He sat there in the dark listening and waiting for her to come back, tosee the presents he had bought for her, and the money he wanted to giveher. But one hour after another passed and nobody came. In the streetsa joyous throng of merry makers pushed and jostled about wishingeach other a merry Christmas. His heart was shaken to its depths bymaddening grief; by bitter disappointment.
The room was icy cold, there was no fire in the stove, and the childhalf starved, screamed weakly in his arms. In wild desperation hetrampled on the little Christmas tree he had brought along to celebratehis first Christmas in his own home! He could see nothing but falsehoodand treachery in this world. What meaning was there for him in thislife-redeeming symbol?
Sick of everything he longed for death to come and take him and hislittle child away. Throughout that dreary night of agony he lay in bedholding the child in his arms, pressing his lips against her tenderlittle hands, without being able to close an eye.
The bell in the neighboring churches rang out in the ears of thedeserted man, sounding dismally through his lonely house. But theybrought back pictures to his mind of his childhood's happy days, whenhe went to church on similar Christmas eves with his parents. One tearafter another stole into his desperate eyes.
"God have mercy on me and my child," he murmured stammeringly. "I must,I will live for her sake. I cannot leave her altogether an orphan,"though the gaping wound in his own heart kept on bleeding, bleedingincessantly.
VIII.
"There! Here we are at last, no weather for a dog to be out," growledthe angry coachman sulkily, jumping down from the box and opening thecarriage door with a respectful bow, hat in hand.
Mr. Ogden staggered quickly out and lifted tenderly and carefully awoman's form to the wet ground. Young Burge, the deserted husband, hadjust come down with the help of the coachman who growled something hecould not understand.
He looked at the woman in the darkness and a mist swam before his eyes;he leaned against the coach and his knees shook so that he could notmake a single step. The night was black and the wind sobbed down thestreet, while the rain still fell in torrents.
He could not see clearly--but that voice--that voice! God! "Could theyhave been right--these wicked, malicious gnomes? Did they know allabout her and now, how?" he asked himself while his hands clutched thebook convulsively in his helpless agony.
He thought he heard them again whispering, with a derisive chuckle, thewhole story of her downfall into his terrified ears.
"How could she ever come to such magnificent clothes?" he thought."Nonsense! It is simply a hallucination of a morbid, disorderedbrain. I am sick and miserable and see things where there is nothingto see." This he murmured half aloud to himself, gazing at theretreating form of the woman incredulously. He could not distinguishher features and he made up his mind forcibly, in order to quiet downhis excited nerves, that it was nothing else but a foolish trick ofhis imagination, and the fever which shook him now again was theobvious cause of it all. "Anyway, how could she have obtained all thisluxurious outfit? His wife wealthy? Nonsense!"
He tried to laugh cheerfully about this foolishness, but suddenly hefelt as though a knife were plunged into his heart. "The gnomes! thegnomes! If that which they had said were true!" He moaned to himself,leaning against the wall in a faint condition. "Oh, anything but that... anything but that!" His whole frame shook as from palsy. That voicehaunted him. He knew he had to go and look at her in order to convincehimself, otherwise he could not find any rest.
IX.
"Come, come! You must not lose your courage, my good fellow," saidMr. Ogden good-naturedly, coming out of the house at the same time."But before you do anything else, you should go inside and get thosewet clothes off; yes, that you must do, my man, you look pale enoughindeed, and...."
"The deuce! If that is not our expected entertainer, the humorouslecturer from Ishle!" cried the stout, dignified hotelier, with a laughas he caught sight of the dripping form of the poor, dazed lecturer.
"Lord, what a state he is in! Why he isn't able to lecture!"
"Never mind, a hot grog, some dry clothes from my wardrobe, and therest will soon be managed," said Mr. Ogden good-naturedly with asign to his valet, greatly gratified in being able to help the poor,miserable looking man with the pallor of death on his emaciated face.
"And as for your entertainment being a great success, well--leave thatto me, my dear fellow and don't worry; it will be all right," he wenton, clapping the dazed humorist on the shoulder with an encouragingsmile.
He bowed, without being able to utter a word of thanks; he bit histrembling lips and followed the valet with stumbling, shivering feet.
"Who could this benevolent stranger be? And what was he to that woman?Was he mistaken or not? If, after all she should be his--his--"
A hot wave flushed his face, distorted with shame as he thought of thepossibility; his sorely tried heart was hammering mightily within him.
He could not get rid of this thought. "If she should really be themother of his poor child ... what, in the name of Heaven, was shethen to this man? God have mercy on me and come to my aid!" he criedaloud, in great misery, his teeth once more chattering audibly in afresh attack. "No, no! I can't and won't believe it! She can't be soshameless as to disgrace me and her innocent child!"
"Come, come quickly, sir," urged the valet impatiently, "I'll help youas much as I can."
After he had provided him with all the necessary clothes from theelaborately assorted wardrobe of the rich Englishman, who was aboutthe same size, he made as careful a toilet as possible, under theprevailing circumstances and under the careful inspection of thehelpful valet.
X.
The supper bell now rang through the vast corridors of the MountainView Hotel, crowded with tourists from all parts of the continent.Ladies, gorgeously dressed, commenced to take their seats at the suppertables in the dining room, escorted by elegantly garbed gentlemen;some of them in full evening dress, others again in black cutaway. Theclatter of knives and forks had already begun. The spacious dining roomwas brightly illuminated. At the further end a carpet-covered platformwas visible, whose edges were a bank of flowers. Everything wastastefully arranged. A pianist was already hammering away at a waltzof one of the latest operatic successes, with frightful execution, asan introduction to the interesting program of the evening, anxiouslyawaited by the patrons of the house.
The clatter, the bustling noise, had suddenly stopped and all eyes wereriveted expectantly on the man who had just entered. Our humorist,suffering in mind and body alike, pale and haggard, with restless eyes,made his appearance in the borrowed clothes which hung loosely abouthis emaciated form, tossing back his long locks with his right hand,while holding the cherished book tightly in the other, he came down tothe very edge of the platform and smiled and bowed in all directions.
He looked exhausted and weary, as he was. But the room was crowded andhe had to go on, whether he wanted or not, so he commenced: "Ladies andgentlemen."
He got no further. A mist swam suddenly before his eyes. A shiver shookhis emaciated frame, his face became flushed and bloated and he staredand stared.
A side door had been opened a few minutes before and Mr. Ogden enteredwith the much admired Cleopatra on his arm.
They passed through the crowded dining room, close to the speaker'splatform. She had changed her dazzling costume for a simpler, but anextremely stylish dress of blue silk. She still wore some of the liliesin the marvelous golden hair, which was now fastened with a gold combinto a plain Greek knot. She was all aglow with excitement. The triumphof the afternoon was still lingering on her handsome face. She feltlike shouting it out to everybody. Such conquest does not come often toa woman in the ordinary walks of life.
She walked proudly, with a queenly step to her seat, nodding to somecasual acquaintances with a charming smile. And then she took herseat and turned a glance of curiosity upon the famished face of theentertainer. Their eyes met--and for a few seconds sank into each
others' like sharp daggers. A red tinge covered her startled face, thenshe turned away, whiter than the lilies on her breast. She trembledvisibly and looked frightened, casting down her eyes.
Mr. Ogden did not seem to have noticed any change in her appearance andgazed with a shocked countenance and great pity at the reduced exteriorof the poor humorist. Suddenly a great excitement was noticeable amongall the guests sitting around the small tables. Several gentlemen hadleft their seats, rushed towards the place where the poor entertainerhad collapsed after recognizing his faithless wife garbed in thatsplendor, so shamefully acquired, of which the wicked gnomes werewhispering so constantly into his ears.
He still believed in her then; but now--the dark, threateningexpression in his livid face was frightful to behold. He murmuredsomething about the gnomes that nobody could understand, staring withhatred in his dilated eyes in the direction where she sat--she, themother of his innocent child, now disgraced forever!
"God! What have I done to deserve such a punishment?" he murmuredonce more, pressing his bloodless lips tightly together as a coldperspiration broke out on his deathlike face.
A vision of his mother's warning and sorrows was presented to hisbenighted intelligence and made him cry with terror and shame.The conflicting emotions were too much for the sadly underminedconstitution.
"The wicked gnomes!" he whispered with audible scorn and contempt inhis blazing eyes, as if sudden madness had seized on him, and thentried to curse her, but not another word escaped his tightly closedlips, though the blood began to gush from them.
The truth, so cruelly thrust upon him, ended his life's drama; his eyesclosed, he fell in a heap to the floor.
The pitying guests stood helplessly around him and did not know what todo. Mr. Ogden was the first one who had presence of mind to send to thenearest village in search of a doctor.
The beautiful Cleopatra sat there as pale as a ghost and was afraidto go near the prostrate form of her unhappy husband, fearing thatsomeone might lift the veil and show the audience the ugliness of herreal self. A feeling of restlessness rushed upon her as if the shamefulstory were being written on her flushed face. She could not endure itany longer and left the dining room.
Mr. Ogden did not notice her departure, and busied himself around thedying man, asking what he could do for him. The poor man pointed to aletter in his side pocket where the addresses of his friends in Dresdenwere written down.
"The gnomes!... the gnomes!" he stammered once more as the shadow ofdeath began to close in upon him. The blood streamed out incessantly,and before the aid of a doctor could be secured, he was a corpse.
XI.
Mr. Ogden, deeply moved, went to his rooms.
She, the cause of it all, sat at the window with a book in her handswithout reading it. There was a look in the woman's face that amazedhim, a hard, cold look, that he had never seen there before while thesunbeams fell on her bewitching features and on the green leaves stillin her hair.
"I want to leave the place at once," she said without looking at him.
"That poor man's face seems to haunt you, dear tender-hearted girlie,"he replied with an outburst of tenderness, taking her in his arms andkissing the handsome face he loved so dearly.
It was a fortunate thing that he was blissfully ignorant of herrelation to the dead man.
Gathering up courage--seeing that no suspicion had entered hismind--she raised her beautiful eyes to his languidly.
"Yes, you are right, dear, I cannot stand such horrible things ... itshocks me," she answered with her accustomed dissimulation in tone andaction.
Although she was a great adept in the art of hypocrisy anddissimulation, she could not altogether hide the uneasiness which hadtaken possession of her. A strange expression came into her eyes, anexpression he had never seen there. He looked at her and was puzzled.What was it? What brought the change about? He could not tell.
She turned suddenly and looked out of the window with a stony face, inorder to hide, to subdue,--what? Did she conjure up a sinful visionof her own life? No, she would not give in, but she was startled toperceive something within her she did not reckon with: a voice wantedto be heard, no matter how hard she tried to subdue it. It was thevoice of motherhood--that feeling seemed to be not quite dead in theheart of the shameless woman. It was Nature's revenge! She had tolisten to the voice of Nature, or was it conscience, slowly awakeningto life?
Ah! Who would or could fathom the heart of an unscrupulous coquette?
"Had he any family?" she asked, indifferently, avoiding his inquisitivegaze.
"Yes, I think he has a child, here is the address," he replied. "Ithink it must be with someone he knew, poor unfortunate man. Andhe gave me this in order to look up his orphan child." A mournfulcompassion soon stole into his eyes.
"He could not speak any more, but the pitiful glance of the dying man'sface told me as much, and I am going to Dresden and see whether I cando anything for his child," he added, looking deeply moved out of thewindow. She gazed at him with puzzled eyes. "God! if he had an inklingwhose child that is!" she thought, remorsefully recoiling a step withdowncast eyes and tightened lips.
Finally summoning up courage enough, she said, hesitatingly, as iffearing any comment:
"Yes, ... let us stop there on our way to Switzerland."
He wanted to stay until the funeral of the poor lecturer was over, butshe would not hear of it. She looked at him with frightened eyes whenhe made the suggestion.
"I cannot stand such scenes," she replied with quivering lips.
"Well, well! Then we'll go, my sensitive little girlie. That accidentseemed to have upset your nervous system," he said with a smile,kissing her tenderly and gazing fondly at her troubled face.
On the following morning they took their departure for Dresden, leavingsome money for the funeral expenses in the hands of the hotel keeper.
Instinctively he felt like doing something for the man he had robbed ofhis happiness without knowing it.
But the unscrupulous coquette loved nobody but herself, knew it, feltit, though without any remorse, that she had betrayed his deep devotionand undying love so shamefully, fearing, in her deceitfulness, only onething--detection.
The following day a simple hearse, containing the corpse of the poorhumorist whose life ended so tragically, went up a lonely hill wherethe grave diggers had just finished their gloomy work. The coffin waslowered and the grave covered with mother earth. No mourners stoodaround shedding tears.
The song of a mocking-bird rang from the downy cradle of myrtleblossoms--as a funeral dirge--and a whip-poor-will answered from acedar in the neighboring woods.
When the night train going to Dresden, rushed by, the little whitecross indicating his resting place, looked like a bleached hand of askeleton shining out with a ghostly radiance across the silent, gloomyplain.
Through the fleecy vapors floating around the lonely hill one withclairvoyant eye may see at midnights the vacillating horde of the tinygnomes from the Traunstein with downcast torches repeating whisperinglythe sad tale, and pointing at the grave, in which the body of the deadhumorist, betrayed of his life's happiness, crumbles to dust.
THE ARTIST
I.
The eye of the attentive observer who wanders through Fifth Avenue,and the streets which run into it from right and left, is especiallyattracted by the houses, built here in the Colonial, there in theRenaissance style. Some of these imposing edifices (often the onlyreminder of long-vanished fortunes), with their rich facades, afford astriking criterion of the tastes of their builders and of their formerinhabitants.
In one of these houses, rearing their proud height to the sky, asmall lap-dog, bedecked with silken ribbons, sat in a parlor window.He stretched his snowy paws with great satisfaction on the cushionedwindow-seat, warming himself in the April sun. The luxurious roombehind him was quite empty, and the enforced solitude was not at allto the taste of the spoiled pet. It was probably for this reason thathe did not find it worth
his while to bark in a superior manner at thepedestrians who appeared on the street, but a look of silent contempttold very plainly that he had made up his mind to consider as extremelyunpleasing the movements of a limping street-cleaner who was at themoment just in front of the house.
In fact, the lame man did not look as if he could pretend being favoredwith a condescending glance by a lap-dog living amidst such sumptuoussurroundings.
He looked, too, as if he had had no great practice at his wretchedcalling--as if he were a novice at it. Although his sickly, sunkenfeatures were surrounded by an unkempt grey beard, and his clothinghung loosely about his wasted form, he somehow gave the impressionof being an intelligent man of some education, upon whom undeservedmisfortune pressed heavily.
The well-fed pet in the parlor window, however, had no conception ofundeserved misery, and was about casting to the winds the carefullydrilled manners of an educated dog when, fortunately, a well-appointedcarriage drew up just as the lame man was preparing to go on his way.
A delicate-looking lady with a kindly face alighted from the carriage,and nodded smilingly to the little dog. The lame street-cleaner had nosooner glanced at the benevolent face of the richly-dressed woman thanhis emaciated form began to tremble. His face, so pale before, becamered, as with humiliation, and in a state of marked agitation he was onthe point of dropping his broom and stealing quietly away.
The Gnomes of the Saline Mountains: A Fantastic Narrative Page 3
