A Modern Mephistopheles, and A Whisper in the Dark. Louisa May Alcott

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СКАЧАТЬ at such passionate folly when we have outlived it. You will, a year hence; so bear no malice, but tell me briefly if you can forget poetry, and be content with prose for a time. In plain words, can you work instead of dream?”

      “I can.”

      “Good! then come to me for a month. I have been long from home, and my library is neglected; I have much for you to do, and believe you are the person I want, if Forsythe tells the truth. He says your father was a Greek, your mother English, both dead, and you an accomplished, ambitious young man who thinks himself a genius, and will not forgive the world for doubting what he has failed to prove. Am I right?”

      “Quite right. Add also that I am friendless, penniless, and hopeless at nineteen.”

      A brief, pathetic story, more eloquently told by the starvation written on the pinched face, the squalor of the scanty garments, and the despair in the desperate eye, than by the words uttered with almost defiant bluntness.

      The stranger read the little tragedy at a glance, and found the chief actor to his taste; for despite his hard case he possessed beauty, youth, and the high aspirations that die hard,—three gifts often peculiarly attractive to those who have lost them all.

      “Wait a month, and you may find that you have earned friends, money, and the right to hope again. At nineteen, one should have courage to face the world, and master it.”

      “Show me how, and I will have courage. A word of sympathy has already made it possible to live!” and, seizing the hand that offered help, Canaris kissed it with the impulsive grace and ardor of his father’s race.

      “When can you come to me?” briefly demanded Helwyze, gathering his cloak about him as he rose, warned by the waning light.

      “At once, to-night, if you will! I possess nothing in the world but the poor clothes that were to have been my shroud, and the relics of the book with which I kindled my last fire,” answered the youth, with eager eyes, and an involuntary shiver as the bitter wind blew in from the broken window.

      “Come, then, else a mightier master than I may claim you before dawn, for it will be an awful night. Put out your funeral pyre, Canaris, wrap your shroud well about you, gather up your relics, and follow me. I can at least give you a warmer welcome than I have received,” added Helwyze, with that sardonic laugh of his, as he left the room.

      Before he had groped his slow way down the long stairs the youth joined him, and side by side they went out into the night.

      A month later the same pair sat together in a room that was a dream of luxury. A noble library, secluded, warm, and still; the reposeful atmosphere that students love pervaded it; rare books lined its lofty walls: poets and philosophers looked down upon their work with immortal satisfaction on their marble countenances; and the two living occupants well became their sumptuous surroundings.

      Helwyze leaned in a great chair beside a table strewn with books which curiously betrayed the bent of a strong mind made morbid by physical suffering. Doré’s “Dante” spread its awful pages before him; the old Greek tragedies were scattered about, and Goethe’s “Faust” was in his hand. An unimpressive figure at first sight, this frail-looking man, whose age it would be hard to tell; for pain plays strange pranks, and sometimes preserves to manhood a youthful delicacy in return for the vigor it destroys. But at a second glance the eye was arrested and interest aroused, for an indefinable expression of power pervaded the whole face, beardless, thin-lipped, sharply cut, and colorless as ivory. A stray lock or two of dark hair streaked the high brow, and below shone the controlling feature of this singular countenance, a pair of eyes, intensely black, and so large they seemed to burden the thin face. Violet shadows encircled them, telling of sleepless nights, days of languor, and long years of suffering, borne with stern patience. But in the eyes themselves all the vitality of the man’s indomitable spirit seemed concentrated, intense and brilliant as a flame, which nothing could quench. By turns melancholy, meditative, piercing, or contemptuous, they varied in expression with startling rapidity, unless mastered by an art stronger than nature; attracting or repelling with a magnetism few wills could resist.

      Propping his great forehead on his hand, he read, motionless as a statue, till a restless movement made him glance up at his companion, and fall to studying him with a silent scrutiny which in another would have softened to admiration, for Canaris was scarcely less beautiful than the Narcissus in the niche behind him.

      An utter contrast to his patron, for youth lent its vigor to the well-knit frame, every limb of which was so perfectly proportioned that strength and grace were most harmoniously blended. Health glowed in the rich coloring of the classically moulded face, and lurked in the luxuriant locks which clustered in glossy rings from the low brow to the white throat. Happiness shone in the large dreamy eyes and smiled on the voluptuous lips; while an indescribable expression of fire and force pervaded the whole, redeeming its beauty from effeminacy.

      A gracious miracle had been wrought in that month, for the haggard youth was changed into a wonderfully attractive young man, whose natural ease and elegance fitted him to adorn that charming place, as well as to enjoy the luxury his pleasure-loving senses craved.

      The pen had fallen from his hand, and lying back in his chair with eyes fixed on vacancy, he seemed dreaming dreams born of the unexpected prosperity which grew more precious with each hour of its possession.

      “Youth surely is the beauty of the devil, and that boy might have come straight from the witches’ kitchen and the magic draught,” thought Helwyze, as he closed his book, adding to himself with a daring expression, “Of all the visions haunting his ambitious brain not one is so wild and wayward as the fancy which haunts mine. Why not play fate, and finish what I have begun?”

      A pause fell, more momentous than either dreamed; then it was abruptly broken.

      “Felix, the time is up.”

      “It is, sir. Am I to go or stay?” and Canaris rose, looking half-bewildered as his brilliant castles in the air dissolved like mist before a sudden gust.

      “Stay, if you will; but it is a quiet life for such as you, and I am a dull companion. Could you bear it for a year?”

      “For twenty! Sir, you have been most kind and generous, and this month has seemed like heaven, after the bitter want you took me from. Let me show gratitude by faithful service, if I can,” exclaimed the young man, coming to stand before his master, as he chose to call his benefactor, for favors were no burden yet.

      “No thanks, I do it for my own pleasure. It is not every one who can have antique beauty in flesh and blood as well as marble; I have a fancy to keep my handsome secretary as the one ornament my library lacked before.”

      Canaris reddened like a girl, and gave a disdainful shrug; but vanity was tickled, nevertheless, and he betrayed it by the sidelong glance he stole towards the polished doors of glass reflecting his figure like a mirror.

      “Nay, never frown and blush, man; ‘beauty is its own excuse for being,’ and you may thank the gods for yours, since but for that I should send you away to fight your dragons single-handed,” said Helwyze, with a covert smile, adding, as he leaned forward to read the face which could wear no mask for him, “Come, you shall give me a year of your liberty, and I will help you to prove Forsythe a liar.”

      “You will bring out my book?” cried Canaris, clasping his hands as a flash of joy irradiated every lineament.

      “Why not? and satisfy the hunger that torments you, though you try to hide it. I cannot promise success, but I can promise a fair СКАЧАТЬ