L'Arrabiata and Other Tales Part 26

At last he took writing materials, and a small portfolio from his travelling pouch, sat down beside the dim candle, and wrote as follows:

"I cannot go to rest, Charles, without bidding you good night. How weary I am, you must have perceived when we met, unfortunately for so short a time, six weeks ago. _Then_ I ought to have spoken to you, and we might have come to an agreement on this chapter on pathology, as we have done on so many others: Had I done so, I could now have quietly smoked my last cigar, instead of tiring us both, with this dull writing, but the words seemed to cleave to my lips. We should have probably disputed about the matter--Each of us would have maintained his own opinion, so I thought it useless to spoil the few hours we had to spend in each other's society. I am well acquainted with your principles, and know that if you were here, you would endeavour to reconcile me to existence. But you would wrong me, if you thought that I had caused this dissension between life and myself which nothing but a divorce can appease. I would willingly live if I _could_. I am not such a coward, or so fastidious that a few 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune' should drive me distracted and make me take the resolution to leap out of my skin in the full sense of the word. Who would throw over the whole concern, and fume against the inscrutable powers because many things are disagreeable to bear? Are not the decrees of the eternal powers equally unfathomable and indisputable?

But here lies the fault--I can play the part of a wise man no longer.

The desperate attempt to save reason at least from the general wreck of soul and mind has failed. Just now when I watched an old cork which had fallen into the gutter, and which lashed by the rain was helplessly whirling about in the dirty puddle, the thought struck me that this cork was my own brain which had stolen from out my heated skull, and was now taking a shower bath. If such an absurd fancy could take possession of my mind for a whole quarter of an hour, then must the last prop of my reason be fast giving way.

"I have the highest idea of the self-sacrificing duties of a man towards his fellow-creatures, yet I cannot calmly see the moment approach when the asphyxiated soul is to be buried alive, watch the loss of self-consciousness, and finally sink lower than the most miserable brute. This, my dear Charles, would require the dullness of a sheep patiently awaiting the butcher's knife, though it feels a worm gnawing at its brain.

"But I quite forget that this will seem but a confused outpouring of words to you, who are only aware of a portion of my calamities. You only know what the rest of the world is acquainted with--that my adopted sister died, this day year, that her father followed her a few days later, and her mother in the spring of this year.--You also know that my family consisted of only these three--that I loved them dearly--that, in fact, except yourself, they were the only beings to whom I was much attached.

"Under any circ.u.mstance their loss would have wounded me deeply, but I should have ended by overcoming this grief. Even had they been severed from me at a single stroke, I could have bravely outlived it. Truly the death of one man is always irreparable but his life is never indispensable. Science, my profession, my youth, would have healed the wound.--Now, it is still open, and the blood which flows from it cannot be stanched, for these three precious lives would have been spared, but for me!...

"I must begin from the beginning, Charles, if I wish to make these sad words clear to you.--You know, I believe, that I hardly ever saw my own parents, that after the death of my father, I should have been brought up at the orphan asylum, if those generous people had not taken pity on the son of the poor surgeon, and adopted me. My foster-father was one of the most opulent merchants of the town.--When he gave me a home, he was still childless after eight years of marriage. He hoped that my presence would cheer him, and his wife, and enliven the quiet dull house. Unfortunately, at first, I but ill rewarded the kindness of the worthy couple, though I was greatly attached to them. I was a reserved, irritable, and unamiable lad, with a great tendency to ponder over everything. My behaviour vacillated between a moody silence which lasted for days, and sudden and pa.s.sionate outbreaks of temper. Even now I feel deeply ashamed when I think of the truly angelic patience with which my foster-parents bore my perverseness, and tried to moderate my violent temper without ever showing how sorely I disappointed their hopes.

"Suddenly all was changed. When I had lived about two years in their house, my adoptive parents saw their heart's desire fulfilled. A child was born to them, the most beautiful and gifted creature I have ever seen. As if by magic, everything grew bright--even I, was changed, and became a good-humoured and sensible lad. I was quite infatuated about the little girl, and watched her like a nurse. For hours together I played with her. I taught her to speak, to run, forgot my dearest occupations, and all my schoolfellows when with her.

"My behaviour towards her parents also completely altered. These excellent people, instead of no longer caring for my society, now redoubled their kindness towards me, and seemed to regard both of us as their children and as having an equal right to their affection.

"As time went on, my fraternal love for the little Ellen only increased with my years; the more so, that a curious similarity in our characters became more perceptible every day. She was not one of those soft, pliable and easily managed girls who give no more trouble to their mothers, than to their future husbands. She would suddenly change from the most extravagant gaiety, to the deepest melancholy--if one can use the term, melancholy, in speaking of a child. In those moments, she would steal out of the garden where she had been romping, and laughing with her little companions, and, come to my little room, sit down with grave face, opposite to me, at my writing-table, and read the first book she could get hold of.

"From my school-days upwards, I had always been heart and mind, a naturalist, and had no other thought, but that I would study medicine as my father had done. I used to show her all my collections, even the skeleton of a large monkey which stood in a corner behind my bed, and to hold most unchildlike conversations with the little girl; at other times she would communicate her childishness to me; I cooked for her dolls and physicked them after having first carefully bedaubed their faces with the tokens of the measles and I filled her little garden with all sorts of medical herbs from my herborium. We never shewed much tenderness towards each other. Only once I kissed her lips; it was when I left for the University at nineteen years of age.

"Though I deeply felt the pain of leaving my adoptive home, yet I fancied it would not become me as a man to show any emotion, still my voice failed me when my dear mother embraced me with tears in her eyes.

Little Ellen stood pale, and silent by her side. I turned to her with some joke and jestingly gave her different directions about the care of my zoological collection, (preserved in camphor and spirits of wine) which I had entrusted to her charge. Then I drew this child of eight into my arms to bid her farewell. As I kissed her, I was startled by a sudden shudder which ran through her frame, as if an asp had bitten her. She staggered back with closed eyes and nearly fainted away. She quickly recovered however, and next day wrote me a childishly merry letter.

"Since that day I only once touched her lips again, and then they were cold and closed for ever.

"How the six years of my University career pa.s.sed, how I found life at home when I returned for the holidays would be useless to relate. It would be a long, and monotonous narrative. Some estrangement arose between me and my foster-sister, partly through my fault, for science and study monopolized my attention more and more. From year to year this strange girl grew more reserved in my presence. Only in her charming letters could I discover a trace of the old intimacy of our childhood.

"Her outward development did not fall short of its early promise.

"She was fullgrown at the age of fourteen; somewhat slender, but quite formed. The small portrait of her which I once showed you has but little resemblance. Her character, if I may so express my self, was even more mature than her person, and only betrayed itself in her movements. A stately calm, an indifference, scarcely concealed for many things which generally appear alluring at her age, isolated her a good deal. Then again, when she wished to please, her smile, the gentle and timid yielding up of herself had a charm not to be described. Few knew her real value, her genuine upright soul; and among those few, her brother was not. I was then too much engrossed by my studies, too eager to solve the mysteries of physical science, to care about the secrets of that young heart. Strange to say although I was always of a sensual disposition, and certainly no paragon of virtue, and having eyes to see could easily perceive, that all my conquests, compared with that remarkable girl, appeared like housemaids beside a young princess, yet it never entered my head to fall in love with her. When I wrote home, it was always to my foster-mother, and she had to remind me sometimes, of what was due to my little sister.

"She once wrote that the child who was as reserved as ever, did not show what she felt, although my neglect seemed to hurt her, and one day when I had forgotten even to mention her in my letter, she had cried the whole night.

"I hastened to repair my negligence, and wrote her a most penitent letter half in earnest, half in jest, accusing myself of the darkest crimes towards my faithful little sister, protesting that she was a thousand times too kind to me a petrified egotist whose very heart had been turned to stone, among skeletons and anatomical preparations. Her answer was full of loving kindness, and after that our fraternal intercourse seemed re-established on the old footing.

"Then she was fourteen years of age. On her fifteenth birthday, I pa.s.sed my examination for a doctor's degree and we exchanged merry congratulations by telegraph.

"Then I travelled during a year with you for a companion, and you will remember that the letters I received from home often made me slightly uneasy.

"My mother wrote that Ellen was not well; she did not complain, but her altered looks only too visibly testified to her sufferings. The old family physician looked rather grave about it. Now I was well acquainted with this good old gentleman. He was a strict adherent of the old school, and greatly prejudiced against the stethoscope, otherwise he had the reputation of much experience in diagnostics, and of great caution, and attention.

"Still this could not tranquillize me, and my parents who believed me to be the greatest medical genius in the world, expressed a strong desire, that if I could possibly get away, I should hasten home and have a consultation with the old doctor. So I determined, as you know to quit my studies in Paris--to hurry home, and decide for myself if all was as it should be.

"When I arrived, Ellen advanced to greet me, looking so well, and lively, that at the first moment, I asked with playful indignation, if this was the august patient to attent to whose delicate health, a celebrated young physician had been summoned from a great distance.

Poor child! the pleasure caused by my having set aside every other consideration for her sake, gave that delusive air of blooming health.

I soon perceived that the old doctor had not looked grave without cause. I was decidedly however opposed to his opinion that she was threatened with pulmonary disease. After a most careful auscultation, I had found her lungs to be perfectly sound, whereas the palpitations of her heart seemed to be somewhat irregular; this symptom proceeded from a morbid state of the nervous, and blood system. Accordingly the first treatment which was princ.i.p.ally directed against everything stimulating and enjoined great quiet, seemed to me the reverse of salutary. I prescribed steel, wine, and strengthening food, to rectify the poverty of blood, and declared that the remedies by which the old doctor hoped to ward off the disease were as bad as poison in her case. Her parents, of course, sided with me, particularly as the apparent success of my treatment during the first weeks of my stay with them corroborated my statement. Ellen felt more lively, and stronger, her sleep and appet.i.te returned, and while the old pract.i.tioner withdrew deeply hurt, and mortified, I enjoyed the first pleasures of fame though it still stood on a very precarious footing, and I felt the happiness of having delivered those dear to me, from a heavy care.

"I never intended to establish myself in that town. I knew that I could only reside in a large capital where I could find better a.s.sistance in my studies. I, therefore, carefully entrusted Ellen's treatment to the second doctor of the place, a very humble man, rather irresolute, and dependent on others, who in presence of so young, and far travelled a colleague, meekly resigned any opinion of his own, and promised to keep strictly to the enjoined course of treatment; and now and then to write and inform me of the progress of the cure. The parents saw me depart with heavy hearts, but my welfare, and their duty with regard to my success in life, outweighed any wishes of their own, and Ellen eagerly seconded my desire. I had already lost too much of my precious time on her account, she said; she felt much better, and now that she knew my orders, no one should induce her to do anything I had not sanctioned. I still see the smile with which she bade me good-bye, while the repressed tears choked her voice. Alas! Charles, it was the last time that I saw a smile light up that dear face!

"So I departed entirely blinded, and at the commencement of my stay at M---- I was so completely taken up with the exercise of my profession, that in the letters from home I only noticed the favourable particulars; especially as Ellen's frequent accounts of herself, which almost formed a sort of diary, lulled me into so perfect a security, that I fancied, the care and anxiety which now and then appeared in her mother's letters to be only caused by the exaggerated fondness of a mother's heart.

"My colleague full of respect for my green wisdom, did his best to interpret every graver symptom in favour of my diagnostics, and so I lived on, a rose coloured mist blinding my eyes, till the darkest night suddenly closed around me.

"Ellen's letters which in the later weeks had become rather dispirited suddenly stopped. In their stead I received a letter from the doctor, about six months after my departure saying that another consultation with me seemed to him most desirable. In the last few weeks several symptoms had suddenly changed, so that he dared not proceed in the former manner without further orders. My adoptive parents also eagerly intreated me to come to them.

"But even in spite of all this, I still lingered, certainly not for any frivolous reason; the life or death of some of my patients, just then, depending on my stay. At last a telegraphic despatch startled me into activity. A vomiting of blood had taken place: If you do not come instantly, wrote her mother, you will not find her alive.

"Late at night I arrived at their house feeling as if I myself were dying. On that dreadful journey the scales had suddenly fallen from my eyes, and with the same ingenuity which I had formerly exercised to confirm my own errors, I now sought out every argument expressly to torment myself with the conviction that I alone was responsible for the loss of this much cherished being. I tottered up the well-known stairs.

Her mother met me on the landing, tearless, but with a disturbed look in her eyes. It seemed almost like a relief to me, when she exclaimed: 'you are too late!'--I had dreaded to meet the eyes of my poor sister, as a murderer dreads the dying look of his victim. And yet it was more painful to see the calm face, which reclined on her pillows, smiling, and free from reproach.

"No one accused me; they still believed in me, and laid the blame on different incidents, but I felt crushed under the weight of my despair, and the wildest self-reproaches.

"On entering the chamber of death, her father looking like a corpse, staggered heavily into my arms, and losing all self-command, burst into such convulsive sobs, that the people pa.s.sing in the streets stopped to listen. Then the sight of all the old servants who had adored her; of her mother so completely _changed_--even to this day my hair stands on end when I think of that dreadful scene. The mother beside herself with grief called for wine, for I was to drink Ellen's health--she supposed the 'so called good G.o.d' would not object to that. But when the servant brought it, the father taking the gla.s.s from the plate dashed it against the wall, crying out: 'broken! dead!' A hundred times, till his voice was choked by tears.--At last his wife led him away and I was left alone with the dead.

"Enough of this dreadful night. I need only add that by dissection, I obtained a full confirmation, of that, of which the quick penetration of the old physician had foreseen the danger.--Could it have been averted? Who can say with certainty whether a conflagration can be stayed or not, if he does not know what feeds it, or from whence the wind blows. I had poured fuel on the fire which had s.n.a.t.c.hed away this innocent life.

"You may imagine that I did not close my eyes that night. The morning found me still sitting, racked with pain and fever, by the bed-side of my sister, when the door opened, and her mother entered the room. She had recovered the n.o.ble and gentle serenity of her features, now that the first delirium of despair had pa.s.sed. She kissed me, with overflowing tears, and even in _my_ burning eyes the tears welled up, 'My dear son,' she said 'I here surrender to you a small packet which I found in her writing-table: Your name is on it.'

"It was her diary, beginning with her twelfth year, up to a few days before her death--On every page I found my name; on the last were these words, 'I am dying, darling--I have known you and been permitted to love you. What more can life bring me? I now have no other wish but that you should know that I only lived for you, and through you!'--And this to her murderer!!

"All the events that succeeded; the death of her father, the short widowhood of her mother, who pined away till she was at last re-united to her darling ones, all this, sad as it was, could no longer move me, the darkness within me was so great--What mattered it if one spark more died out or not? _That_ I never could forget or overcome--That all hopes of ever being happy again were at end, was a conviction deeply impressed on my heart.

"I repeated to myself a hundred times, that I had acted for the best according to my belief, that every one of my colleagues had experienced a like misfortune, that we were only responsible for our intentions--But in spite of all this, did these three lives weigh the less on my soul? Could I absolve myself, were all the judges in Heaven and earth to proclaim me free from guilt? I had destroyed the only joy of my benefactors, and had miserably deceived them.--I had neglected this precious life, and how could I henceforth expect any man to entrust his life to me?

"I know what you would oppose to this Charles--You have often told me that I was too sensitive for a doctor's profession--That every one who consults us knows beforehand that we are only human,--not omnipotent, and omniscient G.o.ds, and takes his chance.

"The best doctors are those who never let their feelings interfere, and never paralyse their energies for the future, by useless regrets for the unalterable past. I quite agree with you that these are most sound maxims. But I know enough of disease to foresee that mine is incurable.

"When the first stunning pain had somewhat subsided, I said to myself, that I _must_ bear it as well as I could, and at least try to be of some use as a subordinate, having forfeited my rights as a master.--I threw my whole energy into theoretical studies--I collected, dissected, and observed--I might, perhaps, have reconciled myself to this new existence, if the past had not thrown a shadow over every thing. Now I loathed and revolted inwardly against all this groping on the boundaries of human knowledge. A general, after losing a battle upon which depended the destiny of a whole nation, will hardly like, as long as the war lasts, to sit in a corner of some quiet library, and study tactics and strategy. Then I believed that time would cure my wounds and make life, at least, supportable to me, even if it should be for ever sunless and gloomy.

"I had tried aimless wandering and had only experienced the truth of that hacknied saying that shifting of scenes can never change Tragedy into Comedy.

"Only once it seemed as if I might be allured back to that part of my life alone worth living for--my profession!

"It was on a steamer between Ma.r.s.eilles and Genoa--We had left the coast far behind us--suddenly the Captain came up in great consternation, and asked if there was any doctor among the pa.s.sengers.

A lady had been taken ill, and was lying in the cabin writhing with pain--I was just lying down to sleep, determined not to meddle in this matter, when I heard moans and exclamations from the cabin which would not let me rest. I asked the Captain to take me down, and after searching the ship's medicine chest; found some remedies which soothed the pain. The lady would not let me go, but insisted in a strange medly of Spanish, and French on my pa.s.sing the night on a sofa in the adjoining cabin. At last she went to sleep, and my eyes also closed, weary with gazing through the open hatchway at the moon-lit sea.

"All at once, I felt something like an icy cold hand drawn across my face. I started up, believing it to be the spray which was dashing off the wheels into the cabin--but to my intense horror, I saw the figure of Ellen standing beside me, just as she had looked when lying in her coffin, only her dim widely opened eyes were fixed on me, and her white finger was laid to her lips, as if to say: 'Do not betray me.' Then she approached the couch of the stranger, lifted one of the green silk curtains and after gazing for several minutes on the sleeping woman she sadly shook her head, and looked gravely at me as if to reproach me for caring for another when I had left _her_ to die. For one moment she sunk down at the foot of the bed as if greatly exhausted: then beckoning three times to me she glided through the hatchway like a streak of mist. Since that night I have never again approached a sick-bed. You know, Charles, that I was never of a visionary nature, that I do not believe in spirits. Of course I know as well as you do that this was only a delusion of the senses. An apparition caused by the over excited state of my nerves. But does this alter the main point?

Did I suffer the less because I knew it to be owing to the power of my nerves over my reason? How can one, whose senses are at variance with him, hope to gain peace? and how is _he_ to live, who hopes no longer?

"I have become a superfluous guest at the banquet of life, and so I prefer taking leave of it, and only press your hand once more before disappearing. My existence is now no longer necessary to any one--not even to a dog.

"None but a healthy and cheerful egotist could tolerate a life which subsists only for itself. Pardon me, my dear friend, I know that you will now and then miss me, but you would surely prefer; never to meet me again, than to recognize me some day in a mad-house; clothed in a straight waistcoat, and muttering soliloquies.

"This letter has nearly attained the dimensions of a volume, but as it is the last I shall ever write, its length may be pardoned. I shall seal this enclosure with a steady hand, for I am only about to do that which I must, that which I believe to be for the best.

"Here in this solitary inn, they will only suppose me to be some crazed Englishman who insists on fishing by torch-light, in the middle of the night. Tomorrow when they see the boat driven on the lake without me, they will say, I have only suffered for my folly, by falling asleep, and tumbling overboard. Let all my acquaintances suppose the same. And now good night. I own that on the point of going to sleep, I feel some curiosity, and hope to have many things--made clear to me.--It is a pity that I shall not be able to impart my observations to you, as we have always done when studying together on terrestrial subjects.