Volume I Part 7 (1/2)
”Natacha!”
”You saw something? What did you see?” And Natacha rushed forward to hold up the gla.s.s.
But Sonia had seen nothing; her eyes were getting dim, and she was on the point of giving it up when Natacha's exclamation had stopped her; she did not want to disappoint them; but there is nothing so tiring as sitting motionless. She did not know why she had called out and hidden her face.
”Did you see him?” asked Natacha.
”Yes; stop a minute. I saw him,” said Sonia, not quite sure whether ”him” was to mean Nicolas or Prince Andre. ”Why not make them believe that I saw something?” she thought. ”A great many people have done so before, and no one can prove the contrary. Yes, I saw him,” she repeated.
”How? standing up or lying down?”
”I saw him--at first there was nothing; then suddenly I saw him lying down.”
”Andre, lying down? Then he is ill!” And Natacha gazed horror-stricken at her companion.
”Not at all; he seemed quite cheerful, on the contrary,” said she, beginning to believe in her own inventions.
”And then--Sonia, what then?”
”Then I saw only confusion--red and blue.”
”And when will he come back, Sonia? When shall I see him again? O G.o.d! I am afraid for him--afraid of everything.”
And, without listening to Sonia's attempts at comfort, Natacha slipped into bed, and, long after the lights were out, she lay motionless but awake, her eyes fixed on the moons.h.i.+ne that came dimly through the frost-embroidered windows.
_A Wayfarer's Fancy._
”A felicitous combination of the German, the Sclave, and the Semite, with grand features, brown hair floating in artistic fas.h.i.+on, and brown eyes in spectacles.”
_George Eliot._
TWO CHRISTMASES.
I.
It was the time of the great war. Germany was desolated. Towns and villages were destroyed by flames. Order and law had given way to savage power; and from the walls of many a ruined house of G.o.d the wooden image of the Saviour looked down with a face of anguish on the horrors of the degenerate times.
The terrified citizens of towns that were still untouched by war, hid themselves within their narrow walls, awaiting, in tremulous fear, the day on which their homes must also fall a prey to plundering soldiers.
If any one were obliged to go beyond the boundaries, he would glance anxiously at the bushes on either side of the road; and when night came on, he would be forced to look with horror and sorrow at the reddened horizon, where a little village or lonely hamlet was burning to ashes.
But who is it cowers there in the ditch by the highway? A dried-up little man with deathly-pale countenance, and clad in a black coat!
Flee, Wanderer! let him not gaze at you with his piercing gray eyes!
Beware! for that old man is the Plague-man!
The heart of the Wanderer sinks within him. Horrified he rushes away, and thanks heaven when, in the gray of the morning, he sees again the towers of his native town. Enraptured by the sight of home he believes these towers with the dear, well-known faces can protect him; but the old cripple has been quicker than he. Before break of day he has knocked at the town-gate, and the gate-keeper, on opening it, has scarcely looked into his gray eyes before he sank down as though some one had felled him with an axe.
Then the gray old man begins his terrible work. Like a bat he slips into all dwellings; no gate and no bolt is an obstacle to him. Right up into the lofts he climbs and opens the most secret chamber. That threshold he pa.s.ses is doomed to the Black-death.