The Best Horrors by F. Marion Crawford. Francis Marion Crawford

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СКАЧАТЬ mean no discourtesy to you, sir," said Augustus at last. " Seeing a stranger so near our house, in this desolate region, we naturally desire to offer you such hospitality as we may."

      "And I, sir, am most ready to thank you," said the other, a strange smile passing over his face as he frankly held out his hand. Augustus took it, willingly enough, but he started as he touched the long white fingers.

      "You are very cold," he said. "Pray come with us to the house."

      "No," answered the stranger, "I am not cold — at least I do not feel cold," he added, smiling again. "I am past feeling those things."

      The ladies stood together in a little group. Augustus and the unknown gentleman were not two paces from them.

      "I think it is a little rash of Augustus — asking him to the house," said Lady Brenda in an undertone. " He is so very oddly dressed! "

      "Oh, Augustus is always right about those things, mamma," answered Gwendoline.

      The stranger apparently overheard the remarks exchanged by the mother and daughter, for he moved forward a little and spoke to Augustus so that they could hear what he said.

      "I feel," he said, "that upon accepting the kind offer you have made me, I must tell you my name."

      "Mine is Augustus Chard," said the host, not wishing to be outdone in courtesy.

      "And mine needs a word of explanation before it is told," rejoined the stranger, "a word of explanation which may save many misunderstandings in the future. Do not be startled at what I say. There is nothing supernatural in it. Nor must you imagine that I am a madman. You have been doing dangerous things with Nature, Mr. Chard, you have caused some of her laws to act for a time in a way not familiar to you. I supposed so from what I felt before you approached me. When I realised that you saw me, I understood that I had become visible, and I was greatly surprised, as no one has seen me for a long time — not since I died, in fact—"

      "Not since you died?" exclaimed the three ladies at once.

      "No, not since I died," continued the speaker, calmly. " By your experiments you have made dead men visible for a time. I have been dead thirty and odd years, and if there is anything left of my bones I am not curious to see it. This, that you see, is what is left of myself. I am Heinrich Heine. You see I did well to give you a word of explanation. I am quite harmless; indeed, I always was."

      "My dear sir," said Augustus, "I have too long been accustomed to expect the unusual in nature to be startled at it when it appears, especially when it procures me the pleasure of meeting one whom I hate so sincerely admired as yourself. My wife, my mother-in-law. Lady Brenda, my sister, Miss Diana Chard. We have so often spoken of you that I will answer for the satisfaction these ladies must feel at this meeting."

      "Yes indeed!" said Gwendoline and Diana together.

      "This is all very queer and — astral — that sort of thing," said Lady Brenda. "But I suppose it is all right."

      "Madam," answered Heine, "whatever brings me into such company must necessarily be right. Clearly, Mr. Chard's experiments were not for his own benefit but for mine."

      "If you are not really cold," suggested Diana, " we might stay here for a while. It is so hot in the house this evening."

      "No," objected Gwendoline, "I must go and see the baby — poor little thing, I don't believe it could possibly have slept through that frightful storm. Then we can sit upon the terrace in the moonlight."

      As they all moved slowly towards the house, Lady Brenda glanced curiously at the graceful form of the dead poet as he walked beside her. She was very far from being persuaded that he was really a dead man, but she was by no means far from believing him to be a dangerous escaped lunatic. Under the circumstances the doubt was very reasonable. But Gwendoline and Diana felt that delicious thrill of excitement which every one experiences on being suddenly brought into the company of a person long admired and studied. On reaching the castle it was found that the model baby had slept soundly through the disturbances, and that the servants, having been at dinner during the whole time, had noticed nothing but the thunder. Augustus breathed freely, for he had feared that his electric storm might produce a serious convulsion in the prosaic mind of Bimbam. That catastrophe was averted, and the immediate prospect presented no difficulties.

      A quarter of an hour later the whole party were seated upon the terrace in the full light of the May moon, looking over the placid southern sea. Heine sat in the midst of the group. Saving his antiquated dress, there was nothing in his appearance to distinguish him from his living hosts. Augustus alone had felt the icy chill of his hand.

      "This is almost as good as life," said Heine in his dreamy voice. " You have the advantage of me still, however."

      "Are you really dead?" asked Lady Brenda, incredulously.

      "As dead, dear madam, as the little Veronica — as dead as Doctor Saul Ascher, who died an abstract death from reason-poisoning before his wizened little legs finally refused to carry about the over-loaded, over-packed, over-hardened thing he called his head."

      "I never heard of Doctor Saul Ascher," said Gwendoline.

      "Nor I," echoed Augustus and the rest, all together.

      " He was much talked of in his day, especially by himself," said Heine. "His reputation suffered a mortal blow when he died. I only mentioned him as an illustration. If you like it better, I will say that I am as dead as a door-nail. I have passed from the condition of life to the condition of existence. By a happy accident I am now alive for purposes of conversation, a pastime in which I always found an unreasoning delight, provided I was not required to play an important part in it."

      "I don't think it is at all unreasonable to like conversation," said Lady Brenda. "When people have ideas they ought to exchange them."

      "Yes — when they have any. I once wrote a book about ideas, and I took the definition of the idea, not from Plato, but from a Berlin cab-driver — he said ideas were a lot of stupid stuff" that people got into their heads. The cab-driver evidently knew what he was talking about. I am more convinced of that now than I ever was before."

      "Why?" asked Diana.

      "I used to have ideas about death, before I died. I used to think one must sleep too soundly when one was dead. Death is the end of sleep. There is no more sleep for us, for ever, it seems — and alas, there are no more dreams either! I regret the sadness of life, for the sake of the contrasted sweetness of its dreams. I regret my bitter-sweet emotions, my joy in being sad and my delicious imaginary sadness in being joyful. I was made up of contradictions when I was alive. Now I know too much even to contradict myself. Our conversations now are tame. All conversations are, unless we speak of our hopes; and though we have plentiful material for reflection here, we have but little ground for anticipation. Our discussions, such as they are, cannot be better defined than as a perpetual comparison of our past experience. You will readily conceive that with our unlimited command of time such subjects may be exhausted."

      "But of whom does your society consist?" asked Lady Brenda. " I can imagine that you might form a most delightful circle out of such elements."

      "The elements are a little mixed," answered the poet in his soft, slow tones. "We have formed a little society almost as exclusive as a faculty of professors in a university — also a little more witty, for there are no professors among us, either ancient or modern."

      "You never liked СКАЧАТЬ