955 


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MY BROTHER'S WIFE. 


Ctfe-jjistorg. 


AMELIA B. EDWARDS, 

AUTHOR OF 

"BARBARA'S HISTORY," "THE LADDER OF LIFE," "HAND AND GLOVE," &c. 


NEW YORK: 
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

FRANKLIN SQUARE. 
1865. 


ALUMNUS 


NOVELS BY AMELIA B. EDWARDS. 


BARBARA'S HISTORY. 8vo, Paper, 75 cents. 

THE LADDER OF LIFE. A Hear.t-Hiftory. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents. 

MY BROTHER'S WIFE. A Life-Hiftory. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents. 


From the New York Evening Post. 

At this day, when so many indifferent namby-pamby novels are thrust upon the public 
novels which it is a wearisome waste of time to read we are quite sure that it is a kindly 
act to direct our readers' attention to such beautifully-written, and in many cases superior, 
works of fiction as are these by Miss Edwards. 

From the London Times. 

"Barbara's History" is a very graceful and charming book, with a well-managed story, 
clearly-cut characters, and sentiments expressed with an exquisite elocution. The dialogues 
especially sparkle with repartee. It is a book which the world will like, and which those 
who commence it will care to finish. This is high praise of a work of art, and so we intend it. 


Sent by Mail, poflage free, on receipt of the price. 


PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE, NEW YORK. 


MY BROTHER'S WIFE. 


CHAPTER I. 

HOME CHRONICLES. 

I CAN scarcely believe that my task, is real 
that I am now guiding my pen along the first 
few sentences of my Life-History. It seems so 
strange a thing that any man (and myself above 
all men) should deliberately receive the whole 
world into his confidence should take his own 
heart to pieces, as one might a passion-flower, 
and pluck it leaf from leaf, petal from petal, for 
every eye to gaze upon at will ! 

Stranger still is it that I should indite these 
pages in a foreign tongue that I should, in the 
first instance, address myself to foreign readers. 
Yet not so strange, perhaps, when I reflect upon 
all the long past, and when I remember how 
dear and familiar is the English language to 
my lips and to my ears. It is the native tongue 
of many whom I have best loved in life. From 
my earliest childhood I have studied and spo- 
ken it. I could not write this book with satis- 
faction to myself in any other ; and, be it well or 
ill done, it must go thus before all who read it. 

My name is Paul Latour. I was born upon 
our estate in Burgundy, about two years after 
my father's marriage, and three years before the 
birth of my brother Theophile. I do not re- 
member my father very distinctly, excepting as 
I saw him lying in his coffin, very pale and still, 
when they carried me to his chamber, that I 
might kiss him for the last time. His cheek 
was cold and sunken ; he did not raise those 
heavy eyelids to gazQ fondly upon me as was 
his wont ; and I recollect that I sobbed bitterly 
without knowing why, unless it were in childish 
sympathy with the distress around me. Some 
other memories, vague and transient enough, 
seem now and then to flit before me memories 
of a cordial voice and of a lofty brow yet, 
when I strive to realize them, they fade away, 
and leave me doubting whether they be recol- 
lections or fragments of old dreams. 

My mother was beautiful nay, is still beau- 
tiful, though somewhat faded by the passage of 
events and years. According to my earliest 
impressions, she was tall, fair, and stately as a 
queen ; and, when she spoke, the low tones of 
her voice were grave and sweet, like the ca- 
dence of our chapel bells down in the valley. 
I will not say that my mother's disposition was 
unloving ; but it was cold cold toward her hus- 
band, toward her servants, toward me. The 
touch of her white slender fingers was ever 


brief and unwilling; the expression of her large, 
calm blue eyes was serious, but frosty ; her kiss- 
es, for me at least, were careless and infrequent. 
Theophile was ever her favorite child. She 
treated us in all respects precisely alike ; she 
never accorded him any indulgence in which I 
was not an equal sharer ; and yet I saw it, knew 
it, felt it from the first. That she thought her 
preference unjust, that she even resisted it to 
the utmost, I am fully certain ; for I saw that 
also. I saw the effort as plainly as I saw the 
affection, and I wept away many an hour of the 
night-time thinking of it. No one ever knew 
how passionately I then loved my mother how 
breathlessly I used to listen to her gentle speak- 
ing how reverently and admiringly I used to 
look up to her beautiful, proud mouth, and to 
the rich folds of her golden hair ! It was an 
idolatry the idolatry which children often feel, 
and for which we are so little disposed to give 
them credit. 

I once dreamt that I was with my mother in 
the library, and that she took me by the hand, 
and, looking into my face, said, "Paul, you are 
not my child." And I remember now, as if it 
were yesterday, how I woke up sobbing, and 
crept out of my little bed in the bright moon- 
light, and stole along the corridor ; and how I 
crouched down at her chamber-door, listening 
to her breathing, and there dropped asleep. 
This it was which gave me the reputation of be- 
ing a somnambulist ; for, when they found mo 
in the morning lying there, I would say nothing 
of what brought me. 

I have already stated that Theophile was my 
mother's favorite ; and when I look upward to 
the mirror near which I am now writing, I can 
not help acknowledging that her preference was 
sufficiently natural. My younger brother was 
tall and fair, like herself; noble-looking; full 
of spirit and enterprise ; and as proud as if he 
were heir to all Burgundy. As regarded study, 
he was indolent; yet his abilities were great. 
He learnt rapidly, easily, brilliantly ; and he re- 
lied upon this intellectual facility so much, that 
he frequently left himself more to do than any 
mind could accomplish in the time. The con- 
sequence was, that his knowledge was often su- 
perficial, and, still oftener, forgotten as soon as 
acquired. Besides this, Theophile met with 
universal indulgence, and from no one more 
than from our two instructors, M. le Cure', and 
Mr. Walsingham, our English tutor. He had 
so many excellent equalities he was so affec- 


MY BROTHER'S WIFE. 


tionate so affable. Though spoilt, he was 
light-hearted and enjoying. Though, perhaps, 
a little selfish, he could be profusely generous. 
Every creature on the estate loved him, down 
to the poorest vigneron. Such was his youth, 
and so he grew to manhood willful, careless, in 
love with life, with pleasure, and with himself. 
Before he was twenty, Theophile was weary of 
the country. He was rich, for he would inher- 
it all my mother's fortune, and his yearly allow- 
ance, even then, exceeded my modest rental by 
more than one third. So he left us, and launch- 
ed himself, with all the heedless delight of 
youth, upon the brilliant dissipations of Paris- 
ian life. He had introductions, wealth, talent, 
personal advantages ; and with many less rec- 
ommendations than these one may become a 
wit, a man of fashion, and a beau garfon, amid 
the gay and glittering circles of the best Paris- 
ian society. 

Must I now speak of myself ? Alas ! the 
subject is an ungrateful one ; for I have but lit- 
tle to win the favor of strangers. 

I am decidedly plain. I was plain from my 
childhood. My reflection in yonder mirror is 
that of a pale, dark, melancholy-looking man 
about eight-and-thirty years of age. I am not 
yet so old by more than six years ; but I have 
/ suffered much both in mind and body. My in- 
fancy was sickly, and for many months I under- 
went constant pain from an injury done to my 
hip in falling frohi a cherry-tree, so that my 
countenance learned to wear an expression of 
settled discontent, which subsequent health has 
failed to dispel. I limp slightly when I walk 
so slightly, I have been told, that it has more 
the effect of a peculiarity in my gait than a per- 
ceptible lameness. I am somewhat below the 
middle height; my habits are silent and re- 
served ; I dislike much society ; and I love to 
be alone for some hours in every day. 

I carried this solitary habit almost to a pas- 
sion in our old Burgundian chateau ; and, as 
soon as I attained my majority, I proceeded to 
gratify it, though in a somewhat singular man- 
ner. Ever since I was sixteen years of age, I 
had occupied a wing of the chateau overlooking 
the garden. I can scarcely say that I occupied 
the whole of it, for only the ground floor was 
kept furnished. Here I had the rooms en suite, 
where no one but myself, or my valet, attempt- 
ed to enter. The first of these was my library, 
the second my studio (for at that time I was 
fond of painting), the third my sleeping-room. 
The library I determined to improve, according 
to my own taste ; and when I entered upon my 
twenty-first year, I carried my long-contempla- 
ted projects into effect. 

I caused the windows, which opened upon a 
terrace leading down to the shrubberies, to be 
set in Gothic pointed frames, and fitted with 
stained glass in rich heraldic devices. I had 
the ceiling supported by arches of carved oak, 
like the Gothic ceiling of a church ; and six 
spacious alcoves, sunk in the thick walls, con- 
tained my books. Between each alcove were 


panels carved with fruits, and foliage, and grace- 
ful arabesques, and hung with groups of arms, 
and antique coats of mail. Large crimson dra- 
peries fell in massive folds before the doors ; a 
Turkey carpet of rich deep hues, like the wings 
of the peacock butterfly, covered the centre of 
the floor; several easy-chairs stood here and 
there ; and a table covered with books, writing 
materials, reading desks, and spirit lamps of 
different sizes and constructions, occupied the 
middle of the room. In winter it was warmed 
by hot pipes concealed within the walls ; and 
at night I used to light a silver lamp of grace- 
ful and antique design, which was suspended by 
chains from the middle of the ceiling, and the 
light from which streamed down through a 
globe of amethyst glass as through a painted 
window. But the most striking objects in my 
library were the twelve pillars which supported 
the roof, and which were placed about five feet 
distant from the walls, down each side of the 
apartment. These, during my father's lifetime, 
had consisted of gray marble ; I replaced them 
by twelve colossal statues, carved in oak by 
a Flemish artist, representing the Apostles. 
There was something very stately and solemn 
about these lofty draped figures standing so si- 
lently around, especially by night. And night 
was the time I loved best the time for thought 
the time for study. I delighted in the quaint 
old literature of the Middle Ages ; and it pleased 
me to fancy some analogy between the dark- 
ness of the silent hours before day-dawn, and 
that early period during which poetry and art 
groped onward, side by side, amid the gloom, 
looking with earnestness and hopefulness to the 
far-off rising of the sun. Then it was that I 
would take down the folios of long-forgotten 
writers from the dusty shelves, and read on and 
on during the quiet night, till I seemed to live 
back into those old times of emperors, and 
knights, and poets, who wandered, singing, from 
land to land, and whose very names have now 
almost faded out of the pages of history. 

I made the early Romance languages my 
study ; I gathered together the chivalric poetry 
of the Troubadours and the Trouveres ; I studied 
all the varieties of the Proven9al dialect, in 
French, Italian, and Spanish. The rude love- 
chants of the Emperor Frederick and his chan- 
cellor ; the songs of the Jongleurs and the Ger- 
man Minnesingers ; the old rhymes of King 
Arthur and his knights ; the Romance of the 
Rose ; the Castilian Roman ceros ; the early 
Spanish ballads ; the Ossianic legends ; the an- 
cient chronicles of Froissart and of Stowe ; the 
strange fantastic mysteries and miracle plays 
which preceded the drama throughout Europe ; 
all " Niebelungen Lieds," "Ottfrieds," "Brevi- 
aries of Love," " Cansioneros, " Lives of the 
Saints, " Versos de arte mayor," legends, ser- 
ventes, canzones, or black-letter pamphlets, 
were my recreation and delight. The'ophile's 
tastes were not mine. He scoffed at my worm- 
aten volumes, at my old poetic lore, and at my 
church-like sanctuary. I loved the place dear- 


MY BROTHER'S WIFE. 


ly, for all that. It accorded with my taste for 
cathedral architecture, and for all that is som- 
bre, solitary, and impressive. 

Very different was the chamber opening from 
it, which I could enter by withdrawing a cur- 
tain, and which presented all the heterogeneous 
confusion of easels, draperies, lay-figures, casts, 
rusty arms, sketches, antique furniture, and col- 
or-boxes, which may generally be found in the 
atelier of an artist. Here it was my custom to 
spend several hours during each day, excepting 
when I took my sketch-book under my arm, 
and strolled away for all the long summer's 
morning, amid the shady hollows and rocky 
heights which extend for miles around that 
pleasant spot ; or when I wandered, book in 
hand, along the banks of the neighboring river, 
or through the tangled pathways of the dark, 
silent forest. 

At such times as these, looking round from 
some elevated point upon the massy woods ; the 
green valleys; the sunny vineyards, with the 
vignerons singing at their work; the rivulets 
gliding like veins of silver ore along the pasture 
lands, or dashing in foamy cascades from preci- 
pice to precipice ; the scattered villages and 
spires; the quaint slated turrets of our old he- 
reditary chateau glistening in the sun, amid 
their environment of dark chestnut trees and 
stately poplars j the lofty mountains standing 
so solemnly and distantly around at such 
times, I repeat, it surprised me that The'ophile 
could relinquish a scene of such rare beauty, 
and a home so peaceful, for the glaring magnifi- 
cence, the feverish amusements, and the hollow 
society of Paris. 

Oh, the unspeakable beauty of sweet Burgun- 
dy, the vine-garden of France ! Who can con- 
ceive of it without having beheld it ? Who can 
so admire and love it as those who have been 
born in its bosom ? We Burgundian French- 
men cherish our native province as we would a 
beautiful bride, ever fresh, ever smiling, ever 
young ! As the Swiss of his snowy Alps and his 
Alp-roses as the Englishman of his wavy 
corn-fields as the German of his broad feudal 
Rhine-river, so are we glad and proud of our 
mountains and our vine-lands. So do our 
hearts beat, and our eyes kindle, at the name of 
Burgundy ! 

It was my mother's pride and mine to keep up 
all the quaint old customs of our ancestry to 
assemble our tenantry round the yule log, call- 
ed in Burgundy Suche to sing carols of the 
"Little Jesus" to entertain the wandering 
piper to attend the midnight mass, and carry 
the midnight tapers to distribute the sugar- 
plums of Noel among the poor children to pre- 
side at the supper of the Rossignon, and to or- 
der the festivities of the autumnal Vine-feast 
and the May pastimes even as Gui de la Tour 
used in the olden time, when our family stood 
high in power and rank at the court of Bur- 
gundy. 

My younger brother cared nothing for these 
old historical obeservances ; and, save for a few 


days at the commencement of the shooting sea- 
son, he seldom came down to visit us. He had 
accustomed himself now to the excitement of a 
great city ; he found our home dull, and our 
pleasures triste. He was not at any time very 
fond of study; he soon. became tired of sport- 
ing ; and in less than a week he was ready to 
die from ennui. So his visits grew shorter and 
more infrequent, and we seldom saw him more 
than once in every year. 

The last occasion upon which we all met to- 
gether under the roof of our own home was for 
the celebration of his twenty- fifth birthday. 
For this once he had consented to leave Paris, 
although it was in the gay month of May, and 
to give us a week of his society, in honor of this 
quarter of a century of life which he was just 
completing. And he really came. So they 
rang the chapel bells as if for a wedding, and I 
rode out to meet him at the railway station. 
As we returned through the village, Pierre the 
blacksmith was nailing a white flag to the old 
sign-post in front of his door ; and the school- 
children were all shouting at the road-side ; and 
the old women were all peering at us from their 
cottage windows ; and it was quite a triumphal 
entry, considering the limited resources of La- 
tour-sur-Creil. 


CHAPTER II. 

A STAR RISES IN THE SKY. 

IT was during the first week in May that iny 
cousin Adrienne arrived. Theophile had been 
at home about four days when my mother re- 
ceived the letter from England which announced 
her coming, and he made up his mind to remain 
a short time beyond his intended visit, just for 
the purpose of meeting her; for we were all 
somewhat curious to see Adrienne, on account 
of her foreign residence and education. Per- 
haps it will be as well if, in this place, I briefly 
sketch the outlines of her history. 

My mother's maiden name was Lachapelle. 
She was the daughter of a gentleman of A r ast 
landed property, whose estates joined those of 
my father, and she had a younger brother named 
Adrien, an. officer in the first regiment of Chas- 
seurs, under Napoleon. The battle of Water- 
loo was fought the peace ensued Adrien re- 
turned home just in time to see my mother mar- 
ried, and then went over to England to the 
very land against which his sword had been 
raised so long and so often. He fell in love 
with an English lady, married her, and made 
his home for life at a remote country-seat in the 
county of Devon. He never returned to France ; 
and my grandfather died shortly after, without 
again beholding the face of his son. Time 
passed on, and my uncle sent us word that he 
was the father of a little girl, to be named after 
himself Adrienne. From this time an unac- 
countable apathy seemed to take possession of 
him ; his letters, never very frequent, became 


8 


MY BROTHER'S WIFE. 


fewer and fewer, and at last ceased altogether. 
Then we heard that his wife died, and, shortly 
after, that he also was no more. My mother 
offered to receive and educate their little orphan, 
but her maternal relatives refused, to part with 
her. She was adopted by her great-uncle, an 
old Devonshire esquire, who surrounded her with 
masters ; lavished upon her every kind of indul- 
gence ; and placed her, child as she was, at the 
head of his household. Here she had remained 
until this very spring-time, when her guardian 
died suddenly, bequeathing to her the bulk of 
his riches in addition to her own fortune, and 
leaving her the entire control of her actions and 
her property. It was in consequence of this 
loss that Adrienne wrote to my mother, request- 
ing permission to visit her father's sister, and 
saying that she could no longer endure to re- 
main in a country which was, for her, the grave 
of all whom she had loved. 

The letter was touchingly and charmingly 
worded, written in a large free hand, and bor- 
dered with deep black. I need scarcely say 
that my mother's reply was prompt, kind, and 
hospitable, or that we all awaited the arrival of 
our English cousin with some little impatience. 
The'ophile, who could find little else to while 
away the hours, occupied the chief part of every 
day in wondering if she were pretty, and in 
casting up complicated rows of figures, in the 
vain endeavor to calculate the amount of her 
fortune on both sides of the Channel which, 
however, he always threw aside when about half 
completed. My mother was very pale and si- 
lent, for she thought of the father and brother 
who had passed away. As for me, I fear I was 
hypocrite enough to affect a total indifference 
upon the subject of our visitor, and even to 
murmur audibly against the disturbance of our 
household quiet. 

The day came at last the day appointed by 
Adrienne in her second letter. The Paris and 
Strasburg line of railway does not traverse our 
part of Burgundy, and the nearest station is at 
Chalons, full eighteen miles away. We sent a 
carriage to meet her; and, as we could not tell 
by what train to expect her, we gave instructions 
to the servants to remain all day at the station 
until Mademoiselle Lachapelle should arrive. 
It was quite late in the evening before they re- 
turned. We were all sitting together at a large 
open window in the best reception-room, a lofty 
paneled chamber set round with antique mirrors 
and hung with amber damask, commanding a 
view of the high road and all the surrounding 
country. The dusk had closed in so thickly 
upon the landscape that we heard the quick 
rolling of the wheels long before the carriage 
drew near enough to be distinguished. On it 
came, faintly at first and louder by degrees, 
along the level road. We saw the flashing 
lamps between the lime-trees that stand for 
miles and miles on either side we heard the 
cracking of the whip, and the hoarse cry of the 
postillion. Nearer it came and nearer. There 
was the throwing open of gates the clattering 


in upon the pavement of the court-yard the 
sudden stoppage before the tiall entrance. 

"Diable I" said my brother, with a suppressed 
yawn ; " I am glad that la petite Anylaise has 
come at last, for I am furiously hungry!" 

In a moment the door was thrown open; 
"Mademoiselle Lachapelle!" was announced; 
and my mother, who had been striving, ever 
since we first heard the distant sound of wheels, 
to maintain her usual calm and dignified bear- 
ing, now stepped forward to the dark figure 
standing at the threshold, and saying, in a low 
voice, "My dear niece!" folded her in her 
arms, and imprinted a stately kiss upon her 
forehead. 

Then my mother introduced us both by name 
to Adrienne, and led her straight away to her 
own apartments. All this took place so hur- 
riedly,, and the room was so dark, that we had 
not yet seen her face, or distinguished more of 
her voice than a few faltered sentences. 

But, even then, I thought the voice was 
sweet ! 

They were a long time away more than 
three quarters of an hour. The'ophile rang for 
lights while we were waiting, and looked at his 
image in the glass, arranging the thick curls of 
his golden hair, and whistling dreamily to him- 
self; while every now and then he would stride 
impatiently to and fro, murmuring agttinst the 
delay, and exclaiming that he should be starved 
ere long. As for me, I drew a volume of Uh- 
land's poetry from my pocket and tried to read ; 
but my mind wandered from it, and I went over 
and looked out at the pale moon rising behind 
the poplars, and at the still, dark landscape, as 
it lay beyond the window like a framed picture. 
And sometimes, as I stood there, there came 
the swift whirring of a bat close before my face, 
and sometimes the intermitting passionate song 
of the far-off nightingales, amid the topmost 
branches of the trees. 

Suddenly the door opened they entered 
the servant, who had been waiting outside for 
the purpose, stepped forward and announced 
that dinner was served The'ophile, as usual, 
gave his arm to my mother I, confusedly and 
awkwardly, handed down our visitor, without 
even looking at or speaking to her and thus, 
preceded by sen-ants and lights, we descended 
the stairs and entered the dining-room. 

But, when we were seated at table, I raised 
rny eyes to her face and saw that she was beau- 
tiful. And now let me observe, if I were to de- 
scribe her as she seemed to me that night, and 
for the few weeks following, I should use terms 
little short of extravagance. I had seen few 
women then, save the sunburnt peasants who 
labored with their husbands and brothers in our 
vineyards, and, on rare occasions, the daughters 
of some few and distant neighbors. Beauty 
and youth were too unfamiliar to me that I 
should judge of them very narrowly, and, to my 
eyes, Adrieune Lachapelle seemed radiant as an 
angel. In all my artist-dreams, in all that I 
had pictured to myself of the fair ladies of the 


MY BROTHER'S WIFE. 


songs of old, I had never imagined any thing so | 
unspeakably fair. And yet I find it difficult to 
say in what her loveliness consisted. It was ' 
not in her eyes, though they were large, and 
soft, and blue, like my mother's ; nor in her 
mouth, though it was delicately beautiful ; nor 
in the contour of her head, graceful and self- 
poised, like that of the young Diana. It was 
not in her features, or her form, or in any one 
perfection you might name ; but I think it lay, 
rather, in the sweet gentleness gentle, yet ani- 
mated of her expression. Every thought and 
emotion that passed through her mind reflected 
itself upon her countenance, as the under-cur- 
rent of a streamlet breaks the sunshine into rip- 
ples on the surface. When she spoke, her color 
came and went with every earnest word. Mirth- 
ful as a child, the simplest jest would light her 
face with smiles smiles not only of the lips, 
but of the eyes. A sweet, mournful poem, read 
aloud, would cover her cheeks with tears. She 
varied every moment, like an April day ; and 
when she blushed, the faint crimson would suf- 
fuse her very brow, as a sunset on the Alps. 
But I am speaking of her now as I saw her aft- 
er some days, not as I saw her on that brief 
evening; and, even so, how useless is my at- 
tempt to depict in words that which I can not 
make clear to my own thoughts! Nothing is 
more difficult than to describe a really beautiful 
countenance (especially if it be one we dearly 
love) ; for there is always, in real beauty, a 
something for which we find no equivalent in 
language a something so refined, so evanes- 
cent, that all written description seems poor 
and clumsy in the comparison. Such was the 
beauty of Adrienne, and this it is which, as I 
first begin to speak of her, seems to embarrass 
and defy me. 

The dinner was long and formal. Adrienne, 
in her black dress, bending down her head and 
scarcely partaking of any thing placed before 
her, replied lowly and by monosyllables to the 
few commonplaces which were from time to 
time addressed to her. My mother, still pale 
and sad, looked toward her at intervals, but 
spoke seldom. Even The'ophile, after a few ef- 
forts at conversation, said no more, and applied 
himself wholly to the business of the table. In- 
deed, he was the only one among us to whom it 
was not almost a mockery ; he enjoyed and par- 
took of it as usual. For myself, I never once 
broke the silence, but sat there at the head of 
the board like one dreaming ; mechanically per- 
forming my duties of host ; gazing earnestly 
on the downcast face between me and my moth- 
er ; and listening with suspended breath to every 
murmured word that proceeded from her lips. 

This dinner-ceremony, so long, so silent, so 
constrained, came at last to a conclusion. We 
returned to the salon, whence, after a few mo- 
ments, Adrienne, pleading the fatigue of her 
long journey, retired, accompanied by my moth- 
er, and, as far as the room door, by The'ophile, 
who sprang forward to hold it open for them as 
they passed. 


"What a wretched evening!" he exclaimed, 
returning and flinging himself upon a fauteuil 
near the window. "Mais n'est-ce-pas qu'elle 
est belle, cette petite cousine ?" 

What had he said that I should feel the hot 
blood rush up to my brow so angrily ? What 
was there in his words that I could not answer 
them? Was it that he had spoken somewhat 
lightly, and that I, already, could not bear to 
hear it ? I know not ; but it seemed, at all 
events, to jar upon the pleasant harmony of my 
thoughts. I turned away, and was silent. Pres- 
ently I also left the room, and went down into 
my library to read. 

To read! Ah! no; I could not read that 
night. It was all in vain that I took up volume 
after volume of my favorite authors. Some- 
thing seemed to interpose between their thoughts 
and mine something whereby I was made rest- 
less, but not unhappy something which prompt- 
ed me at last to close the book, to withdraw the 
heavy folds that curtained out the night, and to 
stand there at the open casement, looking up to 
the sky and the stars. 

The moonlight lay upon the turrets and the 
trees, and fell in patches, faintly colored by the 
stained glass, upon the floor beside me. The 
Apostles stood within, brown, shadowy, and gi- 
gantic. The silver lamp burned dimly. There 
was a magical stillness in the air a holiness 
unutterable in the night-silence. It seemed to 
me as if all Nature were one vast cathedral, 
with blue arching roof with a starry multitude 
of lamps, and with myself for a solitary wor- 
shiper. And in that supreme hour an impulse 
of infinite gratitude and awe came over my 
soul, and I thought of heaven, of truth, of life, 
of Adrienne. 

I felt as one who reads the opening page of a 
strange, sweet poem, or as one who sits for the 
first time in a brilliant theatre. Beauty and 
grace are met on every side. The air is heavy 
with perfume. The orchestra gives forth a low 
intoxicating melody, and the hush of expecta- 
tion is on every lip. His heart beats ; his 
breath comes and goes ; he trembles ; his eyes 
are fixed upon the dark curtain which is so soon 
to rise, and the skirts of which are already 
fringed with the radiance beyond. 

And was it not truly so ? Was I not unfold- 
ing the poem in my heart gazing upon that 
curtain ? Was it not the first Act of my Life- 
Drama that was about to commence ? 


CHAPTER III. 

THE FOUNTAIN OP ROSES. 

ABOUT eight miles from Latour-sur-Creil, 
half way up a wooded mountain in the direc- 
tion of Strasburg, there may be found a deli- 
cious little spring, quite shut in and hidden by 
trees and wild rose-bushes, which was christen- 
ed by my mother La Fontaine aux Roses. It is 
somewhat difficult of access ; for, after leaving 


10 


MY BROTHER'S WIFE. 


the cultivated fields and vineyards that extend 
for about a quarter of a mile up the ascent, you 
find the road, which has been getting narrower 
and narrower all the way, diminish suddenly to 
a steep shingly footpath, wide enough for only 
one person at a time. Following this amid the 
thick green shade, you arrive at last, wearily 
enough, upon a little level platform cut sheer 
away, as it would seem, from the shelving rock, 
which here rises precipitously at the back, in 
overhanging blocks of rough dark granite. Fa- 
cing you lies the continuation of your pathway, 
narrower, steeper, more unpromising than be- 
fore ; at the edge of the platform, the cliff (steep 
and bush-grown) seems to sink away beneath 
your very feet ; to the left a tiny opening, or fis- 
sure in the rock, seems to indicate the track of 
some animal, looking too narrow for the passage 
of any thing larger than a goat. Nevertheless, 
try it. You will find it sufficiently wide to ad- 
mit of your entrance. Once through the little 
straits, you are in a sort of natural vault, hol- 
lowed out of this same granite ; treading softly 
upon a carpet of thick gray moss ; making to- 
ward that day-opening at the end of the rough 
corridor, about forty yards in advance. When 
half way along, you pause and listen : it is the 
gush and gurgle of water that you hear echoing 
down the cool stillness of the granite walls ; 
and, hastening on to the end with what speed 
you may, you there discover a little ' ' heart of 
green, " all set round with trees, and rock-cliffs, 
and wild wavy ferns ; with a broad boundless 
landscape stretched out far and wide at one 
side, and, on the other, a fount of fresh bright 
water welling up through a bower of wild dog- 
roses from the inner depths of the rough mount- 
ain mass overhead. Springing, foaming, leap- 
ing forth eddying down into a pebbly basin 
flowing with a sudden calmness in and out the 
trees, and across the Yew square yards of grassy 
platform winding, as it were, unconsciously to- 
ward the brow of the cliff whirling over in 
swift madness, and falling, ever falling, from 
ledge to ledge, from steep to steep, all spray, 
hurry, and confusion, till at length it disappears 
among the forest trees down far below, and is 
seen no more unless, indeed, it might be that 
smooth gliding rivulet which shows so silverly 
along the valley, and flows, miles away, into the 
current of yon broad river setting onward to the 
sea! 

Exquisite Fontaine aux Roses! Was I not 
the first to penetrate thy fairy nook ; to drink 
of thy waters; to press thine untrodden turf; 
to lie in the shadow of thy trees, gazing upon 
thy wild mountain flowers and feathery grasses, 
and listening dreamily to the sweet cadence of 
thy falling music? Chancing upon thee in one 
lonely walk some nine years past, did I not be- 
come the Columbus of thy vernal world ? and 
may not I (as thy discoverer) be pardoned for 
dwelling, perchance too tediously, upon the 
praises of thy beauty ? Hither, then, one gen- 
ial afternoon in May, we came to show the view 
to my cousin Adrienne, and to picnic beside 


the fountain. She had been with us about a 
week; and by this time the first strangeness 
had worn away, and we had become, in all re- 
spects, better acquainted. We were charmed 
with Adrienne. Already she had fascinated us, 
as she fascinated every one through life, with 
her graceful kindness of manner j her deep feel- 
ing for truth and beauty ; her airy wit and play- 
ful bearing. Susceptible alike to pleasure or 
sadness sunny, yet variable now childlike, 
enjoying now womanly, tender it was impos- 
sible to determine when, or in what mood, she 
seemed most winning. Hers was a nature wild, 
beautiful, capricious a soul 

" Where shadows dark and sunlight sheen 
Alternate come and go!" 

On this sweet day of May how fair and sea- 
sonable she looked, like a delicate May flower, 
and how her bright laugh cheered the rugged 
mountain-path, and lapsed in with the water- 
song of the fountain ! Theophile was in high 
spirits, looked handsome, flushed, excited. My 
mother unbent for once, and smiled, and con- 
versed gayly. Even I, silent, distant, unsocial 
as I am, grew cheerful, even conversational, un- 
der the influence of that bright sky, that fount- 
ain nook, tha.t magical presence ! 

We were very happy. We admired the view 
we sat under the shadow of a mountain ash 
we opened the basket of sandwiches which The- 
ophile and I had carried alternately up the 
mountain we cooled our Champagne bottles 
in the running stream, and chinked our glasses 
laughingly together we made a wreath of oak- 
leaves, roses, and green berries, and placed it 
upon Adrienne's golden hair we poured a liba- 
tion of red wine into the dancing waters, and 
drank to the " flowery - kirtled naiad" of the 
fountain we chatted we jested we sang in 
short, we yielded up our whole hearts to the in- 
fluence of the hour and the place, "giving no 
thought to the morrow." 

"How pleasant it is," observed my mother, 
looking round with a contented smile, "to be 
assembled up here, on this beautiful day, where 
no one can interrupt or find us ! Do you know, 
these trees this landscape this 'enameled 
sward,' as it is called by the romancists nay, 
the very wine-glasses yonder, remind me irre- 
sistibly of the Decamerone ?" 

" I had often wondered," said Adrienne, sud- 
denly, "who it was that originated that hack- 
neyed simile, 'enameled sward;' but the other 
day I found it somewhere in the ' Purgatorio' 
of Dante. He calls it ' la verde smalto.' How 
pretty it is in Italian!" 

"How pretty any thing is in Italian!" ex- 
claimed Theophile. "Why, a Neapolitan fisher- 
man might swear at you for an hour, and you 
could almost fancy that he was addressing to 
you the choicest compliments if you did not 
understand the language. I have heard them 
at it many a time in the Chiaja. Two of the 
fellows, with their scarlet caps and black curly 
beards, will stand face to face, leaning against 
the doors of their houses, or even lying lazily on 


MY BKOTHER'S WIFE. 


11 


the ground, and swear at each other in the most 
deliciously intonated liquid tones for hours to- 
gether. It is one of their national amusements. " 

" How horrible ! And perhaps one assassin- 
ates the other afterward!" 

"By no means. That is quite a lady's no- 
tion ! They are the greatest cowards imagina- 
ble. They quarrel, they glare upon each other, 
they swear to their heart's content, but they nev- 
er come to blows. And these men's forefathers 
were the masters of the world ! Alas! degener- 
ate Italy, once the birthplace of heroes and the 
garden of Europe!" 

"But it is a garden still!" cried Adrienne, 
warmly. "It has lost its Caesars, but not its 
vineyards, its olive-groves, its fair Lombardian 
plains!" 

"True, mademoiselle,"! said, turning toward 
her and taking up the theme. "True, it is a 
garden, but a garden in ruins a garden such as 
your English Shelley describes in the ' Sensitive 
Plant' such as Hood pictures in his 'Haunted 
House.' Rarest exotics spring up side by side 
with the nettle and the deadly nightshade ; the 
fountain is choked and moss-grown; the very 
sun-dial is broken, for what need is there to mark 
the progress of Time where Time finds nothing 
to record ? There are statues also, defaced, neg- 
lected, lying in the grass ; the present genera- 
tion, plodding idly on, treads them deeper and 
deeper into the clay; the traveler, the stranger, 
alone reverences and, re-erects them. They are 
the statues of Dante of Petrarch of Ariosto 
of Tasso !" 

"Do not omit my favorite Metastasio," said 
Adrienne, who listened while I spoke with a 
bright, earnest gaze peculiar to herself, and which 
I have never seen on any other countenance. 
"I so delight in his long musical periods, and, 
for the sake of his harmony, pardon the monot- 
ony of his plots. And pray do not forget that 
noble woman who lavished such exquisite verses 
on so worthless a husband I mean Vittoria Co- 
lonna." 

"It appears to me," observed my mother, qui- 
etly, " that your remarks are very partial. Pray, 
has Italy no modern poets and historians, no 
men of eminence whatever ? Have you nothing 
to say for Manzoni for Casti for Pellico ?" 

' ' Not much, ' ' replied Adrienne, smiling. '"I 
Promissi Sposi' is tedions, and as for ' Gli Ani- 
mali Parlanti, ' it is very uninteresting ; Gay's 
and La Fontaine's Fables are worth a thousand 
of it. Pellico's prison-narrative is perfection, 
and has, I suppose, become a classic in almost 
every language. I have not read his poetry." 

" His poetry ! " echoed The'ophile. " Oh, de- 
fend me from his poetry ! I once attempted to 
read his tragedy of 'Francesca de Rimini, 'but 
I could get no farther than the end of the first 
act. It is a feeble imitation of Alfieri ; and his 
long romanza, ' La Pia,' founded on a passage 
in Dante, is a weary performance, in I know not 
how many cantos. The original is four lines 
long, and one of the sweetest, saddest, briefest 
stories ever written in verse." 


" I remember it," said Adrienne. " It is the 
tale of Madonna Pia. Her husband took her to 
a castle in the marshes of Volterra, and there 
watched her fade and die beneath the noxious 
influence of the malaria incidental to the swamps. 
A fearful vengeance !" 

' ' Fearful indeed, and national ; like the 
swearing," said Theophile. "The Italian is 
cruel and cowardly ; or, rather, he was both, but 
now he is only the latter." * 

"But Italy has, within the last forty years, 
produced several lyric poets of considerable mer- 
it," I said, after a pause. "Do you know any 
thing of Rosetti, Berchet, Leopardi ?" 

Adrienne shook her head, and I went on. 
" Rosetti is a revolutionary poet, full of fire 
and military ardor. His songs relate chiefly to 
the Neapolitan disturbances of 1820 and 1837. 
There is one commencing ' Cittadini air ar- 
mi!' (Oh, citizens, to arms!), and another 
'L'Asilo e I'Arpa deW Esilio' (The Home and 
the Harp of the Exile), both of which are ad- 
mirable, and have the heart of a patriot beating 
in every line. He was exiled in consequence, 
and fled to England. Berchet, too, is well wor- 
thy your attention. His political romanzas are 
both novel and affecting." 

"And Leopardi ?" asked Adrienne. " Is he 
equally clever?" 

" He has not written so much as either of the 
others, and the little which we have is, for the 
most part, fragmentary. But it is graceful, 
fresh, suggestive, like the ballad-poetry of Uh- 
land and Miiller. There is one little strophe 
of his which pleased me so much, and is so ut- 
terly Germanic in style and conception, that I 
translated it into English. I think I can re- 
member it, and you shall tell me if you like it : 
" Parted from thy native bough, 
Whither, whither goest thou, 

Leaflet frail? 
From the beech-tree where I grew 

In the vale, 
From the woods all wet with dew, 

Lo 1 the wind hath torn me ! 
O'er the mountain tops he blew, 
And hither he hath borne me ! 
With him wandering for aye, 

Until he forsakes me, 
I, with many others, stray, 
Heedless where he takes me. 

Where the leaf of laurel goes, 
And the leaflet of the rose." 

"That is delicious !" said Adrienne, her eyes 
filled with tears. " It is simple, yet how sweet ! 
Without uttering it in words, it seems to suggest 
a feeling of Life and its shadowy Beyond. What 
is its title?" 

"I call it 'The Leaf and the Breeze;' but 
the poet has only prefixed to it the inappropri- 
ate and modest word ' Imitazione.' It would 
make a beautiful song for music." 

"Yes ; but the composer must also be a poet. 
Mendelssohn should have done it, with his pro- 
found feeling and picturesque mannerism. I 
shall ask you for a copy of that poem the orig- 
inal as well as the translation." 

The sun was now sinking lower and lower on 
the horizon, and shining crimsonly through the 
belt of amber vapor that skirted the landscape 


12 


MY BROTHER'S WIFE. 


all around. The air,' too, grew somewhat chill 
upon that mountain height ; and the birds, twit- 
tering softly, came wheeling round the trees and 
fluttering in among the leaves to their nests in 
the branches. 

The conversation dropped, and we sat for 
some time gazing at the sunset. Then, as if by 
common consent, we looked into one another's 
faces, and rose up fronTour pleasant seat beneath 
the mountain ash. It had been a happy day ; 
but the sweetest poem must end, and we felt that 
this had come to a conclusion. 

So we bade farewell to La Fontaine aux Hoses, 
and went down silently into the brown shadows 
of the valley. 


CHAPTER IV. 

DREAMING. 

WE have an old French proverb which says 
" Le bien vient en dormant." Better had it been 
written "L'amour vient en dormant," which it 
truly does. Love ! why the very word hath 
some such slumberous spell in the mere sound 
of it ! Doth it not come to us, for the most part, 
gradually, imperceptibly as a dream to our 
sleeping? Nay, is it not a dream, a golden gos- 
samer dream, transfiguring the shows of Earth, 
and clothing all Life as in a divine garment? 

In the semblance of a dream it came to me ; 
and I knew it not until the time arrived when I 
could no longer deny it, even to myself. I loved 
her. I loved her passionately. I loved her 
with all the force of a heart long silent and long 
solitary, and yet I did not discover it for many 
weeks. Be it not supposed, for this reason, that 
I loved suddenly. Ah ! no. I had felt the joy 
at my heart, though I knew not whence it came. 
I had seen new gladness in life in thought 
in the world. My tongue had been loosened in 
speech, so that I sat no longer like a misanthrope 
among others, but, emboldened by her presence, 
learned to pour forth my thoughts, if not with 
eloquence, at least with that earnestness which 
befits a true man. And she had listened to me 
listened with attention with smiles it might 
be, sometimes, with tears. Oh, blessed time 
when I loved and knew it not ! Oh, still more 
blessed morning of early June when I first in- 
terpreted the sweet new secret of my heart ! It 
happened thus : 

I had risen early earlier than was usual with 
me; for I awoke soon after day, and could 
not sleep again. Aimlessly, carelessly, with 
thoughts elsewhere busy, I strolled into my 
painting-room, and, taking my accustomed seat, 
leaned my head upon my hand, and gazed va- 
cantly upon the half-finished picture that stood 
before me on the easel. 

It was an interior how well I remember it ! 
a church interior, lofty, pillared, gloomy with 
shadow and deep-stained oriels; empty, save a 
few scattered worshipers kneeling on the polish- 
ed flags in the foreground; with vacant altar, 


and long tenebrous aisles lighted dimly in the 
distance. An interior such as I delighted to 
imagine ; for, as I have said, I had a true love 
and appreciation of cathedral architecture, es- 
pecially of that order called the Flamboyant 
Gothic. 

Thus thinking and looking, I resumed the, 
palette and brushes close at hand, and began, as 
it were mechanically, to fill in the outline of a 
female figure kneeling before a confessional in 
the foreground. The confessional itself, with 
carved foliage and cherubim, and florid pedi- 
ment and traceried lattice, stood, half hidden, 
in a dark angle of shadow ; but I had so con- 
trived that a single thread of light, falling through 
a partially opened door, should irradiate the 
face and head of the penitent almost like an 
emblematic glory. 

On this head and face I worked, still absent- 
ly, still with thoughts intent on other things. 
Strange, that the eye and the hand should toil 
on without the master-guidance of the mind ! 
Stranger yet that the eye and the hand should, 
all unconsciously, respond to that inner work- 
ing, and begin shaping forth the hidden thought 
upon the canvas, visibly realizing the invisible ! 

Suddenly I dropped the pencil started rose 
returned, and looked long and earnestly, till 
the gathering tears blotted out and blurred the 
picture from my sight. 

In that face I had painted the face of Adri- 
enne! 

I can not tell now how long I stood there 
gazing gazing, or in what vague, unreflecting 
state of confused happiness I was ; but, all at 
once, a sudden flush overspread my counte- 
nance I trembled I turned away from the pic- 
ture I paced rapidly up and down the room. 

" Yes, Adrienne,"! cried aloud, with passion- 
ate vehemence, "I love thee! I love thee!" 

Oh happy secret, so welcome and so beauti- 
ful ! And yet, even then, I seemed both to re- 
joice at and fear it ! 

The room felt close and oppressive. I could 
scarcely breathe. 

I threw open the windows, and stepped out 
into the morning. 

There was a warm soft air abroad, heavy to 
the sense, and somewhat obscuring the distant 
landscape. The turf sent up a pleasant odor 
of fresh earth. The sky was dull and gray. 
Every now and then a breath of fresh breeze 
came sweeping over the fields, bearing with it 
a perfume of sweet hay and May blossom, and 
shaking the bright drops from off the broad 
leaves of the chestnuts and acacias. The trees 
in the garden looked round and shadowy. The 
grass was full of tiny yellow flowers, and stretch- 
ed out in one broad green and golden sweep 
down to the river bank. All was still and slum- 
brous in the dreamy atmosphere of the June 
morning. 

Forth I went, restless intoxicated, with a 
fountain of gladness welling up from my heart. 
Forth I went, across the long wet grass and into 
the shade of the tall trees. I looked back at 


MY BROTHER'S WIFE. 


13 


the chateau, with its steep roof, its long ranges 
of small glittering windows, and its quaint point- 
ed slate-roofed turrets. It was my chateau, the 
chateau of my fathers, and I thought in my 
heart how fair would life be were she the mis- 
tress of those gray old walls. To the left I saw 
her window, curtained and closed. I stretched 
out my arms as if embracing her, and again I 
said, 

" I love thee, Adrienne ! I love thee !" 

I passed out of the wicket-gate and into the 
forest beyond. The sun came slowly out, and 
the birds sang in the boughs. There were wild 
strawberry-blossoms and violets under my feet 
green leaves, and sunshine, and openings of 
blue sky overhead. A young lizard, feeble, 
emerald-hued, half-stupefied, lay in my path, 
and I stooped down and placed it on one side 
amid some high soft grasses ; for my heart was 
full of love, even for the green lizard. Then 
the shade grew deeper. The clouds met, and 
melted into a shower, and I uncovered my head 
and looked up, and let the warm rain-drops 
splash heavily upon my brow. Then the sun 
came -out again ; and the birds rejoiced and 
shook their sleek plumage, and sang more mer- 
rily than before. And I went on, still on, amid 
the living stillness of the forest, with a new fire 
in my eye and a new freedom in my step, and 
with the same words of foolish exultation ever 
on my lips, 

"I love thee! I love thee!" 

Once I paused and asked myself, "Art thou 
beloved also?" But with the question came a 
doubt, and the heavens were darkened. Then 
I said, "Let me be happy, if it be only for this 
one day!" And I dismissed the question and 
the doubt, and went forward blindly rejoicing 
rejoicing that I had seen, that I loved her 
wishing that she might remain in Burgundy 
forever drinking in hope and joy from every 
sight and sound : from the rustling of the leaves, 
from the song of the wood-birds, from the hum 
of the wild bees. 

" Ahi con che affetto araore e il del pregai,* 
Che fosse eterno si dolce soggiorno ; 
Ma fu la speme al ver lunge assail" 

Dreaming, dreaming consciously dreaming, 
and refusing to be awakened ! 


CHAPTER V. 

WAKING. 

THERE is a German tradition respecting a 
certain Saint Elizabeth of Marburg, who, in 
proof of her sanctity, hung out her washing to 
dry on a sunbeam. To this saint, by one of 
those strange contradictory impulses of our na- 
ture which sometimes contrast the saddest with 
the most ludicrous things, I involuntarily com- 
pared myself, as I sat silently, apart in a dark 
corner of the salon some few evenings after my 

* TRANS. Ah! with what earnestness did I pray to 
Heaven and Love that so sweet a stay should be eternal; 
but my hopes were far from anticipating the truth ! 


ramble in the forest. Had I not trusted to an 
illusion as glittering, as beautiful, as unsub- 
stantial ? Had I not hung my hopes on a sun- 
beam? 

Alas ! it needed but a brief time to work this 
change to steal the brightness from my dream 
and the hope from my heart. 

The'ophile loved her. I was convinced that 
he loved her. HaQ I not seen him walking be- 
side her in the garden-paths on the evening of 
that day that one happy day ; and had it not 
chilled me even then, although I knew not why ? 
Since that time had not his attentions been re- 
doubled? Was he not hovering round her at 
all hours ? Sitting beside her at table ? Rid- 
ing with her? Walking with her? Reading 
to her while she sat embroidering under the la- 
burnums? Nay, is he not at this moment hang- 
ing over her, as she looks through the music 
lying loosely upon the piano, and allows her 
fingers to wander idly along the ivory keys? 
Is she not listening, with head half turned aside 
listening to his low speaking, and thinking 
nothing of piano or music ? 

My mother is not present, and I am affecting 
to read by the waning twilight. They are quite 
at the farther end of the room, and they speak 
in that subdued tone which people's voices are 
so apt to assume in the dusky hour. I watch 
them jealously over the edge of my book. I 
can not hear any thing they say. I neither 
wish nor try to hear ; but I can not help look- 
ing at them ; and, though I turn resolutely to 
the window every now and then, I find myself, 
the very next minute, falling back into the old 
posture. I am very unhappy very lonely! 
" Ah !" I think bitterly to myself, " if she could 
but know how I love her ! if she could but judge 
between us, and choose the one who loves her 
best!" 

Theophile is still bending over her lower, 
lower! His yellow curls shine through the 
gloom. How handsome he is ! There is a mir- 
ror near me (the room is paneled with mir- 
rors), and I look up, with an angry pang, at my 
own sallow, sorrowful countenance. What ! am 
I envious already? Envious as well as jealous? 
I feel the hot blood flush up to my face for very 
shame I struggle resolutely with my own heart 
I fix my eyes upon the book, but the letters 
waver, and grow distorted, and swim before 
them. Now I reproach myself. After all, it 
is I, and only I, who am to blame ! Why, I 
loved her from the first. I loved her from that 
very night, five long weeks ago, when she first 
sat before my eyes, so pale, so silent, so beauti- 
ful, in that dining parlor below ! Why did I 
not try to win her then, even then, and every 
succeeding day? Why did I leave the field 
open to another? I have education, I have 
heart, I have a wild latent poetry in my nature 
wherewith I might have won a woman's love as 
easily as with perfumed locks, and compliments, 
and a low flattering voice! Pshaw! am I a 
man, that I should have sat thus tamely by 
and lost the treasure without a single effort ? 


MY BROTHER'S WIFE. 


Would she not despise me now if she knew how 
I loved, how I loitered, how I suffered ? 

Thinking thus, I lash myself to fury. I feel 
an impulse upon me to utter my rage aloud 
to pace violently up and down the room to tear 
the book to pieces which I hold in my hand ! 
But, for all this, I sit still and silent. I press 
my lips together, and clench my hands till the 
nails wound the palm. I becbme alternately hot 
and cold. I endure a martyrdom of envy, jeal- 
ousy, and remorse; and still I sit watching them 
over the edge of my book, and still The'ophile 
bends down to Adrienne till his yellow curls al- 
most meet the soft braids of her lustrous hair! 

All at once she touches the instrument again, 
and plays some few notes of a very simple, but a 
plaintive symphony. The'ophile draws back and 
leans against the wall, listening. I breathe more 
freely now that the distance between them is 
greater. Presently the notes of the symphony 
become fewer and fainter, like the last drops of 
a shower there is a moment of suspense then 
her delicious voice, modulated to a low, clear 
under-tone, inexpressibly pathetic and sweet, 
sings this little ballad : 

" Oh, lady, thou art fair and free 

As are the heavens above thee ! 
A student I, of low degree 
What wouldst thou say if thou couldst see 

This heart, which dares to love thee? 

" Thou hast been told that rank and state 

Are gifts beyond all prizing. 
The poet singing at thy gate 
Were all too lowly for thy hate, 

Too poor for thy despising ! 
M So proud, and yet so angel-sweet ! 

I fall down and adore thee : 
And oh ! whene'er we chance to meet, 
I stand back in the public street, 

And bare my head before thee. 
"'Tis said that thou wilt wedded be 

To some more noble lover. 
To-day the bells ring out for thee, 
To-morrow they will toll for me, 

When all my tears are over. 

" What radiant party passes by 

With plumes and pennons flying? 
Thy wedding train ? Nay, then, will I 
Straight in thy path all prostrate lie 
One look, love ! I am dying !" 

The song is a simple song enough a transla- 
tion of a little German ballad and yet it moves 
me deeply. Toward the last verse her voice 
grows lower and lower, with breaks and pauses, 
and at last trembles, fails, sobs forth despairing- 
ly then ceases altogether. 

When it is ended The'ophile applauds, enrap- 
tured ; and I sit speechless, feeling as if a sor- 
rowful hand had been laid upon my heart. Per- 
haps it is the revulsion of feeling from wild rage 
to melancholy perhaps it is that the'little story 
conveyed in those simple verses touches a chord 
in my own breast answers to a thought in my 
own 'mind. At all events, it utterly subdues and 
saddens me. 

Once more Theophile bends down. By this 
time it has grown so dusk that his yellow locks 
are no longer visible. I still sit silently in the 
dark corner, affecting to read, and my tears fall 
slowly and heavily, one by one, upon the open 
pages. 


CHAPTER VI. 

THE END OF THE FIRST ACT. 

"WiSH me happiness, monfrlre!" said The- 
ophile, springing up from his chair, and advan- 
cing toward me with outstretched hands. 

It was in my mother's breakfast parlor. She 
was sitting near the window, with her hands ly- 
ing folded together on her lap, and some pens 
and paper spread upon the little work-table be- 
side her. Sire turned her face slowly toward me 
as I entered. There was a faint flush on her 
cheeks. She looked agitated, but happy. 

" Yes, Paul," she said, with a voice slightly 
tremulous, "to-day you must rejoice with us. 
Your brother is engaged to Adrienne. "" 

So, then, it was over ! I felt myself turn pale ; 
but I was very calm. 

"I have expected this, madame," I said. "It 
does not surprise me." 

" Indeed ! Well, it is not surprising. They 
are so suited to each other in every respect." 
And my mother looked up admiringly in my 
brother's face. "It is a most happy event!" 
she added, with a sigh. 

"A most happy event, madame," I echoed. 

"And so advantageous with regard to prop- 
erty. Adrienne is rich." 

" A clear rent-roll of three hundred thousand 
francs per annum !" interrupted Theophile, joy- 
ously. "We shall be very rich. I mean to buy 
the Hauteville estate for our country residence. 
It is just announced for sale. Did you hear of 
it?" 

I shook my head. I could not trust my voice 
to speak. 

" Yes, it is announced at last for two hund- 
red and fifty thousand francs ! It is a high price, 
but I am determined to have it, for it was for- 
merly one of the possessions of our family. Be- 
sides, we shall, of course, live a great deal in 
Paris, and we can come down here every sum- 
mer en retraite. Will it not be charming ?" 

" Charming, indeed." 

Strange! the harsh, level tones of my voice, 
so cold, so mechanical, seemed scarcely to pro- 
ceed from my own lips, but sounded to my ear 
as if they were uttered near me by some other 
speaker. 

"It is really remarkable that the Hauteville 
property should be vacant so opportunely. Noth- 
ing could have happened better. And when we 
come down, to be so close to you ! Why, it will 
be almost the same as living at home ! We can 
have a path laid down through the shrubbery, 
and a gate of communication, and so run from 
one house to the other in a few moments." 

"And I shall see you for many weeks in ev- 
ery year, " said my mother, with the tears stand- 
ing in her eyes. 

' c Weeks ! nay, months, ma chere mere, " said 
The'ophile, kissing her hand. "I have so many 
plans so many improvements in my head ; and 
I shall superintend all the alterations myself. 
There is a moat there which I mean to have 
filled up; timber to be felled; conservatories 


MY BROTHER'S WIFE. 


15 


and out-houses to build ; stables to repair. Oh ! 
it will need an army of workmen, and I must 
come down to see that every thing is carried out 
as I wish. I shall be here for a long time in the 
autumn. Besides, Adrienne is so fond of Bur- 
gundy !" 

Plans improvements alterations ! Alas! 
gentle lady, had I been thy choice, methinks 
there would have been less thought of thy 
wealth, and more, far more of thee ! 

I fancy that even my mother, with all her love 
for The'ophile, and all her native coldness of dis- 
position, felt this, for she turned the conversa- 
tion. 

"Adrienne is a charming demoiselle," she 
said. " I like the English system of education, 
it is so solid. She is not only accomplished, 
but amiable, polished, and thoroughly well- 
read." 

"And so beautiful, mother! How she will 
be admired in Paris ! We must take a man- 
sion in the Chaussee d'Antin, and she shall have 
a fixed reception-evening in each week." 

"The'ophile is very happy, is he not?" said 
my mother, appealing directly to me for a reply. 
"It would have been impossible for him to have 
made a more eligible connection !" 

"Impossible, madame,"! said, huskily. 

"Your brother now receives from me an in- 
come of one hundred thousand francs yearly; 
but it is my intention henceforth to double that 
sum. They must not be too unequally matched 
in point of fortune. However, at my death, 
The'ophile's property will be as large as that of 
his wife. But this is not to the purpose. We 
wished to ask you, Paul, if you would object to 
receive them here on their return from the wed- 
ding tour ? The Hauteville chateau can not be 
got ready for them in time ; and they might 
take the whole of the right wing without incon- 
venience to any of us ; for you, although mas- 
ter here, occupy only a suite of three rooms." 

"Be it so, madame,"! replied, absently. 

"Thank you. I will take care that none of 
our arrangements shall disturb you. The mar- 
riage, of course, must take place here. We 
ought to give a ball and fete upon the occasion." 

"Certainly!" cried The'ophile "that is, if 
Paul permits it. There are many whom I 
should wish to ask from Paris, besides all the 
neighbors here. And we must have sports for 
the tenanti'y, and " 

"And Adrienne must be asked if she would 
not like to invite some English friends," inter- 
rupted my mother. 

"The'ophile !" said a voice from the garden. 
"The'ophile!" 

I started. My icy self-possession, hitherto 
so stoically preserved, threatened to give way at 
the sound of that sweet voice which called so 
familiarly upon his name. In one instant the 
full sense of my desolation rushed upon me. 
In that single word, revealing so much of love 
and home, I seemed to see all the extent of 
happiness which I had lost ! . 

The'ophile sprang to the window. 


" I will bring her here," he cried, as he step- 
ped out upon the terrace and flew to meet her. 
I turned toward the door. I could not stay 
to see them return together. 

"Madame," I said, articulating the words 
hoarsely and with difficulty, "Madame, this 
house, and all that it contains, is at your dis- 
posal, and and at my brother's. Make any 
arrangements you think proper, but do nut do 
not take the trouble to consult me !" 

There must have been a strange unusual 
something in my tone, or in the expression of 
my countenance, for my mother turned sudden- 
ly, looked at me, and half rose from her chair. 

"Mon Dieu!" she said, hurriedly, "what is 
the matter?" 

My hand was on the lock I trembled in ev- 
ery limb I heard their voices approaching 
nay, I heard the very rustle of Adrienne's dress 
upon the terrace ! 

"Nothing, madame," I said, and closed the 
door. 

Scarcely master of myself, I ran along the 
corridor and across the hall. My favorite 
hound, who had been lying near the door of 
the library, came bounding toward me ; but I 
spurned him with my foot and passed on. In 
the library I paused and looked around with a 
kind of angry despair. 

"Alas ! ye books," I cried, "of what use are 
ye ? Poets, philosophers, historians, what do 
you teach us ? Can you give us peace or wis- 
dom ? Be ye accursed ! Man in his savage 
state alone is happy!" 

The curtain that led to the painting-room 
was drawn aside. Pacing up and down, back- 
ward and forward, raging in my strong passion 
like a caged panther, I went in. 

These scenes of my former occupations seem- 
ed hateful to me. What was art, or science, or 
literature to me, now or henceforward ? Tricks, 
phantasms, accursed phantasms, all ! 

A cast of the Medicean Venus stood in my 
path. I dashed it down with one blow of my 
hand, and* trampled the smiling features into 
dust and fragments. The last work of my 
hands the unfinished interior stood yonder 
on the easel. I advanced toward it and ex- 
tended a destructive hand then I paused 
stood still dropped upon a seat before it, and 
covering my face with my hands, burst into an 
agony of tears. Adrienne's portrait! Adri- 
enne's portrait, painted there by me a few short 
days ago, and now smiling toward me from the 
canvas ! Oh, fair cousin, how dearly this heart 
loved thee ! 

I know not what burning visions, what deso- 
late retrospections, what wild plans for the dim 
future passed through my mind as I sat there 
with my head bent down upon the easel, and my 
whole being convulsed by strong, deep sobs. I 
know not how long I even remained there, for I 
took no heed of time, or of the broad day be- 
yond. I had arrived at one of those terrible 
epochs of man's existence, when the highway 
of life threads that solemn valley of the shadow 


16 


MY BROTHER'S WIFE. 


of death when to look back is misery ; to look 
forward, despair when the storm-clouds gather 
overhead, and thick darkness lies every where 
around; and the wayfarer pauses, trembling, 
and awaits his destiny. He is bewildered, reck- 
less, helpless against others, helpless against 
himself and his own impulses. Evil from with- 
out, evil from within, combine to torture him. 
A word may destroy, a word may save him ! 
Alas for him if, in that hour, there be none at 
hand to guide, to console, to pray for him ! 

My tears had ceased to flow a struggling 
sob broke now and then from my lips my head 
was still buried in my hands. Within, all was 
black misery. Without, the day bent toward 
the west, and the shadows lengthened in the 
level sunlight. 

Hush ! 

The outer door was cautiously opened, and, 
after the lapse of a few moments, closed as cau- 
tiously. I heard it; but, as one might hear 
through sleep, without receiving any impression 
from the sound. Light footsteps crossed the' 
library paused at the second door approach- 
ed nearer and nearer ; and still I heard without 
heeding. Then there was the rustling of silken 
garments at my side, and a hand was laid upon 
mine a cold slender hand, whose touch roused 
me in a moment like an elective shock. 

I sprang to my feet, grew hot and cold alter- 
nately, tried to speak, but could not. My moth- 
er looked marble -pale. Her eyes wandered 
from rny face to the picture, and back again to 
me, with a mute mournful expression of tender- 
ness and pity, such as I had never seen in that 
gaze before. There was no surprise in her 
countenance no pride, no coldness, no auster- 
ity ; but grief grief only. For some minutes 
we stood thus face to face, with the picture be- 
tween us, both silent. 

"Paul," she said at length, very softly and 
sadly, "why didst thou conceal this ?" My lips 
moved again, but uttered no sound. 

She took my vacant seat, and pointed to" a 
stool beside her. "Come," she sakl, "come, 
Paul, confide in me !" 

My senses seemed bound up in ice, though 
my heart beat wildly. I neither spoke nor 
stirred. 

" Speak to me, my son, speak to me ! Thou 
sufferest may I not weep with thee ?" 

She extended her arms to me. Her words, 
her look, her tone, went to my heart. 

"Oh, my mother!" I cried, wildly, falling 
upon rny knees before her, and hiding my face 
in her lap, " I love her! I love her !" 

She folded her arms around me she pressed 
her lips to my forehead, my burning head to her 
gentle bosom she mingled her tears with mine 
she breathed words of pity and consolation in 
my ears she passed her hands over my hair, 
and called me her son her dear son ! 

Yes, in that dark and bitter moment, I rested 
for the first time oh, God ! for the first time ! 
upon my mother's heart received the first out- 
pourings of my mother's love ! Thanks be to 


Heaven, she saved me I dare not think from 
what ! 

Let me not reveal the particulars of that first 
confidence. It is to me a sweet, almost a sa- 
cred thing. Sufficient if I say that the day de- 
clined lower and lower in the west; that the 
shadows widened and lengthened, and gradual- 
ly overspread all the landscape ; and that I still 
sat at my mother's feet, with her hands clasped 
in both mine, and her eyes looking down upon 
me with that light in them for which, as a child, 
I would have gladly died. At last I rose and 
looked out upon the gathering gloom of even- 
ing. The thought which had been lying silent- 
ly at my heart for many hours must sooner or 
later be uttered. 

"It is getting dark," I said, looking earnestly 
at her. "It is getting dark, my mother. I 
must go now." 

She turned a shade paler, and her lips trem- 
bled. She understood me. 

"You are right, my son," she said. "But 
will you go to-night?" 

I made a mute gesture of assent. It was 
enough. She went into the library, rang for 
refreshments, and desired the attendance of a 
servant. 

" Where wilt thou go ?" she said, after a brief 
absence, during which she and Jeanne had pre- 
pared my valise. "In what direction?" 

"I know not care not." 

"Thou wilt write to me? Good. What 
money hast thou ?" 

I opened my desk. It contained about thirty 
Napoleons, and some notes to the value of eight 
hundred francs. These I placed in my pocket- 
book, saying that they were enough. My moth- 
er shook her head, and laid her own purse upon 
the table before me. 

" Take this," she said ; "it contains a thou- 
sand francs. Nay ! refuse a gift from thy moth- 
er ! Take it I entreat ! It is well. Now go, 
my son, for it will soon be night. Heaven pre- 
serve and bless thee !" 

We went round together to a door at the back, 
opening on a dark lane. Two horses and a 
groom were waiting. Not another soul was 
near, and all the bouse was silent. There we 
parted there I received one more embrace 
one last farewell word and then I rode away 
into the gloom into the unknown Future. 

After galloping some distance, I reined in my 
horse and looked back. But it was too late. 
All was dark ; the limes stood up between ; I 
could not even trace the outline of my old tur- 
reted home. The veil had fallen between her 
life and mine. The first Act of the Drama was 
played out, and ended ! 

I put spurs to the horse I flew madly for- 
ward, with the groom clattering at my heels. 
The eighteen miles were soon past ; we reach- 
ed the Chalons station ; I flung the reins to 
Pierre, seized my valise, and, without even giv- 
ing the faithful fellow a fafewell glance, ran up 
the steps and stopped before the bureau. 

"When does the next train go?" 


MY BROTHER'S WIFE. 


17 


"Directly, monsieur." 

I threw a note on the counter. 

"Where to, monsieur?" 

" As far as it will take me." 

The man passed me the change and the tick- 
et ; the bell rang ; the engine came panting up, 
with its black train ; I ran forward, leaped into 
the first carriage, and in another moment was 
moving on. 

"Pray, monsieur," I said, turning to my near- 
est neighbor, "how far does this train go to- 
night?" 

"ToStrasburg." 


CHAPTER VII. 

STRASBURG. 

A LONG drear night of perpetual traveling, 
broken by snatches of feverish sleep, which 
seemed scarcely sleep, but rather the distress- 
ful wanderings of a mind restless and over-wea- 
ried. The oil lamp flickered vaguely overhead, 
and cast an uncertain glimmer upon the forms 
and faces of my fellow-passengers, all of whom 
were profoundly sleeping. Without were clouds, 
and moonlight, and an ever-shifting panorama 
of the alternating flats, forests, vineyards, and 
steep mountains of South France, all gliding si- 
lently by, and looking ghostly in the moonshine. 
Every now and then there came a steep cutting, 
or a long black tunnel. Sometimes a sudden 
blaze of gas ; a stop ; a hurrying past of quick 
feet; a confusion of loud voices; passengers get- 
ting in and out ; and the entrance of a guard, 
with imperative voice and blazing lantern, mark- 
ed our arrival and brief pause at some station by 
the way. Then came the shrill whistle, and we 
flew on again; trees, mountains, villages, flitting 
past us as before, and ever the low continuous 
bass of our rushing progress sounding along the 
iron roadway. 

Oh ! a weary, weary night, checkered by fan- 
tastic dreams and wakings up to miserable real- 
ities by heart-sickness by sullen melancholy ! 

About three hours after midnight I fell into a 
dull, heavy sleep. It was gray morning when I 
awoke. So profound had been my slumber that 
I started ; stared round at the sleepers ; could 
remember nothing for some moments. My head 
ached ; my lips were parched ; my eyes were 
burning hot, and swollen from the tears of yes- 
terday. Worse than all, an oppressive sense of 
misfortune seemed to weigh upon my chest, 
though what that misfortune was I could not at 
first remember. Alas ! are there any who have 
never so suffered, slept, forgotten ? 

One by one my companions awoke also. 
Three of them were Germans, and they kept 
talking inaudibly among themselves. I fancied 
that I was an object of remark, and I shrank 
back into a corner and feigned to sleep. Grief 
makes us suspicious. 

"How far are we from Strasburg?" asked 
some one near me. 

B 


"Look out," was the reply, "and you will see 
the cathedral spire." 

In a few moments the guard came to collect 
our tickets, and before half an hour we had reach- 
ed the end of our journey. 

I alighted. The unfinished station was crowd- 
ed with carpenters and masons ; the yellow om- 
nibuses from Kehl, with their German drivers, 
were ranged in long rows outside the doors ; 
soldiers, hotel agents, porters, and passengers 
crowded the platform, the waiting-rooms, and 
the square beyond. All was noise, hurry, and 
confusion. Through these I made my way, as 
it were mechanically, for I felt nervous and be- 
wildered. Without, the gray morning had dis- 
solved into a slow continuous rain, and dingy 
vehicles were rattling swiftly to and fro. I 
emerged upon a line of quays, bordering a broad 
turbid river crossed by many bridges. In every 
direction were high, quaint houses, and shops 
with overhanging stories ; and, straight before 
me, showing dimly through the driving rain, 
one sharp, delicate brown spire rose up into the 
gray sky, and I knew that it was the highest 
pinnacle in the world the spire of Strasburg 
Cathedral. 

Keeping my eyes fixed upon this, and follow- 
ing its direction, even when it was no longer in 
sight, I went across a wooden bridge and into 
the broad streets of the town. It was market- 
day, and the open places were all crowded with 
stalls and people. Here were soldiers, German 
and French; peasant -women from over the 
Rhine, with silver-embroidered caps or large 
black bows upon their heads ; mountebanks 
vending cosmetics and articles of mock-jewelry; 
itinerant ballad-singers ; fruit and cake sellers ; 
purchasers and gazers of all ages and of two 
countries, hurrying, loitering, hither and thither 
in the rain, and protected by umbrellas of every 
color and shade. Past the Place Gutenberg I 
went, where stands the bronze statue of the 
First Printer, with his printing-press and types 
beside him through a low vaulted passage, or 
arcade, with mean shops and stalls on either 
s id e U p a turning to the left, at the top of 
which rose the dark cathedral, a mountain of 
perfect architecture. 

Near the entrance I paused, forgetful for the 
moment of every thing but wonder and admira- 
tion, and looked up at the gigantic mass above 
me at the intricate network of arcades and 
buttresses at the thin spire, delicate as an ivo- 
ry carving, and towering up so far into the sky 
that one feeis dizzy, though only looking at it 
from the pavement below at the labyrinthine 
processions of carved figures over the arching 
doorways, where, as a French poet beautifully 
says, 

" Stand the old stone saints in niches hoar; 

Praying so softly praying for the living." 

Inside, the rich golden gloom that pervades 
the pillared aisles, and dims the lofty roof, awed 
and oppressed me. I felt wearied and ill. There 
was scarcely a living creature scarcely the echo 
of a sound. I wandered on, and seated myself 


18 


MY BROTHER'S WIFE. 


upon a stone bench just in front of the singular 
organ, which, with its glowing arabesques, its 
gilding, and its long pendent, terminating in a 
painted carving of Christ riding upon a lion, 
looks more like a stupendous clock than any 
thing else, so fantastic is it, and perched up, as 
it were, so perilously in the very roof of the 
building. 

Nowhere in the world is there so much su- 
perb stained glass as in this Cathedral of Stras- 
burg. The whole interior is dark with beauty, 
steeped in an atmosphere of religious gloom. 
Here are windows dating from the early part of 
the thirteenth century, which "blush with the 
blood of queens and kings" windows crowded 
with mailed champions, and bishops, and royal 
saints, robed in the most gorgeous contrasts of 
color deep red, azure, and orange. To read 
in this dusk is impossible ; and so magical is 
the effect, that persons standing a few paces off 
look dim and transfigured. 

Leaving the cathedral, I passed a motley 
crowd assembled near the south entrance beg- 
gars, market-women, soldiers, peasants, and 
fashionable visitors, all grouped together most 
republicanly, waiting to see the great clock strike 
at noon. Presently the brazen cock crew, and 
the whole paraphernalia of machinery were put 
in motion. Strange mixture of emblems, Chris- 
tian and heathen, of grave science and puppet- 
show puerilities! I wandered into the street, 
with the rest of the spectators, as soon as the 
performance ended. It was still raining heavily. 

"Hotel de Metz, monsieur!" said a dark 
man, who wore a badge suspended rcmnd his 
neck. "Hotel de Metz quite near good 
breakfasts table d'hote at five will monsieur 
permit me to conduct him ?" 

I was worn out mentally and physically, so I 
followed him to a large white hotel near the sta- 
tion, and breakfasted alone at a little table in a 
window overlooking the street. I was weary of 
the noisy life and bustle of this frontier town, 
and longed to escape from it to some green 
peaceful place farther away farther away. 

' The surging crowd went rolling on,- in spite 
of the rain, ever moving, ever changing the 
swell and hum of voices ascended from beneath 
a brass band stationed itself before the house 
some German University students, with spurs 
on their heels, and little crimson cloth caps on 
their heads, came clattering into the room, call- 
ing loudly for "bier und cigarren!" and were 
followed by three or four others wearing tri-col- 
ored caps orange, white, and blue. Theirfrank, 
jovial voices, their peals of laughter, so full of 
young life and enjoyment, jarred painfully upon 
my present mood. I drew back into the cur- 
tained embrasure of the window, and debated 
with myself whither I should go next. To 
Switzerland, by way of Basle, or to Germany, by 
the Rhine ? In my then wearied state of indif- 
ference, it mattered little which. An accident 
decided me. 

"Let us dine together, boys !" said one of the 
noisiest among the students, striking his com- 


panion on the shoulder. " Let us all dine here, 
or at the Rothes Haus, and then go to the thea- 
tre. There's to be a new play to-night ! " 

"I can not," said one of the crimson caps, 
moodily. " I must go back this afternoon to 
the old mill." 

" To Heidelberg ?" 

The student nodded. 

"Confoundedly dull place, that Heidelberg, 
is it not?" 

" Oh, confoundedly ! Nothing going on from 
one year's end to another." 

4 ' No amusements ? No theatres ? No gam- 
ing-rooms?" 

"Nothing of the sort. It's so terribly out of 
the way, you know, that none but honeymoon- 
tourists and young ladies with sketch-books and 
camp-stools come near the place. The only fun 
we ever have is beering, boating, and dueling." 

"Abominable!" "Intolerable!" chimed the 
rest, to the friendly music of the clinking glasses. 

Heidelberg ! 

Why not to Heidelberg, oh Paul Latour ? To 
that ancient abode of learning in the Neckar 
Valley to that low ruined fortress on the 
"shores of old Romance," whence the tide of 
life hath long since retreated into the great 
ocean which is eternal ? 

So to Heidelberg I went. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

HEIDELBEEG SCHLOSS. 

IT was already somewhat late in the morning 
when I drew aside my window-curtains at the 
Hotel Adler, expecting to look out upon the cas- 
tle ruins, and saw instead the steep narrow road- 
way, with its high rock-wall, the small flint 
pavement, and the usual Continental gutter, now 
swollen by the rain, running swiftly and broadly 
down the centre of the street. Overhead, the sky 
was blue and sunny, with large snowy clouds 
floating across, one after another, like an army 
with white banners. A party of laughing girls 
went up toward the castle, riding upon donkeys, 
and then some pedestrian tourists ; so I also 
hastened out, and proceeded to make my way 
up the toilsome ascent. The birds sang and 
darted about in the air; little children were 
playing upon door-steps ; the poultry strutted 
up and down ; and I passed two or three little 
knots of women and old men preparing plates 
of horn for combs a trade much followed in. 
Heidelberg. 

Shall I describe the Castle of Heidelberg, that 
red old ruin, standing midway up a fir-Avooded 
mountain, which is chapel, fortress, and palace 
in one ? Alas ! no. It has been done too well 
and too often. For such word-painting, oh 
reader, turn thee to the pages of that prose-poem 
which ascends from the shores of the New World 
like a steam of golden incense offered up to the 
glories of the Old. Those pages will tell unto 
thee, in such lordly language as befits the theme, 


MY BROTHER'S WIFE. 


of the triumphal gateway with its leaf-carved 
pillars, which was erected in one night by com- 
mand of the Elector Frederick V., that his En- 
glish bride might pass through it on the morrow, 
and which is still called, in remembrance of her, 
the Elizabethan Pforte, or Elizabeth's Portal 
of the second gate, where the iron teeth of the 
portcullis yet threaten overhead of the silver 
shield that was stolen from its place above the 
entrance by the French besiegers of the two 
grotesque gigantic stone figures which stand, in 
the guise of armed warders, on either side of 
the glorious fa9ades of the Friedrichsbau and 
the Italian Rittersaal of Otto Henry, with their 
statues of knights and heroes, their cornices, en- 
tablatures, and rich mouldings, and blank open 
windows where the blue sky shines through 
of the blasted tower and its leafy linden-trees 
waving on the top of the canopied well of royal 
Charlemag*ne of the tower of the library of 
the deserted chapel, with its blue marble altar, 
and the paintings spared by the destroying light- 
ning yet suspended, all faded and blackened, 
above the different shrines of the armory, and 
the clock-tower, and the great tun, and of all the 
beauty and romance of that rare old building, 
which is, "next to the Alhambra of Granada, 
the most magnificent ruin of the Middle Ages." 

All these did I see, and more besides ; for I 
wandered in and out the ruins and the garden 
walks as I listed, thinking of many things. For 
the place was to me something more than a 
mere sight than a fine ruin : it was a history 
a poem a prayer. 

In this mood I sat for a long time upon the 
steps of a crumbling solitary tower, where a cher- 
ry-tree grows wild against the wall, and droops 
its fruit-clusters across the very path on which 
you tread. Hence I went down and wandered 
through the interior of the castle, seeing the tun 
and the wooden image of the jester ; the dun- 
geons, and the collection of old paintings. 

But oh ! the first sight of that view from the 
garden wall the town beneath, with its slate- 
roofed University, its church spires, and its 
bridge the shallow turbid Neckar eddying 
through the arches the broad, level Rhine-val- 
ley, with its vineyards, and corn-fields, and 
flashes of the river here and there the dark 
green Odenwald; and the dim, distant Hartz 
Mountains fading on the horizon, with the 
spire of Strasburg Minster showing up midway 
upon the plain ! The immensity of the circuit 
bewildered and oppressed me, and I gazed so 
long and so earnestly that the bright sunlight 
dazzled me, and the near and the far were con- 
founded together upon my sight. 

" Eine schone Aussicht, mein Herr!" (a fine 
prospect, sir!) said a pleasant voice close beside 
me. 

I turned. A tall, fair young man, with an 
open book in his hand and a long German 
pipe at his lips, was standing at my elbow, with 
his arms resting upon the parapet. An almost 
indefinable something in his accent, in the fash- 
ion of his dress, in the free-falling cm*ls of his 


light brown hair, and the frank cheerfulness of 
his address, told me at once that he was a for- 
eigner. I glanced rapidly at the open book : 
it was Carlyle's "History of the French Revo- 
lution." 

"Indeed, a most divine prospect,"! replied 
in English. "One that might drive a painter 
to despair." 

The young man colored. 

" I suppose," he said, after a moment's hesi- 
tation, "that my countrymen never are to suc- 
ceed in concealing their identity. During the 
two years that I have been here, I have studied 
the peculiarities of the language very earnestly, 
but I have not yet mastered what may be call- 
ed its nationality. How did you know me to 
be an Englishman ?" 

I pointed to the volume in his hand. 

"Your accent told me something," said I, 
smiling, "and your book confirmed my suppo- 
sitions. What do you think of Carlyle ?" 

" Oh, he is magnificent !" exclaimed the En- 
glishman, with some warmth. "A most orig- 
inal genius, and a very Titan in literature. He 
wields words like mountains, and hurls them, 
not at Heaven, but at ' idols' and ' mud-gods.' " 

" His style is very eccentric." 

"Granted; but is it not vivid, earnest, pas- 
sionate? Does he not carry your sympathies 
forcibly along with him?" 

"That is true, especially with regard to his 
history. It lacks, perhaps, the majesty of Gib- 
bon and the lofty grandeur of Macaulay, but it 
is history with a heart in it." 

"And then, notwithstanding the severity of 
his principles and his hatred of 'shams,' what a 
deep well of love, and pity, and even of humor, 
lies buried down in the depths of his nature ! 
Besides, what force and power in his language ! 
It is as if his thoughts were cast in bronze." 

"I perceive, sir," I said, with more cordiali- 
ty than was usual to me when conversing with 
strangers, "that you are an enthusiast for books ; 
but here is an epic that passes the art of the 
poet a history more impressive than any which 
can be related by man. Surely there can be 
no second place on earth so beautiful as this !" 

"If there be, I have not seen it," said the En- 
glishman, "and I have traveled much. Dear 
old Heidelberg!" he continued, facing round to 
the castle, and leaning against the wall with his 
back toward the landscape ; " dear old Heidel- 
berg ! I know every nook, and cranny, and 
owl's-nest in its crumbling walls ! Some of the 
happiest hours of my life have been spent here, 
reading my favorite books under the trees in the 
garden ; dreaming my favorite dreams in unfre- 
quented corners of the ruins ; talking German 
metaphysics with my University friends, beside 
that little fountain bubbling up yonder in the 
sunlight. I believe that, with the one excep- 
tion of the tun-keeper's, those silvered globe- 
mirrors in the court-yard have reflected ho face 
so often as mine for the last two years. I have 
rooms down in the town, but I am scarcely 
ever there unless at night. I almost live up 


20 


MY BROTHER'S WIFE. 


here ; and a fine day, a quiet nook in the ruins, 
my pipe, and a book, are all that I require to 
be perfectly happy. You can't think how I love 
the place, or in what curious fancies and com- 
parisons I delight to indulge respecting it. 
Standing up thus, so lordly and so battle-worn, 
and inclosing within its shattered walls these 
flower-beds and that fairy fountain, it often re- 
minds me of some old disabled warrior with his 
grandchildren smiling on his knee. But night 
is the time for Heidelberg ! Have you been up 
yet by moonlight?" 

I said that I had only arrived at a late hour 
the evening before. 

"Then I envy you the sensations of that first 
view by moonlight. You have not yet an idea 
of the beauty and poetry of the spot. The moon 
rises to-night about ten o'clock.; come to my 
rooms, and I will accompany you. I know all 
the best points of view, and I shall be delighted 
to witness your enjoyment." 

"A thousand thanks; but had you not bet- 
ter call for me ? I am staying at the Hotel Ad- 
ler, half way up the hill. We can sup together 
before we start." 

"As you please. This, too, is the month 
when the nightingales sing sweetest ; and I 
promise you that you will hear such songs 
' shaken from their little throats' to-night as you 
never heard before. By the way, who knows 
but we may even see the spectre-mass in the 
chapel of St. Udalrich !" 

"What is that, pray?" 

" Oh, one of our Heidelberg legends ! We 
have plenty such." 

"Delightful! you shall relate some of them 
to me by moonlight. How glad I am to have 
made your acquaintance!" 

We were friends already ; and the conversa- 
tion thus begun lasted for more than two hours. 
We talked of paintings, and of our favorite 
books ; of Goethe, and Jean Paul, and of Uh- 
land of philosophy of history of the German 
and French character, and of many more things 
than I can now remember. Our tastes seemed 
to agree in most respects ; or, when they differ- 
ed, differed just sufficiently to lend an interest 
to discussion. Averse as I generally am to 
strangers, I was pleased with this young En- 
glishman from the very first. His smile, his 
glance, the cheerful tones of his voice, impressed- 
me favorably. He had read much, and his 
reading had been well chosen. That he was a 
good German, French, and Italian scholar I had 
already discovered ; and the enthusiasm with 
which he spoke of places and of authors showed 
me that he possessed a warm imagination, and 
an almost boyish enjoyment of beauty and talent. 
In a word, he seemed to be good-natured, unaf- 
fected, and a gentleman. It was almost noon 
when we parted, renewing our engagement for 
the evening. My new acquaintance walked 
with me to the door of my hotel, and as we pass- 
ed the restaurateur's in the castle gardens, we 
saw a party of English dining in the open air, 
one of whom exclaimed as we went by, 


"Capital place, this Heidelberg! Magnifi- 
cent old ruin ; and the very best beer I have 
tasted since I left home ! " 


CHAPTER IX. 

NORMAN SEABROOK. 

I KNOW not whether it Avas the heart-suffering 
through which I had passed that made me more 
susceptible to every kindly influence, but I have 
often been surprised when I recall how quickly 
that friendship was formed between Norman 
Seabrook and myself that cordial and manly 
friendship which has ever since been one of the 
greatest joys and consolations of my life ! 

He had so true and just a feeling for poetry 
and art he was so generous, so high-spirited, 
so warm of heart, so earnest of soul, that it would 
have needed a nature far colder and more un- 
grateful than mine to reject the golden gift. 

Not that Norman Seabrook was faultless and 
a hero ! Alas ! no. Our age, reader, bringeth 
forth no heroes. He was simply a young man 
with a good heart, a liberal education, and a 
somewhat indolent and luxurious disposition. 
I never knew any one with so great a capacity 
for enjoyment. The sight of a pretty child, of 
a good picture, sculpture, or engraving, the far 
sounds of music, the summer sky, and the land- 
scapes around Heidelberg, used to afford him 
the keenest sense of delight. He would dwell 
upon a passage from some favorite author with 
a gusto that I used positively to envy ; tracking 
the idea through every possible gradation of 
meaning ; discovering little hidden beauties of 
accentuation and phrasing, and seeming actual- 
ly to taste the inner-sweetness of every deep 
and lovely thought. It was the same with paint- 
ings the same with music the same with rid- 
ing, boating, or walking. He enjoyed every 
occupation to the uttermost, and with the care- 
less glee of a school-boy. He seemed to drink 
in contentment with the very air, and I do not 
know that there was any one thing in which he 
took a greater pleasure than lying upon his 
back in the deep grass upon the river-banks, 
with a pipe in his mouth and a paper of choco- 
late bonbons in his pocket, looking up to the sky 
and the clouds, and suffering his imagination to 
stray unheeded through all the wild untrodden 
ways of thought. 

"There are times," he used sometimes to 
say, " when the heart is more than usually open 
to impressions of beauty when the form of a 
tree, the rustle of a leaf, the piping of a solitary 
bird, are sufficient to fill us with a vague and 
subtle feeling of delight which is more than 
half sadness, and for which no expression can 
be found in language. At such moments how 
beautiful is the world how divine is life! 
What poetry is it only to feel the warm sun ; to 
breathe the pleasant air; to lie in the quivering 
shadows of the trees, or the cool angle of some 
gray ruined wall, and to look up to the blue sky 


MY BROTHER'S WIFE. 


21 


overhead with that unspoken longing of soul 
after the Infinite and the Far which our human 
nature loves to recognize as the stamp of its 
own strange immortality!" 

In all this there was something of the dreamy 
mental self-indulgence peculiar to German the- 
orists, and to that school of poetical philosophy 
which possesses so irresistible a fascination for 
those young men whose imaginations are warm, 
and whose experience of the realities of life has 
been but limited. Norman Seabrook would 
perhaps have been a nobler and more useful 
member of society had his intellectual training 
been less of the Sybarite than the Spartan had 
Bacon, and Newton, and Locke been studied 
rather than Fichte, Swedenborg, and Shubert. 
He would have learned to seek after difficulties, 
that he might overcome them. As it was, he 
only searched for beauty, that he might worship 
it. He shrank instinctively from all that was 
harsh and unprepossessing ; he attached him- 
self, as unconsciously, to every thing that was 
agreeable. No one could say a kind word or 
perform a gracious action more pleasantly than 
he ; but I must confess that, where a distasteful 
duty had to be accomplished, he would delay, 
neglect, and even avoid it, if he could. It was 
the weak point of his character an amiable 
weakness, if you will, and one that was adorned 
by a thousand good and graceful qualities. It 
is often well for a man when he is either poor 
or proud, for the desire either of opulence or 
fame urges him on to play his part as a laborer 
in that field wherein it has been truly said that 
"to work is to worship." Unfortunately for 
Seabrook, he loved knowledge better than fame, 
and he owned a small independence which just 
sufficed, with economy, for the requirements of 
a bachelor. 

"I love books," he said, "and I have where- 
withal to purchase such as I love best. I am 
fond of travel and of Continental life, and I con- 
trive to enjoy it. When I can not afford to 
rent rooms on the first story, I am content with 
the attic ; if my purse be too low for the first 
class in the railway, I do not object to the sec- 
ond or the third. When I am too poor for 
either, I take my knapsack on my shoulders, my 
book in my hand, and walk. After all, this is 
the best traveling. You get a lift by the way 
from some peasants going to a fair or a wed- 
ding ; you gather some grapes from the vine- 
yard or some cherries from the roadside, to eat 
witli the loaf in your pocket at noon ; you go by 
the river-banks, and along the green meadows, 
and at the foot of steep precipices, which the 
fashionable travelers on the high road never 
dream of investigating ; and at night you arrive 
at some little hamlet, with bells ringing and 
cows being driven out to the pasture after milk- 
ing, where you sup at the rustic inn, and listen 
to the legends of the Rhine and the Black For- 
est, as they are told by mine host, over the pipe 
and the ale-jug, when the dusk gathers round, 
and the neighbors come dropping in on their 
way home from the harvest-fields." 


Such was my new friend a dreamer among 
men a loiterer by the wayside on the great 
road of life and endeavor. In my lonely and 
meditative condition of mind, I attached my- 
self to him with my whole soul, and his very 
faults were almost as virtues in my eyes. Dis- 
appointment had worked some evil already upon 
me ; and, placing myself but little value upon 
ambition, how could I blame his indolence, and 
the carelessness of its advantages ? 

We met daily we walked together we read 
each other's favorite books, and studied side by 
side in the University library. We always 
supped and spent the evening together, either 
at my rooms or his ; and sometimes we wander- 
ed up to the castle, or crossed the river to laugh 
away an hour or two among the students who 
frequent the Hirschgasse a little, solitary white 
inn, about half a mile out of Heidelberg, where 
as many as four or five duels take place daily 
among these riotous children of philosophy. 
We also spent long afternoons upon the Neck- 
ar, taking it in turn to row, while one read aloud 
from the pages of some old poet or historian, 
till the pleasant dusk came gently over all, and 
the last brightness faded from the lofty tower 
of the Konigstuhl. Then we would look up- 
ward to the pale moon, and, resting a while 
upon our oars, hear only the falling drops that 
splashed back from them into the river the 
surging of the stream against the banks on 
either side the melancholy cry of the heron 
among the reeds or the lowing herds at the 
homesteads in the valley. 

Oh, those calm, delicious evenings of warm 
June, when the stars came glowing through the 
tranquil depths of sky, and the sun went slowly 
down behind the mountains in the purple dis- 
tance, like a monarch to his grave, clad in scar- 
let and gold ! 

It was on the morning following some such 
evening ramble that I lay at the foot of a clump 
of trees bordering the footpath called The Phi- 
losopher's Walk, about half way up the hill 
fronting the town. In my hand I carried a 
volume of Lamartine's "Meditations Poe- 
tiques;" the sultry air hung heavily upon the 
sense ; scarce a blade of grass waved scarce a 
leaf stirred scarce a bee hummed near me 
All was silent above, below, around. The faint 
murmur from the town came drowsily and at 
intervals. The very river lay sluggishly along 
the landscape, as if torpid beneath the sun. 
Gradually I fell into a dream a waking dream, 
wherein the dim land of the past was wafted 
before me, and the poets of old days walked by 
in their singing-robes, serenely glorious. Sud- 
denly a rapid step came along the path a free, 
firm, careless step that I well knew, and my 
English friend, with his dog at his heels, had 
bounded almost past me before he was aware 
of my presence. 

"Eureka!" he exclaimed, laughing, as he 
stopped short, and flung himself down beside 
me on the grass. ' ' Found at last ! Why, 
man, I have been looking for you in the ruins, 


22 


MY BROTHER'S WIFE. 


and down by the river, and in the library, and 
had just given you up, when it struck ihe that 
you might possibly have strolled in this direc- 
tion. See ! I called for you at the ' Adler,' and 
finding these new arrivals upon your table, I 
put them in my pocket, that you might have the 
pleasure of reading them the sooner." 

And he flung a couple of letters down before 
me. 

This one, so slenderly and accurately direct- 
ed, was evidently from my mother ; that, with 
its rough, dashing superscription all blotted and 
defaced, I recognized for the handwriting of 
Theophile. 

Alas ! the dream-threads were broken, and 
at the sight of those letters the chill remem- 
brances of love, and home, and exile, and dis- 
appointment came back upon me, and broke the 
brief reverie into which I had fallen. I took 
the letters up, laid them down, took them up 
again, turned pale and red by turns, and re- 
mained quite silent. 

"Are they from your family in Burgundy?" 
asked my friend. 

I nodded. 

" But won't you read them ? Pray don't let 
me be an interruption !" 

I dreaded to open them ; and yet how strange 
it would seem were I not to do so ! My moth- 
er's no ! I could not read that one yet ! I 
placed it reverently in my pocket-book, and 
broke the seal of The'ophile's letter. As I did 
so, a vague shuddering dread ran through me, 
and the paper fluttered in my fingers. 

"Read it to me, mon ami!" I said, hoarsely, 
turning away, and holding out the letter toward 
him. " Read it to me ; I am not well to-day." 

He glanced at me, took it without a word, 
and read it aloud. 

"By the time that my dear Paul receives 
this letter, his brother will be the happiest of 
men and of husbands. Yes, monfrere, the con- 
tract is to be signed this evening by my dearest 
Adrienne and myself, and to-morrow at midday 
the ceremony which unites our lives forever will 
take place. Every thing will be conducted as 
quietly as possible. We shall have no fete ex- 
cept for the peasantry, and no company except- 
ing that of Adrienne's maternal uncle from En- 
gland the brother to her late guardian. I am 
very sorry that you will not be here to share 
our happiness. I would have written to you 
before this, to acquaint you with our wedding 
arrangements, had not our mother prevented 
me from time to time. It is a great pity that 
you should have fancied to travel just at this 
time ; but you were always a contrary fellow, 
and unlike the rest of the world, mon cher, so 
we can but lament your sins of omission. To 
tell you the truth, I fear lest Adrienne should 
imagine that you are not favorable to our mar- 
riage, or that you do not like her, and have 
gone away for the purpose. Seriously, it has 
that appearance, and I am sorry for it, although 
I know it can not be actually the case. I have 


purchased the Hauteville property. The price 
was high, and the house, I regret to say, is al- 
most a ruin ; but the repairs will be commenced 
in a few days. There is a kiosque in the park, 
which I mean to convert into a smoking-room. 
I have given my Andalusian mare to Adrienne, 
and bought a new bay riding-horse for my own 
use. Adrienne looks charming on horseback 
quite an Amazon. Besides, the mare had 
not fire enough in her to suit me. Our mother 
is looking well, and these matrimonial prepara- 
tions keep her constantly employed. That good 
heart ! it would have been almost worth while 
to have married, had it been only for the sake 
of seeing her so proud and happy. I wish you 
could be here to-morrow for the ceremony ; but 
I know that you are too firmly wedded to your 
old bookworm habits to care any thing for love 
or marriage. Will you ever fall in love your- 
self, mon cher? The very question, as applied 
to you, .seems an absurdity unless, indeed, 
some fair Olimpia Morata were now living in 
Heidelberg for your sake ! Adieu, my dear 
Paul. Take care of yourself, and let us see 
you at home again when we return from our 
wedding tour. 

" Your attached brother, 

"THEOPHILE LATOUR." 

"A letter filled with good news !" exclaimed 
Seabrook, gayly, as he concluded my brother's 
epistle. " Come, you must describe this fair 
bride to me is she beautiful ?" 

"Most beautiful!'' 

"Amiable?" 

"As an angel." 

"And rich?" 

I nodded. 

"But this is not half a wold-painting. What 
hair has she ? What eyes ? Is she tall or 
short ? brunette or blonde ? gay, grave, lively, 
or severe ? Now manifest your artist-skill, La- 
tour, in enumerating me so glowing a catalogue 
of your sister-in-law's charms, that, as the 
knightly Troubadour, Geoffrey de Rudel, of the 
fair Countess of Tripoli, I may become enam- 
ored of her beauty, even without having once 
beheld it!" 

His unconscious levity jarred upon me. I 
turned my head suddenly and looked him in 
the face. 

''Mon ami," I said, earnestly, and with all 
the firmness I could muster, " do not ask me to 
dwell upon this subject to speak to you of this 
lady. I I can not." 

He started ; the letter dropped from his hand, 
and he pressed my hand silently. We were 
both silent for a long time, and I was the first 
to speak. 

"Tell me, Seabrook," I said, "who is, or 
was, this fair Olimpia Morata whom my brother 
mentions ? Do you know any thing of her ?" 

' ' Yes ; she was an Italian lady of much beau- 
ty and learning, married to a young German 
doctor named Grunthler, who fell in love witli 
her at Fcrrara, and fled with her to Augsburg 


MY BROTHER'S WIFE. 


in 1548, to escape the persecutions of the Italian 
Church. Chased from Augsburg to Schwein- 
furt, from Schweinfurt to Hammelburgh, they 
settled at last in Heidelberg, under the protec- 
tion of the Elector Palatine. Here Grunthler 
obtained the appointment of Professor of Phys- 
ics to the University, and his wife delivered lec- 
tures upon the Greek, Latin, and French lan- 
guages, and upon the paradoxes of Cicero. 
They were now perfectly happy ; and the great 
beauty of Olimpia, as well as the fame of her 
acquirements, brought many listeners and gaz- 
ers from far and near throughout all Germany. 
In 1555 she died, at the age of twenty-nine 
years. You may see her simple monument 
yonder, in the church-yard of St. Peter. Shall 
we stroll down into the town and look at it?" 

" Not now, Seabrook, for I want to propose 
something to you. You have no particular mo- 
tive in remaining at Heidelberg, have you ?" 

"You know that I am only loitering about 
here among the books of the University for my 
own amusement." 

" Good. Would you object to go to Frank- 
furt?" 

"To Frankfurt? Certainly not; but why 
do you wish to visit Frankfurt ?" 

"I only name Frankfurt because it is near. 
I care not where we go, if we but go some- 
where ; for I need change, amusement, relief 
from the monotony of thought. You are free 
free as myself let us get away, farther away, 
to Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Wiesbaden any where 
you will!" 

Once more he pressed my hand in his, for he 
understood me. 

"To Frankfurt, then, and with what speed 
we may ! When will you go ? To-night ?" 

" Not to-night. Let us spend our last moon- 
light evening together among the ruins. I may 
never behold them again." 

"And sup afterward with the University lads 
at the Hirschgasse ! We must be merry for 
the nonce, for who knows when we shall again 
share their ' cakes and ale ?' " 

So that evening, when the crescent moon 
stood over the clock-tower like a silver sickle in 
a field of stars, we went up to the ruins, and 
heard the nightingales sing in Heidelberg for 
the last time. 

Alas ! for the last time ! 

Farewell, then, to thee, thou majestic monu- 
ment of many centuries ! Though I behold 
thee no more, yet keepest thou thy desolate 
state on the steep verge of the Jettenbuhl, and 
some of my greenest memories cling round thy 
crumbling walls, even as thine own ivy. This 
wintry sun which gleams in so coldly through 
my casement as I write, sleeps now upon fliy 
grassy court-yard, thy fountain, and the maimed 
heroes of thy kingly Rittersaal ; this chill air, 
which shakes the gaunt poplars yonder by the 
dull pond, stirs amid the branches of thy droop- 
ing willows, and rustles the last yellow leaves 
upon the lindens of thy Blasted Tower. The 


people come and go amid thy solitudes the 
river eddies far beneath the town lies at thy 
foot. Thou art the same, and I alone am 
changed !. Farewell to theel 


CHAPTER X. 

THE MOONLIGHT SONATA. 

FROM Heidelberg to Frankfurt we went in 
the misty morning, past the Sea of Rocks past 
the dark leafy Odenwald past the sunny Berg- 
strasse, and the little stagnant capital of the 
duchy of Hesse Darmstadt. 

The sunny Bergstrasse ! This "road of 
mountains," as the Germans poetically name 
it, is an undulating chain of hills, cultivated in 
fields, orchards, and vineyards up almost to the 
summits, and crowned, like Indian chiefs, with 
solemn plumes of the fir and pine. At the feet 
of these hills lie little white villages with heav- 
en-pointing spires, and yellow corn-stacks, and 
pillars of blue smoke rising up into the "pa- 
geantry of mist" which hangs in fantastic bil- 
lowy wreaths low down the sides of the mount- 
ains. Here, also, are fields of pink poppies, 
maize, wheat, and potatoes wooded bluffs, and 
dark green hollows steep ravines, and slopes 
of radiant green, and towers, and streamlets 
crossed by rude wooden bridges, and feeding 
cattle, and rustic gardens, and foaming mill- 
streams turning busy wheels, and yoked oxen 
bending their proud heads .to the earth before 
the steady plow. A fairy fertile region a land 
of corn and wine ! And past here, with the 
beautiful Bergstrasse on our right, and the 
broad, sandy, flat Rhine-valley, with the river 
winding far away, and the summits of Mont 
Tonnerre and the Vosges Mountains dimly 
showing through the distance on the left, we 
went from feudal Heidelberg to the ''ancient 
imperial free city" on the River Main, where Lu- 
ther lived, and where Goethe was born that 
fair fine city of Frankfurt, where the houses- are 
so white and high, and the public streets so 
broad and busy ; where the shops are so gay 
and the women so fair, and where the slates on 
the roofs are shaped like fishes' scales. 

It was a sultry sunny day, that first day of 
our arrival in Frankfurt ; and when we return- 
ed to our hotel, after seeing the Romer, with its 
kingly portrait gallery, the public library near 
the Ober Main Thor, and the monument of the 
Emperor Giinther von Schwartzburg in the old 
cathedral, we were too warm and too weary to 
do any thing but sit smoking beside the open 
window till summoned down by the pealing bell 
to that second and later meal which is provided 
in most German hotels for such foreign visitors 
as object to the national midday dinner. 

Our apartment overlooked the broad Zeil, all 
thronged with carriages and promenaders, and 
looking like a Parisian boulevard without the 
trees. It was to me a new and cheerful scene. 
Here were elegant loungers, and travelers with 


MY BROTHER'S WIFE. 


the Guide-book in their hands, and sun-burnt 
peasant-women selling cherries by the roadside. 
Boyish soldiers of the town-guard, with their 
dull gray and green uniforms, and their round 
hats surmounted by bunches of cock's feathers, 
went sauntering by, arm in arm, clanking their 
spurs. Luxurious private carriages, belonging 
to the merchant-princes of the city, dashed past, 
raising the dust in clouds. Humble yellow ca- 
leches, indicative of hotel-stables, ambled along, 
filled with smiling and admiring tourists. ' Some- 
times a red railway omnibus went by, with its 
two gaunt horses, and its bearded conductor, 
who pauses and rings a bell as he nears every 
hotel by the way ; sometimes a dark, keen-look- 
ing Hebrew, from the neighborhood of the Ju- 
dengasse, glided gravely through the crowd; 
and once a troop of glittering cavalry, with helm 
and breastplate flashing back the sunlight, rode 
down the street to ringing sounds of brazen 
music. 

Pleasant to me, oh Frankfurt ! are the rec- 
ollections of thy wealth, and thy dignity, and 
thy free stateliness, as thou sittest on the banks 
of the Main River, fair and beautiful, like Do- 
7 rothea by the brook-side in the Brown Mount- 
, ain. 

The table d'hote of the Baierischer Hof was 
attended chiefly by English and French visitors, 
with a sprinkling of Germans and a small knot 
of Polish Jews, who congregated together at one 
extremity of the table, and talked loudly and 
unintelligibly during the whole period of the 
dinner. These gentlemen wore each a scrap 
of red ribbon at the button-hole, and were call- 
ed by the waiters Lord Baron and Lord Count, 
notwithstanding that their jewelry looked some- 
what questionable, and that their linen might 
have been washed with considerable advantage. 

When the second course of that hopelessly 
incongruous ceremony, a German dinner, had 
just been removed, a gentleman came hastily 
into the room and took a seat which had been 
left vacant at the table just opposite my own. 
I say a gentleman, because, despite the poverty 
of his attire, there was an air of faded gentility 
about the appearance of the new-comer that 
seemed to entitle him to the appellation. He 
wore an old brown frock-coat, buttoned nearly 
to the throat, and trimmed with ragged braid 
across the breast ; and in his black stock a small 
pearl brooch inclosing a lock of dark hair. He 
was very thin, and stooped much, and his hands 
were yellow and spare, like those of a sick man. 
His hair and mustache were thick and quite 
gray ; and his face, as he looked up, bore that 
peculiar expression, so worn and so sorrowful, 
such as we see given to the martyrs in the old 
paintings by Van Eyck and Wilhelm of Cologne. 
It was a remarkable face so remarkable that, 
after gazing upon it in silence for a few mo- 
ments, I could not forbear observing it to my 
friend beside me. I should not have called him 
a plain man ; on the contrary, his nose and 
mouth were somewhat delicately shaped ; and 
yet the skin seemed drawn so tightly over every 


feature that the cartilage of the nose showed 
whitely beneath, and the lips were shrunken so 
as partially to expose the teeth within, which 
were irregular, firm, and glittering. His fore- 
head was particularly massive, and projected in 
two knots above the eyes, causing them to look 
deep-sunken and glowing, like a lurid fire in 
the depths of a dark cavern. Added to this, 
his whole complexion wore one dull, unhealthy 
sallow hue his actions were nervous, trembling, 
and eager the tones of his voice high and quer- 
ulous his glances rapid, furtive, and suspicious. 
I also noticed that he devoured the dishes, as 
they were placed before him, with a quick vo- 
racity that I felt shocked to witness. 

"Look at our opposite neighbor,"! whisper- 
ed, softly; "can you not read a long story of 
privation and anxiety in that poor fellow's pal- 
lid countenance ?" 

Seabrook looked up. A sudden flash of sur- 
prise and recognition passed over his face. 

" I know him," he said, in a low tone. "His 
name is Fletcher. He is an Englishman a 
strange, eccentric creature, of wild and irregular 
habits, but a real genius." 

"A genius in what?" 

" In music. He plays the organ and violin 
composes the wildest and most wondrous la- 
ments, fantasias, and capricios that ear ever 
heard lives the most restless, wretched life on 
earth eats opium, and is killing himself inch 
by inch, day by day, in the pursuit of that fatal 
intoxication. I used to meet him constantly 
in Vienna, about a couple of years since, at the 
houses of two or three musical friends, and we 
became tolerably well acquainted. I will speak 
to him." 

And he bent forward and a4dressed to him 
some brief words of ordinary civility. The mu- 
sician looked up hastily. He seemed startled 
and confused. 

"I I beg your pardon, "he said, nervously, 
"for not having observed you before. I hope 
yoi* are quite well. It is a fine day, but they 
say we shall have rain. Have you been to the 
theatre much ? This is a very bad dinner red 
currant jelly with salmon faugh ! Do you like 
the German wines ? Rudesheimer is the best. 
Have you been long here ? I have been here 
two montbs ; but I leave to-morrow. Going to 
Ems. How are our friends in Paris ?" 

My companion smiled and shook his head. 

" It was not in Paris, but Vienna, that we 
used to meet, Mr. Fletcher," he said. "Don't 
you remember our choral evenings at Alexander 
Braun's, and our quartett parties in the Freder- 
ic-strasse, near St. Stephen's church ?" 

"True, true ; but I have no memory now ex- 
cept for music. I hope you will forgive me. I 
remember you perfectly. You play the violon- 
cello, and very well too. Those were pleasant 
meetings at Braun's. Do you recollect the 
evening that Chopin came in ? He played splen- 
didly that night. Do you know many people 
in Frankfurt? Plenty of music always going 
on. I have been conducting the band at the 


MY BROTHER'S WIFE. 


25 


Main-lust ; but this will be my last evening. 
Will you come round and hear us ?" 

There was an anxious rapidity and incoher- 
ence in this man's conversation that was to me 
unaccountably distressing. His words and ideas 
came hurrying forth, one after the other, without 
connection or pause ; and when he had ceased 
speaking, it seemed rather that he relapsed into 
some previous train of silent thought than that 
he waited for a reply. 

"I should like to hear your music very 
much," said Seabrook, "and I am very sure 
my friend would also. Let me introduce you : 
Monsieur Latour Mr. Fletcher." 

He bowed, almost without looking at me, and 
went on. 

"Do not expect too much. The band is only 
tolerable ; but the Frankfurt Choral Society sing 
to-night. They will amuse you. Have you 
ever been to the Main-lust ? It is an odd place. 
You sit under the trees and drink coffee while 
we play to you. Don't touch this calf 's-head 
it's intolerable. By the way, you have tasted 
sour-krout ? Schroder is dead. You remember 
Schroder he used to take the tenor in the quar- 
tetts. Are you lodging at this hotel ? We can 
go down to the gardens together after dinner. 
It is now four, and at five we begin." 

He relapsed into a dull silence, bent over his 
plate, and, when Seabrook again spoke to him, 
seemed not to hear. 

Almost as silently, he conducted us, when the 
meal was over, to the concert-gardens called the 
Main -lust, just beyond the town. Here the 
most respectable of the citizens repair with their 
families, and, sitting beneath the leafy roof 
formed by the close-planted trees, have coffee 
and ices, and even suppers, in the grounds. 
The gentlemen amuse themselves with pistol 
and rifle shooting in a gallery set apart for that 
purpose, and there is a circular kiosque for the 
band. The ladies read and knit ; the children 
sit by demurely, listening to the music and eat- 
ing cakes ; and the waiters glide about, silent 
and attentive, with little badges on their arms. 
A large hulk is moored beside the garden for 
it abuts on the river, just in view of the city 
spires and on this hulk a sort of arch is erect- 
ed, all hung round with evergreens and colored 
lamps, and surmounted by a bust of Mozart. 
Desks are placed here for the singers, and it is 
all fenced round by trellis-work, and flowers, and 
Chinese lanterns, and gay flags and streamers. 
Here the Choral Society, some thirty gentlemen 
in all, assemble presently, and the evening pass- 
es pleasantly away between alternate vocal and 
instrumental pieces. They sing well, and their 
voices come richly to us from the river. Then 
it grows dusk, and the moon rises. The colored 
lamps are lit, and the light from them blue, 
green, and red falls, with a curious effect, upon 
the faces of the singers. Mr. Fletcher conducts 
in the orchestra, but we can not see him from 
where we sit beneath the close avenues. Well- 
dressed people promenade through the garden 
walks, and numbers of tiny pleasure-boats, filled 


by young men and maidens, come stealing soft- 
ly round the singers in the river some with a 
twinkling lamp suspended at the prow, which 
casts a light upon the ripples of their progress. 
The bridge close by is likewise crowded with 
listeners ; and the boys from the town, in their 
blue blouses, come climbing up the shrubby 
banks, with the true German love for that art 
which has been called " the poetry of sound." 

Thus the cool hours glide ; and, by-and-by, 
the gay company, the flitting pleasure-boats, the 
loiterers on the bridge, disperse their several 
ways, and the gardens are deserted. The sing- 
ers mingle with their friends in the departing 
crowd ; the musicians in the kiosque pack away 
their instruments ; the waiters go round, extin- 
guishing the lights and collecting the empty 
glasses. Mr. Fletcher joins us where we are 
waiting for him near the entrance, and we all 
go out together into the blank, silent streets. 
It begins to rain, and we hurry on in silence, 
past the Stadel Museum, and the Allee facing 
the theatre, where stands the bronze statue of 
Goethe, looking shadowy through the mist 
pass the Rossmarkt, and into a narrow street 
opening on the Zeil, where our companion stops 
suddenly, and, pointing to a lighted doorway be- 
fore which we have just arrived, says, 

" Let us go in for an hour. It is early, and 
I always sup here. We have music and goose- 
pies. It is a sort of private club ; and nearly 
all the band come. Have you any objection ? 
Mendelssohn came in one night with Weigel 
andHirt!" 

We are only too delighted, and we follow him 
down a passage and to the door of an inner 
room, whence come the sounds of loud laugh- 
ter, and chinking glasses, and snatches of gay 
songs. A porter, who touches his cap as we 
approach, sits by the entrance, and throws the 
door open. It is a room filled with tobacco- 
smoke, and the odors of beer and hot savory 
dishes. Around a long table in the centre sit 
some sixteen or eighteen dingy-looking, beard- 
ed men, busily occupied with the viands before 
them. Some are smoking during the intervals 
between the courses ; some are arguing, telling 
tales, whispering confidentially together; some 
are reading the "Frankfurt Journal" while they 
eat. All is freedom, and enjoyment, and good- 
fellowship. 

We sit down, almost without being observed, 
at the lower end of the table ; and. being sup- 
plied with all that it affords, fall to work heartily. 
Fletcher is more taciturn than ever, and eats vo- 
raciously, like a dog, holding his head down, and 
helping himself to every thing that is near. 

"Take no notice of him," whispers Seabrook, 
observing my surprise. " He is very eccentric, 
and you have not yet seen him ,to advantage. 
Wait till the supper is removed, and you will 
find him no longer the same man. He knew 
Beethoven, and his conversation is sometimes 
most interesting. We must contrive to lead to 
the subject in some way by-and-by." 

The smoking, the talking, the eating still goes 


26 


MY BROTHER'S WIFE. 


on. Indeed, it would seem that the relays of 
dishes are never-ending, especially the favorite 
goose-pies of which we have been told. How- 
ever, the supper does at last arrive at a conclu- 
sion the table is cleared tobacco, beer, wine, 
and cigars are laid before us the chair is taken | 
by a stout dark man in a green coat the read- 
ers lay down their newspapers, and music and 
conversation become the order of the night. 

"A song!" cries the president, in a powerful 
bass voice. "A song 4 I call upon Brenner 
for a song!" 

Brenner, a fair young man with an amber 
beard, hereupon rises, amid general acclama- 
tion, and, seating himself at a piano, preludes 
cleverly for some minutes, and then glides, by 
an agreeable transition, into a graceful tenor 
song by Schubert. His voice is sweet, but not 
powerful; and he sings remarkably well. I 
learn from a gentleman opposite that he belongs 
to the summer theatre at Bockenheim, and takes 
the roles of second tenor. Great applause and 
cries of "encore" prevent him from resuming 
his seat after he has concluded. Seabrook sug- 
gests "Adelaide" it is repeated by several 
voices the singer bows and smiles, and the 
song is sung. 

"I know no music like Beethoven's, after 
all," says Seabrook, with a glance toward me 
and a little emphasis in his tone. "There is 
a power and passion in it which I find in no 
other ; a deep, earnest under-current of poetry ; 
an inner meaning ; a universality of feeling and 
perception totally unlike others of his craft. I 
often think that if Beethoven had not been a 
musician, he would have been a great poet. 
Look at his bust it is almost Homeric in its 
stern beauty. Those loose, thick locks; that 
large, eloquent mouth,- that furrowed brow; 
those deep, thoughtful eyes are they not the 
very types and outward revelations of the strong, 
wild nature of the man, and of his great warm 
heart?" 

"You are right, sir," says Fletcher, turning 
sudddely toward us with kindling eyes. "And 
he put that heart into his music that heart that 
was so torn and rejected by his fellow-men. 
What pictures of life and emotion are many of 
his symphonies and sonatas ! How character- 
istically some of them are conducted ! At first 
wailing and lonely, like a sorrowful voice in the 
night-silence ; then agitated, broken, throbbing, 
like the yearnings of a full heart ; then stormy, 
torrent-like, burning, as the billows of a tem- 
pest, which rage and leap, and then, all sud- 
denly, subside away, while some aerial melody, 
like a charmed boat, comes gliding over the sur- 
face, bringing calm, and sunshine, and openings 
of blue sky, and airs from heaven ! " 

"You knew him personally, Fletcher, " says 
the gentleman opposite, who has been lending 
an attentive ear to all that passes. * ' Can you 
not tell us something of himself?" 

This speech is somewhat injudicious ; for the 
musician is of a contrary temper, and dislikes 
talking "by desire." He pauses, looks discon- 


certed, and, but for a well-timed observation 
from Seabrook, would probably have relapsed 
into his previous taciturnity. 

"His music," says my friend, "is his best bi- 
ography. In it we have a record, intelligible 
enough to those whose sympathies are with him, 
of his joys, sorrows, and struggles nay, even of 
certain incidents of his life, and of his politics, 
as in the case of the pastoral and heroic sympho- 
nies. From it we learn to read his every feel- 
ing ; for, like himself, it is all tenderness, and 
impulse, and stormful energy." 

"It is beautiful and terrible," says Fletcher, 
thoughtfully, " as his own nature. It is an in- 
cantation a poem a spiritual philosophy. 
Did I ever tell you how or why he composed 
the Moonlight Sonata?" 

"Never," replies Seabrook, giving me a tri- 
umphant glance. 

" It happened at Bonn. Of course you know 
that Bonn was his native place. He was born 
in a house in the Eheingasse ; but when I first 
knew him, he was lodging in the upper part of 
a little mean shop near the Romerplatz. He 
was wretchedly poor just then ; so poor that he 
never went out for a walk except at night, on 
account of the poverty of his appearance. How- 
ever, he had a piano, pens, paper, ink, and a 
few books, and from these he contrived to ex- 
tract some little happiness, despite his priva- 
tions. At this time, you know, he had not the 
misfortune to be deaf. He could at least enjoy 
the harmony of his own compositions. Later 
in life he had not even that consolation. One 
winter's evening I called upon him, for I want- 
ed him to take a walk, and afterward to sup 
with me. I found him sitting by the window 
in the moonlight without fire or candle, his 
head buried in his hands, and his whole frame 
trembling with cold ; for it was freezing bitter- 
ly. I roused him, persuaded him to accompany 
me, urged him to shake oif his despondency. 
He went ; but he was very gloomy and hope- 
less that night, and refused to be comforted. 
'I hate life and the world,' he said, passionate- 
ly. 'I hate myself! No one understands or 
cares for me. I have genius, and I am treated 
as an outcast. I have heart, and none to love. 
I wish it were all over, and forever ! I wish 
that I were lying peacefully at the bottom of 
the river yonder. I sometimes find it difficult 
to resist the temptation.' And he pointed to 
the Rhine, looking cold and bright in the moon- 
light. I made no reply ; for it was useless to 
argue with Beethoven, so I allowed him to go 
on in the same strain, which he did, nor paused 
till we were returning through the town, when 
he subsided into a sullen silence. I did not 
care to interrupt him. Passing through some 
dark, narrow streets within the Coblentz gate, 
he paused suddenly. ' Hush !' he said. ' What 
sound is that ?' I listened, and heard the feeble 
tones of what was evidently a very old piano, 
proceeding from some place close at hand. The 
performer was playing a plaintive movement in 
triple time, and, despite the worthlessness of 


MY BROTHER'S WIFE. 


27 


the instrument, contrived to impart to it consid- 
erable tenderness of expression. Beethoven 
looked at me with sparkling eyes. ' It is from 
my symphony in F ! ' he said, eagerly. * This 
is the house. Hark! how well it is played!' 
It was a little, mean dwelling, with a light shin- 
: ing through the chink of the shutters. We 
paused outside and listened. The player went 
on, and the two following movements were exe- 
cuted with the same fidelity the same expres- 
sion. In the middle of the finale there was a 
sudden break a momentary silence then the 
low sounds of sobbing. ' I can not go on,' said 
a female voice. ' I can not play any more to- 
night, Friedrich !' * Why not, my sister?' ask- 
ed her companion, gently. ' I scarcely know 
why, unless that it is so beautiful, and that it 
seems so utterly beyond my power to do justice 
to its perfection. Oh, what would I not give to 
go to-night to Cologne ! There is a concert 
given at the Kauf haus, and all kinds of beauti- 
ful music to be performed. It must be so nice 
to go to a concert!' 'Ah! my sister,' said the 
man, sighing, 'none but the rich can afford 
such happiness. It is useless to create regrets 
for ourselves where there can be no remedy. 
We can scarcely pay our rent now, so why dare 
even to think of what is unattainable?' 'You 
are right, Friedrich,' was her reply. 'And yet 
sometimes, when I am playing, I wish that for 
once in my life I might hear some really good mu- 
sic and fine performance. But it is of no use of 
no use ! ' There was something very touching in 
the tone of these last words, and in the manner 
of their repetition. Beethoven looked at me. 
'Let us go in,' he said, hurriedly. 'Go in!'