I remember once hearing this subject fully discussed in a railroad carriage, where certainly the individuals seemed amateurs in accidents, every man having some story to relate or some adventure to recount, of the grievous dangers of “The Rail.” I could not help questioning to myself the policy of such revelations, so long as we journeyed within the range of similar calamities; but somehow self-tormenting is a very human practice, and we all indulged in it to the utmost. The narratives themselves had their chief interest from some peculiarity in the mode of telling, or in the look and manner of the recounter; all save one, which really had features of horror all its own, and which were considerably heightened by the simple but powerful style of him who told it. I feel how totally incapable I am of conveying even the most distant imitation of his manner; but the story, albeit neither complicated nor involved, I must repeat, were it only as a reminiscence of a most agreeable fellow-traveller, Count Henri de Beulivitz, the Saxon envoy at Vienna.
“I was,” says the Count—for so far I must imitate him, and speak in the first person—“I was appointed special envoy to the Austrian court about a year and a half since, under circumstances which required the utmost despatch, and was obliged to set out the very day after receiving my appointment. The new line of railroad from Dresden to Vienna was only in progress, but a little below Prague the line was open, and by travelling thither en poste, I should reach the Austrian capital without loss of time. This I resolved on; and by the forenoon of the day after, arrived at Trübau, where I placed my carriage on a truck, and comfortably composed myself to rest, under the impression that I need never stir till within the walls of Vienna.
“If you have ever travelled in this part of Europe, I need not remind you of the sad change of prospect which ensues after you pass the Bohemian frontier. Saxony, rich in picturesque beauty; the valley of the Elbe, in many respects finer than the Rhine itself; the proud summit of the Bastey; the rock-crowned fortress of Koenigstein,—are all succeeded by monotonous tracts of dark forest, or still more dreary plains, disfigured, not enlivened by villages of wretched hovels, poor, I have heard, as the dwellings of the Irish peasant. What a contrast, too! the people, the haggard faces and sallow cheeks of the swarthy Bohemian, with the blue eye and ruddy looks of the Saxon! ‘Das Sachsenland wo die hübsche mädchen auf die Baüme wachsen.’ Proud as I felt at the superiority of my native country, I could not resist the depression, suggested by the monotony of the scene before me, its dull uniformity, its hopeless poverty; and as I sunk into a sleep, my dreams took the gloomy aspect of my waking thoughts, gloomier, perhaps, because unrelieved by all effort of volition,—a dark river unruffled by a single breeze.
“The perpetual bang! bang! of the piston has, in its reiterated stroke, something diabolically terrible. It beats upon the heart with an impression irresistibly solemn! I remember how in my dreams the accessories of the train kept flitting round me, and I thought the measured sounds were the clickings of some infernal clock, which meted out time to legions of devils. I fancied them capering to and fro amid flame and smoke, with shrieks, screams, and wild gestures. My brain grew hot with excitement. I essayed to awake, but the very rocking of the train steeped my faculties in a lethargy. At last, by a tremendous effort, I cried out aloud, and the words broke the spell, and I awoke—dare I call it awaking? I rubbed my eyes, pinched my arms, stamped with my feet; alas! it was too true!—the reality announced itself to my senses. I was there, seated in my carriage, amid a darkness blacker than the blackest night. A low rumbling sound, as of far-distant thunder, had succeeded to the louder bang of the engine. A dreadful suspicion flashed on me,—it grew stronger with each second; and, ere a minute more, I saw what had happened. The truck on which my carriage was placed had by some accident become detached from the train; and while the other portion of the train proceeded on its way, there was I, alone, deserted, and forgotten, in the dark tunnel of Trübau,—for such I at once guessed must be the dreary vault, unillumined by one ray of light or the glimmering of a single lamp. Convictions, when the work of instinct rather than reflection, have a stunning effect, that seems to arrest all thought, and produce a very stagnation of the faculties. Mine were in this state. As when, in the shock of battle, some terrible explosion, dealing death to thousands at once, will appall the contending hosts, and make men aghast with horror, so did my ideas become fixed and rooted to one horrible object; and for some time I could neither think of the event nor calculate on its consequences. Happy for me if the stupefaction continued! No sooner, however, had my presence of mind returned, than I began to anticipate every possible fatality that might occur. Death I knew it must be, and what a death!—to be run down by the train for Prague, or smashed by the advancing one from Olmutz. How near my fate might be, I could not guess. I neither knew how long it was since I entered the tunnel, nor at what hours the other trains started. They might be far distant, or they might be near at hand. Near!—what was space when such terrible power existed?—a league was the work of minutes—at that very moment the furious engine might be rushing on! I thought of the stoker stirring the red fire. I fancied I saw the smoke roll forth, thicker and blacker, as the heat increased, and through my ears went the thugging bang of the piston, quicker and quicker; and I screamed aloud in my agony, and called out to them to stop! I must have swooned, for when consciousness again came to me, I was still amid the silence and darkness of the tunnel. I listened, and oh! with what terrible intensity the human ear can strain its powers when the sounds awaited are to announce life or death! The criminal in the dock, whose eyes are riveted in a glazy firmness on him who shall speak his doom, drinks in the words ere they are well uttered,—each syllable falls upon his heart as fatal to hope as is the headsman’s axe to life. The accents are not human sounds; it is the trumpet of eternity that fills his ears, and rings within his brain,—the loud blast of the summoning angel calling him to judgment.
“Terrible as the thunder of coming destruction is, there is yet a sense more fearfully appalling in the unbroken silence of the tomb,—the stillness of death without its lethargy! Dreadful moment!—what fearful images it can call up!—what pictures it can present before the mind!—how fearfully reality may be blended with the fitful forms of fancy, and fact be associated even with the impossible!
“I tried to persuade myself that the bounds of life were already past, and that no dreadful interval of torture was yet before me; but this consolation, miserable though it was, yielded as I touched the side of the carriage, and felt the objects I so well knew. No; it was evident the dreaded moment was yet to come,—the shocking ordeal was still to be passed; and before I should sink into the sleep that knows not waking, there must be endured the torture of a death-struggle, or, mayhap, the lingering agony of protracted suffering.
“As if in a terrible compensation for the shortness of my time on earth, minutes were dragged out to the space of years,—amid the terrors of the present, I thought of the past and the future. The past, with its varied fortune of good and ill, of joy and sorrow,—how did I review it now! With what scrutiny did I pry into my actions, and call upon myself to appear at the bar of my conscience! Had my present mission to Vienna contained anything Machiavelic in its nature, I should have trembled with the superstitious terror that my misfortune was a judgment of Heaven. But no. It was a mere commonplace negotiation, of which time was the only requisite. Even this, poor as it was, had some consolation in it,—I should, at least, meet death without the horror of its being a punishment.
“I had often shuddered at the fearful narratives of people buried alive in a trance, or walled up within the cell of a convent. How willingly would I now have grasped at such an alternative! Such a fate would steal over without the terrible moment of actual suffering,—the crash and the death struggle! I fancied a thousand alleviating circumstances in the dreamy lethargy of gradual dissolution. Then came the thought—and how strange that such a thought should obtrude at such a time!—what will be said of me hereafter?—how will the newspapers relate the occurrence? Will they speculate on the agony of my anticipated doom?—will they expatiate on all that I am now actually enduring? What will the passengers in the train say, when the collision shall have taken place? Will there be enough of me left to make investigation easy? How poor G———will regret me! and I am sure he will never be seen in public till he has invented a bon mot on my destiny.
“Again, I recurred to the idea of culpability, and asked myself whether there might not be some contravention of the intentions of Providence by this newly invented power of steam, which thus involved me in a fate so dreadful? What right had man to arrogate to himself a prerogative of motion his own physical powers denied him; and why did he dare to penetrate into the very bowels of the earth, when his instinct clearly pointed to avocations on the surface? These reflections were speedily routed; for now, a low, rumbling sound, such as I have heard described as the premonitory sign of a coming earthquake, filled the tunnel. It grew louder and louder; and whether it were the sudden change from the dread stillness, or that, in reality, it were so, it sounded like the booming of the sea within some gigantic cavern. I listened anxiously, and oh, terrible thought! now I could hear the heavy thug! thug! of the piston. It was a train!
“A train coming towards me! Every sob of the straining engine sent a death-pang through me; the wild roar of a lion could not convey more terror to my heart! I thought of leaving the carriage, and clinging to the side of the tunnel; but there was only one line of rails, and the space barely permitted the train to pass! It was now too late for any effort; the thundering clamor of the engine swelled like the report of heavy artillery, and then a red hazy light gleamed amid the darkness, as though an eye of fire was looking into my very soul. It grew into a ghastly brightness, and I thought its flame could almost scorch me. It came nearer and nearer. The dark figures of the drivers passed and re-passed behind it. I screamed and yelled in my agony, and in the frenzy of the moment drew a pistol from my pocket, and fired,—why, or in what direction, I know not. A shrill scream shot through the gloom. Was it a death-cry? I could not tell, for I had fainted.