A Capillary Crime, and Other Stories

by Francis Davis Millet

I.

THE click of dominos is an accompaniment scarcely in harmony with a discussion of psychology and religion. But no subject is too sacred, or too profane, to be discussed in a café—that neutral ground where all parties and all sects meet; and it was a serious debate during a game of dominos that marked the beginning of a course of strange coincidences and sad occurrences that crowd one chapter in an eventful Bohemian life.

There were four of us art-students in the Academy of Antwerp assembled, as was our custom after the evening life-class, at a café in a quiet faubourg of the city. It was a gloomy November evening, cold and raw in the wind, but not too chill to sit in the open air under the lee of the wooden shed which enclosed two sides of the café garden. The heavy atmosphere had not crushed every spark of cheerfulness out of the buoyant natures of the materialistic Flemings, and the tables were filled with noisy bourgeois and their families, drinking the mild beer of Louvain or generous cups of coffee. Their gayety seemed sacrilegious in the solemn presence of approaching winter—that long, depressing, ghostly season which in the Low Countries gives warning of its coming with prophetic sobs and continued tears, and trails the shroud of summer before the eyes of shrinking mortals for weeks before it buries its victim. In a climate like that of Flanders, the winter, rarely marked by severe cold, really begins with the rainy season in early autumn, and it continues in an interminable succession of dismal days with shrouded skies.

On the evening in question the clouds seemed lower than usual; the wind was fitful and spasmodic, and came in long, mournful, insinuating sighs that stole in mockingly between the peals of music and laughter, and startled every one in his gayest mood. The gas-jets flickered and wavered weirdly, and the dry leaves danced accompaniment to the movements of the swift-footed waiters. The clatter of wooden shoes on the pavement without, and the measureless but not unmusical songs of the jolly workmen on their way home, filled the score of the medley of sounds that broke the sepulchral quiet of the evening.

There were four of us, as I have said: old Reiner, Tyck, Henley, and myself. Each represented a different nationality. Reiner was a Norwegian of German descent, tall and ungainly, with a large head, a shock of light-colored, coarse hair, a virgin beard, and a good-humored face focused in a pair of searching gray eyes that pried their way into everything that came under their owner’s observation. He was by no means a handsome man, neither was he unattractive; and his sober habits, cool judgment, and great stock of general information gained for him the familiar name of old Reiner among the more thoughtless and more superficial students who were his friends. He was by nature of a more scientific than artistic turn of mind. He was conversant with nine languages, including Sanskrit, had received a thorough university education in Norway and Germany, took delight in investigating every subject that came in his way—from the habits of an ant to the movements of the gold market in America—and could talk intelligently and instructively on every topic proposed to him. Indeed, his scientific and literary attainments were a wonder to the rest of us, who had lived quite as long and had accomplished much less. As an artist he had great talents as well; but here also his love of investigation constantly directed his efforts. In his academic course he had less success than might have been anticipated, except in the direction of positive rendering of certain effects. He was not a colorist; such natures rarely are; and it is probable that he would never have made a brilliant artist in any branch of the profession, for he was too much of a positivist, and even his historical pictures would have been little more than marvels of correctness of costume and accessories. In his association with us, the flow of his abundant good-humor, which sometimes seemed unlimited, was interrupted by occasional spells of complete reaction, when he neither spoke to nor even saw any one else, but made a hermit of himself until the mood had passed.

Tyck at first sight looked like a Spaniard. He was slight in stature, one short leg causing a stoop which made him appear still smaller than he was. His skin was of a clear brown, warmed by an abundance of rich blood; a mass of strong, curling hair, and a black moustache and imperial framed in a face of peculiar strong beauty. His eyes had something in them too deep to be altogether pleasing, for they caused one to look at him seriously, yet they were as full of laughter and good-nature and cheerfulness as dark eyes can be. His face was one that, notwithstanding its peculiarities, gave a good first impression; and a long friendship had proved him to be chargeable with fewer blemishes of character than are written down against the most of us. But his hands were not in his favor. They were long, bony, and cold; the finger-joints were large and lacked firmness, and the pressure of the hand was listless or unsympathetic. The lines of life were faint and discouraging, and there were few prominent marks in the palm. The secret of his complexion lay in his parentage, for his mother was a native woman of Java, and his father a Dutch merchant, who settled in that far-off country, built up a fortune, and raised a small family of boys, who deserted the paternal nest as soon as they were old enough to flutter alone. Tyck was a colorist. He seemed to see the tones of nature rich with the warm reflections of a tropical sun; and his studies from life, while strong and luscious in tone, were full of fire and subtle gradations—qualities combined rarely enough in the works of older artists. He was to all appearance in the flush of health, and, notwithstanding his deformity, was uncommonly active and fond of exercise. We who knew him intimately, however, always looked upon him as a marked man. With all his rugged, healthy look, his physique was not vigorous enough to resist the attacks of the common foe, winter, and we knew that he occasionally pined mentally and physically for the luxurious warmth of his native land. He flourished in the raw climate of Flanders only as a transplanted flower flourishes; still, he was not declining in health or strength.

It is a long and delicate process to build up an intimate friendship between men of mercurial temperament and such an impersonation of coolness and deliberation and studied manners as was Henley, the third member of our group. From his type of face and his peculiar bearing he was easily recognizable as an Englishman, and even as a member of the Church of England. His manner was plainly the result of a severe and formal training; his whole life, as he told us himself, had been passed under the careful surveillance of a strict father, who was for a long time the rector of one of the first churches of London. But Henley, serious, formal, and cool, was not uncompanionable; and I am not quite sure whether it was not the bony thinness of his face, his straggling black beard and abundant dead-colored hair, that predisposed one at first sight to judge him as a sort of melancholy black sheep among his lighter-hearted companions. So we all placed him at our first meeting. When once the ice was broken, and we felt the sympathetic presence that surrounded him in his intercourse with friends, he became a necessity to complete the current of our little circle, and his English steadiness often served a good purpose in many wordy tempests.

In religious opinions we four were as divided as we were distinct in nationality. Henley, as I have said, was a member of the Church of England. Tyck was a Jew and a Freemason. Reiner entirely disbelieved in everything that was not plain to him intellectually. Our discussions on religious subjects were long and warm, for the theories of the fourth member of the circle piled new fuel upon the flames that sprang up under the friction of the ideas of the other three, and on these topics alone we were seriously at variance. Rarely were our disputes carried to that point where either of us felt wounded after the discussion was ended, but on more than one occasion they were violent enough to have ruptured our little bond if it had not been strengthened by ties of more than ordinary friendship.

This friendship was of the unselfish order, too. We were in the habit of living on the share-and-share-alike principle. Henley was the only one who had any allowance, and he always felt that his regular remittance was rather a bar to his complete and unqualified admission to our little ring. The joint capital among us was always kept in circulation. When one had money and the others had none, and it suited our inclinations or the purposes of our study to visit the Dutch cities, or even to cross the Channel, we travelled on the common purse. Share-and-share-alike in cases less pressing than sickness or actual want may not be a sound mercantile principle; but where the freemasonry of mutual tastes, united purposes, and common hardships binds friend to friend, the spirit of communism is half the charm of existence. Especially is this true of Bohemian life.

In introducing the characters a little time has been taken, partly in order to give us a chance to move our table into a more sheltered corner, and to allow us to get well started in another game of dominos. As I remember that evening, Reiner, who had not entirely recovered from an attack of one of his peculiar moods, had been discussing miracles and mysteries with more than his accustomed warmth, and the rest of us had been cornered and driven off the field in turn; even to Henley, who was not, with all his study, quite as well up on the subject of the Jewish priests and the Druids as old Reiner, whom no topic seemed to find unprepared. When the discussion was at its height I observed in Reiner certain uneasy movements, and I instinctively looked behind him to see if any one was watching him, as his actions resembled those of a person under the mesmerism of an unseen eye. I saw no one, and concluded that my imagination had deceived me. But Reiner became suddenly grave and even solemn, and the debate stopped entirely. At last, after a long silence, Reiner proposed another game of dominos. When the pieces were distributed he began the moves, saying at the same time, quite in earnest and as if talking to himself, “This will decide it.”

His voice was so strange and his look so determined that we felt that something was at stake, and instinctively and in chorus declared that it was useless to play the game out, and proposed an adjournment to the sketching-club. Reiner did not object, and we rose to go. As we left the table I saw behind Reiner’s chair two small, luminous, green balls, set in a black mass, turned towards us—evidently the eyes of a dog, glistening in the reflection of the gas like emerald fires. Possibly the others did not notice the animal, and I was too much startled at the discovery of the unseen eye to speak of it at that moment. Before I had recovered myself completely we were out of the gate, followed by the dog. Under the street-lamp, he leaped about and seemed quite at home. He was seen to be a perfectly black Spitz poodle, with cropped ears and tail, very lively in his movements, and with a remarkably intelligent expression. He was a dog of a character not commonly met, and once observed was not easily mistaken for others of the same breed. Our walk to the club was dreary enough. The gloomy manner of old Reiner was contagious, and no one spoke a word. I was too busy reflecting on the strange manner in which our game had been interrupted to occupy myself with my companion, remembering the now frequent recurrence of Reiner’s blue days, and dreading his absence from the class and the club, which I knew from experience was sure to follow such symptoms as I had observed in the café. To the sketching-club we brought an atmosphere so forbidding that it seemed as if we were the heralds of some misfortune. Scarcely a cheerful word was said after our entrance, and frequent glasses of Louvain or d’orge, drunk on the production of new caricatures, failed to raise the barometer of our spirits. The meeting broke up early, and we four separated. The dog, which had been lying under a settee near the door, followed Reiner as he turned down the boulevard.

For a week we did not meet again. Reiner kept his room or was out of town. He made no sign, and without him we frequented neither the café nor the club. The weather grew cold and rainy; the last evening at the café proved to have been the final gasp of dying autumn, and winter had fairly begun. At last Reiner made his appearance at dinner one dark afternoon, and took his accustomed seat at our table, near the window which opened out upon the glass-covered court-yard of the small hotel where we used to dine, a score of us, artists and students all. He looked very weary and hollow-eyed; said he had been unwell, had taken an overdose of laudanum for neuralgia, and had been confined to his room for a few days. Expecting each day to be able to go out the next morning, he had neglected to send us word, and so the week had passed. As he was speaking I noticed a dog in the court-yard, the same black poodle that attached himself to us in the café. Reiner, observing my surprise, explained that the dog had been living with him at his room in the Steenhouwersvest, and that they were inseparable companions now. We could all see that old Reiner was not yet himself again. One of us ventured to suggest that there might be something Mephistophelian about the animal, and that Reiner was endeavoring, Faust-like, to get at the kernel of the beast, so as to fathom whatever mystery of heaven or earth was as yet to him inexplicable. No further remarks were made, as Reiner arose to go away, leaving his dinner untouched. He shook hands with us all almost solemnly, and with the poodle went out into the gloomy street.

Another week passed, and we saw neither Reiner nor the poodle. December began, and the days were short and dark, the sun scarcely appearing above the cathedral roof in his course from east to west. The absence of old Reiner was a constant theme of conversation, and there were multitudes of conjectures as to whether he were in love, in debt, or really ill. We had no message from him, not a word, not a written line.

One evening as we sat at dinner—it was Thursday, and a heavy rain was falling—the black poodle dashed suddenly in, closely followed by Reiner’s servant-girl, bonnetless and in slippers, and drenched to the skin. Her message was guessed before she had time to gasp out, “Och, Mynheeren, uwer vriend Reiner is dood!” Not waiting for explanations, we followed her as she returned through the slippery streets, scarcely walking or running. How I got there I never knew; it seemed at the time as if I were carried along by some superior force. Filled with dread and fear, mingled with hope that it was an awful mistake and that something might yet be done, I reached the door of the house. Through the grocery-shop, where was assembled a crowd of shivering, drenched people who had gathered there on hearing of the event, conscious that all were watching our entrance with solemn sympathy, not seeing distinctly any one or anything, forgetting the narrow, dark, and winding wooden stair, I was at the door of Reiner’s room in an instant. The tall figure of a gendarme was silhouetted against the window; a few women stood by the table whispering together, awe-stricken at the sight of something that was before them, to the left, and still hidden from me as I took in the scene on entering the door.

Another step brought me to the bedside. There in the dim light lay old Reiner, not as if asleep, for the awful pallor of death was on his face, but with an expression as calm and peaceful as if he were soon to awake from pleasant dreams, as if his soul were still dreaming on. He lay on his right side, with his head resting on his doubled arm. The bedclothes were scarcely disturbed, and his left arm lay naturally on the sheet which was turned over the coverlid. Great, dark stains splashed the wall behind the bed and the pillow; dark streaks ran along over the linen and made little pools upon the floor. His shirt-bosom was one broad, irregular blotch of blood, and in his left hand I could see the carved ivory handle of the little Scandinavian sheath-knife that he always carried in his belt. Before I had fully comprehended the awful reality of poor Reiner’s death, the doctor arrived, lights were brought, and the examination began. Our dead comrade’s head being raised and his shirt-bosom opened, there were exposed two great gashes across the left jugular vein and one across the right, and nine deep wounds in the breast. Few of the cuts would not have proved mortal, and the ferocity with which the fatal knife had been plunged again and again into his breast testified to the madness of the determination to destroy his life. On the dressing-table by the bed we found two small laudanum vials, both empty, and one over-turned, as if placed hastily beside its fellow. In all probability poor Reiner took this large dose of laudanum early in the morning, as it was found that he had been in bed during the entire day, and was seen by the servant to be sleeping at three o’clock in the afternoon. His iron constitution and great physical strength overcoming the effects of the narcotic, he probably awoke to consciousness late in the afternoon. Finding himself still alive, in the agonies of despair and disappointment at the unsuccessful attempt to dream over the chasm into the next world, he seized his knife and madly stabbed himself, doubtless feeling little pain, and only happily conscious that his long-planned step was successfully taken at last. The room was unchanged, nothing was disturbed, and there was no evidence of the premeditation of the suicide, except an open letter on the table, addressed to us, his friends. It contained a simple statement of his reasons for leaving the world, saying that he was discouraged with his progress in art, that he could not establish himself as an artist without great expense to his family and friends, and that he believed by committing suicide he simply annihilated himself—nothing more or less—and so ceased to trouble himself or those interested in him. He gave no directions as to the disposal of his effects, but enclosed a written confession of faith, which read:

“Frederik Reiner, athée, ne croyant à rien que ce que l’on peut prouver par la raison et l’expérience. Croyant tout de même à l’existence d’un esprit, mais d’un esprit qui dissoud et disparaît avec le corps.

“L'âme c’est la vie, c’est un complexité des forces qui sont inséparables des atoms ou des molecules dont se compose le corps. L’un comme l’autre a existé depuis l’éternité. Moi-même, mon âme comme mon corps, un complexité accidentel, une réunion passagère.

“J’insisterai toujours dans les éléments qui me composent mais dissoudent en d’autres complexités. Ainsi, moi, ma personnalité, n’existera plus après ma mort.”

Beside this letter on the table lay Henri Murger’s “Scènes de la Vie de Bohème,” open, face downward. The pages contained the description of the death of one of the artists, and the following brief and touching sentence was underlined: “Il fut enterré quelquepart.” A litter was brought from the hospital, and four men carried away the body; the dog, which we had come to look upon almost with horror, closely following the melancholy procession as it gradually disappeared in the drizzling gloom of the narrow streets. We three went to our rooms in a strange bewilderment, and huddled together in speechless grief and horror around the little fireplace. When bedtime came we separated and tried to sleep, but I doubt if an eye was closed or the awful vision of poor Reiner, as we last saw him, left either of us for a moment.

The days that followed were, to me at least, most agonizing. The terrible death of old Reiner grew less and less repulsive and more horribly absorbing. I had often read of the influence of such examples on peculiarly constituted minds, but had never before felt the dread and ghastly fascination which seemed to grow upon me as the days following the tragedy drew no veil across the awful spectacle, ever present in my mind’s eye, but rather added vividness and distinctness to the smallest details of the scene. My bed, with its white curtains, the conventional pattern of heavy Flemish furniture found in every room, came to be almost a tomb, in the morbid state of my imagination. I could never look at its long, spotless drapery without fancying my own head on the pillow, my own blood on the wall and staining with splashes of deep red the curtain and sheets. The number and shape of the spots on old Reiner’s bed seemed photographed on the retina of my eye, and danced upon the slender, graceful folds of the curtains as often as I dared look at them. A little nickel-plated derringer, always lying on my table as a paper-weight, often found its way into my hands, and I would surprise myself wondering whether death by such a means were not, after all, preferable to destruction by the knife. A few cartridges in the corner of my closet, which I had hidden away to keep them from the meddling hands of the servant, seemed to draw me towards them with a constant magnetism. I could not forget that shelf and that particular spot behind a bundle of paint-rags. If there was need of anything on that particular shelf for months after Reiner’s death, I always took it quickly and resolutely, shutting the closet door as if I were shutting in all the evil spirits that could possess me. The tempter was exorcised, but with difficulty, and to this day, for all I know, the cartridges may still lie hidden there. Then, too, a quaint Normandy hunting-knife was quite as fiendish in its influence as the derringer. Its ugly, crooked blade, and strong, sharp point were very suggestive, and for a time I was almost afraid to touch the handle, lest the demon of suicide should overcome me. Still, in the climax of this fever, which might well have resulted in the suicide of another of the four, for it was evident that Henley and Tyck were also under the same influences that surrounded me day and night, the thought of burdening our friends with our dead bodies was the strongest inducement that stayed our hands. It is certain that if we had been situated where the disposal of our bodies would have been a matter of little or no difficulty—as, for example, on board ship—one or perhaps all three of us would have succumbed to the influence of the mania that possessed us.

It was on the Sunday forenoon—a grim, gray morning threatening a storm—following the fatal Thursday, that we met in the court-yard of the city hospital to bury poor Reiner.

The hideous barrenness of a Flemish burial-ground, even in bright, cheerful weather, is enough to crush the most buoyant spirits; it is indescribably oppressive and soul-sickening. The awful desolation of the place in the dreariness of that day will ever remain a horrid souvenir in my mind. Nature did not seem to weep, but to frown; and in the heavy air one felt a deep and solemn reproach. The soaked and dull atmosphere was stifling in its density, like the overloaded breath from some newly opened tomb. There was an army of felt but unseen spirits lurking in the ghostly quiet of the place, which the presence of a hundred mortals did not disturb. There was no breath of wind, and the settling of the snow and a faint, faint moan of the distant rushing tide made the silence more oppressive. The drip of the water from the drenched mosses on the brick walls; the faintest rustle of the wreaths of immortelles hung on every hideous black cross; the fall of one withered flower from the forgotten offerings of some friend of the buried dead—every sound at other times and in other places quite inaudible, broke upon that unearthly quiet with startling distinctness. The sound of our footsteps, as we followed the winding path to the fresh heap of earth in a remote corner, fell heavily on the thick air, and the high brick walls, mouldy and rotting in the sunless angles, gave a deep and unwilling echo. It was like treading the dark and skull-walled passages of the Catacombs without the grateful veil of a partial darkness. All that was mortal and subject to decay, all that was to our poor human understanding immortal and indestructible, seemed buried alike in this rigid, barren enclosure. Beyond? There was no beyond; the straight, barren walls on all sides, and the impenetrable murkiness of the gray vault that covered us, barred out the material and the spiritual world. Here was the end, here all was certain and defined—a narrow ditch, a few shovelfuls of earth, and nothing more that needed or invited explanation. There was no future, no waking from that sleep: all exit from that narrow and pitiless graveyard seemed forever closed. Such thoughts as these were, until then, strangers to us. Could it be the unextinguishable influence of that nerveless body that filled the place with the dread and uncongenial presence that urged us to accept for the time, then and there, the theories and convictions of the mind which once animated that cold and motionless mass?

The fresh, moist earth was piled on one side of the grave, and the workmen with their shovels stood near the heap as we filed up, and at a sign lowered the coffin into the grave. A Norwegian minister approached to conduct the services. He took his place apart from all, at the head of the grave, and began with the customary prayer in the Norwegian language. He was dressed in harmony with the day and scene. A long, black gown fell to the feet and was joined by a single row of thickly sewn buttons; a white band hung from his neck low down in front, and white wristbands half covered his gloved hands; a silk hat completed the costume. His face was of the peculiar, emotionless Northern type, perfectly regular in feature, with well-trimmed reddish-brown beard and hair, and small, unsympathetic gray eyes, and it bore an expression of congealed conviction in the severity of divine judgment. His prayer was long and earnest, and the discourse which followed was full of honest regret for the loss of our friend, but mainly charged with severe reproach against the wickedness of the suicide, the burden of the sermon being, “The wages of sin is death.” We stood there, shivering with the penetrating chill of the damp atmosphere, filled with the horrors of this acre of the dead, and listened patiently to the long discourse. In the very middle of the argument there was a sudden rustle near the head of the grave, a momentary confusion among those standing near the minister, and, to the great amazement and horror of Tyck, Henley, and myself, that black poodle, draggled but dignified, walked quietly to the edge of the pit as if he had been bidden to the funeral, and sat down there, midway between the minister and the little knot of mourners, eying first the living and then the dead with calm and portentous gravity. He seemed to pay the closest attention to the words of the discourse, and with an expression of intelligent triumph, rather than grief, cocked his wise little head to one side and eyed the minister as he dilated on the sin of suicide, and then looked solemnly down into the grave. His actions were so human and his expression so fiendishly exultant that to the three of us, who had previously made his acquaintance, his presence was an additional horror; among the rest it merely excited comment on the sagacity of the beast. There he sat through the whole of the services, and nothing could move him from his post.

At the close of the sermon, and after a short eulogy in Flemish delivered by one of us, the minister gave out the Norwegian hymn with this refrain:

“Min Gud! gjör dog for Christi Blod
Min sidste Afskedstime god!”

The first part of the air is weird and Northern, and the last strain is familiar to us by the name of “Hebron.” The Norwegian words were significant and well-chosen for this occasion, very like the simple stanzas of our “Hebron.” The hymn is sad enough at all times; when tuned to the mournful drag of our untrained voices it seemed like the sighing of unshrived spirits.

As the sad measures wailed forth, the day seemed to grow colder and darker; a dreary wind rustled the dry branches of the stunted trees, and rattled the yellow wreaths of immortelles and the dry garlands and bouquets. The dog grew uneasy between the verses, and howled long and piteously, startling us all in our grief, and causing a dismal echo from the cold, bare walls that hemmed us in. At last the painfully long hymn was ended, immortelles were placed upon the coffin-lid, each one threw in a handful of earth, and we turned our faces towards the gate, away from death and desolation to dismal and melancholy life and our now distasteful occupation. With one last look into the enclosure, we passed out of the gate, closing it behind us. The dog was still at his post.

A rapid drive brought us in fifteen minutes to the Place de Meir, where we alighted and found to welcome us the same black poodle that we left at the grave. The cemetery of Kiel is at least two miles from the Place de Meir; yet the dog left it after we did, and, panting and covered with mud, was awaiting us at the latter place. He could have made his escape from the cemetery only by the aid of some one to open the heavy gate for him, and, considering this necessary delay, his appearance in the city before us was, to say the least, startling. He welcomed us cheerfully, but we gave him no encouragement. The inexplicable ubiquity of the beast horrified us too much to allow any desire for such a companion. As we separated and took three different roads, to my great relief he followed neither of us, but stood undecided which way to turn.

The circumstances attending the burial of poor Reiner and the events which followed tended to increase our disposition to imitate the questionable action of our friend; but the annual concours of the academy, which demanded the closest attention and the most severe work for nearly three months, counteracted all such evil tendencies, and by spring-time we laughed at the morbid fancies of the previous winter.

The evening after the funeral, on my way to the life class, I met the poodle again, and, in reply to his recognition, drove him away with my cane. Both Tyck and Henley related at the class a similar experience with the dog, which we had now come to look upon as a fiend in disguise. After this the meetings with the poodle were daily and almost hourly. He would quietly march into the hotel court-yard as we were at dinner; we would stumble over him on the stairs; at a café the garçon would hunt him from the room; at the academy he would startle us, amuse the rest of the students, and enrage the professor by breaking the guard of the old surveillant, and rushing into the life class. He seemed to belong to no one and to have no home, and yet he was an attractive animal with his long, glossy coat, saucy ears and tail, and bright, intelligent eyes. We often endeavored to rid ourselves of him. Many times I tried my best to kill him, arming myself expressly with my heavy stick; but he avoided all my attacks, and always met me cheerfully at our next interview. At times he was morose and meditative. It used to be a theory of mine that at these seasons he was making up his mind which one of us he had better adopt as his master, declaring—only half in earnest, however—that the one whom the animal especially favored would be sure to meet poor Reiner’s fate. The months of January and February passed, and the poodle still haunted us. In the course of these dark months we repeatedly attempted to make friends with the dog, finding that we could not make an enemy of him, and hoped thus to disprove the imagined fatality of the beast or else to break the spell by our own wills. All efforts at conciliation failed; he would never enter even to take food the room where we three were alone, and would show signs of general recognition only, and those but sparingly, when we were together. He seemed content with simply watching us, and not desirous of further acquaintance. Yet, in the face of this mysterious behavior, I doubt very much if any one of us really believed that anything would come of our forebodings; for we began to speak of the dog at first quite in jest, and grew more serious only as we were impressed after the death of Reiner by the consistent impartiality of his fondness for our society, and by the unequalled persistency with which he haunted us wherever we went abroad.

We made inquiries about the dog at the house where old Reiner used to live, and diligently searched various localities, but we could not find out where he passed his nights, and we discovered only that he was known all about the town simply as Reiner’s dog, the story of his presence at the funeral having been repeated by some of those who noticed his actions at the grave. March came and went, and the dog had not yet taken his choice of us, and we began to be confident that he never would. But in one of the first warm days of spring we noticed his absence, and for a day or two saw nothing of him. One Sunday, after a fête-day when we three had not met as usual at the academy, a pure spring day, I received a short note from Henley, asking me to come to his room on the Place Verte, as he was unwell. I went immediately to his lodgings, and found him sitting up, but quite pale and with a changed expression on his face. I knew he had been suffering from a severe cold for some time, but we all had colds in the damp, unhealthful old academy. His noticeably increasing paleness was due, I had supposed, to the anxious labor and prolonged strain of the concours. In one instance when we had been for thirty-six hours shut up in a room with sealed doors and windows, threescore of us, together with as many large kerosene lamps and nearly the same number of foul pipes, with three large, red-hot cylinder stoves, and no exit allowed on any excuse, we were all more or less affected by the poisoned air and the long struggle with the required production. The idea, then, that there was anything serious the matter with Henley never entered my head as I saw him sitting there in his room; but his first words brought me to a realization of the case, and all the horror of that long winter and its one mournful event came back to me in a flash. His remark was significant. He simply said, “That dog is here.”

To be sure, the poodle was quietly sleeping near Henley’s easel, in the sun. After a few general remarks, my friend said to me, quite abruptly, as if he had made up his mind to come to the point at once:

“I thought I would send for you, old boy, to give you a souvenir or two. I am more seriously ill than you imagine. My brother will be here to-morrow; I shall return with him to England, and you and I shall probably meet no more.”

There was resignation in every word he uttered, and he was evidently convinced of the hopelessness of attempting to struggle with the disease, his languid efforts to throw it off not having in the least retarded its advance. I tried to prove to him the folly of the superstition about the dog, but it was useless. He quietly said that the doctor had assured him of the necessity of an immediate return to a warmer climate and to the care of his friends. Tyck, who had been sent for at the same time, came in shortly after, and was completely shaken by the strange fulfilment of our mysterious forebodings. We passed a sad hour in that little room, and took our leave only when we saw that Henley was fatigued with too much talking, for he began to cough frightfully, and could hardly speak above a whisper. He gave to each of us, with touching tenderness, a palette-knife—the best souvenirs we could have, he said, because they would be in our hands constantly—and we took our leave, promising to meet him on the boat the following day. We learned from the servant that the poodle had inhabited the cellar for several days, and that they had not been able to drive him away.

Tyck seemed perfectly dazed by the severity of Henley’s malady and the suddenness of his departure. Both of us avoided speaking of the dog, each fearing that his own experience with the unlucky acquaintance might follow that of our two companions. Tyck, I knew, was more subject to colds than the rest of us, for he had never been completely acclimated in Flanders, and he doubtless feared that one of the frequent slight attacks that troubled him might prove at last as serious as the illness that now threatened poor Henley. With Henley’s departure Antwerp would lose half its attraction for us, for since the death of old Reiner we three had been even more closely attached than before. Henley had lost some of his insular coldness and formality of manner, was daily assuming more and more the appearance and acquiring the free and easy habits of an art-student, and his unchanging good-nature, his stability of character, and his entertaining conversation made him the leader of our trio. During the exhausting months of the concours, and in face of the discouraging results of weeks of most energetic and nervous toil, he never lost his patience, but encouraged us by his superior strength of purpose and scorn of minor disappointments.

The next day we three met on board the Baron Osy just before the cables were cast off the quay. Henley was one of the last passengers to get aboard, and fortunately our parting was by necessity short. He was very weak, and evidently failed from hour to hour, for he could walk only with the support of his brother’s arm. He said good-by hopelessly but calmly, and we parted with scarcely another word. We felt that regrets were useless and words of encouragement vain, and that the only thing that remained to do was to accept his fate calmly, and as calmly await our own. There was not a shadow of hope that we would ever meet again, and I can never forget the far-off look in Henley’s face as he turned his eyes for an instant towards the swift, yellow current of the Scheldt, with the rich-hued sails, the fleecy spring clouds, and the gorgeously colored roofs of Saint Anneke reflected in its eddying surface. The cables were cast off and we hurried ashore. In the bustle and confusion a black poodle was driven off the plank by one of the stewards, but the crowd was so great and the noise and the tumult of the wharf-men so distracting, that it was impossible to see whether the dog remained on the boat or was put ashore. However, we saw him no more, and did not doubt that he went with Henley to London. In less than two weeks a letter from Henley’s brother announced the death of our friend from quick consumption. Nothing was said of the dog.

From that time Tyck was preoccupied; he was much alone, ceased to frequent the academy, and neither worked nor diverted himself: it was plain that he needed change. Antwerp, at the best a cheerless town, gay on the surface, perhaps, because its people are as thoughtless and improvident as children, but full of misery and well-concealed wretchedness, grew hateful to us both.

Suddenly Tyck announced his purpose of going to Italy, and I resolved to break my camp as well, make an artistic tour of the East, and meet my friend in Rome in the autumn. We divided our canvases and easels among the rest of the fellows, rolled up our studies, and with the color-box, knapsack, and travelling-rug were prepared in a day to leave the scene of our sad experiences. It was with feelings of great relief and satisfaction that we saw the red roofs of Antwerp disappear behind the fortifications as the train carried us southward.