Unknown.
V.
Dear Friend,—Allow me to tell you that, in spite of your somewhat too lively imagination, I have always looked upon you as a person of much sense, and that there is nothing that moves me more to pity than to see a sensible man attacked by a fashionable craze like spiritualism. I am always seized by the desire to heal the patient, which seems the more difficult the absurder—forgive the word, but I know no better—the cause of the attack.
“THE UNUTTERABLE EXPRESSION IT PRODUCED UPON MY VISAGE.”
I hope you will laugh heartily over the following story, and have a healthful feeling of convalescence when you have bravely conquered the first bitter taste of the medicine.
A young widow, living in great seclusion, allows an old friend of her husband’s to persuade her to make a concession to him and to the carnival, and visit a masked ball at his house, in company of her brother, a comely school-boy.
The latter, dressed as a young lady looks charming, makes countless conquests at the ball, and rides home at night in an open carriage with his sister, wrapped in a charming evening-cloak of hers, flushed with champagne, and with the triumphs of the evening.
And lo and behold, upon the Kurfürsten Bridge the glowing eyes of the lad make, as it seems, a deep and lasting impression!
A few days later the widow receives a very remarkable letter from a friend, which tempts her irresistibly to give him a lesson, which I am sure he will have the kindness to take in good part.