Chapter VI (1)

WHAT HAPPENED AT THE CHOOSING OF THE CASKETS, AND THE
CONCLUSION OF THE TALE.

As may be imagined, Albertine got into a condition of the most utter despair when her father told her about the wretched lottery in which her hand was to be the prize, and all her prayers and tears were powerless to turn him from this idea, when he had once got it fairly into his head. Then, besides this, Lehsen seemed indifferent and indolent, in a way that nobody who really loved could be, not making any attempt to see her privately, or even to send her a message.

On the Saturday night before the fateful Sunday she was sitting alone in her room, as the twilight was deepening into night, her mind full of the misfortune which was threatening her. She was calculating whether or not it would be better to come to a speedy determination to fly from her father's roof, rather than wait till the most fearful destiny conceivable should accomplish itself, that of marrying either the pedantic old Tussmann, or the insufferable Baron Benjie, and then she remembered the mysterious Goldsmith, and the strange, supernatural way in which he had prevented the Baron from touching her. She felt quite sure that he had been on Edmund's side then; wherefore a hope began to dawn in her heart that it must be on him that she should rely for help at this crisis of her affairs. Above all things she wished that she only could just have a little talk with him then and there; and was quite sure that she shouldn't be at all frightened, really, if he were to appear to her suddenly, in some strange, spectral sort of manner.

So that she really was not in the least frightened when she saw that what she had been thinking was the stove was really Leonhard the Goldsmith, who came up to her and said, in a gentle, harmonious voice:--

"My dear child, lay aside all grief and anxiety. Edmund Lehsen, whom, at present at all events, you believe you love, is a special _protégé_ of mine; and I am helping him with all the power at my command. Let me further tell you that it was I who put the lottery idea into your father's head; that I am going to provide and prepare the caskets, and, of course, you see that no one but Edmund will find your portrait."

Albertine felt inclined to shout for joy. The Goldsmith continued:--

"I could have brought about the giving of your hand to Edmund in other ways; but I particularly wish to make the two rivals, Tussmann and the Baron, completely contented at the same time. So that that is going to be done, and you and your father will be quite sure to have no more trouble on their part."

Albertine poured forth the warmest expressions of gratitude. She almost fell at his feet, she pressed his hand to her heart, she declared that, notwithstanding all the magic tricks he had performed, nay, even after the way he had come into her room, she wasn't in the least afraid of him; and she concluded with the somewhat naive request that he would tell her all about himself, and who he really was.

"My dear child," he answered, "it would not be by any means an easy matter for me to tell you exactly who I am. Like many others, I know much better whom I take other people for than what I really and truly am myself. But I may tell you, my dear, that many think I am none other than that Leonhard Turnhäuser the Goldsmith, who was such a famous character at the court of the Elector Johann Georg, in the year 1580, and who disappeared, none knew how or where, when envy and calumny tried to ruin him; and if the members of the imaginative or romantic school say that I am this Turnhäuser, a spectral being, you may imagine what I have to suffer at the hands of the solid and enlightened portion of the community, the respectable citizens, and the men of business, who think they have something better to do than to bother their heads about poetry and romance. Then, even the aesthetic people want to watch me and dog my steps, just as the doctors and the divines did in Johann Georg's time, and try to embitter and spoil whatever little modicum of an existence I am able to lay claim to, as much as ever they can. My dear girl, I see well enough already, that though I take all this tremendous interest in young Edmund Lehsen and you, and turn up at every corner like a regular _deux ex machina_, there will be plenty of people of the same way of thinking with those of the aesthetic school, who will never be able to swallow me, historically speaking, who will never be able to bring themselves to believe that I ever really existed at all. So that, just that I might manage to get something like a more or less firm footing, I have never ventured to say, in so many words, that I am Leonard Turnhäuser, the Goldsmith of the sixteenth century. The folks in question are quite welcome to say, if they please, that I am a clever conjurer, and find the explanations of every one of my tricks (as they may style the phenomena and the results which I produce) in Wieglieb's 'Natural Magic,' or some book of the kind. I have still one more 'feat,' as they would call it, to perform, which neither Philidor, nor Philadelphia, nor Cagliostro, nor any other conjurer would be able to do, and which, being completely inexplicable, must always remain a stumbling-block to the kind of people in question. But I cannot help performing it, because it is indispensable to the _dénouement_ of this Berlinese tale of the Choice of a Bride by three personages, suitors for the hand of Miss Albertine Bosswinkel. So keep up your heart, my dear child, rise to-morrow morning in good time, put on the dress which you like the best, because it is the most becoming you happen to have; do your hair in the way you think suits you best, and then await, as quietly and patiently as you can, what will happen."

He disappeared exactly as he had come.

On the next day--the Sunday--at eleven o'clock--the appointed time--there arrived at the place of rendezvous old Manasseh with his hopeful nephew--Tussmann--and Edmund Lehsen with the Goldsmith. The wooers, not excepting the Baron, were almost frightened when they saw Albertine, who had never seemed so lovely and taking. I am in a position to assure every lady, married or otherwise, who attaches the proper amount of importance to dress, that the way in which Albertine's was trimmed, and the material of the trimmings, were most elegant; that the frock itself was just the right length to show her pretty little feet in their white satin shoes; that the arms of it (short, of course), and the corsage were bordered with the richest Point; that her white French gloves came up to just the least little bit above her elbows, showing her beautiful arm; that the only thing she had on her head was a lovely gold comb set with jewels; in short, that her dress was quite that of a bride, except that she had no myrtle wreath in her bonny brown hair. But the reason why she was so much more beautiful than she ever had been before was that love and hope beamed in her eyes and bloomed on her cheeks.

Bosswinkel, in a burst of hospitality, had provided a splendid lunch. Old Manasseh glowered at the table laid out for this repast with malignant glances askance, and when the Commissionsrath begged him to fall to, on his countenance could be read the answer of Shylock:--

"Yes, to smell pork, to eat of the habitation which your prophet, the Nazarite, conjured the devil into. I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you."

The Baron was less conscientious, for he ate more beefsteak than was seemly, and talked a great deal of stupid nonsense, as was his wont.

The Commissionsrath behaved wholly contrarily to his nature on this important occasion. Not only did he pour out bumpers of Port and Madeira, regardless of expense, and even told the company that he had some Madeira in his cellar a hundred years old; but when the luncheon was over he explained to the suitors the method in which his daughter's hand was to be disposed of in a speech much better put together than anybody would ever have expected of him. They were given to understand most clearly that the successful one must find her portrait in the casket which he chose.

When twelve o'clock struck the door of the hall opened, and there was seen in the middle of it a table with a rich cover on it, bearing the three caskets.

One was of shining gold, with a circle of glittering ducats on its lid, and the inscription inside them--

"Who chooseth me doth gain that which he much desires."

The second was of silver, richly chased. On its lid were many words and letters of foreign languages, encircling this inscription--

"Who chooseth me doth find more than he hopes."

The third, plainly carved of ivory, was inscribed--

"Who chooseth me doth gain his dreamed-of bliss."

Albertine took her place on a chair behind the table, her father by her side. Manasseh and the Goldsmith drew away into the background.

The lots were drawn, and, Tussmann having the first choice, the Baron and Edmund had to go into the other room.

The Clerk of the Privy Chancery went carefully and considerately up to the table, looked at the caskets with much minuteness of observation, read the inscriptions on them one after another. Soon he found himself irresistibly attracted by the beautiful characters of foreign languages so charmingly intertwined on the cover of the silver casket.

"Good heavens!" he cried, "what beautiful lettering, with what skill those Arabic characters are brought in amongst the Roman letters, and 'Who chooseth me doth gain more than he hopes.' Now have I gone on cherishing the slightest hope that Miss Albertine would be so gracious as to honour me with her hand? wasn't I going to throw myself into the basin? Evidently here is comfort, here is good fortune. Commissionsrath! Miss Albertine! I choose the silver one."

Albertine rose and handed him a little key, with which he opened the casket. Great was his consternation to find, not Albertine's portrait, but a little book bound in parchment, which, when he opened it, appeared to consist of blank white pages. Beside it lay a little scrap of paper, with the words--

"Thy choice was, in a way, amiss,
But those few words do tell thee this--
What thou hast won will never alter,
To use it thou needs't never falter.
What 'tis as yet thou dost not see,
An endless source of joy 'twill be.
_Ignorantiam_ 'twill enlighten,
_Sapientiam_ further brighten."

"Good heavens!" cried Tussmann, "it's a book. Yet, no, it's not a book, and there's nothing in the shape of a portrait. It's merely a lot of paper bound up together; my hopes are dashed to earth, all is over with me now. All I have got to do is to be off to the frog-pond as quickly as I can."

But as he was hurrying away the Goldsmith stopped him, and said--

"Tussmann, you're very foolish; you've got hold of the most priceless treasure you could possibly have come across. Those lines of verse ought to have told you so at once. Do me the favour to put that book which you found in the casket into your pocket."

Tussmann did so.

"Now," said the Goldsmith, "think of some book or other which you would wish that you had in your pocket at this moment."

"Oh, my goodness," said Tussmann, "I went and shied Thomasius's little treatise on 'Diplomatic Acumen' into the frog-pond, like an utter fool as I was."

"Put your hand in your pocket," said the Goldsmith, "and take out the book."

Tussmann did so, and lo, the book which he brought out was none other than Thomasius's treatise!

"Ha!" cried Tussmann, "what is this? Why it is Thomasius's treatise, my beloved Thomasius, rescued from the congregation of frogs in the pond, who would never have learned diplomatic acumen from him."

"Keep yourself calm," the Goldsmith said; "put the book into your pocket again."

Tussmann did so.

"Think of some other rare work," the Goldsmith said: "one which you have never been able to come across in any library."

"Oh, good gracious!" cried Tussmann in melancholy accents. "I have been, you see, in the habit of sometimes going to the opera, so that I have wanted, very much, to ground myself a little in the theory of music, and I have been trying in vain hitherto to get hold of a copy of a certain little treatise which explains the arts of the composer and the performer, in an allegorical form. I mean Johann Beer's 'Musical War,' an account of the contest between composition and harmony, which are represented under the guise of two heroines, who do battle with each other, and end by being completely reconciled."

"Feel in your pocket," said the Goldsmith; and the Clerk of the Privy Chancery shouted with joy when he found that his paper book now consisted of Johann Beer's 'Musical War.'

"You see now, do you not," said the Goldsmith, "that in the book which you found in the casket you possess the finest and most complete library that anybody ever had? and more than that, you take it about with you in your pocket. For, while you have this remarkable book in your pocket, it will always be whatever book you happen to want to read, as soon as you take it out."

Without wasting a thought on Albertine or the Commissionsrath, Tussmann went and sat down in an armchair in a corner, stuck the book into his pocket, pulled it out again, and it was easy to see, by the delight in his countenance, how completely the Goldsmith's promise had been fulfilled.

It was the Baron's turn next. He came strolling up to the table in his foolish, loutish manner, looked at the caskets through his eyeglass, and murmured out the inscriptions one after the other. But soon a natural, inborn, irresistible instinct drew him to the gold casket, with the shining ducats on its lid. "Who chooseth me doth gain that which he much desires." "Certainly ducats are what I much desire, and Albertine is what I much desire. I don't see much good in bothering over this."

So he grasped the golden casket; took its key from Albertine, opened it, and found a nice little English file! Beside it lay a piece of paper with the words:--

"Now thou hast the thing thy heart
Longed for, with the keenest smart.
All besides is mere parade.
Onward--never retrograde--
Moves a truly thriving Trade."

"And what the Devil's the use of this thing?" Benjie cried, surveying the file. "It isn't Albertine's picture, you know; however, I shall hold on to the casket; it'll be a wedding-present to Albertine. Come to me, dearest child!" With which he was making straight for Albertine; but the Goldsmith held him back by the shoulders, saying--

"Stop, my good sir; that's not in the bargain: you must content yourself with the file. And you will be content with it, when you find out what a treasure it is. In fact, the paper tells you, if you can understand it. Have you got a worn ducat in your pocket?"

"Well," said Benjie, angrily, "and what then?"

"Out with it," the Goldsmith said, "and try the file on the edge of it."

The Baron did so, with an amount of skill which told of much previous practice; and the more ducats he filed at--for he tried a good many, one after another--the fresher the edges of them came out.

Up to this point Manasseh had been looking on in silence at what was transpiring; but here he jumped up, with eyes sparkling wildly, and dashed at his nephew, crying, in a hollow, terrible voice--

"God of my Fathers! what do I see? Give me that file!--here with it instantly! It is the piece of magic-work for which I sold my soul more than three hundred years ago. God of my Fathers!--hand it over to me!"

And he made at his nephew to take it from him; but Benjie pushed him back, crying, "Go to the Deuce, you old idiot! It was I who found the file, not you!"

To which Manasseh responded, in fury: "Viper! Worm-eaten fruit of my race!--Here with that file! All the Demons of Hell be upon you, accursed thief!"

Manasseh clutched hold of the Baron, with a torrent of Hebrew curses, and foaming and gnashing his teeth, he exerted all the strength at his command to wrest the file from him. But Benjie fought for it as a lioness does for her cubs, till at length Manasseh was worn out; on which his nephew seized him by the shoulders and threw him out of the door, with such force that all his limbs cracked again. Then, coming back like a flash of lightning, he shoved a small table into a corner, and sitting down there, opposite to the Clerk of the Privy Chancery, took a handful of ducats from his pocket, and set to work to file away at them as hard as he could.

"Now," said the Goldsmith, "we have seen the last of that terrible Manasseh. He is off our hands, for good and all. People say he is a second Ahasuerus, and has been going spooking about since the year 1572. That was the year in which he was put to death for diabolical practices and sorcery, under the name of Lippolt, the Jew-coiner. But the Devil saved his body from death at the price of his immortal soul. Many folk who understand those things say they have seen him in Berlin in a good many forms; so that, if all tales are true, there are a good number of Lippolts at the present time about. However, I, who have a certain amount of experience in those mysterious matters, can assure you that I have given him his quietus."

It would weary you very needlessly, dear reader, were I to waste words in telling you what you know quite well; namely, that Edmund Lehsen chose the ivory casket, inscribed--

"Who chooseth me doth gain his dreamed-of bliss,"

and found in it a beautiful portrait of Albertine, with the lines--

"Yes--thou hast it--read thy chance
In thy darling's loving glance.
What has past returns no more--
Earthly fate so willeth this.
All the joy which lies _before_
Gather from thy sweetheart's kiss."

And Edmund, like Bassanio, followed the counsel of the last line, and pressed his blushing sweetheart to his breast, and kissed her glowing lips; whilst the Commissionsrath greatly rejoiced, and was full of happiness over this happy _dénouement_ of this most involved love-affair.

Meanwhile the Baron had been filing at ducats quite as eagerly and absorbedly as the Clerk of the Privy Chancery had been reading, neither of them taking the slightest notice of what had been going on, till the Commissionsrath announced, in a loud voice, that Edmund Lehsen had chosen the casket containing Albertine's portrait, and was, consequently, to be her husband. Tussmann seemed to be quite delighted to hear it, and expressed his satisfaction in his usual manner, by rubbing his hands, jumping a little way up and down for a moment or two, and giving a delicate little laugh. The Baron seemed to feel no further interest about the matter; but he embraced the Commissionsrath; said he was a real "gentleman" and had made him most utterly happy by his present of the file, and told him that he could always count upon him, in all circumstances. With which he took his departure.

Tussmann, too, thanked him, with tears of the most heartfelt emotion, for making him the happiest of men by this most rare and wonderful of all rare and wonderful books; and, after the most profuse expenditure of politeness to Albertine, Edmund, and the old Goldsmith, he followed the Baron as quickly as ever he could.

Benjie ceased to torture the world of letters with literary abortions, as he had formerly done, preferring to employ his time in filing ducats; and Tussmann no longer made the booksellers' lives a burden to them by pestering them to hunt out old forgotten books for him.

But when a few weeks of rapture and happiness had passed, a great and bitter sorrow took possession of the Commissionsrath's house. For the Goldsmith urged, in the strongest terms, upon Edmund that for his own sake, and for the sake of his art, he was bound to keep his solemn promise and go to Italy.

Edmund, notwithstanding the dreadful parting from Albertine, felt the strongest possible impulse urging him towards the country of the arts; and, although Albertine shed the bitterest tears, she could not help thinking how very nice it would be to be able to take out letters from her lover at Rome, and read them out--or extracts from them--at aesthetic teas of an afternoon.

Edmund has been in Rome now more than a year, and people do say that his correspondence with Albertine languishes, and that the letters are becoming rarer and colder. Who knows whether or not anything will ever come, ultimately, of the engagement between those two people? Certainly Albertine won't be long "in the market" in any case; she is so pretty, and so well off. Just at present, there is young Mr. Gloria (just going to be called to the bar), a very nice young gentleman indeed, with a slim and tightly-girded waist, a couple of waistcoats on at once, and a cravat tied in the English style; and he danced all last season with Albertine, and is to be seen now going continually with her to the Thiergarten, whilst the Commissionsrath trots very complacently after them, looking like a satisfied father. Moreover, Mr. Gloria has passed his second examination at the Supreme Court with flying colours.

"So perhaps he and Albertine may make a match of it, should he get a fairly good appointment. There's no telling. Let us see what happens."

"You have certainly written a wonderfully crack-brained thing in that," Ottmar said, when Lothair had finished. "This 'Tale containing improbable incidents,' as you have called it, appears to me to be a kind of mosaic, composed of all kinds of stones put together at random, which dazzles and confuses one's eyes so that they can't take firm hold of any definite figure."

"As far as I am concerned," Theodore said, "I must confess that I think a great deal of it is exceedingly delightful, and that it might very likely have been a very superior production, if Lothair hadn't, most imprudently, gone and read Hafftitz. The consequence of this was that those two practitioners of the black art, the Goldsmith and the Jew-coiner, had to be brought into the story somehow, willy-nilly; and thus those two unfortunate revenants make their appearance as heterogeneous elements, working, with their sorceries, in an unnaturally constrained manner among the incidents of the tale. It is well your story hasn't been printed, or you would have been hauled over the coals by the critics."

"Wouldn't it do to light up the pages of a Berlin Almanack?" the Author asked, with one of his ironical smiles. "Of course I should still more localize the localities, and add a few names of celebrities, and so gain a little applause from the literary-aesthetic, if from nobody else.[2]

[Footnote 2: "This speech of Lothair's shows what the Author had in his mind at the time. The tale _did_ appear in the Berlin Almanack of 1820, with additional localities, and names of celebrities in the Art-World, but the publishers told him he ought to try to keep within the bounds of 'probability,' in future."--(Note of Editor of Collected Works.)]

"However, all the same, my dear friends, did you not laugh heartily enough at times, as I was reading it? and ought that not to deprive your criticism of some of its severity? If you, Ottmar, say my tale is a mosaic, you might admit that it has something of a Kaleidoscope character, in spite of its crackiness, and that its matters, though most adventitiously shaken together, do ultimately form more or less interesting combinations. At all events, you surely admit that there are one or two good characters in my story, and at the head of them, the love-stricken Baron Benjie, that worthy scion of the Jew-coiner race of Lippolts; however, we've had far too much of my piece of patchwork, which was only intended to amuse you for a moment as a _bizarre_ jest. What I would have you notice is that I have been faithful to my principle of welding on the Legendary to the every-day life of the present day."

"And," said Theodore, "I am a great adherent of that principle. It used to be supposed to be necessary to localize everything of the legendary kind in the remote East, taking Scheherezade as the model in so doing; and, as soon as we touched upon the manners, the customs, the ways of life of the East, we got into a world which was apparently hovering, adrift, all in a sort of unreality, anchorless, before our eyes, on the point of floating away and disappearing. This is why those tales so often strike coldly on us, and have no power to kindle the inner spirit--the fancy. What I think, and mean, is, that the foot of the heavenly ladder, which we have got to mount in order to reach the higher regions, has to be fixed firmly in every-day life, so that everybody may be able to climb up it along with us. When people then find that they have got climbed up higher and higher into a marvellous, magical world, they will feel that that realm, too, belongs to their ordinary, every-day life, and is, merely, the wonderful and most glorious part thereof. For them it is the beautiful flower-garden beyond the city-wall into which they can go, and in which they can wander and enjoy themselves, if they have but made up their minds to quit the gloomy walls of the city, for a time."

"Don't forget, though, Theodore, my friend," said Ottmar, "that there are quantities of people who won't go up the ladder at all, because it isn't 'proper' or 'becoming.' And many turn giddy by the time they get to the third rung of it. Many never see the ladder at all, though it is facing them in the broad, daily path of their lives, and they pass by it every day. As regards the tales of the 'Thousand and One Nights,' it is remarkable enough that most of those who have tried to imitate them have overlooked that which is just what gives them life and reality-- exactly what Lothair's principle is. All the cobblers, tailors, dervishes, merchants, and so forth, who appear as the characters in those tales, are people who are to be met with every day in the streets. And--inasmuch as life is independent of times and manners, but is always the same affair--in its essential conditions (and always must be so), it follows that we feel that all those folks--upon whom, in the middle of their everyday lives, such extraordinary and magical adventures came, and such spells wound themselves--are really the sort of people who are actually walking about amongst us. Such is the marvellous, mighty power of description, characterization, and representation in that immortal book."

As the evening was fast growing colder, it was thought advisable--on account of Theodore's having but half recovered from his late illness--that the friends should go to the great summer-house, and indulge in a cup of refreshing tea, in place of anything more exciting.

And when the urn was on the table, singing its usual little domestic tune, Ottmar said--

"I don't think I could have a better opportunity for reading you a tale which I wrote a long while ago, and which happens to begin with tea-drinking. I mention, to begin with, that it is in Cyprian's style."

Ottmar read--

THE UNCANNY GUEST.

A storm was raging through the heavens, announcing the coming of winter, whirling black clouds on its wings, which dashed down hissing, rattling squall-showers of rain and hail.

"Nobody will come to-night," said Madame von G. to her daughter Angelica, as the clock struck seven. "They would never venture out in such weather. If your father were but home!"

Almost as she was speaking, in came Captain Moritz von E. (a cavalry officer), followed by a young Barrister, whose brilliant and inexhaustible fund of humour and wit was the life and soul of the circle which was accustomed to assemble every Thursday evening in Colonel von G.'s house. So that, as Angelica said, there was little cause to be sorry that the less intimate members of the circle were away, seeing that the more welcome ones had come.

It felt very chilly in the drawing-room. The lady of the house had had a fire lighted, and the tea-table brought.

"I am sure," she said, "that you two gentlemen, who have been so courageous as to come to see us tonight through such a storm, can never be content with our wretched tea. Mademoiselle Marguerite shall make you a brew of that good, northern beverage which can keep any sort of weather out." Marguerite--a young French lady, who was "companion" to Angelica, for the sake of her language, and other lady-like accomplishments, but who was only about her own age, or barely more--came, and performed the duty thus entrusted to her. So the punch steamed, while the fire sparkled and blazed; and the company sate down round the little tea-table.

A shiver suddenly passed through them--through each and all of them; and they felt chilled. Though they had been talking merrily before they sat down, there fell now upon them a momentary silence, during which the strange voices which the storm had called into life in the chimney whistled and howled with marvellous distinctness.

"There can be no doubt," said Dagobert (the young barrister), "that the four ingredients, Autumn, a stormy Wind, a good fire, and a jorum of punch, have, when taken together, a strange power of causing people to experience a curious sense of awesomeness."

"A very pleasant one, though," said Angelica. "At all events, I do not know a more delightful sensation than the sort of strange shiveriness which goes through one when one feels--heaven knows how, or why--as if one were suddenly casting a glance, with one's eyes open, into some strange, mystic dream-world."

"Exactly," said Dagobert; "that delicious shiveriness was exactly what came over all of us just now; and the glance into the dream-world, which we were involuntarily making at that moment, made us all silent. It is well for us that we have got it over, and that we have come back so quickly from the dream-world to this charming reality, which provides us with this grand liquid." He rose, and, bowing politely to Madame von G., emptied the glass before him.

"But," Moritz said, "if you felt all the deliciousness of that species of shudder, and of the dreamy condition accompanying it (as Miss Angelica and I did), why shouldn't you be glad to prolong it?"

"Let me say, my dear friend," Dagobert answered, "that the kind of dreaminess which we have to do with in this instance is not that in which the mind, or spirit, goes losing and sinking itself in all kinds of vague labyrinths of complexity of wondrous, calm enjoyment. The storm-wind, the blazing fire, and the punch are only the predisposing causes of the onsetting of that incomprehensible, mysterious condition--deeply grounded in our human organism--which our minds strive, in vain, to fight against, and which we ought to take great care not to allow ourselves to yield to over much. What I mean is, the fear of the supernatural. We all know that the uncanny race of ghosts, the haunters, choose the night (and particularly in stormy weather), to arise from their darksome dwellings, and set forth upon their mysterious wanderings. So that we are right in expecting some of those fearsome visitants just at a time like this."

"You do not mean what you say, of course," Madame von G. answered; "and I need not tell you that the sort of superstitious fear which we so often, in a childish way, feel, is not in any degree inherent in our organization as human beings. I am certain that it is chiefly traceable to the foolish stories of ghosts, and so forth, which servants tell us while we are children."

"No, Madame," Dagobert answered; "those tales--which we enjoyed more than any others which we heard as children--would never have raised up such an enduring echo in us if the strings which re-echo them had not existed within us to begin with. There is no denying the existence of the mysterious spirit-world which lies all around us, and often gives us note of its Being in wondrous, mystic sounds, and even in marvellous sights. Most probably the shudder of awe with which we receive those intimations of that spirit-world, and the involuntary fear which they produce in us, are nothing but the result of our being hemmed in--imprisoned--by our human organization. The awe and the fear are merely the modes in which the spirit imprisoned within our bodies expresses its sorrow thereat."

"You are a spirit-seer, a believer in all those things--like all people who have lively imaginations," said Madame von G. "But if I were to go the length of admitting, and believing, that it is permitted that an unknown spirit-world should reveal its existence to us by means of sounds and sights, I should still have to say that I am unable to comprehend why that mysterious realm, and its denizens, should stand in such a relation to us that they bring merely paralyzing fear and horror upon us."

"Perhaps," Dagobert said, "it is the punishment inflicted on us by that mother from whose care and discipline we have run away. I mean, that in that golden age when our race was living in the most perfect union with all nature, no dread or terror disturbed us, for the simple reason that in the profound peace and perfect harmony of all created things, there was nothing hostile that could cause us any such emotion. I was mentioning strange spirit-sounds; but why is it that all the real _nature_-tones--of whose origin and causes we can give the most complete account--sound to us like the most piercing sorrow, and fill our hearts with the profoundest dread? The most remarkable of those nature-tones is the air-music, or, as it is called, the 'devil-voice,' heard in Ceylon and the neighbouring countries, spoken of by Schubert in his 'Glances at the Night-side of Natural Science.' This nature-tone is heard on calm and bright nights, sounding like the wail of some human creature lamenting in the deepest distress. It seems to come sometimes from the most remote distance, and then again to be quite close at hand. It affects the human intelligence so powerfully that the most self-controlled cannot help feeling the deepest terror when they hear it."

"Yes," said Moritz, "it is so. I have never been in Ceylon, certainly, or in any of the neighbouring countries; but I have heard that terrible nature-sound; and not only I, but every one else who heard it, felt just that precise effect which Dagobert alludes to."

"I should be extremely obliged to you," said Dagobert, "and you would probably convince Madame von G. also, if you would not mind telling us what happened."

"You know," Moritz said, "that I served the campaign in Spain under Wellington, with a mixed force of English and Spanish cavalry against the French. The night before the battle of Vittoria I was bivouacking in the open country. Being wearied to death by the long march we had made during the day, I had fallen into a deep sleep of exhaustion, when I was awakened by a piercing cry of distress. I naturally thought--and it was the only idea that came into my mind--that what I heard was the death-cry of some wounded soldier near me; but the comrades who were lying round me were all snoring, and there was no other sound to be heard. The first gleams of the dawn were breaking through the deep darkness, and I got up and strode away over the bodies of the sleepers, thinking that I might perhaps come across the wounded man, whoever he was, who had uttered that cry. It was a singularly calm night, and only most gradually and imperceptibly did the morning breeze begin to move, and to cause the leaves to tremble. Then a second cry, like the former--a long wail of woe--came ringing through the air, and died away in the remotest distance. It was as though the spirits of the slain were rising up from the battlefield, and wailing their boundless sorrow out into the wide heaven. My breast throbbed, was overwhelmed by an inexpressible awe; all the sorrow which I had ever heard exhaled from all human breasts was nothing in comparison with that heart-piercing wail. Our comrades now awoke from their sleep, and, for the third time, that terrible cry of sorrow arose, and filled the whole air, more fearful and awful than before. We were all smitten with the profoundest fear; even the horses were terrified; they snorted and stamped. Many of the Spaniards fell on their knees and prayed aloud. One of the English officers told us that he had several times met with this phenomenon in southern countries; and that it was of electrical origin, and there would probably be a change in the weather. The Spaniards, with their bent towards the supernatural, heard in it the mighty voices of supernatural beings, announcing great events about to happen. In this they were confirmed when, next day, the battle came thundering in upon them, with all its horrors."

"Is there any occasion." Dagobert said, "to go to Ceylon, or to Spain, to hear these marvellous Nature-tones of sorrow and complaining? Surely the howling of the storm-wind, the rattling of the hail, the groanings and creakings of the vanes are just as capable of filling us with profound terror as are those other Nature-tones we have been speaking of. Listen to that weird music which some hundreds of fearful voices are organing down this chimney; or to the strange little spirit-like ditty which the tea-urn is just beginning to sing."

"Oh! most ingenious indeed!" cried Madame von G. "Even into the very tea-urn Dagobert conjures spirits which render themselves cognisable to us by fearful cries of woe."

"But he is not far wrong, dear mother!" Angelica said. "I could very soon be seriously frightened at the extraordinary way in which that whistling, and rattling, and hissing is going on in the chimney; and the little tune which the tea-urn is singing, in such a tone of profound sorrow, is--to me--so eery and uncomfortable, that I shall go and blow out the spirit lamp, that there may be an end of it at once."

Angelica rose: her handkerchief fell. Moritz quickly picked it up and handed it to her. She allowed a glance, full of soul, from her heavenly eyes to rest upon him; he took her hand, and pressed it fervently to his lips.

At that moment Marguerite shuddered convulsively, as if touched by some electric current, and allowed the glass of punch, which she had just poured out for Dagobert, to drop from her hand. It shattered to atoms on the floor. She cast herself down at Madame von G.'s feet sobbing bitterly--said she was a stupid creature, and implored that she might be allowed to go to her room. She said that what they had been talking about had made her frightened and nervous--although she had not understood it; that she felt frightened still--as if she could not stay in the room--though she could not explain why; that she was feeling unwell, and would like to get to bed. So saying, she kissed Madame von G.'s hands, and bedewed them with the tears she was shedding.

Dagobert felt the painfulness of the incident, and the necessity of giving matters a different turn. He, too, fell at Madame von G.'s feet, and in the most pathetic voice at his command, begged forgiveness for the culprit. As regarded the stain of punch on the floor, he vowed that he would put waxed brushes on his feet in the morning, and go figuring athwart the boards in the most exquisite tours, and steps that ever inspired the brain of a court dancing-master.

Madame von G., who had at first been looking very grave over Marguerite's mishap, strange as it seemed, and inexplicable, cleared up a little at Dagobert's words. She gave each of them her hand with a smile and said, "Rise, and wipe away your tears. You are forgiven, Marguerite; you have this champion of yours to thank that I do not inflict a very severe punishment upon you. But I can't let you go altogether scot free. If you _are_ a little out of sorts, you must try to forget it. I shall ordain you to stay here, be more assiduous than before at filling the gentlemen's glasses with the punch, and, above all things, you must reward your champion and defender with a kiss, in token of your sincere gratitude."

"So that Virtue is its own reward," Dagobert said, with a comic pathos, as he took Marguerite's hand. "All I ask of you, beauteous lady," he continued, "is to believe that the world contains (though you might be sceptical on the subject) legal luminaries of such a heroic sort that they do not hesitate a moment to offer themselves up a sacrifice at the shrine of Innocence and Truth. But we must obey the commands of our fair judge, from whose award there is no appeal." And he impressed a fugitive kiss upon Marguerite's lips, and then led her back to her seat with much solemnity. Marguerite, blushing like a rose, laughed very heartily; but the bright tears still stood in her eyes.

"Stupid fool that I am," she cried in French, "have I not got to do whatever Madame von G. bids me? I will keep perfectly calm. I will go on making their punch. I will listen to their ghost-stories without being in the least afraid."

"Bravo, angelic child," cried Dagobert. "My heroism has infected you, and the sweetness of your lips has inspired _me_. My imagination has unfolded new wings, and I feel ready to serve up the most awful events and mysteries from the 'Regno di Pianto.'"

"I thought we had done with this unpleasant subject," said Madame von G.

"Oh no, mother dear," cried Angelica eagerly; "please to let Dagobert go on! I am exactly like a child about those things. I don't know anything I so delight in as a nice ghost story--something that makes all one's flesh creep."

"Oh, how I _do_ like that!" Dagobert cried. "Nothing is so utterly delightful in young ladies as their being tremendously superstitious, and easily frightened; and I should never dream of marrying a woman who was not terribly afraid of ghosts."

"You were saying a little while ago, dear Dagobert," said Moritz, "that we ought to guard ourselves against--or take care how we allow ourselves to get into--that dreamy state of awe which is the commencement of spirit-fear--the dread of the superhuman, the ghostly world. You have still got to explain to us the _why_."

"If there is, at the commencement of it, any real cause for that sense of awesomeness--which is at first so thoroughly blended up with the _dreamily_ pleasurable--it by no means remains at that stage. Soon there supervenes a deadly fear--a horror which makes the hair stand on end; so that the said pleasurable feeling at the commencement would seem to be the fascination of temptation with which the Spirit World lures us on and ensnares us. We were talking of certain Nature-tones which are capable of explanation, and of their fearsome effect upon our senses. But we at times hear sounds more extraordinary, of which the origin and cause are indiscoverable by us, and which produce in us the profoundest awe and terror. All reassuring ideas--such as that they proceed from some animal in pain, or are produced by currents of air, or other natural causes--are useless and of no avail. Every one, I presume, has experienced that, in the night, the very faintest sound, if only it occurs at regular intervals with pauses between, completely drives away sleep, and goes on increasingly stirring up one's inward disquiet till it reaches the point of complete disorganization of the faculties. Not very long ago I had to spend a night, on a journey, at an inn, where the landlord put me in a nice, comfortable, lofty, airy bedroom. In the middle of the night I started up from my sleep, wide awake. The moon was shining brightly in at the window, which was uncurtained, so that I could see every article of the furniture, and even the minutest objects in the room. There was a sound as of water dropping into some metallic dish. I lay and listened. The drops went on falling at regular, measured intervals, drip, drip, drip. My dog, who was lying under the bed, crept out, and went about the room whimpering and crying, scratching on the walls and on the floor. I felt as if streams of icy water were running all through me, and the cold perspiration dripped from my brow. However, I collected myself by a great effort, and--after first of all giving a good loud shout--I got out of bed, and went forward to the middle of the room. There the drops seemed to be falling close in front of me, or rather I should say _right through_ me into the metal, of which I heard the reverberation ringing loud and clear as they fell. Then, overcome by terror, I crept back, somehow, to the bed, and covered myself up with the bedclothes. And then it seemed to me that the dropping--still going on at the same regular intervals--grew gradually fainter and fainter, and died away as if in the distance. I fell into a deep sleep, out of which I did not wake till it was bright daylight in the morning. The dog had come and lain down close beside me in bed, and did not move till I got up, when he jumped up too, barking vigorously, as if he had got over his terror of the previous night. It occurred to me that it might only be to me that the (doubtless) natural cause or causes of this strange sound were a mystery, and I told the landlord of my adventure--of which I still felt the terror in all my frame. I ended by saying that he could, no doubt, explain the whole affair to me, but that he ought to have told me of it beforehand. He turned as pale as a sheet, and begged me never to tell any one what had happened to me, as he would risk the loss of his customers. He said many travellers had complained about that sound, which they had heard on bright moonlight nights--that he had examined everything with the utmost care and attention, and even had the floor of that room and the adjoining one taken up, as well as making inquisition into everything in the neighbourhood, without coming upon the faintest trace of anything to account for this awe-inspiring noise. It had not been heard for nearly a year before the night I speak of, and he had been flattering himself that the Principle--whatever it might be--which was haunting the room had ceased its operation. But seeing, to his great alarm, that in this he was mistaken, he determined that he would never, in any circumstances, allow anybody to pass the night there again."

"Oh! how terrible!" cried Angelica, shuddering like one in the cold stage of an ague. "That is really most terrible! Oh! I am sure I should have died if anything like that had happened to me! But I have often woke up from sleep, suddenly, feeling an indescribable, inexplicable alarm and anxiety, as if I had been going through something terrible and alarming; and yet, I had not the slightest idea what it was that I had been going through, nor the very faintest recollection of any fearful dream, or anything of that kind. Rather I seemed to be waking from some condition of complete unconsciousness, like death."

"I know that feeling perfectly well," Dagobert said. "Perhaps it points straight to the effect upon us of psychical influences external to us, to which we are compelled to yield ourselves up, whether we choose or not. Just as the mesmeric subject has no remembrance of the mesmeric sleep, or of anything which happens in it. Perhaps that sense of fear and anxiety which we feel on awaking (as we have said), of which the cause is hidden from us, may be the lingering echo of some mighty spell which has forced us out of ourselves."

"I remember very distinctly," Angelica said, "some four years ago, the night before my fourteenth birthday, awaking in a condition of that kind. I could not shake off the terror of it for several days afterwards. But I strove in vain to remember anything about my dream (if dream it was, that had so terrified me). I knew, and I know quite well, that in the very dream itself I had told several people--my own dear mother amongst them--what the dream was, several times. But all I could remember when I woke was that I had told the dream. I could not recall the slightest trace of what the dream had been."

"This strange psychical phenomenon," Dagobert said, "is closely connected with the magnetic principle."

"Our conversation is getting more and more dreadful," said Madame von G. "We are getting deep, and losing ourselves in matters I can't bear even to think about. Moritz, I must beg you to tell us something entertaining--outrageous even--that we may get away from this terrible region of the supernatural."

"I should be very happy to try," said Moritz, "if you will just allow me to tell one gruesome tale, which has been hovering on my lips for a long time. At this moment all my being is so filled with it that I feel that I could not talk about anything else."

"Discharge yourself, then," said Madame von G., "from the load of awesomeness which so weighs upon you. My husband will be home immediately, and then I should be so delighted to work through some battle or other with you and him, or to hear you talk in your absorbed manner about horses, or anything, to get me out of this overstrained condition into which all this supernatural stuff, I must admit, puts me."

"In my last campaign," said Moritz, "I made the acquaintance of a Russian Lieutenant-Colonel, a Livonian by birth, scarcely thirty, who, as chance willed it that we should be serving together before the enemy for a considerable time, soon became my very intimate friend. Bogislav--that was his Christian name--possessed every quality fitted to gain for him, everywhere, the highest consideration and the most sincere regard. He was tall and fine-looking, with an intellectual face. He possessed masculine beauty, much mental cultivation, and was kindliness itself, while brave as a lion. He could be particularly cheerful and entertaining, especially over a glass of wine; but there would often come over him, and overwhelm him, the thought of something terrible which had happened to him, leaving traces of the most intense horror and terror on his face. When this happened he would lapse into silence, leave the company, and stroll about up and down, alone. In the field, he used to ride all round the outposts at night, from one to another, restlessly, only yielding to sleep when completely exhausted; and as, in addition to this, he would often expose himself to the extremest danger, without any special necessity, and seemed to seek, in battle, death, which fled from him--for in the toughest hand-to-hand engagement never a bullet touched him; no sword-cut came near him--it seemed evident that his life had been marred by some irreparable bereavement, or perhaps some rash deed.