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

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      “You may well be proud of such work as this;” and she carefully brushed a fallen petal from the silken cover.

      “But I am not proud of that. At times I almost hate it!” exclaimed the capricious poet, impetuously, then checked himself, and added more composedly, “I mean to do so much better, that this first attempt shall be forgotten.”

      “I think you will never do better; for this came from your heart, without a thought of what the world would say. Hereafter all you write may be more perfect in form but less true in spirit, because you will have the fear of the world, and loss of fame before your eyes.”

      “How can you know that?” he asked, wondering that this young girl, so lately met, should read him so well, and touch a secret doubt that kept him idle after the first essay, which had been a most flattering success.

      “Nay, I do not know, I only feel as if it must be so. I always sing best when alone, and the thought of doing it for praise or money spoils the music to my ear.”

      “I feel as if it would be possible to do any thing here, and forget that there is a world outside.”

      “Then it is not dull to you? I am glad, for I thought it would be, because so many people want you, and you might choose many gayer places in which to spend your summer holiday.”

      “I have no choice in this; yet I was willing enough to come. The first time is always pleasant, and I am tired of the gayer places,” he said, with a blasé air that ill concealed how sweet the taste of praise had been to one who hungered for it.

      “Yet it must seem very beautiful to be so sought, admired, and loved,” the girl said wistfully, for few of fortune’s favors had fallen into her lap as yet.

      “It is, and I was intoxicated with the wine of success for a time. But after all, I find a bitter drop in it, for there is always a higher step to take, a brighter prize to win, and one is never satisfied.”

      He paused an instant with the craving yet despondent look poets and painters wear as they labor for perfection in “a divine despair;” then added, in a tone of kindly satisfaction which rung true on the sensitive ear that listened,—

      “But all that nonsense pleases Helwyze, and he has so few delights, I would not rob him of one even so small as this, for I owe every thing to him, you know.”

      “I do not know. May I?”

      “You may; for I want you to like my friend, and now I think you only fear him.”

      “Mr. Canaris, I do not dislike your friend. He has been most kind to me, I am grieved if I seem ungrateful,” murmured Gladys, with a vague trouble in her artless face, for she had no power to explain the instinctive recoil which had unconsciously betrayed itself.

      “Hear what he did for me, and then it may be easier to show as well as to feel gratitude; since but for him you would have had none of these foolish rhymes to sing.”

      With a look askance, a quick gesture, and a curious laugh, Canaris tossed the book into the urn below, and the heliotrope gave a fragrant sigh as it closed above the treasure given to its keeping. Gladys uttered a little cry, but her companion took no heed, for clasping his hands about his knee he looked off into the bloomy wilderness below as if he saw a younger self there, and spoke of him with a pitiful sort of interest.

      “Three years ago an ambitious boy came to seek his fortune in the great city yonder. He possessed nothing but sundry accomplishments, and a handful of verses which he tried to sell. Failing in this hope after various trials, he grew desperate, and thought to end his life like poor Chatterton. No, not like Chatterton,—for this boy was not an impostor.”

      “Had he no friend anywhere?” asked Gladys,—her work neglected while she listened with intensest interest to the tale so tragically begun.

      “He thought not, but chance sent him one at the last hour, and when he called on death, Helwyze came. It always seemed to me as if, unwittingly, I conjured from the fire kindled to destroy myself a genie who had power to change me from the miserable wretch I was, into the happy man I am. For more than a year I have been with him,—first as secretary, then protégé, now friend, almost son; for he asks nothing of me except such services as I love to render, and gives me every aid towards winning my way. Is not that magnificent generosity? Can I help regarding him with superstitious gratitude? Am I not rightly named Felix?”

      “Yes, oh yes! Tell me more, please. I have led such a lonely life, that human beings are like wonder-books to me, and I am never tired of reading them.” Gladys looked with a rapt expression into the face upturned to hers, little dreaming how dangerous such lore might be to her.

      “Then you should read Helwyze; he is a romance that will both charm and make your heart ache, if you dare to try him.”

      “I dare, if I may, because I would so gladly lose my fear of him in the gentler feeling that grows in me as I listen.”

      Canaris was irresistibly led on to confidences he had no right to make, it was so pleasant to feel that he had the power to move the girl by his words, as the wind sways a leaf upon its delicate stem. A half-fledged purpose lurked in a dark corner of his mind, and even while denying its existence to himself, he yielded to its influence, careless of consequences.

      “Then I will go on and let compassion finish what I have begun. Till thirty, Helwyze led a wonderfully free, rich life, I infer from hints dropped in unguarded moments,—for confidential moods are rare. Every good gift was his, and nothing to alloy his happiness, unless it was the restless nature which kept him wandering like an Arab long after most men have found some ambition to absorb, or some tie to restrain, them. From what I have gathered, I know that a great passion was beginning to tame his unquiet spirit, when a great misfortune came to afflict it, and in an hour changed a life of entire freedom to one of the bitterest bondage such a man can know.”

      “Oh, what?” cried Gladys, as he artfully paused just there to see her bend nearer, and her lips part with the tremor of suspense.

      “A terrible fall; and for ten years he has never known a day’s rest from pain of some sort, and never will, till death releases him ten years hence, perhaps, if his indomitable will keeps him alive so long.”

      “Alas, alas! is there no cure?” sighed Gladys, as the violet eyes grew dim for very pity of so hard a fate.

      “None.”

      A brief silence followed while the shadow of a great white cloud drifted across the sky, blotting out the sunshine for a moment.

      All the flowers strayed down upon the steps and lay there forgotten, as the hands that held them were clasped together on the girl’s breast, as if the mere knowledge of a lot like this lay heavy at her heart.

      Satisfied with his effect, the story-teller was tempted to add another stroke, and went on with the fluency of one who saw all things dramatically, and could not help coloring them in his own vivid fancy.

      “That seems very terrible to you, but in truth the physical affliction was not so great as the loss that tried his soul; for he loved ardently, and had just won his suit, when the misfortune came which tied him to a bed of torment for some years. A fall from heaven to hell could hardly have seemed worse than to be precipitated from the heights of such a happiness to the depths of such a double woe; for she, the beautiful, beloved woman proved disloyal, and left him lying there, like СКАЧАТЬ