LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 51, 29 July 1874, Page 3

LITERATURE.

A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. [From the ‘ Atlantic Monthly.] One morning as I was passing through Boston Common, which lies between my homo aud ray office, I met a gentleman lounging along The Mall. lam generally pre ■ occupied when walking, and often thread my way through crowded streets without distinctly observing any one. But this man’s face forced itself upon me, and a singular face it was. His eyes were faded, and nis hair, which he worejlong, was fl :cked with gray. His hair and eyes, if I nmy say were sixty years old, the rest of him 'not thirty. The youthfuifulness of his figure, the elasticity of his gait, and the venerable, appearance of his head, were incongruities that drew more than one pair of curious eyes towards him. He excited in me the painful suspicion that he had either got somebody else’s head or somebody clse’s body. He was evidently an American, at least so far as the upper part of him was concerned—the New England cut of countenance is unmistakeable—evidently a man who had seen something of the world, but strangely young and old. Before reaching the Park street gate I had taken up the thread of thought which he had unconsciously broken ; yet throughout the day this old young man, with his unwrinklcd face aud silvered locks, glided in like a phantom between me and ray duties. The next morning I again encountered him on The Mall. He was resting lazily on the green rails, watching two little sloops in distress, which two ragged shipowners had consigned to the mimic perils of the Pond. The vessels lay becalmed in the middle of the ocean, displaying a tantalising lack of sympathy with the frantic helplessness of the owners on shore. As the gentleman observed their dilemma, a light came into his faded eyes, then died out, leaving them drearier than before. I wondered if he, too, in his time, had sent out ships that drifted and drifted, and never came to port; and if these poor toys were to him types of his own losses.

* That man has a story, and I should like to know it,’ I said, half aloud, halting in one of those winding paths which branch off from the pastoral quietness of the Pond, and end in the rush and tumult of Trcmout street.

‘ Would you ?’ exclaimed a voice at my side. I turned and faced Mr H , a neighbor of mine, who laughed heartily at. finding rao talking to myself. ‘ Well, he added retlectingly, ‘ I can tell you this man’s story ; and if you will match the narrative with anything as curious, I shall be glad to hear it.’ , You know him then ?’ ‘ Yes and no. That is to say, I do not know him personally ; but I know a singular passage in his life. I happened to be in Paris when be was buried,’ ‘ Buried !’

‘Well, strictly speaking, not buried ; but something quite like it. If you’ve a spare half hour,’ continued my friend H , ‘we’ll sit on this bench, and I will tell you all I know of an aifair that made some noise in Paris a couple of years ago. The gentleman himself, standing yonder, will serve as a sort of frontispiece to the romance —a full-.-page illustration,, as it ■were.’ The following pages contain the story which Mr H related to me. While he was telling it, a gentle wind arose ; the wretched owners (lew from point to point, as the deceptive breeze promised to waft the barks to either shore: the early robins trilled now and then from the newly fringed elms ; and the old young man leaned on the rail in the sunshine, little dreaming that two gossips were discussing 'bis affairs within twenty yards of him. Three people were sitting in a chamber whose uue large window overlooked the Place Vendomc ; M. Dorine, with his back half turned on the other occupants of the apartment, was reading the ‘ Journal des Debats ’ in an alcove, pausing from time to time to wipe his glasses, and taking scrupulous pains not to glance towards the lounge at his .right, on which were seated Mclle Donne and a young American gentleman, whose handsome face frankly told his position in the family. There was not a happier man in Paris that afternoon than Philip Wentworth. Life had become so delicious to him that he shrunk from looking beyond to-day’ What could.the future add to his full heart 1 What might it not take away ? The deepest joy has always something of mclancbaljiu.it—a presentiment, a lleeting sadness, a feeling without a name. Wentworth was conscious of this subtle shadow that night, when he rose from the lounge and thoughtfully held Julie’s hand to his lip for a moment before parting. A careless observer would not have thought him, as lie was, the happiest man in Paris. M. Dorine laid down his paper and came forward. ‘lf the house,’ he said, ‘is such as M. Chorhonncan describes it, I advise yon to close with him at once. I would accompany you, Philip. hut flic trulh is, I am too sa I at losing this little bird to assist you in selecting a cage for her. Remember, the last, train for town leaves at-5. Be sure not to miss it, for we have seats for Pardon’s new comedy to morrow night. By to-morrow night,’ he added laughingly, ‘ little Julio here will he an old lady—’tie such an age from now till then.’

The next morning the train bore Philip to one of the loveliest spots within thirty miles of Paris. An hour’s walk through green lanes brought him to M. Cherbouueau’s estate, in a kind of dream the young man wandered from room to room, inspected the conservatory, the stables, the lawns, the strip of woodland through which a merry brook sang to itself continually ; and after dining with M. Oherbonncau, completed the purchase, and turned his steps towards the station just in time to catch the express train.

As Paris stretched out before him, with its lights twinkling in the early dusk, aud its spires and domes melting into the evening air, it seemed to Philip as if years had elapsed since he left the city. On reaching Paris he drove to his hotel, where he found several letters lying on the table. He did not trouble himself even to glance at their superscriptions as he threw aside his travelling surtont, for a more appropriate dress. If, in his impatience to return to Mile Dorine, the cars had appeared to walk, the fiacre which he had secured at the station appeared to creep. At last it turned into the Place Yendomc, and drew up before M. Donne* s hotel. The door opened as Philip’s foot touched the first step. The servant silently took his cloak and hat, with a special deference, Philip thought; but was he not now one of the family ?

‘M. Dorine,’ said the servant slowly, ‘is unable to see Monsieur at present/ He wishes Monsieur to bo shown up to the salon.’ ‘ Is Mademoiselle ’ 1 Yes. Monsieur.’ ‘ Alone?’

1 Alone, Monsieur,’ repeated the man, looking curiously at Philip, who could scarcely repress an exclamation of pleasure. It was the first time that such a privilege had been accorded him. His interviews with Julie had always taken place in the presence of M, Dorine, or some member of the household. A well-bred Parisian girl has but a formal acquaintance, with her lover.

The room was darkened. Underneath the chandelier stood a slim black casket on trestles. A lighted candle, a crucifix, and some white flowers were on a table near by. Julie Dorine was dead. When M. Dorine heard the sudden cry that rang through the silent house, ho hurried from the- library, and found Philip standing like a ghost in the middle of the chamber.

It was not until long afterwards that Wentworth learnt the details of the calamity that had befallen him. On the previous night Mile Dorine had retired to her room in seemingly perfect health, and had dismissed her maid with a request to be awakened early the next morning. At the appointed hour the girl entered the chamber. Mile JDorine was sitting in an arm-chair, apparently asleep. The candle in the bougeoir bad burnt down to the socket; a book lay half-open on the carpet at her feet. The girl started when she saw that the bed had not been occupied, and that her mistress still wore an evening Less. She rushed to Mile Dorine’s side. It was not slumber; it was death 1

Two messages were at once despatched to Philip—one to the station at Gr the other to his hotel. The first missed him on the road, the second he had neglected to open. On his arrival at M. Dorine’s house, the valet, under the supposition that Wentworth had been advised of Mile Dorine’s death, broke the intelligence with awkward cruelty, by showing him directly the salon. Mile Doriue’s wealth, her beauty, the suddeuess of her death, and the romance that had in some way attached itself to her love for the young American, drew crowds to witness the funeral ceremonies, which took place in the church iu the rue d’Aguesseau, The bodv was to be laid in M. Dorine’s tomb, in the cemetery of Montmartre. This tomb requires a few words of description. First there was a grating of filigraned iron ; through this you looked into a small vestibule or hall, at the end of which was a massive door of oak opening upon a short flight of stone steps descending into the tomb. The vault was 15ft or 20ft square, ingeniously ventilated from the ceiling, but uulighted. It contained two sarcophagi ; the first held the remains of Madame Dorine, long since dead ; the other was new, and bore on one side the letters 1 J.D.’ in monogram, interwoven with fleurs-de-lis. The funeral train stopped at the gate of the small garden that enclosed the place of burial, only the immediate relatives following the bearers into the tomb. A slender wax candle, such as is used in Catholic churches, burnt at the foot of the uncovered sarcophagus, casting a dim glow over the centre of the apartment, and deepening the the shadows which seemed to huddle together in the corners. By this flickering light the coffin was placed in its granite shell, the heavy slab laid over it reverently, and the oaken door revflved on its rusty hinges, shutting out the uncertain ray of sunshine that had ventured to peep in on the darkness.

M. Dorino, muffled in his cloak, threw himself on the back seat of the landau, too abstracted in his grief to observe that he was the only occupant of the vehicle. There was a sound of wheels grating on the gravelled avenue, and then all was silence again in the cemetery of Montmartre. At the main entrance the carriages parted company, dashing off into various streets at a pace that seemed to express a sense of relief.

The rattle of the wheels had died out of tlie air when Philip opened his eyes, bewildered. like a man abruptly roused from slumber. He raised himself on one arm and stared into the surrounding blackness. Where was he ? In a second the truth Hashed upon him. He had been left in the tomb ! While kneeling on the farther side of the stone box, perhaps he had fainted, and during the last solemn rites his absence had been unnoticed.

His first emotion was one of natural terror. Put this passed as quickly as it came. Life had ceased to be so very precious to him ; and if it were his fate to die at. Julie’s side, was not that the fulfilment of the desire which he had expressed to himself a hundred times that morning? What did it matter, a few years sooner or later? He must lay down the burden at last. Why not then ? A pang of self reproach followed the thought. Could he so lightly throw aside the love that had bent over his cradle ? The sacred name of mother rose involuntarily lo his lips. Whs it not cowardly to yield up without a struggle the life which he should guard for her sake? Was it not his duty to the living and the dead to face the difficulties of his position, and overcome them if it were within human power ?

To he continued,