University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.
A LETTER.

When I got home I found a foreign letter upon my table.
It was from America. I read it, and was thrown
into excessive agitation. In a single instant the whole
current of my thoughts was changed. In a single instant
the petty passion which accident and ennui had fanned
into a flickering and temporary flame, expired. In a single
instant Minna was nothing to me. Her image vanished
from my heart as instantaneously as if I had never
sought to give it a resting-place there.

It hardly needed this to prove to me how utterly inane
and worthless had been the sentiment with which I had
repaid her deep affection.

With a passing curse upon my heartlessness, with a
passing pang of regret for my insensibility, I resolved to
annihilate the whole connexion. I endeavoured to persuade
myself that my suspicions were well founded,
although my whole nature rebelled against the attempt.
I sought to justify my conduct by a miserable juggling
with my own conscience. So faithless was I, that I
sought to cheat myself.

I remained absent several days.

After the lapse of nearly a week, I found a letter on

my table. It was in her handwriting. I enclosed it in
a blank sheet, and sent it to her address.

The next morning there was another, which met the
same fate; and the next morning I returned to Carlsbad.

I remained there a week. On my return I found
seven letters — I sent the whole packet to her house without
note of comment or inquiry.

After this I heard no more of her for some days. After
the expiration of a week I began to feel uneasy. Such
was the perversity of my nature, that the moment when
she seemed to have summoned her woman's pride to her
assistance, and to have determined to reciprocate my
coolness, my affection revived. I grew every day more
anxious. Every morning when I awoke, I inquired if
there were no letters, and with each successive disappointment
I grew more sick at heart. Every time my
door-bell sounded, I started from my chair, and every
step in the passage I imagined to be Minna's Still I
would not go to her house. At last one morning Praise-God
entered with a letter in his hand.

I snatched it from him. It was only an invitation
from Madame von Walldorff, who had returned to
Prague.

“Perhaps she will be there,” thought I; and I was
impatient till the evening should arrive.

I went to Madame von Walldorff's. Minna was
there; I never saw her so beautiful. I accosted her —
there was not a flutter in her manner.

She spoke to me as if I had been the most indifferent
acquaintance. I was irritated beyond bearing. I endeavoured
to pique her. She answered all my attempts with
a look of wonder. I was completely baffled. Some company
approached us, and I was obliged to leave her; my

agitation was becoming excessive. Half an hour afterwards
she was alone, and seated in a retired window;
I advanced towards her, determined to come to an understanding
at once.

The moment she saw me approaching, she rose from
her seat and crossed the room towards Madame Walldorff.
She was then in the midst of a circle, and five
minutes afterwards she sat down to ecarté with Sir
Doomsday.

I rushed from the house in a rage.

I lay awake most of the night, pondering unutterable
revenge. The next day I was calmer, and I determined
to see her immediately. Early in the forenoon I proceeded
directly to her house.

When I was within a few yards of the door, her carriage
drove up. I waited an instant, and presently
Minna appeared. She was handed into the carriage by
a gentleman, who got in immediately after. They drove
by me, and saluted me formally. The gentleman was
the infernal poet.

I gnashed my teeth, and vowed revenge. Turning
the corner I blundered against Sir Doomsday. The
concussion was violent, the baronet stumbled into the
gutter. Instead of falling into a passion like a booby, he
commenced wiping his coat sleeves with his pocket handkerchief.
When that was finished, he begged my pardon;
I accepted it of course, and felt already in better
spirits. I was delighted with his miserable and muddy
condition.

His lodgings were hard by; he went up stairs to refit,
and begged me to accompany him. I hardly know how
it was that we sat down to ecarté. The baronet was a
passionate lover of the game; and as he was very cool,

and very scientific, and as he moreover always played for
small points, he rather increased his income by his cards.

I determined, if possible, to win his money. I knew
that nothing would so annoy him as to lose any considerable
sum. Fortune favoured me; little by little I egged
him on. How I was enabled to carry him so far, I know
not; but at last, from playing four-kreutzer points, we
came to betting a thousand dollars on a single game. I
won two doubles in succession. Sir Doomsday stopped—
he was a loser to the tune of four thousand crown-dollars.
He would play no more. His face was perfectly white and
his lip trembled. He kept, however, his temper admirably;
it is a gift which is possessed by most Englishmen.
He was calm, although that morning had annihilated
the economical practices of a year.

He wrote a check on his bankers for the amount. I
pocketed it, while I expressed my regret, and assured
him of my readiness to afford him his revenge.

“Thank you—thank you,” said he, “but it is quite
unnecessary. I shall never touch a card again. This
is exactly the catastrophe which I always contemplated
as possible, and for which I was provided. I have long
had a sum set by expressly for this purpose. When I
first began to play, I thought I might on some occasion
be tempted beyond my depth. I named a certain sum,
and determined if I ever lost so much at a single sitting,
I would play no more. Let me see.”

He took out his tablets and referred to a memorandum.

“What I have lost to-day,” continued he, “comes
within three dollars of the exact sum. My gaming is
finished. I am much obliged to you, Mr. Morton, for I
was getting tired of it, and I shall now never be tempted
to play again. Let me see.”

He again referred to his memoranda.

“Yes,” said he, “I thought so. I am on the whole a
gainer. Deducting these four thousand four hundred
and twenty dollars, I remain a gainer in the last fifteen
years of seven hundred and ninety pounds, fifteen shillings
and four pence. So you see I have nothing to
complain of. Good morning, Sir—good morning.”

I left the house, drew the money, and laid it out in purchasing
an annuity for the faithful Praise-God. I had
long been determined to provide for him in case of any
contingency; but I was well pleased that it was done at
the expense of Sir Doomsday instead of my own.

In the evening I went to a soirée at Kinski's. I knew
Minna would be there, and I determined to meet her on
her own ground. My eyes lighted upon her the moment
I entered the room. She seemed to have been expecting
me. There were many persons assembled. They were
mostly people of my acquaintance. I talked with every
body. I did not even look at Minna. Whenever my
eyes fell accidentally in the direction of her seat, I observed
that she was endeavouring to attract my attention.
I frustrated all her attempts.

It is a fact which I shall leave to metaphysicians to
speculate upon if they choose, that at the very instant I
perceived her resolution giving way, and knew that her
passion remained unchanged (all which her single
anxious glance informed me,) I felt my whole factitious
love die away in my bosom. I felt and was in reality as
indifferent as I had been. I think this would have been
so, in spite of the letter to which I have alluded.

I chatted with Kinski. I talked politics with Madame
Walldorff, and the moment Minna sat down to her harp,
I lounged into the next room.

The singing was soon finished. There was a little
bustle in the room, but I was in earnest conversation
with an artist whom I had found in the library, and
heeded it not.

When I returned to the saloon, I was informed that
Minna had become suddenly unwell, that in the midst
of her song she had nearly fainted, and that after having
partially recovered she had immediately left the house.
It was of course attributed to the heat of the rooms,
though Heaven is my witness, that the house was as
cold as Iceland. I remained quite late. There were one
or two persons present whom I had not met for a long
time, and the hours passed insensibly away. It was
past midnight before I reached my lodgings.

When I arrived Praise-God had gone to bed. I was
a little vexed, for I had some important directions to give
him. I determined, however, to defer them till the
morning and passed into the parlour for a candle.

There was none there, but the moonlight streamed
broad and full through the lofty windows. Presently
something moved from a distant corner. A female figure
advanced towards me. It was Minna.

I felt perfectly vexed—for I already hated her. I
threw myself on the sofa and began to whistle. She
came and sat down by my side. She took my hand. I
did not withdraw it. Her own was icy cold.

“Do not be afraid,” said she, “there shall be no more
scenes. You do not love me—you never did?”

Her voice was calm. I answered not a word. She
spoke the truth indeed.

“You were jealous of the Bohemian poet—he is my
brother. You were enraged at the intimate letter of
Baron Kinski. He is my father, alas! not my legitimate

parent; but his nature scorns the distinctions of the law,
and he has welcomed to his heart his long lost daughter.
The proofs are there, if you wish them.” She
placed a packet of papers in my hand.

“It is unnecessary,” said I, “I know it.” Madame
Walldorff had told me the singular story that evening.
It had produced no effect upon me except to make me
hate Prague with all its inhabitants, and Minna more
than all.

“You knew it!” said she, and for a moment her voice
was suffocated by her emotion. In a moment, however,
she commanded herself, and her voice was calm as she
resumed: “You knew it and it produced no change in
you. Alas! there wanted not that proof of my utter
and hopeless desolation. At least there is an end to my
struggles.”

As she finished she knelt down and kissed my feet.—
Her sobs were audible, but they were low and powerfully
repressed. She rose. A lingering feeling of affection
came over me. I reached out my arms to her—she
evaded my embrace and vanished.

Three days after this, I took up the Prague Government
Journal. Among the list of foreign departures and
arrivals, I read the departure of Sir Doomsday and Lady
Gules for England.

It was furthermore stated, that the bride of the Englishman,
was the daughter of a nobleman celebrated for
his travels and his scientific researches, and that she was
the same person who had so recently delighted and astonished
the world by her extraordinary musical genius.