"'This cannot be,' I exclaimed passionately, 'that you can call this hideous wretch your husband! Nature herself must shudder only at the thought. Deformed, stunted, odious, revolting!—Mother, the very touch of his hand would be a profanation to the dead. My mother sighed. 'And yet, Falkner, how much happier should I have been had I not been dazzled from my plighted faith by exterior advantages alone, and passed my life with one whose qualities are like the fairest diamond placed in a rude shagreen casket. My son, you have not yet looked upon the brilliancy within. Read that paper, Falkner, and be just.' My mother quitted the room as she spoke.
"For the first time in my life I perceived a counteracting influence in opposition to my own in the breast of my tender mother, and the thought enraged me beyond all bounds. Again I meditated self-destruction; again gloomily conceived the thought that I would immolate this intruding wretch, and thus free us both from his persevering attentions. 'It shall be done,' I exclaimed aloud, clenching my hands together in a delirium of passion; 'I have learned a few secrets from Nature in my wanderings alone with her, and one of them I will prove this very evening on——'
"'Your benefactor, Falkner!' interrupted the raven-like croaking of Randolph Maxwell, looking up into my face with those large melancholy eyes of his, and laying his hand on mine. I was taken unawares, and was surprised to find that this same hand of his was delicately white, and soft as that of a woman's. It had on a ring of surpassing brilliancy, which attracted my eyes even in the midst of this exciting scene, so boyish and unfixed at that time was my mind. Was it that the ring itself possessed some powerful spell over my wayward thoughts? or that the hand, looking like a human one,—nay, even beautiful in its kind,—made the owner of it appear at that moment like a being of the same nature as my own? By an impulse I could not control, I extended my own towards him, and I fancied I saw a moisture in those large melancholy eyes of his. 'Emma, my betrothed Emma,' called out that voice, made only for the society of crocodiles and croaking birds of prey, 'come hither, Emma, and behold thy Randolph and thy son friends.' She entered at the call, and pressed our united hands between her own. Then all the loathing and abhorrence of my nature against that inexplicable being returned, and with as much violence as before. But I covered it over with artifice, cloaked it with politeness, obscured it from observation by taciturnity and sullenness. Like a martyr I submitted to my fate; so, the next morning I accompanied this ill-matched pair to the church of C——, and saw them married, forcing myself to give away my almost idolised parent to a thing resembling an ourang-outang. How did I long to spurn the reptile I looked down upon, with my foot! to crush him to pieces as I would a bloated toad!
"That very evening my new father-in-law and myself set off to Germany, my mother having previously put into my hands once more, that paper she had before wished me to read. I thrust it into my pocket. Her blessing to us both, as we seated ourselves in the carriage of the dwarf, still rings in my ears.
"'Farewell, dear Randolph! Farewell, beloved son! For my sake, Randolph, be kind to this unfortunate boy!' Thus did the dwarf answer: 'I swear to you by that faith which has been so powerfully proved, to be careful and indulgent to your son. Write to me, my——' he would have added 'beloved wife;' but catching, I suppose, some strange and threatening expression in my eyes, he changed it into 'my dear and earliest friend!' I felt choking, but would not give way to the tenderness of nature;—I would not say, 'God bless you, best and kindest of mothers!' I threw myself back into the carriage, and, overpowered with various emotions, I wept like an infant. But be it remembered, sir, I was not then sixteen years old. At length a healing slumber closed up my senses. I know not how long it lasted, for when I awoke I was alone; the carriage was standing without horses in an inn-yard; my companion would not have me disturbed, and was gone himself into the house to give orders for our accommodation there that night.
"My mother had used a word in parting that became to me as a constant goad; nay, it entered into my very soul. 'Her unfortunate boy!' Why should she use the word unfortunate? I had been told from infancy, (and I firmly believed what had been so often asserted,) that I was eminently handsome. Both my parents had been distinguished for their great personal attractions, and I had been assured that I possessed in a still higher degree than they did the exterior gifts and graces of nature. Then, as to mental ones, had I not been born a poet, philosopher, everything that was great and noble?—for so my doting parents always said in my hearing. Why then did she now call me unfortunate, especially when she had provided for me so august a patron in her second husband? I have since fully known what she meant by this term unfortunate."
Poor L—— at this time rose from his chair, and gazed up vacantly into the clouds. I knew what he was thinking of, but the subject was too delicate for me to touch on.
He continued:
"I forgot the paper I had thrust into my pocket when I left my mother. We travelled on together wrapt up each in our own thoughts, for I could not force myself to converse with him, although sometimes I was astonished at the depth and genius of his observations. They fell like brilliant gems around me, but I would not pick them up, or even admire their lustre. At length wearied, I suppose, with my obstinacy, he took a book out of the pocket of the carriage, and began to read. This I considered an indignity, an insult, and with marks of temper sought immediately for another. In this mood we reached the house of the celebrated Scheele, in Vienna, where it was agreed I should for some months reside, that I might learn something of chemistry before I began my astronomical researches.
"Not a word was said to me on money matters; all this was arranged without my knowledge. I found a pocket-book on my toilet, containing most ample means for my private expenses, but it was unaccompanied with a single line. No leave was taken of me; but when I arose one morning I was told by the family of the Professor Scheele that 'my friend' had departed at an early hour, leaving me in charge of them, bespeaking their kindest attentions for me, and paying most liberally for me in advance.