The marriage was brought about in less time than had been agreed upon. Nathalie of course did not come; but she sent some presents and a pleasant letter of congratulation, in which she called herself “an inveterate old maid.” About a year afterward I passed through Lyon and saw her. She was still very yellow and more than ever attentive to Fanfreluche and Coco. I even thought she devoted herself too much to the service of these two troublesome pets, to say nothing of a huge cat which she had added to her menagerie, as a kind of hieroglyphic of her condition. “How fare the married couple?” cried she, tossing up her cork-screw curls. “Still cooing and billing?”
“Mademoiselle,” said I, “they are getting on pretty well. Claude, finding the historic pencil not lucrative, has taken to portrait-painting; and being no longer an enthusiastic artist, talks even of adopting the more expeditious method of the Daguerreotype. In the mean time, half the tradesmen of Avignon, to say nothing of Aix, have bespoken caricatures of themselves by his hand. Marie makes a tolerable wife, but has a terrible will of her own, and is feared as well as loved.”
Nathalie tried to laugh; but the memory of her old illusions coming over her, she leaned down toward the cat she was nursing, and sparkling tears fell upon its glossy fur.
The Poison-Eaters.
A very interesting trial for murder took place lately in Austria. The prisoner, Anna Alexander, was acquitted by the jury, who, in the various questions put to the witnesses, in order to discover whether the murdered man, Lieutenant Matthew Wursel, was a poison-eater or not, educed some very curious evidence relating to this class of persons.
As it is not generally known that eating poison is actually practiced in more countries than one, the following account of the custom, given by a physician, Dr. T. von Tschudi, will not be without interest.
In some districts of Lower Austria and in Styria, especially in those mountainous parts bordering on Hungary, there prevails the strange habit of eating arsenic. The peasantry in particular are given to it. They obtain it under the name of hedri from the traveling hucksters and gatherers of herbs, who, on their side, get it from the glass-blowers, or purchase it from the cow-doctors, quacks, or mountebanks.
The poison-eaters have a twofold aim in their dangerous enjoyment: one of which is to obtain a fresh, healthy appearance, and acquire a certain degree of embonpoint. On this account, therefore, gay village lads and lasses employ the dangerous agent, that they may become more attractive to each other; and it is really astonishing with what favorable results their endeavors [pg 365] are attended, for it is just the youthful poison-eaters that are, generally speaking, distinguished by a blooming complexion, and an appearance of exuberant health. Out of many examples I select the following:
A farm-servant who worked in the cow-house belonging to —— was thin and pale, but nevertheless well and healthy. This girl had a lover whom she wished to enchain still more firmly; and in order to obtain a more pleasing exterior she had recourse to the well-known means, and swallowed every week several doses of arsenic. The desired result was obtained; and in a few months she was much fuller in the figure, rosy-cheeked, and, in short, quite according to her lover's taste. In order to increase the effect, she was so rash as to increase the dose of arsenic, and fell a victim to her vanity: she was poisoned, and died an agonizing death.