Samuel Brohl and Company

acquainted with Paris, having made several long sojourns there. This may seem improbable. Gone in his early youth to Amer

e fact that his purse was full, he proposed to live a retired and austere life. He found suitable apartments in one of the lodging-houses of Rue Mont-Thabor. These apartments, on the fifth floor, were pleasant but modest; they consisted of two rooms havin

n anything, that his condition was clear and transparent. When a man is proud he likes to be out of debt, and when he is clever he foresees all possible contingencies. His second care was to go to the Passage de l'Opera and buy a bouquet for sixty francs, which he carried to No. 27 Rue Mouffetard. He had one of those memories that retain everything and let nothing escape

was in the middle of August-and the approach of autumn was already felt, which enhances the beauty of all things. The sky was flecked with small gray clouds; a light, silvery mist hung on the brow of the hills; in two places the Seine appeared glittering in the sunshine. Abel breakfasted in the open air; while eating he gazed on the sky and on the great garden-plain extending at his feet, covered with vegetables, grape-vines, and asparagus, interspersed with fruit-trees. The wooded hills bord

, beyond a grove of oaks, the white walls of a pretty villa. His heart beat faster, and by a sort of divination he said within himself, "That must be it." He inquire

re M. Moriaz lives?"

for a month. If you come from a distance, monsieur," she added, graciously,

, "The inmates here ought to be happy!" This was about what Count Abel said to himself; in fact, he could hardly refrain from exclaiming, "Dieu! how happy I shall be here!" The situation, the terrace, the garden, everything pleased him infinitely. It seemed to him that the air here was fresher, more delightful than elsewhere, that it was exhilarating in the extreme; it seemed to him that the grass on the lawn was greener than any grass he ever had seen before, that the flowers in the carefully tended borders exhaled an unusually delicious perfume. He espied an open window on the ground-floor. He drew near it; the room into which he gazed, full of bric-a-brac of exquisite choice, was Mlle. Moriaz's study. There was in

on the ledge of the roof; he could readily understand that they were talking of him, and that they were saying, "Here he is-we have been waiting for him." A beautiful Angora cat, white as snow, with delicate nose and silky hair, came, arching her back and waving her bushy tail, from out a grove, and advanced towards him. She exa

He was sorry to leave a spot that spoke vividly to his heart, and even more so to his imagination. He seated himself on the turf, in the midst of a grove of oaks; around him stretched a blooming heath. Through an opening in the grove, he could see Saint-Germain, its forests, and the Seine glittering in the sunshine, with the two bridges of Maisons La

inski was overcome by a mysterious emotion; he felt a voluptuous languor steal through his veins. He watched the smoke over Paris, and he saw floating in it

patriot nor a paladin; his mother had not been a noble woman with the smile of an angel, and the thought never had occurred to him of fighting for any cause or any person. He was not a Pole, although born in a Polish province of the Austrian Empire. His father was a Jew, of German extraction, as indicated by his name, which signifies a place where one sinks in the mire, a bog, swamp, or something of that nature; and he kept a tavern in a wretched little market-town near the eastern frontier of Galicia-a forlorn tavern, a forlorn tavern-keeper. Although always on the alert to sell adulterated brandy

rs lying under it-the damp and dripping walls, and the rough, dirty ceiling. He remembered a panel in the wainscoting against which a bottle had been broken, in the heat of some dispute; it had left a great stain of wine that resembled a human face. He remembered, too, the tavern-keeper, a little man with a dirty, red beard, whos

ving as happy and contented in the paternal mire as a fish in water. Habit and practice reconcile one even to dirt;

becoming insane. Little by little, the chaos became less tumultuous; order began to reign, light to dawn. Samuel Brohl felt that he had had a film over his eyes, and that it was now removed. He saw things that he never had seen before, and he felt joy mingled with terror. He learned The Merchant of Venice by heart. He shut him

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ul, and that in this soul there was music, but that he could not hear it because the muddy vesture of decay too grossly closed it in. Then he experienced a feeling of disgust for Galicia, for the tavern, for the tavern-keeper, and for Samuel Brohl himself. An old schoolmaster, who owned a harpsichord, taught him to play on it, and, believing he was doing good, lent him books. One day, Samuel modestly expre

frying-pan into the fire; he exchanged his servitude for a still worse slavery. When he left the land of Egypt, he fancied he saw the palms of the promised land. Alas! it wa

young, might scan a worm. She had an imperious, contemptuous smile on her lips, the smile of a czarina; so Catharine II smiled, when she was dissatisfied with Potemkin, and said to herself, "I made h

when he is divested of his native impurities, when he has seen the world and had communication with honest people, he certainly will be a noble fellow." She made him talk, and found him intelligent; she liked intelligent men. She made him sing, assured herself that he had a voice; she adored music. She questioned him; he told her all his misery, and while he talked she said to herself: "No, I do not mistake; he has a future before him; in two or three years he will be superb. Three years is no

was, according to his opinion, merchandise of the best quality, a rich and rare article. He raised his demands ridiculously; she exclaimed; he affirmed he could not put them lower, that he had his terms, and that he always sold at a fixed price.

was discreet upon the subject, and desired that he should believe that he had cost her a fabulous sum. After reflection, he made his conditions; he

rior mind; she understood the world, the state of public affairs, and physiology, all that can be learned, and all that cannot be learned. Thus Samuel Brohl set out, his pocket well filled, for the University of Prague, which he soo

He was both ambitious and idle. He wanted to fly at once; he had a horror of beginnings of apprenticeships. His early education had been so neglected that in order to recover lost time he would have been compelled to study hard-all the more so because, although he was quick-witted, and had a marvellous facility for entering into the thoughts of others, his own stock was poor; he had no ideas of his own, nor individuality of mind. He possessed a collection of half-talents; even in music, he was incapable of originating; when he attempted to compose, his inspirations proved mere reminiscences. He did himself justice; he felt tha

a criminal, pursued by the police. He fancied that this woman was always on his track. It was then, for the first time, that he felt hunger, for they eat in the land of Egypt. He lived by all sorts of expedients, and cursed the poets. One day he learned that his father was dead; he hastened to the old tavern in order to succeed to the inheritance. He was not aware that for two years old Jeremiah Brohl had been in his dotage, and that his debtors mocked him while devouring his substance. A fine inheritance! it was diminished to two or three rickety chairs, four cracked walls that scarcely could stand upright, and some jewellery concealed in a hiding-place that Samuel knew of. Old Jeremiah never had been able to dispose of it for the price he required, and he pre

his lips with it, and began to laugh; then, striking his breast, he said

aks. Perhaps the lark that he had heard singing a quarter of an hour before had recognised him, for it had ceased singing. The peacock continued its screaming, and its doleful cries sounded like a warning. Yes, the man seated among the heather, employed in

resumed his grave, dignified air, in order to salute with a wave of his hand the phantom that had just appeared before him. It was the same that he had summoned one evening at the Hotel Steinbock, and treated there as an addle-bra

e in this age of sceptics, plunderers, and interlopers. Blessed be the chance that made us acquainted! You lived retired, solitary, unknown, in a miserable hovel just outside of Bucharest. So goes the world! You were in hiding-you who had nothing to hide from either God or man-you who deserved a crown. Alas! the Russian Government had the poor taste not to appreciate your exploits, and you feared that it would claim and obtain your extradition. At our first meeting I pleased you, and you took me into your friendship; I spoke Polish, and you loved music. I became your intimate friend, your sole companion, your confidant. You must grant that you owe to me the last happy

your orders. I kept your mother's portrait, the papers, all; and, in announcing your decease to the police, I made them believe that the man who was dead was named Samuel Brohl, and that Count Larinski still lived. What would you have me do? The temptation was too great. Samuel Brohl had disgraceful antecedents, he was base-born, he had been sold; there was a stain on his past that never could be wiped away, and, as he had had the misfortune to read the poets, it had come about that he often despised himself. It was, indeed, time that he should be thrown into the shade, and my joy was extreme to know that he was dead, and to feel that I was alive. As soon as I succeeded in persuading myself that I was indeed Count Abel Larinski, I was as happy as a child whose parents have dressed him in new clothes, and who struts about to show them. With your name I acquired a noble past; in thought, I roamed throu

ed with a spirit; but he was neither terrified nor awed, as was Hamlet in talking to the shade of his father. He treated familiarly

e met a woman, and what a woman! She has velvety-brown eyes, whence glances well forth like fresh and living waters. To praise her grace properly, I must borrow the language of the 'Song of Solomon': 'Thy lips, O my spouse! drop as the honey-comb; honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon. This thy stature is like to a palm-tree. Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee. A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse: a spring shut up-a fountain sealed.' Some day she will cry out, with the Shulamite, 'Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.' She belongs to us, my dea

d up, and that fled away trembling with sorrow, shame, and indignation. The peacock crie

he hill, through the space left by the crooked branches of two plantains, a white wall, that seemed to laugh amid the verdure, and a little higher the pointed roof of the dove-cote, where Mlle. Moriaz's doves had their nests. He did not need to look long at this roof to recognise it. He threw a burning kiss in the air-a kiss that was sent to the doves as well as to the dove-cote-to the h