The German Classics, v. 20 / Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English

by Unknown

EDITOR'S NOTE

This, the last volume of THE GERMAN CLASSICS, was intended to be devoted to the contemporary drama exclusively. But the harvest of the contemporary German Short Story is so rich that an overflow from Volume XIX had to be accommodated in Volume XX. It is hoped that this has not seriously crippled the representative character of the dramatic selections, although the editors are fully aware of the importance of such dramatists as Herbert Eulenberg, Wilhelm Schmidtbonn, or Fritz von Unruh. The principal tendencies, at any rate, of the hopeful and eager activity which distinguishes the German stage of today are brought out in this volume with sufficient clearness, especially in combination with the selections from Schönherr and Hofmannsthal in Volumes XVI and XVII.

The European war, unfortunately, has prevented us from making the selections from contemporary German painting in Volumes XIX and XX as varied and representative as we had hoped.

KUNO FRANCKE.

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[JAKOB WASSERMANN]

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[CLARISSA MIRABEL (1906)]

TRANSLATED BY JULIA FRANKLIN

In the little town of Rodez, situated on the western side of the Cévennes and washed by the waters of the river Aveyron, there lived a lawyer by the name of Fualdes, a commonplace man, neither good nor bad. Notwithstanding his advanced age, he had only recently retired from affairs, and his finances were in such a bad shape that he was obliged, in the beginning of the year 1817, to dispose of his estate of La Morne. With the proceeds he meant to retire to some quiet spot and live on the interest of his money. One evening—it was the nineteenth of March—he received from the purchaser of the estate, President Seguret, the residue of the purchase-money in bills and securities, and, after locking the papers in his desk, he left the house, having told the housekeeper that he had to go to La Morne once more in order to make some necessary arrangements with the tenant.

He neither reached La Morne nor returned to his home. The following morning a tailor's wife from the village of Aveyron saw his body lying in a shallow of the river, ran to Rodez and fetched some people back with her. The rocky slope was precipitously steep at that point, rising to a height of about forty feet. A great piece of the narrow footpath which led from Rodez to the vineyards had crumbled away, and it was doubtless owing to that circumstance that the unfortunate man had been precipitated to the bottom. It had rained very heavily the day before, and the soil on top had, according to the testimony of a number of people who worked in the vineyards, been loose for a long time. It seemed a singular fact that there was a deep gash in the throat of the dead man; but as jagged stones projected all over the rocky surface of the slope, such an injury explained itself. On examination of the steep wall, no traces of blood were found on stone or earth. The rain had washed away everything.

The news of the occurrence spread rapidly, and all through the day two or three hundred people from Rodez—men, women, and children—were standing on both shores staring with a look of fascination and self-induced horror into the depths of the ravine. The question was raised whether it was not a will-o'-the-wisp that had misled the old man. A woman alleged that she had spoken with a shepherd who declared he had heard a cry for help; this, it is true, occurred about midnight, and Fualdes had left his house at eight o'clock. A stout tinker contended that the darkness had not been as dense as all believed; he himself had crossed the fields, on his way from La Valette, at nine o'clock, and the moon was then shining. The inspector of customs took him severely to task, and informed him that a new moon had made its appearance the day before, as one could easily find out by looking in the calendar. The tinker shrugged his shoulders, as if to say that in such conjunctures even the calendar was not to be trusted.

When it grew dusk the people wandered homeward, in pairs and groups, now chatting, now silent, now whispering with an air of mystery. Like dogs that have become suspicious and keep circling about the same spot, they strained with hungry eagerness for a new excitement. They looked searchingly in front of them, heard with sharpened ears every word that was uttered. Some cast suspicious side-glances at each other; those who had money closed their doors and counted their money over. At night in the taverns the guests told of the great riches that the miserly Fualdes had accumulated; he had, it was said, sold La Morne only because he shrank from compelling the lessee, Grammont, who was his nephew, by legal means to pay two years' arrears of rent.

The spoken word hung halting on the lips, carrying a half-framed thought in its train. It was an accepted fact among the citizens that Fualdes, the liberal Protestant, a former official of the Empire, had been annoyed by threats against his life. The dark fancies spun busily at the web of fear. Those who still believed it was an accident refrained from expressing their reasons; they had to guard against suspicion falling upon themselves. Already a band of confederates was designated, drawn from the Legitimist party, now become inimical, threatening, arrogant. Dark hatred pointed to the Jesuits and their missions as instigators of the mysterious deed. How often had justice halted when the power of the mighty shielded the criminal!

The spring sun of the ensuing day shone upon tense, agitated, eager faces gradually inflamed to fierceness. The Royalists began to fear for their belongings; in order to protect themselves, infected as they, too, were by the general horror which emanated from the unknown, they admitted that a crime had been perpetrated. But how? and where? and through whom?

A cobbler has a better memory, as a rule, and a more active brain, than other people. The shoemaker, Escarboeuf, used to gather his neighbors and trusty comrades about him now and then at the hour of vespers. He remembered exactly what the doctor had said on the discovery of the corpse; he was standing close by and had heard every syllable. "It almost looks as if the man had been murdered;" those were the astonished words of the doctor when he was examining the wound in the throat. "Murdered? what are you saying, man?" interposed one of the company. "Yes, murdered!" cried the cobbler triumphantly.—"But it is said that there was sand sticking to the wound," remarked a young man shyly.—"O pshaw! sand, sand!" retorted the shoemaker, "What does sand prove anyway?"—"No, sand proves nothing," all of them admitted. And by midday the report in all the houses of the quarter ran: Fualdes had been murdered, he had been butchered. The word gave the inflamed minds a picture, the whispering tongues a hint.

Now, by a strange chance it happened that on that fateful evening the night watchman had deposited in the guardroom a cane with an ivory knob and a gilt ring, which he had found in front of the Bancal dwelling, separated from lawyer Fualdes' house by the Rue de l'Ambrague, a dark cross street. Fualdes' housekeeper, an old deaf woman, asserted positively that the cane was the property of her master; her assertion seemed incontestable. A long time after, it came to light that the cane belonged to a traveling tradesman who had spent the night carousing in the company of some wenches; but at the time, attention was at once turned to the Bancal house, a dilapidated, gloomy building with musty, dirty corners. It had formerly been owned by a butcher, and pigs were still kept in the yard. It was a house of assignation and was visited nightly by soldiers, smugglers, and questionable-looking girls; now and then, too, heavily veiled ladies and aristocratic-looking men slipped in and out. On the ground floor there lived, beside the Bancal couple, a former soldier, Colard, and his sweetheart, the wench Bedos, and the humpbacked Missonier; above them, there dwelt an old Spaniard, by the name of Saavedra, and his wife; he was a political refugee who had sought protection in France.

On the afternoon of the twenty-first of March, the soldier, Colard, was standing at the corner of the Rue de l'Ambrague, playing a monotonous air on his flute, one that he had learned from the shepherds of the Pyrenees. The shopkeeper, Galtier, came up the road, stood still, made a pretense of listening, but finally interrupted the musician, addressing him severely: "Why do you gad about and pretend to be ignorant, Colard? Don't you know, then, that the murder is said to have been committed in your house?"

Colard, brushing his scrubby moustache from his lips, replied that he and Missonier had been in Rose Feral's tavern, alongside the Bancal house, that night. "Had I heard a noise, sir," he said boastfully, "I should have gone to the rescue, for I have two guns."

"Who else was at Rose Feral's?" pursued the shopkeeper. Colard meditated and mentioned Bach and Bousquier, two notorious smugglers. "The rascals, they had better be on their guard," said the shopkeeper, "and you, Colard, come along with me; poor Fualdes is going to be buried, and it is not fitting to be playing the flute."

Scarcely had they reached the main street, where a great number of people had collected, when they were suddenly joined by Bousquier, who exhibited a strange demeanor, now laughing, now shaking his head, now gazing vacantly before him. Colard cast a shy, sidelong glance at him, and the shopkeeper, who thought of nothing but the murder and saw in all this the manifestations of a bad conscience, observed the man keenly. Those around them, too, became watchful, and it at once struck everybody that if any one had a knowledge of the crime committed in the Bancal house, it was Bousquier. The excited Galtier questioned him bluntly. Bousquier was the worse for liquor, the unusual hubbub intoxicated him still more; he seemed confused, but felt himself, at the same time, a person of importance. At first he assumed an air of unwillingness to speak out, then he related with solemn circumstantiality that he was summoned on the night of the murder by a tobacco-dealer clad in a blue coat; three times had the stranger sent for him, finally he went, was told to carry a heavy bundle, and was paid with a gold piece.

Even while he was speaking, an expression of horror ran across the face of the loquacious fellow; he grew gradually conscious of the significance of his words. The listeners had formed a compact circle around him, and a shrill voice rang out from the crowd: "It was surely the corpse that was wrapped up in that bundle!"

Bousquier looked uneasy. He had to start at the beginning again and again, and the strained glances turned upon him forced him to invent new minor details, such as that the tobacco-dealer suddenly disappeared in an unaccountable manner, and that his face was concealed by a black mask, "Where did you have to carry the body?" asked Galtier, with clenched teeth. Bousquier, horrified, remained silent; then, intimidated by the many threatening glances, he replied in a low tone: "Toward the river."

Two hours later he was arrested and put behind bolts and bars. That same evening he was brought before the police magistrate, Monsieur Jausion, and when the unfortunate man became aware that the matter was growing grave, that his chatter was to be turned into evidence, that every word he spoke was being noted down, and that he would have to answer for them with his freedom, nay, perhaps with his life, he was seized with terror. He denied the story of the tobacco-dealer and the heavy bundle, and when the magistrate grew angry, relapsed into complete silence. On being remanded to his cell he fell into a dull brooding. "Come, wake up, Bousquier," the jailer exhorted him, "you mustn't keep the gentlemen waiting; if you are stubborn, you will have to pass some bad nights."

Bousquier shook his head. The jailer fetched a heavy folio, and as he himself could not read, he called another prisoner, who was made to read aloud a passage of the law, according to which a person who was present by compulsion at the commission of a crime, and voluntarily confessed it, would get off with a year's imprisonment. The jailer held the lantern close to the tanned face of the reader and nodded encouragingly to Bousquier. The latter was mumbling the Lord's Prayer. Greatly agitated, and groping about for a way out of his plight, he said finally that everything was as he had first related, only the tobacco-dealer had paid him not with a gold-piece but a couple of silver coins. He repeated his confession before the magistrate, who had been summoned despite the lateness of the hour.

The next morning all Rodez knew that Bousquier had confessed that Fualdes had been murdered in the Bancal house, and the body carried at night to the river. Lips that had up to that time been sealed with fear were suddenly opened. Some one, whose name could not be ascertained, declared that he had seen some figures stealing past the house of Constans the merchant; he had also noticed that they halted some steps further on and drew together for consultation, whereupon, divining the horrible deed, he fled. The search for this witness, whose voice died away so quickly amid the other voices, and yet who was the first to trace, as with an invisible hand, a sketch of the nocturnal funeral train, proved vain. Each one's fancy silently carried out the picture further; they saw the body itself on the stretcher; the bier was depicted with distinctness as if it were a concrete token of the mysterious deed; a carpenter even drew it in chalk in bold strokes on the wall of the court-house. A woman who suffered from insomnia stated that she was sitting at the window that night and in spite of the darkness, recognized Bancal as well as the soldier, Colard, who were bearing the two front handles of the bier. Furthermore, she had heard the laborer, Missonier, who closed the procession, cursing. Summoned before the magistrate, she fell into a contradictory mood, which was excused on the score of her readily-comprehended excitement. But the words had been said; what weight should be attached to them depended on the force and peculiarity of the circumstances; the lightly spoken word weighed as heavily in the ears of the chance auditor as if it had been his own guilt, so that he sought to free himself of the burden and passed it on as if it would burn his tongue should he delay but a moment. Perhaps it was this sleepless woman, perhaps the lips of nameless Rumor herself, that enriched the picture of this murder-caravan with the figure of a tall, broad-shouldered man, armed with a double-barreled gun, who headed the procession. Now the gray web had a central point, and received a sort of illumination and vividness through the probable and penetrable criminality of a single individual. Twelve hours more, and every child knew the exact order of the nocturnal procession: first, the tall, powerful man with the double-barreled gun, then Bancal, Bach and Bousquier, bearing the bier, then the humpbacked Missonier, as rear-guard. At the last houses of the town the road to the river grew narrow and steep; as there was not room enough for two people to walk abreast, Bousquier and Colard had to carry the body alone, and it was Bousquier, not Missonier, who cursed, on that account, cursed so loud that the licentiate, Coulon, was startled from his sleep and called for his servant. On the steep place in front of the vineyards the body of the dead man was unwrapped and thrown into the water, and when that had been done, the tall, powerful man, pointing his gun at his confederates, imposed eternal silence upon them.

By this action the stranger with the double-barreled gun emerged completely from the mist of legend and the position of a merely picturesque accessory; his threatening attitude shed a flood of light upon the past. What had taken place after the murder, then, had outline and life. But had no eye accompanied poor Fualdes on his last walk? Had no one seen him leave his house, without any foreboding, and, whistling merrily perhaps, pass through the dark Rue de l'Ambrague, where the accomplices of the murder doubtless lay in waiting? Yes. The same licentiate whom Bousquier's cursing had roused from his sleep had seen the old man at eight in the evening turn into the narrow street, and shortly after some one follow hastily behind him; whether a man or a woman, Monsieur Coulon could not remember. Besides, a locksmith's apprentice came forward who had observed, from the mayor's residence, some persons signaling to each other. The mayor's dwelling was situated, it is true, in a different quarter of the town, but that circumstance was considered of little account in so widespun a conspiracy—had they not the testimony of a coachman who had seen two men standing motionless in the Rue des Hebdomadiers? Many of the inhabitants of that street now recalled that they had heard a constant whispering, hemming and hawing, and calling, to which, being in an unsuspicious mood at the time, they naturally paid no special heed. It was an accepted fact that watchers were posted at every corner, nay, even a female sentinel had been observed in the gateway of the Guildhall. The tailor, Brost, asserted that he had heard the whispering or sighing more distinctly than any one else; he had, thereupon, opened his window and seen five or six people enter the Bancal house, among them the tall, powerful man. Some time after, a neighbor had observed a person being dragged over the pavement; believing it was a girl who had drunk too much, he attached no further significance to it. Far more important than such confused rumors did it seem that as late as between nine and ten o'clock, an organ-grinder was still playing in the Rue des Hebdomadiers. The purpose was clear: it was to drown the death-cry of the victim. It soon turned out that there must have been two organ-grinders, one of whom, a cripple, had squatted on the curbstone in front of the Rue de l'Ambrague. To be sure, it had been the annual fair-day in Rodez, and the presence of organ-grinders would, therefore, not have signified anything mysterious, if the lateness of the hour had not exposed them to suspicion. Several persons even mentioned midnight as the time of the playing. A search was instituted for the musicians, and the villages in the vicinity were scoured for them, but they had disappeared as completely as the suspicious tobacco-dealer.

On the same morning when the Bancal house was searched and a policeman found a white cloth with dark spots in the yard, the Bancals, Bach, and the laborer Missonier, were taken into custody and, loaded with chains, were thrown into prison. Staring vacantly before them, the five men sat in the police wagon, which, followed by a crowd of people, chattering, cursing, and clenching their fists, carried them through the streets. The report of the cloth discovered in the yard spread in an instant; that the spots were blood-spots admitted no doubt; that it had been used to gag Fualdes was a matter of course.

Meanwhile Bousquier, all unstrung by his miserable plight, dragged from one hearing to another, alarmed by threats, racked by hunger, enticed by hopes of freedom and illusory promises, had confessed more and more daily. He was driven by the jailer, he was driven by the magistrate; for the latter felt the impatience and fury of the people, and the fables of the press, like the lash of a whip. Bousquier had seemed to be stubborn; but the presentation of his former stories, which now, like creditors, extorted an ever-increasing usurious interest of lies, sufficed to render him tractable. He appeared to be worn out, to be incapable of expressing what he had seen, of describing what he had heard,—Monsieur Jausion assisted him by questions which contained the required answers.

Thus he admitted that he had gone into the Bancal house, and found the Bancals, the soldier Colard, the smuggler Bach, two young women, and a veiled lady in the room. The more persons he mentioned, the more conciliatory grew the countenance of the magistrate, and, as though into the jaws of a hungry beast, he continued unconcernedly throwing him bit after bit. He probably recalled other nights spent in the motley company, and it struck him that the person of the veiled lady would be an addition which might enhance his credit. Monsieur Jausion found, however, that an important figure was lacking, and he asked in a stern tone whether Bousquier had not forgotten somebody. Bousquier was startled and pondered. "Try your best to remember," urged the magistrate; "what you conceal may turn into a rope for your neck. Speak out, then: was there not a tall, robust man present also?" Bousquier realized that this new person must be included. One shadowy shape after another, wild, fantastic, started up in his distracted brain, and he had to let the puppets play, to satisfy his tormentor. To the question of how the tall, powerful man looked and how he was dressed, he answered: "Like a gentleman."

And now it was his turn to describe, to vivify the scene of action. On the large table in Bancal's room there lay, not the bundle of tobacco for which he had been called, but a corpse. He tried to flee, but the tall, robust man followed him and threatened him with a pistol.

The magistrate shook his head reproachfully. "With a pistol?" he said. "Think well, Bousquier, was it not a gun, perhaps? was it not a double-barreled gun?" "All right," reflected Bousquier, infuriated; "if they are bent upon a gun, it may just as well have been a gun." He nodded as if ashamed, and went on to say that, his life being thus threatened, he was obliged to remain in Bancal's chamber and aid and abet him. The dead man was wrapped in a linen cloth, bound with ropes, and placed upon the stretcher. The stretcher was constructed, in Bousquier's imagination, aided by the turnkey, with the utmost perfection. When he was about to describe the funeral train, however, the tortured man lost consciousness, and when, late in the evening, he was again conducted to the hearing—rarely did the night and the candle-light in the dreary room fail of their spectral effects—he unexpectedly denied everything, cried, screamed, and acted as if completely bereft of his senses. In order to encourage and calm him. Monsieur Jausion resorted to a measure as bold as it was simple; he said that Bach and Colard had likewise made a confession, and it was gratifying that their declarations coincided with those of Bousquier; if he comported himself sensibly now, he would soon be allowed to leave the prison.

Bousquier was startled. The longer he reflected, the more profoundly was he impressed by what he had heard. His face blanched and he grew cold all over. It was as if a disordered dream were suddenly turned into a waking reality, or as if a person in a state of semi-intoxication, recounting the fictitious story of some misfortune and becoming more and more enmeshed in a web of falsehoods with every new detail, suddenly learned that everything had actually taken place as he had related. A peculiar depression took possession of him, he had a horror of the solitude of his cell, a dread of sleep.

All Rodez had listened to Bousquier's statements with feverish avidity. Finally the form of the stranger with the double-barreled gun obtained distinctness and tangibility. That he had the air of a gentleman spurred the rage of the people, and the Legitimist party, which was composed in great part of the rich and the aristocracy, began to tremble. It was probably among them that a person was first mentioned whose name ran, first cautiously, then boldly, then accusingly, from mouth to mouth, and over whose head a thunder-cloud, born of a wreath of mist, hung arrested, quivering with lightning. It was well known that Bastide Grammont, the tenant of La Morne, in spite of his relationship to the lawyer Fualdes, lived in a state of animosity, or at least of the oppressive dependence of a debtor, with the old man. Every one knew, or thought he knew, that stormy scenes had often taken place between uncle and nephew. Was not that enough? Moreover, Bastide's domineering temperament and harsh nature, the sudden sale of La Morne, and a well connected chain of little suspicious signs—who still dared to doubt?

The unwearied architect who was at work somewhere there, in the earth below or the air above, took care that the circle of ruin should be complete, and enlisted associates with malicious pleasure in every street, among high and low. In the forenoon of the nineteenth of March, Fualdes and Grammont were walking up and down the promenade of Rodez. A woman who dealt in second-hand things had heard the young fellow say to the old man: "This evening, then, at eight o'clock." A mason who was shoveling sand for a new building had heard Monsieur Fualdes exclaim: "You will keep your word, then?" Whereupon Grammont replied: "Set your mind at rest, this evening I shall settle my account with you." The music-teacher Lacombe remembered distinctly how Bastide, with a wrathful countenance, had called to the old man: "You drive me to extremity." The idle talk of a chatterbox gained, in the buzz of hearsay, the same importance as well established observations, and what had been said before and after was blended and combined with audacious arbitrariness. Thus, Professor Vignet, one of the heads of the Royalists, alleged that he had gone into a fruit store about seven in the evening, shortly before the murder, and met one of his colleagues there. He related that he had seen Bastide Grammont, who was walking rather rapidly on passing him. He declared that he exclaimed: "Don't you find that Grammont has an uncanny face?" To which the other answered affirmatively and said that one must be on one's guard against him. Witnesses came forward who confirmed this conversation. Witnesses came forward who claimed to have seen Bastide in front of the Bancal house; he had emitted a shrill whistle a number of times and then dodged into the shadow.

Bastide Grammont had lived at La Morne for five years. He was perhaps the only man in the entire district who never concerned himself about politics, and kept aloof from all party activity, and this proud independence exposed him to the ill will, nay, the hatred, of his fellow-citizens. When upon one occasion a demonstration in favor of the Bourbons was to take place in Rodez, and the streets were filled with an excited crowd, he rode with grave coolness on his dapple-gray horse through the inflamed throng and returned the wild, angry glances directed at him with a supercilious smile.

It was related of him that he had wasted his youth and a considerable fortune in Paris, and had returned home from there sick and tired of mankind. His mode of life pointed to a love of the singular. In former years a learned father from the neighboring Benedictine abbey had often been his guest; it seemed as if the quiet student of human nature took a secret pleasure in the unbridled spirit and the pagan fervor of Nature-worship of the hermit, Bastide; but when he forcibly abducted a seamstress, pretty Charlotte Arlabosse, from Alby, and lived with her in unlawful union, the Benedictine, in obedience to the command of his superiors, was obliged to break off the intercourse. Thenceforth, Bastide renounced all intimate human contact. He had no friend; he wished for none. He secluded himself with disdainful pride; the sight of a new face turned his distant and cold; people in society he treated with insulting indifference. Perhaps it was only from a fear of disappointment that he harshly withstood even the most friendly advances, for there lay at times a vague yearning for love in the depths of his eyes. To grow hard because unfulfilled claims afflict and darken the soul, to retire into solitude because overweening pride shuns to lay bare the glowing heart, to be unjust from a feeling of shame and misunderstood defiance—that was perhaps his lot, and certainly his shortcoming.

For days at a time he would roam about with his dogs in the valleys of the Cévennes. He gathered stones, mushrooms, flowers, caught birds and snakes, hunted, sang, and fished. If something went wrong and his blood was up, he mounted the fieriest horse in his stable and rode over the most dangerous paths across the rocks, to Rieux. In winter, in the early cold hours, he was seen bathing in the river; in sultry summer nights he lay naked and feverish under the open sky. He declared then that he saw the stars dance and the earth tremble. At vintage time he was, without ever drinking, as if intoxicated; he organized festivals with music and torch-light processions, and was the patron of all the love-affairs among the workers in the vineyards. In case of long-continued bad weather he grew pale, languid, and supersensitive, lost sleep and appetite, and was subject to sudden fits of rage which were the dread of his servants; on one such occasion he cut down half a dozen of the grandest trees in the garden, which, as everybody knew, he loved as passionately as if they were his brothers.

That with such an irregular management the income of the estate diminished year by year, astonished no one but himself. He fell into debt, but to speak or think about it caused him the greatest annoyance, and his resource against it was a regular participation in various lotteries, to whose dates of payment he always looked forward with childish impatience.

* * * * *

When the court, in compliance with the opinion and accusation of the people, which could not be ignored, ordered Bastide's arrest, he already knew the forces at work against him. He was sitting under a huge plane-tree, occupied with some wood-carving, when the constables appeared in the yard. Charlotte Arlabosse rushed up to him and seized his arm, but he shook her off, saying: "Let them have their way, the abscess has been ripe a long time." Stepping forward to meet the gendarmes with satirical pomposity, he cried: "Your servant, gentlemen."

The occupants of La Morne were subjected to a rigorous examination. According to Bastide's own statement, he had ridden to Rodez on the afternoon of the nineteenth of March; at seven in the evening he was already with his sister in the village of Gros; there he remained over night, returned in the morning to La Morne, then upon the news of his uncle's death, he had ridden to Rodez once more and spent about half an hour in Fualdes' house. His sister confirmed his statement that he had passed the night in her house, and added that he had been particularly cheerful and amiable. The maid, too, who had waited on him and prepared his bed, declared that he had retired at ten o'clock. As to the domestics at La Morne, they babbled of one thing and another. In order to say something and not stand there like simpletons or accomplices, they involved themselves in speeches of significant obscurity; thus one of the servants remarked that if the master's gray mare could but speak he could tell of some hard riding that night. The maids spoke incoherently or shed tears; Charlotte Arlabosse even fled, but was captured in the vineyards and incarcerated in the town prison.

These occurrences were by no means concealed from Bousquier and his associates; nay, insignificant details were emphatically dwelt upon, in order to give them a sense of security and assist their memory. It was the smuggler Bach, in particular—who, with the Bancal couple, could not at first be induced to make a statement—that the police magistrate had in view. He had terrified judges and keepers by his violent paroxysms of rage, and, to punish and subdue him, had been put in chains. Unconscious of it himself, this man suffered from a fierce longing for freedom, for he was the model of a roving vagabond and tramp. One night when he had attempted to strangle himself. Monsieur Jausion acquainted him with the confession of his comrade, Bousquier, and admonished him too to abandon his fruitless stubbornness. Thereupon the demeanor of the man changed at once; he became cheerful and communicative, and, grinning maliciously, said: "All right, if Bousquier knows much, I know still more." And in fact, he did know more. He was a stammerer and took advantage of this defect to gain time for reflection when his imagination halted, and every time he strayed into the regions of the fabulous the keen-witted Monsieur Jausion led him gently back to the path of reality.

This was his story: When he entered the room with Bousquier, lawyer Fualdes was seated at the table, and was made to sign papers. The tall, powerful man, Bastide Grammont, of course—no doubt it was Grammont; Bach in this relied upon the information of the magistrate and upon glib Rumor—stuck the signed papers in his pocket-book. In the meanwhile Madame Bancal cooked a supper, chicken with vegetables, and veal with rice; an important detail, indicating the cold-bloodedness of the murderers. Shortly before eight o'clock two drummers came in, but the face of the host or of the strange gentleman displeased them; they thought they were in the way and left, whereupon the gate was locked. But there was a knocking several times after that; the preconcerted signal was three rapid knocks with the fist, and one after the other there entered the soldier Colard with his sweetheart, the humpbacked Missonier, an aristocratic looking veiled lady with green feathers in her hat, and a tobacco-dealer in a blue coat. The hat with the green feathers was a special proof of Bach's powers of invention, and stood out with picturesque verisimilitude against the blue-coated tobacconist.

At half past eight Madame Bancal went up to the attic to put her daughter Madeleine to bed, and now Bastide Grammont explained to the old man that he must die. The imploring supplications of the victim resulted only in the powerful Bastide seizing him, and, in spite of his violent resistance, laying him on the table, from which Bancal hastily removed two loaves of bread which some one had brought along. Fualdes begged pitifully that he might be given time to reconcile himself with God, but Bastide Grammont replied gruffly: "Reconcile yourself with the devil."

Here M. Jausion interrupted the relation, and inquired whether a hand-organ had not perchance at that moment commenced to play in front of the house. Bach eagerly confirmed the supposition, and continued his report, which now wrought up the narrator himself to a pitch of excitement and horror: Colard and Bancal held the old man's legs, while the tobacconist and his sweetheart seized his head and arms. A gentleman with a wooden leg and a three-cornered hat held a candle high in the air. There was something weird about the emergence of this new figure; if it stood for nothing more than a finishing touch to the horror of that night of murder, it fulfilled its aim to perfection. The wooden-legged man uplifting the candle was like an impious spirit from the nether world, and it was not necessary to dwell upon the narrow chin, the sneering mouth, the spectral eye.

With a broad knife Bastide Grammont gave the old man a stab; Fualdes, by a superhuman effort, succeeded in breaking loose; he sprang up and ran, already mortally wounded, through the room; Bastide Grammont, pursuing, seized hold of him, threw him again on the table, the table rocked, one leg broke; now the dying man was placed upon two benches rapidly moved close to each other, and Bastide Grammont thrust the knife into his throat. With the last groan of the old man, Bancal came and his wife caught up the flowing blood in an earthen pot; the part that ran on the floor was scrubbed up by the women. In the pockets of the murdered man a five franc piece and several sous were found. Bastide Grammont threw the money into the apron of the Bancal woman, saying: "Take it! We are not killing him for his money." A key, too, was found; that Bastide kept. Madame Bancal had a hankering for the fine shirt of the dead man, and remarked covetously that it looked like a chorister's shirt; she was diverted from her desire, however, on being presented with an amethyst ring on Fualdes' finger. This ring was taken away the following day by a stranger for a consideration of ten francs.

When Bach's recital with all its circumstantiality and its simulated completeness of strange and illuminating details became known, there lacked but little to hailing the imaginative scamp as a deliverer. Indignation fed belief, and criticism seemed treason. The public, the witnesses, the judges, the authorities, all believed in the deed and all began to join in invention. Bach and Bousquier, who were confronted with each other, quarreled and called each other liars; one claimed that lie had gone into the Bancal house before, the other after, the murder; one declared that he had assisted in the deed, the other that he had only lifted the body, which was wrapped in a sheet and bound with ropes. The half-witted Missonnier designated still another batch of persons whom he had seen in the Bancal house, two notaries from Alby and a cook. In Rose Feral's tavern, where all sorts of shady characters congregated, and old warlike exploits and thieveries were the subjects of discussion, on the night of the murder the talk fell upon the pillaging of a house, the property of a Liberal. This report was designed to heighten the apprehension of the quiet citizens, and that afterward all the conspirators, even well-to-do people, met in Bancal's house gave no cause for astonishment. Everything harmonized in the intricate, devilish plot; in the clothes of the dead Fualdes no money, on his fingers no ring, had been found; Grammont had the bailiff in his house as late as the seventeenth of March, and this circumstance, singled out at an opportune moment from the quagmire of lies, inspired security. Bastide was hopelessly entangled. The prisoners were thrown into a panic by the palpable agitation of the people; each one appeared guilty in the other's eyes, each one was ready to admit anything that was desired concerning the other, in order to exonerate himself; they were ignorant of their fate, they lost all sense of the meaning of words, they were no longer conscious of themselves, their bodies, their souls; they felt themselves encompassed by invisible clasps, and each sought to free himself on his own account, without knowing what he had actually done or failed to do. Every day new arrests were made, no traveler passing through was sure of his freedom, and after a few weeks half of France was seized with the intoxication of rage, a craving for revenge, and fear. Of the figures of the ludicrously-gruesome murder imbroglio, now this, now that one emerged with greater distinctness and reality, and the one that stood out finally as the most important, because her name was constantly brought forward, was the veiled lady with the green feather in her hat; nay, she gradually became the centre and impelling power of the bloody deed, perhaps only because her origin and existence remained a mystery. Many raised their voices in suspicion against Charlotte Arlabosse, but she was able to establish her innocence by well-nigh unassailable testimony; besides, she appeared too harmless and too much like a victim of Bastide's tyrannical cruelty, to answer to the demoniacal picture of the mysterious unknown.

While Bach and Bousquier, in a rivalry which hastened their own ruin, tempted the authorities to clemency by ever new inventions, and, encouraged by the gossip which filtered through to them by subterranean channels, disturbed further the already troubled waters; while the soldier Colard and the Bancal couple, owing to the rigorous confinement, the harsh treatment of the keepers, and the excruciating hearings, were thrown into paroxysms of insanity, so that they reported things which even Jausion, used as he was to extravagance, had to characterize as the mere phantoms of a dream; while the other prisoners, steering unsteadily between their actual experiences and morbid visions, constantly suspected each other, and retracted today what they had sworn to yesterday, now whined for mercy, now maintained a defiant silence; while the inhabitants of the city, the villages, the whole province, demanded the termination of the long-winded procedure and the punishment of the evil-doers, with a fanaticism whose fire was tended and fed by mysterious agents; while, finally, the court, in the uncontrollably increasing flood of accusations and calumnies, lost its sense of direction, and was gradually becoming a tool in the hands of the populace;—in the meanwhile the boundless forces at work succeeded in poisoning the mind of a child, who appeared as a witness against father and mother, and led the deluded people to believe that God himself had by a miracle loosened the tongue of an infant.

JAKOB WASSERMANN

At the outset the eleven-year-old Madeleine Bancal had been questioned by the police magistrate; she knew nothing. Subsequently the child came to the tavern, and at once people came forward who had heard from others, who again had heard from third or fourth parties, that the girl had seen the old man laid upon the table and her mother receiving money. Of course it was ascertained by Counselor Pinaud, the only man who retained clarity and judgment in the wild confusion, that Madeleine had taken presents from the managers of the tavern, as well as from other people; but it was too late by that time to discover and extirpate the root of the lie. She was persuaded ever more firmly into a belief of her first statement, and the recital kept expanding the greater the attention paid her, the more her vanity was flattered, until she believed she had really witnessed all that she related, and she experienced a feeling of satisfaction in the sympathy and pity of the grown people. Her mother had taken her to the attic, so she reported, but fearing the cold, she had stealthily crept downstairs and hidden herself in the bed in the alcove. Through a hole in the curtain she could see and hear everything. When the old man was about to be stabbed, the lady with the green feather ran terrified into the room and attempted to escape through the window. Bastide Grammont dragged her forth and wanted to kill her. Bancal and Colard begged him to spare her, and she had to swear an awful oath which pledged her to silence. A little later, Grammont, whose suspicions were not silenced, examined the bed also. Madeleine pretended to be asleep. He felt her twice, and then said to the mother that she must attend to getting rid of the child, which Madame Bancal promised to do for a sum of four hundred francs. The next morning the mother sent the child to the field, where the father had just dug a deep hole. She thought her father meant to throw her in, but he embraced her, weeping, and admonished her to be good.

Even if people had been ready to doubt every other testimony, the report of the child passed as irrefutable, and no one concerned himself as to how it had been concocted, how the ignorant young thing had been courted, bribed, how she had been intoxicated by fondling, applause, or, it may be, even by fear. She was dragged from her sleep at night, in order to take advantage of her bewilderment; every new fancy was welcomed, the girl thought she was doing something remarkable, and played her part with increasing readiness. In such wise she molded out of nothing things which were calculated to throw a singularly realistic light upon the fevered image of the fateful night; for instance, how the mother had cut bread with the same knife with which the old gentleman had been stabbed, and how Madeleine had refused the bread, because it made her shudder; or how the blood, caught up in the pan, had been given to one of the pigs to drink, and how the animal had become wild in consequence, and had rushed, screaming madly, through the yard.

Bastide Grammont bore hearing after hearing with a cold placidity. His frigidly haughty dignity, his mocking smile, the mute shrug of his shoulders, caused Monsieur Jausion frequent annoyance. But there were times when, carried away by impatience, he interrupted the judge outright, and attacked, boldly and eloquently, the frail yet indestructible structure of the evidence.

"If it was my intention and interest to do away with my uncle, did it require a conspiracy of so many people?" he asked, his face blazing with scorn. "Am I supposed to have such a combination of craft and stupidity as to ally myself with brothel-keepers, harlots, smugglers, old women, and convicted criminals, people who would, as long as I live, remain my masters and blackmailers, even supposing silence to be among their virtues? Can anything more senseless be imagined than to seize a man on an open road and drag him into a house known to be suspicious? Why all this elaborate plot? Did no better occasion offer itself to me? Could I not have enticed the old man to the estate, shot him and buried him in the woods? It is claimed that I forced him to sign bills,—where are they, these bills? They would be bound to turn up and expose me. You say yourself that the Bancal house is dilapidated, that one can look into Bancal's room from the Spaniards' dwelling through the rotten boards; why, then, did Monsieur Saavedra hear nothing! Aha, he slept! A sound sleep, that. Or is he likewise, in the conspiracy, like my mother, my sister, my sweetheart, my faithful servants? And admitting all, were not the Bancal couple sufficient to help kill a feeble old man and dispose of his body; did I have to fetch half a dozen suspicious fellows, besides, from the taverns? Why did not my uncle cry out? He was gagged; well and good; but the gag was found in the yard. Then he did scream, after all, when the gag was removed, and I had the organ-grinders play. But such organs are noisy and draw people to the windows and into the street. And why butcher the victim, since so many strong men could easily have strangled him? Show me the medical report. Monsieur, does it not speak of a gash rather than a stab? And what twaddle, that about the funeral train, what betraying arrangements in a country where every sign-post has eyes! I am accused of having rushed into my uncle's house the following day and stolen some papers. Where are those papers? My uncle died almost poor. His claim against me was transferred to President Seguret. Why, then, the deed? What do they want with me? Who that has eyes sees my hands stained?"

This language was defiant. It aroused the displeasure of the court and increased the hatred of the multitude, whom it reached in garbled shape. Through fear of the people, no lawyer dared undertake Bastide Grammont's defense. Monsieur Pinaud, who alone had the courage to point out the improbabilities and the fantastic origin of most of the testimony, came near paying with his life for his zeal for truth. One night a mob, including some peasants, marched to his house, smashed his windows, demolished the gate, and set fire to the steps. The terrified man made his escape with difficulty, and fled to Toulouse.

Bastide Grammont clearly recognized that, for the present, it was useless to offer any resistance; he determined, therefore, to transform all his valor into patience and keep his lips closed as if they were doors through which his hopes might take flight. He, the freest of men, had to pass the radiant spring days, the fragrant summer nights, in a damp hole which rendered one's own breath offensive; he, to whom animals spoke, for whom flowers had eyes, the earth at times a semblance of the glow of love, who walked, strode, roamed, rode, as artists produce enchanting creations—he was condemned by the perverse play of incomprehensible circumstances to a foretaste of the grave and deprived of what he held dearest and most precious. Frequent grew the nights of sullenness when his eyes, brimming over with tears, were dulled at the thought of disgrace; more frequent the days of irrepressible longing, when every grain of sand that crumbled from the moist walls was a reminder of the wondrous being and working of the earth, the meadow, the wood. From the events which had overshadowed his life he turned away his thoughts in disgust, and he scarcely heard the keeper when he appeared one morning and exultingly informed him that the mysterious unknown, who was destined to become the chief witness, the lady with the green feathers, had finally been found; she had come forward of her own accord, and she was the daughter of President Seguret, Clarissa Mirabel.

Bastide Grammont gazed gloomily before him. But from that hour that name hovered about his ears like the fluttering of the wings of inevitable Fate.

---

This is what took place: Madame Mirabel confessed that on the night of the murder she had been in the Bancal house. This confession, however, was made under a peculiar stress, and in less time than it took swift Rumor to make it public, she retracted everything. But the word had fallen and bred deed upon deed.

Clarissa Mirabel was the only child of President Seguret. She was brought up in the country, in the old Château Perrié, which her father had bought at the outbreak of the Revolution. Owing to the political upheavals, and the uncertain condition of things, she did not enjoy the benefit of any regular instruction in her childhood. The profound isolation in which she grew up favored her inclination to romanticism. She idolized her parents; in the agitated period of anarchy, the girl, scarcely fourteen years old, exhibited at her father's side such a spirit of self-sacrifice and such devotion that she aroused the attention of Colonel Mirabel, who, five years later, came and sued for her hand. She did not love him,—she had shortly before entered into a singularly romantic relationship with a shepherd,—yet she married him, because her father bade her. The union was not happy; after three months she separated from her husband; the Colonel went with the army to Spain. At the conclusion of the war he returned, and Clarissa received an intimation of his desire that she should live with him; she refused, however, and declared her refusal, moreover, in writing, incensed that he should have sent strangers to negotiate with her. But she learned that he was wounded, and this caused a revulsion of feeling. In the night, by secret passages, with ceremonious formalities, the Colonel was carried into the château, and Clarissa tended him, in a remote chamber, with faithful care. As long as it remained secret, the new sort of relationship to the man as a lover fascinated her, but her mother discovered everything and believed that nothing stood in the way of a complete reconciliation between the pair. Clarissa succeeded in removing him; in a thicket near the village she had nightly rendezvous with him. Colonel Mirabel, however, grew weary of these singular doings; he obtained a position in Lyons, but died soon after from the consequences of his excesses.

Years passed; her mother, too, died, and Clarissa's grief was so overwhelming that she would spend entire days at the grave, and the influence of her more readily consoled father alone succeeded in inducing her to reconcile herself to her lonely, empty existence. Left completely to herself, she indulged in the pleasure of indiscriminate reading, and her wishes turned, with hidden passion, toward great experiences. Her peculiar tastes and habits made her a subject of gossip in the little town; she had children and half-grown boys and girls come to the château, and recited poems to them and trained them for acting. Her frank nature created enemies; she said what she thought, offended with no ill intention, caused confusion and gossip in all innocence, exaggerated petty things and overlooked great ones, took pleasure at times in masking, appearing in disguise, and impersonating imaginary characters, and captivated the susceptible by the charm of her speech, the bright versatility of her spirit, the winning heartiness of her manner.

She was now thirty-five years old; but not only because she was so exceedingly slender, small, and dainty, did she seem like a girl of eighteen—her nature, too, was permeated by a rare spirit of youth; and when her eye rested, absorbed and contemplative, upon an object, it had the clearness and dreamy sweetness of the gaze of a child. She was a product of the border: southern vivacity and northern gravity had resulted in a restless mixture; she was fond of musing, and, playful as a young animal, was capable of arousing in men of all sorts desire mingled with shyness.

The flood of reports concerning the death of the lawyer Fualdes left her, at first, unmoved, although her father, by his purchase of the domain of La Morne, seemed directly interested in the happenings, and new accounts were brought to the château daily. The occurrence was too complicated for her, and everything connected with it smelt too much of the unclean. Only when the name of Bastide Grammont was first mentioned did she prick up her ears, follow the affair, and have her father or the servants report to her the supposed course of events, displaying more interest than astonishment.

She knew nothing about Bastide Grammont. Nevertheless, his name, as soon as she heard it, fell like a weight upon her watchful soul. She began to make inquiries about him, ventured upon secret rides to La Morne, and led one or another of his servants to talk about him; nay, once she even succeeded in speaking with Charlotte Arlabosse, who was free again at that time. What she learned aroused a strange, pained astonishment; she had a feeling of having missed an important meeting.

In addition, she suddenly remembered having seen him. It must have been he, if she but half comprehended the confused descriptions of his person. It was a year ago, one early morning in the first days of spring. Seized by the general unrest with which the vernal season stirs the blood and rouses the sleeper sooner than his wont, she had wandered from the château, over the vine-clad hills, into the woody vale of Rolx. And as she strode through the dewy underbrush glistening with sunshine, above her the warbling of birds and the glowing blue of the celestial dome, beneath her the earth breathing like a sentient being, she caught sight of a man of powerful build who was standing erect, bareheaded, with nose in the air, and was enjoying with a preternatural eagerness, with distended gaze, all that lay open for enjoyment—the scents, the sun, the intoxicating dewiness, the splendor of the heavens. He seemed to scent it all, sniffing like a dog or a deer, and while his upturned face bore an expression of unfettered, smiling satisfaction, his arms, hanging by his side, trembled as in a spasm.

She was frightened then; she fled without his perceiving her, without his hearing the sound of her footsteps. Now the picture assumed a different significance. Often when she was alone she would abandon herself to a fancied image of that hour: how she had gone forward to meet the singular being, and by skilfully planned questions beguiled answer upon answer from his stubborn lips, and how, unable to disguise his feelings any longer, he had spontaneously opened his heart to her. And one night he came riding on a wild steed, forced his way into the castle, took her and rode away with her so swiftly that it seemed as if the storm was his servant, and lent wings to his steed. When the talk at table or in company turned upon Bastide Grammont and his murderous crime, of which no one stood in doubt, Clarissa never occupied herself with the enormity of the deed, which must forever separate such a man from the fellowship of the good. Enveloped in a voluptuous mist, she was sensible of the influence of his compelling force, of the heroic soul that spoke in his gestures, of the reality of his existence and the possibility of a close approach to the figure which persisted in haunting her troubled dreams. She was frightened at herself; she gazed into the dreaded depths of her soul, and she often felt as if she herself were lying in prison and Bastide were walking back and forth outside, planning means for forcing the door, while his swift steed was neighing in triumph.

Now she was entangled in all the talk, whisperings, and tales, and the whole mass of abominations, too, in which design and arbitrariness were hopelessly mingled, passed, steadily growing, before her. The thing had an increasingly strange effect upon her, and she felt as if she were breathing poisoned air; she would walk through one of the streets of Rodez and fancy that all eyes were fastened upon her in accusation, so that she hastened her steps, hurried home, pale and confused, and gazed at herself in the mirror with faltering pulse.

She had recently been entertained at the estate of a family on terms of friendship with her father. One day the master of the house, a scholar, was thrown into great agitation over the loss of a valuable manuscript. The servants were ordered to ransack every room, but no one was suspected of theft. Clarissa fell by and by into a painful state; she imagined that she was suspected; in every word she felt a sting, in every look a question; she took part in the search with anxious zeal, fevered visions of prison and disgrace already floated before her, she longed to hasten to her father, to assert her innocence—when suddenly the manuscript was found under some old books; Clarissa breathed again as if saved from peril of death, and never before had she been as witty, talkative, and captivatingly lovable as in the hours that followed.

When in the imagination of the multitude the lady with the green feathers grew steadily more distinct, along with the other figures implicated in the brutal slaughter of poor Fualdes, Clarissa was thrown into a consternation with which she only trifled at first, as if to test herself in a probability or balance herself upon a possibility, like a lad who with a pleasing shudder ventures upon the frozen surface of a stream to test its firmness. She devoured the reports in the newspapers. The timorous dallying grew into a haunting idea, chiefly owing to the fact that she really was the possessor of a hat with green feathers. That circumstance could not be regarded as remarkable. Fashion permitted the use of green, yellow, or red feathers; nevertheless, the possession of the hat became a torment to Clarissa. She dared no longer touch it; it seemed to her as if the feathers were enveloped in a bloody lustre, and she finally hid it in a lumber-room under the roof. She busied herself with plans of travel, and meant to visit Paris; but her resolution grew more shaky every day. Meanwhile June set in. A traveling theatrical company gave a number of performances in Rodez, and an officer by the name of Clemendot, who had long been pursuing Clarissa with declarations of love, but who had always, on account of his commonplaceness and evident crudity, been coolly, nay, at times ignominiously repulsed, brought her a ticket and invited her to accompany him to the theatre. She declined, but at the last moment she felt a desire to go, and had to suffer Captain Clemendot's taking the vacant seat to her right, after the rise of the curtain.

The troupe presented a melodrama, whose action dragged out at great length and with great gusto the misfortune and gruesome murder of an innocent youth. At the close of the last act a woman disguised as a man appeared upon the scene; she wore a pointed round hat, and a mask covered her face. A hurried love-scene, carried on in whispers, by the light of the dismal lamp of a criminal quarter, with the chief of the band of murderers, sealed the fate of the unhappy victim, who was kneeling in prayer. In the house an eager silence reigned, all eyes were burning. Clarissa seemed to hear the hundred hearts beat like so many hammers; she grew hot and cold, every feeling of the real present vanished, and when, in the ensuing interval. Captain Clemendot in his half humble, half impudent way became importunate, a shudder ran through her body, and at the fumes of wine which he exhaled she came near fainting. Suddenly she threw back her head, fixed her gaze upon his muddled, besotted countenance and asked in a low, sharp, hurried tone: "What would you say, Captain, if it were I—I—who was present at the Bancal house?"

Captain Clemendot turned pale. His mouth opened slowly, his cheeks quivered, his eyes glistened with fear, and when Clarissa broke into a soft, mocking, but not quite natural, laugh, he rose and, with an embarrassed farewell, left her. He was a simple man, as illiterate as a drummer, and, like everybody else in Rodez, completely under the sway of the blood-curdling reports. When the performance was at an end, he approached Clarissa, who, with an impassive air, was making her way to the exit, and asked whether she had been trying to jest with him, and she, her lips dry, and something like a prying hatred in her eyes, answered, laughing again: "No, no, Captain." After that her face resumed its earnest, almost sad, expression and her head dropped on her breast.

Clemendot went home with a disturbed mind, thoroughly convinced that he had received an important confession. He felt in duty bound to speak out, and unbosomed himself next morning to a comrade. The latter drew a second friend into the secret, they deliberated together, and by noon the magistrate had been informed. Monsieur Jausion had the Captain and Madame Mirabel summoned. After long and singular reflection Clarissa declared that the whole thing was a joke, and the magistrate was obliged to dismiss her for the present.

It was not joking, however, that the gentlemen wanted, but earnest. The Prefect, advised of what had happened, called in the evening on President Seguret and had a brief interview with the worthy man, who, shaken to his inmost soul, had to learn what a disgrace, to himself and her, his daughter had conjured up, menacing thus the peace of his old age. Clarissa was called in; she stood as if deprived of life before the two aged men, and the grief which spoke in her father's every motion and feature struck her heart with sorrow. She pleaded the thoughtlessness of the moment, the mad humor and confusion of her mind; in vain, the Prefect openly showed his incredulity. Monsieur Seguret, who in spite of his fondness for a jovial life, was of an exceedingly suspicious disposition, lacking, too, a firm and clear judgment of men, could not help regarding the depressed spirits of his daughter as a proof of guilt, and he explained to her, with cutting severity, that the truth alone would keep him from thrusting her from his heart. Clarissa ceased speaking; words rushed in upon her like destroying demons. The President grew sleepless and agitated, and wandered, distracted, about the castle all night long. His reflections consisted in fathoming Clarissa's nature on the side of its awful possibilities, and he very soon saw her impenetrable character covered with the blots and stigmas of the vice of romanticism. He, too, was completely under the spell of the general fanatical opinion, his experience could not hold out against the poisoned breath of calumny; the fear of being connected with the monstrous deed was stronger than the voice of his heart; suspicion became certainty, denial a lie. When he reflected upon Clarissa's past, her ungovernable desire to desert the beaten paths—a quality which appeared to him now as the gate to crime—no assumption was too daring, and her image interwove itself in the dismal web.

Sleep was banished from Clarissa, too. She surprised her father in the gray morning hours in his disturbed wanderings through the rooms, and threw herself sobbing at his feet. He made no attempt to console her or raise her; to her despairing question as to what she could be seeking in the Bancal house, since as a widow she was perfectly free to come and go as she pleased and could dispense with secrecy, the President's reply was a significant shrug; and so firmly was his sinister conjecture imbedded, that upon her dignified demand for a just consideration, he only flung back the retort: "Tell the truth."

The news was not slow to travel. Relatives and friends of the President made their appearance: amazed, excited, eager, malicious. To see the impenetrably peculiar, elusively unapproachable Clarissa cast into the mire was a sight they were all anxious to enjoy. A few of the older ladies attempted a hypocritically gentle persuasion, and Clarissa's contemptuous silence and the pained look of her eyes seemed to imply avowals. The Prefect came once more, accompanied by two officials. For the Government and the local functionaries everything was at stake; the cry for revenge of the citizens, anxious for their safety, the defiance and rancor of the Bonapartists, grew more violent every day, the papers demanded the conviction of the guilty persons, the rural population was on the point of a revolt. A witness who had no share in the deed itself, like Madame Mirabel, could quickly change and terminate everything; persuasion was brought to bear, she was promised, as far as the oath to which she subscribed in the Bancal house was concerned, a written dispensation from Rome, and a Jesuit priest whom the Mayor brought to the château expressly confirmed this. When everything proved vain and Clarissa began to oppose the cruel pressure by a stony calm, she was threatened with imprisonment, with having her disgrace and depravity made public through all France. And at these words of the Prefect her father fell upon his knees before her, as she had done that morning before him, and conjured her to speak. This was too much; with a shriek, she fell fainting to the floor.

Clarissa believed she remembered having spent the evening of the nineteenth of March with the Pal family, in Rodez; she believed she remembered that Madame Pal herself remarked to her the following day: "We were so merry yesterday, and perhaps at that very time poor Fualdes was being murdered." Upon referring to this, the Pals made a positive denial of everything; they denied that Clarissa had paid them a visit; nay, in their vague, cowardly fright, they even declared that they had been on bad terms with Madame Mirabel for years.

To human pity spirits blinded by fear and delusion were no longer accessible. Even had the sound sense of a single individual attempted resistance, it would have been useless; the giant avalanche could not be stayed. A diabolical plot was concocted, and it was the Prefect, Count d'Estournel, who perfected it in such wise that it promised the best success. Toward one o'clock at night a carriage drove into the castle grounds; Clarissa was compelled to enter it; the President, the Magistrate, the Prefect, were her companions. The carriage stopped in front of the Bancal house. Monsieur Seguret led his daughter into the ground floor room on the left, a cave-like chamber, gloomy as a bad conscience. On the shelf over the stove there stood a miserable little lamp whose light fell on two sheriff's officers and a lawyer's clerk, with stern countenances, leaning against the wall. The windows were hung with rags, the alcoves were pitchy dark, a mute silence reigned throughout the house.

"Do you know this place?" asked the Prefect with solemn deliberation. All turned their gaze upon Clarissa. In order to soften the frightful tension of her breast, she listened to the rain, which was beating against the wall outside; all her senses seemed to have gathered in her ear to that end. Her body grew limp, her tongue refused to utter more than "no" or "yes," and since the first promised new torment and agony, but the latter perchance peace, she breathed a "yes:" a little word, born of fear and exhaustion, and, scarce alive, winged with a mysterious power. Her mind, confused and consumed with longing, turned a phantom image, the creation of a thousand effervescent brains, into an actual experience. The half consciously heard, half distractedly read, became a burning reality. Her existence seemed strangely entangled in that of the man of the wood and dale, who had fervently lifted his head to heaven, and sniffed in the air with the expression of a thirsting animal. Now she stood upon the bridge which led to his domain; she beheld herself sitting at his feet, drops of blood from his outstretched hand fell upon her bowed head. Consternation on the one hand, and the most radiant hope on the other, seized her heart, while between there flamed like a torch, there rang out exultant like a battle-cry, the name Bastide Grammont, a plaything for her dreams.

An expression of relief flitted over the faces of the men upon this first syllable of a significant confession. President Seguret covered his eyes with his hand. He resolved in his heart to renounce his love for his misguided child. Clarissa felt it; all the ties which had hitherto bound her were broken.

She had, then, been in the room on the evening of the nineteenth of March? she was asked. She nodded. How had she come there? questioned Monsieur Jausion further, and his tone and mien were marked by a certain cautiousness and nicety, as if he feared to disturb the still timorous spirits of memory. Clarissa remained silent. Had she come by way of the Rue des Hebdomadiers? asked the Prefect. Clarissa nodded. "Speak! Speak!" thundered Monsieur Seguret suddenly, and even the two sheriff's officers were startled.

"I met several persons," Clarissa whispered in a tone so low that all involuntarily bent their heads forward. "I was afraid of them, and I ran, from fear, into the first open house."

Monsieur Jausion winked to the clerk. "Into this house, then?" he asked in a caressing voice, while the clerk seated himself on the bench near the stove and wrote in a crouching position.

Clarissa continued in the same plaintive whisper: "I opened the door of this room. Somebody seized me by the arm and led me into the alcove. He enjoined me to be silent. It was Bastide Grammont."

At last the name! But how different it was to pronounce it than merely to think it! Clarissa paused, while she closed her eyes and elapsed her hands convulsively. "After leaving me alone a while," she resumed as if speaking in her sleep, "he returned, bade me follow him and led me into the street. There he stood still and asked whether I knew him. I first said yes, then no. Thereupon he asked me if I had seen anything, and I said no. 'Go away!' he ordered, and I went. But I had not reached the centre of the town when he was again at my side and took my hand in his. 'I am not one of the murderers,' he protested, 'I met you and my only object was to save you. Swear that you will remain silent, swear on your father's life.' I swore, whereupon he left me. And that is all."

Monsieur Jausion smiled skeptically. "You claim, Madame, to have fled in here from the street," he remarked, "but it has been established by unexceptionable testimony that the gate was locked from eight o'clock on. How do you explain that?"

Clarissa remained mute, even her breath seemed to stop. The Prefect motioned to Monsieur Jausion to desist; for the present enough had been attained, it was enough that Bastide Grammont had been recognized by Clarissa. The resolve to force the criminal, who denied all share in the guilt, to a confession by having him unexpectedly confront the witness, came as a matter of course.

The gentlemen led Clarissa to the carriage, as she was scarcely able to walk. At home she lapsed into a peculiar state. First she lay back lethargically in a chair; suddenly she sprang up and cried: "Take away the murderers!" The door opened and the terrified face of a servant appeared in the crack. All the domestics stood waiting in the hall, most of them resolved to leave the President's service. Clarissa saw herself deprived of all the protection of love, and cast out from the circle where birth is respected and binding forms are recognized as the least of duties. She was exposed to every eye, the boldest gaze could pry into her inmost soul, she had become a public object, nothing about her was any longer her own, she herself could no longer find herself, find anything in herself upon which she could lean, she was branded, without and within, food for the general prurience, tossed defenselessly upon the filthy floods of gossip, the centre of a fearful occurrence from which she could no more dissever her thoughts. Sadness, grief, anxiety, scorn, these were no longer feelings for her, her blood coursed too wildly for that; uncertainty of herself dominated her, doubts as to her perception, doubts as to visible things in general; and now and then she would prick her finger with a needle just to feel the pain, which would serve as evidence of her being awake and might preserve her heart from decay. Added to this, the torment she suffered from the intrusive: appeals to tell the truth, the jeers from below, the command from above, the thirst for revenge and the ineffaceableness of a word once spoken; lastly, she saw the whole world filled with red tongues, ceaselessly chattering; bloody tongues with snakelike movements, directed toward her; every object she touched turned into a slippery tongue. Human countenances grew dim, save one, which, despite guilt and condemnation, was enthroned, in heroic suffering, high above the others, nay, appeared preeminent through his guilt as well as his defiance. And the day she was told that she was to confront Bastide Grammont in order to accuse him, her pulses beat in joyous measure again for the first time, and she arrayed herself as if for a festival.

The meeting was to take place in the magistrate's office. Besides Monsieur Jausion and his clerks, Counselor Pinaud, who had returned, was present. Monsieur Jausion cast a malicious glance at him over his spectacles as Clarissa Mirabel, decked in lace, rustled in, bowed smiling to the gentlemen, and then swept her gaze with cheerful calmness over the inhospitable room. From a frame in the centre of the wall the fat and ill-humored face of the King looked down upon her, as ill-humored as if each one of his subjects were especially repugnant to him. She forgot that it was only a picture that hung before her and looked up with a coquettish pout.

The magistrate made a sign, a side-door was thrown open, and Bastide Grammont, with hands chained together and with an officer of justice on either side of him, walked in. Clarissa gave a low cry and her face turned livid.

Prison atmosphere enveloped Bastide. The shaggy hair, the long, neglected beard, the staring, somewhat dazed look, the slight stoop, as of a carrier of burdens, of the gigantic form, the secretly quivering wrath upon his newly furrowed brow—all proclaimed their cause and origin. Yes, he seemed to carry about him the invisible walls which filled him with agony and gloom, and which, month after month, pictured to him with more and more hopeless brilliance the images of freedom, until finally they refused to delude him with blooming tree or flourishing field; then they resembled the desolate gray of an autumn evening, when the air already smacks of winter, the hearse rattles oftener than usual past the garden-gate toward the little churchyard, and the rising half-moon floats in glowing radiance in the misty azure like a bleeding, divided heart.

And yet that haughty eye, in which shone the resolve to be true to himself? And yet that strangely bitter scorn in his mien which might be compared to the cautious and at the same time majestic crouching of a tiger cat? The infinite contempt with which he looked at the hands of the clerks, prepared to write, his inner freedom and grand detachment in spite of the handcuffs and the two soldiers?

It was this that wrung the cry from Clarissa's lips, and drove the mad merriment from her face. Not, indeed, because she was forced to behold the former genius of the woods and wilds bound and shattered, but because she recognized as in a flash of lightning that that hand could not have wielded a murderous knife, that such a deed did not touch the circle of his being, even if he may have been capable of the act, and that all was in vain, an incomprehensible intoxication and madness, an impenetrable horror, an exhibition of hypocrisy and disease, A dizziness seized her as if she were falling from a high tower. She was ashamed of her showy dress, its conspicuous finery, and in passionate excitement she tore the costly lace from her arms and, with an expression of the utmost loathing, threw it on the ground.

Monsieur Jausion must have interpreted it differently. Again he smiled at Monsieur Pinaud, but this time in triumph, as if he would say: the sample tallies. "Do you know this lady, Bastide Grammont?" he asked the prisoner. Bastide turned his head aside, and his look of careless, bitter disdain cut Clarissa to the quick. "I don't know her," he replied gloomily, "I have never seen her."

And once more Monsieur Jausion smiled, as if to correct a parsing error, and murmured: "That is not possible; Madame Mirabel, dressed at that time as a man, and with a hat with green feathers, was in the Bancal house, and was led by you yourself to the street, where you received her oath. I beg you to call it to mind."

Bastide's face contracted as if at the annoying persistence of a fly, and he repeated in a loud, energetic tone: "I don't know the lady. I have never seen her." And his tightly compressed lips betrayed his firm resolve to remain silent.

Monsieur Jausion adjusted his wig and looked troubled. "What answer have you to that, Madame?" he asked, addressing Clarissa.

"He may not know that I saw him," she said in a whisper, but her voice had the penetrating quality of the chirping of a cricket.

Bastide turned toward her once more, and in the somewhat oblique glance of his wearily brilliant eyes there was a mixture of curiosity and scorn, no more, however, than would be bestowed upon a mushroom or a spider. Inwardly he weighed, as it were, the slender, childlike form, wondered casually at the agitation of her gestures, her flashing eyes, the helpless twitching of her lips, wondered at the lace lying on the floor, and thought he was dreaming when he became aware that an imploring gesture of her hands was meant for him.

The magistrate sprang up and, with distorted face, cried: "Do not jest with us, Madame, it may cost you dear. Speak out, then! A forced oath is not valid! The peace of your fellow-citizens, the peace of the country is at stake. Free yourself from the spell of the wretched being! Your infamous smile, Grammont, will be laid to your account on the day of the sentence."

Counselor Pinaud stepped forward and murmured a few words into the ear of Bastide, who lifted his arms, and with an expression of consuming rage pressed his clenched, chained hands to his eyes. Clarissa staggered to the magistrate's table, and while a deadly pallor overspread her cheeks, she shrieked: "It is all a lie! Lie! Lie!"

Monsieur Jausion measured her from head to foot. "Then I place you in the position of an accused person, Madame, and declare you under arrest."

A gleam of mournful satisfaction flitted over Clarissa's features. Swiftly, with the lightning-like wheeling of a dancer, she turned toward Bastide Grammont, looked at him as one looks up at a stormy sky after a sultry day, and with a pained, long-drawn breath, she called his name in a low voice. He, however, stepped back as if at an impure touch, and never before had Clarissa encountered such a glance and expression of disdain. Her knees shook, a feeling of distress overcame her, her eyes filled with tears. It was only when the door of the prison closed behind her that the helpless sensation of being flogged left her. Shame and remorse overpowered her; even the mysteriousness of her position afforded her but slight consolation. Controlled by no law, she seemed to have been shoved off the track upon which, in the ordinary course of nature, cause and effect, cumbrously linked together, crawl along in the slow process of experience.

In accordance with her station, she had been assigned the best room in the prison. The first hours she lay on the straw-bed and writhed in agony. When the keeper on her urgent request brought a light, as she feared she would go insane in the darkness, the candle-light fell upon the image of Christ upon the cross with the crown of thorns, which hung upon the gray-tinted wall. She gave a shriek, her overstrained senses found in the features of the Saviour a resemblance to those of Bastide Grammont. His lips had had the same agonized curve when he pressed his clenched hands to his eyes.

Once more she rebelled against the boundless injustice. To live with the world was her real element; her entire nature was attuned to a kindly understanding with people. She asked for paper and pen, and wrote a letter to the Prefect.

"Justice, Count!" she wrote. "It is still time to prevent the worst. Remember the difficulty you had in extorting from me what was supposed to be the truth, remember the threats which made me compliant. I am a victim of circumstances. Whatever I confessed is false. No man of sense can discover the stamp of probability in my statements. In a freak of desperation I bore false witness. Tell my father that his cruelty is more sure to rob him of his daughter than her seeming transgression. Already I know not what I should believe, the past escapes my memory, my confidence begins to totter. If it is too much to ask for justice, then I beg for mercy. My destiny seeks to try me, but my heart is clear as the day."

It was in vain. It was too late for words, even if the mouth of a prophet had proclaimed them in tones of thunder. The next morning many of the witnesses and prisoners were brought before Clarissa. Thus there were Bach, the Bancals, the soldier Colard, Rose Feral, Missonier, and little Madeleine Bancal. Bousquier was ill. The sight of the crushed, slouching, phantom-like creatures, intimidated by a hundred torments, revengefully ready for any deed, disturbed her to the core, and gave her at the same time a feeling of indelible contamination. "Is she the one?" each of the unfortunates was asked—and with insolent indifference they answered: "It is she." Missonier alone stood there laughing like an idiot.

Clarissa was amazed. She had not expected that the answers would be characterized by such assurance, such a matter-of-fact air. With inward sobs she held from her what was undeniable in the present situation, and shudderingly sought a path in her memory to that past situation on which the present was founded and which she was asked to verify. Her agitated spirit crept back to her earlier years, back to her youth, to her childhood, in order to discover her inimical second-self; that which had seemed weird and strange gradually became the essence and centre of her being, and the fateful night in Bancal's house turned, like the rest of the world, into a vision of blood and wounds.

But athwart the gloomy fancies the way led to Bastide Grammont; a flowery path among burning houses. It seemed fine to her to be assured of his guilt. Perchance he had pressed his lips to hers before he had clutched the murderous knife. She coupled her own obscurely felt guilt with his greater one. That which cut him off from humanity bound him to her. His reasons for the deed? She did not concern herself about them. No doubt it had struck root when she had first beheld him, when he had swallowed in a breath all the wood, all the springtime. No matter whether he dipped his hands in the sunlight or in blood, both pertained to his image, to her mysterious passion, and Fualdes was the evil genius and the destructive principle. "Ah," she reflected in her singular musing, "had I known of it, I should have committed the deed myself and might have been a heroine like Charlotte Corday!" Why, however, did he deny it, why was he silent? Why that look of overwhelming contempt, which she could not forget and which still scorched her skin like a brand of infamy? Was he too proud to bow to a sentence which put his crime on a level with that of any highwayman? No doubt he did not recognize his judges. She could, then, draw him down to herself, make him dependent upon the breath of her lips; and she forgot the iron alternatives that confront one's destiny here, and let herself go like a child that knows nothing of death.

The trial before the court of assizes was set for the sixteenth of October. At noon of the tenth, Clarissa requested an interview with Monsieur Jausion. Conducted before the magistrate, she declared she knew about the whole matter, and wished to confess everything. In a voice trembling with excitement. Monsieur Jausion summoned his clerks.

"I came into the room and saw the knife glisten," Clarissa confessed. "I took refuge in the alcove, Bastide Grammont hurried after me, embraced and kissed me. He confided to me that Fualdes must die, for the old devil had destroyed his happiness and made life worthless to him. Bastide was intoxicated, as it were, with enthusiasm, and when I raised objections, he stopped my mouth with kisses once more, yes, he kissed me so hard that I could not offer any resistance. Then he had me take an oath, whereupon he left me and I heard a groaning, I heard a terrible cry; little Madeleine Bancal, who was lying in bed, raised herself suddenly and wept. Then I lost consciousness, and when I regained it I found myself in the street."

She recounted this story in a mechanically measured tone; her voice had a metallic ring, her eyes were veiled and half closed, her little hands hung heavy at her side, and when she ceased she gazed before her with a pleased smile.

"You had consorted with Bastide Grammont before that, then?" questioned the Magistrate.

"Yes, we met in the forest. In the neighborhood of La Morne there is an old well in the field; there, also, we used to meet frequently; particularly at night and by moonlight. Once Bastide took me on his horse and we rode at a furious pace to the gorge at Guignol. I asked, 'What are you fleeing from, Bastide?' for I was cold with fright; and he whispered: 'From myself and from the world.' Otherwise, however, he was always gentle. I have never known a better man."

More and more silvery rang her voice, and finally she spoke like one transported or asleep. Her statement was read aloud to her; she affixed her signature calmly and without hesitation, whereupon Monsieur Jausion stated to her that she was free.

In the château she was met by a hostile silence. The few domestics who remained whispered insolently behind her back. Nobody looked to her comfort, she had to fetch the pitcher of water herself from the kitchen. In the meantime when President Seguret returned home, he already knew, as did the whole town, about Clarissa's confession. The circumstance of her amorous relation to Bastide shed a sudden light upon preceding events and wove a halo about her former silence. But Monsieur Seguret only hardened his heart all the more, and when he passed her as she stood on the threshold of her room, he turned away his head with a gesture of disgust.

In the evening the President entertained a number of his friends. In the course of the meal the door opened and Clarissa made her appearance. Monsieur Seguret sprang from his chair, rage robbing him of speech. "Do not dare," he stammered hoarsely, "do not dare!"

Regardless of that, Clarissa advanced to the edge of the table. A radiant, bewitching expression lit up her countenance. She turned her full gaze upon her father, so that he dropped his glance as if dazzled. "Do not revile me, father," she said gently in a tone of captivating entreaty.

She turned to one of the guests with a commonplace question. The gentleman addressed hesitated, seemed confounded, astonished, but was unable to resist. Her features, pallid from the prison atmosphere, had acquired something dreamily spiritual; the most ordinary word from her lips had a charm of its own.

The conversation became general; the guests conquered, nay, forgot, their secret amazement. Clarissa's wit and playful humor exercised a great fascination. Along with them, there was a sensuously pungent air about her which does not escape men, her gestures had something flattering, her eyes glowed with a romantic fire. Disturbed, lending but a reluctant ear. Monsieur Seguret could, nevertheless, not wholly evade the witchery which took his guests captive. A power stronger than his resolve forced him to leniency; he took a timid share in the conversation, in spite of the heavy load upon his heart. The talk turned upon politics, books, art, hunting, the war, nothing and everything—a sparkling interchange of polished phrases and sparkling reflections, of smiles and plaudits, jest and earnest. At times it seemed like a scene in a play enacted with masterly skill, or as if a light intoxication induced by champagne had exhilarated their spirits; each one was at his best and strove to outdo himself, and Clarissa held and led them all, like a fairy who upon a chariot of clouds guides a flock of pigeons.

Shortly after midnight she rose, a fleeting, complacent, capricious smile flashing across her face, and, with a rather affected bow, she left the room, the men relapsing into a sudden, strange silence. Monsieur Seguret was agitated when he conducted his guests to the door, and they left the château as silently as thieves.

The President strode up and down the entrance-hall awhile, his thoughts chasing each other like a fleeing troop of wild animals. As the echo of his footsteps struck him unpleasantly, he stepped out into the garden, and, strolling in the winding paths, he inhaled the fresh night air with a feeling of relief. As lie was leaving the avenue of yews, a streak of light fell across the path; Monsieur Seguret stepped upon the low wall encircling a small fountain and could thus look into Clarissa's room, the windows of which stood open. With difficulty he refrained from crying out in astonishment on beholding Clarissa in a loose nightdress, dancing with an expression of ecstasy and with passionate movements. Her eyes were tightly closed, as if they were sealed, her eyebrows lifted in coquettish anxiety, her shoulders rocked in a stream of inaudible tones whose tempo seemed now hurried, now excessively slow. Suddenly she seized something and held it before her,—it was a mirror; glancing into it, she recoiled with a shudder and let it fall, so that the listener could hear the clinking of the broken glass; then she went up to the window, tore her dress from her bosom, laid her hand upon her bare breast and looked straight in the direction where Monsieur Seguret was standing. He crouched down as if a gun had been aimed at him; Clarissa, however, did not see him; she fixed her gaze awhile upon the sweeping clouds and then closed the window. The President remained standing at his post some time longer and was unable to divert the current of his thoughts. Whom is she deceiving? he pondered, distressed—herself, or people in general, or God?

For the first time in many days Clarissa enjoyed a peaceful sleep once more. Yet when she laid herself in her white bed the pillows seemed to assume a purple hue and she fell into slumber as into an abyss. She dreamed of landscapes, of weird old houses, and of a sky that looked like clotted blood. She herself wandered in the silvery light, and without feeling any touch or seeing any human form, she nevertheless had a sensation of passionate kisses being pressed upon her lips, and there was a stirring in her body as of life taking shape.

This strange mood and agitation endured for days afterward. A silvery veil lay between her and the world. For fear of rending it, she spoke in low tones and walked with measured steps; beyond it, the sun had no more illuminating power than the moon. When, on the evening before the trial, she was returning from a stroll in the fields, she saw two women standing in the gateway of the château. One of them hurried forward to meet her, threw herself on her knees and seized her hands. It was Charlotte Arlabosse. "What have you done?" murmured the beautiful girl, panting. "He is innocent, by Christ's Passion, he is innocent! Have mercy, Madame, even if not upon me, at least upon his old mother!"

The crimson of the setting sun lit up her features, distorted by grief. Behind Charlotte there stood a lady of portly build, with great warts on her hands; yet her face was thin, and her countenance as motionless as that of the dead. She resembled a tree exuberant in strength, whose crown is blighted.

Clarissa made a deprecatory gesture, yet she retained a friendly and calm air. A second later, she thought she beheld herself in the kneeling figure, beheld her double; and a cruel triumph filled her heart. "Have no care, my child," said she, smiling, in a low voice; "as far as Bastide is concerned, everything is already settled." Thereupon she opened the gate and walked into the house. Charlotte arose and gazed motionless through the grating.

That night Clarissa retired early, but she awoke at four o'clock and began dressing. She selected a black velvet dress, and, as her only ornament, she fastened a diamond star in the edge of it at her bare neck. Her heart beat faster the nearer the hour approached. At eight o'clock the carriage drew up; it was a long drive to Alby, where the Court of Assizes sat. Monsieur Seguret had ridden away early in the morning, nobody knew whither.

The walls of the old town had hardly come in sight before such a mass of people was to be seen on the road that the horses were obliged to slacken their pace. They surrounded the carriage and gazed with strained attention into the open windows; women lifted up their children that they, too, might see the famous Madame Mirabel. She did not seek to escape the general curiosity; with the happy smile of a bride she sat there, her fine black brows lifted high on her forehead.

On the stroke of ten President Enjalran, who was to preside at the trial, appeared in the overcrowded hall, and after the reading of the lengthy indictment Bastide was summoned to the hearing.

Firm as if cast in bronze he stood before the judge's table. His answers were cool, terse, and clear. From beginning to end he now saw through the senseless fable, woven of stupidity and malice. By a biting sarcasm he showed his unutterable contempt of all the accusations against him, thus placing the counsel assigned to him at the last moment, with whom he stubbornly refused to confer, in no slight embarrassment.

Now and then he turned his glance toward the tall, church-like windows, and when he caught sight of a bird that had alighted on the sill and dug his yellow bill into the feathers on his breast, he lost his self-command for a moment and his lips parted in pain.

His examination lasted but a short time. It was only a matter of form, for his fate was sealed. With Bach, Colard, and the other accomplices, Monsieur d'Enjalran's task was easy; their testimony was petrified, as it were. Bousquier had died in prison. Of the others, each one sought to grab at a little remnant of innocence; they produced the impression of men crushed and wholly bereft of will-power. A sensation was created by old Bancal, who became hysterical during his examination, and then, protesting his innocence, behaved like a madman. The humpbacked Missonier grinned when the question of his presence at the murder was discussed; he had become brutalized by his long imprisonment and the repeated examinations. Little Madeleine Bancal behaved like an actress, and greeted her acquaintances and patrons in the audience by throwing them kisses. Rose Feral turned deadly pale at the sight of the bloody rags on the Judge's table, and could not utter a word. Madame Bancal remembered that Monsieur Fualdes was dragged into her house by six men, that he was made to sign a number of papers, crisscross, as she said. The day following, she had found one of these bills, made out upon stamped paper, but as it was stained with blood, had burned it. More than that she positively refused to confess, met all questions with a stolid silence, and declared finally that whatever else she knew she would confide to her confessor alone.

The witnesses testified placidly the most incredible things. Their memory was so good that they recollected the hour and minute of the merest trifles, which are forgotten from one day to the next. In night and fog they had seen and recognized people, their features, their gestures, the color of their clothes. They had heard speaking, whispering, sighing, through thick walls. A beggar by the name of Laville, who used to sleep in Missonier's stable, had heard not only the organ-grinders but also four men carrying a burden, something like men dragging a barrel. Bastide Grammont laughed repeatedly at statements which he declared to be shameless lies. When the Bancal woman began her testimony he remarked that since it came so late he had expected that the old woman would be delivered of it with still greater difficulty. To another witness he represented, in a vibrating voice, how the hand of Heaven rested heavy upon her, and reminded her of the awful death of her child. He was like a fencer whose opponent is the mist; nobody, indeed, replied to him, he stood alone, the contradictions which he believed he had demonstrated remained there, that was all. At first he was self-confident and maintained his composure, looked firmly into the witnesses' faces; then he felt as if his sense for the significance of words were leaving him, not alone for his own but for that of all the words in existence, or as if the ground were giving way under him and he were falling irresistibly from space to space into an awful, infinite, boundless void. His mind refused to work; he asked himself, horrified, whether this was still life, dared call itself life; Nature's glorious structure seemed to him ravaged like a wall rent by a storm, the speaking mouth of all these people struck him as nothing but a chasm convulsively and repellently opening and shutting, darkness invaded his spirit, he burned with a feeling of shame, he felt ashamed in the name of the nameless God, ashamed that his body was molded like that of these creatures around him. He had loved the world, had once loved the people in it; now he was ashamed of them. It pained him to think that he had ever cherished hopes, buoyed up his heart with promises, that sunshine and sky had ever been able to lure from him a joyful glance, sportive words a smile; he wished he had, like the stone by the wayside, never betrayed what he felt, so that he might not have been doomed to bear witness before his own branded, scourged, unspeakably humiliated self. Thought alone seemed offensive enough to him, how much more so what he could have said; it was nothing, less than a breath. What could he depend upon? what hope for? They had no faith, not even in his scorn, not even in his silence. And Bastide locked himself up, and looked into the dawning countenance of Death.

It was already growing dark when the King's evidence, Madame Mirabel, was finally summoned to the court-room, and the whole tired assemblage started up convulsively like a single body. She entered, and in spite of the close air of the room, she seemed to be shivering. She trembled visibly on taking the oath. Monsieur d'Enjalran urged her to testify in accordance with the truth. In a strange, uniformly dull tone, yet speaking rather hurriedly, she repeated the statement that she had made before the examining magistrate. An oppressive silence pervaded the hall, and her voice, in consequence, grew steadily lower. She knew now a multitude of details, had seen the long knife lying on the table, had seen Bancal and Colard bring in a wooden tub, and the lawyer Fualdes sitting with bowed shoulders near the lamp, writing. She had also seen the mysterious stranger with the wooden leg, and noticed that Bach and Bousquier unfolded a large white cloth. To the question why she had appeared in men's clothes, she gave no reply. And when, with fingers convulsively clasped, head bowed, her slender body bent slightly forward, writhing almost imperceptibly, as if in the clutches of an animal, yet with that blissful, sweet smile which lent her countenance an expression of subdued madness, she related with bated breath how Bastide had embraced and kissed her in the dark adjoining room, he sprang up suddenly, wrung his hands in despair and made a few hurried steps until he stood at Clarissa's side. His heavy breathing was audible to all.

The presiding officer rebuked him for his behavior, which he designated as indelicate, but Bastide cried in a firm, ringing voice: "Before God, who hears me and will judge me, I declare that it is all an awful lie. I have never as much as touched that woman or set eyes upon her."

Clarissa turned as white as chalk. It seemed to her as if she had but just now heard the clinking of the shattered mirror which she had dashed to the floor after the dance. When the prosecuting attorney asked her to continue, she remained silent; her eyes rolled and her whole body shook convulsively.

"Speak out!" exclaimed Bastide, addressing her, and indignation almost choked his voice, "speak! Your silence is even more ruinous to me than all the lies."

Clarissa lifted her eyes to him and asked with curious emotion: "Do you really not know me, Bastide?"

"No! no! no!" he burst out, and looking upward he muttered in distress: "She is demented."

Within a second's space Clarissa grew fiery red and again deathly pale. And turning toward Bastide once more, she exclaimed in a terrible tone of reproach: "Oh, murderer!"

The public applauded. Clarissa reeled, however; an usher of the court hurried to her side and caught her in his arms, a number of ladies left their places and busied themselves about her, and half an hour elapsed before she regained consciousness; but her appearance was as changed as if she had suddenly aged by twenty years. Monsieur d'Enjalran tried to continue the examination, but she answered only in incoherent words; she did not know; it was possible; she did not wish to contradict. Bastide Grammont had resumed his seat in the prisoner's dock; immeasurable distress and consternation were pictured on his countenance. His counsel bade Clarissa, since she had spoken, to continue. "I adjure you, Madame, make yourself clear," he said; "it depends upon you whether an innocent man shall be saved or shall be sent to the scaffold." Clarissa remained silent, as if she had not heard; in her breast there surged, like morning mist over the waters, a consoling and captivating image. Counselor Pinaud now turned to her with a severe exhortation; she was not to think she could make her assertions at will and suppress what she wished. The prosecuting attorney spoke up for her, saying that the cause of her silence was known; she herself had asserted that she entertained a conviction the grounds of which she could not state; it should suffice that she had uttered what was of the greatest importance; nay, he declared, moreover, that any further urging would be improper. He had not concluded his speech when Clarissa interrupted him; raising her right arm she said in solemn protest: "I have taken no oath."

Bastide Grammont looked up. Shaking off his stupor, he raised himself slowly and began in a voice all the more affecting by its calmness: "Prison walls do not speak. And yet the time will come when they will find a voice and will proclaim the secret means which have been employed to force all these wretches to make lies a shameful bulwark of their lives. Fualdes was not my enemy, he was only my creditor. If covetousness had misled a man otherwise decent and moderate, if it had armed his hand, I would never, for all that, have raised it against a defenseless old man. If you want a sacrifice, take me; I am ready, but do not mingle my lot with that of this brood. My family, who have always dwelt in the country, and have followed the customs and simple ways of rural life, are disgraced. My mother weeps and is crushed. Judge whether I, who am plunged in this sea of misfortune, can still cherish a love of life. I loved freedom once, I loved animals, the water, the sky, the air, and the fruits of the trees; but now I am dishonored, and if there were a future before me it would be sullied with shame, and the time would have an ill taste. Is it a court of justice before which I have been summoned? No, it is a hunt, the judge has become a hunter and prepares the innocent one to be a tidbit for the rabble. I ask no longer for justice, it is too late to mete out justice to me, too late, were the crown of France itself to be offered to me. I surrender myself to you to destroy me, your conscience will be loaded with that burden. One guilty man makes many, and your children's children will for this flood the living world with disgrace."

A paralyzed silence succeeded these words. But suddenly there burst forth an indescribable tumult. The public and the jurors arose and clenched their fists at Bastide Grammont, screamed and howled in wild confusion, Monsieur d'Enjalran's exhortation dying away unheard. And just as suddenly a deathly silence ensued. A faint, long-drawn cry which arose in the din, and now continued its plaintive note, petrified the faces of the listeners. All eyes tourned toward Clarissa. She felt the glances showering down upon her like the beams in a falling building.

Her heart was aflame with a desire for expiation ...

The speech of the public prosecutor gathered together once more the weapons of hatred which Rumor had forged against its victims; with cunning skill, he painted the night of the murder in such colors that the horror of it seemed to live for the first time, Bastide's advocate, on the other hand, contented himself with high-sounding phrases; he waxed warm, his listeners remained cold. While he was speaking there was a shoving and pushing in the rear of the hall; some of the ladies shrieked, a fair-sized dog ran through an opening in the bar, looked around him with glistening eyes, and, giving a short bark, crouched at Bastide's feet. Deeply moved, he laid his hand on the animal's neck, and motioned the usher, who wanted to remove it, back with a commanding gesture.

When the court retired for consultation, no one dared speak above a whisper. A woman sobbed and she was told to be quiet; it was the Benoit girl, Colard's sweetheart. She had wound her arms about the poor wretch's shoulders and her tear-stained face expressed but one desire—to share his fate. A relative of Bastide approached him in order to speak to him; Bastide shook his head and did not even look at the man. A sort of drowsiness had settled on his countenance—at any rate, words no longer carried any weight in his ears. Yet it happened that he lifted his eyes once more and after coursing through illimitable space they met those of Clarissa. Now the strange woman did not strike him as so strange. He heard, again the sound of her voice when she called him murderer; was it not rather a cry for help than an accusation? and that beseeching look, as if invisible hands were clutching at her throat? and that most delicate form so singularly free from indications of her age, quivering like a young birch in autumn?

Two lonely shipwrecked beings are driven by the currents of the ocean to the same spot, coming from opposite ends of the earth, unable to abandon the plank upon which their life depends, unable even to grasp each other's hands simply driven by the gradually dying wind to unknown depths. There was something weird in their mutual feeling of compassion. Yet Bastide's pained and gloomy astonishment gave way to the dreamy intoxication of fatigue, and the watchful eyes of his dog appeared to him like two reddish stars between black tree-tops. He heard the sentence of death when the court returned; he had risen, and listened to the words of the presiding judge; it sounded like the splashing of raindrops on withered leaves. He heard himself say something, but what it was he hardly knew. He saw many faces turned toward him in the dim light, and they gave him the impression of worm-eaten and decaying apples.

The verdict concerning the other accused persons was not to be announced until the following day. The crowds in the hall, in the entrances, and on the street, dispersed slowly. When Clarissa passed through the corridor every one stepped timidly aside.

She had learned that Bastide was not to be taken back to Rodez, but was to remain in the prison at Alby. She thereupon dismissed the carriage that was waiting for her, betook herself to an inn near by, where she asked for a room, and wrote a letter to her father—a few feverishly agitated sentences: "I know no longer what is truth and what is falsehood; Bastide is innocent, and I have destroyed him, though my desire was to help him; Yes and No are in my breast like two extinguished flames; if I were to return whence I came I should suffer a continual death; for that reason and because people live as they do, I go where I must." It was already past midnight when she asked to speak to the host. She requested him to send the letter in the morning to Château Perrié by a reliable messenger; she then asked the startled man to sell her a small basket of fresh fruit. The host expressed a polite regret that he had nothing more in his storeroom. Passionately urgent, she offered him ten, twentyfold its value and threw a gold piece on the table. "It is for a dying person," she said, "everything depends upon it." The man gazed anxiously at the pallid, gleaming countenance of the distinguished looking woman and pondered, declaring finally that he would rouse his neighbor, and bidding her wait. Left alone, she knelt down by the bedside, buried her face in the pillows and wept. After half an hour the host returned, carrying a basket full of pears, grapes, pomegranates, and peaches. Shaking his head, he followed her with his eyes as she hastened away, and held the sealed letter, which he was to forward, inquisitively up to the light.

The streets were desolate and bathed in shadowy moonlight. The windows of the little houses were blinking drowsily; under a gateway stood the night-watchman with a halberd and mumbled like a drunken man. In front of the low prison building there was an open space; Clarissa seated herself on a stone bench, and, as there was a pump near by and she felt thirsty, drank her fill. The softly swelling outlines of the hills melted almost imperceptibly into the sky, and behind a depression in the landscape a fire-light was glowing; she seemed to hear, too, on listening intently, the ringing of bells. The whole world was not asleep, then, and she could link her anxious heart to human concerns once more. After a time she rose, stepped over to the building, set the basket of fruit on the ground, and knocked with the knocker at the gate. It was a long while before the door-keeper appeared and gruffly demanded what she wanted. "I must speak to Bastide Grammont," she declared. The man made a face as if a demented person had waylaid him, growled in a threatening tone and was about to bang the door in her face. Clarissa clutched his arm with one hand, and tore the diamond brooch from her breast with the other. "There, there, there!" she stammered. The old man raised his lantern and examined the sparkling jeweled ornament on all sides. Clarissa misinterpreted his grinning, anxious joy, thought he was not satisfied, and gave him her purse into the bargain, "What is in the basket?" he inquired respectfully but suspiciously. She showed him what it contained. He contented himself with that, thought she was most likely the mistress of the condemned man, and, upon locking the door, walked on in front of her. They descended a few steps, then crossed a narrow passage. "How long do you wish to stay inside?" asked the keeper, when they had reached an iron door. Clarissa drew a deep breath and replied in a whisper that she would give three knocks on the door. The old man nodded, said he would wait at the head of the stairs, opened the door cautiously, handed the woman his lantern and locked the door behind her.

Inside Clarissa clung to the wall to give her riotous pulses time to subside. The room seemed moderately large and not altogether uninhabitable. Bastide lay on a pallet along the opposite wall, asleep and fully dressed. "What a stillness!" thought Clarissa shuddering, and stole softly to the bedside of the sleeping man. What quiet in that countenance, too, what a beautiful slumber, thought she, and her lips parted in mute sorrow. She placed the lantern on the floor where its light would strike his face, then she knelt down and listened to his steady breathing. Bastide's mouth was firmly closed, his eyelids were motionless, a sign of dreamlessness; his long beard encircled cheeks and chin like brown brushwood, his head was thrown slightly backward, and his hair shone with a moist gleam. Gradually the peace of his countenance passed into Clarissa too; all words, all signs which she had brought with her vanished, she determined to do nothing more than place her gift by his bed and depart. Accordingly she emptied the basket, and started and paused every time she heard but a grain of sand crunch under her feet. When she had laid out all the fruit and passed her hand tenderly over each, she grew more and more peaceful and calm; she felt herself so strangely bound to death that she dismissed the thought of leaving this room with a feeling akin to fear, and prepared to do what possessed her so strongly, with a composed assurance. A desire to kiss him arose within her, and she actually bent down toward him, but a commanding awe arrested her, more even than the fear that he might awake. Her body twisted and turned, she embraced him in spirit and felt as if she were freed from the earth, like a pearl dropped from a ring. She then rose quietly, walked softly to the other side of the room, stretched herself on the floor, took a small penknife and opened the veins in both wrists by deep cuts. Within a quarter of an hour she sighed twice, and the hand of Death sought in vain to wipe the enraptured smile from her pallid lips.

Bastide still slept on, that abysmal sleep where total oblivion chains and numbs body and spirit. Then he began to dream. He found himself in a spacious, secluded chamber, the centre of which was occupied by a richly decked table. Many people were seated around it; they were carousing and having a merry time. Suddenly all eyes were turned to the middle of the table, where a vessel of opaque blue glass, which had not been there before, now stood. What was in the glass receptacle? what could it signify? who brought it? was asked in muffled tones. Thereupon an uncanny silence ensued; all gazed now at the blue vessel, now, with sullen suspicion, at each other. All at once, the jovial revelers of a few moments ago arose and one accused the other of having placed the covered dish on the table. A violent clamor now arose, some drew their poniards, others swung chairs about, and meanwhile a slim, nude girl's figure was seen to emerge, like white smoke, from the vessel on the table. Bastide knew the face, it was that of the false witness Clarissa; with snake-like glistening eyes she gazed at him, always only at him. All the men followed her glance and they hurled themselves upon him. "You must die! You must die!" resounded from hoarse throats, but while they were still shouting their voices died away, the shadowy arms of the false witness stretched themselves out and divided one of the walls, exposing to view a blooming garden, in the centre of which stood a scaffold hung with branches laden with ripe fruit. Bastide was a boy once more; slowly he strode out, Clarissa's hands waved above him and plucked the fruit, and his fear of death was dulled by their intoxicating perfume, which, like a cloud, filled the entire hall, nay, the entire universe.

Here he awoke. His first drowsy glance fell upon the flickering light of the lantern, the second upon a huge pear, which, yellow as a rising moon, lay at his bedside. In dazed, joyous astonishment he grasped it, but on raising it to his lips noticed that it was stained with blood. He was startled, thought he was still dreaming. Beyond the windows the gray light of dawn was already spreading. Now he caught sight of the other fruit, gorgeous and abundant, as if paradise had been pillaged. But all was stained with blood ... A little rivulet of blood, divided into two streams, trickled over from the corner of the wall.

And Bastide saw ...

He tried to rise, but his unfinished sleep still paralyzed his body.

Bitter and wild grief wrung his breast. He longed no more for the day which awoke so drearily outside; weary of his own heart-beats and perfectly sure of what had happened and must happen, he yearned for the final end. He desired no special knowledge of the consummated fate of the being on the other side of the cell, who, dominated by mysterious spirits, had trust herself into his path—no knowledge of men and what they built or destroyed. Man was an abomination to him.

And yet when his glance fell upon the splendid fruit once more, he felt the woe of all creation; he wished at least to close the eyes of the giver. But just then the keeper, grown suspicious, turned the key in the lock.

[BERNHARD KELLERMANN]

---

[GOD'S BELOVED (1911)]

TRANSLATED BY KATHARINE ROYCE

Before dawn the lawyer rose from his bed, and at that very moment a thousand little birds, who lived in his room, began to twitter and trill. "Awake so early, little ones!" whispered the lawyer. He never spoke aloud.

"Well, good morning! Hush! Hush!"

And the thousand little birds chirped in answer and then obediently stopped singing.

The lawyer wrapped a thick woolen shawl around his shoulders, for he was always very cold, slipped his feet into his wadded boots, drew on his gloves, put his fur cap on his bald head and went out of the house.

It was still night and everything looked unreal and magical. Now and then the grass would bow down with a sudden jerk, as people do in their sleep, if they dream that they are falling, and then for a moment the lawyer would feel a warm breath, which vanished as suddenly as it came. A confused mass of gray and black clouds swept rapidly across the sky and at the zenith three golden stars were visible in a line, so that they looked like a flying spear darting through the clouds. The lawyer gazed thoughtfully for some moments at the flying spear while his mind struggled with some dim idea. Then he hurried with short shuffling steps as quietly as possible along the sandy paths of the asylum gardens.

"Hush, keep still!" he whispered, as he passed some bushes in which something was stirring.

At the edge of the kitchen-garden there was an old well with a pump which was no longer used, and here the lawyer began his task. He put the watering-pot under the spout and began to pump, trying to make no noise. As there was but little water in the well and the lawyer pumped slowly and cautiously, it took him half an hour to fill the pot. Then, panting and coughing, the little man carried it to the garden beds, and began to water the flowers, smiling happily and speaking lovingly to them meanwhile. "Don't be in such a hurry, little ones," he whispered, "my dear children, how you drink! Good morning!"

But just then began a great fluttering and stirring in an elder bush. Hundreds of little birds suddenly thrust their heads out between the leaves and chirped to the lawyer.

He made a startled gesture. "For heaven's sake, be quiet!" said he. "You are always trying to be the first! Every morning. Hush!" And immediately silence reigned in the elder bush.

The lawyer went quietly from bed to bed and watered his flowers. He stopped frequently to draw a deep breath and gazed up at the sky, where the motionless golden spear still seemed to be darting through the clouds. He pondered for some time over that and shook his head. From the "violent ward" came a longdrawn wailing, which at regular intervals was merged in pitiful weeping. But the lawyer paid no attention to these sounds. He only heard the birds fluttering their wings and whetting their beaks in the bushes.

A night nurse passed by, shivering.

"Already at work, so early?" said she, turning her pale face toward him.

The lawyer put down his watering-pot, bowed and took off his cap. "One must keep at it," he whispered, "the little ones will not wait."

Then he began with the tenderest care to water the beds beside the principal buildings. He paused by the open windows of the kitchen, which were very low, and examined the window-sills. He shook his head and seemed much grieved and disappointed. Yes, they had once more forgotten to put out the bread crumbs for his birds! How could any one rely upon such maids?

He hunted up a couple of little pebbles on the path and threw them, one at a time, into the dark kitchen, laughing softly to himself. They really must learn to be more careful. O, he would soon teach them to put the bread crumbs regularly on the window-sill. There was plenty of gravel on the path. And what if they had already complained so often!

The watering-pot was empty and in the gray light of dawn the lawyer walked back to the well.

Ever since his wife's death the poor man had been a friend of birds and flowers. When she was dying, she had said, with her last breath, "The flowers must always be watered and the birds must always be fed." Those had been her last words and the lawyer heard them ringing in his ears day and night. He heard them in every breeze, in every conversation, even when all was silent they were wafted to him. In his wife's room there had stood a dark, heavy clothes press (which, oddly enough, he could still remember), and this large, dark object also repeated his wife's last words, although it made no sound whatever. The lawyer continued to live in seclusion and solitude, and watered the flowers in the window-boxes and fed and watered the birds in the cages. The flowers withered and the birds died, one by one. The lawyer took no notice of his loss. Indeed it seemed to him as if the birds were hopping and twittering gaily in their cages. They hatched their young and kept on increasing. And the lawyer took a childlike pleasure in this increase. Finally there were hundreds, thousands, whose chirping he heard from morning till night. They lived in the walls, on the ceiling, everywhere. And the good man could not understand why others neither saw nor heard them.

As the sun rose, the lawyer had already finished a good part of his day's work and turned back to the ward, which looked like a country cottage standing in a pretty garden.

In the doorway, leaning against the doorpost, Michael Petroff, a former officer in the Russian army, stood smiling, and greeted him with a bright, cheerful "Good morning, my friend!"

The lawyer in his woolen shawl, scarf and wadded boots, bowed and touched his cap.

"Good morning, Captain!"

They bowed several times, for they respected each other highly, and shook hands only after the completion of this ceremony.

"Did you sleep well, Herr Advokat?" asked Michael Petroff, bending forward a little and smiling pleasantly.

"Did I sleep well? Yes, thank you."

"I too passed an excellent night," Michael Petroff continued with a bright happy laugh. "Really excellent. I had a dream—," he added, smiling and gazing out into the garden with his right eye half closed. "Yes, indeed!—Now do come into my office, my friend. I have news. After you!" He laid his hand on the little lawyer's shoulder and with a slight bow allowed him to pass in first.

Captain Michael Petroff was a tall slender man with cheerful steel-blue eyes and a small blond mustache, which like his soft, blond, parted hair, was beginning to turn white. He was dressed with scrupulous neatness and was carefully shaved. His chin was round and exquisitely formed, though a trifle weak, the modeling of his mouth was unusually fine and delicate, like that of a mere boy.

"Please be seated," said Michael Petroff, while with a gesture he invited the lawyer to sit on the sofa.

"But perhaps I am intruding?" whispered the lawyer, and remained standing.

"No, indeed! How could you—?" And Michael Petroff led the lawyer over to the sofa. The little man sat down timidly, looking gratefully up at his host. "You are so very busy—I know—," said he, and nodded at the writing table, which was heaped with documents, newspapers, and manuscripts.

"I have plenty to do," added Michael Petroff, with a curious smile on his pretty boyish lips. "But one has always time for one's friends. Here, do listen! I have just outlined a petition to the Hessian government—," Michael Petroff smiled and balanced a sheet of paper on his hand—"The Hessian government is to be urgently requested, most—urgently—requested, to reconsider the verdict in the case of a teacher!"

Michael Petroff glanced at his guest while four deep lines suddenly appeared on his forehead. "This teacher," he went on, "was sentenced to four years' imprisonment, only think—four years. He had ten mouths to feed and he embezzled some funds. Voilà tout! What do you think of that! Ha, ha! That is the way of the world, you see! In my petition I demand not merely that the sentence should be revoked, but also that officers' salaries should be increased. I demand it—I, Captain Michael Petroff, and I shall also appear in the Non-Partisan. You will see, my friend!" Michael Petroff cast a fearless, triumphant glance at the little baldheaded lawyer, who listened and nodded, although he did not quite understand what the Captain meant.

"You do a great deal of good!" he whispered, nodding, while a childish smile flitted over his sad, pale little face. And after a moment's reflection he added, "You are a good man. You surely are!"

Michael Petroff shook his head. "I do my duty!" he declared earnestly. And laying his hand on his heart while his clear steel-blue eyes flashed, he added: "My sacred duty!"

Captain Michael Petroff, former officer in a St. Petersburg regiment, considered it his life work to plead for justice in this world. He called himself "The Tribunal of right and justice." He subscribed for two large daily papers, and searched them every day for cases in which, according to his judgment, injustice had been done to some one. And every day Michael Petroff found cases. Cases and nothing but cases. These cases he cut out, arranged them in chronological order and immediately went to work on them.

He often sat up late in his office, as he called his room, or in his editorial sanctum, as he sometimes designated it in an undertone when speaking to his confidential friend. There he would sit and write, in a hand as neat as copperplate, his memorials, protests, petitions, which he delivered every day at six o'clock to the head physician. Dr. März. who had undertaken to forward them regularly. Dr. März was glad to receive these manuscripts which he laid in a separate pigeonhole, in order to use them from time to time as material for his work on Graphomania.

The little time that this activity left him, Michael Petroff employed in editing his newspaper. And it was because of this paper that he sometimes secretly referred to his room as "his editorial sanctum." This newspaper did not appear regularly, but only when it happened to be ready. It usually appeared once a year, but sometimes twice, if his nervous condition urged him to greater haste.

Michael Petroff's paper was a fairly accurate representation of an ordinary daily paper, from the heading, in which the conditions of subscription were stated, as well as the name of the city in which the paper appeared—the city was arbitrarily chosen by Michael Petroff—to the fictitious names of the publisher and editor. Like any other paper, it contained advertisements, which Michael Petroff simply cut out of other papers, a leading article, and contributions. The whole editorial part, however, was engaged—with the exception of a few articles which were slipped in as a disguise—with the question: Is the confinement of Michael Petroff, Captain in the Russian army, justified? The titles of the separate articles varied from year to year, although the ideas expressed in them were similar. The Russian government's Ultimatum!—A letter from the Czar to the head physician, Dr. März! And every year the paper appeared under a different name. Michael Petroff called it The Eye of the World, The Conscience of Europe, The Bayonet.

Michael Petroff made no secret of his petitions, but he spoke of his newspaper only to his confidant, the lawyer. And although he was naturally friendly and very kind-hearted, possibly the reason he was so extremely fond of the lawyer was that he could talk to him about his paper.

"Just a moment, my friend," said he. "There is such news! I want to tell you the very latest. Please stay."

He went to the door and cleared his throat and listened. Then he stepped out into the corridor, coughed, looked up and down and came back satisfied. He drew out the editorial drawer, the key of which he wore around his neck, and with a happy laugh began: "The very latest! Listen! This cannot fail to have its effect. Just hear the headline: Doctor März arrested!"

"Dr. März arrested?" whispered the lawyer anxiously, looking up at Petroff in open-mouthed astonishment.

Michael Petroff laughed.

"Arrested? No, of course not. I go on to explain in the article that Dr. März is going to be arrested, and that the only way for him to escape arrest is to give Michael Petroff his discharge immediately."

The lawyer nodded. "I see," said he, smiling because he saw Petroff looking so cheerful. And yet he was not thinking anything about Petroff's article, but only that he must give the birds their water. He grew restless and started to rise.

"Just a moment, please!" said Michael Petroff eagerly. "Yes, it is really an excellent idea," he continued rapidly, while his cheeks flushed with joy. "In my article I emphasize the fact that Dr. März is an honorable man and a highly prized and respected physician, so that his conduct in this particular case causes widespread astonishment. I should like to ask you, my friend, what he will do when he reads this article? Ha, ha, ha! They will find out something, my dear fellow. I am not going to be unkind to him, not in the least. Well, in fact, in fact, I shall say, my dear Doctor, ha, ha! But just look at this too, in the Non-Partisan. Only look at this title, will you please!"

"Which one—?"

"Why, this one!"

"An interrogation point?"

"Yes! Ha, ha—Simply an interrogation point! And beneath that: Where is Michael Petroff? An appeal to the public! But look at this, in the little Feuilleton: Michael Petroff, a Captain in the Russian army, has just completed his six-volume work on Shooting Stars. All the scientific journals are praising the clearness and acumen of this epoch-making work. Ha, ha, ha, didn't I tell you that there was news, my friend?"

The lawyer crouched in the sofa corner and made such an effort to think, that he held his breath.

"I don't understand—?" he whispered and slowly shook his head.

"What don't you understand?"

"That he should keep you in confinement."

Michael Petroff glanced at the lawyer in surprise. Then he leaned forward and whispered: "But I have already told you that my relations pay him."

"They pay him?"

"Yes, of course!" answered Michael Petroff cheerfully. "Enormous sums. Millions!"

"Oh!" The lawyer began to understand now.

"Yes, you see, that is how it is in the world!" said Michael Petroff, and snapped his fingers.

But the lawyer did not wholly comprehend yet.

"I do not understand," he began again. "Dr. März is so kindhearted. I live here, I have my home and my food and I pay nothing. He has never asked me for any money.—I have no money, you know," he ended anxiously in a still lower tone.

Michael Petroff laid his hand pompously but protectingly on his friend's shoulder. "You work in the garden," said he, "you water the flowers. How could he have the face to expect you to pay money? That is perfectly simple. But perhaps you too have relations outside who pay for you?"

"Relations?"

"Yes. Outside—there!" A bitter smile curved Michael Petroff's beautiful boyish mouth. Should he tell this little old man in the woolen shawl where he really was? Should he perhaps explain to this little old man with the grayish wrinkled face, that there was an "outside"—where one could even get into a railway train or wash one's hands before sitting down to table? Suddenly he stood up on his tiptoes and instantly lost all conception of his own actual body; he seemed to himself like a gigantic tower rising up to the clouds, and looking down on the little baldheaded man, who had only two thin tufts of gray hair above his ears. He was seized with the desire to make the lawyer cry.

But suddenly he bowed slightly to his friend and said: "Please forgive Michael Petroff!" He walked across the room, then turned to his guest and said in precisely his usual tone: "Will the fair weather last today?"

"I think so—I am not sure," answered the lawyer doubtfully.

"Well, we will play cricket this afternoon. Are you cold?"

"Yes," whispered the lawyer and drew his scarf closer.

Michael Petroff gazed at him with his head on one side. "I cannot understand how you can be cold today." And he laughed gaily. "Come," said he, "let us—" he paused, for he did not know what he wanted to do—"Let us—Oh yes, let us go and see Friend Engelhardt. Come!—The Doctor was with him last night," he ended mysteriously.

"The Doctor?"

"Yes. Our friend is ill. Hm, hm." Michael Petroff carefully locked up the manuscript of his newspaper, put on a big gray English traveling cap, looked in the glass, and they left the room together. Michael Petroff laughed a soft guttural laugh. At Engelhardt's door they paused to listen, and then knocked.—

There were two great days in the year for Michael Petroff.

One was his birthday, the sixteenth of May. Michael Petroff never forgot it. On May sixteenth he would walk about with an important air, and looking about him he would say to every one he met: "This is my birthday. I thank you for your good wishes!" The attendant always came before dinner and asked him to come to Dr. März's room to receive his congratulations.

Then Michael Petroff would go, with quick, light steps to Dr. März's parlor, shake hands with him and thank him for the wonderful bouquet of white roses that Dr. März gave him.

Michael never suspected where the bunch of white roses came from. He did not know that, on his birthday, his wife and daughter stood behind the portiere of the parlor, nor that they made the long journey every year to see him. The first few years the Captain's wife had had golden hair, but it had gradually turned gray, and now it was white, although she was still quite a young woman. Formerly she used to come alone, but for three years past she had always been accompanied by a young lady, who wept bitterly when she arrived and when she went away. This young lady had but one ear and concealed the disfigurement by the way in which she dressed her hair. Michael Petroff had cut off her other ear when she was only a child, during the first outbreak of his malady.

Michael Petroff chatted and laughed pleasantly with the head physician and carried the roses to his friend, the lawyer.

"Here are some flowers for you. I do not want them!"

The lawyer's eyes opened wide with delight, and he took the roses carefully as if they were fragile.

Michael Petroff's second great day was that on which his newspaper appeared.

The paper was always printed in the town. Michael Petroff had induced the porter of the Sanatorium to undertake take this commission. The porter delivered the manuscript to the printer and brought back the twenty-five printed copies to Michael Petroff. And then for a few days he was in a state of the greatest excitement. He sent the paper to the doctors, especially to Dr. März, and waited in suspense to see what effect it would have. At such times he could not work, but wandered about the house and garden all day. If he met a doctor, he would stop and cast a triumphant glance at him, smiling as if secure of victory.

But a few days later he would question the doctors: "May I ask whether you have received a newspaper?"

"A newspaper?"

"Yes! I received it myself. The Bayonet?"

"Oh yes, I remember now. I will take a look at it."

"Yes, please do. There may be some things in it that will interest you. Ha, ha, ha!" And he laid his hand on the Doctor's shoulder and gazed meaningly at him.

Finally he asked the head physician himself.

"Yes, yes," answered he, "certainly I read that paper, my dear Captain. A curious thing. I made inquiries immediately, but the editors were not to be found, in spite of all my pains. They do not seem to be in existence. Or else they are gone. I scarcely know what to think of the paper, my dear Captain."

Then for a few days Michael Petroff would wander disconsolately about, and his depression might even bring on melancholia or frenzy. But after a few days he would always regain his cheerful spirits. He would greet his friends, and apologize for his disagreeable behavior. And immediately he would begin to plan out another newspaper. This time it must surely be a success. Take care. Dr. März!

Such was Michael Petroff, Captain in the Russian army.

Friend Engelhardt, whom Michael Petroff and the lawyer were going to visit, was a gray-haired man about fifty years old, who had been only a year in Dr. März's sanatorium. He was a shoemaker by trade and had sat all his life, year in, year out, under his glass globe of water,[A] tapping away on leather. He was unmarried, lived much alone and since he was industrious and economical, he had laid up a comfortable little property. And there he sat under his glass globe and nothing whatever happened. But gradually the globe began to look more and more strange to him. It flashed upon him and dazzled him, so that he sometimes felt for a moment a certain unacknowledged fear of it. It seemed to grow bigger and bigger, until at last the time came when Engelhardt's hair stood on end with horror—

[Footnote A: German shoemakers used a glass globe full of water placed in front of their lamp, to concentrate the light upon their work.]

Hera

And thenceforth he suffered from the strange and terrible delusion that he was the centre of the universe and that it was his task to keep the whole world in equilibrium. The myriad forces of all creation were united in him and he felt with agonizing constancy, how the suns and the planets were circling about him, and how everything was rushing and whirling through space. If a chain of skaters revolves around one man who is in the middle, that man will feel the extraordinary force with which the two rushing wings whirl around him, and he will be obliged to exert all his strength to maintain his position. Engelhardt felt precisely so and since his efforts were unremitting, his delusion exhausted him to such an extent, that in one year he had aged as if in ten. Even if—so he said—the heavenly bodies had been so marvelously ordained by the almighty Creator, that through all eternity they revolved in their foreordained circles and spirals (as he said), yet he suffered beyond endurance from the slightest disturbance in outer space. During the winter he had been unable to sleep for two weeks, because a swiftly moving star was pulling at him. Curiously enough, at this very time a comet appeared which astonished all the astronomers. Just then Schwindt, an attendant, had died under peculiar circumstances and Engelhardt—as he himself said—had drunk in his soul, from which he had gained fresh strength, sufficient to last him throughout the spring and summer. But now again his task was wearing him out more every day and his powers were failing rapidly. The shooting stars and the swarms of meteors dragged at him, until he became dizzy, and especially the moon exerted at this period a terrible power over him. It sucked in his strength, and Engelhardt imagined that at any moment the ground might give way beneath him and he might sink into the depths and the whole universe might collapse above him.

When Michael Petroff and the little lawyer entered Engelhardt's room, after vainly knocking at the door for some time, they found him in bed, with his thin hairy hands lying helplessly on the coverlet. He was gazing directly upward, and indeed his eyes were rolled up so far that the whites showed, and he seemed to be looking fixedly at some special point in the ceiling. His face was of a somewhat yellowish tone and gave the impression of being made of porcelain, the skin was so smooth and the bones were so prominent. His forehead was uncommonly large in proportion to his small face and mouth, which was drawn together as if ready to whistle and was surrounded by many little lines centering at the lips. The shoemaker had wasted away so during the year that the collar of his bright colored shirt stood out a finger's breadth from his thin neck.

"Good morning!" said Michael Petroff gently and cheerfully. "Here are some friends to see you!" The lawyer remained timidly standing in the doorway.

Engelhardt did not answer. A shudder passed over him, and his thin hairy hands twitched from time to time, as if he were receiving an electric shock of varying strength.

Michael Petroff smiled and came toward him. "How are you, my dear friend?" said he softly and sympathetically, bending over Engelhardt. "Did the Doctor come to see you last night?"

Engelhardt rolled his head from side to side on the pillow. He was exhausted by a sleepless night and by the effects of the hypnotics that the Doctor had given him.

"Very ill!" answered he in a lifeless tone.

"Very ill?" Michael Petroff raised his eyebrows anxiously. He turned to the little lawyer, who still stood at the door. "Our poor friend does not feel well!" said he.

"Are you in pain?" Michael Petroff bent once more over the sick man and held his ear near Engelhardt's mouth.

"Yes," answered the sick man in a dull and lifeless tone, and murmured something in Petroff's ear. It sounded as if he were praying.

Michael Petroff straightened up again and glanced at the little lawyer. "He says that he has come to the end of his strength, our poor friend. He needs a new soul—like that time in the winter, when the attendant died, don't you remember?" And he shouted into the ear of the sufferer, unnecessarily loud: "I will speak with the Doctor, Friend Engelhardt. This is the Doctor's business. In one way or another he will get you a soul!"

But the little lawyer suddenly wrapped himself closer in his shawl. He was as cold as ice. Ordinarily very few impressions remained in his memory, but he still remembered clearly the death of the attendant Schwindt—and how Michael Petroff had come to his room and whispered mysteriously in his ear: "The attendant is dead. Engelhardt has taken his soul, don't you see!" So now he was horrified at the thought that Engelhardt might perhaps demand his soul, and there was nothing that he feared more than death.

Death dwelt in his confused sick brain as a figure that was invisible all but the hands. Suddenly, Oh so suddenly, it would stand near him, close by his side. And a horrible chill would stream forth from the dread form, and all the flowers, white with frost, would die, and the millions of swift little birds would fall frozen through the air, and he himself would be changed into a little heap of snow.

The lawyer drew in his head, so that his thin gray beard pushed out above his scarf, and gazed timidly at Michael Petroff with his little mouse-like eyes and shivered.

Michael Petroff looked at him in astonishment. "What is the matter, my dear fellow?" he drawled, smilingly. "Are you afraid! Why should you be, I wonder? I shall go at once to Dr. März and explain to him what Engelhardt requires. From what I know of him, he will not delay, and so everything will be attended to. I would gladly place my own soul at your disposal. Friend Engelhardt, but I still need it myself—-I have a mission to fulfil, you know—I am Napoleon, and I fight a battle every day, I am—" But here he paused suddenly and listened.

"The Doctor is coming! Don't you hear him?" he whispered. "He will be here immediately—"

Dr. März had come into the ward. He could be heard speaking with some one in the corridor, and the three men in the shoemaker's room listened. The Doctor's voice was the only one which had the power to change the current of their thoughts and to give them hopes, great hopes, indefinite though they were. It affected them somewhat as a voice affects wanderers, who believe that they are lost in a solitary wilderness. And yet Dr. März did not talk much, but he had become a master of the art of listening, and would pay attention for hours every day to the complaints, the lamentations, and the hundreds of requests of his patients. But a few words from him had the power to encourage, to comfort, to cheer and to influence the mood of his patients for the whole day.

Suddenly the lawyer ceased to shiver, Michael Petroff began to laugh happily, and Engelhardt withdrew his gaze from the point in the ceiling and looked toward the half open door. He gazed so intently that his small bright eyes seemed to squint.

"Listen! The Rajah is talking with him!" said Michael Petroff, holding up his finger for silence.

"Nobody is watching you, my dear friend," said the Doctor's quiet voice.

And a deep and almost gentler voice replied: "I heard the watchman walking back and forth before my door all night, Sir. And I also heard the drum when the watch was relieved."

"My friend," answered the Doctor, "You must have been dreaming."

"No," continued the man whom Michael Petroff had called the "Rajah," "I excuse you, Sir, because I know that you are only doing your duty. But your tact ought to prevent you from carrying out your precautions in such an obvious way. I have given you my word of honor not to make any attempt to escape. I want you to tell that to the English government, by whose authority you are keeping me here in confinement. Neither have I any weapons concealed in my room. I want you to search it."

"I know that perfectly well, my friend!"

"All the same, I want you to search."

And the "Rajah" would not be satisfied until the Doctor had promised that his room should be searched immediately.

During this conversation Dr. März had appeared in the doorway, with the "Rajah" just behind him. Dr. März was a small man, dressed in a light-gray suit, with a ruddy beardless face and a quick, searching but gentle eye, while the "Rajah" stood behind him, tall and dark, and almost filling up the doorway. The "Rajah" had a long black beard and a fearless, dark brown face, in which the whites of his eyes showed strikingly.

The "Rajah" was simply a teacher, who had taught for a few years in India in a German school. A protracted fever had caused an incipient delusion, which, after his return to his native land, took entire possession of him. He imagined himself to be an Indian prince, who had been exiled by the English government.

He was extremely silent and reserved, and never talked with the other patients. His bearing expressed an inscrutable calm and an apparently quite natural pride. For days together he would favor no one with a glance. He would walk up and down the garden, very slowly, gazing scornfully at the flowers and trees, and every evening, if the weather permitted, he would sit apart on a bench and gaze at the sinking sun, turning his dark face toward it until it disappeared. And as he gazed at the setting sun, an obscure, wistful sorrow glowed in his dark eyes. For he saw palm trees, that seemed to melt into the sun, so that only their tops showed, edged with flame, while their trunks were invisible—and elephants, stepping proudly, with their little brown mahouts upon their necks—and glittering golden temples, and crowds of dark, half naked natives, trotting along with branches in their hands, and uttering shrill cries—and then too, he saw himself, going on board the steamer that was to carry him into exile, while the dark people threw themselves down on the quay and wept. The "Rajah's" soul was filled with deep and bitter sorrow, and he rose and held his broad shoulders more erect, as if he were bearing a heavy burden. And he bore it! The "Rajah" never complained, never showed despondency, nor did he ever show any sign of what was taking place within him.

Even in his own room he behaved tranquilly. Very rarely was he heard to speak, and only once in a while—in his sleep—would he utter a long-drawn singing cry, such as street venders use in the Orient.

As Dr. März entered the room, the little baldheaded lawyer bowed, with his cap in his hand, and stood modestly against the wall. His gratitude knew no bounds, because the Doctor allowed him to live quietly and peacefully among his flowers and birds, without ever asking him to pay anything. So today he did not even venture to ask Dr. März for crumbs for the birds nor to complain of the negligence of the maids in the kitchen, although he had fully determined to do so.

But the lawyer could not look at the "Rajah" who stood dark and unapproachable in the passageway, without feeling timid and slightly anxious. To express his respect, he bowed low to the "Rajah," and since the latter did not notice him, he bowed once more, moving his lips in a whisper. But the "Rajah" did not vouchsafe him a glance. For a moment the lawyer thought of approaching and kissing the "Rajah's" hand. For he recalled a circumstance that had been sharply impressed upon his memory: One evening he had met the "Rajah" in the corridor and had bowed to him. They had been quite alone. The "Rajah" had come toward him and had said in a deep, mysterious voice, "My loyal subject!" and had given him his hand to kiss. "Wait!" the "Rajah" had continued, "I will show my favor to you. I have very little of the treasure left, that I brought with me into exile, but—here, take this." And the "Rajah" had slipped a little gray stone into his hand.

Michael Petroff, on the contrary, looked smilingly and questioningly at Dr. März, while he stood politely back against the door. Meanwhile he tipped his head somewhat backward and sidewise and looked at the Doctor, as if he expected some very special news from him and as if he knew quite well that Dr. März had such news for him today. So confidently did he look at him, while a smile played about his pretty boyish mouth.

But Engelhardt, whose brows were drawn up with pain as if they were fastened with rivets, had half sat up in bed and was explaining his needs and his sufferings to the Doctor. He spoke in a guttural tone, rapidly, in a murmur that was hard to understand, and his voice sounded like the distant barking of a dog, heard on a still night.

He had come to the end of his strength—the moon was drawing at him!—in the night thousands of people had begged him on their knees not to give them up to destruction—only a new soul could give him back his strength—he felt that he was bending over more and more to the left and the whole universe might collapse at any moment: all this he muttered indistinctly, confusedly, his distressful eyes fixed pleadingly upon Dr. März.

Dr. März listened gravely, as did also Michael Petroff and even the "Rajah," who had stepped inside the door. And because they were all listening so earnestly—especially the "Rajah," whose large brilliant eyes were fixed upon Engelhardt—the little lawyer was once more seized with fear. He felt as if his legs were sinking through the floor, as if in a swamp, but just when this fear was about to overwhelm him like black darkness, a bird lit on the window-sill and chirped, and the lawyer seemed suddenly transformed.

"I am coming!" he whispered hurriedly.

"Don't go!" said Michael Petroff softly, taking hold of his arm. "Where are you going?"

"He was calling me!" answered the lawyer and slipped quickly away.

"How he is hurrying!" thought Michael Petroff, and heard himself laughing inwardly. And presently he said to Dr. März, laying his hand confidentially on his shoulder: "The lawyer is certainly a clever, well educated man—and yet he thinks that the birds call him! Between you and me, Doctor, hasn't it ever occurred to you, that he is not quite right—?"

After luncheon Dr. März's patients went out into the garden as usual. They trotted along in little groups, one after the other, round and round the biggest flower bed, at equal distances, silently, lost in thought. Only the "Inventor," a young man, sometimes paused, rested his hand on his side, put his other hand to his forehead and gazed steadily at a point on the ground.

The lawyer was watering his flowers and listening delightedly to the thousands and thousands of birds that were hopping in the bushes and treetops. Michael Petroff was in high good humor. There was news—! Just listen! Just listen! He was smoking a cigarette that Dr. März had given him, and was enjoying every whiff of it. He held the cigarette with his fingers coquettishly crossed, and swung it in sweeping curves, as if he were taking off his hat to some one, and at every whiff he drew, he stood still and blew the smoke up into the sunny air and watched the blue cloud drift away. Everything gave him pleasure. Even walking was a delight to him. His steps were short, his knees sprung playfully; and he felt with delight how his toes crackled a little and how the elastic balls of his feet rebounded in his thin soled shoes from the ground, while his heels touched the path but lightly and his knees swung. When he stood still, he set the muscles of his thighs, by a certain pressure of the knees, and then enjoyed the firmness with which he stood there like a statue. He was convinced that nothing could have knocked him down. He walked along smiling and glancing cheerfully about him, as if to share his happiness. He greeted everyone, and whenever he met an acquaintance he would tell him the great event that had happened today.

"Just hear this, my friend!" he called out to the little lawyer, who was standing on the lawn, stooping over a tulip bed to water the flowers in the middle of it. "Do come over here! There is such news! Oh, please do come!"

He waited with friendly impatience until the lawyer had finished and came back to the path, meaning to go back to the well with his empty green can. "I want to tell you what has happened today," he began hastily, "His Majesty the king of Saxony has condescended—"

"Pardon me," the lawyer interrupted him in a whisper and started to leave him, "I am in a hurry. It is hot and the flowers are drying up."

"I will walk to the well with you," continued Michael Petroff good humoredly, and walked rapidly beside the departing lawyer. "I can tell you just as well while we are walking. So I said to the Doctor today: 'Now, Doctor, haven't you anything for me today?' 'No,' said he, 'my dear Captain, nothing at all, I am sorry to say.' 'Really nothing,' said I, and I took him by the arm. 'Has not there been a single answer for weeks? Really nothing, Doctor?' He looked at me and thought a while. 'Oh yes,' he said, 'I had almost forgotten. A document did come for you. It is about that carpenter, you know, Captain.' 'A carpenter, Doctor? I don't remember'—so I took out my memorandum book, in which I enter all the documents that I send out: 'Where did the answer come from? From Saxony? Ah!' said I, 'then it must be about the butcher's apprentice who was condemned to death.' 'Yes,' said the Doctor, 'that is it. The fellow was a butcher's apprentice.' And now listen, my friend. Because of my petition, his Majesty the King of Saxony has condescended to pardon him. I must write a letter of thanks to His Majesty this very day."

"How the sun burns today," the lawyer responded to Michael Petroff's tale, and began to work the pump handle. "All the flowers look so wilted."

"Ha, ha!" laughed Michael Petroff. "You're not listening at all, are you?"

No, the lawyer was not listening. He was looking into his can to see if it was full.

Michael Petroff looked at him a while with his head on one side, then he laughed quietly to himself and walked rapidly away. He glanced about the garden in search of some one to whom he could tell his cheerful tale.

Just then he espied the "Rajah," who was walking up and down in the vegetable garden between two beds of lettuce. According to his habit, the "Rajah" was alone, and in a place where no one else would be apt to come.

Michael Petroff rose up on tiptoes and considered whether he had better, with one jump, spring over the beds, which separated him by about a hundred paces from the "Rajah." He would only have to soar upward a very little and he would be there. But he was afraid of being impolite to the "Rajah" or perhaps of startling him, so he gave up the idea.

The "Rajah" was pacing up and down with his usual pride and dignity, but today he was restless and troubled. Engelhardt's words about preserving the equilibrium of the universe had taken possession of his mind. He had been considering the matter, and after long and inexorable reflection he had come to the decision that there was only one way—only one—

Just then Michael Petroff came up to him.

"Will you permit me to disturb you?" he asked politely, taking off his gray English traveling cap. "I am Captain Michael Petroff."

The "Rajah" gazed at him earnestly with his glowing dark eyes.

"What do you want," he asked quietly.

Michael Petroff smiled. "I want to tell you a piece of good news," he began. "This morning I said to the Doctor: 'Now, Doctor, haven't you anything for me today—?'"—And beaming with joy, he went on to tell the same story that he had told a dozen times that day.

The "Rajah" listened in silence, looking thoughtfully at Michael Petroff. Then he said: "I should like to have a word with you."

"I am quite at your service!"

The "Rajah's" eyes wandered over the garden slowly and with dignity.

"Shall we go over to that bench?"

"With pleasure."

The "Rajah" sat down, and with a condescending gesture invited Michael Petroff to be seated also.

"I see you writing all the time—" he began,

Michael Petroff lifted his cap. "Michael Petroff, Captain in the Russian army," he said politely.

The "Rajah" looked at him and went on, with his usual quiet pride: "Since you write, you must understand. And you surely must have gained knowledge of men and things from sacred books, which are closed to the rest of us, and you must have passed your life in meditation, according to the rules of your caste. Very well. Then explain to me the words of the Fakir, who, according to the inscrutable decision of the Gods, is bearing up the universe on his shoulders. Speak!"

Michael Petroff smiled, highly flattered, and bowed to the "Rajah." He did not really understand all that the "Rajah" said, but he perceived that his words expressed respect and admiration. He felt that it was in some way his duty to confide to the "Rajah" the secret of his paper, but to his own surprise he asked: "You mean our friend Engelhardt?"

"You heard what he said?"

"Yes."

"Then speak!" It appeared that the "Rajah" had not forgotten a single word that Engelhardt had said to Dr. März. Michael Petroff, on the contrary, remembered almost nothing, and so fell into the "Rajah's" disfavor.

"Pardon me!" he apologized. "So many things pass through my head."

"But what will happen if he cannot get another soul?" asked the "Rajah."

"Oh, the Doctor will take care of that."

"Even Fakirs are only human. What will happen if his strength gives way? Will the world collapse?"

"Surely it will collapse!" replied Michael Petroff, laughing.

"What are you laughing at?" asked the "Rajah" quietly, while his dark eyes gleamed. "What will you do if it collapses?"

"I?" Michael Petroff smiled and pointed to the cottage, which showed dimly through the shrubbery. "If that house tumbles down," he went on, "I will run away as fast as I can, and go back to my own country. Russia is my native land. Do you know about Russia? You could hold Germany on the palm of your hand, but you couldn't carry Russia even on your back. My country is so big."

The "Rajah" considered this idea long and carefully.

Then he said slowly, and as if speaking to himself: "If the world collapses, will my kingdom be destroyed too? The mountains and the temples, the forests and the towns, will they all fall in ruins?"

Michael Petroff nodded, laughing maliciously. "I suppose so!"

And now the "Rajah" nodded too. He bowed his head slowly several times. "All my subjects would be destroyed?" he asked, and nodded. He rose and shook his head. "No," he said solemnly, gazing at Michael Petroff. "That must not be! We cannot allow it."

The "Rajah" turned away. Through the sunshine he walked, slowly and with dignity, back to the ward.

Michael Petroff looked after him. He smiled and shook his head. "What a curious being he is though!" said he, laughing. And when he heard his own laughter, he laughed again, loudly and gaily and snapped his fingers. Ha, ha, ha!

But the "Rajah" went to Engelhardt's room and informed him that he had decided to give up his own soul to him. "If the Gods deign to accept my sacrifice."

Engelhardt, who lay in his bed as if he were already dead, opened his eyes and looked at the "Rajah."

"Will you?" he gasped, while his hands and face twitched convulsively.

"Yes."

"I will try to hold out for three days yet!" gasped Engelhardt.

The "Rajah" closed the door. He went to his own room and wrote, in a large rapid hand that wandered in all directions, a short letter to Dr. März.

"Your Excellency," he wrote, "It is the will of Heaven. We shall see the blue river no more. We shall see no more the flooded rice fields, nor the white elephants with bands of gold upon their tusks. It is the will of Heaven and we obey. Say to the English Government that we are too noble for bitterness or revenge. Say to the English Government that we are pleased to rescue our subjects and to yield up our soul, if the sacrifice is pleasing to the Gods."

The "Rajah" rang for the attendant and gave him the letter, quietly and with great dignity. Then he undressed and went to bed, prepared to die.

At nightfall, when it was growing dark, the lawyer, much excited, rushed into Michael Petroff's room, without knocking, or waiting at the door, as he was in the habit of doing.

"Help me. Captain!" he whispered, and threw himself into the arms of the astonished Michael Petroff. The lawyer was trembling with fright.

"What in the world—?" exclaimed Michael Petroff, surprised and startled.

"He is standing in the corridor!" whispered the lawyer.

"Who? What is the matter with you?"

"Engelhardt! He is standing at the 'Rajah's' door. He is taking away his soul."

"What's that you say?" Michael Petroff laughed softly.

"I saw him standing there. Don't let him come near me. Oh good God!"

"Hush!" interrupted Michael Petroff. "I will attend to it."

The lawyer clung to his knees. "He will come in here! Oh my God, my God!"

"My dear friend," Michael Petroff reassured him, "control yourself. He shall not come in here. I promise you. But I must go and see!"

The little lawyer cowered on the floor and covered his face with his hands. But Michael Petroff left the room. After a while he came back, looking somewhat pale, but laughing to keep his courage up.

"Yes," he said in a low tone, "he is standing at the 'Rajah's' door listening. What makes you tremble so, my friend?"

"Don't leave me!" whispered the lawyer, still covering his face with his hands.

The "Rajah" lay motionless in his bed, gazing far, far away with his great, brilliant eyes. His swarthy face was transfigured by a solemn peace and resignation. He declined to get up and refused all nourishment. Dr. März took his temperature and found it somewhat low, and his pulse rather slow, but he could not discover any symptoms of bodily disorder or of an approaching illness. With cheerful earnestness he advised the "Rajah" to get up and to eat, but as the "Rajah" did not answer, he left him in peace. He was accustomed to his patients' whims and knew that they went as suddenly as they came.

But Engelhardt, on the contrary, caused him great anxiety. In spite of long continued baths and all sorts of quieting treatments, he had passed another sleepless and excited night. He now lay in a sort of half sleep, and shrank and trembled with the effort that his horrible delusion required of him. He heard voices, the cries of millions of men, who wrung their hands and begged him not to give them up to destruction, he heard the ringing of bells, the chanting of processions, the prayers of emperors and kings, bishops and popes. His skin was dry and parched, his pulse was rapid and unsteady. Dr. März sat for a long time by his bedside watching him attentively, and sometimes, closing his eyes for a moment, he would recall with lightning rapidity all his knowledge and experience of such cases. At last, with a thoughtful and baffled air, he left Engelhardt.

But an hour later he was beside him again.

The patients in the ward showed that special form of nervousness that was always present whenever the frequent visits of the doctor indicated that some one was very ill. They walked quietly, spoke in undertones, and many of them refused to leave the room at all. The little lawyer hardly dared to stir and begged the thousands of birds, that lived in his room, to be very quiet, when he put their bread and water on the table. Again and again some unknown power drove him to look through the keyhole. He would stand there a long time, covering his left eye with his hand as children do and peering with his right at the white wall of the corridor. But whenever a passer-by darkened his outlook, he would shrink back startled. If he had to go out to attend to his flowers, he opened the door slowly and silently and walked backward, fixing his eyes on Engelhardt's door, until he reached the steps. There he would turn quickly and hurry away, possessed by the fear that a hand would suddenly seize him by the coat collar.

Michael Petroff was the only one upon whom the general restlessness had no effect. He sat at his writing table, cut out his cases, numbered, registered, pasted, wrote. He shook his head smilingly over the little lawyer's terror, but promised him his protection in any case.

"Make your mind easy, my friend!" said he patronizingly. "So long as I am living, you have no cause for anxiety!" And with a pompous air he added: "I have been to see him. He told me that the "Rajah" had promised him his soul. Voilà tout. You may rely on Michael Petroff!"

"I thank you!" whispered the lawyer, and started to kiss Michael Petroff's hand.

"Oh no! Why should you?" said Michael Petroff, but he felt pleased and flattered.

The lawyer was calmer as he turned away. But in the night he heard Engelhardt crying out and crept under the bedclothes with his teeth chattering. It seemed to him as if he were buried in the ground, on a high mountain and he scarcely dared to breathe for fear. But just then he saw an enormous flock of birds flying swiftly over the sky in a gentle curve. He beckoned to them and called out: "Where are you going?"—"Come too, come too!" chirped the birds in answer. "To Vienna, to Vienna!" and they flew away in the distance. The lawyer gazed after them and fell asleep.

The "Rajah's" strength failed visibly, although artificial nourishment was given him, by Dr. März's orders. He was fading away as fast as twilight in the tropics. His brown face and hands had taken on a dull gray hue, like dry garden earth, and his broad and powerful chest rose and sank rapidly and silently under the bedclothes. His eyelids, which were paler than his face, drooped so as to half cover his eyes, but as soon as any one entered the room, they opened slowly, and his large, brilliant eyes rested questioningly on the newcomer.

His pulse was growing weak and rapid, and Dr. März sat almost constantly at the sick man's bedside. The rapid loss of strength was incomprehensible to the Doctor, and the inexplicable and rapid decline of the heart action caused especial anxiety. He sat there, closing his eyes from time to time, observed the patient, considered, tried all conceivable means—and by evening he knew that the "Rajah" was beyond all human aid.

"How is he, Doctor?" asked Michael Petroff, who had been watching for the Doctor in the corridor, and nodded his head toward the "Rajah's" door.

"Oh, not so badly off!" answered Dr. März absentmindedly.

Michael Petroff laughed softly behind his back. Then he went at once to the lawyer's room.

"The 'Rajah' is dying!" he said with a triumphant glance.

The lawyer looked up at him timidly; he did not answer.

"Yes!" Michael Petroff sat down in a cane-seated chair, and drew up his trousers a little, so as not to get them out of shape at the knees. "I asked the Doctor just now. He answered: 'Not so badly off.' Now that means that the 'Rajah' is dying. When Heinrich was dying, Heinrich who used to sing the jolly songs that you laughed at so, my friend, what did the Doctor say? 'Not so badly off!' And Heinrich died. Oh yes! I understand the doctors."

The little lawyer wrapped himself in his shawl. He was freezing.

"He is sucking the soul out of his body," continued Michael Petroff with an important air. "He understands his business, Engelhardt does. How did he manage with Schwindt, the attendant? The very same way, don't you see!"

And Michael Petroff left the room, rubbing his hands cheerfully. He was interested in everything that went on around him, in everything that he saw through. There was news—! In the best of spirits, he sat down at his writing table to give the final touches to his article: "Doctor März arrested."

That very night, toward three o'clock, the "Rajah" died. It was a warm, still night and the moonlight was so bright that one could read out of doors. The patients were restless, they cleared their throats, walked up and down and talked together. But once in a while they would all be silent: that was when Engelhardt began to scream out. "I can't bear it any longer!" And then he would declaim aloud the petitions that kings and princes addressed to him on their knees.

The little lawyer had not dared to go to bed. He sat fully dressed on the sofa, with all his blankets wrapped around him. And yet he was so cold that his teeth chattered. Whenever Engelhardt began to cry out, he moved his lips in prayer and crossed himself.

Michael Petroff, on the contrary, had gone to bed with complete unconcern. He lay, with his arms under his head, and pondered over a suitable title for his next paper. For this time he would take the Doctor by surprise, he would catch him—just wait and see! What was the sense of a title like the Non-Partisan, if you please? Could one overcome this case-hardened Doctor with that? What? Oh, no, no. Surely not. The title must smell of fire and brimstone. It must be like the stroke of a sword, like the muzzle of a gun aimed at the Doctor—for Dr. März must be startled when he reads the title! And after much reflection, Michael Petroff decided that this time he would call his paper The Sword of the Archangel. He could plainly see this Archangel sweeping obliquely forward, with terrible fluttering garments and an appalling and angry mien, holding his sword with both hands somewhat backward above his head. And this sword, that was as sharp as a razor and very broad at the back, slit the firmament open and a steaming bloodred stream appeared. This steaming red stream gave Michael Petroff a feeling of luxurious delight. He sat up and said: "Just wait! Ha, ha!"

But suddenly he covered his eyes with his hand. A dim, longing pain had come over him, and he could not tell why.

"Michael Petroff—?" said he softly, "Michael Petroff—?" and the tears sprung to his eyes. And so, with his hand over his wet eyes and a confused sorrow in his heart, he fell asleep.

He was sleeping soundly when he was awakened by a knock at his door: "It is I, the attendant, don't be startled."

"What is it!"

The attendant stepped in and said in an undertone: "Dr. März told me to ask you to come. The teacher wants to speak to you."

"The teacher?"

"The 'Rajah,' you know."

"You do not know what he wants of me?"

"No, Dr. März has sent for you."

"Very well, I will come."

Michael Petroff rose and made his toilet slowly and scrupulously. The attendant came back and begged him to hurry. Michael Petroff was tying his cravat carefully. "I am coming at once," said he impatiently, "but I can't make a call half dressed."

Finally he was ready; he looked in the glass a moment, stroked his moustache and stepped out.

"Oh Captain!" whispered the little lawyer through the crack of the door, for the knocking and talking in Petroff's room had made him still more anxious. "I beg you—!"

"I am in a hurry," answered Michael Petroff, and hastened along the corridor. As he passed Engelhardt's door he heard him declaiming: "We pray thee, do not destroy the dome of the world. Praised be thy name!" And with an altered, gasping voice Engelhardt went on: "I am struggling, I am struggling—!" In the room overhead a step went restlessly up and down, back and forth, like the distant throbbing of a machine.

Then the attendant opened the door of the "Rajah's" room and Michael Petroff stepped in.

"Good morning!" said he, loudly and cheerfully, as if it were broad daylight and as if the "Rajah" were not a dying man. "Good morning, Doctor. Here I am.—Good morning—Prince!" he added more softly after a glance at the "Rajah." "Michael Petroff, Captain in the Russian army."

The "Rajah's" appearance had greatly impressed Michael Petroff. The "Rajah" was sitting up in bed with his great dark eyes fixed upon him. A shaded electric light burned above his head, but in spite of the dim light the "Rajah's" face, framed by his dark hair and beard, shone like dull gold, yes, it positively shone. And it was this strange brightness which had so impressed Michael Petroff that he spoke more softly and addressed him as Prince. He had, in fact, never seriously considered who the "Rajah" really was. He was a Prince, who possessed a great kingdom somewhere and lived in exile. Now Michael Petroff believed all this without thinking very much about it. Yet at this moment he understood that the "Rajah" was a Prince, and he entirely altered his bearing toward him.

"You were pleased to send for me?" said he, with timid hesitation, and bowed.

The "Rajah" turned his face toward Dr. März.

"I thank you, Sir," he said, in a deep, quiet voice, whose tone had changed. "I know that you could have refused me this favor, since I am your prisoner."

"My dear friend"—answered the Doctor, but the "Rajah" paid no further attention to him.

"I sent for you," he said, turning to Michael Petroff, "in order that you may write down my last will and testament."

"I am at your disposal," answered Michael Petroff, bowing slightly.

"Then write what I tell you."

Michael Petroff felt in his pockets confusedly. "I will run," said he, "I will be back at once"—and he left the room rapidly, to bring pencil and paper from his office.

"Michael Petroff—" whispered the little lawyer pleadingly. "You are leaving me—?"

"The 'Rajah' commands me!" answered Michael Petroff impatiently, and hurried past the trembling lawyer's little outstretched hands back to the dying man's room.

"Here I am, pardon me?" he stammered breathlessly.

"Then write!" said the "Rajah."

Michael seated himself properly and the "Rajah" began:

"We, Rajah of Mangalore, banished by the English Government, too noble to harbor feelings of revenge toward our enemies, since we are dying, in order to rescue our subjects, make known to our people:

"We greet you, our people! We greet the palm forests that shelter the temples of our ancestors! We greet the blue river that refreshes our land!"—

Michael Petroff, who was writing busily and industriously what the "Rajah" dictated, looked up as the "Rajah" paused. He saw that two great tears were falling from the "Rajah's" brilliant dark eyes. They ran down his thin but strangely glowing cheeks into his beard.

The "Rajah" raised his hand with a dignified gesture. Then he went on to the end calmly and majestically:

"We grant a universal amnesty! All our dungeons and prisons are to be opened and then burned to ashes. From this time forth no more blood shall be shed!"

"Oh, my Lord—my Prince—!" whispered Michael Petroff as he wrote.

"There shall no longer be an army in our land and no man shall go begging with his bowl. The treasure in our vaults shall be equally shared among our people. Neither castes nor classes shall exist from this time forth. All men shall be equal and all shall be brothers and sisters.

"The aged shall have their huts to die in, and to the children we bequeath the meadows to play in. To the sick we grant health, and to the unhappy sleep, quiet sleep. There shall be no more war and no more hatred between the peoples, whatever their color, for so we decree. The judges shall be wise and just, and to evil doers one must say: Go and be happy, for unhappiness causes evil doing.

"To mankind we grant the earth, that they may occupy the same, to the fish we give the waters and the sea, to the birds the heavens, and to the beasts the forests, and the meadows that lie hidden amongst them!

"But you, our own people, we bless and kiss you, for we are dying."

The "Rajah" raised his hands in benediction and sank back upon the pillows.

All who were present remained motionless and gazed at him. His chest rose and fell feebly and rapidly while his lids drooped over his eyes and showed like bright spots in his dark face.

Dr. März stepped gently to the bedside.

Just then the "Rajah" smiled. He threw his head back and opened his lips, as if he were going to sing. But only a thin, musical cry passed his lips, so high, so thin and so far away that it seemed as if the "Rajah" were already calling from some distant realm. It was the cry of the street venders in the Orient.

The "Rajah" was dead.

Michael Petroff stood on tiptoes and gazed with parted lips at the pale, mysteriously beautiful face that shone beneath the rich dark hair. He felt a sense of shame. He had lived so long with him who was now dead, without realizing who he was. He longed to kneel beside the dead man's bed and whisper: "Prince, my Prince!" But he did not dare to approach, he was afraid and stole out of the room.

After a while, when Dr. März stepped out into the corridor, he was impressed by the quiet that reigned in the ward. There was not a sound to be heard. The muffled tread overhead, that had paced back and forth for hours, was still. And Engelhardt had ceased crying and groaning.

Dr. März went to the shoemaker's door. All was as still as death within. He opened the door and listened. Engelhardt—was sleeping! His breathing was deep and regular ... Dr. März shook his head and went thoughtfully out of the ward. On the steps leading to the garden he lit a cigar and turned up his coat collar. He was shivering.

So now he is asleep, thought he, as he walked through the moonlit garden, where the bushes cast long, pale shadows. Is there any discoverable connection between the teacher's death and Engelhardt's sleep? And he thought of one of his colleagues, who would invent a connection in any case, and then he thought how much he would enjoy a cup of strong coffee just now. Suddenly he paused, slightly startled. In the moonlight a little man, all wrapped up, was moving. It was the lawyer.

The little man had passed the whole night shivering and trembling in his dark room. But when the first cock crowed he had slipped out of the ward to water his flowers.

"Hush, hush!" he whispered to the thousands of little birds that began to chirp in the bushes as soon as he came near. "Sleep a bit longer, little ones!"

And while he was watering the flowers, he quite forgot the night, the "Rajah," and Engelhardt who needed another soul, and began to smile. "Good morning, my pets," he said softly, "here I am, I have come back to you."

But in Michael Petroff's room the light was burning.

Michael Petroff was sitting at his writing table, smiling and goodhumored, writing diligently. For the impression that the "Rajah's" death had made upon him had vanished as quickly as the tears that he had shed for him. He was now working on an article which he regarded as a marvelously important contribution for his newspaper. And this work brought back his happy cheerful spirits.

In the neatest characters he wrote:

"A telegram! The Rajah of Mangalore—against whose exile we have registered our telegraphic protest with the English Government—fell gently asleep tonight toward three o'clock. We had the honor to be present at his deathbed and to draw up the last will and testament of this great ruler. We will favor our readers with a copy:

"'We, Rajah of Mangalore, banished by the English Government, too noble to harbor feelings of revenge toward our enemies, since we are dying, in order to rescue our subjects, make known to our people ...'"

Only as the sun rose did Michael Petroff lie down to rest.

[THE CONTEMPORARY GERMAN DRAMA]

By Amelia von Ende

A period of transition in a nation's life is not the best foundation upon which to rear a new literature. The change of religious, moral, I social and political standards from their well-established and time-honored base to new and untried planes does not favor the development of minds, well-defined and well-balanced, and of characters, able to translate a clear purpose into consistent achievement.

Germany passed through such a change toward the end of the nineteenth century. The unification of the Empire with its era of material prosperity and progress strengthened the roots of national consciousness; the gospel of the superman with its absolute ego-cult stimulated individual self-assertion; the wave of altruism which swept across the world at the same time roused the slumbering sense of social responsibility. These three forces—national consciousness, individual self assertion, social responsibility—profoundly affected the character of the young generation growing up in the newly reestablished Empire. Embracing each of these principles in turn, theorizing about them, the young men and women of the time became unsettled. With the gradual realization of the seriousness of the underlying ideas grew the desire to experiment with them in life, to prove them by practice. In the attempt to live these new ideals the individual became involved in a conflict with the old conscience that no philosophy had yet been able to argue away, and the road out of this dilemma lay along the line of least resistance, which consisted in drifting with the changing tides. The result was the gradual evolution of a type of hero which modified the drama of the country. While the hero of old encountered and conquered obstacles mainly of external circumstance and complication, the hero of the present is the victim of doubts and moods rooted within himself, defeating his purpose and paralyzing his will.

The modern German drama deals with these conditions and characters. The writers whose creative instinct awoke in the seventies stood upon the firm ground of old traditions and were inspired by the optimism of the national renascence. The writers who responded to the same instinct in the eighties stood on the plane of a philosophy which had undermined the old traditions and conventions and had not yet crystallized into constructive principles that could safely guide the individual through life. Their souls wavered between self-realization and self-renunciation; their minds eagerly followed the example of Ibsen inquiring into individual motives and responsibilities, and their eyes were at the same time opened to the economic struggle of the masses which had roused the social conscience. A world unknown to the poets of the previous generation, or ignored by them, had come within the range of vision; it engaged not only the humanitarian's sympathy and the philosopher's speculation, but the artist's interest. It was studied for its scientific meaning and exploited for its esthetic possibilities.

The floodgates of a literature rich in stimulating ideas were opened and the new subject-matter demanded a new manner, a new style. The influence of Darwin was not lost upon the young generation. The significance of circumstance and environment in the making of man led to a minute painting of the milieu, of the external setting of each individual life at every moment of its existence in drama or fiction. The language of the characters became the language of their class in ordinary life. The action was immediately and directly transferred to the written page and became a record of unadorned reality. The cry for truth became one of the party cries of the period. Naturalistic fiction and naturalistic drama came into being.

Within the brief space of less than twenty-five years were born three men whose literary personalities represent this development of German drama. Ernst von Wildenbruch in the main held fast to the traditions of the past, which he treated in historical plays in the manner of a poet who had matured in the period of Germany's unification and was inspired with the consciousness of national renascence. Hermann Sudermann, who rose on the horizon just as the old traditions began to weaken, chose to ignore the past, took his cue from the social note of the present, but sought a compromise with the old forms and with the taste of the great mass of the people. Gerhart Hauptmann, the youngest of the three, discarded all precedent and built upon new foundations with new material in a new manner. By the success which he gained in spite of his uncompromising attitude, he became the leader of the young generation.

The intellectual atmosphere in the decade that witnessed the advent of Sudermann and Hauptmann was extraordinarily alive and stimulating and the drama was chosen by an amazing number of young aspirants to literary fame as the vehicle of the message they had for the world. The plays of the period suggest the fermentation going on in the young brains, the unsettling of old and the dawn of new creeds, religious, social and esthetic. The clash of two generations became one of the most popular themes. Cæsar Flaischlen, a Suabian, handled it most thoughtfully and effectively in Martin Lehnhardt. Though the author modestly called it "dramatic scenes," it was a play presenting with spirited rhythm a phase of the spiritual revolution and moral revaluation then taking place, and in the orthodox uncle and the radical nephew he created two figures full of real dramatic life. The well-to-do and well-satisfied middle-class with its somewhat shopworn ideals was a popular topic with these young men who lustily set about to demolish the Mosaic and other codes of life. Otto Erich Hartleben was hailed as the Juvenal of the society of his time, flaying it mercilessly in satirical comedies like Education for Marriage, The Moral Requirement, and Rose-Monday.

Whatever were the shortcomings of these young hot-spurs, there is no doubt that there were among them earnest seekers for new values of life and letters. Many were contented with pathetic seriousness and doubtful results to imitate their successful and popular model, Gerhart Hauptmann. Some made no attempt at concealing that they walked closely in the footsteps of their master. Nor did the critics of the new school esteem them any less for being followers and imitators rather than creators of independent merit. Among these youths, Georg Hirschfeld, a born Berliner, was the most promising. He was of a type abundant in every metropolis having an intense intellectual life: sensitive, impressionable, with an amazing talent for absorption and adaptation and a facile gift of language. The reception accorded to his drama. The Mothers (1896), which was frankly reminiscent of Sudermann's contrast between the front and the rear house and of Hauptmann's dialogue of real life, was so generous, that it gave the author, then barely twenty-three, a position quite out of proportion to his achievement. His efforts at following up the easily won success made him a pathetic figure in the drama of that decade. He experienced failure upon failure and has now, after the publication of some stories of varying merit and the stage success of a clever comedy directed against the esthetes—Mieze and Maria—once more dropped out of sight.

A far more robust figure came to the fore in Max Halbe, a West Prussian and an individuality deeply rooted in the soil of his forefathers. That soil and his close kinship with nature gave Halbe a firmer foundation than the shifting quicksands of metropolitan life offered. These were the premises upon which he set out to build. But he would not have been a child of his time had he not seen life through the temperament of his generation. With all his sturdy mental and moral fibre he could not withstand the torrential current of skepticism and revaluation that swept through the intellectual world and uprooted its spiritual mainstays. Though the action of his plays was based upon eternal conflicts of the human tragi-comedy—the irreconcilable contrast between two generations, between two orders of life, between love and duty—his characters are of the new type, his unheroic heroes are like the men he saw about him, reeds swayed by the breath of the Zeitgeist, and true to the naturalistic creed of his generation they were represented by him without any attempt at idealization.

Halbe made his debut in 1889 with the tragedy of a peasant parvenu. The play was fashioned according to old formulas, but of charming local color and with more than a touch of the new type in one of the characters. This was followed in 1890 by Free Love, the hero of which is one of those individuals unable to reconcile their convictions with their actions—a conflict which becomes a source of torture to themselves and those about them. The Ice-Floe (1892) was a powerful drama, in which the sudden thaw, destroying what has been, but bringing with it a breath of the spring and the new life to come, admirably symbolized the passing of the old order. But it was not until the following year, which saw the publication of his Youth, that Halbe attracted serious attention outside of the circles of that Young Germany which has become identified with the literary revolution. Youth was of a human significance and of an artistic calibre which could not well be ignored. This work presented the old theme of youth, love and sin in the provincial setting that he knew so well; the characters were taken from real life and portrayed with striking truthfulness. But over it all was the atmosphere of spring, of sunshine and blossoms and thundershowers that quicken the germs in the womb of the earth. This was suggested with a delicacy and a chastity rare in the literature of that period of storm and stress. Youth was the work of a true poet and would have been hailed as such even had the author been born into a period less generous in its bestowal of praise upon the works of the "coming men."

In Mother Earth, published in 1897, Max Halbe shows himself at his best both in spirit and in manner. The hero of that play is estranged from his paternal hearth, with its ancestral traditions and from the simple rural life and the innocent tender love of his youth. For he has gone to Berlin, has drifted into the circles of the intellectuals, married the brilliant and advanced daughter of a professor and become actively interested in feminist propaganda. Subconsciously, however, this life does not satisfy him, and when on the death of his father he returns to the old home and feels once more its charm, he realizes that he has forfeited real happiness for a vague and alien ideal. In this work with its firmly knit and logically evolved action Max Halbe reached a climax in his development. Since its production his star has been steadily declining and the thirteen or more works that have since come from his pen have not added to his reputation. Embittered by his failures, he chose some years ago to attack his rivals and critics in a satirical comedy. The Isle of the Blessed, but he had miscalculated the effect of the poorly disguised personal animosities upon an audience not sufficiently interested in the author's friendships and enmities. He has, however, not become sadly resigned to his fate, like Hirschfeld, but continues to court the favor of the stage with the tenacity of a man disappointed in his hopes but unwilling to admit his defeat.

An important aspect of the social and esthetic programme of the new school was the unflinching frankness with which it faced a problem belonging to intimate life and barring public discussion, yet closely connected with the economic conditions of society: the problem of sex. The curious revival of pagan eroticism in lyric poetry and the growing tendency toward a scientific cynicism in fiction were supplemented by attempts to handle sex from the standpoint of modern psychology and social ethics in drama. With works of that class has the name of Frank Wedekind become inseparably associated. He is the most positive intellect among the writers of Young Germany and their most radical innovator in regard to form. He is a fanatic of truth and deals only with facts; discarding the mitigating accessories of the milieu, he places those facts before us in absolute nudity. This would make him the most consistent naturalist; but when facts are presented bald and bare, they do not make the impression of reality, but rather of grotesque caricature. Hence Wedekind has sometimes been compared with early English dramatists and classed with romanticists like Lenz, Grabbe and Heine. He himself has no esthetic theories whatever that could facilitate his being enrolled under some fetching label. Nor has he any ethical principles, some critics allege, if they do not curtly call him immoral. Yet his work, from the appearance of Spring's Awakening (1891) to his Stone of Wisdom, (1909) and his most recent works, proves him to be concerned with nothing but the moral problem. He treats social morality with mordant irony from an a-moral standpoint. The distinction between a-moral and immoral must be borne in mind in any attempt to interpret the puzzling and paradoxical personality of the author and to arrive at an approximate understanding of the man behind his work.

IN THE SHADE

That Wedekind is not only an author, but an actor as well, has in no small degree complicated his case. The pose seems so inseparably connected with the art of the actor, that his intransigent policy in sex matters and his striking impersonations of the characters in his plays have been interpreted as the unabashed bid for notoriety of a clever poseur. But his acting could hardly have made palatable to theatre audiences topics tabooed in polite conversation and with appalling candor presented by him on the stage. Neither his quality as actor nor his quality as author could account for the measure of popularity his plays have attained. It would rather indicate that the German public was ready for open discussion of the problems involved and that Wedekind's frankness and honesty, his lapses into diabolical grimace and grotesque hyperbole notwithstanding, met a demand of his time. Nor did he restrict himself to that one particular problem. His irony spared no institution, no person: lèse-majesté was one of his offenses; nor did he spare himself. Born into a generation which took itself very seriously, he created the impression as if he at least were not taking himself too seriously. Yet a survey of his work, regardless of the comparisons and conclusions it may suggest, tends to substantiate the claim that Frank Wedekind is not only an uncompromising destroyer of antiquated sentiment and a fanatic of positive life, but a grim moralist. It is easy to recognize him in some of his characters, and these figures, like the banished king in Thus is Life, the secretary Hetman in Hidalla, the author Lindekuh in Musik, and others, are always the tragic moralists in an immoral world. There is something pathetic in the perseverance with which he is ever harping on the one string.

For although he is now one of the more popular writers of his generation, his attitude has not changed much in the course of his career. The man who hurled into the world Spring's Awakening, is still behind the social satirist who has become a favorite with theatre audiences through his clever portrayal of a crook in The Marquis of Keith and of the popular stage favorite in The Court Singer. He is little concerned with the probability of the plot; his situations will not bear the test of serious scrutiny. They are only the background from which the figure of the hero stands out in strong relief. The popular tenor, who is an amusing combination of the artist and the businessman, is one of the characters in the plays of Wedekind that have little or no trace in them of the author himself. He is seen with astonishing objectivity and presented with delectable sarcasm. The story of the famous singer, who between packing his valise to take the train for his next engagement, studying a new role, running over numerous letters from admirers, makes love to the one caller he cannot get rid of, a woman who chooses that inopportune moment to shoot herself before his eyes, is a typical product of his manner, and a grotesque satire upon the cult of histrionic stars practised by both sexes.

While the initiative in the literary revolution of which Halbe and Wedekind are such striking examples was taken by Northern Germany and centred in Berlin, Austria was not slow in adding a note of its own by giving the German drama of the period two of its most interesting individualities. Both Arthur Schnitzler and Hugo von Hofmannsthal—to whom might be added the clever and versatile Hermann Bahr—reflect the complex soul of their native city, Vienna; for if Austria is acknowledged to be a most curious racial composite, Vienna contains its very essence. Situated at the parting of the ways for the South and the Orient, it has ever been a much-coveted spot. After the conquest of the original Celtic settlement by the Romans, Teutons, Huns, and Turks have successively fought for its possession and have left their imprint upon its physiognomy. Intermarriage with the neighboring Czechs and Magyars, the affiliations of the court with Spain, Italy, and France, and the final permeation of all social strata by the Hebrew element, have produced what may be called the Viennese soul. Political conditions, too, have influenced it: to maintain peace in a country which is a heterogeneous conglomerate of states rather than an organic growth, requires a diplomacy the chief aim of which is to prevent anything from happening. This attitude of the Viennese court and its vast machinery of functionaries slowly affected other classes, until the people of Vienna as a body seem to refrain from anything that means action. It is this passive fatalism which has hampered the intellectual development of Vienna. Oldest in culture among the German-speaking cities of Europe it has never been and is not likely ever to be a leader.

Minds that entered upon this local heritage were only too ready to receive the seeds of skepticism abundant in the spiritual atmosphere of the century's end. But Nietzsche's gospel of the Superman, Ibsen's heretical analysis of human motives and Zola's cry for truth did not affect the young generation of Vienna intellectuals as they did those of Paris or Berlin, where the revision of old standards of life and letters was promptly followed by daring experiments with new ideals. Young Vienna heard the keynotes of the new time, but it was content to evolve a new variety of an old tune. Time-honored pessimism, world-sorrow, gave way to a sophisticated and cynical world-weariness which is symptomatic of decadence. Widely different as their individualities present themselves, between the pages of their books and on the stage, both Schnitzler and Hofmannsthal reflect that attitude of mind.

In the work of Arthur Schnitzler the Hebrew element predominates; it has quickened the somewhat inert Vienna blood and finds expression in analytical keenness and sharpness of vision, a wit of Gallic refinement and a language of sparkling brilliancy. Schnitzler's profession, too, has not been without some influence upon his poetical work. A physician facing humanity daily not in strength and health, but in weakness and disease, cannot divest himself of a certain pessimistic bias. Brought up and practising in a city like Vienna, he cannot escape the cynicism which belongs alike to the man of the world as to the doctor before whom all veils and pretenses are discarded. It is difficult, indeed, to banish the idea that the consultation-room of Arthur Schnitzler, Dr. med., is the confessional which furnishes material to Arthur Schnitzler, author. For the modern physician is not concerned with his patient's body only, but also with his soul. He must be a psychologist as well, and the success of his diagnosis depends upon his skill to unravel the intricate interrelations between both. That Schnitzler is such a physician admits of no doubt. His perspicacity as diagnostician lends subtlety to his analysis and portrayal of characters. While his professional bias may in a manner limit the range of his vision, his professional knowledge and experience are strong assets of the dramatist Schnitzler.

The world that he knows best is the modern society of Vienna. His heroes are mostly men engaged in a quest for the joys of life, but never attaining whole-hearted enjoyment, because of their innate streak of world-weariness. When the hero of his Anatol (1893) calls himself "light-hearted pessimist," Schnitzler creates a term which fits as well his Fedor in Märchen (1894), his Fritz in Liebelei (1895), and other specimens of a type related to the heroes of Musset and other Frenchmen. His women, too, have a streak of French blood, both his "sweet girls" and his married heroines; but unmistakably Austrian and Viennese is their willingness to resign rather than to resist. Frau Gabriele give Anatol flowers to take to his sweetheart and bids him tell her: "These flowers, my ... sweet girl ... a woman sends you, who can perhaps love as well as you, but had not the courage ..." The playlets collectively called Anatol are only scenes and dialogues between two men or a man and a woman exchanging confidences. Limited as he seems in his choice of themes and types, both by temperament and association, it is amazing with what virtuosity Schnitzler varies almost identical situations and characters until they are differentiated from one another by some striking individual touch and when presented on the stage act with a new and potent charm.

For that just balance of contents and form which makes for perfection, Schnitzler's renaissance drama The Veil of Beatrice is the most noteworthy specimen. But in all his work his style is his greatest achievement. It is of a rare spontaneity, vivacity and grace—qualities that make his dialogue appear an impromptu performance rather than a carefully planned structure. It abounds in paradoxes that do not blind the vision, but reveal vistas, and that do not impress as high lights added for effect, but as organic parts of the whole. It scintillates with wit, though it lacks humor. It is the just medium of expression for his characters, those types of modern intellectuals, affected by the corrosive skepticism of the period and in turn buoyed by the light-hearted temperament and depressed by the passive melancholy that are indigenous to Vienna. It is this literary excellence that renders works like Literature (1902) and The Green Cockatoo (1899) enjoyable to readers to whom their spirit may be absolutely foreign. It is their polish that robs their cynicism of its sting and brings into relief only their formal beauty. Literature deals effectively with the literary exploitation of intimate personal experience: it presents characters which with due local modification can be found in every intellectual centre and is a little masterpiece of irony. In The Green Cockatoo the poet has seen his theme in a sort of phantasmagorical perspective; he plays with reality and appearance in a play within a play which is unique in literature. He makes his spectators feel the hot breath of the French Revolution without burdening them with the ideas that were back of it. It is the most solidly constructed of his works and the one most sure of success on any stage. Exquisite as is the art of Schnitzler, it is deeply rooted in life and does not approach that art for art's sake which was one of the striking phenomena of that period.

Yet the atmosphere of Vienna and the leisurely pace of its life seem to favor the development of an art that has little or no connection with the pressing realities of the day and is bent upon seeking the beauty of the word rather than the truth of its message. Such a movement had been inaugurated in German letters in 1890 by Stefan George, who gathered about him a small group of collaborators in the privately circulated magazine Blätter für die Kunst. It stood for a remoteness from reality which formed a strong contrast to the naturalistic creed and for a formal craftsmanship which set out to counteract the grooving tendency to break away from the fetters of conventional forms. The work of the group bordered often upon archaic preciosity, yet its influence was wholesome in holding up the ideal of a formalism which is after all one of the basic conditions of art. Though not a native of Vienna, Stefan George settled there after launching the movement and found among its young intellectuals not a few disciples that have since followed in his wake. There is something about an art for art's sake that appeals to an aristocracy of birth and breeding; it touched a responsive chord in the soul of Hugo von Hofmannsthal,[A] whose earlier work distinctly shows its influence and who to that influence still owes his admirable mastery of form.

[Footnote A: For Hofmannsthal, compare Vol. XVII, pp. 482-527.]

Hofmannsthal's descent from an old nobility that had passed the zenith of its power and was but little modified by a strain of the more democratic Hebrew blood, seemed to predestine him for the part he has played in the literature of the present. He made his debut as a mere youth of seventeen, when in 1891 he published the dramatic study Yesterday, giving evidence of an amazingly precocious mind and a prematurely developed formal talent. Gifted writers of that kind are usually doomed to remain prodigies whatever may be their medium of expression. Coming into their heritage, which is the accumulated knowledge and experience of their ancestors, before they have acquired a direct and profound grasp of life, they seem to enter the world full-fledged, while it is only that ancestral heritage that works through the impressions of the youthful brain and gives them the color of age. Knowing and satiated when the mind is most receptive, such individualities rarely develop beyond their first brilliant phase. Hugo von Hofmannsthal was for a long time considered a perfect specimen of that type. For the hero of that first work, as of every work published by him during the first decade of his career, was his double, was Hofmannsthal himself. All the virtuosity of style could not conceal the paucity of invention in subject matter and in the creation of real living characters. Even in that charming Oriental play The Marriage of Sobeide (1899) and The Mine of Falun (1906) the personality of the author obtrudes itself upon the vision of the reader.

These works, however, marked a transition. For with his thirtieth year Hofmannsthal entered upon a new period and a new manner. The study of the antique Greek drama and of early English dramatists diverted him from the self-absorption and self-reflection of his previous work, and may have brought home to him the necessity of finding a more fertile source for his art than his own individual soul. The extraordinary success of Wilde's Salome opened possibilities of applying the pathological knowledge of the present to the interpretation of the past. He chose for this momentous departure the Electra of Sophocles (1903). Taking from the Greek poet the mere skeleton of the story, he modified the characters according to his own vision and the psychopathic viewpoint of the time—a liberty which some critics justified, others branded as an unpardonable license. But the work was a turning-point for Hofmannsthal, for he has since begun to face life more directly and squarely and though he has not reached a wholesome reading of it, he has at least struck new and powerful notes that contrast strongly with the spirit of his previous works. Enforced by the music of Richard Strauss, whose naturalism is the immediate expression of his robust virility, Hofmannsthal's Electra has made the name of the author known throughout the world. To his association with the sturdy Bavarian composer is also due the comedy Der Rosenkavalier (1911), which with its daring situations and touches of drastic burlesque harks back to the spirit of the comedy of Molière's time, though in its way it is also a product of the reaction against the puerile and commonplace inoffensiveness of mid-century letters inaugurated by Young Germany. Since his association with Richard Strauss has weaned Hofmannsthal from the somewhat effete estheticism and pessimism of his youth, it is a matter of interesting conjecture what further effect it may have upon his development.

It seems to follow with the inevitableness of a physical law, that the alternate swing of the pendulum between a naturalism which set above everything the material fact and the cry for truth, and a subtle estheticism which set the word above the spirit, would in the end usher in an art that had profited by and learned to avoid both extremes. There was little surprise when the Royal Schiller prize, which had not been awarded for some years, was in 1908 divided between Karl Schönherr[A] for his play Erde and Ernst Hardt for Tristram the Jester. For Schönherr, the Tyrolese, had drawn his inspiration from the source which ever Antæsus-like renews the strength of humanity, and Hardt had drawn upon the rich source of racial lore. But when a jury consisting of men like Dr. Jacob Minor, Dr. Paul Schlenther, Hermann Sudermann, Carl Hauptmann and others within a few weeks after that contest awarded the popular Schiller prize also to Hardt and for the same play, with a competitor like Hofmannsthal in the race, it seemed safe to argue that this unanimity indicated a turn of the tide. Both Schönherr and Hardt stand for that sane eclecticism which seems destined to pilot German drama out of the contrary currents to which it has long been a prey toward a type more in harmony with the classical ideal.

[Footnote A: For Schönherr, compare Vol. XVI, pp. 410-479.]

Though comparatively unknown when he issued as victor from those contests and suddenly obtained a measure of celebrity, Hardt was by no means a novice in the world of letters. The first book bearing his name, Priests of Death (1898), contained some stories of an epic dignity and a dramatic rhythm that challenged attention and secured interest for the works that followed. These were another volume of fiction, one of poetry, some plays and a number of translations from Taine, Flaubert, Balzac, and other French writers, which are remarkable specimens of his ability to grasp the spirit of a foreign world and to convey its essence through the medium of his native tongue. It seems natural that his familiarity with French literature had some influence upon the character of his prize drama, since he had chosen for its topic a story belonging alike to German and Gallic lore. To re-create the story of Tristan and Isolde upon the foundation of the German source would have challenged comparison not only with the cherished epic of Master Gottfried of Strassburg, but also with the music-drama of Richard Wagner, who had treated it with something like finality,—at least for the present generation. By going back to the old French legend and to J. Bédier's book Le roman de Tristan et Yseult (1900), the author was able to present that most tragic of all love-stories from a different angle. By complicating the plot through the introduction of the second Isolde, jealousy became the secondary, though hardly less powerful theme. This deviation from the comparatively simple plot of the German story is of course more difficult of comprehension upon the stage. It is not easy to convince an audience that jealousy of Isolde White-hand, whom Tristan had married after being banished from Cornwall, blinds Isolde Blond-hair into refusing to recognize him when he returns and pleads his case before her in the disguise of Tristram the Jester. Cavilling critics were quick to discover and to expatiate upon this weakness of the play. But the fine lines upon which it is built and the plastic figures standing out against the medieval background, the glowing color, radiant lights and brooding shadows of its atmosphere, and lastly, the language, the verse-form admirably adapted to the subject,—all this together makes of the drama a work coming very near that perfect balance of contents and form which is the ideal of art.

It is a rather circuitous path which German drama has traveled since the memorable performance of Gerhart Hauptmann's play Before Sunrise in 1889. It has outgrown the one-sided naturalism which had seemed the only medium of translating life directly into literature. It has turned aside from the orphic symbolism and verbal artistry rooted only in literature and having nothing in common with life. Men like Karl Schönherr, Carl Hauptmann, and others have found in the native soil and its people and in the problems that confront that people at all times as rich a source of thematic material as previous generations of poets had found in the historic past. Men like Ernst Hardt and others have infused new life into the old legends of racial lore. As German drama is completing this cycle of its development it gives hopeful evidence of returning to the safe middle course of normal growth toward a new type, indigenous to the soil and the soul of the country.

[MAX HALBE]

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[MOTHER EARTH]

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

Paul Warkentin, publisher of a feminist journal

Hella Warkentin-Bernhardy, his wife

Dr. von Glyszinski

Heliodor von Laskowski, owner of the estate Klonowken

Antoinette, his wife

Aunt Clara

von Tiedemann, estate owner

Mrs. von Tiedemann

Raabe, Senior, estate owner

Schnaase, estate owner

Mrs. Schnasse

Raabe, Junior, student

Dr. Bodenstein, physician

Mertens, manager of a factory

Josupeit, rentier

Mrs. Borowski, widow of a teacher

Kunze, organist

Schrock, licentiate

Zindel, inspector

Lene, chambermaid

Fritz, coachman

Time: The present. Place: Estate Ellernhof.