necessity of my going to the Residenz--no such very great distance, when all was said. He agreed at last, and said he would go with me! Here was an unexpected baulk to my little plans. I dared not tell him I was going with the ladies; but luckily one of his attacks of bronchitis came to my rescue.

"'I started off in the stage-coach, but got out at the first change of horses, and waited there for the coming of my goddesses. I had plenty of money in my pocket, so that I was able to make all my arrangements. My idea was to escort the ladies on horseback, like a paladin of Romance; so I managed to hire a steed--not particularly grand to look at, but, as his owner assured me, a good serviceable animal,--and at the appointed time I mounted him, and rode out to meet the two cantatrices. Ere long, their little double-seated phæton was seen coming quietly along. The two sisters were on the front seat, and behind sat their maid, little fat Gianna, a brown Neapolitan. The carriage was crammed with all sorts of boxes, band-boxes, portmanteaus, and so forth, and two pug-dogs, on Gianna's lap, yapped at me as I rode up.

"Everything went swimmingly till we got to the last stage from the Residenz, but there my horse was seized with the remarkable idea that he ought to go home to his stable. A conviction that severe measures are seldom effectual in such conjunctures induced me to try every description of mild persuasion that I could think of. The perverse animal was proof against all my gentle remonstrances. I wanted to go forward; he wanted to go back. All that I could accomplish in the circumstances was that, instead of retrograding, he kept describing circles. Teresina leant out of the carriage, laughing most heartily; whilst Lauretta put her hands before her eyes and screamed, as if I were in the utmost danger. I jammed my spurs into the brute's sides, and, ere I could say Jack Robinson, found myself on the broad of my back on the turnpike road, with the horse standing over me, his long neck stretched out, surveying me with an expression of calm derision.

"'I could not get up till the driver got off and helped me. Lauretta, too, got out, and was weeping and screaming. I had twisted one of my feet, and couldn't ride any further. What was to be done? The horse was made fast to the back of the carriage, and I had to squeeze myself inside, as best I could. Just picture to yourself two well-grown young women, a fat maid, a couple of dogs, a dozen or so of baskets, band-boxes, etc., and me in addition, squeezed up in a little two-seated phaeton! Think of Lauretta's lamentations about the want of room; the dogs' yapping; the Neapolitan's chattering, and the horrible pain of my foot, and you will have some idea what a charming position I was in. Teresina declared she could bear it no longer; the driver pulled up, and with one bound she was out of the carriage. She loosed my horse, got on his back, and trotted and curvetted down the road before us. She certainly looked splendid; the grace and distinction which she possessed in an eminent degree were more especially conspicuous on horseback. She made us hand her out her guitar, and, slinging her bridle over her left arm, she sang Spanish ballads as she rode along, striking handfuls of chords in accompaniment. Her silk dress fluttered in shimmering folds, and the white plumes in her hat nodded and quivered, like airy sprites, in time to the music. Her whole effect was romantic beyond expression, and I could not take my eyes away from her; although Lauretta called her absurd, and said she was a silly, forward girl, and had better take care she didn't meet with an accident. However, the horse seemed to have altered his tactics--or perhaps he preferred the lady-singer to the Paladin; at all events, it was not till we were close to the gates of the Residenz that Teresina clambered back into the carriage again.

"'Imagine me now deliciously up to my eyes in concerts, operas, and music of every description, passing my days and hours at the piano, whilst arias, duets, and I don't know all what, are being studied and rehearsed. From the total change in my outward man you gather that I am permeated and inspired by a spirit of might. All the provincial bashfulness is gone. I sit at the piano, a maestro, with the score before me, conducting my donna's scenas. My whole soul and existence is centred in melody. With the utmost contempt for counterpoint, I write quantities of canzonettas and arias, which Lauretta sings--only in private, however. Why won't she ever sing anything of mine at a concert? I can't make this out. Teresina sometimes dawns on my memory, curvetting with her lyre on her charger, like some incarnation of music; and, spite of myself, I write loftier and more serious strains when I think of this. Lauretta, no doubt, sports and plays with the notes like some fairy-queen. What does she ever attempt in which she does not succeed? Teresina never attempts a roulade; a simple appoggiatura or so, in the antique style, is the utmost that she ventures upon; but those long, sustained notes of hers shine through the dim background, and wonderful spirits arise, and gaze, with their earnest eyes, deep into the breast. I don't know why mine was so long before it opened to them.

"'The sisters' benefit-concert came off at length. Lauretta was singing a great scena of Anfossi's. I was, of course, at the piano as usual. We had arrived at her final "pause," where her grand cadenza ad libitum had to come in. It was a question of showing what she really could do. Nightingale trills went warbling up and down; then came long holding-notes; then all kinds of florid passages--a regular solfeggio; even I thought the affair was being kept up too long. Suddenly I felt a breath. Teresina was standing close behind me; Lauretta was just pulling herself together to begin her long, swelling harmonica shake, which was to lead back to the a-tempo. Some demon took possession of me. I crashed down the chord of the dominant with both hands; the orchestra followed me; and there was an end of Lauretta's trillo, just at the supreme moment when it ought to have set the audience in furore.

"'Lauretta, with a glare of fury at me, which went through me like a two-edged sword, tore her music in pieces, and sent it flying about my ears; then rushed away like a mad creature, through the orchestra, into the ante-room. As soon as the tutti was finished, I hastened after her. She was sobbing and raving. "Don't come near me, you malignant fiend!" she screamed: "you have blasted my career for ever; how can I ever look an audience in the face again? You have robbed me of my name, and fame, and, oh, of my trillo! Out of my sight;" she made a rush at me, but I slipped deftly out of the door. During the concerto--which somebody or other played--Teresina and the Kapellmeister succeeded in so far pacifying her as to induce her to appear again--but not with me at the piano--and in the concluding duet, which the sisters sung, Lauretta did actually introduce the harmonica shake, was tremendously applauded, and got into the most delightful temper imaginable.

"'I, however, couldn't get over the style in which I had been treated before so many strangers; and I had quite made up my mind to be off back to my native town again the following morning. In fact I was packing up, when Teresina came into my room. When she saw what was going on, she was thunderstruck. "You going to leave us?" she cried. I said that after the way in which Lauretta had behaved to me, I could not possibly stay.

"'"Then the hasty, petulant outburst of a foolish girl, which she is heartily ashamed of and sorry for, is going to drive you away; where else could you carry on your artistic life so happily? It rests entirely with you to cure Lauretta of those tempers of hers. You are too good to her, and let her have her own way far too much. You have too high an opinion of her altogether. She has a very fair voice, and an enormous compass, no doubt. But all those fioriture, those everlasting scales and passages, and nightingale trills of hers, what are they but dazzling tricks, more like what an acrobat does on the tight-rope than anything else? Can such things possibly touch the heart? The harmonica shake, which you wouldn't let her bring in, is a thing which I detest! it makes me feel quite ill. Then all that clambering up among the ledger-line notes, isn't it a mere, unnatural forcing of the proper voice--the real voice--the only voice that touches the listener? What I admire are the middle and lower registers. A tone which goes to the heart, a genuine portamento di voce, I prefer to everything else. None of those meaningless embellimenti--a firm, steady, full utterance of the note--something like decision and accuracy of intonation; that is real singing, and that is how I sing myself. If you can't bear Lauretta longer, don't forget that there is Teresina, who is your devoted friend: and you can be my maestro and composer quite in your own special style. Don't be vexed with me, but all your florid canzonettas and arias are nothing in comparison with the one."

"'Teresina sang, in her rich pathetic tones, a simple canzone in church style which I had written a few days before. Never could I have imagined that it could ever possibly have sounded like that. Tears of rapture rolled down my cheeks: I seized her hand, and pressed it to my lips a thousand times: I vowed that nothing on earth should ever part us.

"'Lauretta looked upon my alliance with Teresina with angry jealousy, which she concealed as best she could. I was indispensable to her at the time; because, clever as her singing was, she couldn't learn anything new without assistance. She was a wretched hand at reading, and extremely shaky over her time. Teresina could read everything at sight, and the accuracy of her time was incomparable. Lauretta's tempers and caprices never came out in such full force as when she was being accompanied. The accompaniment never pleased her. She looked upon it in the light of a necessary evil, she wanted the piano to be barely audible, always pianissimo. She was always dragging and altering the time, every bar different, just as she happened to take it in her head at the moment. I set to work to resist this firmly. I combatted those evil habits of hers; I showed her that there must be a certain energy about an accompaniment, that breadth of phrasing was one thing, and meaningless dragging quite another. Teresina backed me up staunchly. I gave up writing everything but the church style, and gave all the solos to the contralto voice. Teresina dragooned me pretty smartly, too; but I didn't mind that. She knew more than Lauretta, and I thought she had more feeling for German music.

"'When we were in a certain little town in the south of Germany, we met with an Italian tenor on his way from Milan to Vienna. My ladies were charmed to meet with a fellow-countryman. He was continually with them. Teresina was the one whom he chiefly devoted himself to, and, to my no small disgust, I found myself quite playing second fiddle. One morning, as I was just going into their room, with a score under my arm, I heard an animated conversation going on between my ladies and the tenor. My own name struck my ear, and I listened with might and main. I knew enough Italian to catch every word that was said. Lauretta was relating the terrible story of the concert when I cut her out of her shake by striking my chord too soon.

"'"Asino tedesco!" cried the tenor. I felt inclined to go and chuck the vapouring stage-hero out of the window; but I restrained myself. Lauretta went on to say that she would have got rid of me on the spot, but that I had implored her to let me stay, and she had done so, out of compassion, as I was going to take singing-lessons from her. Teresina confirmed this, to my no small amazement. "He is a nice boy, enough," she added. "He is in love with me just now, and writes all his solos for the contralto. There is a certain amount of talent in him, if he could get rid of the stiffness and awkwardness which all Germans have. I am in hopes I may make a composer of him who may write some good things for the contralto: there is so little written for it that is worth very much. He is dreadfully wearisome with his everlasting sighings and devotion, and torments me fearfully with his compositions, which are poor enough as yet."

"'"Thank goodness, I am quit of him," cried Lauretta, "You know, Teresina, how he used to torture me with his arias and duettos," and she began a duet of mine, which she had highly praised formerly. Teresina took the second voice, and they both caricatured me most unmercifully. The tenor laughed till the room re-echoed. I felt a stream of icy water running down my back, my mind was thoroughly made up. I slipped back to my own room as quietly as I could. Its windows looked out into the side-street--the post-office was just over the way, and the Bamberg coach was drawing up to take in the mail-bags. The passengers were collecting at the gate, but I had still the best part of an hour before me. I got my things together as quickly as I could--magnanimously paid the whole of the hotel bill, and was off to the coach. As I went along the High Street, I saw my ladies looking out at the window, with the tenor, at the sound of the horn. But I kept well out of sight in the background, and pictured to myself, with deep delight, the crushing effect of the scathing letter which I had left for them.

"'Here Theodore slowly savoured, with intense gusto, the last drops of the glowing Eleatic which Edward had poured out for him.

"'"I shouldn't have expected Teresina to have behaved as she did," said Edward, opening a fresh bottle, and shaking away the drop or two of oil on the surface like one accustomed to that operation. "I can't forget the pretty picture of her caracoling along on horseback, singing Spanish songs."

"'That was her culminating point,' said Theodore. 'I remember as distinctly as possible the impression that made upon me. I forgot the pain of my foot. She looked like some creature of a higher sphere. A moment of that sort makes a tremendous impression upon one sometimes. Things sometimes put on a form, in an instant, which no lapse of time can change. If ever, since then, I have been unusually happy in the subject of some bold, spirited romanza, you may be sure I had that scene, and Teresina, vividly before my mind.'

"'"We mustn't forget the clever Lauretta, either," said Edward. "I vote that we let bygones be bygones, and drink to both the sisters." Which they did.

"'Ah!' said Theodore, 'how the perfumes of exquisite Italy breathe upon one out of this wine. One's blood seems to course through one's veins with threefold vigour. Oh, why had I to leave that glorious country so soon!'

"'"So far, though," said Edward, "I see no connection between what you have been telling me and the picture; so I suppose there is more about the sisters yet to come. Of course I see that the ladies in the picture are no other than Lauretta and Teresina."

"'Yes,' said Theodore. 'And my longing sighs for Italy form a good-enough introduction to what there remains for me to say. A short time before I had to leave Rome, the year before last, I went for a little excursion into the country, on horseback. I came to a locanda, where I saw a nice-looking girl, and I thought it would be a good thing to get her to bring me a flagon of good wine. I drew up at the door in the shaded alley, the bright sunlight breaking athwart it through the branches. I heard singing, and a guitar, somewhere near. I listened attentively, for the voices of the singers affected me strangely; dim reminiscences stirred within me, but were slow to take definite form. I got off my horse, and slowly drew nearer to the vine-covered arbour where the music was going on. The second voice had stopped; the first was singing a canzonetta alone; the singer was in the middle of an elaborate cadenza, it went warbling up and down, till at last she began a long holding-note, and then, all at once, a woman's voice broke out in a fury, with curses, execrations and reproaches. A man was heard protesting, another man laughing, whilst a second woman's voice joined in the mêlée. Wilder and wilder raged the storm, with true Italian rabbia. At last, just as I came up to the arbour, out flew an abbate, nearly knocking me down. He looked up at me, and I saw that he was none other than my good friend Signor Ludovico, my regular news-purveyor, from Rome. "What, in the name of Heaven----" I cried. "Ah, Signor Maestro! Signor Maestro!" he cried, "save me! rescue me! protect me from this mad creature--this crocodile, this tiger, this hyena--this devil of a girl! It is true I was beating the time to that canzonetta of Anfossi's, and I came in too soon with my down-beat, right in the middle of her pause-note, and cut her out of her trillo. Why did I look at her eyes, goddess of the infernal regions that she is? The devil take all pause-notes!"

"'In most unusual excitement I hastened into the arbour, and at the first glance, recognised Lauretta and Teresina. Lauretta was still screaming and raging, Teresina talking violently into her face; the landlord was looking on with a face of amusement, whilst a girl was putting fresh flasks of wine on the table.

"'The moment that the singers set eyes on me they threw themselves about my neck and overwhelmed me with the affectionateness of their reception. "Ah, Signor Teodoro, Signor Teodoro," all our little differences were forgotten. "This," said Lauretta to the Abbate, "is a composer who has all the grace and melody of the Italians combined with the science of the Germans." And both the sisters, taking the words out of each other's mouths, told him all about the happy days we had spent together, my profound musical knowledge, even as a boy, our practisings, and the excellence of my compositions. Never had they really cared to sing anything but works of mine. Presently Teresina told me she had got an engagement at an important theatre for the next Carnival, but meant to make it a condition that I should be commissioned to write at least one tragic opera; since, of course, opera seria was my real line, etc., etc. Lauretta, again, said it would be too bad if I didn't follow my special bent for the florid and sparkling style--for opera buffa, in fact: that she had got an engagement as prima donna in that line, and that, as a matter of course, nobody but I should write the operas in which she should appear. You can imagine how strange it felt to be with them again; and you see, now, that the scene and all the circumstances are exactly those of Hummel's picture.

"'"But didn't they say anything about the circumstances of your parting, or that scathing letter of yours?" asked Edward.

"Not a syllable,' said Theodore. 'Neither did I. I had long forgotten my annoyance, and remembered my affair with the sisters as a mere piece of fun nothing more. The only thing I did was to tell the Abbate how, many years ago, a similar misadventure had befallen me, and that in an aria of Anfossi's too. I incorporated in my story an account of all that had happened during the time that the sisters and I had spent together, delivering a swashing side-blow, now and then, just to show the considerable increment of "calibre" which a few years of artistic experience had endowed me with. "And," said I in conclusion, "it was a very lucky thing that I did come in too soon with that down-beat of mine. No doubt it was fore-ordained from all eternity; and I have little doubt that, if I hadn't interrupted Lauretta as I did then, I should have been sitting playing pianoforte accompaniments to this hour."

"'"But, Signer," said the Abbate, "what maestro can lay down laws to a prima donna? And then, your crime was far more heinous than mine. You were in a concert-room. I was only in this arbour here, merely playing the maestro. What did it matter about my down-beat? If those beautiful eyes of hers hadn't bewitched me, I shouldn't have made an ass of myself as I did." The Abbate's last words worked like magic. Lauretta's eyes, which had begun to dart angry lightnings, beamed softly again.

"'We spent that evening together. It was fourteen years since we had met, and fourteen years cause many changes. Lauretta was by no means as young as she had been, but she had not lost all her attractiveness. Teresina had worn better, and still retained her beautiful figure. They dressed in much the same style as of old, and had all their former ways: that's to say, their dress and manners were fourteen years younger than themselves. At my request, Teresina sang some of those earnest, serious arias which had impressed me so much in early days, but they did not seem to be quite what my memory had represented them. And it was the same with Lauretta's singing: though her voice had fallen off little, either in power or in compass, still it was different from the singing which lived in my memory as hers; and this attempt to compare a mental idea with the not altogether satisfactory reality, untuned me even more than the sisters' behaviour--their pretended ecstasy, their coarse admiration (which at the same time took the form of a generous patronage) had done at the beginning. But the droll little Abbate--who was playing the amoroso to both the sisters at once, in the most sugary manner--and the good wine (of which we had a fair share) gave me my good humour back at length, so that we all enjoyed our evening. The sisters invited me, in the most pressing manner, to go and see them, so that we might talk over the parts I was to compose for them; however I left Rome without ever seeing them again.

"'"Still," said Edward, "you have to thank them for awaking the music within you."

"'Undoubtedly,' answered Theodore, 'and for a quantity of good melodies into the bargain; but that is exactly the reason why I never should have seen them again. No doubt every composer can remember some particular occasion when some powerful impression was made on him, which time never effaces. The spirit which dwells in music spoke, and the spirit en rapport with it within the composer awoke at that creative fiat; it flamed up with might, and could never be extinguished again. It is certain that all the melodies which we produce under an impulse of this sort seem to belong only to the singer who cast the first spark into us. We hear her, and merely write down what she has sung; but it is the lot of us feeble earthly creatures, clamped to the dust as we are, to long and strive to bring down whatever we can of the super-earthly into the wretched little bit of earthly life in which we are cribbed up. And thus the singer becomes our beloved--perhaps our wife! The spell is broken; our inward melody, with its message, or gospel of glory, turns to a squabble about a broken soup-plate, or a row about an ink-mark on one's new shirt. That composer is a happy man who never again, in this earthly life, sees Her who, with mystic power, kindled the music within him. He may rage, and mourn, poor boy! when his beautiful enchantress has left him; but she has been transformed to everlasting Music, glorious and divine, which lives on in eternal beauty and youth; and out of it are born the melodies which are Her only, and Her again and again. What is she but his highest ideal, reflected from him on to herself?

"'"Curious, but pretty plausible," said Edward, as the friends, arm-in-arm, walked out of the Sala Tarone into the street.'"

It was admitted that, if Theodore's story might not satisfy all the necessary conditions, it came near enough to be passed as "Serapiontic." Ottmar said, "Your story, dear Theodore, has this effect, that it brings vividly to mind all your devoted labours at music. Each of us wished to draw you into a different province of it. While Lothair thought your instrumental writings your best, I thought your forte was comic opera. Cyprian wanted you to do 'things unattempted yet,' by putting music to (what he will now admit were) poems completely beyond all recognised forms and rules; and you yourself cared only for the serious ecclesiastical style. Well, as things stand at present, the opera tragica may probably be considered, the highest goal at which a composer can aim, and I can't understand why you haven't set to work at one long ago; you would surely have turned out something very superior in that line."

"And whose fault is it that I have not?" said Theodore, "but your own, and Cyprian's, and Lothair's? Could I ever succeed in inducing either of you to write me a libretto, with all my entreaties?"

"Marvellous fellow!" said Cyprian, "haven't I argued for hours and days with you about opera-texts? Haven't you rejected the finest ideas, on the ground that they were not adapted for music? Didn't you insist, at last, like an extraordinary fellow as you are, that I should regularly set to work to study music, so as to be able to understand, and comply with your requirements? So that I should have had to say good-bye to all idea of writing poetry, seeing that, like all professional writers, Kapellmeisters, and music-directors, you cleave to the established musical forms, and won't abandon them by so much as a hair's breadth."

"What I can't understand," said Lothair, "is, why Theodore, with his command of language and poetical expression, doesn't write librettos for himself? Why should we have to learn to be musicians, and expend our poetical powers, merely to produce a sort of block, or lay figure, for him to give life and motion to? Is it not principally because composers are usually one-sided people, without enough general education, that they require other folks to help them to do their own work? Are perfect unity of text and music conceivable, except when poet and composer are one and the same person?"

"All that sounds astonishingly plausible," said Theodore, "and yet it is utterly and completely untrue. I maintain that it is wholly impossible that any one person can write a work, the words and the music of which shall both be excellent."

"You composers," said Lothair, "get that idea into your heads either because you are absurdly unenergetic, or constitutionally indolent. The notion of having to go through the labour of writing the words before you can set to work at the music is so disagreeable to you that you can't bring yourselves to face it; but my belief is that, to a really inspired composer, the words and the music would occur simultaneously."

"You are rather driving me into a corner," said Theodore, "so instead of carrying on this argument, I shall ask you to let me read you a dialogue about the necessary conditions, or essentials of opera, which I wrote several years ago that eventful period which we have passed through was then only beginning. I thought my artistic existence seriously menaced, and I fell into a state of despondency, which was probably partly the result of bad health. At this time I made a Serapiontic friend, who had abandoned the pen for the sword. He cheered me in my despondency, and forced me to throw myself into the full current of the events of that stirring time." Without further introduction, Theodore at once began:--

"[THE POET AND THE COMPOSER.]

"The enemy was before the gates. Heavy guns were thundering in every direction, and shells were hurtling through the air; the people of the town were running, with white faces, into their houses, and the empty streets rang to the tramp of the cavalry patrols that were cantering along through them, and driving, with threats and curses, such of the soldiers as were loitering, or had fallen out of the ranks from any cause, forward into the trenches. But Ludwig sat on, in his back room, sunk and lost in the lovely, glorious vision-world which had opened upon him at his piano. For he had just completed a symphony, in which he had tried to write down, in notes to be seen and read, what he had heard and seen within him; a work which, like Beethoven's colossal ones in that kind, should tell, in heavenly language, of the glorious wonders of that far-off, romantic realm where life is all unspeakable, blissful, longing. Like his marvellous creations, it was to come from that far-off realm, into this little, arid, thirsty world of ours, and, with beautiful, syren-accents, lure away from it those who should list, and give ear to its charming. But the landlady came in and rated him for sitting at his piano in that time of danger and distress; asking him if he meant to stay in his garret and be shot. At first he didn't understand what the woman was talking about, till a fragment of a shell knocked a piece of the roof off, and the broken panes of the window went clattering down upon the floor. Then the landlady ran down-stairs weeping and screaming; and Ludwig, taking his most precious possession, the score of his symphony, under his arm, hastened after her to the cellar. The inhabitants of the house were all assembled there. In an access of liberality very unusual with him, the wine-shop keeper, who occupied the lower story, had 'stood' a dozen or so of his best wine; whilst the women, in fear and trembling, brought numerous tit-bits in their work-baskets. People ate and drank, and quickly passed from their condition of exaltation and excitement to that confidential frame of mind in which neighbour, drawing close to neighbour, seeks, and thinks he finds security; and, so to say, all the petty, artificial pas which we have been taught by conventionality are whelmed and merged in the great colossal waltz-whirl, to which the iron hand of destiny beats the resistless measure. The trouble and danger--the risk to life and limb--were forgotten; cheerful conversation was the order of the day; animated lips uttered brilliant speeches, and fellow-lodgers, who barely touched a hat to each other at ordinary times as they met on the stairs, were seated side by side, confiding to each other their most confidential affairs.

"The firing began to slacken a good deal, and there was talk of going up-stairs again, as the streets seemed to be getting pretty safe. An ex-Militaire, who was present, went further; and, after a few instructive observations concerning the system of fortification practised by the Romans, and the effect of the catapult (with a passing allusion or two to Vauban, and more modern times), was just proving to us that we had no cause for the slightest uneasiness, because the house was completely out of the line of fire, when a shot sent the bricks of the cellar-ventilator rattling down about our ears. No one was hurt, however; and, as the Militaire jumped, with a brimming bumper in his hand, on to the table (which the falling bricks had cleared of the bottles), and defied any other shot to trouble us, we were all quite reassured at once; and this proved to be our last scare. The night passed away quietly, and, in the morning, we found that the troops had moved off to occupy another position, abandoning the town to the enemy. On leaving the cellar, we found the enemy's cavalry scouring the streets, and a placard posted up guaranteeing that the townsfolk and their property should not be molested.

"Ludwig joined the throng, eager to see the new spectacle, which was watching the arrival of the enemy's commander-in-chief, who was coming in at the gate, with a pompous fanfare of trumpets, surrounded by a brilliant escort. Scarcely could he believe his eyes when he saw his old college-friend Ferdinand among the staff, in a quiet-looking uniform, with his left arm in a sling, curvetting close past him on a beautiful sorrel charger. 'It was he--it was really and truly himself and no other!' Ludwig cried involuntarily. He couldn't overtake him, his horse was going too fast, and Ludwig hastened, full of thought, back to his room. But he couldn't get on with any work; he could think of nothing but his old friend, whom he had not seen for years; and the happy days of youth which they had spent together rose to his memory bright and clear. At that time Ferdinand had never shown any turn for soldiering: he was devoted to the Muses, and had evinced his poetic vocation in many a striking poem; so that this transformation was all the more incomprehensible; and Ludwig burned with anxiety to speak with him, though he had no notion where or how he should find him. The bustle and movement in the streets increased; a considerable portion of the enemy's forces, with the Allied Princes at their head, passed through the town, as a halt was to be made in the neighbourhood for a day or two; and the greater the crowd about headquarters the less chance there seemed of encountering Ferdinand. But suddenly, in an out-of-the-way café, where Ludwig was in the habit of going for his frugal dinner, Ferdinand came up to him with a cry of delight.

"Ludwig was silent, for a certain feeling of discomfort embittered, for him, this longed-for meeting. It was, as it often is in dreams, when, just as we are going to put our arms about people whom we love, they suddenly change into something else, and the whole thing becomes a mockery, Here was the gentle son of the Muses, the writer of many a romantic lay which Ludwig had clothed in music, in a nodding plume, with a clanking sword at his side, and even his voice transformed to a harsh, rough tone of command. Ludwig's gloomy glance rested on the wounded arm, and upon the decoration, the cross of honour, on his breast. But Ferdinand put his arm round him and pressed him to his side.

"'I know what you are thinking,' he said; 'I understand what you feel at this meeting of ours. But the Fatherland called me; I could not hesitate to obey. My hand, which had only wielded the pen, took up the sword, with the joy, with the enthusiasm, which the holy cause has kindled in every breast which is not stamped with the seal of cowardice. I have given some of my blood already; and the mere accident that this happened under the Prince's eyes has gained me this cross. But, believe me, Ludwig, the strings which vibrated in me of old, and whose tones have so often spoken to you, are all whole and uninjured still; and many a night, when, after some fierce engagement, the troopers have been sleeping round the fire of the bivouac on some lonely picquet, I have written poems which have elevated me and inspired me in my glorious duty of fighting for Honour and Freedom.'

"Ludwig's heart opened at these words; and when Ferdinand went with him into a small private room, and took off his sword and helmet, he felt as if his friend had only been dressed to act a part, and had taken off his stage-costume.

"As they dined and talked over the old days they began to feel as if they had only parted yesterday. Ferdinand asked what Ludwig had been composing lately, and was much astonished to learn that he had never written an opera, because he never had been able to meet with a libretto to his satisfaction--one that could inspire him with music.

"'I can't understand,' said Ferdinand, 'why you haven't written a Libretto long ago yourself. You have a very vivid imagination, and a fine command of language.'

"Ludwig. 'Yes, I have imagination enough to invent plenty of good plots. Indeed, often, when at night a slight headache keeps me in that dreamy condition which is like a struggle between sleeping and waking, I not only think of splendid subjects for operas, but see and hear them being performed, to my own music. But, so far as the faculty of retaining them and writing them down is concerned, my belief is that I am wholly without it. And in fact it is scarcely to be expected of us composers that we should acquire that technical, mechanical skill (which is necessary to success in every art, and only comes by constant perseverance and long practice) which would enable us to write our own librettos. But even if I had the skill to write out a plot, properly arranged in lines, scenes, etc., I scarcely think I should set to work to do it for myself.'

"Ferdinand. 'But then nobody could so thoroughly understand your special musical tendencies as yourself.'

"Ludwig. 'That, I daresay, may be true enough. Still, I can't help thinking that a composer who should sit down to put the idea of a plot, which had occurred to him, into the words would be something like a painter who should be called upon to make a minute etching, or a line-engraving, of his picture before setting to work to draw it and colour it.'

"Ferdinand. 'You mean that the necessary fire would smoulder out during the process of versifying?'

"Ludwig. 'I think it would. My poetry would seem trashy, to myself; something like the cases of rockets which had fallen down, charred and empty, after rushing all resplendent up to the skies. To me it appears that in no art so much as in music is it so essential that the entirety of the subject involved, with all its parts, down to the minutest detail, should be grasped by the mind at first, in its earliest, glowing outburst; because in no other is subsequent polishing and altering so hurtful. I am convinced, by my own experience, that the melody which comes to you, as at the wave of an enchanter's wand, the first time you read the words of a poem, is always the best--nay, probably the only really right one (for that particular composer at all events), to put to it. It would be impossible for a composer not to think of the music called for by the situation, while he was writing down the words. Indeed he would be thinking so much of it that he could not give the necessary attention to the words, and if he forced himself to do so the river of the music would soon dry up, as if sucked in by thirsty sands. Nay, to express my meaning more clearly, I will say that, at the moment of his musical inspiration, all words, all verbal expressions, would appear insufficient to him, nay flat, and miserably inadequate; and it would be necessary for him to come down to a lower level, to go, like a beggar asking for alms, in quest of those words, necessities of the lower requirements of his existence. Would not his wings soon be paralysed, like a caged eagle's, so that he would try to soar sunwards in vain?'

"Ferdinand. 'One listens to all this, of course; but do you know, my dear friend, that what you say does not so much convince me as it seems to indicate your own personal repugnance to working your way, laboriously, through all the necessary scenas, arias, duettos, etc., till you get to the point of composing the music.'

"Ludwig. 'Perhaps; but I renew an old reproach. Why, in the days when you and I were living in such constant intimacy, would you never write me a libretto, eagerly as I begged you to do so?'

"Ferdinand. 'Because I think it the most thankless labour imaginable. You must allow that no demands could be more exacting than those which you composers make upon us; and if you say that a musician can't be expected to acquire the technical skill which the mechanical part of poetry-writing demands, I, again, think that it is too much to expect of a poet that he should be continually harassing himself about the precise structure of your terzettes, quartettes, finales, etc., so as not to run the risk of transgressing against some of those forms, which you look upon--Heaven knows why--as so many matters fixed and established for ever and ever, like the laws of the Medes and Persians. After we have expended our best efforts with extremity of mental tension, in trying to apprehend all the situations of our story in a true poetical spirit, and to express them in the most eloquent language, and the smoothest and most finished versification, it is quite terrible how you run your pens through our finest lines, in the most relentless manner, and spoil our happiest ideas and expressions, by inverting them, or altering them, or drowning them in the music. I say this merely with reference to the uselessness of spending time and labour on elaborate finish. But then, many admirable plots, which have occurred to us in our poetic inspiration, and which we bring to you, all pride, expecting you to be delighted with them, you reject in a moment, as being unsuitable, and unworthy to be clothed in music. But this must often be sheer caprice, or I don't know what else it can be; because you often set to work upon texts which are absolutely wretched and----'

"Ludwig. 'Stop a moment, my dear friend! Of course there are composers who have as little idea of music as many rhyme-spinners have of poetry, and they have often put notes to plots which really are wretched, in all respects. But real composers, who live and move and have their being in true, glorious, heavenly Music, always choose poetic texts.'

"Ferdinand. 'Do you say so of Mozart?'

"Ludwig. 'Mozart--however paradoxical it may appear to you--never chose any but poetic texts for his classical operas. But, leaving that on one side for the moment, my opinion is that it is always quite easy to know what sort of plot is adapted for an opera, so that the poet need never be in any danger of making any mistake about it.'

"Ferdinand. 'I must confess I never have really gone into this: and indeed I know so little about music that I don't suppose it would have been of much consequence if I had.'

"Ludwig. 'If by the expression "knowing about music" you mean being thoroughly versed in the so-called "school routine" of music, there is no necessity for your being that, to be able to know what composers require. It is quite easy, altogether apart from the school routine, so to comprehend, and have within one, the true essence of music as to be, in this sense, a much better musician than a person who, after studying the whole, extensive school-routine in the sweat of his forehead, and labouring through all its manifold, intricate mazes and labyrinths, worships its lifeless rules and regulations as a self-manufactured Fetish, in place of the living Spirit: and whom this Idol-cult excludes from the happiness of the higher realm of bliss.'

"Ferdinand. 'Then you think the poet might enter into this inner sanctum without the preliminary initiation of the "school"?'

"Ludwig. 'I do, certainly. And I say that, in that far-off realm which we often feel,--so dimly, but so unmistakeably,--to be so close about us, whence marvellous voices sound to us, awakening all the tones which are sleeping in our hearts, cabined, cribbed, confined, so that those tones, awakened and set free, dart aloft in fiery streams, gladsome and happy, and we taste of the bliss of that paradise whence the voices come--I say that, in that far-off realm, the Poet and the Musician are intimately-allied members of one and the same Church: for the "secret" of poetry and of music is one and the same, and opens to both the portals of the Inner Sanctuary.'

"Ferdinand. 'I hear my dear old Ludwig trying to formulate the laws of art in dim and mystic phrases; and I must say, that the gulf which seemed to lie between poet and composer, begins to look much narrower than it did.'

"Ludwig. 'Let me try to express my idea about the true essentials of Opera in as few words as possible. A proper opera, in my opinion, is one in which the music springs directly out of the poem, as a necessary sequence, or consequence.'

"Ferdinand. 'I don't quite understand that, as yet.'

"Ludwig. 'Is not music the mysterious language of a higher spirit-realm, whose wondrous accents make their way into our souls, awaking in them a higher Intensivity of life? All passions contend together, shimmering in bright armour, and then merge and sink into an ineffable longing which fills our being. This is the effect (not, perhaps, to be more clearly expressed in words) of Instrumental music. But Music, to enter wholly into our lives, must take those visions of hers which she thus brings with her, and, clothing them in words and actions, speak to us of particular passions and events. Very well! Can the vulgar and the common-place be spoken of in those accents of glory? Can Music tell us of anything other than the wonders and the mysteries of that realm from whence she comes to us with those magic tones of hers? Let the poet equip himself for a bold flight into the land of romance. There he will find the Marvellous, which it is for him to bring into this work-a-day world, so living and glowing in brilliant colouring that we accept it as true without hesitation. So that--as if carried out of this arid every-day life in some blissful dream--we go wandering along the flowery paths of that happy country, and, forgetting everything else for the time, understand its language--which is what the mighty voice of Music speaks.'

"Ferdinand. 'Then it is the Romantic Opera, with its fairies and spirits, its prodigies and transformations, that you would adhere to, exclusively?'

"Ludwig. 'I certainly think the Romantic Opera the only perfect kind, because it is only in the realm of the Romantic that music is at home. Of course you will understand that I profoundly despise that miserable class of productions in which silly, unspiritual spirits appear, and where wonders are heaped upon wonders, without rhyme or reason, merely for the delectation of the eyes of the musical groundlings. It is only a poet of true genius who can write the book of a proper Romantic Opera; for none other can bring the wonders of the Spirits-World into this life of ours. On his wings we soar across the gulf which divides us from it. We grow to feel at home in that strange land; we give belief to the marvels which, as necessary results of the influence of higher natures on our personality, we see taking place; and we comprehend all the powerful incidents and situations which fill us with awe and horror, and also with the highest rapture. It is, in one word, the magical power of Poetical Truth which the poet who would represent those marvels must have at his command; for it is that alone which can carry us away: and a mere collection of meaningless fairies, who (as is the case in so many productions of the kind) are introduced only to dance about the pagliasso in flesh-coloured skin-tights,--foolish absurdities as they are,--will always leave us indifferent and uninterested. In an opera the effect produced upon us by the influence of higher beings should take place visibly, so as to display before our eyes a romantic life, or condition of existence, in which the language, too, is more highly potentiated; or rather, is derived from that distant realm: in other words, is sung music: ay! where the scenes and incidents, too, hovering and soaring about in grand and beautiful tones, and masses of tones, seize us and carry us away with irresistible might. It is in this way that, as I said before, the music ought to take its rise and origin straight out of the poem, as a necessary sequence, or consequence.'

"Ferdinand. 'Now I quite understand you; and I think, at once, of Tasso and Ariosto. Still, it seems to me, it would be no easy matter to write a musical drama as you would postulate it.'

"Ludwig. 'It is work for a real romantic poet, of true genius. Think of the splendid Gozzi! in his dramatic legends he has completely fulfilled the conditions which I have laid down as essential for the poet of opera, and I cannot understand why this rich mine of magnificent opera-plots has been so little drawn upon, hitherto.'

"Ferdinand. 'I remember being greatly delighted with Gozzi, when I read him some years ago; though, of course, I did not then look at him from your point of view.'

"Ludwig. 'One of the best of his tales is "The Raven." A certain King Millo, of Frattombrosa, cares for nothing but the chase. One day in the forest he sees a splendid raven, and he sends an arrow through its heart. The raven falls upon a monumental tomb of the whitest marble, which there is there under the trees, besprinkling it with his blood. On this, the forest is shaken, as if by an earthquake; and a terrible monster comes stalking out of a cave, and thunders forth a curse upon Millo, in the following terms:--

"Findest thou not a fair woman,

White as this monument's marble,

Red as the raven's heart's blood,

Black as the night of his plumes,

Perish in raving madness."

"'All attempts to discover such a woman are fruitless. But the king's brother, Gennaro, who is devoted to him, vows that he will never rest till he finds this woman, who is to restore his brother's reason. He traverses land and sea; till at last, counselled by an old man versed in necromancy, he discovers Armilla, daughter of the mighty sorcerer Norand. White is her skin like the monument's marble, red like the raven's blood; and black as his plumes are her hair and eyebrows. He succeeds in carrying her off, and after many adventures, they reach the shores of Frattombrosa in safety. As he lands on the beach, chance places in his possession a magnificent charger, and a falcon endowed with extraordinary powers. He is filled with joy that he is enabled to restore his brother's reason, and also to have two such acceptable gifts to offer him. He lies down to rest in a pavilion which has been prepared for him under a tree. Then two doves come and sit in the branches, and begin to talk:--

"'"Woe! Woe to Gennaro! Well had he never been born; the falcon will peck out his brother's eyes--but if he giveth it not, or if he telleth what he hath heard, he will turn to stone; if his brother mounteth the horse, it will instantly kill him--but if he giveth it not, or telleth what he hath heard, he will turn to stone; if his brother weddeth Armilla, a monster will come on the wedding-night, and tear him limb from limb but if Gennaro withholdeth Armilla, or telleth what he hath heard, he will turn to stone!

"'"Woe! Woe to Gennaro! Well had he never been born!"

"'Norand appears, and confirms what the doves have said. It is the punishment--the penalty, for having carried Armilla away.

"'As soon as Millo sets eyes on Armilla, his madness departs. The horse and the hawk are brought, and the king is charmed with his brother's affection in bringing him presents so much to his mind. Gennaro brings the hawk, but ere his brother can take it, he cuts off its head. Thus Millo's eyes are saved; and just as Millo is setting foot in the stirrup to mount the horse, Gennaro draws his sword and hews off its fore-legs with one stroke. Millo thinks it is love-madness which causes Gennaro's conduct, and Armilla confirms this opinion, as Gennaro's sighs and tears, and his confusion and inexplicable behaviour have for some time made her suspect him of being secretly in love with her. She assures the king of her entire devotion to him; of which Gennaro had laid the foundation, by his warm and touching accounts of his brother on the journey. To cast aside all suspicion, she begs that the marriage may be hurried on as much as possible; and that is accordingly done. Gennaro, who sees his brother's last hours at hand, is in despair at being so misjudged; and yet, a terrible fate awaits him if a word of explanation crosses his lips. But he determines to save his brother, at whatever cost, and makes his way in the night, by a subterranean passage, to his sleeping chamber. A terrible dragon appears, breathing flames and fire. Gennaro attacks it; but his blows have no effect; the monster is nearing the sleeping chamber. In his desperation he delivers a tremendous two-handed stroke at the creature, and this cleaves through the door of the chamber. Millo comes out, and, as the monster has disappeared, he sees in his brother a traitor urged to fratricide by the madness of unhallowed passion. Gennaro cannot vindicate himself. The guards are summoned, and he is disarmed and thrown into a dungeon. He is doomed to die, but begs that he may speak with his brother first. Millo consents. Gennaro recalls to his memory the tender affection which has always subsisted between them; but when he asks if his brother can truly suppose him capable of his murder, Millo calls for proofs of his innocence; and then, in his agony, Gennaro divulges the terrible prophecies of the doves and Norand. But no sooner have the words been spoken than Gennaro is turned to a marble statue. On this Millo, in his grief and remorse, determines that he never will leave the statue's side, and will die at its feet in contrition and sorrow. At this juncture Norand appears, and says, "In the eternal Book of Destiny were written the raven's death, the curse on you, and the carrying away of Armilla. One thing, and one alone, will bring your brother back to life--but it is a terrible deed. Let Armilla be slain at the statue's side, by this dagger; and when the cold marble is besprinkled with her heart's blood, it will warm into life. If you have courage to kill her, do it. Weep, weep, and lament! even as do I!" He vanishes. Armilla wrings from the unfortunate Millo the purport of Norand's terrible disclosure. Millo quits her in despair, and, filled with horror and grief, careless of living longer, she stabs herself with the dagger. As soon as her blood besprinkles the statue Gennaro comes back to life. Millo comes: he sees his brother alive, and his bride lying slain. In his despair he is going to stab himself with the dagger; but the gloomy dungeon changes to a great, illuminated hall; Norand appears: all the mysterious decrees of fate are accomplished, all the sorrow is past. Norand touches Armilla. She comes back to life, and everything ends happily.'

"Ferdinand. 'Yes; I remember this fine, imaginative tale quite well, and the impression it made upon me. You are quite right; this is an instance in which the Marvellous takes the form of an essential element, and has so much poetical verity that we believe it without hesitation. Millo's killing of the raven is what knocks at the brazen gates of the Spirit-Realm; on that they fly open with a clash, and the spirits come swooping in upon the human life, and immesh the mortals in the web of strange, mysterious destiny which impends over them.'

"Ludwig. 'Exactly; and notice the grand, powerful situations which the poet has evolved from this contest with the spirit-world. Gennaro's self-sacrifice; Armilla's deed of heroism; there is a grandeur in them which our "moral" playwrights, in their rummagings among the paltrinesses of every-day life (like sweepings of drawing-rooms thrown out into the dust-bin) haven't the slightest idea of; and then the comic parts for the masks are must effectively woven in.'

"Ferdinand. 'Yes it is only in the Romantic Drama that the comic element blends on such perfectly equal terms with the tragic that they contribute with equality to the general effect.'

"Ludwig. Even common opera-manufacturers have got hold of some dim notion of that, for it is thence that the so-called Comic-Heroic operas take their origin--productions in which the Heroic is often exceedingly Comic, and the Comic is so far Heroic that it most heroically ignores all the requirements of taste and propriety.'

"Ferdinand. 'According to your notion of the essentials of opera, we can't congratulate ourselves on possessing very many.'

"Ludwig. 'No; most so-called operas are only plays with singing added; and the utter absence of dramatic effect, which is ascribed sometimes to the music, sometimes to the plot or to the words, is really due to the lifelessness of the mass of scenes, tacked together without inward connection or poetical truthfulness, and incapable of kindling music into life. The composer has often to work between the lines, as it were, on his own account, and the wretched words meander along in a side-channel, not to be brought into the musical current by any conceivable means. In such a case the music may be good enough; that is,--without having depth enough to carry away the listener with magic power, it may give a certain amount of pleasure, like a glittering play of gay colours. Then the opera is merely a concert, given on a stage, with dresses and scenery.'

"Ferdinand. 'As it is the Romantic Opera, in its strictest sense, which is the only species that you recognise as opera, properly so-called, how about musical Tragedies, and Comic Operas in modern costume?--you repudiate them altogether, I presume.'

"Ludwig. 'Oh, no; not at all. In most of the older Tragic Operas--such as are not written nowadays, unfortunately (either as regards plots or music)--what so powerfully sways the audience is the heroic nature of the action, and the inward strength of the characters and situations. That dark mysterious power which rules, controls, and disposes of Gods and Men, we see stalking along visibly before our eyes; we hear the eternal, irreversible, immutable decrees of Fate, to which the Gods themselves have to submit, pronounced and formulated aloud, in awful and mysterious tones. From Tragic matter of this sort the Fantastic element is perforce excluded; but a loftier language--in the wondrous accents of Music--has to be employed to depict that intercourse with the Gods which stirs the Mortals to a higher life, and to God-like achievements. Were not the ancient tragedies musically declaimed, by the way?--and did not that prove clearly the necessity for a higher medium of expression than ordinary language? The musical tragedies have inspired composers of genius in a quite special way--with a lofty, I might almost say, a saintly style of writing. It is as if we mortals were wafted upwards, in some condition of mystic consecration, on the pinions of the tones of the golden harps of the Cherubim and Seraphim, to the realms of light, where we learn the mystery of our existence. What I would say, Ferdinand, is to point out the close relationship that there is between the old Church Style and the Tragic Opera, whence the old writers have framed a glorious style of their own, of which modern composers have no idea--not even excepting Spontini, with all his wealth and exuberance of fancy. The glorious Gluck, who stands apart by himself, a hero, I need say nothing about; but as an instance how the grand tragic style has influenced far inferior talents, think of the chorus of the Priests of Night in Piccini's "Dido."'

"Ferdinand. 'This is just as it used to be in the golden old days when we were together. As you talk in that inspired sort of way of your Art, you raise me up to the level of ideas which otherwise I never should have dreamt of; and, I assure you, at this moment I consider that I really know a good deal about music. In fact, I think no passable line of poetry would occur to me without its appropriate clothing of music.'

"Ludwig. 'Is not this the true inspiration of the poet of opera? I maintain that he should "think" the music belonging to his lines just as much>as the composer does; and that the only thing which differentiates the one from the other is the distinct recognition of particular melodies, and of particular qualities and peculiarities of the Bounds of instruments which are co-operating and involved in the effects; in fact, the easy, habitual command over the "Inner Kingdom" of Music. But I have still to tell you my ideas about Opera Buffa.'

"Ferdinand. 'You will scarcely have a good word to say for that, particularly if it is in modern costume.'

"Ludwig. 'On the contrary, I consider that it is just when it is in the costume of the day that not only is it at its best, but that it is the only genuine form of opera buffa in the sense in which the mobile, mercurial, excitable Italians have understood it and written it. In this case it is the Fantastic element which is paramount, proceeding partly from the quips of individual characters, partly from the bizarre play of chance. The Fantastic element comes pop into our everyday lives, and turns everything topsy-turvy. One ought to have to say, "Yes; that really is Brown (or Jones, or Robinson) in that snuff-coloured Sunday coat of his with the brass buttons, which we all know so well. And what in the name of fortune 's the fellow going on like that for?" Picture to yourself some respectable family--uncles, aunts, and so forth--and a little languishing daughter; throw in two or three students, be-singing their cousin's eyes and playing the guitar under the windows. Let the tricksy sprite Puck pop suddenly into the middle of them! The result you may imagine. All the fat's in the fire; everything is at sixes and sevens; everybody goes darting in every direction, gesticulating and grimacing, skipping and posturing, as if a whole hive of bees were let loose in their bonnets. Some strange planet rules the ascendant; the nets of haphazard are set, and will catch the most respectable folk if their noses happen to be just the least bit longer than the average. I consider that the very essence of opera buffa lies in this incursion of the Fanciful-Fantastic, the preposterous and absurd, into actual, everyday life, and the incongruities that result. And it is just the power of catching hold of this fanciful-fantastic element--which generally lies rather far off and out of the way--and bringing it, with vividness, into everyday life, which makes the acting of Italian buffo actors so inimitable. They catch the indications given by the author, and their acting clothes the skeleton which he has sketched with flesh and colour.'

"Ferdinand. 'I think I follow you quite. What you mean is, that in the opera buffa the Fantastic element takes the place of the Romantic (which, in general terms, you consider an essential principle of opera), and the art of the poet has to consist in this--that the characters must appear, not only with much finish, and standing out in alto-relievo, as well as being poetically true, but so clearly drawn as well from everyday life, and so full of individual character, that the spectator at once says, "Look there! that's my next-door neighbour, whom I say 'How are you?' to every day. And that's the student who goes to his lectures every morning, and sighs so tremendously as he passes his cousin's window," etc., etc. And then all these people are to be subjected to the spell of some Puck, in such fashion that what they set to work to do under that influence, and all that happens to them, are to affect us as if we were there on the spot, sharing their experiences with them, under the influence of the same spell.'

"Ludwig. 'Exactly. And I scarcely need say that, according to my principle, music adapts itself well to opera buffa, and that in so adapting itself there results a certain special style which makes a special impression of its own on the hearer.'

"Ferdinand. 'Do you think music can express all the shades of the Comic?'

"Ludwig. 'I am quite sure it can; clever artists have proved it scores of times. For instance, music can express the most delicate and delightful Irony. That is the predominating element in Mozart's glorious "Cosi fan tutte."'

"Ferdinand. That, by the way, leads me to the remark that, according to your principle, the so-much disparaged text of that work is really highly suitable for an opera.'

"Ludwig. 'That is exactly what I was thinking of when I said, a little while ago, that for his classic operas Mozart always chose really suitable texts, for "Le Nozze di Figaro" is more a Comedy in Music than a true Opera. The nefarious attempt to turn pathetic dramas into operas can never come to anything; our "Orphan Hospitals," "Oculists," and so forth, are sure to be soon forgotten. And what could have been more miserable and opposed to the true spirit of opera than all that series of vaudeilles of Dittersdorf's? But on the other hand I call such works as "The Sunday-Child" and "The Sisters of Prague" admirable. One might style them true German opere buffe.'

"Ferdinand. 'They have always amused me greatly, at all events, when decently given; and I have always thought of what Tieck makes his "poet" say to the public in his "Puss in Boots": "If you want to enjoy this thoroughly, you must divest yourself of whatever you may have attained in the shape of cultivation and learning, and become wholly as little children, so as to enjoy it as such."'

"Ludwig. 'Unfortunately those words, like many others of the kind, fell upon stony ground, and could take no root. But the vox populi, which is generally the vox Dei in theatrical matters, has drowned the few isolated sighs and groans which super-delicate and sensitive people have given vent to over the sad untruthfulness and tastelessness of those works--"trifling," according to their ideas. And there are instances on record of some of those very people who, in the height of their calm, contemptuous, aristocratic impassibility and supercilious scorn of the whole thing, have been so carried away by the infection of the roars of laughter of the "baser" folk about them that they have burst out laughing in the most deplorable way themselves, declaring that they had no idea what they were laughing at.'

"Ferdinand. 'Wouldn't Tieck, if he had chosen, have written splendid opera plots, according to your definition of them?'

"Ludwig. 'No doubt, being a true romantic poet; and I remember I did once think of writing music to a plot of his. But though the subject was well adapted for music, the work was too diffuse and lengthy; not concentrated enough. It was called "The Monster of the Enchanted Forest," if I remember rightly.'

"Ferdinand. 'That reminds me of another difficulty which we meet with in writing for you composers: I mean the extraordinary brevity and conciseness which you insist upon. All our efforts to portray this or that situation or burst of passion in properly descriptive language are so much wasted labour. You will have the whole affair comprised in a line or two; and even these few lines you twist about and turn upside-down just as you take it in your heads.'

"Ludwig. 'I think the writer of the words of an opera ought to be something like a scene painter, and paint his picture correctly as regards the drawing, but in broad, powerful lines; then the music will be what will make it appear in proper light and shade, and in correct perspective, so that it shall have a proper effect of life, and what seemed only meaningless dashes of colour prove to be forms instinct with meaning, standing out prominently in relief.'

"Ferdinand. 'So that what we have to do is to give you a sketch merely, not a finished poem?'

"Ludwig. 'No, no; that is not what I mean at all! It is scarcely necessary to say that the poet of opera must observe, as regards the arrangement, the disposition, of the whole, all the rules essential to dramatic composition; but what he has to take special care for is to so order his scenes that the subject-matter may unfold itself, clearly and intelligibly, to the eyes of the spectator: who ought to be able to understand what is going on from what he sees taking place, almost without catching any of the words. No dramatic poem so absolutely demands this sort of distinctness as the opera-text, for not only is it more difficult to distinguish words when they are sung, (however distinctly,) than when they are spoken, but the music tends to carry the audience into distant regions, and it is necessary that the attention should be kept directed to the particular point whore the action is concentrated, pro tempore. Then as regards the words, the composer likes them best when they express the passion, or situation, to which they refer, vigorously and concisely. There is no occasion for flowery diction, and, above all, there should be no imagery, no similes.'

"Ferdinand. 'Then how about Metastasio, with his exuberance of similes?'

"Ludwig. 'Yes; he had the strange idea that the composer, particularly in arias, must always have his imagination stirred up by some poetical comparison. Hence his oft-repeated openings such as "Come una Tortorella," etc., or "Come Spume in Tempesta," etc.: and in fact, the cooing of doves and the roar of the sea have often made their appearance--in the accompaniment, at all events.'

"Ferdinand. 'But, while we avoid flowery language, are we to be allowed any sort of elaboration of interesting situations? For instance: the young hero sets off to the battle, and bids adieu to his aged father, the old king, whose country is trembling in the grasp of a victorious usurper. Or some terrible fate severs a youth from his beloved. Are neither of them to say anything but just "fare-thee-well"?'

"Ludwig. 'The hero may add a few words about his courage and the justice of his cause, and the lover may tell his sweetheart that life will be nothing but a long, painful dream without her. Still, the simple "fare-thee-well" will be amply sufficient for the Composer--(who draws his inspiration, not from the words, but from the business and the situations)--to represent the mental condition of the hero and the lover with powerful strokes and touches. To stick to the instance you have adduced; just think in what thousands of most affecting and heart-breaking ways the Italians have sung the little word "addio." What thousands--ay, and thousands of thousands--of shades musical expression is capable of! And of course it is just that that is the marvellous mystery of the Tone-Art that, just where language comes to an end, she is only beginning to disclose a perennial fountain of fresh forms of expression.'

"Ferdinand. 'Then what the opera-poet has to do is--to strive to attain the utmost simplicity, as far as the words are concerned; it will be enough to suggest the situation, in clear and forcible language.'

"Ludwig. 'Exactly: because the composer has to draw his inspiration from the matter, the business and the situation--not from the words. And not only is imagery to be avoided, but everything in the shape of a reflection is a bugbear to the composer.'

"Ferdinand. 'After what you have said, I can assure you it seems to be anything but an easy matter to write an opera text. Now, this indispensable simpleness of the language; I can't say that I quite see how to----'

"Ludwig. 'How to accomplish it! No! You are so fond of painting with words, and so accustomed to it. But though Metastasio (as I think) has exemplified in his librettos how opera texts ought not to be written, there are quantities of Italian poems which are absolute models of words for music. For instance take the lines, known to the whole world, no doubt:

"Almen si non poss' io

Seguir l'amato bene,

Affetti del cor mio

Seguite-lo per me!"

What can be simpler? Yet, in these few, unpretending words lies the suggestion, or indication, of love and sorrow which the composer comprehends, and can apply all the resources of musical expression to represent. The particular situation in which the words are to be sung will so stir his imagination that he will give the music the most individual character. And this is why you will often find that a poetical composer sets words that are wretched enough to admirable music. In such cases what inspired him was that the matter was genuinely suitable for opera; and as an instance I merely mention Mozart's "Zauberfloete."'

"Ferdinand was going to reply, when, outside the windows, down in the street, the drums were heard beating the générale. This seemed to wake him to the sense of present duty as with an electric shock. Ludwig shook him warmly by the hand.

"'Ah, Ferdinand,' he cried, 'what is to become of Art in these terrible times? Won't it die, like some delicate plant lifting its languid head towards the clouds beyond which the sun has disappeared? Ah! Where are the golden days when we were lads? All that is good is drowned and swept away by this torrent that whirls along, devastating the country. We see bleeding corpses, appearing by glimpses, carried along in its dark billows; and in the horror which seizes us, we slip and lose our footing, we have nothing to hold on to; our cry of terror dies away in the darksome air--victims of inappeasable anger, we sink to earth, and there is no hope of salvation.' Ludwig paused, sunk in his thoughts.

"Ferdinand stood up, and put on his sword and helmet. He stood before Ludwig like the God of War armed for the fray. Ludwig looked up at him admiringly, and a glow came over Ferdinand's face, and he said, in a calm and reassuring tone:

"'Ludwig, what has happened to you? Has the dungeon air which you have been breathing here so long debilitated you, so that you are too sick and faint to feel the warm reviving breath of spring which is blowing, sweet and gentle, up there among the clouds as they glow with the rose tints of dawn? The children of Nature were abbrutized and sunk in sluggish inaction, careless of all her most precious gifts, and treading them into the mire. Then their angry mother awoke the Genius of War, who had long been sleeping in gardens heavy with the breath of flowers--and War came, like some Giant of Adamant, amongst these spoilt children, who, at the sound of his awful voice, which makes the hills tremble, fled to their mother's arms for refuge, though they had forgotten her before. But with remembrance came gratitude. Nothing but strength brings success. The divine element radiates out from contest and striving as life does from death. Yes, Ludwig, a time is upon us which is pregnant with fate, and (as in the awful profundity of the ancient Sagas, which come rolling over to us like the mysterious muttering of distant thunder) we can trace, once more, distinctly, the voice of that Power which rules for Ever more. Nay, marching visibly into our lives, it awakes in us a faith which enables us to read the riddle of our Being. The morning light is breaking, and inspired Singers are soaring up in the sweet fresh morning air, proclaiming the advent of the Divine, and celebrating it with hymns of praise. The golden gates are open, and art and knowledge, in one united ray, are kindling that flame of sacred effort which makes all humanity one universal Church. Therefore lift up your eyes, dear friend. Courage--Confidence--Faith.'

"Ferdinand clasped Ludwig's hand; and in a few moments his charger was bearing him rapidly along with the troops moving on to the attack, the light and joy of battle on every brow."

The friends were much affected by this; for each of them remembered days when the clutch of a hostile destiny was at his throat and all comfort or enjoyment in life seemed to be a thing of the past for ever. And then, after a time, the first rays of the beautiful Star of Hope began to pierce the clouds and rose higher and higher, reviving them, strengthening and invigorating them with newness of life. Then, in the gladsomeness of contest, everything stirred, and came into activity, shouting for joy. At last the grandest and most brilliant of victories rewarded their courage and constancy.

"Each of us," said Lothair, "has said, within himself, very much what the Serapiontic Ferdinand said; and well is it for us that the menacing storms which thundered over our heads refreshed us, instead of annihilating us, and braced us like a fine sulphur bath. In fact, it seems to me that it is only now, and here among you, that I begin to feel quite strong and well, and to trace a fresh impulse to begin, now that the storms are over, to bestir myself again in the paths of literature and science. I know that Theodore is doing so right strenuously; he is devoting himself, as of old, to his music, although he is not neglecting literature neither, so that I am expecting him to astonish us, one of these days, with an opera altogether his own, both music and words. All that he has said about the impossibility of the same person writing the words and the music of an opera may be plausible enough, but it doesn't convince me."

"I don't agree with you," said Cyprian, "but I don't see much use in continuing the discussion. It seems all the more a waste of time that if the thing were possible, which Theodore says it is not, he would be the first to set about doing it. It would be far better if he would open his piano and, as he has favoured us with so many interesting Stories, let us hear some of his Compositions."

"Cyprian," said Theodore, "is always accusing me of sticking too closely to established forms, and rejecting any poetry which cannot be fitted to some of them. This I do not admit, and I mean to prove what I say by producing some music of mine to words which require a setting differing from any of the hackneyed 'forms' in question. I mean the Night Hymn in Mueller the painter's 'Genofeva.' All the sweet sadness,--the pain, longing, and sense of the supernatural,--of a heart torn by hopeless love are in the words of this beautiful poem. Moreover, as the verses have a certain touching flavour of the Antique, I have thought it better that the composition should be without any instrumental accompaniment, but for voices alone, in the style of old Alessandro Scarlatti, or the more modern Benedetto Marcello. I have done all the music for it in my head, but only the beginning of it has been written down as yet. If you haven't quite forgotten all about singing, and, especially, if you still feel the benefit of our old practice at 'reading invisible music,' and can strike your notes correctly as of old, I should like that we sing what I have composed for thebe words."

"Ah yes!" said Ottmar, "I remember about the 'reading invisible music.' You used to put your fingers on the notes of the chords without pressing them down, and each of us sang the notes of his part without previously hearing them on the instrument. People who didn't notice the process of indicating the notes couldn't imagine how we 'improvised' part-music so cleverly; and for those who possess the talent of being easily astonished, it really is a good and interesting musical trick. For my part, I still sing that mediocre, grumbling old baritone of mine, and have as little forgotten how to hit my note as Lothair, who can still, with his fine basso, lay firm foundations on which tenors like you and Cyprian can build skywards with security."

"For Cyprian's beautiful, delicate, tender tenor," said Theodore, "this thing of mine is exactly suitable. Therefore I shall give him the first tenor part, and take the second myself. Ottmar, who was always very accurate in striking his note, shall take the first bass, and Lothair the second. Only, for Heaven's sake, don't thunder, but keep the whole thing soft and sostenuto, as the character of the composition requires."

Theodore struck two or three introductory chords on the piano, and then the voices began, with long, sustained notes, in the key of A flat major:

"Beauteous Lover's Star,

That gleamest far and far,

In pale blue vault of Heaven!

To thee, this night, our hearts make prayer;

Oh! aid us in our fond despair!

To Love--to Love alone our souls are given."

The two Tenors now went on, in duet; key of F minor:

"Oh! calm and holy night!

Those glowing worlds of light--

Heaven's eyes--begin to tread their mystic measure.

Soar high, like sweet bells far-off chime,

Night Hymn of Love, in silv'ry rhyme--

Beat at Heaven's gate, in rhythmic, pulsant measure."

At the words "soar high," etc., the music had gone into the key of D flat major, and now Lothair and Ottmar came in, in B flat minor:

"Oh! saintly souls above,

That burn in holy love,

With heart and tongue all pure from earthly tainting,

Drop down some balm on this poor heart,

Which fails, and droops, in bitter smart,

Contending here--in conflict well-nigh fainting."

Then, finally, the four voices ended in F major:

"Knock, knock, and soon the angel's voice will say,

'The gates are open! enter in for aye!'"

All of them--Lothair, Ottmar, and Cyprian--felt much affected by Theodore's lovely music, which was in the simple, serious style of the early masters. The tears came to their eyes. They embraced the clever composer; they pressed him to their hearts. The clocks tolled midnight.

"Blessed be our reunion!" cried Lothair. "Oh! glorious Serapion Brotherhood, which binds us with an eternal chain! May it ever keep green and flourish! As we have done to-night, we will continue to refresh and vivify our minds in the paths of literature and art; and our next care will be to assemble again here at our Theodore's, at the same time in the evening, this day week."

[SECTION II.]

Seven o'clock struck. Theodore was expecting his friends impatiently. At last Ottmar came in.

"Leander has just been with me," he said; "that was what detained me. I told him how sorry I was that I was called away by a pressing engagement. He insisted on walking with me as far as the place I was going to, but I slipped away from him in the dark--not without some difficulty. I know he knew quite well I was coming here, and wanted to come too."

"And you haven't brought him?" said Theodore. "He would have been most welcome."

"No, no," said Ottmar, "that would never have answered at all. In the first place, I don't consider that I have any right to bring in a stranger--or, if Leander is not exactly a stranger, any fifth person whatever--without the unanimous consent of the Serapion Brethren. Besides, rather an unfortunate thing happened with regard to Leander, through Lothair's fault. Lothair told him about our delightful Serapion Brotherhood, in his usual enthusiastic style. He talked hyperbolically of the admirable tendency of the Serapiontic principle, and asseverated nothing less than that we meant--keeping that principle constantly in view--to incite each other to undertake all sorts of interesting and important work. On that, Leander said that an opportunity of associating himself in this way with literary people was what it had long been his most ardent desire to meet with, and that he hoped, if we would admit him to our order, to prove himself a highly meritorious brother of it. He added that he had a great many things in petto, and as he said so, he made an involuntary movement of his hand towards one of his coat pockets. It was stuffed to fatness; and, to my alarm, I saw that the other pocket was so too; they were both distended with manuscripts, and papers of an alarming aspect were sticking out of his breast pocket as well."

Here Ottmar was interrupted by the somewhat boisterous entry of Lothair, who was followed by Cyprian.

"A certain little storm cloud," said Theodore, "has been forming, rather threateningly, in the atmosphere of this Serapion Brotherhood of ours. However, Ottmar has managed to dispel it cleverly. Leander wanted to come bothering us, and stuck to poor Ottmar like grim death, till he managed to give him the slip in the dark."

"Why didn't he bring him?" asked Lothair. "He's a witty, clever, intelligent fellow: I can't think of a more eligible member of our society."

"How exactly like you that is," said Ottmar: "you are always the same old Lothair; always changing your mind; always a member of the opposition. If I had brought him, you would have been the very first to find fault with me most bitterly. You say Leander is intelligent, clever, and witty. Very well; so he is--all that and more. Everything he writes has a roundness and a finish which evinces soundness of criticism and clearness of judgment; but, in the first place, I don't believe there is a man on this earth who is so absolutely devoid of any trace of the Serapiontic principle. Everything he writes he has most maturely thought out, weighed, and considered in all its aspects, but never really seen. His reasoning faculty does not control his imagination; it puts itself in its place. Then he delights in a wordy prolixity which is unendurable to the hearer, if not to the reader; works of his which one must admit to possess plenty of talent and interest, are tedious beyond expression when he reads them aloud."

"There is a curious question there, connected with reading aloud; I mean as to things adapted for reading aloud," said Cyprian; "it seems as if not only the most vivid life were essential to them, but that they should be restricted to a certain definite length."

"The reason, I think," said Theodore, "is that the reader must not declaim; experience tells us that that is unendurable; he ought merely to slightly indicate the various feelings that arise in the course of the action, preserving a quiet tone; and this tone, after a time, produces an irresistibly narcotic effect."

"What I think," said Ottmar, "is, that a story or poem, to be adapted for reading aloud, ought to approach very closely to the dramatic, or be dramatic altogether; but then again, why is it that most comedies and tragedies are unsatisfactory when read aloud?--that is, become boring and wearisome?"

"Just because they are quite undramatic, said Lothair; "or because too much has been left for the effect of the action of the actors on the stage; or because the poem is so weak and feeble in itself that it does not call up before the listener's mind any picture in clear, distinct colours, and with living figures, except with the help of the actors and the stage. However, we are losing sight of Leander, as to whom I maintain, notwithstanding what Ottmar says to the contrary, that he well deserves to be admitted to our circle."

"Well and good," said Ottmar, "but please to remember what your own experience has been of him already; how he once dogged and pursued you wherever you went, with a fat--fat dramatic poem; how you always managed to give him the slip, till he asked you and me to a splendid dinner, with grand cuisine and first-rate wines, so that we might swallow the poem, thus washed down, like a dose of medicine; how I endured two acts of it like a man, and was screwing up my courage for a third, when you lost patience, and got up, declaring that you were suddenly taken very unwell, and left poor Leander in the lurch, wines, dinner, and all. Recollect how he came to your house once when you had several people with you; how he now and then rustled papers in his pockets, looking from one to the other with sly, crafty glances, in hopes that somebody would say, 'You've brought something good, haven't you, dear Leander?' How you privately implored us all, for God's sake, to take no notice whatever of this menacing rustling, but to hold our tongues. Remember how you used to liken old Leander--with a tragedy always in his breast pocket, always armed and eager for the fray--to Meros creeping to slay the tyrant, with a dagger in his breast; how once, when you were obliged to ask him to dinner, he came with a great fat manuscript in his hand, so that our hearts sunk within us; how he then announced, with the sweetest smiles, that he could only stay for an hour or so, because he had promised to go to Madame So-and-so's to tea, and to read her his last epic poem in twelve cantos; how we then breathed freely again, like men relieved from a terrible burden; and when he went away all cried, with one voice, 'Oh, poor Madame So-and-so!--what an unfortunate woman!'"

"Stop, stop, Ottmar," said Lothair; "what you say is all true enough, of course, but nothing of that sort could take place amongst Serapion Brethren. We form a strongly organized opposition to everything that is not in harmony with our fundamental principle, and I would give odds that Leander conforms to our rule."

"Don't imagine anything of the kind, dear Lothair," said Ottmar. "Leander has a fault which many conceited writers have in common with him--he won't listen; and, just for that reason, he always wants to be the person who reads or speaks. He would always be trying to occupy the whole of our evenings with his own interminable compositions; he would take our efforts to obviate this in the worst possible part, and, consequently, mar the whole of our enjoyment: he even spoke to-day of works to be undertaken in common; and with that idea in his head he would torture us terribly."

"That is a sort of thing which never answers," said Cyprian. "It doesn't seem practicable for several people to write a work together; it would require such absolute similarity of mental disposition, such depth of insight, and such identity of the power to grasp ideas as they suggest and succeed one another, even if a plot were fully determined on in concert. I say this from experience, although of course there are some instances to the contrary."

"At the same time," said Cyprian, "sympathetically-minded friends often give each other valuable hints and suggestions, which lead to the production of works."

"For a suggestion of that sort," said Ottmar, "I have to thank our friend Severin, who, when he comes back here, as I expect him to do immediately, will make a much better Serapion Brother than Leander. I was sitting with him in the Thiergarten, Berlin, when there happened, before our eyes, the incident which suggested the story called 'A Fragment of the Lives of Three Friends,' which I wrote, and have brought with me to read to you to-night; for when (as you shall presently hear) the pretty girl read the letter, which had been privately handed to her, with tears in her eyes, Severin cast pregnant glances at me, and whispered, 'There's something for you, Ottmar; let your fancy move its wings; write at once all about the girl, the letter, and her tears.' I did so, and here you have the result."

The friends sat down at the round table; Ottmar took a manuscript from his pocket, and read--

'[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.

'Swift-sailing cloudlets

Borne by the breezes,'

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.

"'"Ah!" she cried, with tears in her voice, "if the Feast of the Invention of the Cross were only over!"

"'"What is there specially about the Feast of the Invention of the Cross?" I quickly asked.

"'"Oh, good gracious!" she answered, "don't you know? That was to have been her marriage day. She died on the third of April, you remember. That day week she was buried. The executor put seals on all the rooms except the big drawing-room and the closet off it; so I had to live in them, though I felt it terribly, I couldn't tell why. When day was dawning on the morning of the Feast of the Invention of the Cross, I felt an icy hand on my forehead, and distinctly heard your aunt's voice say 'Get up, Anne! Get up! it's time for you to dress me; the bridegroom's coming.' I jumped out of bed, terribly frightened, and hurried on my clothes. Everything was silent, and there was only a cold air moving through the room. Mimi kept on whimpering and whining, and even Hans--contrarily to cat-nature--groaned, and pressed himself, frightened, into corners. Then presses and cupboards seemed to be being opened, and there was the sound of the rustling of a silk dress, and a voice singing a morning hymn. I heard all this distinctly, master, but I saw nothing. Terror nearly overmastered me, but I knelt down in a corner and prayed fervently. Then a small table seemed to be being moved, and glasses and teacups set out on it; footsteps went up and down the room. I couldn't stir, and--what more shall I say?--I heard the mistress going about, just as she always had done on that unlucky day, sobbing and sighing; till the clock struck ten, when I distinctly heard the words 'Go to your bed, Anne; it's all over now.' Then I fell down insensible, and the people found me lying there in the morning when they broke open the door, for they thought something must have happened to me as they had seen or heard nothing of me. But I've never told anybody about it except you."

"'From my own experience, I couldn't doubt that everything had happened as the old woman described it, and I was glad I hadn't arrived sooner, so as to have had to go through it myself. It was just at this very time, when the ghost seemed to be laid, and I was living in the sweetest of hopes and anticipations, that I was obliged to leave Berlin; and that was the cause of my annoyance, which you noticed yourselves. But before six months were over I had taken my retirement, and then I came back as quickly as possible. I very soon managed to make the acquaintance of the family over the way, and I found the young lady, who had seemed so fascinating at first sight, to be even more charming and attractive in every respect on closer acquaintance, so that I felt that the happiness of my life was wholly bound up in her. I don't know quite why, but I always thought she was in love with someone else; and this opinion was confirmed once when the conversation happened to turn on a certain young gentleman, at the mention of whom tears came to her eyes and she rose and left the room. Still, I put no constraint on my feelings, but, without actually saying anything to her, I allowed her to see the affection which fettered me to her. She appeared to like me better every day, and to be much gratified with my homage, which took the form of a thousand little attentions calculated to please her.'

"'Never,' cried Marzell, interrupting Alexander in his story 'never should I have believed that this inexperienced, uncouth sort of a fellow would have been capable of all that. He's a spirit-seer and a lover à la mode rolled into one. But now that he tells us about it, I believe it, and see him pervading all the shops to get some piece of head gear the young lady had a fancy for, or rushing into Bouché's, out of breath, to buy the finest roses and carnations----'

"To the devil with these damnable flowers!' cried Severin.

"Alexander went on with his story:

"'Don't suppose I made her any valuable presents; I knew better. That wasn't the sort of thing to go down in that house, I soon saw. What I did was to associate apparently unimportant civilities and attentions with myself, personally. I never appeared without bringing some pattern she had wanted, or a new song, or some book which she hadn't seen, or something of the kind. If I didn't call every forenoon for half an hour or so, I was missed. In short, why should I bother you with tiresome details? My relations with her passed into that pleasant phase of confidential intimacy which leads to love-avowal, and to marriage. But I wished to get rid of the very shadow of the last remaining cloud, and, therefore, in a pleasant hour I spoke, straight out, of my foregone conclusion that she either then liked somebody else, or had done so previously; and I mentioned all the circumstances which led me to this conclusion, speaking particularly of the young gentleman, the mention of whom had brought tears to her eyes.

"'"I must confess to you," she said, "that longer intercourse with that gentleman--whom a mere chance brought to the house, as a perfect stranger might have been dangerous to my peace of mind, and, indeed, I did feel a strong regard for him growing in me; and that is why I am always so sorry, when I think of the terrible misfortune which parted us, that I can't help crying."

"'"The terrible misfortune which parted you?" I inquired.

"'"Yes," she said; "I never knew any man whose conversation, and intellect, and whole character, had such a power over me, altogether. But I couldn't deny, what my father always said, that he was continually in a most strangely excited condition. This I attributed to causes which we knew nothing about, perhaps some deep impression made upon his mind by something that had happened to him during the war, which he had been serving in; though my father thought drink was the cause of it. But I was right, as the event proved. One day he found me alone, and exhibited a state of mind, which I at first took for an outburst of the most passionate affection. But by-and-by, when he ran away, trembling in every limb as with a frost, and uttering unintelligible cries, I could only conclude it was insanity, and so it was, poor fellow! He had once happened to mention his address, and I remembered it. After we had seen nothing of him for some weeks, my father sent there to make inquiries. The landlady--or rather, the porter who waited on the lodgers--told our servant that he had gone mad some time before, and been taken to the asylum. I suppose it must have been lottery speculations which turned his head, for it seems he thought he was king of the Ambé."'

"'Good gracious!' cried Marzell, 'that must have been Nettelmann. Ambé--Amboyna.'

"'It may have been some confusion,' said Severin under his breath. 'I seem to see daylight through it, but go on, please.'

"Alexander looked at Severin with a sad smile, and then continued:

"'My mind was now at ease, and soon the young lady and I were engaged, and the wedding day fixed. I wanted to sell my house, for the ghostly noises were still heard in it now and then. But my father-in-law advised me not to do so, and so it came about that I told him the whole story. He is a jovial sort of man, full of vital energy; but he grew deeply thoughtful over this, and spoke about it in a way that I hadn't expected.

"'"People used to have a pious simple faith," he said. "We believed in another world, but we admitted the feebleness of our senses. Then came 'enlightenment,' and made everything so very clear and enlightened, that we can see nothing for excess of light, and go banging our noses against the first tree we come to in the wood. We insist, now-a-days, on grasping the other world with stretched-out arms of flesh and bone. Keep you the house, and leave the rest to me."

"'I was astonished when he settled that the marriage should take place in the drawing-room of my house, and on the day of the Feast of the Invention of the Cross; and still more when he had everything arranged just as it had been on the celebrated day of my aunt's marriage--that was to have been. Mistress Anne crept about, in whispered prayer, her face contracted with anxious alarm. The bride came in her wedding dress, the clergyman arrived nothing out of the common was to be heard or seen. But when the blessing was pronounced, a gentle sigh seemed to pass through the room; and the bride, and I myself, and every one present declared that at that instant we all felt an indescribable sense of happiness strike through us like an electric spark. Since that moment there never has been the slightest trace of anything haunting me, except to-day, when thinking vividly of the charming Pauline, did bring a haunting something into my married happiness."

"This Alexander said with an odd smile, and looking round him.

"'Oh! you donkey!' said Marzell. 'I hope she may not turn up here to-day. I really shouldn't like to answer for the consequences.'

"Meanwhile a good many pleasure-seekers had come into the grounds, and taken their places at various tables. But the one where the Aslings had been sitting on that memorable day two years ago was still unoccupied.

"'There's a very distinct presentiment at work within me,' said Severin. 'I quite expect to see that place there occupied by ----'

"He stopped, for as he spoke, behold! Geheime Rath Asling appeared, with his wife on his arm; Pauline came after them, looking the picture of happiness and beauty--in all other respects exactly the Pauline of two years back. Just as was the case then, she was looking back over her shoulder, as if expecting to see somebody. She caught sight of Alexander, who had risen from his chair.

"'Ah!' she cried, running up to him joyfully. 'Here you are already!'

"He took her hand, and said to Marzell and Severin:

"'Dear old friends! this is my darling wife, Pauline!'"

The Brethren were much pleased with Ottmar's story.

"You had special reasons for laying the scene of your story in Berlin," said Theodore, "and giving the names of streets, squares, etc. But I think it is a good thing, as a general rule, to indicate localities in this way. It not only brings in an element of historical truth, which helps a sluggish fancy; but--at all events for people who know the places--the story gains greatly in life and vigour."

"Our friend hasn't managed to steer altogether clear of that ironical bent of his, though, which is especially strong in all that concerns the fairer sex," said Lothair. "However, I make no attack on him upon that score."

"Merely a pinch of salt," said Ottmar, "to season rather meagre fare. For the fact is, I felt it as I read the story--it's too prosaic--too much about everyday matters."

"As Theodore approves of naming the scene of action," said Cyprian; "as Ottmar thinks his subject-matter over-prosaic; and if Lothair will allow me a pinch of irony now and then, I'll read you a story which suggested itself to me when I was living in Dantzic."

He read:--

"[THE ARTUS HOF.]

"Doubtless, kind reader, you have often heard a great deal about the fine old business town of Dantzic. And, probably, you know, from reading of them, all about the 'lions' of the place. But I should be better pleased could I think that you had been there, in person, at some time or other, and had actually seen, with your own eyes, the wonderful hall into which I fain would take you; I mean the 'Artus Hof.'

"In the mid-day hours, a throng of business men, of all nations and conditions, goes surging up and down in it, with a confused uproar of voices which deafens the ear. But, no doubt, the time when--if you were in Dantzic--you would best like to go into it would be after the exchange hours are over, when the business men are gone to their mid-day meal, and only a few rare ones now and then cross the hall at intervals with preoccupied faces--there is a passage through it, leading from one street to another--for then a magic half-light comes stealing through the dim, ancient windows, and all the curious frescoes and carvings which ornament the walls seem to come to life, and begin to move. Stags with great antlers, and other strange animals, gaze down at you with gleaming eyes, so that you don't half care to look at them. And the more the light fades, the more awe-inspiring grows the marble statue of the king in the centre of the hall. The large picture of the Virtues and the Vices (whose names are written beside them) loses a good deal of its moral effect: for the Virtues soar more irrecognizably aloft, half hidden in grey clouds; and the Vices--beautiful women in shining raiment--come forward enticingly, and seem to be trying to lure you from the path of duty, whispering to you in accents sweet and low. Wherefore, you turn from them to the belt of colour which goes nearly round the walls, on which you see long trains of soldiers, in various costumes of the old Imperial-City times, going marching along. Worthy burgomasters, with shrewd, significant faces, ride at their head on spirited horses, richly caparisoned. The drummers and fifers, and the Hallebardiers march along so briskly and bravely that you begin to hear the stirring martial music, and expect them to go tramping out at the great window yonder on to the market-place--looking at all this, you would, if you were a draughtsman, set to work and make a pen-and-ink sketch of that fine stately Burgomaster there, with the strikingly handsome page in attendance on him. There is always plenty of pens, ink, and paper on the tables--provided at the public expense for the merchants' use--so that you would not be able to resist the temptation.

"There would be no objection to your so employing your time, kind reader; but that was by no means the case with Traugott, the young merchant, who was continually getting into the most terrible scrapes on this very account.

"'Write off at once and advise our correspondent in Hamburg of the day's transactions, Herr Traugott,' said Elias Roos, the head of a flourishing firm, of which Traugott had just been admitted a partner, being moreover engaged to Roos's only daughter Christina. Traugott with some difficulty found a vacant place at the crowded tables, took a sheet of paper, dipped his pen in the ink, and was just going to begin with a fine caligraphic flourish, when--as he was rapidly revolving in his mind what he was going to say--he lifted his eyes mechanically to the wall above him.

"Now, chance had so ordained matters that he was sitting just in front of a certain little group of two figures, the sight of which always caused him a strange, inexplicable sense of sorrow. It represented a grave-looking, almost sombre man, with a dark, curling beard, handsomely dressed, riding a black horse, with a page at his bridle whose masses of hair and richly-tinted costume gave him almost the appearance of a girl. The face and figure of the man caused Traugott a certain feeling akin to fear, but a world of sweet presage streamed forth upon him from the face of the page. Somehow he never could withdraw his eyes from this couple whenever he happened to look at them; consequently, instead of writing the Hamburg letter as he ought to have done, he kept gazing at these two figures, and drawing with his pen on the paper before him, without observing what he was about. When this had been going on for some little time, somebody tapped him on the shoulder from behind, and said, in rather a hollow voice:

"'Good! very good! I like that; it promises well!'

"Traugott, waking from his dream, turned sharply round, and felt like a man struck by a thunderbolt. Astonishment, alarm, rendered him speechless; for he found himself staring into the face of the very man who was represented in the fresco on the wall above him. It was he who had spoken the words, and beside him stood the beautiful page, smiling at Traugott as if with inexpressible affection.

"'It is they in the body,' was the thought which flashed through his mind. 'They'll throw off those ugly cloaks directly, and appear in their beautiful antique costume.'

"The seething masses of people were hurrying to and fro, and the two strange figures were speedily lost in the throng. But Traugott stood in the same spot, with his letter of advice in his hand, till the business hours were long over, and only one or two people passed at intervals through the hall. At last he saw Herr Elias Roos, coming up to him with two strange gentlemen.

"'Well, Traugott,' said Elias Roos, 'what are you cogitating about here so late in the afternoon? Have you sent off the Hamburg advices all right?'

"Without thinking what he was doing, Traugott handed him the sheet of paper which he had in his hand. On seeing it, Elias Roos struck his clenched fists together over his head, stamped with his right foot, slightly at first, then very violently, and shouted, till the hall resounded:

"'Oh! good Lord! Oh! good Lord! Stupid, childish nonsense! Here's a partner for you! Here's a precious son-in-law! Damnation, sir, are you out of your senses? The letter of advice, the letter of advice? Oh God--the post!'

"Herr Elias nearly went into a fit with anger. The two strangers smiled at this singular letter of advice, which certainly wasn't of much use as such, as it stood. Immediately after the words 'Referring to your esteemed order of the 20th instant,' Traugott had made a firm, bold outline sketch of the two striking figures of the old man and the page. The strange gentlemen strove to calm Herr Elias, addressing him in the most soothing tones; but he shoved his wig into various positions, banged his cane on the floor, and cried:

"'The devil's in the fellow! Had a letter of advice to write; instead of that, goes and draws pictures! Five hundred pounds gone!--pht!'--he blew through his fingers; and then repeated, in a weeping tone, 'Five--hundred--pounds!'

"'Don't distress yourself, Herr Roos,' said, at last, the elder of the two strangers; 'the post is gone, certainly, but I am sending a courier off to Hamburg in an hour's time. He can take your letter of advice, and it will reach your correspondent sooner that it would have done by the regular mail.'

"'Most incomparable of men!' cried Herr Elias, with full sunshine restored to his face.

"Traugott had recovered from his astonishment, and was hastening to the table to write the advice; but Herr Elias shoved him away, saying, through his teeth, with most diabolical looks:

"Don't trouble yourself, my lad!'

"While Herr Elias was writing busily, the elder of the strangers went up to Traugott, who was standing silent and abashed, and said:

"'You seem to be a little out of your element here, my dear sir! It would never have occurred to a real man of business to sketch figures when he ought to have been writing a letter of advice.'

"This Traugott could not gainsay. Much astonished, himself, at what had occurred, he said:

"'I can't quite make it out. I've written plenty of letters of advice. It's only now and then that I make one of these mistakes.'

"'My dear sir,' said the stranger, with a smile, 'I must say I don't think it seems to be a mistake at all. I should rather be inclined to suppose that very few of your letters of advice are worth as much as this admirable, accurate, and powerful outline sketch. There is true genius in it!'

"With which he took the paper from Traugott, folded it carefully up, and put it in his pocket. This convinced Traugott firmly that he had done something much better than writing a letter of advice. A new spirit awoke within him; and when Elias Roos, who had finished his letter, and was still very much out of temper, cried, 'That nonsense of yours very nearly cost me £500,' Traugott answered him, louder and more firmly than usual, 'Don't go on making such a fuss, or I shall have to bid you good-morning, and write no more of your damned letters of advice.'

"Herr Elias set his wig straight with both hands, stared at Traugott, and said:

"What nonsense you're talking, partner; you can't be serious, son-in-law?'

"The elder of the strangers intervened, and it required very few words to wholly re-establish the peace between them. Then they all went to dinner at Elias Roos's house.

"Christina received them in a beautifully-fitting dress, which set off her well-developed, pretty figure to advantage. She wielded the massive soup-ladle with great skill.

"I suppose I ought to describe the five people at this dinner-table; but Traugott's adventures are waiting to be told, and such pictures of said people as I could sketch would be very hasty. You are aware that Elias Roos wears a round wig, and I could add little more, as, from what he has said, you can see before you the little, stoutish man in his leather-coloured suit with gilt buttons. Of Traugott I have much to say, because this is his story which I am telling, and he is the principal character in it. If it is true that our thoughts, words, and works--coming, as they do, from the inner depths of our natures--do so shape and model the outward man that there results a certain marvellous harmony of the whole--not to be explained, only to be felt--which we term 'character,' Traugott's appearance will be plain to you from my story without any further description. If this is not the case, all further description would be useless, and you can take this tale as not read. The two strange gentlemen are uncle and nephew, well-to-do business men, and 'friends'--that is to say, business connections--of Roos's. They come from Koenigsberg, wear English clothes, carry about mahogany boot-jacks from London, are connoisseurs in the arts, and, taking them all round, persons of much cultivation. The uncle is making a collection of pictures, which is why he pocketed Traugott's sketch.

"As I perceive that Christina will speedily vanish from my story, I had better give a few indications of what she is like before she makes her exit. She is of medium height, with a finely-developed figure; about two or three and twenty, with a round face, a short nose, slightly turned up, and kindly light-blue eyes, which say, with a charming smile, to every man she meets, 'I'm going to get married very soon (don't much mind to whom). She has a beautiful, fair complexion; hair not over red; most kissable lips, and a mouth rather too large, which she has an odd way of drawing on one side, though two rows of pearls are thereby rendered visible. If the next house were on fire, and the flames were catching the room, she would just, quickly, feed her canary and put away the clothes from the wash, and then go and tell her father that the house was on fire. No almond-tart ever came to grief in her hands, and her butter-sauce is always of exactly the right thickness, because she always stirs it from left to right, never the other way. As Elias Roos has just poured out the last of the bottle into old Franz's glass, I further remark, hastily, that it is because he's going to marry her that she's so fond of Traugott; for what in the world would become of her if she weren't to get married? After dinner Roos proposed to the strangers a walk round the walls. How gladly would Traugott have made his escape and been by himself! Never had he known anything like the thoughts, feelings, and sensations which he had experienced to-day. Escape he could not, however, for just as he was slipping out at the door, without even kissing Christina's hand, Herr Elias seized him by the coat-tails, crying, 'Come, partner; you're not going to give us the slip, are you, son-in-law?' So he had to stay.

"A well known professor of natural philosophy was of opinion that Nature, in her capacity of a skilled experimentalist, has somewhere or other set up a tremendous electrical machine, from which mysterious conductors stretch all through our lives; and, though we avoid them and keep clear of them as well as we can, at some given moment or other we can't help treading on them, and then the flash and the shock dart through us, altering everything in us completely. No doubt Traugott had stepped on to one of these conductors at the moment when he began sketching the old man and the page, without having any idea that they were standing behind him in the flesh; for the strange apparition of them had gone darting through him like a flash of lightning, and he felt that he now clearly knew and understood things which had formerly been but presages and dreams. The shyness which used to tie his tongue when conversation turned upon things which lay hidden, like holy mysteries, in the depths of his being, had vanished; and so, when the uncle began finding fault with the wonderful figures, partly painted, partly carved, in the Artus-Hof, as being 'in bad taste,' and particularly the soldier-pictures as being 'wild and extravagant,' Traugott boldly maintained that, though it was possible that they might not strictly conform to the canons of art, still, it had been the case with him, as well as with many others, that a marvellous world of imagination had dawned upon him in the Artus Hof, and that some of the figures had told him, in looks full of life, as well as in distinct words, that he was a mighty master himself, and able to make and form like him from whose mysterious atelier they had proceeded.

"Herr Elias really looked, if possible, even a greater ass than usual when the youngster spoke these lofty words; but the uncle, with a strange, slightly sneering smile, said:

"'I repeat what I said before, that I can't understand how you should be a man of business, and not devote yourself to art altogether.' The man was excessively antipathetic to Traugott, somehow; and he therefore, during the walk, kept to the nephew, who was very pleasant and friendly.

"'Ah, Heavens!' the nephew said, 'how I envy you that talent of yours! If I could only draw like you! I really have a great turn for it; I've drawn some capital eyes, and ears and noses, and two or three heads even; but oh!--the office, you know,--the office!'

"'I thought,' said Traugott, 'that when one was conscious of a real gift--a true calling--for art, one ought to devote one's self to it altogether.'

"'Be an artist, you mean? How can you say such a thing? Look here, my dear fellow; I've thought over this subject perhaps more than most people; indeed I have such a reverence for art that I've gone deeper into this, almost, than I can explain, so that I can only give you a hint or two of what I mean.'

"He looked so learned and so profoundly thoughtful as he said this, that Traugott really felt a sort of veneration for him.

"'You'll admit,' said the nephew, when he had taken a pinch of snuff, and sneezed a couple of times, 'that the function of art is to weave flowers into life. Amusement--recreation after the serious business of life--is the delightful end and object of all artistic effort; and this is attained exactly in proportion as the productions of art are satisfactory. This goal of art is distinctly perceptible in actual life, because it is only those who practise art on this principle who enjoy that comfort and prosperity which flies away for ever from those who (against the true principles of things) look upon art as the primary object and highest aim of life. Therefore, my dear sir, don't you pay any attention to what my uncle said, nor let that lead you astray from the serious business of life, to an occupation which can no more stand alone than a helpless infant learning to walk.'

"Here the nephew paused, as if expecting Traugott to reply; but he had no idea what to say. The nephew's harangue had struck him as being a farrago of incredible nonsense, and he contented himself with asking him what he considered 'the serious business of life.' The nephew looked at him rather puzzled.

"'Well,' he said at last, 'you'll admit that a man must live; and the embarrassed professional artist can scarcely be said to do that.' He then went on talking a quantity of nonsense, using fine words and elaborate expressions; the result of which was, that by 'living' he meant having plenty of money and no debts; eating and drinking of the best, and having a nice wife and children, with no grease-spots on their Sunday-clothes, etc. This seemed to stifle Traugott, and he was glad when he got quit of this sapient nephew, and was alone in his own quarters.

"'What a wretched, miserable life I am leading, to be sure!' he said to himself. 'In the beautiful morning--in the glorious, golden spring-time, when the soft west wind comes breathing even into the gloomy streets, and seems to tell, in its gentle murmurings, of all the wonders and marvels that are blossoming into beauty in the fields and woods--I slink into Elias Roos's smoky office, "creeping like snail unwillingly to school." There pale faces sit behind shapeless desks, and nothing breaks the gloomy silence, buried in which everybody labours, but the turning of the leaves of big account-books, the jingle of money on the desks, and an occasional unintelligible word or two. And what kind of labour is it? What is all this thinking and writing for? That the coins in the chest may increase in number; that the Fafner's ill-luck-bringing hoard may sparkle and gleam the brighter. The artist--the sculptor--can go out with uplifted head, and inhale the refreshing spring-rays, which kindle in him an inner world full of glorious pictures, so that it bursts into happiness of life and motion. Out of the dark thickets come wonderful forms, created by his own spirit; and they remain his; because the mysterious spells of light, of colour, and of form dwell within him, and he fixes down for ever that which his mental vision has seen, representing it to the senses. Why should I not break away from this hateful life? The wonderful old man has confirmed me in the idea that I am called to be an artist; still more has the beautiful page. It is true he didn't say anything, but I felt that his look told me clearly everything which has been in me so long, in the form of presentiment, but which a thousand doubts and misgivings have pressed down and prevented from shooting up into life. Can I not be a great artist, in spite of my abominable calling?'

"Traugott got out all the drawings he had ever done, and looked through them critically. Much of his work struck him quite differently from what it had formerly done, and generally seemed much better than he had thought. There was one drawing particularly--one of his childish attempts, done in his early boyhood--a leaf, on which the old burgomaster and the page were copied, in somewhat distorted, but clearly recognizable outlines; and he remembered well that, even in these early days, those figures had a strange influence upon him, and that he was once, in the gloaming, impelled, as by an irresistible spell, to leave his play and go to the Artus Hof, where he laboured diligently at copying them. He was moved by the deepest, most melancholy yearning as he looked at this drawing. He ought by rights to have gone to the office for a couple of hours as usual, but he felt that he could not; and, instead, he went out and up on to the Karlsberg. Thence he looked out over the sea: and in the dashing billows, in the grey evening haze rising, and lying in wonderful shapes of cloud-vapour over Hela, he strove to read, as in a magic mirror, the destiny of his future life.

"Do you not hold, dear reader, that that which comes down into our breasts from the higher realm of love has to reveal itself to us at first as hopeless sorrow? That is the doubt, the misgiving, which comes surging into the artist's heart. He sees the ideal, and feels his powerlessness to grasp it. But then there comes to him a godlike courage; he makes endeavour, and his despair melts away into a sweet longing which gives him strength, and incites him to approach nearer and nearer to that Unattainable which he never reaches, though always getting closer to it.

"Traugott was now powerfully attacked by this hopeless pain. When, early the next morning, he looked again at his drawings, they all seemed feeble and wretched, and he remembered what an experienced friend had often said: that great mischief, together with very mediocre results in art, proceed from the circumstance that people often mistake mere vivid, superficial excitement for a true, inward calling for art. He was much disposed to look upon the Artus Hof and the figures of the burgomaster and the page as outward, superficial excitements of this description. He condemned himself to go back and work in the office, regardless of the loathing, which often came so forcibly upon him that he was obliged to leave off work all of a sudden and rush into the open air. Herr Elias, with careful consideration, attributed this to the poor state of health which he felt certain the deadly pale face of the youngster indicated.

"A considerable time elapsed--the St. Dominic's Fair was at hand, after which Traugott was to marry Christina, and be formally announced to the commercial world as Roos's partner. This point of time was, to him, that of his sorrowful farewell to all his fair hopes and beautiful dreams; and it lay heavy on his heart when he saw Christina hard at work having everything scrubbed and polished on the second floor, folding curtains with her own hands, giving the final polish and glitter to all the brass, etc.

"One day, in the thick of the turmoil in the Artus Hof, at its most crowded hour, Traugott heard a voice behind him, whose well-remembered tones went straight to his heart:

"'Is this paper really at such a discount?'

"He turned quickly, and saw, as he had expected, the wonderful old man, who had gone up to a broker to sell some paper whose price was tremendously depreciated. The handsome lad was standing behind the old man, and cast a sad, kindly look at Traugott. He went quickly up, and said:

"'Excuse me, sir; but that paper is very low in the market just at present. Still, there can be no doubt that it will stand much better in a very few days. If you will take my advice, you will keep it, and not sell till the quotation is more favourable.'

"'My good sir,' said the old man coldly and irritably, 'what have you got to do with my affairs? How do you know but that I may want ready money just at this particular moment, so that this piece of paper may be of no use to me?'

"Traugott, vexed that the old man had taken his interference so amiss, was going quickly away, but the lad looked beseechingly at him with tearful eyes.

"'I meant you kindly, sir,' he said quickly, 'and I can't allow you to be such a serious loser. Sell me the paper, on the understanding that I pay you the higher rate which it will stand at in a day or two.'

"'You're a strange person,' said the old man; 'I don't see why you should go making my fortune in this sort of way.'

"As he said this, he looked piercingly at the lad, who cast down bashful eyes of blue. They went with Traugott to his office, where the money was paid over to the old man, who put it in his purse with a face of gloom. Whilst this was going on, the lad said to Traugott:

"'Was it not you who were drawing so cleverly a week or two ago in the Artus Hof?'

"Yes,' said Traugott, while the colour came to his cheeks as he remembered the letter of advice.

"'Oh, then,' said the lad, 'I'm not surprised----'

"The old man looked at him angrily, and he stopped at once. Traugott couldn't help a certain embarrassment in their presence, so that they were gone before he managed to ask where they lived, etc., etc. The looks of them had something so marvellous about them that even the people in the office were struck by it.

"The surly book-keeper stuck his pen behind his ear and stared at the old man, with his arms crossed behind his head.

"God bless my soul!' he cried, when the couple had gone out, 'that chap with the curly beard and the black cloak looks like an old picture of the year 1400 in the church of St. John.'

"But Herr Elias took him for a Polish Jew, notwithstanding his aristocratic bearing, and his grave, thoughtful, old-German face.

"'Stupid brute!' he cried. 'Sells his paper now, and would get at least ten per cent, more for it this day week!' Of course he didn't know that Traugott was going to pay him the difference out of his own pocket; which he did some days afterwards, when he came across the old man and the lad in the Artus Hof again.

"'My son,' said the old man, 'has reminded me that you are a brother-artist; therefore I have accepted this service from you, which otherwise I should not have done.'

"They were standing beside one of the four granite pillars which support the vaulted roof of the hall, and close to the figures which Traugott had drawn in the letter of advice. He spoke, without hesitation, of the extraordinary likeness of these figures to the old man and the lad. The old man gave a strange smile, laid his hand on Traugott's shoulder, and said, in a low voice of some caution:

"'You are not aware, then, that I am Godfredus Berklinger, the German painter, and that I painted the figures which you seem to admire a very long time ago, when I was quite a young student of my art? I painted my own portrait as the Burgomaster, as a souvenir, and that the page leading the horse is my son you may see in a moment if you compare their faces and figures.'

"Traugott was dumb with amazement, but he soon felt that the old man, who believed himself the master who had painted these pictures over two hundred years ago, must be suffering from some species of insanity.

"'Indeed,' said the old man, lifting his head and looking round him with pride, 'it was a glorious springtide of art when I adorned this hall with all these pictures, in honour of the wise King Arthur and his Round Table. I have always felt convinced that the noble presence, who came to me once when I was working here, and called me to mastership, which I had not then attained, was King Arthur himself.'

"'My father,' said the lad, 'is an artist whom there are not many like, and you would not regret it if he were to allow you to come and see his works.'

"The old man had taken a few steps through the hall, which was then empty; and he called to the lad to come away. But Traugott boldly asked him to show him his pictures. The old man scanned him long, with keen, penetrating eyes, and finally said, very seriously:

"'You are somewhat presumptuous, truly, in that you would penetrate into the holy of holies before your apprenticeship is well begun. However, be it so! if your eyes are too feeble to see as yet, you may to some extent surmise. Come to me early to-morrow.'

"He explained where he lived, and Traugott got away from his work as soon as possible the next morning, and hastened to the out-of-the-way street where the old man was to be found. The lad, dressed in antique German costume, opened the door, and took him into a spacious room, where the old man was sitting on a little stool before a large canvas, all covered with a grey ground-tint.

"'You are come at a fortunate time, sir,' cried the old man, 'for I have just this moment put the finishing touches to this great picture, upon which I have been engaged for more than a year, and which has cost me no small pains! It is the companion picture to another of the same size, representing "Paradise Lost," which I finished last year, and which you will see here also. This one, as you see, is "Paradise Regained," and I should pity you if you were to try to discover any hidden allegory in it. It is only weaklings and bunglers who paint allegorical pictures. This picture of mine does not suggest; it is! You observe that all these rich groupings of men, animals, flowers and jewels form one harmonious whole, whose loud, glorious music is a pure, heavenly harmony of eternal glorification and ecstasy.'

"Then he began to point out, and give prominence to particular groups. He drew Traugott's attention to the mysteries of the disposition of the light and shade; to the lustre and sparkle of the flowers and gems; to the wonderful forms which, rising out of the bells of lilies, grouped themselves into bands of beautiful maidens and youths; to the bearded men who, with youthful vigour in their looks and motions, seemed to be conversing with curious animals. He spoke louder and louder, more and more vehemently and incoherently.

"'Let thy diamond crown sparkle, thou mighty sage!' he cried, with gleaming eyes riveted on the empty canvas. 'Throw off the Isis-veil which thou hast cast over thy head at the approach of the uninitiate! Why dost thou wrap that dark mantle so carefully over thy breast? I must see thy heart! It is the philosopher's stone, which discloses all secrets. Art thou not me? What meanest thou by confronting me with such audacity? Wilt thou do battle with thy master? Dost thou think that gleaming ruby there, which is thy heart, can grind my breast to dust? Come on, then! come forth! come here! I am he that made thee, for I am----'

"Here the old man fell to the ground in a heap, as if struck by a lightning flash. Traugott raised him up; the lad brought an easy-chair, in which they placed the old man, who now seemed to be lying in a quiet sleep.

"'You now know my dear old father's condition, sir,' said the lad softly, in a low voice. 'A cruel fate has stripped all the flowers away from his life; for many years he has been dead to the art, which was his life formerly. He sits for entire days before a canvas, stretched and grounded as you see that one. This he calls "painting," and you have seen the condition of excitement which the description of one of his so-called pictures produces in him. Besides this, he is tormented by another most unfortunate idea, which makes my life a very sad and unhappy one. But this I look upon as a blow of destiny which carries me away in the same sweep with which it has come over him. If you would like to recover a little from the impression of this strange scene, come with me into the next room, where you will see several pictures painted in my father's earlier, fruitful days.'

"How astonished was Traugott to see a number of works which might have been by the most celebrated painters of the Dutch School! They were generally scenes from life; for instance, a company of people coming back from the chase, singing, and playing on instruments, and the like. They were full of deep meaning; and the heads, particularly, had a wonderful expression of life and vigour. As Traugott was going back to the other room, he noticed a picture close to the door, before which he paused as if spell-bound. It was a portrait of a most beautiful girl, in ancient German dress, but the face was exactly that of the lad, only rounder and with more colour; and the figure seemed to be on a fuller scale. A thrill of nameless delight went through Traugott at the sight of this beautiful lady. In power and vigour the picture was quite equal to a Vandyke. The dark eyes gazed down on Traugott with a might of love-appeal; the sweet lips, half-parted, seemed to be whispering words of affection.

"'Oh Heaven! oh Heaven!' sighed Traugott out of the depths of his heart, 'where is she to be found?'

"'Come, sir,' said the lad, 'we must go to my father.'

"But Traugott cried, like one beside himself:

"'Ah! that is she, the beloved of my soul, whom I have so long treasured in the depths of my heart, whom I was conscious of, and recognized only in dreams! Where is she? Where is she?'

"The tears streamed from young Berklinger's eyes; he seemed torn with a spasm of pain, scarce able to master his emotion.

"'Come!' he said at last, in a firm, steady voice. 'That is a portrait of my sister, my unfortunate sister, Felizitas. She is lost, gone for ever. You will never see her.'

"Traugott, scarcely conscious what he was doing, let himself be conducted back to the other room. The old man was still asleep, but he started up, with eyes flashing anger, and cried:

"'What are you doing here, sir?'

"The lad reminded him that he had just been showing Traugott his new picture. He then seemed to remember what had happened. He appeared to get weaker, and said, very faintly:

"'You will pardon an old man's forgetfulness, my dear sir?'

"Your new picture is a most magnificent work,' said Traugott. 'I have never seen anything like it. It must take enormous labour and study to paint like that. I trace in myself a great, irresistible bent towards art, and I beg you most earnestly, my dear old master, to take me as your most diligent and hard-working pupil.'

"The old man grew quite serene and kindly. He embraced Traugott, and promised to be his faithful master and instructor. Traugott went to him every day, and made great progress. His office work was now altogether repugnant to him; he got so careless of it and inattentive to it that Herr Elias Roos made loud complaints, and at last was glad when Traugott, under the pretext of a lingering illness, gave up going to the office at all: for which reason, also, the marriage was put off for an indefinite time, to Christina's no small vexation.

"'That Mr. Traugott of yours,' said a business friend to Roos, 'looks as if he had got something or other on his mind; perhaps some old love debit which he would like to square up before he marries; he's so terribly white, and wild-looking.'

"'Ay, ay,' said Elias; 'and why not, if he likes? I wonder,' he continued after a little, 'if that sly little baggage of a Christina of mine has been up to any tricks? That book-keeper's a spoony sort of fellow; he's always kissing her hand, and squeezing it. Traugott's over head and ears in love with her. Is it a bit of jealousy, I wonder? Gad! I must watch how the cat jumps a little.'

"But though he watched as carefully as he could, he did not see how she jumped; and he said to the business friend aforesaid:

"'He's a precious rum customer, Master Traugott, I can tell you; but I see nothing for it but to let him "gang his gate" as he likes best. If he hadn't between seven and eight thousand pounds in my house, I should soon let him see what I'd be after. Damme! he never does a stroke of work in the office.'

"Traugott would now have been leading a life of the brightest sunshine in the study of his art, had his heart not been consumed by the fervour of his love for the beautiful Felizitas, whom he often saw in wondrous dreams. Her portrait had disappeared; the old man had taken it away, and Traugott did not dare to ask about it for fear of annoying him. For the rest, Berklinger had got more and more confidence in Traugott as time went on, and he now allowed him to better his narrow housekeeping in many ways, instead of paying for his lessons in money. Traugott learned from young Berklinger that the old man had lost very considerably by the sale of a small collection of pictures, and that the paper which Traugott had negotiated for him was all that had been left of that sum, and was in fact all the money they had remaining. But it was extremely seldom that he was able to have any talk with the lad in private; the old man watched him with extraordinary vigilance, and always instantly interfered when he was beginning to talk freely and unconstrainedly with his friend. This pained Traugott greatly, as from his extraordinary likeness to Felizitas he was devoted to him; and often, when he was near the lad, he almost felt as if the beloved form was by him in all its beauty--as if he felt the sweet breath of her love; and he would fain have taken the lad to his heart as if he had been the adored Felizitas herself.

"The winter was over; the beautiful spring shone forth, and blossomed in all its loveliness in wood and meadow. Elias Boos advised Traugott to go to some watering-place, or try a course of whey. Christina began to look forward to her marriage again, though Traugott seldom showed himself, and still seldomer allowed the idea of such a thing as marriage to enter his head.

"One day, Traugott had been obliged to go to the office and spend a considerable time there, in connection with the settlement of some important accounts; so that the usual hour for his lesson was long past, and he did not arrive at Berklinger's till it was late in the evening twilight. He found nobody in the front-room, and from the next proceeded the sound of a lute. He had never heard the instrument before. He listened. A song, broken by pauses, breathed through the chords like gentle sighs. He opened the door. Heavens! a female figure, in ancient German dress, was seated with her back to him, with high lace collar, exactly like the portrait. At the slight sound which Traugott made in opening the door, the lady rose, laid the lute on the table, and turned. It was her very self!

"'Felizitas!' Traugott cried wildly, in the fulness of his rapture, and was going to kneel at her feet, when he felt himself seized by the neck from behind, with a mighty grip, and dragged out of the room.

"'Profligate! Villain unparalleled!' cried old Berklinger, as he thrust him out, 'this is your love of art, is it? Do you want to kill me?'

"He dragged him out at the door; a knife was gleaming in his hand. Traugott fled down-stairs, stupefied, half crazy with love and terror. He hurried home.

"He rolled about, sleepless, from side to side in his bed.

"'Felizitas! Felizitas!' he cried, torn with anguish and love-pain; 'you are here, and I may not see you!--cannot take you to my arms! For you love me, that I know, by the bitter torture that I feel myself?'

"The spring sun came shining brightly into his room; he pulled himself together, and resolved to get to the bottom of the mystery in Berklinger's house, cost what it might. He went there as quickly as he could; but what were his feelings when he saw that all the windows were open, and women busy cleaning out the rooms. He felt what had happened. Berklinger and his son had left the house late the previous evening, and gone away, no one knew whither. A cart with two horses had taken away the boxes with the pictures, and the two small trunks which contained the Berklingers' little all; and he had followed, with his son, about half-an-hour afterwards. All efforts to trace them were vain; no stable-keeper had hired out horses to anybody answering to the description of them which Traugott gave; even at the town-gates he could hear nothing satisfactory. Berklinger had disappeared as if he had been carried away on Mephistopheles's mantle. Traugott ran home in utter despair.

"'She is gone! she is gone! the beloved of my soul! All--all is lost!' he cried, as he went banging past Elias Roos (who happened to be in the front hall near the entry door) on his way to his room.

"'God bless my soul and body!' cried Herr Elias, shoving back his wig. 'Christina! Christina!' he then cried till the house rang; 'Christina! horrible girl! undutiful daughter!'

"The clerks came running out of the office with faces of terror.

"'What's the matter, Herr Roos?' cried the bookkeeper, in great alarm; but Herr Roos went on shouting 'Christina! Christina!'

"'Just then Christina came in at the street-door, and, after she had lifted the brim of her broad straw-hat up a little, asked, with a smile, what her father was making such a shouting about.

"I'm not going to have you bolting away in this inexplicable sort of way,' Herr Elias roared at her, wrathfully in the extreme. 'The son-in-law's a melancholy sort of customer, and as jealous as the Grand Turk. Just you keep at home, d'ye see, or we shall have all the fat in the fire directly. My partner's sitting in there, howling and groaning, because you're out of the way somewhere.'

"Christina cast a look of amazement at the bookkeeper, who replied by a significant glance towards the office-cupboard where Herr Elias kept the cinnamon-water.

"'Better go in and comfort the intended,' he said, going back to the office. Christina went to her own room, just to put on some other 'things;' give out the week's washing; make the necessary arrangements with the cook about the Sunday dinner, and hear the gossip of the town during that process, and then go at once and see what was the matter with the 'intended.'

"Yon know, dear reader, that we should all of us--had we been in Traugott's place--have had to go through the essential stages of the condition. No escape from that. After the despair comes a benumbed, heavy brooding, in which the 'crisis' takes place; and then the condition passes into a gentle sorrow, in which Nature knows how to apply her remedies efficaciously.

"In this stage of heavy, but beneficent sorrow, Traugott was sitting some days afterwards on the Karlsberg, gazing once more at the waves as they beat upon the shore, and the grey mists that lay over Hela. But not, this time, was he trying to read the future. All that he had hoped and anticipated was past.

"'Ah!' he sighed, 'my calling for art was a bitter deception. Felizitas was the phantom which lured me to believe in what never existed save in the insane dreams of a fever-sick fool. It is all over. I fight no more! Back to my prison! So let it be, and have done with it!'

"Traugott worked in the office again, and the marriage-day with Christina was fixed once more. The day before it, Traugott was standing in the Artus Hof, looking, not without inward heart-breaking sorrow, at the fateful forms of the burgomaster and his page, when he noticed the broker to whom Berklinger had been trying to sell his paper. Almost involuntarily, without thinking what he was doing, he went up to him and asked him:

"'Did you know a strange old man with a black, curly beard, who used to come here some time ago, with a handsome lad?'

"'Of course I did,' said the broker: Godfried Berklinger, the mad painter.'

"'Then have you any idea what's become of him?--where he's living now?'

"'Certainly I have,' answered the broker; 'he's been quietly settled down at Sorrento for a good while, with his daughter?'

"'With his daughter Felizitas?' cried Traugott, so vehemently that all the people looked round at him.

"'Well, yes,' answered the broker quietly; 'that was the nice-looking lad that used to go about with the old man. Half Dantzic knew it was a girl, though the old gentleman thought nobody would ever find it out. It had been prophesied to him that if his daughter ever got into any love-affair he would die a horrible death, and that was why he didn't want anybody to know about her, and gave out that she was his son.'

"Traugott stood as if petrified. Then he set off running through the streets, out at the town-gate to the open country, and on into the woods, loudly lamenting.

"'Miserable wretch that I am!' he cried. 'It was she!--it was herself! I have sate beside her thousands of times; inhaled her breath, pressed her delicate hands, looked into her beautiful eyes, listened to her sweet accents! and now she is lost! Ah, no!--lost she is not! After her to the land of art! The hint of destiny is clear. Away!--away to Sorrento!' He rushed home. Elias Roos chanced to come in his way. He seized him, and dragged him into his room.

"'I'll never marry Christina!' he shouted; 'she's like the Voluptas, and the Luxuries, and has hair like the Ira, in the picture in the Artus Hof. Felizitas! beautiful, beloved being! how you stretch out your longing arms to me! I am coming! I am coming! and I give you fair warning, Elias,' he continued, once more clutching that man of business, whose face was as white as a sheet, 'that you'll never see me in that damned office of yours any more! What the devil do I care for your infernal ledgers and day-books? I'm a painter--and a good painter too: Berklinger is my master, my father, my everything; and you are nothing--and less than nothing!'

"With this he gave Elias a good shaking, who shouted at the top of his lungs, 'Help! help, you fellows! Come here! the son-in-law's gone off his head! My partner's raving! Help! help!'

"The clerks all came rushing out of the office; Traugott had left Elias go, and was lying exhausted in a chair. They all came round him; but on his jumping up suddenly, with a wild look, and crying, 'What the devil do you want?' they ran jostling out at the door in a heap, with Herr Elias in the centre. Presently there was a rustling, as of a silk dress, outside, and a voice inquired:

"Are you really gone out of your senses, Mr. Traugott, or are you only joking?'

"It was Christina.

"'I'm not a bit wrong in my head, my clear child,' Traugott answered, 'and I'm not joking in the slightest degree. But there'll be no wedding to-morrow, as far as I am concerned. As to that, my mind's completely made up. It's impossible that ever I can marry you at all.'

"'Oh, very well,' said Christina, without the smallest excitement; 'I haven't been caring so much about you for some time as I used, and there are people who would think themselves very well off to marry me if they got the chance. So, adieu.'

"With which she went rustling out.

"'She means the book-keeper,' thought Traugott. As he was calm, now, he betook himself to Herr Roos, to whom he demonstrated circumstantially that there could not possibly be any further question of him as a son-in-law, or as a partner either. Herr Elias agreed to everything, and asseverated, times without number, in the office, with gladness of heart, that he thanked God he was well rid of the crack-brained Traugott, when the latter was far away from Dantzic.

"Life dawned upon Traugott with a fresh and glorious brightness when he found himself in the longed-for land. The German artists in Rome admitted him into the circle of their studies, and thus it happened that he made a longer stay there than his eagerness to see Felizitas, which had urged him on restlessly till then, wholly justified. But this longing had become less urgent. It had taken more the form of a blissful dream whose perfumed shimmer pervaded all his being, so that he looked upon it, and the exercise of his art, as matters belonging wholly to the high and holy, super-earthly realm of blissful presage and anticipation. Every female figure which he painted with his skilful artist's hand had the face of the beautiful Felizitas. The young artists were much struck by the beauty of this face, of which they could not come across the original in Rome; and they besieged Traugott with questions as to where he had seen her. But he felt a certain shyness about telling them his strange adventure at Dantzic; till at length an old friend of his, Matuszewski by name (who, like himself, had devoted himself to painting in Rome), joyfully announced that he had seen the girl whom Traugott introduced in all his pictures. Traugott's joy may be imagined; he no longer made any secret of what it was that had drawn him so strongly to art and brought him to Italy, and the artists thought his Dantzic adventure so curious and interesting that they all undertook to search eagerly for his lost love. Matuszewski was the most successful; he soon found out where the girl lived, and learnt, besides, that she really was the daughter of a poor old painter, who was at that time tinting the walls in the church of Trinità dell' Monte. Traugott went to that church with Matuszewski, and thought he actually recognized old Berklinger in the painter, who was up upon a lofty scaffold. From thence the friends, whom the old man had not noticed, hurried to where he lived.

"'It is she!' cried Traugott when he saw the painter's daughter on the balcony, busy about some woman's work. "With a loud cry of 'Felizitas! Felizitas!' he burst into the room. The girl looked at him quite terrified. She had the features of Felizitas, and was excessively like her, but was not she. This bitter disappointment pierced Traugott's heart as with a thousand daggers. Matuszewski explained to the girl how the matter stood, in a few words. She was very lovely in her shyness, with blushing cheeks and downcast eyes; and Traugott, who at first wanted to be off immediately, remained where he was (after giving just another sorrowful look at the pretty young creature), fettered by gentle bands. Matuszewski managed to say polite and pleasant things to reassure the pretty Dorina, who soon lifted the dark fringed curtains of her eyes, and looked at the strangers with smiling glances, saying her father would soon be home and that he would be delighted to see German artists, of whom his opinion was high. Traugott could not but admit that, except Felizitas, no woman had ever made such an impression on him as Dorina. She was, in fact, almost Felizitas herself, only her features were a little more strongly marked, and her hair a trifle darker. It was the same portrait painted by Raphael and by Rubens. The father came in ere long, and Traugott at once saw that the height of the scaffold on which he had seen him had deceived him as to his appearance. Instead of the vigorous Berklinger, this was a little lean, timid creature, oppressed by poverty. A deceptive cross shadow in the church had given to his smooth-shaven chin the effect of Berklinger's black curly beard. He showed great practical knowledge in talking of his art, and Traugott determined to cultivate an acquaintance which, painfully as it had commenced, was becoming pleasanter every moment. Dorina, all sweetness and childlike candour, allowed her liking for the young German painter to be clearly seen. Traugott returned it heartily, and soon got so accustomed to be with her that he spent entire days with the little household, moved his studio to a large empty room near their house, and at last went and lodged with them altogether. In this way he greatly improved their slender scale of housekeeping, and the old man could not think otherwise than that Traugott was going to marry Dorina. He told him so, one day, plump and plain. Traugott was not a little alarmed: for he only then began to ask himself what had become of the object of his journey. Felizitas stood once more vividly before his memory, and yet he did not feel able to quit Dorina. In some mysterious way he could not think of ever possessing his vanished love as a wife. Felizitas seemed a spiritual image, never either to be won, or lost--eternally present to the spirit--never to be physically gained and possessed. But Dorina often came to his thoughts as his dear wife. Sweet thrills permeated him, a gentle glow streamed through his veins. And yet it seemed a treason to his first love to allow himself to be bound with new, indissoluble ties. Thus did the most contradictory feelings strive in his heart. He could not come to a decision. He avoided the old man carefully, who was under the impression that Traugott was going to trick him out of his daughter, and took care to talk everywhere of Traugott's marriage as a settled thing, saying that otherwise he never would have allowed his daughter to contract an intimacy so dangerous to her fair fame. One day his Italian blood fired up, and he told Traugott distinctly that he must either marry Dorina, or be off about his business, as he could not allow their intimacy to go on, on its present footing, for another hour. Traugott was vexed and indignant, and that not with the old man only. His own conduct struck him as contemptible. It seemed a sin and an abomination to have ever thought of another than Felizitas. It tore his heart to part from Dorina, but he broke the tender ties by a mighty effort, and set off as fast as possible to Naples--to Sorrento.

"He spent a year in the most careful efforts to discover Berklinger and Felizitas--in vain; nobody knew anything about them. All that he traced was a faint sort of surmise--based upon what seemed little more than a legend--that there had once been an old German painter in Sorrento, several years before. Driven to and fro as if upon a stormy ocean, Traugott ended by settling down for some time in Naples; and, as he worked more diligently at his painting again, the longing for Felizitas grew gentler and milder in his heart. But he never saw a woman at all resembling her in figure, walk, or bearing, without feeling the loss of the dear, sweet child most painfully. When painting, he never thought of Dorina, but always of Felizitas, who was his constant ideal.

"At last he got letters from home, in which his agent told him that Herr Elias Roos had shuffled off this mortal coil, and that his presence was necessary for the settlement of his affairs with the book-keeper, who had married Christina, and was carrying on the business. Traugott hastened back to Dantzic by the quickest route.

"There he stood once more in the Artus Hof, by the granite pillar, opposite to the Burgomaster and the Page. He thought of the strange adventure which had introduced such a painful element into his life; and, in deep and painful sorrow, he gazed at the lad, who seemed to welcome him back with eyes of life, and to whisper in sweet and charming accents, 'You see, you could not leave me, after all!'

"'Can I believe my eyes? Is it really you, sir, back again safe and sound, and quite cured of the troublesome melancholy which used to bother you so?'

"So croaked a voice beside Traugott. It was our old acquaintance the broker.

"'I never found them,' said Traugott involuntarily.

"'Them?' inquired the broker. 'Whom did you never find, sir?'

"'The painter, Godfredus Berklinger, and his daughter Felizitas,' answered Traugott. 'I searched for them all over Italy; nobody knew anything about them in Sorrento.'

"The broker looked at him with eyes of wide amazement, and stammered: 'Where did you look for them, sir? In Italy? at Naples? at Sorrento?'

"'Yes, of course I did,' said Traugott wrathfully.

"The broker struck his hands together time after time, crying 'Oh, my goodness gracious! Oh, my goodness gracious! Oh, Mr. Traugott, sir!'

"'Well! what is there so astonishing about it?' said Traugott. 'Don't go on like a donkey! For the sake of the woman he loves, a man will go even as far as to Sorrento. Yes, yes! I loved Felizitas, and I went in search of her.'

"But the broker jumped about on one leg, and kept on crying, 'Oh, my goodness gracious!' till Traugott seized him and held him tight; and looking at him with earnest glance said:

"'For God's sake, man, out with what you see so extraordinary about the affair!'

"'But, Mr. Traugott,' began the broker at last, 'don't you know that Herr Aloysius Brandstetter, the town councillor and Dean of Guild, calls that little villa of his at the bottom of the Karlsberg, in the fir wood near Conrad's Hammer, "Sorrento"? He bought Berklinger's pictures, and took him and his daughter to live in his house, that's to say, in Sorrento. They were there for a year or two, and you might have stood upon the Karlsberg on your own logs, my dear sir, and looked down into the garden, and seen Mademoiselle Felizitas walking about in funny old-fashioned clothes, like those in the pictures there. You needn't have taken the trouble to go to Italy! Afterwards the old man---- But that's a painful story.'

"'Let me hear it,' said Traugott in a hollow voice.

"'Well,' continued the broker, 'young Mr. Brandstetter came back from England and fell in love with Mademoiselle Felizitas; and once when he found her in the garden, he fell romantically on his knees to her and vowed he would marry her, and free her from the tyrannical slavery her father kept her in. The old man was close by, though they didn't see him; and as soon as ever Felizitas said, "I will be yours," he tumbled down, with a hollow cry, as dead as a herring, sir! They say he looked awful, all blue and bloody, for he had broken a blood-vessel somehow or other. After that, Mademoiselle Felizitas couldn't endure young Mr. Brandstetter, so she married Mr. Mathesius, the police magistrate at Marienwerder. You'll go and call upon her, of course, for the sake of old times. Marienwerder isn't quite so far away as Sorrento in Italy. She's quite well, and very happy, They've got several nice children.'

"Traugott hastened away, silent and benumbed. This outcome of his adventure filled him with awe and terror.

"'Oh no!' he cried. 'This is not she, this is not she--not Felizitas, the angelic creature who kindled that eternal love and longing in my soul! whom I went in search of to a far-off country, always and always seeing her dear image before me like my star of fortune, beaming and glowing in sweet hope! Felizitas! Mrs. Mathesius, wife of Mathesius, the police magistrate. Ha! ha! ha! Mrs. Mathesius!'

"He laughed loud and bitterly in the wildness of his grief; and, as of old, he went out at the Olivaer Gate and up on to the Karlsberg. He looked down into the grounds of Sorrento: the tears rolled down his cheeks. 'Ah!' he cried, 'how deeply, how incurably deeply, thou Eternal Power that rulest all things, does thy bitter scorn and mockery wound the tender hearts of poor humanity! But, no, no; why should the child, who puts his hands into the fire instead of enjoying its warmth and brightness, complain? Destiny was at work with me, visibly; but my feeble eyes could not see; and, in my audacity, I thought that creation of the old master which came so wondrously to life and approached me, was a thing like myself, and that I could drag it down into this wretched earthly existence. No, no, Felizitas! I have not lost you. You are, and shall be, mine for ever, because you are the creative art which lives within me. It is only now that I really know you. What have you, what have I, to do with Mrs. Mathesius, the police magistrate's wife? Nothing, that I can see.'

"'I couldn't quite see what you had to do with her, either, Mr. Traugott,' a voice fell in.

"Traugott awoke from a dream. He found himself, without knowing how, in the Artus Hof again, leaning on the granite pillar. The person who had just spoken was Christina's husband. He handed Traugott a letter which had just arrived from Rome. Matuszewski wrote:

"'Dorina is prettier and more charming than ever; only rather pale, for love of you, dear friend. She expects you hourly, for she is certain you could not desert her. She is really tremendously devoted to you. When shall we see you here again?'

"'I'm very glad, indeed,' said Traugott to Christina's husband after reading this, 'that we managed to settle all our business to-day, for I start to-morrow for Rome, where the lady I am going to marry is expecting me eagerly.'"

When Cyprian finished reading, the friends congratulated him on the pleasant, healthy tone which pervaded his story. Only Theodore thought the fair sex might find a good deal to take exception to in it, and that not only the blonde Christina with her well scoured pots and pans, but the mystification of the hero, Mrs. Mathesius the police magistrate's wife and all the latter part of the story, with its profound irony, would much displease them.

"If you are going to model your work," said Lothair, "according to what pleases women, you must, of course, leave out irony altogether--although it is the source of the most delicate and delightful kind of humour--because they have not, as a general rule, the smallest sense of it."

"Which I, for one, am thoroughly glad is the case," said Theodore. "You'll admit that humour, which, in us, takes its source in striking contrasts, is quite foreign to feminine nature. And we are vividly conscious of this, though we may not often clearly account to ourselves for it. For, tell me, though you may take pleasure for a time in the conversation of a witty and humorous woman, would you like her as a sweetheart or a wife?"

"Not at all," said Lothair, "although there is a great deal to be said on the extensive question of how far humour is a feminine quality or otherwise; and I hereby reserve the privilege of hereafter addressing my worthy Serapion Brethren, at a suitable opportunity, on this important question, with a fulness and wisdom with which no psychologist has as yet discussed it. But, as a general query, let me ask you, Theodore, if you consider it essentially necessary to think of every superior woman, with whom one may have a little rational conversation, in the light of a sweetheart or wife?"

"I think," said Theodore, "that any feminine being can only really interest one if one, at all events, does not shrink from the idea of her as a sweetheart or wife, and that, the more this idea finds comfortable room in one's mind, the greater is the interest."

"That," said Ottmar, laughing, "is one of Theodore's most daring theories, which I know well of old. He has always acted up to it, and often coolly turned his back upon many a charming creature, because he couldn't manage to fancy himself in love with her for an hour or two. Even as a dancing student, he used to declare, earnestly, that he gave his heart to every girl he danced with, at all events while the waltz or quadrille lasted; and he used to try to express in his 'steps' what his lips were forbidden to utter, and sigh as profoundly as his stock of breath would let him."

"Allow me," said Theodore, "to interrupt this un-Serapiontish conversation. It is late; and I should be sorry not to read you, to-night, a tale which I finished yesterday. The spirit moved me to treat, rather more fully than has been done previously, a well-known thema concerning a miner at Falun; and you must decide whether I have done well to yield to the spirit's prompting, or not. I have had to keep my colouring down to a melancholy tone, which may perhaps contrast unfavourably with Cyprian's more cheerful picture. Forgive me this, and lend me a favourable ear."

Theodore read:--

"[THE MINES OF FALUN.]

"One bright, sunny day in July the whole population of Goethaborg was assembled at the harbour. A fine East-Indiaman, happily returned from her long voyage, was lying at anchor, with her long, homeward-bound pennant, and the Swedish flag fluttering gaily in the azure sky. Hundreds of boats, skiffs, and other small craft, thronged with rejoicing seafolk, were going to and fro on the mirroring waters of the Goethaelf, and the cannon of Masthuggetorg thundered their far-echoing greeting out to sea. The gentlemen of the East-India Company were walking up and down on the quay, reckoning up, with smiling faces, the plentiful profits they had netted, and rejoicing their hearts at the yearly increasing success of their hazardous enterprise, and at the growing commercial importance of their good town of Goethaborg. For the same reasons everybody looked at these brave adventurers with pleasure and pride, and shared their rejoicing; for their success brought sap and vigour into the whole life of the place.

"The crew of the East-Indiaman, about a hundred strong, landed in a number of boats (gaily dressed with flags for the occasion) and prepared to hold their 'Hoensning.' That is the name of the feast which the sailors hold on such occasions; it often goes on for several days. Musicians went before them, in strange, gay dresses, playing lustily on violins, oboes, fifes and drums, whilst others sung merry songs; after them came the crew, walking two and two; some, with gay ribbons on their hats and jackets, waved fluttering streamers; others danced and skipped; and all of them shouted and cheered at the tops of their voices, till the sounds of merriment rang far and wide.

"Thus the gay procession passed through the streets, and on to the Haga suburb, where a feast of eating and drinking was ready for them in a tavern.

"Here the best of 'Oel' flowed in rivers and bumper after bumper was quaffed. Numbers of women joined them, as is always the case when sailors come home from a long voyage; dancing began, and wilder and wilder grew the revel, and louder and louder the din.

"One sailor only--a slender, handsome lad of about twenty, or scarcely so much--had slipped away from the revel, and was sitting alone outside, on the bench at the door of the tavern.

"Two or three of his shipmates came out to him, and cried, laughing loudly:

"'Now then, Elis Froebom! are you going to be a donkey, as usual, and sit out here in the sulks, instead of joining the sport like a man? Why, you might as well part company from the old ship altogether, and set sail on your own hook, as fight shy of the "Hoensning." One would think you were a regular long-shore land-lubber, and had never been afloat on blue water. All the same, you've got as good pluck as any sailor that walks a deck--ay, and as cool and steady a head in a gale of wind as ever I came athwart; but, you see, you can't take your liquor! You'd sooner keep the ducats in your pocket than serve them out to the land-sharks ashore here. There, lad! take a drink of that; or Naecken, the sea-devil, and all the Troll will be foul of your hawse before you know where you are!'

"Elis Froebom jumped up quickly from the bench; glared angrily at his shipmates; took the tumbler--which was filled to the brim with brandy--and emptied it at a draught; then he said:

"'You see I can take my glass with any man of you, Ivens; and you can ask the captain if I'm a good sailor-man, or not; so stow away that long tongue of yours, and sheer off! I don't care about all this drink and row here; and what I'm doing out here by myself is no business of yours; you have nothing to do with it.'

"'All right, my hearty!' answered Ivens. 'I know all about it. You're one of these Nerica men--and a moony lot the whole cargo of them are too. They're the sort of chaps that would rather sit and pipe their eye about nothing particular, than take a good glass, and see what the pretty lasses at home are made of, after a twelve-month's cruize! But just you belay there a bit. Steer full and bye, and stand off and on, and I'll send somebody out to you that'll cut you adrift, in a pig's whisper, from that old bench where you've cast your anchor.'

"They went; and presently a very pretty, rather refined-looking girl came out of the tavern, and sat down beside the melancholy Elis, who was still sitting, silent and thoughtful, on the bench. From her dress and general appearance there could be no doubt as to her terrible calling. But the life she was leading had not yet quite marred the delicacy of the wonderfully tender features of her beautiful face; there was no trace of repulsive boldness about the expression of her dark eyes--rather a quiet, melancholy longing.

"'Aren't you coming to join your shipmates, Elis?' she said. 'Now that you're back safe and sound, after all you've gone through on your long voyage, aren't you glad to be home in the old country again?'

"The girl spoke in a soft, gentle voice, putting her arms about him. Elis Froebom looked into her eyes, as if roused from a dream. He took her hand; he pressed her to his breast. It was evident that what she had said had made its way to his heart.

"'Ah!' he said, as if collecting his thoughts, 'it's no use talking about my enjoying myself. I can't join in all that riot and uproar; there's no pleasure in it, for me. You go away, my dear child! Sing and shout like the rest of them, if you can, and let the gloomy, melancholy Elis stay out here by himself; he would only spoil your pleasure. Wait a minute, though! I like you, and I should wish you to think of me sometimes, when I'm away on the sea again.'

"With that he took two shining ducats out of his pocket, and a beautiful Indian handkerchief from his breast, and gave them to the girl. But her eyes streamed with tears; she rose, laid the money on the bench, and said:

"'Oh, keep your ducats; they only make me miserable; but I'll wear the handkerchief in dear remembrance of you. You're not likely to find me next year when you hold your Hoensning in the Haga.'

"And she crept slowly away down the street, with her hands pressed to her face.

"Elis fell back into his gloomy reveries. At length, as the uproar in the tavern grew loud and wild, he cried:

"'Oh, that I were lying deep, deep beneath the sea! for there's nobody left in the wide, wide world that I can be happy with now!'

"A deep, harsh voice spoke, close behind him: 'You must have been most unfortunate, youngster, to wish to die, just when life should be opening before you.'

"Elis looked round, and saw an old miner standing leaning against the boarded wall of the tavern, with folded arms, looking down at him with a grave, penetrating glance.

"As Elis looked at him, a feeling came to him as if some familiar figure had suddenly come into the deep, wild solitude in which he had thought himself lost. He pulled himself together, and told the old miner that his father had been a stout sailor, but had perished in the storm from which he himself had been saved as by a miracle; that his two soldier brothers had died in battle, and he had supported his mother with the liberal pay he drew for sailing to the East Indies. He said he had been obliged to follow the life of a sailor, having been brought up to it from childhood, and it had been a great piece of good fortune that he got into the service of the East-India Company. This voyage, the profits had been greater than usual, and each of the crew had been given a sum of money over and above his pay; so that he had hastened, in the highest spirits, with his pockets full of ducats, to the little cottage where his mother lived. But strange faces looked at him from the windows, and a young woman who opened the door to him at last told him, in a cold, harsh tone, that his mother had died three months before, and that he would find the few bits of things that were left, after paying the funeral expenses, waiting for him at the Town Hall. The death of his mother broke his heart. He felt alone in the world--as much so as if he had been wrecked on some lonely reef, helpless and miserable. All his life at sea seemed to him to have been a mistaken, purposeless driving. And when he thought of his mother, perhaps badly looked after by strangers, he thought it a wrong and horrible thing that he should have gone to sea at all, instead of staying at home and taking proper care of her. His comrades had dragged him to the Hoensning in spite of himself, and he had thought, too, that the uproar, and even the drink, might have deadened his pain; but instead of that, all the veins in his breast seemed to be bursting, and he felt as if he must bleed to death.

"'Well,' said the old miner, 'you'll soon be off to sea again, Elis, and then your sorrow will soon be over. Old folks must die; there's no help for that: she has only gone from this miserable world to a better.'

"Ah!' said Elis, 'it is just because nobody believes in my sorrow, and that they all think me a fool to feel it--I say it's that which is driving me out of the world! I shan't go to sea any more; I'm sick of existence altogether. When the ship used to go flying along through the water, with all sail set, spreading like glorious wings, the waves playing and dashing in exquisite music, and the wind singing in the rigging, my heart used to bound. Then I could hurrah and shout on deck like the best of them. And when I was on look-out duty of dark, quiet nights, I used to think about getting home, and how glad my dear old mother would be to have me back. I could enjoy a Hoensning like the rest of them, then. And when I had shaken the ducats into mother's lap, and given her the handkerchiefs and all the other pretty things I had brought home, her eyes would sparkle with pleasure, and she would clap her hands for joy, and run out and in, and fetch me the "Aehl" which she had kept for my homecoming. And when I sat with her of an evening, I would tell her of all the strange folks I had seen, and their ways and customs, and about the wonderful things I had come across in my long voyages. This delighted her; and she would tell me of my father's wonderful cruizes in the far North, and serve me up lots of strange, sailor's yarns, which I had heard a hundred times, but never could hear too often. Ah! who will give me that happiness back again? No, no! never more on land!--never more at sea! What should I do among my shipmates? They would only laugh at me. Where should I find any heart for my work? It would be nothing but an objectless striving.'

"It gives me real satisfaction to listen to you, youngster,' said the old miner. 'I have been observing you, without your knowledge, for the last hour or two, and have had my own enjoyment in so doing. All that you have said and done has shown me that you possess a profoundly thoughtful mind, and a character and nature pious, simple, and sincere. Heaven could have given you no more precious gifts; but you were never in all your born days in the least cut out for a sailor. How should the wild, unsettled sailor's life suit a meditative, melancholy Neriker like you?--for I can see that you come from Nerica by your features, and whole appearance. You are right to say good-bye to that life for ever. But you're not going to walk about idle, with your hands in your pockets? Take my advice, Elis Froebom. Go to Falun, and be a miner. You are young and strong. You'll soon be a first-class pick-hand; then a hewer; presently a surveyor, and so get higher and higher. You have a lot of ducats in your pocket. Take care of them; invest them; add more to them. Very likely you'll soon get a "Hemmans" of your own, and then a share in the works. Take my advice, Elis Froebom; be a miner.'

"The old man's words caused him a sort of fear.

"'What?' he cried. 'Would you have me leave the bright, sunny sky that revives and refreshes me, and go down into that dreadful, hell-like abyss, and dig and tunnel like a mole for metals and ores, merely to gain a few wretched ducats? Oh, never!'

"'The usual thing,' said the old man. 'People despise what they have had no chance of knowing anything about! As if all the constant wearing, petty anxieties inseparable from business up here on the surface, were nobler than the miner's work. To his skill, knowledge, and untiring industry Nature lays bare her most secret treasures. You speak of gain with contempt, Elis Froebom. Well, there's something infinitely higher in question here, perhaps: the mole tunnels the ground from blind instinct; but, it may be, in the deepest depths, by the pale glimmer of the mine candle, men's eyes get to see clearer, and at length, growing stronger and stronger, acquire the power of reading in the stones, the gems, and the minerals, the mirroring of secrets which are hidden above the clouds. You know nothing about mining, Elis. Let me tell you a little.'

"He sat down on the bench beside Elis, and began to describe the various processes minutely, placing all the details before him in the clearest and brightest colours. He talked of the Mines of Falun, in which he said he had worked since he was a boy; he described the great main-shaft, with its dark brown sides; he told how incalculably rich the mine was in gems of the finest water. More and more vivid grew his words, more and more glowing his face. He went, in his description, through the different shafts as if they had been the alleys of some enchanted garden. The jewels came to life, the fossils began to move; the wondrous Pyrosmalite and the Almandine flashed in the light of the miner's candles; the Rock-Crystals glittered, and darted their rays.

"Elis listened intently. The old man's strange way of speaking of all these subterranean marvels as if he were standing in the midst of them, impressed him deeply. His breast felt stifled; it seemed to him as if he were already down in these depths with the old man, and would never more look upon the friendly light of day. And yet it seemed as though the old man were opening to him a new and unknown world, to which he really properly belonged, and that he had somehow felt all the magic of that world, in mystic forebodings, since his boyhood.

"Elis Froebom,' said the old man at length, 'I have laid before you all the glories of a calling for which Nature really destined you. Think the subject well over with yourself, and then act as your better judgment counsels you.'

"He rose quickly from the bench, and strode away without any good-bye to Elis, without looking at him even. Soon he disappeared from his sight.

"Meanwhile quietness had set in in the tavern. The strong 'Aehl' and brandy had got the upper hand. Many of the sailors had gone away with the girls; others were lying snoring in corners. Elis--who could go no more to his old home--asked for, and was given, a little room to sleep in.

"Scarcely had he thrown himself, worn and weary as he was, upon his bed, when dreams began to wave their pinions over him. He thought he was sailing in a beautiful vessel on a sea calm and clear as a mirror, with a dark, cloudy sky vaulted overhead. But when he looked down into the sea he presently saw that what he had thought was water was a firm, transparent, sparkling substance, in the shimmer of which the ship, in a wonderful manner, melted away, so that he found himself standing upon this floor of crystal, with a vault of black rock above him, for that was rock which he had taken at first for clouds. Impelled by some power unknown to him he stepped onwards, but, at that moment, every thing around him began to move, and wonderful plants and flowers, of glittering metal, came shooting up out of the crystal mass he was standing on, and entwined their leaves and blossoms in the loveliest manner. The crystal floor was so transparent that Elis could distinctly see the roots of these plants. But soon, as his glance penetrated deeper and deeper, he saw, far, far down in the depths, innumerable beautiful maidens, holding each other embraced with white, gleaming arms; and it was from their hearts that the roots, plants, and flowers were growing. And when these maidens smiled, a sweet sound rang all through the vault above, and the wonderful metal-flowers shot up higher, and waved their leaves and branches in joy. An indescribable sense of rapture came upon the lad; a world of love and passionate longing awoke in his heart.

"'Down, down to you!' he cried, and threw himself with outstretched arras down upon the crystal ground. But it gave way under him, and he seemed to be floating in shimmering æther.

"'Ha! Elis Froebom; what think you of this world of glory?' a strong voice cried. It was the old miner. But as Elis looked at him, he seemed to expand into gigantic size, and to be made of glowing metal. Elis was beginning to be terrified; but a brilliant light came darting, like a sudden lightning-flash, out of the depths of the abyss, and the earnest face of a grand, majestic woman appeared. Elis felt the rapture of his heart swelling and swelling into destroying pain. The old man had hold of him, and cried:

"'Take care, Elis Froebom! That is the queen. You may look up now.'

"He turned his head involuntarily, and saw the stars of the night sky shining through a cleft in the vault overhead. A gentle voice called his name as if in inconsolable sorrow. It was his mother's. He thought he saw her form up at the cleft. But it was a young and beautiful woman who was calling him, and stretching her hands down into the vault.

"'Take me up!' he cried to the old man. I tell you I belong to the upper world, and its familiar, friendly sky.'

"'Take care, Froebom,' said the old man solemnly; 'be faithful to the queen, whom you have devoted yourself to.'

"But now, when he looked down again into the immobile face of the majestic woman, he felt that his personality dissolved away into glowing molten stone. He screamed aloud, in nameless fear, and awoke from this dream of wonder, whose rapture and terror echoed deep within his being.

"'I suppose I could scarcely help dreaming all this extraordinary stuff,' he said to himself, as he collected his senses with difficulty; 'the old miner told me so much about the glories of the subterranean world that of course my head's quite full of it. But I never in my life felt as I do now. Perhaps I'm dreaming still. No, no; I suppose I must be a little out of sorts. Let's get into the open air. The fresh sea-breeze'll soon set me all right.'

"He pulled himself together, and ran to the Klippa Haven, where the uproar of the Hoensning was breaking out again. But he soon found that all enjoyment passed him by, that he couldn't hold any thought fast in his mind, that presages and wishes, to which he could give no name, went crossing each other in his mind. He thought of his dead mother with the bitterest sorrow; but then, again, it seemed to him that what he most longed for was to see that girl again--the one whom he gave the handkerchief to--who had spoken so nicely to him the evening before. And yet he was afraid that if she were to come meeting him out of some street she would turn out to be the old miner in the end. And he was afraid of him; though, at the same time, he would have liked to hear more from him of the wonders of the mine.

"Driven hither and thither by all these fancies, he looked down into the water, and then he thought he saw the silver ripples hardening into the sparkling glimmer in which the grand ships melted away, while the dark clouds, which were beginning to gather and obscure the blue sky, seemed to sink down and thicken into a vault of rock. He was in his dream again, gazing into the immobile face of the majestic woman, and the devouring pain of passionate longing took possession of him as before.

"His shipmates roused him from his reverie to go and join one of their processions, but an unknown voice seemed to whisper in his ear:

"'What are you doing here? Away, away! Your home is in the Mines of Falun. There all the glories which you saw in your dream are waiting for you. Away, away to Falun!'

"For three days Elis hung and loitered about the streets of Goethaborg, constantly haunted by the wonderful imagery of his dream, continually urged by the unknown voice. On the fourth day he was standing at the gate through which the road to Gefle goes, when a tall man walked through it, passing him. Elis fancied he recognized in this man the old miner, and he hastened on after him, but could not overtake him.

"He followed him on and on, without stopping.

"He knew he was on the road to Falun, and this circumstance quieted him in a curious way; for he felt certain that the voice of destiny had spoken to him through the old miner, and that it was he who was now leading him on to his appointed place and fate.

"And, in fact, he many times--particularly if there was any uncertainty about the road--saw the old man suddenly appear out of some ravine, or from thick bushes, or gloomy rocks, stalk away before him, without looking round, and then disappear again.

"At last, after journeying for many weary days, Elis saw, in the distance, two great lakes, with a thick vapour rising between them. As he mounted the hill to westward, he saw some towers and black roofs rising through the smoke. The old man appeared before him, grown to gigantic size, pointed with outstretched hand towards the vapour, and disappeared again amongst the rocks.

"'There lies Falun,' said Elis, 'the end of my journey.'

"He was right; for people, coming up from behind him, said the town of Falun lay between the lakes Runn and Warpann, and that the hill he was ascending was the Guffrisberg, where the main-shaft of the mine was.

"He went bravely on. But when he came to the enormous gulf, like the jaws of hell itself, the blood curdled in his veins, and he stood as if turned to stone at the sight of this colossal work of destruction.

"The main-shaft of the Falun mines is some twelve hundred feet long, six hundred feet broad, and a hundred and eighty feet deep. Its dark brown sides go, at first for the most part, perpendicularly down, till about half way they are sloped inwards towards the centre by enormous accumulations of stones and refuse. In these, and on the sides, there peeped out here and there timberings of old shafts, formed of strong shores set close together and strongly rabbeted at the ends, in the way that blockhouses are built. Not a tree, not a blade of grass to be seen in all the bare, blank, crumbling congeries of stony chasms; the pointed, jagged, indented masses of rock tower aloft all round in wonderful forms, often like monstrous animals turned to stone, often like colossal human beings. In the abyss itself lie, in wild confusion--pell-mell stones, slag, and scoria, and an eternal, stupefying sulphury vapour rises from the depths, as if the hell-broth, whose reek poisons and kills all the green gladsomeness of nature, were being brewed down below. One would think this was where Dante went down and saw the Inferno, with all its horror and immitigable pain.

"As Elis looked down into this monstrous abyss, he remembered what an old sailor, one of his shipmates, had told him once. This shipmate of his, at a time when he was down with fever, thought the sea had suddenly all gone dry, and the boundless depths of the abyss had opened under him, so that he saw all the horrible creatures of the deep twining and writhing about amongst thousands of extraordinary shells, and groves of coral, in dreadful contortions, till they died, and lay dead, with their mouths all gaping. The old sailor said that to see such a vision meant death, ere long, in the waves; and in fact he did very soon after fall overboard, no one knew exactly how, and was drowned without possibility of rescue. Elis thought of that: for indeed the abyss seemed to him to be a good deal like the bottom of the sea run dry; and the black rocks, and the blue and red slag and scoria, were like horrible monsters shooting out polype-arms at him. Two or three miners happened, just then, to be coming up from work in the mine, and in their dark mining clothes, with their black, grimy faces, they were much like ugly, diabolical creatures of some sort, slowly and painfully crawling, and forcing their way up to the surface.

"Elis felt a shudder of dread go through him, and--what he had never experienced in all his career as a sailor--his head got giddy. Unseen hands seemed to be dragging him down into the abyss.

"He closed his eyes and ran a few steps away from it; and it was not till he began climbing up the Guffrisberg again, far from the shaft, and could look up at the bright, sunny sky, that he quite lost the feeling of terror which had taken possession of him. He breathed freely once more, and cried, from the depths of his heart:

"'Lord of my Life! what are the dangers of the sea compared with the horror which dwells in that awful abyss of rock? The storm may rage, the black clouds may come whirling down upon the breaking billows, but the beautiful, glorious sun soon gets the mastery again, and the storm is past. But never does the sun penetrate into these black, gloomy caverns; never a freshening breeze of spring can revive the heart down there. No! I shall not join you, black earthworms that you are! Never could I bring myself to lead that terrible life.'

"He resolved to spend that night in Falun, and set off back to Goethaborg the first thing in the morning.

"When he got to the market-place, he found a crowd of people there. A train of miners with their mine-candles in their hands, and musicians before them, was halted before a handsome house. A tall, slightly-built man, of middle age, came out, looking round him with kindly smiles. It was easy to see, by his frank manner, his open brow, and his bright, dark-blue eyes, that he was a genuine Dalkarl. The miners formed a circle round him, and he shook them each cordially by the hand, saying kindly words to them all.

"Elis learned that this was Pehrson Dahlsjoe, Alderman, and owner of a fine 'Fraelse' at Stora-Kopparberg. 'Fraelse' is the name given in Sweden to landed property leased out for the working of the lodes of copper and silver contained in it. The owners of these lands have shares in the mines and are responsible for their management.

"Elis was told, further, that the Assizes were just over that day, and that then the miners went round in procession to the houses of the aldermen, the chief engineers and the minemasters, and were hospitably entertained.

"When he looked at these fine, handsome fellows, with their kindly, frank faces, he forgot all about the earthworms he had seen coming up the shaft. The healthy gladsomeness which broke out afresh in the whole circle, as if new-fanned by a spring breeze, when Pehrson Dahlsjoe came out, was of a different kidney to the senseless noise and uproar of the sailors' Hoensning. The manner in which these miners enjoyed themselves went straight to the serious Elis's heart. He felt indescribably happy; but he could scarce restrain his tears when some of the young pickmen sang an ancient ditty in praise of the miner's calling, and of the happiness of his lot, to a simple melody which touched his heart and soul.

"When this song was ended, Pehrson Dahlsjoe opened his door, and the miners all went into his house one after another. Elis followed involuntarily, and stood at the threshold, so that he overlooked the spacious floor, where the miners took their places on benches. Then the doors at the side opposite to him opened, and a beautiful young lady, in evening dress, came in. She was in the full glory of the freshest bloom of youth, tall and slight, with dark hair in many curls, and a bodice fastened with rich clasps. The miners all stood up, and a low murmur of pleasure ran through their ranks. "Ulla Dahlsjoe!" they said. "What a blessing Heaven has bestowed on our hearty alderman in her!" Even the oldest miners' eyes sparkled when she gave them her hand in kindly greeting, as she did to them all. Then she brought beautiful silver tankards, filled them with splendid Aehl (such as Falun is famous for), and handed them to the guests with a face beaming with kindness and hospitality.

"When Elis saw her a lightning flash seemed to go through his heart, kindling all the heavenly bliss, the love-longings, the passionate ardour lying hidden and imprisoned there. For it was Ulla Dahlsjoe who had held out the hand of rescue to him in his mysterious dream. He thought he understood, now, the deep significance of that dream, and, forgetting the old miner, praised the stroke of fortune which had brought him to Falun.

"Alas! he felt he was but an unknown, unnoticed stranger, standing there on the doorstep miserable, comfortless, alone--and he wished he had died before he saw Ulla, as he now must perish for love and longing. He could not move his eyes from the beautiful creature, and, as she passed close to him, he pronounced her name in a low, trembling voice. She turned, and saw him standing there with a face as red as fire, unable to utter a syllable. So she went up to him, and said, with a sweet smile:

"'I suppose you are a stranger, friend, as you are dressed as a sailor. Well! why are you standing at the door? Come in and join us."

"Elis felt as if in the blissful paradise of some happy dream, from which he would presently waken to inexpressible wretchedness. He emptied the tankard which she had given him; and Pehrson Dahlsjoe came up, and, after kindly shaking hands with him, asked him where he came from, and what had brought him to Falun.

"Elis felt the warming power of the noble liquor in his veins, and, looking the hearty Dahlsjoe in the eyes, he felt happy and courageous. He told him he was a sailor's son and had been at sea since his childhood, had just come home from the East Indies and found his mother dead; that he was now alone in the world; that the wild sea life had become altogether distasteful to him; that his keenest inclination led him to a miner's calling, and that he wished to get employment as a miner here in Falun. The latter statement, quite the reverse of his recent determination, escaped him involuntarily; it was as if he could not have said anything else to the alderman, nay as if it were the most ardent desire of his soul, although he had not known it till now, himself.

"Pehrson Dahlsjoe looked at him long and carefully, as if he would read his heart; then he said:

"'I cannot suppose, Elis Froebom, that it is mere thoughtless fickleness and the love of change that lead you to give up the calling you have followed hitherto, nor that you have omitted to maturely weigh and consider all the difficulties and hardships of the miner's life before making up your mind to take to it. It is an old belief with us that the mighty elements with which the miner has to deal, and which he controls so bravely, destroy him unless he strains all his being to keep command of them--if he gives place to other thoughts which weaken that vigour which he has to reserve wholly for his constant conflict with Earth and Fire. But if you have properly tested the sincerity of your inward call, and it has withstood the trial, you are come in a good hour. Workmen are wanted in my part of the mine. If you like, you can stay here with me, from now, and to-morrow the Captain will take you down with him, and show you what to set about.'

"Elis's heart swelled with gladness at this. He thought no more of the terror of the awful, hell-like abyss into which he had looked. The thought that he was going to see Ulla every day, and live under the same roof with her, filled him with rapture and delight. He gave way to the sweetest hopes.

"Pehrson Dahlsjoe told the miners that a young hand had applied for employment, and presented him to them then and there. They all looked approvingly at the well-knit lad, and thought he was quite cut out for a miner, as regarded his light, powerful figure, having no doubt that he would not fail in industry and straightforwardness, either.

"One of the men, well advanced in years, came and shook hands with him cordially, saying he was Head-Captain in Pehrson Dahlsjoe's part of the mine, and would be very glad to give him any help and instruction in his power. Elis had to sit down beside this man, who at once began, over his tankard of Aehl, to describe with much minuteness the sort of work which Elis would have to commence with.

"Elis remembered the old miner whom he had seen at Goethaborg, and, strangely enough, found he was able to repeat nearly all that he had told him.

"'Ay,' cried the Head-Captain. 'Where can you have learned all that? It's most surprising! There can't be a doubt that you will be the finest pickman in the mine in a very short time.'

"Ulla--going backwards and forwards amongst the guests and attending to them--often nodded kindly to Elis, and told him to be sure and enjoy himself. 'You're not a stranger now, you know,' she said, 'but one of the household. You have nothing more to do with the treacherous sea the rich mines of Falun are your home.'

"A heaven of bliss and rapture dawned upon Elis at these words of Ulla's. It was evident that she liked to be near him; and Pehrson Dahlsjoe watched his quiet earnestness of character with manifest approval.

"But Elis's heart beat violently when he stood again by the reeking hell-mouth, and went down the mine with the Captain, in his miner's clothes, with the heavy, iron-shod Dalkarl shoes on his feet. Hot vapours soon threatened to suffocate him; and then, presently, the candles flickered in the cutting draughts of cold air that blew in the lower levels. They went down deeper and deeper, on iron ladders at last scarcely a foot wide; and Elis found that his sailor's adroitness at climbing was not of the slightest service to him there.

"They got to the lowest depths of the mine at last, and the Captain showed him what work he was to set about.

"Elis thought of Ulla. Like some bright angel he saw her hovering over him, and he forgot all the terror of the abyss, and the hardness of the toilsome labour.

"It was clear in all his thoughts that it was only if he devoted himself with all the power of his mind, and with all the exertion which his body would endure, to mining work here with Pehrson Dahlsjoe, that there was any possibility of his fondest hopes being some day realized. Wherefore it came about that he was as good at his work as the most practised hand, in an incredibly short space of time.

"Staunch Pehrson Dahlsjoe got to like this good, industrious lad better and better every day, and often told him plainly that he had found in him one whom he regarded as a dear son, as well as a first-class mine-hand. Also Ulla's regard for him became more and more unmistakeable. Often, when he was going to his work, and there was any prospect of danger, she would enjoin him to be sure to take care of himself, with tears in her eyes. And she would come running to meet him when he came back, and always had the finest of Aehl, or some other refreshment, ready for him. His heart danced for joy one day when Pehrson said to him that as he had brought a good sum of money with him, there could be no doubt that--with his habits of economy and industry--he would soon have a 'Hemmans,' or perhaps even a 'Fraelse'; and then not a mineowner in all Falun would say him nay if he asked for his daughter. Fain would Elis have told him at once how unspeakably he loved Ulla, and how all his hopes of happiness were based upon her. But unconquerable shyness, and the doubt whether Ulla really liked him--though he often thought she did--sealed his lips.

"One day it chanced that Elis was at work in the lowest depths of the mine, shrouded in thick, sulphurous vapour, so that his candle only shed a feeble glimmer, and he could scarcely distinguish the run of the lode. Suddenly he heard--as if coming from some still deeper cutting--a knocking resounding, as if somebody was at work with a pick-hammer. As that sort of work was scarcely possible at such a depth, and as he knew nobody was down there that day but himself--because the Captain had got all the men employed in another part of the mine--this knocking and hammering struck him as strange and uncanny. He stopped working, and listened to the hollow sounds, which seemed to come nearer and nearer. All at once he saw, close by him, a black shadow and--as a keen draught of air blew away the sulphur vapour--the old miner whom he had seen in Goethaborg.

"'Good luck,' he cried, 'good luck to Elis Froebom, down here among the stones! What think you of the life, comrade?'

"Elis would fain have asked in what wonderful way the old man had got into the mine; but he kept striking his hammer on the rocks with such force that the fire-sparks went whirling all round, and the mine rang as if with distant thunder. Then he cried, in a terrible voice:

"'There's a grand run of trap just here; but a scurvy, ignorant scoundrel like you sees nothing in it but a narrow streak of 'Trumm' not worth a beanstalk. Down here you're a sightless mole, and you'll always be a mere abomination to the Metal Prince. You're of no use up above either--trying to get hold of the pure Regulus; which you never will--hey! You want to marry Pehrson Dahlsjoe's daughter; that's what you've taken to mine work for, not from any love of your own for the thing. Mind what you're after, double-face; take care that the Metal Prince, whom you are trying to deceive, doesn't take you and dash you down so that the sharp rocks tear you limb from limb. And Ulla will never be your wife; that much I tell you.'

"Elis's anger was kindled at the old man's insulting words.

"'What are you about,' he cried, 'here in my master, Herr Pehrson Dahlsjoe's shaft, where I am doing my duty, and working as hard at it as I can? Be off out of this the way you came, or we'll see which of us two will dash the other's brains out down here.'

"With which he placed himself in a threatening attitude, and swung his hammer about the old man's ears; who only gave a sneering laugh, and Elis saw with terror how he swarmed up the narrow ladder rungs like a squirrel, and disappeared amongst the black labyrinths of the chasms.

"The young man felt paralyzed in all his limbs; he could not go on with his work, but went up. When the old Head-Captain--who had been busy in another part of the mine--saw him, he cried:

"'For God's sake, Elis, what has happened to you? You're as pale as death. I suppose it's the sulphur gas; you're not accustomed to it yet. Here, take a drink, my lad; that'll do you good.'

"Elis took a good mouthful of brandy out of the flask which the Head-Captain handed to him; and then, feeling better, told him what had happened down in the mine, as also how he had made the uncanny old miner's acquaintance in Goethaborg.

"The Head-Captain listened silently; then dubiously shook his head and said:

"'That must have been old Torbern that you met with, Elis; and I see, now, that there really is something in the tales that people tell about him. More than one hundred years ago, there was a miner here of the name of Torbern. He seems to have been one of the first to bring mining into a flourishing condition at Falun here, and in his time the profits far exceeded anything that we know of now. Nobody at that time knew so much about mining as Torbern, who had great scientific skill, and thoroughly understood all the ins and outs of the business. The richest lodes seemed to disclose themselves to him, as if he had been endowed with higher powers peculiar to himself; and as he was a gloomy, meditative man, without wife or child--with no regular home, indeed--and very seldom came up to the surface, it couldn't fail that a story soon went about that he was in compact with the mysterious power which dwells in the bowels of the earth, and fuses the metals. Disregarding Torbern's solemn warnings--for he always prophesied that some calamity would happen as soon as the miners' impulse to work ceased to be sincere love for the marvellous metals and ores--people went on enlarging the excavations more and more for the sake of mere profit, till, on St. John's Day of the year 1678, came the terrible landslip and subsidence which formed our present enormous main-shaft, laying waste the whole of the works, as they were then, in the process. It was only after many months' labour that several of the shafts were, with much difficulty, got into workable order again. Nothing was seen or heard of Torbern. There seemed to be no doubt that he had been at work down below at the time of the catastrophe, so that there could be no question what his fate had been. But not long after, and particularly when the work was beginning to go on better again, the miners said they had seen old Torbern in the mine, and that he had given them valuable advice, and pointed out rich lodes to them. Others had come across him at the top of the main-shaft, walking round it, sometimes lamenting, sometimes shouting in wild anger. Other young fellows have come here in the way you yourself did, saying that an old miner had advised them to take to mining, and shewn them the way to Falun. This always happened when there was a scarcity of hands; very likely it was Torbern's way of helping on the cause. But if it really was he whom you had those words with in the mine, and if he spoke of a fine run of trap, there isn't a doubt that there must be a grand vein of ore thereabouts, and we must see, to-morrow, if we can come across it. Of course you remember that we call rich veins of the kind "trap-runs," and that a "Trumm" is a vein which goes sub-dividing into several smaller ones, and probably gets lost altogether.'

"When Elis, tossed hither and thither by various thoughts, went into Pehrson Dahlsjoe's, Ulla did not come meeting him as usual. She was sitting with downcast looks, and--as he thought--eyes which had been weeping; and beside her was a handsome young fellow, holding her hand, and trying to say all sorts of kind and amusing things, to which she seemed to pay little attention. Pehrson Dahlsjoe took Elis--who, seized by gloomy presentiments, was keeping a darksome glance riveted on the pair--into another room, and said:

"'Well, Elis, you will soon have it in your power to give me a proof of your regard and sincerity. I have always looked upon you as a son, but you will soon take the place of one altogether. The man whom you see in there is a well-to-do merchant, Eric Olavsen by name, from Goethaborg. I am giving him my daughter for his wife, at his desire. He will take her to Goethaborg, and then you will be left alone with me, my only support in my declining years. Well, you say nothing? You turn pale? I trust this step doesn't displease you, and that now that I'm going to lose my daughter you are not going to leave me too? But I hear Olavsen mentioning my name; I must go in.'

"With which he went back to the room.

"Elis felt a thousand red-hot irons tearing at his heart. He could find no words, no tears. In wild despair he ran out, out of the house, away to the great mine-shrift.

"That monstrous chasm had a terrible appearance by day; but now, when night had fallen, and the moon was just peeping down into it, the desolate crags looked like a numberless horde of horrible monsters, the direful brood of hell, rolling and writhing, in wildest confusion, all about its reeking sides and clefts, and flashing up fiery eyes, and shooting forth glowing claws to clutch the race of mortals.

"Torbern, Torbern,' Elis cried, in a terrible voice, which made the rocks re-echo. 'Torbern, I am here; you were not wrong I was a wretched fool to fix my hopes on any earthly love, up on the surface here. My treasure, and my life, my all-in-all, are down below. Torbern! take me down with you! Show me the richest veins, the lodes of ore, the glowing metal! I will dig and bore, and toil and labour. Never, never more will I come back to see the light of day. Torbern! Torbern! take me down to you!'

"He took his flint and steel from his pocket, lighted his candle, and went quickly down the shaft, into the deep cutting where he had been on the previous day, without seeing anything of the old man. But what was his amazement when, at the deepest point, he saw the vein of metal with the utmost clearness and distinctness, so that he could trace every one of its ramifications, and its risings and fallings. But as he kept his gaze fixed more and more firmly on this wonderful vein, a dazzling light seemed to come shining through the shaft, and the walls of rock grew transparent as crystal. That mysterious dream which he had had in Goethaborg came back upon him. He was looking upon those Elysian Fields of glorious metallic trees and plants, on which, by way of fruits, buds, and blossoms, hung jewels streaming with fire. He saw the maidens, and he looked upon the face of the mighty queen. She put out her arms, drew him to her, and pressed him to her breast, Then a burning ray darted through his heart, and all his consciousness was merged in a feeling of floating in waves of some blue, transparent, glittering mist.

"'Elis Froebom! Elis Froebom!' a powerful voice from above cried out, and the reflection of torches began shining in the shaft. It was Pehrson Dahlsjoe come down with the Captain to search for the lad, who had been seen running in the direction of the main-shaft like a mad creature.

"They found him standing as if turned to stone, with his face pressed against the cold, hard rock.

"'What are you doing down here in the night-time, you foolish fellow?' cried Pehrson. 'Pull yourself together, and come up with us. Who knows what good news you may hear.'

"Elis went up in profound silence after Dahlsjoe, who did not cease to rate him soundly for exposing himself to such danger. It was broad daylight in the morning when they got to the house.

"Ulla threw herself into Elis's arms with a great cry, and called him by the fondest names, and Pehrson said to him:

"'You foolish fellow! How could I help seeing, long ago, that you were in love with Ulla, and that it was on her account, in all probability, that you were working so hard in the mine? Neither could I help seeing that she was just as fond of you. Could I wish for a better son-in-law than a fine, hearty, hard-working, honest miner--than just yourself, Elis? What vexed me was that you never would speak.'

"'We scarcely knew ourselves,' said Ulla, 'how fond we were of each other.'

"'However that may be,' said Pehrson, 'I was annoyed that Elis didn't tell me openly and candidly of his love for you, and that was why I made up the story about Eric Olavsen, which was so nearly being the death of you, you silly fellow. Not but what I wished to try you, Ulla, into the bargain. Eric Olavsen has been married for many a day, and I give my daughter to you, Elis Froebom, for, I say it again, I couldn't wish for a better son-in-law.'

"Tears of joy and happiness ran down Elis's cheeks. The highest bliss which his imagination had pictured had come to pass so suddenly and unexpectedly that he could scarce believe it was anything but another blissful dream. The workpeople came to dinner, by Dahlsjoe's invitation, in honour of the event. Ulla had dressed in her prettiest attire, and looked more charming than ever, so that they all cried, over and over again, 'Ey! what a sweet and charming creature Elis has got for a betrothed! May God bless them and make them happy!'

"Yet the terror of the past night still lay upon Elis's pale face, and he often stared about him as if he were far away from all that was going on round him. 'Elis, darling, what is the matter?' Ulla asked anxiously. He pressed her to his heart and said, 'Yes, yes, you are my own, and all is well.' But in the midst of all his happiness he often felt as though an icy hand clutched at his heart, and a dismal voice asked him,

"Is it your highest ideal, then, to be betrothed to Ulla? Wretched fool! Have you not looked upon the face of the queen?'

"He felt himself overpowered by an indescribable, anxious alarm. He was haunted and tortured by the thought that one of the workmen would suddenly assume gigantic proportions, and to his horror he would recognize in him Torbern, come to remind him, in a terrible manner, of the subterranean realm of gems and metals to which he had devoted himself.

"And yet he could see no reason why the spectral old man should be hostile to him, or what connection there was between his mining work and his love.

"Pehrson, seeing Elis's disordered condition, attributed it to the trouble he had gone through, and his nocturnal visit to the mine. Not so, Ulla, who, seized by a secret presentiment, implored her lover to tell her what terrible thing had happened to him to tear him away from her so entirely. This almost broke his heart. It was in vain that he tried to tell her of the wonderful face which had revealed itself to him in the depths of the mine. Some unknown power seemed to seal his lips forcibly; he felt as though the terrible face of the queen were looking out from his heart, so that if he mentioned her everything about him would turn to stone, to dark, black rock, as at the sight of the Medusa's frightful head. All the glory and magnificence which had filled him with rapture in the abyss appeared to him now as a pandemonium of immitigable torture, deceptively decked out to allure him to his ruin.

"Dahlsjoe told him he must stay at home for a few days, so as to shake off the sickness which he seemed to have fallen into. And during this time Ulla's affection, which now streamed bright and clear from her candid, child-like heart, drove away the memory of his fateful adventure in the mine-depths. Joy and happiness brought him back to life, and to belief in his good fortune, and in the impossibility of its being ever interfered with by any evil power.

"When he went down the pit again, everything appeared quite different to what it used to be. The most glorious veins lay clear and distinct before his eyes. He worked twice as zealously as before; he forgot everything else. When he got to the surface again, it cost him an effort of thought to remember about Pehrson Dahlsjoe, about his Ulla, even. He felt as if divided into two halves, as if his better self, his real personality, went down to the central point of the earth, and there rested in bliss in the queen's arms, whilst he went to his darksome dwelling in Falun. When Ulla spoke of their love, and the happiness of their future life together, he would begin to talk of the splendours of the depths, and the inestimably precious treasures that lay hidden there, and in so doing would get entangled in such wonderful, incomprehensible sayings, that alarm and terrible anxiety took possession of the poor child, who could not divine why Elis should be so completely altered from his former self. He kept telling the Captain, and Dahlsjoe himself, with the greatest delight, that he had discovered the richest veins and the most magnificent trap-runs, and when these turned out to be nothing but unproductive rock, he would laugh contemptuously and say that none but he understood the secret signs, the significant writing, fraught with hidden meaning, which the queen's own hand had inscribed on the rocks, and that it was sufficient to understand those signs without bringing to light what they indicated.

"The old Captain looked sorrowfully at Elis, who spoke, with wild gleaming eyes, of the glorious paradise which glowed down in the depths of the earth. 'That terrible old Torbern has been at him,' he whispered in Dahlsjoe's ear.

"'Pshaw! don't believe these miners' yarns,' cried Dahlsjoe. 'He's a deep-thinking serious fellow, and love has turned his head, that's all. Wait till the marriage is over, then we'll hear no more of the trap-runs, the treasures, and the subterranean paradise.'

"The wedding-day, fixed by Dahlsjoe, came at last. For a few days previously Elis had been more tranquil, more serious, more sunk in deep reflection than ever. But, on the other hand, never had he shown such affection for Ulla as at this time. He could not leave her for a moment, and never went down the mine at all. He seemed to have forgotten his restless excitement about mining work, and never a word of the subterranean kingdom crossed his lips. Ulla was all rapture. Her fear lest the dangerous powers of the subterranean world, of which she had heard old miners speak, had been luring him to his destruction, had left her; and Dahlsjoe, too, said, laughing to the Captain, 'You see, Elis was only a little light-headed for love of my Ulla.'

"Early on the morning of the wedding-day, which was St. John's Day as it chanced, Elis knocked at the door of Ulla's room. She opened it, and started back terrified at the sight of Elis, dressed in his wedding clothes already, deadly pale, with dark gloomy fire sparkling in his eyes.

"'I only want to tell you, my beloved Ulla,' he said, in a faint, trembling voice, 'that we are just arrived at the summit of the highest good fortune which it is possible for mortals to attain. Everything has been revealed to me in the night which is just over. Down in the depths below, hidden in chlorite and mica, lies the cherry-coloured sparkling almandine, on which the tablet of our lives is graven. I have to give it to you as a wedding present. It is more splendid than the most glorious blood-red carbuncle, and when, united in truest affection, we look into its streaming splendour together, we shall see and understand the peculiar manner in which our hearts and souls have grown together into the wonderful branch which shoots from the queen's heart, at the central point of the globe. All that is necessary is that I go and bring this stone to the surface, and that I will do now, as fast as I can. Take care of yourself meanwhile, beloved darling. I will be back to you directly.'

"Ulla implored him, with bitter tears, to give up all idea of such a dream-like undertaking, for she felt a strong presentiment of disaster; but Elis declared that without this stone he should never know a moment's peace or happiness, and that there was not the slightest danger of any kind. He pressed her fondly to his heart, and was gone.

"The guests were all assembled to accompany the bridal pair to the church of Copparberg, where they were to be married, and a crowd of girls, who were to be the bridesmaids and walk in procession before the bride (as is the custom of the place), were laughing and playing round Ulla. The musicians were tuning their instruments to begin a wedding march. It was almost noon, but Elis had not made his appearance. Suddenly some miners came running up, horror in their pale faces, with the news that there had been a terrible catastrophe, a subsidence of the earth, which had destroyed the whole of Pehrson Dahlsjoe's part of the mine.

"'Elis! oh, Elis! you are gone!' screamed Ulla, wildly, and fell as if dead. Then only, for the first time, Dahlsjoe learned from the Captain that Elis had gone down the main-shaft in the morning. Nobody else had been in the mine, the rest of the men having been invited to the wedding. Dahlsjoe and all the others hurried off to search, at the imminent danger of their own lives. In vain! Elis Froebom was not to be found. There could be no question that the earth-fall had buried him in the rock. And thus came desolation and mourning upon the house of brave Pehrson Dahlsjoe, at the moment when he thought he was assured of peace and happiness for the remainder of his days.

"Long had stout Pehrson Dahlsjoe been dead, his daughter Ulla long lost sight of and forgotten. Nobody in Falun remembered them. More than fifty years had gone by since Froebom's luckless wedding-day, when it chanced that some miners who were making a connection-passage between two shafts, found, at a depth of three hundred yards, buried in vitriolated water, the body of a young miner, which seemed, when they brought it to the daylight, to be turned to stone.

"The young man looked as if he were lying in a deep sleep, so perfectly preserved were the features of his lace, so wholly without trace of decay his new suit of miner's clothes, and even the flowers in his breast. The people of the neighbourhood all collected round the young man, but no one recognized him or could say who he had been, and none of the workmen missed any comrade.

"The body was going to be taken to Falun, when out of the distance an old, old woman came creeping slowly and painfully up on crutches.

"Here's the old St. John's Day grandmother!' the miners said. They had given her this name because they had noticed that she came always every year on St. John's Day up to the main shaft, and looked down into its depths, weeping, lamenting, and wringing her hands as she crept round it, then going away again.

"The moment she saw the body she threw away her crutches, lifted her arms to Heaven, and cried, in the most heartrending accents of the deepest lamentation:

"'Oh! Elis Froebom! Oh, my sweet, sweet bridegroom!'

"And she cowered down beside the body, took the stony hands and pressed them to her heart, chilled with age, but throbbing still with the fondest love, like some naphtha flame under the surface ice.

"'Ah!' she said, looking round at the spectators, 'nobody, nobody among you all, remembers poor Ulla Dahlsjoe, this poor boy's happy bride fifty long years ago. When I went away, in my terrible sorrow and despair, to Ornaes, old Torbern comforted me, and told me I should see my poor Elis, who was buried in the rock upon our wedding-day, yet once more here upon earth. And I have come every year and looked for him, all longing and faithful love. And now this blessed meeting has been granted me this day. Oh, Elis! Elis! my beloved husband!'

"She wound her arms about him as if she would never part from him more, and the people all stood round in the deepest emotion.

"Fainter and fainter grew her sobs and sighs, till they ceased to be audible.

"The miners closed round. They would have raised poor Ulla, but she had breathed out her life upon her bridegroom's body. The spectators noticed now that it was beginning to crumble into dust. The appearance of petrifaction had been deceptive.

"In the church of Copparberg, where they were to have been married fifty years before, they laid in the earth the ashes of Elis Froebom, and with them the body of her who had been thus 'Faithful unto death.'"

"I see," said Theodore, when he had finished, and the friends sat looking straight before them in silence, "that you don't much like this story of mine. Perhaps, in your present mood of mind, it strikes you as too painful."

"It does produce a terribly melancholy effect upon one," said Ottmar, "and, to speak my candid opinion, I cannot say that I care about all the Swedish 'Fraelse' holders, the national festivities, the spectral miners, visions, and so forth. The simple account in Schubert's 'Night Side of Natural Science,' of the finding of a body in the Falun Mine, which an old woman recognized as her betrothed of fifty years before, affected me much more deeply."

"I must betake myself for aid to our patron, Serapion," said Theodore; "for the story of the miner really came to my fancy exactly as I have told it."

"Everybody has his own way of looking at things," said Lothair, "but perhaps it is as well that it was to us that you read this tale, inasmuch as we have all some knowledge of mining matters, of Falun, and of Swedish manners and customs. Other people might say you had sometimes been a little unintelligible from the use of too much mining phraseology; and it isn't everybody who would know that the 'Aehl' which you mention so often is simply a fine, strong sort of beer."

"Theodore's story has not displeased me so much as it has you, Ottmar," said Cyprian. "Writers very often show us people who perish in some disastrous way as having been at issue with themselves all through their lives, as if under the control of unknown powers of darkness. This is what Theodore has done; and I must say I approve of it, because I think it is exceedingly true to nature. I have known people who have suddenly seemed to alter and change completely--who have appeared to be suddenly petrified (so to speak) within themselves, or driven hither and thither by hostile powers, in constant unrest, till some fearful catastrophe has withdrawn them from life."

"Stop, stop!" cried Lothair. "If we give this spirit-seer Cyprian a chance, we shall be drawn into a regular labyrinth of dreams, presentiments, and all the rest of it. Allow me to dispel the gloomy tone which has come upon us at one stroke, by reading you--as a finale to our present sitting--a children's story which I wrote a short time ago, as I believe, under the direct inspiration of the tricksy spirit Puck, himself."

"A children's story by you, Lothair!" they all cried.

"Even so," said Lothair. "It may seem to you a piece of insanity that I should write a children's story; but let me read it to you, and then give your verdicts."

Lothair took a carefully written MS. from his pocket, and read:--

"[NUTCRACKER AND THE KING OF MICE.]

"CHRISTMAS EVE.

"On the 24th of December Dr. Stahlbaum's children were not allowed, on any pretext whatever, at any time of all that day, to go into the small drawing-room, much less into the best drawing-room into which it opened. Fritz and Marie were sitting cowered together in a corner of the back parlour when the evening twilight fell, and they began to feel terribly eery. Seeing that no candles were brought, as was generally the case on Christmas Eve, Fritz, whispering in a mysterious fashion, confided to his young sister (who was just seven) that he had heard rattlings and rustlings going on all day, since early morning, inside the forbidden rooms, as well as distant hammerings. Further, that a short time ago a little dark-looking man had gone slipping and creeping across the floor with a big box under his arm, though he was well aware that this little man was no other than Godpapa Drosselmeier. At this news Marie clapped her little hands for gladness, and cried:

"'Oh! I do wonder what pretty things Godpapa Drosselmeier has been making for us this time!'

"Godpapa Drosselmeier was anything but a nice-looking man. He was little and lean, with a great many wrinkles on his face, a big patch of black plaister where his right eye ought to have been, and not a hair on his head; which was why he wore a fine white wig, made of glass, and a very beautiful work of art. But he was a very, very clever man, who even knew and understood all about clocks and watches, and could make them himself. So that when one of the beautiful clocks that were in Dr. Stahlbaum's house was out of sorts, and couldn't sing, Godpapa Drosselmeier would come, take off his glass periwig and his little yellow coat, gird himself with a blue apron, and proceed to stick sharp-pointed instruments into the inside of the clock, in a way that made little Marie quite miserable to witness. However, this didn't really hurt the poor clock, which, on the contrary, would come to life again, and begin to whirr and sing and strike as merrily as ever; which caused everybody the greatest satisfaction. Of course, whenever he came he always brought something delightful in his pockets for the children--perhaps a little man, who would roll his eyes and make bows and scrapes, most comic to behold; or a box, out of which a little bird would jump; or something else of the kind. But for Christmas he always had some specially charming piece of ingenuity provided; something which had cost him infinite pains and labour--for which reason it was always taken away and put by with the greatest care by the children's parents.

"'Oh! what can Godpapa Drosselmeier have been making for us this time.' Marie cried, as we have said.

"Fritz was of opinion that, this time, it could hardly be anything but a great castle, a fortress, where all sorts of pretty soldiers would be drilling and marching about; and then, that other soldiers would come and try to get into the fortress, upon which the soldiers inside would fire away at them, as pluckily as you please, with cannon, till every thing banged and thundered like anything.

"'No, no,' Marie said. 'Godpapa Drosselmeier once told me about a beautiful garden, with a great lake in it, and beautiful swans swimming about with great gold collars, singing lovely music. And then a lovely little girl comes down through the garden to the lake, and calls the swans and feeds them with shortbread and cake.'

"'Swans don't eat cake and shortbread,' Fritz cried, rather rudely (with masculine superiority); 'and Godpapa Drosselmeier couldn't make a whole garden. After all, we have got very few of his playthings; whatever he brings is always taken away from us. So I like the things papa and mamma give us much better; we keep them, all right, ourselves, and can do what we like with them.'

"The children went on discussing as to what he might have in store for them this time. Marie called Fritz's attention to the fact that Miss Gertrude (her biggest doll) appeared to be failing a good deal as time went on, inasmuch as she was more clumsy and awkward than ever, tumbling on to the floor every two or three minutes, a thing which did not occur without leaving very ugly marks on her face, and of course a proper condition of her clothes became out of the question altogether. Scolding was of no use. Mamma too had laughed at her for being so delighted with Miss Gertrude's little new parasol. Fritz, again, remarked that a good fox was lacking to his small zoological collection, and that his army was quite without cavalry, as his papa was well aware. But the children knew that their elders had got all sorts of charming things ready for them, as also that the Child-Christ, at Christmas time, took special care for their wants. Marie sat in thoughtful silence, but Fritz murmured quietly to himself:

"'All the same, I should like a fox and some hussars!'

"It was now quite dark; Fritz and Marie sitting close together, did not dare to utter another syllable; they felt as if there were a fluttering of gentle, invisible wings around them, whilst a very far away, but unutterably beautiful strain of music could dimly be heard. Then a bright gleam of light passed quickly athwart the wall, and the children knew that the Child-Christ had sped away, on shining wings, to other happy children. At this moment a silvery bell said, 'Kling-ling! Kling-ling!' the doors flew open, and such a brilliance of light came streaming from the drawing-room that the children stood rooted where they were with cries of 'Oh! Oh!'

"But papa and mamma came and took their hands, saying, 'Come now, darlings, and see what the blessed Child-Christ has brought for you.'

"THE CHRISTMAS PRESENTS.

"I appeal to yourself, kind reader (or listener)--Fritz, Theodore, Ernest, or whatsoever your name may chance to be--and I would beg you to bring vividly before your mind's eye your last Christmas table, all glorious with its various delightful Christmas presents; and then perhaps you will be able to form some idea of the manner in which the two children stood speechless with brilliant glances fixed on all the beautiful things; how, after a little, Marie, with a sigh, cried, 'Oh, how lovely! how lovely!' and Fritz gave several jumps of delight. The children had certainly been very, very good and well-behaved all the foregoing year to be thus rewarded; for never had so many beautiful and delightful things been provided for them as this time. The great Christmas tree on the table bore many apples of silver and gold, and all its branches were heavy with bud and blossom, consisting of sugar almonds, many-tinted bonbons, and all sorts of charming things to eat. Perhaps the prettiest thing about this wonder-tree, however, was the fact that in all the recesses of its spreading branches hundreds of little tapers glittered like stars, inviting the children to pluck its flowers and fruit. Also, all round the tree on every side everything shone and glittered in the loveliest manner. Oh, how many beautiful things there were! Who, oh who, could describe them all? Marie gazed there at the most delicious dolls, and all kinds of toys, and (what was the prettiest thing of all) a little silk dress with many-tinted ribbons was hung upon a projecting branch in such sort that she could admire it on all its sides; which she accordingly did, crying out several times, 'Oh! the lovely, the lovely, darling little dress. And I suppose, I do believe, I shall really be allowed to put it on!' Fritz, in the meantime, had had two or three trials how his new fox (which he had actually found on the table) could gallop; and now stated that he seemed a wildish sort of brute; but, no matter, he felt sure he would soon get him well in order; and he set to work to muster his new squadron of hussars, admirably equipped, in red and gold uniforms, with real silver swords, and mounted on such shining white horses that you would have thought they were of pure silver too.

"When the children had sobered down a little, and were beginning upon the beautiful picture books (which were open, so that you could see all sorts of most beautiful flowers and people of every hue, to say nothing of lovely children playing, all as naturally represented as if they were really alive and could speak), there came another tinkling of a bell, to announce the display of Godpapa Drosselmeier's Christmas present, which was on another table, against the wall, concealed by a curtain. When this curtain was drawn, what did the children behold?

"On a green lawn, bright with flowers, stood a lordly castle with a great many shining windows and golden towers. A chime of bells was going on inside it; doors and windows opened, and you saw very small, but beautiful, ladies and gentlemen, with plumed hats, and long robes down to their heels, walking up and down in the rooms of it. In the central hall, which seemed all in a blaze, there were quantities of little candles burning in silver chandeliers; children, in little short doublets, were dancing to the chimes of the bells. A gentleman, in an emerald green mantle, came to a window, made signs thereat, and then disappeared inside again; also, even Godpapa Drosselmeier himself (but scarcely taller than papa's thumb) came now and then, and stood at the castle door, then went in again.

"Fritz had been looking on with the rest at the beautiful castle and the people walking about and dancing in it, with his arms leant on the table; then he said:

"'Godpapa Drosselmeier, let me go into your castle for a little.'

"Drosselmeier answered that this could not possibly be done. In which he was right; for it was silly of Fritz to want to go into a castle which was not so tall as himself, golden towers and all. And Fritz saw that this was so.

"After a short time, as the ladies and gentlemen kept on walking about just in the same fashion, the children dancing, and the emerald man looking out at the same window, and God papa Drosselmeier coming to the door Fritz cried impatiently:

"'Godpapa Drosselmeier, please come out at that other door!'

"'That can't be done, dear Fritz,' answered Drosselmeier.

"'Well,' resumed Fritz, 'make that green man that looks out so often walk about with the others.'

"'And that can't be done, either,' said his godpapa, once more.

"'Make the children come down, then,' said Fritz. 'I want to see them nearer.'

"'Nonsense, nothing of that sort can be done,' cried Drosselmeier, with impatience. 'The machinery must work as it's doing now; it can't be altered, you know.'

"Oh,' said Fritz, 'it can't be done, eh? Very well, then, Godpapa Drosselmeier, I'll tell you what it is. If your little creatures in the castle there can only always do the same thing, they're not much worth, and I think precious little of them! No, give me my hussars. They've got to manœuvre backwards and forwards just as I want them, and are not fastened up in a house.'

"With which he made off to the other table, and set his squadron of silver horse trotting here and there, wheeling and charging and slashing right and left to his heart's content. Marie had slipped away softly, too, for she was tired of the promenading and dancing of the puppets in the castle, though, kind and gentle as she was, she did not like to show it as her brother did. Drosselmeier, somewhat annoyed, said to the parents--'After all, an ingenious piece of mechanism like this is not a matter for children, who don't understand it; I shall put my castle back in its box again.' But the mother came to the rescue, and made him show her the clever machinery which moved the figures, Drosselmeier taking it all to pieces, putting it together again, and quite recovering his temper in the process. So that he gave the children all sorts of delightful brown men and women with golden faces, hands and legs, which were made of ginger cake, and with which they were greatly content.

"MARIE'S PET AND PROTÉGEÉ.

"But there was a reason wherefore Marie found it against the grain to come away from the table where the Christmas presents were laid out; and this was, that she had just noticed a something there which she had not observed at first. Fritz's hussars having taken ground to the right at some distance from the tree, in front of which they had previously been paraded, there became visible a most delicious little man, who was standing there quiet and unobtrusive, as if waiting patiently till it should be his turn to be noticed. Objection, considerable objection, might, perhaps, have been taken to him on the score of his figure, for his body was rather too tall and stout for his legs, which were short and slight; moreover, his head was a good deal too large. But much of this was atoned for by the elegance of his costume, which showed him to be a person of taste and cultivation. He had on a very pretty violet hussar's jacket, all over knobs and braiding, pantaloons of the same, and the loveliest little boots ever seen even on a hussar officer--fitting his dear little legs just as if they had been painted on to them. It was funny, certainly, that, dressed in this style as he was, he had on a little, rather absurd, short cloak on his shoulders, which looked almost as if it were made of wood, and on his head a cap like a miner's. But Marie remembered that Godpapa Drosselmeier often appeared in a terribly ugly morning jacket, and with a frightful looking cap on his head, and yet was a very very darling godpapa.

"As Marie kept looking at this little man, whom she had quite fallen in love with at first sight, she saw more and more clearly what a sweet nature and disposition was legible in his countenance. Those green eyes of his (which stuck, perhaps, a little more prominently out of his head than was quite desirable) beamed with kindliness and benevolence. It was one of his beauties, too, that his chin was set off with a well kept beard of white cotton, as this drew attention to the sweet smile which his bright red lips always expressed.

"'Oh, papa, dear!' cried Marie at last, 'whose is that most darling little man beside the tree?'

"Well,' was the answer, 'that little fellow is going to do plenty of good service for all of you; he's going to crack nuts for you, and he is to belong to Louise just as much as to you and Fritz.' With which papa took him up from the table, and on his lifting the end of his wooden cloak, the little man opened his mouth wider and wider, displaying two rows of very white, sharp teeth. Marie, directed by her father, put a nut into his mouth, and--knack--he had bitten it in two, so that the shells fell down, and Marie got the kernel. So then it was explained to all that this charming little man belonged to the Nutcracker family, and was practising the profession of his ancestors. 'And,' said papa, 'as friend Nutcracker seems to have made such an impression on you, Marie, he shall be given over to your special care and charge, though, as I said, Louise and Fritz are to have the same right to his services as you.'

"Marie took him into her arms at once, and made him crack some more nuts; but she picked out all the smallest, so that he might not have to open his mouth so terribly wide, because that was not nice for him. Then sister Louise came, and he had to crack some nuts for her too,' which duty he seemed very glad to perform, as he kept on smiling most courteously.

"Meanwhile, Fritz was a little tired, after so much drill and manœuvring, so he joined his sisters, and laughed beyond measure at the funny little fellow, who (as Fritz wanted his share of the nuts) was passed from hand to hand, and was continually snapping his month open and shut. Fritz gave him all the biggest and hardest nuts he could find, but all at once there was a 'crack--crack,' and three teeth fell out of Nutcracker's mouth, and all his lower jaw was loose and wobbly.

"'Ah! my poor darling Nutcracker,' Marie cried, and took him away from Fritz.

"'A nice sort of chap he is!' said Fritz. 'Calls himself a nutcracker, and can't give a decent bite--doesn't seem to know much about his business. Hand him over here, Marie! I'll keep him biting nuts if he drops all the rest of his teeth, and his jaw into the bargain. What's the good of a chap like him!'

"'No, no,' said Marie, in tears; 'you shan't have him, my darling Nutcracker; see how he's looking at me so mournfully, and showing me his poor sore mouth. But you're a hard-hearted creature! You beat your horses, and you've had one of your soldiers shot.'

"'Those things must be done,' said Fritz; 'and you don't understand anything about such matters. But Nutcracker's as much mine as yours, so hand him over!'

"Marie began to cry bitterly, and wrapped the wounded Nutcracker quickly up in her little pocket-handkerchief. Papa and mamma came with Drosselmeier, who took Fritz's part, to Marie's regret. But papa said, 'I have put Nutcracker in Marie's special charge, and as he seems to have need just now of her care, she has full power over him, and nobody else has anything to say in the matter. And I'm surprised that Fritz should expect further service from a man wounded in the execution of his duty. As a good soldier, he ought to know better than that.'

"Fritz was much ashamed, and, troubling himself no further as to nuts or nutcrackers, crept off to the other side of the table, where his hussars (having established the necessary outposts and videttes) were bivouacking for the night. Marie got Nutcracker's lost teeth together, bound a pretty white ribbon, taken from her dress, about his poor chin, and then wrapped the poor little fellow, who was looking very pale and frightened, more tenderly and carefully than before in her handkerchief. Thus she held him, rocking him like a child in her arms, as she looked at the picture-books. She grew quite angry (which was not usual with her) with Godpapa Drosselmeier because he laughed so, and kept asking how she could make such a fuss about an ugly little fellow like that. That odd and peculiar likeness to Drosselmeier, which had struck her when she saw Nutcracker at first, occurred to her mind again now, and she said, with much earnestness:

"'Who knows, godpapa, if you were to be dressed the same as my darling Nutcracker, and had on the same shining boots--who knows whether you mightn't look almost as handsome as he does?'

"Marie did not understand why papa and mamma laughed so heartily, nor why Godpapa Drosselmeier's nose got so red, nor why he did not join so much in the laughter as before. Probably there was some special reason for these things.

"WONDERFUL EVENTS.

"We must now explain that, in the sitting-room, on the left-hand as you go in, there stands, against the wall, a high, glass-fronted cupboard, where all the children's Christmas presents are yearly put away to be kept. Louise, the elder sister, was still quite little when her father had this cupboard constructed by a very skilful workman, who had put in it such transparent panes of glass, and altogether made the whole affair so splendid, that the things, when inside it, looked almost more shining and lovely than when one had them actually in one's hands. In the upper shelves, which were beyond the reach of Fritz and Marie, were stowed Godpapa Drosselmeier's works of art; immediately under them was the shelf for the picture-books. Fritz and Marie were allowed to do what they liked with the two lower shelves, but it always came about that the lower one of all was that in which Marie put away her dolls, as their place of residence, whilst Fritz utilized the shelf above this as cantonments for his troops of all arms. So that, on the evening as to which we are speaking, Fritz had quartered his hussars in his--the upper--shelf of these two, whilst Marie had put Miss Gertrude rather in a corner, established her new doll in the well-appointed chamber there, with all its appropriate furniture, and invited herself to tea and cakes with her. This chamber was splendidly furnished, everything on a first-rate scale, and in good and admirable style, as I have already said--and I don't know if you, my observant reader, have the satisfaction of possessing an equally well-appointed room for your dolls; a little beautifully-flowered sofa, a number of the most charming little chairs, a nice little tea-table, and, above all, a beautiful little white bed, where your pretty darlings of dolls go to sleep? All this was in a corner of the shelf, the walls of which, in this part, had beautiful little pictures hanging on them; and you may well imagine that, in such a delightful chamber as this, the new doll (whose name, as Marie had discovered, was Miss Clara) thought herself extremely comfortably settled, and remarkably well off.

"It was getting very late, not so very far from midnight, indeed, before the children could tear themselves away from all these Yuletide fascinations, and Godpapa Drosselmeier had been gone a considerable time. They remained riveted beside the glass cupboard, although their mother several times reminded them that it was long after bedtime. 'Yes,' said Fritz, 'I know well enough that these poor fellows (meaning his hussars) are tired enough, and awfully anxious to turn in for the night, though as long as I'm here, not a man-jack of them dares to nod his head.' With which he went off. But Marie earnestly begged for just a little while longer, saying she had such a number of things to see to, and promising that as soon as ever she had got them all settled she would go to bed at once. Marie was a very good and reasonable child, and therefore her mother allowed her to remain for a little longer with her toys; but lest she should be too much occupied with her new doll and the other playthings so as to forget to put out the candles which were lighted all round on the wall sconces, she herself put all of them out, leaving merely the lamp which hung from the ceiling to give a soft and pleasant light. 'Come soon to your bed, Marie, or you'll never be up in time in the morning,' cried her mother as she went away into the bedroom.

"As soon as Marie was alone, she set rapidly to work to do the thing which was chiefly at her heart to accomplish, and which, though she scarcely knew why, she somehow did not like to set about in her mother's presence. She had been holding Nutcracker, wrapped in the handkerchief, carefully in her arms all this time, and she now laid him softly down on the table, gently unrolled the handkerchief, and examined his wounds.

"Nutcracker was very pale, but at the same time he was smiling with a melancholy and pathetic kindliness which went straight to Marie's heart.

"Oh, my darling little Nutcracker!' said she, very softly, 'don't you be vexed because brother Fritz has hurt you so: he didn't mean it, you know; he's only a little bit hardened with his soldiering and that, but he's a good, nice boy, I can assure you: and I'll take the greatest care of you, and nurse you, till you're quite, quite better and happy again. And your teeth shall be put in again for you, and your shoulder set right; Godpapa Drosselmeier will see to that; he knows how to do things of the kind----'

"Marie could not finish what she was going to say, because at the mention of Godpapa Drosselmeier, friend Nutcracker made a most horrible, ugly face. A sort of green sparkle of much sharpness seemed to dart out of his eyes. This was only for an instant, however; and just as Marie was going to be terribly frightened, she found that she was looking at the very same nice, kindly face, with the pathetic smile which she had seen before, and she saw plainly that it was nothing but some draught of air making the lamp flicker that had seemed to produce the change.

"'Well!' she said, 'I certainly am a silly girl to be so easily frightened, and think that a wooden doll could make faces at me! But I'm too fond, really, of Nutcracker, because he's so funny, and so kind and nice; and so he must be taken the greatest care of, and properly nursed till he's quite well.'

"With which she took him in her arms again, approached the cupboard, and kneeling down beside it, said to her new doll:

"I'm going to ask a favour of you, Miss Clara--that you will give up your bed to this poor sick, wounded Nutcracker, and make yourself as comfortable as you can on the sofa here. Remember that you're quite well and strong yourself, or you wouldn't have such fat, red cheeks, and that there are very few dolls indeed who have as comfortable a sofa as this to lie upon.'

"Miss Clara, in her Christmas full dress, looked very grand and disdainful, and said not so much as 'Muck!'

"Very well,' said Marie, 'why should I make such a fuss, and stand on any ceremony?'--took the bed and moved it forward; laid Nutcracker carefully and tenderly down on it; wrapped another pretty ribbon, taken from her own dress, about his hurt shoulder, and drew the bed-clothes up to his nose.

"But he shan't stay with that nasty Clara,' she said, and moved the bed, with Nutcracker in it, up to the upper shelf, so that it was placed near the village in which Fritz's hussars had their cantonments. She closed the cupboard, and was moving away to go to bed, when--listen, children! there begun a low soft rustling and rattling, and a sort of whispering noise, all round, in all directions, from all quarters of the room--behind the stove, under the chairs, behind the cupboards. The clock on the wall 'warned' louder and louder, but could not strike. Marie looked at it, and saw that the big gilt owl which was on the top of it had drooped its wings so that they covered the whole of the clock, and had stretched its cat-like head, with the crooked beak, a long way forward. And the 'warning' kept growing louder and louder, with distinct words: 'Clocks, clockies, stop ticking. No sound, but cautious "warning." Mousey king's ears are fine. Prr-prr. Only sing "poom, poom"; sing the olden song of doom! prr-prr; poom, poom. Bells go chime! Soon rings out the fated time!' And then came 'Poom! poom!' quite hoarsely and smothered, twelve times.

"Marie grew terribly frightened, and was going to rush away as best she could, when she noticed that Godpapa Drosselmeier was up on the top of the clock instead of the owl, with his yellow coat-tails hanging down on both sides, like wings. But she manned herself, and called out in a loud voice of anguish:

"Godpapa! godpapa! what are you up there for? Come down to me, and don't frighten me so terribly, you naughty, naughty Godpapa Drosselmeier!'

"But then there begun a sort of wild kickering and queaking, everywhere, all about, and presently there was a sound as of running and trotting, as of thousands of little feet behind the walls, and thousands of little lights began to glitter out between the chinks of the woodwork. But they were not lights; no, no! little glittering eyes; and Marie became aware that, everywhere, mice were peeping and squeezing themselves out through every chink. Presently they were trotting and galloping in all directions over the room; orderly bodies, continually increasing, of mice, forming themselves into regular troops and squadrons, in good order, just as Fritz's soldiers did when manœuvres were going on. As Marie was not afraid of mice (as many children are), she could not help being amused by this, and her first alarm had nearly left her, when suddenly there came such a sharp and terrible piping noise that the blood ran cold in her veins. Ah! what did she see then? Well, truly, kind reader, I know that your heart is in the right place, just as much as my friend Field Marshal Fritz's is, itself, but if you had seen what now came before Marie's eyes, you would have made a clean pair of heels of it; nay, I consider that you would have plumped into your bed, and drawn the blankets further over your head than necessity demanded.

"But poor Marie hadn't it in her power to do any such thing, because, right at her feet, as if impelled by some subterranean power, sand, and lime, and broken stone came bursting up, and then seven mouse-heads, with seven shining crowns upon them, rose through the floor, hissing and piping in a most horrible way. Quickly the body of the mouse which had those seven crowned heads forced its way up through the floor, and this enormous creature shouted, with its seven heads, aloud to the assembled multitude, squeaking to them with all the seven mouths in full chorus; and then the entire army set itself in motion, and went trot, trot, right up to the cupboard--and, in fact, to Marie, who was standing beside it.

"Marie's heart had been beating so with terror that she had thought it must jump out of her breast, and she must die. But now it seemed to her as if the blood in her veins stood still. Half fainting, she leant backwards, and then there was a 'klirr, klirr, prr,' and the pane of the cupboard, which she had broken with her elbow, fell in shivers to the floor. She felt, for a moment, a sharp, stinging pain in her arm, but still, this seemed to make her heart lighter; she heard no more of the queaking and piping. Everything was quiet; and though she didn't dare to look, she thought the noise of the glass breaking had frightened the mice back to their holes.

"But what came to pass then? Right behind Marie a movement seemed to commence in the cupboard, and small, faint voices began to be heard, saying:

'Come, awake, measures take;

Out to the fight, out to the fight;

Shield the right, shield the right;

Aim and away, this is the night.'

And harmonica-bells began ringing as prettily as you please.

"Oh! that's my little peal of bells!' cried Marie, and went nearer and looked in. Then she saw that there was bright light in the cupboard, and everything busily in motion there; dolls and little figures of various kinds all running about together, and struggling with their little arms. At this point, Nutcracker rose from his bed, cast off the bedclothes, and sprung with both feet on to the floor (of the shelf), crying out at the top of his voice:

'Knack, knack, knack,

Stupid mousey pack,

All their skulls we'll crack.

Mousey pack, knack, knack,

Mousey pack, crick and crack,

Cowardly lot of schnack!'

"And with this he drew his little sword, waved it in the air, and cried:

"'Ye, my trusty vassals, brethren and friends, are ye ready to stand by me in this great battle?'

"Immediately three scaramouches, one pantaloon, four chimney-sweeps, two zither-players, and a drummer cried, in eager accents:

"'Yes, your highness; we will stand by you in loyal duty; we will follow you to the death, the victory, and the fray!' And they precipitated themselves after Nutcracker (who, in the excitement of the moment, had dared that perilous leap) to the bottom shelf. Now they might well dare this perilous leap, for not only had they got plenty of clothes on, of cloth and silk, but besides, there was not much in their insides except cotton and sawdust, so that they plumped down like little wool-sacks. But as for poor Nutcracker, he would certainly have broken his arms and legs; for, bethink you, it was nearly two feet from where he had stood to the shelf below, and his body was as fragile as if he had been made of elm-wood. Yes, Nutcracker would have broken his arms and legs, had not Miss Clara started up, at the moment of his spring, from her sofa, and received the hero, drawn sword and all, in her tender arms.

"'Oh! you dear, good Clara!' cried Marie, 'how I did misunderstand you. I believe you were quite willing to let dear Nutcracker have your bed.'

"But Miss Clara now cried, as she pressed the young hero gently to her silken breast:

"'Oh, my lord! go not into this battle and danger, sick and wounded as you are. See how your trusty vassals, clowns and pantaloon, chimney-sweeps, zithermen and drummer, are already arrayed below; and the puzzle-figures, in my shelf here, are in motion, and preparing for the fray! Deign, then, oh my lord, to rest in these arms of mine, and contemplate your victory from a safe coign of vantage.'

"Thus spoke Clara. But Nutcracker behaved so impatiently, and kicked so with his legs, that Clara was obliged to put him down on the shelf in a hurry. However, he at once sank gracefully on one knee, and expressed himself as follows:

"'Oh, lady! the kind protection and aid which you have afforded me, will ever be present to my heart, in battle and in victory!'

"On this, Clara bowed herself so as to be able to take hold of him by his arms, raised him gently up, quickly loosed her girdle, which was ornamented with many spangles, and would have placed it about his shoulders. But the little man drew himself swiftly two steps back, laid his hand upon his heart, and said, with much solemnity:

"Oh, lady! do not bestow this mark of your favour upon me; for----' He hesitated, gave a deep sigh, took the ribbon, with which Marie had bound him, from his shoulders, pressed it to his lips, put it on as a cognizance for the fight, and, waving his glittering sword, sprang, like a bird, over the ledge of the cupboard down to the floor.

"You will observe, kind reader, that Nutcracker, even before he really came to life, had felt and understood all Marie's goodness and regard, and that it was because of his gratitude and devotion to her, that he would not take, or wear even, a ribbon of Miss Clara's, although it was exceedingly pretty and charming. This good, true-hearted Nutcracker preferred Marie's much commoner and more unpretending token.

"But what is going to happen, further, now? At the moment when Nutcracker sprang down, the queaking and piping commenced again worse than ever. Alas! under the big table, the hordes of the mouse army had taken up a position, densely massed, under the command of the terrible mouse with the seven heads. So what is to be the result?

"THE BATTLE.

"Beat the Generale, trusty vassal-drummer!' cried Nutcracker, very loud; and immediately the drummer began to roll his drum in the most splendid style, so that the windows of the glass cupboard rattled and resounded. Then there began a cracking and a clattering inside, and Marie saw all the lids of the boxes in which Fritz's army was quartered bursting open, and the soldiers all came out and jumped down to the bottom shelf, where they formed up in good order. Nutcracker hurried up and down the ranks, speaking words of encouragement.

"'There's not a dog of a trumpeter taking the trouble to sound a call!' he cried in a fury. Then he turned to the pantaloon (who was looking decidedly pale), and, wobbling his long chin a good deal, said, in a tone of solemnity:

"'I know how brave and experienced you are, General! What is essential here, is a rapid comprehension of the situation, and immediate utilization of the passing moment. I entrust you with the command of the cavalry and artillery. You can do without a horse; your own legs are long, and you can gallop on them as fast as is necessary. Do your duty!'

"Immediately Pantaloon put his long, lean fingers to his month, and gave such a piercing crow that it rang as if a hundred little trumpets had been sounding lustily. Then there began a tramping and a neighing in the cupboard; and Fritz's dragoons and cuirassiers--but above all, the new glittering hussars--marched out, and thru came to a halt, drawn up on the floor. They then marched past Nutcracker by regiments, with guidons flying and bands playing; after which they wheeled into line, and formed up at right angles to the line of march. Upon this, Fritz's artillery came rattling up, and formed action front in advance of the halted cavalry. Then it went 'boom-boom!' and Marie saw the sugar-plums doing terrible execution amongst the thickly-massed mouse-battalions, which were powdered quite white by them, and greatly put to shame. But a battery of heavy guns, which had taken up a strong position on mamma's footstool, was what did the greatest execution; and 'poom-poom-poom!' kept up a murderous fire of gingerbread nuts into the enemy's ranks with most destructive effect, mowing the mice down in great numbers. The enemy, however, was not materially checked in his advance, and had even possessed himself of one or two of the heavy guns, when there came 'prr-prr-prr!' and Marie could scarcely see what was happening, for smoke and dust; but this much is certain, that every corps engaged fought with the utmost bravery and determination, and it was for a long time doubtful which side would gain the day. The mice kept on developing fresh bodies of their forces, as they were advanced to the scene of action; their little silver balls--like pills in size--which they delivered with great precision (their musketry practice being specially fine) took effect even inside the glass cupboard. Clara and Gertrude ran up and down in utter despair, wringing their hands, and loudly lamenting.

"Must I--the very loveliest doll in all the world--perish miserably in the very flower of my youth?' cried Miss Clara.

"'Oh! was it for this,' wept Gertrude, 'that I have taken such pains to conserver myself all these years? Must I be shot here in my own drawing-room after all?"

"On this, they fell into each other's arms, and howled so terribly that you could hear them above all the din of the battle. For you have no idea of the hurly-burly that went on now, dear auditor! It went prr-prr-poof, piff-schnetterdeng--schnetterdeng--boom-booroom--boom-booroom--boom all confusedly and higgledy-piggledy; and the mouse-king and the mice squeaked and screamed; and then again Nutcracker's powerful voice was heard shouting words of command, and issuing important orders, and he was seen striding along amongst his battalions in the thick of the fire.

'Pantaloon had made several most brilliant cavalry charges, and covered himself with glory. But Fritz's hussars were subjected--by the mice--to a heavy fire of very evil-smelling shot, which made horrid spots on their red tunics; this caused them to hesitate, and hang rather back for a time. Pantaloon made them take ground to the left, in échelon, and, in the excitement of the moment, he, with his dragoons and cuirassiers, executed a somewhat analogous movement. That is to say, they brought up the right shoulder, wheeled to the left, and marched home to their quarters. This had the effect of bringing the battery of artillery on the footstool into imminent danger, and it was not long before a large body of exceedingly ugly mice delivered such a vigorous assault on this position that the whole of the footstool, with the guns and gunners, fell into the enemy's hands. Nutcracker seemed much disconcerted, and ordered his right wing to commence a retrograde movement. A soldier of your experience, my dear Fritz, knows well that such a movement is almost tantamount to a regular retreat, and you grieve, with me, in anticipation, for the disaster which threatens the army of Marie's beloved little Nutcracker. But turn your glance in the other direction, and look at this left wing of Nutcracker's, where all is still going well, and you will see that there is yet much hope for the commander-in-chief and his cause.

"During the hottest part of the engagement masses of mouse-cavalry had been quietly debouching from under the chest of drawers, and had subsequently made a most determined advance upon the left wing of Nutcracker's force, uttering loud and horrible queakings. But what a reception they met with! Very slowly, as the nature the terrain necessitated (for the ledge at the bottom of the cupboard had to be passed), the regiment of motto-figures, commanded by two Chinese Emperors, advanced, and formed square. These fine, brilliantly-uniformed troops, consisting of gardeners, Tyrolese, Tungooses, hairdressers, harlequins, Cupids, lions, tigers, unicorns, and monkeys, fought with the utmost courage, coolness, and steady endurance. This bataillon d'élite would have wrested the victory from the enemy had not one of his cavalry captains, pushing forward in a rash and foolhardy manner, made a charge upon one of the Chinese Emperors, and bitten off his head. This Chinese Emperor, in his fall, knocked over and smothered a couple of Tungooses and a unicorn, and this created a gap, through which the enemy effected a rush, which resulted in the whole battalion being bitten to death. But the enemy gained little advantage by this; for as soon as one of the mouse-cavalry soldiers bit one of these brave adversaries to death, he found that there was a small piece of printed paper sticking in his throat, of which he died in a moment. Still, this was of small advantage to Nutcracker's army, which, having once commenced a retrograde movement, went on retreating farther and farther, suffering greater and greater loss. So that the unfortunate Nutcracker found himself driven back close to the front of the cupboard, with a very small remnant of his army.

"'Bring up the reserves! Pantaloon! Scaramouch! Drummer! where the devil have you got to?' shouted Nutcracker, who was still reckoning on reinforcements from the cupboard. And there did, in fact, advance a small contingent of brown gingerbread men and women, with gilt faces, hats, and helmets; but they laid about them so clumsily that they never hit any of the enemy, and soon knocked off the cap of their commander-in-chief, Nutcracker, himself. And the enemy's chasseurs soon bit their legs off, so that they tumbled topsy-turvy, and killed several of Nutcracker's companions-in-arms into the bargain.

"Nutcracker was now hard pressed, and closely hemmed in by the enemy, and in a position of extreme peril, He tried to jump the bottom ledge of the cupboard, but his legs were not long enough. Clara and Gertrude had fainted; so they could give him no assistance. Hussars and heavy dragoons came charging up at him, and he shouted in wild despair:

"'A horse! a horse! My kingdom for a horse!'

"At this moment two of the enemy's riflemen seized him by his wooden cloak, and the king of the mice went rushing up to him, squeaking in triumph out of all his seven throats.

"Marie could contain herself no longer. 'Oh! my poor Nutcracker!' she sobbed, took her left shoe off, without very distinctly knowing what she was about, and threw it as hard as she could into the thick of the enemy, straight at their king.

"Instantly everything vanished and disappeared. All was silence. Nothing to be seen. But Marie felt a more stinging pain than before in her left arm, and fell on the floor insensible.

"THE INVALID.

"When Marie awoke from a death-like sleep she was lying in her little bed; and the sun was shining brightly in at the window, which was all covered with frost-flowers. There was a stranger gentleman sitting beside her, whom she recognized as Dr. Wendelstern. 'She's awake,' he said softly, and her mother came and looked at her very scrutinizingly and anxiously.

"'Oh, mother!' whispered Marie, 'are all those horrid mice gone away, and is Nutcracker quite safe?'

"'Don't talk such nonsense, Marie,' answered her mother. 'What have the mice to do with Nutcracker? You're a very naughty girl, and have caused us all a great deal of anxiety. See what comes of children not doing as they're told! You were playing with your toys so late last night that you fell asleep. I don't know whether or not some mouse jumped out and frightened you, though there are no mice here, generally. But, at all events, you broke a pane of the glass cupboard with your elbow, and cut your arm so bally that Dr. Wendelstern (who has just taken a number of pieces of the glass out of your arm) thinks that if it had been only a little higher up you might have had a stiff arm for life, or even have bled to death. Thank Heaven, I awoke about twelve o'clock and missed you; and I found you lying insensible in front of the glass cupboard, bleeding frightfully, with a number of Fritz's lead soldiers scattered round you, and other toys, broken motto-figures, and gingerbread men; and Nutcracker was lying on your bleeding arm, with your left shoe not far off.'

"Oh, mother, mother,' said Marie, 'these were the remains of the tremendous battle between the toys and the mice; and what frightened me so terribly was that the mice were going to take Nutcracker (who was the commander-in-chief of the toy army) a prisoner. Then I threw my shoe in among the mice, and after that I know nothing more that happened.'

"Dr. Wendelstern gave a significant look at the mother, who said very gently to Marie:

"'Never mind, dear, keep yourself quiet. The mice are all gone away, and Nutcracker's in the cupboard, quite safe and sound.'

"Here Marie's father came in, and had a long consultation with Dr. Wendelstern. Then he felt Marie's pulse, and she heard them talking about 'wound-fever.' She had to stay in bed, and take medicine, for some days, although she didn't feel at all ill, except that her arm was rather stiff and painful. She knew Nutcracker had got safe out of the battle, and she seemed to remember, as if in a dream, that he had said, quite distinctly, in a very melancholy tone:

"'Marie! dearest lady! I am most deeply indebted to you. But it is in your power to do even more for me still.'

"She thought and thought what this could possibly be; but in vain; she couldn't make it out. She wasn't able to play on account of her arm; and when she tried to read, or look through the picture-books, everything wavered before her eyes so strangely that she was obliged to stop. So that the days seemed very long to her, and she could scarcely pass the time till evening, when her mother came and sat at her bedside, telling and reading her all sorts of nice stories. She had just finished telling her the story of Prince Fakardin, when the door opened and in came Godpapa Drosselmeier, saying:

"'I've come to see with my own eyes how Marie's getting on.'

"When Marie saw Godpapa Drosselmeier in his little yellow coat, the scene of the night when Nutcracker lost the battle with the mice came so vividly back to her that she couldn't help crying out:

"'Oh! Godpapa Drosselmeier, how nasty you were! I saw you quite well when you were sitting on the clock, covering it all over with your wings, to prevent it from striking and frightening the mice. I heard you quite well when you called the mouse-king. Why didn't you help Nutcracker? Why didn't you help me, you nasty godpapa? It's nobody's fault but yours that I'm lying here with a bad arm.'

"Her mother, in much alarm, asked what she meant. But Drosselmeier began making extraordinary faces, and said, in a snarling voice, like a sort of chant in monotone:

"'Pendulums could only rattle--couldn't tick, ne'er a click; all the clockies stopped their ticking: no more clicking; then they all struck loud "cling-clang." Dollies! Don't your heads downhang! Hink and hank, and honk and hank. Doll-girls! don't your heads downhang! Cling and ring! The battle's over--Nutcracker all safe in clover. Comes the owl, on downy wing--Scares away the mouses' king. Pak and pik and pik and pook--clocks, bim-boom--grr-grr. Pendulums must click again. Tick and tack, grr and brr, prr and purr.'

"Marie fixed wide eyes of terror upon Godpapa Drosselmeier, because he was looking quite different, and far more horrid, than usual, and was jerking his right arm backwards and forwards as if he were some puppet moved by a handle. She was beginning to grow terribly frightened at him when her mother came in, and Fritz (who had arrived in the meantime) laughed heartily, crying, 'Why, godpapa, you are going on funnily! You're just like my old Jumping Jack that I threw away last month.'

"But the mother looked very grave, and said, 'This is a most extraordinary way of going on, Mr. Drosselmeier. What can you mean by it?'

"'My goodness!' said Drosselmeier, laughing, 'did you never hear my nice Watchmaker's Song? I always sing it to little invalids like Marie.' Then he hastened to sit down beside Marie's bed, and said to her, 'Don't be vexed with me because I didn't gouge out all the mouse-king's fourteen eyes. That couldn't be managed exactly; but, to make up for it, here's something which I know will please you greatly.'

"He dived into one of his pockets, and what he slowly, slowly brought out of it was--Nutcracker! whose teeth he had put in again quite firmly, and set his broken jaw completely to rights. Marie shouted for joy, and her mother laughed and said, 'Now you see for yourself how nice Godpapa Drosselmeier is to Nutcracker.'

"'But you must admit, Marie,' said her godpapa, 'that Nutcracker is far from being what you might call a handsome fellow, and you can't say he has a pretty face. If you like I'll tell you how it was that the ugliness came into his family, and has been handed down in it from one generation to another. Did ever you hear about the Princess Pirlipat, the witch Mouseyrinks, and the clever Clockmaker?'

"I say, Godpapa Drosselmeier,' interrupted Fritz at this juncture, 'you've put Nutcracker's teeth in again all right, and his jaw isn't wobbly as it was; but what's become of his sword? Why haven't you given him a sword?'

"Oh,' cried Drosselmeier, annoyed, 'you must always be bothering and finding fault with something or other, boy. What have I to do with Nutcracker's sword? I've put his mouth to rights for him; he must look out for a sword for himself.'

"Yes, yes,' said Fritz, 'so he must, of course, if he's a right sort of fellow.'

"'So tell me, Marie,' continued Drosselmeier, 'if you know the story of Princess Pirlipat?'

"'Oh no,' said Marie. 'Tell it me, please--do tell it me!'

"'I hope it won't be as strange and terrible as your stories generally are,' said her mother.

"'Oh no, nothing of the kind,' said Drosselmeier. 'On the contrary, it's quite a funny story which I'm going to have the honour of telling this time.'

"'Go on then--do tell it to us,' cried the children; and Drosselmeier commenced as follows:--