Eugene Pickering

d was gathered on the terrace of the Kursaal and the esplanade below it to listen to the excellent orchestra; or half th

mate for it. I was on the point of giving up in despair, and proposing an adjournment to the silken ottomans of the Kursaal, when I observed a young man lounging back on one of the objects of my quest, with his feet supported on the rounds of another. This was more than his share of luxury, and I promptly approached him. He evidently belonged to the race which has the credit of knowing best, at home and abroad, how to make itself comfortable; but something in his appearance suggested

d my companion, who had watched

knew. But who in the world was it he resembled? The ladies went off to their lodgings, which were near by, and I turned into the gaming-rooms and hovered about the circle at roulette. Gradually I filtered through to the inner edge, near the table, and, looking round, saw my puzzling friend stationed opposite to me. He was watching the game, with his hands in his pockets; but singularly enough, now that I observed him at my leisure, the look of familiarity quite faded from his face. What had made us call his appearance odd was his great length and leanness of limb, his long, white neck, his blue, prominent eyes, and his ingenuous, unconscious absorption in the scene before hi

ectures, however, were speedily merged in wonderment as to what my diffident friend was making of her. She caught his eye at last, and raising an ungloved hand, covered altogether with blue-gemmed rings-turquoises, sapphires, and lapis-she beckoned him to come to her. The gesture was executed with a sort of practised coolness, and accompanied with an appealing smile. He stared a moment, rather blankly, unable to suppose that the invitation was addressed to him; then, as it was immediately repeated with a good deal of intensity, he blushed to the roots of his hair, wavered awkwardly, and at last made his way to the lady's chair. By the time he reached it he was crimson, and wiping his forehead with his pocket-handkerchief. She tilted back, looked up at him with the same smile, laid two fingers on his sleeve, and said something, interrogatively, to which he replied by a shake of the head. She was asking him, evidently, if he had ever played, and he was saying no. Old players have a fancy that when luck has turned her back on them they can put her into good-humour again by having their stakes placed by a novice. Our young man's physiognomy had seemed to his new acquaintance to express the perfection of inexperience, and, like a practical woman, she had determined to make him serve her turn. Unlike most of her neighbours, she had no little pile of gold before her,

d staked nothing for himself, but as he saw her prepare to withdraw he offered her a double napoleon and begged her to place it. She shook her head with great decision, and seemed to bid him put it up again; but he, still blushing a good deal, pressed her with awkward ardour, and she at last took it from him, looked at him a moment fixedly, and laid it on a number. A moment later the croupier was raking it in. She g

ay you may walk about for a whole afternoon in unbroken shade. The umbrageous gardens of the Kursaal mingle with the charming Hardtwald, which in turn melts away into the wooded slopes of the Taunus Mountains. To the Hardtwald I bent my steps, and strolled for an hour through mossy glades and the still, perpendicular gloom of the fir-woods. Suddenly, on the grassy margin of a by-path, I came upon a young man stretched at his length in the sun-checkered shade, and kicking his heels towards a patch of blue sky. My step was so noiseless on the turf that, before he saw me, I had time to recognise Pickering again. He looked as if he had been loun

d; "and after all, it's but fifteen years si

still smiling, and yet speaking

n old nurse with bushy eyebrows came and fetched him away in a carriage. His extremely fair complexion, his nurse, and his bottle of medicine, which suggested a vague analogy with the sleeping-potion in the tragedy, caused him to be called Juliet. Certainly Romeo's sweetheart

he jerked back his shoulders nervously, and threw up his head, as if to settle himself in an unwonted position. I wondered whether the old nurse with the bushy eyebrows had remained attached to his person up to a recent period, and discovered presently that, virtually at least, she had. We had the whole summer d

fter a supper of bread and milk, at eight o'clock. School-life, on experiment, seemed hostile to these observances, and Eugene was taken home again, to be moulded into urbanity beneath the parental eye. A tutor was provided for him, and a single select companion was prescribed. The choice, mysteriously, fell on me, born as I was under quite another star; my parents were appealed to, and I was allowed for a few months to have my lessons with Eugene. The tutor, I think, must have been rather a snob, for Eugene was treated like a prince, while I got all the questions and the raps with the ruler. And yet I remember never being jealous of my happier comrade, and striking up, for the time, one of those friendships of childhood. He had a watch and a pony and a great store of picture-books, but my envy of these luxuries was tempered by a vague compassion which left me free to be generous. I could go ou

eshold of the great world, an extraordinary freshness of impression and alertness of desire, and I confess that, as I looked at him and met his transparent blue eye, I trembled for the unwarned innocence of such a soul. I became aware, gradually, that the world had already wrought a certain work upon him and roused him to a restless, troubled self-consciousness. Everything about him pointed to an experience from which he had been debarred; his whole organism trembled with a dawning sense of unsuspecte

and a duller life for a young man grown, but I never knew it. I was perfectly happy." He spoke of his father at some length, and with a respect which I privately declined to emulate. Mr. Pickering had been, to my sense, a frigid egotist, unable to conceive of any larger vocation for his son than to strive to reproduce so irreproachable a model. "I know I have been strangely brought up," said my friend, "and that the result is something grotesque; but my education, piece by piece, in detail, became one of my father's personal habits, as it were. He took a fancy to it at first through his intense affection for my mother and the sort of worship he paid her memory. She died at my birth, and as I grew up, it seems that I bore an extraordinary likeness to her. Besides, my father had a great many theories; he prided himself on his conservative opinions; he thought the usual American laisser-aller in education was a very vulgar practice, and that children were not to grow up like dusty thorns by the wayside." "So you see," Picker

n his glance and tone. Evidently he was a clever fellow, and his natural faculties were excellent. I imagined he had read a great deal, and recovered, in some degree, in restless intellectual conjecture, the freed

d, "but I confess I envy you the novelties you are going t

glories and mysteries of the Fatherland. At this season, he said, I must begin with Homburg. I landed but a fortnight ago, and here I am." Again he hesitated, as if he were going to add something ab

expect to be in

But not so long-now!" And he let h

ll you go-what

should have said yesterda

aw that he had suddenly become preoccupied; that he was apparently weighing an impulse to break some last barrier of reserve. At last

ed, smiling. "I desire nothing better than t

ad, men and women to form a thousand relations with. It all lies there like a great surging sea, where we must plunge and dive and feel the breeze and breast the waves. I stand shivering here on the brink, staring, longing, wondering, charmed by the smell of the brine and yet afraid of the water. The world beckons and smiles and calls, but a nameless influence from the past, that I can neither wholly obey nor wholly resist, seems to hold me back. I am full of impulses, but, somehow, I am not full of strength. Life seems inspiring at certain moments, but it seems terrible and unsafe; and I ask myself why I should wantonly measure myself with merciless forces, when I have learned so well how to stand aside and let them pass. Why shouldn't I turn my back upon it all and go home to-what awaits me?-to that sightless, soundless country life, and long days spent among old books? But if a man is weak, he doesn't want to assent beforehand to his weakness; he wants to taste whatever sweetness there may be in paying for the knowledge. So it is that

hin himself, and I am no believer in art for art, nor in what's called 'life' for life's sake. Nevertheless, take your plunge, and come and tell me whether you have found the pearl of wisdom." He frowned a little, as if he thought my sympathy a trifle meagre. I shook him by the hand and lau

my se

death,

marr

h wh

erson I d

topped smiling, and b

s. Mr. Vernor was largely engaged in business, and I imagine that once upon a time he found himself in a financial strait and was helped through it by my father's coming forward with a heavy loan, on which, in his situation, he could offer no security but his word. Of this my father was quite capable. He was a man of dogmas, and he was sure to have a rule of life-as clear as if it had been written out in his beautiful copper-plate hand-adapted to the conduct of a gentleman toward a friend in pecuniary embarrassment. What is more, he was sure to adhere to it. Mr. Vernor, I believe, got on his feet, paid his debt, and vowed my father an eternal gratitude. His litt

s a romance, indeed, for these dull days," I said, "and I heartily congratulate you. It's not every young man who finds, on reaching the m

, intensely, and in a moment he beckoned to me. Then, on my going to him-'I feel that I shall not last long,' he said; 'but I am willing to die when I think how comfortably I have arranged your future.' He was talking of death, and anything but grief at that moment was doubtless impious and monstrous; but there came into my heart for the first time a throbbing sense of being over-governed. I said nothing, and he thought my silence was all sorrow. 'I shall not live to see you married,' he went on, 'but since the foundation is laid, that little signifies; it would be a selfish pleasure, and I have never thought of myself but in you. To foresee your future, in its main outline, to know to a certainty that you will be safely domiciled here, with a wife approved by my judgment, cultivating the moral fruit of which I have sown the seed-this will content me. But, my son, I wish to clear this bright vision from the shadow of a doubt. I believe in your docility; I believe I may trust the salutary force of your respect for my memory. But I must remember that when I am removed you will stand here alone, face to face with a hundred nameless temptations to perversity. The fumes of unrighteous pride may rise in

ionate consciousness of your situation is a very a

the future, grasping whatever the present offers me. Yesterday I thought I was in a fair way

t is

er from

ve not yet br

o, for the present.

you call

hat Mr. Vernor disapproves of my roving about the world.

is pure co

er something smote me at the heart. Look at the device on the seal, and I a

you had better

ner how one gets to Smyrna, pack my trunk, take my ticket, and not stop till I arrived. I know I should; it would

said, "curiosity wo

entally in every possible light. I fear nothing from that side, but I do fear something from conscience. I want my hands tied. Will you do me

ow long is your rope to be? The Ho

at be my season! A month henc

t was fantastic, and he was only trying to be natural. He watched me put away the letter, and when it had disappeared gave a soft sigh of relief. The sigh was natural, and yet it set me thinking. His general recoil from an immediate responsibility imposed by others might be wholesome enough;

he met my eyes with the

u saw that wo

rwards, too, sitting on the terrace in th

er-for nearly an hour. Th

did you

e; though she remarked that in a gener

en it came to losing your mone

g that I supposed she was doing nothing unusual. She confessed, however, afterwards, that she is very eccentric. The world began to call her so, she said, before s

e is a lady with no

smiled a little. "Is not th

those who ar

iling, "I have not yet fo

name, I suppose

l that you wouldn't know it. She is

ou have been so bluntly frank with me," I said, "that I too must be frank. Tell me, if you can, whether this clever Mad

he said, at last. "I have had the desire for three months; I

rs on your place at breakfast, did you seem for a

pos

nywhere in the neighbourhood. I

!" he crie

ow, if we are to see the world in a month, there is

l who was waiting for him there in a white-walled garden. I asked him if he had it with him. He said nothing, but gravely took out his pocket-book and drew forth a small photograph. It represented, as the poet says, a simple maiden in her flower-a slight young girl, with a certain childish roundness of contour. There was no ease in her posture; she was standing, stiffly and shyly, for her likeness; she wore a short-waisted white

to myself; "what an ench

Pickering, as if with an effort to be perfectly just

said, as I gave it bac

eet-no doubt!" And he put the t

-"My dear fellow," I said, "I should take some sat

edia

oon as you c

thing I have not told you," he said; "something that your saying that Madam

Blumenthal has asked you to come

he says that she means to play no more for the present. Sh

y gravely, "of course y

he were expecting me to laugh. "Urge it strongly,"

ft with a harmless expletive, I told him that unless h

h his stick. "Good!" he cried; "I wanted an occasion

put you in a proper mood for Madame Blumenthal's tea, we will go and listen to

ck remained unnoticed, so I presently introduced myself. I found no company, but I discovered my friend walking up and down the room and apparently declaim

acher?" I asked, gl

, as he answered, after an insta

she written

it's a tragedy." And

There were a great many marginal corrections and annotations, apparently from the author's hand; the speeches were very long, and the

t pales before the light of one's dreams as Octavia's dull beauty fades beside mi

onate," I said. "Has the

t she had it played at her own house in Berlin, and

aldt, and betrayed no sense of this being a confession that he had taken his plunge and was floating with the current. He only remembered that I had spoken slightingly of the lady, and he now hinted that it behoved me to amend my opinion. I had received the day before so strong an impression of a sort of spiritual fastidiousness in my friend's nature, that on hearing now the striking of a new hour, as it were, in his consciousness, and observing how the echoes of the past were immediately quenched in its music, I said to myself that it

t I confess Madame Blumenthal might do worse things than play at roulette, and yet make them harmonious and beautiful. I have never been in the habit of thinking positive beauty the most excellent thing in a woman. I have always said to myself that if my heart were ever to be captured it would be by a sort of general grace-a sweetness of motion and tone-on which one could count for soothing impressions, as one counts on a musical instrument that is perfectly in tune. Madame Blumenthal has it-this grace that soothes and satisfies;

orld, and you the object of her choicest favours, and yet what I should most

Pickering. "You are a sceptic, a cynic, a satiris

ess trains. But pray tell me, have you ventured to in

s to get rid of. Last evening, sitting there before that charming woman, they came swarming to my lips. Very likely I poured them all out. I have a sense of having enshrouded myself in a sort of mist of talk, and of seeing her lovely eyes shining through it opposite to me, like fog-lamps at sea." And here, if I remember rightly, Pickering broke off into an ardent parenthesis, and declared that Madame Blumenthal's eyes had

trary," I surmised, "entered i

She has felt and suffered,

d you as if she had made you, and she offere

"as I had never been spoken to before, and she offered

as formally

hich was the most inoffensive thing in the world. "I was very much moved; I was, in fact, very much excited. I tried to say som

dropped her tragedy

ad German aloud with me, for the accent, two or three times a week. 'What shall we begin with?'

my desire to let him alone, for the signs and portents of the world's action upon him-of that portion of the world, in especial, of which Madame Blumenthal had constituted herself the agent. He seemed very happy, and gave me in a dozen ways an impression of increased self-confidence and maturity. His mind was admirably active, and always, after a quarter of an hour's talk with him, I asked myself what experience could really do, that innocence had not done, to make it bright and fine. I was struck with his deep enjoyment of the whole spectacle of foreign life-its novelty, its picturesqueness, its light and shade-and with the infini