Various
Bentley's Miscellany, Volume II
"I will tell you the rest of my story another time – not now – not now!" and Falkner L – rushed from the apartment. I left the house immediately.
As I rode home to my own house, half a dozen miles distant, I pondered upon the narrative I had just heard. "Perchance," thought I, "the root of this malady is left; it may grow again. I fear he is not quite recovered. I will see him at any rate to-morrow."
L – fully expected me, and smiled as I entered; but he looked paler than usual, and his hand was feverish. I spoke cheerfully to him; told him some little gossip I had picked up by the way; read him a paragraph or two from a London paper – the crack article of the day; descanted on the weather, as all Englishmen do, and prophesied respecting it for the next four-and-twenty hours. It was his turn next. After a moment's silence, and a sort of struggle with his feelings, he took up the thread of his discourse, but not where he had left off.
"You must have perceived, sir," began my young friend, "that I am of a wayward temper, and have been spoiled by overweening indulgence. My father – but he is in the grave; let me not disturb his ashes more than necessary; – I told you he had died of a broken heart. I am ashamed of the prevarication; his heart certainly was broken, but his own hand assisted the slower operations of nature. He would not brook delay; so ran a sword into that princely organ, and made it stop."
So fearfully pale now looked poor Falkner, that I handed him a glass of wine standing ready on the table, and made him drink it, saying in as cheerful a tone as I could muster up, "Come, come, my dear L – , you have begun now at quite a different part of your story; we must not retrograde. I want to know what you said or did to this same extraordinary-looking being who wanted to be your father-in-law, – this man with the club-foot; what did you say to him?"
"Astonishment chained up my tongue," answered L – , "and disgust to his person turned me sick. On the other hand, gratitude whispered to me that he had saved my life: and self-interest suggested that without his aid, however revolting his person might be, there was nothing left to us but penury and wretchedness. Suspended as between two attractive powers did I stand, my eyes wildly gazing on him, and my brain actually whirling amidst these conflicting emotions."
"'Falkner,' said my mother, 'speak to me! – you alarm me greatly! Why do you look as if you saw a spirit? Randolph, has my son ever beheld you before this moment, for there is recognition in his gaze? He was an infant only when you saved his life thirteen years ago.' 'He has seen me only for two minutes,' croaked out that same harsh unmusical voice: 'he fell by some chance into the millstream the other day, and I helped him out again. To judge by his looks, he would not have done the same thing by me, if I had given him the same chance;' and the monster laughed.
"I roused myself at length from the spell that bound me. 'Mother,' cried I vehemently, 'I must speak to you alone;' the man with the club-foot moved instantly and silently from the apartment.
"'This cannot be,' I exclaimed passionately, 'that you can call this hideous wretch your husband! Nature herself must shudder only at the thought. Deformed, stunted, odious, revolting! – Mother, the very touch of his hand would be a profanation to the dead. My mother sighed. 'And yet, Falkner, how much happier should I have been had I not been dazzled from my plighted faith by exterior advantages alone, and passed my life with one whose qualities are like the fairest diamond placed in a rude shagreen casket. My son, you have not yet looked upon the brilliancy within. Read that paper, Falkner, and be just.' My mother quitted the room as she spoke.
"For the first time in my life I perceived a counteracting influence in opposition to my own in the breast of my tender mother, and the thought enraged me beyond all bounds. Again I meditated self-destruction; again gloomily conceived the thought that I would immolate this intruding wretch, and thus free us both from his persevering attentions. 'It shall be done,' I exclaimed aloud, clenching my hands together in a delirium of passion; 'I have learned a few secrets from Nature in my wanderings alone with her, and one of them I will prove this very evening on – '
"'Your benefactor, Falkner!' interrupted the raven-like croaking of Randolph Maxwell, looking up into my face with those large melancholy eyes of his, and laying his hand on mine. I was taken unawares, and was surprised to find that this same hand of his was delicately white, and soft as that of a woman's. It had on a ring of surpassing brilliancy, which attracted my eyes even in the midst of this exciting scene, so boyish and unfixed at that time was my mind. Was it that the ring itself possessed some powerful spell over my wayward thoughts? or that the hand, looking like a human one, – nay, even beautiful in its kind, – made the owner of it appear at that moment like a being of the same nature as my own? By an impulse I could not control, I extended my own towards him, and I fancied I saw a moisture in those large melancholy eyes of his. 'Emma, my betrothed Emma,' called out that voice, made only for the society of crocodiles and croaking birds of prey, 'come hither, Emma, and behold thy Randolph and thy son friends.' She entered at the call, and pressed our united hands between her own. Then all the loathing and abhorrence of my nature against that inexplicable being returned, and with as much violence as before. But I covered it over with artifice, cloaked it with politeness, obscured it from observation by taciturnity and sullenness. Like a martyr I submitted to my fate; so, the next morning I accompanied this ill-matched pair to the church of C – , and saw them married, forcing myself to give away my almost idolised parent to a thing resembling an ourang-outang. How did I long to spurn the reptile I looked down upon, with my foot! to crush him to pieces as I would a bloated toad!
"That very evening my new father-in-law and myself set off to Germany, my mother having previously put into my hands once more, that paper she had before wished me to read. I thrust it into my pocket. Her blessing to us both, as we seated ourselves in the carriage of the dwarf, still rings in my ears.
"'Farewell, dear Randolph! Farewell, beloved son! For my sake, Randolph, be kind to this unfortunate boy!' Thus did the dwarf answer: 'I swear to you by that faith which has been so powerfully proved, to be careful and indulgent to your son. Write to me, my – ' he would have added 'beloved wife;' but catching, I suppose, some strange and threatening expression in my eyes, he changed it into 'my dear and earliest friend!' I felt choking, but would not give way to the tenderness of nature; – I would not say, 'God bless you, best and kindest of mothers!' I threw myself back into the carriage, and, overpowered with various emotions, I wept like an infant. But be it remembered, sir, I was not then sixteen years old. At length a healing slumber closed up my senses. I know not how long it lasted, for when I awoke I was alone; the carriage was standing without horses in an inn-yard; my companion would not have me disturbed, and was gone himself into the house to give orders for our accommodation there that night.
"My mother had used a word in parting that became to me as a constant goad; nay, it entered into my very soul. 'Her unfortunate boy!' Why should she use the word unfortunate? I had been told from infancy, (and I firmly believed what had been so often asserted,) that I was eminently handsome. Both my parents had been distinguished for their great personal attractions, and I had been assured that I possessed in a still higher degree than they did the exterior gifts and graces of nature. Then, as to mental ones, had I not been born a poet, philosopher, everything that was great and noble? – for so my doting parents always said in my hearing. Why then did she now call me unfortunate, especially when she had provided for me so august a patron in her second husband? I have since fully known what she meant by this term unfortunate."
Poor L – at this time rose from his chair, and gazed up vacantly into the clouds. I knew what he was thinking of, but the subject was too delicate for me to touch on.
He continued:
"I forgot the paper I had thrust into my pocket when I left my mother. We travelled on together wrapt up each in our own thoughts, for I could not force myself to converse with him, although sometimes I was astonished at the depth and genius of his observations. They fell like brilliant gems around me, but I would not pick them up, or even admire their lustre. At length wearied, I suppose, with my obstinacy, he took a book out of the pocket of the carriage, and began to read. This I considered an indignity, an insult, and with marks of temper sought immediately for another. In this mood we reached the house of the celebrated Scheele, in Vienna, where it was agreed I should for some months reside, that I might learn something of chemistry before I began my astronomical researches.
"Not a word was said to me on money matters; all this was arranged without my knowledge. I found a pocket-book on my toilet, containing most ample means for my private expenses, but it was unaccompanied with a single line. No leave was taken of me; but when I arose one morning I was told by the family of the Professor Scheele that 'my friend' had departed at an early hour, leaving me in charge of them, bespeaking their kindest attentions for me, and paying most liberally for me in advance.
"'Tis all beyond my comprehension," said Falkner L – after a pause, and repeating to himself that line of Milton,
"And found no end, in wandering mazes lost."
Then abruptly he continued thus:
"I learned all sorts of splendid nonsense from Professor Scheele, for I know not its utility. I went from him to the renowned Berzelius, and laid in a stock of more. I studied astronomy under a relation of the famous Schiller, and alchemy from a nephew of Jang Stilling. But what availed all these acquisitions? One fixed idea was ever like an incubus upon my soul, – the thought of my mother's marriage with this club-footed hunchback. Years passed on; and though invited, implored, to return to England, yet I could not endure the thought of seeing her the wife of so distorted a little wretch. She wrote to me ever 'of his nobleness, his generosity:' I felt the latter in the plenitude of his allowance to her son; but I was haunted perpetually by his image, hovering like an imp of darkness over a form moulded by the Graces. I hated my own country because it contained him, and yet I could think of nothing else. I became melancholy, morose, obstinate, taciturn, irritable to excess.
"One day, in clearing out my writing-desk, a paper came into my hand that I had no recollection of; it turned out to be the very one my mother had put into my hands just before my departure. These were the words. It was a letter from 'the Man with the club-foot' to herself.
"'To Emma, the beloved of my heart, – Think you that I am blind to my own imperfections? – that I am fool enough to suppose that this warped and twisted person of mine is a thing to be beloved, to be caressed? I have been conscious of my own deformities from a very child; and then it was that you, many years my junior, and accustomed to the sight of my exterior hideousness from your birth, cared not for it, but gave me the blessing of your companionship, and taught me to hope you could endure my presence through life. So did I delude myself; so did you guilelessly assist me in the delusion. I believed I should call you my own; you sanctioned this belief. But when the fascinating L – arrived, how soon did I perceive my fatal mistake! I saw it long before my Emma even suspected it, and – why should I pain you now by telling you what I then suffered? enough, you know how I acted; – the hunchback preferred your happiness to his own.
"'Emma, it is unnecessary now to tell you how I employed myself during seventeen years, and how much I thought of those days when my beautiful cousin would gaze fondly in my eyes, and call me 'her dear Randolph!' Need I say what unexpected delight I experienced when once I was enabled to save her child, then a very cherub, and still beautiful as herself, from destruction? You know all this; and how, after this transaction, blessed with her gratitude, I departed for Ceylon. Was I not loaded also with the knowledge and the misery that she, my beloved one, was not happy? I could not stay to witness her regrets.
"'I went to Ceylon. It was with a miser's feeling that I hoarded up riches in that island, which contains more riches than any other part of the world. I trafficked in diamonds; I tried experiments with spices; I found hidden treasure; and, as I amassed wealth almost beyond calculation, I constantly said to myself, 'All this is for her, —she will need it.'
"'And is it not thine own, thou idol of my heart? – and is it not thy darling son's? But think not that Randolph Maxwell's love is tainted by vile selfishness. I know, I feel my person must be abhorrent to my lovely cousin now – it is not like her L – 's; my mind she has some knowledge of. Let our marriage, then, beloved one! be only of the mind; let me live with you, gaze on you, hope that I disgust you not, and you will make your faithful cousin happy. I ask no more. Your child is mine; I have no other; he is the heir of my possessions, and herewith I make over to him and you, wealth enough to satisfy the most craving of our species; – everything, except a small pittance in case you should wish my absence, is yours. And now, Emma, we understand each other, and I think we ever shall. If your son – '
"But here the paper was skilfully divided; my mother would not suffer me to know the opinion Randolph Maxwell had of her wayward Falkner. Oh! that I had read this letter before! – it would have saved me hundreds of hours of anguish; but, now that I had done so, I formed an instant resolution of returning to England and my mother. Having always the means by me, I put no curb to my inclinations; I never had done so in my life, and, to my mother's astonishment, arrived there without informing her she might expect me. Enchantment seemed to have been used, for a palace had risen up close to our former white-washed cottage. I forgot my mother had apprised me. By an expensive process, full-grown trees of every kind had been transplanted to the new abode; it was imbedded in the midst of costly firs and flowering shrubs. I flew to her and tenderly embraced her. I even inquired respectfully for the man with the club-foot. I began myself to honour him. My mother's countenance changed as I mentioned his name, and an unknown kind of dread came over me. 'Let me know the worst at once,' said I, 'for,' – in short, I thought then, as now, that he had more than mortal agency.
"'The worst will soon be told you, Falkner,' said my mother sadly. 'My cousin Randolph is dying: he has been in a declining state for the last two years. He eats nothing, never sleeps, and I shall soon lose a being of such exemplary worth, that I fear it will break my heart. It is impossible to describe to you the nobleness, the disinterested attachment of this creature, now at the very point of death. But here comes Dr. E – ; he has been with my poor Randolph for the last two hours; he will tell us what he thinks of his malady;' – and you, sir, came into the room."
"Do you remember this circumstance, doctor?" said Falkner to me, "do you remember coming in from the bedside of your patient to the room where my mother and myself were sitting, – do you remember how closely I questioned you?"
"I do," answered I dryly, "and also what passed in the sick man's chamber. But proceed with your narration – I think you have not much more to say."
"Is it then still a profound secret what that man, or devil, – I know not which he is, – communicated to you at that time?" inquired poor L – , looking at me with eyes that seemed to search my very soul. "You told us, doctor, he was dying, and I thought so too myself afterwards; for I was prevailed on to visit him you both called my benefactor! – Oh God! oh God! what is the reason that he did not die? – that in a few days he – this hunchback – rose from that couch where we all expected he would close for ever those melancholy eyes? Instead of our carrying him to the churchyard, and burying him deep, deep there, he broke his plighted faith to my ill-used mother, and rose from his couch to become the partner of hers– her veritable husband! Was it not this accursed knowledge that utterly destroyed me? Did I not rave then, beat my breast, and become a madman? Did I not attempt the life of her who gave me birth? And was I not prevented from fulfilling my design by this same loathsome being, who bound my hands together with a strength as if he had been a giant; not the pigmy that he is? – He overcame me – I remember this, now, full well."
"All this is nothing new to me," said I, "for I attended you all the time of your illness, and you have been very bad indeed. But what then? These clouds will pass away, and the sun, the brilliant star of your mind, will be much brighter than it has ever been. Can you bear Falkner L – to hear what passed in the sick chamber of him you have called by such opprobrious names?"
"Before I answer you, doctor, you must resolve me one question," and the brow of the young man darkened: – "How long have I been ill?" This was whispered rather than spoken.
"Exactly ten months," I replied. "Is that your question?" and I smiled upon him, for I knew what was in his mind.
"No," he answered; "it is only the scaffolding about it. It shall out," cried poor L – furiously, "and on its reply depends whether I will ever speak again to man or woman during my short remnant of life. It is a question to me of vital importance indeed!" I am reluctant to give it utterance, so much disgust do I feel with this whole affair; yet I have a burning desire to know, and I will be satisfied."
"So had our first parents, L – ," said I; "but they found the fruit of the tree of knowledge bitter and indigestive. Wisdom is always preferable to knowledge; for it yields content, calmness, holiness. But what is your question? I think I know its purport – out with it."
"Has my mother given birth to a child of that abominable man with the club-foot?" cried poor L – almost inaudibly, with a lip quivering, an eye flaming; "is there another little wretch upon this earth inheriting the deformities of that monster? – a creature doomed to walk in shoes that give no sound, and therefore of magic and unlawful make?"
"What nonsense you talk, L – !" cried I. "Why, I took up those very shoes and examined them curiously, when I visited the sick chamber of their owner. I was struck with their strange make, and was much pleased with the invention, which is a German one; and I mean to write over for a pair or two of boots, made on this same construction, as I dislike creaking appendages to my feet of all things; for it sounds so material, you know. The soles of these are elastic and hollow, filled, moreover, with gas, which makes the wearer light-footed. We – that is, you and I – do not want such inventions to our heads, you know," I said a little archly; "we are light-headed enough without the assistance of German mechanists; but for their shoes we thank them."
"Perhaps they have helped us a little to be light-headed too, notwithstanding," retorted L – with a spirit I was delighted to see. "German philosophy may produce the same effects on the head as German boots on the feet. But you astonish me by what you say! Elastic hollow soles! – then there was no necromancy in them after all! But still you have not answered my question, doctor."
"All in good time, L – ; let me first put one category to you. What should make you have such a dreadful abhorrence to infants? – are they not the most interesting beings in the universe? – does not heaven lie about them then? As for inheriting a club-foot, that is all stuff. The children of Socrates did not inherit his snub nose, nor the mind either of him who chanced to have this nez retroussé."
"What am I to infer from this preamble?" demanded L – with a face as white as death.
"Why, that you have as lovely a little sister as ever opened a pair of eyes upon this earthly scene – such a pair of eyes, too! – large, dark, magnificent eyes, – much handsomer than yours, L – , and they are not much to be found fault with. In short, my little god-daughter Emma is a perfect beauty, of about three weeks old, – and I am ready to enter the lists with any one who is bold enough to deny the full power of her infantine charms."
There was a long pause after this.
"And her feet?" inquired L – , gasping for breath, "has she – club feet?"
"Pshaw! you never expected more than one; her father – " But he wildly interrupted me.
"Oh! name him not! – name him not! – Deceiver! – liar! – hypocrite! – I knew it would come to this! – this is what has maddened me – I knew it would be so!"
"Then you have been a seer and a prophet," replied I, "all along. Allow me to bow to your superior wisdom. I never dreamed of such a thing; yet would it not have been as it has turned out, but for my advice, my judgment."
"What on earth could you have had to do with this wretched business?" inquired L – . "Pray, pray, do not confuse me more than you can help."
"I am going rather to enlighten you, L – ," said I, "and must beg you seriously to attend now to me. You know that I was summoned to attend upon Mr. Randolph Maxwell, the first cousin of your mother. Well, I found him in almost a dying state, – weak, exhausted, dejected in the extreme, without a wish to live. I inquired into the symptoms of his malady. I could gain no information from his words; but those melancholy yet beautiful eyes of his gave me a suspicion. Having obtained a clue, and not having the same contemptible and erroneous opinion of my patient as yourself, I arrived at length at the truth, and found that this 'demon,' as you are pleased to call him, was falling a sacrifice to his high sense of honour, and delicacy to his idolised wife's feelings. He had adored her ever, and believed firmly, when he wrote that last epistle to her which you saw, that he was capable of keeping his word; that the society of his Emma as a friend and sister only would fully satisfy every desire of his heart. But in living with her, in receiving her smiles, and hearing himself called 'Randolph,' 'dear Randolph,' by lips so lovely and beloved, he found that he was human, and had human wishes to gratify. Thus, like Tantalus, did he languish and droop, yet without a hope, uttering a complaint, or making a single effort to draw her compassion, or even to let his sufferings be understood by her. By heavens! L – , that man, small as he is in stature, deformed and unpleasant to look upon, is one of the greatest heroes, ay, martyrs, let it be added, – I speak as a medical man, – that history has to boast of!" – I paused as I said this, and waited for some observation from my young friend; but he merely leaned his cheek upon his hand, and cast his eyes upon the ground. – "Shall I proceed?" asked I.
"I can finish the narrative myself," said he: "you communicated the state of her friend, of course, to my mother, and she, – to save his life, – "
" – Told me," cried I, "that she had now been so long accustomed to his presence, so familiarised with his uncouth appearance, that she scarcely noticed his deformities; that his attentions, his delicacy, his devotedness to her for so long a time, had taken from her all repugnance to his person; and that she could truly say, 'she loved him even as he was.'" L – groaned aloud. "Oh!" continued I, "I wish I could describe to you the feelings of this man with the club-foot, – this being so despised, so loathed by you, – when I repeated to him, word for word, what his adored wife had imparted to me, – when the delightful conviction stole into his mind that there was one woman in the world, and that one the most valued and the most lovely, who could look upon him, dwarf, hunchback as he was, with eyes of returning affection, – that he was loved in some measure with a return. – After all, L – , what is there in the outside?"
"Is my mother happy?" at length inquired L – with a burning cheek, but a softening tone of voice.
"The only drawback on her felicity is from the waywardness, the morbid temper, and the cruel prejudices of her only son," said I. "What is there in a mere form, the husk, the shell, the covering of the immortal mind? Would you have treated Socrates as you have treated Mr. Maxwell? – thus have despised Alexander Pope?"
"Socrates had not a club-foot," answered he; but I fancied that an air of pleasantry accompanied the observation: "Pope had not this deformity."
"But other great men had," I replied, "who were as inferior to the gentleman we have been speaking of in true heroism, as they excelled him in other mere personal attractions. Remember the adage, L – , 'Handsome is who handsome does.'"
"Doctor E – " exclaimed Falkner L – , after a pause of an entire minute, for I noted it by my stop-watch, – "Doctor E – , I will see this infant sister of mine; I will see its – its father also; I will be one of that happy family. – Oh, what a monster of prejudice have I been until this very hour!"
"You say right, my dear L – ; prejudice does make monsters of mankind, —it has made you mad, – but happily you are restored. Look not in future on the outside of the cup and platter; for be assured that the pearl beyond all price is to be found within. Prejudice and pride are, according to my experience, the causes of more lunacy even than the use of ardent spirits, or the goad of poverty, that eateth into the very soul."
I had the great satisfaction of seeing that very evening a lovely female infant, dressed in a white cassimere cloak and hood, trimmed with swansdown and rich lace, in the arms of the young man, who caressed the child with every mark of affection, and called her "his dear, dear little sister!" I smiled to myself also at seeing this same young man looking with pleased delight on its small perfect ivory feet, which I took care to display; and much pleased was I in hearing him for the first time in his life say with sincerity,
"My dear Mr. Maxwell, I thank you from my very heart for the kindness you have shown to this beloved lady, your happy wife, and the forbearance you have evinced towards her wayward and insulting son. – Am I forgiven?"
"From my very soul!" said a voice, now heard without disgust, notwithstanding its croaking and discordant tone. It was that of "The Man with the Club-Foot."