University of Virginia Library

32. CHAPTER XXXII.

Overcome by long-continued excitement,
I had fallen in a fainting fit at the
feet of my wife.

The next sensation that I can remember
was that of profound calmness and
repose. When I unclosed my eyes, they
were saluted by the cheerful beams of
the summer morning sun, stealing
through the half-drawn curtains of my
bed. The breath of flowers imbued and
filled the air.

Gazing through the curtains of my
bed, I beheld the details of a luxuriously
furnished room; the windows were
shaded by vines and flowers, trembling
on the outside to every breath of air;
a vase of freshly gathered flowers stood
on an ebony table near the bed; on
another table the massive family Bible,

in which was recorded my marriage with
Eugenia; and directly opposite me, from
the wall, smiled a picture which I had
purchased, because it looked like Eva—
the same room to which I had led
Eugenia when we first entered the gloomy
mansion.

Raising myself on my pillow, I turned
my head on my shoulder, and through
the open window beheld the vines and
flowers, and the broad Hudson glittering
in the morning sun. It was indeed a
beautiful morning, full of the peace and
repose of early June.

“If Eugenia were only true; if five
years of my life had not been blotted
out; if I was not friendless and a begger,”—thus
I murmured, but did not
complete the sentence. A fatal “if”
stood before every hope of peace and
happiness.

A footstep broke the calm stillness,
and I sank back upon the pillow, closing
my eyes. Presently, I was conscious
that a form was bending over me; that
a hand was lightly pressed upon my
forehead; that the soft pressure from
the lips of a woman who fears to awake
a beloved sleeper, was upon my lips and
cheek and brow. God knows I trembled
then! Could it be Eugenia, false
to the husband who had made her happiness
the ambition of his life—Eugenia,
whose crime had consigned me to a madman's
cell? I dared not unclose my
eyes.

Next, I heard the sound of footsteps
stealthily receding from the bed, and
ventured to unclose my eyes, and look
around. Eugenia, dressed in a flowing
morning robe, was bending over the vase
of flowers, very beautiful, with her clear
brown complexion set in her raven hair;
but there was a look of deep sadness on
her face.

O how earnestly, in that momentary
gaze, I devoured every detail of that
noble face and form, in which the pure
loveliness of the maiden, the matured
beauty of the matron, seemed to mingle!
and how I gnashed my teeth in very
bitterness of soul, as the thought arose,
—“That beautiful woman was once my
wife; but, faithless to me, is now the
wife of another!”

And on tiptoe, like a kind nurse, afraid
that the slightest movement may awake
a fevered sleeper she moved through the
room, seeming to shed around her an atmosphere
of purity, although I knew her
to be false as Satan.

Why is it that, although we know a
woman to be faithless as incarnate falsehood
itself, yet we can never believe her
to be thus when the magnetism of her
presence, the clear calm light of her eyes
is upon us?

A light, quick, rapid step, sounded
through the room, and the child came
bounding to her mother's arms, her face
all sunshine, and her ringlets waving in
the summer air.

Oh! how her simple words went to my
heart! “Is pa awake?” she whispered,
pointing to the bed—“Oh! I do so wish
he was awake, that I might talk to
him.”

“Hush! He is sleeping, and you must
not wake him,” whispered the mother,
kissing her beautiful child; and they
glided to the window and sat down
there, the child cradled on the mother's
knee, both very beautiful, and as like
each other as the rose-bud, just trembling
into life, to the rose of summer in
ripe bloom. It was a beautiful picture.
Stealthily, for a long time, I gazed upon
that picture, until again footsteps disturbed
the stillness.

“We have come, madam, after our
stray patient,” said a harsh voice.

“Yes! after our poor, distressed relative!”
added another voice, not so harsh,
but soft and low, and very sneaking.
“Our poor distressed relative! who, day
before yesterday, escaped from the Asylum.
We had some trouble to find him,
but know that he is here, and will take
him back with us.”

I confess that these voices made the
blood run cold in my veins.

In one I recognized the voice of Dr.
N—, the taciturn physician of the
Asylum; in the other, the voice of a relative,
who, in the days of my prosperity,
had fawned upon me, but who, despite
his sleek exterior, was as complete a
scoundrel as could be found in Wall-street,
or in the State Prison.

Through an aperture in the bed-curtains,
I stealthily surveyed them. Dr.
N— stood, prim as a waxwork figure,
his hat held in both hands, his form arrayed
in the changeless black suit and
white cravat.

As for Isaiah Porgy, my relative, he

was a man of singular make—very picturesque—thin
legs, expansive corporation,
narrow shoulders, all clad in shiny
black; and all over this, placed upon a
short apoplectic neck, appeared one of the
most singular faces that ever frightened
a portrait painter to death—narrow forehead,
on either side of which straggled a
lock of unpleasant-looking brown hair,
faintly lined brows, small aquiline nose,
huge bulging cheeks, with mouth and
chin about as big as a hazle-nut, supported
by a semi-circle of flesh, that possibly
might be called a double chin. As for
the eyes, they were so small that it is
hardly worth while to mention them,
were it not to record their expression of
simple, unadulterated knavery. It was
the mad doctor, (or doctor for the mad,)
and Mr. Porgy, who now confronted my
wife, that is to say, Eugenia. She rose
from her chair, as she saw them, and I
remarked that her face had grown very
pale. Was she about to consign me
once more to the madhouse?

I confess that I felt that the first words
she uttered would fix my fate.

But she did not speak.

“Now you know, madam,” said the
sleek Porgy, shifting his broad-rimmed
hat from one hand to the other, as
though it were something hot,—“You
know, madam, that since the court appointed
me, as the nearest relative, one
of the administrators, or trustees of the
estate of the unfortunate lunatic, (you
were the 'tother,) I have had a world of
trouble in managing his affairs, and in
keeping all things right, and—eh, eh—in
fact, madam, to make a long story short,
it is best for all parties to take him back
at once. He is insane, you know”—

“And he stole my clothes,” quaintly
interrupted the taciturn doctor. Eugenia
spoke; she was very pale, and I noted
a tremor of her lip.

“Gentlemen, do not speak so loud.
My husband is sleeping. I will speak
with you down stairs;” and with a quiet
gesture of the hand, she pointed to the
door.

Could I believe my ears? “My husband!”
And then that calm, proud attitude;
that quietly extended hand; that
beautiful face, pale as if from the force of
some secret purpose, fixedly resolved
upon. Was this Eugenia, my faithless
wife, or the creation of a feverish dream?

Mr. Porgy did not seem at all inclined
to go.

“But, madam,” he began, and made a
step toward the bed.

She quickly placed herself before him.

“This is my room, sir,” she said, quietly,
but with flashing eyes. “I will see
you down stairs.”

The doctor had already moved to the
door, and Mr. Isaiah Porgy followed him,
very reluctantly, stepping backward, like
a man who retreats before a hot iron
held near his nose by another man.
They left the room, and my wife—if I
can call her so—took her child by the
hand and followed them.

How nervously I awaited the result
of the interview! how I longed for her
reäppearance! An hour passed — it
seemed an age—and she did not come.

Through the still summer air, I heard
voices in the room below—now, the monotonous
voice of the doctor; now, the
calm, clear voice of Eugenia, and now,
the voice of Porgy, which gradually became
blustering and violent.

To rise, to hurry on some clothes, to
hasten down stairs and confront the
scoundrel, now became my prominent
desire; but, in the effort to leave the
bed. I sank back exhausted on the pillow.
“And it could do no good,” was
my bitter thought, “I am not master,
only a beggar here.”

At last the voices died away, and Eugenia
reäppeared.

She came into the room with a rapid
step. She was pale and agitated, her
bosom rose and fell, and one side of her
face was swept by her loosened hair.
There were traces of tears upon her
cheeks.

“No! no!—I will not consent!” I
heard her whisper. “I will die first!”

A sudden impulse prompted me to
speak. “To what will you not consent?”
I said; they were the first calm words
I had addressed to her for five long
years. She paused in her walk, and regarded
me with a look in which surprise
was only a single element.