The Talisman (L. E. L.)/The Talisman
LAURA |
THE TALISMAN.
"The other side—the other side is where foot-passengers pay."
Charles mechanically obeyed the direction.
"One penny, sir!"
He was roused at once from his abstraction; for it was a question to himself whether he had even that in his pocket. Sixpence was, however, discovered; he paid the toll, and passed on. But the impetus of his resolution was gone: out on the certainty of human resolve! Charles had meditated weeks on the act he was about to commit; his reasonings had brought conviction both of the necessity and of the right of suicide; he stood ruined in fortune, desperate, and, as he believed, determined; yet the fact of having had to pay a penny on his road to destruction made him pause. He stayed to recover the excitement of his imagination in one of the recesses of the bridge; involuntarily, as he leaned over the balustrade, his eye became attracted by surrounding objects: he was startled to perceive how light it was.
"Pleasant," thought he, "when the fearful plunge has been taken, and the last struggle is over, to find yourself roused from that stupor which had been even as death, by bottles of hot water at your feet, a stomach-pump in your mouth, an old woman rubbing you down with flannel, and a respectable member of the Humane Society watching the first moment of returning consciousness, in order to point out the horror of your crime! No, no; not now, with witnesses and succour at hand; but in the dark night, when the stars alone behold what their shining records may long since have prophesied, then shall the waters, gloomy as the life they close, give me that repose—death."
Content with this determination, he gladly allowed his attention to fix on the scene before him. Nowhere are the many contrasts in the appearance of our metropolis more strikingly assembled than in the view from Waterloo Bridge. As yet the sunshine, which produces the deep shadows deeper for its own brightness, was only prophesied by the clear gray light that brought out every object in the same dim but distinct atmosphere. The large pale lamps were not yet extinguished; but they gave no light, save to the dark arches of Somerset House, whose depths they seemed vainly striving to penetrate.
Somerset House conveys the idea of a Venetian palace; its Corinthian pillars, its walls rising from the waters, its deep arches, fitting harbours for the black gondola, the lion sculptured in the carved arms—all realises the picture which the mind has of those marble homes where the Foscarini and the Donati dwelt, in those days when Venice was at her height of mystery and magnificence. The other side is, on the contrary, just the image of a Dutch town; the masses of floating planks, the low tile-covered buildings, the crowded warehouses—mean, dingy, but full of wealth and industry—are the exact semblance of the towns which, like those of the haughty bride of the Adriatic, rose from the very bosom of the deep—Amsterdam and Venice. The history of the Italians is picturesque and chivalric; but that of the Dutch has always seemed to me the beau-ideal of honourable industry, rational exertion, generally enjoyed liberty, and all strong in more than one brave defence. He does not deserve to read history, who does not enjoy the gallant manner in which they beat back Louis XIV.
"The two banks of the river embody the English nation," thought Charles; "there is its magnificence and its poetry, its terraces, its pillars, and its carved emblazonings; and on the other is its trade, its industry, its warehouses, and their many signs of skill and toil. Ah! the sun is rising over them, as if in encouragement: I here take the last lesson of my destiny. I have chosen the wrong side of the river—forced upon exertion, what had I to do with the poetry of life?"
The river became at every instant more beautiful; long lines of crimson light trembled in the stream; fifty pointed spires glittered in the bright air, each marking one of those sacred fanes where the dead find a hallowed rest, and the living a hallowed hope. In the midst arose the giant dome of St. Paul's—a mighty shrine, fit for the thanksgiving of a mighty people. As yet, the many houses around lay in unbroken repose; the gardens of the Temple looked green and quiet, as if far away in some lonely valley; and the few solitary trees scattered among the houses seemed to drink the fresh morning air and rejoice.
"How strong is the love of the country in all indwellers of towns!" exclaimed Charles. "How many creepers, shutting out the dark wall, can I see from this spot! how many pots of bright-coloured and sweet-scented plants are carefully nursed in windows, which, but for them, would be dreary indeed! And yet even here is that wretched inequality in which fate delights alike in the animate and inanimate world. What have those miserable trees and shrubs done, that they should thus be surrounded by an unnatural world of brick—the air, which is their life, close and poisoned, and the very rain, which should refresh them, but washing down the soot and dust from the roofs above; and all this, when so many of their race flourish in the glad and open fields, their free branches spreading to the morning dews and the summer showers, while the earliest growth of violets springs beneath their shade?”
He turned discontentedly to the other side of the bridge.
"Beautiful!" was his involuntary ejaculation.
The waves were freighted as if with Tyrian purple, so rich was the sky which they mirrored; the graceful arches of Westminster Bridge stretched lightly across, and, shining like alabaster, rose the carved walls of the fine old Abbey, where sleep the noblest of England's dead. Honour to the glorious past!—how it honoured us! Once we were the future, and how much was done for our sake!—The contrast between above and below the bridge is very striking. Below, all seems for use, except Somerset House—and even that, when we think, is but a superb office—and the Temple gardens: all is crowded, dingy, and commercial. Above, wealth has arrived at luxury; and the grounds behind Whitehall, the large and ornamental houses, have all the outward signs of rank and riches.
Charles turned sullenly from them, and watched the boats now floating with the tide. As yet few were in motion; the huge barges rested by the banks, but two or three colliers came on with their large black sails, and darkened the glistening river as they passed. At this moment, the sweet chimes of St. Bride struck five, and the sound was immediately repeated by the many clocks on every side: for an instant the air was filled with music.
"Curious it is," murmured our hero, "that every hour of our day is repeated from myriad chimes; and yet how rarely do we attend to the clock striking! Alas! how emblematic is this of the way in which we neglect the many signs of time! How terrible, when we think of what time may achieve, is the manner in which we waste it! At the end of every man's life, at least three-quarters of the mighty element of which that life was composed will be found void—lost—nay, utterly forgotten! And yet that time, laboured and husbanded, might have built palaces, gathered wealth, and, still greater, made an imperishable name."
He was awakened from a long but common meditation on what he might have done, and what he had not done, by a grumbling voice.
"How dirty the Thames is! they say the gas kills every fish in the river; yet I suppose it is thought good enough for Christians. Well, well, every thing changes for the worse; I am sure the water was clear enough in my young days. But we shall never get on, if we stay chattering here: do make haste, child!"
So saying, an old woman hurried on, bending beneath a heavy basket; and at her side ran one of those wan, under-sized children, ragged, dirty, and meagre, among the most sorrowful spectacles of sorrowful humanity. Poverty is a terrible thing when it bows to the very ground the pride of the strong man—a terrible thing when it leaves old age destitute: still, the strong man may yet redeem his fortunes, and that old age may have had enjoyment while it was capable of enjoying. But a child, with the step slow from weakness, which from its age should be so buoyant; a cheek thin and white from hunger, at a period which especially cares for food (for all children are greedy); a form shrivelled with cold; a growth stopped by work too laborious for such tender years; a spirit broken by toil, want, and harshness;—is not such a child poverty's most miserable spectacle? It is, however, a common one.
Off they went, the old woman and her grandson; she scolding the poor boy because the Thames was muddy; and he shrinking fearfully, lest anger might find blows more availing than words. Yet that aged creature's irritation was a sort of kindness: it was for his sake that she laboured out her last strength; and while the tones were shrill and cross, she was thinking how she could best procure food for the sickly child.
Charles's meditations were effectually disturbed; he left his seat in the recess, and hurried indignantly forward.
"And suffering like this!" thought he—"suffering that crushes alike youth and age, from which the innocence of childhood is not protected, and against which the experience of age cannot guard!—exists in our mighty, our magnificent city, whose very will is dominion on the earth. Look how she ministers to her pleasures!"
Just then his eye fell upon the two enormous buildings, our national theatres.
"Look at those vast edifices, so vast where space is such an object! There, while weeping for sorrows which are not, laughing at the light jest or the ludicrous misadventure, how little is remembered of the want which makes fear the only bond that binds the living to life!"
This current of reproach was, however, interrupted by the recollection, that, after all, this very relaxation gave support to many; and that, in the case of the majority who enjoyed it, it had been fairly earned by toil, which, like the bow, needed to be unbent. His imagination, too, warmed with the thought of what glorious triumphs those roofs had witnessed—the passionate creation of the poet, the living personification of the actor: he remembered the eloquent words that stir the noblest fountains of our being, and decided on the general right to enjoy such generous pleasure.
"Good and evil! good and evil!" thought he; "ye are mingled inextricably in the web of our being; and who may unthread the darker yarn?"
He was here jostled at once from his reverie and his side of the pavement. He had wandered through many streets, and now found himself under one of the piazzas of Covent Garden: it was no place for an idle person; all were hurrying to and fro; all was employment and business. On he went into the market. How fresh, how sweet every thing, and how industrious every body looked! There were the stalls of the vegetables, with their pure and wholesome smell of the freshly turned-up earth; others with fruit—the delicate crimson strawberries, each spotted with gold; the cherries, with their rich varieties of hues—the deep ruby, almost black or coral, as if the moisture of the wave yet lingered upon it—and amber, with one trickling stain of red, so fancifully denominated the "bleeding heart." Further on was a stall of foreign fruits: the pale cool lemon; the red gold of the orange; the pine—with its yellow carved globe, and its coronal of silvery green—the architectural pine, so rich and so massive. But most beautiful of all, shewing the deep delight the heart takes in loveliness, were the stands of many flowers. There they crowded in fragrant multitudes, each kind tied up in separate bunches; the yellow lupin, like "a clump of shining spears;" pinks, each with the dark central spot, like the purple and painted stain round the eye of an eastern sultana; the light branches of the small saffron flowers, of that deep blue so rare among "the painted populace," which seem to delight in gayer dyes; the sweet pea, with its wings of the butterfly, its colours of the rainbow; and roses, in all their infinite variety—the white, like driven snow; the soft pink, almost as lovely as the maiden's blush which gives it its name; the parti-coloured damask, the chivalric and historic rose, recalling the fierce combats of York and Lancaster; and the moss, so beautiful in the bud,—all lay heaped together, as if Summer had been conquered, and here were gathered its spoils.
While Charles loitered to and fro, he was forcibly reminded that he was in the way; every train of thought was broken in upon by some hurried passer-by; and yet how orderly, how quiet, was all this bustle! How many of the stalls hung out fragile glass globes, filled with gold and silver fish! But they were in the ordinary run of business—he was not. A long and dreary day was yet before him; how was it to be passed? If he returned to his lodgings, he must invent some plausible plea for his reappearance, after having taken his farewell as for a long journey. Impossible! his spirits were too heavy for invention. Spend the day at a coffee-house? he had now only five pence in the world. Call on some friend, and be expected to sympathise in their sorrow, or share in their mirth, while his own thoughts were numbering the hours, each of which brought him nearer to the grave? No; he would wander about the city, and watch those processes of humanity in which he had no longer a share.
At that moment, a human want was uppermost in his mind—he was hungry. Seated on a little wooden stool, his boiler supported by a three-legged trivet, over a small pan of burning charcoal, on one side, and a basket covered with a white cloth on the other, an old man was selling rolls and coffee to the market-people. The fresh air of the morning had had the same effect upon Charles as on the peasantry. The old man never looked at his customer; prince or ploughman it was all the same to him, so that he sold his rolls and coffee. Charles had finished his breakfast before he recollected what folly it was to sustain that life which was so soon to terminate. A single penny remained of his sixpence; he gave it to a beggar at hand, as much from thoughtlessness as from charity, and yet the woman bade God bless him!
Life was now fully astir in the city; morning—which is so beautiful in the country, with its long shadows, its lucid sunshine, and its glittering dew—in town is the meanest part of the day, seemingly devoted to cleanliness and hunger. Carpets are being shaken from the windows, the steps are being washed, and the butcher with his tray, the baker with his basket, the grocer, and the milkman, hurry from door to door; and day, like life, has first its necessaries, and then its luxuries. Charles wandered on among the hurrying throng, referring them only to himself.
"How little," thought he, "do these people—thus busy in the many preparations of existence how little do they deem, that among them walks one who is with them, not of them; one consecrated by death!"
Strange that this idea carried with it something of exultation! so much does the pride of man rejoice in aught that marks him from his fellows, and little does it seem to matter whether that mark be for good or for evil. There must be some deep-rooted anti-social principle in every man's nature, so dearly does he love aught that separates him from his kind; or is it but one of the many shapes taken by that mental kaleidoscope, vanity, the varying and the glittering, the desire of distinction, sinking into that of notice? Charles's was just an exciting consciousness; and he paced the streets, sometimes roused into disdain of the busy and thoughtless crowd around, but oftener lost in gloomy dreams of that futurity whose depths he was so soon to explore. Suddenly the air was filled with fragrance, which came from a balcony where the heliotrope was growing in great luxuriance. He started at its well-known perfume; he stood by the very door he had sworn never to re-enter—by the dwelling of the cold, the beautiful Laura Herbert.
What an atmosphere of luxury was around the house! The balustrades of the balcony were of white, and carved, whose vacant spaces were filled with the rarest exotics; an entablature of antique figures ran below the roof. Could the ancient temple they first adorned have shrined a fairer divinity? He saw the amber silk curtains wave to and fro: the middle window was open; in it stood a pillar of lapis lazuli, which supported an alabaster figure, Canova's Dansatrice. And there she dwelt, who might have given him wealth, love, and life; but who left him to penury, despair, and death. She—for whose sake he had abandoned all the pursuits that once made his hope and his happiness; who had turned his course of contented study into a delirious fever; who was the cause that he now stood on the threshold of the grave—why should she have freedom and wealth, while he was consumed by passion, and weighed down by poverty?
A carriage drove up to the door; well he knew the crimson window-blinds, which had so often shed their rich colour on her cheek. Charles rushed away; he could not have borne to see that fairy foot descend the steps, or have met, though only for a moment, those bewildering eyes. But the thread of his reverie was broken; the image of death no longer filled his mind. He thought of life, its enjoyments, its desires, all from which he was cut off in his youth: he thought of the poor, and he loathed them; of the rich, and he hated them.
"Accursed destiny!" he muttered; "so young, so capable of happiness, and yet without the means! Why have I talents to which I can never do justice? Why have I tastes I can never gratify? Why do I want for that luxury my penury denies? Why am I refined in my habits? Why have I thoughts and feelings entirely at variance with my condition? Why have not my birth, my education, and my estate gone together, instead of being so utterly opposed? Why at this moment am I friendless, penniless, and hopeless? Alas! with the delight I have lost the power of exertion. Well, Death finishes this weary struggle. Death! mighty, glorious, and triumphant Death! if thou hadst not existed before, I must have invented thee as a resource."
But in vain Charles sought to regain his gloomy tranquillity. He then endeavoured to fix his attention on outward objects; they could only give food to his discontent: the splendid equipages hurrying past, the glittering shops, the gay crowd now beginning to appear, brought with them the images of ungratified wishes and painful contrasts. He turned into a by street, where a stall of old books caught his eye; mechanically he opened them one after another, till at last his attention became riveted on an almost worn-out volume of ancient ballads. Of itself, it opened at Chevy Chase—
"The stout Earl of Northumberland
A vow to God did make.
His pleasure in the Scottish woods
Three summer days to take."
"How perfectly," thought he, "does this set forth the whole spirit of the age—its love of war and of the chase, and its superstition! The feudal chieftain is not content with the chase unless it be in an enemy's ground, and actually believes in his own mind that he hallows this act of aggression by calling God to witness his resolve. How characteristic is the meeting between the two earls, and the interference of the squire, who protests against their followers standing by as mere pacific spectators!
'I would not have it told
To Henry, our king, for shame.'
A brief dialogue between the two combatants embodies the whole spirit of chivalry:
'Yield thee, Lord Percy, Douglas said—
Thy ransom I will freely give.
And thus report of thee—
Thou art the most courageous knight
That ever I did see.
No, Douglas, quoth Earl Percy then,
Thy proffer I do scorne;
I will not yeilde to any Scot
That ever yet was borne.'
Again, when Earl Douglas has received 'his deepe and deadlye blow,' death is nothing compared with his bitter consciousness that 'Earl Percy sees me fall.' Homer, they say, always favoured the Grecians, as being his countrymen. The heroic minstrel of Chevy Chase is equally national; for when the tidings of Earl Douglas's death arrive in Scotland—
'O heavy news! King James did say;
Scotland can witnes bee,
I have not any captaine more
Of such account as hee.'
'Now, God be with him! said our king,
Sith 'twill not better bee;
I trust I have within my realm
Five hundred good as hee.'"
Suddenly he flung the book down, and walked hurriedly away. "What folly," he inwardly exclaimed, "is that hope which is at once the cause and the reward of poetry! The author of this brief epic has done all that poet could do: he has given immortality to all that was held precious in his time; its chivalric daring, its true faith, its loyalty; he has duly exalted the supremacy of his native land,—and yet he is forgotten! The song remains, but the memory of the singer has passed away. Who pauses to think in what poverty, in what obscurity, in what wretchedness, the writer of that noble ballad may have wasted a desolate and a disappointed existence? Did he die young, poisoned by the first draught of life and its sorrows? or did he drag on a weary old age, whose hope had long since perished? Who knows? and, alas! who cares? We take our pleasure, and we think not of gratitude. Out upon the accursed and selfish race to which I belong! Even so have I laboured, and even so shall I be rewarded. Fool that I have been! to toil hour after hour in giving others—what?—an hour's gratification, which they will take thanklessly, and even reproachfully, full of their own petty cavillings and distastes. The peasant boy, who followed the coloured track of the rainbow, hoping to find the blue and charmed flower which springs where the arch touches earth, is wiser far than one who gives youth, genius, and time to literature. Half the exertion, and a tithe of the talent, would, if directed to another pursuit, win for him, if not 'golden opinions,' yet gold in reality; and what can make life endurable in this world but wealth?"
In the next street the doors of an auction-room stood open, where the articles were on view previous to the morrow's sale; there he resolved to seek amusement. As he entered the clock struck two.
"It will be lonely and dark on the Thames by ten; so I have just eight hours more to live."
The room was filled with all that ingenuity could invent, or luxury wish—all that taste could select, or wealth purchase. The spoils of a palace built and furnished by the most magnificent of misanthropes—the collection of a life—were being dispersed in the caprice of a day. There was the alabaster vase, carved in snow, to which some spell had given stability; small precious cups of onyx and agate, such as might have stood at the right hand of the King and Queen of the Fairies when they had bidden their court to a moonlight banquet. Near was a table of maple-wood, veined like a wrist, but smooth and coloured as pale yellow satin. On it lay an Indian rosary of strung pearls; the fingers of the lovely Brahmin to whom it had once belonged, had left their fragrance on the string. There was a silver salver, over whose shining surface Cellini’s delicate graver had scattered Spring: spiritual indeed were the small and graceful figures, whose minute outlines were yet perfect in their proportions; while the wreathe of flowers that encircled them seemed too fine to be the work of mortal hand. On the other side was placed a round table of Sevre china; a large medallion, representing the head of an angel—and an angel it surely was, if there be aught angelic in beauty—so pure, so placid was that lovely head! On it was set a basket of silver filigree, delicate as the threads of the morning gossamer: it must have been a skilful workman that wrought those fragile threads into their present intricate grace. Near it stood two small bronze figures of Voltaire and Rousseau. There was something singularly characteristic in the manner in which these philosophers grasped their canes: he of Ferney held his lightly, as if a touch could brush away any impediment from his path; but he of Geneva had his grasped with might and main, and driven into the earth, as if prepared to crush all that might rouse his fierce indignation. What a mistake rage is! anger should never go beyond a sneer, if it really desires revenge.
But a picture by Murillo fixed Charles's attention—one of those boys whose embrowned cheek glows with health, and whose dark eyes are filled with happiness—one of those pictures in which the Spanish artist concentrates so much of life's earlier existence—calling back that glad and buoyant frankness, whose loss is experience's first lesson. Near it hung a landscape by Salvator Rosa; a sky, every cloud of which was heavy with thunder; a lake, the troubled mirror of a troubled heaven; bleak rocks, that seemed to reverse the law of nature, and say, "Here life comes not—life which, in an animal or vegetable shape, teems on all other parts of the globe; but to us clings not one blade of grass;” and black woods, where the wild beast had its lair, or wilder man, who, casting off all social ties, lived but to war upon his kind. Close beside was a lovely valley by Claude Lorraine. From this Charles turned away: what sympathy had he with sunshine?—The genius of Salvator and of Byron alike asked immortality of pain. To the majority of mankind misery is a familiar thing: the dark colour and the mournful word find a home and an echo in every human heart.—Beneath stood a table made of mosaic from Pompeii. How many would admire the intricate blending of its varied colours, without giving a thought to the scene of mortal destruction and desolation from which it came! On it was a model in ivory of that most perfect specimen of Hindoo architecture, the stately temple which Jehanghire built as a tomb for his loved sultana the mighty dome, the many minarets, the hundred steps, the lofty walls, were all exquisitely wrought in miniature.
"I like," said Charles, "this monumental magnificence; it is a superb mockery. The marble is brought from a distant quarry; hundreds of slaves are employed to cut and polish it; and human talent taxes its invention to give it graceful proportion. The dome towers in the blue air, the noble columns rise above the funereal cypresses around; and for what?—to keep a handful of dust from being scattered by the winds, and to preserve a memory for which no one living cares."
A thousand splendid trifles lay glittering on a large table near:—flasks of crystal, redolent of eastern perfumes, some of which, spotted with gold, enclosed a whole summer of roses from Damietta—toys wrought in mother-of-pearl and amber, heaped up with the profusion of a mistress of some geni, who knows that the sylphs of the air and the gnomes of the mines toil to work her pleasure. Placed on a richly chased gold stand was a déjeûner of Sevre china, the cups painted with medallions of the beauties of Louis the Fourteenth's reign. Charles took up the one that bore the likeness of the lovely and ill-fated La Valliere.
"And is it possible," he asked, "that a face like this, so sweet and so touching, could ever become a familiar, even a tiresome thing—that a cup so precious as this could ever be put to the common uses of the table? There is a strange similarity in the fate of the china and of the face wrought in its colours. Both guarded for a time as favourite toys, grown weary of, neglected, and left to the many chances of destruction—till heart and cup are alike broken!"
Close by stood a couch, covered with a spotted leopard's skin, and supported by claws of bronze. Charles threw himself upon it; how its luxurious softness mocked its material! The shadowy reveries of the dim future, to which he again yielded himself, were broken by some one speaking at his side:
"Perhaps, as you appear so much engaged in contemplation of our collection, you maybe disposed to become an immediate purchaser? I am authorised to treat by private contract."
"And who are you?" exclaimed Charles.
"The person employed to sell this property; very happy to treat with you, sir."
Assuredly there was nothing in the face of the auctioneer to induce confidence, particularly when that confidence related to the feelings. He was a spare, meagre man, who looked as if he saved even in himself; with the light hair and sallow skin which distinguish the Portuguese Jew especially, and the high nose and elevated eyebrow which mark the Jew all over the world:—a man who divided the human race into two classes, buyers and sellers; whose atmosphere was trade, the real of whose life was gain, and the ideal, wealth. Yet to this incarnation of the pence-table did Charles resolve to unfold his cause of loitering. Charles was vain and imaginative; vanity led him to be egotistical, and his imagination threw its grace over the confession, half of which it colours, if it does not create. He therefore stated to the auctioneer his desire of killing time, till he killed himself. At first the man looked aghast, then afraid, and at last suspicious that his visitor might intend to rob, nay, murder him. He drew back, and placed his hand upon the bell-rope; and having also ascertained that he was himself next the door, prepared to listen to the remainder with a keen suspicious look, which said, as plainly as look could, "You need not think to rob me; I'm up to a thing or two." Truth, however, carries its own conviction; and the auctioneer was under the necessity of believing that a person was before him who meditated destroying himself. Suddenly his features sharpened; something appeared to flash across his mind, or rather his memory.
"You are the very man!" said he, thinking aloud in his hurry.
A few words will explain this ejaculation.
Among the great riches and many curiosities which the gorgeous merchant had gathered, and now wished to disperse, was one that had been thus consigned to the agent:—"Sell it for any thing—nothing—give it away; only, get rid of it."
It was a square piece of shagreen, on which were inscribed some Hebrew characters.
"Sell it!" thought the auctioneer; "why, nobody would give him a farthing for it!"
Still, giving it away was against his principles; and principles, like facts, are stubborn things when founded on interest. One day, however, a Jew, with whom he had occasional dealings, threw a new light on the subject, by translating the inscription, which was as follows:
"In possessing me, you possess every thing: but your life will be mine. Wish, and your wishes will be accomplished; but at every wish I shall diminish, as will your days. Regulate your wishes by your life, which will be in me. Wilt thou have me? Take me; and the Lord God have mercy upon you! Amen."
The shagreen skin was a talisman. The auctioneer felt exceedingly uncomfortable: the devil was the only individual with whom he desired to have no dealings. He was himself a man who, since his conversion, feared God and honoured the king, went to church on a Sunday, and never bought or sold stock on a Friday. All his transactions with the superb merchant, whose glittering spoils he was to bring to the hammer, had been quite out of the ordinary way of business. He had been summoned express from London: late in the evening he saw the moon rise over the shadowy turrets of the stately dwelling, whose interior was as much a mystery as its master. Before him stood the gigantic tower, built by torchlight; and of which it was said in the village, that in the course of a year all the workmen employed in its building had perished. The moaning of the wind in the gloomy branches was the only sound, save his horse's steps, in the yew-tree avenue which led to the house. He arrived: black slaves, silent as the grave, received him; and a white but hideous dwarf led him through the huge and lonely apartments, lighted by four mute flambeau-bearers. The signs of wealth scattered around so profusely, forced from him exclamations of surprise and admiration; but no reply was elicited, and no sound of human voice was heard in any of the sumptuous rooms through which he was conducted. Sign of food or firing there was none. At length they reached a chamber hung with tapestry: its half-faded colours made more ghastly the scene it represented—souls suffering in purgatory. The sheets of blue flame, the spectral figures which writhed in every attitude of pain, the wan and distorted faces, took a strange reality of horror from the high wind that shook the arras, and the flickering light flung over it by the waving torches.
In the midst of these pleasant objects of contemplation, at a little table, on which lay a large folio printed in unknown character, sat the master of the house—he who, it was said, shunned society, to dwell in unbroken and splendid solitude; whose light shone at midnight from the vast and lonely tower, but of whose pursuits all were ignorant. He was rather past the middle age, intellectual in face, and stately in figure; but the face was pale and care-worn, and the figure bent, as if from physical weakness. The loose black gown in which he was wrapped, gave him the appearance of an invalid, or of a recluse, to whom dress was matter of indifference.
"You have seen the baubles I destine for the fools who may fancy them; they shall all be sent to the city in the course of to-morrow: prepare your rooms for their reception, and attend to the sale."
The low, deep, sweet voice strongly contrasted with the fierce and abrupt manner; for the words were scarcely said, before, resting his head again upon his hands, he was immersed in his open volume. The dwarf motioned to the surprised auctioneer to leave the room, reconducted him through the costly but melancholy apartments, and left him to remount his horse in the yew-tree avenue, without offering either rest or refreshment, though the night was considerably advanced.
The bewildered auctioneer hurried on, divided by mingled fears of ghosts and thieves; the large and dismal branches of the yews, as they swung to and fro in the wind, causing him innumerable alarms. Every noise was taken for a robber, and every shadow for an apparition. However, he arrived in safety at the village inn, where as many marvels were related of the solitary owner of the mansion as mystery always creates. The whole secret was settled, by deciding that "he had something on his conscience;" and murder, that favourite sin of the vulgar, was fixed upon. What uncharitable things inferences and conclusions are! But the man who, whether in his habits or his actions, in great things or in small, separates himself from his kind, seems to set every evil and envious feeling of our nature in array against him. Distinction is purchased at the expense of sympathy.
The following day the treasures of the mysterious tower came pouring in: pictures, statues, gems, shells, china, stuffed beasts and birds, tables, vases, petrifactions, arms, mandarins, &c. &c.; and among them the shagreen skin, with the injunction, "Sell it for any thing—nothing—give it away; only, get rid of it."
Who would buy it? or, indeed, who would take it, with the denunciation attached to its possession? The auctioneer became sincerely distressed; a cricket that had sung at his parlour-hearth for ten years suddenly departed; the black cat was missing; a strange dog howled at his steps for two successive nights; his wife had dreamt of gold and running water, the most unlucky things in the world; and then the times were so bad—the stocks were falling—the cholera coming—the sooner the shagreen skin was out of his house the better. Charles seemed, as he afterwards said, sent by Providence.
He forthwith mentioned the wonderful charm in his custody, dwelt upon its merits till he grew quite eloquent, and finally desired the youth to follow him to the inner room, where it hung. It was a small dark chamber, crowded with articles for sale; but, whether from accident or design, the curiosities were all of a wild and ghastly kind. In the middle was a cast of the Laocoon, the wretched father and his children writhing in the folds of the terrible serpents: cruel must have been the eye and heart of the sculptor who thus made agony his triumph. Against the wall leant an Egyptian mummy; part of the yellow linen had been unveiled, and a spectral likeness of humanity glared from between the bandages. Near it was one of the frightful idols of the Mexicans—a many-headed snake, whose crimson jaws seemed yet red with their human sacrifice: and in a corner stood some quivers of poisoned Indian arrows, and a gigantic battle-axe. To the left were terrific-looking engines, labelled as models of the instruments of torture found in the Inquisition.
Charles was allowed little time to gaze by the impatient auctioneer, who pointed at once to the shagreen skin, which lay on a black oak table. He read the inscription; and a strange feeling of vague belief, and desire for its possession, entered his heart. One wish for wealth, and then every enjoyment was at his feet; and truly, a few years of life were a slight sacrifice, considering that they would be taken from his old age. Not that he believed in any such nonsense—still, he should like to try. The auctioneer had been watching his eager look, as one accustomed to drive a hard bargain eyes his customer: his whole plan of action was arranged. A plum being his own ultimatum of fortune and felicity, he supposed that would also be the aim of his visitor: twenty per cent was in his opinion fair profit—he must not expect too much from such a mere speculation.
"You see, sir," turning to Charles, "desperate diseases require desperate remedies—you cannot be worse off, and you may be better. Sign this bond for twenty thousand pounds; if the skin answers, it is a bargain; if not, being, as you say, a beggar, the agreement is void—there can be no levy where there are no effects: and though I have heard of skinning a flint, I never yet could learn how it was managed."
Charles signed the bond, and seizing the shagreen skin, rushed away, exclaiming, "Now give me wealth—hundreds, thousands, millions!"
"Millions!" almost shrieked the auctioneer, aghast—"taken in, cheated, robbed—stop thief!" but his customer was lost in the darkness which had by this time set in. Again Charles wandered through the streets, with that indifference as to what direction which spoke the pre-occupied mind; while the hurried step no less marked the tumult of his thoughts. The lamps glittering in the water, which lay below like a dark mirror, recalled him to himself—he was on the very bridge he had crossed in the morning. He was on it, too, alone; not a step broke the silence but his own, and the depths of the shadow which rested on the river, vast and impenetrable, were even as the eternity into which one moment would plunge him. But the skin had taken hold of his imagination.
"It is but another four-and-twenty hours, and the experiment will have been fairly tried. We allow to a sick man the indulgence of a whim, why not to a dying one that of his folly?"
So saying, he turned to the lodging of a young friend, whose hospitality he resolved to ask for the night. Scott was at home, and hesitating between a wish for amusement and a fit of idleness—that pleasant idleness which follows indisposition. Never was companion more acceptable: a good fire and a good dinner are very exhilarating—so the two friends were as gay as if there had been no such things as study and suicide in the world. But Charles's spirits were too much those of feverish excitement to last. The jest died upon his lips; Scott's questions were first unanswered, and then unheard: he was only roused from contemplation by confidence.
We again repeat, that there is no temper so communicative as an imaginative one. The poet seems under a necessity of sharing with others the thoughts he has half-created and half-coloured—and among the most reserved of us, who has not experienced, at some time or other, that words had all the relief of tears? One feeling leads to another, in conversation as in every thing else; and Charles soon found himself cracking almonds, flinging the shells into the fire, and narrating the whole history of his life.
We shall pass over his childhood more briefly than he did himself—(it is curious how an uncommon position exaggerates our importance in our own eyes)—and take up the thread of the narrative when, at the death of his father, he became "lord of himself, that heritage of wo;"—without money, without a profession, and with relatives on whom he had no claim but kindness—as if that were a claim ever acknowledged by a relative! Not that we would detract one iota from the benevolence which does exist in humanity; there is both more gratitude and more cause for gratitude than it is the fashion now-a-days to admit: but this we do say, that the obligation is never from those on whom we have a claim. Kindness is always unexpected; and "overcomes us like a summer cloud," exciting our "special wonder" as well as thankfulness. In the present state of society, a noble name, without its better part—a noble fortune, is only an encumbrance to its owner. A merely well-born and well-educated young man is the most helpless object in nature. False shame is in him a principle, and the privation of poverty is nothing to its mortification. His habits are opposed to one means of maintenance, his feelings to a second, and his pride to a third. "Dig he cannot, and to beg he is ashamed."
But Charles Smythe had an energy that only required to be thrown upon its own resources, in order to find them. He had literary tastes, and, still more, literary talents; and of all others, these are most conscious of their existence and power. A few weeks saw him established in an upper room in one of those small gloomy streets made for the poor, and in which every city abounds, devoting himself to study and composition, with all the energy of hope, and the delight of present occupation. What a falsehood it is to say that genius and industry are incompatible! Does one work of genius exist that has not also been a work of labour?
"And yet," said Charles, "I cannot describe to you how my heart sunk within me when I first entered the gloomy attic, henceforth destined to be my home, my study, and where so much of my life was to pass. I gazed upon the low ceiling, which seemed to press the air down upon me; a slip of looking-glass, cracked and coarse-grained enough to make you discontented with even yourself, stuck in the plaster; the white-washed walls; the small stove, like that in the cabin of a ship; the wretched little wash-hand stand; the common check furniture of the bed; the parapet before the window—oh, that parapet! I learned afterwards to do justice to the cleanliness of the room—I am not sure, when, in cold weather, I have gone to the extravagance of a handful of fire, whether I have not even thought it comfortable; but to the parapet my eye never became reconciled. In winter the glaring snow lay so piled up on its ledge; in summer it reflected the hot sun like an oven; in rainy weather there the damp seemed to linger:—I do loathe the sight of a parapet! True, that in my father's house there had been, of late years, want of money, confusion, and distress; but still there were the large handsome rooms, there were the servants; and if our guests were few, they had the same speech, dress, and feelings as ourselves. Now I found myself in another world, with which I could not have a word, a hope, an idea, in common.
"Still, I should deceive you, if I told you that after the first week I was miserable. No, my time was fully occupied; I took an intense delight in my pursuits—I was encouraged by small successes—I felt the future was before me: and believe me when I say, that, hopeless, ruined as I am, it is neither the past nor the present which I regret, but the future —that glorious future, to which I once devoted myself—that noblest sacrifice of our nature. I have flung away the immortality of my mind. But remorse is of all feelings the one on which 'vanity of vanities' is written.
"Well, I pursued this course of life for nearly two years; my works had begun to attract some attention; and my relatives, finding I wanted nothing from them, and that I was rather a distinction to them, began to seek me out.
"Going into company purely as a relaxation, I enjoyed it,—to enjoy yourself is the easy method to give enjoyment to others; hence I became popular. My imagination, always on the alert to seek in real life materials for its solitude, flung its interest over every object. I was also lively. What a mistake it is to confound conversational vivacity with good spirits! Few persons who mix in society on the reputation of talent, but feel, or fancy, that there is a necessity for sustaining such reputation: the only method of accomplishing this is by saying something clever, or at least amusing. You know that the many go into the world on the strength of rank or wealth—they have performed their part when they have shewn themselves, their diamonds, or their cashmeres; but you seem to have contracted a debt by your mere admission—and we are all naturally anxious to return an obligation. Soon this exertion for the amusement of others grows a habit—vanity as usual steps in, and then popularity becomes a passion. The worst of it is, the want of moral courage it engenders; you seek too much to say the agreeable instead of the true. Still, this is an excusable fault. Opinion is an author's destiny; what marvel that he should strive by every effort to conciliate an influence so terrible? A despotic power makes slaves.
"This was the pleasantest part of my life. Society relieved without interrupting my studies. I rejoiced in my independence, and was careless about my poverty. I rather disdained than coveted the luxuries I saw: alas! we desire riches more for others than ourselves. What a precious thing would choice be to life! why have we not the sorrowful privilege of rejection? Why, when Laura wished to be introduced to me, did not some interior voice warn me of approaching misery?
"I accompanied to her box the friend who sought me. We entered softly, while Sontag was in the midst of her most popular song, and Mrs. Herbert at first did not perceive us. I stood behind her, admiring the small head, placed so exquisitely on the shoulders; suddenly she turned—I cannot tell you the charm I found in her gentle and somewhat cold manner—the importance of the effect you produced was so much increased by the difficulty there was in discovering its amount. Singularly pale, the marble whiteness of her complexion was strongly contrasted by the black hair, the black dress, and the black drooping feathers of her hat. She well knew the romantic style of her beauty; it was the imagination she sought to interest: hence the young, the enthusiastic, were the victims she selected.
"She said nothing to me of my writings; and I enjoyed the thought that my vanity, at least, had not been enlisted in her favour: I forgot the sweet low voice that so often asked my opinion, the knowledge so unconsciously displayed of my pursuits, and the large black eyes whose every look was a flattery. I have often wondered why she willed to number me among her conquests: but, though I could not give rank or wealth, I could give a name; and, as we always tire of what we do possess, she might desire to exchange the present for the future; the poetry she could not feel, she wished to inspire. Or perhaps, to put it more simply—vanity, like all social vices, craves for novelty; and I had at least the merit of being a stranger. Yet I could not have written a line about her for the world; we write from the memory of love, not its presence. How could I have borne to embody in her image the sorrows which give interest to poetry? If I had been Petrarch, Laura would never have been immortalised in my verse—I should have hated the very glory I myself had created: what, lay my heart bare for the general remark, the common pity! No; the statue I should raise to Love would be like that of Harpocrates, with his finger on his lip.
"In a few days what a gulf opened between my former and present self! I had been content, industrious, devoted to that literature which was at once my hope and my honour. Now, I was idle, restless; I wrote—the pen fell from my hand; I read—the book dropped by my side, and I was lost in some reverie, in which her image was paramount—all my former occupations were at an end; I seemed not to have an idea in the world that did not centre in her.
"All the morning was merged in the moment when, after a thousand of those small disappointments with which 'Circumstance, that unspiritual god,' delights to mock our plans, I perhaps handed her from her carriage to some shop. Every evening was devoted to the chance of meeting her; and, alas! whether I did or did not see her, I turned home with the same sinking of the heart, the same utter depression of spirits.
"For the first time I felt the wide difference between my circumstances and myself. Now, how I coveted riches—how I envied, ay hated, their possessors! Now, how I contrasted the splendid scenes in which I moved with the wretched home where I lived! Now, how worthless seemed all the former landmarks of my ambition!
"God in heaven, how I loved her! I would sit for hours, dreaming all those brilliant impossibilities by which fate might unite our destinies. I placed myself in situations of the most varied interest at her side, and then woke from my phantasy in an agony of shame and regret. The mere mention of her name would make my heart beat even to pain; and yet, with all this inward violence, I was outwardly calm:—true love is like religion, it hath its silence and its sanctity. I felt myself worthy of her, even while I was in reality becoming less so; for the fever of my heart preyed upon my mind, and every hour I was conscious that the power and the glory were departing from me.
"Poetry had been the passion that love now was; but poetry brought forth its fruit in due season: love made all a desert except itself. And yet how slight were the chains that bound me as in fetters of iron! A look, a word, a smile, were the hieroglyphics of the heart, as dazzling to decipher as the characters on Caliph Vathek's Damascus sabres; and I was blinded like him—indifference and interest were so nicely blended. Now I was chilled by careless coldness—now transported by some slight mark of preference, so slight that only passion could have interpreted it into hope. The very ruin in which my love was involving me, only made it more intense: and ruin, indeed, to me was its engrossment and its idleness.
"Utterly dependent on my own mental exertions, what could I do with my mind such a chaos? Day after day I was importuned to fulfil engagements I had no longer the power of completing. My thoughts, like rebel subjects, disowned my authority—I could concentrate my attention only on one object—Laura. Perhaps the desperation of my circumstances communicated itself to my feelings—I believe Mrs. Herbert feared the passion she had inspired. She shrank from the explanation sudden coldness might have brought on, and tried raillery. Constancy, romance, or enthusiasm, were the recurring objects of her sarcasm.
"One evening, when the large party met at her house had diminished to a small and somewhat confidential group, I remember her saying, as she flung down, disdainfully, a little engraving from a gem—a bird clinging to a leafless bough, with its well-known motto, 'Faithful even unto death'—'Well, fine words are like fine clothes, they make a great deal out of nothing. I often think' (turning to me) 'of the profane speech of the Cardinal, who exclaimed, when he saw the gold and jewels offered at Rome in such profusion by the pious, 'Holy Saints! how profitable has this fable of Christianity been to us!' You poets may well exclaim, 'How profitable has this fable of love been to us!'
"'Ah, madam, you have never loved!' replied a young gentleman, who, like many others of his kind, delighted in talking of what he knew nothing about.
"'Love!' replied she; 'as far as my own experience goes, I do not understand the word: I have never loved. A lover is the personification of weariness; to see the same face, to hear the voice, to separate variety from amusement, in order to centre it all in one—to find a single suffrage sufficient for your vanity. Ah! to love, is in reality the verb the Prussian prince conjugated at Potsdam;’ and she sank back on her seat, as if fatigued by the mere recapitulation.
"Notwithstanding her art, Laura was wrong in her calculation. Of all she said I retained only the one delicious phrase, 'I have never loved.' Instead of her indifference, I recalled her beauty, as she leant back on the sofa, one delicate hand balancing her cup, while her perfect figure was half hidden—only to be more gracefully displayed—in a large cloak, which she had drawn round her with the prettiest shiver possible. Day by day my situation became more wretched; one resource alone was left me,—the gaming table; and there a transient success added suspense to my other miseries.
"The desire of mortifying a fancied rival, one evening threw unusual softness into Laura's manner; she took my arm, and chance leading us into a small adjacent room, had seated herself on one of the divans before she perceived we were alone. I saw her turn pale and avoid my look; but it was too late,—my heart had found utterance. Scott, I need tell you only her last words,—'And if I did marry, do you think it would be a fortune-hunter?'
"I rose from her feet, and my resolution was taken. I had already sacrificed to Laura my hopes, my principles, my ambition, my fortune; one only sacrifice remained, and that was my life. Still, some remnant of my ancient integrity bade me desire to leave enough behind me to pay my debts. Again I had recourse to the gaming-table; but the fortune which had aided me to evil, deserted me for good: I left the room with a single shilling in my pocket.
"It was long after midnight when I sought my lodgings. The pale, weary look of the girl who opened the door reproached me with my selfish thoughtlessness, in thus, on a cold raw night early in spring, detaining the poor from their needful rest. The mother was by her side, and she appeared far more worn out than the daughter. I have been too engrossed, or I might before have told you of the kindliness of the one, and the surpassing beauty of the other. Now that the image of Ellen Cameron rises before me in all its childish and innocent beauty; when I think of the thousand little acts of kindness—I could almost say tenderness—that escaped from her so unconsciously, I wonder that my heart never took her for its object of imagination and passion. But there is a destiny in all things, and in none more than in love.
"'I shall not detain you long,' said I, as I entered their little parlour. Will you believe me when I say, the uppermost feeling in my mind was distaste at its poor and wretched appearance? The grate smoked, and the thick air was bitter and oppressive to breathe. Drawing the broken china inkstand towards me, I wrote on the back of a letter the assignment of my property (my property!) to Mrs. Cameron. I gave her the paper, and told her that important business forced me to leave London at once; that I could not pay the rent now due, but that the sale of even my few effects would satisfy her claims.
"'You are not going to leave us?' said the woman, on whose memory one or two small services I had rendered her had made a deeper impression than the fear of losing by a lodger so poor as myself. I gave a briefer reply than should have met such kindness, and hurried from the door. As I went down the street, I looked back; Ellen was standing on the steps watching me: she met my eye, and instantly retreated. I caught the last glance of that young and fair face, and felt as if my good angel had deserted me. I passed hastily through the close and narrow streets around my home. Dizzy, confused with the excitement of despair, I was startled by the hour striking one, two, three, four. I was standing before the illuminated clock of St. Bride’s. Mockery, thus to trace the progress of time in light! mark it rather by shadows dark and heavy as its own. Half an hour would bring me to Waterloo Bridge, and there I could offer up the fearful sacrifice Fate demanded from Necessity."
From this period we already know the story, and need not follow Charles in his narrative of the small causes which had deterred him from the act, to the wild hope, or rather curiosity, which now induced him to wait for the morrow.
"I have no choice," said he at last; "between myself and the past there is a wide gulf; I cannot again unite quiet industry and enthusiastic energy; I can no longer merge the actual present in the imagined future. A bitter feeling of envy rankles within me. I do not say that there is nothing worth living for, but that there is nothing within my reach. I am weary of this life of literary drudgery, whose toil is so incessant, and whose reward is so distant. I am stung to the very soul by the criticisms on what I have already done. The praise does not gratify me, because it is that of kindness, or of motive, instead of appreciation; the censure mortifies me,—even while I deny its truth; but I say, what is opinion, when the smallest pique against myself, or even my friends—when envy or pure stupidity will turn the balance against me, and withhold from me my so anxiously-sought, my just meed of praise? Again, I feel that youth is rapidly passing, and with it that happiness which youth only can enjoy. What will it avail me, even if future years bring me pleasures for which I no longer care,—pleasures which, if I could command them now, would send the blood through my pulses as if it bore a thousand lives? It is easy to tell me that every lot has its annoyances. I believe nothing which I have not known. Give me the wealth you say has its cares and its vexations; let me try them; let me at least choose my destiny, and then take my chance. Why should I wear out a dreary life in poverty and obscurity, while I loathe the one and despise the other? There are who may talk of calm content, of gliding unnoticed through the road of life; let those who like such ignoble path follow it. Did I make myself? did I wish to enter on this mortal struggle? did I give myself feelings, ideas, or wishes? did I create this difference between myself and my situation? In what am I to blame? Can I help being most unutterably wretched? Tell me not of the benevolence shewn in the organisation of this world; in every part pain and sorrow reign triumphant. True, we are promised a reward hereafter; but that is to depend upon conduct, which it is always difficult, sometimes impossible, to control. My futurity rests upon my belief, as if I could believe what I chose. This is a bad, miserable state,—so bad, that any change must be for the better, at least to me. I cannot go back upon the past; I delude myself no longer. Why should I slave to leave behind me a rich legacy of thought for the careless or ungrateful? A year ago I would not have bartered the world of fame for the world of enjoyment; both are equally beyond me, but I pine now for the latter; and, wanting that, for the calm and the quiet of the cold dark grave. The terrible passion of death is upon me; I long for that eternity which, whether of torture, of annihilation, or of a higher existence, will free me from the intolerable burden of life."
"Two gentlemen to Mr. Smythe," said a servant, opening the door. In one of them Charles recognised the auctioneer. "Ha, ha! young gentleman, come to claim the payment of my bond; this worthy man will soon shew you it is due."
The other, whose solemnity was in singular contrast with the flurry of his companion, now announced himself as Mr. Greaves, solicitor, of Chancery Lane, in whose custody was placed the will of the late Charles Smythe, Esq.
"He was the richest man on 'Change, sir—it's lucky for you that your name is spelt with a y and an e—he made you his heir because you are his namesake: but I have a copy of the will with me, if you please to hear it read."
Charles sat bewildered; but his friend Scott, as he was not the heir, retained his senses, and begging them to be seated, poured out a couple of glasses of claret; whereupon the lawyer, after draining one of them, began to read the will, which stated, that "I, Charles Smythe, being of sound mind and body, &c. &c. &c., do will and bequeath to Charles Smythe, my namesake, and, I believe, distant relation (our names being spelt alike), son of, &c. &c., all the property I possess at the time of my decease."
And then followed such a list of estates here, and estates there, mortgages in every county in England, and money vested in the stocks of every known capital—English, French, Russian, and American—that Scott began to think the late Henry Smythe must have been the possessor of Fortunatus's purse. The will was ended, and the little auctioneer could contain himself no longer.
"The luckiest thing in the world that we met to-day! I was in such a fright lest you should have drowned yourself; but I had you watched safe in here—and my boy saw a pie come in; so I thought you'd be sure to live till after dinner. Mr. Greaves has been out hunting for you all day. Lord love you! they're taking on so about you at your lodgings; and Mr. Greaves was afraid you had come to a bad end. Well, he was fagged out when he called on me; and quite down in the mouth to think that a young man should make away with himself just as he came in to such a fine fortune: but I soon heartened him up. We had a beef-steak together, and then came off here: glad to find you alive and merry."
Scott could not restrain his laughter; but Charles sat gloomily folding and unfolding the skin of shagreen, which he had taken from his pocket.
"I must say good night," said the solicitor, who had just finished the last glass of claret; "I keep regular hours—always at home by twelve, and have a long way to go. I will call on you to-morrow—ten o'clock precisely—Mr. Smythe: we have not a little business to settle. Good night!"
"And good night, gentlemen," added the auctioneer; and then, addressing Charles more particularly, "I have a large amount to make up by the 15th of this month, so hope you won't forget our little account. I am sure you won't grudge the money, considering the luck the skin has brought you. Wish you joy of your good fortune!"
"And I wish," exclaimed Charles, "that you may break your neck going down stairs."
This kind farewell was, however, lost on its object, who had just closed the door.
"What a lucky fellow you are! I congratulate you from my heart," said Scott.
"This accursed skin!" exclaimed Charles.
"Why, you are not silly enough to think that has any thing to do with it! By the by, how shamefully that rascally auctioneer has taken you in! He knew of the will beforehand, and has played nicely upon your excited state of mind. I hope you mean to dispute the payment of the bond?"
A loud noise in the passage interrupted their conversation.
They say gravity is the centre of attraction; I rather think that noise is. Nothing so soon assembles the inhabitants of a house as a loud and sudden noise: it did so in the present instance.
"For the love of God, run for a surgeon; he is quite senseless!" And the first thing the friends saw was Mr. Greaves and the servant raising the body of the auctioneer.
Charles, faint and trembling, grasped the bannisters: Scott sprang forward.
"The whole College of Physicians can do him no good: he has broken his neck!"
"Do you now doubt," exclaimed Charles, "my fatal power? Behold how, within the last minute, the skin has shrunk!"
"Your good luck has turned your brain. I advise you to go home, and be bled and blistered," said Scott. "The broken neck of the auctioneer is just an unlucky coincidence."
"It is my terrible destiny!" cried Charles Smythe.
Wealth, wealth unbounded, and which every day some lucky chance served to increase, was now in Charles Smythe's possession—he had all of pleasure, all of luxury, excepting their enjoyment; for the weight was on his spirits, and the worm at his heart. His slightest wish was invariably accomplished; but at every wish the skin of shagreen diminished, and with it he felt his health and strength decline. He found he had but one reserve—to desire nothing. Gradually his splendid abode became a solitude, and his habits those of an ascetic. He ate before he was hungry, lest he should wish for food; he slept with his night-draught drugged with laudanum, lest he should crave repose.
Once, and once only, he met Laura. He turned from her with loathing: was not she the cause of his present doom? Mrs. Herbert marked his avoidance with a sweet laugh and a stinging jest:—"So much for a romantic attachment! My poet-lover has not a guinea in the world, and he vows eternal constancy aux beaux yeux de ma cassette. He becomes a millionaire, and nous avons changé tout cela—the passionate and the elevated degenerates into the indifferent and the calculating. Never tell me of disinterested love!"
There was perhaps some bitterness in this; but when was a woman ever witty without being bitter? Think for a moment how her feelings must have been frozen before they could sparkle, and how their edge must have been ground down before they became so keen: brilliant and caustic words are but the outward type of that which is within.
"I will consult a physician to-morrow," said Charles Smythe one night, after he had spent about an hour in gazing alternately on his pale and altered face in the glass, and then on the skin of shagreen now most wofully diminished.
Next morning saw his carriage at Dr. Thomson’s door. He was shewn into a back room, fitted up as a study. Large and learned volumes lined the sides; above the fire-place stood a row of glass phials, each containing a snake, a frog, or a lizard, preserved in spirits of wine; and on the table lay open a huge portfolio of ghastly-looking prints. Somehow or other, it was a room that gave you great confidence in your doctor:—you thought, what a clever man he must be! The patient now entered on his history. At its finish, the physician no longer restrained his reassuring smile—"I will give you my advice, though I very much doubt your taking it: enlist for six months in any marching regiment you can find, and permit me to throw this piece of shagreen behind the fire."
So saying, he took up the talisman, and was about to suit the action to the word, when Charles snatched it from him with a piercing cry, and rushed out of the house. He then directed his coachman to drive to Sir Henry Halford's. He was shewn into an elegant drawing-room; a large glass reflected the crimson colour flung on his countenance by the curtains: it was a very reviving shade. Again the patient began his narrative, which was listened to this time with the most touching attention. Sir Henry took his hand with an air of almost affectionate interest—said something about over-excitement, nerves, and genius—wrote a prescription—advised quiet and country air. "Take some pretty place, quite retired, but near enough to town for a morning’s drive to bring you to London; for I must see you again—not often, I hope;—not often, I am sure!" muttered the physician, as his patient withdrew.
Charles Smythe now resolved on taking a place in the country; but he equally resolved on wishing nothing about it. He would drive a few miles out of town, and take the first place to let that he liked. The horses baited at a small country inn; he had lunched; and then, for fear he might get weary, and wish for a stroll, he wandered out. It was an unusually hot day, in an unusually forward spring; but the sunshine was cheerful, and the heat was softened by the wide and leafy branches of the elm-trees whose boughs met overhead. The hedges were covered with May, in the fragile and fragrant luxuriance of its short-lived blossom. On each side were meadows of deep grass, now of a dark and shadowy, now of a bright and glittering green, as the sunbeam or the cloud passed alternately over them. A low but pleasant murmur, the whisper of leaves, the chirrup of the birds, the stir of insect wings, was on the air; and as the invalid wound down the green lane, he forgot for a while how rich and how wretched he was. His thoughts wandered in as desultory a manner as he did himself, fixing rather on objects without than within. He was roused from his reverie by that sudden rustling among the boughs which tells the approach of a summer shower. The light branches of the ash were tossed aside by the wind, and a few heavy drops fell almost one by one. A large black cloud darkened the sky, and a burst of distant thunder rolled upon the air.
"To be caught in the rain will give me my death of cold," exclaimed Charles, almost unconsciously hurrying forward. For a moment he hesitated whether he should not wish the rain to cease; but the remedy was worse than the disease—so on he went. Luckily, a sudden turn in the lane shewed him a place of shelter; he soon reached the stone porch of a small cottage, and paused there, gaining breath and resolution to ask admission. Built in a heavy Gothic style of architecture, the cottage looked as if it had formerly been the lodge of some park. In one of the windows sat a girl: her head was bent on her hand, and her fair hair, simply parted on the forehead, was covered by a square cap, or rather coif. Surely he knew her face! She looked up, and their eyes met; another instant, and the door stood open;—it was Ellen Cameron! Such a smile and such a blush, such a beautiful agitation as that with which he was welcomed! She recognised him at the first glance, as he did her at the second.
"My mother will be so glad to see you!” was her exclamation; and he was shewn into the prettiest little room that ever was crowded with flowers, or opened into a garden whose roses looked in at the window. There her mother was sitting; and Charles was touched (how could he be otherwise?) by the earnest and simple delight of his welcome.
Their history was soon told. Mrs. Cameron’s lawsuit had been decided in her favour, and their present competency was rendered more delicious by past poverty. They had immediately left London; and this accounted for Charles's not having been able to find them out when he made the endeavour, which, in justice to his gratitude, we ought to mention he had done.
"Your books are quite safe," said Mrs. Cameron, "and so is your writing-table; but they are in Ellen's room, for she is a great reader."
Ellen blushed to the temples. Their visitor smiled when he remembered how little his learned and ponderous tomes were likely to interest the young and fair creature who had them in her care.
Charles Smythe was pressed to stay dinner. He consented; and the day passed pleasantly enough to make him say, towards evening, "I wish I could find a house to suit me." The words "I wish” struck upon his heart with a cold chill, which was forgotten as he thought how very lovely the flush of delight made Ellen's always beautiful face.
We will omit the love-making, as it must be personal to be pleasant; and come to the conclusion, which every reader can by this time foresee, viz. matrimony. The bright and buoyant month of June, the brightest of all our year, witnessed Charles Smythe's marriage. The bells were yet ringing a joyous peal, softened by the distance into music, as he stood with a folded paper in his hand by a small ebon escritoire. "Why," said he, "should I be weak enough to allow a vain delusion to prey upon my spirits and wear away my health? No doubt being exposed to the open air shrinks up the skin: for three months I will not look at it." He locked the drawer, and turned to meet his beautiful bride, whose light step now entered the room.
To use the established phrase, three months of uninterrupted happiness glided away—a phrase, though in frequent use, whose accuracy I greatly doubt; there being no such thing as uninterrupted happiness any how or any where. But one morning, while wandering through the shadowy walks with which his gardens abounded, he heard the voices of his wife and her mother. He looked through the boughs, for one moment, on the fair and young face whose beauty was so precious in his eyes—so precious, for he felt how entirely it was his own. There was something at once womanly and childish in Ellen's love for her husband—womanly in its devotion, childish in its implicit reliance—one of those worshipping, exaggerating, uplooking attachments which it is so satisfactory to man's vanity to inspire. But an expression of strong anxiety was on her face, and her cheek was very pale. Charles was just about to step forward and kiss it into colour, when the sound of his own name arrested his advance.
"I would not, dearest, alarm you unnecessarily," said Mrs. Cameron; "but you must make Charles have medical advice: he looks wretchedly ill, and grows worse every day."
He saw Ellen start, as if first awakened to the terrible consciousness of her husband's ill health—he saw her bow her face on her hands in an agony of tears; but he staid not to console her—his heart was hardened by the fear of death. "I have been married three months to-day; I will go and look at the skin of shagreen." While unlocking the writing-case in which it lay, he caught sight of his shadow in a glass opposite: he beheld, as it were, the spectre of himself. Shuddering, he hurriedly opened the drawer. "The skin of shagreen is not here!" exclaimed he—and sank on the sofa breathless with delight. The fatal skin had disappeared, and yet he lived! "Fool, fool that I have been, to allow a nameless dread to poison my food, to fever my sleep! Ellen, my sweet Ellen, we shall be happy yet!" The remembrance of her sorrow rose to his mind.
No longer stern and selfish with a gloomy dread, he opened the window; to cross the turf would bring him to her side immediately. The wind swept through the casement, and blew the papers, &c. to his feet. He turned pale, his eyes swam; every other object was indistinct, for uppermost of all lay the skin of shagreen; but so small, no wonder he had overlooked it—it was the size of a willow-leaf, fragile and withered as they are with the first frost! How prodigal of life had the last three months been!—not the slightest wish of Ellen's but had found an echo in his! Why, the mere hope that a summer-day would not bring premature destruction to a half-blown rose—even such light words were those of the grave! What was Ellen’s self but a beautiful death?
Again every faculty was absorbed in a passionate longing for life—life under any circumstances. He left his home on the instant; wrote from London, that pressing business took him abroad for some time; and in the course of a week he was settled in a solitary cottage at Clifton. Here his days passed in a melancholy monotony; he rose at the same hour, took a long walk, dined, walked again, and then slept. He read no books, he saw no friends, he had no wish but for life; and night after night he examined the frail remnant of shagreen, and as often found it undiminished. At this rate he might live for years—and his heart leaped for joy at the thought of this dull and unnatural existence. Youth, wealth, fame, love, had all merged in the dread of death.
It was a fine soft evening in September, when he leant, as was his wont, in an arm-chair by the window, watching with fixed but languid gaze the deep shadows of the trees, while every open space was silver with the light of the moon—the hunter's moon, as the large bright orb of that month is called. The garden was close to the road, and the step and voice of the few passers-by were distinctly heard. Suddenly one went along singing: it was a young voice, but both air and words were sad. Charles caught the first verse:—
O leave me to my sorrow,
For my heart is oppress'd to-day!
O leave me, and to-morrow
Dark clouds will have pass'd away!
The song died in the distance; not so in the heart of the recluse. "I may," said the miserable slave of himself, "be left to my sorrow; but when will my dark clouds pass away? Never till they deepen into the night of death! Buoyant and reckless spirit of my youth, all ye thousand hopes that bore me up as with the wings of an eagle, where are ye now? The knowledge I acquired, the fame for which I burned, the wealth I so coveted—all mine, yet not mine! And must all that makes life desirable be purchased but by the loss of life? Is this the secret of existence? At what a price of wretchedness must even this miserable and monotonous life be bought! My poor Ellen, what must my absence seem to her!"
As the image of his young and deserted wife rose before him in all its gentle beauty, a gush of tenderness softened him for the moment. "My sweet Ellen!" exclaimed he, almost unconsciously, "would to God you were here!"
"Ah, now I dare speak to you!" whispered a sweet low voice.
Love was mightier than fear; and happy as herself, he kissed away the tears that fell thick and fast from the sweet eyes raised so timidly to his own.
"How could you leave me? who would watch over you with affection like mine?"
At these words he started from his seat, and snatched the skin of shagreen—it was reduced to a mere shred. "Ellen," exclaimed he, grasping her arm, "do you see this accursed thing? it is my life; one other wish is my death-warrant!"
He looked on the ghastly terror which marked his wife's features; his heart misgave him for her agony; and again, almost unwittingly, he wished her fear might cease! A deadly pain rushed over him, his eyes closed even on that beloved countenance; he strove to speak, the words died in an inarticulate murmur; a frightful convulsion distorted his face as it sank on Ellen's shoulder;—his last breath and the skin of shagreen had passed away together!
The hint for such a talisman is taken from M. de Balzac’s Peau de Chagrin. I have not read the tale itself, but saw a notice of it in Le Globe.