Stories by Foreign Authors: Scandinavian Part 15

Charles went over to the stranger who sat by the door: "Give me the bill."

"You don't need our a.s.sistance, then?"

"No, thanks."

"So much the better," said the stranger, handing Charles a folded blue paper. Then he paid for his coffee and went.

Madame Virginie rose with a little shriek: "Alphonse! Oh, my G.o.d!

Monsieur Alphonse is ill."

He slipped off his chair; his shoulders went up and his head fell on one side. He remained sitting on the floor, with his back against the chair.

There was a movement among those nearest; the doctor sprang over and knelt beside him. When he looked in Alphonse's face he started a little. He took his hand as if to feel his pulse, and at the same time bent down over the gla.s.s which stood on the edge of the table.

With a movement of the arm he gave it a slight push, so that it fell on the floor and was smashed. Then he laid down the dead man's hand and bound a handkerchief round his chin.

Not till then did the others understand what had happened. "Dead? Is he dead, doctor? Monsieur Alphonse dead?"

"Heart disease," answered the doctor.

One came running with water, another with vinegar. Amid laughter and noise, the b.a.l.l.s could be heard cannoning on the inner billiard-table.

"Hus.h.!.+" some one whispered. "Hus.h.!.+" was repeated; and the silence spread in wider and wider circles round the corpse, until all was quite still.

"Come and lend a hand," said the doctor.

The dead man was lifted up; they laid him on a sofa in a corner of the room, and the nearest gas-jets were put out.

Madame Virginie was still standing up; her face was chalk-white, and she held her little soft hand pressed against her breast. They carried him right past the buffet. The doctor had seized him under the back, so that his waistcoat slipped up and a piece of his fine white s.h.i.+rt appeared.

She followed with her eyes the slender, supple limbs she knew so well, and continued to stare towards the dark corner.

Most of the guests went away in silence. A couple of young men entered noisily from the street; a waiter ran towards them and said a few words. They glanced towards the corner, b.u.t.toned their coats, and plunged out again into the fog.

The half-darkened cafe was soon empty; only some of Alphonse's nearest friends stood in a group and whispered. The doctor was talking with the proprietor, who had now appeared on the scene.

The waiters stole to and fro, making great circuits to avoid the dark corner. One of them knelt and gathered up the fragments of the gla.s.s on a tray. He did his work as quietly as he could; but for all that it made too much noise.

"Let that alone until by and by," said the host, softly.

Leaning against the chimney-piece, Charles looked at the dead man. He slowly tore the folded paper to pieces, while he thought of his friend.

HOPES

BY

FREDERIKA BREMER

The Translation by Mary Howitt.

HOPES

BY

FREDERIKA BREMER

I had a peculiar method of wandering without very much pain along the stormy path of life. Although, in a physical as well as in a moral sense, I wandered almost barefoot,-I HOPED, hoped from day to day; in the morning my hopes rested on evening, in the evening on the morning; in the autumn; upon the spring, in spring upon the autumn; from this year to the next, and this amid mere hopes, I had pa.s.sed through nearly thirty years of my life, without, of all my privations, painfully perceiving the want of anything but whole boots. Nevertheless, I consoled myself easily for this out of doors in the open air but in a drawing-room it always gave me an uneasy manner to have to turn the heels, as being the part least torn, to the front. Much more oppressive was it to me, truly, that I could in the abodes of misery only console with kind words.

I comforted myself, like a thousand others, by a hopeful glance upon the rolling wheel of fortune, and with the philosophical remark, "When the time comes, comes the counsel."

As a poor a.s.sistant to a country clergyman with a narrow income and meagre table, morally becoming mouldy in the company of the scolding housekeeper, of the willingly fuddled clergyman, of a foolish young gentleman and the daughters of the house, who, with high shoulders and turned-in toes, went from morning to night paying visits, I felt a peculiarly strange emotion of tenderness and joy as one of my acquaintance informed me by writing, that my uncle, the Merchant P---in Stockholm, to me personally unknown, now lay dying, and in a paroxysm of kindred affection had inquired after his good-for-nothing nephew.

With a flat, meagre little bundle, and a million of rich hopes, the grateful nephew now allowed himself to be shaken up hill and down hill, upon an uncommonly uncomfortable and stiff-necked peasant cart, and arrived, head-over-heels, in the capital.

In the inn where I alighted, I ordered for myself a little--only a very little breakfast,--a trifle--a bit of bread-and-b.u.t.ter--a few eggs.

The landlord and a fat gentleman walked up and down the saloon and chatted. "Nay, that I must say," said the fat gentleman, "this Merchant P--, who died the day before yesterday, he was a fine fellow."

"Yes, yes," thought I; "aha, aha, a fellow, who had heaps of money!

Hear you, my friend" (to the waiter), "could not you get me a bit of venison, or some other solid dish? Hear you, a cup of bouillon would not be amiss. Look after it, but quick!"

"Yes," said mine host now, "it is strong! Thirty thousand dollars, and they banko! n.o.body in the whole world could have dreamed of it--thirty thousand!"

"Thirty thousand!" repeated I, in my exultant soul, "thirty thousand!

Hear you, waiter! Make haste, give me here thirty then--; and give me here banko--no give me here a gla.s.s of wine, I mean;" and from head to heart there sang in me, amid the trumpet-beat of every pulse in alternating echoes, "Thirty thousand! Thirty thousand!"

"Yes," continued the fat gentlemen, "and would you believe that in the ma.s.s of debts there are nine hundred dollars for credit and five thousand dollars for champagne. And now all his creditors stand there prettily and open their mouths; all the thing in the house are hardly worth two farthings; and out of the house they find, as the only indemnification--a calas.h.!.+"

"Aha, that is something quite different! Hear you, youth, waiter! Eh, come you here! take that meat, and the bouillon, and the wine away again; and hear you, observe well, that I have not eaten a morsel of all this. How could I, indeed; I, that ever since I opened my eyes this morning have done nothing else but eat (a horrible untruth!), and it just now occurs to me that it would therefore be unnecessary to pay money for such a superfluous feast."

"But you have actually ordered it," replied the waiter, in a state of excitement.

"My friend," I replied, and seized myself behind the ear, a place whence people, who are in embarra.s.sment, are accustomed in some sort of way to obtain the necessary help--"my friend, it was a mistake for which I must not be punished; for it was not my fault that a rich heir, for whom I ordered the breakfast, is all at once become poor,--yes, poorer than many a poor devil, because he has lost more than the half of his present means upon the future. If he, under these circ.u.mstances, as you may well imagine, cannot pay for a dear breakfast, yet it does not prevent my paying for the eggs which I have devoured, and giving you over and above something handsome for your trouble, as business compels me to move off from here immediately."

By my excellent logic, and the "something handsome," I removed from my throat, with a bleeding heart and a watering mouth, that dear breakfast, and wandered forth into the city, with my little bundle under my arm, to seek for a cheap room, while I considered where I w as to get the money for it.

In consequence of the violent coming in contact of hope and reality I had a little headache. But when I saw upon my ramble a gentleman, ornamented with ribbons and stars, alight from a magnificent carriage, who had a pale yellow complexion, a deeply-wrinkled brow, and above his eyebrows an intelligible trace of ill-humour; when I saw a young count, with whom I had become acquainted in the University of Upsala, walking along as if he were about to fall on his nose from age and weariness of life, I held up my head, inhaled the air, which accidentally (unfortunately) at this place was filled with the smell of smoked sausage, and extolled poverty, and a pure heart.

I found at length, in a remote street, a little room, which was more suited to my gloomy prospects than to the bright hopes which I cherished two hours before.

I had obtained permission to spend the winter in Stockholm, and had thought of spending it in quite a different way to what now was to be expected. But what was to be done? To let the courage sink was the worst of all; to lay the hands in the lap and look up to heaven, not much better. "The sun breaks forth when one least expects it," thought I, as heavy autumn clouds descended upon the city. I determined to use all the means I could to obtain for myself a decent substance with a somewhat pleasanter prospect for the future, than was opened to me under the miserable protection of Pastor G., and, in the meantime, to earn my daily bread by copying,--a sorrowful expedient in a sorrowful condition.