“Farewell my friend, farewell; a mist seems gathering around my eyes. Oh, it is nothing, I—”
This unfinished letter was scarcely legible from blots and blurs; my poor friend had evidently indited it but a little while before his death, when his mind, as well as his body, enfeebled by illness, was becoming confused. He could not have bequeathed me a “memento” more acceptable to myself than this autobiography.
I opened the papers, which were written in a bold free hand; snuffed the candle, and began to read; as I did so, a small alabaster time-piece upon my mantle struck nine.
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
“While sitting to you for my portrait, you have often paid me compliments upon my beauty. I will not say that the language of compliment is unknown to me; yet, could you have seen me fourteen years ago, a ragged, houseless, wandering orphan child, you would never be able to recognize in my present self the same creature. My earliest recollections do not extend beyond the age of six years; but I still retain an indefinite remembrance of a tall, slender woman, who used to walk the floor with me, and hush me to sleep in her arms; it seemed to be in the country, for I remember hearing the mournful sighing of the winds, as they whistled through the trees, and of being frightened at the sound; these may be, however, merely the fancies or dreams of childhood.
“My first distinct remembrance, is of being a ragged, dirty child,—the protegé, or rather the slave of an old hag, the inhabitant of a wretched hovel; when not subjected to her abuse and savage tyranny, I was generally the companion of any little vagabonds I chanced to meet playing in the streets. What right that old woman had to my person, or how she ever obtained possession of me, I never knew; chance or fate, whichever it is that rules the actions of mankind, removed me so soon from her pernicious influence, and depraved example, that I never learned how our destinies came to be united. She sometimes sent me out alone at night, to the most public squares in the city of Vienna, and commanded me not to return without a certain number of sous, under penalty of being whipped with rods, till the blood ran down my back; frequently she beat me from sheer malice, merely to exercise her ill humor. In winter, my bed was a heap of dirty straw, in the loft of this miserable hut, where I lay and shivered with cold, while my Hecate-like protector, crouched in the chimney corner of the only room the house contained, dozed, and muttered over the embers of her fire. During summer I played about the streets, or grown bold from habit, boldly asked pennys from the passers-by, while the old woman performed her daily routine of thieving or begging in different parts of the town.
“Thus passed two years, in this depraved and wretched way; I was then eight years old, and reason began to shed some glimmering rays of light upon my benighted mind. I saw that hundreds of other children did not live as I did: some were beautifully dressed, their hair combed smoothly, their faces and hands clean, while mine were as dirty as the rags I wore. All this was a perfect mystery to me; I could in no way explain it to myself, that other children, no prettier than myself, should revel in luxury, while I was left a neglected beggar child; alas! knowledge of the ways of the world has since then taught me the reason why. I always experienced a sorrowful regret, when I saw other children gayly dressed, smiling and happy. I did not envy them, but I wished to be so situated myself. The old woman, whom I called Granny, sometimes imposed upon the credulity of the vulgar, by telling fortunes; her wild eyes, of a greenish color, and straggling gray hair, accompanied by strange mysterious gestures, would not have disgraced the queen of the witches herself; and I presume she would have taught me the same nefarious trade, had not an unexpected event changed the whole course of my life.
“It was on a cold, dark evening in December; the air was keen and raw, and flakes of snow came driving along on the wind, when, after having treated me with unusual severity during the day, the old woman dismissed me to one of the principal squares, and forbade me to return until I had obtained ten sous.
“I took a little paper lantern, lighted by a bit of tallow candle, to guide my steps through the dark and lonely streets, and went to the square. I had been there sometime, and had collected but five sous, from the unwilling charity of the passers-by; some of them, when I timidly asked them for a sou, looked at me harshly, and passed on, making me no reply; others gave it me in a contemptuous manner; and one woman, as she swept past me, her long robe trailing the pavement, remarked how absurd it was for the police to allow pauper children to annoy people by their importunity. I felt so degraded and unhappy, that unconsciously the bitter tears ran down my cheeks, and leaning my head upon my arm, which rested on one of the iron seats of the piazza, I wept bitterly; I longed to go home, but I dreaded the severe punishment which I knew awaited me, if I did not return with ten sous.
“I heard heavy steps coming up the gravel walk, and rose upon my feet; it was a tall, stout man, enveloped in a large cloak; I could not see his face; my little lantern was extinguished, and the moon had hidden herself beneath the snowy clouds. I extended one of my cold little hands, and falteringly asked him for a sou.