The Catholic World Volume Ii Part 18

I could not bear to hear her weep; but what comfort could I give? At last the devil entered into my heart, {117} and I broke forth in bitter curses at my fate, and what I chose to call her inconstancy.

"I don't deserve this," said Marie very softly; "and I hardly expected that I should ever hear these words from your lips. Still, I believe you love me, after all. I hope you will feel, when you think over all that has pa.s.sed, that I am not heartless, and that I deserve some answer to the question which my lips almost refuse to ask. You will give me an answer, I am sure, by-and-by."

And then she left me, half-mad as I was, lying coiled up in a heap at the roadside.

During the next few days I did reflect. If I could not marry Marie myself, had I any right to hinder her marriage with another? Was I justified in preparing for her a life of solitude, and in depriving her of a mother's care? And then, again, I began to perceive that no one was at all inclined to take my part in the village. My popularity was fast declining, since no one could look into my heart, or could have the least idea what I had suffered, or knew what had actually taken place. I was pitied, but considered very selfish. I was continually told that Marie's mother was ailing sadly, and that she had deserved better treatment at my hands.

At last Father Hermann comforted me, and benefitting by his good advice and by the help of our holy religion, I began to be in a better frame of mind.

I made up my mind to give Marie her freedom. But I could not bear to see her again, and so I wrote.

CHAPTER V.

The marriage between Jaques and Marie was soon arranged, and soon the second festal day came round.

In the morning I put out to sea as usual; but as the evening wore on, I found I was under the influence of a spell and that it was quite impossible for me to remain where I was. Accordingly I returned; and, led on by the spell and attracted like a moth to the candle, wended my way to the rejoicings, in order that I might torture myself for the lost time.

I have heard of the agonies of the rack, of the thumb-screw, of saints being boiled in oil and crucified, and many other dreadful horrors; but I very much doubt if any martyr ever suffered the agony that I did that night.

It was in the dusk of the evening, and Marie was just finishing a song, while all were resting from the dances which had followed one another in quick succession. She was just singing the last verse, in which my name was accidentally introduced, when a sailor who was just behind me struck a match in order to light his pipe. The light exposed me to the view of the whole company. Directly Marie saw me, she uttered a piercing cry and fainted away. I rushed toward her, not thinking what I was doing. But Jaques was at her side before me.

Instead, however, of showing the least jealousy or putting himself in a pa.s.sion, he grasped me warmly by the hand, and then looked tenderly at Marie, who now began to revive.

"Never fear, and keep up a good heart," said he, in a strange kind of voice. You would never guess what he did, and perhaps will hardly believe when I tell you.

Ordinarily a very temperate, steady man, he astonished the company by giving out that he intended to throw a little life into the fete. On this he ordered wine and cider, and lastly a plentiful supply of brandy.

In a very little time he was helplessly drunk, or at least pretended to be so. As the evening wore on, he got from bad to worse, insulted and quarrelled with the men, and fairly disgusted the women. The village was in an uproar, and there was not a soul who did not speak in strong terms of the disgraceful conduct of Jaques. At the earnest entreaty of the worthy {118} fellow we kept our counsel, and accordingly the new marriage was at once broken off.

The rest of my story you know almost as well as I do myself. You see my life from day to day. You can picture to yourself my sorrow and my unhappy position. You can see how little _she_ has changed.

And yet we can never be more to one another than we are now. Never.

Never! We are married, and yet we are not. We are separated, alas, here on earth, but we _must_ be united in heaven. Think of the years that have pa.s.sed, and think how happy we might have been, and what a thread there was between our present existence and the life we long to lead. G.o.d's will be done!

Poor Pierre here let his head fall into his hands, and wept in silence.

How could I comfort the poor fellow?

It was not the kind of grief that needed consolation, and so I let him weep on.

All at once a breeze sprung up and filled the sails. Pierre immediately roused himself, but soon relapsed into his accustomed calm quiet manner.

Both the other sailors now came on deck, the nets were thrown over, and the business of the night began.

CHAPTER VI.

Three years afterward, by the merest accident in the world, I happened to return to my favorite little village. There was evidently some excitement going on, and as I chanced to recognize my old friend Father Hermann, I went up and renewed our acquaintance.

"What is the matter?" said he; "why you do not mean to say you don't know?"

"Not in the least."

"Why your old friend Alphonsine has been dead six months."

"I really don't see why the worthy inhabitants of the village should rejoice at that," said I.

"A great obstacle has been removed," said the father; "don't you remember?"

"Of course; and what has followed?"

"The marriage of Pierre Prevost and Marie!"

I was not long in accompanying Father Hermann to the cottage in which my old friends were receiving the warm congratulations of their friends and neighbors.

They recognized me at once, and insisted that I should be present at the entertainment which was to follow in the course of the day. Of course I accepted the invitation. I never remember having enjoyed myself so much, and am quite certain that I spoke from my heart when I proposed, in my very best French, the healths of la belle Marie and Pierre Prevost.

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From The Popular Science Review.

INSIDE THE EYE: THE OPHTHALMOSCOPE AND ITS' USES.

BY ERNEST HART, OPHTHALMIC SURGEON.

There are few spectacles more affecting--and there were few more hopelessly distressing--than that which many have seen, of the blind man, with eyes unaltered in their human aspect of beauty, searching vainly to penetrate the unchangeable darkness of a noonday, bright to others, and replete with the splendor of light and color. There have always been many of these sufferers from a disease which claims the most profound sympathy, and which seemed bitterly to reproach our science that it could not timely penetrate the mystery of that obscure chamber which lies behind the iris, and had found no means for enabling us to see through the clear but darkened s.p.a.ce of the pupil.

That reproach, at least, exists in part no longer. Since some few years now we have learnt how to explain the obscurity of the interior of the eye, and by what optical contrivances we can overcome this darkness and look into the depths of the ocular globe; thus inspecting with ease, and quite painlessly to the individual, the lenses and humors of the eye, the nerve of sight and its transparent retinal expansion, and even the vascular tissue which lies behind and surrounds this. This is a great triumph of physical science, and it is no barren triumph. The insight which we gain into the host of affections of the refracting media and deep membranes of the eye has given to our diagnosis and therapeutical treatment of the most obscure forms of disease leading to blindness, a certainty and precision to which we were formerly strangers.

The optical instrument by which we are able to effect this inspection is known by the fitting t.i.tle of the _Ophthalmoscope_ ([Greek text]

the eye; [Greek text], I survey). With this instrument, the manner of using it, and its valuable applications, I am necessarily professionally much occupied in daily work; and as the editor of the "Popular Science Review" has requested me to give some plain account of the matter, I will endeavor to afford an untechnical statement of what the ophthalmoscope is, and what are some of the most useful results which have been obtained by its use.

Let me first remind the general reader that in the human eye, behind the pupillary aperture of the colored iris, which presents to the unaided eye of the observer the mere aspect of black darkness, lies, first, a clear bi-convex _lens_; and behind this, filling the eye, and giving to it the character of a solid ball, a transparent globular ma.s.s, known as the _vitreous body_, or _humor_. It is into a depression in the front of this that the aforesaid lens is fitted, so that the whole s.p.a.ce of the eye behind the _iris_ is filled by the _lens_ and _vitreous body_. The optic nerve, or nerve of sight, which pierces the tunics of the eye at the back and near the centre, spreads out and forms an expanded tunic of nerve-structure which enwraps the vitreous body as far as its most forward edge, where the colored iris descends in front of it. Enwrapping again this nerve-tunic or _retina_ is a vestment, chiefly made of blood-vessels, connected by fine tissue and thickly coated with black pigment, having its own optical uses.

This second outer pigmented vascular tunic is _the choroid_. This again is enclosed within the external strong fibrous membrane, which includes and protects all the sclerotic membrane {120} ([Greek text], hard). These are the two humors and three tunics of the eye which can to a greater or less extent be examined during life by the aid of the ophthalmoscope.

They can all be more or less investigated in the living eye by the aid of the ophthalmoscope, because by the aid of this instrument we are able to see through the pupillary s.p.a.ce. If one considers what is the reason of the apparent darkness of the pupillary aperture and the chambers of the eye behind it, it is not difficult to gain an idea of the means by which this optical condition may be altered so as to enable us to see where all seem to the unaided vision obscure.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Doctor looking through ophthalmoscope.]

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This darkness of the pupillary aperture is attributable partly to obvious causes, such as the natural contraction of the pupil or _iris_ which occurs under light--this contraction limiting the number of rays which can enter the eye. Then that black pigment which lines the iris absorbs a great deal of light; and thus, as in the case of albinos, whose eyes are deficient in pigment, or where the pupil is dilated, either through disease or by artificial agents, these obstacles for seeing into the living eye are removed. But still the main difficulties are not cleared away; and if you take for example an albino animal, such as one of those beautiful little white-furred rabbits, whose rosy eyes look like fiery opals edged with swan's down, and dilate the pupils with atropine, it is still not possible to see clearly the details of the structure within and at the back of the eye. This is by reason of the structure of the eye as an optical instrument, and because the rays of light in entering and in emerging from it undergo refraction, according to definite laws. The light which penetrates the eye traverses the transparent retina, producing the impression necessary for sight, and is partly absorbed by the black pigment of the choroid; but a great number of the rays are reflected; for here there is no exception to the general rule that some of the rays of light falling upon any substance are always reflected. These rays, in returning, are refracted through the vitreous body and lens, just as they were in entering the eye, with the object then of causing them so to converge as to produce upon the retina a clear and definite image of whatever external object they started from. Similarly, then, on their emergence they are refracted chiefly by the lens and cornea, so as to form an image in the outer air, the emergent rays coinciding in their path with that which they took when entering, and the image formed in the air being conjugated with the retinal image; being formed, therefore, on the same side, varying with the position of the lens and object, and the accommodation of the eye. Thus, then, to perceive this aerial image, derived from the retinal reflection, the eye of the observer needs to be placed in the axis of the converging rays; but since this is also the axis of the entering rays, he will of necessity in that position cut off those rays altogether of the light proceeding, say, from a lamp, or the source of light opposite to the eye to be illuminated.

The problem to be solved consists, then, in the simple illumination of the eye to be observed by a source of light so arranged that the observer can be placed in the axis of the rays entering and emerging without intercepting those rays. This may be most conveniently effected by placing the source of light aside of the eye to be observed, and observing through a pierced concave mirror, which reflects that light into the eye. We can then, by looking through the central aperture of this mirror, place ourself in the path of the entering and emerging rays. The mirror becomes the source of light to the observed eye; the rays which it flashed into the eye emerge {122} in part, and return along the same path, forming the aerial image at a distance and under circ.u.mstances regulated by the optical conditions of the eye observed, and within view of the observer who is looking through the mirror. A very simple diagram will suffice to explain this: _r a_ is the circle of diffusion of the retina, and the lines indicate how the reflected rays will pa.s.s through the media of the eye, and form at _r' a'_ real enlarged but inverted image of the fundus of the eye. This will be placed at the distance of distinct vision of the subject, and has relation to the accommodation of the eye.