Paganina.
I.
Master Aloysius Swibert was an organist in a small Austrian town; but from afar his perfect knowledge of harmony, and freshness and delicacy of inspiration, were known and praised; and many a stranger artist, having heard him, wondered that he did not seek renown and even glory in larger cities, and saw with astonishment how his art and his simple friendships contented and ornamented a life requiring nothing more.
He gave his time to the study of the great masters, a study full of pure enjoyment, but laborious and difficult, and, with a singular simplicity of character, he never approached them without the greatest reserve and respect.
Obstinately he worked, allowing himself but little respite to indulge the flights of his fancy, or the inspiration which, now and then, came to him so luminously, so brightly that the brave artist cried out his thanks in ecstasy, in the fulness of his joy.
His musical thoughts are all in a tiny volume. No long fantasies—half pages mostly—sometimes only lines, short and excellent and original; blessed originality, not coarse or confusing, but healthy and true—the daughter and messenger of inspiration!
II.
Thus rolled the weeks, returning ever the Sunday so ardently desired; for to Master Swibert each Sunday was an event. He thought of the one passed, and looked forward to the coming one; all were equally dear. From the Saturday evening previous, all things sang to him his feast-day songs, and the next morning, collected and serious, in his best clothes, he sought his church and his organ.
He had his own ideas, considered extreme by some, on the ministry of the musician in the services of the church, on the respect due the place and the instrument. His heart beat when he approached the organ, and he played, following his conscience, sometimes well, sometimes better, never seeking success—on the contrary, dreading it.
His work accomplished, he walked with his sister, serious and happy. The people loved to see them pass, and, from the doors of their houses, saluted them amicably. In return, they gave each a pleasant smile, and rejoiced that men and things should wear their holiday robes, their Sunday colors. If the trees were green and the weather fine, their happiness was complete. It made the good man sad, though, if men or children worked, or even planned their occupations. "Poor creatures!" he said, "is not even Sunday for them?" And his heart beat as he spoke. But when he met whole families enjoying themselves, the fathers important, the mothers busy and happy, and the children gay and prattling, he entered his lodging so happily, kissed his sister, and awaited his friends.
III.
He had but two—that is too many—and these could only remember having passed one Sunday evening away from Master Swibert. On their arrival, there were three just men under the same roof—one more than is necessary in order that our Lord may be in the midst of them.
They supped, and the organist's sister, twelve years younger than he, a fresh and graceful girl, waited on his guests, and offered them some nice white cakes, prepared the day before. Each one paid her his heartfelt compliments, while, smiling and silent, with pleasure she received them.
After supper, Master Swibert seated himself at his piano and played for his friends his studies of the past week. The music was mingled with conversation, and art and philosophy beguiled the hours. Seated around a good-sized pot of beer, with consciences at ease, with active bodies and cheerful spirits, these companions pursued endless conversations in all that interested their honest hearts until, as night closed round them, their souls were elevated and they spoke of heaven. There seemed to be a marvellous contact between their natures and all that is spiritual.
Such was Master Swibert's interior on Sunday evenings. Could chance have led thither some growing youth, all ardor and enthusiasm, and had he essayed the eternal temptations of love and glory, his answer would have been a smile. There they had no place. The three friends were happy.
IV.
But in this world every thing passes, happiness especially. The day came when Master Swibert had to part from all he loved—his quiet habits, his home, and his country.
He was tall, and looked strong and healthy; yet his friends were disquieted about him, for he seemed restless, like a tree which outwardly appears vigorous, but at heart decayed and liable to fall with the first rough wind. His physicians gave a reason for their uneasiness, and ordered him south.
The organist and his sister set out one day, hurrying their adieus as people who run away. When they were at the foot of the Alps in Italy, they stopped at a sunny little town, a day's journey from Milan, which we will call Arèse. Master Swibert was then forty-four.
How this man, who, till now, had lived more like a priest than a man of the world, could be led by his passions to marry an Italian and a singer, is difficult to explain. Besides, it is superfluous to look for a reason for any unreasonable act. Perhaps the good old sun was the cause, laughing behind the trees at the follies of which he makes us guilty.
But the girl was pretty, reputed good, and dedicated to her parents every moment her vanity did not require. So the organist married her.
V.
They say love lives by contrasts; the god of such a union should have been well fed. But his life was short, for, after a few months only, he died. Perhaps of a fit of indigestion.
The Italian did not like the retired and exclusive life demanded of her, and the German could not accept the free behavior of his wife. He could not believe in the purity of a soul that sought vulgar homage and common admiration.
He was wrong to judge her by the ideas of his own country. His name there had been so honorably borne that, if it was for the singer too heavy a burden, death only could release her. This death took place under peculiar circumstances.
Paganini was just then being heard at Milan, and exercising that singular fascination that made his artistic personality the most characteristic of our time.
This age, which believes in no thing, accords him a legend, and, in truth, his power with the instrument he used was surprising and unequalled.
The fascination he possessed by his eccentric and well-executed performances is well known; how, for instance, he only appeared in a demi-obscurity, in some romantic scene; or, in some fit of inspiration, broke rudely the three strings of his instrument, and performed on the remaining one his most astonishing variations.
Whether it was skill, or a want of genius, no matter; the effect produced was marvellous. On the wife of Master Swibert the result was astonishing. Her child was born before its time, and in one of the side-scenes of the theatre of La Scala.
Its life seemed so feebly assured that it was baptized immediately with the name of Rose Marie; but Paganini, flattered by the adventure, insisting upon being godfather on the occasion, the little one was only known by the name of Paganina.
Thus was born the singular artist whose history we relate. We know the exterior facts, the accidents, we may say, of her life. Popular imagination has made of them an interesting legend; but these facts were produced by interior emotions little understood, and would be perfectly unintelligible could we not trace in her the two tendencies, the two natures, which she inherited from her parents.
Master Swibert arrived in time to say adieu to his wife, who did not survive her confinement. Then, as a miser with his treasure, he carried off his daughter. The child was feeble, but the organist felt within himself such an intensity of paternal love that he could not doubt she would live; "for," said he, "the vital forces of a creature are not wholly in itself, but in the love of its parents."
The sister of Master Swibert had married and left him. Therefore alone with his daughter, he entered an unoccupied house, where their new lives should develop themselves.
VI.
Happy the children born of Christian parents! They alone understand the integrity of affection that addresses itself to the soul, the delicacy of love which envelops the infant, from the bosom of its mother, conducting it through every danger, and, even in spite of maternal instinct, to the port of safety.
The organist could put in practice no personal theories of education. He thought a father and mother (he was both) have but one thing to do—to love and love on, to watch on their knees near the cradle of their child, to observe attentively the movements of the soul in its dawning light, to direct it on high, always on high, guard it from all that is impure, (triviality, even, he considered so;) and so, in fine, enforce the impressions of a saintly and ideal character, before even the child has consciousness of its perceptions.
Give your imagination to the interior of a family where such sentiments prevail; one sees marvellous things, that no painter can paint in colors true enough to render public. O pure and holy family joys! If we hesitate to describe you, it is from respect. We know with what discretion we should touch on holy things, and we hardly dare to make ourselves understood, to those who are fathers, by sketching the scenes of these first years of childhood between Master Swibert and his daughter.
VII.
Night has come; the child is going to sleep. Her father, pursuing his studies, is seated at the piano near the little being who has all his heart, and is now his inspiration; the waves of harmony go out into the night, white apparitions encircle the cradle, graze the earth, and fly away. The child sleeps.
Attentive and listening, her angel looks at her, opening slightly its wings to better protect her, and throwing over her closed eye-lids the bluish and transparent veil. The little face smiles sweetly.
In the morning she awakes, her soul filled with the joys of the night. She hears the birds sing, and the bright morning sun with heavenly rays gilds the cover of her little bed. She watches it play on her white curtains and turns toward her father, her eyes filled with tears, a weight on her heart. "Why do you weep, my daughter?" "Because, my father, I love you dearly, and I am too happy."
Yes, well may we discuss the joys of childhood. To sing them, poets lose their breath; to paint them, exhaust the colors of their palettes; and heap image upon image as their heated fancies may suggest, yet what have they done? Nothing. Yet the subject is worth their study. And how is it that there are so many who have known these joys in all their purity, who in their manhood gaze on into the future, and so seldom look to that past which made them so happy? Would they not, at times, give worlds to be again that little child at its mother's knee?
VIII.
Paganina was nearly seven years old, when she found a companion; the organist's sister died, leaving her only child to the care of her brother.
The little boy, named André, seemed to be of a gentle and even weak character. He was the same age as his cousin, but never was presented a more perfect contrast.
Paganina had not yet acquired that marvellous beauty that afterward became so celebrated, but something there was about her very strange and very attractive.
She was reticent and retiring, nonchalant in gesture and careless in behavior. Her face was always sad, an indescribable, almost ferocious ennui seeming completely to overpower her. But if some recital, some sudden expression touched her imagination, or music entranced her, her deep black eyes threw out a violet flame, and even sparkled. But that was all. The calm of an affected, scornful carelessness returned immediately.
Restlessness is the common host of the domestic hearth.
Master Swibert trembled to see the worldly and theatrical genius of the mother develop in the child; he knew well that, in a nature strong and deep as hers, such tastes would make terrible ravages. And the development of each successive year was not calculated to dispel his fears.
Everything in the child alarmed him, from her habitual concentration to her fits of passionate tenderness—the outburst of the moment, volcano-like, a jet of brilliant flame which sparkles and goes out.
IX.
Master Swibert could boast in his dying hours of never having deserted the child for an hour even. After having devoted the early hours of the day to her and her cousin's education, he superintended and guided their recreations—an important part, in good hands, of the training of a child.
He had the habit of taking every day a long walk. The route they loved best he called the German road. It was that by which the organist had come to Italy. The sight of it revived his memories, and flattered the melancholy love he gave his country.
On the way, the children listened to the stories of the good musician, who so willingly related them. They spoke of Germany; for on this chapter Master Swibert never tired. He led his little auditors into the world of ballads and legends, and we can readily imagine the pretty curiosity and happy astonishment which, at their age, he awakened. Their favorite legend was that of the great emperor Barbarossa, who slept so many centuries in an obscure grotto, leaning on a table of stone into which his beard had grown. These stories were better than our nurses tell; for the organist related them, not to impose on the credulity of his youthful auditory, but to extract the poetry they contained; and this he did wonderfully. Poetry never did harm to any one.
But the children loved, even better than the legends, the recitals suitable for them from the German poets. The story of Mignon delighted them. What could be told them sufficed; and they loved the little girl who had no other language than song, who took the face of an angel and aspired to heaven, where she went without scarcely having lived on earth.
Their imagination was inflamed. They longed to see the country of their dreams. Sometimes, at the turn of the road, they began to run, in the unavowed hope of seeing, at last, what was behind the mountain; but, the circuit passed, and only a long road, apparently without end, presenting itself, the poor little things cried with disappointment. Their father, ready to weep with them, took them in his arms to control them, and told them for the hundredth time one of his pretty ballads.
X.
The route into Germany is through a beautiful country. After traversing a plain for some distance, one enters into a deep gorge in the mountain and then begins to ascend.
This gorge gives passage to a torrent, dry in summer, but, becoming furious during the rains of autumn, uproots trees, carries away bridges, and, undermining the stones at their base, lowers, each year, the level of the neighboring elevations. The route accommodates itself poorly to this terrible neighbor, and follows it as far off as possible. Around on the left shore, it turns quickly at a certain height, and crosses the torrent over a very high bridge. There, continuing to ascend, it makes a circuit over a plain of moderate extent, while a narrow and badly constructed road, bordering the sides of the ravine, leaves it to descend to the magnificent residence which, from time immemorial, belongs to the family of the Ligonieri. It is called the Château Sarrasin.
A view unequalled presents itself from this elevation. Below it, on the first ladder of the heights, is seen the black mass of the chateau, so near that one can almost penetrate into the interior of the edifice; and beyond, the plain, displaying under the silvery net-work of its water-courses the richness of its vegetation; and finally, on the left, the wooded slopes of the mountain, crowned with glaciers, and developing into a gigantic hemicycle. When the dazzled eye is at rest, or gazing afar, it ever returns to the Chateau Sarrasin; and worthy is it of the closest regard.
Its name indicates its antiquated pretensions; but it has no uniformity of style; each age has given it a stone, and from the labor of centuries has resulted a whole of a character grand and majestic.
Proudly encamped on a perpendicular rock, accessible only on one side, it commands the plain and defies the mountain with its black and menacing tower, that seems to have been placed there to protect the other less hardy constructions.
From the road, the traveller raises his eyes to this eagle's nest; he contemplates with pleasure the terraces which shelve below, suspending over the precipice their flowering groves and massive oaks, and, naturally, he demands its history. Yet this history was not always to be praised. The chronicle credits those who inhabited it in past ages with a series of adventures more curious than moral, and enough to fill a book of legends.
The Ligonieri have followed the progress of civilization. In our day, they respect the laws, and even make themselves respected. They serve the state in the highest ranks of the administration, the army, and diplomacy. Yet it would seem that, after all, the devil has not lost much; for they tell wild stories of the castle's being fatal to conjugal love, of its reigning queens ever suffering in silence the affronts of some rival under its cursed roof. Popular recitals represent them isolated, lifting to heaven their innocent hands, and mingling their prayers with the noise of orgies and the songs of feasts. The favorites of the Chateau Sarrasin belonged mostly to the theatre, and among them was she who reigned a certain evening when the scene took place I am going to relate.
XI.
This evening, then, the organist and his two children had arrived on the elevation that commands the residence of the Ligonieri, and were looking about them. There was a fête at the Château Sarrasin.
The grand salon of the ground floor was illuminated, and crowded with a brilliant assembly of guests. Long waves of light came from the windows and doors, and showed the crowd pressing around every opening, and in the shadows revealed groups seated attentively at cards.
All heads were turned toward one point; all looks were in the same direction, and attached themselves to a woman standing in the centre of the light, and surrounded by a chorus and a numerous orchestra.
This woman was clothed in green, and wore a crown of ivy, the ornament of the old bacchantes. A green diamond threw its lustrous rays from her impure forehead. She sang—not the songs that carry tired souls into the regions of the ideal, and make them forget for a moment the sadness of earth; but guilty joys and culpable pleasures were her theme. The metallic voice sang in response to her chorus; and, becoming more and more excited, the quick, passionate notes mounted into a demoniacal laugh. How sad, how true it is, that the human soul, once beyond the bounds of purity, rejoices in and receives new excitement from the delirium of blasphemy.
XII.
Attracted by the light, Paganina advanced toward the precipice. The passionate music had turned her brain. Her growing agitation became extreme, and she betrayed it in gestures and ardent words. When Master Swibert called her, she refused to obey.
Understanding at last, her father rose, pale as a corpse.
"Unfortunate child!" he cried, "thy bad angel is approaching thee. Now comes the hour when I regret thy birth. God grant that I may not be punished for having shown thee the spectacle of evil thou comprehendest so quickly."
The child advances, her father follows, and she begins to run. Wildly through the midst of the rocks she risks her life at every step. Her father, breathless, pursues her, frightened, and covered with a cold perspiration. His eyes, grown large already with fear, see his daughter precipitated into an endless abyss; and discover, also, in the future another abyss still more shadowed and more horrible, where, perhaps, will be lost the deeply-loved soul of his child.
The guests of the Château Sarrasin heard two cries mingle with the joyousness of their féte. The organist seized his child just at the moment when, from the edge of the precipice, she would have plunged into eternity.
He had saved her life, but not regained her soul. That evening, the child separated herself from him in a spirit of revolt which almost broke his heart to witness.
XIII.
Master Swibert slept but little, and badly. When he awoke, he wondered how he had been able to omit to Paganina his usual good-night. His eyes fell instinctively on the door where, every morning, she came, half-clothed, to salute him. The sun's rays gilded the sill, and the good father's heart beat, thinking how happy he would be if at that moment she would appear. He said, "She is coming;" but she came not.
The organist walked up and down his room, interrupting, from time to time, his monotonous promenade, to listen, in hopes of hearing a word, a creaking, a fluttering of a robe. He heard nothing but the uncertain step of André, wandering sad and lonely in the parts of the house least occupied.
The hours passed. The organist still waited, his suffering becoming anguish. Sometimes he felt he must call out, "My child! my child!" Already he opened his arms to receive her; but his sense of duty prevailed, and he waited for her.
The night again returned, and Paganina had shown no signs of life. A bitter sadness, drop by drop, was accumulating in the heart of her unfortunate father. The most mournful thoughts took possession of him. He dreamed of his approaching death, and saw his child alone, abandoned to interior and exterior enemies, and in his weakness he reproached himself for having brought her into this world.
Already more than half the night had gone. Overwhelmed with sorrow, exhausted, he threw himself into an arm-chair, wondering if he could bear to suffer more, when Paganina entered noiselessly, on tiptoe, lest she should awaken her father, whom she believed asleep. She approached him gently, knelt by his side, and, taking one of his hands, covered it with silent tears.
What a change for our poor organist! An immense joy overflowed his heart, and spread over his whole being in delicious emotion. He forgot all past suffering and future inquietude. He lost all consciousness of the present but the knowledge that his daughter was there, pressed to his heart, and palpitating midst her sobs.
He leaned over, and two tears, the first shed by this austere man, fell on the young bowed head—her baptism of peace and pardon. Grief, repentance, the love of the child, obscured for a time, now manifested themselves violently. She hung convulsively on the neck of her father, and begged his pardon. They exchanged kisses, stifled cries, and little words of tenderness, that are the first elements of that pure and passionate, delicate and violent language of the domestic hearth, so little capable of description.
XIV.
The stars sparkled peacefully in a cloudless sky. The breath of the night, with its penetrating odors, came noiselessly, and mingled the white hair of the father with the black curls of the child. It refreshed their burning foreheads.
Peace has descended into their souls. Now and then a sob from Paganina is the only witness of the past storm.
Master Swibert, with his head inclined, speaks in a low voice. He says:
"My daughter, my tenderness for you knows no bounds. Trust to me. Arrived at the summit of life, I, whose head is whitening toward eternity, will tell you that, in this world, the only happiness given man is in the affections of his family. You cannot tell, before being a mother, what paternal affection is, and still less will you understand mine. I was ignorant of it myself until yesterday."
The child standing, her little feet united, pressed her head against the heart of her father.
The organist continued: "The angel of a woman never leaves the domestic hearth. If she lives in the world, her angel has forsaken her. A woman's crown is formed in shadow and silence; the gaze and admiration of a crowd will wither it. Your soul I love, my daughter; and our mutual love must never end. Do you understand me? Never! provided our souls rise together toward the abode of infinite love."
The child listens attentively; divining, by a sort of intuition, the sense of these teachings, engraving themselves, in letters of fire, on her heart; and which she will understand, each day, more and more.
Little by little, lulled by the whispering of her father; refreshed, as if bathed in such admirable tenderness, she fell asleep. Her father held her in his arms, and, raising his eyes, he prayed.
Day has come. The aurora awakes in its humid splendor, and throws its first rays over the mountain violets. The bells of the town dance into the air their clear and joyous notes.
"My father," said Paganina in a low voice, and without opening her eyes, "what do those bells say? Their ringing sound makes me tremble with joy."
"My daughter, they celebrate, as they may, the day of the Ascension, when Christ ascended into heaven."
"To heaven! my father;" and she added, in so weak a voice that he could scarcely hear her, "It seems that I am there now—that I repose in your arms."
The organist looked at his daughter, whose closed eyes seemed to enjoy interior contemplation; while his pale face expressed his delight. He raised her; held her up, as if to offer her to God; then laid her quietly on her little bed, and let her sleep.
XV.
From that day, the organist possessed perfect control over his daughter. If she seemed disposed to escape from his influence, he recalled the night of the Ascension, and that sufficed. Paganina was still a little girl; but soon she would cease to be one. Her future beauty was crystallizing. The features could be seen; but they had not yet blended into their after harmony. There was something surprising about her.
Morally, the incomprehensible little creature was all dissonance and violent contrasts, promising to be equally powerful for good or evil, as she should be led by superior or inferior influences.
The distinctive character of her nature, habitually concentrated and sometimes impetuous to excess, was her passion for every thing beautiful. Music exercised an extraordinary influence over her. It was, properly speaking, her language; and she understood in it what others could not. Already she spoke in it wonderfully.
Her father taught her his instrument; and she gave herself with love to the study. However, it was easy to see that the demon of song would make her his; so Master Swibert hesitated to give her a master, restrained by his personal ideas on the subject. He had his theory, which appeared singular, no doubt, and he revealed it to his daughter, saying, "Too perfect an instrument is a snare for a musician; for when he has at his service an organ of this kind, he forgets too often to raise it to the ideal, and gives it to matter. Where are those who can disengage themselves from matter to arrive at an idea? Where are those who know that the beauty of the body is the shadow of the beauty of the soul? To pursue exclusively the first is to lose both.
"Look at the immortal composers of my country, whose genius will radiate unto the last of posterity. The shrill notes of the piano are the most common expression of their glorious thoughts. The musicians of this nation find voices neither pure nor powerful enough to express their pitiful imaginations. When I see such anxiety for the sign, I esteem poorly the thing signified, and I think that its beauty is, above all, material.
"I love the human voice. What an admirable instrument! But I tremble to see how it is used to express the passions of earth and the enchantments of pleasure. It is dangerous to possess it. I warn you of your danger, my daughter."
I have already said that this theory was singular. The word appears weak, perhaps; but it came from Germany.
However, it had no influence on the destiny of Paganina; for, having finished his reasoning, her father gave her a master. Happily, logic alone does not govern the world.
The little one then learned to sing. Her success in this study was rapid, and passed all foresight. Sometimes Master Swibert was confounded when he heard her, and trembled before this power which had come from himself.
XVI.
The moment came when André was to be submitted to the proof of a public education. His uncle considered such a course necessary to make him a man. It was decided that he should receive at the conservatory of Naples the classic traditions of Italian art. The organist and his daughter wished to accompany him to his destination.
They travelled by short stages. Master Swibert proposing, according to his habit, an elevated result, communicated to his children the riches of his erudition. They stopped wherever they could hope to gather some fruit, curious to visit every place of which they knew the history, and he desirous to give them a living knowledge which would be for ever impressed upon them.
His studies and affections induced him to neglect the mere vestiges of antiquity to seek with greater love the souvenirs of Christianity and the relics of the saints. We know if they abound on this illustrious earth.
Every day, then, the travellers turned a new leaf of the book which they had lisped from their childhood. The history of the martyrs particularly seized upon the imagination of Paganina. She never tired of listening to it on the very places they had sanctified by such sublime acts as the world rarely knows.
We may scoff at or disdain the wonders of interior sanctity, but indifference is arrested by the heroism of martyrdom.
The martyrs wear the double crown of divine and human glory. After their God, they are the vanquishers of death. Inspired courage burns on their faces; and when are added to their ranks the grace and beauty of woman and child, why refuse to their memory the homage of love and admiration, if even not to be Christian is considered worthy of worldly honor.
Paganina had the intelligence of greatness; she loved courage and true nobility. The recitals of her father drew tears from her eyes; and in traversing the arenas made memorable by some bloody triumph, she felt within her every inspiration to celebrate them. Here she was true to her Italian nature; but she spoke with an elevation of accent and depth of emotion which are the privileges of northern nations.
One evening she was at the Colosseum. She felt an enthusiasm within her, an inspiration unaccountable, and pictured in life-colors the crowd of excited people, watching and crying out to the poor Christian martyrs struggling and dying, in the brightness of a supernatural light. She entirely forgot herself.
Something like a hymn breathed from her oppressed heart; eloquence overflowed from her lips. The passers-by were attracted toward her, and her father listened overcome and astonished. While she appeared transfigured, standing in the light of the setting sun, which seemed to throw around her the bloody purple of which she chanted, a ray of the glory of her ancestors rested on the forehead of this grandchild of the martyrs.
That evening, her father, in taking her home again, said to her, "Go on, my little one; many have passed for eloquent who had not your inspiration; many have sought for poetry, and great they were; but they have not found the fruit your tiny hands have gathered. Mignon sang: you sing and speak; and if you use your power for good, Mignon may not compare with you."
Excuse the blindness of a father, if you please.
XVII.
When the time came for the children to part, André was overcome in a manner which seemed incompatible with his nature, so ordinarily tranquil. The father and daughter returned alone, and lived afterward with no other company than themselves. They felt no need to seek their diversion among their neighbors. The simple ties of friendship or convenience to them were unnecessary, and the organist preserved with the outside world only the acquaintance that strict politeness demanded.
Paganina's affection increased daily. A profound sentiment without display, and only recognizable by certain mute signs that might have escaped an indifferent eye. Her father, however, could not be deceived.
So these two beings were never separated. They worked together; the organist conducted his daughter into the highest regions of music, and was astonished, in teaching her, to discover horizons hitherto unknown. Paganina made wonderful progress.
Those who find in art their happiness in this world, and seek the depths of those mysterious tongues of which so many speak and know nothing—those alone can form an idea of the happy moments passed in their solitude.
At times these two souls rose together, mounted even to the pure heights where, to those who attain to them, is given a supernatural felicity.
To these joys Paganina aspired with an immoderate ardor; but in attaining them she experienced a reaction of extreme sadness. This disquieted her father; so, in the language of parable which he liked to use, and which sometimes proved more original than gracious, he said, "My daughter, my daughter, drink with precaution; at the bottom of the purest streams are hidden the most dangerous reptiles. Be prudent, or you will swallow the leech. There is only one fountain to quench your thirst, and where, with your impetuous humor, you may drink with safety: it is that which gushes toward eternal life."
To Be Continued.
[Transcriber's note: This discussion is impressive, considering that quantum theory and the internal structure of the atom appears many decades in the future.]