Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. by Various (page 3)

“The governor says you must be aware that the prisoners are not allowed to receive visits from women.”

The Count struck his forehead with his clenched hand, and fell back upon a chair. His features were almost convulsed by the violence of his emotions. At last he turned to the Cossack.

“Beg the sergeant to come here.” The soldier left the room.

“Can any thing be more horrible?” cried Alexis. “She has come nine hundred leagues to see me; she is not a hundred yards from me, and we are forbidden to meet!”

“There must surely be some blunder,” said I; “an order misunderstood, or something of the kind.”

Alexis shook his head doubtingly. There was a wild look of despair in his large dark eyes that alarmed me. At this moment, the sergeant who had charge of the prisoners entered.

“Sir,” cried the Count with vehemence, “the woman I love has left St Petersburg to join me, and after a thousand dangers and hardships has arrived here. I am now told that I shall not be allowed to see her. It is doubtless a mistake?”

“No, sir,” replied the sergeant coolly. “You know very well that the prisoners are not permitted to see women.”

“But Prince Troubetskoy has that permission. Is it because he is a prince?”

“No, sir, it is because the princess is his wife.”

“And if Louise were my wife, should I be allowed to see her?”

“Undoubtedly, sir!”

“Ha!” ejaculated the Count, as though a weight were removed from off his heart. “I should like to speak with the priest,” said he to the sergeant, after a moment’s pause.

“He shall be sent for immediately,” was the reply.

“And now my friend,” said Alexis, turning to me, and taking my hands in his, “you have been Louise’s guardian and defender, will you for once act as her father?”

The following morning at ten o’clock, Louise, accompanied by the governor and myself, and Alexis by Prince Troubetskoy and the other exiles, entered the little church of Koslowa by two different doors. Their first meeting was at the altar, and the first word they exchanged was the _yes_ that united them for ever.

The Emperor by a private letter to the governor, of which Ivan was the bearer, had ordered that the Count should only be allowed to see Louise as his wife. It has been seen how willingly my friend obeyed, I should rather say anticipated, the Emperor’s commands. And rich was his reward for thus promptly acknowledging the just claims of this devoted and very admirable woman. She was one of “nature’s own nobility”–refined and graceful, intelligent and high-minded–and would have graced higher rank than that to which she was raised by the gratitude of Count Alexis W—-.

* * * * *

AMMALAT BEK.

A TRUE TALE OF THE CAUCASUS. FROM THE RUSSIAN OF MARLINSKI.

CHAPTER X.

“Will you hold your tongue, little serpent?” said an old Tartar woman to her grandson, who, having awakened before daylight, was crying for want of something better to do. “Be quiet, or I will kick you into the street.”

This old woman was Ammalat’s nurse: the hut in which she lived stood close to the tents of the Begs, and had been given to her by her foster-son, Ammalat. It was composed of two clean whitewashed rooms, the floor of both was strewed with coarse mats, (ghasil;) in niches close to each other, for the room was without windows, stood boxes bound with iron, and on them were arranged a feather-bed, blankets, and all the utensils. On the cornices, at half the height of the wall, were ranged porcelain cups for pillau, having tin covers in the form of helmets, and little plates hanging side by side on wires: the holes with which they were pierced showing that they served not for use, but for ornament. The face of the old woman was covered with wrinkles, and expressed a sort of malicious sorrow: the usual consequence of the lonely pleasureless life of a Mussulman woman. As a worthy representative of persons of her age and country, she never for a moment ceased scolding her grandson from under her blanket, and to grumble to herself. “Kess,” (be quiet,) she cried at length, yet more angrily, “or I will give you to the ghaouls, (devils!) Do you hear how they are scratching at the roof, and knocking at the door for you?”

It was a stormy night; a thick rain pattering on the flat roof which served as a ceiling, and the roaring of the wind in the chimney, answered to her hoarse voice. The boy became quiet, and straining his eyes, hearkened in a fright. It really seemed as if some one was knocking at the door. The old woman became frightened in her turn: her inseparable companion, a dirty dog, lifted up his head from sleep, and began to bark in a most pitiful voice. But meanwhile the knocking at the door became louder, and an unknown voice cried sternly from without, “Atch kapini, akhirin akhirici!” (open the door for the end of ends.) The old woman turned pale. “Allah bismallah!” she exclaimed, now addressing heaven, then threatening the dog, and then quieting the crying child. “Sh, accursed beast! Hold your tongue, I say, kharamzada, (good-for-nothing son of shame!) Who is there? What honest man will enter, when it is neither day nor dawn, into the house of a poor old woman? If you are Shaitan, go to neighbour Kitchkina. It has been long time to show her the road to hell! If you are a tchaouth, (tax-gatherer,) who, to say the truth, is rather worse than Shaitan, then go about your business. My son-in-law is not at home; he serves as nouker at Ammalat Bek’s; and the Bek has long ago freed me from taxes; and as for treating idle travellers, don’t expect from me even an egg, much less a duck. Is it in vain, then, that I suckled Ammalat?”

“Will you open, you devil’s distaff?” impatiently exclaimed the voice, “or I will not leave you a plank of this door for your coffin.”

The feeble doors shook on their hinges.

“Enter, pray enter,” said the old woman, undoing the iron hasp with a trembling hand. The door flew open, and there entered a man of a middling stature, and of a handsome but melancholy countenance. He was clad in the Circassian dress: the water trickled down his bourka and bashlik.[22] Without any apologies, he threw it on the feather-bed, and began to untie the lopasti of his bashlik which half covered his face–Fatma, having in the mean time lighted a candle, stood before him with fear and trembling. The long-whiskered dog, with his tail between his legs, pressed himself into a corner, and the child, in a fright, climbed into the fire-place–which, used only for ornaments, was never heated.

[22] Bashlik–a bonnet worn in bad weather.

“Well, Fatma, you are grown proud,” said the unknown; “you do not recognize old friends.”

Fatma gazed at the new-comer’s features, and her heart grew light within her. She recognized Sultan Akhmet Khan, who had ridden in one night from Kiafir Kounik to Bouinaki.

“May the sand fill my eyes that did not recognize their old master!” she replied, respectfully crossing her arms on her breast. “To say truth, they are blinded by tears, for her country–for Avar! Forgive an old woman, Khan!”

“What old age is yours, Fatma? I remember you a little girl, when I myself could hardly reach the young crows from their nests.”

“A strange land makes every one old, Khan. In my native mountains I should still have been fresh as an apple, and here am I like a snowball fallen from the hill into the valley. Pray come hither, Khan, here it is more comfortable. What shall I entertain my precious guest with? Is there nothing the Khan’s soul can wish for?”

“The Khan’s soul wishes that you should entertain him with your goodwill.”

“I am at your will; speak, command!”

“Listen to me, Fatma! I have no time to waste in words. This is why I am come here: render me a service with your tongue, and you shall have wherewithal to comfort your old teeth. I will make you a present of ten sheep; I will dress you in silk from top to toe.”

“Ten sheep and a gown!–a silk gown! O gracious Aga! O kind Khan! I have not seen such a lord here since the accursed Tartars carried me away, and made me marry a hateful … I am ready to do every thing, Khan, that you wish. Cut my ears off even, if you will!”

“What would be the good of that? They must be kept sharp. This is the business. Ammalat will come to you to-day with the Colonel. The Shamkhal of Tarki will arrive also. This Colonel has attached your young Bek to him by witchcraft; and having taught him to eat swine’s flesh, wants to make a Christian of him: from which Mahomet preserve him!”

The old woman spat around her, and lifted her eyes to heaven.

“To save Ammalat, we must make him quarrel with the Colonel. For this purpose you must go to him, throw yourself at his feet, and fall a-weeping as if at a funeral. As to tears, you will have no need to go and borrow them of your neighbours. Swear like a shopkeeper of Derbend; remember that each oath of yours will bring you a dozen sheep; and at last tell him that you have heard a conversation between the Colonel and the Shamkhal: that the Shamkhal complained of his sending back his daughter: that he hates him out of fear that he should take possession of the crown of his Shamkhalat: that he implored the Colonel to allow him to kill him in an ambuscade, or to poison him in his food; but that the other consented only to send him to Siberia, beyond the end of the world. In one word, invent and describe every thing cleverly. You were formerly famous for your tales. Do not eat dirt now. And, above all, insist that the Colonel, who is going on a furlough, will take him with him to Georgieffsk, to separate him from his kinsmen and faithful noukers; and from thence will dispatch him in chains to the devil.”

Sultan Akhmet added to this all the particulars necessary to give the story the most probable form; and once or twice instructed the old woman how to introduce them more skilfully.

“Well, recollect every thing accurately, Fatma,” said he, putting on his bourka; “forget not, likewise, with whom you have to do.”

“Vallah, billah! let me have ashes instead of salt; may a beggar’s tchourek close my eyes; may” …

“Do not feed the Shaitans with your oaths; but serve me with your words. I know that Ammalat trusts you completely; and if, for his good, you will arrange this–he will come over to me, and bring you with him. You shall live, singing, under my wing. But I repeat, if, by chance or on purpose, you betray me, or injure me by your gossiping, I will make of your old flesh a kibab for the Shaitans!”

“Be easy, Khan! They have nothing to do either for me or with me. I will keep the secret like the grave, and I will _put my sarotchka_[23] on Ammalat.”

[23] Give him her feelings–a Tartar phrase.

“Well, be it so, old woman. Here is a golden seal for your lips. Take pains!”

“_Bathousta, ghez-ousta_!”[24] exclaimed the old woman, seizing the ducat with greediness, and kissing the Khan’s hand for his present. The Sultan Akhmet Khan looked contemptuously at the base creature, whilst he quitted the sakla.

[24] Willingly, if you please? Literally, “on my head, on my eyes.”

“Reptile!” he grumbled to himself, “for a sheep, for a piece of cloth of gold, thou wouldst be ready to sell thy daughter’s body, thy son’s soul, and thy foster-son’s happiness!”

He did not reflect upon what name he deserved himself, entangling his friend in deceit, and hiring such vile creatures for low slander and for villanous intentions.

_Fragment of a Letter from Colonel Verkhoffsky to his Betrothed_.

Camp near the Village of Kiafir Koumik, August.

… Ammalat loves, and how he loves! Never, not even in the hottest fire of my youth, did my love rise to such a frenzy. I burned, like a censer lighted by a sunbeam; he flames, like a ship set on fire by lightning on the stormy sea. With you, my Maria, I have read more than once Shakspeare’s Othello; and only the frantic Othello can give an idea of the tropical passion of Ammalat. He loves to speak long and often of his Seltanetta, and I love to hear his volcanic eloquence. At times it is a turbid cataract thrown out by a profound abyss–at times a fiery fountain of the naphtha of Bakou. What stars his eyes scatter at that moment–what light plays on his cheeks–how handsome he is! There is nothing ideal in him: but then the earthly is grand, is captivating. I myself, carried away and deeply moved, receive on my breast the youth fainting from rapture: he breathes long, with slow sighs, and then casting down his eyes, lowering his head as if ashamed to look at the light–not only on me–presses my hand, and walks away with an uncertain step; and after that one cannot extract a word from him for the rest of the day.

Since the time of his return from Khounzakh, he is become still more melancholy than before; particularly the last few days. He hides the grandest, the noblest feeling which brings man near to divinity, as carefully as if it were a shameful weakness or a dreadful crime. He imploringly asked me to let him go once more to Khounzakh, to sigh at the feet of his fair one; and I refused him–refused him for his own good. I wrote long ago about my favourite to Alexei Petrovitch, and he desired me to bring him with me to the waters, where he will be himself. He wishes to give him some message to Sultan Akhmet Khan, which will bring undoubted advantage to him and to Ammalat. Oh, how happy I shall be in his happiness! To me, to me, he will owe the bliss of his life–not only empty life. I will force him on his knees before you, and will make him say–“Adore her as a deity!” If my heart were not filled with love to Maria, thou wouldst not take possession of Seltanetta. Yesterday I received an express from the commander-in-chief–a noble-minded man! He gives wings to happy news. All is arranged; my darling, I go to meet you at the waters. I shall only lead the regiment to Derbend–and then to the saddle! I shall know neither fatigue by day nor drowsiness by night, till I repose myself in your embrace. Oh, who will give me wings to fly to you! Who will give me strength to bear my–_our_–bliss! … I, in delicious agitation, pressed my bosom, that my heart might not burst forth. For a long time I could not sleep: imagination painted our meeting in a thousand forms, and in the intervals appeared the most trivial but delightful cares, about wedding trifles, dresses, presents. You will be clad in my favourite colour, green. … Is it not true, my soul? My fancies kept me from sleeping, like a strong perfume of roses; but the sweeter, the more brilliant was my sleep. I saw you by the light of dawn, and every time different, every time more lovely than before. My dreams were twined together like a wreath of flowers; but no! there was no connexion between them. They were wonderful phantoms, falling like colours from the kaleidoscope, and as impossible to retain. Notwithstanding all this, I awoke sorrowful this morning; my awakening took from my childish soul its favourite toy…. I went into Ammalat’s tent; he was still asleep. His face was pale and angry–let him be angry with me! I taste beforehand the gratitude of the ardent youth. I, like fate, am preparing his happiness in secret….

To-day I bid adieu to these mountains for long–I hope for ever. I am very glad to quit Asia, the cradle of mankind, in which the understanding has remained till now in its swaddling-clothes. Astonishing is the immobility of Asiatic life, in the course of so many centuries. Against Asia all attempts of improvement and civilization have broken like waves; it seems not to belong to time, but to place. The Indian Brahmin, the Chinese Mandarin, the Persian Bek, the mountain Ouzden, are unchanged–the same as they were two thousand years ago. A sad truth! They represent, in themselves, a monotonous though varied, a lively though soulless nature. The sword and the lash of the conqueror have left on them, as on the water, no trace. Books, and the examples of missionaries, have produced on them no influence. Sometimes, however, they have made an exchange of vices; but never have they learned the thoughts or the virtues of others. I quit the land of fruit to transport myself to the land of labour–that great inventor of every thing useful, that suggester of every thing great, that awakener of the soul of man, which has fallen asleep here, and sleeps in weakness on the bosom of the seducer–nature.

And truly, how seducing is nature here! Having ridden up the high mountain to the left of Kiafir Koumik, I gazed with delight on the gradually lighted summit of the Caucasus. I looked, and could not look enough at them. What a wondrous beauty decks them as with a crown! Another thin veil, woven of light and shadow, lay on the lower hill, but the distant snows basked in the sky; and the sky, like a caressing mother, bending over them its immeasurable bosom, fed them with the milk of the clouds, carefully enfolding them with its swathe of mist, and refreshing them with its gently-breathing wind. Oh, with what a flight would my soul soar there, where a holy cold has stretched itself like a boundary between the earthly and the heavenly! My heart prays and thirsts to breathe the air of the inhabitants of the sky. I feel a wish to wander over the snows, on which man has never printed the seal of his blood-stained footsteps–which have never been darkened by the eagle’s shadow–which the thunder has never reached–which the war spirits have never polluted; and on the ever-young summits where time, the continuation of eternity, has left no trace.

Time! A strange thought has come into my head. How many fractional names has the weak sense of man invented for the description of an infinitely small particle of time out of the infinitely large circle of eternity! Years, months, days, hours, minutes! God has nothing of all this: he has not even evening nor morrow. With him all this has united itself into one eternal _now_!… Shall we ever behold this ocean in which we have hitherto been drowning? But I ask, to what end will all this serve man? Can it be for the satisfaction of an idle curiosity? No! the knowledge of truth, i.e. the All-knowing Goodness, does the soul of the reflecting man thirst after. It wishes to draw a full cup from the fountain of light which falls on it from time to time in a fine dew!

And I shall imbibe it. The secret fear of death melts like snow before the beam of such a hope. I shall draw from it. My real love for my fellow-creatures is a security for it. The leaden ways of error will fall asunder before a few tears of repentance, and I shall lay down my heart as an expiating sacrifice before the judgment-seat which will have no terrors for me!

It is wonderful, my beloved–hardly do I look at the mountains, the sea, the sky, … but a solemn but inexpressibly sweet feeling o’er-burthens and expands my heart. Thoughts of you mingle with it; and, as in dreams, your form flits before me. Is this a foretaste of earthly bliss, which I have only known by name, or a foreboding of … etern …? O dearest, best, angelic soul, one look of yours and I am cured of dreaming! How happy am I that I can now say with assurance–_au revoir_!

CHAPTER XI.

The poison of calumny burnt into the soul of Ammalat. By the instructions of the Khan, his nurse Fatma related, with every appearance of disinterested affection, the story which had been arranged beforehand, on the same evening that he came with Verkhoffsky to Bouinaki, where they were met by the Shamkhal in obedience to the Colonel’s request. The envenomed shaft struck deep; now doubt would have been welcomed by Ammalat, but conviction, it seemed, cast over all his former ties of friendship and blood, a bright but funereal light. In a frenzy of passion, he burned to drown his revenge in the blood of both; but respect for the rites of hospitality quenched his thirst for vengeance. He deferred his intention for a time–but could he forget it? Every moment of delay fell, like a drop of melted copper, on his heart. Memory, conviction, jealousy, love, tore his heart by turns; and this state of feeling was to him so new, so strange, so dreadful, that he fell into a species of delirium, the more dreadful that he was obliged to conceal his internal sensations from his former friend. Thus passed twenty-four hours; the detachment pitched their tents near the village Bougden, the gate of which, built in a ravine, and which is closed at the will of the inhabitants of Bougden, serves as a passage to Akoush. The following was written by Ammalat, to divert the agony of his soul while preparing itself for the commission of a black crime…. —-

MIDNIGHT.

… Why, O Sultan Akhmet! have you cast lightning into my breast? A brother’s friendship, a brother’s treachery, and a brother’s murder!… What dreadful extremes! And between them there is but a step, but a twinkling of the eye. I cannot sleep, I can think of nothing else. I am chained to this thought, like a criminal to his stake. A bloody sea swells, surges, and roars around me, and above gleams, instead of stars, the lightning-flash. My soul is like a naked peak, where only birds of prey and evil spirits assemble, to share their plunder, or to prepare misfortune. Verkhoffsky, Verkhoffsky! what have I done to you? Why would you tear from heaven the star of my liberty? Is it because I loved you so tenderly? And why do you approach me stealthily and thief-like? why do you slander–why do you betray me, by hypocrisy? You should say plainly, “I wish your life,” and I would give it freely, without a murmur; would have laid it down a sacrifice like the son of Ibrahim, (Abraham!) I would have forgiven you, if you had but attempted my life, but to sell my freedom, to steal my Seltanetta from me, by burying me alive! Villain–and you still live!

But sometimes like a dove, whose wings have been scorched in the smoke of a fire, appears thy form to me, Seltanetta. How is it, then, that I am no longer gay when I dream of you, as of old?…

They would part us, my love–they would give you to another, to marry me on the grave-stone. But I will go to you–I will go to you over a bloody carpet–I will fulfil a bloody promise, in order to possess you. Invite not only your maiden friends to your marriage feast–invite also the vultures and the ravens, they shall all be regaled abundantly. I will pay a rich dower. On the pillow of my bride I will lay a heart which once I reckoned more precious than the throne-cushion[25] of the Persian Padishah. Wonderful destiny!… Innocent girl!… You will be the cause of an unheard of deed. Kindest of beings, for you friends will tear each other like ferocious beasts–for you and through you–and is it really for you alone–with ferocity–with ferocity only! Verkhoffsky said, that to kill an enemy by stealth, is base and cowardly. But if I cannot do it otherwise? But can he be believed?… Hypocrite! He wished to entangle me beforehand; not my hands alone, but even my conscience. It was in vain.

[25] This cushion is embroidered with jewels, and is invaluable.

… I have loaded my rifle. What a fine round barrel–what admirable ornaments! The rifle I received from my father–my father got it from my grandfather. I have heard of many celebrated shots made with it–and not one, not one was fired by stealth…. Always in battle–always before the whole army, it sent death; but wrong, but treachery, but you, Seltanetta!… My hand will not tremble to level a shot at him, whose name it is afraid even to write. One loading, one fire, and all is over!…

One loading! How light, but how heavy will be each grain of powder in the scales of Allah! How far–how immeasurably will this load bear a man’s soul? Accursed thou, the inventor of the grey dust, which delivers a hero into the hand of the vilest craven, which kills from afar the foe, who, with a glance, could have disarmed the hand raised against him! So, this shot will tear asunder all my former ties, but it will clear a road to new ones. In the cool Caucasus–on the bosom of Seltanetta, will my faded heart be refreshed. Like a swallow will I build myself a nest in a stranger land–like a swallow, the spring shall be my country. I will cast from me old sorrows, as the bird sheds its feathers…. But the reproaches of conscience, can they fade?… The meanest Lezghin, when he sees in battle the man with whom he has shared bread and salt, turns aside his horse, and fires his gun in the air. It is true he deceives me; but have I been the less happy? Oh, if with these tears I could weep away my grief–drown with them the thirst for vengeance–buy with them Seltenetta! Why comes on the dawn of day so slowly? Let it come! I will look, without blushing, at the sun–without turning pale, into the eyes of Verkhoffsky. My heart is like iron–it is locked against mercy; treachery calls for treachery … I am resolved … Quick, quick!

* * * * *

Thus incoherently, thus wildly wrote Ammalat, in order to cheat time and to divert his soul. Thus he tried to cheat himself, rousing himself to revenge, whilst the real cause of his bloody intentions, viz. the desire of possessing Seltanetta, broke through every word.

In order to embolden himself for his crime, he drank deeply of wine, and maddened, threw himself, with his gun, into the Colonel’s tent; but perceiving sentinels at the door, he changed his intention. The natural feeling of self-preservation did not abandon him, even in his madness. Ammalat put off till the morning the consummation of the murder; but he could neither sleep nor distract his thoughts … and re-entering his tent, he seized Saphir Ali by the throat, who was lying fast asleep, and shaking him roughly: “Get up, sleepy rascal!”; he cried to him, “it is already dawn.”

Saphir Ali raised his head in a discontented mood, and yawning, answered: “I see only the dawn of wine on your cheek–good-night, Ammalat!”

“Up, I tell you! The dead must quit their graves to meet the new-comer whom I have promised to send to keep them company!”

“Why, brother, am I dead?… Even the _forty Imaums_[26] may get up from the burial-ground of Derbend–but I will sleep.”

[26] The Mussulmans believe, that in the northern burial-ground of Derbend, are buried the forty first true believers, who were martyred by the idolaters.

“But you love to drink, Giaour, and you must drink with me.”

“That is quite another affair. Pour fuller, _Allah verdi_![27] I am always ready to drink and to make love.”

[27] God gave–Much good may it do you.

“And to kill an enemy!… Come, some more! A health to the devil!–who changes friends into mortal enemies.”

“So be it! Here goes, then, to the devil’s health! The poor fellow wants health. We will drive him into a consumption out of spite, because he cannot make us quarrel!”

“True, true, he is always ready for mischief. If he had seen Verkhoffsky and me, he would have thrown down his cards. But you, too, will not, I hope, part from me?”

“Ammalat, I have not only quaffed wine from the same bottle with thee, but I have drained milk from the same breast. I am thine, even if you take it into your head to build yourself, like a vulture, a nest on the rock of Khounzakh…. However, my advice would be”—-

“No advice, Saphir Ali–no remonstrances…. It is now too late!”

“They would be drowned like flies in wine. But it is now time to sleep.”

“Sleep, say you! Sleep, to me! No, I have bidden farewell to sleep. It is time for me to awaken. Have you examined the gun, Saphir Ali–is the flint good? Has not the powder on the shelf become damp with blood?”

“What is the matter with you, Ammalat? What leaden secret weighs upon your heart? Your face is terrible–your speech is yet more frightful.”

“And my deeds shall be yet more dreadful. Is it not true, Saphir Ali, my Seltanetta–is she not beautiful? Observe! _my_ Seltanetta. Is it possible that these are the wedding songs, Saphir Ali? Yes, yes, yes! I understand. ‘Tis the jackals demanding their prey. Spirits and wild beasts, be patient awhile–I will content you! Ho, wine–more wine! more blood!… I tell you!”

Ammalat fell on his bed in a drunken insensibility. Foam oozed out of his mouth: convulsive movements shook his whole body. He uttered unintelligible words, mingled with groans. Saphir Ali carefully undressed him, laid him in the bed, enveloped him in the coverings, and sat up the rest of the night watching over his foster-brother, in vain seeking in his head the explanation of the, to him, enigmatical speech and conduct of Ammalat.

CHAPTER XII.

In the morning, before the departure of the detachment, the captain on duty came to Colonel Verkhoffsky to present his report, and to receive the orders for the day. After the customary exchange of words, he said, with an alarmed countenance: “Colonel, I have to communicate a most important thing: our yesterday’s signal-man, a soldier of my company, Hamitoff, heard the conversation of Ammalat Bek with his nurse in Bouinaki. He is a Tartar of Kazan, and understands pretty well the dialect of this country. As far as he could hear and understand, the nurse assured the Bek that you, with the Shamkhal, are preparing to send him off to the galleys. Ammalat flew into a passion; said, that he knew all this from the Khan, and swore to kill you with his own hand. Not trusting his ears, however, the soldier determined to tell you nothing, but to watch all his steps. Yesterday evening, he says, Ammalat spoke with a horseman arrived from afar. On taking leave, he said: ‘Tell the Khan, that to-morrow, by sunrise, all will be over. Let him be ready: I shall soon see him.'”

“And is this all, Captain?” demanded Verkhoffsky.

“I have nothing else to say; but I am much alarmed. I have passed my life among the Tartars, Colonel, and I am convinced that it is madness to trust the best of them. A born brother is not safe, while resting in the arms of a brother.”

“This is envy, Captain. Cain has left it as an eternal heirloom to all men, and particularly to the neighbours of Ararat. Besides, there is no difference between Ammalat and myself. I have done nothing for him but good. I intend nothing but kindness. Be easy, Captain: I believe the zeal of the signal-man, but I distrust his knowledge of the Tartar language. Some similarity of words has led him into error, and when once suspicion was awakened in his mind, every thing seemed an additional proof. Really, I am not so important a person that Khans and Beks should lay plots for my life. I know Ammalat well. He is passionate, but he has a good heart, and could not conceal a bad intention two hours together.”

“Take care you be not mistaken, Colonel. Ammalat is, after all, an Asiatic; and that name is always a proof. Here words hide thoughts–the face, the soul. Look at one of them–he seems innocence itself; have any thing to do with him, he is an abyss of meanness, treachery and ferocity.”

“You have a full right to think so, my dear Captain, from experience: Sultan Akhmet Khan gave you a memorable proof in Ammalat’s house, at Bouinaki. But for me, I have no reason to suspect any mischief in Ammalat; and besides, what would he gain by murdering me? On me depends all his hope, all his happiness. He is wild, perhaps, but not a madman. Besides, you see the sun is high; and I am alive and well. I am grateful, Captain, for the interest you have taken in me; but I entreat you, do not suspect Ammalat: and, knowing how much I prize an old friendship, be assured that I shall as highly value a new one. Order them to beat the march.”

The captain departed, gloomily shaking his head. The drums rattled, and the detachment, in marching order, moved on from its night-quarters. The morning was fresh and bright; the road lay through the green ramparts of the mountains of the Caucasus, crowned here and there with forests and underwood. The detachment, like a stream of steel, flowed now down the hills, and now crept up the declivities. The mist still rested on the valleys, and Verkhoffsky, riding to the elevated points, looked round frequently to feast his eyes with the ever-changing landscape. Descending the mountain, the detachment seemed to be swallowed up in the steaming river, like the army of Pharaoh, and anon, with a dull sound, the bayonets glittered again from the misty waves. Then appeared heads, shoulders; the men seemed to grow up, and then leaping up the rocks, were lost anew in the fog.

Ammalat, pale and stern, rode next to the sharpshooters. It appeared that he wished to deafen his conscience in the noise of the drums. The colonel called him to his side, and said kindly: “You must be scolded, Ammalat; you have begun to follow too closely the precepts of Hafiz: recollect that wine is a good servant but a bad master: but a headache and the bile expressed in your face, will surely do you more good than a lecture. You have passed a stormy night, Ammalat.”

“A stormy, a torturing night, Colonel! God grant that such a night be the last! I dreamed dreadful things.”

“Aha, my friend! You see what it is to transgress Mahomet’s commandments. The conscience of the true believer torments you like a shadow.”

“It is well for him whose conscience quarrels only with wine.”

“That depends on what sort of conscience it is. And fortunately it is as much subject to prejudice as reason itself. Every country, every nation, has its own conscience; and the voice of immortal, unchangeable truth is silent before a would-be truth. Thus it is, thus it ever was. What yesterday we counted a mortal sin, to-morrow we adore. What on this bank is just and meritorious, on the other side of a brook leads to the halter.”

“I think, however, that treachery was never, and in no place, considered a virtue.”

“I will not say even that. We live at a time when success alone determines whether the means employed were good or bad; where the most conscientious persons have invented for themselves a very convenient rule–that the end sanctifies the means.”

Ammalat, lost in his reflections, repeated these words, because he approved of them. The poison of selfishness began anew to work within him; and the words of Verkhoffsky, which he looked on as treacherous, poured like oil on flame. “Hypocrite!” said he to himself; “your hour is at hand!”

And meanwhile Verkhoffsky, like a victim suspecting nothing, rode side by side with his executioner. At about eight versts from Kiekent the Caspian Sea discovered itself to them from a hill; and the thoughts of Verkhoffsky soared above it like a swan. “Mirror of eternity!” said he, sinking into a reverie, “why does not your aspect gladden me to-day? As of old, the sun plays on you; and your bosom breathes, as sublimely as of old, eternal life; but that life is not of this world. You seem to me to-day a mournful waste; not a boat, not a sail, not a sign of man’s existence. All is desolate!

“Yes, Ammalat,” he added; “I am tired of your ever-angry, lonely sea–of your country peopled with diseases, and with men who are worse than all maladies in the world. I am weary of the war itself, of invisible enemies, of the service shared with unfriendly comrades. It is not enough that they impeded me in my proceedings–they spoiled what I ordered to be done–they found fault with what I intended, and misrepresented what I had effected. I have served my sovereign with truth and fidelity, my country and this region with disinterestedness; I have renounced, a voluntary exile, all the conveniences of life, all the charms of society; have condemned my intellect to torpidity, being deprived of books; have buried my heart in solitude; have abandoned my beloved; and what is my reward? When will that moment arrive, when I throw myself into the arms of my bride; when I, wearied with service, shall repose myself under my native cottage-roof, on the green shore of the Dnieper; when a peaceful villager, and a tender father, surrounded by my relations and my good peasants, I shall fear only the hail of heaven for my harvests; fight only with wild-beasts? My heart yearns for that hour. My leave of absence is in my pocket, my dismission is promised me…. Oh, that I could fly to my bride!… And in five days I shall for certain be in Georgieffsk. Yet it seems as if the sands of Libya, a sea of ice—-as if the eternity of the grave itself, separated us!”

Verkhoffsky was silent. Tears ran down his cheeks; his horse, feeling the slackened rein, quickened his pace–and thus the pair alone, advanced to some distance from the detachment…. It seemed as if destiny itself surrendered the colonel into the hands of the assassin.

But pity penetrated the heart of Ammalat, maddened as he was, and burning with wine–like a sunbeam falling in a robber’s cave. He beheld the sorrow, the tears of the man whom he had so long considered as his friend, and hesitated. “No!” he thought, “to such a degree as that it is impossible to dissimulate….”

At this moment Verkhoffsky started from his reverie, lifted up his head, and spoke to Ammalat. “Prepare yourself: you are to go with me!”

Unlucky words! Every thing good, every thing noble, which had arisen anew in Ammalat’s breast, was crushed in a moment by them. The thought of treachery–of exile–rushed like a torrent through his whole being “With you!” he replied, with a malicious smile–“with you, and into Russia?–undoubtedly: if you go yourself!” and in a passion of rage he urged his horse into a gallop, in order to have time to prepare his arms; suddenly turned back to meet him; flew by him, and began to ride rapidly in a circle around him. At each stride of his horse, the flame of rage burned more fiercely within him: it seemed as if the wind, as it whistled past him, kept whispering “Kill, kill! he is your enemy. Remember Seltanetta!” He brought his rifle forward from his shoulder, cocked it, and encouraging himself with a cry, he galloped with blood-thirsty decision to his doomed victim. Verkhoffsky, meanwhile, not cherishing the least suspicion, looked quietly at Ammalat as he galloped round, thinking that he was preparing, after the Asiatic manner, for the djigitering (equestrian exercises.)

“Fire at your mark, Ammalat Bek!” he exclaimed to the murderer who was rushing towards him.

“What mark can be better than the breast of a foe?” answered Ammalat Bek, riding up, and at ten paces’ distance pulling the trigger!… the gun went off: and slowly, without a groan, the colonel sank out of his saddle. His affrighted horse, with expanded nostrils and streaming mane, smelt at his rider, in whose hands the reins that had so lately guided him began to stiffen: and the steed of Ammalat stopped abruptly before the corpse, setting his legs straight before him. Ammalat leaped from his horse, and, resting his arms on his yet smoking gun, looked for several moments steadfastly in the face of the murdered man; as if endeavouring to prove to himself that he feared not that fixed gaze, those fast-dimming eyes–that fast-freezing blood. It would be difficult to understand–’twere impossible to express the thoughts which rolled like a whirlwind through his breast. Saphir Ali rode up at full gallop; and fell on his knees by the colonel–he laid his ear to the dying man’s mouth–he breathed not–he felt his heart–it beat not! “He is dead!” cried Saphir Ali in a tone of despair. “Dead! quite dead!”

“So much the better … My happiness is complete!…” exclaimed Ammalat, as if awakening from a dream.

“Happiness for you–for you, fratricide! If you meet happiness, the world will take to Shaitan instead of Allah.”

“Saphir Ali, remember that you are not my judge!” said Ammalat fiercely, as he put his foot into the stirrup: “follow me!”

“May remorse alone accompany you, like your shadow! From this hour I am not your companion.”

Pierced to the very bottom of his heart by this reproach from a man to whom he had been from infancy bound by the closest ties, Ammalat uttered not a word, but pointing to his astounded noukers in the ravine, and perceiving the pursuit begun, dashed into the mountains like an arrow.

The alarm soon spread through the advanced guard of the detachment: the officers, who were in front, and the Don Kazaks, flew to the shot, but they came too late. They could neither prevent the crime nor seize the flying assassin. In five minutes the bloody corpse of the treacherously murdered colonel was surrounded by a crowd of officers and soldiers. Doubt, pity, indignation were written on all their faces. The grenadiers, leaning on their bayonets, shed tears, and sobbed aloud: unflattering drops poured above the brave and much-loved chief.

CHAPTER XIII.

For three days and nights did Ammalat wander about the mountains of Daghestan. As a Mussulman, even in the villages subject to the Russian dominion, he was safe from all pursuit among people for whom robbery and murder are virtues. But could he escape from the consciousness of his own crime? Neither his heart nor his reason could find an excuse for his bloody deed; and the image of Verkhoffsky falling from his horse, presented itself unceasingly before his eyes, though closed. This recollection infuriated him yet more, yet more tortured him. The Asiatic, once turned aside from the right road, travels rapidly over the career of villany. The Khan’s command, not to appear before him but with the head of Verkhoffsky, rang in his ears. Without daring to communicate such an intention to his noukers, and still less relying on their bravery, he resolved upon travelling to Derbend alone. A darksome and gloomy night had already expanded it ebon wings over the mountains of Caucasus which skirt the sea, when Ammalat passed the ravine which lay behind the fortress of Narin-Kali, which served as a citadel to Derbend. He mounted to the ruined turret, which once formed the limit to the Caucasian war that had extended through the mountains, and tied his horse at the foot of that hill from which Yermoloff had thundered on Derbend when but a lieutenant of artillery. Knowing where the Russian officers were buried, he came out upon the upper burial-ground. But how to find the new-made grave of Verkhoffsky in the darkness of the night? Not a star glimmered in the sky: the clouds lay stretched on the hills, the mountain-wind, like a night-bird, lashed the forest with its wing: an involuntary shudder crept over Ammalat, in the midst of the region of the dead, whose repose he dared to interrupt. He listens: the sea murmurs hoarsely against the rocks, tumbling back from them into the deep with a sullen sound. The prolonged “sloushai” of the sentinels floated round the walls of the town, and when it was silent there rose the yell of the jackals; and at last all again was still–every sound mingling and losing itself in the rushing of the wind. How often had he not sat awake on such nights with Verkhoffsky–and where is he now! And who plunged him into the grave! And the murderer was now come to behead the corpse of his former friend–to do sacrilege to his remains–like a grave-robber to plunder the tomb–to dispute with the jackal his prey!

“Human feeling!” cried Ammalat, as he wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, “why visitest thou a heart which has torn itself from humanity? Away, away! Is it for me to fear to take off the head of a dead man, whom I have robbed of life! For him ’twill be no loss–to me a treasure. Dust is insensible!”

Ammalat struck a light with a trembling hand, blew up into a flame some dry bourian, (a dry grass of South Russia,) and went with it to search for the new-made grave. The loosened earth, and a large cross, pointed out the last habitation of the colonel. He tore up the cross, and began to dig up the mound with it; he broke through the arch of brickwork, which had not yet become hardened, and finally tore the lead from the coffin. The bourian, flaring up, threw an uncertain bloody-bluish tinge on all around. Leaning over the dead, the murderer, paler than the corpse itself, gazed unmovingly on his work; he forgot why he had come–he turned away his head from the reek of rottenness–his gorge rose within him when he saw the bloody-headed worms that crawled from under the clothes. Interrupted in their loathsome work, they, scared by the light, crept into a mass, and hid themselves beneath each other. At length, steeling himself to the deed, he brandished his dagger, and each time his erring hand missed its aim. Nor revenge, nor ambition, nor love–in a word, not one of those passions which had urged him to the frenzied crime, now encouraged him to the nameless horror. Turning away his head, in a sort of insensibility he began to hew at the neck of Verkhoffsky–at the fifth blow the head parted from the trunk. Shuddering with disgust, he threw it into a bag which he had prepared, and hastened from the grave. Hitherto he had remained master of himself; but when, with his dreadful treasure, he was scrambling up, when the stones crumbling noisily under his feet, and he, covered with sand, fell backwards on Verkhoffsky’s corpse, then presence of mind left the sacrilegious. It seemed as if a flame had seized him, and spirits of hell, dancing and grinning, had surrounded him. With a heavy groan he tore himself away, crawled half senseless out of the suffocating grave, and hurried off, dreading to look back. Leaping on his horse, he urged it on, over rocks and ravines, and each bush that caught his dress seemed to him the hand of a corpse; the cracking of every branch, the shriek of every jackal, sounded like the cry of his twice-murdered friend.

* * * * *

Wherever Ammalat passed, he encountered armed bands of Akoushlinetzes and Avaretzes, Tchetchenetzes just arrived, and robbers of the Tartar villages subject to Russia. They were all hurrying to the trysting-place near the border-limits; while the Beks, Ouzdens, and petty princes, were assembling at Khourzakh, for a council with Akhmet Khan, under the leading, and by the invitation of whom, they were preparing to fall upon Tarki. The present was the most favourable moment for their purpose: there was abundance of corn in the ambars, (magazines,) hay in the stacks, and the Russians, having taken hostages, had established themselves in full security in winter-quarters. The news of Verkhoffsky’s murder had flown over all the hills, and powerfully encouraged the mountaineers. Merrily they poured together from all sides; every where were heard their songs of future battles and plunder; and he for whom they were going to fight rode through them like a runaway and a culprit, hiding from the light of the sun, and not daring to look any one in the face. Every thing that happened, every thing that he saw, now seemed like a suffocating dream–he dared not doubt, he dared not believe it. On the evening of the third day he reached Khounzakh.

Trembling with impatience, he leaped from his horse, worn out with fatigue, and took from his saddle-straps the fatal bag. The front chambers were filled with warriors; cavaliers in armour were walking up and down, or lay on the carpets along the walls, conversing in whispers; but their eyebrows were knit and cast down–their stern faces proved that bad news had reached Khounzakh. Noukers ran hurriedly backwards and forwards, and none questioned, none accompanied Ammalat, none paid any attention to him. At the door of the Khan’s bed-chamber sate Zourkhai-Khan-Djingka, the natural son of Sultan Akhmet, weeping bitterly. “What means this?” uneasily demanded Ammalat. “You, from whom even in childhood tears could not be drawn–you weep?”

Zourkhai silently pointed to the door, and Ammalat, perplexed, crossed the threshold. A heart-rending spectacle was presented before the new-comer’s eyes. In the middle of the room, on a bed, lay the Khan, disfigured by a fierce illness; death invisible, but inevitable, hovered over him, and his fading glance met it with dread. His breast heaved high, and then sank heavily; his breath rattled in his throat, the veins of his hands swelled, and then shrank again. In him was taking place the last struggle of life with annihilation; the mainspring of existence had already burst, but the wheels still moved with an uneven motion, catching and entangling in each other. The spark of memory hardly glimmered in him, but fitfully flashed like falling stars through the darkness of night, which thickened over his soul, and reflected themselves in his dying face. His wife and daughter were sobbing on their knees by his bed-side; his eldest son, Noutsal, in silent despair leaned at his feet, resting his head on his clenched fists. Several women and noukers wept silently at a distance.

All this, however, neither astounded Ammalat nor recalled him to himself, occupied as he was with one idea: he approached the Khan with a firm step, and said to him aloud–“Hail, Khan! I have brought you a present which will restore a dead man to life. Prepare the bridal. Here is my purchase-money for Seltanetta; here is the head of Verkhoffsky!” With these words he threw it at the Khan’s feet.

The well-known voice aroused Sultan Akhmet from his last sleep: he raised his head with difficulty to look at the present, and a shudder ran like a wave over his body when he beheld the lifeless head. “May he eat his own heart who treats a dying man with such dreadful food!” he murmured, scarce intelligibly. “I must make my peace with my enemies, and not—-Ah, I burn, I burn! Give me water, water! Why have you made me drink scalding naphtha? Ammalat, I curse you!” This effort exhausted the last drops of life in the Khan; he fell a senseless corpse on the pillow. The Khansha had looked with horror on the bloody and untimely present of Ammalat; but when she saw that this had hastened her husband’s death, all her grief broke out in a torrent of anger. “Messenger of hell!” she exclaimed, her eyes flashing, “rejoice; these are your exploits; but for you, my husband would never have thought of raising Avar against the Russians, and would have now been sitting in health and quiet at home; but for you, visiting the Ouzdens, he fell from a rock and was disabled; and you, blood-drinker!–instead of consoling the sick with mild words, instead of making his peace with Allah by prayers and alms–bring, as if to a cannibal, a dead man’s head; and whose head? Thy benefactor’s, thy protector’s, thy friend’s!”

“Such was the Khan’s will,” in his turn replied Ammalat.

“Do not slander the dead; defile not his memory with superfluous blood!” screamed the Khansha: “not content with having treacherously murdered a man, you come with his head to woo my daughter at the deathbed of her father, and you hoped to receive a recompense from man, when you deserved the vengeance of God. Godless, soulless being! No! by the graves of my ancestors, by the swords of my sons, I swear you shall never be my son-in-law, my acquaintance, my guest! Away from my house, traitor! I have sons, and you may murder while embracing them. I have a daughter, whom you may bewitch and poison with your serpent looks. Go, wander in the ravines of the mountains; teach the tigers to tear each other; and dispute with the wolves for carcasses. Go, and know that my door opens not to a fratricide!”

Ammalat stood like one struck by lightning: all that his conscience had indistinctly whispered to him had been spoken out to him at once, and so unexpectedly, so cruelly. He knew not where to turn his eyes: there lay the head of Verkhoffsky with its accusing blood–there was the threatening face of the Khan, printed with the seal of a death of torture–there he met the stern glance of the Khansha…. The tearful eyes of Seltanetta alone appeared like stars of joy through a rainy cloud. To her he resolved to approach, saying timidly, “Seltanetta, for you have I committed that for which I lose you. Destiny wills it: be it so! One thing tell me–is it possible that you, too, have ceased to love me–that you, too, hate me?”

The well-remembered voice of the beloved pierced her heart: Seltanetta raised her eyes glistening with tears–eyes full of woe; but on seeing Ammalat’s dreadful face, spotted with blood, she covered them again with her hand. She pointed with her finger at her father’s corpse, at the head of Verkhoffsky, and said, with firmness, “Farewell, Ammalat! I pity thee; but I cannot be thine!” With these words she fell senseless on her father’s body.

All his native pride, all his blood, rushed to Ammalat’s heart; his soul fired with fury. “Is it thus I am received?” casting a scornful glance at both the women; “is it thus that promises are fulfilled here? I am glad that my eyes are opened. I was too simple when I prized the light love of a fickle girl–too patient when I hearkened to the ravings of an old woman. I see, that with Sultan Akhmet Khan have died the honour and hospitality of his house!”

He left the room with a haughty step. He proudly gazed in the face of the Ouzdens, grasping the hilt of his dagger as if challenging them to combat. All, however, made way for him, but seemingly rather to avoid him than from respect. No one saluted him, either by word or sign. He went forth into the court-yard, called his noukers together, silently mounted into the saddle, and slowly rode through the empty streets of Khounzakh.

From the road he looked back for the last time upon the Khan’s house, which was blackening in the darkness, while the grated door shone with lights. His heart was full of blood; his offended pride fixed in its iron talons, while the useless crime, and the love henceforth despised and hopeless, poured venom on the wounds. Grief, anger, and remorse mingled in the glance which he threw on the harem where he first saw, and where he lost, all earthly joy. “And you, and you, Seltanetta!” he could utter no more. A mountain of lead lay on his breast; his conscience already felt that dreadful hand which was stretched forth against it. The past terrified him; the future made him tremble. Where will he rest that head on which a price is set? What earth will give repose to the bones of a traitor? Nor love, nor friendship, nor happiness, will ever again be his care; but a life of misery, a wanderer’s bread….

Ammalat wished to weep, his eyes burned … and, like the rich man tormented in the fire, his heart prayed for one drop, one tear, to quench his intolerable thirst…. He tried to weep, and could not. Providence has denied this consolation to the guilty.

* * * * *

And where did the murderer of Verkhoffsky hide himself? Whither did he drag his wretched existence? No one knew. In Daghestan it was reported that he wandered among the Tchetchenetzes and Koi-Sou-Boulinetzes, having lost his beauty, his health, and even his bravery. But who could say this with certainty? Little by little the rumours about Ammalat died away, though his villanous treachery is still fresh in the memory of Russians and Mussulmans who dwell in Daghestan. Even now his name is never pronounced without a reproach.

CHAPTER XIV.

Anapa, that manufactory of arms for the robbers of the mountains, that bazar where are sold the tears, the blood, the sweat of Christian slaves, that torch of rebellion to the Caucasus–Anapa, I say, was, in 1808, invested by the Russian armies, on the sea and on the mountain side. The gun-boats, the bomb-vessels, and all the ships that could approach the shore, were thundering against the fortifications. The land army had passed the river which falls into the Black Sea, under the northern wall of Anapa, and was posted in swampy ground around the whole city. Then they constructed wooden trenches, hewing down, for that purpose, the surrounding forest. Every night new works arose nearer and nearer to the walls of the town. The interior of the houses flamed from the effects of the shells; the outer walls fell under the cannon-balls. But the Turkish garrison, reinforced by the mountaineers, fought desperately, made fierce sorties, and replied to all proposals for surrender by the shots of their artillery. Meanwhile the besiegers were incessantly harassed by the Kabardinetz skirmishers, and the foot-archers of Abazekhs, Shamsoukhs, Natoukhaitzes, and other wild mountaineers of the shores of the Black Sea, assembled, like the jackals, in hope of plunder and blood. Against them it was necessary to erect redans; and this double work, performed under the fire of cannon from the fortress and from the forest, on irregular and boggy ground, delayed long the capture of the town.

At length, on the eve of the taking of Anapa, the Russians opened a breaching-battery in a ravine on the south-east side of the town: its effect was tremendous. At the fifth volley the battlements and parapets were overthrown, the guns laid bare and beaten down. The balls, striking against the stone facing, flashed like lightning; and then, in a black cloud of dust, flew up fragments of shattered stone. The wall crumbled and fell to pieces; but the fortress, by the thickness of its walls, resisted long the shattering force of the iron; and the precipitous steepness of the ruins offered no opportunity for storming. For the heated guns, and for the weary artillerymen, worn out by incessant firing, repose was absolutely necessary. By degrees the firing from the batteries by land and sea began to slacken; thick clouds of smoke, floating from the shore, expanded over the waves, sometimes concealing, sometimes discovering, the flotilla. From time to time a ball of smoke flew up from the guns of the fortress, and after the rolling of the cannon-thunder, far echoing among the hills, a ball would whistle by at random. And now all was silent–all was still both in the interior of Anapa and in the trenches. Not one turban was seen between the battlements, not one carabineer’s bayonet in the intrenchment. Only the Turkish banners on the towers, and the Russian ensign on board the ships, waved proudly in the air, now undimmed by a single stream of smoke–only the harmonious voices of the muezzins resounded from afar, calling the Mussulmans to their mid-day prayer. At this moment, from the breach opposite the battery on the plain, descended, or rather rolled down, supported by ropes, a horseman on a white horse, who immediately leaped over the half-filled ditch, dashed to the left between the batteries, flew over the intrenchments, over the soldiers dozing behind them, who neither expected nor guessed any thing like this, and, followed by their hasty shouts, plunged into the woods. None of the cavalry had time to glance at, much less to pursue him: all remained thunderstruck with astonishment and vexation; and soon forgot all about the brave cavalier, in the alarm of the renewed firing from the fortress, which was recommenced in order to give the bold messenger time to escape to the mountains. Towards evening the breaching battery, which had thundered almost incessantly, had accomplished its work of demolition. The prostrate wall formed a kind of bridge for the besiegers, who, with the impatience of bravery, prepared for the assault; when suddenly an unexpected attack of the Tcherkess, who had driven in the Russian scouts and outposts, compelled the besiegers to direct the fire of the redans against the furious mountaineers. A thundering Allah-il-Allah, from the walls of Anapa, greeted their encounter: the volleys of cannon and musketry arose with redoubled violence from the walls, but the Russian grape tore asunder and arrested the crowds of horsemen and infantry of the Tcherkess, as they were preparing to throw themselves upon the batteries with their sabres; and they, with furious cries of “Giaour, giaourla!” turned back, leaving behind them the dead and wounded. In a moment the whole field was strewn with their corpses and their disabled, who, staggering to their feet, fell back, struck by the balls and grape-shot; whilst the cannon-shot shattered the wood, and the grenades, bursting, completed the destruction. But from the beginning of the action, till the moment when not one of the enemy remained in sight, the Russians saw before them a well-built Tcherkess on a white horse, who rode, at a slow pace, up and down before their redans. All recognized in him the same horseman who had leaped over the trenches at mid-day, probably in order to induce the Tcherkess to fall upon the Russians from the rear, at the moment when the now unsuccessful sortie was to be made from the gate. Crashing and thundering danced the grape-shot around him. His horse strained at the bridle; but he, looking calmly at the batteries, rode along them as if they were raining flowers upon him. The artillerymen ground their teeth with vexation at the unpunished daring of the cavalier: shot after shot tore up the earth, but he remained unhurt as if enchanted. “Give him a cannon-ball!” shouted a young officer of artillery, but lately released from the military college, who was above all enraged at their want of success: “I would load the gun with my head, so glad would I be to kill that bragger: it is not worth while to waste grape upon one man–grape–look out! a cannon-ball will reach the guilty!” So saying, he screwed up the quoin and levelled the gun, looking through the sight; and having exactly calculated the moment when the horseman would ride through the line of aim, he stepped aside and ordered the fatal fire.

For some moments the smoke enveloped the battery in darkness: when it floated away the frightened horse was dragging the blood-stained corpse of his rider, with the foot entangled in the stirrup. “Hit–killed!” was shouted from all the trenches; and the young artillery officer, taking off his cap, piously crossed himself, and with a joyous face jumped down from the battery to seize the prey which he had earned. He soon succeeded in catching by the reins the horse of the slain Tcherkess, for he was dragging the body sideways on the ground. The unfortunate man had his arm torn off close to the shoulder; but he still breathed, groaned, and struggled. Pity touched the good-natured youth: he called some soldiers, and ordered them to carry the wounded man carefully into the trench, sent for the surgeon, and had the operation performed before his eyes. At night, when all was quiet, the artilleryman sat by the side of his dying prisoner, and watched him with interest by the dim light of the lantern. The serpent-marks of sorrow, graven on his cheek by tears, the wrinkles on his forehead, dug, not by years but passions, and bloody scratches, disfigured his handsome face; and in it was painted something more torturing than pain, more terrible than death. The artilleryman could not restrain an involuntary shudder. The prisoner sighed heavily, and having, with difficulty, raised his hand to his forehead, opened his heavy eyelids, muttering to himself in unintelligible sounds, unconnected words…. “Blood,” he cried, examining his hand … “always blood! why have they put _his_ bloody shirt upon me? Already, without that, I swim in blood…. Why do I not drown in it?… How cold the blood is to-day!… Once it used to scald me, and this is no better! In the world it is stifling, in the gave so cold…. ‘Tis dreadful to be a corpse. Fool that I am, I sought death. O, let me live but for one little day–one little hour, to live!…”

“What? Why have I hidden another in the grave, _whisperest thou_? Learn thyself what it is to die!…” A convulsive paroxysm interrupted his raving, an unspeakably dreadful groan burst from the sufferer, and he fell into a painful lethargy, in which the soul lives only to suffer.

The artilleryman, touched to the very bottom of his heart, raised the head of the miserable being, sprinkled his face with cold water, and rubbed his temples with spirits of wine, in order to bring him to himself. Slowly he opened his eyes, shook his head several times, as if to shake the mist from his eyelashes, and steadfastly directed his gaze on the face of the artilleryman, which was faintly lighted up by the feeble gleam of the candle. Suddenly, with a piercing cry, he lifted himself on his bed, as if by some superhuman force: his hair stood upright, his whole body shook with a fevered trembling, his hand seemed endeavouring to push something from him, an ineffable horror was expressed on his countenance…. “Your name!” he cried at length, addressing the artilleryman. “Who are thou, stranger from the grave?”

“I am Verkhoffsky?” … answered the young artilleryman. This was a shot that went straight to the heart of the prisoner. The ligature on the principal artery gave way from a rush of blood, which poured through the bandages. Yet a few struggles, yet the throat-rattle, and the leaden hand of death choked the wounded man’s last sigh, imprinted on his brow the seal of the last grief; gathering whole years of repentance into one rapid moment, in which the soul, tearing itself from the body, fears equally the tortures of life and of nothingness, feels at once all the gnawing of the past and all the agony of the future. Terrible was it to look on the convulsed face of the dead. “He surely must have been a great sinner,” said Verkhoffsky, in a low voice to the general’s interpreter, who stood near him, and he shuddered involuntarily.

“A great villain,” rejoined the interpreter: “it appears to me he was a Russian deserter. I never met with a mountaineer who spoke Russian so correctly as this prisoner. Let me look at his arms. We may, perhaps, find some marks on them.” With these words he unsheathed, with a look of curiosity, the dagger which had been taken from the dead man, and bringing it to the lantern, deciphered and translated the following inscription:–

“Be slow to offend–swift to revenge!”

“Quite a robber’s rule,” said Verkhoffsky; “my poor brother Evstafli! you fell a victim to such a fanatic principle as this!”

The eyes of the good youth filled with tears…. “Is there not something else?” he asked.

“This is apparently the slain man’s name,” replied the interpreter.

“It is: Ammalat Bek!”

* * * * *

MR BAILEY’S REPLY TO AN ARTICLE IN BLACKWOOD’S MAGAZINE.

We have just been favoured with a pamphlet from Mr Bailey, entitled “A Letter to a Philosopher, in Reply to some Recent Attempts to Vindicate Berkeley’s Theory of Vision, and in further Elucidation of its Unsoundness.” Our article on Mr Bailey’s review of Berkeley’s theory, which appeared in _Blackwood’s Magazine_ of June 1842, was one of these attempts. Had the author merely attacked or controverted our animadversions on his book, we should probably have left the question to its fate, and not have reverted to a subject, the discussion of which, even in the first instance, may have been deemed out of place in a journal not expressly philosophical. There is, in general, little to be gained by protracting such controversies. But, as Mr Bailey accuses us, in the present instance, of having misrepresented his views, we must be allowed to exculpate ourselves from the charge of having dealt, even with unintentional unfairness, towards one whose opinions, however much we may dissent from them, are certainly entitled to high respect and a candid examination, as the convictions of an able and zealous enquirer after truth.

In our strictures on Mr Bailey’s work, we remarked, that he had represented Berkeley as holding that the eye is not directly and originally cognizant of the outness of objects in relation to each other, or of what we would call their reciprocal outness; in other words, we stated, that, according to Mr Bailey, Berkeley must be regarded as denying to the eye the original intuition of space, either in length, breadth, or solid depth. It was, however, only in reference to one of his arguments, and to one particular division of his subject, that we laid this representation to his charge. Throughout the other parts of his discussion, we by no means intended to say that such was the view he took of the Berkeleian theory. Nor are we aware of having made any statement to that effect. If we did, we now take the opportunity of remarking, that we restrict our allegation, as we believe we formerly restricted it, to the single argument and distinction just mentioned, and hereafter to be explained.

In his reply, Mr Bailey disavows the impeachment _in toto_. He declares that he never imputed to Berkeley the doctrine, that the eye is not directly percipient of space in the two dimensions of length and breadth. “The perception of this kind of distance,” says he, “never formed the subject of controversy with any one … That we see extension in two dimensions is admitted by all.”–(_Letter_, p. 10.) If it can be shown that the doctrine which is here stated to be admitted by all philosophers, is yet expressly controverted by the two metaphysicians whom Mr Bailey appears to have studied most assiduously, it is, at any rate, possible that he may have overlooked, in his own writings, the expression of an opinion which has escaped his penetration in theirs. To convince himself, then, how much he is mistaken in supposing that the visual intuition of longitudinal and lateral extension is admitted by all philosophers, he has but to turn to the works of Dr Brown and the elder Mill. In arguing that we have no immediate perception of visible figure, Dr Brown not only virtually, but expressly, asserts that the sight has no perception of extension in any of its dimensions. Not to multiply quotations, the following will, no doubt, be received as sufficient:–“They (i.e. philosophers) have–_I think without sufficient reason_–universally supposed that the superficial extension of _length and breadth_ becomes known to us by sight originally.”[28] Dr Brown then proceeds to argue, with what success we are not at present considering, that our knowledge of extension and figure is derived from another source than the sense of sight.

[28] Brown’s Lectures, Lecture xxviii.

Mr James Mill, an author whom Mr Bailey frequently quotes with approbation, and in confirmation of his own views, is equally explicit. He maintains, in the plainest terms, that the eye has no intuition of space, or of the reciprocal outness of visible objects. “Philosophy,” says he, “has ascertained that we derive nothing from the eye whatever but sensations of colour–that the idea of extension [he means in its three dimensions] is derived from sensations not in the eye, but in the muscular part of our frame.”[29] Thus, contrary to what Mr Bailey affirms, these two philosophers limit the office of vision to the perception of mere colour or difference of colour, denying to the eye the original perception of extension in any dimension whatever. In their estimation, the intuition of space is no more involved in our perception of different colours than it is involved in our perception of different smells or different sounds. Dr Brown’s doctrine, in which Mr Mill seems to concur, is, that the perception of superficial extension no more results from a certain expanse of the optic nerve being affected by a variety of colours than it results from a certain expanse of the olfactory nerve being affected by a variety of odours.[30] So much for Mr Bailey’s assertion, that _all_ philosophers admit the perception of extension in two dimensions.

[29] Mill’s Analysis, vol. i. p. 73.

[30] This reasoning of Dr Brown’s is founded upon an assumed analogy between the structure of the optic nerve, and the structure of the olfactory nerves and other sensitive nerves, and is completely disproved by the physiological observations of Treviranus, who has shown that no such analogy exists: that the ends of the nervous fibres in the retina being elevated into distinct separate _papillae_, enable us to perceive the extension, and discriminate the position of visible bodies, while the nerves of the other senses being less delicately defined, are not fitted to furnish us with any such perception, or to aid us in making any such discrimination. See _Mueller’s Physiology, translated by W. Baly, M.D._, vol. ii. pp. 1073, 1074. Although the application of Treviranus’s discovery to the refutation of Dr Brown’s reasoning is our own, we may remark, in justice to an eminent philosopher, that it was Sir William Hamilton who first directed our attention to the _fact_ as established by the great physiologist.

But, of course, our main business is with the expression of his own opinion. In rebutting our charge, he maintains that “the visibility of angular distance (that is of extension laterally) is assumed, by implication, as part of Berkeley’s doctrine, in _almost_ every chapter of my book.”–(_Letter_, p. 13.) That word _almost_ is a provident saving clause; for we undertake to show that not only is the very reverse assumed, by implication, as part of Berkeley’s doctrine, in the _single_ chapter to which we confined our remarks, but that, in another part of his work, it is expressly avowed as the only alternative by which, in the author’s opinion, Berkeley’s consistency can be preserved.

At the outset of his enquiry, Mr Bailey divides his discussion into two branches: first, Whether objects are originally seen to be external, or at _any_ distance at all from the sight; and, secondly, Supposing it admitted that they are seen to be external, or at _some_ distance from the sight, whether they are all seen in the same plane, or equally near. It was to the former of these questions that we exclusively confined our remarks;[31] and it was in reference to it, and to an important argument evolved by Mr Bailey in the course of its discussion, that we charged him with fathering on Berkeley the doctrine which he now disavows as his interpretation of the bishop’s opinion. He further disputes the relevancy of the question about our perception of lateral extension, and maintains that distance in a direction from the percipient, or what we should call protensive distance, is the only matter in dispute; and that it is a misconception of the scope of Berkeley’s essay to imagine otherwise. The relevancy of the question shall be disposed of afterwards. In the mean time, the question at issue is, Can the allegation which we have laid to Mr Bailey’s charge be proved to be the fact, or not?

[31] Mr Bailey seems disposed to carp at us for having confined our remarks to this first question, and for not having given a more complete review of his book. But the reason why we cut short our critique is obvious; for if it be proved, as we believe it can, that objects are originally seen at _no distance whatever_ from the sight, it becomes quite superfluous to enquire what appearance they would present if originally seen at _some_ distance from the sight. The way in which we disposed of the first question, however imperfect our treatment of it may have been, necessarily prevented us from entering upon the second; and our review, with all its deficiencies, was thus a complete review of his book, though not a review of his complete book.

In discussing the first of the two questions, it was quite possible for Mr Bailey to have represented Berkeley as holding, that visible objects, though not seen to be external to the sight, were yet seen to be out of each other, or laterally extended within the organism or the mind. But Mr Bailey makes no such representation of the theory, and the whole argument which pervades the chapter in which the first question is discussed, is founded on the negation of any such extension. All visible extension, he tells us, must, in his opinion, be either plane or solid. Now he will scarcely maintain that he regarded Berkeley as holding that we perceive solid extension within the organism of the eye. Neither does he admit that, according to Berkeley, and in reference to this first question, plane extension is perceived within the organism of the eye. For when he proceeds to the discussion of the _second_ of the two questions, he remarks that “we must, _at this stage_ of the argument, consider the theory under examination, as representing that we see all things _originally in the same plane_,”[32] obviously implying that he had not _as yet_ considered the theory as representing that we see things originally in the same plane: in other words, plainly admitting that, in his treatment of the first question, he had not regarded the theory as representing that we see things originally under the category of extension at all.

[32] Review of Berkeley’s Theory, p 35.

But if any more direct evidence on this point were wanted, it is to be found in the section of his work which treats of “the perception of figure.” In the chapter in which he discusses the first of the two questions, he constantly speaks of Berkeley’s theory as representing that “our visual sensations, or what we ultimately term visible objects, are originally mere internal feelings.” The expression _mere internal feelings_, however, is ambiguous; for, as we have said, it might still imply that Mr Bailey viewed the theory as representing that there was an extension, or reciprocal outness of objects within the retina. But this doubt is entirely removed by a passage in the section alluded to, which proves that, in Mr Bailey’s estimation, these mere internal feelings not only involve no such extension, but that there would be an inconsistency in supposing they did. In this section he brings forward Berkeley’s assertion, “that neither solid nor plane figures are immediate objects of sight.” He then quotes a passage in which the bishop begs the reader not to stickle too much “about this or that phrase, or manner of expression, but candidly to collect his meaning from the whole sum and tenour of his discourse.” And then Mr Bailey goes on to say, “endeavouring, in the spirit here recommended, to collect the author’s meaning when he affirms that the figures we see are neither plane nor solid, it appears to me to be _a part or consequence_ of his doctrine already examined, which asserts that visible objects are only internal feelings.”[33] We can now be at no loss to understand what Mr Bailey means, and conceives Berkeley to mean, by the expression “mere internal feelings.” He evidently means feelings in which no kind of extension whatever is involved: for, in the next page, he informs us that all visual extension or extended figure, “_must_ be apprehended as either plane or solid, and that it is impossible even to conceive it otherwise.” Consequently, if the figures we see are, as Berkeley says, apprehended neither as plane nor as solid, Mr Bailey, entertaining the notions he does on the subject of extension, _must_ regard him as holding that they cannot be apprehended as extended at all–and accordingly such is the express representation he gives of the theory in the passage just quoted, where he says that “the doctrine of Berkeley, which affirms that the figures we see are neither plane nor solid, (that is, are extended in _no_ direction, according to Mr Bailey’s ideas of extension,) appears to him to be _a part_ of the doctrine which asserts that visible objects are only internal feelings.” Now if that be not teaching, in the plainest terms, that, according to Berkeley, no species of extension is implied in the internal feelings of vision, we know not what language means, and any one thought may be identical with its very opposite.

[33] Ibid. p. 136.

Here we might let the subject drop, having, as we conceive, said quite enough to prove the truth of our allegation that, in reference to the first question discussed, in which our original visual sensations are represented by Berkeley to be mere internal feelings, Mr Bailey understood and stated those feelings to signify sensations in which no perception of extension whatever was involved. However, as Mr Bailey further remarks that, “although Berkeley’s doctrine about visible figures being neither plane not solid, is thus consistent with his assertion that they are internal feelings, it is in itself contradictory,”[34] we shall contribute a few remarks to show that while, on the one hand, the negation of extension is not required to vindicate the consistency of Berkeley’s assertion, that visible objects are internal feelings, neither, on the other hand, is there any contradiction in Berkeley’s holding that objects are not seen either as planes or as solids, and are yet apprehended as extended. Mr Bailey alleges that we are “far more successful in involving ourselves in subtle speculations of our own, than in faithfully guiding our readers through the theories of other philosophers.” Perhaps in the present case we shall be able to thread a labyrinth where our reviewer has lost his clue, and, in spite of the apparent contradiction by which Mr Bailey has been gravelled, we shall, perhaps, be more successful than he in “collecting Berkeley’s meaning from the whole sum and tenour of his discourse.”

[34] Review of Berkeley’s Theory, p. 137.

First, with regard to the contradiction charged upon the bishop. When we open our eyes, what do we behold? We behold points–_minima visibilia_–out of one another. Do we see these points to be in the same plane? Certainly not. If they are in the same plane we learn this from a very different experience from that of sight. Again, do we see these points to be _not_ in the same plane? Certainly not. If the points are not in the same plane we learn this, too, from a very different experience than that of sight. All that we see is that the points are out of one another; and this simply implies the perception of extension, without implying the perception either of plane or of solid extension. Thus by the observation of a very obvious fact, which, however, Mr Bailey has overlooked, is Berkeley’s assertion that visible objects are apprehended as extended, and yet not apprehended either as planes or solids, relieved from every appearance of contradiction.

It must, however, be admitted that Mr Bailey has much to justify him in his opinion that extension must be apprehended either as plane or as solid. None of Berkeley’s followers, we believe, have ever dreamt of conceiving it otherwise, and finding in their master’s work the negation of solid extension specially insisted on, they leapt to the conclusion that the bishop admitted the original perception of plane extension. But Berkeley makes no such admission. He places the perception of plane extension on precisely the same footing with that of solid extension. “We see planes,” says he, “in the same way that we see solids.”[35] And the wisdom of the averment is obvious; for the affirmation of plane extension involves the negation of solid extension, but this negation involves the conception (visually derived) of solid extension; but the admission of that conception, so derived, would be fatal to the Berkeleian theory. Therefore its author wisely avoids the danger by holding, that in vision we have merely the perception of what the Germans would call the _Auseinanderseyn_, that is, the _asunderness_, of things–a perception which implies no judgment as to whether the things are secerned in plane or in protensive space.

[35] Essay, Sec. 158.

With regard to the supposition that, in order to preserve Berkeley’s consistency, it was necessary for him to teach that our visual sensations, (colours namely,) being internal feelings, could involve the perception neither of plane nor of solid extension, that is to say, of no extension at all, according to Mr Bailey’s ideas, we shall merely remark, that there appears to us to be no inconsistency in holding, as Berkeley does, that these colours, though originally internal to the sight, are nevertheless perceived as extended among themselves.

We shall now say a few words on the _relevancy_ of the question, for Mr Bailey denies that this question, concerning the reciprocal outness of visible objects, ought to form any element in the controversy. We shall show, however, that one of his most important arguments depends entirely on the view that may be taken of this question; and that while the argument alluded to would be utterly fatal to Berkeley’s theory, if the perception of reciprocal outness were denied, it is perfectly harmless if the perception in question be admitted.

Mr Bailey’s fundamental and reiterated objection to Berkeley’s theory is, that it requires us to hold that conceptions or past impressions, derived from one sense, (the touch,) are not merely recalled when another sense (the sight) executes its functions, but are themselves absolutely converted into the present intuitions of that other sense. In his own words, (_Review_, p. 69,) the theory is said to require “a transmutation of the conceptions derived from touch into the perceptions of sight.” “According to Berkeley, (says he, _Review_, p. 22,) an internal feeling (i.e. a visual sensation) and an external sensation (i.e. a tactual sensation) having been experienced at the same time: the internal feeling, when it afterwards occurs, not only suggests the idea, but, by doing so, suggests the idea, or, if I may use the figure, infuses the perception of its own externality. Berkeley thus attributes to suggestion an effect contrary to its nature, which, as in the case of language, is simply to revive in our conception what has been previously perceived by the sense.”

Now, this objection would be altogether insurmountable if it were true, or if it were a part of Berkeley’s doctrine, that the sight has no original intuition of space, or of the reciprocal outness of its objects–in other words, of colours out of colours; for it being admitted that the sight has ultimately such a perception, it would be incumbent on the Berkeleian to show how conceptions derived from another sense, or how perceptions belonging to another sense, could be converted into that perception. We agree with Mr Bailey, in thinking that no process of association could effect this conversion; that if we did not originally see colours to be out of each other, and the points of the same colour to be out of each other, we could never so see them; and that his argument, when thus based on the negation of all original visual extension, and on the supposition that the touch is the sole organ of every species of externality, would remain invulnerable.

But, with the admission of the visual intuition of space, the objection vanishes, and the argument is shorn of all its strength. This admission relieves the theory from the necessity of maintaining, that conceptions derived from touch are transmuted into the perceptions of sight. It attributes to the sight all that ever truly belongs to it, namely, the perception of colours out of one another; it provides the visual intuitions with an externality of their own–and the theory never demands that they should acquire any other; and it leaves to these visual intuitions the office of merely suggesting to the mind tactual impressions, with which they have been invariably associated in place. We say, _in place_; and it will be found that there is no contradiction in our saying so, when we shall have shown that it is the touch, and not the sight, which establishes a protensive interval between the organ and the sensations of vision.

Visible extension, then, or the perception of colours external to colours, being admitted, Mr Bailey’s argument, if he still adheres to it, must be presented to us in this form. He must maintain that the theory requires that the objects of touch should not only be suggested by the visual objects with which they have been associated, but that they should actually be _seen_. And then he must maintain that no power of association can enable us to see an object which can only be touched–a position which, certainly, no one will controvert. The simple answer to all which, is, that we never do see tangible objects–that the theory never requires we should, and that no power of association is necessary to account for a phenomenon which never takes place.

We cannot help thinking, that not a little of the misconception on this subject which prevails in the writings of Mr Bailey, and, we may add, of many other philosophers, originates in the supposition that we identify vision with the eye in the mere act of seeing, and in their taking it for granted that sight of itself informs us that we possess such an organ as the eye. Of course, if we suppose that we know instinctively, or intuitively, from the mere act of seeing, that the eye is the organ of vision, that it forms a part of the body we behold, and is located in the head, it requires no conjurer to prove that we _must_ have an instinctive, or intuitive, knowledge of visible things as larger than that organ, and, consequently, as external to it. In this case, no process of association is necessary to account for our knowledge of the distance of objects. That knowledge must be directly given in the very function and exercise of vision, as every one will admit, without going to the expense of an octavo volume to have it proved.

But we hold that no truth in mental philosophy is more incontestable than this, that the sight originally, and of itself, furnishes us with no knowledge of the eye, as we _now_ know that organ to exist. It does not inform us that we have an eye at all. And here we may hazard an observation, which, simple as it is, appears to us to be new, and not unimportant in aiding us to unravel the mysteries of sensation; which observation is, that, in no case whatever, does any sense inform us of the existence of its appropriate organ, or of the relation which subsists between that organ and its objects, but that the interposition of some other sense[36] is invariably required to give us this information. This truth, which we believe holds good with regard to all the senses, is most strikingly exemplified in the case of vision, as we shall now endeavour to illustrate.

[36] It would not be difficult to show, that as, on the one hand, _distance_ is not involved in the original intuitions of sight, so, on the other hand, _proximity_ is not involved in the original intuitions of touch; but that, while it is the touch which establishes an interval between the organ and the objects of sight, it is the sight which establishes _no_ interval between the organ and the objects of touch. Sight thus pays back every fraction of the debt it has incurred to its brother sense. This is an interesting subject, but we can only glance at it here.

Let us begin by supposing that man is a mere “power of seeing”. Under this supposition, we must hold that the periphery of vision is one and the same with the periphery of visible space; and the two peripheries being identical, of course whatever objects lie within the sphere of the one must lie within the sphere of the other also. Perhaps, strictly speaking, it is wrong to say that these objects are apprehended as internal to the sight; for the conception of internality implies the conception of externality, and neither of these conceptions can, as yet, be realized. But it is obvious what the expression _internal_ means; and it is unobjectionable, when understood to signify that the Seeing Power, the Seeing Act, and the Seen Things, co-exist in a synthesis in which there is no interval or discrimination. For, suppose that we know instinctively that the seen things occupy a locality separate from the sight. But that implies that we instinctively know that the sight occupies a locality separate from them. But such a supposition is a falling back upon the notion just reprobated, that the mere act of seeing can indicate its own organ, or can localise the visual phenomena in the eye–a position which, we presume, no philosopher will be hardy enough to maintain, when called upon to do so, broadly and unequivocally. The conclusion, therefore, is irresistible, that, in mere vision, the sight and its objects cling together in a union or synthesis, which no function of that sense, and no knowledge imparted to us by it, (and, according to the supposition, we have, as yet, no other knowledge,) can enable us to discriminate or dissolve. Where the seeing is, there is the thing seen, and where the thing seen is, there is the seeing of it.

But man is not a mere seeing animal. He has other senses besides: He has, for example, the sense of touch, and one of the most important offices which this sense performs, is to break up the identity or cohesion which subsists between sight and its objects. And how? We answer, by teaching us to associate _vision in general_, or the abstract _condition_ regulating our visual impressions, with the presence of the small tangible body we call the eye, and _vision in particular_, or the individual sensations of vision, (i.e. colours,) with the presence of immeasurably larger bodies revealed to us by touch, and tangibly external to the tangible eye. Sight, as we have said, does not inform us that its sensations are situated in the eye: it does not inform us that we have an eye at all. Neither does touch inform us that our visual sensations are located in the eye. It does not lead us to associate with the eye any of the visual phenomena or operations _in the first instance_. If it did, it would (_firstly_) either be impossible for it _afterwards_ to induce us to associate them with the presence of tangible bodies distant and different from the eye: or, (_secondly_), such an association would merely give birth to the abstract knowledge or conclusion, that these bodies were in one place, while the sensations suggesting them were felt to be associated with something in another place; colour would not be seen–as it is–incarnated with body: or, (_thirdly_), we should be compelled to postulate for the eye, as many philosophers have done, in our opinion, most unwarrantably, “a faculty of projection”[37] by which it might dissolve the association between itself and its sensations, throwing off the latter in the form of colours over the surface of things, and reversing the old Epicurean doctrine that perception is kept up by the transit to the sensorium of the ghosts or _simulacra_ of things,

Quae, quasi membranae, summo de corpore rerum, Direptae, volitant ultro citroque per auras.[38]

It is difficult to say whether the hypothesis of “cast-off films” is more absurd when we make the films come from things to us as spectral effluxes, or go from us to them in the semblance of colours.

[37] We observe that even Mueller speaks of the “faculty of projection” as if he sanctioned and adopted the hypothesis.–See _Physiology_, vol. ii. p. 1167.

[38] Lucretius.

But according to the present view no such incomprehensible faculty, no such crude and untenable hypothesis, is required. _Before_ the touch has informed us that we have an eye, _before_ it has led us to associate any thing visual with the eye, it has _already_ taught us to associate in place the sensations of vision (colours) with the presence of tangible objects which are not the eye. Therefore, when the touch discovers the eye, and induces us to associate vision in some way with it, it cannot be the particular sensations of vision called colours which it leads us to associate with that organ; for these have been already associated with something very different. If it be not colours, then what is it that the touch compels us to associate with the eye? We answer that it is the abstract _condition_ of impressions as the general law on which all seeing depends, but as quite distinct from the particular visual sensations apprehended in virtue of the observance of that law.

Nor is it at all difficult to understand how this general condition comes to be associated with the eye, and how the particular visual sensations come to be associated with something distant from the eye: and further, how this association of the condition with one thing, and of the sensations with another thing, (an association established by the touch and not by the sight,) dissolves the primary synthesis of seeing and colours. It is to be observed that there are two stages in the process by which this secernment is brought about–_First_, the stage in which the visual phenomena are associated with things different from the organ of vision, the very existence of which is as yet unknown. Let us suppose, then, the function of sight to be in operation. We behold a visible object–a particular colour. Let the touch now come into play. We feel a tangible object–say a book. Now from the mere fact of the visible and the tangible object being seen and felt together, we could not associate them in place; for it is quite possible that the tangible object may admit of being withdrawn, and yet the visible object remain: and if so, no association of the two in place can be established. But this is a point that can only be determined by experience; and what says that wise instructor? We withdraw the tangible object. The visible object, too, disappears: it leaves its place. We replace the tangible object–the visible object reappears _in statu quo_. There is no occasion to vary the experiment. If we find that the visible object invariably leaves its place when the tangible object leaves its, and that the one invariably comes back when the other returns, we have brought forward quite enough to establish an inevitable association in place between the two. The two places are henceforth regarded, not as two, but as one and the same.

By the aid of the touch, then, we have associated the visual phenomena with thing which are _not_ the organ of vision; and well it is for us that we have done so betimes, and before we were aware of the eye’s existence. Had the eye been indicated to us in the mere act of seeing; had we become apprised of its existence _before_ we had associated our visual sensations with the tangible objects constituting the material universe, the probability, nay the certainty, is that we would have associated them with this eye, and that then it would have been as impossible for us to break up the association between colours and the organ, as it now is for us to dissolve the union between colours and material things. In which case we should have remained blind, or as bad as blind; brightness would have been in the eye when it ought to have been in the sun; greenness would have been in the retina when it ought to have been in the grass. A most wise provision of nature it certainly is, by which our visual sensations are disposed of in the right way before we obtain any knowledge of the eye. And most wisely has nature seconded her own scheme by obscuring all the sources from which that knowledge might be derived. The light eyelids–the effortless muscular apparatus performing its ministrations so gently as to be almost unfelt–the tactual sensations so imperceptible when the eye is left to its own motions, so keen when it is invaded by an exploring finger, and so anxious to avoid all contact by which the existence of the organ might be betrayed. All these are so many means adopted by nature to keep back from the infant seer all knowledge of his own eye–a knowledge which, if developed prematurely, would have perverted the functions, if not rendered nugatory the very existence of the organ.

But, _secondly_, we have to consider the stage of the process in which vision is in some way associated with an object which is _not_ any of the things with which the visual sensations are connected. It is clear that the process is not completed–that our task, which is to dissolve the primary synthesis of vision and its phenomena, is but half executed, unless such an object be found. For though we have associated the visual sensations (colours) with something different from themselves, still vision clings to them without a hair’s-breadth of interval and pursues them whithersoever they go. As far, then, as we have yet gone, it cannot be said that our vision is felt or known to be distanced from the fixed stars even by the diameter of a grain of sand. The synthesis of sight and colour is not yet discriminated. How, then, is the interval interposed? We answer, by the discovery of a tangible object in a different place from any of the tangible objects associated with colour; and then by associating, in some way or other, the operations of vision with this object. Such an object is discovered in the eye. Now, as has frequently been said, we cannot associate colours or the visual sensations with this eye; for these have been already disposed of otherwise. What, then, do we associate with it–and how? We find, upon experiment, that our apprehension of the various visual sensations depends on the presence and particular location of this small tangible body. We find that the whole array of visual phenomena disappear when it is tactually covered, that they reappear when it is reopened, and so forth. Thus we come in some way to associate vision with it–not as colour, however, not as visual sensation. We regard the organ and its dispositions merely as a general condition regulating the apprehension of the visual sensations, and no more.

Thus, by attending to the two associations that occur,–the association (in place) of visual sensations with tangible bodies that _are not_ the eye; and the association (in place) of vision with a small tangible body that _is_ the eye–the eye regarded as the condition on which the apprehension of these sensations depends; by attending to these, we can understand how a protensive interval comes to be recognised between the organ and its objects. By means of the touch, we have associated the sensations of vision with tangible bodies in one place, and the apprehension of these sensations with a tangible body in another place. It is, therefore, impossible for the sight to dissolve these associations, and bring the sensations out of the one place where they are felt, into the other place where the _condition_ of their apprehension resides. The sight is, therefore, compelled to leave the sensations where they are, and the apprehension of them where it is; and to recognize the two as sundered from each other–the sensations as separated from the organ, which they truly are. Thus it is that we would explain the origin of the perception of distance by the eye; believing firmly that the sight would never have discerned this distance without the mediation of the touch.

Rightly to understand the foregoing reasoning–indeed to advance a single step in the true philosophy of sensation–we much divest ourselves of the prejudice instilled into us by a false physiology, that what we call our organism, or, in plain words, our body, is necessarily _the seat_ of our sensations. That all our sensations come to be associated _in some way_ with this body, and that some of them even come to be associated with it _in place_, is undeniable; but so far is it from being true, that they are all essentially implicated or incorporated with it, and cannot exist at a distance from it, that we have a direct proof to the contrary in our sensations of vision; and until the physiologist can prove (what has never yet been proven) an _a priori_ necessity that our sensations must be where our bodies are, and an _a priori_ absurdity in the contrary supposition, he must excuse us for resolutely standing by the fact as we find it.

This is a view which admits of much discussion, and we would gladly expatiate upon the subject, did time and space permit; but we must content ourselves with winding up the present observations with the accompanying diagram, which we think explains our view beyond the possibility of a mistake.

A
B_a_ _a_C

Let A be the original synthesis, or indiscrimination of vision and its sensations–of light and colours. Let _a_ be the visual sensations locally associated by means of the touch with the tangible bodies C _before_ vision is in any way associated with B–before, indeed, we have any knowledge of the existence of B. Then let _a_, the general condition on which the sensations, _after a time_, are found to depend, and in virtue of which they are apprehended, be locally associated with B–the eye discovered by means of the touch–and we have before us what we cannot help regarding as a complete _rationale_ of the whole phenomena and mysteries of vision. Now, the great difference between this view of the subject and the views of it that have been taken by _every_ other philosopher, consists in this, that whereas their explanations invariably implicated the visual sensations _a_ with B from the very first, thereby rendering it either impossible for them to be afterwards associated with C, or possible only in virtue of some very extravagant hypothesis–our explanation, on the contrary, proceeding on a simple observation of the facts, and never implicating the sensations _a_ with B at all, but associating them with C _a primordiis_, merely leaving to be associated with B, _a_, a certain general condition that must be complied with, in order that the sensations _a_ may be apprehended,–in this way, we say, our explanation contrives to steer clear both of the impossibility and the hypothesis.

We would just add by way of postscript to this article–which, perhaps, ought itself to have been only a postscript–that with regard to Mr Bailey’s allegation of our having plagiarised one of his arguments, merely turning the coat of it outside in, we can assure him that he is labouring under a mistake. In our former paper, we remarked that we could not see things to be _out_ of the sight, because we could not see the sight itself. Mr Bailey alleges, that this argument is borrowed from him, being a mere reversal of his reasoning, that we cannot see things to be _in_ the sight, because we cannot see both the sight and the things. That our argument might very naturally have been suggested by his, we admit. But it was not so. We had either overlooked the passage in his book, or it was clean out of our mind when we were pondering our own speculations. It did not suggest our argument, either nearly or remotely. Had it done so, we should certainly have noticed it, and should probably have handled both Mr Bailey’s reasoning and our own to better purpose, in consequence. If, notwithstanding this disclaimer, he still thinks that appearances are against us, we cannot mend his faith, but can merely repeat, that the fact is as we have stated it.

* * * * *

THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.

WITH THIRTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS, BY WILLIAM MULREADY, R.A.

In a review we made last January of Goldsmith’s “Deserted Village,” illustrated by the Etching Club, we concluded our notice with recommending to those able artists the “Vicar of Wakefield;” and expressed a hope that Mr Maclise would lend his powerful aid, having in our recollection some very happy illustrations of his hand in pictures exhibited at the Royal Academy Exhibition.

What the Etching Club are about, we know not; but the subject has been taken up by Mr Mulready; and we now feel it incumbent upon us to notice this new and illustrated edition of that immortal work. Immortal it must be; manners pass away, modes change, but the fashion of the heart of man is unalterable. The “Vicar of Wakefield” bears the stamp of the age in which it was written. Had it been laid aside by the author, discovered, and now first brought out, without a notice of the author, or of the time of its composition, received it must have been indeed with delight, but not as belonging to the present day. It differs in its literature and its manners. It is at once a most happy work for illustration, and the most difficult. It is universally known. Who has not shed previous and heart-improving tears over it? Taking up the tale now, for the hundredth time, we are become, from somewhat morose, tender as a lamb–propitious condition for a critic! We opened upon the scene where Mr Burchell so cruelly tries poor Sophia, by offering her a husband in Mr Jenkinson; we know the whole transaction perfectly, the bitter joke, the proposal

“impares
Formas atque animas in juga ahenea Saevo mittere cum joco.”

Yet how strangely are we moved! Had the taxman at the moment called for the income-tax, he would have concluded we were paying the last farthing of our principal. What art is this in a writer, that he should by one and the same passage continue to move his readers, though they know the trick! Readers, too, that would have turned the cold shoulder to real tales of greater distress, and met suspicion that all was a cheat halfway; but the acknowledged fictitious they yield to at once their whole hearts, throwing to the winds their beggarly stint. Never was there a writer that possessed to so great a degree as did Goldsmith this wondrous charm; and in him it is the more delightful in the light and pleasant _allegria_ with which he works off the feeling. The volume is full of subjects that so move; and in this respect it is most admirable for illustration, inviting the ablest powers. But the difficulty, wherein does that lie? Look at all illustrations that have hitherto appeared in print, and you cry out to all–Away with the failure! Certain it is that but slender abilities have been hitherto employed; and when we hear of better artists coming to the undertaking, we are hardened against them. And then, how few come fresh to the tale. To those who do, perhaps a new illustration may have a tenfold charm; but to any one past five-and-twenty, it must come “with a difference.” It is very difficult to reconcile one to a new Dr Primrose, a new Mrs Primrose. Beauty ever had the power of beauty, and takes us suddenly; we can more readily dismiss the old idea and pitch on the new, so that the Miss Primroses are more reconcilable and transferable creatures, than the Vicar and his wife, or the incomparable Moses and the unyielding Mr Burchell. We cannot pretend to tell how all these characters would have fitted their images given by Mr Mulready, had the work now first come into our hands. As it is, we can only say they are new to us. It requires time to reconcile this. In the meanwhile we must take it for granted, that they actually do represent those in Mr Mulready’s vision, and he is a clear-sighted man, and has been accustomed to look into character well. His name as the illustrator, gave promise of success. Well do we remember an early picture by him–entitled, we believe, the Wolf and the Lamb. It represented two schoolboys–the bully, and the more tender fatherless child. The history in that little picture was quite of the manner of Goldsmith. The orphan boy’s face we never can forget, not the whole expression of his slender form, though it is many years ago that we saw the picture. So that when the name of Mulready appeared as illustrator, we said at once, That will do–down came the book, and here it is before us. The pages have been turned over again and again. We cannot, nevertheless, quite reconcile our ideas to the new Dr and Mrs Primrose; but in attempting to do so, so many real artistical beauties have beamed from the pages, that we determined at once to pour out our hearts to Maga, and turn over page after page once more. The illustrations are thirty-two in number; one to head each chapter, though, and which we think a defect, the subject of the illustration is not always in the chapter at the head of which it is. The first is the choice of a wife–“and chose my wife as she did her wedding-gown.” The intended bride is a very beautiful graceful figure, with a most sweet simplicity of countenance. This never could have resembled Mrs Deborah Primrose; the outline is most easy and graceful, even as one of Raffaelle’s pure and lovely beings. The youth of the bride and bridegroom, fresh in their hopes of years of happiness, is happily contrasted with the staid age of the respectable tradesman, evidently one of honest trade and industrious habits–the fair dealer, one of the old race before the days of “immense sacrifices” brought goods and men into disrepute. The little group is charming; every line assists another, and make a perfect whole.

“The Dispute between the Vicar and Mr Wilmot.”–“This, as may be expected, produced a dispute, attended with some acrimony.” Old Wilmot is capital; there is acrimony in his face, and combativeness in his fists–both clenching confidently his own argument, and ready for action; the very drawing back of one leg, and protrusion of the other, is indicative of testy impatience. The vicar is a little too loose and slovenly, both in attitude and attire; the uniting of the figures (artistically speaking) is with Mr Mulready’s usual ability.

“The Rescue of Sophia from Drowning by Mr Burchell.”–“She must have certainly perished, had not my companion, perceiving her danger, instantly plunged in to her relief.” This is altogether a failure, yet it is a good subject; nor has Mr Mulready been at all happy in the female beauty. The vicar stands upon the bank too apathetic; and the group in the vehicle, crossing the stream above, seem scarcely conscious of the event, though they are within sight of it. Mr Mulready has here, too, neglected his text. Sophia fell from her horse; all the party set out on horseback; there is no carriage mentioned.

“The Vicar at Home, with Neighbour Flamborough and the Piper.”–“These harmless people had several ways of being good company; while one played, the other would sing some soothing ballad.” The happy father, with his children climbing up his chair, and clinging to him, is a beautiful group, and quite worthy of Mr Mulready’s pencil.

“Squire Thornhill.”–“At last a young gentleman, of a more genteel appearance than the rest, came forward, and for a while regarding us, instead of pursuing the chase, stopped short, and giving his horse to a servant who attended, approached us with a careless, superior air.” The family are sweetly grouped–the story well told–the easy assurance of the squire undeniable. The father holds his two boys, one on his lap, the other between his knees; but is he “_the_ vicar?”

“Mr Burchell and Sophia”–A most charming illustration. It is the haymaking scene. “I could not avoid, however, observing the assiduity of Mr Burchell, in assisting my daughter Sophia in her part of the task.” Sophia is a lovely creature, just what she should be. We are not quite sure of Mr Burchell: possibly he may look too young; he was a character, and must have borne about him some little acquired oddity, sturdy, and not undignified. In the illustration he is too prettily genteel; but we do not wish to see any but Sophia–delightful, loving, lovable Sophia. In the background, Moses lies on the ground with his book, and the vicar has rather too suspicious a look; but we can forgive him that, and, for Sophia’s sake, forgive Mr Mulready that he has paid less attention to her admirer–for at present he is no more. But his admiration is better, and more to the purpose than other men’s love.

“Moses defeated in Argument, or rather borne down by the arrogant, ignorant volubility of the Squire.”–“This effectually raised the laugh against poor Moses.” It is well grouped; but the only successful figure is Moses. The squire is not the well-dressed, designing profligate. If the story were not well told by the grouping, we might have taken the squire for an itinerant “lecturer.” The squire is so prominent a person in the tale, that we think there should have been a well-studied representation of the accomplished villain and fine gentleman.

No. 8.–Beyond the skill in grouping, Mr Mulready has not attempted any great interest in this illustration. It represents the family, with their friend Burchell, interrupted in their enjoyment by the chaplain,