permitted them to be brought to this state. And where else can you turn? Is it to the newspapers? They are a thousand times more dishonest than the workingmen. Is it to the halls of legislation? There corruption riots and rots until the stench fills the earth. The only ones who could reform the world are the rich and powerful: but they see nothing to reform. Life is all sunshine for them; civilization is a success for them; they need no better heaven than they enjoy. They have so long held mankind in subjection that they laugh at the idea of the great, dark, writhing masses, rising up to overthrow them. Government is, to them, an exquisitely adjusted piece of mechanism whose object is to keep the few happy and the many miserable.”
“But,” said I, “if an appeal were made to them; if they were assured of the dangers that really threatened them; if their better and kindlier natures were appealed to, do you not think they might undertake the task of remedying the evils endured by the multitude? They cannot all be as abandoned and utterly vicious as Prince Cabano and his Council.”
“No,” he replied; “have you not already made the test? The best of them would probably hang you for your pains. Do you think they would be willing to relinquish one-tenth of their pleasures, or their possessions, to relieve the distresses of their fellows? If you do, you have but a slight conception of the callousness of their hearts. You were right in what you said was the vital principle of Christianity–brotherly love, not alone of the rich for the rich, but of the poor and rich for each other. But that spirit has passed away from the breasts of the upper classes. Science has increased their knowledge one hundred per cent. and their vanity one thousand per cent. The more they know of the material world the less they can perceive the spiritual world around and within it. The acquisition of a few facts about nature has closed their eyes to the existence of a God.”
“Ah,” said I, “that is a dreadful thought! It seems to me that the man who possesses his eyesight must behold a thousand evidences of a Creator denied to a blind man; and in the same way the man who knows most of the material world should see the most conclusive evidences of design and a Designer. The humblest blade of grass preaches an incontrovertible sermon. What force is it that brings it up, green and beautiful, out of the black, dead earth? Who made it succulent and filled it full of the substances that will make flesh and blood and bone for millions of gentle, grazing animals? What a gap would it have been in nature if there had been no such growth, or if, being such, it had been poisonous or inedible? Whose persistent purpose is it–whose everlasting will–that year after year, and age after age, stirs the tender roots to life and growth, for the sustenance of uncounted generations of creatures? Every blade of grass, therefore, points with its tiny finger straight upward to heaven, and proclaims an eternal, a benevolent God. It is to me a dreadful thing that men can penetrate farther and farther into nature with their senses, and leave their reasoning faculties behind them. Instead of mind recognizing mind, dust simply perceives dust. This is the suicide of the soul.”
“Well, to this extremity,” said Maximilian, “the governing classes of the world have progressed. We will go to-morrow–it will be Sunday–and visit one of their churches; and you shall see for yourself to what the blind adoration of wealth and the heartless contempt of humanity have brought the world.”
CHAPTER XXI.
A SERMON OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Max and I entered the church together. It is a magnificent structure–palatial, cathedral-like, in its proportions–a gorgeous temple of fashion, built with exquisite taste, of different-colored marbles, and surrounded by graceful columns. Ushers, who looked like guards in uniform, stood at the doors, to keep out the poorly-dressed people, if any such presented themselves; for it was evident that this so-called church was exclusively a club-house of the rich.
As we entered we passed several marble statues. It is a curious illustration of the evolution of religion, in these latter days, that these statues are not representations of any persons who have ever lived, or were supposed to have lived on earth, or anywhere else; and there was not in or about them any hint whatever of myth or antique belief. In the pre-Christian days the work of the poet and sculptor taught a kind of history in the statues of the pagan divinities. Bacchus told of some ancient race that had introduced the vine into Europe and Africa. Ceres, with her wheat-plant, recited a similar story as to agriculture. And Zeus, Hercules, Saturn and all the rest were, in all probability–as Socrates declared–deified men. And, of course, Christian art was full of beautiful allusions to the life of the Savior, or to his great and holy saints and martyrs. But here we had simply splendid representations of naked human figures, male and female, wondrously beautiful, but holding no associations whatever with what you and I, my dear Heinrich, call religion.
Passing these works of art, we entered a magnificent hall. At the farther end was a raised platform, almost embowered in flowers of many hues, all in full bloom. The light entered through stained windows, on the sides of the hall, so colored as to cast a weird and luxurious effulgence over the great chamber. On the walls were a number of pictures; some of a very sensuous character; all of great beauty and perfect workmanship; but none of them of a religious nature, unless we might except one of the nude Venus rising from the sea.
The body of the hall was arranged like a great lecture-room; there were no facilities for or suggestions of devotion, but the seats were abundantly cushioned, and with every arrangement for the comfort of the occupants. The hall was not more than half full, the greater part of those present being women. Most of these were fair and beautiful; and even those who had long passed middle age retained, by the virtue of many cunning arts, well known to these people, much of the appearance and freshness of youth. I might here note that the prolongation of life in the upper classes, and its abbreviation in the lower classes, are marked and divergent characteristics of this modern civilization.
I observed in the women, as I had in those of the Darwin Hotel, associated with great facial perfection, a hard and soulless look out of the eyes; and here, even more than there, I could not but notice a sensuality in the full, red lips, and the quick-glancing eyes, which indicated that they were splendid animals, and nothing more.
An usher led us up one of the thickly carpeted aisles to a front pew; there was a young lady already seated in it. I entered first, and Max followed me. The young lady was possessed of imperial beauty. She looked at us both quite boldly, without shrinking, and smiled a little. We sat down. They were singing a song–I could not call it a hymn; it was all about the “Beautiful and the Good”–or something of that sort. The words and tune were fine, but there were no allusions to religion, or God, or heaven, or anything else of a sacred character. The young lady moved toward me and offered to share her song-book with me. She sang quite sweetly, but there was no more soul in her voice than there was in the song.
After a little time the preacher appeared on the platform. Max told me his name was Professor Odyard, and that he was one of the most eminent philosophers and orators of the day, but that his moral character was not of the best. He was a large, thick-set, florid, full-bearded man, with large lips, black hair and eyes, and swarthy skin. His voice was sweet and flute-like, and he had evidently perfected himself in the graces of elocution. He spoke with a great deal of animation and action; in fact, he was a very vivacious actor.
He commenced by telling the congregation of some new scientific discoveries, recently made in Germany, by Professor Von der Slahe, to the effect that the whole body of man, and of all other animals and even inanimate things, was a mass of living microbes–not in the sense of disease or parasites, but that the intrinsic matter of all forms was life-forms; the infinite molecules were creatures; and that there was no substance that was not animated; and that life was therefore infinitely more abundant in the world than matter; that life was matter.
And then he went on to speak of the recent great discoveries made by Professor Thomas O’Connor, of the Oregon University, which promise to end the reign of disease on earth, and give men patriarchal leases of life. More than a century ago it had been observed, where the bacteria of contagious disorders were bred in culture-infusions, for purposes of study, that after a time they became surrounded by masses of substance which destroyed them. It occurred to Professor O’Connor, that it was a rule of Nature that life preyed on life, and that every form of being was accompanied by enemies which held its over-growth in check: the deer were eaten by the wolves; the doves by the hawks; the gnats by the dragon-flies.
“Big fleas had little fleas to bite ’em, And these had lesser still, ad infinitum.”
Professor O’Connor found that, in like manner, bacteria, of all kinds, were devoured by minuter forms of life. Recovery from sickness meant that the microbes were destroyed by their natural enemies before they had time to take possession of the entire system; death resulted where the vital powers could not hold out until the balance of nature was thus re-established. He found, therefore, that the remedy for disease was to take some of the culture-infusion in which malignant bacteria had just perished, and inject it into the veins of the sick man. This was like stocking a rat-infested barn with weasels. The invisible, but greedy swarms of bacilli penetrated every part of the body in search of their prey, and the man recovered his health. Where an epidemic threatened, the whole community was to be thus inoculated, and then, when a wandering microbe found lodgment in a human system, it would be pounced upon and devoured before it could reproduce its kind. He even argued that old age was largely due to bacteria; and that perpetual youth would be possible if a germicide could be found that would reach every fiber of the body, and destroy the swarming life-forms which especially attacked the vital forces of the aged.
And then he referred to a new invention by a California scientist, named Henry Myers, whereby telephonic communication had been curiously instituted with intelligences all around us–not spirits or ghosts, but forms of life like our own, but which our senses had hitherto not been able to perceive. They were new forms of matter, but of an extreme tenuity of substance; and with intellects much like our own, though scarcely of so high or powerful an order. It was suggested by the preacher that these shadowy earth-beings had probably given rise to many of the Old-World beliefs as to ghosts, spirits, fairies, goblins, angels and demons. The field in this direction, he said, had been just opened, and it was difficult to tell how far the diversity and multiplicity of creation extended. He said it was remarkable that our ancestors had not foreseen these revelations, for they knew that there were sound-waves both above and below the register of our hearing; and light-waves of which our eyes were able to take no cognizance; and therefore it followed, _a priori_, that nature might possess an infinite number of forms of life which our senses were not fitted to perceive. For instance, he added, there might be right here, in this very hall, the houses and work-shops and markets of a multitude of beings, who swarmed about us, but of such tenuity that they passed through our substance, and we through theirs, without the slightest disturbance of their continuity. All that we knew of Nature taught us that she was tireless in the prodigality of her creative force, and boundless in the diversity of her workmanship; and we now knew that what the ancients called spirit was simply an attenuated condition of matter.
The audience were evidently keenly intellectual and highly educated, and they listened with great attention to this discourse. In fact, I began to perceive that the office of preacher has only survived, in this material age, on condition that the priest shall gather up, during the week, from the literary and scientific publications of the whole world, the gems of current thought and information, digest them carefully, and pour them forth, in attractive form, for their delectation on Sunday. As a sort of oratorical and poetical reviewer, essayist and rhapsodist, the parson and his church had survived the decadence of religion.
“Nature,” he continued, “is as merciless as she is prolific. Let us consider the humblest little creature that lives–we will say the field-mouse. Think what an exquisite compendium it is of bones, muscles, nerves, veins, arteries–all sheathed in such a delicate, flexible and glossy covering of skin. Observe the innumerable and beautiful adjustments in the little animal: the bright, pumping, bounding blood; the brilliant eyes, with their marvelous powers; the apprehending brain, with its sentiments and emotions, its loves, its fears, its hopes; and note, too, that wonderful net-work, that telegraphic apparatus of nerves which connects the brain with the eyes and ears and quick, vivacious little feet. One who took but a half view of things would say, ‘How benevolent is Nature, that has so kindly equipped the tiny field-mouse with the means of protection–its quick, listening ears; its keen, watchful eyes; its rapid, glancing feet!’ But look a little farther, my brethren, and what do you behold? This same benevolent Nature has formed another, larger creature, to watch for and spring upon this ‘timorous little beastie,’ even in its moments of unsuspecting happiness, and rend, tear, crush and mangle it to pieces. And to this especial work Nature has given the larger animal a set of adjustments as exquisitely perfect as those it has conferred on the smaller one; to-wit: eyes to behold in the darkness; teeth to tear; claws to rend; muscles to spring; patience to wait; and a stomach that clamors for the blood of its innocent fellow-creature.
“And what lesson does this learned and cultured age draw from these facts? Simply this: that the plan of Nature necessarily involves cruelty, suffering, injustice, destruction, death.
“We are told by a school of philanthropists more numerous in the old time, fortunately, than they are at present, that men should not be happy while their fellow-men are miserable; that we must decrease our own pleasures to make others comfortable; and much more of the same sort. But, my brethren, does Nature preach that gospel to the cat when it destroys the field-mouse? No; she equips it with special aptitudes for the work of slaughter.
“If Nature, with her interminable fecundity, pours forth millions of human beings for whom there is no place on earth, and no means of subsistence, what affair is that of ours, my brethren? We did not make them; we did not ask Nature to make them. And it is Nature’s business to feed them, not yours or mine. Are we better than Nature? Are we wiser? Shall we rebuke the Great Mother by caring for those whom she has abandoned? If she intended that all men should be happy, why did she not make them so? She is omnipotent. She permits evil to exist, when with a breath of her mouth she could sweep it away forever. But it is part of her scheme of life. She is indifferent to the cries of distress which rise up to her, in one undying wail, from the face of the universe. With stony eyes the thousand-handed goddess sits, serene and merciless, in the midst of her worshipers, like a Hindoo idol. Her skirts are wet with blood; her creation is based on destruction; her lives live only by murder. The cruel images of the pagan are truer delineations of Nature than the figures which typify the impotent charity of Christendom–an exotic in the midst of an alien world.
“Let the abyss groan. Why should we trouble ourselves. Let us close our ears to the cries of distress we are not able to relieve. It was said of old time, ‘Many are called, but few chosen.’ Our ancestors placed a mythical interpretation on this text; but we know that it means:–many are called to the sorrows of life, but few are chosen to inherit the delights of wealth and happiness. Buddha told us, ‘Poverty is the curse of Brahma’; Mahomet declared that ‘God smote the wicked with misery’; and Christ said, ‘The poor ye have always with you.’ Why, then, should we concern ourselves about the poor? They are part of the everlasting economy of human society. Let us leave them in the hands of Nature. She who made them can care for them.
“Let us rejoice that out of the misery of the universe we are reserved for happiness. For us are music, painting, sculpture, the interweaving glories of the dance, the splendors of poetry and oratory, the perfume of flowers, all delicate and dainty viands and sparkling wines and nectars; and above all Love! Love! Entrancing, enrapturing Love! With its glowing cheeks–its burning eyes–its hot lips–its wreathing arms–its showering kisses–its palpitating bosoms–its intertwining symmetry of beauty and of loveliness.”
Here the young lady with the song book drew up closer to me, and looked up into my eyes with a gaze which no son of Adam could misunderstand. I thought of Estella, like a true knight, and turned my face to the preacher. While his doctrines were, to me, utterly heartless and abominable, there was about him such an ecstasy of voluptuousness, associated with considerable intellectual force and passionate oratory, that I was quite interested in him as a psychological study. I could not help but think by what slow stages, through many generations, a people calling themselves Christians could have been brought to this curious commingling of intellectuality and bestiality; and all upon the basis of indifference to the sorrows and sufferings of their fellow-creatures.
“On with the dance!” shouted the preacher, “though we dance above graves. Let the very calamities of the world accentuate our pleasures, even as the warm and sheltered fireside seems more delightful when we hear without the roar of the tempest. The ancient Egyptians brought into their banquets the mummied bodies of the dead, to remind them of mortality. It was a foolish custom. Men are made to feast and made to die; and the one is as natural as the other. Let us, on the other hand, when we rejoice together, throw open our windows, that we may behold the swarming, starving multitudes who stream past our doors. Their pinched and ashy faces and hungry eyes, properly considered, will add a flavor to our viands. We will rejoice to think that if, in this ill-governed universe, all cannot be blest, we at least rise above the universal wretchedness and are reserved for happiness.
“Rejoice, therefore, my children, in your wealth, in your health, in your strength, in your bodies, and in your loves. Ye are the flower and perfection of mankind. Let no plea shorten, by one instant, your pleasures. Death is the end of all things–of consciousness; of sensation; of happiness. Immortality is the dream of dotards. When ye can no longer enjoy, make ready for the grave; for the end of Love is death.
“And what is Love? Love is the drawing together of two beings, in that nature-enforced affinity and commingling, when out of the very impact and identity of two spirits, life, triumphant life, springs into the universe.
“What a powerful impulse is this Love? It is nature-wide. The rushing together of the chemical elements; the attraction of suns and planets–all are Love. See how even the plant casts its pollen abroad on the winds, that it may somewhere reach and rest upon the loving bosom of a sister-flower; and there, amid perfume and sweetness and the breath of zephyrs, the great mystery of life is re-enacted. The plant is without intellect, but it is sensible to Love.
“And who shall doubt, when he contemplates the complicated mechanism by which, everywhere, this God-Nature–blind as to pain and sin and death, but tender and solicitous as to birth and life–makes Love possible, imperative, soulful, overwhelming, that the purposed end and aim of life is Love. And how pitiful and barren seem to us the lives of the superstitious and ascetic hermits of the ancient world, who fled to desert places, to escape from Love, and believed that they were overcoming the foul fiend by prayers and fastings and scourgings. But outraged Nature, mighty amid the ruins of their blasted hearts, reasserted herself, and visited them even in dreams; and the white arms and loving lips of woman overwhelmed them with hot and passionate caresses, in visions against which they strove in vain.
“Oh, my brethren, every nerve, fiber, muscle, and ‘petty artery of the body,’ participates in Love. Love is the conqueror of death, because Love alone perpetuates life. Love is life! Love is religion! Love is the universe! Love is God!” And with this climax he sat down amid great applause, as in a theater.
I need scarcely say to you, my dear Heinrich, that I was absolutely shocked by this sermon. Knowing, as you do, the kind and pure and gentle doctrines taught in the little church in our mountain home, where love means charity for man and worship of God, you may imagine how my blood boiled at this cruel, carnal and heartless harangue. The glowing and picturesque words which he poured out were simply a carpet of flowers spread over crawling serpents.
The audience of course were familiar with these doctrines. The preacher owed his success, indeed, to the fact that he had courageously avowed the sentiments which had dwelt in the breasts of the people and had been enacted in their lives for generations. The congregation had listened with rapt attention to this eloquent echo of their own hearts; this justification of their Nature-worship; this re-birth of Paganism. The women nestled closer to the men at the tender passages; and I noticed many a flashing interchange of glances, between bold, bright eyes, which told too well that the great preacher’s adjurations were not thrown away upon unwilling listeners.
Another song was sung; and then there was a rustle of silks and satins. The audience were about to withdraw. The preacher sat upon his sofa, on the platform, mopping his broad forehead with his handkerchief, for he had spoken with great energy. I could restrain myself no longer. I rose and said in a loud voice, which at once arrested the movement of the congregation:
“Reverend sir, would you permit a stranger to make a few comments on your sermon?”
“Certainly,” he replied, very courteously; “we welcome discussion. Will you step to the platform?”
“No,” I replied; “with your permission I shall speak from where I stand.
“I can only say to you that I am inexpressibly shocked and grieved by your discourse.
“Are you blind? Can you not see that Christianity was intended by God to be something better and nobler, superimposed, as an after-birth of time, on the brutality of the elder world? Does not the great doctrine of Evolution, in which you believe, preach this gospel? If man rose from a brute form, then advanced to human and savage life, yet a robber and a murderer; then reached civility and culture, and philanthropy; can you not see that the fingerboard of God points forward, unerringly, along the whole track of the race; and that it is still pointing forward to stages, in the future, when man shall approximate the angels? But this is not your doctrine. Your creed does not lead forward; it leads backward, to the troglodyte in his cavern, splitting the leg-bones of his victim to extract the marrow for his cannibalistic feast. _He_ would have enjoyed your sermon!” [Great excitement in the congregation.]
“And your gospel of Love. What is it but beastliness? Like the old Greeks and Romans, and all undeveloped antiquity, you deify the basest traits of the fleshly organism; you exalt an animal incident of life into the end of life. You drive out of the lofty temples of the soul the noble and pure aspirations, the great charities, the divine thoughts, which should float there forever on the pinions of angels; and you cover the floor of the temple with crawling creatures, toads, lizards, vipers–groveling instincts, base appetites, leprous sensualities, that befoul the walls of the house with their snail-like markings, and climb, and climb, until they look out of the very windows of the soul, with such repellent and brutish eyes, that real love withers and shrinks at the sight, and dies like a blasted flower.
“O shallow teacher of the blind, do you not see that Christianity was a new force, Heaven-sent, to overcome that very cruelty and heartlessness of Nature which you so much commend? Nature’s offspring was indeed the savage, merciless as the creed you preach. Then came God, who breathed a soul into the nostrils of the savage. Then came One after Him who said the essence of all religion was man’s love for his fellow man, and for the God that is over all; that the highest worship of the Father was to heal the sick, and feed the hungry, and comfort the despised and rejected, and lift up the fallen. And love!–that was true love, made up in equal parts of adoration and of pity! Not the thing you call love, which makes these faces flush with passion and these eyes burn with lust!”
I had gotten thus far, and was proceeding swimmingly, very much to my own satisfaction, when an old woman who stood near me, and who was dressed like a girl of twenty, with false rubber shoulders and neck and cheeks, to hide the ravages of time, hurled a huge hymn-book, the size of a Bible, at me. Age had not impaired the venerable woman’s accuracy of aim, nor withered the strength of her good right arm; and the volume of diluted piety encountered me, with great force, just below my right ear, and sent me reeling over against Max. As I rose, nothing disconcerted, to renew my discourse, I found the air full of hymn-books, cushions, umbrellas, overshoes, and every other missile they could lay their hands on; and then I perceived that the whole congregation, men, women, children, preacher, clerks and ushers, were all advancing upon me with evil intent. I would fain have staid to have argued the matter out with them, for I was full of a great many fine points, which I had not yet had time to present, but Max, who never had any interest in theological discussions, and abhorred a battle with Amazons, seized me by the arm and literally dragged me out of the church. I continued, however, to shout back my anathemas of the preacher, and that worthy answered me with floods of abuse; and the women screamed, and the men howled and swore; and altogether it was a very pretty assemblage that poured forth upon the sidewalk.
“Come along,” said Max; “you will be arrested, and that will spoil everything.”
He hurried me into a carriage and we drove off. Although still full of the debate, I could not help but laugh when I looked back at the multitude in front of the church. Every one was wildly ejaculating, except some of the sisters, who were kissing the hands and face of the preacher–dear, good man–to console him for the hateful insults I had heaped upon him! They reminded me of a swarm of hornets whose paper domicile had been rudely kicked by the foot of some wandering country boy.
“Well, well,” said Max, “you are a strange character! Your impulses will some time cost you your life. If I did not think so much of you as I do, I should tell you you were a great fool. Why couldn’t you keep quiet? You surely didn’t hope to convert that congregation, any more than you could have converted the Council of the Plutocracy.”
“But, my dear fellow,” I replied, “it was a great comfort to me to be able to tell that old rascal just what I thought of him. And you can’t tell–it may do some good.”
“No, no,” said Max; “the only preacher that will ever convert that congregation is Cæsar Lomellini. Cæsar is a bigger brute than they are–which is saying a good deal. The difference is, they are brutes who are in possession of the good things of this world; and Cæsar is a brute who wants to get into possession of them. And there is another difference: they are polished and cultured brutes, and Cæsar is the brute natural,–‘the unaccommodated man’ that Lear spoke of.”
CHAPTER XXII.
ESTELLA AND I
I need not say to you, my dear Heinrich, how greatly I love Estella. It is not alone for her beauty, although that is as perfect and as graceful as the dream of some Greek artist hewn in immortal marble. That alone would have elicited merely my admiration. But there is that in her which wins my profoundest respect and love–I had almost said my veneration. Her frame is but the crystal-clear covering of a bright and pure soul, without stain or shadow or blemish. It does not seem possible for her to be otherwise than good. And yet, within this goodness, there is an hereditary character intrenched, capable, under necessity, of all heroism–a fearless and a potent soul. And, besides all this, she is a woman, womanly; a being not harsh and angular in character, but soft and lovable–
“A countenance in which do meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet; A creature not too bright or good
For human nature’s daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.”
You may judge, my dear brother, having gone through a similar experience, how profoundly I was drawn to her; how absolute a necessity she seemed to my life. Neither was I a despairing lover; for had she not, at a time when death seemed imminent, avowed her love for me? Yes, “_love_”–that was the word she used; and the look which accompanied it gave the word a double emphasis. But there was a giant difficulty in my path. If she had compromised her maiden reserve in that particular, how could I take advantage of it? And how could I still further take advantage of her lonely and friendless condition to press my suit? And yet I could not leave her alone to encounter all the dangers of the dreadful time which I know too well is approaching. If she had stood, happy and contented, in the midst of her family, under the shelter of father and mother, surrounded by brothers and sisters, with a bright and peaceful future before her, I could have found courage enough to press my suit, to throw myself at her feet, and woo her boldly, as man woos woman. But this poor, unhappy, friendless, lovely girl! What could I do? Day and night I pondered the problem, and at last an expedient occurred to me.
I called upon her. She had fled from the palace without a wardrobe. A woman may be a heroine, but she is still a woman. Joan of Arc must have given considerable thought to her cap and ribbons. Estella was busy, with a dressmaker, contriving several dresses. I asked her if I could speak with her. She started, blushed a little, and led the way into another room. I closed the door.
“My dear Estella,” I said, “I have been amusing my leisure by composing a fairy story.”
“Indeed,” she said, smiling, “a strange occupation for a philanthropist and philosopher, to say nothing of a poet.”
“It is, perhaps,” I replied, in the same playful vein, “the poetical portion of my nature that has set me at this work. But I cannot satisfy myself as to the denouement of my story, and I desire your aid and counsel.”
“I am all attention,” she replied; “proceed with your story;–but first, wait a moment. I will get some of my work; and then I can listen to you without feeling that I am wasting precious time.”
“Otherwise you would feel,” I said, “that your time was wasted listening to me?”
“No,” she said, laughing, “but in listening to a fairy tale.” She returned in a few moments, and we took seats, I covering my real feeling by an assumed gayety, and Estella listening attentively, with her eyes on her work.
“You must know,” I commenced, “that my tale is entitled:
THE STORY OF PRINCESS CHARMING AND THE KNIGHT WEAKHART.
‘Once upon a time’–you know all fairy stories are dated from that eventful period of the world’s history–there was a beautiful princess, who lived in a grand palace, and her name was Princess Charming; and she was every way worthy of her name; for she was as good as she was handsome. But a dreadful dwarf, who had slain many people in that country, slew her father and mother, and robbed the poor Princess of her fine house, and carried her off and delivered her to an old fairy, called Cathel, a wicked and bad old sorceress and witch, who sat all day surrounded by black cats, weaving incantations and making charms, which she sold to all who would buy of her. Now, among the customers of Cathel was a monstrous and bloody giant, whose castle was not far away. He was called The Ogre Redgore. He was a cannibal, and bought charms from Cathel, with which to entice young men, women and children into his dreadful den, which was surrounded with heaps of bones of those he had killed and devoured. Now it chanced that when he came one day to buy his charms from Cathel, the old witch asked him if he did not desire to purchase a beautiful young girl. He said he wanted one of that very kind for a banquet he was about to give to some of his fellow giants. And thereupon the wicked old woman showed him the fair and lovely Princess Charming, sitting weeping, among the ashes, on the kitchen hearth. He felt her flesh, to see if she was young and tender enough for the feast, and, being satisfied upon this important point, he and the old witch were not long in coming to terms as to the price to be paid for her.
“And so he started home, soon after, with poor Princess Charming under his arm; she, the while, filling the air with her piteous lamentations and appeals for help.
“And now it so chanced that a wandering knight, called Weakhart, from a far country, came riding along the road that very day, clad in steel armor, and with his lance in rest. And when he heard the pitiful cries of Princess Charming, and beheld her beauty, he drove the spurs into his steed and dashed forward, and would have driven the lance clear through the giant’s body; but that worthy saw him coming, and, dropping the Princess and springing aside with great agility, he caught the lance and broke it in many pieces. Then they drew their swords and a terrible battle ensued; and Princess Charming knelt down, the while, by the roadside, and prayed long and earnestly for the success of the good Knight Weakhart. But if he was weak of heart he was strong of arm, and at last, with a tremendous blow, he cut the ugly ogre’s head off; and the latter fell dead on the road, as an ogre naturally will when his head is taken off. And then the Knight Weakhart was more afraid of being alone with the Princess than he had been of the giant. But she rose up, and dried her tears, and thanked him. And then the Princess and the Knight were in a grave quandary; for, of course, she could not go back to the den of that wicked witch, Cathel, and she had nowhere else to go. And so Weakhart, with many tremblings, asked her to go with him to a cavern in the woods, where he had taken shelter.”
Here I glanced at Estella, and her face was pale and quiet, and the smile was all gone from it. I continued:
“There was nothing else for it; and so the poor Princess mounted in front of the Knight on his horse, and they rode off together to the cavern. And there Weakhart fitted up a little room for the Princess, and made her a bed of the fragrant boughs of trees, and placed a door to the room and showed her how she could fasten it, and brought her flowers. And every day he hunted the deer and the bear, and made a fire and cooked for her; and he treated her with as much courtesy and respect as if she had been a queen sitting upon her throne.
“And, oh! how that poor Knight Weakhart loved the Princess! He loved the very ground she walked on; and he loved all nature because it surrounded her; and he loved the very sun, moon and stars because they shone down upon her.
Nay, not only did he love her; he worshiped her, as the devotee worships his god. She was all the constellations of the sky to him. Universal nature had nothing that could displace her for a moment from his heart. Night and day she filled his soul with her ineffable image; and the birds and the breeze and the whispering trees seemed to be all forever speaking her beloved name in his ears.
“But what could he do? The Princess was poor, helpless, dependent upon him. Would it not be unmanly of him to take advantage of her misfortunes and frighten or coax her into becoming his wife? Might she not mistake gratitude for love? Could she make a free choice unless she was herself free?
“And so the poor Knight Weakhart stilled the beating of the fluttering bird in his bosom, and hushed down his emotions, and continued to hunt and cook and wait upon his beloved Princess.
“At last, one day, the Knight Weakhart heard dreadful news. A people called Vandals, rude and cruel barbarians, bloodthirsty and warlike, conquerors of nations, had arrived in immense numbers near the borders of that country, and in a few days they would pour over and ravage the land, killing the men and making slaves of the women. He must fly. One man could do nothing against such numbers. He could not leave the Princess Charming behind him: she would fall into the hands of the savages. He knew that she had trust enough in him to go to the ends of the earth with him. He had a sort of dim belief that she loved him. What should he do? Should he overcome his scruples and ask the lady of his love to wed him; or should he invite her to accompany him as his friend and sister? Would it not be mean and contemptible to take advantage of her distresses, her solitude and the very danger that threatened the land, and thus coerce her into a marriage which might be distasteful to her?
“Now, my dear Estella,” I said, with a beating heart, “thus far have I progressed with my fairy tale; but I know not how to conclude it. Can you give me any advice?”
She looked up at me, blushing, but an arch smile played about her lips.
“Let us play out the play,” she said. “I will represent the Princess Charming–a very poor representative, I fear;–and you will take the part of the good Knight Weakhart–a part which I imagine you are especially well fitted to play. Now,” she said, “you know the old rhyme:
“‘He either fears his fate too much, Or his desert is small,
Who fears to put it to the touch, And win or lose it all.’
“Therefore, I would advise that you–acting the Knight Weakhart, of course–take the bolder course and propose to Princess Charming to marry you.”
I began to see through her device, and fell on my knees, and grasped the Princess’s hand, and poured forth my love in rapturous words, that I shall not pretend to repeat, even to you, my dear brother. When I had paused, for want of breath, Estella said:
“Now I must, I suppose, act the part of Princess Charming, and give the foolish Knight his answer.”
And here she put her arms around my neck–I still kneeling–and kissed me on the forehead, and said, laughing, but her eyes glistening with emotion:
“You silly Knight Weakhart, you are well named; and really I prefer the ogre whose head you were cruel enough to cut off, or even one of those hideous Vandals you are trying to frighten me with. What kind of a weak heart or weak head have you, not to know that a woman never shrinks from dependence upon the man she loves, any more than the ivy regrets that it is clinging to the oak and cannot stand alone? A true woman must weave the tendrils of her being around some loved object; she cannot stand alone any more than the ivy. And so–speaking, of course, for the Princess Charming!–I accept the heart and hand of the poor, weak-headed Knight Weakhart.”
I folded her in my arms and began to give her all the kisses I had been hoarding up for her since the first day we met. But she put up her hand playfully, and pushed me back, and cried out:
“Stop! Stop! the play is over!’
“No! no!” I replied, “it is only beginning; and it will last as long as we two live.”
Her face grew serious in an instant, and she whispered:
“Yes, until death doth us part.”
CHAPTER XXIII.
MAX’S STORY-THE SONGSTRESS
When Max came home the next evening I observed that his face wore a very joyous expression–it was indeed radiant. He smiled without cause; he moved as if on air. At the supper table his mother noticed these significant appearances also, and remarked upon them, smiling. Max laughed and said:
“Yes, I am very happy; I will tell you something surprising after supper.”
When the evening meal was finished we adjourned to the library. Max closed the doors carefully, and we all sat. down in a group together, Max holding the withered hand of the gentle old lady in his own, and Estella and I being near together.
“Now,” said Max, “I am about to tell you a long story. It may not be as interesting to you as it is to me; but you are not to interrupt me. And, dear mother,” he said, turning to her with a loving look, “you must not feel hurt that I did not make you my confidante, long ere this, of the events I am about to detail; I did not really know myself how they were going to end–I never knew until to-day.
“You must understand,” he continued, “that, while I have been living under my own name elsewhere, but in disguise, as I have told you; and conscious that my actions were the subject of daily espionage, it was my habit to frequent all the resorts where men congregate in great numbers, from the highest even to the lowest. I did this upon principle: not only to throw my enemies off the track as to my real character, but also because it was necessary to me, in the great work I had undertaken, that I should sound the whole register of humanity, down to its bass notes.
“There is, in one of the poorer portions of the city, a great music hall, or ‘variety theater,’ as they call it, frequented by multitudes of the middle and lower orders. It is arranged, indeed, like a huge theater, but the audience are furnished with beer and pipes, and little tables, all for an insignificant charge; and there they sit, amid clouds of smoke, and enjoy the singing, dancing and acting upon the stage. There are many of these places in the city, and I am familiar with them all. They are the poor man’s club and opera. Of course, the performers are not of a high order of talent, and generally not of a high order of morals; but occasionally singers or actors of real merit and good character begin on these humble boards, and afterwards rise to great heights in their professions.
“One night I wandered into the place I speak of, took a seat and called for my clay pipe and pot of beer. I was paying little attention to the performance on the stage, for it was worn threadbare with me; but was studying the faces of the crowd around me, when suddenly I was attracted by the sound of the sweetest voice I ever heard. I turned to the stage, and there stood a young girl, but little more than a child, holding her piece of music in her hand, and singing, to the thrumming accompaniment of a wheezy piano, a sweet old ballad. The girl was slight of frame and small, not more than about five feet high. She was timid, for that was her first appearance, as the play-bills stated; and the hand trembled that held the music. I did not infer that she had had much training as a musician; but the voice was the perfection of nature’s workmanship; and the singing was like the airy warbling of children in the happy unconsciousness of the household, or the gushing music of birds welcoming the red light of the dawning day while yet the dew and the silence lie over all nature. A dead quiet had crept over the astonished house; but at the close of the first stanza a thunderous burst of applause broke forth that shook the whole building. It was pleasant to see how the singer brightened into confidence, as a child might, at the sound; the look of anxiety left the sweet face; the eyes danced; the yellow curls shook with half-suppressed merriment; and when the applause had subsided, and the thrumming of the old piano began again, there was an abandon in the rush of lovely melody which she poured forth, with delicate instinctive touches, fine cadences and joyous, bird-like warblings, never dreamed of by the composer of the old tune. The vast audience was completely carried away. The voice entered into their slumbering hearts like a revelation, and walked about in them like a singing spirit in halls of light. They rose to their feet; hats were flung in the air; a shower of silver pieces, and even some of gold–a veritable Danaë shower–fell all around the singer, while the shouting and clapping of hands were deafening. The _debutante_ was a success. The singer had passed the ordeal. She had entered into the promised land of fame and wealth. I looked at the programme, as did hundreds of others; it read simply: _’A Solo by Miss Christina Carlson–first appearance.’_ The name was Scandinavian, and the appearance of the girl confirmed that supposition. She evidently belonged to the great race of Nilsson and Lind. Her hair, a mass of rebellious, short curls, was of the peculiar shade of light yellow common among that people; it looked as if the xanthous locks of the old Gauls, as described by Cæsar, had been faded out, in the long nights and the ice and snow of the Northland, to this paler hue. But what struck me most, in the midst of those contaminated surroundings, was the air of innocence and purity and lightheartedness which shone over every part of her person, down to her little feet, and out to her very finger tips. There was not the slightest suggestion of art, or craft, or double-dealing, or thought within a thought, or even vanity. She was delighted to think she had passed the dreadful ambuscade of a first appearance successfully, and that employment–and _bread_–were assured for the future. That seemed to be the only triumph that danced in her bright eyes.
“‘Who is she?’ ‘Where did she come from?’ were the questions I heard, in whispers, all around me; for many of the audience were Germans, Frenchmen and Jews, all passionate lovers of music, and to them the ushering in of a new star in the artistic firmament is equal to a new world born before the eyes of an astronomer.
“When she left the stage there was a rush of the privileged artists for the green-room. I followed them. There I found the little singer standing by the side of a middle-aged, careworn woman, evidently her mother, for she was carefully adjusting a poor, thin cloak over the girl’s shoulders, while a swarm of devotees, including many debauched old gallants, crowded around, pouring forth streams of compliments, which Christina heard with pleased face and downcast eyes.
“I kept in the background, watching the scene. There was something about this child that moved me strangely. True, I tried to pooh-pooh away the sentiment, and said to myself: ‘Why bother your head about her? She is one of the “refuse;” she will go down into the dark ditch with the rest, baseness to baseness linked.’ But when I looked at the modest, happy face, the whole poise of the body–for every fiber of the frame of man or woman partakes of the characteristics of the soul–I could not hold these thoughts steadily in my mind. And I said to myself: ‘If she is as pure as she looks I will watch over her. She will need a friend in these scenes. Here success is more dangerous than misery.’
“And so, when Christina and her mother left the theater, I followed them, but at a respectful distance. They called no carriage, and there were no cars going their way; but they trudged along, and I followed them; a weary distance it was–through narrow and dirty streets and back alleys–until at last they stopped at the door of a miserable tenement-house. They entered, and like a shadow I crept noiselessly behind them. Up, up they went; floor after floor, until the topmost garret was reached. Christina gave a glad shout; a door flew open; she entered a room that seemed to be bursting with children; and I could hear the broader voice of a man, mingled with ejaculations of childish delight, as Christina threw down her gifts of gold and silver on the table, and told in tones of girlish ecstasy of her great triumph, calling ever and anon upon her mother to vouch for the truth of her wonderful story. And then I had but time to shrink back into a corner, when a stout, broad-shouldered man, dressed like a workingman, rushed headlong down the stairs, with a large basket in his hand, to the nearest eating-house; and he soon returned bearing cooked meats and bread and butter, and bottles of beer, and pastry, the whole heaped up and running over the sides of the basket. And oh, what a tumult of joy there was in that room! I stood close to the closed door and listened. There was the hurry-scurry of many feet, little and big, as they set the table; the quick commands; the clatter of plates and knives and forks; the constant chatter; the sounds of helping each other and of eating; and then Christina, her mouth, it seemed to me, partly filled with bread and butter, began to give her father some specimens of the cadenzas that had brought down the house; and the little folks clapped their hands with delight, and the mother thanked God fervently that their poverty and their sufferings were at an end.
“I felt like a guilty thing, standing there, sharing in the happiness to which I had not been invited; and at last I stole down the stairs, and into the street. I need not say that all this had vastly increased my interest in the pretty singer. This picture of poverty associated with genius, and abundant love shining over all, was very touching.
“The next day I set a detective agency to work to find out all they could about the girl and her family. One of their men called upon me that evening, with a report. He had visited the place and made inquiries of the neighbors, of the shop-keepers, the police, etc., and this is what he had found out:
“There was no person in the building of the name of ‘Carson,’ but in the garret I had described a man resided named ‘Carl Jansen,’ a Swede by birth, a blacksmith by trade, and a very honest, worthy man and good workman, but excessively poor. He had lived for some years in New York; he had a large family of children; his wife took in washing, and thus helped to fill the many greedy little mouths; the oldest girl was named Christina; she was seventeen years of age; she had attended the public schools, and of late years had worked at embroidery, her earnings going into the common stock. She was a good, amiable girl, and highly spoken of by every one who knew her. She had attended Sunday school, and there it had been discovered that she possessed a remarkably fine voice, and she had been placed in the choir; and, after a time, at the suggestion of some of the teachers, her mother had taken her to the manager of the variety hall, who was so pleased with her singing that he gave her a chance to appear on the boards of his theater. She had made her _début_ last night, and the whole tenement-house, and, in fact, the whole alley and neighboring streets, were talking that morning of her great success; and, strange to say, they all rejoiced in the brightening fortunes of the poor family.
“‘Then,’ I said to myself, ‘Carlson was merely a stage name, probably suggested by the manager of the variety show.’
“I determined to find out more about the pretty Christina.”
CHAPTER XXIV.
MAX’S STORY CONTINUED–THE JOURNEYMAN PRINTER
“You may be sure that that night the public took the variety theater by storm; every seat was filled; the very aisles were crowded with men standing; the beer flowed in streams and the tobacco-smoke rose in clouds; the establishment was doing a splendid business. Christina was down on the bills for three solos. Each one was a triumph–encore followed encore–and when the performance closed the little singer was called before the curtain and another Danaë shower of silver and gold, and some bouquets, fell around her. When I went behind the scenes I found the happy girl surrounded by even a larger circle of admirers than the night before, each one sounding her praises. I called the manager aside. He knew me well as a rich young spendthrift. I said to him:
“‘How much a week do you pay Christina?’
“‘I promised her,’ said he, ‘five dollars a week; but,’ and here he looked at me suspiciously, ‘I have determined to double it. I shall pay her ten.’
“‘That is not enough,’ I said; ‘you will find in her a gold mine. You must pay her fifty.’
“‘My dear sir,’ he said, ‘I cannot afford it. I really cannot.’
“‘Well,’ said ‘I will speak to Jobson [a rival in business]; he will pay her a hundred. I saw him here to-night. He has already heard of her.’
“‘But,’ said he, ‘she has contracted with me to sing for three months, at five dollars per week; and I have permitted her to take home all the money that was thrown on the stage last night and to-night. Now I shall pay her ten. Is not that liberal?’
“‘Liberal!’ I said; ‘it is hoggish. This girl has made you two hundred dollars extra profit to-night. She is under age. She cannot make a binding contract. And the money that was thrown to her belongs to her and not to you. Come, what do you say–shall I speak to Jobson?’
“‘What interest have you in this girl?’ he asked, sullenly.
“‘That is no matter of yours,’ I replied; ‘if you will not pay her what I demand, to-morrow night she will sing for Jobson, and your place will be empty.’
“‘Well,’ said he, ‘I will pay it; but I don’t see what right you have to interfere in my business.’
“‘That is not all,’ I said; ‘go to her now and tell her you have made a good deal of money to-night, by her help, and ask her to accept fifty dollars from you as a present; and tell her, in my hearing, that she is to receive fifty dollars a week hereafter. The family are very poor, and need immediate help. And besides, if she does not know that she is to receive a liberal salary, when the agents of the other houses come for her, she may leave you. Fair play is the wisest thing.’
“He thought a moment; he was very angry with me; but finally he swallowed his wrath, and pushed his way through the crowd to where Christina stood, and said to her with many a bow and smile:
“‘Miss Christina, your charming voice has greatly increased my business to-night; and I think it only fair to give you a part of my profits–here are fifty dollars.’
“Christina was delighted–she took the money–she had never seen so large an amount before–she handed it to her mother; and both were profuse in their thanks, while the crowd vigorously applauded the good and generous manager.
“‘But this is not all,’ he continued; ‘instead of five dollars per week, the sum we had agreed upon, for your singing, I shall pay you hereafter fifty dollars a week!’
“There was still greater applause; Christina’s eyes swam with happiness; her mother began to cry; Christina seized the manager’s hand, and the old scamp posed, as he received the thanks of those present, as if all this were the outcome of his own generosity, and as if he were indeed the best and noblest of men. I have no doubt that if I had not interfered he would have kept her on the five dollars a week, and the silly little soul would have been satisfied.
“I followed them home. I again listened to their happiness. And then I heard the mother tell the father that they must both go out to-morrow and find a better place to lodge in, for they were rich now. A bright thought flashed across my mind, and I hastened away.
“The next morning, at daybreak, I hurried to the same detective I had employed the day before; he was a shrewd, but not unkindly fellow. I explained to him my plans, and we went out together. We took a carriage and drove rapidly from place to place; he really seemed pleased to find himself engaged, for once in his life, in a good action. What I did will be revealed as I go on with this story.
“At half past eight o’clock that morning the Jansen family had finished their breakfast and talked over and over again, for the twentieth time, their wonderful turn of fortune, and all its incidents, including repeated counting of their marvelous hoard of money. Then Christina was left in charge of the children, and the father and mother sallied forth to look for a new residence. The neighbors crowded around to congratulate them; and they explained,–for, kindly-hearted souls, they did not wish their old companions in poverty to think that they had willingly fled from them, at the first approach of good fortune,–they explained that they must get a new home nearer to the theater, for Christina’s sake; and that they proposed that she should have teachers in music and singing and acting; for she was now the bread-winner of the family, and they hoped that some day she would shine in opera with the great artists.
“Did the neighbors know of any place, suitable for them, which they could rent?
“No, they did not; they rarely passed out of their own poor neighborhood.
“But here a plainly dressed man, who looked like a workman, and who had been listening to the conversation, spoke up and said that he had observed, only that morning, a bill of ‘To Rent’ upon a very neat little house, only a few blocks from the theater; and, as he was going that way, he would be glad to show them the place. They thanked him; and, explaining to him that the business of renting houses was something new to them, for heretofore they had lived in one or two rooms–they might have added, very near the roof–they walked off with the stranger. He led them into a pleasant, quiet, respectable neighborhood, and at last stopped before a small, neat three-story house, with a little garden in front and another larger one in the rear.
“‘What a pretty place!’ said the mother; ‘but I fear the rent will be too high for us.’
“‘Well, there is no harm in inquiring,’ said the workman, and he rang the bell.
“A young man, dressed like a mechanic, answered the summons. He invited them in; the house was comfortably, but not richly furnished. They went through it and into the garden; they were delighted with everything. And then came the question they feared to ask: What was the rent?
“‘Well,’ said the young man, pleasantly, I must explain my position. I am a printer by trade. My name is Francis Montgomery. I own this house. It was left to me by my parents. It is all I have. I am not married. I cannot live in it alone; it is too big for that; and, besides, I think I should get some income out of it, for there are the taxes to be paid. But I do not want to leave the house. I was born and raised here. I thought that if I could get some pleasant family to take it, who would let me retain one of the upper rooms, and would board me, I would rent the house for’–here he mentioned a ridiculously low price. ‘I do not want,’ he added, ‘any expensive fare. I am content to take “pot-luck” with the family. I like your looks; and if you want the house, at the terms I have named, I think we can get along pleasantly together. I may not be here all the time.’
“The offer was accepted; the workman was dismissed with thanks. That afternoon the whole family moved in. The delight of Christina was unbounded. There was one room which I had forseen would be assigned to her, and that I had adorned with some flowers. She was introduced to me; we shook hands; and I was soon a member of the family. What a curious flock of little white-heads, of all ages, they were–sturdy, rosy, chubby, healthy, merry, and loving toward one another. They brought very little of their poor furniture with them; it was too shabby for the new surroundings; they gave it away to their former neighbors. But I noticed that the father carefully carried into the kitchen an old chair, time-worn and venerable; the back was gone, and it was nothing but a stool. The next day I observed a pudgy little boy, not quite three years old (the father’s favorite, as I discovered), driving wrought nails into it with a little iron hammer.
“‘Stop! stop! my man!’ I exclaimed; ‘you must not drive nails in the furniture.’
“I looked at the chair: the seat of it was a mass of nailholes. And then Christina, noticing my looks of perplexity, said:
“‘Last Christmas we were very, very poor. Papa was out of work. We could scarcely get enough to eat. Papa saw the preparations in the store windows for Christmas–the great heaps of presents; and he saw the busy parents hurrying about buying gifts for their children, and he felt very sad that he could not give us any presents, not even to little Ole, whom he loves so much. So he went into the blacksmith shop of a friend, and, taking up a piece of iron that had been thrown on the floor, he made that little hammer Ole has in his hand, and a number of wrought nails; and he brought them home and showed Ole how to use the hammer and drive the nails into the chair; and when he had driven them all into the wood, papa would pry them out for him, and the work would commence all over again, and Ole was happy all day long.’
“I found my eyes growing damp; for I was thinking of the riotous profusion of the rich, and of the costly toys they heap upon their children; and the contrast of this poor man, unable to buy a single cheap toy for his family, and giving his chubby boy a rude iron hammer and nails, to pound into that poor stool, as a substitute for doll or rocking-horse, was very touching. And then I looked with some wonder at the straightforward honesty of the little maid, who, in the midst of the new, fine house, was not ashamed to talk so frankly of the dismal wretchedness and want which a few days before had been the lot of the family. She saw nothing to be ashamed of in poverty; while by meaner and more sordid souls it is regarded as the very abasement of shame and crime.
“Ole was pounding away at his nails.
“‘Does he not hurt himself sometimes?’ I asked.
“‘Oh yes, she said, laughing; ‘at first he would hit his little fingers many a hard rap; and he would start to cry, but papa would tell him that “_men_ never cry;–and then it was funny to see how he would purse up his little red mouth, while the tears of pain ran down from his big round eyes, but not a sound more would escape him.’
“And I said to myself: ‘This is the stuff of which was formed the masterful race that overran the world under the names of a dozen different peoples. Ice and snow made the tough fiber, mental and physical, which the hot sun of southern climes afterward melted into the viciousness of more luxurious nations. Man is scourged into greatness by adversity, and leveled into mediocrity by prosperity. This little fellow, whose groans die between his set teeth, has in him the blood of the Vikings.’
“There was one thing I did out of policy, which yet went very much against my inclinations, in dealing with such good and honest people. I knew that in all probability I had been traced by the spies of the Oligarchy to this house; they would regard it of course as a crazy adventure, and would naturally assign it to base purposes. But it would not do for me to appear altogether different, even in this family, from the character I had given myself out to be, of a reckless and dissipated man; for the agents of my enemies might talk to the servant, or to members of the household. And so the second night I came home to supper apparently drunk. It was curious to see the looks of wonder, sorrow and sympathy exchanged between the members of the family as I talked ramblingly and incoherently at the table. But this feint served one purpose; it broke down the barrier between landlord and tenants. Indeed, paradoxical as it may seem, I think they thought more of me because of my supposed infirmity; for ‘pity is akin to love;’ and it is hard for the tenderer feelings of the heart to twine about one who is so strong and flawless that he demands no sympathy or forbearance at our hands. I ceased to be the rich owner of a house–I was simply one of themselves; a foolish journeyman printer; given to drink, but withal a kindly and pleasant man. Two days afterwards, Christina, who had looked at me several times with a troubled brow, took me aside and tried to persuade me to join a temperance society of which her father was a member. It was very pretty and touching to see the motherly way in which the little woman took my hand, and coaxed me to give up my vice, and told me, with eloquent earnestness, all the terrible consequences which would flow from it. I was riot foolish enough to think that any tender sentiment influenced her. It was simply her natural goodness, and her pity for a poor fellow, almost now one of their own family, who was going to destruction. And indeed, if I had been a veritable drunkard, she would have turned me from my evil courses. But I assured her that I would try to reform; that I would drink less than previously, and that, on the next New Year’s day, I might be able to summon up courage enough to go with her father to his society, and pledge myself to total abstinence. She received these promises with many expressions of pleasure; and, although I had to keep up my false character, I never afterwards wounded her feelings by appearing anything more than simply elevated in spirit by drink.
“They were a very kind, gentle, good people; quite unchanged by prosperity and unaffected in their manners. Even in their poverty the children had all looked clean and neat; now they were prettily, but not expensively, dressed. Their religious devotion was great; and I endeared myself to them by sometimes joining in their household prayers. And I said to myself: If there is no God–as the miserable philosophers tell us–there surely ought to be one, if for nothing else than to listen to the supplications of these loving and grateful hearts. And I could not believe that such tender devotions could ascend and be lost forever in empty and unresponsive space. The impulse of prayer, it seems to me, presupposes a God.”
CHAPTER XXV.
MAX’S STORY CONTINUED–THE DARK SHADOW
“But a cloud was moving up to cover the fair face of this pleasant prospect; and yet the sun was shining and the birds singing.
“Christina was very busy during the day with her teachers. She loved music and was anxious to excel. She had her lessons on the piano; she improved her mind by a judicious course of reading, in which I helped her somewhat; she went twice a week to a grand Italian maestro, who perfected her in her singing. And she took long walks to the poor neighborhood where she had formerly lived, to visit the sick and wretched among her old acquaintances, and she never left them empty-handed.
“At the theater she grew more and more popular. Even the rudest of the audience recognized instinctively in her the goodness which they themselves lacked. Every song was an ovation. Her praises began to resound in the newspapers; and she had already received advances from the manager of one of the grand opera-houses. A bright future opened before her–a vista of light and music and wealth and delight.
“She did not escape, however, the unpleasant incidents natural to such a career. Her mother accompanied her to every performance, and was, in so far, a shield to her; but she was beset with visitors at the house; she was annoyed by men who stopped and claimed acquaintance with her on the streets; she received many gifts, flowers, fruit, jewelry, and all the other tempting sweet nothings which it is thought bewitch the heart of frail woman. But they had no effect upon her. Only goodness seemed to cling to her, and evil fell far off from her. You may set two plants side by side in the same soil–one will draw only bitterness and poison from the earth; while the other will gather, from the same nurture, nothing but sweetness and perfume.
‘For virtue, as it never will be moved, Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven; So lust, though to a radiant angel linked, Will sate itself in a celestial bed,
And prey on garbage.”
“Among the men who pestered Christina with their attentions was a young fellow named Nathan Brederhagan, the son of a rich widow. He was one of those weak and shallow brains to whom wealth becomes only a vehicle in which to ride to destruction. He was in reality all that I pretended to be–a reckless, drunken, useless spendthrift, with no higher aim in life than wine and woman. He spent his days in vanity and his nights in debauchery. Across the clouded portal of this fool’s brain came, like a vision, the beautiful, gentle, gifted Christina. She was a new toy, the most charming he had ever seen, and, like a child, he must possess it. And so he began a series of persecutions. He followed her everywhere; he fastened himself upon her at the theater; he showered all sorts of gifts on her; and, when he found she returned his presents, and that she refused or resisted all his advances, he grew so desperate that he at last offered to marry her, although with a consciousness that he was making a most heroic and extraordinary sacrifice of himself in doing so. But even this condescension–to his unbounded astonishment–she declined with thanks. And then the silly little fool grew more desperate than ever, and battered up his poor brains with strong drink, and wept in maudlin fashion to his acquaintances. At last one of these–a fellow of the same kidney, but with more enterprise than himself–said to him: ‘Why don’t you carry her off?’ Nathan opened his eyes very wide, stopped his sniffling and blubbering, and made up his mind to follow this sage advice. To obtain the necessary nerve for such a prodigious undertaking he fired up with still more whisky; and when the night came he was crazy with drink. Obtaining a carriage and another drunken fool to help him, he stationed himself beside the pavement, in the quiet street where Christina lived, and but a few doors distant from her house; and then, as she came along with her mother, he seized upon her, while his companion grasped Mrs. Jansen. He began to drag Christina toward the carriage; but the young girl was stronger than he was, and not only resisted him, but began to shriek, ably seconded by her mother, until the street rang. The door of their house flew open, and Mr. Jansen, who had recognized the voices of his wife and daughter, was hurrying to their rescue; whereupon the little villain cried in a tone of high tragedy, ‘Then die!’ and stabbed her in the throat with a little dagger he carried. He turned and sprang into the carriage; while the poor girl, who had become suddenly silent, staggered and fell into the arms of her father.
“It chanced that I was absent from the house that night, on some business of the Brotherhood, and the next morning I breakfasted in another part of the city, at a restaurant. I had scarcely begun my meal when a phonograph, which, in a loud voice, was proclaiming the news of the day before for the entertainment of the guests, cried out:
PROBABLE MURDER–A YOUNG GIRL STABBED.
Last night, at about half-past eleven, on Seward Street, near Fifty-first Avenue, a young girl was assaulted and brutally stabbed in the throat by one of two men. The girl is a singer employed in Peter Bingham’s variety theater, a few blocks distant from the place of the attack. She was accompanied by her mother, and they were returning on foot from the theater, where she had been singing. The man had a carriage ready, and while one of them held her mother, the other tried to force the young girl into the
carriage; it was plainly the purpose of the men to abduct her. She resisted, however; whereupon the ruffian who had hold of her, hearing the footsteps of persons approaching, and seeing that he could not carry her off, drew a knife and stabbed her in the throat, and escaped with his companion in the carriage. The girl was carried into her father’s house, No. 1252 Seward Street, and the distinguished surgeon, Dr. Hemnip, was sent for. He pronounced the wound probably fatal. The young girl is named Christina Jansen; she sings under the stage-name of Christina Carlson, and is the daughter of Carl Jansen, living at the place named. Inquiry at the theater showed her to be a girl of good character, very much esteemed by her acquaintances, and greatly admired as a very brilliant singer.
LATER.–A young man named Nathan Brederhagan, belonging to a wealthy and respectable family, and residing with his mother at No. 637 Sherman Street, was arrested this morning at one o’clock, in his bed, by police officer No. 18,333, on information furnished by the family of the unfortunate girl. A bloody dagger was found in his pocket. As the girl is likely to die he was committed to jail and bail refused. He is represented to be a dissipated, reckless young fellow, and it seems was in love with the girl, and sought her hand in marriage; and she refused him; whereupon, in his rage, he attempted to take her life. His terrible deed has plunged a large circle of relatives and friends into great shame and sorrow.
“I had started to my feet as soon as I heard the words, ‘The girl is a singer in Peter Bingham’s Variety Theater,’ but, when her name was mentioned and her probable death, the pangs that shot through me no words of mine can describe.
“It is customary with us all to think that our intellect is our self, and that we are only what we think; but there are in the depths of our nature feelings, emotions, qualities of the soul, with which the mere intelligence has nothing to do; and which, when they rise up, like an enraged elephant from the jungle, scatter all the conventionalities of our training, and all the smooth and automaton-like operations of our minds to the winds. As I stood there, listening to the dead-level, unimpassioned, mechanical voice of the phonograph, pouring forth those deadly sentences, I realized for the first time what the sunny-haired little songstress was to me.
“‘Wounded! Dead!’
“I seized my hat, and, to the astonishment of the waiters, I rushed out. I called a hack. I had to alter my appearance. I grudged the time necessary for this very necessary precaution, but, paying the driver double fare, I went, as fast as his horses’ legs could carry me, to the place, in a saloon kept by one of the Brotherhood, where I was in the habit of changing my disguises. I dismissed the hack, hurried to my room, and in a few minutes I was again flying along, in another hack, to 1252 Seward Street. I rushed up the steps. Her mother met me in the hall. She was crying.
“‘Is she alive?’ I asked.
“‘Yes, yes,’ she replied.
“‘What does the doctor say?’ I inquired.
“‘He says she will not die–but her voice is gone forever,’ she replied.
“Her tears burst forth afresh. I was shocked–inexpressibly shocked. True, it was joy to know she would live; but to think of that noble instrument of grace and joy and melody silenced forever! It was like the funeral of an angel! God, in the infinite diversity of his creation, makes so few such voices–so few such marvelous adjustments of those vibrating chords to the capabilities of the air and the human sense and the infinite human soul that dwells behind the sense–and all to be the spoil of a ruffian’s knife. Oh! if I could have laid my hands on the little villain! I should have butchered him with his own dagger–sanctified, as it was, with her precious blood. The infamous little scoundrel! To think that such a vicious, shallow, drunken brute could have power to ‘break into the bloody house of life’ and bring to naught such a precious and unparalleled gift of God. I had to clutch the railing of the stairs to keep from falling. Fortunately for me, poor Mrs. Jansen was too much absorbed in her own sorrows to notice mine. She grieved deeply and sincerely for her daughter’s sufferings and the loss of her voice; but, worse than all, there rose before her- the future! She looked with dilated eyes into that dreadful vista. She saw again the hard, grinding, sordid poverty from which they had but a little time before escaped-she saw again her husband bent down with care, and she heard her children crying once more for bread. I read the poor woman’s thoughts. It was not selfishness–it was love for those dear to her; and I took her hand, and–scarcely knowing what I said–I told her she must not worry, that she and her family should never suffer want again. She looked at me in surprise, and thanked me, and said I was always good and kind.
“In a little while she took me to Christina’s room. The poor girl was under the influence of morphine and sleeping a troubled sleep. Her face was very pale from loss of blood; and her head and neck were all bound up in white bandages, here and there stained with the ghastly fluid that flowed from her wounds. It was a pitiable sight: her short, crisp yellow curls broke here and there, rebelliously, through the folds of the linen bandages; and I thought how she used to shake them, responsive to the quiverings of the cadenzas and trills that poured from her bird-like throat. ‘Alas!’ I said to myself, ‘poor throat! you will never sing again! Poor little curls, you will never tremble again in sympathy with the dancing delight of that happy voice.’ A dead voice! Oh! it is one of the saddest things in the world! I went to the window to hide the unmanly tears which streamed down my face.
“When she woke she seemed pleased to see me near her, and extended her hand to me with a little smile. The doctor had told her she must not attempt to speak. I held her hand for awhile, and told how grieved I was over her misfortune. And then I told her I would bring her a tablet and pencil, so that she might communicate her wants to us; and then I said to her that I was out of a job at my trade (I know that the angels in heaven do not record such lies), and that I had nothing to do, and could stay and wait upon her; for the other children were too small, and her mother too busy to be with her all the time, and her father and I could divide the time between us. She smiled again and thanked me with her eyes.
“And I was very busy and almost happy–moving around that room on tiptoe in my slippers while she slept, or talking to her in a bright and chatty way, about everything that I thought would interest her, or bringing her flowers, or feeding her the liquid food which alone she could swallow.
“The doctor came every day. I questioned him closely. He was an intelligent man, and had, I could see, taken quite a liking to his little patient. He told me that the knife had just missed, by a hair’s breadth, the carotid artery, but unfortunately it had struck the cervical plexus, that important nerve-plexus, situated in the side of the neck; and had cut the recurrent laryngeal nerve, which arises from the cervical plexus and supplies the muscles of the larynx; and it had thereby caused instant paralysis of those muscles, and aphonia, or loss of voice. I asked him if she would ever be able to sing again. He said it was not certain. If the severed ends of the nerve reunited fully her voice might return with all its former power. He hoped for the best.
“One morning, I was called down stairs by Mrs. Jansen; it was three or four days after the assault had been made on Christina. There I found the chief of police of that department. He said it had become necessary, in the course of the legal proceedings, that Brederhagan should be identified by Christina as her assailant. The doctor had reported that there was now no danger of her death; and the family of the little rascal desired to get him out on bail. I told him I would confer with the physician, when he called, as to whether Christina could stand the excitement of such an interview, and I would notify him. He thanked me and took his leave. That day I spoke upon the subject to Dr. Hemnip, and he thought that Christina had so far recovered her strength that she might see the prisoner the day after the next. At the same time he cautioned her not to become nervous or excited, and not to attempt to speak. She was simply to write ‘Yes’ on her tablet, in answer to the question asked her by the police. The interview was to be as brief as possible. I communicated with the chief of police, as I had promised, giving him these details, and fixed an hour for him to call.”
CHAPTER XXVI.
MAX’S STORY CONTINUED–THE WIDOW AND HER SON
“The next day, about ten in the morning, I went out to procure some medicine for Christina. I was gone but a few minutes, and on my return, as I mounted the stairs, I was surprised to hear a strange voice in the sick-room. I entered and was introduced by Mrs. Jansen to ‘Mrs. Brederhagan,’ the rich widow, the mother of the little wretch who had assaulted Christina. She was a large, florid woman, extravagantly dressed, with one of those shallow, unsympathetic voices which betoken a small and flippant soul. Her lawyers had told her that Nathan would probably be sent to prison for a term of years; and so she had come to see if she could not beg his victim to spare him. She played her part well. She got down on her knees by the bedside in all her silks and furbelows, and seized Christina’s hand and wept; and told of her own desolate state as a widow–drawing, incidentally, a picture of the virtues of her deceased husband, which he himself–good man–would not have recognized in this world or any other. And then she descanted on the kind heart of her poor boy, and how he had been led off by bad company, etc., etc. Christina listened with an intent look to all this story; but she flushed when the widow proceeded to say how deeply her son loved her, Christina, and that it was his love for her that had caused him to commit his desperate act; and she actually said that, although Christina was but a poor singer, with no blood worth speaking of, in comparison with her own illustrious long line of nobodies, yet she brought Christina an offer from her son–sanctioned by her own approval–that he would–if she would spare him from imprisonment and his family from disgrace–marry her outright and off-hand; and that she would, as a magnanimous and generous, upper-crust woman, welcome her, despite all her disadvantages and drawbacks, to her bosom as a daughter! All this she told with a great many tears and ejaculations, all the time clinging to Christina’s hand.
“When she had finished and risen, and readjusted her disarranged flounces, Christina took her tablet and wrote:
“I could not marry your son. As to the rest, I will think it over. Please do not come again.’
“The widow would have gotten down on her knees and gone at it again; but I took her aside and said to her:
‘Do you not see that this poor girl is very weak, and your appeals distress her? Go home and I will communicate with you.’
“And I took her by the arm, and firmly but respectfully led her out of the room, furbelows, gold chains and all. She did not feel at all satisfied with the success of her mission; but I saw her into her carriage and told the driver to take her home. I was indignant. I felt that the whole thing was an attempt to play upon the sympathies of my poor little patient, and that the woman was a hollow, heartless old fraud.
“The next day, at the appointed hour, the chief of police came, accompanied by the prisoner. The latter had had no liquor for several days and was collapsed enough. All his courage and vanity had oozed out of him. He was a dilapidated wreck. He knew that the penitentiary yawned for him, and he felt his condition as deeply as such a shallow nature could feel anything. I scowled at the wretch in a way which alarmed him for his personal safety, and he trembled and hurried behind the policeman.
“Christina had been given a strengthening drink. The doctor was there with his finger on her pulse; she was raised up on some pillows. Her father and mother were present. When we entered she looked for an instant at the miserable, dejected little creature, and I saw a shudder run through her frame, and then she closed her eyes.
“‘Miss Jansen,’ said the chief of police, ‘be kind enough to say whether or not this is the man who tried to kill you.’
“I handed her the tablet and pencil. She wrote a few words. I handed it to the chief.
“‘What does this mean?’ he said, in evident astonishment.
“I took the tablet out of his hand, and was thunderstruck to find on it these unexpected words:
“_’This is not the man.’_
“‘Then,’ said the chief of Police, ‘there is nothing more to do than to discharge the prisoner.’
“Her father and mother stepped forward; but she waved them back with her hand; and the chief led the culprit out, too much stunned to yet realize that he was free.
“‘What does this mean, Christina?’ I asked, in a tone that expressed indignation, if not anger.
“She took her tablet and wrote:
“‘What good would it do to send that poor, foolish boy to prison for many years? He was drunk or he would not have hurt me. It will do no good to bring disgrace on a respectable family. This great lesson may reform him and make him a good man.’
“At that moment I made up my mind to make Christina my wife, if she would have me. Such a soul was worth a mountain of rubies. There are only a few of them in each generation, and fortunate beyond expression is the man who can call one of them his own!
“But I was not going to see my poor love, or her family, imposed on by that scheming old widow. I hurried out of the house; I called a hack, and drove to Mrs. Brederhagan’s house. I found her and her son in the first paroxysm of joy–locked in each other’s arms.
“‘Mrs. Brederhagan,’ I said, ‘your vicious little devil of a son here has escaped punishment so far for his cruel and cowardly assault upon a poor girl. He has escaped through her unexampled magnanimity and generosity. But do you know what he has done to her? He has silenced her exquisite voice forever. He has ruthlessly destroyed that which a million like him could not create. That poor girl will never sing again. She was the sole support of her family. This imp here has taken the bread out of their mouths–they will starve. You owe it to her to make a deed of gift whereby you will endow her with the amount she was earning when your son’s dagger pierced her poor throat and silenced her voice; that is–fifty dollars a week.’
“The widow ruffled up her feathers, and said she did not see why she should give Christina fifty dollars a week. She had declared that her son was not the one who had assaulted her, and he was a free man, and that was the end of their connection with the matter.
“‘Ha! ha!’ said I, ‘and so, that is your position? Now you will send at once for a notary and do as I tell you, or in one hour your son shall be arrested again. _Christina’s mother knows him perfectly well, and will identify him_; and Christina herself will not swear in court to the generous falsehood she told to screen you and yours from disgrace. You are a worthy mother of such a son, when you cannot appreciate one of the noblest acts ever performed in this world.’
“The widow grew pale at these threats; and after she and her hopeful son–who was in a great fright–had whispered together, she reluctantly agreed to my terms. A notary was sent for, and the deed drawn and executed, and a check given, at my demand, for the first month’s payment.
“‘Now,’ said I, turning to Master Nathan, ‘permit me to say one word to you, young man. If you ever again approach, or speak to, or molest in any way, Miss Christina Carlson, I will,’-and here I drew close to him and put my finger on his breast,–‘I will kill you like a dog.’
“With this parting shot I left the happy pair.”
CHAPTER XXVII.
MAX’S STORY CONTINUED–THE BLACKSMITH SHOP
“I need not describe the joy there was in the Jansen family when I brought home Mrs. Brederhagan’s deed of gift and the money. Christina did not yet know that her voice was destroyed, and hence was disposed to refuse what she called ‘the good lady’s great generosity.’ But we reminded her that the widow was rich, and that her son had inflicted great and painful wounds upon her, which had caused her weeks of weary sickness, to say nothing of the doctor’s bills and the other expenses they had been subjected to; and so, at last, she consented and agreed that, for the present at least, she would receive the widow’s money, but only until she could resume her place on the boards of the theater. But the deed of gift drove the brooding shadows out of the heart and eyes of poor Mrs. Jansen.
“I need not tell you all the details of Christina’s recovery. Day by day she grew stronger. She began to speak in whispers, and gradually she recovered her power of speech, although the voice at first sounded husky. She was soon able to move about the house, for youth and youthful spirits are great medicines. One day she placed her hand on mine and thanked me for all my great kindness to her; and said, in her arch way, that I was a good, kindhearted friend, and it was a pity I had any weaknesses; and that I must not forget my promise to her about the next New Year’s day. But she feared that I had neglected my business to look after her.
“At length she learned from the doctor that she could never sing again; that her throat was paralyzed. It was a bitter grief to her, and she wept quietly for some hours. And then she comforted herself with the reflection that the provision made for her by Mrs. Brederhagan had placed herself and her family beyond the reach of poverty. But for this I think she would have broken her heart.
“I had been cogitating for some days upon a new idea. It seemed to me that these plain, good people would be much happier in the country than in the city; and, besides, their income would go farther. They had country blood in their veins, and it takes several generations to get the scent of the flowers out of the instincts of a family; they have subtle promptings in them to walk in the grass and behold the grazing kine. And a city, after all, is only fit for temporary purposes–to see the play and the shops and the mob–and wear one’s life out in nothingnesses. As one of the poets says:
“‘Thus is it in the world-hive; most where men Lie deep in cities as in drifts–death drifts– Nosing each other like a flock of sheep; Not knowing and not caring whence nor whither They come or go, so that they fool together.”
“And then I thought, too, that Mr. Jansen was unhappy in idleness. He was a great, strong man, and accustomed all his life to hard work, and his muscles cried out for exercise.
“So I started out and made little excursions in all directions. At last I found the very place I had been looking for. It was about twelve miles beyond the built-up portions of the suburbs, in a high and airy neighborhood, and contained about ten acres of land. There was a little grove, a field, a garden, and an old-fashioned, roomy house. The house needed some repairs, it is true; but beyond the grove two roads crossed each other, and at the angle would be an admirable place for a blacksmith shop. I purchased the whole thing very cheaply. Then I set carpenters to work to repair the house and build a blacksmith shop. The former I equipped with furniture, and the latter with anvil, bellows and other tools, and a supply of coal and iron.
“When everything was ready I told Christina another of my white lies. I said to her that Mrs. Brederhagan, learning that her voice was ruined forever by her son’s dagger, had felt impelled, by her conscience and sense of right, to make her a present of a little place in the country, and had deputed me to look after the matter for her, and that I had bought the very place that I thought would suit them.
“And so we all started out to view the premises. It would be hard to say who was most delighted, Christina or her mother or her father; but I am inclined to think the latter took more pure happiness in his well-equipped little shop, with the big sign, ‘CARL JANSEN, BLACKSMITH,’ and the picture of a man shoeing a horse, than Christina did in the flowerbed, or her mother in the comfortable household arrangements.
“Soon after the whole family moved out. I was right. A race that has lived for several generations in the country is an exotic in a city.”
CHAPTER XXVIII.
MAX’S STORY CONCLUDED–THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS
“I used to run out every other day, and I was as welcome as if I had been really a member of the family. The day before yesterday I found the whole household in a state of joyous excitement. Christina had been enjoined to put the baby to sleep; and while rocking it in its cradle she had, all unconsciously, begun to sing a little nursery song. Suddenly she sprang to her feet, and, running to her mother, cried out:
“‘Oh, mother! I can sing! Listen.’
“She found, however, that the voice was still quite weak, and that if she tried to touch any of the higher notes there was a pain in her throat.
“I advised her to forbear singing for some time, and permit the organs of the voice to resume their natural condition. It might be that the doctor was wrong in his prognosis of her case; or it might be that the injured nerve, as he had said was possible, had resumed its function, through the curative power of nature. But it was a great delight to us all, and especially to the poor girl herself, to think that her grand voice might yet be restored to her.
“To-day I went out again.
“I thought that Mr. Jansen met me with a constrained manner; and when Mrs. Jansen saw me, instead of welcoming me with a cordial smile, as was usual with her, she retreated into the house. And when I went into the parlor, Christina’s manner was still more embarrassing. She blushed as she extended her hand to me, and seemed very much confused; and yet her manner was not unkind or unfriendly. I could not understand it.
“‘What is the matter, Christina?’ I asked.
“The little woman was incapable of double-dealing, and so she said:
“‘You know it came into my head lately, very often, that Mrs. Brederhagan had been exceedingly, I might say extraordinarily, kind to me. It is true her son had done me a great injury, and might have killed me; and I refused to testify against him. But she had not only given me that deed of gift you brought me, but she had also presented papa with this charming home. And so I said to myself that she must think me very rude and ungrateful, since I had never called upon her to thank her in person. And so, knowing that Nathan had been sent to Europe, I made up my mind, yesterday, that I would go into town, and call upon Mrs. Brederhagan, and thank her for all her kindness.
“‘I took a hack to her house from the station, and sent up my card. She received me quite kindly. After a few inquiries and commonplaces I thanked her as I had intended doing. She smiled and made light of it; then I spoke of the house and the garden, and the blacksmith shop, and how grateful we all were to her.
“‘”Why,” said she, “what on earth are you talking about? I never gave you a house, or a garden, or a blacksmith shop.”
“‘You may imagine my surprise.
“‘”Why,” said I, “did you not give Mr. Frank Montgomery the money to purchase it, and tell him to have the deed made out to my father?”
“‘”My dear,” said she, “you bewilder me; I never in all my life heard of such a person as Mr. Frank Montgomery; and I certainly never gave him any money to buy a house for anybody.”
“‘”Why,” said I, “do you pretend you do not know Mr. Frank Montgomery, who brought me your deed of gift?”
“That,” she said, “was not Mr. Frank Montgomery, but Mr. Arthur Phillips.”
“‘”No, no,” I said, “you are mistaken; it was Frank Montgomery, a printer by trade, who owns the house we used to live in, at 1252 Seward Street. I am well acquainted with him.”
“‘”Well,” said she, “this is certainly astonishing! Mr. Arthur Phillips, whom I have known for years, a young gentleman of large fortune, a lawyer by profession, comes to me and tells me, the very day you said my son was not the man who assaulted you, that unless I settled fifty dollars a week on you for life, by a deed of gift, he would have Nathan rearrested for an attempt to murder you, and would prove his guilt by your mother; and now you come and try to make me believe that Arthur Phillips, the lawyer, is Frank Montgomery, the printer; that he lives in a little house on Seward Street, and that I have been giving him money to buy you houses and gardens and blacksmith shops in the country! I hope, my dear, that the shock you received, on that dreadful night, has not affected your mind. But I would advise you to go home to your parents.”
“‘And therewithal she politely bowed me out.’
“‘I was very much astonished and bewildered. I stood for some time on the doorstep, not knowing what to do next. Then it occurred to me that I would go to your house and ask you what it all meant; for I had no doubt Mrs. Brederhagan was wrong, and that you were, indeed, Frank Montgomery, the printer. I found the house locked up and empty. A bill on the door showed that it was to rent, and referred inquiries to the corner grocery. They remembered me very well there. I asked them where you were. They did not know. Then I asked whether they were not agents for you to rent the house. Oh, no; you did not own the house. But had you not lived in it for years? No; you rented it the very morning of the same day we moved in. I was astounded, and more perplexed than ever. What did it all mean? If you did not own the house and had not been born in it, or lived there all your life, as you said, then the rest of your story was probably false also, and the name you bore was assumed. And for what purpose? And why did you move into that house the same day we rented it from you? It looked like a scheme to entrap us; and yet you had always been so kind and good that I could not think evil of you. Then it occurred to me that I would go and see Peter Bingham, the proprietor of the theater. I desired, anyhow, to tell him that I thought I would recover my voice, and that I might want another engagement with him after awhile. When I met him I fancied there was a shade of insolence in his manner. When I spoke of singing again he laughed, and said he guessed I would never want to go on the boards again. Why? I asked. Then he laughed again, and said “Mr. Phillips would not let me;” and then he began to abuse you, and said you “had forced him to give me fifty dollars a week for my singing when it wasn’t worth ten dollars; but he understood then what it all meant, and that now every one understood it;–that you had lived in the same house with me for months, and now you had purchased a cage for your bird in the country.” At first I could not understand what he meant; and when at last I comprehended his meaning and burst into tears, he began to apologize; but I would not listen to him, and hurried home and told everything to papa and mamma.
“‘Now,’ she continued, looking me steadily in the face with her frank, clear eyes, ‘we have talked it all over for hours, and we have come to several conclusions. First, you are not Francis Montgomery, but Arthur Phillips; second, you are not a poor printer, but a rich young gentleman; third, you have done me a great many kindnesses and attributed them to others. You secured me a large salary from Bingham; you made Mrs. Brederhagan settle an income upon me; you nursed me through all my sickness, with the tenderness of a brother, and you have bought this beautiful place and presented it to papa. You have done us all nothing but good; and you claimed no credit for it; and we shall all be grateful to you and honor you and pray for you to the end of our lives. But,’ and here she took my hand as a sister might, ‘but we cannot keep this place. You will yourself see that we cannot. You a poor printer, we met on terms of equality. From a rich young gentleman this noble gift would be universally considered as the price of my honor and self-respect. It is so considered already. The deed of gift from Mrs. Brederhagan I shall avail myself of until I am able to resume my place on the stage; but here is a deed, signed by my father and mother, for this place, and tomorrow we must leave it. We may not meet again’- and here the large eyes began to swim in tears–‘but–but–I shall never forget your goodness to me.’
“‘Christina,’ I said, ‘suppose I had really been Frank Montgomery, the printer, would you have driven me away from you thus?’
“‘Oh! no! no!’ she cried; ‘you are our dearest and best friend. And I do not drive you away. I must leave you. The world can have only one interpretation of the relation of two people so differently situated–a very wealthy young gentleman and a poor little singer, the daughter of a poor, foreign-born workman.’
“‘Well, then,’ said I, taking her in my arms, ‘let the blabbing, babbling old world know that that poor little singer sits higher in my heart, yes, in my brain and judgment, than all the queens and princesses of the world. I have found in her the one inestimable jewel of the earth–a truly good and noble woman. If I deceived you it was because I loved you; loved you with my whole heart and soul and all the depths of my being. I wanted to dwell in the same house with you; to study you; to see you always near me. I was happier when I was nursing you through your sickness than I have ever been before or since. I was sorry, to tell the truth, when you got well, and were no longer dependent on me. And now, Christina, if you will say yes, we will fix the day for the wedding.’
“I knew as soon as I began to speak that I had won my case. There was no struggle to escape from my arms; and, as I went on, she relaxed even her rigidity, and reposed on my breast with trusting confidence.
“‘Frank,’ she said, not looking up, and speaking in a low tone–‘I shall always call you Frank–I loved the poor printer from the very first; and if the rich man can be content with the affection I gave the poor one, my heart and life are yours. But stop,’ she added, looking up with an arch smile, ‘you must not forget the promise you made me about New Year’s day!’
“‘Ah, my dear,’ I replied, ‘that was part of poor Frank’s character, and I suppose that is what you loved him for; but if you will marry a rich man you must be content to forego all those attractions of the poor, foolish printer. I shall not stand up next New Year’s day and make a vow to drink no more; but I make a vow now to kiss the sweetest woman in the world every day in the year.’
“And, lest I should forget so sacred an obligation, I began to put my vow into execution right then and there.
“Afterward the old folks were called in, and I told them my whole story. And I said to them, moreover, that there was storm and danger ahead; that the great convulsion might come any day; and so it is agreed that we are to be married, at Christina’s home, the day after to-morrow. And to-morrow I want my dear mother, and you, my dear friends, to go with me to visit the truest and noblest little woman that ever promised to make a man happy.”
When Max had finished his long story, his mother kissed and cried over him; and Estella and I shook hands with him; and we were a very happy party; and no one would have thought, from our jests and laughter, that the bloodhounds of the aristocracy were hunting for three of us, and that we were sitting under the dark presaging shadow of a storm that was ready to vomit fire and blood at any moment.
Before we retired that night Estella and I had a private conference, and I fear that at the end of it I made the same astonishing vow which Max had made to Christina. And I came to another surprising conclusion–that is, that no woman is worth worshiping unless she is worth wooing. But what I said to Estella, and what she said to me, will never be revealed to any one in this world;–the results, however, will appear hereafter, in this veracious chronicle.
CHAPTER XXIX.
ELYSIUM
It was a bright and sunny autumn day. We were a very happy party. Estella was disguised with gold spectacles, a black wig and a veil, and she looked like some middle-aged school-teacher out for a holiday. We took the electric motor to a station one mile and a half from Mr. Jansen’s, and walked the rest of the way. The air was pure and sweet and light; it seemed to be breathed right out of heaven. The breezes touched us and dallied with us and delighted us, like ministering angels. The whole panoply of nature was magnificent; the soft-hued, grassy fields; the embowered trees; the feeding cattle; the children playing around the houses;–
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“Clowns cracking jokes, and lasses with sly eyes, And the smile settling on their sun-flecked cheeks Like noon upon the mellow apricot.”
My soul rose upon wings and swam in the ether like a swallow; and I thanked God that he had given us this majestic, this beautiful, this surpassing world, and had placed within us the delicate sensibility and capability to enjoy it. In the presence of such things death–annihilation–seemed to me impossible, and I exclaimed aloud:
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“Hast thou not heard
That thine existence, here on earth, is but The dark and narrow section of a life Which was with God, long ere the sun was lit, And shall be yet, when all the bold, bright stars Are dark as death-dust?”
And oh, what a contrast was all this to the clouded world we had left behind us, in yonder close-packed city, with its poverty, its misery, its sin, its injustice, its scramble for gold, its dark hates and terrible plots. But, I said to myself, while God permits man to wreck himself, he denies him the power to destroy the world. The grass covers the graves; the flowers grow in the furrows of the cannon balls; the graceful foliage festoons with blossoms the ruins of the prison and the torture-chamber; and the corn springs alike under the foot of the helot or the yeoman. And I said to myself that, even though civilization should commit suicide, the earth would still remain–and with it some remnant of mankind; and out of the uniformity of universal misery a race might again arise worthy of the splendid heritage God has bestowed upon us.
Mr. Jansen had closed up his forge in honor of our visit, and had donned a new broadcloth suit, in which he seemed as comfortable as a whale in an overcoat. Christina ran out to meet us, bright and handsome, all in white, with roses in her curly hair. The sweet-faced old lady took her to her arms, and called her “my daughter,” and kissed her, and expressed her pleasure that her son was about to marry so good and noble a girl. Mrs. Jansen held back modestly at first, a little afraid of “the great folks,” but she was brought forward by Christina, and introduced to us all. And then we had to make the acquaintance of the whole flock of blue-eyed, curly-haired, rosy-cheeked little ones, gay in white dresses and bright ribbons. Even Master Ole forgot, for a time, his enrapturing hammer and nails, and stood, with eyes like saucers, contemplating the irruption of outside barbarians. We went into the house, and there, with many a laugh and jest, the spectacled school-teacher was transformed into my own bright and happy Estella. The two girls flowed into one another, by natural affinity, like a couple of drops of quicksilver; each recognized the transparent soul in the other, and in a moment they were friends for life.
We were a jolly party. Care flew far away from us, and many a laugh and jest resounded.
“There is one thing, Christina,” said Max, “that I cannot comprehend, and of which I demand an explanation. Your name is ‘Christina