LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 199, 28 January 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

A TALE OF HOMBURG. (Conehtded) I found Martyn and his wife seated opposite to each other at a small table, on which was placed an oval board covered with green cloth, and marked with the plan of a rouge-et-noir table. Opposite Mrs Martyn, who was acting as croupier, was placed the inrentai.ro of the bank, consisting of rouleaux of gold and silver, two small boxes with compartments for various pieces of money, the talon of white marble for the faille of six packs Of cards to stand on, and the basket into which the used cards were thrown. Martyn's back was turned towards me as I entered the room ; his wife faced me, so that I caught at once her glance of anguish and anxiety, revealing in a moment the nature of her husband's ailment, which I had suspected to be beyond my powers to cure. ' Messieurs, fades le jev? called out the poor wife. ' Come, doctor, try your luck,' cried the poor madman, as he placed four gold pieces on the red. ' Our minimum is two florins, and I never go higher than a hundred.' ' I put a couple of florins on the red. Mrs Martyn called out: ' Lejou est fait, Hen ne va plus;' dealt out in two lots the requisite number of cards ; and saying: 'Hougeperd — couleur gagne,' sweeps off her husband's gold and my florins, and takes some fresh cards from the talon for the next deal. ' Bowing to the poor croupier, whose sad, serious face told plainly enough what it cost her to keep her poor husband thus amused, I said adieu to my patient, from whom, however, I had no small difficulty in getting away. ' My dear doctor,' he said, * if you will put down your hat, have a glass of iced water by your side, and follow my play steadily, your fortune is made. The Bank has only an advantage of one third per cent, which is double the chance of the public tables." Then ad dressing his wife :' Pardon, monsieur, voulezvous bien me changer nne note do trente-cinq gulden ?' ' However, I pleaded stress of work ; promised to return before long, and have some steady play; and hurried out, my heart wrung with the sound of ' Messieurs faites lejeu? as I went down the staircase.

' In the evening of the same day I received a note from Mrs Martyn, in which she told me that she would call on me between seven and eight o'clock the next morning. _ At the appointed time, after my last patient had left me, I found the young lady awaiting our interview. But before Igo on further, yon must know what she was like. She was very tall and slim, too tall for beauty, though her natural grace and ease removed any awkwardness that excessive height might have given her figure. Her head and features were rather small, and the natural colour of her face—then pale—must have been fresh and thoroughly English. Her soft brown hair was tied behind into one thick plait, which fell below her shoulders. As she a wept into this room through the folding- doors, my great pity for her was for the moment lost in admiration of her beauty. Sinking down on the sofa, she burst into an agony of tears, " Forgive me, doctor; I cannot restrain myself before you, for I know that you can feel for me. I was unwilling to take up your time, but knowing that you would wish to be informed of all the circumstances attending my husband's illness, I have drawn up an account of the few months previous to the accident which led to it. When you have read it, I will consult you again." She then left me the narrative, which I will now ask you to read, before I complete the tale.' The doctor soon afterwards left me absorbed in the carefully written manuscript, which ran as follows: • My dear husband had not a fault, as I thought, when I married him. Accomplished, good-humoured, handsome ; every one loved him, and our first year's married life was unclouded by a speck of trouble. We had spent our winter's leave of absence in Germany, my husband having wished to collect information about the Prussian military system, with the view of writing on the subject. We stopped here on our return, and one day, by way of amusement, going up to the roulette-table in the Kursaal, my husband put a napoleon on No |l9, which was then the number of my years. Round went the roulette, the ivory ball rattled, fell into No 19, and my husband took up thirtyfive napoleons besides the one he had staked. Pleased, as he could not help being, his face wore an expression of something almost like shame, as we walked out of the rooms. ' I don't feel as if I had come by this money honestly,'he said ; 'what shall Ido with it? ' Amid various projects, he decided to give a grand treat to the men of hia troop, and relieve the families in the regiment that stood in need of help. Sad news awaited us on our arrival in England. Owing to the failure of an assurance company, my father-in-law, who held a large number of shares in it, was deprived of all his fortune, and it seemed as if he must depend upon his friends for the very meanb of subsistence. My husband effected an exchange to a regiment in India, and we were spending the last anxious weeks in my old home. He had left me for a few days to go to town on business, and I was eagerly looking out for a letter from him during this our first separation, when at last came the wished-for envelope, with a foreign head on it, and stamped with the post mark, Homburg v. d. H. Fortunately I was alone as I read, almost terrified, that my husband had gone to Homburg, with a view of winning a handsome sum of money with which to buy an annuity for his father. The success of his first -venture in gaining thirty-five napoleons had in a sense demoralised him. He had now plunged into gambling; commencing to play with great luck, and winning five hundred pounds on the first evening. This was almost doubled the next day. He determined to leave when he had won fifteen hundred pounds, but on the third day he left off play with a loss of two hundred pounds, and on the fourth, the whole of the rest of his winnings was gone, together with the hundred pounds he had taken out to play with. The anxiety I felt to be with my husband, when I read this terrible letter, prevented my yielding to anything like useless grief; I got ready my travelling things in an hour, and telling my people at home that Cyril wanted to see me immediately on pressing business, I left our hous ein time to reach London by mid-day. Fortunately on that very morning a half-yearly dividend of money of my own had been forwarded to me in the customary way ; I cashed that at our banker's, and after passing a wretched afternoon in London, of course all alone, I left by the mail train for Brussels. I must tell you that, wanting to rest somewhere, I had wandered into our Academy Exhibition of Pictures, and had there been at first staggered, and then fascinated, by a large painting of a rouge-et-noir table, surrounded by every representative of gambling life. Long did I stand leaning on the rail before the picture, reading the history of every group, and finding my own portrait in a young wife endeavoring to drag her husband from the scene. In twenty-four hours after I had left London, as quickly as the lettera travel, I was with my dear husband in Louisenstrasse. Oh, how pale and wan he looked ! But the happiness J felt in once more being by his side to comfort him, makes me look back to that meeting with more joy than sorrow. He kissed me so tenderly, asked how our little Edith was, and then, pulled a chair to the table, rested his head on his hand, and remained silent for a minute or two. • 0 Louise,' he said, ' I have ruined you ;' and then he broke down completely. When I had had some tea, I told him cheerfully we must then talk of business. I had brought sixty pounds in ten-pound notes, which would pay any little bills he owed, aud take us home. But my husband would not speak, sitting motionless, with kis face buried in his hands. At last, as I feared, came out worse news. He owed Ll5O to a banker in Homburg, and had bound himself to make over the proceeds of his commission, whenever he should sell out, to an English moneylender, who had advanced him a large sum at about 70 per cent interest. I would not show my husband what I felt on hearing this, and hard as the struggle was, I tried to talk lightly of his loss. We must stay at Homburg until more of my dividends were sent to me, then hasten home, and hurry out to India, where we could live on Cyril's pay, and perhaps send some of it to his father. My husband got more cheerful as the evening wore on ; and as we walked through the Schloss garden into the cemetery, he said—- ' Well, I shan't have to lie here after all, Louise, having shot myself through despair." Tired out as I was, I went to bed very early, and was soon asleep, when I was awakened by the noise of some one groping about near the dressing-table, 'lt is I, dear; don't be alarmed,' said Cyril, as I asked, in terror who was there. ' I a,m only looking for try cigar-"*kse.' .

' He seemed as frightened as I was, and his voice trembled as he answered me. The next morning, when I had occasion to open my purse, all my notes were gone, and there was nothing in it but some bits of tobaccoleaf sticking to it, as though it had been carried in the pocket with loose cigars. The purse had not been out of my possession till I had put it on the dressing-table at night. Oh the sad misery of the thought which flashed upon me! God forgive me if I wronged him, for he knew not what he was doing. That money must have followed the way of the rest. Cyril must leave here at once. I would not stay for the remainder of the money I expected. That morning we had engaged horses for a ride to Saalburg, and I would urge upon my husband the necessity of his going away in the afternoon. We had hardly left the town when occurred the accident which deprived my dearest husband of hia reason. My horse shied across the road at one of the little milkcarts drawn by dogs, and slipped Quietly down into a ditch at the road-side, allowing me to step off without a scratch. Cyril sprang off his horse, and rushed up to assist me, when my animal, in his struggles to stand up, kicked my husband on the forehead as he had stooped down to raise me. From that moment he lay without sense or feeling for five days, with a great starred wound on his forehead, like the break which a stone makea in glass. Nothing but a slow labored breathing and the irregular beats of his pulse shewed that he still lived, for his eyes, though open, were quite insensible to the light. An operation of raising the depressed parts of the bone to their proper level had been successfully performed, and the symptoma generally seemed favorable to his recovery. It was not until he was unmistakably out of all danger that I thought of a consequence more terrible than death, and almost hoped that he might be taken from me if he was not to be restored whole. But it was not to be. His memory and reason were gone, and the doctors would not deceive me, they said, with the hope of a cure. We sent for our child, of course, and are staying here for a time, as my poor husband is amused by the people and music, and we have some very kind friends here. The history of that toy rouge-et-noir table is this: One day, during a quiet time, I ventured to take Cyril into the gaming-room. I had thought, poor fellow, that his mind was too much of a blank to have been affected by the sight of the play, but he became so excited and anxious to be continually looking on, that it was judged advisable to withdraw him entirely from the rooms. I contrived a miniature tible for him at home, where we play with counterfeit napoleons. He ia under the delusion that he is always losing money, and had often talked of going to consult a doctor on the subject, but had promised not to do this without telling me. ' I have now told you our story, which will perhaps help to guide you in treating your patient. You will, I know, pardon me if I have wearied you.' The foregoing narrative had so impressed me, that the only words I addressea to Pr Fichte, as he re-entered the room, were—- ' And the sequel, doctor? What befell this treasure of a woman ?' ' I was naturally anxious,' said my friend, 'that the Martyns should leave Homburg without delay, their sojourn here being as bad for the husband's condition as it was painful to the wife. But there were difficulties attending this step. Mrs Martyn, though she would have braved most thiiws on the poor fellow's behalf, seemed to shrink most sensitively from the idea of meeting their relations in England. He was in good bodily health, she was greatly comforted by the society of some kind friends, and they were able to live here more economically than they could have done in England : so that it was decided that they should pass at all events, the ensuing winter in Homburg. We saw a good deal of them during those months. Martyn was quiet and tractable ; and his wife would brighten up as she saw him romping with their child, or eagerly excited over a game of back-gammon with my wife. It seemed, indeed, as though her life would not be the blank it had threatened to be, filled up as it now was by care for her husband, and affection for her child. The hope, too, was ever present with her that the great trouble might pass away, and that this was to be but a sad chapter in the story of their lives. But with the spring ca s;e more sorrow. April hal been unusually cold, when a short summer of great heat set in for a week. One day, Mrs Martyn called to ask my advice respeoting her little girl, who had caught a cold, and was otherwise ailing, from having sat but too late in the gardens. I returned with her to Dorotheenstrasse and found the child struggling for breath, and shewing all the symptoms of a severe attack of diphtheria. Captain Martyn was committed to the charge of some friends, but his wife, I need scarcely tell you, could not be persuaded to leave her child's side. The next day the little sufferer was worse, and gave such manifest sigus of sinking, that it seemed unnecessary to prepare her mother for the end. For three days she had been by her child's side, giving it ammonia every second hour, fumigating the room, and changing the linen. She would do everything herself, from a feeling, as she told me, that no one would so faithfully carry out my injunctions. On the fourth day, when I knew that the crisis must come, the child began to mend, and in a few hours I was able to gladden the mother by telling her that all immediate danger was over. I urged upon her the advisability of now leaving the patient to professional care, as the fear of contagion still existed. But she would not move from the house ; and as the child slowly advanced towards recovery, so she began to sicken from the same deadly disease. In three days all was over, her powers of resisting the complaint being exhausted by her previous labours. I followed her to the grave where she now lies, and have taught her husband and child to take a pride in adorning it. He is happily saved from the real consciousness of his loss. We see much of misery and vice here, but also tome' thing of the beauty of goodness. J. hav9 done.' Our pipes had long since gone out, while I listened to this sad story. I could not trust myself to revisit the cemetery. I was at Homburg in the following year, and soon found myself at the grave which had so fascinated me the previous year. Another cross exactly similar to the old one, stood at the head of a very fresh mound, with an inscription recording that Cyril Martyn also rests in peace. Little Edith was waiting in charge of the Fichtes, to be sent to her mother's relations in England.