Read Ebook: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal No. 450 Volume 18 New Series August 14 1852 by Various Chambers Robert Editor Chambers William Editor
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page
Ebook has 96 lines and 21903 words, and 2 pages
sion of gravity, which completely imposed upon the simple old man.
'Indeed, I should not like it,' was the reply. 'Besides, Monsieur Lagnier, you have often told me that, in all Paris, it was impossible to obtain any of the same shade as mine.'
'Ah, but I have succeeded at last!' exclaimed he; and as he spoke, he drew triumphantly from his pocket a small packet, in which was carefully enveloped a long lock of soft golden hair.
'How beautiful!' Adelaide involuntarily exclaimed. 'Oh, Monsieur Lagnier, that is far finer and brighter than mine.'
'Monsieur Lagnier,' she said earnestly, 'such beautiful hair could only have belonged to a young person. She must have been in great distress to part with it. Do you know her? Did she sell it to you? What is her name? I cannot bear to wear it: I shall be thinking of her continually.'
'Ah, Mademoiselle Adelaide, that is so like you! Why, I have provided half the young ladies in Paris with false tresses, and not one has ever asked me the slightest question as to how or where they were obtained. Indeed, I should not often have been able to reply. In this case, however, it is different. I bought it myself, and consequently can give you a little information respecting it. Yesterday evening, I was standing at my door in the Rue St Honor?, when a young girl, attracted no doubt by the general appearance of my window, stopped to admire the various articles exhibited there. She had a pretty face, but I scarcely looked at that; I only saw her hair, her beautiful, rich, golden hair. It was pushed carelessly behind her ears, and half concealed beneath a little white cap. "Mademoiselle," I said, accosting her--for I could not bear that she should pass the door--"is there anything that you would like to buy? a pair of combs, for instance. I have some very cheap; although," I added, with a sigh, as she appeared about to move on, "such lovely hair as yours requires no ornament." At these words, she returned quickly, and looking into my face, exclaimed: "Will you buy my hair, monsieur?" "Willingly, my child," I replied; and in another instant she was seated in my shop, and the bright scissors were gleaming above her head. Then my heart failed me, and I felt half inclined to refuse the offer. "Are you not sorry, child, to part with your hair?" I asked. "No," she answered abruptly; and gathering it all together in her hand, she put it into mine. The temptation was too great; besides, I saw that she herself was unwilling that we should break the contract. Her countenance never changed once during the whole time, and when all was over, she stooped, and picking up a lock which had fallen upon the ground, asked in an unfaltering voice: "May I keep this, monsieur?" I said yes, and paid her; and then she went away, smiling, and looking quite happy, poor little thing. After all, mademoiselle, what is the use of beauty to girls in her class of life? She is better without it.'
'And her name--did you not ask her name?' inquired Adelaide reproachfully.
'What could she have wanted with the money? Perhaps she was starving: there is so much misery in Paris!' continued Mademoiselle de Varenne, after a pause.
'She was very pale and thin,' said the hairdresser; 'but then so are the generality of our young citizens. Do not make yourself unhappy about it, mademoiselle; I shall see her again, probably, and shall endeavour to find out every circumstance respecting her.' With these words, M. Lagnier respectfully took leave, having by one more expressive glance testified his delighted approval of the alteration which had taken place in the young lady's appearance.
Adelaide, having summoned her maid, continued her toilet in a listless and absent manner. Her thoughts were fixed upon the young girl whose beauty had been sacrificed for hers, and an unconquerable desire to learn her fate took possession of her mind. Her intended disposal of the morning seemed quite to be forgotten; and she was on the point of forming new plans, very different from the first, when the lady to whose care she had been confided during the absence of her father from town, entered the apartment, and aroused her from her reverie by exclaiming: 'Ah, you naughty girl! I have been waiting for you this half hour. Was not the carriage ordered to take us to the Tuileries?'
'Yes, indeed, it was; but I hope you will excuse me: I had almost forgotten it.' And Adelaide immediately related to her friend the circumstance which had occurred, and begged her aid in the discovery of Lucille. Madame d'H?ranville laughed--reasoned, but in vain; and, finding Adelaide resolved, she at length consented to accompany her upon the search, expressing as she did so her entire conviction that it would prove useless and unsatisfactory.
'I have promised--will you not trust me?' he said in a half-reproachful tone; and Adelaide bent eagerly forward to catch a glimpse of the young girl to whom these words were addressed; but her face was turned away, and the large hood of a woollen cloak was drawn over her head, almost completely concealing her features.
'I do trust you,' she said in reply to the young man's words--'I do indeed. And now, good-by, dear Andr?; we shall meet again soon--in our own beautiful Normandie.' And she held out her hand, which he took and held for an instant without speaking.
'May I not conduct you home?' he asked at length.
Andr? made no reply. He placed the pocket-book carelessly in his bosom, and his two friends continued hastily their way. He was himself preparing to depart, when the footman touched him gently on the shoulder, and told him of Mademoiselle de Varenne's wish to speak to him. Andr? approached the carriage, surprised and half abashed at the unlooked-for honour; then taking off his cap, waited respectfully for one of the ladies to address him. At the same instant, a police-officer seized him roughly by the arm, and exclaimed: 'Here is one of them! I saw them all three together not two hours ago!' And calling to a comrade who stood near, he was about to lead Andr? away. At first, the young man made no resistance; but his face grew deadly pale, and his lip trembled violently.
'What do you want? What have I done?' he demanded at length, turning suddenly round to face his accuser; but the latter only replied by a laugh, and an assurance that he would know all about it presently. A slight struggle ensued, in the midst of which the pocket-book fell to the ground, and a considerable number of bank-notes bestrewed the pavement. At this sight, Andr? seemed suddenly to understand the cause of his arrest; he stood for an instant gazing at the notes with a countenance of horror; then, with an almost gigantic effort, he broke from the grasp which held him, and darted away in the direction which had before been taken by the young girl. He was immediately followed by the police; but although Adelaide and her friend remained for some time watching eagerly the pursuit, they were unable to ascertain whether he had succeeded in effecting his escape.
'I am sure I hope so, poor fellow!' murmured Adelaide as they drove homewards--'for Lucille's sake, as well as for his.'
'You have quite made up your mind, then, as to its being Lucille that we saw?' said Madame d'H?ranville with a smile. 'If it was,' she added, more gravely, 'I think she can scarcely merit all the trouble you are giving yourself on her account. Her friendship for Andr? does not speak much in her favour.'
'Perhaps not; but his intimacy with those who did, leads one to suppose that he is not unaccustomed to such scenes. You remember the old proverb: "Dis moi qui tu hantes, je te dirai qui tu es."'
'Do you not think we should give information respecting what we saw? He was certainly unconscious of its contents?' asked Adelaide again, after a short silence.
'He appeared so,' returned Madame d'H?ranville; 'and I shall write to-morrow to the police-office. Perhaps our evidence may be useful to him.'
'To-morrow!' thought Adelaide; but she did not speak her thoughts aloud. 'And to-night he must endure all the agonies of suspense!' And then she looked earnestly at her companion's face, and wondered if, when hers, like it, was pale and faded, her heart should also be as cold. A strange, sad feeling crept over her, and she continued quite silent during the remainder of the drive. Her thoughts were still busy in the formation of another plan for the discovery of Lucille, when, upon her arrival at home, she was informed that M. Lagnier desired anxiously to see her, having something to communicate.
'Mademoiselle, I have not been idle,' he exclaimed, immediately upon entering the apartment. 'Here is Lucille's address, and I have seen her mother. Poor things!' he added, 'they are indeed in want. Their room is on the sixth floor, and one miserable bed and a broken chair are all the furniture. For ornament, there was a rose-tree, in a flower-pot, upon the window-seat: it was withered, like its young mistress!'
'They are not Parisians?' inquired Adelaide.
'No, no, mademoiselle. From what the mother said, I picked up quite a little romance concerning them. The husband died two years ago, leaving them a pretty farm, and a comfortable home in Normandie. Lucille was very beautiful. All the neighbours said so, and Mrs Delmont was proud of her child. She could not bear her to become a peasant's wife, and brought her here, hoping that her beauty might secure to her a better fate. The young girl had learned a trade, and with the assistance of that, and the money they had obtained upon selling the farm, they contrived to manage very well during the first year. Lucille made no complaint, and her mother thought she was happy. A Parisian paid her attention, and asked her to become his wife. She refused; but as he appeared rich, the mother would not hear of declining the offer. She encouraged him to visit them as much as possible, and hoped at length to overcome Lucille's dislike to the marriage. One evening, however, as they were all seated together, a young man entered the room. He had been an old lover of Lucille's--a neighbour's son, and an early playmate. She sprang forward eagerly to meet him, and the rich pretender left the place in a fit of jealous anger, and they have not seen him since. Then troubles came, one following another, until at last they fell into the state of destitution in which I found them. Andr? Bernard, who had quarrelled with his parents in order to follow them, could find no work, and every sou that Lucille gained was given to him, to save him, as she said, from ruin or from sin. Last week she sold her hair, to enable him to return home. She had made him promise that he would do so, and to night he is to leave Paris.'
'It is he, then, whom we saw arrested!' exclaimed Adelaide; 'and he will not be able to return home. Oh, let us go to Lucille at once! Do, pray, come with me, Madame d'H?ranville!' and turning to her friend, she pleaded so earnestly, and the large tears stood so imploringly in her eyes, that it was impossible to resist. Madame d'H?ranville refastened her cloak, and soon afterwards, with Adelaide and M. Lagnier, found herself ascending the steep and dilapidated staircase of the house inhabited by the Delmonts. Adelaide seated herself upon the highest step, to await the arrival of her friend, whose agility in mounting was not quite equal to her own. As she did so, a loud and angry voice was heard proceeding from the apartment to which this staircase led. It was followed by a sound as of a young girl weeping, and then a few low, half-broken sentences were uttered in a voice of heart-broken distress.
'Mother, dear mother,' were the words, 'do not torture me. I am so ill--so wretched, I wish I were dead.'
'Ill! wretched! ungrateful girl!' was the reply. 'And whose fault is it that you are so? Not mine! Blame yourself, if you will, and him, your darling Andr?. What will he do now that you have no more to give? nothing even that you can sell, to supply him with the means of gratifying his extravagance. You will soon see how sincere he is in his affection, and how grateful he feels for all the sacrifices that you have made--sacrifices, Lucille, that you would not have made for me.'
'Mother,' murmured the poor girl in a tone of heart-broken reproach, 'I have given my beauty for him; but I have given my life for you.' Adelaide listened no more. Shocked beyond measure at the misery expressed in the low, earnest voice of Lucille, she knocked at the door of the apartment, and scarcely waiting for permission, lifted the latch and entered hurriedly.
Lucille was seated at a window working, or seeming at least to do so; for her head was bent over a wreath of artificial flowers, through which her emaciated fingers passed with a quick convulsive motion. It needed not, however, a very nice observation to discover that the work progressed but slowly. The very anxiety with which she exerted herself, seemed to impede her movements, and the tears which fell from time to time upon the leaves obscured her sight, and often completely arrested her hand. She did not raise her head as Adelaide entered; too deeply engrossed in her own sadness, she had not heard the opening of the door, or her mother's exclamation of surprise, and Mademoiselle de Varenne was at her side before she was in the least conscious of her presence. Adelaide touched her gently on the arm.
'What is the matter, Lucille?' she asked. 'Tell me: I will do all I can to help you.' At these words the mother interposed, and said softly: 'I am sure, madame, you are very kind to speak so to her. I am afraid you will find her an ungrateful girl; if you had heard her words to me just now--to me, her own mother!'
'I did hear them,' returned Adelaide. 'She said she had given her life for you. What did she mean? What did you mean, Lucille?' she asked, gently addressing the young girl, whose face was buried in her hands.
'Forgive me, mother; I was wrong,' murmured Lucille; 'but I scarcely know what I say sometimes. Mademoiselle,' she continued earnestly, 'I am not ungrateful; but if you knew how all my heart was bound to home, and how miserable I am here, you would pity and forgive me, if I am often angry and impatient.'
'You were never miserable till he came,' retorted the mother; 'and now that he is going, you will be so no more. It will be a happy day for both of us when he leaves Paris.' At this moment heavy steps were heard ascending the stairs; then voices raised as if in anger. Lucille started up; in an instant her pale cheek was suffused with the deepest crimson, her eye flashed, and her whole frame trembled violently. Her mother grasped her by the hand, but she freed herself with a sudden effort, and darting past Madame d'H?ranville and the hairdresser, who had entered some time before, she ran out upon the landing. Adelaide followed, and at once perceived the cause of her emotion. Andr? was rapidly ascending the stairs, his countenance pale, and his whole demeanour indicating the agitation of his feelings. He was closely followed by the police-officer, whose voice, as he once more grasped his prisoner, appalled the terrified Lucille. 'You have given us a sharp run,' he exclaimed, 'and once I thought you had got off. You should not have left your hiding-place till dark, young gentleman.' And, heedless of the frantic and agonised gestures of the unhappy youth, he drew him angrily away.
Lucille sprang forward, and taking Andr?'s hand in hers, she looked long and earnestly in his face. He read in her eyes the question she did not dare to ask, and replied, as a crimson blush mounted to his forehead: 'I am accused of robbery, Lucille, and many circumstances are against me. I may perhaps be condemned. I came here to tell you of my innocence, and to return you this;' and he placed a gold piece in her hand. It was the money she had given him for his journey--the fruit of the last sacrifice she had made. She scarcely seemed to understand his words, and still looked up inquiringly. 'Lucille,' he continued, 'they are taking me to prison; I cannot go home as I promised; but you will not think me guilty. How could I do what I knew would break your heart?'
She smiled tenderly and trustfully upon him; then letting fall his hand, she pushed him gently away, and whispered: 'Go with him, Andr?. Justice will be done. I am no longer afraid.' Madame d'H?ranville and Adelaide at this moment approached, and eagerly related what they had seen, both expressing their conviction of the young man's innocence.
'It is not to me you must speak, ladies,' returned the gendarme, wonderfully softened by their words. 'If you will be so good as to give me your names, and come to-morrow to our office, I have no doubt that your evidence will greatly influence the magistrate in favour of the prisoner.' The ladies gave their names, and promised to attend the court the following morning; and shortly afterwards, they left the house, having by their kind promises reassured the weeping girl, and succeeded in softening her mother's anger towards her. The next day they proceeded early to the court. As Adelaide entered, she looked round for Lucille, and perceived her standing near the dock, her earnest eyes fixed upon the prisoner, and encouraging him from time to time with a look of recognition and a smile. But notwithstanding all her efforts, the smile was a sad one; for her heart was heavy, and the appearance of the magistrate was not calculated to strengthen her hope. Andr? had declared his innocence--his complete ignorance of the contents of the pocket-book his friend had placed in his hand; but his very intimacy with such men operated strongly against him. Both Giraud and his companion were well known to the police as men of bad character, and very disreputable associates. The prisoner's declaration, therefore, had but little effect upon those to whom it was addressed; and the magistrate shook his head doubtfully as he listened. Madame d'H?ranville and Adelaide then related what they had seen--describing the young man's listless look as he received the book, and endeavouring to prove, that had Andr? been aware of its contents, his companion need scarcely have made the excuse he did for leaving it with him. At this moment, a slight movement was observed among the crowd, and two men were brought forward, and placed beside Andr?. At their appearance, a scream escaped from Lucille; and, turning to her mother, she pointed them out, while the name of Jules Giraud burst from her lips. Hearing his own name, one of the men looked up, and glanced towards the spot where the young girl stood. His eyes met hers, and a flush overspread his face; then, after a momentary struggle, which depicted itself in the workings of his countenance, he exclaimed: 'Let the boy go: we have injured him enough already. He is innocent.'
'What do you mean?' inquired the magistrate; while a look of heartfelt gratitude from Lucille urged Giraud to proceed.
'How had the accused harmed you?' asked the magistrate.
Giraud hesitated; but Madame Delmont came forward, and exclaimed: 'I will tell you, monsieur. He wished to marry my daughter himself; and I,' she added, in a tone of deep self-reproach, 'would almost have forced her to consent.'
The same evening, Madame Delmont, Andr?, and Lucille were seated together, conversing upon what had passed, and deliberating as to the best means of accomplishing an immediate return to Normandie, when a gentle tap was heard at the door, and the old hairdresser entered the room. He appeared embarrassed; but at length, with a great effort restraining his emotion, he placed a little packet in Lucille's hand, and exclaimed: 'Here, child, I did not give you half enough for that beautiful hair of yours. Take this, and be sure you say nothing about it to any one, especially to Mademoiselle Adelaide;' and without waiting for one word of thanks, he was about to hurry away, when he was stopped by Mademoiselle de Varenne in person.
'Ah, Monsieur Lagnier,' she merrily exclaimed, 'this is not fair. I hoped to have been the first; and yet I am glad that you forestalled me,' she added, as she looked into the bright glistening eyes of the old hairdresser. 'My father has just arrived in town, Lucille,' she continued, after a short pause, 'and he is interested in you all. He offers Andr? the porter's lodge at the ch?teau, and I came here immediately to tell you the good news. It is not very far from your old home, and I am sure you will like it. Do not forget to take with you this poor rose-tree; it looks like you, quite pale for want of air. There! you must not thank me,' she exclaimed, as Madame Delmont, Andr?, and Lucille pressed eagerly forward to express their gratitude: 'it is I, rather, that should thank you. I never knew till now how very happy I might be.'
And as Adelaide de Varenne pronounced these words, a bright smile passed across her face. The old hairdresser gazed admiringly upon her, and doubted for a moment whether the extraordinary loveliness he saw owed any part of its charm to the lock of false hair.
CLOUDS OF LIGHT.
In March of the year 1843, a remarkable beam of light shot suddenly out from the evening twilight, trailing itself along the surface of the heavens, beneath the belt stars of Orion. That glimmering beam was the tail of a comet just whisked into our northern skies, as the rapid wanderer skirted their precincts in its journey towards the sun. To the watchful eyes of our latitudes, the unexpected visitant presented an aspect that was coy and modest in the extreme; its head, indeed, was scarcely ever satisfactorily in sight. But it dealt far otherwise with the more favoured climes of the south. At the Cape of Good Hope, it was seen distinctly in full daylight, and almost touching the solar disk; and at night appeared with the brilliancy of a first-class star, with a luminous band flowing out from it to a distance some hundred times longer than the moon's face is wide. Few persons who caught a glimpse of that shining tail, either as it fitfully revealed itself in our heavens, or as it steadily blazed upon the opposite hemisphere of the earth, were led to form adequate notions of the magnificence of the object they were contemplating. No one, unaided by the teaching of science, could have conceived that the streak of light, so readily compressed within the narrow limits of an eye-glance, stretched out 170 millions of miles in length.
The comet comes from regions of unknown remoteness, and rushes, with continually increasing speed, towards our own source of warmth and light--the genial sun. When it has reached within a certain distance of this object, it appears, however, to overshoot the mark of its desire, as if too ardent in the chase, and then sways round with fearful impetus, beginning reluctantly to settle out into space again, and moving with less and less velocity as it goes, until its misty form is once more withdrawn by distance from human sight. When the comet of 1813 swept round the sun in this way, it was so near to the shining surface of the solar orb, that it must have been rushing for the time through a temperature forty-seven thousand times higher than any which the torrid region of the earth ever feels. Such heat would have been twenty-four times more than enough to melt rock-crystal. The overburdened sense experiences a feeling of relief in the mere knowledge, that the comet passed this fiery ordeal as the lightning's flash might have done. In two short hours, it had shifted its place from one side to the other of the solar sphere. In sixty little minutes, it had moved from a region in which the heat was forty thousand times greater than the fiercest burning of the earth's torrid zone, into another, in which the temperature was four times less. The comet might well have a glowing tail as it came from such a realm of fire. Flames that were colder by many hundred times, would make the dull black iron shine with incandescent brightness.
The comet's tail seems, in reality, to be a thin oblong case of vapour, formed out of the cometic substance by the increasing intensity of the sunshine, and enclosing the denser portion of that substance at one end. The diverging streams which it displays upon the sky are merely the retiring edges of the rounded case, where the greatest depth of luminous matter comes into sight. As the comet nears the sun, much of its substance is vaporised for the construction of this envelope; but as it goes off again into remoteness, the vaporous envelope is once more condensed. The tail may then be seen to flow back towards the head, out of which it was originally derived.
But here, again, a difficulty presents itself. The comet's tail is believed by most of the illustrious astronomers of the day, to be the body converted into vapour by solar influence. If it be so, the vaporising process must be a much more subtile one than any that could be performed in our alembics, for the comet's substance is already all vapour before the distillation commences. The faintest stars have been seen shining through the densest parts of comets without the slightest loss of light, although they would have been effectually concealed by a trifling mist extending a few feet from the earth's surface. Most comets appear to have bright centres--nuclei, as they are called; but these nuclei are not solid bodies, for as soon as they are viewed by powerful telescopes, they become as diffused and transparent as the fainter cometic substance. Comets are properly atmospheres without contained spheres; enormous clouds rushing along in space, and bathed with its sunshine, for they have no light excepting sunlight. They become brighter and brighter as they get deeper within the solar glare, and dimmer and paler as they float outwards from the same. The light of the comet only differs from the light of a cloud that is drifted across the cerulean sky of noon, in the fact, that it is reflected from the inside as well as the outside of the vaporous substance. The material illuminated reflects light, and is permeated by light, at once. In this respect it resembles air as much as cloud--the blueness of the sky is the sunlit air seen through the lower and inner strata of itself. In the same way, the whiteness of the comet is sunlit vapour seen through portions of itself. The sunbeams pass as readily through the entire thickness of the cometic substance as they do through our own highly permeable atmosphere.
The belief in the comet's surpassing thinness and lightness is not a mere speculative opinion. It rests upon incontrovertible proof. In 1770, Lexell's Comet passed within six times the moon's distance of the earth, and was considerably retarded in its motion by the terrestrial attraction. If its mass had been of equal amount with the earth's mass, its attraction would have influenced the earth's movement in a like degree in return, and the earth would have been so held back in its orbitual progress in consequence, that the year would have been lengthened to the extent of three hours. The year was not, however, lengthened on that occasion by so much as the least perceptible fraction of a second; hence it can be shewn, that the comet must have been composed of some substance many thousand times lighter than the terrestrial substance. Newton was of opinion, that a few ounces of matter would be sufficient for the construction of the largest comet's tail.
Light as the comet's substance is, it is not, however, light enough to escape the grasp of the sun's gravitating attraction. When the mass of thin vapour is rushing through the obscurity of starlit space, so far from the sun that the solar sphere looks but the brightest of the stellar host, it feels the influence of the solar mass, remote as it is, and is constrained to bend its course towards it. Onwards the thin vapour goes, the sun waxing bigger and bigger with each stage of approach, until at last the little star has become a fiery globe, filling up half the heavens with its vast proportions, and stretching from the horizon to the zenith of the visible concave. The great comet of 1680 came in this way from a region of space where the sun looked but half as wide as the planet Mars in the sky, and where the solar heat was imperceptible, the surrounding temperature being 612 degrees colder than freezing water, into another in which the sun filled up 140 times greater width of the sky than it does with us, and where the heat was some hundred times higher than the temperature of boiling water. It was then only 880,000 miles away from the solar surface, and would have fallen to it in three minutes, in obedience to its attraction, if the impetus of its motion in a different direction had been on the instant destroyed or arrested. But this impetus proved too great for the attraction, light as the material of the moving body was. When the comet has approached comparatively near to the grand source of attraction, the speed of its accelerating motion has become so excessive, that it is able to withstand the augmented solicitation it is subjected to, and move outwards in a more direct course. It goes, however, slower and slower, and curving its journey less and less, until at last its motion in remote obscurity is again so sluggish, that the sun's attraction is once more predominant, and able to recall the truant towards its realms of light. Such is the history of the comet's course.
In most instances, comets move in space, about the sun, in ellipses so very lengthened, that their paths seem to be parabolas as long as the cloudy bodies are visible in the sky. Two of them, Ollier's Comet and Halley's, are known to return into sight after intervals of seventy-four and seventy-six years, during which they have visited portions of space a few hundred millions of miles further than the orbit of Neptune. Six comets travel in elliptical orbits that are never so far from the sun as the planet Neptune, and return into visibility in short periods that never exceed seven or eight years. These interior comets of short period seem to be regular members of our world-system in the strictest sense. Their paths, although more eccentric, are all contained in planes that nearly correspond with the planes of the planetary orbits, and they travel in these paths in the same general direction with their planetary brethren in every case. The planetoid comets of short period are--Encke's, De Vico's, Brorsen's, D'Arrest's, Biela's, and Fage's. The comet of 1843 is half suspected to belong to the group, and to be also a periodic body, revisiting our regions punctually at intervals of twenty-one years.
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page