PETER IBBETSON

by George du Maurier

With an Introduction by His Cousin Lady **** ("Madge Plunket")

Edited and Illustrated by George Du Maurier

Part One

INTRODUCTION

The writer of this singular autobiography was my cousin, who died atthe ----- Criminal Lunatic Asylum, of which he had been an inmatethree years. 

He had been removed thither after a sudden and violent attack ofhomicidal mania (which fortunately led to no serious consequences), from ----- Jail, where he had spent twenty-five years, having beencondemned to penal servitude for life, for the murder of ---- ----, his relative. 

He had been originally sentenced to death. 

It was at ---- Lunatic Asylum that he wrote these memoirs, and I receivedthe MS. Soon after his decease, with the most touching letter, appealingto our early friendship, and appointing me his literary executrix. 

It was his wish that the story of his life should be published just ashe had written it. 

I have found it unadvisable to do this. It would revive, to no usefulpurpose, an old scandal, long buried and forgotten, and thereby givepain or annoyance to people who are still alive. 

Nor does his memory require rehabilitation among those who knew him, orknew anything of him--the only people really concerned. His dreadfuldeed has long been condoned by all (and they are many) who knew theprovocation he had received and the character of the man who hadprovoked him. 

On mature consideration, and with advice, I resolved (in order that hisdying wishes should not be frustrated altogether) to publish the memoirwith certain alterations and emendations. 

I have nearly everywhere changed the names of people and places;suppressed certain details, and omitted some passages of his life (mostof the story of his school-days, for instance, and that of his briefcareer as a private in the Horse Guards) lest they should too easilylead to the identification and annoyance of people still alive, for heis strongly personal at times, and perhaps not always just; and someother events I have carefully paraphrased (notably his trial at the OldBailey), and given for them as careful an equivalent as I could managewithout too great a loss of verisimilitude. 

I may as well state at once that, allowing for these alterations, everyincident of his _natural_ life as described by himself is absolutelytrue, to the minutest detail, as I have been able to ascertain. 

For the early part of it--the life at Passy he describes with suchaffection--I can vouch personally; I am the Cousin "Madge" to whom heonce or twice refers. 

I well remember the genial abode where he lived with his parents (mydear uncle and aunt); and the lovely "Madame Seraskier, " and her husbandand daughter, and their house, "Parva sed Apta, " and "Major Duquesnois, "and the rest. 

And although I have never seen him since he was twelve years old, whenhis parents died and he went to London (as most of my life has beenspent abroad), I received occasional letters from him. 

I have also been able to obtain much information about him from others, especially from a relative of the late "Mr. And Mrs. Lintot, " who knewhim well, and from several officers in his regiment who remembered him;also from the "Vicar's daughter, " whom he met at "Lady Cray's" and whoperfectly recollects the conversation she had with him at dinner, hissudden indisposition, and his long interview with the "Duchess ofTowers, " under the ash-tree next morning; she was one of thecroquet-players. 

He was the most beautiful boy I ever saw, and so charming, lively, andamiable that everybody was fond of him. He had a horror of cruelty, especially to animals (quite singular in a boy of his age), and was verytruthful and brave. 

According to all accounts (and from a photograph in my possession), hegrew up to be as handsome as a man can well be, a personal gift which heseems to have held of no account whatever, though he thought so much ofit in others. But he also became singularly shy and reserved in manner, over-diffident and self-distrustful; of a melancholy disposition, lovingsolitude, living much alone, and taking nobody into his confidence; andyet inspiring both affection and respect. For he seems to have alwaysbeen thoroughly gentlemanlike in speech, bearing, manner, and aspect. 

It is possible, although he does not say so, that having first enlisted, and then entered upon a professional career under somewhat inauspiciousconditions, he felt himself to have fallen away from the social rank(such as it was) that belonged to him by birth; and he may have foundhis associates uncongenial. 

His old letters to me are charmingly open and effusive. 

Of the lady whom (keeping her title and altering her name) I have calledthe "Duchess of Towers, " I find it difficult to speak. That they onlymet twice, and in the way he describes, is a fact about which there canbe no doubt. 

It is also indubitable that he received in Newgate, on the morning afterhis sentence to death, an envelope containing violets, and the strangemessage he mentions. Both letter and violets are in my possession, andthe words are in her handwriting; about that there can be no mistake. 

It is certain, moreover, that she separated from her husband almostimmediately after my cousin's trial and condemnation, and lived incomparative retirement from the world, as it is certain that he wentsuddenly mad, twenty-five years later, in ---- Jail, a few hours afterher tragic death, and before he could possibly have heard of it by theordinary channels; and that he was sent to ---- Asylum, where, after hisfrenzy had subsided, he remained for many days in a state of suicidalmelancholia, until, to the surprise of all, he rose one morning in highspirits, and apparently cured of all serious symptoms of insanity; so heremained until his death. It was during the last year of his life thathe wrote his autobiography, in French and English. 

There is nothing to be surprised at, taking all the circumstances intoconsideration, that even so great a lady, the friend of queens andempresses, the bearer of a high title and an illustrious name, justlycelebrated for her beauty and charm (and her endless charities), ofblameless repute, and one of the most popular women in English society, should yet have conceived a very warm regard for my poor cousin; indeed, it was an open secret in the family of "Lord Cray" that she had done so. But for them she would have taken the whole world into her confidence. 

After her death she left him what money had come to her from her father, which he disposed of for charitable ends, and an immense quantity of MS. In cipher--a cipher which is evidently identical with that he usedhimself in the annotations he put under innumerable sketches he wasallowed to make during his long period of confinement, which (throughher interest, and no doubt through his own good conduct) was rendered asbearable to him as possible. These sketches (which are veryextraordinary) and her Grace's MS. Are now in my possession. 

They constitute a mystery into which I have not dared to pry. 

From papers belonging to both I have been able to establish beyond doubtthe fact (so strangely discovered) of their descent from a common Frenchancestress, whose name I have but slightly modified and the tradition ofwhom still lingers in the "Departement de la Sarthe, " where she was afamous person a century ago; and her violin, a valuable Amati, nowbelongs to me. 

Of the non-natural part of his story I will not say much. 

It is, of course, a fact that he had been absolutely and, to allappearance, incurably insane before he wrote his life. 

There seems to have been a difference of opinion, or rather a doubt, among the authorities of the asylum as to whether he was mad after theacute but very violent period of his brief attack had ended. 

Whichever may have been the case, I am at least convinced of this: thathe was no romancer, and thoroughly believed in the extraordinary mentalexperience he has revealed. 

At the risk of being thought to share his madness--if he _was_ mad--Iwill conclude by saying that I, for one, believe him to have been sane, and to have told the truth all through. 

MADGE PLUNKET

I am but a poor scribe; ill-versed in the craft of wielding words andphrases, as the cultivated reader (if I should ever happen to have one)will no doubt very soon find out for himself. 

[Illustration:]

I have been for many years an object of pity and contempt to all whoever gave me a thought--to all but _one_! Yet of all that ever lived onthis earth I have been, perhaps, the happiest and most privileged, asthat reader will discover if he perseveres to the end. 

My outer and my inner life have been as the very poles--asunder; and if, at the eleventh hour, I have made up my mind to give my story to theworld, it is not in order to rehabilitate myself in the eyes of myfellow-men, deeply as I value their good opinion; for I have alwaysloved them and wished them well, and would fain express my goodwill andwin theirs, if that were possible. 

It is because the regions where I have found my felicity are accessibleto all, and that many, better trained and better gifted, will explorethem to far better purpose than I, and to the greater glory and benefitof mankind, when once I have given them the clew. Before I can do this, and in order to show how I came by this clew myself, I must tell, aswell as I may, the tale of my checkered career--in telling which, moreover, I am obeying the last behest of one whose lightest wish wasmy law. 

If I am more prolix than I need be, it must be set down to my want ofexperience in the art of literary composition--to a natural wish I haveto show myself neither better nor worse than I believe myself to be; tothe charm, the unspeakable charm, that personal reminiscences have forthe person principally concerned, and which he cannot hope to impart, however keenly he may feel it, without gifts and advantages that havebeen denied to me. 

And this leads me to apologize for the egotism of this Memoir, which isbut an introduction to another and longer one that I hope to publishlater. To write a story of paramount importance to mankind, it is true, but all about one's outer and one's inner self, to do this withoutseeming somewhat egotistical, requires something akin to genius--and Iam but a poor scribe. 

 * * * * *

 "_Combien j'ai douce souvenance Du joli lieu de ma naissance_!"

These quaint lines have been running in my head at intervals throughnearly all my outer life, like an oft-recurring burden in an endlessballad--sadly monotonous, alas! the ballad, which is mine; sweetlymonotonous the burden, which is by Châteaubriand. 

I sometimes think that to feel the full significance of this refrain onemust have passed one's childhood in sunny France, where it was written, and the remainder of one's existence in mere London--or worse than mereLondon--as has been the case with me. If I had spent all my life frominfancy upward in Bloomsbury, or Clerkenwell, or Whitechapel, my earlydays would be shorn of much of their retrospective glamour as I lookback on them in these my after-years. 

 _"Combien j'ai douce souvenance!"_

It was on a beautiful June morning in a charming French garden, wherethe warm, sweet atmosphere was laden with the scent of lilac andsyringa, and gay with butterflies and dragon-flies and humblebees, thatI began my conscious existence with the happiest day of all myouter life. 

It is true that I had vague memories (with many a blank between) of adingy house in the heart of London, in a long street of desolatingstraightness, that led to a dreary square and back again, and nowhereelse for me; and then of a troubled and exciting journey that seemed ofjumbled days and nights. I could recall the blue stage-coach with thefour tall, thin, brown horses, so quiet and modest and well-behaved; thered-coated guard and his horn; the red-faced driver and his husky voiceand many capes. 

Then the steamer with its glistening deck, so beautiful and white itseemed quite a desecration to walk upon it--this spotlessness did notlast very long; and then two wooden piers with a light-house on each, and a quay, and blue-bloused workmen and red-legged little soldiers withmustaches, and bare-legged fisher-women, all speaking a language that Iknew as well as the other commoner language I had left behind; but whichI had always looked upon as an exclusive possession of my father's andmother's and mine for the exchange of sweet confidence and thebewilderment of outsiders; and here were little boys and girls in thestreet, quite common children, who spoke it as well and better than Idid myself. 

After this came the dream of a strange, huge, top-heavy vehicle, thatseemed like three yellow carriages stuck together, and a mountain ofluggage at the top under an immense black tarpaulin, which ended in ahood; and beneath the hood sat a blue-bloused man with a singular cap, like a concertina, and mustaches, who cracked a loud whip over fivesquealing, fussy, pugnacious white and gray horses, with bells on theirnecks and bushy fox-tails on their foreheads, and their own tailscarefully tucked up behind. 

From the _coupé_ where I sat with my father and mother I could watchthem well as they led us through dusty roads with endless apple-trees orpoplars on either side. Little barefooted urchins (whose papas andmammas wore wooden shoes and funny white nightcaps) ran after us forFrench half-pennies, which were larger than English ones, and pleasanterto have and to hold! Up hill and down we went; over sounding woodenbridges, through roughly paved streets in pretty towns to largecourt-yards, where five other quarrelsome steeds, gray and white, werewaiting to take the place of the old ones--worn out, butquarreling still!

And through the night I could hear the gay music of the bells and hoofs, the rumbling of the wheels the cracking of the eternal whip, as Ifidgeted from one familiar lap to the other in search of sleep; andwaking out of a doze I could see the glare of the red lamps on the fivestraining white and gray backs that dragged us so gallantly through thedark summer night. 

[Illustration: "A STRANGE, HUGE, TOP-HEAVY VEHICLE. "]

Then it all became rather tiresome and intermittent and confused, tillwe reached at dusk next day a quay by a broad river; and as we drovealong it, under thick trees, we met other red and blue and green lampedfive-horsed diligences starting on their long journey just as ours wascoming to an end. 

Then I knew (because I was a well-educated little boy, and heard myfather exclaim, "Here's Paris at last!") that we had entered the capitalof France--a fact that impressed me very much--so much, it seems, that Iwent to sleep for thirty-six hours at a stretch, and woke up to findmyself in the garden I have mentioned, and to retain possession of thatself without break or solution of continuity (except when I went tosleep again) until now. 

 * * * * *

The happiest day in all my outer life!

For in an old shed full of tools and lumber at the end of the garden, and half-way between an empty fowl-house and a disused stable (each anEden in itself) I found a small toy-wheelbarrow--quite the mostextraordinary, the most unheard of and undreamed of, humorously, daintily, exquisitely fascinating object I had ever come across in allmy brief existence. 

I spent hours--enchanted hours--in wheeling brick-bats from the stableto the fowl-house, and more enchanted hours in wheeling them all backagain, while genial French workmen, who were busy in and out of thehouse where we were to live, stopped every now and then to askgood-natured questions of the "p'tit Anglais, " and commend his knowledgeof their tongue, and his remarkable skill in the management of awheelbarrow. Well I remember wondering, with newly-arousedself-consciousness, at the intensity, the poignancy, the extremity of mybliss, and looking forward with happy confidence to an endlesssuccession of such hours in the future. 

But next morning, though the weather was as fine, and the wheelbarrowand the brick-bats and the genial workmen were there, and all the scentsand sights and sounds were the same, the first fine careless rapture wasnot to be caught again, and the glory and the freshness had departed. 

Thus did I, on the very dawning of life, reach at a single tide thehigh-water-mark of my earthly bliss--never to be reached again by me onthis side of the ivory gate--and discover that to make the perfection ofhuman happiness endure there must be something more than a sweet Frenchgarden, a small French wheelbarrow, and a nice little English boy whospoke French and had the love of approbation--a fourth dimensionis required. 

I found it in due time. 

But if there were no more enchanted hours like the first, there were tobe seven happy years that have the quality of enchantment as I lookback on them. 

 * * * * *

Oh, the beautiful garden! Roses, nasturtiums and convolvulus, wallflowers, sweet-pease and carnations, marigolds and sunflowers, dahlias and pansies and hollyhocks and poppies, and Heaven knows whatbesides! In my fond recollection they all bloom at once, irrespective oftime and season. 

To see and smell and pick all these for the first time at thesusceptible age of five! To inherit such a kingdom after five years ofGower Street and Bedford Square! For all things are relative, andeverything depends upon the point of view. To the owner of Chatsworth(and to his gardeners) my beautiful French Garden would have seemed asmall affair. 

[Illustration: LE P'TIT ANGLAIS. ]

And what a world of insects--Chatsworth could not beat _these_ (indeed, is no doubt sadly lacking in them)--beautiful, interesting, comic, grotesque, and terrible; from the proud humble-bee to the earwig and hiscousin, the devil's coach-horse; and all those rampant, many footedthings that pullulate in damp and darkness under big flat stones. Tothink that I have been friends with all these--roses and centipedes andall--and then to think that most of my outer life has been spent betweenbare whitewashed walls, with never even a flea or a spider to be friendswith again!

Our house (where, by-the-way, I had been born five years before), an oldyellow house with green shutters and Mansard-roofs of slate, stoodbetween this garden and the street--a long winding street, roughlyflagged, with oil-lamps suspended across at long intervals; these lampswere let down with pulleys at dusk, replenished and lit, and then hauledup again to make darkness visible for a few hours on nights when themoon was away. 

Opposite to us was a boys' school--"Maison d'Éducation, Dirigée par M. Jules Saindou, Bachelier et Maître ès Lettres et ès Sciences, " andauthor of a treatise on geology, with such hauntingly terrific picturesof antediluvian reptiles battling in the primeval slime that I havenever been able to forget them. My father, who was fond of science, mademe a present of it on my sixth birthday. It cost me many a nightmare. 

From our windows we could see and hear the boys at play--at a properdistance French boys sound just like English ones, though they do notlook so, on account of their blue blouses and dusky, cropped heads--andwe could see the gymnastic fixtures in the play-ground, M. Saindou'spride. "Le portique! la poutre! le cheval! et les barres parallèles!"Thus they were described in M. Saindou's prospectus. 

On either side of the street (which was called "the Street of thePump"), as far as eye could reach looking west, were dwelling-housesjust like our own, only agreeably different; and garden walls overtoppedwith the foliage of horse-chestnut, sycamore, acacia, and lime; and hereand there huge portals and iron gates defended by posts of stone gaveingress to mysterious abodes of brick and plaster and granite, many-shuttered, and embosomed in sun-shot greenery. 

Looking east one could see in the near distance unsophisticated shopswith old-fashioned windows of many panes--Liard, the grocer; Corbin, thepoulterer; the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker. 

And this delightful street, as it went on its winding way, led not toBedford Square or the new University College Hospital, but to Paristhrough the Arc de Triomphe at one end, and to the river Seine at theother; or else, turning to the right, to St. Cloud through the Bois deBoulogne of Louis Philippe Premier, Roi des Français--as different fromthe Paris and the Bois de Boulogne of to-day as a diligence from anexpress train. 

On one side of the beautiful garden was another beautiful garden, separated from ours by a high wall covered with peach and pear and plumand apricot trees; on the other, accessible to us through a small doorin another lower wall clothed with jasmine, clematis, convolvulus, andnasturtium, was a long, straight avenue of almond-trees, acacia, laburnum, lilac, and may, so closely planted that the ivy-grown wallson either side could scarcely be seen. What lovely patches they made onthe ground when the sun shone! One end of this abutted on "the Street ofthe Pump, " from which it was fenced by tall, elaborately-carved irongates between stone portals, and at the side was a "porte bâtarde, "guarded by le Père et la Mère François, the old concierge and his oldwife. Peace to their ashes, and Heaven rest their kindly, genial souls!

The other end of the avenue, where there was also an iron gate, admittedto a large private park that seemed to belong to nobody, and of which wewere free--a very wilderness of delight, a heaven, a terror of tangledthickets and not too dangerous chalk cliffs, disused old quarries anddark caverns, prairies of lush grass, sedgy pools, turnip fields, forests of pine, groves and avenues of horse-chestnut, dank valleys ofwalnut-trees and hawthorn, which summer made dark at noon; bare, wind-swept mountainous regions whence one could reconnoitre afar; allsorts of wild and fearsome places for savages and wild beasts to hideand small boys to roam quite safely in quest of perilous adventure. 

All this vast enclosure (full of strange singing, humming, whistling, buzzing, twittering, cooing, booming, croaking, flying, creeping, crawling, jumping, climbing, burrowing, splashing, diving things) hadbeen neglected for ages--an Eden where one might gather and eat of thefruit of the tree of knowledge without fear, and learn lovingly the waysof life without losing one's innocence; a forest that had remade foritself a new virginity, and become primeval once more; where beautifulNature had reasserted her own sweet will, and massed and tangledeverything together as though a Beauty had been sleeping thereundisturbed for close on a hundred years, and was only waiting for thecharming Prince--or, as it turned out a few years later, alas! thespeculative builder and the railway engineer--those princes of our day. 

My fond remembrance would tell me that this region was almost boundless, well as I remember its boundaries. My knowledge of physical geography, as applied to this particular suburb of Paris, bids me assign moremodest limits to this earthly paradise, which again was separated by aneasily surmounted fence from Louis Philippe's Bois de Boulogne; and tothis I cannot find it in my heart to assign any limits whatever, exceptthe pretty old town from which it takes its name, and whose principalstreet leads to that magical combination of river, bridge, palace, gardens, mountain, and forest, St. Cloud. 

What more could be wanted for a small boy fresh (if such be freshness)from the very heart of Bloomsbury?

That not a single drop should be lacking to the full cup of that smallboy's felicity, there was a pond on the way from Passy to St. Cloud--amemorable pond, called "La Mare d'Auteuil, " the sole aquatic treasurethat Louis Philippe's Bois de Boulogne could boast. For in thoseingenuous days there existed no artificial lake fed by an artificialstream, no pré-Catelan, no Jardin d'Acclimatation. The wood was just awood, and nothing more--a dense, wild wood, that covered many hundredsof acres, and sheltered many thousands of wild live things. Thoughmysteriously deep in the middle, this famous pond (which may have beencenturies old, and still exists) was not large; you might almost fling astone across it anywhere. 

[Illustration]

Bounded on three sides by the forest (now shorn away), it was justhidden from the dusty road by a fringe of trees; and one could have itall to one's self, except on Sunday and Thursday afternoons, when a fewlove-sick Parisians remembered its existence, and in its lovelinessforgot their own. 

To be there at all was to be happy; for not only was it quite the mostsecluded, picturesque, and beautiful pond in all the habitableglobe--that pond of ponds, the _only_ pond--but it teemed with a fargreater number and variety of wonderful insects and reptiles than anyother pond in the world. Such, at least, I believed must be the case, for they were endless. 

To watch these creatures, to learn their ways, to catch them (which wesometimes did), to take them home and be kind to them, and try to tamethem, and teach them our ways (with never varying non-success, it istrue, but in, oh, such jolly company!) became a hobby that lasted me, onand off, for seven years. 

La Mare d'Auteuil! The very name has a magic, from all the associationsthat gathered round it during that time, to cling forever. 

How I loved it! At night, snoozing in my warm bed, I would awesomelythink of it, and how solemn it looked when I had reluctantly left it atdusk, an hour or two before; then I would picture it to myself, later, lying deep and cold and still under the stars, in the dark thicket, withall that weird, uncanny lite seething beneath its stagnant surface. 

Then gradually the water would sink, and the reeds, left naked, begin tomove and rustle ominously, and from among their roots in the uncoveredslush everything alive would make for the middle--hopping, gliding, writhing frantically. . . . 

Down shrank the water; and soon in the slimy bottom, yards below, hugefat salamanders, long-lost and forgotten tadpoles as large as rats, gigantic toads, enormous flat beetles, all kinds of hairy, scaly, spiny, blear-eyed, bulbous, shapeless monsters without name, mud-coloredoffspring of the mire that had been sleeping there for hundreds ofyears, woke up, and crawled in and out, and wallowed and interwriggled, and devoured each other, like the great saurians and batrachians in my_Manuel de Géologie Élémentaire_. Édition illustrée à l'usage desenfants. Par Jules Saindou, Bachelier et Maître ès Lettres etès Sciences. 

Then would I wake up with a start, in a cold perspiration, an icy chillshooting through me that roughed my skin and stirred the roots of myhair, and ardently wish for to-morrow morning. 

In after-years, and far away among the cold fogs of Clerkenwell, whenthe frequent longing would come over me to revisit "the pretty place ofmy birth, " it was for the Mare d'Auteuil I longed the most; _that_ wasthe loadstar, the very pole of my home-sick desires; always thither thewings of my hopeless fancy bore me first of all; it was, oh! to treadthat sunlit grassy brink once more, and to watch the merry tadpolesswarm, and the green frog takes its header like a little man, and thewater-rat swim to his hole among the roots of the willow, and thehorse-leech thread his undulating way between the water-lily stems; andto dream fondly of the delightful, irrevocable past, on the very spot ofall where I and mine were always happiest!

 ". . . Qu'ils étaient beaux, les jours De France!"

In the avenue I have mentioned (_the_ avenue, as it is still to me, andas I will always call it) there was on the right hand, half the way up, a _maison de santé_, or boarding-house, kept by one Madame Pelé; andthere among others came to board and lodge, a short while after ouradvent, four or five gentlemen who had tried to invade France, with acertain grim Pretender at their head, and a tame eagle as a symbol ofempire to rally round. 

The expedition had failed; the Pretender had been consigned to afortress; the eagle had found a home in the public slaughter-house ofBoulogne-sur-Mer, which it adorned for many years, and where it fed asit had never probably fed before; and these, the faithful followers, leColonel Voisil, le Major Duquesnois, le Capitaine Audenis, le DocteurLombal (and one or two others whose names I have forgotten), wereprisoners on parole at Madame Pelé's, and did not seem to find theirdurance very vile. 

[Illustration: (no caption)]

I grew to know and love them all, especially the Major Duquesnois, analmost literal translation into French of Colonel Newcome. He took tome at once, in spite of my Englishness, and drilled me, and taught methe exercise as it was performed in the Vieille Garden and told me a newfairy-tale, I verily believe, every afternoon for seven years. Scheherezade could do no more for a Sultan, and to save her own neckfrom the bowstring!

Cher et bien amé "Vieux de la Vieille!" with his big iron-gray mustache, his black satin stock, his spotless linen, his long green frock-coat sobaggy about the skirts, and the smart red ribbon in his button-hole! Helittle foresaw with what warm and affectionate regard his memory wouldbe kept forever sweet and green in the heart of his hereditary foe andsmall English tyrant and companion!

 * * * * *

Opposite Madame Pelé's, and the only other dwelling besides hers andours in the avenue, was a charming little white villa with a Grecianportico, on which were inscribed in letters of gold the words "Parva sedApta"; but it was not tenanted till two or three years afterour arrival. 

In the genial French fashion of those times we soon got on terms ofintimacy with these and other neighbors, and saw much of each other atall times of the day. 

My tall and beautiful young mother (la belle Madame Pasquier, as she wasgallantly called) was an Englishwoman who had been born and partlybrought up in Paris. 

My gay and jovial father (le beau Pasquier, for he was also tall andcomely to the eye) was a Frenchman, although an English subject, who hadbeen born and partly brought up in London; for he was the child ofemigres from France during the Reign of Terror. 

[Illustration]

 "When in death I shall calm recline, Oh take my heart to my mistress dear! Tell her it lived upon smiles and wine Of the brightest hue while it lingered here!"

He was gifted with a magnificent, a phenomenal voice--a barytone andtenor rolled into one; a marvel of richness, sweetness, flexibility, andpower--and had intended to sing at the opera; indeed, he had studied forthree years at the Paris Conservatoire to that end; and there he hadcarried all before him, and given rise to the highest hopes. But hisfamily, who were Catholics of the blackest and Legitimists of thewhitest dye--and as poor as church rats had objected to such a godlessand derogatory career; so the world lost a great singer, and the greatsinger a mine of wealth and fame. 

However, he had just enough to live upon, and had married a wife (aheretic!) who had just about as much, or as little; and he spent histime, and both his money and hers, in scientific inventions--to littlepurpose, for well as he had learned how to sing, he had not been to anyconservatoire where they teach one how to invent. 

So that, as he waited "for his ship to come home, " he sang only to amusehis wife, as they say the nightingale does; and to ease himself ofsuperfluous energy, and to charm the servants, and le Père et la MèreFrançois, and the five followers of Napoleon, and all and everybody whocared to listen, and last and least (and most!), myself. 

For this great neglected gift of his, on which he set so little store, was already to me the most beautiful and mysterious thing in the world;and next to this, my mother's sweet playing on the harp and piano, forshe was an admirable musician. 

It was her custom to play at night, leaving the door of my bedroom ajar, and also the drawing-room door, so that I could hear her till I fellasleep. 

Sometimes, when my father was at home, the spirit would move him to humor sing the airs she played, as he paced up and down the room on thetrack of a new invention. 

And though he sang and hummed "pian-piano, " the sweet, searching, manlytones seemed to fill all space. 

The hushed house became a sounding-board, the harp a mere subservienttinkle, and my small, excitable frame would thrill and vibrate under thewaves of my unconscious father's voice; and oh, the charming airshe sang!

His stock was inexhaustible, and so was hers; and thus an endlesssuccession of lovely melodies went ringing through that happy period. 

And just as when a man is drowning, or falling from a height, his wholepast life is said to be mapped out before his mental vision as in asingle flash, so seven years of sweet, priceless home love--seven timesfour changing seasons of simple, genial, prae-imperial Frenchness; anideal house, with all its pretty furniture, and shape, and color; agarden full of trees and flowers; a large park, and all the wild livethings therein; a town and its inhabitants; a mile or two of historicriver; a wood big enough to reach from the Arc de Triomphe to St. Cloud(and in it the pond of ponds); and every wind and weather that thechanging seasons can bring--all lie embedded and embalmed for me inevery single bar of at least a hundred different tunes, to be evoked atwill for the small trouble and cost of just whistling or humming thesame, or even playing it with one finger on the piano--when I had apiano within reach. 

Enough to last me for a lifetime--with proper economy, of course--itwill not do to exhaust, by too frequent experiment, the strange capacityof a melodic bar for preserving the essence of by-gone things, and daysthat are no more. 

Oh, Nightingale! whether thou singest thyself or, better still, if thyvoice by not in thy throat, but in thy fiery heart and subtle brain, andthou makest songs for the singing of many others, blessed be thy name!The very sound of it is sweet in every clime and tongue: Nightingale, Rossignol, Usignuolo, Bulbul! Even Nachtigall does not sound amiss inthe mouth of a fair English girl who has had a Hanoverian for agoverness! and, indeed, it is in the Nachtigall's country that the bestmusic is made!

[Illustration: "OH, NIGHTINGALE!"]

And oh, Nightingale! never, never grudge thy song to those who loveit--nor waste it upon those who do not. . . . 

Thus serenaded, I would close my eyes, and lapped in darkness andwarmth and heavenly sound, be lulled asleep--perchance to dream!

For my early childhood was often haunted by a dream, which at first Itook for a reality--a transcendant dream of some interest and importanceto mankind, as the patient reader will admit in time. But many years ofmy life passed away before I was able to explain and account for it. 

I had but to turn my face to the wall, and soon I found myself incompany with a lady who had white hair and a young face--a verybeautiful young face. 

Sometimes I walked with her, hand in hand--I being quite a smallchild--and together we fed innumerable pigeons who lived in a tower by awinding stream that ended in a water-mill. It was too lovely, and Iwould wake. 

Sometimes we went into a dark place, where there was a fiery furnacewith many holes, and many people working and moving about--among them aman with white hair and a young face, like the lady, and beautiful redheels to his shoes. And under his guidance I would contrive to make inthe furnace a charming little cocked hat of colored glass--a treasure!And the sheer joy thereof would wake me. 

Sometimes the white-haired lady and I would sit together at a squarebox from which she made lovely music, and she would sing my favoritesong--a song that I adored. But I always woke before this song came toan end, on account of the too insupportably intense bliss I felt onhearing it; and all I could remember when awake were the words"triste--comment--sale. " The air, which I knew so well in my dream, Icould not recall. 

It seemed as though some innermost core of my being, some childish holyof holies, secreted a source of supersubtle reminiscence, which, undersome stimulus that now and again became active during sleep, exhaleditself in this singular dream--shadowy and slight, but invariablyaccompanied by a sense of felicity so measureless and so penetratingthat I would always wake in a mystic flutter of ecstasy, the bareremembrance of which was enough to bless and make happy many asucceeding hour. 

 * * * * *

Besides this happy family of three, close by (in the Street of theTower) lived my grandmother Mrs. Biddulph, and my Aunt Plunket, a widow, with her two sons, Alfred and Charlie, and her daughter Madge. They alsowere fair to look at--extremely so--of the gold-haired, white-skinned, well-grown Anglo-Saxon type, with frank, open, jolly manners, and nobeastly British pride. 

So that physically, at least, we reflected much credit on the Englishname, which was not in good odor just then at Passy-lès-Paris, whereWaterloo was unforgotten. In time, however, our nationality was condonedon account of our good looks--"non Angli sed angeli!" as M. Saindou wasgallantly pleased to exclaim when he called (with a prospectus of hisschool) and found us all gathered together under the big apple-treeon our lawn. 

But English beauty in Passy was soon to receive a memorable addition toits ranks in the person of a certain Madame Seraskier, who came with aninvalid little daughter to live in the house so modestly described ingold as "Parva sed Apta. "

She was the English, or rather the Irish, wife of a Hungarian patriotand man of science, Dr. Seraskier (son of the famous violinist); anextremely tall, thin man, almost gigantic, with a grave, benevolentface, and a head like a prophet's; who was, like my father, very muchaway from his family--conspiring perhaps--or perhaps only inventing(like my father), and looking out "for his ship to come home!"

[Illustration: "SHE TOPPED MY TALL MOTHER. "]

This fair lady's advent was a sensation--to me a sensation that neverpalled or wore itself away; it was no longer now "la belle MadamePasquier, " but "la divine Madame Seraskier"--beauty-blind as the Frenchare apt to be. 

She topped my tall mother by more than half a head; as was remarked byMadame Pelé, whose similes were all of the kitchen and dining-room, "elle lui mangerait des petits pâtés sur la tête!" And height, thatlends dignity to ugliness, magnifies beauty on a scale of geometricalprogression--2, 4, 8, 16, 32--for every consecutive inch, between fivefeet five, let us say, and five feet ten or eleven (or thereabouts), which I take to have been Madame Seraskier's measurement. 

She had black hair and blue eyes--of the kind that turns violet in anovel--and a beautiful white skin, lovely hands and feet, a perfectfigure, and features chiselled and finished and polished and turned outwith such singular felicitousness that one gazed and gazed till theheart was full of a strange jealous resentment at any one else havingthe right to gaze on something so rare, so divinely, so sacredlyfair--any one in the world but one's self!

But a woman can be all this without being Madame Seraskier--she was muchmore. 

For the warmth and genial kindness of her nature shone through her eyesand rang in her voice. All was of a piece with her--her simplicity, hergrace, her naturalness and absence of vanity; her courtesy, hersympathy, her mirthfulness. 

I do not know which was the most irresistible: she had a slight Irishaccent when she spoke English, a less slight English accent when shespoke French!

I made it my business to acquire both. 

Indeed, she was in heart and mind and body what we should _all_ be butfor the lack of a little public spirit and self-denial (under properguidance) during the last few hundred years on the part of a fewthousand millions of our improvident fellow-creatures. 

There should be no available ugly frames for beautiful souls to behurried into by carelessness or mistake, and no ugly souls should besuffered to creep, like hermit-crabs, into beautiful shells neverintended for them. The outward and visible form should mark the inwardand spiritual grace; that it seldom does so is a fact there is nogainsaying. Alas! such beauty is such an exception that its possessor, like a prince of the blood royal, is pampered and spoiled from the verycradle, and every good and generous and unselfish impulse is corroded byadulation--that spontaneous tribute so lightly won, so quickly paid, andaccepted so royally as a due. 

So that only when by Heaven's grace the very beautiful are also verygood, is it time for us to go down on our knees, and say our prayers inthankfulness and adoration; for the divine has been permitted to makeitself manifest for a while in the perishable likeness of ourpoor humanity. 

A beautiful face! a beautiful tune! Earth holds nothing to beat these, and of such, for want of better materials, we have built for ourselvesthe kingdom of Heaven. 

 _"Plus oblige, et peut davantage Un beau visage Qu'un homme armé-- Et rien n'est meilleur que d'entendre Air doux et tendre Jadis aimé!"_

My mother soon became the passionately devoted friend of the divineMadame Seraskier; and I, what would I not have done--what danger would Inot have faced--what death would I not have died for her!

I did not die; I lived her protestant to be, for nearly fifty years. Fornearly fifty years to recollect the rapture and the pain it was to lookat her; that inexplicable longing ache, that dumb, delicious, complex, innocent distress, for which none but the greatest poets have ever foundexpression; and which, perhaps, they have not felt half so acutely, these glib and gifted ones, as _I_ did, at the susceptible age of seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, and twelve. 

She had other slaves of my sex. The five Napoleonic heroes did homageeach after his fashion: the good Major with a kind of sweet fatherlytenderness touching to behold; the others with perhaps less unselfishadoration; notably the brave Capitaine Audenis, of the fair waxedmustache and beautiful brown tail coat, so tightly buttoned with giltbuttons across his enormous chest, and imperceptible little feet sotightly imprisoned in shiny tipped female cloth boots, with buttons ofmother-of-pearl; whose hobby was, I believe, to try and compensatehimself for the misfortunes of war by more successful attempts inanother direction. Anyhow he betrayed a warmth that made my small bosoma Gehenna, until she laughed and snubbed him into due propriety andshamefaced self-effacement. 

It soon became evident that she favored two, at least, out of all thislittle masculine world--the Major myself; and a strange trio we made. 

Her poor little daughter, the object of her passionate solicitude, avery clever and precocious child, was the reverse of beautiful, althoughshe would have had fine eyes but for her red lashless lids. She wore herthick hair cropped short, like a boy, and was pasty and sallow incomplexion, hollow-cheeked, thick-featured, and overgrown, with longthin hands and feet, and arms and legs of quite pathetic length andtenuity; a silent and melancholy little girl, who sucked her thumbperpetually, and kept her own counsel. She would have to lie in bed fordays together, and when she got well enough to sit up, I (to please hermother) would read to her _Le Robinson Suisse_, _Sandford and Merton_, _Evenings at Home_, _Les Contes de Madame Perrault_, the shipwreck from"Don Juan, " of which we never tired, and the "Giaour, " the "Corsair, "and "Mazeppa"; and last, but not least, _Peter Parleys Natural History_, which we got to know by heart. 

And out of this latter volume I would often declaim for her benefit whathas always been to me the most beautiful poem in the world, possiblybecause it was the first I read for myself, or else because it is sointimately associated with those happy days. Under an engraving of awild duck (after Bewick, I believe) were quoted W. C. Bryant's lines "Toa Water-fowl. " They charmed me then and charm me now as nothing else hasquite charmed me; I become a child again as I think of them, with achild's virgin subtlety of perception and magical susceptibility tovague suggestions of the Infinite. 

Poor little Mimsey Seraskier would listen with distended eyes and quickcomprehension. She had a strange fancy that a pair of invisible beings, "La fée Tarapatapoum, " and "Le Prince Charmant" (two favorite charactersof M. Le Major's) were always in attendance upon us--upon her andme--and were equally fond of us both; that is, "La fée Tarapatapoum" ofme, and "Le Prince Charmant" of her--and watched over us and wouldprotect us through life. 

"O! ils sont joliment bien ensemble, tous les deux--ils sontinséparables!" she would often exclaim, _apropos_ of these visionarybeings; and _apropos_ of the water-fowl she would say--

"Il aime beaucoup cet oiseau-là, le Prince Charmant! dis encore, quandil vole si haut, et qu'il fait froid, et qu'il est fatigué, et que lanuit vient, mais qu'il ne veut pas descendre!"

And I would re-spout--

 _"'All day thy wings have fanned, At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, Though the dark night be near!'"_

And poor, morbid, precocious, overwrought Mimsey's eyes would fill, andshe would meditatively suck her thumb and think unutterable things. 

And then I would copy Bewick's wood-cuts for her, as she sat on the armof my chair and patiently watched; and she would say: "La féeTarapatapoum trouve que tu dessines dans la perfection!" and treasure upthese little masterpieces--"pour l'album de la fée Tarapatapoum!"

[Illustration]

There was one drawing she prized above all others--a steel engravingin a volume of Byron, which represented two beautiful beings of eithersex, walking hand in hand through a dark cavern. The man was in sailor'sgarb; the lady, who went barefoot and lightly clad, held a torch; andunderneath was written--

 _"And Neuha led her Torquil by the hand, And waved along the vaults her flaming brand. "_

I spent hours in copying it for her, and she preferred the copy to theoriginal, and would have it that the two figures were excellentportraits of her Prince and Fairy. 

Sometimes during these readings and sketchings under the apple-tree onthe lawn, the sleeping Médor (a huge nondescript sort of dog, built upof every breed in France, with the virtues of all and the vices of none)would wag his three inches of tail, and utter soft whimperings ofwelcome in his dream; and she would say--

"C'est le Prince Charmant qui lui dit; 'Médor donne la patte!'"

Or our old tomcat would rise from his slumbers with his tail up, and ruban imaginary skirt; and it was--

"Regarde Mistigris! La fée Tarapatapoum est en train de lui frotter lesoreilles!'"

We mostly spoke French, in spite of strict injunctions to the contraryfrom our fathers and mothers, who were much concerned lest we shouldforget our English altogether. 

In time we made a kind of ingenious compromise; for Mimsey, who wasfull of resource, invented a new language, or rather two, which wecalled Frankingle and Inglefrank, respectively. They consisted inanglicizing French nouns and verbs and then conjugating and pronouncingthem Englishly, or _vice versâ_. 

For instance, it was very cold, and the school-room window was open, soshe would say in Frankingle--

"Dispeach yourself to ferm the feneeter, Gogo. It geals to pier-fend! weshall be inrhumed!" or else, if I failed to immediatelyunderstand--"Gogo, il frise a splitter les stonnes--maque aste et chutele vindeau; mais chute--le donc vite! Je snize déjà!" which wasInglefrank. 

With this contrivance we managed to puzzle and mystify the uninitiated, English and French alike. The intelligent reader, who sees it all inprint, will not be so easily taken in. 

When Mimsey was well enough, she would come with my cousins and me intothe park, where we always had a good time--lying in ambush for redIndians, rescuing Madge Plunket from a caitiff knight, or else huntingsnakes and field-mice and lizards, and digging for lizard's eggs, whichwe would hatch at home--that happy refuge for all manner of beasts, aswell as little boys and girls. For there were squirrels, hedgehogs, andguinea-pigs; an owl, a raven, a monkey, and white mice; little birdsthat had strayed from the maternal nest before they could fly (theyalways died!), the dog Médor, and any other dog who chose; not tomention a gigantic rocking-horse made out of a real stuffed pony--thesmallest pony that had ever been!

Often our united high spirits were too boisterous for Mimsey. Dreadfulheadaches would come on, and she would sit in a corner, nursing ahedgehog with one arm and holding her thumb in her mouth with the other. Only when we were alone together was she happy, and then, _moulttristement!_

On summer evenings whole parties of us, grown-up and small, would walkthrough the park and the Bois de Boulogne to the "Mare d'Auteuil"; as wegot near enough for Médor to scent the water, he would bark and grin andgyrate, and go mad with excitement, for he had the gift of diving afterstones, and liked to show it off. 

There we would catch huge olive-colored water-beetles, yellowunderneath; red-bellied newts; green frogs, with beautiful spots and asplendid parabolic leap; gold and silver fish, pied with purply brown. Imention them in the order of their attractiveness. The fish were tootame and easily caught, and their beauty of too civilized an order; therare, flat, vicious dytiscus "took the cake. "

Sometimes, even, we would walk through Boulogne to St. Cloud, to see thenew railway and the trains--an inexhaustible subject of wonder anddelight--and eat ices at the "Tête Noire" (a hotel which had been thescene of a terrible murder, that led to a cause célèbre); and we wouldcome back through the scented night, while the glowworms were shining inthe grass, and the distant frogs were croaking in the Mare d'Auteuil. Now and then a startled roebuck would gallop in short bounds acrossthe path, from thicket to thicket, and Médor would go mad again and wakethe echoes of the new Paris fortification, which were still in thecourse of construction. 

[Illustration]

He had not the gift of catching roebucks!

If my father were of the party, he would yodel Tyrolese melodies, andsing lovely songs of Boieldieu, Hérold, and Grétry; or "Drink to me onlywith thine eyes, " or else the "Bay of Dublin" for Madame Seraskier, whohad the nostalgia of her beloved country whenever her belovedhusband was away. 

Or else we would break out into a jolly chorus and march to the tune--

 _"Marie, trempe ton pain, Marie, trempe ton pain, Marie, trempe ton pain dans la soupe; Marie, trempe ton pain, Marie, trempe ton pain, Marie, trempe ton pain dans le vin!"_

Or else--

 _"La--soupe aux choux--se fait dans la marmite; Dans--la marmite--se fait la soupe aux choux. "_

which would give us all the nostalgia of supper. 

Or else, again, if it were too hot to sing, or we were too tired, M. LeMajor, forsaking the realms of fairy-land, and uncovering his high baldhead as he walked, would gravely and reverently tell us of his greatmaster, of Brienne, of Marengo, and Austerlitz; of the farewells atFontainebleau, and the Hundred Days--never of St. Helena; he would nottrust himself to speak to us of that! And gradually working his way toWaterloo, he would put his hat on, and demonstrate to us, by A+B, how, virtually, the English had lost the day, and why and wherefore. And onall the little party a solemn, awe-struck stillness would fall as welistened, and on some of us the sweet nostalgia of bed!

Oh, the good old time!

The night was consecrated for me by the gleam and scent and rustle ofMadame Seraskier's gown, as I walked by her side in the deepening dusk--agleam of yellow, or pale blue, or white--a scent of sandalwood--a rustlethat told of a light, vigorous tread on firm, narrow, high-arched feet, that were not easily tired; of an anxious, motherly wish to get back toMimsey, who was not strong enough for these longer expeditions. 

On the shorter ones I used sometimes to carry Mimsey on my back most ofthe way home (to please her mother)--a frail burden, with her poor, long, thin arms round my neck, and her pale, cold cheek against myear--she weighed nothing! And when I was tired M. Le Major would relieveme, but not for long. She always wanted to be carried by Gogo (for so Iwas called, for no reason whatever, unless it was that my namewas Peter). 

She would start at the pale birches that shone out against the gloom, and shiver if a bough scraped her, and tell me all about theErl-king--"mais comme ils sont là tous les deux" (meaning the Prince andthe Fairy) "il n'y a absolument rien à craindre. "

And Mimsey was _si bonne camarade_, in spite of her solemnity and poorhealth and many pains, so grateful for small kindnesses, so appreciativeof small talents, so indulgent to small vanities (of which she seemed tohave no more share than her mother), and so deeply humorous in spite ofher eternal gravity--for she was a real tomboy at heart--that I sooncarried her, not only to please her mother, but to please herself, andwould have done anything for her. 

As for M. Le Major, he gradually discovered that Mimsey was half amartyr and half a saint, and possessed all the virtues under the sun. 

"Ah, vous ne la comprenez pas, cette enfant; vous verrez un jour quandça ira mieux! vous verrez! elle est comme sa mère . . . Elle a toutes lesintelligences de la tête et du coeur!" and he would wish it had pleasedHeaven that he should be her grandfather--on the maternal side. 

_L'art d'être grandpère!_ This weather-beaten, war-battered old soldierhad learned it, without ever having had either a son or a daughter ofhis own. He was a _born_ grandfather!

Moreover, Mimsey and I had many tastes and passions in common--music, for instance, as well as Bewick's wood-cuts and Byron's poetry, androast chestnuts and domestic pets; and above all, the Mare d'Auteuil, which she preferred in the autumn, when the brown and yellow leaves wereeddying and scampering and chasing each other round its margin, ordrifting on its troubled surface, and the cold wet wind piped throughthe dishevelled boughs of the forest, under the leaden sky. 

She said it was good to be there then, and think of home and thefireside; and better still, when home was reached at last, to think ofthe desolate pond we had left; and good, indeed, it was to trudge homeby wood and park and avenue at dusk, when the bats were about, withAlfred and Charlie and Mimsey and Madge and Médor; swishing our waythrough the lush, dead leaves, scattering the beautiful, ripehorse-chestnut out of its split creamy case, or picking up acorns andbeechnuts here and there as we went. 

And, once home, it was good, very good, to think how dark and lonesomeand shivery it must be out there by the _mare_, as we squatted andchatted and roasted chestnuts by the wood fire in the school-room beforethe candles were lit--_entre chien et loup_, as was called the Frenchgloaming--while Thérèse was laying the tea-things, and telling us thenews, and cutting bread and butter; and my mother played the harp in thedrawing-room above; till the last red streak died out of the wet westbehind the swaying tree-tops, and the curtains were drawn, and there waslight, and the appetites were let loose. 

I love to sit here, in my solitude and captivity, and recall everyincident of that sweet epoch--to ache with the pangs of happyremembrance; than which, for the likes of me, great poets tell us thereis no greater grief. This sorrow's crown of sorrow is my joy and myconsolation, and ever has been; and I would not exchange it for youth, health, wealth, honor, and freedom; only for thrice happy childhooditself once more, over and over again, would I give up its thrice happyrecollections. 

That it should not be all beer and skittles with us, and therefore aptto pall, my cousins and I had to work pretty hard. In the first place, my dear mother did all she could to make me an infant prodigy oflearning. She tried to teach me Italian, which she spoke as fluently asEnglish or French (for she had lived much in Italy), and I had totranslate the "Gierusalemme Liberata" into both those latterlanguages--a task which has remained unfinished--and to render the"Allegro" and the "Penseroso" into Miltonian French prose, and "Le Cid"into Corneillian English. Then there were Pinnock's histories of Greeceand Rome to master, and, of course, the Bible; and, every Sunday, theCollect, the Gospel, and the Epistle to get by heart. No, it was not allbeer and skittles. 

It was her pleasure to teach, but, alas! not mine to learn; and we costeach other many a sigh, but loved each other all the more, perhaps. 

Then we went in the mornings, my cousins and I, to M. Saindou's, opposite, that we might learn French grammar and French-Latin andFrench-Greek. But on three afternoons out of the weekly six Mr. Slade, aCambridge sizar stranded in Paris, came to anglicize (and neutralize)the Latin and Greek we had learned in the morning, and to show us whatsorry stuff the French had made of them and of their quantities. 

Perhaps the Greek and Latin quantities are a luxury of English growth--amere social test--a little pitfall of our own invention, like the letter_h_, for the tripping up of unwary pretenders; or else, Frencheducation being so deplorably cheap in those days, the school-mastersthere could not afford to take such fanciful superfluities intoconsideration; it was not to be done at the price. 

In France, be it remembered, the King and his greengrocer sent theirsons to the same school (which did not happen to be M. Saindou's, by theway, where it was nearly all greengrocer and no King); and the fee forbed, board, and tuition, in all public schools alike, was something likethirty pounds a year. 

The Latin, in consequence, was without the distinction that comes ofexclusiveness, and quite lacked that aristocratic flavor, so gratefuland comforting to scholar and ignoramus alike, which the costly Britishpublic-school system (and the British accent) alone can impart to a deadlanguage. When French is dead we shall lend it a grace it never hadbefore; some of us even manage to do so already. 

That is (no doubt) why the best French writers so seldom point theirmorals and adorn their tales, as ours do, with the usual pretty, familiar, and appropriate lines out of Horace or Virgil; and why Latinis so little quoted in French talk, except here and there by a wearyshop-walker, who sighs--

"Varium et mutabile semper femina!" as he rolls up the unsold silk; orexclaims, "O rus! quando te aspiciam!" as he takes his railway ticketfor Asnières on the first fine Sunday morning in spring. 

But this is a digression, and we have wandered far away from Mr. Slade. 

Good old Slade!

We used to sit on the tone posts outside the avenue gate and watch forhis appearance at a certain distant corner of the winding street. 

With his green tail coat, his stiff shirt collar, his flat thumbs stuckin the armholes of his nankeen waistcoat, his long flat feet turnedinward, his reddish mutton-chop whiskers his hat on the back of hishead, and his clean, fresh, blooming, virtuous, English face--the sight ofhim was not sympathetic when he appeared at last. 

[Illustration: "GOOD OLD SLADE"]

Occasionally, in the course of his tuition, illness or domestic affairswould, to his great regret, detain him from our midst, and the beatitudewe would experience when the conviction gradually dawned upon us thatwe were watching for him in vain was too deep for either words or deedsor outward demonstration of any sort. It was enough to sit on our stoneposts and let it steal over us by degrees. 

These beatitudes were few and far between. It would be infelicitous, perhaps, to compare the occasional absences of a highly respectableEnglish tutor to an angel's visits, but so we felt them. 

And then he would make up for it next afternoon, that conscientiousEnglishman; which was fair enough to our parents, but not to us. Andthen what extra severity, as interest for the beggarly loan of half anafternoon! What rappings on ink-stained knuckles with a beastly, hard, round, polished, heavy-wooded, business-like English ruler!

It was our way in those days to think that everything English wasbeastly--an expression our parents thought we were much too fondof using. 

But perhaps we were not without some excuse for this unpardonablesentiment. For there was _another_ English family in Passy--thePrendergasts, an older family than ours--that is, the parents (anduncles and aunts) were middle-aged, the grandmother dead, and thechildren grown up. We had not the honor of their acquaintance. Butwhether that was their misfortune and our fault (or _vice versâ_) Icannot tell. Let us hope the former. 

They were of an opposite type to ours, and, though I say it, their typewas a singularly unattractive one; perhaps it may have been the originalof those caricatures of our compatriots by which French comic artistshave sought to avenge Waterloo. It was stiff, haughty, contemptuous. Ithad prominent front teeth, a high nose, a long upper lip, a recedingjaw; it had dull, cold, stupid, selfish green eyes, like a pike's, thatswerved neither to right nor left, but looked steadily over peoples'heads as it stalked along in its pride of impeccable Britishself-righteousness. 

At the sudden sight of it (especially on Sundays) all the cardinalvirtues became hateful on the spot and respectability a thing to runaway from. Even that smooth, close-shaven cleanliness was soPuritanically aggressive as to make one abhor the very idea of soap. 

Its accent, when it spoke French (in shops), instead of being musicaland sweet and sympathetic, like Madame Seraskier's, was barbarous andgrotesque, with dreadful "ongs, " and "angs, " and "ows, " and "ays"; andits manner overbearing, suspicious, and disdainful; and then we couldhear its loud, insolent English asides; and though it was tall andstraight and not outwardly deformed, it looked such a kill-joy skeletonat a feast, such a portentous carnival mask of solemn emptiness, such adreary, doleful, unfunny figure of fun, that one felt Waterloo mightsome day be forgiven, even in Passy; but the Prendergasts, _never_!

I have lived so long away from the world that, for all I know, thisancient British type, this "grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominousbird of yore, " may have become extinct, like another, but lessunprepossessing bird--the dodo; whereby our state is the more gracious. 

But in those days, and generalizing somewhat hastily as young peopleare apt to do, we grew to think that England must be full ofPrendergasts, and did not want to go there. 

To this universal English beastliness of things we made a fewexceptions, it is true, but the list was not long: tea, mustard, pickles, gingerbread-nuts, and, of all things in the world, the Englishloaf of household bread that came to us once a week as a great treat andrecompense for our virtues, and harmonized so well with Passy butter. Itwas too delicious! But there was always a difficulty, a dilemma--whetherto eat it with butter alone, or with "cassonade" (French brownsugar) added. 

Mimsey knew her own mind, and loved it with French brown sugar, and ifshe were not there I would save for her half of my slices, and carefullycassonade them for her myself. 

On the other hand, we thought everything French the reverse ofbeastly--except all the French boys we knew, and at M. Saindou's therewere about two hundred; then there were all the boys in Passy (whosename was legion, and who _did not_ go to M. Saindou's), and we knew allthe boys in Passy. So that we were not utterly bereft of material forgood, stodgy, crusty, patriotic English prejudice. 

Nor did the French boys fail to think us beastly in return, andsometimes to express the thought; especially the little vulgar boys, whose playground was the street--the _voyous de Passy_. They hated ourwhite silk chimney-pot hats and large collars and Eton jackets, andcalled us "sacred godems, " as their ancestors used to call ours in thedays of Joan of Arc. Sometimes they would throw stones, and then therewere collisions, and bleedings of impertinent little French noses, andrunnings away of cowardly little French legs, and dreadful wails of "Olà, là! O, là, là--maman!" when they were overtaken by English ones. 

Not but what _our_ noses were made to bleed now and then, unvictoriously, by a certain blacksmith--always the same youngblacksmith--Boitard!

It is always a young blacksmith who does these things--or a youngbutcher. 

Of course, for the honor of Great Britain, one of us finally licked himto such a tune that he has never been able to hold up his head since. Itwas about a cat. It came off at dusk, one Christmas Eve, on the "Isle ofSwans, " between Passy and Grenelle (too late to save the cat). 

I was the hero of this battle. "It's now or never, " I thought, and sawscarlet, and went for my foe like a maniac. The ring was kept by Alfredand Charlie helped, oddly enough, by a couple of male Prendergasts, whoso far forgot themselves as to take an interest in the proceedings. Madge and Mimsey looked on, terrified and charmed. 

It did not last long, and was worthy of being described by Homer, oreven in _Bell's Life_. That is one of the reasons why I will notdescribe it. The two Prendergasts seemed to enjoy it very much while itlasted, and when it was over they remembered themselves again, and saidnothing, and stalked away. 

As we grew older and wiser we had permission to extend our explorationsto Meudon, Versailles, St. Germain, and other delightful places; to ridethither on hired horses, after having duly learned to ride at the famous"School of Equitation, " in the Rue Duphot. 

[Illustration: "OMINOUS BIRDS OF YORE. "]

Also, we swam in those delightful summer baths in the Seine, that are somajestically called "Schools of Natation, " and became past masters in"la coupe" (a stroke no other Englishman but ourselves has ever beenquite able to manage), and in all the different delicate "nuances" ofheader-taking--"la coulante, " "la hussarde, " "la tête-bêche, " "la toutce que vous voudrez. "

Also, we made ourselves at home in Paris, especially old Paris. 

For instance, there was the island of St. Louis, with its stately oldmansions _entre cour et jardin, _ behind grim stone portals and highwalls where great magistrates and lawyers dwelt in dignifiedseclusion--the nobles of the rove: but where once had dwelt, in daysgone by, the greater nobles of the sword-crusaders, perhaps, and knightstemplars, like Brian de Bois Guilbert. 

And that other more famous island, la Cité, where Paris itself was born, where Notre Dame reared its twin towers above the melancholy, gray, leprous walls and dirty brown roofs of the Hôtel-Dieu. 

Pathetic little tumble down old houses, all out of drawing andperspective, nestled like old spiders' webs between the buttresses ofthe great cathedral and on two sides of the little square in front (thePlace du Parvis Notre Dame) stood ancient stone dwellings, with highslate roofs and elaborately wrought iron balconies. They seemed to havesuch romantic histories that I never tired of gazing at them, andwondering what the histories could be; and now I think of it, one ofthese very dwellings must have been the Hôtel de Gondelaurier, where, according to the most veracious historian that ever was, poor Esmeraldaonce danced and played the tambourine to divert the fair damselFleur-de-Lys de Gondelaurier and her noble friends, all of whom she sotranscended in beauty, purity, goodness, and breeding (although she wasbut an untaught, wandering gypsy girl, out of the gutter); and there, before them all and the gay archer, she was betrayed to her finalundoing by her goat, whom she had so imprudently taught how to spellthe beloved name of "Phébus. "

Close by was the Morgue, that grewsome building which the great etcherMéryon has managed to invest with some weird fascination akin to that ithad for me in those days--and has now, as I see it with the charmedeyes of Memory. 

La Morgue! what a fatal twang there is about the very name!

[Illustration: SETTLING AN OLD SCORE. ]

After gazing one's fill at the horrors within (as became ahealthy-minded English boy) it was but a step to the equestrian statueof Henri Quatre, on the Pont-Neuf (the oldest bridge in Paris, by theway); there, astride his long-tailed charger, he smiled, _le roy vert etgalant, _ just midway between either bank of the historic river, justwhere it was most historic; and turned his back on the Paris of theBourgeois King with the pear-shaped face and the mutton-chop whiskers. 

And there one stood, spellbound in indecision, like the ass of Buridanbetween two sacks of oats; for on either side, north or south of thePont-Neuf, were to be found enchanting slums, all more attractive theones than the others, winding up and down hill and roundabout and in andout, like haunting illustrations by Gustave Doré to _Drolatick Tales_ byBalzac (not seen or read by me till many years later, I beg to say). 

Dark, narrow, silent, deserted streets that would turn up afterwards inmany a nightmare--with the gutter in the middle and towerlets and stoneposts all along the sides; and high fantastic walls (where it was_défendre d'afficher_), with bits of old battlement at the top, andoverhanging boughs of sycamore and lime, and behind them gray oldgardens that dated from the days of Louis le Hutin and beyond! Andsuggestive names printed in old rusty iron letters at the streetcorners--"Rue Videgousset, " "Rue Coupe-gorge, " "Rue de la VieilleTruanderie, " "Impasse de la Tour de Nesle, " etc. , that appealed to theimagination like a chapter from Hugo or Dumas. 

And the way to these was by long, tortuous, busy thoroughfares, mostirregularly flagged, and all alive with strange, delightful people inblue blouses, brown woollen tricots, wooden shoes, red and white cottonnightcaps, rags and patches; most graceful girls, with pretty, self-respecting feet, and flashing eyes, and no head-dress but their ownhair; gay, fat hags, all smile; thin hags, with faces of appallingwickedness or misery; precociously witty little gutter-imps of eithersex; and such cripples! jovial hunchbacks, lusty blind beggars, merrycreeping paralytics, scrofulous wretches who joked and punned abouttheir sores; light-hearted, genial, mendicant monsters without arms orlegs, who went ramping through the mud on their bellies from oneunderground wine-shop to another; and blue-chinned priests andbarefooted brown monks and demure Sisters of Charity, and here and therea jolly chiffonnier with his hook, and his knap-basket behind; or acuirassier, or a gigantic carbineer, or gay little "Hunter of Africa, "or a couple of bold gendarmes riding abreast, with their towering black_bonnets à poil;_ or a pair of pathetic little red-legged soldiers, conscripts just fresh from the country, with innocent light eyes andstraw-coloured hair and freckled brown faces, walking hand in hand, andstaring at all the pork-butchers' shops--and sometimes at thepork-butcher's wife!

Then a proletarian wedding procession--headed by the bride andbridegroom, an ungainly pair in their Sunday best--all singing noisilytogether. Then a pauper funeral, or a covered stretcher, followed bysympathetic eyes on its way to the Hôtel-Dieu; or the last sacrament, with bell and candle, bound for the bedside of some humble agonizer _inextremis_--and we all uncovered as it went by. 

And then, for a running accompaniment of sound the clanging chimes, theitinerant street cries, the tinkle of the _marchand de coco, _ the drum, the _cor de chasse, _ the organ of Barbary, the ubiquitous pet parrot, the knife-grinder, the bawling fried-potato monger, and, most amusing ofall, the poodle-clipper and his son, strophe and antistrophe, for everyminute the little boy would yell out in his shrill treble that "hisfather clipped poodles for thirty sous, and was competent also toundertake the management of refractory tomcats, " upon which the fatherwould growl in his solemn bass, "My son speaks the truth"--_L'enfantdit vrai!_

And rising above the general cacophony the din of the eternally crackingwhip, of the heavy carwheel jolting over the uneven stones, the stampand neigh of the spirited little French cart-horse and the music of hismany bells, and the cursing and swearing and _hue! dià!_ of his driver!It was all entrancing. 

Thence home--to quite, innocent, suburban Passy--by the quays, walkingon the top of the stone parapet all the way, so as to miss nothing (tilla gendarme was in sight), or else by the Boulevards, the Rue de Rivoli, the Champs Élysées, the Avenue de St. Cloud, and the Chaussée de laMuette. What a beautiful walk! Is there another like it anywhere as itwas then, in the sweet early forties of this worn-out old century, andbefore this poor scribe had reached his teens?

Ah! it is something to have known that Paris, which lay at one's feet asone gazed from the heights of Passy, with all its pinnacles and spiresand gorgeously-gilded domes, its Arch of Triumph, its Elysian Fields, its Field of Mars, its Towers of our Lady, its far-off Column of July, its Invalids, and Vale of Grace, and Magdalen, and Place of the Concord, where the obelisk reared its exotic peak by the beautiful unforgettablefountains. 

There flowed the many-bridged winding river, always the same way, unlikeour tidal Thames, and always full; just beyond it was spread thatstately, exclusive suburb, the despair of the newly rich and recentlyennobled, where almost every other house bore a name which read like apage of French history; and farther still the merry, wicked Latinquarter and the grave Sorbonne, the Pantheon, the Garden of Plants; onthe hither side, in the middle distance, the Louvre, where the kings ofFrance had dwelt for centuries; the Tuileries, where "the King of theFrench" dwelt then, and just for a little while yet. 

Well I knew and loved it all; and most of all I loved it when the sunwas setting at my back, and innumerable distant windows reflected theblood-red western flame. It seemed as though half Paris were on fire, with the cold blue east for a background. 

Dear Paris!

Yes, it is something to have roamed over it as a small boy--a smallEnglish boy (that is, a small boy unattended by his mother or hisnurse), curious, inquisitive, and indefatigable; full of imagination;all his senses keen with the keenness that belongs to the morning oflife: the sight of a hawk, the hearing of a bat, almost the scent ofa hound. 

Indeed, it required a nose both subtle and unprejudiced to understandand appreciate and thoroughly enjoy that Paris--not the Paris of M. LeBaron Haussmann, lighted by gas and electricity, and flushed and drainedby modern science; but the "good old Paris" of Balzac and Eugène Sue and_Les Mystères_--the Paris of dim oil-lanterns suspended from irongibbets (where once aristocrats had been hung); of water-carriers whosold water from their hand-carts, and delivered it at your door (_aucinquème_) for a penny a pail--to drink of, and wash in, and cookwith, and all. 

There were whole streets--and these by no means the least fascinatingand romantic--where the unwritten domestic records of every house wereafloat in the air outside it--records not all savory or sweet, butalways full of interest and charm!

One knew at a sniff as one passed the _porte cochère_ what kind ofpeople lived behind and above; what they ate and what they drank, andwhat their trade was; whether they did their washing at home, and burnedtallow or wax, and mixed chicory with their coffee, and were over-fondof Gruyère cheese--the biggest, cheapest, plainest, and most formidablecheese in the world; whether they fried with oil or butter, and likedtheir omelets overdone and garlic in their salad, and sippedblack-currant brandy or anisette as a liqueur; and were overrun withmice, and used cats or mouse-traps to get rid of them, or neither; andbought violets, or pinks, or gillyflowers in season, and kept them toolong; and fasted on Friday with red or white beans, or lentils, or had adispensation from the Pope--or, haply, even dispensed with the Pope'sdispensation. 

For of such a telltale kind were the overtones in that complex, odorousclang. 

I will not define its fundamental note--ever there, ever the same; bigwith a warning of quick-coming woe to many households; whose unheededwaves, slow but sure, and ominous as those that rolled on greatoccasions from le Bourdon de Notre Dame (the Big Ben of Paris), droveall over the gay city and beyond, night and day--penetrating everycorner, overflowing the most secret recesses, drowning the very incenseby the altar-steps. 

 "_Le pauvre en sa cabane où le chaume le couvre Est sujet à ses lois; Et la garde qui veille aux barrières du Louvre N'en défend point nos rois_. "

And here, as I write, the faint, scarcely perceptible, ghost-likesuspicion of a scent--a mere nostalgic fancy, compound, generic, synthetic and all-embracing--an abstract olfactory symbol of the "ToutParis" of fifty years ago, comes back to me out of the past; and fainwould I inhale it in all its pristine fulness and vigour. For scents, like musical sounds, are rare sublimaters of the essence of memory (thisis a prodigious fine phrase--I hope it means something), and scentsneed not be seductive in themselves to recall the seductions of scenesand days gone by. 

Alas! scents cannot be revived at will, like an

 "_Air doux et tendre Jadis aimé_!"

Oh, that I could hum or whistle an old French smell! I could evoke allParis, sweet, prae-imperial Paris, in a single whiff!

 * * * * *

In such fashion did we three small boys, like the three musketeers (thefame of whose exploits was then filling all France), gather and pile upsweet memories, to chew the cud thereof in after years, when far awayand apart. 

Of all that _bande joyeuse_--old and young and middle-aged, from M. LeMajor to Mimsey Seraskier--all are now dead but me--all except dearMadge, who was so pretty and light-hearted; and I have never seenher since. 

 * * * * *

Thus have I tried, with as much haste as I could command (being one ofthe plodding sort) to sketch that happy time, which came to an endsuddenly and most tragically when I was twelve years old. 

My dear and jovial happy-go-lucky father was killed in a minute by theexplosion of a safety lamp of his own invention, which was to havesuperseded Sir Humphry Davy's, and made our fortune! What a brutalirony of fate. 

So sanguine was he of success, so confident that his ship had come homeat last, that he had been in treaty for a nice little old manor in Anjou(with a nice little old castle to match), called la Marière, which hadbelonged to his ancestors, and from which we took our name (for we werePasquier de la Marière, of quite a good old family); and there we wereto live on our own land, as _gentilshommes campagnards_, and be Frenchfor evermore, under a paternal, pear-faced bourgeois king as a temporary_pis-aller_ until Henri Cinq, Comte de Chambord, should come to his ownagain, and make us counts and barons and peers of France--Heavenknows what for!

My mother, who was beside herself with grief, went over to London, wherethis miserable accident had occurred, and had barely arrived there whenshe was delivered of a still-born child, and died almost immediately;and I became an orphan in less than a week, and a penniless one. For itturned out that my father had by this time spent every penny of his ownand my mother's capital, and had, moreover, died deeply in debt. I wastoo young and too grief-stricken to feel anything but the terriblebereavement, but it soon became patent to me that an immense alterationwas to be made in my mode of life. 

A relative of my mother's, Colonel Ibbetson (who was well off) came toPassy to do his best for me, and pay what debts had been incurred in theneighborhood, and settle my miserable affairs. 

After a while it was decided by him and the rest of the family that Ishould go back with him to London, there to be disposed of for thebest, according to his lights. 

And on a beautiful June Morning, redolent of lilac and syringa, gay withdragon-flies and butterflies and bumblebees, my happy childhood ended asit had begun. My farewells were heartrending (to me), but showed that Icould inspire affection as well as feel it, and that was somecompensation for my woe. 

"Adieu, cher Monsieur Gogo. Bonne chance, et le Bon Dieu vous bénisse, "said le Père et la Mère François. Tears trickled down the Major's hookednose on to his mustache, now nearly white. 

Madame Seraskier strained me to her kind heart, and blessed and kissedme again and again, and rained her warm tears on my face; and hers wasthe last figure I saw as our fly turned into the Rue de la Tour on ourway to London, Colonel Ibbetson exclaiming--

"Gad! who's the lovely young giantess that seems so fond of you, youlittle rascal, hey? By George! you young Don Giovanni, I'd have givensomething to be in your place! And who's that nice old man with the longgreen coat and the red ribbon? A _vieille moustache_, I suppose: almostlike a gentleman. Precious few Frenchmen can do that!"

Such was Colonel Ibbetson. 

And then and there, even as he spoke, a little drop of sullen, chilldislike to my guardian and benefactor, distilled from his voice, hisaspect, the expression of his face, and his way of saying things, suddenly trickled into my consciousness--never to be whiped away!

As for so poor Mimsey, her grief was so overwhelming that she could notcome out and wish me goodbye like the others; and it led, as Iafterwards heard, to a long illness, the worst she ever had; and whenshe recovered it was to find that her beautiful mother was no more. 

[Illustration:]

Madame Seraskier died of the cholera, and so did le Père et la MèreFrançois, and Madame Pelé, and one of the Napoleonic prisoners (not M. Le Major), and several other people we had known, including a servant ofour own, Thérèse, the devoted Thérèse, to whom we were all devoted inreturn. That malodorous tocsin, which I have compared to the big bell ofNotre Dame, had warned, and warned, and warned in vain. 

The _maison de santé_ was broken up. M. Le Major and his friends wentand roosted on parole elsewhere, until a good time arrived for them, when their lost leader came back and remained--first as President of theFrench Republic, then as Emperor of the French themselves. No moreparole was needed after that. 

My grandmother and Aunt Plunket and her children fled in terror toTours, and Mimsey went to Russia with her father. 

Thus miserably ended that too happy septennate, and so no more atpresent of

 "_Le joli lieu de ma naissance_!"

Part Two

The next decade of my outer life is so uninteresting, even to myself, that I will hurry through it as fast as I can. It will prove dullreading, I fear. 

[Illustration:]

My Uncle Ibbetson (as I now called him) took to me and arranged toeducate and start me in life, and make "a gentleman" of me--an "Englishgentleman. " But I had to change my name and adopt his; for some reason Idid not know, he seemed to hate my father's very name. Perhaps it wasbecause he had injured my father through life in many ways, and myfather had always forgiven him; a very good reason! Perhaps it wasbecause he had proposed to my mother three times when she was a girl, and had been thrice refused! (After the third time, he went to India forseven years, and just before his departure my father and mother weremarried, and a year after that I was born. )

So Pierre Pasquier de la Marière, _alias_ Monsieur Gogo, became MasterPeter Ibbetson, and went to Bluefriars, the gray-coat school, where hespent six years--an important slice out of a man's life, especiallyat that age. 

I hated the garb, I hated the surroundings--the big hospital at theback, and that reek of cruelty, drunkenness, and filth, thecattle-market--where every other building was either a slaughter-house, a gin-palace, or a pawnbroker's shop, more than all I hated the gloomyjail opposite, where they sometimes hanged a man in public on a Mondaymorning. This dismal prison haunted my dreams when I wanted to dream ofPassy, of my dear dead father and mother and Madame Seraskier. 

For the first term or two they were ever in my thoughts, and I wasalways trying to draw their profiles on desks and slates and copybooks, till at last all resemblance seemed to fade out of them; and then I drewM. Le Major till his side face became quite demoralized and impossible, and ceased to be like anything in life. Then I fell back on others: lePère François, with his eternal _bonnet de colon_ and sabots stuffedwith straw; the dog Médor, the rocking-horse, and all the rest of themenagerie; the diligence that brought me away from Paris; the heavilyjack-booted couriers in shiny hats and pigtails, and white breeches, andshort-tailed blue coats covered with silver buttons, who used to ridethrough Passy, on their way to and fro between the Tuileries and St. Cloud, on little, neighing, gray stallions with bells round their necksand tucked-up tails, and beautiful heads like the horses' heads in theElgin Marbles. 

In my sketches they always looked and walked and trotted the same way:to the left, or westward as it would be on the map. M. Le Major, MadameSeraskier, Médor, the diligences and couriers, were all bound westwardby common consent--all going to London, I suppose, to look after me, whowas so dotingly fond of them. 

Some of the boys used to admire these sketches and preserve them--someof the bigger boys would value my idealized (!) profiles of MadameSeraskier, with eyelashes quite an inch in length, and an eye threetimes the size of her mouth; and thus I made myself an artisticreputation for a while. But it did not last long, for my vein waslimited; and soon another boy came to the school, who surpassed me invariety and interest of subject, and could draw profiles looking eitherway with equal ease; he is now a famous Academician, and seems to havepreserved much of his old facility. [A]

[Footnote A: _Note_. --I have here omitted several pages, containing adescription in detail of my cousin's life "at Bluefriars"; and also theportraits (not always flattering) which he has written of masters andboys, many of whom are still alive, and some of whom have risen todistinction; but these sketches would be without special interest unlessthe names were given as well, and that would be unadvisable for manyreasons. Moreover, there is not much in what I have left out that hasany bearing on his subsequent life, or the development of his character. MADGE PLUNKET. ]

 * * * * *

Thus, on the whole, my school career was neither happy nor unhappy, nordid I distinguish myself in any way, nor (though I think I was ratherliked than otherwise) make any great or lasting friendships; on theother hand. I did not in any way disgrace myself, nor make a singleenemy that I knew of. Except that I grew our of the common tall andvery strong, a more commonplace boy than I must have seemed (after myartistic vein gad run itself dry) never went to a public school. So muchfor my outer life at Bluefriars. 

[Illustration: A DREAM OF CHIVALRY]

But I had an inner world of my own, whose capital was Passy, whose faunaand flora were not to be surpassed by anything in Regent's Park or theZoological Gardens. 

It was good to think of it by day, to dream of it by night, _although Ihad not yet learned how to dream!_

There were soon other and less exclusive regions, however, which Ishared with other boys of that bygone day. Regions of freedom anddelight, where I heard the ominous crack of Deerslayer's rifle, and wasfriends with Chingachgook and his noble son--the last, alas! of theMohicans: where Robin Hood and Friar Tuck made merry, and exchangedbuffets with Lion-hearted Richard under the green-wood tree: whereQuentin Durward, happy squire of dames, rode midnightly by their sidethrough the gibbet-and-gipsy-haunted forests of Touraine. . . . Ah! I hadmy dream of chivalry!

Happy times and climes! One must be a gray-coated school-boy, in theheart of foggy London, to know that nostalgia. 

Not, indeed, but what London has its merits. Sam Weller lived there, andCharley Bates, and the irresistible Artful Dodger--and Dick Swiveller, and his adorable Marchioness, who divided my allegiance with Rebecca ofYork and sweet Diana Vernon. 

It was good to be an English boy in those days, and care for suchfriends as these! But it was good to be a French boy also; to have knownParis, to possess the true French feel of things--and the language. 

Indeed, bilingual boys--boys double-tongued from their very birth(especially in French and English)--enjoy certain rare privileges. It isnot a bad thing for a school-boy (since a school-boy he must be) to hailfrom two mother-countries if he can, and revel now and then in thesweets of homesickness for that of his two mother-countries in which hedoes not happen to be; and read _Les Trois Mousquetaires_ in thecloisters of Bluefriars, or _Ivanhoe_ in the dull, dusty prison-yardthat serves for a playground in so many a French _lycée_!

Without listening, he hears all round him the stodgy language of everyday, and the blatant shouts of his school-fellows, in the voices heknows so painfully well--those shrill trebles, those cracked barytonesand frog-like early basses! There they go, bleating and croaking andyelling; Dick, Tom, and Harry, or Jules, Hector, and Alphonse! Howvaguely tiresome and trivial and commonplace they are--those toofamiliar sounds; yet what an additional charm they lend to that soutterly different but equally familiar word-stream that comes silentlyflowing into his consciousness through his rapt eyes! The luxurioussense of mental exclusiveness and self-sequestration is made doublycomplete by the contrast!

And for this strange enchantment to be well and thoroughly felt, bothhis languages must be native; not acquired, however perfectly. Everysingle word must have its roots deep down in a personal past so remotefor him as to be almost unremembered; the very sound and printed aspectof each must be rich in childish memories of home; in all the countless, nameless, priceless associations that make it sweet and fresh andstrong, and racy of the soil. 

Oh! Porthos, Athos, and D'Artagnan--how I loved you, and your immortalsquires, Planchet, Grimaud, Mousqueton! How well and wittily you spokethe language I adored--better even than good Monsieur Lallemand, theFrench master at Bluefriars, who could wield the most irregularsubjunctives as if they had been mere feathers--trifles light as air. 

Then came the Count of Monte-Cristo, who taught me (only too well) histerrible lesson of hatred and revenge; and _Les Mystères de Paris, LeJuif Errant_, and others. 

But no words that I can think of in either mother-tongue can expresswhat I felt when first, through these tear-dimmed eyes of mine, and deepinto my harrowed soul, came silently flowing the never-to-be-forgottenhistory of poor Esmeralda, [A] my first love! whose cruel fate filledwith pity, sorrow, and indignation the last term of my life at school. It was the most important, the most solemn, the most epoch-making eventof my school life. I read it, reread it, and read it again. I have notbeen able to read it since; it is rather long! but how well I rememberit, and how short it seemed then! and oh! how short thosewell-spent hours!

[Footnote A: Notre Dame de Paris, par Victor Hugo. ]

That mystic word [Greek: Anagkae]! I wrote it on the flyleaf of all mybooks. I carved it on my desk. I intoned it in the echoing cloisters! Ivowed I would make a pilgrimage to Notre Dame some day, that I mighthunt for it in every hole and corner there, and read it with my owneyes, and feel it with my own forefinger. 

And then that terrible prophetic song the old hag sings in the darkslum--how it haunted me, too! I could not shake it out of my troubledconsciousness for months:

 _Grouille, grève, grève, grouille, File, File, ma quenouille:_

 _File sa corde au bourreau Qui siffle dans le préau. 

 [Greek:"'Anagkae!'Anagkae!'Anagkae_!"]

Yes; it was worth while having been a little French boy just for a fewyears. 

I especially found it so during the holidays, which I regularly spent atBluefriars; for there was a French circulating library in Holborn, closeby--a paradise. It was kept by a delightful old French lady who had seenbetter days, and was very kind to me, and did not lend me all the booksI asked for!

Thus irresistibly beguiled by these light wizards of our degenerate age, I dreamed away most of my school life, utterly deaf to the voices of theolder enchanters--Homer, Horace, Virgil--whom I was sent to school onpurpose to make friends with; a deafness I lived to deplore, like otherdunces, when it was too late. 

 * * * * *

And I was not only given to dream by day--I dreamed by night; my sleepwas full of dreams--terrible nightmares, exquisite visions, strangescenes full of inexplicable reminiscence; all vague and incoherent, likeall men's dreams that have hitherto been; _for I had not yet learned howto dream_. 

A vast world, a dread and beautiful chaos, an ever-changing kaleidoscopeof life, too shadowy and dim to leave any lasting impression on thebusy, waking mind; with here and there more vivid images of terror ordelight, that one remembered for a few hours with a strange wonder andquestioning, as Coleridge remembered his Abyssinian maid who playedupon the dulcimer (a charming and most original combination). 

The whole cosmos is in a man's brains--as much of it, at least, as aman's brains will hold; perhaps it is nowhere else. And when sleeprelaxes the will, and there are no earthly surroundings to distractattention--no duty, pain, or pleasure to compel it--riderless Fancytakes the bit in its teeth, and the whole cosmos goes mad and has itswild will of us. 

[Illustration: "NOTRE DAME DE PARIS. "]

Ineffable false joys, unspeakable false terror and distress, strangephantoms only seen as in a glass darkly, chase each other without rhymeor reason, and play hide-and-seek across the twilit field and throughthe dark recesses of our clouded and imperfect consciousness. 

And the false terrors and distress, however unspeakable, are no worsethan such real terrors and distress as are only too often the waking lotof man, or even so bad; but the ineffable false joys transcend allpossible human felicity while they last, and a little while it is! Wewake, and wonder, and recall the slight foundation on which suchultra-human bliss has seemed to rest. What matters the foundation if butthe bliss be there, and the brain has nerves to feel it?

Poor human nature, so richly endowed with nerves of anguish, sosplendidly organized for pain and sorrow, is but slenderly equippedfor joy. 

What hells have we not invented for the afterlife! Indeed, what hells wehave often made of this, both for ourselves and others, and at reallysuch a very small cost of ingenuity, after all!

Perhaps the biggest and most benighted fools have been the besthell-makers. 

Whereas the best of our heavens is but a poor perfunctory conception, for all that the highest and cleverest among us have done their veryutmost to decorate and embellish it, and make life there seem worthliving. So impossible it is to imagine or invent beyond the sphere ofour experience. 

Now, these dreams of mine (common to many) of the false but ineffablejoys, are they not a proof that there exist in the human brain hiddencapacities, dormant potentialities of bliss, unsuspected hitherto, tobe developed some day, perhaps, and placed within the reach of all, wakers and sleepers alike?

A sense of ineffable joy, attainable at will, and equal in intensity andduration to (let us say) an attack of sciatica, would go far to equalizethe sorrowful, one-sided conditions under which we live. 

 * * * * *

But there is one thing which, as a school-boy, I never dreamed--namely, that I, and one other holding a torch, should one day, by commonconsent, find our happiness in exploring these mysterious caverns of thebrain; and should lay the foundations of order where only misrule hadbeen before: and out of all those unreal, waste, and transitory realmsof illusion, evolve a real, stable, and habitable world, which all whorun may reach. 

 * * * * *

At last I left school for good, and paid a visit to my Uncle Ibbetson inHopshire, where he was building himself a lordly new pleasure-house onhis own land, as the old one he had inherited a year or two ago was nolonger good enough for him. 

It was an uninteresting coast on the German Ocean, without a rock, or acliff, or a pier, or a tree; even without cold gray stones for the seato break on--nothing but sand!--a bourgeois kind of sea, charmless inits best moods, and not very terrible in its wrath, except to a fewstray fishermen whom it employed, and did not seem to reward verymunificently. 

Inland it was much the same. One always thought of the country as gray, until one looked and found that it was green; and then, if one were oldand wise, one thought no more about it, and turned one's gaze inward. Moreover, it seemed to rain incessantly. 

But it was the country and the sea, after Bluefriars and thecloisters--after Newgate, St. Bartholomew, and Smithfield. 

And one could fish and bathe in the sea after all, and ride in thecountry, and even follow the hounds, a little later; which would havebeen a joy beyond compare if one had not been blessed with an uncle whothought one rode like a French tailor, and told one so, and mimickedone, in the presence of charming young ladies who rode in perfection. 

In fact, it was heaven itself by comparison, and would have remained solonger but for Colonel Ibbetson's efforts to make a gentleman of me--anEnglish gentleman. 

What is a gentleman? It is a grand old name; but what does it mean?

At one time, to say of a man that he is a gentleman, is to confer on himthe highest title of distinction we can think of; even if we arespeaking of a prince. 

At another, to say of a man that he is _not_ a gentleman is almost tostigmatize him as a social outcast, unfit for the company of hiskind--even if it is only one haberdasher speaking of another. 

_Who_ is a gentleman, and yet who _is not_?

The Prince of Darkness was one, and so was Mr. John Halifax, if we areto believe those who knew them best; and so was one "Pelham, " accordingto the late Sir Edward Bulwer, Earl of Lytton, etc. ; and it certainlyseemed as if _he_ ought to know. 

And I was to be another, according to Roger Ibbetson, Esquire, ofIbbetson Hall, late Colonel of the--, and it certainly seemed as ifhe ought to know too! The word was as constantly on his lips (whentalking to _me_) as though, instead of having borne her Majesty'scommission, he were a hairdresser's assistant who had just come into anindependent fortune. 

This course of tuition began pleasantly enough, before I left London, byhis sending me to his tailors, who made me several beautiful suits;especially an evening suit, which has lasted me for life, alas; andthese, after the uniform of the gray-coat school, were like aninitiation to the splendors of freedom and manhood. 

Colonel Ibbetson--or Uncle Ibbetson, as I used to call him--was mymother's first cousin; my grandmother, Mrs. Biddulph, was the sister ofhis father, the late Archdeacon Ibbetson, a very pious, learned, andexemplary divine, of good family. 

But his mother (the Archdeacon's second wife) had been the only childand heiress of an immensely rich pawnbroker, by name Mendoza; aPortuguese Jew, with a dash of colored blood in his veins besides, itwas said; and, indeed, this remote African strain still showed itself inUncle Ibbetson's thick lips, wide open nostrils, and big black eyes withyellow whites--and especially in his long, splay, lark-heeled feet, which gave both himself and the best bootmaker in London a great dealof trouble. 

Otherwise, and in spite of his ugly face, he was not without a certainsoldier-like air of distinction, being very tall and powerfully built. He wore stays, and an excellent wig, for he was prematurely bald; and hecarried his hat on one side, which (in my untutored eyes) made him lookvery much like a "_swell_, " but not quite like a _gentleman_. 

To wear your hat jauntily cocked over one eye, and yet "look like agentleman!"

It can be done, I am told; and has been, and is even still! It is not, perhaps, a very lofty achievement--but such as it is, it requires asomewhat rare combination of social and physical gifts in the wearer;and the possession of either Semitic or African blood does not seem tobe one of these. 

[Illustration: "PORTRAIT CHARMANT, PORTRAIT DE MON AMIE . . . "]

Colonel Ibbetson could do a little of everything--sketch (especially asteam-boat on a smooth sea, with beautiful thick smoke reflected in thewater), play the guitar, sing chansonnettes and canzonets, write societyverses, quote De Musset--

 _"Avez-vous vu dans Barcelone Une Andalouse au sein bruni?"_

He would speak French whenever he could, even to an English ostler, andthen recollect himself suddenly, and apologize for his thoughtlessness;and even when he spoke English, he would embroider it with littletwo-penny French tags and idioms: "Pour tout potage"; "Nous avons changétout cela"; "Que diable allait-il faire dans cette galère?" etc. ; orItalian, "Chi lo sa?" "Pazienza!" "Ahimè!" or even Latin, "Eheufugaces, " and "Vidi tantum!" for he had been an Eton boy. It must havebeen very cheap Latin, for I could always understand it myself! He drewthe line at German and Greek; fortunately, for so do I. He was abachelor, and his domestic arrangements had been irregular, and I willnot dwell upon them; but his house, as far as it went, seemed to promisebetter things. 

His architect, Mr. Lintot, an extraordinary little man, full of geniusand quite self-made, became my friend and taught me to smoke, and drinkgin and water. 

He did his work well; but of an evening he used to drink more than wasgood for him, and rave about Shelley, his only poet. He would recite"The Skylark" (his only poem) with uncertain _h_'s, and a rathercockney accent--

 "'_Ail to thee blythe sperrit! Bird thou never wert, That from 'eaven, or near it Po'rest thy full 'eart In profuse strains of hunpremeditated hart_. "

As the evening wore on his recitations became "low comic, " and quiteadmirable for accent and humour. He could imitate all the actors inLondon (none of which I had seen) so well as to transport me withdelight and wonder; and all this with nobody but me for an audience, aswe sat smoking and drinking together in his room at the "Ibbetson Arms. "

I felt grateful to adoration. 

Later still, he would become sentimental again; and dilate to me on thejoys of his wedded life, on the extraordinary of intellect and beauty ofMrs. Lintot. First he would describe to me the beauties of her mind, andcompare her to "L. E. L. " and Felicia Hemans. Then he would fall back onher physical perfections; there was nobody worthy to be compared to herin these--but I draw the veil. 

He was very egotistical. Whatever he did, whatever he liked, whateverbelonged to him, was better than anything else in world; and he wascleverer than any one else, except Mrs. Lintot, to whom he yielded thepalm; and then he would cheer up and become funny again. 

In fact his self-satisfaction was quite extraordinary; and what is moreextraordinary still, it was not a bit offensive--at least, to me;perhaps because he was such a tiny little man; or because much of thisvanity of his seemed to have no very solid foundation, for it was not ofthe gifts I most admired in him that he was vainest; or because it cameout most when he was most tipsy, and genial tipsiness redeems so much;or else because he was most vain about things I should never have beenvain about myself; and the most unpardonable vanity in others is thatwhich is secretly our own, whether we are conscious of it or not. 

[Illustration: "I FELT GRATEFUL TO ADORATION. "]

And then he was the first funny man I had ever met. What a gift it is!He was always funny when he tried to be, whether one laughed with him orat him, and I loved him for it. Nothing on earth is more patheticallypitiable than the funny man when he still tries and succeeds no longer. 

The moment Lintot's vein was exhausted, he had the sense to leave offand begin to cry, which was still funny; and then I would jump out ofhis clothes and into his bed and be asleep in a second, with the tearsstill trickling down his little nose--and even that was funny!

But next morning he was stern and alert and indefatiguable, as thoughgin and poetry and conjugal love had never been, and fun were acapital crime. 

Uncle Ibbetson thought highly of him as an architect, but not otherwise;he simply made use of him. 

"He's a terrible little snob, of course, and hasn't got an _h_ in hishead" (as if _that_ were a capital crime); "but he's very clever--lookat that campanile--and then he's cheap, my boy, cheap. "

There were several fine houses in fine parks not very far from IbbetsonHall; but although Uncle Ibbetson appeared in name and wealth and socialposition to be on a par with their owners, he was not on terms ofintimacy with any of them, or even of acquaintance, as far as I know, and spoke of them with contempt, as barbarians--people with whom he hadnothing in common. Perhaps they, too, had found out thisincompatibility, especially the ladies; for, school-boy as I was, I wasnot long in discovering that his manner towards those of the other sexwas not always such as to please either of them or their husbands orfathers or brothers. The way he looked at them was enough. Indeed, mostof his lady-friends and acquaintances through life had belonged to the_corps de ballet_, the _demi-monde_, etc. --not, I should imagine, thebest school of manners in the world. 

On the other hand, he was very friendly with some families in the town;the doctor's, the rector's, his own agent's (a broken-down brotherofficer and bosom friend, who had ceased to love him since he receivedhis pay); and he used to take Mr. Lintot and me to parties there; and hewas the life of those parties. 

He sang little French songs, with no voice, but quite a good Frenchaccent, and told little anecdotes with no particular point, but inFrench and Italian (so that the point was never missed); and we alllaughed and admired without quite knowing why, except that he was thelord of the manor. 

On these festive occasions poor Lintot's confidence and power of amusingseemed to desert him altogether; he sat glum in a corner. 

Though a radical and a sceptic, and a peace-at-any-price man, he wasmuch impressed by the social status of the army and the church. 

Of the doctor, a very clever and accomplished person, and the besteducated man for miles around, he thought little; but the rector, thecolonel, the poor captain, even, now a mere land-steward, seemed to fillhim with respectful awe. And for his pains he was cruelly snubbed byMrs. Captain and Mrs. Rector and their plain daughters, who littleguessed what talents he concealed, and thought him quite a common littleman, hardly fit to turn over the leaves of their music. 

It soon became pretty evident that Ibbetson was very much smitten witha Mrs. Deane, the widow of a brewer, a very handsome woman indeed, inher own estimation and mine, and everybody else's, except Mr. Lintot's, who said, "Pooh, you should see my wife!"

Her mother, Mrs. Glyn, excelled us all in her admiration of ColonelIbbetson. 

For instance, Mrs. Deane would play some common little waltz of thecheap kind that is never either remembered or forgotten, and Mrs. Glynwould exclaim, "_Is_ not that _lovely_?"

And Ibbetson would say: "Charming! charming! Whose is it? Rossini's?Mozart's?"

"Why, no, my dear colonel. Don't you remember? _It's your own_!"

"Ah, so it is! I had quite forgotten. " And general laughter and applausewould burst forth at such a natural mistake on the part of ourgreat man. 

Well, I could neither play nor sing, and found it far easier by thistime to speak English than French, especially to English people who wereignorant of any language but their own. Yet sometimes Colonel Ibbetsonwould seem quite proud of me. 

"Deux mètres, bien sonnés!" he would say, alluding to my stature, "et leprofil d'Antinoüs!" which he would pronounce without the two little dotson the _u_. 

And afterwards, if he had felt his evening a pleasant one, if he hadsung all he knew, if Mrs. Deane had been more than usually loving andself-surrendering, and I had distinguished myself by skilfully turningover the leaves when her mother had played the piano, he would tell me, as we walked home together, that I "did credit to his name, and that Iwould make an excellent figure in the world as soon as I had _décrassé_myself; that I must get another dress-suit from his tailor, just aneighth of an inch longer in the tails; that I should have a commissionin his old regiment (the Eleventeenth Royal Bounders), a deuced crackcavalry regiment; and see the world and break a few hearts (it is notfor nothing that our friends have pretty wives and sisters); and finallymarry some beautiful young heiress of title, and make a home for himwhen he was a poor solitary old fellow. Very little would do for him: acrust of bread, a glass of wine and water, and a clean napkin, a coupleof rooms, and an old piano and a few good books. For, of course, Ibbetson Hall would be mine and every penny he possessed in the world. "

[Illustration:]

All this in confidential French--lest the very clouds should hearus--and with the familiar thee and thou of blood-relationship, which Idid not care to return. 

It did not seem to bode very serious intentions towards Mrs. Deane, andwould scarcely have pleased her mother. 

Or else, if something had crossed him, and Mrs. Deane had flirtedoutrageously with somebody else, and he had not been asked to sing (orsomebody else had), he would assure me in good round English that I wasthe most infernal lout that ever disgraced a drawing-room, or ate a manout of house and home, and that he was sick and ashamed of me. "Whycan't you sing, you d--d French milksop? The d--d roulade-monger of afather of yours could sing fast enough, if he could do nothing else, confound him! Why can't you talk French, you infernal British booby? Whycan't you hand round the tea and muffins, confound you! Why, twice Mrs. Glyn dropped her pocket-handkerchief and had to pick it up herself!What, 'at the other end of the room, ' were you? Well, you should haveskipped _across_ the room, and picked it up, and handed it to her with apretty speech, like a gentleman! When I was your age I was _always_ onthe lookout for ladies' pocket-handkerchiefs to drop--or their fans! Inever missed _one_!"

Then he would take me out to shoot with him (for it was quite essentialthat an English gentleman should be a sportsman)--a terrible ordeal toboth of us. 

A snipe that I did not want to kill in the least would sometimes riseand fly right and left like a flash of lightning, and I would missit--always; and he would d--n me for a son of a confounded FrenchMicawber, and miss the next himself, and get into a rage and thrash hisdog, a pointer that I was very fond of. Once he thrashed her so cruellythat I saw scarlet, and nearly yielded to the impulse of emptying bothmy barrels in his broad back. If I had done so it would have passed fora mere mishap, after all, and saved many future complications. 

 * * * * *

One day he pointed out to me a small bird pecking in a field--anextremely pretty bird--I think it was a skylark--and whispered to me inhis most sarcastic manner--

"Look here, you Peter without any salt, do you think, if you were tokneel down and rest your gun comfortably on this gate without making anoise, and take a careful aim, you could manage to shoot that bird_sitting_? I've heard of some Frenchmen who would be equal to _that_!"

I said I would try, and, resting my gun as he told me, I carefully aimeda couple of yards above the bird's head, and mentally ejaculating, "'_All to thee blythe sperrit_!"

I fired both barrels (for fear of any after-mishap to Ibbetson), and thebird naturally flew away. 

After this he never took me out shooting with him again; and, indeed, Ihad discovered to my discomfiture that I, the friend and admirer andwould-be emulator of Natty Bumppo the Deerslayer, I, the familiar of thelast of the Mohicans and his scalp-lifting father, could not bear thesight of blood--least of all, of blood shed by myself, and for my ownamusement. 

The only beast that ever fell to my gun during those shootings withUncle Ibbetson was a young rabbit, and that more by accident thandesign, although I did not tell Uncle Ibbetson so. 

As I picked it off the ground, and felt its poor little warm narrowchest, and the last beats of its heart under its weak ribs, and saw theblood on its fur, I was smitten with pity, shame, and remorse; andsettled with myself that I would find some other road to Englishgentlemanhood than the slaying of innocent wild things whose happy lifeseems so well worth living. 

[Illustration: "'AIL TO THEE BLYTHE SPERRIT!"]

I must eat them, I suppose, but I would never shoot them any more; myhands, at least, should be clean of blood henceforward. 

Alas, the irony of fate!

The upshot of all this was that he confided to Mrs. Deane the task oflicking his cub of a nephew into shape. She took me in hand with rightgood-will, began by teaching me how to dance, that I might dance withher at the coming hunt ball; and I did so nearly all night, to myinfinite joy and triumph, and to the disgust of Colonel Ibbetson, whocould dance much better than I--to the disgust, indeed, of many smartmen in red coats and black, for she was considered the belle ofthe evening. 

[Illustration: THE DANCING LESSON. ]

Of course I fell, or fancied I fell, in love with her. To her mother'sextreme distress, she gave me every encouragement, partly for fun, partly to annoy Colonel Ibbetson, whom she had apparently grown to hate. And, indeed, from the way he spoke of her to me (this trainer of Englishgentlemen), he well deserved that she should hate him. He never had theslightest intention of marrying her--that is certain; and yet he hadmade her the talk of the place. 

And here I may state that Ibbetson was one of those singular men who gothrough life afflicted with the mania that they are fatallyirresistible to women. 

He was never weary of pursuing them--not through any special love ofgallantry for its own sake, I believe, but from the mere wish to appearas a Don Giovanni in the eyes of others. Nothing made him happier thanto be seen whispering mysteriously in corners with the prettiest womanin the room. He did not seem to perceive that for one woman silly orvain or vulgar enough to be flattered by his idiotic persecution, adozen would loathe the very sight of him, and show it plainly enough. 

This vanity had increased with years and assumed a very dangerous form. He became indiscreet, and, more disastrous still, he told lies! The verydead--the honored and irreproachable dead--were not even safe in theirgraves. It was his revenge for unforgotten slights. 

He who kisses and tells, he who tells even though he has notkissed--what can be said for him, what should be done to him?

Ibbetson one day expiated this miserable craze with his life, and theman who took it--more by accident than design, it is true--has not yetfound it in his heart to feel either compunction or regret. 

 * * * * *

So there was a great row between Ibbetson and myself. He d----d andconfounded and abused me in every way, and my father before me, andfinally struck me; and I had sufficient self-command not to strike himback, but left him then and there with as much dignity as Icould muster. 

Thus unsuccessfully ended my brief experience of English country life--alittle hunting and shooting and fishing, a little dancing and flirting;just enough of each to show me I was unfit for all. 

A bitter-sweet remembrance, full of humiliation, but not altogetherwithout charm. There was the beauty of sea and open sky and changingcountry weather; and the beauty of Mrs. Deane, who made a fool of me torevenge herself on Colonel Ibbetson for trying to make a fool of her, whereby he became the laughing-stock of the neighborhood for at leastnine days. 

And I revenged myself on both--heroically, as I thought; though wherethe heroism comes in, and where the revenge, does not appearquite patent. 

For I ran away to London, and enlisted in her Majesty's HouseholdCavalry, where I remained a twelvemonth, and was happy enough, andlearned a great deal more good than harm. 

 * * * * *

Then I was bought out and articled to Mr. Lintot, architect andsurveyor: a conclave of my relatives agreeing to allow me ninety poundsa year for three years; then all hands were to be washed of mealtogether. [A]

[Footnote A: _Note_. --I have thought it better to leave out, in itsentirety, my cousin's account of his short career as a private soldier. It consists principally of personal descriptions that are not altogetherunprejudiced; he seems never to have quite liked those who were placedin authority above him, either at school or in the army. MADGE PLUNKET. ]

 * * * * *

So I took a small lodging in Pentonville, to be near Mr. Lintot, andworked hard at my new profession for three years, during which nothingof importance occurred in my outer life. After this Lintot employed meas a salaried clerk, and I do not think he had any reason to complain ofme, nor did he make any complaint. I was worth my hire, I think, andsomething over; which I never got and never asked for. 

Nor did I complain of him; for with all his little foibles of vanity, irascibility, and egotism, and a certain close-fistedness, he was a goodfellow and a very clever one. 

His paragon of a wife was by no means the beautiful person he had madeher out to be, nor did anybody but he seem to think her so. 

She was a little older than himself; very large and massive, with sternbut not irregular features, and a very high forehead; she had a slighttendency to baldness, and colorless hair that she wore in an austerecurl on each side of her face, and a menacing little topknot on herocciput. She had been a Unitarian and a governess, was fond of good longwords, like Dr. Johnson, and very censorious. 

But one of my husband's intimate friends, General----, who was cornet inthe Life Guards in my poor cousin's time, writes me that "he remembershim well, as far and away the tallest and handsomest lad in the wholeregiment, of immense physical strength, unimpeachable good conduct, anda thorough gentleman from top to toe. "

Her husband's occasional derelictions in the matter of grammar andaccent must have been very trying to her!

[Illustration: PENTONVILLE. ]

She knew her own mind about everything under the sun, and expected thatother people should know it, too, and be of the same mind as herself. And yet she was not proud; indeed, she was a very dragon of humility, and had raised injured meekness to the rank of a militant virtue. Andwell she knew how to be master and mistress in her own house!

But with all this she was an excellent wife to Mr. Lintot and a devotedmother to his children, who were very plain and subdued (and adoredtheir father); so that Lintot, who thought her Venus and Diana andMinerva in one, was the happiest man in all Pentonville. 

And, on the whole, she was kind and considerate to me, and I always didmy best to please her. 

Moreover (a gift for which I could never be too grateful), she presentedme with an old square piano, which had belonged to her mother, and haddone duty in her school-room, till Lintot gave her a new one (for shewas a highly cultivated musician of the severest classical type). Itbecame the principal ornament of my small sitting-room, which it nearlyfilled, and on it I tried to learn my notes, and would pick out with onefinger the old beloved melodies my father used to sing, and my motherplay on the harp. 

To sing myself was, it seems, out of the question; my voice (which Itrust was not too disagreeable when I was content merely to speak)became as that of a bull-frog under a blanket whenever I strove toexpress myself in song; my larynx refused to produce the notes I held soaccurately in my mind, and the result was disaster. 

On the other hand, in my mind I could sing most beautifully. Once on arainy day, inside an Islington omnibus, I mentally sang "Adelaida" withthe voice of Mr. Sims Reeves--an unpardonable liberty to take; andalthough it is not for me to say so, I sang it even better than he, forI made myself shed tears--so much so that a kind old gentleman sittingopposite seemed to feel for me very much. 

I also had the faculty of remembering any tune I once heard, and wouldwhistle it correctly ever after--even one of Uncle Ibbetson's waltzes!

As an instance of this, worth recalling, one night I found myself inGuildford Street, walking in the same direction as another belatedindividual (only on the other side of the road), who, just as the mooncame out of a cloud, was moved to whistle. 

He whistled exquisitely, and, what was more, he whistled quite the mostbeautiful tune I had ever heard. I felt all its changes and modulations, its majors and minors, just as if a whole band had been there to playthe accompaniment, so cunning and expressive a whistler was he. 

And so entranced was I that I made up my mind to cross over and ask himwhat it was--"Your melody or your life!" But he suddenly stopped at No. 48, and let himself in with his key before I could prefer myhumble request. 

Well, I went whistling that tune all next day, and for many days after, without ever finding out what it was; till one evening, happening to beat the Lintots. I asked Mrs. Lintot (who happened to be at the piano) ifshe knew it, and began to whistle it once more. To my delight andsurprise she straightway accompanied it all through (a wonderfulcondescension in so severe a purist), and I did not make a singlewrong note. 

"Yes, " said Mrs. Lintot, "it's a pretty, catchy little tune--of a kindto achieve immediate popularity. "

Now, I apologize humbly to the reader for this digression; but if he bemusical he will forgive me, for that tune was the "Serenade" ofSchubert, and I had never even heard Schubert's name!

And having thus duly apologized, I will venture to transgress anddigress anew, and mention here a kind of melodic malady, a singularobsession to which I am subject, and which I will call unconsciousmusical cerebration. 

I am never without some tune running in my head--never for a moment; notthat I am always aware of it; existence would be insupportable if Iwere. What part of my brain sings it, or rather in what part of my brainit sings itself, I cannot imagine--probably in some useless corner fullof cobwebs and lumber that is fit for nothing else. 

But it never leaves off; now it is one tune, now another; now a song_without_ words, now _with_; sometimes it is near the surface, so tospeak, and I am vaguely conscious of it as I read or work, or talk orthink; sometimes to make sure it is there I have to dive for it deepinto myself, and I never fail to find it after a while, and bring it upto the top. It is the "Carnival of Venice, " let us say; then I let itsink again, and it changes without my knowing; so that when I takeanother dive the "Carnival of Venice" has become "Il Mio Tesoro, " or the"Marseillaise, " or "Pretty Little Polly Perkins of Paddington Green. "And Heaven knows what tunes, unheard and unperceived, this internalbarrel-organ has been grinding meanwhile. 

Sometimes it intrudes itself so persistently as to become a nuisance, and the only way to get rid of it is to whistle or sing myself. Forinstance, I may be mentally reciting for my solace and delectation somebeloved lyric like "The Waterfowl, " or "Tears, Idle Tears, " or "Break, Break, Break"; and all the while, between the lines, this fiend of asubcerebral vocalist, like a wandering minstrel in a distant square, insists on singing, "Cheer, Boys, Cheer, " or, "Tommy, make room foryour uncle" (tunes I cannot abide), with words, accompaniment, and all, complete, and not quite so refined an accent as I could wish; so that Ihave to leave off my recitation and whistle "J'ai du Bon Tabac" in quitea different key to exorcise it. 

But this, at least, I will say for this never still small voice of mine:its intonation is always perfect; it keeps ideal time, and its quality, though rather thin and somewhat nasal and quite peculiar, is notunsympathetic. Sometimes, indeed (as in that Islington omnibus), I cancompel it to imitate, _à s'y méprendre_, the tones of some singer I haverecently heard, and thus make for myself a ghostly music which is not tobe despised. 

Occasionally, too, and quite unbidden, it would warble little impromptuinward melodies of my own composition, which often seemed to meextremely pretty, old-fashioned, and quaint; but one is not a fair judgeof one's own productions, especially during the heat of inspiration; andI had not the means of recording them, as I had never learned themusical notes. What the world has lost!

Now whose this small voice was I did not find out till many years later, _for it was not mine_!

 * * * * *

In spite of such rare accomplishments and resources within myself, I wasnot a happy or contented young man; nor had my discontent in it anythingof the divine. 

I disliked my profession, for which I felt no particular aptitude, andwould fain have followed another--poetry, science, literature, music, painting, sculpture; for all of which I most unblushingly thought myselfbetter fitted by the gift of nature. 

I disliked Pentonville, which, although clean, virtuous, andrespectable, left much to be desired on the score of shape, color, romantic tradition, and local charm; and I would sooner have livedanywhere else: in the Champs-Élysées, let us say--yes, indeed, even onthe fifth branch of the third tree on the left-hand side as you leavethe Arc de Triomphe, like one of those classical heroes in HenriMurger's _Vie de Bohème_. 

I disliked my brother apprentices, and did not get on well with them, especially a certain very clever but vicious and deformed youth calledJudkins, who seemed to have conceived an aversion for me from the first;he is now an associate of the Royal Academy. They thought I gave myselfairs because I did not share in their dissipations; such dissipations asI could have afforded would have been cheap and nasty indeed. 

Yet such pothouse dissipation seemed to satisfy them, since they tooknot only a pleasure in it, but a pride. 

They even took a pride in a sick headache, and liked it, if it were theresult of a debauch on the previous night; and were as pompouslymock-modest about a black eye, got in a squabble at the Argyll Rooms, asif it had been the Victoria Cross. To pass the night in a police cellwas such glory that it was worth while pretending they had done so whenit was untrue. 

They looked upon me as a muff, a milksop, and a prig, and felt thegreatest contempt for me; and if they did not openly show it, it wasonly because they were not quite so fond of black eyes as they made out. 

So I left them to their inexpensive joys, and betook myself to pursuitsof my own, among others to the cultivation of my body, after methods Ihad learned in the Life Guards. I belonged to a gymnastic and fencingand boxing club, of which I was a most assiduous frequenter; a morepersevering dumb-beller and Indian-clubber never was, and I became intime an all-round athlete, as wiry and lean as a greyhound, just underfifteen stone, and four inches over six feet in height, which wasconsidered very tall thirty years ago; especially in Pentonville, wherethe distinction often brought me more contumely than respect. 

Altogether a most formidable person; but that I was of a timid nature, afraid to hurt, and the peacefulest creature in the world. 

My old love for slums revived, and I found out and haunted the worst inLondon. They were very good slums, but they were not the slums ofParis--they manage these things better in France. 

Even Cow Cross (where the Metropolitan Railway now runs between King'sCross and Farringdon Street)--Cow Cross, that whilom labyrinth ofslaughter-houses, gin-shops, and thieves' dens, with the famous FleetDitch running underneath it all the while, lacked the fascination andmystery of mediaeval romance. There were no memories of such charmingpeople as Le roi des Truands and Gringoire and Esmeralda; with a sighone had to fall back on visions of Fagin and Bill Sykes and Nancy. 

_Quelle dégringolade_!

And as to the actual denizens! One gazed with a dull, wondering pity atthe poor, pale, rickety children; the slatternly, coarse women who neversmiled (except when drunk); the dull, morose, miserable men. How theylacked the grace of French deformity, the ease and lightness of Frenchdepravity, the sympathetic distinction of French grotesqueness. Howunterrible they were, who preferred the fist to the noiseless andinsidious knife! who fought with their hands instead of their feet, quite loyally; and reserved the kicks of their hobnailed boots for theirrecalcitrant wives!

And then there was no Morgue; one missed one's Morgue badly. 

And Smithfield! It would split me truly to the heart (as M. Le Majorused to say) to watch the poor beasts that came on certain days to makea short station in that hideous cattle-market, on their way to theslaughter-house. 

What bludgeons have I seen descend on beautiful, bewildered, dazed, meekeyes, so thickly fringed against the country sun; on soft, moist, tendernostrils that clouded the poisonous reek with a fragrance of the far-offfields! What torture of silly sheep and genially cynical pigs!

The very dogs seemed demoralized, and brutal as their masters. And thereone day I had an adventure, a dirty bout at fisticuffs, most humiliatingin the end for me and which showed that chivalry is often its ownreward, like virtue, even when the chivalrous are young and big andstrong, and have learned to box. 

A brutal young drover wantonly kicked a sheep, and, as I thought, brokeher hind-leg, and in my indignation I took him by the ear and flung himround onto a heap of mud and filth. He rose and squared at me in a mostplucky fashion; he hardly came up to my chin, and I refused to fighthim. A crowd collected round us, and as I tried to explain to theby-standers the cause of our quarrel, he managed to hit me in the facewith a very muddy fist. 

"Bravo, little 'un!" shouted the crowd, and he squared up again. I feltwretchedly ashamed and warded off all his blows, telling him that Icould not hit him or I should kill him. 

"Yah!" shouted the crowd again; "go it, little un! Let 'im 'ave it! Thelong un's showing the white feather, " etc. , and finally I gave him aslight backhander that made his nose bleed and seemed to demoralize himcompletely. "Yah!" shouted the crowd; "'it one yer own size!"

I looked round in despair and rage, and picking out the biggest man Icould see, said, "Are _you_ big enough?" The crowd roared with laughter. 

"Well, guv'ner, I dessay I might do at a pinch, " he replied; and I triedto slap his face, but missed it, and received such a tremendous box onthe ear that I was giddy for a second or two, and when I recovered Ifound him still grinning at me. I tried to hit him again and again, butalways missed; and at last, without doing me any particular damage, helaid me flat three times running onto the very heap where I had flungthe drover, the crowd applauding madly. Dazed, hatless, and panting, andcovered with filth, I stared at him in hopeless impotence. He put outhis hand, and said, "You're all right, ain't yer, guv'ner? I 'ope I'aven't 'urt yer! My name's Tom Sayers. If you'd a 'it me, I should 'a'gone down like a ninepin, and I ain't so sure as I should ever 'ave gotup again. "

He was to become the most famous fighting-man in England!

I wrung his hand and thanked him, and offered him a sovereign, which herefused; and then he led me into a room in a public-house close by, where he washed and brushed me down, and insisted on treating me to aglass of brandy-and-water. 

I have had a fondness for fighting-men ever since, and a respect for thenoble science I had never felt before. He was many inches shorter thanI, and did not look at all the Hercules he was. 

He told me I was the strongest built man for a youngster that he hadever seen, barring that I was "rather leggy. " I do not know if he wassincere or not, but no possible compliment could have pleased me more. Such is the vanity of youth. 

And here, although it savors somewhat of vaingloriousness, I cannotresist the temptation of relating another adventure of the same kind, but in which I showed to greater advantage. 

It was on a boxing-day (oddly enough), and I was returning with Lintotand one of his boys from a walk in the Highgate Fields. As we plodded ourdirty way homeward through the Caledonian Road we were stopped by acrowd outside a public-house. A gigantic drayman (they always seembigger than they really are) was squaring up to a poor drunken lout of anavvy not half his size, who had been put up to fight him, and who wasquite incapable of even an attempt it self-defence; he could scarcelylift his arms, I thought at first it was only horse-play; and as littleJoe Lintot wanted to see, I put him up on my shoulder, just as thedrayman, who had been drinking, but was not drunk, and had a mostfiendishly brutal face, struck the poor tipsy wretch with all his mightbetween the eyes, and felled him (it was like pole-axing a bullock), tothe delight of the crowd. 

Little Joe, a very gentle and sensitive boy, began to cry; and hisfather, who had the pluck of a bull-terrier, wanted to interfere, inspite of his diminutive stature. I was also beside myself withindignation, and pulling off my coat and hat, which I gave to Lintot, made my way to the drayman, who was offering to fight any three men inthe crowd, an offer that met with no response. 

"Now, then, you cowardly skunk!" I said, tucking up my shirt-sleeves;"stand up, and I will knock every tooth down your ugly throat. "

His face went the colors of a mottled Stilton cheese, and he asked whatI meddled with him for. A ring formed itself, and I felt the sympathy ofthe crowd _with_ me this time--a very agreeable sensation!

"Now, then, up with your arms! I'm going to kill you!"

"I ain't going to fight you, mister; I ain't going to fight _nobody_. Just you let me alone!"

[Illustration:]

"Oh yes, you are, or you're going on your marrow-bones to be pardon forbeing a brutal, cowardly skunk"; and I gave him a slap on the face thatrang like a pistol-shot--a most finished, satisfactory, and successfulslap this time. My finger-tips tingle at the bare remembrance. 

He tried to escape, but was held opposite to me. He began to snivel andwhimper, and said he had never meddled with me, and asked what should Imeddle with him for?

"Then down on your knees--quick--this instant!" and I made as if I weregoing to begin serious business at once, and no mistake. 

So down he plumped on his knees, and there he actually fainted fromsheer excess of emotion. 

As I was helped on with my coat, I tasted, for once in my life thesweets of popularity, and knew what it was to be the idol of a mob. 

Little Joey Lintot and his brothers and sisters, who had never held mein any particular regard before that I knew of, worshipped me from thatday forward. 

And I should be insincere if I did not confess that on that one occasionI was rather pleased with myself, although the very moment I stoodopposite the huge, hulking, beer-sodden brute (who had looked soformidable from afar) I felt, with a not unpleasant sense of relief, that he did not stand a chance. He was only big, and even at that Ibeat him. 

The real honors of the day belonged to Lintot, who, I am convinced, wasready to act the David to that Goliath. He had the real stomach forfighting, which I lacked, as very tall men are often said to do. 

And that, perhaps, is why I have made so much of my not very wonderfulprowess on that occasion; not, indeed, that I am physically a coward--atleast, I do not think so. If I thought I were I should avow it with nomore shame than I should avow that I had a bad digestion, or a weakheart, which makes cowards of us all. 

It is that I hate a row, and violence, and bloodshed, even from anose--any nose, either my own or my neighbor's. 

 * * * * *

There are slums at the east end of London that many fashionable peopleknow something of by this time; I got to know them by heart. In additionto the charm of the mere slum, there was the eternal fascination of theseafaring element; of Jack ashore--a lovable creature who touchesnothing but what he adorns it in his own peculiar fashion. 

I constantly haunted the docks, where the smell of tar and the sight ofropes and masts filled me with unutterable longings for the sea--fordistant lands--for anywhere but where it was my fate to be. 

I talked to ship captains and mates and sailors, and heard manymarvellous tales, as the reader may well believe, and framed for myselfvisions of cloudless skies, and sapphire seas, and coral reefs, andgroves of spice, and dusky youths in painted plumage roving, andfriendly isles where a lovely half-clad, barefooted Neuha would wave hertorch, and lead me, her Torquil, by the hand through caverns of bliss!

Especially did I haunt a wharf by London Bridge, from whence twosteamers--the _Seine_ and the _Dolphin_, I believe--started on alternatedays for Boulogne-sur-Mer. 

I used to watch the happy passengers bound for France, some of them, intheir holiday spirits, already fraternizing together on the sunny deck, and fussing with camp-stools and magazines and novels and bottlesof bitter beer, or retiring before the funnel to smoke the pipe ofpeace. 

[Illustration: THE BOULOGNE STEAMER. ]

The sound of the boiler getting up steam--what delicious music it was!Would it ever get up steam for me? The very smell of the cabin, the veryfeel of the brass gangway and the brass-bound, oil-clothed steps weredelightful; and down-stairs, on the snowy cloth, were the cold beef andham, the beautiful fresh mustard, the bottles of pale ale and stout. Oh, happy travellers, who could afford all this, and France intothe bargain!

Soon would a large white awning make the after-deck a paradise, fromwhich, by-and-by, to watch the quickly gliding panorama of the Thames. The bell would sound for non-passengers like me to go ashore--"Quediable allait-il faire dans cette galère!" as Uncle Ibbetson would havesaid. The steamer, disengaging itself from the wharf with a pleasantyoho-ing of manly throats and a slow, intermittent plashing of thepaddle-wheels, would carefully pick its sunny, eastward way among thesmall craft of the river, while a few handkerchiefs were waved in afriendly, make-believe farewell--_auf wiedersehen_!

Oh, to stand by that unseasonably sou'-westered man at the wheel, andwatch St. Paul's and London Bridge and the Tower of London fade out ofsight--never, never to see them again. No _auf wiedersehen_ for me!

Sometimes I would turn my footsteps westward and fill my hungry, jealouseyes with a sight of the gay summer procession in Hyde Park, or listento the band in Kensington Gardens, and see beautiful, welldressedwomen, and hear their sweet, refined voices and happy laughter; and alonging would come into my heart more passionate than my longing for thesea and France and distant lands, and quite as unutterable. I would evenforget Neuha and her torch. 

After this it was a dreary downfall to go and dine for tenpence all bymyself, and finish up with a book at my solitary lodgings inPentonville. The book would not let itself be read; it sulked and had tobe laid down, for "beautiful woman! beautiful girl!" spelled themselvesbetween me and the printed page. Translate me those words into French, Oye who can even render Shakespeare into French Alexandrines--"Bellefemme? Belle fille?" Ha! ha!

If you want to get as near it as you can, you will have to write, "BelleAnglaise, " or "Belle Américaine;" only then will you be understood, evenin France!

Ah! elle était bien belle, Madame Seraskier!

At other times, more happily inspired, I would slake my thirst fornature by long walks into the country. Hampstead was my Passy--theLeg-of-Mutton Pond my Mare d'Auteuil; Richmond was my St. Cloud, withKew Gardens for a Bois de Boulogne; and Hampton Court made a very fairVersailles--how incomparably fairer, even a pupil of Lintot'sshould know. 

And after such healthy fatigue and fragrant impressions the tenpennydinner had a better taste, the little front parlor in Pentonville wasmore like a home, the book more like a friend. 

For I read all I could get in English or French. 

[Illustration]

Novels, travels, history, poetry, science--everything came as grist tothat most melancholy mill, my mind. 

I tried to write; I tried to draw; I tried to make myself an inner lifeapart from the sordid, commonplace ugliness of my outer one--a privateoasis of my own; and to raise myself a little, if only mentally, abovethe circumstances in which it had pleased the Fates to place me. [A]

[Footnote A: _Note_--It Is with great reluctance that I now come to mycousin's account of deplorable opinions he held, at that period of hislife, on the most important subject that can ever engross the mind ofman. I have left out _much_, but I feel that in suppressing italtogether, I should rob his sad story of all its moral significance;for it cannot be doubted that most of his unhappiness is attributable tothe defective religious training of his childhood, and that his parents(otherwise the best and kindest people I have ever known) incurred aterrible responsibility when they determined to leave him "unbiased, " ashe calls it, at that tender and susceptible age when the mind is "Wax to receive, marble to retain. " Madge Plunket. ]

 * * * * *

It goes without saying that, like many thoughtful youths of a melancholytemperament, impecunious and discontented with their lot, and much givento the smoking of strong tobacco (on an empty stomach), I continuouslybrooded on the problems of existence--free-will and determinism, thewhence and why and whither of man, the origin of evil, the immortalityof the soul, the futility of life, etc. , and made myself very miserableover such questions. 

Often the inquisitive passer-by, had he peeped through the blinds ofNo. --Wharton Street, Pentonville, late at night, would have beenrewarded by the touching spectacle of a huge, rawboned ex-private in herMajesty's Life Guards, with his head bowed over the black and yellowkey-board of a venerable square piano-forte (on which he could notplay), dropping the bitter tear of loneliness and _Weltschmertz_ combined. 

[Illustration]

It never once occurred to me to seek relief in the bosom of any Church. 

Some types are born and not made. I was a born "infidel;" if ever therewas a congenital agnostic, one agnostically constituted from his verybirth, it was I. Not that I had ever heard such an expression asagnosticism; it is an invention of late years. . . . 

 "_J'avais fait de la prose toute ma vie sans le savoir!_"

But almost the first conscious dislike I can remember was for the blackfigure of the priest, and there were several of these figures in Passy. 

Monsieur le Major called them _maîtres corbeaux_, and seemed to holdthem in light esteem. Dr. Seraskier hated them; his gentle Catholic wifehad grown to distrust them. My loving, heretic mother loved them not; myfather, a Catholic born and bred, had an equal aversion. They hadpersecuted his gods--the thinkers, philosophers, and scientificdiscoverers--Galileo, Bruno, Copernicus; and brought to his mind thecruelties of the Holy Inquisition, the Massacre of St. Bartholomew; andI always pictured them as burning little heretics alive if they hadtheir will--Eton jackets, white chimney-pot hats, and all!

I have no doubt they were in reality the best and kindest of men. 

The parson (and parsons were not lacking in Pentonville) was not soinsidiously repellent as the blue-cheeked, blue-chinned Passy priest;but he was by no means to me a picturesque or sympathetic apparition, with his weddedness, his whiskers, his black trousers, his frock-coat, his tall hat, his little white tie, his consciousness of being a"gentleman" by profession. Most unattractive, also, were the cheap, brand-new churches wherein he spoke the word to his dreary-looking, Sunday-clad flock, with scarcely one of whom his wife would have satdown to dinner--especially if she had been chosen from among them. 

[Illustration: SUNDAY IN PENTONVILLE. ]

To watch that flock pouring in of a Sunday morning, or afternoon, orevening, at the summons of those bells, and pouring out again after thelong service, and banal, perfunctory sermon, was depressing. Weekdays, in Pentonville, were depressing enough; but Sundays were depressingbeyond words, though nobody seemed to think so but myself. Earlytraining had acclimatized them. 

I have outlived those physical antipathies of my salad days; even thesight of an Anglican bishop is no longer displeasing to me, on thecontrary; and I could absolutely rejoice in the beauty of a cardinal. 

Indeed, I am now friends with both a parson and a priest, and do notknow which of the two I love and respect the most. They ought to hateme, but they do not; they pity me too much, I suppose. I am too negativeto rouse in either the deep theological hate; and all the little hatethat the practice of love and charity has left in their kind hearts isreserved for each other--an unquenchable hate in which they seem toglory, and which rages all the more that it has to be concealed. Itsaddens me to think that I am a bone of contention between them. 

And yet, for all my unbelief, the Bible was my favorite book, and thePsalms my adoration; and most truly can I affirm that my mental attitudehas ever been one of reverence and humility. 

But every argument that has ever been advanced against Christianity (andI think I know them all by this time) had risen spontaneously andunprompted within me, and they have all seemed to me unanswerable, andindeed, as yet, unanswered. Nor had any creed of which I ever heardappeared to me either credible or attractive or even sensible, but forthe central figure of the Deity--a Deity that in no case could everbe mine. 

The awe-inspiring and unalterable conception that had wrought itselfinto my consciousness, whether I would or no, was that of a Beinginfinitely more abstract, remote, and inaccessible than any the geniusof mankind has ever evolved after its own image and out of the needs ofits own heart--inscrutable, unthinkable, unspeakable; above all humanpassions, beyond the reach of any human appeal; One upon whoseattributes it was futile to speculate--One whose name was _It_, not _He_. 

The thought of total annihilation was uncongenial, but had no terror. 

Even as a child I had shrewdly suspected that hell was no more than avulgar threat for naughty little boys and girls, and heaven than avulgar bribe, from the casual way in which either was meted out to me asmy probable portion, by servants and such people, according to the way Ibehaved. Such things were never mentioned to me by either my father ormother, or M. Le Major, or the Seraskiers--the only people in whomI trusted. 

But for the bias against the priest, I was left unbiassed at that tenderand susceptible age. I had learned my catechism and read my Bible, andused to say the Lord's Prayer as I went to bed, and "God bless papa andmamma" and the rest, in the usual perfunctory manner. 

Never a word against religion was said in my hearing by those few onwhom I had pinned my childish faith; on the other hand, no suchimportance was attached to it, apparently, as was attached to thevirtues of truthfulness, courage, generosity, self-denial, politeness, and especially consideration for others, high or low, human andanimal alike. 

I imagine that my parents must have compromised the matter between them, and settled that I should work out all the graver problems of existencefor myself, when I came to a thinking age, out of my own conscience, and such knowledge of life as I should acquire, and such help as theywould no doubt have given me, according to their lights, hadthey survived. 

I did so, and made myself a code of morals to live by, in which religionhad but a small part. 

For me there was but one sin, and that was cruelty, because I hated it;though Nature, for inscrutable purposes of her own, almost teaches it asa virtue. All sins that did not include cruelty were merely sins againsthealth, or taste, or common-sense, or public expediency. 

Free-will was impossible. We could only _seem_ to will freely, and thatonly within the limits of a small triangle, whose sides were heredity, education, and circumstance--a little geometrical arrangement of my own, of which I felt not a little proud, although it does not quite go onall-fours--perhaps because it is only a triangle. 

That is, we could will fast enough--_too_ fast; but could not will _how_to will--fortunately, for we were not fit as yet, and for a long time tocome, to be trusted, constituted as we are!

Even the characters of a novel must act according to the nature, training, and motives their creator the novelist has supplied them with, or we put the novel down and read something else; for human nature mustbe consistent with itself in fiction as well as in fact. Even in itsmadness there must be a method, so how could the will be free?

To pray for any personal boon or remission of evil--to bend the knee, orlift one's voice in praise or thanksgiving for any earthly good that hadbefallen one, either through inheritance, or chance, or one's ownsuccessful endeavor--was in my eyes simply futile; but, putting itsfutility aside, it was an act of servile presumption, of wheedlingimpertinence, not without suspicion of a lively sense of favors to come. 

It seemed to me as though the Jews--a superstitious and business-likepeople, who know what they want and do not care how they get it--musthave taught us to pray like that. 

It was not the sweet, simple child innocently beseeching that to-morrowmight be fine for its holiday, or that Santa Claus would be generous; itwas the cunning trader, fawning, flattering, propitiating, bribing withfulsome, sycophantic praise (an insult in itself), as well asburnt-offerings, working for his own success here and hereafter, and hisenemy's confounding. 

It was the grovelling of the dog, without the dog's single-hearted love, stronger than even its fear or its sense of self-interest. 

What an attitude for one whom God had made after His own image--eventowards his Maker!

 * * * * *

The only permissible prayer was a prayer for courage or resignation; forthat was a prayer turned inward, an appeal to what is best inourselves--our honor, our stoicism, our self-respect. 

And for a small detail, grace before and after meals seemed to meespecially self-complacent and iniquitous, when there were so many withscarcely ever a meal to say grace for. The only decent and proper gracewas to give half of one's meal away--not, indeed, that I was in thehabit of doing so! But at least I had the grace to reproach myself formy want of charity, and that was my only grace. 

 * * * * *

Fortunately, since we had no free-will of our own, the tendency thatimpelled us was upward, like the sparks, and bore us with itwilly-nilly--the good and the bad, and the worst and the best. 

By seeing this clearly, and laying it well to heart, the motive wassupplied to us for doing all we could in furtherance of that upwardtendency--_pour aider le bon Dieu_--that we might rise the faster andreach Him the sooner, if He were! And when once the human will has beenset going, like a rocket or a clock or a steam-engine, and in the rightdirection, what can it not achieve?

We should in time control circumstance instead of being controlledthereby; education would day by day become more adapted to oneconsistent end; and, finally, conscience-stricken, we should guideheredity with our own hands instead of leaving it to blind chance;unless, indeed, a well-instructed paternal government wisely took thereins, and only sanctioned the union of people who were thoroughly inlove with each other, after due and careful elimination of the unfit. 

Thus, cruelty should at least be put into harness, and none of itsvaluable energy wasted on wanton experiments, as it is by Nature. 

And thus, as the boy is father to the man, should the human race oneday be father to--what?

That is just where my speculations would arrest themselves; that was theX of a sum in rule of three, not to be worked out by Peter Ibbetson, Architect and Surveyor, Wharton Street, Pentonville. 

As the orang-outang is to Shakespeare, so is Shakespeare to . . . X?

As the female chimpanzee is to the Venus of Milo, so is the Venus ofMilo to . . . X?

Finally, multiply these two X's by each other, and try to conceive theresult!

 * * * * *

Such was, crudely, the simple creed I held at this time; and, such as itwas, I had worked it all out for myself, with no help from outside--apoor thing, but mine own; or, as I expressed it in the words of DeMusset, "Mon verre n'est pas grand--mais je bois dans mon verre. "

For though such ideas were in the air, like wholesome clouds, they hadnot yet condensed themselves into printed words for the million. Peopledid not dare to write about these things, as they do at present, inpopular novels and cheap magazines, that all who run may read, and learnto think a little for themselves, and honestly say what they think, without having to dread a howl of execration, clerical and lay. 

And it was not only that I thought like this and could not thinkotherwise; it was that I felt like this and could not feel otherwise;and I should have appeared to myself as wicked, weak, and base had Iever even _desired_ to think or feel otherwise, however personallydespairing of this life--a traitor to what I jealously guarded as mybest instincts. 

And yet to me the faith of others, if but unaggressive, humble, andsincere, had often seemed touching and pathetic, and sometimes evenbeautiful, as childish things seem sometimes beautiful, even in thosewho are no longer children, and should have put them away. It had causedmany heroic lives, and rendered many obscure lives blameless and happy;and then its fervor and passion seemed to burn with a lasting flame. 

At brief moments now and then, and especially in the young, unfaith canbe as fervent and as passionate as faith, and just as narrow andunreasonable, as _I_ found; but alas! its flame was intermittent, andits light was not a kindly light. 

It had no food for babes; it could not comfort the sick or sorry, norresolve into submissive harmony the inner discords of the soul; norcompensate us for our own failures and shortcomings, nor make up to usin any way for the success and prosperity of others who did not chooseto think as we did. 

It was without balm for wounded pride, or stay for weak despondency, orconsolation for bereavement; its steep and rugged thoroughfares led tono promised land of beatitude, and there were no soft resting-placesby the way. 

Its only weapon was steadfastness; its only shield, endurance; itsearthly hope, the common weal; its earthly prize, the opening of allroads to knowledge, and the release from a craven inheritance of fear;its final guerdon--sleep? Who knows?

Sleep was not bad. 

So that simple, sincere, humble, devout, earnest, fervent, passionate, and over-conscientious young unbelievers like myself had to be verystrong and brave and self-reliant (which I was not), and very much inlove with what they conceived to be the naked Truth (a figure ofdoubtful personal attractions at first sight), to tread the ways of lifewith that unvarying cheerfulness, confidence, and serenity which thebeliever claims as his own special and particular appanage. 

So much for my profession of unfaith, shared (had I but known it) bymany much older and wiser and better educated than I, and only reachedby them after great sacrifice of long-cherished illusions, and terriblepangs of soul-questioning--a struggle and a wrench that I was sparedthrough my kind parents' thoughtfulness when I was a little boy. 

 * * * * *

It thus behooved me to make the most of this life; since, for all Iknew, or believed, or even hoped to the contrary, to-morrow we must die. 

Not, indeed, that I might eat and drink and be merry; heredity andeducation had not inclined me that way, I suppose, and circumstances didnot allow it; but that I might try and live up to the best ideal I couldframe out of my own conscience and the past teaching of mankind. Andman, whose conception of the Infinite and divine has been so inadequate, has furnished us with such human examples (ancient and modern, Hebrew, Pagan, Buddhist, Christian, Agnostic, and what not) as the best of uscan only hope to follow at a distance. 

I would sometimes go to my morning's work, my heart elate with loftyhope and high resolve. 

How easy and simple it seemed to lead a life without fear, or reproach, or self-seeking, or any sordid hope of personal reward, either here orhereafter!--a life of stoical endurance, invincible patience andmeekness, indomitable cheerfulness and self-denial!

After all, it was only for another forty or fifty years at the most, andwhat was that? And after that--_que sçais-je?_

The thought was inspiring indeed!

By luncheon-time (and luncheon consisted of an Abernethy biscuit and aglass of water, and several pipes of shag tobacco, cheap and rank) somesubtle change would come over the spirit of my dream. 

Other people did not have high resolves. Some people had very badtempers, and rubbed one very much the wrong way. 

What a hideous place was Pentonville to slave away one's life in! . . . 

What a grind it was to be forever making designs for little new shops inRosoman Street, and not making them well, it seemed! . . . 

Why should a squinting, pock-marked, bowlegged, hunch-backed littleJudkins (a sight to make a recruiting-sergeant shudder) forever tauntone with having enlisted as a private soldier? . . . 

And then why should one be sneeringly told to "hit a fellow one's ownsize, " merely because, provoked beyond endurance, one just grabbed himby the slack of his trousers and gently shook him out of them onto thefloor, terrified but quite unhurt? . . . 

And so on, and so on; constant little pin-pricks, sordid humiliations, ugliness, meannesses, and dirt, that called forth in resistance all thatwas lowest and least commendable in one's self. 

One has attuned one's nerves to the leading of a forlorn hope, and agnat gets into one's eye, or a little cinder grit, and there it sticks;and there is no question of leading any forlorn hope, after all, andnever will be; all _that_ was in the imagination only: it is alwaysgnats and cinder grits, gnats and cinder grits. 

By the evening I had ignominiously broken down, and was plunged in thedepths of an exasperated pessimism too deep even for tears, and wouldhave believed myself the meanest and most miserable of mankind, but thateverybody else, without exception, was even meaner and miserablerthan myself. 

They could still eat and drink and be merry. I could not, and did noteven want to. 

 * * * * *

And so on, day after day, week after week, for months and years. . . . 

Thus I grew weary in time of my palling individuality, ever the samethrough all these uncontrollable variations of mood. 

Oh, that alternate ebb and flow of the spirits! It is a disease, and, what is most distressing, it is no real change; it is more sickeninglymonotonous than absolute stagnation itself. And from that dreary seesawI could never escape, except through the gates of dreamless sleep, thedeath in life; for even in our dreams we are still ourselves. Therewas no rest!

I loathed the very sight of myself in the shop-windows as I went by; andyet I always looked for it there, in the forlorn hope of at leastfinding some alteration, even for the worse. I passionately longed to besomebody else; and yet I never met anybody else I could have borne to befor a moment. 

And then the loneliness of us!

Each separate unit of our helpless race is inexorably bounded by theinner surface of his own mental periphery, a jointless armor in whichthere is no weak place, never a fault, never a single gap of egress forourselves, of ingress for the nearest and dearest of our fellow-units. At only five points can we just touch each other, and all that is--andthat only by the function of our poor senses--from the outside. In vainwe rack them that we may get a little closer to the best beloved andmost implicitly trusted; ever in vain, from the cradle to the grave. 

Why should so fantastic a thought have persecuted me so cruelly? I knewnobody with whom I should have felt such a transfusion of soul eventolerable for a second. I cannot tell! But it was like a gadfly whichdrove me to fatigue my body that I should have by day the stolid peaceof mind that comes of healthy physical exhaustion; that I should sleepat night the dreamless sleep--the death in life!

"Of such materials wretched men are made!" Especially wretched youngmen; and the wretcheder one is, the more one smokes; and the more onesmokes, the wretcheder one gets--a vicious circle!

Such was my case. I grew to long for the hour of my release (as Iexpressed it pathetically to myself), and caressed the idea of suicide. I even composed for myself a little rhymed epitaph in French which Ithought very neat--

 Je n'étais point. Je fus. Je ne suis plus. 

 * * * * *

Oh, to perish in some noble cause--to die saving another's life, evenanother's worthless life, to which he clung!

I remember formulating this wish, in all sincerity, one moonlit night asI walked up Frith Street, Soho. I came upon a little group of excitedpeople gathered together at the foot of a house built over a shop. Froma broken window-pane on the second floor an ominous cloud of smoke roselike a column into the windless sky. An ordinary ladder was placedagainst the house, which, they said, was densely inhabited; but nofire-engine or fire-escape had arrived as yet, and it appeared uselessto try and rouse the inmates by kicking and beating at the doorany longer. 

A brave man was wanted--a very brave man, who would climb the ladder, and make his way into the house through the broken window. Here was aforlorn hope to lead at last!

Such a man was found. To my lasting shame and contrition, it was not I. 

He was short and thick and middle-aged, and had a very jolly red faceand immense whiskers--quite a common sort of man, who seemed by no meanstired of life. 

His heroism was wasted, as it happened; for the house was an empty one, as we all heard, to our immense relief, before he had managed to force apassage into the burning room. His whiskers were not even singed!

Nevertheless, I slunk home, and gave up all thoughts ofself-destruction--even in a noble cause; and there, in penance, Isomewhat hastily committed to flame the plodding labor of manymidnights--an elaborate copy in pen and ink, line for line, of Retel'simmortal wood-engraving "Der Tod als Freund, " which Mrs. Lintot had beenkind enough to lend me--and under which I had written, in beautifulblack Gothic letters and red capitals (and without the slightest senseof either humor or irreverence), the following poem, which had cost meinfinite pains:

 I. 

 _F, i, fi--n, i, ni! Bon dieu Père, j'ai fini. . . Vous qui m'avez lant puni, Dans ma triste vie, Pour tant d'horribles forfaits Que je ne commis jamais Laissez-moi jouir en paix De mon agonie!_

 II. 

 _Les faveurs que je Vous dois, Je les compte sur mes doigts:_ _Tout infirme que je sois, Ça se fait bien vite! Prenez patience, et comptez Tous mes maux--puis computez Toutes Vos sévérités-- Vous me tiendrez quitte!_

 III. 

 _Né pour souffrir, et souffrant-- Bas, honni, bête, ignorant, Vieux, laid, chétif--et mourant Dans mon trou sans plainte, Je suis aussi sans désir Autre que d'en bien finir-- Sans regret, sans repentir-- Sans espoir ni crainte!_

 IV. 

 _Père inflexible et jaloux, Votre Fils est mort pour nous! Aussi, je reste envers Vous Si bien sans rancune, Que je voudrais, sans façon, Faire, au seuil de ma prison, Quelque petite oraison . . . Je n'en sais pas une!_

 V. 

 _J'entends sonner l'Angélus Qui rassemble Vos Elus: Pour moi, du bercail exclus. C'est la mort qui sonne! Prier ne profite rien . . . Pardonner est le seul bien:_ _C'est le Vôtre, et c'est le mien: Moi, je Vous pardonne!_

 VI. 

 _Soyez d'un égard pareil! S'il est quelque vrai sommeil Sans ni rêve, ni réveil, Ouvrez-m'en la porte-- Faites que l'immense Oubli Couvre, sous un dernier pli, Dans mon corps enséveli, Ma conscience morte!_

Oh me duffer! What a hopeless failure was I in all things, little andbig. 

Part Three

[Illustration]

I had no friends but the Lintots and their friends. "Les amis de nosamis sont nos amis!"

My cousin Alfred had gone into the army, like his father before him. Mycousin Charlie had gone into the Church, and we had drifted completelyapart. My grandmother was dead. My Aunt Plunket, a great invalid, livedin Florence. Her daughter, Madge, was in India, happily married to ayoung soldier who is now a most distinguished general. 

The Lintots held their heads high as representatives of a liberalprofession, and an old Pentonville family. People were generallyexclusive in those days--an exclusiveness that was chiefly kept up bythe ladies. There were charmed circles even in Pentonville. 

Among the most exclusive were the Lintots. Let us hope, in commonjustice, that those they excluded were at least able to exclude others. 

I have eaten their bread and salt, and it would ill become me to denythat their circle was charming as well as charmed. But I had no gift formaking friends, although I was often attracted by people the veryopposite of myself; especially by little, clever, quick, but not toofamiliar men; but even if they were disposed to make advances, amiserable shyness and stiffness of manner on my part, that I could nothelp, would raise a barrier of ice between us. 

They were most hospitable people, these good Lintots, and had manyfriends, and gave many parties, which my miserable shyness prevented mefrom enjoying to the full. They were both too stiff and too free. 

In the drawing-room, Mrs. Lintot and one or two other ladies, severelydressed, would play the severest music in a manner that did not mitigateits severity. They were merciless! It was nearly always Bach, or Hummel, or Scarlatti, each of whom, they would say, could write both like anartist and a gentleman--a very rare but indispensable combination, it seemed. 

Other ladies, young and middle-aged, and a few dumb-struck youths likemyself, would be suffered to listen, but never to retaliate--never toplay or sing back again. 

If one ventured to ask for a song without words by Mendelssohn--or asong with words, even by Schubert, even with German words--one wasrebuked and made to blush for the crime of musical frivolity. 

Meanwhile, in Lintot's office (built by himself in the back garden), grave men and true, pending the supper hour, would smoke and sipspirits-and-water, and talk shop; formally at first, and with muchpoliteness. But gradually, feeling their way, as it were, they wouldrelax into social unbuttonment, and drop the "Mister" before eachother's names (to be resumed next morning), and indulge in livelyprofessional chaff, which would soon become personal and free andboisterous--a good-humored kind of warfare in which I did not shine, forlack of quickness and repartee. For instance, they would ask one whetherone would rather be a bigger fool than one looked, or look a bigger foolthan one was; and whichever way one answered the question, the retortwould be that "that was impossible!" amid roars of laughter from allbut one. 

[Illustration]

So that I would take a middle course, and spend most of the evening onthe stairs and in the hall, and study (with an absorbing interest muchtoo well feigned to look natural) the photographs of famous cathedralsand public buildings till supper came; when, by assiduously attending onthe ladies, I would cause my miserable existence to be remembered, andforgiven; and soon forgotten again, I fear. 

I hope I shall not be considered an overweening coxcomb for saying that, on the whole, I found more favor with the ladies than with thegentlemen; especially at supper-time. 

After supper there would be a change--for the better, some thought. Lintot, emboldened by good-cheer and good-fellowship, would becomeunduly, immensely, uproariously funny, in spite of his wife. He had agenuine gift of buffoonery. His friends would whisper to each otherthat Lintot was "on, " and encourage him. Bach and Hummel and Scarlattiwere put on the shelf, and the young people would have a good time. There were comic songs and negro melodies, with a chorus all round. Lintot would sing "Vilikins and his Dinah, " in the manner of Mr. Robson, so well that even Mrs. Lintot's stern mask would relax into indulgentsmiles. It was irresistible. And when the party broke up, we could all(thanks to our host) honestly thank our hostess "for a very pleasantevening, " and cheerfully, yet almost regretfully, wish her good-night. 

It is good to laugh sometimes--wisely if one can; if not, _quocumquemodo_! There are seasons when even "the crackling of thorns under a pot"has its uses. It seems to warm the pot--all the pots--and all theemptiness thereof, if they be empty. 

 * * * * *

Once, indeed, I actually made a friend, but he did not last me verylong. 

It happened thus: Mrs. Lintot gave a grander party than usual. One ofthe invited was Mr. Moses Lyon, the great picture-dealer--a client ofLintot's; and he brought with him young Raphael Merridew, the alreadyfamous painter, the most attractive youth I had ever seen. Small andslight, but beautifully made, and dressed in the extreme of fashion, with a handsome face, bright and polite manners, and an irresistiblevoice, he became his laurels well; he would have been sufficientlydazzling without them. Never had those hospitable doors in MyddeltonSquare been opened to so brilliant a guest. 

I was introduced to him, and he discovered that the bridge of my nosewas just suited for the face of the sun-god in his picture of "TheSun-god and the Dawn-maiden, " and begged I would favor him with asitting or two. 

Proud indeed was I to accede to such a request, and I gave him manysittings. I used to rise at dawn to sit, before my work at Lintot'sbegan; and to sit again as soon as I could be spared. 

It seems I not only had the nose and brow of a sun-god (who is notsupposed to be a very intellectual person), but also his arms and historso; and sat for these, too. I have been vain of myself ever since. 

During these sittings, which he made delightful, I grew to love him asDavid loved Jonathan. 

We settled that we would go to the Derby together in a hansom. I engagedthe smartest hansom in London days beforehand. On the great Wednesdaymorning I was punctual with it at his door in Charlotte Street. Therewas another hansom there already--a smarter hansom still than mine, forit was a private one--and he came down and told me he had altered hismind, and was going with Lyon, who had asked him the evening before. 

"One of the first picture-dealers in London, my dear fellow. Hang itall, you know, I couldn't refuse--awfully sorry!"

So I drove to the Derby in solitary splendor, but the bright weather, the humors of the road, all the gay scenes were thrown away upon me, such was the bitterness of my heart. 

[Illustration]

In the early afternoon I saw Merridew lunching on the top of a drag, among some men of smart and aristocratic appearance. He seemed to be thelife of the party, and gave me a good-humored nod as I passed. I soonfound Lyon sitting disconsolate in his hansom, scowling and solitary; heinvited me to lunch with him, and disembosomed himself of a load ofbitterness as intense as mine (which I kept to myself). The shrewdHebrew tradesman was sunk in the warm-hearted, injured friend. Merridewhad left Lyon for the Earl of Chiselhurst, just as he had left mefor Lyon. 

That was a dull Derby for us both!

A few days later I met Merridew, radiant as ever. All he said was:

"Awful shame of me to drop old Lyon for Chiselhurst, eh? But an earl, mydear fellow! Hang it all, you know! Poor old Mo had to get back in hishansom all by himself, but he's bought the 'Sun-god' all the same. "

Merridew soon dropped me altogether, to my great sorrow, for I forgavehim his Derby desertion as quickly as Lyon did, and would have forgivenhim anything. He was one of those for whom allowances are always beingmade, and with a good grace. 

He died before he was thirty, poor boy! but his fame will never die. The"Sun-god" (even with the bridge of that nose which had been so wofullyput out of joint) is enough by itself to place him among the immortals. Lyon sold it to Lord Chiselhurst for three thousand pounds--it had costhim five hundred. It is now in the National Gallery. 

[Illustration]

Poetical justice was satisfied!

 * * * * *

Nor was I more fortunate in love than in friendship. 

All the exclusiveness in the world cannot exclude good and beautifulmaidens, and these were not lacking, even in Pentonville. 

There is always one maiden much more beautiful and good than all theothers--like Esmeralda among the ladies of the Hôtel de Gondelaurier. There was such a maiden in Pentonville, or rather Clerkenwell, close by. But her station was so humble (like Esmeralda's) that even the leastexclusive would have drawn the line at _her!_ She was one of a largefamily, and they sold tripe and pig's feet, and food for cats and dogs, in a very small shop opposite the western wall of the Middlesex House ofDetention. She was the eldest, and the busy, responsible one at thispoor counter. She was one of Nature's ladies, one of Nature'sgoddesses--a queen! Of that I felt sure every time I passed her shop, and shyly met her kind, frank, uncoquettish gaze. A time was approachingwhen I should have to overcome my shyness, and tell her that she of allwomen was the woman for me, and that it was indispensable, absolutelyindispensable, that we two should be made one--immediately! atonce! forever!

But before I could bring myself to this she married somebody else, andwe had never exchanged a single word!

If she is alive now she is an old woman--a good and beautiful old woman, I feel sure, wherever she is, and whatever her rank in life. If sheshould read this book, which is not very likely, may she accept thissmall tribute from an unknown admirer; for whom, so many years ago, shebeautified and made poetical the hideous street that still bounds theMiddlesex House of Detention on its western side; and may she try tothink not the less of it because since then its writer has been on thewrong side of that long, blank wall, of that dreary portal where theagonized stone face looks down on the desolate slum:

 "_Per me si va tra la perduta gente_ . . . !"

After this disappointment I got myself a big dog (like Byron, Bismarck, and Wagner), but not in the spirit of emulation. Indeed, I had neverheard of either Bismarck or Wagner in those days, or their dogs, and Ihad lost my passion for Byron and any wish to emulate him in any way; itwas simply for the want of something to be fond of, and that would besure to love me back again. 

He was not a big dog when I bought him, but just a little ball oforange-tawny fluff that I could carry with one arm. He cost me all themoney I had saved up for a holiday trip to Passy. I had seen his father, a champion St. Bernard, at a dog-show, and felt that life would be wellworth living with such a companion; but _his_ price was five hundredguineas. When I saw the irresistible son, just six weeks old, and heardthat he was only one-fiftieth of his sire's value, I felt Passy mustwait, and became his possessor. 

[Illustration: PORTHOS AND HIS ATTENDANT SQUIRE. ]

I gave him of the best that money could buy--real milk at fivepence aquart, three quarts a day, I combed his fluff every morning, and washedhim three times a week, and killed all his fleas one by one--a labour oflove. I weighed him every Saturday, and found he increased at the rateof six to nine weekly; and his power of affection increased as thesquare of his weight. I christened him Porthos, because he was so bigand fat and jolly; but in his noble puppy face and his beautifulpathetic eyes I already foresaw for his middle age that distinguishedand melancholy grandeur which characterized the sublime Athos, Comtede la Fère. 

He was a joy. It was good to go to sleep at night and know he would bethere in the morning. Whenever we took our walks abroad, everybodyturned round to look at him and admire, and to ask if he wasgood-tempered, and what his particular breed was, and what I fed him on. He became a monster in size--a beautiful, playful, gracefullygalumphing, and most affectionate monster, and I, his happyFrankenstein, congratulated myself on the possession of a treasure thatwould last twelve years at least, or even fourteen, with the care Imeant to take of him. But he died of distemper when he was elevenmonths old. 

I do not know if little dogs cause as large griefs when they die as bigones; but I settled there should be no more dogs--big or little--for me. 

 * * * * *

After this I took to writing verses and sending them to magazines, wherethey never appeared. They were generally about my being reminded, by atune, of things that had happened a long time ago: my poetic, like myartistic vein, was limited. 

Here are the last I made, thirty years back. My only excuse for givingthem is that they are so _singularly prophetic_. 

The reminding tune (an old French chime which my father used to sing)is very simple and touching; and the old French words run thus:

 _"Orléans, Beaugency! Notre Dame de Cléry! Vendôme! Vendôme! Quel chagrin, quel ennui De compter toute la nuit Les heures--Les heures!"_

That is all. They are supposed to be sung by a mediaeval prisoner whocannot sleep; and who, to beguile the tediousness of his insomnia, setsany words that come into his head to the tune of the chime which marksthe hours from a neighboring belfry. I tried to fancy that his name wasPasquier de la Marière, and that he was my ancestor. 

 THE CHIME. 

 _There is an old French air, A little song of loneliness and grief-- Simple as nature, sweet beyond compare-- And sad--past all belief!

 Nameless is he that wrote The melody--but this I opine: Whoever made the words was some remote French ancestor of mine. 

 I know the dungeion deep Where long he lay--and why he lay therein; And all his anguish, that he could not sleep For conscience of a sin. _

 I see his cold, hard bed; I hear the chimes that jingled in his ears As he pressed nightly, with that wakeful head, A pillow wet with tears. 

 Oh, restless little chime! It never changed--but rang its roundelay For each dark hour of that unhappy time That sighed itself away. 

 And ever, more and more, Its burden grew of his lost self a part-- And mingled with his memories, and wore Its way into his heart. 

 And there it wove the name Of many a town he loved, for one dear sake, Into its web of music; thus he came His little song to make. 

 Of all that ever heard And loved it for its sweetness, none but I Divined the clew that, as a hidden word, The notes doth underlie. 

 That wail from lips long dead Has found its echo in this breast alone! Only to me, by blood-remembrance led, Is that wild story known!

 And though 'tis mine, by right Of treasure-trove, to rifle and lay bare-- A heritage of sorrow and delight The world would gladly share--

 Yet must I not unfold For evermore, nor whisper late or soon, The secret that a few slight bars thus hold Imprisoned in a tune. 

 For when that little song Goes ringing in my head, I know that he, My luckless lone forefather, dust so long, Relives his life in me!

I sent them to ----'s Magazine, with the six French lines on at thewhich they were founded at the top. ----'s _Magazine_ published only thesix French lines--the only lines in my handwriting that ever got intoprint. And they date from the fifteenth century!

Thus was my little song lost to the world, and for a time to me. Butlong, long afterwards, I found it again, where Mr. Longfellow once founda song of _his_: "in the heart of a friend"--surely the sweetest bournethat can ever be for any song!

Little did I foresee that a day was not far off when real bloodremembrance would carry me--but that is to come. 

 * * * * *

Poetry, friendship and love having failed, I sought for consolation inart, and frequented the National Gallery, Marlborough House (where theVernon collection was), the British Museum, the Royal Academy, and otherexhibitions. 

I prostrated myself before Titian, Rembrandt, Velasquez, Veronese, DaVinci, Botticelli, Signorelli--the older the better; and tried my bestto honestly feel the greatness I knew and know to be there; but forwant of proper training I was unable to reach those heights, and, likemost outsiders, admired them for the wrong things, for the very beautiesthey lack--such transcendent, ineffable beauties of feature, form, andexpression as an outsider always looks for in an old master, and oftenpersuades himself he finds there--and oftener still, _pretends_ he does!

I was far more sincerely moved (although I did not dare to say so) bysome works of our own time--for instance, by the "Vale of Rest, " the"Autumn Leaves, " "The Huguenot" of young Mr. Millais--just as I foundsuch poems as _Maud_ and _In Memoriam_, by Mr. Alfred Tennyson, infinitely more precious and dear to me than Milton's _Paradise Lost_and Spenser's _Faerie Queene_. 

Indeed, I was hopelessly modern in those days--quite an every-day youngman; the names I held in the warmest and deepest regard were those ofthen living men and women. Darwin, Browning, and George Eliot did not, it is true, exist for me as yet; but Tennyson, Thackeray, Dickens, Millais, John Leech, George Sand, Balzac, the old Dumas, Victor Hugo, and Alfred de Musset!

I have never beheld them in the flesh; but, like all the world, I knowtheir outer aspect well, and could stand a pretty stiff examination inmost they have ever written, drawn, or painted. 

Other stars of magnitude have risen since, but of the old galaxy four atleast still shine out of the past with their ancient lustre undimmed inmy eyes--Thackeray; dear John Leech, who still has power to make melaugh as I like to laugh; and for the two others it is plain that theQueen, the world, and I are of a like mind as to their deserts, for oneof them is now an ornament to the British peerage, the other a baronetand a millionaire; only I would have made dukes of them straight off, with precedence over the Archbishop of Canterbury, if they would care tohave it so. 

It is with a full but humble heart that I thus venture to record my longindebtedness, and pay this poor tribute, still fresh from the days of myunquestioning hero-worship. It will serve, at least, to show my reader(should I ever have one sufficiently interested to care) in what mentallatitudes and longitudes I dwelt, who was destined to such singularexperience--a kind of reference, so to speak--that he may be able toplace me at a glance, according to the estimation in which he holdsthese famous and perhaps deathless names. 

It will be admitted, at least, that my tastes were normal, and shared bya large majority--the tastes of an every-day young man at thatparticular period of the nineteenth century--one much given to athleticsand cold tubs, and light reading and cheap tobacco, and endowed with theusual discontent; the last person for whom or from whom or by whom toexpect anything out of the common. 

 * * * * *

But the splendor of the Elgin Marbles! I understood that atonce--perhaps because there is not so much to understand. Merephysically beautiful people appeal to us all, whether they be in fleshor marble. 

By some strange intuition, or natural instinct, I _knew_ that peopleought to be built like that, before I had ever seen a single statue inthat wondrous room. I had divined them--so completely did they realizean aesthetic ideal I had always felt. 

I had often, as I walked the London streets, peopled an imaginary worldof my own with a few hundreds of such beings, made flesh and blood, andpictured them as a kind of beneficent aristocracy seven feet high, withminds and manners to match their physique, and set above the rest of theworld for its good; for I found it necessary (so that my dream shouldhave a point) to provide them with a foil in the shape of millions ofsuch people as we meet every day. I was egotistic and self-seekingenough, it is true, to enroll myself among the former, and had chosenfor my particular use and wear just such a frame as that of the Theseus, with, of course, the nose and hands and feet (of which time has berefthim) restored, and all mutilations made good. 

And for my mistress and companion I had duly selected no less a personthan the Venus of Milo (no longer armless), of which Lintot possessed aplaster-cast, and whose beauties I had foreseen before I ever beheldthem with the bodily eye. 

"Monsieur n'est pas dégoûté!" as Ibbetson would have remarked. 

But most of all did I pant for the music which is divine. 

Alas, that concerts and operas and oratorios should not be as free tothe impecunious as the National Gallery and the British Museum--aprivilege which is not abused!

Impecunious as I was, I sometimes had pence enough to satisfy thiscraving, and discovered in time such realms of joy as I had neverdreamed of; such monarchs as Mozart, Handel, and Beethoven, and others, of whom my father knew apparently so little; and yet they were morepotent enchanters than Grétry, Hérold, and Boieldieu, whose music hesang so well. 

I discovered, moreover, that they could do more than charm--they coulddrive my weary self out of my weary soul, and for a space fill thatweary soul with courage, resignation, and hope. No Titian, noShakespeare, no Phidias could ever accomplish that--not even Mr. WilliamMakepeace Thackeray or Mr. Alfred Tennyson. 

My sweetest recollections of this period of my life (indeed, the onlysweet recollections) are of the music I heard, and the places where Iheard it; it was an enchantment! With what vividness I can recall itall! The eager anticipation for days; the careful selection, beforehand, from such an _embarras de richesses_ as was duly advertised; then thelong waiting in the street, at the doors reserved for those whoseportion is to be the gallery. The hard-won seat aloft is reached atlast, after a selfish but good-humored struggle up the long stonestaircase (one is sorry for the weak, but a famished ear has noconscience). The gay and splendid house is crammed; the huge chandelieris a golden blaze; the delight of expectation is in the air, and alsothe scent of gas, and peppermint, and orange-peel, and music-lovinghumanity, whom I have discovered to be of sweeter fragrance than thecommon herd. 

[Illustration]

The orchestra fills, one by one; instruments tune up--a familiarcacophony, sweet with seductive promise. The conductor takes hisseat--applause--a hush--three taps--the baton waves once, twice, thrice--the eternal fountain of magic is let loose, and at thevery first jet

 "_The cares that infest the day Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, And as silently steal away_. "

Then lo! the curtain rises, and straightway we are in Seville--Seville, after Pentonville! Count Alma-viva, lordly, gallant, and gay beneath hisdisguise, twangs his guitar, and what sounds issue from it! For everyinstrument that was ever invented is in that guitar--the wholeorchestra!

"_Ecco ridente il cielo_. . . . , " so sings he (with the most beautiful malevoice of his time) under Rosina's balcony; and soon Rosina's voice (themost beautiful female voice of hers) is heard behind her curtains--sogirlish, so innocent, so young and light-hearted, that the eyes fillwith involuntary tears. 

Thus encouraged, he warbles that his name is Lindoro, that he would fainespouse her; that he is not rich in the goods of this world, but giftedwith an inordinate, inexhaustible capacity for love (just like PeterIbbetson); and vows that he will always warble to her, in this wise, from dawn till when daylight sinks behind the mountain. But what matterthe words?

"Go on, my love, go on, _like this_!" warbles back Rosina--and nowonder--till the dull, despondent, commonplace heart of Peter Ibbetsonhas room for nothing else but sunny hope and love and joy! And yet it isall mere sound--impossible, unnatural, unreal nonsense!

Or else, in a square building, decent and well-lighted enough, but nototherwise remarkable--the very chapel of music--four business-likegentlemen, in modern attire and spectacles, take their places on anunpretentious platform amid refined applause; and soon the still airvibrates to the trembling of sixteen strings--only that andnothing more!

But in that is all Beethoven, or Schubert, or Schumann has got to say tous for the moment, and what a say it is! And with what consummateprecision and perfection it is said--with what a mathematical certainty, and yet with what suavity, dignity, grace, and distinction!

They are the four greatest players in the world, perhaps; but theyforget themselves, and we forget them (as it is their wish we should), in the master whose work they interpret so reverently, that we may yearnwith his mighty desire and thrill with his rapture and triumph, or achewith his heavenly pain and submit with his divine resignation. 

Not all the words in all the tongues that ever were--dovetail them, rhyme them, alliterate them, torture them as you will--can ever pierceto the uttermost depths of the soul of man, and let in a glimpse of theInfinite, as do the inarticulate tremblings of those sixteen strings. 

Ah, songs without words are the best!

Then a gypsy-like little individual, wiry and unkempt, who looks as ifhe had spent his life listening to the voices of the night in Heavenknows what Lithuanian forests, with wolves and wild-boars for hisfamiliars, and the wind in the trees for his teacher, seats himself atthe great brass-bound oaken Broadwood piano-forte. And under hisphenomenal fingers, a haunting, tender, world-sorrow, full ofquestionings--a dark mystery of moonless, starlit nature--exhales itselfin nocturnes, in impromptus, in preludes--in mere waltzes and mazourkaseven! But waltzes and mazourkas such as the most frivolous would neverdream of dancing to. A capricious, charming sorrow--not too deep fortears, if one be at all inclined to shed them--so delicate, so fresh, and yet so distinguished, so ethereally civilized and worldly andwell-bred that it has crystallized itself into a drawing-room ecstasy, to last forever. It seems as though what was death (or rathereuthanasia) to him who felt it, is play for us--surely an immortalsorrow whose recital will never, never pall--the sorrow of Chopin. 

Though why Chopin should have been so sorry we cannot even guess; formere sorrow's sake, perhaps; the very luxury of woe--the real sorrowwhich has no real cause (like mine in those days); and that is the bestand cheapest kind of sorrow to make music of, after all!

And this great little gypsy pianist, who plays his Chopin so well;evidently he has not spent his life in Lithuanian forests, but hard atthe key-board, night and day; and he has had a better master than thewind in the trees--namely, Chopin himself (for it is printed in theprogramme). It was his father and mother before him, and theirs, whoheard the voices of the night; but he remembers it all, and puts it allinto his master's music, and makes us remember it, too. 

Or else behold the chorus, rising tier upon tier, and culminating in thegiant organ. But their thunder is just hushed. 

Some Liliputian figure, male or female, as the case may be, rises on itslittle legs amid the great Liliputian throng, and through the sacredstillness there peals forth a perfect voice (by no means Liliputian). Itbids us "Rest in the Lord, " or else it tells us that "He was despisedand rejected of men"; but, again, what matter the words? They are almosta hinderance, beautiful though they be. 

The hardened soul melts at the tones of the singer, at the unspeakablepathos of the sounds that cannot lie; one almost believes--one believesat least in the belief of others. At last one understands, and is purgedof intolerance and cynical contempt, and would kneel with the rest, insheer human sympathy!

Oh, wretched outsider that one is (if it all be true)--one whoseheart, so hopelessly impervious to the written word, so helplesslycallous to the spoken message, can be reached only by the organizedvibrations of a trained larynx, a metal pipe, a reed, afiddle-string--by invisible, impalpable, incomprehensible littleair-waves in mathematical combination, that beat against a tiny drum atthe back of one's ear. And these mathematical combinations and the lawsthat govern them have existed forever, before Moses, before Pan, longbefore either a larynx or a tympanum had been evolved. Theyare absolute!

Oh, mystery of mysteries!

Euterpe, Muse of Muses, what a personage hast thou become since firstthou sattest for thy likeness (with that ridiculous lyre in thy untaughthands) to some Greek who could carve so much better than thoucouldst play!

Four strings; but not the fingerable strings of Stradivarius. Nay, I begthy pardon--five; for thy scale was pentatonic, I believe. Orpheushimself had no better, it is true. It was with just such an instrumentthat he all but charmed his Eurydice out of Hades. But, alas, she wentback; on second thoughts, she liked Hades best!

Couldst thou fire and madden and wring the heart, and then melt andconsole and charm it into the peace that passeth all understanding, withthose poor five rudimentary notes, and naught between?

Couldst thou, out of those five sounds of fixed, unalterable pitch, make, not a sixth sound, but a star?

What were they, those five sounds? "Do, re, mi, fa, sol?" What must thysongs without words have been, if thou didst ever make any?

Thou wast in very deed a bread-and-butter miss in those days, Euterpe, for all that thy eight twin sisters were already grown up, and out; andnow thou toppest them all by half a head, at least. "Tu leur mangeraisdes petits pâtés sur la tête--comme Madame Seraskier!"

And oh, how thou beatest them all for beauty! In _my_ estimation, atleast--like--like Madame Seraskier again!

And hast thou done growing at last?

Nay, indeed; thou art not even yet a bread-and-butter miss--thou art buta sweet baby, one year old, and seven feet high, tottering midwaybetween some blessed heaven thou hast only just left and the dull homeof us poor mortals. 

The sweet one-year-old baby of our kin puts its hands upon our knees andlooks up into our eyes with eyes full of unutterable meaning. It has somuch to say! It can only say "ga-ga" and "ba-ba"; but with oh! howsearching a voice, how touching a look--that is, if one is fond ofbabies! We are moved to the very core; we want to understand, for itconcerns us all; we were once like that ourselves--the individual andthe race--but for the life of us we cannot _remember_. 

And what canst _thou_ say to us yet, Euterpe, but thy "ga-ga" and thy"ba-ba, " the inarticulate sweetness whereof we feel and cannotcomprehend? But how beautiful it is--and what a look thou hast, andwhat a voice--that is, if one is fond of music!

 "Je suis las des mois--je suis d'entendre Ce qui peut mentir; J'aime mieux les sons, qu'au lieu de comprendre je n'ai qu'à sentir. "

Next day I would buy or beg or borrow the music that had filled me withsuch emotion and delight, and take it home to my little square piano, and try to finger it all out for myself. But I had begun too latein life. 

To sit, longing and helpless, before an instrument one cannot play, witha lovely score one cannot read! Even Tantalus was spared such anordeal as that. 

It seemed hard that my dear father and mother, so accomplished in musicthemselves, should not even have taught me the musical notes, at an agewhen it was so easy to learn them; and thus have made me free of thatwonder-world of sound in which I took such an extraordinary delight, andmight have achieved distinction--perhaps. 

But no, my father had dedicated me to the Goddess of Science from beforemy very birth; that I might some day be better equipped than he for thepursuit, capture, and utilization of Nature's sterner secrets. Theremust be no dallying with light Muses. Alas! I have fallen betweentwo stools!

And thus, Euterpe absent, her enchantment would pass away; herhandwriting was before me, but I had not learned how to decipher it, andmy weary self would creep back into its old prison--my soul. 

[Illustration: (no caption)]

Self-sickness-_selbstschmerz, le mal do soi!_ What a disease! It is notto be found in any dictionary, medical or otherwise. 

I ought to have been whipped for it, I know; but nobody was big enough, or kind enough, to whip me!

 * * * * *

At length there came a day when that weary, weak, and most ridiculousself of mine was driven out--and exorcised for good--by a still morepotent enchanter than even Handel or Beethoven or Schubert!

There was a certain Lord Cray, for whom Lintot had built some laborers'cottages in Hertfordshire, and I sometimes went there to superintend theworkmen. When the cottages were finished, Lord Cray and his wife (a verycharming, middle-aged lady) came to see them, and were much pleased withall that had been done, and also seemed to be much interested in _me_, of all people in the world! and a few days later I received a card ofinvitation to their house in town for a concert. 

At first I felt much too shy to go; but Mr. Lintot insisted that it wasmy duty to do so, as it might lead to business; so that when the nightcame, I screwed up my courage to the sticking-place, and went. 

That evening was all enchantment, or would have been but for thesomewhat painful feeling that I was such an outsider. 

But I was always well content to be the least observed of all observers, and felt happy in the security that here I should at least be leftalone; that no perfect stranger would attempt to put me at my ease bymaking me the butt of his friendly and familiar banter; that no garteredduke, or belted earl (I have no doubt they were as plentiful there asblackberries, though they did not wear their insignia) would pat me onthe back and ask me if I would sooner look a bigger fool than I was, orbe a bigger fool than I looked. (I have not found a repartee for thatinsidious question yet; that is why it rankles so. )

I had always heard that the English were a stiff people. There seemed tobe no stiffness at Lady Cray's; nor was there any facetiousness; it putone at one's ease merely to look at them. They were mostly big, andstrong, and healthy, and quiet, and good-humored, with soft andpleasantly-modulated voices. The large, well-lighted rooms were neitherhot nor cold; there were beautiful pictures on the walls, and anexquisite scent of flowers came from an immense conservatory. I hadnever been to such a gathering before; all was new and a surprise, andvery much to my taste, I confess. It was my first glimpse of "Society;"and last--but one!

There were crowds of people--but no crowd; everybody seemed to knoweverybody else quite intimately, and to resume conversations begun anhour ago somewhere else. 

Presently these conversations were hushed, and Grisi and Mario sang! Itwas as much as I could do to restrain my enthusiasm and delight. I couldhave shouted out loud--I could almost have sung myself!

In the midst of the applause that followed that heavenly duet, a ladyand gentleman came into the room, and at the sight of that lady a newinterest came into my life; and all the old half-forgotten sensations ofmute pain and rapture that the beauty of Madame Seraskier used to makeme feel as a child were revived once more; but with a depth andintensity, in comparison, that were as a strong man's barytone to asmall boy's treble. 

It was the quick, sharp, cruel blow, the _coup de poignard_, that beautyof the most obvious, yet subtle, consummate, and highly-organized ordercan deal to a thoroughly prepared victim. 

And what a thoroughly prepared victim was I! A poor, shy, over-susceptible, virginal savage--Uncas, the son of Chingachgook, astray for the first time in a fashionable London drawing-room. 

A chaste mediaeval knight, born out of his due time, ascetic both fromreverence and disgust, to whom woman in the abstract was the onereligion; in the concrete, the cause of fifty disenchantments a day!

A lusty, love-famished, warm-blooded pagan, stranded in the middle ofthe nineteenth century; in whom some strange inherited instinct hadplanted a definite, complete, and elaborately-finished conception ofwhat the ever-beloved shape of woman should be--from the way the hairshould grow on her brow and her temples and the nape of her neck, downto the very rhythm that should regulate the length and curve andposition of every single individual toe! and who had found, to his prideand delight, that his preconceived ideal was as near to that of Phidiasas if he had lived in the time of Pericles and Aspasia. 

For such was this poor scribe, and such he had been from a child, untilthis beautiful lady first swam into his ken. 

She was so tall that her eyes seemed almost on a level with mine, butshe moved with the alert lightness and grace of a small person. Herthick, heavy hair was of a dark coppery brown, her complexion clear andpale, her eyebrows and eyelashes black, her eyes a light bluish gray. Her nose was short and sharp, and rather tilted at the tip, and her redmouth large and very mobile; and here, deviating from my preconceivedideal, she showed me how tame a preconceived ideal can be. Her perfecthead was small, and round her long, thick throat two slight creases wentparallel, to make what French sculptors call _le collier de Vénus;_ theskin of her neck was like a white camellia, and slender andsquare-shouldered as she was, she did not show a bone. She was thatbeautiful type the French define as _la fausse maigre_, which does notmean a "false, thin woman. "

She seemed both thoughtful and mirthful at once, and genial as I hadnever seen any one genial before--a person to confide in, to tell allone's troubles to, without even an introduction! When she laughed sheshowed both top and bottom teeth, which were perfect, and her eyesnearly closed, so that they could no longer be seen for the thick lashesthat fringed both upper and under eyelids; at which time the expressionof her face was so keenly, cruelly sweet that it went through one like aknife. And then the laugh would suddenly cease, her full lips wouldmeet, and her eyes beam out again like two mild gray suns, benevolentlyhumorous and kindly inquisitive, and full of interest in everything andeverybody around her. But there--I cannot describe her any more than onecan describe a beautiful tune. 

Out of those magnificent orbs kindness, kindness, kindness was shed likea balm; and after a while, by chance, that balm was shed for a fewmoments on me, to my sweet but terrible confusion. Then I saw that sheasked my hostess who I was, and received the answer; on which she shedher balm on me for one moment more, and dismissed me from her thoughts. 

Madame Grisi sang again--Desdemona's song from _Othello_--and thebeautiful lady thanked the divine singer, whom she seemed to know quiteintimately; and I thought her thanks--Italian thanks--even diviner thanthe song--not that I could quite understand them or even hear themwell--I was too far; but she thanked with eyes and hands and shoulders--slight, happy movements--as well as words; surely the sweetest andsincerest words ever spoken. 

She was much surrounded and made up to--evidently a person of greatimportance; and I ventured to ask another shy man standing in my cornerwho she was, and he answered--

"The Duchess of Towers. "

She did not stay long, and when she departed all turned dull andcommonplace that had seemed so bright before she came; and seeing thatit was not necessary to bid my hostess good-night and thank her for apleasant evening, as we did in Pentonville, I got myself out of thehouse and walked back to my lodgings an altered man. 

I should probably never meet that lovely young duchess again, andcertainly never know her; but her shaft had gone straight and true intomy very heart, and I felt how well barbed it was, beyond all possibilityof its ever being torn out of that blessed wound; might this never heal;might it bleed on forever!

She would be an ideal in my lonely life, to live up to in thought andword and deed. An instinct which I felt to be infallible told me she wasas good as she was fair--

 _"Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, the love of love. "_

[Illustration: THE DUCHESS OP TOWERS. ]

And just as Madame Seraskier's image was fading away, this new star hadarisen to guide me by its light, though seen but for a moment; breakingonce, through a parted cloud, I knew in which portion of the heavens itdwelt and shone apart, among the fairest constellations; and ever afterturned my face that way. Nevermore in my life would I do or say or thinka mean thing, or an impure, or an unkind one, if I could help it. 

 * * * * *

Next day, as we walked to the Foundling Hospital for divine service, Mrs. Lintot severely deigned--under protest, as it were--tocross-examine me on the adventures of the evening. 

I did not mention the Duchess of Towers, nor was I able to describe thedifferent ladies' dresses; but I described everything else in a manner Ithought calculated to interest her deeply--the flowers, the splendidpictures and curtains and cabinets, the beautiful music, the many lordsand ladies gay. 

She disapproved of them all. 

Existence on such an opulent scale was unconducive to any qualities ofreal sterling value, either moral or intellectual. Give _her_, for one, plain living and high thinking!

"By-the-way, " she asked, "what kind of supper did they give you?Something extremely _recherché_, I have no doubt. Ortolans, nightingales' tongues, pearls dissolved in wine?"

Candor obliged me to confess there had been no supper, or that if therehad I had managed to miss it. I suggested that perhaps everybody haddined late; and all the pearls, I told her, were on the ladies' necksand in their hair; and not feeling hungry, I could not wish themanywhere else; and the nightingales' tongues were in their throats tosing heavenly Italian duets with. 

"And they call that hospitality!" exclaimed Lintot, who loved hissupper; and then, as he was fond of summing up and laying down the lawwhen once his wife had given him the lead, he did so to the effect thatthough the great were all very well in their superficial way, and mightpossess many external charms for each other, and for all who were sodeplorably weak as to fall within the sphere of their attraction, therewas a gulf between the likes of them and the likes of us, which it wouldbe better not to try and bridge if one wished to preserve one'sindependence and one's self-respect; unless, of course, it led tobusiness; and this, he feared, it would never do with me. 

"They take you up one day and they drop you like a 'ot potato the next;and, moreover, my dear Peter, " he concluded, affectionately linking hisarm in mine, as was often his way when we walked together (although hewas twelve good inches shorter than myself), "inequality of socialcondition is a bar to any real intimacy. It is something like disparityof physical stature. One can walk arm in arm only with a man of aboutone's own size. "

This summing up seemed so judicious, so incontrovertible, that feelingquite deplorably weak enough to fall within the sphere of Lady Cray'sattraction if I saw much of her, and thereby losing my self-respect, Iwas deplorably weak enough not to leave a card on her after the happyevening I had spent at her house. 

Snob that I was, I dropped her--"like a 'ot potato" for fear of herdropping me. 

Besides which I had on my conscience a guilty, snobby feeling that inmerely external charms at least these fine people were more to my tastethan the charmed circle of my kind old friends the Lintots, howeverinferior they might be to these (for all that I knew) in sterlingqualities of the heart and head--just as I found the outer aspect ofPark Lane and Piccadilly more attractive than that of Pentonville, though possibly the latter may have been the more wholesome for such asI to live in. 

But people who can get Mario and Grisi to come and sing for them (andthe Duchess of Towers to come and listen); people whose walls arecovered with beautiful pictures; people for whom the smooth andharmonious ordering of all the little external things of social life hasbecome a habit and a profession--such people are not to be droppedwithout a pang. 

So with a pang I went back to my usual round as though nothing hadhappened; but night and day the face of the Duchess of Towers was everpresent to me, like a fixed idea that dominates a life. 

 * * * * *

On reading and rereading these past pages, I find that I have beenunpardonably egotistic, unconscionably prolix and diffuse; and with suchsmall beer to chronicle!

And yet I feel that if I strike out this, I must also strike out that;which would lead to my striking out all, in sheer discouragement; and Ihave a tale to tell which is more than worth the telling!

Once having got into the way of it, I suppose, I must have found thetemptation to talk about myself irresistible. 

It is evidently a habit easy to acquire, even in old age--perhapsespecially in old age, for it has never been my habit through life. Iwould sooner have talked to you about yourself, reader, or about you tosomebody else--your friend, or even your enemy; or about them to you. 

But, indeed, at present, and until I die, I am without a soul to talk toabout anybody or anything worth speaking of, so that most of my talkingis done in pen and ink--a one-sided conversation, O patient reader, withyourself. I am the most lonely old man in the world, although perhapsthe happiest. 

Still, it is not always amusing where I live, cheerfully awaiting mytranslation to another sphere. 

There is the good chaplain, it is true, and the good priest; who talk tome about myself a little too much, methinks; and the doctor, who talksto me about the priest and the chaplain, which is better. He does notseem to like them. He is a very witty man. 

But, my brother maniacs!

They are lamentably _comme tout le monde_, after all. They are onlyinteresting when the mad fit seizes them. When free from their awfulcomplaint they are for the most part very common mortals: conventionalPhilistines, dull dogs like myself, and dull dogs do not likeeach other. 

Two of the most sensible (one a forger, the other a kleptomaniac on animportant scale) are friends of mine. They are fairly well educated, respectable city men, clean, solemn, stodgy, punctilious, and resigned, but they are both unhappy; not because they are cursed with the doublebrand of madness and crime, and have forfeited their freedom inconsequence; but because they find there are so few "ladies andgentlemen" in a criminal lunatic asylum, and they have always been usedto "the society of ladies and gentlemen. " Were it not for this, theywould be well content to live here. And each is in the habit ofconfiding to me that he considers the other a very high-minded, trustworthy fellow, and all that, but not altogether "quite agentleman. " I do not know what they consider me; they probably confidethat to each other. 

Can anything be less odd, less eccentric or interesting?

Another, when quite sane, speaks English with a French accent anddemonstrative French gestures, and laments the lost glories of the oldFrench régime, and affects to forget the simplest English words. Hedoesn't know a word of French, however. But when his madness comes on, and he is put into a strait-waistcoat, all his English comes back, andvery strong, fluent, idiomatic English it is, of the cockneyest kind, with all its "h's" duly transposed. 

Another (the most unpleasant and ugliest person here) has chosen me forthe confidant of his past amours; he gives me the names and dates andall. The less I listen the more he confides. He makes me sick. What canI do to prevent his believing that I believe him? I am tired of killingpeople for lying about women. If I call him a liar and a cad, it maywake in him Heaven knows what dormant frenzy--for I am quite in the darkas to the nature of his mental infirmity. 

Another, a weak but amiable and well-intentioned youth, tries to thinkthat he is passionately fond of music; but he is so exclusive, if youplease, that he can only endure Bach and Beethoven, and when he hearsMendelssohn or Chopin, is obliged to leave the room. If I want to pleasehim I whistle "Le Bon Roi Dagobert, " and tell him it is the _motif_ ofone of Bach's fugues; and to get rid of him I whistle it again and tellhim it is one of Chopin's impromptus. What his madness is I can never bequite sure, for he is very close, but have heard that he is fond ofroasting cats alive; and that the mere sight of a cat is enough to rousehis terrible propensity, and drive all wholesome, innocent, harmless, natural affectation out of his head. 

There is a painter here who (like others one has met outside) believeshimself the one living painter worthy of the name. Indeed, he hasforgotten the names of all the others, and can only despise and abusethem in the lump. He triumphantly shows you his own work, which consistsof just the kind of crude, half-clever, irresponsible, impressionistdaubs you would expect from an amateur who talks in that way; and youwonder why on earth he should be in a lunatic asylum, of all places inthe world. And (just as would happen outside, again) some of hisfellow-sufferers take him at his own valuation and believe him a greatgenius; some of them want to kick him for an impudent impostor (but thathe is so small); and the majority do not care. 

His mania is arson, poor fellow; and when the terrible wish comes overhim to set the place on fire he forgets his artistic conceit, and hismean, weak, silly face becomes almost grand. 

And with the female inmates it is just the same. There is a lady who hasspent twenty years of her life here. Her father was a small countrydoctor, called Snogget; her husband an obscure, hard-working curate; andshe is absolutely normal, common-place, and even vulgar. For her hobbyis to discourse of well-born and titled people and county families, withwhom (and with no others) it has always been her hope and desire to mix;and is still, though her hair is nearly white, and she is still here. She thinks and talks and cares about nothing else but "smart people, "and has conceived a very warm regard for me, on account ofLieutenant-colonel Ibbetson, of Ibbetson Hall, Hopshire; not because Ikilled him and was sentenced to be hanged for it, or because he was agreater criminal than I (all of which is interesting enough); butbecause he was my relative, and that through him I must be distantlyconnected, she thinks, with the Ibbetsons of Lechmere--whoever they maybe, and whom neither she nor I have ever met (indeed, I had never heardof them), but whose family history she knows almost by heart. What canbe tamer, duller, more prosaic, more sordidly humdrum, more hopelesslysane, more characteristic of common, under-bred, provincialfeminine cackle?

And yet this woman, in a fit of conjugal jealousy, murdered her ownchildren; and her father went mad in consequence, and her husband cuthis throat. 

In fact, during their lucid intervals it would never enter one's mindthat they were mad at all, they are so absolutely like the people onemeets every day in the world--such narrow-minded idiots, such deadlybores! One might as well be back in Pentonville or Hopshire again, orlive in Passionate Brompton (as I am told it is called); or even inBelgravia, for that matter!

For we have a young lord and a middle-aged baronet--a shocking pair, whoshould not be allowed to live; but for family influence they would bedoing their twenty years' penal servitude in jail, instead of livingcomfortably sequestered here. Like Ouida's high-born heroes, they "stickto their order, " and do not mingle with the rest of us. They ignore usso completely that we cannot help looking up to them in spite of theirvices--just as we should do outside. 

And we, of the middle class, we stick to our order, too, and do notmingle with the small shop-keepers--who do not mingle with the laborers, artisans, and mechanics--who (alas, for them!) have nobody to look downupon but each other--but they do not; and are the best-bred people inthe place. 

Such are we! It is only when our madness is upon us that we cease to becommonplace, and wax tragical and great, or else original and grotesqueand humorous, with that true deep humor that compels both our laughterand our tears, and leaves us older, sadder, and wiser than it found us. 

"_Sunt lacrimae rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt_. "

(So much, if little more, can I recall of the benign Virgil. )

And now to my small beer again, which will have more of a head to ithenceforward. 

 * * * * *

Thus did I pursue my solitary way, like Bryant's Water-fowl, only with aless definite purpose before me--till at last there dawned for me anever-memorable Saturday in June. 

I had again saved up enough money to carry my long longed-for journey toParis into execution. The _Seine's_ boiler got up its steam, the_Seine's_ white awning was put up for me as well as others; and on abeautiful cloudless English morning I stood by the man at the wheel, andsaw St. Paul's and London Bridge and the Tower fade out of sight; withwhat hope and joy I cannot describe. I almost forgot that I was me!

And next morning (a beautiful French morning) how I exulted as I went upthe Champs Elysées and passed under the familiar Arc de Triomphe on myway to the Rue de la Pompe, Passy, and heard all around the familiartongue that I still knew so well, and rebreathed the long-lost andhalf-forgotten, but now keenly remembered, fragrance of the _geniusloci_; that vague, light, indescribable, almost imperceptible scent of aplace, that is so heavenly laden with the past for those who have livedthere long ago--the most subtly intoxicating ether that can be!

When I came to the meeting of the Rue de la Tour and the Rue de laPompe, and, looking in at the grocer's shop at the corner, I recognizedthe handsome mustachioed groceress, Madame Liard (whose mustache twelveprosperous years had turned gray), I was almost faint with emotion. Hadany youth been ever so moved by that face before?

There, behind the window (which was now of plate-glass), and amongsplendid Napoleonic wares of a later day, were the same old India-rubberballs in colored net-work; the same quivering lumps of fresh paste inbrown paper, that looked so cool and tempting; the same three-sou boxesof water-colors (now marked seventy-five centimes), of which I hadconsumed so many in the service of Mimsey Seraskier! I went in andbought one, and resmelt with delight the smell of all my by-gonedealings there, and received her familiar sounding--

"Merci, monsieur! faudrait-il autre chose?" as if it had been ablessing; but I was too shy to throw myself into her arms and tell herthat I was the "lone, wandering, but not lost" Gogo Pasquier. She mighthave said--

"Eh bien, et après?"

The day had begun well. 

Like an epicure, I deliberated whether I should walk to the old gate inthe Rue de la Pompe, and up the avenue and back to our old garden, ormake my way round to the gap in the park hedge that we had worn of oldby our frequent passage in and out, to and from the Bois de Boulogne. 

I chose the latter as, on the whole, the more promising in exquisitegradations of delight. 

The gap in the park hedge, indeed! The park hedge had disappeared, thevery park itself was gone, cut up, demolished, all parcelled out intosmall gardens, with trim white villas, except where a railway ranthrough a deep cutting in the chalk. A train actually roared and pantedby, and choked me with its filthy steam as I looked round instupefaction on the ruins of my long-cherished hope. 

If that train had run over me and I had survived it, it could not havegiven me a greater shock; it all seemed too cruel and brutal an outrage. 

A winding carriage-road had been pierced through the very heart of thewilderness; and on this, neatly-paled little brand-new gardens abutted, and in these I would recognize, here and there, an old friend in theshape of some well-remembered tree that I had often climbed as a boy, and which had been left standing out of so many, but so changed by theloss of its old surroundings that it had a tame, caged, transplantedlook--almost apologetic, and as if ashamed of being found out at last!

Nothing else remained. Little hills and cliffs and valleys andchalk-pits that had once seemed big had been levelled up, or away, and Ilost my bearings altogether, and felt a strange, creeping chill ofblankness and bereavement. 

But how about the avenue and my old home? I hastened back to the Rue dela Pompe with the quick step of aroused anxiety. The avenue wasgone--blocked within a dozen yards of the gate by a huge brick buildingcovered with newly-painted trellis-work! My old house was no more, butin its place a much larger and smarter edifice of sculptured stone. Theold gate at least had not disappeared, nor the porter's lodge; and Ifeasted my sorrowful eyes on these poor remains, that looked snubbedand shabby and out of place in the midst of all this new splendor. 

[Illustration]

Presently a smart concierge, with a beautiful pink ribboned cap, cameout and stared at me for a while, and inquired if monsieurdesired anything. 

I could not speak. 

"Est-ce que monsieur est indisposé? Cette chaleur! Monsieur ne parle pasle Français, peut-être?"

When I found my tongue I explained to her that I had once lived there ina modest house overlooking the street, but which had been replaced bythis much more palatial abode. 

"O, oui, monsieur--on a balayé tout ça!" she replied. 

"Balayé!" What an expression for _me_ to hear!

And she explained how the changes had taken place, and how valuable theproperty had become. She showed me a small plot of garden, a fragment ofmy old garden, that still remained, and where the old apple-tree mightstill have been, but that it had been sawed away. I saw the stump; thatdid duty for a rustic table. 

Presently, looking over a new wall, I saw another small garden, and in it the ruins of the old shed where I had found the toywheelbarrow--soon to disappear, as they were building there too. 

I asked after all the people I could think of, beginning with those ofleast interest--the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker. 

Some were dead; some had retired and had left their "commerce" to theirchildren and children-in-law. Three different school-masters had keptthe school since I had left. Thank Heaven, there was still theschool--much altered, it is true. I had forgotten to look for it. 

[Illustration: THE OLD APPLE-TREE. ]

She had no remembrance of my name, or the Seraskiers'--I asked, with abeating heart. We had left no trace. Twelve short years had effaced allmemory of us! But she told me that a gentleman, _décoré, mais tombé enenfance_, lived at a _maison de santé_ in the Chaussée de la Muette, close by, and that his name was le Major Duquesnois; and thither Iwent, after rewarding and warmly thanking her. 

I inquired for le Major Duquesnois, and I was told he was out for awalk, and I soon found him, much aged and bent, and leaning on the armof a Sister of Charity. I was so touched that I had to pass him two orthree times before I could speak. He was so small--so pathetically small!

[Illustration: M. LE MAJOR. ]

It was a long time before I could give him an idea of who I was--GogoPasquier!

Then after a while he seemed to recall the past a little. 

"Ha, ha! Gogo--gentil petit Gogo!--oui--oui--l'exercice? Portez . . . Arrrmes! arrmes . . . Bras? Et Mimsé? bonne petite Mimsé! toujours malà la tête?"

He could just remember Madame Seraskier; and repeated her name severaltimes and said, "Ah! elle était bien belle, Madame Seraskier!"

In the old days of fairy-tale telling, when he used to get tired and Istill wanted him to go on, he had arranged that if, in the course of thestory, he suddenly brought in the word "Cric, " and I failed toimmediately answer "Crac, " the story would be put off till our next walk(to be continued in our next!) and he was so ingenious in the way hebrought in the terrible word that I often fell into the trap, and had toforego my delight for that afternoon. 

I suddenly thought of saying "Cric!" and he immediately said "Crac!" andlaughed in a touching, senile way--"Cric!--Crac! c'est bien ça!" andthen he became quite serious and said--

"Et la suite au prochain numéro!"

After this he began to cough, and the good Sister said--

"Je crains que monsieur ne le fatigue un peu!"

So I had to bid him good-bye; and after I had squeezed and kissed hishand, he made me a most courtly bow, as though I had been acomplete stranger. 

I rushed away, tossing up my arms like a madman in my pity and sorrowfor my dear old friend, and my general regret and disenchantment. Imade for the Bois de Boulogne, there to find, instead of the oldrabbit-and-roebuck-haunted thickets and ferneries and impenetrablegrowth, a huge artificial lake, with row-boats and skiffs, and a rockerythat would have held its own in Rosherville gardens. And on the waythither, near the iron gates in the fortifications, whom should I meetbut one of my friends the couriers, on his way from St. Cloud to theTuileries! There he rode with his arms jogging up and down, and his lowglazed hat, and his immense jack-boots, just the same as ever, neverrising in his stirrups, as his horse trotted to the jingle of the sweetlittle chime round its neck. 

[Illustration: GREEN AND GOLD]

Alas! his coat was no longer the innocent, unsophisticated blue andsilver livery of the bourgeois king, but the hateful green and gold ofanother régime. 

Farther on the Mare d'Auteuil itself had suffered change and becomerespectable--imperially respectable. No more frogs or newts orwater-beetles, I felt sure; but gold and silver fish in vulgarNapoleonic profusion. 

No words that I can find would give any idea of the sadness and longingthat filled me as I trod once more that sunlit grassy brink--the goal ofmy fond ambition for twelve long years. 

It was Sunday, and many people were about--many children, in their bestSunday clothes and on their best behavior, discreetly throwing crumbs tothe fish. A new generation, much quieter and better dressed than mycousins and I, who had once so filled the solitude with the splashing ofour nets, and the excited din of our English voices. 

As I sat down on a bench by the old willow (where the rat lived), andgazed and gazed, it almost surprised me that the very intensity of mydesire did not of itself suffice to call up the old familiar faces andforms, and conjure away these modern intruders. The power to do thisseemed almost within my reach; I willed and willed and willed with allmy might, but in vain; I could not cheat my sight or hearing for amoment. There they remained, unconscious and undisturbed, those happy, well-mannered, well-appointed little French people, and fed the gold andsilver fish; and there, with an aching heart, I left them. 

Oh, surely, surely, I cried to myself, we ought to find some means ofpossessing the past more fully and completely than we do. Life is notworth living for many of us if a want so desperate and yet so naturalcan never be satisfied. Memory is but a poor, rudimentary thing that wehad better be without, if it can only lead us to the verge ofconsummation like this, and madden us with a desire it cannot slake. Thetouch of a vanished hand, the sound of a voice that is still, the tendergrace of a day that is dead, should be ours forever, at out beck andcall, by some exquisite and quite conceivable illusion of the senses. 

Alas! alas! I have hardly the hope of ever meeting my beloved ones againin another life. Oh, to meet their too dimly remembered forms in _this_, just as they once were, by some trick of my own brain! To see them withthe eye, and hear them with the ear, and tread with them the oldobliterated ways as in a waking dream! It would be well worth going madto become such a self-conjurer as that. 

Thus musing sadly, I reached St. Cloud, and _that_, at least, and theBoulogne that led me to it, had not been very perceptibly altered, andlooked as though I had only left them a week ago. The sweet aspect fromthe bridge, on either side and beyond, filled me with the oldenchantment. There, at least, the glory had not departed. 

I hastened through the gilded gates and up the broad walk to the grandcascade. There, among the lovely wreathed urns and jars of geranium, still sat or reclined or gesticulated, the old, unalterable gods; theresquatted the grimly genial monsters in granite and marble and bronze, still spouting their endless gallons for the delectation of hot Parisianeyes. Unchanged, and to all appearance unchangeable (save that they werenot nearly so big as I had imagined), their cold, smooth, ironicalpatience shamed and braced me into better cheer. Beautiful, hideous, whatever you please, they seemed to revel in the very sense of theirinsensibility of their eternal stability--their stony scorn of time andwind and weather, and the peevish, weak-kneed, short-lived discontent ofman. It was good to fondly pat them on the back once more--when onecould reach them--and cling to them for a little while, after all thedust and drift and ruin I had been tramping through all day. 

Indeed, they woke in me a healthy craving for all but forgotten earthlyjoys--even for wretched meat and drink--so I went and ordered asumptuous repast at the Tête Noire--a brand-new Tête Noire, alas! quitewhite, all in stone and stucco, and without a history!

It was a beautiful sunset. Waiting for my dinner, I gazed out of thefirst-floor window, and found balm for my disappointed and regretfulspirit in all that democratic joyousness of French Sunday life. I hadseen it over and over again just like that in the old days; _this_, atleast, was like coming back home to something I had known and loved. 

The cafés on the little "Place" between the bridge and the park werefull to overflowing. People chatting over their _consommations_ satright out, almost into the middle of the square, so thickly packed thatthere was scarcely room for the busy, lively, white-aproned waiters tomove between them. The air was full of the scent of trodden grass andmacaroons and French tobacco, blown from the park; of gay Frenchlaughter and the music of _mirlitons_; of a light dusty haze, shot withpurple and gold by the setting sun. The river, alive with boats andcanoes, repeated the glory of the sky, and the well-remembered, thickly-wooded hills rose before me, culminating in the Lanternede Diogène. 

I could have threaded all that maze of trees blindfolded. 

Two Roman pifferari came on to the Place and began to play anextraordinary and most exciting melody that almost drew me out of thewindow; it seemed to have no particular form, no beginning or middle orend; it went soaring higher and higher, like the song of a lark, withnever a pause for breath, to the time of a maddening jig--a tarantella, perhaps--always on the strain and stress, always getting nearer andnearer to some shrill climax of ecstasy quite high up and away, beyondthe scope of earthly music; while the persistent drone kept buzzing ofthe earth and the impossibility to escape. All so gay, so sad, there isno name for it!

Two little deformed and discarded-looking dwarfs, beggars, brother andsister, with large toothless gaps for mouths and no upper lip, began todance; and the crowd laughed and applauded. Higher and higher, nearerand nearer to the impossible, rose the quick, piercing notes of thepiffero. Heaven seemed almost within reach--the nirvana of music afterits quick madness--the region of the ultra-treble that lies beyondthe ken of ordinary human ears!

[Illustration]

A carriage and four, with postilions and "guides, " came clatteringroyally down the road from the palace, and dispersed the crowd as itbowled on its way to the bridge. In it were two ladies and twogentlemen. One of the ladies was the young Empress of the French; theother looked up at my window--for a moment, as in a soft flash of summerlightning, her face seemed ablaze with friendly recognition--with asweet glance of kindness and interest and surprise--a glance thatpierced me like a sudden shaft of light from heaven. 

It was the Duchess of Towers!

I felt as though the bagpipes had been leading up to this! In a momentmore the carriage was out of sight, the sun had quite gone down, thepifferari had ceased to play and were walking round with the hat, andall was over. 

I dined, and made my way back to Paris on foot through the Bois deBoulogne, and by the Mare d'Auteuil, and saw my old friend the water-ratswim across it, trailing the gleam of his wake after him like a silvercomet's tail. 

"Allons-nous-en, gens de la nous!Allons-nous-en chacun chez nous!"

So sang a festive wedding-party as it went merrilyarm in arm through the long high street of Passy, with a gleeful trust that would have filled the heartwith envy but for sad experience of the vanity ofhuman wishes. 

_Chacun chez nous!_ How charming it sounds!

Was each so sure that when he reached his homehe would find his heart's desire? Was the bridegroomhimself so very sure?

[Illustration: THE OLD WATER-RAT. ]

The heart's desire--the heart's regret! I flatteredmyself that I had pretty well sounded the uttermostdepths of both on that eventful Sunday!

Part Four

[Illustration]

I got back to my hotel in the Rue de la Michodière. 

Prostrate with emotion and fatigue, the tarantella still jingling in myears, and that haunting, beloved face, with its ineffable smile stillprinted on the retina of my closed eyes, I fell asleep. 

And then I dreamed a dream, and the first phase of my real, inner lifebegan!

All the events of the day, distorted and exaggerated and jumbledtogether after the usual manner of dreams, wove themselves into a kindof nightmare and oppression. I was on my way to my old abode: everythingthat I met or saw was grotesque and impossible, yet had now the strange, vague charm of association and reminiscence, now the distressing senseof change and loss and desolation. 

As I got near to the avenue gate, instead of the school on my left therewas a prison; and at the door a little thick-set jailer, three feet highand much deformed, and a little deformed jaileress no bigger thanhimself, were cunningly watching me out of the corners of their eyes, and toothlessly smiling. Presently they began to waltz together to anold, familiar tune, with their enormous keys dangling at their sides;and they looked so funny that I laughed and applauded. But soon Iperceived that their crooked faces were not really funny; indeed, theywere fatal and terrible in the extreme, and I was soon conscious thatthese deadly dwarfs were trying to waltz between me and the avenue gatefor which I was bound--to cut me off, that they might run me into theprison, where it was their custom to hang people of a Monday morning. 

In an agony of terror I made a rush for the avenue gate, and there stoodthe Duchess of Towers, with mild surprise in her eyes and a kindsmile--a heavenly vision of strength and reality. 

"You are not dreaming true!" she said. "Don't be afraid--those littlepeople don't exist! Give me your hand and come in here. "

And as I did so she waved the troglodytes away, and they vanished; andI felt that this was no longer a dream, but something else--some strangething that had happened to me, some new life that I had woke up to. 

For at the touch of her hand my consciousness, my sense of being I, myself, which hitherto in my dream (as in all previous dreams up tothen) had been only partial, intermittent, and vague, suddenly blazedinto full, consistent, practical activity--just as it is in life, whenone is well awake and much interested in what is going on--only withperceptions far keener and more alert. 

I knew perfectly who I was and what I was, and remembered all the eventsof the previous day. I was conscious that my real body, undressed and inbed, now lay fast asleep in a small room on the fourth floor of an_hôtel garni_ in the Rue de la Michodière. I knew this perfectly; andyet here was my body, too, just as substantial, with all my clothes on;my boots rather dusty, my shirt-collar damp with the heat, for it washot. With my disengaged hand I felt in my trousers-pocket; there were myLondon latch-keys, my purse, my penknife; my handkerchief in thebreastpocket of my coat, and in its tail-pockets my gloves andpipe-case, and the little water-color box I had bought that morning. Ilooked at my watch; it was going, and marked eleven. I pinched myself, Icoughed, I did all one usually does under the pressure of some immensesurprise, to assure myself that I was awake; and I _was_, and yet here Istood, actually hand in hand with a great lady to whom I had never beenintroduced (and who seemed much tickled at my confusion); and staringnow at her, now at my old school. 

The prison had tumbled down like a house of cards, and loi! in its placewas M. Saindou's _maison d'éducation_, just as it had been of old. Ieven recognized on the yellow wall the stamp of a hand in dry mud, madefifteen years ago by a day boy called Parisot, who had fallen down inthe gutter close by, and thus left his mark on getting up again; and ithad remained there for months, till it had been whitewashed away in theholidays. Here it was anew, after fifteen years. 

The swallows were flying and twittering. A yellow omnibus was drawn upto the gates of the school; the horses stamped and neighed, and bit eachother, as French horses always did in those days. The driver swore atthem perfunctorily. 

A crowd was looking on--le Père et la Mère François, Madame Liard, thegrocer's wife, and other people, whom I remembered at once with delight. Just in front of us a small boy and girl were looking on, like the rest, and I recognized the back and the cropped head and thin legs of MimseySeraskier. 

A barrel-organ was playing a pretty tune I knew quite well, and hadforgotten. 

The school gates opened, and M. Saindou, proud and full ofself-importance (as he always was), and half a dozen boys whose facesand names were quite familiar to me, in smart white trousers and shiningboots, and silken white bands round their left arms, got into theomnibus, and were driven away in a glorified manner--as it seemed--toheaven in a golden chariot. It was beautiful to see and hear. 

I was still holding the duchess's hand, and felt the warmth of itthrough her glove; it stole up my arm like a magnetic current. I was inElysium; a heavenly sense had come over me that at last my periphery hadbeen victoriously invaded by a spirit other than mine--a most powerfuland beneficent spirit. There was a blessed fault in my impenetrablearmor of self, after all, and the genius of strength and charity andloving-kindness had found it out. 

"Now you're dreaming true, " she said. "Where are those boys going?"

"To church, to make their _première communion_, " I replied. 

"That's right. You're dreaming true because I've got you by the hand. Doyou know that tune?"

I listened, and the words belonging to it came out of the past and Isaid them to her, and she laughed again, with her eyes screwed updeliciously. 

"Quite right--quite!" she exclaimed. "How odd that you should know them!How well you pronounce French for an Englishman! For you are Mr. Ibbetson, Lady Cray's architect?"

I assented, and she let go my hand. 

The street was full of people--familiar forms and faces and voices, chatting together and looking down the road after the yellow omnibus;old attitudes, old tricks of gait and manner, old forgotten French waysof speech--all as it was long ago. Nobody noticed us, and we walked upthe now deserted avenue. 

The happiness, the enchantment of it all! Could it be that I was dead, that I had died suddenly in my sleep, at the hotel in the Rue de laMichodière! Could it be that the Duchess of Towers was dead too--hadbeen killed by some accident on her way from St. Cloud to Paris? andthat, both having died so near each other, we had begun our eternalafterlife in this heavenly fashion?

That was too good to be true, I reflected; some instinct told me thatthis was not death, but transcendent earthly life--and also, alas! thatit would not endure forever!

I was deeply conscious of every feature in her face, every movement ofher body, every detail of her dress--more so then I could have been inactual life--and said to myself, "Whatever this is, it is no dream. " ButI felt there was about me the unspeakable elation which can come to usonly in our waking moments when we are at our very best; and then onlyfeebly, in comparison with this, and to many of us never, ft never hadto me, since that morning when I had found the little wheelbarrow. 

I was also conscious, however, that the avenue itself had a slight touchof the dream in it. It was no longer quite right, and was getting out ofdrawing and perspective, so to speak. I had lost my stay--the touchof her hand. 

"Are you still dreaming true, Mr. Ibbetson?"

"I am afraid not quite, " I replied. 

"You must try by yourself a little--try hard. Look at this house; whatis written on the portico?"

I saw written in gold letters the words, "Tête Noire, " and said so. 

[Illustration]

She rippled with laughter, and said, "No; try again"; and just touchedme with the tip of her finger for a moment. 

I tried again and said, "Parvis Notre Dame. "

"That's rather better, " she said, and touched me again; and I read, "Parva sed Apta, " as I had so often read there before in old days. 

"And now look at that old house over there, " pointing to my old home;"how many windows are there in the top story?"

I said seven. 

"No; there are five. Look again!" and there were five; and the wholehouse was exactly, down to its minutest detail, as it had been once upona time. I could see Thérèse through one of the windows, making my bed. 

"That's better, " said the duchess; "you will soon do it--it's veryeasy--_ce n'est que le premier pas!_ My father taught me; you mustalways sleep on your back with your arms above your head, your handsclasped under it and your feet crossed, the right one over the left, unless you are left-handed; and you must never for a moment ceasethinking of where you want to be in your dream till you are asleep andget there; and you must never forget in your dream where and what youwere when awake. You must join the dream on to reality. Don't forget. And now I will say good-bye; but before I go give me both hands and lookround everywhere as far as your eyes can see. "

It was hard to look away from her; her face drew my eyes, and throughthem all my heart; but I did as she told me, and took in the wholefamiliar scene, even to the distant woods of Ville d'Avray, a glimpseof which was visible through an opening in the trees; even to the smokeof a train making its way to Versailles, miles off; and the oldtelegraph, working its black arms on the top of Mont Valérien. 

[Illustration: "It was hard to look away from her. "]

"Is it all right?" she asked. "That's well. Henceforward, whenever youcome here, you will be safe as far as your sight can reach--from thisspot--all through my introduction. See what it is to have a friend atcourt! No more little dancing jailers! And then you can gradually getfarther by yourself. 

"Out there, through that park, leads to the Bois de Boulogne--there's agap in the hedge you can get through; but mind and make everything plainin front of you--_true_, before you go a step farther, or else you'llhave to wake and begin it all over again. You have only to will it, andthink of yourself as awake, and it will come--on condition, of course, that you have been there before. And mind, also, you must take care howyou touch things or people--you may hear, and see, and smell; but youmustn't touch, nor pick flowers or leaves, nor move things about. Itblurs the dream, like breathing on a window-pane. I don't know why, butit does. You must remember that everything here is dead and gone by. With you and me it is different; we're alive and real--that is, _I_ am;and there would seem to be no mistake about your being real too, Mr. Ibbetson, by the grasp of your hands. But you're _not_; and why you arehere, and what business you have in this, my particular dream, I cannotunderstand; no living person has ever come into it before. I can't makeit out. I suppose it's because I saw your reality this afternoon, looking out of the window at the 'Tête Noire, ' and you are just a strayfigment of my overtired brain--a very agreeable figment, I admit; butyou don't exist here just now--you can't possibly; you are somewhereelse, Mr. Ibbetson; dancing at Mabille, perhaps, or fast asleepsomewhere, and dreaming of French churches and palaces, and publicfountains, like a good young British architect--otherwise I shouldn'ttalk to you like this, you may be sure!

"Never mind. I am very glad to dream that I have been of use to you, andyou are very welcome here, if it amuses you to come--especially as youare only a false dream of mine, for what else _can_ you be? And now Imust leave you, so good-bye. "

She disengaged her hands, and laughed her angelic laugh, and thenturned towards the park. I watched her tall, straight figure and blowingskirts, and saw her follow some ladies and children into a thicket thatI remembered well, and she was soon out of sight. 

I felt as if all warmth had gone out of my life; as if a joy had takenflight; as if a precious something had withdrawn itself from mypossession, and the gap in my periphery had closed again. 

Long I stood in thought, with my eyes fixed on the spot where she haddisappeared; and I felt inclined to follow, but then considered thiswould not have been discreet. For although she was only a false dream ofmine, a mere recollection of the exciting and eventful day, a strayfigment of my overtired and excited brain--a _more_ than agreeablefigment (what else _could_ she be!)--she was also a great lady, and hadtreated me, a perfect stranger and a perfect nobody, with singularcourtesy and kindness; which I repaid, it is true, with a love so deepand strong that my very life was hers, to do what she liked with, andalways had been since I first saw her, and always would be as long asthere was breath in my body! But this did not constitute an acquaintancewithout a proper introduction, even in France--even in a dream. Even indreams one must be polite, even to stray figments of one's tired, sleeping brain. 

And then what business had _she_, in _this_, _my_ particular dream--asshe herself had asked of me?

But _was_ it a dream? I remembered my lodgings at Pentonville, that Ihad left yesterday morning. I remembered what I was--why I came toParis; I remembered the very bedroom at the Paris hotel where I was nowfast asleep, its loudly-ticking clock, and all the meagre furniture. Andhere was I, broad awake and conscious, in the middle of an old avenuethat had long ceased to exist--that had been built over by a huge brickedifice covered with newly-painted trellis-work. I saw it, this edifice, myself, only twelve hours ago. And yet here was everything as it hadbeen when I was a child; and all through the agency of this solidphantom of a lovely young English duchess, whose warm gloved hands I hadonly this minute been holding in mine! The scent of her gloves was stillin my palm. I looked at my watch; it marked twenty-three minutes totwelve. All this had happened in less than three-quarters of an hour!

Pondering over all this in hopeless bewilderment, I turned my stepstowards my old home, and, to my surprise, was just able to look over thegarden wall, which I had once thought about ten feet high. 

Under the old apple-tree in full bloom sat my mother, darning smallsocks; with her flaxen side-curls (as it was her fashion to wear them)half-concealing her face. My emotion and astonishment were immense. Myheart beat fast. I felt its pulse in my temples, and my breathwas short. 

At a little green table that I remembered well sat a small boy, ratherquaintly dressed in a by-gone fashion, with a frill round his wideshirt-collar, and his golden hair cut quite close at the top, and ratherlong at the sides and back. It was Gogo Pasquier. He seemed a very nicelittle boy. He had pen and ink and copy-book before him, and agilt-edged volume bound in red morocco. I knew it at a glance; it was_Elegant Extracts_. The dog Médor lay asleep in the shade. The beeswere droning among the nasturtiums and convolvulus. 

A little girl ran up the avenue from the porter's lodge and pushed thegarden gate, which rang the bell as it opened, and she went into thegarden, and I followed her; but she took no notice of me, nor did theothers. It was Mimsey Seraskier. 

I went out and sat at my mother's feet, and looked long in her face. 

I must not speak to her, nor touch her--not even touch her busy handwith my lips, or I should "blur the dream. "

I got up and looked over the boy Gogo's shoulder. He was translatingGray's _Elegy_ into French; he had not got very far, and seemed to bestumped by the line--

_"And leaves the world to darkness and to me. "_

Mimsey was silently looking over his other shoulder, her thumb in hermouth, one arm on the back of his chair. She seemed to be stumped also:it was an awkward line to translate. 

I stooped and put my hand to Médor's nose, and felt his warm breath. Hewagged his rudiment of a tail, and whimpered in his sleep. Mimsey said--

"Regarde Médor, comme il remue la queue! _C'est le Prince Charmant quilui chatouille le bout du nez. _"

Said my mother, who had not spoken hitherto: "Do speak English, Mimsey, please. "

Oh, my God! My mother's voice, so forgotten, yet so familiar, sounutterably dear! I rushed to her, and threw myself on my knees at herfeet, and seized her hand and kissed it, crying, "Mother, mother!"

A strange blur came over everything; the sense of reality was lost. Allbecame as a dream--a beautiful dream--but only a dream; and I woke. 

 * * * * *

I woke in my small hotel bedroom, and saw all the furniture, and my hatand clothes, by the light of a lamp outside, and heard the ticking ofthe clock on the mantel-piece, and the rumbling of a cart and crackingof a whip in the street, and yet felt I was not a bit more awake than Ihad been a minute ago in my strange vision--not so much!

I heard my watch ticking its little tick on the mantel-piece by the sideof the clock, like a pony trotting by a big horse. The clock strucktwelve, I got up and looked at my watch by the light of the gas-litstreets; it marked the same. My dream had lasted an hour--I had gone tobed at half-past ten. 

I tried to recall it all, and did so to the smallest particular--allexcept the tune the organ had played, and the words belonging to it;they were on the tip of my tongue, and refused to come further, I got upagain and walked about the room, and felt that it had not been like adream at all; it was more "recollectable" than all my real adventures ofthe previous day. It had ceased to be like a dream, and had become anactuality from the moment I first touched the duchess's hand to themoment I kissed my mother's, and the blur came. It was an entirely newand utterly bewildering experience that I had gone through. 

In a dream there are always breaks, inconsistencies, lapses, incoherence, breaches of continuity, many links missing in the chain;only at points is the impression vivid enough to stamp itself afterwardson the waking mind, and even then it is never so really vivid as theimpression of real life, although it ought to have seemed so in thedream: One remembers it well on awaking, but soon it fades, and then itis only one's remembrance of it that one remembers. 

[Illustration: "MOTHER, MOTHER!"]

There was nothing of this in my dream. 

It was something like the "camera-obscura" on Ramsgate pier: one goesin and finds one's self in total darkness; the eye is prepared; one isthoroughly expectant and wide-awake. 

Suddenly there flashes on the sight the moving picture of the port andall the life therein, and the houses and cliffs beyond; and fartherstill the green hills, the white clouds, and blue sky. 

Little green waves chase each other in the harbor, breaking into crispwhite foam. Sea-gulls wheel and dash and dip behind masts and ropes andpulleys; shiny brass fittings on gangway and compass flash in the sunwithout dazzling the eye; gay Liliputians walk and talk, their whiteteeth, no bigger than a pin's point, gleam in laughter, with never asound; a steamboat laden with excursionists comes in, its paddleschurning the water, and you cannot hear them. Not a detail ismissed--not a button on a sailor's jacket, not a hair on his face. Allthe light and color of sea and earth and sky, that serve for many amile, are here concentrated within a few square feet. And what color itis! A painter's despair! It is light itself, more beautiful than thatwhich streams through old church windows of stained glass. And all isframed in utter darkness, so that the fully dilated pupils can see theirvery utmost. It seems as though all had been painted life-size and thenshrunk, like a Japanese picture on crape, to a millionth of its naturalsize, so as to intensify and mellow the effect. 

It is all over: you come out into the open sunshine, and all seemsgarish and bare and bald and commonplace. All magic has faded out ofthe scene; everything is too far away from everything else; everybodyone meets seems coarse and Brobdingnagian and too near. And one has beenlooking at the like of it all one's life!

Thus with my dream, compared to common, waking, every-day experience;only instead of being mere flat, silent little images moving on a dozensquare feet of Bristol-board, and appealing to the eye alone, the thingsand people in my dream had the same roundness and relief as in life, andwere life-size; one could move among them and behind them, and feel asif one could touch and clasp and embrace them if one dared. And the ear, as well as the eye, was made free of this dark chamber of the brain: oneheard their speech and laughter as in life. And that was not all, forsoft breezes fanned the cheek, the sparrows twittered, the sun gave outits warmth, and the scent of many flowers made the illusion complete. 

And then the Duchess of Towers! She had been not only visible andaudible like the rest, but tangible as well, to the fullest extent ofthe sensibility that lay in my nerves of touch; when my hands held hersI felt as though I were drawing all her life into mine. 

With the exception of that one figure, all had evidently been as it_had_ been in _reality_ a few years ago, to the very droning of aninsect, to the very fall of a blossom!

Had I gone mad by any chance? I had possessed the past, as I had longedto do a few hours before. 

What are sight and hearing and touch and the rest?

Five senses in all. 

The stars, worlds upon worlds, so many billions of miles away, what arethey for us but mere shiny specks on a net-work of nerves behind theeye? How does one _feel_ them there?

The sound of my friend's voice, what is it? The clasp of his hand, thepleasant sight of his face, the scent of his pipe and mine, the taste ofthe bread and cheese and beer we eat and drink together, what are theybut figments (stray figments, perhaps) of the brain--little thrillsthrough nerves made on purpose, and without which there would be nostars, no pipe, no bread and cheese and beer, no voice, no friend, no me?

And is there, perchance, some sixth sense embedded somewhere in thethickness of the flesh--some survival of the past, of the race, of ourown childhood even, etiolated by disuse? or some rudiment, some effortto begin, some priceless hidden faculty to be developed into a futuresource of bliss and consolation for our descendants? some nerve that nowcan only be made to thrill and vibrate in a dream, too delicate as yetto ply its function in the light of common day?

And was I, of all people in the world--I, Peter Ibbetson, architect andsurveyor, Wharton Street, Pentonville--most futile, desultory, anduneducated dreamer of dreams--destined to make some great psychicaldiscovery?

Pondering deeply over these solemn things, I sent myself to sleep again, as was natural enough--but no more to dream. I slept soundly until latein the morning, and breakfasted at the Bains Deligny, a delightfulswimming-bath near the Pont de la Concorde (on the other side), andspent most of the day there, alternately swimming, and dozing, andsmoking cigarettes, and thinking of the wonders of the night before, andhoping for their repetition on the night to follow. 

[Illustration]

I remained a week in Paris, loafing about by day among old haunts of mychildhood--a melancholy pleasure--and at night trying to "dream true" asmy dream duchess had called it. Only once did I succeed. 

I had gone to bed thinking most persistently of the "Mare d'Auteuil, "and it seemed to me that as soon as I was fairly asleep I woke up there, and knew directly that I had come into a "true dream" again, by thereality and the bliss. It was transcendent _life_ once more--a veryecstasy of remembrance made actual, and _such_ an exquisite surprise!

There was M. Le Major, in his green frock-coat, on his knees near alittle hawthorn-tree by the brink, among the water-logged roots of whichthere dwelt a cunning old dytiscus as big as the bowl of atable-spoon--a prize we had often tried to catch in vain. 

M. Le Major had a net in his hand, and was watching the water intently;the perspiration was trickling down his nose; and around him, in silentexpectation and suspense, were grouped Gogo and Mimsey and my threecousins, and a good-humored freckled Irish boy I had quite forgotten, and I suddenly remembered that his name was Johnstone, that he was verycombative, and that he lived in the Rue Basse (now Rue Raynouard). 

On the other side of the pond my mother was keeping Médor from thewater, for fear of his spoiling the sport, and on the bench by thewillow sat Madame Seraskier--lovely Madame Seraskier--deeplyinterested. I sat down by her side and gazed at her with a joy there isno telling. 

An old woman came by, selling conical wafer-cakes, and singing--"_V'lâl'plaisir, mesdames--V'lâ l'plaisir!_" Madame Seraskier bought ten sous'worth--a mountain!

M. Le Major made a dash with his net--unsuccessfully, as usual. Médorwas let loose, and plunged with a plunge that made big waves all roundthe mare, and dived after an imaginary stone, amid general shouts andshrieks of excitement. Oh, the familiar voices! I almost wept. 

Médor came out of the water without his stone and shook himself, twisting and barking and grinning and gyrating, as was his way, quiteclose to me. In my delight and sympathy I was ill-advised enough to tryand stroke him, and straight the dream was "blurred"--changed to anordinary dream, where all things were jumbled up and incomprehensible; adream pleasant enough, but different in kind and degree--an ordinarydream; and in my distress thereat I woke, and failed to dream again (asI wished to dream) that night. 

Next morning (after an early swim) I went to the Louvre, and stoodspellbound before Leonardo da Vinci's "Lisa Gioconda, " trying hard tofind where the wondrous beauty lay that I had heard so extravagantlyextolled; and not trying very successfully, for I had seen MadameSeraskier once more, and felt that "Gioconda" was a fraud. 

Presently I was conscious of a group just behind me, and heard apleasant male English voice exclaim--

[Illustration: "Lisa Giaconda"]

"And now, duchess, let me present to you my first and last and onlylove, Mona Lisa. " I turned round, and there stood a soldier-like oldgentleman and two ladies (one of whom was the Duchess of Towers), staring at the picture. 

As I made way for them I caught her eye, and in it again, as I feltsure, a kindly look of recognition--just for half a second. Sheevidently recollected having seen me at Lady Cray's, where I had stoodall the evening alone in a rather conspicuous corner. I was soexceptionally tall (in those days of not such tall people as now) thatit was easy to notice and remember me, especially as I wore my beard, which it was unusual to do then among Englishmen. 

She little guessed how _I_ remembered _her_; she little knew all she wasand had been to me--in life and in a dream!

My emotion was so great that I felt it in my very knees; I couldscarcely walk; I was as weak as water. My worship for the beautifulstranger was becoming almost a madness. She was even more lovely thanMadame Seraskier. It was cruel to be like that. 

It seems that I was fated to fall down and prostrate myself before verytall, slender women, with dark hair and lily skins and light angeliceyes. The fair damsel who sold tripe and pigs' feet in Clerkenwell wasalso of that type, I remembered; and so was Mrs. Deane. Fortunately forme it is not a common one!

All that day I spent on quays and bridges, leaning over parapets, andlooking at the Seine, and nursing my sweet despair, and calling myselfthe biggest fool in Paris, and recalling over and over again thatgray-blue kindly glance--my only light, the Light of the World for ME!

 * * * * *

My brief holiday over, I went back to London--to Pentonville--andresumed my old occupations; but the whole tenor of my existencewas changed. 

The day, the working-day (and I worked harder than ever, to Lintot'sgreat satisfaction), passed as in an unimportant dream of mild contentand cheerful acquiescence in everything, work or play. 

There was no more quarrelling with my destiny, nor wish to escape frommyself for a moment. My whole being, as I went about on business orrecreation bent, was suffused with the memory of the Duchess of Towersas with a warm inner glow that kept me at peace with all mankind andmyself, and thrilled by the hope, the enchanting hope, of once moremeeting her image at night in a dream, in or about my old home at Passy, and perhaps even feeling once more that ineffable bliss of touching herhand. Though why should she be there?

When the blessed hour came round for sleep, the real business of my lifebegan. I practised "dreaming true" as one practises a fine art, andafter many failures I became a professed expert--a master. 

I lay straight on my back, with my feet crossed, and my hands claspedabove my head in a symmetrical position; I would fix my will intentlyand persistently on a certain point in space and time that was within mymemory--for instance, the avenue gate on a certain Christmas afternoon, when I remembered waiting for M. Le Major to go for a walk--at the sametime never losing touch of my own present identity as Peter Ibbetson, architect, Wharton Street, Pentonville; all of which is not so easy tomanage as one might think, although the dream duchess had said, "Cen'est que le premier pas qui coûte;" and finally one night, instead ofdreaming the ordinary dreams I had dreamed all my life (but twice), Ihad the rapture of _waking up_, the minute I was fairly asleep, bythe avenue gate, and of seeing Gogo Pasquier sitting on one of the stoneposts and looking up the snowy street for the major. Presently he jumpedup to meet his old friend, whose bottle-green-clad figure had justappeared in the distance. I saw and heard their warm and friendlygreeting, and walked unperceived by their side through Auteuil to the_mare_, and back by the fortifications, and listened to the thrillingadventures of one Fier-à-bras, which, I confess, I had completelyforgotten. 

[Illustration: THE STORY OF THE GIANT FIER-A-BRAS. ]

As we passed all three together through the "Porte de la Muette, " M. LeMajor's powers of memory (or invention) began to flag a little--for hesuddenly said, "_Cric!_" But Gogo pitilessly answered, "_Crac!_" andthe story had to go on, till we reached at dusk the gate of thePasquiers' house, where these two most affectionately parted, aftermaking an appointment for the morrow; and I went in with Gogo, and satin the school-room while Thérèse gave him his tea, and heard her tellhim all that had happened in Passy that afternoon. Then he read andsummed and translated with his mother till it was time to go up to bed, and I sat by his bedside as he was lulled asleep by his mother'sharp. . . How I listened with all my ears and heart, till the sweet strainceased for the night! Then out of the hushed house I stole, thinkingunutterable things--through the snow-clad garden, where Médor was bayingthe moon--through the silent avenue and park--through the desertedstreets of Passy--and on by desolate quays and bridges to dark quartersof Paris; till I fell awake in my tracks and found that another drearyand commonplace day had dawned over London--but no longer dreary andcommonplace for me, with such experiences to look back and forwardto--such a strange inheritance of wonder and delight!

I had a few more occasional failures, such as, for instance, when thethread between my waking and sleeping life was snapped by a moment'scarelessness, or possibly by some movement of my body in bed, in whichcase the vision would suddenly get blurred, the reality of it destroyed, and an ordinary dream rise in its place. My immediate consciousness ofthis was enough to wake me on the spot, and I would begin again, _dacapo_ till all went as I wished. 

Evidently our brain contains something akin both to a photographicplate and a phonographic cylinder, and many other things of the samekind not yet discovered; not a sight or a sound or a smell is lost; nota taste or a feeling or an emotion. Unconscious memory records them all, without our even heeding what goes on around us beyond the things thatattract our immediate interest or attention. 

Thus night after night I saw reacted before me scenes not only fairlyremembered, but scenes utterly forgotten, and yet as unmistakably trueas the remembered ones, and all bathed in that ineffable light, thelight of other days--the light that never was on sea or land, and yetthe light of absolute truth. 

How it transcends in value as well as in beauty the garish light ofcommon day, by which poor humanity has hitherto been content to live anddie, disdaining through lack of knowledge the shadow for the substance, the spirit for the matter! I verified the truth of these sleepingexperiences in every detail: old family letters I had preserved, andwhich I studied on awaking, confirmed what I had seen and heard in mydream; old stories explained themselves. It was all by-gone truth, garnered in some remote corner of the brain, and brought out of the dimpast as I willed, and made actual once more. 

And strange to say, and most inexplicable, I saw it all as anindependent spectator, an outsider, not as an actor going again throughscenes in which he has played a part before!

Yet many things perplexed and puzzled me. 

For instance, Gogo's back, and the back of his head, when I stoodbehind him, were as visible and apparently as true to life as his face, and I had never seen his back or the back of his head; it was much laterin life that I learned the secret of two mirrors. And then, when Gogowent out of the room, sometimes apparently passing through me as he didso and coming out at the other side (with a momentary blurring of thedream), the rest would go on talking just as reasonably, as naturally, as before. Could the trees and walls and furniture have had ears andeyes, those long-vanished trees and walls and furniture that existed nowonly in my sleeping brain, and have retained the sound and shape andmeaning of all that passed when Gogo, my only conceivableremembrancer, was away?

Françoise, the cook, would come into the drawing-room to discuss thedinner with my mother when Gogo was at school; and I would hear theorders given, and later I would assist at the eating of the meal (towhich Gogo would invariably do ample justice), and it was just as mymother had ordered. Mystery of mysteries!

What a pleasant life it was they led together, these ghosts of a by-gonetime! Such a genial, smooth, easygoing, happy-go-lucky state ofthings--half bourgeois, half Bohemian, and yet with a well-markedsimplicity, refinement, and distinction of bearing and speech that werequite aristocratic. 

The servants (only three--Thérèse the house-maid, Françoise the cook, and English Sarah, who had been my nurse and was now my mother's maid)were on the kindliest and most familiar terms with us, and talked to uslike friends, and interested themselves in our concerns, and we intheirs; I noticed that they always wished us each good-morning andgood-night--a pretty French fashion of the Passy bourgeoisie in LouisPhilippe's time (he was a bourgeois king). 

Our cuisine was bourgeoise also. Peter Ibbetson's mouth watered (afterhis tenpenny London dinner) to see and smell the steam of "soupe à labonne femme, " "soupe aux choux, " "pot au feu, " "blanquette de veau, ""boeuf à la mode, " "cotelettes de porc à la sauce piquante, ""vinaigrette de boeuf bouilli"--that endless variety of good things onwhich French people grow fat so young--and most excellent claret (at onefranc a bottle in those happy days): its bouquet seemed to fill the roomas soon as the cork was drawn!

Sometimes, such a repast ended, "le beau Pasquier, " in the fulness ofhis heart, would suddenly let off impossible fireworks of vocalization, ascending rockets of chromatic notes which would explode softly veryhigh up and come down in full cadences, trills, roulades, like beautifulcolored stars; and Thérèse would exclaim, "Ah, q'c'est beau!" as if shehad been present at a real pyrotechnic display; and Thérèse was quiteright. I have never heard the like from any human throat, and should nothave believed it possible. Only Joachim's violin can do such beautifulthings so beautifully. 

Or else he would tell us of wolves he had shot in Brittany, orwild-boars in Burgundy--for he was a great sportsman--or of hisadventures as a _garde du corps_ of Charles Dix, or of the wonderfulinventions that were so soon to bring us fame and fortune; and he wouldloyally drink to Henri Cinq; and he was so droll and buoyant and wittythat it was as good to hear him speak as to hear him sing. 

But there was another and a sad side to all this strange comedy ofvanished lives. 

They built castles in the air, and made plans, and talked of all thewealth and happiness that would be theirs when my father's ship camehome, and of all the good they would do, pathetically unconscious of thenear future; which, of course, was all past history to their lovingaudience of one. 

And then my tears would flow with the unbearable ache of love and pitycombined; they would fall and dry on the waxed floors of my old home inPassy, and I would find them still wet on my pillow in Pentonvillewhen I woke. 

 * * * * *

Soon I discovered by practice that I was able for a second or two to bemore than a mere spectator--to be an actor once more; to turn myself(Ibbetson) into my old self (Gogo), and thus be touched and caressed bythose I had so loved. My mother kissed me and I felt it; just as long asI could hold my breath I could walk hand in hand with Madame Seraskier, or feel Mimsey's small weight on my back and her arms round my neck forfour or five yards as I walked, before blurring the dream; and the blurwould soon pass away, if it did not wake me, and I was Peter Ibbetsononce more, walking and sitting among them, hearing them talk and laugh, watching them at their meals, in their walks; listening to my father'ssongs, my mother's sweet playing, and always unseen and unheeded bythem. Moreover, I soon learned to touch things without sensibly blurringthe dream. I would cull a rose, and stick it in my buttonhole, andthere it remained--but lo! the very rose I had just culled was still onthe rose-bush also! I would pick up a stone and throw it at the wall, where it disappeared without a sound--and the very same stone still layat my feet, however often I might pick it up and throw it!

[Illustration]

No waking joy in the world can give, can equal in intensity, thesecomplex joys I had when asleep; waking joys seem so slight, so vague incomparison--so much escapes the senses through lack of concentration andundivided attention--the waking perceptions are so blunt. 

It was a life within a life--an intenser life--in which the freshperceptions of childhood combined with the magic of dream-land, and inwhich there was but one unsatisfied longing; but its name was Lion. 

It was the passionate longing to meet the Duchess of Towers once more inthat land of dreams. 

 * * * * *

Thus for a time I went on, more solitary than ever, but well compensatedfor all my loneliness by this strange new life that had opened itself tome, and never ceasing to marvel and rejoice--when one morning I receiveda note from Lady Cray, who wanted some stables built at Cray, theircountry-seat in Hertfordshire, and begged I would go there for the dayand night. 

I was bound to accept this invitation, as a mere matter of business, ofcourse; as a friend, Lady Cray seemed to have dropped me long ago, "likea 'ot potato, " blissfully unconscious that it was I who had dropped her. 

But she received me as a friend--an old friend. All my shyness andsnobbery fell from me at the mere touch of her hand. 

I had arrived at Cray early in the afternoon, and had immediately setabout my work, which took several hours, so that I got to the house onlyjust in time to dress for dinner. 

When I came into the drawing-room there were several people there, andLady Cray presented me to a young lady, the vicar's daughter, whom I wasto take in to dinner. 

I was very much impressed on being told by her that the companyassembled in the drawing-room included no less a person than Sir EdwinLandseer. Many years ago I had copied an engraving of one of hispictures for Mimsey Seraskier. It was called "The Challenge, " or "ComingEvents cast their Shadows before Them. " I feasted my eyes on thewondrous little man, who seemed extremely chatty and genial, and quiteunembarrassed by his fame. 

A guest was late, and Lord Cray, who seemed somewhat peevishly impatientfor his food, exclaimed--

"Mary wouldn't be Mary if she were punctual!"

Just then Mary came in--and Mary was no less a person than the Duchessof Towers!

My knees trembled under me; but there was no time to give way to anysuch tender weakness. Lord Cray walked away with her; the processionfiled into the dining room, and somewhere at the end of it my youngvicaress and myself. 

The duchess sat a long way from me, but I met her glance for a moment, and fancied I saw again in it that glimmer of kindly recognition. 

My neighbor, who was charming, asked me if I did not think the Duchessof Towers the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. 

I assented with right good-will, and was told that she was as good asshe was beautiful, and as clever as she was good (as if I did not knowit); that she would give away the very clothes off her back; that therewas no trouble she would not take for others; that she did not get onwell with her husband, who drank, and was altogether bad and vile; thatshe had a great sorrow--an only child, an idiot, to whom she wasdevoted, and who would some day be the Duke of Towers; that she washighly accomplished, a great linguist, a great musician, and about themost popular woman in all English society. 

Ah! Who loved the Duchess of Towers better than this poor scribe, inwhose soul she lived and shone like a bright particular star--like thesun; and who, without his knowing, was being rapidly drawn into thesphere of her attraction, as Lintot called it; one day to be finallyabsorbed, I trust, forever!

"And who was this wonderful Duchess of Towers before she married?" Iasked. 

"She was a Miss Seraskier. Her father was a Hungarian, a physician, anda political reformer--a most charming person; that's where she gets hermanners. Her mother, whom she lost when she was quite a child, was avery beautiful Irish girl of good family, a first cousin of LordCray's--a Miss Desmond, who ran away with the interesting patriot. Theylived somewhere near Paris. It was there that Madame Seraskier died ofcholera--. . . What is the matter--are you ill?"

[Illustration]

I made out that I was faint from the heat, and concealed as well as Icould the flood of emotion and bewilderment that overwhelmed me. 

I dared not look again at the Duchess of Towers. 

"Oh! little Mimsey dear, with your poor thin arms round my neck, andyour cold, pale cheek against mine. I felt them there only last night!To have grown into such a splendid vision of female health and strengthand beauty as this--with that enchanting, ever-ready laugh and smile!Why, of course, those eyes, so lashless then, so thickly fringedto-day!--how could I have mistaken them? Ah, Mimsey, you never smiled orlaughed in those days, or I should have known your eyes again! Is itpossible--is it possible?"

Thus I went on to myself till the ladies left, my fair young companionexpressing her kind anxiety and polite hope that I would soon bemyself again. 

I sat silent till it was time to join the ladies (I could not evenfollow the witty and brilliant anecdotes of the great painter, who heldthe table); and then I went up to my room. I could not face _her_ againso soon after what I had heard. 

The good Lord Cray came to make kind inquiries, but I soon satisfied himthat my indisposition was nothing. He stayed on, however, and talked;his dinner seemed to have done him a great deal of good, and he wantedto smoke (and somebody to smoke with), which he had not been able to doin the dining-room on account of some reverend old bishop who waspresent. So he rolled himself a little cigarette, like a Frenchman, andpuffed away to his heart's content. 

He little guessed how his humble architect wished him away, until hebegan to talk of the Duchess of Towers--"Mary Towers, " as he calledher--and to tell me how "Towers" deserved to be kicked, and whipped atthe cart's tail. "Why, she's the best and most beautiful woman inEngland, and as sharp as a needle! If it hadn't been for her, he'd havebeen in the bankruptcy court long ago, " etc. "There's not a duchess inEngland that's fit to hold the candle to her, either for looks orbrains, or breedin' either. Her mother (the loveliest woman that everlived, except Mary) was a connection of mine; that's where she gets hermanners!" etc. 

Thus did this noble earl make music for me--sweet and bitter music. 

Mary! It is a heavenly name, especially on English lips, and spelled inthe English mode with the adorable _y_! Great men have had a passion forit--Byron, Shelley, Burns. But none, methinks, a greater passion than I, nor with such good cause. 

And yet there must be a bad Mary now and then, here or there, and evenan ugly one. Indeed, there was once a Bloody Mary who was both! It seemsincredible!

Mary, indeed! Why not Hecuba? For what was I to the Duchess of Towers?

When I was alone again I went to bed, and tried to sleep on my back, with my arms up, in the hope of a true dream; but sleep would not come, and I passed a white night, as the French say. I rose early and walkedabout the park, and tried to interest my self in the stables till it wasbreakfast-time. Nobody was up, and I breakfasted alone with Lady Cray, who was as kind as she could be. I do not think she could have found mea very witty companion. And then I went back to the stables to think, and fell into a doze. 

At about twelve I heard the sound of wooden balls, and found a lawnwhere some people were playing "croquet. " It was quite a new game, and afew years later became the fashion. 

[Illustration: SWEET AND BITTER MUSIC. ]

I sat down under a large weeping-ash close to the lawn; it was like atent, with chairs and tables underneath. 

Presently Lady Cray came there with the Duchess of Towers. I wanted tofly, but was rooted to the spot. 

[Illustration: The Introduction. ]

Lady Cray presented me, and almost immediately a servant came with amessage for her, and I was left with the One Woman in the World! Myheart was in my mouth, my throat was dry, my pulse was beating inmy temples. 

She asked me, in the most natural manner, if I played "croquet. "

"Yes--no--at least, sometimes--that is, I never of it--oh--I forget!" Igroaned at my idiocy and hid my face in my hands. She asked if I werestill unwell, and I said no; and then she began to talk quite easilyabout anything, everything, till I felt more at my ease. 

Her voice! I had never heard it well but in a dream, and it was thesame--a very rich and modulated voice--low--contralto, with many variedand delightful inflexions; and she used more action in speaking than thegenerality of Englishwomen, thereby reminding me of Madame Seraskier. Inoticed that her hands were long and very narrow, and also her feet, andremembered that Mimsey's were like that--they were considered poorMimsey's only beauty. I also noticed an almost imperceptible scar on herleft temple, and remembered with a thrill that I had noticed it in mydream as we walked up the avenue together. In waking life I had neverbeen near enough to her to notice a small scar, and Mimsey had no scarof the kind in the old days--of that I felt sure, for I had seen much ofMimsey lately. 

I grew more accustomed to the situation, and ventured to say that I hadonce met her at Lady Cray's in London. 

"Oh yes; I remember. Giulia Grisi sand the 'Willow Song. '" And then shecrinkled up her eyes, and laughed, and blushed, and went on: "I noticedyou standing in a corner, under the famous Gainsborough. You reminded meof a dear little French boy I once knew who was very kind to me when Iwas a little girl in France, and whose father you happen to be like. ButI found that you were Mr. Ibbetson, an English architect, and, Lady Craytells me, a very rising one"

"I _was_ a little French boy once. I had to change my name to please arelative, and become English--that is, I was always _really_ English, you know. "

"Good Heavens, what an extraordinary thing! What _was_ your name, then?"

"Pasquier-Gogo Pasquier!" I groaned, and the tears came into my eyes, and I looked away. The duchess made no answer, and when I turned andlooked at her she was looking at me, very pale, her lips quite white, her hands tightly clasped in her lap, and trembling all over. 

I said, "You used to be little Mimsey Seraskier, and I used to carry youpickaback!"

"Oh don't! oh don't!" she said, and began to cry. 

I got up and walked about under the ash-tree till she had dried hereyes. The croquet-players were intent upon their game. 

I again sat down beside her; she had dried her eyes, and at length shesaid--

"What a dreadful thing it was about your poor father and mother, and_my_ dear mother! Do you remember her? She died a week after you left. Iwent to Russia with papa--Dr. Seraskier. What a terrible break-up itall was!"

And then we gradually fell to talking quite naturally about old times, and dear dead people. She never took her eyes off mine. After a whileI said--

"I went to Passy, and found everything changed and built over. Itnearly drove me mad to see. I went to St. Cloud, and saw you drivingwith the Empress of the French. That night I had such an extraordinarydream! I dreamed I was floundering about the Rue de la Pompe, and hadjust got to the avenue gate, and you were there. "

"Good heavens!" she whispered, and turned white again, and trembled allover, "what do you mean?"

"Yes, " I said, "you came to my rescue. I was pursued by gnomes andhorrors. "

_She. _ "Good heavens! by--by two little jailers, a man and his wife, whodanced and were trying to hem you in?"

It was now my turn to ejaculate "Good heavens!" We both shook andtrembled together. 

I said: "You gave me your hand, and all came straight at once. My oldschool rose in place of the jail. "

_She. _ "With a yellow omnibus? And boys going off to their _premièrecommunion?_"

_I. _ "Yes; and there was a crowd--le Père et la MèreFrançois, and Madame Liard, the grocer's wife, and--andMimsey Seraskier, with her cropped head. Andan organ was playing a tune I knew quite well, butcannot now recall. " . . . 

_She. _ "Wasn't it 'Maman, les p'tits bateaux?'"

_I. _ Oh, of _course!_

 _"'Maman, les p'tits bateaux Qui vont sur l'eau, Ont-ils des jambes?'"_

_She_. "That's it!"

 _"'Eh oui, petit bêta! S'ils n'avaient pas Ils n'march'raient pas!'"_

She sank back in her chair, pale and prostrate. After a while--

_She_. "And then I gave you good advice about how to dream true, and wegot to my old house, and I tried to make you read the letters on theportico, and you read them wrong, and I laughed. "

_I_. "Yes; I read 'Tête Noire. ' Wasn't it idiotic?"

_She_. "And then I touched you again and you read 'Parvis Notre Dame. '"

_I_. "Yes! and you touched me _again_, and I read 'Parva sedApta'--small but fit. "

_She_. "Is _that_ what it means? Why, when you were a boy, you told me_sed apta_ was all one word, and was the Latin for 'Pavilion. ' Ibelieved it ever since, and thought 'Parva sed Apta' meant _petitpavillon_!"

_I_. "I blush for my bad Latin! After this you gave me good adviceagain, about not touching anything or picking flowers. I never have. Andthen you went away into the park--the light went out of my life, sleeping or waking. I have never been able to dream of you since. Idon't suppose I shall ever meet you again after to-day!"

After this we were silent for a long time, though I hummed and hawed nowand then, and tried to speak. I was sick with the conflict of myfeelings. At length she said--

"Dear Mr. Ibbetson, this is all so extraordinary that I must go awayand think it all over. I cannot tell you what it has been to me to meetyou once more. And that double dream, common to us both! Oh, I am dazedbeyond expression, and feel as if I were dreaming now--except that thisall seems so unreal and impossible--so untrue! We had better part now. Idon't know if I shall ever meet you again. You will be often in mythoughts, but never in my dreams again--that, at least, I cancommand--nor I in yours; it must not be. My poor father taught me how todream before he died, that I might find innocent consolation in dreamsfor my waking troubles, which are many and great, as his were. If I cansee that any good may come of it, I will write--but no--you must notexpect a letter. I will now say good-bye and leave you. You go to-day, do you not? That is best. I think this had better be a final adieu. Icannot tell you of what interest you are to me and always have been. Ithought you had died long ago. We shall often think of each other--thatis inevitable--_but never, never dream. That will not do. _

"Dear Mr. Ibbetson, I wish you all the good that one human being canwish another. And now goodbye, and may God in heaven bless you!"

She rose, trembling and white, and her eyes wet with tears, and wrungboth my hands, and left me as she had left me in the dream. 

The light went out of my life, and I was once more alone--morewretchedly and miserably alone than if I had never met her. 

I went back to Pentonville, and outwardly took up the thread of mymonotonous existence, and ate, drank, and worked, and went about asusual, but as one in an ordinary dream. For now dreams--true dreams--hadbecome the only reality for me. 

[Illustration: A FAREWELL. ]

So great, so inconceivable and unexampled a wonder had been wrought in adream that all the conditions of life had been altered and reversed. 

I and another human being had met--actually and really met--in a doubledream, a dream common to us both, and clasped each other's hands! Andeach had spoken words to the other which neither ever would or evercould forget. 

And this other human being and I had been enshrined in each other'smemory for years--since childhood--and were now linked together by a tieso marvellous, an experience so unprecedented, that neither could everwell be out of the other's thoughts as long as life and sense andmemory lasted. 

Her very self, as we talked to each other under the ash-tree at Cray, was less vividly present to me than that other and still dearer self ofhers with whom I had walked up the avenue in that balmy dreamatmosphere, where we had lived and moved and had our being together fora few short moments, yet each believing the other at the time to be amere figment of his own (and her) sleeping imagination; such stuff asdreams are made of!

And lo! it was all true--as true as the common experience of every-daylife--more (ten times more), because through our keener and more exaltedsense perceptions, and less divided attention, we were more conscious ofeach other's real inner being--linked closer together for a space--thantwo mortals had probably ever been since the world began. 

That clasp of the hands in the dream--how infinitely more it hadconveyed of one to the other than even that sad farewell clasp at Cray!

In my poor outer life I waited in vain for a letter; in vain I hauntedthe parks and streets--the street where she lived--in the hope of seeingher once more. The house was shut; she was away--in America, as Iafterwards learned--with her husband and child. 

At night, in the familiar scenes I had learned so well to conjure up, Iexplored every nook and corner with the same yearning desire to find atrace of her. I was hardly ever away from "Parva sed Apta. " There wereMadame Seraskier and Mimsey and the major, and my mother and Gogo, atall times, in and out, and of course as unconscious of my solid presenceas though I had never existed. And as I looked at Mimsey and her motherI wondered at my obtuseness in not recognizing at the very first glancewho the Duchess of Towers had been, and whose daughter. The height, thevoice, the eyes, certain tricks of gait and gesture--how could I havefailed to know her again after such recent dream opportunities?

And Seraskier, towering among them all, as his daughter now toweredamong women. I saw that he lived again in his daughter; _his_ was thesmile that closed up the eyes, as hers did; had Mimsey ever smiled inthose days, I should have known her again by this very characteristictrait. 

Of this daughter of his (the Mimsey of the past years, not the duchessof to-day) I never now could have enough, and made her go through againand again all the scenes with Gogo, so dear to my remembrance, and tohers. I was, in fact, the Prince Charmant, of whose unseen attendanceshe had been conscious in some inconceivable way. What a strangeforesight! But where was the fée Tarapatapoum? Never there during thisyear of unutterable longing; she had said it; never, never again shouldI be in her dream, or she in mine, however constantly we might dwell ineach other's thoughts. 

So sped a twelvemonth after that last meeting in the flesh at Gray. 

 * * * * *

And now with an unwilling heart and most reluctant pen, I must come tothe great calamity of my life which I will endeavor to tell in as fewwords as possible. 

The reader, if he has been good enough to read without skipping, willremember the handsome Mrs. Deane, to whom I fancied I lost my heart, inHopshire, a few years back. 

I had not seen her since--had, indeed, almost forgotten her--but hadheard vaguely that she had left Hopshire, and come to London, andmarried a wealthy man much older than herself. 

Well, one day I was in Hyde Park, gazing at the people in the drive, when a spick-and-span and very brand-new open carriage went by, and init sad Mrs. Deane (that was), all alone in her glory, and looking verysulky indeed. She recognized me and bowed, and I bowed back again, withjust a moment's little flutter of the heart--an involuntary tribute toauld lang syne--and went on my way, wondering that I could ever hadadmired her so. 

Presently, to my surprise, I was touched on the elbow. It was Mrs. Deaneagain--I will call her Mrs. Deane still. She had got out and followedme on foot. It was her wish that I should drive round the park with herand talk of old times. I obeyed, and for the first and last time foundmyself forming part of that proud and gay procession I had so oftenwatched with curious eyes. 

She seemed anxious to know whether I had ever made it up with ColonelIbbetson, and pleased to hear that I had not, and that I probably nevershould, and that my feeling against him was strong and bitter andlikely to last. 

She appeared to hate him very much. 

She inquired kindly after myself and my prospects in life, but did notseem deeply interested in my answers--until later, when I talked of myFrench life, and my dear father and mother, when she listened with eagersympathy, and I was much touched. She asked if I had portraits of them;I had--most excellent miniatures; and when we parted I had promised tocall upon her next afternoon, and bring these miniatures with me. 

She seemed a languid woman, much ennuyée, and evidently without a largecircle of acquaintance. She told me I was the only person in the wholepark whom she had bowed to that day. Her husband was in Hamburg, and shewas going to meet him in Paris in a day or two. 

I had not so many friends but what I felt rather glad than otherwise tohave met her, and willingly called, as I had promised, with theportraits. 

She lived in a large, new house, magnificently up near the Marble Arch. She was quite alone when I called, and asked me immediately if I hadbrought the miniatures; and looked at them quite eagerly, and then atme, and exclaimed--

"Good heavens, you are your father's very image!"

Indeed, I had always been considered so. 

Both his eyebrows and mine, especially, met in a singular andcharacteristic fashion at the bridge of the nose, and she seemed muchstruck by this. He was represented in the uniform of Charles X's _gardesdu corps_, in which he had served for two years, and had acquired thenickname of "le beau Pasquier. " Mrs. Deane seemed never to tire ofgazing at it, and remarked that my father "must have been the very idealof a young girl's dream" (an indirect compliment which made me blushafter what she had just said of the likeness between us. I almost beganto wonder whether she was going to try and make a fool of me again, asshe had so successfully done a few years ago). 

Then she became interested again in my early life and recollections, andwanted to know whether my parents were fond of each other. They were amost devoted and lover-like pair, and had loved each other at firstsight and until death, and I told her so; and so on until I became quiteexcited, and imagined she must know of some good fortune to which I wasentitled, and had been kept out of by the machinations of awicked uncle. 

For I had long discovered in my dreams that he had been my father'sbitterest enemy and the main cause of his financial ruin, by selfish, heartless, and dishonest deeds too complicated to explain here--aregular Shylock. 

I had found this out by listening (in my dreams) to long conversationsbetween my father and mother in the old drawing-room at Passy, whileGogo was absorbed in his book; and every word that had passed throughGogo's inattentive ears into his otherwise preoccupied little brain hadbeen recorded there as in a phonograph, and was now repeated over andover again for Peter Ibbetson, as he sat unnoticed among them. 

I asked her, jokingly, if she had discovered that I was the rightfulheir to Ibbetson Hall by any chance. 

She replied that nothing would give her greater pleasure, but there wasno such good fortune in store for either her or me; that she haddiscovered long ago that Colonel Ibbetson was the greatest blackguardunhung, and nothing new she might discover could make him worse. 

I then remembered how he would often speak of her, even to me, and hintand insinuate things which were no doubt untrue, and which Idisbelieved. Not that the question of their truth or untruth made himany the less despicable and vile for telling. 

She asked me if he had ever spoken of her to me, and after muchpersuasion and cunning cross-examination I told her as much of the truthas I dared, and she became a tigress. She assured me that he had managedso to injure and compromise her in Hopshire that she and her mother hadto leave, and she swore to me most solemnly (and I thoroughly believeshe spoke the truth) that there had never been any relation betweenthem that she could not have owned to before the whole world. 

She had wished to marry him, it is true, for his wealth and position;for both she and her mother were very poor, and often hard put to it tomake both ends meet and keep up a decent appearance before the world;and he had singled her out and paid her marked attention from the first, and given her every reason to believe that his attentions were seriousand honorable. 

At this juncture her mother came in, Mrs. Glyn, and we renewed our oldacquaintance. She had quite forgiven me my school-boy admiration for herdaughter; all her power of hating, like her daughter's, had concentrateditself on Ibbetson; and as I listened to the long story of their wrongsand his infamy, I grew to hate him worse than ever, and was ready to betheir champion on the spot, and to take up their quarrel there and then. 

But this would not do, it appeared, for their name must nevermore be inany way mixed up with his. 

Then suddenly Mrs. Glyn asked me if I knew when he went to India. 

I could satisfy her, for I knew that it was just after my parents'marriage, nearly a year before my birth; upon which she gave the exactdate of his departure with his regiment, and the name of the transport, and everything; and also, to my surprise, the date of my parents'marriage at Marylebone Church, and of my baptism there fifteen monthslater--just fourteen weeks after my birth in Passy. I was growing quitebewildered with all this knowledge of my affairs, and wondered moreand more. 

We sat silent for a while, the two women looking at each other and at meand at the miniatures. It was getting grewsome. What could it all mean?

Presently Mrs. Glyn, at a nod from her daughter, addressed me thus:

"Mr. Ibbetson, your uncle, as you call him, though he is not your uncle, is a very terrible villain, and has done you and your parents a veryfoul wrong. Before I tell you what it is (and I think you ought to know)you must give me your word of honor that you will do or say nothing thatwill get our name publicly mixed up in any way with Colonel Ibbetson's. The injury to my daughter, now she is happily married to an excellentman, would be irreparable. "

With a beating heart I solemnly gave the required assurance. 

"Then, Mr. Ibbetson, it is right that you should know that ColonelIbbetson, when he was paying his infamous addresses to my daughter, gaveher unmistakably to understand that you were his natural son, by hiscousin, Miss Catherine Biddulph, afterwards Madame Pasquier dela Marière!"

"Oh, oh, oh!" I cried, "surely you must be mistaken--he knew it wasimpossible--he had been refused by my mother three times--he went toIndia nearly a year before I was born--he--"

Then Mrs. Deane said, producing an old letter from her pocket:

"Do you know his handwriting and his crest? Do you happen to recollectonce bringing me a note from at Ibbetson Hall? Here it is, " and shehanded it to me. It was unmistakably his, and I remembered it at once, and this is what it said:

"For Heaven's sake, dear friend, don't breathe a word to any living soulof what you were clever enough to guess last night! There is a likeness, of course. 

"Poor Antinoüs! He is quite ignorant of the true relationship, which hascaused me many a pang of shame and remorse. . . . 

"'Que voulez-vous? Elle était ravissaure!' . . . We were cousins, muchthrown together; 'both were so young, and one so beautiful!' . . . I wasbut a penniless cornet in those days--hardly more than a boy. Happily anunsuspecting Frenchman of good family was there who had loved her long, and she married him. 'Il était temps!' . . . 

"Can you forgive me this 'entraînement de jeunesse?' I have repented insackcloth and ashes, and made what reparation I could by adopting andgiving my name to one who is a perpetual reminder to me of a moment'sinfatuation. He little knows, poor boy, and never will, I hope. 'Il n'aplus que moi au monde!'

"Burn this as soon as you have read it, and never let the subject bementioned between us again. 

"R. ('Qui sait aimer'). "

Here was a thunderbolt out of the blue!

I sat stunned and saw scarlet, and felt as if I should see scarletforever. 

[Illustration: THE FATAL LETTER. ]

After a long silence, during which I could feel my pulse beat tobursting-point in my temples, Mrs. Glyn said:

"Now, Mr. Ibbetson, I hope you will do nothing rash--nothing that canbring my daughter's name into any quarrel between yourself and youruncle. For the sake of your mother's good name, you will be prudent, Iknow. If he could speak like this of his cousin, with whom he had beenin love when he was young, what lies would he not tell of my poordaughter? He _has_--terrible lies! Oh, what we have suffered! When hewrote that letter I believe he really meant to marry her. He had thegreatest trust in her, or he would never have committed himself sofoolishly. "

"Does he know of this letter's existing?" I asked. 

"No. When he and my daughter quarrelled she sent him back hisletters--all but this one, which she told him she had burned immediatelyafter reading it, as he had told her to do. "

"May I keep it?"

"Yes. I know you may be trusted, and my daughter's name has been removedfrom the outside, as you see. No one but ourselves has ever seen it, norhave we mentioned to a soul what it contains, as we never believed itfor a moment. Two or three years ago we had the curiosity to find outwhen and where your parents had married, and when you were born, andwhen _he_ went to India, it was no surprise to us at all. We then triedto find you, but soon gave it up, and thought it better to leave mattersalone. Then we heard he was in mischief again--just the same sort ofmischief; and then my daughter saw you in the park, and we concluded youought to know. "

Such was the gist of that memorable conversation, which I have condensedas much as I could. 

When I left these two ladies I walked twice rapidly round the park. Isaw scarlet often during that walk. Perhaps I looked scarlet. I rememberpeople staring at me. 

Then I went straight to Lintot's, with the impulse to tell him mytrouble and ask his advice. 

He was away from home, and I waited in his smoking-room for a while, reading the letter over and over again. 

Then I decided not to tell him, and left the house, taking with me as Idid so (but without any definite purpose) a heavy loaded stick, a mostformidable weapon, even in the hands of a boy, and which I myself hadgiven to Lintot on his last birthday. [Greek: Anagkae]!

Then I went to my usual eating-house near the circus and dined. To thesurprise of the waiting-maid, I drank a quart of bitter ale and twoglasses of sherry. It was my custom to drink water. She plied me withquestions as to whether I was ill or in trouble. I answered her no, andat last begged she would leave me alone. 

Ibbetson lived in St. James's Street. I went there. He was out. It wasnine o'clock, and his servant seemed uncertain when he would return. Icame back at ten. He was not yet home, and the servant, after thinking awhile, and looking up and down the street, and finding my appearancedecent and by no means dangerous, asked me to go upstairs and wait, as Itold him it was a matter of great importance. 

So I went and sat in my uncle's drawing-room and waited. 

The servant came with me and lit the candles, and remarked on theweather, and handed me the _Saturday Review_ and _Punch_. I must havelooked quite natural--as I tried to look--and he left me. 

I saw a Malay creese on the mantel-piece and hid it behind apicture-frame. I locked a door leading to another drawing-room wherethere was a grand piano, and above it a trophy of swords, daggers, battle-axes, etc. , and put the key in my pocket. 

The key of the room where I waited was inside the door. 

All this time I had a vague idea of possible violence on his part, butno idea of killing him. I felt far too strong for that. Indeed, I had afeeling of quiet, irresistible strength--the result of suppressedexcitement. 

I sat down and meditated all I would say. I had settled it over and overagain, and read and reread the fatal letter. 

The servant came up with glasses and soda-water. I trembled lest heshould observe that the door to the other room was locked, but he didnot. He opened the window and looked up and down the street. Presentlyhe said, "Here's the colonel at last, sir, " and went down to openthe door. 

I heard him come in and speak to his servant. Then he came straight up, humming _"la donna e mobile, "_ and walked in with just the jaunty, airymanner I remembered. He was in evening dress, and very little changed. He seemed much surprised to see me, and turned very white. 

"Well, my Apollo of the T square, _pourquoi cet honneur?_ Have you come, like a dutiful nephew, to humble yourself and beg for forgiveness?"

I forgot all I meant to say (indeed, nothing happened as I had meant), but rose and said, "I have come to have a talk with you, " as quietly asI could, though with a thick voice. 

He seemed uneasy, and went towards the door. 

I got there before him, and closed it, and locked it, and put the keyin my pocket. 

He darted to the other door and found it locked. 

Then he went to the mantel-piece and looked for the creese, and notfinding it, he turned round with his back to the fireplace and his armsakimbo, and tried to look very contemptuous and determined. His chin wasquite white under his dyed mustache--like wax--and his eyes blinkednervously. 

I walked up to him and said: "You told Mrs. Deane that I was yournatural son. "

"It's a lie! Who told you so?"

"She did--this afternoon. "

"It's a lie--a spiteful invention of a cast-off mistress!"

"She never was your mistress!"

"You fool! I suppose she told you that too. Leave the room, you pitifulgreen jackass, or I'll have you turned out, " and he rang the bell. 

"Do you know your own handwriting?" I said, and handed him the letter. 

He read a line or two and gasped out that it was a forgery, and rang thebell again, and looked again behind the clock for his creese. Then helit the letter at a candle and threw it in the fireplace, where itblazed out. 

I made no attempt to prevent him. 

The servant tried to open the door, and Ibbetson went to the window andcalled out for the police. I rushed to the picture where I had hiddenthe creese, and threw it on the table. Then I swung him away from thewindow by his coat-tails, and told him to defend himself, pointing tothe creese. 

He seized it, and stood on the defensive; the servant had apparently rundown-stairs for assistance. 

"Now, then, " I said, "down on your knees, you infamous cur, and confess;it's your only chance. "

"Confess what, you fool?"

"That you're a coward and a liar; that you wrote that letter; that Mrs. Deane was no more your mistress than my mother was!"

There was a sound of people running up-stairs. He listened a moment andhissed out:

"They _both_ were, you idiot! How can I tell for certain whether you aremy son or not? It all comes to the same. Of course I wrote the letter. Come on, you cowardly assassin, you bastard parricide!" . . . And headvanced on me with his creese low down in his right hand, the pointupward, and made a thrust, shrieking out, "Break open the door! quick!"They did; but too late!

[Illustration: "BASTARD! PARRICIDE!"]

I saw crimson!

He missed me, and I brought down my stick on his left arm, which he heldover his head, and then on his head, and he fell, crying:

"O my God! O Christ!"

I struck him again on his head as he was falling, and once again when hewas on the ground. It seemed to crash right in. 

That is why and how I killed Uncle Ibbetson. 

Part Five

[Illustration]

 "_Grouille, grève, grève, grouille, File, file, ma quenouille! File sa corde au bourreau Qui siffle dans le préau. . . _"

So sang the old hag in _Notre Dame de Paris!_

So sang to me night and day, for many nights and days, the thin smallvoice that always went piping inside me, now to one tune, now toanother, but always the same words--that terrible refrain that used tohaunt me so when I was a school-boy at Bluefriars!

Oh, to be a school-boy again in a long gray coat and ridiculous pinkstockings--innocent and free--with Esmeralda for my only love, and Athosand Porthos and D'Artagnan for my bosom friends, and no worsetribulation than to be told on a Saturday afternoon that the thirdvolume was in hand--_volume trois en lecture_'. 

 * * * * *

Sometimes, I remember, I could hardly sleep on a Sunday night, for pityof the poor wretch who was to be hanged close by on Monday morning, andit has come to that with _me_!

 * * * * *

Oh, Mary, Mary, Duchess of Towers, sweet friend of my childhood, andlove of my life, what must you think of me now?

 * * * * *

How blessed are the faithful! How good it must be to trust in God andheaven, and the forgiveness of sin, and be as a little child in all butinnocence! A whole career of crime wiped out in a moment by just onecheap little mental act of faith at the eleventh hour, in the extremeterror of well-merited dissolution; and all the evil one has workedthrough life (that goes on breeding evil for ages to come) taken offone's shoulders like a filthy garment, and just cast aside, anywhere, anyhow, for the infecting of others--who do not count. 

What matter if it be a fool's paradise? Paradise is paradise, forwhoever owns it!

 * * * * *

They say a Sicilian drum-major, during the French occupation of Palermo, was sentenced to be shot. He was a well-known coward, and it was fearedhe would disgrace his country at the last moment in the presence of theFrench soldiers, who had a way of being shot with a good grace and alight heart: they had grown accustomed to it. 

For the honor of Sicily his confessor told him, in the strictestconfidence, that his sentence was a mock one, and that he would be firedat with blank cartridges. 

It was a pious fraud. All but two of the twelve cartridges had bullets, and he fell, riddled through and through. No Frenchman ever died with alighter heart, a better grace. He was superb, and the national honorwas saved. 

Thrice happy Sicilian drum-major, if the story be true! That trust inblank cartridges was his paradise. 

 * * * * *

Oh, it is uphill work to be a stoic when the moment comes and the tug!But when the tug lasts for more than a moment--days and nights, days andnights! Oh, happy Sicilian drum-major!

 * * * * *

Pray? Yes, I will pray night and morning, and all day long, to whateverthere is left of inherited strength and courage in that luckless, misbegotten waif, Peter Ibbetson; that it may bear him up a little whileyet; that he may not disgrace himself in the dock or on the gallows. 

 * * * * *

Repent? Yes, of many things. But of the thing for which I am here?Never!

 * * * * *

It is a ghastly thing to be judge and jury and executioner all in one, and for a private and personal wrong--to condemn and strike and kill. 

Pity comes after--when it is too late, fortunately--the wretchedweakness of pity! Pooh! no Calcraft will ever pity _me_, and I do notwant him to. 

 * * * * *

He had his long, snaky knife against my stick; he, too, was a big strongman, well skilled in self-defence! Down he went, and I struck him againand again. "O my God! O Christ!" he shrieked. . . . 

"It will ring in my heart and my ears till I die--till I die!"

 * * * * *

There was no time to lose--no time to think for the best. It is all forthe best as it is. What might he not have said if he had lived!

 * * * * *

Thank Heaven, pity is not remorse or shame; and what crime could wellbe worse than his? To rob one's dearly beloved dead of their fair shame!

 * * * * *

He might have been mad, perhaps, and have grown in time to believe thelies he told himself. Such things have been. But such a madman should nomore be suffered to live than a mad dog. The only way to kill the liewas to kill the liar--that is, if one _can_ ever kill a lie!

 * * * * *

Poor worm! after all, he could not help it, I suppose! he was _built_like that! and _I_ was built to kill him for it, and be hanged. '[Greek: Anagkae]!

What an exit for "Gogo--gentil petit Gogo!"

 * * * * *

Just opposite that wall, on the other side, was once a small tripe andtrotter shop, kept by a most lovely daughter of the people, so fair andgood in my eyes that I would have asked her to be my wife. What wouldshe think of me now? That I should have dared to aspire! What aKing Cophetua!

 * * * * *

What does everybody think? I can never breathe the real cause to a soul. Only two women know the truth, and they will take good care not to tell. Thank Heaven for that!

What matters what anybody thinks? "It will be all the same as a hundredyears hence. " That is the most sensible proverb ever invented. 

 * * * * *

But meanwhile!

 * * * * *

The judge puts on the black cap, and it is all for you! Every eye isfixed on you, so big and young and strong and full of life! Ugh!

 * * * * *

They pinion you, and you have to walk and be a man, and the chaplainexhorts and prays and tries to comfort. Then a sea of faces; peopleopposite, who have been eating and drinking and making merry, waiting for_you!_ A cap is pulled over your eyes--oh, horror! horror! horror!

 * * * * *

"Heureux tambour-major de Sicile!"

 * * * * *

"Il faut laver son ligne sale en famille, et c'est ce que j'ai fait. Mais ça va ma coûter cher!"

 * * * * *

Would I do it all over again? Oh, let me hope, yes!

 * * * * *

Ah, he died too quick; I dealt him those four blows in less than asmany seconds. It was five minutes, perhaps--or, at the most, ten--fromthe moment he came into the room to that when I finished him and wascaught red-handed. And I--what a long agony!

Oh, that I might once more dream a "true dream, " and see my dear peopleonce more! But it seems that I have lost the power of dreaming truesince that fatal night. I try and try, but it will not come. My dreamsare dreadful; and, oh, the _waking_!

 * * * * *

After all, my life hitherto, but for a few happy years of childhood, hasnot been worth living; it is most unlikely that it ever would have been, had I lived to a hundred! Oh, Mary! Mary!

 * * * * *

And penal servitude! Better any death than that. It is good that mysecret must die with me--that there will be no extenuatingcircumstances, no recommendation to mercy, no commutation of the swiftpenalty of death. 

"File, file. . . File sa corde au bourreau!"

By such monotonous thoughts, and others as dreary and hopeless, recurring again and again in the same dull round, I beguiled theterrible time that intervened between Ibbetson's death and my trial atthe Old Bailey. 

It all seems very trivial and unimportant now--not worthrecording--even hard to remember. 

But at the time my misery was so great, my terror of the gallows sopoignant, that each day I thought I must die of sheer grief beforeanother twenty-four hours could possibly pass over me. 

The intolerable strain would grow more and more severe till a climax oftension was reached, and a hysterical burst of tears would relieve mefor a while, and I would feel reconciled to my fate, and able to facedeath like a man. . . . Then the anguish would gradually steal over meagain, and the uncontrollable weakness of the flesh. . . . 

And each of these two opposite moods, while it lasted, made the otherseem impossible, and as if it never could come back again; yet back itcame with the regularity of a tide--the most harrowing seesaw thatever was. 

I had always been unstable like that; but whereas I had hithertooscillated between high elation and despondency, it was now from a dumb, resigned despair to the wildest agony and terror. 

I sought in vain for the only comfort it was in me to seek; but when, overdone with suffering, I fell asleep at last, I could no longer dreamtrue; I could dream only as other wretches dream. 

I always dreamed those two little dancing, deformed jailers, man andwife, had got me at last; and that I shrieked aloud for my belovedduchess to succor me, as they ran me in, each butting at me sideways, and showing their toothless gums in a black smile, and poisoning mewith their hot sour breath! The gate was there, and the avenue, alldistorted and quite unlike; and, opposite, a jail; but no powerfulDuchess of Towers to wave the horror away. 

 * * * * *

It will be remembered by some, perhaps, how short was my trial. 

The plea of "not guilty" was entered for me. The defence set up wasinsanity, based on the absence of any adequate motive. This defence wassoon disposed of by the prosecution; witnesses to my sanity were notwanting, and motives enough were found in my past relations with ColonelIbbetson to "make me--a violent, morose, and vindictive-naturedman--imbrue my hands in the gore of my relative and benefactor--a manold enough to be my father--who, indeed, might have been my father, forthe love he had bestowed upon me, with his honored name, when I was lefta penniless, foreign orphan on his hands. "

Here I laughed loud and long, and made a most painful impression, as isduly recorded in the reports of the trial. 

The jury found me guilty quite early in the afternoon of the second day, without leaving the box; and I, "preserving to the last the callous andunmoved demeanor I had borne all through the trial, " was duly sentencedto death without any hope of mercy, but with an expression of regret onthe part of the judge--a famous hanging judge--that a man of myeducation and promise should be brought by his own evil nature anduncontrollable passions to so deplorable an end. 

Now whether the worst of certainties is better than suspense--whether mynerves of pain had been so exercised during the period preceding mytrial that I had really become callous, as they say a man's back doesafter a certain number of strokes from the "cat"--certain it was that Iknew the worst, and acquiesced in it with a surprised sense of actualrelief, and found it in me to feel it not unbearable. 

Such, at least, was my mood that night. I made the most of it. It wasalmost happiness by comparison with what I had gone through. I remembereating with a heartiness that surprised me. I could have gone straightfrom my dinner to the gallows, and died with a light heart and a goodgrace--like a Sicilian drum-major. 

I resolved to write the whole true story to the Duchess of Towers, withan avowal of my long and hopeless adoration for her, and the expressionof a hope that she would try to think of me only as her old playfellow, and as she had known me before this terrible disaster. And thinking ofthe letter I would write till very late, I fell asleep in my cell, withtwo warders to watch over me; and then--Another phase of my innerlife began. 

 * * * * *

Without effort, without let or hindrance of any kind, I was at theavenue gate. 

The pink and white may, the lilacs and laburnums were in full bloom, thesun made golden paths everywhere. The warm air was full of fragrance, and alive with all the buzz and chirp of early summer. 

I was half crying with joy to reach the land of my true dreams again, tofeel at home once more--_chez moi! chez moi!_

La Mère François sat peeling potatoes at the door of her _loge_; she wassinging a little song about _cinq sous, sinq sous, pour monter notreménage. _ I had forgotten it, but it all came back now. 

[Illustration: "CINQ SOUS, CINQ SOUS, POUR MONTER NOTRE MÉNAGE. "]

The facetious postman, Yverdon, went in at the gate of my old garden;the bell rang as he pushed it, and I followed him. 

Under the apple-tree, which was putting forth shoots of blossom inprofusion, sat my mother and Monsieur le Major. My mother took theletter from the postman's hand as he said, "Pour Vous? Oh yes, MadamePasquier, God sev ze Kveen!" and paid the postage. It was from ColonelIbbetson, then in Ireland, and not yet a colonel. 

Médor lay snoring on the grass, and Gogo and Mimsey were looking at thepictures in the _musée des familles. _

In a garden chair lolled Dr. Seraskier, apparently asleep, with his longporcelain pipe across his knees. 

Madame Seraskier, in a yellow nankeen gown with gigot sleeves, wascutting curl-papers out of the _Constitutionnel_. 

I gazed on them all with unutterable tenderness. I was gazing on themperhaps for the last time. 

I called out to them by name. 

"Oh, speak to me, beloved shades! Oh, my father! oh, mother, I want youso desperately! Come out of the past for a few seconds, and give me somewords of comfort! I'm in such woful plight! If you could only_know_ . . . "

But they could neither hear nor see me. 

Then suddenly another figure stepped forth from behind theapple-tree--no old-fashioned, unsubstantial shadow of by-gone days thatone can only see and hear, and that cannot hear and see one back again;but one in all the splendid fulness of life, a pillar of help andstrength--Mary, Duchess of Towers!

I fell on my knees as she came to me with both hands extended. 

"Oh, Mr. Ibbetson, I have been seeking and waiting for you here nightafter night! I have been frantic! If you hadn't come at last, I musthave thrown everything to the winds, and gone to see you in Newgate, waking and before the world, to have a talk with you--an _abboccamento_. I suppose you couldn't sleep, or were unable to dream. "

I could not answer at first. I could only cover her hands with kisses, as I felt her warm life-current mixing with mine--a rapture!

And then I said--

"I swear to you by all I hold most sacred--by _my_ mother's memory and_yours_--by yourself--that I never meant to take Ibbetson's life, oreven strike him; the miserable blow was dealt. . . . "

"As if you need tell me that! As if I didn't know you of old, my poorfriend, kindest and gentlest of men! Why, I am holding your hands, andsee into the very depths of your heart!"

(I put down all she said as she said it. Of course I am not, and neverhave been, what her old affectionate regard made me seem in her eyes, any more than I am the bloodthirsty monster I passed for. Woman-like, she was the slave of her predilections. )

"And now, Mr. Ibbetson, " she went on, "let me first of all tell you, fora certainty, that the sentence will be commuted. I saw the HomeSecretary three or four hours ago. The real cause of your deplorablequarrel with your uncle is an open secret. His character is well known. A Mrs. Gregory (whom you knew in Hopshire as Mrs. Deane) has been withthe Home Secretary this afternoon. Your chivalrous reticence at thetrial. . . . "

"Oh, " I interrupted, "I don't care to live any longer! Now that I havemet you once more, and that you have forgiven me and think well of me inspite of everything, I am ready to die. There has never been anybody butyou in the world for _me_--never a ghost of a woman, never even a friendsince my mother died and yours. Between that time and the night I firstsaw you at Lady Cray's concert, I can scarcely be said to have lived atall. I fed on scraps of remembrance. You see I have no talent for makingnew friends, but oh, such a genius for fidelity to old ones! I waswaiting for Mimsey to come back again, I suppose, the one survivor to meof that sweet time, and when she came at last I was too stupid torecognize her. She suddenly blazed and dazzled into my poor life like ameteor, and filled it with a maddening love and pain. I don't know whichof the two has been the sweetest; both have been my life. You cannotrealize what it has been. Trust me, I have lived my fill. I am ready andwilling to die. It is the only perfect consummation I can think of. Nothing can ever equal this moment--nothing on earth or in heaven. Andif I were free to-morrow, life would not be worth having without _you_. I would not take it as a gift. "

She sat down by me on the grass with her hands clasped across her knees, close to the unconscious shadows of our kith and kin, within hearing oftheir happy talk and laughter. 

Suddenly we both heard Mimsey say to Gogo--

"O, ils sont joliment bien ensemble, le Prince Charmant et la féeTarapatapoum!"

We looked at each other and actually laughed aloud. The duchess said--

"Was there ever, since the world began, such a _muse en scène_, and forsuch a meeting, Mr. Ibbetson? Think of it! Conceive it! _I_ arranged itall. I chose a day when they were all together. As they would say inAmerica, _I_ am the boss of this particular dream. "

And she laughed again, through her tears, that enchanting ripple of alaugh that closed her eyes and made her so irresistible. 

"Was there ever, " said I--"ever since the world began, such ecstasy as Ifeel now? After this what can there be for me but death--well earned andwell paid for? Welcome and lovely death!"

[Illustration]

"You have not yet thought, Mr. Ibbetson--you have not realized what lifemay have in store for you if--if all you have said about your affectionfor me is true. Oh, it is too terrible for me to think of, I know, thatyou, scarcely more than a boy, should have to spend the rest of yourlife in miserable confinement and unprofitable monotonous toil. Butthere is _another_ side to that picture. 

"Now listen to your old friend's story--poor little Mimsey's confession. I will make it as short as I can. 

"Do you remember when you first saw me, a sickly, plain, sad littlegirl, at the avenue gate, twenty years ago?

"Le Père François was killing a fowl--cutting its throat with aclasp-knife--and the poor thing struggled frantically in his grasp asits blood flowed into the gutter. A group of boys were looking on ingreat glee, and all the while Père François was gossiping with M. LeCuré, who didn't seem to mind in the least. I was fainting with pity andhorror. Suddenly you came out of the school opposite with Alfred andCharlie Plunket, and saw it all, and in a fit of noble rage you calledPère François a 'sacred pig of assassin'--which, as you know, is veryrude in French--and struck him as near his face as you could reach. 

"Have you forgotten that? Ah, _I_ haven't! It was not an effectual deed, perhaps, and certainly came too late to save the fowl. Besides, PèreFrançois struck you back again, and left some of the fowl's blood onyour cheek. It was a baptism! You became on the spot my hero--my angelof light. Look at Gogo over there. Is he beautiful enough? That was_you_, Mr. Ibbetson. 

"M. Le Curé said something about 'ces _Anglais_' who go mad if a manwhips his horse, and yet pay people to box each other to death. Don'tyou really remember? Oh, the recollection to _me!_

"And that little language we invented and used to talk so fluently!Don't you _rappel_ it to yourself? 'Ne le _récollectes_ tu pas?' as wewould have said in those days, for it used to be _thee_ and _thou_with us then. 

"Well, at all events, you must remember how for five happy years we wereso often together; how you drew for me, read to me, played with me; tookmy part in everything, right or wrong; carried me pickaback when I wastired. Your drawings--I have them all. And oh! you were so funnysometimes! How you used to make mamma laugh, and M. Le Major! Just lookat Gogo again. Have you forgotten what he is doing now? I haven't. . . . Hehas just changed the _musée des familles_ for the _Penny Magazine_, andis explaining Hogarth's pictures of the 'Idle and IndustriousApprentices' to Mimsey, and they are both agreed that the idle one ismuch the less objectionable of the two!

"Mimsey looks passive enough, with her thumb in her mouth, doesn't she?Her little heart is so full of gratitude and love for Gogo that shecan't speak. She can only suck her thumb. Poor, sick, ungainly child!She would like to be Gogo's slave--she would die for Gogo. And hermother adores Gogo too; she is almost jealous of dear Madame Pasquierfor having so sweet a son. In just one minute from now, when she hascut that last curl-paper, poor long-dead mamma will call Gogo to her andgive him a good 'Irish hug, ' and make him happy for a week. Wait aminute and see. _There!_ What did I tell you?

"Well, all that came to an end. Madame Pasquier went away and never cameback, and so did Gogo. Monsieur and Madame Pasquier were dead, and dearmamma died in a week from the cholera. Poor heartbroken Mimsey was takenaway to St. Petersburg, Warsaw, Leipsic, Venice, all over Europe, by herfather, as heart-broken as herself. 

"It was her wish and her father's that she should become a pianist byprofession, and she studied hard for many years in almost every capital, and under almost every master in Europe, and she gave promiseof success. 

"And so, wandering from one place to another, she became a youngwoman--a greatly petted and spoiled and made-much-of young woman, Mr. Ibbetson, although she says it who shouldn't; and had many suitors ofall kinds and countries. 

"But the heroic and angelic Gogo, with his lovely straight nose, and hishair _aux enfants d'Edouard_, and his dear little white silk chimney-pothat and Eton jacket, was always enshrined in her memory, in her inmostheart, as the incarnation of all that was beautiful and brave and good. But alas! what had become of this Gogo in the mean time? Ah, he wasnever even heard of--he was dead!

"Well, this long-legged, tender-hearted, grown-up young Mimsey ofnineteen was attracted by a very witty and accomplished English attachéat Vienna--a Mr. Harcourt, who seemed deeply in love with her, andwished her to be his wife. 

"He was not rich, but Dr. Seraskier liked and trusted him so much thathe dispossessed himself of almost everything he had to enable this youngcouple to marry--and they did. And truth compels me to admit that for ayear they were very happy and contented with fate and each other. 

"Then a great misfortune befell them both. In a most unexpected manner, through four or five consecutive deaths in Mr. Harcourt's family, hebecame, first, Lord Harcourt, and then the Duke of Towers. And sincethen, Mr. Ibbetson, I have not had an hour's peace or happiness. 

"In the first place a son was born to me--a cripple, poor dear! anddeformed from his birth; and as he grew older it soon became evidentthat he was also born without a mind. 

"Then my unfortunate husband changed completely; he drank and gambledand worse, till we came to live together as strangers, and only spoke toeach other in public and before the world. . . . "

"Ah, " I said, "you were still a great lady--an English duchess!"

I could not endure the thought of that happy twelvemonth with thatbestial duke! I, sober, chaste, and clean--of all but blood, alas!--anda condemned convict!

Oh, Mr. Ibbetson, you must make no mistake about _me_! I was neverintended by nature for a duchess--especially an English one. Not butwhat, if dukes and duchesses are necessary, the English are thebest--and, of course, by dukes and duchesses I mean all thatupper-ten-thousand in England which calls itself 'society'--as if therewere no other worth speaking of. Some of them are almost angelic, butthey are not for outsiders like me. Perpetual hunting and shooting andfishing and horseracing--eating, drinking, and killing, and makinglove--eternal court gossip and tittle-tattle--the Prince--theQueen--whom and what the Queen likes, whom and what she doesn't!--tameEnglish party politics--the Church--a Church that doesn't know its ownmind, in spite of its deans, bishops, archbishops, and their wives anddaughters--and all their silly, solemn sense of social rank and dignity!Endless small-talk, dinners, and drums, and no society from year's endto year's end but each other! Ah, one must be caught young, and put inharness early, to lead such an existence as that and be content! And Ihad met and known _such_ men and women with my father! They _were_something to know!

There is another society in London and elsewhere--a freemasonry ofintellect and culture and hard work--_la haute bohême du talent_--menand women whose names are or ought to be household words all over theworld; many of them are good friends of mine, both here and abroad; andthat society, which was good enough for my father and mother, is quitegood enough for me. 

I am a republican, Mr. Ibbetson--a cosmopolite--a born Bohemian!

_"'Mon grand père était rossignol; Ma grand mère était hirondelle!"_

[Illustration]

Look at my dear people there--look at your dear people! What waifs andstrays, until their ship comes home, which we know it never will! Ourfathers forever racking their five wits in the pursuit of an idea! Ourmothers forever racking theirs to save money and make both endsmeet!. . . Why, Mr. Ibbetson, you are nearer to the _rossignol_ than I am. Do you remember your father's voice? Shall I ever forget it! He sang tome only last night, and in the midst of my harrowing anxiety about you Iwas beguiled into listening outside the window. He sang Rossini's_'Cujus Animam. '_ He _was_ the nightingale; that was his vocation, if hecould but have known it. And you are my brother Bohemian; that is_yours!_ . . . Ah, _my_ vocation! It was to be the wife of some busybrain-worker--man of science--conspirator--writer--artist--architect, if you like; to fence him round and shield him from all the littleworries and troubles and petty vexations of life. I am a woman ofbusiness _par excellence_--a manager, and all that. He would have had awarm, well-ordered little nest to come home to after hunting his idea!

"Well, I thought myself the most unhappy woman alive, and wrapped myselfup in my affection for my much-afflicted little son; and as I held himto my breast, and vainly tried to warm and mesmerize him into feelingand intelligence, Gogo came back into my heart, and I was foreverthinking, 'Oh, if I had a son like Gogo what a happy woman I should be!'and pitied Madame Pasquier for dying and leaving him so soon, for I hadjust begun to dream true, and had seen Gogo and his sweet motheronce again. 

"And then one night--one never-to-be-forgotten night--I went to LadyGray's concert, and saw you standing in a corner by yourself; and Ithought, with a leap of my heart, 'Why, that must be Gogo, grown dark, and with a beard and mustache like a Frenchman!' But alas, I found thatyou were only a Mr. Ibbetson, Lady Cray's architect, whom she had askedto her house because he was 'quite the handsomest young man she hadever seen!'

"You needn't laugh. You looked very nice, I assure you!

"Well, Mr. Ibbetson, although you were not Gogo, you became suddenly sointeresting to me that I never forgot you--you were never quite out ofmy mind. I wanted to counsel and advise you, and take you by the hand, and be an elder sister to you, for I felt myself already older than youin the world and its ways. I wanted to be twenty years older still, andto have you for my son. I don't know _what_ I wanted! You seemed solonely, and fresh, and unspotted from the world, among all those smartworldlings, and yet so big and strong and square and invincible--oh, sostrong! And then you looked at me with such sincere and sweet andchivalrous admiration and sympathy--there, I cannot speak of it--andthen you were _so_ like what Gogo might have become! Oh, you made aswarm and devoted a friend of me at first sight as any one might desire!

"And at the same time you made me feel so self-conscious and shy that Idared not ask to be introduced to you--I, who scarcely know whatshyness is. 

"Dear Giulia Grisi sang '_Sedut' al Pie d' un' Salice, ' and that tunehas always been associated in my mind with your tongue ever since, andalways will be. Your dear mother used to play it on the harp. Doyou remember?

"Then came that extraordinary dream, which you remember as well as I do:_wasn't_ it a wonder? You see, my dear father had learned a strangesecret of the brain--how in sleep to recall past things and people andplaces as they had once been seen or known by him--even unrememberedthings. He called it 'dreaming true, ' and by long practice, he told me, he had brought the art of doing this to perfection. It was the oneconsolation of his troubled life to go over and over again in sleep allhis happy youth and childhood, and the few short years he had spent withhis beloved young wife. And before he died, when he saw I had become sounhappy that life seemed to have no longer any possible hope of pleasurefor me, he taught me his very simple secret. 

"Thus have I revisited in sleep every place I have ever lived in, andespecially this, the beloved spot where I first as a little girlknew _you_!"

That night when we met again in our common dream I was looking at theboys from Saindou's school going to their _première communion_, andthinking very much of you, as I had seen you, when awake, a few hoursbefore, looking out of the window at the 'Tête Noire;' when you suddenlyappeared in great seeming trouble and walking like a tipsy man; and myvision was disturbed by the shadow of a prison--alas! alas!--and twolittle jailers jingling their keys and trying to hem you in. 

My emotion at seeing you again so soon was so great that I nearly woke. But I rescued you from your imaginary terrors and held you by the hand. You remember all the rest. 

I could not understand why you should be in my dream, as I had almostalways dreamed true--that is, about things that _had_ been in mylife--not about things that _might_ be; nor could I account for thesolidity of your hand, nor understand why you didn't fade away when Itook it, and blur the dream. It was a most perplexing mystery thattroubled many hours of both my waking and sleeping life. Then came thatmeeting with you at Cray, and part of the mystery was accounted for, foryou were my old friend Gogo, after all. But it is still a mystery, anawful mystery, that two people should meet as we are meeting now in oneand the same dream--should dovetail so accurately into each other'sbrains. What a link between us two, Mr. Ibbetson, already linked bysuch memories!

After meeting you at Cray I felt that I must never meet you again, either waking or dreaming. The discovery that you were Gogo, after all, combined with the preoccupation which as a mere stranger you had alreadycaused me for so long, created such a disturbance in my spiritthat--that--there, you must try and imagine it for yourself. 

Even before that revelation at Cray I had often known you were here inmy dream, and I had carefully avoided you . . . Though little dreamingyou were here in your own dream too! Often from that littledormer-window up there I have seen you wandering about the park andavenue in seeming search of _me_, and wondered why and how you came. Youdrove me into attics and servants' bedrooms to conceal myself from you. It was quite a game of hide-and-seek--_cache-cache_, as we used tocall it. 

But after our meeting at Cray I felt there must be no more_cache-cache_; I avoided coming here at all; you drove me awayaltogether. 

Now try to imagine what I felt when the news of your terrible quarrelwith Mr. Ibbetson burst upon the world. I was beside myself! I came herenight after night; I looked for you everywhere--in the park, in the Boisde Boulogne, at the Mare d'Auteuil, at St. Cloud--in every place I couldthink of! And now here you are at last--at last!

Hush! Don't speak yet! I have soon done!

Six months ago I lost my poor little son, and, much as I loved him, Icannot wish him back again. In a fortnight I shall be legally separatedfrom my wretched husband--I shall be quite alone in the world! And then, Mr. Ibbetson--oh, _then_, dearest friend that child or woman everhad--every hour that I can steal from my waking existence shallhenceforward be devoted to you as long as both of us live, and sleep thesame hours out of the twenty-four. My one object and endeavor shall beto make up for the wreck of your sweet and valuable young life. 'Stonewalls shall not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage!' [And here shelaughed and cried together, so that her eyes, closing up, squeezed outher tears, and I thought, "Oh, that I might drink them!"]

And now I will leave you. I am a weak and loving woman, and must notstay by your side till I can do so without too much self-reproach. 

And indeed I feel I shall soon fall awake from sheer exhaustion of joy. Oh, selfish and jealous wretch that I am, to talk of joy!

"I cannot help rejoicing that no other woman can be to you what I hopeto be. No other woman can ever come _near_ you! I am your tyrant andyour slave--your calamity has made you mine forever; but all mylife--all--all--shall be spent in trying to make you forget yours, and Ithink I shall succeed. "

"Oh, don't make such dreadful haste!" I exclaimed. "Am _I_ dreamingtrue? What is to prove all this to me when I wake? Either I am the mostabject and wretched of men, or life will never have another unhappymoment. How am I to _know_?'

"Listen. Do you remember 'Parva sed Apta, le petit pavilion, ' as youused to call it? That is still my home when I am here. It shall beyours, if you like, when the time comes. You will find much to interestyou there. Well, to-morrow early, in your cell, you will receive from mean envelope with a slip of paper in it, containing some violets, and thewords 'Parva sed Apta--à bientôt' written in violet ink. Will thatconvince you?"

"Oh yes, yes!"

"Well, then, give me your hands, dearest and best--both hands! I shallsoon be here again, by this apple-tree; I shall count the hours. Good-bye!" and she was gone, and I woke. 

I woke to the gaslit darkness of my cell. It was just before dawn. Oneof the warders asked me civilly if I wanted anything, and gave me adrink of water. 

I thanked him quietly, and recalled what had just happened to me, with awonder, an ecstasy, for which I can find no words. 

No, it had _not_ been a _dream_--of that I felt quite sure--not in anyone single respect; there had been nothing of the dream about it exceptits transcendent, ineffable enchantment. 

Every inflexion of that beloved voice, with its scarcely perceptibleforeign accent that I had never noticed before; every animated gesture, with its subtle reminiscence of both her father and her mother; herblack dress trimmed with gray; her black and gray hat; the scent ofsandal-wood about her--all were more distinctly and vividly impressedupon me than if she had just been actually, and in the flesh, at mybedside. Her tones still rang in my ears. My eyes were full of her: nowher profile, so pure and chiselled; now her full face, with her grayeyes (sometimes tender and grave and wet with tears, sometimes halfclosed in laughter) fixed on mine; her lithe sweet body curved forward, as she sat and clasped her knees; her arched and slender smooth straightfeet so delicately shod, that seemed now and then to beat time toher story. . . . 

And then that strange sense of the transfusion of life at the touchingof the hands! Oh, it was _no dream_! Though what it was Icannot tell. . . . 

I turned on my side, happy beyond expression, and fell asleep again--adreamless sleep that lasted till I was woke and told to dress. 

[Illustration: "MY EYES WERE FULL OF HER. "]

Some breakfast was brought to me, and _with it an envelope, open, whichcontained some violets, and a slip of paper, scented with sandal-wood, on which were written, in violet ink, the words--

"Parva sed Apla--à bientôt!Tarapatapoum. "_

I will pass over the time that elapsed between my sentence and itscommutation; the ministrations and exhortations of the good chaplain;the kind and touching farewells of Mr. And Mrs. Lintot, who had alsobelieved that I was Ibbetson's son (I undeceived them); the visit of myold friend Mrs. Deane . . . And her strange passion of gratitude andadmiration. 

I have no doubt it would all be interesting enough, if properlyremembered and ably told. But it was all too much like adream--anybody's dream--not one of _mine_--all too slight and flimsy tohave left an abiding remembrance, or to matter much. 

In due time I was removed to the jail at----, and bade farewell to theworld, and adapted myself to the conditions of my new outer life with agood grace and with a very light heart. 

The prison routine, leaving the brain so free and unoccupied; thehealthy labor, the pure air, the plain, wholesome food were delightfulto me--a much-needed daily mental rest after the tumultuous emotions ofeach night. 

For I was soon back again in Passy, where I spent every hour of mysleep, you may be sure, never very far from the old apple-tree, whichwent through all its changes, from bare bough to tender shoots andblossoms, from blossom to ripe fruit, from fruit to yellow falling leaf, and then to bare boughs again, and all in a few peaceful nights, whichwere my days. I flatter myself by this time that I know the habits of aFrench apple-tree, and its caterpillars!

And all the dear people I loved, and of whom I could never tire, wereabout--all but one. _The_ One!

At last she arrived. The garden door was pushed, the bell rang, and shecame across the lawn, radiant and tall and swift, and opened wide herarms. And there, with our little world around us--all that we had everloved and cared for, but quite unseen and unheard by them--for the firsttime in my life since my mother and Madame Seraskier had died I held awoman in my arms, and she pressed her lips to mine. 

[Illustration: "AT LAST SHE ARRIVED. "]

Round and round the lawn we walked and talked, as we had often donefifteen, sixteen, twenty years ago. There were many things to say. "TheCharming Prince" and the "Fairy Tarapatapoum" were "prettily welltogether"--at last!

The time sped quickly--far too quickly. I said--

"You told me I should see your house--'Parva sed Apta'--that I shouldfind much to interest me there. " . . . 

She blushed a little and smiled, and said--

"You mustn't expect _too_ much, " and we soon found ourselves walkingthither up the avenue. Thus we had often walked as children, and once--amemorable once--besides. 

There stood the little white house with its golden legend, as I had seenit a thousand times when a boy--a hundred since. 

How sweet and small it looked in the mellow sunshine! We mounted thestone _perron_, and opened the door and entered. My heart beatviolently. 

Everything was as it had always been, as far as I could see. Dr. Seraskier sat in a chair by the window reading Schiller, and took nonotice of us. His hair moved in the gentle breeze. Overhead we heard therooms being swept and the beds made. 

I followed her into a little lumber-room, where I did not remember tohave been before; it was full of odds and ends. 

"Why have you brought me here?" I asked. 

She laughed and said--

"Open the door in the wall opposite. "

There was no door, and I said so. 

Then she took my hand, and lo! there _was_ a door! And she pushed, andwe entered another suite of apartments that never could have been therebefore; there had never been room for them--nor ever could have been--inall Passy!

[Illustration: "'AND NEUHA LED HER TORQUIL BY THE HAND. '"]

"Come, " she said, laughing and blushing at once; for she seemed nervousand excited and shy--do you remember--

 'And Neuha led her Torquil by the hand, And waved along the vault her flaming brand!'

--do you remember your little drawing out of _The Island_, in the greenmorocco Byron? Here it is, in the top drawer of this beautiful cabinet. Here are all the drawings you ever did for me--plain and colored--withdates, explanations, etc. , all written by myself--_l'album de la feeTarapatapoum_. They are only duplicates. I have the real ones at myhouse in Hampshire. 

The cabinet also is a duplicate;--isn't it a beauty?--it's from theCzar's Winter Palace. Everything here is a duplicate, more or less. See, this is a little dining-room;--did you ever see anything so perfect?--itis the famous _salle à manger_ of Princesse de Chevagné. I never use it, except now and then to eat a slice of English household bread withFrench butter and 'cassonade. ' Little Mimsey, out there, does sosometimes, when Gogo brings her one, and it makes big Mimsey's mouthwater to see her, so she has to go and do likewise. Would you likea slice?

You see the cloth is spread, _deux couverts_. There is a bottle offamous champagne from Mr. De Rothschild's; there's plenty more wherethat came from. The flowers are from Chatsworth, and this is a lobstersalad for _you_. Papa was great at lobster salads and taught me. I mixedit myself a fortnight ago, and, as you see, it is as fresh and sweet asif I had only just made it, and the flowers haven't faded a bit. 

Here are cigarettes and pipes and cigars. I hope they are good. I don'tsmoke myself. 

Isn't all the furniture rare and beautiful? I have robbed every palacein Europe of its very best, and yet the owners are not a penny theworse. You should see up-stairs. 

Look at those pictures--the very pick of Raphael and Titian andVelasquez. Look at that piano--I have heard Liszt play upon it over andover again, in Leipsic!

Here is my library. Every book I ever read is there, and every bindingI ever admired. I don't often read them, but I dust them carefully. I'vearranged that dust shall fall on them in the usual way to make it real, and remind one of the outer life one is so glad to leave. All has to betaken very seriously here, and one must put one's self to a littletrouble. See, here is my father's microscope, and under it a smallspider caught on the premises by myself. It is still alive. It seemscruel, doesn't it? but it only exists in our brains. 

Look at the dress I've got on--feel it; how every detail is worked out. And you have unconsciously done the same: that's the suit you wore thatmorning at Cray under the ash-tree--the nicest suit I ever saw. Here isa spot of ink on your sleeve as real as can be (bravo!). And this buttonis coming off--quite right; I will sew it on with a dream needle, anddream thread, and a dream thimble!

This little door leads to every picture-gallery in Europe. It took me along time to build and arrange them all by myself--quite a week ofnights. It is very pleasant to walk there with a good catalogue, andmake it rain cats and dogs outside. 

Through this curtain is an opera box--the most comfortable one I'veever been in; it does for theatres as well, and oratorios and concertsand scientific lectures. You shall see from it every performance I'veever been at, in half a dozen languages; you shall hold my hand andunderstand them all. Every singer that I ever heard, you shall hear. Dear Giulia Grisi shall sing the 'Willow Song' again and again, and youshall hear the applause. Ah, what applause!

Come into this little room--my favorite; out of _this_ window and downthese steps we can walk or drive to any place you or I have ever beento, and other places besides. Nothing is far, and we have only to gohand in hand. I don't know yet where my stables and coach-houses are;you must help me to find out. But so far I have never lacked a carriageat the bottom of those steps when I wanted to drive, nor a steam-launch, nor a gondola, nor a lovely place to go to. 

Out of _this_ window, from this divan, we can sit and gaze on whateverwe like. What shall it be? Just now, you perceive, there is a wild andturbulent sea, with not a ship in sight. Do you hear the waves tumblingand splashing, and see the albatross? I had been reading Keats's 'Ode tothe Nightingale, ' and was so fascinated by the idea of a lattice openingon the foam

 '_Of perilous seas by faery lands forlorn_'

that I thought it would be nice to have a lattice like that myself. Itried to evolve that sea from my inner consciousness, you know, orrather from seas that I have sailed over. Do you like it? It was done afortnight ago, and the waves have been tumbling about ever since. Howthey roar! and hark at the wind! I couldn't manage the 'faery lands. ' Itwants one lattice for the sea, and one for the land, I'm afraid. Youmust help me. Mean while, what would you like there tonight--theYosemite Valley? the Nevski Prospect in the winter, with the sledges?the Rialto? the Bay of Naples after sunset, with Vesuvius in eruption?. . . 

--"Oh Mary--Mimsey--what do I care for Vesuvius, and sunsets, and theBay of Naples . . . _just now_? . . . Vesuvius is in my heart!"

 * * * * *

Thus began for us both a period of twenty-five years, during which wepassed eight or nine hours out of the twenty-four in each other'scompany--except on a few rare occasions, when illness or some othercause prevented one of us from sleeping at the proper time. 

Mary! Mary!

I idolized her while she lived; I idolize her memory. 

For her sake all women are sacred to me, even the lowest and mostdepraved and God-forsaken. They always found a helping friend in _her_. 

How can I pay a fitting tribute to one so near to me--nearer than anywoman can ever have been to any man?

I know her mind as I know my own! No two human souls can ever haveinterpenetrated each other as ours have done, or we should have heard ofit. Every thought she ever had from her childhood to her death has beenrevealed--every thought of mine! Living as we did, it was inevitable. The touch of a finger was enough to establish the strange circuit, andwake a common consciousness of past and present, either hers or mine. 

And oh, how thankful am I that some lucky chance has preserved me, murderer and convict as I am, from anything she would have found itimpossible to condone!

I try not to think that shyness and poverty, ungainliness and socialimbecility combined, have had as much to do as self-restraint andself-respect in keeping me out of so many pitfalls that have been fatalto so many men better and more gifted than myself. 

I try to think that her extraordinary affection, the chance result of apersistent impression received in childhood, has followed me throughlife without my knowing it, and in some occult, mysterious way has keptme from thoughts and deeds that would have rendered me unworthy, even inher too indulgent eyes. 

Who knows but that her sweet mother's farewell kiss and blessing, andthe tender tears she shed over me when I bade her good-bye at the avenuegate so many years ago, may have had an antiseptic charm? Mary! I havefollowed her from her sickly, suffering childhood to her girlhood--fromher half-ripe, gracefully lanky girlhood to the day of her retirementfrom the world of which she was so great an ornament. From girl to womanit seems like a triumphal procession through all the courts ofEurope--scenes the like of which I have never even dreamed--flattery andstrife to have turned the head of any princess! And she was the simpledaughter of a working scientist and physician--the granddaughter ofa fiddler. 

Yet even Austrian court etiquette was waived in favor of the child ofplain Dr. Seraskier. 

What men have I seen at her feet--how splendid, handsome, gallant, brilliant, chivalrous, lordly, and gay! And to all, from her, the samehappy geniality--the same kindly, laughing, frolicsome, innocent gayety, with never a thought of self. 

M. Le Major was right--"elle avait toutes les intelligences de la têteet du coeur. " And old and young, the best and the worst, seemed to loveand respect her alike--and women as well as men--for her perfectsincerity, her sweet reasonableness. 

And all this time I was plodding at my dull drawing-board inPentonville, carrying out another's designs for a stable or a pauper'scottage, and not even achieving that poor task particularly well!

It would have driven me mad with humiliation and jealousy to see thispast life of hers, but we saw it all hand in hand together--the magicalcircuit was established! And I knew, as I saw, how it all affected her, and marvelled at her simplicity in thinking all this pomp and splendorof so little consequence. 

And I trembled to find that what space in her heart was not filled bythe remembrance of her ever-beloved mother and the image of her father(one of the noblest and best of men) enshrined the ridiculous figure ofa small boy in a white silk hat and an Eton jacket. And that smallboy was I!

Then came a dreadful twelvemonth that I was fain to leave a blank--thetwelvemonth during which her girlish fancy for her husband lasted--andthen her life was mine again forever!

And _my_ life!

The life of a convict is not, as a rule, a happy one; his bed is notgenerally thought a bed of roses. 

Mine was!

If I had been the most miserable leper that ever crawled to his wattledhut in Molokai, I should also have been the happiest of men, could sleepbut have found me there, and could I but sleeping have been the friendof sleeping Mary Seraskier. She would have loved me all the more!

She has filled my long life of bondage with such felicity as no monarchhas ever dreamed, and has found her own felicity in doing so. That poor, plodding existence I led before my great misadventure, and have tried todescribe--she has witnessed almost every hour of it with passionateinterest and sympathy, as we went hand in hand together through eachother's past. She would at any time have been only too glad to share it, leaving her own. 

I dreaded the effect of such a sordid revelation upon one who had livedso brilliantly and at such an altitude. I need have had no fear! Just asshe thought me an "angelic hero" at eight years old, she remainedpersuaded all through her life that I was an Apollo--a misunderstoodgenius--a martyr!

I am sick with shame when I think of it. But I am not the first unworthymortal on whom blind, undiscriminating love has chosen to lavish itsmost priceless treasures. Tarapatapoum is not the only fairy who hasidealized a hulking clown with an ass's head into a Prince Charming;the spectacle, alas! is not infrequent. But at least I have been humblythankful for the undeserved blessing, and known its value. And, moreover, I think I may lay claim to one talent: that of also knowing byintuition when and where and how to love--in a moment--in aflash--and forever!

Twenty-five years!

It seems like a thousand, so much have we seen and felt and done in thatbusy enchanted quarter of a century. And yet how quickly the timehas sped!

And now I must endeavor to give some account of our wonderful innerlife--_à deux_--a delicate and difficult task. 

There is both an impertinence and a lack of taste in any man's layingbare to the public eye--to any eye--the bliss that has come to himthrough the love of a devoted woman, with whose life his own hasbeen bound up. 

The most sympathetic reader is apt to be repelled by such arevelation--to be sceptical of the beauties and virtues and mental giftsof one he has never seen; at all events, to feel that they are noconcern of his, and ought to be the subject of a sacred reticence on thepart of her too fortunate lover or husband. 

The lack of such reticence has marred the interest of many anautobiography--of many a novel, even; and in private life, who does notknow by painful experience how embarrassing to the listener such tenderconfidences can sometimes be? I will try my best not to transgress inthis particular. If I fail (I may have failed already), I can only pleadthat the circumstances are quite exceptional and not to be matched; andthat allowances must be made for the deep gratitude I owe and feel overand above even my passionate admiration and love. 

For the next three years of my life has nothing to show but thealternation of such honeymooning as never was before with a dull butcontented prison life, not one hour of which is worth recording, or evenremembering, except as a foil to its alternative. 

It had but one hour for me, the bed hour, and fortunately that was anearly one. 

Healthily tired in body, blissfully expectant in mind, I would lie on myback, with my hands duly crossed under my head, and sleep would soonsteal over me like balm; and before I had forgotten who and what andwhere I really was, I would reach the goal on which my will was intent, and waking up, find my body in another place, in another garb, on acouch by an enchanted window, still with my arms crossed behind myhead--in the sacramental attitude. 

Then would I stretch my limbs and slip myself free of my outer life, asa new-born butterfly from the durance of its self-spun cocoon, with anunutterable sense of youth and strength and freshness and felicity; andopening my eyes I would see on the adjacent couch the form of Mary, alsosupine, but motionless and inanimate as a statue. Nothing could wake herto life till the time came: her hours were somewhat later, and she wasstill in the toils of the outer life I had just left behind me. 

And these toils, in her case, were more complicated than in mine. Although she had given up the world, she had many friends and an immensecorrespondence. And then, being a woman endowed with boundless healthand energy, splendid buoyancy of animal spirits, and a great capacityfor business, she had made for herself many cares and occupations. 

She was the virtual mistress of a home for fallen women, a reformatoryfor juvenile thieves, and a children's convalescent hospital--to all ofwhich she gave her immediate personal superintendence, and almost everypenny she had. She had let her house in Hampshire, and lived with acouple of female servants in a small furnished house on Campden Hill. She did without a carriage, and went about in cabs and omnibuses, dressed like a daily governess, though nobody could appear more regallymagnificent than she did when we were together. 

She still kept her name and title, as a potent weapon of influence onbehalf of her charities, and wielded it mercilessly in her constant raidon the purse of the benevolent Philistine, who is fond of great people. 

All of which gave rise to much comment that did not affect herequanimity in the least. 

She also attended lectures, committees, boards, and councils; openedbazaars and soup kitchens and coffee taverns, etc. The list of herself-imposed tasks was endless. Thus her outer life was filled tooverflowing, and, unlike mine, every hour of it was worth record--as Iwell know, who have witnessed it all. But this is not the place in whichto write the outer life of the Duchess of Towers; another hand has donethat, as everybody knows. 

Every page henceforward must be sacred to Mary Seraskier, the "féeTarapatapoum" of "Magna sed Apta" (for so we had called the new homeand palace of art she had added on to "Parva sed Apta, " the home of herchildhood). 

To return thither, where we left her lying unconscious. Soon the colorwould come back to her cheeks, the breath to her nostrils, the pulse toher heart, and she would wake to her Eden, as she called it--our commoninner life--that we might spend it in each other's company for the nexteight hours. 

Pending this happy moment, I would make coffee (such coffee!), and smokea cigarette or two; and to fully appreciate the bliss of _that_ one mustbe an habitual smoker who lives his real life in an English jail. 

When she awoke from her sixteen hours' busy trance in the outer world, such a choice of pleasures lay before us as no other mortal has everknown. She had been all her life a great traveller, and had dwelt inmany lands and cities, and seen more of life and the world and naturethan most people. I had but to take her hand, and one of us had but towish, and, lo! wherever either of us had been, whatever either of us hadseen or heard or felt, or even eaten or drunk, there it was all overagain to choose from, with the other to share in it--such a hypnotism ofourselves and each other as was never dreamed of before. 

Everything was as life-like, as real to us both, as it had been toeither at the actual time of its occurrence, with an added freshness andcharm that never belonged to mortal existence. It was no dream; it was asecond life, a better land. 

We had, however, to stay within certain bounds, and beware oftransgressing certain laws that we discovered for ourselves, but couldnot quite account for. For instance, it was fatal to attempt exploitsthat were outside of our real experience; to fly, or to jump from aheight, or do any of these non-natural things that make the charm andwonder of ordinary dreams. If we did so our true dream was blurred, andbecame as an ordinary dream--vague, futile, unreal, and untrue--thebaseless fabric of a vision. Nor must we alter ourselves in any way;even to the shape of a finger-nail, we must remain ourselves; althoughwe kept ourselves at our very best, and could choose what age we shouldbe. We chose from twenty-six to twenty-eight, and stuck to it. 

Yet there were many things, quite as impossible in real life, that wecould do with impunity--most delightful things!

For instance, after the waking cup of coffee, it was certainlydelightful to spend a couple of hours in the Yosemite Valley, leisurelystrolling about and gazing at the giant pines--a never-palling source ofdelight to both of us--breathing the fragrant fresh air, looking at ourfellow-tourists and listening to their talk, with the agreeableconsciousness that, solid and substantial as we were to each other, wewere quite inaudible, invisible, and intangible to them. Often we woulddispense with the tourists, and have the Yosemite Valley all toourselves. (Always there, and in whatever place she had visited with herhusband, we would dispense with the figure of her former self and him, asight I could not have borne. )

When we had strolled and gazed our fill, it was delightful again, justby a slight effort of her will and a few moments' closing of our eyes, to find ourselves driving along the Via Cornice to an exquisite gardenconcert in Dresden, or being rowed in a gondola to a Saturday Pop at St. James's Hall. And thence, jumping into a hansom, we would be whiskedthrough Piccadilly and the park to the Arc de Triomphe home to "Magnased Apta, " Rue de la Pompe, Passy (a charming drive, and not a bit toolong), just in time for dinner. 

A very delicious little dinner, judiciously ordered out of _her_remembrance, not _mine_ (and served in the most exquisite littledining-room in all Paris--the Princesse de Chevagné's): "huîtresd'Ostende, " let us say, and "soupe à la bonne femme, " with a "perdrixaux choux" to follow, and pancakes, and "fromage de Brie;" and to drink, a bottle of "Romané Conti;" without even the bother of waiters to changethe dishes; a wish, a moment's shutting of the eyes--_augenblick_! andit was done--and then we could wait on each other. 

After my prison fare, and with nothing but tenpenny London dinners torecollect in the immediate past, I trust I shall not be thought a grossmaterialist for appreciating these small banquets, and in such company. (The only dinner I could recall which was not a tenpenny one, except theold dinners of my childhood, was that famous dinner at Cray, where I haddiscovered that the Duchess of Towers was Mimsey Seraskier, and I didnot eat much of _that_. )

Then a cigarette and a cup of coffee, and a glass of curaçoa; and after, to reach our private box we had but to cross the room and lifta curtain. 

And there before us was the theatre or opera-house brilliantly lighted, and the instruments tuning up, and the splendid company pouring in:crowned heads, famous beauties, world-renowned warriors and statesmen, Garibaldi, Gortschakoff, Cavour, Bismarck, and Moltke, now so famous, and who not? Mary would point them out to me. And in the next box Dr. Seraskier and his tall daughter, who seemed friends with all thatbrilliant crowd. 

Now it was St. Petersburg, now Berlin, now Vienna, Paris, Naples, Milan, London--every great city in turn. But our box was always the same, andalways the best in the house, and I the one person privileged to smokemy cigar in the face of all that royalty, fashion, and splendor. 

Then, after the overture, up went the curtain. If it was a play, and theplay was in German or Russian or Italian, I had but to touch Mary'slittle finger to understand it all--a true but incomprehensible thing. For well as I might understand, I could not have spoken a word ofeither, and the moment that slight contact was discontinued, they mightas well have been acting in Greek or Hebrew, for _me_. 

But it was for music we cared the most, and I think I may say that ofmusic during those three years (and ever after) we have had our glut. For all through her busy waking life Mary found time to hear whatevergood music was going on in London, that she might bring it back to me atnight; and we would rehear it together, again and again, and _da capo_. 

It is a rare privilege for two private individuals, and one of them aconvict, to assist at a performance honored by the patronage andpresence of crowned heads, and yet be able to encore any particularthing that pleases them. How often have we done that!

[Illustration]

Oh, Joachim! oh, Clara Schumann! oh, Piattil--all of whom I know sowell, but have never heard with the fleshly ear! Oh, others, whom itwould be invidious to mention without mentioning all--a glorious list!How we have made you, all unconscious, repeat the same movements overand over again, without ever from you a sign of impatience or fatigue!How often have we summoned Liszt to play to us on his own favoritepiano, which adorned our own favorite sitting-room! How little he knew(or will ever know now, alas!) what exquisite delight he gave us!

Oh, Pattit, Angelina! Oh, Santley and Sims Reeves! Oh, De Soria, nightingale of the drawing-room, I wonder you have a note left!

And you, Ristori, and you, Salvini, et vous, divine Sarah, qui débutiezalors! On me dit que votre adorable voix a perdu un peu de sa premièrefraîcheur. Cela ne m'étonne pas! Bien sûr, nous y sommes pourquelque chose!

 * * * * *

And then the picture-galleries, the museums, the botanical andzoological gardens of all countries--"Magna sed Apta" had space for themall, even to the Elgin Marbles room of the British Museum, which Iadded myself. 

What enchanted hours have we spent among the pictures and statues of theworld, weeding them here and there, perhaps, or hanging themdifferently, or placing them in what we thought a better light! The"Venus of Milo" showed to far greater advantage in "Magna sed Apta" thanat the Louvre. 

And when busied thus delightfully at home, and to enhance the delight, we made it shocking bad weather outside; it rained cats and dogs, orelse the north wind piped, and snow fell on the desolate gardens of"Magna sed Apta, " and whitened the landscape as far as eye could see. 

Nearest to our hearts, however, were many pictures of our own time, forwe were moderns of the moderns, after all, in spite of our efforts ofself-culture. 

There was scarcely a living or recently living master in Europe whosebest works were not in our possession, so lighted and hung that even themasters themselves would have been content; for we had plenty of spaceat our command, and each picture had a wall to itself, so toned as to dofull justice to its beauty, and a comfortable sofa for twojust opposite. 

But in the little room we most lived in, the room with the magic window, we had crowded a few special favorites of the English school, for we hadso much foreign blood in us that we were more British than John Bullhimself--_plus royalistes que le Roi_. 

There was Millais's "Autumn Leaves, " his "Youth of Sir Walter Raleigh, "his "Chill October"; Watts's "Endymion, " and "Orpheus and Eurydice";Burne-Jones's "Chant d'Amour, " and his "Laus Veneris"; Alma-Tadema's"Audience of Agrippa, " and the "Women of Amphissa"; J. Whistler'sportrait of his mother; the "Venus and Aesculapius, " by E. J. Poynter;F. Leighton's "Daphnephoria"; George Mason's "Harvest Moon"; andFrederic Walker's "Harbor of Refuge, " and, of course, Merridew's"Sun-God. "

While on a screen, designed by H. S. Marks, and exquisitely decoratedround the margin with golden plovers and their eggs (which I adore), were smaller gems in oil and water-color that Mary had fallen in lovewith at one time or another. The immortal "Moonlight Sonata, " byWhistler; E, J. Poynter's exquisite "Our Lady of the Fields" (datedParis, 1857); a pair of adorable "Bimbi" by V. Prinsep, who seems veryfond of children; T. R. Lamont's touching "L'Après Dîner de l'AbbéConstantin, " with the sweet girl playing the old spinet; and thatadmirable work of T. Armstrong, in his earlier and more realisticmanner, "Le Zouave et lâ Nounou, " not to mention splendid rough sketchesby John Leech, Charles Keene, Tenniel, Sambourne, Furniss, Caldecott, etc. ; not to mention, also, endless little sketches in silver point of amost impossibly colossal, blackavised, shaggy-coated St. Bernard--signedwith the familiar French name of some gay troubadour of the pencil, somestray half-breed like myself, and who seems to have loved his dog asmuch as I loved mine. 

Then suddenly, in the midst of all this unparalleled artistic splendor, we felt that a something was wanting. There was a certain hollownessabout it; and we discovered that in our case the principal motives forcollecting all these beautiful things were absent. 

 1. We were not the sole possessors. 2. We had nobody to show them to. 3. Therefore we could take no pride in them. 

[Illustration: THE NURSERY SCHOOL-ROOM. ]

And found that when we wanted bad weather for a change, and the joys ofhome, we could be quite as happy in my old school-room, where thesquirrels and the monkey and the hedgehog were, with each of us on acane-bottomed arm-chair by the wood-fire, each roasting chestnuts forthe other, and one book between us, for one of us to read out loud; or, better still, the morning and evening papers she had read a few hoursearlier; and marvellous to relate, she had not even _read_ them whenawake! she had merely glanced through them carefully, taking in theaspect of each column one after another, from top to bottom--and yet shewas able to read out every word from the dream-paper she held in herhands--thus truly chewing the very cud of journalism!

This always seemed to us, in a small but practical way, the mostcomplete and signal triumph of mind over matter we had yet achieved. 

Not, indeed, that we could read much, we had so much to talk about. 

Unfortunately, the weak part of "Magna sed Apta" was its library. Naturally it could only consist of books that one or the other of us hadread when awake. She had led such an active life that but little leisurehad been left her for books, and I had read only as an every-day youngman reads who is fond of reading. 

However, such books as we _had_ read were made the most of, and somagnificently bound that even their authors would have blushed withpride and pleasure had they been there to see. And though we had littletime for reading them over again, we could enjoy the true bibliophilousdelight of gazing at their backs, and taking them down and fingeringthem and putting them carefully back again. 

In most of these treats, excursions, festivities, and pleasures of thefireside, Mary was naturally leader and hostess; it could scarcely havebeen otherwise. 

There was once a famous Mary, of whom it was said that to know her was aliberal education. I think I may say that to have known Mary Seraskierhas been all that to me!

But now and then I would make some small attempt at returning herhospitality. 

We have slummed together in Clerkenwell, Smithfield, Cow Cross, Petticoat Lane, Ratcliffe Highway, and the East India and WestIndia docks. 

She has been with me to penny gaffs and music-halls; to Greenwich Fair, and Cremorne and Rosherville gardens--and liked them all. She knewPentonville as well as I do; and my old lodgings there, where we haveboth leaned over my former shoulder as I read or drew. It was she whorescued from oblivion my little prophetic song about "The Chime, " whichI had quite forgotten. She has been to Mr. Lintot's parties, and foundthem most amusing--especially Mr. Lintot. 

And going further back into the past, she has roamed with me all overParis, and climbed with me the towers of Notre Dame, and looked in vainfor the mystic word [Greek: Anagkae]!

But I had also better things to show, untravelled as I was. 

She had never seen Hampstead Heath, which I knew by heart; and HampsteadHeath at any time, but especially on a sunny morning in late October, isnot to be disdained by any one. 

Half the leaves have fallen, so that one can see the fading glory ofthose that remain; yellow and brown and pale and hectic red, shininglike golden guineas and bright copper coins against the rich, dark, business-like green of the trees that mean to flourish all the winterthrough, like the tall slanting pines near the Spaniards, and the oldcedar-trees, and hedges of yew and holly, for which the Hampsteadgardens are famous. 

Before us lies a sea of fern, gone a russet-brown from decay, in whichare isles of dark green gorse, and little trees with little scarlet andorange and lemon-colored leaflets fluttering down, and running aftereach other on the bright grass, under the brisk west wind which makesthe willows rustle, and turn up the whites of their leaves in piousresignation to the coming change. 

Harrow-on-the-Hill, with its pointed spire, rises blue in the distance;and distant ridges, like receding waves, rise into blueness, one afterthe other, out of the low-lying mist; the last ridge bluely melting intospace. In the midst of it all gleams the Welsh Harp Lake, like a pieceof sky that has become unstuck and tumbled into the landscape with itsshiny side up. 

On the other side, all London, with nothing but the gilded cross of St. Paul's on a level with the eye; it lies at our feet, as Paris used to dofrom the heights of Passy, a sight to make true dreamers gaze and thinkand dream the more; and there we sit thinking and dreaming and gazingour fill, hand in hand, our spirits rushing together. 

Once as we sat we heard the clatter of hoofs behind us, and there was atroop of my old regiment out exercising. Invisible to all but ourselves, and each other, we watched the wanton troopers riding by on their meekblack chargers. 

First came the cornet--a sunny-haired Apollo, a gilded youth, gracefuland magnificent to the eye--careless, fearless, but stupid, harsh, andproud--an English Phébus de Châteaupers--the son of a great contractor;I remembered him well, and that he loved me not. Then the rank and filein stable jackets, most of them (but for a stalwart corporal here andthere) raw, lanky youths, giving promise of much future strength, andeach leading a second horse; and among them, longest and lankiest ofthem all, but ruddy as a ploughboy, and stolidly whistling _"On revienttoujours à ses premiers amours, "_ rode my former self--a sight (orsound) that seemed to touch some tender chord in Mary's nature, wherethere were so many, since it filled her eyes with tears. 

[Illustration]

To describe in full a honey-moon filled with such adventures, and thatlasted for three years, is unnecessary. It would be but anothersuperficial record of travel, by another unskilled pen. And what a penis wanted for such a theme! It was not mere life, it was the very creamand essence of life, that we shared with each other--all the toil andtrouble, the friction and fatigue, left out. The necessary earthlyjourney through time and space from one joy to another was omitted, unless such a journey were a joy in itself. 

For instance, a pleasant hour can be spent on the deck of a splendidsteamer, as it cleaves its way through a sapphire tropical sea, boundfor some lovely West Indian islet; with a good cigar and the dearestcompanion in the world, watching the dolphins and the flying-fish, andmildly interesting one's self in one's fellow-passengers, the captain, the crew. And then, the hour spent and the cigar smoked out, it is wellto shut one's eyes and have one's self quietly lowered down the side ofthe vessel into a beautiful sledge, and then, half smothered in costlyfurs, to be whirled along the frozen Neva to a ball at the WinterPalace, there to valse with one's Mary among all the beauty and chivalryof St. Petersburg, and never a soul to find fault with one's valsing, which at first was far from perfect, or one's attire, which was not thatof the fashionable world of the day, nor was Mary's either. We wereaesthetic people, and very Greek, who made for ourselves fashions of ourown, which I will not describe. 

[Illustration:]

Where have we not waltzed together, from Buckingham Palace downward? Iconfess I grew to take a delight in valsing, or waltzing, or whatever itis properly called; and although it is not much to boast of, I may saythat after a year or two no better dancer than I was to be found inall Vienna. 

And here, by the way, I may mention what pleasure it gave me (hand inhand with Mary, of course, as usual) to renew and improve myacquaintance with our British aristocracy, begun so agreeably many yearsago at Lady Cray's concert. 

Our British aristocracy does not waltz well by any means, and lackslightness generally; but it may gratify and encourage some of itsmembers to hear that Peter Ibbetson (ex-private soldier, architect andsurveyor, convict and criminal lunatic), who has had unrivalledopportunities for mixing with the cream of European society, considersour British aristocracy quite the best-looking, best-dressed, andbest-behaved aristocracy of them all, and the most sensible and theleast exclusive--perhaps the most sensible _because_ the leastexclusive. 

It often snubs, but does not altogether repulse, those gifted andprivileged outsiders who (just for the honor and glory of the thing) areever so ready to flatter and instruct and amuse it, and run itserrands, and fetch and carry, and tumble for its pleasure, and even tomarry such of its "ugly ducklings" (or shall we say such of its"unprepossessing cygnets?") as cannot hope to mate with birds of theirown feather. 

For it has the true English eye for physical beauty. 

Indeed, it is much given to throw the handkerchief--successfully, ofcourse--and, most fortunately for itself, beyond the pale of its ownnarrow precincts--nay, beyond the broad Atlantic, even, to the landwhere beauty and dollars are to be found in such happy combination. 

Nor does it disdain the comeliness of the daughters of Israel, nor theirshekels, nor their brains, nor their ancient and most valuable blood. Itknows the secret virtue of that mechanical transfusion of fluidsfamiliar to science under the name of "endosmoses" and "exosmoses" (Ihope I have spelled them rightly), and practises the same. Whereby itshows itself wise in its generation, and will endure the longer, whichcannot be very long. 

Peter Ibbetson (etc. , etc. ), for one, wishes it no manner of harm. 

 * * * * *

But to return. With all these temptations of travel and amusement andsociety and the great world, such was our insatiable fondness for "thepretty place of our childhood" and all its associations, that ourgreatest pleasure of all was to live our old life over again and again, and make Gogo and Mimsey and our parents and cousins and M. Le Major gothrough their old paces once more; and to recall _new_ old paces forthem, which we were sometimes able to do, out of stray forgotten bits ofthe past; to hunt for which was the most exciting sport in the world. 

Our tenderness for these beloved shades increased with familiarity. Wecould see all the charm and goodness and kindness of these dear fathersand mothers of ours with the eyes of matured experience, for we werepretty much of an age with them now; no other children could ever say asmuch since the world began, and how few young parents could bear such ascrutiny as ours. 

Ah! what would we not have given to extort just a spark of recognition, but that was impossible; or to have been able to whisper just a word ofwarning, which would have averted the impending strokes of inexorablefate! They might have been alive now, perhaps--old indeed, but honoredand loved as no parents ever were before. How different everything wouldhave been! Alas! alas!

And of all things in the world, we never tired of that walk through theavenue and park and Bois de Boulogne to the Mare d'Auteuil; strollingthere leisurely on an early spring afternoon, just in time to spend amidsummer hour or two on its bank, and watch the old water-rat and thedytiscus and the tadpoles and newts, and see the frogs jump; and thenwalking home at dusk in the school-room of my old home; and then back towar, well-lighted "Magna sed Apta" by moonlight through the avenue onNew Year's Eve, ankle-deep in snow; all in a few short hours. 

Dream winds and dream weathers--what an enchantment! And all real!

Soft caressing rains that do not wet us if we do not wish them to; sharpfrosts that brace but never chill; blazing suns that neither scorchnor dazzle. 

Blustering winds of early spring, that seem to sweep right through thesesolid frames of ours, and thrill us to the very marrow with the oldheroic excitement and ecstasy we knew so well in happy childhood, butcan no longer feel now when awake!

Bland summer breezes, heavy with the scent of long lost French woods andfields and gardens in full flower; swift, soft, moist equinoctial gales, blowing from the far-off orchards of Meudon, or the old market gardensof Suresnes in their autumnal decay, and laden, we do not know why, withstrange, mysterious, troubling reminiscence too subtle and elusive to beexpressed in any tongue--too sweet for any words! And then the darkDecember wind that comes down from the north, and brings the short, early twilights and the snow, and drives us home, pleasantly shivering, to the chimney-corner and the hissing logs--_chez nous!_

It is the last night of an old year--_la veille du jour de l'an_. 

Ankle-deep in snow, we walk to warm, well-lighted "Magna sed Apta, " upthe moonlit avenue. It is dream snow, and yet we feel it crunch beneathour feet; but if we turn to look, the tracks of our footsteps havedisappeared--and we cast no shadows, though the moon is full!

M. Le Major goes by, and Yverdon the postman, and Père François, withhis big sabots, and others, and their footprints remain--and theirshadows are strong and sharp!

They wish each other the compliments of the season as they meet andpass; they wish us nothing! We give them _la bonne année_ at the tops ofour voices; they do not heed us in the least, though our voices are asresonant as theirs. We are wishing them a "Happy New Year, " that dawnedfor good or evil nearly twenty years ago. 

Out comes Gogo from the Seraskiers', with Mimsey. He makes a snowballand throws it. It flies straight through me, and splashes itself on PèreFrançois's broad back. "Ah, ce polisson de Monsieur Gogo . . . Attendez unpeu!" and Père François returns the compliment--straight through meagain, as it seems; and I do not even feel it! Mary and I are as solidto each other as flesh and blood can make us. We cannot even touch thesedream people without their melting away into thin air; we can only hearand see them, but that in perfection!

There goes that little André Corbin, the poulterer's son, running alongthe slippery top of Madame Pelé's garden wall, which is nearly tenfeet high. 

"Good heavens, " cries Mary, "stop him! Don't you remember? When he getsto the corner he'll fall down and break both his legs!"

I rush and bellow out to him--

"Descends donc, malheureux; tu vas te casser les deux jambes! Saute!saute!" . . . I cry, holding out my arms. He does not pay the slightestattention: he reaches the corner, followed low down by Gogo and Mimsey, who are beside themselves with generous envy and admiration. Stimulatedby their applause, he becomes more foolhardy than ever, and even triesto be droll, and standing on one leg, sings a little song that begins--

_"Maman m'a donné quat' sous Pour m'en aller à la foire, Non pas pourmanger ni boire, Alais pour m'régaler d'joujoux!"_

Then suddenly down he slips, poor boy, and breaks both his legs belowthe knee on an iron rail, whereby he becomes a cripple for life. 

All this sad little tragedy of a New-year's Eve plays itself anew. Thesympathetic crowd collects; Mimsey and Gogo weep; the heart-brokenparents arrive, and the good little doctor Larcher; and Mary and I lookon like criminals, so impossible it seems not to feel that we might haveprevented it all!

We two alone are alive and substantial in all this strange world ofshadows, who seem, as far as we can hear and see, no less substantialand alive than ourselves. They exist for us; we do not exist for them. We exist for each other only, waking or sleeping; for even the peopleamong whom our waking life is spent know hardly more of us, and what ourreal existence is, than poor little André Corbin, who has just brokenhis legs for us over again!

[Illustration]

And so, back to "Magna sed Apta, " both saddened by this deplorablemisadventure, to muse and talk and marvel over these wonders; penetratedto the very heart's core by a dim sense of some vast, mysterious power, latent in the sub-consciousness of man--unheard of, undreamed of as yet, but linking him with the Infinite and the Eternal. 

And how many things we always had to talk about besides!

Heaven knows, I am not a brilliant conversationalist, but she was themost easily amusable person in the world--interested in everything thatinterested me, and I disdamaged myself (to use one of herAnglo-Gallicisms) of the sulky silence of years. 

Of her as a companion it is not for me to speak. It would beimpertinent, and even ludicrous, for a person in my position to dilateon the social gifts of the famous Duchess of Towers. 

Incredible as it may appear, however, most of our conversation was aboutvery common and earthly topics--her homes and refuges, the difficultiesof their management, her eternal want of money, her many schemes andplans and experiments and failures and disenchantments--in all of whichI naturally took a very warm interest. And then my jail, and all thatoccurred there--in all of which I became interested myself because itinterested her so passionately; she knew every corner of it that I knew, every detail of the life there--the name, appearance, and history ofalmost every inmate, and criticised its internal economy with apractical knowledge of affairs; a business-like sagacity at which Inever ceased to marvel. 

One of my drollest recollections is of a visit shepaid there _in the flesh_, by some famous philanthropists of both sexes. I was interviewed by them all as the model prisoner, who, for hisunorthodoxy, was a credit to the institution. She listened demurely tomy intelligent answers when I was questioned as to my bodily health, etc. , and asked whether I had any complaints to make. Complaints! Neverwas jail-bird so thoroughly satisfied with his nest--so healthy, sohappy, so well-behaved. She took notes all the time. 

[Illustration: MARY, DUCHESS OF TOWERS. From a photograph byStrlkzchuski, Warsaw. ]

Eight hours before we had been strolling hand in hand through the UffiziGallery in Florence; eight hours later we should be in eachother's arms. 

 * * * * *

Strange to relate, this happiness of ours--so deep, so acute, sotranscendent, so unmatched in all the history of human affection--wasnot always free of unreasonable longings and regrets. Man is never soblessed but what he would have his blessedness still greater. 

The reality of our close companionship, of our true possession of eachother (during our allotted time), was absolute, complete, and thorough. No Darby that ever lived can ever have had sweeter, warmer, more tendermemories of any Joan than I have now of Mary Seraskier! Although eachwas, in a way, but a seeming illusion of the other's brain, the illusionwas no illusion for us. It was an illusion that showed the truth, asdoes the illusion of sight. Like twin kernels in one shell("Philipschen, " as Mary called it), we touched at more points and werecloser than the rest of mankind (with each of them a separate shell ofhis own). We tried and tested this in every way we could devise, andnever found ourselves at fault, and never ceased to marvel at so great awonder. For instance, I received letters from her in jail (and answeredthem) in an intricate cipher we had invented and perfected togetherentirely during sleep, and referring to things that had happened to usboth when together. [A]

[Footnote A: _Note_. --Several of these letters are in my possession. MADGE PLUNKET. ]

Our privileges were such as probably no human beings could have everenjoyed before. Time and space were annihilated for us at the mere wishof either--we lived in a palace of delight; all conceivable luxurieswere ours--and, better than all, and perennially, such freshness andelation as belong only to the morning of life--and such a love for eachother (the result of circumstances not to be paralleled) as time couldnever slake or quench till death should come and part us. All this, andmore, was our portion for eight hours out of twenty-four. 

So what must we do sometimes, but fret that the sixteen hours whichremained did not belong to us well; that we must live two-thirds of ourlives apart; that we could not share the toils and troubles of ourwork-a-day, waking existence, as we shared the blissful guerdon of ourseeming sleep--the glories of our common dream. 

And then we would lament the lost years we had spent in mutual ignoranceand separation--a deplorable waste of life; when life, sleeping orwaking, was so short. 

How different things might have been with us had we but known!

We need never have lost sight and touch of each other; we might havegrown up, and learned and worked and struggled together from thefirst--boy and girl, brother and sister, lovers, man and wife--and yethave found our blessed dream-land and dwelt in it just the same. 

Children might have been born to us! Sweet children, _beaux comme lejour_, as in Madame Perrault's fairy tales; even beautiful and good astheir mother. 

And as we talked of these imaginary little beings and tried to picturethem, we felt in ourselves such a stupendous capacity for loving thesame that we would fall to weeping on each other's shoulders. Full wellI knew, even as if they had formed a part of my own personal experience, all the passion and tenderness, all the wasted anguish of her brief, ill-starred motherhood: the very ache of my jealousy that she shouldhave borne a child to another man was forgotten in that keen andthorough comprehension! Ah, yes . . . That hungry love, that woful pity, which not to know is hardly quite to have lived! Childless as I am(though old enough to be a grandfather) I have it all by heart!

Never could we hope for son or daughter of our own. For us the blessedflower of love in rich, profuse, unfading bloom; but its blessed fruitof life, never, never, never!

Our only children were Mimsey and Gogo, between whom and ourselves wasan impassable gulf, and who were unconscious of our very existence, except for Mimsey's strange consciousness that a Fairy Tarapatapoum anda Prince Charming were watching over them. 

All this would always end, as it could not but end, in our realizing themore fully our utter dependence on each other for all that made life notonly worth living, ingrates that we were, but a heaven on earth for usboth; and, indeed, we could not but recognize that merely thus to loveand be loved was in itself a thing so immense (without all the otherblessings we had) that we were fain to tremble at our audacity in daringto wish for more. 

 * * * * *

Thus sped three years, and would have sped all the rest, perhaps, butfor an incident that made an epoch in our joint lives, and turned allour thoughts and energies in a new direction. 

Part Six

[Illustration]

Some petty annoyance to which I had been subjected by one of the prisonauthorities had kept me awake for a little while after I had gone tobed, so that when at last I awoke in "Magna sed Apta, " and lay on mycouch there (with that ever-fresh feeling of coming to life in heavenafter my daily round of work in an earthly jail), I was conscious thatMary was there already, making coffee, the fragrance of which filledthe room, and softly humming a tune as she did so--a quaint, original, but most beautiful tune, that thrilled me with indescribable emotion, for I had never heard it with the bodily ear before, and yet it was asfamiliar to me as "God save the Queen. "

As I listened with rapt ears and closed eyes, wonderful scenes passedbefore my mental vision: the beautiful white-haired lady of my childishdreams, leading a small _female_ child by the hand, and that child wasmyself; the pigeons and their tower, the stream and the water-mill; thewhite-haired young man with red heels to his shoes; a very fine lady, very tall, stout, and middle-aged, magnificently dressed in brocadedsilk; a park with lawns and alleys and trees cut into trim formalshapes; a turreted castle--all kinds of charming scenes and people ofanother age and country. 

"What on earth is that wonderful tune, Mary?" I exclaimed, when she hadfinished it. 

"It's my favorite tune, " she answered; "I seldom hum it for fear ofwearing away its charm. I suppose that is why you have never heard itbefore. Isn't it lovely? I've been trying to lull you awake with it. 

"My grandfather, the violinist, used to play it with variations of hisown, and made it famous in his time; but it was never published, andit's now forgotten. 

"It is called 'Le Chant du Triste Commensal, ' and was composed by hisgrandmother, a beautiful French woman, who played the fiddle too; butnot as a profession. He remembered her playing it when he was a childand she was quite an old lady, just as I remember _his_ playing it whenI was a girl in Vienna, and he was a white-haired old man. She used toplay holding her fiddle downward, on her knee, it seems; and alwaysplayed in perfect tune, quite in the middle of the note, and withexcellent taste and expression; it was her playing that decided hiscareer. But she was like 'Single-speech Hamilton, ' for this was the onlything she ever composed. She composed it under great grief andexcitement, just after her husband had died from the bite of a wolf, andjust before the birth of her twin-daughters--her only children--one ofwhom was my great-grandmother. "

"And what was this wonderful old lady's name?"

"Gatienne Aubéry; she married a Breton squire called Budes, who was a_gentilhomme verrier_ near St. Prest, in Anjou--that is, he madeglass--decanters, water-bottles, tumblers, and all that, I suppose--inspite of his nobility. It was not considered derogatory to do so;indeed, it was the only trade permitted to the _noblesse_, and one hadto be at least a squire to engage in it. 

"She was a very notable woman, _la belle Verrière_, as she was called;and she managed the glass factory for many years after her husband'sdeath, and made lots of money for her two daughters. "

"How strange!" I exclaimed; "Gatienne Aubéry! Dame du Brail--Budes--thenames are quite familiar to me. Mathurin Budes, Seigneur de Monhoudéardet de Verny le Moustier. "

"Yes, that's it. How wonderful that you should know! One daughter, Jeanne, married my greatgrandfather, an officer in the Hungarian army;and Seraskier, the fiddler, was their only child. The other (so like hersister that only her mother could distinguish them) was called Anne, andmarried a Comte de Bois something. "

"Boismorinel. Why, all those names are in my family too. My father usedto make me paint their arms and quarterings when I was a child, onSunday mornings, to keep me quiet. Perhaps we are related by blood, you and I. "

"Oh, that would be too delightful!" said Mary. "I wonder how we couldfind out? Have you no family papers?"

_I_. "There were lots of them, in a horse-hair trunk, but I don't knowwhere they are now. What good would family papers have been to me?Ibbetson took charge of them when I changed my name. I suppose hislawyers have got them. "

_She_. "Happy thought; we will do without lawyers. Let us go round toyour old house, and make Gogo paint the quarterings over again for us, and look over his shoulder. "

Happy thought, indeed! We drank our coffee and went straight to my oldhouse, with the wish (immediate father to the deed) that Gogo should bethere, once more engaged in his long forgotten accomplishment ofpainting coats of arms. 

It was a beautiful Sunday morning, and we found Gogo hard at work at asmall table by an open window. The floor was covered with old deeds andparchments and family papers; and le beau Pasquier, at another table, was deep in his own pedigree, making notes on the margin--an occupationin which he delighted--and unconsciously humming as he did so. The sunnyroom was filled with the penetrating soft sound of his voice, as aconservatory is filled with the scent of its flowers. 

By the strangest inconsistency my dear father, a genuine republican atheart (for all his fancied loyalty to the white lily of the Bourbons), awould-be scientist, who in reality was far more impressed by a cleverand industrious French mechanic than by a prince (and would, I think, have preferred the former's friendship and society), yet took both apleasure and a pride in his quaint old parchments and obscurequarterings. So would I, perhaps, if things had gone differently withme--for what true democrat, however intolerant of such weakness inothers, ever thinks lightly of his own personal claims to aristocraticdescent, shadowy as these may be!

He was fond of such proverbs and aphorisms as "noblesse oblige, " "bonsang ne sait mentir, " "bon chien chasse de race, " etc. , and had eveninvented a little aphorism of his own, to comfort him when he was extrahard up, "bon gentilhomme n'a jamais honte de la misère. " All of whichsayings, to do him justice, he reserved for home consumptionexclusively, and he would have been the first to laugh on hearing themin the mouth of any one else. 

Of his one great gift, the treasure in his throat, he thought absolutelynothing at all. 

"Ce que c'est que de nous!"

Gogo was coloring the quarterings of the Pasquier family--_la maisonde Pasquier_, as it was called--in a printed book (_Armorial Général duMaine et de l'Anjou_), according to the instructions that were givenunderneath. He used one of Madame Liard's three-sou boxes, and the tintsleft much to be desired. 

We looked over his shoulder and read the picturesque old jargon, whichsounds even prettier and more comforting and more idiotic in French thanin English. It ran thus--

"Pasquier (branche des Seigneurs de la Marière et du Hirel), party de 4pièces et coupé de 2. 

"Au premier, de Hérault, qui est de écartelé de gueules et d'argent. 

"Au deux, de Budes, qui est d'or au pin de sinople. 

"Au trois, d'Aubéry--qui est d'azur à trois croissants d'argent. 

"Au quatre, de Busson qui est d'argent au lyon de sable armé couronné etlampassé d'or, " And so on, through the other quarterings: Bigot, Epinay, Malestroit, Mathefelon. And finally, "Sur le tout, de Pasquier qui estd'or à trois lyons d'azur, au franc quartier écartelé des royames deCastille et de Léon. "

Presently my mother came home from the English chapel in the RueMarboeuf, where she had been with Sarah, the English maid. Lunch wasannounced, and we were left alone with the family papers. With infiniteprecautions, for fear of blurring the dream, we were able to find whatwe wanted to find--namely, that we were the great-great-grandchildrenand only possible living descendants of Gatienne, the fair glassmakerand composer of "Le Chant du Triste Commensal. "

Thus runs the descent--

Jean Aubéry, Seigneur du Brail, married Anne Busson. His daughter, Gatienne Aubéry, Dame du Brail, married Mathurin Budes, Seigneur deVerny le Moustier et de Monhoudéard. 

 --------------------------^--------------------------/ \

Anne Budes, Dame de Jeanne Budes, Dame du Verny le Moustier, married Brail et de Monhoudéard, Guy Hérault, Comte married Ulric de Boismorinel. Seraskier. 

Jeanne François Hérault de Otto Seraskier, violinist, Boismorinel married married Teresa Pulci. François Pasquier de la Marière. 

Jean Pasquier de la Marière Johann Seraskier, M. D. , married Catherine married Laura Desmond. Ibbetson-Biddulph. 

Pierre Pasquier de la Marière Mary Seraskier, Duchess of (_alias_ Peter Ibbetson, Towers. Convict). 

We walked back to "Magna sed Apta" in great joy, and there we celebratedour newly-discovered kinship by a simple repast, out of _my_ répertoirethis time. It consisted of oysters from Rules's in Maiden Lane, whenthey were sixpence a dozen, and bottled stout (_l'eau m'en vient à labouche_); and we spent the rest of the hours allotted to us that nightin evolving such visions as we could from the old tune "Le Chant duTriste Commensal, " with varying success; she humming it, accompanyingherself on the piano in her masterly, musician-like way, with one hand, and seeing all that I saw by holding my hand with the other. 

By slow degrees the scenes and people evoked grew less dim, and wheneverthe splendid and important lady, whom we soon identified for certain asGatienne, our common great-great-grandmother, appeared--"la belleverrière de Verny le Moustier"--she was more distinct than the others;no doubt, because we both had part and parcel in her individuality, andalso because her individuality was so strongly marked. 

And before I was called away at the inexorable hour, we had the supremesatisfaction of seeing her play the fiddle to a shadowy company ofpatched and powdered and bewigged ladies and gentlemen, who seemed totake much sympathetic delight in her performance, and actually, even, ofjust hearing the thin, unearthly tones of that most original andexquisite melody, "Le Chant du Triste Commensal, " to a quite inaudibleaccompaniment on the spinet by her daughter, evidently Anne Hérault, Comtesse de Boismorinel (_née_ Budes), while the small child Jeanne deBoismorinel (afterwards Dame Pasquier de la Marière) listened withdreamy rapture. 

And, just as Mary had said, she played her fiddle with its bodydownward, and resting on her knees, as though it had been an undersized'cello. I then vaguely remembered having dreamed of such a figure when asmall child. 

Within twenty-four hours of this strange adventure the practical andbusiness-like Mary had started, in the flesh and with her maid, for thatpart of France where these, my ancestors, had lived, and within afortnight she had made herself mistress of all my French family history, and had visited such of the different houses of my kin as were still inexistence. 

The turreted castle of my childish dreams, which, with the adjacentglass-factory, was still called Verny le Moustier, was one of these. Shefound it in the possession of a certain Count Hector du Chamorin, whosegrandfather had purchased it at the beginning of the century. 

He had built an entirely new plant, and made it one of the firstglass-factories in Western France. But the old turreted _corps de logis_still remained, and his foreman lived there with his wife and family. The _pigeonnier_ had been pulled down to make room for a shed with asteam-engine, and the whole aspect of the place was revolutionized; butthe stream and water-mill (the latter a mere picturesque ruin) werestill there; the stream was, however, little more than a ditch, some tenfeet deep and twenty broad, with a fringe of gnarled and twisted willowsand alders, many of them dead. 

It was called "Le Brail, " and had given its name to mygreat-great-grandmother's property, whence it had issued thirty milesaway (and many hundred years ago); but the old Château du Brail, themanor of the Aubérys, had become a farm-house. 

The Château de la Marière, in its walled park, and with its beautiful, tall, hexagonal tower, dated 1550, and visible for miles around, was nowa prosperous cider brewery; it is still, and lies on the high-road fromAngers to Le Mans. 

The old forest of Boismorinel, that had once belonged to the family ofHérault, was still in existence; charcoal-burners were to be found inits depths, and a stray roebuck or two; but no more wolves andwild-boars, as in the olden time. And where the old castle had been nowstood the new railway station of Boismorinel et Saint Maixent. 

[Illustration: LA BELLE VERRIERE]

Most of such Budes, Bussons, Héraults, Aubérys, and Pasquiers as werestill to be found in the country, probably distant kinsmen of Mary'sand mine, were lawyers, doctors, or priests, or had gone into trade andbecome respectably uninteresting; such as they were, they would scarcelyhave cared to claim kinship with such as I. 

But a hundred years ago and more these were names of importance in Maineand Anjou; their bearers were descended for the most part from youngerbranches of houses which in the Middle Ages had intermarried with allthere was of the best in France; and although they were looked down uponby the _noblesse_ of the court and Versailles, as were all theprovincial nobility, they held their own well in their own country;feasting, hunting, and shooting with each other; dancing and fiddlingand making love and intermarrying; and blowing glass, and growing richerand richer, till the Revolution came and blew them and their glass intospace, and with them many greater than themselves, but few better. Andall record of them and of their doings, pleasant and genial people asthey were, is lost, and can only be recalled by a dream. 

Verny le Moustier was not the least interesting of these old manors. 

It had been built three hundred years ago, on the site of a still oldermonastery (whence its name); the ruined walls of the old abbey were (andare) still extant in the house-garden, covered with apricot and pear andpeach trees, which had been sown or planted by our common ancestresswhen she was a bride. 

Count Hector, who took a great pleasure in explaining all the pasthistory of the place to Mary, had built himself a fine new house inwhat remained of the old park, and a quarter of a mile away from theold manor-house. Every room of the latter was shown to her; old woodpanels still remained, prettily painted in a by-gone fashion; olddocuments, and parchment deeds, and leases concerning fish-ponds, farms, and the like, were brought out for her inspection, signed bymy grandfather Pasquier, my great-grandfather Boismorinel, and ourgreat-great-grandmother and her husband, Mathurin Budes, the lord ofVerny le Moustier; and the tradition of Gatienne, _la belle Verrière_(also nicknamed _la reine de Hongrie_, it seems) still lingered in thecounty; and many old people still remembered, more or less correctly, "Le Chant du Triste Commensal, " which a hundred years ago had been ineverybody's mouth. 

She was said to have been the tallest and handsomest woman in Anjou, ofan imperious will and very masculine character, but immensely popularamong rich and poor alike; of indomitable energy, and with a finger inevery pie; but always more for the good of others than her own--atypical, managing, business-like French woman, and an exquisitemusician to boot. 

Such was our common ancestress, from whom, no doubt, we drew our love ofmusic and our strange, almost hysterical susceptibility to the power ofsound; from whom had issued those two born nightingales of ourrace--Seraskier, the violinist, and my father, the singer. And, strangeto say, her eyebrows met at the bridge of her nose just like mine, andfrom under them beamed the luminous, black-fringed, gray-blue eyes ofMary, that suffered eclipse whenever their owners laughed or smiled!

[Illustration]

During this interesting journey of Mary's in the flesh, we met everynight at "Magna sed Apta" in the spirit, as usual; and I was made toparticipate in every incident of it. 

We sat by the magic window, and had for our entertainment, now theVerrerie de Verny le Moustier in its present state, all full of modernlife, color, and sound, steam and gas, as she had seen it a few hoursbefore; now the old château as it was a hundred years ago; dim andindistinct, as though seen by nearsighted eyes at the close of a gray, misty afternoon in late autumn through a blurred window-pane, with busybut silent shadows moving about--silent, because at first we could nothear their speech; it was too thin for our mortal ears, even in thisdream within our dream! Only Gatienne, the authoritative and commandingGatienne, was faintly audible. 

Then we would go down and mix with them. Thus, at one moment, we wouldbe in the midst of a charming old-fashioned French family group ofshadows: Gatienne, with her lovely twin-daughters Jeanne and Anne, andher gardeners round her, all trailing young peach and apricot treesagainst what still remained of the ancient buttresses and walls of theAbbaye de Verny le Moustier--all this more than a hundred years ago--thepale sun of a long-past noon casting the fainter shadows of these faintshadows on the shadowy garden-path. 

Then, presto! Changing the scene as one changes a slide in amagic-lantern, we would skip a century, and behold!

Another French family group, equally charming, on the self-same spot, but in the garb of to-day, and no longer shadowy or mute by any means. Little trees have grown big; big trees have disappeared to make placefor industrious workshops and machinery; but the old abbey walls havebeen respected, and gay, genial father, and handsome mother, and lovelydaughters, all pressing on "la belle Duchesse Anglaise" peaches andapricots of her great-great-grandmother's growing. 

For this amiable family of the Chamorin became devoted to Mary in a veryshort time--that is, the very moment they first saw her; and she neverforgot their kindness, courtesy, and hospitality; they made her feel infive minutes as though she had known them for many years. 

I may as well state here that a few months later she received fromMademoiselle du Chamorin (with a charming letter) the identical violinthat had once belonged to _la belle Verrière_, and which Count Hectorhad found in the possession of an old farmer--the great-grandson ofGatienne's coachman--and had purchased, that he might present it as aNew-year's gift to her descendant, the Duchess of Towers. 

It is now mine, alas! I cannot play it; but it amuses and comforts me tohold in my hand, when broad and wide awake, an instrument that Mary andI have so often heard and seen in our dream, and which has so often rungin by-gone days with the strange melody that has had so great aninfluence on our lives. Its aspect, shape, and color, every mark andstain of it, were familiar to us before we had ever seen it with thebodily eye or handled it with the hand of flesh. It thus came straightto us out of the dim and distant past, heralded by the ghost of itself!

 * * * * *

To return. Gradually, by practice and the concentration of our unitedwill, the old-time figures grew to gain substance and color, and theirvoices became perceptible; till at length there arrived a day when wecould move among them, and hear them and see them as distinctly as wecould our own immediate progenitors close by--as Gogo and Mimsey, asMonsieur le Major, and the rest. 

The child who went about hand in hand with the white-haired lady (whosehair was only powdered) and fed the pigeons was my grandmother, Jeannede Boismorinel (who married François Pasquier de la Marière). It was herfather who wore red heels to his shoes, and made her believe she couldmanufacture little cocked-hats in colored glass; she had lived again inme whenever, as a child, I had dreamed that exquisite dream. 

I could now evoke her at will; and, with her, many buried memories werecalled out of nothingness into life. 

Among other wonderful things, I heard the red-heeled gentleman, M. DeBoismorinel (my great-grandfather), sing beautiful old songs by Lulliand others to the spinet, which he played charmingly a rareaccomplishment in those days. And lo! these tunes were tunes that hadrisen oft and unbidden in my consciousness, and I had fondly imaginedthat I had composed them myself--little impromptus of my own. And lo, again! His voice, thin, high, nasal, but very sympathetic and musical, was that never still small voice that has been singing unremittingly formore than half a century in the unswept, ungarnished corner of my brainwhere all the cobwebs are. 

[Illustration: "THAT NEVER STILL SMALL VOICE. "]

And these cobwebs?

Well, I soon became aware, by deeply diving into my inner consciousnesswhen awake and at my daily prison toil (which left the mind singularlyclear and free), that I was full, quite full, of slight elusivereminiscences which were neither of my waking life nor of my dream-lifewith Mary: reminiscences of sub-dreams during sleep, and belonging tothe period of my childhood and early youth; sub-dreams which no doubthad been forgotten when I woke, at which time I could only remember thesurface dreams that had just preceded my waking. 

Ponds, rivers, bridges, roads, and streams, avenues of trees, arbors, windmills and water-mills, corridors and rooms, church functions, village fairs, festivities, men and women and animals, all of anothertime and of a country where I had never set my foot, were familiar to myremembrance. I had but to dive deep enough into myself, and there theywere; and when night came, and sleep, and "Magna sed Apta, " I couldre-evoke them all, and make them real and complete for Mary and myself. 

That these subtle reminiscences were true antenatal memories was soonproved by my excursions with Mary into the past; and her experience ofsuch reminiscences, and their corroboration, were just as my own. Wehave heard and seen her grandfather play the "Chant du Triste Commensal"to crowded concert-rooms, applauded to the echo by men and women longdead and buried and forgotten!

Now, I believe such reminiscences to form part of the sub-consciousnessof others, as well as Mary's and mine, and that by perseverance inself-research many will succeed in reaching them--perhaps even moreeasily and completely than we have done. 

It is something like listening for the overtones of a musical note; wedo not hear them at first, though they are there, clamoring forrecognition; and when at last we hear them, we wonder at our formerobtuseness, so distinct are they. 

Let a man with an average ear, however uncultivated, strike the C lowdown on a good piano-forte, keeping his foot on the loud pedal. At firsthe will hear nothing but the rich fundamental note C. 

But let him become _expectant_ of certain other notes; for instance, ofthe C in the octave immediately above, then the G immediately abovethat, then the E higher still; he will hear them all in time as clearlyas the note originally struck; and, finally, a shrill little ghostly andquite importunate B flat in the treble will pulsate so loudly in his earthat he will never cease to hear it whenever that low C is sounded. 

By just such a process, only with infinitely more pains (and in the endwith what pleasure and surprise), will he grow aware in time of a dim, latent, antenatal experience that underlies his own personal experienceof this life. 

We also found that we were able not only to assist as mere spectators atsuch past scenes as I have described (and they were endless), but alsoto identify ourselves occasionally with the actors, and cease for themoment to be Mary Seraskier and Peter Ibbetson. Notably was this thecase with Gatienne. We could each be Gatienne for a space (though neverboth of us together), and when we resumed our own personality again wecarried back with it a portion of hers, never to be lost again--astrange phenomenon, if the reader will but think of it, andconstituting the germ of a comparative personal immortality on earth. 

At my work in prison, even, I could distinctly remember having beenGatienne; so that for the time being, Gatienne, a provincial Frenchwoman who lived a hundred years ago, was contentedly undergoing penalservitude in an English jail during the latter half of thenineteenth century. 

A questionable privilege, perhaps. 

But to make up for it, when she was not alive in me she could be broughtto life in Mary (only in one at a time, it seemed), and travel by railand steamer, and know the uses of gas and electricity, and read thetelegrams of "our special correspondents" in the _Times_, and taste hernineteenth century under more favorable conditions. 

Thus we took _la belle Verrière_ by turns, and she saw and heard thingsshe little dreamed of a hundred years ago. Besides, she was made toshare in the glories of "Magna sed Apta. "

And the better we knew her the more we loved her; she was a very niceperson to descend from, and Mary and I were well agreed that we couldnot have chosen a better great-great-grandmother, and wondered what eachof our seven others was like, for we had fifteen of these between us, and as many great-great-grandfathers. 

Thirty great-great-grandfathers and great-great-grandmothers had made uswhat we were; it was no good fighting against them and the millions attheir backs. 

Which of them all, strong, but gentle and shy, and hating the verysight of blood, yet saw scarlet when he was roused, and thirsted for theblood of his foe?

Which of them all, passionate and tender, but proud, high-minded, andchaste, and with the world at her feet, was yet ready to "throw her capover the windmills, " and give up all for love, deeming the worldwell lost?

 * * * * *

That we could have thus identified ourselves, only more easily andthoroughly, with our own more immediate progenitors, we felt certainenough. But after mature thought we resolved to desist from any furtherattempt at such transfusion of identity, for sacred reasons ofdiscretion which the reader will appreciate. 

But that this will be done some day (now the way has been made clear), and also that the inconveniences and possible abuses of such a facultywill be obviated or minimized by the ever-active ingenuity of mankind, is to my mind a foregone conclusion. 

It is too valuable a faculty to be left in abeyance, and I leave theprobable and possible consequences of its culture to the reader'simagination--merely pointing out to him (as an inducement to cultivatethat faculty in himself) that if anything can keep us well within thethorny path that leads to happiness and virtue, it is the certainty thatthose who come after us will remember having been ourselves, if only ina dream--even as the newly-hatched chicken has remembered in its egg theuse of eyes and ears and the rest, out of the fulness of its longantenatal experience; and more fortunate than the helpless human infantin this respect, can enter on the business and pleasures of its brief, irresponsible existence at once!

 * * * * *

Wherefore, oh reader, if you be but sound in mind and body, it mostseriously behooves you (not only for the sake of those who come afteryou, but your own) to go forth and multiply exceedingly, to marry earlyand much and often, and to select the very best of your kind in theopposite sex for this most precious, excellent, and blessed purpose;that all your future reincarnations (and hers), however brief, may bemany; and bring you not only joy and peace and pleasurable wondermentand recreation, but the priceless guerdon of well-earned self-approval!

For whoever remembers having once been you, wakes you for the nonce outof--nirvana, shall we say? His strength, his beauty, and his wit areyours; and the felicity he derives from them in this earthly life is foryou to share, whenever this subtle remembrance of you stirs in hisconsciousness; and you can never quite sink back again into--nirvana, till all your future wakers shall cease to be!

It is like a little old-fashioned French game we used to play at Passy, and which is not bad for a dark, rainy afternoon: people sit all roundin a circle, and each hands on to his neighbor a spill or alucifer-match just blown out, but in which a little live spark stilllingers; saying, as he does so--

_"Petit bonhomme vit encore!"_

And he, in whose hand the spark becomes extinct, has to pay forfeit andretire--"Hélas! petit bonhomme n'est plus! . . . Pauv' petit bonhomme!"

Ever thus may a little live spark of your own individual consciousness, when the full, quick flame of your actual life here below isextinguished, be handed down mildly incandescent to your remotestposterity. May it never quite go out--it need not! May you ever be ableto say of yourself, from generation to generation, "Petit bonhomme vitencore!" and still keep one finger at least in the pleasant earthly pie!

And, reader, remember so to order your life on earth that the memory ofyou (like that of Gatienne, la belle Verrière de Verny le Moustier) maysmell sweet and blossom in the dust--a memory pleasant to recall--tothis end that its recallings and its recallers may be as numerous asfilial love and ancestral pride can make them. . . . 

And oh! looking _backward_ (as _we_ did), be tender to the failings ofyour forbears, who little guessed when alive that the secrets of theirlong buried hearts should one day be revealed to _you_! Their faults arereally your own, like the faults of your innocent, ignorant childhood, so to say, when you did not know better, as you do now; or willsoon, thanks to

_"Le Chant du Triste Commensal!"_

 * * * * *

Wherefore, also, beware and be warned in time, ye tenth transmitters ofa foolish face, ye reckless begetters of diseased or puny bodies, withhearts and brains to match! Far down the corridors of time shallclub-footed retribution follow in your footsteps, and overtake you atevery turn! Most remorselessly, most vindictively, will you be aroused, in sleepless hours of unbearable misery (future-waking nightmares), fromyour false, uneasy dream of death; to participate in an inheritance ofwoe still worse than yours--worse with all the accumulated interest oflong years and centuries of iniquitous self-indulgence, and poisoned bythe sting of a self-reproach that shall never cease till the last ofyour tainted progeny dies out, and finds his true nirvana, and yours, inthe dim, forgetful depths of interstellar space!

 * * * * *

And here let me most conscientiously affirm that, partly from my keensense of the solemnity of such an appeal, and the grave responsibility Itake upon myself in making it; but more especially in order to impressyou, oh reader, with the full significance of this apocalyptic andsomewhat minatory utterance (that it may haunt your finer sense duringyour midnight hours of introspective self-communion), I have done mybest, my very best, to couch it in the obscurest and most unintelligiblephraseology I could invent. If I have failed to do this, if I haveunintentionally made any part of my meaning clear, if I have oncedeviated by mistake into what might almost appear like sense--merecommon-sense--it is the fault of my half-French and wholly imperfecteducation. I am but a poor scribe!

Thus roughly have I tried to give an account of this, the mostimportant of our joint discoveries in the strange new world revealed tous by chance. More than twenty years of our united lives have beendevoted to the following out of this slender clew--with what surprisingresults will, I trust, be seen in subsequent volumes. 

We have not had time to attempt the unravelling of our English ancestryas well--the Crays, and the Desmonds, the Ibbetsons, and Biddulphs, etc. --which connects us with the past history of England. The farther wegot back into France, the more fascinating it became, and theeasier--and the more difficult to leave. 

What an unexampled experience has been ours! To think that we haveseen--actually seen--_de nos propres yeux vu_--Napoleon Bonapartehimself, the arch-arbiter of the world, on the very pinnacle of hispride and power; in his little cocked hat and gray double-breastedovercoat, astride his white charger, with all his staff around him, justas he has been so often painted! Surely the most impressive, unforgettable, ineffaceable little figure in all modern history, andclothed in the most cunningly imagined make-up that ever theatricalcostumier devised to catch the public eye and haunt the public memoryfor ages and ages yet to come!

It is a singularly new, piquant, and exciting sensation to stare inperson, and as in the present, at bygone actualities, and be able toforetell the past and remember the future all in one!

To think that we have even beheld him before he was first consul--slimand pale, his lank hair dangling down his neck and cheeks, if possiblemore impressive still as innocent as a child of all that lay before him!Europe at his feet--the throne--Waterloo-St. Helena--the Iron EnglishDuke--the pinnacle turned into a pillory so soon!

_"O corse à cheveux plats, que la France était belle Au soleil deMessidor!"_

And Mirabeau and Robespierre, and Danton and Marat and Charlotte Corday!we have seen them too; and Marie Antoinette and the fish-wives, and "thebeautiful head of Lamballe" (on its pike!) . . . And watched the tumbrilsgo by to the Place du Carrousel, and gazed at the guillotine bymoonlight--silent and terror-stricken, our very hearts in our mouths. . . . 

And in the midst of it all, ridiculous stray memories of Madame Tussaudwould come stealing into our ghastly dream of blood and retribution, mixing up past and present and future in a manner not to be described, and making us smile through our tears!

Then we were present (several times!) at the taking of the Bastille, andindeed witnessed most of the stormy scenes of that stormy time, with ourCarlyle in our hands; and often have we thought, and with many a heartylaugh, what fun it must be to write immortal histories, with never aneye-witness to contradict you!

And going further back we have haunted Versailles in the days of itssplendor, and drunk our fill of all the glories of the court ofLouis XIV!

What imposing ceremonials, what stupendous royal functions have we notattended--where all the beauty, wit, and chivalry of France, prostratewith reverence and awe (as in the very presence of a god), did loyalhomage to the greatest monarch this world has ever seen--while we satby, on the very steps of his throne, as he solemnly gave out his royalcommand! and laughed aloud under his very nose--the shallow, silly, pompous little snob--and longed to pull it! and tried to disinfect hisgreasy, civet-scented, full-bottomed wig with wholesome whiffs from anineteenth-century regalia!

Nothing of that foolish but fascinating period escaped us. Town, hamlet, river, forest, and field; royal palace, princely castle, and starvingpeasants' hut; pulpit, stage, and salon; port, camp, and marketplace;tribunal and university; factory, shop, studio, smithy; tavern andgambling-hell and den of thieves; convent and jail, torture-chamber andgibbet-close, and what not all!

And at every successive step our once desponding, over-anxious, over-burdened latter-day souls have swelled with joy and pride and hopeat the triumphs of our own day all along the line! Yea, even though wehave heard the illustrious Bossuet preach, and applauded Molière in oneof his own plays, and gazed at and listened to (and almost forgiven)Racine and Corneille, and Boileau and Fénélon, and the goodLafontaine--those five ruthless persecutors of our own innocent Frenchchildhood!

And still ascending the stream of time, we have hobnobbed with Montaigneand Rabelais, and been personally bored by Malherbe, and sat atRonsard's feet, and ridden by Froissart's side, and slummed withFrançois Villon--in what enchanted slums! . . . 

François Villon! Think of that, ye fond British bards and bardletsof to-day--ye would-be translators and imitators of thatnever-to-be-translated, never-to-be-imitated lament, the immortal_Ballade des Dames du Temps jadis_!

And while I speak of it, I may as well mention that we have seen themtoo, or some of them--those fair ladies _he_ had never seen, and who hadalready melted away before his coming, like the snows of yester year, _les neiges d'antan!_ Bertha, with the big feet; Joan of Arc, the goodLorrainer (what would she think of her native province now!); the verylearned Héloïse, for love of whom one Peter Esbaillart, or Abélard (amore luckless Peter than even I!), suffered such cruel indignities atmonkish hands; and that haughty, naughty queen, in her Tower of Nesle, _"Qui commanda que Buridan Fut jecté en ung Sac en Seine. . . . "_

Yes, we have seen them with the eye, and heard them speak and sing, andscold and jest, and laugh and weep, and even pray! And I have sketchedthem, as you shall see some day, good reader! And let me tell you thattheir beauty was by no means maddening: the standard of femaleloveliness has gone up, even in France! Even _la très sage Héloïs_ wasscarcely worth such a sacrifice as--but there! Possess your soul inpatience; all that, and it is all but endless, will appear in due time, with such descriptions and illustrations as I flatter myself the worldhas never bargained for, and will value as it has never valued anyhistorical records yet!

Day after day, for more than twenty years, Mary has kept a voluminousdiary (in a cipher known to us both); it is now my property, and in itevery detail of our long journey into the past has been set down. 

Contemporaneously, day by day (during the leisure accorded to me by thekindness of Governor----) I have drawn over again from memory thesketches of people and places I was able to make straight from natureduring those wonderful nights at "Magna sed Apta. " I can guarantee thecorrectness of them, and the fidelity of their likenesses; no doubttheir execution leaves much to be desired. 

Both her task and mine (to the future publication of which thisautobiography is but an introduction) have been performed with theminutest care and conscientiousness; no time or trouble have beenspared. For instance, the Massacre of St. Bartholomew alone, which wewere able to study from seventeen different points of view, cost us noless than two months' unremitting labor. 

As we reached further and further back through the stream of time, thetask became easier in a way; but we have had to generalize more, andoften, for want of time and space, to use types in lieu of individuals. For with every successive generation the number of our progenitorsincreased in geometrical progression (as in the problem of the nails inthe horseshoe) until a limit of numbers was reached--namely, the sum ofthe inhabitants of the terrestrial globe. In the seventh century therewas not a person living in France (not to mention Europe) who was not inthe line of our direct ancestry, excepting, of course, those who haddied without issue and were mere collaterals. 

[Illustration: "THE MAMMOTH. "]

We have even just been able to see, as in a glass darkly, the faintshadows of the Mammoth and the cave bear, and of the man who hunted andkilled and ate them, that he might live and prevail. 

The Mammoth!

We have walked round him and under him as he browsed, and even _through_him where he lay and rested, as one walks through the dun mist in alittle hollow on a still, damp morning; and turning round to look (atthe proper distance) there was the unmistakable shape again, just thickenough to blot out the lines of the dim primeval landscape beyond, andmake a hole in the blank sky. A dread silhouette, thrilling our heartswith awe--blurred and indistinct like a composite photograph--merely the_type_, as it had been seen generally by all who had ever seen it atall, every one of whom _(exceptis excipiendis)_ was necessarily anancestor of ours, and of every man now living. 

There it stood or reclined, the monster, like the phantom of anovergrown hairy elephant; we could almost see, or fancy we saw, theexpression of his dull, cold, antediluvian eye--almost perceive asuggestion of russet-brown in his fell. 

Mary firmly believed that we should have got in time to our hairyancestor with pointed ears and a tail, and have been able to ascertainwhether he was arboreal in his habits or not. With what passionateinterest she would have followed and studied and described him! And I!With what eager joy, and yet with what filial reverence, I would havesketched his likeness--with what conscientious fidelity as far as my poorpowers would allow! (For all we know to the contrary he may have beenthe most attractive and engaging little beast that ever was, and farless humiliating to descend from than many a titled yahoo of thepresent day. )

Fate, alas, has willed that it should be otherwise, and on others, dulytrained, must devolve the delightful task of following up the clew wehave been so fortunate as to discover. 

 * * * * *

And now the time has come for me to tell as quickly as I may the storyof my bereavement--a bereavement so immense that no man, living or dead, can ever have experienced the like; and to explain how it is that I havenot only survived it and kept my wits (which some people seem to doubt), but am here calmly and cheerfully writing my reminiscences, just as if Iwere a famous Academician, actor, novelist, statesman, or generaldiner-out--blandly garrulous and well-satisfied with myself andthe world. 

During the latter years of our joint existence Mary and I engrossed byour fascinating journey through the centuries, had seen little ornothing of each other's outer lives, or rather I had seen nothing ofhers (for she still came back sometimes with me to my jail); I only sawher as she chose to appear in our dream. 

Perhaps at the bottom of this there may have been a feminine dislike onher part to be seen growing older, for at "Magna sed Apta" we werealways twenty-eight or thereabouts--at our very best. We had trulydiscovered the fountain of perennial youth, and had drunk thereof! Andin our dream we always felt even younger than we looked; we had thebuoyancy of children and their freshness. 

Often had we talked of death and separation and the mystery beyond, butonly as people do for whom such contingencies are remote; yet in realitytime flew as rapidly for us as for others, although we were lesssensible of its flight. 

There came a day when Mary's exuberant vitality, so constantlyovertaxed, broke down, and she was ill for a while; although that didnot prevent our meeting as usual, and there was no perceptibledifference in her when we met. But I am certain that in reality she wasnever quite the same again as she had been, and the dread possibility ofparting any day would come up oftener in our talk; in our minds, onlytoo often, and our minds were as one. 

She knew that if I died first, everything I had brought into "Magna sedApta" (and little it was) would be there no more; even to my body, everlying supine on the couch by the enchanted window, it she had woke bychance to our common life before I had, or remained after I had beensummoned away to my jail. 

And I knew that, if she died, not only her body on the adjacent couch, but all "Magna sed Apta" itself would melt away, and be as if it hadnever been, with its endless galleries and gardens and magic windows, and all the wonders it contained. 

Sometimes I felt a hideous nervous dread, on sinking into sleep, lest Ishould find it was so, and the ever-heavenly delight of waking there, and finding all as usual, was but the keener. I would kneel by herinanimate body, and gaze at her with a passion of love that seemed madeup of all the different kinds of love a human being can feel; even thelove of a dog for his mistress was in it, and that of a wild beast forits young. 

With eager, tremulous anxiety and aching suspense I would watch for thefirst light breath from her lips, the first faint tinge of carmine inher cheek, that always heralded her coming back to life. And when sheopened her eyes and smiled, and stretched her long young limbs in thejoy of waking, what transports of gratitude and relief!

[Illustration: "WAITING"]

Ah me! the recollection!

 * * * * *

At last a terrible unforgettable night arrived when my presentiment wasfulfilled. 

I awoke in the little lumber-room of "Parva sed Apta, " where the doorhad always been that led to and from our palace of delight; but therewas no door any longer--nothing but a blank wall. . . . 

I woke back at once in my cell, in such a state as it is impossible todescribe. I felt there must be some mistake, and after much time andeffort was able to sink into sleep again, but with the same result: theblank wall, the certainty that "Magna sed Apta" was closed forever, thatMary was dead; and then the terrible jump back into my prisonlife again. 

This happened several times during the night, and when the morningdawned I was a raving madman. I took the warder who first came(attracted by my cries of "Mary!") for Colonel Ibbetson, and tried tokill him, and should have done so, but that he was a very big man, almost as powerful as myself and only half my age. 

Other warders came to the rescue, and I took them all for Ibbetsons, andfought like the maniac I was. 

When I came to myself, after long horrors and brain-fever and what not, I was removed from the jail infirmary to another place, where I am now. 

I had suddenly recovered my reason, and woke to mental agony such as I, who had stood in the dock and been condemned to a shameful death, hadnever even dreamed of. 

I soon had the knowledge of my loss confirmed, and heard (it had beencommon talk for more than nine days) that the famous Mary, Duchess ofTowers, had met her death at the ------ station of the MetropolitanRailway. 

A woman, carrying a child, had been jostled by a tipsy man just as atrain was entering the station, and dropped her child onto the metals. She tried to jump after it but was held back, and Mary, who had justcome up, jumped in her stead, and by a miracle of strength and agilitywas just able to clutch the child and get onto the six-foot way as theengine came by. 

She was able to carry the child to the end of the train, and was helpedonto the platform. It was her train, and she got into a carriage, butshe was dead before it reached the next station. Her heart, (which, itseems, had been diseased for some time) had stopped, and all was over. 

So died Mary Seraskier, at fifty-three. 

 * * * * *

I lay for many weeks convalescent in body, but in a state of dumb, drytearless, despair, to which there never came a moment's relief, exceptin the dreamless sleep I got from chloral, which was given to me inlarge quantities--and then, the _waking_!

I never spoke nor answered a question, and hardly ever stirred. I hadone fixed idea--that of self-destruction; and after two unsuccessfulattempts, I was so closely bound and watched night and day that anyfurther attempt was impossible. They would not trust me with a toothpickor a button or a piece of common packthread. 

I tried to starve myself to death and refused all solid food: but anintolerable thirst (perhaps artificially brought on) made it impossiblefor me to refuse any liquid that was offered, and I was tempted withmilk, beef-tea, port, and sherry, and these kept me alive. . . . 

 * * * * *

I had lost all wish to dream. 

At length, one afternoon, a strange, inexplicable, overwhelmingnostalgic desire came over me to see once more the Mare d'Auteuil--onlyonce; to walk thither for the last time through the Chaussée de laMuette, and by the fortifications. 

It grew upon me till it became a torture to wait for bedtime, so franticwas my impatience. 

When the long-wished-for hour arrived at last, I laid myself down oncemore (as nearly as I could for my bonds) in the old position I had nottried for so long; my will intent upon the Porte de la Muette, an oldstone gate-way that separated the Grande Rue de Passy from the entranceto the Bois de Boulogne--a kind of Temple Bar. 

It was pulled down forty-five years ago. 

I soon found myself there, just where the Grande Rue meets the Rue de laPompe, and went through the arch and looked towards the Bois. 

It was a dull, leaden day in autumn; few people were about, but a gay_repas de noces_ was being held at a little restaurant on my right-handside. It was to celebrate the wedding of Achille Grigoux, thegreen-grocer, with Félicité Lenormand, who had been the Seraskiers'house-maid. I suddenly remembered all this, and that Mimsey and Gogowere of the party--the latter, indeed, being _premier garçon d'honneur_, on whom would soon devolve the duty of stealing the bride's garter, andcutting it up into little bits to adorn the button-holes of the maleguests before the ball began. 

In an archway on my left some forlorn, worn-out old rips, broken-kneedand broken-winded, were patiently waiting, ready saddled and bridled, tobe hired--Chloris, Murat, Rigolette, and others: I knew and had riddenthem all nearly half a century ago. Poor old shadows of the long-deadpast, so life-like and real and pathetic--it "split me the heart" tosee them!

A handsome young blue-coated, silver-buttoned courier of the name ofLami came trotting along from St. Cloud on a roan horse, with a greatjingling of his horse's bells and clacking of his short-handled whip. Hestopped at the restaurant and called for a glass of white wine, andrising in his stirrups, shouted gayly for Monsieur et Madame Grigoux. They appeared at the first-floor window, looking very happy, and hedrank their health, and they his. I could see Gogo and Mimsey in thecrowd behind them, and mildly wondered again, as I had so often wonderedbefore, how I came to see it all from the outside--from another point ofview than Gogo's. 

Then the courier bowed gallantly, and said, _"Bonne chance!"_ and wenttrotting down the Grande Rue on his way to the Tuileries, and thewedding guests began to sing: they sang a song beginning--

_"Il était un petit navire, Qui n'avait jamais navigué_. . . . "

I had quite forgotten it, and listened till the end, and thought it verypretty; and was interested in a dull, mechanical way at discoveringthat it must be the original of Thackeray's famous ballad of "LittleBillee, " which I did not hear till many years after. When they came tothe last verse--

"_Si cette histoire vous embête, Nous allons la recommencer_, "

I went on my way. This was my last walk in dreamland, perhaps, anddream-hours are uncertain, and I would make the most of them, andlook about me. 

I walked towards Ranelagh, a kind of casino, where they used to giveballs and theatrical performances on Sunday and Thursday nights (andwhere afterwards Rossini spent the latter years of his life; then it waspulled down, I am told, to make room for many smart little villas). 

In the meadow opposite M. Erard's park, Saindou's school-boys wereplaying rounders--_la balle au camp_--from which I concluded it was aThursday afternoon, a half-holiday; if they had had clean shirts on(which they had not) it would have been Sunday, and the holiday awhole one. 

I knew them all, and the two _pions_, or ushers, M. Lartigue and _lepetit Cazal_; but no longer cared for them or found them amusing orinteresting in the least. 

Opposite the Ranelagh a few old hackney-coach men were pacificallykilling time by a game of _bouchon_--knocking sous off a cork with othersous--great fat sous and double sous long gone out of fashion. It is avery good game, and I watched it for a while and envied thelong-dead players. 

Close by was a small wooden shed, or _baraque_, prettily painted andglazed, and ornamented at the top with little tricolor flags; itbelonged to a couple of old ladies, Mère Manette and GrandmèreManette-the two oldest women ever seen. They were very keen aboutbusiness, and would not give credit for a centime--not even to Englishboys. They were said to be immensely rich and quite alone in the world. How very dead they must be now! I thought. And I gazed at them andwondered at their liveliness and the pleasure they took in living. Theysold many things: nougat, _pain d'èpices_, mirlitons, hoops, drums, noisy battledoors and shuttlecocks; and little ten-sou hand-mirrors, neatly bound in zinc, that could open and shut. 

I looked at myself in one of these that was hanging outside; I was oldand worn and gray-my face badly shaven--my hair almost white. I hadnever been old in a dream before. 

I walked through the gate in the fortifications on to the outer Talus(which was quite bare in those days), in the direction of the Mared'Auteuil. The place seemed very deserted and dull for a Thursday. Itwas a sad and sober walk; my melancholy was not to be borne--my heartwas utterly broken, and my body so tired I could scarcely drag myselfalong. Never before had I known in a dream what it was to be tired. 

I gazed at the famous fortifications in all their brand-new pinkness, the scaffoldings barely removed--some of them still lying in the dryditch between--and smiled to think how these little brick and granitewalls would avail to keep the Germans out of Paris thirty years later(twenty years ago). I tried to throw a stone across the narrow part, andfound I could no longer throw stones; so I sat down and rested. How thinmy legs were! and how miserably clad--in old prison trousers, greasy, stained, and frayed, and ignobly kneed--and what boots!

[Illustration: "I sat down and rested. "]

Never had I been shabby in a dream before. 

Why could not I, once for all, walk round to the other side and take aheader _à la hussarde_ off those lofty bulwarks, and kill myself forgood and all? Alas! I should only blur the dream, and perhaps even wakein my miserable strait-waistcoat. And I wanted to see the _mare_ oncemore, very badly. 

This set me thinking. I would fill my pockets with stones, and throwmyself into the Mare d'Auteuil after I had taken a last good look at it, and around. Perhaps the shock of emotion, in my present state ofweakness, might really kill me in my sleep. Who knows? it was worthtrying, anyhow. 

I got up and dragged myself to the _mare_. It was deserted but for onesolitary female figure, soberly clad in black and gray, that satmotionless on the bench by the old willow. 

I walked slowly round in her direction, picking up stones and puttingthem into my pockets, and saw that she was gray-haired and middle-aged, with very dark eyebrows, and extremely tall, and that her magnificenteyes were following me. 

Then, as I drew nearer, she smiled and showed gleaming white teeth, andher eyes crinkled and nearly closed up as she did so. 

"Oh, my God!" I shrieked; "it is Mary Seraskier!"

 * * * * *

I ran to her--I threw myself at her feet, and buried my face in her lap, and there I sobbed like a hysterical child, while she tried to soothe meas one soothes a child. 

After a while I looked up into her face. It was old and worn and gray, and her hair nearly white, like mine. I had never seen her like thatbefore; she had always been eight-and-twenty. But age became herwell--she looked so benignly beautiful and calm and grand that I wasawed--and quick, chill waves went down my backbone. 

Her dress and bonnet were old and shabby, her gloves had beenmended--old kid gloves with fur about the wrists. She drew them off, andtook my hands and made me sit beside her, and looked at me for a whilewith all her might in silence. 

At length she said: "Gogo mio, I know all you have been through by thetouch of your hands. Does the touch of mine tell you nothing?"

It told me nothing but her huge love for me, which was all I cared for, and I said so. 

She sighed, and said: "I was afraid it would be like this. The oldcircuit is broken, and can't be restored--not yet!"

We tried again hard; but it was useless. 

She looked round and about and up at the tree-tops, everywhere; and thenat me again, with great wistfulness, and shivered, and finally began tospeak, with hesitation at first, and in a manner foreign to her. Butsoon she became apparently herself, and found her old swift smile andlaugh, her happy slight shrugs and gestures, and quaint polyglotcolloquialisms (which I omit, as I cannot always spell them); herhomely, simple ways of speech, her fluent, magnetic energy, the winningand sympathetic modulations of her voice, its quick humorous changesfrom grave to gay--all that made everything she said so suggestive ofall she wanted to say besides. 

"Gogo, I knew you would come. I _wished_ it! How dreadfully you havesuffered! How thin you are! It shocks me to see you! But that will notbe any more; we are going to change all that. 

"Gogo, you have no idea how difficult it has been for me to come back, even for a few short hours, for I can't hold on very long. It is likehanging on to the window-sill by one's wrists. This time it is Heroswimming to Leander, or Juliet climbing up to Romeo. 

"Nobody has ever come back before. 

"I am but a poor husk of my former self, put together at great pains foryou to know me by. I could not make myself again what I have always beento you. I had to be content with this, and so must you. These are theclothes I died in. But you knew me directly, dear Gogo. 

"I have come a long way--such a long way--to have an _abboccamento_ withyou. I had so many things to say. And now we are both here, hand in handas we used to be, I can't even understand what they were; and if Icould, I couldn't make _you_ understand. But you will know some day, andthere is no hurry whatever. 

"Every thought you have had since I died, I know already; _your_ shareof the circuit is unbroken at least. I know now why you picked up thosestones and put them in your pockets. You must never think of _that_again--you never will. Besides, it would be of no use, poor Gogo!"

Then she looked up at the sky and all round her again, and smiled in herold happy manner, and rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands, andseemed to settle herself for a good long talk--an _abboccamento!_

 * * * * *

Of all she said I can only give a few fragments--whatever I can recalland understand when awake. Wherever I have forgotten I will put a lineof little dots. Only when I sleep and dream can I recall and understandthe rest. It seems all very simple then. I often say to myself, "I willfix it well in my mind, and put it into well-chosen words--_her_words--and learn them by heart; and then wake cautiously and rememberthem, and write them all down in a book, so that they shall do forothers all they have done for me, and turn doubt into happy certainty, and despair into patience and hope and high elation. "

[Illustration: "IT IS MARY SERASKIER!"]

But the bell rings and I wake, and my memory plays me false. Nothingremains but the knowledge _that all will be well for us all, and of sucha kind that those who do not sigh for the moon will be well content_. 

Alas, this knowledge: I cannot impart it to others. Like many who havelived before me, I cannot prove--I can only affirm. . . . 

 * * * * *

"How odd and old-fashioned it feels, " she began, "to have eyes and earsagain, and all that--little open windows on to what is near us. They arevery clumsy contrivances! I had already forgotten them. "

 * * * * *

Look, there goes our old friend, the water-rat, under the bank--the oldfat father--_le bon gros père_--as we used to call him. He is only alittle flat picture moving upsidedown in the opposite direction acrossthe backs of our eyes, and the farther he goes the smaller he seems. Acouple of hundred yards off we shouldn't see him at all. As it is, wecan only see the outside of him, and that only on one side at a time;and yet he is full of important and wonderful things that have takenmillions of years to make--like us! And to see him at all we have tolook straight at him--and then we can't see what's behind us oraround--and if it was dark we couldn't see anything whatever. 

Poor eyes! Little bags full of water, with a little magnifying-glassinside, and a nasturtium leaf behind--to catch the light and feel it!

A celebrated German oculist once told papa that if his instrument-makerwere to send him such an ill-made machine as a human eye, he would sendit back and refuse to pay the bill. I can understand that now; and yeton earth where should we be without eyes? And afterwards where should webe if some of us hadn't once had them on earth?

 * * * * *

I can hear your dear voice, Gogo, with both ears. Why two ears? Whyonly two? What you want, or think, or feel, you try to tell me in soundsthat you have been taught--English, French. If I didn't know English andFrench, it would be no good whatever. Language is a poor thing. You fillyour lungs with wind and shake a little slit in your throat, and makemouths, and that shakes the air; and the air shakes a pair of littledrums in my head--a very complicated arrangement, with lots of bonesbehind--and my brain seizes your meaning in the rough. What a roundaboutway, and what a waste of time!

 * * * * *

And so with all the rest. We can't even smell straight! A dog wouldlaugh at us--not that even a dog knows much!

And feeling! We can feel too hot or too cold, and it sometimes makes usill, or even kills us. But we can't feel the coming storm, or which isnorth and south, or where the new moon is, or the sun at midnight, orthe stars at noon, or even what o'clock it is by our own measurement. Wecannot even find our way home blindfolded--not even a pigeon can dothat, nor a swallow, nor an owl! Only a mole, or a blind man, perhaps, feebly groping with a stick, if he has already been that way before. 

And taste! It is well said there is no accounting for it. 

And then, to keep all this going, we have to eat, and drink, and sleep, and all the rest. What a burden!

 * * * * *

And you and I are the only mortals that I know of who ever found a wayto each other's inner being by the touch of the hands. And then we hadto go to sleep first. Our bodies were miles apart; not that _that_ wouldhave made any difference, for we could never have done it waking--never;not if we hugged each other to extinction!

 * * * * *

Gogo, I cannot find any words to tell you _how_, for there are none inany language that _I_ ever knew to tell it; but where I am it is all earand eye and the rest in _one_, and there is, oh, how much more besides!Things a homing-pigeon has known, and an ant, and a mole, and awater-beetle, and an earthworm, and a leaf, and a root, and amagnet--even a lump of chalk, and more. One can see and smell and touchand taste a sound, as well as hear it, and _vice versâ_. It is verysimple, though it may not seem so to you now. 

And the sounds! Ah, what sounds! The thick atmosphere of earth is noconductor for such as _they_, and earthly ear-drums no receiver. Soundis everything. Sound and light are one. 

 * * * * *

And what does it all mean?

I knew what it meant when I was there--part of it, at least--and shouldknow again in a few hours. But this poor old earth-brain of mine, whichI have had to put on once more as an old woman puts on a nightcap, islike my eyes and ears. It can now only understand what is of theearth--what _you_ can understand, Gogo, who are still of the earth. Iforget, as one forgets an ordinary dream, as one sometimes forgets theanswer to a riddle, or the last verse of a song. It is on the tip of thetongue; but there it sticks, and won't come any farther. 

Remember, it is only in your brain I am living now--your earthly brain, that has been my only home for so many happy years, as mine hasbeen yours. 

How we have nestled!

 * * * * *

But this I know: one must have had them all once--brains, ears, eyes, and the rest--on earth. 'Il faut avoir passé par là!' or noafter-existence for man or beast would be possible or even conceivable. 

One cannot teach a born deaf-mute how to understand a musical score, nor a born blind man how to feel color. To Beethoven, who had once heardwith the ear, his deafness made no difference, nor their blindness toHomer and Milton. 

Can you make out my little parable?

 * * * * *

Sound and light and heat, and electricity and motion, and will andthought and remembrance, and love and hate and pity, and the desire tobe born and to live, and the longing of all things alive and dead to getnear each other, or to fly apart--and lots of other things besides! Allthat comes to the same--'C'est comme qui dirait bonnet blanc et blancbonnet, ' as Monsieur le Major used to say. 'C'est simple comme bonjour!'

Where I am, Gogo, I can hear the sun shining on the earth and makingthe flowers blow, and the birds sing, and the bells peal for birth andmarriage and death--happy, happy death, if you only knew--'C'est la clefdes champs!'

It shines on moons and planets, and I can hear it, and hear the echothey give back again. The very stars are singing; rather a long way off!but it is well worth their while with such an audience as lies betweenus and them; and they can't help it. . . . 

I can't hear it here--not a bit--now that I've got my ears on; besides, the winds of the earth are too loud. . . . 

Ah, that _is_ music, if you like; but men and women are stone-deaf toit--their ears are in the way! . . . 

Those poor unseen flat fish that live in the darkness and mud at thebottom of deep seas can't catch the music men and women make upon theearth--such poor music as it is! But if ever so faint a murmur, borne onthe wings and fins of a sunbeam, reaches them for a few minutes atmid-day, and they have a speck of marrow in their spines to feel it, andno ears or eyes to come between, they are better off than any man, Gogo. Their dull existence is more blessed than his. 

But alas for them, as yet! They haven't got the memory of the eye andear, and without that no speck of spinal marrow will avail; they must becontent to wait, like you. 

The blind and deaf?

Oh yes; _là bas_, it is all right for the poor deaf-mutes and bornblind of the earth; they can remember with the past eyes and ears of allthe rest. Besides, it is no longer _they_. There is no _they_! That isonly a detail. 

 * * * * *

You must try and realize that it is just as though all space between usand the sun and stars were full of little specks of spinal marrow, muchtoo small to be seen in any microscope--smaller than anything in theworld. All space is full of them, shoulder to shoulder--almost as closeas sardines in a box--and there is still room for more! Yet a singledrop of water would hold them all, and not be the less transparent. Theyall remember having been alive on earth or elsewhere, in some form orother, and each knows all the others remember. I can only compare itto that. 

Once all that space was only full of stones, rushing, whirling, meeting, and crushing together, and melting and steaming in thewhite-heat of their own hurry. But now there's a crop of somethingbetter than stones, I can promise you! It goes on gathering, and beinggarnered and mingled and sifted and winnowed--the precious, indestructible harvest of how many millions of years of life!

 * * * * *

And this I know: the longer and more strenuously and completely onelives one's life on earth the better for all. It is the foundation ofeverything. Though if men could guess what is in store for them whenthey die, without also knowing _that_, they would not have the patienceto live--they wouldn't wait! For who would fardels bear? They would justput stones in their pockets, as you did, and make for the nearest pond. 

They mustn't!

 * * * * *

Nothing is lost--nothing! From the ineffable, high, fleeting thought aShakespeare can't find words to express, to the slightest sensation ofan earthworm--nothing! Not a leaf's feeling of the light, not aloadstone's sense of the pole, not a single volcanic or electric thrillof the mother earth. 

All knowledge must begin on earth for _us_. It is the most favoredplanet in this poor system of ours just now, and for a few shortmillions of years to come. There are just a couple of others, perhapsthree; but they are not of great consequence. 'Il y fait trop chaud--oupas assez!' They are failures. 

The sun, the father sun, _le bon gros père_, rains life on to themother earth. A poor little life it was at first, as you know--grassesand moss, and little wriggling, transparent things--all stomach; it isquite true! That is what we come from--Shakespeare, and you, and I!

 * * * * *

After each individual death the earth retains each individual clay tobe used again and again; and, as far as I can see, it rains back eachindividual essence to the sun--or somewhere near it--like a preciouswater-drop returned to the sea, where it mingles, after having beenabout and seen something of the world, and learned the use of five smallwits--and remembering all! Yes, like that poor little exiled wanderingwater-drop in the pretty song your father used to sing, and which alwaysmanages to find its home at last--

 _'Va passaggier' in fiume, Va prigionier' in fonte, Ma sempre ritorn' al mar. '_

Or else it is as if little grains of salt were being showered into theMare d'Auteuil, to melt and mingle with the water and each other tillthe Mare d'Auteuil itself was as salt as salt can be. 

Not till that Mare d'Auteuil of the sun is saturated with the salt ofthe earth, of earthly life and knowledge, will the purpose be complete, and then old mother earth may well dry up into a cinder like the moon;its occupation will be gone, like hers--'adieu, panier, les vendangessont faites!'

And, as for the sun and its surrounding ocean of life--ah, that isbeyond _me_! but the sun will dry up, too, and its ocean of life nodoubt be drawn to other greater suns. For everything seems to go on moreor less in the same way, only crescendo, everywhere and forever. 

 * * * * *

You must understand that it is not a bit like an ocean, nor a bit likewater-drops, or grains of salt, or specks of spinal marrow; but it isonly by such poor metaphors that I can give you a glimpse of what Imean, since you can no longer understand me, as you used to do onearthly things, by the mere touch of our hands. 

 * * * * *

Gogo, I am the only little water-drop, the one grain of salt that hasnot yet been able to dissolve and melt away in that universal sea; I amthe exception. 

It is as though a long, invisible chain bound me still to the earth, and I were hung at the other end of it in a little transparent locket, akind of cage, which lets me see and hear things all round, but keeps mefrom melting away. 

And soon I found that this locket was made of that half of you that isstill in me, so that I couldn't dissolve, because half of me wasn't deadat all; for the chain linked me to that half of myself I had left inyou, so that half of me actually wasn't there to be dissolved. . . . I amgetting rather mixed!

But oh, my heart's true love, how I hugged my chain, with you at theother end of it!

With such pain and effort as you cannot conceive, I have crept along itback to you, like a spider on an endless thread of its own spinning. Such love as mine is stronger then death indeed!

 * * * * *

I have come to tell you that we are inseparable forever, you and I, onedouble speck of spinal marrow--'Philipschen!'--one little grain of salt, one drop. There is to be no parting for _us_--I can see that; but suchextraordinary luck seems reserved for you and me alone up to now; and itis all our own doing. 

But not till you join me shall you and I be complete, and free to meltaway in that universal ocean, and take our part, as One, in all isto be. 

That moment--you must not hasten it by a moment. Time is nothing. I'meven beginning to believe there's no such thing; there is so littledifference, _là-bas_, between a year and a day. And as for space--dearme, an inch is as as an ell!

Things cannot be measured like that. 

A midge's life is as long as a man's, for it has time to learn itsbusiness, and do all the harm it can, and fight, and make love, andmarry, and reproduce its kind, and grow disenchanted and bored and sickand content to die--all in a summer afternoon. An average man can liveto seventy years without doing much more. 

And then there are tall midges, and clever and good-looking ones, andmidges of great personal strength and cunning, who can fly a littlefaster and a little farther than the rest, and live an hour longer todrink a whole drop more of some other creature's blood; but it does notmake a very great difference!

 * * * * *

No, time and space mean just the same as 'nothing. '

But for you they mean much, as you have much to do. Our joint life mustbe revealed--that long, sweet life of make-believe, that has been somuch more real than reality. Ah! where and what were time or space tous then?

 * * * * *

And you must tell all we have found out, and how; the way must be shownto others with better brains and better training than _we_ had. Thevalue to mankind--to mankind here and hereafter--may be incalculable. 

 * * * * *

For some day, when all is found out that can be found out on earth, andmade the common property of all (or even before that), the great manwill perhaps arise and make the great guess that is to set us all free, here and hereafter. Who knows?

I feel this splendid guesser will be some inspired musician of thefuture, as simple as a little child in all things but his knowledge ofthe power of sound; but even little children will have learned much inthose days. He will want new notes and find them--new notes between theblack and white keys. He will go blind like Milton and Homer, and deaflike Beethoven; and then, all in the stillness and the dark, all in thedepths of his forlorn and lonely soul, he will make his best music, andout of the endless mazes of its counterpoint he will evolve a secret, aswe did from the "Chant du Triste Commensal, " but it will be a greatersecret than ours. Others will have been very near this hidden treasure;but he will happen right _on_ it, and unearth it, and bring it to light. 

I think I see him sitting at the key-board, so familiar of old to thefeel of his consummate fingers; painfully dictating his score to somemost patient and devoted friend--mother, sister, daughter, wife--thatscore that he will never see or hear. 

What a stammerer! Not only blind and deaf, but _mad_--mad in theworld's eyes, for fifty, a hundred, a thousand years. Time is nothing;but that score will survive. . . . 

He will die of it, of course; and when he dies and comes to us, therewill be joy from here to Sirius, and beyond. 

And one day they will find out on earth that he was only deaf andblind--not mad at all. They will hear and _understand_--they will knowthat he saw and heard as none had ever heard or seen before!

 * * * * *

For 'as we sow we reap'; that is a true saying, and all the sowing isdone here on earth, and the reaping beyond. Man is a grub; his deadclay, as he lies coffined in his grave, is the left-off cocoon he hasspun for himself during his earthly life, to burst open and soar fromwith all his memories about him, even his lost ones. Like thedragon-fly, the butterfly, the moth . . . And when _they_ die it is thesame, and the same with a blade of grass. We are all, _tous tant quenous sommes_, little bags of remembrance that never dies; that's whatwe're _for_. But we can only bring with us to the common stock whatwe've got. As Père François used to say, 'La plus belle fille au mondene peut donner que ce qu'elle a. '

 * * * * *

Besides all this I am your earthly wife, Gogo--your loving, faithful, devoted wife, and I wish it to be known. 

 * * * * *

And then at last, in the fulness of time--a very few years--ah, then----

"Once more shall Neuha lead her Torquil by the hand. "

 * * * * *

"Oh, Mary!" I cried, "shall we be transcendently happy again? As happyas we were--_happier_ even?"

Ah, Gogo, is a man happier than a mouse, or a mouse than a turnip, ora turnip than a lump of chalk? But what man would be a mouse or aturnip, or _vice versâ_? What turnip would be a lump--of anything butitself? Are two people happier than one? You and I, yes; because we_are_ one; but who else? It is one and all. Happiness is like timeand space--we make and measure it ourselves; it is a fancy--as big, aslittle, as you please; just a thing of contrasts and comparisons, likehealth or strength or beauty or any other good--that wouldn't even benoticed but for sad personal experience of its opposite!--orits greater!

"I have forgotten all I know but this, which is for you and me: we areinseparable forever. Be sure we shall not want to go back again fora moment. "

"And is there no punishment or reward?"

Oh, there again! What a detail! Poor little naughty perversemidges--who were _born_ so--and _can't_ keep straight! poor littleexemplary midges who couldn't go wrong if they tried! Is it worth while?Isn't it enough for either punishment or reward that the secrets of allmidges' hearts shall be revealed, and for all other midges to see?Think of it!

 * * * * *

There are battles to be fought and races to be won, but no longeragainst '_each other_. ' And strength and swiftness to win them; but nolonger any strong and swift. There is weakness and cowardice, but nolonger any cowards or weaklings. The good and the bad and the worst andthe best--it is all mixed up. But the good comes to the top; the badgoes to the bottom--it is precipitated, as papa used to say. It is notan agreeable sediment, with its once useful cruelty at the lowest bottomof all--out of sight, out of mind--all but forgotten. _C'est déjàle ciel_. 

 * * * * *

"And the goal? The cause, the whither, and the why of it all? Ah!Gogo--as inscrutable, as unthinkable as ever, till the great guessercomes! At least so it seems to me, speaking as a fool, out of the depthsof my poor ignorance; for I am a new arrival, and a complete outsider, with my chain and locket, waiting for you. 

"I have only picked up a few grains of sand on the shore of that sea--afew little shells, and I can't even show you what they are like. I seethat it is no good even talking of it, alas! And I had promised myself_so_ much. 

"Oh! how my earthly education was neglected, and yours! and how I feelit now, with so much to say in words, mere words! Why, to tell you inwords the little I can see, the very little--so that you couldunderstand--would require that each of us should be the greatest poetand the greatest mathematician that ever were, rolled into one! How Ipity you, Gogo--with your untrained, unskilled, innocent pen, poorscribe! having to write all this down--for you _must_--and do your poorlittle best, as I have done mine in telling you! You must let the heartspeak, and not mind style or manner! Write _any_ how! write for thegreatest need and the greatest number. 

"But do just try and see this, dearest, and make the best of it you can:as far as _I_ can make it out, everything everywhere seems to be anever-deepening, ever-broadening stream that makes with inconceivablevelocity for its own proper level, WHERE PERFECTION IS! . . . And evergets nearer and nearer, and never finds it, and fortunately never will!

"Only that, unlike an earthly stream, and more like a fresh flowing tideup an endless, boundless, shoreless creek (if you can imagine that), thelevel it seeks is immeasurably higher than its source. And everywhere init is Life, Life, Life! ever renewing and doubling itself, and everswelling that mighty river which has no banks!

"And everywhere in it like begets like, _plus_ a little better or alittle worse; and the little worse finds its way into some backwater andsticks there, and finally goes to the bottom, and nobody cares. And thelittle better goes on bettering and bettering--not all man's folly orperverseness can hinder _that_, nor make that headlong torrent stay, orebb, or roll backward for a moment--_c'est plus fort que nous_! . . . Therecord goes on beating itself, the high-water-mark gets higher andhigher till the highest on earth is reached that can be--and then, Isuppose, the earth grows cold and the sun goes out--to be broken up intobits, and used all over again, perhaps! And betterness flies to warmerclimes and higher systems, to better itself still! And so on, frombetter to better, from higher to higher, from warmer to warmer, andbigger to bigger--for ever and ever and ever!

"But the final superlative of all, absolute all--goodness andall-highness, absolute all-wisdom, absolute omnipotence, beyond whichthere neither is nor can be anything more, will never be reached atall--since there are no such things; they are abstractions; besideswhich, attainment means rest, and rest stagnation, and stagnation an endof all! And there is no end, and never can be--no end to Time and allthe things that are done in it--no end to Space and all the things thatfill it, or all would come together in a heap and smash up in themiddle--and there _is_ no middle!--no end, no beginning, no middle! _nomiddle_, Gogo! think of _that_! it is the most inconceivable thingof all!!!

"So who shall say where Shakespeare and you and I come in--tiny links inan endless chain, so tiny that even Shakespeare is no bigger than we!And just a little way behind us, those little wriggling transparentthings, all stomach, that we descend from; and far ahead of ourselves, but in the direct line of a long descent from _us_, an ever-growingconscious Power, so strong, so glad, so simple, so wise, so mild, and sobeneficent, that what can we do, even now, but fall on our knees withour foreheads in the dust, and our hearts brimful of wonder, hope, andlove, and tender shivering awe; and worship as a yet unborn, barelyconceived, and scarce begotten _Child_--that which we have always beentaught to worship as a _Father_--That which is not now, but _is_ tobe--That which we shall all share in and be part and parcel of in thedim future--That which is slowly, surely, painfully weaving Itself outof us and the likes of us all through the limitless Universe, and Whosecoming we can but faintly foretell by the casting of its shadow on ourown slowly, surely, painfully awakening souls!"

 * * * * *

Then she went on to speak of earthly things, and ask questions in herold practical way. First of my bodily health, with the tenderestsolicitude and the wisest advice--as a mother to a son. She eveninsisted on listening to my heart, like a doctor. 

Then she spoke at great length of the charities in which she had beeninterested, and gave me many directions which I was to write, as comingfrom myself, to certain people whose names and addresses she impressedupon me with great care. 

I have done as she wished, and most of these directions have beenfollowed to the letter, with no little wonder on the world's part (asthe world well knows) that such sagacious and useful reforms should haveoriginated with the inmate of a criminal lunatic asylum. 

 * * * * *

At last the time came for us to part. She foresaw that I should have towake in a few minutes, and said, rising----

"And now, Gogo, the best beloved that ever was on earth, take me oncemore in your dear arms, and kiss me good-bye for a little while--_aufwiedersehen_. Come here to rest and think and remember when your bodysleeps. My spirit will always be here with you. I may even be able tocome back again myself--just this poor husk of me--hardly more to lookat than a bundle of old clothes; but yet a world made up of love for_you_. Good-bye, good-bye, dearest and best. Time is nothing, but Ishall count the hours. Good-bye. . . . "

Even as she strained me to her breast I awoke. 

[Illustration: "GOOD-BYE"]

 * * * * *

I awoke, and knew that the dread black shadow of melancholia had passedaway from me like a hideous nightmare--like a long and horrible winter. My heart was full of the sunshine of spring--the gladness of awaking toa new life. 

I smiled at my night attendant, who stared back at me in astonishment, and exclaimed----

"Why, sir, blest if you ain't a new man altogether. There, now!"

I wrung his hand, and thanked him for all his past patience, kindness, and forbearance with such effusion that his eyes had tears in them. Ihad not spoken for weeks, and he heard my voice for the first time. 

That day, also, without any preamble or explanation, I gave the doctorand the chaplain and the governor my word of honor that I would notattempt my life again, or any one else's, and was believed and trustedon the spot; and they unstrapped me. 

I was never so touched in my life. 

In a week I recovered much of my strength; but I was an old man. Thatwas a great change. 

Most people age gradually and imperceptibly. To me old age had come of asudden--in a night, as it were; but with it, and suddenly also, theresigned and cheerful acquiescence, the mild serenity, that are itscompensation and more. 

My hope, my certainty to be one with Mary some day--that is my haven, myheaven--a consummation of completeness beyond which there is nothing towish for or imagine. Come what else may, that is safe, and that is all Icare for. She was able to care for me, and for many other thingsbesides, and I love her all the more for it; but I can only carefor _her_. 

Sooner or later--a year--ten years; it does not matter much. I also ambeginning to disbelieve in the existence of time. 

That waking was the gladdest in my life--gladder even than the wakingin my condemned cell the morning after my sentence of death, whenanother black shadow passed away--that of the scaffold. 

Oh, Mary! What has she not done for me--what clouds has she notdispelled!

When night came round again I made once more, step by step, the journeyfrom the Porte de la Muette to the Mare d'Auteuil, with everything thesame--the gay wedding-feast, the blue and silver courier, the merryguests singing

 _"Il était un petit navire. "_

Nothing was altered, even to the dull gray weather. But, oh, thedifference to me!

I longed to play at _bouchon_ with the hackney coachmen, or at _la balleau camp_ with my old schoolfellows. I could have even waltzed with"Monsieur Lartigue" and "le petit Cazal. "

I looked in Mère Manette's little mirror and saw my worn, gray, haggard, old face again; and liked it, and thought it quite good-looking. I satdown and rested by the fortifications as I had done the night before, for I was still tired, but with a most delicious fatigue; my veryshabbiness was agreeable to me--_pauvre, mais honnête_. A convict, amadman, but a prince among men--still the beloved of Mary!

And when at last I reached the spot I had always loved the best on earthever since I first saw it as a child, I fell on my knees and wept forsheer excess of joy. It was mine indeed; it belonged to me as no land orwater had ever belonged to any man before. 

Mary was not there, of course; I did not expect her. 

But, strange and incomprehensible as it seems, she had forgotten hergloves; she had left them behind her. One was on the bench, one was onthe ground; poor old gloves that had been mended, with the well-knownshape of her dear hand in them; every fold and crease preserved as in amould--the very cast of her finger-nails; and the scent of sandal-woodshe and her mother had so loved. 

I laid them side by side, palms upward, on the bench where we had satthe night before. No dream-wind has blown them away; no dream-thief hasstolen them; there they lie still, and will lie till the great changecomes over me, and I am one with their owner. 

 * * * * *

I am there every night--in the lovely spring or autumnsunshine--meditating, remembering, taking notes--dream-notes to belearned by heard, and used next day for a real purpose. 

I walk round and round, or sit on the benches, or lie in the grass bythe brink, and smoke cigarettes without end, and watch the oldamphibious life I found so charming half a century ago, and find itcharming still. 

Sometimes I dive into the forest (which has now been razed to theground. Ever since 1870 there is an open space all round the Mared'Auteuil. I had seen it since then in a dream with Mary, who went toParis after the war, and mad pilgrimages by day to all the places sodear to our hearts, and so changed; and again, when the night came, with me for a fellow-pilgrim. It was a sad disenchantment for us both). 

_My_ Mare d'Auteuil, where I spend so many hours, is the Mare d'Auteuilof Louis Philippe, unchangeable except for such slight changes as _will_occur, now and then, between the years 1839 and 1846: a broken benchmended, a new barrier put up by the high-road, a small wooden dikewhere the brink is giving way. 

[Illustration: "I AM THERE EVERY NIGHT. "]

And the thicket beside and behind it is dark and dense for miles, withmany tall trees and a rich, tangled undergrowth. 

There is a giant oak which it is difficult to find in that labyrinth (itnow stands, for the world, alone in the open; an ornament to the Auteuilrace-course) I have often climbed it as a boy, with Mimsey and therest; I cannot climb it now, but I love to lie on the grass in itsshade, and dream in my dream there, shut in on all sides by fragrant, impenetrable verdure; with birds and bees and butterflies anddragon-flies and strange beetles and little field-mice with bright eyes, and lithe spotted snakes and lively brown squirrels and beautiful greenlizards for my company. Now and then a gentle roebuck comes and feedsclose by me without fear, and the mole throws up his little mound ofearth and takes an airing. 

It is a very charming solitude. 

It amuses me to think by day, when broad awake in my sad English prison, and among my crazy peers, how this nightly umbrageous French solitude ofmine, so many miles and years away, is now but a common, bare, widegrassy plain, overlooked by a gaudy, beflagged grand-stand. It isSunday, let us say--and for all I know a great race may be going on--allParis is there, rich and poor. Little red-legged soldiers, bigblue-legged gendarmes, keep the course clear; the sun shines, thetricolour waves, the gay, familiar language makes the summer breezemusical. I dare say it is all very bright and animated, but the wholeplace rings with the vulgar din of the bookmakers, and the air is fullof dust and foul with the scent of rank tobacco, the reek of strugglingFrench humanity; and the gaunt Eiffel Tower looks down upon it all fromthe sky over Paris (so, at least, I am told) like a skeleton at a feast. 

Then twilight comes, and the crowds have departed; on foot, onhorseback, on bicycles and tricycles, in every kind of vehicle; many bythe _chemin de fer de ceinture_, the Auteuil station of which is closeby . . . All is quiet and bare and dull. 

Then down drops the silent night like a curtain, and beneath itsfriendly cover the strange transformation effects itself quickly, andall is made ready for _me_. The grand-stand evaporates, the railwaystation melts away into thin air; there is no more Eiffel Tower with itselectric light! The sweet forest of fifty years ago rises suddenly outof the ground, and all the wild live things that once lived in it waketo their merry life again. 

A quiet deep old pond in a past French forest, hallowed by suchmemories! What _can_ be more enchanting? Oh, soft and sweet nostalgia, so soon to be relieved!

Up springs the mellow sun, the light of other days, to its appointedplace in the heavens--zenith, or east or west, according to order. Alight wind blows from the south--everything is properly disinfected, andmade warm and bright and comfortable--and lo! old Peter Ibbetson appearsupon the scene, absolute monarch of all he surveys for the next eighthours--one whose right there are literally none to dispute. 

I do not encourage noisy gatherings there as a rule, nor by the pond; Ilike to keep the sweet place pretty much to myself; there is noselfishness in this, for I am really depriving nobody. Whoever comesthere now, comes there nearly fifty years ago and does not know it; theymust have all died long since. 

Sometimes it is a _garde champêtre_ in Louis Philippe's blue and silver, with his black pipe, his gaiters, his old flint gun, and hisembroidered game-bag. He does well in the landscape. 

Sometimes it is a pair of lovers, if they are good-looking andwell-behaved, or else the boys from Saindou's school to play fly thegarter--_la raie_. 

Sometimes it is Monsieur le Curé, peacefully conning his "Hours, " aswith slow and thoughtful step he paces round and round. I can now readhis calm, benevolent face by the light of half a century's experience oflife, and have learned to love that still, black, meditative aspectwhich I found so antipathetic as a small boy--_he_ is no burner alive oflittle heretics! This world is big enough for us both--and so is theworld to come! And he knows it. Now, at all events!

[Illustration: "THIS WORLD IS BIG ENOUGH FOR US BOTH"]

Sometimes even a couple of Prendergasts are admitted, or even three;they are not so bad, after all; they have the qualities of their faults, although you might not think it. 

But very often the old beloved shades arrive with their fishing-nets, and their high spirits, and their ringing Anglo-French--Charlie, andAlfred, and Madge, and the rest, and the grinning, barking, gyratingMédor, who dives after stones. 

Oh, how it does my heart good to see and hear them!

They make me feel like a grandfather. Even Monsieur le Major is youngerthan I--his mustache less white than mine. He only comes to my chin; butI look up to him still, and love and revere him as when I was alittle child. 

And Dr. Seraskier! I place myself between him and what he is looking at, so that he seems to be looking straight at me; but with a far-away lookin his eyes, as is only natural. Presently something amuses him, and hesmiles, and his eyes crinkle up as his daughter's used to do when shewas a woman, and his majestic face becomes as that of an angel, like hers. 

_L'ange du sourire!_

And my gay, young, light-hearted father, with his vivacity androllicking laugh and eternal good-humor! He is just like a boy to menow, le beau Pasquier! He has got a new sling of his own invention; hepulls it out of his pocket, and slings stones high over the tree-topsand far away out of sight--to the joy of himself and everybody else--anddoes not trouble much as to where they will fall. 

My mother is young enough now to be my daughter; it is as a daughter, asweet, kind, lovely daughter, that I love her now--a happily-marrieddaughter with a tall, handsome husband who yodles divinely and slingsstones, and who has presented me with a grandson--_beau comme lejour_--for whatever Peter Ibbetson may have been in his time, there isno gainsaying the singular comeliness of little Gogo Pasquier. 

And Mimsey is just a child angel! Monsieur le Major is infallible. 

"Elle a toutes les intelligences de la tête et du coeur! Vous verrez unjour, quand ça ira mieux; vous verrez!"

That day has long come and gone; it is easy to see all that now--to havethe eyes of Monsieur le Major. 

Ah, poor little Mimsey, with her cropped head and her pale face, andlong, thin arms and legs, and grave, kind, luminous eyes, that have notyet learned to smile. What she is to _me!!!!_

And Madame Seraskier, in all the youthful bloom and splendor of hersacred beauty! A chosen lily among women--the mother of Mary!

She sits on the old bench by the willow, close to her daughter's gloves. Sometimes (a trivial and almost comic detail!) she actually seems to sit_upon_ them, to my momentary distress; but when she goes away, therethey are still, not flattened a bit--the precious mould of thosebeautiful, generous hands to which I owe everything here and hereafter. 

 * * * * *

I have not been again to my old home. I dread the sight of the avenue. Icannot face "Parva sed Apta. "

But I have seen Mary again--seven times. 

And every time she comes she brings a book with her, gilt-edged andbound in green morocco like the Byron we read when we were children, orin red morocco like the _Elegant Extracts_ out of which we used totranslate Gray's "Elegy, " and the "Battle of Hohenlinden, " andCunningham's "Pastorals" into French. 

Such is her fancy!

But inside these books are very different. They are printed in cipher, and in a language I can only understand in my dream. Nothing that I, orany one else, has ever read in any living book can approach, forinterest and importance, what I read in these. There are seven of them. 

I say to myself when I read them: it is perhaps well that I shall notremember this when I wake, after all!

For I might be indiscreet and injudicious, and either say too much ornot enough; and the world might come to a stand-still, all through me. For who would fardels bear, as Mary said! No! The world must be contentto wait for the great guesser!

Thus my lips are sealed. 

All I know is this: _that all will be well for us all, and of such akind that all who do not sigh for the moon will be well content_. 

 * * * * *

In such wise have I striven, with the best of my ability, to give someaccount of my two lives and Mary's. We have lived three lives betweenus--three lives in one. 

It has been a happy task, however poorly performed, and all theconditions of its performance have been singularly happy also. 

A cell in a criminal lunatic asylum! That does not sound like a bower inthe Elysian Fields! It is, and has been for me. 

Besides the sun that lights and warms my inner life, I have been treatedwith a kindness and sympathy and consideration by everybody here, fromthe governor downward, that fills me with unspeakable gratitude. 

Most especially do I feel grateful to my good friends, the doctor, thechaplain, and the priest--best and kindest of men--each of whom has madeup his mind about everything in heaven and earth and below, and each ina contrary sense to the two others!

There is but one thing they are neither of them quite cocksure about, and that is whether I am mad or sane. 

And there is one thing--the only one on which they are agreed; namely, that, mad or sane, I am a great undiscovered genius!

My little sketches, plain or colored, fill them with admiration andecstasy. Such boldness and facility and execution, such an overwhelmingfertility in the choice of subjects, such singular realism in theconception and rendering of past scenes, historical and otherwise, suchastounding knowledge of architecture, character, costume, and what not, such local color--it is all as if I had really been there to see!

I have the greatest difficulty in keeping my fame from spreading beyondthe walls of the asylum. My modesty is as great as my talent!

No, I do not wish this great genius to be discovered just yet. It mustall go to help and illustrate and adorn the work of a much greatergenius, from which it has drawn every inspiration it ever had. 

It is a splendid and delightful task I have before me: to unravel andtranslate and put in order these voluminous and hastily-pennedreminiscences of Mary's, all of them written in the cipher we inventedtogether in our dream--a very transparent cipher when once you havegot the key!

It will take five years at least, and I think that, without presumption, I can count on that, strong and active as I feel, and still so far fromthe age of the Psalmist. 

First of all, I intend

 * * * * *

_Note_. --Here ends my poor cousin's memoir. He was found dead fromeffusion of blood on the brain, with his pen still in his hand, and hishead bowed down on his unfinished manuscript, on the margin of which hehad just sketched a small boy wheeling a toy wheelbarrow full of stonesfrom one open door to another. One door is labelled _Passé_, theother _Avenir_. 

I arrived in England, after a long life spent abroad, at the time hisdeath occurred, but too late to see him alive. I heard much about himand his latter days. All those whose duties brought them into contactwith him seemed to have regarded him with a respect that bordered onveneration. 

I had the melancholy satisfaction of seeing him in his coffin. I hadnot seen him since he was twelve years old. 

As he lay there, in his still length and breadth, he appearedgigantic--the most magnificent human being I ever beheld; and thesplendor of his dead face will haunt my memory till I die. 

MADGE PLUNKET.