Part 15

"I may rely on it," she said again, "that they are made exactly by the prescription, and that there is no fear of their working?"

"Small doubt about that," answered the man, and disappeared again with hasty steps in the darkness.

The other, who stayed behind, was a young man. He took the old woman's hand, and said, "Is it possible, Alexia, that these rites and forms and strange old words, which I never can have any faith in, have power to fetter the free will of man, and force it to love and to hate?"

"Ay is it, young gentleman," said the old woman; "but one and one must make two before that can be. It is not these candles alone that can do the work, though they are steeped in human blood, and moulded at midnight under the new moon; nor the magic rites, nor the invocation; there are many other things wanted besides these, as the artists in these matters know well."

"Then I may depend on you?" said the stranger.

"To-morrow, after midnight, I am at your service," replied the old woman; "and you shall not be the first to have reason to complain of my skill. To-night, as you may have heard, I have some one else on hand, a fellow with sense and understanding, whom it may be my art shall produce some effect upon." The last words she muttered with a half laugh; and the two then separated and went off in different directions.

Emilius passed out shuddering under the dark arch, and raised his eyes to the image of the Virgin and Child. "Before thy eyes, thou blessed one," he said half aloud, "these children of darkness dare make their schemes for their infernal deeds! Oh, as thou holdest thy Child in thy embrace of love, so may the Invisible Love keep us continually in its all-powerful arms, and our poor hearts beat ever in joy and sorrow in the presence of One greater, who will never let us fall."

Clouds swept by over the tower and the sharp edge of the roof of the church. The everlasting stars looked down serene and calm; and Emilius with a strong effort flung off these horrors of darkness, and thought of the beauty of his unknown. He went back into the crowded streets, and approached the brilliantly illuminated mansion which contained the ball-room. A crowd was round the door, a confused din of voices and carriages rattling backwards and forwards, and at intervals the swell of the alarming music pealing upon his ears.

He had no sooner got into the room than he was lost in the rolling crowd. Dancers sweeping past him; masques running against him and pushing him from side to side; kettle-drums and trumpets dinning in his ear; life itself seemed on a sudden to be turned into a dream. He passed up and down among the rows of people with his eye alert only to find one pair of bright eyes and the brown tresses of one beautiful head. Never had he more passionately longed to catch a sight of her; yet, with the adoration he felt for her, he could not help being provoked to think she could find any pleasure in losing herself in such a stormy ocean of madness and dissipation. "No," he said to himself, "she cannot love me; no heart that loves could seek such an infernal scene, where human beings are turned to fiends, and wild shrieks of laughter, and these trumpets clanging, drown every pure and holy feeling in devilish scorn. The rustling trees, the bubbling fountains, lute-music, and the voice of noble song streaming out from the impassioned bosom,--these are the sounds amidst which is the home of love; but this is the very jubilee and thunder-cry of hell in all the madness of despair."

He could not find the object of his search, however, though he had three times gone up and down the saloon, and scrutinised carefully all the unmasked ladies, either dancing or sitting; and the idea that that beautiful face was concealed under one of the disgusting masks was too intolerable to be admitted for a moment.

"You are here after all, then?" said the Spaniard, who came up and joined him. "You are looking for your friend, I suppose?"

Emilius had really never thought of him. Somewhat ashamed, he replied, "Indeed I am surprised not to see him here. His mask is remarkable enough."

"Only conceive what the strange fellow is about," said the young officer. "He has not danced once since he has been in the saloon. Directly he entered he fell in with his friend Anderson, who, it seems, has just come back from his travels. Their conversation fell upon literature; and as Anderson did not know the new poem which has just come out, nothing would satisfy Mr. Roderick but that they must shut themselves up in one of the back rooms; and there he is now with a single candle reading the whole production aloud to him."

"That is so like him," answered Emilius. "He is made up of whims and fancies. I have done all I could--I have even risked one or two friendly quarrels--to cure him of this way of living so altogether extempore, gambling away his existence in impromptus; but these follies are so grown into his heart, that he would sooner lose his dearest friend than part with them. This book you speak of he professes to be passionately fond of, and always has it about with him. The other day I asked him to read it to me, and he began to do so. We had scarcely got beyond the opening, and I had begun to enter into the beauties of it, when suddenly he jumped up, ran out of the room, and presently came back with the cook's apron on, made a prodigious fuss to light a fire, and all to do me a beef-steak, for which I had not the slightest inclination, and which, though he fancies he does them better than any one in Europe, few people that have tried once are very anxious to attempt a second time."

The Spaniard laughed. "Has he never been in love?" he asked.

"After his fashion," said Emilius bitterly; "as if he wanted to make a fool of himself and turn love into ridicule; with a dozen women at once, and, if you believe what he says, to desperation. In a week he has forgotten them all."

They were parted by the crowd, and Emilius went off to the room the Spaniard had pointed out to him, where he heard his friend's voice declaiming long before he reached it.

"Ah! there you are, are you!" Roderick cried to him; "you are come in the very nick of time; we are just at the place you and I left off at the other day; so sit down and listen."

"I am not in the mood at present," said Emilius; "neither do place and time seem the best adapted for the purpose."

"And why not, pray?" answered Roderick. "It is all in ourselves. Every time is the right time to employ oneself in a proper way. Or perhaps you want to dance? They want men; and at the expense of an hour or two skipping about, and a pair of tired legs, you may make half a dozen grateful young damsels fall in love with you."

Emilius was already at the door: "Good night," he said; "I am going home."

"Stay one moment," called Roderick after him; "I am going away early to-morrow morning into the country with this gentleman. I will look in upon you before I go, to say good-by; but if you are asleep, don't trouble yourself to wake, as I shall be back again in two or three days.--That is the strangest fellow," he said, turning to his new friend; "so solemn, so serious and soberminded, he is a regular kill-joy; or rather, he does not know what joy means. Every thing must be lofty, ideal, exalted, for him. His heart must take a part, even if it be a puppetshow he is looking at; and when things do not come up to his notions, as of course most things can't, then he gets upon stilts, turns tragical, and the whole world is going to the devil. Under every clown's and pantaloon's mask he looks for a heart overflowing with longings and supernatural impulses; harlequins must philosophise on the nothingness of human wishes: and if these expectations are not exactly realised, tears start into his eyes, and he turns his back on the pretty show in a fever of scorn and indignation."

"Is he melancholy?" asked his hearer.

"Not exactly that," said Roderick; "only his parents, I think, indulged him too much, and he has taken no pains with himself. He has let his feelings ebb and flow regularly, till it has grown into a habit; and if ever the usual set of emotions are put out, he cries, 'A miracle!' and offers premiums to doctors to come and clear up a marvellous natural phenomenon. He is the best fellow in the world; but all the pains I have taken to cure him of these absurdities are thrown away: nothing does him any good. It is as much as I can do to keep in his good graces at all, he is so angry when I speak to him."

"A doctor would be the thing for him, I should think," said the other.

"It is one of his peculiarities," answered Roderick, "to despise the whole art of medicine from beginning to end. Disorders, he says, are all different in different persons, and all general rules and theories are mere absurdities. He would rather go to old women, and use their sympathetic simples. Again, on other grounds, he despises all prudential proceedings, and every thing like orderliness and moderation. From his childhood he has had his ideal of what a great man ought to be, and what his endeavour is to be to make of himself; and one of the points of this ideal is to have an utter scorn of all _things_, particularly of money; and so, that he may never be suspected of being economical, or not liking to give away, or indeed of thinking of money at all, he flings it away in the absurdest way in the world. Consequently, with all his fine property, he is always poor and in difficulties, and is made a fool of by every one who is not great in the sense in which he understands greatness. To be his friend is the most difficult of things; for he is so irritable, that if one does but cough, it is a sign one is not spiritual, and to pick one's teeth would throw him into convulsions."

"Has he never been in love?" inquired Anderson.

"Why, who is he to love?" answered Roderick: "he despises all the daughters of earth. If his ideal were to shew a fancy for a bow or a ribbon, much more to dance, it would break his heart. And if she did but catch a cold, I don't know what would become of him."

Emilius was again in the crowd; when on a sudden the shock and pain which such scenes and concourses often produced came over him again, and chased him away out of the room and the house, along the now empty streets, to his house. It was not till he found himself alone in his own room that he recovered his self-possession. His servant lit his candle and placed it on the table; and Emilius told him to go to bed. The other side of the street all was dark as the grave; and he sat himself down to let the thoughts the ball had awakened in him flow off into a poem.

There was calm in the spirit's depths; In chains the demons slept; With purpose fell to work his ill Uprose the wicked will. "Fling wide," he cried, "The prison-gate, Come forth, ye demons all!" With yell and shout That hideous rout Sprung out at the welcome call.

Tralala! Tralala! Whoop, whoop, whoop, hurrah, hurrah! Trumpet crash and cymbal clash; Flute, and fife, and violin, Squeaking, shrieking, clattering; Clarions ring with deafening din; Now hell's chorus shall begin, Now the fiends of madness reign; Gentle child-like peace is slain.

In and out, across, about, Whither pass this tumbling rout? Merry dance we, and the lights flash free, Jubilee, jubilee, jubilee! Kettle-drums bang and cymbals clang, And the devil drown care in the pool of despair.

With smiling lip and flashing eye Yon fair one bids me to her side; Yet silent soon those lips shall lie, And wither'd be her beauty's pride. Death's clammy hand is on her brow-- Ha! 'tis a skull that's beckoning now! She must die; yet what care I? Well to-day and well to-morrow, What have I to do with sorrow? Ay, grin as thou wilt, thou pale spectre, at me; I'll live and dance on, and I care not for thee.

To-day that face is fresh and fair, To-morrow 'tis bleach'd, and white, and bare: Come then, dearest, while we may, Let us drain love's sweets to-day. Oh, seize the moment ere it flies! Anguish and tears, Sorrow and fears, Have mark'd thee for their prize. The angel of death Swept by on the blast; On thee fell his breath Or ever he past. Gnawing worms and rottenness, Death, decay, and nothingness: These are thy doom--how soon, how soon! Thou must die, and so must I.

One touch of thy robe, as the dance sweeps by, One squeeze of the hand, one glance of the eye, And the grim king has clutch'd thee--on! on! let us fly! Thou art lost, thou art gone; and away stagger I. So why should I care? There is joy in despair: More maids by dozens at my feet, With tempting bait of proffer'd sweet. Here's a fair dame would be my bride, And she is fair as are the maids That wander in Elysian glades: Shall it be she, or shall it be another? There's a bold beauty at her side, That looks as if she'd like a lover, Ready to take whate'er she can, Provided only 'tis a man.

Oh, these mad pleasures and these sirens smiling, With cheating hopes and mocking shows beguiling-- Hell's curse is on them! Is the blossom fair? Hate, envies, murders, are the fruit they bear. So fast we whirl along the stream, Life is death, and love a dream; Ebbing, flowing, wave on wave, Soulless, lifeless to the grave. Nature's beauty is a lie-- She is all deformity; Flower and tree the mocking guise Which cheat our fond believing eyes. On then, ye cymbals, with your din; Scream clarionets, and bugles ring: Crash, crash, crash! 'tis the fiend-world's knell, Yoicks forward--forward--home to hell!

He had finished, and was standing at the window. Then came she into the room beyond him, beautiful as he had never seen her: her dark hair was loose, and hung in long waving tresses on her ivory neck. She was lightly dressed, and it seemed she had some household matter to arrange before retiring to rest; for she placed two candles on stands in front of the window, spread a cloth on the table, and again disappeared.

Emilius was sunk in his sweet dreamy visions, and the image of his beloved was still playing before his fancy, when, to his horror, he saw the fearful scarlet old woman stride across the room, her head and bosom gleaming hideously as the gold caught the light from the candles, and again vanished. Could he trust his eyes? The darkness had deceived him; it was but a spectre his fancy had conjured up. But no; she comes again, more hideous than before; her long grizzled hair in loose and tangled masses floating down upon her breast and shoulders. The beautiful maiden is behind her, with pale and rigid features, her fair bosom all unveiled, her form like a marble statue. Between them was the little lovely child, weeping and praying, and watching imploringly the maiden's eyes, who looked not down. In agony it raised its little hands and stroked the neck and cheeks of the marble beauty. She caught it fast by the hair, and in the other hand she held a silver basin. The old woman howled and drew a knife and cut across the little thing's white neck.

Then came there something forward from behind, which they did not seem to see, or it must have filled them with the same horror as it did Emilius. A hideous serpent-head drew out coil after coil from the darkness, and inclining over the child, which now hung with relaxed limbs in the arms of the old woman, licked up with its black tongue the spouting blood. And a green sparkling eye shot across through the open shutter into the brain and eye and heart of Emilius, who fell fainting to the ground. Roderick found him senseless some hours after.

* * * * *

On a beautiful summer morning a party of friends were sitting round a breakfast-table in a garden summer-house. They seemed very merry, laughing and chattering, and drinking the health of the young bride and bridegroom, and wishing them long life and happiness. The young couple themselves were not present; the beauty herself being still engaged at her toilet, while the bridegroom was wandering up and down the walks at the other end of the garden, to enjoy in solitude the sweetness of his own reflections.

"What a shame it is," said Anderson, "that we are not to have any music! All our young ladies are put out about it: they say they never longed so much for a dance, and it is not to be: it is said he cannot endure it."

"We are to have a ball though, I can tell you, and a right mad and merry one too," said a young officer; "every thing is arranged; the musicians are come, and we have stowed them away where no one shall know any thing about them. Roderick has taken the direction on himself; he says we ought not to give way to him too much; and that to-day, of all days in the world, his whims and fancies must not be indulged."

"He is so much more sociable and like his fellow-creatures than he used to be," said another young man, "that I do not think he will be displeased at the alteration. The whole affair of this marriage has come on so suddenly, so little like what we expected of him, he must be changed."

"His whole life," said Anderson, "has been as remarkable as his character is. You all know how he came last autumn to the city on a tour he was making, and lived all the winter through there by himself, shut up in his room as if he was melancholy mad. He never went near the theatre, or any other of our places of diversion; and had very nearly quarrelled with Roderick, who was his most intimate friend, for trying to dissipate him a little, and prevent him from for ever indulging his gloomy humours. All this excitableness and irritability of temper was at the bottom nothing but disease, as the event proved; for four months ago, I believe you know, he fell into a violent nervous fever, and was so ill that every one gave him up. He recovered at last, and got rid of some of his fancies; but the strange thing was, that when he came to his senses again, his memory was entirely gone: his memory, that is, of all that had happened immediately previous to his sickness. He could remember his childhood, and all his boyish adventures were fresh as ever; but the last year or two were blanks. All his friends, even Roderick, he had to become acquainted with over again; and it is only by slow degrees that here and there faint glimmerings of the past are beginning to come back upon his recollection. When he was taken ill, his uncle took him into his own house, where he could be better attended to: he was just like a child in their hands, and let them do any thing they pleased with him. The first time he went out to enjoy the fresh spring-air in the park, he saw by the road-side a young maiden sitting apparently in deep thought on a bank. She looked up as he passed; their eyes met, and, as if overcome by some indescribable feeling, he sprung out of the carriage, sat down at her side, caught her hands in his, and dissolved into a flood of tears. His friends were afraid that this outburst of feeling was a relapse into fever; he was quite quiet, however, and seemed happy and good-humoured. He paid a visit to the parents of the young lady, and the first time he saw her again he asked her to marry him. Her father and mother made no difficulty, and she consented. He was now happy; a new life seemed to have sprung up in him; every day he got better and stronger, and his mind easier: a fortnight ago he came here on a visit to me, and the place delighted him so much that nothing would satisfy him but what I must part with it to him. If I had pleased, I might have turned his inclination to my advantage: any thing I asked he was ready to give, so that the bargain be concluded immediately. He made his arrangements, sent furniture down, and his plan is to spend all the summer months here. And so it has come to pass that here we are all of us to-day gathered together at my old place for his wedding."

The house was large, and most beautifully situated; on one side it looked upon a river, with a garden sloping down to the water's edge full of flowers, which filled the air with fragrance; and beyond, a long range of hills skirting the bank of the river, and magnificently wooded. Along the front was a broad open terrace, with rows of orange and citron trees, and little doors leading to the various offices underneath the house. The other side a lawn extended out to the park, from which it was only divided by a light fence. This front of the house had a very beautiful though very singular appearance. The two projecting wings enclosed a spacious area, which was partly roofed over, and divided into three stories, forming open galleries running along the centre of the building, supported on tiers of pillars rising one above another. From these galleries were doors opening into all the different rooms in the house; and the various figures passing along these spacious corridors, behind the columns above or below, and disappearing into the different doors, in their various occupations, produced a very singular effect. In one or other of them the party used to collect itself at teatime, or for any games that might be going on; so that from below the whole had the air of a theatre, when it was the greatest pleasure to stand and watch the passing forms above, as in a beautiful tableau.

The young party were just rising, when the bride crossed the garden to join them. She was richly dressed in violet velvet, with a necklace of brilliants on her ivory throat, and her white swelling bosom gleaming through the rich lace which covered it; a myrtle sprig and a wreath of roses formed her simple though most tasteful head-dress. She greeted them kindly, and the young men were overcome by her extraordinary beauty. She had gathered some flowers in the garden, and was returning to the house to see after the arrangements for the banquet. The tables were set out in the lowest of the open galleries. Their white damask coverings, and the glass and crystal vessels on them, were of the greatest beauty. Multitudes of flowers of every hue and colour stood in elegant vases; the pillars were wound with wreaths of green leaves and roses; and how enchanting it was to see the bride moving up and down among the flowers, so gracefully passing between the table and the column, looking that all was right in the arrangement. Presently she vanished, and then appeared again for a moment at the upper gallery as she passed to her chamber.

"She is the most charming, the most beautiful creature I ever saw," Anderson cried; "my friend is a lucky man."

"And her very paleness," put in the young officer, "enhances her beauty; her dark eyes flash so above those marble cheeks; and those lips, so glowingly red, make her whole appearance truly enchanting."

"The air of silent melancholy," said Anderson, "which surrounds her, adds to the majesty of her bearing."