University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.

The more I thought, the more I was confused; and I became
hourly more and more interested in the subject. My caution
and my studies, and sometimes my landlady and supper, were
equally forgotten. I became something of an amateur in music;
though, after the few first days, my eyes were probably far more
busy than my ears. I almost lived at that window of my chamber
which looked out upon the `rookery.' My own movements,
at length, came to be almost as much matter of observation and
scrutiny to others, as were those of the fair singer to myself.
Perhaps, I became somewhat indiscreet in the watch which I
kept over her. Not content with the advantages of my position,
I was tempted forth at evening by the sweet song of the syren,
and without determining upon my movements, by the exercise
of any previous thinking, I found myself, finally, under her very
window.

This was a stretch of freedom rather large for one who had
usually maintained, in his conduct, something like the regimen
of a purist. It was an indulgence, the exercise of which soon
brought me a rebuke, which, if it did not fully answer the intended
purpose, of chiding me back to my own territory, at least
served to remind me that I was an invader of that of another.
The second time that I ventured to cross the street and place

myself beneath the window of the musician, she was engaged
in a touching little ditty, which I had never heard before, and
the mournful sweetness of which brought to my soul as I listened
a most luscious sentiment of grief. Perhaps I should have
been amply satisfied to listen from my own chamber, had not
the tones of her voice been unusually low. There was, that
night, a faintness in her utterance which seemed to denote a full
feeling in her heart of the sorrowful sentiment which other lips
only sung. An undefinable curiosity made me throw by my
books, extinguish my lamp, put on my cap, and steal forth to
the `rookery.' The evening was dark—a faint starlight through
apertures in a dense mass of sullen clouds served only to confuse
the aspects of general objects;—and secure, as I fancied myself,
from all observation, I crossed the street, and placed myself
against a lamp-post which stood in front of the miserable
dwelling. Here I had not been many minutes before the music
ceased. I could hear a brief conversation carried on in low but
harsh tones in the apartment which had been so lately the
prison of the sweetest song. The mean light of the chamber
seemed extinguished, and while I waited for the strain to be
resumed, the door below suddenly opened, and I was abruptly
confronted by one, who, emerging from the dwelling, in almost
rude accents, demanded my business.