CHAPTER XI.
SOME REFLECTIONS ON COMPARATIVE CHARACTER--OF HOUSES AS WELL ASMEN--TEMPTATION, AND THE LEGENDS OF THE "LURLEY" AND THE "FROZENHAND"--A LUNCH AT TAYLOR'S, AND AN ARRANGEMENT.
In the "great day of final assize," when beneath the one unerring Eyeand Hand all the drosses of life and circumstance shall be melted awayand all the films and disfigurements removed from action andintention,--there will be many things, we have reason to believe, shownin a widely different light from that in which human eyes have lookedupon them. Human character will surprise the beholders, if it does notproduce the same effect even upon the subject under examination. Many apoor wretch who has been stumbling along through life, unfortunate andapparently guilty, of no seeming use either to himself or the world,will be found to have filled a place of necessity not suspected--to havedone much good and very little harm--and to have been acting frommotives quite as pure as those that in other hearts have produced suchdifferent effects. Many a "good" man will be stripped so bare of thegarments woven around him by circumstances or his own self-righteousness,and so many of his best deeds will be proved to have proceeded fromselfish, interested and unholy motives, that every success and every wordof past approbation will be a reproach, and his naked soul will standshivering in the chilling breath of God's displeasure.
It is not exactly certain that _houses_ will come to judgment; but ifthey do, there will be the same marked difference in the estimation inwhich many of them have been held by the community surrounding them, andthe truth of their influence shown in the "sunlight of the eternalmorning." Some miserable tenant-house in Bermondsey or the Swamp,overcrowded with human rats, its atmosphere so noisome that feverfloated on every breath and the passer-by from Belgravia or Murray Hillput his perfumed handkerchief to his nostrils to escape the deadlyinfection,--may be found to have been far less injurious to theneighborhood than the corner-house on Park Lane or the double-front ofbrown stone within the shadow of Dr. Spring's church on Fifth Avenue.Within the one the miserable occupants may have festered in body androtted in soul--harming only themselves and the physical atmospheremeanwhile, and victims of the horrible aggregation of poverty in greatcities; while within the other a maelstrom of pleasant dissipation hasbeen whirling, to which the victims came in their own carriages withfull liveries, the waves as they circled sending up jets of coolingspray and redolent of perfumes from the flowers of sunny lands--butcontinually widening its circle of evil attraction and drawing in thosewho thenceforth had no power of resistance against the banded demons ofwine, of play and of lascivious enjoyment, who lurked beneath thewaters, eager for their prey.
The fable of the "Lurline" is the story of human life and temptation;and yet few of the thousands who have read it in the old German legendof the "Lurleiberg" or the charming "Bridal of Belmont" of the author of"Lillian," or who have gazed at it for hours when presented upon thestage in the shape of "Ondine" or the "Naiad Queen,"--have fullyrealized its significance. To most it has been merely a pretty conceitor an effective spectacle; to the close student it is an absorbingpicture of the enthralment of human energies. Sir Huldebrand ofKingstettin is a true as well as a valiant knight, and he has agolden-haired and white-handed ladie-love in the neighboring castle ofthe Baron of Steinbrunnen. He has a hope, a love, a faith, a duty; andon the day when he fares forth from Kingstettin and takes his way tothe river bank, he has mirth as well as all these, for Karl, his merryservant, is beside him. But the day is hot and sultry, and he dismountsfrom his horse and lies down to sleep beside the Lurleiberg. He hasgranted himself rest and indulgence. Half in his sleep and half in hiswaking thought he sees the stream rippling below the banks and circlingin pleasant eddies by rock and mossy edge, while the water-lilies nestledown their soft cheeks to the lapping water in the sheltered nooks, andthe willows bend down and kiss the stream with the swaying tips of theirhundred fingers, and little gleams of golden sunshine steal through thebranches and touch the soft ripples here and there with such tints oftransparent light as the pencil of painter never mastered. Oh, howdeliciously sweet and dreamy is that half wakeful feeling of repose andindulgence! And then the music rises--gentle and almostundistinguishable at first from the singing ripple of the water--thenclearer and more distinct, but with still a tinkling ripple in everycadence, and the name of the listener insensibly blended. Flattery hascome with indulgence, and the subtle wine of its intoxication ismounting to his brain. Then he turns dreamily on his couch of moss, andlooks over the bank into the river. Above the water white hands arecircling and snowy bosoms are gleaming, and in the midst is one form ofmatchless rounded beauty, with a face of angelic splendor, her eye-lidsgemmed with the tear-drops of an awakened affection, and her waved brownhair caressed by the tide as it sweeps backward. All the white hands arebeckoning to him, and all the coral lips are uttering those low musicalwords in which his name is blended. The brain of the knight growsdizzy--chains of which he only feels a pleasure in the slight pressure,twine around his limbs. Voluptuous enjoyment takes the place ofenergy--he is himself no longer. He cannot even laugh--he can onlysigh--Karl has gone chasing some Lurline of his own, far down themeadow. Ermengarde, who has been for hours leaning out of the highwindow at Steinbrunnen, and looking anxiously for her expected lover--isnothing to him now. His promised aid to Sir Rudolph to-morrow, with helmon brow and lance in rest, against the invader who threatens the landsof both with ravage, is nothing to him now. Love and duty are alikeforgotten. The temptation has done its full work through indolence andindulgence, and the knight is lost. The brown-haired Lurline is worthall earth and heaven. Let all the rest go, without a sigh or aregret--be his the murmur of the river, the delicious music embodyinghis name, and the beckoning of the white hands towards him! He does notleap into the water, as some have held: he merely bends nearer to theverge, then slips down with eager eyes and outstretched hands; the whitearms twine around him; the music sounds for one moment more sweetly butmore sadly than ever, as the waves close above the pair so unholilywedded; then the ripples sing on and all is quiet beauty as before--calmand quiet beauty, as if no tomb had closed above the energies of a humansoul.
Sir Huldebrand may come back again, after a time, as the legend is fondof making him do. He may even marry the golden-haired Ermengarde andsire children to heir his lands and perpetuate his name. But the knightis himself a wreck, with all his best energies burnt out in those weirdorgies beneath the water; and his bridal vow is a hollow one, for whenhe utters it he hears the shriek of the Lurline blending with thewedding music, and his nightly couch is to be henceforth a torture ofunrest--his ride by day a mere hopeless fleeing from the ghosts of deadpleasures.
Something of the same character is that other wild legend which hasgrown into song and drama--sprung from the Norse branch of the greatGerman mind,--that of the "Ice Witch" or the "Frozen Hand." Here theViking Harold is less wrecked by temptation than by circumstance; butthe result of the enthralment is the same. The ice of the Pole closesaround him with the same fatality as the waters of the Rhine around hisbrother and prototype. Surrounded by the white arms of Hecla in herpalace of ice, he ceases to lament the bride who is awaiting him in thefar South; and he has not even a thought of regret to cast towards hisperished companions and the stout ship that once bore him so proudly,her brown ribs now bleaching whitely on the Arctic shore. He tooreturns, after a long period, but he brings with him the fatal gift ofhis Northern bride--_a hand of ice_. He may be strong and brave still,as he was when he went away; but he is no longer the peerless and enviedwarrior. Men look upon him with a ghostly shudder, and women shrink backfrom his chilling presence. Not even Freja can thaw away all the icethat has gathered in his veins. He may chastise the robber Ruric fromthe hills, and sleep once more in the warm embrace of Isoldane; but whoknows that at some midnight hour the old curse may not return upon himand the hand he stretches in love and fondness strike death to thehearts that are dearest? Not the same--changed, changed--as is every manwho has once yielded to the great temptation of
his existence.
All this, which may be purely irrelevant matter, has grown out of avisit paid by some of the characters in this narration, to a fashionablerestaurant and saloon on Broadway, and the belief that in some of thosehouses temptation is lurking in so insidious and deadly a form that theyare doing a thousand times the injury inflicted by the acknowledgedhaunts of vice. Special allusion may or may not be made to the gorgeousbut tawdry room in which the three sat down to discuss their _a la mode_beef, coffee and biscuits. Any one of the fashionable houses to whichladies habitually resort without male protection, for a noonday lunchwhen shopping,--may serve as a type of all the rest; and not one of thembut may be passed with a shudder, by husbands who wish their wives toremain like Cesar's, not only chaste but above suspicion,--and byfathers who do not desire the peach-bloom too early rubbed off from theinnocence of their fair daughters.
At this marble table, where the cloth is being so carefully spread bythe white-napkined waiter who has a steaming cluster of dishes on asalver on the table opposite,--there may be a little party, like that ofour three friends, dropped in on the most proper of errands--that ofmerely procuring a bit of lunch in the midst of a day of business,without going home for it or visiting the table d'hote at a hotel; butat the next table and the next there is something different. Here sit aparty of three giddy girls, without male protection, innocent enough intheir lives and intentions, but boldly exposing their faces to the rudegaze of any of the libertine diners-out who may happen to be at thetables opposite, and returning that gaze, when met, with a smile and asimper that merely means scorn and self-confidence but may be easilyconstrued into a less creditable expression. And at this table, only tworemoved, discussing a _pate de foix gras_ which may or may not have comefrom Strasburg of the Big Goose Livers, and washing down his edibleswith a glass of liqueur that fires the blood like so much moltenlava,--sits a boldfaced man, fashionable in dress and perfumed in hairand whiskers, whose gaze is that of the evil eye upon the reputation ofany woman, and who has no better occupation than lounging in any placeof public resort, to spy out the beauties of female face and figure andthe weaknesses in the fortifications that surround female virtue. Andhere--at one of the opposite row of tables, her cup of coffee and plateof French trifles in pasty just being set down before her--here is asadder spectacle than either. The wife of a wealthy merchant, yet young,beautiful and attractive, but with a frightened look in her dark eye anda nervous glancing round at the door every time it opens, which too wellreveals her story to the close observer. She is waiting for her_lover_--harsh word in that connection, but the true and only one; herlover, whose acquaintance she may have made through unforbidden glancesin this very room, and whom she has permitted to approach her, slowlybut surely, as the serpent stole upon Eve in Eden, until she has fallencompletely into his power, losing honor, self-respect, everything that atrue wife most values, and probably supporting the wretch in a course ofgambling and dissipation, with money wrung on one pitiable pretext orother from the grudging hand of her betrayed husband.
It is enough!--let the curtain fall. But oh, heart of man, put up theprayer that other and holier lips once uttered: "Lead us not intotemptation, but deliver us from evil!" And may not the _houses_ indeedcome into judgment?
We have no concern whatever with the pleasant small-talk which floatedover the little table at Taylor's, from the lips of Tom Leslie and histwo female companions; nor is there any need to pause at this junctureand remark whether the strange glance of Josephine Harris on beingintroduced to the young man on the street, was repeated or returned. Thetrio seemed to be a very happy one, Miss Bell Crawford a little starchedat first towards a man who had been flung into her way so ambiguously,but rattle-pated Joe firing off occasional fusillades of odd sayings,and Tom, the prince of _preux chevaliers_, falling into the position ofan old acquaintance with marvellous rapidity. Their lunch was nearlyover, when the mischievous face of Joe, who had been making runningcomments upon some of the people on the other side of the room,good-naturedly wicked if not complimentary--lit up with a conceit whichset her hazel-gray eyes laughing away down to the depths of her brain.At the same moment the quick eyes of Bell Crawford saw that the hand ofthe merry girl was rummaging in her pocket, and _her_ face becameanxious. Before the latter could speak, however, the hand of Joe cameout with the treasure she had been seeking--a torn half column, or less,of the _Herald_. The moment Miss Crawford saw the slip, her anxietyseemed to be redoubled, and she reached over to Joe, as if to take thepaper, with the words, half-pleading, half-pettish:
"Don't, Joe--pray don't!"
"Oh, but I must!" said the mischievous girl, taking care that hercompanion should not reach the slip. "I cannot think of throwing awaysuch an excellent opportunity. I say, Mr. Leslie, you are not anunscrupulous destroyer of female innocence--one of those dreadfulfellows we read about in the books, are you?"
"Oh, Joe, I am ashamed of you!" said Bell Crawford, and she lay back inher chair, very near to a fit of the sulks.
"Really," said Tom Leslie, blushing a little in spite of himself, thoughwithout knowing precisely why--"really, Miss Harris, I am afraid I amnot the best of men, but I hope I do not deserve any such terribleappellation."
"There, I told you so, Bell, I knew he wasn't!" went on the wild girl,as if she had been asking a solemn question and receiving a conclusiveanswer. "We can trust him--he says we can, and I am going to put him tothe test at once. Suppose, Mr. Leslie, that a couple of distresseddamsels--"
"What a ninny you are making of yourself!" put in Miss Crawford, in atone not very far from earnest.
"Suppose that a couple of distressed damsels," Josephine Harris went on,without heeding her in the least, "about to pass through a gloomy anddesolate wood, on the way to an enchanted castle, should appeal to youto accompany them and give them the benefit of your courage andyour--yes, your respectability, in the adventure; would you go withthem, even if you were obliged to abandon a game of billiards andforfeit the smoking of two cigars for that purpose?" and she threwherself back in her chair, screwed her face into the expression supposedto belong to a grand inquisitor, and waited for a reply.
"I would do my devoir like a true knight," said Leslie, making a mockbow over the table, with his hand on his heart, "even if I forfeitedthereby not only two cigars but four and the playing of two whole gamesof billiards."
"Generous knight!" said Joe, still preserving her melodramatic tone, "wetrust you--we enlist you into our service, 'for three years or duringthe war!' Read!" and she solemnly handed over the slip of paper, onwhich Leslie perceived the following advertisement, marked around withblack crayon, and under the general head of "Astrology":--
"THE STARS HAVE SAID IT! MADAME ELISE BOUTELL, from Paris, whom the stars favor and to whom the secrets of the unknown world are revealed, may be consulted on any of the great events of life, at No. -- Prince Street, near the Bowery, every day, between 10 A.M. and 6 P.M. Let ignorance be banished, and let the light of the world unknown dawn on the darkened minds. Persons who attempt deception in visiting Madame Boutell, will find all disguise unavailing; but all confidences are safe, as strict secrecy is observed."
"Well?" added Leslie, looking up inquiringly, after reading themysterious announcement.
"Well?" said the mad girl, mimicking him. "Is _that_ all the effect itproduces upon you? Do your knees not shake and does not your hair startup on end when you think of it, so that your hat--if your hat was notunfortunately hung upon the hook yonder, would require to be held on bymain force?"
"How _can_ you be so absurd?" suggested Bell, who really feared that thepronounced behaviour of her friend might draw too much attention totheir table, as there was indeed some danger of its doing.
"Bah!" said Joe, "I _couldn't_ be absurd! I was 'never absurd in mylife,' as Sir Harcourt Courtley says. But Mr. Leslie!--what have I said?You look pale--ill!" and the face of the young girl tamed instantly toan expression of genuine alarm, not at all unwarranted by thecircumsta
nces. The face of Tom Leslie had indeed undergone a suddenchange. His usual ruddy cheek seemed ghastly white, his eyes staredglassily, and there was a quick convulsive shiver running over his framewhich did not escape the notice of either of his two companions. Thekind heart of Josephine Harris at once hit upon a solution for theotherwise strange spectacle. She had said some awkward word--touchedsome hidden and painful chord connected with past suffering orexperience; and she felt like having her tongue extracted at the rootfor the commission of such a blunder.
What _was_ the cause of this sudden emotion? The explanation may not beso difficult to any thoughtful reader of this story as it was to the twoyoung girls who sought it. Tom Leslie had merely read over themendacious advertisement, at first, with the same indifference given tothousands of corresponding humbugs; and at the first reading he had notnoticed the place at all. At the second reading, his mind took in thedirection: "No. -- Prince Street, near Bowery," and at the same momenthe comprehended the words, "Madame Elise Boutell, _from Paris_." TomLeslie was every thing else than a coward; and yet he had shudderedbefore at the sight and the memory of the "red woman:" he whitened andshuddered now. What if another meeting with that mysterious woman was athand?--if the scenes of the Rue la Reynie Ogniard were about to bere-enacted? The French name and the words "from Paris," the place, whichseemed to him undoubtedly the same of his adventure with Harding--allmade up a presumption of identity that was for the moment overwhelming.
But those who show surprise or emotion quickest are not slowest torecover from its effects. Whatever he felt, nothing more was to be shownthe two ladies. Reaching for a glass of ice-water standing upon thetable, Leslie drank the whole of it off at a draught, and the electricshock at once restored the tone to his system and brought back the redblood to his face. With a laugh he said:
"I really beg ten thousand pardons for alarming you, but these slightattacks are constitutional, and they need not cause the least fear. Thatis over, and I am as well as ever. What was it you were saying, MissHarris?"
"Thank heaven that you _are_ better!" said the kind-hearted girl. "I wasreally for the instant apprehensive that something I had said might haveawakened some painful recollection. I was trying to get you, at thatmoment, to understand the terrible significance of this advertisement."
"Well," said Leslie, laughing, "what am I to understand? That you havebeen testing the skill of this seeress, or that you are about to do so?"
"There you go!" said Joe Harris. "Now you are on the _other_ side of thefence! Excuse my similes, but I have not always been cooped up in thishumdrum city--I occasionally pay visits to the country. A moment ago yougrew pale at the name of the mighty Madame Boutell, whose cognomensounds a good deal like the Yankee 'doo tell!' I admit; and now you arelaughing at her!" The young girl had by this time recovered from hergood-natured anxiety and regained her habitual vivacity, and she rattledon to the great edification of her auditors, and happily withoutattracting any additional notice from the people at the other tables."Yes, sir, Miss Crawford and myself are about to consult this modestexponent of the mysteries of the stars, though about what we have notthe least idea. _I_ have not, at least; have _you_, Bell?"
"Not the ghost of an idea," was the answer of Miss Crawford.
"Ghost is good, in that connection," rattled on the gay girl. "You seeI have never yet consulted a fortune-teller, and I am afraid I shallsoon be too old to do it to advantage. I lost my faith in Santa Claus, agood many years ago, and long before my stocking was too big to hang up;and I cried over the discovery for a fortnight. Suppose I should lose myfaith in fortune-telling before I ever had any experience in thatdirection--wouldn't it be dreadful?"
"But why this lady in particular?" asked Leslie, who was at the momentstudying a theme which no man knows more about to-day than was known inthe days of Aristotle--that of chances and coincidences.
"Oh," said Joe, fumbling in her pocket for other slips, and drawing themout and exhibiting them with great gravity, to the infinite amusement atleast of Leslie. "Oh, I have been preparing myself, and found the best.Here is a 'Madame R.,' who has 'just arrived in the city and taken aroom at No. 7 Pickle Place.' That would never do, you see. 'Taken aroom' is too suggestive of limited accommodations and no carpet on avery dirty stair. Then here is another, in which 'Madame FrancenaGuessberg' promises to 'give information about absent friends' and to'show the faces of future husbands.' Most of my friends who are absent Inever wish to hear of again; and as to the husbands, I shall see themall soon enough, if not too soon."
"Hem!" said Leslie, though scarcely knowing why he made that comment.
"That is all," continued the wild girl. "All the rest are insignificantor impossible, except--no, here is one who promises to 'call names.' Nowif there is any thing in the world that I don't like except when I do itmyself, it is 'calling names.' And now see Madame Boutell. There isnothing of the petty or the insignificant about _her_. She has the'stars' at command, and is about to open the 'unknown world.' She is_the_ woman, of course! Knows all about the 'great events' of life.Can't be humbugged, and keeps a secret as a steel-trap holds a rat. Andnow, will you go with us, and protect us, and--Mr. Harding said you werea newspaper man,--will you take down a full, true and circumstantialaccount of all that occurs? That is what I have been trying to get atfor this quarter of an hour. Will you go with us?"
"You are going to-day, then?" asked Leslie.
"Miss Harris insisted upon my accompanying her, and I half consented todo so," said Miss Bell Crawford, apologetically.
"Fiddlestick!" said the merry riddle. "Don't try to beg out of it, MissBell! She sent her carriage home, Mr. Leslie, so that we need not beseen going there with it; and there we were going, two lovely andunprotected females, when providence raised up a champion in the personof our new friend."
"Who hopes yet to be an _old_ friend, and who will go with you, with thegreatest pleasure," said Leslie. "At the same time"--reflecting amoment--"at the same time I must be as prudent about myself, for certainreasons, which I will explain some day if you wish it--as Miss Crawfordhas been about her carriage. Oblige me by remaining at the table hereand trifling with some creams, chocolate and a few bon-bons, while Ileave you for a few minutes--not more than fifteen or twenty. At the endof that time I shall be ready to accompany you."
Giving the necessary orders and throwing a bill to the waiter, TomLeslie passed rapidly out into the street and walked quite as rapidly upBroadway, until he turned again down Broome Street, which he had quittedwith Harding but a little while before. Had he _more_ to do with thePolice?