There, all is over now, and the villagers are returning homewards—some, to the little hamlet—others, are wending their way upwards, to homes high amid the mountains—and here I sit alone, in my little whitewashed room, watching the shadows as they deepen over the glen, and gazing on that mountain peak that glows like a carbuncle in the setting sun.
It is like a dream to me how I have come to sojourn in this peaceful valley. The last entry I made was in Baden, the night of that party at the Waterfall. The next day I awoke ill—fevered from a restless night. Guckhardt came early, and thinking I was asleep, retired without speaking to me. He laid his hand on my temples, and seemed to feel that I required rest and quiet, for he cautioned my servant not to suffer the least disturbance near me.
I conclude I must have been sleeping, for the sudden noise of voices and the tramp of many feet aroused me. There was evidently something strange and unexpected going forward in the town. What could it mean? My servant seemed most unwilling to tell me, and only yielded to my positive commands to speak.. Even now I tremble to recall the tidings—a murder had been committed! One of the guests at our late féte, a young Englishman named Lockwood, had been discovered dead on the side of the road about two miles from the Waterfall; his watch, and purse with several gold pieces, were found on his person, so that no robbery had been the reason of the crime. I remember his having come on foot, and hearing that I should not require my char-à-banc to return, he engaged it. The driver’s story is, that the stranger always got out to walk at the hills, usually lingering slowly in his ascent of them; and that at last, at the top of the highest, he had waited for a considerable time without his appearing, and growing weary of expectancy he returned, and at the foot of the hill discovered something dark, lying motionless beside the pathway; he came closer, and saw it was the stranger quite dead. Three wounds, which from their depth and direction seemed to have been given by a dagger, were found in the chest; one, entered from the back between the shoulders; the fingers of the right hand were also cut nearly through, as though he had grasped a sharp weapon in his struggle. Death must have been immediate, as the heart was twice wounded; probably he expired almost at once. The direction and the position of the wounds refuted every idea of a suicide—and yet how account for the crime of murder? The stranger was scarcely a week in Baden, not known to any one before his arrival here, and since had merely formed those chance acquaintanceships of watering-places. There was not, so far as one could see, the slightest ground to suspect any malice or hatred towards him.. The few particulars I have here set down were all that my servant could tell me. But what from the terrible nature of the tidings themselves, my own excitable state when hearing them, but, more than either, the remembrance of the dialogue I had overheard the night before—all combined and increased my fever to that degree that ere noon I became half wild with delirium. What I said, or how my wandering faculties turned, I cannot—nor would I willingly—remember. There was enough of illness in my ravings, and of method in them too, to bring Guckhardt again to my bedside, accompanied by a high agent of the police. The attempt to examine a man in such a state relative to the circumstances of a dreadful crime could only have entered the head of a Préfet de Police or a Juge d’Instruction. What my revelations were I know not; but it is clear they assumed a character of independent fancy that balked the scrutiny of the official, for he left me to the unmixed cares of my doctor.
By his counsel I was speedily removed from Baden, under the impression that the scene would be prejudicial to my recovery. I was indifferent where, or in what way, they disposed of me; and when I was told I was to try the air of the Lake of Constance, I heard it with the apathy of one sunk in a trance. Nor do I yet know by what means the police, so indefatigable in tormenting the innocent, abandoned their persecution of me. They must have had their own sufficient reasons for it; so much is certain.
And now, once more, I ask myself, Is all that I have here set down the mere wanderings of a broken and disjointed brain? have these incidents no other foundation than a morbid fancy? I would most willingly accept even this sad alternative, and have it so; but here is evidence too strong to disbelieve. Here before me lies an English newspaper, with a paragraph alluding to the mysterious murder of an English gentleman at Baden. The dates, circumstances, all tally in the minutest particulars. Shall I discredit these proofs?
The Countess is married to the Marquis de Courcelles; a distant relative of the Archduchess, it is said. Let me dismiss the theme for ever—that is, if I can. And now for one whose interest to me is scarcely less sad, but of a very different shade of sadness.
This is my birthday, the 31st August. “Why had the month more than thirty days?” is a question I have been tempted to hazard more than once. Nor is it from ingratitude that I say this. I have long enjoyed the easy path in life; I have tasted far more of the bright, and seen less of the shady side of this world’s high-road than falls to the share of most men. With fortune more than sufficient to supply all that I could care for, I have had, without any pretension to high talent, that kind of readiness that is often mistaken for ability; and, what is probably even more successful with the world, I have had a keen appreciation of talent in other men—a thorough value for their superior attainments; and this—no great gift, to be sure—has always procured me acceptance in circles where my own pretensions would have proved feeble supporters. And then, this delicacy of health—what many would have called my heaviest calamity—has often carried me triumphantly through difficulties where I must have succumbed. Even in “the House” have I heard the prognostications of what I might have been, “if my health permitted;” so that my weak point ministered to me what strength had denied me.
Then, I have the most intense relish for the life of idleness I have been leading; the lounging “do-nothingism” that would kill most men with ennui, is to me inexpressibly delightful. All those castle-buildings which, in the real world, are failures, succeed admirably in imagination. I overcome competitors, I convince opponents, I conciliate enemies at will, so long as they are all of my own making; and so far from falling back disappointed from the vision, to the fact, I revel in the conviction that I can go to work again at new fancies; and that, in such struggles, there is neither weariness nor defeat. A small world for ambition to range in! but I value it as Touchstone did his mistress,—“a poor thing, but it was mine own.”
It would be a strange record if a man were to chronicle his birthdays, keeping faithful note of his changed and changing nature as years stole on. For myself I have always regarded them somewhat like post-stations in a journey, ever expecting to find better horses and smoother roads next stage, and constantly promising myself to be more equable in temperament and more disposed to enjoy my tour. But the journey of life, like all other journeys, puts to flight the most matured philosophy, and the accidents of the way are always ready to divert the mind from its firmest resolves.
Tuesday Morning, When I had written so far last night, the arrival of a travelling carriage and four, with a Courier preceding, caused such a commotion in the little inn that, notwithstanding all my assumed indifference, I could not entirely escape the contagion, and, at last, was fain to open my window and stare at the new arrival with all the hardihood that becomes him already in possession of an apartment. “I took little by my motion.” All I saw was a portly travelling carriage, heavily laden with its appurtenances and imperials, well-corded springs, rope-lashed pole, and double drag-chains,—evidences of caution and signs of long-projected travel.